A Murder of Quality

by John le Carré

  The few strands of white hair which ran laterally across his otherwise bald head were painstakingly adjusted to cover the maximum area. This gave him an oddly wet look, as if he had just emerged from the river. His moustache, which lavishly compensated for the scarcity of other hair, was yellow and appeared quite solid. He was a very small man, and he wore a brown suit and a stiff white collar with rounded corners.

  ‘Sir,’ Rigby began, ‘may I introduce Mr Smiley from London?’

  He came out from behind his desk as if he were giving himself up, unconvinced but resigned. Then he pushed out a little, knobbly hand and said, ‘From London, eh? How d’you do, sir,’ all at once, as if he’d learnt it by heart.

  ‘Mr Smiley’s here on a private visit, sir,’ Rigby continued. ‘He is an acquaintance of Mr Fielding.’

  ‘Quite a card, Fielding, quite a card,’ the Chief Constable snapped.

  ‘Yes, indeed, sir,’ said Rigby, and went on:

  ‘Mr Smiley called on Mr Fielding just now, sir, to take his leave before returning to London.’ Havelock shot a beady glance at Smiley, as if wondering whether he were fit to make the journey.

  ‘Mr Fielding made a kind of statement, which he substantiated with new evidence of his own. About the murder, sir.’

  ‘Well, Rigby?’ he said challengingly. Smiley intervened:

  ‘He said that the husband had done it; Stanley Rode. Fielding said that when his head boy brought him Rode’s writing-case containing the examination papers …’

  ‘What examination papers?’

  ‘Rode was invigilating that afternoon, you remember. He was also doing Chapel Duty before going on to dinner at Fielding’s house. As an expediency, he gave the papers to Perkins to take …’

  ‘The boy who had the accident?’ Havelock asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You know a lot about it,’ said Havelock darkly.

  ‘Fielding said that when Perkins brought him the case, Fielding opened it. He wanted to see how Perkins had done in the science paper. It was vital to the boy’s future that he should get his remove,’ Smiley went on.

  ‘Oh, work’s the only thing now,’ said Havelock bitterly. ‘Wasn’t the way when I was a boy here, I assure you.’

  ‘When Fielding opened the case, the papers were inside. So was a plastic cape, an old pair of leather gloves, and a pair of rubber overshoes, cut from Wellingtons.’

  A pause.

  ‘Good God! Good God! Hear that, Rigby? That’s what they found in the parcel in London. Good God!’

  ‘Finally, there was a length of cable, heavy cable, in the case as well. It was this writing-case that Rode went back for, you remember, on the night of the murder,’ Smiley concluded. It was like feeding a child – you couldn’t overload the spoon.

  There was a very long silence indeed. Then Rigby, who seemed to know his man, said:

  ‘Motive was self-advancement in the profession, sir. Mrs Rode showed no desire to improve her station, dressed in a slovenly manner and took no part in the religious life of the school.’

  ‘Just a minute,’ said Havelock. ‘Rode planned the murder from the start, correct?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘He wanted to make it look like robbery with violence.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Having collected the writing-case, he walked back to North Fields. Then what does he do?’

  ‘He puts on the plastic cape and hood, overshoes and gloves. He arms himself with the weapon, sir. He lets himself in by the garden gate, crosses the back garden, goes to the front door and rings the bell, sir. His wife comes to the door. He knocks her down, drags her to the conservatory and murders her. He rinses the clothes under the tap and puts them in the parcel. Having sealed the parcel, he walks down the drive, this time to the front gate, following the path, sir, knowing that his own footprints will soon be obscured by other people’s. Having got to the road, where the snow was hard and showed no prints, he turned round and re-entered the house, playing the part of the distressed husband, taking care, when he discovers the body, sir, to put his own finger prints over the glove-marks. There was one article that was too dangerous to send, sir. The weapon.’

  ‘All right, Rigby. Pull him in. Mr Borrow will give you a warrant if you want one; otherwise I’ll ring Lord Sawley.’

  ‘Yes, sir. And I’ll send Sergeant Low to take a full statement from Mr Fielding, sir?’

  ‘Why the devil didn’t he speak up earlier, Rigby?’

  ‘Have to ask him that, sir,’ said Rigby woodenly, and left the room.

