Death of Jezebel

by Christianna Brand

  ‘He did, he stood there sneering and making me look a fool… Well, all right, I may be a fool, I may be just a gauche boy, but I’ve done something that he would never do! I’ve killed a man: yes, and a woman too. He was going to marry you, Perpetua, that vile creature Anderson, and he had a wife already… And Isabel was agreeing to it, only then she’d have blackmailed both of you for the rest of your days…’

  ‘Oh, George,’ she said, horrified: ‘you killed them—you murdered them—because of that?’

  ‘I did it to save you, Perpetua. And I don’t mind, I’m proud of it. I’m not frightened, I wasn’t frightened when I did it and I’m not frightened now—I’m proud of it. I’m going to confess to the police…’

  She put out her hand for the telephone but she was afraid to bring about a change of resolution. ‘The police will—they’ll think you were extraordinarily—sort of daring and clever, George. To fool us all like that…’

  ‘Perhaps it might be a good thing to go on fooling them,’ he suggested, flattered and pleased.

  ‘Well, tell me about it, George: and then you can go on fooling them.’

  He looked at her suspiciously. ‘You think I’m mad, Perpetua. You’re trying to sort of baby me along to tell the police.’

  ‘It was you who said you were going to tell the police.’

  ‘That’s what I came out for,’ he agreed.

  ‘Well, do what you like about it, George,’ she said, striving to appear indifferent. ‘You say that you did this for me—I’m not likely to split on you, am I? Just have it your own way.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said slowly. He got up off the bed. “I’ll think about it. I’ll think what to do.’

  Was it safe to let him go off out of the room: mad and dangerous as he was? But the moment the door was closed on him, she could telephone the police: they would pick him up before he was off the doorstep. ‘Perhaps either way you’d better go along now. It’s four o’clock in the morning, and you don’t want to involve me in a scandal, do you?—after you’ve—after you’ve done so much to protect my honour.’

  ‘No,’ he said seriously. She stood before him, straightening his rumpled coat, brushing back his tangled hair as though he were a child. ‘Well—go along now, then, George, dear: and—and make up your mind what you’re going to do.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said again: like a child. And went off quite docile and gentle, into the night.

  She locked her door behind him and three seconds later was gabbling frantically into the telephone.

  Charlesworth rang up Inspector Cockrill next morning. ‘I thought I’d get you before you started out. The Exmouth boy has confessed to both murders.’

  ‘Good,’ said Cockie. ‘Then I can get on with my conference.’ He slammed down the receiver, slammed his hat anyhow on to his head, slammed the door behind him and stumped off down the street. ‘Grand slam!’ he thought to himself, having thus relieved his feelings. It was not often that he made a joke, and he chuckled over it with the greatest satisfaction as he marched through St. James’s Park.

  Susan Betchley was waiting for him there, loitering about the path, guessing that he would come that way to Scotland Yard. She was a pasty white under her sunburnt brown, her bright eyes were heavy with worry and sleeplessness, her hands were clasped nervously over her handbag. She came forward with a sort of darting movement. ‘Inspector Cockrill—I was waiting for you, I’ve been hanging about here, I didn’t know whether you’d come this way but I know you’re staying at the Shirland, Miss Kirk told me so, so I thought you might walk across to Scotland Yard…’

  ‘Stop dithering,’ said Cockie. ‘And tell me what you want.’

  She clasped and unclasped the fastening of her bag. ‘I—I want to confess.’

  His eye gleamed. He said quickly: ‘What do you want to confess to?’

  It was desperately hot. The satiny blades of the grass caught the rays of the sun and shone back like diamonds: here and there in the park a couple of deck-chairs could stand it no longer and leaned limply together for support, the children walked listlessly beside their nurses dragging reluctant dogs that wanted only to lie in the shade under the trees with their thin, pink, quivering tongues hanging out for coolness. They faced each other, a little alert sparrow of a man, and a young woman with steady eyes and shaking hands. She said at last: ‘I want to confess to murder.’

  ‘Good,’ said Cockie briskly. ‘You’re in just the right place for it.’ He took her brown arm above the elbow and swivelled her round to face Scotland Yard. ‘Over there,’ he said.

  ‘I want to confess to you.’

