Holy Disorders

by Edmund Crispin

  It was at this moment that Fielding interrupted him. And before many hours had passed, Geoffrey was bitterly to regret that interruption.

  ‘I don’t see how you know,’ said Fielding, ‘that it’s anywhere out of the town at all.’

  ‘I know,’ said Fen severely, ‘or I think I know, because I’ve been making discreet inquiries about the general activities of the person chiefly concerned in all this. And I’ve discovered that that person has had a habit of taking frequent jaunts in the surrounding country, and always in the same direction. They may have been pleasure trips, of course. But I rather doubt it.’

  Here the landlord, who had momentarily vanished on some obscure mission, returned with an envelope in his hand.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘but is any of you gentlemen named’ – he stared at the envelope – ‘Gervase Fen?’

  ‘Me,’ said Fen ungrammatically.

  ‘I just found this note for you on the mat. Heard it slipped in through the letter-box.’

  With this pronouncement he returned to polishing glasses. Fen tore the letter open; it was type-written.

  Clever of you to find out who I am. But you won’t have me arrested, will you? There’s not sufficient evidence. And I have enough deputies to look after things if you do. Let us have a talk some time: I shall be about this afternoon as usual. (And my apologies for that foolish shooting at the Mass: of course it wasn’t my doing.) My best regards.

  ‘But this is fantastic!’ Fielding exclaimed. ‘Criminals just don’t write letters like that.’

  ‘I rather agree,’ said Fen thoughtfully. ‘There’s something half-phoney about it. But the impulse to swank is quite genuine, I think. I wonder…’ he mused. ‘Oh, Lord, I wish I knew what to do. The trouble is, that letter’s quite right. There really isn’t enough material evidence – cigarette-ash, footprints, and so on – to convict the person concerned; just times, and an odd method of murder.’

  ‘They don’t seem to be worrying very much about anything you can do,’ said Geoffrey.

  Fen looked at him queerly for a moment. ‘No, they don’t, do they?’ he said slowly. ‘And after all, what can I do? Threaten them with a revolver? They’d give me no information, and I should get arrested myself.’

  ‘We might whisk them away and torture them,’ put in Fielding hopefully.

  ‘I can’t help feeling that if we tried that we should end up with bullets in our backs.’

  ‘Dear, dear,’ said the Regius Professor.

  ‘Oh, shut up, you,’ said Fen. ‘But what I am going to try and do is ring up the War Office and try and find out if they know anything yet about the radio messages. Mclver’s the man. Now, what on earth’s his number? Whitehall something.’

  ‘Look it up in the Directory.’

  ‘It isn’t there. And inquiries won’t give it you, either. It’s a national secret. But it’s got a five and a six and an eight and a seven in it. 5-8-6-7; 7-6-8-5; 7-8-6-5…Nothing sounds right.’

  ‘We’d better work out all the possible combinations,’ said Fielding, ‘and try the lot.’

  ‘That’s going to take a time.’

  ‘I’ll work out the combinations,’ said the Regius Professor of Mathematics eagerly. He grabbed hold of a pencil and a piece of paper.

  ‘Couldn’t you try someone else?’

  ‘He’s the only man I know. No one else would listen to me.’

  ‘Well, come on, then.’

  The Regius Professor laboured for five minutes. Then he gave them the complete list of possible combinations. Geoffrey looked at it and said:

  ‘You’ve forgotten 5687.’

  ‘Impossible,’ said the Professor. ‘I worked it out by the factorial four.’

  ‘Well, you’ve still forgotten 5687.’

  The Professor gazed at the list intently. ‘That’s funny,’ he admitted.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ said Fen impatiently. ‘I’ll do it. You see, you put each number first, in turn…’

  ‘Try the ones you’ve got,’ said Geoffrey. ‘Look at them. Does any of them strike a chord?’

  Fen looked at the list for a long time, and finally said: ‘None.’

  ‘Let’s go, then.’

  ‘There’s a telephone in the passage outside. I saw it when we came in.’

