Murder Fantastical

by Patricia Moyes

  The inquest on Mason had attracted quite a fair sprinkling of journalists from London, thanks to the hints of sensation dropped by Frank and picked up by the press. Consequently, the police evidence caused considerable disappointment. Henry carefully outlined his theory of Mason’s death, and nobody seemed inclined to challenge it. Several witnesses attested to Mason’s fervent desire to purchase Cregwell Grange, and to his previous attempts to discredit George Manciple’s shooting range. The missing gun was mentioned, and by good luck Sergeant Duckett had unearthed a local errand boy who had actually seen Mason experimenting with it in his garden. He had said nothing about it at the time, he affirmed, because he thought it was just a game or a practical joke—“Mr. Mason being that sort of gentleman.”

  A certain amount of amusement was caused by the demonstration of one of Major Manciple’s patent tennis-ball traps, and the press had to be content to make what they could out of that. The gun and bullet were laboriously identified by experts, and Henry was able to demonstrate how the gun must have been propped in the lavatory window and how it had fallen into the shrubbery. Frank Mason confirmed that he had found the experimental gun in his father’s house. When the coroner, who was inclined to fuss over details, asked where this gun was now, Henry replied blandly and truthfully that it had been returned to its rightful owner.

  Violet and Edwin Manciple were then called to give evidence that nobody could possibly have been in the cloakroom when the shot was fired, and Violet, very embarrassed, also confirmed that Mr. Mason had spent an unusually long time “washing his hands” before leaving the house. The gas cut-out device on the car was described, and Henry made it clear that this must have been operated by Mason himself in order to make the car stop. Aunt Dora’s unexpected presence in the line of fire was also proved, providing the motive which impelled Mason to come out from the shelter of the Mercedes.

  The coroner, who seemed anxious above all to end the whole matter in a quiet and seemly manner, indicated to the jury that they might think that Mr. Mason was a man given to practical jokes, although the evidence for this was very slim. In any case, he pointed out, it was no concern of theirs to determine just why Mason had set this booby trap. They were merely asked to say, on the evidence, whether he had done so, and thus, by an unlucky chance, caused his own death. If so, the proper verdict should be accidental death.

  The jury needed very little prompting. It took them less than half an hour to return with the verdict indicated, and the journalists took themselves off to the Kingsmarsh Arms in a gloomy mood and did their best to make bricks without straw. There was no doubt that the great mystery of Raymond Mason’s death had fizzled out like a dud rocket. It would not rate more than a small paragraph.

  Meanwhile, in the watery sunshine of late September, the Manciple family stood in the ancient High Street of Kingsmarsh outside the Town Hall where the inquest had been held, and discussed the question of transportation back to Cregwell. George and Violet had brought Claud and Ramona over in their car, while Edwin had squeezed his considerable frame with some discomfort into the back seat of Maud’s tiny vehicle. Now, however, Violet had shopping to do in Kingsmarsh, things, she explained earnestly, which were urgently needed for the Fête tomorrow. It would undoubtedly take her some time, and the others were anxious to get home.

  At once Henry volunteered to come to the rescue. He had driven over by himself in a large police car and there would be plenty of room for Sir Claud and Lady Manciple and for the Major as well. Henry’s offer was gratefully accepted, and the four of them walked off toward the parking lot while Edwin gloomily agreed to return the way he had come, with Maud and Julian.

  In the car Henry remarked to Lady Manciple that he was glad to hear that her sleeping pills had been recovered. She raised her eyebrows.

  “Recovered is hardly the word, Mr. Tibbett. They were never missing. I can’t imagine what made me put them into my cosmetic bag; as Claud will tell you, I always carry them in my trinket box for safety’s sake.”

  “You keep it locked, do you?” Henry asked.

  “Oh dear me, no. I don’t have expensive jewelry,” said Ramona with the faintest emphasis on the personal pronoun. “It’s simply that things tend to get lost in a cosmetic bag, whereas…”

  “Was the bottle full?”

  “Full? What extraordinary questions you do ask, Mr. Tibbett. What makes you so interested in my poor little pills?”

