Merlin's Furlong

by Gladys Mitchell

  She and the undergraduates were in the inspector’s wife’s sitting room. It looked out on to rising ground beyond the neat front garden, and was well and tastefully furnished. Waite glanced round appreciatively.

  “Yes,” he said. “We ought to be incarcerated in the local jail, I suppose, but, of course, the police realise perfectly well that we don’t know anything about the murders. What did you think of the inquest?”

  “I did not think there was anything to think about it.”

  “No. The police are still pushing along with their enquiries, so they weren’t giving anything away.”

  “Well, I hope you’re going to give something away,” said Mrs. Bradley. “I want you to tell me the whole story just as things happened.”

  Piper groaned and Harrison looked reproachful. Waite said, apologizing for these reactions:

  “We’ve told it to the inspector, the Chief Constable, my uncle, Peter’s father, David’s guardian, and all three family lawyers. It’s becoming rather stale, flat, and unprofitable by now. Must you really have it?”

  “I can’t help you if I don’t know all the facts. I’ve had them from the Chief Constable, it is true, but I prefer to hear first-hand evidence.”

  “Of course you do. Here, David, you begin, and Peter and I will add, contradict, and, generally speaking, interrupt. Nothing must be left out, put in, or exaggerated.”

  Harrison gave a concise but detailed account of their adventures, beginning with the newspaper advertisement and ending with their report to the police that they had discovered Aumbry’s body. At her request he quoted the advertisement verbatim.

  “At what time did you get to Mr. Aumbry’s house?” Mrs. Bradley demanded.

  “Towards midnight, I should say. But we messed about in the tower for a bit, so we didn’t discover straight away that Mr. Aumbry had been killed. I can’t see why the police haven’t jugged us. I mean, we don’t seem able to show that we didn’t get to Merlin’s Furlong until about midnight on Friday. So far as the police are concerned, we’d been hanging about in the neighborhood since the midday of Thursday.”

  “But Mr. Aumbry, according to the medical evidence given at the inquest, died at some time between midnight and three on Wednesday–Thursday,” put in Waite. “That ought to count in our favour so far as Merlin’s Furlong is concerned, but Professor Havers was killed at a time which could be decidedly awkward for us if the police chose to look at it that way.”

  “Oh, yes, we could have killed Havers quite easily,” agreed Harrison. “There’s no reason, so far as the time-limits are concerned, why we did not. Only…we didn’t, and we haven’t the faintest idea who did. The police do really believe us. There’s not much doubt about that. On the other hand, except for us, there isn’t a suspect in sight.”

  “You’ve mentioned to the police, of course, this manservant to whom you gave a lift in your car to the station?”

  “As a matter of fact we haven’t. We’ve talked it over, but I’m sure he’s as innocent as we are. If he were guilty, he’d hardly have acted as he did, and we can’t let him in for all this.” Waite waved his arm in explanation.

  “Besides, he couldn’t have killed Aumbry?” suggested Harrison.

  “How do you know that?” Mrs. Bradley demanded. “Now, let’s see. You gave this man a lift to the station from Merlin’s Castle on Friday at…”

  “About half-past two, I think. It couldn’t have been earlier, but I shouldn’t think it was very much later,” said Piper.

  “Are you sure he caught a train?”

  “No. We left him at the booking hall. He went inside, to the ticket office…well, I suppose it was to the ticket office…”

  “And he had told you that Merlin’s Castle was up for sale. Now, the police must be told about this man. If you don’t tell them, I shall take it upon myself to do so.”

  “But won’t it look odd that we’ve kept it dark?” argued Harrison. Mrs. Bradley looked at him compassionately but with a glint of humour behind her pity.

  “You seem to have behaved extremely oddly all the way through,” she said. “After all, every night isn’t Boat Race Night, you know.”

  The young men groaned, and Piper beat his breast.

  “Puts her finger unerringly upon the spot,” he proclaimed. “That’s what Bradley said about her, and he was right.”

