Ernest Lye glanced down at his hands. They were clenched tight in his lap. He noticed the zigzag weal on his wrist. How had that got there? Then he remembered the injury from the kissing-gate. The story he told to the policeman. Inspector Francis appeared to be a capable man, one who could be relied on to establish the truth. The truth that the murderer of Charles Tomlinson was . . . not him, not Ernest Lye.
So now as Ernest sat staring unseeingly at the blank wall, he could acknowledge to himself that what he felt towards Tomlinson was more than resentment. It was jealousy, hatred. It was quite safe to own up to that now. The man was dead, and he had not done the deed.
Had he?
Inspector Francis sat in the drawing room of George Grace’s house on Palace Green. Mr Grace told him that he was fortunate to find him at home, rather than engaged on business (or good works, the manufacturer almost added). But, Francis thought, judging by the well-creased newspaper on the nearby table and the familiar way he was nesting in his armchair, George Grace must be quite often at home in the morning. Sounds could be heard, distantly and intermittently, from other parts of the house. A baby crying somewhere near the top, doors opening and closing at the back.
The view through the sash window was of the cathedral green. There were a few sightseers, gawpers, in the area of the Crimean cannon. But no constable now. On his way here, Francis went to examine the spot once more. The ground round the cannon was churned up, the grass worn away and gouged, with footprints overlaying each other. Such blood as was shed by Tomlinson had soaked away. Any evidence was obliterated. It occurred to the Inspector that this could scarcely be the first time that a body had been found in the region of the cannon, at least in other lands.
Now, sitting in George Grace’s drawing room, Inspector Francis took the witness through what he’d seen and heard the day before. He consulted a notebook. In one hand he was holding a pencil. He found his notebook useful, a kind of professional prop. Sometimes it reassured those he was questioning, sometimes it discomfited them, especially if he looked at it for a long time or if he wrote down what seemed to be a trivial detail. In fact, Francis had written only two words on the page in front of him. He’d come to those two words in a moment.
‘So yesterday afternoon you were sitting there, Mr Grace, reading the paper? Just where you are sitting now. And, when it got too dark for you to continue reading, you got up to light the lamp. And then through the window, you observed – what did you observe?’
‘I observed Mr Tomlinson and Mr Lye walking past. Is it true that Mr Lye is in custody, Inspector?’
‘We will come to that in due course, sir. First I want to pin down exactly what you saw.’
‘I saw exactly what I said I saw, Inspector.’
‘You identified Mr Tomlinson by his appearance and his voice. But the other individual, the one walking on the far side of him . . . what can you say about that person?’
George Grace shifted slightly in his armchair. ‘I did not see a great deal of him.’
‘Any impression of what he was wearing?’
‘No.’
‘Was he tall or short? Fat or thin?’
‘He was short and thin,’ said Mr Grace finally.
‘You must have had a fair sight of him to see that much, sir.’
‘I am deducing it, Inspector. Isn’t that what you fellows do? Deduce, deduce?’
Francis said nothing. The tetchy tone of the other man was revealing. The Inspector pretended to write in his notebook. He glanced through the window. He had already noticed that the strip of garden which separated the front of Grace’s house from the railings was well planted with shrubs. In addition, the iron railings were entwined with some sort of creeper whose leaves were turning a tawny autumnal orange. He wondered how clearly Mr Grace had been able to see through these impediments. He thought of the late afternoon light, the gathering mist.
After a pause, during which Mr Grace did some more shifting about in his chair, he said, ‘If I am to be completely frank, I did not actually see the fellow who was with Tomlinson. He must have been short and thin because Tomlinson was quite a large man – or a tall one at any rate – and therefore anyone walking alongside him would be largely obscured when seen from the angle provided by my window here. And another thing. Tomlinson was walking with his head tilted slightly to one side, from which I also deduce that he was listening to a slightly shorter companion. There you have my reasoning, unfolded for you stage by stage.’
George Grace sat back with arms folded as though he had scored a decisive point.
‘Very good, sir. You would make a fine detective.’
‘One tries one’s best to help the forces of law and order.’
