The End Of Solomon Grundy

by Julian Symons

  “Come back. My dear, do come back. You’ll be better at home.”

  Marion turned upon her a dark anguished gaze. “It will be just the same anywhere.”

  Caroline seized her advantage. “If it’s the same anywhere, then come back. People talk about you having left Sol. It will be better for him if you come back.”

  “Better for him. But could I ever go on with it? Does he even want me to? I don’t understand, I’ve never understood him. Oh, help me to understand.”

  Oh, dear, Caroline thought, she really is rather drunk. Firmly, practically, commonsensically, she said, “I’m going to take you back with me, that’s settled. You’ll stay with us for the time being, then you can decide whether you want to move back home. I’m quite sure you’ll feel better.”

  So it was settled. They went upstairs and packed Marion’s things together. Caroline announced magisterially that Marion had decided that her proper place was in her own home, and the Haywards, far from objecting, seemed relieved. On the way back in the car Marion fell asleep. She did not wake up until they had reached The Dell. Caroline took her in, helped her to undress, put her to bed in Cyprian’s room. Then she went down and said triumphantly, “Mission accomplished.”

  “Was she drunk?” Cyprian asked. “She looked drunk to me.”

  Gloria rebuked him. “You don’t say that sort of thing. It’s disgusting.”

  “Yes, it is,” Caroline said. “And don’t you dare to repeat what you’ve just said. If you do I shall be very angry indeed.”

  She spoke with such uncharacteristic sharpness that even Cyprian was quelled. “Where am I going to sleep?”

  “We’ll make up a bed for you down here.”

  “Good, I needn’t go to bed yet then. Can I watch TV?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t be hard on him. I’ll tell you what he remembered,” Dick said. He told her.

  Chapter Five

  Trial, Third Day

  Trial Transcript – 6

  PETER JAMES CLEMENTS, examined by Mr Eustace Hardy.

  “I am a television producer and I live in The Dell, where the accused lives also. The accused is well-known to me, and so also is his Alvis car. On the evening of the 23rd of September I had dinner with Mr Jellifer. After dinner we were walking down Curzon Street when he pointed out the accused’s Alvis car to me. I saw it myself, and I have no doubt that it was his car. I recognised the number.”

  MR HARDY “What subjects were discussed during dinner?”

  “Principally a possible television series featuring Mr Jellifer. I shouldn’t have been handling this myself, but another producer was interested. We talked about the idea.”

  “Did you discuss the accused?”

  “Not particularly. His name was mentioned.”

  “In connection with the incident at the party?”

  “And his odious behaviour at the garage committee on the following evening, yes.”

  “But you discussed these matters only in passing.”

  “Quite.”

  “If it were suggested that the accused was very much in your mind, would that be correct?”

  “No, not at all. We only mentioned him because he had been more boorish than usual.”

  “There is one further point. If it were suggested that you had dined so well that you were likely to be mistaken about the car number, what would you say?”

  “I should say it was nonsense. It was a pleasant dinner, no more than that. We weren’t in the least drunk, if that is what you mean.”

  “And you are quite sure you recognised the car?”

  “Quite sure.”

  Cross-examined by Mr Newton.

  MR NEWTON “Three bottles of wine between two people, and then brandy. Do you call that ‘just a pleasant dinner’, Mr Clements?”

  “I’ve often drunk more, if that is what you mean.”

  “Very possibly, but you haven’t always had to identify a car number afterwards.”

  “I did recognise it.”

  “Mr Clements, do you know anything about the way in which alcohol slows down human reactions?”

  “I know I recognised the car number.”

  THE JUDGE “Mr Clements, we have had it already that the car could have been seen for a few seconds, no more. Do you agree with that?”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “What do you mean, you suppose so? Do you want to dispute it? Look at your watch, if you have one. Estimate the time. Does two seconds seem right to you?”

  “I saw the car number, my lord.”

  “That is not what I asked.”

  “I – no, I couldn’t dispute the time.”

  “Now, turning round, as I understand you did, and looking at the back of this passing car for two or three seconds, did you look specially for the number?”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “You must surely know whether you looked for it.”

  “Well, no, I didn’t.”

  “Then how did you happen to see it?”

  “I just noticed it, that’s all.”

  “You just noticed it. Very well.”

  MR NEWTON “I must thank your lordship for eliciting answers to several questions I should have asked.”

  THE JUDGE “We have had it all before, Mr Newton, with another witness. I thought it would save time.”

  MR NEWTON “But I still have one or two more questions. Do you like the accused, Mr Clements?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “He is very boorish, rude. I thought he behaved atrociously, both at the party and on another occasion, at the garage committee.”

  “In your opinion, does he often behave badly?”

  “He is often rude and always uncouth.”

  “You don’t like him, then?”

  “I certainly shouldn’t choose him as a friend.”

  “Were you jealous of him?”

  “What? That’s absurd?”

  “Is it? Do you know a Mr Rex Lecky?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he a friend of yours?”

