The Crime and the Crystal

by E. X. Ferrars

  “But Denis and I ought not to be staying on like this,” Bob Wilding said, “getting under Tony’s feet and worrying Jan. If we left I dare say she’d come out of hiding.”

  “I don’t think it would make much difference,” Tony said. “She doesn’t want to talk to me any more than to you.”

  There was bitterness in his tone and Andrew noticed that Sam gave him a thoughtful glance.

  “She’ll get over that,” Sam said. “Don’t worry about it now, Tony. Give her time.”

  There was an unusual look of sullen hostility on Tony’s face as he glanced at Sam. There was a good deal of hostility in the room, Andrew thought, in spite of the fact that the four men were drinking together, talking quietly, and so far as he knew were old friends. Suspicion was making them antagonistic to one another. One of them, at least three of them thought, was probably a murderer, while the fourth must fear what the suspicions of the others might bring to light.

  Looking from face to face, Andrew pondered what he ought to do. Sam, he thought, looked much as he always had since he had first seen him. He looked old, far older than Andrew guessed he was. No doubt the deep wrinkling on his face came from a life spent mostly out of doors in all weathers, but it was more expressionless than Andrew had seen it before. Sam was keeping his thoughts to himself, and they were not pleasant thoughts.

  On the other hand, Denis’s neat, oval face expressed far more than usual. There was brooding anger on it, not directed at anyone in particular, but somehow at them all and at the room and perhaps most of all at himself. He had the look of a man who has made some fatal mistake which it is now too late to put right and who will never forgive himself for what he has done.

  Bob Wilding, in his bony-featured, good-looking way, seemed restless and anxious, wanting to escape from the others there yet unable to make up his mind simply to get up and go away. There was an air of bewilderment about him, as if he found himself having to endure an experience for which nothing in his life had prepared him. It made him look very young, in contrast to Sam’s look of tired, experienced old age.

  “But you know the real reason she ran away from home, Sam,” Tony said. “Why can’t you tell me about it?”

  Sam began to fiddle with his hearing aid, as if he had not quite heard what Tony had said to him.

  Tony went on, “She told you why she did it, I’m sure of it.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you that all she’s told me is that when she found Kay’s body she panicked,” Sam replied, “and that from sheer habit, because it’s what she’s always done since she was a kid, she came to me? You and she haven’t been married for so very long. She hasn’t got used yet to the idea that you’re the person she should turn to when she’s in trouble.”

  “We’ve known each other most of our lives,” Tony said.

  “That isn’t quite the same as being man and wife,” Sam responded.

  “But she ought to know she can trust me.”

  “I can’t help it if she doesn’t.”

  “I still believe you know the truth, Dad. If you’d tell it to me, I might be able to help her.”

  Sam shook his head. “Honest, I don’t know any more than I’ve told you, Tony.”

  “I think Sam’s right, Tony,” Bob Wilding said. “Don’t worry her. Give her time. That’s what I’m trying to do myself—I mean, about Sara. It’s not going to help her if I try to rush things. What I’ve got to do is get her a good lawyer, tell her I’ll stand by her whatever she’s been doing, and not lose my head. I could have killed Dudley when I heard him talk this afternoon, but that wouldn’t have helped anybody.”

  “So you’re coming round to the idea that Dudley was telling the truth and that Sara’s been peddling drugs.” There was contempt in Tony’s voice. “You can’t have much faith in her.”

  “It isn’t a question of having faith,” Bob said. “If the police have found solid evidence against her, I’ve got to face that, haven’t I? And then I’ve got to make sure she has the best help I can get her.”

  “But you’ll still marry her?”

  Bob hesitated for a moment before he answered. “That’s something we’ll have to talk over when all this is behind us.”

  “So you’ve decided against it already,” Tony said with the same contempt as before.

  “Drop it, Tony,” Denis said. “Bob’s quite right, he and Sara can only wait. If it turns out Sara isn’t the person he thought she was, I don’t see why he shouldn’t pull out.”