  “I think,” said Mrs. Bradley, who loved the young and detested seeing them in difficulties of their own making, “that I had better hint to the Chief Constable, who can then pitch the tale to the inspector, that it was only by dint of the most rigid and brilliant cross-questioning on my part that this information about the manservant was brought to light; in short, that you had forgotten that the man existed. But I certainly think his activities must be investigated. The long and short of it is that, whether he knew it or not, his employer was already dead when he left the house on Friday afternoon. Then there is the matter of the women servants. The man, you say, referred to a cook and a couple of maids, yet, when you entered the house, the place was empty. What did you gather from this fact?”

  “Board wages, I suppose,” said Waite.

  “The manservant gave no such indication, did he?”

  “No. But we weren’t with him very long. It was only about a couple of miles to the station.”

  “Now about Merlin’s Furlong. This unknown man with the squeaking shoes who appeared after Mr. Piper had gone to bring the police…what can you tell me about him?”

  “Nothing more,” responded Waite. “He just came and went.”

  “That’s every scrap we know about him, except that he had a high voice,” added Harrison.

  “Old or young?”

  “Oh, definitely middle-aged, I think.”

  “And he didn’t knock at the door?”

  “No. There wasn’t anything of that kind. He just oiled in with a latchkey, and we dashed out to nab him but fell over our own feet. By the time we’d picked ourselves up he had gone.”

  “That seems strange conduct. If he meant to come in, and had a latchkey, one would think that he…”

  “Yes, it’s a point,” said Harrison. “I mean, if he’d only come to ask after Aumbry’s health, it does seem odd that he scuttled off like that as soon as he heard a sound. You’d think he’d investigate, what?”

  “It would depend upon what he came for.”

  “Yes, I suppose it would. But why should he come at night if he was up to any good?”

  “Well, why did you come at night? Yet you assumed that you were performing a creditable action!”

  “Yes, it was the diptych, you see. We did rather want to get it back.”

  “Oh, no. You wanted some amusement. I don’t think the diptych enters into this, but, all the same, it would be interesting if we could find it. Where do you think it is now?”

  Even Harrison’s opinion of her fell when she asked this question.

  “Do you think Bradley of Angelus was deceiving us?” he demanded in a whisper of Waite. The cackle with which Bradley’s aunt indicated that she had heard this question reestablished her in Harrison’s regard.

  “Since it seems fruitless to ask any more questions,” she said, “I shall leave you to brood (I hope) upon your sins, and go and report to the Chief Constable that I find you sobered by your experiences and misguided rather than criminal.”

  “Well, did you get anything out of them?” the Chief Constable enquired. Mrs. Bradley reported their story of having given a lift to the respectable manservant.

  “And the next thing to be done, I imagine,” she concluded, “is to contact those two Negro servants at Professor Havers’ lodgings in Wallchester. They may or may not know what employees the professor had at Merlin’s Castle, but it can do no harm to enquire.”

  “Ekkers has been on to them already, of course, but, beyond scaring the girl, he doesn’t think he accomplished anything. I don’t really think she and the chap (intelligent type, apparently) know anything that would be of
use to us, but, anyway, at present the girl is too frightened and the man probably too clever to talk. Beyond swearing that the professor had no enemies (a statement which, from what we know of his record, is scarcely likely to be true) she merely babbled wildly of her innocence. Still, you may be able to work an oracle there. She’s far more likely to talk to you than to a policeman. What did you make of our three young sprigs?”

  “I think Mr. Waite could bear watching.”

  “Yes. I don’t like the idea of a man turned thirty ragging about with those two young lads. There’s something fishy there. Besides, he’s a man of character.”

  “Of very determined character. He seemed to me a tough and ruthless man.”

  “Ruthless enough to commit murder?”

  “I don’t know yet, but I feel perfectly certain that something more than just ragging or any other kind of foolishness was involved. I suppose the diptych hasn’t been found?”

  “I’m doubtful whether it exists.”

  “I see. The one of the trio whom I am prepared to acquit of having had evil intentions is Mr. Harrison.”

