The Snark was a Boojum

by Gerald Verner

  Miss Wittlesham promised she would. Lance Weston bought some stamps and a tin of tobacco, and with that we all trooped out of the shop to her obvious disappointment.

  Halliday left us standing outside the post office while he went off to keep his appointment with the coroner.

  “Let’s get some beer,” boomed Gale, looking in the direction of the Golden Crust, as the police car moved off.

  Lance Weston gave Gale a warning look. “I wouldn’t go there right now,” he advised. “The place is full of reporters. They’ve descended on Lower Bramsham like vultures and I’m sure you’d be a number one target.”

  “Damned reporters,” Gale scowled looking dismayed, his notion of a tankard of beer dashed.

  “Come back to my place,” Weston invited. “I’ve got some beer in the cellar.”

  Gale’s face broke into huge grin and he slapped Weston on the back nearly knocking him down. “By Jove! That’s an elegant solution. Lead the way!”

  The three of us set off, tramping across the Green towards Lance Weston’s cottage. I knew it wasn’t just the promise of beer that had cheered up Gale; it was the opportunity to visit Lance Weston’s home and examine the man more closely in his own surroundings.

  The cottage was quite small, with a narrow strip of garden enclosed by a box hedge, and a path of crazy-paving that led up to the front door. At some stage in its history the two rooms on the ground floor and been knocked into one, creating both a living room and a study. It was comfortably furnished with plenty of easy chairs, a large settee, and several nice antique pieces. There was a large flat topped writing-table by the window, overlooking the back garden, and the whole place was full of books.

  “Park yourselves down where you like,” said Weston, throwing his coat over the back of a chair and switching on an electric fire that had been fitted in the old-fashioned grate. “Shove your things anywhere. I’ll just nip down to the cellar and fetch some beers. Trueman, you’ll find some glasses in that cupboard, if you wouldn’t mind.” He pointed to a corner cupboard.

  I found three pint mugs and set them up on a table.

  Weston returned with a small case containing six bottles of beer and set them down. Gale eyed them suspiciously.

  “I make it myself,” explained Weston, opening a bottle and gently pouring the lively contents into a glass which he then handed to Gale with a flourish.

  Gale looked approvingly at the white ring of live yeast forming in a circle on the top, and took a swallow. He smacked his lips and gave Weston a look of admiration. “That’s the best beer I’ve had in a long while,” he cried, finishing the contents of the glass and impatiently handing it out for a refill. He looked at Weston as if he was some kind of magician. “You made this?”

  “I’ve been doing it for years—only small amounts, three dozen at a time.”

  “You’re wasted writing novels,” said Gale. “You need to open a brewery! You are to be congratulated Weston. This stuff is good . . . It’s very good indeed . . .” He suddenly changed tack and became very serious. “Now tell me something . . . Why were you in such a state when you came into the Golden Crust Monday evening? When you told us about Baker?”

  Weston handed me a beer and poured himself one. He took his time. “I’d just heard about it from Hocknell,” he answered. “I admit the whole thing shook me up a bit . . .”

  Gale frowned into his mug of beer.

  “But why?” he asked, staring straight at Weston, which must have felt very disconcerting. I got the impression of a big cat about to pounce.

  Weston shrugged.

  “But why were you shaken up?” Gale demanded. “Everybody else thought it was a huge joke, d’you see? What made you take it so seriously?”

  “It never occurred to me that it was a joke,” answered Weston.

  “That’s what interests me, d’you see? The first idea that leapt into people’s minds was that someone was playing a joke. Why did you think differently?”

  “I don’t really know,” he said, concentrating on pouring the beer, so that it didn’t froth over onto the floor. “Perhaps I think differently to other people. People don’t all think the same you know.”

  Gale looked surprised that he had already finished his second glass of beer. “This is really good stuff,” he said appreciatively as he thrust out an arm, handed the empty glass to Weston with a blatantly suggestive glance at the remaining bottles in the case. Weston smiled, took the hint and opened another bottle. Gale watched him pour it with intense concentration.

