Towards Zero

He stared at her. ‘They never do.’ He was one of a class of would-be suicides. Opening his mouth to protest energetically, his innate honesty suddenly stopped him.

Would he do it again? Did he really mean to do it?

He knew suddenly that he didn’t. For no reason. Perhaps the right reason was the one she had given out of her specialized knowledge. Suicides didn’t do it again.

All the more he felt determined to force an admission from her on the ethical side.

‘At any rate I’ve got a right to do what I like with my own life.’

‘No—no, you haven’t.’

‘But why not, my dear girl, why?’

She flushed. She said, her fingers playing with the little gold cross that hung round her neck:

‘You don’t understand. God may need you.’

He stared—taken aback. He did not want to upset her childlike faith. He said mockingly:

‘I suppose that one day I may stop a runaway horse and save a golden-haired child from death—eh? Is that it?’

She shook her head. She said with vehemence and trying to express what was so vivid in her mind and so halting on her tongue:

‘It may be just by being somewhere—not doing anything—just by being at a certain place at a certain time—oh, I can’t say what I mean, but you might just—just walk along a street some day and just by doing that accomplish something terribly important—perhaps even without knowing what it was.’

The red-haired little nurse came from the west coast of Scotland and some of her family had ‘the sight’.

Perhaps, dimly, she saw a picture of a man walking up a road on a night in September and thereby saving a human being from a terrible death …

February 14th

There was only one person in the room and the only sound to be heard was the scratching of that person’s pen as it traced line after line across the paper.

There was no one to read the words that were being traced. If there had been, they would hardly have believed their eyes. For what was being written was a clear, carefully detailed project for murder.

There are times when a body is conscious of a mind controlling it—when it bows obedient to that alien something that controls its actions. There are other times when a mind is conscious of owning and controlling a body and accomplishing its purpose by using that body.

The figure sitting writing was in the last-named state. It was a mind, a cool, controlled intelligence. This mind had only one thought and one purpose—the destruction of another human being. To the end that this purpose might be accomplished, the scheme was being worked out meticulously on paper. Every eventuality, every possibility was being taken into account. The thing had got to be absolutely fool-proof. The scheme, like all good schemes, was not absolutely cut and dried. There were certain alternative actions at certain points. Moreover, since the mind was intelligent, it realized that there must be intelligent provision left for the unforeseen. But the main lines were clear and had been closely tested. The time, the place, the method, the victim! …

The figure raised its head. With its hand, it picked up the sheets of paper and read them carefully through. Yes, the thing was crystal-clear.

Across the serious face a smile came. It was a smile that was not quite sane. The figure drew a deep breath.

As man was made in the image of his Maker, so there was now a terrible travesty of a creator’s joy.

Yes, everything planned—everyone’s reaction foretold and allowed for, the good and evil in everybody played upon and brought into harmony with one evil design.

There was one thing lacking still …

With a smile the writer traced a date—a date in September.

Then, with a laugh, the paper was torn in pieces and the pieces carried across the room and put into the heart of the glowing fire. There was no carelessness. Every single piece was consumed and destroyed. The plan was now only existent in the brain of its creator.

March 8th

Superintendent Battle was sitting at the breakfast table. His jaw was set in a truculent fashion and he was reading, slowly and carefully, a letter that his wife had just tearfully handed to him. There was no expression visible on his face, for his face never did register any expression. It had the aspect of a face carved out of wood. It was solid and durable and, in some way, impressive. Superintendent Battle had never suggested brilliance; he was, definitely, not a brilliant man, but he had some other quality, difficult to define, that was nevertheless forceful.

‘I can’t believe it,’ said Mrs Battle, sobbing. ‘Sylvia!’

Sylvia was the youngest of Superintendent and Mrs Battle’s five children. She was sixteen and at school near Maidstone.

The letter was from Miss Amphrey, headmistress of the school in question. It was a clear, kindly and extremely tactful letter. It set out, in black and white, that various small thefts had been puzzling the school authorities for some time, that the matter had at last been cleared up, that Sylvia Battle had confessed, and that Miss Amphrey would like to see Mr and Mrs Battle at the earliest opportunity ‘to discuss the position’.

Superintendent Battle folded up the letter, put it in his pocket, and said: ‘You leave this to me, Mary.’

He got up, walked round the table, patted her on the cheek and said, ‘Don’t worry, dear, it will be all right.’

He went from the room, leaving comfort and reassurance behind him.

That afternoon, in Miss Amphrey’s modern and individualistic drawing-room, Superintendent Battle sat very squarely on his chair, his large wooden hands on his knees, confronting Miss Amphrey and managing to look, far more than usual, every inch a policeman.

Miss Amphrey was a very successful headmistress. She had personality—a great deal of personality, she was enlightened and up to date, and she combined discipline with modern ideas of self-determination.

Her room was representative of the spirit of Meadway. Everything was of a cool oatmeal colour—there were big jars of daffodils and bowls of tulips and hyacinths. One or two good copies of the antique Greek, two pieces of advanced modern sculpture, two Italian primitives on the walls. In the midst of all this, Miss Amphrey herself, dressed in a deep shade of blue, with an eager face suggestive of a conscientious greyhound, and clear blue eyes looking serious through thick lenses.

‘The important thing,’ she was saying in her clear well-modulated voice, ‘is that this should be taken the right way. It is the girl herself we have to think of, Mr Battle. Sylvia herself! It is most important—most important, that her life should not be crippled in any way. She must not be made to assume a burden of guilt—blame must be very very sparingly meted out, if at all. We must arrive at the reason behind these quite trivial pilferings. A sense of inferiority, perhaps? She is not good at games, you know—an obscure wish to shine in a different sphere—the desire to assert her ego? We must be very very careful. That is why I wanted to see you alone first—to impress upon you to be very very careful with Sylvia. I repeat again, it’s very important to get at what is behind this.’

‘That, Miss Amphrey,’ said Superintendent Battle, ‘is why I have come down.’

His voice was quiet, his face unemotional, his eyes surveyed the school mistress appraisingly.

‘I have been very gentle with her,’ said Miss Amphrey.

Battle said laconically:

‘Good of you, Ma’am.’

‘You see, I really love and understand these young things.’

Battle did not reply directly. He said:

‘I’d like to see my girl now, if you don’t mind, Miss Amphrey.’

With renewed emphasis Miss Amphrey admonished him to be careful—to go slow—not to antagonize a child just budding into womanhood.

Superintendent Battle showed no signs of impatience. He just looked blank.

She took him at last to her study. They passed one or two girls in the passages. They stood politely to attention but their eyes were full of curiosity. Having ushered Battle into a small room, not quite so redolent of personality as the one downstairs, Miss Amphrey withdrew and said she would send Sylvia to him.