(9) What was Julius Caesar’s middle name?
(10) What can’t you have with one fish ball?
(11) Give the names of the first two men to fight a duel with blunderbusses in balloons.
(12) Give reasons why the following have not fought duels with blunderbusses in balloons: Liddell and Scott; Sodor and Man; Cato the Younger and Cato the Elder; You and Me.
(13) Distinguish between the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries.
(14) How many lives has a cat o’ nine tails?
(15) Where are the boys of the old brigade? Illustrate your answer with a rough sketch map.
(16) Should auld acquaintance be forgot?
(17) “Poems are made by fools like me.” Refute this statement, if you like.
(18) Do you believe in fairies?
(19) What celebrated sportsmen made the following remarks?
(a) “I’d cut that playboy in ribbons again.”
(b) “Qualis artifex pereo.”
(c) “Come into the garden, Maud.”
(d) “I’ve never been so insulted in my life.”
(e) “My lips are sealed.”
(20) Distinguish between Sooterkin and Puss-in-Boots.
(21) Would you prefer Cosmo-therapy or Disestablishment?
(22) Into how many languages has Bottom been translated?’
Georgia wrinkled up her nose at Nigel over the sheet of foolscap.
‘It must be a terrible thing to have received the benefit of a classical education,’ she said sombrely.
‘Yes.’
‘You do need a holiday, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘We might pop out to Tibet for a few months.’
‘I would prefer Hove. I don’t like yaks’ milk, or foreign parts, or llamas.’
‘I don’t see how you can say you dislike lamas when you’ve never met one.’
‘I should dislike them even more if I met one. They harbour vermin and their coats are worn by pansies.’
‘Oh, but you must be talking about llamas. I mean lamas.’
‘That’s what I meant too. Llamas.’
The telephone bell rang. Georgia moved over to answer it. Nigel watched her movements. Her body was agile and light as a cat’s; it never failed to delight him. You had only to be in the same room with her to feel physically refreshed, and the sad, pensive little monkey-face contrasted so oddly with the barbaric grace of her body which she clothed always in flamboyant reds and yellows and greens.
‘Georgia Strangeways speaking … Oh, it’s you, Michael, how are you? How’s Oxford? … Yes, he’s here … A job for him? No, Michael, he can’t … No, he’s tired out – a very difficult case … No, really, his mind has given way slightly – he’s just asked me to distinguish between Sooterkin and Puss-in-Boots, and … yes, I know the allusion is highly improper, but we’re going off for a holiday somewhere, so … A matter of life and death? My dear Michael, what queer phrases you do pick up. Oh, all right, he’s going to speak to you himself.’
Georgia relinquished the receiver. Nigel carried on a long conversation. When it was over he took Georgia under the arms and swung her round and round and round in the air.
‘I suppose all this ebullience means that somebody’s murdered somebody, and you are going to poke your nose into it,’ she said when he had put her down in a chair.
‘Yes,’ said Nigel enthusiastically. ‘A very queer setup indeed. Friend of Michael’s – chap called Frank Cairnes – he’s apparently the Felix Lane who writes detective novels. He set out to kill some chap, and failed, and now the chap really has been killed – strychnine. This Cairnes wants me to go and prove it wasn’t him.’
‘I don’t believe a word of it. It’s a hoax. Look, if you really insist, I’ll come to Hove with you. You’re not fit to take on another job now.’
‘I must. Michael says Cairnes is a decent chap, and he’s in a frightfully tough spot. Besides, Gloucestershire will be nice for a change.’
‘He can’t be a decent chap if he set out to murder someone. Leave him alone. Forget it.’
‘Well, there were extenuating circumstances. This chap had run down Cairnes’ kid in a car and killed him. The police couldn’t trace him, so Cairnes got after him himself, and –’
‘It’s fantastic. Things like that don’t happen. This Cairnes must be mad. What’s he come out with the whole story for, if the man was killed by somebody else?’
‘He wrote a diary, Michael said. I’ll tell you about it in the train. Severnbridge. Where’s the ABC?’
