A Question of Proof

by Nicholas Blake

  ‘It was quite easy, you see,’ he said, ‘every one was so intent on the race. The murderer had only to walk into the haystack, like I did just now, and strangle his victim, and walk back again. There was plenty of time. It was the same at the cricket match. One of the tent-pegs was really a dagger, you know. He just waited for his moment, pulled it out, stabbed once, and put it back again. It only took a couple of seconds. You see, in moments of great excitement, every one’s attention is focused on one point and the whole strength of mass-emotion keeps it fixed on that point. Pickpockets work on that principle, of course.’

  He paused. There was a sigh of sheer amazement, half at his words, half at the strange transfiguration of himself. They almost expected him to raise a glass of water to his lips. Incredulous murmurs began to break out. Sims held up a hand, with an ineffable gesture of authority. In the renewed silence he began to speak again, his voice gathering power and volume.

  ‘You are doubtless eager to know who the murderer was. I will keep you in suspense no longer. To evolve such schemes required brilliance – I think I may even say genius: to carry them out, a nerve and resolution beyond the capacity of most men. But there was someone you had always overlooked; one who appeared insignificant, incapable of brilliance or resolution. You ignored him or despised him, according to your natural bent. That was very silly of you. And he did something none of you could have ever contrived or dared to do. You see, gentlemen, I killed Wemyss and Vale. I hated them and I killed them – right in front of your noses. That is all, I think.’

  There was a second of blank and ravaged silence. Then Armstrong darted forward. But Sims reached unhurriedly into a pocket, gave them all a last flashing arrogant smile, drew out a revolver and shot himself dead. He had had his triumph.

  XIV

  Memoirs and Commentary

  ‘YES, HATE. JUST as in the celebrated Cain-Abel case. But the motive was too simple, too primitive for our sophisticated Armstrong. Murder for love; murder for money; murder to cover up a guilty secret; these are common coin for us nowadays. But to go and kill someone just because you hate him, that has become almost unintelligible to us. Which is why poor Sims so very nearly got away with it. He would have, too, if he hadn’t tried to get two separate hates off his chest simultaneously.’

  ‘Wemyss and Vale? But you can’t call that “simultaneously”.’

  ‘Oh no. I mean Wemyss and Vale on the one hand and you two on the other.’

  It was after dinner on the day of Hugo Sims’ first and last public triumph. Nigel, Hero and Michael were talking in the drawing room. They were feeling exhausted and happy. Nigel had a successful case behind him, and in front of him a large earthenware pot of tea. Hero was sitting on the floor by Michael’s chair, with a hand in his and her golden hair shining against his knee; she looked wan still, like Eurydice just emerged from the shades, but the strain was gone; her body and her heart were relaxed. Michael looked down on her with infinite tenderness. It was as though she had come safe through childbirth; then he turned a rather bewildered glance on Nigel.

  ‘Us two?’

  ‘Mm. He bit off a little more than he could chew there.’ Nigel applied himself to his tea-drinking. Michael stirred restively, and Hero looked up at him – a sleepy look, that seemed to swim up from great depths, half drowned with love.

  ‘No doubt in your infinite wisdom you will vouchsafe us some explanation. Or is it one of the things we are not meant to understand.’ Michael spoke in the friendly, challenging, slightly acrid tones he and Nigel had used in their night-long controversies at Oxford. His friend, smiling, replied in the same vein.

  ‘You wish to pose a question? Proceed. You have our ear.’

  ‘Dozens. But first, what’s all this about Sims hating Hero and me? I know every one treated him like a subnormal child, but we were no worse than the rest, surely?’

  ‘Ah, no, it wasn’t that. As a matter of fact, I may have been a bit inaccurate in talking about pure hate. In your case, at any rate, the motive was more complicated. I daresay one would find that Sims was descended from a long line of evangelical missionaries,’ Nigel added inconsequentially.

  Michael stared. ‘Why, his grandfather was a missionary in China, I know that. But what on earth –?’

