The superintendent screwed up his little pig eyes.
‘Pretended to deceive himself? Well, yes, I dare say you’re right. And who does that leave? Miss Rohan possibly. I could see her not needing a motive, being herself the madman that she and the reverend were so keen on. It’s not impossible.’
‘Has Mr Henderson been talking to you?’ said Mr Utamaro.
‘Oh, he thinks that, does he? He didn’t mention it to me. But in any case I don’t think it will wash. She wasn’t in her own room, I know, because the girls cleaned it, and they were about on the stairs and what not. She tried to tell me she’d got an alibi. I wouldn’t agree to that, but in point of fact if she wasn’t sitting out on the lawn then where was she?’
‘She was not on the lawn,’ Mr Utamaro said.
‘She wasn’t? You’re sure?’
‘I was out of doors myself at that time. There was a very heavy shower. Heavier than this though not so prolonged.’
The superintendent held out his hand and let the heavy raindrops from the lilac leaves splash on to it.
‘She showed no signs of having got wet, eh?’ he said. ‘She always seems to wear that same tweed costume. The weather was warm enough to sit out in that, and she’s got a neat look about her. A few drops of rain would be very noticeable. Is that it?’
‘Yes,’ said Mr Utamaro.
‘Oh, blast,’ said the superintendent, ‘I do believe this infernal rain has gone through my coat.’
‘You will get dry soon.’
‘After I’ve caught my death of cold. Fat lot of good being dry will be then.’
He looked gloomily at the heavy clod of soil on his foot.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘things are looking up a bit, I must admit. There’s one other little thing I’ve got on to as well. Young Henderson may be very hoity-toity about his integrity and what not. But I’ve caught him out in one whopping good lie.’
A gleam in the piggy eyes.
‘He told me he was in his room at the time of the murder,’ he said. ‘But it so happens that I know that just wasn’t so.’
He pushed his hat recklessly up.
‘Those two German girls did out the room,’ he said. ‘He wasn’t there. I wonder just where he was?’
Chapter 16
‘If we open this little window,’ said the blonde girl, ‘we shall be almost members of the tea party. I looked at it from the outside just now. There is a sheet of metal, perforated, on the other side. Quite excellent. We shall hear but be invisible. We have every right to be in the larder and the walls of the hut really are of paper, and they come only two yards away from the window.’
‘But do you think we ought to listen?’
‘Eavesdrop would be the better word. It conveys a definite suggestion of the reprehensible.’
‘Reprehensible is tadelnswert’
‘Exactly.’
‘But you wouldn’t want to do anything of that nature.’
‘Here, catch hold of this and pull. The window hasn’t been opened for years.’
Stifled grunts. The blonde girl swore.
‘It’s too hard,’ said the dark one. ‘It is a good thing. We aren’t meant to get it open.’
‘Pull.’
The plump arm and the lithe, pulling.
‘You have not the will to succeed,’ said the blonde. ‘Pull with effort.’
‘I am.’
‘Pull harder. If you don’t I will tell Mr Gerry you are ticklish.’
‘But no. You mustn’t. I –’
‘Ah, at last. I told you that if you pulled with real effort it would open. Now, out of the way and let me see if they are coming out.’
Silence.
‘Can you see anything?’ said the dark one.
‘I can see the door of the hut. No one has come so far. But there may be someone inside. I can’t hear anyone talking though.’
‘What if someone should come in here?’
‘Who is going to come in here? Be quiet I can’t hear.’
Another silence.
The dark girl looking at the door. The wide larder shelves. Mostly stocked with tins. Some packets of butter and margarine on the bottom marble slab.
‘Ah, here they come. All of them together. Mr Utamaro is showing them the way.’
The door of the larder opened quietly.
Superintendent Padbourne.
The dark girl’s eyes widening and widening.
A faint smile on the ferociously well shaved upper lip. A glint in the piggy eyes.
‘Now Mr Utamaro is ushering them into the hut Listen, you can hear every word.’
‘But you won’t,’ said the superintendent.
The blonde screamed.
