England's Lane (36 page)

Still she seemed hesitant: her eyes were hedging the quite shocking novelty of this situation—rapidly deciding now which way they should jump. Then, as Adam was filling his pockets with the medals and seals, the badges and the miniatures, and while I proceeded to take down from the wall the small brown picture … the brightness
in her eyes just immediately faded—her frail little chest beneath the bulk of the greatcoat, it really did appear to deflate. She touched my arm and looked up at me pleadingly.

“Arnold … please. You must not do this to me. Is it a joke …? Some kind of I must say rather cruel sort of a joke that you are playing on me, yes …? No …! William—put those back this instant! Do you hear me? How dare you! Arnold—I beseech you! I took you to be a gentleman …! They are honors—the family's honors! All of our history is in that case …! Arnold—I beg of you … do not do this. Please … oh please, Arnold! How could you …? How could you …? I do not understand … I trusted you! I invited you into my house! Oh dear Lord, oh dear Lord …! I would offer you money, but you know that I have none …!”

“On the contrary, Myrtle—it is I now, you see, who is to offer some to you. A parting gesture, if you will. Here we are, you see—a newly minted five-pound note. Yes? Oh do dry your eyes, dear lady—it is, after all, only stuff. Isn't it? You are old. And you have so very much more of it. And with this note, now you can have coal, do you see? Warmth, yes? Myrtle—it will buy you biscuits! Chocolate biscuits! One day you will thank me. And now … I think we are done …? Yes, we are done—and so truly now we really must be away. Au revoir, my dear Myrtle—au revoir. I shall cherish the memory. And thank you so very much indeed for the tea.”

She was sobbing quite piteously by this time, of course—plucking ineffectually at the sleeve of my coat. But women, well—they will always tend to do this sort of thing. I was pleased though that she did not once attempt, as I confess I had half been expecting, her feeble and quite pitiable best to strike or try to in any way detain us, for then that would of course have had to be summarily dealt with, and I am not, unless it is essential, actually a brute. It was not
until I had closed the great front door behind me … first it was the wailing to reach my ears—and then, soon after, a rather curiously discordant and quite jagged shrieking, this subsiding only slowly into some or other variety of low and vaguely farmyard mewling, which did seem quite insistent: yes, there would be weeping, then—and long into the night. Well there you have it.

During the course of our drive back to Henley, Adam quite suddenly was coughing out laughter. No—not laughter, for any of that must surely carry with it the airy implication of some element at least of humor, and a light enjoyment. Cackling is what he was doing—a hag-like expression of malicious delight in all we had freshly accomplished. And so this initial tutorial would have appeared to be complete. He insisted then that we go out again the very next day, an urgency to which I was most perfectly agreeable—I had been, indeed, upon the very verge of myself suggesting it—for then could I induct the man into the further and then ultimate streamlining of the entire operation: to dispense quite utterly with all of the rigmarole. No more silken flattery and idle grinning chatter—no mock admiration of some or other mean little gimcrack gewgaw: an end to the stirring of tea. We walk in. We take. If the tenant, the owner, the householder—however the damn person may desire to style himself—proves to be any more than meek, then he, she or they must immediately be restrained by whatever means necessary. And to this end, there soon and naturally evolved a scale of escalation. Usually no more was required than a firmly articulated word. Otherwise ropes. The warning of violence, or else its quick delivery. And because no longer central to the matter was a need for tact and delicacy, Adam now would be the first to enter—which he so did enjoy, the elbowing bully. I would follow, later and discreetly, and after he was done with his opening volley of barked-out intimidation—and only when he was rapidly mounting the staircase to gleefully
ogle and ransack an upper floor—then would I deftly don my black and makeshift disguise. The dolt—never was he even aware of it. And nobody, not one of the marks at any time whatever, was witness to my features. So simple a plan was twofold: the protection of myself, perfectly obviously, and the extreme endangerment of Adam—whom now I hated with so appalling a power, and who, so very conveniently, was far too arrogant and self-absorbed even to glimpse it. And so from the repeated scattering of such seeds of remarkably mindless recklessness, there grew quite sturdily the flowering of his downfall. Together with, alas, though to varying degrees, that of every one of us. For although I had presumed a considerable knowledge of John Somerset, together with insight into his workings and character, still had I most woefully undervalued both the caliber of his determination, and the worth of his ferocity.