  ‘It fits in. Missionaries are and always have been the most intolerant people on the face of the earth. They have to be, I suppose,’ Nigel broke off and apparently lapsed into reverie.

  ‘You know, if you’d lived in ancient Greece, the Delphic oracle would have had to go out of business. Do cut out the cryptic stuff; we’re simply itching to hear all about it. Begin at the beginning, go to the end, and there we may allow you to take a breath.’

  ‘The beginning? That would take too long. It began before Sims was born.’ Nigel fumbled in a pocket and drew out some sheets of paper. ‘The early Christian fathers sowed a new instinct in the heart of man, and it was watered by their spiritual heirs, the Puritans. Instinct is not the right word, I know, but that fear and hatred of the body is so strong and pervasive, one can scarcely give it any other name. It comes out in all of us at times, often in the most curious forms, and with Sims it was a sleeping volcano. We’ve found a secret diary he kept during the last two months; the superintendent let me make extracts from it. Extraordinarily interesting for an alienist’s casebook.’ He waved the sheets of paper vaguely in the air.

  ‘When does the lecture finish? I’m going out for a drink.’

  ‘Now, now; am I conducting this case or are you? Control yourself, old boy, control yourself,’ said Nigel coldly.

  ‘You are sweet,’ Hero exclaimed suddenly, full in Nigel’s face. He looked startled, then smiled delightfully back at her.

  ‘Oi! Oi! This has got to stop! You can’t talk like that to every stray male you meet,’ protested Michael.

  ‘Stray male to you, sir. That’s just what Sims wrote in his diary – “this has got to stop,” I mean. You see, he had seen you and Hero making love to each other; he deliberately followed you and watched you after a bit. It was a kind of self-torture to him, I expect, but he kept whipping up his Puritan blood like that till in the end he believed himself the instrument of God to punish the sinner. That’s why he tried to throw the guilt of the murders on you. It’s all in this diary of his, but I don’t think I’ll read out those bits; he’s terribly outspoken on the subject, and there’s nothing quite so nasty as the Puritan’s fascinated horror of sex, when he finds words for it.’

  ‘Good Lord! Good Lord! the poor devil,’ Michael said slowly, with strange compassion in his voice.

  ‘But I don’t understand,’ said Hero, ‘how could he have spied on us? Surely we would have seen him? And we weren’t as blatant as all that.’

  ‘He did, anyway. You’ll understand in a minute how he was able to. It’s a terrifying thought; that mild, insignificant-looking little man going about with a positive hell of disgust in his heart, fanning the flames with the images of his own furious imagination – horrible. But there’s no use us being morbid, too. I’ll get on with it and read some extracts from the diary.’

  Nigel began to read:

  ‘May 9th. In Batford woods again. Chiff-chaff, willow-warbler, wood-warbler, white throat, several tree-creepers; the bullfinches; the redstarts’ nest finished. A lovely day – warblers and woodlarks in full songlike Eden “where every prospect pleases and only man is vile” – E. and his whore here again – the serpent of sin in the garden – wanton – filthy –’

  ‘And then there’s a good deal of plain speaking and – er – detail, which may be omitted,’ said Nigel.

  ‘So that’s how he found out,’ whispered Michael slowly, ‘birdwatching … his field glasses, of course.’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Nigel, ‘and that’s how I found out – or rather, how the possibility first entered my head.’

  ‘Meaning –?’

  ‘That conversation you told me about. In Tiverton’s room after the first murder. Don’t you remember? S
ims saw a yellow-bottomed gorse-tit or something, so we had to stop while he stalked it… And talking of birds, where’s Wrench? Stalking the fair Rosa, I expect. And then the scene Sims made about that – people behaving like animals – quite a militant outburst, you told me.’

  ‘But he was drunk. He’d just had a few with Gadsby.’

  ‘Exactly. In vino veritas. Repressions pushed aside, timidity left standing, the real man appeared, and his ruling passion, or one of them.’

