A Tangled Web

by Nicholas Blake

  The intricacy, the subtle irony of this scheme made Jacko rub his hands. The besotted girl, with her ridiculous passion for Hugo, was quite capable of believing that he would make a heroic gesture like this; and anyone with that amount of credulity ought to pay for it. The prospect of innocence overthrown and outraged thus by its own hand appealed to Jacko as the spectacle of rape might appeal to a man of less complex viciousness. Not for a moment, as he meditated his scheme, did Jacko conceal from himself, with so much as a wisp of hypocrisy or self-deception, the enormity of what he planned. One could hardly say that his exhilaration had carried him beyond the sense of good and evil, for he had no moral landmarks at all.

  It was the motivelessness of Jacko’s behaviour which would most shock those concerned in the Chesterman case; for the presence of motive, however wicked in itself, makes evil recognisable, tolerable, human. The more simple-minded tried to explain Jacko’s gratuitous betrayal of Hugo and Daisy by his desire to take the girl away from her lover, ignoring the fact that, after what he had done to them, nothing on earth would induce Daisy to see him again, and that he was quite intelligent enough to have realised this. Psychologists, in well-paid articles for the popular newspapers, working on the scanty information about Jacko’s past which reporters had been able to dig up before he was smuggled out of the country by the police, discovered an explanation in Jacko’s childhood: he was the only son of a dissipated, neurotic woman, who had alternately spoilt him and treated him with freezing, contemptuous indifference, dragging him round Europe at the heels of herself and her current lover, or depositing him for periods in boarding-schools—a piece of unwanted human baggage. To this régime the psychologists attributed his jealousy of normal human happiness, his pathological need to impress himself upon the lives of others, his plausibility and adaptability in doing so, and the profound hatred of motherhood which directed his talents into the practice of abortion.

  But it may be that Inspector Thorne came as near to it as anyone when, after the case was over, he told Nailsworth, “Jaques ought to be put in a glass case, in a museum, with à label underneath—The only known specimen of a totally irresponsible man outside the loony-bins.”

  Looking up, Jacko noticed Nailsworth and Thorne pacing amidst the crowd beyond the buffet door. He glanced at his watch: Hugo was already five minutes late. This did not disturb him unduly, for it seemed impossible that the curtain would not rise upon a play he had so carefully written and rehearsed in his own mind.

  The door opened. Hugo Chesterman, looking cool and wary as ever, but not at all the hunted man, stepped through. He glanced round the buffet, waved gaily to Jacko, then, after buying himself a cup of coffee, came and sat down beside him.

  “Well, old son, fancy meeting you here,” he said. “How’s the family?”

  Jacko gave a little, deliberate pout of the lips before replying.

  “Daisy hasn’t been in very good shape.”

  “Oh? I’m sorry to hear that. Nothing seriously wrong, I hope?”

  Jacko detected, with pleasure, the sudden anxiety behind Hugo’s off-hand tones.

  “She’s worried, naturally,” he said. “And not hearing from you—”

  “I’ve got a letter for her. Will you take it?” Hugo passed an envelope to Jacko. “That’ll cheer her up. No repercussions of our seaside visit, I suppose?”

  Jacko lowered his voice. “That’s what I asked you to come along about. Daisy wants you to marry her.”

  “I know.” There was a faraway look in Hugo’s eyes, confident and affectionate, which riled Jacko. “But not just now, surely?”

  “That’s the whole point, Hugo. Don’t you realise—if the police get warm, they’ll question her. If she’s your wife, she can’t give evidence against you in court. If she has to give evidence, she’ll crack.”

  “If, if, if. You worry too much. Anyway, why should the police get warm?”

  “Oh well, if you’re quite happy about it, that’s that.”

  “You know damn well I’m not happy about it, you old ghoul. But embarking on the state of holy matrimony entails making public appearances, and the fewer of them I make, the better—until they’ve got someone in the can for that business at Southbourne.”

  “So you definitely won’t make an honest woman of her, yet?”

