The Colour of Murder

by Julian Symons

  “Good of you to come down, Doctor. Staying for the whole trial?”

  “I think so. The case interests me. This young man – there is something interesting in his personality.” The doctor waved an elegant hand.

  “Yes?” Newton found himself waiting with a certain tenseness for what Andreadis was going to say.

  “I don’t know exactly how to express it. He is almost, it would seem, a predestined victim. I mean that whether or not he killed this girl, he is the kind of man who is made the scapegoat for such a killing.”

  At most times Newton would have dismissed such talk as nonsense. On this particular night, however, something must have made him susceptible to it, for he merely nodded thoughtfully.

  “Take that statement he made to me. It is an attempt to tell the truth, of that I am convinced. Yet if you put him in the witness box –”

  “When we put him in the witness box.”

  “It is decided, then. When you put him in the witness box he will again tell the truth, according to his lights. And you say that will be fatal to him.”

  Newton began to pace the floor as if he were in his chambers, and became aware that people were looking at him. “Damn it,” he said irritably, “can’t talk here. Will you come up to my room, if you’ve got five minutes.”

  In the impersonal hotel room Newton poured himself a drink of whisky and Andreadis a glass of tonic water. “I owe you an apology. Last time we met I was pretty sharp about the MacNaughton rules and so on. I’m sorry.”

  “It was nothing.”

  “Don’t know why I feel as I do about this case. Everything went well today, wouldn’t you say that?”

  “I admired your skill.”

  “Yet I’ve got a feeling – I don’t know.” Newton charged about the room, head down, like a little red-faced bullock. “My young daughter’s ill with mumps, face puffed out like a balloon, very painful. Do you think that’s what’s worrying me?”

  “It is possible.” Andreadis leaned back in his chair, relaxed. “But no, I do not think that is what is worrying you.”

  “Neither do I. Look here, Doctor, this man has talked to you as he won’t talk to me. What do you think about him?”

  “I have told you that he suffers from a feeling of inferiority. That is the basis of his actions.”

  “Yes, yes. But there’s something wrong, Doctor. Do you understand what I mean?”

  Swinging one leg lightly over the other, Andreadis said, “Perhaps. But I shall not guess. You must tell me yourself.”

  “Wilkins killed the wrong woman. Understand me? If he was going to kill somebody, I don’t believe it would have been Sheila Morton. He loved her. But this bitch of a wife he’d got, why, there can’t be any doubt that she hated him and he hated her. Do you know why Wilkins wanted me to defend him? Because I defended that negro McKenna who killed his wife.”

  “I thought something like that was in your mind,” Andreadis said, with that expert’s assumption of foreknowledge that is always infuriating to a layman.

  “Now this is my problem, or one of my problems. Fanum says he saw Wilkins at twenty to twelve. The hall porter says he got back at ten to twelve. But May Wilkins says he came back and was in the hotel bedroom at twenty-five to twelve. If the jury accept that it rules out Fanum completely.”

  “Then I don’t see the problem.”

  “I don’t really want to call her. That’s why I went all out to discredit Fanum today, make him look as big a fool as possible. Did I succeed? I don’t know.”

  “Why don’t you want to call her?”

  “Don’t know what she might say when Hayley gets at her in the box. I tell you, I believe they hate each other.” Newton flew off at a tangent. “Do you believe he really can’t remember about that evening?”

  “Oh yes. He is a builder of fantasies, that young man. He is not capable of conscious deceit.”

  “He’s got to remember. This amnesia stuff is no good for a jury. You agree with what I say, don’t you? He killed the wrong woman.”

  Andreadis looked at Newton for a moment as if about to say something, then checked himself. “It is an interesting speculation. But psychologically there is no certainty in these matters.”

  “Psychology’s a dead loss as far as the criminal courts are concerned. Look here, will you go and see him again, try and make him talk? I’d feel a lot happier if you would.”

  Andreadis agreed. “But you still don’t look very happy.”

