Death At the President's Lodging

by Michael Innes

  “For that matter he seemed rather venomously inclined towards Empson. Though I haven’t discovered any clues against Empson so far – planted by Haveland or otherwise. As you suggest, I may have missed them. On the other hand it is just possible that I haven’t missed them because they’re not there – that your theory’s wrong, in fact.”

  Gott protested. “It’s not my theory. It’s simply one suggestion. But ‘missed,’ I think, was a mistake. There would be no point in Haveland’s leaving clues so tenuous that they could reasonably be missed. But they may be yet to come.”

  Appleby chuckled. He enjoyed Gott. “The second murder, perhaps, that throws some light on the first? And then the third and fourth murders, that eliminate two of the possible perpetrators of the second? Let’s try the exact review of times and movements. And we can begin with Haveland.” And – much like Inspector Dodd – Appleby produced a sheaf of papers. But at this moment there came the second interruption of the evening. Somebody could be heard negotiating the laundry basket in the lobby and then there came a knock at the door. It was Haveland himself.

  The visitor halted when he saw Gott and addressed himself to Appleby. “I beg your pardon – I thought I might find you free. Perhaps I might come again…?”

  “Mr Gott and I have been discussing – my business here,” Appleby replied, and at the same moment Gott rose to go.

  But Haveland meantime had shut the door and his next remark embraced them both. “Can I usefully place myself at the disposal of so formidable a conference?”

  Haveland’s should have been an easy and open nature. His physical contours were bland and the effect was enhanced by the pleasing, if somewhat consciously aesthetic negligence of his clothes – the clothes he refused to shed for the sober black and white required by the ritual of the St Anthony’s high-table. But, actually, the personality he presented to the world was stiff, uncoloured and – surely – utterly unspontaneous. He was, apart from the hint of irony which always lurked in the fall of his phrases, impassive, deliberately unmoved, deliberately remote. Appleby suddenly resolved to essay the rousing of him now.

  “You come at a useful moment,” he said. “We were just beginning an examination of your movements at the time of the murder. Do sit down.”

  That Haveland might display some indignation, if not against the policeman at least against his colleague, it was reasonable to suppose. But there was no flicker. The visitor obeyed the injunction to be seated and said nothing at all. Any business of his own on which he had come he was indicating as put aside at Appleby’s pleasure. It had the effect, somehow, of being a distinct score; Appleby had to plunge ahead at once. And he had to do so without being very certain of his ground. The statements collected by Dodd he had not yet had time to review in the light of the slightly altered hour of the murder. Nevertheless he turned coolly to his relevant scrap of memoranda.

  “John Haveland,” he read quietly, “fifty-nine. Fellow of the college since 1908. Unmarried. Occupies rooms in Orchard Ground. Can throw no light on the murder or on any of the circumstances attending it.

  “Nine-fifteen: Left common-room and went to own rooms. Read. Ten-forty: Quitted Orchard Ground by east gate and called on Dean in Bishop’s. Ten-fifty: Returned by east gate, going straight to own rooms. Eleven-twenty-five: Discovered there by Inspector Dodd and informed of President’s death. Appeared scarcely interested.”

  Appleby pushed the paper aside. Dodd’s final observation made good ground on which to pause. But Haveland challenged it at once. “I heard of the President’s death,” he said, “most certainly without emotion and without regret.”

  “And without surprise, Mr Haveland?”

  “I must confess to surprise.”

  “And curiosity?”

  “Curiosity?”

  “My colleague’s note has something more to add on the further interview he had with you in the morning. You had no information to give – about the bones, for instance. But you yourself asked three questions. You asked if the President had been shot, if the weapon had been found, and if the time of death was determined.”

  “My dear Haveland,” Gott murmured at this point, “such friendly interest in the world is unlike your usual self. You must have been quite upset.”

  Haveland showed what might have been the shadow of impatience. “With my collection of bones on the man’s carpet the time of death was obviously material to me. For that matter, it was obviously material to Deighton-Clerk. Umpleby was apparently shot at exactly eleven o’clock. Either of us therefore could just have done it. But if he had been shot at, say, a quarter of eleven both of us would have been nicely out of it – or up to the neck in a conspiracy together. Why shouldn’t I ask questions? I don’t want to be hanged, you know.”

