Plain Murder Page 10

  Then, walking back to the office along the crowded Strand, he saw Morris coming towards him. Instantly his rage came to a head. He hated the burly, insolent fellow with his bowler hat tilted at a jaunty angle, swaggering in his guilt among his fellow-creatures. Morris saw Oldroyd, nodded to him and prepared to pass him by, but Oldroyd stretched out a large hand and caught him by the breast of his coat; the two of them came to a sudden halt facing each other, causing a temporary congestion among the pedestrian traffic of the Strand. Morris looked down at Oldroyd with arrogant inquiry; Oldroyd glared up at Morris, dumb with rage.

  ‘Well?’ asked Morris superciliously.

  ‘You killed that boy!’ growled Oldroyd between his clenched teeth.

  Oldroyd experienced a fierce sudden joy at seeing Morris wince and look apprehensively about him in case the muttered words should have caught the ear of any of the hurrying passers-by. But the roar of the traffic submerged the stifled articulation.

  ‘You did!’ said Oldroyd, drawing closer, with his right fist clenched and ready at his side.

  But Morris had recovered himself instantly. His superb confidence in himself and in the strength of his position asserted itself at once.

  ‘Come up here,’ said Morris, turning towards a quieter by-street which led away from the Strand.

  ‘Come on,’ he repeated; ‘don’t make a fool of yourself here.’

  That was the argument which had the most instant, most effective appeal. Oldroyd might be at grips with a murderer and involved in the most tangled meshes of crime, but he still could not contemplate making a scene in a public place. His English self-consciousness would not permit it the instant he was reminded of the possibility. His grip on Morris’s coat relaxed, and he suffered himself to be led up the quiet street, where foot passengers were scarce enough to allow of a well-adjusted conversation not to be overheard. Then Morris turned and faced Oldroyd squarely, as squarely as he was meeting this new complication.

  ‘What was it you were saying?’ asked Morris.

  ‘You heard well enough,’ growled Oldroyd, the edge of his anger blunted by the tiny delay.

  ‘Well, what were you going on to say after that?’ asked Morris.

  ‘I – I—’ said Oldroyd. He had no idea at all what he was intending to say at that meeting in the Strand.

  ‘I thought there wasn’t much you could say,’ sneered Morris. ‘See here, young fellow, it’d be a lot better for you if you didn’t interfere. Oh, I don’t mean in that way’ – Oldroyd had made a gesture of defiance – ‘I’d fight you, and be glad of it, any time. But you’d better not go round making accusations like that.’

  ‘Why not?’ snarled Oldroyd.

  ‘Because you can’t do any good, and you might, you might do yourself a hell of a lot of harm. You can’t prove what you said just now – and it’s not true, anyway.’

  These last words were added in a perfunctory manner; it is believed that Morris only said them to add an airy grace to his arrogant impregnableness.

  ‘Chuck it,’ said Oldroyd.

  ‘Anyway, that’s not the point at present. What I don’t want you to forget is this; if you start thinking things like that, and trying to prove them, you’ll get yourself into the hell of a mess. You might start people talking, you know. These things are the devil once rumours start going round. And people might start asking questions again about the other thing that happened. You know what I mean. And the case is just the same now as it ever was. Don’t you ever forget that you’re an accessory to that, you’re as guilty as – as anyone else is. If you try to bring me down you’ll bring yourself down, too. Mark that, I say. You’ll find out what hanging’s like if you start getting careless.’

  Oldroyd was left wordless, staring up at the fleshy face and the bold, leering eyes. He was beside himself with baffled rage. He even stamped in his anger. Morris laughed at this exhibition. It was pleasing to his vanity to see this fellow balked and outwitted at every turn, and Oldroyd knew it and was further enraged by it.

  ‘I’m not worrying,’ spluttered Oldroyd. ‘I’ll get you yet, somehow, you devil!’

  Morris laughed again; his vanity was having a rare feast today. He thought of another little dramatic touch he could add which pleased his sense of the theatrical. His expression hardened quite spontaneously, and he leaned forward and tapped Oldroyd on the chest.

