The Morning After Death

by Nicholas Blake

  VOTE FOR ME! I STAND FOR FREE ELECTIONS, FREE THOUGHT AND FREE LOVE.

  “Well, well,” said Nigel, wondering whether it did not go beyond the latitude allowed in this democratic House. The students around him did seem more shocked than amused, though one said, “I didn’t know Ahlberg was running in the election,” and another muttered, “I guess he’s standing, anyway.”

  Finally a graduate broke through the group, uttered an exclamation of disgust, tore the exhibit from the wall, and walked off with it.

  “The Church Militant.”

  “Cyrus is the president of the Baptist Union in Cabot,” someone explained to Nigel.

  “It’s none of my business, but does anyone know who did this poster?” asked Nigel, when some of the group were sitting at breakfast with him.

  It seemed that none of them did.

  “Chester Ahlberg’s not that unpopular in the House, surely?”

  “No, Mr. Strangeways,” said a pink-faced youth. “But someone sure must have it in for him.”

  “It’s happened before—this sort of nonsense?”

  “Yeah. One day early in the semester, I was opening my mailbox—I live in Chester’s entry—and he stopped by to open his. He put his hand in, and—well, he put it on something real ugly.” The youth paused, blushing.

  “A turd,” said a hardier friend.

  “And it was never discovered who—?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, it must have been someone who knew Mr. Ahlberg’s combination. But that didn’t get the Senior Tutor any place,” another boy explained.

  Each member of the House had a mailbox, which was opened by turning a dual pointer above it to a certain combination of figures, like a safe.

  So it looks as if Chester was right, thought Nigel; he doesn’t have persecution mania, he’s persecuted. And in a particularly disagreeable way.

  After breakfast he found the Master in his study, with the offensive poster lying on the desk in front of him. “Will you take a look at this.”

  “I’ve seen it, Zeke.”

  “One of our religious firebrands came tearing in just now. Protested it let down the tone of the House, was an example of my overly permissive regime. Maybe it is.” The Master gave one of his skull-like grins. “An interesting idea,” he said, glancing at the montage, “though I doubt if redheads come within Chester’s field of concentration. Well, it’ll give the Senior Tutor something to exercise his deductive intelligence upon.”

  “Like the Thing in the Mailbox?” Nigel asked.

  “Ah-ha! So you’re beginning to concern yourself with our problems, Nigel. I knew you’d not be able to keep away from them for long.”

  “Zeke, if Josiah consented to give John Tate an interview here, would he have to ask your permisison first?”

  “Theoretically, yes. In the case of any student who has been suspended. In practice, he probably wouldn’t: he was a law unto himself, was Josiah, poor fellow. But what—?”

  “He apparently did agree to see him the night of his death.”

  “Oh, my Lord!”

  “Josiah never mentioned it to you?”

  “He certainly did not.”

  “If he had, what would have been your attitude?”

  “I’d have advised him to make sure he had a witness present,” the Master said.

  “To prevent violence?”

  “No. Not that really. John is the type who blusters, but if you call his bluff, he climbs down.”

  “But he didn’t climb down after accusing Josiah of stealing his ideas. Which suggests it was not bluff that time.”

  The Master uncoiled from his chair, went to the French window, and stood looking out, his back to Nigel.

  “I know. That occurred to me quite a while ago. It lies heavy on my mind—the idea that we may have done John a grievous wrong. But at the time, Nigel, well, it was unthinkable that a Cabot professor could—”

  There was a knock on the door, and Lieutenant Brady entered.

  “Have you come to make a progress report?” Zeke asked pleasantly.

  “A no-progress report would be more accurate, Mr. Edwardes. We’ve combed every room here for the murder weapon, without result.”

  “Which suggests that the murderer came from outside?”

  “I’m afraid not. The killer had several days to dispose of it. We’re using the latest equipment to find if he tossed it into the river. But there’s several million other places in this city he could have stashed it away. We have a call out for John Tate: we rang his Pittsburgh address, but the landlady says he’s not been there since the day before the murder. I’ve contacted the top brass at your Scotland Yard, Mr. Strangeways; they’re checking Mr. Chester Ahlberg’s statement. I’ve also checked up on you, and they told me quite a piece. I should be happy to have your cooperation.”

