My Name is Michael Sibley (22 page)

“That’s always been your attitude,” I continued doggedly. “Poor old Mike! Poor old Mike! Ever since I’ve known you, you’ve despised me. Ever since schooldays. You were more crude at school, of course. You dominated and bullied and sneered and jeered and took from me all you wished.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Mike, take an aspirin or go and get your head examined. You make me ill.”

“You thought I was amused at your so-called jokes against me. And I let you think that, because it was the easiest way out. You thought I liked you, didn’t you?”

“And didn’t you?”

“You thought I enjoyed being your tame fool, your court jester, whom you mocked one moment and protected the next. You even thought I was grateful to you for your friendship. Well, you may as well know now that I hated you.”

I paused. I had spoken firmly and fast; a voice inside me was saying: You’ve done it, you’re fighting back and you’re holding your own at last. For a fraction of a second I had a mental picture of Aunt Nell by the car door telling me to fight and go on fighting.

Prosset got up from his chair and walked across to the fireplace. He said, “Well, well. This is a side of your character which is certainly rather a surprise. I didn’t know you were a two-faced hypocrite. Thanks for the information.”

“You thought I was sorry when you left school, didn’t you? Well, I was never more pleased about anything than when I saw the cab carrying you away from the front door of Buckley’s. When you had gone I went into your study and gloated over the fact that you would never come back to it. I revelled in the muck you had left, because it meant I should never see you at school again. That surprises you, doesn’t it? I wish I had never seen you since.”

“Have you finished, Sibley?”

“No; I haven’t. I will now refer to Kate Marsden. Just because she was my fiancée, you thought it would be amusing to flirt with her, and I use the word ‘flirt’ in its broadest sense.”

“What the hell do you mean?”

“What I say. You thought it would be rather amusing to demonstrate to yourself and to me, once again, that I was just dirt in your eyes. You also thought it would be good sport to show Kate that you could even steal my fiancée without a protest from me.”

“For heaven’s sake stop talking about stealing your fiancée. I am not interested in stealing the bloody girl.”

He smiled and looked at me, hands in his trouser pockets.

“Have you finished now, old man?”

“I only want to add that as far as you and I and Kate are concerned, this is the end. Last night was the end. I shall never see you again after tonight. Neither will Kate.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. ‘Oh.’”

“Perhaps you had better speak for yourself only.”

“I am also speaking for Kate.”

I got up to go to bed, and picked up the magazine I had been reading.

Prosset said, “Half a minute. Just one thing before you go. You are right in some ways. I did despise you at school. I thought you were a poor sort of fish. So you were. I have had no reason since to change my views. I still think you are, you know. You were quite fun to take a rise out of. David and I used to agree on that. You still are, in many ways. Fundamentally, you are not a bad-natured sort of chap, I suppose. But that’s all I can say for you. On the other hand, you are weak and dull. Dreadfully dull, Sibley. You are lacking in all wit, you know. No wonder poor Kate was getting bored. A worthy, plodding lump of suet, that’s you.”

“At least I didn’t stay for years behind a bank counter getting nowhere, and then go into some seedy business in the East End.”

“You’re just a hack journalist. I see nothing particularly to admire in hack journalists.”

Neither of us said anything further. I was quite content that he should have a last word of this kind. I was more than satisfied with my own blows. I had stood up to Prosset at last. I had given rather more than I had taken. I had seen from the look in his eyes that he had been startled and that his vanity had been wounded. Perhaps he was even more deeply hurt than I think. I hope so.

Hate is a terrible thing.

I left early the following morning and never saw him again.

T
hat was the story, then, of Kate, Prosset and me. At first I had been anxious that it should remain unknown, for Kate’s sake. Hence my evasions with the police. But now that they knew I had lied, I was particularly anxious that they should believe the story that my dispute with Prosset had been of a political nature rather than anything to do with a woman.

The Inspector knew nothing of the background story, and there was no reason for him to think that Prosset and I were not on the friendliest general terms.

I trusted the Inspector was now satisfied. I had been interviewed on two occasions, and had made a signed statement. I hoped that was that, but I could not disguise the fact that I was nervous about the whole case. However you may try to explain things away, it looks bad, first, to omit to mention having been on the scene a few hours before a murder is committed, and then for it to be discovered that you had had some sort of dispute with the dead man. It is all very fine and dandy to say that an innocent man has nothing to fear, I reflected, but the fact remained that an innocent man can be put to a great deal of harassing inconvenience. Admittedly, Kate could say I was with her at the time of the crime, but I wondered whether the word of a man’s fiancée would necessarily cut much ice with the Inspector.

I had naturally given a good deal of thought to the problem of who had killed Prosset. I had one advantage over the Inspector in that I knew I had not done it, whereas the Inspector had still to include me among the possibles. As I finally began to undress after the second visit of the police, on the evening I had made the signed statement, a vague theory was beginning to form in my mind, which was, however, interrupted in an unexpected and unpleasant manner.

