An Oxford Anomaly

by Norman Russell

  Following the instructions given to him by a porter at the station, Antrobus made his way along the high street until he reached a pair of ornamental iron gates, which took him into the graveyard of an ancient Saxon church, beside which stood an elegant rectory, built, as far as he could judge, in the reign of Queen Anne.

  Drawn up in a leafy lane just beyond the rectory he saw a closed coach standing, its driver sitting on a wall, smoking a clay pipe. As he opened the gate into the rectory garden, someone looked out of the coach window. For a moment Antrobus thought it was the figure of a nun.

  In response to a ring on the bell, the door was opened by a smiling girl of fifteen or so, clad in a green cotton dress over which she wore an unbleached linen smock. She had just accepted Antrobus’s card when two little girls erupted into the hall.

  ‘Annie, Annie!’ they cried. ‘Who is it? Is it someone to see Daddy?’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ said the girl called Annie. ‘Now, Beth, take Mary-Jane with you back to the kitchen, and finish your milk and gingerbread. Daddy’s going to be busy for a while.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said Annie, when the little girls had scampered away, ‘Beth’s very lively today, and whatever she does, Mary-Jane copies. Beth’s only five, and Mary-Jane’s three, so they can be quite a handful. But let me take you through to the study. The Rector’s expecting you.’

  Annie led him down the hall and into a spacious room at the rear of the house. It was lit by four tall windows, which looked out on to the sunlit churchyard. Standing by the fireplace was a fair-haired young man in clerical dress, in the process of lighting his pipe. He looked alert and poised, as though most of his time was spent in purposeful activity. Antrobus judged him to be no older than thirty.

  ‘Rector,’ said Annie, ‘this is Mr Antrobus, the detective from Oxford.’

  ‘Excellent. Pleased to meet you, Inspector. Annie, did I hear those two terrors making loud demands in the hall? I thought they were being fed.’

  ‘They are, sir. I’ve sent them back to the kitchen.’

  ‘And Miss Probert?’

  ‘She’s with me in the kitchen, too, sir. When I’ve taken the girls away for their morning nap, she and I will have a cup of tea together.’

  ‘Good. I’ll ring for her when she’s needed. I suppose Mullins is content to sit on the wall? Good. Now, Inspector, let us sit down by the fireplace. It’s very hot today for September. Would you care for something cool to drink? Annie, could you bring us each a tankard of cold beer?’

  Antrobus attempted to speak, but his host held up a hand to enjoin silence. Not until the beer had been brought in did the inspector venture to break the enforced calm.

  ‘You are the Reverend Hezekiah Daneforth?’

  ‘Yes, indeed I am,’ said the young clergyman. ‘I’ve only been Rector here for two years, but that’s long enough for a parson to hear a lot about both the innate goodness and the unfathomable wickedness of mankind. I’ve no doubt, Inspector, that you also think much on those things.’

  ‘I was very taken by your little girls, sir,’ said Antrobus. ‘They must be a cause of great joy for you and your good wife.’

  ‘Beth and Mary-Jane? Yes, they’re my great treasures, as I’m sure you’ll understand. Annie is their nurse-maid, and does wonders with them. She’s an orphan, you know, not quite fifteen yet. I look upon her as their elder sister, and thus a daughter of my own. Miriam – my wife – is out visiting in the parish. But come, Inspector, I’m intrigued to hear how I can help you.’

  Mr Daneforth picked up a letter from a table placed near his right hand.

  ‘This is a letter from the Archdeacon of Warwick, asking me to “afford you every assistance”, and so on. Well, I suppose I must do so. Old sins cast long shadows. You’ve come, I expect, to look back into the past at the appalling murder of a young woman, Vivien West. She was only twenty, I’ve been told, and about to be married.’

  Antrobus took from his pocket the letter that Sergeant Maxwell had found sewn into the lining of Michael Sanders’s jacket and handed it to the Rector, who read it and then gave it back to the inspector without immediate comment. He regarded his guest in silence for a while before he continued.

