Murder in Pastiche

by Marion Mainwaring

  Quinsey was tantalized by something Mr. Waggish had said the night before. Yes: each of the detectives aboard the Florabunda had followed, compulsively, his own bent, employed his own techniques: had found in this case that which he brought to it. As if manipulated by strings from above, Miss Sliver had knitted and drunk in confidences with hydroptic virtue, Mr. King sought tropical significancies, Mr. Beare engaged in a mode of dialectic, and Mr. Bludgeon in a more visceral attack on the same problem. The same problem, but different in the mind of each … the Mind, that ocean where each kind doth streight its own resemblance find … Quinsey mournfully shook his head as if to rid it of an inner fog microcosmically paralleling the moist pall which blotted sea and sky from view.

  I saw, that I saw not;

  Aye, and the Sunne which should teach mee, had forgot

  East, West, Day, Night …

  The Florabunda curvetted suddenly. An experienced sailor, Quinsey kept his sea-legs; but he did not see the little fountainpen (dropped ten minutes ago by a careless passenger) which rolled under his foot. He slipped, staggered, and fell, and a sharp pain shot up and down his left leg.

  “Blast!” muttered Lord Simon as the scorching pain increased. A slight nausea attacked him though he did not lose consciousness; he was aware of the Purser luckily materializing out of nowhere and snapping his fingers as he shouted to some invisible menial for assistance; of Mrs. Chip-Ebberly using her hands like long white flappers and declaring: “This is too much! This is really quite too much!” Then, mercifully, Punter hastened up. There was a bad bit while they negotiated the trip below, but at last Quinsey was deposited on the settee in the Doctor’s office.

  The Doctor examined his ankle, clucking (it was the first quite professional sound Quinsey had ever heard him make), and ordered the room cleared—the Purser, Mrs. Chip-Ebberly, Punter, and several miscellaneous passengers had pressed inside.

  “Who pushed you, Lord Simon?”

  Quinsey gritted his teeth against the pain. “No one. Not a chance. I was damn’ clumsy, that’s all, the perfect lubber. What is it—a fracture?”

  “No, no.” The Doctor crossed over to a cabinet. “Just a sprain. And a good thing too,” he added rather huffily. “I’ve never had so many things go wrong on a crossing: that journalist getting killed, Woodbin falling down, Miss Despana getting pushed and then getting a nosebleed and that lunatic attacking me, and now your ankle—”

  “Sorry.”

  The Doctor pulled down a roll of surgical gauze, wincing a little as he used the arm which had been damaged in his encounter with Mr. Bludgeon, and began to unwind it. “That’s all right,” he said more graciously, “so long as you weren’t killed. I shouldn’t want to have to do another post-mortem. How I’m supposed to get any writing done as it is, I cannot imagine.”

  Quinsey, reduced to a—for him—almost unprecedented state of speechlessness, watched the bandaging.

  “How’s that?” The Doctor stepped back and regarded his handiwork proudly, his head cocked to one side.

  “Aside from its hurting like billy-o, and preventing me from taking a step,” Quinsey retorted, “it’s doing nicely, thank you.”

  “Oh—does it hurt? I’ll give you something for that.” The Doctor went back to the cabinet and inspected a row of bottles. “Let me see, let me see, something soothing,” he murmured. Seeing him touch first one, then another, and finally take down a third and read the label doubtfully, with his tongue sticking out between his teeth, Quinsey wondered if he were about to be poisoned by the depravity or (equally effective if less culpable) the incompetence of his physician. He felt about for a phrase with which to cushion that admirable rule of thumb, Never take drugs from a suspect in a murder case. But the Doctor handed him a pill and a glass of water with such engaging simplicity that he swallowed docilely.

  “Thanks very much.”

  “Not at all,” said the Doctor politely; he seemed to have been struck by a new idea. “It’s a pleasure, really. I’ve hoped to have an opportunity to chat with you, Lord Simon. The First tells me you’re a literary man.”

  This is always an ominous conversational gambit. Quinsey said warily: “Well, that is to say, I pick up incunabula now and again …”

  “Would you be a patron, now?”

  “A patron?”

  “A nobleman,” the Doctor explained enticingly, “who in return for trifling financial assistance to great writers is immortalized in dedicatory epistles—”

  “Oh, yes. Quite. The system had its points, no doubt, but I have the impression that it went out with the eighteenth century.”

