The Case of the Gilded Fly (19 page)

‘Well,' continued the Inspector, ‘I'll just take a look round the other room, and then I'll be off. And I don't mind telling you,' he added kindly, ‘that
my
view, despite certain troublesome points, is that the thing was suicide. That,' he emphasized, ‘is the official view.' He appeared to be hinting darkly at the perniciousness of unofficial goings-on. Then, with a final affable nod, he left, Spencer and his apparatus trailing in his wake.

Nigel turned to Helen. She was a little pale. They looked at one another in silence for a moment; then Helen said ‘Darling' and put her mouth to his.

What could possess you, in a critic age,

Such blooming hopes to forfeit on a stage?

And was it worth this wondrous waste of pains

To publish to the world your lack of brains?

Churchill

It must have been at least ten minutes later that they heard the rattle at the window. Nigel went over, opened it, and looked out. Gervase Fen, Professor of English Language and Literature in the University of Oxford, stood below, gazing mournfully at a grating through which the pencil he had thrown at the window had vanished beyond recovery. When he looked up, however, he appeared to be in his customary high spirits. He was muffled in an enormous raincoat and had on an extraordinary hat.

‘Can I come up?' he shouted. ‘Praise be to God, I've missed the Inspector and his minions. I must see Helen. I don't particularly want to see you,' he added as an afterthought.

Nigel waved an invitation, banging his head on the window-frame, and withdrew, swearing frightfully. Fen disposed of the stairs four at a time, and was in the room by the time he turned round again.

‘You are old, Father William,' said Nigel, put out of countenance at this athletic display.

‘All morning,' said Fen without preliminary, ‘I've been going about in the wake of the good Inspector, comforting those he has affrighted, soothing those he has annoyed, and generally collecting a great deal of valueless and irrelevant facts.' He paused, resigning himself to the exercise of politeness, and beamed at Helen. ‘Well, how are you, my dear? I'll spare you the condolences, because I know they aren't necessary.'

‘Bless you, Gervase,' said Helen lightly.

‘How long have you two known one another?' said Nigel suspiciously. ‘And do you want to be left alone?'

‘It's a
Wahlverwandtschaft,'
said Fen. ‘Isn't it, Helen?'

‘Stop this abominable flirting,' said Nigel with asperity, ‘and tell us how the patient is this morning.'

‘Oh, much the same as last night.' Fen collapsed heavily into a chair. ‘One or two new things have come to light, though. It's a very complicated affair: wheels within wheels.' He nodded mysteriously.

‘I suppose you realize,' said Helen, ‘that I don't know the first thing about how my sister was murdered? Suppose one of you tells me the details, here and now.'

Fen suddenly became grave. ‘You do it, Nigel,' he said. ‘It may help me to get things a little clearer in my own mind.'

So Nigel went over those puzzling, delusive, improbable facts once again. No light came to him in the telling; and when he had finished he asked Fen for additions and comments. Fen paused for a moment and lit a cigarette; holding it between nicotine-stained fingers, he gestured vaguely.

‘You know, of course,' he said, ‘that the bullet did come from the gun we found? And that the ring is the property of Miss Sheila McGaw, who very carelessly left it lying about in a dressing-room?'

‘Yes, yes,' said Nigel impatiently. ‘We know all that.'

‘ “Mr Puff, as he knows all this, why does Sir Walter go on telling him?” ' Fen quoted irrepressibly. ‘However: the point,' he reminded himself sternly. ‘One or two other things may and should come up during the course of the day. You want comments. As regards the general set-up, contemplate this: suppose that each of the suspects in turn has committed the murder, and then consider which of the others, having seen that person commit the murder, would be inclined to protect him – or her.'

‘Do you mean two people are in it?' asked Nigel.

‘Oh Lord, no: nothing so dismal; all the unaided work of one person. But do as I say: think.'

‘Well,' said Nigel slowly, ‘I suppose Rachel would protect Robert, and
vice versa;
Jean would protect Donald – I don't know about the other way round, but I'm inclined to think he would protect her as well; Nicholas might protect anyone, for the sheer devilment of the thing, but most likely Donald; and this McGaw woman – I don't know about her.'