‘You say Mr Tomlinson’s companion must have been small, and I concur with your reasoning. Is it possible this companion was a woman?’
‘No, you’re quite in the wrong there. Remember I heard Tomlinson call him ‘Lye’. No mistake there.’
‘Yesterday, I believe you stated –’ and here Francis earnestly studied his notebook – ‘yes, you stated that Mr Tomlinson said, “Mr Lye”. Which was it? “Lye” or “Mr Lye”?’
‘Does it make a difference?’
‘Please try to remember, Mr Grace.’
‘Tomlinson said – well, now that I come to think of it – he said simply “Lye”. No “Mr” was involved.’
‘And you heard no other bits and pieces, not a single fragment of conversation, from either individual?’
‘Only the word “Lye”.’
‘Because it was uttered with some force?’
‘Yes.’
Francis glanced down at the two words pencilled in his pad. They were LYE? and LIE? He closed the book with a snap and tucked his pencil away. He got up.
‘I must not take up any more of your time or detain you from your business, Mr Grace.’
George Grace also rose to his feet. He looked so dissatisfied that Francis threw him a titbit.
‘You have been very helpful.’
‘Mr Lye is safe in custody?’
‘He is safe,’ said Francis, adding to himself, but he will not be in custody for much longer.
As he walked across Palace Green and past the site of the murder, Inspector Francis summarized what he had learned from the interview with George Grace. Or, rather, what he had unlearned.
He did not doubt that the tannery owner had glimpsed Charles Tomlinson passing his window late on the previous afternoon, nor that Tomlinson was in the company of someone else. The fact of the murder a few minutes later indicated as much. The policeman was even prepared to accept that Tomlinson’s companion was someone relatively slight and short. The probability was that it was a man, given the nature of the attack. But a woman could not be ruled out altogether. Of the two murder cases which Stephen Francis had hitherto investigated during his time in Ely, one concerned the farm labourer who’d killed his wife while the other involved a female servant who knifed her employer when he broke a promise to marry her after his wife’s death. The ferocity of that attack shocked even the hardened members of the constabulary. Francis was shocked too but it told him nothing new. Women were as capable of violence as men, even if they did not resort to it so often.
As for the LYE question . . . Inspector Francis was as sure as he could be that the word which George Grace heard through his drawing-room window was actually LIE. Charles Tomlinson had been arguing with his companion and rebuking him – or her – for lying, which was why he was speaking loudly. It was an argument or a rebuke which would shortly lead to his murder.
Monkey Business
From Cambridge early on the Monday morning, Tom Ansell posted his account of the Ely events to David Mackenzie in London. Since a letter seemed almost too leisurely, even though it would arrive the same day, Tom also sent a telegram to the senior partner. Knowing how many hands a cable passed through, he wanted to avoid spelling things out in black and white but he also wanted to alert Mackenzie to the trouble that w
as coming. Keeping within the twenty-word limit that was covered by a single shilling, Tom dictated the following to the clerk in the telegraph office: E.L. DETAINED IN ELY AFTER VERY GRAVE PROBLEMS UNRELATED TO MY MISSION. LETTER FOLLOWS WITH FULL DETAILS. PLEASE ADVISE. T.A.
Tom expected the postal letter to arrive at the office in Furnival Street that afternoon, which meant that he would not hear back from Mackenzie before the next day. He was surprised therefore to receive a cable at the Devereux Hotel during the late morning. It was in answer to his telegram. HAVE ALREADY GLEANED SITUATION FROM REFERENCES IN PRESS. STAY THERE. HELP AND INVESTIGATE. D.M.
‘There must have been some newspaper stories,’ said Helen. ‘Murder in Ely, local man detained, that kind of thing, but without naming names.’
‘Yes,’ said Tom. ‘Mackenzie tells us to stay but we couldn’t leave anyway. Not at this juncture.’
‘Who are we meant to help?’ said Helen.
‘The Lyes, surely, not the police?’
‘The police are the ones doing the investigating.’
‘I think he means me to do it too,’ said Tom, recalling Mackenzie’s reference to his dab hand at investigating.
