The Man Who Killed Himself (4 page)

‘The usual problem of course, sir, is matching the natural hair colour at back and sides, but in your case –’ The wig maker coughed, and it was true that Arthur was quite remarkably lacking in hair.

The wig was thick and curly and he was delighted by the fact that he could comb it so that (as he was shown with mirrors) perfectly genuine scalp would show through the invisible net foundation. ‘Nobody would know,’ he said exultantly.

The wig maker, who had himself a splendid head of hair, was solemn. ‘Nobody at all, sir. I know husbands whose wives have no idea that they wear a wig.’

‘Is that really so? Even when –’

‘Even then, sir, certainly. And if I may suggest a small but possibly useful refinement –’

‘Indeed you may.’

‘It may be an advantage to have a trio, showing various stages of development.’ Arthur was baffled. The wig maker explained that he could have three wigs, Number One showing the hair cut rather short, Number Two of normal cut, and Number Three with hair growing rather long at the back of the neck. ‘I have a client whose wife tells him that he really must go to the barber when he is wearing Number Three. It positively makes his day, sir.’

‘I’m sure it does.’ He ordered Numbers One, Two and Three accordingly. The wig maker was less enthusiastic about the idea of a beard, saying that this would need great care when eating and shaving, in case it got wet and lost its shape. It seemed to Arthur, however, that a beard was an essential part of Easonby Mellon’s personality, and by having it cut well away from the mouth he managed to deal with it successfully.

He was delighted with the result. ‘You are an artist,’ he said to the wig maker, a wizened, aged figure who perhaps proved his artistic nature by going out of business shortly after executing Arthur’s commission, and dying in poverty a few months later. A six line obituary appeared in
The Times
, referring to him as ‘a character of the theatrical world.’

There was also the matter of renting an office and of opening a bank account. His first office was down a dingy side street but when a room in the Romany House block fell vacant he took it, signing the lease with his left hand and giving as reference Mr Brownjohn of Lektreks, who duly sent a letter certifying Major Mellon’s reliability as a tenant. He used his left hand also when providing a signature for the bank. It was Arthur Brownjohn, bald, rabbity and darkly suited, who left The Laurels each morning. In the Lektreks office he kept Easonby Mellon’s clothes, and he installed a mirror by the help of which, at first with infinite care and some difficulty, he fitted wig and beard. A perfect fitting took nearly half an hour, although under stress he could manage in fifteen minutes. After changing he went down in the self-operating lift and walked to Romany House, which was only a couple of streets and five minutes’ walk away.

At first this double identity was a game, a way of safeguarding the shameful secret represented by the fact that his income came from a matrimonial agency, but such games have a way of developing their own meanings and subtleties, so that although we begin by playing them self-indulgently they end by taking charge of us and revealing unexpected facets of our personalities. As months changed into years, and Matrimonial Assistance flourished, and the deception remained immune from detection, its author found a positive pleasure in accentuating his own meekness and timidity at The Laurels in a way which gave additional zest to the exhibition of the very different characteristics of Major Easonby Mellon. There is no difference, Congreve observed, between continued affectation and reality, and Major Mellon proved to Arthur Brownjohn the truth of this aphorism. He was self-assured where Arthur was hesitant, brusque where he was compliant, an eager eater and drinker where Arthur was a frugal one. That is, Major Mellon became all of these things by pleasant experimentation. He developed also a quite unArthurian liking for a bit of nonsense, first made manifest when a woman aspirant to marriage began to take off her clothes in the office one day, and the Major found himself eagerly helping her.

Joan was the most notable of several bits of nonsense. She had turned up one day after writing a letter, a good-natured plump woman in her late twenties, whose husband had been killed in Korea. On that first afternoon she had succumbed to the Major’s advances, and thereafter he took her to a hotel every weekday for a fortnight. It was the sort of situation that had to be resolved in one way or another partly because Joan, although rather vague, had realised that the matrimonial agency did not occupy the whole of his time, partly because he felt an urgent need for some relief from Clare. Marriage was the answer, marriage and the setting up of a second, quite distinct home for his second personality. Arthur Brownjohn was terrified by the idea, but Major Easonby Mellon carried it through joyfully.