  “What about Piper?”

  “He strikes me as the playboy of the triumvirate. You noticed one odd thing about their story, did you?…That Mr. Waite, obviously the moving spirit in the affair, remained in the street and sent the other two to interview the professor?”

  “Thought he’d be recognised, he says, and that the professor would not then trust them to go in search of the diptych. Says he used to bait the professor in lectures, and (in his own words) forfeited Havers’ regard by so doing.”

  “That might be the explanation, of course. It is certain that he did not intend to risk being recognised, but whether the story of the baiting is true…?”

  “Yes, quite, I see what you mean. There might have been deeper and darker reasons. Yes. I wouldn’t put much past our Mr. Waite.”

  “Well, I’ll go straight away to Wallchester and see those Negroes and also the professor’s landlady. She may have something useful to report that she hasn’t yet seen fit to tell the police.”

  The landlady, interviewed before Mrs. Bradley tackled the servants, proved tearful and tedious.

  “Such a lovely gentleman, and so clever,” was her burden. “Indeed, you could not have wished for a more considerate client. Always the rent up to date, and no late nights, and only the smallest parties.”

  “Ah, those parties,” said Mrs. Bradley, who was considerably occupied by thoughts of the doll. “How often did he give them, would you say?”

  The landlady was vague. With such a considerate, regular gentleman one did not particularly keep count. It might be one a month, not more. The moon? She could not say. She did not see what the moon could have to do with it, except that at full moon it might be easier for the guests to make their way home. Mr. Aumbry? Yes, she had heard that name mentioned, but she never went to the door herself. What were maids for? Mrs. Bradley, not too sweetly, asked to be allowed to interview the woman’s maid, but the girl was as unhelpful as her mistress. She had heard the name of Aumbry, she asserted, but it was no business of hers who came to the house.

  Mrs. Bradley, undefeated, undeterred, and (in the maid’s view) extremely frightening, pursued the subject relentlessly. When had the last party been held? How many guests had attended it? Was Mr. Aumbry one of them? The maid cracked suddenly. Bursting into tears, she said:

  “What’s it all got to do with me? I never made him no doll’s clothes!”

  “Ah, yes. I wondered who had dressed the doll,” said Mrs. Bradley with truth. “Who did?…because Professor Havers did not dress that doll himself.”

  “You better ask Bluna,” sobbed the maid.

  “His African servant?”

  “Yes, her. Give me the creeps, she did, soon as I ever set eyes on her.”

  “You are prejudiced. Did Bluna have a sweetheart?”

  “Yes, she did, too and all. Lives out on the Lansley Road. But I don’t know why he ever come here. I don’t know nothing about it. The professor engaged ’em both. It wasn’t nothing to do with me.”

  Perceiving that even supposing she did know something more, this was not the time to seek further information, Mrs. Bradley again sought out the landlady.

  “What has happened to Professor Havers’ servant Bluna?” she enquired. “Are she and the colored manservant still here?”

  “They both left here on Saturday, and I haven’t set eyes on them since. Are you in with the police?”

  “Yes, of course. Professor Havers has been murdered, and we want every detail we can get in order that we may track down his murderer. And, as Bluna’s sweetheart did not live here, I fail to see how both could have left on Saturday.”

  “As to that,” said the landlady, “this has always been a most respectable house.”

  “You’ve never had undergraduates for your lodgers, as I happen to know.”

  “How do you know that, pray?”

  “Because you don’t carry the cachet of the university authorities.”

  The woman looked daggers at her.

  “’Tisn’t everybody wants that wild sort,” she retorted at once.

  “It isn’t everybody who would have wanted Professor Havers,” stated Mrs. Bradley mildly. “But more of that anon. I shall be obliged to you for Bluna’s address.”

  “But I don’t know it!” cried the woman. “I don’t know where she’s gone, and I don’t care, neither. Her and that grinning sweetheart of hers! I’m thankful to be shut of the pair of them, and I hope I never set eyes on either one of them again!”

