“George Chambers doesn’t like any young man at the university who attracts that much attention from the young women at the university.”
“You mean because he distracts them from their studies, or something?”
“He distracts them,” said Alan with great precision, “from George Chambers.”
I was stunned. “You can’t be suggesting—George? Chasing the coeds? Not George!” A vision arose of the White Rabbit loping across campus after a short-skirted woman student.
“There was a bit of a scandal a few years ago, actually. An American girl, over on a Fulbright scholarship. Her parents got wind of it somehow and raised a stink, and she got bundled off home. It was hushed up, of course. I don’t believe Alice ever knew. That calmed George down for a bit, but I hear hints every now and then that he’s feeling his oats again.”
I shook my head incredulously. “I find it really hard to believe that any girl that age would fall for George’s tired line. It wasn’t just some sort of ghastly misunderstanding?”
Alan chuckled—well, it was more of a snort, to tell the truth. “Dorothy, you’re a nice woman. If you don’t believe me, ask the vice chancellor. He knows all about it.”
At that moment there was a fresh burst of noise accompanying the entrance of more guests, so I had to ask Alan to repeat what he had said.
“He knows the whole story about George!” he trumpeted.
“Were you calling me, sir?”
And there they stood, George and Alice, just arrived and looking extremely annoyed.
When one is confronted at a party by an old friend whose sex life one has just been discussing, in unfavorable terms, an interesting social situation arises. I stood dumb, a bright smile stiffening my face.
“There you are, George. Just talking about your book,” said Alan lightly.
“What about it?” George snapped.
My brain began to work again, and I picked up my cue gratefully. “Only that you’ve never really told us all about it, and we’re dying to know.” It wasn’t a great recovery line, but maybe George would buy it.
“Too noisy in here to talk about anything,” he growled, and walked away.
“I’m so sorry,” said Alice, looking harassed. “He’s in a really filthy mood, I’m afraid. He forgot about the party and came home late from the university, and then was frightfully annoyed at having to dress up and go out again. He’ll be more human when he’s had one or two, I expect. And then, you see, you asked the wrong question. The final revision of the book for the press doesn’t seem to be going well, and he’s prickly as a hedgehog on the subject.”
“Oh, dear, poor man. I’ll be sure to avoid mentioning it, then. Thanks for warning us, Alice,” I murmured, and Alan pulled me far enough away to heave our sighs of relief in decent privacy.
“Thanks for the quick thinking, Alan; I couldn’t say a word.”
“I noticed. You reminded me of a goldfish; your mouth was opening and closing and your eyes were bulging.”
“You pay such lovely compliments. No wonder your social life is a bit slow. Do you suppose George caught on?”
“Probably. But it doesn’t matter if Alice didn’t. I’m going to ask Jane if there’s anyone here who lives out my way and might give me a lift, and then I’m going to have one more glass of champagne. It’s nearly midnight, did you realize? We must have something to toast the New Year.”
He had not yet returned with our drinks when I became aware of a sound that had, I realized, been underlying the party noises for a few moments—a buzz of alarm growing in the room. What on earth . . . then I heard what the others had already heard. Sirens. Lots of sirens, loudly insistent, and lots of flashing lights reflecting off the windows and walls. With nearly everyone else, I stepped out the front door and peered down to the end of the street.
Fire trucks. It looked like dozens of them. Smoke billowing, and then a tongue of bright fire bursting forth. For one dreadful, heart-stopping moment I thought the cathedral was on fire, and then I saw.
It was in the Close. It was a house. It was—it couldn’t be, but it was—Canon Billings’s house.
14
I RELUCTANTLY CRAWLED out of bed a little before noon. Happy New Year, indeed.
Emmy let me sleep because I’d fed her before I went to bed at five or so, when most of the excitement was finally over. I couldn’t have slept before that if I’d wanted to, what with all the noise coming from the Close, and my anxiety about the cathedral and the other houses.
