Portrait of a Murderer Read online

  Laura said scornfully that of course they hadn’t got children; a man like Richard couldn’t expect them. He’d be so miserly he’d grudge them their very life.

  At the end of three years she detested him. Since his realisation that they would, in all probability, never have children, he had been at first ostentatiously offended. Later, however, his grievance took a subtler form. He persisted in loading his wife up with jewels, handsome clothes, and furs—“Putting his trade mark on me, so that I can’t be mislaid wherever I go,” said Laura bitterly. This action on his part caused other wives to say in envious tones, “It must be wonderful to have a husband like Richard Gray. That wife of his hasn’t done a thing for him, and he’s the most generous soul alive. Some women have luck.” Which, as Laura knew, was Richard’s crafty intention, and a new way of humiliating her. Added to this was the fact that her relations had failed to fulfil her husband’s expectations of them, having indeed become an embarrassment rather than an aid. They had seceded some years earlier to an advanced Radicalism that horrified and disgusted Richard, whose mode of argument was that a certain class had held power and lands for centuries, and therefore had proved their ability to govern.

  Laura, while maintaining a gay and spirited attitude, was actually extremely unhappy. This was partly due to the humiliation of realising her inability to compare with her own kitchenmaid, who, with admirable composure and no legal sanction, had recently been delivered of twins. But still more was it the result of the dreary ineffectual life she supported with her husband. By nature apt to be reckless and impulsive, she had schooled herself to a cool and polished manner that flaunted its cynicism in the face of an indifferent world. At heart she detested the innumerable political intrigues in which her husband engaged, whose rewards seemed contemptible. In addition, she was deeply in love with a man who, like Richard, was chiefly concerned with the fruits of office, and who heaped humiliations upon her by beseeching her in the most craven manner to be perpetually on guard against revealing a hint of the true relationship between them. Laura had sometimes dallied with the notion of asking Richard for a divorce, but in her heart she knew both men too well to hope that either would lay aside a spark of his ambition to accommodate her.

  She was aware of, and utterly sickened by, Richard’s present strait. He had for some time been devoured by a passion to obtain a peerage; the amount of feeling he could squander on the attainment of this paltry ambition seemed to her more contemptible than the money entailed. He had not contemplated this step in his original scheme, but since overhearing a club member, a little less snobbish than himself, observe to a neighbour, “What earthly good is a title to a fellow like Gray? He’s got no one to follow him,” his intention became fixed. He would at all events command respect and notice, if not from posterity, at least from contemporaries. This determination had now become an obsession with him. Already it had lured him to unjustifiable lengths. It was not only the peerage that he coveted, but a certain appointment to which, he believed, a peerage was a necessary step. There was a second competitor in the field, a man in many ways more favoured than himself, and to this silent, heart-breaking, neck-to-neck race he applied himself recklessly. The course involved an expenditure far too heavy for his purse, and he had already entered into obligations he could not meet. The man he must satisfy was a rigid Nonconformist, who would certainly disapprove of his candidate’s action in running headlong into debt. Once let the tale of his financial embarrassments come to F——’s ears and he might abandon all hope both of title and political advancement.

  The money, he considered, had been wisely spent; a certain proportion had been speculated in good works, the endowing of a bed in a somewhat obscure hospital in F——’s constituency, a handsome subscription to a fund being inaugurated for the unemployed, and various donations to societies for dealing with the destitute and unfortunate. So far, so good, even from F——’s point of view. But, far outbulking these moneys, were enormous sums spent on entertainment, costly wines, fruits out of season, astounding frocks for Laura, flashing jewels, a car whose photograph appeared in various Society journals, prominent positions at fashionable gatherings, all designed to create the impression that where Richard Gray was absent something was lacking. And as if it were not troublesome enough to be bombarded by short-sighted creditors, who didn’t appear to realise the position, or the good fortune that would reward their patience, there was the affair of Greta Hazell.