‘Means us, perhaps.’
‘Yes, us.’
‘This is turning into another drama, Tom.’
‘I know.’
Yet Tom and Helen were able to continue their investigation into the murder of Charles Tomlinson without leaving their hotel, without making much effort at all in fact. The cheerful and rotund John Jubb, senior clerk at the firm of Teague and Bennett in Cambridge and boyhood friend of Jack Ashley back in Furnival Street, suddenly turned up outside their rooms. They invited him in, pleased enough to see someone without homicidal connections. But, before they even sat down, Jubb explained that he was visiting the Ansells with what might be significant information about the murder in Ely. Although it was an ordinary working day, he had taken time off to do so.
‘When you have been with a firm as long as I have, Mr and Mrs Ansell, you acquire a little latitude in setting your own hours.’
Tom noticed that while he addressed both of them he kept his eyes on Helen, in a puppyish sort of way. Mr Jubb had obviously fallen a little under her spell.
‘So you already know about the Ely murder?’ said Tom.
‘Oh yes, I have been alerted by my old friend Ashley. Telegrams have been flying to and fro. Also the matter is reported in the Cambridge papers this morning and no doubt in the London ones as well. Not much is said in the papers, apart from the names of the deceased and the detecting officer, and the location of the crime. If we give the press time, though, they’ll begin to work up their theories and point their fingers.’
‘Otherwise known as making things up and starting rumours,’ said Helen.
‘Dear me, yes,’ said Jubb. ‘You have got the measure of the fourth estate, Mrs Ansell. Though it’s not surprising, I suppose, since you have one foot in the trade. Ha, I nearly said, one foot in the grave. That wouldn’t have done, not at all. Have you met that interesting gentleman again, by the way? Mr Arnett, wasn’t it? The editor who has a way with language.’
‘I haven’t seen him,’ said Helen. ‘To tell you the truth, I’ve almost forgotten my commission for The New Moon. There have been other things on my mind.’
‘Mr Jubb,’ said Tom, ‘you have something to tell us about the murder?’
‘Not exactly about the murder. But about the murderee, if that is a legitimate word, Mrs Ansell.’
‘It is now, Mr Jubb.’
‘I am able to provide you with a story about Charles Tomlinson. It may tell you what kind of person he is – or was. You see, he was once involved in a scandalous event here in the city, in the university itself, which resulted in his having to leave his college before his time.’
‘He was sent down?’ said Tom.
‘I believe he left of his own accord before that could happen. Went abroad. He had turned into a bit of a black sheep among his family.’
Tom and Helen exchanged looks. What had some long-forgotten student scandal to do with a murder the day before?
‘It was about fifteen or more years ago. You may remember – no, of course, you probably do not remember, you are too young – but anyway there was much debate in learned circles about whether mankind was descended from the apes.’
‘There is still debate,’ said Tom.
‘I thought it was settled,’ said Helen. ‘We are all the children of monkeys, at several removes of course.’
She said it to tease, thought Tom, but he was slightly taken aback by her directness. So was John Jubb, who said, ‘Well, it may be so. Cleverer people than I have said it is so. Yet clever men, and even clever women, are not always right. Myself, I hold no particular view.’
‘What has this to with Charles Tomlinson?’ said Tom.
‘These arguments were at their height when Mr Tomlinson was a student at Cambridge. He was part of a circle of young men who thought of themselves as being very much in the forefront of opinion, especially if that opinion was likely to be shocking or upsetting to tradition. Among his friends was an individual at the same college who was planning to take holy orders. I believe that the debates, the arguments, between Tomlinson and this friend were especially keen and lively. Tomlinson held that mankind was descended from the apes and he ridiculed the church for preaching otherwise, while this person held out against him. Then, for some reason, their friendship went sour. As a consequence, Tomlinson did something which . . . well, if one was being charitable, one could describe what he did as a joke, a practical joke played on the intending cleric.’
Mr Jubb paused. Tom and Helen gazed at him expectantly.
