Contents
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Nicholas Blake
Dedication
Title Page
I. April 23, July 16
II. July 17, 8 A.M.–5.15 P.M.
III. July 17, 5.15–7.50 P.M.
IV. July 17, 8.55–10.30 P.M.
V. July 18, 9.15–11 A.M.
VI. July 18, 1.30–4.35 P.M.
VII. July 18, 9–10.15 P.M.
VIII. July 19, 8.20–11.30 A.M.
IX. July 19, 11.30 A.M.–1.20 P.M.
X. July 19, 1.30–5.30 P.M.
XI. July 20, 8–11.30 A.M.
XII. July 20, 11.30 A.M.–5.15 P.M.
XIII. July 20, 7.30–9.17 P.M.
XIV. July 20, 9.20–11.20 P.M.
XV. July 21, 8 P.M.
Acknowledgments
Copyright
About the Book
Private detective and poet Nigel Strangeways is invited to address the Maiden Astbury literary society. The picturesque Dorset town is home to Bunnett’s Brewery, run by the much disliked, and feared, Eustace Bunnett and shortly before Nigel’s visit, Bunnett’s dog Truffles, was found dead in one of the brewery’s vats. The culprit was never caught – although there was no shortage of suspects – but when a body is then found in the same vat, boiled down to its bones, Nigel is called into action to help capture the killer.
The third book in the Nigel Strangeways series, this is a gloriously inventive, puzzling and witty investigation to delight all fans of classic crime.
About the Author
Nicholas Blake was the pseudonym of Poet Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis, who was born in County Laois, Ireland, in 1904. After his mother died in 1906, he was brought up in London by his father, spending summer holidays with relatives in Wexford. He was educated at Sherborne School and Wadham College, Oxford, from which he graduated in 1927. Blake initially worked as a teacher to supplement his income from his poetry writing and he published his first Nigel Strangeways novel, A Question of Proof, in 1935. Blake went on to write a further nineteen crime novels, all but four of which featured Nigel Strangeways, as well as numerous poetry collections and translations.
During the Second World War he worked as a publications editor in the Ministry of Information, which he used as the basis for the Ministry of Morale in Minute for Murder, and after the war he joined the publishers Chatto & Windus as an editor and director. He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1968 and died in 1972 at the home of his friend, the writer Kingsley Amis.
Also by Nicholas Blake
A Question of Proof
Thou Shell of Death
The Beast Must Die
The Widow’s Cruise
Malice in Wonderland
The Case of the Abominable Snowman
The Smiler with the Knife
Minute for Murder
Head of a Traveller
The Dreadful Hollow
The Whisper in the Gloom
End of Chapter
The Worm of Death
The Sad Variety
The Morning After Death
TO
JOYCE AND TEDDY
NICHOLAS BLAKE
There’s Trouble Brewing
I
April 23, July 16
Dogs begin in jest and end in earnest.
PROVERB
EVERY DOG, THEY say, has its day. Whether Truffles would have assented to this proposition during his lifetime is highly doubtful. Not for him the elusive rabbit, the ineffable dungheap, the hob-nobbing with loose companions at street corners that for upper-class dogs represent the illicit high-spots of cloistered lives. Truffles, like everything else that Eustace Bunnett had to do with, was kept very much at heel. One might have supposed that a wife, a brother, a brewery and a town council would have provided Mr. Bunnett with sufficient exercise for his lust for power. But that would be to underestimate both the late (though far from lamented) Eustace Bunnett and that most insidious of human vices of which Edmund Burke said so justly, ‘Power gradually extirpates from the mind every humane and gentle virtue.’ No, Truffles had a dog’s life, in every possible sense of the phrase. Even the natural and almost boundless servility of his species must have been pretty heavily strained by the demands of his master.
