The Snark was a Boojum

by Gerald Verner

  “If he’s a philanderer the proposed new will might have favoured whoever he might be philandering with, d’you see?” Gale suggested. “I think we need to be certain who that person is—though I have an idea who it might be . . .”

  Chief Detective Inspector Halliday had an appointment with the Deputy Chief Constable after lunch followed by a press conference. He offered to drive us back to Hunter’s Meadow—I think as a measure to prevent Gale from meeting Major Wintringham-Smythe so soon after our visit to St. Dunstan Investigations. Gale accepted his offer of a lift with alacrity, though I would have preferred to walk. None of us were particularly cheerful. Gale was suffering from a kind of irritable frustration and even Halliday’s usually genial expression was worried and gloomy.

  As we approached the Golden Crust, Gale came alive and signalled frantically for Halliday to stop. “I need beer!” he cried, opening the car door almost before the car had come to a standstill, he was in such a hurry. “And lots of it! Are you coming Halliday?”

  “No thank you, sir,” answered Halliday smiling. “I have to get back.”

  “Thank you for the lift. We can walk home from here,” I said, as Gale disappeared through the door of the pub.

  “Beatrice!” Gale greeted the bar lady like a long lost love. “Beer and lots of it!”

  “Hello, Mr. Gale,” greeted Beatrice grabbing a tankard.

  Gale shook his head and indicated a larger one at the end of the row. “That’s the one—two pints, d’you see? Then I needn’t bother you so often! And something for you Beatrice . . .?”

  “Well, that’s very kind of you Mr. Gale. I’ll just have a small port.”

  “Right you are!” Gale cried—his mood considerably improved from when he’d been in the car. Beatrice put our drinks on the bar and Gale took an enormous draft, smacked his lips and cried: “Beatrice the beautiful . . .” he beckoned her close.

  “Yes, Mr. Gale?”

  “I need your help, d’you see?”

  Beatrice didn’t know if Gale was being serious or having a joke. “Oh, yes!” she giggled.

  Gale beckoned her closer and cocked an eyebrow. “I need to ask you something I am sure you will know the answer to,” he whispered conspiratorially. “It’s very important, d’you see?”

  Beatrice flushed and gave him a big grin. “Oh, all right . . . I’ll do my best . . .”

  “Mr. Gifford . . .”

  Beatrice opened her eyes until they were like saucers.

  “Mr. Gifford and Mrs. Hilary King . . . Was there anything in the nature of an engagement?”

  Beatrice looked relieved she hadn’t been asked something she couldn’t answer. “There was no engagement or anything like that; just gossip—but everyone knew which way the wind was blowing . . .”

  Gale gave me an exultant look of triumph.

  She shook her head sorrowfully. “It must have been a shock for her, Mr. Gifford being found like . . . well you know . . .”

  “I’m sure it was,” agreed Gale. “I’m sure it was a very great shock.” He turned to me when Beatrice was out of earshot. “That’s the real reason Hilary didn’t want her husband too close . . . it would blow sky high her relationship with Gifford. Gradually the picture buried beneath emerges, eh, young feller? Like one painting hidden beneath another.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The house was deserted when we arrived.

  My father and Bellman were busy in the study and Jack Merridew had gone off on his bicycle somewhere, on an errand. Ursula had gone to Marling to lunch with some friends and was not expected back until late in the afternoon. There was no sign of Zoe Anderson anywhere though, and according to Trenton she had not gone with Ursula.

  Simon Gale went straight to his room to think, he said, and so I was left to my own devices. I wandered restlessly into the empty dining-room; the long table was already set for luncheon. I opened one of the windows and stepped out onto the stone-flagged terrace. There was a smell of wet earth and rotting leaves and across the wide stretch of grass, beyond a ragged line of shrubbery, a thin spiral of smoke was rising. The air was dampish from the rain-soaked ground but I found it refreshing, and, leaning on the broad top of the terrace wall, I lit a cigarette and tried to sort out my impressions of the morning, and the revelations concerning Hilary.

