Murder Isn't Easy

by Richard Hull

  But on the whole I did not care for it. It was too condescending, and anyhow, I hate excessive alliteration. Then I coquetted with the notion of sex-appeal. Allure, just now, is the most popular line. ‘Henriques’ gowns will bring Him to you” or ‘Henriques’ dainty frills, will’ do something which rhymed with frills. But I could think of nothing. ‘Ills’ would never do; you must never have anything ominous in an advertisement. ‘Thrills’ sounded promising, but somehow I could not get quite what I wanted. The real trouble was that I was not quite sure whether they wanted to emphasize their underwear department or their ready-made frocks and coats and things like that.

  Eventually I thought I had better play for safety.

  “And Now,” I wrote. (Always a safe headline; you can introduce anything with it and it is invariably arresting.) “The New Hat.” That would be bold in size, not quite so large as ‘And Now’. On the whole I thought that those words ought not to be printed, but ought to look as if they had been dashed off, rather in a hurry, by a confident person. That would carry conviction. I sent them out to Thomas to do the lettering of them. It ought to please Barraclough, because he could make a charge for that which, though costing less to Henriques than the type-setting, would show us more profit.

  “There is nothing,” I went on happily with my copy—‘nothing’ in italics—“which will express the allure of your personality more surely than the New Hat. Messrs. Henriques in their wonderful showroom in”—wherever it was, I left a blank—“have an electrifying stock of the very latest models, direct from London and Paris.” I underlined ‘Paris’. Then I turned it round and underlined ‘London’. Which, I wondered, created the most impression on the minds of farmers’ wives and young women from offices and factories in the remoter districts of Kent? Paris might dazzle some of them. Others might be afraid of seeming to look too French. Perhaps, on the whole, this particular piece of copy was being directed mainly to the younger. Once the decision to stress Paris was made, the rest was easily completed. I was particularly pleased with ‘electrifying’.

  Just, however, as I finished, Barraclough came in to say he had been making enquiries after I had told Thomas to letter ‘And Now, the New Hat’, and that Henriques said they had rather a smaller stock of hats than usual. They wanted to get rid of an enormous consignment of cheap beads which one of their buyers had foolishly bought. Would we bring that in?

  That is exactly the infuriating sort of thing which can happen to one. Here was all my work wasted—and incidentally Thomas’s—and the Kent papers would have to go to press for another week with the same announcement as to Henriques. At any rate they could not say that it was anyone’s fault but their own. If they had told us about the beads earlier I might have been able to do something about it. But anyhow, what can one say about beads?

  At the last moment I had a brain wave. I merely put in ‘Beads’ instead of ‘Hat’. With a very few alterations it did adequately well. I mean you cannot have everything all in a moment. Besides, Thomas had already completed ‘And Now’. Even so, we had to dispense with a formal approval from Henriques but, fortunately, they relied entirely on us. That we got the alteration made at all only shows how much more you can do for a client who gives you carte blanche.

  Chapter Four

  It has always been a weakness in my character that I overestimate the duration of human gratitude. I know very well that if you do anyone a good turn it is the greatest mistake possible to expect him to go on remembering it. But I do always hope that the effect will last for twenty-four hours.

  That was the mistake I made about Barraclough. I hoped that seeing how much I had put myself out to oblige him, and what a convincing proof I had given him of how easy a collaborator I was, he would be prepared to back me up in getting rid of Spencer. But, as the sequel will show, I was quite wrong. Barraclough let me down completely, and apparently on the very ground which I should have thought would have prompted him to support me, a desire for peace and quiet.

  I tackled the subject directly I arrived the next morning. No sooner had I hung my hat and coat up than I went straight in to his room, for although our offices were all very small we did manage to have a room for each of us—a cupboard would have been a more accurate description. I found Barraclough surrounded as usual by a mass of papers—the amount of stationery that man could collect was phenomenal.

  As I came in, I noticed that he gave a slight start, and pushed away a page covered with figures on which he had been working. Why anyone should want to hide figures from me I could not make out; they mean nothing to me, a fact so well known to everyone, including Barraclough, that it ought to have made me realize at once that there was something very peculiar going on behind my back. At the time I merely thought that I had disturbed him when he was engaged on some work of his own during office hours. Personally I should not have minded if he had been, but Barraclough was always the slave of his conscience and liked to pretend that he never had a moment to spare. But I ought to have been more suspicious. I wish I had been; it would have given me firmer ground from which to press my point in the meeting which I was just about to summon.

  The first check came from Barraclough. He actually demurred at my proposition to call a company conference that afternoon. He sat there chewing the end of his sandy moustache—an irritating habit—and pointedly looking at the piles of accounts and papers on his table. I must admit that I had forgotten that it was the day on which he sent out the monthly accounts.

  “But what do you want to talk about, Nicholas? Wouldn’t it wait for a day or so? I’m frightfully busy just now.”

  “I have never known you be anything else. Your industry, you know–––”

  That made him smile a bit.

  “Well, but what about? A conference, you know,” he made a feeble joke, “sounds as if we were prime ministers or foreign secretaries. Oughtn’t we to go to the Carlton to hold it?”