  Before Henry could answer, George Manciple said, “The Inspector has a reason, Ramona. Just tell him what he wants to know.”

  “Dear me,” said Sir Claud. He did not sound at all pleased. “I thought your work here was over and done with, Chief Inspector. By the way, I greatly admired your handling of this morning’s sad business. Your reasoning was faultless and lucidly expounded.”

  “Thank you, Sir Claud,” said Henry.

  “So,” Claud persisted, “that’s that, isn’t it?”

  “Very nearly,” said Henry. “Lady Manciple, was the bottle of sleeping pills full?”

  “No,” said Ramona promptly, “about half full, I suppose.”

  “You wouldn’t know if any were missing?”

  “Of course not. I don’t count them. They aren’t poisonous, you know. Just soothing and soporific.”

  “And also poisonous if taken in large quantities,” Henry pointed out.

  “But I have never taken them in large quantities,” Ramona protested. “If Violet has been saying that I do, it’s too bad of her. Just because she hasn’t a nerve in her body and sleeps like a log every night she seems to think that there is something immoral about a sleeping pill. It’s really none of her business.”

  A slightly strained silence ensued, which was broken by George Manciple clearing his throat loudly and saying, “Sorry we can’t invite you to lunch, Tibbett, but what with the funeral and the Fête, Vi’s a bit pushed, you understand…”

  “Of course I do, Major Manciple. I wouldn’t dream of giving her any extra work at a time like this.”

  “But we expect to see you at the funeral, of course. And I trust that you and your wife will come back to the house with us afterward. Just a simple tea.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” said Henry. “We’d be delighted.”

  Maud, Julian, and the Bishop had already arrived at Cregwell Grange when Henry turned the nose of his black Wolsley into the drive. The little pale blue minicar, which Maud had christened the Scarab, was parked near the front door. Henry had been planning simply to deliver the Manciples home and then go straight back to The Viking, where Emmy and lunch would be waiting for him, but George Manciple was adamant. Having explained again, and at length, about Violet’s inability to offer a meal, he insisted, positively insisted, that Henry should at least take a preprandial drink at the Grange. Refusals and excuses were brushed aside. The Major would not take no for an answer. In the end Henry felt that he would waste more time by arguing than by accepting. So he gave in.

  The house was unrecognizable. Through the open door of the study Henry could see piles of assorted jumble, a motley collection of old clothes, knickknacks, lampshades, books, kitchen utensils, children’s toys. There was even a battered perambulator. Some of the junk had overflowed into the hall, and the Head’s portrait was now draped with an assortment of patently hand-knitted scarves, as well as a fringed silk shawl which must have been quite lovely in the twenties when it was new.

  Maud came out of the drawing room, regarded the confusion, and wrinkled her pretty nose. “Isn’t it awful?” she said. “You know, we get the same things year after year. Mrs. A. buys Mrs. B.’s old hat, which would disgrace a scarecrow, just so as to contribute to the Church Roof Fund or whatever it may be. Next year, of course, Mrs. A. brings the hat along again as jumble, and Mrs. C. buys it—and so on. By now, the hat is no more than a ritual object. It would be so much easier for everyone if people could just make a financial donation and leave it at that. But, oh no. There always has been a Fête, and there always
will be a Fête.” She grinned. “The drawing room isn’t so bad. Jams, jellies, and cakes. Some of them are really quite good. The trouble is, I expect they’ll all get eaten by mistake at Aunt Dora’s wake.” Quite seriously she added, “It’s a shame she has to miss it. It’s the sort of thing she really enjoyed, a nice funeral and a slap-up tea afterward. Come on in. I expect you can do with a drink.”

  Edwin was already established in the drawing room drinking a glass of beer and studying The Times crossword puzzle with dedicated care. He had cleared himself a small space among the jams, jellies, and cakes, and in it he had planted his favorite armchair, which faced pointedly out toward the bow window, turning its chintz-covered back to the rest of the room. It required no great perspicacity to realize that the Bishop was in no mood for conversation. He did not even look up from his paper when Maud and Henry came in.

