The Pale Horse

‘She seemed quite happy?’ he asked.

‘I suppose so.’

He pounced on the faint doubtful tone in her voice.

‘You only suppose so?’

‘Well, it’s not the kind of thing you think about, is it? I should say she was nicely off, with a good job, and quite satisfied with her life. She wasn’t the bubbling over sort. But of course, when she got ill—’

‘Yes, when she got ill?’ he prompted her.

‘Vexed, she was at first. When she went down with ’flu, I mean. It would put all her schedule out, she said. Missing appointments and all that. But ’flu’s ’flu, and you can’t ignore it when it’s there. So she stopped in bed, and made herself tea on the gas ring, and took aspirin. I said why not have the doctor and she said no point in it. Nothing to do for ’flu but stay in bed and keep warm and I’d better not come near her to catch it. I did a bit of cooking for her when she got better. Hot soup and toast. And a rice pudding now and again. It got her down, of course, ’flu does—but not more than what’s usual, I’d say. It’s after the fever goes down that you get the depression—and she got that like everyone does. She sat there, by the gas fire, I remember, and said to me, “I wish one didn’t have so much time to think. I don’t like having time to think. It gets me down.”’

Lejeune continued to look deeply attentive and Mrs Coppins warmed to her theme.

‘Lent her some magazines, I did. But she didn’t seem able to keep her mind on reading. Said once, I remember, “If things aren’t all they should be, it’s better not to know about it, don’t you agree?” and I said, “That’s right, dearie.” And she said, “I don’t know—I’ve never really been sure.” And I said that was all right, then. And she said, ‘Everything I’ve done has always been perfectly straightforward and above board. I’ve nothing to reproach myself with.” And I said, “Of course you haven’t, dear.” But I did just wonder in my own mind whether in the firm that employed her there mightn’t have been some funny business with the accounts maybe, and she’d got wind of it—but had felt it wasn’t really her business.’

‘Possible,’ agreed Lejeune.

‘Anyway, she got well again—or nearly so, and went back to work. I told her it was too soon. Give yourself another day or two, I said. And there, how right I was! Come back the second evening, she did, and I could see at once she’d got a high fever. Couldn’t hardly climb the stairs. You must have the doctor, I says, but no, she wouldn’t. Worse and worse she got, all that day, her eyes glassy, and her cheeks like fire, and her breathing terrible. And the next day in the evening she said to me, hardly able to get the words out: “A priest. I must have a priest. And quickly … or it will be too late.” But it wasn’t our vicar she wanted. It had to be a Roman Catholic priest. I never knew she was a Roman, never any crucifix about or anything like that.’

But there had been a crucifix, tucked away at the bottom of the suitcase. Lejeune did not mention it. He sat listening.

‘I saw young Mike in the street and I sent him for that Father Gorman at St Dominic’s. And I rang for the doctor, and the hospital on my own account, not saying nothing to her.’

‘You took the priest up to her when he came?’

‘Yes, I did. And left them together.’

‘Did either of them say anything?’

‘Well now, I can’t exactly remember. I was talking myself, saying here was the priest and now she’d be all right, trying to cheer her up, but I do call to mind now as I closed the door I heard her say something about wickedness. Yes—and something, too, about a horse—horse-racing, maybe. I like a half-crown on myself occasionally—but there’s a lot of crookedness goes on in racing, so they say.’

‘Wickedness,’ said Lejeune. He was struck by the word.

‘Have to confess their sins, don’t they, Romans, before they die? So I suppose that was it.’

Lejeune did not doubt that that was it, but his imagination was stirred by the word used. Wickedness …

Something rather special in wickedness, he thought, if the priest who knew about it was followed and clubbed to death …

There was nothing to be learnt from the other three lodgers in the house. Two of them, a bank clerk and an elderly man who worked in a shoe shop, had been there for some years. The third was a girl of twenty-two who had come there recently and had a job in a nearby department store. All three of them barely knew Mrs Davis by sight.

The woman who had reported having seen Father Gorman in the street that evening had no useful information to give. She was a Catholic who attended St Dominic’s and she knew Father Gorman by sight. She had seen him turn out of Benthall Street and go into Tony’s Place about ten minutes to eight. That was all.

Mr Osborne, the proprietor of the chemist’s shop on the corner of Barton Street, had a better contribution to make.

He was a small, middle-aged man, with a bald domed head, a round ingenuous face, and glasses.

‘Good evening, Chief Inspector. Come behind, will you?’ He held up the flap of an old-fashioned counter. Lejeune passed behind and through a dispensing alcove where a young man in a white overall was making up bottles of medicine with the swiftness of a professional conjurer, and so through an archway into a tiny room with a couple of easy-chairs, a table and a desk. Mr Osborne pulled the curtain of the archway behind him in a secretive manner and sat down in one chair, motioning to Lejeune to take the other. He leaned forward, his eyes glinting in pleasurable excitement.

