Trial and Error (6 page)

“Edie,” said Mrs Greenhill, dropping her bulk into an inadequate kitchen chair, “go and get me a teaspoonful of that brandy out of the dining-room cupboard. I need it.”

“Won't he notice?” asked Edie doubtfully.

“He won't grudge it me,” said Mrs Greenhill.

Edie turned back at the door. “And fancy him not letting us call the doctor when he come round. You'd have thought he'd have been hollering for him down the phone the minute he could stand, wouldn't you?”

“There's bin something different about him lately,” nodded Mrs Greenhill, fanning herself with a tea cosy. “I've noticed it meself.”

“Yes, ever since that day tea was late and he never said a word. Don't you remember me passing a remark about it at the time? And he don't seem to read so much as he used to. Seems to sit for hours scraping his finger tips together. Thinking, I suppose. Coo, fair gives me the creeps, it does, to go in there and see him at it. And the way he looks at me sometimes. Upon my word, I sometimes think—”

“That'll do, Edie. You run along and get me that brandy. Mr Todhunter ain't the only one in this house to feel queer at this blessed moment.”

Mr Todhunter, however, was no longer feeling queer. Having expected to die at once and now, to his secret astonishment, feeling quite recovered, with aneurism still intact, he was reading the paragraph under the startling headline.

4

The paragraph stated, quite simply, that Mr Isidore Fisher, the American efficiency expert at present engaged in reorganising the business of Consolidated Periodicals Ltd., had been run over by a lorry in Fleet Street outside the offices of Consolidated Periodicals Ltd. on his way to lunch and killed instantly.

Four days later the inquest revealed the full story,

Mr Fisher had not been alone. His companion had been a young man, also employed by Consolidated Periodicals Ltd., by the name of Bennett, and the two had been on their way to lunch together.

Mr Fisher and Bennett, it seemed, had been crossing Fleet Street, with Bennett on the side of the oncoming traffic. They had passed behind a stationary bus, and Bennett had seen the lorry bearing down on them. He had drawn back, but his body must have masked the lorry from the view of Fisher, who was talking animatedly at the time, and he had continued forward. Bennett had caught his arm and tried to pull him back, but it had been too late. The lorry was not travelling unduly fast, and Bennett had had no difficulty in saving himself with ordinary care and attention.

The driver of the bus corroborated this evidence from Bennett and the lorry driver. He had witnessed the accident, and it had seemed to him that when Fisher did see the lorry he had appeared to jump forward right into its path rather than backward. The bus driver had seen people do that kind of thing before: seemed to think they stood a better chance running forward than jumping back. He considered that no one but Fisher was to blame.

A verdict of accidental death was thereupon returned, all parties being exonerated except the dead man, who could not answer back.

In his library Mr Todhunter studied the short report with the closest attention. So straightforward was the affair and so usual the type of accident that there was really no reason why Mr Todhunter should have jumped to the conclusion that he did about it. Nevertheless his conviction amounted to a certainty. Right from the very first moment of seeing the headline Mr Todhunter had known, beyond all explanation but with complete conviction, that Fischmann's death had been no accident. That hand which had been outstretched to save him . . . it had never been intended to save. It had not pulled, that hand. It had pushed.

Bitterly and remorsefully Mr Todhunter blamed himself.

By his weakness, by his cowardice, he had turned that nice young Bennett into a murderer. The revolver had been in his possession for over twenty-four hours before Fischmann died. It had been intended for use on Fischmann, at once. Had its owner not been a useless, pusillanimous creature, young Bennett would not now have to go through life with the load of murder burdening his soul. He, Mr Todhunter, could have saved him from that and had failed.

Mr Todhunter held his bald head in his hands and groaned over his own uselessness: he who had planned to be of such use.

Why Mr Todhunter should have been so certain that young Bennett pushed Fischmann under that lorry the second time they were to lunch together, there is no explaining. Nobody else ever dreamed of such a thing.

As a matter of fact Mr Todhunter had been perfectly right.

CHAPTER IV

Fischmann was out of the way.