  Fen finished his beer with a disgusted expression, and they all trooped out. The pub still seemed completely deserted. They put Fen in the telephone box and he got in touch successively with the offices of a Warden in Lunacy, a large undertaker’s, a theatre, the Prime Minister, and Mr James Agate at the Café Royal (something must have gone wrong with the mechanism at this point). They all turned out their pockets for coins, and rushed to and fro procuring change from the bar. Eventually, and rather to everyone’s surprise, he got the number he wanted.

  ‘Hello, is that you, Mclver? This is Fen…I don’t care if you’re busy; you just pay attention for a minute…No, I am not drunk. Listen.’

  He explained the circumstances. There was a prolonged crackling from the other end.

  ‘Information about military and naval dispositions,’ said Fen. ‘Yes, I was afraid of that. Well, it’ll be all your fault if we lose this war. You’ll wake up tomorrow with Himmler in the chamberpot…’ He turned to the others. ‘Go away, all of you. I’m going to gossip.’ Obediently they trooped back to the bar.

  There they ordered more beer, and consumed it. The day was already drowsy. Geoffrey lay back in a pleasant stupor. Flies buzzed on the window. Somewhere in the distance a car started up and drove off. The landlord polished glasses with wearisome persistence and no appreciable result. Geoffrey looked at the note which Fen had just received. The amiability of the wording was hateful. He remembered that whoever wrote it had helped to drug a child of fifteen, to drive a man mad and then poison him, to crush another man to a blood-flecked jelly…Despite the warmth of the day, a shiver of sheer repulsion seized him. He handed the letter to the Regius Professor of Mathematics, who was sitting drinking his beer and staring blankly in front of him.

  ‘I haven’t the least idea what all this is about,’ said the Professor, ‘but I agree there’s something wrong about this letter. The tone is so indifferent. Almost as though it were intended to lull someone into a sense of false security…’

  Geoffrey and Fielding sat up. The same thought flashed across both their minds:

  ‘Fen’s taking a devil of a time over that call.’

  Almost in one bound they were at the door, sick apprehension in their hearts. The passage was empty, and the door of the telephone-box stood open. There was no one there. But the receiver hung, swaying gently, at the end of its wire, and a faint smell of chloroform sweetened the air.

  The Professor, who had followed them out, paused by the empty booth.

  ‘He has softly and suddenly vanished away,’ he said gravely. ‘The Snark was a Boojum, you see.’

  13

  Another Dead

  An intellectual hatred is the worst.

  YEATS

  The first thing to be done was obviously to rush out into the road and discover if anything was to be seen. But even as he went, Geoffrey remembered the car he had heard drive away, and knew it was useless. There were wheel-marks in the gravel court, but they lost themselves in a fringe of macadam adjoining the road, and it was impossible to tell which way the car had gone. For the rest, not a soul was about. As a kidnapping, it was not only daring but flawless.

  Then there was the Inspector to telephone. The language with which he received the news fitted in well with Geoffrey’s mood. He promised to use what resources he could in tracing the car, and suggested that Geoffrey and Fielding should come down to the station at once to discuss a plan of action. They set off, leaving the Regius Professor of Mathematics drinking gravely and peaceably on his own, and never saw or heard of him again.

  But while they walked, Geoffrey realized the utter hopelessness of what they had to do. For Fen had not told them the name of the criminal, and they could no
t find him in that way. He felt none of the excitement of the chase – only a nausea, a dull despair, and a sense of bitter self-reproach. What a perfect trap that note was, and what a blind imbecile he had been not to see through it!

  The Inspector listened with a glum expression to what they had to tell him, and seemed devoid of constructive ideas. The churls from the Yard, it appeared, had returned to London early that morning with a view to making certain investigations into Peace’s past career. Fielding asked rather irritably what Peace could have been supposed to have had to do with it, since he was locked up in his cell when Fen disappeared, but even Geoffrey saw the logical flaw in this: they were dealing, after all, with a gang. The only slender clue they had to go on, as the Inspector pointed out, was the possible complicity of Harry James, the landlord of the Whale and Coffin. Certainly a search-warrant could be produced, to enable them to look at his premises; but equally certainly, that move would have been anticipated. The Inspector had had one or two fresh pieces of news since they saw him last, but all of a negative kind: the case which had been dropped on Geoffrey in the train could not be traced; nor could the man who had dropped it; and nor could the assailant in the shop, who had made his escape through one of the other departments in the general confusion. But these, at the moment, were matters of very secondary importance. The Inspector had thought that he might be justified in pulling James in for questioning. Now that Fen had been kidnapped, however, he was less certain of the wisdom of this. If he was not dead already (Geoffrey turned sick inside), such action might simply precipitate his murder.

