by John Bingham
I went back to Harrington Gardens, but I ate no supper. Work was out of the question. I tried to read, but I could not concentrate. I drank a couple of stiff whiskies, which inevitably produced a steady flow of self-pity. It became clear to me that Prosset was not alone to blame; Kate must have encouraged him in some way, otherwise he would not have invited her out. Kate, who had been alone and unloved until I came along, had fallen for the first offer of a flirtation from the first man who made it.
Cynthia Harrison had at least been faithful. I mixed myself a third whisky and soda; stronger than the first two, for I was finding that although the self-pity was stronger, the actual physical pain in my stomach was disappearing. I felt muzzy in the head, but I welcomed that; my thoughts were wandering from Kate and Prosset, and I welcomed that, too. I saw myself back in Palesby telling Cynthia that she was a much nicer girl than Kate. As we talked she was full of understanding about how I had been led astray and full of commiseration for the dirty trick that had been played on me. I was giving her back the golden bracelet she had returned to me; and after that various people appeared and disappeared, including Aunt Edith, Mr. Martin and Ackersley.
I felt a hand shaking my shoulder and found Ethel standing with the usual cup of tea she brought me at 10:30 when I was in.
“Doing no work tonight, Mr. Sibley?”
“I intended to, but I must have fallen asleep,” I said.
I looked at the clock. It was nearer a quarter to eleven than 10:30. Kate would be home soon and the evening would be over, and that was that. I drank the cup of tea and had a wash and felt better. But one thing I was determined upon; we were not going down to Ockleton. Certainly not for some time, anyway.
That was now off, whatever Kate might feel about it.
Reaction from the earlier emotions set in and I felt foolish that I should have been so upset. If I put my foot down and saw to it that Prosset had no further opportunities to make headway with Kate, no harm would have been done. She had naturally accepted the invitation that evening, and I bore her no grudge, but it was not the sort of thing which I wished to happen again. The visits to Ockleton would have to cease. Kate would be disappointed, but she would do as I wished. I felt sure of it. Explaining matters to her would be difficult, though, and I spent a quarter of an hour thinking the problem over.
I decided that the best thing would be to tell her that although Prosset was a nice fellow in many ways, and a good friend of mine, he was a flirt, and the best way to avoid complications which might endanger our friendship was to avoid putting temptation in his way.
“He’s an awfully nice chap,” I could hear myself saying, “and nobody is fonder of him than I am, but he just cannot help trying to flirt with every girl he meets. It’s not his fault,” I would add, “he’s just made that way. None of us is perfect; all of us have good qualities and weaknesses, and his weakness is women.”
I sounded very convincing. I also thought it was rather subtle, since no woman who pretended to love a man would care to receive the odium for breaking up a lifelong friendship. Kate would see my point of view all right. She was a good girl—just a little inexperienced, that was all. She needed a little guidance.
I thought of her at that moment possibly laughing at some joke of his. He would be looking down at her, his handsome, dark face smiling and attentive, the inevitable cigarette between his lips. I felt a return, though in a less violent form, of the earlier wave of jealousy.
I looked at my watch. It was nearly eleven o’clock. Whenever I have decided to do something I am restless until I have started to put it into action. It was too late to start working, and it was too early for bed. I would go round to Kate’s room and have a talk with her there and then. I could not telephone her, because the people in the house did not like late calls, but I thought that if she was not at home already she would arrive by the time I had driven across to Manchester Square. I argued that I was just in the right mood of cool disapproval to put the point over with firmness.
I looked up when I arrived and saw that her room was in darkness; I let myself in with the key she had given me to avoid the necessity of ringing the bell on the numerous occasions when I called. I helped myself to a glass of gin and vermouth and sat down to wait, again running over in my mind what I would say.
At a quarter to twelve I decided that she would arrive at any moment; at midnight I began to think that Prosset must have taken her to have a meal somewhere after the racing, and at 12:15 I was sure of it.
But at 12:30 I had reached the stage where I was looking at my watch every five minutes and wandering restlessly about the room. I felt the old sick, jealous feeling gnawing away at my stomach. I told myself that I was being unreasonable; that it was very nice of Prosset to have bothered to give her a meal afterwards; that I hoped she was having a nice, gay evening because she deserved it: she had not had much fun out of life up to now, whereas I had had plenty. Moreover, it was the last time she would be going out alone with him, so it did not matter. Anyone who has suffered from jealousy knows how futile such reasoning is. I knew in my heart that I really hoped she had been bored stiff, and that she certainly had not been. One was amused, interested, entertained, made angry or resentful by Prosset, but never bored by him.
By one o’clock I was half alarmed and half angry and resentful. She had said she would be home in reasonable time and she was not. She had let me down. She had not kept her word. If she had had any understanding, she would have got home in reasonable time and telephoned me, and we could have had a chat. But no, she preferred to stay out and enjoy herself without a thought for me.
But was she enjoying herself? Perhaps they had had an accident. Prosset was not the most careful of drivers. Maybe she was lying in some hospital gravely injured and wanting me to be with her. Perhaps she was dead and could read every mean thought in my mind. I decided to wait until half past one and then drive round to Prosset’s place. At least it would be better than doing nothing. I could not telephone him, because I did not know the name of his landlord, and the only number I had in my diary was his office number.