  Miss Hazell was a striking young woman of a southern type of beauty, warm-blooded, entrancing, and—oh, very expensive. Quite how expensive Richard was only just beginning to understand. He had supposed himself lavish, if not recklessly extravagant, in his treatment of his wife, but Greta showed him how, without any of that ostentation, a mistress could prove quite as costly. There, though he would not for worlds have admitted it, even to himself, lay the root of this financial embarrassment that irked him day and night. The rest he might have supported, but this made the burden intolerable. The lady in question, being a woman of business flair and experience, was blackmailing him for an absurd sum. When he protested, she said, “It wouldn’t suit your book at all, my dear Richard, to have our connection made public. Whereas it wouldn’t injure me at all. Indeed, considering the amount of limelight you’ve enjoyed of late, it might even be good for me. The woman who seduced Richard Gray.” And she laughed.

  He looked at her dumbly. Even in the moment of his disillusion and rage he was compelled to realise her charm. Of course, he had met her at an unlucky moment. He had attended a stag dinner, at which an eminent and very outspoken novelist, whose books even Richard had read, had been the guest of the evening. As the hours drew on, under the influence of this gentleman and the wine, that was excellent, various guests became loquacious, and Richard was left with the shocked recognition that there was a delight to be had for money that he had not yet experienced. His tempered raptures with his bride were effectually quenched by the murmurs and admissions of some of those present; here, it seemed, was a secret well of joy from which other men drank, but not he.

  His fidelity since marriage had been a matter of policy and of choice; he had no ethics to bind him, but he had not experienced any temptation to deceive Laura, and had, in fact, been too busy collecting scalps in other fields. The conversation, however, had fired his persistent love of self. Here were actually men less well off, less intelligent, less well connected, less brilliant in every way than himself, and he now perceived them to be richer than he. His view, he saw, had been a one-sided one; he had thought only of his work, and never of personal compensations. He went home in an unusually passionate and warm-blooded frame of mind, prepared to find his wife deficient in response. And circumstances favoured him. She had that afternoon had a most unsatisfactory interview with her lover, and was thoroughly disgusted with men, their evasions and securities. She turned away, therefore, when Richard came up to her and, taking her bare arm, began to stroke it possessively. Richard was rather pleased than otherwise at this exhibition of marital coldness. Three days later he met Greta Hazell, and within a fortnight he had taken a handsome little flat for her in Shaftesbury Avenue—not till later did he realise that its rent was three hundred and twenty pounds a year—and was buying her whatever her fancy of the moment prompted. After some months he realised that he was by no means her only visitor to the flat. Taxed with infidelity, she laughed impudently. Did he suppose she kept all her life for his pleasure? she asked. Richard was dumbfounded. Here was something he had bought defying him. It was intolerable. He determined at once to break off the liaison and never see the wretched creature again. Then she stated her terms. They were staggering; at first Richard could not believe her. She was—in execrable taste—amusing herself at his expense. But she speedily disillusioned him. He could do nothing. She had him on the hip, and it would be dangerous at this stage in his affairs to make an enemy of her. He was puzzled to know how she had learned so much of his precise position.
It did not occur to him that a political rival might be among her visitors.