  ‘You a Carnian?’ Havelock asked, pushing a silver cigarette-box across the desk.

  ‘No. No, I’m afraid not,’ Smiley replied.

  ‘How d’you know Fielding?’

  ‘We met at Oxford after the war.’

  ‘Queer card, Fielding, very queer. Say your name was Smiley?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There was a fellow called Smiley married Ann Sercombe, Lord Sawley’s cousin. Damned pretty girl, Ann was, and went and married this fellow. Some funny little beggar in the Civil Service with an OBE and a gold watch. Sawley was damned annoyed.’ Smiley said nothing. ‘Sawley’s got a son at Carne. Know that?’

  ‘I read it in the press, I think.’

  ‘Tell me – this fellow Rode. He’s a grammar-school chap, isn’t he?’

  ‘I believe so, yes.’

  ‘Damned odd business. Experiments never pay, do they? You can’t experiment with tradition.’

  ‘No. No, indeed.’

  ‘That’s the trouble today. Like Africa. Nobody seems to understand you can’t build society overnight. It takes centuries to make a gentleman.’ Havelock frowned to himself and fiddled with the paper-knife on his desk.

  ‘Wonder how he got his cable into that ditch, the thing he killed her with. He wasn’t out of our sight for forty-eight hours after the murder.’

  ‘That,’ said Smiley, ‘is what puzzles me. So does Jane Lyn.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘I don’t believe Rode would have had the nerve to walk back to the house after killing his wife knowing that Jane Lyn had seen him do it. Assuming, of course, that he did know, which seems likely. It’s too cool … too cool altogether.’

  ‘Odd, damned odd,’ muttered Havelock. He looked at his watch, pushing his left elbow outwards to do so, in a swift equestrian movement which Smiley found comic, and a little sad. The minutes ticked by. Smiley wondered if he should leave, but he had a vague feeling that Havelock wanted his company.

  ‘There’ll be a hell of a fuss,’ said Havelock. ‘It isn’t every day you arrest a Carne tutor for murder.’ He put down the paper-knife sharply on the desk.

  ‘These bloody journalists ought to be horsewhipped!’ he declared. ‘Look at the stuff they print about the Royal Family. Wicked, wicked!’ He got up, crossed the room and sat himself in a leather armchair by the fire. One of the spaniels went and sat at his feet.

  ‘What made him do it, I wonder. What the devil made him do it? His own wife, I mean; a fellow like that.’ Havelock said this simply, appealing for enlightenment.

  ‘I don’t believe,’ said Smiley slowly, ‘that we can ever entirely know what makes anyone do anything.’

  ‘My God, you’re dead right … What do you do for a living, Smiley?’

  ‘After the war I was at Oxford for a bit. Teaching and research. I’m in London now.’

  ‘One of those clever coves, eh?’

  Smiley wondered when Rigby would return.

  ‘Know anything about this fellow’s family? Has he got people, or anything?’

  ‘I think they’re both dead,’ Smiley answered, and the telephone on Havelock’s desk rang sharply. It was Rigby. Stanley Rode had disappeared.

  18 After the Ball

  He caught the 1.30 train to London. He just made it after an argument at his hotel about the bill. He left a note for Rigby giving his address and telephone number in London and asking him to telephone that nig
ht when the laboratory tests were completed. There was nothing else for him to do in Carne.

  As the train pulled slowly out of Carne and one by one the familiar landmarks disappeared into the cold February mist, George Smiley was filled with a feeling of relief. He hadn’t wanted to come, he knew that. He’d been afraid of the place where his wife had spent her childhood, afraid to see the fields where she had lived. But he had found nothing, not the faintest memory, neither in the lifeless outlines of Sawley Castle, nor in the surrounding countryside, to remind him of her. Only the gossip remained, as it would while the Hechts and the Havelocks survived to parade their acquaintance with the first family in Carne.

  He took a taxi to Chelsea, carried his suitcase upstairs and unpacked with the care of a man accustomed to living alone. He thought of having a bath, but decided to ring Ailsa Brimley first. The telephone was by his bed. He sat on the edge of the bed and dialled the number. A tinny model-voice sang: ‘Unipress, good afternoon,’ and he asked for Miss Brimley. There was a long silence, then, ‘Ah’m afraid Miss Brimley is in conference. Can someone else answer your query?’

