Embarrassment of Corpses, An

by Alan Beechey

  “Tristram,” said the boy. He eyed Oliver suspiciously. “I thought you were going to be a woman.”

  “I get that a lot.”

  “I’m not surprised, sailor.”

  “Is this your mother?” asked Oliver, growing irritated. Tristram gave the woman a swift glance, as if noticing her for the first time.

  “Do me a favor, John! No, this is my old man’s secretary, if you get my drift. She’s just collected me from my acting class. Call her Sharon.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Sharon,” said Oliver.

  “Likewise, I’m sure,” said the woman, with a brief curtsy. Tristram raised his eyes theatrically to heaven.

  “Oh, the things you see when you don’t have a gun,” he sighed.

  “Hello, little boy,” said Geoffrey, stepping over with a boxed toy while Oliver signed Tristram’s book. “How would you like to buy your very own Finsbury the Ferret? You can put it down your trousers.”

  “Last person who said that to me is doing fifteen years in Parkhurst,” said Tristram. “How—”

  “Much is it?” Geoffrey interrupted, undaunted. “Only eighteen pounds and ninety-five pee. Batteries are included.”

  Tristram considered the toy. “Okay, shorthouse, I’ll buy it,” he said. “Pay the man, Sharon.”

  “You can pay at the cash register,” said Geoffrey to the woman, who bobbed again. “Now, let me show you how it works.”

  “Oh, Geoffrey,” said Oliver smoothly, “I’m sure a clever young gentleman like Tristram is quite capable of figuring that out for himself.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Yeah, I never bother with the instructions,” boasted Tristram. “I’ll soon find out what this thing can do.”

  “I certainly hope so,” murmured Oliver.

  The shop door was flung open suddenly, to the cheers of the demonstrators outside. A burly young woman bustled in, marched to the center of the shop and, without a pause, started to address the waiting customers through a small megaphone.

  “Do not be fooled by Finsbury,” she announced metallically, as she wrestled with something in a raffia bag, slung around her neck. “The ferret is only doing what comes naturally. I ask you, is this the face of a villain?”

  With a sweeping gesture, she plucked a thin, struggling creature from the bag and held it up in front of the children’s eyes. The manager, who was striding toward the demonstrator, stopped short. Oliver could see from his limited research that the animal was a cross between a domesticated ferret and its wild counterpart. It had a brown body, but its appealing face was white, apart from a domino mask of darker brown fur across its sparkling eyes. The children, seeing something furry with a face like an anorexic panda, let out a chorus of “Ahhhh!”

  “I don’t allow dogs in here, and I certainly won’t allow that badger!” cried the manager. She started to push firmly against the animal rights activist. The other shop assistants began to help their boss, trying to keep out of range of the dangling and confused ferret. With a final cry of “Release all your companion animals!” the demonstrator was hustled through the door. Through the window, Oliver watched as she stumbled into Sharon, who had exited a few seconds earlier. The two women glared at each other, and then several demonstrators converged on the secretary and sprayed red paint on her fur coat. Sharon squealed, but Tristram was too busy laughing to help her. A police whistle was blown, and several cricketers, waiting for their turn on the Green, swooped on the belligerent demonstrators.

  The staff of the bookstore turned back from the door and tried to calm the line of overexcited Finsbury fans. Their parents checked their watches and shot despairing glances at Oliver. Meanwhile, a grubby-looking man with a warty nose, who had been hovering by the Beatrix Potter display, pushed into the line and approached the table.

  “Are those effigies of Finsbury the Ferret for sale?” he asked throatily. Geoffrey beamed. “You bet,” he replied. “How many would you like?”

  “None,” said the man, passing Geoffrey a piece of paper.

  “What’s this?” asked Geoffrey as he took the paper. “If you want an autograph, I’m not the author.”

  “No need. That’s a summons. My client is the original illustrator of Finsbury the Ferret, and she claims all rights to income from the sale of any reproduction, two- or three-dimensional. We thought you’d try something like this. She’s suing Tadpole Tomes for Tiny Tots and the agency of Hoo, Watt & Eidenau for five million pounds.”

  Geoffrey moaned and fell into an empty chair as heavily as his small frame would allow.

