Winter or summer, Beatrice woke early, and would lie in bed thinking or reading until about 7.15. Then she would get up and make the early morning tea, and wait impatiently until she heard, first the newspapers arrive, and after that the letters.
In the early days of her marriage she had tried without success to engage Bartels in conversation with her; she would read items from the newspaper, or from letters, express her opinions in her own forthright way, and await his response.
After a while, she gave it up as a bad job.
Bartels would lie half asleep, allowing his cup of tea to grow cold upon the bedside table; occasionally, if he could not avoid it, he would make a monosyllabic reply and then fall half asleep again.
But on the morning of 26 February, he was awake before Beatrice.
For a while he lay in the darkness of that winter’s morning, not moving for fear of awakening her, thinking over what he would do, and, in particular, how he would do it.
It is customary among people of a certain school of thought to say that all murderers must be mentally unbalanced to a greater or lesser degree; poor fellows who are in need of hospital treatment rather than punishment.
I do not consider myself at all unbalanced, and I am quite sure that on the morning of 26 February, Bartels was as sane and cool-brained as anybody else. He had a slightly neurotic fear of moths, dead or alive, and he suffered from a fear of confined spaces, but that is all; and there is not the shadow of a doubt that Philip Bartels came to the decision he did because he was brought up among relations who were so occupied with their own curious interests that they could spare no time to give him the love he needed.
Beatrice could not give it to him; Lorna could. So to Bartels, unable to inflict suffering upon man or woman or beast, there was only one possible way out. The only point he had not decided yet was how exactly he would do it.
He lay in bed thinking, quite calm now, because to a man like Bartels turmoil comes from indecision. He glanced at the luminous dial of his watch, and saw that the time was nearly seven o’clock. He reached up and switched on the light above his bed, and glanced across at Beatrice.
She lay sleeping quite peacefully. He thought dispassionately that this was possibly the last morning when he would see her thus, and he tried to arouse within himself some spark of sentiment.
But the only thoughts that came to his mind were that some day she would have to die, that for her the prolongation of life, perhaps into the feebleness and decay of old age, held no advantages in the long run. For Beatrice to fall asleep, without fear and in the bloom of life, involved no hardship for her.
The alternative for her, as he saw it, was to suffer the loneliness and humiliations of the abandoned wife; he was too fond of her to allow that to happen.
So his thoughts ran, while Beatrice slept on.
At seven o’clock he got up, moving quietly and with stealth, and went into the kitchen and made the early morning tea. He brought the little tray back, and set it on the table by the side of the bed, and gently shook her.
She stirred, and rubbed her eyes and looked at him. Her red hair lay spread out on the pillow. She was wearing a low-cut green nightdress, and the flesh of her arms glowed pink in the light from his bedhead.
She looked young and childlike, tousled with sleep. He thought she looked, indeed, rather beautiful, noting the fact in an unemotional way, and glad that the kind of protective emotional covering which he had assumed prevented the fact from touching his heart.
“Barty? What’s the matter?”
He smiled. “Nothing’s the matter. I just thought I would get the tea, for a change. A kind of treat for you.”
“Good heavens. How nice of you, my dear.”
“Miracles never cease, do they?”
He smiled back at her, and poured out two cups of tea. Beatrice sat up in bed, and took her cup and began to sip it.
“You look rather lovely, you know.”
“Thank you, Barty. Praise indeed.”
“Like one of those advertisements you see in magazines. Drink a cup of Slumbo and get eight hours’ sleep and be a beauty like me.”
He talked to her for a while, about this and that, for he knew she liked to chat in the early morning, and he was particularly anxious that she should enjoy herself that morning.
After a while, he heard the rustle of the morning papers being thrust through the letter box. He went out to fetch them, and when he returned he handed one to Beatrice, and opened one himself, sitting on the side of her bed.
For two or three minutes he sat reading and smoking. Then, his cigarette finished, he reached forward to extinguish it in the ashtray on the table by the side of Beatrice’s bed. As he did so, he noticed the bottle of indigestion powder, and the glass on a saucer, and the teaspoon.
He straightened himself, and stared at the bottle. It was nearly empty. Slowly and carefully he began to think round the idea which had occurred to him, much as a cat will peer and cautiously sniff at a plate of food suddenly presented to it.
“Nothing in the paper,” said Beatrice, continuing to read it just the same. She yawned.
Bartels said nothing. He was trying to remember two things. One was how big a dose Beatrice took of the powder, and the other was how often she took it when she had her periodic bouts of mild digestive trouble.
