A Grave Case of Murder

by Roger Bax

  “He was in a terribly agitated state, and I tried to soothe him. I said, ‘Darling, you did all you could—don’t worry about it.’ I told him to change his clothes while I was gone. I was trying hard to keep cool, but I felt awful. It seemed as though we were living through a nightmare—so many ghastly things had happened in such a short time. I went out, thinking I’d take the car and save myself a minute or two, and Neville came with me as far as the bridge. He picked up the jacket that he’d stripped off before going into the water, and the handbag that Mrs. Thornton had dropped on the bridge, and then suddenly he gripped my arm. Even in the darkness I could see how white he was, and his voice was trembling. He said, ‘Come back inside, Barbara—I’ve just remembered something.’ I asked him what on earth was the matter—it was obviously something frightful—and he said, ‘I remember now, I did know a woman named Wanda in Teheran, and I believe that’s the woman.’

  “It didn’t mean much to me at the time because I could only think about the accident and the need to get help. I said, ‘Well, never mind, darling—we’ll talk about it later.’

  “Neville kept hold of my arm. He said, ‘Barbara, I’m in a fearful jam. I can’t prove I didn’t marry her.’

  “I still didn’t see what he was driving at. I said, ‘That doesn’t matter now—of course you didn’t marry her. Neville, we simply must get a doctor.’

  “He said, ‘They’ll say I pushed her in on purpose.’

  “That staggered me. I was so astonished that I couldn’t speak for a moment. Then I said, ‘Neville, that’s absolute nonsense. Nobody in their senses would think that. Why should they? You’re just overwrought.’

  “He said again, ‘Come back to the house.’ He was in such a state that I had to go back with him. My head was in a whirl. He said, ‘They’re bound to think so. Don’t you see how it’ll look to them? I knew this woman, and she comes here claiming to be my wife just a week before I’m going to marry you, and I can’t prove that she isn’t, and I go out with her alone and she falls off the bridge and gets drowned. They’ll say it wasn’t an accident, I know they will. They’ll say we struggled. Look, there are marks on her neck!’

  “I looked, and there were dark marks. Neville said, ‘She fought in the water and tried to hold me—people always do when they’re drowning. I had to force her away or we’d both have gone under—I had to. But no one will believe me. And then there’s that chap on the bike—the one who called out ‘Good night.’ What an idiot I was to let him go! He’ll say that we didn’t ask for help, and they’ll think it was because we didn’t want anyone to know what had happened. And we still haven’t fetched the doctor!’

  “I suddenly felt quite sick. It’s easy now to see what a fool I was, but it was different in that eerie atmosphere with the lamp throwing shadows and the dead body on the floor, and Neville saying these terrible things to me. I did my best to calm him and told him I was sure he was imagining things. But he said ‘I’m not, Barbara. I know more about these things than you do. They’ll arrest me for murder and I shan’t be able to prove that I didn’t do it.’

  “He seemed all to pieces and buried his head against me and I could feel his whole body shaking. I went on trying to reassure him and after a while he did seem to calm down, but he still thought he was right. He said, ‘Whatever happens, Barbara, you’ll stand by me, won’t you? I think I can face anything if I know you believe in me.’

  “It sounds melodramatic now, but it didn’t then. I held him tightly, and the thought flashed across my mind that perhaps there had been something serious between him and Mrs. Thornton once—perhaps even some form of marriage, and that was why he was so afraid now, because he knew it would come out. And as I thought it, I knew I didn’t care. I didn’t care what he might have done in those far-off days. All I knew was that I loved him and that he was in danger and needed me. He was clinging to me like a child and I could hardly bear it because he’d always been so strong and independent. I knew I had to think of something to do. All the time I had a picture in my mind of them hanging him. Have you ever imagined anyone you loved being taken out and hanged?”

  Barbara’s eyes were so full of reminiscent horror that James, prosaic man of duty though he was, felt a pang of fierce sympathy. “What did you do?” he asked gruffly.

  “I said, “Neville, do we have to tell anyone?’ He didn’t seem to understand at first—he said that of course we would have to, and asked me what I was thinking of. I said that Mrs. Thornton was dead because of an accident that no one had been able to help, and couldn’t we do something about her body so that it wouldn’t ever be discovered. After all, she was beyond caring what happened. I know this must sound callous to you, but you see it was all so unbelievably horrible that by now one more thing didn’t seem to matter.

