The Hunter and the Trapped

by Josephine Bell

  Much the same behaviour that Clay had suggested for Fawcett, decided Mont. Possible, perhaps.

  “There’s no question it was real suicide?” he asked. “No suggestion of foul play? A fake suicide, a forged note, to make him look like a murderer at the end of his tether?”

  “No. But I expect you’d like to have a look round yourself. We haven’t moved him, yet.”

  So Mont’s next visit to the flats took him to Mr. Nelson’s sitting room where Wilson the caretaker, white-faced and angry, was waiting for him.

  “I’ve had about enough of these shocks,” Wilson complained. “Don’t know what’s come over the place. Never had no trouble here in all the years I been here and now this lot. Murder one day and suicide the next.”

  “It’s ten days since the Morris case,” Mont said, sharply. “There’s no connection between that and this.”

  “Oh, isn’t there? I’d have thought there was a ruddy obvious connection.”

  Mont demanded a brief account of the finding of the body and Wilson gave it, sullenly. Since Mrs. Morris’s death Mrs. Wilson had obliged those of the tenants who asked for her services. She had gone up to Mr. Nelson’s door expecting him to open it for her. When there was no answer to her ring and knock she went back to her husband. Wilson took up his key, went in and found the ex-doctor lying in bed and the note on the table beside him. He at once rang up the police.

  “Did you make sure he was dead before you left him?”

  “I didn’t need to. One look was enough.”

  Mont did not argue the point. He sent Wilson away and organised a routine, methodical examination of the room, including photographs and finger-prints.

  It was later, while Nelson’s body was being removed, that Mont caught sight of Fawcett standing in his own doorway, watching the proceedings. Welcoming this opportunity of informal talk he went over to him.

  “Poor beggar,” Simon said, in a troubled voice. “The final failure of a doomed life.”

  Mont nodded. You could look at it that way, he supposed.

  “Did you happen to see him at all yesterday?” he asked.

  “Why yes. If you want to know how he seemed, he was just the same as always. Perhaps a bit more shaky. But then he’s been so afraid of losing his job – the only job he’d be likely to get – after you’d checked on his past.”

  “What do you know of his past, Mr. Fawcett?”

  “Only what he told me, inspector. In confidence.”

  Mont began to feel again the distaste, confusion and sense of frustration that had assailed him before in his dealings with this man.

  “Did you go into his room at all yesterday?”

  “I did. Why?”

  Mont saw an added opportunity.

  “We shall have to trace any visitors he had, if we can. To find out more of his state of mind. We’ve taken fingerprints and so on. We shall have to ask Mr. and Mrs. Wilson for theirs. Perhaps you would let us have yours. For elimination purposes.”

  “Certainly. Though I’ve never heard of this being done in cases of suicide.” Simon lifted calm eyes to meet the Chief-inspector’s without hesitation or fear. “Do you think it will help you?” he asked.

  “I think it may, sir,” Mont answered. “I’ll just get my man and come over to your flat.”

  So the delay and the diversion worked in his favour, he thought, as he and Clay went back to Whitehall. He had his prints. He only had to check them with Beltonston and then he’d know.

  “If they tie up, what comes next?” Clay asked. “We still have no proof he did Mrs. Morris.”

  “We’d have a strong suspicion he killed the boy. If we know he handled the jam jar the child was using.”

  “All that time ago!”

  “Time doesn’t matter to us. It would to him. The shock might break him down. All these years, thinking he’d got away with it.”

  “Would he really think like that if he’s a nut? Wouldn’t he have forgotten it, put it away, so to speak? You’re pretty sure in your own mind he’s our man, aren’t you, sir?”

  “I’m sure of nothing,” said Mont, desperately.

  His doubt was shared by Simon, himself. The fingerprint performance had not disturbed him, for he was not aware of its significance. He had worn gloves on the morning he had lunched with George Clark and later travelled by train from Victoria.

