Murder Isn't Easy

by Richard Hull

  Naturally, however, my first thought was of the carelessness of the driver in not having looked at the notice board. I forget exactly what I said—some remark on that subject, I know. I tried to find a constable to give the man in charge for dangerous driving but one never can find a policeman when one wants him. They only turn up when they are the last people whom one wishes to see.

  Of course, too, my attitude did not meet with Spencer’s approval. He was inclined even to praise the driver for promptness and for risking a bad smash to himself in the skid. But that was an absurd attitude. Even Barraclough found it so.

  “Nothing more than the natural instinctive action of any driver, however incompetent. Of course he jammed on his brakes. Who wouldn’t?”

  It was not until after we had crossed the road and found the driver quite uninjured, and been through the most tiresome fuss and formality, I suppose so that he could prove the facts to his insurance company, that I really gave my attention to Spencer.

  He was not a very pretty sight. Either the back of the car as it skidded round or else his own clumsiness in falling over after it had gone, had bruised his face. One eye was rapidly closing and would soon be black and blue. The leg of his trousers too was ripped and there was mud all over one side of him.

  “Really, how clumsy!” I exclaimed. “First an incompetent driver, and then you don’t look where you are going and finally you must needs fall over in the muddiest place you can find in the road. Such a very drunken-looking black eye too!”

  Spencer, however, chose to be ridiculous.

  “What nonsense, Nicholas! Apart from anything else—and I think you might pretend to have a little sympathy. If it comes to that it seems to me that the carelessness was yours. You saw the car and had plenty of time to step back, but not a note of warning did you give to me.”

  “I naturally thought that you had seen it too.”

  On that, Barraclough must needs put his oar in.

  “You had plenty of time to warn Spencer. I was standing behind you and I could not understand why you did not pull him back.”

  “If it comes to that,” Spencer turned on him, “why didn’t you shout?”

  “I ought to have done, I must fully admit, but I was so frightened that I simply could make no noise at all. All I could do was to rush forward and try and pull you back.”

  “And when you did get to me—which was after the car had passed me—it felt more as if you were trying to push me under.”

  I think that Barraclough realized that his attempt to try to involve me was only recoiling on to his own head. At any rate, with a sickly grin, he tried to turn the subject away by quoting some sarcastic poem or other, apparently a parody of the Ten Commandments brought up to date satirically.

  Thou shalt not kill; but need’st not strive

  Officiously to keep alive.

  If I quote it right. I hardly noticed it at the time, but the couplet has been ringing in my head ever since. It does so exactly meet my own situation. But though I long to kill Spencer, I have not yet braced myself to the point of actually doing so, but, if I had thought of it before, had planned it, with a very little more manoeuvring I might have made that accident successful. But then, who could have foreseen it? Still, I had to admit to myself, there had been a chance and I had not availed myself of it. Fortune had brushed me with the hem of her skirt and I had not seized her firmly. I wondered if I should ever get so good an opportunity again.

  Thinking of this I fell silent, and, as neither of the other two spoke, we continued our walk to the garage without any further comment of any sort. I think Barraclough was insulted by Spencer’s complaint that he ought to have warned him, and his allegation that he had pushed instead of pulled him. A curious comment that, by the way. I wonder if there is any truth in it? It would be marvellous if Barraclough would do my work for me! As for Spencer, his silence was easy to understand. I expect that he was frightened.

  He did, however, make one remark. We had got Barraclough’s car out—and why he should require an indemnity about it, I cannot imagine. A more dilapidated, battered old bit of tin tied together with string I have never seen. I more than half expect that he is trying to saddle NeO-aD—or rather me—with buying him a new one, but I have no intention of falling in with any little scheme of that sort.

  But to return to Spencer. Just as we were getting in, he gave us both a most unpleasant look with the one eye that remained undamaged and seemed to hesitate. Then he clambered in. “After all,” he remarked to no one in particular, “if they are both in the car too, I expect it is safe.”

  A pleasant atmosphere he had created in which to start our test! We were all three shaken—for the accident had been a shock. We were all angry with each other. And here we were, embarking on a drive without any particular point to go to, to test what I knew would be satisfactory, and all the while the east wind lashed a cold rain along the streets, and each of us was angry with the other, and one of us was suspecting the other two of having tried to kill him.

  Chapter Ten

  But anyhow there was no doubt about the efficiency of Tonescu’s invention. The effect was absolutely magical. Even through Barraclough’s dirty windscreen, it was possible to see perfectly clearly without worrying about using the windscreen wiper. In fact, the only difficulty came from what seemed to be one or two flaws in the glass.

  I pointed these out to Barraclough, but I think that he had probably effected one of his trumpery pieces of economy over it. At any rate he was inclined to resent any comment on it as being directed against his property. In fact he maintained that there were no flaws whatever in the glass and, when I pointed them out to him, insisted that they were entirely the creation of my own imagination. As he went on to talk about black spots in front of my face and imply that I saw them on account of the state of my liver, I had to let the matter drop, especially as Spencer, who had undergone one of his maddening changes from fury to facetiousness, was making laborious jokes on the theme of what I had drunk the night before—a matter which was no concern of his—but which I suppose were prompted by a juvenile desire to produce a tu quoque on my remark as to the appearance of his eye.

