Boxer, Beetle

by Ned Beauman

  ‘There’s always Casper Bruiseland,’ said Evelyn.

  She’d suggested it as a joke, but Sinner said: ‘Will he have booze?’

  ‘He invariably does.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Locked up upstairs.’

  But when Sinner arrived at the door of the observatory, which Erskine’s father had installed at the top of the east wing in 1914, he found it ajar. Inside were Millicent Bruiseland, on the sofa, and two unctuous costly pale limp shiny things, one of which was a silk dressing gown that contained the other.

  ‘Hello, Sinner,’ said Millicent.

  ‘You’re Erskine’s boy,’ said the unctuous costly pale limp shiny thing that was not a silk dressing gown. ‘I watched you arrive.’

  ‘Who are you?’ said Sinner.

  ‘Didn’t they tell you about me? I’m the monster in the attic.’

  ‘Casper’s not allowed downstairs,’ said Millicent. ‘Father says he has a chronic disease. Battle has to bring him all his meals. It’s not very nice for him.’

  ‘Yes, my father always feels obliged to bring me with the rest of the family, although I thank my lucky stars he at least bothered to find me a room with a lavatory this time. Still, I’m happy to say that dear Millie has always been very kind to her brother. She runs errands for me,’ said Casper, lifting up a fat brown bottle with Polish writing on the label.

  ‘Is that booze?’

  ‘Straight to the point, I see. Yes, it is. Would you like some? I’ve quite a lot of it.’

  Sinner sat down in an armchair and took the bottle from Casper, who opened a new one for himself.

  ‘Careful with that. It’s Polish honey mead. Very strong. It’s hardly the best stuff in the house, but I only ask Millie to steal what no one else would ever think to drink, otherwise Battle might notice. Before you know it you’ll be absolutely desolated.’

  ‘I ain’t easily “desolated”,’ said Sinner, overconfident for the third time that evening. ‘And my dad’s Polish.’

  ‘Oh, really? Well, then, na zdrowie!’

  They both drank. ‘You ever been to the Caravan?’ Sinner croaked, wiping his mouth. He had managed not to gag but he felt as if his adam’s apple were about to fall out of his neck and roll down the stairs.

  ‘Don’t torture me. I’ve heard so much about it.’

  ‘You’d do all right.’ Though not with Sinner, who hated Casper’s type.

  ‘I hope I would. You, on the other hand, could do a lot better than my cousin,’ said Casper. ‘You’re a perfect vision and he’s such a creepy-crawly. I made a pass at him myself once – just out of pity, I thought it would do him good – but he didn’t notice, or at least he pretended he didn’t. Evelyn and I have always agreed that her brother could be perfectly happy if he could just admit to himself what the rest of us already know, but he’s so spineless. In fact, I’m astonished he had the courage to bring you here. Astonished, and pleased. I would certainly make advances on you myself, but I’m afraid I’ve been almost powerless in that respect for some time. …’

  Casper rambled on in his damp spidery voice. About an hour later, Sinner finished his bottle. He looked up. Millie had departed at some point, but Casper had never stopped talking: ‘… And of course they were just about to legalise buggery in Germany if it hadn’t been for the silly old stock market crash.’ Sinner hurled himself forward out of the armchair, then crawled to the door on his hands and knees. It was seven or eight months since he’d drunk anything stronger than Erskine’s second-rate beer, and he felt like a child again.

  ‘Oh, are you off?’ said Casper. ‘Well, it was delightful to meet you. Send my regards to Philip.’

  ‘They really … they really keep you locked up because you drink too much?’ slurred Sinner.

  ‘Because I drink too much? God, no. As you can see, my dear, I have no trouble holding my alcohol. I’ve dined with all the drinking societies in Oxford. One learns.’

  ‘Why, then?’

  ‘I kept getting caught wanking off farmhands. Father said it was this or the sanatorium.’

  Sinner staggered down the stairs. He remembered that he was supposed to be sleeping in Erskine’s room, but he didn’t want to go there, so he decided to find somewhere he could safely pass out until morning without anyone finding him. Doors and oil paintings and umbrellas and lamps and books swerved past him at reckless speeds; the moonlight came in at odd angles and his shadow seemed to bark at his heels like a dog.