Everybody, of course, had flocked out of Jane’s house when we heard the commotion. Midnight came and went without anyone noticing; there were no strains of “Auld Lang Syne” in Monkswell Street that night.
It didn’t take them long to put out the fire. All the buildings in the Close had smoke alarms and sprinkler systems installed long ago, so the fire brigade got there before too much damage had been done. But they stayed for hours, making sure all the sparks were out and nothing was going to spread. All the fire departments for miles around must have been there, including a number of volunteers. One, an old man, stood almost at attention by the sand buckets most of the night, his faded old eyes alert and his head held high, as he must have stood guarding his cathedral against fire during the war.
Most of us, less heroic, simply got in the way, or tried to. We streamed, the whole party, down the street to the gate, where the firemen politely but firmly refused to let us into the Close. There wasn’t much to see anyway. What seemed like mass confusion, but was really very well-organized fire fighting, kept us from getting more than a glimpse of water and smoke.
I was doing my share of rubbernecking when Alan caught up with me, firmly cut me out of the flock, and herded me to my house.
“Please stay here,” he said crisply, all traces of champagne and camaraderie gone from his voice. Chief Constable Nesbitt was on the job. “I may need to use your telephone from time to time. I’m going to have a word with the fire chief now, and then the dean. I’ll be back.”
He dispersed the rest of the crowd with brisk courtesy and then went about whatever it was he had to do. He was in and out for an hour or more, making quick phone calls full of jargon I couldn’t understand. I brewed a pot of coffee, and he snatched some now and again. Finally, at about three, I suppose, he said he didn’t need the phone anymore and I should try to get some sleep.
That was easy for him to say; not so easy for me to do, right there in the middle of the chaos. Lights were still flashing through my bedroom window, and I could see and hear lots of activity below.
Nor could I turn off my mind. How had the fire started? The house was unoccupied. The canon’s housekeeper, I knew, was a daily who worked for several of the bachelor clergy and staff; she didn’t live in. The wiring was sound in the house; the rewiring project on which the cathedral was still engaged, at the insistence of the insurance people, had been completed in the Close. It was just possible that it had been improperly done at the canon’s house, but it seemed unlikely; it’d been thoroughly checked.
So how had the fire started?
The question was answered soon after I awoke. I made coffee and fed Emmy, who had forgotten all about her early breakfast, and when I opened the door to let her out I found Alan standing on the step, his fist raised to knock.
“Come in and have something to eat,” I said. I was glad I’d thrown on some clothes, but wished I’d taken time for my hair and some lipstick as well. “I just got up, so I’m not sure whether it’ll be breakfast or lunch. Which would you prefer?” I closed the door after him, but he didn’t come any farther than the hall.
“I can’t stay,” he said. “My driver’s back on duty, and waiting for me. I have to be at headquarters at one o’clock, and before that—” He swept a pointing hand from his face to his feet, and I saw the evening clothes beneath his coat. His chin was bristly and his eyes bloodshot.
“Well, I appreciate formality in this casual age, but a dinner jacket at noon is overdo
ing it a bit, I agree. I suppose you never got to bed.”
“Never got home. Mrs. Allenby kindly offered me a bed, and I slept very well.”
“But not very long. You look terrible. Won’t you have some coffee, anyway?”
“You pay such lovely compliments,” he quoted. “One quick cup, perhaps, then I really must go.” He followed me to the kitchen and I put a steaming cup in front of him.
“I stopped,” he said, “because there are two pieces of news, bad news, but you’ll want to know. The first is that the fire was definitely caused by arson.”
“Oh, Lord! A firebug in the Cathedral Close? I knew it, though, really. How else could it have started?”
“Precisely. And the second is that a body was found in the house. Identification wasn’t easy, but it seems pretty certain now that it was the verger, Robert Wallingford.”
