Death of the Magpie

by William McMurray

CHAPTER FOUR

  By mutual consent the morning session was postponed until after lunch while the conference organizers and lodge administrators scurried about attempting to locate medical assistance and notify next-of-kin. Janet played a more active role in the last activity than she would have liked. As Professors Beadle and Antwhistle conferred about the appropriate action she knocked hesitantly on the door of the conference office. Still shaking from her discovery by the river and efforts to bring down help from the lodge, she entered apologetically.

  "There is something I felt I must tell you in your attempts to get in touch with Karl 's family. The fact of the matter is that Karl has had a wife."

  John Antwhistle paused momentarily, then asked , "I suppose that is what you were obliquely referring to as 'family affairs' the other evening is it Janet?" She nodded affirmatively. "And I also suppose that the marriage broke up, or that they had separated before Karl joined us. Otherwise he would have made some mention of his wife?"

  "Exactly. I first learned about it by chance. A Christmas card from a fellow post-doc I had known, now in England. He had over-lapped with Karl in the lab, and mentioned his wife, Margot, still working over there as a research assistant in the next lab. She may go by her maiden name, but I'm sure a telegram to Mrs. Elster at the Department would reach her.It's possible she has left the lab if your last communication was at Christmas," responded Professor Beadle, "I Know the Director moderately well. In the circumstances a long-distance call seems to be in order. I'll see if I can get through right away since it would be mid-afternoon there by now."

  Janet and John Antwhistle stood in the corridor outside the office while their colleague endeavoured to cope with the complexities of trans-Atlantic connections from the rudimentary local telephone system.

  "I know what they say about speaking ill of the near-departed," muttered John Antwhistle sotto voce, "but our Dr. Elster seems to have had several devious sides to his personality. Did your friend furnish further personal glimpses of his activities over there?"

  "Well, yes-- he-- as a matter of fact, Christmas was not the last communication. I didn't want to say more in front of Professor Beadle. The first letter plus several things in our lab got me wondering aboutKarl's past. So I wrote to my friend-- it was Bob Hayes incidentally-- you may remember we published a couple of things together."

  "I do indeed. We met at the International Biology Convention. Energetic sort of fellow as I recall."

  "Yes, and thoroughly reliable. I just got a reply back last week and--"

  At this point their conversation was broken off as the door to the office opened and Professor Beadle called them in.

  "I got a hold of Sir Reginald all right." Janet had to suppress an inappropriate giggle as she conjured a picture of this solemn intercontinental wrestling match. "My God he's a cool bird! Didn’t show much feeling over the death of his ex-colleague. Just said he would break it to the widow right away, and asked us to stand by the phone in case she wanted to call back about the arrangements. I told him you both were nearby, in case she wanted more information, or wanted to talk to another woman."

  In the end his comment was prophetic. After a few minutes of uncomfortable chit-chat among the three of them the telephone call came through. It was for Janet, and to her surprise the voice on the other end was not that of a woman.

  "Janet? It's Bob-- Bob Hayes. Margot's pretty shaken by the news as you can imagine. Can you fill me in on the circumstances?" She tried to provide a coherent account of the accident, omitting her own role in the discovery because It seemed more sensational than helpful to the widow. Margot wants to fly out there directly. I couldn't talk her out of it, and I didn't think she should come alone. Can you arrange some accommodation for us? I guess it might be sometime tomorrow evening before we could get there."

  Janet promised to make the arrangements and signed off the telephone. She left the other two to contact Karl’s parents, and went to talk to the lodge manager. The latter was shattered by the demise of one of his guests, as though the fall might be attributed to his administration, or would reflect unfavourably on the conference site. Janet, who was harbouring some uncomfortable guilt feelings of her own, attempted to reassure him.

  " Some foolish person will persist in diving from those cliffs into the river. Only last summer a young chap had a bad injury at almost the same spot."

  Janet squirmed a little in her chair." I am certain Dr. Elster had no intention of diving. He was fully clothed you know, with shoes on when I found him. He must simply have lost his footing and slipped over the edge."

  "Ah well, it's a dreadful tragedy none the less. You worked closely with him I understand. Perhaps you wouldn't mind taking charge of his personal effects, later on of course. No need to hurry."

  Janet explained why she had come, and asked if rooms could be found for the widow and her travelling companion.

  "Of course," he replied. "And Mrs. Elster can then take possession of her late husband's belongings." He seemed relieved to have this matter settled so neatly. "We had a couple of cancellations, and of course there is Dr. Elster's room, although that might be a little upsetting for the poor lady. No, I think we had better place them in the married couples' quarters-- separately of course," he hastened to add.

  It was morning before Janet got to the cafeteria. In the earlier panic she had forgotten totally about breakfast: even her usual orange had been overlooked in the mad scramble for help. She would have to return to collect her shoes and towel, also abandoned at the top of the cliff. In the mean time she staved off the pangs of hunger with a large eccles cake. John Antwhistle, coffee cup in hand, sat down beside her.

  "I think it's time you told me the full story about Karl," he began.

  Janet started, involuntarily.

  "You don't think that I had something to do with it--"

  "No, no, of course not! Karl's death was an accident, we all know that."

  "But if wishing could have made it so--"

  "You felt that strongly about him?"

  Janet nodded, admitting to herself that she probably felt less remorse than Sir Reginald, and more than little relief that her dealings with Karl were finished.

  "But he did fall didn't he? Besides, you were in the river, and all the wishing and psychokinetic powers in the world couldn't propel him from there. Do you suspect that someone 'assisted' with his accident?"

  "I really don't know what to make of it. I couldn't see at all clearly, because of the mist. I could actually only make out a shape, and there were no other witnesses, except--"

  "Except whom?"

