Zen there was Murder

by H. R. F. Keating

  ‘It’s not exactly anything to be pleased about,’ said Jim from the far end of the table.

  Words from between clenched teeth.

  ‘But you’re quite right for the matter of that,’ he went on. ‘He has us in a cleft stick. What do words like justice, or even revenge, mean to him? There’s no way round at all.’

  ‘There are one or two things that have happened which are still unexplained,’ said Mr Utamaro. ‘But they make no difference.’

  Mr Applecheek clapped his hands gently together again.

  ‘If everyone has finished their pie I will ring for the next course,’ Mr Utamaro said.

  The door from the kitchens opened at once and the blonde German girl came in with a tray of pudding plates.

  Tinned plums and custard.

  *

  ‘I understand you want to see me,’ said Miss Rohan.

  ‘Yes, please come in,’ Mr Utamaro said.

  He got up from the plain kitchen chair in his small room with the high ceiling.

  ‘One moment,’ he said, ‘they have taken my second chair out. I will fetch it again.’

  He left the door open and walked quickly along the corridor to the meditation hall.

  Miss Rohan looked round his room.

  The single electric light bulb was burning. The broad panes in the narrow window reflected the tight pattern of the wallpaper and the emptiness of the room.

  Miss Rohan walked across to the window and stared out. In the light coming from behind her the thick mass of the cedar of Lebanon could just be made out. A wind had sprung up and its branches were tossing up and down restlessly. Miss Rohan shivered slightly.

  Mr Utamaro came back in carrying a second chair.

  ‘You are used to something more comfortable,’ he said.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Miss Rohan said.

  ‘You should not be indifferent all the same. When you sit you should sit with the whole self.’

  Miss Rohan sat on the second kitchen chair.

  ‘I’m afraid my mind is elsewhere,’ she said. ‘What did you want to see me about?’

  ‘I wanted to ask you a question.’

  She looked up at him sharply.

  Mr Utamaro sat down opposite her.

  ‘Well?’she said.

  ‘I wanted to ask you why you have been lying about where you were at the time of the murder.’

  ‘Why should you think I lied?’ Miss Rohan said.

  No indignation. Unrational hope.

  ‘You did not sit outside at that time as you told us you had done,’ Mr Utamaro said. ‘You forgot, I think, that there was an unusually sharp and heavy shower just then. I took shelter on my way back from the summer house at the top of the grounds but in spite of that I got quite wet. At lunchtime you were perfectly dry while I was still wet. Yet you were wearing exactly the same clothes as when I had seen you earlier.’

  ‘A shower,’ said Miss Rohan. ‘A heavy shower. I never even noticed it. But then I wouldn’t have done.’

  ‘Because you were indoors. But the rain must have made a noise on the windows. What other reason did you have for not noticing it at all?’

  In the little room the sound of the cedar branches threshing in the wind could be plainly heard. Mr Utamaro sat without the slightest movement. Miss Rohan opposite him sat still too. But twice she opened her mouth as if she was going to say something. The sound of her breathing was plainly audible.

  At last she spoke.

  ‘I don’t want to tell you,’ she said.

  ‘There is nothing to compel you,’ Mr Utamaro said, ‘but I think you will tell me.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Miss Rohan.

  A tear ran down her cheek. She quickly took out a handkerchief, white with a broderie anglaise edge, and wiped it away.

  She hung her head.

  ‘It was that book Mr Manvers talked about,’ she said. ‘The one about Indian sculpture. The erotic sculptures. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I was like a schoolgirl.’

  The muttered confession.

  ‘Oh, why does one do such things?’ she went on. ‘I was upset by that girl, she flaunted herself.’

  Miss Rohan raised her head and looked directly at Mr Utamaro.

  ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘I’m still making excuses for myself. And there are none.’

  Mr Utamaro sitting impassively.

  ‘I went up to my room,’ Miss Rohan went on, ‘and on my way I noticed that the door of Mr and Mrs Manvers’ room was ajar. I stood in my room and thought “It would be perfectly easy to slip in there and see if he really has got that book, I must know whether it exists.” And that’s what I did. And, yes, the book does exist.’

