The Case of the Gilded Fly (29 page)

Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust,

Like diamonds, we are cut with our own dust.

Webster

The journey from Oxford to Didcot (and thence to Paddington) involves difficulties of a different kind from those experienced in travelling in the inverse direction. The train, once it gets started at all, moves at a uniform if unspectacular pace. The problem is to know when it is going to start. Nicholas always insisted that the first train to leave in the morning was deliberately made ten minutes late, that this made the next train even later and that the process went on cumulatively throughout the day. At a certain stage in the day, however, he averred, the train behind caught up with the one in front – the 12.35 left at 1.10 and the 1.10 at 1.35, so that at the end of the day there were probably several trains which never ran at all. Be that as it may, it is certain that if you reached the station in time for your train you had to wait at least half an hour, whereas if you relied – as you reasonably might – on its being even ten minutes late, it invariably left on time and you missed it. It was this which led Nicholas to insist that the blind god of Chance wore the uniform of the G.W.R.

The six people who travelled up during the week of 19–26 October 1940 were, however, little affected by this difficulty. One way and another they were all too happy to care.

Nicholas, who was seen off by his blonde at the station, was pleased at the melodramatic conclusion of the case; also, he thought it had enlarged his conception of certain Shakespearean characters. Goneril, for example, should always be played by a young woman with red hair.

‘Fen is a clever devil,' he said grudgingly to the blonde, after they had discussed the case
ad nauseam
, ‘despite the fact that he considers me a fascist.'

‘Aren't you a fascist?' said the blonde in apparent surprise.

‘Certainly not. I'm an earnest supporter of this war; that's why I'm going back to town.'

‘What are you going to do when you get there?'

‘Find a war job. Not, heaven help me, in a factory with odious machines and odious jazzes blaring away half the day from mechanical contrivances, but something civilized and useful.'

The train came in. He climbed into a first-class compartment and leaned out of the window. The reluctance of most trains to start, he reflected, makes the pleonasm of one's carefully prepared parting phrases rather tedious. He said:

‘There's no need for you to wait now,' to which the blonde replied:

‘I'm not going to wait. I'm coming with you. Look out of the way.' She climbed in, and Nicholas gazed at her severely.

‘Why,' he asked, ‘this sudden decision?'

‘Sooner or later I intend to marry you, for the purposes described in the Order of the Solemnization of Holy Matrimony. I'm sorry to be so pushing, but I'm really rather fond of you, and you're such an ass that you'd never succeed in getting married on your own initiative.'

‘Oh, dear,' said Nicholas. ‘I must re-read
Much Ado
. My situation becomes more Benedickian every moment.' Then he grinned. ‘But do you know,' he added, ‘I think I should find it rather pleasant.' The train moved out towards London.

Fen and Sir Richard travelled up together. Fen had practically forgotten about the case already, though if tackled on the subject he would have strenuously denied it. His interest in what was going on around him was so intense that it really precluded any very prolonged recollection; he was a man who lived almost entirely in the present. At the moment he was engaged in a strenuous dissertation on the merits of Wyndham Lewis, and at intervals trying to dissuade Sir Richard, with well-calculated rudenesses, from writing the critical and appreciative volume on Robert Warner's work which he contemplated. He was as happy as a schoolboy on a half-holiday, and commented
in penetrating whispers and with increasing offensiveness on the physical appearance and probable vices of the other persons in the compartment.

Helen and Nigel, married four days previously, were more or less oblivious to everything except each other. They had spent their all-too-brief honeymoon cycling in the countryside round Oxford, and now Nigel was returning to his work and Helen was going to begin rehearsals with the Eminent Actor.

‘Good-bye, Oxford!' said Helen, looking out of the window as the train moved away from the station; then, turning to Nigel: ‘You know, I'm sorry to be leaving.'

Nigel nodded. ‘Oxford is a wearing place,' he said. ‘The idle, free-and-easy, unconventional life is too stern a test of character for me. I always loathe it at the time. And yet – I can never resist the temptation to go back.'

