The Department of Dead Ends

by Roy Vickers

  The trail of the murder begins on January 28th at nine in the morning, outside the gates of Holloway Prison. Wakering’s clientele included not a single crook, but it included that astonishing public figure, Mrs Hemmelman, a wealthy widow, the generous champion of almost any lost cause that had a crankish twist to it. Mrs Hemmelman had chosen to serve a month’s imprisonment rather than pay a fine of forty shillings imposed for failing to keep one of her dogs under proper restraint. And she had asked Wakering to meet her on discharge.

  When Wakering arrived at the prison he saw Mrs Hemmelman’s Rolls-Royce parked at the kerb, its stately rear disfigured by a poster, the size of a newspaper page. For the dog incident had been elevated to a burning social question, demanding immediate legislation. A quire of the wretched posters had been sent to his office for distribution among animal fans.

  After passing the time of day with the chauffeur, Wakering decided to wait by the Rolls. He waited quite a long time, unaware that Mrs Hemmelman, now a free woman, was upbraiding the Lady Governor on defects of the prison system, with special reference to the Lady Governor.

  While Wakering was thus stamping to keep his feet warm, other female prisoners were emerging to freedom. And presently came Jeannie.

  He stared very hard but was still uncertain, for it was twelve years and two months, he remembered, since he had last seen her. She was already walking away in the direction of the City. He ran after her.

  ‘Jeannie!’ Again he was short of absolute certainty. Apart from the changes in her face, her dress was all wrong. ‘Jeannie Bridstowe!’

  ‘Why, it’s old Hugh!’

  Her voice, we must imagine, played on his nervous system and made him forget her altered appearance and her unsuitable dress – the voice that had thrilled him a dozen years ago. The shock was therefore the greater when the tone roughened as she added: ‘I saw you as I came out of stir and I said it can’t be him.’

  Stir! He clutched her arm.

  ‘Jeannie! What were you doing in that prison?’

  She wrenched her arm free.

  ‘Six months, if you want to know. Anything else before we say good-bye? Good-bye!’

  ‘Don’t dare to talk to me in that disgusting jargon!’ It was a cross between a command and a prayer, for the dream of a dozen years was being grossly profaned. ‘Does Cuthbert know you have been in prison?’

  ‘Cuthbert? Oo, I see what you’re getting at – you called me “Jeannie Bridstowe”. So I was, for a month or two. But we never got married. I’d almost forgotten.’

  ‘Never got married! But I sent you both a telegram and a wedding present!’

  ‘Yes, I remember now. That was nice of you, Hugh!’ Again the voice and manner of a dozen years ago, this time driving out the last flickering consciousness of his duty to Mrs Hemmelman. Jeannie went on: ‘But we couldn’t explain at the time. And there’s no sense in raking it all up now. So let’s say goodbye as friends. I can’t answer a lot of questions about everything – I can’t really.’

  ‘I won’t ask you a single one. But I’ve got to tell you something.’

  ‘All right then! I know a nice little place where we can sit for a bit. But we’ll have to take a bus, because they don’t like taxis stopping.’

  They had to walk to the bus halt. On the way they passed a florist’s.

  ‘Red carnations!’ exclaimed Jeannie. ‘They used to be my lucky flower. D’you remember?’

  Yes, he remembered. He urged her into the shop and bought her a bunch of red carnations at five shillings each. Their scent brought him unbearable memories of frustrated desire for her – for Jeannie as she used to be. He could hardly bear to look at her now. He relieved her of her canvas hold-all to enable her to carry the carnations.

  She took him to a cellar bar in the neighbourhood of King’s Cross Station, where drinks were served round the clock – a resort of small crooks too stupid to realize that the police let it function solely because it acted as a sort of mouse-trap. Half a dozen couples were distributed about the bar. A fat, white-faced man, unnoticed by Wakering, gave Jeannie a furtive glance of welcome. The potman greeted her as ‘Jeannie’.

  She piloted Wakering to a quiet corner.

  ‘Mine’s a double Scotch,’ she said.

  At that time of day! But, for Wakering, the actuality of Jeannie was snowed under in a desperate determination to salvage his dream.