Yet Truffles, too, had his day. Whether it was adequate compensation for a lifetime of alternate whipping and pampering, I cannot pretend to decide. At least it ended in posthumous fame; and posthumous fame is no doubt the next best thing to a happy life. Truffles achieved the ambition of all downtrodden creatures. His pusillanimous and shifty-looking terrier face appeared in every illustrated newspaper in the United Kingdom, ousting from the front page the not altogether dissimilar features of Hitler, the neurotic-bulldog expression of Mussolini, the sealed lips of Mr Baldwin, and the unconcealed charms of bathing beauties. In death, as in life, Truffles and his master were not divided. Side by side with the dog’s face appeared that of Eustace Bunnett—the petulant mouth, the pince-nez which only called attention to the cold and self-satisfied eyes, the whole expression of meanness, suavity, self-importance, and latent ruthlessness. And as for the headlines!
But we anticipate, as the small boy said when he was sick on Christmas Eve. When Nigel Strangeways received the invitation, he naturally had no inkling of the sinister circumstances in which it was going to involve him. Had he had such an inkling, he would have accepted the invitation with much more alacrity: Nigel would go anywhere if a problem in crime was promised, whereas he would normally have run miles to avoid a literary society—and it was to address the Maiden Astbury Literary Society that he had been invited. Here is the letter, filed by him later as exhibit one in the Bunnett case:
3, Pound Street, Maiden Astbury, Dorset
DEAR MR STRANGEWAYS,—As secretary of the local literary society (a poor thing, but our own!), I am venturing to ask whether you would come down and give us an address. We have been studying your delightful little book on the Caroline poets, and our members are all eager to have the privilege of meeting its author. The desire to ‘see Shelley plain’ is a very human failing, after all, and perhaps will excuse the presumption of this request. I know how busy you writers are, but I’m sure you would feel recompensed by our enthusiasm. I’m afraid we cannot offer you a fee: I expect the funds could rise to your expenses, though, if necessary! Do come if you can—any date in June or July would suit us.—Yours sincerely,
SOPHIE CAMMISON
PS—We live in the middle of the Hardy country.
PPS—My husband met you at Oxford, and would be so glad to renew the acquaintance.
‘Crikey!’ said Nigel, inspecting this communication bleakly over his early morning cup of tea. ‘This is what comes of dabbling in literature. Why ever didn’t I stick to the straight path of crime?’
‘What comes of dabbling in literature?’ asked Georgia from the adjoining bed.
‘Oh, you’re there. You know, I just can’t get used to waking up and finding a woman in the room.’
‘It’s a damn sight better than waking up and finding a fer-de-lance in the room, and that’s what happened when I——’
‘Spare us the reminiscences, please. Keep them for Three Thousand Miles Through the Bush on a Tricycle, or whatever you’re going to call your travel book.’
‘You’re sweet. I’m glad I married you,’ said Georgia.
‘Well, you go instead then.’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘This,’ said Nigel, holding up the letter, ‘Some dastardly hag wants me to go down to Dorset and address her blasted literary society. A literary society! I ask you.’
‘Let me see.’ Georgia to
ok the letter.
‘Note the skittishness,’ said Nigel. ‘Sophie clearly has rather protuberant eyes of a washed-out violet colour, and spits at you when she talks. Her friends say, “Poor Sophie is so artistic, you know!” She is the type of virgin that——’
‘What’s all this about “virgin”? Her postscript says she is married.’
‘Oh, I hadn’t got that far. Anyway, I never read postscripts—either they’re unnecessary or they’ve got a catch in them.’
‘Well, it’s a post-postscript, actually. The PS says they live in the middle of the Hardy country.’
‘A fact already adequately communicated by the address at the top of the page.’
‘The PPS says her husband knew you at Oxford.’
Nigel sat up in bed. ‘Ah, now that is interesting.’
‘You remember him?’
‘Yes, vaguely. I don’t mean that, though. What’s interesting is the fact that this frolicsome hag only mentions him in a postscript. She is evidently jealous about him and henpecks him unmercifully, at the same time telling all her girl friends that Herbert has no soul and does not understand her. Her mission is to bring culture, spiritual values and whatnot into Herbert’s life—and, if I remember anything about him, she’s undertaken a pretty tough job. Still, she’s probably got him down by now. Wives always do.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I don’t believe a word of it. I’ll lay you evens that Sophie Cammison is a highly intelligent woman with a figure as well developed as her sense of humour. She wrote this letter with her tongue in her cheek, and she’s pulled your leg right out of its socket.’