He reckoned there were about four teaspoonsful left in the bottle, and as far as he could recall, having once or twice mixed it for her, she took two teaspoonsful at a time.
Altrapeine was tasteless. That is what the medical book had said. So was the medicine Beatrice took. But was altrapeine really tasteless, or was it a comparative term?
He remembered the dog Brutus. The dog had taken it without trouble. But in that case the powder had been embedded into the meat, and when it came to meat the dog wolfed each piece almost without biting it. It was hardly a fair test.
Supposing he put double the necessary quantity into the bottle, since there were two doses of powder left, and supposing he did not mix the two powders evenly, so that Beatrice took a dose of almost pure altrapeine, would she notice it?
It would be too late, of course, because she always gulped her medicine down, but if she noticed a strange taste-and she had an extraordinarily delicate palate-and then began to lose consciousness, she would be afraid.
She would not suspect him, but she would be afraid. She would think, in the seconds before she died, that the chemist had made a mistake: one read about such mistakes. She would die in fear.
He remembered her fear when she had had her slight attack of palpitations. Her first worried little remark, early one morning: “I feel funny, Barty. I wish I hadn’t taken those aspirins.” And a few minutes later, the piteous little cry of real alarm: “Barty, I do feel queer; my heart’s beating terribly quickly, and I can’t seem to get my breath.”
He had calmed her down, only to hear her call out again a few moments later. She had rushed to the window and flung it open, and gulped down the air, and turned and clung to him with terror in her eyes, and cried; “Barty, Barty!” and then again, “Barty, Barty!”
Then, while he telephoned the doctor, she had gone and put her head under a cold-water tap, and had kept moving about the flat, always with fear in her eyes, crying, “I think I’m better if I keep moving! I seem to be better if I keep moving!”
It had been nothing serious, of course. She had simply knocked off aspirins and taken to phenacetin tablets instead, and had never had an attack since. Her heart was as sound as a bell.
But he remembered how he thought, in agony of mind: Not this way, dear God, not by death. Oh, God, don’t give me my freedom through her death!
It had changed since then. Now he not only desired her death: he was plotting it. Now it was freedom by death, yes, but not freedom by death and fear. Not that. He would wait a week, a month, a year, rather than that.
He lifted the teapot and looked at Beatrice.
“Care for another cup?” he asked.
“Yes, please. Not quite so much sugar this time, please.”
Beatrice answered without looking up from her paper. She was lying back smoking and reading. Soon, as Bartels knew, she would put down her paper and start talking about her plans for the day.
“Been having indigestion again?” he asked. “I see you’ve been taking your stuff.”
“Oh, nothing much. I’ve had one or two twinges in the night lately. That’s all.”
“How often do you take the stuff?”
Beatrice had a habit of becoming so deeply immersed in her reading that she was unable to hear questions put to her. So it was now. She did not answer.
“How often do you take it?” said Bartels again, more loudly. “Twice a day? Three times?”
Beatrice leant over and extinguished her cigarette in the tray. “Oh, no. I’m just taking it before I go to bed for a few days. I’ll have to get some more.”
“I’ll get it for you,” said Bartels.
“I’ve got enough to last tonight and tomorrow.”
“I’ll get you some today,” said Bartels dully.
“Oh, don’t bother, Barty. There’s no hurry.”
“I’ll get it for you today,” said Bartels again. “I’ve got to go to the chemist anyway to get some blades.”
He heard the postman’s knock, and went out and fetched the letters. There was nothing of interest, except a letter from a cousin of Beatrice’s saying her sister had had a baby. It was strange that they had never had a child, Beatrice and himself. The doctors could find no reason for it. He wondered if a child would have made any difference, and thought it probably would have done. Strange, then, that a hidden physical defect, some small maladjustment, accidental, invisible, inherited, could make so much difference to three people: could cause a man, indeed, to risk the hangman’s noose.
He had the information he wished now. She was taking the powder once a day, before going to bed; and she was taking about two teaspoonsful, as he had surmised.
“I think I’ll have my bath,” he said, and went out.
He passed the wardrobe where his suits were hanging. It was in the breast pocket of the oldest one, the one he rarely wore, that the bottle of altrapeine was secreted. It was quite safe there. Beatrice hardly ever went to his wardrobe, and if she did, while he was having his bath, she would have no cause to search the pockets of that old and dilapidated suit.
Bartels shaved and bathed, slowly, taking his time, and thinking out his next move.
He was still quite calm. Later, his nerves were to cause him trouble. But not yet. He was still enjoying the relief which comes from taking a decision after a period of mental struggle.
During the day, he would have to buy a bottle of Beatrice’s medicine.