‘Quiet, you little fool,’ said Superintendent Padbourne.
‘But –’she said.
The superintendent’s lips closed in a firm line.
‘Get out the pair of you,’ he said. ‘I’ll want a word with you later.’
The dark one who had crept towards the door vanished in an instant.
‘If we need some food from the larder …’ said the blonde.
‘Don’t you try any of that, my girl. Out.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Hangdog.
*
Mr Utamaro stepped into the little hut behind his guests.
‘Welcome,’ he said, ‘to the Zen tea ceremony, the cha no yu. You see there is nothing mysterious about it. This bare simple hut, the tea house, the chaseki, dedicated to this single use. No furniture except a few tatami, as we call these mats, on the floor. No complications. The walls plain paper screens, shoji.’
‘One feels it is exquisitely bare,’ said Miss Rohan.
‘Where are we going to sit?’ Gerry said.
Mr Utamaro grinned.
‘For this one afternoon you will have to make the effort to sit down without the aid of chairs, arm-rests, interior springing, horsehair padding or any of the complexities you are accustomed to. You will have to sit by itself.’
‘When I get back to civilization I’m going to start a brisk business exporting air cushions to Japan,’ Gerry said.
He lowered himself lopsidedly to the floor.
The others followed suit.
‘Naturally things will not be altogether as in Japan,’ said Mr Utamaro. ‘But the great tea master Sen No Rikdu has declared that if one has only a kettle the ceremony can be carried out. So we can be as in former days when the samurai used to leave their swords outside the hut and rest from their anxieties in a mental atmosphere as empty as the hut itself. They gave themselves over to a simple ritual with simple objects, a matter requiring no thought. I think there is a sword we would do well to leave outside ourselves.’
Mr Applecheek, sprawling over a large area of the floor, said:
‘An excellent idea, my dear chap, a truly excellent idea. If impractical.’
‘Ah, why not?’ said Jim Henderson.
Knees together, drawn up. But not hugged.
‘Why not? Sure, hasn’t that damned sword taken up too much time already? There are other things in this world. For instance, I’d be glad to know whether that alcove is or is not a shrine.’
Mr Utamaro smiled.
‘Has the life which denies it is a religion gods after all?’ he said.
‘All right,’ said Jim, ‘put it that way if you want to.’
‘Then let me remind you,’ said Mr Utamaro, ‘that Zen does not deny the existence of God. Neither does it affirm it. I spent a few days in Dublin on my way here and there I saw a public notice which seemed to me to be very good Zen. It read: The postmaster is neither obliged to give change nor authorized to refuse to do so.’
Jim grunted.
Mr Applecheek laughed.
‘I must work that into a sermon one day,’ he said. ‘A pity it illustrates your system rather than mine.’
Mr Utamaro left the hut and returned with a bundle of charcoal sticks. He put them ceremoniously into a small pit in the middle
of the hut at the bottom of which was a pile of embers. He knelt and blew at them and soon they glowed red-hot.
Honor, who had sat down more easily than the others, swung to her feet.
‘What’s in this shrine?’ she said. ‘Or is it a shrine? I don’t know where the question was supposed to have been left.’
‘That is what it is,’ Mr Utamaro said.
He blew steadily at his little smokeless fire. The fresh charcoal caught.
‘Well, what’s there?’ said Honor.
‘What do you see?’
‘A scroll of whitish parchment, or something of the sort. With a picture of a bird on it in black ink. Done with a few strokes only. And in front on a little shelf the vase you had the other day with a fresh piece of cherry blossom in it.’
‘The other began to die,’ said Mr Utamaro. ‘You should use only perfect specimens.’
Honor dropped to the ground again.
‘I suppose I’m to take that for an answer,’ she said.
‘What do you think, Mr Stuart?’ said Mr Utamaro.
‘Eh? I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening,’ Alasdair said.
‘We were talking about the artistic arrangement of that alcove,’ Honor said.
Alasdair looked up at it.
His heavy face redder than usual. Only the large fleshy nose standing out whitely.