  “Do you know anything of William Baker?” he asked abruptly, grabbing his third beer out of Weston’s hand, and grasping the mug possessively.

  “Nothing at all . . . I don’t think I’d seen him before that evening at dinner.”

  There was something about his tone of voice that made me think he was lying.

  “Strange nobody seems to know anything about him. When a stranger comes to live in an English village the inhabitants usually make it their business to find out all they can. The first reaction is suspicion and the second is curiosity. Now, Baker, d’you see, was living here for three weeks and nobody . . . nobody at all knew anything.”

  He scowled at the froth on the top of his beer. “Or they know but they’re not saying.”

  “We haven’t asked everybody . . .” I began, but Gale cut me short.

  “You can take it from me,” he declared, “if anyone had known anything they’d have talked about it.”

  “Perhaps there wasn’t anything to find out,” said Weston, pulling a pipe from his jacket pocket and polishing the bowl with the palm of one hand.

  “He didn’t just materialise in Lower Bramsham, hey? He lived somewhere else before he turned up here. Where did he live and what did he do? He must have been here for a reason? If we could find that out we might know a lot more about why he was murdered.”

  Weston got up and went over to a tobacco jar on the littered writing table and began to stuff tobacco into his pipe.

  “Do you think so?” asked Weston. “Do you think there’s a real motive? A reason why he was killed in that way?”

  “Don’t you?” demanded Gale sharply.

  “No I don’t—no motive, no sane reason,” answered Weston lighting his pipe. “That’s why I was upset Monday evening. You all thought it was a joke, eh? But I didn’t. I thought someone very dangerous was on the loose . . .”

  “It’s not the insane part that worries me,” retorted Gale seriously. “It’s the fact there may be a sane mind hiding behind the nonsense of those verses, acting mad, playing us for fools . . .”

  I got a glimpse of a cool and calculating adversary seizing on that chance observation of Gale’s over dinner. I saw again the long, shadowed dining-room at Hunter’s Meadow, as I had seen it on that Friday night, with the dim faces grouped around the table, softly lit by the yellow flames of the candles . . .

  Behind which of those faces lurked the mind of a murderer?

  Chapter Nine

  When we left Weston’s cottage I felt quite light-headed. Western’s home brew packed quite a powerful punch. I refused point blank to return to Hunter’s Meadow on the pillion of Gale’s motor-bike. He was a little hurt at my resolute refusal I think, but there are some things you must draw the line at. Nothing would induce me to mount that diabolical contraption ever again. I was glad of the chance of a walk in the fresh autumn air.

  Gale passed me before I had reached the church at the top of the High Street, popping like a machine gun and surrounded by evil-smelling smoke. He gave me a malignant grimace and waved an arm as he vanished round a corner with a loud bang.

  I lit a cigarette and walked leisurely on, when rounding the same corner myself I almost bumped into Zoe Anderson.

  “Hello,” she greeted. “Was that Mr. Gale who passed me just now?”

  “It was,” I answered. “I came here on that orange thing he calls a motor-bike, but I had no intention of going back on it. If he ever offers you a lift I
suggest you find some excuse and refuse—if you value your life!”

  She laughed, and I decided it was a very fortunate thing that I had decided to walk back.

  “It did look rather fearsome,” she said. “I’m looking for a chemist shop. Is there one?”

  There was, a few yards back along the High Street. I offered to show her. The grey clouds which had hung about all the morning were thinning a little, and an anaemic sun was struggling through the haze.

  Zoe was wearing a belted green raincoat over a high polo-necked white jumper and, with her heavy glossy black hair framing her small face, looked very attractive. She wasn’t lovely in the way Ursula was lovely, but there was something about her that was infinitely more satisfying. At any rate, I thought so.

  She bought a few items at the chemist, hand cream and emery boards I think, and we started to walk back to Hunter’s Meadow. It was lovely autumn day. The trees were beginning to show yellow and russet among the green, and the air was full of the smell of autumn—that rich mixture of wet earth and decaying vegetation which, in my opinion, is only equalled by the scent of a spring morning or new-mown grass.

