The End Of Solomon Grundy (13 page)

Down in The Dell

Caroline Weldon wheeled in a trolley from the other side of the room divider, and shouted “Supper.” Cyprian did not stop looking at the television set, but stretched out a hand, picked up a bowl of soup and a spoon and began to convey the soup to his mouth. Gloria came in, said, “Oh, Mummy, look at him, honestly he’s too much.”

She walked over to the television and switched it off. Cyprian protested. Gloria appealed to her mother.

“Honestly, he just sits looking at that thing and shovelling food into himself, can you wonder he’s fat?”

“Bum to you, sis,” said Cyprian.

“And disgusting.”

“Shut up,” said their mother. Brawny arms akimbo she went to the door and shouted again, “Dick. Supper.”

Dick came down the stairs, wearing the dirty old clothes he always put on as soon as he got home. He was met by protests from Gloria and Cyprian, which he ignored. He took his bowl of soup and began to drink it standing in front of the television set, rather as a few years earlier he might have stood in front of a fireplace. There were no fireplaces in The Dell.

Caroline sat on the arm of a chair with her own soup, and looked respectfully up at him. She knew the signs. Dick was about to make some serious pronouncement. It was the kind of thing that made her feel they were really a tremendously united family, and sure enough when he spoke it was to use the out-of-date slang which for Dick was always a sign of emotion.

“Rally round now, all of you, and listen to me. I want to talk about Sol.”

“Is he a killer?” Cyprian asked. Gloria gave an exasperated sigh.

“Of course he’s not. We all know Sol, he’s a bit of a rough diamond but he wouldn’t do anything like that. He never even knew the girl.” In spite of himself, Dick could not help letting a slight note of scepticism enter his voice as he said these words.

“Then why did he tear her dress? And why did she slap his face?” Cyprian asked.

“Honestly, doesn’t he butt in, Daddy, isn’t he the most terrible bore?”

“You’re both being pretty tiresome.” Dick was a quick eater. He had finished his soup, and now took a hunk of bread and cheese. “If you’ll listen to me for five minutes we might get on a bit. Sol’s going to be tried for murder on some of the flimsiest evidence I ever saw. That identification parade was a scandal, he should never have let himself be put up for it. I’m sorry to say that some of our friends here seem just to be taking it for granted that he did it. Very bad show, that is. Now, what I suggest is that we should form a little group to try to discover the evidence that shows Sol didn’t do it.”

“Suppose he did?” It was Cyprian again.

Dick Weldon rarely lost his temper, and he did not do so even under this provocation. He said calmly, “He didn’t, Cyprian. Let’s not argue about that.”

Caroline was looking puzzled. “What have you got in mind?”

“First of all, there’s what Jennifer Paget said about seeing them outside on Saturday night. I believe she was – mistaken, let’s put it that way. I thought we might just go over and make sure exactly what she could see.”

Half an hour later, the four of them stood at the entrance into The Dell from Brambly Way. Gloria and Cyprian had reluctantly agreed to play the parts of Estelle Simpson and Sol, and were standing close together almost opposite Kabanga’s house. Caroline, leading an imaginary dog, entered The Dell from Brambly Way and walked past them. Afterwards Gloria and Cyprian went together towards Kabanga’s house. Dick stood watching.

“Did you see them?”

“Don’t be silly, of course I did. I knew they were there. And they were standing almost under the lamp. They could have moved farther into the shadow.”

“It’s damp farther in,” Gloria said. “She wouldn’t have wanted to get her shoes dirty, would she?”

Dick had his pipe going. Now he said, “Why should they have been standing outside anyway, running the risk of someone seeing them, why not go into the house straight away?”

Felicity Facey bore down upon them, with Adrienne in trail. They exchanged sharp “Good nights”. Felicity’s suggestion that Marion had been murdered had become known in The Dell and had aroused indignation in some households, approval in others. Caroline had made clear her own feeling that Felicity had behaved badly, and the two women were barely on speaking terms. When she had gone by Dick repeated his question, to which nobody had an answer. “I think I’ll just have a word with old Trapsell about that.”

