Murder in the Basement

by Anthony Berkeley

  Roger was so overcome with the solemnity of this thought that the cask of XXXXX had to be broached, and the health of the Chicago News reverently drunk, before Moresby could get down to his own business.

  “You remember, Mr. Sheringham, telling me last summer that you were going down to Allingford to take the place of a master who was ill at a school called Roland House. Did you ever go?”

  Roger looked at him suspiciously. Whenever Moresby spoke in that extremely casual tone it meant that his subject was an important one. “I did, yes. Why?”

  “When were you there?”

  “For a fortnight in the middle of July. Why?”

  “Would that be the end of the term?”

  “Not quite. The other man came back for the examination week. I’d had enough of it by then and left. Why?”

  “What made you go there at all, Mr. Sheringham?”

  “The man whose place I took is a friend of mine. When I heard he was ill I offered to take his job on for a fortnight or so, as a change of occupation. The truth was that I’d been contemplating a novel with the setting of an English preparatory school and wanted to collect a little local colour, but that’s between ourselves. Why?”

  Moresby took a long pull at his tankard and then wiped his heavy moustache with deliberation. “You remember that girl who was found under a cellar floor in a house in Lewisham about four months ago?”

  “Yes. You people haven’t been able to discover who she was, let alone who shot her.”

  “Well, we know now who she was; and I think it will interest you to hear that she came from Roland House.”

  Roger stared. “Good heavens, Moresby—somebody I knew?”

  “I presume so, sir, if you were there for a fortnight.”

  “What was her name?”

  The chief inspector shook his head. “That, if you don’t mind, we’re keeping quiet for the moment, Mr. Sheringham.”

  “Even from me?”

  “Even from you, sir.”

  Roger seemed too upset even to protest.

  Moresby looked at him curiously. He had not expected Mr. Sheringham to take his news so hardly.

  “A funny sort of coincidence,” he said lamely.

  “Coincidence! That’s just what I’m afraid it isn’t, Moresby. I’ve got a horrible feeling that in a way I’m responsible for that girl’s death.”

  “How do you make that out, Mr. Sheringham?” asked Moresby, startled himself.

  “Why, I remember distinctly one evening at dinner. . . . They’d been egging me on to talk about murder—and I don’t need much egging on to talk, as you may have noticed,” said Roger, with a gloomy smile. “I can remember quite well that I talked about the extraordinary foolishness of the average murderer who gets caught. I told them that for an ordinarily intelligent man murder should be a picnic, and the simplest precautions are enough to insure against detection. I gave them, in fact, a sort of lecture on murder, not as a fine art but as a practical means of getting rid of an unwanted person. I talked a lot of damned rot of course, but then I always do. I never dreamed that any one of them could be taking me seriously: but it looks very much as if one of them did.”

  “Who was present on the occasion?” asked Moresby officially.

  “Oh, everyone. The whole staff. We always dined together. I say, Moresby, it wasn’t that nice Mrs. Harrison, was it?”

  Moresby shook his head. “I won’t tell you just yet, if you don’t mind. I’ve a reason. That’s what I’ve come to see you about. I want you to give me your unbiased impressions of the people there, and tell me if you noticed anything going on under the surface at all.”

  “Under the surface!” Roger echoed, with a little laugh. “It’s plain you’ve never been on the staff of a preparatory school towards the end of term, Moresby. There’s nothing going on except under the surface. I never saw so many undercurrents among a small body of people in my life. All so petty, and all of them taking it so seriously.”

  “That’s very interesting. Then——”

  “Look here,” Roger interrupted, “I’ve got it. You remember I told you I went down there to collect copy for a novel. Well, I collected it; any amount of it. And I began the novel. I got bored with it after I’d done a few chapters and put it aside, but I’ve still got the manuscript. I’ll lend it you. That will tell you in far more detail than I could, my impressions of Roland House and what was going on there.”

  “You mean, you used the real people there for your book?”

  “Well, of course. One always does that, in spite of the law of libel and the funny little notices some people put in the front of their books to say that all the characters in this story are imaginary. Imaginary my hat! Nobody could imagine a character and make it live. No, all the characters in my manuscript are transcribed as literally and as truthfully as I could manage it from Roland House, and if I give you a key to the changed names you’ll know as much about the staff there as if you’d stayed among them for a fortnight. How’s that?”

  “That seems the very thing, Mr. Sheringham. That ought to help me quite a lot.”

  “You haven’t settled on the murderer then?”

  “No. We’ve made some enquiries there of course, but I’ll confess to you that for all we know at the moment, it might have been any one of them. The motive’s plain enough, but not the person who was going to benefit by it.”

  “That’s just the sort of thing you ought to be able to get from my manuscript,” said Roger enthusiastically. “I ought to explain that I set the time forward a few days from my own observations, in order to allow the various pots which were only simmering then to come to the boil. And you must make allowances. I can’t guarantee the truth of the details, but I’d stake my reputation as a prophet (if I had one) that the broad lines are right. There isn’t a development in it which I didn’t see in preparation; and you might say that there isn’t an action for which I haven’t definite evidence. It isn’t difficult, you know, to forecast people’s major actions when one has studied their minor ones. The mind never alters its sweep.”

