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‘Here she is, sir. Now, was that the lady you met?’
Unquestionably it was, though the photograph must have been ten years old, and the face he had seen had been swollen and discoloured. Miss Tardy smiled kindly and vaguely at the photographer, her pince-nez balanced on her nose, her straight hair a little deranged. But it was not the face of an ineffectual spinster; there was a certain self-reliance in it, despite the vague smile.
He nodded. ‘Yes, this is she.’
‘Might I ask if it was in England you met her, sir?’ Looking over his shoulder, Mrs Wheatley timidly twisted her blue apron in her hands.
‘No, abroad.’ (From the form of the question, a safe bet.) ‘And quite a long time ago now – six months at least, I should think.’
‘Ah, yes. That would be when she was last in France. A great traveller, Emilia is, and how she has the courage to live among all those foreigners is beyond me. You’ll pardon my curiosity, sir, but it’s four weeks since I heard from her, and that’s rather strange, as she’s always been a most faithful writer. I’m afraid something may have happened to her.’
‘Well, I’m sorry to say I can’t help you there.’ As he sipped his tea and smoked his cigarette in that cheerful, ugly room, under the anxious eyes of little Mrs Wheatley, Cadogan felt a slight dislike for his presence. But no purpose would be served by brutally telling his hostess of the facts of the case, even if he had really known what they were.
‘She travelled – travels – a lot, then?’ he asked in the tautologous fashion of modern conversation.
‘Oh, yes, sir. Small places mostly, in France and Belgium and Germany. Sometimes she only stops a day or so, sometimes months on end, according to how she likes it. Why, it must be three years if it’s a day since she was last in England.’
‘A rather unsettled sort of existence, I should have thought. Has she no relatives? She did strike me as being rather a lonely sort of person, I must say.’
‘I think there was only an aunt, sir…Let me give you another drop of tea in your cup. There…And she died some time ago. A Miss Snaith she was, very rich and eccentric, and lived on Boar’s Hill, and had a liking for comic poems. But as to Emilia, she enjoys travelling, you know; it suits her. She’s got a little bit of money of her own, and what she doesn’t spend on the children, she spends on seeing new places and people.’
‘The children?’
‘Devoted to children, she is. Gives money to hospitals and homes for them. And a very nice thing to do, I say. But if I may ask, sir, how was she looking when you saw her?’
‘Not too well, I thought. I didn’t really see much of her. We were thrown together for a couple of days in a hotel – the only English people there, you know, so naturally we chatted a bit.’ (Cadogan was appalled at his fluency. But didn’t Mencken say somewhere that poetry is only accomplished lying?)
‘Ah,’ said Mrs Wheatley. ‘I expect you found her deafness a trouble.’
‘Eh? Oh yes, it was rather. I’d almost forgotten.’ Cadogan wondered about the mentality of the person who would go up behind an old, deaf woman, strike her on the head, and choke her with a thin cord. ‘But I’m sorry to hear you’ve had no word from her.’
‘Well, sir, it may mean she’s on her way home from somewhere. She’s a great one for surprising you – just turning up on your doorstep without a word of warning. And she always stays with me when she’s in England, though goodness knows she’d be quite lost in Oxford, as I only moved here two years ago, and I know for a fact she’s never been here – ’ Mrs Wheatley paused for breath. ‘But I got that worried I went and asked Mr Rosseter – ’
‘Mr Rosseter?’
‘That’s Miss Snaith’s solicitor. I thought Emilia being a near relative he might have heard something from her when the old lady died. But he didn’t know anything.’ Mrs Wheatley sighed. ‘Still, we mustn’t cross bridges before we come to them, must we, sir? I’ve no doubt everything’s all right really. Another drop of tea?’
‘No, really, thank you, Mrs Wheatley.’ Cadogan rose, to an accompaniment of loud creaking, from his wicker chair. ‘I should be going now. You’ve been most hospitable and kind.’
‘Not at all, sir. If Emilia should arrive, who should I say called?’
Fen was in an atrabilious mood.
‘You’ve been the devil of a time,’ he grumbled as Lily Christine III got under way again.
‘But it was worth it,’ Cadogan answered. He gave a résumé of what he had learned, which lasted almost until they were back at St Christopher’s.
‘Um,’ said Fen thoughtfully. ‘That is something, I agree. At the same time, I don’t quite see what we’re going to do about it. It’s very difficult trying to deal with a murder at second hand, and no corpus delicti. There must have been quite a substantial van knocking about when you were unconscious. I wonder if anyone in the neighbourhood saw or heard anything of it?’