  ‘And mark this, too,’ he said solemnly, his eyes glaring into Oldroyd’s: ‘don’t play with fire. You know what’s happened to two men who’ve got in my way. They didn’t last long, did they? I’m dangerous; I’m a dangerous man. You don’t want to end suddenly as well, do you? Then go steady. Mind what you’re about.’

  Morris turned on his heel so as not to spoil the dramatic effect by further argument, and strolled away, his hat cocked on one side and his step lighthearted, while Oldroyd could only gaze after him immobile.

  For a little while the threat and the memory of those wild-beast eyes struck fear into Oldroyd. He knew now that he was afraid of the hulking fellow, afraid of his cunning and his craft, as well as repelled by the same kind of antipathy with which he would regard a reptile. But Oldroyd was a man of stout heart. He shook off his physical fear with a sturdy reliance on his own ability to keep himself out of harm’s way; he even came to feel that Morris could not be very dangerous, seeing that he was incautious enough to utter that warning. By the time Oldroyd had reached the office he had come to the commonsense decisions to move cautiously, not to trust Morris in the least, and to keep his eyes open, watching for an opportunity to rid himself of the burden of guilt and doubt which irked him so. And as Oldroyd climbed the stairs to the Universal Advertising Agency’s office an idea occurred to him which he typically expressed in a phrase of two words.

  ‘King’s Evidence,’ said Oldroyd to himself, mounting the stairs. ‘By gum, that’d beat him! King’s Evidence!’

  It was a phrase which Oldroyd was to repeat to himself fairly often during the time to come. He found a vague comfort in it somehow. It was a last resource of safety; he thought of it as a sailorman on a lee shore thinks of his lifebelt. He was still murmuring ‘King’s Evidence’ to himself as he reached the composing room, although he was not so bemused as not to check himself when he came into the presence of Clarence and Shepherd and Howlett. But he took no interest in the conversation which was engrossing them in Morris’s absence. That was about a subject unpleasant to him. And he could feel a little amused at the guilty hurry with which they broke off their conversation and started hasty work the moment Morris came back into the room after the rapid lunch which was all that he allowed himself nowadays. It was amazing how much ascendancy Morris had acquired over those lads during his brief days of authority.

  Morris entered briskly and sat himself at once at his table, reaching out automatically to the piles of papers heaped upon it. He had not allowed Oldroyd’s little rebellion to interfere with his lunch, nor would he allow it to hinder his work. The only moral effect the incident had had upon him was to please his vanity, and to confirm him in his belief in the solidity of his position. Morris was vain, as criminals generally are; he was pleased with himself and his achievements. Although he was still clear enough in thought to have appreciated any serious weakness which might become apparent, it is to be doubted whether any minor weakness would have disturbed him at all. Two successful crimes had confirmed him in that feeling of certain immunity which distinguishes his kind, and which will frequently support them to the very steps of the scaffold. Not the least thought of the scaffold crossed Morris’s mind, and he dismissed Oldroyd’s show of opposition with contempt from his consideration. Also his feeling of the dignity of his position in the office helped him not to confuse Oldroyd the slow, reliable, thoughtful clerk, with Oldroyd the accessory before the fact and the source of possible danger. He made the fullest use of the services of Oldroyd the clerk.

  11

  It is very dif
ficult after the event to reconstruct the character of a criminal. The people one consults who came into contact with him are biased one way or the other, and they like to believe in their own perspicacity. One man will say, ‘It was obvious from his expression,’ and another will tell you that ‘he was a plausible scoundrel, very plausible. He would have taken almost anybody in, but he didn’t deceive me. There was something about him – something not quite trustworthy. It might have been in the way he looked at you, or the way he spoke. I had my doubts about him from the very first.’ And another, more honest, will say, ‘I don’t believe he was guilty at all. He was always very nice to me.’

