The Body in the Beck

by Joanna Cannan

  ‘Very well, sir,’ said Byles, a chinless and fearful young man, who, raised by a widowed mother, admired Price particularly for his refinement.

  When Byles had gone, Price sat down at the writing table. He was distracted at first by his reflection in the glass surface: a gentlemanly face, he thought, noting the sharp nose, thin lips, sleek scanty hair receding from the narrow forehead; no grossness, not a coarse feature — discerning persons would guess a higher-grade civil servant. Sir Ronald Price, he thought, and smiled condescendingly and was glad that in the bad old days, when you had to pay for your own false teeth, he had not grudged his twenty guineas. Then, with an effort, he withdrew his eyes from the tabletop and, taking out his penknife, neatly opened the first envelope from the pile of Hawkins’s letters.

  This was an advertisement from a chimney-sweep. The next was a receipted bill from a wine-merchant. Then came a pair of theatre tickets from Keith Prowse, a card fixing a dentist’s appointment, a confirmation of the booking of a single room in an hotel at Brighton, and a letter in an illiterate hand, signed A.B. and lacking any heading, which stated: Letter from Capt B. to her ladyship v. pashonate £10 or near ofer. Only tells us what we know, thought Price, and, disgusting how the so-called aristocracy goes on, he thought and opened an envelope containing five pound notes folded in a postcard on which From J. D. This is really and truly all I can spare was printed in block capitals. Price put the letters in his despatch case, left the flat and, after a few words with Mrs Simcox, set off across the square to the garage to which she had directed him. The manager, a coarse, sweaty fellow, agreed that Hawkins had rented one of his lock-ups. ‘But ’e’s awy naow. Bin gawn a week or more, though I seems to remember ’im sying ’e’d be back on the Monday.’

  Price said, ‘My good man, haven’t you seen in the papers that your client has been murdered?’

  ‘Wot client?’

  ‘Mr Hawkins, of course. Of whom else were we speaking? His body was found by a climber in a stream in the Lake District, and I am a Detective Inspector from Scotland Yard, in charge of the investigations.’

  ‘Murdered? Christ Almighty! I missed that bit. Copped anyone?’

  Price said, ‘I’m asking the questions. Now, Parker, cast your mind back. You say that Hawkins spoke to you before he left: did he pass any remark indicative of his destination?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Did he tell you where he was going?’

  Parker scratched in his greasy and tousled hair. ‘’E took eight gallons. ‘Fill ’er right up,’ ’e sez. No, ’e didn’t mention where ’e was going. ’E wasn’t one to shoot ’is mouf. Surly sorta bloke ’e was.’

  ‘That is unfortunate. Now, Parker, I should like to examine the lock-up. I presume you have a master-key? Hawkins’s keys were not found on him.’

  The garage was bare. Price made a note of the registration numbers of the car, which he could find out, anyway, and in no pleasant humour was driven to Paddington in good time to ring up Byles, who had learned nothing of interest at the bank, and to catch a train with a restaurant car to Oxford. When travelling he seldom glanced out of the window; either he took the opportunity to peruse his Digest or The New Statesman and Nation and put himself abreast with current affairs, or else he sat with his hand over his eyes relaxing and at the same time repelling any advances which might come from his fellow travellers. In restaurant cars he naturally looked at his plate. He missed therefore the dazzle of an April noon in the Thames Valley, the lily-green of the breaking beeches, the green shot with gold of the water-meadows, the lift into distance and blue and loneliness of the Oxfordshire wolds; he saw plaice and pork and potatoes and cabbage and apple-sauce and date pudding and the grey coat and waistcoat of his vis-à-vis. Arrived at Oxford Station, he took a taxi to St Crispin’s College and after a moment’s hesitation, not knowing which way to turn in the bowels of the gatehouse, perceived and presented himself at the porter’s lodge.

  The porter, absorbed in a large volume which lay open on a worm-eaten desk, paid no attention to him, even when he had advertised his presence by a tentative cough, so Price said, ‘Good afternoon,’ and then, taking his time about it, the porter closed his book, rose and said, ‘Can I help you, sir?’ He was a fat man with the air of an old family servant, assured, indulgent and calm.

  ‘I am a Detective Inspector from Scotland Yard — Price is the name — and in the course of the investigation on which I am engaged it has become necessary for me to make a few routine enquiries here.’

