The Moving Toyshop (18 page)

“Rabbit?” Mr. Barnaby was unenlightened.

“Yes. Look. That chap over there, with the tousled hair.”

“Ah,” said Mr. Barnaby, who could summon up no recollection of Rabbit in any context.

“I say, I hope it’s all right, you know,” said the hairy youth. “Barging in, and all that.”

“Of course,” Mr. Barnaby replied. “You’re most welcome.” 

“Delicious sherry this is.” The youth indicated his glass of madeira. Mr. Barnaby smiled beneficently at him as he moved off.

Another young man, almost as elegant as Mr. Barnaby himself, approached his host. “Adrian,” he said, “who are all these
awful people?
They’re talking about rowing.”

“My dear Charles, I know:
bumps 
and things. Like a
phrenologist…
I shall really have to sport my oak, or we shall have the whole rowing tribe in here. Look!” Mr. Barnaby squeaked, sitting up suddenly. There’s another of them coming in now.”

But a moment after he relapsed into smiles, for the newcomer was, in fact, Mr. Hoskins, who had never been known to indulge in any sport save the most ancient of them all. He elbowed his unwieldy form apologetically through the chattering groups and confronted Mr. Barnaby with a transcient smile on his melancholy face.

“My dear Anthony, how delightful to see you,” said Mr. Barnaby with pleasure. “I’m sorry there are all these frightful gymnasts about, but they simply invited themselves. What will you have to drink?”

“What is that that Charles is drinking?”

“Oh, ether and milk, or some terrible chemical affair of that sort. But you know Charles. The poor dear cannot be made to realize that the romantic decadence is over. He still writes verses about
affreuses juives
and things. How about some madeira?”

When Mr. Hoskins’s madeira had been brought: “Adrian,” he said. “Do you know anything about the local doctors?”

“Good heavens, no—you’re not
ill,
are you, Anthony?”

“No, perfectly fit. I’m trying to identify a man for Fen.”

“For Fen…? I know: someone has committed some
ghastly crime.”
Mr. Barnaby enunciated the words with relish. “But I go to a doctor in London when I’m unwell. Now, I wonder who… Of course. Gower.”

“Gower?”

“A hypochondriac Welshman, dear Anthony, in But he has lodgings in Holywell only a few yards away from here. He’s seen every doctor within
miles.
We might go to him now if you liked. I shall be
only too glad to escape from this party.”

“It’s very good of you.”

“Nonsense. I’m being quite
selfish
and egotistical. Come along, now. Finish your madeira first.”

They made their way out, Mr. Barnaby uttering unnecessary apologies and excuses as they went. The second gate of the college brought them into Holywell, and after a very short walk, during which Mr. Barnaby chattered incessantly, they came to Mr. Gower’s lodging. The bedroom in which Mr. Gower was found reclining gave evidence of hypochondria on a scale hardly conceivable since the days of Moliére. It was thronged with bottles, close-stools, medicine glasses, and throat sprays; the tightly-closed windows made it insufferably hot, and the curtains were drawn so as to admit only the minimum of light. It was, however, possible to see that Mr. Gower’s appearance was almost abnormally healthy.

“Look you, I am ill, now,” Mr. Gower remarked as they entered the room. “I am not needing visitors when I am trying to preak a fever.”

“My dear, you look too wasted,” said Mr. Barnaby. A phantom expression of pleasure appeared on Mr. Gower’s face. “I’m sure you might Pass Beyond
at any moment.
This is Mr. Hoskins, whom I’ve brought to see you.”

“We oughtn’t to be disturbing you, in your condition,” said Mr. Hoskins funereally. Mr. Gower extended a limp hand from the bedclothes for him to shake.

“My dear Teithryn, I bought you some fruit,” said Mr. Barnaby, whose capacity for improvisation was considerable, “but in a moment’s absent-mindedness, I
ate it myself.
”

“Fruit is forbidden me, look you,” said Mr. Gower. “But I thank you for your kind thought. How can a poor invalid help you, now?”

“Do you know of an Oxford doctor,” Mr. Hoskins asked, who is abnormally thin?”

“Oh, it is doctors, is it? They are all charlatans, look you. I know them all. Their accounts are pigger than their success, I assure you. I haf no illusions about these doctors. The man you speak of is one of the worst—purgation is his remedy for everything. I do not advise you to go to him.”

“What is he called?”