‘Ah!' Fen seemed highly pleased. ‘And now, the crime itself. Concentrate on the following points:

‘(1) the fact that the wireless was playing the
Meistersinger
overture, followed by
Heldenleben
– a rich Teutonic concoction;

‘(2) the fact that there was a smell of gunpowder smoke in the room when we entered it;

‘(3) the fact that nothing was touched for at least a quarter of an hour after we came in.

‘If that doesn't give it you,' he concluded, comfortable in the assurance that it would do nothing of the sort, ‘then you're an imbecile.'

Nigel rapidly suppressed several unworthy desires, and contented himself with asking: ‘You really know who did it?'

‘I know,' said Fen sombrely. ‘One way and another I've interviewed all the possibles now. But there's still a lot that wants confirming, fixing, strengthening. It was an ill-contrived crime – a rotten piece of work.' He turned suddenly to Helen. ‘What would your reaction be if I were to let the person who killed your sister get away with it? It's a real problem, remember, not an argumentation; as far as I can see, the police don't seem likely to tumble to the real facts – not the way they're going about it now, anyway.'

Helen thought for a moment. Then she said frankly: ‘It would depend who it was. If it were Robert or – yes, or Rachel, or even Sheila or Jean, I don't think I should mind. If it were Donald or Nick – it sounds beastly, I know, but – well, yes, I would.'

Fen nodded his head gravely. ‘Very sensible,' he said. ‘Personally, I should be in favour of giving a flimsy chance all round – a warning to get out, say. In this wilderness of ration-books and registration and identity cards, if anyone could get away, they'd really deserve it. All this is highly immoral, you know,' he said quizzically, unjustly involving Helen and Nigel in the accusation, ‘and I'm not sure that I shouldn't in law be an accessory after the fact. But your sister, Helen – forgive me – was, it appears, rather a pest in a number of ways.'

They sat in silence for a few moments. Then Nigel said: ‘But what about the ring, Gervase? The Gilded Fly?'

‘Gilded Fly, indeed: you old poetizer,' said Fen. ‘That, I
admit, puzzles me still. We shall have to dig that up with hard labour. And now' – he looked at his watch – ‘we – and you, Helen – had better get off to this rehearsal, if we're not going to be late. In the doubtless immortal words of Mr Herbert Morrison, we must go to it. We should be able – Oh my dear paws! Oh my fur and whiskers!' He broke off, staring blankly in front of him. ‘Lord,
Lord
, what a fool I've been! And yes – it fits – absolutely characteristic. Heaven grant Gideon Fell never becomes privy to my lunacy; I should never hear the end of it.' He gaped.

Nigel regarded him coldly. ‘Stop this exhibition,' he said, ‘which you know perfectly well is unintelligible to everyone but yourself, and let's go. It's five minutes to eleven. We shall have to run all the way as it is.'

With some difficulty they removed him from the room.

On the way to the theatre he recovered something of his high spirits, which manifested themselves in the normal way by an incessant stream of complaint. He complained impartially and at length about the weather, the progress of the war, food, and the University in general. On this latter subject he subsequently particularized to a libellous extent. As he talked he strode along at a rate which by the time they had reached the theatre had reduced Helen and Nigel to a state of mild exhaustion.

The reaction of the company at large to the news of Yseut's death appeared to be salutory; a sense of relief was plainly discernible, and no one seemed to be at all concerned at the reflection that a murderer might be in their midst. The general feeling was, in fact, that this could hardly be considered as murder, and was on a par with such actions as the drowning of superfluous kittens, the painless putting-away of aged dogs, and the necessary destruction of vermin. The rehearsal began well and went on well. Nigel sat and watched it from the front, while Fen prowled about getting in everyone's way, exhibiting an exaggerated interest in the proceedings, and asking idiotic questions.

