Slaying is Such Sweet Sorrow

by Patricia Harwin

  Archie plopped down on the floor with his new toy. That irritating voice was now singing about the Duke of York’s pointless sortie up the hill.

  “We’ve got a CD player now, of course,” Quin said, “so I brought the old tape player for the kid. More fun for him than CDs, with all the buttons to push. It ought to keep him out of your hair, Em, with all that’s going on.”

  “Either that, or drive me round the bend,” she answered, a little irritably. “But thanks, Dad. It does seem to be a hit.”

  “I wish you’d tell me something I can do to help too,” I said. “Maybe cook dinner? Or run some errands for you?”

  “I can’t eat,” she answered shortly. “Rose will look after Archie’s meals. I can’t think of anything just now, Mom. Dad and I have an appointment in about an hour with this solicitor he found who’s supposed to be really good. Maybe he’ll represent Peter.” She was twisting a strand of her blonde hair around her finger, tighter and tighter, as she used to do at tense moments when she was a child.

  “I could go too,” I said and was annoyed to catch a glance exchanged between her and Quin. “I will not get excited, or insult the man, or—any of the other things you’re thinking. I might even come up with some questions that wouldn’t occur to you.”

  “I’d be willing to bet you would,” Quin said. He laughed, and Emily even smiled a little. “I think I know what to ask another lawyer, Kit, even over here. It’s going to go better if Emily and I handle it.”

  That familiar condescending tone was more than I could take.

  “Listen, mister,” I burst out, “I had thirty years of that superior attitude, the same amount of time you had of my jumping to conclusions, and I thank God I don’t have to put up with it anymore! Save it for Big-eyes there.”

  That actually got a rise out of her. “Are you going to let her go on calling me names?” she demanded of Quin in a voice that was still quiet and steady, but a few octaves higher than I remembered. “I told you I didn’t want to come to England. You said we’d all be friends, but she won’t let us be, and I knew she wouldn’t.”

  “So why did you bring her?” I joined in. “Just to rub our noses in it? Just to humiliate me and make life a little harder for Emily and Peter?”

  “Mother, don’t say another word!” Emily cried out. “You promised me only minutes ago you wouldn’t do this!”

  Archie ran over and threw his arms around my legs again. “Shup, Mummy!” he piped at Emily.

  She stared at him, and then, as if the last straw had been laid on her back, she gave way and burst out crying. Quin got up and enfolded her in his arms, and Janet went into the powder room and slammed the door.

  Archie looked on in amazement at the effect his newly acquired word had created, and I whispered to him, “You see, matey, that word’s bad news, just like we told you. You’d better go give Mummy a kiss and tell her you’re sorry.”

  He trotted over and did his leg-hug, and she picked him up. He patted her wet cheeks, saying unhappily, “No, no!”

  “Don’t worry, darling. Remember what I told you? It’s okay to cry.”

  Archie shook his head, not buying the psychological jargon, while she tried to pull herself together. In the background the tape player shrilled, “Bobby Shafto’s gone to sea, Silver buckles on his knee—”

  “I’m sorry, Mom—” Emily started to say, but I interrupted.

  “No, you’re quite right, I just can’t be in the same room with those two peacefully and I won’t try it again. I’ll check every time to be sure they aren’t here.” I heard Quin give a big, exasperated sigh, but I didn’t rise to the bait. “You interview your lawyer, and I’ll go down and talk to Peter. I haven’t heard his side of it yet, and if nothing else, he’d probably like to see a friendly face.”

  “Tell him I love him,” I heard her say as I opened the door, and I knew she was still crying because I heard Archie scold, in a scared little voice, “No, no—bad Mummy!”

  “How is Emily?” were the first words Peter said to me when we faced each other on either side of a plastic mesh barrier. He looked as haggard as I’d expected. I’d had to wait until noon for visiting hours, so I’d had a long walk, and when I returned they told me a couple of visitors had beaten me to him. About half past, two of the men I’d met last night came out, nodding to me as they passed. I’d forgotten their names already, but I recognized their faces, solemn now and worried.

