The End Of Solomon Grundy

by Julian Symons

  “What happened then?”

  “Sol was angry.” Theo smiled nervously at his red-haired partner, who stared stonily back at him from the dock. “He took hold of me, I pulled away from him, and he caught my bow tie and tore it a little. Then I went out.”

  “You were annoyed?”

  “At the time, yes, very.”

  “Did you say to Miss Pringle in the outer office that your tie was ruined?”

  “Something like that, yes.”

  “And now another point, Mr Werner.” Hardy leaned forward to emphasise it. “Do you sometimes exchange memoranda with the accused?”

  “That is so, yes. If I am working at home, or he is, and we want to put forward some idea which, you know, has to go on paper.”

  “How does he sign such memoranda? With his name or initials?”

  “No. He just puts a little drawing of Guffy at the bottom.”

  “That is, a drawing of your strip cartoon character, Guffy McTuffie?”

  “Yes.”

  Finally, Hardy took Theo through the conversation he had had with Grundy on the day of his attempted departure. It was perfectly true, Theo said, that he had suggested Grundy should take a holiday to let everything blow over. At the time Grundy had rejected the idea. He, Theo, had tripped and fallen over as he was leaving the office, it was nothing more than that, there had been no attack. Yes, it was true that he had been surprised that his partner should have tried to leave without telling him, but no doubt he would have sent word as soon as he had arrived. Newton left the cross-examination to Toby Bander. It was brief.

  “I suggest to you, Mr Werner, that this little squabble was a storm in a teacup.”

  “Oh, precisely, yes.” But Theo spoilt the effect of this answer by adding, “It was something that had never happened before.”

  “On the following day you had both forgotten it?”

  “Forgotten and forgiven, yes.” Theo smiled sweetly.

  Tony Bander read a note handed down by Grundy from the dock, and said, “I suggest that you are mistaken in saying that your partner always signed memos to you with this little figure. I suggest that he sometimes signed them Sol.”

  Theo smiled at Grundy. “It is possible, yes.”

  “Can you confirm that?”

  “If Sol says so, I am sure it is right.”

  “I suggest also that some of your own memos to him are signed with this little figure, that you both used it occasionally?”

  “Yes, that is so.”

  Theo agreed readily, or rather repeated, that he had mentioned the question of a holiday, and that there had been nothing in the way of business to prevent his partner from going. Toby Bander left it at that, but he could not prevent Hardy from establishing in re-examination that Theo could not remember receiving any memo signed “Sol”. There followed Mrs Langham and Miss Pringle, eager for their moments of glory, ready to testify to Grundy’s bad temper on Monday morning and drunkenness on Monday afternoon. Followed the landlord of The Wild Peacock, who said that Grundy had come in about seven-thirty on Monday evening and left twenty minutes later. The pub was just round the corner from the office, but Grundy had been wearing an overcoat, and the implication that Hardy tried to draw from this was that he had finished work for the night. Cross-examined, the landlord agreed that it had been a cold night, and that he could not remember whether Grundy was carrying a briefcase. Followed Jack Jellifer, handsome, plummy, grave.

  Trial Transcript – 5

  JOHN JASPER JELLIFER, examined by Mr Hardy.

  “I am a journalist and an expert on matters connected with food and drink. I live in The Dell, and am well acquainted with the prisoner and also with his car, which is distinctive, as it is an old gunmetal grey Alvis. At approximately nine o’clock on the evening of Monday the 23rd of September I was walking along Curzon Street, and saw the prisoner’s car pass me. I pointed it out to my companion, Mr Clements. I am quite sure of the identification of the car.”

  MR HARDY “Could you see who was driving the car?”

  “No, sir, I could not.”

  “Then how can you be sure that it was the accused’s car?”

  “His car has a rent in the hood, on the driver’s side, just above his head. I have commented on it more than once, as a joke, asking when it would be mended. I noticed the rent in this car.”

  “When did you come forward?”

  “As soon as I knew that the – ah – that Grundy’s name was connected with the case.”