  ‘This is what I have to tell you, Jeannie. Please don’t say anything until I have finished.’

  He began with a rather rose-coloured picture of the days when Jeannie Ruthen was a typist employed by the administration of London University, and the two friends, Hugh Wakering and Cuthbert Bridstowe, were law students, and Hugh was in love with Jeannie, whose attitude was correctly non-committal. Then, rather larger than real life, came the introduction of Jeannie to Cuthbert Bridstowe shortly after they had graduated.

  Bridstowe obtained a post in Manchester. Jeannie joined him there, to stay for a week, as Hugh Wakering was given to understand, with an aunt of Bridstowe’s, at the end of which they would be married.

  ‘I meant everything I said in that telegram, Jeannie. Although I was heartbroken, I was also happy, because I honestly believed that Cuthbert was the better man, who would give you a fuller life than I ever could. And I loved you so much that I was happy for your sake.

  ‘I heard when Cuthbert gave up the law and stepped into his uncle’s business. For one thing, the firm’s office is almost opposite mine – so near that, for nearly every working day of the last ten years, I have watched Cuthbert arrive in the morning – watched him get into his car after the garage man has driven it round at five in the afternoon.

  ‘But I never approached him. I bore him no ill-will whatever. But I knew I could not endure his physical presence – that it would remind me too much that he held you in his arms. I felt it – more honourable – to keep out of the way.

  ‘I know all about Cuthbert. He happens to have become an animal fan; a wealthy client of mine, a well-known woman, often talks about him, though she doesn’t know I knew him once. When I heard he had a son, I thought it was your son. That was six years ago. I have been imagining you as a happy wife and mother – in a queer sort of way I’ve been sharing the happiness I believed to be yours and his. For all these years. So you see, Jeannie, you can’t just meet me in the street and say good-bye.’

  ‘Well, fancy!’ exclaimed Jeannie. ‘I hadn’t any idea you felt like that about me, Hugh. Makes you think, doesn’t it!’

  She gave him a reasonably truthful account of herself. It was a standard story of seduction under promise of marriage – redeemed from the commonplace only by the fact that she had no particular grievance against Bridstowe – was inclined to blame her own shortcomings. In time, she had drifted into the underworld, with occasional excursions into petty larceny – mainly from parked lorries – resulting in a number of short prison sentences.

  Hugh Wakering barely listened, for he had by now read the essentials of her history from her appearance and her habits and her speech. He observed that she had consumed his whisky as well as her own. She was socially, morally, and physically degraded – by the man he had thought better than himself!

  To the introvert, self-dramatization is the breath of life. Hugh Wakering saw that the dream need not be salvaged – the dream in which he had figured as a saintly numbskull. This time he would play an heroic role. After his death someone would write of him as one of the great lovers of history – a man who implemented the loftiest principles in his everyday life.

  ‘Jeannie, my dear, Cuthbert Bridstowe’s love – if we can so call it – did nothing but hurt you. It brought you years of sordid wretchedness.’

  ‘Oo! Steady on! I wouldn’t blame it all on poor old Cuthbert.’

  ‘I do.’ He resented the interruption. ‘I was going to say that my love is unchanged by what you have been telling me. It is exactly as it was a dozen years ago. Yes, I mean it, Jeannie, with every fibre of my b
eing. D’you know what I am going to do? I am going to take you home to my mother. I live with her. And in four days we will be married. I happen to be doing moderately well and can give you all the small comforts. And I shall devote my life to the task of making up to you for what you have suffered.’

  Viewed from the angle of the poor little drab, it was a colossal bribe. But Jeannie had never cheated a man who had been kind to her.

  ‘I couldn’t, Hugh! Your mother wouldn’t stand for it. And, if you must know, I’ve got something here.’ She indicated her lungs. ‘The doctor in stir told me. And besides, what’s the use of pretending? I couldn’t stick your kind of life, however hard I tried.’

  ‘You think you couldn’t, but I know you’re wrong.’ A brave, patient smile spread over the handsome face. ‘I will never take no for an answer, Jeannie. But I will not force you to anything – I will win you. You needn’t come home with me now if you don’t want to. But you must let me give you sufficient money –’

  ‘Not here!’ whispered Jeannie. ‘Those others’ll see.’