  Oh my, thought Nigel. He said, “Good of you—and I’d be interested to see something of your methods over here, but I’m kept pretty busy on my research—”

  “You get anywhere with Miss Tate yesterday morning?” Brady asked.

  “My goodness, Lieutenant, you’re quick on the ball!”

  “My pop used to say, ‘If you don’t hustle, you’ll sink.’ You were going to tell me about Miss Tate.”

  “Was I? Well, it seems she arranged through Chester for her brother to have an interview with Professor Ahlberg. At 10:30 P.M. on the night of Thursday last. She telephoned to John, saying this interview had been arranged. She did not see him herself. That is her story.”

  “Period. I get you. So that young woman’s going to be pretty upset when next I see her.” Brady’s green eyes dwelled piercingly upon Nigel’s. “Does she figure she’s going to hire you to keep her brother out of the clutches of the brutal police?”

  Nigel grinned. “No salary was mentioned.”

  “I’d watch out for that one. They’re Reds, the whole family, and she’s the worst of them.”

  Nigel did not attempt to play that ball. Brady sent down a more direct one. “You’ve been some time coming through with this information about John Tate’s interview, Mr. Strangeways.”

  “You’ve had it now. You were already looking for Tate, and the information would not have expedited your finding him.”

  “If you boys are going to get mad with each other, I’ll take my work to another room,” said Zeke, smiling amiably.

  “No, I want a word with May,” Nigel said.

  “She’s somewhere around. Try the drawing room.”

  “I’ll be keeping in touch, Lieutenant.”

  “See you.”

  With the expression of a dog from whom a large bone has removed itself, Brady watched Nigel walk out.

  May Edwardes was writing letters at her desk. “The secret of getting American stamps to stick on envelopes is not to lick them too much. When I first got here I found it impossible. It took me a year and a great expense of saliva to learn how to do it properly.” May turned toward him in her chair. “You’re needing something?”

  “I want you to talk to me about John Tate. How well did you know him?”

  “Well, now, Nigel, I’m not a motherly person, as you may have noticed. He didn’t come to me with his troubles. But I found him interesting to talk with. Considerable maturity on the surface, but if you probed much you found yourself breaking through—as with most of these young men—to a gulf of naïveté.”

  “Is he what Brady calls a Red?”

  “A Red? Oh, I don’t know. He’s concerned politically. He’s rather a radical. I know Zeke had to speak to him about some of his activities as secretary for the May the Second Committee.”

  “How did he take that?”

  “I saw him coming out of the study. He looked like a child who’s been corrected. Terribly down-in-the-mouth. Bewildered.”

  “Bark worse than bite?”

  “He does tend to cave in when he meets opposition. Mind you, Zeke can be very formidable. I’d say John has the same quixotic urges as his si
ster, but less stamina.”

  “What about his family?”

  “The parents divorced some years ago. I don’t think John saw much of his mother after that. Sukie’s been sister and mother to him: they’re awfully close.”

  “Ever meet their father?”

  “Let me see—yes, I did once. Of course one’s heard about him. Not a very well-balanced man, I should think. I gather he has great intelligence, but probably like all these Hollywood people, he lives half the time in a fantasy world. Or I guess he did till he had that McCarthy trouble.”

  “It ruined his career?” Nigel asked.

  “Well, I imagine it damaged it. You know he recanted—ran for the nearest burrow, you might say. There was a story that he informed against some of his liberal friends too.”

  “Which wouldn’t improve his relationship with two crusading children.”

  “No. But the young are very hard on everyone’s failings but their own.” May gave Nigel a very straight look. “Are the police after John?”

  “Yes. Tell me, May, do you think it was plagiarism on his part, or was Josiah the real culprit?”

  May Edwardes twisted the rings on her bony fingers. “I wish I knew. I’ve never been able to make up my mind. And I certainly wish we knew where he is now.”

