A Murder of Quality AND Call for the Dead

by John le Carré

  Smiley stood up. As they shook hands, Rigby said, “Good-bye, sir. Ring me any time, any time at all.” He scribbled a telephone number on the pad in front of him, tore off the sheet and gave it to Smiley. “That’s my home number.” He showed Smiley to the door, seemed to hesitate, then he said, “You’re not a Carnian yourself by any chance, are you, sir?”

  “Good heavens, no.”

  Again Rigby hesitated. “Our Chief’s a Carnian. Ex-Indian Army. Brigadier Havelock. This is his last year. He’s very interested in this case. Doesn’t like me messing around the school. Won’t have it.”

  “I see.”

  “He wants an arrest quickly.”

  “And outside Carne, I suppose?”

  “Good-bye, Mr Smiley. Don’t forget to ring me. Oh, another thing I should have mentioned. That bit of cable …”

  “Yes?”

  “Mr Rode used a length of the same stuff in a demonstration lecture on elementary electronics. Mislaid it about three weeks ago.”

  Smiley walked slowly back to his hotel.

  My dear Brim,

  As soon as I arrived I handed your letter over to the CID man in charge of the case—it was Rigby, as Ben had supposed: he looks like a mixture of Humpty-Dumpty and a Cornish elf—very short and broad—and I don’t think he’s anyone’s fool.

  To begin at the middle—our letter didn’t have quite the effect we expected; Stella Rode evidently told Cardew, the local Baptist Minister, two weeks ago, that her husband was trying to kill her in the long nights, whatever they are. As for the circumstances of the murder—the account in the Guardian is substantially correct.

  In fact, the more Rigby told me, the less likely it became that she was killed by her husband. Almost everything pointed away from him. Quite apart from motive, there is the location of the weapon, the footprints in the snow (which indicate a tall man in Wellingtons), the presence of unidentified glove-prints in the conservatory. Add to that the strongest argument of all: whoever killed her must have been covered in blood—the conservatory was a dreadful sight, Rigby tells me. Of course, there was blood on Rode when he was picked up by his colleague in the lane, but only smears which could have resulted from stumbling over the body in the dark. Incidentally, the footprints only go into the garden and not out.

  As things stand at the moment, there is, as Rigby points out, only one interpretation—the murderer was a stranger, a tramp, a madman perhaps, who killed her for pleasure or for her jewellery (which was worthless) and made off along the Okeford road, throwing the weapon into a ditch. (But why carry it four miles—and why not throw it into the canal the other side of the ditch? The Okeford road crosses Okemoor, which is all cross-dyked to prevent flooding.) If this interpretation is correct, then I suppose we attribute Stella’s letter and her interview with Cardew to a persecuted mind, or the premonition of death, depending on whether we’re superstitious. If that is so, it is the most monstrous co-incidence I have ever heard of. Which brings me to my final point.

  I rather gathered from what Rigby didn’t say that his Chief Constable was treading on his tail, urging him to scour the country for tramps in bloodstained blue overcoats (you remember the belt). Rigby, of course, has no alternative but to follow the signs and do as his Chief expects—but he is clearly uneasy about something—either something he hasn’t told me, or something he just feels in his bones. I think he was sincere when he asked me to tell him anything I found out about the School end—the Rodes themselves, the way they fitted in, and so on. Carne’s monastery walls are still pretty high, he feels …

  So I’ll just sniff around a bit, I think, and see what goes on. I rang Fielding when I got back from the police station and he’s asked me to supper tonight. I’ll write again as soon as I have anything to tell you.

  George.

  Having carefully sealed the envelope, pressing down the corners with his thumbs, Smiley locked his door and made his way down the wide marble staircase, treading carefully on the meagre coconut matting that ran down the centre. There was a red wooden letter box in the hall for the use of residents, but Smiley, being a cautious man, avoided it. He walked to the pillar box at the corner of the road, posted his letter and wondered what to do about lunch. There were, of course, the sandwiches and coffee provided by Miss Brimley. Reluctantly he returned to the hotel. It was full of journalists, and Smiley hated journalists. It was also cold, and he hated the cold. And there was something very familiar about sandwiches in a hotel bedroom.

