The Case of the Gilded Fly

by Edmund Crispin

  Fen appeared to be making a rapid mental estimate of the morality of this proceeding. ‘Rather a risk, wasn’t it?’ he said mildly.

  ‘Well, Robert wanted it for Thursday morning – he told me so at the party – and I thought we could at least use it temporarily.’

  ‘And then, of course, it disappeared. Where was it left?’

  ‘In the prop room.’

  ‘Can anyone get into it?’

  ‘Yes, anyone. Some time late on Thursday it – it just went.’

  ‘And with it, I suspect, something else.’ Fen named it, and she stared incredulously at him. ‘How did you know?’ she said. There was a hint of sudden panic terror in her eyes.

  ‘Why not from there?’ said Fen softly. ‘It was perfectly convenient. I presume you didn’t take the cartridges? You wouldn’t have needed them.’ She shook her head.

  ‘Were they there when you took the gun?’ Fen pursued.

  ‘I – I really don’t remember.’

  ‘They might have been removed some time during the party, then?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  Fen nodded, apparently satisfied. ‘So I thought,’ he said. ‘And of course, there’s only Captain Graham’s chance remark to suggest they were there at all.’ He paused. ‘And now, would you mind giving me a true account of your movements yesterday evening – as opposed to the account you gave the police?’

  She was pale. ‘I told the police the truth. I didn’t kill Yseut. I was in my room at college all evening.’

  ‘I think not,’ said Fen.

  Tears came into her eyes. ‘Please, Mr Fen. That’s the truth. I didn’t kill Yseut.’

  Fen was slightly embarrassed. ‘I didn’t exactly say you had. In any case, I’m so well acquainted with the truth about this business, that your assurances, one way or the other, don’t particularly matter. It’s simply that I like to get things straightened out.’

  ‘You know who did it?’ she leaned forward, and there was a catch in her voice.

  Fen nodded, and awaited the inevitable request.

  ‘Need you tell the police? That is –’

  Fen sighed. ‘Upon my soul,’ he said, ‘you are either the most charitable or the most immoral set of people I have ever come across in my life. Not one of you but wants the whole business passed over in silence. I find it very discouraging.’

  Jean rose and began to pace about the room. ‘Well?’ she said.

  ‘That,’ Fen replied, ‘I shall have to think about. You are, if you’ll forgive my saying so, a poor liar, Miss Whitelegge. But then an adequate ability to dissemble seems completely lacking in this case. From beginning to end’ – he looked at her intently – ‘the whole thing has been an incompetent muddle, in which the hand of the author has been painfully obvious. I find it depressing. It hasn’t been a battle of wits, it’s been a walk-over, and like all walk-overs it’s turned sour on me. Perhaps that’s why I feel reluctant to give the poor fish away – an atavistic survival of the code of honour. It’s too easy to triumph over a second-rate mind.’

  She turned to him, her eyes blazing. ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you,’ she cried, ‘that whoever did this may simply not have cared about dissembling, about the niggling intellectual puzzles and cryptograms which seem to delight you?’

  ‘It has occurred to me,’ said Fen coolly, ‘and I think that at first that was that person’s attitude. A good deal of deliberate carelessness seems to suggest that. In actually committing the murder, however, that person decided, at the eleventh hour, to create a cryptogram; and like all extempore cryptograms, it was only too dismally easy to solve.’ He rose. ‘Thank you, Miss Whitelegge. You’ve been involuntarily informative to a high degree.’

  She seemed suddenly helpless and bewildered. ‘I – I –’

  ‘I’ve no wish to play the heavy uncle with you,’ said Fen kindly, ‘and doubtless you’re prepared to accept the responsibility for your actions. But I must warn you quite frankly that the game is up. I’m not suggesting that you should go to the police; but I give you until Monday morning to come to me.’ She was silent. ‘God knows, girl, I know how difficult it will be. Take a grip on yourself.’ He turned to go, then added, as an afterthought:

  ‘By the way, what are you reading up here?’

  She stared at him blankly. ‘Greats – Greek and Latin.’ Fen nodded. ‘I’ll leave you now. Think over my peroration. If you don’t do as I say, then I warn you: you may be putting another person’s life in danger.’ He turned and went out.

