Death in Devon (The County Guides)

by Ian Sansom

  ‘Hello, sailor,’ he said.

  I offered no greeting in return and the dog growled at me in an unfriendly fashion.

  ‘My familiar,’ explained Alex, who had swept back his hair, in his Valentino fashion.

  ‘And you have come as?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, I merely preside, Mr Sefton,’ said Alex. ‘I don’t dress up for fancy dress.’

  ‘He’s gorgeous!’ said Miriam enthusiastically, kneeling down to pet the dog. ‘What’s he called?’ she asked.

  ‘Nietzsche,’ said Alex.

  I stifled my guffaw.

  ‘Oh, how adorable!’ said Miriam.

  ‘And do you also have a cat called Kant?’ I asked.

  Alex simply smiled his seraphic smile.

  Miriam was stroking the dog when suddenly he started growling, irritated. And then – just as suddenly – he clamped his jaws around her finger.

  ‘He’s—’ she yelled. ‘Alex!’ Her cry quickly turned into a scream, which turned into a bellow as the dog held tight, and instinctively – without thinking – I kicked at the damned thing until it released its bite and began snarling at me. Everything happened quickly: as I kicked the dog, Alex struck me violently out of the way and grabbed both the dog and Miriam by the wrist.

  ‘He bit me!’ yelled Miriam. ‘He bit me!’

  ‘Are you OK?’ I asked.

  ‘Sefton!’ cried Miriam. ‘You brute!’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You brute!’ she yelled again and pushed me back as I moved towards her. Silence had descended upon the party: all eyes were turned upon us.

  ‘That’s most unlike him, I must say,’ said Alex.

  The school nurse, the eager Miss Horniman, dressed as a jolly jack tar, hurried over. ‘Come, come, my dear,’ she said to Miriam. ‘We’ll go and dress your finger. And are you unharmed, Alex?’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ said Alex.

  Miriam allowed herself to be led away, scowling at me the whole time.

  ‘We tend not to treat our animals roughly here,’ said Alex, as I got up from the ground, before turning and following Miriam and the nurse.

  I stared around me: Morley and the headmaster looked on passively while the other partygoers returned to their conversations and their drinks. I had been humiliated once again.

  The night wore on. Miriam and Alex and Miss Horniman returned, laughing among themselves. Alex’s wife, dressed as a ghost, led people in various games, many of which involved the intimate passing of coins, balloons and other objects from person to person. I stood the whole time, drinking rather than participating, watching as the teachers fanned paper kippers, floated feathers and hunted for a thimble. The games gradually, inevitably, became more boisterous: there was much slipper-slapping, and various games involving forfeits, blindfolded crawling and stalking, and chaotic piggy-back races. A game of Are You There, Jenkins?, which was new to me – two players lie face down on the floor, blindfolded, grasp at one another’s wrists with one hand, while attempting to beat each other with a rolledup newspaper in the other hand – resulted in the French mistress and the music teacher writhing on the floor in an energetic embrace. This was then followed by a rather physical game of blind man’s buff, involving much rampaging and blundering around, with members of staff blindly grabbing at one another to guess who they were.

  Miriam was busy showing off her bandaged finger to anyone who wished to see it, while Alex strode around authoritatively talking to everyone – except me – and taking photographs. I observed him observing others and it struck me that the camera for him worked in the opposite way that it worked for me. I came to adore the camera because it allowed me to disappear. Alex seemed to wield the camera as an instrument of power, an assertion of himself.

  I was about to retire to bed – it was by now approaching midnight – when Alex’s wife announced that for the last game of the evening we were all to play sardines. There was a general scattering of people. Alex disappeared. Miriam disappeared. Miss Horniman. My German friend. Everyone, until I found that I was left entirely alone by the bar. Morley and the headmaster remained deep in conversation.

  I thought I might take the opportunity to go and explore the darkroom. Into the school, through the corridors, and down the stairs to the science rooms.

  ‘Well?’ said a voice.

  I turned around, half expecting Alex’s wife in her ghost costume.

