The 12.30 from Croydon (11 page)

Charles’s brow grew dark as he looked over letter after letter. They varied in the reason given for the demand, they varied in the show of friendliness they attempted, but they agreed in the essential, they wanted their money from Charles while he had any to give.

Bitterly Charles wondered what kind of tales were being circulated about him. It was impossible that his real position could be known. Only he himself knew that. Even if Andrew Crowther had repeated what he had learnt from the secret ledger, which was out of the question, there would not have been time for the story to have become common property.

Charles took a pencil and began copying the amounts on to a sheet of paper. None of them amounted to a great deal. There was a ten-pound note here, twenty there, forty there. Charles summed them. The total was not overwhelming. It amounted to £345 12s. 6d.

Not a great deal in a works of the size of Charles’s. And yet £345 would make a nasty hole in that thousand on which he was depending for the next two or three weeks. With a bitter thought about the rats and the sinking ship, Charles pressed his bell.

‘What’s all this about, Gairns?’ he began, pointing to the bills, as the pessimistic head clerk entered.

Gairns shook his head lugubriously.

‘All these folk haven’t got suddenly hard up in a night,’ went on Charles. ‘Have you heard of anyone else getting their bills?’

‘No, sir, I haven’t. I don’t know what this all means, I’m sure. It fair took away my breath when I opened the envelopes.’

‘I wonder if they’ve been served on anybody else?’

‘They haven’t on Stringers, anyhow. I was talking to Caxton, their chief clerk; he was in here about that baize; and I happened to ask, by accident, as you might say. They owe to several of those firms,’ Gairns indicated the accounts with a sweep of the hand, ‘and none of them have sent in accounts.’

Charles nodded. ‘I thought so. There are some tales going, Gairns. About us, I mean. Have you heard anything?’

Gairns hesitated.

‘Come on, man, let’s hear it, whatever it is,’ Charles added impatiently.

Gairns shook his head. ‘A most shocking and outrageous thing!’ he declared. ‘They’re saying, sir, that Crowthers is going bankrupt. That we should ever have lived to hear such a thing whispered!’ The old man was actually trembling.

It spoke well for Charles’s self-control that he was able to chuckle. ‘Never mind, James,’ he said good-humouredly. ‘We’ll show them they’re wrong. But tell me, how has this story got about?’

‘That’s what I can’t think, sir. Nobody here has said anything. Not that there was anything for them to say,’ he added as an urgent afterthought.

‘We’ve been talking about cutting down the men and getting rid of a clerk.’

‘There’s nothing in that, Mr Charles; nothing at all. Most of the firms in the place have reduced hands and there’s never been a word about it.’

‘Then what is it?’

Gairns did not know. The rumours were undoubted, but what had given rise to them he had no idea. ‘Oh, well,’ Charles said at last, ‘never mind. The mischief’s done. We can’t help it. That’ll do, James.’

Still Gairns hesitated. ‘You’re not going to pay those accounts, are you, Mr Charles? Such a bit of impertinence. They don’t deserve it.’

‘I’m going to pay every penny by return,’ Charles retorted. ‘Don’t you see, man, if I didn’t, it would confirm their suspicions.’

Gairns nodded and went out. Charles happened to glance at him as he was disappearing. Was it possible that on the man’s face there was a thinly veiled expression of relief? Charles sat back with sudden distress. So Gairns had believed the rumours! His own head clerk!

Charles smiled with grim humour as he dictated replies to the various notes. In each case he was sorry to hear his old friend was in difficulties, and earnestly hoped they were merely temporary. Of course he would do as he had been asked and with pleasure he enclosed the amount of the account. To one or two of the more obnoxious he added that if their case was really serious he might between friends be able to oblige with a small temporary loan.

But this relief to his feelings did not go very far, and when the typist left the room Charles felt more bitter than he had since his crisis began. Oh, if only that wretched old man would die!

Then suddenly into his mind flashed an idea which left him sitting rigid. Almost he held his breath as he considered it.

If he wanted Andrew Crowther to die, there was a way in which it could be managed.

There was a way! A safe way. Utterly and absolutely safe! Something might possibly be suspected, but nothing could ever be proved. Nothing could ever be found out which would connect him – or anyone else – with Andrew’s death.

Charles shrank from the thought, but he could not banish it from his mind. A little effort: a perfectly safe effort; an effort which could never under any circumstances be traced to him: this little effort – and his troubles were over. His works were saved, his life was saved, Una was gained! Could he undertake that effort?

No! A thousand times, No! He was not a murderer. Charles shivered at the very idea. Murder! And what lay behind murder! No, no, he could never think of such a thing!

Not that he hadn’t the nerve. He had nerve for anything. It wasn’t that. It was that this deed was evil, definitely and terribly evil. If he committed it he would never be happy again.

Then he told himself that all this morality business was only an old wives’ tale. He, Charles, wasn’t tied up by these out-of-date considerations! What was politic was right. What was the greatest good of the greatest number? Why, that Andrew should die. What about all the men that were going to be thrown out of employment? What about the clerks? What about poor old Gairns? What about Gairns’s invalid wife? Andrew Crowther’s useless life could count for nothing against such a weight of human suffering.

And as to what followed murder? Nothing followed murder! It was only when murder was found out that unpleasant consequences followed. But this couldn’t be found out. Besides, even if some accident occurred and the thing was discovered, suicide would meet the case. And that was the end. Charles did not believe in a life after death.

So Charles sought to convince himself, though in his heart of hearts he knew his arguments were fallacies.