  That, then, was the position this Christmas Eve. He had not yet met her demands, was not in a position to do so, but he was aware that he could not much longer defer payment. Somehow, setting his personal feelings aside, willy-nilly he must compel his father to help him. First he must pay off Greta—who had the name of never returning to plague a discarded or discarding lover—and then he must raise enough to keep the more pressing of his creditors at bay until he had achieved his goal. It would be a difficult task. Adrian Gray accorded his son only a grudging congratulation when he achieved his knighthood; he had not, in Richard’s opinion, altogether met the situation by saying, with an assumption of heartiness, “Just as you like, Richard, of course. A gentleman was good enough in our day. We didn’t go in for these fancy titles and letters after our names,” adding that, of course, gentleman had a more exclusive meaning a generation ago. Nevertheless, he would glean a certain pleasure out of saying, “My son, Lord So-and-So,” though it was questionable whether he would consider that prestige worth its price. His own affairs, as his son realised, were in a worse way than the man himself was aware. He, Richard, thought it improbable that Eustace had disclosed the true position, and he was particularly anxious to outwit his brother-in-law and obtain the first interview with his father. Once Eustace had made a clean breast of the position, it would be hopeless for any of them to ask for help. As for Brand—but Brand could be easily dismissed. Brand was a person of little importance and no influence, the kind of relative that even peers may own, though it is rash for mere knights to do so. Eustace’s speculations were a subject for consistent gossip in Richard’s own circle; people gave it as their opinion that that chap must come to grief pretty soon, and he’d be lucky if he kept out of gaol. Still, any racing man would have bet at high odds, say 50 to 1, on Eustace when it came to a match between him and Richard. The latter felt that his only chance was to be first in the field, and even that was a slender one.

  Official business, however, delayed his plans, compelling him to remain in town until the evening of the 23rd, when it was too late to make the tortuous and inconvenient journey to King’s Poplars. He had made up his mind to travel by train, which would cost him nothing. To arrive, a suppliant, in the brilliant and much-advertised car that he possessed, would be to alienate Gray at once, and give Eustace an opportunity to point a derisive finger at him.

  “Why doesn’t he put his car down if things are so stiff?” Eustace would ask. And, even without that prompting, the same no doubt might easily occur to Gray himself.

  Moreover, the car was among those luxuries for which he had not yet paid, and it seemed to him safer to leave it in the garage in town. At London Bridge he looked out nervously for Eustace, though in all probability he would motor down; there was no sign of him in the train or on the platform, and he had to school himself to such patience as he could command until they reached King’s Poplars. Shortly before the train drew up at the station he spoke again, with chill abruptness.

  “My father tells me he has had a very disquieting letter from Brand,” he observed. “Asking for money, as usual.”

  Laura lifted her charming brows: “We seem singularly united for once.”

  Richard was very angry. It was abominable. This odious comparison of himself with a shabby clerk, tied to a woman with an atrocious history, living in some degraded quarter of London, dabbling with a paint-box in his spare time—that was the kind of thing one’s footman might do. He’d make a fine relative for the future Lord X——.

  Arrived at last, he was informed that no conveyance was immediately available; he displayed his annoyance in a manner that seemed to Laura contemptible. His undignified rage with the station-master made her feel a little sick, and, standing in the background, she thought, “Why on earth did I do it? What did I think he would become? No one put any pressure on me. I had money and independence and a family whom I loved. What did I see in him? And which of us has changed so completely?”

  The station-master thought Lady Gray was a credit to them; such a lady she always looked, quiet and proud, with that lovely sort of red hair she’d never cut, just showing under her fashionable hat. A taxi was presently secured, and they drove up to the Manor in feverish unrest on Richard’s part and a bored disgust on hers. The first person they encountered was Eustace himself, prowling round the gardens, looking cold and glum.

  Richard asked politely, “Have you seen my father?” and Eustace said that he had, and that he didn’t think the old man looked any too well. He talked of a dicky heart; did Richard know if there was anything in it? Richard said firmly that he didn’t, and disregarding obvious hints from both Eustace and Amy, whom he scarcely paused to greet, broke into the library and poured out a history of his position.

  Adrian was less than sympathetic. He said fiercely, “You can take your title to the devil. I’m ruined, Eustace tells me. Ruined. It’s all that fellow’s fault—a crooked, slimy sort of chap, not even a gentleman. What in God’s name Olivia saw in him beats me. She’s a fine figure of a woman to let a little rat like that go messing her about.”

  Richard, making the best of a deplorable business, responded promptly, “I’ve never considered Eustace a safe man. He’d play ducks and drakes with anyone’s money.”

