A Gentleman's Murder

by Christopher Huang

  Norris turned to face him. His face was pale and his jaw was clenched.

  “I don’t think you were really thinking straight that night, Norris. You left the letter opener behind; I think the vault door closed before you could think to retrieve it or clean it, and the only reason the police haven’t arrested you already was because, as a board officer, there was every possibility that you might have handled it quite innocently before. But there are dozens of other little points you may have overlooked, and the police, once they know to focus on you, are sure to find them.”

  Norris said, “You hope! You have nothing. The only thing we’ve really learnt here tonight is that Aldershott and Bradshaw conspired to hide a murder. Martha, my dear, I’d look for a good solicitor if I were you. I can’t imagine that being married to our Captain Aldershott was ever much fun to begin with. And now? Well, I wasn’t the one who took your sister away from you. I’m not the villain of this story—that much is certain. Bradshaw … I’d ask if you really believed all this nonsense, but given your part in this, I expect the point is moot.” He turned to Wolfe, who avoided his gaze, and Saxon, who met it fiercely. There was no sympathy either way, and he sniffed in disdain. “You lot should be ashamed of yourselves. Good luck, Peterkin. Maybe if you had a policeman in charge who wasn’t the likely killer, he’d tell you to go to hell. I thought you were my friend, but I guess I was mistaken.”

  He opened the doors and stalked out.

  THE FINAL JOUST

  IT WAS ALMOST an hour’s walk from the Britannia Club to the flat that Eric called home. He usually enjoyed the journey for the exertion and the sights, but tonight it was fraught with anxiety and unease. Little of the Bonfire Night festivities could be seen along the majority of his route; the pyres were far off in the distance, hidden behind the dark, towering walls that rose up on either side of the street. They sent up sparks into the black night, and columns of smoke, and they cast an orange glow on the low clouds above. From Eric’s vantage point, this evidence of distant fires reminded him of Flanders, and it would not surprise him if the silent buildings around him could be peeled back, like the veneers of civility he knew them to be, to reveal the devastation of no-man’s-land behind.

  The streets were empty now. Most people had gone to take part in the festivities, and Eric was alone. He walked slowly. He had no idea where Norris had gone after leaving the Britannia Club, but he was well aware that he’d made a target of himself. If Norris were of a mind to stop him, now would be the time.

  At the boundary of St. James, Eric stopped to peer back down the street behind him. Eric thought he saw an elusive shadow that may or may not have been a figure following behind. It was hard to be sure in the hazy, blurry night.

  Eric turned and kept walking. The fog was getting thick. Tendrils of moisture chased about his ankles as he swept onwards. The murkiness muffled his footsteps and those of anyone behind him. His unease grew as he began to wonder if he was marked by friend or by foe.

  The first firework went off as Eric drew within sight of home. A Roman candle, the opening shot in what would soon become a barrage of back-and-forth, soared over Battersea Park and scattered shards of gold on the Thames. It was answered by a salvo of rockets from somewhere near Notting Hill, and another from Ealing Common. Victoria Park sent up a burst of glitter that shot across the night before floating softly back to earth.

  Eric hadn’t expected to make it this far back unmolested, but here he was. The figure he thought had been following him since he left St. James was nowhere in sight. Eric waited and listened, but could hear only distant merrymaking and, now, faraway explosions. He heaved a sigh, opened the door, and went up to his flat.

  Something was wrong.

  A flickering glow spilled forth from the sitting room doorway onto the entry hall floor. It was accompanied by the crackle of a fire, and the metallic scrape of a poker working the wood into a blaze. Eric quietly shut the door behind him, then trod silently towards the sitting room.

  This was a square room overlooking the street. Eric had a pair of armchairs drawn up to the fireplace, a cosy mirror of his usual corner at the Britannia. Penny was bending over the fireplace, poking at a freshly made fire, and Eric breathed a sigh of relief when he saw it was her. “Penny,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting—”

  The words died on his lips as she gave a start and turned, white-faced and wide-eyed, to face him. Her eyes were dry, but a faint redness about them suggested that they hadn’t been dry for long.

  “You’ve been taking your time, Peterkin.”