  “Am I being sued, too?” asked Oliver anxiously.

  “No, Mr. Blithely. You’re off the hook.”

  Oliver relaxed. “Is that because your client recognizes my rights as the original author of the character?”

  “No, sir. She just knows you don’t have any money. Good morning.” He made his way out of the shop, and was instantly felled by a cricket bat.

  “I’m ruined!” whined Geoffrey. “They’ll blame me! Why didn’t I keep my mouth shut?”

  “Oh, Geoffrey, look on the bright side,” Oliver said with detached amusement, patting his friend on the shoulder. “They can only fire you once.”

  “Not at Hoo, Watt & Eidenau,” Geoffrey groaned. “All three partners get to fire you, one at a time. Mr. Hoo is the worst. I only hope he’s on first.” He slumped forward, clutching his head in his hands.

  “Can we get on, Mr. Blithely?” the manager pleaded. Oliver signaled his readiness for the next group, but as he did so, he felt something brush his ankle and looked down. A pair of quizzical black eyes stared up at him. The polecat! The demonstrator must have let it go in the confusion. Front paws on his foot, it was sniffing his trouser turn-ups, as if contemplating an ascent into the darkness above. Oliver quickly grabbed the creature and dropped it into the bag of soft toys, just as another mother and her daughter came up to the table. He knew the polecat would relish the darkness and relative peace between the boxes, where it wouldn’t be tempted by the proximity of small fingers.

  “Hello, I’m Tully Mandivel, and this is Gretchen,” said the woman, who was toting a camcorder.

  “Hello, Gretchen,” said Oliver as cheerfully as possible. The little girl, who was probably six years old, stared at him owlishly.

  “Gretchen, aren’t you going to say hello?” prompted the woman, training the camera on her daughter.

  Gretchen inserted a crooked finger into her mouth, but still made no noise.

  “Darling, you’re being very rude. Do you know who this is?”

  Her blue eyes fixed on Oliver, the child shook her head slowly in reply to her mother’s question.

  “This is O.C. Blithely,” Mrs. Mandivel told her. “This is the gentleman who makes up the stories about Finsbury the Ferret,” the woman went on.

  Gretchen’s blue eyes widened even further. She gradually opened her mouth as far as possible, extracted her finger, and screamed at Oliver at the top of her lungs.

  It was five minutes before anything approaching order was restored to the line of children, who, like molecules, seemed to take up more space when they were agitated. Through it all, Geoffrey was alternately reading the summons and quietly keening his predictions of what was going to happen to him on Monday morning, what kitchen equipment it was going to be done with, and in what postal district each of his body parts was to turn up. Oliver, wishing he had decided to write employee policy manuals instead of children’s books, didn’t raise his eyes when the next figure arrived at his table.

  “To whom shall I sign it,” he asked wearily.

  “How about ‘To Effie, from Finchley’?”

  He looked up and gulped. She was here. She was beautiful. And, good heavens, she was smiling at him.

  “Never a dull moment around the Swithin household,” Effie commented. Oliver swallowed and tried
to make his tongue coordinate with his lips.

  “Hello, Effie. Is this official business?” he managed to utter.

  “Your Uncle Tim sent me to pick you up. I notice some of the walls are still standing, so I imagine you’re not quite finished yet.”

  “I’m supposed to be here until twelve” he said.

  “Good, I can watch the cricket while I’m waiting,” Effie replied.

  A girl who likes cricket and Indian food and thinks horoscopes are a load of old tosh. There was nothing else for it. The hell with the conflict of interest. Oliver gripped the edge of the table. “Will you have lunch with me?” he croaked.

  She laughed, showing small, perfect white teeth. “Sure. When?”

  His hands were trembling now. A glass of drinking water on the table started to rattle. “Today?” he ventured.

  Effie shook her head. “Tim wants us to join him as soon as possible. Tell you what, let’s have dinner on Monday evening.”

  “Dinner? Monday?”

  “Oh, sorry, perhaps you already have a date—”

  “A date?” Oliver repeated with a hysterical laugh. “Oh, no, no, no. Whatever gave you that idea? No, Monday’s great.” O frabjous day!

