Crippen: A Novel of Murder

  ‘I’ve lost my appetite,’ Edmund said, standing up and pushing his plate forward. He was upset and scared, an emotion he was not accustomed to. ‘I’m . . . I’ve got to . . .’

  ‘Just you remember what I said, Robinson,’ said Tom, turning the knife again and cutting it straight through the fried egg on his plate. The yolk exploded over the side, as if an artery had been cut, and he mashed the white into a piece of ham before eating it. ‘And like I said, I don’t offer warnings twice,’ he added. ‘You should think yourself lucky that I’m warning you at all.’

  Pale, Edmund turned and walked quickly from the dining hall. His legs felt a little weak, his stomach sick. He wanted nothing more now than to return to his cabin. He wanted to cry. He hated violence and threats; they brought back too many bad memories. This business with Victoria Drake had struck him as something of a joke until now. The venom of Tom DuMarqué’s words however had turned it into something more serious. He stretched his hand out before even reaching the door of the hall, needing to push it forward quickly so as to get some air into his lungs. How can I pretend, he asked himself, when I am not a man at all and never can be?

  He sucked in the fresh sea air on the outside like a drowning man coming up for air. Spots floated in front of his eyes and he hoped that he would manage to reach the cabin without collapsing. He had never felt such a mixture of anger and fear in all his life. On the deck he tripped over a length of rope and fell into a pair of familiar arms, giving a slight shout as he did so.

  ‘Edmund,’ said Mr John Robinson, staring at him. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Haw—’ he began, before realizing his mistake. ‘Father,’ he corrected himself quickly, staring from him to Martha Hayes and back again, trying desperately to recover his equilibrium. ‘I’m sorry, I’m feeling a little unwell. I thought I might get some more sleep.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re hungry?’

  ‘No!’ he snapped. ‘No, I’ve eaten already.’

  ‘All right. Well, as you wish,’ said Mr Robinson, his face looking perplexed and concerned. ‘Would you like me to come downstairs with you?’

  ‘No, I’m fine, I just need some peace, that’s all.’

  ‘Perhaps I could bring you some water, Edmund?’ Martha asked, seeing the boy’s features become even paler than usual and the line of perspiration bursting out along the hairline. ‘It wouldn’t be any trouble.’

  ‘Really, I’ll be fine,’ he repeated firmly. ‘I just need to rest, that’s all. I’ll see you both later.’

  He rushed past them and they watched as he disappeared down the stairs. John Robinson frowned and wondered whether he should follow after all.

  ‘He’ll be fine,’ said Martha, reading his mind. ‘Let him sleep.’

  ‘Of course,’ he replied, sure that this was the sensible course. ‘Shall we go on for breakfast, then?’

  ‘Oh, let’s wait a few minutes,’ she said, linking her arm through his. ‘I love this time of morning, don’t you? Let’s just sit and enjoy it for a few minutes. It sounds pretty crowded in there anyway.’

  Not very hungry yet anyway, Mr Robinson agreed and they relaxed on two deckchairs, watching as the seabirds swooped down into the water and flew back out of sight with whatever they had caught. Mr Robinson had still not reached the point where he was enjoying the voyage, but Martha Hayes was loving every moment of it.

  ‘I never imagined for a moment that I would end up crossing the Atlantic,’ she said, staring at the sea with such delight and excitement in her eyes that Mr Robinson could not help but smile. ‘It’s so far removed from my expectations in life. And I was so unhappy in Antwerp. This morning I woke up and felt just . . . excited about my new life. Sitting here, I feel happier than I have in a long time.’

  ‘I was born in America,’ said Mr Robinson, who would have preferred to have returned to the cabin. ‘I’ll be glad to be back there.’

  ‘Really? You have hardly a trace of an accent.’

  ‘Well, I’ve lived in London for years. I imagine I must have buried it there somewhere. I didn’t much enjoy the trip across in the first place, and I don’t much care for it now either.’

  ‘You’ll stay in Canada then? You’ll never come back?’

