Towards Zero Read online

  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.

  Just as she was leaving the room, Battle stopped her.

  “One minute, Ma’am, how did you come to pitch upon Sylvia as the one responsible for these—er—leakages?”

  “My methods, Mr. Battle, were psychological.”

  Miss Amphrey spoke with dignity.

  “Psychological? H’m. What about the evidence, Miss Amphrey?”

  “Yes, yes, I quite understand, Mr. Battle—you would feel that way. Your—er—profession steps in. But psychology is beginning to be recognized in criminology. I can assure you that there is no mistake—Sylvia freely admits the whole thing.”

  “Yes, yes—I know that. I was just asking how you came to pitch upon her to begin with.”

  “Well, Mr. Battle, this business of things being taken out of the girls’ lockers was on the increase. I called the school together and told them the facts. At the same time, I studied their faces unobtrusively. Sylvia’s expression struck me at once. It was guilty—confused. I knew at that moment who was responsible. I wanted, not to confront her with her guilt, but to get her to admit it herself. I set a little test for her—a word association.”

  Battle nodded to show he understood.

  “And finally the child admitted it all.”

  Her father said:

  “I see.”

  Miss Amphrey hesitated a minute, then went out.

  Battle was standing looking out of the window when the door opened again.

  He turned round slowly and looked at his daughter.

  Sylvia stood just inside the door, which she had closed behind her. She was tall, dark, angular. Her face was sullen and bore marks of tears. She said timidly rather than defiantly:

  “Well, here I am.”

  Battle looked at her thoughtfully for a minute or two. He sighed.

  “I should never have sent you to this place,” he said. “That woman’s a fool.”

  Sylvia lost sight of her own problems in sheer amazement.

  “Miss Amphrey? Oh, but she’s wonderful. We all think so.”

  “H’m,” said Battle. “Can’t be quite a fool, then, if she sells the idea of herself as well as that. All the same, Meadway wasn’t the place for you—although I don’t know—this might have happened anywhere.”

  Sylvia twisted her hands together. She looked down. She said:

  “I’m—I’m sorry, Father. I really am.”

  “So you should be,” said Battle shortly. “Come here.”

  She came slowly and unwillingly across the room to him. He took her chin in his great square hand and looked closely into her face.

  “Been through a good deal, haven’t you?” he said gently.

  Tears started into her eyes.

  Battle said slowly:

  “You see, Sylvia, I’ve known all along with you, that there was something. Most people have got a weakness of some kind or another. Usually it’s plain enough. You can see when a child’s greedy, or bad-tempered, or got a streak of the bully in him. You were a good child, very quiet—very sweet-tempered—no trouble in any way—and som
etimes I’ve worried. Because if there’s a flaw you don’t see, sometimes it wrecks the whole show when the article is tried out.”

  “Like me!” said Sylvia.

  “Yes, like you. You’ve cracked under strain—and in a damned queer way too. It’s a way, oddly enough, I’ve never come across before.”

  The girl said suddenly and scornfully:

  “I should think you’d come across thieves often enough!”

  “Oh yes—I know all about them. And that’s why, my dear—not because I’m your father (fathers don’t know much about their children) but because I’m a policeman I know well enough you’re not a thief. You never took a thing in this place. Thieves are of two kinds, the kind that yields to sudden and overwhelming temptation—(and that happens damned seldom—it’s amazing what temptation the ordinary normal honest human being can withstand) and there’s the kind that just takes what doesn’t belong to them almost as a matter of course. You don’t belong to either type. You’re not a thief. You’re a very unusual type of liar.”

  Sylvia began, “But—”

  He swept on.

  “You’ve admitted it all? Oh yes, I know that. There was a saint once—went out with bread for the poor. Husband didn’t like it. Met her and asked what there was in her basket. She lost her nerve and said it was roses—he tore open her basket and roses it was—a miracle! Now if you’d been Saint Elizabeth and were out with a basket of roses, and your husband had come along and asked what you’d got, you’d have lost your nerve and said ‘Bread.’”

