Death on the Cherwell (British Library Crime Classics)

by Mavis Doriel Hay

  “I’m sorry; I’ve got—something on my mind. Yes, I usually walk to Persephone through the Parks; not alongside the river, except after crossing the footbridge. Miss Watson; yes, I coached her at three; three or four. Miss Watson was one of those, you say, who found the body. Horrible business! I don’t remember seeing anyone on the river—is that what you mean?”

  “You crossed the bridge at what time, Mr. Mort?”

  “I’m never very good at time; I believe I’m renowed for unpunctuality, as Miss Watson may have told you. But I don’t think I was late last Friday, so I suppose I must have crossed the bridge at about five or ten to three.”

  “And you saw no craft on the river? You knew Miss Denning, I suppose? You would recognize her if you saw her on the river?”

  “Yes, I knew her; I have known her for many years. I should probably have noticed if I had seen her—or anyone else—on the river on that afternoon.”

  “Do you remember meeting anyone in the Parks or on the bridge?”

  “That I cannot remember; one usually sees a few people in the Parks.”

  “You don’t remember a young man with a terrier?”

  Denis Mort looked round rather quickly at Braydon. “A young man with a terrier? Not an uncommon sight; one of our men here keeps a terrier, and I have certainly met him at times exercising the dog in the Parks. But I don’t remember seeing him on that particular afternoon. I’m sorry; I’m apt to be preoccupied when I’m walking and I don’t notice things much.”

  “Any apology is due from me, for cross-questioning you in this tiresome way,” Braydon replied. “There’s one more point. Did you take the footpath through Ferry House garden, the disputed right-of-way?”

  “One naturally takes that path, approaching Persephone College from this side. I don’t suppose I have ever been along the road that rounds the end of Ferry House grounds.”

  “And you returned the same way?”

  “Oh, yes; I came straight home after the coaching.”

  “So that you crossed Ferry House garden again soon after four?”

  “I don’t think I kept Miss Watson for many minutes after we heard the hour strike, but she will be more certain of the time than I.”

  “Did you meet anyone, or see any sign of Ezekiel Lond or his old gardener, or anyone else, on your way back?”

  “I cannot remember anyone. It was dusk, and I remember thinking that the deserted house and garden were rather eerie.”

  “You heard nothing unusual?”

  “Nothing.”

  Braydon pondered. “Can one see the ruined boathouse and the river from that path across the garden?”

  “I think not. There is a line of yew trees set closely together along that side of the path, you may remember. And the garden slopes away to the river. The boathouse is hidden from every point of view, I should imagine, but I know it from having passed it on the river.”

  “I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Mort, for answering my questions, and interrupting your own work, I suspect. You knew Miss Denning, so you also knew her niece, Miss Exe, I suppose?”

  “I know of her, but have seen her very seldom; she was never in Oxford, as you probably know.”

  “That’s another point that puzzles me,” Braydon said. “Do you happen to know if there is any truth in the idea that Miss Denning purposely kept her niece away from Oxford, and what her reason may have been?”

  “She thought it better, I believe, that Pamela should go to Cambridge. Science is her line, and Cambridge is popularly supposed to be pre-eminent in that branch of knowledge,” replied Mr. Mort dryly. “I really do not think you will find that anything concerning Pamela has any bearing on this affair, and I hope you will not think it necessary to worry the girl. The situation is hard enough for her as it is.”

  “It is my earnest wish to avoid worrying Miss Exe,” Braydon replied emphatically. “The trouble is that she seems to be Miss Denning’s only near relative and therefore the only person with possible knowledge of Miss Denning’s private affairs, which may hold some clue to this case.”

  “Miss Denning always struck me as the type of woman who would keep her secrets, if she had any, to herself.”

  “Can you tell me this, Mr. Mort—since you say you have known Miss Denning for many years—was there something about her niece’s parentage which she was anxious to conceal?”

  Denis Mort shook his head at the fire. “Can it do any good to stir up old trouble? Pamela is the daughter of Miss Denning’s sister, who died soon after the child’s birth. I knew Pamela’s mother.”

