Prelude to a Certain Midnight

by Gerald Kersh

  His landlady, who spoke of him as the nicest gentleman she had ever let rooms to, had put flowers on his dressing-table. The Murderer selected a small yellow chrysanthemum and stuck it in his buttonhole.

  Then he went out. He walked slowly. It was not that he did not know where Frame Place was: he wanted to give himself the thrill that came of talking to a policeman.

  “Oh, officer…”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “I wonder if you could tell me the best way to get to Frame Place?”

  “Well now, Frame Place, let’s see. Go straight along as you’re going, and when you get to the end of the street turn right, take the first on your left, go straight on and bear right left, and there you are. It’s a kind of crescent, sort of.”

  The Murderer went on his way. He was laughing to himself. If that poor fool of a policeman had lifted out a hand and grabbed him by the collar, he would have made himself a sergeant. And there he was, pounding a beat, while he – the Murderer – was at large.

  On the next street corner he asked another policeman for a light.

  “You’re welcome, sir, if I’ve got one.”

  The Murderer walked steadily up the long shadowy street. He was thinking, incongruously, of his father, who had died in the War, of his mother, who had come of a good family, of his uncle-by-marriage, who was an ironmonger, of his mother’s sister, who was remotely related to a baronet, and of his brother, who was a corn chandler…

  He reached Asta Thundersley’s house in Frame Place by the river.

  Another man in a grey suit had just rung the bell. The Murderer said: “I’m rather afraid we must be a little early.”

  The other man, who seemed also to be of a quiet, reticent disposition, said: “Oh yes. I shouldn’t be surprised if you weren’t right. Early, yes; I’m rather afraid we must be.”

  They looked at each other. After what he thought was a decent interval the Murderer approached the bell-push with an extended forefinger; whereupon the other man retreated several paces – obviously he did not want the people of the house to think that he had had the temerity to ring twice. The Murderer saw this and paused. They avoided each other’s eyes. But just then a man and a woman came up. The man looked crushed and angry – as if everything had been squeezed out of him except one deep, dark hate. And it was easy to see that the woman was the object and the inspiration of this hate. She was a big blonde, with little pale eyes set too close to a nose shaped like a potato. Her face appeared flat and powdery as a flounder dusted with flour before it is thrown into a frying-pan; and her mouth protruded like the scalloped edge of a pie. Without hesitation she thrust a hand forward and held her thumb on the button of the bell for a good five seconds. Then The Tiger Fitzpatrick threw the door open and, muttering something that sounded like an apology, uncouthly bowed them in.

  But as the door was closing someone pushed it. Another guest had arrived, the whites of whose eyes were yellow and bloodshot, and he carried a curiously carved stick of some brown and yellow tropical wood.

  The guests exchanged glances but did not speak to one another. The Tiger Fitzpatrick conducted them to the sitting-room.

  This room was divided by tall green folding doors which had been thrown back. At the far end Asta Thundersley’s caterers had laid out an immense table on trestles, covered with a pure white cloth, and upon this table stood three massive five-branched candlesticks. Between the candlesticks there were two immense punch bowls, each of which contained at least two gallons of a turbid orange-coloured mixture, the pungent smell of which filled the place. To the excited eyes of the Murderer it seemed that there were five hundred glasses in the foreground, five hundred bottles of champagne in the background, and five hundred dishes of rare and complicated canapes on the left and the right. Asta Thundersley came forward, roaring words of welcome and gripping hands.

  She was dressed in brocade. Her strong, meaty shoulders were bare. Her square nails were painted light red; she seemed to be a little ashamed of them. From time to time she put her hands behind her and picked off a flake of varnish. Her sister, Tot, on the other hand, looked cool, sweet, calm, and comfortable.

  She had placed herself advantageously near the fireplace, with the light behind her, and was dressed in lavender-grey. About her throat she had tied a velvet band, to the front of which was pinned an amethyst – no other jewellery; only an antique watch in a double case with a fern-leaf pattern in amethysts and tiny diamonds. Thea Olivia’s hands were small and exquisite, and she knew exactly what to do with them. Whenever Asta saw her, she shook her head in an involuntary gesture of admiration. That sister of hers was perfect – whatever she did was right – her hands, her feet, her knees, her chin, every hair and everything was in its proper place. Asta was convinced that beside her sister she looked as she felt – a clumsy idiot. Her admiration was not unmixed with resentment. She had spent three hours and three guineas on her appearance that day. She puffed away uneasy speculation in one great snort and, as the bell rang again, said to The Tiger Fitzpatrick in a whisper which might have been heard three doors away: “Keep on your toes, you punch-drunk idiot, or, as God is my judge, I’ll knock your head off.”

