Gerald Kersh - Prelude To A Certain Midnight

In an ingratiating growl Sir Storrington said: ‘Can’t say I see eye to eye with you there, my dear. Look at me. Why, for the slightest word, I got hell. Why, if I failed to cell my father “sir”, he knocked me down. Remember once, I was accused of stealing pears. Didn’t steal pears. Naturally denied stealing pears, was horse-whipped twice, once for stealing pears and the second time for lying. Couldn’t sit, stand or lie down for a fortnight. Went into a high fever. Then my young brother owned up — he’d stolen the pears. I may say that I’d known it all along, but had said nothing; brothers stick together, what? I went to my father and said: “Hope and trust you’re convinced that I’m not a liar now, sir?” Father said: “Yes, my son, I’m convinced. But take this for your temerity — for daring to address me in that tone of voice.” And gave me about three dozen with a malacca walking-stick that had a silver knob carved to look like an elephant’s head. Upbringing? Environment? Never had any worth mentioning. Can’t say I believe in it. Father used to grab me by the ankle and hold me down out of a four-storey window, supposed to give one a horror of heights. Have I a horror of heights? Once, for a bet, I walked blindfold around the top of the Flatiron Building, New York. Do I go about killing little girls, on account of environment? Stuff!’

‘Oh Christ!’ said Cigarette, ‘is everybody still talking about this Sonia Sabbatani business? Everywhere I go, all I hear is Sonia Sabbatani, Sonia Sabbatani, Sonia Sabbatani: murder, murder, murder. Can’t anybody talk about anything else, for God’s sake?’

Tobit Osbert said: ‘But it really is a bad business. I knew the Sabbatanis. Sam did me more than one good turn. It brings the real monstrousness of the thing home to you, in a case like that.’

‘I never saw Toby cry before,’ said Catchy.

‘Did you really cry?’ asked Thea Olivia with tender coquetry.

‘I didn’t actually cry. I saw the grief of the others, and it may be that tears came into my eyes.’

‘Yes, Toby, and ran down your face,’ said Catchy.

‘You mustn’t be ashamed of having cried. It does you credit,’ said Thea Olivia.

Graham Strindberg muttered: ‘Where was God? Where was God?’

Suddenly Cigarette’s eyes became narrow and hard. They were focused on the face of a man who stood talking to Asta Thundersley in another corner of the room. ‘Look,’ said Cigarette, ‘look who we’ve got here. Dicks!’

‘Dicks?’ asked Thea Olivia. ‘Who is Mr flicks?’

‘I mean detectives,’ said Cigarette. She was looking at the man who at that time was Detective-Inspector, but now is Chief Inspector, Turpin.

BOOK THREE

33

The affair of Chicken Eyes Emerald having been resolved, Turpin was taking time off. Now, in his strenuous, jerky way, he was resting.

Normally, after a long-drawn-out job of work, Turpin took his wife to a cinema and spent a calm hour or two, smoking an inexpensive cigar and admiring the footwork of Fred Astaire. He laughed until he choked (‘laughed like a lavatory’, as the Bar Bacchus crowd would have said) at Mickey Mouse, and could give a tolerable imitation of Donald Duck. After the pictures, Turpin and his wife went home arm-in-arm, in perfect accord, never exchanging two words until they reached their doorstep, when she said: ‘I hope you’ve got your key …’ Then there would be supper. The implacable man-hunter loved his long, lazy evenings at home, where there was always something to be done — a nail here, a screw there, a dab of glue and a firm hand at such-and-such a joint — something to be done which he seldom did. He was the laughing-stock of the family. The children called him In-A-Minute — he was always putting things off. In the end it was Mrs Turpin who unstopped the sink or fixed the rattling window.

But she had gone to visit her mother. He was alone. Turpin found no pleasure in the cinema if his wife was not with him: there was no one to whisper to. Asta Thundersley’s invitation intrigued him. There was no harm in paying half an hour’s visit. He had met Asta twice — call it three times — and considered her as a lunatic, wrong-headed in a good direction, but not quite right.

