Merlin's Furlong

by Gladys Mitchell

  “I suppose I’ve deserved it,” he said. “Getting knocked on the head and my papers stolen, I mean.” Except for extreme pallor which made his swarthy skin look dirty, he showed no particular marks of his experience. “I suppose you’ll let him know? It is only fair.”

  “Certainly. But, my dear Godfrey, you must not take this too seriously. In a month’s time I shall remake this will, employing a London solicitor and getting the will witnessed in Oxford, where I have many acquaintances.”

  “Including Professor Havers?”

  “Including Professor Havers, about whom I could tell you a very droll story, except that it would not do.”

  “I’d like to hear it, Uncle. Is the professor really as mad as one hears?”

  “Mad? No, Havers isn’t mad. At least, not in the sense you mean. In the American sense”—he chuckled with great malice—“as mad as ever a man can be. But, mad in the dictionary sense, no, he is not, and, in my opinion, never will be.”

  “Uncle, it’s really no business of mine, but isn’t it rather unkind to let Richmond think he will benefit at your demise if you really intend to revoke this will and make a new one?” asked Godfrey suddenly.

  “You’re too tender-hearted, my boy. My intention is that Richmond shall cause his wife to resign from her paid employment, that he shall realise upon his supposed inheritance and get himself into inescapable debt, that he shall presume to send his brats to a respectable school from which subsequently he will have to remove them for non-payment of fees, and that, finally, he shall die in a ditch with that wretched drab of his beside him!”

  “I see, Uncle.” Godfrey looked thoughtfully at the hairy-fisted, scholarly-faced old man. “I shouldn’t want you for my enemy.”

  His uncle chuckled.

  “No fear of that, my boy. You’re the only one of my kith and kin I care two straws about. And don’t you worry. We’ll get this document duly signed and witnessed, and then, next month…but, mind, this in sheerest confidence…a completely new will, putting you back in your proper sphere, the center and soul of my affections. But if I find you’ve been blabbing of this to the others…!”

  “I shall keep all your secrets, my dear Uncle,” said Godfrey aloud. “And if I didn’t, you wouldn’t know it,” he added silently.

  The will was drafted, approved, signed in the presence of two servants who then witnessed the signature, and Richmond, called in to hear of the rise in his fortunes, was sent to the post with the completed document.

  “For we’ll have no more jiggery-pokery of people being knocked on the head to satisfy other people’s curiosity,” said his uncle. “And Wuloo is to go with you to the post office to make certain that you drop the envelope in the box, for I am not going to keep it in this house where people have such scant respect for other people’s property.”

  “Very well,” said Richmond. “And I think I’ll look in at the village pub on my way back. If I can’t afford to dine there, I think I might manage a small whisky in which to drink my own health. Oh, and yours, too, Uncle Aumbry, of course!”

  “Whisky won’t suit a man in your state of health,” his uncle retorted. “Don’t you want to live to enjoy your inheritance?” He caught the eye of his nephew Godfrey and smiled.

  “But, I say, that’s grand news! Congratulations, Rickie! I wonder what suddenly came over the old boy?” exclaimed Lewis when he had joined the new beneficiary in the public bar of the inn.

  “Nothing came over him,” said the poet quietly. “I’ve always taken one proverb to heart, old man.”

  “More than one, I hope?”

  “One in particular. ‘Beware of the Greeks when they come bearing gifts.’ Ever heard it before?”

  “Well, you’d better bash uncle’s brains out before he has time to change his mind,” said Lewis lightly. “And, talking of bashing, I wonder who did hit Godfrey over the head and pinch his papers this afternoon?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” said Richmond. “I only know who didn’t, and that’s either of us.”

  “I wonder?” thought Lewis. “The drinks are on me, old chap,” he said aloud. “Down with the dram and to hell with Uncle Aumbry!”

  “He’ll end up there anyway,” said Richmond. “You think Frederick hit Godfrey, then? He put on a good act of righteous indignation, but he’s a born snooper, as we both know. But, I say, Lew, it would put me in the devil of a mess if Frederick did try the same game with Uncle, and finished him off! I’d be hanged on the circumstantial evidence of having a fortune at stake, because it’s most unlikely that Uncle will allow this new will to stand. It’s his way of getting at me, the miserable old humbug.”

