The Case of the Gilded Fly (16 page)

‘I think,' said the Inspector, ‘that if Mr Fellowes has recovered –' Nicholas moved obediently to the door.

‘Just a minute!' Fen twisted uncomfortably round in his chair and meditated for a moment. ‘What time did you do the blackout?'

‘Shortly before we heard the shot, I think.'

‘Did you do it, or did Fellowes?'

‘I did the windows on this side, and Donald did those on the courtyard side.'

‘Did you notice anything unusual at the time?'

‘No. It was getting pretty dark by then.'

‘Where did you sit?'

‘In a couple of armchairs by the fireplace.'

Fen grunted. The information appeared to give him some obscure satisfaction. ‘Who do you think is the murderer?' he asked.

Nicholas was taken aback. ‘Robert or Rachel or Jean, I imagine; or Sheila McGaw or –'

‘Or
who
?'

‘Sheila McGaw.'

‘This is a new one, Inspector,' said Fen with ill-concealed glee. ‘Tell us about her,' he added to Nicholas.

‘She's a young woman of arty proclivities who regularly produces at the repertory.' He pronounced the word deliberately, preciously avoiding the abbreviation. ‘At the time of Yseut's short-lived excursus on the West End stage, she was to be offered the job of producing the play in which Yseut was to appear. That amiable young woman used her influence to lose Sheila the job, chiefly by publishing the fact that the woman's sexual reactions were not entirely normal.' Here the Watch Committee assumed a shocked, slightly cross-eyed stare. ‘Sheila discovered about this, and not unnaturally took offence. You see, Professor' – he threw Fen a tentative offer of reconciliation – ‘I know all the scandal, am in fact a latterday Aubrey. What more could the police want?'

‘Apart from the fact that Aubrey could write,' said Fen frigidly, ‘that he got tight when he drank a lot, and that he had a spontaneous and delightful sense of humour, no doubt there may be something in the comparison. Probably your information is quite as inaccurate as his. If I remember rightly, he went so far as to insist that it was Ben Jonson who killed Marlowe.' From the expression on his face it was apparent that he regarded the imputation as in the highest degree offensive.

Donald Fellowes, when he appeared, proved to be only partially recovered from the evening's carouse. The process of being sick had relieved the anaesthesia of his nerves, but the alcohol still crawled and sang and buzzed in his veins, and as a consequence he was feeling not only depressed but actively ill.

‘Now, you sheepshead,' said Fen, who had completely taken
charge of the situation, ‘what have you got to say for yourself?'

This unorthodox question had the effect of rattling Donald. He mumbled to himself.

‘Are you sorry Yseut is dead?' Fen continued, and added in a painfully audible aside to Nigel: ‘This is the psychological method of detection.'

Donald was roused. ‘Psychological nonsense,' he said. ‘If you want to know, I feel only relieved, not sorry. You needn't suppose I killed her because of that. I have an alibi,' he concluded, with something of the pride of a small child showing a favourite picture-book to a recalcitrant adult visitor.

‘You
think
you have an alibi,' said Fen cautiously. ‘But if one supposes collusion between yourself and Nicholas Barclay, you have nothing of the sort.'

‘You can't prove collusion,' said Donald indignantly.

Fen abruptly abandoned this unprofitable topic. ‘Did you practise the organ yesterday morning?' he inquired. ‘And did you have a drink in the “Mace and Sceptre” beforehand?'

‘Yes to both questions,' said Donald, who was recovering slightly. ‘I'm playing a very difficult Respighi Prelude as a voluntary on Sunday.'

‘And you took your music to the bar with you?' Nigel was puzzled at the turn the questioning had taken.

‘As it happens, I did.'

‘Lots of it?'

‘A small pile,' Donald answered with dignity.

‘Ah,' said Fen. ‘Your witness, Inspector. My interest in the proceedings is at an end.'

