Six Against the Yard Read online

  For some weeks he did nothing but sit in the chimney corner, following my wife about with his protruding eyes. The whites of his eyes through drink had developed a bloodshot streak like those of a half-caste, and indeed when I looked at them and at his curly black hair and beard I began to suspect that he was not without a dash of the tar-brush.

  During those weeks I never left the house unless my wife went with me, which she was always glad to do, for I would not trust the Major behind my back. He saw through this, and I think it amused him. But I had my grim amusements too. I remember how I chuckled to myself when I started to saw the floor-planks into their required lengths. He complained about the noise, and when I persisted he got annoyed.

  ‘Yes,’ thought I, ‘and you’d be more than annoyed did you realise that I am preparing your scaffold.’ For by this time I had come to a definite decision of how his death should take place, and where.

  Now my wife had one very natural objection to our house, because it offended her cleanliness. Somewhere in the old wall between the fire-place in the parlour and my den there lurked a sinister family of house beetles, and despite traps and poison we had not been able to stamp them out. During the Major’s stay with us she noticed that they seemed to be increasing. This was scarcely to be wondered at, since needing beetles for the greater torture of the Major’s death, instead of warring against them, I encouraged their cultivation. I read up their habits, their likes and their dislikes, and instead of putting down the nightly poison I laid down food for their encouragement, and was delighted to see how rapidly the loathsome creatures bred. The Major noticed the increase of them too, and teased my wife about it, saying that beetles indicated a dirty house. She wanted me to pull out the hearth-bricks till I located them, but I said I was confident that traps and poison would do the trick. I showed her the well-filled traps, but did not tell her that I systematically emptied them and let the beetles live. The Major quite enjoyed them, and would finish up his nightly debauch by trying to harpoon them with the end of my walking-stick, but when he finally reeled off to bed I would lay down the food the beetles liked.

  I will say that the Major took what pains he could to hide his drunkenness from my wife. He never replenished his glass if she were looking at him, but when she went to bed he would commandeer the bottle and tilt the raw spirit down his throat, for he never pretended to any virtue to me. In the mornings, when at last he condescended to put in an appearance, he would complain about his fever, to excuse the excesses written on his face.

  In those nightmare days when the monster was our guest, I found that I gained considerable percentage in my wife’s admiration. I knew that she was comparing me and all the work I did with my so-called relative, who did nothing whatever to make our daily life the easier. I remember her coming into the parlour when I had overturned her heavy elbow-chair in order to fix new webbing underneath the seat.

  ‘An upholsterer now,’ she said. ‘Is there anything this clever husband of mine can’t do?’

  I saw the Major scowl at her praise of me, and I longed to say, ‘I’ll tell you something I am going to do. Murder. That’s why I am webbing. Webbing is one of the essentials. Strong webbing. And that is why I have laid this floor with wood. Slate slabs are no good for my murder. Must have wood, strong webbing and beetles, besides the deadly sins of my victim.’

  The Major meantime was loathsomely lazy. He was utterly unskilled except with his lying tongue, which wagged on with invented conceits. Could he have laid a wooden floor for his scaffold? No, for he had not the genius, the infinite capacity for taking pains, that I had. He despised my activities, and, I think, hated me at this time even more than I abominated him. He was bored with me too, and showed it plainly when my wife left us together. I could always escape from him by going into my study or workshop. The latter was too draughty for him, he said, and the study gave him no room in which to sprawl. Besides, he was no reader, and resented my well-filled shelves. He was not curious as to my books. I think he never read one title, and this was just as well, because my study of crime might have given him an inkling of what was in store for him.

  Once, indeed, he intruded into my workshop and stood behind me as I worked upon the laboratory table. He wanted another bottle of whisky, and complained that I had locked the wine cupboard. I gave him the key and told him to help himself. I could afford to be generous at that moment by reason of the job I was employed on.

  ‘And what do you think you’re doing?’ he asked, scornfully.

  ‘Concocting some poison for the beetles,’ I lied.

  He pointed to two stoppered glass vessels by my hand, and asked, ‘What’s that stuff? Two sorts of gin?’