  ‘This is nothing to do with me: it’s not my case. Go over there, ask for Detective Inspector Charlesworth and say what you have to say.’

  ‘I can’t talk to him,’ she said. ‘He’s too young. It’s like going to a doctor that you know personally. He’s too young and—and attractive…’

  ‘So you come to me,’ said Cockrill. He was much amused.

  She moved her head wearily. ‘I don’t mean that…’

  ‘Well, never mind what you mean,’ he said brusquely. ‘I’m not a doctor and I’m not a priest and I don’t want any part of any confessions. Besides, I’ve got a conference to attend.’ He waved his stick in the general direction of a green bench sitting with grim determination out in the sun. ‘Park yourself for ten minutes by your watch and think the whole thing out carefully: and then go down to the Yard and tell your story to the oldest and most repulsive sergeant on duty that you can find and he will take it down in shorthand and pass it to Inspector Charlesworth, who will doubtless throw it into the wastepaper basket and ask you to tell him all over again: but by then the ice will be broken.’ Women are wonderful, he thought, marching off again down the hot, dry paths. Even confessing to murder they can’t keep sex out of it. Glancing back he saw her sitting herself down obediently, a solid round mushroom in her white dress on the green bench. Let her sit for a bit; he wanted to take this morning walk in peace and giggle to himself over the famous joke. On an impulse he turned into a telephone booth in Whitehall and dialled a number. ‘Francesca?’

  ‘Cockie, pet!’

  ‘I thought you would be interested to know that your evidence about the man in Piccadilly ringing up Earl Anderson has been very useful indeed. Very useful.’

  ‘Well, I hope it doesn’t mean that anybody will get sort of hanged or anything, Cockie, does it? Because I wouldn’t like to think that it was me that caused anybody to—to die.’

  In the past Francesca had caused three people to—to die: but not through her own fault, not by any carelessness or cruelty of hers. ‘No, no. On the contrary, you provide an alibi for the innocent. Er—I thought of something this morning, Francesca, this might amuse you… I was sort of slamming my way out of the house and I said to myself…’

  ‘Oh, Cockie, half a second, pet, I can hear the baby crying.’ He could hear her calling, her head turned away from the mouthpiece: ‘Nanny! What’s the matter with baby?’ An answer echoed faintly and the receiver was put down with a crackle and he could hear her voice receding as she moved away. ‘But it’s lovely, lovely Milk of Magnesia, pet… A lucky, lucky baby to have such lovely Milk of Magnesia…’ He hung up crossly and slammed his way out of the booth. Honestly I Women!!

  And there was Edgar Port, white and shaking as a milk jelly, standing at the entrance to Scotland Yard. Cockie admitted defeat. ‘Don’t tell me, don’t tell me! You want to confess!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr. Port.

  ‘Well, all right, confess to Inspector Charlesworth.’

  ‘He’s not here,’ said Mr. Port. ‘He’s gone round to George Exmouth’s.’

  ‘You don’t say?’ said Cockie. He looked round with exaggerated curiosity. ‘Any sign of Mr. Brian Twice wishing to confess?’ And click, click, click went the pieces of the puzzle.

  The figure in the centre was getting packed round with detail: it was enthralling to have got to this stage, to watch it all grow. He took Mr
. Port by the arm. ‘Well, all right. Come along with me.’

  Inspector Charlesworth having been called to George Exmouth when at nine o’clock that young man finally made up his mind to go through with his resolution, was summoned by telephone back to Scotland Yard by the news of Miss Betchley’s arrival. Not knowing of Mr. Port’s presence there, he did not yet appreciate that confession had become an epidemic. He left Sergeant Bedd to cope with George, and himself departed to deal with the Betchley. Far removed from all this riot of self-revelation, Perpetua and Brian Two-Times sat under the trees in the park, and only because it was so hot, did not hold hands. The mackintosh lay neatly folded on the bench beside them, under the black felt hat; from the paraphernalia of an English gentleman, Mr. Bryan was inseparable.

  Left alone with Motherdear, Sergeant Bedd perched himself on a whitewood chair which had every appearance of a severe attack of lumbago, and got out his notebook and pencil. ‘Now, Mr. Exmouth, sir—you was saying?’