  Shocket the Bloodsucker arrived with Titch Whitbread, a boy of twenty with a complexion of blood and cream, and thick blond hair. Titch Whitbread would have been conventionally handsome if the bridge of his nose had not been beaten in and his left ear knocked out of shape. But he had a full set of strong, white teeth which he displayed in a tireless grin of spontaneous delight. Everyone took to him immediately. He was engagingly boyish; there was something about him that made women want to look into his round blue eyes and talk baby-talk. Titch Whitbread was overwhelmed by the magnificence of the house and by the accents of the people making conversation. Here was Class.

  He grinned over a glass of ginger ale, answered if he was spoken to, and looked so happy that hardened victims of boredom, seeing his radiant face, felt a tenderness for him – a small, sad glow of nostalgia for youth and innocence.

  But Shocket the Bloodsucker talked for the two of them. When Shocket opened his mouth, which he did continuously, you were reminded of a piece of steak in which a butcher has made a preliminary cut. Out of this red, glutinous gash came a monotonous, husky voice with the penetrative quality of a cowbell in a mist.

  “… and this is Titch Whitbread. He’s a killer. He’s a murderer. Do you see that left hand? There’s a dose of chloroform in it. And do you see that right hand? I’ll tell you something. One poke with that right hand, and your face is nothing but the place where your teeth used to be. No, no! Don’t give Titch anything to drink. He won’t drink it. He’s a good, clean boy. I don’t mind if I do! I’m a father to ‘em – isn’t that right, Titch? I never let ‘em out of my sight. You ask Scotty Landauer. Who got Scotty into the running for the middle-weight championship? Me – old Shocket. And, by God, Scotty would have taken the championship off of Joey Hands; only Scotty wasn’t a clean boy. Broke training – late nights, beer, women (if you’ll excuse the expression) – that was the ruination of Scotty. Nothing like that about Titch, I swear it on my mother’s grave! No, may I be struck down dead this minute – no, may I never see my daughters alive again! I should be paralysed and may my children be paralysed, and my wife should choke on the next piece of bread she eats, Titch Whitbread is the next champion! I should be knocked down by a taxi and it should squash my guts out the next time I cross the road – may I go blind and beg in the streets – Titch is the next champion! He can hit like Sam Langford, he can take punishment like George Cook, he’s a lion – he’s a tiger – he’s a clean-living boy – he’s got more science than Einstein! And if I tell you that left hand is a dose of chloroform, that left hand is a dose of chloroform! All I want is for somebody, so they should guarantee Titch thirty thousand pounds in the next ten years, and – may I die a lingering death of cancer if what I say isn’t as true as fifty Bibles – they’d make sixty thousand pounds! On my dying oath!”

/>   Cigarette, who was watching Titch Whitbread with hot-eyed, dreamy abstraction, said: “Why, I think that’s wonderful!”

  Shocket stopped talking, blew his nose into a handkerchief which he afterwards unfolded and scrutinized with the air of a man who is reading a threatening letter from a creditor, and watched her closely. She had already emptied two glasses. It had brought out a smoulder on her cheeks. She was beginning, in her avid way, to look from face to face among the gathering guests. She wanted to recognize somebody, to make new contacts. Tobit Osbert and Catchy were engaged in polite conversation with Thea Olivia, behind whom hovered Sir Storrington Thirst, leaning familiarly upon the shoulder of Graham Strindberg. Cigarette sauntered over with her glass.

  Thea Olivia was saying: “I know I’m a silly old woman and you’ll laugh at me, but I simply don’t understand. I admit that I simply don’t understand why these people do such things. Why do they? What benefit do they get out of it? It all seems so useless.”

  Graham Strindberg said: “They re made that way.”

  Sir Storrington Thirst said: “They get a kick out of it. I knew a man in Kenya – ”

  “It’s so horrible, vile!” said Catchy, “hanging is much too good for anyone who does a thing like that. Much too good. He deserves – why, I don’t know what he deserves. He deserves to be cut into little bits.”