  Nigel was beginning to feel hungry. His attention wandered frequently from what was going on on the stage to the contemplation of lunch. This was the more so as it had suddenly occurred to him that by watching rehearsals he might be spoiling Monday night’s performance for himself. This view was apparently shared by divine providence, which suddenly erected a barrier between him and Metromania in the shape of the safety curtain, a heavy contraption which was abruptly lowered, narrowly missing the head of the husbandly Clive, who leaped out of the way with a startled oath. Nigel had barely time to digest the information imprinted thereon, to the effect that in the event of fire the theatre could be cleared in three minutes, before there was a bellow of rage from Robert, who was sitting some way behind him. This minatory noise apparently had the desired effect, and the safety curtain went up again, to disclose a small, bewildered group on the stage, casting vague glances up at the electrician’s gallery, whence the curtain was operated. A confused discussion about responsibility was still going on when Fen returned.

  ‘Allons’ he said. ‘We have no further business here.’ They left the rehearsal in a state of mild chaos.

  Once they were out in the street, and marching at a brisk pace towards the ‘Mace and Sceptre’, Fen drew a deep breath. ‘I’ve been bullying,’ he said, ‘in the most ungentlemanly fashion.’ And he gave Nigel a brief account of his interview with Jean. Nigel looked bewildered.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘so what?’

  ‘So my conjecture was right. We’ve very little more to do now. One thing, as a matter of routine, we must search Fellowes’ room, though I’ve little hope of our finding anything.’

  ‘You mean for whatever Yseut was looking for?’

  ‘Nigel,’ said Fen with heavy sarcasm, ‘you are a brilliant pupil. We shall make a detective of you yet.’

  ‘I’ve no wish to be a detective,’ said Nigel huffily.

  ‘I confess,’ said Fen, ‘that in a case like this it’s a singularly unpleasant job. Be honest with me, Nigel; what ought I to do? I confess my instinct as a good citizen is to hand over my results to the police, as I’ve done on other occasions. But then there are other considerations: Robert’s a great playwright, Rachel’s a fine actress, Nicholas, when he pulls himself together, has a first-rate brain, Fellowes is a brilliant organist, Sheila McGaw is a good producer, and Jean Whitelegge is just an essentially nice person. Yseut wasn’t any of those things, and I don’t want to see any of them caught in the soulless grinding of the forensic machine on her account, or by my agency. If only the police would use their commonsense! It’s their profession to catch and kill people, and such considerations wouldn’t count with them. But they’re going rampaging off on this suicide idea, and only my intervention will stop them.’

  ‘It depends,’ said Nigel slowly. ‘Do you think the murderer is likely to act again?’

  ‘Another murder? I doubt it, though I used that as a bait a few minutes ago.’

  ‘Then I think,’ said Nigel with sudden inspiration, ‘that you should read Goethe’s Tasso. More or less, it’s a study of how far the artistic temperament can go in defiance of society.’

  ‘My dear Nigel: it states the problem, but it never gets anywhere near solving it. I’m inclined, you know, to take the philistine view that there’s a good deal of hooey about the artistic temperament. So many of the greatest artists have been without it, or rather they’ve had sufficient low cunning to satisfy their beyond-good-and-evil tendencies sub rosa
, without arousing the wrath of society. The artistic temperament is too often only an alibi for lack of responsibility – vide the late lamented Yseut. A skirt,’ he added solemnly, ‘if ever there was one.’.

  ‘My dear Gervase, if you must use these vile Americanisms, for heaven’s sake use them correctly. Read Mencken. “A skirt” is a vulgarism for any sort of woman.’

  Fen appeared to be considering this; but when he spoke, it was to say: ‘I think that what I suggested to Helen would be the best thing: a brief and succinct warning to get out. The trouble is, we’re all so damnably intelligent at Oxford,’ he said irritably. The fact of murder, which rouses an immediate instinct of self-preservation in the unsophisticated, has to penetrate to our animal souls through a thick barrier of sophisms; apparently in the present case it hasn’t even done that – merely bounced off again. Yet murder remains murder, none the less’ – (to lie in cold obstruction and to rot, thought Nigel) – ‘and there’s no way of getting round it. Prayer and meditation seem to be my only course; what it is to have a conscience! And to think that only a few days ago I was looking forward to some nice clean uncomplicated killing! You know what holds this business together, Nigel? Sex – the Questing Beast. That’s the root and origin of the whole thing. Reduced to its essentials, it’s the coupling of the monkeys in Wilkes’ enclosure.’

