‘You drink up your nice drink,’ said Jacket, ‘and go over it all again.’
‘I hated that man,’ said Mr Wainewright. ‘Who did he think he was, that Sid Tooth? He was no good. And all the women were in love with him. He was a bully, a dirty bully. A drunkard, a bad ’un – bad to the backbone. He practically forced his way into this house. A laugh, a joke, a drink, a bang on the back – and before I knew where I was, there was Tooth, in auntie’s old room. I’m not used to that sort of thing, Mr Jacket, sir. I’m not used to it. He borrowed money in cash, and ran up bills. He told me he’d done a deal with a new department store, for weighing machines – over a thousand pounds in commission he had to collect. So he said. All lies, sir, all lies, but I swallowed ’em. I swallowed everything Tooth said. Bad, sir, bad! He was bad to the backbone.’
Jacket asked: ‘Why didn’t you tell him to get out?’
‘I meant to,’ said Mr Wainewright, ‘but he always saw it coming. Then it was a laugh, and a joke, and a drink, and a bang on the back…. To-morrow: he’d pay me to-morrow. And to-morrow, he said, to-morrow. And then he had to go to Leeds, or Bristol. It was drinks and women with him, sir, all the time. He used to bring women into this very room, Mr Jacket, sir, into this very room. And I was next door. No woman ever looked twice at me, sir. What’s the matter with me? Have I got a hump on my back, or something? Eh? Have I?’
Jacket said: ‘Far from it, old friend.’
‘And I sat in my room, next door, with nothing to do but get my scrap-book up to date.’
‘What scrap-book?’ asked Jacket, refilling the little man’s glass.
Mr Wainewright giggled, pointing to a neatly-arranged pile of red-backed volumes on a shelf by the bed. Jacket opened one, and riffled the pages. Mr Wainewright had meticulously cut out of cinematic and physical-culture magazines the likenesses of young women in swimming suits. He had gummed them in and smoothed them down. Here, between the eight covers of four scrap-books, lay his seraglio. His favourite wife, it appeared, was Ann Sheridan.
‘You think I’m pretty terrible,’ he said, rising uncertainly and taking the book out of Jacket’s hands.
‘Go on,’ said Jacket.
‘No, but I don’t want you to think …’
‘I’m not thinking anything. Go on, pal, go on.’
‘I think there’s something artistic in the human form, sir. So for a hobby, you see, I collect it in my scrap-books.’
‘I understand, I understand,’ said Jacket. ‘You were sitting in your room next door to this, with nothing to do but get your scrap-books up to date, when – go on, go on, George.’
‘I asked you here to tell you this,’ said Mr Wainewright. ‘You don’t need to … to draw me out. I’m telling you something. A story – worth a fortune. No need to screw your face up. No need to pretend to treat me with respect. I know what you think. You think I’m nothing. You think I’m nobody. Let me tell you.’
‘You were sitting in your room——’
‘I was cutting out the picture of the young lady called Pumpkins Whitaker, sir – an artistic figure – when Mrs Tooth came to visit him.’
He pointed to the floor under Jacket’s chair.
‘Go on.’
‘Yes, Mr Jacket. I listened. What happened was as I said in court. They quarrelled. She cried. He laughed. There was a scuffle. In the end Mrs Tooth ran out. Just like I said, sir.’
‘Well?’
Mr Wainewright leaned forward, and Jacket had to support him with an unobtrusive hand.
‘Then, sir, I went into Tooth’s room, this very room, sir. I knocked first, of course.’
‘And there was no answer?’
‘There was an answer. Tooth said “Come in.” And I came in, Mr Jacket.’
‘You mean to say Tooth was alive when you came in here, after his wife had left?’
‘Exactly, sir. I was curious to know what had been going on. I made up an excuse for coming to see him just then. I’d borrowed his scissors, you see, the ones she is supposed to have killed him with. I’d been using them – they were very sharp – for cutting things out. They were part of a set – scissors and paper-knife in a shagreen case. I came to give them back – it was an excuse. Actually, I wanted to know what had been going on.’
‘Go on, George,’ said Jacket, quietly.
Mr Wainewright said: ‘He was sitting on the bed, just about where you are now, in his shirt-sleeves, laughing and playing with the paper-knife. He started telling me all about his wife, Mr Jacket, sir – how much she loved him, how much the barmaid at the “Duchess of Douro” loved him, how much every woman he met loved him. His collar was undone.’ Mr Wainewright paused and moistened his lips. ‘His collar was undone. He had one of those great big thick white necks. I had that pair of scissors in my hand. He threw his head back while he was laughing. I said: “Here’s your scissors.” He went on laughing, and coughing – he was a cigarette-smoker – at the same time. “Here’s your scissors,” I said. I think he’d been drinking. He roared with laughter. And then, all of a sudden, something got hold of me. I hit him with my right hand. I couldn’t pull my hand away. It was holding on to the scissors, and they were stuck in his neck, where his collar was open. He made a sort of noise like Gug – as if you’d pushed an empty glass into a basin. of water, sir, and simply went down. I hadn’t intended to do it. I hadn’t even shut the door of this room when I came in. But as soon as I saw what I’d done I wiped the scissors with my handkerchief, in case of fingerprints, and I slipped out, shutting the door from the outside, and went back to my room. Do you see?
‘Martha Tooth never killed anybody. It was me. I killed Sid Tooth, Mr Jacket, in this very room.
‘And so you see, sir. There was a miscarriage of justice. Martha Tooth hasn’t got any right to be made a heroine out of. She never killed that beast, sir. I killed Tooth. But she,’ said Mr Wainewright, with bitterness, ‘she gets acquitted. She is made a fuss of. Her life-story is all over your paper. Her picture and her name is all over the place. And the honest truth of it is, that I did it!’
John Jacket said: ‘Prove it.’
Mr Wainewright drew a deep breath and said: ‘I beg pardon, sir?’
‘Prove it,’ said Jacket. ‘Prove you did it.’
‘Do you think I’m crazy?’ asked Mr Wainewright.
‘Of course you’re crazy,’ said Jacket.
‘I swear before the Almighty,’ said Mr Wainewright, with passionate sincerity, ‘I swear, so help me God, that I killed Tooth!’
Jacket, who had been watching his face, said: ‘I believe you, Wainewright. I believe you did kill Tooth.’
‘Then there’s your story,’ Mr Wainewright said. ‘Eh?’
‘No,’ said Jacket. ‘No story. It’s proved that Martha Tooth killed her husband and was justified in killing him. It’s all weighed and paid. It’s all over. You can’t prove a thing. I believe you when you say you killed Tooth. But if you weren’t a lunatic, why should you go out of your way to tell me so after everything has been resolved and poor Martha Tooth has been comfortably provided for?’
Mr Wainewright sat still and white. He was silent.
Jacket rose, stretched himself, and said: ‘You see, George old man, nobody in the world is ever going to believe you now.’ He reached for his hat.
‘Still, I did it,’ said Mr Wainewright.
‘I begin,’ said Jacket, ‘to understand the way you work. Tooth was a swine, a strong and active swine. I see how you envied Tooth’s beastly strength, and shamelessness. I think I get it. You wanted to ill-treat Tooth’s wife and betray his girl friends. You were jealous of his power to be wicked. You wanted what he had. You wanted to be Tooth. No? So you killed Tooth. But all the while, George, in your soul, you were Tooth! And so you’ve gone and killed yourself, you poor little man. You tick unheard, George; you move unseen – you are a clock without hands. You are in hell, George!’