  “Anyway, Neville wouldn’t hear of it at first. He said that it was a terribly serious offense to conceal a body and that he wasn’t going to save his neck by getting me into trouble, and that if we did anything like that and it were ever discovered afterward, there’d be no hope for either of us. He said he’d sooner face the music. There was always the chance that the jury would give him the benefit of the doubt, and the best thing I could do was to go home and pretend that I hadn’t been at the cottage at all.

  “Well, I wouldn’t stand for that. I said flatly that I wouldn’t leave him in the lurch, and he said that he loved me too much to let me sacrifice myself, and we talked and talked.… Anyhow, in the end we decided that we would get rid of the body.”

  “Did you suggest the method, Miss Rutherford?”

  “No. I was quite prepared to help, but I couldn’t initiate any plan. As it happened I didn’t have to, because Neville suddenly became practical at the prospect of action. He said that we must bury the body somewhere, and the Fen at the back of the house seemed quite a good place because it was very quiet there and we wouldn’t have to do much carrying. He went out to the shed and got a spade, and then he walked a little way out into Rough Fen and began to dig. I kept guard near the cottage but there was no one about and he didn’t make very much noise. Presently, though, he stopped digging and he seemed to be stamping the soil down again and then he came back to the house. He said the ground was too hard there, and that he’d had a much better idea. He said that if we could bury the body at the bottom of Mr. Peckitt’s grave it would never be discovered, because Mr. Peckitt’s funeral was to be on the Monday and after that nobody would ever dream of looking there.

  “It was such a ghastly idea that at first I couldn’t bear the thought of it, but I had promised to help and Neville was quite certain that that was the only really safe way. He got impatient and said that he couldn’t think of anything else and that there wasn’t much time. So at last I agreed—honestly, I just didn’t care any more—and once we’d started there was no turning back.

  “Neville took charge of all the arrangements. He hid his wet clothes away because Mrs. Pepper would be coming in to clean in the morning. He went out to the shed again and when he came back he had a groundsheet and I saw that he was wearing rubber boots. He thought of everything, you see. He said he didn’t suppose that we would leave any footprints to speak of, as the ground was so hard and dry, but that it was as well to be on the safe side and that his rubber boots were just the thing because he knew they were the same size and kind as Fred Pepper’s—he’d actually bought them at the same shop in Judiford. He was a bit worried about me, though, and in the end he decided it would be better if I wore Mrs. Thornton’s shoes because then if by any remote chance her body were discovered, at least there’d be nothing to connect me with it. As it happened her shoes were rather large for me, but I found I could just manage, and it seemed simpler to do just what he said. We wrapped the body in the groundsheet and when we’d made quite sure that there was no one about outside, we carried it to the boat. I tied my own shoes round my neck. Neville put the spade in the boat, and we set off. It was half-past ten. I asked Neville what he would do about Mrs.
Thornton’s car which was parked on the grass verge just beyond the cottage, and about her handbag and other belongings, and he said I needn’t worry because he’d take care of all those things later on.

  “We didn’t talk at all after that. I sat huddled in the stern while Neville rowed. I thought we should never get there. It was all so frightful I tried not to think about what we were doing. I kept telling myself that we had to go on now.

  “Although it seemed a long way, it didn’t actually take very long to row down the Lode and up the Twenty Foot. We’d often done it before, and however dark it is you can always see something when you’re on the water. When we thought we were about opposite the church Neville tied the boat to a big stone and we carried the body over the bank and into the churchyard. It wasn’t easy, even with the two of us, and I was terrified that someone might hear us. I nearly lost a shoe just over the wall. We got to the grave in the end, though, and laid the body down on the grass. Neville said that he’d be able to manage without me now, and that I’d better go home. Actually, I don’t think I could have stayed, and there was nothing I could do to help. Neville said I wasn’t to worry and that I must keep on reminding myself that we hadn’t done anything morally wrong—we hadn’t injured anyone. He was quite, quite different now—he’d become confident and efficient and cool, just as I’d always known him. He said he’d be busy all night clearing things up, and probably a good bit of the morning as well, and that he’d come over to the Farm the next afternoon. So I left him there. I went to the lich gate, put Mrs. Thornton’s shoes beside it for Neville to collect later, put my own shoes on again, and went home. I took a whole lot of aspirin, I don’t know how much, and went straight to bed without seeing anyone.

