The Case of the Gilded Fly

by Edmund Crispin

7. Assessment of Motives

  Who can tell what thief or foe,

  In the covert of the night,

  For his prey will work my woe,

  Or through wicked foul despite?

  Campion

  ‘Well,’ said Sir Richard resolutely, ‘that means there’s something we’ve missed. We shall have to go ahead and find out what it is, that’s all.’

  The Inspector sighed. A cast-iron suicide case had vanished to the winds, and he envisaged much tedium in the near future. He merely said: ‘Where do we begin, then, apart from routine investigation of times and so on, from the porter and this man Williams?’

  ‘Investigation, like charity, begins at home,’ said Fen tediously.

  ‘As far as I can see,’ continued the Inspector, ‘we shall have to discover who, if anyone, had a motive for killing the girl, and put them through it.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be better to keep an open mind?’ suggested Sir Richard. ‘After all, we don’t know she was murdered.’

  ‘Well, sir,’ said the Inspector a trifle impatiently, ‘what other basis do you think we should take?’

  Sir Richard stared at him as though he had just emerged from a cocoon, but refrained from producing an answer, for the very good reason that he could think of none.

  ‘I think that’s a very good idea, Inspector,’ put in Fen drowsily. ‘But not in this dreary hole, for heaven’s sake. Let’s go back to my room.’

  ‘Isn’t this Mr Warner up there?’

  ‘Oh Lord, yes. Well, suppose we take Williams and the porter down here, and then go up and deal with Warner, and get rid of him, and have the other two up there afterwards.’

  ‘Mr Fellowes and Mr Barclay: that seems reasonable.’ The Inspector manifested a guarded approval. ‘But I’m not sure it isn’t better to question witnesses in the more uncomfortable surroundings.’

  ‘True in a way,’ said Fen even more drowsily. ‘But if they’re telling any lies, they’re far more likely to relax and elaborate them and make them obvious from the depths of an armchair. What a dismal business it all is!’ he concluded in a rather surprised tone.

  ‘Then there’s another thing,’ said the Inspector. ‘The next of kin must be informed. Has the girl any relations here in Oxford?’

  Nigel remembered Helen for the first time that evening. The two sisters were so dissimilar, and moreover had got on so badly together, that it was not surprising he had forgotten the relationship between them. His heart sank. ‘There’s a sister,’ he blurted out. ‘Helen. She works at the rep. too.’

  The Inspector made the inevitable note. ‘We shall have to communicate with her. I suppose the theatre’s on the telephone?’

  ‘Yes, but – do you think there’s any objection to my breaking the news to her? We’re very good friends, you see and –’

  The Inspector looked severe but proved amenable. ‘Very well, sir,’ he said, ‘but I shouldn’t say too much about the circumstances if I were you. Naturally, she’ll have to be asked a few questions. I suppose’ – he gazed earnestly at a tiny, effeminate wrist-watch – ’she’ll be working at the moment.’

  ‘Yes. And as far as I can see there’s no point in telling her before the show’s over.’

  ‘Not that I can see, sir. Are there any parents?’ He asked the question as though he suspected some form of autogenesis.

  ‘Not living. A distant aunt, I gather, who acted as their guardian – but I’ve known them such a short time I really know very little about it. And of course they’re both of age now.’

  The Inspector nodded and made vague noises in his nose, since he could think of nothing to say. Fen, who had by now dozed off completely, was nudged by Sir Richard, and waking up, like the Dormouse, with a little shriek, said hurriedly:

  ‘I propose that Nigel now tells us something about this girl, her immediate circle, and the relations between them, as far as he’s been able to make out during the last few days. I’m taking it,’ he said, addressing the Inspector, ‘that he himself is not under suspicion, since he has a fool-proof alibi from Sir Richard and me, and, barring a contraption with pulleys and electromagnets, couldn’t possibly have done the deed.’