  The porter said, ‘Your case, I take it, is the murder in Berrinsdale?’

  ‘What do you know about it?’ snapped Price.

  ‘Only what I read in The Times this morning.’

  ‘Then you know that the body was found by a gentleman on the staff here?’

  The porter winced. ‘By a Fellow of this college,’ he corrected. ‘Yes,’ he added with an indulgent smile. ‘Mr Worthington is a great climber.’

  ‘So I understand. But I have to check his movements, as I do those of every other person connected with the case. When did he leave Oxford?’

  ‘Mr Worthington went down on April the sixth.’

  ‘Down where?’

  ‘Down from the University, Inspector. It was the end of term.’

  ‘Where did he go?’

  ‘To Berrinsdale, I imagine. His letters were to be fowarded there.’

  ‘But according to my information; he did not reach Berrinsdale till Friday the twelfth.’

  ‘Mr Worthington went by car, Inspector. Like many gentlemen accustomed to University life, he does not care for the hurry and bustle of the world today. I dare say he spent several nights stopping at hotels and with friends en route. That is mere conjecture, and I am sure that if you put your question to Mr Worthington you would receive a satisfactory reply.’

  Price said, ‘Possibly,’ and then in a more conciliatory tone, ‘Now Mr —’

  ‘Starr,’ supplied the porter. ‘Adolphus Starr.’

  ‘Mr Starr, murder has been done, and I am sure that you, like every responsible citizen, will wish to assist the police in any way you can. There is a factor in this case which has not yet been made public, but I feel I can rely on your discretion. The murdered man was a blackmailer.’

  ‘Then I can only say, Inspector, that he deserved what he got.’

  Price said, ‘From a thinking man, that strikes me as an unconsidered judgment. Blackmail is an unpleasant business, but the train of events is set in motion by those who deviate from the accepted moral code; an honest man or woman has nothing to hide. Murder is a crime in a class by itself —’

  Starr interrupted him. ‘I disagree with you there. Firstly . . .’

  Price held up his hand. ‘I’ve no time to spare for an ethical discussion. My point is this: you, in your capacity of porter or gatekeeper or whatever you call it, are in a position to know about the goings-on here . . .’

  ‘Goings-on, Inspector? There are no goings-on among the Fellows of St Crispin’s College. We may have a little trouble from time to time with the young gentlemen, but the Fellows — no.’

  Price said impatiently, ‘They’re human, aren’t they? Worthington himself, well, I dare say he’s not one of the high-ups, but he doesn’t strike one as a particularly superior man. And he’s a bachelor. Have you seen any signs of . . . well, women or anything that would make him a likely subject for blackmail?’

  ‘No, Inspector. I have not,’ said Starr distastefully.

  ‘Do you wait on him?’

  ‘Dear me, no.’

  ‘Who does?’

  ‘His scout, Beestraw. But I don’t recommend you to question him, Inspector. A most unreliable man who would be under notice but for the shortage of labour in the town.’

  ‘Will you send for him, please?’

  ‘I can’t do that,’ said the porter. ‘He is not in College at the moment. It’s vacation now, you know.’

  ‘Where does he live?’

  ‘At quite a
distance,’ said Starr discouragingly.

  But Price was not to be side-tracked, and a few minutes later he was travelling in a taxi towards Headington Hill. He was favourably impressed by Beestraw, a small, sharp-looking man, infinitely superior, Price thought, to the obese and sycophantic Starr. Of the Fellows of St Crispin’s College, Beestraw ejaculated, ‘Oh them! Living corpses some on ’em; there’s one on my staircase as ’as to be seen to be believed. Oh, Worthington! Nasty piece of work, ’e is, just ripe to be blackmailed. You’re telling me ’e’s got a lady friend! That old ’umbug, Starr, knows it as well as I do — she passes ’im going in and out again, doesn’t she, though, of course, she needn’t — all the Fellows ’as a key to the garden door. And that reminds me . . . I’ve got one on ’em . . . picked it up in the quad and was keeping it till I found out which of the old trouts it belongs to — we ’as to be careful, you know. So if you want a dekko at Worthington’s rooms, Inspector, I can get you into College without further reference to Starr, and I can get you into the rooms because Dr Muswell’s staying up for the vacation and ’e’s on the same staircase as Mr Worthington and ’is key fits both doors. I arsks because in Mr Worthington’s rooms there’s a fine classy photo of ’is girl-friend which I dare say you’d like to see.’