This, when he returned and found Beatrice no longer alive, he would substitute for the one which had contained the poison. He paused in the act of cleaning his teeth: strange how he baulked at the word “dead.” “Beatrice dead.”
It was hard to imagine that forceful and well-organized woman dead. All life stilled, all plans cut short. It seemed utterly impossible.
He glanced at his wristwatch on the shelf above the handbasin. It was nearly 8 a.m. She usually went to bed at 11 p.m.
So in fifteen hours Beatrice would be dead. There was no doubt about it now. Even if he wished to do so, he could not call a halt now because he felt irresistibly caught in a moving band of events from which he knew himself to be no longer psychologically able to escape. He had set the machinery going. He couldn’t stop it now. It was stronger than him.
He continued to make detailed mental plans.
He would have to empty all the powder out of the new bottle except for about half a teaspoonful; no more and no less, for in case of investigation, he must guard against the possibility that the “daily help” might comment, however innocent her remarks, upon the fact that a comparatively new bottle of stomach powder stood by Beatrice’s bedside. He did not want the attention of the police, or Dr Anderson, to be drawn unduly to that bottle, though it was possible that they might wish to analyse the remains. That would be all right, of course. He did not wish them to search the dustbin, however, for the old one, and he did not wish to have to explain where it was, when they failed to find it.
It was on small points like that, thought Bartels, combing his hair in the bathroom, that a chap could come badly unstuck.
Like all murderers who plan their crimes, he was supremely confident. He couldn’t face a dead moth, he was afraid of being locked in a room. He even felt suffocated when a train in which he was travelling passed through a long, dark tunnel, unless the compartment was lighted. But he could pit his wits, gamble his life, risk his reputation in the eyes of posterity, against the most efficient police force in the world. Odd, really.
Now he began to consider the question of disposing of the bottle which had contained the poison. Almost at once a number of difficulties occurred to him.
He pictured the scene on his return. In his hand would be the new bottle, the label suitably rubbed to take away its freshness; by the bedside, the old bottle which had contained the altrapeine. He replaces it with the new bottle. Now he is standing there with the other one in his hand. Within a few minutes he must telephone the doctor, who might be on the scene in a quarter of an hour; perhaps less.
Bartels sat down on the edge of the bath and tried to think clearly. You had to guard against the time factor in these things; more, the time factor, combined with an unfortunate coincidence, with the unforeseen: the thing which upset your plans and sent you to the gallows. But how could you guard against something which you could not foresee?
He shook his head impatiently. He was getting abstruse. He must confine himself to difficulties which were real. There were enough of them.
Again he visualized the scene, again saw himself standing there with the bottle in his hand: Philip Bartels, with an incriminating article in his hand; and a telephone nearby which he would have to use at once; and a doctor who would be arriving at any moment.
But the Philip Bartels he saw wasn’t moving. He was standing still, his brain bewildered by the problem. Now fear was forming in his mind; and panic.
He came back to reality with an effort, took a turn up and down the bathroom; then sat down again and compelled his mind to think calmly. He began to analyse the problem, step by step, beginning with the simplest facts.
He had only two places in which to hide the thing: outside the house or inside.
Was it practical to remove the bottle from the house?
No. It was not.
Why? What’s wrong with that?
Because a nosy neighbour might see him throwing it in a street refuse-basket, and connect the action with any later development.
But why not take it out of the house and drop it in the Thames or the Serpentine? That’s safe, surely?
No, it isn’t. It’s even more silly.
Oh? Why?
Because, you fool, they would be able to tell very accurately the time at which Beatrice died. If you were seen to arrive after her death, and to leave the house again a few minutes later, and not return for some time, and if you still had not telephoned the doctor, you would be in a spot, wouldn’t you? Some of the questions you would have to answer about that little excursion would be a bit difficult, wouldn’t they?
But surely the neighbours, if they saw you at all, would later think that you had gone to fetch the doctor personally?
Plain wishful thinking. They might think it, or they might not: supposing a man taking his dog out saw you go out alone and return alone? And he, or somebody else, saw the doctor arrive later, by himself? And the two knew each other, or Dr Anderson knew one or the other, or both, or treated them professionally, or treated their wives or their children, or the whole dam’ lot?
Things could leak out that way, couldn’t they?
Better not take the bottle out of the house. Not that night, anyway. The following day, yes. But not that night.
So it will have to stay in the house.
Where?
Well, anywhere, really. Anywhere out of the sight of Dr Anderson. In a cupboard in the kitchen, perhaps. Or in a drawer somewhere. A drawer in the writing bureau. That’s it. Dr Anderson will sign the death certificate and go, and that will be that: coronary thrombosis, that’s what he would diagnose. That’s what the medical book said.