  It was ridiculous to suppose that she could have anything to do with the murders. If Gifford was in love with her and planning to change his will in her favour, which was the only explanation I could think of, then assuming she didn’t reciprocate that love, and had other plans, killing him would have cost her a great deal of money and achieved nothing . . .

  I heard a step behind me on the stone paving and swung round . . .

  It was Zoe.

  She was wearing the loose, fleecy coat which she had been wearing when I had first seen her that night in the Golden Crust—the night when Lance Weston’s entrance had heralded the recent dreadful events . . .

  “Hello,” she said. “I hope I didn’t startle you? I’ve been for a walk around the grounds. This is a lovely place, isn’t it?”

  “I’m afraid I haven’t seen much of it,” I confessed.

  Her face puckered into a smile and her green eyes twinkled mischievously.

  “Too busy playing the great detective?” she taunted.

  “That’s not only unkind but not true,” I retorted. “Watson perhaps . . .”

  She laughed, and leaned against the balustrade her hands thrust deeply into the pockets of her coat.

  “Have you discovered anything? Are the police any nearer to capturing this maniac?”

  “You think a maniac is responsible?”

  Her thin eyebrows curved upwards in surprise.

  “Don’t you?”

  “I honestly don’t know what to think any longer,” I answered, not wishing to start any controversy.

  “Well, I refuse to believe anyone sane could have carried out those horrible crimes. The terrifying possibility, truly terrifying, is that it might be someone we’ve met.”

  “Let’s not talk about it,” I said. “I’m going to suggest that we go for a long walk this afternoon and leave all the spooks and horrors behind us. Perhaps we could have tea somewhere . . .”

  “I’d like that,” she broke in impulsively, her eyes sparkling.

  “That’s settled then. We’ll go immediately after lunch,” I declared.

  *

  I have a most vivid recollection of that afternoon with Zoe among the lanes and woods of Lower Bramsham because it marked a wonderful interlude before once again we were to be terrorised by the Snark.

  Lunch was not a long meal that day. My father and old Bellman were obviously anxious to get back to work on the acquisition, and Gale unusually silent, and scowling at his plate, ate practically nothing. Jack Merridew didn’t put in an appearance at all—presumably he was still engaged on whatever business had taken him out—so that there were only five of us grouped round one end of the long dining table.

  While I was in my room I heard an appalling din from the direction of the garage and recognised the sound of that fiendish contraption which Simon Gale called a motor-cycle. With a noise like a miniature air raid it popped and banged and exploded past the house and it was not until it had receded into the distance tranquillity was regained. Gale had evidentially gone off somewhere on his own and not, as I concluded from his behaviour at lunch, in a particularly good mood.

  Zoe and I left Hunter’s Meadow just after two o’clock. I hoped that it would keep fine. There was a mackerel sky of white cloud. It was quite warm and although there was a slight breeze it wasn’t strong enough for real discomfort.

  We elected to leave the village behind us and set off in the opposite direction when we turned out of the drive. I had never chosen this way before and neither had Zoe. The road wound pleasantly between steep banks of moss and grass, topped by a forest of trees, whose branches met overhead, forming an interlaced tracery against the sky. We walked down
this autumnal tunnel feeling secure and protected until after a while we came out into the open again and began to climb steeply, the trees thinning out and eventually fraying away altogether giving way to low-growing woody vegetation, as the road widened out and merged with a wide expanse of gorse-dotted common land. This was Bramsham Heath, an uncultivated wilderness.

  Close to where the road had emerged was a narrow path that ran back along the fringe of a dense wood. We decided this looked more attractive than the area of common that stretched before us, exposed and windswept, and covered with hummocks of coarse grass. It looked as if walking might be difficult.

  Zoe hadn’t said very much since we left Hunter’s Meadow, but her impish face was aglow, and every now and again she would glance up sideways at me with one of her attractive, crinkly smiles, and I knew she was enjoying herself.

  For two and a half hours we rambled through woods and lanes and narrow footpaths, losing all sense of direction, so that we were surprised when we came out onto a bridle-path and found ourselves on the outskirts of the village. When we had turned back upon reaching Bramsham Heath along by the wood, we had begun walking in a circle. After this long walk we were thirsty and sprinted the last few steps to the teashop.

  Being alone with Zoe for so long, at ease with each other, and experiencing such a wonderful afternoon . . . Well, I can’t ever remember feeling as good as this. I told her how I felt.

  “I’m sorry it’s nearly over,” she said. “There’s a sort of magical spell about the country—the real country where there’s nothing but trees and grass and fields . . . You know what I mean don’t you?”

  “It’s fantastic,” I said, taking her hand.

  Out in those thick and silent woods and winding lanes, far from civilisation, only the occasional flutter and twitter of a bird to break the pervading stillness—peace could be found there, sanctuary from the stress of life, a natural catharsis that purged the soul . . .

  We had almost reached the entrance to Goose Lane when Zoe suddenly stopped, let go of my hand and grabbed me by the arm. I wondered what had happened for a moment, and then following the direction of her eyes, I saw . . .

  The front door of Lance Weston’s cottage had opened and Ursula Bellman was coming out. She moved swiftly and rather furtively down the little path, stepped quickly out the gate, and hurried away in the direction of the High Street. She hadn’t seen us. We were further down on the opposite side of the road.

  “Whose house was that?” whispered Zoe looking up at me.

  I told her and her forehead puckered up in a worried frown.

  “So that’s where she really went,” she said in a hurt voice. “That settles any speculation, doesn’t it? I mean, lunch in Marling . . . a deliberate lie. What a fool she is!”

  I knew Zoe felt a responsibility towards Ursula as a friend, and in telling her this lie Ursula had betrayed her.

  “That’s what happens in these situations,” I said rather lamely. “People lie.”

  Zoe looked worried and a little tearful. “Oh dear, something must be done to stop this. I have to stop her before Mr. Bellman finds out, and it’s all over.”

  “It’s the most difficult thing . . .”

  “She’s so stupid!” She stamped her foot and caught her lower lip with her teeth. “I thought all this nonsense would be over when she’d decided to marry Mr. Bellman.” She stared at me, obviously trying to make up her mind about something. “It’s so annoying! Let’s go and have some tea.” She took my arm. “I want to tell you something I’ve never told anyone else.”

  The little teashop was empty and we took off our coats and settled ourselves at a corner table. When the elderly woman, whom I suspected was not only the waitress but the owner, had taken my order and departed, I leaned forward towards Zoe conspiratorially: “You’re going to tell me that this isn’t the first time Ursula has been up to fun and games.”

  Her green eyes widened. “How did you know?”

  “You hinted something of the kind the other day,” I reminded her. “I rather gathered that it was something that happened while you and she were sharing that flat together.”

  She rested her elbows on the table. “Ursula is an orphan, you know. Both her parents were killed in an accident when she was three years old. She was brought up by her grandmother, and after she died, by an aunt who was very strict and . . . She never said anything definite to me about it but I could see by the expression on her face that she was abused . . . I know she didn’t have a happy childhood—she told me she was unhappy and miserable. She was never allowed any sort of freedom, dances and boyfriends . . . all the things that most girls have.”

  I wondered if Zoe had a boyfriend. It hadn’t occurred to me until now. I really didn’t know much about her, and resolved to find out more. I cut short my thoughts to concentrate on what she was telling me . . .

  “I’m telling you this because I believe it was partly the reason that when she did get free . . .” she broke off as the elderly woman appeared with our tea. When she had set it down on the table and gone, Zoe continued: “Ursula loves to be admired . . . Oh, I know, most women do, but with Ursula it’s a kind of desperate necessity. She was only really happy when she was surrounded by a circle of men, and of course with her looks she had no trouble attracting them.”