  She paused a moment and then said:

  ‘It was because I was looking at it that I didn’t notice the rain. And then when I got back to my own room I found the girls had been in and tidied it up. So later when we were all questioned about our whereabouts at just that time I had to say I was outside. I thought it was pretty safe to pick on that secluded lawn. I can see it from my window and I didn’t think anybody had been there. But I had no idea about the rain.’

  Mr Utamaro looked across at her. His unchanged expression.

  ‘And that was what you did?’ he said.

  ‘It was,’ said Miss Rohan. ‘You don’t think I did anything else, do you? You don’t think I killed that girl. Oh, I’ve thought about my responsibility over it. I’ve even asked myself whether I could have killed her without realizing what I was doing.’

  She stood up.

  ‘But I didn’t, you know,’ she said. ‘I may at times be at the mercy of thoughts I believed I would never have to own to, but I do retain some self-control. I did not kill Flaveen Mills.’

  Without looking at Mr Utamaro to see the effect of her words she opened the door and went out.

  *

  It took Mr Utamaro a quarter of an hour to find Jim Henderson. The others were spending the evening in the common room, but none of them knew where Jim was. Mr Utamaro found him in the library. The meditation hall. The scene of the crime.

  ‘Good evening,’ he said,’ I was looking for you.’

  Jim, who was sitting on one of the canvas chairs that were the sole furniture of the room, glanced up from his book.

  ‘I came in here because I wanted to work,’ he said. ‘That damned chatter gets me irritated.’

  ‘And you find you can work here?’ Mr Utamaro asked.

  Jim grinned.

  ‘I don’t to tell you the truth,’ he said. ‘I’ve been trying until I’m nearly destroyed with it, but I don’t get very far.’

  ‘If you have locked yourself in a rigid strait-jacket over her death, you cannot expect to be comfortable,’ Mr Utamaro said.

  ‘Just what do you know?’ said Jim.

  ‘I know who killed Flaveen Mills and what their reasons were,’ Mr Utamaro said.

  Jim looked speculative.

  ‘Surely,’ he said, ‘you don’t think that just because you’ve caught someone out in a lie that they killed her?’

  Mr Utamaro grinned.

  ‘Every one of you has told lies,’ he said. ‘If that was the only sign I had, any one of you could be the murderer. For instance, where were you at the time Miss Mills was killed?’

  ‘I’ve told the superintendent, and no doubt he’s told you that’s so friendly with him, that I was in my room.’

  Jim looked at Mr Utamaro steadily.

  ‘Sitting so quietly that the two girls who came in to clean never saw you?’ Mr Utamaro said.

  Jim’s book shut with a slam.

  ‘They went into my room?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I never thought of that.’

  ‘You are not much used to telling direct lies.’

  Jim frowned quickly.

  ‘I’m not much used to telling lies of any sort,’ he said.

  ‘But you are used to acting them,’ Mr Utamaro said.

  ‘What do you mean?’


  ‘That you live to a pattern, an attitude. It is bound to involve you with disputes with yourself as you really are. The ideal of integrity is something which doesn’t fit human behaviour. That is why you got yourself into this mess.’

  ‘Maybe it is. But now I’m in it I’m going to stay there.’

  ‘What were you doing at the time of the murder?’ said Mr Utamaro.

  ‘I refuse to say.’

  ‘I am giving you a chance of telling me.’

  ‘And I’m not taking it. You can tell that to your friend the superintendent. Let him arrest me if he wants. What I was doing then is my own business, and it’s staying that way.’

  Chapter 18

  ‘But how will I tell my parents?’ said the dark girl.

  A wail.

  ‘You will not have to tell your parents. Either the superintendent will carry out his threat and get in touch with them or he was only trying to frighten us. In the first case your parents will get to know of your shocking behaviour without you telling them, and in the second case all we have to do is to keep our nerve and say nothing.’

