by T. H. White
"Since you've already tried to track my movements in London, Mr. Inspector, I suspect that you are rather interested in this question?"
"Yes."
"But you must concede that my private behaviour belongs to myself, and that it might be against my wishes to explain a course of action to you which I have already attempted to hide?"
"You leave me in a difficult position, Master. Either you must choose to explain your actions in private—but without the assurance that it won't be made public—or you must be content to make your explanation before the Coroner. If your actions have been illegal and I can prove it, then I shan't hesitate to prosecute them, whether you tell me about them or not. If on the other hand, I can't prove it, then it might be to your advantage to explain your methods of getting cocaine, to me instead of to the Coroner."
"I'm an old man, Inspector," said the Master, "but I must assure you that I've seldom met a person with more perception than yourself. You put the matter precisely, and yet broad-mindedly."
"Not at all," replied the Inspector.
"And since you've had me followed once without catching me out, I daresay you might do so again."
"If I might return a compliment, your evasion was positive disproof of your claims to age."
The conversation began to bore the Master. "Very well," he said, "we'll stop all this talking. You want to know why Beedon shot himself, and I'm afraid I can't tell you."
("I don't believe he did," the Inspector put in parenthetically.)
"Whether he did or not, I know nothing about it. Now I am sorry to put you under an obligation, for I can perceive that you are a man who appreciates them. I don't give you an explanation of my conduct because I fear to give it to the Coroner. Between you and me, Inspector, I could invent satisfactory explanations for any Coroner between now and the day after to-morrow. I give it you simply because I should like to help you with your case."
"If you will excuse my interrupting," said the Inspector, "how would you explain your signature to the Coroner?"
"I have a daughter," answered the Master cheerfully, "who teaches in a Sunday-school. The little boys there are very fond of invisible ink. It's a sort of craze just now. She bought some as a present for one of her pupils and I had the curiosity to experiment with it. I must have written on more sheets than I noticed. In any case, the blank sheet of paper which I inadvertently enclosed to Beedon must have been overlooked when I warmed the others to bring out the signature. This is perfectly untrue, but it is what I should tell the Coroner. The point of it is that I have got a daughter who does teach in a Sunday-school where invisible ink is a craze. You see, I started the craze." The Master smiled at Buller without rancour.
"Go on," said the Inspector.
"Having established that point I'll proceed to lay you under my obligation. Actually, there's no earthly reason why I should trouble to explain at all. And if I do explain, I expect you not to pester my future activities as a result of the information which I shall myself give you as vaguely as possible. It is true that I am addicted to opiates, and for that I don't answer to anybody but my Maker. Beedon was, too. Since I'm no longer so active as I used to be, it seemed convenient that Beedon should order my stores for me. The ordering, you see, entailed going up to London and making a rather circuitous journey in which I was fortunate enough this morning to evade your spy. But you will have heard that persons addicted to my habit are inclined to be unscrupulous in obtaining stores for themselves. There was nothing to prevent Beedon, for instance, giving my name in order to get a double ration. Cocaine is difficult to import, you know, and has to be rationed carefully among old customers. So the retailer used to prefer that Beedon should bring with him some token from myself, and then the stuff would be sent to me direct. It made for honesty on all sides. Hence my signature. I used invisible ink as a sort of reserve against mischances such as the present. Also it ensured the authenticity of the token, for anybody could cut my signature in ordinary ink out of a letter. My enclosure to Beedon was in the nature of a sign that I was running out of stores; and I did run out of them. Beedon having failed, poor fellow, I had to go up to London myself to-day." The Master stretched his legs luxuriously, in token of an errand well performed. He waited for Buller to go away. The Inspector, however, had other questions to ask.
"Your story confirms my own theory, Master. It was kind of you to explain everything so clearly. Now may I ask you a few questions?" The Master nodded.
"Do you think that Beedon's death could have had any connection with the drug-traffic?"