  “I don’t know so much. He always liked you much the best when we were boys. It wasn’t until you decided to prefer poetry, and your own choice of a wife, to his (I suspect) rather shady business dealings and old Tom Mindenhofer’s daughter, that you fell from grace, you know.”

  “Never to be picked up and reinstated, old man. But, you know, it would be serious for me if Frederick decided to go in for a night of the long knives, wouldn’t it?”

  “I shouldn’t lose sleep over that,” said Lewis quietly. “The only person Frederick will ever do anything for is himself. And you needn’t count on me to do Uncle in for you. I’ve far too much respect for the police and my own neck. Drink up, and let’s have another.”

  “Not for me, Lew. The old devil was right about one thing. I’m in pretty poor shape, you know.”

  “I know,” said his brother. “Why don’t you pack up and go back to the sanitarium for a bit?”

  “I hate it there. I can’t work there.”

  “Don’t they let you?”

  “It isn’t that. I just can’t. And I’m on to a grand thing at present…easily my finest bit of work. I’ve talked things over with Phyllis and she’s reconciled to my point of view. Oh, God, Lew! Why can’t I do something for that poor kid! Why did she ever tie herself to a miserable, rotting, herring-gutted husband like me!”

  “You know why,” said his brother, “and it still holds good. And at least you two have had something that none of the rest of us have had. You wouldn’t sooner have had my experiences, would you?” He ordered himself another drink, took a sip, and suddenly added, “Look here, old boy, go and have six months in Switzerland. You know I can find the money.”

  “You know I can’t let you.” The poet spoke with peevish haughtiness to disguise his real emotional response.

  “You might go for Phyllis’s sake if you won’t go for your own,” urged Lewis, turning his fine, intelligent eyes upon his brother. “I’ve never offered you two any money because I know what cussed proud devils you both are, but let me give her this.”

  “No!” said Richmond, almost violently. “I won’t! I won’t give in to this filthy, beastly disease! I’m going to finish my epic here, at home, in England!”

  At this moment their cousin Frederick entered the bar and came up to them.

  “Thought you’d have been here before this,” said Lewis. “What will you have? We’re drinking to Richmond’s change of fortune.”

  “Change of…!” said Frederick coarsely. “You haven’t really fallen for that stuff, Rickie, have you?”

  “Hardly,” replied Richmond. “By the way, what did make you hit old Godfrey over the head and rustle his papers? Did you think they’d give you a clue to Uncle’s treasure?”

  “I?” Frederick looked surprised but not annoyed. “What on earth gives you the idea that I did that?”

  “The science of deduction, with which is included the ability to do simple subtraction of the numbers up to ten,” said Lewis. “We didn’t do it, uncle presumably didn’t do it, Godfrey didn’t do it to himself, ergo…”

  “Well, I plead not guilty,” said Frederick genially. “Pint of bitter, please. I’m dry. Wenching isn’t quenching.” He giggled victoriously.

  “Wenching!” said Richmond in disgust as the brothers walked home, leaving Frederick in possession of
the counter. “That’s the village girls again, I suppose! Frederick isn’t only a rotter in himself. He’s got such execrable taste!”

  “He has. I suppose he can’t help it. Girls don’t seem to take to him, and that doesn’t give the lad much chance. He gets on well with barmaids, but they’ve far too much sense take him seriously.”

  “Do you think he’s found Uncle’s cache yet? He’s always hinting about ill-gotten treasure and such stuff.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised. And if he has, nothing will be safe from his pilferings. Uncle may be an old scoundrel, but I don’t see why he should be robbed, especially by his own kith and kin. It isn’t decent.”

  “Frederick’s a headache, I know, but he does make money, which is more than I seem able to do. But there’s something fishy about Godfrey’s getting knocked on the head like that, and then Uncle taking the notion of altering his will in my favour. I don’t like it, and I’m skipping out of here as soon as I possibly can. If anything should happen to Uncle before he reinstates Godfrey, I’m going to make certain of my alibi! Besides, I don’t trust those slant-eyed Chink servants and that slippery Kanaka cook. Why can’t Uncle keep respectable English servants?”