  ‘They look like it, don’t they?’ I answered pleasantly. ‘This one Gordon’s, that one Booth’s, eh? But no, it is a harmless experiment I have been trying. Extracting the iron from water. You can see that this one has a slight resinous tinge, while this one is pure water.’

  ‘Pure water?’ he repeated. ‘How damned dull.’

  ‘I give you my word that this liquid is absolutely pure,’ I added proudly. That at least was no lie, since the colourless liquid was absolutely pure nicotine unexposed to the air, while the other bottle I had exposed in order to see how quickly it discoloured.

  That night I put a few drops into his whisky, and was overjoyed at the result. For he drank it down without criticism, but later, when I helped him to his room, he leaned more heavily than usual on my shoulder. ‘Been smoking a bit too much,’ he said. ‘Never affected me before. That doctor friend of yours read me a lecture on nicotine the other day. Damned cheek. I say, you don’t think I’m in for nicotine poison, do you? Damned dangerous thing, you know.’

  I pretended ignorance on the subject, and asked him for information, professing to be vastly interested. This I did on purpose, for I knew that if he found he was making an effect talking about something which other people knew nothing about, he would not rest content with me for an audience. He would brag about his nicotine poisoning at the inn. In this I was right, for a few days later the innkeeper in passing asked after our guest. ‘Smokes too much,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Told me he was suffering from nicotine poisoning. I could have told him that. When a man’s teeth are so yellow with the juice you can reckon on nicotine trouble elsewhere. What’s more, sir, though he carries his drink pretty well, he drinks a sight too much, and with all respect I should add alcoholic poisoning if I were the doctor diagnosing him. He’s strong, but not strong enough for the way he goes. Killing himself by inches, to my mind.’

  The innkeeper was a Londoner of some education. An old sergeant-major who had married a Dorset woman. His opinion on anything was taken for gospel in the neighbourhood. I knew to my joy that this news would spread about the Major killing himself.

  A queer thing about the Major, which in my knowledge of men was unusual, was the fact that although such a drinker and smoker, he had yet preserved the sweet-tooth of his younger days. He would order suet puddings and heap the golden syrup on to his helpings. He once bought my wife a large box of chocolates on one of his rare visits to the market town, but he wolfed the lot of them on his way home and presented her with the empty box, laughing.

  One day when he was returning from the inn he saw my wife and me in the shop. He lurched in after us and asked what was for dinner, saying that he was starving.

  ‘Let’s see what they’ve got in this antiquated hole, now. Show us your jams, Mrs. What’s-your-name.’

  The dear old lady who kept the shop timidly pointed to the shelf where the preserves stood. I perceived a large pot of mincemeat.

  ‘Can’t think why we only eat mincemeat at Christmas,’ I said. ‘In America, I believe, they eat mince pies all the year, don’t they, Major?’

  How easily he swallowed the bait I had thrown out for him.

  ‘They do,’ he replied, ‘and very good mincemeat it is too. Ate it every day of my life out there.’

  I knew very well that he
never had been to America, but I let that pass. ‘I remember how you used to love it, Major,’ I went on, tempting him to knock just another nail into his coffin. ‘And believe me, Mrs. Partridge here can make it, and you should know the wife’s pastry by now. This is your own make, isn’t it, Mrs. Partridge?’

  ‘All the preserves are my own make,’ answered the old lady. ‘Even to jutney. Of course, if you prefer the well-known manufactured brands, I can order them for you.’

  ‘Not as far as I’m concerned,’ I said.

  ‘Nor I,’ added the Major. ‘Send us up some of this mincemeat, my good woman, and little cousin, you can get busy with the pastry again. It’s pastry day to-morrow, isn’t it?’

  And on the morrow, to my extreme glee, I saw the Major putting one mince-pie after another into his mouth whole. If I could make him do that just when I wanted him to, I had improved upon the murder performed long ago by the Rev. Doctor Syn.

