Plain Murder Read online

  Soon he knew panic; he felt a positive impulse to get up from his chair and run away from these perils which were menacing him. If running away could have saved him he would have run all night through the darkened streets. Morris hitched his chair nearer to the fire instead.

  The wailing of his two-year-old son upstairs brought an interval of distraction. John always cried for attention at ten o’clock; his parents had come to look upon it as the signal for bedtime. Mrs Morris put away her mending and hastened upstairs to him. Morris sat on by the fire for a moment, but habit came to his rescue. He got up from his chair, locked the back door, turned out the gas, passed into the hall, locked the front door, and made his way upstairs to bed.

  This mechanical routine, and that following of undressing, had at least the effect of saving him from mad panic. And the chill of the sheets drove every thought from his mind for a time when he got into bed. So it was almost with pleasure that he encountered it – usually his thick body shrank from the cold welcome. He turned on his side; his wife came in and pottered about the room, the shadow of her skinny, half-naked figure fell across his face as she passed by him, but he did not open his eyes. Then the light went out and Mary climbed in beside him. The bed lost its chill; Mary turned on her side away from him and lay quiet. He was nearly asleep when the appalling realization of the future surged up again in his mind, and he was instantly broad awake again. Never before had worry kept him awake; the novelty of the experience redoubled its effect. Almost at once the bed seemed to become far too hot. Mary’s body through her nightdress felt positively feverish to his touch as he came into contact with it when he turned in desperation to his other side. Now it was irritation as well as fear which was disturbing him. Why had he been such a cursed fool as to try that stunt for screwing money out of the Adelphi Studio? He might have known that little rat, Cooper, would go straight away and complain to Harrison. God, it was lucky that Campbell hadn’t been there. He’d be on the street now in that case. There was still tomorrow to do something about it.

  Desperation now had its effect of driving him into considering action. If only he could think of some way out of the mess! Pleading with Harrison wouldn’t be any use. He knew Harrison. And Campbell, too. Campbell was a kindly old soul, but he would not forgive bribery. Everyone in the office knew that Campbell had refused a five-thousand-pound agreement with the Elsinore Cork people because they had wanted him to split the commission with them. Poor fool, Campbell. But Campbell was all right. He owned the business. No one could give him the sack, and he drew eight hundred a year out of it. Harrison got six quid a week – eight perhaps. Morris didn’t know. He had wanted Harrison’s job himself – might have got it, later on, if this blasted business hadn’t happened. God, if only something would happen to Harrison – tomorrow. He’d be all right then. But what could happen to Harrison? He might be ill – but he would come back sooner or later. If he were to die – be run over in the Strand tomorrow morning – things would be different. Morris would get his billet then, most likely. Ah, but Harrison wouldn’t be run over. Morris turned irritably over to his other side again as he realized how impossible was the thing he was longing for.

  But perhaps it was at that moment that Morris took his first step on the path that lay before him. With Morris to desire something urgently was to start planning how to bring it about. Turning this way and that in the fever-hot bed, his mind working faster and faster but more and more inconclusively. Morris did not notice how often the idea of Harrison’s death came into his mind. A seed of rapid germination was being planted there.

  Long after midnight his irritation and his anxiety turned to loneliness and self-pity. He put his hand out to Mary’s thin body. She turned towards him, later, in response to his caresses, and, half asleep, returned with her thin lips the hot kisses Morris thrust upon her with his thick ones. Their arms went about each other in the darkness.

  3

  The Universal Advertising Agency in James Street, Strand, would in the eyes of an unsympathetic person hardly have seemed important enough to rouse the emotions which surged so strongly in the breasts of the young men who composed three-quarters of its creative staff. It occupied a first-floor office. The reception room which one entered from the main door was furnished lavishly in good reception-room taste (for what that recommendation is worth), and the next room, which was Mr Campbell’s, displayed painstakingly all the latest devices in office equipment which could conceivably find a place in a managing director’s private room. Representatives of big businesses were ushered in here – men possibly with an advertising appropriation of a hundred thousand pounds to dispense – and it was necessary that they (who, ex officio, must know how a business should be run) should be suitably impressed with the efficiency of the Universal Advertising Agency.