  “Sherry, whiskey, or beer?” Maud asked.

  “Sherry, please,” said Henry.

  He watched her as she walked to the side table, shifted some jellies, and began dealing with the decanters and glasses. Suddenly he could picture her very clearly in her laboratory—white-coated, deft, expert, impersonal, no longer a pretty, fragile girl but a highly-professional scientist. Cool, too. Unsentimental. Henry, who had only the haziest idea of what went on in an atomic research center, found himself wondering whether she ever dealt with animals for vivisection or experimental purposes—and found no difficulty in imagining her doing so.

  The dispassionate, detached female scientist turned from her work among the vials and filters and abruptly became Maud Manciple again—small, blonde, and enchanting. She held out a glass and said, “One dry sherry.” She handed it to Henry, picked up her own, and said, “I think we should drink to Aunt Dora. She was very partial to a nip of the right stuff now and then.”

  “To Aunt Dora,” said Henry, and raised his glass.

  “Amen,” said Maud.

  “Stuff and nonsense,” said Edwin loudly, and he turned a page of his paper with a marked rustling.

  “The chrysanthemums are beautiful,” said Henry. “Are they from the garden?”

  Maud looked a little embarrassed. “No,” she said. “We never have any luck with them here. Something to do with the soil.”

  “They’re for Aunt Dora, aren’t they?” said Henry.

  There was a tiny pause and then Maud said, “You don’t have to be so oblique. Yes, I bought them in Kingsmarsh and arranged them myself. Yes, they are traditional flowers of mourning. Don’t forget that I lived in Paris for a year. I felt that something should be done.”

  “And nobody but you would do it?”

  “Nobody else,” Maud began, and then stopped. “I was very fond of Aunt Dora.”

  “Yes,” said Henry, “I know you were.”

  Ramona, Claud, and George Manciple came in together, having divested themselves of the strange assortment of shapeless tweed overcoats, knitted scarves, and porkpie hats which they had considered as suitable outerwear for the inquest. Maud once again busied herself with the drinks, and when everyone had been served went out through the French windows to join Julian, who was wandering aimlessly in the garden.

  “And the wildflowers, Mr. Tibbett,” inquired Lady Manciple. She was smiling, but there was a distinct undertone of menace.

  Quickly and mendaciously Henry said, “Oh, they’re coming along. Nothing very exciting yet, I’m afraid. Just buttercups and so on.”

  Ramona’s face relaxed into approval. “In every collection there must be the congregation as well as the preacher,” she said. “Your most precious trouvailles need the company of the homely buttercup and daisy, so that they may shine the brighter by contrast. I trust that you will keep up the good work when you leave here.”

  “I shall try,” said Henry. He did not mention that the flora of Chelsea was sparse, to say the least. After all, there might still be some willow-herb on the last of the bombed sites.

  George was saying to Claud, “It’s no use your trying to explain such things to me, Claud. You should know that. My mind simply doesn’t work the same way as…”

  “The quantum theory,” said Claud, “is assimilated without trouble by bird-brained undergraduates. I can’t see any difficulty…”

  “That is very unjust, Claud,” Ramona put in severely.

  “What is?”

  “The way you disparage the brains of birds. You know as well as I do that a number of them are remarkably well-developed.”

  “True, my dear,” agreed Sir Claud, “a nicely taken point. So much of our idiom is slipshod and inaccurate, even if picturesque. Now, if I were to say ‘chicken-brained,’ I think you would agree that the epithet was justified.”

  “Chicken?” remarked Edwin from the depths of his chair. “Again? Violet’s being a bit extravagant, isn’t she?”

  “Chicken-brained, Edwin,” said Ramona, enunciating even more clearly than usual.

  “Chicken brain? What a bizarre notion.” Intrigued, Edwin laid his puzzle on his lap and slewed around in his chair to face the room. “Chicken livers I have had frequently, even in Bugolaland. But never chicken brain. You’d need more than one to make a decent meal, I imagine. Perhaps you were thinking of calves’ brains.”

  “I was thinking of nothing of the sort,” said Claud briskly. “George and I were discussing the quantum theory.”

