The End Of Solomon Grundy (11 page)

In The Dell

It was the belief of those who lived in The Dell, although this was a belief that they would never have been so vulgar as to express openly, that they were upon the whole more intelligent, liberal and humane than the majority of their fellow citizens. Subconsciously they regarded themselves as a fragment of a new élite establishing itself in the big cities of England, an élite not marked by its adherence to an ideal of wealth, class or profession, but simply one attuned, as most people were not, to the realities of life in the middle of the twentieth century. The plate glass windows, the landscaped gardens, the underfloor central heating, the garbage disposers, the rooms that made provision for just so many books and gramophone records, these appeared to them not as desirable adjuncts to comfort, but as the badge of modernity itself. The idea that they might ostracise one of their number would have seemed to Dell-dwellers deeply shocking, yet the groundswell of gossip that linked Grundy to the death of the girl in Cridge Mews changed subtly to a feeling that anybody about whom such gossip could be circulated was not really the right sort of person to be living in The Dell.

Edgar and Jennifer Paget had told their stories to several people, but these stories had radiated out also through Adrienne Facey and Jill Mayfield and their parents. Adrienne had happened to see the police car draw up outside the Grundys’ on Tuesday evening. In less than an hour it was known that the superintendent in charge of the case had called on Grundy, and within twenty-four hours Jack Jellifer’s identification of Grundy’s car in Mayfair and the police visits to the AdArts office were being talked about. Gossip placed the car not just in Mayfair but in Cridge Mews itself, and the police visit to the AdArts office was transformed into “a thorough grilling of everybody there which went on for hours,” as Felicity Facey delightedly put it. In such matters The Dell was not, after all, very different from any other community.

On Thursday evening Grundy turned left into Brambly Way and stopped at the garage on the corner to fill up, and make arrangements for the Alvis to be serviced. Sir Edmund Stone stood beside his Mini Minor at another petrol pump. He made no response to Grundy’s greeting, but turned away and spoke to the garage attendant.

“Just a minute,” Grundy said to the foreman with whom he was talking. He marched across the forecourt and took Sir Edmund by the arm. “I said good evening.”

Sir Edmund slowly turned. “Good evening.”

Grundy’s face was brick red. “When I said it before you turned away from me. Deliberately.”

Sir Edmund’s complexion was completely white, and never showed the faintest touch of colour, but his long nose quivered with emotion. “I did not.”

“You did. I saw you. He saw you.” Grundy gestured at the foreman, who was watching with interest.

“You are mistaken. Really, this – this altercation – is most unseemly.”

“Is it? When I say good evening to someone I know I expect them to answer.”

“I have already done so. Kindly let go of my arm.”

Grundy’s hand was in fact still touching Sir Edmund’s arm. He let go and marched back across the forecourt to his car. The foreman looked at him sideways, but made no comment. He arranged for the servicing of the car and drove out of the garage, revving up unnecessarily as he did so.

When he got home Marion was upstairs. She came slowly into the living-room. Her manner was composed, but she did not look well. “Superintendent Manners telephoned. He is coming at eight o’clock to see you.”

“Sod him. He’s been talking to Theo, asking all sorts of questions.” He took the evening paper out of his briefcase, tossed it over to her. “Shall I tell you something? That clot Stone tried to cut me this evening. At the garage. He didn’t do it, though. I made him say hallo.”

“You quarrelled with him?”

“How can you quarrel with a dummy?”

“You don’t understand. You simply don’t realise what people are saying, how awful things are for me.”

“They’re not too cheerful for me, either, but I’m very sorry.” He tried to embrace her. She stood with statuesque immobility and said:

“Please.”

“Christ, now you’ve turned into a dummy too. All right, if that’s the way you want it. What are we eating?”

“I’ve telephoned Daddy.”

“Your father?” He looked at her in astonishment.

“What for?”

“I don’t feel I can go on. I must go away. Or at least I must ask Daddy’s advice. He’s very – wise, you know.”

“No, I don’t know. He’s a bloody old bore, that’s what your father is. Now I’ll tell you something. If you go away now, at a time like this, you needn’t come back, do you understand?” He advanced across the room and she shrank back. When he touched her she gave an experimental scream.

