Angell, Pearl and Little God

  ‘Did he see him?’

  ‘Not if we could help it.’

  Godfrey was being brought down the stairs now. It was a slow and clumsy process. Pearl’s lips were still quivering under their blurred lipstick. But it was the quivering of a taut wire. Inside she was stretched, alert, raw.

  Godfrey. Little God. Great God. Cruel God. She had responded at the last this afternoon but in an intensely masochistic way. At heart she was a conventional girl with a respectable background, and one could offend against that background too far. He had gone too far. At the time it was acceptable but to think of it after was intolerable. But Godfrey … Gone. It was impossible in so short a time. Destroyed. Disappeared. Sweet and bitter Godfrey.

  ‘And then? Coming to this afternoon …’

  ‘Before this afternoon,’ said Pearl, crying for she knew not what. ‘Some months ago, my husband had to go to Merrick House, which was the Vosper family seat. It was on business to do with the sale of the contents. I went with him. When he got there Godfrey Brown was there.’

  ‘Was this after Lady Vosper’s death?’

  ‘Oh, yes …’ she added: ‘He had no right there. But he’d been living there, camping out in the country house. When we surprised him he attacked my husband.’

  ‘Attacked him? Physically?’

  ‘Yes. Knocked him down. Cut his eye. Bruised his ribs. He had to have the doctor.’

  ‘Was a charge brought against Brown?’

  ‘No. My husband didn’t want all the fuss and bother. I tried to persuade him but he wouldn’t call the police.’

  ‘Always a mistake, Mrs Angell. Was anybody witness to this assault?’

  ‘I was. And also the chauffeur.’

  ‘This was some months ago, you say?’

  ‘Yes. In … it would be March.’

  ‘And since then, have you seen anything of him?’

  Pearl shivered and tried to hide it. Underneath she was still unclothed. She had noticed the inspector’s earlier glance and she fancied that everyone could detect her nakedness. She still bore the marks of Godfrey’s hands. If they were to examine her …

  ‘Since then?’ prompted Inspector Morrison.

  ‘He came to the house twice when Wilfred wasn’t here, but I wouldn’t let him in.’

  They had got him out of the door. A crowd of people staring were being moved on by the police. An hour ago. All that life.

  ‘What did Brown want, Mrs Angell?’

  ‘Want?’

  ‘Yes. There must have been some reason for him calling. It surely wasn’t just to threaten and bully.’

  ‘He wanted money – the money that he thought Mr Angell had cheated him of.’

  ‘He demanded money in your hearing?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ She hesitated. ‘Several times. But he often seemed just to want to threaten and – and bully, as you say. Perhaps my husband when he comes round will be able to tell you …’

  ‘Of course. And to your knowledge did he ever give him any?’

  ‘No. He told me he never had.’

  Morrison stretched his legs. This chair he was sitting in: it had been designed for an 18th-century dandy. ‘ Now could you just tell me in detail what happened this evening?’

  ‘What, again?’

  ‘Yes, please. If you wouldn’t mind.’

  The doors of the ambulance slammed, the engine started up. A shadow moved across the window as the ambulance turned the corner. Good-bye, Little God. Good-bye now for ever. Those vilely grasping hands, the glinting impudent smile, the coxcomb hair, the courage, the sheer fighting guts, the cruelty, the energy, the strength. Above all the courage, the utter lack of fear. They at least shone out. And all destroyed by a flabby old man. She put her hands up to her face and burst into tears.

  Morrison waited patiently. After a while Pearl blew her nose, wiped her eyes, dabbed at her streaked face. ‘ Sorry.’

  ‘Take your time. I know it’s been a great shock.’

  ‘Yes … He came while I was baking a cake. I went to the door. I was – upset when I saw him and tried to shut it. But he got his foot in. Then he pushed me back, forced his way in.’ Pearl showed her bruised knuckles. ‘He did that, pushing so violently.’

  Morrison nodded. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Well, it was then he took this huge revolver out of his pocket, started waving it at me. He seemed very excited. He said where was Mr Angell? He wanted to see him. I said he was out. He ranted at me, saying he’d just knocked out a man he had been sparring with and he’d knock me out if I – if I tried to call for help. He—’

  ‘Pardon me, did he threaten you with the revolver?’

