Death of Jezebel

by Christianna Brand

  ‘Three victims. Three murderers. A man and two women, who had been responsible for Johnny’s death: a man and an old man and a woman to exact the penalty. They apportioned the work out accordingly. Johnny’s brother to kill the man, Johnny’s father to kill one of the women: Johnny’s sister to kill the other. But first they must suffer. The threatening notes began.

  ‘The young, the strong, the daring one must set the pace. So Earl Anderson was lured out to a quiet spot and there Johnny’s brother murdered him and took a large kitchen knife and cut off his head…’ He paused. Out of the shadows where he stood with Perpetua and George Exmouth, Cockrill repeated softly: ‘And cut off his head!’ Charlesworth did not notice the interruption. He went on.

  ‘Mr. Port could have killed Isabel Drew: but he couldn’t have killed Earl Anderson. Well, that was all right—Earl Anderson had been attended to. The next evening, as the Red Knight, Johnny’s father dealt with the lady whom Mr. Bryan refers to as Jessabel…’

  ‘Not always,’ said Inspector Cockrill.

  ‘… and she also paid the price. The white horse bolted through and it was a ticklish moment while they wondered if it would upset their plans—but it didn’t. They were all conspirators together, out there in the Assembly room. Johnny’s brother and sister met at the door and cooked up a nonsense about the door being bolted, because it must be impossible for her to have killed Isabel: and Johnny’s father crossed with them as they came out to the stage. Perhaps as they met they made the Victory sign.’

  Inspector Cockrill thought that Charlesworth might well spare them the frills. ‘All right, all right, all right,’ he said. ‘And then?’

  ‘And then the last of them, the worst of them, the girl whom Johnny had loved and who had betrayed him and sent him to his death—then her turn came. But first she must suffer, she must be afraid, she must be played with like a mouse is played with and tortured by a cat… She must be threatened, she must have that vile obscene, filthy, terrifying parcel sent to her; and all the time Johnny’s brother must prove once again that she was faithless, that a few blue glances would cast the last of Johnny’s memory out of her heart for ever. Any time would do for killing her. Johnny’s sister had that matter in hand. They were all a little mad by now. Johnny himself—how delicately balanced between madness and sanity, that at the sight of his girl in another man’s arms, he goes out and kills himself without waiting for explanation or regrets!—Johnny’s mother, tipped over the edge of normality because her son is dead. It was “in the family” as they say, to be just a little mad—delicately balanced, on the border line between the normal and the abnormal. Johnny’s sister could take her time over her vengeance. Till Perpetua’s turn came, everything must go according to plan: nothing must interfere before all three were wiped out and off the face of the earth. But now—the others were accounted for, she could take her time… The right moment has not so far shown itself. That’s all. That’s the only reason that Perpetua Kirk is alive to-day.’

  Silence. On the glass roof a patter of raindrops scampered like the feet of little mice, but otherwise there was silence. The outer ring of the police, the inner ring of the nine knights, gaping, the seven in the centre, Charlesworth facing Mr. Port and Brian Bryan and Susan Betchley, Cockrill standing to one side of them, his hand on Perpetua’s arm. And suddenly Perpetua spoke. She said: ‘Brian—tell me that this isn’t true!’ and broke from Cockrill’s restraining hand and ran to him and caught his hands in hers.

  He bent down and swiftly kissed her. He said: ‘This is good-bye, Peppi.’ To Cockrill he said: ‘You know—don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Cockrill: and he took three paces forward and caught Perpetua by her narrow wrist.

  Chapter XIV

  AND SO ONCE MORE into the routine of the pageant: and for the last time. Once more, and for the last time, the lights blazed down on the shining armour and the flying cloaks and standards and the jingle-jangle of the knights. ‘Take it from the beginning,’ said Cockrill. ‘Get out of the armour. Start all over again.’ He said to Charlesworth, perfunctorily: ‘Is this O.K.?’

  ‘I suppose you know what you’re doing?’ said Charlesworth, not very hopefully.

  ‘You and your family parties!’ said Cockrill.