"No. He was always able to keep himself in stores, and would have had no reason for killing himself through scarcity."
"Suppose he didn't kill himself. Can you tell me frankly whether there is anybody else who was equally addicted, and who might have plotted to kill Beedon over some imbroglio connected with the drug?"
"Actually, Inspector, I should have doubts about betraying my peers to you if there were any. But there were not. As you know, cocaine is scarce and illegal. We hardly have the opportunity to form coteries of devotees. Mr. Beedon and I were the only people I know of in this University who dealt with my particular retailer."
"Very well, Master. I can't see daylight at all. Mr. Beedon was murdered, I'm sure of it. Have you any theory whatever which would account for the motive?"
The Master put his finger-tips together and stared thoughtfully into the fire.
"Beedon," he said, "was a quarrelsome man. He made enemies easily, because he seemed unable to say anything but what he thought. So there is the possibility of murder in hot blood, carefully re-staged afterwards. Unfortunately there is nobody in this college whose blood would be hot enough to commit a murder of that sort. Then there's the drug theory, but we've ruled that out. Except for these two I can think of no motives peculiar to Beedon's case."
"You mean that the motive will have to be one of those common to the human race?"
"Exactly. And what are they?"
"What would you say they were?" countered the Inspector.
"Hatred," replied the Master, counting on his fingers, "due to sexual causes: money matters or thwarted ambition. Greed, due to sexual causes, money matters or general ambition. Fear, due to sexual imprudence, financial imprudence or imprudence about the reputation. Madness. One could go on splitting one's subdivisions for hours. It boils down to love, finance and reputation. That is, if we exclude madness. You haven't felt, by any chance, that Beedon may have been killed by a maniac?"
"No," Buller answered. "This is the murder of the century, so far as premeditation is concerned."
"I know nothing about Beedon's sexual affairs," said the Master. "His finance and prospects of reputation were rather interwoven. Beedon was a very rich man, so far as dons go, and though he was not what you might call a popular man his monetary position made it likely that he would—er—step into my shoes. So he may have been murdered for his money. (I suppose you will look into his will.) Or he may have been murdered by my friend Mr. Mauleverer, who was the second favourite for the Mastership until Beedon's death. And now, Inspector, I really must ask you to let me go to bed: or the Mastership will be vacant before I intend it to be."
The old man shook hands and bowed him out of the Long Gallery.
*****
Buller did not go home. He walked slowly across the Old Court to A4, and let himself in. The constable on duty threw away his cigarette, stood up and saluted.
The Inspector said "Carry on, constable, I just want to take a look at this gramophone."
Floor plan sketch
The gramophone was a cabinet model, standing open just inside and on the right of the door. To the right of the gramophone again was a sort of oak dresser ornamented with glass, china and two calceolarias in pots. Beyond the dresser was the door of a cupboard. This door reached the end of the right hand wall as you went in. The next wall in rotation had two stone windows opening on to the Old Court, with a high bookcase between them. Under each wi
ndow was a table with a bowl of bulbs on it. Beedon seemed to have been fond of flowers. The next wall had two doors, with a piano between them: that nearest the Old Court leading into a bedroom with a tin tub in it, and the other one leading into a small study. The latter was entirely taken up by a large desk and chair, the former carrying a typewriter and various card indexes. This little room had a window opening over Copper Street. Coming out of the study again one reached the last wall of the sitting room, which had two more high bookcases and a fireplace between them. The floor space of the room was taken up by two easy chairs and a sofa round the fire, and by a large table further back with six chairs grouped about it. It was at this table that Mr. Beedon's pupils had been accustomed to sit during supervisions.
The Inspector looked round this room for the twentieth time in silence before he moved over to the gramophone. He glanced first at the chair in which Beedon had been found—the armchair nearest the study door. Then his eye travelled over the four walls: there were only two pictures, a reproduction of Blake's Canterbury Pilgrims and a portrait of three buxom dairy maids by some Swedish artist. There was neither hook nor nail visible, for the pictures were supported by a rail. That, thought Buller as he turned towards the gramophone, rules out the idea of a string and pulley system.