  “My dear Jacko,” said Hugo, in one of the rare outbursts of sincerity, simplicity, which seemed to change him into another man, “nothing any of us could do would make her an honester woman than she is. Or corrupt her. She’s the gem of them all.”

  Jacko gave a little shrug, smiling at Hugo. Malice boiled profoundly within him. Seeing Nailsworth and Thorne at the window, he took out his handkerchief and dabbed his lips.

  “I suppose I shall never know, Hugo,” he said deliberately, his eyes fastened on the young man, “whether you did shoot that policeman or not.”

  The two Inspectors, summoned by Jacko’s pre-arranged signal, had entered the buffet and, followed by a couple of plainclothes men, were quietly making their way past the little tables.

  Hugo gave Jacko a veiled, impudent look. “I suppose you never will,” he said. “Very tiresome for you.”

  At that moment Nailsworth’s hand came down on his shoulder. For a second or two Hugo remained perfectly still; then he slowly looked round and up, as Nailsworth said, “Hugo Chesterman, I am a police officer and it is my duty to arrest you on—”

  “God damn you!” Hugo swung round towards Jacko, only to see Thome’s hand upon the little man’s shoulder.

  “This is an outrage,” Jacko was exclaiming. “Who the devil are you? How do I know you’re police officers? This gentleman is a friend of mine. You’re making an abominable mistake.”

  Jacko looked thoroughly rattled, glancing incredulously from Hugo to the policemen. Really, thought Hugo, poor old Jacko is putting up a marvellous show; but I’m sunk, for all that. His eyes flickered round the buffet, where half the people were already on their feet, staring, or moving towards the centre of excitement. He picked out the two plainclothes men between him and the door, and his tense muscles relaxed. Not an earthly of escaping. Oh Daisy, oh Daisy, he said within himself, dimly aware of the other copper doing the palaver to Jacko—“detain you for questioning in regard to the murder of Police-Inspector Stone at Southbourne.”

  Jacko was pretty well gibbering with outraged indignation. It was a good act, and Jacko was doing his best, but Hugo suddenly felt sick of it all. “Better go quietly, Jacko. You can bring an action for wrongful detention later. These police louts are only capable of one idea at a time.”

  A fierce pain shot through Hugo’s upper arm. Nailsworth’s powerful fingers were driving into the muscles. Glancing up at the Chief Inspector’s large pink face, hard as basalt, Hugo had a foretaste of what was to come. His right arm was temporarily paralysed by that grip, and he could hardly lift it when the handcuffs were brought out.

  That afternoon, Daisy returned from a solitary walk in Holland Park to find Jacko waiting for her at home. Something in his face made her cry out, “What’s the matter? Where have you been all day?”

  “Daisy, you’ve got to prepare yourself for some bad news. Sit down, my dear, and try to keep calm.”

  She sat down, obediently, without a word, going deathly pale.

  “The police have arrested Hugo.”

  “Oh, no!”

  “The awful thing is—I’m afraid it was my fault.”

  “They’ve taken him away, to prison?” Daisy did not seem to have heard Jacko’s last words.

  “They must have been shadowing me—heaven knows why.” Jacko peered through the muslin curtains. “There’s a man outside now.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You see, Hugo asked me to meet him this morning. At Charing Cross station. And—”

  “Oh, you never told me! Why didn’t you tell me?” Daisy’s rough deep voice came out as if her heart was overflowing.

  “He didn’t want to put you in any dange
r. I must have been followed from here. Because we’d only been talking for a few minutes, in the station buffet, when the police—”.

  “Is he well? How was he looking?”

  “Yes, my dear. Quite well.”

  “Did he give you a message for me? A letter?”.

  “He sent you his love. He’s not a great one for writing letters, you know. He told me to tell you, if the worst should happen, not to keep anything back from the police—”

  “I must go to him at once. Where is he?” the girl broke out wildly, half rising from her chair.

  “Daisy, please! Do calm yourself! I’m trying to think what’s the best thing to do. It’s terribly difficult. You see, the police arrested me too.”