  ‘Well, it could be. We still can’t find a thing out about any of them—not a sausage. Records have all gone to blazes, in the Far East, of course: practically everybody new on the job, and you cable out a lot of questions about a chap and they cable back, “Never ’eard of ’im”. So I thought…’

  ‘It was ingenious,’ said Cockie, kindly. He dragged Perpetua with him by the wrist, and she went unprotesting, her face deadly calm among the protests of the rest. He ignored them all. ‘Let’s reconstruct it just once more. The knights rode through into the Assembly room. She left them gathering there, and took with her the spare suit of armour—nobody would notice it if Perpetua Kirk was seen moving armour about—it was for just that kind of job that she was there. Nobody pushed her into any room: she went into the room herself, and there climbed into the armour. In the armour she rejoined the knights in the crowded Assembly room.’ They rode off through the arch, leaving her there—propped against the wall, probably, to look like an empty suit of armour…’

  ‘But she heard me whistling,’ said Miss Betchley, faintly protesting.

  ‘Of course she heard you whistling: of course she could tell us the tune. She heard you through the door of the Assembly room.’

  For the last time, the knights filed through the archway to the stage. Charlesworth followed them. He stood to one side, watching their evolutions, Sergeant Bedd at his side. A figure in armour appeared for an instant at the window far above them: the pillow came hurtling through the air and fell at the hind legs of the horse, the horse duly bucked, and a moment later dashed through the arch. Charlesworth followed. Rider and horse were standing in the centre of the room with Cockrill at the bridle: and halfway across the room, leaning against the wall, was a figure in armour. Cockrill said: ‘The White Knight came riding through: he fell, he was dazed: he noticed nothing odd about the suit of armour propped against the wall. She had bolted the door on the inside: he heard Miss Betchley hammering at it and he got up and staggered over to it, and let her in.’ He left the White Knight and went over himself and opened the door to her. The archway filled with knights, curiously looking on. Cockrill did not move them back. He had finished with demonstrations. He said: ‘Mr. Port, as the Red Knight, came through the room and passed out: and Miss Betchley and Mr. Bryan went through and on to the stage. For quite a long while, the Assembly room was empty: and in that time she was out of her armour and into the little room and had locked the door on herself and thrown the key under it, to slide into the corridor.’ And he turned to her, still grasping her wrist. He did not go into any histrionics, not Cockrill: but he said to her quietly, and reasonably, yet somehow savagely: ‘What was anybody’s desire for vengeance compared with yours? Johnny Wise might have a mother and father and brothers and sisters to grieve for him: but for you he was the lover, he was your future, he was everything in life that you had. I remember you then, Peppi, in those old days.’ He waved a hand towards Brian on the white horse. He said: ‘I was saying to Mr. Bryan the other day—you were a merry little grig, happy and confident and very much in love. And suddenly all this is swept away from you. They get you tight, you don’t know what you’re doing and—the light goes out of your life. And without light you blunder through your world for years, too apathetic with grief and remorse, even to cut yourself free from the two people who extinguished your light for you. Until one day—until one day you find that they’re plotting against you again: are conspiring together so that Earl Anderson can go through the form of marriage with you, having already a wife; and Isabel Drew suck you both dry from that day forward by blackmailing him on the strength of the truth she knows. That woke you, Perpetua didn’t it? Mad! Talk about Johnny’s people being mad—who was more mad than this poor O
phelia of a girl, drooling round with the memory of her sorrows and her remorse and her growing desire for vengeance…’ And suddenly he stood back from her, and made a sign to Charlesworth. And Charlesworth went up and stood before her and said: ‘Perpetua Kirk, I am arresting you for the murder of Isabel Drew and of Earl Anderson and it is my duty to warn you…’

  A voice said, quite pleasantly: ‘Oi!’ And Brian Bryan stood in the doorway of the Assembly room, with a revolver in his hand.

  Chapter XV

  AT SIGHT OF THE revolver, a triumphant gleam died out of Charlesworth’s eye. He glanced for a moment at Inspector Cockrill and was mollified by the stricken look on the old man’s face. Cockie moved over to Perpetua. He said. ‘I’m sorry, child,’ in a voice that humbly kissed her hand. Peppi did not look at him: her glance never left Brian Two-Times’ face. Brian moved a little and with the swing of his body, the revolver moved also, pointing directly towards her. He said: ‘You see—it was true that when I kissed her it was “good-bye”.’