  ‘I should,’ said Price, hesitating, ‘but . . . well, it’s all rather unorthodox. I haven’t gone quite far enough to justify a search warrant, and I much prefer to do things in an open way.’

  ‘Starr wouldn’t let you in without a warrant — proper old Tory ’e is. You come with me, Inspector. No one will be the wiser and you can trust me to keep me mouth closed.’

  In fawning on Price, Percy Beestraw’s motives were various: it was as well to keep in with the police; it pleased him to trick the porter, whom he detested, especially in winter, when Beestraw must hurry up and down stone staircases, through draughty cloisters and across cold quadrangles while Starr sat in his snug lodge beside a bright fire and a singing kettle; he loved to witness the fall of any man better or braver or more successful than himself; he hated Francis, who had been overheard when he impatiently told the Bursar that if he hadn’t wanted St Crispin’s to be bumped by Cat’s he should have kept a sharper eye on the meat ration. This cap had fitted, and since the Torpids the Beestraw family had been obliged to exist on the meagre diet to which they were legally entitled.

  When Price found himself in the Fellows’ garden, observed the velvet lawns, the cedars, the daffodils, the Georgian façade of the Fellows’ buildings, all soigné and serene in the afternoon sunshine, he angrily muttered, ‘They do themselves well here.’

  Beestraw said, ‘You’re telling me. It oughta be a kiddies’ playground.’

  Price said, ‘Well, I don’t know about that — kiddies are destructive. But it is grossly unfair that it should be reserved for the use of a handful of already privileged persons.’ Price was unaware and Beestraw ignored the fact that two-thirds of the Fellows of St Crispin’s had first opened their eyes in homes as poor or poorer than those in which Price and Beestraw had been raised.

  Beestraw led the way to a staircase, at the foot of which a board announced Professor Evans, Dr Muswell, Mr Worthington. He hurried up and up the staircase and was followed more slowly by Price, whose thighs were still stiff from his walks in Berrinsdale. When Price entered Francis’s rooms, the eager scout already had a large framed photograph in his hand, but Price waved him away and stood for a moment looking round the room. It was large and airy, with two long windows looking on the garden; the windows were hung with crimson damask which also covered the cushions on the window-seats. The panelled walls were for the most part hidden by tall mahogany bookcases; over the beautiful period fireplace hung the dim portrait in oils which Francis, in the face of considerable odds, always maintained was of Adam de Marisco. A large sofa and two armchairs covered in brown corduroy were grouped companionably round the fireplace; behind the sofa a mahogany writing table was stacked with papers and notebooks closely written in Francis’s small academic hand. The deep colours of the Persian carpet, the crimson hangings, the blue and red and gold of the few pieces of Crown Derby, the gilding on the leather binding of the books, the soberly shining mahogany combined to produce an effect of warmth and dark and richness unpleasing to Price, who liked the pastel shades, the light and lack of detail of contemporary taste in furnishing.

  Beestraw, who had replaced the rejected photograph on the writing-table, now hurried across the room to a bow-fronted mahogany corner cupboard. ‘Booze!’ he observed, opening the doors to reveal a collection of wine-glasses, decanters and bottles. Price nodded and took up the photograph. It showed Harriet in profile at her most spiritual. Except for her long-lashed eyes, her features were too small and too regular to be striking and the photographer had erased the light powdering of freckles on her nose which salted the sweetness of her face with the charm of the gamine. ‘Nice-looking piece,’ commented Beestraw. ‘But fine feathers make fine birds. There’s plenty of girls in our class as would knock ’er for six if they ’ad the money to dress as she does.’

  Annoyed at being classed with Beestraw, Price remained silent as he extracted the photograph from its leather frame and searched in a drawer for a large envelope. He said, ‘Now, Beestraw, this will be posted to you at your home address tomorrow night at the latest, and you will only have to slip it back into the frame and replace it where it usually stands. Curious thing,’ he muttered, opening one drawer after another, ‘none of these drawers are locked. Stationery . . . proofs . . . publishers’ contracts . . . maps . . . photographs — oh, mountains. More mountains . . . notebooks . . . tch, all about mountains. Stubs of old cheque-books . . . that’s better . . . I’ll borrow those.’

