Sequel to Murder: The Cases of Arthur Crook and Other Mysteries

by Anthony Gilbert

  “That referred to a murder,” said Vanessa, cool as a snowflake. He seemed momentarily abashed.

  “Well, we must hope it doesn’t come to that,” he observed, trying to carry

  off the situation with a laugh, and following her into our living room as to the manner born. He stood in the center of the floor, making himself perfectly at home, putting a price on everything. He was a tall man, dark-haired, his eyes almost completely black, with a mobile unscrupulous face, an easy manner, and (no doubt) a black heart concealed by a surprisingly well-cut suit.

  “Is that your niece?” he asked, walking over and picking up a photograph of Caro taken some years before, and showing a gay laughing girl with a riband holding back her dark hair. “I quite see you’d take a lot of chances to keep her looking that way. What was she—deb of the year?” Easily he put the picture back. I turned away abruptly and drew the curtain. “I don’t like being watched,” I explained. Even if it was only a star.

  “Should I introduce you?” Vanessa murmured. “My friend, Miss Ursula Jordan.”

  He turned and bowed. “U.J.?” he said. “Oh, it’s all in the diary my sister left behind—a kind of insurance, I suppose, in case of an emergency.”

  “We had no notion your sister had literary qualities,” Vanessa observed.

  I recognized that tone. I knew she was going to make things as difficult as possible for us all, and it would be a hollow victory at best, since I knew Jackson held all the aces in the deck and probably had a fifth up his sleeve.

  “It was no bad idea,” he now said. “Like leaving a message saying where you can be found.”

  “I expect you did the same tonight,” Vanessa said. “Your wife—”

  “No woman’s put my head in the noose yet,” he assured her. “And, as I told you, I’m only passing through.”

  “Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to have helped Mrs. Ridgley,” Vanessa went on. “I mean, she left the diary, but she still came to grief.”

  He shrugged ever so faintly. “You can’t win ’em all,” he said. “Now among her papers was this diary and it makes very interesting reading. And not just to me. It goes back a long way, right back to the suicide of that young fellow at The Penthouse. I can’t help thinking it’s a story that would prove very popular to a lot of people who have to get their thrills at second-hand.”

  “Through the press, no doubt,” agreed Vanessa. “I think I get your meaning, Mr. Jackson. You’re prepared to reduce the number of readers to two—

  for an adequate fee, of course.”

  “She knows all the answers, doesn’t she?” Jackson turned to me with something approximating a wink, but I wouldn’t meet his eye. “The one I had particularly in mind was Mr. Charles Marshall. I understand your niece’s engagement is shortly to be announced—”

  “It was clever of you to discover that,” Vanessa congratulated him. “It’s supposed to be secret.”

  He made the gesture of twirling a buoyant mustache. “Oh, I do my homework,” he boasted. “You should approve, Miss Freeman. Didn’t you find that your pupils who were prepared for all emergencies were the ones who came out at the top of the list—in your school-marming days, I mean?”

  “They were still subject to viruses and runaway buses,” Van told him smoothly.

  “I’ll lay it straight on the line, shall I?” He took a flat black book with Diary in gilt letters printed on the cover and put it on the table beside her. “Help yourself,” he offered. “Only—no tricks, mind. I’m wondering what Mr. Marshall’s reaction would be—he’s an ambitious chap, I understand, and on the way up, the lucky devil—if the idea got around that he was—well, buying damaged goods.”

  Vanessa has one of those exquisite creamy faces that never get unbecomingly red, but her complexion changed now; she still didn’t go scarlet, as I should have done, but her face assumed a corpse-like pallor. She turned abruptly toward the fire, picking up the little steel poker we keep in the hearth.

  “Don’t do it,” warned our visitor. “You’d never get away with it.”

  Vanessa looked at the poker as if she didn’t recognize it or know what it was doing in her hand. Then she threw it down with a clatter.

  “I’ve always been given to understand that murder is simple,” she agreed.

  “It’s the aftermath—for instance, how on earth should I explain your presence in my house?”

