The Colour of Murder

by Julian Symons

  “That is so, my lord.”

  “Very well. That makes things clearer for me, and I hope for the jury. Go on, Mr Newton.”

  With his effect established, Newton moved on to the doubtful ground of the four visible bloodstains. He emphasised again that they were of Wilkins’ own blood group – although they were also of Sheila Morton’s – and induced Ritchie to agree that Wilkins’ thumb might, just might, have bled sufficiently to produce them. The jury, he saw, were not deeply interested. He sat down. Hayley, leaving ill alone, did not re-examine. Kenneth George Norman Ritchie left the witness box head up, nose pointing firmly forward and upward, an expert defeated but not dismayed.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “This is Mr Lambie,” said Uncle Dan, “who is an agent of the George H. Spaulding Detective Agency. And this is Miss Prenton.”

  They sat in a room at Mr Likeness’ hotel and he looked from one to the other of them with a distaste which never showed itself for a moment on his yellow, smiling face – the wretched little man carrying his fawn raincoat, whose thick head of hair was a reproach to the few strands plastered on Mr Likeness’ skull, the brassy, heavy blonde who so obviously belonged to a certain profession, and of course his two clients, grey-haired, twitching Dan Hunton and old Mrs Wilkins, sitting there like a lump of clumsily-carved granite. He asked wearily, “How does the George H. Spaulding Detective Agency come into this?”

  “I engaged them,” Mrs Wilkins said. Just for a moment Mr Likeness was as surprised as if a Henry Moore statue had spoken. “To find the proofs of my son’s innocence.”

  “Yes.” Mr Likeness smiled. “And he has done so?”

  “What I’ve done,” little Mr Lambie said in the colourless dreary voice that went so well with his raincoat, “what I’ve done is, I’ve found this lady who, with whom I mean, Mr Wilkins spent the evening.”

  Mr Likeness looked at Betty Prenton again, the brassy hair, the tight frock, the spiked heels. Unexpectedly, she laughed. “Don’t worry. I won’t look like this when I’m in court. If you want me there, that is. Let me tell you, I’m not here because I want to be. It’s my social conscience working, or something like that.”

  While she told him about it, speaking in an even voice but with an occasional touch of mock bravado, Mr Likeness made notes of the times involved and wondered whether it was in some way a put-up job. The woman would have the intelligence for it, he thought, but this little Lambie would never put her up to it. Mrs Wilkins would no doubt do anything to save her son, but this kind of thing would simply never occur to her. Hunton? Yes, he might do it, he was sly enough and half-smart enough, but he would be likely to find a more respectable witness. On the whole, Mr Likeness thought the story was probably true – although, to do him justice, he was much less concerned with that abstract and useless question than with the possible effect of the story upon a jury.

  “Let me see if I’ve got it right. You met Wilkins in this pub, the Diving Bell, he asked if he could go home with you, you agreed. You didn’t have intercourse, but made him baked beans on toast–” He stopped. Betty Prenton had laughed. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing, just the way you put it. Right so far.”

  “He cut his thumb opening the baked bean tin, you think some blood went on his jacket but you can’t be sure, he left just after eleven o’clock because you had a client coming. Correct?” She nodded. “Why didn’t you come forward with this before?”

  “What you ought to ask is, why am I here now? I don’t know why, I must need my brains testing, as I told little Lambie here. I felt sorry for the kid, but it’s no skin off my nose if they do find him guilty. Call it public spirit.”

  Lord, thought Mr Likeness, who seemed to find that everything depressed him today, a public-spirited prostitute. He allowed a faint tinge of irony to enter his voice.

  “Now that you have come forward you’re prepared to go into the witness box?”

  “If I wasn’t prepared to, I wouldn’t be here.”

  “All right.”

  Mr Likeness put away his notebook. Mrs Wilkins, monumental on her chair, moved and spoke.

  “By no means all right, sir. You can’t leave it like that. We want to know what steps you intend to take to use this important evidence which has been obtained for you. Obtained, I may say, when the agents employed by you found out nothing at all.”

