Plain Murder

by C. S. Forester

  He passed behind Clarence, who was bent over his lettering, and leaned over Oldroyd’s shoulder as he stared rather blankly at the advertisement pasted on a sheet of foolscap which he had to redesign.

  ‘I will be coming round to your place this evening,’ said Morris in his ear. ‘I won’t be stopping long. Only just to call for something.’

  Oldroyd turned his head and stared at him over his shoulder. Their eyes met at a range of a foot, Oldroyd’s nondescript hazel eyes staring into Morris’s lustrous brown ones. They might have posed at that moment, the two of them, for a mediaeval picture – Satan muttering temptation into the ear of some surprised artisan.

  ‘Do you understand?’ asked Morris. He mouthed the words rather than said them.

  Oldroyd nodded. He was fascinated too. And to him, as to Reddy, the whole business seemed too fantastic to be believable. Also, even though this feeling of improbability was not quite so numbing as in Reddy’s case, he was supported by the comfortable feeling that he, anyway, would not be involved. His mind had not the penetrative power to see any flaws in Morris’s arguments at present, and Morris had spoken plausibly enough. By the time Morris turned that magnetic stare away from him and went back to his place, Oldroyd’s slow decision had been formed to join Morris in the plan. He might have changed his mind once more had he been given twenty-four hours to think it over. But as it was he had no more than two – half an hour before Harrison returned and gave them leave to go, and an hour and a half spent in travelling home and waiting for Morris to arrive.

  5

  Young Reddy had no difficulty in going out again on his motor-bicycle as soon as he reached home.

  ‘It’s important, Mother,’ he said in reply to her very slight expostulation, and she smiled indulgently and let him go. ‘Boys will be boys,’ was one of the expressions most frequently on her lips, and she could even smile bravely at the thought that it must be a girl whom he was going to see so ‘importantly’.

  Twenty minutes by cross-roads took him from his own suburb to Morris’s, and there, outside the station, Morris was standing, in his heavy overcoat with his collar up to his ears. Reddy drew up at the kerb, and Morris threw his leg over the back wheel and sat himself on the pillion without the need for shutting off the engine. Reddy put in the clutch again and they were off.

  ‘Stop at the corner this side of Oldroyd’s place,’ said Morris in Reddy’s ear as they whirled away through the darkness.

  Once more they had a cross-country route but a brief one this time. With Charing Cross Station so near to their office, nearly all the staff of the Universal Advertising Agency lived in the limited area served by the suburban line running southeastwards from there.

  ‘Wait for me here,’ said Morris as they drew up in the dark street, and he left Reddy there still astride of his saddle while he hurried off round the corner.

  Oldroyd lived in lodgings, the kind of lodgings a young man without a relation in the world and with a salary of three pounds ten a week might be expected to inhabit. The little maid, who knew Morris by sight, admitted him at once and sent him up the stairs to Oldroyd’s room. Oldroyd was standing at the window looking out into the night; he had not seen Morris’s arrival at the gate, and he turned sharply at his entrance.

  ‘I haven’t got a lot of time to spare,’ said Morris. ‘Let’s have the thing, quick.’

  Oldroyd hesitated, turned towards the drawer in which lay the revolver, turned back again. His hands were writhing with his anxiety.

  ‘Oh, buck up, man!’ said Morris, but Oldroyd still hesitated. He could neither resist Morris nor abet him.

  ‘Oh, well,’ said Morris, and he walked over to the drawer. The key was in the lock – Oldroyd had handled the fascinating thing and then had put it back again already that evening. Morris pulled open the drawer and took out the revolver. It was a pretty little toy; it held no menace in its elegant form. Morris looked to it carefully. He took out the cartridges, squinted down the barrel, saw that the mechanism was in good order.

  ‘Only five cartridges?’ he asked.

  Oldroyd wetted his lips; it was only at the second attempt he was able to speak.

  ‘They’re all I’ve got,’ he said hoarsely.