He explained to Joan that his status as a member of UGLI 3 was supposed to preclude marriage, but that for her sake he was prepared to risk it so long as the ceremony was kept absolutely quiet. They signed the register at Caxton Hall in the presence of witnesses brought in from the street, Joan found and rented the apartment in Clapham, and Major Mellon transferred his effects to it. These chiefly consisted of clothes, and Joan exclaimed in wonder at the quality of his suits. Arthur Brownjohn bought his clothes ready made, but Easonby Mellon’s tweeds came from Corefinch and Burleigh just off Savile Row, one of the most expensive tailors in London. Clare had always been incurious about Arthur’s business, and when he said that he would have to be away very often in the middle of the week because he was taking over the work of their Midlands and Northern representatives her reaction was simply one of alarm that business might be falling off. Reassured on this point she adapted herself with only occasional grumbles to the absences from home necessitated by his additional work.

So a new pattern of life was fixed for him. From Friday to Monday Arthur Brownjohn was to be found at The Laurels, from Tuesday to Thursday Major Easonby Mellon put up his slippered feet on the sofa at Elm Drive. The wig and beard proved to be the triumphant success that had been predicted. He shaved each morning with an electric razor, and washed only cursorily, taking care to keep water away from the beard. Even in the greatest ardours of their married life Joan did not suspect his secret. Occasionally he varied the pattern of his weekly activities a little, but not very much, for he felt in it a symmetry like that in a work of art. At times he really did make a tour of Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and other cities in which Lektreks still had customers. And if Joan, that perpetually amiable and resilient cushion, was an almost perfect partner for the part of his nature represented by Major Easonby Mellon, there could be no doubt that Arthur Brownjohn had a basic desire to be dominated by some Clare-like figure. To possess and be possessed by both was almost perfect, or seemed so until the advent of Patricia Parker, which had been preceded early in March by the disastrous affair of Mr Clennery Tubbs.

Wypitklere

Clennery Tubbs had appeared on the day that Arthur went to demonstrate a simplified automatic dishwasher of his own invention to a firm named Inter Commerce. This was something on which he had worked intermittently for some years, and it had at one time been in the kitchen at The Laurels. Often it worked perfectly, but upon occasions a destructive gremlin seemed to occupy the washer. The gremlin wrecked this demonstration, at which the activating rods got quite out of hand and broke half the plates. Arthur had been sadly packing it up afterwards, and was on his way out when he was stopped by a small man with wild sandy hair and markedly protruding eyes.

‘Rotten luck. Bet it works nine times out of ten.’

‘You weren’t at the demo, were you?’

‘Couldn’t help hearing what Jenner was saying.’

‘You’re quite right. If only they’d give me another trial after I’ve ironed out that little trouble.’

The man shook his head. ‘No good. Won’t do it.’

‘Certainly Mr Jenner seemed rather abrupt.’ Jenner was the chief engineer of the company, and he had been caustic.

‘Jenner’s a pig. Won’t even touch my invention.’

‘Good heavens. And you’re part of the firm.’

The man held out a hand. ‘Way it goes. Name’s Tubbs, Clennery Tubbs. Come and have a pint.’

Over the pint Tubbs talked about his invention. It was a cream that prevented the windows of cars from misting or frosting up, not just for a few hours or even for a day, but for several months. After that you put on some more cream. ‘Firm tested it out. Worked perfectly. Even Jenner said so.’

‘What was wrong then?’

‘Inter Commerce make a windscreen wiping cloth, new pattern, big sales. Offered me five hundred to buy up my cream, then scrap it.’

‘That’s really dishonest.’

‘Should have known better. Jenner’s jealous.’

‘You can offer it to another firm.’

‘He’d see I got the sack. Couldn’t afford to take the chance. Like to see Wypitklere?’

‘What’s that?’