Georgia gave him a long, pensive look, nibbling her under lip. Then she turned away, opened a drawer in the desk, and began flicking through the pages of the ABC.
2
NIGEL’S FIRST IMPRESSION of the slightly built, bearded man who came forward to meet them in the lounge of the Angler’s Arms was that here was a person singularly unperturbed by the disastrous position into which he had got himself. He shook them briskly by the hand, glancing at them and away with a faint, deprecating smile, a suggestion of apology in the slight lift of his eyebrows, as though he was tacitly asking their pardon for dragging them all this way on so trivial an errand. They talked for a bit.
‘It’s awfully good of you to have come down,’ Felix said presently. ‘The position is really—’
‘Look here, let’s wait to talk it over till after dinner. My wife is a bit done up by the journey. I’ll just take her upstairs.’
Georgia, whose prodigiously resilient frame had before now surmounted the ordeal of many long expeditions through desert and jungle – she was, indeed, one of the three most famous women explorers of her day – did not bat an eyelid at this outrageous lie of Nigel’s. Only when they were alone in their bedroom did she turn to him, grinning, and say, ‘So I’m “done up”, am I? Coming from a gentleman on the verge of physical and mental collapse, that was good. Why all this solicitude for the frail little woman?’
Nigel took her face, vivid under the bright silk handkerchief she wore over her head, between his hands; he rubbed her ears gently and kissed her.
‘We don’t want to give Cairnes the impression that you’re a tough. A womanly woman you must be, my sweet, a nice, soft, yielding creature in whom he can confide.’
‘The great Strangeways on the job already!’ she mocked. ‘What a disgustingly opportunist mind you have. But I don’t see why I should be dragged into this.’
‘What did you think of him?’ Nigel asked.
‘A deep one, I should say. Highly civilised. Highly strung. Lives too much alone – the way he looks past you when he’s talking to you, as though he was more used to talking to himself. A person of delicate taste and spinsterish habit. Likes to imagine himself self-sufficient, able to get on without society, but in fact very sensitive both to the vox populi and the still, small voice. He’s nervous as a jumping bean at the moment, of course, so it’s difficult to judge.’
‘Nervous, you thought? He struck me as remarkably self-possessed.’
‘Oh, my dear, no, no, no. He’s holding himself down by the scruff of the neck. Didn’t you notice his eyes whenever the conversation dropped and there was nothing to distract his mind? Why, they just brimmed over with panic. I remember seeing a chap looking like that one evening when we wandered too far from the camp, up under the Mountains of the Moon, and got lost for an hour in the scrub.’
‘If Robert Young wore a beard he’d look rather like Cairnes. I hope he didn’t commit this murder after all, he seems quite an agreeable little chipmunk. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to lie down for a bit before dinner?’
‘No, blast you. And let me tell you, I’m not going to put the tip of my little finger into this case of yours. I know your methods, and I don’t like them.’
‘I’m prepared to lay five to three that you’ll be in the thick of it before two days: you have the sort of sensational mind which—’
‘Taken.’
After dinner, as they had arranged, Nigel went u
p to Felix’s room. Felix studied his guest carefully as he poured out the coffee and handed him the cigarettes. He saw a tall, angular young man in the early thirties, his clothes and his tow-coloured hair untidy and giving him the appearance of having just woken up from uneasy slumber on a seat in a railway waiting room. His face was pale and a little flabby, but its curiously immature features were contradicted by the intelligence of the light-blue eyes, which gazed at him with disturbing fixity and gave the impression of reserving their judgement on every subject under the sun. There was something about Nigel Strangeways’ manner, too – polite, solicitous, almost protective – which struck Felix for a moment as unaccountably sinister; it might have been the attitude of a scientist towards the subject of an experiment, he thought, interested and solicitous, but beneath that inhumanly objective. Nigel was the rare kind of man who would not have the slightest compunction about proving himself wrong.
Felix was a little startled to realise how much he already seemed to have found out about his guest. He realised that the perilous nature of his present position must have sharpened all his faculties. He said, with a sidelong half smile:
‘Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’
‘St Paul, if I remember rightly. You’d better tell me all about it.’
