The Smiler With the Knife

by Nicholas Blake

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Nicholas Blake

  Dedication

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  Chapter I: The Episode of the Major’s Mother

  Chapter II: The Episode of the Misguided Tramps

  Chapter III: The Episode of the Detective’s Uncle

  Chapter IV: The Episode of the Amorous Cricketer

  Chapter V: The Episode of the Two Dissemblers

  Chapter VI: The Episode of the Playful Scientist

  Chapter VII: The Episode of the English Banner

  Chapter VIII: The Episode of the Proof Copy

  Chapter IX: The Episode of the Nebuchadnezzar

  Chapter X: The Episode of the Most Popular Man

  Chapter XI: The Episode of the Clock-Golf Course

  Chapter XII: The Episode of the Nottingham Earthquake

  Chapter XIII: The Episode of the Unforced Landing

  Chapter XIV: The Episode of the Terrestrial Globe

  Chapter XV: The Episode of the Foggy Morning

  Chapter XVI: The Episode of the Father Christmases

  Chapter XVII: The Episode of the Pantechnicon’s Progress

  Chapter XVIII: The Episode of the Radiance Girls

  Chapter XIX: The Episode of the Station Barrow

  Chapter XX: The Episode of the Last Laugh

  More from Vintage Classic Crime

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Detective Nigel Strangeways and his explorer wife Georgia have taken a cottage in the countryside. They are slowly beginning to adjust to a more relaxed way of life when Georgia finds a mysterious locket in their garden and unwittingly sets the couple on a collision course with a power-hungry movement aimed at overthrowing the government.

  It will take all of Nigel’s brilliance and Georgia’s bravery if they are to infiltrate the order and unmask the conspirators.

  About the Author

  Nicholas Blake was the pseudonym of Poet Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis, who was born in County Laois, Ireland, in 1904. After his mother died in 1906, he was brought up in London by his father, spending summer holidays with relatives in Wexford. He was educated at Sherborne School and Wadham College, Oxford, from which he graduated in 1927. Blake initially worked as a teacher to supplement his income from his poetry writing and he published his first Nigel Strangeways novel, A Question of Proof, in 1935. Blake went on to write a further nineteen crime novels, all but four of which featured Nigel Strangeways, as well as numerous poetry collections and translations.

  During the Second World War he worked as a publications editor in the Ministry of Information, which he used as the basis for the Ministry of Morale in Minute for Murder, and after the war he joined the publishers Chatto & Windus as an editor and director. He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1968 and died in 1972 at the home of his friend, the writer Kingsley Amis.

  Also by Nicholas Blake

  A Question of Proof

  Thou Shell of Death

  There’s Trouble Brewing

  The Beast Must Die

  The Widow’s Cruise

  Malice in Wonderland

  The Case of the Abominable Snowman

  Minute for Murder

  Head of a Traveller

  The Dreadful Hollow

  The Whisper in the Gloom

  End of Chapter

  The Worm of Death

  The Sad Variety

  The Morning After Death

  FOR ROUGHIE

  “Ther saugh I first the derke imagining

  Of felonye, and al the compassing;

  The smyler with the knyf under the cloke;

  The shepne brenning with the blake smoke;

  The treson of the mordring in the bedde;

  The open werre, with woundes al bibledde.”

  Chaucer: The Knight’s Tale.

  CHAPTER I

  THE EPISODE OF THE MAJOR’S MOTHER

  A MORNING IN January. Sunlight welled in through the low windows of the cottage, giving the beams, the great stone fireplace, the Dutch rushmats on the flagged floor a look of freshness as if they had been spring-cleaned. After the constant rain of the last few months, this sunshine was more than a blessing—it was a miracle. Living in the country, thought Georgia, you really are a part of the seasons: in the dark months you hibernate, the blood slows down, the mind goes sluggish; and then one morning something stirs in the air, the sun comes through, and life begins to move at a different tempo. I must be getting domesticated, though, she thought, because I don’t want to leave here at all, ever, and I believe I never shall. The idea was so odd that she stopped in the middle of stirring her tea, her hand remaining poised over the cup. Always, until now, when the first whisper of spring made itself heard, Georgia had felt restless: something in the distance seemed to tug at her imagination and her body, and as often as not she would yield to it and go traipsing off on one of those journeys that had made her the most famous woman traveller of her day.