  The use to which I was to put the mincemeat will appear in the proper sequence of the murder. When I had finished the flooring of the rooms I knew that now at any time the victim might precipitate the end. His excesses were by then the common talk of the neighbourhood, and opinion as regards myself was divided. Some, I discovered, praised me for my tolerance, and what they were pleased to call my Christian hospitality, while others thought me a crass fool to harbour such a monster in the same house as my young and beautiful wife.

  Her attitude had been undergoing a gradual change. Her sympathy for the Major diminished, and her interest in his wild adventurous tales ceased. Before he died she had exposed him in her own mind as a liar, a cheat, and a gross liver, utterly worthless. I think then she hated him as much as I did. He was sensitive enough to feel the change in her, and his astonishment that she could prefer me to him galled him deeply. Wanting her money as well as mine, and still hopeful of getting it, he pursued the wrong policy towards that end. For resenting her changed attitude to him, he now openly solicited her favours. Of these insults my wife seemed to take no notice. She pretended not to understand them. But I now and then caught a look of pleading, a childlike appeal in her eyes directed towards me, which asked plainly but in dumb language, when was I going to rid the house of the monster.

  On one of these occasions I whispered, ‘Not many days before the end now. Don’t worry. He can’t be with us long. He is killing himself. He will probably die of a stroke. I have done all I can to help the poor fellow, while you have been patience itself. We can hardly turn him out, for where will he go? Of course, if he does have a stroke we shall have to nurse him, but it’s my impression that a stroke will be fatal.’

  ‘You think he will have a stroke?’ asked my wife.

  ‘Everyone is of that opinion. But we must keep calm. Yes, keep calm and do whatever we think is our duty.’

  After dinner at night the atmosphere of the house became unbearable. I would bring in a book from the den and pretend to read. My wife would take up her needlework or knitting, and he would sit staring at her, repeating such insane invitations as ‘Come and sit on your cousin’s knee, my dear.’

  When she could not bear the strain any longer and went to bed, he became ill-tempered, would grab the whisky, drink deep and ask why the devil I didn’t make my wife kinder to him.

  ‘I’ll show her some of my naughty postcards tomorrow night, to liven her up,’ he said. ‘The ones you used to be so shocked at. They’ll teach her.’

  ‘If you show her those,’ I said calmly, ‘as sure as there’s a God above us, He’ll strike you dead.’

  ‘There isn’t a God, you old-fashioned innocent,’ he laughed. ‘As to your wife, well, I tell you, I’ve got a fancy for her, and why should you, a dirty criminal, keep her from me? By God, I’ve always helped myself to what I want, and I’ll get her, see? And you shall help me.’

  I brought him another bottle of whisky and told him to help himself to that. It was laced with nicotine, and I wondered how much I should have to increase the dose before it took effect. Presently he complained that he had a pain in his heart, and when he stood up he reeled with giddiness. I told him it was through his drinking and smoking, for which he went on cursing me as I led him up to bed. ‘It’s not that at all, fool,’ he said. ‘It’s your wife. Curse her, and you too. Why won’t she love me? All other women do. It’s she that’s upsetting me, to hell with her. But I’ll show you yet.’

  He was doomed to show us on the very next night, and I was destined to show him, too.

  I somehow got him upstairs, and locked him in to snore himself out of his debauch as best he could. Then I went downstairs and performed my nightly ritual, which was to empty all the ash-trays of cigar stubs into a large box I kept for the purpose in the workshop. I then spread the usual food upon the floor and watched the first beetles dare to leave their hole to feast. I found that they were stupidly fond of golden syrup, getting their legs stuck in their greed. On this night I collected four of them, took them into the laboratory and poisoned them. My wife had been baking fresh mince-pies that day at the Major’s orders. I took four of them from the larder, opened the pastry, and placed in each a dead beetle beneath the mincemeat. In case of a post-mortem, I was determined that the doctor should find at least one beetle in the monster’s stomach. There was never any need to throw away the nicotined whisky, for he would always finish the bottle before going to bed.

  I then saw that my hammer was in its usual place, and noted which drawer of my nail and screw cabin held the heavy-topped carpet-nails. Thus the stage was set for the murder, and the preparations and properties ready. The curtain went up on my drama the following night.

