Zen there was Murder

by H. R. F. Keating

  ‘I would have done the same myself. An element of wrestling is always excellent. Go on.’

  ‘And then you came in.’

  ‘I am so sorry.’

  ‘No. I was never so glad to see anyone in all my life.’

  ‘Admirable sentiments. However we are not composing a letter to your parents.’

  ‘But you said you wouldn’t. You promised. You can’t –’

  ‘Quiet, quiet, my child. There will be no letter to your parents. After all it seems there has been, in the English idiom, nothing to write home about.’

  *

  Gerry found Mr Utamaro in his own room. He knocked, turned the handle without waiting for answer, clicked his heels, bowed round the edge of the half-open door, and said:

  ‘Was there something?’

  ‘Come in, Mr Manvers.’

  The inevitable chairs. Mr Utamaro facing the door, the empty chair facing the window behind him.

  ‘Let’s get right away from the gestapo touch, old boy,’ Gerry said.

  He picked up the chair near the door and plonked it beside Mr Utamaro’s. Mr Utamaro did not move.

  Gerry sat down, leant back and tilted his chair as far as it would go.

  ‘Now we’re palsy-walsy,’ he said. ‘What’s the trouble, old cock? Any little thing Gerry boy can do?’

  ‘How did you know that Mr Henderson stole the sword, Mr Manvers?’ Mr Utamaro said.

  With a bang Gerry’s chair came forward.

  ‘Jim Henderson steal the sword?’ he said. ‘Was that what happ – Or did –?’

  He paused. Tilted back in his chair again.

  ‘You’ve been taken for a ride, boy,’ he said. ‘Jim Henderson never stole that sword. Or if he did I know nothing about it. Flaveen must have passed on something I said to her for a bit of kidding. She was going on about the sword, and I thought she’d be easy game, so I told her I’d seen our Jim pinch it. She was a bit gone on him, you know, and I thought I’d gum up the works. Silly kid, she fell for the lot.’

  ‘I see,’ said Mr Utamaro. ‘And in the world of binding logic falsehood is mistaken for truth, because no one realizes they are the same thing, and the simple joke enters the domain of murder.’

  Gerry slowly brought his chair forward on to all its four legs. He stood up and took out a cigarette. As he lit it he said:

  ‘So what did you want to see me about?’

  ‘I asked you about the sword,’ Mr Utamaro said.

  ‘Yes, but you’ve just been talking to my wife.’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘And then you asked to see yours truly.’

  ‘Yours truly? I don’t quite understand.’

  ‘Common expression, old boy. Means oneself, yours truly, like on a letter.’

  ‘Ah, yours truly. A good phrase.’

  ‘It’s just something people say. I don’t know why.’

  ‘Perhaps it is because they are not true.’

  Gerry took his cigarette case from his pocket again, flicked it open, and held it out to Mr Utamaro.

  ‘I know you don’t carry’em, old boy,’ he said. ‘But do you ever relax and smoke O.P.s? Oh, oh, hold it, hold it. O.P.s. I’ll explain. I don’t want any dirty cracks arising from that. O.P.s equals Other People’s. Get it? No double meaning. Just a little joke.’

  ‘And at that moment a little joke was necessary?’ said Mr. Utamaro.

  Gerry snapped the cigarette case shut.

  ‘There you go again,’ he said. ‘I hate to tell you this, but you’re crackers, you know. Absolutely round the bend. Mad.’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ said Mr Utamaro.

  The bland face.

  ‘I am mad,’ Mr Utamaro went on, ‘because I do not subscribe to the conventions that govern your world. It must be difficult for you. But it cannot be changed.’

  Gerry sat down again. He looked at Mr Utamaro, and slowly blew out smoke from his cigarette.

  ‘But the question is,’ he said, ‘are you mad all the time?’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ Mr Utamaro said. ‘But sometimes, you will be sorry to hear, I behave as if I am sane. I act in accordance with the rules of your world by coincidence.’

  ‘As I thought. So just tell me why you wanted to see me, eh? What did Honor say to you?’

  ‘She told me she knew who had killed Flaveen Mills.’

  ‘Yes?’

  Guarded.

  ‘But she did not, of course, mention a name.’

  ‘Oh.’

