Fen Country (18 page)

“Just so. Well, this Groate was apparently a clerk of Curll’s. Nothing is known of him except that he was once alive and kicking. And no authenticated specimens of his handwriting remain. His letter—the one Brixham sold to Withers—consisted of petty gossip about the publishing world of his time. And its only real interest lay in a scabrous and, I should think, patently untrue anecdote about the poet Pope.

“Now, it’d be wearisome if I were to detail all the tests Snodgrass applied to this document. As you know, there are a good many these days—constitution, size, cutting, creasing and watermark of the paper; constitution of the ink, and the chemical changes brought about in it by aging; whether the writing overlays or underlays stains and mold-marks; style of calligraphy, spellings, accuracy of topical reference; provenance; and so on and so forth. What with ultra-violet and spectroscopy and all those things, the ordinary forger doesn’t have much chance.

“But Brixham wasn’t an ordinary forger. And it was only when Snodgrass came to consider the pen with which the letter had been written that he at last struck oil. For the letter had been written with a steel pen. And so far as is known, the first steel pens weren’t produced till about 1780.

“Snodgrass ought to have paused at this point, and considered. Of all the mistakes which Brixham might have made in faking such a letter, this was one of the least likely. And if Snodgrass hadn’t been so furiously intent on convicting Brixham, he must have realized that the mistake was a deliberate one.

“He didn’t realize, however. Triumphantly he confronted Brixham with the proof of his fraud. And what should Brixham do, after hearing him out, but suddenly ‘remember’ that he had in his possession an advertising handbill of the period, in which, among other things, the advertiser (one Wotton) called the public’s attention to his new steel pens, never before made, and of sovereign advantage…

“Baffled, Snodgrass returned with the handbill to the Yard.

“Once again the machinery was put into operation. And once again every test failed excepting one.

“This time it was a matter of the advertiser’s address. The paper of the handbill was watermarked 1715, and the address was given as Bear Hole Passage, Fleet Street. But reference to a historical gazetteer revealed the fact that on the accession of the Tories to power in 1714, Bear Hole Passage was renamed Walpole Lane. So if the advertiser didn’t know his own address…

“For the second time Snodgrass confronted Brixham with the proof of his forgery. And for the second time Brixham ‘happened’ to have an answer.

“On this occasion it was a letter purporting to be written by the publisher Lintot, in which reference was made in passing to the fact that the stationer Wotton, a convinced Whig, ‘doth obstinately and childishly refuse to employ the new address’—or words to that effect. In short, Wotton would seem, judging from Lintot’s letter, to have done much what Mr. Bevan would probably do if the Post Office insisted on renaming his house Winston Villa.

“I think that at this stage Snodgrass must have begun to suspect that he was being made a fool of. But by now he was too deeply involved to draw back. Again all possible tests were made. Again they all failed excepting one. That one disclosed a radical oversight, certainly: the handwriting of the Lintot letter, shaky and uneven, did not correspond at all with the handwriting of letters known to have been written by Lintot…

“But that was just what finished it, you see.”

“Finished it?” Fen was surprised. “It’s a glorious trick as far as it goes, of course. But I’ve been wondering all along how it could be artistically rounded off. How did the Lintot handwriting finish it?”

Humbleby laughed delightedly. “It finished it becruse one of the bits of gossip in the forgery that started the chain—the letter from the clerk Groate—was that the publisher Lintot had recently had a slight stroke, ‘which hath altered his hand almost beyond recognising.’

“So you see, Snodgrass couldn’t prove the Groate letter a forgery until he’d proved the Wotton handbill a forgery. And he couldn’t prove the Wotton handbill a forgery until he’d proved the Lintot letter a forgery. And he couldn’t prove the Lintot letter a forgery until he’d proved the Groate letter a forgery…”

Humbleby reached for his beer. “Withers’s check which he’d paid for the Groate letter was returned to him by Brixham. Some doubt had arisen, said Brixham in a covering letter, regarding the document’s authenticity. As to Snodgrass, he was granted extended sick-leave, and is now away on a cruise,” Humbleby shook his head. “But we’re afraid—or perhaps I should say we hope—that he’ll never be the same man again.”