  There was no trace now in his voice, of a foreign accent.

  Charlesworth repeated the warning. Brian flung back his head and laughed delightedly. ‘As for arresting me—come and get it!’ His blue eyes shone with mocking laughter, but all the time the single black eye of the revolver watched every move for him. Behind him the doorway yawned: he sidled into the room until his back was against the wall—no getting taken in the rear for Brian Two-Times!

  They stood watching him: glancing now and again at Charlesworth to see what move he could make. Charlesworth looked about him, saw in the edge of the shadow his men at the ready. But ready for what? They were unarmed: and he knew that Brian was going to shoot his way out. He played for time.

  Brian swung to Miss Betchley: the black eye of the gun fixed itself upon her—a wary eye, ready at a second’s warning to swivel away upon the danger point. He said: ‘You knew—didn’t you?’

  ‘I knew it was true that you were Johnny’s brother,’ she said. ‘Twin or not.’

  ‘Johnny’s twin is mad,’ said Bryan: and Cockrill saw there again the light that had blazed in his eyes when he had said, in the office at Scotland Yard when he had pretended to be the Red Knight—that Jezebel had deserved to die; when in his passion of pain and sincerity he had forgotten for a moment to call her ‘Jessabel’. ‘He was always delicate: he never could go about with Johnny very much. Then when Johnny came to England without him to join up—that broke his heart. But he was proud of Johnny: he saw him as a shining hero, going forth to battle, and if Johnny had died “with the sword in his hand” he would have accepted it. Well, Johnny died; but you all know how. And so Johnny’s twin is mad: a drooling, blubbering, witless creature that lived through the Japanese occupation when sane men died, and now is cooped up in a madhouse, capering like an ape about his little room, and all running to flabby white fat…’ He paused. He said: ‘It was not only on Johnny’s account that Earl Anderson and Isabel Drew were to die. This is what they paid for: and this is what Perpetua Kirk would have paid for, only…’

  ‘Only that I explained to you that she, at least, was innocent in that matter,’ said Cockie. ‘She was as much injured as Johnny: she was to be pitied—not blamed.’

  The eye of the revolver glanced his way. ‘You’re a clever little man,’ said Brian, admiringly. ‘You knew that after that, whether I was a murderer or not, she would be safe with me. And I wasn’t a murderer: I meant it when I told you that. These creatures killed my brother: the law couldn’t deal with them, but out in the East, we’ve learned in the past few years to constitute ourselves executioners, when necessary.’ He said to Perpetua: ‘It was too late then—I’d already sent off the head. But I did what I could to prevent your receiving it—mark that up in my favour. I came in the morning, but it hadn’t arrived by that post: another threatening letter was there, but I couldn’t get it—the cleaner hung about. And anyway—I had to go on doing these things a bit—it would have looked funny if all threat to Perpetua Kirk had stopped the moment I was made to realize that she had been innocent. I saw to it that they didn’t frighten her. I took the telegram I myself had sent her when they phoned it through, and didn’t say a word to her about it: only told the police.’

  Click, click, click went the pieces of the puzzle: leaping in their places, settling down again. The revolver focused its eye on Charlesworth: ‘When did you finally guess?’

  ‘This morning when you confessed all that nonsense about being the Red Knight,’ said Charlesworth. ‘It was a brilliant stroke that—confessing to a method that was almost watertight—with all the time a loophole for wriggling out of! You made the story sound good: you explained a lot of things that in fact were true. But it was gilding the lily to tell us gratuitously that your name was really Bryant, with a “t”. For heaven’s sake!’

  Brian Two-Times burst out laughing again. ‘Gosh, I had fun over that!—and some bad moments too, before I could afford to have fun, before the first part of the job was safely done. As if it weren’t enough to have Jezebel christening me Brian Two-Times, this old image here’—he waved the revolver at Cockrill, ‘has to innocently up and call me Brian Twice. Brian Bryan. Brian Twice, Bryant Wise!’ He went off into his pleasant, easy, genuine laughter again. ‘I thought any moment you’d tumble to it,’ he said.