  ‘But if he does write to them?’

  ‘He writes to them, and they order us home at once.’

  A shrug.

  ‘And what about my chances in the exam? Unless I stay here the whole time I will not pass. I know I will not. It is different for you, you are so clever.’

  ‘Oh, do be quiet. Do you think I want to go home? Just as Mr Gerry is getting interested. He jumped on me as I was walking along the corridor after dinner.’

  ‘Oh, how awful.’

  ‘It was very nice.’

  ‘And what did he – what did he do?’

  The blonde one sighed and held out her hands wide.

  ‘He only said “Goodnight, kiddo”,’ she said.

  ‘I shall be glad when he has gone. With me all the time he wants to do more than say “Goodnight, kiddo”.’

  The blonde girl sat heavily on her bed. She put her chin in her hands.

  ‘I love him,’ she said. ‘That’s the truth.’

  ‘But he may be a murderer.’

  ‘I think he is. It is so romantic’

  ‘You think he is the one?’

  ‘Yes.’

  A deep sigh.

  ‘But how do you know? Have you found out something?’

  ‘No. But he is such a liar.’

  ‘Aren’t you ever going to finish getting ready for bed? I want to put the light out. We have to be up early, you know.’

  ‘Oh, put the light out. I will go along to the bathroom wearing only my pyjamas. Perhaps I will meet Mr Gerry.’

  *

  ‘I will let you out, superintendent,’ said Mr Utamaro. ‘Major Francis, the warden, asked me always to make sure the main door was locked after ten o’clock. I think I have forgotten to do it, but I may have remembered.’

  ‘After ten?’

  The superintendent looked sharply at Mr Utamaro as they walked along together towards the hall.

  Mr Utamaro smiled.

  ‘Major Francis thinks that a door is the way into a house,’ he said.’ There must be at least fifty windows here.’

  ‘Any one of which could have been easily opened in the middle of the night by whoever found out where Mr Applecheek put the sword after he had stolen it.’

  ‘Exactly, superintendent.’

  Mr Utamaro found that the heavy front door was locked. He took a key from under the doormat, unlocked it and swung it open.

  The superintendent glanced round the darkened hall, and said:

  ‘Step out with me a moment, would you? It’s quite a fine night and I want a few words with you.’

  They went out and stood on the wide steps leading down to the roughly gravelled drive. Mr Utamaro pulled the door to behind them. The superintendent looked up. The house above them was black and silent.

  ‘Have they gone to bed?’ he said.

  ‘I think so,’ said Mr Utamaro.

  ‘Not that I’ve any great secrets to tell you,’ the superintendent said. ‘But I prefer people not to know my business.’

  They stood in silence. The sky was dark blue and starry. A ragged cloud hurried across it. There was no moon. The wind had dropped a little. It came now only in fitful bursts making the invisible bushes protest every now and again before falling into silence.

  ‘If I only knew who the hell the girl was,’ said the superintendent. ‘But there’s no sign of a clue. Not a letter in her luggage, not an item of clothing marked with initials. One laundry mark: a big place in north-west London with thousands of customers. We traced it back to a woman who keeps cheap digs. But she took over the place eighteen months ago when the former landlady died and all the lodgers were new-comers.’

  ‘You have been busy,’ Mr Utamaro said.

  ‘There’s a lot of work in it,’ said the superintendent, ‘but it hasn’t got us anywhere. And we’re nearly through. Nothing on the sword. It was wiped clean of finger-prints. Nothing more from the post mortem. The blow wasn’t particularly well aimed but it must have killed her very quickly, and she wasn’t pregnant or anything. That’s all.’

  ‘And what else have you been doing?’

  ‘We’ve been into the backgrounds of all these people. They’re all what they say they are, as far as we can see. That chap Stuart was born Schneider and was a German, but there’s nothing to that.’

  ‘He told us,’ said Mr Utamaro.

  ‘Did he? I thought he would have killed to keep it quiet. They generally do.’

  ‘It came out.’

  ‘I see. And has anything else come out?’