  “Nobody respectable would stay,” said Lewis, laughing. “Nothing will happen to Uncle. The devil takes care of his own. That’s another proverb you might take to heart, you know.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Merlin’s Doll

  “To the hopeful execution do I leave you

  Of your commission.”

  —Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

  In a large country house many miles from Mr. Aumbr’s residence, three young men were variously engaged, none in a fatiguing, an ungentlemanly, or even a useful manner. Mr. Piper, flat on his back on the carpet, was playing with a Siamese kitten. Mr. Harrison was asleep in an easy chair. Mr. Waite was reading a newspaper.

  “Something in our line, Peter,” he remarked. Mr. Piper sat up, dislodging the kitten from his chest. He apologised crooningly. The kitten loved him with the paradoxical affection which her sadistic husband displayed for patient Griselda, and the paradox was italicised by the fact that the kitten was a female. As though to underline this accident of sex, by way of accepting his apology she bit his hand.

  “Darling!” he observed reproachfully. The kitten leapt at him and dragged his tie out. He picked her up and placed her gently upon the bosom of the slumbering Mr. Harrison, whom normally she was inclined to mistrust. The kitten, true to her unpredictable genus, fell asleep at once, her paw engagingly linked with Mr. Harrison’s breast-pocket.

  “Something in our line, Polly?” said Mr. Piper, in a tone of distaste. “Oh, surely not. I don’t want anything to do with anything whatever. What is a reading party for? To unbend the mind. Only that.”

  “This will unbend the mind,” Mr. Waite pointed out. “Old Havers is at it again.” He indicated with the stem of his briar an advertisement in the Personal column of the newspaper he had been reading. “And I know it must be Havers,” he added, “because he’s the only person except two who has ever believed that witchcraft would probably work.”

  “Except two?”

  “Certainly. David here, and an elderly eldritch female, great-aunt to Bradley of Angelus. She’s a bit of a witch herself, as a matter of fact…at least, so I hear on good authority. Gets people out of ghastly messes when nobody else can do a thing, or gets them hanged when nobody else thought them guilty.”

  “Oh, the sleuth! I know now. Rather a fascinating old party. I’ve met her. Makes one feel an unlettered worm, but a rather nice, pink, well-intentioned worm. Bad for the morale and the ego, but stimulating to the digestive juices.”

  “You cannot separate the ego and the digestive juices,” Mr. Waite contended.

  “Don’t sidetrack the conversation, Polly. So you think this must be Havers? Well, who else would be such a devil-worshipping, muddle-headed chump? Therefore, you are probably right.”

  “He may be a devil-worshipper…after all, the faculty must occupy itself somehow, one supposes…but I doubt very much whether he’s muddle-headed or a chump. At any rate, he seems to have his knife into somebody, and it appears that he cannot say so publicly. Not uninteresting. Wake David.”

  “I will. Apart from the fact that we ought to include him in any discussion which is likely to be of general interest, I object to the sight of the only female I ever really loved dangling like a wilting lily from his breast-pocket. It’s indelicate.” He punched his sleeping friend in the stomach. The kitten leapt on his hand and bit it. Mr. Harrison, giving an histrionic belch, sat up with his hair on end.

  “I’ve heard every word,” he declared. “Ask Alice. I’ve heard every word you fellows were saying.” With this he reassembled his loose form and closed his eyes again.

  “No. Listen,” said Mr. Waite impressively. “How would you like to visit Havers?”

  “Why should I like to visit Havers? One can see him in term, and, anyway, I don’t like him. He’s decayed, dissolute, dreary, and dreadful. He eats little children like me.” Mr. Harrison’s eyes remained closed.

  “Yes, but, look, David dear.” And Waite whacked the newspaper down on to Harrison’s face. “You’ll love this,” he declared persuasively. “Really you will. Or shall Peter and I go alone?” he cunningly added.

  Mr. Harrison gave in with utter grace. He handed the kitten to Piper and took the newspaper which Waite was now politely holding out.

  “Where?” he enquired in meek tones; and when he had been shown the advertisement he read it aloud so that his friends should be certain that he really had seen it.