  Some while later, he found himself vomiting into some sort of complicated metal cage. He pursued the vomit inside and curled up into a ball, spikes digging uncomfortably into his ribs and shins. He dozed off; but no more than ten minutes later he was awoken by lights and voices. He already felt much more clear-headed for having voided his stomach. He tried not to make any noise, wondering where he was. Inside a torture device? An experimental piano? A very advanced safety coffin? A mechanical model of Evelyn Erskine’s womb? He couldn’t really see out.

  ‘Couldn’t we do this tomorrow?’ said the first voice. ‘I’m very tired and I’m sure there’ll be time for a chat between the lectures.’

  ‘I’m afraid privacy is of the utmost importance to this discussion,’ said the second voice. ‘That’s why we had to wait for everyone else to go to bed. Pour yourself a drink and sit down.’

  ‘I say, something smells a bit odd.’

  ‘I can’t smell anything.’

  ‘I think it’s coming from Mr Erskine’s calculating machine.’

  ‘Please do sit down and pay attention, Morton.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Good. Now, I’ll get straight down to business. You’re familiar, I trust, with the Protocols of the Elders of Zion?’

  ‘Superficially.’

  ‘Do you believe in them?’

  ‘Of course not. They’re thoroughly discredited, as every schoolboy knows. Copied from a nineteenth-century satirical dialogue about Napoleon. You don’t mean to say you think differently?’

  ‘I think they have the ring of truth, and I think it’s very easy bargh glargh glargh bargh snargh to trump up evidence for a charge of plagiary. But it’s not for me to say. The point is, the average man has been taught to scoff at them. They’re no use to us any more.’

  ‘To us?’

  ‘To fascism.’

  ‘I’m not sure they were much use to fascism in the first place.’

  ‘Perhaps not to your brand. But to those of us who aren’t in bed with the Jews—’

  ‘Sir, I—’

  ‘—they were once a very useful way of knocking some sense into people.’ Sinner smelt cigar smoke. ‘So what can we put in their place? That is the question Erskine and I asked ourselves several months ago. We concluded that with a little bit of trickery – no more than the Jew himself uses every time he goes to the vegetable market – we could achieve something masterful. You know about the London Jewish Sentry?’

  ‘I’m aware of it, yes.’

  ‘I thought so. The idea, you understand, was to spill a few secrets that the Jews would never spill themselves, and to do it so that people would have no reason to doubt what they read. Propaganda with an honourable heart. Very effective. Now, publishing a newspaper isn’t cheap, especially when it has to be done largely in secret, but Erskine and I felt that money should be no object when the future of the British Empire is at stake. We took out our cheque books quite happily.’

  ‘You mean to say that you and Mr Erskine were funding the whole thing?’

  ‘Don’t play stupid with me, Morton. As you must know, we had no choice but to involve one or two dullards from Mosley’s gang. Erskine and I don’t go to London very often, and they know the lie of the land. But I always knew it would be our undoing. Those bloody Blackshirts – I’d rather entrust my secrets to a six-year-old girl. Which is how, over the last few months, Erskine and I came to be receiving letters of the most despicable kind. All anonymous. The first ones were just full of sinister innuendo. But no
w we’ve been threatened with exposure if we don’t hand over cash.’

  ‘Blackmail?’

  ‘Yes, my boy, blackmail. That’s what it is. Nothing less. I’m glad you realise that. And Erskine and I wouldn’t normally give a damn. If it did get in the papers that we’d been paying for the London Jewish Sentry, we’d be heroes to every fascist in the world. Hitler would probably give us a medal. If we were vain men, we’d be begging this blackmailer to go to The Times. But the point is, it would set back the cause. Not only would we lose influence – and before long, mark my words, Parliament will be trying to take us to war with Germany, so we will need our influence more than ever – but all our work on London Jewish Sentry would be wasted before it had really borne fruit. We can’t let that happen. But we also don’t want to give in to a common criminal. So we won’t pay a penny. What do you say to that?’

  ‘Quite right. I think you should go to the police.’

  ‘Don’t taunt me, Morton. You know perfectly well we can’t go to the police. They’d start poking their noses everywhere. A disgraceful affair like this has to be settled man to man.’