  In the end, Fielding persuaded them that as a resident of the Whale and Coffin it would be easier for him than for them to do a little unobtrusive snooping. Neither Geoffrey nor the Inspector seemed very willing to leave this to him alone. The Whale and Coffin was, after all, their only chance. It was finally decided that while he was investigating Geoffrey should be stationed in the bar, as a second line of defence; and that, as a third, a constable should remain unobtrusively outside, ready to summon more help if necessary.

  And so it was that a quarter of an hour later, with a quick-beating heart, Geoffrey stood once again in the crowded little public bar of the Whale and Coffin, waiting. Fielding’s plan of action had simply been for a general search, as far as that was possible: and it had been agreed that if he did not return within twenty minutes, the place should be turned inside out. Geoffrey sipped whisky, and saw the minute-hand of his watch crawl through aeons of eternity from four to five, from five to six…All about him, the serious business of drinking continued tranquil and unregarding. It was impossible to suppose that their enemies had not anticipated this move, that they were not conscious of what was going on. Geoffrey became more nervous every second, and was profoundly grateful that he was surrounded by a crowd. The landlord was nowhere to be seen. He wondered what Fielding was doing.

  In point of fact, Fielding had already found what he was looking for. He found it at once, and the chance nearly cost him his life. He had set off from his own bedroom down the narrow, panelled corridor, bending his head to avoid the low beams, and feeling slightly less enthusiastic about secret service work than usual. As it happened, he was gifted with a fairly high degree of physical courage, but it had occurred to him, as to Geoffrey, that they were hardly likely to take whomever they were looking for unawares, and the reflection not unnaturally depressed him. Experimentally he tried the first door along the corridor on the right. It was not probable that criminal evidence would be lying about in such a public spot, but one had to be methodical. The door yielded, and he found himself in a low white-panelled sitting-room, well-lighted, and pleasantly furnished in chintz. It was empty, but from a closed door on the other side came the sound of voices. He tiptoed towards it, and put his ear to the keyhole. Fragments of conversation reached him.

  ‘…tell you there’s never been a conger caught on this coast longer than twenty feet.’

  ‘…you get them bigger in Cornwall.’

  ‘The trouble is, the local men haven’t got the pilchard to bait the lines. And there’s so little good eating on a conger…’

  This sounded unpromising, and he was about to creep away again when he thought better of it. If the people in there were guests of the hotel he could easily apologise. If not…Gently he turned the handle, opening the door a fraction of an inch. From within, a surprised voice called out:

  ‘Hello! Who’s there?’

  So there was nothing for it but to go in. He opened the door wide and stepped across the threshold. There were two men there talking. One was Harry James, and the other…

  Savernake.

  They sat at either side of a table, with beer in front of them. The room was a rather smaller replica of that he had just left. Apart from a few books which, his eye passing rapidly over them, Fielding recognized as being text-books on Church music, it gave no sign of permanent habitation. Savernake said cheerily:

  ‘Fielding! How pleasant to see you! I’m sorry we haven’t been able to see more of one another since you arrived.’

  James said:

  ‘Well, sir! Anything I can do for you? You’re quite comfortable, I hope?’

  Savernake said:

  ‘Join us for a drink. I very rarely do this, myself – one has one’s reputation to look after – but I like to have a talk with Harry about fishing now and again.’

  He got up and put himself between Fielding and the only door, that by which he had entered. Fielding saw that the one large window was heavily barred, looking out on to a deserted courtyard at the back of the inn. He realized he had to fight. The two men were looking at him queerly. He felt suddenly helpless, and tried to speak, but the words stuck in the back of his throat.