  The Doctor brushed this pedantic reminder aside cavalierly. “You may wonder how I came to be a ship’s Doctor, Lord Simon,” he began. (“No, no,” Quinsey interposed courteously.) “Naturally, I started out my practice on shore. In Newcastle-upon- Tyne it was; in Gosforth. But it was no go! There were too many patients altogether. They would positively line up, and show me their arms and legs, and ask questions, and talk about symptoms, and want things done for them. It took the best hours of the day. In three years I produced no more than fifteen hundred lines! So I cut loose. Here I came, and here I am. And very nicely it's worked out in many respects; but of course there are still these interruptions.”

  “The ocean must be uncommonly inspiring.” Quinsey tried to get up, but his ankle gave an excruciating twinge.

  “Careful,” warned the Doctor, wagging his finger. “You had best not try to move, Lord Simon, not with that pill in you; it would be most unwise.” He went to his desk and proceeded to shuffle his papers together; they were slithering madly about, so that Quinsey was reminded irresistibly of Sedley’s ditty:

  For tho’ the Muses should prove kind,

  And fill our simple brain,

  Yet if rough Neptune rouze the wind,

  To wave the azure main,

  Our paper, pen, and ink, and we

  Roll up and down our ships at sea,

  With a fa, 1a, la, la, la.

  A mammoth bundle of manuscript in his arms, the Doctor took a seat by Quinsey’s side and asked: “Perhaps you would like to hear my poem?”

  Quinsey closed his eyes. The question had been perfunctory; the answer was predetermined. Generations of breeding: the blood of fifteen dukes and countless assorted lesser peers: Eton: Balliol: St. James’s: Mayfair: and, latterly, the antechambers of Lambeth Palace—these must triumph when put to the test. With quiet dignity, he replied that nothing could give him greater pleasure.

  “Let me see, then. Yes—or, no; not yet. But perhaps after all— Well, I might begin here. There won’t be time for all of it, you know, but perhaps on your return trip?” The Doctor cleared his throat and commenced his recitation:

  “Nor was the noble Tippitop from their dread power secure …”

  Quinsey listened with the bland blank face which had served his nation so well on the delicate occasions when the Foreign Office had called on him for aid—when the hint of a sneer or a yawn had meant disaster.

  “Gazella heaved a heavy sigh and tossed a tristful tail.

  ‘Never’ (quoth she) ‘will—’”

  “Tail?” Quinsey was jolted out of his imperturbability.

  “I might explain that in this canto Gazella has been turned into a fish. It is only a temporary metamorphosis, of course; on the allegorical level it means— But I’ll go into that aspect later.

  “‘Never’ (quoth she) ‘will wanton wiles nor coward threats avail,

  Cursed though I be with gills, and fins, in scaly prison here,

  To lure my pure and faithful heart from Tippitoppus dear.’”

  Quinsey beguiled some time in trying to determine whether the rhythm had been influenced by the fortuitous pitch and roll of the Florabunda. Could there be a correlation between heavy swells and masculine endings? … He realized that the Doctor had come to a break, and expected comment. “Oh, jolly fine,” he murmured. “Most interesting texture.”

  The Doctor nodded
matter-of-factly and resumed:

  “For lo! ev’n in her fishy guise Gazella peerless shone.

  The briny populace, adoring, set her on a throne,

  And in their artless piscine way adored her as she sate.

  The cruel Shark forbore to kill, forgetting all his hate.

  Each wat’ry kind did reverence: the hoar majestic Whale,

  The temperamental Octopus, the Grab, the modest Snail,

  The frail irresolute Jelly-fish, the Oyster taciturn,

  Th’obsequious Eel, the Lobster shrewd, the—”

  There was a knock, but the Doctor did not hear it. The door opened to reveal the troubled face of Punter, which cleared as he saw his master on the settee. The Doctor broke off his catalogue, sensing an alien presence, and scowled. In a stern voice he said, “His lordship must be left in absolute quiet!” Quinsey waved dismissively, and his servant withdrew.