  “Look, I’d better let you get back to your adoring public. But I did actually buy one of your books, just to see what the fuss was about. Will you sign it for me? It doesn’t mean we’re engaged, or anything.”

  Oliver gleefully took the book from her, uncapped his pen with a flourish, and was immediately struck with the same writer’s block that hit him when handed a blank greetings card. Fortunately, Geoffrey looked up at that moment and noticed who Oliver was speaking to. He leaped to his feet.

  “Hello, Effie,” he said heartily, putting on a suave smile that made him look like something drawn by Mervyn Peake.

  “Hello, Mr. Angelwine. It’s nice to see you up on your feet again,” she said with a grin, remembering their last encounter. She returned her attention to Oliver. “I’ll pick you and the book up in about an hour. Write something nice.”

  Geoffrey nudged Oliver conspiratorially, as she walked away from the table. “I think I’m in with a chance here,” he whispered. “Watch this. Girls love stuffed animals.”

  He picked up the bag of soft toys, oblivious to the stare of disbelief that his friend had turned upon him.

  “Effie,” Geoffrey called, fumbling inside the bag. “If you’d like to wait a moment, I have a gift for you. Courtesy of Tadpole Tomes for Tiny Tots.” His fingers closed around an object. “Hello,” he muttered to Oliver, who was already too late to warn him, “there’s something furry moving about in here. I must have left one of them switched on.”

  ***

  One of Mallard’s mental games on long surveillances—and he had been parked in front of the Magpie and Stump on Old Bailey since six o’clock that morning—was to make a list of all the people who would be his victims if he were personally allowed to “punish the wrongdoer,” words he could presently read on the Central Criminal Court’s facade if he leaned far enough out of the car. Because of his general good nature, the list was usually very short. Today, however, his boredom had led him to fill the cerebral equivalent of three foolscap pages, getting to “all half-educated cultural snobs who mindlessly prefer the worst of Mozart to the best of Haydn” and “all self-regarding cretins who makes jokes about your name as if you’ve been too dim to notice up to that point in your life that you’re named after a duck” before Effie’s Renault pulled up behind him on the deserted street.

  “Did you stop for lunch?” he asked accusingly as they climbed into the back of his Jaguar.

  “No, we had to rush Geoffrey Angelwine to the local hospital for stitches and a tetanus shot,” Effie said. “Anything going on here?”

  “See for yourself,” said Mallard irritably, indicating the street outside. There was no traffic on Old Bailey, and very few pedestrians. From where they were stationed, where the street fanned out in front of the Court building, they could see cars and an occasional truck rumbling along Newgate Street toward the Holborn Viaduct. Even St Bartholomew’s Hospital, across the intersection, was quiet.

  “The Courts are closed, although we’ve got men inside, of course,” the superintendent continued. “There are a couple on the rooftops with binoculars, too. If the Libra location is the Scales of Justice, we’ll get him. If not, it’s on to Virgo, although I still don’t know how you can kill someone with a virgin. But talking of virgins, why did Geoffrey Angelwine need stitches?”

  They told him about the ferret and the book signing, which improved his mood somewhat. In fact, he laughed for the first time that day. “What did you do with the animal?” he asked, when they had finished.

  “It’s in a cat carrier in Effie’s car,” Oliver said.

  “You kept it?”

  Oliver nodded. “Those animal rights people didn’t seem to care much for it, so I’ll take it to the RSPCA tomorrow. It’s quite a personable beast—very well domesticated.”

  “When it’s not savaging the Angelwine digits,” said his uncle with a chuckle.

  “Geoffrey frightened it. He tried to switch it off.”

  Mallard laughed again, turning in his seat to look out of the open car window, but he stopped abruptly when he found himself looking at Detective Sergeant Moldwarp’s sorrowful features. Moldwarp was used to the reaction.

  “Chief, I just got a call from the Yard,” Moldwarp keened. “We think our man may have struck again.”

  “Where?” Mallard was immediately serious.

  “St. James’s Square. Outside the London Library.”

  “How long ago?”

  “At about three o’clock this morning.”

  “And we’re only just hearing about it!” exclaimed Mallard. “Are we certain it’s the zodiac murderer?”

  “It’s him,” said Effie emphatically.