  The voice, uneven, came from the armchairs. Norris was sitting in the far chair, just out of sight until one actually entered the room. The light from the fireplace cast an unsteady ruddy glow on his features. It made an island of wavering light around the scene, cut through with long shadows that melted into the shadows on the peripheries. Beyond, the window onto the dark street reflected the similarly wavering glow of fireworks as they blossomed and faded in the night. Norris held the “Red 9” Mauser in his lap, the firelight playing over the flat square of the built-in box magazine. The broom handle, with the characteristic red 9 burnt into it, was obscured in Norris’s hand, and the long, slender barrel seemed almost too delicate for its purposes. The earlier indignation had faded from Norris’s face, leaving only regret and sorrow.

  Norris gestured at Penny with the Mauser, and she sat down quickly in the opposite armchair. “Patch came by Dottie’s not half an hour ago,” she said, her voice trembling. “He told me it was urgent, that we needed to find you. I brought him here, and then—”

  “And then I took out the gun and told her to make a fire and wait.” Norris smiled, and for the first time since Eric had known him, the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “The miracle of motorcars, Peterkin! I was able to get back to Brolly’s to retrieve my briefcase—and this pistol—then look up Penny, and then make it here, all in the time it took you to walk. That’s the modern age for you. One of these days, half the families in England will have their own motorcar, and I wonder what that will do to our beloved English country roads.”

  “Why are you here, Norris?” Eric asked, though he thought he already knew.

  Their eyes met. “I had to tie up a loose end or two,” Norris replied.

  The slender barrel remained trained on Penny. “Penny isn’t part of this,” Eric said. “Let her go.”

  Norris ignored him. He glanced at the window and said, “I’m not a complete idiot. I know what they say about me at the Britannia: Norris only knows how to have fun; Norris can’t hold an idea for more than two minutes unless it involves wine, women, and song in some combination or other. And I don’t mind. I rather enjoy the reputation, in fact. I’m not a great planner—never have been—but I am capable of putting two and two together when the need arises. For instance, I’m pretty certain you’ve already spoken to Parker and told him exactly what you told us. That’s why Wolfe was released. Which means that Parker and his men have been watching you from the moment you left the Britannia Club. You never really expected to find my prints on Saxon’s key, did you? It was a ploy to get me to make some sort of move against you and seal the case against me.”

  “Eric!” Penny exclaimed. “Were you asking to be killed?”

  “Your brother’s an uncommonly brave little soldier, Penny. Why do you think I’ve been pointing this gun at you and not at him? He’d charge me the minute he thought the only life at stake was his own. He remembered that I’d tried to shoot him once before, and he thought I’d try again.”

  “Once before! When?”

  “Last Friday night,” Norris said, his tone as light as though he were discussing a summer holiday. Penny’s knuckles whitened on the arms of her chair. “The fog made it hard to see, and then Saxon interfered. I could have pursued you, though, Peterkin. Dodged around Mayfair, finally caught up with you on Piccadilly … or maybe made a second attempt the next day. Do you know why I didn’t?”

  Eric shook his head.
<
br />   “I don’t like to remember the miserable bits. And I realised I was reliving one of the more miserable bits right then and there, and why? What had my life become, that I was dodging around in the fog with a gun while all the normal people were at home with their after-dinner drinks, or playing darts in the pub, or singing along with a music hall act? That’s not who I am, Peterkin. That’s not who I wanted to be.”

  Outside, a quick succession of Roman candles rattled the window like a machine-gun salvo and cast a ruddy glow on the sill. Both Peterkins flinched, but the Mauser remained silent.

  “After I’d got well and truly lost in the fog,” Norris said, “I sat down and coughed my lungs out. The London fog is like poison gas, Peterkin. I wonder that more of the Britannia gentlemen don’t remark on it. I went straight back to Breuleux, and you know the rest. Almost. I woke up in your doctor friend’s bed on Monday realising that nothing had changed at all. It’s just got worse. I was trapped in one of Helen Benson’s infernal paintings, and there was no way out.”

  “Norris—”

  “You saw how the others looked at me. I’m finished at the Britannia. Even if the police don’t get me, you’ve won. Do you understand? You’ve won … You’d already won six years ago.”