It was nearly half-past two by the time Detective Inspector Humbleby arrived at The Grapes. Weaving his way across the upstairs dining-room, he slumped down in a chair beside a tall, lean man who was drinking coffee at a table by a window.

“Sorry about this,” said Humbleby. “And now that I
am
here, I’m afraid I can’t stop for more than a few minutes.” He ordered sandwiches and a pint of bitter. “You got my message all right?”

“Oh yes.” The tall man, whose name was Gervase Fen, nodded cheerfully enough as he lit a fresh cigarette. “‘Detained on official business.’ Anything interesting?”

Humbleby grunted. “In some ways. But chiefly it’s awkward. Am I to let a certain eminent professional man catch the evening plane to Rome, or am I not? That’s my problem. There isn’t really enough evidence to justify my holding him here. But then for that matter, there’s not much evidence of
any
sort, so far…

“You see it’s like this… Late yesterday afternoon there was a burial in the churchyard of St. Simeon’s, in Belgravia. At the time, the grave was only half filled in; but they did, of course, leave a fair amount of earth covering the coffin—so that when the sexton went along early this morning to finish the job, dropped his pipe out of his waistcoat pocket into the hole, clambered down to get it, and felt his foot strike wood, he decided he’d better investigate.

“Underneath the coffin he found the naked body of a man, which it’s obvious must have been dumped there—and a very good hiding-place, too—under cover of last night’s fog. The man was thin, elderly, distinguished-looking. He’d been killed by a violent blow on the back of the head. His dentures were gone, and there were no obvious identifying marks on his body. In due course he was taken to the nearest police station.

“And there, for the second time, chance took a hand. One of the sergeants, a reliable man called Redditch, recognized this corpse as someone he’d talked to in a pub near Victoria early yesterday evening.

“Redditch—a plain-clothes officer—was going off duty at the time, and had stepped in for the odd pint on his way home. The stranger was sitting alone at one of the tables, Redditch says, drinking brandy and scribbling music of some sort on a scrap of music MS paper. There was no other seat free, so Redditch settled down beside him…

“And presently they got into conversation.

“The conversation to start with was general. Redditch mentioned that he was thinking of having a fishing holiday in the West Country, and the old gentleman recommended a particular inn in Devonshire. He wrote it down for Redditch. His pockets were full of odd bits of paper, Redditch says, and he tore the top off one of these and wrote the address on the back.” Humbleby groped in his pocket. “Here’s what he wrote. It’s been tested for prints, so…”

He handed the sliver of paper across to Fen, who examined it pensively. On one side, written in pencil in a large and sloping but nonetheless educated hand, was the legend “Angler’s Rest Hotel, Yeopool, nr Barnstaple”; on the other, in the same calligraphy, a fragment which ran: “…ving…hysterical fugues…wh…”.

“A music critic?” Fen suggested, as he passed this tenuous piece of evidence back.

“We think it’s obvious he must have been some sort of musician, yes.”

“A musician, or else…” Fen hesitated. “I say, Humbleby, what was Redditch’s impression of the man? I mean, how did he size him up?”

“Well, as
cultivated,
certainly,” said Humbleby. “Cultivated, retiring, not rich but decidedly respectable, honest, dignified—and in spite of the education, a rather simple and unsophisticated mind where worldly matters were concerned. Also not, Redditch thinks, at all a practiced drinker. Which is just as well. Because but for the fact that this kindly, respectable old party was knocking back brandy without, apparently, any clear conception of what it was likely to do to him, we’d probably never have known where to begin to look for his murderer. The brandy went to his head, you see, and he became suddenly confiding. He was up from the country—Redditch had already gathered that much. Now, moved by alcohol and moral indignation, he fell abruptly to telling Redditch why.

