Zen there was Murder

by H. R. F. Keating

  The calendar registered the day on which Major Francis, Warden, had begun his leave. A large printed calendar, hanging on the back of the door, had the days neatly crossed out up to the same date.

  Superintendent Padbourne took the swivel chair at the table. He gestured towards the bentwood chair that completed the office furnishings and said:

  ‘Please sit down. Er – that is if you want a chair’

  Mr Utamaro sat on the bentwood chair.

  ‘What can I do to help you?’ he said.

  ‘Miss Mills was last seen alive by Miss Rohan just before 12.30 p.m. yesterday,’ Superintendent Padbourne said. ‘The doctor tells me that she must have been dead by at least 1.30 p.m. What were you doing between those times?’

  ‘I think I can answer that without any trouble,’ Mr Utamaro said. ‘I saw Miss Rohan a few moments after she had last seen Miss Milts. I was standing in the hall and she complained to me of Miss Mills’ behaviour.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mr Manvers joined us and told me he was looking for his wife. I said I was going to take a walk and would keep an eye out for her. I walked all the way to the top of the grounds, which took about ten minutes. And there I had a conversation with Mrs Manvers whom I found in the little summer house in the spinney. Mr Manvers eventually joined us, and I continued my walk and came back to the house when it was lunch time.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the superintendent again. ‘As it so happens almost all that has been confirmed by those two German girls who watched you from various upper windows as they went about their work. They seemed to have precious little else to do. It means, as I thought, that I can leave you out of account in my investigation. And, what’s more important, it means that I can call on you to cooperate.’

  ‘You can call,’ said Mr Utamaro. ‘But will I answer?’

  Superintendent Padbourne’s small eyes went suddenly smaller.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘That you may find me not as helpful as you expect.’

  ‘But – But why not? Are you telling me you intend to obstruct the course of justice? You may not hold British nation-ality, but, let me tell you, your duty in this matter is quite plain. You are to assist the police in any way reasonably in your power.’

  Mr Utamaro grinned.

  ‘I have upset you, superintendent,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, sir, you have. I make no bones about it. Flagrantly to suggest that wou will conceal information: it may be well enough in Japan – I don’t know how the police conduct themselves there – but let me make it perfectly clear here and now, it won’t do in England.’

  Mr Utamaro grinned again.

  ‘I am afraid I intended to upset you,’ he said.

  ‘You intended to upset me?’

  Incredulity.

  ‘Yes, I wanted to make you understand from the start. It is what you would call fair that you should know. You see, superintendent, I have trained my mind to the point where such things as the idea of justice, the notion of a citizen’s duty, the concept of illegality, all mean nothing to me. If you understand that, you will know where you are. And that is important.’

  ‘We’ll get this straight,’ said the superintendent.

  Piggy eyes fixed on Mr Utamaro.

  ‘You are telling me that in certain circumstances you would do all you could to prevent me arresting a murderer?’

  ‘No, I am not saying that. Though it might prove to be true. You see, even logic means nothing to me.’

  ‘Stop.’

  The superintendent held up his right hand.

  ‘Now listen,’ he said, ‘I don’t happen to have had any experience of the Far East, but naturally I’ve read about your mystics and the sort of thing they do. All right, all that is beyond me, but I suppose it means a lot to you. But, understand this much, when you’re over here it won’t wash. You’ll have to drop it. You’ll have to go by the rules of plain, ordinary commonsense for a bit.’

  ‘But, superintendent, that is impossible. I cannot go back to a state of mind which I have sloughed off.’

  ‘If you’ll excuse me, sir,’ said the superintendent, ‘that’s simply nonsense. I’m not asking you to perform any wonderful mental feat. All I’m asking is that in any dealings between us you should apply the ordinary rules of simple logic. They exist all the time, whether you choose to abide by them or not. And as far as your relations with me are concerned I insist that you do abide by them.’

  ‘I am sorry, superintendent,’ said Mr Utamaro, ‘but you might as well insist that a blind man uses the ordinary rules of seeing.’