  It was Jackson’s first sign of discomfiture. They were talking only to each other. I took up more space than either, but I might have been less than a shadow. It brought back to my mind the day when Van and Caro had sat there and disposed of my future as if it were no more than a strip of discarded orange peel. In an odd way I was glad to be reminded. Vanessa put out a languid hand and picked up the diary.

  “I hope I don’t underestimate you, Mr. Jackson,” she said. “But it interests me to know how you, a man newly returned from Canada, could so easily

  identify Miss Jordan and myself from mere initials.”

  “Ah, but the right initials. And the dates fit, too. In any case, both of your names appear in full at the start, and it wasn’t at all difficult to trace you. You both stand out in a place like this.”

  Vanessa put up her hand. “Please spare us that, at least,” she said. “Let us understand one another, as well as we may. Assuming we are unable or unwilling to meet your terms, am I right in supposing you don’t propose to show this—document—to the police? Well, of course not. There’d be no financial advantage to you in that, would there?”

  I thought it was time I took a hand. “Oh, Van, why spin it out?” I pleaded.

  “That’s her writing all right. And the less publicity the better. Besides,” I wound up in sudden bitterness, “you know that in the last crux you’ll pay the price as you’ve paid it before. The future—the house—what comes next?”

  All I wanted now was to get the thing settled and hear Jackson drive away. I was like the fictitious soldier at Agincourt, who had no stomach for the fight.

  Vanessa was casually leafing through the diary.

  “It’s too bad your sister didn’t have second sight,” she observed. “She might have been able to tell you how she managed to slip that day at the critical moment.”

  “I’ve wondered about that, too,” Jackson agreed. “Life isn’t always that obliging. You didn’t actually see her fall, did you?” He turned unexpectedly to me.

  “It was all over when I got there,” I replied. “Just this crowd and the authorities trying to hold everybody back, and everyone talking and shoving—it was horrible.”

  “Life at second-hand,” said Jackson seriously. “Oh, well, I expect if questions were asked, someone would remember your being in the hotel lounge.”

  This was danger, undisguised, from an unexpected quarter; but once again Van saved the day.

  “Let us confine ourselves to such facts as we do possess,” she suggested. “I will start by admitting that I should be very much happier to see this diary

  destroyed. I think, Mr. Jackson, the ball is now in your court. If you will serve, please.”

  “Meaning how much?” He named a figure. I had realized he was going to pitch it high, but this made Ethel’s original demand seem like pennies. Even Vanessa looked dumfounded.

  “You’re—not joking, I take it?”

  He rubbed his thumb and fore-finger together, in a suggestive, vulgar gesture. “Never joke about serious subjects,” he said. “And what can be more serious than money?”

  “And if we find ourselves unable to cope?”

  “You find money in the oddest places. I believe Mr. Marshall isn’t exactly a pauper.”

  “You’d get short shrift from him,” Vanessa warned.

  “Or there’s a fellow I know on the Sunday Recorder. This would be right up their street.”

  “Even disreputable tabloids like the Recorder have their limits,” Vanessa suggested.

  “You could be right, but you’d need a telescope to spot ’em
. Besides, more things are done by innuendo ...

  Vanessa threw the diary down as though it were something too corrupt to be handled any longer.

  “I appreciate the situation,” she said. “Naturally, I shall require some time to consider. I don’t ask if I can rely on you not to offer this in any other market until you have our reply, because clearly this so-called evidence couldn’t fetch anything like your figure from any other source. Miss Jordan and I—”

  He grinned. “You sound like the British Prime Minister, but don’t overplay

  your hand, Miss Freeman. If you think you can stall me till the announcement of the engagement is made, forget it. Let’s see. Today’s Tuesday. I’ll be round again on Friday to collect. Friday’s a good night to contact my friend at the Recorder—catch the Sunday public, you see—and no nonsense about checks, please. I’m not a legal beagle myself,” he added coolly, “but isn’t there some kind of penalty for paying a blackmailer to suppress evidence—sort of perjury in reverse?”

  “I told you this would happen,” I said fiercely. “We burned our boats when we agreed to Ethel Ridgley’s first demand.”

