Thomson
The room had grown so quiet that for a moment the noise of it seemed deafening. It was only when Nigel had recovered from his initial stupefaction that he realized it had come from below – Donald Fellowes’ room. In conjunction with the story they had been hearing it was not an inspiriting sound. Even the phlegmatic Sir Richard sat up sharply. He said:
‘Is that some of your fool undergraduates messing about, Fen?’
‘If it is,’ said Fen, rising in a determined manner, ‘they’re going to hear about it. You wait here, dear,’ he said to his wife, ‘and I’ll go and find out what’s happened.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ said Sir Richard.
‘Me, too,’ said Nigel ungrammatically.
Fen’s wife nodded, and went on with her knitting. Wilkes said nothing, but stared absently at the dying embers of the fire. As they left the room, looking, as Nigel said afterwards, very determined and grim, Sir Richard took out his watch and turned to Nigel.
‘What do you make the time?’ he said.
‘8.24 exactly,’ said Nigel after a brief glance at his own.
‘Right, We’ve been about a minute so far. 8.23 is near enough.’
‘Aren’t you anticipating rather?’ asked Nigel.
‘It’s as well to know,’ said the other briefly. And they followed Fen down the stairs.
At the bottom they met Robert Warner, who was coming out of the lavatory with a ludicrously anxious expression on his face.
‘What on earth was that din?’ he inquired. ‘Sounded like a shot to me.’
‘That’s what we’re going to find out,’ said Fen. ‘I think I’m right in saying it came from in here.’
The door of the sitting-room on their left, which had the inscription ‘Mr D. A. Fellowes’ in white over the top, was ajar. Fen pushed it open and they all followed him in. The room presented nothing of particular interest. Like most college rooms, it was scantily furnished, and the only unusual feature was a grand piano to the right of the doorway. To the left was a screen, intended presumably to trap draughts, which as Nigel well remembered tend to be numerous in the majority of college rooms, but a cursory glance failed to discover anyone or anything concealed behind it. Over by the far window, on the right, was a small flat-topped desk; a table with one or two uncomfortable chairs stood in the middle of a threadbare carpet; and the fireplace, over on the left, was flanked by a couple of chintz-covered armchairs. The only other item of furniture was an enormous bookcase, which contained on one of its shelves a few lonely looking volumes and on another a large pile of music, hymn-books, anthems and services. The walls, which were disagreeably panelled in dark oak, were scarcely relieved by a few very small reproductions of modern paintings, and in the dusk the general effect was one of profound gloom. But the room was typical of many such, and as it had no occupant, Donald Fellowes or any other, Nigel gave it no more than a brief glance, and hurried on after Fen and Sir Richard to the door in the wall opposite, which led to the bedroom.
This also was ajar, and entering, they found themselves in a cold, comfortless, coffin-shaped room, furnished even more sparsely than the sitting-room they had just left. But for the moment they had eyes for none of the details.
For beside the doorway stood a man, looking down at Yseut Haskell, who lay on the floor with a black hole in the centre of her forehead, and the whole of the top part of her face blackened and scorched.
Like most people, Nigel had often tried to imagine how he would feel in the presence of violent death. Like most people, he had thought of himself as being calm, collected, almost indifferent. So the conscious part of him was totally unprepared for the sudden acute spasm of nausea which seized him at the sight of that motionless, lifeless form. He went quickly back to the sitting-room, and sat down with his face in his hands. Through the uncontrollable whirl of his thoughts and suspicions, he heard Sir Richard say, with a politeness which he remembered thinking excessive:
‘Will you please tell me who you are and what you’re doing here?’
It was a sensible homely voice which replied.
‘Yessir, o’ course, and the Professor here’ll confirm what I say. Me name’s Joe Williams, an’ I bin workin’ on repairin’ the stonework in the archway opposite there. I was jest downin’ tools an’ makin’ ready to be orf ’ome, when I ’ears that bloody racket – beggin’ your pardon – and ’ops in ’ere quick as lightnin’ to investigate. Must a’ bin only a minute afore you gentlemen.’
‘You haven’t touched anything, have you?’