  ‘If in the course of an investigation I came across a man who had nothing physically wrong with his eyes and who merely preferred not to use them I would insist that he obeyed the ordinary rules of seeing if that was going to help me. Please re-member that. Deliberately obstructing the police in the course of their duties is an offence. You could land yourself in prison.’

  Mr Utamaro smiled.

  ‘It would not make any difference to me,’ he said.

  ‘We’d see about that,’ said the superintendent. ‘When a man knows he is to go to prison in a week it has a wonderful effect on his memory.’

  ‘We must hope it won’t come to that,’ said Mr Utamaro. ‘I have warned you what the worst may be, but a Zen enlightened man lives with what comes to hand. A riddle has been thrust in my face. I take it up.’

  ‘Oh, so now you intend to solve this case by the exercise of your mystic powers while the poor policemen plod along and get nowhere?’

  ‘There are no mystic powers, superintendent. The only advantages I have are that, first, I am not trammelled by notions of logic and so I see facts for what they are and not for what they ought to be, and, second, that I have already studied the people you must suspect.’

  ‘Ah,’ said the superintendent, ‘now perhaps we’re getting somewhere. That’s my difficulty. These people have no connexion with this place or with each other, and yet one of them stole that sword to kill the girl with. That’s premeditation if you like. On the face of it there’s no reason why any of them should have killed her. Of course, I’m having inquiries made and something may come to light which shows a definite connexion between the girl and one of them. Then we shall be on our way. But it’s only fair to tell you that first results are disappointing. The question is: have you done any better? I don’t deny it’s possible. And, if you have, are you going to let me know what you’ve found out?’

  ‘Of course I am.’

  The piggy eyes blinked rapidly.

  ‘All right,’ said the superintendent, ‘I give it up. You may help me or you may not. I’ll just stand by and be grateful for whatever crumbs you let me pick up. Very well. But I’m warning you: if you get hold of something which it is your duty to report and don’t report it I’m taking action at once.’

  ‘That is tomorrow,’ said Mr Utamaro, ‘and tomorrow the murder may not have been committed.’

  The superintendent looked at him. A moment of concentration.

  ‘Certainly the full result of the post-mortem is not to hand,’ he said. ‘But I think I’ll be investigating murder tomorrow just the same. As to what victim we shall have, that’s another matter.’

  ‘So you haven’t found out very much about Miss Mills?’ said Mr Utamaro.

  ‘I suppose this is one way of conducting an inquiry,’ the superintendent said. ‘I seem to get down to what I want to know in the end. But if I ever find I haven’t time for oriental fandangos you’d better drop it quick. As for your question, we haven’t found out very much about Miss Mills. In fact we’ve found out nothing. Nothing at all.’

  ‘Which is something.’

  ‘All right, play it your way. Which is something. Something that needs explaining, if I’m not mistaken. She told young Henderson that she had no address, apparently. She had been in some digs somewhere and gave them up to save money when she came down here. He told me that much before he got on his high horse.’

&nb
sp; ‘Ah, yes,’ said Mr Utamaro, ‘Mr Henderson’s high horse. I asked him if he would dismount but he preferred to ride on. All the same I think if you give it some thought that particular horse will turn out not to be a horse at all.’

  ‘I take it you’re saying no more.’

  ‘There is no need.’

  ‘All right, I won’t press it this time. Can you tell me anything about the girl?’

  Mr Utamaro considered.

  ‘She was not very interested in Zen,’ he said.

  ‘She wasn’t, was she? Then there is some mystery or other there. I dare say a little patient work will bring it to light. Though there are plenty of people in this country who could disappear without anyone wanting to know what’s happened to them. Still, we shall see. Now, anyone else a dull pupil?’

  ‘Mr Manvers is unwilling more obviously than the others.’

  ‘Yes, though that’s capable of explanation. In fact I’ve had plenty from Mrs M. already. Now, about her, can you tell –’

  Running steps along the corridor. The door jerked wide open. Honor Manvers.