  It was not Alex’s wife. It was Mrs Dodds, the benefactor’s wife. She was dressed, as far as I could tell, as a courtesan in the court of a French king. Her hairstyle was as vertiginous as her décolletage was plunging. Her heels were staggering. She looked like Clara Bow, or perhaps Louise Brooks. I found it rather hard to concentrate on what she had to say.

  ‘Your costume is … very fetching,’ I said.

  ‘I’m Madame de Pompadour.’

  ‘Of course.’

  We stood close together in the dark.

  There were noises from within the darkroom. I looked at Mrs Dodds. She raised an eyebrow.

  ‘That’s the darkroom,’ I whispered.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you happen to have a key?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid not.’

  ‘I’d like to get in there.’

  ‘Now? Why?’

  I heard more noises. I was about to bang on the door when I realised what the voice was saying.

  I looked at her. ‘Alex?’ I said.

  She shrugged. ‘I think we need to talk,’ she said.

  ‘I think we do,’ I agreed.

  There was the sound of footsteps creeping down the stairs. There were others about to join us. Mrs Dodds leaned in closer and whispered in my ear.

  ‘My husband will be away tomorrow night. I’ll meet you in Sidmouth. At the Mocha Café. At seven.’

  And then she stepped out into the light of the corridor.

  ‘Aha!’ came a voice. ‘We’ve got you!’ It was Bernhard.

  We all returned upstairs and out to the party. I hurriedly fetched myself another drink.

  Morley was absorbed in conversation with Mrs Standish, Alex’s wife, still in her ghost costume. I wondered if she had any idea what the darkroom was being used for.

  ‘Ah, Sefton. I was just discussing with Mrs Standish here my recipe for making pot pourri. I use the moist method, but Mrs Standish swears by the dry.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Mrs Standish is quite a talented young chemist.’

  ‘I wouldn’t make any particular claim to expertise,’ said Mrs Standish.

  ‘Nonsense!’ said Morley. ‘Chemistry is a fine profession for a young woman. I foresee a time in the future when women will dominate in all fields of the sciences. They have all the necessary qualities: diligence, persistence, intelligence. Do you have a preference, Sefton?’

  ‘A preference for what, Mr Morley?’

  ‘Wet or dry method?’

  ‘For?’

  ‘Pot pourri, man.’

  ‘I can’t say I do, Mr Morley, no.’

  ‘I know Mrs Standish disagrees, but I have to say I think the moist method produces a much more fragrant result.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, have you not smelled the odour throughout the school?’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ I thought I had smelled something odd.

  ‘Though in the end – wet or dry – it all comes down to the amount of rose petals of course. We both use Atkinson’s Violet Powder, as it happens.’

  ‘Well well,’ I said.

  ‘Terribly good. Sweet geraniums, bay leaves, lavender, add some salt, pop it all in a stoneware jar and bob’s your uncle.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ I said.

  ‘Yes. And it turns out we both have our frogs delivered from the same place on St Martin’s Lane.’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘Yes. They’re terribly good.’

  ‘The frogs?’

  ‘Yes. They send them in a box with damp moss and a few slugs – seems to do the trick.
’

  ‘Mr Sefton assisted me with the frogs this morning,’ said Alex’s wife.

  ‘Ah, very good. Nice and fresh, I hope?’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Alex’s wife.

  ‘They delivered me some bees once: that was less successful,’ said Morley. ‘I like the little French frogs the best, you know the green tree frogs?’

  ‘Oh yes, they are excellent.’

  ‘They make excellent barometers. Much more interesting than an actual barometer. Brilliant green in moisture. Very dull when dry.’

  The headmaster approached, having been in conversation elsewhere.

  ‘It’s been a pleasure talking to you, Mr Morley,’ said Mrs Standish. ‘But I’m afraid I should excuse myself.’ And she ghoulishly disappeared.

  ‘Ah,’ said the headmaster. ‘Mr Sefton. Still with us at the shenanigans then?’

  ‘Yes, though I think the party is drawing to a close,’ I said.

  ‘Good,’ said Morley. ‘Before the women break into the cordax, eh?’ I had no idea what the cordax might be – unless it were something like a foxtrot.