  ‘You mean,’ said Nigel, ‘that this has happened because people have been taking it too seriously?’

  ‘No,’ said Fen, ‘ironically enough, it’s happened because someone has not been taking it seriously enough.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t think sex was a motive for murder?’

  ‘Nor do I. But it lies at the root of this thing just the same. I’ll explain later, Nigel; whatever happens, you shall know. And God forbid,’ he added more lightly, ‘that we should wrap up this dismal tale in a heavy mantle of moralistic symbolism. The questing beast is a poetic convenience; in fact, it doesn’t exist.’

  They reached the hotel in silence, and Fen made straight for the porter’s box. The porter, a thin, competent-looking elderly man, received him with a smile.

  ‘Well, sir,’ he said, ‘and how goes the investigation, if I may make so bold as to ask?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Fen, ‘I think you can probably help me a little, Ridley. How did you come to hear about it, by the way? I suppose your racketeers,’ he said offensively to Nigel, ‘have got hold of it at last.’

  ‘All in the morning papers, sir,’ said the porter, tapping a news-sheet which lay in front of him, ‘which is to say, nothing at all beyond the bare facts. The local has a bit more, but only vapourings.’ His voice was scornful. Terrible thing, though, with a young girl like that; not but what she wasn’t a bit of a Jezebel, if you’ll pardon the liberty.’

  Fen appeared to be struck by the Biblical reference. He said: ‘Tell me, Ridley: do you think that if a thoroughly objectionable person is murdered, the murderer deserves to get away with it?’

  The porter considered. ‘I don’t think so, sir, no. There’s other ways of dealing with objectionable persons than by murder.’

  Fen turned to Nigel. ‘You see?’ he said.

  ‘I take it then, sir, that it was murder, and not suicide?’ asked the porter.

  ‘That’s what we’re trying to find out,’ said Fen, ‘and that’s where you can help me. The young lady came in here last night?’

  ‘Yes, sir. About twenty-five or twenty to eight, it would have been. She asked for the London directory, put through a call from one of the boxes over there, and left immediately afterwards.’

  ‘Did you happen to notice if she was wearing any jewellery?’

  ‘Well now, sir, it’s funny you should ask that, because I was just thinking as she looked up the number how little jewellery young women wear nowadays as compared with thirty years ago. Not a ring, not a necklace, not a bracelet, not a brooch even.’

  ‘You’re sure about that?’

  ‘Absolutely, sir. I noticed particular.’

  ‘And that,’ said Fen as they turned away, ‘disposes finally of the possibility that Yseut took the ring herself. And, incidentally, completes my case.’

  ‘All done by intuition.’

  Fen looked uncomfortable. ‘Well,’ he said cautiously, ‘no, not exactly. There was really no occasion for it. You’ve had all the facts that I’ve had; more, you’ve had a lot of them at first hand; they give you everything you want. Do you honestly mean to tell me you still don’t know what this is all about?’

  Nigel shook his head. ‘Not an inkling,’ he said. ‘I look to the resurrection; until that, I’m in black darkness.’

  Fen gazed at him severely. ‘Your execrable profession,’ he said, ‘has had a numbing effect upon a whilom promising, if mediocre, brain. Anyway, enough for now. I leave you until Evensong tomorrow. I have a lot of beastly collection papers to correct, my notes to write up, and lecture to prepare on William Dunbar, mort à Flodden.’ He marched to the door, turned, and waved cheerfully. ‘Concentrate,’ he said. ‘It will come to you eventually.’ In another moment he was gone.

  12. Vignettes

  ‘Non other lyfe,’ said he, ‘is worth a bene;

  For wedlock is so esy and so clene.’