“Don’t come near me. Don’t dare to come near me.”

He dropped his hands in a gesture of despair. Marion ran upstairs again.

The scream was distinctly heard next door by the Faceys. Felicity was making a raffia lampshade and her husband was looking at, rather than reading, a book about art by Sir Herbert Read. Adrienne, who had been denied a television programme on the ground that it would affect her parents’ concentration, was sulking upstairs.

Felicity paused and let a long string of raffia dangle like spaghetti towards the floor.

“Bill, did you hear that?”

Bill Facey was small, thin and weedy. He had heard, but he did not wish to acknowledge. “What?”

“That scream. It was Marion. You must go in.”

“Oh, no.” Bill looked desperately at Herbert Read for help. “I couldn’t. I mean, you can’t interfere.”

“We don’t know what he may have done. He may be murdering her.” There was a silence, heavy with the implications of the words.

“You’ve no right to say such things.” But Bill Facey said it feebly. There was no doubt in anybody’s mind that Felicity was the dominant partner in their marriage.

“Listen.” They listened, but heard nothing. “You ought to go in.”

“No, really Felicity, you can’t do things like that.”

“Very well. I shall go myself.” She rose, vigorous and mannish, and moved towards the door. Her husband sheepishly watched her go, and then returned to his book.

Grundy looking, as she afterwards said, really wild, opened the door. With a casualness obviously assumed she said that she had run out of milk and wondered whether Marion could lend her a little. Grundy went away and came back with a pint bottle, which he thrust at her.

“Are you sure you can spare this? Is Marion sure?”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps I should just ask her.”

He glared at her, teeth showing in a sort of grin that, as she said afterwards, frightened her. “She’s gone to bed.”

“Oh, really. I thought—”

“Got a bad headache.” Now there could be no doubt of it, he was grinning at her. He made a small mock bow before closing the door. He was, she thought – to use a favourite word of hers – a most obnoxious man. She saw the police car drive up a few minutes later.

Manners could adopt when he wished a severity of tone that was often disturbing to suspects under questioning. He used this tone now in talking to Grundy, and his manner without being in the least impolite conveyed clearly enough his certainty that Grundy knew more than he was telling. Sergeant Fastness chipped in occasionally with a question pointed to the edge of rudeness. Beneath this barrage of questions about his movements on Monday evening and his knowledge of the dead woman the suspect remained commendably, if that was the word, unperturbed. He still denied ever meeting her except at the party.

“Come now, I have a witness who saw you with her on Saturday evening. You went into Kabanga’s house with her.”

“Nonsense.”

“We have a positive identification. Do you still deny it?”

“Absolutely.” Grundy’s big hands rested placidly on his knees.

“And your handwriting on the postcard has been identified too.” That was Fastness. “You slipped up badly there, you should have taken it away. Silly to sign it with that little figure too. Guffy McTuffie.”

“Rubbish.”

Fastness laughed unpleasantly. “Did you think we wouldn’t be able to identify the writing just because you didn’t sign it?”

“I didn’t write the postcard.”

Fastness was confidential. “From you we just want the details, that’s all. You save us trouble, you’ll save yourself a hard time.”

“Sergeant.” Manners’s voice was sharp, his tone to Grundy apologetic. “There’s no need to talk like that. It’s just that we feel sure you haven’t told us everything you know. It will be in your own interest to amend your statement now rather than later on.”

“Nothing more to say.”

The most difficult suspect to deal with is the one who answers questions so briefly. Manners felt his temper slipping slightly. “Where’s Mrs Grundy?”

“Lying down upstairs. She’s got a headache.”

Manners debated whether or not he should ask to speak to her, and decided against it. What could she say that she had not said before? He said a curt good night. Outside, in the car, Sergeant Fastness said, “He keeps his mouth zipped tight, doesn’t he sir?”

“Yes. We just have to find something that will unzip it.”

They drove away. Felicity Facey watched them. “They haven’t taken him,” she said to her husband.