  So that the truth is hard to come by. As far as Mrs Morris is concerned, it is to be believed that she never had any suspicion of her husband until the end, even if she did then. But, then, Mrs Morris loved her husband in a queer cross-grained way; moreover, the changes which might have been observable in Morris were mere accentuations of his outstanding characteristics, and could have been attributed quite plausibly to other factors, such as his promotion in the office. He used to come home more tired, for instance – exhausted would be a better word, perhaps. But, then, he was working harder. He was surer of himself, he carried himself with more dignity, he was vainer – but that could be readily explained by his responsible position in the Universal Advertising Agency. He may have been a trace more irritable, less tolerant of the noises his children made, but that was not a very noticeable difference from what he had been before. He was undoubtedly more taciturn towards his wife, but she, poor woman, was more likely to attribute that to a natural waning of his affection for her than to the fact that he had committed a crime.

  Morris, indeed, began to treat his wife with a lofty indifference which was only slightly paralleled by his previous behaviour. His idea of his own importance was inflating daily; partly this was because of the ambitious dreams which he was dreaming, partly it was a result of his late marvellous successes, and partly because he had had to take more interest than usual in the significance of his own actions and demeanour, and consequently bulked larger in his own world than he had done before. His belief and pride in himself, indeed, began to approach in degree the enormous egoism of a lunatic; other people to him were beginning to appear as insignificant as ants; they were mere tools and instruments which he could use and throw aside. The main characteristic of a criminal, the sine qua non in any definition, is an unusual idea of the importance of his own well-being compared with the importance of the well-being, or the opinions, or the ideals of other people. Morris would not have killed Harrison had he not thought Harrison’s life of less importance than his own happiness, and had he not been supported by his belief in his own skill in avoiding detection.

  So that the egoism, the superior idea of himself, was well established already, and later development inevitably tended to increase it inordinately. He began to regard his wife with no more concern than he did any other article of furniture in his home. He came home that Monday night and sat by the fire without a word to her. Molly came to his side and began her usual tiresome attempts to interest him in her own trivial self, but Morris was able to ignore her so completely that she soon gave up. Mary Morris, ironing the day’s washing, addressed her usual insignificant remarks to him, and received in answer unintelligible monosyllables.

  ‘You might answer when you’re spoken to,’ she said sharply.

  ‘M’m,’ said Morris. That was a purely reflex action, a legacy from the days when he had been accustomed to speaking to her.

  ‘Did you hear what I said?’ she demanded, changing the irons with a clatter.

  ‘M’m,’ said Morris.

  Mrs Morris set down the hot iron on the stand and put her hand on her hip.

  ‘Charlie!’ she said. ‘Charlie, why don’t you speak when you’re spoken to? Charlie!’

  There seemed some possibility here of a lively conversation.

  ‘M’m,’ said Morris, lighting a second cigarette.

  Mrs Morris stared at him.

  ‘Aren’t you well?’ she demanded, and then, thinking to touch his heart, ‘Don’t you want your supper?’

  ‘M’m,’ said Morris.

  Mrs Morris sighed hopelessly. There was no possibility of conversation or argument while he was in this mood. She finished her ironing in a silence broken only by the thump of the iron on the table. Morris was quite unaware that she had spoken to him at all. He was above all that. Mrs Morris cleared away the ironing blanket and took Molly off to bed with no further word. She came down again and laid the supper.

  ‘It’s ready,’ she said, and Morris’s egoism permitted him to hear that.

  He pulled up a chair to the table and took up the carving knife and fork. The nice leg of mutton which had been so glorious a spectacle yesterday was still comparatively well-looking. He cut himself some beautiful thick slices and ate them with quantities of bread and butter, drinking two cups of strong tea the while. The plateful finished, he eyed the joint. It was good mutton, this. Mechanically he took up the carving knife and fork again.

  ‘Oh, Charlie,’ said Mary reproachfully, ‘there’s our dinner tomorrow to come off that.’