  Chaucer

  On Saturday evening, after the show, the theatre was given over to the technicians. While the company was still changing and removing make-up, the old set was already being demolished. Sunday morning saw the new one going up, by the united labours of scenic designer, scene painter, stage hands, stage manager and electricians, while actors and actresses gave themselves up to long, luxurious hours in bed, read or walked or drank according to their tastes, or in rare cases even ran over their lines for the dress rehearsal in the evening. It was an interlude of calm before the final effort, before the culmination of that effort on the Monday night, and before another culmination more serious and less pleasant.

  Donald and Jean walked in the university parks. The previous day’s rain had given place to a cold, invigorating autumnal sunlight. The bells were silent, but in the churches and chapels of Oxford the worship of God was being prepared in sundry different ways, ranging from the highly-polished brass of the Salvation Army to the incense and chasubles of the high church through a series of elaborate and faintly ludicrous doctrinal variations. Oxford retains some vestigial reminders of the fact that it was once one of the Christian centres of Europe. Choirboys unselfconsciously march the streets in gowns and mortar-boards; organists secretly meditate on the registration (supposed by their admirers to be spontaneous) which is to be used in accompanying the psalms; lay clerks put off their weekday occupations; scholars destined to read the lesson wander about inquiring as to the pronunciation of the more recondite Hebrew proper names; the clergy are pregnant with brief intellectual sermons; dons prepare to pay homage to the deity.

  For some time Donald and Jean had walked in silence, a silence on both sides of embarrassment, and a little of shame. Then Donald said:

  ‘I seem to have been making a damned fool of myself. First over this girl; then by telling a lot of silly lies over what I was doing at the time of the murder. But you know why I told them, don’t you?’

  Jean’s eyes were soft. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I think I know. But really it wasn’t necessary.’

  ‘Jean,’ he said. ‘Then you didn’t – ?’

  ‘Darling, it’s really intolerable of you to suspect that. Why should I?’

  ‘I just jumped to conclusions, I suppose. Silly of me. You know I’ve been a bit mad these past few months.’

  She said softly: ‘Were you really in love with her, Donald?’

  ‘No.’ He hesitated. ‘That is – I don’t think so. I think I was just fascinated by her beastliness. Despite the Helens of this world, men will still run after shop-girls. You know – in the circumstances I’ve got a nerve to say it, but – I think I’m in love with you.’

  ‘Oh, Donald. How nice you are.’

  ‘I’m not. I’ve behave
d perfectly abominably.’

  ‘So have I. If I’d had a little more common sense, I’d have realized it was only an infatuation. Now’ – her face clouded – ‘it’s too late.’

  Donald looked uncomfortable; he poked idiotically at a fallen leaf with the ferrule of his stick. ‘No,’ he said slowly, ‘I don’t think it’s too late. Don’t you see the way her death has cleared everything up? It’s brought us together again, and Rachel and Robert – the whole atmosphere’s better, and there seems to be no one who hasn’t gained by it.’

  Jean said sombrely: ‘Someone killed her. Who?’

  ‘Whatever Fen says, I think it was suicide; and I hear that’s what the police think too. I hope to God they’re right. What a glorious relief it would be if it all ended that way.’

  She answered: ‘Fen knows what he’s doing, I’m afraid. It’s maddening that it should all rest with him; I don’t want to see anyone hanged for this. He wanted me to give away –’

  Donald looked at her quickly. ‘Give away what?’

  Her manner was guarded. ‘You know.’

  He nodded, then stopped and turned to face her, putting his hands on her arms. ‘Jean,’ he said, ‘I’ve made up my mind. As soon as this term’s over, I’m going to volunteer for the R.A.F. It seems to contain most of the organists in the country anyway. You’ll have finished here by then, and – well, as soon as I get my commission, I should like you to marry me.’

  She laughed – a small, happy laugh. ‘Oh, Donald, how lovely that will be. I – I shall give up the theatre and keep house for you. I think that’s really what I’ve wanted all along.’ She looked at him for a moment with tears in her eyes. Then they kissed.

  Somewhere, out of the mists of enchantment, a clock chimed. Donald jumped as though he had been shot. ‘Lord,’ he said. ‘Mattins in a quarter of an hour.’ He took her hand. ‘Come on, darling. I shall sit and plan a full choral service for our wedding – “Let the Bright Seraphim” for the anthem, and I’ll hire St Paul’s Cathedral choir to sing it!’