In spite of his remorse, Mr Todhunter could not help feeling a certain selfish relief. He had not wanted to kill Fischmann. He had not wanted to kill anyone, however unpleasant. He was not of the stuff of which killers are made. Mr Todhunter realised all that now. He knew he had only been deceiving himself. It was a depressing reflection, and yet there were compensations. Peace was what Mr Todhunter really wanted for himself after all, and now he could have it. He had made his gesture, and its bluff had been called. Good.

As his relief grew Mr Todhunter even abandoned with equanimity the Italian and German nations to their fates and prepared for a peaceful passing.

Yet for all that, life seemed now excessively flat.

It was himself that Mr Todhunter had been bluffing. It was he, and probably no one else, who had once foolishly imagined himself capable of great things. And after all, when one has wound oneself up (as one imagines) to tremendous, magnificent action, it is bound to have a depressing effect to find the mainspring under one suddenly turn, as it were, into a piece of chewed string. It is like a high jumper who, taking an enormous run to clear the bar, finds on arriving there that it has been placed, not six feet above the ground, but six inches.

Nevertheless, though life might now be flat, it was restful. Mr Todhunter grew less irritable, his frayed nerves joined themselves together once more, he sat out in his garden again by day, he began to sleep better at night.

“Seems to have done him good, that attack of his,” opined Edie to Mrs Greenhill. “Been ever so bobbish since, he has.”

“Well, let's hope he don't get no more of them,” said Mrs Greenhill devoutly. “Gave me a nasty turn, that one did, and that's a fact.”

It was, in short, only after he seemed to have allayed his mental indigestion and settled down once more to the old, comfortable routine of his life, and indeed had already begun to look on the strange urges and compulsions that had stirred in him as a kind of temporary aberration due to shock, that the chance encounter befell Mr Todhunter which was to jerk him out of that routine once more and alter not only the short life remaining to him but the lives of several other people too.

The meeting took place at Christie's. It was Mr Todhunter's pleasure to go occasionally and watch the treasures of the world changing hands. On this occasion a seventeenth-century mazer was up for sale. It had belonged, since it was made, to an obscure little church in Northamptonshire. The early English tower was now in danger of collapsing, as early English towers will; and the incumbent had decided that a substantial tower was more useful to his church than a silver bowl and had therefore obtained the necessary permission to transmute the metal into cement.

Mr Todhunter had a school friend, a certain Frederick Sleights, to whom he was wont to refer in a somewhat deprecating way as “that chap Sleights.” The deprecation was due to a fear on Mr Todhunter's part that in referring to Mr Sleights at all he might seem to be claiming acquaintance with the Great; for Mr Sleights wrote novels and, in the opinion of Mr Todhunter, very good novels too. This opinion was, however, not shared by the public at large, few of whom had ever heard of Mr Sleights; so that Mr Todhunter's deprecation, while well intentioned, was scarcely needed.

Frederick Sleights and Mr Todhunter would dine occasionally at each other's houses, and it was inevitable that they should sometimes meet strangers there. These strangers invariably passed straight out of Mr Todhunter's mind the instant their backs were turned towards the front door; for Mr Todhunter had an atrocious memory for names and faces and even for individuals. It seemed, however, that Mr Todhunter himself did not pass so readily out of the minds of others; for, while he was happily examining the mazer on its green baize cloth prior to the sale, a voice at his side accosted him by name and, when Mr Todhunter looked courteously baffled, reminded him that they had met last year at Sleights's.

“Farroway!” repeated Mr Todhunter with well simulated enthusiasm, staring at the trimly bearded face of the little man at his side. “Of course I remember. Naturally.” And indeed the name of Farroway, in connection with that neat little pointed beard, did now seem in some way familiar.

They discussed the points of the bowl and moved on to an early Georgian teapot.