  The drawers of the writing-table yielded nothing more of interest, nor did the cupboard in the base of one of the bookcases. ‘Like to see the bedder now?’ asked Beestraw and ushered Price into a much smaller room, overlooking a quadrangle. This room was rather poorly furnished with an iron bed, a Victorian wash-handstand, on which Price noticed an enormous sponge but a complete absence of the patent medicines which he himself deemed necessary to existence, a chest of drawers, used as a dressing-table, and a shelved wardrobe occupied by a great quantity of corduroy and grey flannel trousers and half a dozen hacking coats, but, apart from dinner dress, only two suits. The chest-of-drawers contained a modest collection of blue silk underwear, wine-coloured pyjamas and Shetland pullovers. The few pairs of shoes in a Victorian bootrack were hand-sewn, and their condition indicated an appreciation of leather. The largest electric stove that Price had ever seen obscured the fireplace; the pictures consisted of a water-colour representing a long low rambling house with a church tower behind it, an enlarged snapshot of a grinning Sherpa and a telescopic photograph of Mount Everest shining above foothills and forests dark in the dawn.

  Price said, ‘Where are the sanitary arrangements?’

  ‘Oh, they’re across the quad,’ said Beestraw.

  ‘Good Heavens!’ said Price.

  ‘Antediluvian, ain’t it? I’d sooner ’ave me council ’ouse.’

  ‘I should think so,’ said Price. ‘Well, now, Beestraw, I’ve finished here. I’m trusting you as a responsible citizen to keep your mouth shut, and I must thank you for your useful co-operation.’

  ‘I’m always glad,’ Beestraw said piously, ‘to ’elp the pleece.’

  They left the rooms and at the turn of the stairs Beestraw breathed, ‘Gawd! There’s Muswell,’ and Price was horrified to see a curious figure awaiting them on the first-floor landing. The head was adorned by white curls of unusual length; a white beard reached the waist; the dress was a black frock-coat, green with age, and uncreased trousers of a jaunty sponge-bag check. On the feet there were white spats over black boots. A pair of small horn-rimmed spectacles had slipped down the little snub nose; in the pink face blazed a pair of forget-me-not blue eyes.

  ‘What’s this? What’s this?’ asked Muswell as Price and Be
estraw drew nearer.

  ‘It’s only me, sir,’ said Beestraw. ‘I’ve bin upstairs startin’ a bit of spring-cleanin’ for Mr Worthington.’

  ‘Nonsense. Nonsense. Tommy-rot. What d’you mean by saying it’s only you? There’s this other fellow with you. Who is it? Who is it?’

  ‘’Im? Oh, well, ’e’s a decorator,’ began Beestraw, but his voice died away as Price broke in with, ‘Everything is quite in order, Dr Muswell. I am a Detective Inspector from Scotland Yard investigating the case of murder in Berrinsdale.’

  ‘Berrinsdale? Berrinsdale? This isn’t Berrinsdale. This, sir, is the College of St Crispin in the University of Oxford and as Senior Fellow in the absence of the Warden I must ask you what the devil you think you are doing here?’

  ‘I’ve told you, Doctor . . .’

  ‘Don’t call me Doctor.’

  ‘I beg your pardon. I understood I was addressing Dr Muswell.’

  ‘So you are. But I don’t wish to be called Doctor, d’you hear? I don’t go round bringing fools into the world or chopping people up and sewing them together again. That’s not the point. The point is: what were you doing in Worthington’s room just now? If you’ve a search warrant, I’d like to see it, d’you hear?’

  ‘Yes, I hear. I’m not deaf,’ said Price nettled.

  ‘No impudence now,’ said Dr Muswell.

  ‘Well, Doctor — Mister Muswell, it was purely a routine matter — hardly worth applying for a search warrant, as the rooms were more or less open, anyway.’

  ‘Open? They’re not open. You dug out that scoundrel, Beestraw, and he let you in. Beestraw, you’ve had it,’ said Muswell unexpectedly. ‘You’re fired.’

  ‘You can’t fire me,’ said Beestraw. ‘It’s the Bursar I takes my notice from.’

  ‘I’ll telephone the Bursar,’ said Muswell. ‘He’s only in Athens and he can cable back to you. You’re an abominable traitor, Beestraw. As for you, sir, I shall complain to young Grayling, one of your Assistant Commissioners and a commoner of this College from nineteen hundred and eleven till nineteen hundred and fourteen.’