“Balderdash!” snorted Horace Brainard.
“It makes damned good sense to me,” said Tom.
“Sense? Certainly. But to have the gall to pretend that he deduced it before— Come, O’Breen; admit it. You figured all this out after the event.”
“There’s no need for such persistence, sir,” said Fergus quietly. “I told you I’d given up all hope on that check. Now this,” he set down the light blue volume he had been carrying and held up the manuscript, “this was apparently written on Thursday, before even Corcoran, but after Alys’ cute little prank had sowed the seed. He wasn’t sure then but what he might have killed Valentino himself. He was cracking and he knew it and he wrote it out.”
“God damn your deductions!” Brainard roared. “Read it to us!”
“I intend to. In fact, there’s no stopping me. At the top of the first page is written:
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
311. ff.”
“Prufrock, isn’t it?” Tom sounded puzzled.
“Probably some note he was making on Eliot. He thoughtlessly grabbed the same sheet of paper when he wanted to set down his story. And that story reads:
Chapter 13
“Throat-slitting is the only clean way.”
I can still hear Jay saying that. It was the last conversation that I was ever to have with him, though we had no idea of that then.
“This war in Europe,” he insisted in that clear strong voice, with the almost undetectable lisp which made it all the stronger. “German military might against British economic power. Killing with bayonet, with bomb, with gas. Killing with strangulation, with starvation, with blockade. No; throat-slitting is the only clean way. Let the filthy blood run out of our avid race, and see if Providence can find a fresh breed to people this planet.”
But then he smiled. It was like that with Jay. He would speak bitterly, inveigh against this foul race that delights in killing and torturing its brothers, make you feel that total extinction was the only desirable end; and then he would smile. And in that wordless smile you knew that he embraced all mankind.
“Wasn’t it Tertullian,” he said once, “who believed because it was impossible? Well, I love because it is unlovable.”
But that was a rare occasion. His love was almost never in words. His words were a scorpion lash of scorn. But his smile and his acts …
We had spent our last night together seeing “The Clansman,” as “The Birth of a Nation” was called then in the days when it was new. I was unreasoningly swept away by youthful enthusiasm. Now at last I knew that the cinema was important. The exquisite fooling of “Tillie’s Punctured Romance,” the passionate melodrama of “A Fool There Was,” these had delighted me in themselves, but failed to convince me that the form of the film was permanent. But here I could see what genius can do with a medium. From earlier films to this was as great a step as from “Gorboduc“ to “King Lear,” and I said as much to Jay as we left the theater.
“I wish you were wrong,” he replied. “But you’re right, and that’s the devil of it. This man Griffith does have genius, if you insist upon using the term; and there is nothing more terrifying than genius devoted to hate.”
I explained that I had felt no hate. The picture was biased, I admitted, but it left me with no emotions other than admiration of its artistic qualities.
“So you think,” he said, “and doubtless honestly. But you think on the surface, and you feel more deeply. The racial poison of this picture is already creeping into those deeper parts. Watch yourself. See if you do not involuntarily shrink from the next Negro you meet. If not now, then later. Poison may work slowly, but it works.”
He knew that. And yet he never knew the poison which he himself gave me.
“Throat-slitting is the only clean way.”
I thought on the surface. In my conscious mind I was aware, not of Jay’s bitter words, but of his loving smile. Yet those words pierced deeper, and remained.
We parted that night almost in anger. “What earthly good can you do in Europe?” I protested. “What can any one man do? Stay on here for the wedding, and make your friends happy with your presence. Why sacrifice the small and possible happiness for the great and vain?”
But Jay was full of his resolve, his noble, saintly, idiotic resolve, the splendid resolve which achieved nothing but his own death. The last words I was to hear in that ringing voice were words of reproach.
The lisp was more marked when he was angry. Hugh has told me later that his studies convince him that psychoanalysis could have cured it, discovered the trauma and destroyed it. But if one were to destroy the source of the lisp, how much else might one not have destroyed? Would it still have been the same vigorous, gallant, ridiculous, glorious Jay? But that never mattered. He was destroyed, trauma and lisp and all, destroyed in oily choking water and throat-slitting is the only clean way in a world that destroys Jay and lets Lucas live.
And so Jay went to Europe (… consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall …) to see his friends in London and Berlin and Paris and Vienna—that strange undercover unorganized organization of intellectuals and workers who dreamed that they could hammer the concept of peace into the stolid skull of the world—and we made up our petty quarrel by mail (thank God for that at least) and I forgot even the war (that was still possible in early 1915) in the confusion of preparations for the weddings.
For you might have thought that we were all being married. The same confusion descended upon the entire wedding party which usually attends only the bride and groom. To be sure, we ate and drank as usual and saw Lina Abarbanell at the Orpheum and Stella received her first starring role at Triangle and sweated over it and Hugh slaved at the last year of his course and the surface of life was ordinary; but beneath that surface all of us, this tight little group that centered around Jay and belonged to him, thought felt and saw nothing but the weddings.