So Felix told him the essentials of the story, as he had set it down in his diary: the death of Martie, his own growing preoccupation with the idea of revenge, the combination of reasoning and lucky accident by which he had arrived at George Rattery, the plan to drown George in the dinghy and the way the tables had been turned upon him at the last moment. At this point Nigel, who had been sitting quiet, staring down at the toes of his shoes, interrupted.
‘Why did he leave it so late to spring upon you the fact that he’d found out all about you?’
‘I can’t really be sure,’ said Felix after a pause. ‘Partly cat-and-mouse fun on his part, I dare say; he was an obvious sadist type. Partly, perhaps, that he wanted to make quite sure I was going to go through with it – I mean, he couldn’t have wanted a showdown, because he must have known it would lay him open to the charge of manslaughter over Martie. I don’t know, though: actually he tried to blackmail me in the boat – said he’d sell the diary back to me; he seemed thoroughly taken aback when I pointed out to him that he’d never dare to hand the diary over to the police.’
‘Mm. What happened next?’
‘Well, I came straight back here, to the Angler’s Arms. George was to have sent my luggage over. He refused to have me back for a moment in his home, not unnaturally. This all happened yesterday, by the way. About half-past ten Lena rang up to say that George had died. It gave me a hell of a turn, as you can imagine. He had been taken ill after dinner. Lena described the symptoms; it sounded to me exactly like strychnine. I went straight over to the Ratterys’ house; the doctor was still there and he confirmed it. I was properly caught. There was my diary, in the hands of his solicitors, to be opened in the event of his death. It was going to tell the police that I had set out to murder George, and there was George murdered; an open-and-shut case for them.’
The rigid posture of Felix’s body and the staring anxiety in his eyes belied his steady, almost indifferent tones.
‘I damned nearly went and chucked myself in the river,’ he said. ‘It seemed so utterly hopeless. Then I remembered Michael Evans telling me you’d got him out of a similar jam, so I phoned him up and asked him to put me in touch with you. And there we are.’
‘You’ve not told the police about this diary yet?’
‘No no. I was waiting till—’
‘That must be done at once. I’d better do it myself.’
‘Yes. Please, if you would. I’d rather—’
‘And this must be understood between us.’ Nigel gazed speculatively and impersonally into Felix’s eyes. ‘From what you’ve told me, I should say it’s most improbable that you killed George Rattery, and I’ll do all I can to prove that you didn’t. But, of course, if by any chance you did, and my investigations convince me of it, I shall not attempt to conceal it.’
‘That seems reasonable enough,’ said Felix with a tentative smile. ‘I’ve written so much about amateur detectives, it’ll be interesting to see how one really goes to work. Oh God, this is awful,’ he went on in a different voice, ‘I must have been mad these last six months. Little Martie. I keep on wondering whether I would really have tipped George into the river and let him drown, if he hadn’t –’
‘Never mind. You didn’t – that’s the point. No use crying over spilt milk.’
Nigel’s cool, astringent, but not unfriendly tones were more effective than sympathy in pulling Felix together.
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘Not that one ought to feel any qualms even if one had murdered George. He was a most unmitigated swine all round.’
‘By the way,’ asked Nigel, ‘how do you know it wasn’t suicide?’
Felix looked startled. ‘Suicide? I’d never thought – I mean, I’ve thought about George for so long in the – er – context of murder, it never occurred to me it might have been suicide. No, it couldn’t have been. He was far too insensitive and complacent a creature to – besides, why should he?’
‘Who would you say might have killed him then? Any local candidates?’
‘My dear Strangeways,’ said Felix uneasily, ‘you really can’t ask the chief suspect to start slinging dirt at all and sundry.’
‘The Queensberry rules don’t apply here. You can’t go all chivalrous on me – there’s too much at stake.’
‘In that case, I should say that anyone who had anything to do with George was potentially his murderer. He bullied his wife and son, Phil, unspeakably. He was also a womaniser. The only person he didn’t bully and couldn’t corrupt was his mother, and she’s a very grim old harridan indeed. Do you want me to tell you all about these people?’