After they were indoors again Gloria said, “I tell you what I might do, I might talk to Adrienne. At school, I mean. She’s quite thick with Jennifer, and she keeps on saying things about her that are – well, sort of mysterious.”

“But I thought you didn’t like Adrienne.”

“I don’t much. But still I could try and find out about this, couldn’t I? Whatever it is.”

“Do that,” Dick said indulgently. His pipe had gone out, and he relit it. “I must say I don’t feel we’ve wasted our time, do you?”

The question was rhetorical, and remained unanswered. Much later, in bed, Caroline said, “Do you think Sol can’t have done it? Not possibly, I mean?”

Dick’s large nose pointed to the ceiling. “Yes.”

“I don’t know what I think. He’s a funny sort of man, Sol, and I always thought Marion didn’t give him – I mean, I shouldn’t say they were really compatible, would you?”

Dick turned and gripped her shoulders firmly. “I don’t want to hear you talking like that. They’re our friends. Nobody would have said anything like that before this happened. The way people behave—” He did not finish the sentence, but started another. “If you’re not going to believe the best about your friends when they’re in trouble, what hope is there for anybody? I mean, supposing it had happened to us, a frightful series of coincidences like this.”

Caroline moved closer into his arms. “Yes, that’s what it is. A series of coincidences.”

On the following day Dick rang up Trapsell, and told him his deductions. The solicitor was unimpressed.

“Yes, Mr Weldon. I think you can take it that’s the kind of thing that won’t be overlooked.”

“You mean you’d realised it already? It will be brought out in evidence?”

“The conduct of the case is in the hands of Mr Newton.”

“But surely you must see—”

“Your friend Mr Grundy has every faith in Mr Newton, and I suggest we leave it to him.”

When he had put down the telephone Trapsell told his clerk that he was out if Mr Weldon called again. It was by pure error that Dick’s next telephone call, a couple of days later, was put straight through to Trapsell’s office. This time the solicitor’s impatience turned to interest within half a minute. He listened attentively, told Dick to ring him at any time without hesitation, and put through a telephone call at once to Magnus Newton.

After their guests had gone Jack Jellifer surveyed the debris of the dinner party with real distress. The main dish, steak cooked in the oven with wine and herbs, had not really been as tender as he would have wished, the burgundy had been a disappointment, there had been something disturbingly (he found himself searching for the right word even in his present anguish of mind) disturbingly
lush
about the sorbet which should have finished off the meal with tongue-cleaning freshness.

Perhaps these subtleties had gone unnoticed by the guests, two influential clods from New Zealand who might arrange a lecture tour for him, but Jack felt the pangs of the defeated artist. He had, also, a burning feeling, or something between a burning feeling and a knife-like pain, penetrating his chest. He said as much to Arlene.

“Indigestion.”

“You know I never suffer from it.”

“Conscience, then.” Jack burped. “I knew it was indigestion. You haven’t got a conscience.”

“Arlene, my love, please don’t go into all that again.”

“I shall go into it as often as I like.” She confronted him, a savage green and yellow and blue-hued parrot with scarlet claws. “Why didn’t you let the bloody police do their own dirty work? If Sol did kill that bitch I expect she deserved it, and anyway what did you want to say anything for, why couldn’t you wait till you were asked?”

“I’ve told you over and over again that I felt it to be a public duty—”

“Public duty be –ed,” said Arlene, who was given to free use of language. “You went to them because you don’t like Sol, that’s all. And I don’t believe you saw anything anyway.”

“I feel one of my headaches coming on.” Jack dropped into a chair and covered his eyes with one plump hand. Through his fingers he could see the abstract painting, but it lacked power to console him at the moment.

“I’ll tell you something that will make it worse, then. The daily’s not coming in tomorrow so there’s the washing up to do, and I can tell you I’m not doing it on my bloody own.”

“Pseudo,” Edgar Paget said. “That’s the trouble with this country today, too many pseudo people in it. You know what I mean, the sort of people who read
The
Times
and the
Guardian
because the
Telegraph’s
not good enough for ’em. Snobs. That place is packed full of ’em.” His thumb jerked in the direction of The Dell.

“I never noticed it stopped you selling them houses,” his wife said.