  ‘To hit me with it, not to shoot. He said he didn’t know if it would shoot because it was a relic he’d brought from Merrick House – the Vospers’ place – but he was waiting to try it on my husband. He – he went through the ground floor rooms, seemed to think Wilfred was hiding from him. Then he went upstairs.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Pearl crossed her legs, and then, catching Morrison’s involuntary glance, carefully uncrossed them. ‘After a minute or so I followed him. He had gone from Mr Angell’s bedroom through to mine. He was pulling things about, as if he wanted to – to destroy … just then Wilfred must have come in. I didn’t hear him because I was trying to telephone for the police, but Godfrey – Godfrey Brown pulled me away. I’ve got – I expect I have bruises on my arms and shoulders …’

  ‘Just so. Er – where was the revolver during all this?’

  ‘I think he must have put it on the dressing table. I don’t really remember.’ She cleared her throat, plunged on. ‘All I remember was that we were in my room there and I heard Wilfred come upstairs. I was terrified what was going to happen. Brown had stormed through into my bathroom and then he must have heard too because he came back and pushed past me into my husband’s bedroom and when I followed him he was holding the revolver and threatening Wilfred, who had backed against the door. And my husband said: “I am going to telephone the police, Brown. And don’t attempt to stop me.” And Brown laughed out loud, he laughed and said: “ If you do I’ll try my old revolver on you.” So I rushed for the telephone again, and Godfrey tried to grab me and Wilfred joined in and somehow he got hold of the revolver. And the next thing I knew he was backing against the door and saying: “ Keep your distance, I warn you, keep your distance.” And Brown was still laughing, and he said – or shouted – “The thing’s too old to work! I got it off the wall at Flora’s.” That is Lady Vosper’s. “But I’m going to do for you, Angell, I’m going to do for you!” And – and he took a couple of steps towards my husband and there was this terrible explosion, and then Brown was lying on the floor …’

  This much true. The terrible explosion and Godfrey lying bleeding on the floor. Horror, horror, I had to pick up his hand. My heel got in the blood, I had to wash it off: it’s sticky, not like blood, like thin jam. And Wilfred helplessly fainting on his bed, vomit on his chin; and the thin spread-eagled, strangled, little boy-corpse of Godfrey with half his neck gone and terrible blood oozing; and the great revolver blue and polished shining between them. Only me, only me left with any consciousness, any working mind between us, only me left to think, to plan, to scheme, to try to salvage. Perhaps that’s justice because I’m the cause of it all …

  ‘What time was this, Mrs Angell?’

  ‘Time? … I don’t know. About half-past six, I suppose. What time is it now?’

  ‘Seven-twenty. Just seven-twenty. It would be about fifty-five minutes since this happened?’

  ‘I suppose so. I’ve lost touch. How long have you been here?’

  ‘Let’s see. Thirty-five minutes. It was at six twenty-five that Scotland Yard received your call. A patrol car reached you at six-thirty and I arrived at a quarter to seven.’

  Pearl lifted her hair away from her face. ‘ Yes. Yes, if you say so. Why?’

  ‘One always likes to pinpoint the time if one can.’ A perfunctory frown crossed
his long face. ‘According to the police surgeon who examined the body at seven, his estimate was that Brown had thenbeen dead about an hour.’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Well, yes, Mrs Angell, it does rather.’

