The Complete Short Stories (63 page)

In Mrs Crathie’s case
the killer had been obliged to transport her body, minus her considerable
diamond solitaire ring and other possessions, from his car to a part of a river
in Norfolk where the reeds and banks were thicker than at the equally tranquil
spot where he had killed her by pistol shot in the back of the head. The other
two women had been killed and concealed in much the same way, but in the case
of Mrs Crathie it was a mystery, never to be explained by the investigative
brains of England, how George Forrester, a slight man, had managed to convey
massive Mrs Crathie from her death place to his car and from his car to her
grave among the reeds.

The hue and cry for the
three missing women was afoot when George presented himself at a Norfolk police
station with a mud-stained size-42 full bra, claiming he had fished it up when
trying out his tackle on some water stretch of the county. The police
interrogated George Forrester who, according to psychological explanations, had
‘wanted’ to be caught and, in fact, thus
was
caught. The specimen of bra
had been purchased by George himself from a nearby ladies’ garments store, and,
curiously, he had got Mrs Crathie’s measurement right.

Justice Stanley listened
to all this, back in 1947, summed up, took the verdict, passed judgment — death
by hanging — and experienced an inexplicable orgasm. He remembered it
frequently from that day onwards.

Sir Sullivan Stanley (he had been knighted)
was in his mid-fifties at the time of George Forrester’s trial. The death
penalty in England was afterwards abolished, and so there was no further call
for Sir Sullivan to experience another such orgasm. Lady Stanley was some years
older than her husband, just past her sixties. She was known everywhere as a
good lady full of charitable activities such as prison visiting, the governing
of schools, the organizing of soup kitchens. She had borne one son, now a
lawyer in private practice. Sex in her life was a thing of the past; in fact,
her recurring bouts of rheumatism prevented her from sharing anyone’s bed.

At that time, Sir
Sullivan frequented a lady who was known to the legal profession and who
occasionally kept an afternoon for him. Lady Stanley suspected nothing of her
existence, nor did she need to know. The affair, if it could be called that,
between Sir Sullivan and Mary Spike, the lady in question, was something of an
animated cartoon. She induced a mild sensation in the Justice; nothing more.
Lady Stanley did not think for a moment that her husband could have another
woman. She felt he was too pompous to take off his trousers in another person’s
house, and in this she was almost right.

After the death of Lady
Stanley, Sir Sullivan, approaching his seventies, now visited Mary Spike
occasionally, but just for the visit. The unusual circumstances of his sexual
experience on the sentencing of George Forrester had really taken him by
surprise.

He often thought back on
the day when he had that orgasm in court. What happened to that gratuitous
orgasm? Where was it now? It was like a butterfly fluttering away into the
summer, always eluding the net. It even occurred to him that he might achieve
one orgasm more before he died, by hanging himself. But it was problematic
whether the phenomenon of an erection would amount to the sensation of an
orgasm in a man whose neck was on the point of breaking, if not already broken.
Besides, the secretly distraught judge mused, a suicide would look so bad in
the
Times
obituary. Not to be thought of.

When Sir Sullivan
retired he stayed for a while with his son in Hampstead. But this didn’t work
well. He decided to go and live in a residential hotel, and it was with great
excitement that he discovered that the Rosemary Lawns Hotel was still
functioning. Memories of the trial of George Forrester came back to him ever
more vividly.

The Rosemary Lawns Hotel
sparkled with new paint the day the judge went to seek a room there. The ‘Lawns’
referred evidently to a tennis court, adjacent to the hotel, and an equal-sized
stretch of flower-bordered lawn on the other side of a gravel path. It was
early autumn, and the leaves scuffled along the tree-lined street. Some
schoolgirls were chirpily playing tennis.

Sir Sullivan asked for
the manager. A short figure came out of the back office. His white hair and
slightly thickened appearance at first, and only for a moment, concealed the
fact that this was probably the very man, the actual proprietor of the hotel,
who had given evidence in court all those years ago.

‘Are you Mr Roger Cook?’
inquired the Justice.

‘Yes, indeed, sir.’