  “Then we must learn to swim even in rough water,” Vanessa said quietly. “How good a swimmer are you, Mr. Jackson?”

  “You ask my Mum, she’d tell you I was born swimming.” He grinned.

  I saw, if Jackson didn’t, that Van was almost at the end of her tether.

  “You’ve had a shock,” I said. “I’ll get a drop of brandy.”

  She pushed herself to her feet. “I’ll get it,” she said. “I daresay we could all do with a drop.”

  “Under safeguards,” Jackson agreed, and he sent me that conspiratorial glance again. He moved forward to open the door, and on an impulse I laid a hand on his arm. He couldn’t have looked more surprised if a serpent had fastened onto his wrist.

  “You don’t mind taking chances, do you?” I said, as the door closed behind Vanessa. “If she had used that poker I’d have sworn it was suicide, and I know which of us would have been believed.”

  “Don’t push your luck,” he said harshly. We talked for two or three minutes while he swaggered about examining Vanessa’s treasures, “She’s a long time, isn’t she?” he suggested. “What’s she doing? Doctoring the brandy?”

  “She wouldn’t insult Dom-Remy like that,” I said. “She’s probably trying to restore the status quo. I suppose it’s second nature to you to go round hurling bombs into strangers’ backyards—”

  “She’s as tough as an old boot,” said Jackson in scornful tones. “All that fragile air—I bet the Roman matrons looked like her, having a fine time watching the Christian maidens being gored by wild cows. Ever been to the Chamber of Horrors? You’d be surprised at the homely little women, the sort that ask you in for a cuppa, who crushed unwanted kids to death between mattresses or put poison in the old man’s nightly cocoa, and never lost a minute’s sleep. I can’t think how Ethel had the nerve to stand up to her.”

  The door opened and Vanessa came back, carrying the decanter and three balloon glasses on a silver tray. “I hope I haven’t delayed you,” she said formally. “I was waiting for the glasses to warm.”

  “I thought the brandy did that,” grinned Jackson.

  “The warmth brings out the full bouquet.” She picked up the decanter,

  but he jumped in and took it from her. “Allow me!” He poured the first tot and handed it to her. She drank it deliberately and handed the glass back. “A test case? You give me credit for very little finesse, Mr. Jackson. Please help yourself.”

  I was convinced this wasn’t Van’s first glass, and I wished she would let Jackson go away. Then a sound from beyond the window made me start.

  “Why, it’s raining,” I exclaimed.

  “Yes. Didn’t you know? I am afraid you’ll have a wet drive home, Mr.

  Jackson. Still, your car looks as though it could stand up to a storm.”

  “She gets me from A to B,” Jackson agreed. “You don’t mind?” He refilled his glass. “Shouldn’t we be drinking a toast?” he suggested.

  I burst into sudden laughter. “When shall we three meet again?”

  “Friday,” he agreed. So we all drank to Friday.

  * * *

  When she came back from seeing him off, Van lay back in her chair like someone dead. Her look frightened me. I had to say something. “So he’s gone,” I observed idiotically.

  “He’s gone,” Van agreed. “Till Friday,” I amended. “He’s gone. Period.”

  I turned my head sharply. “What’s that supposed to mean? You can’t imagine he won’t be back.”

  “He won’t be back.” Her voice was drained but somehow convincing. “How can you—did you get hold of the diary then?”

  “The diary was never of any importance, just an excuse to get inside the door. People are such amateurs, Ursula. It’s like these mass-produced clothes where all the buttons fall off the first time you put them on. Here he comes with his story of just being home from Canada, but he has a dear friend on a Sunday paper. He tells us that Ethel kept this diary in case of an emergency, but there was an emergency and the diary never turned up. Even if the police hadn’t shown interest, the sort of spiders who live in shady hotels like The Penthouse would never have sealed it up unread. No, it was never produced at the inquest or anywhere else, because at that time it didn’t exist.”

  “You’re full of surprises,” I congratulated her, when I got my voice back. “Do you suggest he wrote it?”

