CHAPTER TEN
HENRY AND EMMY drove back to Ryde, turned in the rental car, and took a taxi to the evening ferry. Henry was very silent on the journey. On the train back to London, he pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and studied it intently. It was the practical-joke crossword puzzle. There were other people in the compartment, so Emmy made no remark, but continued to read the newspaper she had bought at the station. It was a London edition, and contained no reference to Peter Turnberry’s death.
Back in their Chelsea flat, Emmy made supper while Henry continued to brood. As she was setting the table, Henry looked up and said, “It’s all there, in that puzzle. It must be.”
Emmy said, “It’s interesting that Harold Vandike knew Peter at Oxford. Neither of them gave any sign of it.”
“No reason why they should,” said Henry, “Remember, all the other members of the party had been at Carnworth for nearly a week before we arrived. They weren’t strangers to each other, as they were to us. I daresay Vandike and Turnberry did their reminiscing about the university during the first couple of days. Nevertheless, Vandike did compile that puzzle, and there’s the clue about Peter holding the keys. I was meant to make something out of that, and I didn’t. But somebody else did, and Peter Turnberry died.”
“Surely,” Emmy said, arranging knives and forks, “all the Guess Who members must have seen the puzzle beforehand. It was a joke they all thought up together.”
“The puzzle, yes. I’m not so sure about the clues. I don’t think any of them are crossword fans—except Vandike, of course. However, we’ll find out.” Henry sat up straight, and seemed to give himself a little shake. “I’m sorry, darling. Let’s forget it for the moment and have our supper.”
The next day, James Turnberry telephoned Scotland Yard to say that the inquest had been arranged for the following Thursday at 10:00 A.M. The coroner’s court would be sitting at the Ryde courthouse. There was no similar message from Sergeant Hemming.
Meanwhile, Henry was not entirely idle. During the afternoon, he put through a call to the London telephone number of Barbara Oppenshaw, which was listed in the directory. He had wondered if Barbara might decide to stay on at Carnworth, especially as she would certainly be needed at the inquest on Thursday. However, the telephone was promptly answered.
“Barbara Oppenshaw speaking.”
“This is Henry Tibbett, Miss Oppenshaw.”
There was a tiny pause. Then Barbara said, “If you want to know about the inquest, it’s at the Ryde courthouse on Thursday morning at ten.”
“I know that,” said Henry. “I’ll be there.”
“Then why are you calling me?”
“Because I’d appreciate a talk with you, Miss Oppenshaw.”
“Call me Barbara, for heaven’s sake. Or aren’t policemen allowed to use first names? Please tell me—it would be valuable information for my books.”
Henry said, “It’s unusual to use first names in the course of an investigation—Barbara.”
“If you’re not investigating anything, then why do you want to see me?”
Henry said, “I’m not investigating a case. I’m investigating a crossword puzzle.”
“Oh.” Barbara sounded a little taken aback.
“It’ll have to be when I’m off duty, of course,” said Henry. “How about this evening? Half past six at your apartment?”
Again there was a hesitation. Then Barbara said, “Oh, very well. If it will make you happy. Anything for a quiet life.” She rang off.
So, when he left his office, Henry made his way not to Chelsea, but in the other direction, toward Islington, where he soon found the beautiful Carolean house—now restored and converted into apartments—where Barbara spent her time when in London. Hers was the ground-floor flat, and she opened the door to Henry with a marked lack of enthusiasm. Henry noticed, as she led the way into the sitting room, that she was wearing a sort of gypsy skirt in brilliant colors and a shapeless knitted blouse. Barbara Oppenshaw was certainly not in mourning.
She turned to Henry. “I expect you’d like a drink.”
“I certainly wouldn’t mind one. A scotch and soda, if possible.”
“Of course.” Barbara mixed two drinks and then sat down on the divan, motioning Henry to an elegant and very modern tubular chair, which turned out to be excruciatingly uncomfortable. She said, “Well?”