  “Have you been wondering if Kay wasn’t the person you thought she was?” Tony asked. “Was she a blackmailer, for instance?”

  A wave of colour swept over Denis’s pale face. “That’s a bloody thing to say.”

  “But have you?”

  Denis did not reply. He swallowed his whisky quickly and stood up.

  “Coming, Bob?” he said. “Tony seems to want to quarrel with someone, but I’m in no mood to indulge him myself. Let’s go.”

  “Perhaps he had better quarrel with me,” Andrew said.

  He had at last made up his mind how to proceed, though the thought of what he intended to do scared him a little. The heads of the other men there turned towards him. He had a feeling that until he had spoken they had almost forgotten his presence in the room. Now they all looked at him with faintly puzzled expressions on their faces. Actually he had not been listening very carefully to what they had been saying, because he had heard something else which had held his attention. It had been the sound of a door opening and closing somewhere in the house and then what he thought was a soft footstep in the kitchen. Then again there was silence. There was no repetition of the opening and closing of the door.

  He raised his voice a little, though he knew that he had no need to raise it much because of those years of lecturing in which he had learnt to make it carry without his having to speak noticeably louder. But he spoke directly to the door.

  “I think I ought to tell you, Tony,” he said, “I went into the city to see the police this evening. I had a brief chat with Sergeant Ross.”

  “What in hell made you do that?” Tony asked.

  “Primarily I wanted to find out if they’d any objections to my leaving Adelaide,” Andrew lied. “I’ve been thinking, I’m only in your way here, so it occurred to me I might go for a few days to Tasmania, before going on to Sydney. And they didn’t mind my doing that so long as I leave them my address.”

  “You went to the police at this hour of the night to ask them if they’d mind if you went to Tasmania?” Tony said. “I don’t believe it, any more than I believe Sam when he says he doesn’t know any more than he’s told us. What’s everyone trying to keep from me? Why can’t anyone tell the truth? Why did you really go, Andrew?”

  Andrew was listening carefully. There was still silence in the passage. There had been no recurrence of the soft footfall that he was almost sure he had heard.

  “Well, I wanted to check up on something besides,” he said. “And I found what Ross told me rather disturbing, not only because of what he actually said, but because of what I’ve deduced from it. I may be quite mistaken, of course, but I think I’ve a fairly good idea of how his mind is working and I really don’t like it.”

  Denis appeared to have abandoned the idea of going home and had sat down again.

  “I want to hear this,” he said.

  Tony gave Andrew a hard stare, the most hostile that he remembered ever having seen on Tony’s normally friendly face during all the years of their friendship.

  “Go on,” Tony said.

  “You see, Tony, I think you’re the chief suspect for both murders,” Andrew said. “And that’s what Ross has really been trying to get out of Jan all this time. He’s been trying to get her to break down and incriminate you. I don’t know if the law here is the same as it is in Britain. I believe Australian common law is more or less based on English law, and if it’s the same in this kind of case, it would mean that Jan can’t give evidence against yo
u, because a wife can’t give evidence against her husband. Even if you killed Kay and Jan saw you do it, she couldn’t give evidence against you. But you weren’t married to her when Luke Wilding was killed, so if Ross can prove that you and she were in the quarry at the time of his murder, he might be able to make out a pretty good case against you, and that’s what I think he’s wanted to do all along.”

  Tony’s face had become quite blank. He went on staring at Andrew, but even the hostility was gone from his eyes. Their gaze was merely empty.

  “Go on,” he said again in a soft voice.

