The Paper Chase (4 page)

What noiseless sound woke him, what jagged lightning flash of truth lit the arcades of sleep he never knew. Awake he was certainly, and panic-stricken, aware that something had happened and that action was demanded of him. Hand groped for light switch over bed. There was none.

For a moment place eluded him. Then he remembered, got out of bed, turned on the light, looked round the room. Nothing seemed changed. His watch said that the time was half past eleven. Annoyed with his own stupidity he put on a dressing gown, opened the balcony door and stared out into the night. An owl hooted. It was cold. He shut this door again, walked across the room, opened the door that led into the passage. Silence and darkness except for a line of light beneath the door opposite him. He remembered that Montague occupied this room. No doubt he was reading late, or writing a letter about Johnny’s business. Yet something had woken Applegate up, and he wanted to find out what it was. He took three steps across the passage and, feeling slightly foolish, tapped gently at Montague’s door.

There was no reply. As he waited Applegate felt more and more foolish. Yet at the same time he had a sleepwalker’s determination to speak to Montague, to have it out with Montague as he put it to himself. “Are you there?” the sleepwalker asked. “Can I speak to you, Montague?”

Still no reply. He must be asleep. Without hesitation Applegate turned the handle of the door.

Montague lay on the bed on his back, fully dressed, one arm dangling. He was not asleep. From somewhere in the region of his heart there protruded the handle of a knife.

The effect of sudden death on the beholder is incalculable. It can leave him unmoved, make him exultant even (but that is generally when the beholder has been himself the agent of death), or induce feelings of dizziness and repulsion. In Applegate’s case the effect of seeing Montague’s body on the bed was to make him afraid. Whether this fear was associated with the deaths of his parents, which at the time he had treated so lightheartedly, is a matter of opinion. What he felt, however, was nothing exact. It was as though the activities of some terrible machine, which he had managed to avoid for years, had quite suddenly caught him up so that now he heard the gears grinding and at close range saw all the cogs involved with each other to some awful end. He sat down on the little hard chair feeling quite faint.

Slowly the faintness went away, to be succeeded by the stirrings of professional dignity and pride. He reflected that he was, after all, a writer of stories involving violent action. A certain duty was laid upon him to investigate the situation. Perhaps Montague might not even be dead.

Rather warily he approached the peaceful figure on the bed, put a hand near where he conceived the heart to be – but with care not to place this hand near the dark stain on Montague’s pullover – felt for a pulse, lifted the eyelids with some distaste, even took down the bit of looking-glass on the wall and held it to nose and mouth. He felt no heartbeat and no pulse, and there was no shadow on the glass. All that was somehow satisfying. The man on the bed had no say in things any more, would not object to anything said or done, could be treated as a mere wax figure. Not quite wax, though, for he was still slightly warm. That meant he had not been dead very long, but just how long Applegate was not sure. Such problems had not faced the vampire bats and poisoners of
Where Dons Delight.
Memo, he said to himself, find out how long a body takes to cool. He noted provisionally that Montague must have been murdered, at most, half an hour ago.

He had been killed with a knife – a short-handled thin-bladed knife which Applegate was careful not to touch. As he looked closely at this knife, however, a frightful suspicion crossed his mind. He hurried back to his own room and felt in his jacket pockets. The suspicion was justified, and the feeling he had had when undressing explained. The knife he had taken from Derek Winterbottom at suppertime was no longer in his possession. That knife, or one exactly similar to it, had been stuck into Montague’s chest.

Much shaken, he went back to Montague’s room and stood staring down at the dead man. Without trying to think out the implications of the theft of the knife he felt action of some kind to be imperative. He resisted the idea that there might be unpleasant consequences of this action as he put his hand into Montague’s pockets, now with no feeling of revulsion (was not Montague, after all, a wax figure?), and sifted the contents like a miner panning for gold.