  The next day the Major felt very ill, and his only cure for anything was more drink. I allowed him to help himself. He ate no breakfast, no lunch and no tea, but when six o’clock came he complained that he was starving. Now I had purposely asked my wife to delay dinner so that we should not have to endure the long torment of his company till he pleased to go to bed, so that when she announced that dinner could not possibly be served before eight, he flew into a rage and flung out of the house.

  I knew well enough that he had gone down to the inn. So much the better, for I wished as many witnesses as possible to see his deplorable condition. At a quarter to eight the landlord and the local constable brought him back. They humoured him to his face, telling him that he was all right, and not to worry, but the constable whispered to my wife and me that he had been very offensive to the villagers, and that were he to visit the inn any more the landlord would be losing customers.

  When they had gone the Major seemed to recover, began to laugh heartily, and said that country bumpkins couldn’t understand a man of his calibre. Presently he flew into another rage because dinner was not ready. ‘You’re not hungry,’ I laughed. ‘You’ve drunk too much. You couldn’t eat a thing if you tried.’

  He swore that he had never been so ravenous, and at that I brought him in the mince-pies which I had so carefully prepared the night before. At the same time I set a fresh bottle of whisky in front of him. Then watching him covertly, I set about laying the dinner-table. To my huge delight, he ate two mince-pies as he always did, whole, at one chump and swallow of his capacious mouth. He washed them down with whisky: pastry, mincemeat, beetles, all together.

  During dinner I marvelled at the man’s appetite. What a constitution. I had asked my wife especially to make a treacle pudding that night, saying that I fancied it. The Major fancied it too, and helped himself to syrup bountifully. All the time he kept his eyes upon my wife. Suddenly he got to his feet, steadying himself by the table, and said huskily, ‘You’ve got to be nicer to me, by God. You look beautiful tonight. You’ve set me all on fire, you have. She’s got to be nicer, hasn’t she, you fool. Tell her so, or it’ll be the worse for you.’

  I got to my feet and ordered him sharply to sit down. In his turn he ordered me to keep my mouth shut, and added, ‘Don’t you know when you’re not wanted. We want to be left alone, don’t we, little cousi
n? Kissing and cuddling. And by God, we’re going to do it now.’

  He drank off half a tumbler full of neat whisky. It was laced. With a cry he sprang towards her. The time had come. I jammed the heavy table into him at his first movement. He overbalanced, clutched the armchair by the fire, and down he went, chair and all, upon the floor. He lay there gasping, and then the alcohol or nicotine got him. He twitched once convulsively, and lay still, his eyes rolling wide and then closing. As I moved forward to look to him, I contrived to knock over the tin of syrup. Yes, I thought of everything, and I knew that it was important that my wife should be a witness that the tin of syrup was thus spilled by accident.

  ‘It’s as I said,’ I whispered. ‘He’s knocked out for the moment. It’s the stroke that everyone said would happen. He may recover, and if he does he will be dangerous. I must see that he can do no further damage. Get me the third nail drawer from the cabinet and the heavy hammer.’

  Dazed with the horror of it, my wife obeyed. When she returned he had not moved, though his heavy breathing told us he was alive.

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Nail him to the floor till he’s better,’ I replied. ‘Then we’ll go for the policeman. We’ve had about enough of this scoundrel.’

  I tore off the webbing from underneath the overturned chair. Oh, yes, I had put it there in readiness. I had planned it all. I then rolled the unconscious brute over on his back and spread out his arms. ‘Pass me a thong,’ I said. ‘Now the hammer and nails.’

  I nailed the webbing securely to the wooden floor, stretching it tightly over his arms and legs. In like manner I secured his body and head. When I had finished it was obvious that he could not have moved had he been in full possession of his senses and strength.

  ‘He’ll do no more mischief now,’ I said.

  When I had satisfied myself that each webbing was secure and every nail fast, I led my wife upstairs and persuaded her to lie down. ‘I’ll go down and wait for the brute to come round, and then I’ll give him a good talking to. It’s no use losing one’s temper with him, because he’s mad. Mad and ill. I’m really sorry for him. But he shall not try any pranks like this again in our house. It may be a lesson to him.’