  5

  CAT AND DOG

  It was just after seven o’clock that evening when George Smiley climbed the steps which led up to the front door of Mr Terence Fielding’s house. He rang, and was admitted to the hall by a little plump woman in her middle fifties. To his right a log fire burned warmly on a pile of wood ash and above him he was vaguely aware of a minstrel gallery and a mahogany staircase, which rose in a spiral to the top of the house. Most of the light seemed to come from the fire, and Smiley could see that the walls around him were hung with a great number of paintings of various styles and periods, and the chimney-piece was laden with all manner of objets d’art. With an involuntary shudder, he noticed that neither the fire nor the pictures quite succeeded in banishing the faint smell of school—of polish bought wholesale, of cocoa and community cooking. Corridors led from the hall, and Smiley observed that the lower part of each wall was painted a dark brown or green according to the inflexible rule of school decorators. From one of these corridors the enormous figure of Mr Terence Fielding emerged.

  He advanced on Smiley, massive and genial, with his splendid mane of grey hair falling anyhow across his forehead, and his gown billowing behind him.

  “Smiley? Ah! You’ve met True, have you—Miss Truebody, my housekeeper? Marvellous this snow, isn’t it? Pure Bruegel! Seen the boys skating by the Eyot? Marvellous sight! Black suits, coloured scarves, pale sun; all there, isn’t it, all there! Bruegel to the life. Marvellous!” He took Smiley’s coat and flung it on to a decrepit deal chair with a rush seat which stood in the corner of the hall.

  “You like that chair—you recognise it?”

  “I don’t think I do,” Smiley replied in some confusion.

  “Ah, you should, you know, you should! Had it made in Provence before the war. Little carpenter I knew. Place it now? Facsimile of Van Gogh’s yellow chair; some people recognise it.” He led the way down a corridor and into a large comfortable study adorned with Dutch tiles, small pieces of Renaissance sculpture, mysterious bronzes, china dogs and unglazed vases; and Fielding himself towering magnificent among them.

  As senior housemaster of Carne, Fielding wore, in place of the customary academic dress, a wonderful confection of heavy black skirts and legal bib, like a monk in evening dress. All this imparted a suggestion of clerical austerity in noted contrast to the studied flamboyance of his personality. Evidently conscious of this, he sought to punctuate the solemnity of his uniform and give to it a little of his own temperament, by adorning it with flowers carefully chosen from his garden. He had scandalised the tailors of Carne, whose frosted windows carried the insignia of royal households, by having buttonholes let into his gown. These he would fill according to his mood with anything from hibernia to bluebells. This evening he wore a rose, and from its freshness Smiley deduced that he had this minute put it into place, having ordered it specially.

  “Sherry wine or Madeira?”

  “Thank you; a glass of sherry.”

  “Tart’s drink, Madeira,” Fielding called, as he poured from a decanter, “but boys like it. Perhaps that’s why. They’re frightful flirts.” He handed Smiley a glass and added, with a dramatic modification of his voice:

  “We’re all rather subdued at the moment by this dreadful business. We’ve never had anything quite like it, you know. Have you seen the evening papers?”

  “No, I’m afraid I haven’t. But the Sawley Arms is packed with journalists of course.”

  “They’ve really gone to town. They’ve got
the Army out in Hampshire, playing about with mine-detectors. God knows what they expect to find.”

  “How have the boys taken it?”

  “They adore it! My own house has been particularly fortunate, of course, because the Rodes were dining here that night. Some oaf from the police even wanted to question one of my boys.”

  “Indeed,” said Smiley innocently. “What on earth about?”

