The Unburied

by Charles Palliser

  The Sergeant returned and sat down again and said: ‘Are you absolutely certain about the state of the houseplace when you arrived, sir?’

  ‘For the second time, Sergeant, yes I am.’

  ‘Very well, sir. Mr Fickling has confirmed that Mr Stonex was very worried about the time. Did he give any indication of why that was the case?’

  ‘None at all.’

  ‘I hope you won’t take it amiss, sir, if I ask you whether anything in Mr Fickling’s conduct has been at all strange while you’ve been his guest?’

  ‘I resent that question, Sergeant. Have you put similar questions to Mr Fickling about myself?’

  ‘I’ve asked the other gentleman the sort of questions I’m required to, sir.’

  ‘The whole thing is perfectly absurd. I refuse to answer any questions relating to private matters. They cannot possibly have any bearing on this matter.’

  ‘I understand that, sir,’ he said with galling equanimity. ‘There’s just one last point. You mentioned that you met the deceased at the back-gate of this house. That was yesterday afternoon, was it not?’

  I nodded.

  ‘The invitation was for which day?’

  ‘Which day?’

  ‘When I asked you about that half an hour ago, sir, you said that the old gentleman invited you to come to tea in “a couple of days”. Now if that took place yesterday, was the invitation originally for tomorrow or for today?’

  ‘I see what you mean. You’re quite right, Sergeant. It was for tomorrow, Friday. Then he changed it.’

  ‘Do you know why?’

  ‘Ask Mr Fickling. It was he who told me.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I have asked Mr Fickling. I just wondered if you knew anything about it.’

  ‘If you’ve asked Mr Fickling, I can’t imagine why you’re bothering to ask me, Sergeant.’

  ‘Simply in the hope that between you, you will remember more.’

  ‘I resent your manner of going backwards and forwards between us as if you are trying to find discrepancies in what we say.’

  ‘Not at all, sir. I’ve found that if I examine witnesses together they have a tendency to overlook details. If one remembers something slightly differently from another he might be embarrassed to mention it and yet what he remembers might be correct.’

  I got to my feet. ‘If I am asked to give evidence at the inquest, I shall respond to any appropriate enquiries put to me by the coroner, but until then I will say no more. I hope I may be permitted to go now?’

  He smiled and also stood. ‘You can go any time you wish, sir. Not only do I have no power to detain you against your will, but I have not the slightest wish to do so. I’m very grateful to you for giving me your time and assistance. However, the Major is on his way here and I’m sure he would like a word with you, so I would be more than grateful if you would stay until then.’

  ‘Where is Mr Fickling?’

  ‘He is very kindly waiting for the Major in the other room, sir.’

  I found Austin sitting white-faced at the table.

  ‘This is a terrible business,’ I commented.

  He said nothing but sat back in the chair with his eyes on the ceiling.

  Thursday Night

  Some time later I heard a carriage draw up in the street. The door opened and two men burst in. One was a uniformed police-officer and the other was about sixty, burly and military in his bearing with a purplish complexion, slightly protruding eyes and a large white moustache. Hearing the carriage, the Sergeant had entered the room from the hall. ‘Oh, Adams, there you are,’ the newcomer boomed. They shook hands and the Sergeant said something in an undertone and the large man glanced at us. Then he turned and said: ‘I’m Major Antrobus, the Superintendent. I’m very sorry you have been so severely inconvenienced, gentlemen. But might I ask you to wait a little longer?’

  Austin and I expressed our preparedness to do so and the Major hurried out with the Sergeant. I took out my watch. It was half-past eight. I was astonished that so much time had passed and it occurred to me that I should be hungry, but I found I was not.

  I blush to write this now, but I can be completely honest since I will be dead by the time anyone reads this account. The dismaying truth is that as I sat there I found myself thinking about the manuscript and how much I was longing to get back to the Library and read it. I had been mad to contemplate the possibility of removing it surreptitiously and could hardly believe that I had entertained such a thought even for a minute. The problem I had to face was what I should say when Dr Locard asked where and how I had located it – as he surely would. It would be embarrassing to have to admit that I had ignored his advice and I could not mention that Quitregard had pointed me in the right direction, of course, because that would get him into trouble.

