by Alec Waugh
He looked down at the vast stretched frame. Carson might be older than he was, but he was taller, heavier, a fighting man. No one could say he had attacked a weakling. Carson was the man he had most admired, most looked up to, most dreaded as a rival. No one could despise him for what he had done. They would all be impressed. They were laughing contemptuously about him now, but tomorrow night…
Tomorrow night. Where would he be then? The question sent the first chill shudder along his nerves. He had killed a man. This was not the kind of offense for which you deposited so much bail. This was manslaughter. It might even be called murder. Would it be called murder? He could plead self-defense. If only there were some mark upon him, some sign that Carson had tried to pull a weapon. Carson lay dead upon the floor; the back of his head battered, his throat bruised. But himself he did not bear a mark. He had struck first. His knees had pinioned Carson’s arms. His face did not show a scratch. There was nothing to prove that he had been in a fight. Nothing at all. He could walk into the club and no one would make any comment; no one would say, “How did you get that black eye?” Wasn’t that how murderers got so often caught, some bruise or scratch that they could not explain. He carried no such clues. In one way that might tell against him, but in another…
His thoughts were racing. He had read of this kind of incident in a dozen novels, had seen it depicted in fifty films. A scuffle and a fight; a head that in falling strikes a fender. A sudden corpse, and a man wild with terror, deciding to make a bolt for it, and always inevitably leaving behind him the one fatal clue. Reading that kind of novel, seeing that kind of film, he had thought, what a fool the man was. If he had gone to the police and told his story, he would have been believed. He would have been charged with manslaughter and would have been acquitted. But as it was, by behaving stupidly, he was in the dock on a charge of murder. If I had been in that position I’d have known what to do, he had thought. Well, here he was, in that position, and he was hesitating. He knew what he ought to do. Walk round to the police station. But suppose he didn’t….
Suppose he didn’t. Who would connect him with Carson’s death? No one had seen him come here. They had met at the dark turning into this narrow lane. A blank wall faced that lane. The windows of Carson’s house were shuttered. No one could have seen in. There was that one moment when he and Carson had stood in the lighted hall, but who could have seen them? He had left no fingerprints. He had touched nothing. He had come in by a stone-flagged pathway. He had left no footprints. There was no motive for his killing Carson. No motive that would occur to anyone. No one knew about Sylvia and Carson. When Carson’s death was announced, no one would connect him with it. No one would wonder what he was doing at that hour. If Carson’s body was found dead and robbed, the first thought would be, He came back and found a burglar, and the burglar went for him.
Now steady, Maxwell adjured himself, you must think this out.
Suppose that he were to walk straight round now to the club, and behave there as though nothing had happened. He would excite no comment. He had only been in Carson’s place a quarter of an hour. His father would not know when he had left the house; he had been alone in the drawing room for an hour. It was unlikely that anyone at the club would remember exactly when he arrived. No clock was displayed with any prominence. It would only be remembered that he had arrived shortly after Carson had left. A postmortem would no doubt give a rough idea when Carson had died, but there was no expert surgeon on the island. The precise moment would not be decided. There would be an hour or so to play with. A visitor might as easily have arrived before as after his return from the club. Two hours to play with. There was nothing to connect him with Carson’s death. Nothing.
His former mood of exhilaration revived. Did not they always say that the hardest murders to spot were those unpremeditated sex crimes when a man leapt upon a girl whom he had never seen? When a murder was premeditated, the murderer stood to benefit from the victim’s death and the police could endlessly cross-examine those who had profited. Usually in a premeditated crime, the murderer had been too clever. But in the case of a sex crime, the police had nothing to go upon.
Did not this present accident provide an exact parallel? A quarter of an hour ago he had had no conception that such a thing could happen. Because he had made no plans, thought out no alibi, he had left no clue. If he had meant to murder Carson, he would have thought it out too carefully. He would have had a story that sounded too pat. But as it was, he might very well have committed the perfect crime. Provided no one saw him coming away from the house now, he was surely safe. He knelt down and felt for Carson’s wallet. It had got to look like a burglary. The wallet was in his hip pocket. It was not bulky. He looked inside; it was mostly money, he stuffed the wallet in his pocket. There was a gold watch on Carson’s wrist. He took it off and put it with the money. Now, he thought.
The sooner he was out of here the better. He looked round him. Was there anything worth stealing, anything that would attract a thief. He saw nothing. Those silver cups upon the mantelpiece? A thief who had been surprised would not have bothered about those.
He walked into the dining room; there was a dramatic irony about this carefully set out appetizing meal that nobody now would eat. The sliced chicken under the glass cover looked very good. He had had no appetite at lunch. He was hungry. He felt tempted. No, he told himself, he might leave fingerprints. But wouldn’t a West Indian thief have taken something? He hesitated. Better not risk it. With his handkerchief round his hand, he switched off the lights; in the sitting room, and dining room and then the hall. He did not want to show himself in silhouette in the opening doorway.