Bartels got up from the side of the bath. The problem seemed to be solved. He was about to leave the bathroom when he stopped dead.
But would that be the diagnosis? The phrase in the book ran: “The circumstances of death are to all intents and purposes similar to those associated with coronary thrombosis.”
To all intents and purposes? What was meant by that? Were there, in certain cases, symptoms which could raise even the smallest doubt? Complexion, for instance; or the age factor?
Supposing Dr Anderson did not at once diagnose thrombosis of the heart? He was a cautious old stick; unhurried, methodical, and pig-headed. A death certificate could be a dangerous thing to a doctor; wrongly given, it could damage his reputation. Bartels, a layman, could say nothing to put the idea of thrombosis into the doctor’s head. Anderson would have to come to his own conclusions in the matter.
He wouldn’t suspect murder, of course. That was out of the question.
But suicide? What if he suspected suicide?
Bartels, his head pressed against the bathroom door in an effort to concentrate, imagined Dr Anderson leading him into the drawing room. Imagined him speaking:
“Not entirely satisfied…presume your wife had nothing on her mind?…No, no, not as far as you are aware…of course not, of course not, highly improbable…nevertheless…stresses and strains of modern life…terrible wear and tear on the nerves, Mr Bartels…odd, unaccountable things do happen…case in the paper the other day…have to be so careful, you know…feel sure you won’t mind if…another opinion…set my mind at rest…police surgeon…accustomed to things…purely a formality, of course…headaches might have unduly distressed her…possibility that Mrs Bartels did not wish to embarrass you…her last thoughts not to create a scandal…police surgeon…yes, Mr Bartels…if you don’t mind…just use your telephone?”
The police car, black, smoothly purring, sinister, would draw up outside. The police surgeon would come in, accompanied by a sergeant and a constable. Questions, questions, questions.
Your name? Your wife’s christian names? Age? All the rest of it.
While the doctors conferred, the sergeant and constable would be talking to you; polite, deferential, formally sympathetic.
Would you have any objections if they just looked around the flat while they were waiting? A search? Oh, no. Just look around. Just in case “the unfortunate lady may have had a nervous breakdown, sir.”
No, sir. Of course not, sir. Most unlikely, sir.
Nevertheless, if you don’t mind, sir.
We won’t make the place untidy, sir.
It won’t take long, sir.
Perhaps you could do with a cup of tea, sir?
That’s right, sir, sit down there, we’ll bring you one. You can drink it while we’re having a quick look around.
A quick look around. But it would be a search just the same. By experienced, observant men. First the medicine cupboard, of course. Nothing there, nothing of interest there. Then the bedroom: the cupboard in the bedside table, the bottles on the mantelpiece-lotions, perfumes, and the rest. Then the dressing table, and its drawers. Then the kitchen. Nothing there, either.
Then the drawing room.
The bureau. The bureau drawers.
Did your wife suffer a lot from indigestion, sir? Did she usually keep her old stomach-powder bottles?
Can you think of any reason why she should keep one among her boxes of writing paper, sir?
Sniff, sniff. No smell, of course. Nothing suspicious at all. Just the usual small amount of white powder in the bottom of the bottle.
We’d better just take it along, sir. You don’t mind, do you, sir?
Altrapeine, that’s what the analysis would show. What woman, what normal housewife would think of committing suicide by taking such a comparatively unknown drug as altrapeine. And if his love for Lorna Dickson became known-“association,” the police would call it-what then?
What then, indeed.
For a few moments Bartels found the problem of the disposal of the bottle the same night too baffling to solve. He stood in the bathroom, staring at the locked door, while the idea grew in his mind that he would have to abandon the whole thing.
It was too risky.
There was not only himself to consider. Lorna would be involved. She would certainly be investigated: the police never forgot the Thompson-Bywater case. Word would get round, that was quite certain. It always did. At the best, her business would be ruined, and she would have to leave the district. Start afresh somewhere else, on practically nothing.
“Too risky,” said Bartels softly. “Too bloody risky.”
Thank heavens he had tried to plan every detail in advance.
Thank God he had had enough imagination to picture every incident which could happen before it happened. Thus Bartels, feeling in his dressing-gown pocket for his lighter to light a cigarette, decided that he would have to give the whole idea up, not only for that night, but perhaps for always. The same problem would always arise.
He lit his cigarette. Human nature being what it is, a very slight feeling of relief came over him; a man’s philosophy of life and death may make him indifferent to humane killing, in special conditions, but to risk the long-drawn-out rigmarole of a trial and the scaffold is a different matter.