‘Wipe it clear, see? Name it’s patented under, mustn’t use the actual spelling of words. I said, like to see it?’

The demonstration took place on a moist, misty day. They set out for a drive in Tubbs’ small car, and before they left he wiped over the screen with Wypitklere. The screen remained clear throughout the drive when, as Tubbs triumphantly pointed out, the windscreens of almost all the cars they passed were misted over. Arthur was impressed but not yet convinced.

‘Try it on your own car,’ Tubbs said almost angrily.

Arthur was compelled to admit that he had no car. At one time Clare had driven a car but after being involved in an accident in which the other driver had been seriously injured she gave up motor cars for ever. She had made it clear to Arthur before their marriage that she would not expect her husband to drive or possess one, and at the time this had seemed unimportant. In the end Tubbs gave him two small pots of the cream and Arthur used one on the windscreen of Payne’s car and gave the other to their doctor, a man named Hubble. On Payne’s car it worked like a charm.

‘I really think you’re on to something this time, old man,’ Payne had said, and he had implied that the bank might even consider giving it financial support.

Financial support was what Tubbs required. He was insistent that he must on no account be telephoned at Inter Commerce, and they always met in pubs. It was a different pub every time and Tubbs, who was a rather seedy little man, always looked nervously around. He said that somebody else was interested in the idea.

‘They’re talking about putting up five thousand quid for a twenty per cent interest. Could you meet that?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘Money’s not important,’ Tubbs said, rather to Arthur’s surprise, for he had gathered the distinct impression that the other was in need of it. Tubbs ran a hand through his hair so that it stood up like a golliwog’s, and stroked his rather indeterminate little beard. ‘What I mean, Brownjohn, I’d consider less cash and a bigger percentage for myself.’

‘If this stuff does all you say why don’t you develop it on your own, borrow from your bank?’ Arthur asked, with what he felt to be considerable shrewdness.

Tubbs moved his glass of beer about uneasily. Then, as if coming to a decision, he looked up and met Arthur’s gaze. He had an intermittent pant like that of an exhausted dog, which he attributed to a weak heart, or in his own words a funny ticker. His eyeballs were enormous. ‘Must be straight. I’ve got a record.’

‘You’ve been in prison!’

‘Right. Bank won’t touch me, can’t get backing, wouldn’t be trying to sell Wypitklere if I could develop it myself. Strictly confidential, keep it to yourself, Jenner would have me out in a minute if he knew.’

‘What was the offence?’

‘I was
accused
of embezzlement. It was all a mistake.’

Somehow this admission convinced Arthur of Tubbs’ good faith, perhaps because he felt that nobody would admit that he had been in prison if he were intending to commit a fraud afterwards. Money, however, was the problem. Payne had again spoken glowingly of the cream, but if money was to be borrowed from the bank Clare would have to know about it, and he knew that she would never agree. After much discussion Tubbs had said that he would take a thousand pounds for a twenty per cent share of all profits, but where was the money to come from? Easonby Mellon had to provide for two homes. There was very little money in his bank account, only just over five hundred pounds in the joint account Arthur shared with Clare. It was when he thought of the harmless deception that he practised in the role of Easonby Mellon that Arthur contemplated extending that deception. He flattered himself (or rather, he did not flatter himself) that he had some skill as a copyist, and Clare’s signature was almost as familiar to him as his own. She had recently received the quarterly bank statement for the money in her private account, which he knew to be a considerable sum. He signed Clare’s name to a cheque for five hundred pounds, which he transferred from her private to their joint account.

Looking back afterwards he thought that he must have been temporarily mad, but at the time he could think of nothing but getting a share of Wypitklere, and he persuaded himself that the deception would never be discovered. By the time she got her next quarterly statement at the end of June he would be able to repay the money through a loan. He would even repay it with a hundred pounds’ interest, so that if she noticed the unauthorised withdrawal her anger would be changed to pleasure.