The voice replied with some scorn:
‘Not likely. But I ’ad a good dekko round this room, and the other, and there ain’t no one ’idin’ in either of them, unless in that wardrobe there. An’ you can be sure I kep’ me eye on that. No one’s come art o’ this room since I bin ’ere. That’s right, ain’t it, Professor?’
‘Williams is all right, Dick,’ said Fen. ‘He’s been employed, in the college for years on odd jobs about the place, and I don’t think he’s liable to fits of homicidal mania.’
‘Not me.’
‘Turn on the light, Fen,’ said Sir Richard.
‘Black-out,’ said Fen gloomily.
‘Oh, blast the black-out. We mustn’t touch anything.’
‘Black-out none the less.’
‘Oh, very well.’ Nigel heard the sound of curtains being drawn over the single window, and a shaft of light cut into the sitting-room from the half-open door. He pulled himself together abruptly and went and blacked out the room, wondering as he did so whether he were likely to be destroying valuable evidence.
From inside the bedroom Sir Richard was saying: ‘Well, I must get on to the station before I do anything else. Where’s the nearest telephone?’
‘My room,’ Fen replied. ‘The lodge will put you through. You’d better tell Wilkes and my wife what’s happened, but don’t let them come down here. Tell Dolly if she likes to wait a while I’ll be up as soon as I can get away for a moment. Wilkes had better go home, the old nuisance.’
‘All right. Keep an eye on things while I’m away, and for God’s sake don’t mess about.’
‘I never mess about,’ said Fen in a pained voice.
‘Williams, you’d better go across to the lodge and wait there. We shall want you for questioning later.’
‘Right you are,’ replied Williams cheerfully. ‘Hour and a ’alf afore they close yet, anyway. P’raps you can get me over first,’ he added hopefully.
‘Tell Parsons on my authority to see that you get some beer from the buttery,’ said Fen.
‘Oh, thank you sir, I’m sure.’ And Williams came out of the bedroom. He stopped as he saw Nigel and whistled. ‘Well, if it isn’t Mr Blake! ’Ow are you, sir, after all this time? Very glad to see you again, I’m sure.’
‘I’m fine, Williams, thank you. And you?’
‘Might be worse, sir, might be worse. Just able to sit up and take nourishment, as you might say.’ Then, lowering his voice: ‘Nasty business, this, sir. Pretty young thing, too. Friend of Mr Fellowes. I seen ’er come in ’ere several times afore. Only twenty minutes ago she come in ’ere, and ’er give me a “good evening” pretty as you like.’
‘You saw her come in? That may be important.’
‘No doubt about it, sir, no doubt about it. Still, mustn’t talk about the case before the police get at it, I s’pose. Not that they’ll ’ave much of a job. It’s suicide, plain as mustard.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘What else can it be? No one come in or out o’ this room for last ’alf hour except ’er. An’ she couldn’t ’a bin shot through the winder, ’cos it was shut when I arrived.’
Nigel felt a profound feeling of relief sweep over him. ‘I’m glad of that, anyway,’ he said. ‘It means no one else is involved.’
‘Ar, that’s right. But what could ’ave induced ’er to do such a thing, I should like to know? Such a pretty, polite girl, I always thought, without a care in t
he world as one could tell. Well, I must be getting along. See you later, sir, I’ve no doubt.’ He saluted and went out, his heavy boots clumping down the steps and into the quadrangle.
One man at least has retained his illusions about Yseut, thought Nigel bitterly. There must be few of her acquaintance who would be sorry to hear her dead. He wondered where Donald was, and how he would take the news. Then he went and joined the others, though for the moment he carefully refrained from looking again at the body.
Fen and Sir Richard were engaged in a brief muttered colloquy. Robert Warner stood nearby, looking about him with an air of methodical concentration. It was almost with a sense of shock that Nigel realized his presence. They had come in together less than five minutes ago, but the shock of seeing Yseut had driven everything else from his mind. He ventured to look again at the body, and was relieved to find that his first sickness did not return.
Sir Richard turned to Robert. ‘I don’t want to detain you, Mr Warner,’ he said.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Robert replied. ‘Of course you don’t want a lot of people hanging around. It was only that – well, this has come as such a shock, and that I feel – well, responsible for the girl, in a way.’
