My Name is Michael Sibley (3 page)

In spite of the careful official attitude of the Inspector, I saw clearly that this was a murder case. Though he might pretend formally that there were only one or two odd features which might easily be cleared up, it was obvious that he thought quite differently. I felt overwhelmed by the news, and inevitably found myself groping in my mind for some pointer as to who could have done it. I found none. It seemed that it could only have been some tramp or burglar in search of easy money; and I cursed myself for not sending the correspondent down to Ockleton itself. On the spot, he might well have picked up some hint that more was afoot than a mere inquiry into an accidental death. Now, after giving my word in the matter, I could do nothing further, at any rate for the time being. I was tied hand and foot.

I heard the Sergeant’s pencil travelling over the paper, and presumed he was taking a shorthand note. The Inspector said nothing. He seemed to be waiting for me to continue.

“He left the bank, of course. I think he was disappointed at not being sent out East. He had always set his heart on it. I think that is why he left. He went into business with a man called Herbert Day, as I expect you know, Inspector. Something to do with buying up bankrupt stock and stuff, and I believe they also did some importing from abroad.”

The Inspector sat with his tawny eyes fixed on my face; he had a habit, which I found disconcerting, of sitting perfectly still and saying nothing, not even “I see,” or “Yes.” It was as though he was hardly listening to my words. I have never been a fluent talker, and if I find that my audience is not friendly or receptive I am not at my best.

I continued, rather lamely, with a few more details about Prosset, floundered once or twice and corrected myself; this annoyed me, because I was telling the truth as far as I knew it.

The Inspector turned over one or two pages in his file. Once again, it was on the tip of my tongue to tell him I had been down at Ockleton, but now a new picture was developing in my mind, and I wasn’t at all sure I would enjoy the look of suspicious interest which would inevitably flash across his face when I told him I had been with Prosset so shortly before his death. Moreover, I was trying to sort something out, to think quickly between questions, while still talking, and that is not so easy in practice.

The Inspector looked up from his file and said, “What about this Mr. Herbert Day, sir? His partner, I mean. Know anything of him?”

“I only met him twice. Once, many years ago, before I went to Palesby. We had some drinks one evening. He, Prosset and I, and a few others. I believe he was something to do with the Stock Exchange at that time. The other time was a few weeks ago, when I saw him for a few seconds only in Prosset’s car.”

The Inspector made no comment. After a moment, he put a few questions about Prosset’s family in Ireland, which I answered as best I could. Then, after referring once more briefly to his file, he suddenly said, “I would like to ask you one rather confidential question, sir, just between ourselves, since you were Mr. Prosset’s pal. What impression did you form of this Mr. Day?”

“I didn’t much care for him personally.”

“Why not, Mr. Sibley?”

“There’s no particular reason. Some people one likes instinctively, and others one doesn’t. That’s all, really. But I shouldn’t say he was the type to have the courage to do a murder, if that’s what’s on your mind.”

The Inspector looked at me reflectively. He said, “There’s nothing on my mind at all, sir. I was just asking, that’s all. Do you know any other friends of his in London—or anywhere else, if it comes to that?”

I shook my head. “I’m afraid not.”

“Nobody at all?”

I thought then of the party in the public house before I went to Palesby. “Well, I once met a girl he was quite keen on, called Margaret Dawson.”

The Sergeant raised his head. “Did you say Dawson, sir, or Lawson?”

“Dawson. But she’s married now, to some theatrical producer. I don’t know his name.”

“And you never saw him with anybody else—recently, I mean?”

“No. At least—”

“Yes?” The Inspector paused in the act of lighting his pipe.

“Well, I once saw him with a man in a public house in Chelsea, but I don’t know who he was. He looked like a foreigner, but I may be mistaken. And I know he knew one or two people near Ockleton, where his cottage was, but I never met them. He said they had interests in the import side of the business. He used to go over and visit them. He never invited them to the cottage when I was there, because he said they were bores.”

“When did you last see Mr. Prosset, sir?” asked the Sergeant. I looked across at him. He was absent-mindedly tapping his teeth with the end of his pencil. It is difficult to explain why I replied as I did.

Perhaps it was due to my upbringing, which was hardly calculated to encourage that toughness of character which enables a person to face boldly a challenge when it arises and take the straight, if difficult, path. I had largely overcome certain weaknesses since I left my Aunt Edith, but now and again, in some sudden and unfortunate predicament, they would reassert themselves; it is not easy to eradicate the blemishes of early youth, especially such as may be bred into the blood and nurtured in favourable soil. Possibly thrown off my balance by the revelation that Prosset’s death had not been accidental, I tossed aside the cool, analytical training learnt in the previous ten years, and lied like a sneak thief caught in compromising circumstances. The struggle satisfactorily to solve the problem I knew would present itself, to solve it between questions and answers, had been lost, and the Sergeant’s question found me still undecided.