‘It just happens that I may be able to assist you. It wasn’t a busy evening—nothing much to do, the weather being unfavourable. My young lady was behind the counter. We keep open until eight on Thursdays always. The fog was coming on and there weren’t many people about. I’d gone to the door to look at the weather, thinking to myself that the fog was coming up fast. The weather forecast had said it would. I stood there for a bit—nothing going on inside that my young lady couldn’t deal with—face creams and bath salts and all that. Then I saw Father Gorman coming along on the other side of the street. I know him quite well by sight, of course. A shocking thing, this murder, attacking a man so well thought of as he is. “There’s Father Gorman,” I said to myself. He was going in the direction of West Street, it’s the next turn on the left before the railway, as you know. A little way behind him there was another man. It wouldn’t have entered my head to notice or think anything of that, but quite suddenly this second man came to a stop—quite abruptly, just when he was level with my door. I wondered why he’d stopped—and then I noticed that Father Gorman, a little way ahead, was slowing down. He didn’t quite stop. It was as though he was thinking of something so hard that he almost forgot he was walking. Then he started on again, and this other man started to walk, too—rather fast. I thought—inasmuch as I thought at all, that perhaps it was someone who knew Father Gorman and wanted to catch him up and speak to him.’

‘But in actual fact he could simply have been following him?’

‘That’s what I’m sure he was doing now—not that I thought anything of it at the time. What with the fog coming up, I lost sight of them both almost at once.’

‘Can you describe this man at all?’

Lejeune’s voice was not confident. He was prepared for the usual nondescript characteristics. But Mr Osborne was made of different mettle to Tony of Tony’s Place.

‘Well, yes, I think so,’ he said with complacency. ‘He was a tall man—’

‘Tall? How tall?’

‘Well—five eleven to six feet, at least, I’d say. Though he might have seemed taller than he was because he was very thin. Sloping shoulders he had, and a definite Adam’s apple. Grew his hair rather long under his Homburg. A great beak of a nose. Very noticeable. Naturally I couldn’t say as to the colour of his eyes. I saw him in profile as you’ll appreciate. Perhaps fifty as to age. I’m going by the walk. A youngish man moves quite differently.’

Lejeune made a mental survey of the distance across the street, then back again to Mr Osborne, and wondered. He wondered very much …

A description such as that given by the chemist could mean one of two things. It could spring from an unusually vivid imagination—he had known many examples of that kind, mostly from women. They built up a fancy portrait of what they thought a murderer ought to look like. Such fancy portraits, however, usually contained some decidedly spurious details—such as rolling eyes, beetle brows, ape-like jaws, snarling ferocity. The description given by Mr Osborne sounded like the description of a real person. In that case it was possible that here was the witness in a million—a man who observed accurately and in detail—and who would be quite unshakable as to what he had seen.

Again Lejeune considered the distance across the street. His eyes rested thoughtfully on the chemist.

He asked: ‘Do you think you would recognise this man if you saw him again?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Mr Osborne was supremely confident. ‘I never forget a face. It’s one of my hobbies. I’ve always said that if one of these wife murderers came into my place and bought a nice little package of arsenic, I’d be able to swear to him at the trial. I’ve always had my hopes that something like that would happen one day.’

‘But it hasn’t happened yet?’

Mr Osborne admitted sadly that it hadn’t.

‘And not likely to now,’ he added wistfully. ‘I’m selling this business. Getting a very nice price for it, and retiring to Bournemouth.’

‘It looks a nice place you’ve got here.’

‘It’s got class,’ said Mr Osborne, a note of pride in his voice. ‘Nearly a hundred years we’ve been established here. My grandfather and my father before me. A good old-fashioned family business. Not that I saw it that way as a boy. Stuffy, I thought it. Like many a lad, I was bitten by the stage. Felt sure I could act. My father didn’t try to stop me. “See what you can make of it, my boy,” he said. “You’ll find you’re no Sir Henry Irving.” And how right he was! Very wise man, my father. Eighteen months or so in repertory and back I came into the business. Took a pride in it, I did. We’ve always kept good solid stuff. Old-fashioned. But quality. But nowadays’—he shook his head sadly—‘disappointing for a pharmaceutist. All this toilet stuff. You’ve got to keep it. Half the profits come from all that muck. Powder and lipstick and face creams; and hair shampoos and fancy sponge bags. I don’t touch the stuff myself. I have a young lady behind the counter who attends to all that. No, it’s not what it used to be, having a chemist’s establishment. However, I’ve a good sum put by, and I’m getting a very good price, and I’ve made a down payment on a very nice little bungalow near Bournemouth.’

He added:

‘Retire whilst you can still enjoy life. That’s my motto. I’ve got plenty of hobbies. Butterflies, for instance. And a bit of bird watching now and then. And gardening—plenty of good books on how to start a garden. And there’s travel. I might go on one of these cruises—see foreign parts before it’s too late.’

Lejeune rose.

‘Well, I wish you the best of luck,’ he said. ‘And if, before you actually leave these parts, you should catch sight of that man—’

‘I’ll let you know at once, Mr Lejeune. Naturally. You can count on me. It will be a pleasure. As I’ve told you, I’ve a very good eye for a face. I shall be on the lookout. On the qui vive, as they say. Oh yes. You can rely on me. It will be a pleasure.’

CHAPTER 4 (#ulink_b7197535-a5bb-5fb6-b2d0-b52fdf1049f6)