  ‘Five’ll be enough,’ said Morris, and he replaced the cartridges with extreme care.

  Then he slipped the weapon into his big overcoat pocket.

  ‘Goodbye,’ said Morris, and he turned towards the door.

  It was only when the door was in the act of closing behind him that Oldroyd was able to speak again, and then he could only croak out ‘Morris!’ in his strangely hoarse voice. A little laugh came to him through the door, and he heard Morris’s feet go clattering down the stairs. Next moment the door banged and it was too late. Oldroyd fell into a chair with his head in his hands. Morris walked back to where Reddy awaited him, with a lighthearted step. He felt no fear; it might be said with truth that he felt no excitement. The exaltation of spirit which possessed him was something he had never known before; it was rather a delicious feeling. It was splendid to find oneself facing a considerable danger without fear, holding all the threads of a tangled skein without confusion, keeping track of quite a large number of different facts and possibilities without difficulty. Over his head, as he came to the waiting Reddy, a rocket rose and burst into red and green stars. The earliest men to leave their city offices were home now, and had started to let off fireworks for the amusement of their children. Other rockets were to be seen in different quarters of the sky, here, there, and everywhere. The reports of all sorts of little explosions came to his ears as he stood by the motor-bicycle. Guy Fawkes’ night was a popular holiday. He turned to Reddy.

  ‘You ever been to Harrison’s place?’ he asked.

  Reddy shook his head.

  ‘It’s over that way. Between here and Eltham. Go up the road here, cross the arterial road, and bear over to the right when I tell you.’

  Reddy thrust at his kick-starter, and Morris perched himself anew on the pillion. They roared through the quiet suburban streets, crossed the arterial road, brilliant with the headlights of the thousand cars, and plunged once more into the new residential quarters the other side.

  ‘Next on the right,’ called Morris into Reddy’s ear. ‘Now second on the left. Slow here, there’s a bit of traffic. Now second on the right, and stop at the corner.’

  The noise of the engine dwindled and then stopped abruptly.

  ‘Leave the bike here,’ said Morris. Even he could not help whispering in the excitement of the moment.

  ‘Up this way; come along,’ continued Morris. With a hand on Reddy’s arm he led up a narrow pathway between two houses. As they walked Morris noticed with satisfaction that it was freezing hard; there was no chance of their leaving footprints. Just one more circumstance noted by Morris’s amazing mind.

  ‘Along here,’ whispered Morris. They were walking now along a footpath which ran between the gardens of two parallel rows of houses.

  ‘Now wait there,’ said Morris. He thrust Reddy back against the hedge and took two or three steps forward and to the opposite side of the footpath. He halted and peered forward. Not satisfied with the position, he moved along the hedge until he came to a point where it was not so high, and where he had a full view of Mr Harrison’s back garden. With his hat down to his eyes and his overcoat collar up to his nose, he stared forward, every line of his attitude indicating the tenseness of his mind and his muscles. One hand was in his right-hand side overcoat pocket.

  Five yards before him there smouldered a bonfire. At the further end of the garden, nearer the house, there could be dimly made out a little group of people – adults and children. Morris could hear them laughing; fireworks were flickering and popping. All round him, in the hundreds of other suburban gardens, there was to be seen the glow of bonfires; fireworks were exploding with noises varying between the loud bangs of maroons and the small
er, flatter report of squibs. Morris waited grimly. He had not to wait for long. The little group at the far end of the garden broke up; two or three of its members came running up to the bonfire. Harrison was one of them. Two children were with him. He seized a pole and stirred the bonfire. An avalanche of sparks shot upwards; a mass of ruddy flames illumined Mr Harrison as he stirred the fire.

