Hobby of Murder

by E. X. Ferrars

  He rather wished that Mollie did not insist with quite as much determination as she did that this home that she and Ian had made for themselves was so completely perfect. Her very insistence made him doubt its sincerity. If it was really so exactly what she wanted, would she have proclaimed it so vehemently? Would she not be taking it more as a matter of course, letting her obvious contentment there speak for itself?

  But that feeling he had might be only because he himself would have let it speak for itself. There was no reason to assume that Mollie’s mind worked like his. All the same, he was haunted by a curious sense of disquiet which amounted almost to a wish that he had not come, as presently he went downstairs for his sherry.

  CHAPTER 2

  It was a misfortune of Andrew’s that when his mind was not otherwise occupied, it tended to fill itself with scraps of verse or songs that he supposed he must once have admired, but which he had long outgrown. And unfortunately once one of these usually puerile fragments had taken possession of him, it would repeat itself until it was replaced by something equally inane. It gave him no pleasure and had sometimes made him wonder if it was a symptom of a mild form of insanity.

  When he woke up next morning and was waiting for his breakfast to arrive, he found himself almost immediately repeating to himself:

  ‘On a tree by a river a little tomtit

  Sang Willow, titwillow, titwillow …’

  The seed of it had of course been sown in his mind the evening before, when Ian had talked with enthusiasm of the birds that he had watched in the neighbourhood. He had also talked of a trip that he hoped to make in the winter with a few other members of the Rockford branch of the RSPB to Kenya, a place to which people went for really serious bird-watching, though there was a possibility that they might decide to go to the Gambia, as it would be cheaper. But the result of this was that Gilbert and Sullivan was almost sure to pursue Andrew for at least the next few hours, perhaps even the next few days. He remembered that long ago, when he was about twelve years old, he had been taken to the theatre, in itself a great adventure, had seen The Mikado and the song had charmed him. But now he found it intensely irritating to be compelled to repeat it over and over again until his breakfast arrived.

  Mollie brought it to him soon after eight o’clock. There was coffee, some orange juice, toast and marmalade and a small square of Cheshire cheese.

  ‘Oh, really, Mollie, you shouldn’t have bothered,’ Andrew said when he saw this. ‘I mean to grow out of the habit.’

  ‘But why should you?’ she said, smiling. ‘It’s a habit that’s very little trouble to other people. Did you sleep well?’

  She was again in her black jeans and scarlet shirt with the look of having slept well herself.

  ‘Excellently,’ Andrew replied, and as she placed the tray on his knees, went on, ‘Mollie, there’s something I must ask you. I’m so struck by it. That embroidery there, did you design it?’

  She looked up at it and frowned slightly, as if she were uncertain what to say, and it intrigued Andrew to see that she blushed. At least, it seemed to him that she blushed, though the normal colour in her cheeks was bright enough for him not to be sure of it.

  ‘Not exactly,’ she said. ‘No, really not at all, except for the colours. The design itself came from a photograph from an electron miscroscope, and was black and white, of course. It’s interesting that it caught your eye, because you know so much more about that sort of thing than I do.’

  Talking to Mollie had successfully driven the tomtit back into Andrew’s unconscious.

  ‘But how do you get hold of photographs from an electron microscope?’ he asked. ‘You’re neither of you scientists.’

  ‘No, but a friend of ours is,’ she said. ‘I think we talked about him yesterday evening. Brian Singleton. Didn’t we tell you he was a biochemist who works at the Rockford Agricultural Institute? It was his idea. I’d been trying my hand at watercolours soon after we came here, but I’d absolutely no real talent for that and got bored with it, and then a woman I’d met here suggested I should try my hand at embroidery. But I didn’t care for the designs she suggested. They were quite nice, but mostly traditional, and I wanted to do something original. And Brian suggested I ought to look at these photographs he had, that they might give me some ideas, and they seemed to me exactly what I was looking for.’

  ‘You must be very skilled,’ Andrew said. ‘They’re charming.’