Gradually recollection filtered into Mr Todhunter's mind. Farroway, yes. This must be Nicholas Farroway, the author of—what was the thing called?—
Michael Staveling's Redemption
or some such dreadful title, and a dozen other novels with equally repellent names. Popular stuff. Mr Todhunter had read none of them of course. But he did seem to remember now meeting the man and rather liking him. Or at any rate thinking that he was not so bad as his books must be. There was a gentle, almost wistful air about him, an unostentatiousness which one did not quite associate with a popular novelist. Sleights had said something afterwards about Farroway being quite unspoiled in spite of his success. Yes, and hadn't the fellow made some complimentary reference to his own reviews in the
London Review
? Yes, now Mr Todhunter came to think of it, he had. Yes, yes; quite a good chap, Farroway. Mr Todhunter did not at all mind spending an hour or so in Farroway's company.

Mr Todhunter and Farroway looked at each other.

“Thinking of making a bid for anything?” they asked simultaneously.

“You answer first,” suggested Mr Todhunter.

“Me? Oh no.” Farroway looked round him somewhat vaguely. “I'm just watching the prices. I—I happen to be rather interested.”

“In prices?”

“Oh well, in all this kind of thing. And you?”

Mr Todhunter chuckled. He suffered from a dry, donnish form of humour, extremely irritating to other people, which consisted in telling wild untruths with a perfectly serious face; and the more the victim appeared to believe him, the more firmly would Mr Todhunter elaborate his fiction. In consequence, until one knew him very well it was impossible to know when Mr Todhunter was speaking the truth and when he was not.

“Well,” said Mr Todhunter gravely now, “I rather thought of having a shot at that Calchester mazer, you know. That is, if the bidding doesn't go too high.”

It was obvious, to Mr Todhunter's fiendish pleasure, that Farroway had swallowed this preposterous statement whole. He looked at Mr Todhunter with undisguised respect.

“You collect?” he asked in the kind of reverent voice in which the B.B.C elocutionists read poetry.

Mr Todhunter waved a desiccated claw. “Oh well, only in a very small way,” he replied modestly. Mr Todhunter had once bought at an auction a silver sugar basin and cream jug which happened to match exactly his own family George III teapot, and he felt that this act might entitle him to answer as he did.

“Ah,” said Farroway thoughtfully and said no more.

They continued their progress round the hall.

Mr Todhunter was mildly interested. Farroway had seemed so much impressed on hearing that he was a collector that Mr Todhunter could not help feeling it odd that he should have dropped the subject so quickly, almost abruptly. On the other hand there had been a hint of suspense about that “Ah” as if the subject had only been temporarily shelved and was to be brought up again at some more favourable opportunity. But why in any case should it matter to Farroway whether he was a collector or not?

No doubt, Mr Todhunter decided, Farroway was a collector himself and wished to exchange gossip with another of the same kidney; but even so it was strange that he should not have plunged into the subject at once.

Mr Todhunter was sufficiently intrigued to make a couple of absolutely safe bids for the mazer when its turn came, just in order to support the fiction with his companion, and perfunctorily bewailed the fact that, when the bidding rose above six thousand pounds, the price was getting beyond what he cared to spend.

Farroway nodded. “It's a lot of money,” he said.

His tone caused Mr Todhunter to look at him sharply. There was a quality of sheer envy about it which was quite startling. Had the man got some sort of a money complex which brought him here just for the satisfaction of hearing large sums change hands? And yet a popular novelist like Farroway must be making a very large income, ten thousand a year at least. It all seemed to Mr Todhunter rather queer.

No less queer was it, when the two finally strolled into the street, that Farroway should begin quite obviously and rather clumsily to pump Mr Todhunter as to his worldly circumstances. Without ever actually saying anything which could be quoted against him afterwards, Mr Todhunter amused himself by implying with much subtlety that his establishment in Richmond was just about four times as big as it really was, and his income to match, that his tastes were thoroughly expensive and even that he was not without influence in the financial world, a friend of Money Barons and a crony of Commercial Peers. Indeed, so favourable did Mr Todhunter find the opportunity for the exercise of his gift of the
suggestio falso
that he was in some danger of overdoing it.