  Morris’s pistol was out now; he was braced and ready. Yet even then he waited a moment longer for a clear shot, until Mr Harrison showed up distinctly beside the fire, and until the children were out of the way. Then Morris pointed the pistol and pressed the trigger. Morris was a good shot with that .22-calibre revolver – much Sunday target practice out on the Downs with Oldroyd had made him so. And he would never have planned the attempt in this way if he had not had confidence in this way. At the first shot Mr Harrison staggered and put his hand to his breast. At the second he pitched forward on to his face into the fire. His bald head shone in the red glow; Morris saw the long wisp of hair which was trained over the bald patch from the side hanging sideways before it burnt away. But Mr Harrison writhed as he lay upon the fire and Morris, who knew that two shots from a .22-calibre revolver cannot be relied upon to kill a man, fired rapidly his three last cartridges into Mr Harrison’s heaving back. Then he turned away, thrusting the pistol back into his pocket.

  He seized Reddy’s arm and began to walk him back the way they had come. Reddy was half silly with newly realized horror.

  ‘Not too fast, blast you,’ growled Morris. ‘We don’t want to attract people’s notice.’

  His thick muscular hand held Reddy’s arm with a reassuring grip.

  ‘Down here again,’ said Morris, and a moment later they were back at the motor-bicycle.

  ‘Now back to Oldroyd’s,’ said Morris.

  Reddy was hardly conscious of doing anything by now; it was Morris who jerked up the stand into position and half thrust Reddy into the saddle. Reddy found his hands on the handlebars; half dazed still, he automatically adjusted air and throttle and thrust at the kick-starter. The engine was still hot and started instantly. A moment later they were away. They had hardly taken five minutes over the whole business; no one had seen them arrive, and no one had seen them go.

  Morris, watching grimly over Reddy’s half-drunken steering, could afford to feel pleased with himself. On that night of all nights no one would possibly have paid any particular attention to the sound of five pistol shots from a small calibre weapon. They had attracted no notice, just as Morris had expected. Not even now, five minutes after they had killed Harrison, did anyone know that Harrison had been murdered. Even Harrison’s wife, bending distractedly over the body which she had dragged from the fire, was not aware of it. She had not seen the five tongues of flame which had shot from the hedge. Not until ten minutes later, after neighbours had carried Harrison into the house and the doctor had arrived was the discovery made. And by that time Morris and Reddy were three miles away, in Oldroyd’s room.

  Oldroyd started with surprise as they entered unceremoniously – Morris had merely turned the handle of the street door and led Reddy straight up the stairs to the room.

  ‘Well?’ said Oldroyd. ‘What—’

  He saw the elation in Morris’s face. He looked at the clock; Morris had hardly been away a quarter of an hour. At first he thought with relief that nothing serious had happened. But a further glance told him that something must have happened to account for the look of brutal triumph in Morris’s face. Then he saw Reddy’s white cheeks and somnambulist expression, and the look of relief in his own face faded dramatically.

  Morris peeped suddenly out of the door again. Reassured, he strolled into the centre of the room.

  ‘All finished,’ he said. ‘Most satisfactory. And here’s your little toy back again.’

  With that he tossed the revolver on to the bed, where Oldroyd stared at it in fascinated horror.

  ‘I don’t want the thing. Take it away yourself, can’t you?’

  Morris laughed. He laughed at Oldroyd’s evident terror. He laughed at white-faced little Reddy, still standing huddled in the corner. Most of all he laughed for joy at his own splendid success. The others looked at him as he rocked with mirth in Oldroyd’s armchair. They had never felt less like laughing in their lives. But Morris’s laughter died away in time, and his features set in an expression of brutal resolution – the same expression, in fact, as had characterized his face in the darkness at the moment of pulling the trigger.

  ‘Look here, you blokes,’ he said, ‘there’s no use pulling long faces over this business. You’ve got to brace up, and quick, too. I can’t have you looking like this. The thing’s done and we’ve got to make the most of it. We’re as right as rain if we only keep our heads – it couldn’t be better. But one slip even now, one little suspicious action, and we’re all for it. All.’