  He was sure now of the blush on her cheeks.

  ‘Don’t let your coffee get cold,’ she said, ‘and come down when you feel like it. You’re going to Eleanor’s presently to be photographed, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’m afraid I said I would,’ Andrew answered. He poured out some coffee. ‘Of course, if you could think of some really good excuse to get me out of it, I’d be grateful.’

  ‘Oh, it won’t be as bad as all that,’ she said. ‘But if you like, I could ring up and say you’ve woken up with a terrible headache and have got to lie down.’

  ‘She’d only ask me to come tomorrow, wouldn’t she? I can hardly spend all my time here with a terrible headache. I’ll just have to face it.’

  He sipped some orange juice. Mollie laughed.

  ‘Actually, you’ll probably find some of her old photographs quite interesting, and you’ll get to like her better when you’ve seen a bit more of her.’

  Andrew doubted this. However, as Mollie left him, he found himself wondering at her blushing so easily when her work was praised. It seemed to him that there was something a little pathetic about it, as if she was not normally appreciated as she longed to be. He wondered what she thought of Ian’s bird-watching. But that brought back the wretched tomtit.

  ‘Willow, titwillow …’

  He did his best to drown it in orange juice and coffee, ate his cheese and his toast and marmalade, then got up, shaved and had a shower, and as by then it was only half past nine, decided to go for a walk before he was due at Eleanor Clancy’s. Ian was in the garden, mowing the lawn, and from sounds in the kitchen it seemed probable that Mollie was occupied already with cooking. Looking into the kitchen, he told her that he was going out, then set off across the common.

  The morning was one of the delightful kind that sometimes comes in early September. The sky was a pale but radiant blue, and a slight breeze ruffled the leaves of the trees that edged the common. It was warm but not at all oppressive. Some young children with an older girl watching them were playing on the swings and slides of the playground. Passing it, Andrew walked on across the rather dusty turf towards the lake that he had seen from his window. The activity of walking kept his mind pleasantly free of songs and rhymes, but allowed him to think with some seriousness of Malpighi. Should he embark on another biography? And unlike its predecessor, would it not in truth probably never be finished? Even if he did not actually die before he had come to the end of it, would his mind maintain sufficient clarity to make steady work possible?

  These thoughts were interrupted by the fact that a man was approaching him from the direction of the lake. He was carrying a fishing-rod, a basket, and two fairly large fish strung on a line.

  Coming level with Andrew, he observed, ‘Two fine tench.’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ Andrew agreed, thinking that he had misheard what the man had said and that actually he had remarked on it being a fine day.

  ‘Tench,’ the man said. He had stood still and was looking at Andrew with some interest. ‘Plenty in the lake. Plenty in all the inland waterways in this country. Generally underrated, like carp. The thing is to know how to cook them. Coarse fish, of course, but if you soak them for three or four hours in slightly acidulated water—if you don’t do that they just taste of mud—then cook them according to Mrs Beeton, you’ll find they’re delicious. Our forefathers knew all about that, but naturally they depended on lakes and rivers for their fish. In the days before trains and lorries you didn’t eat fish if you lived inland. Well, good day.’

  He strode on, l
eaving Andrew wondering if he had just had a brief conversation with Mr Samuel Waldron. He was a tall man and walked with long strides. He looked about fifty, and was wearing a white sweater, brown corduroy trousers and gumboots.

  That gumboots would have been necessary if he had been fishing in the lake Andrew recognized as soon as he reached it himself, for its banks were muddy and its edges reedy. But the water was clear and the faint ripples raised by the breeze sparkled in the sunshine. Andrew walked all the way round it, at one point crossing a small bridge which he realized was over a narrow stream that flowed out of the lake, a placid stream in which there was hardly any movement. There were trees on its banks, not yet even faintly touched by the copper tints of autumn. And yet it seemed to him that there was a scent of autumn in the air, or at least of the ending of summer.