  But big business never penetrated beyond Mr Campbell’s office. The next room, wherein were materialized the rosy visions which Mr Campbell poetically called up before the eyes of big business, was in striking contrast. There was not an armchair, nor a dictaphone, nor a desk of enamelled steel to be seen. Bare boards were all that composed the floor, blotched with ink – Mr Campbell’s polished parquet and rugs stopped short at the threshold of the communicating door. Most of the space was occupied by half a dozen chipped and battered wooden tables, littered with papers and dog-eared files. Even these tables were allotted to the staff in a manner which displayed no decent attention to the rules of seniority. The centre one of the three under the long window was given over to the staff artist – the long-legged, weedy, lugubrious Mr Clarence – where he had the best of the light to assist him in his eternal task of lettering and rough sketching. As Mr Clarence said, his rough sketches might not perhaps be as good as Goya’s finished work, but his lettering was better than any lettering which Sargent had ever exhibited; Goya and Sargent were people for whose work Mr Clarence had a very sincere admiration – a fact which constitutes a measure of how much Mr Clarence enjoyed his daily duties of lettering out ‘Morish Marmalade’ and ‘Sleepwell Mattresses’.

  On Mr Clarence’s right sat Mr Oldroyd; on his left sat Mr Reddy. Behind them sat Mr Morris, but, as has been said, the decent rules of precedence were abruptly interrupted at this point by the fact that beside Mr Morris was the table of Shepherd, the office boy. Not that Shepherd was much at his table, because most of his time was occupied in journeys to studios, and printing offices, and newspaper offices, arriving everywhere, as Shepherd observed with fifteen-year-old pathos, half an hour late, without gaining his due credit for the fact that anyone not as efficient as Shepherd would have arrived half an hour later still.

  Behind Mr Morris was the seat of power. Symbolically, perhaps, or perhaps so that he could better supervise the work of his juniors, Mr Harrison’s chair and table were set on a low dais. It was here that the main decisions were reached; it was here that Mr Harrison held those conferences with representatives from commercial art studios which might result in the launching upon a surfeited world of some new mythical character, some Doctor Healthybody to advise the taking of Perfect Pills perhaps, or Sunray Toilet Soap Girl to declare that Ultra-violet Soap abolishes wrinkles. It was from this dais that Mr Harrison would step down with fitting solemnity to enter Mr Campbell’s office to obtain his approval of the final idea.

  On this particular morning Mr Harrison’s frame of mind was peculiarly disturbed. There was no important work to occupy him; a glance at the ruled and dated sheet pinned to his desk assured him that all the advertisements which the office were responsible for sending out that week were either despatched or were in process of final composition on the tables of Morris, or Oldroyd, or Reddy. There were no callers. Mr Campbell – ‘Mac’, as Mr Harrison thought of him – was in Glasgow and not due to return until tomorrow. Mr Harrison was free to make up his mind as to the action he would take on Mr Campbell’s return. Mr Harrison set his lips and stared thoughtfully at the bent backs of his subordinates.


  Reddy – his fair hair was illumined by the light from the window – was a good boy, although he had no brains. He would never have thought of the scheme which had been put into practice, which had resulted in the disappearance of the New Commercial Art Company’s suggestions, in the consequent commissioning of the Adelphi Art Studios for a whole series of drawings, and in the payment of six pounds in secret commissions to the three young men before him. Reddy could be excused, perhaps, on the grounds that he had been led astray by the others.