My landlord was a bald-headed man in his fifties, a bad-tempered fellow whose thick, bushy black eyebrows contrasted strongly with his thick, greying hair. I have completely forgotten this horrible individual’s name, and will refer to him as Thompson.

I had hardly got my pyjamas on when there was a knock at the door. It was Mr. Thompson. He was red in the face, and seemed to be in a furious temper. Without waiting for an invitation, he thrust his way past me and shut the door.

“My wife has just told me the police came again tonight,” he said. “This is the second time they have called on you. It won’t do.”

“I can’t help it if police officers call on me. It’s their job,” I pointed out.

“Yes. Well, it won’t do,” said Thompson, breathing heavily. “It simply won’t do. This is a respectable house. It’s the sort of thing which upsets people.”

“They wanted to know if I could give them any information about a case they are working on. I can’t very well forbid them to call, can I?”

“It simply won’t do,” repeated Thompson monotonously. “I can’t have it. Mr. Sibley, I have been contemplating redecorating this room for some time. I think this is a good time to start. I shall start a week today. No doubt you will have little difficulty in finding alternative accommodation in the meanwhile.”

“You mean you are kicking me out? Are you aware that it is every citizen’s duty to assist the police?” I am inclined to get pompous when I am annoyed. He turned towards the door.

“I know all about that. But I am afraid I shall require your room next week. I am sorry. Good night.”

I thought of several smart replies after the door had closed. For some time my annoyance with Thompson occupied my mind, to the exclusion of the police visit; I kept going over the conversation in my mind, thinking up replies I might have made had I been smart enough. But once in bed the Prosset murder reasserted itself in my mind. I tried to drive it out by reading a humorous novel, but the actions of the characters seemed so unreal as to be stupid, and their words so inane as to be witless. I went over in my mind again the statement I had made. I felt sure there was nothing in it on which they could catch me out. Reviewing the evening visit by the Inspector, the only point that really puzzled me was the inquiry about how many suits I had. I could see no reason for that.

The line of thought I had been following about the murder was tenuous and unsupported by any evidence, but it was better than nothing. I remembered Prosset’s meeting with a foreign-looking man called Max in the pub in Chelsea, his references to “import” business, his “friends” on the coast whom he visited, but never introduced to me, and his recently improved financial condition, despite the fact that the firm was not outwardly prospering as well as it could.

Were Prosset and Herbert Day involved in some smuggling racket? Had something gone wrong, some quarrel over profits developed, and because he would not give way and knew too much, had he been liquidated? I recalled that Day’s name had been mentioned in what seemed to be a disagreement between Prosset and the man called Max; and I remembered the odd remark that Prosset had made about Day paying him more money or else finding himself “in difficulties.” Was Prosset putting the pressure on, trying to extract a larger share of the profits under the threat of exposure?

Theory, all theory and no proof. It got one nowhere. I turned restlessly in bed.

Yet it did not seem impossible to me, as I lay there, alternately fuming about Thompson’s rudeness and thinking about Prosset. But the next morning I received a further shock, and Ethel, of all unlikely people, was the one to administer it, when she brought in my breakfast on a tray.

Pointing to a cardboard box standing by the wardrobe, she said, “Your suit came back from the cleaners yesterday, sir.”

“Yes,” I said, “thank you. I saw it. I shall not be here long, you know. They are throwing me out next week. They don’t like me having policemen visiting me.”

Ethel sniffed. “Nosey parkers.”

“Oh, well, it’s their job, you know.”

“They upset ’im with their questions last night. That’s what did it. I’m sure I’ll be sorry when you go, Mr. Sibley.”

“Did they question Mr. Thompson?” I asked in surprise.

“And me.”

“What on earth about?”

She pointed at the cardboard box. “About that for one thing. ‘Did you often have your suits cleaned?’ they asked. ‘Not more than most,’ I said. ‘How many had you got?’ ‘Five,’ I said. ‘Though what it’s got to do with—’”

“But I haven’t got five, Ethel,” I said quickly. “I’ve only got four now. I told the police I only had four last night. I gave one away two or three weeks ago.”

“Did you sir?” said Ethel indifferently. “Well, I thought you had five. I didn’t know you gave one away, sir. I don’t suppose it matters much. Four or five, what does it matter? Silly nonsense and waste of time, if you ask me. They told me not to tell you they had spoken to me, but who cares? If you ask me, they’d do better to spend their time catching crooks instead of pestering people about suits.”

“In a case like this, they have to enquire into everybody, you know. They’re only doing their best,” I said in a dull voice, fighting back the wave of apprehension which swept at me. “You can’t blame them.”

“A case like what, sir?”

“It’s a murder case, Ethel. Didn’t they tell you?”

“A murder case, sir?”

I nodded. I was aware she was staring at me. Then I heard her go out and shut the door.

I remembered how I had been walking home after an evening with Kate when a figure sitting crouching in the doorway of a house near my digs had whined at me as I went past. I am a mug when it comes to beggars. I always reckon that nine out of ten times they may be rogues, but the tenth time may be a deserving case to whom a shilling may make the difference between life and suicide. I know it is unlikely, but that is the way I think.