  “And the father? This man Exe?”

  “He is dead. Miss Denning disapproved of her younger sister’s marriage to him. But he is dead long ago; what can it have to do with what has happened now? Pamela never even saw him. She knows less than nothing about him.”

  Braydon rose and crossed to the window. “I’m sorry to have to behave like an inquisitive brute, but the pursuit of clues often leads into murky by-ways. Is that the river that one sees over there, beyond your garden?”

  “Not the main river; only a backwater which leads nowhere. It’s the boundary of my garden on that side.”

  “And you have a boathouse there?”

  “Yes; I keep a punt, but I don’t often take it out in winter.”

  “Miss Denning was an all-weather canoeist, I gather?”

  “Yes; I suppose she was a familiar figure on the upper Char. She had great ideas about fresh air and exercise.”

  “Did she always come up this way? With some definite object in view, perhaps?”

  “Probably to avoid the trouble of taking the canoe over the rollers, which she would have to do if she went downstream.”

  “Quite so. Well, I must pursue my inquiries elsewhere.”

  He reached the door.

  “Inspector Braydon!” said Denis Mort suddenly.

  Braydon turned round to face the man who stood in the middle of the room, swinging himself slightly from one foot to the other.

  “Inspector Braydon! If you should at some later stage of your inquiries have reason to believe that any more detailed knowledge of the life story of Pamela Exe would throw any light on the case, I ask you to come to me for information. I knew Pamela’s mother—well; I have, therefore, a special interest in Pamela, although I have seen her so seldom. I feel sure that she herself cannot help you. If you have any definite question in your mind now, I will do my best to answer it.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Mort. I will remember.”

  Braydon returned to the quad, and in spite of the rain, which was falling rather less copiously, he wandered round it with the air of a sightseer, examining attentively the curious carving over the archway of the passage he had come through and over the great entrance to the hall staircase. He also noticed the names on the board at the foot of each staircase and was lucky in lighting on Matthew Coniston’s name before he had gone far.

  He would have said himself that he was visiting Coniston with an open mind. He had in his pocket the penknife which Sally and Nina had found in Persephone College garden. This had already been tested for fingerprints and, as he had expected, this test had disclosed nothing in the nature of evidence. All the prints on it were smeared beyond the possibility of identification. If Coniston did not appear to realize that he had lost it, Braydon was not sure whether he would produce it. Coniston was not yet labelled as a “suspect” in connection with the murder of Miss Denning. Braydon was merely seeking information and above all he wanted to get some impression of this man who had apparently been engaged in some questionable business with the bursar’s canoe after her death, and had taken so little trouble to cover his tracks. In this frame of mind Braydon climbed the narrow stone stairs to Matthew Coniston’s rooms.

  Although the sitting-room had windows on two sides, the spaces between the stone mullions did not let in much light, and the panes were now dimmed by the rain streaming down them. The room was low and gloomy and seemed full of heavy, dark fur
niture. Braydon had to look all round it before he distinguished the owner embedded in the long, low arm-chair, with his back to one window and his feet to the fire.

  Coniston showed no surprise when Braydon explained who he was, but indicated an arm-chair opposite to his own and regarded the detective quizzically, with an air of faint amusement.

  “Have you brought my penknife?” he inquired.

  Braydon did not show that he was taken aback. “I think I have.” He pulled it out of his pocket, still wrapped in a handkerchief, and held it out. “That it?”

  “Fingerprints carefully preserved, I see!” Coniston remar-ked in a tone that seemed to approve of this precaution. “Yes, that’s mine. I should like to have it back. It’s an old friend and I didn’t like losing it. In fact, I went back for it; that’s why I was nearly late in getting in to college, as you probably know.”

  “And that’s why you left Nippy in the water?”

  “Exactly. I hadn’t a moment to spare. I wanted to leave it as late as possible, so that there would be less likelihood of anyone being about, and I timed it nicely, but didn’t allow for the time spent in going back. That’s why the cleverest criminals are often caught, I expect. They time things too neatly and don’t allow the necessary margin for accidents. Isn’t that so?”