  ‘Canada. Or the United States. But yes, I’ll never return to Europe or England. I hate England. I hate the people. I found nothing but . . . misery there.’

  Martha frowned; his tone was bitter and she found his manner slightly unsettling. ‘Do you know what today would have been?’ she asked, hoping to change the subject.

  ‘Would have been?’ he asked, surprised at the tense.

  ‘It would have been my wedding day,’ she said with a sigh.

  Mr Robinson said nothing. He had been aware that there was more to Martha Hayes than she had let on so far, and he had not wanted to ask her any personal questions until she was ready to offer the answers herself.

  ‘I have told you about my friend, Mr Brillt?’ she asked. He nodded, recalling a few passing remarks. ‘Mr Brillt and I met some eighteen months ago. He was a teacher in Antwerp, a very intelligent man. His grasp of history and literature amazed me. The things he told me, the books he introduced me to! Oh, Mr Robinson, I believe that man had read every word that had ever been written. From the Roman historians to the medieval poets, the Renaissance dramatists to the new novelists. Even the European novels in their original languages. He could speak six different languages, you see. A brilliant man. And I don’t mind admitting that he opened my mind a lot to different possibilities. Oh, he wasn’t the most handsome man in the world, but there was something else about him. Something magical. Something so intelligent that it was hard not to be amazed by him.’

  ‘People like to pretend they’re in love,’ Mr Robinson suggested, ‘but there’s no such thing really. We all just use each other for our own ends. Don’t you agree?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ she said. ‘What a cynical attitude! I loved Mr Brillt as if love had never existed before in the world. And he said he loved me too. We spent so much time together. We went to the theatre together, the music halls.’ He flinched at those hated words. ‘Sometimes he took me boating and we would eat a picnic in the middle of the lakes. He knew all the best shops and made the sandwiches himself with exotic cheeses and cold meats. Tastes I had never imagined. Wonderful afternoons,’ she added, drifting into a haze of memory. ‘He asked me to marry him, you see. Six months ago we went to dinner and he got down on one knee and produced a diamond ring and said that I, Martha Hayes, would make him the happiest man in the world if I would consent to becoming Mrs Léon Brillt.’

  ‘And you agreed?’

  ‘I did. I was thrilled. I couldn’t believe that a man as cultured and intelligent as he would have any interest in a woman like me. Of course, I had hoped that he might propose one day and had already begun to daydream about the life we would lead together when we were married, but when he asked me I was still shocked. We set the date—today’s date—and booked a church. I had already started planning our future together. And that’s when it happened.’

  Mr Robinson stared at her. He could see that she was setting her jaw firmly in anticipation of the difficult part of the story. ‘Tell me,’ he urged her. ‘Or later, if you would prefer. If it’s painful.’

  Before she could continue, Tom DuMarqué emerged from the dining hall and began walking towards them awkwardly. He stared at them as he approached, like a vicious animal sniffing its prey before deciding whether or not to attack. Eventually he passed them by, dragging his leg a little, offering them just a nod, and Martha shivered involuntarily.

  ‘There’s something about that boy,’ she began, but didn’t continue the thought. ‘And was he limping?’

  ‘He has a strange air about him,’ Mr Robinson agreed. ‘As if he’s very angry about something but isn’t sure what. He’s very different from his uncle. He doesn’t seem to have a care in the world. And yes, he did seem to be dragging his leg a little. But please, Miss H
ayes—Martha—tell me what happened with your engagement. Nothing tragic occurred, I hope? My own first wife died in a traffic accident, so I know something of such things.’ The words were out before he could stop himself, but he immediately regretted having revealed anything so personal.