  “She’s doing very well,” I answered, doing my best to keep my feelings out of my voice. “She and Quin are interviewing a lawyer this morning. He’s supposed to be really good. And she wanted me to tell you she loves you.”

  A momentary spasm of anguish crossed his face. “Tell her the same when you see her again. I keep thinking what this must be doing to her, and that’s as hard to bear as imprisonment.”

  “Tell me what happened, Peter. Maybe there’s something I can grab hold of, something that will point a way out of this nightmare. What about the other people who were in the Senior Common Room last night?”

  “Yes, Cyril’s been here this morning,” he answered, misunderstanding my meaning, “waiting outside when they opened the place, he and Geoffrey. They can’t understand this any better than I can.”

  “Right, Cyril Aubrey’s the chair of the department, isn’t he, and Geoffrey was your mentor?”

  “Yes.” He brushed his hair back with a trembling hand. “I keep wondering why Stone would stage his own death like that? Calling me, calling the police—”

  “Is that what you think happened? Do the police think it could have been suicide?”

  “No, they say that’s unlikely, from the way the knife—” He broke off, shuddering. “When I saw him, Catherine, all that blood, the look on his face—Do you know, I wasn’t even aware of the police until they were pinioning my arms? I hardly knew where I was.”

  “Okay, we’ve got a new possibility,” I said, grasping at straws. “However unlikely, he could have killed himself and schemed to lay the blame on you.”

  “It’s hard to credit. He always disliked me, disliked all the younger scholars who were coming up and displacing his generation. Claimed we were degrading the science of literary research, and when my book was so successful I came to symbolize all that to him. But isn’t it pretty ridiculous to think he’d have gone to the length of killing himself, just to destroy me?”

  “Maybe he had a fatal incurable disease. Did you ever see Rebecca?”

  He rubbed his forehead in distraction. “Rebecca? That Hitchcock film—oh, yes, I see what you mean. But that’s only fiction, Catherine.”

  “You can learn a lot from old movies. It’s the only reason I can think of to stage it himself. Well, if it’s true, it will come out. They’ll surely do an autopsy.”

  “An—Oh, a postmortem. I’ve no idea how these investigations work, but it seems logical that they would.”

  “I’ll find out. I’d been thinking of other possible suspects, but this is a more likely scenario, if they’re sure it’s his voice on the 999 tape.”

  “They say Perdita swears to it, and Geoffrey said they’ve asked him and Cyril to listen to it while they’re here and give their opinions too. I certainly had no doubt it was him when I got that call asking me to come to his house.”

  “Tell me about that. Tell me everything that happened.”

  “Emily and I went home, Quin came with us, as it was still early and he wanted to spend time with her. Janet was tired and went back to the hotel.”

  I sighed, remembering what a rush it had been, thinking that in one fell swoop I was both going to save Peter and give that woman what she deserved.

  “About an hour and a half later I answered the telephone and heard Stone asking me, almost ordering me, to come to his house immediately. He said he had received news that would be of great benefit to both of us, and to us alone. He sounded quite excited. It was certainly out of character for him, as I said he’d never showed interest in anything that might ben
efit me before. I must come alone, he said, and immediately. He would be waiting for me.”

  “What on earth could it have been? Do you have any idea?”

  “No, not one. At any rate, I went, and when I got there I found the doors standing open, both the front door and the entrance to his study. I stood in the hall for a minute and called his name. Then I went into the study and saw him. The shock froze me in place. I couldn’t take my eyes from him. I heard screaming, I’ve been told it was Perdita when she came down and saw us, but I don’t remember her. I only remember your face suddenly appearing at the door, and then the police were dragging me away.”

  He had broken out in a sweat, remembering it. My indignation had grown as I’d watched and listened to him—it was outrageous to think of this gentle scholar, dedicated to his poetry, his wife and child, on the way to trial for a violent killing. I had never even seen him lose his temper—well, only once, last night when Edgar Stone had bragged about trying to force himself on Emily. I stood up quickly, pushing that memory away.