  I did my best to smile.

  “Well, perhaps conference was the wrong word. I believe you call it a general meeting.”

  That touched him on his secretarial side. He began to quote the Company’s Act—as if we were going to let ourselves be interfered with by little things like Acts of Parliament. So far as I could make out you could not hold a meeting without some long notice—I think he said fourteen full days. I wonder what the difference is between a full day and an empty day? However, that is not the point.

  “But, good heavens,” I went on, “do you really mean to say that we can’t take any important steps ever without giving ourselves a fortnight’s warning about it? Why, the business could be ruined in less than that. May very well be ruined, so far as I can see,” I added, rather neatly putting the idea into his mind.

  Barraclough smiled, “We are not tied up with red tape quite so badly as that. The directors can make decisions at any time, and as all the shareholders are directors, it comes to the same thing.”

  “Well, then, that’s what I want. A Board Meeting.”

  “Oh,” Barraclough looked at me rather hard. “You said a general meeting.”

  “Well, a general meeting of the Board for the purpose of——”

  “Yes, for the purpose of what, Nicholas?”

  Now that it had come to the moment when I must convince Barraclough of the necessity of voting Spencer off the Board, I hesitated for a second, and during that second, unfortunately, Spencer came in. My chance of talking Barraclough over quietly first had gone. Directly he saw Paul open the door, he said quickly: “Nicholas wants a Board Meeting this afternoon.”

  “Why not now?”

  As a matter of fact Spencer’s suggestion rather rushed me; I had not fully thought out what I wanted to say; but I was not going to admit that. At first I thought that Barraclough was going to get the postponement for me. He glanced almost wistfully at the papers on his desk, and was just going to insist, I believe, on getting them out of the way, when Spencer cut in and answered his thought.

  “You will
have just as much on your desk this afternoon; you know you will. And I have got an appointment at three o'clock which may take the rest of the afternoon and another to-morrow. So it’s now or never, or at any rate much later. Fire ahead, Nicholas.”

  Thus crudely abjured, I had to begin at once. I do like things done formally and here we were, all standing about without an agenda or any proper organization—with the atmosphere all wrong. However, I did my best. I pointed out that the business was not increasing. In fact that profits were going steadily down, I believed. No doubt the books of the company would show that best. That was so well-known that neither of them could possibly contest that.

  “And why?” I went on rhetorically.

  “I wouldn’t like to tell you, Nicholas,” murmured Spencer. “Give me a match.” It was so like him to interrupt just as I was getting into my stride. Also I had not got a match and there was delay and confusion while Spencer yelled to the outer office for Thomas to bring him one. That man was never happy unless he had involved every one in his own confusion.

  When quiet was restored, I went on.

  “Because the directors—or if you force me to put it that way—because I am always being disturbed from getting on with what is important. In a minor way you have just had a perfect example. In a major way I would instance this Greystone–––”

  “Greyfields,” put in Barraclough.

  “Greyfields Canning affair.”

  Spencer knocked the ash off his cigarette with elaborate ease.

  “So an attempt to get business is called ‘a disturbance’. Well, we live and learn.”

  “Some of us only live,” I snapped out. “Not an attempt to get business. A wild cat scheme on which the productive side of the business was asked to take a hand very prematurely to put the best possible construction on it.”

  “And what do you propose?” Spencer’s voice was icy.

  Now that the decisive moment was come, I felt only the faintest throb of excitement.

  “I propose,” I said, slowly and quietly, to show that I had made up my mind after long consideration, “much as I regret it, that since you are the cause of the disturbance, that you cease to be a member of the Board.”

  An ironic bow from Spencer.

  “I shall do myself the honour of opposing that.”

  I turned towards Barraclough and appealed to him. Surely I could count on his common sense? To my intense irritation he was showing a complete lack of any knowledge of the importance of the occasion. He was actually checking the addition of a column of figures. I had to ask him twice how he would vote. His reply was amazing.

  “There now, I’ve lost count. Vote? I? Oh, I shan’t vote.” And with that he plunged back into his books.

  Spencer, whose sense of humour is never appropriate, positively grinned.

  “And now I shall do myself the honour to propose that Nicholas ceases to be a member of the Board.” (The cheek of using my Christian name in the circumstances!) “I may, I think, take it that Nicholas opposes that. And you, Barraclough, are you voting? I thought not, but you might say ‘No’ instead of grunting.”

  “Wait a minute, I believe I am the chairman of this company. So, with my casting vote I declare the motion carried.”

  “What, the one I proposed, Nicholas? You surprise me.”

  “And eight are fourteen. Miss Wyndham is getting most careless. This company has no chairman. We agreed to that long ago in order to prevent this.”

  “Your grammar!” interjected Spencer.

  “Then I propose that I be chairman,” I went on, desperately trying to restore sense.

  “So do I, only that I substitute myself. And Barraclough can propose himself. And there we are. How long has this farce got to go on? Can’t you stop him, Barraclough?”

