Murder in Pastiche

by Marion Mainwaring

  “I know.” A fleeting melancholy crossed Quinsey’s long face. “I know. Et ego in Arcadia, Mr. Waggish.”

  The First Officer responded to the nostalgia of the tone, though the words eluded him. He leaned forward eagerly. “You wouldn’t care to change your mind and step in after all, Lord Simon?”

  Quinsey adjusted his monocle severely. “No, no. Definitely not my cup of tea.” Instinctively his fingers went out to stroke the Tennyson by his side: the cover had fallen back and hung down with its plate, engraved with the crest of his ducal family—a domestic cat crouched as to spring—and its motto: “Lest Quinsy take me.”

  “There is such variety,” Mr. Waggish went on. “Mr. Poireau says it’s a sense of order that makes for success in being a detective, Mr. Bludgeon says it’s guts, Sir Jon. will have it it’s knowing Greek and Latin, whilst Mr. Tourneur’s all for being a gent. Which—well, which trait do you think is most important, Lord Simon?”

  “Oh, rather; they’re all indispensable prerequisites,” Quinsey said. He spoke a little vaguely, for his mind was on the Idylls of the King; but as his guest’s blue eyes flew round-open in startled respect, he realized that he had, unawares, toppled over Mr. Waggish’s previous boundaries and opened up new vistas to him. Amused, he continued more attentively. “At one time I should have said that, in addition to all that, there must be a certain je ne sais quoi—the nameless graces which no Watsons know, what?”

  “The nameless— I expect that’s a quotation?”

  “Er—well, in part, don’t you know.”

  Mr. Waggish nodded thoughtfully. “I know about Watson … Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,” he informed Quinsey. “But—you said, ‘at one time’? What would you say now, Lord Simon?”

  Quinsey hesitated. Could one explain to this essentially artless officer the changes which had taken place since those “years of l’entre deux guerres” when Lord Simon Quinsey, dazzling two continents with his birth, his wealth, his charm and wit, his distinction in a hundred fields, had yet been known best of all as amateur of crime? No; there was no explaining to the layman—in either subject—how he had risen from mysteries to Mystery … He said lightly, “It’s a long time since I gave it all up.”

  “You were the greatest detective of all, they say.”

  “Great Scott, Waggish! Blushes, modest, spare if possible. You’ve plenty of better brains at your service.”

  “Ah, they’re all grand men, and Miss Sliver’s a very clever lady, but things want to be pulled together.”

  Quinsey laughed. “That’s your job, old thing. You’re the Master of Ceremonies, the raisonneur, and so on. Thou the first beams of Reason’s scattered light must like a burning-glass unite.” As a question shaped itself on Mr. Waggish’s transparent countenance he appended hastily: “Yes, a quotation; Cowley, but not inspired. Forget and forgive if possible. Sorry.”

  At last the First Officer put his glass down and got up with some reluctance. “Good night, Lord Simon. At any rate, if anything should occur to you, you’ll—”

  “Oh,” Quinsey promised, “never fear. If the great brain hits upon the solution during sleep, or in our bath, we will let you know. Cheerio!”

  Alone, Quinsey stared thoughtfully into his brandy-glass. He knew all the details of the Florabunda investigations, but he felt no inclination to join the chase. The old enchantment had fallen from the air. The men and women were crude as Punch and Judy, only for those two narrow words which shed interest upon them: Who killed … No one, surely, but an incorrigible ingénu like the First Officer would find them complex or mystifying. Nevertheless, Quinsey was irked by the existence of an unsolved problem, and when his manservant came in he demanded:

  “I dare say you’ve kept abreast of the ship’s mystery, Punter. Have you any favorites? Whom are you backing?”

  Punter, deftly laying out mauve silk pyjamas, coughed delicately. “I am undecided, my lord. I have observed that Mr. Homer Anderson’s sartorial appointments are regrettable, even when due allowance is made for transatlantic taste and for the notorious laxity of shipboard life.”

  “All too true. I too have seen and deplored. But sad experience teaches that virtue too often patronizes the Ninety-Shilling Tailors, whilst vice revels in Savile Row.”

  “Quite so, my lord.”