“Wallingford!” The wheels were turning furiously. “That must mean he went over to the house to look for something, something incriminating, maybe, and—and either set the place on fire accidentally, looking around with a lighted candle or something, or did it on purpose to destroy the evidence and got caught in it himself!”
Alan smiled, if a trifle wearily. “All very sound deductions, Miss Marple. Except that you left out one vital fact. I don’t blame you; you didn’t know it. Neither did I until a few minutes ago when my people reported back.”
He paused. I shook my head. “No clever guesses this morning. I haven’t been awake long enough. Tell me.”
“Wallingford was dead before the fire started. The details are unpleasant, but the condition of the lungs makes it certain. And the condition of the skull makes it almost certain that he was murdered.”
“And the fire was started to conceal the fact,” I put in.
Alan shrugged. “That, of course, is an inference. We’re not making many of those at the moment. I should be on my way; I’ve asked the chief inspector in charge to report to me at one o’clock.”
“You really like being a policeman, don’t you?” I asked curiously. “Even when it means working on New Year’s Day, and Christmas, and goodness knows when?”
“I like it when there’s something to get one’s teeth into. I detest it when it’s one budget conference or committee meeting after another, or when one is tied up in red tape. Which is another thing I must deal with this afternoon; I have to sort out with the Fire Service just who is investigating what in this arson-cum-murder, and diplomacy is not my strong suit. Wish me luck.”
“Will you let me give you supper?” I called as he got in the car. “Seven or so?” He nodded and was driven off.
That gave me the afternoon to fret about what I had in the house fit to feed a man who appeared to enjoy his food, and to ponder the question of this new friendship.
On the whole, I decided as I fussed about the kitchen, it was pleasant to have a man noticing me, but more than a little unsettling. It had been so many years since I’d given a second thought to any man but Frank. We’d had such a good marriage that we hadn’t needed many other people.
I was standing there with the refrigerator door open, staring unseeing, until I pulled myself together and focused on the turkey. Let’s see, I had carrots, onions, potatoes—turkey potpie, then. Easy, filling, and good. It had been one of my favorites back home for post-holiday supper parties with close friends. Most of our friends had tended to be other couples, people we knew from church or our respective schools. When I’d found myself alone, they had been an enormous help at first, but had gradually drifted away as the weeks passed; they lived lives as couples, too, and I was an embarrassment.
That was one of the reasons I’d come to England, gone ahead with the plans Frank and I had made together. Here, where we’d known a number of unmarried people, I thought it might be a little easier to fit into the scheme of things.
I hadn’t given a thought to finding a man. I didn’t want any other man. I wasn’t ready yet . . .
Ready for what? asked one of those inner voices. You’re acting as if he had proposed to you. Or propositioned you. He’s lonely, and he likes talking to you, and that’s all there is to it, so stop getting panicky.
Which was such sensible advice that I took it, for once. I put my pie together to bake later, made a pumpkin cheesecake to go with it, and put a nice white wine in the fridge to chill in case Alan had a driver tonight.
Somewhat to my surprise, he arrived promptly at seven, neatly shaved and dressed and dropped off by a driver.
“Good,” I said, opening the door. “That means you can have a drink. And I hope you can tell me at least part of what’s happening; I’m dying by inches. The radio hasn’t said a thing. Is scotch—I mean, whiskey, all right?”
“Actually, I developed a taste for bourbon when I spent some time in America, and I noticed the other evening that you stocked it.”
“Jack Daniel’s, my favorite. Good, I’ll pour two. When were you in America?” I called from the kitchen.
He followed me. “Oh, several years ago now. The FBI ran a training session in terrorism, and asked me over to speak about the IRA. I spent two weeks in Washington, D.C., in August. I also learnt to drink ice-cold beer.”
“Oh, dear, D.C. in summer is enough to make you appreciate the English climate, which is saying a lot. I haven’t appreciated this winter a bit. I want some snow so badly, and instead we get frost and fog and sleet and rain, everything but snow. Shall we stay in the kitchen where it’s comfortable? And I’ll know when the pie is done.”