  Austin was staring at the floor. What was he thinking about? The fact that we had not yet spoken was becoming embarrassing. At last I broke the silence. ‘It’s hard to believe he was alive just now. It’s a terrible warning to us all. In the midst of life ...’

  ‘Hold your tongue, will you?’ he snapped.

  It was clear that the events of the afternoon had been at least as much of a shock for him as for me. After twenty minutes the door opened and the Major came in with the Sergeant and Dr Carpenter.

  ‘That can’t be right,’ the Major was saying. ‘You say yourself you can’t judge exactly.’

  ‘No, but it looks probable,’ the young doctor answered.

  ‘Probable! It looks highly improbable. In fact, perfectly impossible. Four hours ago he was dispensing tea right here in this room.’ Turning from the doctor as if dismissing him from his consciousness, he addressed Austin and myself: ‘I deeply regret that you’ve been delayed, gentlemen, and I will detain you as briefly as possible. I understand you have been here since about half-past six and that in that time you have been required to look at the body – one of the most unpleasant sights I’ve seen in my long experience. And that you have both been questioned at length?’

  ‘That is so,’ I said. ‘But I am perfectly willing to assist in what I see as my public duty. I’m sure your subordinate was doing what he thought was right.’

  ‘We’re very grateful to you, sir,’ the Major said. Then he turned to the elderly servant.

  ‘Now, Mrs Bubbosh, my sergeant tells me that you claim that you came to the front-door just before six and could not get in. Did anyone see you arrive and find the door locked?’

  The old woman looked terrified. ‘I don’t know, sir.’

  ‘Nobody can say that Mr Stonex did not let you in when you knocked as he has on every other day at six o’clock for the past twenty-five years?’

  ‘How could he, sir? The poor gentleman was laying dead in that room.’

  ‘That is what is precisely at issue, my good woman.’ The Major smiled round at Austin and me. ‘Was he lying dead at the moment when you arrived at the door? Or did he open the door to you and an accomplice?’

  She looked from one to the other of us in dismay.

  ‘Come, my good woman. Don’t waste my time. I’ve been summoned here from a pleasant occasion with my family. Dammit, it’s Christmas Eve the day after tomorrow. I intend to clear this business up before the festival. Be frank now. What do you know about this? Do you have any sons, any grandsons, any nephews? Are there any young men in your family who need money?’

  He turned and gave Austin and me a significant look as if to indicate, ‘I’m getting close to the truth now.’

  ‘We don’t none of us have no money, sir. But there isn’t a single man or boy among us would even dream of such a wicked deed.’

  ‘Oh, is that so? I can promise you that very searching enquiries will be made about the male members of your family. Very searching indeed.’

  ‘And you won’t find nothing untoward. Save my brother, Jim, that was done for poaching. But that was just the one time. He was in quod for two years on account of it.’

  ‘Ah-ha,’ the Major exc
laimed. ‘Now we’re coming to it. Did this brother of yours employ violence in order to escape? Is that why his sentence was so long?’

  ‘No, sir, he did not. The magistrate was a friend of the gentleman that owned the land he was caught on. That’s why he got dealt with so harsh.’

  ‘An embittered and hardened jailbird! And where might this brother of yours be found, my good woman?’

  ‘In the burying-ground, sir. He has been dead these ten years.’

  The Major’s smile faded: ‘All that will be investigated, I promise you. But it remains the case that you have no way of proving that you were not admitted at six o’clock.’

  I was wondering what devious strategy the Major could be pursuing, since the hypothesis that Mrs Bubbosh had entered the house at six with an accomplice was open to a number of objections – above all, that it left very little time for the deed to be done. It seemed that the same thought had occurred to the Sergeant for he drew his superior aside and they held a brief whispered conference.