  But he was disturbed by Nelson’s death. The man had left a note. What had he put in it? Was there any reference to himself? Was Nelson another of his enemies; one of the group that was closing round him, nearer and nearer, threatening –

  They were powerless, of course. Every attack on him, from the very beginning, had failed. Would always fail.

  But it left him feeling restless, tired, worried about trivial things. He decided to go out and walk off his disquiet.

  Before leaving his room he looked in his wallet. He had plenty of money left. The thirty pounds he had drawn from the bank to give to Mrs. Morris, which he had not had to give to her, was still there. He had spent none of it. He still had, besides, ten shillings left out of the additional sum he had allowed himself for the next fortnight’s expenses. The fortnight was up today. It was another Saturday. Of course, that was why they’d found Nelson this morning. His cleaning day. Mrs. Wilson. Of course. Why had he not realised before that today was another Saturday? And he still had thirty pounds.

  He put on his old, stained mackintosh, feeling for his gloves in the pockets as he did so. The flat had become distasteful to him. Nobody had been in to clean it since Mrs. Morris died and though he had all his main meals out he ate his breakfast at home. Consequently the kitchen sink was now filled with dirty cups, saucers and plates, sprinkled over with the coffee grounds he had emptied there each morning before making a fresh brew. His bedroom, too, was in confusion, the bed unmade, dirty shirts and handkerchiefs on the floor. A parcel of clean linen, its paper split open at one end, lay on a chair. He had taken what he needed from it, but had not attempted to put away the rest.

  Simon turned from the squalor of his rooms and went out, locking the door behind him. There was no one on the landing now. The police guard who had stood there all the morning had been withdrawn. Nelson’s flat was empty, Simon knew. But though he glanced at its door as he reached the head of the stairs it was not of Nelson that he thought.

  On the first landing he passed Mrs. Hyde stooping painfully to plant her empty milk bottle beside her door. He paused to help her and would have passed on with a gentle smile, but she caught his sleeve and said, “More trouble for us all! I don’t know what we’ve done to deserve it!”

  “For us all,” he echoed, setting himself apart in his own mind.

  “Mr. Nelson. Poor man. I always thought there was something odd about him. Retired from business, but out such a lot. Drugs, Wilson says. He may well be right. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Mr. Nelson that killed Mrs. Morris.”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  Simon offered no opinion on this point himself.

  “Are you going away again?” Mrs. Hyde went on. “No, I see you aren’t. No luggage.”

  “I shall be back this evening,” Simon told her, his thoughts far away. She watched him go down the stairs until he was out of sight. Such an interesting man. Such good manners. So handsome.

  Simon got on a bus that took him beyond Edgeware. After that he walked. He had no particular purpose in walking, but he found it soothing to move on and on along a main road, where the houses grew smaller, older, more countrified and finally, late in the afternoon, ceased altogether. Pavements ended, hedgerows took their place. Cars and lorries swept closer to him until he tired of dodging them and turned away down a forgotten lane and at last, as the sky darkened and stars came out and the late harvest moon rose like a huge pumpkin, swollen and golden, over a little tree-covered rise, came to a stile and a footpath beyond.

  He found he was thirsty. There seemed to be no house or cottage within sight, only those deserted fields given over
to solitude and idleness that mark the edges of any suburban sprawl, and behind him a glow in the sky over the city he had left.

  But in one of the fields as he moved slowly along, he saw an abandoned cattle trough, his attention drawn by the glint of the rising moon on the rain water that half filled it. He stooped and drank from his cupped hands. Then looked about him. Having stopped walking at last he discovered that he was very tired. His legs would hardly carry him across that field to the next, where, under an ancient shelter, the remains of a haystack lay in untidy heaps on the bare earth.

  He pulled the heaps together, climbed on to them, sank down and lay still. Here was peace at last and freedom from his enemies and a soft bed for his tired limbs. No one here to interrupt his thoughts, no one to disturb him or make demands of him.