But now I had to decide in a split second. I had a quick mental picture of driving down to Ockleton, on the Sussex coast, arriving through deserted lanes in the evening, staying with Prosset, driving back, again through deserted lanes, early the following morning. I recalled the local correspondent’s words: “He spent the weekend alone.” I took the easy way out. The temptation to have done with the whole thing presented itself, and I fell. In the flash of time in which I had to decide, I decided not to face up to matters. It was perhaps moral inertia more than weakness.

“When did I last see him?” I replied, and was surprised at the smoothness of my tone. “About ten days ago. The weekend before last. I stayed with him at the cottage with my fiancée.”

The Sergeant nodded and made a note. “You’re engaged, are you, sir?”

I told him I hoped to be married in two months’ time. The Inspector made some joke about marriage. We all laughed. I felt relieved. The crisis was over. It had been easy.

“What’s your fiancée’s name, sir?” asked the Inspector in his strong, hard voice.

“Kate Marsden,” I replied. “Why?”

“Did she know Mr. Prosset?”

“Very slightly, that’s all.”

“I was just wondering if she would know anything; any other friends of Mr. Prosset, for instance. That’s all.”

I gave him her address, though I assured him that she knew no more than I did. I felt pretty certain that was true.

“Just one more question. Have you any ideas at all, Mr. Sibley, about this case? Any theory, perhaps, which you think we might look into? It’s not often we ask a question like that, but your position is rather a special one.”

“How do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, after all, he was your friend, wasn’t he?”

“He was, yes. He was a very good friend of mine, but at the moment I don’t know what to suggest.”

The Inspector swallowed the rest of his whisky, put the file back in the briefcase, and stood up.

“All right, Mr. Sibley,” he said. “Let’s leave it at that for the moment. I’m very much obliged to you.”

The Sergeant shut his notebook and stood up as well. We shook hands, and I saw them to the front door. On the steps the Inspector said: “If you think of anything else about Mr. Prosset, perhaps you’ll be good enough to give us a buzz on the phone?”

“With pleasure,” I said.

I could not help smiling as I watched them walk away. There was so much more, in actual fact, which I could have told him. But I could not have told him then, in the course of that short talk, and indeed I doubted if he would ever really understand. On second thought, I decided he certainly would not; not the Inspector, with his hard eyes, so strong and down to earth and unimaginative.

It would have needed a better talker than I to have been able to explain the position to the Inspector that evening. Even I myself sometimes find it hard to understand the story of John Prosset and Michael Sibley.

I
cannot say accurately at which particular point I should have broken off our acquaintanceship, or even whether it was possible for me, or for any normally polite individual, to have done so.

You have to have a good cause, a terrible row about something, before you can abruptly terminate an association with a man whom you have known for years; and Prosset had a devastating ability for preventing a row from properly developing. The way he did it was to assume an attitude of amused tolerance directly he saw that you were becoming annoyed. He would look at you with his slightly mocking blue eyes, and stroke his raven-black hair, and his cigarette used to bob up and down between his lips as he spoke, and before you realized it you would find yourself in a position where if you became angry you would, compared to Prosset, merely look silly and ineffectual. You can’t have a row with a man who at the critical moment just laughs at you, however jeeringly he may do it.

I tried it once or twice at school, but soon gave up.

There were three of us who did everything together at school: John Prosset, David Trevelyan, and myself. When our schooldays were finished, Trevelyan went and buried himself on his father’s farm in Cornwall; he rarely answered letters. But somehow, over the years, Prosset and I kept in touch. It was due to no wish of mine.

It was through David that I got to know Prosset. At our particular school the boarders lived in half a dozen Houses, widely scattered around the main college buildings. There were about fifty or sixty boys in each House. But sometimes, if a House was full, they would lodge a boy out in what they called a “waiting house,” which was little more than a large private house run by one of the masters, where six or seven boys, or more, would spend anything from one term to a year until they could transfer to the regular House for which their names had been put down.

David Trevelyan and I were in Bailey’s Waiting House; in fact, David had been there one term already when I arrived as a new boy. Unlike Prosset, who was perfectly proportioned, David Trevelyan was a comfortably chubby, medium-sized boy; he, too, had very black hair; and big lustrous brown eyes, rather thick red lips, and fine white teeth. I can see him now, practising with his flute, his eyes fixed on the horizon as he went up and down the scale, his thick lips moulded over the instrument. Nobody ever knew why he learnt to play the flute. When asked, he simply said, well, because he liked it; which is a good enough reason.