  Fortunately, she did not react to them. ‘It was a Thursday afternoon, about two months ago,’ she said, looking away from him. ‘I had found the most beautiful wedding dress in a shop in Antwerp and was so excited that I thought I would go to Léon’s school and tell him about it. I bought some sandwiches, thinking we could have lunch together. When I arrived, I went to his usual classroom but there was a stranger there, a man I had never met before. To be honest, Léon had never introduced me to any of his friends or colleagues, so I wouldn’t have known the man anyway, nor would he have known me. Léon always said that he wanted to keep me all to himself. Anyway, this other teacher asked me who I was and I said that I was a friend of Mr Brillt’s. He took me aside and said that Léon had suffered an attack in the classroom earlier that day, something to do with his heart, they thought, and he had been immediately taken to hospital. Naturally I was racked with worry, and I ran from the room and went straight to the hospital. It was difficult to track him down at first, but eventually I found him in a private room and ran inside, prepared for the worst. Or what I imagined would be the worst. He was sitting up in bed, looking pale and anxious, but he was talking so I immediately knew that he was not at death’s door. But when he turned and saw me standing there, I thought for a moment that he might have another heart attack. “Martha,” he said, swallowing hard. I looked around the room and saw that he was surrounded by six children and a large, middle-aged woman, who were all staring back at me without the faintest idea who I was. Of course they were his wife and children. I knew it immediately. I could tell.’

  ‘And what did you do?’

  ‘I did the only thing I could think of. I turned around and ran away. I only saw Léon once more after that, about two weeks later, when he visited me and tried to explain. He said that he and his wife led mostly separate lives and that there was no reason why we had to stop seeing each other. I was devastated, of course. I wanted to kill myself, Mr Robinson, I really did. And then one day I woke up and I thought that I would not allow this man to ruin my life any longer, that I had my own future to look forward to, and so I decided I would change my plans entirely. I went to the harbour and found out the details of transatlantic crossings and then I bought a ticket for Canada, for the Montrose, which is how you find me where I am now. But sometimes I think that had Léon not suffered the heart attack that morning, I could well have been marrying him today. He could have continued with his deception for ever. Some marriage. Based on lies.’

  She sat back and looked at him with a trace of a smile but not an element of self-pity.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly, knowing that his words would really be little comfort.

  ‘Don’t be. I’m better off without him.’

  ‘Nevertheless. It’s a terrible thing to do to someone.’

  She turned around and looked him straight in the eye. ‘You know what I think?’ she said. ‘That this was a man with one wife already, who was trying to marry another, knowing that it would be a fraud which would eventually ruin them both anyway. If you ask me, Mr Robinson, some men are simply not supposed to take wives at all.’

  He looked away and thought about it. ‘Are you hungry yet?’ he asked.

  * * *

  Matthieu Zéla was lying on his bed in the Presidential Suite, reading a copy of The Immoralist by André Gide. One of the pleasures of a long journey such as this one, he believed, was the opportunity it afforded one to spend long periods of time with little else to do but read. The real world was so busy, and life so filled with affairs of business and money and romance, that there was precious little opportunity to enjoy more cultural pursuits. To this end he had brought several books with him for the journey to Canada. He’d wanted to read the Gide ever since he’d heard that the pope had publicly condemned its author. Such criticisms usually made him more eager to sample the books than even the most positive commentary in The Times newspaper. He had never met the present pope, but he had once been employed by one of his predecessors to construct an opera house in the city of Rome, a project which had ultimately failed to come to fruition, and he had spent long hours in the Vatican poring over historical designs and discussing plans for its construction. He knew from his experience there that the personal tastes of the occupants of the Vatican often ran to the exotic. To this end, alongside The Immoralist, he had brought copies of Voltaire’s Philosophical Letters, Victor Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris and a volume of Casanova’s Memoirs to enjoy while he travelled to Canada, each of which had found a place on the Papal Index over the years.

  The Presidential Suite was the largest single cabin on board the Montrose and in fact housed four separate rooms: the master bedroom, where he lay at the moment, a smaller one, in which his nephew Tom slept, a mediumsized bathroom and a sitting room for entertainment purposes. He had not planned on doing very much entertaining while travelling (his books were company enough for him, his nephew distraction enough) but he had had the misfortune of running into Mrs Antoinette Drake earlier in the day and she had enquired as to the comfort of his apartments, continuing her questioning ad nauseam until it became clear that she wanted to inspect them herself, at which point he had little choice but to observe etiquette and invite her for afternoon tea, an offer she had eagerly accepted. She was due at four o’clock; it was a quarter to the hour now, and Matthieu sighed, for he was enjoying the descriptions of Africa, which he had visited some twenty years before, and would have preferred to remain lost in them for another hour or two. Sadly, duty called and he placed the bookmark at the end of the chapter, preparing himself for the ordeal ahead.

