The Blind Side

Chapter XXXVII

Peter Renshaw came back to Craddock House on the Sunday afternoon. He thought, “Well, it’s all over now. Bobby’s safe, and I don’t give a damn whether Mavis is safe or not. No need to either, Mavis being very well able to look out for Mavis Grey.” He thought, “Lee and I can get married. I can take her right away out of this, and I hope to heaven we never see Craddock House again.”

He rang the bell of Lucy Craddock’s flat, and when Lee opened the door he picked her up and held her close, and didn’t say a word.

When they were in the sitting-room he said in an odd, unsteady voice, “Where’s Lucinda?” and Lee said,

“She’s lying down. I think she’s asleep.”

They stood looking at each other. Lee’s lips trembled.

She said, “Why don’t you tell me what has happened?” And Peter said,

“It’s all over-she’s dead. It’s a good thing-better than being hanged. When she saw old Lamb and me she lost her nerve and bolted-right under a train. Horrid business. They got her to a hospital, and she was able to make a statement. Old Lamb says she was as clear as a bell. She dictated a confession. I’ve got a copy of it here. Come and sit down.”

He took out a number of folded type-written sheets and gave them to her. She sat down on the sofa. Peter sat beside her. They read the confession together.

“My name is Agnes Sophia Crouch. My stage name is Rosalie La Fay. I married Ross Craddock at the Marylebone register office on August 25th 1917 when he was over from France on ten days’ leave. That was the only time we lived together. When he came home after the Armistice he’d had enough of me. He said so. Said he’d been a fool to marry me. Said I was older than him. And if I was, I was his wife just the same. He couldn’t get away from that, could he? I’d got my lines.

His father didn’t like it, but he played up. There wasn’t anything against me, and so I told the lawyer. And old Mr. Craddock made me an allowance. It was three hundred a year to start with, but when the depression came he cut it down. And then he cut it again, and when he died Ross brought it down to twenty-five, and then this last year he stopped it altogether. Well, I wasn’t going to stand for that. How could I? I wasn’t getting any younger, and jobs weren’t getting any easier to find. Besides I wasn’t going to put up with it. No one’s ever scored me off without my getting my own back in the end. If he had treated me decently, I’d have let him alone, but he didn’t know how to treat anyone, and I wasn’t going to let him get away with it.

I thought I’d come up to London and smell round a bit, and I thought I’d manage it so that no one would know. I left my room in Doncaster, and I got my sister Annie-she’s Mrs. Love, and a widow-to take a room in Birmingham and call herself Miss La Fay. There ’s enough likeness for a description of one of us to fit the other. But first and last, all Annie knew was that I’d got business in London and didn’t want anyone to know I was there. She thought I was getting a divorce, and she sent my letters on to me care of the post office. She didn’t know anything more than that.

Twenty years ago I played the part of a charwoman called Mrs. Brown. It wasn’t much of a play, but I got the best notices I ever had. Well, I took a fancy to play the part again. I bleached my hair and painted a port-wine mark on my face, and I took a lot of pains over the clothes-to get them shabby enough, you know-and I called myself Mrs. Green. First thing I did was to get friendly with the old woman who did the daily work at Craddock House. She was getting past it, and her married daughter was wanting her to go and help with the children, so I got her to take me round and speak for me. Nobody bothers where a daily comes from.

What I thought was, if Ross wouldn’t give me my allowance I could run him in for a divorce, and then he’d have to give me alimony. I hadn’t any money to pay detectives, so I had to look about and find the evidence myself. Well, up to a fortnight ago I hadn’t got any further, and I was getting right down sick of the whole thing. I’d enjoyed it at first, doing Mrs. Green, and taking everybody in, and feeling what a good job I was making of it, but that had worn off and I was just about as sick of it as I could be.

And then I found Ross’s key sticking in the door of his flat, and I nipped it out and put it in my pocket. I got my opportunity a day or two after that. Peterson had the day off, and Ross went out after breakfast and said he wouldn’t be back till late. Rush had Peterson’s key, but he keeps his times like a piece of clockwork, so I knew just when he’d be out of the way. Well, I had a piece of luck. Ross had left his bunch of keys lying out on the writing-table, so I only had to help myself. I went through the drawers, but there wasn’t anything there. All I found was the pistol he kept in one of them, and I didn’t bother about that till afterwards. And then I opened the despatch-box, and there, right on the top, was a letter from the lawyer, Mr. Prothero, wanting Ross to make his will. It was all wrapped up very politely, and my name not mentioned, but what it amounted to was that he’d better hurry up and make a will if he didn’t want me to come in for all that money of his mother’s that wasn’t tied up. I knew what it meant well enough, and I knew that the law had been altered, and that a widow got her rights now and not just the third that she used to get when her husband died without making a will. And it came over me that if Ross were to die before he made that will, I’d be a rich woman.

I went on turning out the despatch-box. The bottom of it was full of letters from other women. He had kept theirs-he hadn’t kept any of mine. That’s when I made up my mind to kill him. I put everything back, and I went away and thought out the best way of doing it.

I got it all planned. Being on the stage gives you an insight into that sort of thing. If I could get the scene set right, then it was just a matter of timing. I made up my mind I’d do it the next time he brought a girl home to supper, because I meant it to look as if they’d quarrelled and he’d shot himself. In some ways it went better than I’d planned, and in some ways it went worse. Anyhow it went different-but I suppose that’s what always happens, no matter how carefully you plan.