She took his hand. ‘We'll go back one day and have a little private requiem for the dead. Not for Robert, because – I don't think he needs it.'

They were silent for a while, thinking of many things. Then Helen said more lightly:

‘I think it was sensible of Sheila to get another play into rehearsal straight away. And she did it well, too. Did you see the Inspector and his wife, two rows in front of us?'

‘Yes, good heavens. She looks exactly like Hedy Lamarr. What a capture! “White as the sun, fair as the lily.” An odd comparison. Is the sun white?'

‘Don't be dismal, Nigel,' said Helen practically. ‘I can't understand,' she added, returning to her copy of
Cymbeline
, ‘why a man of “so fair an outward and such stuff within” should get drunk and make such a silly bet in the first place.'

‘By the way, did you go and say good-bye to Gervase?'

‘Yes, of course I did. We talked about gardens and food and the state of Christ's church militant on earth. He had on his extraordinary hat.'

‘There's been too much Shakespeare in this case already,' said Fen gloomily.

He and Nigel had met in the bar during the first interval of a
performance of
King Lear
, and Nigel, tortured by the recollections of a problem still unsolved, had taken the opportunity to ask him about the ring – the Gilded Fly.

‘Too much Shakespeare,' Fen repeated, as though fascinated with the phrase. ‘I'm preparing a new anthology “Awful lines from Shakespeare”. “Alas, poor Gloster? Lost he his other eye?” will have pride of place.'

‘The ring,' Nigel persisted. Fen drank deeply; he appeared unwilling to be reminded of the subject.

‘Purely a baroque flourish on the main structure,' he said eventually. ‘A little cynical personal touch. I didn't recognize the reference until I happened to mention the Gilded Fly in the same breath with Mr Morrison's slogan. It was partly, I think, an ironic salute to Yseut's main interest in life, and partly an intimation of “measure for measure”. By sex she lived; by sex, or because of sex, she died – a poetic retribution. The ring just happened to be a handy symbol. Few murderers can resist decorating.'

‘But what is the reference?' Nigel asked.

‘These people have cut the play about so badly,' said Fen, ‘that one doesn't know
where
it will turn up. But if I remember rightly, it's in Act IV, scene 4.'

The second bell rang. Gervase Fen finished his drink with reluctance.

‘I can't understand,' he said dismally as they moved towards the door, ‘why they allow foreign actors to play in Shakespeare. One can't make out a word they're saying half the time …'

Edmund Crispin (1921–1978) was the pseudonym of Robert Bruce Montgomery (usually credited as Bruce Montgomery), an English crime writer and composer. Montgomery wrote nine detective novels and two collections of short stories under the pseudonym Edmund Crispin (taken from a character in Michael Innes's Hamlet, Revenge!). The stories feature Oxford don Gervase Fen, who is a Professor of English at the university and a fellow of St Christopher's College, a fictional institution that Crispin locates next to St John's College. Fen is an eccentric, sometimes absent-minded, character reportedly based on the Oxford professor W. E. Moore. The whodunit novels have complex plots and fantastic, somewhat unbelievable solutions, including examples of the locked room mystery. They are written in a humorous, literary and sometimes farcical style and contain frequent references to English literature, poetry, and music. They are also among the few mystery novels to break the fourth wall occasionally and speak directly to the audience.

Discover books by Edmund Crispin published by Bloomsbury Reader at
www.bloomsbury.com/EdmundCrispin

Frequent Hearses
Glimpses of the Moon
Beware of the Trains
Fen Country

^a
If the reader cares to try this experiment for himself, Fen's assertion will be found to be correct. – E.C.

^b
Nigel Blake's account was a shortened version of that given in
chapters 2
-
4
. Nothing was omitted and nothing added. – E.C.

^c
See page 71. 194

For copyright reasons, any images not belonging to the original author have been removed from this book. The text has not been changed, and may still contain references to missing images.

This electronic edition published in 2014 by Bloomsbury Reader

Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

Copyright © 1944 Edmund Crispin

All rights reserved You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The moral right of the author is asserted.

eISBN: 9781448214242

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