  Query, thought Smiley. Good God! Why on earth query – why not question or inquiry?

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘Just tell her Mr Smiley rang.’ He put back the receiver and went into the bathroom and turned on the hot tap. He was fiddling with his cuff-links when the telephone rang. It was Ailsa Brimley:

  ‘George? I think you’d better come round at once. We’ve got a visitor. Mr Rode from Carne. He wants to talk to us.’

  Pulling on his jacket, he ran out into the street and hailed a taxi.

  19 Disposal of a Legend

  The descending escalator was packed with the staff of Unipress, homebound and heavy-eyed. To them, the sight of a fat, middle-aged gentleman bounding up the adjoining staircase provided unexpected entertainment, so that Smiley was hastened on his way by the jeers of office-boys and the laughter of typists. On the first floor he paused to study an enormous board carrying the titles of a quarter of the national dailies. Finally, under the heading of ‘Technical and Miscellaneous’, he spotted the Christian Voice, Room 619. The lift seemed to go up very slowly. Formless music issued from behind its plush, while a boy in a monkey jacket flicked his hips on the heavier beats. The golden doors parted with a sigh, the boy said ‘Six’, and Smiley stepped quickly into the corridor. A moment or two later he was knocking on the door of Room 619. It was opened by Ailsa Brimley.

  ‘George, how nice,’ she said brightly. ‘Mr Rode will be dreadfully pleased to see you.’ And without any further introduction she led him into her office. In an armchair near the window sat Stanley Rode, tutor of Carne, in a neat black overcoat. As Smiley entered he stood up and held out his hand. ‘Good of you to come, sir,’ he said woodenly. ‘Very.’ The same flat manner, the same cautious voice.

  ‘How can I help you?’ asked Smiley.

  They all sat down. Smiley offered Miss Brimley a cigarette and lit it for her.

  ‘It’s about this article you’re writing about Stella,’ he began. ‘I feel awful about it really, because you’ve been so good to her, and her memory, if you see what I mean. I know you wish well, but I don’t want you to write it.’

  Smiley said nothing, and Ailsa was wise enough to keep quiet. From now on it was Smiley’s interview. The silence didn’t worry him, but it seemed to worry Rode.

  ‘It wouldn’t be right; it wouldn’t do at all. Mr Glaston agreed; I spoke to him yesterday before he left and he agreed. I just couldn’t let you write that stuff.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Too many people know, you see. Poor Mr Cardew, I asked him. He knows a lot; and a lot about Stella, so I asked him. He understands why I gave up Chapel too; I couldn’t bear to see her going there every Sunday and going down on her knees.’ He shook his head. ‘It was all wrong. It just made a fool of your faith.’

  ‘What did Mr Cardew say?’

  ‘He said we should not be the judges. We should let God judge. But I said to him it wouldn’t be right, those people knowing her and knowing what she’d done, and then reading all that stuff in the Voice. They’d think it was crazy. He didn’t seem to see that, he just said to leave it to God. But I can’t, Mr Smiley.’

  Again no one spoke for a time. Rode sat quite still, save for a very slight rocking movement of his head. Then he began to talk again:

  ‘I didn’t believe old Mr Glaston at first. He said she was bad, but I didn’t believe it. They lived up on the hill then, Gorse Hill, only a step from the Tabernacle; Stella and her father. They never seemed to keep servants for long, so she did most of the work. I used to call in Sunday mornings sometimes after church. Stella looked after her father, cooked for him and everything, and I always wondered how I’d ever have the nerve to ask Mr Glaston for her. The Glastons were big people in Branxome. I was teaching at the Grammar School in those days. They let me teach part-time while I read for my degree, and I made up my mind that if I passed the exam. I’d ask her to marry me.