  He paused and then said gently:

  “That’s how it happened, isn’t it?”

  There was a longer pause and then the girl suddenly bent her head.

  Battle said:

  “Tell me, child. What happened exactly?”

  “She had us all up. Made a speech. And I saw her eyes on me and I knew she thought it was me! I felt myself getting red—and I saw some of the girls looking at me. It was awful. And then the others began looking at me and whispering in corners. I could see they all thought so. And then the Amp had me up here with some of the others one evening and we played a sort of word game—she said words and we gave answers—”

  Battle gave a disgusted grunt.

  “And I could see what it meant—and—and I sort of got paralysed. I tried not to give the wrong word—I tried to think of things quite outside—like squirrels or flowers—and the Amp was there watching me with eyes like gimlets—you know, sort of boring inside one. And after that—oh, it got worse and worse, and one day the Amp talked to me quite kindly and so—so understandingly—and—and I broke down and said I had done it—and oh! Daddy, the relief!”

  Battle was stroking his chin.

  “I see.”

  “You do understand?”

  “No, Sylvia, I don’t understand, because I’m not made that way. If anyone tried to make me say I’d done something I hadn’t I’d feel more like giving them a sock on the jaw. But I see how it came about in your case—and that gimlet-eyed Amp of yours has had as pretty an example of unusual psychology shoved under her nose as any half-baked exponent of misunderstood theories could ask for. The thing to do now is clear up this mess. Where’s Miss Amphrey?”

  Miss Amphrey was hovering tactfully near at hand. Her sympathetic smile froze on her face as Superintendent Battle said bluntly:

  “In justice to my daughter, I must ask that you call in your local police over this.”

  “But, Mr. Battle, Sylvia herself—”

  “Sylvia has never touched a thing that didn’t belong to her in this place.”

  “I quite understand that, as a father—”

  “I’m not talking as a father, but as a policeman. Get the police to give you a hand over this. They’ll be discreet. You’ll find the things hidden away somewhere and the right set of fingerprints on them, I expect. Petty pilferers don’t think of wearing gloves. I’m taking my daughter away with me now. If the police find evidence—real evidence—to connect her with the thefts, I’m prepared for her to appear in court and take what’s coming to her, but I’m not afraid.”

  As he drove out of the gate with Sylvia beside him some five minutes later, he asked:

  “Who’s the girl with fair hair, rather fuzzy, very pink cheeks and a spot on her chin, blue eyes far apart? I passed her in the passage.”

  “That sounds like Olive Parsons.”

  “Ah, well, I shouldn’t be surprised if she were the one.”

  “Did she look frightened?”

  “No, looked smug! Calm smug look I’ve seen in the police court hundreds of times! I’d bet good money she’s the thief—but you won’t find her confessing—not much!”

  Sylvia said with a sigh:

  “It’s like coming out of a bad dream. Oh Daddy, I am sorry! Oh, I am sorry! How could I be such a fool, such an utter fool? I do feel awful about it.”

  “Ah, well,” said Superintendent Battle, patting her on the arm with a hand he disengaged from the wheel, and uttering one of his pet forms of trite consolation. “Don’t you worry. These things are sent to try us. Yes, these things are sent to try us. At least, I suppose so. I don’t see what else they can be sent for….”

  April 19th

  The sun was pouring down on Nevile Strange’s house at Hindhead.

  It was an April day such as usually occurs at least once in a month, hotter than most of the June days to follow.

  Nevile Strange was coming down the stairs. He was dressed in white flannels and held four tennis racquets under his arm.