“First of all,” said Henry, “I wanted to offer you all my sympathy, Miss Oppenshaw—I’m sorry—Barbara. Mine and Emmy’s.”
Coldly, Barbara said, “There’s no need. Peter and I were no longer engaged when he was killed.”
Henry let this sink in for a moment. Then he said, “You didn’t appear after Peter’s body was found, and I gathered from your parents that you were prostrate with grief.”
“I didn’t appear,” said Barbara, “because I didn’t want to be subjected to a whole lot of well-meant condolences about a man I didn’t give a rap for.”
“Then why did you get engaged to him in the first place—if that’s not an impertinent question.”
Barbara considered. “It is, of course, highly impertinent, but I’m prepared to answer it. I was introduced to Peter six months ago by Harry Vandike, who was staying at Carnworth. You probably know that Harry was Peter’s tutor at Oxford, and had remained friendly with him ever since.”
Henry said, “You and your family had never met the Turnberrys, even though you live quite close and on a small island?”
“The Turnberrys,” said Barbara, “are not exactly the sort of people whom my family would know, in the ordinary course of events. However, Harry brought Peter over to Carnworth, and he appeared to be very much attracted to me. I was flattered, I suppose. Also, we had a hobby in common—horses. After that, he used to come over a lot when he was on the island, and we went riding together. Three months ago, he proposed to me and I accepted him.”
“Were you in love with him then?”
“I was attracted to him,” Barbara said. “And as I said, I was flattered. He knew that I was my parents’ daughter, of course, but he had no idea that I was an established writer and an independent woman. Flattering again. However, I did have doubts, even then. I suggested that it would be best if we just lived together for as long as we both felt like it. But Peter was adamant. Marriage or nothing.”
Henry smiled. “The roles of the sexes have certainly been reversed,” he said. “It used to be the girl who insisted on marriage.”
“The Turnberrys are very middle class,” Barbara remarked. “To be honest, I suppose that was one of the things that began to get on my nerves.”
Tentatively, Henry said, “Your parents seemed very happy about the engagement.”
“Mother was,” said Barbara promptly. “Probably because Harry Vandike gave him such a colossal buildup—how brilliant he was, how he was going to become a celebrated barrister, and so on. Also, Peter was good-looking, and Mother thought it was time I married. Father didn’t think too much of the idea at first—but of course Mother can twist him round her little finger.”
“So what happened?”
“It was quite gradual,” said Barbara. “I think it started when I began to realize that Peter wasn’t nearly as brilliant as Harry made out—rather stupid, really. Also, I could sense that he was becoming less…less attentive, if you’ll forgive a quaint word. Then, just last week, shortly before the Guess Who house party, I heard that he’d been swanking around London, bragging that he was going to marry the Carnworth heiress. Not Barbara Oppenshaw. Not even Lydia Drake. The Carnworth heiress. The more I thought about it, the more I understood his insistence on marriage. He didn’t give a damn about me as a person. He wanted my father’s influence, my prestige, and eventually, through me, Carnworth and all that goes with it.
“The day before his death, I put it to him fair and square. Of course he denied it, but not convincingly enough. I told him again that I was prepared to live with him, but not to marry him. He was furious. We had
a great row, and the evening ended with the air full of the fragments of a broken engagement. Thank God I found out in time. If he’d been a little cleverer, he’d have kept up the fiction until after the wedding.”
Henry said, “But it was you who first got alarmed when he didn’t come back after his ride.”
Barbara gave him a sharp look. Then she said, “I was worried about Melisande.” She stood up. “Let me get you another drink.”
“Thank you,” said Henry, surrendering his glass.
At the bar, with her back to him, Barbara said, “I suppose you think I was really madly in love with him, and that this is just a pose.” She turned to face him, a glass in each hand. “Well, it’s not. He was a jumped-up little fortune hunter, and I’m thoroughly glad to be rid of him. Of course,” she added belatedly, “I’m sorry he’s dead.”
“Earlier,” said Henry, “you talked about his ‘being killed.’”
“It comes to the same thing.”
