This was later denied by Mr. Fernandez (see below). On being asked about the frequency of his visits to London, suspect replied that the weeks before the start of term (which commenced in October) were the obvious time for conducting business not connected with the University.
Inquiries were put in train at the Oxford and Cambridge Club. The staff were unwilling to comment on the movements of a member, but confirmed that Fernandez had not signed the register for the nights of August 30th or September 29th. Mr. Matthew Fernandez, interviewed by Inspector Abberline on June 13th, stated that he had not seen his nephew for over a year. He confirmed that the suspect was “unreliable on occasions with members of the fair sex,” but he was strongly of the view that his nephew was “not a homicidal type” and referred to his experience of such men in penal institutions.
The suspect was interviewed again, by Inspector Abberline and Sergeant Holloway, on June 14th, when it was put to him that his account of his movements on the nights in question had been confirmed in one instance only, and had been found to be false in another. Suspect admitted that his previous statements had been misleading. He had supplied a false account of his movements out of loyalty to a lady. On being questioned further, the suspect stated that he had spent the nights of August 30th and September 29th in the company of a Mrs. Melanie Bonner-Hill, the wife of a Fellow of Merton College. Mrs. Bonner-Hill, who is an actress, was appearing in The Belle’s Stratagem at the Lyceum Theatre. They had stayed at a theatrical lodging house in Kensington. On November 8th, they had been in Windsor, where she was appearing in Frou-Frou. Mrs. Bonner-Hill was now living apart from her husband. Suspect stated that after certain disagreements with Mrs. Bonner-Hill he, too, had ended his alliance with her. He was not confident, in the circumstances, that she would confirm his account.
Mrs. Bonner-Hill was traced to Windsor and interviewed by Inspector Abberline on June 17th. Contrary to the suspect’s expectations, she confirmed that he had been with her on the dates in question, and verified the information from her diary. She stated that he was a man of “ungovernable passion” and an adventurer, but she was confident that he was not murderously inclined towards women.
A handwriting expert, Mr. Looper, reported that in his opinion there was no resemblance between a specimen of the suspect’s handwriting he had studied and the “Jack the Ripper” correspondence.
In the light of these findings, Inspector Abberline ceased to regard Mr. John Fernandez as a serious suspect, and the inquiries were brought to an end.
P. Holloway
Sergeant
H Division.
Cribb sat for a minute in thought. Then he replaced the report in the file, tied the tape round it again, picked up his watch and hat and returned to the registry.
“That was quick,” said the clerk. He smirked. “Are you off to make an arrest now?”
Cribb shook his head. “Not on a Sunday. Tomorrow, I think.”
The clerk’s eyes opened wide. “You don’t mean it? Heavens! What’s Inspector Abberline going to say when we tell him in the morning?”
He got no answer.
Cribb was already on his way to Paddington Station.
CHAPTER 33
In which Thackeray works it out-Cribb delivers a lesson in geography-Japan’s attitude is explained
“What’s the matter with you, Constable? Moonstruck?” Cribb demanded. Having gone to the unusual length of providing his assistants with a detailed account of what he had learned at Coldbath Fields and Scotland Yard, he felt he was entitled to a response. He was not asking for a bouquet; two or three words indicating approval would have satisfied him. Frankly, he had not expected much from Thackeray, but Hardy he had come to regard as a sharp young constable capable of appreciating good detective work. He was obviously mistaken.
“I’m sorry, Sergeant,” Hardy answered. “I was turnin’ it over in my mind, like, thinkin’ how clever it was.”
“Ah,” said Cribb, his confidence pricking up.
“Yes, we could do with Miss Shaw in the force. We would never have found out so much about Fernandez if she hadn’t pointed out in the first place that he must have been intended as the victim instead of Bonner-Hill. She’s an uncommon clever young woman, that one.”
“That’s a fact,” Thackeray confirmed. “And pretty with it.”