‘Very nice,’ he said.
He dropped his head on to his knees.
‘We should never have drunk all that water at lunch,’ said Gerry. ‘Bound to affect you.’
Alasdair looked up. Sharply.
‘What do you mean?’ he said.
‘A joke,’ said Gerry. ‘J-O-K-E. Joke. You sawee?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Alasdair said.
‘All right, all right. You asked you know.’
Alasdair looked down at the mat beneath him again, and said no more.
Mr Utamaro brought in a squat kettle made of iron and placed it over his fire.
‘All the same,’ said Jim, ‘I’d like to get it clear what is the exact relation between Zen and Buddhism. You’re a mite evasive on that.’
Squatting easily beside the kettle watching the first strands of steam rise up, Mr Utamaro said:
‘Zen came out of Buddhism. Buddhism is there. To set out to destroy it or to reform it – as your Protestants reformed, as they say, your Catholicism – that would be to become involved, to see it distortedly.’
‘Splendid, splendid,’ said Mr Applecheek.
He thrust his left leg suddenly forward and rubbed it.
‘Splendid, a discussion on religion. Such a pity the thought of that poor girl keeps obtruding.’
‘Does it?’ Jim said.
A quick turn of the head. Quick and angry.
‘If you were meaning,’ he said ‘to put in the black word against me because I liked Flaveen and am ready to leave her ghost alone, then come out and say it.’
Mr Applecheek held up his hands in a fan of astonishment.
‘My dear fellow, nothing was further from my mind. Indeed, how true that is. The girl was on my mind, and nothing else. In this atmosphere one emerges a little from one’s immediate preoccupations. And what does one find? The fact facing us. One of our number killed that child.’
Mr Utamaro got to his feet again. One easy movement.
He went out, leaving them sitting on the straw mats. A little uneasy.
‘If you ask me,’ said Alasdair, ‘leaving us facing the fact of Flaveen’s death was the precise idea.’
An unexpected voice.
‘All this stuff about laying aside our cares,’ he said. ‘You don’t think our Nip friend is as simple as that, do you?’
Bile.
‘But why, why are we talking like this?’ Miss Rohan said. She raised herself from the ground a little and adjusted her position.
‘Why are we talking like this?’ she went on. ‘What Mr Utamaro said was so right. We ought to forget all that, at least for a little. We are entitled to some peace.’
Mr Utamaro came in again. He was carrying a plate with a dozen little pale cakes on it, under it were two large bowls, one in the other. He put them on the floor and went out again. Almost at once he came back in. This time he carried a small black lacquered box, a bamboo whisk and a bamboo ladle.
They watched him in silence.
‘What is a wall?’ he said.
Nobody attempted to answer.
‘A wall is a piece of paper,’ Mr Utamaro answered himself.
‘All right,’ said Alasdair.
Rising temper.
‘All right, so you heard what I said. Well, I don’t take it back, any of it. I think you invented this ghastly sham tea party to lull us into a sense of security so that you could work some big psychological trick. And I don’t think that’s very funny.’
‘Why should you mind being lulled, Mr Stuart?’ said Honor.
She stretched out on the floor, propping herself up on one elbow. At ease.
‘What do you mean?’ Alasdair said.
Honor smiled. Toothpaste smile.
‘Surely,’ she said, ‘the only one of us who ought to have any objections to being lulled into a false sense of security is the one who killed Flaveen.’
She looked at Alasdair. Unswerving eyes.
‘That’s not it at all,’ said Alasdair. ‘It’s simply utter nonsense to suppose I killed the girl. I’d scarcely even spoken to her. It’s just that I happen to object to being taken for a ride by anyone, no matter what mistaken ideas they’ve got.’
‘And they are mistaken?’ said Honor.
Unnaturally still.
‘Of course.’
‘You’ve nothing to hide?’
‘Nothing whatsoever.’
‘I see.’
She smiled again.
And turned away. A spark of malice in her eyes.
‘I don’t think the mere fact that someone scarcely spoke to Flaveen while she was here is proof of innocence at all,’ Jim said.