  “Is that so?” said Moresby politely.

  Roger was diving into the drawers of his desk. “Here it is. I’ve got a copy. You can keep that if you like. And now tell me which the woman is.”

  “Well, I don’t see why I shouldn’t now, Mr. Sheringham. You’ll keep it to yourself, I know. In strict confidence, she was—— No!” Moresby grinned suddenly. “I won’t tell you after all.”

  “I can always ring up Roland House and find out who’s not there now,” Roger retorted, with a touch of petulance.

  “Yes, you can do that, sir, of course. But what I was going to say was: I won’t tell you now, I’ll leave it to you to find out. You read through your copy of this, and if it’s like you say, you ought to be able to pick out which girl it was who got murdered, oughtn’t you?”

  “Spot the victim, eh? Well, I won’t guarantee it; for the reason that I can’t promise to have seen everything that was going on under the surface. But it’s a good idea, Moresby. I’ll certainly try it.”

  PART II

  Roger Sheringham’s Manuscript*

  CHAPTER V

  I

  Twenty-five years ago the hamlet of Allingford had a population of about twenty-five persons, not including the fifty or so part-time residents of Roland House. Secure in its eleven miles of distance from Piccadilly Circus, and the fact that the London and North Western Railway missed it by nearly a league, it was able to think of London as something almost as remote as the mysterious and reputed inferno called Birmingham, which lay at the other end of the nearest main road. Twenty-five years ago a journey to London was an Adventure, not to be undertaken lightly or without due preparation.

  To-day, contrary to the experience of most hamlets within eleven miles of Piccadilly Circus, Allingford is still little more than
a large village. Its population does not exceed a mere and scattered six hundred. The London, Midland and Scottish Railway still lies nearly a league away, and even the voracious Overground has not stretched out a tentacle quite in its direction.

  In the single street the same little three shops still flourish as flourished when King Edward came to the throne, and doubtless Queen Victoria before him; only one of the multiple stores has opened a branch there. Allingford, in short, is a deplorable exception to that spirit of progress which has made our England what she now is. There is, as a fact, no wine merchant’s in Allingford; but if there were it is only too possible that he would sell you a half-bottle of whisky (that is, if you were depraved enough to wish to buy a half-bottle instead of a whole one) and never realize what a menace to modern society he was.

  Allingford’s regrettable condition is due of course to the fact that the road from London to Birmingham passes a mile away from its cottages and not through the midst of them. Only a mile away the stream of progress roars backwards and forwards; beaming men of business dart in portly cars on their respective ways, stockbrokers whiz along in the mistakes of other people about margins, chorus girls flit from Birmingham to London to display their legs or from London to Birmingham to conceal them. Allingford, a mere mile away, knows them not and, most lamentably, cares less.

  It is not surprising therefore that amid such stagnation Roland House should be to the present generation of its inmates precisely what it was to their fathers before them. A new dormitory over the gymnasium, a tiled changing-room instead of a distempered one, a couple more acres of playing-fields snatched from the villa-hungry builder: these were almost the only changes in the last twenty-five years.

  And, of course, the staff.

  Twenty-five years ago Mr. Hamilton Harrison, M.A. (Oxon.), had been just Ham Harrison, the most junior of all junior masters, very green from the University; now he owns the place, and has done for the last six years. It is possible no doubt to save money, even on the salary of a junior master at a preparatory school, for there is no limit to what a determined man can do; but Mr. Hamilton Harrison had not had to be so determined as all that. It is indeed very doubtful whether he could have been. An easier course had been thrust upon him. The daughter of the then headmaster, a young woman with determination for two and to spare, had fixed her maidenly affections upon the gentle junior master and, almost before he knew what was happening to him, married him out of hand. She had lived long enough after that to inherit the school for him, presenting him in the meantime with one child, a daughter, and had then very firmly died.

  Amy Harrison, now twenty-two years old, had taken after her mother. The school had thus been held together, as it were, under Mr. Harrison’s nose. People spoke of Amy as a wonderful help to her father. Mr. Harrison agreed with them, as he agreed with most people. Privately he considered Amy a ghastly nuisance. She was always trying to make him do things he did not want to do, or urging action on him when Mr. Harrison very well knew that inertia would be more effective, besides less trouble.

  She was doing just that thing now. In one hand she held a pair of young male pants, which she brandished at her parent like a banner while she spoke to him with force.

  “Father, I insist on your looking at them properly.”

  “Take them away, Amy,” returned Mr. Harrison peevishly. “Really, my study is no place for this kind of thing. Take them away.”

  “Full of holes. Full of them. Luckily I was in the room when Weston brought them in; otherwise of course I should never have heard about them. It’s only a week to the end of term; it would have been a nice thing if he’d gone home with them like that, wouldn’t it? What do you think his parents would say? Of course, I’ve ordered a general inspection of all underclothes; luckily there’s still time; but if all of them are in that state, or even half . . .” Amy’s voice trailed into indignant silence.

  “Well, don’t bother me with them. You know perfectly well how busy I always am at the end of term. Take them to Phyllis.”