“You don’t think it’s possible that anyone might have wanted to murder him?”
“Murder him?” Barbara laughed. “Whatever for? He was too unimportant.”
Henry decided to change the subject. He said, “Tell me about the crossword puzzle.”
“There’s really nothing to tell. It was a silly, childish idea, and you stood it neatly on its head for us. We were talking at dinner about the difference between fictional and real-life detectives, and we wondered if you’d be able to solve some so-called classic fictional clues.”
“Whose idea was it?”
Barbara wrinkled her brow. “I really can’t remember. I think it was Bill Cartwright’s. He and Fred had a friendly—well, more or less friendly—sort of wrangle about how each of them had inherited money from an old lady whom they might possibly have killed.”
“More or less friendly?”
“Well.” Barbara hesitated. “Bill seemed to suggest at one point that there really might have been some funny business over Fred’s aunt’s death, and Fred got very redfaced and cross. But it all blew over. Then Harry said that he needed a third theoretically possible murder for his crossword. Neither he nor Myrtle had anything to contribute, so he raked up the business of poor Jeannie’s drowning. I reminded him that I was only six years old at the time, but he said never mind, it would do. It was only a joke, after all. So I said okay.”
“The funny thing,” said Henry, “is that far more of the clues in the puzzle relate to Jean Warfield’s death than to either of the others.”
“Oh, that was just coincidental,” said Barbara. “Harry explained that. They were the little words, which happened to form themselves, as it were. The difficult thing was to get the long names, like Lady Fanshaw and William Cartwright, into the puzzle.”
“Why was Peter’s name mentioned?”
With some irritation, Barbara said, “Because it happened to fit in, that’s all.”
“The clue was strange, too.”
“I didn’t even look at the clues. I hate crosswords.”
“I mentioned it at the meeting,” Henry said. “The clue to Peter was ‘He holds the keys to everything, of course.’”
“Oh, yes, I remember. And Harry explained that it referred to Saint Peter and the keys of heaven.”
Henry said, “Can you think of anything else that Peter Turnberry might have held the keys to?”
“Oh, don’t be childish, Henry. Of course not.”
“In fact,” Henry said, “what happened that day—when your sister drowned?”
“She wasn’t my sister.” The reply seemed like an automatic response to a frequently made error. “She was Mother’s stepdaughter. To tell you the truth, I don’t remember anything at all about it. I’ve been told over and over again what happened, and I suppose that has sort of jelled in my mind as the truth. But when I try to think back, I can only remember leaving the house with Jeannie to go swimming. Then everything goes blank. Shock, I suppose. I was very young.”
Henry said, “You were fond of your—” he hesitated—“your stepsister?”
“I adored her,” said Barbara simply. “I never knew my own mother, and Pamela seemed…well, remote and glittery and glamorous, but hardly a mother figure. Jeannie was quite different. From the moment we went to live at Carnworth…”
She stopped, and Henry was embarrassed to see that she was crying. He said, “I’m terribly sorry, Barbara. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Barbara was in control of herself again. Raising her head, she looked straight at Henry. “I wonder,” she said, “if that’s quite true.”
Henry said, “It’s almost true.”
“Like so many things,” said Barbara.
“What do you mean?”
Barbara shrugged. “Just a generalization. How many things do you know that are absolutely and incontrovertibly true?”
Henry smiled. “A certain number,” he said. “Relating to Peter’s death, for example. I know that he rode over to his parents’ house that afternoon to fetch some small object or piece of paper.”
“You know that for sure?”
“Yes. I remembered a remark you made, and then his mother confirmed it.”
Barbara raised her eyebrows. “You certainly are taking this seriously, aren’t you? The inquest hasn’t even been held yet.”
“Trails go cold very quickly,” said Henry. “Have you any idea what it was he went to St. Lawrence to get?”
“None. Cross my heart.”
“Have you any idea what he wanted to see me about at five o’clock?”
“None.”
“Is that true or almost true, Barbara?”
“I’m not prepared to answer that.”