  “The connection with chicken brain,” said Edwin, “seems remote.” He set a pair of pince-nez on his hawk-like nose.

  “I don’t understand a word of it,” said George plaintively. “Claud should discuss that sort of thing with Maud and Julian.”

  “Peaches,” said Edwin. He looked sternly at Henry.

  “I beg your pardon, sir?” said Henry.

  “Peaches. Reminded me of Julian. Other way around, I should say. A hundred in bad shape, including English.”

  Henry had just begun to say, “You mean, a hundred peaches went rotten,” when his eye fell on the crossword puzzle. “Ah,” he said, “peaches.”

  “That’s right. 14 down.”

  “Where does the English part of it come in?”

  “E,” said Edwin.

  “E?”

  “Yes, of course. Recognized abbreviation for English. All the compilers use it. C is a hundred, of course. Roman numeral.”

  “And the rest of the word is an anagram of shape?”

  “Naturally. I had just filled it in when George mentioned Julian, and that reminded me.”

  “Reminded you of what, sir?”

  “By Jove!” Edwin exclaimed suddenly. He sounded really excited. “Listen to this, Claud. Push along with a pole…”

  “What?”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute. I haven’t finished. Push along with a pole? Well—er—it’s a theory.”

  “Quantum!” exclaimed Claud.

  “Quantum!” cried Edwin, filling in the letters in bold black ink on the checkered squares.

  “Quantum!” agreed Henry, struck by the coincidence.

  “Don’t understand a word of it,” said George.

  “Humphrey,” said Edwin, “couldn’t abide peaches. Wouldn’t have them in the house. The boy was the same. Most peculiar. Runs in families. Of course, they had Christmas pudding in the east. I was just telling Mr. Tibbett. A hundred in bad shape…”

  “Yes, I heard you,” said Claud. He walked over to his brother, looked down at the puzzle, and said, “Seventeen across is antidote.”

  “How do you make that out?”

  “A female relative, we hear, died, with a broken toe. But this should cure her.”

  “Yes—yes, you’re right. Wait till I write it in. How remarkable. The man who compiled this puzzle must be an Irishman. The English say ‘Arnty’ rather than ‘Anty.’ ”

  “Or an American,” said Claud. “Americans say ‘Anty.’ ”

  “I don’t think so,” said Edwin, “No, I don’t think so. An American wouldn’t know what a quant pole was.”

  “An Irishma
n might not know what a quant pole was either,” said George. “It’s an East Anglian term.”

  “Which means,” said Edwin triumphantly, “that this puzzle was compiled either by an American or an Irishman who lives in East Anglia. In view of the use of C for a hundred, E for English, and D for died, I am certain that the fellow is Irish. Those abbreviations are not typically American.”

  “What would an American be doing in East Anglia anyway?” said Ramona.

  “Air bases,” said Claud. “Plenty of them in Norfolk.”

  “Nonsense,” said Edwin. “Who ever heard of an American airman contributing to The Times? No, the man is Irish. The whole of his work proclaims his nationality.” There was a little pause, and then Edwin added, “Poor Aunt Dora. She would have enjoyed the funeral so much. Ah, well, we must trust that she will be with us in spirit.”

  Henry had always, in his long career with the C.I.D., tried hard to be a conscientious officer. He had followed the procedures laid down; he had made the interminable and often fruitless routine inquiries; he had paid attention to detail; he had used and trusted the excellent facilities for scientific analysis available to Scotland Yard; and he knew that more murderers are caught by tracing a dry-cleaner’s label or analyzing the fluff in a trouser cuff than by all the haphazard intuition of fiction. Nevertheless, there remained his “nose.” And as he stood in the drawing room of Cregwell Grange, with a glass of pale sherry in his hand, watching the three Manciple brothers—so alike physically, so different in character and mentality, and yet all of them so indelibly Manciples—something clicked inside his brain. Whether it was intuition or deduction or observation, he could not be sure; perhaps it was an amalgam of all three. But a picture had presented itself to his mind, and it was not a picture he liked.