  As he turned over, snuggling deeper into the hay, his wallet struck against his ribs and he swore and pulled it out, half inclined to throw it from him. But remembering what it was, he clutched it against his chest and lay open-eyed in the darkness. Thirty pounds in it. Thirty saved from that harpy. A bargain’s a bargain. Fair’s fair. No cheque, no money.

  Her abuse rang again through his head, augmented by his own unfettered imagination. Abuse. Greed. What a fuss they were making over her.

  He withdrew his thoughts from Mrs. Morris and from that river bank in Beltonston, that kept returning to him of late, the fishing rod and the acacia tree, among whose branches he had sat, composing his poem, until the boy had flung a stone up at him and another and he had leaped down and taken away the jar, emptying the fish on the ground, at which the boy had struck him and he –

  And he, Simon Fawcett – you, Simon Fawcett – send them all away – send them away, Simon. That girl, Joan. Did she laugh when you caught her on the landing? Or was it a scream … ? A scream – But you were asleep. Though you walked every day to the bath room you were really asleep, resting.

  Ill, Mother said, over and over again. Ill. What nonsense. How silly old Dr. Marshall was. With his pills that you threw out of the window.

  And those others – were there others? Or did he only hear their voices? Enemies. Voices were enemies – He would destroy them. For ever – and ever – destroy –

  The moon travelled on and sank again and the sun rose over the field and the shelter, but its rays did not reach the sleeping man inside. About midday on Sunday, Simon woke up, very thirsty and hungry, though he recognised only the former state. He went along to the cattle trough again and drank like an animal, putting his lips to the water to suck it up, noisily.

  There was no one to see him. When he had drunk enough and relieved himself in the hedge he went back to his nest of hay, sinking deep into the yielding mass, unconscious of insect bites, of dust, of scratching straws, of the heat of the September sun on the iron roof of the shelter. He slept and woke to a confused march of imagined and remembered scenes and slept again. All of Sunday passed in this way and Sunday night, when a shower of rain clattered on the roof above him like a rattle of tin cans, but could not bring to focus his distorted wandering mind.

  On Monday morning he woke up shivering, dizzy from lack of food, but in full knowledge of himself, though not of where he lay.

  Chapter Nine

  Mrs. Allingham was in London again, this time for only a short visit of a few days. The upheaval at her cottage and the alterations to its plumbing had made her aware of certain other deficiencies, such as the old-fashioned light fittings, the very worn and faded curtains in her little dining room, and so on. She determined to bring such things into line with her modern drainage system.

  The end of the school holidays made the visit possible. Diana usually took the children back to their respective schools in the car, which William was willing to sacrifice for the purpose. Both schools were in Somerset and Diana also had friends in that county. This year she proposed to take the children down on Thursday and spend the rest of the weekend with her friends, returning in time for lunch on Monday. Mrs. Allingham arrived on Thursday in time to have lunch with her grandchildren before they left.

  By the following Monday morning she had finished her shopping and ordering and looked forward to going back to the cottage on the following day. She could have gone earlier but she felt it her duty to stay until she had seen Diana again.

  She was not happy about her daughter-in-law. Diana was thinner, more easily provoked, more restless than she had been in June and July. The holiday she and William had spent at the latter end of August with the children in Brittany did not seem to have done her any good at all.

  Mrs. Allingham knew about Penelope’s visit to the Arles festival in a college party that included Simon. From this she concluded that the girl was still involved with this dreadful man. She did not know the final outcome. Diana never spoke of Simon. William, when his mother tried to discuss Penny’s affair, said he had not seen Fawcett since the evening he had abused his hospitality and added that he did not want to. It was not like William, she thought, to speak in the sort of language Hubert often used. It distressed her, but she could not press him to say more. Since she avoided reading the detail in newspaper accounts of murders she failed to connect him in any way with the death of Mrs. Morris.