  Oldroyd, now. He was a good deal older, twenty-five at least, and he knew enough about the ways of the advertising world not to believe that the obtaining of secret commissions was an excusable frolic. But he had always been reliable up to the present. He had a nice eye for the lay-out of an advertisement, and he was sound on the subjects of sizes of type, and he was a careful proof reader. Mr Harrison realized that it would be a tedious business replacing Oldroyd if Oldroyd were dismissed. Lay-out men at three ten a week who could be relied upon to carry out routine work satisfactorily without supervision were hard to find; Mr Harrison flinched a little from the prospect of breaking a newcomer into the ways of the office and fitting him into the niche which Oldroyd filled so adequately. If Oldroyd showed himself properly contrite tomorrow, Mr Harrison might (although his mind remained open on the subject) put in that word with Mr Campbell which would save him from starvation and cold.

  But it was quite a different matter as regards Morris. Mr Harrison bent his gaze almost with hatred on Morris’s unresponsive back. He must have been the ringleader – that was clear to anyone who knew the three culprits. It was he who had devised the plan, and who had secured the co-operation of the others. It was he who had filched in underhand fashion from Mr Harrison’s authority, depriving him of a bit of that patronage which Mr Harrison dispensed with strict honesty but with a pleasant sense of his own importance.

  Morris must go; there was no doubt about it. He had a wife, he had two children, and his savings, if he had any, must have been scraped out of a maximum income of four pounds ten a week. That did not affect the ethics of the case. Morris knew, when he concocted the plan, that he was exposing his wife and children to the chance of poverty and starvation. That was part of the stake he had risked; he had no right to grumble if he lost. Mr Harrison’s conscience felt more comfortable as he reached this conclusion, because Mr Harrison was uneasily aware that he was glad that the chance had arisen of getting rid of Morris. The fellow was altogether too dangerous. More than once Mac had looked upon him with an approving eye, on the awkward occasions when a knotty point was under debate and a subordinate had been called in to the high councils of Mr Campbell and Mr Harrison. Morris then had had the impertinence to proffer a suggestion to Mr Campbell which Mr Harrison had already decided against, and Mr Harrison had had the mortification of seeing the suggestion accepted with delight, so that Mr Harrison had trembled for the security of his own job. Morris had too much sense of his own abilities. He could design advertisements with a ‘punch’; he could form a sound estimate of the respective values of the different advertising media; he had plenty of energy and ambition (too much, thought Mr Harrison); and he was perfectly capable of coveting Mr Harrison’s position.

  Mr Harrison would never have dreamed of intriguing to get Morris out of the way. But now that the opportunity had presented itself Mr Harrison had no hesitation in seizing it. He hated the offence of which Morris was guilty – not once had Mr Harrison ever yielded to the thousands of similar temptations which came his way – he disliked the young chap personally, he distrusted him, and he was afraid of him. There was no mercy for Morris in Mr Harrison’s mind. He would have dismissed Morris himself, bag and baggage, yesterday, had it not been for the fact that Mr Campbell had not delegated to him the power of dismissal.

  Moreover, the internal debate within Mr Harrison’s mind had somehow worked him into a bad temper. He set his thin lips and glowered at Morris’s bent back with a voiceless rage. He disliked Morris much more now than he did half an hour ago. Perhaps his hatred made itself felt telepathically in the room. Oldroyd shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Reddy, with a despairing gesture, tore up the draft lay-out with which he had been experimenting. Clarence made use of the licence granted to an admitted artist to put his feet on his table and stretch himself. The only one that did not stir was Morris, who kept his thick shoulders bowed over his table, while ostensibly he occupied himself with reading the proofs of the new lubricating oil booklet, and while actually he gave loose rein to his racing thoughts.

  The entrance of Maud, Mr Campbell’s particular typist, with the letters she had been typing for Mr Harrison, provided a welcome break in the gloomy silence which enveloped the room. Mr Harrison could be jocular at any moment with one of the opposite sex.

  ‘Well, Maud,’ said Mr Harrison, ‘this is the last day of your holiday.’

  ‘My holiday, sir?’ giggled Maud.

  ‘Yes, when Mr Campbell comes back tomorrow you’ll have to start in and do a spot of work, won’t you?’

  ‘Don’t you think you give me enough to do, then?’ asked Maud.