  “No. Damn it,” Newton said irritably, “I wish my daughter were better.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  It was lunch-time on the following day when Mr Lambie went into the Diving Bell. Inside, the pub was flashy but seedy. The red Rexine bar-stools were shabby, there were beer stains on the little tables.

  He had hoped to eat a hot lunch here, but compromised on pork pie, a faded salad, and half a pint of bitter. He perched himself awkwardly on one of the Rexine stools and said to the blousy barmaid, “Not very busy today.”

  “Too early.” She polished a glass, and looked at him speculatively. He timidly invited her to have a drink, and almost before the words were out of his mouth she had poured a measure of gin, added water, and sipped. “Thanks. Good luck. One and ninepence.”

  Mr Lambie reluctantly pushed a shining half-crown across the counter. “I wondered if –”

  “Wednesday’s my free afternoon, but I have some free time most evenings.”

  It was a warm day, but he shivered slightly. “As a matter of fact I really wanted to know whether a friend of mine had been in recently.” He produced a photograph of John Wilkins and she looked at it with a frown of concentration on her fat face.

  “Can’t say I remember him, but it seems a bit familiar somehow. I’ll ask Mr Harrison, that’s the manager, he’s just upstairs.”

  “Don’t do that,” Mr Lambie said hurriedly. He had learned from long experience that it is much easier to obtain information from subordinates. “The fact is, my friend met a young lady in here a few weeks ago and left a certain article with her, by accident you might say. Do I make myself clear?”

  “As mud,” she said cheerfully. She served two men with beer and came back to him.

  It was not Mr Lambie’s purpose to make himself very clear. “This article had a – as you might say, a sentimental value. It was a cigarette case which had been presented to him by his firm, and he’s very anxious to get it back.” He stuffed a piece of pie into his mouth. “Now, the fact is he’d had – ah – one over the eight that evening, and he quite honestly can’t remember much about the lady in question.”

  “Men,” the barmaid said. “Why didn’t he come down himself? Couldn’t face it, I suppose.”

  “He’s up in the north at present. But the fact is, again, that his wife has been asking about the case.” Mr Lambie tittered slightly, drew out his wallet, and produced from it a ten-shilling note which he held between thumb and index finger. “I wondered if you might be able to tell me the lady’s name.”

  “Could have been one of half a dozen. Didn’t he tell you anything about her, tall or short, dark or fair? You don’t know much, do you? Sure you aren’t your old friend, are you?” Mr Lambie drank the last of his beer with an affectation of confusion. “You quiet ones are always the worst. This is strictly against the rules, you know, this kind of thing. If the guvnor caught me I don’t know what he’d say.” She leaned forward and took the note from his fingers. “Has that one got a brother? You’ll get what you came for, don’t worry. Got a bit of paper?”

  She began to write on a sheet torn by Mr Lambie out of his reporter’s notebook. “Here you are, three friends of mine, two blondes and one brunette. Mind you, these are ladies.”

  “And they all come in here during the evening?” he asked, a shade too eagerly.

  “Most evenings, yes. What is it you’re after, I should like to know. Still, I suppose it’s no skin off my nose. Has it got a brother now?”

  Reluctantly, and with
the feeling that there must have been some better and cheaper means of achieving his end, Mr Lambie handed her another ten-shilling note.

  He spent an appalling afternoon, calling on Miss Millie Tyre, Miss Olivia Lawrence and Miss Betty Prenton. Miss Tyre called herself a masseuse, and was in her forties. The photograph meant nothing to her, but she offered to give Mr Lambie a full body massage, stimulating and invigorating, for two guineas. Miss Olivia Lawrence called herself a model, and received him in a room that had a camera and a backcloth in it. She recognised the photograph immediately as that of John Wilkins, on trial for murder, and asked if he was a nark.

  “I am a private investigator,” Mr Lambie said bravely. “There is reason to believe that this young man visited the Diving Bell on the evening that the crime was committed.”

  “You’re a nark. Get out.”

  “It won’t hurt you to say if you saw him. I’m not asking anything more than that.”