  Our main topic of conversation was the murder.

  “There’s something evil going on round here,” she said. “All murder is horrible but this is a travesty of murder.” She looked up at me sideways through her long lashes. “To think it might be someone who was at that dinner . . . Do you think it’s possible?”

  “Unfortunately I think it is possible,” I answered cautiously, “but I can’t imagine who . . .”

  “I should think it’s more likely to be a stranger,” she declared. “Like Mr. Bellman said—he’s nice, isn’t he?”

  I’ll admit I was a little surprised to hear her say that. It was a description that I should never have thought of applying to old Bellman. She was looking up at me again in that infernally disturbing way, and she must have seen something of what was passing in my mind, for she added quickly: “Don’t you think so?”

  “He’s a very shrewd business man . . .” I began.

  “I mean underneath that façade,” she broke in. “That’s really only all it is—a shell. He’s surrounded himself with that—like a kind of armour—so that nothing can get through and hurt him . . .”

  I remembered the look that had passed between Ursula and Lance Weston in the bar of the Golden Crust. One day soon, perhaps he would need his armour . . .

  Again she seemed to read my thoughts. “What sort of a man is Lance Weston?” she asked abruptly.

  It was a difficult question to answer. I’d only met him two or three times and, personally, I didn’t like him very much. He struck me as being selfish, rather conceited, and altogether unreliable. I could imagine he would be completely ruthless if anyone got in the way of what he wanted . . . I chuckled. “He makes remarkably good beer,” I said, being deliberately trivial.

  “You’re not committing yourself, eh?” Zoe’s impish face puckered up. Between her thin arched brows appeared two deep lines as they contracted. “Ursula’s a fool!” she commented under her breath and almost inaudibly.

  The thick and sodden leaves were slippery under foot, and the tall trees lining the lane that led up to the drive gates of Hunter’s Meadow dripped with a monotonous ticking like a myriad clocks.

  “I’m not going to pretend I don’t know what you mean,” I said.

  “You saw it too, didn’t you?” she answered. “I knew you did. I’m awfully worried about it . . . I’m very fond of Ursula, but she’s her own worst enemy, you know? She can be so stupid—she’s always done the silliest things . . .”

  “You’ve known her a long time?”

  “Ever since I was eighteen . . . Ursula was a model—you know, photographed for advertisements and things like that—I was studying at stage school. I was going to be an actress but it never came off. We shared a flat together . . .” Some memory deepened the lines between her eyes. “Then an aunt of mine, whom I’d scarcely ever heard of, died and left me a house and some money. The family business . . .”

  “The family business?”

  “Soap,” she answered.

  “What? Anderson Soap?”

  “Yes. That’s right.”

  I fell in. Anderson soaps were famous for their special oils and fragrances. I assumed Zoe Anderson’s family must be extremely well off . . .

  “I’d always wanted to travel and explore, so I went abroad. I had a wonderful time. I only returned to England last week. I thought I’d hunt up Ursula and see how she was getting on—I’d sent her postcards, and I heard she was married and living here, in Lower Bramsham, so I thought I’d pack a few things and surprise her. If she’d been away I’d have just booked into hotel for a couple of days . . .”

  “And you landed slap in the middle of murder, intrigue, and God knows what,” I said, as she paused.

  “Yes.”

  She was silent for some time and then she said seriously: “I don’t know how far this has gone—between Ursula and Lance. I mean—we’ve got to stop it, Mr. Trueman. Somehow we’ve got to stop it . . .”

  “I don’t see how,” I answered. “Has she said anything to you about it?”

  She shook her head. “She wouldn’t. She knows I wouldn’t be sympathetic—not this time.”

  I looked at her sharply. She was staring straight ahead up the narrow lane. I almost asked her what she meant by not this time but decided against it. If she wanted to tell me she would.

  But she didn’t. After a long pause she said, still looking straight ahead: “I suppose she married Mr. Bellman because he was rich?”