  In the end, to quieten him, I changed places and let him sit in front beside Barraclough so that he could see for himself. He hardly seemed to realize the generosity of my action, for the car was open—in the back seat one got extremely wet. I am abnormally sensitive to cold, whereas Spencer has the constitution of an ox and is quite unable to imagine that everyone else has not. Besides he was covered with mud already.

  I was glad when that drive was over. Even more glad that both of them were convinced of the efficiency of Tonescu’s product. I was so cold that I got them, after some trouble, to take me back to my flat. I should have to change and sit for a while before the fire before I could do anything else. Spencer wanted us to come round and look at his mirror, which was quite unnecessary.

  “If you wanted us to see it, why didn’t you use something movable, instead of a fixture. Anyhow I am quite prepared to take your word for it.”

  Secretly I rather hoped that he would see the implied reproof. A little more trustfulness on his part would have helped considerably, but the only answer was:

  “And I suppose I ought to have brought the geyser and the bathroom along to the office too.”

  “Why be so silly? We could always have boiled the tea-kettle. All you wanted was a little steam.”

  “Well, if Nicholas is going to go and sleep in front of a fire for an hour I don’t see why I shouldn’t too. After you’ve dropped him, take me to my place, will you, please? I’ve got to change anyhow.”

  Barraclough grunted surlily.

  “After which I put the car back. I then go back to the office and I get on with the work.”

  “We shall both join you very soon,” I put in, managing with a great effort to show no irritation. “By that time, too, I shall have begun to have thought out an advertising policy.”

  In
stead of understanding this practical demonstration of how my brain was always at work in running NeO-aD, Barraclough merely began to point out difficulties. He did not see, he said, how that could be done without having some idea of the amount of money that Tonescu would be prepared to spend, nor did he see how I could do anything without figures in front of me nor, he ended by saying, had we as yet any proof of Tonescu’s financial solidarity.

  “I was not talking of the details. I leave those sort of things to you. I was referring to more important matters, to the general policy.”

  Barraclough gave me a nasty look. He hated being reminded that his work was relatively unimportant. What he would have said I have no idea if Spencer had not butted in sarcastically.

  “Nicholas, you see, desires to contemplate the clouds with his head well surrounded in them. Like Zeus on Olympus, he will issue his divine commands later.”

  I suppose I must have looked puzzled; certainly I could see no sense in his remarks. I am never dictatorial, but he deliberately chose to misunderstand my expression.

  “I should have said ‘Jove’ not ‘Zeus’. Greek is too difficult for our learned friend.”

  “Thank you very much,” I said, “but I have had quite as good a classical education as you.”

  “I beg of you not to start that argument again,” Barraclough broke in. “For the sake of peace I shall take you both home—but I hope I shall see both of you shortly before teatime.”

  As a matter of fact it was nearly four when I returned to the office, and I will freely admit that I had had a few minutes’ sleep before I came. It had not however been very restful. I suppose that was due to the constant effort of bearing with my colleagues, but I kept on dreaming the same rather terrible nightmare. In it Tonescu was engaged in making a cup of tea and pointing out that the steam had not dulled a mirror which he held before it. Then he took up a teacup and put into it a handful of his crystals and poured the tea on them, and forced me to swallow the mixture, while he shouted in my ear the words that I had myself used. “Why, who on earth would want to eat it?” and went on, “but you, Nicholas Latimer, shall drink it.” I woke up quite frightened.

  However, when I got back to the office I had quite decided on my plan for the advertising. Simplicity was its whole essence. We would prepare a leaflet and send it out to all our car dealers and garages, in the London area at any rate. Preferably on a more extensive scale. It would depend on how easily we could get the necessary list of suitable addresses in the provinces. We, of course, would prepare the leaflet, but we would employ one of the people who specialize in mail-order work to send it out.

  For the rest we would use the Daily Mail and the Daily Mail only. By so doing we should get continuity, and I have a great respect for the Mail’s pulling power. I should have liked to have started by taking the front page and I thought we ought to try to do so, but I well knew that it was difficult to get, and almost impossible at short notice. So I should be content with a ten-inch triple column to start with three or four times, and seven- or eight-inch double columns afterwards two or three times a week, for three months. After that we could see. With a decent-sized space of that sort I could do something useful, and the announcements would be sufficiently arresting to make it unnecessary to pay preferred position rates. Apart from the initial big one, it would only be necessary to prepare about four pieces of copy, which could probably be repeated without change. A more simple scheme I have never seen, and absolutely certain to be successful, to my mind.

  Unfortunately, however, I had mentioned my intention of working on the problem to both Spencer and Barraclough, and both of them must needs produce ideas.