  “Anything connected with narks hurts me. I hate a nark.” She put two fingers to her lips and blew. A man almost as insignificant as Mr Lambie appeared in the doorway. There was one difference between them. This man carried a knife.

  “Nark,” said Miss Lawrence. “Calls himself private. Wants to know about that girl done in on Brighton beach.”

  The man jerked his thumb. “Get.”

  “You’re being most unreasonable.” Mr Lambie’s voice was an indignant bleat. “I would pay for information–”

  “She’s a model, gets five guineas an hour. You pay that? Then get.”

  Mr Lambie got. A few minutes later, drinking a refreshing cup of tea in a café, he asked himself, as he had done often before, whether it was really worthwhile. If he spent money he would be blamed by Captain Spaulding, if he didn’t he would get no information. He had to deal with beastly people living sordid lives. And, worst of all, the whole thing was probably a mare’s nest, depending as it did upon the word of one drunken sot who might very likely have been lying.

  It says something for that pertinacity which was Mr Lambie’s only, but considerable, virtue as an investigator that when he had had another cup of tea and eaten a Bath bun he telephoned Miss Betty Prenton.

  Miss Prenton lived on the second floor of a small block of flats, and apparently did not call herself either masseuse or model. She received him wearing a dressing-gown, and smoking a cigarette in a long holder. The room into which she showed him contained a bed, a gas-fire which was full on, making the room stiflingly hot, and a number of photographs. The curtains were drawn.

  Her manner was brisk, business-like, and somehow ascetic. “My fee is three pounds. Put it on the mantelpiece, please, and then take off your clothes.”

  “No no.” Mr Lambie gripped his jacket as though it afforded some kind of protection. “I’m not here for – for that. I just want a little information.”

  “Don’t be shy. Just put the money on the mantelpiece and come here.” Miss Prenton began to take off the dressing-gown and revealed that she was wearing nothing underneath it.

  “Please,” Mr Lambie said. He closed his eyes and opened them again to the unexpected sound of laughter. “If you could see your face. Don’t worry, little man, just turn round. I’ll get dressed.” When he turned round again he saw that she had put on a blouse and a grey coat and skirt. She regarded him with an amused and slightly pitying look. “You certainly do meet all kinds. What do you want?”

  Mr Lambie had but one approach. He drew the photograph from his pocket. At sight of it she exclaimed sharply. “Do you know this man?” he asked.

  “I know that picture. He’s the chap on trial now at Lewes for doing a girl in. What are you showing it to me for?”

  “I’m trying to trace his movements on the night of the murder. I believe he was in the Diving Bell.”

  “You do, do you?” She stubbed out the cigarette from her holder and stood looking down at him, a big woman with platinum hair and a hard, intelligent face. “And what’s that to me?”

  “If you met him there,” Mr Lambie said falteringly. “If you know anything about him – if he came home with you – there might be a reward in it for you.”

  “What sort of a reward, a fiver?”

  With a sinking heart – what would Captain Spaulding say? – he said, “It might be as much as that.”

  “And what’s the use of that to me?” She strode across the room, pulled back the curtains. “I make thirty quid a week here most weeks. And I like what I’m doing, you understand that? I get thirty quid a week for doing what I like, what I’d be doing for free anyway, can you beat that? And you offer me a fiver.”

  “But you can’t like it.” Mr Lambie was scandalised. “I mean you’re in a sense, well, an outcast from society, you can’t like that.”

  “–society,” she said, and snapped her fingers. “Do you think I want to talk to the silly bitches who haven’t got an idea in their heads beyond marriage and children and housekeeping? Wasn’t it Bernard Shaw who said that marriage is licensed prostitution without payment?” Mr Lambie shook his head feebly to indicate that he did not know. “To me, sex is a career like any other, and if you can keep away from gangs and ponces it’s a good one. I’m thirty-three now. When I’m forty I shall retire. I shall have made my pile, and how many women, or men either, can say that at the age of forty? Let’s have a cup of coffee, shall we?”