  "I’m not sure of that either. But as I swam up toward the point I could swear a canoe passed nearby, headed downstream. Whoever it was must have been quite close by when Karl fell. And yet, they didn’t respond in any way. They must have heard what happened at least, or perhaps they got there well ahead of me-- they could in a canoe, easily outstrip a swimmer-- and then--"

  "Scramble up the cliff and 'assist' with the accident ?” said John

  Antwhistle. “ Well I’m glad that lets me out anyway. Apart from the fact that I was snoring peaceably at the lodge, it would have required a higher level of fitness than I could possibly muster to scale cliffs of that magnitude. With all the fog and condensation on the cliff the rocks would have been pretty slippery to boot. Surely you would have heard some noise of the scuffle if somebody had wrestled Karl over the edge."

  "l suppose so," Janet sighed. "I just wish I knew who the other witness on the river was."

  "Chances are he just paddled on by, or turned and went back up the opposite bank without realizing anything was amiss," reasoned the Professor "Now what is the rest of the story about our dear-departed colleague?"

  "l daresay it would have caught up with him before long," mused Janet. "In short, there was a fairly serious conflict with Sir Reginald and other's in that lab over Karl's publications which came to a head at about the time he left
the lab over there. It turns out that those were mainly Bob Hayes and Rose Bennett's results he presented at the meeting you attended."

  "It made an impressive story," the Professor recalled. "Better than the confusing mess he made of yesterday's talk. Of course there were reasons for that fiasco, weren't there?"

  "Yes. Well I didn't have anything to do with that, although it served him bloody well right. You see, apparently he got away with the same thing last summer. I don't suppose he attributed any of the findings to anyone else?"

  "Now that you mention it, he did not. But there was nobody else at that meeting from his lab."

  "So he gave the impression that he had worked the whole thing out himself did he?"

  "He got away with it once so he thought he'd try it again yesterday."

  "But for the fact that you blew the whistle on him. I'm not sure what I might have done if you hadn't spoken up as you did. I didn't trust myself to say anything."

  Janet gazed with fondness at the man who had played the role of scientific father to her for so many years. John Antwhistle shifted uncomfortably. He could bear the slings and arrows of life and the calumny of his rivals, but he could not suffer praise in any degree.

  "Just a small grass-fire that needed putting out,” he huffed. "But if Sir Reginald had been there earlier to do the same we might not have had the problem here."

  "Well, anyway that's the story on Karl, although Bob hinted at other dark doings, yet to be unravelled. There were no doubt things he didn't want to put in a letter."

  "Such as his own relationship with Mrs. Elster."

  "No doubt. Possibly it will come clearer when we have a chance to talk. I must admit I am curious to meet Mrs. Elster, and to find out why on earth she would think it necessary to travel all this way, if as you surmise their relationship had already broken down."

  "I suppose," reflected the Professor, "however distant a husband and wife may become there is a finality about the 'death do us part' situation that needs some personal verification. To see the tangible body, do you know?" Janet pondered the last remark with a shudder. The tangible evidence of Karl's crumpled remains lingered too vividly in her own memory. Part of her mind turned away in horror, but another rational part prompted her to replay the sequence of events over again. But try as she would she could not reconstruct the scene with any more clarity than at the time, through the river mist. And with lengthening time in the future the mist of memory would doubtless thicken rather than lift. Perhaps an immediate return to the scene, necessary anyway to retrieve her possessions, would provide some cues or clues to this strange accident.

  The sun, high in the sky by now, had burned off the river mist when Janet returned to the top of the cliff. Her running shoes, and towel neatly folded, were as she had left them, but to her surprise the orange had vanished. Perplexed, she looked around to no avail, then carefully picked her way along the cliff until she found a safe route down to the water. She shivered as she approached the place where a few short hours earlier she had made her grisly find.

  The picture flashed back on her mind's eye-- the splayed body, almost convulsive in its attitude, the head snapped back, mouth ajar with spittle down the cheek, eyes agape and teary, but such tiny pin-holes instead of pupils. Karl always had that peculiar beady-eyed appearance; it added to his severe, humourless mien, but in death it seemed exaggerated to the point of caricature.

  Water of the river's flow lapped gently at the rocks beside her. She turned as if to eradicate the vision of memory from the rocky pile. The water swept along this part of the bank carrying debris from up-river, some of which became entrapped by little eddies among the stones. The flotsam included natural objects such as leaves and twigs, plus some man-made detritus swept down stream from the lodge inhabitants. Janet, surveying the bobbing trash, pondered about the canoe that had passed nearby at the fateful instant. Had there in fact been another witness or participant in Karl's demise? As her eye followed the current along the stony bank a flash of colour caught her eye among a pile of the floating debris. She carefully made her way downstream among the rocks and retrieved her orange from the little back-water with a feeling of bewilderment. Someone, even possibly Karl himself, had tossed it out into the river. Was it his idea of a practical joke to settle the score over his real or imagined hurt at her hands on the previous day? If that were the case it must have been an ineffectual toss: had it been thrown out into the stream it would have carried further down river before coming to rest. It seemed more likely that Karl, if it was he who was responsible, was contemplating the toss, or in the middle of the act when he lost his footing near the cliff's edge. That would explain how the trajectory could have been shorter than planned. Janet shook her head in dissatisfaction with this line of explanation. Karl was a strange and devious person without any shadow of doubt, but retribution by elimination of her orange hardly fitted with the sort of act expected from him. The orange, at any rate, appeared none the worse for its adventure, and Janet pocketed it absentmindedly. Collecting the remainder of her belongings with a troubled mind she headed back to her room. She was drastically in need of a rest before the onslaught of the afternoon's papers.