Swing Low, Swing Death

by R. T. Campbell

  “Oi, man,” the deep voice growled, “where were ye dragged up? The man’s a Chief Inspector an’ ye’d better treat him as such.”

  The Doctor was not crestfallen. He beamed at the Bishop in a friendly fashion.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said, in a voice that did nothing of the sort, “I am as you no doubt know a man of considerable, I may even say very considerable commitments, and, naturally, I can be expected to be exactly—ah—au fait with the ranks of the constabulary. I hope you will forgive my—ah—pardonable error?”

  The Chief Inspector nodded briefly. It did not matter to him whether Dr. Bellamy addressed him as constable or as commissioner. He didn’t care. All he wanted was the facts of the case and he did not mind where he got them.

  “Well,” the Doctor’s words grated like a hacksaw blade on a piece of tungsten, “well, having got things, as I might say, on a reasonable basis, I feel that we may now make some progress. As I was about to remark, the humble policeman cannot be expected to know anything about the finer manifestations of such minds as he finds himself, thus fortuitously, thrust among. This Museum, a remarkable monument to the work of our time, owes its existence to the generosity and farsightedness of our hostess, Miss Emily Wallenstein,” he bowed towards her and she flushed, “and we were met together to-day to declare the place ready for the reception of those enquiring minds and, let me say, eyes which have, for so long, been denied the right to gaze their fill upon the aesthetic productions of their time. In the preparation of the outward and visible essence of this Museum, Miss Wallenstein, I feel she would agree with me, can say that she has not been without her willing helpers. These people who gave of their best and did not count the cost,” I felt he was making an appeal for a war-memorial, “included the—ah—late Mr. Ambleside. Mr. Ambleside, I feel I should tell you, was a gentleman of varied attainments. A collector of reputable works in his own right, he also, as a gentleman who lacked private means, chose to deal in such works as a pleasing way of living. Only those of us who knew him well,” the Doctor sighed theatrically, “could have any idea of the pangs he suffered in parting with a supreme work of art. Anyone who bought, let us say, a blue period Picasso from Mr. Ambleside immediately became aware that they were buying more than a mere picture—they were buying a part of a man’s soul. By the words ‘mere picture,’ Chief Inspector, I hope you will not consider that I am being insulting to the Landseers and Frank Dicksee’s which adorn the walls of your, no doubt charming, suburban villa.”

  The Chief Inspector said nothing. I chortled quietly to myself, for I had rarely seen a man open his mouth so wide to cram both feet into it. I knew that the Bishop lived in a dignified eighteenth century house in Highgate and that one of the chief joys of his life was his collection of really first-class English water-colours. His dining room was hung with one of the finest selections of the two Cozenses, father and son, and of Francis Towne which I had ever seen, while a magnificent Girtin, above the fire in his study, was flanked by a Turner and a Cotman. On the stairs hung half a dozen sketches by Constable and Gainsborough. Completely unaware of his stupidity, the supreme Doctor blundered on.

  “Of course,” he said patronisingly, “I cannot expect you to know the names of modern painters, but I will have to inform you about one of these. This is an Italian, by the name of Giorgio de Chirico. So far as I and those who think like me are concerned, this man died in 1918. I believe,” his voice carried no conviction, “that the gross body of the man, his let us say earthbound portion, still exists in some part of Italy. But that is of no importance to us. As a painter he died in 1918. But, and it is a large and important BUT, before that date this man Chirico managed to paint a certain number of pictures which are of inestimable importance to the history of the modern movement. No one, least of all myself, can attempt to gauge the importance of this mere handful of paintings. However, I think I can venture to say that no one, not even the great Pablo Picasso himself,” his voice took on the hushed quality of one who enters a large and solemn cathedral, “has had greater or more beneficial influence.”

  I realised then that the Doctor had made up his mind that he was dealing with a parcel of ill-educated children. I thought I would say nothing about the fact that I had hanging on my bedroom wall in the Professor’s house a pen drawing of a railway engine in a lonely and quite limitless square and that this drawing was signed, clearly and correctly, “G. de Chirico 1915.” To mention that, I decided, would not only be tactless but it would rob me of a lot of fun. It was rather nice being treated as if one was a kindergarten child.