  “Hear, hear,” said Sir Storrington, “little bits, quite right.”

  Tobit Osbert shrugged a non-committal shoulder and said: “No, I can’t say I agree with you altogether there, Sir Storrington. One simply doesn’t do that sort of thing. Find him out, try him properly, and hang him quickly if he’s guilty. That’s the only thing to do. But no little bits. Certain people have no right to live among their fellow men. It seems to me that the thing to do is to stop them. I mean, to put an end to them.”

  “How do they get to be like that?” asked Thea Olivia.

  “Environment, upbringing,” said Catchy, “that’s the root of it all.”

  Sir Storrington said: “I don’t quite get what you mean.”

  “Well,” said Catchy, “what I mean to say is, the way you’re brought up. I don’t quite know how to put it. I know what I want to say but I don’t know how to say it.”

  In an ingratiating growl Sir Storrington said: “Can’t say I see eye to eye with you there, my dear. Look at me. Why, for the slightest word, I got hell. Why, if I failed to cr 11 my father ‘sir’, he knocked me down. Remember once, I was accused of stealing pears. Didn’t steal pears. Naturally denied stealing pears, was horse-whipped twice, once for stealing pears and the second time for lying. Couldn’t sit, stand or lie down for a fortnight. Went into a high fever. Then my young brother owned up – he’d stolen the pears. I may say that I’d known it all along, but had said nothing; brothers stick together, what? I went to my father and said: ‘Hope and trust you’re convinced that I’m not a liar now, sir?’ Father said: ‘Yes, my son, I’m convinced. But take this for your temerity – for daring to address me in that tone of voice.’ And gave me about three dozen with a malacca walking-stick that had a silver knob carved to look like an elephant’s head. Upbringing? Environment? Never had any worth mentioning. Can’t say I believe in it. Father used to grab me by the ankle and hold me down out of a four-storey window, supposed to give one a horror of heights. Have I a horror of heights? Once, for a bet, I walked blindfold around the top of the Flatiron Building, New York. Do I go about killing little girls, on account of environment? Stuff!”

  “Oh Christ!” said Cigarette, “is everybody still talking about this Sonia Sabbatani business? Everywhere I go, all I hear is Sonia Sabbatani, Sonia Sabbatani, Sonia Sabbatani: murder, murder, murder. Can’t anybody talk about anything else, for God’s sake?”

  Tobit Osbert said: “But it really is a bad business. I knew the Sabbatanis. Sam did me more than one good turn. It brings the real monstrousness of the thing home to you, in a case like that.”

  “I never saw Toby cry before,” said Catchy.

  “Did you really cry?” asked Thea Olivia with tender coquetry.

  “I didn’t actually cry. I saw the grief of the others, and it may be that tears came into my eyes.”

  “Yes, Toby, and ran down your face,” said Catchy. “You mustn’t be ashamed of having cried. It does you credit,” said Thea Olivia.

  Graham Strindberg muttered: “Where was God? Where was God?”

  Suddenly Cigarette’s eyes became narrow and hard. They were focused on the face of a man who stood talking to Asta Thundersley in another corner of the room. “Look,” said Cigarette, “look who we’ve got here. Dicks!”

  “Dicks?” asked Thea Olivia. “Who is Mr Dicks?”

  “I mean detectives,” said Cigarette. She was looking at the man who at that time was Detective-Inspector, but now is Chief Inspector, Turpin.

  ∨ Prelude to a Certain Midnight ∧

  BOOK THREE

  ∨ Prelude to a Certain Midnight ∧

  Thirty-Three

  THE affair of Chicken Eyes Emerald having been resolved, Turpin was taking time off. Now, in his strenuous, jerky way, he was resting.

  Normally, after a long-drawn-out job of work, Turpin took his wife to a cinema and spent a calm hour or two, smoking an inexpensive cigar and admiring the footwork of Fred Astaire. He laughed until he choked (“laughed like a lavatory”, as the Bar Bacchus crowd would have said) at Mickey Mouse, and could give a tolerable imitation of Donald Duck. After the pictures, Turpin and his wife went home arm-in-arm, in perfect accord, never exchanging two words until they reached their doorstep, when she said: “I hope you’ve got your key…” Then there would be supper. The implacable man-hunter loved his long, lazy evenings at home, where there was always something to be done – a nail here, a screw there, a dab of glue and a firm hand at such-and-such a joint – something to be done which he seldom did. He was the laughing-stock of the family. The children called him In-A-Minute – he was always putting things off. In the end it was Mrs Turpin who unstopped the sink or fixed the rattling window.

