Murder! - Arnold Bennett (best fiction novels .txt) 📗

Murder!

by Arnold Bennett

MANY great ones of the earth have justified murder as a social act, defensible, and even laudable in certain instances. There is something to be said for murder, though perhaps not much. All of us, or nearly all of us, have at one time or another had the desire and the impulse to commit murder. At any rate, murder is not an uncommon affair. On an average, two people are murdered every week in England, and probably about two hundred every week in the United States. And forty per cent of the murderers are not brought to justice. These figures take no account of the undoubtedly numerous cases where murder has been done but never suspected. Murders and murderesses walk safely abroad among us, and it may happen to us to shake hands with them. A disturbing thought! But such is life, and such is homicide.

II

Two men, named respectively Lomax Harder and John Franting, were walking side by side one autumn afternoon, on the Marine Parade of the seaside resort and port of Quangate (English Channel). Both were well-dressed and had the air of moderate wealth, and both were about thirty-five years of age. At this point the resemblances between them ceased. Lomax Harder had refined features, au enormous forehead, fair hair, and a delicate, almost apologetic manner. John Franting was low-browed, heavy chinned, scowling, defiant, indeed what is called a tough customer. Lomax Harder corresponded in appearance with the popular notion of a poet — save that he was carefully barbered. He was in fact a poet, and not unknown in the tiny, trifling, mad world where poetry is a matter of first-rate interest. John Franting corresponded in appearance with the popular notion of a gambler, an amateur boxer, and, in spare time, a deluder of women. Popular notions sometimes fit the truth.

Lomax Harder, somewhat nervously buttoning his overcoat, said in a quiet but firm and insistent tone:

“Haven’t you got anything to say?”

John Franting stopped suddenly in front of a shop whose façade bore the sign: “Gontle. Gunsmith.”

“Not in words,” answered Franting. “I’m going in here.”

And he brusquely entered the small, shabby shop.

Lomax Harder hesitated half a second, and then followed his companion.

The shopman was a middle-aged gentleman wearing a black velvet coat.

“Good afternoon,” he greeted Franting, with an expression and in a tone of urbane condescension which seemed to indicate that Franting was a wise as well as fortunate man in that he knew of the excellence of Gontle’s and had the wit to come into Gontle’s.

For the name of Gontle was favourably and respectfully known wherever triggers are pressed. Not only along the whole length of the Channel coast, but throughout England, was Gontle’s renowned. Sportsmen would travel to Quangate from the far north and even from London, to buy guns. To say: “I bought it at Gontle’s,” or “Old Gontle recommended it,” was sufficient to silence any dispute concerning the merits of a fire-arm. Experts bowed the head before the unique reputation of Gontle. As for old Gontle, he was extremely and pardonably conceited. His conviction that no other gunsmith in the wide world could compare with him was absolute. He sold guns and rifles with the gesture of a monarch conferring an honour. He never argued; he stated; and the customer who contradicted him was as likely as not to be courteously and icily informed by Gontle of the geographical situation of the shop-door. Such shops exist in English provinces, and nobody knows how they have achieved their renown. They could exist nowhere else.

“‘d afternoon,” said Franting gruffly, and paused.

“What can I do for you?” asked Mr. Gontle, as if saying: “Now don’t be afraid. This shop is tremendous, and I am tremendous; but I shall not eat you.”

“I want a revolver,” Franting snapped.

“Ah! A revolver!” commented Mr. Gontle, as if saying: “A gun or a rifle, yes! But a revolver — an arm without individuality, manufactured wholesale! … However, I suppose I must deign to accommodate you.”

“I presume you know something about revolvers?” asked Mr. Gontle, as he began to produce the weapons.

“A little.”

“Do you know the Webley Mark III?”

“Can’t say that I do.”

“Ah! It is the best for all common purposes.” And Mr. Gontle’s glance said: “Have the goodness not to tell me it isn’t.”

Franting examined the Webley Mark III.

“You see,” said Mr. Gontle. “The point about it is that until the breach is properly closed it cannot be fired. So that it can’t blow open and maim or kill the would-be murderer.” Mr. Gontle smiled archly at one of his oldest jokes.

“What about suicides?” Franting grimly demanded.

“Ah!”

“You might show me just how to load it,” said Franting.

Mr. Gontle, having found ammunition, complied with this reasonable request.

“The barrel’s a bit scratched,” said Franting.

Mr. Gontle inspected the barrel with pain. He would have denied the scratch, but could not.

“Here’s another one,” said he, “since you are so particular.” He had to put customers in their place.

“You might load it,” said Franting.

Mr. Gontle loaded the second revolver.

“I’d like to try it,” said Franting.

“Certainly,” said Mr. Gontle, and led Franting out of the shop by the back, and down to a cellar where revolvers could be experimented with.