  “To go back to the murder in the quarry, then,” Andrew said, “the police can prove that Jan lied about her whereabouts that morning. I’m afraid you’ve got to face it, Tony, Jan is a skilled and determined liar. A certain Mrs. Mayhew has stated that she was in the ironmonger’s in Hartwell that morning at about twelve o’clock and saw Jan come in then and make some purchases. Jan’s said she came in about nine o’clock, having been dropped off there by her husband, and that then she walked home. If she’d done that the only way she could have got to the quarry would have been on foot, in which case she’d have had to walk back as well, and I believe the distance from the quarry to Hartwell is around ten kilometres, so that would have taken her several hours. I suppose she might have got a lift from someone, but no one’s come forward to say so. And if she’d gone with her husband in his car, she’d only have had the walk back to face, and could have got to the shop easily by twelve o’clock.” He hesitated. “I believe these are facts I’m giving you. The Mayhew woman has been traced and I gather is quite positive about her evidence.”

  “I don’t understand,” Denis said as Tony stood speechless. “Why should Jan have said she went into the shop at all? Why shouldn’t she have said she stayed at home all the morning?”

  “I suppose because she thought the ironmonger would remember she’d been in,” Andrew said, “but hoped she could confuse him about the time it was.”

  “But why should she have gone in at all?” Denis asked.

  “That’s something you’ll have to ask her.”

  “This is unbelievable,” Tony muttered. He was no longer looking at Andrew, but down at his hands, which were clenched tightly together, as if he were having trouble preventing them from doing something desperate.

  “Are you beginning to wonder if Jan isn’t the person you thought she was?” Bob asked with a hint of malice in his voice. “I wonder what you’ll do about it.”

  “I still don’t understand,” Denis said. There was a kind of hopefulness as well as a new interest in his tone. Andrew was not talking about Kay, or about Denis himself. It seemed as if he felt that this should be encouraged. “Even if Jan did go to the quarry with Luke that morning, we know she didn’t murder him. She couldn’t have moved the body to the pool. That’s been accepted from the first. So there must have been someone else there to do it for her, but why should the police think it was Tony—because that’s what you think they do, isn’t it?”

  “Let’s suppose she was there and that it happened like this,” Andrew said. “I’m not saying it did, but it’s what could have happened. Suppose Jan went to the quarry with her husband that morning. He was what you call a rock-hound and she either shared his interest or simulated it and went with him. What was in her mind when she did we’ll never know, unless she tells us. Then something happened while they were there. He found a lump of crystal and perhaps was thinking of making for home with it when she saw her opportunity. She lifted the crystal and brought it down on his skull. And whether that killed him, or whether she had to have help with it is another thing we don’t know. But there’s something we do know, and that’s that someone else was there with her, who moved the body to the pond. And who had the best motive for doing that, if you understand the real reason why it was done?”

  “The real reason?” Sam said. “Wasn’t it to get it to the car and drive away and dump it somewhere?”

  “It could have been, but it could have been for a quite different reason,” Andrew said. “I think when you’re trying to interpret a puzzling series of events it’s as well to ask yourself what the result of them really was. Because there may have been a purpose at the back of them. What was the result of the moving of Luke Wilding’s body? Wasn’t it the assumption that Jan couldn’t have done the murder, or at least done it by herself? It gave her a kind of alibi. I believe that Luke Wilding’s body was moved and dumped in the pond simply for that reason. It was done to protect her. And who was as likely to have been there and to have done that as Tony?”

  “Now listen,” Sam said, “you’re talking a lot of shit. Why was it likely to have been Tony? Granted he may have seen things were crook in the marriage and sometimes felt like killing Wilding. I did myself. But I know he knew Jan was planning to leave Luke, because I told him that myself.”

  “But didn’t that make the murder essential for him?” Andrew said. “If Jan had left Wilding, he’d have changed his will pretty soon and she wouldn’t have inherited his money. And wasn’t it simply to get hold of it that she married him? She told me herself she’d been in love with Tony for a long time, but that he didn’t seem to realize she existed until after she married Wilding. And perhaps he didn’t. Perhaps it took her becoming a potentially rich woman to make an impression on him. On the other hand, perhaps they had it worked out together from the start. Perhaps Wilding was doomed from the day he married her.”

  Tony lifted his head slowly and gazed at Andrew with an expression of dazed horror.