  ‘Not as much as Mr Campbell does, now, do I? But today’s the last day. No more packing up at half-past four when he comes back.’

  ‘Half-past four? Oh, I never—’

  ‘Oh, Maud, Maud!’ said Mr Harrison. ‘And it’s Guy Fawkes’ day today. I suppose it’ll be half-past three this afternoon, because you want to get home and let your fireworks off.’

  ‘I haven’t got any,’ said Maud. ‘Too old for such things, Mr Harrison, don’t you know. What about you, sir? Aren’t you going to have any?’

  ‘To tell the truth,’ answered Mr Harrison, ‘I am going to have some. Rockets and Catherine wheels and goodness knows what. And a bonfire.’

  ‘Goodness!’ said Maud.

  ‘Oh, just for the kiddies,’ said Mr Harrison off-handedly. ‘They like it, you know. We’ve got the bonfire all piled up in the garden already. Fat lot of tea those kids’ll let me eat when I get home tonight.’

  Mr Harrison smoothed the wisps of hair over the bald top of his head and smiled benevolently. His conversation with Maud continued for several more minutes, but what he had already said was enough to make his fate certain.

  Morris had been listening intently to every word he said, straining his attention so as not to miss a syllable; so intently and with such attention, in fact, that, absurd as it sounds, he had felt his ears move as he listened. Morris had the information he needed. He knew now that in the evening a state of affairs would arise when he could kill Mr Harrison. The trivial talk about fireworks and bonfires had given him that information. For Morris had been more than once about work to Mr Harrison’s house on those occasions when bad colds kept Harrison from the office, and he knew the arrangement of Mr Harrison’s house and garden.

  If Morris had been asked about the matter by someone from Mars, let us say – someone at any rate of no influence at all in the world’s affairs, and most certainly not in his own, someone to whom Morris could speak freely about his motives (which in practice would be quite inconceivable), he would have said in all sincerity that he had more right to kill Mr Harrison than Harrison had to have him dismissed. He would have said so, and believed it, and meant it, quite simply and literally. It was far more important to Morris that Morris should remain in employment than that Harrison should remain alive. If Harrison was bent upon dismissing Morris, and the only way to stop him was to kill him – then it was quite right to do so. Morris did not even pause to think this out. He leapt instantly to that conclusion. To his dying day he never saw any flaw in it.

  That is why it is absurd to mention conscience in any discussion of this Morris affair. Morris was acting, it might be said, in accordance with the dictates of his conscience when he plotted Harrison’s murder. It was right, in Morris’s eyes, that he should not be sacked from the office. It was monstrously wrong if he should b
e, and that was the end of the argument. Morris had that disproportionate sense of the importance of his own well-being as compared with other people’s which is one-half of the equipment of the deliberate murderer. The other factors Morris possessed as well – unfortunately for him, perhaps – the ingenuity to devise a plan, the imagination to attend to details and the resolution to carry it through.

  The blood flowed hot under Morris’s skin as he sat at his table, with his back to Harrison, and worked out the possibilities of this opportunity which fate had presented to him. It was an exalted creative moment – Morris devising a murder was in the same lofty, superhuman state of mind as is a poet in the full current of composition. Thoughts poured through his brain in clear, rushing streams. This he could do, and that. This would guard against that possibility, and that would strengthen that weakness. Yes, and then— There seemed no limit to Morris’s clear-sighted ingenuity at the moment, as he sat there, his left hand clenched, the fingers of his right tapping on the table, his head bowed in thought, and his heavy jaw setting harder and harder as his resolution became more and more fixed – as he realized more and more clearly that the thing was possible.

  Clarence, the artist, stretched himself and rose from his chair.

  ‘Don’t you blokes ever feel hungry—’ he inquired plaintively. ‘One o’clock, and I’m off. O R P H. Anyone coming?’

  The three looked at him, and with one accord they shook their heads and muttered refusals. They did not want to have Clarence with them while they continued their debate of the evening before about the matter which had dictated every thought since yesterday.