Circumstances beyond his control were preventing him from carrying out his plan. What the future held he could not tell; he had not had time to think. But for the moment he need do nothing; and because he need do nothing, he felt the tension relax within him. The machine had stopped, and with it the moving band of events.
He replaced the lighter in his pocket. A simple enough action, but important, for there was the solution: his pocket. It was as simple as that, he thought, and at once the burden of events closed in on him again and he saw that there was no further delay open to him.
He could conceal the bottle that had contained the poison in his trousers pocket. Next day he could walk out with it and dispose of it how he wished.
Whatever Dr Anderson thought, whatever the police surgeon thought, if he came to the flat, there could not possibly be enough evidence to justify the police in holding him and searching him.
Arrests in poison cases take some time. There is an autopsy to be performed, motive and opportunity to be proved, senior officers and law officers consulted. It all takes time.
Without an arrest there would be no body-search of the suspect. No officer would have the audacity to request him to turn out his pockets for inspection, within an hour or two of his wife’s death from a probable attack of coronary thrombosis, without most damning evidence.
Bartels saw the wheels begin to turn again, the machine start, and the moving band slide forward once. There was no escape. He would go forward because he had to do so.
He had committed himself, not in other people’s eyes, who might have been prepared to understand, but in the court of his own self-esteem.
He realized now that there was an important side issue to the act which he had planned. He had been a failure in life; he had lacked courage, self-confidence, and that self-assertiveness which is needful for success.
The act of murder which he planned, the proof that he, Philip Bartels, could if necessary beat the police and society, would bring him not only Lorna Dickson, but, in a twisted kind of way, balm to the self-esteem which had been damaged over the years.
If he drew back now, from fear or lack of tenacity, he was finished forever in his own eyes. He would have had his supreme test, dark and secret though it was, and he would have failed.
Uneasily, his hand on the door of the bathroom, Bartels for the first time began to question his motive. Hitherto, he had felt sure that they were based upon love for Lorna, pity for her in her loneliness, and an overwhelming desire to save Beatrice from being hurt and distressed.
Now he had glimpsed something else. Something which he had choked back into his subconscious; something mean and slimy; ignoble, based upon vanity and frustration. A desire to equate himself with others who had defeated their fellow men, had had their triumphs in the world of commerce, or art, or sport.
But they had won their victories openly. At the best, he would be the victor on a secret battlefield, a battle darkly fought, in which the only victim would be Beatrice, a woman who trusted him.
He hesitated to open the door, because he knew that once he passed through it he would be committed to act. There would be no turning back. The depression which had descended upon him was the greater because it followed so swiftly upon the heels of his earlier relief.
He heard the voice of Beatrice calling from the bedroom, asking if he had nearly finished with the bathroom. He glanced at his watch. He had been in there over three-quarters of an hour.
Bartels wrenched the door open.
He went along to the bedroom. Beatrice was up, sitting in front of the dressing table in her dressing gown, filing her nails. She looked round as he came in.
“You’ve been a long time, Barty.”
“Have I? Sorry.”
“What on earth have you been doing?”
“Thinking,” said Bartels.
“Well, I wish you would think somewhere else. What were the great thoughts?”
“Nothing much,” said Bartels. “Just about this and that. By the way, I shan’t be in this evening. I’ve got some ghastly dinner in Colchester with some local wine society. What’ll you do?”
Beatrice thought for a moment. “I’ll probably go and see that film at the local. I’ve been wanting to see it for some time.”
“Don’t wait up for me. You know what these things are.”
When Beatrice had gone into the bathroom, he finished dressing, and went to the wardrobe, and found the bottle of altrapeine. He had bound some adhesive tape round the neck and stopper, lest a few grains should leak out, and, in the event of things going wrong, be found on analysis of his pocket dust by the police laboratory.
You couldn’t be too careful.
Then, having nothing further to do at the moment, he went to the kitchen and started cooking the breakfast. There were two eggs in the refrigerator. He fried them, and added two rashers of bacon, and two tomatoes. He also fried some bread. When he had finished, he put the food on a dish, and placed it in the oven to keep warm, and made some toast and coffee.
He had finished the toast when Beatrice came into the kitchen, and he helped her to lay the table.
Beatrice enjoyed her meal. She said so.
“Though what we’re going to eat for the rest of the week for breakfast, Barty, I don’t know.”
Bartels thought: Brutus enjoyed his run along the hedgerows; she’s enjoyed her breakfast. Aloud, he said:
“Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may die. Or today, if it comes to that. You never know.”
