Dumb moods? What dumb moods? She spoke as though he had been dumb, or sulky, in the past. When? That evening? She was talking gibberish as far as he was concerned.
He looked at her, and saw that she was looking at him with a sort of angry curiosity, as if demanding an answer. He was annoyed by these interruptions – the fact that she wouldn’t let him alone – but he felt he ought to be polite.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and smiled at her. He was aware that his smile was rather foolish, but he hoped that by smiling at her, and being polite, he might make her leave him alone.
It seemed to do the trick. She looked at him, somewhat intently, and then she turned her head and looked out of the window again. Now he could get back to remembering.
He wondered what he was doing in this taxi with Netta. Had they been to a party? Was it the end of some awful binge? They were evidently going home. He looked at his watch and saw that it was only a quarter to ten. What a funny time. But all that didn’t matter. All he had to do was to remember and, if he took it easily, and if she didn’t interrupt him again, he would be able to do so.
Lulled by the rhythm of the jolting cab, by the whirling reflected lights inside, by the taxi-man’s black bumping back, by the smooth, slick change-cycle (red, red-and-amber, green, amber, red) of the traffic lights, it seemed that he almost slept, that he was in a dream, barely conscious of anything. Then, just after they had passed the Albert Hall, he remembered without any difficulty what he had to do; he had to kill Netta Longdon. He was going to kill her, and then he was going to Maidenhead. At the moment he was not quite clear as to who Netta Longdon was, but that would come back, too…
He ought to have remembered before. He couldn’t think why he had forgotten. He was always forgetting this. It went out of his head for hours on end, for days. So far as he knew he hadn’t thought about it since he was at Hunstanton. He kept on putting it off and kept on forgetting about it. He drank such a lot he was going a bit dotty, probably.
No – he was doing himself an injustice. He kept on putting it off because these things had to be planned. He had decided that at Hunstanton. Fantastically, incredibly, absurdly easy as it all was, it still had to be planned. He wasn’t going to have any meddling from the police. The thing had got to be done properly. Not that the police could touch him when once he had got to Maidenhead. But they were clever, and might start meddling before he got there. He was one too clever for them.
Then when was he going to do it? What had he decided the last time he thought about it – on the cliff at Hunstanton? Oh yes – he remembered now. He had decided then to wait until the spring – until it was warmer. It had seemed then that he couldn’t kill Netta Longdon while it was so cold. That seemed reasonable enough…
He heard a voice, a woman’s voice in his ear.
‘Have you got a cigarette, please?’ it said. ‘I seem to have run out’
He turned his head and saw Netta beside him. She was rummaging in her bag. She had asked him for a cigarette.
Netta… There was something familiar about her…
She was like somebody… Who was it? She was the image of somebody… Good God – he saw it all! She was like Netta Longdon. She was Netta Longdon! This actually was the Netta Longdon he was going to kill before he went to Maidenhead. She was sitting in a taxi with him now. How had that come about? She was sitting beside him as though she was waiting to be killed – had come along with him specially for it. What a delicious coincidence!
She was looking at him truculently now.
‘Well, don’t sit there gaping at me,’ he heard her saying. Tor God’s sake have you got a cigarette, or have you not
‘No,’ he said, limply, apologetically, ‘I’m afraid I haven’t.’
Chapter Seven
He couldn’t be bothered to say anything eke, to feel in his pockets to find out whether he had or not. He was too interested in, delighted by the coincidence of her being in the taxi with him at this moment, sitting and collaborating in being killed…
Surely he must take advantage of this coincidence – surely he must kill her tonight. Fate had arranged it – had it not?
She was speaking again now.
‘Well do you mind getting the man to stop at a machine,’ she was saying, ‘I certainly want some.’
He didn’t understand this. What man? What machine? Was a man working at a machine somewhere?
‘What did you say?’ he said, hoping he would understand better if she repeated it.