  A pause.

  ‘No little hints?’ Gerry asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well that’s all right then. No harm done. She had me worried you know. You won’t believe this, but I have to look after her as if she was off her nut too, like a headshrinker who’s pretty sure the patient ought to be locked up but likes getting the cheque for the fees. She says the craziest things at times. And I’m the one who can’t be trusted not to make a charley of everything each time I open my mouth.’

  ‘So you are neither of you what you seem,’ Mr Utamaro said.

  ‘No. You’ve got it in one, boy. We aren’t what we seem. Still, if everything’s okay for the time being I’ll push off.’

  Gerry strolled over to the door. He put out a hand to the doorknob. It slipped round in his sweaty palm.

  He turned it and opened the door.

  Mr Utamaro looked at him.

  ‘Cheery-bye,’ said Gerry.

  ‘I shall see you later,’ Mr Utamaro said.

  ‘It’ll be a pleasure,’ said Gerry.

  He closed the door behind him quickly.

  *

  The dark girl came into the kitchen with a tray of dirty coffee cups.

  ‘Well,’ said the blonde one.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well, what are they doing? What are they talking about? Are they all there?’

  ‘Yes, they are all there.’

  ‘Then there’s been no arrest. Are they all talking to each other?’

  ‘They seemed to be.’

  ‘You must keep your eyes open when you see them all together like that. That is when you can learn things. Did you learn anything just now?’

  ‘No, they were sitting there like the students always do at coffee time.’

  ‘Oh, my poor child. There has been a murder. They are the suspects. And you say they looked like all the other students.’

  ‘But they did. You know they are not a lot of Halbstarke. No, wait. I know the English. Um. A lot of – It is to do with the clothes. Ah yes. Teddy Boys.’

  ‘Except that nowadays one says Teds only.’

  ‘Well, they are not a lot of Teds. They look like ordinary people.’

  ‘And what were those so ordinary people talking about?’

  ‘I didn’t listen.’

  ‘She didn’t listen.’

  ‘But wait, I remember now.’

  ‘So. What was it?’

  ‘They were talking about the weather.’

  ‘The weather. Oh, those English. No, a moment. They were talking quite loudly?’

  ‘Yes, I think they were. That is why I noticed what they were saying.’

  ‘Exactly. They were talking in loud voices about the weather. Have you noticed what the weather is like today?’

  ‘But of course. I always write in my diary an account of the weather.’

  ‘A very useful and commendable habit. And what are you going to write about today?’

  ‘It is mostly overcast with occasional sun, but not much.’

  ‘Good. And what were they saying about the weather exactly?’

  ‘Let me think. Yes. Miss Rohan said, “Isn’t it splendidly sunny for so early in the year.” I remember that.’

  ‘Good. And would you describe today as “splendidly sunny”?’

  ‘But it isn’t. It is hardly sunny at all.’

  ‘Excellent. And from this we deduce that they are at this instant no longer making loud and inaccurate remarks about the weather.’

  *
r />   ‘And have you been to see the superintendent, Mr Applecheek?’ said Miss Rohan.

  ‘Yes, indeed. I have been to see him, or rather I was summoned,’ Mr Applecheek said.

  ‘And what did you think of him?’ said Miss Rohan.

  She was sitting on one of the tubular chairs put into the common room to eke out the few battered utility armchairs. Her upright back.

  Mr Applecheek, his long body spread along one of the armchairs, answered:

  ‘Superintendent Padbourne? A splendid fellow, a splendid fellow. Just a little sharp now and again.’

  Mr Utamaro, also sitting in a tubular chair, leant forward.

  ‘Did you have much to tell him?’ he said.

  ‘Much to tell him? Well, I ought not to have had a great deal. We clergy are meant to be a little above the mêlée, you know. Ah, the ideal and the real.’

  ‘Did you tell him everything?’ Mr Utamaro said.

  ‘My dear chap, every blessed thing. In general terms, of course. You know, though I am a little High myself, frankly I discourage confession in my parishioners. I find it sometimes embarrassing. And when they insist, as alas there are always some that do, then I strictly enjoin the use of the most general terms. It’s the only way, the only way.’

  ‘So you spoke to the superintendent in the most general terms?’