I deliberately cultivated David’s friendship. Firstly, because apart from myself he was the most junior boy in the House, so that I naturally went to him for advice about the incredibly numerous complications which beset the life of every new boy at a public school; and secondly, because I liked the look of him. I think the attraction was at first somewhat one-sided. I was not very much to look at; I was very ordinary indeed, and still am, if it comes to that. I had mouse-coloured hair, wore spectacles, and had a rather pasty complexion. But I was of medium build, and although not outstandingly strong I was certainly no weakling in a tussle.

David was on what they called the Languages and Maths side of the school, and I was on the Classical. Prosset was in David’s form, and that was how they became friendly. They used to eat their buns together in the morning break, and help each other with last-minute adjustments to their “prep.” We were all three destined for Buckley’s House, but Prosset had already gone there direct.

Thus the position was that both Prosset and I were friendly with David, but beyond a casual meeting here and there we did not yet know each other. Later, when David and I went to Buckley’s, we three linked up.

Long after, when we had become thoroughly familiar, they both told me how Prosset used to ask David Trevelyan why he walked to and from college with “that awful tick, Sibley.” It was regarded as a good joke, which I was supposed to find very amusing. I was always one to laugh when people were expected to laugh, so I would join in the mirth then.

So there we were, John Prosset, David Trevelyan, and I.

That is how it began, and that is how it stayed for nearly four long years: Prosset, Trevelyan, and Sibley. We were not so much individuals, at first, as a unit. We walked up to college together, and we walked back together. We went up to the tuck shop together, and ate poached eggs on toast together. We lent each other sixpences and shillings, shared the contents of our tuck boxes, schemed to avoid the little troubles which lie in store for small boys at public schools. If one got into a fight, the other two would come to the rescue. As term followed term, and we came to be regarded by other boys as identities rather than as just three small nondescript boys, our unity remained and indeed became famous.

We were secretly rather envied. Many people would have liked to have been in my shoes, bound by the ties of friendship to Trevelyan and Prosset, for Prosset, with his rather pronounced nose and chin and his challenging eyes, was well liked and respected, not only by other boys, but by masters, especially games masters. At first he was tried out for the Colts Fifteen, and played for them and did well; and in the end he played for the college side, not brilliantly, but boldly and with intelligence and tenacity. David Trevelyan and I basked in reflected limelight.

Life was good, on the whole. We had made a niche, and we were not lonely as other boys were sometimes lonely who had no close friends. We were a small, compact gang, and if Prosset was the acknowledged leader, we fell in with his plans readily enough. We had security in the jungle of school life, and that is a very important thing indeed.

Even in the light of what later happened, I must confess that looking back on the first year or two of the Prosset–Trevelyan–Sibley combine we had many good times together.

Whitsun was the great time of the year for us, for on the Tuesday after Whitsun the school was virtually set free to do exactly what it liked. It was started as a bold experiment, and it worked. All bounds were abolished. We could roam over the whole county, on foot, on bicycles, even by train if we wished. So long as we did nothing illegal and were back by 9 p.m., we could regard ourselves as adults.

We three used to hire bicycles and cycle through the countryside, exploring, turning off where we wished, stopping by the Avon for a bathe, going into pubs for a glass of cider, for as yet we disliked the taste of beer, and eating stupendously. It is inevitable that all those Whitsun outings are in retrospect bathed in sunshine.

Once, in a lonely country lane, we passed a beautiful girl cycling in the opposite direction. She was coolly dressed, and blonde and serene; she made our day for us. We goggled openly as she went by, a girl of about twenty-two who to this day does not know that three young fellows aged sixteen, in grey flannels and blazers, fell deeply in love with her after only seeing her for about ten seconds.

For the rest of the day we discussed her off and on, and I for one wove stories around her. She was obviously the daughter of a retired Indian colonel, living a quiet life in some old-world manor, tending her fowls and pigeons and arranging flowers in the house. I imagined her getting into some sort of danger on a horse. Gallant Michael Sibley would leap at its head as it thundered by, bring it to a halt and catch the fainting angel in his arms; to be rewarded with a warm and lingering kiss, two soft arms around his neck, and vows of eternal gratitude. Later, of course, we would get married.

I was rather inclined to indulge in these romantic fantasies, and from the way we occasionally talked I see no reason to suppose that the others did not have similar dreams. These dreams were always delightfully pure, terminating in soft arms and kisses, and nothing more.

We graduated from the Junior Common Room to the Senior Common Room, and from the Senior Common, after agonies of waiting and calculating when it would be our turn, we were allotted each his own study. A crude enough affair, little bigger than a closet, but a place where you could have a table, a chair, a divan, usually made of wooden boxes covered with cushions and a bedcover, a bookshelf and cupboard, and a patch of carpet.