  The headmaster was chuckling. ‘Now that I would like to see!’

  ‘Might we include Sefton?’ Morley asked the headmaster.

  ‘I think we might,’ said the headmaster. ‘Reliable sort of chap, isn’t he?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Morley. ‘None more so.’

  ‘Include me in what, gentlemen?’ I asked, taking a long sip of what I fancied was going to be the first of several stiff drinks.

  ‘The headmaster is understandably rather worried about all this unfortunate business with the animals.’

  ‘Not to mention the business of Michael Taylor?’ I said.

  ‘Quite,’ said Morley. ‘Seems to be getting rather out of hand.’

  ‘That’s an understatement.’

  ‘Anyway, Sefton, the police have interviewed all the boys involved in the incident with the cow earlier this evening, but they’re all claiming they have nothing to do with it.’

  ‘Perhaps they don’t,’ I said.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Morley. ‘Though working on the balance of probabilities I think we would have to conclude—’

  ‘Alas,’ said the headmaster.

  ‘Indeed, that they do. So the question is, Sefton, how might we catch our miscreants?’

  ‘How?’

  ‘We are going to set a trap,’ said the headmaster.

  ‘A trap?’ I said. ‘What sort of a trap?’

  ‘We’re going to go to the fields and wait for them,’ said Morley.

  ‘I’m not sure that’s—’

  ‘Of course we’re not going to go out into the fields to wait for them, Sefton! It would make absolutely no sense.’

  ‘No sense,’ agreed the headmaster.

  I glanced around at the party: the teachers in their peculiar costumes; the lanterns hanging from the trees; the vast grey school looming up behind us; the faint drift of woodsmoke from our smouldering pit of fire down below the tennis courts; what Morley would have called the minacious ocean beyond; and the memory of the poor dead boy down on the beach. None of it made any sense.

  ‘The best mousetrap, as you know, Sefton, is a simple mousetrap,’ continued Morley.

  ‘Indeed it is,’ said the headmaster.

  ‘I was talking to Mr Gooding earlier this evening—’

  ‘Very upset,’ said the headmaster.

  ‘Indeed, and it was he who gave me the idea. To catch a mouse one might best use a simple Figure of Four trap.’

  ‘A Figure of Four trap?’

  ‘Yes. Which consists of course of a pair of slates and three thin slivers of wood.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Mr Mouse goes in search of the morsel set under the slates, and crunch.’ Morley made the most of the ‘crunch’. ‘Deadly on mice, does no harm to birds.’

  ‘You’re going to make a mousetrap?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Morley. ‘But you are familiar with the Book of Daniel?’

  ‘Some of it,’ I said, rather doubtfully. ‘I might just get myself another drink.’

  ‘You shall not,’ said Morley.

  ‘There has been a terrible decline in scriptural knowledge,’ said the headmaster.

  ‘Quite so,’ said Morley. ‘But even you, Sefton, will be familiar with the story of how the King of Persia was tricked by the priests of Baal, who persuaded him to leave out food every night for their god Baal to eat.’

  ‘I have a vague memory of such, yes,’ I said; exactly how vague was my memory I did not say. It was vague to the point of being indistinct.

  ‘Then you will recall how Daniel exposed the lies and tricks of the priests of Baal?’

  ‘Er.’

  ‘He spread ashes on the floor one night and was able to show the king that it was in fact the priests themselves who were coming to eat the food.’

  ‘We have ashes,’ said the headmaster.

  ‘From our fire,’ said Morley.

  ‘Jolly good,’ I said.

  ‘And so we thought we might make use of them.’

  ‘I really think I might need another drink actually,’ I said.

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Morley. ‘No shirking, no shilly-shallying.’

  ‘No funking,’ said the headmaster.

  ‘Precisely,’ said Morley. ‘A long complex tale has been written in the snow before us, Sefton, and it is our job to find out where it leads.’

  ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘When?’

  Morley consulted his watches – the luminous wristwatch, the non-luminous wristwatch, the pocket-watch – and, I had no doubt, would have upended his egg-timer also if it had been to hand.

