‘The end?’
‘For the arrest’
‘But is there going to be an arrest?’
The blonde shrugged.
‘Who knows? Perhaps there never will be one. But that telephone is not ringing for nothing. That Superintendent Padbourne is making inquiries about all these people. He has already found out what a liar Mr Gerry is.’
‘How do you know? Is Mr Gerry going to be arrested?’
‘You don’t think you get arrested for being a liar, do you? Not even in England.’
‘But how do you know he has found out that Mr Gerry is a liar?’
‘That wouldn’t be very difficult. Almost eveiything Mr Gerry says is a lie.’
The dark girl said no more. Her eyes clouded with thought.
The blonde one peeled another potato. The thick strips of skin slipping through the slot of the peeler. She finished and dropped the potato into the bowl with a splash.
‘Come on,’ she said, ‘you are doing nothing. All this lot has got to be done yet, and if we give them another tin of peas today there will be complaints. We ought to prepare some cabbage.’
The dark one picked up a potato and began to peel it slowly.
‘Well,’ said the blonde, ‘what are you thinking about? It must be something serious to stop you working like this. You are usually the one who is so conscientious.’
‘Mr Gerry,’ said the dark one, ‘are you sure that everything he says is a lie?’
The blonde laughed. A gurgle of scorn.
‘Every word,’ she said.
The dark one was silent again. Furiously peeling away at the remaining potatoes.
‘Why do you ask?’ said the blonde. ‘Has he been saying anything to you?’
Sharp. Suspicious.
‘No,’ said the dark one. ‘I won’t let him say anything to me.
The filthy liar.’
The blonde eyebrows raised above the malicious blue eyes.
*
Mr Utamaro entered the warden’s office. The pigeon holes, the graphs, the charts.
The superintendent was sitting at the desk. A sergeant in uniform stood by it gathering up papers and putting them into a pale blue cardboard file.
‘Ah, there you are, Mr Utamaro,’ said the superintendent. ‘I wanted just a word with you. All right, sergeant?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said the sergeant.
He put the last sheet of paper in the file, tucked it under his arm, and went out. The warden’s table bare again.
‘Please sit down,’ said the superintendent.
Mr Utamaro sat in the bentwood chair, his hands resting lightly on his thighs. Waiting.
‘I gather you persuaded young Henderson to talk,’ the superintendent said.
The piggy eyes fixed on Mr Utamaro.
‘The time came to make him see how foolish he was being,’ Mr Utamaro said.
‘I dare say. You realize that we’ve now got to the situation where logically the murder didn’t happen?’
Mr Utamaro laughed.
‘This happens to be a serious business,’ the superintendent said.
Angrily.
Mr Utamaro said nothing.
‘Now listen to me,’ Superintendent Padbourne went on. ‘Up to now the picture of the crime has been quite clear. The girl was in her room, quite accountably at that time of day. And between 12.27 when Miss Rohan saw her leaning out of the window, and lunch time at about 1 p.m. when everybody – except the Manvers, who have been accounted for – met in the dining room, she was killed. No doubt in her room. All right?’
Mr Utamaro grinned. The row of strong broad teeth.
‘Oh go on, laugh,’ said the superintendent. ‘I know now it can’t be right, but until Henderson came out with his party piece it seemed the reasonable timetable of events.’
‘Reasonable,’ said Mr Utamaro. ‘That is what you should suspect, superintendent. Reason, there is your criminal.’
‘Listen,’ said the superintendent. ‘Tell me how the girl was killed. Just tell me how. I’ll believe anything you say. You know Henderson’s story? Apparently his appointment with that little drab was at 12.30 and he made a point of keeping it to the minute. He wasn’t going to be late in case she stood him up, and he wasn’t going to be early in case he offended her. So he waited downstairs till just before 12.29, and then he went straight up to her room. He knocked. There was no answer. He tried the door. It opened. He decided to go in and wait for her. He waited. No one ever came and at one o’clock he went to see if she was having lunch.’
‘Then you have two minutes,’ said Mr Utamaro.