  “My God, and I thought we were friends,” he said. “But go on. Say the rest of it.”

  “I don’t think there’s much else to say.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting that I must have killed Kay yesterday afternoon?”

  “Yes,” Denis said, “that’s difficult to believe. Why did Tony do it?”

  “I should have thought that was obvious enough,” Andrew said.

  He had noticed the uncomfortable beating of his heart again as tension in the room mounted and as apprehension began to fill his mind. He had gambled and was beginning to feel extremely afraid that the gamble was not going to pay off.

  “Didn’t Jan tell Kay everything?” he said. “Haven’t we been told that a number of times? D’you think she didn’t tell Kay the truth about what happened in the quarry? But at that time she didn’t know something about Kay which we’ve only learnt today from Dudley Blair. Kay wasn’t above a touch of blackmail. Of course Sara Massingham’s connection with drugs and Luke Wilding’s murder in themselves had nothing to do with each other. The only thing they had in common was that each provided Kay with a victim. She knew the truth about them both through her sister, and the power that they gave her over Sara as well as Tony may have led to her death. If she’d been making Tony pay her blackmail and he’d got tired of it and he’d found out that Sara was another victim, he may have thought it was a good time to get rid of Kay and hope her knowledge of Sara’s drug-peddling would be taken as a motive for her murder. And Jan drove straight off to her father after it because she didn’t trust herself to talk to us down on the beach without giving away that she knew what had happened. And Tony draped his head and shoulders in the green towel and slipped down to the beach and dropped it there and swam out to sea, quite inconspicuous in the crowds there were on the beach that afternoon—”

  The door suddenly swung open. Jan was standing there in the passage, wearing a dressing gown and with her feet bare. Her enormous eyes shone with a terrible lustre in her small, pale face.

  “It’s all a lie!” she shrieked. “Every word of it is an unspeakable lie! Tony had nothing to do with it!”

  Andrew let his breath out in a long sigh. At last he could stop his frantic search for more and more words and sit back and relax. The gamble was going to pay off after all.

  “Then why don’t you come in and tell us the truth, Jan?” he said. “It’s time for that, isn’t it?”

  Chapter Eightr />
  Jan advanced into the room, looking at Andrew with fury. “You did that on purpose,” she said. “You knew I was there, listening.”

  “I thought it was possible,” he admitted.

  “And you knew I wouldn’t let Tony be suspected.”

  “I hoped you wouldn’t.”

  “And you knew the whole thing was a lie.” Her high-pitched voice trembled.

  “It wasn’t a lie that the police suspect Tony,” Andrew said. “It was to find out about that that I went to see them this evening. And Sergeant Ross let on to me he’s sure you were on the scene of the crime and that you knew what happened and are shielding somebody. And it’s obvious he thinks there’s only one person you’d shield. Once I was sure of that, it was easy to reconstruct how he was looking at the whole affair.”

  “But why couldn’t you keep it to yourself?” she asked. “Why did you have to try to trap me?”

  “Go easy, love,” Sam Ramsden said. “We all know you’ve been hiding something. I think Andrew’s right, it’s time you told the truth about it.”

  Tony put an arm round her and drew her to him. “Yes,” he said. “Go on.”

  “If I were you, I’d be careful what I’d say,” Bob Wilding said. “If it comes out you’ve known the truth all along about my father’s murder and kept it to yourself, you may find yourself in serious trouble.”

  She rested her head on Tony’s shoulder.

  “Be quiet,” she said, but in an absent tone as if what Bob had said had merely distracted her from what she was trying to think out for herself. “I haven’t been shielding anybody. I mean, not because I wanted to. It’s just that I haven’t known what to do.”

  “Did you see Kay killed?” Denis asked, sounding incredulous.

  She lifted her head and nodded. “Yes.”

  “You actually saw it done?”

  “Yes, and I screamed. I screamed and screamed, but nobody came. They were all down on the beach.”