And apparently it was. The Inspector asked a number of questions about Donald's movements that evening, about the episode of the gun, and about his relationship with Yseut, but they learned nothing new. Nigel had the impression that the Inspector was battering dutifully but ineffectually against a brick wall, that he was asking questions at random simply in the hope that something would emerge, and that having for the moment abandoned the idea of suicide he had been able to evolve no concrete line of inquiry to set in its place. With this state of mind Nigel profoundly sympathized. He himself was
beginning to feel very tired, and, like Fen, inclined to lose interest in the proceedings altogether. His earlier reaction to the murder he felt had been sentimental, and he was now inclined to believe that Yseut's death might from many points of view not have been at all a bad thing; if she had been run over by a bus, the effect would have been the same, so why be disturbed by moral considerations? The Fiji Islanders, he reflected, murder their old men and women from the most admirable motives of social evolution. This was in his conscious mind; in the unconscious there lived and grew still a superstitious terror of death by violence, impervious to the niceties of rational calculation, and which the consciousness was attempting to suppress by refusing further speculation on the problem. The superstitious fear was there, no doubt, because the agency was mysterious – an atavistic throw-back to a belief in the powers of the spirits of earth and air. If he had seen Yseut struck down, if he had known the murderer, it would never have come into being.

Towards the end of the interview, Fen's interest, apparently a very volatile affair, was roused again.

‘What do you think of Jean Whitelegge?' he asked, with an elaborate simulation of disinterested scientific curiosity.

‘She's in love with me, I believe.'

‘My dear man, we know that. Don't be so complacent about it. Do you think she can have killed Yseut?'

‘Jean?' There was a fractional pause. Then Donald looked shocked. ‘No: I certainly don't think so.'

‘Ah,' said Fen. ‘What service are we having at Evensong on Sunday?'

‘Dyson in D.'

‘Nice,' commented Fen, ‘theatrical, but nice. You must come, Nigel. Musically, it's a battle of religion and romance, of Eros and Agape.' Nigel nodded bewildered at these gnomic utterances. Donald Fellowes departed to bed in one of the guest chambers, first procuring some things from his bedroom under the eye of a policeman.

A soporific atmosphere descended on Fen, Nigel, Sir Richard and the Inspector. Even the two latter appeared now to be
sustaining their interest with difficulty. And besides that, it was by now close on midnight. The Inspector, returning with an heroic effort to the matter in hand, made a short attempt at condensation and summary.

‘Certain specific things remain to be investigated,' he concluded. ‘The alibis of the other people concerned; the question of whether the bullet came from the gun we found (though I've no doubt myself that it did); the question of the young lady's will; the ownership of the ring; and one or two other lesser matters.'

Sir Richard hurled a match, which for some moments he had been applying without noticeable effect to the bowl of his pipe, inaccurately at the fireplace. ‘It remains a mystery to me,' he said, his face expressing suitable if momentary mystification,
‘how
the girl was murdered. Could she have been shot from outside, do you suppose, and the window – ?' He indicated his lack of confidence in the suggestion by resorting to aposiopesis.

‘Even apart from the fact of the powder burns,' said the Inspector, ‘I can't see how it could have been done. If anyone had shot her from the passageway, Williams would have seen them. If Mr Fellowes and Mr Barclay are telling the truth, she wasn't shot from the room opposite. With due deference sir,' – he gazed at Fen without so much as a hint of deference in his manner – ‘I don't see how it can have been anything but suicide. Of course I shall keep an open mind on the subject' – he nodded, apparently in approval of this generous and eclectic disposition – ‘but it seems to me there's really very little doubt about it.'

‘I'm sure we can leave matters safely in your hands, Inspector,' said Sir Richard, with something of an effort. ‘And now perhaps – bed?'

The sense of relief caused by this suggestion engendered surprisingly a tendency to linger in amiable chatter. Eventually Sir Richard and the Inspector departed, Nigel remaining behind a few moments. Fen had abandoned equally his theatrical gloom and his unnatural exuberance, and was looking impressively grave. ‘Talk to me,' he said, ‘about abstract justice.'

‘Abstract justice?' murmured Nigel.

‘Pascal says that human justice is entirely relative,' said Fen, ‘and that there is no crime which has not at one time or another been considered as a virtuous action. He confuses, of course, universal moral law with actions valuable through temporary expediency. Even so, I believe incest belies him; it has been universally condemned.' He sighed. ‘The question is: is it worth while for anyone to hang for murder of that young woman? It seems she used her sex in the most debased manner possible – as a means to power, like Merteuil.'