“Oh, really, Felicity.”

“It’s poor Marion I feel sorry for. I hope he hasn’t done her an injury. I shall go and see her in the morning.”

“I don’t think you should interfere,” he said without conviction. He knew that he was fighting a lost battle.

The alarm clock which should have wakened Grundy had remained unset. When he woke and looked at his watch the time was nine o’clock. In the other bed Marion lay sleeping still, curled like a child, her face unlined and young. He woke her, washed, cut himself shaving, dressed hurriedly. When he came downstairs he found her standing in the dining annexe beside the toast and coffee.

“I heard what they said last night, the detectives.”

“I thought you’d gone to sleep. You had your eyes shut when I got upstairs.”

“I wanted to think.”

He opened the paper, looked for news of the murder, read that police inquiries had taken them to a high-class residential estate called The Dell.

“You did it, didn’t you?”

He looked up from the paper. “What?”

“I think I’ve known it ever since Tuesday evening, when you showed me her picture in the paper. But don’t worry, a wife can’t give evidence against her husband, can she? And anyway, I wouldn’t if I could. I blame myself as much as you. If we’d had a properly integrated relationship you would never have needed to—”

Grundy was not listening. He was staring in astonishment at the Rover that had just drawn up outside the house. Out of it stepped the burly figure of Mr Hayward. He looked at Marion.

“I told you I’d spoken to Daddy.” In her voice there was a note of appeal or regret. She went to the door. Grundy furiously thrust a piece of toast into his mouth, washed it down with coffee, crumpled the napkin in his big hand, stood up.

“A very good run up,” Mr Hayward was saying as he came in. “An hour and a half, door to door. I took that short cut just after Crawley.”

“The one by Sumpter’s factory?” Marion broke off, looked nervously at her husband.

“Solomon. This is a bad business.” Mr Hayward was grave as a publican at a funeral.

“What are you here for?”

“Because my little girl asked me to come, because she’s worried. And she’s frightened, Solomon, frightened.”

“Dad. Don’t talk about it.”

“Frightened of me, you mean? She thinks I killed this girl, she’s just told me so. She said we hadn’t got a
properly integrated relationship,
and do you know why we haven’t? Because she’s been able to run to Mum and Dad all the time and discuss the fifteen different routes to Hayward’s Heath.” His voice had risen to a shout. “Why don’t you keep your nose out of our affairs?”

“I don’t think I need to answer that.”

“Dad, I won’t be a minute. I’m packed.” Marion ran up the stairs.

“Packed?” Grundy glared after her, then swung round on her father.

“You must understand the position, Solomon.”

“I’ll tell you what I understand. If Marion goes she doesn’t come back.”

Mr Hayward’s gravity was wonderful. “Perhaps that will be for the best.”

Marion came down the stairs carrying two suitcases. Her face was very pale.

“You’d packed last night,” Grundy said accusingly.

She looked surprised. “I said I must get away. I thought you understood.”

Mr Hayward intoned a valediction over the grave.

“It’s possible that when this sad affair is cleared up some arrangement may be—”

“Shut up.”

Marion said, with a look of anguish, “Sol. Please try to understand.”

“Goodbye. Have a good relationship.”

“Oh, you’re intolerable.”

“Take a good short cut on the way down.”

The door closed after them. He stood in the picture window and watched them go, Mr Hayward carrying the suitcases. Marion got into the Rover without a backward glance.

He turned and stood looking at the fragments of his breakfast. Then he took them into the kitchen, said, “That’s that,” put on his overcoat, and went to the office.

Flight?

The office, as Mrs Langham said to Miss Pringle, was not what it had been. There was an atmosphere about it these days, and in view of everything that was of course, as Mrs Langham said also, not surprising. Mr Werner was still very polite, he was a man who would never fail in politeness, but he was obviously worried. And he had reason to be, Mrs Langham meaningfully said. As for Mr Grundy, well, of course, Mr Grundy was the cause of the worry.

He came in this Friday morning, Mr Grundy, obviously in such a hurry or in such a temper that he flung them a bare grunt over his shoulder as he charged into his office. A few minutes later, Mr Werner, who had been in for an hour, came out of his own office and entered Mr Grundy’s.