  “The importance,” the Doctor continued, “of these drawings and paintings cannot be over-estimated. But there have been rumours that all the paintings of the early period which we see cannot be strictly claimed as being genuine. In fact it is said that Chirico, finding during the nineteen twenties that there was something seriously amiss about his artistic vision, accepted the innocent suggestion of certain surrealist friends and painted copies of his works, in the effort to recapture the original innocence of his eye. This, you will no doubt say, seems harmless enough, but when I say that Chirico signed these paintings with the dates of the earlier ones, you will realise that deceit entered into their creation and that, even as copies, they became valueless to those of us who appreciate the true values of these things.”

  “Why,” said the Chief Inspector, sleepily and guilelessly, “they were all painted by the same man, weren’t they?”

  “That,” Dr. Cornelius Bellamy was pompous, “is something which I cannot begin to explain to you now, my dear Ser—I mean, Chief Inspector. The appreciation of the finer points of art is above your comprehension. You will merely have to accept my word for the fact that these copies are inferior to the originals. I cannot do more than tell you that as a fact. I could, of course, suggest that you read a certain number of books on the subject of modern art—my own contributions to the subject are not, I am told, altogether negligible,” he coughed with a mock modesty, “but I fear, my dear sir, that you would need to learn more than comes from books before you could appreciate the difference between a real Chirico of the right period and one of the copies. As I was saying, these copies exist and a Mr. Francis Varley, whom you will no doubt encounter, started a ridiculous story that certain of the—ah—pictures in Mr. Ambleside’s possession were not consistent with their dates. This idea naturally interested me, and I looked at the pictures, with which I was already familiar, again. I found that Mr. Varley was wrong in his contentions, which were characteristically rash and hasty, and that Mr. Ambleside’s Chiricos were certainly all that they professed to be. However, I feel that a man of the, let us say sensitiveness of Mr. Ambleside might have been more deeply wounded by Mr. Varley’s suggestion than any of his friends realised, and that this doubt, preying upon his mind, might have urged him to commit the awful deed of felo de se.”

  “Uhhuh,” the old man leaned forward, “he hanged himself an’ then he covered his corpse up wi’ a decent bit o’ cloth, eh? Think again, son, think again. It won’t hurt yer brains to make ’em do some work, son.”

  Dr. Bellamy jumped as if he had been stuck with a long and very sharp pin. He looked at the old man as if he was something which had found its way out of a middle-aged cheese.

  “Oh, yes,” he said and his voice was superior, “I presume, my friend, that you have a right to speak about brains?”

  I leaned back in comfort. I had an idea that I had a ringside seat for a really good fight. The old man snorted. He finished the drink in the glass in his hand. He looked at the glass and for one glorious moment I thought he was going to throw it at Dr. Bellamy. He laid it down.

  “Yah, you baboon,” he howled, at the startled Doctor, “Ye talk a whale o’ a lot o’ nonsense an’ ye expect us to swallow it because we don’t know yer jargon. An’ then, to finish off yer tall story ye start to spin us a yarn about somethin’ that couldn’t ha’ happened. I may tell ye, son, that I’ll believe yer story about Ambl
eside committing suicide when I ha’ a seat to watch ye hangin’ yerself an’ coverin’ yer corpse up after ye’re dead.”

  Unfortunately for my hopes, the Doctor recovered his composure and turned towards the Chief Inspector with a look which enquired whether the presence of the Professor was really necessary. The Bishop ignored this look. If he had thought of throwing the old man out of the room I wonder how he would have proceeded. Professor Stubbs would not have gone too easily.