  He enjoyed his walk and because he was returning from it too early for his appointment with Eleanor Clancy, he sat down for a while on a bench that overlooked the children’s playground and watched them on the swings and slides, occasionally fighting with one another, with a good deal of shouting and hitting and kicking, to be separated by the girl who was in charge of them, only to revert, as soon as her back was turned, to this occupation which they seemed to enjoy most among those that were available. Violence shows itself early in the human creature, Andrew thought. But at times the combatants strolled about with their arms round one another, their warfare forgotten. He waited until a few minutes to eleven, then strolled down to the Clancy cottage.

  Eleanor must have seen him coming, for the door opened a moment before he reached it and she welcomed him in. She took him into a small, square room with one casement window that overlooked the road and a glass door of more recent construction that opened into the garden. Outside it, on a small patio, were a couple of garden chairs and a low round table. The garden was packed in a disorganized way, but very richly, mostly with herbaceous plants, not many of which were still in flower. There was a big cluster of black-eyed susan in bloom, and some tall marguerites, a few snapdragons and geraniums, as well as roses and clumps of greenery that Andrew could not identify. There was also a splendid vine growing against the fence that enclosed the garden. It looked as if it might have been there as long as the cottage.

  ‘You’d like some coffee, wouldn’t you?’ Eleanor said. ‘Shall we have it in the garden? It’s such a lovely morning.’

  Andrew said that he would enjoy coffee and that it would be delightful to have it in the garden, and after seeing him installed in one of the chairs outside, she disappeared to make the coffee. Coming back soon with a tray, she settled down in the second chair and poured out the coffee. She was wearing the same jeans as the day before, but a frilly pale blue blouse which did not suit her angular build or her tanned colouring. It was made of silk, however, and looked as if it might have been put on in honour of her visitor.

  ‘Ah, you’re looking at my vine,’ she said and as she said it she picked up a small camera that Andrew had noticed lying with some books on the table and began to fiddle with it. ‘I don’t know how old it is. At least a hundred years or more, I should think. I believe I’m going to have a good crop off it this year, and I’m going to try my hand at making wine. I’ve never done it before, but I think it should be rather exciting. I’ve quite a good cellar under the cottage, so I mean to make plenty. I’ll take you down there presently, if you’d care to see some of the old photographic equipment I inherited from my father. It actually dates from my great-grandfather’s time, and my father and his father never took any interest in it, but they treasured it—great box things, you know, that stood on tripods, and the photographer had to put a black thing over his head when he was taking the photograph, and the model had to sit absolutely motionless for some minutes while he was doing it. Is that what you were expecting today? Is that why you were so nervous of coming?—there!’ She had lifted the camera while she had been talking and it had just gone click. ‘That didn’t hurt, did it?’ She gave a giggle. ‘And I’m sure it’ll be very nice. Of course I want to take a few more and I’ll send you proofs to choose among for the ones you like best. I can get your address from the Davidges, can’t I? Or are you staying here long?’

  ‘About a week, I think,’ Andrew replied.

  ‘Then I expect I can get them ready for you to look at before you go.’

  She chatted on about her photography, and wanted to know about the book that she had been told Andrew had been writing, and although the camera went click from time to time, Andrew did not find it as disagreeable as he had expected.

  ‘Now, come inside and look at some of my pictures,’ she said, when the coffee was finished. ‘I’d like you to see some of the ones I took while I was still teaching. Did you know I’d been a teacher? Games mistress at a place called St Hilda’s in Hampshire, till I got too old to keep on with that kind of job. Very rewarding, except financially.’ She giggled again. ‘But I thoroughly enjoyed it. I’ve had a very satisfying life. Now look at that!’

  They had gone into the little sitting-room and she was pointing at a framed photograph on a wall. It was of a group of girls in dark red sweaters and short grey skirts holding cricket bats.

  ‘Our first eleven, the year they beat Etchingham—that was another school they played matches against regularly—and there am I beside them. A bit younger than now! You needn’t say it doesn’t show.’