  If a man could have been selected from amongst other Englishmen as an example of a lucky man with nothing to wish for, a Selection Committee might have chosen Nevile Strange. He was a man well known to the British public, a first-class tennis player and all-round sportsman. Though he had never reached the finals at Wimbledon, he had lasted several of the opening rounds and in the mixed doubles had twice reached the semifinals. He was, perhaps, too much of an all-round athlete to be a Champion tennis player. He was scratch at golf, a fine swimmer and had done some good climbs in the Alps. He was thirty-three, had magnificent health, good looks, plenty of money, an extremely beautiful wife whom he had recently married and, to all appearances, no cares or worries.

  Nevertheless as Nevile Strange went downstairs this fine morning a shadow went with him. A shadow perceptible, perhaps, to no eyes but his. But he was aware of it, the thought of it furrowed his brow and made his expression troubled and indecisive.

  He crossed the hall, squared his shoulders as though definitely throwing off some burden, passed through the living room and out on to a glass-enclosed veranda where his wife, Kay, was curled up amongst cushions drinking orange juice.

  Kay Strange was twenty-three and unusually beautiful. She had a slender but subtly voluptuous figure, dark red hair, such a perfect skin that she used only the slightest makeup to enhance it, and those dark eyes and brows which so seldom go with red hair and which are so devastating when they do.

  Her husband said lightly:

  “Hullo, Gorgeous, what’s for breakfast?”

  Kay replied: “Horribly bloody-looking kidneys for you—and mushrooms—and rolls of bacon.”

  “Sounds all right,” said Nevile.

  He helped himself to the aforementioned viands and poured out a cup of coffee. There was a companionable silence for some minutes.

  “Oo,” said Kay voluptuously, wriggling bare toes with scarlet manicured nails. “Isn’t the sun lovely? England’s not so bad after all.”

  They had just come back from the South of France.

  Nevile, after a bare glance at the newspaper healines, had turned to the Sports page and merely said “Um….”

  Then, proceeding to toast and marmalade, he put the paper aside and opened his letters.

  There were a good many of these, but most of them he tore across and chucked away. Circulars, advertisements, printed matter.

  Kay said: “I don’t like my colour scheme in the living room
. Can I have it done over, Nevile?”

  “Anything you like, beautiful.”

  “Peacock blue,” said Kay dreamily, “and ivory satin cushions.”

  “You’ll have to throw in an ape,” said Nevile.

  “You can be the ape,” said Kay.

  Nevile opened another letter.

  “Oh, by the way,” said Kay. “Shirty has asked us to go to Norway on the yacht at the end of June. Rather sickening we can’t.”

  She looked cautiously sideways at Nevile and added wistfully: “I would love it so.”

  Something, some cloud, some uncertainty, seemed hovering on Nevile’s face.

  Kay said rebelliously:

  “Have we got to go to dreary old Camilla’s?”

  Nevile frowned.

  “Of course we have. Look here, Kay, we’ve had this out before. Sir Matthew was my guardian. He and Camilla looked after me. Gull’s Point is my home, as far as any place is home to me.”

  “Oh all right, all right,” said Kay. “If we must, we must. After all, we get all that money when she dies, so I suppose we have to suck up a bit.”

  Nevile said angrily:

  “It’s not a question of sucking up! She’s no control over the money. Sir Matthew left it in trust for her during her lifetime and to come to me and my wife afterwards. It’s a question of affection. Why can’t you understand that?”

  Kay said, after a moment’s pause:

  “I do understand really. I’m just putting on an act because—well because I know I’m only allowed there on sufferance as it were. They hate me! Yes, they do! Lady Tressilian looks down that long nose of hers at me and Mary Aldin looks over my shoulder when she talks to me. It’s all very well for you. You don’t see what goes on.”

  “They always seem to be very polite to you. You know quite well I wouldn’t stand for it if they weren’t.”

  Kay gave him a curious look from under her dark lashes.

  “They’re polite enough. But they know how to get under my skin all right. I’m the interloper, that’s what they feel.”

  “Well,” said Nevile, “after all, I suppose—that’s natural enough, isn’t it?”

  His voice had changed slightly. He got up and stood looking out at the view with his back to Kay.