A Sentence of Life

by Julian Gloag

  “Wait a minute,” Tom said. “Let me just get one thing straight. When was the girl murdered?”

  “On Wednesday, that’s when the police found her—or rather Mrs. Ardley.”

  “They found her on Wednesday, but when did she die? Did they tell you?”

  “No, I just assumed …”

  “In other words, she could have been murdered on Tuesday? Or on Monday?”

  “I suppose so. I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Hadn’t you?”

  “Well, maybe it had been in the back of my mind. Perhaps that’s why I …”

  “Very likely,” said Tom without expression. “Alright now, just tell me the whole thing—what happened on Monday and what happened yesterday at the station.”

  Lamely Jordan told him. When he had finished, Tom sat silent.

  “Well?” said Jordan.

  “Well what? Do you want me to advise you?”

  “Yes—I think I do.”

  “Right. Go straight round to Sarah Street. See this Superintendent George and make a statement. Tell him exactly what you’ve told me.”

  “But I feel such a bloody fool—”

  “With the greatest deference, you are a bloody fool. What on earth possessed you to lie to the police?”

  “I imagine—perhaps I didn’t want to be involved.”

  “Involved? You are involved. What you mean is that you didn’t want to be suspected of murdering the girl, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know that I’d go as far as that, but …”

  “When it comes to a layman and the law! Let that pass. But let me just ask you two questions. One, have you told me everything that happened on Monday morning?”

  He was hot again, terribly hot. “Yes.”

  “As extension of that—the reason you saw the girl, to pick up a manuscript she’d been typing for you over the weekend—you can prove it, can’t you? You have the manuscript?”

  “I’ve got the carbon, yes. Yes, I can prove that.”

  “Second question: Were you having an affair with the girl?”

  “Of course I was not.”

  “Or anything like it?”

  “Absolutely not. God, Tom—”

  “Look, Jordan, I know you’re not the man to go running after a piece of skirt. But the police don’t. No, please let me finish.” He held up his hand. “On what you have told me, there is not the slightest chance of the police arresting you. Even if—if the girl was murdered on the Monday morning. Even if the police think or suspect you might have murdered her. There still is simply not enough evidence to give them a hope in hell of bringing a successful prosecution against you. This is not my field at all, as you know, but any lawyer will tell you the same.”

  “I see. Then you think there’s nothing to … worry about?”

  “So long as you tell them the truth, absolutely nothing.” He grinned suddenly. “May I break my rule and have a drink?”

  “By all means.” Jordan got up quickly and pressed the bell. He felt both elated and depressed—as if something had been taken away from him, and he wasn’t quite certain whether he was bereft or freed.

  The waiter came and they ordered.

  “You must excuse me,” Tom said when the drinks had arrived and the glass was in his hand, “if I was a bit brusque. We lawyers often get pulled out of bed for the most ridiculous things. That’s half the time. The other half, of course, we get called in when it’s far too late.

  “Tom—if it should turn out that I do need a lawyer after all, will you act for me?”

  “Still not convinced, eh? Yes, of course I’ll act for you. Although it’s not my field, really. But if it’ll make you happy—okay.”

  “Thanks.”

  “So long as you don’t neglect to trot off to Sarah Street. Now,” he said, finishing his drink, “what about the main business?”

  “The main business?”

  “Lunch.” Tom laughed.

  As they went to the door, he said, “Would you like me to give Willy a ring and put her in the picture?”

  Jordan said, “No, I’ll do that. I think perhaps I’ll skip the office this afternoon. An unproductive week altogether.”

  “If you say so,” said Tom. He ate a large lunch.

  4

  He decided on a short walk to clear his head of the three brandies he’d had after lunch. He’d rung the Chelsea number and told them he’d be down. So there was no need to hurry.

  He wandered into Trafalgar Square. He had a look at St. Martin’s in the Fields and Edith Cavell. Then, as he was already at the door, he went into the National Portrait Gallery—which he could seldom resist.

  It was almost four when he reached Sarah Street.