  Then the Major turned to Austin and me. ‘Gentlemen, I understand that as you were leaving the house at half-past five there was a knock at the front-door and the deceased told you that it was the waiter, Perkins, who was bringing beer?’

  ‘That is correct,’ I said.

  The Major spun round and jabbed a finger at Mrs Bubbosh: ‘You know this Perkins, don’t you?’

  She looked amazed. ‘I’ve knowed Eddy since he was a boy. And his father before him. But I don’t know why you say it like that, sir, as if there was anything wrong in it.’

  ‘Keep a civil tongue in your head, my good woman. When I ask you a question I expect you to answer it without embroidering your reply. Now give me a straight answer to a straight question.’

  ‘What was the question, sir?’

  ‘Did you and Perkins come here at half-past five?’

  ‘No, I never did! And I don’t believe young Perkins did neither.’

  ‘Are you accusing these gentlemen of lying?’ the Major interrupted.

  She turned and looked at us in bewilderment. ‘Why, no, sir. If they say he came then, all I can say is, he never done so before. And I still beg leave to doubt it for I believe that if he had of come at that time, old Mr Stonex would not have opened the door to him. He only opened it to Eddy at four o’clock when he brung him his dinner. Apart from that, he only opened the door to me.’

  ‘He only opened the door to you,’ the Major repeated. ‘Aren’t you virtually admitting that you came here at half-past five with Perkins? Nobody else but you could have gained admittance.’

  ‘No, I am not! And it don’t make no sense to say I did. Mr Stonex only opened the door to me at seven in the morning and again at six in the evening. Other times I might knock until my knuckles run blood and he wouldn’t open. He was that afeared of being robbed.’

  ‘Go now,’ the Major said to her. ‘I don’t need you any longer just at present. But go home and stay there.’

  She turned away, looking angry and frightened.

  ‘Before you go, Mrs Bubbosh,’ the Sergeant said, ‘I’d like you to tell the Major what you told me about how surprised you were to see the state of this room just now.’

  ‘It’s all this mess,’ she said, looking round. ‘Why, it was as neat as a new pin when I left here at noon.’

  ‘And the tea?’ the Sergeant prompted.

  ‘I never seen them cakes before. And he never had no tea-party in all my time with him.’

  The Major looked from her to the Sergeant in surprise.

  ‘So you’re saying’, the Sergeant prompted gently, ‘that Mr Stonex did not tell you he had invited these gentlemen to tea? And you did not furnish the food?’

  ‘That’s right, sir. I never knowed nothing about it.’

  The Sergeant glanced at his superior. ‘All right, go now,’ the Major said and watched her leave. As the door closed behind her he turned to Austin and me and said: ‘That woman is lying. This case is contemptibly simple. The criminal mind is by definition limited. The murderer was probably this Perkins or a relative of Mrs Bubbosh and she let him in when old Stonex opened the door to her at six as usual.’

  ‘With all due respect, Major,’ Sergeant Adams put in, ‘if the killer entered the house as late as six o’clock then I don’t believe he had enough time to do the murder. I myself received the message to come at a few minutes before half-past six and so Mrs Bubbosh must have had time to go and fetch Mr Wattam and for both of them to come back here and then for him to send someone to summon me from the station-house.’

  ‘There is no difficulty with that,’ said the Major. ‘The accomplice was in the house all that time. In their cleverness he and the Bubbosh woman agreed that she would raise the alarm while he was still here. That gave him at least thirty minutes. And it might have been longer. You entered the house at about ten minutes to seven, did you not? The accomplice might only have left then because, as you have admitted to me, you failed to secure the rear entrance.’

  ‘That’s true, sir. I didn’t guess that anything worse had happened to the old gentleman than that he had been taken ill. But the fact that I didn’t send my constable round to the back made no difference because when, a few minutes later, I checked the back-door it was locked – so nobody could have escaped that way.’

  The Major grunted. ‘Well, the front-door was also locked and he must have escaped one way or another! Have you looked for the keys?’

  ‘We’ve searched the body and looked round the house, sir.’

  ‘Well, have another look, Sergeant.’

