Death Lives Next Door

by Gwendoline Butler

“That’s right,” said Coffin. “Who did?”

  A voice came from the stretcher, it was weak and faint, but there was, amazingly, a hint of pride in it.

  “I did,” it said huskily. “Called one, called ’em all.”

  “Practical old duck,” commented Coffin, looking down on her admiringly. “You weren’t going to die easily were you, old lady?”

  She managed to smile. “Not going to die in this town. Born in the sound of Bow Bells and going to die there.” And all the spirit which had seen her, and millions like her, through two wars and two bombardments, shone for a moment before she closed them.

  Coffin patted her hand. “You won’t go just yet, mum,” he said gently.

  The local Inspector and Coffin stood aside to watch the ambulance men get the stretcher down the stairs.

  “You know who she is?” asked Coffin. “But, of course you do. And if she’s Mrs. Beaufort then who did I see before when I called in Chancellor Hyde Street?”

  “I could make a guess,” said his colleague. “I could make a guess.”

  “I bet you could,” said Coffin, “and I’ll tell you a secret: so could I.”

  He looked across the room to the tea-cups on the table. The classic symbol of sociability. “Have a cup of tea, dear? The kettle’s just on the boil, I can have it ready in a second. I could fancy one myself.”

  “Two cups you see. Two women drinking together.” He was speaking aloud. “Who was the other one?” Then he corrected himself. “No, not who, I know that, I think. Where is the other one?”

  But after a moment’s thought he decided he knew that, too.

  They must go to Chancellor Hyde Street.

  “We shall have to get her quickly now,” said the local man. He looked at Coffin.

  “We shall have to do more than that.” Coffin had unconsciously assumed control. “She’s gone off the rails. Running crazy. What we’ve got to do now is to stop her before she gets to the others.” He was prepared to underline this statement: “And what’s more, we can’t tell exactly who she has on her list. How could we have guessed that she would try to get rid of the poor old girl here? And just because she did the charing up and down Chancellor Hyde Street.”

  He calculated quickly. The young man Ezra, the girl Rachel (but unknown to him he was already too late for Rachel), the doctor, because somewhere there must be a doctor, and Mrs. Springer … God help me if she gets Ted Springer’s missus, he thought. He’ll have my life and I don’t blame him. He ran over his conversation with Joyo on the door-step. Surely there had been nothing that could have made her think of Mrs. Springer again? But the risk wasn’t worth running. “I can think of three people we can’t take any risks over, and a fourth who is only an hypothesis and who must be found as well as protected.”

  The local man spoke again: “If it’s like you say we’d better get on the telephone. We don’t know if she’s going to deliver her presents in person do we? She’s quite likely to have used the post.”

  “You think of the nastiest things,” said Coffin.

  “She seems quite a daisy. I wouldn’t like us not to give her a big welcome. Let’s organise it, shall we?”

  There was great seriousness behind the joke. The situation was as tight as a drum.

  So they sent out their telephone messages, warning other policemen in other districts and sending them scurrying out in all directions like ants.

  Even at that moment a young detective constable in plain clothes was outside the door of the house in Chancellor Hyde Street. He had rung the bell and had no answer. Now he was listening. His instructions were that he was to cause no alarm, but to be quiet and discreet. “She’s a bomb with the fuse loose,” was the way his Divisional Inspector had put it, “and I don’t want you handling her alone.” This description was more than enough to make the young policeman, a lad from a village north of Banbury and new to Oxford, act with great caution, even though his superior had gone on to add unkindly: “I’m not worrying about what she might do to you, but what she might do to a lot of other people if the mood took her.”

  So after ringing the bell once more, and incidentally thus alerting the Major, he returned to the nearest telephone.

  “She’s there all right,” he reported, “but lying doggo and doesn’t answer the bell.”

  Mrs. Springer was having a quiet, happy day when the parcel came. It was a small parcel and arrived by letter-post. Stanley had just discovered her lipstick and was decorating himself and the house when it came so she put the parcel aside while she cleaned him up. Stanley had done a good job with the coral red lipstick and she took some time on the operation.