I’ll walk quickly down the lane, he thought. If I see no one, then I’m safe. If I do see anyone then the game is up. I’ll walk straight round to the police station and confess. I’ll hand over the watch and wallet. I’ll say, “I didn’t trust one of you boys not to steal them.” That would be a gesture. He stood in the darkened hall, his hand wrapped in his handkerchief upon the doorknob. He felt like a child playing hide and seek. Would he be able to get down that lane without being seen? One, two, three, go.
He opened the door and stepped onto the pathway. He had never been more excited in his life. He turned into the lane. At the end of it he could see the roadway. Could he get there without being seen? Sixty yards, fifty yards, twenty yards, less than a cricket pitch now. He lengthened his stride, without hastening it. He must not attract attention. He reached the dark corner where he had waited for Carson; everything depended on the next three seconds. He stepped into the road and swung toward the right. Now he was on safe ground, provided that no one had seen him come out from the lane. No one was ahead of him; was anyone behind? He looked over his shoulder. There was no one there. I’m safe, safe, safe, he told himself. He shortened his stride. No need to hurry now. He was where he had every right to be; on the road leading from his father’s house to the club. It did not matter who saw him.
At the end of the road he saw the flash of a car’s headlights. He stood aside to let the car pass him. He could not see who was inside. In twenty-four hours’ time its occupants might be saying, “Do you know what? We went past the lane leading to the house just before seven. At that very moment Carson may have been being murdered.”
Maxwell chuckled. He had got away with it. All he had to do now was to keep his head. Never had he felt greater exhilaration, greater self-confidence, greater sense of power. A man had taunted him and he had paid the price. No one would ever know, but the fact that he himself knew would make all the difference to his contacts with his acquaintances. How he would chuckle when he heard them discussing the case. How wide their guesses would go. He would feel so superior when he listened. He’d have the laugh over them all. He’d only got to keep his head. He’d only to behave as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
He walked through the main gates. The carpark was crowded. A big night clearly. He’d have fifty witnesses to testify in
his defense. He could hear his counsel’s voice, “It surely will not be believed that a man of Maxwell Fleury’s type could walk into the club within five minutes of committing such a ghastly crime and calmly discuss the West Indians’ chances in a test match?”
He turned onto the veranda. As he did so, he was conscious of a hush, of faces turned in his direction. It was so unexpected that he hesitated, taken off his guard. No one could know yet surely. Then he remembered. Bradshaw’s article. They were all wondering how he would take it. “Behave as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened,” that was the advice that his father had given him. It was precisely the same advice that he had been giving to himself. Two birds with one stone. He’d show them.
He smiled as he walked toward the bar. Bradshaw was standing there. He waved at him. Did a look of embarrassment cross his features? He thought it did. It might well have done. Bradshaw had betrayed the hospitality of the island. No family was anxious to have its antecedents examined closely. Few families would stand even a cursory examination. Look at the Kellaways. Half a dozen families must be wondering anxiously whom he would pounce on next. Probably it was that sense of guilt that had brought Bradshaw to the club this evening. He did not come very often. He had felt a need to brave it out, to see how the land lay. Just as he himself had done. Quite a few people had something on their minds tonight.
Did he fancy it, or was there a timid look on Bradshaw’s face? There might well be. There should be. There’d be more than anxiety in his heart if he knew the caliber of the man with whom he had to deal, if he knew what had happened ten minutes ago in the house off the dark lane behind the Court House. A giddy sense of superiority and power flushed him as he met Bradshaw’s look. He was more than a match for this pansified old journalist. An idea struck him. “Behave as though nothing had happened,” his father had counseled him. But his father had been thinking in terms of the ineffectual manager of an estate, who couldn’t show a profit, who’d been jeered at at the hustings. His father had never realized the kind of man his son really was. No one had. They would soon learn. He walked across to Bradshaw and held out his hand. “Congratulations.”
Bradshaw started, surprised. He looked down at Maxwell’s hand, hesitated, then put his own into it. It was a flabby handshake. Maxwell’s was firm and vigorous.
“That’s a fine series of articles. The best things I’ve read about the island; as for that one today, it certainly was the goods.”
He paused. He was conscious of a gathering hush behind him and round him. On Bradshaw’s face there was an expression of complete astonishment. There would be a similar expression on half the faces that were turning round to him, but he did not look to see. He was talking for effect, but he must not allow the others to see that he was.
“You’ve said things that needed saying,” he went on, “that conspiracy of silence: those great-aunts that are kept out of sight over the mountains, you’ve brought it all into the open. You’ve cleared the air. We shall all be able to meet each other on more straightforward terms. From my own point of view I can’t tell you how grateful I am.”
“In what way, may I ask?”
“In every way. Up to now, you see—” He paused. He had meant to shrug it off, with some remark about being able to meet his acquaintances on equal terms, but a fresh idea had come to him. “Behave as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.” But his father had only said that because he had not trusted his son to carry off a difficult part skillfully. He had his cue now, he needed no prompter in the wings.
“I’ll tell you how it’ll help me. In fact I can give you a very good example. Aren’t I right in thinking that you were at that election meeting of mine last night?”
“As a matter of fact I was.”
“It was a fiasco, wasn’t it?”
“It was hardly a success.”