  Hero stirred and looked up at Nigel. ‘But I still don’t follow just how that put you on the right track.’

  ‘Well. This is taking things out of their right order. Still, the more I looked at the facts, the more one interpretation seemed to emerge. You see, the whole haystack business smelt of stage-management. It was altogether too much of a coincidence that you two and a corpse should visit a haystack within a couple of hours. Armstrong drew the natural inference, that you were the cause of the corpse being there. I, with a possibly misplaced confidence in Michael’s freedom from homicidal tendencies, refused to play. There was only one other explanation, that the corpse was the cause of you being there; in other words, that you had been framed.’

  ‘Look on this picture and on this,’ interrupted Michael.

  ‘That will be all from you. So, to cut it short, I had to find out who had it in for you, and why. It was Sims’ great mistake, trying to kill two, or rather three, birds with one stone. It gave me a line. The fact that the scene was laid to compromise both of you was where Sims fell down. Too ambitious altogether. It narrowed the issue to someone who knew about your being lovers and objected to it. Judging from the madcap way you were behaving, there was nothing to prevent anyone knowing. But there seemed no one, except Hero’s husband, who would have any reason for objecting. I mean, for letting his objection carry him to such lengths.’

  ‘Quite good for a beginner, isn’t he, Hero?’ said Michael.

  ‘So Percy Vale was the obvious suspect. Yet I couldn’t take that. For two reasons. First, the injured husband killing a boy in order to take revenge on his wife and her lover. Too tortuous. Too melodramatic. It simply isn’t done. Second, Vale had plenty of money and an assured position; the revenge motive was not likely to be reinforced by a gain motive. Anyway, he wasn’t the right type, not for this type of murder. I could imagine him killing from fear – the cornered rat. But not for gain or out of passion. If he knew about you two, his reaction would be self-pity, followed by spite, cruelty, cat and mouse stuff, refusing to allow divorce proceedings – not murder.’

  Nigel broke off, looking apologetic. ‘I say, Hero, I’m terribly sorry. You must think me a cold-blooded automaton, going on like this.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ smiled Hero. ‘I don’t at all. It’s like – well – talking about a dream, or a previous existence. Go on.’

  ‘That left me with X. Someone with a motive for killing Wemyss and an equally strong motive for putting you two away. It had to be that, or a most indigestible coincidence. Moreover, it had to be something more than the ordinary conventional objection to “immorality”; that would have been satisfied by exposing you to Vale. It had to be the kind of frenzied moral indignation which is rooted so often in sexual perversion or frustration. When I heard about Sims’ outburst in Tiverton’s room, I knew at once he was a possibility. The more so because of his timid, unassertive exterior. Of course I kept my eyes open for other candidates; Wrench and Tiverton were both in my mind for a little; Wrench especially, he seemed to have the most likely motive for both murders. I admit I was at first as badly beaten as the superintendent by the simplicity of Sims’ motive. But the diary comes in useful here.’

  He began reading again.

  ‘June 12th. A queer thing happened today. In form. Wemyss had played a most vicious and unpardonable trick on me. They are all against me – boys, masters, every one. Every one always has been. But he is the worst. And now I know why. Now I know what I have got to do. I thought I was going to faint. As though my head was going to burst. Then it was like some obstacle there being swept away, like a logjam breaking up. Everything became quite clear. It was funny I didn’t see it before. The boy has a devil, of course. It contaminates all around him. I know what I have to do. Kill and spare not, saith the Lord. And I am his chosen instrument.’

  There was a long silence in the room, as though a visitor from a different world had entered. Then Michael spoke, with something like awe in his voice:

  ‘Good God. He was – he must have been a religious maniac, I didn’t know they existed – like this, Imean.’