  ‘Have I got to just tell you,’ said George.

  ‘If you’d be so good, sir. Of course you’ll have to come along to the station later and make a proper statement: but if you’d tell me, then Mr. Charlesworth could be quite sure that it was…’ Mr. Charlesworth wanted to be sure that George’s journey would be really necessary: but this sad lack of impressment Sergeant Bedd did not reveal. ‘I’ll just make a few notes, sir, to remind me. Doesn’t bind you in any way.’ He made a few meaningless squiggles on the clean page, just by way of demonstration.

  Motherdear passionately wanted to be bound by this confession. And he wanted to make it dramatically to a detective inspector, preferably two or three or a dozen detective inspectors, and at Scotland Yard: not to mumble out to a stolid police sergeant with kindly—and just faintly mocking?—eyes that—that he had killed Earl Anderson because Earl was wrecking a—a certain lady’s life: the name of which lady should not pass his lips… And that he had killed Isabel Drew because she was aiding and abetting Earl, and between them they would ruin Perpetua—er—the Lady’s life.

  ‘Couldn’t you just have told the young lady, sir?’ suggested Sergeant Bedd, respectfully.

  George was indignant. ‘How could I tell her? Tell her that the man she loved was a villain and a bigamist, was—was plotting this ghastly thing against her: as though I were trying to gain her affections by such a revelation. A man of honour can’t do that kind of thing.’ He thumped his narrow chest and looked the sergeant in the eye. Terrific!

  ‘So you killed Miss Drew, sir. How did you manage that?’ The pencil hovered over the page.

  ‘I’m not going to tell you,’ said George with simple dignity.

  Sergeant Bedd tucked the pencil away in the breast pocket of his tunic and leaned back in his chair, though it seemed like cruelty to the poor twisted thing to do it. He held his hands loosely clasped in his lap, softly tapping together the cushions of his thumbs. He said: ‘You don’t know, son: do you?’

  ‘I do know,’ said George angrily. ‘But why should I tell you? Find out for yourselves.’

  ‘All right,’ said Bedd, comfortably. ‘That’s what we shall have to do. What about Anderson?’

  ‘I lured him out by a phone call on the Maidenhead road and killed him there: and then cut off his head and sent it to Peppi in a cardboard box.’

  ‘Why?’ said Bedd.

  ‘Well, I mean, it was like Salome. Herod wanted John the Baptist’s head, so she got it for him. Perpetua—the lady, that is—wanted Anderson’s.’

  ‘You’ve got your facts a little mixed,’ said Bedd, who himself read a verse or two of the Bible every night, though nowadays he could hardly have told you why, except that Mrs. Bedd fancied it. He had not resumed his note-making. He said: ‘What did you wrap up the head in, in that box?’

  George eyed him warily. ‘You know that: why should I tell you?’

  ‘You can’t,’ said Sergeant Bedd again. He continued to lean back in the chair, tapping his thumbs together. ‘Now, look here! You could have killed Anderson. You have no alibi for the time of his death, you knew he’d go off with you readily enough on the smell of a job and your mother does theatrical decor, you may know everybody in The Profession for all I know, you could easily fool him that you had influence. And you could have gone back to the flat as somebody did and gone in with his keys and packed his stuff and taken it away. You could have: but you didn’t. Because one of the things taken away was Earl Anderson’s bathroom curtains: and that was what the head was wrapped up in, to keep it from—er—leaking. And you didn’t know that, son, did you?’

  George sat silent, his hands dangling between his knees.

