Are you… deserting him?
He said:
Listen, sweet. I want you to try and understand this. For over a week now, I've suspected that Austin might be the Whitechapel killer. I didn't let it worry me. He interested me too much. I wanted to understand him, not condemn him. Well, I've only just begun to understand him. If I saw him now, I'd have to make him realise that I condemn him. And I'd rather not do that. I'd rather he went on thinking I'm a friend.
Have you ceased to be his friend?
That's not the question. I thought this morning that I understood him better than the police. Now I know I was wrong.
But Gerard… he's still a human being. He needs help. He needs friends. If he's guilty, he needs them more than ever.
He said:
This afternoon I went to look at the woman he killed. She was in the morgue at the London Hospital. It made me understand some things I'd never realised before.
What?
He leaned forward across the table, speaking with deliberation:
There was something I hadn't realised about Austin. He's insane.
Her face went pale.
He's not. I'm sure he's not…
I don't mean he's completely dotty, like the old boy upstairs. But there's a part of his brain that's as rotten as a rotten apple. He's let it get that way. He's let himself go rotten. Do you know why he kills? Because he knows he's suffering from a mortal disease. He's like a man with paralysis who needs stronger and stronger stimulants. He doesn't care any more.
As he spoke, her face reflected first unbelief, then a kind of desperation.
But please, Gerard, don't you understand? If that's true, we've got to stick by him. He needs it more than ever.
What about your Bible? Thou shall not kill?
But the New Testament speaks about love, not about punishment. The law will punish him enough.
What makes you think he'll be punished? He knows the police have got no evidence against him. They won't find bloodstains on his shoes, or anything like that. And he won't confess. He loves all this. He's glad the police have got on to his trail. He likes crossing swords with them. It's another stimulant. He knows they'll never have a shred of evidence against him unless they catch him in the act. There's only one thing that worries me…
What's that?
He was stupidly careless last weekend. He had to phone me from Switzerland to ask me to collect some woman's clothes from his Kensington flat. That sounds dangerously like a subconscious urge to be caught…
Whose clothes were they?
I don't know. The police mentioned some prostitute who was seen accosting him outside the Balalaika Club. Maybe she's buried under the floor in his Kensington place.
Her face drained of all blood; for a moment, he thought she was going to faint. He said:
Careful, sweet. Are you all right?
She nodded briefly, and moved from the chair to the bed. She sat on the edge, leaning against the wall.
Are you serious…?
No. Not really. I don't seriously think he killed the woman. He's too careful.
But whose clothes were they?
Probably some he bought from a secondhand shop for the purpose. He wanted to make me a confidant. If I'd gone to the police, it wouldn't have mattered — he'd probably have taken them to the shop where he bought them and made some excuse about not wanting some boy friend to discover the clothes in his flat. As it was, he was absurdly over-secretive. He didn't have to go to Switzerland. He suspected that I might be sympathetic. He needed someone he could be open with. He chose me. He could see I was full of theories about revolt and modern civilisation and the rest, and he thought I'd make the perfect confidant — provided I didn't get too close to the reality. Unfortunately, Professor Stein — the German doctor — got the idea of showing me the body. Even then, it was almost a failure. The woman was too much of a mess to strike me as human. I'd still have come away without understanding. But there was another body in the place — a woman who'd been burnt to death. Suddenly, I realised what it meant — death by violence. Do you realise what it means? It's a complete negation of all our impulses. It means we've got no future. But we've got to believe in the future. And it's not just a question of my future — it's the future of the human race. If life can just be ended like that — snuffed out — then all the talk about the dignity of man's an illusion. It might be you or me. I suddenly understood something that I've seen once or twice but never grasped. If the world's good, it's because somehow life's all one thing. That's the meaning of sanity — everything's a unity, not just life but even water and stones. And that's why Austin's insane. Do you realise: he needs other people, but he doesn't really believe they exist? Life's meaningless to him. He's a man without a future. He can take life because he doesn't attach any value to his own. He might as well be dead.
She was shaking her head as he talked.
You're wrong. He's not as bad as that. He's always been spoilt and selfish, but there's a lot of good in him…
Try to understand, sweet. He's insane. The best thing that could happen to him now would be to go to Broadmoor.
But… what are you going to do? Tell the police?
No. I can't do that. He trusted me.
Why did he trust you?
He knew I felt as he does about a lot of things. You see, I didn't realise then that he was mad. I thought he wanted to express revolt against the way things are nowadays. I thought it was a kind of escape from personality. You know… things keep getting more organised. Everybody's encouraged to fit into the machine. But the more they try to take away freedom, the more it expresses itself in violence. The more they talk about law and society, the more the crime rate increases. People let themselves be manipulated to a certain degree — by the politicians and the advertisers — but a resentment builds up. And sex crime and juvenile delinquency and the suicide rate keep on rising steadily. Man can't do without the irrational. He's not a rational creature finally. He doesn't really want a perfect civilisation and a heaven on earth.
She said quietly:
That's because of original sin.
Maybe. But I don't like the Garden of Eden legend either. Man doesn't want to be a sinless Adam in the Garden of Eden. He wants to be a God. Give man another chance, and he'd still eat the apple. He wants to be more than man, and he doesn't give a damn about the misery and filth he has to wallow through. At least it proves he's free. And that's where I made my mistake about Austin. I thought his crimes were a gesture of defiance, like eating the apple. They weren't. He killed for the same reason a dipsomaniac drinks-he couldn't stop.
He stopped talking, feeling curiously exhausted. His tea was still untouched. He leaned forward and handed her the full cup from her side of the table, then stirred his own. It was half cold. He drank it down without lowering the cup. He said:
Do you know why I couldn't help Stein? Because he's really as bad as Austin. Only he doesn't realise it. He wants to see Austin arrested for the good of the organisation — for society. But during the war, he probably approved of exterminating the Jews for the good of the organisation. He doesn't give a damn about human freedom either.
He was speaking because he could see she felt stunned. It was a way of helping her adjust, like distracting someone's attention from a burn until the pain has gone away. He said:
I've learned a lot from Austin, in a way. I seem to have learned a lot altogether in this past week. For example, that there's no point in running away. There's poor Oliver. I tried to call on him this afternoon, and found he'd left the place — just packed up and gone. That's his way of avoiding things he dislikes.
She seemed to catch at the subject of Glasp as an escape from thinking about Austin.
Oliver? Do you know where he's gone to?
No. He left no address. But I met this girl — Christine — the one who caused all the trouble. She's a sweet