  Mr Lambie contemplated her broad back. “After you retire won’t it be difficult to – settle down?”

  “You’ve got a point there. These are the good years now. After forty I’ll have to find something to occupy my time. Learn embroidery, buy a little business, something like that. One thing I shan’t do, though, get married. If you ask me, marriage is against nature. Staying with the same man all your life, it’s just not common sense. Take sugar?”

  “Two lumps, please. About John Wilkins,” Mr Lambie said, as he sipped his coffee in a gentlemanly way.

  “To hell with John Wilkins. What’s your interest in him?” She sat with her well-shaped legs stuck out in front of her, contemplating them gloomily, while he told her. “It’s all wrong, the way life’s organised. Why should I have to look after John Wilkins?”

  “You saw him that night? He came here?” He could not prevent eagerness from entering his voice.

  “Yes. Picked him up in the Diving Bell. I felt sorry for him. It’s a mistake to feel sorry for people. Where does it get you?”

  “And he stayed here – how long?”

  “He left just after eleven. I had a client coming. He wanted a shoulder to lean on, that was all, and I gave him mine. Nothing else happened, any more than it did with you, little man. Never again, though, never again.”

  “Did he make that gash on his thumb here?”

  She hooted with laughter. “I gave him baked beans on toast. Like a gentleman he opened the tin for me, cut his thumb on it.”

  “Did the blood from it go on his jacket?”

  “Oh, hell, I can’t remember,” she said wearily. “I think so, but I just can’t remember.”

  “It’s important.”

  “You don’t have to tell me. I read the newspaper reports. I just can’t remember, that’s all.”

  Mr Lambie felt a rare indignation rising slowly in him, an indignation that was obscurely connected with the shocking things this woman had been saying. “It’s your duty to give evidence.” She said nothing. “Do you want to see an innocent man put in prison for the rest of his life?”

  She turned on him fiercely. “How do you know he’s innocent? He had time to do her in after he left me. And what about me? He’s been fool enough to marry a woman he hates and then to go yearning after a silly little fool who was just a —at heart.” She used a phrase that made Mr Lambie flinch. “Oh, he told me all about them both while he was crying on the bed. But what’s this going to do to me if I give evidence? First, nobody’s going to believe me. Second, the police will love me, won’t they, for trying to make a muck of their case, they just love tha
t kind of thing from someone like me. Third, it’s the end of my business here. Do you think respectable people are going to come along to see someone who’s been mixed up in a murder case?”

  Mr Lambie got up and faced her. He did not flinch, although he felt as much trepidation as if he had been in a cage with a lioness. “It is your duty.”

  “Cant.”

  “And I believe you know it.”

  She looked at a wrist-watch. “You’ll have to go, I’ve got a client coming. And if it’s of any interest to you, for once I’m not in the mood.”

  “I’m sorry. You’ll come along with me tomorrow morning.”

  “I’ll what?” It was as though the lioness had put a paw through the bars of her cage.

  “To the defence solicitor.”

  “You mean you expect me to–” The claws were almost on him. Mr Lambie did not flinch.

  “Yes. It’s your duty.”

  “I’ll be damned. You’ve got a nerve. I almost admire you. Now clear out.”

  “You’ll come with me tomorrow?”

  “How the hell do I know?” she suddenly shouted at him. “I told you I’ve got somebody coming. Do you want to run me ragged so that I don’t know what I’m doing? Ring up.”

  “I’ll ring later on tonight.”

  “Not tonight, tomorrow morning. You want me to ruin myself, you might give me the night to think it over. Tomorrow morning.”

  “At ten o’clock.”

  “Have a heart. Remember some of us have to work at night. Eleven.” He picked up his hat and raincoat and was at the door when she stopped him. “Hey. What’s your name?”

  He told her. She put out a hand and touched his face. He felt that the claws were about to rake his cheek, but she merely patted it and turned away. “Lambie, that’s a good name. I like you, little Lambie.”