  “How can you be so sure?” Mallard asked. “What’s the London Library got to do with scales and balances? Does it have a collection, maybe?”

  “No, it’s simpler than that,” she said, with a regretful smile. “It’s so simple we just didn’t think of it. Chief, Oliver—what are the first five letters of ‘Library’?”

  The two men spoke the word together.

  ***

  “Archibald Brock,” Mallard announced. “Retired railway guard from Isleworth. Moved to Folkestone, Kent a year or so ago. Summoned to London by a telephone call yesterday. Took a room at the St. James’s Hotel, a letter was dropped off at the concierge’s desk at about nine o’clock last night. The letter was the same style as the others, this time arranging a meeting in front of the hotel at ten. A porter saw him go out, after which his whereabouts were unknown until he fetched up dead in front of the London Library at three o’clock this morning, suspended from a lamppost. His body weight was balanced by a large sandbag, which gives us the other Libra connection. Found by a Library patron who’d been trapped in the building.” Mallard ruffled the pages of his notebook. “Sorry,” he remarked to Oliver, “I didn’t make a note of this individual’s name. Anyway, the discoverer of the body also picked up the zodiac murderer’s calling card, which is why it didn’t get reported to us sooner.”

  Mallard tossed the notebook onto the coffee table, lay back in the armchair, and stretched his long limbs. “So our man’s getting more punctual. What can we expect tomorrow? A death at 12.01 a.m. precisely?” He checked his watch with a yawn. “If so, we’ve got one hour.”

  A fish-faced waiter in elaborate, eighteenth century livery drifted into their corner of the members’ lounge, the largest public room in the Sanders Club. He put their two empty brandy glasses on a salver.

  “For the member, an invitation from the club to refill his glass,” he intoned solemnly. Oliver smiled.

  “From the club, an invitation for the member to refill his gla
ss,” he replied, knowing the drill. “No thanks.”

  The fish-waiter bowed deeply and swiveled toward Mallard.

  “For the member’s guest, an invitation from the club to refill his glass,” he announced. Mallard looked at Oliver with mild panic in his eyes.

  “He won’t either,” Oliver said. The waiter bowed again.

  “Cocoa and tarts will be available at midnight,” he gurgled and began to turn away. Then he seemed to think of something.

  “Would the member’s other guest like some warm milk?” he asked. Oliver looked down into the clear-lidded cat carrier beside his chair. The ferret was asleep.

  “No thank you. And please don’t feel you have to stay up for us.”

  The waiter smiled in a piscine manner. “Kind of you, sir. But I shall sit here till tomorrow.” He oozed away.

  “This place is weird,” muttered Mallard, with a haunted glance around the room, but the oak-paneled walls, Chinese rugs, and comfortable leather chairs were standard for the clubs in the area. Only the framed drawings—Shepherd, Rackham, Millar, Van Beek, Charles Robinson, all original—hinted at the purpose of the club.

  When the Sanders Club was founded, there had been plans to decorate the rooms in ways that celebrated children’s literature, but it had been impossible to reconcile the members’ desires. The austere public school look of the Jennings and Greyfriars enthusiasts couldn’t be squared with the lush foliage demanded by fans of The Secret Garden. And the nautical accents of Hornblower and Swallows and Amazons couldn’t accommodate the chocolate and peach color scheme suggested by Roald Dahl enthusiasts. Instead of decor, therefore, the club chose to celebrate its members’ calling through rituals and celebrations, such as the annual Snark Hunt and the Easter weekend Pooh-sticks tournament between Tower Bridge and the Thames Barrier. And there were theme nights. Tonight, being the first Saturday in the month, it was Alice night, which Oliver always relished. But he avoided the bimonthly Tom Brown’s Schooldays evenings—some of the staff, equipped with canes, took their roles a little too seriously.

  His inability to stop the litany of murders was taking its toll on Mallard. It wouldn’t have surprised Oliver to learn that as well as dealing with the death of Archie Brock, his uncle had also been defending his handling of the case to his superiors. And yet, after sending Effie home for a good night’s sleep, Mallard still chose to join Oliver for a drink at the club before heading home to Theydon Bois and Phoebe, in search of one more insight that could put an end to the zodiac murderer’s run.