‘Two minutes at the outside, mark you,’ said the superintendent. ‘And you’re not going to convince me that in that time somebody came into the room, said something to her so that she left the window and faced them, plunged that sword into her, wiped the handle, wiped away traces of blood – we found slight signs there, it pretty well proves that’s where she died – and then carried the body across the corridor, first making sure nobody was coming, and dumped it over the gallery of the library, first making sure no one was in the library below. All in two minutes at the very outside.’
‘So what do you think?’ asked Mr Utamaro.
‘I don’t know what to think. I’ve even wondered if – No, I won’t countenance it. There’s some explanation. There’s bound to be.’
Mr Utamaro smiled.
‘What did you wonder, superintendent?’
‘Never mind what I wondered. I’m here to deal with facts. And there’s another fact I’ve discovered that I’d like to hear your views on. Luckily this time it’s a bit more straightforward.’
‘And what is that?’
‘Just this. In the course of my duties I’ve been over the whole of the top corridor with the bedrooms off it pretty thoroughly. I’ve made some interesting discoveries. For instance, I was able to confirm Miss Rohan’s statement about that book. It’s not the sort of thing I should like to think of my wife getting to see. But that’s not what I wanted to ask you about.’
Mr Utamaro sitting passively in the bentwood chair.
‘It’s something I found in Stuart’s room,’ said the superintendent.
Mr Utamaro smiled slightly.
‘It was obviously intended to be hidden,’ the superintendent went on, ‘but it would take more than him to hide anything from me.’
The pudgy hands clenched.
‘It was an empty rum bottle,’ he said. ‘There was a drop still swilling about in it and I checked that it was what the label said it was. Now, this is the odd thing about it: it was cheap rum and it was very sweet rum.’
‘Rum is a spirit, is it not?’ said Mr Utamaro. ‘I am not very familiar with European drinks.’
‘Yes,’ said the superintendent, ‘it’s a spirit. But it’s not a spirit that’s drunk a great deal in the sort of circles Mr Stuart moves in. They go in for whisky on the whole. Or perhaps brandy. And if they do drink rum they don’t choose that sort. Does this suggest anything to you?’
‘If it is a drink it is for drinking,’ said Mr Utamaro.
‘For drinking? You think he did drink it? I rather thought so myself. A secret drinker.’
‘There are no secrets,’ said Mr Utamaro.’Sometimes people deceive themselves into thinking something will never be known. But they forget that you cannot divide one thing from another and hide it. It is plain to see that Mr Gtuart drinks. You can tell it from his moods. He is subject to great fits of depression and then he goes away and comes back a little later in a very aggressive frame of mind. And after a bit this turns to a strong irritability.’
‘Matter of impressions,’ said the superintendent. ‘I prefer the solid evidence of the empty bottle.’
‘And of the peppermints,’ said Mr Utamaro.
‘The peppermints? Oh, you mean he eats those peppermints to disguise the smell. Damn it, he even offered me one.’
High dudgeon.
‘I am hoping that quite soon he will
come to terms with himself,’ said Mr Utamaro. ‘He is one of my star pupils, you know. He is making great progress. But he has still to bring himself to admit this drinking. That is why I have had to keep silent about it. So that he can say it first. And I think that sooner or later he will.’
‘I’m not at all sure that that isn’t concealing facts which I’ve a right to know,’ said the superintendent.
‘Perhaps it was.’
‘If I could be sure that was all.’
The superintendent stopped. He snapped his mouth shut. Too much said.
‘If you could be sure that was all?’ asked Mr Utamaro. A smile hovering in his eyes. The superintendent stood up.
‘Well,’ he said,’ thank you very much for your opinion about Stuart, and I think that will be all.’ Mr Utamaro got up and went grinning to the door. As he took hold of the knob the superintendent said: ‘What’s so funny?’
‘To the man who sees life as it is it all seems very amusing,’ said Mr Utamaro. ‘And what in particular at this moment?’
Mr Utamaro turned and looked at the superintendent.
Blandly.
