The Case of the Gilded Fly (24 page)

‘Who are you going with, then?'

‘Nigel and Sir Richard.'

‘Nigel's a nice boy,' said Mrs Fen reflectively. ‘Didn't you say he was going about with Helen?'

‘No doubt he's gadding about somewhere with her now,' said Fen gloomily. ‘Anyway, he borrowed my bicycle. I hope he looks after it. People are so careless.'

Fen's bicycle was a large, uncompromising affair apparently constructed out of pig-iron. Nigel, as he toiled down Walton Street on it with Helen at his side, regretted, not for the first time, Fen's monastic indifference to scientific progress. Once they reached the tow-path, however, the going was easier, and they bowled along merrily enough towards their destination, the ‘Trout'.

‘I wish,' said Nigel, panting heavily, ‘that you didn't imagine you were in for a track-race.'

Helen grinned back at him over her shoulder. ‘All right,
slow-coach!' she shouted, and slowed down to allow him to catch up with her. ‘Honestly, though,' she added, ‘I have a conscience about this expedition. Yseut killed only the day before yesterday, and here am I cycling about Oxford in a pair of red corduroy slacks. Everyone who's passed has looked profoundly shocked.'

‘That's the trousers,' said Nigel with some justice, ‘not your unsisterly behaviour. I wonder if Fen ever oils this thing?' He appeared to be searching for traces of this activity.

‘Look out!' said Helen. ‘You'll be in the water in a minute.'

Nigel altered his direction with as much dignity as he could muster. ‘I'm not going to talk,' he said, ‘until we arrive. This is too exhausting. Then a drink – several drinks in fact – and we'll have our lunch somewhere in the meadows beyond. What time have you got to be back for your dress-rehearsal?'

‘I ought to be in the theatre by half past five.'

‘I've got Evensong at six, so that will fit nicely.' They rode on enjoying the clean tang of the air and watching the perilous manoeuvres of two undergraduates in a sailing-boat.

At the ‘Trout' they found Sheila McGaw with a miscellaneous party. ‘Hello,' she said, waving to them. ‘Are you taking the opportunity of getting out of Oxford, too? What with policemen and one thing and another, it's getting to be unlivable in.'

‘Don't talk to us about policemen,' said Nigel. ‘Like the Foreign Legion, we've come out to forget.'

They had their lunch on the bank of a tiny tributary stream which meandered absurdly over a muddy bottom. There they ate sandwiches and tomatoes and apples. Helen, raising herself on one elbow, remarked:

‘It's extraordinary how hard the ground can be.'

‘Don't slide off the mackintosh, silly,' said Nigel. ‘The ground's still damp from yesterday's rain. Is there another tomato?'

‘You've had four already.'

‘I asked for a tomato, not a lecture.'

‘I gave you the lecture in default of the tomato. There aren't any more.'

‘Oh.' Nigel silent for a moment. Then he said: ‘Helen, will you marry me?'

‘Darling, I was hoping you were going to say that. No, you can't kiss me now, my mouth's full.'

‘You will, then?'

Helen considered. ‘Will you make a good husband?' she asked.

‘No,' said Nigel, ‘abominable. I'm only asking you because you've just come into such a lot of money.'

She nodded gravely. ‘Would you be likely to interfere with my career?'

‘Horribly.'

‘How soon do you want to get married?'

Nigel shifted uneasily. ‘I wish you wouldn't scrutinize my proposal as if it were a length of bad cloth. The proper thing to do is to fall rapturously into my arms.'

‘I can't,' Helen complained. ‘All the food's in the way.'

‘Well, we'll move the food, then,' shouted Nigel, exhibiting a sudden energy and hurling it wildly in all directions.
‘Void, ma chère.'
He took her in his arms.

‘When can we get married, Nigel?' she asked after a while.

‘Can it be soon?'

‘As soon as you like, my very dearest.'

‘Don't there have to be banns and licences and things?'

‘You can get special licences,' said Nigel, ‘in fact if you pay twenty-five pounds for an Archbishop's Special Licence you have powers of life and death over every clergyman in the country.'

‘How nice.' She snuggled down comfortably in the crook of his arm. ‘You do make love beautifully, Nigel.'

‘Darling, you should never say that. Nothing goes to the head of the male species more disastrously. Of course,' he said, ‘although you're now disgustingly rich, I shall insist on supporting you.'