‘You know who she is?’ said Sir Richard sharply.
‘Oh, yes. Her name is Yseut Haskell, and she’s an actress at the Repertory Theatre here.’
‘I see,’ said Sir Richard more cordially. ‘In that case, no doubt you’ll be able to help us. But I’d be glad if you didn’t stop here. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind waiting in Fen’s room for a bit – I can’t do anything until the local people arrive. If you smoke his cigarettes and drink his whisky I’m sure he won’t mind.’
‘No, no, make yourself at home,’ said Fen vaguely. He was wandering about the room staring glumly at the furniture. ‘These rooms are damp,’ he added. ‘Something ought to be done about them. I’ll speak to the Domestic Bursar.’
‘And Mr Blake –’ said Sir Richard, turning to Nigel.
‘Oh, don’t send Nigel away,’ Fen interrupted. ‘I want him to stand guard with me. I suppose,’ he continued rather wistfully, ‘that I’m to be allowed to help?’
Sir Richard grinned. ‘By all means. But I don’t think you’ll have much detecting to do in this case. Suicide is the obvious verdict.’
‘Yes?’ said Fen, looking at him curiously. ‘I’ll keep an eye on things, just the same, if you don’t mind.’
‘Just as you like. I must go and phone. Don’t let anyone in.’ And he went off upstairs with Robert.
Now for the first time Nigel had leisure to look about him. Yseut was lying on her side, with her legs bent up under her, her left arm pinioned under her, and the right flung out with palm upwards. Near it lay a heavy, blue-metal revolver, and on one of the fingers was a ring of curious design. She was wearing a dark brown coat and a green skirt, brown shoes and silk stockings, but was apparently without hat or gloves or bag. She lay in front of a chest of drawers, one of whose drawers was open with the contents untidily displayed, and on which lay a hand-mirror, a brush and comb and an expensive-looking bottle of hair-lotion. The rest of the room offered little to Nigel’s inexperienced eye. There was a bed, a wash-stand and a wardrobe, a rug beside the bed, a bedside table with a lamp, a book and an ashtray containing one or two stale cigarette stubs, and several odd shoes were scattered about the floor. A shirt had been tossed carelessly on to the chair at the foot of the bed. The smell of gunpowder still hung on the air. The window, apparently, was shut, but at the moment that could not be investigated.
So Nigel turned his attention back to what was left of Yseut. It was curious, he thought, how completely death had drained her of personality. And yet not curious: for her personality had centred entirely on her sex, and now that life was gone, that too had vanished, leaving her a neuter, an uninteresting construction of clay, suddenly pathetic. She had been an attractive girl. But that ‘had been’ was not a conventional gesture to the fact of death. It was an honest admission that without life the most beautiful body is an object of no interest. We are not bodies, thought Nigel, we are lives. And oddly, there came to him at that moment a new and firm conviction of the nature of love.
He looked again; remembered Yseut singing and dancing; remembered Helen’s ‘She’s not bad, you know, just silly’; and with all his heart, and despite the discomfort she had caused, wished her alive again.
‘Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot …’
Just as for Claudio the fact of virginity had been nothing compared with the fact of death, so for Nigel all other considerations paled beside it.… He shook himself irritably; this was not a time for literary quotation. If Yseut had been murdered.… He looked inquiringly at Fen, but that expert, guessing the unspoken question, merely said non-committally: ‘It looks like suicide’, and continued his perplexed examination of the floor round the body.
Sir Richard came back rubbing his hands together. ‘Your wife is going to wait,’ he told Fen. ‘She’s talking to Warner at the moment. And I’ve managed to pack old Wilkes off to his room. The police are going to be here as soon as they can get, which will put an end, officially, to my responsibility, thank heaven.’
Fen nodded. Then said abruptly: ‘Where on earth is that noise coming from? Nigel, go and tell them to shut it off.’
Nigel realized that ‘The Hero’s Works of Peace’ were being trumpeted forth on the evening air, apparently from the room opposite. He had forgotten about the radio he had heard earlier in the evening. He went across and tapped on the door; then, being convinced that if there was a reply he would never hear it above the din, walked straight in.