  Appleby gave his information guilelessly. “Umpleby was shot a long time before eleven o’clock. Inspector Dodd hadn’t got the facts straight when you interrogated him. And we have found the weapon.”

  Without eagerness Haveland took up the first point. “How long before eleven?”

  “Anything up to half an hour.”

  Haveland was impassive still – but not utterly without betrayal. Coming somewhere from the man was an impression that Appleby was now familiar with in the St Anthony’s case – an impression of rapid calculation. Titlow, Pownall, Haveland – these men thought intensively before they spoke. In all of them it was perhaps merely the intellectual habit that gave the impression. And yet with Haveland, certainly, the impression was that of a man intensely calculating – calculating whether to suggest something, to reveal something, to venture some further question… At length he said flatly, “Then Deighton-Clerk or I might still have done it.”

  “Deighton-Clerk might have shot Umpleby and left your bones in his study?”

  “Yes, or I might.”

  “When do you think the bones were purloined from your room?”

  “Between ten-forty and ten-fifty, I suppose – while I was visiting Deighton-Clerk.”

  “In that case they couldn’t have been taken by DeightonClerk?”

  “No. Not that I really know when they were taken. I only know they were in their cupboard – an unlocked cupboard – in the afternoon.”

  “Was Deighton-Clerk an enemy of Umpleby’s?”

  “He hadn’t picturesquely wished him rotting in a sepulchre, as I so unfortunately had. But they were not on good terms. Deighton-Clerk had taxed Umpleby publicly with improper conduct towards Ransome, the man now abroad.”

  “Ransome isn’t abroad,” interposed Gott easily.

  “Indeed?”

  “He’s probably in bed by now – in this college. Not long ago he was in the laundry basket you must have encountered coming in.”

  “Indeed?”

  Certainly it was a mask that Haveland presented to the world. Hearing of a colleague being kept in a laundry basket he showed no flicker of surprise, no flicker of interest. And now he had got to his feet. “I can only interfere with your activities. I look forward to anything your collaboration may produce. Good night.” And Haveland withdrew.

  Appleby was chuckling. “What do you think he meant by the product of our collaboration, Gott?”

  “I suspect him of meaning that we are likely to do best spinning novels together. But why did he come?”

  Appleby chuckled again, thoughtfully this time. “He came for information. And he got it, I think – or all the whiff of it he wanted. And you see what we’ve got to do now?”

  “Oh, yes,” responded the undefeatable Gott. “We’ve got to carry out a little practical experimental work with a hearse. And the beer will keep.”

  II

  “The miscreant,” reported Horace on returning to David’s room after a prolonged reconnaissance, “has been released.”

  “Released!” exclaimed his friends blankly.

  “I’m glad to say,” replied Horace, who had apparently been thinking it out, “released. Which means, I suppose, that he didn’t do it. Which m
eans, in turn, that we haven’t caught a murderer. We never decided, you know, on the morality of dealing with him if we did. We were carried away – or Mike was – by the funny joke of delivering him neatly parcelled and addressed.”

  “They’ve really let him go?”

  “He’s gone to his old rooms, had a bath and an enormous meal and Mrs Tunk has been summoned by telephone to make and grace his downy couch. Pork Evans has seen it all from his window.”

  “They may only be giving him rope,” suggested Mike.

  “They may only be giving us rope,” retorted Horace. “Don’t you think it very probable that we shall all be sent down?”

  “Not a chance of it. Can you see Ransome going to Deighton-Clerk and complaining of what has befallen him while skulking round the old mouseion in a false nose?”

  “Well,” said Horace doubtfully, “if that’s so we’re well out of it.”

  “Out of it?” It was David who spoke. “Surely, Horace, you are not content to let our investigation rest? Didn’t I tell you both that in addition to a notion I had some information? No, no, Horace; thy duty duly is performed, but there’s more work.”

  Horace turned to Mike. “He is a bore, you know. I’ve long suspected it – and there it is.”