  The others uttered affirmative grunts, and after Fen had waved his cigarette-case about in front of them and they had all begun to smoke, Nigel told his story.b

  They listened attentively, even Fen, who had recovered from his previous stupor. And although he shuffled and fidgeted and became increasingly gloomy as time went on, it was obvious that he missed nothing. Nigel’s journalist’s experience of précis-making stood him in good stead, and he spoke fluently and easily, remembering details of conversations without difficulty. None the less, it took some time, and it was close on ten o’clock when he had finished. The Inspector took notes with wearisome persistency. Sir Richard fiddled with his moustache and listened with half his mind, the other half being suddenly beset by a new theory regarding the dramatic abilities of Massinger.

  ‘ – So you see,’ Nigel concluded, ‘There’s plenty of motive to choose from, if the girl was murdered.’ And he sat back relieved that his job was over, drew a deep breath, and lit another cigarette.

  ‘I say, how late it’s getting,’ said Sir Richard reproachfully. ‘We shall have to leave a lot over to the morning, Cordery.’

  ‘Yes, sir, I agree with you there. I suggest we get the times settled as exactly as we can, and see Mr Warner, as he’s been kind enough to wait. As for the other two gentlemen’ – he looked dubious – ‘I think we might leave them till tomorrow. Perhaps if Mr Blake wouldn’t mind acquainting them – ’

  ‘Fellowes will be in college all night,’ Fen interrupted. ‘He can’t get out now, unless he climbs over the wall, by the bicycle shed or goes through the President’s garden.’ He looked apologetic. ‘It all comes of having a system which is half monastic and half not,’ he added aggrievedly and irrelevantly.

  ‘Oh, very well, then,’ said the Inspector a trifle peevishly. ‘We’ll see him tonight too. But there’s no reason for this Mr Barclay to stay if he doesn’t want.’ He began to feel slightly confused. ‘Who is this Mr Barclay, anyway?’ he inquired with pardonable irritation. ‘And what has he got to do with it?’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Sir Richard, with the nervous air of one soothing a neurotic and excitable child. ‘It’s only that he was a friend of the dead girl’s, and happened to be in the college when the thing happened.’

  ‘I see,’ said the Inspector unmollified. ‘Well, if Mr Blake –’

  ‘Yes, yes, Inspector,’ said Nigel hurriedly and returned to the room opposite, wondering why it was always he who was deputed to act as call-boy. He found Donald and Nicholas surrounded by beer bottles and playing bezique, Donald ill-tempered and considerably the worse for wear, Nicholas with his habitual expression of urbanity on his lean, dark face. Nigel was beginning to find his mannerisms extremely irritating.

  ‘Well?’ he said, raising an eyebrow as Nigel came in. ‘How is everything going, and is there an arrest yet? “An thou hadst been set i’ the stocks for that question, thou hadst well deserved it”,’ he added to himself, raising one hand in a trite, effeminate gesture.

  ‘The indications,’ Nigel lied, ‘still point to suicide.’

  Nicholas, sensing the dislike in his voice, shrugged and was silent.

  ‘And there’s no particular reason for you to stay, now, if you don’t want to.’

  ‘My dear man,’ answered Nicholas, ‘I should have left long ago if I’d wished. As it is, I shall stay. I’m interested.’

  ‘Just as you like,’ returned Nigel shortly, and went out, cursing Nicholas under his breath. Also, he had not liked the look of Donald, who he suspected would be fairly drunk by the time they came to question him. That would make a bad impression, but he would probably be easy to pump. And yet what reason had he for suspecting Donald – or for that matter for suspecting anyone of anything? He realized that if it had not been for Fen, the whole thing would have been
written off as suicide by now. For a moment he doubted Fen’s reputation – wasn’t he, after all, trying to make something out of nothing? And yet when he remembered the almost supernatural gleam of concentration in Fen’s eye and re-considered the evidence, he was forced to the conclusion that there was something undoubtedly wrong about the whole business. Racking his brains for a solution, he hurried back.

  The Inspector was awaiting him, gazing with a theatrical air of concentration at his notebook. He received the news of Nicholas’ decision without enthusiasm, and wondered inwardly whether he would ever get to bed that night. He had had a hard day at the station, and moreover had recently married a young wife, so this attitude was pardonable. He applied himself once again, resolutely but with regret, to his duty.

  ‘Now, sir,’ he said, ‘according to your statement, a number of people had reasons for disliking the young lady who was killed. Let me detail them.’ And he ticked them off on his fingers.