  “Well, next morning was absolute hell. I felt terrible. When I remembered what we’d done, I could hardly believe it. In the light of day, the whole thing seemed unreal. I knew we’d been crazy. The fact was that Mrs. Thornton had had an accident that could have happened to anyone in the dark, and Neville had panicked and I’d let myself be carried away, and we’d done a monstrous thing. I loathed myself, and I knew that I should never feel the same about Neville again. I couldn’t get it out of my mind that he wouldn’t have been so terrified if he hadn’t had a guilty conscience about Mrs. Thornton. It seemed incredible that he could have kept so much from me, but now that I began to think about it I saw how little I really knew about his life.

  “The awful thing was that we couldn’t undo what we’d done. Whatever happened about us, I should have to carry the knowledge of that night as long as I lived.

  “I’d hardly got downstairs before unexpected things started to happen, and I was carried along. It was a terrific shock when Uncle Thomas told me about Mrs. Thornton’s visit. It simply hadn’t occurred to me or to Neville that she might have visited the family already and told her story. I saw that the only thing to do was to behave as though it were all news to me. In the ordinary way, if a story like that had come at me out of the blue, I should have refused to believe a word of it, and that was obviously what I had to do now.

  “It was a relief to get away to my room, but I couldn’t stop worrying. Now that it was known that Mrs. Thornton had come down specially to see Neville, there’d be all sorts of awkward inquiries when it was discovered that she’d disappeared. I began to feel horribly frightened. When Neville arrived in the afternoon, I hurried to put him on his guard. After the first shock, his acting was much better than mine—in fact it was so good that it made me feel quite ill. I realized that he might just as easily have been acting with me, all the time. He was so much in control of himself that I couldn’t believe he’d really been near to breakdown the night before. He said just the right things, so that if I hadn’t known he was lying I’d almost have been convinced myself. I felt that I’d never be able to trust him again, but I knew that I had to stick by him in public because we were so deep in the mess together.

  “It was different when Neville and I managed to get away alone. Now I could talk freely. But before I could say anything of what was in my mind, he began to reassure me that everything was taken care of and that there was nothing at all to be anxious about. He said that even though people did know that Mrs. Thornton had been down, the body would never be found. He seemed pleased with himself and expected me to be pleased too. He told me what a job he’d had digging the dry soil out of the grave and how he’d had to fix up the groundsheet as a screen and use his torch once or twice to make sure that he was putting everything back properly. It was all horribly ghoulish—he didn’t seem to have any pity for that poor woman. He told me how he’d driven up to town during the night and fixed things so that it would look as though Wanda Thornton had been home, and how he’d packed a suitcase full of her belongings and thrown it into a river on his way back, and how he’d driven her car into the Lode and cleared up all traces at the cottage.

  “His assurance made everything seem worse. The only reason I’d ever suggested keeping quiet about Mrs. Thornton’s accident was that he’d been in such a desperate state of mind and had seemed to need my comfort and support, but now he just as obviously didn’t need me at all, and I suddenly felt terribly lonely. I began to ask him about himself and Mrs. Thornton, but he brushed the questions aside as though they hardly mattered. He just repeated that he’d only met her casually and that of course he hadn’t married her, and he suggested that we should drop the subject. He sounded as though he didn’t much care whether I believed him or not. It made me furious, and we began to quarrel. It must have been about then that Gertie saw us.