  “Peter,” I said, holding his gaze with mine, “one way or another, we’re going to get you out of here, and I mean without going through a trial. When somebody is innocent there’s evidence of it somewhere, and all that’s needed is somebody who cares enough to find it.”

  He gave me a melancholy smile. “I hope you’re right, my dear. It’s some consolation, at least, to know I shan’t be broken on the rack like Thomas Kyd, or thrown into water to prove my innocence by floating. I’ve good friends, and sufficient money, and I live in a relatively civilized period of history. It’s possible I’ll sleep in my own bed again.”

  But he didn’t look as if he believed it.

  Later I walked up Magdalen Street to the point where it changes from a typical narrow, medieval Oxford street to a broad, tree-lined boulevard in the continental style, called St. Giles. If not for the Gothic shapes and gold Cotswold stone of the buildings lining it, you might think you were in Paris or Rome. A few yards along, I ducked out of the rain into my favorite pub, The Eagle and Child, for lunch.

  Even in my preoccupied state I felt the thrill I always got at sitting in the pub where C. S. Lewis and his pals the “Inklings” used to meet, where Tolkien first read The Lord of the Rings aloud to them. I always ate in the big, open room where they had met every morning, rather than one of the two small, more private rooms off the entrance hall, or the addition built on behind in recent years, all glass and pale wood. Old photographs of the Inklings hung above the dark wainscoting, one of them including Lewis’s doomed American wife leaning on her cane. Despite the success of the filmed versions of Tolkien’s epic, the “Bird and Baby,” as the regulars call it, has never been turned into a tourist trap. I did hear the accents of a few American pilgrims, but basically it is still an unassuming little “local” for those who want a warm, cozy place to eat classic pub food and drink good ale.

  I was lingering over my cheese and chutney sandwich and half pint of “Old Hooky” when a couple stopped beside my table and a familiar voice said, “I say, what’s happening to Peter? Have you seen him?”

  It was Tom Ivey, with the pretty dark-haired girl who had snubbed him at the gathering last night. She looked as if she had been crying for hours, with washed-out eyes and a red nose.

  “This is Gemma, my fiancée,” he told me. I thought I detected a certain detemined emphasis on the last word. I invited them to sit with me.

  “Peter’s pretty glum, but he’s hanging in there,” I told them.

  “How could Peter have hurt Edgar?” Gemma burst out bitterly. “He could upset people sometimes, but it was just his way, he didn’t mean anything by it, underneath he was—” Tears welled in her eyes, and she choked off, biting her lip.

  “Underneath he was a bastard!” Tom finished, going pink with anger. She turned to him indignantly, and he backed right down. “Please don’t be angry, darling. I know you can’t see it the way I do—not yet. Edgar could be very charming. I understand why you left me for him, really I do. And I’m sorry you’re grieving. I can wait until it gets easier for you, however long it takes.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said to me, mopping her cheeks with his handkerchief. “Edgar and I were—I just can’t understand how Peter could do that to him!”

  “He didn’t,” I said firmly. “You worked with him, didn’t you? How can you believe he could do such a thing?”

  “But the police have arrested him.” She stared at me in surprise. Her eyes were really beautiful, an unusual gray-green shade with long, luxuriant lashes.

  “It’s all a big mistake. We think he may have committed suicide and staged it so Peter would be blamed.”

  Swept away by incredulity, she actually laughed through her tears. “What do you mean, suicide? Edgar would never have done that! He had too much to live for. He and I were going to—Well, it doesn’t matter anymore, does it?” She sniffed back more tears. “I’ve heard him ridicule people who’d killed themselves—cowards, he called them. He always said that was the way his wife would choose one day, and he had nothing but contempt for his wife.” She leaned back, shaking her head scornfully. “No, Edgar was far too brave to go that way.”

  “And Peter is far too good a person to have killed him,” Tom put in, “which leaves us with the famous person or persons unknown, whose voice somehow sounds enough like Stone’s to fool his own wife.” He looked over at me and shook his head. “I don’t see how that could be.”