  Mike nodded gloomily. “Yes, one sees it coming. Sir David Pennyfeather Edwards, the celebrated Treasury bore. Pattering round suggesting a committee here and an inquiry there. Poor old David.” And Mike applied himself with ostentatious concentration to Selected Sermons of the Seventeenth Century. Horace slid to the floor and was enfolded in the mysteries of Miss Milligan in a moment. In Two-six Dr Umpleby’s death had ceased to compel.

  But David knew his men. Gently, he talked to the air. And in a couple of minutes his companions were absorbed.

  III

  The beer had been abandoned. Gott was brewing strong coffee. Appleby had his watch out on the arm of his chair and was regarding it thoughtfully.

  “An inconclusive experiment,” said Gott. “He might just have managed it, but it would be a tight squeeze.”

  “Yes; and at either time. The two periods Haveland had are just equal: ten-thirty to ten-forty and then ten-fifty to eleven. Even if you put forward his arrival on the Dean to ten-forty-three or even forty-five you must allow something at the other end for Umpleby’s leaving his study and getting up the orchard after Slotwiner had brought in the drinks at ten-thirty. A very tight squeeze.”

  “Ah, well, my picture of Haveland trolleying his own bones plus corpse up the garden path was no doubt, as you suggested, a bit steep. But why did Haveland visit the Dean anyway, and what has the Dean to say about the times?”

  “Just a minute,” replied Appleby. “We’ll go over the other people’s movements now and begin with the Dean. Here we are.” And he produced the relevant note.

  ‘Deighton-Clerk…Nine-thirty: Left the common-room with Dr Barocho and went to the latter’s rooms in Bishop’s. Ten-thirty-five: Walked across to his own rooms, accompanied part of the way by Barocho. Visited a few minutes after he got back by Mr Haveland. Ten-fifty: Haveland left to return to his rooms. A few minutes later Deighton-Clerk rang up the porter’s lodge on college affairs and then settled down to read. Eleven-ten: President’s butler, Slotwiner, came across with news of fatality…”

  “It corroborates Haveland,” commented Gott. “And if that telephone call to the porter took any time at all it looks like clearing Deighton-Clerk himself.”

  “Unless,” Appleby responded, “he telephoned with one hand, so to speak, and shot Umpleby with the other.”

  “Any shot would be heard in Bishop’s.”

  “He might have followed Haveland immediately into Orchard Ground, met Umpleby and shot him, telephoned from an empty room in Little Fellows’, run out again, chaired corpse and bones, dumped them in the study, fired – for some reason – a second shot at eleven and then beat it for his own rooms.”

  “Good Lord, Appleby, that’s a tighter squeeze still! Can you really imagine Deighton-Clerk skipping about like that? And anyway, was there an empty room in Little Fellows’ to telephone from? Haveland was back in his. What of the other three?”

  “Just a moment. It is another tight squeeze, I admit – probably too tight. And if there was no telephone available of course it breaks down. But before we look at the other three let’s take Barocho. His movements link up with the Dean’s and perhaps we can get rid of him.”

  “But Barocho hadn’t a key.”

  “Never mind. Let’s look at him. I seem to remember he’s out anyway. Yes, he is. ‘Walked with Deighton-Clerk to the door of latter’s rooms at ten-thirty-five and then went straight to the library, reading there until called out after eleven…’ There were a number of undergraduates in the library. Barocho’s quite out.”

  “If you’re taking people without keys – what about old Curtis? Has he an alibi?”

  Appleby shook his head. “Curtis went to his rooms at nine-thirty. He says he didn’t stir out again that night. The Dean had him out of bed a bit before midnight to tell him what had happened. And that’s all we know.”

  “What of Curtis as the dark horse?” Gott asked – and added soberly, “Let’s try to sum up to date. The people really in the running are Haveland, Titlow, Empson, Pownall, Ransome, Deighton-Clerk and myself. All these had keys. For the purposes of this discussion, I’m out. Ransome’s movements at the material time we have as yet no information on. Haveland would seem to have a tight squeeze. Deighton-Clerk’s outness or inness depends on the movements of the remaining three. If he couldn’t telephone from one of their rooms he just hadn’t time to shoot Umpleby and the rest of it between ten-fifty and eleven. And he couldn’t have used Haveland’s telephone. So let’s have Titlow, Empson and Pownall – whose movements, incidentally, are vital in themselves.”