  “Oh, God knows,” Fielding replied abruptly, and then, changing the subject, he asked, “You knew my brother well, didn’t you? He talked about you, you know.”

  “Yes, I knew Adrian very well. We were close friends.”

  “In the war, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you in his crowd, then?”

  “What crowd?”

  “Steed-Asprey, Jebedee. All those people.”

  “Yes.”

  “I never really heard how he died. Did you?”

  “No.”

  “We didn’t see much of one another in later years, Adrian and I. Being a fraud, I can’t afford to be seen beside the genuine article,” Fielding declared, with something of his earlier panache. Smiley was spared the embarrassment of a reply by a quiet knock at the door, and a tall red-haired boy came timidly into the room.

  “I’ve called the Adsum, sir, if you’re ready, sir.”

  “Damn,” said Fielding, emptying his glass. “Prayers.” He turned to Smiley.

  “Meet Perkins, my head prefect. Musical genius, but a problem in the schoolroom. That right, Tim? Stay here or come as you like. It only lasts ten minutes.”

  “Rather less tonight, sir,” said Perkins. “It’s the Nunc Dimittis.”

  “Thank God for small mercies,” Fielding declared, tugging briefly at his bib, as he led Smiley at a spanking pace out into the corridor and across the hall, with Perkins stalking along behind them. Fielding was speaking all the time without bothering to turn his head:

  “I’m glad you’ve chosen this evening to come. I never entertain on Fridays as a rule because everyone else does, though none of us quite knows what to do about entertaining at the moment. Felix D’Arcy will be coming tonight, but that’s hardly entertaining. D’Arcy’s a professional. Incidentally, we normally dress in the evening, but it doesn’t matter.”

  Smiley’s heart sank. They turned a corner and entered another corridor.

  “We have prayers at all hours here. The Master’s revived the seven Day Hours for the Offices: Prime, Terce, Sext and so on. A surfeit during the Half, abstinence during the holidays, that’s the system, like games. Useful in the house for roll-calls, too.” He led the way down yet another corridor, flung open a double door at the end of it and marched straight into the dining-room, his gown filling gracefully behind him. The boys were waiting for him.

  “More sherry? What did you think of prayers? They sing quite nicely, don’t they? One or two good tenors. We tried some plainsong last Half; quite good, really quite good. D’Arcy will be here soon. He’s a frightful toad. Looks like a Sickert model fifty years after—all trousers and collar. However, you’re lucky his sister isn’t accompanying him. She’s worse!”

  “What’s his subject?” They were back in Fielding’s study.

  “Subject! I’m afraid we don’t have subjects here. None of us has read a word on any subject since we left University.” He lowered his voice and added darkly, “That’s if we went to University. D’Arcy teaches French. D’Arcy is Senior Tutor by election, bachelor by profession, sublimated pansy by inclination …” he was standing quite still now, his head thrown back and his right hand stretched out towards Smiley, “ … and his subject is other people’s shortcomings. He is principally, however, self-appointed majordomo of Carne protocol. If you wear a gown on a bicycle, reply incorrectly to an invitation, make a fault in the placement of your dinner guests or speak of a colleague as ‘Mister,’ D’Arcy will find you out and admonish you.”

  “What are the duties of Senior Tutor, then?” Smiley asked, just for something to say.

  “He’s the referee between the classics and the scientists; arranges the timetable and vets the exam. results. But principally, poor man, he must reconcile the Arts with the Sciences.” He shook his head sagely. “And it takes a better man than D’Arcy to do that. Not, mind you,” he added wearily, “that it makes the least difference who wins the extra hour on Friday evenings. Who cares? Not the boys, poor dears, that’s certain.”

  Fielding talked on, at random and always in superlatives, sometimes groping in the air with his hand as if to catch the more elusive metaphors; now of his colleagues with caustic derision, now of boys with compassion if not with understanding; now of the Arts with fervour—and the studied bewilderment of a lonely disciple.