  “I shall have to see Mr Newton.”

  “I should like to see Mr Newton. I have not spoken one word to him since the beginning of the trial.”

  “You must realise that he is very busy.”

  “Too busy to see a mother who is fighting for her son’s life?”

  Patiently Mr Likeness said, “We are all fighting for your son’s life. Miss Prenton, if you will tell me where we can find you.”

  “I like that.” She stood with hands on hips glaring at him. “Is that all you’ve got to say? Not so much as a thank you to Lambie and me for coming here?”

  “Thank you, Miss Prenton, thank you.” Mr Likeness’ habitual smile turned almost into a grimace. My God, he thought, what a bore this woman’s going to be.

  He said that, or something very like it, to Newton and Charlie Hudnutt later that evening.

  “A prostitute,” Newton said doubtfully. “What’s she like? How will she stand up to Hayley?”

  “Very tough, self-opinionated, full of remarks about public spirit. Comes out of George Bernard Shaw or someone, you might say.” He probed with a toothpick.

  “She might stand up then, might be rather good. What’s her record, police convictions and so on?”

  “Says she’s never been in any real trouble. She’ll stand up to questions, don’t worry about that. She’s not too sure about the blood from his clothes going on the trousers, but that can’t be helped. Trouble is, what will the jury think of it, and of him for going with her.”

  “You said he only wanted sympathy, that nothing happened.”

  “That’s what she says.” Mr Likeness’ seamed yellow face showed an almost endless understanding of human deceit and folly. He dislodged a recalcitrant fragment of meat and chewed it with satisfaction. “That’s what she says.”

  “It could be true.” Newton repeated the words with some sharpness when Charlie Hudnutt laughed. The fact was, though Newton hardly admitted it even to himself, that he was becoming emotionally involved with this case in a quite ridiculous way. Such emotional participation is dangerous, a thing to be avoided, as he well knew.

  “Tell me the old old story,” sang Charlie Hudnutt. Newton felt his irritation increasing.

  “I don’t think there’s any doubt that we must use this woman. She’s the only proof we have of Wilkins’ movements during the important times that evening. And the point about his thumb is absolutely vital, even though she’s not certain about the blood.”

  “And we shall have to use the wife,” Charlie Hudnutt said. “If he didn’t leave this tart until after eleven and got back at twenty-five to twelve, there wasn’t much time for bashing the girl about on the beach. Oh yes, we shall have to call the wife.”

  “All right, all right.” Newton spoke more testily than he should have done, feeling Mr Likeness’ yellow, considering gaze upon him, aware of Charlie Hudnutt’s look of slight surprise.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The evening was hot, thunder in the air. Mr Morton sat in the hotel lounge, fanning himself occasionally with a handkerchief. “My word, that was a good dinner. A really beautiful piece of lamb. Roast lamb and mint sauce, green peas and new potatoes, there’s nothing to beat it.”

  Bill Lonergan, who had the evening paper before his face, grunted.

  “Newton did very well this afternoon, I thought. Didn’t you think so, eh?”

  “Very well.”

  “Tomorrow the defence opens. Be interesting to see how young Wilkins stands up in the box, eh? Would you like a glass of brandy, Bill, my boy?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “I don’t believ
e he will stand up to it, you know, shouldn’t be surprised if he breaks down in court. I don’t know if Hayley’s quite the man for the job. Marshall Hall, now, was different. He’d have torn a young scoundrel like this limb from limb. Before your time, of course. I think I shall have a glass of brandy. Are you sure you won’t join me?”

  “You shouldn’t drink, you know that.”

  “Brandy is medicinal. Besides, I’m feeling so much better.” Indeed he did look better, almost well, this dapper little gentleman in his tweed suit.

  “I shall go back in the morning, uncle.” The freckles stood out clearly on Bill Lonergan’s nose and forehead.

  “Go back?” Mr Morton put down the glass from which he had been delicately sipping, and stared. “Bless my soul. Not see the end of the trial, not see Geoffrey Wilkins’ son in the box.”