  The Doctor went on and on. The words must have been engraved on his heart by now; Quinsey, observing the face, aglow with foetal ecstasy, eyes closed—the hands, waving in graceful arcs—thought of autohypnosis. Mr. Waggish put his head in, saw the Doctor reciting in bardic majesty and Quinsey trapped, gave Quinsey a comprehending grin, and heartlessly withdrew without coming to his assistance. The interruption went entirely unnoticed by the poet, who was quite rapt. And Quinsey began to feel that he himself might run some danger of hypnosis by the undulating arms: even the Doctor’s injured arm rose and fell rhythmically, sheathed in its dark uniform sleeve—slightly spattered with pipe-tobacco ash and bedizened with its surgeon’s stripes of red and gold …

  Quinsey tried to cry out, but found his mouth breaking into an enormous yawn. “Doctor!” he managed to articulate, but the Doctor chanted on, oblivious. Quinsey fell asleep to this heptametrical lullaby.

  The sedative was powerful. He slept like a log till morning, and woke in his own cabin, hungry and brisk, with only a faint throbbing from the sore ankle, and a perfect recollection of what he had learned the night before. When he had drunk his early tea he leaned back against his pillows and announced, “Punter, I have solved the mystery of Mr. Price’s murder.”

  “Indeed, my lord. May I offer my respectful congratulations?”

  “Thank you, Punter. I suppose something must be done about it. Yes. You’d better buzz off, after you’ve laid out my togs, and get the others together. Ask them to meet— No: Mr. Beare will not like to leave his cabin. Go to him first, with my compliments, and ask if we may all meet there. Then go to Mr. Waggish and the rest. Ask if we can meet at—say—ten o’clock.”

  “Very good, my lord. Will your lordship wear the light tweeds?”

  “No. Sackcloth, I think.”

  “My lord?”

  “With a spot of ashes.”

  Explications

  “Forgive me for barging into things like this,” Quinsey begged his colleagues. “But last night I just happened to hit on something which—taken with what you have all discovered—clears up our mystery. I listened to the Doctor’s poem, you see—”

  “All of it?” an awed voice interrupted him.

  “A good two hours’ worth. Then merciful oblivion; I fancy the sedative he gave me was stronger than he intended. As for the poem itself—” Quinsey shuddered lightly. “We needn’t go into that, I think. Oh let th’Iambick Muse revenge that wrong! But it did put me on to something jolly useful.”

  He related what he had learned in the Doctor’s cabin. “The conclusion, of course, is obvious.”

  It was. There was a moment of silence, of unanimous comprehension.

  “It might be described,” said someone, “as a flattering murder.”

  Miss Sliver coughed. “Appalling!”

  Quinsey resumed: “I was handed this note just now, but I’ve not yet opened it; it is addressed to all of us.” He slit the envelope and read aloud:

  “Miss Sliver, My Lord, and Gentlemen:

  “I was born in Devon, of poor but honest parents who put me to sea when I was fifteen years of age. Applying myself diligently to my work, I satisfied my superior officers, did well before the Board of Trade, and rose steadily till I reached my present rank.

  “I was only sixteen when I came upon the book which was to influence my entire life—The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It overwhelmed me altogether. Nothing, I thought, could be so fine as the genius of its hero. What was my joy and my excitement when I learned that there were other, even greater, detectives! From that time on I laid out the better part of my pay on detective novels. At first, ignorant lad that I was, I dreaded the day when there would be no more left to read. But soon I learned that the supply was inexhaustible—that the number of such stories increases year by year! All that I could lay hold of, I read.

  “On the surface, my life might seem to be a dull round of standing watch, checking cargo, hurricanes, and shipwrecks—in reality it held the thrills which only Miss Dorothy Sayers, Mrs. Christie, Mr. Stout, etc., etc., can give. From them I learned about corpses, clues, Oriental poisons, slow-witted policemen, hermetically-sealed death-chambers, forged wills, and snowed-in houseparties full of aristocratic people and beautiful girls. If I had dared express my dearest wish, it would have been for the opportunity—not to outwit one of my heroes, for that I knew was impossible—but to observe one of them at work.

  “When I found that nine detectives were actually aboard the Florabunda, I knew that some higher Power, Providence as Miss Sliver would say, had stepped in to lend me a hand. And so I cast about for a suitable victim.

  “The choice was not hard. I did not personally know Mr. Price, as a matter of fact we never exchanged a word, and so far as I know he lived and died unaware of my existence, but I had many reasons for disapproving of him. He had no decent respect for the sea, the Ship, or the Captain. He insulted my friend and that fine gentleman, the Purser. He criticized the work of my talented friend and shipmate, the Doctor. He was a person of low moral character in general, and I knew he would be no loss.