  Morris looked round at her expressionlessly and, without a word, turned back again to the dish and continued to pile his plate again. Perhaps his own conception of his own sublime importance may have penetrated to Mrs Morris’s mind; at any rate, she gave up all attempt at hindering and dutifully refilled his cup when he clattered it imperiously in its saucer.

  Plenty of mutton, cut thick, and with its due allowance of fat, bolted ravenously along with three large cups of strong tea, might be expected to trouble the stomach of a superman. Certainly it began to irritate the digestion of Mr Morris. He was not conscious of indigestion. A really sharp stomach ache or the depression accompanying dyspepsia might conceivably have brought Mr Morris down from the rosy clouds in which he was drifting. But Mr Morris’s internal apparatus was of too stout stuff to yield so entirely to maltreatment. It stuck to its guns and tackled the heavy task of digesting the indigestible with quite a fair measure of success. All that troubled Mr Morris’s soul was a vague feeling of unrest, a mild irritability, certainly not sufficiently to disquiet him. Subconsciously he may have felt that, remarkably, there was something wanting in his astonishingly complete universe. He went to no particular trouble to analyse the subject further. Old-established reflex habits asserted themselves.

  One important item in Morris’s ideal of a fleshly paradise was the presence of women; women not particularly for ornament, but for use. Seeing that he felt something missing from his present paradise, and seeing that no woman was included therein at the moment, his subconscious self came to the natural conclusion that what he wanted was a woman; it was a conclusion which accorded well with old habits of thought and action. Mary was at hand, and Mary’s lack of novelty was no real demerit. He was so far above all other humans that the differences between other individuals were insignificant to him. As Mary passed by his chair when she came in again from the scullery after washing up he reached out a heavy hand and seized hold of her.

  ‘Oh, Charlie,’ said Mrs Morris, ‘I’ve got an awful lot to do, you know.’

  But there was a tone in her voice which went to show that his heavy-handed attention was not displeasing to her – not that Morris would have cared if it were.

  ‘Oh, Charlie,’ said Mrs Morris; she almost giggled, though, for all that.

  He dragged her across to him and pulled her down heavily on to his knee. Mrs Morris had always loved his big thick arms and burly shoulders. He crushed her down to him and pressed rough kisses upon her, and she offered no objection. She was a self-assertive little person, and she had a good opinion of herself whenever housekeeping cares left her time to think about it; but all the same she was secretly rather pleased by a strong-handed wooing, preceded as it was by an interval of neglect which had allowed an opportunity for her t
o lose a little of her self-assurance, and for Morris to rise correspondingly in her esteem. The very roughness of his coat was grateful to her, somehow, and when there came a lull in Morris’s brutal caresses (a result of a vague realization that the present situation was not calculated, after all, to relieve his mild irritability) she snuggled up to him closer still.

  ‘Charlie,’ she whispered in the little hoarse voice which Charlie remembered of old – he had heard it before in the dark evenings of their early wooing. That association of ideas and Mary’s eager little caresses had their usual effect upon him. He turned to her again and his arms tightened about her. He kissed her brutally; he wooed her, as ever, as gluttonously as he ate.

  But the trivial diversions of a superman have no special interest for us. There is no particular appeal for us even in the picture of Morris in bed that night, sleeping heavily and noisily with his mouth half open, the muddled bedclothes piled upon him, and his thick coarse hair in a black tangle upon the white pillow. That does not make at all an alluring picture; Charlie Morris was not at all an alluring character. But the picture at least shows him enjoying a sleep deep enough and untroubled enough to be envied by many. He was passing a night far happier and far more comfortable than the one, for instance, which he had spent immediately before entering upon his career of crimes of violence.

  Some may explain it one way, and some may explain it another. One authority might attribute it to relief from financial anxiety; another, more subtle and more cynical, might lay it down that the crimes Morris had committed were a comfort to him, a fulfilment of his suppressed desires. And some might say that Morris was merely a stolid conscienceless brute with neither feelings nor aspirations. Those that read to the end of this book may better take their choice of these conflicting opinions.