  “I have known men who were a bit too clever in that way,” Braydon agreed. “At the moment I am collecting information about the death of Miss Denning. Do you care to tell me exactly why you went to Persephone College garden by canoe on Friday night?”

  “Am I not to be warned that anything I say will be taken down and may be used as evidence?” inquired Coniston reproachfully.

  “That is not necessary at this stage,” Braydon informed him. “I do not at present propose to arrest you; I am, as I said, merely seeking information.”

  Coniston nodded. “I’m afraid I hadn’t got the procedure quite clear. Ever since I knew the knife had been found I have been expecting to be asked to explain. It’s a queer story. You may find it rather hard to believe.”

  “My powers of belief are used to a good deal of strain,” Braydon assured him.

  “Draga Czernak of Persephone College can confirm the story, but she’s a good deal wrought up over this business and regards her own part in it far too seriously, so if you frighten her I don’t quite know what she’ll tell you, and I rather hope you won’t find it necessary to ask her.

  “I don’t know if you’ve seen her,” Coniston continued slowly, when Braydon made no comment. “I understand that one of the local men has. She’s Montenegrin; of an old family; brought up on legends and supernatural tales, and therefore, though highly civilized on the surface and educated and all that, intensely superstitious. She had some row with Miss Denning over a domestic matter and considered that she had been gravely insulted; lesser insults than that, she said, had given rise to blood feuds in her own country.”

  “When did this insult occur?” Braydon asked.

  “On Friday morning. Draga’s mind immediately flew to the idea of revenge. She cut a lekker on Friday morning; she was much too wrought up to attend to it, in any case. In the garden she found one of those wooden labels used for marking where you’ve planted things, and on part of this she scratched one of her family curses. She explained to me later that it wasn’t the worst sort of curse; it wasn’t supposed to kill the victim, but only to make her hair fall out or her teeth decay or something of that kind. Draga’s first idea was to conceal this in Miss Denning’s room, under the mattress perhaps. To ensure its efficacy you should fix it to some object which the victim will come into contact with. Draga hung about the room, but there were maids going in and out and then Miss Denning herself came in sight, so Draga cleared off and tried to think of some other plan. Her mind naturally jumped to the canoe; everyone knew of Miss Denning’s habit of going out alone in it, and it’s a thing that Draga finds particularly hard to understand. I’m not sure that she doesn’t consider it evidence of magical practises on Miss Denning’s part.

  “Draga strayed into the garden, and there was the canoe chained up in the boathouse—the same one where her body was found later. It’s not a proper boathouse, you know; that’s a little farther down the river. This is merely an iron roof over the water, beneath which boats are moored.

  “Draga managed to fix her curse securely to the canoe, just under the gunwale, with some sticking plaster. It was a small thing and it was unlikely that anyone would ever notice it. Having done that, she felt better. I’m not sure if she really expected that the curse would have any effect, but at least she felt that she had retaliated. However, thinking it over later, she remembered that water—particularly running water—has special magical properties, and she wondered whether these might render the curse invalid. After lunch on Friday she rushed to the college library and studied The Golden Bough, searching for enlightenment. She doesn’t seem to have found anything that helped much, but while she was there she saw Miss Denning cross the lawn with her paddles, obviously going out in her canoe.

  “Draga got into a panic. She began to wonder whether the curse was perhaps a stronger one than she had intended; it occurred to her that this is not Yugo-Slavia, and that if there were any mishap the English might misunderstand her intentions.”

  “So she expected a mishap?” Braydon asked.

  “No; I don’t think she really did. I don’t quite know what she expected, but she imagined all sorts of things. She’s not used to water and a canoe has always struck her as a dangerous thing. Anyway, she worked herself into a frenzy and came rushing up here to tell me what she had done.”

  “At what time would that be?”