  Spencer was all for making it a luxury product and selling it at a high price, whereas I was visualizing an appeal to every car driver, to be followed up by one to every man who shaved and every man or woman who liked looking in a glass that would not cloud over. Accordingly Spencer was all for using the luxury press. He started by talking about the Sketch, Tatler and Bystander, papers which are very good for the right thing, but which I have always regarded as expensive in proportion to their circulation. Actually, of course, they do not publish any figures, but I may say that I had a very shrewd idea what they were. Barraclough was generally inclined to put them a little lower than I did, but then he always depreciated them and tried to make them out to be impossibly expensive.

  But whichever figure you took we were all agreed that it cost more to reach a thousand readers of the Bystander than a thousand readers of the Mail.

  “Naturally, Nicholas, naturally,” Spencer replied in his most patronizing tone. “I do know a little about advertising, and I thought you did. Need I remind you of the difference in buying power of the readers of the two papers? Then there is also the old and difficult question of number of readers per copy. Which reminds me,” he went off at a tangent, “that I am forgetting Punch.”

  I could see that that annoyed Barraclough. I believe he had some trouble before about an account. Punch is very business-like in its methods and most unnecessarily strict about prompt payment. Anyhow I know that he would back me up in opposition to that suggestion.

  “Terribly expensive,” I added. “It will cost you nearly as much as the Mail, and even you cannot pretend the circulation is the same. Besides, one always gets tucked away at the end because there are no ‘next matter’ positions.”

  “Don’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs,” was Spencer’s comment. “Must I remind you of the almost definitely established fact that the advertisements in Punch are read, so that next matter positions do not matter.” He seemed to think it was a clever pun.

  “Personally,” came in Barraclough’s voice, “I think you are both being too extravagant. Spencer has not yet condescended to come down to details, but Latimer’s preliminary little campaign for three months would cost the best part of five thousand.”

  “Well,” I said, “I think five thousand would be a very proper sum to spend. I suggest that we decide that whatever scheme is used, that five thousand is the amount which should be spent.”

  “Wouldn’t it be as well first to find out if Tonescu has five thousand available?”

  “He must have. And anyhow we are going to get some results; with such a product the advertising ought almost to pay for itself.”

  “If it catches on.”

  “It’s bound to.”

  “I was for conducting a simple experimental campaign in the motoring press as a trial first. I have here——” And Barraclough plunged into a dissertation on the various papers connected with the motor trade, their circulation, their cost, and their exact type of reader. He must have spent the whole afternoon getting it out. It was so full of circumstantial details that there really was a very serious danger that it would convince any ignorant person that it was an excellent campaign. But in all, it only added up to about seven hundred and fifty pounds—I think it was seven hundred and thirty-one pounds, twelve and six—Barraclough always went down to halfpennies—plus the cost of art work and blocks, “of which” he concluded, after whirling figures round our heads for what seemed like an hour, “I have not yet completed the estimate. It depends on what style of drawing Latimer uses, whether he wants line drawings or halftones, in which case I shall have to consider the screens of the different papers—I believe one of them insists on photogravure—and the varying breadths of their columns and pages and so on. But one could give Tonescu an approximate idea.”

  Spencer looked at the ceiling.

  “Do we propose to approach Tonescu in a body with three different ideas, or shall we go one after the other? Or is it conceivable that two of us are going to give way? Because otherwise it seems to me that it will be a little confusing for him. I suppose the ultimate decision will have to rest with him, and as he knows nothing about the English press, I should think he would probably toss up.”

  “The production policy of the agency,” I put in quietly, “should be laid down by the production manager�
�which is me.”

  “The choice of media,” Barraclough parodied, “should be made by the director whose duty it is to know as much as is possible about the press—which is me.”

  “In order to sell a campaign, complete confidence in that campaign is necessary for the man whose duty it is to obtain the signature of the client—which is me.” Spencer’s grammar was always poor.

  “Really—what nonsense you both talk.” I could not resist telling them.

  “Supposing,” went on Spencer, “we save Tonescu the trouble of tossing by doing it ourselves?”

  “Supposing”—I think Barraclough parodied him deliberately—“that we found out what he is prepared to spend.”

  “Supposing,” my imitation was deliberate, and so done that they knew that it was, “that we made up our minds according to the dictates of reason. After all, this is a subject on which I speak with authority.”

  For some reason which I cannot pretend to understand, Spencer saw fit to whistle ‘The Dead March in Saul’, and Barraclough to smile to himself. Eventually Spencer’s inharmonious performance ended.

  “I think,” he said, “that my ideas are in the nature of two thousand pounds. Now we must produce an agency policy of some sort, and I see very little chance of our agreeing on this—or for that matter on anything else. So I think we had better construct a little story for comrade Tonescu.”

  “Which is?” Barraclough seemed interested.

  “That there are three alternative courses, all equally right, and the choice of them depends on the £ s. d. available.”

  “A sordid view,” I commented.

  “But sordidness is necessary. Therefore let us find out the extent to which Tonescu is prepared to stump up, and adopt that plan which is nearest in price. I think I can tell a tale to cover that idea—if I am left to myself.”

  “Ignoring the implication—and in fact you would do much better to let me handle him—after all I met him first—I am prepared to agree to both parts of your suggestion. After all, you must do your part sometimes, and even a man who knows little of the English press is bound to see the superiority of my simple plan.”