It was Monday morning. Cribb had arrived sufficiently early at the police station to use the telephone set for an hour before the Chief Inspector got in. Sharp at nine, he had hung up the receiver, blown his cigar ash out of the window, replaced the ashtray on the desk and moved into the charge room next door.
“Pity Miss Shaw ain’t here to give us the benefit of her latest theories,” Cribb acidly said. “I was planning to make an arrest this morning, but I might be wrong again.”
“An arrest?” Hardy looked more dubious than impressed. “Who do you propose to arrest this time, Sergeant?”
“Work it out. Miss Shaw gave us a description. It must be useful, coming from an uncommon clever young woman like that.”
Thackeray scratched the side of his head. “I don’t follow you, Sarge. Do you mean the three men she saw on the night the tramp was killed?”
“Yes. What’s the matter with that?”
“We arrested the only three men we’ve seen along the river, and they was innocent-well, innocent of murder, that is.”
“Quite right,” said Cribb. “We released ’em.”
“Because they couldn’t have been the three Miss Shaw observed that night,” contributed Hardy. “They were in a house of accommodation in Marlow. If she didn’t see them, who did she see?”
“Perhaps she made a mistake,” hazarded Thackeray. “What do you think, Sarge?”
Hardy put in his answer first. “Miss Shaw is a reliable witness. I’ll stake my reputation on that.”
“She’s cool-headed, I agree,” Cribb said. “But don’t be too free with that reputation of yours where this young lady is concerned. I don’t suggest we can’t rely on what she’s told us, but I don’t believe she’s told it all.”
“What do you mean by that?” demanded Hardy.
“She led us to believe she was bathing alone when the boat came by. Bathing in the altogether isn’t a solitary pastime, in my limited experience. It’s a social activity. I’m told that undergraduates bathe naked here in Oxford. There’s a place along the Cherwell known as Parson’s Pleasure.”
“Do you mean that there might have been other girls with her in the river?” said Hardy, blinking at such a possibility.
“Not girls, necessarily,” Cribb wickedly replied. Leaving Hardy to ponder that, he turned to his other assistant. “Yes, Thackeray, the answer to your question is that it’s reasonable to believe what Miss Shaw has told us. Do you recollect the description she gave of the men in the boat?”
“She likened them to places on a map, Sarge. It didn’t mean much to me. Maps wasn’t done when I went to school.”
“Let’s remedy that deficiency, then.” Cribb got up and tapped on the Chief Inspector’s door. There was no reply, so he let himself in and presently returned with a large revolving globe on a stand, which he placed on the table in front of Thackeray. “The first man was like the Gulf of Bothnia, Miss Shaw informed us. You’ll find that near the top, Thackeray. Should be marked in blue.”
Thackeray gripped the globe with his hands.
“There,” said Hardy, touching it with his finger.
“It doesn’t look like anybody I know,” said Thackeray.
Cribb had his notebook out. “The man was wearing a cap, according to Miss Shaw. Look at the top part of the Gulf. Do you see the peak of the cap, and the nose and chin underneath?”
“Blimey, yes, I do. Long, thin neck. Narrow chest. This don’t look like an oarsman, Sarge.”
“I know. I took it for Mr. Lucifer. Now take a look at the Persian Gulf. Down a bit and to your right.”
Hardy came to the rescue again.
“Good Lord!” s
aid Thackeray. “Blooming clever! It’s just like a big fellow sitting in a boat, pulling at the oars.”
“Thicker in the neck, large head, wearing a hat,” said Cribb. “Seemed good for Humberstone to me. Now for the third man. Miss Shaw wasn’t very clear about this one, if you recollect. She said she found it difficult to distinguish his outline from the cushions.”
“And you suggested Japan,” said Hardy.
“Where’s that, for pity’s sake?” asked Thackeray, trying to turn the globe with his fingers still marking the Gulfs.
“Never mind,” said Cribb. “That was only my suggestion. I didn’t see the man myself. Japan has quite a bend in it, like someone leaning back against a cushion. Miss Shaw was positive the third person was a man, because of his attitude. I have her words here somewhere. ‘No lady would recline in quite the attitude this person did.’ ”
“Mr. Gold?” said Thackeray.