  “It was just then, too, that I saw the backs of his hands clearly for the first time. In the house he must have managed to keep them out of sight, and of course in the cottage the light had been so dim that all I’d seen was some blood, and there’d been so much on my mind then that I hadn’t bothered any more when he’d said it was nothing to worry about. But now I saw them both together, and they were shockingly lacerated. I said, ‘Your hands!—you couldn’t have done all that just getting out of the water, not to both hands. What happened?’ He said in a casual voice, ‘Oh, I did it this morning when I was throwing the suitcase away—there were brambles growing all over the bridge,’ and then he tucked them back into his pockets. I said, ‘Neville, you’re keeping something from me.’ He gave me a cold look and said, ‘If you go on like this we shall both find ourselves in trouble. Let’s go and see what sort of a job I made of the grave. It’s no good being afraid of the place—we’ve got to behave naturally.’

  “As he turned, I went with him. I didn’t want to see the grave ever again, but my brain was seething with things I had to ask him and I just tagged along. What appalled me more than anything was the way his attitude to me had changed. It was just as though he knew that I had to stick by him now because of what we’d done together, and so he needn’t bother even to be nice to me any more.

  “I got more and more depressed as we walked down the path, milling over all the things that had happened. There were so many odd things—not only the scratches, but the way he’d put off getting a doctor after the accident and the way he’d called out ‘Good night’ to the man on the bicycle without asking for help and the way the handrail had broken although it was really quite strong, and those dark marks on Mrs. Thornton’s neck. I could hardly bear to put the facts together even in my mind, but when I did they pointed pretty plainly to one thing.

  “As we got to the grave I suddenly said, ‘Neville, I can’t go on with this. I don’t know what I was thinking of—I must have been mad. I’m going to tell the police everything. It’s the only way.’

  “He looked at me with a sneer, and I knew then that he’d never loved me. ‘You little fool,’ he said, ‘if you do that we shall both be hanged. We’re in this together, sweetheart. forever and ever, and don’t you forget it.’

  “He glanced down into the grave and I saw him frown. “That’s extraordinary,’ he exclaimed, ‘look, somebody’s dropped a watch in here.’ Befo
re I knew what he was going to do he’d jumped down to get it. His indifference was unbelievable—I think it was that callousness that finally convinced me. I knew then that he’d silenced Mrs. Thornton because she was in his way, and that he’d deliberately made me his accomplice, and I hated him more than I thought I could ever hate anyone.

  “I said, ‘Neville, you killed Mrs. Thornton, didn’t you?’

  “He looked up. ‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘Don’t talk such rot.’ The way he said it was as good as a confession. As he bent to pick up the watch I lifted the gun and pointed it at his head and fired. As he fell I closed my eyes because it was so ghastly and I fired again. I meant to kill him and I’m glad I did.

  “I saw that he was dead, and I went straight up to the house. On the way, I slipped the gun into the tree. I hadn’t any feelings of remorse about him. All I could think of was the body in the grave underneath him, and how I’d helped to put it there, and how filthy I felt.

  “At first, when people seemed to think that it was Mrs. Thornton who had killed Neville, I wasn’t too worried, because anyway she was dead and no one could do her any more harm. All my feelings were numbed. Then everything began to get complicated. There was Dennis—I’d no idea that he had been in the tower, and when you told me about it I realized he must have seen and heard a great deal. I knew he must be keeping quiet for my sake, and I couldn’t bear the thought of what he must be going through, particularly when you began to suspect him. Then you discovered that I’d quarreled with Neville, and I thought that very soon I should be arrested. I had to tell someone then, and I told William—poor William! I told him everything, just as I’ve told you. He was appalled, of course, but he didn’t say very much. He asked me whether I felt that I’d done wrong to shoot Neville—whether it weighed heavily on my mind. I thought about it a long while, and I told him that honestly it wasn’t on my mind at all, and that in the same circumstances I’d do it again. It was only Mrs. Thornton I couldn’t bear to think about, because by helping to carry her to the churchyard I’d somehow become partly responsible for her death. William said that was nonsense. He said that Neville had deserved execution, and that if I had no regrets the best thing I could do was to sit tight and see what happened. He didn’t tell me that he’d written out a confession himself, or that he’d told Aunt Marion that he’d done it—I didn’t know anything about that until half an hour ago. I couldn’t believe that Aunt Marion knew anything about the gun, and the night you pounced on her outside the house I thought she really was just taking the air. But all the talk about fingerprints worried me and at the first opportunity I recovered the gun myself and wiped the trigger. I expect Aunt Marion wiped it as well, thinking of William …”