And particularly the first wedding because it was the first. It was a symbol. It was our growing up. It was our transition from a group of gay young people to the Young Married Set or so we thought then though look at us now: their silver wedding and the rest of us still unmarried if one forgets Stella’s five which have in truth left her more unwed than even am I.
But Martha would have married. Not Lucas of course as things fell out, but she would have married. I am sure of that. She was tender and warm and needed to give comfort as much as we poor fools of nature need to receive it. It should not have been her throat.
If a madman is the tool of fate, then fate is blind and stupid. It should not have been Martha. Anyone else in that party, best of all myself, but not Martha. The cats … why, cats are easily replaced. It was not a good deed; but not immeasurably bad either. But Martha
Of course Jay could not know that I was mad. If he had known, he might have guarded his words. He might have seen the crimson skull-and-bones on his phrases and set them carefully back on the shelf of silence beyond my reach. But I did not know myself. I had heard the rumors about Grandfather’s death. I had seen Aunt Margaret, but I had thought in my young innocence that it was merely because she was so very old. They can live a long time.
It was there all along. I can see that now. It was there from the start. But even Jay’s words might not have been enough. I was stronger than that. Martha would be alive today if it were not for that torpedo.
That was the final blow. We had all been horrified by the first use of gas at Ypres. When the Gulflight was sunk we had said “Is no one safe?”and wondered if Jay would dare to cross the ocean (for his mission had exploded quickly and Scotland Yard had warned him that it would be as well to leave England). But we knew that our wonder was wishful hope. Jay was brave, as absurdly brave as he was absurdly honest. I doubt if he once thought of the perils of submarine warfare when he booked passage on the Lusitania.
It was on a Friday that the U-20 fired its torpedo. Fr
iday, May 7. We learned the news on the Saturday. You will remember—you, whoever you are, hypocrite lecteur, if you are a reader and not the coals of the fire for that would be best if it were not for Lucas and for that other cat, that fresh cat, and yet so long as the Maginot Line still holds and there is yet a hope of peace
You will remember, if you are old enough, the hopeless confusion of those first casualty lists. No one knew. The others of our group hoped. Catherine said he couldn’t have died like that just before her wedding, it wouldn’t be fair. And Martha said that he was not for death. Martha knew so little then of the ways of death.
But I, even then I saw the skull beneath the skin. I was certain. The swinish world had rid itself of Jay. And that night, Saturday night, was the first cat.
I do not know why cats. They are sage and sensible and jellicle; selfish, but reasonably so. It may be that the mad part of me is as timid as the sane. It cannot take the big leap without frittering away its energy on little futile tiptoeing steps. I do not know. But it started with the cats. One that night, Saturday, and one Sunday night when I was drunk and vainly trying to employ the same fuddledness to mourn Jay and to celebrate Horace’s coming happiness but not Lucas’ though the rounds pledged him as well and how vainly.
I did not believe it. I would not believe it now if it were not for Aunt Margaret and what followed and above all for what Lucas told me but why should he keep silence? Then perhaps out of pity and hope but now when he fears what I fear and why is this enough?
During the wedding I could even forget it or did I know then? Had I realized it that afterwards I could kiss Catherine and never pause to wonder if my hands left bloodstains on the white satin?
It was strange, that kiss. She looked long at me afterwards and said, “Good-by, Jay.” We were the closest to him, we two. If Jay loved anyone, loved as an individual and not as part of the race which he so dearly and loathingly loved, it was Catherine or I. And Jay was dead and Catherine was Horace’s and I slit the throats of cats and of Martha but that was later that night and again no one knew unless Lucas and why?
They said a prowler because her jewel box was open. Nothing had been taken; but that they argued was because he had been frightened away by me. Yes, it was I who found her. For a moment I believed that myself for between the motion and the act falls the Shadow. My memory began when I was standing over her and she was already dead. Even the stains did not reveal me. They thought it so natural that I should have picked her up to
You see they knew that even though as they believed Martha was to marry Lucas still I
Why not Lucas? That I do not understand. Why should I spare what I hate and destroy what I love? Is that the meaning of madness—to violate not only the laws of life and man and society but even the laws of your own being? Would I have killed even Jay?
But if Jay had lived would I have killed anyone?
I have read the confessions of others. They do not sound like this. They are rational, cogent, often moving documents. But that may be because those others have their ghost writers and how meet and fitting it is that we who take life must speak through a ghost some sympathetic reporter or efficiently unsympathetic police stenographer while I write alone because of the fresh cat and
It is twenty-five years and the wheel has come full circle. The scattered group is now whole again save for Jay and Martha. For wedding, read silver wedding. For war, read war. For fear and hysteria, read fear and hysteria and the only clean way
I had You will think me callous, mon semblable, mon frère, but I had forgotten it all. It was not I. It was no part of my life. But now when all else comes back in the revolving of two and a half decades, must that come too?
A wise man, a brave man would kill himself.
But I love life, in my own quietude, as deeply as any robustious concert baritone. It may not happen. So long as there is hope, there is life. But if
So I write this out, my confession. If in any way
I do not want another to bear the blame. This time they might not believe in a prowler. And here they will find it written:
I am the man
So this is the way my world ends not with a bang but a whimper
Chapter 14
“And there,” Fergus added, “the poor devil was wrong. His world ended with a bang all right.”