  Appleby turned to another paper. “Here’s Pownall,” he said, “according to the story he gave me this morning. He got back to his rooms in Little Fellows’ a little before nine-thirty. He read for twenty minutes. Then he went to bed and was asleep by ten-fifteen. He was disturbed by somebody in his room at ten-forty-two.”

  “The dickens he was! But that’s too early to have been Deighton-Clerk at the telephone… And he didn’t leave his room after that?”

  “No. He prowled about discovering blood and deciding Umpleby had been murdered. But he sat tight in his rooms all the same.” And Appleby gave Gott the gist of Pownall’s narrative. Then he turned to Titlow.

  “Nine-twenty: Returned from common-room and worked until ten-fifty-five, when he set off to visit Umpleby as usual. Passed through the west gate into Bishop’s and rang front-door bell of President’s Lodging just on eleven.”

  Appleby paused. “You can help there,” he said. “Why should he go round to the front door? Why not knock at the French windows?”

  “Point of ceremony, I think,” Gott replied. “He always did on those occasions. It was a sort of weekly official visit – and the two men didn’t love each other.”

  Appleby nodded. “Well, that’s the story. No corroboration – nor anything against it. But for what it’s worth it deprives Deighton-Clerk of the possibility of another telephone. And now, here’s Empson. He got back to his rooms at nine-thirty and settled down to work. At ten-forty he went over to the porter’s lodge by way of the west gate in order to inquire about a parcel of proofs. He was back within eight or ten minutes and remained undisturbed until the arrival of the police… That’s the lot.” And Appleby tossed aside his notes.

  Gott sighed. “What a scope there seems to be for lying about it all! Do you see how no one of these Little Fellows’ people makes contact with any other? But if Empson’s story is true it cuts out Deighton-Clerk. Empson was back at ten-fifty – before Deighton-Clerk could use his telephone and avoid being discovered. What do you think?”

  “I think that unless Deighton-Clerk telephoned from his own rooms immediately Haveland left him, and not as the statement says ‘a few minutes later
’ that he is cut out. Indeed, I think he’s out in any case. The squeeze is too tight quite apart from the telephone.”

  “In which case,” said Gott, “it’s down to the Little Fellows’ contingent and to Ransome and myself.”

  “Exactly. But somehow I suspect the St Anthony’s burglars less and less. The key to the mystery lies–”

  “In Little Fellows’?”

  “In Thomas De Quincey,” said Appleby.

  14

  As Appleby crossed Bishop’s a few minutes after Gott’s departure he had a sense of making his way to the last important interview in the St Anthony’s case. In Gott he had just left a theoretically-possible suspect; in Ransome there was an unknown quantity yet to be dealt with. But the belief was really growing on him that the mystery of Umpleby’s death was somehow hidden in Little Fellows’: at least it was on Little Fellows’ that his mind was going to concentrate before it wandered further afield. And of the four men lodging there he already had more than a little knowledge of three. Haveland he had just been scrutinizing; Pownall he had interrogated; Titlow had deliberately provided him with a sort of set exhibition of himself. But of Empson he had had no more than a caustic word in hall and common-room – and a revealing glimpse asleep. Perhaps he was already asleep again now. But it was still a feasible hour for a call… Once more Appleby slipped through the west gates into Orchard Ground.

  Empson’s dry voice answered the knock. Perhaps it was some sense of an unexpected contrast to this dryness that gave a peculiarly vivid quality to the moment at which Appleby entered the room. Empson was sitting by the light of the fire and of a single shaded lamp. The severe library, concentrated so uncompromisingly on the man’s own subject of psychology and mental science, had receded into shadow. Its owner, who had discarded his ordinary dinner jacket for the faded silk of some wine-club of a past generation, was sitting reading in a high-backed, old-fashioned chair. His stick was between his knees, pale ivory matching the pale ivory of the fingers clasping it. And the ivory complexion, set off by the dead white shirt, was softened by the faded rose and gold of the old silk… Empson had risen punctiliously to his feet and put aside his book – it was Henry James’ The Golden Bowl, and to Appleby it seemed pleasantly to complete a picture of mellow scientific relaxation.