‘Your difficulties, superintendent,’ he said.
The superintendent slumped back in the chair.
‘I believe you know what I’ve been thinking,’ he said.
‘You were bound to think it,’ said Mr Utamaro.
‘Very well, then,’ said the superintendent, ‘since we both know what’s in my mind, let’s say it out loud.’
He leant forward and looked at Mr Utamaro.
The piggy eyes blazing with determination.
‘Is there some trickery going on here?’ he said. ‘All this Zen business, what black mischief can you make it perform?’
Chapter 20
Lunch was hashed beef, potatoes – remarkable for the number of eyes left in – and tinned peas. The rice pudding followed. Spoilt through overcooking.
Superintendent Padbourne had been invited to join the others. He made no attempt to eat the pudding after the first mouthful.
‘I’m afraid the cooking is not all that could be desired,’ said Miss Rohan.
‘I don’t know what my wife would say if she knew you were eating meals like this all the time,’ the superintendent said. ‘There’s no need to eat badly even if there’s not much money. I was in two minds about packing those girls off back home, I rather wish –’
‘Pas devant les domestiques,’ said Miss Rohan.
The penetrating tones.
Superintendent Padbourne stopped. At the sound of steps behind him he glanced round. The blonde girl was coming towards them through the rows of trestle tables and up-ended chairs.
‘Yes, what is it?’ said Mr Utamaro.
The others all looked at the girl.
‘Mr Gerr— It is for Mr Manvers,’ she said. ‘The telephone.’
Gerry got up.
‘Thank you, duck,’ he said. ‘In the warden’s office?’
‘Yes,’ said the girl.
She blushed suddenly. A rosy pink. And ran out of the room.
‘I suppose it’s my ever-loving,’ said Gerry. ‘Wouldn’t be surprised if she’s ratted on us.’
‘She gave me to understand that she was coming back here this afternoon,’ the superintendent said.
‘Not to worry,’ said Gerry, ‘she’s the honest one of the family. She’ll be back.’
He went out whistling.
The superintendent leant over to Miss Rohan.
‘Pardon me,’ he said, ‘but what was that you said when that girl came in? I didn’t quite catch it.’
‘I was warning you that she was there, superintendent,’ said Miss Rohan. ‘It was Pas devant les domestiques’
‘That’s French.’
‘Yes.’
‘Rather wasted on me,’ the superintendent said, ‘I never learnt it. I dare say those girls speak it a sight better than I do.’
‘Oh dear, yes,’ said Miss Rohan. ‘I never thought. One forgets that domestics are so seldom domestics in the real sense these days.’
‘I dare say,’ said the superintendent. ‘Anyhow I’m thankful this case hasn’t involved those girls all that much. You never know where you are with foreigners. You never quite know how much they understand for one thing. That fair one who came in just now seems to be up to everything all right – a bit too much so at times – but the other one, the dark, plump girl’s a bit stupid to my mind. Luckily, I’ve not had to rely on their unsupported evidence for anything.’
‘And me, superintendent?’ said Mr Utamaro. ‘Does my apparent understanding of English satisfy you that I know what is going on?’
The superintendent looked up the table at him. A glimmer of a smile in the piggy eyes.
‘All right,’ he said, ‘you caught me out properly there. To tell you the truth, you speak English so well I’d forgotten you weren’t one of us.’
‘A compliment indeed,’ said Mr Utamaro.
‘On the other hand,’ said the superintendent, ‘I won’t disguise from you that your way of looking at things completely confuses me.’
‘You’re not the only one in that boat, superintendent,’ said Mr Applecheek. ‘Confusion is the great beauty of Mr Utamaro’s system.’
‘You know, I might like a few words with you on that, sir,’ said the superintendent. ‘You may be able to put my mind at rest on one or two –’
The door at the far end of the room opened with a bang. Gerry stood in the doorway.
At once everybody stopped eating and looked at him. Nobody spoke. Six pairs of eyes held by the sight of a man changed in less than two minutes into someone completely different.
The stuffing jerked out of the cock sparrow.