  ‘Now?’ he said.

  CHAPTER 15

  LEX TALIONIS

  AND SO AT ONE O’CLOCK in the morning I found myself with Morley and the headmaster in the long corridor outside the boys’ dormitories. All was quiet as we shook warm grey ashes onto the cold red lino floor. The idea was that we might be able to identify whichever boy then crept out of bed to go and attack Mr Gooding’s animals – an utterly ludicrous plan, in my opinion, though Morley and the headmaster were convinced that their trap would work, and that the mystery would be solved, that we would discover who was harming the animals, and so order would be restored to All Souls. To me the entire enterprise seemed a distraction from the rather more serious matter of poor dead Michael Taylor. I did not believe for one moment that any boy would be foolish enough to emerge from the dormitory that night. I said as much to Morley, quietly, when the headmaster absented himself for a moment, in order to fetch some blankets and a sustaining flask of tea.

  ‘There is something very wrong in this school, Mr Morley.’

  ‘Very wrong?’ said Morley.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can something be “very” wrong, Sefton? Surely if something is—’

  ‘I just mean that something is wrong,’ I said. ‘Wrong wrong. As in not right.’

  ‘Well, I quite agree, Sefton. And if we find out whichever boy it is who’s causing harm to the animals then I think we’ll have solved the problem, don’t you? Cessante causa, cessat effectus and what have you.’

  ‘I’m not sure that is the answer to all the problems here, Mr Morley.’

  ‘Oh. Well, what do you think is the answer?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir. But I do know schools, and I know that this place is not the same as other schools that I’ve—’

  ‘One would hope not,’ said Morley. ‘The headmaster is trying to do something different here, Sefton. In these beautiful new surroundings. I’ve been sharing with him some of my ideas about education, actually, and I think he might be interested in adopting some of the principles for the school – providing the boys with a truly all-round education that will see them fit not only for the professions but for life. It would transform the place, don’t you think?’

  ‘I’m sure it would, Mr Morley, but I’m not convinced it would solve the fundamental proble
ms here.’

  ‘Which are?’

  ‘I’m not certain, but … Don’t you think the set-up here is a bit … odd?’

  ‘The “set-up”, Sefton?’

  ‘Well, the headmaster and his brother and their mother and … They all seem very …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s just that … I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, perhaps when you do know, Sefton, and you’ve worked it all out, perhaps you could let me know? In the meantime, in the absence of any ideas or plans of your own, could you perhaps help me and the headmaster lay our modest trap?’ The headmaster had by this time returned with the supplies – the blankets, a flask of tea. Morley grabbed a handful of ashes. ‘Come on, man, for goodness sake. Dare to be a Daniel, eh? Come on, shake!’

  So we all shook the ashes and then we drew up chairs to wait. There were two stairways up to the dormitories, and two dormitories, one for the older boys, one for the younger. I was stationed at one end of the corridor. Morley and the headmaster were stationed at the other. A few candles in sconces lit the corridor and the pale ashes lay between us.

  We agreed to take two-hour watches. Morley and the headmaster took the first watch at their end of the corridor. I dozed uneasily on the chair, wrapped in the blanket for warmth.

  Half asleep and half awake, I found myself plunged once again into memories of the horrors of Spain at night. Not the gunfire, not the ambushes, but worse: memories of the fellow volunteers who would stub out a cigarette on your neck while you were sleeping; and of the men who would steal from you, your cigarettes, your boots, your food; or who would piss on you to wake you. One night I recall I had asked a Frenchman, Gérard – a huge man, famous among all the Brigaders and known as La Bestia, who liked to boast of the battles he had survived, and the men he had killed, and the women he had slept with – who was drinking and playing cards with friends, to quieten down so that I could sleep. They ignored me and somehow through the noise I managed to fall asleep, only to awake to find La Bestia with his hands around my throat, trying to choke me. Fortunately he was so incapable with drink that I easily managed to throw him off, and afterwards we became firm friends, but it was disconcerting, the realisation that one was as much at risk from one’s own side as from the other.