“I’ll say it wasn’t, and I’ll tell you why it wasn’t: they didn’t trust me: they thought of me as a Fleury, one of the old feudal planters who had bought their ancestors in the market place. They don’t want that kind of man to represent them; my standing up before them appealing to them to vote for me, gave them the opportunity they’d been wanting for three hundred years. They had been the slaves of Belfontaine, but now they could reject me. As they did. You saw how they did. But it’ll be different now, after your article. Now I’ll be one of them.”
It was only in that moment that the idea had come to him, but in this hour of illumination, his mind was moving fast and clearly.
“I’ll tell you what I propose to do. They think they’ve scared me off. Far from it. I’ll hold another meeting. This time in the daylight. I’m going to take your article as my text. I’ll say to them, ‘You thought because I carry the name Fleury that I’m one of the tyrants of your people; that isn’t true. As this article tells you, my grandmother was of African ancestry. I am one of you. I combine the new and the old, both races, the black and white.’ I shall explain to them that though the future lies with the brown race, they can only achieve their ends by working with the whites; that they should, for a while at any rate, rely upon men like myself who have a foot in both camps.”
As he spoke, he visualized the scene: himself standing on the veranda of the police station where twenty-four hours back he had endured such humiliation. This time it would be different. He saw their black upturned faces. They could be swayed easily if you knew how to sway them. Crowds in the mass had neither mind nor memory. He’d get them, now that he had this card to play.
“Your article will make all the difference. Until the story had broken, I couldn’t very well have got up and said, ‘As a matter of fact I’m not quite as white as you imagine.’ I suppose I could have, but I don’t know that my father would have liked it. And as far as that goes, I doubt if I’d have had the guts myself. That’s where your article has done so much good. It’s brought the subject out into the open. I’m very grateful to you. I’m sure everyone in the island should be too. Though I suppose there’ll be one or two of them who won’t be.”
He said it with a chuckle. He was conscious of a stir behind him; partially of disapproval, he suspected. They didn’t like this. Well, let them dislike it. It would do them good. They’d see him in a new light anyhow. “Behave as though nothing had happened.” In terms of his own dilemma, his behavior could not have been more effective. He had shown, incontrovertibly, that he had nothing on his mind except the article in the paper and the effect it would have upon his election.
“You must come out when I make my next speech,” he said to Bradshaw. “It’ll be in the afternoon this time. Perhaps you could have lunch with us before.”
“I’d enjoy that.”
“Fine. I’ll ring you up. Will you have a drink? I feel I owe you one.”
“Well, thank you, yes. A pony rum and soda.”
“A full-size one for me.”
He ordered the drinks, raised his glass to Bradshaw. “Here’s luck and gratitude.”
5
Maxwell had left his car outside his father’s house. He had chosen to walk so as to clear his head. He returned by the same road on foot. He slowed down as he passed the dark lane behind the Court House, turning his head to the left. With what trepidation forty minutes ago he had hurried down it. His future, perhaps his very life, had depended then upon the emptiness of the road. Now it did not matter. Anyone could recognize him. Above the wall of the station, he could see the roof of Carson’s house. How many people would pass here in the next twelve hours? How many people would glance toward that roof? How astonished they would feel tomorrow when they learnt that under that roof at that moment a man was lying dead.
He pictured the scene tomorrow morning. The cordon of police, the gaping crowd. It was as well he would be in the country. He could not have resisted going round. That was a temptation he must resist, the criminal’s return to the scene of his crime.
He reached his father’s house shortly before eight. Jocelyn was home. They
were sitting, the three of them, on the veranda; they looked sad and tired. They were probably still discussing the same subject.
“It’s all right,” he told them. “I’ve fixed it. I took the bull by the horns.”
With his back against the railing he described the incident. His high spirits in contrast to his parents’ and Jocelyn’s despondency might be a solecism. But he could not be bothered about that. There had been times enough in the past when they had been cheerful and he glum. Jocelyn would get over this. There were lots of other men. She was a nice-looking girl. There was no reason now why she should not marry a man of color: Grainger Morris possibly. Why not? What was the difference between a quarter and a sixteenth of color? She was one of them now, as he was. She would have a much wider choice.
“I told Bradshaw,” he asserted, “that that article will do more good than anything that’s happened in this island since emancipation. I didn’t realize it at first, but I do now. It’s brought the whole question out into the open, but I mustn’t stay here gossiping. I must get back to Belfontaine.”
“Won’t you have dinner first?”
He shook his head.
“No. Thanks very much. Sylvia will be waiting. I rang her from the club. She’ll have something cold for me.”
“When will you be back here next?”
“I’ve no idea. I’ll have a lot to do these next few days. Possibly not before the elections. I’m going to canvass that district, you’ll see how I’ll canvass it!”
He waved his hand. He could not stay and talk: their gloom depressed him. He hurried toward the door; in the hall he paused. That wallet in his pocket. He needed to have a look at it. He turned into the lavatory below the stairs and took it out. A sudden memory returned to him: the smell of that cigarette, the raised seat. His clues to Carson. Here was where it had begun. Here was where it had finished; this wallet in his hand. He opened the wallet. There was a wad of five dollar notes. They were old and worn; had passed through several hands. No bank would have a record of them. He put them in his own wallet.