Gerry’s shoulders drooped, his arms hung at his sides as if he could not think what use they had. The colour had left his face and the neat line of moustache looked as though it had been applied to the upper lip with black greasepaint. His blue blazer with its brass buttons and his bright stripy silk tie looked incongruously gay draped on the scarecrow figure.
When he spoke it was a shock to hear the same voice from so different a man.
‘It was about Honor, the telephone call,’ he said. ‘You know it turned out that she was quite right all along about that balloon. It was dangerous. She oughtn’t to have gone up in it.’
Mr Utamaro left his place and walked swiftly up the room through the neat rows of tables. When he got to the door he lifted one of the up-ended chairs off the end of a table, swung it deftly on to its legs, took hold of Gerry by his elbows and sat him down.
‘There was an accident to the balloon?’ he said. Gerry slowly looked up at him.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that was what they called it on the blower. An accident. I’m sorry to have to tell you your wife has been involved in an accident, they said. It’s what’s called breaking it gently, you know. They meant she was dead.’
‘Dead?’
Gerry’s slack arms tautened convulsively.
‘Yes, dead,’ he said. ‘Killed. Finished. Gone. Broken up and chucked away. They gave me the full details, you know. It was an unexpected gust of wind, they said. It caught the balloon just as it was taking off, and the basket heeled over and tipped them all out. The others weren’t hurt at all. They didn’t fall very far. But Honor got caught by a stake in a fence. They kept telling me death was instantaneous. Instantaneous, that was the word. It’s what you say, you know.’
The arms fell slack again, the head flopped on to the chest.
‘It may have been the best thing that could have happened to her,’ said Mr Utamaro.
An announcement. Loud, inescapable. A summing up.
Slowly Gerry raised his head again.
‘What do you mean?’ A hoarse whisper.
‘I mean that she killed Flaveen Mills,’ said Mr Utamaro.
‘And sooner or later the superintendent here would have found out. You couldn’t hope to keep it hidden really, not when it was after all an unpr
emeditated act. Killing in the way she once told me it was in her character to kill.’
Gerry did not take his eyes from Mr Utamaro’s face.
‘Then you do know,’ he said.
‘Of course,’ said Mr Utamaro. ‘All the facts were there. It needed only someone not blinded by reasoning to see them for what they were. The last one was put before me yesterday at the tea ceremony. Do you remember how Miss Rohan described how Miss Mills blew a tweeter at her out of a window? She used the words “she just blew the thing two or three times, only about half way out”. That was the fact. Miss Rohan at once added to it from her own mind. She spoke about the half-heartedness of the blowing and asked whether it was an intimation of death. But the blowing was not half-hearted; it was simply mechanically inefficient. The breath had to go through the rubber tube of Mr Manvers’ artificial flower from where he was kneeling below the window up to where the tweeter was gripped in the dead girl’s lips.’
From the dining table Superintendent Padbourne asked:
‘How do you know all this?’
The untasted bowl of rice pudding by his elbow.
‘After the murder the joke flower was no longer to be seen,’ said Mr Utamaro. ‘Mr Manvers told me he had lost it. And then Miss Rohan made a mistake about the colour of the tweeter. She told me that Miss Mills had blown her green one out of the window, but Miss Mills had taken the Oxford blue one. The green one belonged to Mr Manvers.’
The superintendent got up and came across to where Mr Utamaro was standing beside the broken figure of Gerry.
‘You talked about an unpremeditated act, Mr Utamaro,’ he said, ‘but surely if you steal a sword one day and kill someone with it the next, that’s hardly unpremeditated?’
Gerry turned his head slightly. The glazed eyes fixed on Superintendent Padbourne.
‘Honor didn’t steal the sword,’ he said. ‘Flaveen did. Honor burst in on her when she was looking at it and when Flaveen told her I was going to run away with her Honor just snatched up the sword and used it. Silly kid, Flaveen, as if I didn’t know which side my bread was buttered on.’
The automatic cynicism, meaningless now.
Zen there was Murder Page 22