Beatrice said: “Don’t be so gloomy, Barty.”
“Well, you never know, do you?”
He hated himself for his grisly humour, and was at a loss to understand why he had made the remark.
After breakfast he went to his typewriter to type a letter to his bank manager. When he had finished, he sat listening.
Beatrice was in the kitchen, washing up. He stamped his letter, put it in his pocket, and went into the bedroom and took the bottle of digestive powder, and went along to the kitchen. He put his head round the door.
“As a matter of fact, my own stomach feels a bit upset this morning. I’m going to steal a dose of your powder, if you don’t mind. I’ve got that dam’ dinner tonight.”
“Use one of these cups,” said Beatrice. “It makes the glass so hard to polish.”
“It’s all right. I’ll use the tooth-mug in the bathroom.” He went into the kitchen, picked up a teaspoon, and went into the bathroom, and closed the door. He locked the door, but before he did so, he opened the window; such was his fear of confined spaces.
He felt curiously aloof and detached, as though he were watching from close at hand the actions of somebody else called Philip Bartels.
It did not seem possible that it was really he who extracted two teaspoonsful of Beatrice’s medicine, and threw it into the basin, and carefully rinsed away the scattered grains from the side. That represented the amount he was supposed to have taken.
He examined the amount which remained: as he had guessed, there was enough left for about one dose. Some of this, too, he extracted, to leave room for the altrapeine.
He unscrewed the top of the little bottle holding the altrapeine powder, and poured the whole amount into the palm of his left hand. Then he tipped up the medicine bottle, and added the remains of the digestive powder.
With the handle of the teaspoon, he stirred the two powders together; round and round, occasionally lifting some of the mixture from the bottom and sprinkling it on top. He stood for about two minutes, stirring and lifting, and stirring again.
Purposely, he had added considerably more altrapeine than the maximum fatal dose. He had to allow for the possibility that Beatrice would not entirely empty the bottle. Finally, again using the narrow handle of the spoon, he carefully ladled the mixture into the medicine bottle, and replaced the screw top.
He rinsed out the little aspirin bottle and put it in his trousers pocket, and filled the tooth-mug with water and emptied it, to make it seem as though it had been used. He wetted the appropriate end of the teaspoon, and washed his hands.
It was done now.
The stuff was in the bottle. There was little more to do, at least at the flat. He took the bottle and spoon into the kitchen, wiped the spoon on a teacloth, and replaced it in its proper place. Beatrice was still at the sink.
“Where shall I put the medicine?” he asked.
“Put it by my bed, will you?”
He went into the bedroom and placed it by her bedside, and looked slowly round the room. Then he went into the sitting room and glanced round there, too. He might as well remember it. It would never be the same again.
He might spend part of one more night there, but that was all. After that he would leave, and stay in a hotel; or go away. That would be better. He would ask for a week or two off, and go away; anywhere, so long as it was not near the flat. Or near Lorna.
He would have to keep away from Lorna for at least a month; possibly more. She would understand, except that, not knowing the circumstances, she would put it down to his delicacy of feelings.
He would not be able to marry her for at least a year. It would be unwise to show any indecent haste. There again, chaps were inclined to go wrong: indecent haste; tongues wagging; malicious gossip; tales reaching the police; all inaccurate, of course, but perhaps enough to make the police start making inquiries.
Not that they would be likely to get far, at that late date. Still, you couldn’t be too careful.
He went into the hall and put on his overcoat and gloves, and picked up his soft brown hat. It was time to be off.
So that was that.
All that remained now was to say goodbye to Beatrice.
He walked down the passage to the kitchen, and went in, and kissed her on the lips, showing neither more nor less warmth than he normally did.
“Bye-bye, darling,” Beatrice said, and turned back to some cutlery she was polishing.
“Bye-bye,” said Bartels, “take care of yourself.”
“I will,” said Beatrice. “You, too.”
He turned and walked out of the kitchen, and down the passage, and out of the front door. He closed the front door behind him, and walked down the stairs.
At that moment, what worried him more than anything else was the complete lack of emotion which he felt. Again he seemed to be watching himself, rather than taking part in the scene.
He had expected a wave of emotion to flood him when he said goodbye to Beatrice for the last time. But it didn’t happen. He felt unmoved. As though that morning were the same as any other morning. As though, when he returned that evening, Beatrice, as she often was, might still be awake; sitting up in bed reading, waiting for him, waiting to greet him with a cheerful word, and ask him if he wanted a cup of tea.
It didn’t seem right to feel as he did: cold, unexcited.
He began to wonder whether, in fact, he was the abnormal, callous brute history would make him out to be if things went wrong.