  ‘We get this kind of thing with murder, you know,’ said Bedd gently, watching the downcast face. ‘Some chaps—it’s upsetting, having such ghastly things happen: it puts them off their balance just a bit. Take you for example. You’re a young gentleman who has a hard time: your mother’s a masterful lady, all respect to her, and your father’s gone, and she doesn’t like to let you go too free. So when a bad thing like this happens, it’s tough on you. She’s away in Scotland and can’t get back to be with you because she has work there: and you take to brooding. There’s a lady in the case,’ said Sergeant Bedd, waggishly, but his eyes were very kind, ‘and everybody’s fussing over the lady, and the lady perhaps is fussing a bit over somebody else, and nobody seems to be fussing over you. The police suspect everybody but you. That’s because they’ve got nothing against you; but you don’t think about that, you just imagine it’s because you’re young and not important and they suppose you’re not capable of the sort of courage and the sort of—of passion and suffering and rage and determination that must lead up to calculated murder. You’d like to show them that you are capable of acting like a man, and a very strong and daring man at that: and then the young lady, you’d like perhaps to be more important in her eyes, you’d like to have her pitying you and worrying about you and thinking what a chap you’d been, killing off people like that, and all for her sake. Even if it was to be proved nonsense in the end—she’d at least have noticed you, at least you’d be on her map for the rest of your days. All that’s very natural, son: many people have made phoney confessions of murder before you, in many different ways—but almost always for the same sorts of reasons. Perhaps you’d never have got around to it, really: but then something happened that simply drove you to action. You made that mistake about Miss Betchley, yesterday. You accused her of something that sounded silly when it was proved to be untrue: and you put your hand out to tear away her blouse, and the Inspector hit it aside, as though you had been a silly kid. And Mr. Bryan, your rival in the affections of the young lady, standing there so companionable beside her, looked at you with contempt and called you a “foolish boy”. It galled you: it sent you nearly mad, and you thought of it and resented it, and the hot night went to your head. And so you cooked up this confession. Well—you could have murdered Anderson; but you couldn’t have killed Miss Drew, my boy, and that’s flat. She died at just about the same time as she fell: no question of her being killed any time before she was thrown over. You could have pulled her down: the ropes might just as well have been on your side of the arch as on the Red Knight’s. But you didn’t go near her. You sat there on your horse: you never knelt down and touched her, like the Red Knight did. The Red Knight could have killed her: we’ve proved that. But you couldn’t. Your whole confession’s untrue.’ He got up out of his chair and walked to the window and turned and faced the boy. ‘It’s untrue!’

  George got up also; and confronted him. He said: ‘But I was the Red Knight.”

  Chapter XII

  DOWN ON THE EMBANKMENT opposite the Yard, Edgar Port sat on a bench with Inspector Cockrill and watched the Thames go by. The sun threw a shiver of sequins across the grey water; on the bank opposite, barges lay moored up alongside each other like crocodiles basking in the heat on the mud, and a boy was asleep on the wall before them, one brown leg dangling in its grubby sand-
shoe. Exquisite to be a child, innocent and carefree, sleeping in the sun! Mr. Port said miserably: ‘So this is my confession, Inspector. I thought I would rather tell you than young Charlesworth.’

  ‘You were wasting your time,’ said Cockie, his short legs stretched out before him in their wrinkled stove-pipe grey flannels. ‘I don’t think he’s got all this worked out. But I have. I know.’

  ‘You know about Isabel?’

  ‘We all know now that Isabel was threatening you—oh, in a delicate way, of course. She might get a fit of conscience, she might go writing and “confessing all” to your wife. You had to stop that at any price. You paid and paid—in presents, in treats, so that Isabel would not dream of killing the goose that laid the eggs: even for the sake of that searing conscience! But she tightened the screw, she picked a silly quarrel with you, it all looked more and more menacing… You were thankful when she rang you up the night before the pageant. But she rang off abruptly, evidently she wasn’t in the mood even to receive presents. It frightened you more than ever. You went off and bought her something that she would not be able to resist—diamonds! You got a diamond brooch and you took it down to the hall that evening. But still Isabel wouldn’t talk to you—when you knocked on her dressing room door she sent you away. So…’

  ‘You’ve left something out,’ said Sugar Daddy. ‘When I arrived there was a telegram from Earl. He had got some job or other and he was ditching me: he was not coming down to the pageant. I couldn’t think who should take his place; and then I realized that I should have to. It didn’t matter: I was used enough to riding, out in “the Malay” as poor Isabel would have called it, and heaven knows, I knew all the movements of the pageant. And then I thought, I would have—have a bit of fun with Isabel: give her the brooch in some amusing way so that she wouldn’t refuse it. I wrote that silly verse, all in two seconds, and left it with the brooch in the tower where she would find it at the last minute. Then I collected the Red Knight’s armour, and went on and did his part in the pageant.’