by Gerald Kersh
Dustin looked sick as he stood in the grim, dim light of the guardroom. The police-sergeant, with a glare in his eyes like candlelight on ice and a rat-trap snapping of his wiry, break-back jaws, said:
“A deserter, a gutless yellow deserter; and a fool to think you could get away with it. Shove him inside!” And his mouth clicked shut; and the cell door clicked shut, and darkness and silence swallowed Dustin until the next day when I saw him scrubbing the guardroom floor.
I do not like deserters, and cannot pity them. But the unmistakable haggard drag of heartache in Dustin’s face moved me to say:
“You poor mug. What made you do it?”
“Fell for a girl,” said Dustin, and laughed again. “Me. Just fancy that.”
“Why not you? It happens to everybody some time or other.”
“Me!” Dustin fished a dirty floorcloth out of the pail and wrung it out.
“Me! I was married once. I had seven years of it. I had all the misery in the world with that woman.
“She ran about with other fellows. She stole everything she could lay her hands on, ran me into debt. I was fond of her. She played me up, led me a dance, and then left me for somebody else. I was a fool.
“She died just before the war, I heard. I don’t know how: I didn’t care any more.
“Last leave, I went to see a man I used to know up North. He had a sister. The sister had a lady-friend that she introduced me to.
“Her name was Dora. She was about twenty-eight. Her picture is among my papers. She’s the prettiest woman I ever saw in my life. I fell for her. I fell bad, hard, terrible hard. She’s dark. You ought to see her eyes. If there was such a thing as black stars . . .”
He scrubbed at a grease-spot.
“The craziest thing is that she fell for me, too,” said Dustin. “She’s a widow, with a bit of money of her own, just enough to live on. That had nothing to do with it. We used to go for walks together.
“She showed me her house over by the edge of the town; a pretty house right in the middle of a sort of park. We got engaged. I gave her a gold ring my father gave me.
“We couldn’t bear to be away from each other . . . that’s the funny part of it; she couldn’t bear to be away from me. She told me so a thousand times.
“Afterwards, she wrote to me about it . . . couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep for thinking about me. Was eating herself up, crying her heart out, had to see me, had got to see me. . . . But that was a wonderful week. It was!
“We just walked and talked and stayed together, and we couldn’t bear to say good night, but stood and talked and talked, even in the rain.
“We arranged to get married as soon as I could get leave.
“But when I got back to camp, good Lord in heaven, how rotten and empty everything was.
“I couldn’t sleep or eat or find any interest in life, couldn’t do anything but think about her.
“But I stuck it out as long as I could, and sweated on my next leave. And my leave was just about due, when I got into trouble. It was through thinking about her, looking forward to seeing her again. Madness. But there it is.
“I was out on field training. I was dozy and dreamy. I lost a pick and a spade; just left them somewhere—— I forgot where, forgot all about them.
“I got called in on orders, forgot myself, was off-hand in answering, made a rotten bad impression, got fourteen days’ C. B.
“Well, fourteen days is a terrible time to wait. That meant twenty-eight days’ loss of privileges on top of the fourteen and then my leave put back fourteen more.
“I went crazy. The first Defaulters on the revally of the day after, I just went sullen; didn’t show up; got put in the report. The company officer was all right. He could smell something wrong. He talked to me like a gentleman.
“If he hadn’t done so, I was in the mood to answer back. I didn’t care. I didn’t care if I died. The first three days crawled. They crawled so that they drove me mad. It’s like waiting to get somewhere in a hurry on a matter of life or death. . . . And you get in a dead-slow train that stops every station for—it seems a year. . . .
“So one day I was coming off a Defaulters’ drill in the afternoon, dressed up in my best to get by the inspection dressed as it might be for leave.
“Buses come through the camp. All of a sudden I jumped on one, got to the station, got to London and then found that I didn’t have more than a pound in my pocket. I had to get right up far North.
“I got a train as far as Rugby, and started to footslog it from there. I walked like on a forced march. I must have been mad, I dare say.