  “But—they let you go?”

  “Somehow they must have got on to my visit to Southbourne—when Hugo sent his S O S. Anyway, I was detained for questioning. They kept me for hours. Of course, I didn’t give anything away.”

  “Oh, I knew this would happen! I knew it would happen!” Daisy sobbed, burying her face in her hands. “What will they do to him?”

  Studying the girl’s bowed head with satisfaction, Jacko pursed his lips. Then deliberately, as if dropping the words between the fingers which covered her ears, he said, “I suppose they’ll take him down to Southbourne for an identification parade. And then he’ll be charged at the Police Court.”

  Daisy’s body quivered. “What are we to do? Oh, I’m so useless to him! If only we hadn’t gone to Southbourne! And we were so happy there.”

  “You’ll be allowed to visit him soon, I’m sure. And if the case does come into court, we’ll get a good lawyer.”

  “But I want to do something now.”

  “Steady, old girl. It’s all just a bit ticklish. For me, I mean. The police don’t like it at all—my having helped Hugo to get away from Southbourne. And doctors have to mind their p’s and q’s.”

  Daisy threw up her beautiful head. “I know! Mark.”

  “Mark?”

  “His brother. He must help. I’ll ring him up now.”

  Jacko put up a hand, as if to restrain her: but Daisy was already hurrying out into the hall. He could hear the leaves of the telephone directory being ruffled, then Daisy’s voice: “Mark? This is Daisy… Daisy Bland. Something awful has happened to Hugo. I must see you at once… No, when I see you. I’ll ring for a taxi straight away.”

  Two minutes later, Daisy was in the drawing-room again, having fetched her coat from upstairs. With the sightless, single-minded look of a woman driven by her strongest instinct, she brushed past Jacko and drew aside the curtain.

  “He won’t stop me, will he?”

  “Who? Oh, that plainclothes chap. We can but see.”

  Daisy was fumbling in her shabby purse. “Jacko—I’m afraid I haven’t enough money for the taxi. Could you—”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “Oh, you are good to me! I was terrified of meeting Mark’s wife again. Can you really spare the time?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for worlds,” replied Jacko, chuckling.

  A taxi drew up outside. As Jacko handed Daisy in, the plainclothes man came up and showed his card.

  “May I ask where you’re taking this lady, sir?”

  “To her brother-in-law’s house.”

  Daisy heard no more, for the two men moved away a little from the taxi-driver’s inquisitive ears. Presently Jacko got in, and they started off.

  “Fixed him all right,” he remarked cheerfully. Daisy was in far too great agitation to wonder how it had been done so easily. The long drive to north London was passed almost in silence, for Daisy was rehearsing the appeal she must make to the Amberleys, while Jacko was thinking out how best he could turn the meeting to his own advantage: Gertrude Amberley’s personal dislike of him, he reflected, would be his trump card.

  Mark Amberley led them into the drawing-room, where Gertrude was sitting with books littered on the floor around her. She rose to greet Daisy, but only gave Jacko a cool nod. It was noticeable, during the conversation that followed, how her eyes seemed unwillingly drawn to the girl’s swollen figure, flinching away from it, then returning to it.

  “Hugo’s been arrested,” said Daisy. “For that murder at Southbourne. He didn’t do it. You must help me.”

  “Arrested? Good God!” Mark fumbled with his fingers, throwing an agonised glance at his wife. “When did this happen?”

  “You tell them, Jacko.”

  Jacko gave his account of the scene at Charing Cross.

  “They released me after a few hours,” he ended. “I’m rather surprised they didn’t charge me with being an accomplice after the fact.”

  “Because you gave Hugo money to get away from Southbourne?” Gertrude asked incisively.

  “Yes. And I suppose because I didn’t inform the police immediately, on hearing Hugo’s story. But, as I told them, my professional reputation—”

  “And what about Mark’s professional reputation?” said Gertrude, her light, high, school-mistressy voice a little shrill. “Hugo dragged him into this. I was against your going down to Southbourne, Mark, even though we’d no idea then what it was all about. And now you’ve put yourself in a position where you’ll have to give evidence in court that you helped a criminal to escape. I’ve no patience with—”

  “Now, Gertrude, that’s a bit hard,” Mark protested with unusual firmness. “You’ve no right to prejudge the case against Hugo. The evidence against him may look bad, but the police do make mistakes.”