  Like Mr John Robinson, this was not Matthieu’s first trip across the Atlantic Ocean, nor would it be his last. Throughout his life he had travelled far and wide and he scarcely considered himself to be a citizen of any particular country, so varied was his life experience. Born in Paris, he had fled thence to England with his younger brother at the age of seventeen, when they had been orphaned. It was on a boat much smaller than this that he had met the only true love of his life, one Dominique Sauvet, and where his adult adventures had begun, although the romance faltered. He had been fortunate enough to make a great deal of money at a youthful age and had invested it wisely, moving from city to city whenever boredom struck, living in glamorous surroundings while never actually living beyond his means. He wasn’t sure how much he was worth exactly, but whenever he tried to make an account of his wealth it seemed to have grown once again.

  He shaved quickly, barely glancing at the reflection in the mirror; he knew better than to expect any signs of ageing. His dark hair had a slight hint of grey running through it, but that had been there for so many years now without spreading at all that he hardly noticed it any more. Matthieu Zéla was an elegant man, the type of individual whose appearance suggests fifty years of good, healthy, athletic living. That this was quite contrary to the truth mattered little, for appearances, he had long grown to realize, were the most deceptive of all human traits.

  The chiming of the clock in the sitting room indicated four o’clock, and by the fourth strike of the bell there was a sharp knock on the cabin door and he went to answer it. He imagined that Mrs Drake must have been standing in the corridor for several minutes, waiting for the hour exactly before appearing, and he could not help but smile to himself at her eagerness.

  ‘Mrs Drake,’ he said, standing back to allow her vast girth to come through the door unimpeded. ‘How lovely to see you.’

  ‘But Mr Zéla, how kind of you to invite me,’ she said obsequiously, her head darting from side to side in a quick appreciation of her surroundings, as if the whole visit had been his idea all along.

  ‘Matthieu, please,’ he muttered.

  ‘Of
course,’ she replied. ‘And you must call me Antoinette. What charming rooms you have here. Poor Mr Drake was so apologetic when he informed my daughter and me that the Presidential Suite was already taken when he booked our tickets for us. He felt quite guilty. That’s why we’re only in the first-class cabin, you see. You got there before us, Mr Zéla, you naughty man. Matthieu, I mean.’

  He smiled and closed the door behind her, aware that his decision to bring Tom to Canada had been a last-minute one and that he had only booked this suite twenty-four hours before leaving Antwerp. He doubted very much whether Mrs Drake’s unfortunate husband had ever enquired about it at all; if he had, it would have been merely to check the price before deciding against it.

  ‘Well, then I must apologize and try to make amends with tea,’ he said gallantly. ‘I hope your cabin is comfortable.’

  ‘Oh, perfectly adequate,’ she replied. ‘I don’t bother too much about these matters myself, of course. The important thing is that we arrive in Canada safely. I’m not a very material person, you see.’ Matthieu nodded and glanced quickly at her expensive dress, her luminous jewellery and the fine hat she was removing as she sat down. ‘But how lovely that you have your own facilities for making tea,’ she added, watching as he boiled some water in a pan. ‘What will they think of next, do you suppose?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ he said. ‘But I look forward to being there when they do. Would you prefer tea or coffee?’

  ‘Tea, I think. I feel coffee is an unsuitable drink, don’t you?’

  ‘For whom?’

  ‘Why, for anyone. I don’t know why, but it seems common to me. A little tea with lemon in the afternoon, and I’m a contented woman, Matthieu. If it’s good enough for Queen Alexandra, it’s good enough for me, and I know for a fact that she sits down to tea every day at four herself. I can’t imagine the royal family sitting down to coffee, can you?’