  Eric said, “In that case, then why—?”

  Norris shrugged. “I told you. I had to tie up a loose end or two.” His eyes slid sadly to Penny, who shifted nervously. Norris considered her for a minute, then said, “You’re a bit like Emily, you know. I don’t mean the Chinese blood; it looks like your brother’s had the lion’s share of it, and I wouldn’t have known that about you but for him. I mean that you have this fascination with the world that’s simply irrepressible. Did you know Emily used to collect the stories of the soldiers who passed through the hospital? In spite of how she was treated there, as long as she had that interest in others, nothing could get her down.”

  Penny was staring at the pistol. She asked, more for the sake of talking than anything else, “What happened to Emily?”

  “It was an accident,” Norris replied. “I’d overheard Saxon’s promises to her, and I was afraid. I was fond of her, but not so fond that I wanted to be tied down just yet. I thought we’d be able to go our own separate ways afterwards—I certainly had no intention of ever seeing Sotheby Manor again. I … I pulled her to me in the heat of the moment, and she fell and hit her head. I panicked.” He looked at Penny and added, “I’m sorry.”

  “She fell and hit her head,” Eric echoed. “Twice.”

  Norris winced. “I thought this made a better story. All right. I panicked first, and then I … You know what, I don’t want to think about it. I went a little mad, and let’s leave it at that. It was awful. And then I saw Parker lying there, and I thought, there’s a way out of this mess. I didn’t realise then that I was only getting deeper into it.”

  “But you took her hypodermic kit.”

  “It was just sitting there, on the little desk. I thought it would be useful. I had a habit to feed, as you might recall. Or maybe it was sentiment.” Norris paused, thinking—remembering. “I wish I’d never taken it. When Benson started asking questions …” The Mauser began to lower, as if the massive box magazine were growing too heavy to lift, but sprang up again as Eric took a step forwards. Norris shook his head at him, and continued, “Benson was a loose end. I couldn’t have him talking to Aldershott and Bradshaw about what he thought had happened to Emily. I was worried enough when he spoke to me about his belief that Parker was innocent after all, but I told myself not to worry. Nothing would come of it. I tried to get away. I pointed him at Saxon and washed my hands of his so-called investigation. Then Saxon got the bright idea of bringing him into the Britannia. You know what happened after that: Aldershott wanted company while he waited. I didn’t know why, at the time. He told me about giving the hypodermic kit to Benson, and I knew I had to do something.”

  Norris scowled into the fire, and the light flickered across his face. The barrel of the Mauser blended in and out of the shadows.

  “That damned kit,” he growled. “I knew Benson must have recognised it. I went as soon as I was sure it was safe, but Wolfe beat me there. I was lucky that he’d chosen to take the scissors instead of the kit. He’d left the vault door open, and if I’d known that, I’d never have bothered trying to get into Aldershott’s office … and I wouldn’t have had the letter opener on me when I saw Benson hurrying to the vault.”

  An especially loud explosion of fireworks went off outside, amid the cheers of the Bonfire Night revellers. Eric winced.

  Norris glanced down at the Mauser and chuckled. “Nearly thought I’d pulled the trigger there.” He waited for the noise to die down before continuing. “I actually rather liked Benson, you know. But it was him or me, just as it was with Parker six years ago. Maybe I was a bit mad. Maybe I’d had too much of Aldershott’s brandy while sitting up with him. I don’t know. I remember creeping down to the vault after Benson. I found him peering into the empty compartment as though he expected to find Wolfe in there, and he didn’t hear me until I got to the vault door. The look he gave me, Peterkin. He knew. He came at me, but I dodged quite easily. Conscientious objectors! No one ever teaches them how to fight. I caught him by the hair as he hurtled past, and—” Norris made a gesture, the barrel of his Mauser sweeping the room. “And then I ran.”

  Eric cleared his throat. It felt unusually dry. “I expect it was the same with Mrs. Benson, wasn’t it? I hold myself responsible there. If I hadn’t gone on about having talked to her, and the possibility she might know more about what Benson had been doing, you might not have thought of her as a threat. She might still be alive.”