‘Yes, I see what you mean: to cart toys and furniture and groceries about. But you’re quite right, you know: the problem is – why change the place into a toyshop at all?’
‘I’m not sure that that isn’t a bit clearer now,’ said Fen. ‘Your Mrs Wheatley told you Miss Tardy would be lost in Oxford. So if you wanted to get her to a place she’d never be able to find again –’
‘But what’s the point? If you’re going to kill her it doesn’t matter what she sees.’
‘Oh,’ said Fen blankly. ‘No, it doesn’t, does it? Oh, my dear paws.’ He brought the car to a halt at the main gate of St Christopher’s and made a feeble attempt to smooth down his hair. ‘The question is – who is her heir? You said she’d got an income of her own, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, but not very much, I fancy. I think she must have been a sort of Osbert Sitwell spinster, living cheaply in pensions, drifting along the Riviera…But, anyway, not well enough off to be worth murdering for her money.’ A violent detonation came from the exhaust pipe. ‘You really ought to take this thing to a garage.’
Fen shook his head. ‘People will kill for extraordinarily small sums. But I must confess I don’t quite see the point of spiriting the body away when you’ve done it. Admittedly the murderer might be willing to wait until death was presumed, but it still seems odd. This Mrs Wheatley had no idea she was in England?’
‘None,’ said Cadogan. ‘And I gathered that if anyone on this earth knew about it, she would.’
‘Yes. A lonely woman whose disappearance wouldn’t cause very much surprise. Do you know’ – Fen’s voice was pensive – ‘I think this is rather a nasty business.’
They got out of the car and entered the college by a small door set in the big oaken gate. Inside a few undergraduates lingered, carrying gowns and staring at the cluttered noticeboards, which gave evidence of much disordered cultural activity. On the right was the porter’s lodge, with a sort of open window where the porter leaned, like a princess enchanted within some medieval fortalice. In all, that is, except appearance, for Parsons was a large formidable man with horn-rimmed glasses, a marked propensity for bullying, and the unshakable conviction that in the college hierarchy he stood above the law, the prophets, the dons, and the President himself.
‘Anything for me?’ Fen called out to him as they passed.
‘Er – no, sir,’ said Parsons, gazing at a row of pigeon-holes within. ‘But – ah – Mr Cadogan—’
‘Yes?’
The porter seemed disturbed. ‘I wonder’ – he glanced round at the loitering undergraduates – ‘I wonder if you’d just come inside a moment, sir?’
Puzzled, Cadogan went, and Fen followed him. The lodge was stifling with the heat of a large electric fire, halfheartedly designed to represent glowing coals. There were racks of keys, odd notices, a gas-ring, a university calendar, a college list, appliances for the prevention of fire, and two uncomfortable chairs.
Parsons was frankly conspiratorial. Cadogan felt as if he were about to be initiated into some satanic rite.
‘They’ve come for you, sir,’ said Parsons, breathing heavily. ‘From the police station.’
‘Oh, God.’
‘Two constables and a sergeant it was. They left about five or ten minutes ago, when they found you weren’t here.’
‘It’s those bloody tins I took,’ said Cadogan. The porter gazed at him with interest. ‘Gervase, what am I going to do?’
‘Make a full confession,’ said Fen heartlessly, ‘and get in touch with your lawyer. No, wait a minute,’ he added. ‘I’ll ring up the Chief Constable. I know him.’
‘I don’t want to be arrested.’
‘You should have thought of that before. All right, Parsons, thank you. Come on, Richard. We’ll go across to my room.’
‘What shall I say, sir,’ said Parsons, ‘if they come again?’
‘Give them a drink of beer and pack them off with specious, high-sounding promises.’
‘Very good sir.’
They crossed the north and south quadrangles, meeting only a belated undergraduate trailing out in a bright orange dressing-gown to his bath, and climbed once more the staircase to Fen’s study. Here Fen applied himself to the telephone, while Cadogan smoked lugubriously and inspected his nails. In the house of Sir Richard Freeman on Boar’s Hill the bell jangled. He reached peevishly for the instrument.
‘Hello!’ he said. ‘What? What! Who is it…? Oh, it’s you.’
‘Listen, Dick,’ said Fen, ‘your damned myrmidons are chasing a friend of mine.’
‘Do you mean Cadogan? Yes, I heard about that cock-and-bull story of his.’
‘It’s not cock-and-bull. There was a body. But, anyway, it’s not that. They’re after him for something he did in a grocery store.’