‘From somewhere Mr Tomlinson obtained a stuffed monkey. He waited until his friend was out one day and then he placed the monkey in that gentleman’s room with a mocking sign hanging around the creature’s neck. I believe that the sign read, “It is a wise child that knows its own father”.’
Tom’s instinct was to laugh but he managed to control it. Helen’s hand flew to her mouth, but he could not tell whether it was a gesture of shock or stifled amusement. John Jubb shook his head.
‘After all these years, I know it sounds like a malicious prank, no more. But at the time it provoked outrage. The victim of Tomlinson’s joke was very badly affected. The college authorities were horrified. Charles Tomlinson’s reputation was already dubious as far as they were concerned, and this monkey business set the seal on their determination to have done with him. As I say, if he hadn’t left of his own accord, he would have been sent down. In fact, he was only permitted to stay at the university for as long as he did because of his connections. He comes from a family of local clerics.’
‘That could explain his animosity towards the church.’
‘I suppose it might, Mrs Ansell. The idea hadn’t occurred to me.’
‘Can I ask how you know all these things?’ said Tom. ‘After all, the business with the monkey happened a long time ago, and it doesn’t sound like the kind of affair that anyone would want spread about.’
‘It was not. But the Reverend Gordon Coffer, who has one of the Cambridge parishes, is also one of our oldest clients at Teague and Bennett. He is a cousin to Tomlinson and the father of Mrs Lye. I remember the original scandal. Like the rest of the family, the Reverend Coffer was angry and displeased but at the same time I always thought he had a bit of a soft spot for his reprobate cousin. He talked about the business in our office, he consulted one of our partners. I remember it still. You see, the whole story is stored inside here.’
The solicitors’ clerk tapped his forehead. Tom was reminded of their own clerk, Jack Ashley, who was able to recall every client and case, it seemed, for the last forty years.
‘There is more to say,’ said John Jubb. ‘You’re familiar with Crockford’s Clerical Directory, I hope? It is an invaluable work of reference.’
‘I know it,’ said Tom, who supposed that there could not be a legal f
irm in the land which did not have a couple of Crockford’s on its shelves. For Helen’s benefit, he said, ‘Crockford’s lists all the English benefices and the names of the incumbents.’
‘And the Welsh and Irish ones,’ added Jubb. ‘As I said, the fellow student made fun of by Charles Tomlinson was deeply hurt by his behaviour, humiliated too. Nevertheless, he persisted in his intention of entering the church. His name is George Eames. I have tracked him down with the aid of Crockford’s. It turns out that he has not moved far since he has a living just outside Ely.’
Tom guessed what was coming next but kept quiet. Mr Jubb was so evidently enjoying his story and his detective work.
‘It is in the village of Upper Fen.’
‘Isn’t that where the Lyes live, where Phoenix House is?’ said Helen.
‘And where I met Mr Tomlinson,’ said Tom.
‘The question is, Mr Ansell, whether George Eames and Charles Tomlinson met there again after all those years . . .’
‘. . . and what happened if they did,’ said Helen.
Some Other Suspects
Whatever Helen’s speculations, George Eames and Charles Tomlinson had never actually met in the village of Upper Fen. On one occasion the cleric glimpsed Tomlinson while he was walking towards Phoenix House and hid in the shrubbery to avoid an encounter with his old friend and nemesis. But the perpetual curate knew of Tomlinson’s status with the Lyes, and was fearful that at some point they must inevitably meet.
On the Sunday morning of the day on which Tomlinson was murdered in Ely, George Eames officiated at the morning service at St Ethelwine’s. The church was one place where he thought himself safe from the risk of seeing Tomlinson, unless the man had undergone some sort of Damascene conversion. Eames delivered the sermon which he had saved from the flames of the fire and, as planned, he alluded to the subject of righteous anger, taking his cue from the Ephesians verse:Be ye angry and sin not. He was glad to see his housemaid Hannah looking contrite. This almost compensated for the fact that Gabriel Parr had lit a brazier at the back of the church to keep the worst of the chill out of the air. Eames did not altogether approve of braziers in churches. Or rather, he valued the bracing effect of discomfort.
The Ely Testament Page 18