‘No. Not yet, at least. I’d rather get my own impressions about them first. Well, I don’t think there’s anything more to be done tonight. Let’s go along and talk to my wife.’
‘Oh, look here, there’s one thing. This kid Phil: he’s a very decent kid, only twelve years old. We must get him out of that house, if we can. He’s a thoroughly nervous subject, and this business might tip him over the edge. I don’t like to ask Violet myself, considering what she’s very soon going to find out about me. I was wondering could your wife perhaps –’
‘I expect we can arrange something about that. I’ll have a talk to Mrs Rattery about it tomorrow.’
3
WHEN NIGEL ARRIVED at the Ratterys’ house next morning, he found a policeman leaning over the gate and gazing phlegmatically across the street at a flustered driver who was trying to extricate his car from the almost empty car park opposite.
‘Good morning,’ said Nigel. ‘Is this –?’
‘It’s pathetic. Just pathetic, isn’t it, sir?’ said the policeman unexpectedly. It took Nigel a few seconds to realise that the constable was speaking, not of the recent events in this house, but of the erratic manoeuvres of the motorist. Severnbridge was already living up to its reputation for honest, yeoman stolidity. The constable jerked his thumb towards the car park. ‘He’s been at it for five minutes,’ he said. ‘Pathetic, I call it.’
Nigel agreed that the situation contained elements of pathos. Then he asked could he come in, as he had business with Mrs Rattery.
‘Mrs Rattery?’
‘Yes. This is her house, isn’t it?’
‘Ah, that is so. Terrible tragedy, isn’t it, sir? Prominent figure in our town. Why, only last Thursday he was passing the time of day with me and—’
‘Yes, a terrible tragedy, as you say. That’s really what I want to see Mrs Rattery about.’
‘Friend of the family?’ asked the constable, still leaning massively across the gate.
‘Well, not exactly, but—’
‘One of these reporters. I guessed it. You’ll have to cool your heels a bit
longer, sonnie,’ said the constable, with an abrupt change of front. ‘Inspector Blount’s orders. That’s what I’m here—’
‘Inspector Blount? Oh, he’s an old friend of mine.’
‘That’s what they all say, son.’ The constable’s voice was tolerant but lugubrious.
‘Tell him Nigel Strangeways – no, take him this card. I’ll lay you seven to one he sees me at once.’
‘I’m not a betting man. Not regular, that is. A mug’s game, and I don’t care who hears me say it. Mind you, I’ve had my little flutter on the Derby; but what I say –’
After five minutes more of this passive resistance, the constable agreed to take Nigel’s card to Inspector Blount. They’ve been prompt enough about calling in the Yard, thought Nigel as he waited, fancy running into Blount again. With mixed feelings he recalled his last encounter with that bland-faced, granite-hearted Scot; Nigel had been Perseus then to Georgia’s Andromeda, and Blount had been dangerously near playing the role of the sea monster; it was at Chatcombe, too, that the legendary airman, Fergus O’Brien, had set Nigel the knottiest problem of his career.
When a somewhat less talkative constable showed Nigel into the house, Blount was sitting – as Nigel best remembered him – behind a desk, giving a perfect imitation of a bank manager about to interview a client on the subject of his overdraft. The bald head, the gold-rimmed pince-nez, the smooth face, the discreet dark suit spelt affluence, tact, respectability. He looked quite absurdly unlike the remorseless hunter of criminals that Nigel only too well knew him to be. Fortunately he had a sense of humour – the extra-dry-sherry, not the Burns Night type.
‘Well, this is an unexpected pleasure, Mr Strangeways,’ he said, rising and extending a pontifical hand. ‘And your lady wife, is she very well?’
‘Yes, thanks. She came down with me, as a matter of fact. Quite a gathering of the clans. Or should I say, a gathering of the vultures?’
Inspector Blount permitted himself the driest, frostiest twinkle of the eye. ‘Vultures? You’re not going to tell me, Mr Strangeways, that you’ve got yourself mixed up with crime again?’