His thoughts went back to the little episode he had witnessed on the day of his last visit to The Moat. Once again in his mind’s eye he saw Andrew Crowther take from his waistcoat pocket the small bottle, unscrew the cap, and shake out on to the table the four or five little white pills. He seemed to see his uncle stand the bottle up on end and drop back into it all the pills except one. He imagined the old man putting the bottle back in his pocket and taking the remaining pill. And he remembered that Andrew Crowther performed these little operations regularly, day in, day out; morning, midday and evening.

It was while he had been thinking of this that his dreadful idea had occurred to him.

If one of those pills in that bottle contained poison, Andrew Crowther would die.

One pill. A pill near the bottom of the bottle, so that Andrew would not take it until several days after it had been put in. The remaining pills could be analysed: they would be found to be all right. Even if the pill was suspected, it would be impossible to prove it had contained poison. If no one knew it had been introduced, no one could prove anything about it.

Charles no longer tried to put the idea out of his mind. He found rather that the more he thought of it, the more fascinating it grew. Safe? Why, it was as safe as houses! And sure? Sure as death itself.

By a little effort, the obtaining of a poisoned pill and the slipping of it secretly into Andrew’s bottle, he would achieve – everything! He need take no further action. Automatically his scheme would fructify. Sooner or later Andrew would take the poisoned pill – and Charles would be free.

He sat in a sort of dream while his busy brain grappled with the problem. There would be difficulties of course. But difficulties were made to be overcome…

As Charles continued turning the thing over in his mind, its dreadful revolting side gradually receded, and the problem, as an abstraction, grew more and more prominent.

The problem was divided of course into two main divisions: How secretly to obtain the poisoned pill, and how secretly to introduce it into Andrew’s bottle. At first both these divisions seemed easy, but as Charles considered them in detail he realized that both bristled with difficulties.

He saw at once that he could scarcely buy the poisoned pill. In the first place it would have to be exactly the same in size and shape and colour as those in Andrew’s bottle, and it was unlikely that such existed. Besides, a mere poisoned pill was not enough; it would have to contain enough poison to kill. Moreover, it must incapacitate quickly, so that if Andrew himself should become suspicious, he would be unable to communicate with those around him. Greatest difficulty of all, such a pill if it existed would not be on sale. Even if it were purchasable, the poison book would have to be signed, and so dangerous an action could not be contemplated.

Charles saw that if he wanted a pill, he must make it for himself. But this involved a new crop of difficulties. What poison should he employ? How much would be required? How could he obtain it, even if he knew what to ask for? If he had it, could he make it up into a pill so like the others as not to be recognized, either by appearance or taste?

And then, perhaps greatest problem of all, if he had his pill, how could he introduce it secretly into Andrew’s bottle, burying it deep among the others, so that days would pass before it took effect?

The difficulties seemed insuperable.

Charles oscillated between chagrin that so perfect a method of repairing his fortunes should be impracticable, and thankfulness that he could not after all be betrayed into murder. At one moment he thought of the crime with loathing, at another he felt that he would risk anything to save himself from ruin. But all the time the scheme remained lurking in his mind.

That night Charles could not sleep and inevitably his thoughts busied themselves with the problem. His brain was vividly alive and he felt that somehow on this occasion there was nothing he could not tackle. Almost at once he saw the way out of one of his difficulties. This still further stimulated his mind and he concentrated on the others.

He had a wonderful experience that night. Never had he so triumphantly attacked a problem. Difficulty after difficulty gave way to his efforts, and by four in the morning, when he suddenly grew sleepy, he saw just how the whole dreadful scheme could be carried out. If he were to adopt it, his line of action was cut and dry.

But, of course, he would never dream of adopting it.

What Charles thought in his heart he did not admit to himself. He fell asleep assuring himself that he had reached a solution to an abstract problem, which could never affect him or his uncle in real life.

But Charles forgot the danger of playing with fire.

Charles woke next morning with a feeling of oppression. He had had terrible dreams, nightmares of murder. It was with an overwhelming sense of relief that he realized that these imaginings were only dreams and that no such dreadful weight lay on his soul.

All the same he could not but admire the cleverness of the scheme he had worked out during the night. If he had wished to commit murder, no more perfect plan could possibly have been devised. It was sure, it was painless to the victim, it was not harrowing to himself, and most important of all, it was utterly and absolutely safe. Almost, he thought with grim humour, it was a pity that so perfect a bit of work should be lost.

But when he reached his office and realized anew his financial situation, doubts once again assailed him. He saw that he was face to face, not with a choice between evil and good, but between two evils. One of these evils he could not escape. Which was the worse?

His correspondence dealt with according to his usual routine – there was not much of it and none of a satisfactory type – Charles went for his customary inspection of the works. To see the machines running and the work being turned out always relieved him when depressed. But now what struck him most was the terribly small amount of work in hand. And his stock was full. He could still sell his products, but only at a loss. Should he sell at less than the cost of production in order to keep the place running? That was his immediate problem and it led straight back to that other terrible question he had considered in the night.

In the machine shop he noticed a fitter, one of his very best hands. This man had been off for a few days and now he was looking ill and worn. Charles went up to speak to him.

‘I noticed you were off, Matthews,’ he said kindly, for he ran his business on the old-fashioned lines of personal contact with his staff. ‘What’s been the trouble?’

The man looked at him dully, then with an evident effort he answered. ‘The wife, Mr Charles. She had a cold, nothing to signify, we thought. And then it turned to pneumonia.’ He paused, then added in a low voice, ‘She was took day before yesterday.’

‘My dear fellow,’ said Charles, ‘I didn’t know. I’m sorry. Were you long married?’

‘Seven years come December.’

‘And there are children?’

There were three, the youngest only fifteen months. At present the man was paying a neighbour to look after the children, but that came expensive and he didn’t know how he was going to carry on. He was so full of grief that he could scarcely speak.