Up to now, he had told himself that he was actuated by pity. But even though his philosophy about death was genuinely felt, should he not have experienced a tinge of the same pity when he said goodbye to Beatrice?
Maybe he was indeed abnormal, in some way. Maybe the secret thrill of defeating the police system, of raising himself in his own esteem, played a bigger part in the matter than he had realized.
A worried frown creased his forehead as he left the house.
For the first time, he had grave doubts about his actions. He tried to brush them aside.
He was working at head office that day; checking his sales record, answering letters, sending out other letters to say that he would be in such-and-such a town on such-and-such a date, and would like to call and present his compliments to this buyer and that. Mapping out itineraries. Writing to hotels booking rooms.
At lunch time, he took an Underground train to Victoria station, and went up into the mainline station, and paused outside the Boots chemist shop which is near to the station hotel.
He looked through the door.
Several people were standing at the counter waiting to be served. He went in.
Trade was suitably brisk, the assistants serving one customer and passing to the next with hardly a glance at them. Cough drops. Cold mixtures. Purges. Toothpaste. Soap. Goods and money changed hands quickly. He asked for a bottle of the digestive powder.
“Small bottle or large?” asked the assistant.
Bartels thought furiously.
Which? Which size was the correct one? Which? He didn’t know. He just had no idea. This was it. Or could be it. The unforeseen. The unexpected thing which drew attention to you. The thing you couldn’t guard against.
He pretended not to have heard. “I beg your pardon?”
“Small bottle or large, sir?”
“Oh. Small, please.”
He would recognize it when he saw it. If it were the wrong size, he would go elsewhere and buy the right size. She took a bottle from a shelf, and he at once saw it was the right size.
“Don’t bother to wrap it up.”
He gave her the exact money, and she turned to the till, and to the next customer. He was just one of the many; a nondescript-looking little man in a grey coat and brown hat, wearing spectacles. Nothing there to excite the interest of a young and romantic chemist’s assistant.
He took a bus back to Hyde Park Corner, and walked down Piccadilly to the office. Before going in, he had a sandwich and a large whisky in a public house.
The day wore slowly on.
From time to time, he thought: Perhaps she has not waited till this evening. Perhaps she has had an unexpected attack of indigestion and has already taken the dose.
You couldn’t tell. She might already be dead.
His heart began to beat faster as he contemplated the possibility: that would be finality, and he, Philip Bartels, traveller in wines, would be a murderer.
Shortly after four o’clock he could stand the suspense no longer. He dialled the number of the flat.
Instead of the ringing tone, he obtained a high-pitched whining tone. He dialled a second time with the same result.
With a sick feeling at the back of his throat he dialled O and spoke to the operator.
The cold, impersonal little voice at the other end of the line asked him to hold on. He heard her test the number herself, and then say:
“I’m sorry, caller, the line is out of order.”
“Can you have it put right at once?” He hesitated. “It’s important,” he began and then stopped. He couldn’t afford to make a fuss, to draw attention to himself.
“I’ll report it to the engineers’ department,” said the girl in her cool voice.
“Thank you,” said Bartels humbly. “Thank you.”
He replaced the receiver, and sat staring at the instrument. Then he lifted the receiver again and dialled the number of Mrs Doris Stevenson, who lived in the flat opposite. He heard Doris Stevenson’s thick treacly voice, and said:
“Mrs Stevenson? This is Philip Bartels. I wonder if you would do me a favour? I’ve been trying to ring Beatrice, but the line is out of order. I wonder-”
“I’ll see if she’s in,” interrupted Mrs Stevenson. “Hold on a minute.”
He pictured her bulky form waddling across to his flat door; ringing; waiting.
After a while she came back.
“I think she must be out, Mr Bartels. Can I give her a message?”
“Could you ask her to ring me? The fact is,” he added carefully, “I seem to have lost my cheque book. I want to see if it’s at home by any chance.”
“She can ring from here,” said Mrs Stevenson. “I’ll certainly let her know.”
Bartels thanked her and rang off.
A secretary called Miss Latimer came into his room to collect some pamphlets. She looked at him, picked up the pamphlets, and said:
“Are you feeling all right, Mr Bartels?”
“Of course I’m feeling all right. Why shouldn’t I be?”
“I thought you looked a little pale, that’s all.”
God, did he look as bad as that?
“Oh, nonsense,” he said irritably, and instantly regretted it. This was it, this was one of those unforeseeable things against which you could take no precautions.