Stories by now were abounding locally, and all of them concerning a spate of domestic robberies perpetrated by a pair of itinerants, attempts at descriptions of the physiognomy of just one of whom, I felt quite perfectly sure, would by this time have been haltingly and tearfully proffered, and so many times over: an aspect of it all that seemed, somewhat strangely, not yet to have occurred to Adam. And so until the natural course of events might be seen to unfold, I remained, for the present, content to bide my time. The new regime, so to say, was now very thoroughly established and in vigorous and quite rude health, though it was not until many months later—while we were driving to what was to be, did either one of us but suspect it, our very last call to a country house—that Adam said something of a sudden to me that I freely confess to finding just a little unnerving.

“He knows, you know. My father. I told him. Oh yes. I told him. I expect he'll be wanting to … how shall I put it? Talk to you? Yeah …”

“Really? Well of course a conversation with John—as opposed to, say, well let me see … yourself, for instance—is always a thing to be relished. I do so look forward to it.”

“Don't pretend you didn't hear me, you bloody swine. I said I
told
him. Yes? He
knows
 …!”

“Ah yes indeed—you did say that, you're quite perfectly correct. Well then I suppose I must rise to it, mustn't I Adam? Told him
what
 …? All right? That response satisfy you, does it? Sufficiently melodramatic?”

“You won't find it so funny when my father's done with you. Telling you that. You won't be laughing then. You'll get it. You'll get it. And not before time. Sick of you, I am—you bloody crooked and stuck-up pig!”

“Crooked, yes. I think I am, you know—though you are too, of course. But you are aware of that. Stuck-up …? An exceedingly bourgeois expression that tends to be bandied only by those who very well know and long have felt themselves to be most thoroughly inferior. And what about pig, now …? No—I rather think not. Suits you though, rather. Pig. You really are one, you know.”

“You're a
fuck
, that's what you are. Thought you'd got away with it, didn't you? Thought you'd got away with all of it. Thought I didn't see. Oh stop all your playing around! The money …? Oh yes—I saw you. I saw you, all right. Watched you do it, cool as you like. You've had it now. You've had it.”

“Indeed? You saw? How extraordinarily observant you are. I have to admit that I should never have thought it of you.”

And inside, I seethed. With anger, yes, and wholly directed at myself. How could I have been so very terribly remiss as to have permitted so extremely self-centered and virtually purblind a lout to witness any such thing …? And so this will have been yesterday, then. At Pangbourne, in the little Edwardian end-of-terrace. It must
have been. For if he had seen me on any previous occasion, I surely would have been made most perfectly aware, and in tones no doubt as gloating and uncompromisingly threatening as those he is using to me now. For how many times had I got away with it before? It had long been my practice, while Adam was elsewhere in the building—snaffling the jewelry, stowing away some or other little bibelot—to don my doubtless rather alarming disguise and then gently, or, if necessary, not remotely gently, urge the latest slack-mouthed and palpably terrified victim to disclose the whereabouts of his money. The first time I did this, there was in my action hardly more than bravado—though on that occasion, rather to my surprise, a very large amount of cash was quickly thrust into my outstretched but barely expectant hands. Accompanied by almost a simpering gratitude, I recall—as if here were fair exchange for the sparing of his life. And subsequently I had discovered that more often than not there exists among older and rural folk a stout and inbuilt distrust for any of the banking institutions that younger and more worldly types will happily employ as a matter of course. And such is the pusillanimity of trembling people, that each of them gave it up freely. I did warn each of them never even to dream of speaking about the money, and not of my masked appearance … or else I should return, and silence them forever. Thus far my threats would appear to have been taken very seriously—as, indeed, they were quite intended. And so in really next to no time, with recourse to such blissfully facile means, I had amassed a quite considerable fortune. My share of the proceeds from goods obtained had become really little more to me now than something by way of a bonus—because of course the money I obtained was always to remain mine, and mine alone. My little secret, you see. Though as of yesterday, it certainly now would appear, I have erred. My little secret … is out.

I drew up the Bentley quite close to the smartly colonnaded portico to this pleasingly compact and honey-colored mid-Georgian rectory, that maybe not even so much as a fortnight earlier I had considered so very promising. I determined now to make it perfectly evident to Adam that I was very far from easy in my mind—though here was no mere subterfuge, I am bound to admit. I quite wildly understate the position when I say that John Somerset would not at all be taking kindly to this new and blistering information recently presented to him with more than a scent of coming vengeance, by this so loathsome son of his. Very rapid and decisive action was immediately required.