  The Sergeant went out of the room. The Major shook his head. ‘It was grossly negligent not to have posted a man at the back-door immediately. His conduct of a very simple case has been far from exemplary.’

  ‘Is the case so simple?’ I asked.

  ‘Open and shut. The robber or robbers managed to get into the well-protected house of a wealthy man who was popularly believed to have cash and valuables on the premises, killed the owner and ransacked the house looking for money. Adams has done his best to muddy the waters, but you can always find a way to make a thing complicated. The art of detection, as I’ve often said, is to reduce apparent complexity to the simplicity of truth.’ He turned to me with a smile: ‘For example, the Sergeant tells me that you said that the house appeared to have been ransacked when you arrived for tea this afternoon?’

  ‘Yes, I did say that.’

  ‘Do you really mean ransacked or simply that the old gentleman had opened a few drawers while searching for that story he wished to show you?’ Without waiting for an answer he turned to Austin: ‘Mr Fickling, I understand that you described it merely as showing signs of a careless search?’

  Austin nodded. I looked at him in surprise.

  ‘Are you gentlemen really so far apart?’ He turned to me: ‘You’re not saying that the disorder you see now is exactly as it was when you arrived?’

  ‘I suppose I couldn’t swear to every single item.’

  ‘Good. Then obviously the robbers ransacked the house, adding to the untidiness already created. Now we’re making progress.’ At that moment the Sergeant came into the room. The Major wheeled round: ‘Well, Adams?’

  ‘I haven’t found them, sir.’

  ‘Have a couple of your best officers search the whole house as soon as it’s light tomorrow. Those keys must be somewhere in the house.’

  ‘With all due respect, sir,’ Sergeant Adams said. ‘The person who did this must have used them to lock the door behind him.’

  The Major nodded and the Sergeant went on: ‘In that case they might be anywhere. He would have got rid of them as soon as possible since they would hang him for sure.’

  ‘As soon as it’s light enough, have the back-yard searched. If they’re not found, have your men go over every inch of this corner of the Close.’

  As he finished speaking there was a knock at the street-door and Adams opened it to the two constables who came in with a young man h
andcuffed between them. He looked terrified, his clothes were torn and his face was bruised.

  ‘Ah-ha!’ cried the Major. ‘The famous Perkins, the waiter. Where did you get those scratches and bruises?’

  ‘He tried to run away, sir,’ said one of the constables.

  ‘Indeed? And did you find anything on him?’

  ‘Nothing, sir.’

  ‘No money? No keys?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Sergeant, go to his house and find the things he stole from here. And look for those keys.’

  Adams nodded a farewell to us and hurried away.

  The Major turned back to the prisoner: ‘Now I understand you are an intimate of Mrs Bubbosh?’

  The man gaped and the Major snapped: ‘You know her, for God’s sake, man.’

  ‘Everybody knows Auntie Meg, sir.’

  ‘What happened when you came to this house at half-past five this afternoon?’

  He blushed and looked down. ‘I never did. I only ever come at four o’clock. Four sharp by the Cathedral clock. The old gentleman was very strict about that.’

  ‘Mr Stonex told you to come at half-past five and bring a mug of ale.’

  ‘No, sir. He never done!’ He was red-faced and kept his gaze on his feet. He was clearly not telling the truth and his very incompetence as a liar aroused my suspicions that he might be innocent.

  ‘You’re lying,’ shouted the Major. He half-turned towards us: ‘Both of these gentlemen heard Mr Stonex say that he had done so. And they heard you arrive at the door at that hour.’

  He turned his frightened face towards us. ‘I don’t understand. That ain’t right. It ain’t the truth.’

  ‘I shall want to hear more about that from you. Take him into the dining-room.’

  ‘I won’t say nothing,’ the young man said as he was led away.

  The Major turned back to us and smiled. ‘Thank you, gentlemen. I don’t need to detain you any longer. You may go now and I am very grateful for your help.’

  ‘Please don’t hesitate to find me if I may be of any further assistance,’ I said. ‘I am at Fickling’s house.’