I watched the hands on the little travelling clock by her bedside creep towards the half hour. At twenty-six minutes past, I was tempted to leave, but with a kind of masochistic determination I forced myself to stay until the time I had decided upon. Then I put out the light and went downstairs and let myself gently out of the front door.
I climbed into my car and lit a cigarette, thinking over what I would say on arrival. It would be better to tell at least part of the truth, and say that I was worried about whether anything had happened. Why not? I guessed that Prosset would look at me in his mocking way and assume that some other reason had brought me there. So what? Let him think what he liked.
I leaned forward and fumbled to find the slot for the ignition key, found it, switched on the current, and reached for the self-starter. But before I could start the engine a taxi drew up in front of me.
Kate got out. She was alone.
The light from a street lamp shone upon her yellow hair. She was wearing her near-white mackintosh. She fumbled in her leather handbag for some money, swayed back a pace, and went and leaned against the lamp standard still groping in her bag.
I opened the car door and scrambled out. I went over to her. Then I asked the taxi driver what the fare was, and paid him. He looked at me questioningly.
I said, “It’s all right. I know her. I’ll let her in.”
“Bit pickled, ain’t she?”
“Looks like it. Good night.”
“Can you manage, sir?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Righto, sir. Good night.” He reached out and slammed the door of the taxi and drove off.
I was left alone in the street with Kate. She was still fumbling in her handbag, oblivious of the fact that the taxi had driven off. I went over and took her by the arm. She raised her head and looked at me unsteadily, opened her mouth as if to say something, but did not speak.
She was very white in the face and a strand of hair was hanging over one eye.
I led her up the steps without difficulty, but when she was faced with the staircase in the hall she slumped against me. I placed one of her arms round my neck, put my right arm round her waist, and tried to drag her up the stairs, but failed. So I picked her up bodily and carried her up to her room and laid her on the bed. As I was struggling to get her out of her raincoat, she recovered slightly and assisted me.
“You seem to have enjoyed the dog racing.”
She looked at me in a bewildered way. “Dog racing? We didn’t go. He didn’t want to go.”
“I see. What did you do? Or is that an unfortunate question?”
She had sunk back on to the bed with her eyes closed. She groaned and licked her lips.
“I’m dying,” she said.
“You’re not. You’re drunk, that’s all.”
I sat by her side for a few moments. There was no lipstick left on her lips and no powder on her cheeks. Her head was turned sideways, and I saw some red marks on her neck and throat. I got up to go.
“Well, good night, Katie.”
She stirred and moaned. “I feel awful.”
“You’ll feel worse in the morning.”
I felt oddly unemotional. I was tired, cold, but curiously objective, devoid even of anger or resentment now. Something which I had anticipated had happened; rather sooner than I had expected, it is true, but it had happened, and now it was over, it was past history.
Perhaps if she had not worn spectacles, if she had been more beautiful, I should have felt differently. She had dragged off her coloured spectacles and they lay beside her on the pillow. Her face looked thin and pinched and very pale, and childlike, and I guessed that if I placed my hand on her brow I should find it cold and damp.
I felt again that protective instinct I had so often experienced before in regard to Kate and never about Cynthia. I saw that it was all my fault. If I had not been so weak, she would never have been brought into close contact with Prosset. If I had taken a firm stand earlier, she would never have gone out with him.
For two weekends, unaccustomed to much attention from men, she had been subjected to the undoubted fascination of his personality. So far from feeling angry at that moment, I felt a great concern for her. I wondered how far she had fallen for Prosset, if at all.
Later, two days later, she was to tell me the whole story of how he had suggested a light meal in his room before setting out; how he had coaxed her into drinking too much, amused her, flattered her, and finally had taken her into his arms, so that although she knew she was being unfaithful she was unable to resist for long the physical attraction of that handsome and magnetic man. I cannot imagine why I did not feel a great anger towards Kate; possibly it was because I knew Prosset so well from personal experience.
Looking at her as she lay crumpled and ill on the bed, I knew perfectly well that I would forgive her. I picked up her spectacles from off the pillow and laid them on the bedside table, and spread the eiderdown over her and went out of the room and downstairs, and drove back to Harrington Gardens.
But my feelings in regard to Prosset were very different.
I would drive down alone to Ockleton the following day. The idea and the plan whereby I would rid the world of him were growing crystal clear in my mind, and my thoughts caressed the project lovingly as I lay in bed that night.
Yet the whole thing fizzled out. It is typical of all my dealings with Prosset that even when I planned to kill him I failed. I have sometimes wondered whether I lacked the resolution, and whether I seized on his chance remark as an excuse to call the whole thing off. It may be so, but I do not think so. I think I would have gone through with it.
The next morning, Saturday, I slept late. In addition to the Whitsun holiday, I had the Saturday off.
I wrote a short letter to Kate which I slipped through the letter box and told her briefly that I would be out of town that day, but would be returning the following day. I added that she had nothing whatever to worry about and ended on an affectionate note. When I had delivered it, I had a glass of beer and a sandwich and in the early afternoon set off in the car.