“Jim!” said Mrs. Brainard into the silence. “All these years …”
“Because Jay died …” said Dr. Arnold softly.
“Jay!” Horace Brainard snorted. “Milk-livered, dreaming fool!”
“Please, Horace,” his wife urged. “You can’t blame Jay.”
“This is what came of all his fine preaching. Thought himself so much above the rest of us. And look at the fruit!”
“Please, dear.”
“I’ll not please. What was your precious Jay? I’ll tell you. He was an idealist.” He spewed out the word with the peculiar patronizing hatred which a German orator reserves for the word Demokratie. “Good for nothing! I took you away from him, didn’t I?”
Catherine Brainard turned and stared straight at her husband. Then she laughed. “You took me away! And you know why? Because he wouldn’t have me. Because he wanted to keep himself free for his ideals. Because he would not give—what was it he said?—hostages to fortune. And I had to turn to somebody, and I turned, God help me, to you.”
“God help you? And what did you want? Haven’t I kept you in luxury? Haven’t I made a fortune for you? Haven’t I—”
Mrs. Brainard laughed again. “Haven’t you lived off me?”
“Off you? No, let me alone, Hugh. What do you mean, lived off you? I used your little capital, yes. Look what I’ve run it up into.”
“What you’ve … !” Her laughter was becoming uncontrollable. “Do you think you’d have made a cent without Lucas backing you? Do you think your big bluster meant anything? Do you think you became a success simply by aping his ideas and his dear funny curt way of speaking? Do you think you really made your money?”
“Do I think … !”
“Don’t you know that Lucas helped you and raised you and built you? And why? Because I—”
“Catherine,” said Dr. Arnold sharply. “Catherine!”
Her voice sank again. “I know, Hugh. I shouldn’t have … I’m sorry. But to hear this blustering little fool strutting his goosestep over Jay’s grave …”
“You …” Horace Brainard plucked ineffectually at his mustache. “You and Lucas … I don’t believe it. I won’t believe it.”
“I believe it,” said Alys. “I’ve heard plenty about it. Lukey admitted he had lousy taste when he was young.”
Catherine Brainard’s eyes blazed and she raised her hand in a swift open-palmed threat. But then she let it sink to her side again, shrugged, and looked helplessly about the room. “Janet …” she said.
Janet was at her side at once. “Mother …”
“I’m old, dear. Perhaps … perhaps I have some sense at last. I’ve been a bad wife, a stupid wife. Maybe now at least I can be a good mother—twenty years too late.”
Dr. Arnold drew Fergus aside. “That was a sample,” he said. “How many more hours do you think we can stand on this island?”
“Andy should be here soon.”
“Soon?” Arnold repeated harshly.
“Or the bonfire may work.”
“And in the meantime? Can’t you contrive some task, O’Breen, some occupation to keep these poor people so absorbed that they cannot brood and torture themselves? And each other. Can’t you find some way to save us from this … this …”
“This dangerous corner?” Fergus suggested. “You’re right, doctor. Another hour of this tension could wreck more lives than—than have been lost on this island,” he ended bitterly. “Of course I could …” He paced for a moment, the lids lowered broodingly over his green eyes. “Tell me, doctor: Which is more harmful, a terrible new shock, or stewing over an old one?”
“Is this a theoretical quest
ion?” Arnold asked, watching him narrowly.
“Answer it anyway.”
“It is difficult to answer with certainty. But I should say that the cumulative effect of a series of shocks may be deadening. The last and most fearful shock may not only counteract the others, but have relatively little effect in itself.” He paused and contemplated Fergus curiously. “What is it now, O’Breen? Do you mean that you have something still up your sleeve? Something even more terrible than what we have already endured? More terrible than that Jim—”
“I wasn’t sure,” said Fergus. “I might have kept quiet. I thought it would be bad enough to know that one of your friends was a murderer, without … But since I’ve got your professional endorsement, here goes.”
He left the openly bewildered Dr. Arnold and strode to the fireplace. “Please,” he said loudly. “Your attention, ladies and gentlemen. I’m afraid I’ve left you under a lamentably wrong impression.”
Horace Brainard was for the moment too broken even to explode. He simply turned slightly and glared at the detective.
“You heard Mr. Herndon’s confession,” Fergus went on, “but I spared you my comments on it. Naturally this left you believing it.”
“But of course,” said Tom.
“It’s too dreadful to believe,” Janet protested.
“I know, darling; but that confession is so damned explicit, so convincing—”
“And so false,” said Fergus.
“You mean,” Catherine Brainard gasped, “that the confession’s forged? That someone killed my brother and—”
Fergus shook his head. “Uh uh. Your brother wrote that confession all right, the poor devil. But he never killed a cat, and he did not kill Martha Stanhope.”
There was a dead numb instant. Then you could see apprehension sliding into every eye, the horrible realization that if James Herndon was not the throat-slitter, then …
The Case of the Seven Sneezes Page 22