The gramophone stood as it had first been discovered. The tone-arm was across the face, with the needle resting on the trackway into which it would naturally run at the end of the record. On the left hand side, by the speed indicator, was a small pool of water which corresponded to a couple of pools under the calceolarias on the adjacent dresser. Whoever had done the watering must have done it promiscuously.
The Inspector tried the handle and found that the engine was run down. Whoever put on the record had not taken it off. This confirmed the Master's story. The record had been set going by means of a piece of string (though it was difficult to say how the tone-arm was lowered—for both Mauleverer and Weans had been emphatic that the record started abruptly, not with the slow groan which would have resulted if the catch had been released whilst the needle rested on the disc) and had gone on running until the engine was exhausted. The tone-arm was the crux of the situation. The catch shewed the marks of the string and was therefore accounted for. But how could the tone-arm have been lowered without being touched? The evidence of Mauleverer and Weans shewed that it must have been lowered. And yet it was clean from beginning to end, carefully wiped. It would not be possible to wipe it effectively after it had been lowered to play the record. The only time at which it could reasonably have been wiped was after the record had been played. In which case, if there was somebody waiting to wipe it, why did he wait till the engine had run down?
The Inspector peered at the thing again. The grain of the wiping was unmarked, top and bottom, except for a single blur underneath, where a small drop of water splashed from the calceolarias still hung. That seemed to mean that the calceolarias had been watered after the tone-arm had been wiped: not that it led one very far.
Buller sat down in the dead man's chair and stared at the gramophone with baffled curiosity. Then he dragged himself to his feet and went into the study, from whence he stared through the window at No. 23. Mrs. Button had pulled down all the blinds.
The Inspector was so pre-occupied that he left Beedon's rooms without acknowledging the constable's parting salute, an omission of which he had never been guilty before. The night air failed to clear his head. He ploughed his way back to the police station through a miasma of conflicting evidence.
In his own office he found a mass of papers waiting on the table. His sergeant had employed the day nobly. There was a copy of Beedon's will, leaving everything to his sister without preamble or admonition, and a dossier of the sister as far as her local police could provide it. She lived in Devonshire and grew roses. There was a note from the sergeant saying that she had arrived that afternoon by the 4.15 train and might be interviewed at the University Arms. Pinned to this note was a brief history of Mr. Beedon as she had detailed it to the sergeant. Beedon, it seemed, had never done anything extraordinary. He had gone straight from the University to the War, in which he had acquitted himself with ability as an intelligence officer on the staff, and straight from the War back to the University. His financial affairs were sound and enviable. He was in the habit of passing his vacations with his sister. She could throw no light upon the tragedy.
A pile of papers next door to this dealt with the undergraduate Frazer. His father and mother had come up in the morning. Frazer, so far as their knowledge extended, had never met Mr. Beedon. He was a normal and healthy boy, whose letters had so far dealt only with the prospects of his College fifteen and with a few clumsy opinions of his tutor and the University in general. There was something pathetic about the brevity of this dossier, its childish particulars of school achievements, even in comparison with the not very wide experiences of Mr. Beedon. Buller read everything through carefully and replaced the files. Then he switched off the light and made for his flat. In the middle of Parker's Piece the chimes of the University assailed him from all sides, counting the hour of twelve.
CHAPTER V
The Inspector was early up the next morning and found the surgeon at the police station, waiting in his room.