“Well, he was the third man of those we arrested, so I supposed it must be him. There was something wrong about it, though. Gold seemed to be the spry one of that three-some. I couldn’t see him lying at his ease. Yet he didn’t fit the description of either of the oarsmen. I began to think again about this third man, propped against the cushions. Was he asleep? I wondered. It made no sense, going out in a boat by night to do a murder and falling asleep on the way. Then I thought suppose this third man hadn’t been a murderer at all. Suppose he were the victim.”
“Choppy Walters!”
“Already dead, Sarge?”
“No. He definitely died from drowning. He was breathing till they put him in the water. Dead drunk, I think. They could have met him in a pub and got him tight. They might have used chloroform, but I think gin is more likely.”
Thackeray was hacking his way through a jungle of tangled thoughts. “Then we must be hunting for two men in a boat, instead of three.”
“But where do we start looking for them now the trail’s gone cold?” Hardy dismally asked.
“We don’t look,” said Cribb. “This is eighteen eighty-nine.
We wait for a telephone call. If they’re somewhere on the Thames, as I think they are, we’ve got ’em. I’ve alerted every lockkeeper up and down the river.”
CHAPTER 34
Rendezvous at the Bodleian-Some observations on chance occurrences-Fernandez leaves nothing to chance
Harriet’s white muslin skirt embroidered with pansies had creased hardly at all in the travelling case. Once she had decided on that for her appointment with Mr. Fernandez, she was bound to put on her plain navy blue velvet jacket, worn with the blue striped blouse and the matching hat. Her thoughts strayed to the hummingbird hat, still in its box in her room at college. It would have been nice to have worn it this morning; after the things Jane and Molly had said about it, she would never wear it again to church, but it was still a beautiful hat. She turned away from the mirror and buttoned her boots, high-lows that clicked noisily on the hotel steps as she went out. She hoped she had not been seen; Melanie would have guessed everything at a glance.
Fernandez greeted her at the Bodleian with a compliment about her clothes. He was well-turned-out himself, in a biscuit-coloured suit and boater, although Harriet did not presume to say so.
He had arranged for a dozen or so books to be displayed on a table in a room adjoining the upper reading room. Most contained maps of great antiquity, scarcely recognizable as the outlines Harriet knew from her atlas. Great fish and sea monsters enlivened the maritime areas, looking capable of biting chunks from the land masses. Fernandez encouraged her to play the game of identifying countries, praising her successes and confessing that he would not have known the others himself unless he had spent years studying the history of maps. He went on to talk with quiet authority of the problems of early navigators, the impossibility of relying on the mappae mundi and the consequent development of the portolani, the pilot books of the Portuguese, and the less sophisticated ruttiers used by the English.
In the hour and few minutes they spent there, Harriet began to understand what it might mean to study at a great university with a tutor to guide her, not a Miss Plummer reciting her Notes for Teachers in Training Colleges on each topic decreed by the inspectors, but an authority with the ability to bring her close enough to a subject to apprehend its purpose and feel its power to inspire. Interestingly, Fernandez spoke without the tendency to arrogance she had noticed before in his statements. Instead of airing his expertise, he spoke with reserve, in terms calculated more to clarify than impress.
He ended by showing her one of the treasures of the Bodleian, Marco Polo’s Les Livres du Graunt Caam, with its lavishly illustrated pages. “The first of the illustrated travel books, and still the best, I think,” said Fernandez, as he returned it to its box. “And now, Miss Harriet-if I may call you that-I should be honoured if you would join me for luncheon.”
“For luncheon?” Harriet blanched. She had not been taken to luncheon by a gentleman in her life. She doubted whether it was proper. “I was not expecting such a thing. Of course, it is exceedingly generous of you. You have already been uncommonly kind to me-”
“Then it is settled!” said Fernandez. “The least you can do to repay my kindness is grace my table at the Clarendon.”