‘How anatomical you are,’ said Nigel. ‘So you expect me to go down there without a fee—the funds could rise to expenses, exclamation mark—just to win a beggarly quid off you?’
‘Not win, lose.’
‘Very well, that settles it. I’ll go, just to prove you’re wrong. It’ll be interesting to see how old Cammison has turned out, too.’
‘Ah, the human interest always gets you, doesn’t it? You’re the editor’s dream come true.’ Georgia wrinkled up her nose at him.
‘Now that I come to look at you in the cold light of morning, you really are exactly like a monkey,’ said Nigel.
‘Darling Nigel!’
‘Well, only fairly like a monkey. A literary society! Human interest! Pah!’
But indeed that absurd bet with Georgia was to lead Nigel into a very great deal more human interest than he could possibly have bargained for …
As the train puffed through the lush July landscape of Dorset, Nigel took out Mrs Cammison’s letter again. He was feeling more reconciled to the visit. Georgia, whose odd craving for the most solitary and uncomfortable parts of the world had won her fame as an explorer, was off wandering amongst the outer Hebrides. So he might as well be in Dorset as anywhere else—even if it was to involve him in reverent pilgrimages to Mellstock and Egdon Heath with the kittenish Cammison creature. For there could be no doubt that Georgia was wrong there. Sophie Cammison, Nigel reflected as he studied her letter again, would be one of those kittens that keeps a very useful set of claws concealed behind her playful pattings: she was the sort of woman who had to be bossing something; if it wasn’t a literary society, it would be flag-day committees, the Women’s Conservative League, Rescue and Prevention, the Society for the Preservation of Home Crafts, Country Dancing, or some other of those innumerable activities that give idle women a pretext for interfering with other people’s lives. Well, she was not going to get her claws into him.
In due course a ramshackle station bus bore Nigel up the steep, narrow main road of the little Dorset town and deposited him outside 3, Pound Street. It was a solid, dignified little house, its Ham Hill stone glowing apricot in the evening sunlight. A brass plate on the door read ‘Herbert Cammison, F.R.C.S.’ Of course: Nigel remembered now that Cammison had been studying medicine: in his youth he had been just the moody, wild, cynical type of lad that by some incredible alchemy turns out a model of professional etiquette and bedside manner. No doubt the Herbert Cammison who one night had strung every chamber-pot in college on a rope over the quadrangle was now incapable of saying boo! to a stethoscope. Tempora mutantur, murmured Nigel as he crossed the threshold, nos et mutamur in illis. The hall was dark, cool, stone flagged. The maid took his suitcase and showed him into the drawing-room. Nigel’s determination to show Sophie Cammison at the outset that he did not stand any nonsense was badly wrecked. Failing to notice the two steps that led down into the room, he fell into her presence rather than arrived. As he picked himself up, blinking in the strong light, he heard an amused voice say:
‘It’s all right. Everybody does that the first time. I’m always telling Grace to warn people.’
Nigel shook hands with the owner of the voice. Mrs Cammison was a robust shapely creature, red-cheeked and blue-eyed, the picture of health: she might have been any age from twenty-five to thirty-five, and looked like a Victorian painter’s idea of a milkmaid except for her chic dress and the horn-rimmed spectacles that went so incongruously with her fresh face. Nigel muttered involuntarily:
‘I believe Georgia was right after all.’
‘“Georgia was right”? That’s your wife, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. It’s a long and rather discreditable story.’
‘Do tell me. You can tell me while you’re having tea. You haven’t had it yet, have you? I’m sorry I couldn’t meet you, but Herbert wanted the car this afternoon.’
Nigel ate heartily, as always, and Mrs Cammison regarded him with the amiable satisfaction of a mother who observes that her son has recovered his appetite. After a bit she said:
‘Well now, what is this discreditable story?’
‘Well, you see,’ said Nigel, picking his words gingerly, ‘it was your letter. I—er—formed one opinion from it about what you’d be like, and Georgia formed another.’
‘It doesn’t seem a very long story.’
‘No, perhaps not. That’s because I’m leaving out the er—discreditable details.’
‘I can imagine them.’