  “How can you talk like this?” cried Daisy. “Hugo’s your brother. You’re both talking as if he was—was somebody you’d just read about in the newspaper. I know him. He’s done wrong things, but he’d never shoot a man like that. You must believe him. If we don’t, nobody will. We’ve got to help him, not discuss him like a stranger.” The girl had quite forgotten her prepared speech. And now it was not her words but the white-hot faith and love behind them, the tragedy of her pale, pleading face, which made the impression.

  Gertrude Amberley was not a fundamentally bad woman or even a cold-hearted one, for all her intellectual pretentiousness, her puritanism, and her neurotic fear of those cruder manifestations of life which lay outside her experience. Her chin jerked up impatiently now, and flushing as though she had been caught out in some lapse from her rigid critical principles, she said, without any of her usual aggressive self-defensiveness:

  “You’re quite right, Miss Bland. It’s not an abstract problem. I’m afraid Mark and I do tend to—well, take rather an. intellectual line about things. And I can’t pretend that I approve of Hugo. But of course we want to help. Only I don’t quite see—”

  “I knew you would!” Tears had started in Daisy’s eyes at this unexpected change of tone. “I’m so ignorant. But we can get a lawyer for him—isn’t that what we should do first?”

  “Certainly,” said Mark, following his wife’s lead. “That’s the least we can do.”

  “And I’m so worried about what happened here. You know—when Hugo took out that pistol. It’d make things so bad for him, if—”

  “One only hopes the police won’t ferret it out anyway,” Jacko broke in—a pious hope, since he had already informed them of the episode. He had been glancing from Gertrude to Daisy, with a worried, sympathetic expression which effectively concealed his real anxiety lest Daisy should be winning the older woman to her side.

  Mark said, “I don’t see how the police could hear about that—”

  “Unless you or your wife volunteered the information,” Jacko put in smoothly. “I’m glad to think Gertrude’s public-spiritedness doesn’t extend that far. After all, it was only a harmless prank of Hugo’s, from what I heard, and far too much fuss has been made about it already.”

  It was neatly done. The half-glance at Daisy on “from what I heard,” implying that it was she who had minimised the incident to Jacko; the light, contemptuous tone: they stung to life again Gertrude’s antagonism, remindi
ng her of that occasion when she had grovelled before Hugo, utterly terrified and humiliated, and of her neurotic outburst against Daisy which had led up to it.

  Gertrude’s voice became cold and brittle. “You have curious ideas, Dr. Jaques, about what constitutes a harmless prank. Perhaps, if you had been present, you might speak with more authority about it. I was threatened with a revolver and my brother-in-law clearly meant mischief. Mark will corroborate me. Miss Bland’s account of the episode is hardly reliable, it seems.”

  “Oh, don’t be so stuffy, Gertrude!” Jacko spoke with calculated impudence. “We all lose our tempers at times, and you can hardly blame Hugo for it after you’d made such an exhibition of yourself—calling Daisy a tart and I don’t know what else.”

  “So Daisy—Miss Bland has been spreading it round to all and sundry!” Gertrude furiously exclaimed.

  “Oh, please don’t let’s quarrel now! What does it all matter? Hugo’s in terrible danger—don’t you understand?” said Daisy.

  “I understand perfectly. I’m not a moron. And I’ve no intention, Dr. Jaques, of running off to the police with the squalid little story.”

  “Of course not,” said Mark fussily.

  “But, if I am questioned about it, in court or elsewhere, I shall feel bound to state the facts. Quite objectively.”

  “‘Objectively’? Lord love us!” exclaimed Jacko, throwing up his hands.

  “Oh, Gertrude! Please! You don’t mean that? When it might help to—to hang him?”