“It was something to do with the crossword, wasn’t it?”
“I’m equally not prepared to get involved in guessing games, Henry.”
Henry grinned at her. “Okay. You’re perfectly within your rights. Tell me something else, if you will. The other members of the Guess Who club—have they all known your family for a long time?”
“Oh, yes, Oppenshaw and Trilby are the sort of publishers who stand by their authors. It makes sense for everybody. The publishers help the authors through sticky times, and the authors don’t go flitting off to another publisher as soon as they get a best-seller.”
“You’re very much younger than the others,” said Henry. “You must have known them since you were a child.”
“Well, yes and no. I was brought up at Carnworth, and not all of our authors are actually on visiting terms with the family. In the old days, Bill Cartwright used to come down for weekends, and Fred Coe, too. Miss Twinkley was going strong even then. I didn’t meet Myrtle or Harry until I started writing myself, and we formed the club. That was four years ago. Mother took to Harry at once, and he’s been a frequent visitor ever since. I don’t think she cares much for Myrtle. In fact”—Barbara frowned, trying to remember—“I think Bill was at Carnworth the day Jeannie drowned. Or perhaps not. It was so long ago, and I’ve probably got it muddled.”
“That’s very interesting,” said Henry. “It clears up a point that was puzzling me—how any of the other club members would have known enough about what happened at Carnworth to suggest—But wait a minute. You just said that it was Harry Vandike who brought the subject up.”
Barbara smiled. “Oh, there’s no mystery about that. You may be sure that Mother has told him the whole story, probably many times over. It’s one of her favorites,” she added with an edge of bitterness. “A real tearjerker.” There was a pause. Then Barbara looked at her watch. “I don’t want to hurry you, but if you are through with me, I have a date.”
Henry took the hint. On his way home, he wondered about Barbara’s tears. Had they all been for Jeannie, or had the lady protested too much about her dislike of Peter Turnberry?
Later that evening, from his home, Henry telephoned Bishop Edwin Manciple in Fenshire. The Bishop was in fine fettle, as usual.
“My dear fellow, what a pleasu
re. Got another puzzle for me, eh?”
“Not really, Bishop,” said Henry. “The puzzle has turned out to be one for me, this time.”
“How do you mean?”
“There’s been a death.”
“A murder, you mean?”
“I’m not sure,” said Henry. “Maybe. All I do know is that it is in some way connected with that crossword you solved for me. Now please tell me something technical.”
“If I can. Certainly, if I can.”
“You say Professor Vandike compiled that crossword?”
“I know it.”
“Well, he would have built it around the long words—or rather names—wouldn’t he?”
“Naturally.”
“And the other words—the small words—would, as it were, form themselves?”
“Yes and no,” said the Bishop. “Wait while I get my copy of the puzzle.” A couple of minutes later he was back on the line. “Let’s see now. If you look at the bottom line, ‘whim’ could as well have been ‘trim’ or ‘brim’ or even ‘thin’—an en is a printer’s measure, just as an em is. So the compiler could use whichever word he found most appropriate.”
“I see,” said Henry. “Let’s go a bit farther up. What about the word ‘Peter’?”
“That’s a name,” said Edwin Manciple a little impatiently. “Surely that’s one of the names necessary to this tarradiddle.”
“That’s what I’m not sure of,” said Henry. “Could the compiler have used a different word there?”
There was a silence, while the Bishop considered. Then he said, “Of course, a row of two-letter words like that is downright unethical, but Vandike had to fit in all those names. Let me think. He could have used ‘loser,’ with ‘let’ as the down word. ‘BO’—body odor—is quite legitimate. And of course, ‘as’ is just as good a word as ‘at.’ But wait a minute. You said something about writers. Maybe Vandike wanted to bring in the word ‘pen.’ Well, what’s the alternative? Go on, Henry, use your mind.”
It took Henry about ten seconds. Then he said, “Of course. ‘Poser.’ A puzzle. The perfect word, I should have thought.”
A Six-Letter Word for Death Page 12