‘I said,’ she said, still looking at him truculently, ‘will you stop the man at a cigarette machine. Have you gone stone deaf as well as everything else?’
It was funny, the way she was so aggressive, and shouted at him, when she was really there with him just to be killed. You would have thought she didn’t know she was going to be killed. Don’t be a fool though – of course she didn’t know. He was slipping up. The whole point was that she didn’t. She must never know. That was what made the whole thing so clever – the fact that it was so absurdly, incredibly easy, and the fact that she knew nothing about it. He had got to act, pretend – so that she never guessed. He had got to throw himself into a part. He remembered now.
Because, in his preoccupation, he did not answer her, she gave him another angry look, and, rising, spoke to the taxi-man through the window. He heard her tell him to stop at a cigarette machine. He understood what she meant now. When the taxi stopped, he said ‘All right’ and got out himself.
As he fished in his pocket for a shilling in front of the machine he saw even more clearly that this was where he had got to put on an act. He was glad of the fresh air for the moment, so that he could collect himself. If he was going to kill her, and surely it looked as though fate had made it clear that he should kill her tonight, then he had got to put on an act like mad. He had got to try to understand what she said, to pretend he was in her world, to make her believe that everything was proceeding normally, that he was not preoccupied with the thought of killing her and the means he was going to employ. Well, he could act all right! – that was just where his cleverness lay – he hadn’t got any doubts on that score. ‘Here you are,’ he said, throwing the cigarettes on her lap, and he closed the taxi door, and it started again. ‘Can I have one after you?’
That was clever itself – the way he said that. Normal, indifferent, casual – just the right note. Now he must give her a light – another beautifully normal thing to do. As he felt in his pocket for the matches he brought out a box of cigarettes along with them.
‘Oh, do look,’ he said, ‘I had some after all. What a fool…’
Clever again! He hadn’t pretended he hadn’t got them – he had himself pointed to the fact. You couldn’t beat him if it came to acting. He lit her cigarette, and then his own. He looked out of the window and saw they were nearing their destination.
‘Do you mind if I come up with you for a moment,’ he said, ‘and have another gin?’
‘No,’ she said, after a pause. ‘You can come up and have a last one – if you’ll try and behave sensibly.’
‘Oh, I’ll behave sensibly…’
The taxi drew up at her door. He got out first and helped her out. Gallantry itself. He overtipped the taxi-man and talked about the weather to him.
She opened the door with her key. There was a dim light on all the landings – reflected from a light on the top floor. She went ahead of him, her high heels clock-clocking and echoing throughout the stone stairways.
She put the light on in the sitting-room and lit the gas-fire. She went straight into the bathroom without saying anything. The sitting-room bore all the traces of their departure earlier in the evening – bits of her clothes, her shoes, the gin and the glasses. He poured himself out a huge gin, added water, and swallowed half of it.
Now he had got to think. Was this where he did it? And if so, how? What with! It was all so easy. He hadn’t got to use anything. He had only got to slosh her one, lay her out, and then he could d
o what he liked. It wouldn’t make a sound. Why not do it now? Why worry about plans? He had worried about plans too long. Surely she had asked for it by being in that taxi with him. Surely this was the time.
She came back into the sitting-room. She picked up her shoes and some odd things and went into her bedroom.
‘Will you have one of these?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ he heard her say. ‘I’ll have a small one. There’s some lime-juice somewhere.’
He poured out the gin, found the lime-juice in the cupboard, and made her a drink at the mantelpiece.
She came back from her bedroom, and joined him at the mantelpiece. She took a sip at her drink, and began to tidy her hair in the mirror.
He still had the gin bottle in his hand. Watching her carefully, he held it by the neck behind his back. Now! Now! Now! he thought.
Lift up the bottle and smash it down on her head. Smash in her forehead with the bottle, and then finish her off at once before she could make a sound.
But there wasn’t a cork in the bottle and the gin would spill. Blast it, he must get the cork into the bottle. He couldn’t have sticky gin all over the place – going all over her and him. He couldn’t be messy like that.