  Pearl had seen the pitfall but there had been no way to avoid it. All that time. Those first minutes that had ticked away in frozen fear. A lonely midnight of the soul. Then sudden action like some galvanized robot. Shaking Wilfred into a semblance of consciousness; removing one impression of her bedroom, creating another. ‘The same story, Wilfred, if you can think, we must tell the same story.’ ‘I shall go to prison for this: several years. No licence for the gun, even.’ ‘ No licence then who knows you’ve got it?’ The sick horror of getting Godfrey’s fingerprints on it without getting her own; the deliberate wrecking of Wilfred’s bedroom …

  ‘I rang you as soon as I could, Inspector, but I can’t tell you how long it took. When – when I saw all that blood I felt so sick. I crawled back into my own room. I think I was trying to get water – I wasn’t sure if Wilfred was shot too – but I lay on the floor of my room and couldn’t get any further. I must have passed out.’ She shivered again. It was all right to shiver there. ‘ When I came to, my first thought was for Wilfred, and I went back and found him lying across the bed. I thought perhaps he was dead, but I found he was breathing – in fact he seemed half to recognize me – and I got his head on the pillow and his feet up …’

  ‘Where was the revolver at this time?’

  ‘Where you found it – where the police found it.’

  ‘You didn’t touch it at all?’

  ‘No.’ I wiped it clean and then used gloves. It can’t have left —

  ‘And when did you telephone?’

  ‘As soon as I’d made sure Wilfred was alive I went to it, but just then he began to moan so I went back to him and was with him three or four minutes more. Then – then I dialled 999. Then I sat there by the telephone not moving at all until your patrol man rang the bell …’

  Morrison nodded and made a note in his book. It all looked plain and straightforward. Yet in cases where the wife is young and blonde and pretty and has a flared, wild, wide-awake look … And he had a slight uneasy feeling that although her evidence was very convincing, her second telling of events had been just a fraction too similar to the first.

  ‘Did Brown ever attempt to attack you, Mrs Angell?’

  ‘Me?’ She opened her clear eyes from which the tears had now almost gone. ‘No, he wasn’t that bad. Except in the way I’ve said – pushing me away from the door, stopping me from getting at the telephone.’

  ‘Has he used that sort of violence to you before – for instance at this house where he assaulted your husband?’

  ‘No. Never before.’

  ‘And at no time – his aims were never sexual?’

  His gaze was very direct and she met it. ‘ Oh, no. Certainly not. It was my husband he came to see, not me. The only thing he had against me was if I got in the way.’

  Morrison closed his notebook and snapped the elastic round it. Brown must have been blind then, he thought. ‘Do you happen to know his present address?’

  ‘Brown’s? Not since Lady Vosper died. But I think he worked for a man called Davis. Davis was his trainer or manager or something – arranged his fights.’

  ‘And d’you know Davis’s address?’

  ‘It was in Shaftesbury Avenue. Wilfred might know.’

  ‘Did Brown have any relatives in London?’

  ‘I’ve really no idea, Inspector. We didn’t know him well. You don’t get to know somebody else’s chauffeur well, do you. It’s very unfortunate that we ever met.’

  ‘Too true. Can you remember the date when you actually did first meet him?’

  ‘Oh, about a year last March.’

  ‘Before you married or after?’

  ‘Before. I met my husband about the same time.’

  ‘How did you first meet Brown?’

  ‘Well, I got to know Lady Vosper through Mr Angell, and Brown was her chauffeur. As I’ve told you. Oh, and there was a dance I went to with some friends. It was just a local dance, like a tennis dance, and Brown happened to be there. Everybody was very friendly, and he asked me to dance and I danced with him and he offered me a lift home in Lady Vosper’s car.’

  ‘Did you accept?’

  She hesitated, on the brink of the wrong lie. ‘There were a lot of us and it happened to be more convenient. He just dropped me off at my house.’

  ‘So you were on quite friendly terms then?’

  ‘Casually, yes.’

  ‘Enough to dance with him?’

  ‘Well, yes. He asked me. It would have seemed snobbish to have refused.’

  ‘You didn’t mind him asking you?’

  ‘I was a bit surprised. But there seemed no harm in it.’

  ‘He was not – over-familiar then in any way?’

  ‘Oh, no. While Lady Vosper was alive he seemed perfectly normal in every way.’

  ‘Was that your only contact with him, apart from when you were with your husband?’

  ‘Well, I saw him with Lady Vosper. And he called at my parents’ home a couple of times with messages from her.’

  ‘Messages?’

  ‘Invitations. We were not on the telephone.’

  ‘Did your husband know about this?’

  ‘Know about what?’ There was a slight chill in her eyes.