  “I’ve got to go back, had a letter from my firm. Besides I’ve given my evidence. Nothing to stay for.”

  “You could easily stay another couple of days.” Mr Morton’s voice assumed the whine with which he had once addressed Sheila. “You don’t want to miss the defence. I wouldn’t mind betting Newton’s got one or two things up his sleeve.”

  Bill Lonergan turned on his uncle furiously. “Don’t you realise I hate every minute of this damned business, this cat and mouse game. It makes me shudder.” He stopped. “I’m sorry, uncle. I’ve really got to go tomorrow. There’s a train at eight-thirty, I shall catch that. I’d better do some packing.”

  His uncle watched him go, finished his brandy and ordered another. Then he quavered across on his stick-legs to a table at which two other men were sitting. They knew him, but he was upon them before they could get up. “Another good day in court,” he said. “That man Newton, now, he tore the so-called expert to ribbons. Let me tell you…” A frail eager-eyed grasshopper, he sat down unsteadily in a chair.

  “Do you remember a woman named Betty Prenton? Or you might just have called her Betty?” Doctor Andreadis asked.

  John Wilkins shook his head. It was still light outside, but only a little light pervaded the cell. Wilkins sat on the bed with hands upon knees, apparently apathetic. When the psychiatrist had repeated Betty Prenton’s story he said, “I don’t remember.”

  “She says you were upset, talked about your wife and how you hated her. Do you remember that?”

  “I said that to everybody, and it was true. I still hate her.” Wilkins looked at him directly, and in his eyes Andreadis could see no expression. The psychiatrist had for a moment the strange illusion that he was speaking to a dummy. To break the silence he said, “You could remember what happened on that Monday night. If you wanted to remember, you could remember.”

  “What time did I leave her?”

  “Just after eleven.”

  “Then I still had time to do it.”

  “Your wife says you came in at twenty-five minutes to twelve.”

  “But there was the man who saw me coming up the steps from the beach at twenty to twelve.”

  “Listen to me, John.” Andreadis took hold of the prisoner by his shoulders. “You heard Newton’s cross-examination of that man in the box. He isn’t sure of the identification. What this woman says will help you. She says you were with her up to eleven o’clock. She explains the cut on your thumb. You have a very good chance of acquittal, do you understand? But it depends on you. Tell your story simply. Say exactly what happened as you remember it. Don’t try to conceal anything. You hated your wife – say so, if you’re asked. Tell the truth, that’s all you have to do.”

  “Tell the truth,” Wilkins said without expression. “But what is the truth?”

  “You have nothing to be afraid of. There are no tricks. You can’t be trapped into saying something you don’t mean, unless you make foolish answers. Don’t try to be clever or sarcastic. Don’t get angry. Just tell the truth as you know it.”

  Wilkins looked up. Andreadis hoped that he would ask some intelligent question. “This Betty Prenton – what is she?”

  “What is – oh, I see. She’s a prostitute. Showed courage in coming forward.”

  Wilkins nodded, murmured something, and his head sank forward again. Andreadis could not be sure, but thought he heard the word, “Disgusting.” When he left a quarter of an hour later it was with the knowledge that he had merely been scratching the surface of things. The prisoner had retreated from all those confidences about his past life into some Berchtesgaden of the mind.

  “Have the other half,” Betty Prenton said. “Come on.”

  “I really shouldn’t.”

  “It’s not every day you get the chance of tracking down a vital witness in a murder trial. Another half of bitter there.”

  “Not quite so loud.” Mr Lambie looked nervously round the bar. He sipped his bitter. “My word, Miss Prenton, it’s hot.”

  “Certainly is.” Betty Prenton was wearing a thin blouse through which outline of brassière and firm shoulders could be seen. “You’re a persevering little devil, aren’t you? Tell me, do you really like being a nark? I can’t imagine anything more like hell.”

