Eight Murders In the Suburbs (16 page)

That gave him the clue to the existence of the fantasy—revealed that she believed he had been in love with her and had married Myra in the hope of forgetting. No reasoning could shake that kind of belief.

If he were to marry her, it would not be for her money—she had made neither promise nor threat. It would be from pity. And, of course, gratitude. Lots of reasonably happy marriages must have been founded on much less.

“Hedda, you have saved me from the gutter. So far, I haven't uttered a single word of gratitude to you, because I—”

“Because you feel that you're under a terrible obligation!” she interrupted. “Please, dear Willie, do let's be sensible about the money. Listen!” She sat on a pouffe close to his chair, put her hand on his. “I never made father's mistake. From the first—d' you remember when you taught me to play clock golf?—I knew you were not drawn to me by the fact of my being an heiress—you did not even know I was, until father told you. The other day, I had to butt in with that money because, if you had been hammered, I would have suffered more than you—wondering whether you would do what Fauburg did.”

Again he felt that dangerous sense of superiority that permitted him to pity her.

“You have given me so much, Hedda, and I can give you so very little!”

“Don't think about it like that! Give me only what you can't help giving me. I demand nothing, Willie.”

She was telling him he was free—free to say thank-you for the twenty thousand, walk out of her house and dodge her in future.

He looked down at her. At close view, the lipstick wasn't really lumpy—it was desperately pathetic. And she had saved him from the gutter. It wasn't as though she were ugly, or physically defective. Surely, with a little imaginative effort on his part—

He lifted her from the pouffe.

While he was holding her, he faced the stark truth that this woman could never attract him, never elicit the faintest response from his nervous system. The muddled kindliness that had prompted him to kiss her—with histrionic emphasis—gave place to resentment.

“Hedda! That was a wrong-headed attempt to say thankyou for that money.”

She laughed happily. In her fantasy, the kiss always marked the end of cross-purpose.

“You
understand
! … Or you couldn't have made that joke!” Her voice was ecstatic. “We have waited so long, Willie, and now we have our reward. We can be married just as soon as you like.”

Presently she was sitting beside him on a settee. She had said that she demanded nothing. That was romantic jargon, even if she thought it was true. She would soon discover it was not true. Before the period of the honeymoon was over, the forlorn little butterfly would turn into a spider. Now and again, her prattle penetrated to his consciousness.

“There are some lovely houses in Surrey, almost in the country. Not really far out. You could be at your office almost within an hour.”

And when he got to the office he would know that he was operating by virtue of her money. As a sub-species of gigolo, lacking the gigolo's adaptability, but taking the gigolo's fee. And at five every day he would have to go home to the spider—even if the spider were only the symbol of his own self-contempt in the knowledge that he must perpetually fail her. The feeling of suffocation was coming back.

“I shall sell my interest in the business and give all my time to making our home as you like it.”

No!

He had made no sound, but had the illusion that he had shouted. The superiority had been stripped from him—the arrogance that had betrayed him into pitying this woman—leaving his egotism naked. He was as a frightened animal about to fight for his life.

“And the rooms must be large, Willie. It will be lovely entertaining your friends.”

Her chatter strengthened his will. His life would still be worth living, even with a secret he could share with neither man nor woman. He was cool-headed now—could see exactly how it must be done.

He would tell the police that he had proposed marriage.

“Darling,” he said, “I had no idea this would happen to us—so suddenly—I've come unprepared.” He drew from his hand the signet ring which had belonged to his grandfather. “Will you wear this until I can get you a proper engagement ring?” He took her left hand and placed the ring correctly. “I'm afraid it's too big for comfort!”

“No, it isn't! I shall love to wear it.”

Next, he must make sure that there was something in the bungalow that would tempt a thief.

“Hedda! Have you any jewellery?”

“How funny you should ask!” She seemed irrationally pleased. “I have a little. I bought it myself. For a
reason
!” As he did not inquire the reason she added: “Would you like to see it?”