“His name is Havering—Dr. Havering, and he is a heart specialist. But do not take yourself to him, now. He is no good. I am tiring myself with talking, look you.”

“Of course,” said Mr. Hoskins soothingly. “We’ll leave you. Havering, was it?”

“You poor, poor thing,” said Mr. Barnaby. “You must try to sleep. I’ll tell your landlady that is to disturb you.”

“Please replace the wedges in the door when you leave,” said Mr. Gower. “When it rattles, it goes through and through my head.” He turned over in bed to indicate that the interview was now at an end and Mr. Hoskins and Mr. Barnaby departed.

“Dear Gower,” said the latter when they were in the street again. “He seems absolutely to thrive on these awful potions and philtres. But you got what you wanted, didn’t you, Anthony?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Hoskins, standing irresolute. “I think I’d better go and see this Havering man. But I want some people with me. He may turn nasty.”

“Oh, dear, how frightening,” Mr. Barnaby responded dutifully, but without much evidence of alarm. “You are
brave,
Anthony. Let me come with you.”

“All right. And we might collect some of that gang in your room.”

“Oh, must we?” Mr. Barnaby seemed disappointed. “Still, I suppose it’s
brawn
that counts in these murderous affairs. We’ll look up the man’s address in the telephone book, and then collect some others. They”ll think it’s a kind of rag, my dear. What fun. I know some quite
formidable
 men.”

For once Mr. Barnaby did not prove to be exaggerating; he did know some formidable men. They were assembled by a means peculiar to Oxford—vague promises of excitement accompanied by more definite promises of drink. Mr. Barnaby proved an excellent impresario—“like a
recruiting-officer,
 my dear Anthony, too Farquhar”—full of lurid, unlikely detail, invented at high speed. When about twelve more or less interested and intoxicated people had been got together, Mr. Hoskins addressed them collectively with dark allusions to murder and young women in distress, and they all cheered. Dr. Havering was discovered to live near the Radcliffe Infirmary in the Woodstock Road, and thither, somewhat heartened by Mr. Barnaby’s madeira, the rout proceeded to make its way. Unaware of the crisis that was approaching, Dr. Havering sat alone in his consulting-room and stared out of the window.

Fen and Cadogan made their way back to St. Christopher’s without let or hindrance. It seemed likely that the search for Cadogan had been temporarily abandoned, and it was possible that the constable whom they had informed of Mr. Rosseter’s murder had not succeeded in identifying them yet. In any case, the porter, when they reached the College, had no further intrusions to report.

“Wilkes and Sally are probably playing strip rummy by now,” said Fen, as they mounted the stairs to his room; then, more seriously: “I hope they’re all right.”

They were, though Sally showed a marked inclination to worry about her afternoon’s absence from the shop. Wilkes had found Fen’s whisky, and was more or less asleep; he was awakened, however, by the violent ringing of the telephone. Fen answered it; the voice of the Chief Constable, charged with indignation, came over the wire.

“So there you are,” it said. “What the hell do you think you’re up to? As far as I can make out, you and this madman Cadogan have witnessed a murder and just run away.”

“Ha, ha,” said Fen unsympathetically. “You should have listened to me in the first place.”

“Do you know who did it?”

“No. I should be finding out now if you weren’t wasting my time with idiotic telephone calls. Was a brief-case found near the body?”

“What do you want to know for? No, it wasn’t.”

“I thought it wouldn’t be,” said Fen placidly. “Has the news of Rosseter’s murder got about yet?”

“No.”

“Certain?”

“Of course I’m certain. they’re not releasing it till tomorrow. No one but you and this Cadogan maniac and the police know anything about it. Now, listen to me. I’m coming into town and I want to see you. Stay where you are, do you hear? You ought to be locked up—and your precious friend. I’ve had about enough. I wouldn’t put it past you to have killed this solicitor creature yourself.”

“I’ve been thinking over what you were saying about
Measure for Measure—”

“Pah,” said the Chief Constable, and rang off.

“Fire in the windlass,” Fen sang cheerfully as he replaced the receiver. “Fire down below. So fetch a bucket of water, boys, there’s f—by the way, Sally, I suppose no one came through the shop while you were hiding there?”

“Golly, no.”

“You’re absolutely sure?”

“Absolutely. I should have been scared out of my wits if anyone had.”

“Well, tell us what’s been going on,” said Wilkes testily. “Not going to keep it to yourself, are you? Heh,
Detective?”