‘I sincerely hope you can’t. But seriously, you’re not a bit like your letter.’
Sophie Cammison’s eyes twinkled. She replied comfortably:
‘And you’re not a bit like a celebrated amateur detective.’
‘Oh, dear,’ said Nigel disconcerted. ‘You know about that?’
‘I read the newspapers. They were full of you last year over that Chatcombe case.1 That was when you met your wife, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes. What do you think an amateur detective ought to look like?’
‘I’ll tell you that if you tell me first what you thought I was going to look like.’
‘Well, on your own head be it,’ Nigel told her. Mrs Cammison threw back her head and laughed with hearty enjoyment. No man is quite invulnerable against a woman’s laughter, when she is laughing at his ideas—even if the ideas are only half serious. A little piqued, Nigel said:
‘Why did you write such a misleading letter, then? You’ve lost me a quid over it.’
‘Oh, I just thought it was the sort of style that would appeal to a writer. If he was a fool, I mean, it would flatter his vanity: if he wasn’t, he’d see through it.’
‘And I didn’t see through it, therefore——’
‘Oh, I didn’t mean that—really, I didn’t,’ exclaimed Mrs Cammison, flushing deeply. It made her look a little overblown, a little stupid. But she isn’t stupid really, thought Nigel: her physical self-confidence has made it unnecessary for her to learn finesse: she is sophisticated in her intelligence, but ingenuous at heart. Clever—the letter shows it—in a superficial, mischievous way, like an ape. Probably a good mimic.
He said, ‘Now it’s your turn to expose your misconceptions.’
‘Well, I suppose my idea of a detective is based on Sherlock Holmes, Father Brown and Poirot.’
‘A curious composite
figure he must be! Long and short, fat and thin——’
‘Now don’t interrupt. He has piercing eyes, that see exactly what you are thinking. He is always making sinister deductions from one’s most innocent remarks. And of course he’s wildly eccentric. Are you wildly eccentric?’
‘It’s very difficult: some of my friends complain that I’m too eccentric, others that I’m not eccentric enough.’
‘You look quite ordinary to me.’
Nigel, who prided himself normally on his unobtrusive appearance, now found himself faintly resenting this remark. Really, it’s strange the way this artless creature gets beneath my skin, he reflected: perhaps because everything she says is so transparently honest. He was driven, as a sort of self-assertion against this downrightness of hers, to adopt a flippant tone.
‘And how is crime in these parts? Have you any nice murders for me to solve? Or a spot of blackmail, perhaps? I am always willing to oblige.’
There was the slightest pause. Then Sophie Cammison said:
‘Oh, no, I’m afraid not. We’re a very law-abiding lot. By the way, Mr Bunnett is coming round after the meeting, and one or two others. He is anxious to meet you. I hope you don’t mind.’
Actually, Nigel minded a good deal. It is one of the impositions, however, that an author has to put up with—this ‘one or two people coming round after the meeting’ and bombarding him with questions, opinions and manuscripts when he is already reeling with fatigue. Nigel said politely that it would be a pleasure. So that was that.
It was only when he was dressing for dinner an hour later that this conversation returned to Nigel’s mind. There was something in it that had bothered him. What? Mrs Cammison had talked about detectives ‘making sinister deductions from one’s most innocent remarks’. That was quite true, of course: and still more true of pauses, hesitations in answering a question. Ah, now he’d got it! There had been a slight but quite unnecessary pause after his flippant remark about ‘crime in these parts’. And then, when Sophie had answered, ‘Oh, no, I’m afraid not’, her voice had been almost too normal—as though she were consciously mimicking her own normal voice. Then she had abruptly changed the subject. Of course, she was abrupt. It was her natural manner. But Nigel believed that, when a person deliberately changes the subject, there is often an unconscious association between the original subject and the new one. Still, it was difficult to see any connection between crime and a few people coming round after the meeting, apart from the criminal act of subjecting a jaded author to such an ordeal. One person was mentioned by name—who was it now? Oh, yes, a Mr Bunnett. A relation, perhaps, of the composer of Bunnett’s ‘Magnificat in F’, or whatever the key was, so beloved of ambitious village choirs.