  Charlesworth could not help grinning a little. He wondered how Inspector Cockrill liked being called an old image. Poor little man—building up this wonderful fairy story about poor Peppi Kirk! Perpetua had had an alibi for the Anderson-luring that long ago had counted her out: for while the man in Piccadilly had been phoning Anderson, Isabel Drew had put through a call to Peppi, in her own room. But these old boys oop from t’country, they doddered on and on and never seemed to know when they were beat. He glanced at the little inspector with a commiserating air. Cockie followed every movement of his thought, and his blood boiled. Charlesworth said kindly: ‘I suppose you see now how it was done?’

  ‘I saw all along how it was done,’ said Cockie coldly.

  Nothing but the assembled company gazing respectfully upon Britain’s wonderful police, prevented Charlesworth from saying, Oh yeah? He asked instead, sweetly: ‘And Miss Kirk?’

  ‘Miss Kirk was a Ruse,’ said Cockie firmly.

  ‘To bring about what?’

  ‘To bring about the confession of Mr. Bryan. Or I suppose,’ amended Cockie, ‘we should now call him Mr. Wise.’

  ‘Wise after the event, Inspector, eh?’ said Brian. They grinned at one another, pleased with this pun.

  Charlesworth was not amused. ‘Well—so you did bring about a confession! It’s a pity you didn’t calculate on a revolver as well!’

  Cockie’s face fell. He said, however, not daunted: ‘Yes—we ought to have thought of the revolver! It was so much—so much part of the whole trappings: to carry a gun.’ And to Brian he said: ‘I believe everything you’ve told us. You came over to murder and revenge: but because murder is a nasty, sordid business, involving other innocent, ignorant people, and because you’re not a nasty, sordid person, you—you relieved the ugliness and meanness with a—a sort of cloak of fantasy: your own white cloak, as it were… You clutched at the suggestion of Biblical symbolism, you took unnecessary risks, you made a sort of violent game of it all… You grew gradually wilder. Careful at first: you didn’t want to get caught before you’d carried out the whole job. The murder of Anderson was simple, and cautious. You knew his telephone was out of order, but you sent him a note, perhaps, or something, to ask him to be in a certain call-box at such and such a time: then you put through a call from Piccadilly to that box—talking of course in your ordinary voice, because you no more had a Dutch mother than I did. And—that was Earl Anderson. On the second night, you locked Peppi Kirk up in cold storage while you turned your attention to Isabel. The white horse went through the pageant alone—you’d trained him to do it: and meanwhile, you bolted the door of the Assembly room so that you shouldn’t be disturbed, and waited in t
he shadows at the foot of the tower stair. And at the moment you’d chosen, you went up quietly and—that was Isabel!’ He stood with his brown fingers rolling an unlit cigarette, and looked up at Brian from under his bushy eyebrows. ‘One always wondered—why throw the body down? But of course you had to get the empty armour back to you. You knew that the horse would be shocked by the fall—but wouldn’t step backwards on to the body…’

  ‘One’s always heard that they don’t,’ said Brian, chattily. ‘It was interesting—and a considerable relief—to find that it’s true.’

  ‘… so you threw her down. The horse bolted forward through the arch. You caught his bridle, hauled off the empty armour and propped it in the place of the spare armour against the wall: and took the white cloak, and there you were—the White Knight again, just a bit dazed by a nasty fall from his horse! Miss Betchley hammered at the door and you opened it. You went with her through to the stage and stood beside the dead body of Isabel: and after a moment you reverently covered her with your white cloak. A charming gesture: to you a particularly charming gesture in its irony—especially as with the white cloak went the new white ropes that had tied the armour on to the horse. The empty armour on the white horse. And he went to the white horse standing patiently, nodding, a little away from them all: and put up his hand and tugged at the armour, and the armour dragged a bit and at last came down. A rope passed through one empty sleeve and up to the standard, rigidly fixed to the saddle; and another round the waist of the armour, under the white cloak down to the crupper at the horse’s tail. Two lengths of white cord—each tied into a noose.