  Andrew had not thought of saying that it did not show, though as a matter of fact the high, bony shoulders, the long neck, the strong, bony features and the hair cut like a cap had not changed so very much. But the grace of youth had been lost.

  ‘Who was taking the photograph?’ he asked. ‘It couldn’t have been yourself, since you’re in the picture.’

  ‘Oh, I forget. One of the other mistresses. It was an honour that the girls wanted me to be included. It showed gratitude, didn’t it, for all the coaching I’d given them? And that—’ she put a finger on one of the girls in the photograph—‘is the Waldron girl. I remember her very well. A natural athlete, and a sweet personality, though very quiet. I wonder if she’s any connection of the Waldrons here, or even if she’s Mrs Waldron. I mean, if she’d married a cousin, she might not have changed her name. But I suppose it isn’t such an uncommon one. But hearing it made me think of how much I’d like to see her again. Some of the girls, of course, used to visit the school after they’d left, and so one kept in touch with them, but I don’t think Suzie ever did. Suzie Waldron, that was her name, it’s just come back to me.’

  ‘And how long ago was this photograph taken?’

  The girls all being in school uniform, their clothes did not tell him anything about the date of the picture.

  ‘Oh, twenty years at least,’ she answered. ‘Yes, I’d have been about thirty. I hadn’t been at the school very long. But I stayed there until I retired and they gave me a most magnificent present when I left, a tea-set of lovely Copenhagen china. Of course I never use it, because my dishwasher would ruin it. Now, would you like to see some of my great-grandfather’s work? Only wait a minute—I think I’d like to take just one more of you, in here, with that background of books. That would be appropriate for a professor, wouldn’t it?’ She gave her little giggle once more.

  It would also be one of the real clichés of photography, Andrew thought, remembering all the portraits of politicians, of writers, of people being interviewed on television, that he had seen against a background of books. In television the books were only too often the same ones, which did not say anything special about the subject’s erudition. However, he obediently subsided into the chair that Eleanor pointed out to him and let her do her worst.

  Afterwards they went down into her cellar, which he realized was used not only for storing the old cameras, jars of unknown chemicals, and some racks of glass quarter-plate negatives, but also as her own dark-room. She pointed out the negatives to him.

  ‘I wish we had time for you to see more,’ she said. ‘I’ve a lantern and a
screen on which I could show them to you, but it’s a bit of trouble to set up.’

  Instead, taking him upstairs again, and opening a drawer in an old bureau in a corner of the room, she showed him a box full of prints, most of them sepia, and most of them of scenes taken in the Far East, many of them of delightfully pretty ladies in lungis and with parasols held over their heads and flowers in their dark hair. A few were of white ladies in what must have been an almost intolerable quantity of clothing, considering the climate, and of white gentlemen with beards and straw hats. She picked out one photograph of a young girl in a high-necked lacey blouse, gloves to her elbows and a skirt which she was saucily holding in such a way that it showed the frills of the petticoat she was wearing under it. She looked about twenty.

  ‘Isn’t she sweet?’ she said. ‘She’s my great-grandmother. She died of malaria when she was twenty-five. There’s a lot about her in the letters my great-grandfather wrote home to his parents. Of course they took weeks and weeks to arrive, but they were all treasured and they’re very interesting. I really think I must make them into a book, with illustrations. Do you think any publisher would look at it?’

  ‘I think I should attempt it,’ Andrew said. ‘As you said yesterday, it’s history.’

  He did not add that it to some extent depended on her ability to make a good job of it.

  She looked pleased.

  ‘I think I really will have a go at it, though I’ve never tried writing anything before,’ she said. ‘Not that I’d have to write much. It would be mostly a case of editing. Do you think you could take a look at it from time to time as I go along and give me advice? It would be such a help to have someone experienced to give me an opinion.’

  ‘Experienced! My dear Miss Clancy, I’ve written only one book in my life which took me several years to get into a form that any publisher would look at. I’m sure you could find someone better suited for your needs. You might think about Mr Waldron. It sounds as if he’s a bit of a historian.’