“You go in Adam, yes …? Just should like briefly to collect my thoughts. I shall follow shortly.”

“Nervy, are you? Getting jumpy, you bastard? Don't blame you. If I was facing what my father's got in store for you, daresay I'd be on the jumpy side too. Thank Christ it's come. I said he should have got rid of you ages ago. The minute he found out about you and … my bloody mother, you stinking fucker …! My bloody mother …! And now you've been stealing from us, on top of it all. Cash. And for how bloody long, that's what I'd like to know. I'd happily have done you myself, more than happily, oh Christ yes—but he said no. He always said no. He was waiting, is what he said. Well … waiting's over. And today? Who cares what you do? Stay in the car, for all I care. Who needs you anyway? Cunt. Have one of your stinking cigarettes, why don't you? The condemned man's final smoke …!”

And more of his preposterous cackling, of course, as he swung himself out of the Bentley and was bounding up the three short steps to the door, as stupidly eager as a spaniel. I watched him as he arranged his face into the sort of expression he might even have imagined to be a smile—always the best he ever could muster—and
saw him then gesticulate to almost a continental extent as the slight and elderly man before him was straining to understand, or even to distinguish the sounds. Admittance though—as ever—was quickly gained. I think “grim” might very well be the word I now might select, were I with hindsight required to articulate my mood of the moment. There was stern work afoot—and with this I had so quickly to come to terms, as I eased on with scrupulous care a pair of thin and primrose soft kid gloves. Then I stepped out of the car, approached the portico and jangled the bell. When the door was opened no more than but a cranny, I rammed it back with all of my force and had got myself around it only just as the bony old fellow clutched at his empurpled brow, and was staggering down on to his knees. As his mouth hung open, he was gaping full at my face, his own shrunken features awakened into shock and an appalled inquiry: his having seen me, however, could hardly matter less. I had the man now by the abrasive lapels of his ancient tweed, and I was dragging the slump of him back into the hall. There by the mantel was a scuttle and fire irons—I drew out the poker, swung it about me and struck from the side a low and sweeping blow to the head. With the deadweight of a boulder dropped from out of the sky, he fell into a table which crackingly disintegrated into splinters, sending fragmented shards of blue-and-white porcelain fleeing into the corners. This brought the rumble and then thunder of Adam hurrying back down the staircase: he stopped still in an archway, and I permitted him just momentarily to be astonished by the tableau with which he immediately was confronted. Then, just one second before he would roaringly have emerged from his transfixion, I brought up again the poker and swung it hard and down into the crouch of his neck. The noise he made was guttural—his eyes rolled up and then over as he crumpled at his center, before immediately collapsing in on himself, and then fell as a heap. I
touched the redness to the side of his throat: a beat—sluggish, but palpably throbbing, which was all to the good. I then was forced to rifle his pockets in quest of a rather vulgar flick-knife with which fairly lately he had taken to posturing: it had a pale and nacre casing, the blade aroused by an evil swish and then clunk as it was springing erect from within its silver housing. I held the haft, traversing the floor toward the old man's rigid and contorted form. I remain to this day quite reasonably sure that already he was dead, but here was not at all the point. I turned him with the toe of my shoe so that now he lay flat upon his back. His white and withered face, I can hardly forget—although frozen, still it seemingly teetered upon the verge of eruption into hysterical laughter. I stooped to bring down the knife once, and then immediately again, deep into the center of his heart—recoiling deftly from a bubbled upsurge of blood—extracted it perfectly smoothly, walked back over to Adam and tightly curled his fingers around the undeniable elegance of the thing: already, I observed, the gore upon the blade was the color of wine, and crusting over into hardness. Then the poker had similarly to be placed into the old man's palm, his stiffened fist encouraged to clasp it … and finally now could I gather together a number of the sorts of desirable little items with which normally by this time we would happily have absconded—scatter them about the ruckedup kilim and Afghan rugs, then the brilliantly polished surrounding parquet, smelling very wholesomely of beeswax and lemons. Then I stood back, the better to collectedly appreciate all of my impromptu handiwork. It seemed to me to be complete. One might even say perfect. I turned to leave. And then I heard the noise.