  “Carne isn’t a school. It’s a sanatorium for intellectual lepers. The symptoms began when we came down from University; a gradual putrefaction of our intellectual extremities. From day to day our minds die, our spirits atrophy and rot. We watch the process in one another, hoping to forget it in ourselves.” He paused, and looked reflectively at his hands.

  “In me the process is complete. You see before you a dead soul, and Carne is the body I live in.” Much pleased by this confession, Fielding held out his great arms so that the sleeves of his gown resembled the wings of a giant bat; “the Vampire of Carne,” he declared, bowing deeply. “Alcoholique et poète!” A bellow of laughter followed this display.

  Smiley was fascinated by Fielding, by his size, his voice, the wanton inconstancy of his temperament, by his whole big-screen style; he found himself attracted and repelled by this succession of contradictory poses; he wondered whether he was supposed to take part in the performance, but Fielding seemed so dazzled by the footlights that he was indifferent to the audience behind them. The more Smiley watched, the more elusive seemed the character he was trying to comprehend: changeful but sterile, daring but fugitive; colourful, unbounded, ingenuous, yet deceitful and perverse. Smiley began to wish he could acquire the material facts of Fielding—his means, his ambitions and disappointments.

  His reverie was interrupted by Miss Truebody. Felix D’Arcy had arrived.

  No candles, and a cold supper admirably done by Miss Truebody. Not claret, but hock, passed round like port. And at last, at long last, Fielding mentioned Stella Rode.

  They had been talking rather dutifully of the Arts and the Sciences. This would have been dull (for it was uninformed) had not D’Arcy constantly been goaded by Fielding, who seemed anxious to exhibit D’Arcy in his worst light. D’Arcy’s judgements of people and problems were largely coloured by what he considered “seemly” (a favourite word) and by an effeminate malice towards his colleagues. After a while Fielding asked who was replacing Rode during his absence, to which D’Arcy said, “No one,” and added unctuously:

  “It was a terrible shock to the community, this affair.”

  “Nonsense,” Fielding retorted. “Boys love disaster. The further we are from death the more attractive it seems. They find the whole affair most exhilarating.”

  “The publicity has been most unseemly,” said D’Arcy, “most. I think that has been prominent in the minds of many of us in the Common Room.” He turned to Smiley:

  “The press, you know, is a constant worry here. In the past it could never have happened. Formerly our great families and institutions were not subjected to this intrusion. No, indeed not. But today all that is changed. Many of us are compelled to subscribe to the cheaper newspapers for this very reason. One Sunday newspaper mentioned no fewer than four of Hecht’s old boys in one edition. All of them in an unseemly context, I may say. And of course such papers never fail to mention that the boy is a Carnian. You know, I suppose, that we have the young Prince here. (I myself have the honour to supervise his French studies.) The young Sawley is also at Carne. The activity of the press during his parents’ divorce suit was deplorable. Quite deplorable. The Master wrote to the Press Council, you know. I drafted the letter myself. But on this tragic occasion t
hey have excelled themselves. We even had the press at Compline last night, you know, waiting for the Special Prayer. They occupied the whole of the two rear pews on the west side. Hecht was doing Chapel Duty and tried to have them removed.” He paused, raised his eyebrows in gentle reproach and smiled. “He had no business to, of course, but that never stopped the good Hecht.” He turned to Smiley, “One of our athletic brethren,” he explained.

  “Stella was too common for you, Felix, wasn’t she?”

  “Not at all,” said D’Arcy quickly. “I would not have you say that of me, Terence. I am by no means discriminatory in the matter of class; merely of manners. I grant you, in that particular field, I found her wanting.”

  “In many ways she was just what we needed,” Fielding continued, addressing Smiley and ignoring D’Arcy. “She was everything we’re forced to ignore—she was red-brick, council estates, new towns, the very antithesis of Carne!” He turned suddenly to D’Arcy and said, “But to you, Felix, she was just bad form.”