  ‘Inspector,’ said Mr Daneforth, ‘your name is not unknown to me. Even in this quiet backwater we have heard of your various triumphs of detection. It is only weeks ago that you solved the mystery of Sir Montague Fowler’s death in Oxford. But at times, one comes across human tragedies that are impossible to fathom, and the death of Vivien West seems to me to be one such tragedy. I’ve heard so many accounts of her tragic story over the last two years. None of those versions are ever quite the same. She, and her terrible death, have become the stuff of legend. To my mind, she’s like one of those droopy, dreamy girls in Tennyson’s poems, part real, and part myth.’

  The Rector paused for a while, and closed his eyes. Perhaps he was in prayer.

  Antrobus could hear a gaggle of sparrows chattering somewhere in the churchyard. He glanced at a clock on the mantelpiece, and saw that it was just on twelve. At the same time, the clock in the church tower began to strike the hour. The Rector opened his eyes.

  ‘You know, Mr Antrobus, there’s so much saving work to be done in a parish like this. There are people for me to seek and to save, poor, indigent folk to visit and relieve. Sunday schools to establish and run. Nothing that we can do can alter the deeds of the past. Things would be much better to my way of thinking, if people would be content to let the dead rest.’

  The young Rector seemed to exude an air of caution, not unmixed with distress. He had received his visitor hospitably, but Antrobus sensed that his quest for the truth of Vivien West’s death was not welcome.

  ‘You see, Inspector,’ the Rector continued, ‘all those people mentioned in that letter you have just shown me – Alison Savernake’s letter – are dead. They’re all lying out there, in the churchyard. Gossip’s an ill-natured thing, born usually of envy and spite. Yes, it was all a very long time ago.

  ‘As for those names in the letter,’ he continued, ‘an old lady in the parish once told me about Alison Savernake. She was a decayed gentlewoman, one of the three daughters of a man called John Savernake, a landed proprietor who lost everything in one or other of the railway manias. I’ve been told about Michael Sanders, too. Alison, apparently, was a particular friend of his.’

  ‘That letter,’ said Antrobus, ‘was a reply to one from Michael Sanders, who was himself cruelly murdered this Friday gone – murdered by having his throat cut from ear to ear.’

  ‘Yes, we read about it in the Hereford Times. That letter was written in 1885, thirteen years after Vivien West’s death, and the man whom Michael was hinting may have been her murderer was Jeremy Oakshott. I’ve made a study of this matter, Mr Antrobus, which is why I’m familiar with all the names and personalities. But I note in that letter that Sanders was simply asking for local opinion, because he wanted to rekindle his old friendship with Jeremy. It appears that Jeremy Oakshott was, indeed, much in love with Vivien West, but it was Michael whom she chose. In the event, of course, she married neither of them. She’s out there, too, you know. In the churchyard, I mean.’

  James Antrobus was not a superstitious man, but for a moment he imagined that the Rector’s study was suddenly peopled by shadowy figures, the ghosts of the past.

  ‘So, Inspector, you suspect that Jeremy Oakshott murdered Michael Sanders? That’s why you’re resurrecting the case of Vivien West. Those other people named in Alison’s letter – I’ve heard all about them, too, from my old women in the almshouse, and other parish gossips. Amy Phelps, I’m told, was a strong-minded woman, much given to good works, who trusted too much to her defective judgements. She had convinced herself that Jeremy Oakshott had murdered Vivien because she didn’t like Jeremy, who was given to mocking her unwelcome and unwanted attempts to improve the minds of the labouring classes. Caleb Williams, I’m told, was a congenital liar, with a genius for hating everyone and eve
rything better off than himself. No credence could be given to anything that he said, apparently.’

  ‘Caleb Williams… . I had hoped to interview him, but from what you said about the folk in the graveyard, I suppose he’s dead as well. What happened to him?’

  ‘He died of drink. They say he repented at the end, and had sent for the then Rector, Mr Balantyne, but Williams died before he could see him. It was all gossip, you see, and surmise. Nothing was proved.’

  Antrobus drained his tankard, and as no table was near to hand, he put it down on the hearth. It had been a very welcome drink, and it had been a kindly thought of the young clergyman to provide it.

  There was an outburst of merriment from the hall. The terrors had evidently escaped from wherever they had been taken. James Antrobus caught the Rector’s humorous smile, and suddenly felt that he was wasting valuable time. Whatever the truth was about Sanders’s murder, it was not to be found here, making fruitless enquiries about a past tragedy.

