Scarweather
Page 1
Scarweather
Anthony Rolls
With an Introduction
by Martin Edwards
Poisoned Pen Press
Copyright
Originally published in 1934 by Geoffrey Bles
Copyright © 2017 Estate of Anthony Rolls
Introduction copyright © 2017 Martin Edwards
Published by Poisoned Pen Press in association with the British Library
First Ebook Edition 2017
ISBN: 9781464207419 ebook
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
The historical characters and events portrayed in this book are inventions of the author or used fictitiously.
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Contents
Scarweather
Copyright
Contents
Introduction
Part I
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Part II
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Part III
Chapter I
Chapter II
Part IV
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Part V
Chapter 1
Chapter II
More from this Author
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Introduction
Scarweather is an unusual crime novel written by an unorthodox novelist. C. E. Vulliamy was, among many other things, a keen archaeologist, and he makes splendid use of his specialised knowledge in this agreeably leisurely mystery. The action begins shortly before the start of the First World War, and events unfold gradually over the next decade and a half.
The narrator is John Farringdale, a young barrister who is remarkably innocent, despite his professed interest in “the psychology of the criminal”. He serves, in effect, as Dr Watson to Frederick Ellingham, a gifted intellectual cast in the role of brilliant amateur detective. The principal setting is the eponymous Scarweather, a remote spot on the north coast of England. Farringdale, his cousin Eric Tallard Foster, and Ellingham, become acquainted with Professor Tolgen Reisby and his attractive, younger wife Hilda, who live at Scarweather, but when Eric becomes enchanted with Hilda, matters take a dangerous turn. To say much more would be to risk a “spoiler”, although it must be said that Vulliamy’s main focus as a crime novelist lay in intriguing his readers with something out of the ordinary rather than hoodwinking them with a classic whodunit puzzle. Indeed, the dust jacket of the first edition earned the disapproval of Dorothy L. Sayers, when she came to review it, so plainly did it give the game away.
Colwyn Edward Vulliamy (1886–1971) was a Welshman who was educated privately before studying art in Cornwall. He owed his unusual surname to a Swiss ancestor, a clockmaker who settled in Britain during the eighteenth century; the family business became clockmakers to the Crown, an appointment retained for more than a century. Vulliamy served in France, Macedonia, and Turkey during the First World War, and the time he spent in the Near East kindled his interest in digging into the past. When peace came, archaeology was, according to his obituary in The Times, “his chief subject of study”. He had published a Fabian Society tract in 1914, but his next three books were Prehistoric Forerunners, Unknown Cornwall, and Immortal Man, the last being a study of burial customs through the years. In 1930, two years before his first crime novel appeared, he brought out The Archaeology of Middlesex and London.
The author of his obituary in The Times opined that: “Vulliamy was a writer of individual and rewarding quality. Although he was without academic training of any kind, he had the tastes and capacities of a scholar, and it is possible that his early work both as an archaeologist and a historian might have received wider recognition if it had been supported by the conventional authority of a university post.” The obituary paints a picture of a gifted man with varied skills and interests, but makes only fleeting reference to his detective fiction. It was often the case that authors who wrote detective novels during the Golden Age of Murder between the two world wars did so as a sideline; the long list of examples includes such luminaries as G.D.H. Cole, the economist, and Cecil Day-Lewis, the poet who wrote crime fiction as Nicholas Blake. Yet in many cases, they are more likely to be remembered today for their detective stories than their more serious and supposedly more “worthy” work.
Vulliamy wrote ten crime novels, in two distinct phases. Scarweather was one of four books published in a burst of activity lasting three years, from 1932. These books were published under the pen-name Anthony Rolls, presumably to differentiate them from his more academic work. Whilst the novels suggest the influence of Francis Iles, author of the best-selling psychological crime novel Malice Aforethought, which appeared in 1930, they are nevertheless distinctive.
After Scarweather appeared, Vulliamy seemed to give up on the genre. His main focus shifted to biographies of imaginary historical characters, which afforded him plenty of scope to indulge his taste for satire. It was also perhaps typical of his taste for the ironic that he wrote a biography of a famous biographer, James Boswell. Yet he returned to crime fiction in 1952 with Don Among the Dead Men, which was later filmed. Five more books followed, with the last (the very unusual Floral Tribute) appearing in 1963.
Dorothy L. Sayers admired Vulliamy’s writing, and praised it during her time as a reviewer for the Sunday Times: “he handles his characters like a ‘real’ novelist and the English language like a ‘real’ writer—merits which are still, unhappily, rarer than they should be in the ranks of the murder specialists”. However, the versatility that was one of his strengths perhaps also accounts for the fact that his crime fiction slipped out of sight for many years; this particular book has not, so far as I know, been reprinted in Britain for more than eighty years. He never created a series detective—although one wonders if in Scarweather, he was auditioning Ellingham for such a role—and it is usually more difficult to establish a following as a crime novelist if each book one writes is a “stand-alone”. It is not, therefore, entirely surprising that his mysteries have long been overlooked. But it is high time that twenty-first century readers had a chance to enjoy Vulliamy’s idiosyncratic plotting and sly wit. His work deserves its place in the British Library’s series of Crime Classics.