Helen sat up indignantly. ‘You'll do nothing of the sort. What, let all that money go to waste!'

Nigel sighed happily. ‘I was hoping you'd say that,' he said, ‘but I thought I'd better say the proper thing.'

She burst out laughing. ‘You beast,' she said happily. Then,
when he had kissed her: ‘You know, I don't think the open air is a good place for making love.'

‘Nonsense, it's the only place. Look at the eclogues.'

She said meditatively: ‘I think Phyllida and Corydon must have ended up with a lot of bruises.'

‘What is the best place to make love, then?'

‘Bed.'

‘Helen!' said Nigel in shocked tones.

‘Darling, we are husband and wife in the sight of God,' she said solemnly, ‘and these things are a fit subject of discussion between us.' Her tone changed suddenly to one of dismay. ‘Oh, Nigel,
look
what a mess I'm in!'

‘A sweet disorder in the dress,' said Nigel, ‘kindles in clothes a Wantonness –'

‘No, Nigel, remember you promised – no Elizabethan verse. Oh dear, why do you literary young men always quote? Stop it, darling!' She put her arms round his neck, and Herrick was very appropriately smothered in a kiss. They lay back, laughing and exhausted, and gazed at the cream-soft clouds which hung motionless in the pale blue sky above their heads.

A dirty pillow in Death's bed.

Crashaw

Nigel reflected, as he turned into St Christopher's at twenty to six that evening, that there was something extraordinarily school-boyish about Gervase Fen. Cherubic, naïve, volatile, and entirely delightful, he wandered the earth taking a genuine interest in things and people unfamiliar, while maintaining a proper sense of authority in connection with his own subject. On literature his comments were acute, penetrating, and extremely sophisticated; on any other topic he invariably pretended complete ignorance and an anxious willingness to be instructed, though it generally came out eventually that he knew more about it than his interlocutor, for his reading, in the forty-two years since his first appearance on this planet, had been systematic and enormous. If this ingenuousness had been affectation, or merely arrested development, it would have been simply irritating; but it was perfectly sincere, and derived from the genuine intellectual humility of a man who has read much and in so doing has been able to contemplate the enormous spaces of knowledge which must inevitably always lie beyond his reach. In temperament he was incurably romantic, though he ordered his life in a rigidly reasonable way. To men and affairs, his attitude was neither cynical nor optimistic, but one of never-failing fascination. This resulted in a sort of unconscious amoralism, since he was always so interested in what people were doing, and why they were doing it, that it never occurred to him to assess the morality of their actions. This fuss about what he shall do in connection with Yseut's murder, thought Nigel, is entirely characteristic.

He was discovered in his room, putting the final touches to his notes on the case. ‘The police have definitely decided it was suicide,' he said, ‘so these' – he pointed to the small heap of
papers – ‘will have to be put in cold storage for a while. By the way,' he added, ‘I've decided what I'm going to do.' He handed Nigel a small sheet of notepaper.

On it were three words, from one of the satires of Horace:
Deprendi miserum est
.

‘ “It is horrible to be found out,”' said Nigel. ‘So – ?'

‘So I put this in the post this evening, and hand over my notes to the police on Tuesday morning. That gives h – the murderer a remote chance to clear out. By the way, I rely on you not to let this go any further. I've discovered it's a criminal offence.' He grinned cheerfully.

‘In that case,' murmured Nigel, ‘do you think it's really wise – ?'

‘Hopelessly unwise, my dear Nigel,' said Fen. ‘But after all, I've got the whip-hand. I can always tell the police I've realized my idea was wrong, and that I'm as much at a loss as they are, and no one can prove anything to the contrary. Besides, if one wasn't a little adventurous sometimes, the world would be intolerable.' He appeared to be hoisting a symbolic skull and cross bones at the mast-head.

Nigel grunted, whether in agreement or disapproval it was impossible to tell. Fen wrote a name and address on an envelope, put the paper inside and sealed it up. ‘This shall be delivered into the hands of the G.P.O. after chapel,' he said, putting it into his pocket.

‘Has it occurred to you,' said Nigel, ‘that you may be endangering the lives of a lot of totally innocent people by setting a murderer on the run?'