  “I think you’ve told me,” said Nigel.

  6 The Missing Plagiarist

  NIGEL WENT BACK to his room and rang Sukie’s number. There was no reply. He was settling down to a book when a voice called to him from the courtyard below. He opened the window. Chester Ahlberg was there, looking distraught, with Charles Reilly.

  “Did I drop my passport in your room last night?” Chester asked. “It’s disappeared.”

  “I’ve not seen it. Come up and look, if you like.”

  Chester searched down the sides of sofa and armchairs, without result.

  “I simply can’t figure out where—”

  “When did you last see it?”

  “Well, I put it in my mackintosh pocket after I’d shown it at the airport. Didn’t miss it till this morning. I’ve looked all over my rooms.”

  “What’s the hurry?” said Charles. “You’re not going to flee the country, are you?”

  “But it’s perfectly ridiculous, I never lose my passport.”

  “I daresay it dropped out of your pocket. The cabby will return it. Sure a passport’s no good to anyone but its owner. You can always get another one, anyway.”

  “That’s not the point, Charles—”

  “Where else did you go after you returned?” Nigel interrupted.

  “I carried my baggage up to my room,” Chester said slowly. “Then—what did I do next?—oh, yes, of course, I went round to see Mark. Let’s ask him.”

  Mark had a pupil and was not best pleased by the incursion.

  “Oh, go on, take the place to bits. First the police, now you,” he said wearily. Chester was already darting about, feeling down the sides of chairs, peering under the desk, riffling the papers on a side table. This last action, Nigel noticed, laid bare the cover of a copy of Playboy; but Chester passed it over without comment, and hurried into the bedroom, Charles Reilly at his heels.

  “What the hell does he want his goddam passport for?” grumbled Mark, and turned back to his pupil.

  Nigel casually turned over the pages of Playboy. One page had been torn out. Nigel made a mental note of its number and the magazine date of issue. Presently Chester and Charles returned, empty-handed.

  “Now don’t get in such a lather,” Charles was saying. “You’ll find it eventually. Before you next take off. You Americans are always fretting to go somewhere you’re not. This craze for globetrotting. There’s only the one passport worth having, and that’s a passport to Paradise.”

  “I’m awfully sorry, Mark, to—”

  “Really, Chester, if I’d found the darned thing I’d have told you. Now for the Lord’s sake beat it. Haven’t you any work to do?”

  They went to Chester’s room. Nigel, who had not been there before, found it the antithesis of Mark’s—pernickety in its tidiness, the furniture placed like soldiers on parade, the books numbered off and dressed alphabetically from left to right, a bright fire burning. There were some admirable prints on the wall, and two examples of early nineteenth-century American masters.

  “Do you suppose Josiah had a passport to Paradise?” Nigel asked idly as he ran his eye over the books. Chester was making coffee in the next room.

  “He’d be lucky if he reached Purgatory, from all I’ve heard,” Charles said finally.

  “That’s a nice Christian remark, Charles, I must say.”

  “It’s the trut’.”

  “And more characteristic of you than corny stuff about passports to Paradise,” Nigel murmured. As he turned away from a shelf filled with biographies of financiers and captains of industry he saw that Charles Reilly’s florid face was darkly suffused.

  “You damned blasé Englishmen wouldn’t recognize the trut’ if it poked you in the eye. I’ve a mind to do it, to prove my point.”

  Nigel shook his head. “Sorry. There’s enough trouble in this House without two elderly gentlemen coming to fisticuffs. But did you have a personal grudge against Josiah?”

  “I did not.” Charles’s tongue splayed out between his thick lips—a curious mannerism that took him when he was nervous or about to deliver himself of a malicious remark. But all he added was “I just didn’t like the fella.”

  Nigel let it pass, though he was aware that he had touched a sensitive spot. Why should I start needling Charles? he wondered. . . .

  Sukie was in when he rang her half an hour later. “May I come and see you, now?” he asked.

  “Here?”

  “Yes.”