  She stood grasping the doorknob with her hand held rigid at an awkward angle. Her hair was disarranged. A black smudge ran from just under her left ear across to about an inch away from her nose.

  ‘Mr Utamaro,’ she said, ‘I wanted you.’

  Chapter 14

  Unexpectedly Superintendent Padbourne stood up.

  ‘I’m just off,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I’ll see you later, Mr Utamaro.’

  His left eye closed in a rapid wink.

  ‘Is there such a thing as later, superintendent?’ said Mr Utamaro.

  But the superintendent left them hastily – discreetly – without answering.

  ‘How does he get on with Zen?’ said Honor.

  ‘He is very far away,’ Mr Utamaro said. ‘And so he may be quite near.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought a Zen policeman would be a great success,’ Honor said.

  ‘It is possible to seek satori, to live on satori, and still move in the world, and successfully too,’ said Mr Utamaro.

  ‘Is it?’ Honor said. ‘I suppose it may be.’

  Distant.

  Mr Utamaro said nothing and looked at her. Standing with his shaven bullet head thrust forward from between his heavy shoulders.

  Silence in the room with the pigeon holes and the charts and the lists on the walls.

  ‘I’m glad the superintendent went,’ Honor said at last. ‘I particularly wanted to avoid him.’

  ‘He seemed as anxious to get away from you as you from him,’ Mr Utamaro said.

  The bland, blank face.

  ‘Yes,’ said Honor.

  Still distant. An inner debate. Not at the vote stage, quite.

  Honor slowly closed the door.

  ‘I’ve got something I want to tell you,’ she said.

  ‘There is nothing to stop you speaking. I cannot promise to listen.’

  ‘But you must.’

  A sudden flare.

  ‘You must. This is important. I know who killed that girl.’

  ‘Miss Flaveen Mills?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Who else could I be speaking of?’

  ‘Almost anybody.’

  Honor frowned. She flung herself down in the bentwood chair on which Mr Utamaro had been sitting, and looked up at him.

  ‘I don’t understand you,’ she said.

  ‘But I wonder if I do understand you?’ said Mr Utamaro. ‘You speak of “that girl” as if you didn’t wish to admit her identity.’

  ‘It was just a phrase. What nonsense is this?’

  Honor stood up. Abruptly. Jerkily.

  ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I happened to use one form of words rather than another. That’s all. There’s nothing to it.’

  ‘But they were the words you chose,’ Mr Utamaro said.

  Honor whirled round and took hold of her chair back.

  ‘Don’t you want to know who it is?’ she said. ‘For heaven’s sake, I tell you I know who murdered that – who murdered Flaveen and all you do is quibble over the wording.’

  ‘You told me you knew who the murderer was,’ said Mr Utamaro. ‘You mentioned nothing about telling me the name.’

  Honor picked her handbag off the warden’s desk where she had let it fall when she first sat down. She was suddenly moving with deliberation.

  She opened the bag, peered into it, took out a packet of cigarettes and a black holder.

  ‘You don’t smoke, Mr Utamaro, do you?’ she said.

  ‘I tried one when I first came to Europe,’ Mr Utamaro said. ‘I thought it would Europeanize me, but it made me sick.’

  Honor lit her cigarette with the lighter she had found after scrabbling in the depths of her bag. She sat on the corner of the warden’s desk, inhaled deeply and blew out a cloud of grey smoke.

  The-warden’s ‘in’ tray was displaced two inches. Mr Utamaro looked perturbed.

  ‘You’re quite right,’ Honor said. ‘I mentioned nothing about telling you the name. And of course I’m not going to tell you. How did you know? There are times when you frighten me.’

  Mr Utamaro grinned. The stump teeth.

  ‘Of course I frighten you,’ he said. ‘Your business is to build up fantasies because you think facts are too hard to bear. I look at facts.’

  ‘But how did you know I wasn’t going to tell you the name?’