The way I planned it was this. I’d been cleaning up Mr. and Mrs. Connell’s flat after they had gone away on their holiday. That was the Tuesday, and I knew Ross was bringing someone back, because I heard him tell Peterson to put out champagne and two glasses. Miss Lucy Craddock was going off abroad, so it all suited well enough-one less person on the landing. But when I came past just to make sure she was gone I found Miss Lee Fenton was there. I told her I’d got one of my turns and I didn’t think I’d be fit to come on the Wednesday. Then I went off and stayed about in the King’s Arms till about a quarter past nine, and when I got to my room, there were half a dozen people besides the woman of the house ready and willing to swear I’d drunk myself stupid and was good for a dozen hours’ sleep.

I’d a ground-floor room, and I always locked my door. I let them hear me snoring for a bit, and then I got out of the window and came along back to Craddock House. Rush doesn’t lock up till eleven, and for twenty minutes before that he’ll be putting his wife all ready for the night. I had only to watch for the street being clear and walk in.

Craddock House has an alleyway ranning between it and the next house. I watched from there. Then I just ran in and up the stairs and let myself into the Connells’ flat, which was number five and right underneath Ross’s. If I’d met anyone I was going to say I’d dropped my purse, but there wasn’t anyone about, so I just sat down and waited.

I heard the front door round about twelve o’clock. I stood on a chair and looked through the fanlight over the door. That was Mr. Peter Renshaw coming in. It was an hour later when Ross came, and he had Mavis Grey with him. They went on up the stairs, and I opened my door and listened. I heard them go into his flat and shut the door, and right there it came over me, what was I going to do if she stayed there all night? I hadn’t thought of that before somehow, and it made me mad with rage. I made up my mind that I would shoot them both and try and make it look as if Ross had done it-I thought I owed him that. You see, I’d planned to shoot him with his own pistol. I once had to practise shooting for a show I was in, and I turned out quite a good shot, so I knew I could manage it all right. I waited a bit so as to let them get on with the champagne, and then, just as I was thinking about it, I heard a crash right over my head. I ran to the door and opened it to listen, and there was Mavis Grey calling out, and Mr. Renshaw out of his room hushing her up, and Ross talking queer and thick as if he was drunk. And in the end Mavis went into Mr. Renshaw’s flat and they shut the door.

Nothing could have been better for me. I made up my mind to wait till two o’clock, and as soon as I heard Mrs. Connell’s dining-room clock strike I came out of the flat. I turned off the light on that landing, and when I got up on to Ross’s landing I turned out that light too-that was in case I had to run for it. I had the key of Ross’s flat all ready, but I didn’t have to use it, because the door was ajar. He must have gone back in and left it like that, and when I looked round the sitting-room door I could see why. The light was on, and Ross was sitting right underneath it straddling across a chair with his arms along the back and his chin down on them. There was a lot of dried blood on his forehead and cheek, and his shirt was in such a mess that I thought someone had done my job for me. He didn’t move his head or take any notice of my coming in, he just sat there staring. There was something to stare at too. The table with the drinks had been pushed over, and there was a smashed decanter, and bits of broken glass everywhere. There was some in Ross’s hair-I saw it glitter under the light.

I had gloves on my hands. I went to the writing-table and got the pistol out of the drawer where Ross kept it. It was loaded when I was there before, but I opened it again to make sure. And all the time he never moved. He just kept on staring. I came over with the pistol in my hand, and when I was a yard away he put up his head with a jerk and said, ‘Who’s there?’ He took hold of the back of the chair to pull himself up, and I thought, ‘It’s now or never.’ There was something very heavy passing along the Embankment-all the windows rattled with it. I shot him like that, and he fell down on to the floor and never moved. That was the only mistake I made. I was on the left of him, and I fired too soon. I ought to have come round on his right, and then everyone would have believed he had done it himself. But I had to think about the lorry, because that was what I was counting on to cover up the sound of the shot. I put the pistol in his hand quickly and came away. I left the light burning, and the door of the flat ajar. I crept downstairs and opened the street door. I didn’t make a sound. I was afraid to risk shutting the street door in case of waking Mr. Pyne, so I left it just pushed to, and ran down the steps and along the alleyway. It took me half an hour to get back to my room. I got in through the window and went to bed. I didn’t see how anyone could possibly suspect me, and I don’t see now how they did.

I planned to disappear as soon as it was safe. Annie was getting worried, and I didn’t dare leave her alone too long. But I had to wait till after the inquest. I wrote to her to come down and meet me on the Saturday. She was to give up her room, and I sent her a letter for my old landlady at Doncaster to say I was coming back. Annie brought me down a suit-case and my own clothes and a transformation to cover my hair. I was puzzled to know what to do with Mrs. Green’s things, but I made sure I was safe, so I just brought them along. I thought I could get rid of them later on. Annie went back to her home. She’d given out she was away nursing a sister who was ill. She never knew anything-I’m dying and I swear she didn’t. She only thought she was helping me to get my divorce. I’m sorry about Annie, but I’m not sorry about Ross. I’d do it again tomorrow.”