  “One final question. Do you bear a grudge of any kind against the prisoner?”

  “Absolutely none. One has a duty in these matters, that was my feeling.”

  Cross-examined by Mr Newton.

  MR NEWTON “You are an expert on wine and food, Mr Jellifer. That involves you, I expect, in eating a good deal of delicious food and drinking some remarkable wine.”

  “That is my duty.”

  “You are much to be envied. I hope that I may consult you about my own cellar.”

  “I shall be delighted to advise you, Mr Newton.”

  “Not today, however. Now on this particular evening, Mr Jellifer, I wonder where you dined?”

  “I dined with my friend Peter Clements at a little restaurant recently opened, called The Emperor’s New Clothes.”

  MR JUSTICE CRUMBLE “I trust that the food is not imaginary, in accordance with Hans Andersen’s fable?”

  “No, my lord, I can thoroughly recommend the restaurant.”

  MR NEWTON “I am happy to hear it. No doubt you were a welcome guest. Perhaps you would tell us what you ate.”

  “I always like to eat the speciality of any restaurant. Here we began with a bisque d’homard, and I can assure you that it was one that did not come out of a packet, and then we shared a duck which had been prepared in quite a special way with cherries, nuts and olives. We finished with fraises de bois, specially flown over from Southern Italy.”

  “That sounds a memorable meal. I hope the wines did not disgrace it?”

  “Not at all. With the soup we drank a Gewurztraminer, fine but a little too aromatic, with the duck an excellent Aloxe Corton, with the fraises de bois a Barsac, Chateau Coutet, that complemented them perfectly, and with our coffee a Napoleon brandy.”

  “Does it not occur to you, Mr Jellifer, that this consumption of wine and spirits impaired your faculties of observation?”

  “No. I am accustomed to it.”

  “A bottle and a half of wine at a meal, and brandy on top of it? Come now, Mr Jellifer.”

  “I don’t regard that as excessive. Drink has no effect on me.”

  “Really? No doubt the jury will take note of that fact. Now, you had just one guest.”

  “Yes, Mr Peter Clements, the television producer, who is a neighbour of mine.”

  “He also lives in The Dell, I believe. Did you discuss your acquaintance Grundy at all?”

  “His name was mentioned. I don’t think we discussed him particularly.”

  “But his name was mentioned. He was in your mind. And now will you tell us exactly the circumstances in which you think you saw your friend’s Alvis. You were walking along Curzon Street. Was the car coming towards you?”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “Travelling at what speed?”

  “Oh, well, really – an ordinary speed.”

  “An ordinary speed. Would that be fifteen miles an hour, thirty, forty?”

  “About twenty, I suppose.”

  “And how far away was it when you recognised it?”

  “Oh, a few yards, I suppose. Say fifteen yards.”

  “Do you know how long it took the car to travel fifteen yards and pass you at the rate of twenty miles an hour, Mr Jellifer? Approximately two seconds.”

  “But I commented on it to Peter Clements at the time. ‘Good lord,’ I said. ‘There he goes.’”

  “So Clements had not noticed it at that time.”

  “Well, no, I suppose not. He turned round to look.”
r />   “Your identification, then, is based on what you saw during two seconds of time.”

  “It was longer than that.”

  “How can it have been?”

  “Perhaps the car was going more slowly. Much more slowly.”

  “So you are not sure of the speed. Are you really sure of anything, Mr Jellifer?”

  “I tell you I recognised the car. I’d know it anywhere.”

  “Mr Jellifer, you had drunk approximately a bottle and a half of wine, and a glass of brandy. You were talking about your friend Grundy. You saw this car for two, or at most three seconds. You did not notice the number. You could not see the driver. Are you seriously telling the jury that you recognised the car by the rent in its hood?”

  “It wasn’t only that. The colour is very distinctive.”

  Re-examined by Mr Hardy.

  MR HARDY “Whatever counsel for the defence may say, you remain quite certain that it was the prisoner’s car you saw?”

  “Absolutely sure, yes.”