  There was a pause. ‘You’re not suggesting …,’ began Morton.

  ‘I’ve been watching your face, my boy. You’re as guilty as they come. You’re not a real fascist, you’re just a blasted opportunist.’

  ‘Oh, please be serious – does Mr Erskine realise you’re making these accusations?’

  ‘Since you’re marrying his daughter he’s had to pretend you’re a decent fellow, and by now he’s spent so long pretending that he doesn’t know any better. He wouldn’t listen if I tried to tell him. But now you’re going to come with me and confess to his face. Then you’ll break off the engagement, which, by the way, is to your own advantage – I assume you didn’t realise what you’d have been faced with on the wedding night – and you’ll make some sort of restitution to Erskine and me. Then I expect you’ll either hang yourself or go off and live amongst the wogs for the rest of your life.’

  ‘Mr Bruiseland, I’m sorry, but this is utterly absurd. I had no inkling that you and Mr Erskine had anything to do with this ersatz newspaper. In fact, I would have thought rather better of both of you.’

  ‘Admit it, and we can settle this.’

  ‘It would be more sensible if we could both talk this over with Mr Erskine.’

  ‘You’re caught, boy. Don’t embarrass yourself.’

  ‘Perhaps we should just go to bed and in the morning we can—’

  ‘Oh, you Blackshirts are scum. You’re as bad as the Jews. I don’t know why I even bothered to give you the chance to behave like a hargh margh nargh nargh nargh nargh gentleman. Come here.’

  ‘Mr Bruiseland, for God’s sake!’ screeched Morton, and then for an instant Sinner found himself looking directly into Morton’s panicked eyes through a gap in the machinery as Morton’s face was smashed into the side of the brass brain. Morton seemed to recognise him, but then Bruiseland grabbed him by the hair, jerking him back out of view, and the metal around Sinner reverberated with blow after blow, droplets of blood spraying like some evil lubricant grease over the cogs and levers. There was a final thud as Bruiseland dropped Morton’s body on the carpet of the library, and after that all Sinner could hear was the older man’s loud phlegmy breathing. He could smell blood and tobacco and it reminded him of Premierland.

  During the murder, Sinner had been too bewildered to try to intervene. He now thought of confronting Bruiseland; but the trouble was, he was still so drunk that it wasn’t impossible that Bruiseland might get the better of him with a curtain rail; and it wouldn’t do either Sinner or Morton any good if Sinner was discovered beating up a house guest; and anyway, Erskine had said that Morton was an arsehole and Evelyn hadn’t really disagreed, so perhaps Bruiseland had basically the right idea, even if he was obviously loony himself to have gone as far as he had. Frink would have known what to do. But Sinner didn’t. So he just stayed where he was, listening to Bruiseland’s grunts as he dragged Morton’s body feet-first out of the library. He felt a draught of cold air, and a little while later there was a faint splash from outside the house followed by some startled quacking. When it was obvious that Bruiseland wasn’t going to come back to clean up the blood or even to turn the lights off, Sinner dolloped himself out of the brass brain, stretched his tingling legs, and staggered upstairs to Erskine’s room.

  15

  Evelyn came into the hall while Erskine was still sitting there in the bentwood chair. He jumped up.

  ‘I suppose you’re pleased,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, no, Evelyn, please don’t say that – I wouldn’t wish what’s happened on my worst enemy. Certainly not on my sister’s fiancé.’ Actually, he had wished humiliation, torture and death on Morton dozens of times, but he decided now that he hadn’t really meant it. ‘I’m so sorry, it’s the most awful … I don’t know what to say.’ Gingerly he reached out to touch her shoulder but she rolled her eyes and pushed his hand away.

  ‘You’re not cut out for sentimentality, Phippy. Anyway, I’m in shock, they insist, so it doesn’t really make any difference what you say now. Save it up for when I’m crying myself bald. Have you seen Tara?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I must find Tara. She will know what to do. But she seems to have disappeared from the house. What about your chap?’

  ‘Do you mean, was he, er, responsible?’ said Erskine, wondering how Evelyn had already come to share his suspicions.