  “Then you have no theories about the case?”

  “I should call it ‘baffling’ my lord, if the word is not too hackneyed in the context.”

  “I fear it is inescapable in the context, Punter. You retain your gift for the mot juste. I was at Eton and Balliol and I could not find a better.”

  “Thank you, my lord. Will anything further be required?”

  “No, nothing. Good night, Punter.”

  “Good night, my lord.”

    

  The mystery was strenuously recalled to Quinsey’s attention next day when he came upon the four principal suspects—Anderson, Mrs. Chip-Ebberly, Winifred Price, and Miss Despana—together in the Lounge, bristling with mutual suspicion like the characters in The Critic who end up pointing swords at one another’s throats, so desperately entangled that none of them can move. Homer T. Anderson, in a costume which bore out Punter’s severest strictures, was brandishing a book. At the sight of it Quinsey paused, his long eyes narrowing, and, hands in pockets, ambled unobtrusively nearer.

  Anderson shook the book with a menacing grunt. “It belongs to someone, I tell you!”

  Winifred Price scowled. Her short dark hair was wind-blown, and there was a heavy jacket slung across her shoulders as if she had just come in from deck. “Nobody can see the title when you wave it like that, Mr. Anderson; but, whatever it is, it doesn’t belong to me! And why do you care whose book it is?”

  “Those detectives say the killer is someone who think’s he’s a cat. He’s cracked, see? and think’s he’s a cat. Well, there’s a picture of a cat pasted inside this cover!”

  “Oh!” ejaculated Mrs. Chip-Ebberly.

  It was the first time Quinsey had seen the noble lady since the exposé of her scheme to bilk Her Majesty’s government of a small fortune in precious stones. Her demeanor was unaltered; the line of her rugs was if anything more lumpish than before; Quinsey inferred that her strategy was to be that of the ostrich: since she had merely “forgotten” about having the necklace with her, others must also have forgotten—leaving her free still to fix them with a thrilling scorn. She bent to look at the bookplate Anderson was exhibiting. “But that is—”

  Dolores Despana ostentatiously retreated several paces, one hand clutching her lovely throat. “Yours! I knew it!”

  “It is no more mine than yours, Miss Despana.”

  “Mine! I don’t have any books. I never even read them!”

  “One had not made the mistake of supposing that you did.”

  Miss Despana was impervious to such a thrust, but Winifred Price suddenly giggled. Mrs. Chip-Ebberly went on, with the air of one driven to reckless lengths by sheer moral exasperation: “As for all this nonsense about Cats—what sort of codes and passwords your organization may have chosen to employ, I do not pretend to know. But let me warn you once and for all: Do not think that the Foreign Office is blind to your designs!”

  Miss Despana stared at her with real uneasiness in her eyes. Anderson’s bizarrely constructed features gave every indication of bewilderment. Winifred Price let out a second giggle. Her hand went nervously to her mouth, then to her roughened hair; she trembled. It looked like the onset of a good bout of hysterics, and Quinsey judged that the time had come to intervene. He advanced, one hand to his monocle.

  “Oh, I say,” he asked innocently. “Is that my book?” He held out his hand.

  Anderson’s triangular eyes lit up with triumph. “Get the police!” he shouted. “I mean, get the First Mate! Quick! We’ve got the killer.”

  “Honestly, Mr. Anderson!” Winifred Price, regaining her poise, viewed him with contempt.

  Mrs. Chip-Ebberly said tautly: “That i
s Lord Simon Quinsey!”

  “Help! Here’s the murderer!”

  “Don’t be an ass, sir,” said Quinsey sharply as the bellow was repeated. “Lower your voice, and have the goodness to return my property.”

  Anderson took a step towards him, grunting. He towered over Quinsey. Reaching out to grab him with two moist and pulpy hands, he found his wrists caught in a steely grip, amazing in so slight an adversary, and was flung away with such force that he staggered against a bulkhead.

  Quinsey dusted off his hands with a handkerchief, and flung the handkerchief away. “And now, sir,” he demanded imperiously, “how did you come upon this book?”

