Brighton Rock: Part IV, Chapter 3 Summary & Analysis

Pinkie is standing at the top of the stairs at Frank’s boardinghouse, looking down at the spread-eagled dead body of Spicer at the bottom. Prewitt is there, too, wondering how it happened. Pinkie says it was the faulty staircase, combined with Spicer’s heavy suitcase. Spicer must have put his suitcase on the rail. Then the rotten rail gave way. Prewitt is horrified and tells Pinkie he will not get mixed up in this. Pinkie tells Prewitt that, as his lawyer, he’ll just have to say that it was an accident. Prewitt goes to Pinkie’s room with a headache. Cubitt has Spicer’s suitcase. He asks Pinkie where Spicer was headed. Pinkie tells him the Blue Anchor in Nottingham. He supposes they should call. The Blue Anchor people might want to send flowers.

Pinkie starts to leave the scene. He has things to do. Prewitt can’t believe Pinkie would leave now. There are too many details to take care of before the cops come. Pinkie reminds the old lawyer why he came to Frank’s in the first place: Pinkie’s upcoming nuptials to Rose. He has to propose. Pinkie lingers for a moment, as if waiting for Prewitt to give him some fatherly advice about marriage, but Prewitt says nothing.

At Snow’s, Pinkie bribes a waitress to tell him where Rose is. He climbs the stairs to her bedroom, overhearing Ida telling Rose that she needs to come clean about what happened to Hale. It is the right thing to do, Ida says. Through the slightly open door, Pinkie sees Rose defiantly refusing to give Ida any information and he realizes that he and Rose are, indeed, made for each other. She is good, he is damned. He needs her. Pinkie goes in and asks Ida why she’s pestering his girl.

Ida tells Rose not to give in to a wicked man like Pinkie. Rose tells her that she doesn’t know a thing and that she had better leave her and Pinkie alone. Ida leaves, but as she goes she tells them she’s not finished with them and that she has friends. When she’s gone, Rose tells Pinkie she’d do anything for him. He replies that it’s not what you do but what you think. Goodness, he suggests, is in the blood. He supposes that when they christened him, it didn’t take somehow.

Pinkie asks Rose to marry him. She says she wants to, desperately, but that the church will never let them. He tells her there are ways; he has a lawyer. Rose admits that the proposal isn’t quite what she’d dreamed of, but that it doesn’t matter. She loves him and will marry him and will never let him down. Pinkie leans down to kiss her. She smells sweetly of human skin. He’s slightly revolted. He wishes she smelled like a chemical compound. Then the idea of the marriage obligations would be easier for him to take. He manages to smile at her, but he can’t help but feel a small stab of shame.