“Some eight months previously, it seemed, the old gentleman had taken on a servant girl, a stranger to his part of the world, to help look after him. She appears to have been a pleasant straightforward creature and her employer soon became very fond of her, in what Redditch is quite sure was a genuinely paternal way. Presently, However, the signs of this girl’s pregnancy became too plain to ignore. The old gentleman wasn’t at all the sort to turn her out of his house on that account; on the contrary, as she had no relations to go to, he was quite agreeable to her having the child on his premises… But if he wasn’t angry with the girl, he was certainly angry with her seducer. The girl refused, obstinately, to name this person. But then, in bearing the child, she died—and her employer, going through her belongings after her death, found a letter which enabled him to identify the guilty party with a virtual certainty. A knight, he told Redditch: a knight, and an eminent professional man, and pretty well off: definitely not the sort of person who ought to be allowed to wriggle out of his responsibilities in the matter. Our man wrote to this knight, saying as much. He got no reply. Whereupon, full of dignified fury, he had determined to come to London to attend to the business in person.

“And this, he told Redditch in conclusion, he was now about to do. He had telephoned the guilty party on arrival, and had made an appointment to meet him in the evening at his flat, when he proposed to confront him with the incriminating letter and demand that he shoulder his liabilities… At this, Redditch felt a twinge of uneasiness, he says. Eminent professional men, with a position to keep up in the world, are not really at all likely to welcome stern old gentlemen who are resolved to bring their illegitimate babies home to roost with them However, there was nothing that Redditch could do about it, except ask the name of the man this old gentleman was going to visit; and that the old gentleman firmly declined to give. With his tale told, he asked Redditch the way to Harcutt Terrace in Westminster; said goodbye; went out into the fog; and as far as we know, was never seen alive by anyone, other than his murderer, again.”

Humbleby gulped his beer and sighed. “It’s evident, then, that Redditch’s forebodings were justified. And the situation we’re left with is that we have three suspects from Harcutt Terrace—Sir George Dyland, the banker; Sir Sydney Cockshott, the psychiatrist; and Sir Richard Pelling, the barrister—without, however, anything at all to indicate which of them is likely to be our man. They’re all of them coming along to the Yard some time this afternoon to look at the body (though if any of them identifies it I shall be very surprised indeed); and one of them—as I mentioned earlier—wants to go off subsequently to a conference in Rome. Should I let him? I don’t know. If I could just find
some
indication that one of the three was to be preferred, as a suspect, to the others…”

Fen considered; then he said: “Are you intending to give them the background? To tell them about Redditch, and all that?”

“I’m not intending to tell them a single thing,” replied Humbleby with emphasis, “until I have a very much clearer idea of where we stand.”

“M’m,” said Fen. “In that case, you know, there’s a simple little trap that you could try. Admittedly there’s only one chance in three of its working. But if it doesn’t work, I can’t see that any harm will be done, and if it does you’ll know whom to concentrate on…

“Like this: show them that scrap of paper the old gentleman gave to Redditch, and ask each of them to make a quick guess at the writer’s occupation. Ask them to make alternative guesses if you feel like it, but don’t
labor
the business too much: don’t let them brood over it for
minutes
, I mean. If you do that—”

Humbleby was saring. “But look, Gervase, it’s surely obvious what they’ll all say. What good—”

“Is it?” Fen chuckled. “Still, for old times’ sake, do try it nonetheless. And ring me at the United University as soon as you have their answers. I’ll be there all afternoon…”

In fact, the call came through at about 4:30.

“They said,” said Humbleby, who sounded annoyed, “just exactly what you’d expect them to say: namely, that the person who had written on that scrap of paper was presumably a musician or a music critic of some kind.
All
of them said that.”

“No alternative guesses?’

“None.”

“And which,’ Fen asked, “is the one who wants to go to Rome?” Humbleby told him. “Let him go, then,” said Fen.
“He
isn’t your man. Quite obviously, from what we know, your man is—”

“You see,” Fen went on, “the phrase ‘hysterical fugues,’ though it
could
be music criticism—and in the case of your old gentleman undoubtedly was—has in addition a much simpler connotation: in psychiatry and medicine, an hysterical fugue is a certain type of amnesia. That being so, your psychiatrist ought at least to have had an
alternative
guess at the writer’s occupation, if he really
was
guessing, and not speaking from knowledge. His carelessness in suggesting iust music must, I think, mean that he already
knew
the writer’s occupation. And if he already knew that, then patently he’d
recognized the handwriting…

“None of which is hanging evidence, of course: you’ll have to delve for that. But as a working hypothesis I should say it was fairly sound—wouldn’t you?”