“Well,” said Mrs Langham, “I’d sooner him than me.”

Miss Pringle giggled.

Werner found his partner moodily looking at the morning’s post, and obviously in a bad mood. It was not perhaps the best time to say something which might be misunderstood, but he had made up his mind to say it anyway. He told Grundy of his interview with Manners, and added that the situation was a difficult one. “What do you think we ought to do about it?”

“Do?”

“Quite frankly, my dear, we’re in a turmoil. Our little firm, I mean. And you and I, we’re in a state too, aren’t we? I don’t like it that we should be bad friends, we’ve been good friends for so long.”

He was looking a very neat little cock sparrow this morning, and his smile was appealing.

“Say what you mean.”

“Don’t misunderstand me. I’ll tell you what’s the matter with you, Sol, you’re too bloody suspicious. You take everything too hard.”

“I expect you’re right.” Grundy smiled, or half smiled, back at him. “I’ll try not to misunderstand.”

“What has happened is bad for business, you must see that. To be mixed up with a murder case, that is not very nice.”

“So?”

“You ought to take a rest, stay away from the office, oh, for a month. Don’t worry at all. Have a holiday, take Marion away. By then they will have found out who did this thing, everything will be forgotten.”

“And Guffy?”

“Quite honestly, old dear, do you suppose that Clacton or anybody else is going to buy a Guffy series just now?”

“Take Marion away.” Grundy barked sharply, then got up and paced about the room. Theo watched him nervously. Suddenly he shouted, “I won’t do it, I won’t bloody well do it.”

Outside, Mrs Langham and Miss Pringle looked at each other. Mrs Langham whispered, “Oh dear.”

“Sol. You said you would not misunderstand.”

“Why should I run away?” He glared at Theo. “Do you know what happened last night? Some bloody old snob at home tried to cut me. I made him speak, though. He didn’t like it, I can tell you.”

“You made him speak?” Theo looked baffled. “I shall never understand you English.”

“I’m not English, I’m Irish. You’re trying to get rid of me.”

“No, no.”

“I won’t have it. I’m not going to be mucked about by anybody, you or the police or anybody.” Theo backed away as Grundy, half a head taller, advanced. His foot caught in a threadbare patch of carpet and he fell over backwards, knocking a tray of papers to the floor.

In the outer office Mrs Langham looked significantly at Miss Pringle, got up and opened Grundy’s door after the most perfunctory of knocks. She took in the scene at a glance. Mr Werner was on the floor, and Mr Grundy was standing over him. Mr Werner looked at her ruefully. Mr Grundy said, “Mr Werner caught his foot in the carpet.”

“So I see,” Mrs Langharn said coldly. She stayed long enough to see Mr Werner get to his feet, and then closed the door again. It was her belief, as she said afterwards to Miss Pringle, that if she had not opened the door when she did, violence would have been done. This belief was not affected by the sound of Mr Grundy laughing, for the laughter had, she thought, a sinister sound.

Inside the office Grundy was saying, “I must be losing my sense of proportion. It’s coming to something when you’re nervous of me, Theo. I’m sorry.”

Theo laughed too, uncertainly. “Do not misunderstand me, Sol.”

“No. I’m just the original Irish clot, that’s all. The hell of a situation like this is that you begin to suspect the motives of everybody, even your best friends. You’ll know soon enough, so I may as well tell you now. Marion’s left me, gone home to Mum and Dad.”

Theo digested this news, then smiled. “You’re a bachelor. Isn’t that all the more reason for taking a holiday, old dear?”

Grundy smiled back at him.

The man who sat in Manners’s office was about forty, pale, fattish, a little above medium height. Inspector Ryan watched him with the anxious pride of a father whose son is about to read his essay on a school prize day.

“Mr Leighton lives at 11 Cridge Mews, sir, just opposite Miss Gresham. Remember I told you he was up in Manchester, we couldn’t get hold of him? Well, he came back today and I think you’ll be interested in what he’s got to say. Just tell the superintendent what you told me, Mr Leighton. Take your time.”