‘Good afternoon. I’m Sir
Sullivan Stanley.’

‘The Judge! Sir
Sullivan, you don’t show your years.

‘Yes, I’m the Judge
himself. I have been here before, you know. At the time of the trial, when I
came to case the joint, if I may use a vulgarism.

‘Sir Sullivan,’ said
Roger Cook, ‘it was a very hard time for us. All the permanent clients left. We
thought of changing the name of the hotel, but we sat it out. We were
especially grateful to you for that reference to Rosemary Lawns Hotel in your
summing up.’

‘What was that?’ said
Sir Sullivan.

‘You said we were a
perfectly respectable place, clean and cosy. That it was no reflection on the
establishment that the accused and his unfortunate victim happened to have
taken up their abode at Rosemary Lawns. I recall the very words,’ said Roger
Cook. ‘We always quoted them to the press when we gave interviews in those
tragic weeks.’

‘Well, I congratulate
you on the appearance of the place. I am glad to see the tennis court is being
used.’

‘We rent out the court
on certain days to a private school,’ said Roger Cook.

‘Well, I’ll be direct,’
said Sir Sullivan Stanley. ‘I’m looking for a comfortable place for my
retirement. A fairly large room, bath and television. And, of course, a
dining-room. If you don’t have the dining-room any more, I’m afraid it’s no
good. To me, the dining-room is essential.’

‘But of course, Sir
Sullivan, we have the same dining-room. Nothing’s changed except the
decoration. Come with me. It would be an honour to have you here.’

He led the way to the
dining-room, where the tables were laid for dinner with pink cloths. On one
table stood a bottle of Milk of Magnesia, but that alone was not enough
evidence against the quality of the dinner. Roger Cook showed Sir Sullivan the
menu: mulligatawny soup followed by breast of lamb, peas and potatoes. Cheese
(if required — extra charge according to choice), and strawberry or vanilla ice
cream. Coffee or decaffeinated, as desired. Tea on request.

Sir Sullivan said, ‘Which
of those tables did George Forrester occupy?’

‘The third on the right
under the window if I’m not mistaken. And poor Mrs Crathie’s was the next table
to his, second on the right. Of course, we hold receptions, and so on. We use
the supplementary dining-room.’

‘The table by the window
looks delightful,’ said Sir Sullivan with an air of decided nonchalance. ‘Nice
outlook.’

The proprietor, somewhat
puzzled that the old Judge would actually prefer to sir in the murderer’s
chair, nevertheless made haste to assure the Judge that that particular table was
not occupied by permanent
pensionnaires
at that moment.

So Sir Sullivan Stanley
made an agreeable arrangement with the hotel and moved in the following Monday.
He came down to dinner at quarter to eight to find the dining-room
three-quarters full and some of the diners already nearing the end of the meal.

A middle-aged woman with
a long neck sat at the table next to his. She had reached the coffee stage.

‘Good evening,’ said the
Justice.

She responded with a
kind of extra warmth, as if she approved of this gentleman, it being somewhat
of a lottery who one got at the next table.

The waiter brought Sir
Sullivan’s soup.

The Justice turned to
his neighbour, ‘Are you by any chance,’ he said, ‘Mrs Crathie?’

‘No, my name is Mrs
Morton. Do I resemble a friend of yours?’

‘No — no friend. Just a
person.

Sir Sullivan felt happy
in her company. There was a small fire at the end of the dining-room. Cosy. He
thought of the schoolgirls who had been playing tennis outside, so encouraging
to look at. He thought then of Mary Spike, his part-time mistress of so many
years ago, and remembered how one afternoon when he had failed to come up to
scratch she had cruelly laughed at him. ‘What an antique pendant you’ve got
there. Talk about hanging judge! You’re the hanging judge!’

Justice Stanley, seated
at the late George Forrester’s table, where the man had once sat wearing that
bright brown Harris tweed coat, looked at and partook of his mulligatawny soup.
Then he looked across at Mrs Morton with the greatest surprise — transfixed in
a dreamy joy, as if he had seen a welcome ghost.

Mrs Morton sipped her
coffee and looked at him.