  ‘Yes. Miss Rohan told me she was in the Manvers’ bedroom when she was meant to be sitting out on the back lawn.’

  ‘What was she doing in there, of all places?’ said the superintendent.

  ‘She was prying,’ said Mr Utamaro.

  ‘Oh, like that, eh? This makes a bit of difference. I thought she couldn’t have got upstairs because those German girls were about. But if she was upstairs all along … Now, if we can find a link between her and Flaveen we will be beginning to see daylight.’

  ‘But so far as you know there is no link?’

  ‘None at all.’

  ‘Then you have simply added one more to your list of suspects.’

  ‘Yes. It means a wider field to work on, but that increases our chance of hitting on something. We may pick up one of the former lodgers at that boarding house and get on to who the girl was that way. There’s still hope.’

  The superintendent stared into the darkness.

  ‘You’ve nothing more to tell me, I suppose?’ he said.

  ‘I have nothing to tell you,’ said Mr Utamaro.

  Without hesitation.

  *

  Mr Utamaro switched out the last light in the hall and set off in the thick darkness towards the stairs. He held out his right hand and it came into contact with the carved foot of the banister rail. He began to walk upstairs.

  From above him in the darkness there came a heavy creak.

  He stopped and called out:

  ‘Is anyone there?’

  No answer.

  Mr Utamaro walked quietly on up the broad stairs in the swathing darkness.

  When he reached the top he was able to hear the sound of subdued breathing.

  ‘Who is that?’

  An inquiry. Curiosity only. No impatience, no apprehension.

  An unanswered inquiry.

  ‘Who is it?’ said Mr Utamaro again. ‘I shall put the light on in a minute when I get to the switch so I will know who it is then in any case.’

  A sudden rush of heavy steps coming towards the stairhead. A heavy form lunging.

  The crack as it struck the newel post.

  Mr Utamaro standing quietly about a yard away said:

  ‘What is this nonsense?’

  His assailant made no reply.

  In the darkness heavy breathing and the faint creaking of the old wide floorboards.
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  Mr Utamaro set off towards the light switch a little way along the corridor. He moved without sound.

  A board groaned sharply under his weight.

  The rush of murderous steps.

  In the darkness Mr Utamaro misjudged his throw. A swinging fist caught him on the right ear and sent him staggering across the corridor.

  His opponent crashed into the wall, swung round quickly and lunged again.

  Fingers scrabbled at Mr Utamaro’s face. Gouging, tearing. Bestial. Merciless.

  A heavy body pressed quickly down on him trying to trap him against the wall.

  He stepped back under its force.

  And in a moment was standing calmly in the middle of the corridor as his assailant hit the wall with a smack of flesh against plaster.

  ‘I thought you would have learnt something from our encounter this afternoon, Mr Stuart,’ Mr Utamaro said.

  He made no attempt to reach the light switch three paces down the corridor.

  ‘Perhaps I have learnt something,’ said Alasdair.

  Mr Utamaro heard him scrambling up.

  And the faint swish of clothing moving fast through the air. He swayed to one side without moving his feet. Alasdair’s fist struck the wall.

  He cursed.

  ‘I think you had better stop,’ said Mr Utamaro. ‘You will wake people up.’

  ‘Do you think I care a damn for any of the collection of fakes and frauds you’ve got here?’ Alasdair said.

  A sudden rush across the corridor as he spoke the last words.

  ‘Then let me suggest that you stop this because you are not going to succeed,’ Mr Utamaro said from behind him.

  ‘Don’t be too sure of that,’ said Alasdair.

  ‘The odds are so heavy against you. You are angry and getting angrier. I am perfectly cool.’

  In the darkness Alasdair was silent.

  ‘Have a peppermint?’ he said.

  Mr Utamaro reached forward and touched a small packet Alasdair was holding out. He took a peppermint tablet from it.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  ‘I could have got you then,’ Alasdair said.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Perhaps not.’

  The sound of Alasdair crunching at one of the tablets in the darkness.