  He got up to give their order at the bar. She insisted she could not eat, he begged her to take just a little something to keep her strength up, and I got ready to leave. I liked Tom, but somebody needed to tell him a girl who had been so infatuated with a bully like Edgar Stone was not going to be won by servile adoration.

  I went back home for the afternoon and busied myself with household chores. When Muzzle began his plaintive serenade, I opened the back door and awaited his decision. He looked out at the steady rain for a few minutes, then shook his paw as if it were wet, glared up at me, and stalked back to the hearth rug. He always blamed me for bad weather.

  At about five o’clock I rang Emily. “Hi, is the coast clear?” I said.

  “Oh yes, they’re going out for the evening, to some posh French restaurant and then to a nightclub called Midtown Manhattan. I guess that’s as close as she can get to going home.”

  “A nightclub! He never liked that sort of thing, any more than I did.”

  “Well, it wasn’t his idea. But it will give us a chance to talk, if you want to come over.”

  “Right, I’m on my way. I’m going to make us some Cincinnati chili, and we’ll have a nice evening together with no interference from them.”

  She was sure she couldn’t eat anything, but I gathered up a box of spaghetti, cans of beans and tomatoes, some chocolate, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, turmeric, and cumin, an onion, and a block of cheddar cheese, the bizarre ingredients of a type of chili made only in my Ohio hometown. I stopped by Enid Cobb’s shop for half a pound of fresh ground sirloin on my way out of the village.

  “Don’t look good for Emily’s man,” she said gloomily as she made change. “Seemed a nice young chap too, who’d of thought he’d break out like that?” I didn’t let myself be drawn into an argument about it.

  The first sound I heard when I came into the apartment was that sugary voice singing about how she loved sixpence, jolly jolly sixpence. Archie didn’t even notice me for a minute, he was so absorbed in finding the right buttons to interrupt that song and rewind into the middle of “Oranges and Lemons.” When I called to him he looked up in surprise, threw his new treasure to the floor, and ran to hug me. He whooped, “Taypay, Nana!” and ran back to fast-forward into “Bobby Shafto.” “See?” he said to me, beaming.

  “Rose!” Emily called raggedly from the kitchen. She came into the living room as Rose emerged timidly from her bedroom. “Archie, why don’t you go to the nursery and show Rose how the tape player works?” Emily said. She had
obviously had all the interrupted nursery rhymes she could take.

  He shook his head. “No. See, Nana?” And off went the singer into the middle of another song.

  “Archie,” I said, “if you take the tape player in the other room for a while, I’ll give you candy.” I pulled out a little bag of what the English call boiled sweets, left in my jacket pocket from the last babysitting day. He grabbed for it, but I held it out to Rose, over his head.

  “Mother!” Emily exclaimed. “You can’t bribe children!”

  “Sure you can,” I said as he trotted eagerly after Rose to the nursery. “Works every time. Now,” I went on quickly while she continued to sputter, “come back in the kitchen and let’s visit while I fix us some comfort food. Remember how I used to make the chili for you when things were going wrong—when Charley the Dog died, when you lost the part in the school play? It was one dish you never turned down, however upset you were.”

  “This is a lot worse than those times,” she said sadly as we adjourned to their small kitchen. “This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. It’s even worse than when you and Dad split up.”

  “I know, darling.” I got out a big pot and started crumbling the meat into it. “I’m so glad I get to spend an evening with you, but I’m surprised your father would want to go out dancing at a time like this!”

  “I told you, he didn’t,” she said, jumping to his defense. “She did. She went along with us to see Mr. Billingsley, and she just—”

  “Oh, yes, the solicitor,” I interrupted eagerly. “How did that go?”

  “He seems very knowledgeable,” she said, frowning briefly at the interruption. “And I was relieved Dad was with me. He knew just how to talk about technical points of law, and he could evaluate Mr. Billingsley much better than I could have done.”

  “So is he going to defend Peter?”

  “Well, we engaged him, but he’s a solicitor, Mom, he only handles the out-of-court work. He’ll provide Peter with a barrister who’ll represent him at—at the trial.”