  ‘My dear chap, you are almost as sharp as he is, almost.’

  Mr Utamaro looked round the room.

  ‘I have seen the superintendent, of course,’ he said, ‘and it turns out that he considers that I have an alibi. Has anyone else, I wonder?’

  The six faces.

  ‘I haven’t,’ Jim said.

  A challenge.

  ‘Nor I,’ said Mr Applecheek.

  From behind shelter.

  ‘And you’ll be delighted to hear I haven’t either,’ said Gerry.

  A dig.

  ‘I should be darned glad if I had,’ Alasdair said.

  A counterbalance.

  ‘And I, like Mr Utamaro, appear to be an impossibility,’ Honor said.

  A simple statement.

  ‘I’m afraid this was a point I found it necessary to disagree with the superintendent over,’ said Miss Rohan.

  ‘I hope he behaved like a gentleman,’ Alasdair said.

  ‘Oh yes, he was perfectly polite about it. But he made it plain that he refused to accept my word.’

  ‘I hope you are going to tell us more,’ Mr Applecheek said. ‘I must have my curiosity satisfied, I am too old to be patient.’

  ‘I have nothing to conceal, Father,’ said Miss Rohan. ‘I told the superintendent that I was sitting on that little lawn round past the big one at the back of the house. My room looks out over it instead of the cedar lawn. I found it freer from interruptions there.’

  ‘And someone knew you were there?’ said Mr Applecheek.

  With eagerness.

  ‘No, not exactly. But I understand those two girls, the Germans, were doing the bedrooms and were up and down the stairs all that part of the morning, so, in my view, I could not have left the lawn and gone upstairs unobserved. The superintendent didn’t agree.’

  ‘Deplorably legalistic, deplorably legalistic,’ said Mr Applecheek. ‘Even if he was right.’

  He sank back in the battered armchair, and closed his eyes.

  Mr Utamaro got up to carry his coffee cup, uncollected before, over to the table by the fireplace. As he passed Mr Applecheek he said quietly:

  ‘About Miss Rohan.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Mr Applecheek.

  He opened his eyes.

  ‘You told me you think of her as a lady of the sort one seldom finds nowadays.’

  ‘Yes?’

  The old clergyman looked up quickly. A spark of hope.

  ‘Remember this.’

  Mr Utamaro leant a little closer and whispered:

  ‘That is what is always said about people like Miss Rohan. Seldom found nowadays. I have met six of her in the few months I have been in England.’

  Mr Utamaro put his cup on the table and went back to his chair.

  ‘You’re certainly lucky,’ Alasdair said to Honor. ‘I presume if you have really got this alibi you’ll not have much more to do with our sharp little friend the superintendent.’

  ‘You don’t get on with him?’ Honor said.

  Alasdair helped himself to a peppermint from the box in his pocket.

  ‘It isn’t a question of getting on,’ he said. ‘He simply doesn’t carry the necessary intellectual guns. I tried to explain to him something about Zen, and he told me it must be a lot of nonsense.’

  ‘Was he rude?’ said Miss Rohan.

  ‘Well, I suppose not,’ Alasdair said. ‘I didn’t quote his exact words. He was pleasant enough about it, if you want to know. But it was quite plain that that was what he meant.’

  ‘You don’t need all that much intellect in his job,’ said Jim. ‘You need enough common sense to match what you hear from one source against what you hear from another. That’s all.’

  ‘That may be all right for dealing with I.R.A. hooligans,’ Alasdair said. ‘But let me assure you in a matter like this you need some understanding.’

  ‘Understanding nothing,’ said Jim. ‘You want just so much common sense plus a deal of will power.’

  ‘Will power?’ said Honor. ‘That’s an interesting notion.’

  ‘Yes, will power,’ Jim said. ‘I ought to know. I’ve had a battle of wills with your man already.’

  A sharp laugh from the clenched teeth.

  ‘Yes,’ Honor said, ‘I think you’ve got something. And would you say the superintendent possesses the necessary will power?’

  ‘He might,’ Jim said.

  ‘But I gather he hasn’t been able to break down your iron resolve,’ Alasdair said.

  He got up and walked quickly across to one of the tall windows.