Yet that night I did not stop, for once. I went on walking and heard behind me the whining, imploring tones of the beggar. He caught me up as I stood fumbling for my latchkey, and stood at the bottom of the steps in the porch light, a man of about fifty or sixty, dressed in an evil-looking suit, dirty and tattered; he had a muffler round his throat and a dilapidated brown paper parcel under one arm.

“Just a couple of coppers for a cup of tea, sir,” he said. I made no reply. “Just a couple of coppers for an old soldier, sir. It’s going to be a cold night, sir.”

I had found my key and put it in the lock, and the warm hall lighting was revealed when I opened the door.

“Just come out of hospital, sir. Give us a copper, sir. It’s the gas that got me, sir. Got me lungs, sir. I’ve got me papers, sir.”

He began to fumble in his inside breast pocket. Oh, well, I thought, why not? I turned round and slipped a shilling into his hand.

“God bless you, guv’nor.” He was bald-headed. A wreck, with a thin, unshaven face and dark fawning eyes. He had a long nose and deep lines on each side of a down-turned mouth.

“When did you come out of hospital?”

He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “This morning, guv—North London. Been in three months.”

He began again to fumble for his papers. These people are always anxious to show you their “papers.” They cling to their grimy, tattered documents as a drowning man clings to a lifebelt. They have an almost superstitious belief in the magic of their “papers,” pointing out things like “excellent conduct” and “discharged after treatment,” and their date of joining up and of demobilization. I have often glanced at these documents and never been able to make head or tail of them.

I looked at him and thought how sad it was that a man should have nothing to fall back upon, to recommend him to the compassion and aid of his fellow men, except a few dirty ragged bits of paper, and even those of doubtful authenticity.

He said he was making his way down to Sussex. He hoped to get a job on a farm. The doctor said he should work in the open air.

“Wait a minute,” I said.

He was about my size. I had an old suit, a brown pinstripe one which I had bought in Palesby, which had been cluttering up my wardrobe for months. I knew I should never wear it again. It was frayed round the sleeves and the trouser turn-ups, and the seat and elbows shone. I fetched it and gave it to him, together with half a slab of chocolate which was lying on my writing table.

Maybe he didn’t want a job at all, and, so far from reaching Sussex, had no intention of going further than the Embankment. You could not tell, any more than you could guess the ultimate, inmost hopes and aspirations of Mary O’Brien, the Palesby prostitute. There is so much in life about which you can make no absolutely certain statement.

Prosset would have classed him unhesitatingly as a good-for-nothing, and sent him about his business, and Prosset would probably have been right. But Prosset, for all his realistic outlook, was dead, and I was alive. I was often bewildered, uncertain and nervous. But I was alive.

I thought now that it was ironic that what might pass as an act of kindness, in so far as intentions went, should end by embedding me deeper in police suspicions. It was easy to see what was in their minds. A violent murder, bloodstains on the suit, and the suit vanishes. Where was it? Had I burnt it? Destroyed it? Perhaps destroyed it that Sunday morning when I returned to London, or even on the way back? You did not need to be a Sherlock Holmes to see the line of reasoning: I had cancelled my visit to Prosset, in case he spoke about it to anybody. Then I had gone down unexpectedly. I picked a quarrel. I killed him. I returned unseen to London. I destroyed or got rid of my bloodstained suit. I did not mention my visit to the police until I had been compelled to. I imagined the Inspector talking:

“But you forgot he kept a diary, didn’t you, Mr. Sibley?”

“But he’s been my lifelong friend,” I’d say.

“That’s what you say.”

“You can’t prove the contrary.”

“Not yet. There’s still time.”

“Miss Marsden can say I was with her when Prosset died.”

“Miss Marsden’s in love with you, sir.”

I felt no inclination for breakfast. I used to eat it in bed, and read the paper and smoke for a while, for we did not have to get to the office until ten o’clock. But that morning, after Ethel had left the tray, I could only face a cup of tea. I could not force the food down. I smoked several cigarettes. I was getting scared. Moreover, the old worry about Palesby had returned. I knew for certain now that something had happened in Palesby which would encourage the police to try and build up still further the evidence against me. I had known it from the first, but what it was eluded me, despite all my attempts to recall it. I tried again, but the unsuccessful effort left me frustrated and depressed.

As I dressed I found myself glancing out of the window when people passed. I was relieved when they were women, or men who had no official air, or children or tradesmen. At the office I felt an uncomfortable fluttering below the belt every time the telephone rang, which disappeared as soon as I learnt that the call was not for me. Another thing which added to my uneasiness, stupid as it seems, was that I had been remembering at intervals the curious dream I had had of the black cockatoos. I would not have minded so much if the central figure in it had not been Kate. I kept hearing the pathetic little cry she had given, and the look of despair she had thrown me as she had turned to pass between the rows of screeching birds. I tried to dismiss the whole thing from my mind, but it kept creeping back.

It was my task that morning to interview Mr. Fawkes, the MP for Palesby, to get his views on a proposed alteration to a new Rent Restrictions Bill.