He was more than surprised to discover that the two occupants of the room were Donald Fellowes and Nicholas Barclay. They were sitting in armchairs by the fire, listening to a radio which stood on a table beside them. Nigel stopped short on seeing them, and Nicholas performed an elaborate pantomime to demand silence, but Nigel waved him impatiently aside.
‘Yseut’s dead,’ he said with unnecessary abruptness, and added to Donald: ‘In your room. And for God’s sake turn that thing off. I can’t hear myself speak.’ Nicholas turned it off. ‘Well, well, well!’ was his only comment.
Donald sat silent. He showed no reaction at all that Nigel could see, except to go a little pale. ‘How do you mean, dead?’ he muttered. ‘And why in my room?’
‘She’s been shot in the head.’
‘Murdered?’ asked Nicholas, and added callously: ‘Can’t say I’m surprised. Did you do it, Donald?’ he inquired with interest.
‘No, damn you, I didn’t.’
‘The indications,’ said Nigel, ‘point to suicide.’
Donald showed his first sign of genuine emotion. ‘Suicide?’ he queried.
‘You seem to be surprised.’
Donald went red and stammered. ‘I – well – she wasn’t well liked, you know. And she didn’t seem the sort to – kill herself.’ He suddenly buried his face in his hands. ‘Oh God!’ he said.
Nigel felt uncomfortable and at a loss as to what to say.
‘I suppose I ought to come across,’ said Donald after a moment.
‘You can please yourself about that, I imagine. It’s your room. And no doubt the police will want to ask you some questions when they arrive.’
‘Oh!’ said Nicholas. ‘So they’re not here yet? When did this happen?’
‘About ten minutes ago. Sir Richard Freeman is in charge at the moment, and Fen’s helping him.’
Nicholas pursed his lips and looked solemn. ‘The college’s tame detective, eh? So they think it’s suicide. Ten minutes ago; that must have been the noise we heard, Donald. But the Battle section was making such an infernal row that we didn’t take any notice; and you said it was only a group of second-year men fooling about. Do you think they’ll want to see me?’ he asked Nigel. ‘Or can I go home?’
‘I imagine that sooner or later they’ll wan
t to see everyone who had any connection with Yseut. So you may as well stay.’
‘I shan’t go back,’ said Donald suddenly. ‘I – don’t – want – to – see –’
‘All right, laddie,’ said Nicholas. ‘We’ll stop here and console one another. And if either of us tries to do a bunk for the next boat-train to Ostend, the other can stop him. See you later, Nigel.’
Nigel nodded and went out. The reactions of both of them, he thought, had been typical: Nicholas’ flippancy was habitual. He was struck, though, by the lack of surprise with which they had received the news. It was almost as though they had been expecting it.
He found Fen and Sir Richard in the sitting-room, endeavouring to keep up a pretence of activity, though until the doctor and the fingerprint and photograph people had got finished, there was practically nothing they could do. Nigel told them of the whereabouts of Nicholas and Donald, and Sir Richard, after a few questions concerning their identity and their connection with Yseut, nodded his approval of the arrangement he had made.
‘We can’t possibly keep an eye on everyone,’ he said, ‘and if anyone other than the girl herself is responsible, they’d be mad to try and clear out.’
A quarter of an hour later the police arrived, and were made au fait with the situation. The Inspector, an alert, sharp-eyed little man with a harsh voice, called Cordery, asked the ordinary pertinent questions and took a brief look round. Then he went into conference with Sir Richard, while the Sergeants who dealt with fingerprints and photography went about their business. The police surgeon, a tall, laconic, deep-voiced man, made a cursory inspection of the body and then waited patiently for them to finish.
‘You’d better fingerprint anything likely,’ the Inspector had said. ‘For the moment, of course, we shan’t have anything except the girl’s prints for purposes of comparison.’
The doctor’s preliminary report was brief and to the point. ‘Death anything from twenty minutes to half an hour ago,’ he announced. ‘Cause of death the obvious one, unless there are any poisons unknown to science lurking around. The bullet’s presumably lodged somewhere at the back of the cerebellum. Angle of penetration about horizontal, I should say. Can’t tell you any more until I’ve had a proper look – and of course there’ll have to be a P.M.’
The Case of the Gilded Fly Page 8