  Before they parted she accepted a few pounds for old times’ sake and gave him an address. Hugh Wakering was content. Not by bullying her, as others had done, but by gentleness and charm he would gain her unlimited confidence and then her abject devotion. He would build where others had destroyed. He had not exaggerated when he said that the new dream permeated ‘every fibre of his being’. When he is thus possessed by a fixed idea, an introvert becomes a fanatic.

  Chapter Three

  The next day he called at her lodgings with the intention of taking her out to lunch at some obscure restaurant where he could begin on her table manners. The landlady, of the kind he had more or less expected, told him:

  ‘It’s all her own fault. You know what a frightful night it was last night, with sleet and that east wind. She would go out, though she wasn’t short o’ cash. I told her it would bring back her coughin’, and so it did. This morning she was all hot and raving, so not wantin’ anything to happen I called the doctor to her and he popped her off to the Metropolitan Hospital.’

  At the hospital, Wakering interviewed the almoner. He paid in cash for Jeannie to be moved from the ward to a cubicle and to be given every purchasable comfort. He was informed that her temperature had dropped, and that he would probably be able to see her the next day. He was not asked his name, but was tactfully addressed as ‘Mr Smith’. To the hospital authorities, anonymous interest in patients of that class was not unfamiliar.

  The next day, when his typist was going out to lunch, he asked her to buy him a dozen red carnations. He himself always lunched in the office on coffee and sandwiches. At three, after signing his letters, he announced that he was going out and would not return that day. The paper wrapping the carnations was wet and came unfolded when he picked up the flowers. On a side table were the ‘wretched posters’, with photographs of Mrs Hemmelman and her slandered dog. They were at least dry. He doubled one and used it as a wrapper for the red carnations.

  When he reached the hospital he was shown into the matron’s office, where he was informed, through the formula designed to convey sympathy, that Jeannie was dead. There followed a brief explanation of the reason for the sudden collapse, which he did not hear.

  ‘She’s dead! Thank you!’ said Wakering and walked out before the matron could raise the question of funeral expenses. He was not interested in Jeannie’s funeral. He was not, indeed never had been, interested in Jeannie herself. But his personality was hopelessly entangled in the dream, of which the person of Jeannie had provided the raw material.

  He walked on, unconscious of his direction. The new, energizing dream had been violently torn from him. He would not be able to build where others had destroyed. No one would write of him as one of the great lovers of history. He would die as he had lived, a solicitor with a small practice – a man who had never had the virility to secure a woman for himself.

  As he strode on, hot tears of frustration and self-pity dropped on the carnations that were to have been the banner of Jeannie Ruthen’s regeneration. His stark tragedy overshadowed the universe, brought him a wide generosity so that he forgave everybody, particularly Cuthbert Bridstowe. This thing was too big for jealousy. To know all is to forgive all. He would tell Cuthbert what had happened and they would comfort each other.

  His feet, no doubt directed by his subconsciousness, were taking him to Cuthbert Bridstowe. Daylight faded into dusk as he walked. The lights were up when he found himself staring at a photograph of the preposterous Mrs Hemmelman and her dog, pasted on the back of a car. Cuthbert Bridstowe’s car. The garage man had just brought it round, and Bridstowe would turn up in a minute.

  Wakering got inside the car, sat on the back seat. Jeannie herself had said poor old Cuthbert was not to blame. Their friendship could remain unchanged – could become exactly as it had been a dozen years ago. He could remember the summer evening he introduced Jeannie to Cuthbert. They had met by chance in Regent’s Park. Jeannie was wearing one of those silky, summery frocks through which you could see how lovely she was – and a red carnation. He was glad he still had the carnations with him to show Cuthbert.

  He was not aware that the car was in motion until it stopped with a jerk and the dome light flashed in his eyes.

  ‘Get out. Don’t try anything funny or I’ll fire.’

  Cuthbert Bridstowe had wheeled round and was pointing a revolver at him.

  ‘Cuthbert! It’s me! Hugh Wakering. You can’t have forgotten me!’

  ‘Well I’m damned! So it is!’ Bridstowe put the revolver in his right-hand pocket. ‘But why the devil didn’t you speak at once? I’ve only just seen you.’