  ‘(1) Mr Robert Warner. He knew Miss Haskell at some earlier time, and you think had had an affair with her.’

  He summoned up a rumbled expression of disapproval, but suddenly feeling that it might be inappropriate, hastily converted it into a lengthy and unconvincing cough.

  ‘In addition,’ he went on, ‘the young lady had been very persistent with him since his arrival, and apparently, the night before last, placed him in a compromising position, he being attached to another young lady, Miss Rachel West.’ He paused, aghast at these erotic complications, and went on to the next person on his list.

  ‘(2) Miss West herself, for the reasons aforesaid – that is to say, she was jealous of Miss Haskell on account of Mr Warner.

  ‘(3) Mr Donald Fellowes, who although in love with Miss Haskell, was enraged at her deserting him in favour of Mr Warner, and moreover disapproved of her risque behaviour on the stage.’

  ‘Oh, come!’ murmured Nigel at this alarming piece of characterization, but the Inspector swept on.

  ‘(4) Miss Jean Whitelegge, who is in love with Mr Fellowes, and, while resenting his infatuation for Miss Haskell, considered also that she (Miss Haskell) was trifling with his (Mr Fellowes’) affections.’ He contemplated this further evidence of the activities of the Venus Pandemos with increasing dismay. Nigel suppressed a desire to giggle.

  ‘(5) Mr Nicholas Barclay, who considered that Mr Fellowes was wasting his talents over this infatuation with Miss Haskell, and moreover disliked her on general grounds. That hardly seems to be a motive, sir,’ he said, abandoning the official manner. ‘And as to the first part of it, I confess I don’t see what you mean.’

  Sir Richard, about to embark on a disquisition on the value of the artist to society, thought better of it and was silent.

  ‘Well, no,’ admitted Nigel. ‘That was only my impression, you understand. And of course there may be other people I know nothing about who had much stronger reasons for disliking Yseut. She was not popular.’

  ‘So I gather. But I think perhaps we have enough to go on with for the moment.’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Nigel, ‘that I haven’t laid myself open to half a dozen slander actions by saying all this?’

  ‘No, no, sir. You were officially asked to give your impressions, and you gave them, and that’s all there is to it. No blame attaches to you even if those impressions prove to have been incorrect.’ And he looked at Nigel with the severity of a medieval inquisitioner trying to wring a recantation from an intransigent Cathar. Nigel, however, remained unmoved.

  At this point the constable put his head in at the door. ‘Captain Graham, sir,’ he said. ‘Will you see him now?’

  ‘Yes, Elbow. Show him in.’

  Peter Graham looked much chastened. His youthful buoyancy had gone, and the lines of an unpractised and therefore slightly incongruous earnestness furrowed his brow. He greeted Nigel anxiously, and sat down on the edge of a chair with his hands in his lap.

  Yes, the gun, he said, was his. He had discovered that it was missing on the day after the party, when he was tidying up his room. He had had, he explained irrelevantly but not surprisingly, an appalling hang-over, and had been very much distressed to find it gone. Yes, he had heard what had happened, poor little devil, and held himself partly responsible. But dash it, one didn’t anticipate these things, and doubtless it would have happened somehow even if no one had known he possessed the thing. It was not he, he added, who had taken it out and waved it about for everyone to see. Asked why he had not reported the loss to the police, he said that first, he had felt very ill for the past few days, and second, that someone might have taken it as a joke, and would return it. Asked if he had any notion who might have taken it, he said he had none.

  Some questions were then put about his relationship with Yseut, but beyond the fact that she had talked to him in the train, that he had seen her in the bar on Monday evening, and that she had come to his party, he had no information to give. He had not thought about her very much at all, he said, though he supposed she was attractive. Of her private affairs he knew nothing. She had seemed very drunk at the party, and had got into a temper with him when he took the gun away from her, but then parties were parties, and alcohol, he averred, did queer things to women. He was quite bewildered about the whole thing, he said, and could think of no reason why she should commit suicide, or for that matter why she should not.

  And in fact, thought Nigel, he does look genuinely bewildered. Rising to go, he asked if he could have his gun back, but was told it must be kept as evidence. When Spencer had finished taking his prints, he went out with an expression of profound unhappiness on his face.