  The sergeant took him directly to the same room and asked him to wait. Jordan sat down behind the desk. Although the room was bakingly hot, he was quite cold. He was sleepy, too, and when he closed his eyes, his whole body slipped sideways and came to rest in the queasy but comforting motion of a ship at sea. He shook his head and sat up straight. The inside of his mouth was marred and dry. He ought to have asked for paper and pencil—he could be getting on with his statement while he waited.

  He tried the desk drawers, but they were all locked with the exception of the bottom right-hand drawer. He pulled it out and looked down at his brown cashmere scarf. That was careless of them, to leave it there. He touched it with the tips of his fingers. He could easily put it in his pocket and slip away. Carelessness or design. He shut the drawer with a snap. Tampering with evidence. But the scarf wasn’t evidence of anything, or at least not good enough evidence. He tried to recall what Tom had said. They haven’t got a hope in hell, something like that.

  He was saved from sleep by the sergeant.

  “Excuse me, sir. Would you mind taking part in an identification parade?”

  Jordan glanced at his watch. “I don’t think I can do that. I’m waiting for Mr. George.”

  “I’m afraid he won’t be along for another five minutes, sir. The parade won’t take but a moment.”

  Well, it would be better than fighting off the doze. “If you’re quite sure, then.” His limbs were stiff as he stood up.

  “Just follow me, sir, would you?”

  He was taken down a long corridor and shown into a large room set up like an auditorium, with a small dais and a blackboard at one end and folding wooden chairs, which had been pushed to one side, for the audience. It smelled like a school gymnasium.

  In front of the dais were a police constable and eight men, all wearing overcoats. Jordan was taken to join them.

  “Alright,” said the sergeant, “just line up, would you, facing this way. Take your hat off if you don’t mind, sir. Right, won’t be a moment.” He took his place at the other end of the line from the constable. “Now please don’t speak or draw attention to yourself in any way.”

  The door opened and Jordan heard the words “… want you to be quite certain …”

  She was a woman in her late fifties, Jordan judged; a strong, righteous face, grey hair, dark overcoat, dark scarf, and a beige felt hat which contained the only colour she wore—a small flourish of orange feathers in the band. Inspector Symington was behind her, and he lightly guided her to the end of the line away from Jordan. Jordan was irritated to see the inspector; all the world had to wait upon the convenience of the police, it appeared.

  The woman stood in front of the first man in the line and stared. Then she did a right turn, walked two paces, a left turn, and stared at number two. Probably a hospital matron, Jordan thought, whom a patient had attempted to rape.

  As she stared at him, Jordan was surprised by her rather melancholy brown eyes. They didn’t fit with the rest of her face. She moved on to the man at his left, the last one. She turned slowly down the line again, not stopping this time, then back again.

  “This is the man,” she said clearly.

  Jordan wanted to laugh—she was standing directly in front of him.

  “Th
is is the man you saw leaving your rooming house at Number Twenty-seven Panton Place on the morning of March the ninth?”

  “My boarding house,” she said. “Yes, I am quite sure. At quarter to ten. This is the man.”

  “Thank you very much, Mrs. Ardley. Right.” The two of them turned and walked quickly from the room.

  “Okay,” the sergeant said. “Thank you very much. That’s all.” He came to Jordan and touched him on the arm. “You come with me.”

  The afternoon’s alcohol came together and abruptly drenched his brain. “But …” he murmured, aware of nothing but the curious looks of the other men as he was taken away.

  Taken away. As they came to the door of the little room—the interrogation room—he realised the sergeant still had hold of his arm. He shook himself. “Do you mind?”

  Superintendent George was seated behind the desk. He was smoking a pipe. “Sit down, Maddox.”

  The smell of the tobacco was horrible.

  “I most violently object. I refuse to sit down.”

  “What do you object to?”

  “That identity thing. It seems to me you’re pretty damn highhanded, Superintendent.”

  “Didn’t you give your consent to appear in the identification parade?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t know it had got anything to do with me!”