Martin Edwards
www.martinedwardsbooks.com
Part I
We Go to Aberleven
Chapter I
1
My friend Ellingham has persuaded me to reveal to the public the astounding features of the Reisby case. As a study in criminal aberration it is, he tells me, of particular interest, while in singularity of horror and in perversity of ingenious method it is probably unique.
Although I agree with Ellingham, I may as well say that I present the case with extraordinary reluctance. It would be far better if Ellingham, who actually unravelled the mystery, told the story in his own businesslike way. I have little skill as a narrator, and I particularly dislike the autobiographical form which I am obliged to adopt in telling my own version of this fantastic tragedy. I do not mean to say that I object to playing the traditional and hon
ourable part of a Watson. That has nothing to do with it. My difficulties or diffidences are of a personal kind. In telling the story I shall have to speak with unflinching candour about people who are closely bound to me by ties of affection, and about events which it is now painful to recall. I must also refer continually to my own thoughts and actions in order to give the reader a steady and coherent narrative. To many, such an opportunity for self-display would be delightful; to me, it is an ordeal of the most hateful description. But there are circumstances in which personal reluctance ought to be overcome. There can be no doubt that the case of Tolgen Reisby is not merely an astounding adventure in the ordinary sense of the words, it is also a most valuable contribution to the study of the criminal mind—that is, to a definite aspect of mental disorder.
As a barrister, I am profoundly interested in the psychology of the criminal, though I am fully aware that a knowledge of psychology is not considered desirable by those who devise or administer the laws of England. It was against this particular weakness of mine that Ellingham chiefly directed his attack. It was my duty, he said, to place on record a case both exciting and instructive. He also pointed out (rather cruelly, I thought) that I had plenty of spare time which I could occupy both pleasantly and profitably in writing a book.
There were other people to be consulted—one especially—and they ultimately gave their consent, with the obvious proviso that I should carefully disguise the names of persons, towns and localities. All this led me in the direction of an autobiographical novel, and in this form the story is to be told.
I have given this brief explanation in order that my readers may see why it is that I have decided to publish the case, and why I am obliged to appear so prominently in the narrative. I can at least promise that I shall not forget my function as a mere narrator, and that I shall keep within the limits which are prescribed by the function.
2
My own name is John Farringdale. My father, who owned a considerable property in Dorset, died when I was a boy; and I had the good fortune to be his only son. After her husband’s death, my mother bought a house in Richmond. She had never cared for the trifling amenities and the primitive amusements of provincial life, and she was anxious to be nearer the more intellectual society with which she was already acquainted in London.
At the time of this move I was being educated at a famous public school. My sister Vivian, three years older, lived at Richmond with my mother. In 1911 I went to Cambridge. I had already chosen the profession of the law.
But I am not writing the history of my life, and I need give no further immediate particulars concerning myself. It is enough to say that in 1913, when the action of this drama commences, I was twenty-one years old.
During the period of my University life I had two great friends. One of these was a man about fifteen years older than myself, a reader in chemistry who lived with his wife and young son at Cambridge. He was a man whose career had been extremely brilliant, and his exploits in colloidal chemistry were familiar to scientific men in every part of the world. But the charm and originality of his character made him, in my eyes, far more remarkable than his exploits in science. I have never known any man with a wider range of interest and of real attainment. He had a faculty for acquiring rapidly, not the rudiments alone, but the most reliable and intimate knowledge of any science or study. He was a gifted musician, and his playing of the klavierwerke of Bach, though academic, placed him in the professional category. Yet with all his learning and accomplishment he was a jocular, simple fellow, not incapable of being sardonic, though totally incapable of being ill-natured, petulant or conceited. Unlike most intellectual men, he had been an oarsman and athlete of unusual promise, and his dedication to a life of study was a matter of deep regret and of great astonishment to the President of the C.U.B.C. It was, I think, this diffusion of interest and rapidity of acquirement which prevented him from rising at once to the highest eminence; but I can truly say that I know of no man who got more out of life or who was more generally attractive. I shall endeavour to display certain aspects of his intricate though delightful character in the course of my book. His name was Frederick Ellingham.
My other great friend at this time was a young cousin of mine—Eric Tallard Foster. He was two years older than I was, we had been at school together, and he left Oxford in 1912 in order to study medicine at the London Hospital. His parents had died in India, victims of the plague at Amminadar, and he had been brought up by an elderly spinster aunt, Miss Muriel Tallard Foster, at Highgate.