“Mr. Rosseter,” said Fen, regarding Wilkes with a jaundiced eye, “has received the due reward of his deeds. We know something of what went on in that shop, but not enough to tell yet who killed Miss Tardy. Rosseter intended to, but didn’t. The others had some plan of intimidating her into signing away the money. We”ve met the owner of the toyshop—as nasty a creature as you could hope to find.”

“Mr. Hoskins has gone off to look for the doctor,” said Sally.

“Yes. Why did Spode leave?”

“Dunno. I expect he had an engagement or something. He just gulped down a cup of tea and went.”

“Nothing else happened—no visitors or phone calls?”

An undergrad left an essay for you. I’ve been reading it. It’s called”—Sally puckered up her attractive forehead—“‘The Influence of
Sir Gawain
on Arnold’s
Empedocles on Etna’.”

“Good heavens,” Fen groaned. That must be Larkin: the most indefatigable searcher-out of pointless correspondences the world has ever known. Still, we can’t bother about that now. I’ve got a seminar on
Hamlet 
at a quarter to six and it’s nearly that now. I shall have to cancel it if the police aren’t to catch up with me. Wait a minute.” He snapped his fingers. “I have an idea.”

“God help us all,” said Wilkes with feeling.

“Lily Christine’s still outside, isn’t she?” Fen asked Cadogan, who nodded bewilderedly.

“Good,” said Fen. “Now we’ll all go down to this seminar—except you, Wilkes,” he added hastily.

“I’m coming too,” said Wilkes with determination.

“Why are you always so tiresome?” said Fen irritably. “One’s never rid of you.”

“Do let him come, Professor Fen,” Sally pleaded “He’s been so sweet.”

“Sweet,”
said Fen meaningly, but seeing no alternative, gave in with an ill grace. He got his hat and a raincoat from a cupboard and they all trooped out, Cadogan wondering what on earth Fen was proposing to do. He soon knew.

The lecture-hall in which Fen’s seminar was to be held was a small one. That it pertained normally to the classical faculty was indicated by a dun-coloured photographic reproduction of the Hermes of Praxiteles at one end, and a companion picture of an Aphrodite Kallipygos at the other. Upon this, in moments of tedium, the male students were accustomed wistfully to gaze. An incredibly ruinous edition of Liddell and Scott lay on a table raised on a slight dais at the front. On the wooden benches about twenty under­graduates sat, the women, gowned, chattering feverishly, and the men, ungowned, staring absently about them. Their texts and notebooks lay scattered on the desks.

When Fen came in, followed by the others, there was an expectant hush. He climbed the dais and regarded them for a moment before speaking. Then he said:

“It is my troublesome duty to discuss with you this evening
Hamlet,
by the well-known English playwright, William Shakespeare. Perhaps I had better say it
should be
my troublesome duty, since I have, as things are, no intention of doing anything of the sort. You may recall that the name character in that play makes at one point a remark to the effect that the native hue of resolution is too often sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought, and that moreover
enterprises of great pitch and moment
with this regard their currents turn awry and lose the name of action. More briefly though less accurately (and remember, please, that poetry is nothing if not accurate), this means ‘Cut the cackle and get down to the horses.’ That, with the assistance of two gentlemen here present, I propose to do now.”

Poetry nothing if not accurate,
the women wrote in their books.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Fen proceeded dramatically, “I am being pursued by the police.” Everyone looked interested. “Not for any crime I have committed, but simply because, in their innocence, they do not know that I am tracking down the perpetrator of a particularly cold-blooded and brutal murder.” Here there was some tentative applause from the back. Fen bowed.

“Thank you. Perhaps the first thing I’d better do is to introduce these other people to you.” He looked round with distaste. “This bedraggled-looking object here is Mr. Richard Cadogan, the eminent poet.”

Loud, embarrassing cheers.

“This is Dr. Wilkes, who was dug up when the foundations of the New Bodleian were laid.”

More cheers, rather louder. (“New Bodleian,” Wilkes commented benevolently. “Horrid erection.”)

“And this is an attractive woman called Sally.”

Very loud cheers from the male under­graduates, and some shouts of “Telephone number?” Sally grinned, rather shyly.

“They are my companions,” Fen continued sententiously. “I might almost say my allies.”

“Get on with it,” Wilkes put in suddenly. “We can’t hang about here all night while you perorate. What are you going to do?”