The Inspector said: "I'm sorry I worried you about all that, doctor, there's nothing in it. I was a fool to think I knew more than Boneface and the big bugs from London. Beedon shot the boy and then himself. There's no evidence for any other conclusion, and very little reason why there should be. Beedon must have wiped the automatic just before he shot himself, and for some reason he didn't alter his grip. As for the gramophone, there must be faulty evidence somewhere. It must have been started with the needle resting on the record, and I suppose Beedon used a piece of string to start it, so that he could have music to die to, whilst he was sitting in his chair." After a pause he added: "Though God knows what he did with the string! I suppose he swallowed it." He glanced at the surgeon with a look of ironic misery and shrugged his shoulders. "I shall just have to learn to discriminate."
The police surgeon patted him on the arm. "You're very selfish about this," he said. "You haven't asked what I was doing all yesterday."
Buller's eyes leapt to his companion's face.
"I even had to buy and brutally slaughter a live pig," continued the surgeon, "though his epidermis was not characteristically human."
The Inspector said: "Well?"
"You'd better come to my rooms and I'll show you. I'll explain on the way."
"First of all," pursued the surgeon as he walked along Scroope Terrace, "I've got rather a piece of news for you. Beedon was shot before Frazer. I can corroborate that statement from the microscopic examination of the bullets alone. There is a faint mark on the Frazer bullet which does not correspond to any on Beedon's. The firing of the bullet which killed Beedon made a fresh mark on the bore of the automatic which has transferred itself to the bullet which killed Frazer. But the marking is infinitely small and too dubious to impress a jury. Luckily there's another point which bears it out. I've re-dissected both wounds and found twice the percentage of oil and cordite in Frazer's that there is in Beedon's. This means that the barrel was already fouled when Frazer was shot. It's a complicated question, for the bullets were fired from different distances. The bullet which shot Frazer was discharged from a distance of several feet and had already outstripped its gasses. Beedon was shot with the muzzle against his temple, so, since the gasses were still in front of the bullet we should naturally expect more of the waste products inside the wound. And they are present in great quantity. But the fact that the barrel was stopped up, as it were, by Beedon's head evidently tended to foul it more than usual and when the second bullet was fired, although the distance prevented it from carrying its gasses with it into the wound, Frazer got the benefit of this extra fouling. If Frazer had been shot first, and from a greater distance, we should expect his wound to be much less fouled than Beedon's. Wherea
s the actual fact is that, although Beedon was shot absolutely point blank, Frazer's is the dirtier wound. This left no doubt in my mind that Beedon was shot first. However, I thought it best to make a practical demonstration and you must come and see my dead pig."
The Inspector allowed himself to be led into the house and stared uncomprehendingly at the animal's corpse.
"I shot it dead first of all at a distance of four feet. Immediately afterwards I shot it point blank without cleaning the automatic—(by the way, I used one borrowed from the armoury). These wounds I call in order A and B. Then I cleaned the weapon and shot it first of all point-blank and again, without cleaning, at four feet. These wounds I call in order C and D. D was more fouled than C, B more fouled than A. That is to say, in each case the second wound was fouler than the first no matter what the distance of the discharge. They vary comparatively, but that is not important. The point is that the fouler wound is the second, and that Frazer's was the fouler. Beedon was shot first."
The Inspector came out of his trance and thumped the doctor on the back. However, he was still not completely jubilant.
"Can you convince Sir Loftus when he comes down to-morrow?"
"I shouldn't try to for a moment," replied the surgeon. "I shall show him my experiments as if I didn't quite understand where they led and ask for his opinion. Then I hope he'll explain it all very carefully, compliment me on my able work and tell the Coroner all about it. You don't understand how to manage these things."
"Well," said the Inspector. "That settles that. Now we'll sit down and talk it out. Let X be the murderer...."
*****
Mr. Mauleverer lectured from ten till eleven; then he walked back across the Courts to his own rooms, his gown flowing out imposingly behind, and deposited his paraphernalia in the study. His rooms were less luxurious than Mr. Beedon's. Instead of the old glass, china and statuettes which ornamented the dead man's dresser (with the calceolarias) Mr. Mauleverer had a medium priced tea service and a tobacco jar with his college arms on it. The college had been George Augustus Hall.