  Anderson, choking with rage and excitement, glared at him sullenly: but he yielded to superior muscle and to a deeper force—the note of sixteen generations of feudal privilege and authority in Lord Simon’s voice. “It was there on the table, open. I saw the cat, so naturally I thought—” A new expression traversed his face. “Ha! if you didn’t put it there I know who did!” He jabbed his forefinger towards Winifred Price vindictively. “Her boy friend was standing right there by the table, and he went away when he saw me come in!”

  “That’s right, the Purser! I saw him, too.” Miss Despana’s corroboration was enforced by a little gasp and a look which might have melted a man without Quinsey’s long and varied experience of women.

  He eyed her and Anderson with glacial appraisal. “Very well,” he said curtly, “the First Officer shall be informed of all this.”

  Anderson beat an inglorious retreat, and Miss Despana followed. It was Bottom attended by a Titania with method in her dotage, Quinsey thought. Flinging a crocheted shawl about her in a quite swashbuckling manner, Mrs. Chip-Ebberly stalked them from the room.

  Tucking the book under his arm, Quinsey smiled down at Winifred. “You don’t think this brands me the villain, Miss Price?”

  “Of course not! You’re a detective.”

  He chuckled. “You make it sound like Cowboys and Indians,” he said happily. “The good ones and the bad ones.” But, recognizing a wounded pride in her quick upward look, he added contritely: “I say, forgive me—beastly rude. I didn’t really mean that you’re oversimplifying things. That would be unpardonable. Like telling someone in my generation he didn’t have a sense of humor.” He smiled at her in whimsical distress. “Anyway the simple answer is the right one this time. I’m as pure as the driven snow, as far as the murder goes, I mean; and I shall take this book to Mr. Waggish immediately. Or rather, if you’ll do me the honor, I’ll take it to him as soon as we have had some tea. Steward, take ours over to that comer.”

  Winifred Price, cradling the cup in her hands, bent her pretty eyebrows in an attempt at practicality. “Mrs. Chip-Ebberly acted strangely when she saw your book.”

  “Yes, I saw. But I think I know why. She recognized my crest— friend of the family, don’t you see.”

  “I know what you’re thinking—that the Purser took your book and put it there! But you’re absolutely wrong!”

  “As a matter of fact, I hadn’t supposed anything of the sort, particularly.” He looked at her curiously. “But I’d rather like to know just why you think I should suppose so.”

  “But you heard what Mr. Anderson was insinuating! Everyone thinks— It’s too silly! They think the Purser killed my uncle so he could marry me. They think we’re in love with each other.”

  “And that’s just silly?” A certain camaraderie relieved Quinsey’s question of offence.

  “Yes, it is! I’ve never seen anything like the gossip on this ship. Because Tom and I talked together now and then, they think we must be having some Great Romance. Even though they know I’m engaged to Llewelyn!” Before Quinsey’s look of steady amiability she blushed and bit her lip. “Naturally, with propinquity, and being the same age and so on, naturally there has been a certain physical attraction.” Quinsey was interested in this shift from one code of proprieties to another; he resisted a wicked impulse to take her up at her own implications as she went on to appeal to the savoir-faire of a celebrated man of the world: “Of course, it was understood that it was just a game. After all, I’m going to marry Llewelyn.”

  “You’re sure the Purser understands the exact nature of this acquaintanceship? You women don’t always know your own power, you know. I’d hate to think of your playing ducks and drakes with the poor blighter’s affections!”

  “Certainly. He has a girl in Manchester. Anyone he meets on board, like me, just represents a temporary transference of attachment, more or less unconscious.”

  “I see … I may say, if it’s not too fearfully impertinent, that it’s just as well. He’s a delightful chap and all that, but a bit apt to fly off the handle, what?”

  “Fly off the handle! Good heavens,” said Winifred Price with a pedantic composure that left his lordship breathless, “he’s fundamentally unstable, anyone can see that. I’m afraid he’s immature. In fact, before he marries that girl he ought really to put himself into the hands of a really competent psychiatrist.”

  And, thought Quinsey with relief and a sense of his own advancing years, I think she means it: no contamination by essence of sour grape.… He said with a twinkle: “That’s that, then. But it’s thoroughly unorthodox of you, Miss Winifred. Every well conducted murder mystery is supposed to end up with the marriageable characters paired off neatly.”