  “WANTED. Sorcerer, witch or warlock capable manipulating doll. Apply Nonsense, North Road, Wallchester, in person, with credentials. Undergraduates ineligible.”

  “Well, what about it?” asked Waite. Harrison put the paper down, yawned, and closed his eyes.

  “No, no,” said Piper earnestly. “We do really need your cooperation.”

  “You have it. You have it—but not for anything dark, dull, dirty, or dangerous.”

  “It might be any or all of those, you know, Polly,” said Piper. “And it’s so nice here. Why do you always crave to do things? So much more gentlemanly simply to be. David is perfectly right. I exist,” he continued dreamily, “thou existeth, he exists…although there seems no reason why he should. I now refer to our learned Professor Havers.”

  “He’s a stinking old goat,” said Waite in impartial tones, “and he’s up to mischief, as usual. And I want to have a finger in the pie. This doll business is rather interesting.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, witchcraft fascinates and repels me, and I require to experience fascination and repulsion. Do wake David up and let’s make plans.”

  Piper obliged by removing one of Harrison’s shoes and striking him sharply on the kneecap with the heel of it. Harrison opened his eyes, rubbed his knee, put the shoe on again, and sat up.

  “That’s better,” said Waite. “Now, David, listen. I want to manipulate old Havers’ doll. Peter doesn’t want to. What do you think?”

  “I don’t want to think,” replied Harrison after deep consideration. “Therefore, I say, let’s go. And now, please, may I go to sleep again?”

  “You may,” Waite agreed. “Now, Peter, when shall we start?”

  “Without delay.”

  “I agree. I could not stomach the dreadful disappointment of discovering that other and inferior witches and warlocks had got in before us and sneaked the job from under our noses. But, speaking as a practical man, what do you suppose it’s all about?”

  “I don’t know. That queer business of young Catfield was never fully cleared up. I never really believed that it was suicide.”

  “I know. It stank. Did you ever go to Havers’ rooms?”

  “Yes, once, when he lived in College. He used to lord it over an earnest, smelly bevy of the long-haired. What they got up to I don’t really know, but it wasn’
t anything savory. I heard lots of hints…everybody did, I expect…but until the Catfield business nothing much came out, and nothing was ever proved. One must give the devil his due. What about toddling over there tomorrow?”

  Professor Havers lived in one of the most beautiful rooms to be found in the ancient cathedral and university city of Wallchester. The walls were paneled with medallions of carved oak in the style of the first quarter of the seventeenth century. The ceiling showed plaster decoration of the same period, displaying bold flowers and acanthus leaves in related but separated groups. The carved overmantel was rated by connoisseurs as second only to that in the Principal’s lodging in Jesus College, Oxford, and, although not quite so perfectly proportioned, was of much the same design and of approximately the same date.

  The furniture in the room displayed a happy combination of styles. A Regency settee confronted a commodious, comfortable, modern one. A Sheraton table was not discountenanced by deep, well-cushioned armchairs. There was only one inescapably incongruous note. This was struck by a large, ridiculous doll which was hanging by the neck from a cheap and hideous hatstand of the kind that may be seen at the entrance to a hotel dining room. The doll was wearing plus-fours, a yellow waistcoat, a hacking jacket, and carpet slippers. On its head was a check cap, and a small imperial had been glued to its chin. A collection of short hatpins had been stuck through various parts of its anatomy, and its imbecile face wore a look of vacuous astonishment, as though it protested at being subjected to this unkind, incomprehensible usage. It was, all told, a revolting as well as a ludicrous object.

  It had been agreed that as Waite had had some previous acquaintance with the professor and was likely to be recognised, Piper and Harrison should conduct the negotiations whilst Waite remained in the street.

  They were shown in by a Negro woman servant who lingered in the doorway, interested in the visitors. Her employer looked round and waved at her to go away. With a shrill squeal, half of fear, half of laughter, she fled.

  “A happy chit,” said Professor Havers indulgently. His printed silk dressing-gown, patterned mosaically in gold and bright blue, accorded with his Eastern Roman countenance. “And now, gentlemen, what can I do for you?”