Fen looked suddenly worried. ‘I know,' he said. ‘It has occurred to me. But I don't think this person will kill again. Tell me,' he added, hurriedly dismissing the uncomfortable topic, ‘have you still no idea of who did it?'

‘I spent last night in the time-honoured stooge's task of getting out a time-table, and as I expected got no enlightenment from it whatever. Anyway, half the assertions in it are unproved or unprovable, so I needn't have expected anything.' He took out a sheet of paper and gave it to Fen. ‘It's your business now, as the great detective, to glance at it, tap it with your finger, and say “This reveals all.”'

‘Well, so it does,' said Fen, ‘and I can't help it if you're so dumb that you don't see why. I've got a similar table, with certain things underlined and a few comments added. Look at it again, dear boy. Doesn't it leap out at you like a wart on a bald head?'

‘No, it doesn't,' said Nigel, staring at the list in a bemused way. It ran:

From 6.0. Robert, Rachel, Donald and Nicholas in bar of ‘Mace and Sceptre'; Yseut at B.N.C.; Helen in her room; Sheila and Jean in theirs (last three unconfirmed).

6.25. Donald, Nicholas leave ‘M. and S.', arriving in college at

6.30 approx., when Rachel also leaves to go to the cinema (destination unconfirmed).

6.45 approx. Helen arrives at theatre.

7.10 approx. Yseut leaves B.N.C.

7.35–40. Yseut arrives at ‘M. and S.', puts through phone call.

7.45. Helen goes on at theatre. Donald and Nicholas cross to room opposite Donald's.

7.50 approx. Robert leaves ‘M. and S.' for college (unconfirmed).

7.54. Yseut arrives at college.

7.55. Helen comes off stage.

8.5. Robert arrives at college.

8.21 approx. Robert goes down to lavatory.

8.24. Shot heard.

8.25. Yseut found dead.

8.45. Helen goes on again at theatre.

Jean and Sheila say they remained in their rooms all evening (unconfirmed).

Rachel says she remained in the cinema until 9.0 (unconfirmed).

Donald and Nicholas say they remained in room from 7.45 (unconfirmed).

‘I don't see,' said Nigel, ‘that it's any use at all. Half the statements may be false.'

‘No doubt they are,' Fen replied equably. ‘But how revealing
all those “unconfirmeds” are! It does give the game away, Nigel,' he added, patting him benevolently on the back. ‘Why did you include Helen, incidentally? You don't suspect her?'

‘Of course not, but it filled it out a bit. It was rather thin otherwise. Look here, Fen: I don't want to know who did it, but I should like to know it wasn't Helen.'

Fen grinned. ‘No, of course it wasn't Helen.'

‘As a matter of fact, I've just asked her to marry me.'

Fen fell into a mild ecstasy. ‘My dear fellow!' he shouted. ‘I'm delighted! We must celebrate – but not now,' he added with a reluctant eye on the clock. ‘Evensong awaits us.' He picked up a surplice which was lying over the back of a chair. ‘This thing,' he said, putting it over his arm as they went out, ‘puts me in mind of shrouds.'

As he entered the chapel, Nigel had the comfortable sense of one who returns to a remembered spot in the certainty that it will not have been altered. On the whole, he had always been inclined to agree with old Wilkes that the restorations had been well carried out. The place had a clean, finished look about it without being aggressively new, and it fortunately lacked the faint odour of corruption which is generally present in old churches. The glass, while not being of the sort to attract connoisseurs from all parts of the country, was pleasing enough, and the organ, a new instrument put in seven years previously and occupying the gallery on the north side of the chancel, had plain gold pipes charmingly arranged in a simple geometrical pattern. The organist – and his mode of exit, an iron ladder leading down to the vestry – was hidden from view by a large fretted wooden screen (his means of ascertaining what was going on below being a large mirror suspended above his head); and from the instrument there issued now one of those vague opiate improvisations which organists appear to consider the limit of their responsibilities before the service actually begins.

Fen departed to the seats reserved for the Fellows, Nigel settled himself close by the choir. There were few people in chapel that evening. The President glowered morosely from his box; there was a small number of undergraduates and visitors. Before long, the choir and the Chaplain came in, and the
improvisation performed a rapid, pyrotechnical series of modulations into the key of the first hymn and stopped. Announcement. First line of ‘Richmond'. Then Samuel Johnson's fine hymn: