The Herring in the Library

by L. C. Tyler

  The children I encountered thought that it was only mildly odd that a strange man smelling strongly of alcohol was looking for their bursar on a Monday evening. They were very helpful and I found the cottage without too much trouble – a two-storey building, scarcely wider than its Gothic front door, and situated close to what seemed to have been the stables of the main building.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said, when he had responded to my knocking. ‘You’d better come in, whatever it is you want. Have you been drinking?’

  ‘With John O’Brian. Is it that obvious?’

  ‘You are surrounded by an almost visible haze of Irish whiskey. What can I do for you?’

  ‘The investigation . . .’ I noticed I was having difficulty pronouncing that word. ‘The search is getting complex.’

  ‘I’ll get you another drink then. I’ve only got beer, I’m afraid. Is that OK? Just keep talking. I’ll fetch a couple from the fridge.’

  He seated me in a chair in the ground-floor sitting-room-cum-dining-room-cum-kitchen. Upstairs, I guessed, there would be room for a bedroom and a small bathroom. It was one of the few houses I have ever seen that made my flat look big.

  ‘The police,’ I said, ‘say that it must be suicide because there was no way out of the locked library. But it transpires there is a secret passage.’

  ‘So Annabelle says.’ Clive shut the fridge door with his foot and carried two bottles over to the sink to open them.

  ‘Did you know about the passage?’

  ‘Not until Annabelle told me yesterday.’

  ‘She never mentioned it before?’

  ‘No.’ He handed me the opened bottle and a glass.

  ‘Not the sort of thing that a total stranger would have known about,’ I said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘A stranger like this man in a blue suit, for example?’

  Clive Brent looked awkward. ‘You’d need to talk to John O’Brian about that.’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘Then you’ll know all there is to know.’

  ‘He says that Annabelle asked him to say he’d seen the man to corroborate your account.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘That’s what he says.’

  ‘That may be what he says, but that’s not what happened – or it’s what happened but completely the other way round. It was John O’Brian who got a good look at him. Annabelle then asked me to say that I . . . Hang on, are you saying she told both of us that the other had definitely seen the guy and that she just needed a second witness to make it more credible? And we both fell for it? Well, I’m a bloody fool and you can tell John O’Brian he’s one too.’

  ‘I can’t tell him anything. He’s gone. Annabelle sacked him.’

  ‘Did she? Well, that’s a minor tactical mistake if she wanted him to continue to perjure himself for her.’

  ‘Looks like a change of plan. Maybe not for the first time.’

  ‘No, not for the first time.’

  We both drank beer in silence for a while, then I remembered why I had come.

  ‘You had a motive for killing Robert,’ I said. ‘He stitched you up over that futures thing.’

  ‘True enough. Still, he found me this job.’ Clive Brent waved his hand at the sitting-room-cum-dining-room-cum-kitchen. It took only a brief wave to encompass it all. ‘Bastard.’

  ‘You wanted to get revenge.’

  ‘Very true.’

  ‘You had the opportunity to kill him.’

  ‘On an almost daily basis. I could have lain in wait somewhere along the drive to the house and bludgeoned him to death with something from his own garden shed as he walked back with his newspaper under his arm. I didn’t need to do it in a house full of his friends.’

  ‘So it wasn’t you then?’ I said.

  ‘I like your questioning technique. Very straightforward.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t me,’ he said. ‘What good would that have done? I was having my revenge twice a week on average with Annabelle – in a good week several times in one afternoon – and it was a lot more fun than murder. In the meantime there was at least an outside chance that Robert would actually deliver on his promise of something better than a part-time bursarship. I had no reason to want him dead.’

  ‘Was Robert having an affair with anyone?’

  ‘In all likelihood. It was pretty much what he did. I wasn’t actually aware of anyone lately, though.’

  ‘Fiona McIntosh thinks it was suicide, but she also suggested that he might have been killed by somebody he was having an affair with – somebody he might have trusted even though they were playfully knotting a cord round his neck.’

  ‘There are many things that I would have described Robert as, but “trusting” isn’t one of them. I’ll get you another beer. It won’t help you decide how Robert died, but it will help put things into perspective.’

  When Clive returned, I raised another question that had been hovering at the back of my mind.

  ‘Now Robert is dead, I assume you and Annabelle will . . .’

  ‘There’s no me and Annabelle. There never was a me-and-Annabelle in any meaningful sense. Annabelle has spent her life using people. It was fun to feel I was using her for a while, but the novelty has rather worn off. No, I never had plans to make any permanent arrangements. If John O’Brian is out of the picture too . . . well, Ethelred, I’d watch my back if I were you.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Oh yes, I think you’ll find you’re next on her list.’

  ‘Quite the reverse. I’ve got my marching orders too.’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, I can see she might have taken it that way.’

  ‘So,’ I said, trying both to work out what he meant by that and to summarize at the same time. ‘No man in a blue suit. Nobody with any real motive. If we want to know who the murderer was, what we really need to find out is who benefits most from Robert’s death.’

  Clive Brent looked at me incredulously. ‘Well, the answer to that question’s pretty obvious, surely?’

  No,’ I said. ‘Who?’

  He gave me the sort of look you give people when you’re not sure whether they are being very cunning or very stupid.

  ‘Well, you do, of course,’ he said with a laugh. ‘You do.’

  The Blue Death

  ‘I’ve got a plan,’ said the Prioress. ‘We can rescue this man that you have arranged to have falsely imprisoned.’

  ‘It wasn’t me . . .’ began Thomas, but he stopped, knowing how little use the explanation would be.

  ‘Do you want to help him or not?’

  ‘I don’t see how we can get through fourteen-foot-thick stone walls, grab the man from his cell and fight our way out,’ said Master Thomas reasonably.

  ‘Of course you don’t see,’ said the Prioress. ‘You are thinking like a man. It’s all about penetrating things and getting into a fight.’

  ‘And your plan?’

  ‘We’ll talk our way in, then we’ll talk our way out again. Only, when we talk our way out, there’ll be three of us.’

  ‘And you’ve thought this through?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Does it require divine intervention at any stage?’

  ‘No more than, as a prioress, I can reasonably expect.’

  ‘I don’t mean to be rude, but have you ever done anything even remotely like this before?’

  ‘Dozens of times,’ said the Prioress, not quite looking Thomas in the eye. ‘Piece of honey cake, frankly. Now if you can get Lady Catherine’s men to provide us with a couple of horses, we can get over to Bramber while there’s still time.’

  ‘It will have to be tomorrow,’ said Master Thomas.

  ‘Tomorrow it is then,’ said the Prioress.

  The following day, the snow had started to melt, but the journey was, if anything, harder than it had been through fresh snow. The horses slipped and slithered over the half-frozen surface. Though they had started early, it was late morning be
fore they reached the castle. Its walls, thought Master Thomas, looked every bit fourteen feet thick – no way through them or over them. Hopefully the Prioress was a very good talker.

  ‘So what is this plan exactly?’ asked Thomas.

  ‘You’ll see,’ she said.

  When challenged at the gate, the Prioress smiled demurely and said: ‘We have come to visit the prisoner lately brought hither and to pray with him.’

  ‘Can’t be done,’ said the guard. ‘It is more than my position is worth to do that.’

  ‘Would you endanger his immortal soul by denying him the word of God in his hour of need?’

  ‘Can’t see why not,’ said the guard.

  ‘Would you imperil your own soul in the process? Deny him succour and you risk the flames of Hell’

  ‘I’ll chance it,’ said the guard, who unfortunately didn’t seem all that religious.

  ‘How much?’ asked Thomas.

  ‘A shilling,’ said the guard, taking a bit more interest in the conversation, ‘but you’ll need to be quick about it – the Sheriff is due back at midday.’

  Money was transferred from Thomas’s purse to the guard’s and one nervous clerk of the customs and one sweetly smiling Prioress passed through the gateway. There was a further guard beyond, who also felt his soul was safe enough without the Prioress’s blessing, and another shilling changed hands before they were led down into the dungeons that Thomas had left so thankfully a short time before.

  The prisoner greeted them with suspicion, as the cell door slammed behind them and the gaoler’s footsteps receded down the passageway.

  ‘What are you two doing here?’ he demanded.

  ‘Fear not,’ said the Prioress. ‘We have come to free you. Though you are but a miserable wretch, and less well washed than I had hoped, we shall escort you to liberty.’

  ‘You have a warrant from the Sheriff?’

  ‘No,’ said the Prioress.

  ‘You have a royal pardon?’

  ‘Not as such.’

  ‘You know how to burrow through a fourteen-foot-thick wall?’

  ‘I admit I haven’t done it recently.’

  ‘You know how to seduce the guards?’

  ‘Of course, but it won’t be necessary.’

  ‘So, what’s the great plan?’ asked the prisoner with an amused sneer.

  ‘The plan,’ said the Prioress, ‘is this. I have in my pouch a blue dye, with which I will paint your face with convincing blemishes. Master Thomas will then bang on the door bleating like a lunatic: “Plague! Plague! This man has the plague! Let me out!” I will then say calmly that as a nun it is my duty to care for the sick, and that I shall take him to our house nearby to look after him. The Sheriff will be delighted to see the back of him and we shall ride away.’

  ‘OK, just a couple of points there,’ said Master Thomas. ‘Is there any particular reason why it has to be me who bleats like a lunatic and you who are the calm saviour of the castle? I have after all trained as a doctor.’

  ‘And your second point?’

  ‘How will a few blue spots convince anyone he has the plague?’

  ‘Have you seen anyone who had the plague?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘There you are then. It’s well known that the French call the plague La Morte Bleue. We just have to make him blue enough.’

  ‘Only an idiot,’ said Thomas, ten minutes later, ‘would believe that this gentleman has the plague.’

  ‘That should be good enough then,’ said the Prioress. ‘Now, are you going to shout or do I have to do everything myself?’

  ‘I’ve got a better plan,’ said Thomas. ‘We’ll wait for the Sheriff to return, I’ll explain that I did see somebody but I am now certain this isn’t the man I saw. He will have no choice but to release him.’

  ‘And then won’t he ask why he is painted blue?’

  ‘We’ll wash it off.’

  ‘Do you think I would try a trick like this with washable dye?’

  ‘I don’t know. Would you?’

  ‘Absolutely not. We’ll be able to frighten children with him for days if we’re lucky. So, let’s try it my way. Yell at the guard. Oh, and do try to sound deranged with fear.’

  Thomas walked over to the door and, through the small barred opening, yelled: ‘Guard, guard, come at once!’

  After what the guard clearly considered a decent interval, a shuffling footfall announced his arrival.

  ‘You and your nun done enough praying?’

  ‘Yes . . . no . . . this man is very ill. I think he has the plague.’

  The guard’s shuffle slowed considerably and he tried to peer through the opening from a very long way away.

  ‘What makes you think he has the plague?’ he asked.

  ‘Can’t you see? He’s covered in blue marks,’ said Thomas.

  ‘Can’t see anything from here, master clerk, but if you say that turning blue means he’s got the plague, then I reckon I’ll take your word for it.’ The guard was starting to back away.

  ‘Let us all out, and we can take him to the Prioress’s house to be nursed.’

  ‘If he’s got the plague, he’s as good as dead already. So are you two. So am I if I go anywhere near that door.’

  ‘Then just throw us the keys,’ suggested Thomas.

  ‘The plague!’ yelled the guard at the top of his voice. ‘They’ve got the plague!’

  ‘The keys!’ yelled Thomas at the rapidly retreating figure. ‘You’ve got the keys!’

  The footsteps increased in velocity but decreased in volume. Somewhere, a very long way off, a door slammed. The silence that followed was the deepest and most complete that Thomas could ever recall.

  ‘I don’t call that bleating like a lunatic,’ said the Prioress. ‘Nobody would have believed you had anything more than a borderline personality disorder. The guard-now he really did sound deranged, but you . . . Next time, remind me to do it myself

  ‘You were rubbish,’ confirmed the prisoner. ‘I’d have done it better than that. Now look what a mess you’ve made of things. Next time—’

  ‘I have no plans that there should be a next time,’ said Thomas. ‘If either of you ever do this again, it will be with somebody else entirely.’

  ‘Since you wrecked my plan,’ said the Prioress, ‘perhaps you’d like to tell me, by St Benedict’s bacon, exactly what we do now?’

  ‘Well,’ said Thomas, ‘the way I see it, we are locked in a dungeon. The gaoler has fled. He will report that one of us has the plague already and that the other two of us are likely to have the plague very soon. His companions may decide to descend to our cell and check or, equally, they may decide it is wiser not to do so. If somebody is coming to unlock the door, then I suspect that they will do so quite soon. If, on the other hand, we have induced the blind panic that you were intending to produce, then they may not unlock the door for some days, or indeed years.’

  ‘They may have tortured me,’ said the prisoner, ‘but at least they were feeding me regular. Now, because of you, I’m probably going to starve to death.’

  Thomas cast his eyes round the cell, looking for any ray of hope. ‘All we have is that flagon of water and that portion of a stale loaf he said.

  ‘No,’ said the prisoner, ‘all I have is that flagon of water and that portion of a stale loaf. You, sadly, have nothing at all.’

  The torch, fixed to the wall outside the cell, spluttered and went out. For a while the glowing end of the torch gave a very, very small amount of light. Then it didn’t.

  So, where next for Master Thomas then? Of course, he was not trapped for ever in the dungeon, but I enjoy setting myself problems of this sort. The easiest way out would be for the three of them to discover a secret passage, but I hesitated to introduce anything so unimaginative. A more interesting line would be that Thomas was far more valuable to his captors than he knew – and that a minion would be sent, reluctant and trembling, to unlock the door. That introduced all sorts of new possib
ilities concerning the real purpose of Thomas’s journey and the perfidious plotting of the obnoxious Geoffrey Chaucer. Thomas had to be kept alive because . . . because . . . well, it would come to me later. Or, and this appealed to me most of all, the solution to their problem was that the door to the cell was not locked at all. I would need to check but I was pretty sure that I had not said in the preceding paragraphs that anyone had actually turned the key in the lock. The Prioress, having prayed in the most irritating manner possible for their deliverance, would simply touch the door lightly and it would swing open. That would provide an opportunity for her to be very smug and self-satisfied. Thomas would know the door could not have been locked, the reader would know the door could not have been locked, but both would have to endure a page and a half of the Prioress congratulating herself on the excellent PR she had put in with the deity over the years that had now paid such handsome dividends. They would then successfully escort the prisoner out of Bramber Castle and back to safety.

  Did Thomas and the Prioress then return to Muntham Court and confront Lady Catherine? Probably. But I was no longer convinced that she would have been complicit in her husband’s murder. I needed to go back and revise the first chapter that I had written, which now appeared forced and unsubtle. It was far too obvious that Lady Catherine already knew of Sir Edmund’s death. It seemed to me that in the scene of Thomas’s arrest I had sacrificed both characterization and plot for a cheap laugh. Perhaps in putting a similar sentiment into Thomas’s own mouth I had been trying to tell myself something?

  I was more confident of the ending. Once the party was safely back in London it would be revealed that the prisoner was, after all, the murderer (on the instructions of the Duke of Gloucester). Thomas and the Prioress had been thoroughly duped. The prisoner, for whom incidentally I still had no name, would admit as much and then depart rapidly and with only the briefest and most insincere speech of thanks. The Prioress would immediately remind Thomas that the whole escape business had been his plan all along, and that hanging, drawing and (possibly) quartering would now be his fate when it was discovered that he had aided and abetted a felony. To the extent that she herself might have been considered a minor accessory, she would fortunately be tried in a church court and sentenced to no more than a dozen or so Hail Marys – say two dozen absolute max. At this point, however, Chaucer would intervene and save Thomas, to avoid indictment himself for his own role in the affair. Thomas would be spared hanging, and the Prioress spared excessive prayer, but at the dreadful cost of Thomas’s eternal indebtedness to Chaucer. Master Thomas would finally be allowed to return home, only to discover that he had forgotten the stories he had made up for his children en route for Sussex. He would therefore be forced to make up a new story for them, which he begins with the words: ‘There was ’tis told a Nun, a Prioress, That of her smiling was full simple and coy, Her greatest oath was but by Saint Loy . . .’