  ‘The Sunday after the results came out I went round to the house after morning service. Mr Glaston opened the door himself. He took me straight into the study. You could see half the potteries in Poole from the window, and the sea beyond. He sat me down and he said: “I know what you’re here for, Stanley. You want to marry Stella. But you don’t know her,” he said, “you don’t know her.” “I’ve been visiting two years, Mr Glaston,” I said,“and I think I know my mind.” Then he started talking about her. I never thought to hear a human being talk like that of his own child. He said she was bad – bad in her heart. That she was full of malice. That was why no servants would stay at the Hill. He told me how she’d lead people on, all kind and warm, till they’d told her everything, then she’d hurt them, saying wicked, wicked things, half true, half lies. He told me a lot more besides, and I didn’t believe it, not a word. I think I lost my head; I called him a jealous old man who didn’t want to lose his housekeeper, a lying, jealous old man who wanted his child to wait on him till he died. I said it was him who was bad, not Stella, and I shouted at him liar, liar. He didn’t seem to hear, just shook his head, and I ran out into the hall and called Stella. She’d been in the kitchen, I think, and she came to me and put her arms round me and kissed me.

  ‘We were married a month later, and the old man gave her away. He shook my hand at the wedding and called me a fine man, and I thought what an old hypocrite he was. He gave us money – to me, not her – two thousand pounds. I thought perhaps he was trying to make up for the dreadful things he’d said, and later I wrote to him and said I forgave him. He never answered and I didn’t see him often after that.

  ‘For a year or more we were happy enough at Branxome. She was just what I thought she’d be, neat and simple. She liked to go for walks and kiss at the stiles; she liked to be a bit grand sometimes, going to the Dolphin for dinner all dressed up. It meant a lot to me then, I don’t mind admitting, going to the right places with Mr Glaston’s daughter. He was Rotary and on the Council and quite a figure in Branxome. She used to tease me about it – in front of other people too, which got me a bit. I remember one time we went to the Dolphin, one of the waiters there was a bloke called Johnnie Raglan. We’d been to school together. Johnnie was a bit of a tear-about and hadn’t done anything much since he’d left school except run after girls and get into trouble. Stella knew him, I don’t know how, and she waved to him as soon as we’d sat down. Johnnie came over and Stella made him bring another chair and sit with us. The Manager looked daggers, but he didn’t dare to do anything because she was Samuel Glaston’s daughter. Johnnie stayed there all the meal and Stella talked to him about school and what I was like. Johnnie was pleased as Punch and got cheeky, saying I’d been a swot and a good boy and all the rest, and how Johnnie had knocked me about – lies most of it, and she egged him on. I went for her afterwards and said I didn’t pay good money at the Dolphin to hear Johnnie Raglan tell a lot of tall stories, and she turned on me fast like a c
at. It was her money, she said, and Johnnie was as good as me any day. Then she was sorry and kissed me and I pretended to forgive her.’

  Sweat was forming on his face; he was talking fast, the words tripping over each other. It was like a man recalling a nightmare, as if the memory were still there, the fear only half gone. He paused and looked sharply at Smiley as if expecting him to speak, but Smiley seemed to be looking past him, his face impassive, its soft contours grown hard.

  ‘Then we went to Carne. I’d just started reading The Times and I saw the advert. They wanted a science tutor and I applied. Mr D’Arcy interviewed me and I got the job. It wasn’t till we got to Carne that I knew that what her father had said was true. She hadn’t been very keen on Chapel before, but as soon as she got here she went in for it in a big way. She knew it would look wrong, that it would hurt me. Branxome’s a fine big church, you see; there was nothing funny about going to Branxome Tabernacle. But at Carne it was different; Carne Tabernacle’s a little out-of-the-way place with a tin roof. She wanted to be different, to spite the school and me, by playing the humble one. I wouldn’t have minded if she’d been sincere, but she wasn’t, Mr Cardew knew that. He got to know Stella, Mr Cardew did. I think her father told him; anyway, Mr Cardew was up North before, and he knew the family well. For all I know he wrote to Mr Glaston, or went and saw him or something.

  ‘She began there well enough. The townspeople were all pleased enough to see her – a wife from the School coming to the Tabernacle, that had never happened before. Then she took to running the appeal for the refugees – to collecting clothes and all that. Miss D’Arcy was running it for the school, Mr D’Arcy’s sister, and Stella wanted to beat her at her own game – to get more from the Chapel people than Miss D’Arcy got from the School. But I knew what she was doing, and so did Mr Cardew, and so did the townspeople in the end. She listened. Every drop of gossip and dirt, she hoarded it away. She’d come home of an evening sometimes – Wednesdays and Fridays she did her Chapel work – and she’d throw off her coat and laugh till I thought she’d gone mad.