Shortly after twelve Robert called a halt, and the majority of the company retreated to the ‘Aston Arms', Fen and Nigel following with Helen. The ‘Aston Arms' was none of your
brightly-painted, up-and-coming hostelries. It exuded so strongly an atmosphere of the past that drinkers living were spiritually cowed and jostled by the shades of drinkers long dead and gone. Every suggestion of improvement or modernization was grimly resisted by the management, which consisted of a large, ancient man manifestly disintegrating at a great rate into his component chemical elements. An elaborate ritual, the abandonment of which was anathema, presided over the ordering and consumption of drinks; a strict social hierarchy was maintained; irregular visitors were unwelcome, and regular customers, particularly the acting profession, were treated with a mild pervasive contempt. The only salient feature of the small, rather shabby public bar was an enormous nude parrot, which had early contracted the habit of pecking out all its feathers, and which now, with the exception of the ruff and head, which it could not reach, presented a dismal and ludicrous grey, scraggy body to the gaze. It had been given to the proprietor of the ‘Aston Arms' in a fit of lachrymose gratitude by a visiting German professor, and was in the habit of reciting a lyric of Heine, which feat, however, it could only be induced to perform by the careful repetition of two lines from the beginning of Mallarmeé's
L'Apres-midi d'un Faune
, this appearing to start some appropriate train of suggestion in its mind. This aptitude aroused the deepest suspicions in such soldiery as frequented the ‘Aston Arms', equalled only by their suspicion of those of their countrymen who were capable of similar or greater achievements in the same direction; it was employed by the proprietor to warn customers of the imminence of closing-time, and the raucous tones of
Ich weiss nicht, was soll es be-deuten, dass ich so traurig bin
were the normal prelude to more forcible means of ejection.

In the small room Fen's entrance was overwhelming; even the sibyl behind the bar appeared to be cowed by his exuberant presence. He ordered drinks in a profane and iconoclastic manner.

‘When I was a proctor,' he said, ‘I used to have great difficulties – about pubs, I mean. The people I found in pubs were invariably my most brilliant pupils, and I wanted nothing better than to stop and drink and talk books with them. So I
used only to come when I simply had to, and then march through, with a stern expression, taking no notice of anyone. When the junior proctor was going out, I discovered his itinerary and rang up my best friends and warned them. All very illegal, I fear.' He sighed.

‘Dear me,' said Nigel mockingly. ‘What a
picaro
character you are, to be sure!' Fen gazed at him reproachfully.

Sheila McGaw and Nicholas were standing in a corner together, Nicholas making uncertain attempts to ruffle the parrot's poll.

‘If it tries to bite you,' said Sheila helpfully, ‘don't take your hand away; that only encourages it.' Nicholas suffered some moments of acute agony, then pulled his finger away and regarded it ruefully. ‘That,' he remarked briefly, ‘is a fallacy.'

Fen went across to them. ‘Ah, Barclay,' he said. ‘A brief moment of conversation, if I may.' He smiled affably at Sheila, who drifted away to join Robert and Rachel at the bar. An uneasy silence fell, through which Donald Fellowes, in another part of the room, could clearly be heard discoursing on the technique of orchestration. ‘Dear me,' said Fen. ‘How quiet everything is. I don't want our conversation to be as public as all this.' He apostrophized the parrot in French: it became launched on
Die Lorelei;
general conversation hurriedly reasserted itself in self-defence. Through the hubbub Fen said:

‘Has the Inspector been to visit you this morning?'

‘No,' said Nicholas. ‘Thanks be to God. No doubt he found my evidence so lucid last night that he had nothing further to ask. How are things going?'

Fen looked at him curiously for a moment. ‘As well as can be expected,' he said. ‘You're perfectly certain that neither you nor Donald left that room at any time last night?'

‘ –
Die schönste Jungfrau sitzet dort oben wunderbar,'
the parrot was saying in heartfelt tones; it paused and breathed stertorously before proceeding with the next couplet.

Nicholas threw up his arms in mock surrender. ‘Maestro, I am discovered,' he said. ‘How did you guess?'

‘I guessed,' answered Fen uncommunicatively. ‘It was, I suppose, Donald who went out – immediately after doing the black-out?'

Nicholas sat up sharply. ‘How do you know that?'

‘A conjecture merely. I believe that when he went to the windows he saw someone he knew, and went out to speak to them. There are certain things which can't be explained in any other way.'

‘As it happens, you're right. He and the other person chattered just round the bend in the passage which leads through to the courtyard. I don't suppose that fool of a workman noticed anything. Anyway, Donald was back in under two minutes. There's no reason to suppose either of them had anything to do with the murder.'