“Very much!”

She left the room, returning with a decorated cardboard box: a faded ribbon panelled a coloured photograph of Miss Mary Pickford playing clock golf.

“D'you remember sending me chocolates, Willie?”

“And d'you remember when I drove you home, after the Walbrook dance?”

Inside the chocolate box were three pieces. A star pendant, in diamonds, on a thin gold chain; a bracelet in rubies and diamonds; and a brooch in diamonds. The brooch was a ponderous affair—a monogram,
WH
—her initial and his—intertwined.

The audacity of that monogram acted as a spur.

“This is a secret, isn't it?” As she nodded: “No one knows that you have it.”

“No one but you!”

Then no crook could have marked it down. But there were a lot of men on the prowl nowadays. If she were wearing it when one of them came to the door—

“Let's see it on you … I can fix the bracelet.”

“Oh, no, Willie! Please, no! It would spoil so much. I didn't really want to tell you, but you can guess. Can't you?” She lowered her eyes. “I look at it every night when I go to bed—just for a minute. I bought it for our wedding day.”

When it came to telling the police that she had been wearing the jewellery, he must not trip over detail.

“The pendant—that hangs on this little chain just below your throat, doesn't it? If you were wearing the brooch—with that dress, for instance—where would it go?”

“Here!” She placed her finger at the base of the ‘v' of her blouse.

She put the chocolate box on the pouffe and began to put the pieces back in the box. He moved near enough to the door to be able to reach the light switch when he wanted it.

“I'll have to be going now.” He lowered his voice. “Come and say goodbye to me, Hedda.”

She obeyed, without waiting to put the lid on the box. He studied her mouth. Even though it was a large mouth, it was yet small enough to be completely covered by the palm of his hand. When she came close, infatuated, he playfully took her wrists, drew them down until her hands rested on her hips. He had remembered the danger of her fingernails marking his face. With swift concerted movements he switched off the light, slipped behind her and pinioned her arms. With the base of his left hand on her chin, he forced her mouth shut, her head pressing against his shoulder, his own back steadied against the wall.

His imagination had suggested that she was suffocating him, but it was he who, in all literality, suffocated her.

She had been dead for many minutes before he was aware of muscular strain. He had shifted his position and could not reach the switch. In the dark, he lifted the body, carried it to the settee. On the way, he nearly stumbled over the pouffe. He heard the jewellery fall to the floor. His right foot touched one of the three pieces. That did not matter. He lowered his burden and sprawled it on the settee.

He stretched, pinched and massaged his left arm. As he turned on the light, he spoke aloud.

“The financial agent will tell the police about that twenty thousand as soon as he's read his paper. The police will ask me for my alibi. Incidentally, my car has been parked outside all the time I've been here.” He laughed, to whip up his courage. “All right—no alibi! In case the nerve falters, we'll remove temptation to pretend there is.”

He opened the flap of the escritoire. On the blotting pad he wrote in pencil the telephone number of his flat and added: ‘
If out, try club: Embankment 7210.'
The technique of the crook would be worse than useless to him. Invert it. Give ' em fingerprints galore. He picked up and fingered the large photograph of himself, touched the top of the escritoire.

“Steady, now!” He glanced at the clock—eight minutes to seven. “Get the narrative right. I proposed to her, asked her to wear my signet ring. I left before seven, but I'll say I didn't notice the time. She was alone—wearing the jewellery—when she answered the door to a prowler who forced her in here, smothered her and removed the jewellery.

“Footprints! The police can trace 'em even if there's no mud on your shoes.”

He went to his car, put on the rubbers he carried for emergency, and re-entered the bungalow.

The jewellery was lying near the pouffe. The box itself was intact, the lid on the pouffe, the tray upside down on the floor. He left the box untouched. He picked up the pendant, the bracelet—lodged in the monogram of the brooch was his signet ring. Obviously, it had fallen off the finger while he was carrying the body to the settee.