  “Oh, I see. And if you had known, you would have refused, would you?”

  “I most certainly would.” The anger hurt his head.

  “Why?”

  “Why?” Why? He’d come to tell them he’d been there anyway, so why object? He remembered Tom saying that there was nothing to be worried about—but he knew they’d cheated him somehow. He reached back for the confident normality that had been his only a couple of hours ago. “Superintendent, you’re trying to confuse me,” he laughed, but was unable to reproduce the phlegmy assurance of Tom’s chuckle. “Of course I would not have refused if I had been properly informed. It’s these underhand methods I don’t care for. In fact, I could have told you—if you’d thought to ask—that the whole thing was unnecessary. As it happens, that’s exactly why I’ve come here.”

  Symington entered and sat down in the third chair. Again that smart rattle-slap as he opened his notebook.

  Jordan refused to allow himself to become annoyed. He sat down. “I want to make a statement—not that thing you gave me to sign yesterday. But this morning I remembered—”

  “Just one moment, Maddox.” George took the pipe out of his mouth and laid it on the desk. “Before you begin, it is my duty to tell you that you are not obliged to say anything unless you wish to do so, but whatever you do say will be taken down in writing and may be given in evidence.”

  “What does that mean? Are you …?”

  “I’m not doing anything. I’m just warning you, as is my duty. It means no more no less’n what it says.”

  It was the “Warning,” of course; he wished Tom had told him about this. He made a great effort to clear his head. He would have to be careful.

  “Well, I want to say that what I told you yesterday was not—does not exactly conform to the facts, which I have now remembered. The fact is that I did see June Singer on Monday. March the ninth. I went to Panton Place to pick up a manuscript which she had been typing for me over the weekend. This was about nine-thirty, I suppose. I saw June, collected the manuscript and the portable office typewriter which I’d lent her to do the typing and then went to my office. I must have taken off my scarf and accidently left it there. This just completely went out of my mind until yesterday evening when … I suddenly remembered.” Well, that was it. He felt a swell of relief as his body relaxed. “If you have that typed up, I’ll sign it.”

  Symington continued writing for a few moments; then there was quiet. A tiny bubbling from the superintendent’s pipe. Nobody said a word.

  “I said, if you have that typed, I’ll sign it.”

  Nothing. Neither policeman moved. George looked steadily at the wall and puffed gently, as though remembering old times.

  “Mr. George!” The irritability of his exhaustion overcame him.

  The superintendent moved in his chair and regarded Jordan.

  “I’ve made my statement, Mr. George.”

  “Oh. That was your statement, was it?” His tone was one of genuine surprise.

  “Yes. I mean … Why … Yes, it was. Is.”

  “Quite sure that’s all you want to say?”

  He’d covered it, hadn’t he? He had a sense of inadequacy before George’s kindly puzzlement. “What more is there to say?”

  George smiled. “That’s for you to tell us, isn’t it, Maddox?”

  “I don’t understand what you want.”

  “The only thing we want is the true facts. Now let’s start with Monday morning. Why not tell us everything you remember about that morning in your own words? Begin at the beginning. For instance, what did you have for breakfast that day?”

  “How could that be remotely relevant?”

  “It might help you to remember. Just tell us about that morning as it happened. Don’t bother about anything else; we can deal with that later.”

  “Anything else? Mr. George, really, I hardly know what you’re talking about. Anyway, this is ridiculous. I don’t want to say any more.”

  George was looking at the wall again now. “That’s up to you, Maddox. But I think, in all fairness to yourself, there are one or two things you might like to explain.”

  “Such as what?”

  The superintendent sighed and his pipe bubbled quickly. “You said you arrived at Panton Place about nine-thirty. How long did you stay there?”

  “Five minutes perhaps.”

  “So you would have left Panton Place at about nine thirty-five.”

  “Roundabout, yes.”

  “Well now, Mrs. Ardley says she saw you leaving Number Twenty-seven at nine forty-five. How do you account for that?”