‘She was to some extent a sensualist,' said Nigel.

Gervase Fen contemplated the apolaustic proclivities of Yseut without satisfaction; a Cornelian struggle appeared to be going on within him. ‘I don't like it,' he said. ‘I don't like it at all.'

‘You think you know who killed her?'

‘Oh, yes. Perhaps I should have said that the conditions are such that they can only be fulfilled by one person, and that it will be easy enough to find out who that one person is. There are admittedly complications which will have to be looked into. It's possible I'm wrong.' His voice betrayed a certain lack of conviction on this last point. ‘This McGaw woman –' He interrupted himself to say: ‘Are you in love with Helen?'

Nigel pondered on the possibly unpleasant implications of the question. ‘I hardly know her,' he said, hoping by evasion to draw Fen further. But Fen merely shook his head. ‘I'll walk with you to the gate,' he said.

A half-moon hung lopsidedly over the great tower. The air was warm with a warmth that at once sapped physical energy and presaged a tremendous imminent change. They trudged across the quadrangle beneath the delicate finical gaiety of Inigo Jones, transformed by the darkness to a rather sinister, empty lecherousness. Nigel was reminded of Wilkes' ghost story.

‘An interesting addition to the college legends,' he said.

‘Tell me, Nigel,' said Fen, whose mind was on other things, ‘were you here for the celebration on All Hallow E'en three or four years ago?'

‘When the college danced naked on the lawn in the moonlight? Yes, I was involved – in fact suffered disciplinary
penalties which must have paid for the S.C.R. port for several weeks.'

‘Those were the days. Were any fairies in evidence?'

‘We counted at one stage of the evening and deduced the presence of an unknown among us. But whether it was a fairy or just one of the dons we never knew.'

‘I shouldn't have thought it would have been so difficult to distinguish.' Fen sighed. ‘We are all becoming standardized and normal, Nigel. The divine gift of purely nonsensical speech and action is in atrophy. Would you believe it, a pupil of mine had the impertinence the other day to tick me off for reading him passages regarding the Fimble Fowl and the Quangle-Wangle as an illustration of pure poetic inventiveness; I put him in his place all right.' In the semi-darkness his eye became momentarily lambent with remembered satisfaction. ‘But there's no eccentricity nowadays – none at all. Except, of course' – he stopped and pointed – ‘this.'

They had reached a part of the college which Nigel remembered as a small enclosed green. He saw that there had been erected on it a sort of enclosed pen, inside which he could dimly discern twelve typewriters on a table, and twelve monkeys, who sat about in attitudes of bored reverie or copulated in an uninteresting manner. This sinister and unexpected apparition took him momentarily aback. ‘What is it?' he said.

‘Either the Junior Common Room,' answered Fen gloomily, ‘or Wilkes' Enclosure. The latter, I suspect. Of course it's since your time. Wilkes, who has a practical mind, has hired it from the college for a very great number of years to come. But so far not a single Shakespeare sonnet, not a line of a sonnet, not a word of a line, or even two consecutive letters, has been produced. The monkeys have to be replaced as they die off, of course – possibly that is prejudicial to the success of the experiment.' He sighed. ‘In the meantime, they show little inclination to approach the typewriters, and content themselves with behaving in a normal though acutely embarrassing way.' He shook his head over the transitoriness of human effort. They went on and approached the lodge. ‘By the way, remind me some time to give you my opinion of Wilkes' story; it interested me in more ways than one. And the problems of the dead are so
much more satisfactory to solve than the problems of the living; they require no effective action.

‘I suppose,' he added as they were saying good night, ‘you wouldn't care to come with me on my rounds tomorrow? An internal itch compels me to get this thing cleared up, though if the police persist in their asinine suicide theory I rather doubt if I shall contradict them.'

Nigel gave his half-hearted assent to this proposal.

‘I shall see you sometime,' said Fen with the determined vagueness of one who declines to be badgered into making definite arrangements. ‘How tired I feel. I must go and set some collection papers for the bookish crew who return tomorrow.' He vanished incontinently; on the raven down of darkness the single word ‘Cretins!' floated faintly back to Nigel's ear.