  THE JUDGE “Even though it has been demonstrated that you can have seen the car for only two or three seconds, that makes no difference to you?”

  “No difference at all, my lord.”

  “Very well.”

  (end of transcript)

  “You made a fine bloody fool of yourself,” Arlene Jellifer said when her husband got home that night. She had not gone to the Old Bailey because she refused, she said, to have anything to do with the persecution of old Sol.

  “Not at all.” Jack sat down rather heavily in a chair and stared at the fish painting.

  “You’ve been drinking.” She snatched up the evening paper and read, “‘A bottle and a half of wine and brandy on top of it, that wasn’t excessive?’ “Who do you think you’re fooling? You let him walk all over you.”

  “Not at all.”

  “If I’d known how much you’d drunk I’d never have let you give evidence.”

  He murmured something as he bent down to untie his shoes.

  “What?”

  “Couldn’t have stopped me.”

  “You’re an absolute fool, Jack. I love you, but you’re an absolute fool.”

  “Peter’s giving evidence tomorrow. Then you’ll see.”

  Arlene looked for a moment as though she would like to tear him to pieces with her parrot claws, then turned and went up the stairs. Jack sat where he was for a minute or two – holding one shoe in his hand.

  “You said the other day you wanted to get out of giving evidence, and get old Sol out of trouble too. You seem to have shoved him farther in,” Lily said. They were lying naked on the bed in the Earl’s Court Square flat. Theo stroked her buttocks, shifted his hand. “No, shut up, I want to talk.”

  “What is there to talk about? I had to give evidence.”

  “Had to?”

  “I am a foreigner. When you’re a foreigner in any country, doesn’t matter where, you try not to get into trouble with the police.”

  “Why should you help the police? I hate those bastards.”

  “My sweetiepie, you have to be a little realistic. Foreigners do what they’re told. And you ought to be realistic about something else too. He did it.”

  “What?” She sat up on one elbow, and stared at him.

  Theo said with apparent seriousness, “He didn’t get enough from Marion, so he had this other bit, and then – I don’t know what, she tried to blackmail him perhaps – and he did for her.”

  “You don’t know, how can you?”

  “I know Sol. I know his temper.”

  She stared at him wide-eyed. “But if you think that, you ought to—”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. I just can’t believe you really think it.”

  “I do, you know, my sweetiepie. And talking about not getting enough of it—” He moved over quickly and held her arms, “—I haven’t had enough either.”

  Squared-off before a television set, and with food put in front of him, Cyprian would eat away steadily until everything was finished, almost irrespective of the quantity and the quality of the food. When he had done so on this evening he belched. “When’s Mummy coming back?”

  “I don’t know,” Dick said, busy with the New Statesman. “She’s gone to see Mrs Grundy.”

  “I’ll tell you something. Just been watching a play done by that old queer Clements.”

  “Don’t talk like that,” Dick said automatically.

  “I’ll tell you something about him.”

  Cyprian told his father, and what he said was sufficient to make Dick put down his paper. After a little thought he telephoned Trapsell. When he came back he was smiling.

  “Cyprian, old chap, I’ll never say again that there’s no point in watching television.”

  “It’s a modern art form.” Cyprian turned on the set again. “Anything else to eat?”

  Caroline Weldon sang in a loud, rather tuneful voice as she drove towards Hayward’s Heath, after paying a duty visit on an old aunt in Brighton. She cut in on other drivers and then smiled at them so happily that they were unable to resist smiling back. She was a happy woman – happy in her husband, whose work as an architect she regarded as socially valuable, happy in the cleverness of her children, happy to live in The Dell, which was for her the symbol of a new community spirit in England. Behind her happiness, it might fairly be said, was a complacent self-satisfaction at having managed life so well, but behind the self-satisfaction was a genuine desire to be of service to the community which was expressed in her work for half a dozen local welfare and artistic organisations, work which took her into the homes of the distressed, the maladjusted, the poor. Into these homes she brought her wide smile, her overwhelming physical vitality, her insatiable curiosity about people. Others might have been embarrassed by the idea of paying such a visit as hers, with such a purpose. Caroline felt simply the tingling of anticipation that for her preceded any sort of contact with other human beings. What would the house be like, what would Marion say, would she have any luck in getting her back?