  “I said about nine-thirty. It could easily have been nine-forty. Mrs. Ardley may be right; on the other hand she might be mistaken. I don’t see what the difficulty is.”

  “Alright then. Let’s say you arrived at nine-thirty, maybe nine-forty. Let’s try to pin it down as near as we can though. Might it have been nine-fifty?”

  “I shouldn’t think so, no. Too late. No, I should say between nine-thirty and nine-forty.”

  “Nine-twenty, perhaps?”

  “I think not. Not as early as that.”

  “And you stayed five minutes?”

  “Yes.”

  “That morning, how did you come up to town, Maddox?”

  “By train as usual.”

  “That would be the train from Woodley to Waterloo?”

  “Yes, the eight twenty-four.”

  “From Waterloo, how did you get to Panton Place?”

  “By tube.”

  “Didn’t stop on the way to have a cup of coffee or anything?”

  “No. I went straight there.”

  “Now tell me how long all that took you—from Woodley Station to Panton Place.”

  “Woodley to Waterloo is forty-five minutes exactly. Fifteen minutes in the tube, I suppose. Two or three minutes to walk at either end. A bit over an hour, I’d say. Sixty-five, seventy minutes at most.”

  “So, on that basis, you would have arrived at Panton Place at between nine twenty-nine and nine thirty-four.”

  Jordan smiled now. “Yes. Which is what I said at the beginning.”

  “So you did, yes. But all this is based on your having taken the eight twenty-four train from Woodley. Now I want to be fair with you, Maddox, so I’m not going to ask you whether or not you took the eight twenty-four that morning because I know you didn’t. However—”

  “But I did take it. I always take it. How can you know—”

  “Please, Maddox. I’m not trying to trip you up. It just shows you how faulty memory can be. I can prove you took the seven fifty-nine from Woodley that morning. I’ve got two independent witn
esses. I see no harm in telling you that the parking attendant and the porter J. Whitaker have already made statements to that effect. Well, as you know, the seven fifty-nine arrives at Waterloo at eight forty-eight. Fifteen minutes in the tube, two- or three-minute walk either end—that means you must have arrived at Panton Place just before nine-fifteen. You say you stayed five minutes, which would mean you left about nine-twenty. Mrs. Ardley is positive you left at nine forty-five. That’s a discrepancy, isn’t it? A rather large discrepancy. I’m sure you can explain it—and I think you ought to.”

  Jordan was shocked. It wasn’t so much that he’d made a mistake about the train times—and if old Whitaker said he’d taken the seven fifty-nine, he probably had—as the knowledge that they had been investigating him. He felt ensnared and soiled and—not frightened, no, but worried. And Tom had said there was nothing to worry about. In that case … “I’m not contradicting you, Superintendent. Come to think of it, I rather imagine I could have taken the earlier train—I know I didn’t want to lose much time before getting to the office. I had a ten o’clock appointment with an American publisher. I may have stayed ten minutes at June’s—perhaps fifteen, though it seems unlikely to me. Perhaps I did stop to have a cup of coffee at Waterloo. As you say, my memory is far from perfect. I’m not trying to be unreasonable—but I do think all this is rather footling.”

  George took a ring of keys from his pocket and examined them. He inserted one into the lock of the centre drawer of the desk. He picked out several sheets of paper stapled together. He turned the pages slowly, mumbling to himself here and there. “Ah, yes,” he said at last. “Here we are: ‘Time of Death …’ let’s see … ‘can be placed with some accuracy as having occurred between the hours of seven A.M. and eleven A.M. on the morning of March ninth!” He glanced up at Jordan. “That’s the Monday, Maddox. I’m reading from the pathologist’s report.” He dropped the papers back in the drawer and locked it methodically and put the keys in his pocket. “Between seven and eleven. You were there fair and square in the middle of that period in which Singer was murdered. So you see there’s nothing footling about it. The time element—what happened that morning and exactly when it happened—all that’s extremely important. I’ll be honest with you, Maddox—you’re the only person who can tell us what happened, because we don’t know of anyone else who visited June Singer that morning.”