  “Naughty boy,” she said reprovingly. “Aunty won’t have any lipstick for herself.” As she rubbed at his face, she was thinking of her little present. Ted quite often sent her something; in a mysterious way, known only to his friends and himself, he managed to send her small gifts from good shops. Ted had excellent taste, as was perhaps necessary in his trade, and he never bothered with the second rate. “Dear old Ted,” thought his wife. “Wonder what it is? Feels just a bit heavy for chocolates. Might be scent. Don’t think it’s a bit of jewellery.” Then another problem struck her, “Now what’s it for? Why has he sent it? Have I got any anniversaries? Not my birthday, nor our wedding day, anyway he sent me the lipstick for that. Bless the boy, he’s plastered with it, too. Oh Stanley, they call this stuff kiss-proof and it’s certainly clinging to you.”

  After she had finished with Stanley, she got out a scrubbing brush and started on the wall. She had no sooner finished with this than Stanley’s mother appeared. She was a large healthy friendly woman.

  “Hello kid,” she said to Stanley. “Oh look, Nance, he knows me, you can see it in his face. Well, I’ve got news.”

  “What?” Nancy looked alarmed.

  “I’m in the pudding-club again.”

  “What?” said Nancy again, but this time in horror. “And after poor little Stanley? Don’t you ever learn?”

  “Not much good me learning, is it?” asked Stanley’s mother, seating herself. “If others don’t.” She lit a cigarette. “September it will be.”

  “You haven’t hurried yourself telling me.”

  “Wasn’t sure. Oh I do hope it’ll be a little girl. A dear little girl. Stanley’s daddy is just longing for a little girl and so am I. He was ever so pleased. Another little God Bless’ ’Em, he said to me.”

  “You never used to talk like that,” reproved Nancy. “Now you always talk in slang. You get it from Stanley’s father.” (Both women continually referred in this oblique way to Stanley’s father so that an outsider might have wondered about him, but in fact he and Stanley’s mother were respectably married.) “I can remember when you and I were at school and you were always top in English composition. Well, there’s one thing, you’ll have to stay at home and look after them both. I can’t manage another besides Stanley, and Ted will be home by September.”

  “You’ll see me over the worst, dear?”

  They went on talking comfortably; Nancy was really delighted at the thought of another baby coming within her grasp, and was making a resolution that, Ted notwithstanding, she, and not its mother, was going to be the one to bring it up.

  Neither of them noticed Stanley and the dog undoing the parcel. The parcel was well tied up with string, but the dog was cleverer than Stanley and chewed it loose. Inside was a small wooden box of stuffed dates which the dog sniffed at and turned away from disappointed. Stanley liked them, though, and sat down quietly eating them.

  When the door bell went no one was welcoming to the policeman who stood there. They were slow to take in what he was talking about? Threats? Danger? Poison? They didn’t understand.

  “No one has threatened me,” said Nancy, “I know how to look after myself thank you. And if I didn’t know I wouldn’t ask the police. Always go to a good lawyer, my Ted told me.”

  “Can’t trust the police,” agreed her friend sagely. But Nancy did not c
are for this either. “That’s your opinion,” she said briskly, “and no doubt you’ve earned your right to it. I trust them but I don’t want to see them.”

  The constable turned to go. “All right. I’ve warned you. It’s up to you. Don’t say I didn’t tell you, that’s all. And take my tip, watch out for any mysterious little bundles.”

  “Wait a minute.” Nancy had been thinking. “I did have a parcel. I thought it was from Ted, but I don’t actually know because I never opened it. Oh I expect it was,” and she turned to look for it.

  Then they saw Stanley; he had eaten all of the dates and was sitting there surrounded by bits of torn paper and chewed string.

  His mother gave a little scream, then started to cry.

  In Dr. Steiner’s waiting-room a new notice had been pinned up by the door. It gave his apologies and explained that he had been taken away for an emergency operation; Dr. Browne would be taking over his patients meanwhile.