  “That settled—and once I had confiscated the weapon which a passenger carelessly left lying about—it was just a question of time and place; and I did not have long to wait. On the second night out, as the Doctor read to me during the Middle Watch, I felt inclined for some reason to stretch my legs, and, knowing he would not mind a short absence, I popped down to the main deck. I saw Mr. Price smoking at the rail, all alone, and realized that my chance had come. It was the work of a moment to hit him on the head, haul him over to a bulkhead, and stow him away under a tarpaulin, safe and sound. I rejoined the Doctor, and spent the next few hours listening to Tipptoppus and Gazella.

  “Before turning in (it being by then about six bells) I thought I might take a look at the victim’s cabin. On deck just inside his door lay an envelope with a check inside, and there was a page of his literary bilge in the typewriter. I added a few lines of my own, to fill up the blank space, thinking it might come in handy as a ‘red herring’ (if I use the word rightly) later on. Then I took the paper, the check, and the cosh away with me.

  “I need not tell you that I did this for the same reason that I had stowed the pipe and scarf beneath the corpse. I knew that the crimes you investigate always have something odd about them, something ‘artistic’ so to speak, to make them more interesting to the reader. This bothered me a great deal at first because I have never been a fanciful chap and could not think of an unusual touch, then I happened to see the scarf in a passageway just after hearing some passenger call Mr. Price a ‘rat,’ and my mind flew to a book I had once glanced at in the Doctor’s cabin whilst he recited to me. It was not convenient to borrow the Boatswain’s pipe as I would have preferred, so I fetched a briar-pipe from the store, in hopes it would serve at a pinch, and carried it about with the muffler and the cosh till the time should come to use them.

  “I never would have dreamed that they meant all those deep things that Mr. King discovered in them with Gib the cat and so forth, and it was sure
ly very fine to learn the explanation and find what I had really meant; but as far as that goes you were all even finer than I had hoped, and I should like to say right now how grateful I am and what a privilege it has been to watch you.

  “Well, everything went on very well, though I had to do such things as bring out the check and the cosh and the torn page, and later borrow Lord Simon’s book, in order to persuade some of you to help, and also of course to add more Mystery.

  “I had one problem you might call a ‘moral problem.’ Needless to say I could not tell you everything I knew or there would not have been any mystery, but how far ought I to try to mislead you? Actually, it was not too hard to decide. It would not have been aboveboard to tell any downright lies. Besides, it would have been useless. After all I have spent my life at sea, far from towns and cities and the gay world of sophisticated Society where men learn to Mask and deceive and sail under False Colours day and night. Indeed when I thought of this I could hardly believe my own boldness in trying to keep any secret from you who in case after case see through the most clever, wicked, Hypocritical actors who build up perfect alibis and plan for their murders many weeks or possibly even many months beforehand. Surely I would be discovered straight off, and the whole point of my murder would be wasted!

  “But luck, or should I more rightly as Miss Sliver would say say Providence, was with me. Once things got rolling I never really had to play a part, for many false clues opened up at once to distract attention from me. It was quite a pleasure, really, to see how well I had made my choice, as you brought Mr. Price’s true character to light. It was clear that many other people might very likely have done away with him. As you uncovered the truth about him and Miss Price and the other passengers I lost my bearings entirely; I became so confused that at times I wondered how even the greatest of detectives could steer a straight course through it all! But, believe me, my faith in you never truly faltered. I knew you would get to me in time.

  “Once Lord Simon found out how the Doctor loses track entirely of what goes on about him whilst he recites his poem, I knew the end had come. Now that my alibi had capsized, all the other evidence against me would fall into line—the careless way I had sometimes let it slip that I knew more about you than I dared admit; how anxious I was to have you all lend a hand; how interested I was in your methods and your styles; also, lately, how anxious I have been to protect my shipmates from suspicion as you seemed to be closing in on them; for I admit that to those who do not know them as I do the Old Man and my friends the Purser and the Doctor might sometimes look suspicious, as they each have a special tack, a ‘monomania’ as some of you might call it, and how could I explain to you without ending the case too soon that it was not a monomaniac you should be looking for, but me?