He looked for the cork on the mantelpiece. Where was it! Where the hell was it?…
She moved away from the mantelpiece, with her drink in her hand. She switched on the radio, and threw herself on to the settee, putting up her feet.
There was a dance band hammering away – with a crooner.
He put the gin bottle back on the mantelpiece. Now he had got to think again. He was glad she had switched on the radio as it meant that he didn’t have to talk.
He sipped at his drink and looked at her, pretending to listen to the band. What now? Somehow things were different, now she was lying down. He didn’t feel he could hit her, now she was soft and relaxed. She ought to be hard and braced.
Then he must get her off that settee. He must think of a ruse to get her off. And he must do it soon, because she would turn him out in a moment. She had only said he could stay a little while.
But then, of course, if he killed her she couldn’t turn him out! She would just be lying dead and he would see himself out. He would have done the job and he could get off to Maidenhead.
Maidenhead! Good God – had he got to go to Maidenhead tonight? Of course he had! What an awful thought. He hadn’t got any clothes, he hadn’t any money, he hadn’t packed, he didn’t even know the trains! You couldn’t arrive in the middle of the night at Maidenhead without any clothes. The idea was preposterous.
Really, this put a new complexion on things. When he had thought of doing it now, he hadn’t thought about how he had got to get to Maidenhead.
Why hadn’t he thought of this? Was he mad or something? Was he drunk? He was losing grip.
He was drunk – that was what it was. He was so drunk he was risking everything – messing it all up! Didn’t he know the whole scheme was founded on detailed planning – on infinite cleverness and care? Exquisitely, deliciously simple as it was, it was only that because it was founded on infinite cleverness and care. He had forgotten again. He was drunk. He was ashamed of himself. He took another gulp at his gin.
And yet he wasn’t ashamed of himself, because he had thought of it in time. He had been clever enough to do that. Somebody else, in his position, might have got confused, might have not thought of it in time. But he was too clever for that.
He was all at once enormously cheerful. So simple. So simple. So simple. And so clever. But not tonight. He had got to plan it tonight. He had better go away and do so now. Tomorrow perhaps. Or the day after. But not tonight.
He looked at Netta again. He was glad he didn’t have to kill her tonight. She looked tired. He was tired too. They were both too tired for it: it would have been all wrong. Like trying to make love at an inopportune moment. She was speaking again.
‘Well, George,’ she was saying, ‘as our conversational efforts don’t seem to be making much headway tonight, I think we’d better call it a day.’
And she finished off her drink, and switched off the radio, and came and put her glass on the mantelpiece.
He realized she was turning him out. It was really rather funny that, instead of being killed she was turning him out. And yet also rather pathetic. He felt a bit sorry for her. For he was going to kill her very soon now – tomorrow, or the day after, or in the next few weeks, anyway.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’ll go.’ He finished off his drink, and put on his hat and coat.
‘Well, good-bye, Netta,’ he said, shaking her hand. ‘I’m sorry you’ve had such a dull evening.’
‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘Good-bye.’
And she went into her bedroom.
‘Shove out the light on the landing,’ she shouted from inside.
He staggered badly at the front door. He was drunk all right: that last gin had done it.
But not too drunk to be too clever for her, to be too clever for all of them.
He shut the front door, and shoved out the light. He was in utter blackness.
He felt his way down the stairs – slowly, staggeringly, blackly, cleverly.
The Fourth Part
JOHN LITTLEJOHN
Oft in the stilly night
Ere slumber’s chain has bound me,
Fond Memory brings the light
Of other days around me:
The smiles, the tears
Of boyhood’s years,
The words of love then spoken;
The eyes that shone,
Now dimm’d and gone,
The cheerful hearts now broken!
Thus in the stilly night
Ere slumber’s chain has bound me,
Sad Memory brings the light
Of other days around me.
