‘Turpin. The name is Turpin. You can put it this way. Say, for the sake of example, I am a timid sort of man. I am as quiet as a mouse. This has nothing to do with present company, but — just for the sake of example — I am as quiet as a mouse and you (you realize, of course, that I am only talking for the sake of talking), you are one of those soft little women, one of those little fluffy-ducks who wants to do nothing but please someone.
‘I am timid. Why am I timid? I am timid because I shrink away from people. I’m timid, in short, because I am afraid. What I really want to do is, show myself to the world as a great big savage hairy creature with a pair of fists on me like hammers and the courage of the devil; I want to use those fists that I haven’t got. I’d be a real thug, a tough guy, if I could. But I can’t. I’m always, if the truth must be told, one of those shrinkersback full of all sorts of hate. You see, I’m dead yellow. And what happens is, I cover it all up by pretending to be sweet and soft and gentle. But underneath I’m waiting for just one chance to get at someone. If, say, you give me a good smack in the face, I won’t do anything about it except store it up in my mind. And then, at last, one of these days, the thing I’ve been storing up breaks out. But I don’t get my revenge on you, you see. I get my own back on something weak. See?
‘How does it break out? You can mark my words, hardly ever of its own accord. Somebody’s got to help it. Who? I’ll tell you who.
‘The person that helps a softie to get his revenge is always the willing victim I think I mentioned a little while ago. You know what I mean; somebody who gets a thrill out of suffering: it might be a woman, it might be a man. Up comes the willing victim; which is all that this shy torturer, as you might call him, this murderer who’s afraid to commit his murder — this willing victim is all that he needs to make him feel powerful. He never felt powerful before.
‘But you (I am not speaking personally), you are much stronger, better-looking, and socially more important, perhaps, than he is — and you somehow enjoy submitting to him. I’m being direct and brutal, ‘m, since you asked for it. You make this man feel stronger; you give him a feeling of self-confidence — which is half his battle — because you lie down and let yourself be ill-treated by him.
‘And so there comes a certain night — or it n-sight be a foggy afternoon — when somebody falls into his hands. More often than not it’s a child. The weakest man is stronger than the average child, isn’t he? So what happens? All of a sudden he feels that he’s something like a man of power; and he rapes that child. After he has raped that child he knows that if she lives she’ll recognize him; and her identification together with the medical evidence will make things hard for him. See? And generally he’s a respectable man. So what does he do? Tries to wash out the evidence. How? With a child it’s easy. Get hold of her throat and hold on tight.
‘Then he goes back to whatever job he does for a respectable living. I can tell you, anyone might have murdered Sonia Sabbatani. … But you’re the boss, Miss; and you’re telling me what you would do if you were superintendent,’ said Turpin.
Asta Thundersley said: ‘I am to take it, I believe, that everyone who enjoys being hurt adds to the cruelty of the world. Is that it?’
‘I suppose you could put it that way, ‘m.’
‘You could put it this way: that anyone who enjoys being hurt is bound to find someone who enjoys hurting him, or more probably her.’
‘Yes’m.’
‘What you indicate is this: that any woman who gets a thrill out of suffering and submission will, as it were, stimulate some man, in play, to feel he’s compelling her to suffer and submit. Am I right?’
‘You’re not far wrong, ‘m, I should say.’
‘The idea is, Turpentine, that if he learns self-confidence in being violent with her, he will be violent with somebody else without invitation. Is that it?’
‘Yes, in a way, that
‘Then she’s the mother of a murderer, isn’t she?’
‘If you put it that way — yes, that’s it.’
‘— I take it that it depends entirely upon individuals concerned. They have no right to encourage that sort of thing, is that right?’
‘Never more right in your life, Miss Thundersley.’
‘But what about the beast that killed Sonia Sabbatani?’
‘Circumstances being favourable, any man can get hold of any child and do whatever he likes, and go home and have a cup of tea, and get away with it.’
‘Then why aren’t you looking for the murderer?’
Turpin waved goodbye.
14
The job of work upon which Detective-Inspector Turpin was employed concerned a man called Jack Emerald. One of Jack Emerald’s nicknames was ‘Chicken Eyes’: he was one of the most resourceful burglars in the business. He had been sent to Dartmoor after his third conviction on a formidable charge concerned with five thousand pounds’ worth of jewels belonging to a countess, but had escaped, slipping a handcuff, knocking a six-foot policeman unconscious, vaulting a six-foot wall and taking a running dive into the countryside. This was in the early autumn of the year, and Chicken Eyes Jack Emerald, having been at large for ten weeks, had been the subject of leading articles in several newspapers. Rumour, reinforced by whispered information, said that he had dressed himself up as an artist.
This was regarded as unlikely, but not impossible. Turpin was well aware that all sorts of strange organisms lurk in the guts of the Fine Arts. The edges of the two Underworlds overlap. The fringes of art tangle with the fringes of crime. Artists