  But William, through Hubert, had followed the case with much anxiety. He was horrified to discover the full extent of his friend’s hatred. Horrified and deeply resentful. For the first time in many years they quarrelled violently. It was over two weeks now since the murder of Mrs. Morris and nearly two weeks since the arrest of her husband, but he still had not been charged with the crime, merely remanded in custody for theft, according to the newspapers.

  The quarrel with Hubert took place when he came to see William to report what he had said to Scotland Yard. Though Hubert seemed to be warning his friend that he had given John’s name only as a source of information about Simon, this could not, William thought, have been the real excuse for disclosing his action. William knew, as Hubert intended he should, that the real warning related to Diana. When he understood this, realising at the same time his own helplessness, William lost his temper completely. Hubert was affronted and the quarrel was on. They both said more than they intended or really felt. They parted feeling torn, bereaved, still furious with one another.

  On Sunday morning, on the front page of his newspaper, William read about the death by suicide of a Mr. Nelson at an address in Kilburn that he recognised. The paragraph, tactful, discreet, mentioned the fact that the deceased had been a doctor, that he worked as representative for a firm of manufacturing chemists. In a final, deadly sentence, the paper reminded the readers of the Morris murder, still unsolved, that had taken place at this same block of flats just over two weeks before.

  William felt a weight lifted from him. If only the newspaper’s suggestion could be the right one. If only this man’s suicide was a confession. A note beside the body, did it say? A written confession, perhaps. If only – if only –

  His first thought was to ring up Hubert and ask him if he knew anything about this latest development. The memory of their recent parting stopped him. He would have to wait.

  Mrs. Allingham saw how pale and agitated he was and asked him for the cause. Though he had not meant to tell her anything his resolution broke down at this. Without Hubert, with Diana away, he could not endure the suspense alone.

  Mrs. Allingham was shocked by the story she heard, particularly when it came to Hubert’s account of Penelope’s cheque.

  “You see where it might lead?” William said, speaking more frankly to his mother than he had ever done since his marriage.

  “To Diana,” she said, without hesitation, though he winced as she went on, “Diana is a law to herself, I’m afraid. You have never influenced her, much as you love her.”

  “I think I have not loved her enough,” he said, sadly. “Or not as she wants to be loved.”

  Mrs. Allingham said nothing. Open condemnation of Diana would help no one, least of all William. Besides, her puritan sou
l shrank from a discussion of sexual matters, particularly with her own son.

  “If this man Nelson is the murderer, presumably the police will drop any further inquiry,” William said. He was grateful to his mother for her forbearance and already began to feel better.

  “Do you really think he may be?” she asked. “Would you be in such a state if you really believed that?”

  “I’m entitled to keep an open mind,” he cried, “I go by proof, not prejudice!”

  He left her and went down to his consulting room, where he tried to bury his doubts and fears in work. But Mrs. Allingham, upstairs, willing to agree to Simon’s guilt because he fitted wholly her pattern of evil, gave herself to prayer for the safety of her family, their good name and their future.

  Monday brought no further news in the papers, only a repetition of Sunday’s announcement and the arranged date of the inquest on Mr. Nelson. William finished his morning’s consultations and went upstairs into the drawing room where his mother was sitting.

  “Diana not back yet?” he asked, trying to hide his disappointment at not finding her already there.

  “No, dear.”

  “No message?”

  “No. But I’ve been out part of the morning.”

  He went into the kitchen where the daily was preparing the final stages of luncheon.

  “No message from Mrs. Allingham? She said she would be back before one.”

  “No, sir.”

  “I’ve got a hospital clinic at two. We won’t wait after a quarter past one.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  “She may have had a puncture or something,” he said and then annoyed with himself for making these excuses aloud, added carelessly, “Anything can happen in a car.”

  “Not an accident, I hope,” said the daily, without alarm.

  “No, no. Very unlikely.”

  He went back to the drawing room and a few seconds later the door bell rang.