  “I—”

  “Come along. Is he a friend or not.”

  “We’ve quarrelled.”

  “Mr Lecky was sharing a house with you, was he not?”

  “Yes.”

  “And now he has left it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did he leave? Did you quarrel about the accused?”

  “No, it was nothing like that.”

  “Did Mr Lecky say that the accused was an attractive man, and did that upset you?”

  (The witness showed signs of distress.)

  THE JUDGE “You may sit, if you wish.”

  (Questioning was resumed after a short delay.)

  MR NEWTON “Do you remember the incident?”

  “No. I am not sure.”

  “You are not sure. Your memory is hardly equal to your powers of observation. Do you remember that Mr Lecky disapproved of your going to the police?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps.”

  “My lord, I shall be calling Mr Lecky, so that the jury will have an opportunity of hearing him. Is that why Mr Lecky left your house?”

  “No. Certainly not.”

  “Why did he leave, then?”

  “There were personal reasons.”

  “Personal reasons! Well, I will inquire no further.”

  “Would you agree that you had an argument about the accused?”

  “I think that’s right. Yes.”

  “Good. I am glad to have got so far. Now, we have been dealing with your memory. Let us consider your powers of observation. Had you ever seen the dead woman before that Friday night of the party?”

  “No.”

  “You are quite sure of that?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Will you please look at this paper, and see if you recognise it.”

  “It seems to be a casting list.”

  “It is a casting list for a
television play called The Springs of Justice, is it not? Did you produce this play?”

  “Yes.”

  “My lord, I have further copies of this casting flist, which I should like to enter as Exhibit Number 61. Perhaps the jury would like to look at it.” (Copies of the list were passed to Mr Justice Crumble and the jury.) “Now, Mr Clements, will you look at the second page, the second entry down. Will you tell us what actress was chosen to play the part of Celia Reston?”

  “It says here Estelle Simpson.”

  “Do you dispute the accuracy of this list?”

  “No.”

  “Below her name there is her address, and then it says here: ‘Availability. For a total of twenty rehearsals plus ampexing’. Will you tell the jury what that means.”

  “It means that we had twenty days of rehearsal and then the play was ampexed, put on tape, ready to go out.”

  “You were the producer, and Estelle Simpson, that is Sylvia Gresham, was in the cast. That means you saw her every day for three weeks?”

  “Not every day, but most days. She had a very small part. I remember now.”

  “You remember now, Mr Clements? You had no recollection of it?”

  “It was two years ago. I’ve produced several plays since then.”

  “Just think what you are saying. Two years ago you saw this girl almost every day, for three weeks. Yet it is only a few minutes since, speaking on oath in that witness box, you told me that you had never seen her before the night of the party. I asked whether you were sure of that, and you replied that you were absolutely sure. You were quite wrong, weren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yet although you were utterly wrong about a girl you had seen for three weeks, you are still asking the jury to believe that you recognised the number plate and identity of a car which you saw for two or three seconds?”

  “I – yes.” (end of transcript)

  Hardy did not re-examine. When Peter Clements, white and shaking, left the witness box, he knew that the damage done to his case by the stupidity of this wretched television producer might be considerable. He felt, as he said to Stevenage during the luncheon recess, that there was no cause for them to blame themselves. Clements was not an important witness, he provided no more than confirmation of Jellifer’s story. The fact that his recollection had proved faulty was not important either. But the effect on the jury of his equivocation and discomfiture, and of Newton’s adroit suggestion that Clements was a homosexual and that for some reason other inhabitants of The Dell were ganging up on Grundy, all this might be very important. The case was not going smoothly, yet Hardy was far from depressed. He was not a man who was ever greatly elated by a triumph or depressed by a defeat, being accustomed to treat those two impostors just the same. He did not, however, expect defeat.

  Magnus Newton, on his side, had in his broad nostrils the smell of victory, which he was inclined to scent perhaps too easily. As he and Toby Bander carved away at their chump chops in a nearby pub he made grandiloquent gestures with his knife, which was one of his bad habits when carried away by enthusiasm. They wasted little time in consideration of the wretched Clements, except that Newton said Trapsell had done a good job in getting hold of the casting list.

  “It was really that architect chap in The Dell,” Toby Bander said. “He found out about it somehow, yesterday.”

  Newton took a large draught from his tankard of beer.

  “The chap’s a regular detective.”

  “None of this removes the real obstacle, does it?”

  “No. He’s certainly no oil painting.”

  They both contemplated without pleasure the appearance their client would present when he gave evidence, face brutish or sullenly louring, hairy hands gripping the edge of the box, body bearishly clumsy.

  “I don’t like to think what Hardy will do to him,” Toby Bander said.

  They drank the rest of their beer and talked about other, more important things. Magnus’s daughter had just won a scholarship to go to Cambridge. Toby had got his handicap down from eight to four.