  Mrs. Bradley, who had obtained part of the address of Bluna’s fiancé from the maidservant, sought out the road and had no difficulty in obtaining the number of the house in which the mulatto was lodging. He came to the door himself, a teacloth in his honey-colored hand, and a woman’s voice from the kitchen called:

  “Who is it, dearie? Anybody for me?”

  “No, I don’t think so, Mrs. Richards,” he answered. “I think it is about the late Professor Havers.”

  “Now how did you know that?” Mrs. Bradley enquired.

  “I have followed your works for some time,” he civilly replied, “and one of them in the Penguin edition has a photograph on the back cover. I know you investigate cases of murder for the baffled police force. That is right?” His broad smile was childlike and triumphant. “Please to come in. I have had the police here. I could tell them very little. I will tell you exactly the same.”

  “I hope not,” Mrs. Bradley responded, stepping over the threshold. “I hope you’ll be able to tell me all sorts of things which the police, perhaps, did not enquire about.”

  “That is an enticing thought. Please to come up to my room. It is bed-sitting, not only bed, otherwise it would not be nice to invite you.”

  “Dearie,” called his landlady from the kitchen, “bring me back my teacloth if you’re going to stand talking in the hall.”

  “Certainly, Mrs. Richards. Excuse me, please. I am drying the dishes, but police business must have first priority.”

  With another broad smile he vanished, and Mrs. Bradley could hear him in earnest conversation with his landlady. He reappeared shortly, still beaming, and invited her into the landlady’s sitting room, a respectable mausoleum of family portraits and black, leather-covered horsehair furniture. Mrs. Bradley took one of the slippery armchairs and produced a notebook.

  “Now, then, Mr.…?” she observed.

  “Majestic. Mr. S. Majestic. My father’s ship, I believe, or perhaps a hint as to conduct. I do not know. This room has been placed at our disposal by Mrs. Richards.”

  “That is extremely kind of her. Now, Mr. Majestic, you must forgive me if I seem to be intruding upon your private affairs. I understand that you are engaged to be married to Bluna, the late Professor Havers’ servant.”

  “Yes, indeed. I also was employed by Mr. Havers.”

  “Is there a child on the way?”

  The servant
looked surprised but in no way offended.

  “No. Oh, no. Nothing like that. I can wait until I am married,” he said with dignity.

  “I wasn’t thinking of you,” said Mrs. Bradley.

  “You mean the professor? Oh, no, that is not his layout. The professor was not interested in girls except religiously.”

  “Religiously?”

  “You understand, I am sure, that religion can be good religion or bad religion. Christian, Mohammedan, Buddhist, Jew, even Parsee and Hindu and Red Indian…those are good religion. Voodoo, all devil-worship, cannibalism, Artemis in Orthia, Diana of the Ephesians, all orgiastic rites…those are bad religion, but, still, religion.”

  “And Professor Havers was interested in bad religion?”

  “Yes.”

  “But…forgive me…Bluna did not help him?”

  “How should I know?”

  “But you’re prepared to marry her?”

  “Oh, yes. She will make a good wife, and I want my son to be a Doctor of Divinity. If not Divinity, then of Laws. If not of Laws, then of Literature. But I will have him to be a Doctor, anyway.”

  “A child can inherit his mother’s as well as his father’s characteristics.”

  “Bluna has a good brain. Uneducated but good.”

  “And her morals?”

  “She has none. She is a good girl.”

  “Did you ever see the Isaurian diptych?”

  The complete change of subject did not take him aback. He smiled and spread out his large and beautiful hands.

  “Often. I was very much surprised when Professor Havers gave it to Mr. Aumbry.”

  “Gave it to him?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Under what circumstances?”

  “There, I can scarcely tell. I was only Professor Havers’ servant, you understand, but a valet hears a good deal. There was a compact between them. My diptych for your cooperation. So says Professor Havers in my hearing.”

  “Cooperation in what?”

  “In magical rites.”

  “And did they cooperate?”

  The servant spread his hands again.