“I slogged up those roads, and couldn’t think of anything but her, and couldn’t find patience to stop and eat and couldn’t do anything but slog on though I was dead on my feet.”
Dustin wiped sweat from his forehead with a lean forearm, and as he looked up at me he seemed to have aged ten years.
“In the end I got there. Nobody stopped me. It was sheer luck.
“I got to this little town. It was night. I went straight to her place up there by the park. She was still up. I knocked. She opened the door, and nearly fainted for joy when she saw me.
“Then she took me in and showed me why she’d been staying up. She’d been writing me a letter saying that if I didn’t come soon she’d die.
“And after a bit I said: ‘Dora, don’t let on I’m here.’
“She asked me what I meant. I remember she was looking at me. I told her what I’d done.
“And then all of a sudden her whole face got different. It kind of iced up, skinned over with ice like a pond overnight in a frost.
“I said: ‘Dora, what is it?’ And she said: ‘So, just because you couldn’t have patience for a little, just because of that, you go and throw everything down the drain. What kind of man are you?’
“She said: ‘Did I go running away to you? But I’m fond of you the same as you are of me. What kind of a man are you to drag everything back because of me, because of not waiting for a few days? What sort of a mind have you got, that you want to load us up with a rotten name for the sake of a few days?’
“And she called me Marrdie—spoiled baby kind of thing—and said: ‘I don’t like you. You’re marr’d and soft: go away from me.’
“So I went away. And I hung about, sort of dead, but alive. And in the end I gave myself up at Bedford.”
A Corporal of Military Police appeared, and said: “Shullup, Dustin, and get on with that swabbing job.” To me he said: “Let him get on with it.”
I went. I caught a last glimpse of Dustin. He was scrubbing the floor, on his knees, crouching.
It occurred to me that his fate had beaten him down into that position, and there he would remain—unhappy man!—until death lifted him up and away.
Let Lying Dogs Sleep
Things were grim enough that night without murder.
Groombridge Junction sprawled, soaking, under a steady, heavy rain; stone-blind with an ebony black-out. Miserable queues of water-logged people fought like cats and dogs for seats in the trams which clanked up and down the High road.
They just wanted to get away from things and sleep. There was nothing we could do. Wild horses could not have dragged one laugh out of the population of a suburb sodden with rain and wretchedness.
I was watching the audience as I laboured with my jokes.
A couple of pounds’ worth of riff-raff gloomily crunched monkey-nuts in the gallery. A disgruntled handful of the local aristocracy hung on to their gas-masks in the best (two-shilling) seats and snarled at all the funny bits. There were naked wildernesses of greasy green plush. Nothing could save us from a dead loss in Groombridge Junction that week.
I was exchanging patter with Charlie Wood, the comedian, but nobody even smiled. Then I caught a despairing sidelong glance from Charlie, and saw Ruby Tinto gathering herself for her spectacular entrance in the wings behind him.
Even in that moment I was struck by the extraordinary hardness
of that woman. She was still beautiful. (But why do I say “still”? She was only twenty-six.) But cold, hard—Arctic ice.
Her eyes were blue and clear, but passionless, like as the glass marbles they used to use as stoppers for soda-water bottles. And her face was inhuman—bitter, sneering, lifeless. She reminded me of Ruth Schneider, the Icicle Blonde.
And then I withdrew with a sigh of relief, and Ruby Tinto danced on. She drew a crackle of applause even from the scattered citizens in the auditorium. There was sex-appeal in every line of her, and from that distance her face was radiant, her hair was a Niagara of live gold.
“That Ruby,” said Charlie Wood, as soon as we were within talking distance.
As Johnnie Jackson, proprietor as well as compère of Johnnie Jackson’s Follies, it was my duty to maintain a diplomatic balance. I said: “What about her?”
“She’s making trouble again,” said Charlie Wood. “Between me and Helena. One of these days she’s going to get what’s coming to her.”
I said: “If you’d stop behaving like an overgrown schoolboy . . .” and left him standing. I walked away with dignity.
Big Marco was standing in the shadows. As I passed him I heard a burst of clapping. “Ruby’s done it again,” I said.