  She poured out the tea while she continued talking: “I suppose I must shoulder some of the blame for what happened,” she went on, helping herself to a muffin. “Knowing what she was like I ought to have taken more care of her. But I couldn’t go everywhere with her, could I? The truth is if I had, she would have resented my intrusion, and that would have been the end of our friendship.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “It was a man she got mixed up with when she went to Monte Carlo on a modelling job at the Hotel de Paris . . .” she hesitated, but I guessed what was coming.

  “Do you mean there was a child?” I asked bluntly.

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “What happened to it?”

  “Well that’s just it . . .” she began.

  I sensed her difficulty in betraying a confidence, but I think she was relieved to tell someone, and I was very glad she had chosen me.

  “It was because of the child that I came down here unannounced to see her.”

  No wonder I had detected a false note in Ursula’s smiling welcome on the night of Zoe’s unexpected arrival at Hunter’s Meadow. Obviously she had no wish to be reminded of this past indiscretion.

  Ursula, in the natural course of her modelling job had been sent to Monte Carlo. She’d travelled on the Le Train Bleu. It was the first time she had been abroad and either the romantic surroundings, or more probably the champagne which seemed to have been the accompaniment of an apparently endless round of parties, had gone to her head. Whatever the actual trigger, she had become tangled up with a man of ill repute, who had been staying at the same hotel. It was too late when she found out just what kind of man he was—a gambler with debts piling up, also he was an aviator mixed up in some shady goings-on.

  “An aviator?” I repeated, intrigued. “He owned his own aircraft?”

  “I gather so,” she answered, not really sharing my interest.

  I imagined the man as a George Coleman lookalike, and Ursula in a magnificent evening gown . . . meeting him over cocktails . . . somewhere exotic with a backdrop of palm trees and the Mediterranean sparkling in the moonlight . . . A plane zooming in low over the water on a secret mission, maybe smuggling in a spy . . . I saw the man brandishing a revolver . . .

  “It had been a very hectic and passionate affair while it lasted,” Zoe was saying, pulling me out of my imagined scenario and back to the reality of the tea shop with a jolt. “The aftermath of it was disastrous!”

  Zoe had known nothing about it until several weeks after Ursula had returned home. She had noticed that Ursula was worried about something but she had never dreamt what it was, until one night Ursula had broken down, had
a fit of hysterics, and sobbed out the truth on her shoulder.

  “She was frantic with worry,” said Zoe, her green eyes clouding at the recollection. “She’d taken all sorts of crazy things in an attempt to . . . well none had any effect except to make her feel ill. She was at her wits’ end and terrified that anyone should know . . .”

  “What happened to the child?” I asked.

  “I took care of that,” she answered. “I sent her away to my sister Lucy who lives in the country. Her husband owns a small farm . . . The baby was born there . . . there were complications. Ursula can’t have any more children.”

  “Is the child still there?” I asked. “Is the child still living with your sister and her husband?”

  “I was a fool to think, and so was Ursula, that you could just dump a baby on someone and it would all go away. You see, a fresh difficulty has cropped up . . .”

  “Your sister doesn’t want to keep the baby any longer?” I cut in, hazarding a guess.

  She shook her head. “I am afraid it’s the exact opposite! They want to adopt him legally.”

  “How old is he?”

  “He’s name is Peter and he’s nearly seven. He’s the cutest little boy . . . He thinks of Lucy and Andrew as his real mother and father . . .”

  “A legal adoption shouldn’t be difficult,” I said trying to be helpful. “There are several formalities to be complied with, of course. An application has to be made to the Court, and Ursula will have to sign her consent to the adoption and agree to renounce absolutely and unconditionally any control or rights in the child . . .”

  “She refused to do anything,” Zoe interrupted.

  “Did she explain why she refused?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “No, she wouldn’t. That’s the trouble. That’s why I’m here.”

  We both needed a short break from these discussions which were obviously distressing Zoe. I took the opportunity to eat a muffin while I considered what could be done, while she poured some more tea.