  “I know!” she laughed back. “Do you think I should stage a great farewell scene on the bridge, with the passengers for audience?”

  “With music from Pinafore? A beautiful thought.”

  Her face sobered and she asked abruptly: “You said—end up?”

  “I didn’t mean that I see the end of it.”

  She sighed. “What does it all mean, Lord Simon? The murder, and attacks, and smuggling plots, and things you can’t even give a name to, like the—well, stealing your book. What was that?”

  “It was the cat,” Quinsey retorted irrepressibly. Miss Price, who had less intuitive recognition of quotation than Mr. Waggish, looked blank. He said more seriously, “A killer with a cat complex does seem a bit thick.”

  “Oh, but the cat is a very common symbol, modem psychology has found! Sexual—female,” she explained conscientiously. “Modern psychology has discovered how people do have these strange obsessions. How they think they’re God, or have airplane engines inside them, or—”

  “Or that they’re made of glass and will break if anyone comes near, or that jolly chap in Galen who thought the world was resting on his shoulders?” Quinsey suggested glibly. “Modern psychology is a splendid thing.”

  “When I asked Mallory King, he said he’d begun to think it is a Cheshire cat, whatever that may mean!”

  Quinsey was startled. With a sigh for the deficiencies of progressive education he told her: “Even if you scientists can’t spare much time for stories, Miss Winifred, you ought to look that one up; the Cheshire Cat fancied himself as an authority in your own field, interested in deviations and so on. And another thing about that charming animal,” Quinsey added thoughtfully, “he disappeared leaving only a grin behind.”

    

  After searching the part of the ship open to passengers, without success, Quinsey made an illegal sally into the Officers’ Mess and found Mr. Waggish consuming a hurried sandwich and a cup of tea. He recounted the latest incident. “Oddly enough,” he concluded, producing the book, “it belongs to me.”

  Mr. Waggish drained his cup and put it down. “I know,” he said quietly.

  Quinsey looked at him in some surprise.

  “I noticed it in your cabin last night, Lord Simon. Well, not this very book, perhaps, but it was surely the same picture.”

  “Did you, by Jove! And you didn’t leap to the conclusion that I am the feline felon?”

  “No,” Mr. Waggish said simply. He got up, sighing. “I suppose I must try to find out who took it from your cabin.”

  “Waste of time. Anyone could have done. But,
” Quinsey offered as they mounted to A-deck, “the egregious Anderson intimates that if I am not responsible for flaunting this particular avatar of the Cat, the Purser is.”

  “Now why would Tom do that? He has a bit of a temper, aye.” (Quinsey, remembering the instances he had heard of that temper, considered this a meiosis, but in deference to the peculiar mores of the British Merchant Navy he refrained from comment.) “And you might say he’s dotty over the lasses. But can you fancy him thinking he is a Super-Cat?”

  “In fact, a Tom-cat?” Quinsey took advantage of the First Officer’s condition, in which speech was choked by the struggle between delight at this mild witticism and consternation at the oil-chance that it was intended seriously, to take his departure.

  “You must be mad,” he chanted to himself as he went, “or you wouldn’t have come here. We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.” It would have been unkind to inflict this echo of the Cheshire Cat upon the First Officer’s sensibilities: yet it would scarcely be surprising, thought Quinsey as he entered his cabin, to see the toothy grin of that enigmatic animal suspended in the foggy middle distance somewhere off the port bow. This case passed all humors; it would not suit Miss Price’s mentors but, reflecting on its various ramifications, he wondered if the only recourse for the law-abiding voyagers on the Florabunda might not be a pious appeal to S. Dympna, a saint perhaps not widely known but who is duly reverenced within the Church of England as patron of those whose wits have gone astray.

  Lord Simon belted a coat about him and went out on deck; tramping in the raw fog, he whistled, with his customary taste and correctness, a few themes from Bach, Purcell, and Clementi, and pondered a few arresting facts:

  Paul Price was a loss to no one. His body was found on deck. The cosh, the scarf, the pipe, the check, and the forgery had come into the hands of the investigators.