Mr Todhunter had no idea that this time the retribution which lies in wait for all practical jokers, however subtle, was grinning behind his back. In fact, had he but known it, the laugh this time was decidedly on Mr Todhunter. For if, on this one single occasion, he had failed to indulge this elfin humour of his, a great deal of subsequent trouble might have been spared him. He would indeed have actually had the peaceful end to which he was even then looking forward, instead of the far from peaceful death which was in store for him. He would never have seen the inside of a condemned cell. He would never—But there is no need to elaborate. Retribution awaited Mr Todhunter at last.

It was a simple question of his companion's which put the wheels of fate in motion.

“Are you doing anything now?” asked Farroway.

Mr Todhunter could not recognise his chance. There was nothing to warn him that if he replied firmly that he had an urgent appointment in the City and must leave for it at once, he might still have been saved. Instead he replied, like any other sucker falling for Destiny's confidence trick:

“Nothing in particular.”

“Perhaps you would come and have some tea with me? The—my flat is quite close.”

Mr Todhunter in his foolishness saw only an opportunity for further enjoyment.

“There's nothing I should like better,” he replied courteously.

Just behind him Fate put away her gold brick, tucked the forged bond out of sight and stuffed the bogus balance sheet into her pocket again. The sucker had sucked.

2

Mr Todhunter's first impression of Farroway's flat was that he must have totally misjudged its owner. He looked in a puzzled way round the room in which he had been left alone. No, he would certainly never have thought Farroway the kind of man to decorate his piano with Chinese embroidery and put a hoop skirted doll over the telephone. Farroway was a small man, but he was neat and trim in a thoroughly masculine way. No one would have suspected him of such effeminate taste, and such downright bad feminine taste at that. Mr Todhunter was mildly astonished.

The flat was really palatial. The room in which Mr Todhunter was now somewhat uneasily sitting, with its wide windows and view over the Park, would not have disgraced a country house so far as size went; and from the large hall into which the front door opened Mr Todhunter had seen two long, broad passages leading, each with half a dozen doors. The rent of such a place must be enormous. Even a popular novelist would find his resources squeezed, to fit his style of living to such surroundings.

Meditating thus, Mr Todhunter was surprised by the return of his host, accompanied this time by a young and handsome man.

“My son-in-law,” said Farroway. “Vincent, have you had tea?”

For some reason the young man, who looked as if he would normally have aplomb enough for a dozen, appeared embarrassed.

“No, I was waiting for—you.” The pause before the last word was very slight but it was perceptible.

“Then ring.” Farroway spoke more drily than such a simple request appeared to warrant.

There was a pause, which continued long enough to be awkward.

Mr Todhunter was thinking that to have a son-in-law, Farroway must be married, and this therefore accounted for the feminine air of the room. But even so it seemed strange that a woman in the position of Farroway's wife should have such appalling taste or indeed that Farroway should allow her to exercise it if she possessed it.

Farroway, who had been staring at the carpet, looked up at his son-in-law—literally, for the latter topped him by four inches or more, a blond, curly haired young cross between Apollo and a rowing blue, quite improperly handsome, thought Mr Todhunter.

“Did Jean say when she'd be in?”

The young man did not alter his abstracted gaze towards the window. “I haven't seen her,” he said shortly. He was leaning back against the mantlepiece and smoking a cigarette with an air of detachment so pronounced as to be something very like defiance.

Mr Todhunter was not a perceptive man, but even he could not fail to be aware that there was something wrong here. The feeling between the two men seemed to amount almost to enmity. And whether the unknown Jean might be Farroway's wife or his daughter, there was surely no reason why his own son-in-law should appear to resent the mention of her name.

Farroway seemed to be catching the resentment.

“Has your firm given you the afternoon off, Vincent?” he asked with a distinct edge in his usually gentle voice.

The young man stared at him haughtily. “I happen to be here on business.”

“Really? For Fitch and Son?” The sarcasm was almost crude.

“No. Private,” replied the young man very curtly.

“Indeed? Then I won't enquire further. Nevertheless, Mr Todhunter and I—”