  ‘I’m very sorry. I’ve had a shock and I’m afraid my mind wandered. Cuthbert, we must talk. I met Jeannie the day before yesterday.’

  ‘Jeannie? Oh, Jeannie Ruthen! I’d almost forgotten. You’d better come along to my club and tell me all about it. We can be there in ten minutes.’

  The way to the club lay through comparatively quiet streets. Wakering babbled on:

  ‘D’you know, your office is almost opposite mine! And your friend Mrs Hemmelman is a client. I kept out of your way because I thought you and Jeannie were married.’

  He had not meant to put it quite like that. It sounded a little aggressive, and he had meant to be forgiving and friendly.

  ‘It’s a long time ago, Hugh!’ Bridstowe slowed and stopped, feeling that the invitation to the club had been premature. He added formally: ‘How is she?’

  ‘I met her coming out of Holloway, where she had served six months for theft. I gather she became a prostitute some years ago.’

  ‘Hm! I’m sorry to hear that, but not surprised. I suppose I have a certain theoretical responsibility. What’s the proposition, Hugh?’

  ‘There isn’t any proposition. She died this morning.’

  ‘She’s dead! Then what the devil are you raking it all up for, if you don’t want me to do anything about it?’ He switched off the dome light and pressed the starter.

  ‘I didn’t mention it in order to accuse you, but to assure you that I bear no ill-will.’ The heroic voice tuned in. ‘I was shocked by the tragedy of her wasted life – and I thought you might like to mourn with me.’

  ‘Rats! I know why you told me! Where shall I put you down?’

  ‘Anywhere.’ His sense of inferiority to Cuthbert Bridstowe, the seducer who had scorned his forgiveness, was now inflated to the point of monomania.

  Bridstowe was changing gear. Wakering leant forward, took the revolver from Bridstowe’s right-hand pocket. Wakering has said that his intention was to kill himself, but this may be doubted. Certain it is that Wakering’s left hand was still clutching the red carnations. A twitch brought their scent to his nostrils, reminded him of Jeannie’s loveliness, as descried through the silky, summery frock in Regent’s Park. He fired at Bridstowe’s back.

  The car was accelerating in third. He reached over Bridstowe, steere
d towards the kerb and switched off. Then he crumpled back on the rear seat.

  ‘Jeannie – Cuthbert – and now me!’ He picked up the revolver, but decided that it would be more manly to go to the gallows with a firm tread. The whole district must have heard that bang.

  Now and again cars passed in both directions, but none stopped. He found himself thinking of a gravel pit near Sudchester. He had not seen it since he was a boy on holiday. But after Jeannie had gone away with Cuthbert he had often thought of it.

  ‘I believe I always meant to kill Cuthbert and put his body in that gravel pit.’

  His finger hooked round the lever that secured the bucket seat next the driver. He slid the seat out of its grooves.

  He got out by the offside door, walked round to the near side, pushed the bucket seat against the offside door. Assured that Bridstowe was dead, he pulled the body down, so that it lay nearly full length on the floor, the head under the dash.

  Then he started on his eighty-mile drive, dawdling as much as he dared, for it was now only six o’clock.

  Chapter Four

  It was a few minutes to ten and he had only some four miles to complete his journey when the engine missed, missed again, then stopped.

  ‘Good Lord! Petrol!’

  He stopped and took stock. The tank was empty. There was a lever on the tank, similar to that on his own car, controlling a small emergency supply. The makers claimed that it would be good for ten miles – which probably meant five. He would just about reach the gravel pit – and stick there. Somehow, he must get more petrol before he could dump the body.

  He was on the rise above Sudchester Junction. He coasted down to the junction, which was deserted and in darkness, on the chance of finding a parked lorry which he could tap.

  There was nothing in the yard. The goods shed was the only hope. The nearest dwelling was at least a quarter of a mile away so the chance of interruption was small.

  With a penknife he pushed back the window of the booking office, climbed in and took a bunch of keys off its hook, one of which fitted the padlock of the goods shed. He entered and switched on the light. Risky, but he had to take risks now, for he was immobilized in proximity to the corpse.