  He was speaking quietly, lest his voice should be heard beyond the room, but for all that he managed to throw a world of horrible menace into the last monosyllable. Oldroyd stared at him blankly.

  ‘All?’ he said.

  ‘Yes!’ snapped Morris. ‘You’re in it as much as me, both of you. Suppose anything comes out and I’m pinched? Where did I get the gun? From you. Where did I come just before it happened. Here. Where did we come as soon as it was finished? Here. Who took me to the place on his motor-bike and brought me back again? Reddy did. Who profits just as much as I do by it? You both do. And that’s what I’ll say if I get into trouble. I’ll shout it at the top of my voice all day long. By God, I’ll have ’em thinking before the end that I was led astray, and that you were the ringleader of the business – or this poor fool here.’

  But Oldroyd was in as pitiable a state as Reddy now. His jaw had dropped and his eyes were wide and blank with dismay. Not until now had he realized how damning was the evidence of his complicity.

  ‘It’s not only the man who pulls the trigger who is guilty, you know,’ went on Morris remorselessly, telling Oldroyd no more than he knew already; ‘everybody who aids in any way before or after is just as guilty. People have been hanged quite lately for much less than lending a weapon, Oldroyd, or taking the killer to the place and back, Reddy. We’ve got to hang together this time, one way or another.’

  Morris thought this last remark was an excellent joke, and could not help laughing at it all over again.

  ‘You’ll never convince anyone this wasn’t a conspiracy,’ he continued. ‘And, of course, that’s just what it was. Why, you poor blighters, you never used your brains. Now that Harrison’s dead there are only two people on earth who know I had any motive for killing him. And they’re you two. D’you think I’d have been such a fool as to risk my neck without taking precautions? I had to get you incriminated as well. And that’s what I’ve done properly, haven’t I?’

  Morris was a ‘bad winner’, and as objectionable in consequence after a successful murder as he would have been after a lucky rubber of bridge. The jeering triumph in his tone was maddening to the wretched young men he was addressing. There was no advantage, in his eyes, left in maintaining the pretence of leadership and friendliness, and there was sweet balm to his vanity in displaying himself as the successful deceiver, and them as the pitiful dupes. He revelled in it, delighting in their consternation as proof positive of the triumph of his double dealing.

  ‘You devil!’ said Oldroyd with dull hatred. ‘You beast!’

  Reddy had sat down by now. He was still mazed and dizzy. A glance at him displayed to Morris the new danger – not of any voluntary admission on the part of Oldroyd, but of an involuntary one by Reddy. He met it with all his new readiness and eloquence.

  ‘See here,’ he said, and his voice had lost its jeering tone, ‘I didn’t mean all I said just now. It wasn’t till afterwards – really it wasn’t – that I realized how much you two were dragged into it. Reddy, old man, the thing’s done now. Remember that. It’s done and can’t be
undone. We can’t do Harrison any good now. We can’t bring him back to life again. And, remember, it’s hanging for us if we’re found out – for Oldroyd as well as you and me. You don’t want to let Oldroyd down, do you, old man? Pull yourself together now, come on, sonny.’

  It was extraordinary what influence he still had over the boy. Reddy seemed to come back to life as he spoke to him. It had been nervous excitement rather than horror which had affected him at first; and later the revelation of Morris’s cynical duplicity had been more shocking than Harrison’s murder – at present. Morris was not a promising idol to set up for hero worship, but Reddy had done so, and he was still glad to replace him on his pedestal.

  ‘That’s better,’ said Morris slowly. ‘Now, look here, you chaps. We’ve still got a bit of business to arrange for tomorrow. Not much, but something. I expect the police will be up at the office tomorrow, asking questions. They’ll be just as puzzled as Mac will be by this affair. They won’t ask us much. They may not even ask us anything. You remember what I said this morning? They’ll be looking for a motive. They won’t think that any of us would have sufficient motive for – murder.’

  (Even Morris could not utter that word without a trace of hesitation.)