  I told her I couldn’t imagine any other reason.

  “I could,” she said surprisingly.

  We reached Hunter’s Meadow just in time for lunch. Ursula met us in the hall and I thought she looked a little cross.

  “Where have you been?” she said to Zoe. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere . . .”

  “You can’t have been looking for very long,” retorted Zoe, slipping out of her raincoat. “You were still in bed when I left.”

  “If I’d know you were going down to the village I’d have come with you,” said Ursula, after Zoe had explained where she’d been. “I only stayed in bed because I was bored to death . . .”

  Her lovely face was petulant and disconcerted. Only twice had I really seen her come to life; when she and Zoe had come back from Marling full of the murder, and that evening, for a passing second, in the bar of the Golden Crust . . .

  *

  The rest of that day passed slowly and was rather dull. Ursula had promised to have tea with Miss Beaver and insisted on taking Zoe with her, to my intense disappointment. Simon Gale, who had lapsed into one of his morose moods, went up to his room immediately after lunch and remained there for the whole of the afternoon. So I was left to myself.

  I settled down in the drawing room and wrote a long letter to my father, reporting on progress with the acquisition and telling him all about the murder, and adding what I thought was going on between Ursula and Lance Weston. I knew that bit of scandal would interest him after his prophecy. It was getting on for three o’clock by the time I had finished the letter. There was still time to fill, so I hunted up a book and read until I fell asleep in front of the fire.

  I was woken by Trenton bringing in the tea.

  I’m not used to sleeping in the afternoon and I felt a bit woolly, so when I’d had my tea I decided to post my letter. It was the right decision. The walk down to the post office did me good. I’d just slipped my letter into the post box and was turning away, when a voice hailed me from across the street and I saw the fastidious Franklin Gifford waving to me from outside the small village bank. I crossed over to him.

  “Do you have a moment?” he asked.

  I didn’t have anything to do until dinner so I was happy to give him some of my time.

  “Come up to my flat and have a drink,” he suggested. “I live over the bank since my wife died.” He
opened a smart side door and led me up carpeted stairs. “I used to manage a bank in Marling,” he told me as we climbed to the first floor, “Owned a house there, but now this suits me fine.” He opened another door, with a highly polished brass knocker and letterbox, into a small hallway with rooms leading off, and ushered me into a sitting room that looked out over the Green. The room was like Gifford himself, scrupulously clean and tidy. Everything was highly polished and set out to a rigid pattern, like a hotel. It gave me the uncomfortable impression that nobody lived there. Gifford was obviously one of those finicky people who liked everything in its place and if a chair is moved cannot prevent himself from unobtrusively sliding it back over the dents in the carpet that marked the exact spot it had previously occupied.

  He gave me a gin and tonic, showed me several photographs of his son who was in the R.A.F. and pointed out a large and extremely badly painted portrait of his late wife, which hung over the mantelpiece. She had been quite pretty, but there was a worried, haunted expression about her eyes.

  “Any news about this Baker business?” he asked.

  I shook my head. Had he asked me up here to pump me for information?

  “Strange business—sending that card to Simon Gale . . . Do you think it’s a madman on the loose? Have the police checked asylums to see if anyone has recently escaped?”

  I smiled at Gifford’s amateur sleuthing and wondered when he had found out about the card. I doubt if Gale had told him.

  “If it is an outsider, an escaped lunatic, how did he pick up on Gale’s remark regarding The Hunting of the Snark?” I asked.

  “That’s true . . . Rather points to one of us, doesn’t it—someone who was at the dinner?”

  “Or someone they relayed the story to,” I replied.

  “What does Gale think? Strange fellow isn’t he—blustering sort of chap. I’m told he’s well in with the police . . .”

  I wondered who had told him, and put it down to the village grapevine. They probably knew about the card as well . . .

  “He knows Detective Chief Inspector Halliday,” I said. “This isn’t the first murder case he’s been mixed up in. There was some affair at Ferncross last year . . .”