  There was a brief pause. “Okay. Come to lunch. I’ll fix you an omelet.”

  Sukie gave him directions for finding her apartment. She had one floor of a shabby frame house in a run-down section of the town. Children, white and Negro, played on the sidewalk in front of it: empty cardboard containers were piled beside the door: damp stains disfigured the wall of the staircase. The sitting room presented the chaotic appearance of many students’ apartments: books, pamphlets and cushions on the floor, the table hastily cleared for a meal, tattered curtains which had once been scarlet. In this shabby, slovenly nest, Sukie stood out with almost preternatural clarity of definition: a dark-blue jersey and fawn skirt set off the lines of her small, trim body; her face, for all the uncertain look on it, was vivid as a camellia. Artemis, he thought; no, Vergil’s warrior maiden, Camilla.

  “Have they found John?” was the first thing she said.

  “Not yet.”

  “Oh, well—Would you like some Dubonnet?”

  “That would be nice.”

  She took a sticky bottle and two glasses from a cupboard. “It’s gin and bitter lemon you really like, isn’t it?” she said shyly. “But I hadn’t time to buy any.”

  “How’s Emily Dickinson going?”

  “Can’t you imagine?”

  Nigel sipped his drink. His pale-blue eyes rested upon her without guile or pressure. “I do wish, Sukie, you could have told me the truth.”

  “But I—”

  “No, no, my dear, don’t make it worse. You told me you rang John at Pittsburgh as soon as you heard about Josiah’s death,” said Nigel gently. “You told me he answered you and described how he’d come to Josiah’s office and found it locked.”

  “Yes, and so he did.”

  “So he did, maybe. But you never spoke with him on the telephone. Brady rang his landlady in Pittsburgh and she said he had not been in the house since that Thursday.”

  Sukie’s black lashes veiled her eyes. “I rang his place of work, not his house.”

  “He hadn’t been there either.”

  Her face crumpled. “I thought you were on my side,” she wailed childishly.

  “So I am. But what can I do if you won’t tell me the truth?”

&nbs
p; “I’m sorry, Nigel, but I knew you’d pass on to Brady what I told you. I hoped it would send the cops on—on a false trail.”

  “My poor child! Do stop playing cops and robbers. It simply isn’t your game. The police have your photograph of him: they’re bound to catch up with him before long. I told you the right thing for him to do was—”

  “He’s got a beard in the photo. He shaved it off,” she began triumphantly.

  “So he could get into Hawthorne without being recognized.”

  “I never—”

  “Oh, Sukie, for an intelligent girl who acts like a half-wit, you take the cake. Don’t you suppose Brady’ll have the beard brushed off some of the copies of the photo he sends round?”

  “Let them find him, that’s all—let them find him!” cried Sukie defiantly.

  “Where is he?”

  The gray eyes looked into Nigel’s with an expression of the purest innocence. “How should I know?”

  Nigel sighed. “All right. You’d better go and fix us omelets. . . . And don’t forget to make one for John too,” he added as Sukie reached the door.

  She spun round. “I—What was that again?”

  “John had better eat with us. It’s time I talked to him.”

  “Are you out of your mind?”

  “He’s here. I know it. In this house.” Nigel caught a momentary flick of her eyes upward. “On the top floor.”

  “You’re crazy, Nigel. What’s come over you?”

  “Now look, Sukie. John goes to Hawthorne and gets a dreadful shock. He finds Josiah—dead, I hope. He panics. Hides the body to gain himself time. Then the reaction comes. I gather that when John is faced with a sudden crisis he tends to lose his nerve—runs for the nearest burrow,” said Nigel, freely drawing upon May Edwardes’ observations. “Runs to mother—you’re his mother as well as his sister, my dear Sukie. He coughs it all up in mother’s lap,” Nigel went on with intentional crudeness. “So here he is—and here you are, compounding a felony or whatever it’s called in this country.”

  Sukie was gazing at him spellbound, like a child listening to a fairy tale, her fists clenched and the pretty breasts rising and falling rapidly under her sweater.