Officially, he could not approve of Asta; yet she was a person after his own heart. She was angry and rebellious: that was silly. She knew exactly what she hated: he could not blame her for that. Her heart got into her throat: he was not out of sympathy with the noise she made. There had been occasions when Turpin had teetered on the verge of an outburst in the high, wide and handsome manner of Asta Thundersley. But the sort of scene she was capable of making over the impoliteness of a bus conductor would have cost him his position: detectives may not make scenes. They should not even express anger. Two or three times in his life Turpin would have given anything but his job for the joy of exploding like an overstrained boiler. But he was bound by the cold white bands of legal dialectic. Still, he envied Asta, who, privileged as a woman and a popular eccentric, could push open doors marked ‘Private’, grab terrified officials by the collar, beat people over the head with her umbrella and shout at the top of her voice wherever she happened to be She had guts where her brains ought to have been, he thought; but he liked guts. -

He was not in the habit of accepting invitations, and not much of a man for drinking-parties. But it is a good thing for a man in Turpin’s business to see a little of everything. Everything was experience, and experience sharpened the wits. The world was a great whirling grindstone upon which Turpin unostentatiously ground himself keener and keener like a headsman’s axe. ft was interesting, a Bohemian party like this: you never knew what you might find.

He was saying: ‘If it’s all the same to you, Miss, I think I’d just as soon have a glass of beer. If it’s not putting you to any inconvenience.’

Asta poured out a bottle of Bass, filling a glass with froth so that Turpin, wishing her good health and taking a polite sip, appeared for a moment to have become vulnerable yet dandified, with a neat little white moustache such as used to be worn by Mr Lewis Stone. Then she took him aside and whispered:

‘You know, I think the man who killed little Sonia Sabbatani must be here tonight.’

Detective-Inspector Turpin said: ‘Oh yes? Is that a fact?’

‘I’m sure of it.’

‘What makes you think so?’

‘I’ve been working things out. Practically every man here tonight is a suspect. Practically everyone.’

Smiling, Turpin glanced at the crowd. At least sixty people were drinking great glasses of Schiff’s cloudy orange-coloured mixture.

‘While you’re about it, you might have invited the rest of London,’ said Turpin.

‘Why be more of an idiot than God made you, for God’s sake? Do you take me for a fool? The man who killed poor little Sonia was one of the Bar Bacchus crowd.’

‘You know that for a fact, I dare say?’

‘I’m absolutely sure of it.’

‘Well, no doubt you’ve got your very good reasons.’

‘Look here, Turpin, work it out for yourself —’

‘I wish I could work it out for myself, Miss Thundersley, but it isn’t my department. All the same, I’d like to hear what I’ve got to work out for myself, if you know what I mean.’

‘That poor little girl was enticed — lured — inveigled into the filthy coal-cellar of that horrible house. I’ve been a little girl myself. You’ve never been a little girl, Dick, so let me tell you. There isn’t one girl in a million who’d go with a stranger into a deserted house. So she must have known him. Well, how could she have known him? Through her father’s shop. Sam Sabbatani is one of those homely little tradesmen: his wife and kid were always in and out of the shop. Everyone who set foot in the place was one of the family. Poor Mrs Sabbatani is for ever bringing in cups of tea. She’s made that way. You know the type of person I mean. Well, as it happens, Sam made a bit of a connexion at the Bar Bacchus. He’s still got a little advertisement hung up there — done in red and black lettering, in a little brown frame. You know Gonger the barman? Well, Sam Sabbatani made an arrangement with him — Gonger displayed Sam’s showcard, and Sam pressed Gonger’s suits and kept him in white jackets. You ask Gonger, you ask Sam Sabbatani. Most of Sam’s customers came from the Bar Bacchus. Work it out, Turpin, work it out!’