  “Perforated ulcer,” his receptionist was explaining briskly. “No, no, he’s doing very well.” But to herself she admitted that he was not doing as well as all that, and that the ulcer, which after all, was under treatment, ought not to have burst. “What the hell had he been doing with himself? He’d been worrying over something, or was it some sudden strain?”

  The cleaning woman poked her head round the door. She had been tidying up and complaining bitterly at the same time about the broken window. No one could explain how it had got broken, but her theory that there had been a burglar was supported by the slight disarray of the doctor’s surgery where his desk, usually so orderly, was Uttered with papers and stained with grubby finger-marks. They had told the police and a detective was expected every minute.

  “I’ve got some coffee heating,” she said. “Why not have a cup while you’re waiting?”

  They sat companionably side by side before their steaming cups of coffee. The receptionist took a sip, then she wrinkled her nose. “You just made this or has it been standing?”

  “I made it as soon as I arrived. There was a packet of fresh coffee waiting on the mat and I used that. I suppose the Doctor must have ordered it before he was taken bad and no one thought to stop the errand boy bringing it round.”

  “I suppose so. I should empty the pot, it’s too bitter.” The receptionist got up and walked over to the card index. “Who’s been playing about with this? You touched it, Mrs. Home?”

  “No indeed.” Mrs. Home was indignant. “You know I never lay hands on it. The Doctor told me never to touch it and I never do. We’ve been burgled, I tell you.”

  The nurse was rapidly flipping through the cards. “Well, some have been pulled out. I don’t know if any have gone. I shall have to check.” She was some time working quietly away at this checking, absorbed and intent, not thinking about Mrs. Home. Eventually she raised her head. “One is gone, one complete set as far as I can tell. And it’s Dr. Manning’s. And that is odd,” she was thinking aloud, “because I believe she was his last … Mrs. Home! Mrs. Home, are you all right?”

  She got up in alarm: Mrs. Home was clearly not all right; she had been drinking coffee all the morning, and it looked as though she was one of the people that the police warning was going to reach too late.

  Ezra was away at the hospital when a college messenger delivered a little packet to him.

  This little packet had been placed on the messenger’s table earlier that day by a hand that no one saw. It must have been a woman because men were not allowed in this college, which was a women’s college, before midday, and the parcel was placed there well before that time.

  All the same the parcel was late in arriving. The messenger had a slight accident with his bicycle in the morning and so he had to deliver everything on foot that day. The Oxford college messenger service is well organised and efficient, but it depends entirely on the bicycle; no self-respecting messenger would dream of borrowing a car or going on a bus. The messenger was, therefore, very slow in getting to Ezra’s lodging, where he arrived late in the evening.

  This was luck for Ezra because he was then out with Rachel at the hospital. But for this delay he might very soon have been lying there with her. He was specially fond of stuffed dates.

  As it was he did not see them until he came in from the hospital, when he was too much preoccupied with Rachel to want to eat. He looked at them, hardly taking in the oddness of such a present. He had no more idea than the man in the moon what was happening although he had grasped that what had befallen Rachel was no accident. He had no idea even of how much time had passed since she had been taken ill. He was just surprised to see that it was daylight again.

  “Better ring up Marion,” he decided. He had relied on Marion so long that to do so now was automatic. He dialled the number, but for a long time there was no response. The bell continued to ring and no one answered. He was about to put the instrument down when in Marion’s house the receiver was lifted. “Hallo,” said Ezra. He got no answer. There was the sound of breathing and that was all.

  He stood there for a moment surprised and alarmed. Then he put the receiver down and decided to walk to see Marion. When he was at the door his telephone rang again.

  It was a call from the hospital. He could hardly hear the words but he thought there was hope in the voice; it was Rachel’s mother speaking and she was asking Ezra to come round to the hospital at once.

  He hurried out, then he discovered he was still clutching the box of dates. He tossed it to his landlady’s little daughter. “Present,” he said and ran down the steps.