  To-day, she did not know whether to be glad or sorry that this influence was not felt. Perhaps it’s just that I’m getting old, she said to herself; after all, I’m thirty-seven, and at that age a female ought to be sobering up.

  She was roused from her day-dream by Nigel, who put his hand over hers and made her swish the spoon round in the tea-cup.

  “Shall I draw the curtains?” he asked politely.

  “Draw the curtains?”

  “Yes. You looked as if you’d had a touch of the sun.”

  Georgia laughed. Dear Nigel—he always knows what’s in my mind. She said, “You’re not quite right this time, though. I was thinking that I’m getting domesticated. Are you still glad we came here?”

  “Mm. I must say I had my doubts these last few months. Living in the country is one thing, and living on a half-submerged derelict is another.”

  “Oh, it wasn’t quite as bad as that.”

  “My dear, the house was positively awash. Gales beating up the valley, all our timbers shivering, windows streaming with rain. When did you last manage to see out of those windows?”

  “You look all the better for it,” said Georgia, glancing affectionately at her husband.

  “The sedentary life has always suited me. And of course there’s a certain moral dignity attached to living in these outposts of Empire.”

  “What I can’t understand is how you manage to thrive on doing nothing.”

  “I’m not doing nothing. I’m translating Hesiod.”

  “I mean, never taking any exercise or——”

  “What d’you mean—never taking exercise? Don’t I walk down to the pub every evening? If you expect me to come splodging through the mud with you every afternoon as well——”

  “I like this place, mud or no mud,” Georgia said dreamily. “I shall settle down here. Deeper and deeper. Like a turnip.”

  “Knowing you, I should say that was improbable. And now let’s see what news there is from civilisation.”

  He began to open his letters. The post had brought nothing for Georgia but a seed-catalogue, in which she was soon immersed. Presently she giggled. “Listen to this. ‘The Duchesse de Parma is very showy, a splendid bedder, orange-red edged with yellow.’ Shall we have the Duchesse in the garden? She sounds just your type.”

  “Here’s an extraordinary communication,” said Nigel a few minutes later.

  “Oh dear,” Georgia sighed. That was the worst of being married to a private investigator. You never knew when a letter wouldn’t come out of the blue, and Nigel be dragged into some queer criminal tangle. Not that they really needed the substantial fees he charged, either. It was just h
is insatiable curiosity that led him into one case after another. “What is it this time? Murder? Or a bit of blackmail?”

  “Oh, neither. It’s our hedge.”

  “Hedge? What——?”

  “Listen, and I’ll tell you.” Holding up the printed form, Nigel Strangeways began to read out, “‘Pursuant to the provisions of an act of Parliament—pom pom pom—I, the undersigned, the Surveyor of Highways—pom pom—do hereby give you notice, and require you forthwith to cut, prune and trim your hedges adjoining the County Roads—pom pom—and also to pare the sides of such hedges close to the bank, and the growth on the top of such hedges at least perpendicular from the Comb, and to cut down, prune or lop the branches of trees, bushes and shrubs—pom pom pom pom—in such manner that the said Roads shall not be prejudiced by the shade thereof, and that the Sun and Wind may not be excluded therefrom to the damage thereof, and to remove the material cut therefrom.’ Pom. Isn’t that superb? The tongue that Milton spoke. Who’d have thought there was such poetry in the soul of a Surveyor of Highways?—‘that the said Roads shall not be prejudiced by the shade thereof, and that the Sun and Wind may not be excluded therefrom.’”

  Nigel began singing the phrases to the tune of Purcell’s Chant.