  ‘All that will have to be confirmed,’ said the Inspector after he had gone. ‘It’s possible, I suppose, that he knows more about the girl than he’ll admit, but we must look for the obvious first, and go into the other things afterwards. I must admit that the attack the girl made on him seems queer on the face of it.’ He sighed: it was wearing, he reflected, having to conduct a case with the Chief Constable sitting over you all the time.

  Fen had asked no question during the interview, though he had listened to it with some care. But his manner had become markedly cheerful, and Sir Richard, with the blind faith of the early Christian martyrs, had in consequence paid no attention at all.

  ‘His prints are the old ones on the barrel and chambers,’ said Spencer, who had been comparing them. ‘And there are some latent prints belonging to the girl, presumably when she handled the gun at the party.’

  Williams was next questioned, somewhat the worse for a couple of hours of college beer, and inclined to be boisterous. The girl had come in, he thought, about twenty minutes before he heard the shot, but at what time exactly he could not say. She had said ‘good evening’ to him, and since he thought her an attractive bit of goods (though not wishing to speak ill of the dead, he added rather oddly), he had returned the compliment with what he described as a winsome smile.

  ‘Did anyone else pass down the passage between the time she came in and the time you heard the shot?’

  ‘Yes, sir, one gentleman, tall an’ dark an’ a bit lanky. But I takes a look at ’im over me shoulder, and ’e goes straight on up the stairs to the Professor’s room.’

  ‘Robert Warner,’ put in Sir Richard.

  ‘What time would that have been?’

  ‘Abaht five or ten minutes after the young lady, I s’pose. Couldn’t say for certain.’

  ‘And you saw no one else during that interval – you’d be prepared to swear to that ?’

  Williams ruminated this question for a moment, making remote sucking noises with his teeth. Then he said: ‘No, sir, no one else. I’m certain of that.’

  The Inspector turned to Fen. ‘Where does the archway opposite lead, sir? Just to another set of rooms?’

  ‘There’s a scout’s pantry on the right as you go in,’ said Fen, ‘a sitting-room on the left, a staircase up to a small bedroom over the pantry, and then a way through to a paved courtyard beyond.’
>
  ‘And that leads where?’

  ‘It’s enclosed, except for a small door on the west side, which leads out into the street.’

  That door is left open, then, I take it?’

  ‘Until nine o’clock at night, yes.’

  ‘Ah.’ The Inspector seemed pleased. ‘Now, Williams. No one came through from that courtyard, I suppose, during the time I mentioned?’

  Williams looked indignant. ‘Not likely. They’d ’ave ’ad to fall over me if they ’ad. Mr Fellowes an’ another gentleman come over from ’ere and into the other sittin’-room earlier in the evenin’, just afore you gentlemen come in from dinner, but that was all.’

  ‘Well, tell us what you did when you heard the shot.’

  ‘Nipped in ’ere quick as lightnin’ an’ fahnd the young lady as you saw ’er,’ replied Williams promptly.

  ‘Be more precise,’ said Fen. ‘What do you mean by “quick as lightning”? Exactly, and in detail, what did you do?’

  ‘Well, sir, I was just abaht to knock orf work, as it was getting too dark to do anythin’ further, when I ’eard it. So I lifts up me ’ead and says to meself “Did you ’ers what you thought you ’eard?” and then I puts me tools away in me bag and leaves it on the steps and comes straight over ’ere.’

  ‘I don’t call that “quick as lightning”,’ objected Sir Richard. ‘How long did it take you to put your tools away?’

  Williams looked uncomfortable. ‘Couldn’t say, sir, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I’ll put it another way, then: how long were you in the bedroom before we came down?’

  ‘Oh, only a moment or two, sir.’

  ‘H’m. And it was just under two minutes by the time we arrived. It seems as if your account needs revising a bit, Williams.’

  Williams looked as alarmed as if he had been found with the weapon smoking in his hand.

  ‘Tell me, Williams,’ said Fen. ‘Could you see into the windows of this room or of the rooms opposite?’

  ‘Can’t say as ’ow I looked, sir. But any’ow, it was so dark I shouldn’t ’a’ been able to see nothin’ if I ’ad.’