‘Good heavens, the fellow must be cracked. First toyshops and now grocers. Well, I can’t meddle in the affairs of the City Constabulary.’
‘Really, Dick…’
‘No, no, Gervase, it can’t be done. The processes of the law, such as they are, can’t be held up by telephone calls from you.’
‘But it’s Richard Cadogan. The poet.’
‘I couldn’t care less if it was the Pope…Anyway, if he’s innocent it’ll be all right.’
‘But he isn’t innocent.’
‘Oh, well, in that case only the Home Secretary can save him…Gervase, has it ever occurred to you that Measure for Measure is about the problem of Power?’
‘Don’t bother me with trivialities now,’ said Fen, annoyed, and rang off.
‘Well, that was a lot of use,’ said Cadogan bitterly. ‘I may as well go to the police-station and give myself up.’
‘No, wait a minute.’ Fen stared out into the quadrangle. ‘What was the name of that solicitor – the one Mrs Wheatley saw?’
‘Rosseter. What about it?’
Fen tapped his fingers impatiently on the window-sill. ‘You know, I’ve seen that name somewhere recently, but I can’t remember where. Rosseter, Rosseter…It was – Oh, my ears and whiskers!’ He strode to a pile of papers and began rummaging through them. I’ve got it. It was something in the agony column of the Oxford Mail – yesterday, was it, or the day before?’ He became inextricably involved in news-sheets. ‘Here we are. Day before yesterday. I noticed it because it was so queer. Look.’ He handed Cadogan the page, pointing to a place in the personal column.
‘Well,’ said Cadogan, ‘I don’t see how this helps.’ He read the advertisement aloud:
‘“Ryde, Leeds, West, Mold, Berlin. Aaron Rosseter, Solicitor, 193A Cornmarket.” Well, and what are we to conclude from that?’
‘I don’t exactly know,’ said Fen. ‘And yet I feel somehow I ought to. Holmes would have made mincemeat of it – he was good on agony columns. Mold, Mold. What is Mold, anyway?’ He went to the encyclopedia and took out a volume. After a moment’s search: ‘“Mold,”’ he read. ‘“Urban district and market town of Flintshire. Thirteen miles from Chester…centre of important lead and coal mines…bricks, tiles, nails, beer, etc.…” Does that convey anything to you?’
‘Nothing at all. It’s my opinion they’re all proper names.’
‘Well, they may be.’ Fen restored the book to its place. ‘But if so, it’s a remarkable collection. Mold, Mold,’ he added into tones of faint reproof.
‘And in any case,’ Cadogan went on, ‘it’ll be the wildest coincidence if it’s got anything to do with this Tardy woman.’
‘Don’t spurn coincidence in that casual way,’ said Fen severely. ‘I know your sort. You say the most innocent encounter in a detective novel is unfair, and yet you’re always screaming out about having met someone abroad who lives in the next parish, and what a small world it is. My firm conviction,’ he said grandiosely, ‘is that this advertisement has something to do with the death of Emilia Tardy. I haven’t the least idea what, as yet. But I suggest we go and see this Rosseter fellow.’
‘All right,’ Cadogan replied. ‘Provided we don’t go in that infernal red thing of yours. Where on earth did you get it, anyway?’
Fen looked pained. ‘I bought it from an undergraduate who was sent down. What’s the matter with it? It goes very fast,’ he added in a cajoling tone.
‘I know.’
‘Oh, all right then, we’ll walk. It’s not far.’
Cadogan grunted. He was engaged in tearing out Rosseter’s advertisement and putting it in his pocket-book. ‘And if nothing comes of it,’ he said, ‘I shall go straight to the police, and tell them what I know.’
‘Yes. By the way, what did you do with those tins you stole? I’m feeling rather peckish.’
‘They’re in the car, and you leave them alone.’
‘Oughtn’t you to adopt a disguise?’
‘Oh, don’t be so stupid, Gervase…It’s not the being arrested I mind. They’re not likely to do more than just fine me. It’s all the bother of explaining and arranging bail and coming up before magistrates…Well, come on, let’s go, if you think it will do any good.’
The Cornmarket is one of the busiest streets in Oxford, though scarcely the most attractive. It has its compensations – the shapely, faded façade of the old Clarendon Hotel, the quiet gabled coaching yard of the Golden Cross, and a good prospect of the elongated pumpkin which is Tom Tower – but primarily it is a street of big shops. Above one of these was 193A, the office of Mr Aaron Rosseter, solicitor, as dingy, severe, and uncomfortable as most solicitor’s offices. What was it, Cadogan wondered, which made solicitors so curiously insensible to the graces of this life?