T. MOORE
Chapter One
John Edward Littlejohn, who had been at school with George Harvey Bone, and who had also seen a good deal of him in later life, sat in his lunch hour alone on a stool in a public house near the Hippodrome.
He was drinking beer, and reading a book. The bar was L-shaped. Happening to look up from his book, he saw, across the bar and standing against the other side of the L, his old friend George Harvey Bone. Thus, although the bar was full of people, he had an uninterrupted view of him.
It was a fine summer’s day outside, but this small Saloon Bar was lit all the year round by electricity, and was at this hour full of smoke and fumes and talk. The light shone full on to George Harvey Bone, who was by himself, holding a glass of beer, and looking in a gloomy and lonely way into space.
John Edward Littlejohn, called by his friends ‘little John’ or ‘little Johnnie’ (because he was of small stature and his Christian name and surname excused or invited this slightly patronizing form of address), had an insignificant appearance generally. Tortoiseshell spectacles on a nose which was rather too prominent, a thin face, a chin which receded somewhat, a pallid complexion – all these gave him, particularly in profile, something which approximated to a Bateman-drawing look, and which might delude a casual observer into thinking he was looking at a fool. But nothing was further from the case. From the grey eyes behind those spectacles there gleamed the pure, sober light of experience absorbed, of alert and athletic interest in external things, of a high mathematical intelligence. John Edward Littlejohn, though a kind-hearted and polite man, was no fool: anything but it.
He was now thirty-four, and from inauspicious beginnings (he had been penniless after leaving the public school to which his parents had self-sacrificingly contrived to send him) he had employed his gift – a delightful juggler’s nimbleness in the realm of figures – to the utmost advantage, and now earned a good living. After years in the City as a clerk and an accountant, he was now in the West End as accountant to Fitzgerald, Carstairs & Scott, the well-known theatrical agents and producers. He had landed this excellent job because Eddie Carstairs, whom he had met on busines
s apart from the theatre, had taken a personal liking to him and astutely appreciated his worth.
He had taken to wandering into this pub recently at lunch-time because he liked the beer, because it was near a restaurant to which he had taken a fancy, and because here he was not likely to meet any other members of the firm – in other words ‘the boys’. This did not mean that he dissociated himself from the boys, or thought of himself as anything other than one amongst these boys, who at lunch-time, and indeed at several other odd moments of the day, flocked into the little pub almost immediately underneath the office in Jermyn Street, and there did business or had fun. It simply was that he recently had come to believe that in that particular house at that particular time of day he had begun to drink too much bitter, play too much electric pin-table, and waste too much time, and he had decided to give it a miss for a bit. He had also lately, after accidentally reading an English translation of Père Goriot, become fascinated by the author Balzac, whom he had never read before; and whenever he was under the spell of a new author it had always been his particular delight to go apart and imbibe him in the lunch hour. Now, as he sat on the stool of the bar, he had the Everyman edition of The Country Doctor open on his knees, and he had been reading intently.
On looking up he had recognized his old friend at once and with a great deal of pleasure. He had always had a very warm feeling in his heart for this man, whose personality he could remember from the earliest days at the decidedly tough public school to which they had both been. A tall, shambling, ungainly, shy, haunting, readily affectionate figure he had been then – a noticeably uncruel boy in that cruel and resounding atmosphere. He had been famous for his backwardness, his stupidity, and his ‘silly’ moods, when he seemed to be half asleep. Also he always wore rather outlandish clothes, which he had always outgrown and which gave the impression (almost certainly the correct one) that he was neglected by his parents. But he was not so silly, as John Littlejohn had slowly come to discover when they had made friends. Much of that apparent dumbness was sheer inarticulacy, or, indeed, a sort of funny inner thoughtfulness manifesting itself in a lethargy of manner. And as for those ‘dotty’ moods of his, they were just something inherent, congenital, a physical defect probably, about which nothing could be done and for which you had to allow.
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