“Ruby!” said Big Marco.
He is a Swede—or perhaps a Norwegian; a Scandinavian, anyway—of unbelievable strength. He has, also, the stupidity that often goes with such strength.
But while most silly giants are easy-going, Marco broods. He sulks, lashes himself to acts of violence, and then breaks things. A fool and a bully, with the thews of Hercules and the conceit of Narcissus; such is Big Marco, a dangerous man to fool with, quite unlike his brother, Little Marco, who is as decent a fellow as breathes.
I said: “And now, what have you got against Ruby?”
“One dese days maybe somebody cut her troat,” said Marco. “She make me for a fool.”
“She’s too late,” I said. “You were born one of those thirty years ago.”
“One dese days maybe somebody break her neck,” said Marco.
“Gah,” I replied, and walked on.
Bitter draughts swept the leprous, whitewashed passage. A patter of worn-out feet announced Johnnie Jackson’s Glamour Girls. They trotted downstairs, a strangely assorted collection of misguided women.
Helena Fay was the last. She paused for a moment to say: “Hey, Johnnie, for goodness’ sake speak to Ruby.”
“What now?”
“Making trouble,” she said, and darted away with the other girls.
I sighed. The blistered bar-hatch flew up, and the aged barmaid poked out her battered head. “Mr. Jackson,” she said, “I’m not here to be insulted, and I won’t have it.”
“What have they been doing to you?” I asked.
“It’s that Miss Tinto.”
“Oh, and what have you got against Miss Tinto?”
“She called me an old hag,” said the barmaid.
“I’ll speak to her about it,” I said; and the hatch slammed down like a guillotine.
Just then Joy seized me by the lapels. “Johnnie,” she said, “you’ve got to do something.”
“Mind my carnation,” I said. “Do what?”
“That Ruby.”
“Ruby, Ruby, Ruby,” I cried. “All I hear from morning to night is Ruby. What——”
“Well,” said Joy, who is a good singer and a handsome woman of excellent heart, “you know that photo of King Francis-Joseph that poor old violinist Wladimir loves so much?”
“Emperor Francis-Joseph?”
“I said Emperor. Well, somebody smeared it with lipstick. Deliberately scribbled all over it with a lipstick.”
“And how d’you know it was Ruby?”
“Only Ruby uses cyclamen-coloured lipstick.”
Wladimir came running down. He calls himself the Great Wladimir, and is a violinist. His name is not Wladimir; nor is he great. Yet he looks great, and is very amiable. He was weeping.
“Mit his own hands ze Kaiser Franz-Josef gif me dis picture!” he said. “Ant now somebody paint him mit lip-paint! If I know who it is that does zis, bei Gott, I kill. You hear me? I say I kill!”
“After this,” I said, “Ruby leaves my show.”
She passed at this point, and told me to go and take a running jump at myself, sneered abominably and ran upstairs.
The night grew thicker. The black-out grew blacker. The rain fell more heavily. I was never more glad in my life than I was when that evening came to an end.
As I was putting my overcoat on, Angelico, the saxophone-player, said to me: “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Ruby Tinto is making herself very unpopular round here.”
“Go to the devil and take Ruby with you,” I said.
I was the last to leave the theatre. The last tram was full. I had to stumble three blind miles to the nearest bus stop. It was very late before I got home.
It was ten in the morning when I awoke. The telephone was ringing.
“What now?” I muttered, yawning.
It was Angelico’s voice. “What now?” he said. “What now? You’d better come quick. Ruby Tinto’s dead. She’s been killed. Somebody’s stuck a knife in her. It’s murder.”
“Trouble, trouble, trouble,” I said. “All I get is trouble.”
I dressed and hurried to the theatre. It had been a perfect night for a murder, anyway. And now it was an ideal day for hanging. Groombridge Junction still wallowed in mire and rain. The death of Ruby Tinto had attracted far more people to the theatre than my show had ever drawn. A large, satisfied crowd nuzzled the steps and hung about the stage door. They felt a personal interest in the matter. It was their murder. Mothers reprimanded stage-struck girls: this was what came of being a singer. Cadgers mulcted strangers in free drinks because they had seen her from the gallery. . . .