  ‘They were common enough not so long ago,’ said Nigel, ‘and no one thought of calling them maniacs. Many of the Old Testament prophets, all the inquisitors, were made like that.’ He turned to the diary. ‘I’ll pass over the next few entries. They are rather appalling reading. You can see his feeling about Wemyss and his feeling about you two converging, till they met and the explosion came. But here’s an interesting passage, showing another aspect of his psychological structure.’

  ‘June 16th. If only they knew what they had in their midst, what I really am! The drunkard Gadsby; the lecher Evans; Tiverton, with his damned patronising airs – if they only knew! And you, Percival Vale, pedant and cuckold, you’d change your tone pretty quick. But I’ll show them. Which of them would dare to contemplate what I am contemplating, or to do what I shall do? And I’ll do it before all their eyes. But I must wait for guidance, for the appointed time. I will be patient, I can afford to wait, they will not escape me. I don’t mind now that they will never know – not till I’m dead and my Doomsday Book is brought to light. I shall have given life and I shall have taken away. I shall have ruled their lives in secret. That will be my present satisfaction.’

  Nigel paused. ‘That explains everything, really. You weren’t there when he delivered his own funeral oration; it was on the same lines. You see, even his religious mania was not the fundamental thing. In fact, it was not much more than a rationalisation, the way his murderer’s state of mind justified itself to him. No; at the bottom of the heap we find that old chestnut, the inferiority complex. Subject for newspaper symposium, “Can a worm turn? Mr. Nigel Strangeways, the celebrated vermicologist, says ‘Yes.’” But seriously. Didn’t Cleopatra call her asp a worm? Anyway, the serpent is the perfect symbol of inferiority feeling; for ever humbled in the dust, trodden under foot, despised, nursing its venom secretly, deadly when goaded into action.’

  Hero spoke, rather shakily, ‘You know, I don’t think I can bear any more of that diary. Won’t you tell us your part in the business instead?’

  ‘Very well. Sims was my chief suspect. The opinion I began to form of his character and the conclusion I was gradually compelled to adopt as regards the time and method of Wemyss’ murder, fitted together. After a bit it became evident, by a process of elimination, that he must have been killed while the 440 was being run. Now it’s perfectly true that, at moments of great emotional stress – an exciting race, for instance – every one’s attention is likely to be wholly absorbed in the spectacle before their eyes. But no ordinary murderer would take the risk of there being no exceptions to the rule. Ergo, the murderer was extraordinary, mentally deranged. Secondly, apart from the risk, there was the fantastic nature of the setting. There must have been a hundred other ways in which a murderer could get rid of Wemyss and involve you two. But he chose the most public, the most theatrical. It was a clear case of exhibitionism, and the inferiority-ridden person often tends to be exhibitionist in action. Other points in favour – no use for a jury, of course – Sims’ asking to be relieved of the stopwatch, and his behaviour after the race.’

  ‘Good lord,’ interrupted Michael, ‘when he came up to me, all worked up and excited and breathless, it was –’

  ‘Yes. It was not what you supposed. He had popped back into the haystack, strangled the wretched boy, tied a cord round his throat to make certain and returned. Quick action and liable to impart an air of exc
itement to the agent, but by no means impossible. In fact, not so foolhardy as it sounds. He probably walked backwards, so that he would notice if anyone in the crowd turned round, and he was sheltered from all other sides. If he had seen someone turn round and observe him, he could simply go into the haystack, lug the boy out and ask him what the hell he was doing there. As in the second murder, there was nothing in his actions to rouse suspicion till the very moment of killing.’

  ‘Hold up a minute. We haven’t mastered the first problem yet, sir. How on earth did he know Hero and I were going to the haystack, and how did he get Wemyss there?’

  ‘That’s easy. You must remember he had been trailing you about for some time. He discovered Hero used the loose brick for a pillarbox; he saw her put a note there that night – the night before the sports – took it out and read it. That was his cue. He sent off a Black Spot summons the next morning to Wemyss.’ Nigel explained the procedure and gave a restrained account of how he had stumbled upon it; the episode of the brazen ‘nimph’ still gave him prickly heat to remember.