But it was your own place, where you could read or work by yourself, or play the gramophone, or brew hot drinks. When you had a study you felt you had arrived. You were treated with gravest respect by the members of the Junior and Senior Common Rooms; you were even treated in a dignified manner by the House prefects and, highly important, it was an unwritten rule that no study-holder should be beaten by the prefects.

You were a bit of a dog when you were a study-owner. If you were any good at all at games, life became even better. I wasn’t too bad. I had my House football colours, and was quite good at running, and was likely to end up rowing in the House boat.

I had bought the contents of my study lock, stock and barrel from the previous owner. Prosset, Trevelyan and I were always in and out of each other’s studies. The very first time I went into it, eager and filled with a delicious sense of anticipation, I stopped abruptly in the doorway.

Prosset was there, sitting in my chair, thumbing through a book. He immediately asked me why I had bought the contents from the previous owner. The curtains, he considered, were drab, the chair was inclined to sag, the cushions were worn; the whole place looked a bit cheap and tawdry. Why had I not brought stuff from home, like he had done?

Life normally became quite civilized when you had a study: the only trouble was that I had begun to hate Prosset.

Perhaps I should say more accurately that it was about this time that I first realized that I hated him. I suppose the feeling had been gradually growing in my subconscious mind for a long time, because normally you don’t suddenly hate somebody whom you have been friendly with for a considerable period; not deeply, as I hated Prosset. Doubtless I had refused to admit that the feeling was there, or had fought it back. After all, it seemed so unreasonable; we three had many good times together, and Prosset was not always dominating.

I think now that one of the incidents which played an important part occurred when on one occasion several of us—Prosset included—were travelling back to school in the same railway compartment. The others were chattering away about the holidays and what they had done and where they had been, the shows they had seen, and the parties and dances they had attended. I wasn’t joining in, because it so happened that during those particular holidays I had not done anything very interesting. Among the few virtues I possess—and in view of later events they must be counted few indeed—is an inability to elaborate incidents to show myself in a good light. If I relate some conversation in which I have taken part, I cannot even to this day alter the context to include smart replies I would have made had I thought of them in time.

So I sat and listened, and when I was not listening I gazed out of the window into the gathering dusk. Opposite me, Prosset was talking to Collet, the son of a rich Yorkshire mine owner. The train drew into a station, and a man came along the platform wheeling a trolley with newspapers, magazines, chocolates, sweets, and cigarettes on it, for this was only a few years after the First World War and such commodities were common. I let down the window and bought a couple of bars of nut milk chocolate; one or two others followed my example, and we settled back into our seats and waited for the train to start. Then it happened. Prosset and Collet were talking about their tailors.

“My man charged me six and a half for this,” said Collet, brushing some ash off his waistcoat, for we smoked like furnaces going back to school.

“I paid eight,” said Prosset, “but that included an extra pair of trousers.”

“What about dinner jackets?”

Prosset hesitated. I guessed he hadn’t got one.

“Ten,” he said briefly. Collet nodded. He looked at me. I could see him looking me up and down. Prosset followed suit. I knew what they were thinking. They had no need to tell me. I saw the words forming themselves in Prosset’s mind long before he spoke them, though I didn’t expect him to be so accurate.

He said, in the lull in the conversation, in the lazy, arrogant drawl he sometimes adopted:

“What about yours, Mike? Three guineas ready-made?”

I nodded. Somebody sniggered.

“Poor old Mike,” said Prosset.

There was an awkward silence. I blushed scarlet and stared out on to the platform. The palms of my hands were damp and I was pressing my nails into them. The rough, hard-wearing tweed was chafing my neck. I could feel the skimped trousers clinging to my legs. The train drew out of the station and gathered speed. I gazed out of the window, ashamed and filled with bitterness against Prosset.

Although I had secretly begun to hate Prosset, we still did everything together, Prosset, Trevelyan and I. We were still united, and therefore a force to be reckoned with in the House, though none of us was ever a prefect. I can see why Prosset was so popular and treated with respect. It was not only that he was well built and clean-looking, whereas I was bespectacled and pasty, it was also due to his high spirits; his energy and courage, too. Nobody ever challenged him in vain. Combat was the breath of life to him. Not merely physical combat, though when he was fighting or playing games he did it to the last ounce of his strength, but verbal tussles as well.

We were all three of about the same seniority in the school, so we always sat together at the long dining tables; and if Prosset could find an excuse for an argument he would. He loved it. He would take anybody up on anything, challenge any statement for the sheer pleasure of the fight; and if all else failed he would pick an argument with me. If I declined the challenge, he would taunt me until I was stung to reply. Although he was not a bully physically, he was certainly one verbally. He was not content to get his man down; he had to trample in his face as well. Sometimes he would insist on an apology.