I was filled with a great exultation as I contemplated my plan. I never considered the consequences of failure. Few murderers do. I saw the path from the bottom of the garden leading down the steep cliff to the beach, and the broken handrail at a bend in the path. Prosset was walking down in front of me wearing his bathing wrap, and I was following him closely—so closely that to steady myself I placed my hand on his shoulder blade. The bend in the path came nearer. So vivid was the mental picture, that I could hear above the noise of the engine the soft, padding sound of our bathing shoes on the hard ground, and smell the smoke from Prosset’s cigarette drifting back to me.
The beach was deserted and on our left we were protected from sight by the cliff face, while on the right we were hidden from the view of the nearest house by a fringe of trees. It was possible that somebody might be watching us from among the trees. Therefore as an added precaution I pretended to stumble and lurch forward at the bend in the path, for nobody can blame a man if his foot catches in something on the ground.
I heard his startled cry above the sounds of the traffic as he hurtled down to the rocks beneath and lay still, his white bathing wrap spread around him like the shattered wings of a mutilated gull. In my ears was the music of the sea at the foot of the cliffs, and through it a voice was shouting that Prosset was dead, dead and gone, and only his empty husk was left behind; and all the mockery and the sneers were wiped out and Sibley by his own action had triumphed over Prosset. Michael Sibley laughed last, and Kate was safe and had her refuge in which she could seek shelter, and the dog it was that died.
Then I thought I saw the white wrap stir and seemed to hear another cry on the sea breeze, and felt myself breaking out in perspiration. But a voice in my ear sneered: “That was only the wind which stirred the wrap, and the cry was the cry of a seabird. Don’t lose your nerve, old man. I’m dead. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
I swung the car to the side of the road, braked and stopped. I lit a cigarette. When I had stopped trembling, I drove on again.
I swung off the road before arriving at the village of Ockleton and took the disused cart track which led to the cottage. When I arrived at about 4:30 p.m., Prosset was out. The weather seemed set fair, the sky blue and cloudless, the sun still warm.
I stood for a few moments enjoying the stillness of the evening after the sound of my engine had died away. I was surprised to find that I felt quite calm. It did not seem natural. I should have been keyed up, tense, apprehensive even, but certainly not calm. I did not even hate Prosset any more. Since he would so soon be lifeless, it seemed pointless to regard him any longer with emotion.
I went to the bottom of the garden, through the side gate, and walked a little way down the path to the beach until I could see clearly the bend and the broken handrail. It was as I had recalled it. I gazed at it for a few moments, then turned and made my way back to the house.
The cottage door was unlocked, and I went into the living room. Almost at once I noticed a slight but peculiar smell, neither pleasant nor unpleasant. It was so faint as to be almost unnoticeable, faintly pungent, yet at the same time sweet.
It was so remote that it made no real impression on me at the time. Indeed, I barely gave it a thought, more particularly because I had hardly gone beyond the threshold of the room before I heard the sound of an engine and guessed that Prosset had returned.
He was backing his Alvis under the trees when I turned the corner of the cottage. He had seen by the presence of my car that I had arrived, and waved to me, switched off his engine, and came towards me.
“Hello,” he said cheerfully, “I didn’t expect you. Is Kate with you?”
“Sorry to spring on you out of the blue. I changed my mind.”
“Glad to see you. Where’s Kate?”
&nb
sp; “She couldn’t come. Her father’s not too well. She had to go down there. She doesn’t know when she’ll be back.”
Prosset frowned. “That’s damned bad luck. I was looking forward to having her down. I like her.”
“You do?”
“Yes; I do. She’s got a nice, friendly personality.”
“I’m glad you found her friendly. She’s rather shy with some people.”
Prosset slipped his arm through mine and led me towards the cottage.
“Of course, she’s no beauty, is she? But then you’re hardly an Adonis yourself, so what the hell? You know, I wish old David Trevelyan was here. It would be like old times. We really must lure him down for a weekend some time.”
“I’d like to see him again, I must say. Where’ve you been this afternoon?”
“Seeing a chap I know along the coast.” He looked at his watch and I waited with a curious feeling of detachment for the suggestion which I was convinced was coming.
“What about a dip in the sea? Or is it too late for you?”
“As a matter of fact, I’d rather like one. It was pretty warm in London.”
We went upstairs. He told me to put my things in the larger of the two bedrooms, and began to change into his swimming suit. I took rather longer, for I had to unpack one or two things first; while waiting for me, he sat on the edge of the bed talking and smoking. He seemed in good spirits. The calmness which I had felt up to now was beginning to evaporate. I was not frightened, but I was tense and rather nervous, as before a football match or an examination.
I looked at him and found it hard to imagine that that lively and enthusiastic being would in a few minutes be no more, the smooth, suntanned skin broken, the limbs mangled, the voice silent for ever. What shocked me most was that I felt no regret at the thought, nor the smallest urge to change my plans or to allow him to enjoy even for another day the recollections of the previous evening with Kate. He had made no reference to it. Neither had I. By way of making some sort of conversation, I said, “Where are you going for your holidays this year?”