He felt the blood flushing into his face. He shouldn’t have shown irritation, he shouldn’t have answered like that. Now she would remember. He had created an incident out of a normal question. Now she would tell the others about it. He felt more blood coming into his face, and put his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands. All he could think of was the phrase: this is it. Apart from that, his brain seemed to have ceased to work properly.
Miss Latimer said nothing, but he knew that she was standing at the door watching him curiously. Finally, when his face was no longer flushed, he looked up at her and smiled.
“I’m sorry I snapped at you, Miss Latimer. The fact is, I feel all right, that is, I haven’t got a headache or anything, but I think I’m getting a cold. I keep feeling cold and then hot and sticky.”
“That’s a cold all right.”
He smiled again. “I suppose it must be. I’ll take some hot whisky tonight.”
“I’ll give you some of my cold pills, Mr Bartels. I’ve got some in my desk. They’re wonderful. Really, they are.”
“Oh, don’t bother, though it’s very nice of you.”
But she had gone. In three minutes she was back, carrying two tubes of pills. She was a plump, good-natured girl. Full of kindly actions, thought Bartels bitterly.
“You take a red one in the morning, a green one at lunch time, and another red one before you go to bed.”
“I don’t really think I need-”
But she would not let him finish. “My sister had a shocking cold coming on last week, and she took them, and they kind of nipped it in the bud. Went right away, it did. Never came on at all. And Leslie, in the despatch department, he swears by them now. Go on, Mr Bartels, take them.”
He took the pills and thanked her, and offered to pay for them, but she would not let him.
Red pills and green pills. A fine physic for the soul. One in the morning, and one at midday and one at night.
But he had done right to take them. Better take them and seem thankful, rather than have word go around that “Mr Bartels was looking queer that afternoon. He wouldn’t say anything. Kind of snappish, he was. But ever so queer he looked. I remember now.”
Better anything than that.
At 4.30 his telephone rang. It was Beatrice.
“Why, hello, Barty!” Beatrice said in surprise. “Anything the matter? Mrs Stevenson left a note on the door telling me to ring you.”
“No, nothing. Why should there be?”
“I just wondered. You don’t often ring up during the day, that’s all.”
“I only wanted to ask you how your indigestion was. That’s all. Anything wrong in that?” The relief he felt was showing itself in mild irascibility. “I rang you up earlier, but the phone is out of order. Where are you speaking from?”
Beatrice laughed. She sounded pleased and flattered because he had telephoned. “A callbox, Mrs Stevenson’s gone out herself now.”
“Mrs Stevenson rang the bell, but said you were out.”
“I wasn’t,” she said. “As a matter of fact, I heard the bell ring.”
“Why didn’t you answer it? I thought you were out,” he said again. He was angry now, and repetitive in his anger.
“I was washing my hair. I had my head in a basin of water, and by the time I had got to the door, she had gone. I was wondering who it was.”
“Is my cheque book at home?”
“Yes, it’s in the bureau.”
“Good. How is your tummy, anyway?”
“The tummy? Oh, it’s all right, thank you, darling. I’ll take my usual dose tonight, but I don’t think I’ll take any more. Don’t bother to buy any more, Barty.”
“All right, then. I must be off now.”
“To Colchester? I should have thought you would have been on your way by now. You’ll be late.”
“Not if I step on it. Bye-bye, Beatrice.”
“Bye-bye, darling.”
He sat back in his chair. Bye-bye, Beatrice. Bye-bye, darling, she had said. He would never speak to her again. It was a sad little ending.
When he was clearing up before leaving the office, he remembered something which turned him sick with fear.
It was something he had overlooked, not one of the unforeseeables; and the fear he experienced was caused by the thought of what might have happened if he had not remembered it, and by the feeling that there might be something else which he had overlooked.
It was one of the most obvious of all traps, and he had nearly fallen into it: he, who thought he had planned this business so cleverly. He writhed at his own incompetence.
Fingerprints! The thing which the veriest amateur remembers! On the new bottle, the bottle with which he would replace the poison bottle, there would be his own prints. But there would not be a single print from the fingers of the woman who was supposed to have been taking the medicine: plenty of Philip Bartels’ fingerprints, and none of Beatrice’s.
He stared unseeingly through the office window.
He could rectify that, but the thought of what he would have to do increased his sick feeling: the thought of taking the dead hands of Beatrice and pressing her fingers to the bottle, the fingers of the right hand on to the top of the bottle, and the fingers of the left hand around the bottle.
“I can’t do it,” he whispered. “I just can’t do it.”
A voice whispered back inside his head: “Beaten by a little thing like that? No wonder you’re a failure.”
Bartels sighed, and knew he would have to do it after all.