Gerald Kersh - Prelude To A Certain Midnight

‘Anything at all, thank you. It doesn’t matter a bit.’

‘Milk of course?’

‘Well, thank you, yes. … No, thank you very much, no sugar.’

‘I hope this is drinkable. But I beg your pardon. You were saying, Miss Thundersley?’

Thea Olivia no longer knew exactly what she had been saying. The virtue had gone out of her. Still, like an exhausted captain in a retreat, she rallied one last staggering platoon of words and said: ‘Quite simply. … There was, as I was saying, coal dust. To put it plainly, there was coal dust. Coal dust which you can account for, of course, but all the same … coal dust. I believe … I mean, I have been told, I have seen it on the pictures, it is common knowledge, that the police can find out all kinds of things from dust. I mean, there are all sorts of coal. I mean, nowadays, with microscopes and all that sort of thing, they can identify… well, they can identify practically anything they like. They can look through a microscope and tell you, let us say, where such and such kind of wool came from — just looking at dust — or whether this, that, or the other sort of dust came from this or that street… I don’t think I’m making myself quite clear, but perhaps you understand what I mean, Mr Osbert?’

‘Oh, perfectly, my dear Miss Thundersley. Is your tea all right?’

‘Thank you, yes. Yes, thank you very much. What was I saying? Now you’ve put me off. No, no, I’ve got it.’ Thea Olivia Thundersley made her last desperate charge. She said: ‘All that coal dust in your … your trousers. You say you must have got it in one of your friends’ houses, perhaps cooking dinners, or something. If you say so, I must believe you. I have no reason to disbelieve you, Mr Osbert. Why should you tell me stories? I believe that what you say is true.’

‘But I haven’t said anything, Miss Thundersley.’

‘I believe that what you say is true, Mr Osbert. But to set my mind at rest … I will gladly defray any incidental expenses, if I may say so without giving you offence. … Would you, for instance, allow those garments to be examined under microscopes et cetera by, for example, Scotland Yard?’

‘I do hope that tea’s all right. I’m not much of a hand at tea. I’m no good at this sort of thing. Do excuse me.’

‘I thought you said you cooked your friends’ dinners.’

‘Oh, but I do! I do indeed, Miss Thundersley, but as you no doubt know — anyone can cook a dinner, whereas there is an art in making a good cup of tea.’

‘No, but would you?’

‘I beg your pardon, would I what?’

‘I’m sure you can’t have forgotten what I was saying,’ said Thea Olivia, almost in tears. ‘I was asking you, and I believe that you remember as well as I do, I was asking you whether you would let the Scotland Yard people examine your trousers.’

Tobit Osbert nodded and, making a little astonished gesture, said: ‘Why, of course!’

Struggling with her instinctive reticence and hacking it away tentacle by tentacle, Thea Olivia managed to say: ‘I understand (you understand, Mr Osbert), I understand that I have no legal right to speak to you like this. In fact no right at all. As a matter of fact, I believe, in point of fact, that I am wasting your time and mine — not that my time is of any value to me, but I’m sure your time is very valuable to you. What I mean to say is, if I may be allowed to say so without offence — I’d gladly recompense you (because I know that you are a literary gentleman, and might have been earning the Lord knows how many pounds while I’ve been taking up your time) — glad, I mean, to, to, to…’

She wanted to say that she would pay twenty pounds to Tobit Osbert if he would let the police put a microscope on his trousers, but she could not say it. He, however, guessed it and said:

‘I do wish I had some biscuits to offer you. Or could you eat a little bread and butter? I can cut it quite thin. … No? Well, you know best, Miss Thundersley. Do forgive me. I’m afraid I side-tracked you. I may be wrong, but I somehow seemed to gather that you wanted to have my clothes examined by — it seems funny — the police?’

‘Yes,’ said Thea Olivia; and now she could get it out. ‘That’s right. And I’d gladly recompense you for any trouble —’

‘I’d be only too happy,’ said Tobit Osbert.

In a flat, disillusioned tone, Thea Olivia said: ‘I’m very glad to hear it.’ It occurred to her that she was making as big a fool of herself as her sister Asta.

‘… should be only too delighted,’ said Osbert, ‘only…’

‘Only what?’ asked Thea Olivia, almost hopefully.

‘It would give me all the pleasure in the world, my dear Miss Thundersley,’ said Osbert with a theatrical sort of deliberation, ‘but I sent that suit to be dry-cleaned and pressed this morning. You don’t know what pleasure it would have given me to be able to do what you asked of me, but there it is. I can’t.’

‘It may not be too late,’ said Thea Olivia. ‘You can’t have sent it off very long ago. You can call it back, surely?’

There was a silence. Then Osbert said: ‘You’re not drinking your tea. I’m afraid it isn’t much good. Shall I make you a fresh cup? If only you’d tell me just how you like it…’

‘I know I’m a silly old woman — very silly, and very old. But won’t you get that suit back, Mr Osbert? I know I’ve wasted most of your valuable morning. Don’t be offended — you are a professional man — let me pay you, say, twenty-five guineas for wasting your morning, if you get that suit back. Say I’m a little bit crazy like my sis — I mean, humour me in this, it is merely a fancy. Will you do it for me?’

Tobit Osbert looked at her steadily. His face had been politely serious. Now it changed. One tiny smile altered it as an impalpable corrugation changes a reflection in a mirror.

‘No,’ he said.

‘No?’

With severity in his voice and derision at the corner of his mouth, Tobit Osbert said: ‘My dear madam, I’m afraid you don’t quite realize that you are talking to a gentleman. We had a delightful evening last night, and I’ll always remember it. But I don’t think you can be quite yourself this morning. Do you realize that you have come into my room, more or less accused me of a very horrible murder, and actually offered me money to demonstrate to you whether or no I have committed it? Do you seriously, I ask you in all seriousness, do you seriously, my dear madam, expect me to accept money in such circumstances? For what do you take me? I don’t think I understand you.’

Thea Olivia looked at the shabby rug and the downtrodden linoleum; raised her eyes to the flaky ceiling, and at last looked into the eyes of Tobit Osbert; and she saw that he was laughing at her.

She rose.

‘I do beg your pardon. That tea couldn’t have been any good,’ he said.

‘One last thing, Mr Osbert: will you tell me to whom you sent your suit to be cleaned and pressed?’

‘Since you put it that way, madam, no, I won’t.’

‘Then I can only say Good Day.’

‘I’m sorry you have to go so soon.’

Thea Olivia went back to Asta’s house, full of frustration.

42

The Murderer sat down to write. He had sent his suit to be cleaned by Sam Sabbatani, who gave his dyeing and cleaning to the great Goldberg Dye Works which takes in half the dirty clothes in London every morning at nine o’clock. The firm of Goldberg makes a speciality of what they call ‘mourning orders’ and will dye anything funereally black within twenty-four hours.

Tobit Osbert found a certain refined pleasure in the contemplation of the fact that Sam Sabbatani, still red-eyed and thunderstruck with grief, was washing away evidence which might possibly have convicted the murderer of his daughter for three and sixpence — on the slate, at that.