  “Phyllis!”

  Amy uttered a short, scornful laugh, but to Mr. Harrison’s relief added nothing to it. Amy did not approve of her young stepmother; nor did she trouble to hide the fact, either from Phyllis Harrison herself or from her father.

  She dropped now on to the arm of a chair and gazed at Mr. Harrison firmly. “I haven’t come to bother you just with Weston’s pants, father; you should know me better than that. It’s what Weston’s pants stand for.”

  “Well?” Mr. Harrison positively barked, out the word, to cover his attempts to avoid his daughter’s look, which always made him feel guilty of some unknown but particularly heinous enormity, just as her mother’s had before her. “Well? Be quick, please, Amy. I’m really exceedingly busy. What do Weston’s pants stand for?” He rustled some of the papers on his desk.

  “This,” Amy replied briskly. “Miss Jevons Must Go!”

  Mr. Harrison, who all the time had known only too well what Weston’s pants must stand for, coughed irritably. “Really, Amy, I can’t see——”

  “Miss Jevons Must Go!” Amy repeated inexorably.

  Mr. Harrison began feebly to lose his temper. It was intolerable that Amy should come delivering ultimatums like this, trying practically to browbeat him in his own study. Was he never to have any peace? Everything seemed to conspire to harass him at the end of term, just when he was so extremely busy—masters with complaints against other masters, mistresses with complaints about servants, Amy with complaints about everyone. And now this bother over Miss Jevons, who was about the only person in the house who never complained about anything.

  “Nonsense!” exploded Mr. Harrison. “I won’t——”

  “She was an experiment,” Amy continued, just as if he had never exploded at all. “An experiment that hasn’t answered. I shan’t have a lady for a matron again; it doesn’t do.”

  “You won’t have. . . .”

  “Besides, she’s far too young.”

  “Twenty-eight!”

  “According to her own account.”

  “I see no reason to doubt it. She’s an extremely pleasant girl, and the boys are very fond of her.” Mr. Harrison was still spluttering but there would be no more explosions.

  “She’s inefficient,” Amy summed up, tightening her rather thin lips, “and we simply cannot afford to have an inefficient matron.” She rose. “Father, you know as well as I do that she must go. You must give her notice this week, the sooner the better, and I’ll advertise for another.” As if there was no more to be said, she walked out of the room with the offending pants.

  Mr. Harrison gazed after the short but erect figure of his daughter. His momentary anger had evaporated, as usual, into a rebellious exasperation. He was not at all sure that he was going to do this time what Amy wanted; not at all sure. He liked Miss Jevons; the boys liked her; everyone liked her except Amy, who only liked efficient people; and undoubtedly Miss Jevons did her best.

  For once Amy had overstepped herself. It was absurd, the way she took his consent for granted—her own father. Amy was really getting too officious altogether. Did she know what the boys called her? Mr. Harrison thought not. Certainly no one in the place would have dared to tell her. But if not, she was the only one who didn’t. “Goggle-eyes!” It would do her good if someone did tell her. With all a parent’s proverbial astigmatism Mr. Harrison could not attribute any beauty, or even prettiness to his daughter, with her thin lips, her long, thin, rather bluish nose, her sandy-coloured hair, and those rather conspicuous pale-blue eyes which had earned her her nickname. “Goggle-eyes!” It really was rather good. Mr. Harrison was unfeeling enough to chuckle guiltily.

  His amusement was cut short by a knock at his door.

  It was Miss Jevons, in tears.

  “Oh, Mr. Harrison, please forgive me bothering you when I know you’re so busy, but . . . but . . .”
>
  “Well?” frowned Mr. Harrison, nervousness making his voice harsher than he had intended. Mr. Harrison detested giving people notice.

  “I—I felt I must know if it’s true. Miss Harrison said . . .”

  “Miss Harrison had no authority to say anything,” returned Miss Harrison’s father, pulling in annoyance at his straggling grey beard. This was really too much of Amy. Whose school was it, anyhow?

  “Sh-she said—you were going to give me notice,” faltered Miss Jevons.

  “Miss Harrison had no authority to say anything,” repeated Mr. Harrison firmly. “In any case,” he added, as much to his own surprise as to that of Miss Jevons, “that is quite untrue. I had no such intention.”

  “Oh, Mr. Harrison!”

  Gratitude swam in Miss Jevons’s hazel eyes. She was a tall girl, with a neat figure which her plain dress of pale-green linen made neater still; and she would have been pretty but for a mouth too large and a nose which even the most determined of magazine-writers could not have called “tip-tilted” instead of “snub.” In Miss Harrison’s opinion she wore her skirts a good deal too short; Mr. Harrison did not share his daughter’s opinion; Miss Jevons had extremely well-shaped legs.

  She dabbed at her eyes now with a most unmatronlike wisp of handkerchief.

  “There, there,” said Mr. Harrison benevolently.

  “It was a shock,” gulped Miss Jevons. “I’ve tried very hard. I thought I’d been . . . My mother, you know. . . . We’ve only got what I earn.”

  “Of course, of course. It was unpardonable of Amy. Quite unpardonable.”