  Antrobus rose to make his leave, but the Rector motioned to him to remain seated. He rang a hand-bell placed on the table beside his chair, and when the nurse-maid appeared, he said, ‘Ask Miss Probert to come here, Annie. I’ll take the girls back to their room, and read them a story. Inspector, I want you to listen to the tale that Miss Probert will tell you. After that, perhaps you would come out into the churchyard. There’s something there that I want you to see.’ He left the room through a door in a far corner, and at the same time the nurse-maid announced Miss Probert, and then withdrew.

  Miss Probert was a strongly-built woman of indeterminate age, with steel-grey hair and an immobile face that revealed little of her character. She was wearing a sensible but well-cut costume suit. An impressive, rather forbidding woman, thought Antrobus, who needs no adornments of jewellery or lace to make her stand out from the crowd. She walked with the aid of a stout stick, and leaned forward heavily on her right side. Antrobus wondered whether she had at one time suffered a stroke. He half rose from his chair, but Miss Probert prevented him with a gesture, and sat down opposite him in the Rector’s chair.

  ‘Mr Daneforth warned me that you would be coming,’ she began without preamble. ‘This little town is a precious sort of place, full of kindly people, and a whole host of good neighbours. It should not be remembered merely for the tragic murder that took place here over twenty years ago. I have no doubt that the Rector has shown you how the mystery of that girl’s death is impenetrable. No one – no one, that is, except me – knows the truth of the matter.’

  ‘And you do, madam?’

  ‘Yes, and I am going to tell you that truth now. Others, no doubt, will deny the veracity of what I am going to say, and call me a liar. So be it. It was said that Vivien West was murdered by a jealous lover. Some thought it was Jeremy Oakshott. That, I may say, was the most evil calumny of them all. Jeremy was a gentle and compassionate young man, and at one time a devoted suitor of Vivien West. Some even suggested that Michael Sanders himself had done it, when he discovered that Vivien had turned to another man. That, too, was nonsense, a diabolical suggestion. The Prince of Darkness was abroad here in Henning St Mary on that bright summer’s day, poisoning minds and sowing slanders—’

  ‘And the real culprit?’

  ‘Yes, the Devil was abroad that day,’ Miss Probert continued, ignoring Antrobus’s interruption. ‘And unrequited love was at the bottom of it.’

  Miss Probert closed her eyes for a while, and her inscrutable face gave no sign of what she might have been thinking. She sat, sphinx-like, until her eyes opened once more.

  ‘In those days, Mr Antrobus,’ she continued, ‘there was a girl who lived here with her parents, a feeble-minded girl called Margaret Meadows. She was on the verge of insanity, but like many such people, she was cunning enough to conceal her true nature, so that she could remain at liberty. Sometimes a cat would be found stabbed, and for a time there was an outbreak of attacks on sheep in the outlying farms – the poor beasts would be found with their throats cut – stupid, bleating creatures, feeding freely from the fruits of the earth without mind or sensibility – but there, they did not deserve to be treated like that. No, indeed.’

  Miss Probert shuddered, and a spasm of fear crossed her normally impassive face.

  ‘This Margaret Meadows – was she in love with Michael Sanders?’

  ‘Yes, she was. It was very shrewd of you to deduce that. Well, after poor Vivien was murdered, the Meadows family left these parts, and went to farm a few acres in Cheshire. It’s time now to tell you who I am. I was, for all my working life, a wardress at Prenton Bridge Criminal Lunatic Asylum, a few miles out of Chester.

  ‘In the year 1880 this same Margaret Meadows was admitted to our wards after a warrant had been issued by one of the Masters in Lunacy for her detention. She had— she had committed dreadful mutilations of sheep, and finally murdered a town librarian who had rebuffed her advances with horror. Was that she? Did she kill that man? Yes, of course she did. My mind is getting tired. I must concentrate on what I am saying.’

  ‘And this woman murdered Vivien West?’

  ‘Let me finish, Mr Antrobus. Let me get my memories together, so that we can make an end of this business. On admission, she was placed in one of the constraining cells, because she had become very violent, and dangerously unpredictable. After a few weeks, one of our doctors, Samuel Critchley, proposed administering electric shocks to certain areas of Meadows’s brain via electrodes inserted through a trepanned opening in the skull.’