  Peter Clements walked out of the Old Bailey as unsteadily as a punch-drunk boxer. He took a taxi to a pub which was frequented a great deal by actors and boxers, and drank several whiskies. In the afternoon he visited other pubs and clubs, asking for Rex Lecky. He found him eventually in a club called the Fallout Shelter. Rex was with another young actor named Jackie Levine. He smiled his foxy smile.

  “You made the headlines.”

  Peter stood swaying, looking down at him. “You went to—” the word escaped him, “—to them.”

  “I told you to be careful.”

  “Betrayed me. Let me down. I’ve been humiliated.”

  “Isn’t that what you like, humiliation?”

  “Let him alone, Rex, he’s half sloshed,” Jackie Levine said.

  “Judas.” Peter stretched his arms wide. “Judas, come back to me. I didn’t want you to go away.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud, she’s maudlin.”

  Jackie giggled. “Morbid.”

  “Maudlin and morbid, both. And she’s wet. You can see it dripping off her.” The two young men got up. Peter put out a hand, Rex pushed it away, they went out laughing. The barman suggested that Peter had better go home. He was a good-looking boy and Peter smiled at him, but the barman did not smile back.

  He had the same experience during what was left of the afternoon. He no longer felt sad, rather as though his head had been removed from his body. He wanted to explain this to people, and to tell them something of how he had been betrayed, both in his personal life and through that cruel ordeal in the witness box, but nobody would listen. Driven by the need to empty his bladder he went down into a lavatory, and there one man at whom he smiled seemed to smile back at him, but rudely shrugged him off when spoken to. Just by the exit another man, a boy really, seemed to be smiling at him.

  It was unavoidable that he should go out that way, and really it seemed inevitable that he should speak.

  “Thank goodness,” he said. “I thought I should never find anyone to talk to. Come back with me.”

  “Where?”

  “Home, of course, The Dell.”

  “You were smiling at me.”

  “Was I? You looked so nice.”

  Now another young man, not so young really, was standing beside him, and the boy didn’t look nice at all. “We are police officers and we have been keeping you under observation,” he said. “We have seen you speak to several men, importuning them. Come along.”

  He tried to tell them that it was all a mistake, that he was not really like that, but they took hold of his arms and he could not get away. In the street he became angry – after all, hadn’t he volunteered to give evidence, wasn’t he on the side of the police? – and at the station he protested quite vigorously. In the corridor leading to the cells they had to restrain him, which they were not unwilling to do, for neither of them liked queers.

  That afternoon, also Inspector Ryan dropped in to have a chat with Kabanga, to tell him how things were going. The African felt, as he said, too personally involved to stay in court. Kabanga began to pace up and down the room as Ryan told him in detail of Clements’s debacle.

  “The fool,” he said. “Why did he give evidence at all. Oh, it is all rubbish, this British justice of yours, it can let a guilty man get away.”

  “Can happen.” Ryan used a toothpick.

  “But what kind of justice do you call that? Grundy did it, he should hang.”

  They had had all this before, more than once, and Ryan tried again to put Kabanga right about it.

  “First thing to bear in mind is he won’t hang.” He pointed the toothpick. “And the next is, it’s not up to you to go on about Britain. We let you in here, Tony, let you make a fat living out of this country.”

  “I know that.”

  “You loved this girl, I know you did. All right. I respect you for it. But don’t you say anything about British just
ice, it’s the best in the world.”

  “Listen, Buck. This man Grundy, we know he did it.”

  “We think he did it. It’s the jury that knows.”

  “We know, you and I. Don’t we? And you are saying he could be let off?”

  “It could happen. I don’t think it will, but it could.”

  “And you call that justice? The defence man twists and argues and lies and you call that justice?” Kabanga was trembling with passion. Ryan tried to argue with him but it was no use. In the end he got browned off with it, and left. He felt that he had had enough of Kabanga. You tried to make a friend out of one of them, he told himself, but really it was impossible, they just didn’t think the same way. East was east and all that. He might have imparted some of these philosophical reflections to Manners, but the superintendent greeted him with a quiet anger that forbade such observations.

  “I’m told you’ve been seeing Kabanga frequently.”

  “Not frequently. I’ve dropped in once or twice to—”

  “Don’t you know enough not to talk to a witness in a case, especially one like this?”

  “But he’s given his evidence. What harm can it do?”

  “What harm!” And then the super really tore him off a strip about the duty, incorruptibility, etcetera, of a police officer (would he have done so, Ryan wondered, had the case been going well?), and came to the real point, which was that Kabanga was suspected of pushing drugs in quite a big way. Certainly they were being distributed through his clubs, and it didn’t seem likely that he would be ignorant of it. He had obviously been laughing his head off over Ryan, and had very likely talked to his friends about this nark who was so stupid you didn’t have to pull the wool over his eyes, he wore blinkers anyway. More and worse, when they did catch Kabanga with the stuff, the other side would certainly suggest either that Ryan had helped to plant it or that he had been taking dropsy from Kabanga…