The flat Ulster voice.
‘I don’t think many of us spoke to her a great deal,’ Miss Rohan said. ‘You seemed to be the most friendly towards her, Mr Henderson.’
Jim turned his head and looked at her full in the face.
‘I was friendly,’ he said. ‘I happen not to be weighed down with a lot of old class prejudices. So there was no reason why I shouldn’t speak to her. It was obvious enough there were some who weren’t going to if they could help it.’
‘I scarcely spoke to her,’ Mr Applecheek said.
The cracked voice of age. An interposition.
‘I knew I ought to have done,’ he said. ‘The Church is out of touch with Youth nowadays. The papers say so. But for the life of me I couldn’t think what to talk to her about.’
He sighed.
‘There is something called rock and roll,’ he said, ‘but I don’t know what it is.’
‘Good old padre,’ said Gerry. ‘Make a joke of it. Always a cheerful word.’
‘Only it isn’t a joking matter,’ said Honor. ‘Is it, Mr Utamaro?’
Mr Utamaro watching the squat iron kettle, blowing occasionally at the charcoal fire. Without haste, without a deadline. With care.
‘Death is a joke,’ he said.
‘But I rather think it’s a joke you take pretty seriously,’ Honor said.
A request. A reaction sought.
‘Ah,’ said Mr Utamaro. ‘The water is boiling. Quiet now, and listen to the kettle singing. There are a few small pieces of metal in it. They make a little musical noise in the boiling water. A poet has compared it to the sound of a waterfall muffled by clouds.’
Nobody spoke.
The faint hiss of the fast rising steam and the tinkle of the metal in the kettle.
Mr Applecheek cautiously stretched out his right leg. Nobody else moved.
An intermittent high pitched note came from the kettle, rising a little, falling a little. The varying pressure
of the steam.
Everybody listened.
Mr Utamaro opened the black lacquered box and using the bamboo ladle spooned out some dark greenish powder and put it into the smaller of the two bowls. He then used the ladle to spoon boiling water from the kettle on to the powder.
A warm fragrance.
Mr Utamaro picked up the bamboo whisk, a simple stick with one end delicately cut into tendril splays, and vigorously worked at the tea.
‘A Chinese writer tells us that it should be a froth of liquid jade,’ he said.
‘It is certainly very interesting,’ Miss Rohan said.
Doubtful.
‘The ancient ceremonials of the east,’ said Mr Applecheek.
‘That green powder, was that the tea?’ Jim said.
‘It was,’ Mr Utamaro said.
‘I don’t like to think what a Belfast docker’s wife would say about it.’
‘Your British tea would provoke unusual comments in Japan,’ said Mr Utamaro.
‘Here,’ said Gerry, ‘no cups?’
‘It is customary to drink from the same bowl,’ Mr Utamaro said.
‘What a Naafi,’ said Gerry.
‘Are you looking forward to this strange brew, Mr Stuart?’ said Honor.
‘I’m perfectly prepared to try it,’ Alasdair said. ‘I pride myself on being not unadventurous in the matter of food.’
‘Are we right to talk?’ Miss Rohan said. ‘Ought the ceremony to be carried out in silence?’
‘No,’ said Mr Utamaro, ‘it induces friendly conversation.’
‘That’s pure tea, is it?’ Jim said. ‘There’s no question of the plant in that state containing any drug or anything?’
‘Have no fear,’ said Mr Utamaro. ‘Its effects are the same made this way as they are when good black tea is poured from a much used chipped enamel teapot. It is simply a reviving beverage. Do you know how the plant originated?’
‘It originated the way all other plants do,’ said Jim. ‘By the process of evolution.’
‘Quite wrong,’ Mr Utamaro said. ‘I will tell you what happened. One day Bodhidharma, the man who brought Zen to China from India, fell asleep while he was meditating. He was so angry when he woke that he cut off his eyelids and dropped them on the ground, and at once they took root and grew into the first tea bushes. Isn’t that a more likely account than your evolution, Mr Henderson?’
Zen there was Murder Page 18