  The house was as bad as she had expected, a little semi-detached villa in a row of similar villas, set back a few yards from the main road. Caroline slammed the car door, opened the little wooden gate, walked briskly up the crazy paving drive. She had telephoned to announce her presence in the neighbourhood, and had been invited to have a cup of tea. Before she could ring the bell the door opened and Mr Hayward, solid, square, pork-butcherly, filled the space.

  “You found us all right, then. Come along in.”

  A hideous little hall, cream paint, a dado, an umbrella stand. How could people, people who had money to be elsewhere, live in such places? The living-room, which was two rooms knocked into one, had a square bay window in front and at the back french windows through which a small, carefully-tended garden could be seen. Tea things stood on a trolley. There was nobody else in the room.

  “Did you have a good journey down? Which way did you come?”

  Caroline, who had been exposed before to what she and Dick called the travel game, answered with caution, but did not stop Mr Hayward from describing an infinitely better route from Brighton. Her attention wandered. Where was Marion, where was Mrs Hayward? Even as these thoughts passed through her mind, Mrs Hayward came in carrying a silver teapot and a plate of bread and butter cut very thin. In response to Mr Hayward’s question, “Where’s that girl?” his wife said that she would be down in a minute. They drank tea, and Mr Hayward talked about the dryness of the summer, and about the harvest. Even Caroline, who was not susceptible to what people thought and felt, sensed something uneasy in the conversation.

  When Marion did come in, while they were drinking their second cup of tea, Caroline was shocked. She had always admired the sharp prettiness and brittle elegance of Marion’s looks, and often said that she certainly had a sense of style. The woman who came into the room, walking as carefully as though she were treading some invisible line across the carpet, had untidy hair
in which the streaks of grey were now obvious, a face thin as though with illness, twitching hands. Caroline got up, said, “Hallo, my dear,” warmly, kissed her. As she did so, she could not fail to be aware that Marion had been drinking gin.

  Marion accepted a cup of tea but only sipped at it, crossed her hands over each other, and looked at the opposite wall. Her father and mother bent their gazes upon Caroline, rather as though she were a specialist who had been called in to give that vital second opinion. When Caroline, whose extrovert self-confidence was a little shaken, suggested that she and Marion should have a talk, they left the room almost eagerly.

  “How are you?”

  “I’m all right.”

  Inane question, uncommunicative answer. Caroline was warm-hearted, and she was especially distressed by mental misery because she was really incapable of understanding it. She said, “Oh, my dear, what’s the matter?”

  “I don’t know. I feel—” Marion left the sentence unfinished. “I’ve been drinking, you know that, don’t you? I’ve been drinking for three days. But I can’t get drunk.”

  “But why?”

  “He writes me such terrible letters, no, I don’t mean that, it’s that he – he accepts everything so. I don’t know what to do. I don’t understand him.”

  She took a letter out of a pocket, passed it over. Even in the midst of her deep, genuine sympathy for Marion, Caroline could not help feeling satisfaction as she read the lines on prison paper, with their acceptance of blame for whatever was wrong in their relationship, their assurance that nothing whatever should be done about it. This kind of satisfaction was something she and Dick always felt at glimpses into the recesses of other lives. She handed back the letter.

  “I haven’t shown it to them.” Marion gestured in the direction of her mother and father, almost as if they were enemies. “I write back, but it’s no good. I keep thinking about the past, the way I’ve failed him.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “No. We were never – it was never – much good. In bed, you know. I think I’m frigid.” Caroline, the warmth of whose responses were such that frigidity was for her something almost unimaginable, was silent. “And yet it wasn’t like that, really. I mean, it wasn’t all my fault. He never thought about me. He wasn’t like these letters,” she cried out, protesting against the unfairness of the gap between what is written and what is done.