He dislodged the ring, and examined it. The hoop was uninjured, but the matrix had been scratched and a small piece had been cut clean out. Evidently, his foot had forced it against one of the diamonds. Better dump it, when he dumped the jewellery.

There would then be nothing to support his statement that he had proposed marriage.

“It's all right. Check up. She was wearing the jewellery. The ring could have been forced against the brooch while she was struggling with the prowler.”

He went to the settee and replaced the ring on the finger.

“She was wearing the jewellery.” It was becoming a chant. “A prowler wouldn't remove it as if he were a ladies' maid.”

He picked up the pendant and wrenched at the thin gold chain. By luck, it snapped at two points. A length of about a couple of inches fell to the floor.

“That bit might have dropped down under her dress.”

He dropped it under the dress, at the back of the neck. He noticed that the blouse was hardly disarranged. He disarranged it.

On the bracelet was a safety device—a short length of gold chain much thinner than that of the pendant. He wrenched the chain free and dropped it on the floor, near the settee.

That was all, for the bungalow.

As he approached Beringham, his headlights picked out The Barley Mow, a tiny one-time inn that was now little more than a beer-house. He stopped, entered the empty bar and beamed on the landlord as if they were old friends.

“Got any champagne?”

“Champagne! No, sir, I can't say as I' ave.”

“Then I'll have a brandy. And you have one too. I'm not mad, you know. A little light-headed, perhaps. Have a heart, landlord! One doesn't get engaged every day.”

He bought a packet of cigarettes. With a question or two about how long it would take him to get to his club, he induced the landlord to note that the time was three minutes past seven.

He drove back to London via Thadham. On Thadham bridge, which is not bordered with a footpath, he kept close to the parapet. Assured that there was no one else on the bridge, he flung the jewellery into the Thames, knowing that it would sink in the mud some thirty feet below the surface. The rubbers, too, would sink, provided there was no air pocket—he slit them close to the soles and flung them after the jewellery.

Then he drove on to his club, reflecting that, in order to hang him, the police would have to prove that Hedda had been murdered before seven. As the body was not found until the half-daily woman arrived on the following morning, the police were unable to do so.

Whether Surbrook actually got the better of Chief Inspector Karslake may be doubted. But it is indisputable that he avoided all the pitfalls and walked out of the traps. The respectable stock-broker, the man of mild tastes and rather kindly disposition, had turned into a hard-headed egotist. He consistently inverted the crook's formula. From the first, he flourished all the facts unfavourable to himself and left the police to discover those that favoured him.

When the preliminary courtesies had been exhausted and Surbrook's fingerprints had been taken, Karslake began at what he believed to be the beginning.

“How long have you been engaged to the deceased?”

“No time at all! Until yesterday afternoon, I hadn't seen her for seven years.” At Karslake's expression, he said: “I see I must give details. It's very awkward for me, Inspector. The fact is—five days ago, to be exact—Miss Felbert lent me twenty thousand pounds.”

Karslake was startled and looked it. He repeated the figure with awe. “And deceased lent you all that before you were even engaged?”

“I'm putting it badly,” apologised Surbrook, and weighed in with the tale of Fauburg's suicide and his own impending ruin. “The loan to me wasn't quite such an act of eccentric philanthropy as it sounds. I am a widower. I married, very suddenly, seven years ago. Before that happened, it was thought—that is, Miss Felbert and I—we thought it was she and I who were going to be married.

“I need not trouble you with any more about that. But please let me say this, Inspector, in fairness to Miss Felbert and myself. When I called at that bungalow I did not know that I would propose marriage. It happened of its own accord—as these things do.” He stared vacuously at his own left hand and added, as if to himself: “I gave her my signet ring.”

Surbrook was gaining ground. There were those photographs in the sitting-room, and two more in the bedroom, bearing out his general statement. Karslake produced the signet ring.