Mr Leighton cleared his throat and began to speak in a flat Cockney whine. He was, like many people who came to tell their stories in Manners’s office, distinctly nervous.

“I’m a scrap metal dealer, you understand, sir, old cars and that sort of thing really, and on Tuesday I had this appointment in Manchester with a Mr Hinchcliffe, so I thought I’ll go up on the night train, otherwise it means getting up at the crack of dawn—”

“Take it steady, man,” admonished Ryan, now rather in the role of a second advising an over-eager boxer.

“So, oh, just about ten o’clock that night I was getting ready, you know, changing and packing up and so on, and I saw this chap arrive, a big geezer he was.”

“What room were you in?”

“Front room, that’s my bedroom. just happened to be looking out of the window.”

“Did you know Miss Simpson?”

Mr Leighton’s bloodshot eyes looked away from the superintendent, his glance flickered around the room. What’s the matter, Manners wondered, has he had it off with her himself and doesn’t want me to know about it? “Just to talk to, you know, just to pass the time of day with, that’s all. Very pleasant she always was too, always cheerful and nice.”

“And you happened to be looking out of the window?”

Mr Leighton rolled his eyes and looked appealingly at Ryan, who laughed.

“I think he was interested in her male visitors, sir, put it that way. He says there were quite a few.”

“Quite a few,” Mr Leighton agreed eagerly. “There was the darkie, he used to come often, and then, oh, several others. Once or twice they stayed the night. I mean, I saw them leave in the morning.”

“I see. You just happened to be looking,” Manners said neutrally.

“I was dressing. But this chap, now, I’d seen him once before, or maybe twice. I noticed him specially, because he had ginger hair.”

Manners felt the tingling in his stomach that he associated with the break-through in a case. “Can you describe him?”

“He was big, not all that tall maybe, but very broad, bulky sort of chap altogether. He was wearing some sort of light tweed coat, no hat of course. I saw his face under the lamp. Then he rang the bell and she came down, they spoke for a minute or so and she let him in. I saw them together upstairs. Then she drew the curtain.”

“About ten o’clock, you say. You can’t get the time more exactly?”

“No. But I left at ten-thirty, and it was a few minutes before that. Say ten to ten-fifteen.”

“You didn’t see him come out?”

“No. Still there when I left.”

“Didn’t see him drive up, get out of a car, anything like that?”

“No. He walked into the Mews.”

“How sure are you that you’d recognise this man again?”

Leighton’s cheek was twitching slightly. “Pretty sure. I think I’m sure.”

“Would you be willing to attend an identification parade?”

“I – yes, I suppose so.” He paused, gathering confidence. “Yes, definitely.”

Manners avoided Ryan’s look of triumph. Something about the situation bothered him, and suddenly he knew what it was. He said quietly, “Have you got form, Mr Leighton?”

“I—” the man said, and swallowed. Ryan looked first astonished, then disgusted.

“Come on, then. Let’s have it.”

“It was years ago, seven years. I got twelve months for receiving. It was a mistake. I had nothing to do with it.”

“I sent you up, didn’t I?” Leighton nodded. “And since then you’ve kept your nose clean?”

“I told you, it was a mistake.”

When Leighton had gone, Ryan said, “Sorry, Super. I should have realised.”

“How could you? I remembered him because I sent him up, that’s all. You don’t know anything about him? Then you’d better ask around, see what you can find.”

“If there is anything to find.”

“Of course. Scrap metal dealer doesn’t sound too good. Pity.”

“He didn’t have to come forward. If there was anything against him, you’d think he’d keep quiet.”

“I know. We can’t show him a photograph, but if he does make an identification it puts Grundy in the right place at the right time. That’s why it would be nice if Leighton were a solid citizen. As it is—” He sighed, and left the sentence uncompleted. The telephone rang. He lifted the receiver and listened with growing excitement to what was said at the other end. Then he turned to Ryan. “That was Clavering, the local super. It looks as though Grundy’s trying to slip the country, may have killed his wife. We’ll have to get the word to ports and airfields. Then let’s get down there.”