The detective-inspector was inside. All of my people were lined up. Poor Ruby, she had built up a dreadful atmosphere of hate. They were slightly shocked, but could not conceal the fact that they weren’t particularly sorry.
Big Marco was actually grinning; it took a murder to make that ape smile. Wladimir, with black circles under his eyes, was protesting to Charlie Wood: “I did not do it. She put lip-paint on my Emperor, but still . . .”
Everybody said: “Here he is.” The detective-inspector addressed me with easy courtesy:
“Ah! Mr. Jackson?” (It is amazing what Philo Vance has done for criminal investigation.) “No doubt you’ve heard . . . ?”
“Why, otherwise, should I be in this stinking hole at this ungodly hour of the morning?” I replied. “Who did it?”
“That’s what I’m here to find out. Do you know this weapon?” He held out a long hunting-knife.
“Why, yes,” I said. “That’s a prop. We use it in a burlesque. I had to chase Charlie Wood round the stage with it last night. I bought it in the Caledonian Market. . . . I forget when.”
“And who has charge of it?”
“Well, it’s usually knocking around on my dressing-table.”
“In your dressing-room, Mr. Jackson?”
“That’s where dressing-tables most usually are.”
He frowned and said: “Please remember that this is a very serious matter. Who would be likely to have seen it there?”
“Almost anybody. This is a devil of a show. Everybody is in and out of my room. I never was a disciplinarian. Everybody except women, I mean. I don’t allow the girls to go in men’s dressing-rooms. And vice versa.”
“Does anybody share your room?”
“Charlie Wood.”
Charlie Wood came forward. By daylight that funny man does not look in the least funny. He has a pallid, heavy face, a troubled look, and a habit of clutching himself by the lapels as he talks, in the manner of a politician.
“I lent the knife to Joe Angelico at about eight o’clock last night,” he said.
Angelico is a peculiar, lachrymose saxophonist who deserves something
better than his position of leader of my five hot musicians. His face alone is worth money. It is profoundly gloomy, but otherwise expressionless. When he plays his cheeks fall in and his eyes close.
“I wanted the knife to cut up some newspaper with,” he said. “Sometimes just for a gag, I pull a sheet of paper out of my pocket and tear it up.”
“And did you bring it back?”
“Now that I come to think of it,” said Angelico, “I left it lying on my trunk.”
“That’s right, Johnnie,” said the trumpeter, “I saw it there.”
“When?” asked the detective-inspector.
“Oh, round about eight-thirty.”
I questioned the others. . . .
“Me, I didn’t notice,” said the drummer, a tiny man with ferocious eyebrows, who is known as Rabbits.
The other musicians shook their heads. They hadn’t seen the knife either.
Wladimir shook his head too. He had taken out his fiddle, a handsome old instrument of the colour of a well-smoked kipper, and was gently stroking it. I noticed, then, that he was staring at Helena Fay, one of the chorus-girls.
There was silence for a moment. Then Helena Fay spoke. She said: “I borrowed it. I saw the knife on the trunk, and I borrowed it.”
“What for?” asked the detective-inspector.
“I . . . there was a bit of loose leather on one of my shoes, and I wanted to cut it off.”
“And what did you do with the knife then?”
“I forget. I put it down. I don’t remember.”
“Helena!” cried Charlie Wood, grasping her by the hand. “What are you talking about? You didn’t borrow that knife. I cut that bit of leather off for you with scissors earlier on in the afternoon. Don’t take any notice of her, inspector. I had that knife. I went into the musicians’ room and took that knife back off Joe Angelico’s trunk. Don’t listen to her, inspector. She’s trying to shield me. I did it. I killed Ruby. She’d been making my life a misery. I’m in love with Helena. Ruby was trying to ruin everything. I’d often wanted to kill her. She’d been making mischief. I said so to Johnnie Jackson last night, didn’t I, Johnnie?”