Eric spent a good deal of his time in our house at Richmond, where my kind mother was always glad to see him. We used to amuse ourselves in a variety of ways, some of them more commendable than others; our subjects of debate extended from neoplatonism to the tunes in the latest musical comedy. Eric was interested in archaeological matters, particularly in the bones of ancient men, and he tried hard to work up my own enthusiasm.
On a Sunday afternoon we would go splashing about in the dreary gravel-pits of the Thames valley, looking for bits of chipped flint or the relics of a mammoth, and Eric always hoped that he would see the skull of a real Neanderthal man protruding from the side of the pit. This important skull, if we ever did find it, would go down to posterity under the label of homo Fosteri, or perhaps homo Tallardensis; for it is well known that every fossil cranium represents a new variety of the race.
I was perhaps fonder of Eric, at that time, than I was of anyone else. Our circumstances were not dissimilar. We were both of us the only sons of our parents; we had both lost our fathers, and both had been reared from boyhood by solitary women. We had a common interest in family affairs. Each of us had made up his mind to work zealously at his profession; and as these professions were different, there could be no question of rivalry.
No doubt Eric resembled me in many ways, but I cannot believe that I was ever so persistently romantic or so ready to fall in love. Perhaps I lacked his advantages in this respect, for I am of a bleak, saturnine appearance, while poor Eric was undeniably handsome. He was tall, fair, muscular, with a fine easy generosity in his manner and approach. Women of all ages found him attractive, and they might very well have made a mess of his life if he had not been fortified by a reflective mind and a chivalrous nature.
I think he had been falling in and out of love since he was about eleven years old. Serious affairs, too; no flighty flirtation or passing caprice. Fortunately he was too simple, too serious, and probably too poor, for the minx or the mere philandering female, and so he was preserved from real trouble. Moreover, besides being deeply and incurably romantic, he was easily shocked, he was a sentimental Puritan, a youth who kept in view the uncompromising lineaments of an ideal mistress.
From his childhood Eric had been extremely fond of my sister Vivian; but she, poor girl! Had the ominous Farringdale countenance and was therefore disqualified in the competition of ideals.
His love of archaeology was the means of introducing Eric to a very singular man, Professor Tolgen Reisby, who occupied with much honour the Pattervale Chair of Genetics in the University of Northport. They were both members of the London Archaeological Union, and Reisby had been greatly impressed by a paper which Eric had written on the Menite cemetery of Tarkhan.
Reisby was a man of prodigious intellect and of wide scientific knowledge. Although chiefly known for his great work on the Morphology of Hybrid Variants, he was a notable exponent of new methods in archaeological research in 1912, and had published a lengthy account of his investigations in the north of England. He was also an experimental chemist of considerable repute, though his results had only been made known in the form of occasional essays.
A happy coincidence of opinion on the subject of the pottery of the Alsatian tumuli led to a real friendship between the eminent Professor and the young enthusiast. Nothing is more likely to win the affection of a learned man than agreement upon a solemn trifle.
In
the summer vacation of 1913 my cousin was invited by Professor Reisby to visit him at his home in the north of England. Eric accepted the invitation with delight, he spent three weeks with the Professor and his family at Aberleven (a fishing hamlet on the coast), and he returned with a glowing account of his host and hostess. Reisby, it appeared, had married late in life a woman who was thirty years younger than himself. If his obituary notice may be taken as reliable evidence, Professor Reisby was fifty-four in October 1913; his wife, on the 18th of February in the same year, celebrated her twenty-third birthday. They had one child, a daughter.
I will admit that when I heard all this (knowing Eric) I felt a little uneasy. Eric was undoubtedly one of the most honourable of young men, but he was also one of the most susceptible. And even at the age of twenty-one I was wise enough to see the possibility of danger in the Professor’s household. The very fact of Mrs. Reisby being—as she clearly was—an extremely nice woman actually increased the danger, for she could not otherwise have become one of Eric’s ideals. When I heard that she was not only extremely nice but also extremely pretty I felt even more apprehensive.
But Eric’s talk, after his visit, was mainly about Professor Reisby himself. I saw, not without satisfaction, that he was evidently on terms of respectful familiarity with this eminent and remarkable man.
Tolgen Reisby, according to Eric, had amiable eccentricities, but they were of a lovable or diverting nature. “He’s a great big fellow with a red beard, like a Norseman,” said Eric, “but you should see how gentle and playful he is with his wife and child. He spends a lot of his time studying, or at work in his laboratory, and sometimes he goes walking off by himself and is away for hours. They have a boat in the creek below the house, and he and I used to go fishing… I’m going there again. I think they are the most charming and most interesting people in the world. Probably they are coming up to London this autumn, and you will meet them, of course.”