  Then he pulled over a table, and kicked a chair at the innkeeper. James stumbled momentarily, then righted himself. Neither he nor Savernake made any other movement. Fielding fell back slowly into a corner, scraping his left shoulder against the wall.

  ‘Why, Fielding,’ he heard Savernake say, ‘whatever’s the matter?’

  Sick fright closed about his heart. For an age it seemed to stop beating. Then he filled his lungs to shout.

  The room turned suddenly to blood. He was vaguely conscious of an explosion, a sudden tearing jolt which spun him hard against the wall and drove him fathoms down to a smashing concussion with the floor. Lying there, he struggled frantically both to keep consciousness and to suppress (biting his tongue) the terrible panic of the mind at the first realization that a part of the body has been destroyed. Obscurely he knew that he must keep consciousness, in case they said anything that would help him to find Fen; he must make them think he was dead…The lights of a million roundabouts whirled and pirouetted before his eyes; the pain was just beginning. Echoing strangely through mile-long tunnels and labyrinths, their voices came to his ears.

  ‘What did you want to shoot for, you fool?’ James was snarling. ‘That’s the second time playing about with that gun has nearly finished us. Do you want the whole neighbourhood in here?’

  ‘No one will have heard it. Please remember that I am in charge here. I shall do what I think best.’

  ‘Sweet Fanny Adams. What are you going to do now, Mr Clever? You know Vintner’s downstairs and a copper outside the door?’

  ‘We must get out, of course. Destroy the stuff and get out. If we can reach Scotland…’

  ‘If we can reach Scotland! That’s pretty.’

  ‘Go and dope Vintner’s drink. We can put him in a backroom and leave word that he was taken ill. That will give us a little more time.’

  ‘You bloody, over-educated bungler…’

  ‘I should not have the slightest compunction about using this gun again – on you. In fact, it would make my own departure a deal easier.’

  ‘Listen. Someone’s coming…’

  ‘No, they’re not. No one heard that shot. Get out, will you, and fix Vintner’s drink.’

  ‘And Fen? What are you going to do about
him?’

  ‘He’ll be dead by now.’

  ‘I don’t think. Not with the trickle of gas you let out of that tap, and the room not properly sealed. Your blasted little bit of sadism’s going to fix us properly. We ought to go out to the old asylum and finish him off.’

  ‘There’s no time, you f— swine. Go out and fix that drink.’

  James went, and Fielding, unable to hold on any longer and incapable of warning Geoffrey, fell into a dead faint. In five minutes the landlord was back – five minutes during which Savernake paced about, wiped the perspiration from his long, thin face, smoothed back his corn-coloured hair, and twisted his fingers nervously together. His narrow upper lip was quivering slightly, with fright, and a muscle twitched continually in the corner of his right eye.

  ‘Took it like a lamb,’ said James briefly. ‘I’ve left word what’s to be done with him when he passes out,’ He turned and inspected Fielding. ‘He’s not dead. If you can’t kill a man at that range, you’d better leave that gun alone.’

  Savernake produced the gun again.

  ‘No, you don’t,’ said James. ‘We were lucky first time – nobody downstairs heard – but we mayn’t be again. There are quieter ways of finishing him than that. Here, give me a hand.’

  Together they dragged Fielding over to the gas-fire. It was of the movable kind, attached to the tap in the wall by a length of flexible tubing. James removed the tubing from the fire, and inserted the end into Fielding’s half-open mouth. Then he took a roll of surgical tape from his pocket, and plastered up Fielding’s nostrils and the corners of his mouth. He turned the gas-tap on, and they stood back for a moment, listening to the gentle hiss, and watching the blood from his wound spreading slowly on the uneven floor.

  ‘That’ll fix him,’ said James. ‘Now let’s shoot. If we once get to Bristol, G. will have a plane to take us to Scotland, and we can snap our fingers at the lot of them.’

  ‘I’d better look through his pockets.’

  ‘For Jesus’ sake, hurry. If you aren’t down in five minutes, I’ll take the car without you.’