“Of course not, I’m a business man. But I’m a private citizen too, and a private citizen can have an opinion, can’t he? This garage trouble, now, it comes from the pseudos like that man Grundy. You know I walked out, walked straight out of that meeting. ‘I shall want an apology,’ I said. Do you know what happened today? I had a telephone call from Sir Edmund, you know Sir Edmund, a real gentleman of the old school. He told me they were all very sorry for what had happened and the Committee had met again and they’d like to go ahead on the basis I suggested. It just needs a little common-sense and goodwill, that’s all, to make the world go round. Get rid of the trouble makers and pseudos like this fellow Grundy.” His wife glanced at him warningly, but Edgar took no notice. “Playing around with a woman who was going with a coloured man, and then strangling her. I knew he was a bad one, a real pseudo, the first time I set eyes on him. I wish I was going to give evidence instead of you, my girl, I can tell you that.”

Jennifer had been sitting reading, or pretending to read, the evening paper. Now she threw it down. “Oh, Daddy, I wish you’d shut up talking about that horrible man.”

She ran out of the room. Edgar looked after her, shook his head. “I don’t know what’s got into the girl, turning on the waterworks like that. She did it after the identification you know, but not when she was at the Magistrates’ Court. Stood up there cool as a cucumber, I was proud of her.”

Rhoda looked as if she was about to make some protest. In fact she said simply that she had some washing to do, and stumped out of the room.

“But giving evidence for the
prosecution,”
Lily said. “I mean, darling, I just don’t see it.”

Werner shrugged his elegant shoulders. “English law, it’s crazy. You heard what I told what’s his name, Manners, every word of it. Could I have said less? Did I say anything that was not true? But now they are telling me that I must go to the Old Bailey and say it, and I don’t want to.” They were sitting on the sofa, and he tugged her hair.

“Can’t you just tell them that?”

“My sweetie pie, don’t you think I’d like to? This whole thing is ruin, I can tell you. Guffy, he’s finished, nobody will look at him. Business is not good, in fact it is lousy, and it is going to get lousier. Don’t you think I wish I could get out of the whole thing, and get old Sol out too?”

“What did he say when you saw him last week? How did he seem?”

“I don’t understand the way his mind works. He might almost be enjoying it.”

He tugged her hair again, sharply. She turned her head towards him, and he kissed her.

Letter from Solomon Grundy to Marion Grundy:

Thanks for letters. Feeling the way you do, you’re probably right in saying there is no point in coming to see me. We don’t want to argue across a prison table. Theo has been in, very agitated because he’s being called to give evidence for the prosecution. Dick’s been twice, full of news, very cheerful. He’s playing detective, I gather. I hope he enjoys it.

They treat me pretty well here. Food not bad, warders friendly, nothing to complain of. Peaceful, too. Prison is extremely interesting, a closed society, an image of what the world is going to be like in fifty years. Everything is ordered here for you by authority, it isn’t like The Dell, where the residents were doing the ordering – that is the thing you like and I object to! Once you accept the fact that in all the trivial, inessential things you have to do what you are told, you have all the time that’s left to think about your life and errors. You are free! Do you understand what I mean?

But it is not my life and errors I think about as much as yours. However did you come to marry me? What one has done is done and there’s no use in regretting it, but I do feel that in the past I did you the maximum harm, and that I’ve now done you almost the maximum good by getting put in prison. If I am found guilty you will be able to get a divorce, and you are young enough to make a fresh start. You may get a good relationship yet! I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be ironical or to hurt you. When I’m in prison, what’s the point?

I want you to understand that I shall do nothing to influence the course of events, the result of the trial, that I shall accept whatever happens. Every event springs from a prime cause, isn’t that so? And as a prisoner, as “the accused”, I feel myself completely detached from any possible outcome. If I were outside it would be a very different matter. Try to believe that what happens is inevitable. And don’t worry about the result of the trial. As you can see, I don’t.

Sol

“Well,” Mr Hayward asked. “What’s the news, what does he say?”

Marion had aged in the weeks since her husband’s arrest, not dramatically but in small ways. The lines of discontent in her face were more deeply drawn, the eager look characteristic of her had turned into an anxious stare, she found it hard to keep her hands still.