  But she had gone to visit her mother. He was alone. Turpin found no pleasure in the cinema if his wife was not with him: there was no one to whisper to. Asta Thundersley’s invitation intrigued him. There was no harm in paying half an hour’s visit. He had met Asta twice – call it three times – and considered her as a lunatic, wrong-headed in a good direction, but not quite right.

  Officially, he could not approve of Asta; yet she was a person after his own heart. She was angry and rebellious: that was silly.

  She knew exactly what she hated: he could not blame her for that. Her heart got into her throat: he was not out of sympathy with the noise she made. There had been occasions when Turpin had teetered on the verge of an outburst in the high, wide and handsome manner of Asta Thundersley. But the sort of scene she was capable of making over the impoliteness of a bus conductor would have cost him his position: detectives may not make scenes. They should not even express anger. Two or three times in his life Turpin would have given anything but his job for the joy of exploding like an overstrained boiler. But he was bound by the cold white bands of legal dialectic. Still, he envied Asta, who, privileged as a woman and a popular eccentric, could push open doors marked ‘Private’, grab terrified officials by the collar, beat people over the head with her umbrella and shout at the top of her voice wherever she happened to be. She had guts where her brains ought to have been, he thought; but he liked guts.

  He was not in the habit of accepting invitations, and not much of a man for drinking-parties. But it is a good thing for a man in Turpin’s business to see a little of everything. Everything was experience, and experience sharpened the wits. The world was a great whirling grindstone upon which Turpin unostentatiously ground himself keener and keener like a headsman’s axe. It was interesting, a Bohemian party like this: you never knew what you might find.

  He was saying: “If it’s all the same to you, Miss, I think I’d just as soon have a glass of
beer. If it’s not putting you to any inconvenience.”

  Asta poured out a bottle of Bass, filling a glass with froth so that Turpin, wishing her good health and taking a polite sip, appeared for a moment to have become vulnerable yet dandified, with a neat little white moustache such as used to be worn by Mr Lewis Stone. Then she took him aside and whispered:

  “You know, I think the man who killed little Sonia Sabbatani must be here to-night.”

  Detective-Inspector Turpin said: “Oh yes? Is that a fact?”

  “I’m sure of it.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “I’ve been working things out. Practically every, man here to-night is a suspect. Practically everyone.”

  Smiling, Turpin glanced at the crowd. At least sixty people were drinking great glasses of Schiff’s cloudy orange-coloured mixture.

  “While you’re about it, you might have invited the rest of London,” said Turpin.

  “Why be more of an idiot than God made you, for God’s sake? Do you take me for a fool? The man who killed poor little Sonia was one of the Bar Bacchus crowd.”

  “You know that for a fact, I dare say?”

  “I’m absolutely sure of it.”

  “Well, no doubt you’ve got your very good reasons.”

  “Look here, Turpin, work it out for yourself – ”

  “I wish I could work it out for myself, Miss Thundersley, but it isn’t my department. All the same, I’d like to hear what I’ve got to work out for myself, if you know what I mean.”

  “That poor little girl was enticed – lured – inveigled into the filthy coal-cellar of that horrible house. I’ve been a little girl myself. You’ve never been a little girl, Dick, so let me tell you. There isn’t one girl in a million who’d go with a stranger into a deserted house. So she must have known him. Well, how could she have known him? Through her father’s shop. Sam Sabbatani is one of those homely little tradesmen: his wife and kid were always in and out of the shop. Everyone who set foot in the place was one of the family. Poor Mrs Sabbatani is for ever bringing in cups of tea. She’s made that way. You know the type of person I mean. Well, as it happens, Sam made a bit of a connexion at the Bar Bacchus. He’s still got a little advertisement hung up there – done in red and black lettering, in a little brown frame. You know Gonger the barman? Well, Sam Sabbatani made an arrangement with him – Gonger displayed Sam’s showcard, and Sam pressed Gonger’s suits and kept him in white jackets. You ask Gonger, you ask Sam Sabbatani. Most of Sam’s customers came from the Bar Bacchus. Work it out, Turpin, work it out!”