A faintly Dickensian clerk, with steel-rimmed spectacles and leather pads sewn to the elbows of his coat, showed them into the presence. The appearance of Mr Rosseter, though Asiatic, did not justify the Semitic promise of his baptismal name. He was a small, sallow man, with a tremendous prognathous jaw, a tall forehead, a bald crown, horn-rimmed spectacles, and trousers which were a little too short for him. His manner was abrupt, and he had a disconcerting trick of suddenly whipping off his glasses, polishing them very rapidly on a handkerchief which he pulled from his sleeve, and restoring them with equal suddenness to his nose. He looked a trifle seedy, and one suspected that his professional abilities were mediocre.
‘Well, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘and may I know your business?’ He examined the rather overwhelming presence of Gervase Fen with faint signs of trepidation.
Fen beamed at him. ‘This person,’ he said, pointing to Cadogan, ‘is a second cousin to Miss Snaith, for whom I believe you acted during her lifetime.’
Mr Rosseter was almost as startled at this dramatic revelation as Cadogan. ‘Indeed,’ he said, tapping his fingers very rapidly on the desk. ‘Indeed. I’m very pleased to know you, sir. Do me the honour of sitting down.’
Blinking reproachfully at Fen, Cadogan obeyed, though as to what honour he could be doing Mr Rosseter in lowering his behind on to a leather chair he was not entirely clear. ‘I had rather lost touch with my cousin,’ he announced, ‘during the last years of her life. Actually she was not, properly speaking, a second cousin at all.’ Here Fen glared at him malevolently. ‘My mother, one of the Shropshire Cadogans, married my father – no, I don’t mean that exactly, or rather, I do – anyway, my father was one of seven children, and his third sister Marion was divorced from a Mr Childs, who afterwards remarried and had three children – Paul, Arthur, and Letitia – one of whom (I forget which) married, late in life, a nephew (or possibly a niece), of a Miss Bosanquet. It’s all rather complex, I’m afraid, like a Galsworthy novel.’
Mr Rosseter frowned, took off his glasses, and polished them very rapidly. Evidently he did not find this funny. ‘Perhaps you would state your business, sir?’ he barked.
To Cadogan’s alarm, Fen burst at this point into a noisy peal of laughter. ‘Ha! ha!’ be shouted, apparently overcome with merriment. ‘You must forgive my friend, Mr Rosseter. Such a droll fellow, but no business sense, none at all. Ha! ha! ha! A Galsworthy novel, eh? That’s very, very funny, old man. Ha! ha!’ He mastered himself with apparent difficulty. ‘But we mustn’t waste Mr Rosseter’s valuable time like this – must we?’ he concluded savagely.
Repressing the imp of mischief within him, Cadogan nodded. ‘I do apologize, Mr Rosseter. The fact is that I sometimes write things for the BBC, and I like to try them out on people beforehand.’ Mr Rosseter made no reply; his dark eyes were wary. ‘Yes,’ said Cadogan heavily. ‘Well, now, Mr Rosseter: I heard only the bare facts of my cousin’s death. Her end was peaceful, I hope?’
‘In fact,’ said Mr Rosseter, ‘no.’ His small form, behind the old-fashioned roll-top desk, was silhouetted against a window overlooking the Cornmarket. ‘She was, unhappily, run over by a bus.’
‘Like Savonarola Brown,’ put in Fen, interested.
‘Really?’ said Mr Rosseter sharply, as though he suspected he was being trapped into some damaging admission.
‘I am sorry to hear that,’ said Cadogan, trying to inject something like sorrow into his voice. ‘Though, mind you,’ he added, sensing failure in this endeavour, ‘I only met her once or twice, so I wasn’t exactly bowled over by her death. “Nolonger, mourn for me when I am dead then you shall hear the surly sullen bell” – you understand.’
‘Of course, of course,’ Fen sighed unnecessarily.
‘No, I’ll be frank with you, Mr Rosseter,’ said Cadogan. ‘My cousin was a rich woman and had few – ah – relatives. As regards the will…’ He paused delicately.
‘I see.’ Mr Rosseter seemed a little relieved. ‘Well, I’m afraid I must disappoint you there, Mr – er – Cadogan. Miss Snaith left the whole of her fairly considerable fortune to her nearest relative – a Miss Emilia Tardy.’
Cadogan looked up sharply. ‘I know the name, of course.’