  “What happens if we disobey the S. of H.?”

  “We get complained of to a Justice of the Peace.”

  “Well, thank goodness,” said Georgia. “I thought at first it was another bit of trouble on the way.”

  And indeed it was, though neither of them could possibly have foreseen it. It was not, after all, reasonable to suppose that a notice from a Rural District Council could cause any one much trouble—let alone alter the course of history, or that England might be saved by the cutting of a hedge. Yet so it turned out. Looking back on it all afterwards, Georgia seemed to see those enormous events, like the angels of the Schoolmen standing on pin-points, balanced upon a few tiny and precarious ifs. If we had taken a cottage in any other county in England, we shouldn’t have had to pare the hedge ourselves, for Devonshire is the only county where landowners still have to cut their own hedges on the roadside. If the sun had not come out that morning, I’d probably have left the hedge for the gardener to do. If any one else had cut it, he’d probably not have noticed the locket—Nigel always said I have eyes like a hawk—poor darling, he’s so short-sighted himself: and, even if it had been found, only a person of Nigel’s inquisitiveness would have bothered to give it more than one glance. And, talking of inquisitiveness, what about the magpie?—it must surely have been a magpie that started the whole thing. Yes, if that anonymous magpie hadn’t had an attack of kleptomania, the locket would never have got into the hedge. Which only goes to show that crime does sometimes pay. . . .

  The sun poured in through the cottage window, increasing the pallor of Nigel’s face. Like many other things about him—his untidy, tow-coloured hair, for instance, or the childish pout of his underlip—this pallor was deceptive. His health was far from delicate, his character not in the very least childish: you realised the latter as soon as you looked at his eyes, which were sane, kindly, a little detached, but liable at any moment to narrow and spark into the most concentrated attention. Georgia knew well enough what a self-sufficient creature he was; yet she liked sometimes to pretend that he needed looking after, and he played up to her pretence with the same subdued, affectionate amusement.

  She was thinking now, How could I ever leave Nigel? He does need me. But supposing I get the itch to travel again? On a day like this, it might come over me any minute. I must be forearmed against it.

  “I think I’ll have a go at the hedge myself,” she said. “This morning.”

  “Mm.” Nigel’s face was buried in the newspaper. Georgia felt a sudden impulse to make him acknowledge her mood, to shake him out of his gentle security.

  “Would you mind very much if I left you, Nigel?”

  He took off his horn-rimmed glasses and gazed at her with interest. “For another man, do you mean? I should say I’d be very cross indeed.”

  “Don’t be silly. Went on my travels again, I mean.”

  “Have you any particular expedition in mind?”

  “Not exactly. But——”

  “I suppose I’d get on all right,” said Nigel. “It’d seem a long time, though, till you came back.”

  Georgia leant over him, kissed the top of his head. “Oh, I’m glad I married you and no one else,” she whispered.

  Yes, she thought a few minutes later, as she put on her old gardening coat and loose leather gloves, I am lucky. There’s no other man in the world who could have resisted pointing out my inconsistency—first saying I wanted to be a turnip and a moment later raving about going off to the ends of the earth. What can it be that Nigel finds attractive about me, she wondered, happily studying in her mirror the small, irregular features of a face that could change so quickly from vivacity to a plaintive, appealing ugliness. “She looks like the ghost of an organ-grinder’s monkey,” one of their friends had once said. Pretty accurate, and not altogether unflattering, she thought, grimacing at herself. She was to find out before long how queerly prophetic that absurd conversation with Nigel had been.

  For the present, though, there was nothing but the sunlight and the fields folding down from the hill above like the fall of a green dress. The lane ran from the village past their cottage over the brow of the hill; you could get to the sea that way, after five miles of rough going; but motorists usually gave one look at its fearful gradients and—if they succeeded in turning their car—scurried back to the main road. Where she stood, on the high bank above the lane, Georgia could see the thatched, whitewashed cottage that seemed to have dug itself out a niche in the hillside, the silver coils of the river in the valley below, and beyond it a tumble of green and brown hills ranging up towards the horizon. Everything was peaceful. There was no sound or movement but the distant rattle of an express that hurried westward on the far side of the valley, white smoke laid along its back like an ostrich feather. Georgia took up her bill-hook and attacked the hedge.