“It smells very nice indeed, and this,” he raised his glass, “is ambrosia.”
I sipped mine. “Mmm, yes. Now, what can you tell me?”
“Well, for a start, you can be grateful for that despised rain. We’ve had so much of it the canon’s house was quite damp; that’s one thing that kept the fire from being much more serious.”
“How was it started? Or maybe you can’t say.” I was determined not to get my knuckles rapped a second time.
Alan looked uncomfortable. “I haven’t been very consistent about that sort of thing, I fear, Dorothy. But you see, you kept bringing up the subject when I wanted to talk about other things. And then I kept wondering if my instinct to trust you was being influenced by the fact that you’re an attractive woman. I should have listened to my instinct. It’s a good policeman’s most valuable asset, and it’s never let me down yet. So.”
He tented his fingers. “The fire started in the fireplace in the late canon’s study. Apparently the arsonist put a quantity of paper into the grate, doused it with lighter fluid, and contrived a fuse of some sort.”
“How on earth can they tell?” I interrupted. “The whole point of lighter fluid is that it’s volatile, so it would be long gone, even the smell. And the container goes back into a pocket; it isn’t like gasoline, petrol, I mean.”
“Well done. In fact, they wouldn’t know, except that whoever did it was careless. The arsonist left a tail of fluid leading back out into the room, and that tail, crossing the stone hearth to the hearth rug, ignited the rest. It leaves a distinctive mark when it burns on something nonflammable, you see, so the trail is clear. If he, or she—”
“I suppose we’ll have to stick to one or the other. Let’s use ‘he’ for convenience’ sake.”
“So long as we don’t forget that ‘she’ is just as likely. There’s no reason at all to suppose any of these crimes couldn’t have been committed by a woman.”
This was a new idea. Inga? Greta? Good heavens, Jane? I gave it up for the moment and simply nodded.
“If ‘he,’ then, had been more careful to squirt the fluid in the grate and then around the rest of the room, leaving no tails, even though the presumption of arson would still be strong, it would probably be unprovable.”
The timer went off. Alan put a salad together and opened the wine while I laid out plates and set the steaming pie on the table. “That’s all we’re having,” I said. “Very simple.”
“It looks
excellent.”
We ate single-mindedly for a few minutes, but when the edge was off my hunger I pursued the arson. “What clues would you have had to arson, with no tails?”
“Not I; the arson investigator. I’m not an expert in the field, at all, but I do know that they can tell something about the speed of the burning from the ash. Obviously if something that one would expect to burn quite slowly, such as a carpet, has in fact burnt very fast, the investigator wonders why. Dorothy, this is marvelous.”
“Save some room for dessert. That’s fascinating, about the fire. It’s a wonder the whole place didn’t go up.”
“Without smoke detectors and the sprinkler system it might very well have done, even with the rain-soaked roof.”
“And—the verger—”
“Please believe me, Dorothy, you don’t want to know the details. I found them unpleasant enough and I’m used to these things. I will say only that they had to rely on dental records for identification.”
“But how did they know where to look? I mean, you said yourself forensic evidence is no good without something to match it to, and everybody in Sherebury has teeth. Well, maybe not everybody. I suppose some sets get popped in a glass at night. But out of the whole population of the town that see dentists, how did they know to go to Wallingford’s dentist to check the records?”
“That was another piece of carelessness. The murderer forgot to remove Wallingford’s verger’s badge, which survived the fire. So my men had only to check which of the vergers was missing. Simple.”
I shuddered. Somehow that detail was especially poignant. The vergers were proud of their little brass lapel pins, and wore them with dignity. Wallingford, pompous ass though he was, had been proud of his, too.
Alan was watching me. “Dorothy, don’t forget he never knew about the fire. He was dead before it started.”
“Thank you, Alan. That does help. I was imagining . . .”
Body in the Transept Page 15