  “I don’t know,” Vanessa acknowledged, “but I am sure that Ethel Ridgley didn’t. Why keep a diary solely for our benefit? What about her other victims? We weren’t her first, you know; her behavior throughout bears the stamp of professionalism—she was almost the only professional in the picture,” she added under her breath. “Naturally, I didn’t recognize the handwriting—but I wonder what made you so sure it was hers? We’d just agreed she’d never put down a word in writing, not so much as her signature. You had me puzzled there, Ursie, but I didn’t want to cramp your style, not with your friend present.”

  “Not my friend,” I protested, stung.

  “Perhaps friend isn’t the correct word. Still, you’ll not deny it was due to you that he came here this afternoon. Refill my glass,” she added quickly,

  “and have another tot yourself. We’re both going to need it. There comes a point of no return in every situation, what’s sometimes called the moment of truth, and I think we’re there now. I think, too, you owe me that, and you needn’t be afraid of Jackson’s vengeance—because he won’t be coming back.’

  I didn’t recognize my hand holding the decanter, refilling the glasses. It seemed to have a life, a volition, of its own.

  “What did you do?” I said.

  “I simply advised him to go back by the inland road. I know the coast road is quicker, and by going inland you’re apt to get caught in the Lamberwell bottleneck, but it’s safer in bad weather. But drivers and brakes both need to be as steady as rocks, particularly on a dark night with the rain falling, and he doesn’t know the neighborhood. Of course, I warned him about Dead Man’s Morrice.”

  That was the astounding name of a burnt-out pub standing on the cliff edge, round which various superstitions had accumulated.

  “Even you, even I,” Van went on, “who know the place like the back of our hands, exercise particular care on that turn. The road suddenly becomes a precipice—”

  “Perhaps Mr. Jackson will exercise particular care, too,” I suggested.

  But Van only said, “It won’t help him. His brakes won’t hold.”

  I knew then why she had been so long fetching the brandy. I could see in my mind’s eye those small clever hands of hers working like lightning under the hood, the swift fatal adjustment, the pitiless eyes.

  “You should have been the actress,” I cried. “Van, it’s murder!”

  “I warned him to go the other way,” she said seriously. I could imagine.

/>   The soft, faintly scornful tone, the flashing eye, the cool appraisal of our visitor as someone already slightly out of control—oh, the man wasn’t living who wouldn’t have defied her then.

  “We haven’t long to wait,” she continued. “Did you see his car? A big showy article as meretricious as himself. But never mind about him, he’s not important any more. Tell me why you did it, Ursie—after all these years? Betray me, I mean? And with a—creature—like that?”

  You must have read the phrase about the heavens opening, thunder pealing forth, lightning flashing like gold swords, angels and archangels deafening and blinding the human host. It was like that with me.

  “I said you didn’t need that last glass of brandy,” an unfamiliar voice said—my voice.

  “I suppose you cooked it up between you,” Van went on relentlessly. “You telephone, you said to him, and I’ll see to it she answers. And then when he arrived he never even hesitated—he knew at once which of us wasn’t Miss Freeman. Besides, Caro’s engagement. Someone had to tell him—and it wasn’t me. You were in his power, weren’t you, Ursie? Oh, yes, I could see that, he was exhibiting you like—oh, like someone’s prize vegetable marrow. I suppose the fact is he was there that afternoon when you pushed Ethel onto the line.”

  By now I’d hardly have been surprised if the door had opened and Ethel herself came walking in, all green and moldy from the tomb.

  “I wasn’t even on the platform.” I reminded her.

  “That’s what you said. But it can’t be true. Because there were police there holding back the crowd and you couldn’t have got near enough to the edge to see her—she was between the rails remember, and at first she was reported as an unidentified woman—but you knew who it was. You came back to tell me—and how could you know unless you had been there? Was that in your mind all the time—killing her? Or did she say something that signed her own death warrant? Had you agreed to share the two thousand pounds? I’ve wondered so often. Come, Ursula, the point of no return. You’re quite safe. I’m the one person in the world who could never betray you.”

  Inside me something boiled up and burst; the room was full of streaks of colored light as vivid as blood. I heard my own voice shouting.