“A hotel?” said Harriet, hardly able to voice the word.
“The best in Oxford, my dear. Frequently patronized by royalty. Ah,” said Fernandez, touching his fingers on the back of her gloved hand, “I should have realized. You are concerned about the propriety of visiting a hotel in the company of a gentleman. I shall take you instead to Mr. Stanford’s Restaurant in the High.”
It seemed unmannerly to refuse after he had been so considerate as to alter his arrangement on her behalf, so Harriet presently found herself sipping Chianti and telling Fernandez about the geographical excursion with the gardener and his son last summer, while a waiter helped her to an escalope de veau au romarin. Nobody at Elfrida would believe this was happening to her. On Monday they always had cold beef and boiled potatoes.
“I was thinking how remarkable it is that I should have met the one person in Oxford who could show me the books I saw this morning,” Harriet told him. “I suppose all the important moments in our lives are governed by chance. If I had not met Melanie-Mrs. Bonner-Hill-and offered to accompany her to Merton College Chapel yesterday, I should never have learned what treasures the Bodleian contains.”
Fernandez smiled. “And if I, in my turn, had not recovered from a bout of laryngitis, I should not have been at Morning Service, nor had the delight of your company now. A rationalist-and we have a number of those at Oxford-would tell you that these are chance occurrences, that life is a sequence of unpredestined events to which we are too often tempted to ascribe a significance. I prefer to think that such meetings as ours are governed by more than mere chance.”
“I am sure you are right.” Harriet blushed at the truth of this, thinking of the ways she had manipulated mere chance. She hoped Fernandez would suppose the wine was making her warm.
“To pursue the point,” he went on, “if I had not had my laryngitis, I should have gone out with Bonner-Hill on Saturday morning as I invariably do-”
“And you might have been murdered!” said Harriet.
“I had not thought of anything quite so dramatic. I was projecting that poor Bonner-Hill might not have suffered the fate he did, because two of us would presumably have been better able to defend ourselves from attack. But then the chain of events which led to my meeting you would not have been forged. Even the death of a close friend has brought its compensation. Won’t you have some more asparagus?”
Harriet remembered why she was there, realized that an opportunity was about to slip through her fingers. “No, thank you. Forgive me for suggesting such a thing, but has it not crossed your mind that whoever killed Mr. Bonner-Hill may have intended to murder you?”
Fernandez put down his knife and fork. “A chilling thought, my dear. What put it into your h
ead?” He refilled Harriet’s glass.
“Melanie told me about your custom of going fishing on Saturday mornings. She said her husband had only recently taken to going with you. He had not been out on the river alone before. It seemed to me that if that were the case, nobody could have expected to find him alone. If, on the other hand, they did not know Mr. Bonner-Hill had started accompanying you, they would expect to find you alone. It suggests to me that they must have mistaken him for you.” She tipped a large amount of wine down her throat. “Had it not occurred to you, Mr. Fernandez?”
“I should be happier, my dear, if you used my first name, which is John. I am sometimes called Jack in Merton, but I prefer the name my parents gave me.”
“Then you must call me Harriet.”
“That will be a special pleasure. Well, Harriet, your perspicacity is remarkable. Of course, you are absolutely right. Mine is the body that should be undergoing a post-mortem examination this morning. Bonner-Hill, unfortunate fellow, was murdered, as you correctly surmised, because he was mistaken for me.”
“But why, John? Why did somebody wish to murder you?”
Fernandez emptied the last of the wine into their glasses. “That I shall explain, Harriet, but it is a story I should prefer not to relate in a public restaurant. With your permission I shall take you after lunch to Magdalen Bridge, where we can hire a punt and take it up the Cherwell to a place I know where a man might speak in confidence.”
“I’m not sure whether that is-”
“First, we’ll have coffee with liqueurs. Have you tried Benedictine? Then you must.”
CHAPTER 35
Waiting for the ring-Melanie becomes perturbed-A curious report from Abingdon
Swing, Swing Together sc-7 Page 17