The agreement was signed in the office of a solicitor named Eversholt, who had drawn it up. He appeared to regard Arthur, and indeed the whole affair, with an air of faint astonishment, and pronounced the name Wypitklere as though it were a bad joke. In the end Tubbs agreed to increase Arthur’s share of profits to twenty-five per cent. It seemed to him that he had driven a hard bargain, and he was pleased that Tubbs appeared satisfied.

‘Here’s my hand, partner.’ Tubbs’ hand was rather damp. ‘What are the development plans?’

Arthur had not really considered this problem, beyond feeling that it must be possible to get backing for such an obvious winner in half a dozen places. Tubbs, however, did not seem disturbed by his vagueness. ‘We’ll be in touch then. Cheeribye,’ he said. It did not occur to Arthur until afterwards that there was anything valedictory about his tone.

The blow fell within a week. Arthur had had several pots of Wypitklere made up from the formula given him by Tubbs, and had spent some time in making sketches for a wrapper to go round the container. He had also worked out on paper the costing of several thousand pots of the cream, the profitable retail price allowing for a handsome discount to distributors, and the likely profits. This delightful planning was disturbed by a telephone call from Payne. He asked Arthur, in a tone lacking his usual false joviality, to come and see him at home on the following morning.

When Arthur arrived Payne led him to the garage. He said nothing, but pointed to the windscreen and other glass sections of his car.

Arthur stared, aghast. In some places the glass was streaked as if somebody had drawn a cutting knife across it, and in others it was deeply pitted as though some glass-eating animal had been burrowing within it.

‘Well?’ the bank manager said.

Arthur wanted to say that it was not his fault, but what he actually said was, ‘I can’t explain it.’

Payne nodded grimly, as though this was what he had expected to hear. ‘You don’t deny that your
invention
is responsible for this.’

‘I suppose it must be.’

‘I shall have new glass put in throughout the car, and I shall charge it to you.’

‘Of course. Of course, yes, please do.’

‘Very well. I should have known better. In the meantime, I can’t use my car.’

‘I can’t think what’s gone wrong.’ He had hardly known what he was saying, but the full horror of his situation was borne in upon him. ‘I hope there isn’t any reason – I hope you won’t mention this to Clare.’

As Payne said to his wife afterwards, in that moment he felt really sorry for the poor little beggar, angry as he had been when he discovered the state of the glass. That his first thought should have been not of the failure of his invention, but the need to keep that failure from his wife. It was pathetic. ‘Served me right, really,’ he said to her philosophically. ‘I should have known that anything he invented was bound to be a dud. You can’t help liking Arthur, but he hasn’t got much in the top storey.’ They both made a point of being particularly nice to Arthur afterwards, and never mentioned a word about the matter to Clare.

Arthur went home a stricken man. He talked to the firm of wholesale chemists who had been making up Wypitklere and told them what he was using it for. They told him that the agent which cleared the windscreen had a corrosive effect upon glass. He paid a visit to Inter Commerce and saw the objectionable Jenner, but he was not really surprised to learn that no Clennery Tubbs had ever worked for them. He timidly recalled the occasion on which his dishwasher had been tested and Jenner remembered the man, who had come to show him some kind of demisting cream. Jenner had seen something similar before, and had not been taken in. Arthur saw the solicitor, who shrugged his shoulders and said that he had been approached simply to draw up an agreement and knew nothing about Tubbs. He went to the address given on the agreement and found that it was a tobacconist’s, a mere accommodation address. The man remembered Tubbs but said that he had not been in for some time. He realised that Tubbs had spotted him for a possible gull when he came out from the demonstration and had taken advantage of Arthur’s mistaken belief that he worked for Inter Commerce. He had been the victim of an obvious confidence trick.

The effect upon him was, superficially at least, an odd one. He felt angry about Tubbs, but his bitterest feeling was reserved for Clare. At the back of his mind, as he now dimly realised, there had been a belief that one day he would be free of his thralldom to her, one day an invention would make a lot of money and the money would give him freedom. Now this would never happen. He had no faith any longer that he would ever make money out of an invention, and just a few weeks ahead of him there loomed the terrible day of reckoning when Clare received her quarterly statement.