  “In a way, yes. All these proposals are beside the point. We all have service agreements with the company. Even if I did vote either of you off the Board, you could still draw a third of the profits, if any. That’s the only reason I did not agree to both your resolutions.”

  Spencer looked at me.

  “I believe that is the first joke our friend has ever made.”

  “It was not a joke. Latimer is right over one thing. If you two do not stop quarrelling there will not only be no profits to divide, but we shall soon have to wind up. We must have peace and quiet internally. The position of the company is very poor—only I can never get either of you to realize it.”

  “Precisely, and that is why I give you a further chance to support me. It would be cheaper for this company to pay Spencer his share for nothing than to have him upsetting me.”

  It was a home thrust, and however much he might pretend to be amused, Spencer knew quite well that it was. As for Barraclough, for a hopeful moment I thought he was going to say ‘yes’. He got up from the table and looked out of the window while both of us waited, I with the hopefulness born of common sense, Spencer buoyed up by his innate optimism and conceit.

  Eventually the third member of our trio turned back.

  “I vote for–––” he began, and then he paused, “neither motion.”

  There was no denying it was an anticlimax and a considerable disappointment to me.

  “And now,” went on Barraclough’s voice, “let me seriously recommend both of you to stop this. Especially you, Latimer.” I suppose he chose me because one always instinctively appeals to the most rational person; otherwise, of course, the appeal was much more needed by Spencer. “We must stop fighting each other. Now, as a beginning, can’t I induce you to consider again the question of this canning company? Really, you know, there is something in it.”

  “There is nothing whatever. I should very much like to think that there was, just to show you how reasonable I am. But really it is so wildly preposterous. Why, you wouldn’t consent to work out all those figures yourself, now, would you?”

  Barraclough rather staggered me by saying that he would, but at the time I did not believe him.

  “Well, perhaps you have the time. In any case, the affair has about reached your stage of the work. What neither of you seem able to see is that it is nowhere near so far advanced as to concern me.”

  “And never will if you can help it. It’s an extraordinary thing”—this was one of Spencer’s usual openings to something particularly rude—“but it never does reach Nicholas’s turn to do a job of work.”

  “I had hoped to do a good one this morning,” I retorted, “but unfortunately I have been prevented.”

  With that I closed an interview which was clearly going to produce no valuable results, and from which I had hoped to get so much.

  But at least it had had one advantage. I had found out that by some means, fair or foul, I must get rid of Paul Spencer. Really, I cared very little what those means were. Whatever was easiest would be best.

  Chapter Five

  It is curious how one’s mind, if you let it pursue a train of thought unchecked, will unconsciously arrive at conclusions and present them to yourself almost as a fait accompli, although consciously you have not been considering them at all.

  Let me explain that general statement by the particular example of this actual case. When I said to myself that I would get rid of Spencer by any means, fair or foul, I had nothing very definite in my thoughts. I had tried one quite fair method. I intended to try others if I could think of them. But so far as foul was concerned, I had nothing definite in my thoughts. I merely felt that if an opportunity to do a trick, which in normal circumstances I should consider beneath me, were thrust under my nose, I should find it hard to resist. But such is the vigour of my intellect when once it has been aroused, that before I knew where I was, I was turning over in my brain, not the question of whether I should get rid of Spencer by physical means, but the best and safest way of so doing.

  I must admit that it was rather a shock to me. The idea came to me so suddenly, so fully fledged, that I was hardly prepared for it. But once it was present in my thoughts, I
was bound to see the advantages of it. Not that I should employ it until there was no other course open—it was only to be used as a last resort. Still, just in case that last resort should be necessary, it would be wise to consider the question, since whatever else you may say about murder—I believe in calling a spade a spade—it isn’t easy.

  Of course, in a crude way, it is perfectly simple. Any one can buy a knife and stick it in someone else’s back. It is merely a question of courage. But I am too much of an artist to do that. I had no intention of—to use a vulgar phrase—swinging for Spencer. Frankly, he was not worth it.

  For the moment therefore, I just let the idea lie in my mind. In due course some simple but ingenious thought would, I had no doubt, occur to me. I find that all my best inspirations come by just letting an idea, perhaps merely a desire for an idea, lie apparently idle in my brain until at the right moment, after being to external appearances dismissed from my thoughts, the really original notion suddenly springs up fully formed, apparently from nowhere. That was one of the things both my co-directors could never understand. They were always expecting me to go on thinking continuously over some problem until a solution was reached. A foolish method. The best solutions come as spontaneous inspirations.

  I was therefore quite happy to forget, apparently, all about Spencer—I may even have deceived him into a sense of false security by my inaction—especially as about this time a really important piece of work came our way.

  It was introduced, I need hardly say, by me.

  I had been spending an interesting and rather instructive day at the Drug and Allied Trades Exhibition. Spencer, of course, said I was wasting time by going there, but that merely displayed his ignorance. How am I to write good copy, to get new ideas, to keep my brain fresh, if I do not see the work which other people are doing, the way in which they decorate their stands at such an exhibition for instance—in short, if I do not keep in touch with modern sales methods?