  ‘No, of course not – one of those fascist fuckers did it, that is absolutely obvious to anyone with even a knitted brain. I mean, where is he to be found?’

  ‘He’s asleep.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In my room. Why?’

  Evelyn smiled. ‘Oh, yes, Tara told me you’d persuaded Father to let him sleep up there with you. I don’t know how on earth you managed it but clap clap clap.’

  ‘I did not “persuade”—’

  ‘No, dear brother, of course you didn’t. No. Well, I’m off to smoke a hundred cigarettes, so I’ll see you at lunch.’ As Evelyn started up the stairs to her room, she turned and added, ‘And if you want to gawp at the blood with all the others, they’re in the library.’

  Out on her balcony with a Sobranie Evelyn looked down at the pond, where a stiff breeze whisked the sunlight gently through the water. It occurred to her that if she were a girl in a melodrama she would presumably take Morton’s death as a punishment for her little crime with Sinner and be scared off sex for the rest of her life. But actually she had always felt it was natural that things happened all at once. Still, it was impossible to clear her head because thinking about one just reminded her of the other, as if the events were two older, taller girls throwing a ball back and forth to keep it out of her reach and she would have to run endlessly from tormentor to tormentor until she collapsed from exhaustion. What she’d done with Sinner wasn’t horrible like what had happened to Morton – she felt deeply grateful for it, in fact – but it was still perplexing down to her bones. And now there began to emerge a third, kindred uneasiness, a stealthier, more complicated thorn: the guilty possibility that really she cared more about what had happened last night in the music room than what had happened (at exactly the same moment, for all she knew) over in the library – the possibility that even if she never saw Sinner again (and they had still only really met twice) she would still remember his face for longer than she would remember Morton’s. She had always known that one day she would escape from the Wykehamist and all that he represented, but she had never guessed, nor truly desired, that it would happen so soon, or so drastically. The border between her past and her future, hostile countries, had been drawn in blood.

  Downstairs, in the library, Erskine found Bruiseland, Aslet, Amadeo and the Mowinckels standing in a row along the smeary brown trail that led from the brass brain to the French windows. Like soldiers at a frontier they did not seem to want to step over it. He thought of Fluek, that disputed village.<
br />
  ‘We’re certain it couldn’t have been suicide?’ said Aslet.

  Erskine noticed that a few of Morton’s hairs were still stuck to the floorboards.

  ‘Secret agents of Zion,’ said Berthold Mowinckel. ‘Not for years have they struck so deep into the heart of the nobility.’

  ‘It was no secret agent of Zion who produced a pistol at dinner last night,’ muttered his son.

  ‘What are you suggesting?’ said Amadeo.

  ‘I have read some of your poetry. “The Bliss of Violence”?’

  ‘I wonder why you would make these baseless insinuations unless you yourself have something to hide?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Berthold Mowinckel. ‘Unlike his late brother, my son would never have the courage to do something like this.’

  ‘Courage? No. Stupidity? Perhaps.’

  ‘Do you wish to settle this like men?’ said Kasimir.

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Amadeo.

  ‘A duel.’

  ‘Oh, steady on,’ said Aslet.

  ‘A duel! How laughably quaint,’ said Amadeo. ‘But, still, why not?’

  ‘Choose your weapon, then.’

  ‘Let me see. I choose.…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘An electric tin-opener.’

  ‘You are mocking me!’ shouted Kasimir Mowinckel. He snatched up a brass poker and lunged at Amadeo, but the poker thumped harmlessly into the kidneys of Battle, who had entered the room without anyone noticing and interposed himself at the last moment. ‘Lord Erskine would be very grateful if his guests might join him in the drawing room,’ said the butler.

  They did as they were told. Erskine’s father waited until they were all assembled and then said, ‘I’m happy to inform you that at least one part of this unpleasant ordeal is over. We know who is responsible. Battle has made a search of the house and has found various things missing. These include much of our most valuable silverware and jewellery. They also include a footman, a maid and all of their personal effects. It is all too clear what took place last night. The two servants were planning to elope and also to burgle the house while they were at it. Morton must have caught them in the act, and they decided they had no choice but to murder him. Such things happen quite often these days. The police will be on the look-out and I don’t expect they shall get far.’