“How’s Clavering got news of it?”

“Some woman phoned the station.”

Felicity Facey always took Adrienne and their son Edward to school in the car, and on this Friday morning she did some shopping, and so did not return to The Dell until after eleven o’clock. She called on Marion, partly because she was curious to know exactly what had happened on the previous night, partly because they often had a cup of coffee and a chat in the morning. There was no reply to the bell. Marion must be out, then, although it was unusual for her to be out shopping in the morning, she was an afternoon shopper. Unusual, too, for her to be out on a Friday which, as Felicity knew, was not one of the days on which her cleaner came. Looking through the picture window she saw what was more unusual still, the living-room left untidy. She kept a lookout while she was making lunch, and told her husband about it when he came home.

Bill Facey said in his worried way, “You shouldn’t interfere.”

“Interfere! For all you know, she may be lying dead in the bedroom.” He made a slight, incredulous noise, which she resented. “Where is she then, tell me that?”

“I expect she’s home now, and you didn’t notice her come in.”

“We’ll see.” Felicity dialled the Grundys’ number and held out the receiver so that he could hear the ring. There was no reply.

“She may have gone up to town to shop. Or out to see someone.”

Felicity snorted her disapproval of these suggestions. When her husband had gone again she decided to have another look next door. Perhaps a glance through the kitchen window at the back might reveal something vital. Before going round, however, she pressed the front-door bell again, as a matter of form. There were footsteps, the door opened, and Grundy stood there.

“Oh,” Felicity retreated a step. “Is Marion – can I speak to Marion.”

“Not possible. She’s gone away.”

“Gone away? That’s very sudden, isn’t it?” She was taking in what she saw behind Grundy, the large suitcase, the overcoat on a table, and on top of the overcoat the passport.

“Quite sudden. She wanted a rest.”

“When did she go, then?”

“This morning. Don’t bother about the milk.”

“Milk?”

“I thought perhaps you’d come to return it. But I see you haven’t got it with you.”

There could be no doubt about it, he was jeering at her in the most unpleasant way. Greatly daring, she said, “I see you’re going away too. To join her, I suppose?”

“You suppose wrong. And now will you just go home and mind your own business.” The half-grin on his face changed to a snarl, and the door was banged against her. She went home, and there quite openly sat in her window to watch. Less than five minutes had passed when Grundy came out, fetched his old Alvis from the parking space, brought out the case, put it in the boot and drove away. Felicity pondered the implications of what she had seen and heard. It did not take her long to decide that it was her duty to telephone the police.

“We can’t enter by invitation, there’s nobody to invite us. But I think that window round the back, you know, the one slightly open, looks as if it had been forced, don’t you, sir?” Ryan winked one eye. “And if that’s so, we ought to go in and have a look.”

Manners’s nose was wrinkled. “I don’t like it.”

“But we want to get in.”

There had been no legitimate grounds for obtaining a search warrant, but Manners agreed that they wanted to get in. It was one of those problems which often confront the police.

“Well, then, if you just stay here a couple of minutes—” Ryan said cheerfully. Five minutes later they were inside, and ten minutes after that Ryan was saying, “If you ask me, this is a bit of a sell. Her clothes have gone, and he can’t have got rid of her body round here. Where would you put a body in one of these super-modern places? And you can’t bury it outside, you’d be disturbing the landscape gardens.”

But the caution with which Manners had approached the case earlier had gone. He felt certain now that Grundy was the man they wanted. “Where is his wife, then? And why has he slipped the country?”

“I don’t know. But I don’t see much to help us here.”

Ryan went downstairs, and Manners into the small study that Grundy used for working. He searched through the papers on the desk without finding, or expecting to find, anything relevant to the case. He did, however, discover several notes from Werner, and two of these were signed with the little Guffy McTuffie figure on the postcard. Werner was in the clear, but was it possible that Grundy and his partner had used this figure as a signature in writing to each other? He was thinking about this when the telephone rang. He went downstairs and Ryan, at the telephone, covered the mouthpiece and raised a thumb.