  Gray turned on him in a fine rage. “If you were so sure as that, why did you never warn me? You knew I had the greater part of my capital in his concerns.”

  Richard resembled a man struggling desperately to hold in a panic-stricken horse. He was white with rage, and the effort to control it; his voice was high and strained. He replied, speaking very fast, as though he could not swiftly enough pour forth his rage and disappointment, “You were impossible to warn. You would listen to no one. You were convinced you were a financier, with more courage than any of the rest of us. You filled us up with tales of large dividends and bold investments. At least it might have occurred to you that, with all safe companies paying something under five per cent, you must be running some risk or perpetrating some dishonesty in order to get a regular fourteen per cent. We did remonstrate with you, Miles as well as myself. And how much did you listen? Not a word. I was a beggarly politician out for grab, Miles a lawyer hoping to make something out of both sides.”

  “Miles—” began Gray uncertainly, but his son would not allow him to proceed.

  “Miles is a lawyer, just as Eustace is a financier, and neither of them will lift a finger until he’s paid for it. Why should he? An enquiry or two would have told you what you needed to know; ask anyone in the City what Eustace’s reputation is. You’ll get the answer in one word. You knew he always had money in his pocket; he hasn’t got a job like the rest of us. Did you ever stop to wonder how it got there? It came out of other people’s pockets, and they were no more willing to lose it than you’d be. Now I suppose he wants more…”

  “He won’t get it, not a penny. I haven’t got it. And I haven’t got anything for you either. You’re not buying a peerage to please me. It’s an expensive luxury, especially as you haven’t a son to take it up.”

  Richard said thickly, “Not yet.”

  “Not yet?” His father stared. “You mean that Laura, after all these years…?” In the face of his son’s possible humiliation he was instantly urbane. “My dear boy, don’t you feel a little suspicious?”

  “I don’t mean anything of the kind,” cried Richard in a rage. “Laura will never have children, any more than she’ll ever be unfaithful. A woman like that may not be an ideal mate for a normal man, but she realises her obligations, and one of them is not to make a cuckold of me.” His anger made him coarse and bitter.

  “Then what did you mean? Laura’s perfectly healthy, isn’t she?”

  “Perfectly, I believe, apart from her regrettable inability to bear me children.”

  “You’re taking a very long chance when you anticipate t
he possibility of an heir, if all that’s true. And you surely don’t wish to ruin both yourself and me for the sake of Brand’s son?”

  Richard’s comment on that was unprintable. When he had gone, his father, greatly shaken, did a strange thing. He sent for his second son-in-law, Miles Amery, and said, “Do you see much of Richard when you’re both in town? He strikes me as being in a very peculiar condition.”

  “He’s aiming very high, sir,” returned Amery, a tall, thin, stooping man, with pleasant grey eyes behind rimless pince-nez, dressed in a pepper-and-salt suit. “It’s trying to the nerves.”

  “From his manner in my room just now I should have said he was on the verge of a breakdown. Have you any influence over him at all?”

  Miles shook his head. “We’re practically strangers. We have nothing in common, you see, and I doubt if we should agree on a single point.”

  “He’s usually inclined to be taciturn, but to-day he’s so voluble and so wild in what he says that I feel sure he can’t be well. I haven’t seen Laura yet. How does she seem?”

  “No one would ever guess from Laura that anything disquieted or distressed her. You would have to be very intimate, far more intimate than either Ruth or I am fortunate enough to be, to know what she feels or thinks. As to looks, she was always the most striking woman I’ve ever set eyes on!”

  Gray said nervously, “I hope it’s all right. He struck me as being in the kind of mood when nothing would be impossible to him. And—well, between ourselves (you must hear a great many confidences, Miles, and this is strictly without prejudice)—I believe he’s developed a regular dislike of Laura. He’s actually hinting at the possibility of another marriage later on. And I’m convinced the idea of divorce hasn’t gone through his head.”