  “Ah, Chief Inspector,” the tone was offended, “I hope you do not consider it wise to reject my carefully pondered suggestions with the—ah—light flippancy shewn by your friend here, who appears to me to be a hasty character, who has no ideas of how to work out a logical sequence of events. I will allow that he is correct when he says that it would have been impossible for Mr. Ambleside to—ah—drape the cloth over his body, but he was hasty. He did not wait until I had finished relating my theories. As you know doubt know, among artists we sometimes come across the neurotic personality who is not so well fitted to face the world as, let us say, you and I are. Well, I would like to suggest that one of these characters encountered the body of Mr. Ambleside hanging from the picture-hook, and, with an instinct common to such undeveloped persons, performed a primitive burial of it. Naturally he could not dig a hole in the polished floor and so, seeing the cloth, he placed it in position. After all, my dear sir, you must agree that the burial instinct is one of the strongest instincts of humanity. You have just to watch a band of children who have found a dead sparrow to realise this. You should always, my dear Chief Inspector, remember these primitive instincts when you are dealing with any case the least out of the ordinary. Now, my dear sir, are you satisfied with my suggestion that the unfortunate Julian Ambleside became obsessed with the idea that his pictures were not genuine and that this obsession, preying on his mind drove him to kill himself?”

  “No, sir,” the Bishop opened his eyes the fraction of an inch as he spoke, “I can’t say I’m satisfied. You see, sir,” his voice was very gentle and quiet, “the police surgeon looked at Mr. Ambleside and on removing the ropes he found signs which indicated that Mr. Ambleside had been strangled before he was hanged.”

  Dr. Cornelius Bellamy looked startled. He pressed the tips of his fingers together so hard that the backs of his hands whitened.

  “Nonsense, my dear sir,” he said, “I can’t believe that. I do not believe it. I refuse to believe it.”

  “Sorry, sir,” said the Bishop, “but it is so, and nothing we can say can make it any different.”

  The Professor, beside me, was enjoying himself. He looked at the discomforted Dr. Bellamy as if he had been a plant suffering from some fungoid disease.

  “Hum,” he said, “Ho, so yer idea ain’t worth a penny, Doctor Ho-hum. Ye may be a bright boy in yer own line, but ye’d better leave the rest to those who understand it. Ho, ha, you go suck a Dali.”

  Dr. Cornelius Bellamy glared at him. I myself would have glared if someone had told me to go and eat a Michelangelo. My sympathies were all with the Doctor, ass though he might be.

  “My dear sir,” the Doctor’s tone was so lofty that he lost my little sympathy; it was like a beggar asking alms from a passer-by while he was on top of the Eiffel Tower, “My very dear sir, permit me to correct you. I am doing my duty as a citizen in striving to help the unfortunate police in the execution of their duty. I know these people, and our friend the Chief Inspector does not, therefore I do my best to supply him with reasons for this—ah—regrettable happening, which seem to be in keeping with the characters and personalities of the people involved therein. I do not know, my dear sir, who are you, nor can I say that I am very interested in the question of your identity. My remarks were addressed to this policeman and not to you, so I would ask you to restrain your ill-considered levity and to keep your unbecoming flippancy to yourself.”

  He might just as well have addressed his remarks to a bulldozer. The old man appeared to be vastly amused and pleased by them.

  “That’s the stuff, Clarence,” he said vulgarly, “You shew ’em where they get off.”

  The Doctor gave vent to an explosion of irritation, faintly reminiscent of Miss Hotchkiss in ITMA when offered some new absurdity by Tommy Handley.

  “Thank you, Doctor,” the Chief Inspector was polite, “with regard to your suggestion that some person might have hung Mr. Ambleside after he was dead and covered him with that bit of stuff, I wonder if you could give me any hints as to who, had the circumstances been as you thought, might have done it?”