  A scowl flitted through Norris’s sadness. “It wasn’t difficult to decide she was another loose end to be got out of the way, you know. Oh, I liked her well enough at first; but as the years passed by and this … slavery to morphine dogged me wherever I went, I began to understand. It was her fault. Hers and her father’s and … and Emily’s, too. If Emily had lived, I’m sure I’d have grown to loathe her for what she’d done. All that morphine to kill the pain of surgery, and then more morphine to kill the pain of not having morphine. The only thing keeping me going was the company at the Britannia Club—that and regular visits to the upstairs room at Brolly’s. When Aldershott sent me back to Sotheby Manor, I was surprised at my anger. I told myself it was the morphine. It made me irritable. Well, Benson got me off the stuff, but the anger didn’t go away. I was never made to hate people, Peterkin, and I think she knew that. The War did that to me. Morphine did that to me. She did that to me.”

  “That’s not fair—”

  “Don’t tell me what’s fair!” Norris snapped. The Mauser trembled in his hands, and Penny shrank back into her armchair, afraid. Eric bit his tongue. Norris’s feelings ran even deeper than his words suggested. “Angels of mercy? Angels of death! They murdered me, Peterkin. Bradshaw may have started it by putting me in a uniform and sending me out there to shoot men in the back, but they—Helen and Emily and the rest—they murdered me. I think I may have just begun to realise that when I killed Emily, in my heart if not in my head, and that’s how I was able to do it at all. And later, when it was Helen Benson’s turn, knowing it made things so much easier.”

  “When you drugged her and left her to burn, you mean?” Eric felt a surge of anger at the thought, but he suppressed it. He did not want to startle Norris into doing anything he might regret. Penny already looked sick to her stomach.

  “You were wrong there, you know. At least, you were wrong in pretending that I drugged her surreptitiously, without her knowledge. No. I held this gun to her head and made her drink the morphine straight out of the bottle. If she had to go for knowing too much, she might as well go in poetic style.” He stopped, then said, “I was about to leave when I felt the case of that hypodermic kit in my pocket, and I realised it was … it was the chorus of the song. Do you understand what I mean? I got it when I killed Emily, I killed B
enson because of it, and for the song to end, I had to get rid of it along with Helen Benson. I smashed the syringe and threw the case on the fire. I thought it would free me, but there was nothing left to free.”

  Penny looked away.

  Norris looked at her, a genuine smile softening his eyes. “Ah, Penny. You don’t hate me for this, do you?”

  “I—” Penny’s eyes flickered to the Mauser. “Of course not.”

  Norris chuckled. He got up, moved to the window, and sat on the sill. “Liar. Well, it’s no matter to me. I’m done with being angry and fearful. There’s still a lot that’s beautiful in this world. I wish I could enjoy it.” He looked at Penny. “I hope you do enjoy it. It’s yours now, the world your brother and I fought and died for.”

  “Died for?” Penny echoed, glancing at Eric. “What do you mean, died for?”

  “I’m not the Norris you should have met,” Norris said. “That Norris died somewhere between Flanders and Sotheby Manor. I just needed you to understand that, the last loose end in this tangle. Think of what might have been! But that’s done now. What’s the use of worrying?” Norris opened the window, and the cold November air blew in, carrying with it the smoke of the bonfires. A gang of local youths was singing.

  “Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag;

  And smile, smile, smile …”

  “Ah, there’s Parker watching the flat from the pavement opposite,” Norris remarked. “I’m sorry, Parker! For everything!”

  “While you’ve a lucifer to light your fag,

  Smile, boys, that’s the style!”

  Norris joined in with a ringing tenor: “What’s the use of worrying?

  It never was worthwhile!

  So! Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag—”

  He raised the slender barrel of his pistol. “And smile—”

  “Norris! Don’t!”

  “Smile—”

  A glittering waterfall exploded overhead, drowning out the final word. Scarlet and gold cascaded down the sky, and Penny leapt to her feet with a shriek that silenced the singers outside. Eric leapt forward to catch her in his arms. Norris toppled out the window and fell to the street below.