  Nigel found her there when he strolled out of the house an hour later. He stood in the lane, looking up at her. Dark hair fell about her face; the exercise had brought a carnation flush to her pale brown skin; she attacked the hedge with a kind of savage grace, unaware for a moment that he was watching her.

  “Still hacking our way through the primeval undergrowth?” he commented politely.

  She turned quickly, involuntarily smoothing back the hair from her face. “Goodness! It’s hard work. I must look like Medusa.”

  “If ivory could blush, it would look like you.”

  Georgia jumped down from the bank into the lane. One foot, slipping back, displaced the olive and coppery sediment of leaves that lay in the ditch. As she recovered herself, Georgia’s eye caught a dull gleam amongst the leaves. She bent down and picked up a small, round metal object, tarnished by the weather to the colour of a decaying leaf.

  “Look what I’ve found. Buried treasure.”

  Nigel took it, examined it curiously. “Some sort of a locket, isn’t it? A very cheap one, I should think Woolworth’s. I wonder how it got there.”

  “Folk courting under the hedge. What a pity—I thought it was real gold at first. Chuck it away.”

  “No,” said Nigel, “I’d like to see what there is inside.”

  “Darling, you’re incorrigible, you really are. All you’ll find is a piece of greasy hair or a photo of some pop-eyed peasant.”

  “It’s going to be quite a job to get it opened,” said Nigel absent-mindedly, feeling in his pockets. “My penknife’s indoors somewhere.”

  “Don’t cut yourself,” she called out after him, half-seriously. Nigel was not too clever with his hands.

  When she came in to prepare lunch, Nigel was sitting at his desk.

  “I say, what do you suppose ‘E.B.’ stands for?” he said over his shoulder.

  “Early Bird,” Georgia suggested. />
  He handed her a small paper disk, a little discoloured, but showing plainly a Union Jack and the letters E.B. stamped on it.

  “No, it must be Eat British,” she said. “Where did you find it?”

  “It was in the locket. And this too.”

  Georgia looked down at the thing he put in her hand—a round piece of cardboard, a daguerreotype depicting the face of a young woman with heavily-marked eyebrows, and gleaming black hair parted in the middle and falling to her bare shoulders in thick corkscrew curls. The head, tilted a little to one side, gave a touch of coquetry to her expression, softening the brooding intelligence of mouth and eyes. In line, the face was an oval of singular purity.

  “She’s a beauty, isn’t she? What’s she doing with a Union Jack in this trashy locket?”

  “That’s just what I was wondering,” said Nigel. “You see, the odd thing is that the flag was sandwiched between the picture and a cardboard back. If the whole thing hadn’t been a bit damp, I’d never have noticed the join. Why should the owner want to conceal the Union Jack inside his beautiful relative?”

  “What a snooper you are! Well, I expect there’s some quite simple explanation. Come and have lunch.”

  “I’ll just stick the whole dingus together again.” Nigel pasted the rims of the two disks, put the paper flag between them, fitted them inside the locket and tossed it down on his desk. There it lay for a couple of days, and might have lain for months if Fate, in the improbable guise of the Folyton Bell-Ringers, had not once again taken a hand.

  The Strangeways had passed the time of day quite often with Major Keston as he passed their cottage to and from his house over the hill. They knew that he had built this house two years before, and, although a comparative new-comer to the village, was already a power in it. But he had shown no sign yet of extending hospitality to them, and they for their part did not suppose he would be at all their sort. It was therefore a surprise when he landed up at the door with his bull-terrier that evening—a small, hard-bitten figure of a man with a slightly aggressive manner and the kind of eyes that meant, in Nigel’s experience, either a bad liver or a permanent grievance.