  Antrobus shuddered. Miss Probert seemed quite unperturbed.

  ‘The treatment was very successful. Within an hour, all tendencies to violence were seen to have stopped altogether. Unfortunately, Meadows fell into a sudden decline, and the ward physician told us that she would die within six hours.’

  So that, thought Antrobus, is what these people accounted as success.

  ‘It was soon after this diagnosis, Inspector, that Meadows sent for me, and confessed that it was she who had murdered Vivien West eight years earlier. She had been consumed with jealousy, because Michael Sanders had not even deigned to glance at her. She hated Vivien for her beauty and her happiness. On that fateful day, she had crept into the garden of the Wests’ house, and into the double hedge where Vivien was sitting, reading the marriage service in her prayer book. “I meant to stab her,” she said, “but when I saw she was reading the marriage service, my hatred welled up, and I decided to treat her as I treated those stupid sheep. I leaned through the hedge, and cut her throat from behind. And then I fled.” ’

  ‘So she confessed? She repented of her deed?’

  ‘Oh no, Inspector. She boasted of it. She was afraid that she would die without anyone knowing what she had done. Her vile crime, you see, was to be her proud epitaph. She died some hours later, with a smile on her face.’

  ‘And I suppose that she, too, is buried with the others out there in the churchyard?’

  ‘Indeed not. She was buried within the confines of the Lunatic Asylum.’

  Antrobus glanced around the room. He imagined that the ghosts were still there.

  ‘Why did not the asylum report the matter to the police?’

  ‘The woman was quite unfit to plead. The Law would never have permitted any attempt at arrest or interrogation. And there you have the truth of poor Vivien’s death. It’s all in the past, Inspector. I am told that you are investigating the murder of Michael Sanders. Well, you are wasting your time here. Go back to Oxfordshire, and look for your killer there.’

  Antrobus found the young Rector sitting on a bench in the shadow of the church.

  ‘Come with me, Mr Antrobus,’ he said, ‘I want to show you something.’

  They picked their way through the long grass until they came to a lichen-covered headstone, partly concealed by an overgrown rhododendron bush. Antrobus read the epitaph.

  Sacred to the memory

  of

  Vivien West

  Only daughter of Fran
cis and Jane West

  Died 17 May 1872

  Aged 20 years.

  “O LORD, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause.”

  Lamentations 3, v 59

  ‘A great tragedy, Mr Antrobus, but a tragedy belonging firmly to the past. Of all the people concerned, I know nothing personally. All I have heard are stories passed on from father to son and from mother to daughter. Miss Probert’s testimony is just one among many accounts of what happened. What is the truth of the matter? We shall never know. I firmly believe that we should all leave this poor girl to rest in peace.’

  After a few civilities, Antrobus left the rectory. He saw that the closed coach in the lane, with its mysterious occupant, was no longer there.

  ‘So there it is, Sergeant,’ said Antrobus, ‘the story of Vivien West belongs to the past, and belongs to the dead. She was murdered by a crazed lunatic woman, who is now dead herself. I’ve wasted a good deal of police time, and need to wrench myself back into the present.’

  The two policemen were sitting once more in the back bar of the Archangel. Sergeant Maxwell took a tentative sip of his pint of Morrell’s bitter, and pulled a face.

  ‘With all due respect, sir—’

  ‘When you say that, Sergeant, you usually mean the opposite.’

  ‘With all due respect, sir,’ said Maxwell, ignoring the interruption, ‘I thought from the start that you were going on a wild goose chase, and what I was told at Hadleigh only confirms my hypothesis. Dr McArthur accounted for every minute of Dr Oakshott’s time while he was there. So we need to ask some more questions.’

  ‘It’s not a hypothesis, Sergeant, it’s merely an opinion. A hypothesis is a supposition posited as a basis for further investigation. Your opinion is that I should cease any further enquiry into the past. Well, you’re right. I’ve wasted too much time.’

  Maxwell sat back in his chair and looked at his superior officer. He was pale and drawn, and those hectic spots had appeared again in his cheeks. He’d insisted on walking across town to the Archangel because he liked its quietly forlorn atmosphere: it always seemed to be empty. But he should have gone to the Chequers, in High Street. That would have avoided the coughing fit that he’d had as they’d hurried up New College Lane.