  ‘I mean you knowing Brown before you were married.’

  ‘But of course. It was through Mr Angell that I met Lady Vosper.’

  Well, she had all the answers. Morrison nodded gently to himself. ‘Did you know, by the way, that your husband appears to have pulled the trigger three times?’

  She frowned. ‘I didn’t know. I only heard one shot.’

  ‘There was only one shot. The other two cartridges did not fire.’

  ‘I see … Well, you said it was an old revolver.’

  ‘Thirty years old, probably. Did you see Brown with it before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You never saw it in this Lady – er Vosper’s house?’

  ‘Lady Vosper’s house is enormous, Inspector. And it’s full of old armour and old guns … Er – how do you know my husband pulled the trigger three times? Brown may have tried it before he came. He said – I told you he said: “It’s too old to work.”’

  ‘You did.’ They looked at each other and it was Morrison who looked down to put his notebook away. Just then there was a tap on the door and a constable came in.

  ‘Excuse me, sir, the doctor says Mr Angell is coming round.’

  ‘Get Mumford,’ Wilfred had whispered in that terrible twenty-odd minutes before the police were called; but to avoid what might have seemed like too much forethought she did not ring him until after seven. He arrived just as Wilfred had finished giving his first account of what had happened. Wilfred had chosen Mumford because although he was not as clever as Esslin he was eminently English and solidly respectable. Wilfred needed above everything respectability at this time. They were closeted together with Inspector Morrison and a sergeant for upwards of an hour.

  Thereafter the routine process of the law. Mumford protested at Angell’s having to go to the police station, arguing that his client was too unwell. But Morrison was politely pressing and Angell went. The horrors of a night there. Something ingrained for ever afterwards in the soul. As if he were a criminal. He who had lived all his life so scrupulously within the law and by the law. To be regarded as a criminal, to spend the night in a room in a police station. And with the horrifying prospect that in the lunatic world in which he now lived he might have to spend many other such nights. Mumford was reassuring but Angell was not reassured.

  And in the early morning it was all too true. The police charged Mr Wilfred Angell with manslaughter. Detective Chief Inspector Morrison had found sufficient elements of dissatisfaction in the case. A Mrs Howard Leverett at No. 24 Cadogan Mews had hea
rd the shot. She had been taking a bath and had her transistor radio in the bathroom with her and had just switched on the six o’clock news. It confirmed the surgeon’s estimate and left a gap of almost twenty-five minutes before Mrs Angell called the police. Twenty-five minutes was a long time for a swoon. It was the only evidence so far to put in doubt the story the Angells told. Yet there were other straws in the wind …

  The inquest was opened and, after formal evidence had been given, was adjourned indefinitely. This was almost immediately followed by the hearing in the magistrate’s court. After a discussion which lasted nearly as long as the hearing, bail was allowed on a surety of £500. Angell was free to go home.

  On the way home Mumford was furious with the police. It came to something, he said, when a householder of the greatest respectability, attacked in his own home and in defence of his own life, caused the death of a brutal intruder, and the police were so stupid as to bring a case. It was a monstrous piece of officialdom and should be brought to the notice of the Chief Commissioner. Of course, said Mumford, heartily, there was still no need to worry. The outcome, if even now it ever came to trial, was a foregone conclusion. Self-defence. Justifiable homicide. Just the same, it was as well to get the best man, one supposed. Whom did Angell fancy? There was Nigel John, a good solid chap with a long history of defence successes in the criminal court. Or there was Bergson. Or young Honiton; they were talking about him.

  When they got home Mumford said, should he come in but Angell said, thank you, no, I’ll just get to bed.

  After the car had driven away Pearl stood for a moment on the step, before following Wilfred into the house. A beautiful afternoon with thundery peach-bloom clouds drifting overhead. It was the day of one of the Royal Garden Parties: they had seen the toppered men and flowered women coming away as they drove home. The warm air of London was almost flowery after the police station and the court.

  It was a lovely day but now for her everything was changed, everything had to be adjusted, nothing would ever be the same again. There had been reporters as they came out of court: lucky none was here to welcome them home.