  ‘My conscience is clear,’ Jim said. ‘So I’m no easy nut to crack. But if it wasn’t I wouldn’t like to face that man with something to hide.’

  Mr Applecheek slowly pulled himself out of his armchair.

  ‘All this talk about the superintendent has reminded me that I have a little matter to tell him,’ he said. ‘I think I had better go at once, otherwise I shall think of a reason for putting it off.’

  He smiled round at them, and drifted out. At the door a vague gesture.

  ‘I expect he did the dirty deed in a fit of absent-mindedness,’ said Gerry. ‘It’s just come back to him.’

  ‘Mr Manvers, I don’t think it’s a matter for joking,’ Miss Rohan said.

  ‘I’d give up if I were you,’ Gerry said. ‘Every time I open my mouth I put my foot in it. You just pretend not to hear.’

  ‘My dear Mr Manvers, if one hears one hears. One cannot pretend that what is there is not there.’

  ‘No, indeed,’ said Mr Utamaro.

  Under the bushy black eyebrows a twinkle.

  ‘All the same,’ Alasdair said, ‘I wonder what Mr Applecheek has got to say to the superintendent. Just what did he tell you, Mr Utamaro?’

  ‘We talked about Zen,’ Mr Utamaro said..

  ‘Hm. So, that can’t be it. He told us just now that he hadn’t got an alibi, didn’t he?’

  ‘My dear wife is the only one who has,’ Gerry said, ‘unless you count Miss Rohan.’

  ‘I think Mr Applecheek told me he was in his room during the period it – at the time in question,’ Miss Rohan said. ‘I would consider that an alibi.’

  ‘I was up in my room come to that,’ Jim said.

  ‘Gerry wasn’t in his room,’ Gerry said. ‘He was prowling about the garden with no one to look after him. So he would just have had time to pop in and – All right Miss R. I won’t say it, I won’t say it.’

  ‘So we come back to what Mr Applecheek is telling the superintendent,’ Alasdair said. ‘Just on the other side of that wall.’

  He looked at the blank wall at the far end of the room. The faded pa
int of the panelling. A tracery of fine cracks.

  The door opened tentatively. Mr Applecheek put his head round it. His long neck. The folds of loose skin.

  ‘Miss Rohan,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you the superintendent would like a word with you.’

  Chapter 15

  ‘In England,’ said the blonde girl, ‘even the police in the middle of a murder investigation observe scrupulously the laws of class distinctions. That is a fact which you would do well to note. It would fit in excellently when you write your general essay paper.’

  ‘How do you know this?’ the dark one said.

  ‘Because when Superintendent Padbourne was in the middle of questioning me again about the times we had been cleaning the various students’ rooms on the morning of the crime Mr Applecheek came in, and at once I was sent out.’

  ‘But he is a pastor. It is the respect due to his cloth.’

  ‘No. In England all clergymen are before anything, as they say, gentlemen. It was as a gentleman that he was given preference over me as a servant. Make a note of it.’

  ‘All the same it is not certain.’

  ‘Very well then. How do you account for this? I decided to wait outside the warden’s office in case Mr Applecheek should be quick and the superintendent should want to continue asking me questions.’

  ‘And you listened at the door? Oh, how could you? Anyone might have come out of the common room and seen you.’

  ‘Pfui. This constant concern with respectability. It will hamper you gravely in life. Especially in getting a husband. And in any case what I was going to tell you has nothing to do with listening at doors.’

  ‘I am sorry. I misjudged you. But you did once want to listen to what Mr Gerry was saying to Mr Utamaro.’

  ‘Unfortunately the door of the warden’s office is extremely thick.’

  ‘Then you did listen.’

  ‘But I didn’t hear anything, so I could not have been doing wrong, could I?’

  The dark girl’s eyes clouded in thought.

  ‘But the intention to do wrong existed,’ she said. ‘And it is, after all, the intention –’

  ‘A11 right, all right. You must try and curb this passion for dialectics. It is worse than respectability.’

  ‘I am sorry. But what in that case was it that gave you your theory of the English class system?’

  ‘It is quite simple. As I expected, Mr Applecheek was with the superintendent for only a short time. But when he came out, was my interview resumed? It was not. Again the priority went to someone supposedly of a higher class. Miss Rohan was called in and I had to wait.’