  The police were trying, with varying degrees of success, to protect the people they thought might be threatened.

  But the one person they could not reach was Marion.

  Chapter Ten

  In the room facing the jungle garden of Marion’s house, one woman was destroying another, stripping her of everything both mental and physical that had gone to make her up.

  She was tearing away her pretensions.

  “You thought you were a scholar,” said Joyo. “Ha, ha, we can both see the joke there, I hope. A scholar means a person who learns and you’ve never learnt, have you, sweety-pie? You’ve never even learnt about me or why I hated you. So I’m telling you now: I hated you because you destroyed my life. As simple as that. And for me as complicated.”

  She was destroying her home: tearing books from the shelves, pictures from the walls, even cutting down in her anger the very curtains because Marion had chosen them.

  She was ripping up Marion’s clothes. Marion herself, bound by cords stronger than steel wire, was helpless, past even seeing what was going on perhaps. But how can we know what another person really sees? Is their yellow sun our yellow sun? Is it the same yellow? The same sun? We cannot know. So perhaps Marion did see.

  Joyo talked away.

  “I’m just cutting up your clothes. Well, you won’t need them any longer and I’m sure I don’t want them. You had the taste in clothes of a rabbit, Marion, all greenery-yallery.” Education was coming in Joyo as she talked, as well as vulgarity; who could have told till now that she had read Carlyle? Then she found a bunch of her horror comics on a chair. “Bet they made your jaw drop, sister dear. I suppose we might as well acknowledge each other as sisters now. Sisters beneath the skin.”

  She attacked even Marion’s humanity.

  “You’re not even a human being, Marion. You can’t be. I am, and we can’t both be, can we?”

  Joyo was filled with restless energy. She could not stop moving and she could not stop talking, although her speech was growing wilder and noisier, and her face getting redder.

  “I’m not doing this because I love you,” she said, with mordant humour. “Don’t run away with the idea that this hurts me more than it hurts you. I’m loving every minute of it.” She checked herself. “I mustn’t talk too loud or that dear old maid of a Major next door will think you are talking to yourself. That would be rich, wouldn’t it? You talking to yourself.”


  She paused for a moment in her task of destruction.

  “I shall be obliged to kill you, Marion, as I expect you can see. Why did I kill my husband? (Yes, he was my husband, poor little shrimp, and quite uxorious, too.) Why shall I kill you? It’s very simple: to save myself. He would have destroyed me in the end, and so would you. I recognise your power, Marion, even though I despise you.” She staggered a little. “I’m just a little drunk. I’ve had some of that brew I gave the other two. Not so much, of course. I want them to die, they know about me you see, but I only wanted just enough to excite me. I often use it. Medieval witches used it. And also some of those queer tribes you and the girl Rachel are keen on. Henbane. And the irony is, Marion, that you taught me the uses of henbane, and you grew it in your garden. You ought to have been keener on gardening, dear … I think I will just sit down for a moment.” She sat down, but still went on talking. “So you will die and be dead. Dead but not buried. For I am afraid that, practically speaking, it will be impossible for me to bury you. So you will have to mortify standing up, Marion … You’ll do that good. I always thought you were half dead anyway.”

  Joyo stood up and got down the huge mirror from the wall; it was all she could do to carry it.

  “Down on your knees, Marion, kneel down and pray. There you are, naked and ashamed. Not that you are much of a prayer, I really think that’s what I hate most about you, your damned self-sufficiency. Is the intellect really enough for you now, Marion? You never thought that in the end sheer physical strength would get on top, did you?

  “They say that all is in the mind, but is it I wonder?”

  In spite of herself Joyo’s voice was altering, growing weaker, higher, and yet more gentle. She began to feel her throat tightening as she looked in the mirror.

  Presently there were tears.

  “It’s me that’s crying, not you, Marion,” she said sadly. “And of all things—I’m crying for you.”

  And after that there was no more noise except the banging on the wall from the Major next door, who was getting anxious.