  ‘Because of what you said. You said you knew who killed Miss Mills. The fact of your knowledge was what you wanted to tell me. If you had wanted so urgently to tell me something else you would have said something else.’

  ‘Well,’ said Honor, ‘are you going to ask me who it is now?’

  Bristling.

  ‘No,’ said Mr Utamaro.

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’

  Honor slid off the warden’s table. She walked across and looked out of the single narrow window. Then she turned round.

  ‘At least let me tell you something,’ she said.

  ‘There is nothing to stop you.’

  Mr Utamaro carefully put the warden’s ‘in’ tray back to its exact place.

  Honor marched up to him and stood, her face thrust towards his, glaring at him.

  ‘All right. I told you I knew who the murderer is for one very good reason. And for the same good reason I’m not telling you the name.’

  Mr Utamaro stood looking at her face close to his. The savage lipstick, the make-up half concealing sharp lines.

  ‘And that reason is,’ Honor went on, ‘that I want a scoop for The World. I’m not telling a soul till I can go to the police with something they can’t ignore and come to an arrangement with them. But I must have a watertight case or the police won’t play. So I’ve got to tell someone I can trust what I’m doing in case anything goes wrong, and you’re the only one of us I can be sure is innocent, if I have made a mistake.’

  ‘Innocent,’ said Mr Utamaro. ‘No one is innocent. Each jewel in the net contains the reflection of all the others.’

  *

  The blonde girl flung open the door.

  Eyes suddenly wide. Mouth wider.

  ‘Mr Gerry,’ she said, ‘what are you doing in our bedroom?’

  ‘Aha, that’d be telling, as the actress said to the bishop,’ said Gerry.

  ‘But Mr Utamaro wants you at once. He sent me to find you.’

  ‘And little did you think you’d catch me bending here, eh? And what does old Utey want?’

  The perfect unconcern. The changed subject.

  ‘I do not know. I am here only as domestic help. I am not told anything. It was simply that I saw him leaving the warden’s office with Mrs Manvers, and when she went away he said to me “I wonder if you could find Mr Manvers quickly for me?”’

  ‘He said quickly?’

  ‘Yes. So I came up here to ask my colleague if she had seen–’

  ‘And little did you think etcetera. We’re back where we came in. Ta, ta, both,’ said Gerry.

>   Neither girl spoke.

  Gerry closed the door with elaborate slowness, jerked it open again, put his head round it and said:

  ‘Caught you.’

  He bobbed out. The girls looked at the door for two minutes in silence. Then the dark one said:

  ‘What did he mean about the bishop? I do not understand.’

  ‘You do not understand. That is good. So I do not understand either. What is Mr Gerry doing in here with you?’

  ‘Aber – aber das ist nicht leicht zu erklären.’

  ‘Stop. Remember it was you who begged to have a pact always to speak in English. Always or not at all.’

  ‘But it is not easy to explain.’

  Tears hanging in the dark lashes.

  ‘No, I am sure of that. But all the same an explanation there must be.’

  ‘No, it is too hard. I cannot.’

  ‘Then it will be my sad duty to inform your parents.’

  A deep sigh. The blonde head nodding to and fro so gravely.

  ‘But no, no. Oh, you mustn’t. You mustn’t. Swear to me you won’t. I will do anything, anything.’

  ‘Then I shall have to hear it all. Down to the least detail. It won’t be very nice for me, I know. But it is my duty.’

  The back straightened. The corners of the mouth pulled down.

  ‘Then I will tell you. It was about ten minutes ago.’

  ‘Ten minutes. Such a short time.’

  ‘A short time?’

  ‘Yes. If you have only ten minutes to explain, it is hardly worth while.’

  ‘But Mr Gerry chased me.’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘But I ran in here.’

  ‘Quite commendable.’

  ‘But he pushed the door open before I could lock it.’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘But he kissed me.’

  ‘How many times?’

  ‘Only once. I pushed him away.’