Left-hand trouser pocket empty. Right-hand trouser pocket silver and copper. Hip pocket empty. Jacket pockets, two letters addressed to F Montague, Esq., Flat 277, Mattingley House, Edgware Road, W, a bunch of keys, a nail file. And now the wallet. Still with no feeling of revulsion he eased it out of the jacket. A shabby wallet, but bulky. The inner compartment contained a wad of pound notes, perhaps fifty. What else? Several old bus tickets, a book of stamps, another letter, a scrap of paper with an address on it.
HJ, Grand Marine Hotel, Murdstone 18345.
Applegate put the three letters and this scrap of paper into his own pocket, wiped with his handkerchief the wallet and everything else he could remember touching, and put them back. He felt perfectly calm, and was surprised to notice that his hands were trembling.

Back in his own room he looked at the things he had taken. One of the letters in Montague’s pocket was a bill for whisky and gin. The other was from a girl. Applegate hastily skimmed the conventional phrases of love and came to something more interesting.
You have been acting so mysterious lately. What do you mean about something good coming up and only being away a few days? Have you got another girl, Frankie, because if you have I would sooner you told me. And sooner it was that than you were doing some job again. You told me you were going straight, Frankie, believe me it is the best policy, didn’t you have enough trouble in the past through Johnny and Henry?
There were more conventional phrases. The letter was signed Edna.

He turned to the third letter, which had been in Montague’s wallet. This proved not to be a letter at all, but a note typed on a piece of copy paper. With a shock he read his own name.

The agent must be Charles Applegate, arriving as new master at Bramley. Has no experience of teaching. Has written detective story under name of Henry James. Must be acting for ED.

There followed a reasonably accurate account of his history and of his parents’ death, and a final instruction.

Try to find out what he knows. Offer to work with him. Get him to come in with us if possible. Point out that he has nothing to lose, ED is not reliable.

He read this piece of paper three times, and then tried to make sense of what had happened. Montague and the man in the train were engaged in some shady enterprise together. ED, whoever he was, must be a rival. The enterprise was in some way connected with Bramley Hall, and for some inexplicable reason they had identified Applegate as an agent working for ED.

He considered his own position. It seemed unfavourable. If he did as he had originally intended, and returned these letters to Montague’s pockets he would be in for some intensive questioning by the police, questioning that would be made more uncomfortable by the fact that he really had no idea of what the note meant. Then there was the matter of the knife. When he took it away from Winterbottom he had put it in his pocket. Had it still been in his possession when they had coffee with the Ponts? Thinking back, he was bound to admit that he had not the slightest idea, and that the knife could have been taken at any time. Pont could have taken it easily, so could Hedda, and so could Montague himself. Or it might have been taken before he had left the dining-hall.

What should he do now? It seemed to Applegate that he would be acting with unnecessary foolishness by raising an alarm. It could make no difference to Montague whether he were discovered tonight or tomorrow. And it would be, surely, asking for trouble to return the letters. Tomorrow he would go and see Jenks in Murdstone and find out what this was all about. Tomorrow, after all, was another day. He became aware that he was very cold. He put the things he had taken from Montague’s pockets into his own wallet, got into bed, and in five minutes was asleep.

In the morning things did not happen quite as he had expected. He was wakened by a knock on the door. It opened, and the face of Maureen Gardner peered round. “Derek’s murdered Mr Montague,” she said.

Before falling asleep he had reminded himself that he must simulate surprise. He found no difficulty in doing so. “What?”

“Derek did it. Stuck him like a pig. With that knife you took away from him, or another one like it. Have you still got that knife?” She felt in his clothes. “It’s gone. There you are.”

“How do you know it was Derek?”

“He’s gone. Run away. You’d better get up. I expect the police will want to talk to you.”

When she had gone he looked at his watch and saw that it was half past eight. He washed, dressed, shaved, and went downstairs to the empty dining-hall. He learned later that Montague’s body had been found just before eight o’clock when one of the domestic staff took him some hot water, and received no reply to her knocking. Applegate had slept peacefully through the hysterics that immediately followed. Subsequently disorder had spread like a rash through the whole establishment. The central heating radiators were cold and the toast was burnt. In the centre of the breakfast table stood an enormous bowl of mush, which he took to be a standard Brooker-Timla dish. He shudderingly avoided it and tried to spread frozen butter on burnt toast. With this he drank lukewarm tea.