  “I expected that question and have been trying to remember, but I can’t be sure. I was writing an essay, and I certainly hadn’t done much of it when she turned up. I think she probably arrived about half-past two. I gather that she didn’t start immediately she saw Miss Denning go out; she sat for some time thinking things over. She did mention that she hadn’t seen any sign of Miss Denning when she crossed the river. If I’m right, that would be about twenty past two.”

  “I suppose it’s about a quarter of an hour’s quick walking from Persephone College here, through the Parks?” Braydon suggested.

  “About that. Well, I soothed Draga and told her that a canoe was really quite safe and nothing serious was likely to happen to Miss Denning. I encouraged the idea that the waters of the Cherwell might neutralize the curse and even that a Montenegrin curse might not work in England. I tried to explain away the insult and generally to get Draga into a more reasonable frame of mind. I was a bit worried myself, because women students are not supposed to visit men’s rooms unchaperoned, but Draga would not let a little thing like that stand in her way.”

  “You know Miss Czernak pretty well, I gather?”

  “I’ve known her since we were children, and I feel a bit responsible for her. Her father asked me to keep an eye on her, and she doesn’t settle too easily into the academic life. She naturally comes to me for advice; for one thing, I can speak her own language.

  “To continue the story, she calmed down a bit and I offered to take her out to tea, but she insisted on going back to college. I think she partly wanted to assure herself that Miss Denning really did return safe and sound. The next thing I heard from her was that Miss Denning had been found drowned. Draga rang me up that evening before dinner and, speaking her own language, told me that some students had found the body and that she herself had been questioned. She was in a great state, and although of course they hadn’t asked her about curses, she thought they suspected her of something. She had heard that the police had taken the canoe up out of the water; she didn’t think they had found the curse yet, not having mentioned it, but they would surely examine the canoe by daylight and were bound to find it and would know it was her work because it was in Serbian. I must go that evening and get it off the canoe.

  “Of course I tried to persuade her that if it were found she h
ad only to explain matters; I offered to go and help her over that. But she wouldn’t hear of it. She couldn’t believe that anyone who confessed to having put a curse on a person who was soon afterwards found drowned, would not be considered guilty of something pretty awful. So at last I agreed to go down by river late that night and remove the curse, if it were still there. I thought it would probably have been washed away by the water. It seemed pretty safe, so long as the police weren’t hanging about the boathouse. I made sure of that and I located the curse all right, with a torch. The sticking plaster was amazingly tight and I had to get out my knife to scrape it off. You’ll probably find the mark. Then I was disturbed, apparently by some of the students, and had to do a quick get-away and dropped the knife. As I’ve told you, I went back for it, but apparently they’d picked it up.”

  “Didn’t it occur to you that, rather than embark on this escapade, which would have been difficult to explain if the police had been about, it would have been far safer, for Miss Czernak as well as for yourself, to leave the curse alone, so that she would be forced to give an explanation when it was found?”

  “I had decided,” Coniston explained, “that if there was any sign of police on guard, I would do that. But the coast seemed clear, and I didn’t think my light could be seen from the college. I think those girls must have been snooping around the garden.”

  “One of the most curious stories I have ever heard,” said Braydon noncommittally.

  “I was afraid it would strike you like that,” Coniston remarked.

  “Do you happen to know at what time Miss Czernak left your rooms to return to college?” Braydon inquired.

  “There again I’m not a bit certain. I hadn’t any reason to note the time. I’ve heard the story of that man Bayes, and I gather he didn’t see Draga. I expect she crossed the bridge later. It may have been half-past three when she left. I don’t know when or where the drowning is supposed to have happened, but I’m perfectly certain, from the way Draga talked on the telephone, that she then knew nothing more of it than she had gathered from the man who questioned her and a few words she had with the girls who found the body. She wouldn’t attempt to do anything to Miss Denning, apart from the physical impossibility of any such thing. Draga was already rather appalled at what she felt she had done, in the way of the curse, and if Miss Denning had got home safely I’m not sure that Draga mightn’t have removed the thing.”