  “You see life, you know. But I won’t say it’s what I’d choose. I haven’t always done this kind of thing, you understand that. Before the war I had my own shop, Lambie and Company, sports outfitters. But afterwards things were, well, difficult. If I could have kept the shop on – if I hadn’t gone into the armed forces – it seemed to be my duty.” He brooded quietly on an imaginary past.

  “You’re pretty hot on duty.” She drank her gin and unobtrusively ordered another. “Married, aren’t you?”

  From a stained leather wallet the little man produced a worn photograph showing a round dumpling of a woman. “Of course that was taken some years back, just after the war. Goodness gracious, what’s this?”

  “It’s the third half.”

  “But my dear Miss Prenton–”

  “Betty.”

  “My work here is over. I told Mrs Wilkins and Mr Hunton that I thought there was nothing further I could usefully do. I have to catch a train. I mustn’t arrive home – er – a little bit tiddly.”

  “I’m not going to go home tiddly, Lambie. I’m going to get downright tight before I go home. Do you know why?” The little man shook his head. “Because I hate what I’m doing. I hate helping the bloody police in any way whatever. Do you know why I’m doing it?”

  “Why, Miss Prenton – Betty – it’s your duty.”

  Her forceful, intelligent face was red with drink. “Duty’s got nothing to do with it. I don’t believe you had much to do with it either.”

  “Then what–”

  “Christ, but it’s hot tonight. Tell you something, Lambie. I didn’t like him. Wilkins, I mean. I’m not a mother by nature. I don’t like young men who want a shoulder to cry on. And shall I tell you something else? I don’t believe he did it, Lambie. He’s not the type.” Her face was now so close that by leaning forward slightly he could have kissed her. Instead he drew back an inch or two. “But once the cops have got their claws on someone they don’t let go. They’re going to find him guilty.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  As the trial progressed – or perhaps from the time that his defence opened – John Wilkins became the subject, or victim, of a curious delusion. This was, that the court and all the people in it were becoming smaller. The exact nature of the delusion varied. At some times it seemed to him that he was outside the court himself, a mere spectator of some fantastic quiz to which there was no final or definitive answer. At other times he was aware of his own participation in what was going on, but the whole thing seemed to be moving farther and farther away from him, as though he were the eye of a camera retreating from an observed scene.

  With this delusion about distance there was blended some confusion in his mind about the witnesses who now appeared on the stand. This sprightly, frosty little Gimball now, doll-man with pearl stick-pin twinkling, was surely no friend of his. What was he doing, giving evidence for the defence
? He sent down a little note, a scrawl you might call it, very hurried, asking that question. Back came an answer: Establishing details of your blackouts. What did that mean? He passed a hand over his forehead.

  Now Newton was asking Gimball about the blackouts. Yes, the doll-man agreed, he had been compelled to speak to Wilkins about them. They had considerably affected his work, yes. At one point Gimball had even considered the possibility of transferring him to another department. To his knowledge there had been some three or four blackouts in all.

  Blackouts acknowledged, then? But now Hayley rose to cross-examine.

  “Mr Gimball,” he asked, “would you say that you liked John Wilkins?”

  A tiny smile appeared at the corners of Gimball’s mouth. “I don’t dislike him.”

  “He had been in your department several years, you had got to know him?”

  “That is so, yes.”

  “You reckon yourself a shrewd judge of character.” Gimball hesitated. “Come now, you put down your views about Wilkins very emphatically in a certain report made when you were asked whether he was suitable for promotion. You stand by what you said in it, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  And now – oh, it was shameful, John Wilkins thought, really shameful to expose such matters – Hayley read the report, and repeated certain phrases. “‘He has shown what I can only call a lack of stability. The standard of his work has declined and he appears to have become careless over small points of detail.’ Nothing there about blackouts.”

  Gimball twinkled across from the box. “It seemed – ungenerous, shall I say – to mention them. The whole report may have been a little too kind. In his last weeks Wilkins’ work was slovenly to a degree.”

  “Slovenly to a degree.” Hayley looked mildly surprised. “Yet he was appointed manager of your department.”

  “It was the result of a merger. I was retiring.”