Lomax Harder was now alone in the shop. He hesitated a long time and then picked up the revolver rejected by Franting, fingered it, put it down, and picked it up again. The back-door of the shop opened suddenly, and, startled, Harder dropped the revolver into his overcoat pocket: a thoughtless, quite unpremeditated act. He dared not remove the revolver. The revolver was as fast in his pocket as though the pocket had been sewn up.

“And cartridges?” asked Mr. Gontle of Franting.

“Oh,” said Franting, “I’ve only had one shot. Five’ll be more than enough for the present. What does it weigh?”

“Let me see. Four inch barrel? Yes. One pound four ounces.”

Franting paid for the revolver, receiving thirteen shillings in change from a five-pound note, and strode out of the shop, weapon in hand. He was gone before Lomax Harder decided upon a course of action.

“And for you, sir?” said Mr. Gontle, addressing the poet.

Harder suddenly comprehended that Mr. Gontle had mistaken him for a separate customer, who had happened to enter the shop a moment after the first one. Harder and Franting had said not a word to one another during the purchase, and Harder well knew that in the most exclusive shops it is the custom utterly to ignore a second customer until the first one has been dealt with.

“I want to see some foils.” Harder spoke stammeringly the only words that came into his head.

“Foils!” exclaimed Mr. Gontle, shocked, as if to say: “Is it conceivable that you should imagine that I, Gontle, gunsmith, sell such things as foils?”

After a little talk Harder apologized and departed — a thief.

“I’ll call later and pay the fellow,” said Harder to his restive conscience. “No. I can’t do that. I’ll send him some anonymous postal orders.”

He crossed the Parade and saw Franting, a small left-handed figure all alone far below on the deserted sands, pointing the revolver. He thought that his ear caught the sound of a discharge, but the distance was too great for him to be sure. He continued to watch, and at length Franting walked westward diagonally across the beach.

“He’s going back to the Bellevue,” thought Harder, the Bellevue being the hotel from which he had met Franting coming out half an hour earlier. He strolled slowly towards the white hotel. But Franting, who had evidently come up the face of the cliff in the penny lift, was before him. Harder, standing outside, saw Franting seated in the lounge. Then Franting rose and vanished down a long passage at the rear of the lounge. Harder entered the hotel rather guiltily. There was no hall-porter at the door, and not a soul in the lounge or in sight of the lounge. Harder went down the long passage.

III

At the end of the passage Lomax Harder found himself in a billiard-room — an apartment built partly of brick and partly of wood on a sort of courtyard behind the main structure of the hotel. The roof, of iron and grimy glass, rose to a point in the middle. On two sides the high walls of the hotel obscured the light. Dusk was already closing in. A small fire burned feebly in the grate. A large radiator under the window was steel-cold, for though summer was finished, winter had not officially begun in the small economically-run hotel: so that the room was chilly; nevertheless, in deference to the English passion for fresh air and discomfort, the window was wide open.

Franting, in his overcoat, and an unlit cigarette between his lips, stood lowering with his back to the bit of fire. At sight of Harder he lifted his chin in a dangerous challenge.

“So you’re still following me about,” he said resentfully to Harder.

“Yes,” said the latter, with his curious gentle primness of manner. “I came down here specially to talk to you. I should have said all I had to say earlier, only you happened to be going out of the hotel just as I was coming in. You didn’t seem to want to talk in the street; but there’s some talking has to be done. I’ve a few things I must tell you.” Harder appeared to be perfectly calm, and he felt perfectly calm. He advanced from the door towards the billiard-table.

Franting raised his hand, displaying his square-ended, brutal fingers in the twilight.

“Now listen to me,” he said with cold, measured ferocity. “You can’t tell me anything I don’t know. If there’s some talking to be done I’ll do it myself, and when I’ve finished you can get out. I know that my wife has taken a ticket for Copenhagen by the steamer from Harwich, and that she’s been seeing to her passport, and packing. And of course I know that you have interests in Copenhagen and spend about half your precious time there. I’m not worrying to connect the two things. All that’s got nothing to do with me. Emily has always seen a great deal of you, and I know that the last week or two she’s been seeing you more than ever. Not that I mind that. I know that she objects to my treatment of her and my conduct generally. That’s all right, but it’s a matter that only concerns her and me. I mean that it’s no concern of yours, for instance, or anybody else’s. If she objects enough she can try and divorce me. I doubt if she’d succeed, but you can never be sure — with these new laws. Anyhow she’s my wife till she does divorce me, and so she has the usual duties and responsibilities towards me — even though I was the worst husband in the world. That’s how I look at it, in my old-fashioned way. I’ve just had a letter from her — she knew I was here, and I expect that explains how you knew I was here.”

“It does,” said Lomax Harder quietly.

Franting pulled a letter out of his inner pocket and unfolded it.

“Yes,” he said, glancing at it, and