The dining-hall did not remain empty for long. Two boys and a girl, not known to Applegate by name, came in and stared at him. “Will there be classes today?”

“I don’t know.”

“Will you take them all, now the other one’s dead?”

“I shouldn’t think so. You’d better organise your own class if you want to work. I’ll come and find you.” Surprisingly they seemed to think this a good idea, and went away to do it.

A couple of minutes later Pont rushed in, his expression distraught. “There you are. I’ve been looking for you everywhere. How could you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Give Derek his knife back. You knew his record. You know what this means? Ruin.” He sank into a chair at the table, spooned some Brooker-Timla food out of the bowl into a small dish and began to eat. “Ruin. After a lifetime of endeavour.”

“I hope it’s not as bad as that.” He explained that he had not given Winterbottom the knife, and learnt that the boy had not slept in his bed.

“We should never have taken him.” The rosebud mouth pouted. “I was against it, but Janine said we had a duty.”

“Have you telephoned the police?”

“Oh, yes, yes.”

“What do you want to do about classes today?”

“Whatever you think. Use your own judgement.” All Pont’s rosy elasticity had gone. He looked simply a bewildered old man as he got up and wandered away.

After Pont there was young Deverell, who said that he was feeling rather lost. After Deverell came Hedda, wearing this morning a bright green jumper with a roll neck, and tight black jeans.

“Hallo. What a clever thing you did when you took that knife away from Derek. What did you do afterwards, give it back and demonstrate the best place to stick it in? Poor Derek.”

“What makes you think he did it?”

She stared. “Otherwise why did he run away?”

“That might be just because he didn’t like it here.” How much should he tell her? “You remember what I told you about my conversation with Montague last night.”

“Oh,
that.
I shouldn’t tell the police about that if I were you. They might think you were inventing. Let bad enough alone.”

An hour or two later Applegate took her advice. He told a polite but critical Inspector with a large drooping ginger moustache that he had no idea when the knife had been taken out of his pocket. As far as he knew Winterbottom had nothing against Montague.

The Inspector, whose name was Murray, pulled his moustache. “He might have had something against you, Mr Applegate, eh? You took the knife away from him. He showed no sign that he knew this Montague? Ah, well, the lad had a bad record. But what would he have been doing in Montague’s room now, eh, any idea of that? No? Well, we shall find out. Your room was opposite. You heard no sound, nothing that disturbed you?”

“No.” That was pretty well the end of the interview. Applegate said nothing about Montague’s visit to him, nor about the letters that were burning a hole in his pocket.

Little work was done during the day. Only four girls and two boys came to the Plastic Arts lesson, and although there were a few more for the Citizenship class their principal object was to extract information from Applegate.

“Will they hang Derek when they catch him?” asked the squinting Arthur Hope-Hurry.

“No. He’s too young. And, anyway, there would be a trial. That’s if they arrested him.”

“They don’t hang you until you’re eighteen,” Maureen Gardner said. “I’m against capital punishment. And against imprisonment too.”

“You shut up, Maureen. If you hadn’t pinched Derek’s knife it would never have happened.”

“I don’t see why he didn’t kill you first,” Maureen Gardner said to Applegate. “He had a lust for blood. He once pinched my arm so hard it bled.”

“That was for initiation into the order of Bramley Apples,” said another boy named Levett. “Only you funked it.”

“Maureen has a point though,” said the brown-faced Deverell. “Why didn’t he attack you, sir? Do you think he mistook the rooms?”

“We don’t know what did happen and there’s no point in guessing,” Applegate said shortly.

“It’s interesting, though,” said Maureen Gardner. “It’s the most interesting thing since Janine walked down the corridor with no clothes on.”

“She was tight,” another girl added.

“Citizenship,” Applegate said rather hopelessly. “There is an ideal of good citizenship…”