  I noticed that the Doctor’s habit of speaking in subordinate clauses seemed to have bitten the Bishop. Dr. Cornelius Bellamy seemed to become suddenly shy.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he said airily, “I am not in a position to, let us say, point the finger of suspicion at any single person. So many artists are so badly adjusted, and in this ill-adjustment lies their strength. Take,” he seemed thoughtful, “young Newsome now. There is a young man of certain gifts, minor gifts one must confess, but still of a certain facile accomplishment. Yet when you look at him from the social angle you immediately realise that he is without any conception of social responsibility. He lives in himself and for himself alone. The world is an unpleasant reality from which he does his best to divorce himself. At a guess, I would say that, finding Ambleside dead he was quite capable of arranging the body beneath the drapery. It is the sort of unpleasant practical joke which would appeal to that young man’s totally undeveloped sense of humour. He might even,” the long face became even more pensive, “have heard me declare that art should be explosive and dangerous and that people require to be shocked into either appreciation or dislike, and, pondering this in his immature mind, have considered that his action would meet with my approval. You must realise, however, that I am very far from suggesting that Douglas did this thing. I am merely arguing a hypothetical case, to shew that, all circumstances being equal, he might have done it. My approach to life, I am afraid, my dear sir, is very different from your own. I approach all human actions from the point of view of the psychologist, while you have to judge from the actions themselves, without a thought of the conflicts behind them.”

  “I know Mr. Newsome,” the Bishop said thoughtfully, “and I doubt if his character is as involved as you would suggest. He has always appeared to me to be a young man of an essentially simple though melancholic turn of mind.”

  Dr. Bellamy looked at the Chief Inspector. His long mouth fell open. “You know Newsome?” he asked incredulously, as if doubting the Chief Inspector’s right to know any one from his superior world.

  The Bishop nodded blandly. “Oh, yes,” he said comfortably, “I know him all right, and I think I can say that I know what to expect from him under most circumstances. As you say, Doctor, he is quite capable of playing a macabre joke in the worst of taste—that is the sort of thing which would appeal to him—he is, you know, a great admirer of Beddoes’s Death’s Jest Book, and like Beddoes I fear he wants to reduce Death in rank by laughing at him.”

  Dr. Bellamy looked rather put out. I could see that he did not like being lectured by the Chief Inspector. If there was any lecturing to be done, it was fore-ordained that Dr. Cornelius Bellamy should do it.

  “So,” the Bishop was smooth, “having, for the moment, removed Douglas Newsome from the ranks, who else would you consider?”

  “Well, now, let me consider,” the Doctor looked like an analyst telling a patient to relax, “of course, there are a great many maladjusted people about any concern of this sort. Take Miss Wallenstein, even—the only—if I can put it that way—beggetter of this Museum. She is a spinster who has sublimated her natural desires in other activities, and, as you may know, the repressed character of this sort breaks out at intervals. On the other hand, however, I cannot see Miss Wallenstein murdering Julian Ambleside with her bare hands. Miss Wallenstein might, in a moment of some stress, have, let us say, stabbed Ambleside, but I doubt if, even had she the strength, s
he would have hidden him in a place like that.”

  The Doctor looked around us. I could feel the Professor getting rather restive beside me. I placed one of my feet heavily on his toe and he turned to glare at me. Dr. Cornelius Bellamy was not finished.

  “Or,” he said, “you can consider Mr. Francis Varley, the professional and eternal young man, the Peter Pan of our world. His maladjustment will doubtless grow greater with every grey hair he discovers in his head. I do not know what there was between him and Ambleside, but there was something. Of course it might be some trivial affair such as an agreement on Varley’s part to write up Ambleside’s pictures in return for some consideration, but they were always conversing and that they had something between them I think you will discover by asking any of the people who have been concerned in the preparation of the Museum. I have no doubt whatsoever, I think I may say, that if sufficiently roused, Varley would have been capable of killing Ambleside and would have carried out the rest of the pantomime.”

  The Professor lit his pipe with a sudden flare of his gargantuan petrol lighter. Neither the Bishop nor I were startled, as we were conditioned to the performance, but Dr. Bellamy turned his head sharply towards the old man, his expression plainly saying that if anyone did that again while he was lecturing he would ask them to leave the room.

  The jerk of his head seemed to suggest something else to Dr. Bellamy. He chewed his lips unhappily for a moment. When he spoke his voice was slow and rather doubtful.