Buried for Pleasure (13 page)

‘Down with
what?
'

‘With Taft,' said Wolfe, chuckling. ‘Taft, you see, was a candidate for the American Presidency in 1912.'

‘I still,' said Fen, ‘entirely fail to understand – –'

‘Well, well, I'm not surprised.' Here Wolfe laughed very heartily, thereby provoking Humbleby to gaze at him with overt displeasure. ‘And
I
certainly wouldn't have understood it, but for the fact that Boysenberry supplied the police with a certain amount of information about Elphinstone at the time he got away from the asylum. Apparently Elphinstone is periodically convinced that he's Woodrow Wilson.'

‘Ah.' Fen was at once enlightened. ‘And Taft was one of Wilson's opponents in the 1912 election. So at the time when Elphinstone broke into Judd's house he was presumably, in the character of Wilson, rehearsing the fevers of 1912.'

‘So one supposes,' said Humbleby, nodding. ‘And that, in summary, is the case against Elphinstone. Not
absolutely
conclusive – but then, it's very rare to find a case that is.'

‘There's one thing you haven't mentioned,' said Fen. ‘And that is finger-prints. If Elphinstone killed Bussy, his prints must surely be on the handle of the knife.'

Wolfe shook his head; the raising of this issue seemed to depress him. ‘They aren't, though. Nor are there any prints anywhere in Judd's house.'

‘Then doesn't that mean – –'

‘It doesn't mean anything in particular. You see, in addition to imagining he's Wilson, Elphinstone has a fixation about
gloves
. He
likes
gloves, and wears them whenever possible, regardless of the weather.'

Fen frowned. ‘But he doesn't, you know. I caught a glimpse of him when I was on the way here from the station, and he wasn't wearing gloves then.'

‘Ah, I'd forgotten you'd seen him. But he was nude then, wasn't he?'

‘Except for the pince-nez, yes.'

‘Dr Boysenberry has told us,' said Humbleby with decided gloom, ‘that the nudity-fixation and the glove-fixation never occur simultaneously. But the glove-fixation and the Wilson-fixation almost always do. . . . I often think,' he added peevishly, ‘that the diagnosis of lunacy sounds nearly as insane as the lunacy itself. Anyway, the provable fact remains that Elphinstone delights in wearing gloves. So the lack of prints doesn't at all militate against his having killed Bussy.'

The sun was perceptibly lower now, and a breeze was stirring among the leaves. Again there was a silence – and this time it was Fen who eventually broke it.

‘The inquest,' he said. ‘When is it to be?'

‘Tomorrow, as things stand. And the funeral on Thursday.'

‘And you'll be taking the line that Elphinstone killed him?'

Humbleby shrugged. ‘What other line is there to take? No doubt it's convenient for Mrs Lambert's murderer that Bussy should die at this particular moment; but the evidence, as you've heard, definitely singles out Elphinstone as the one responsible.'

‘What I can't make out,' said Wolfe irritably, ‘is where Elphinstone
is
. The whole district's been combed for him, but until last night there hasn't been a sign of him anywhere. And now he's disappeared
again
.'

‘You'll have to find him now.' Humbleby spoke soberly. ‘Or else there'll be a general panic.'

‘Well, we're having in men from another Division,' said Wolfe, ‘and I couldn't be more pleased, I can tell you, my resources have been strained to the limit just recently. . . . Oh yes, we'll find him all right. In a day or two the whole place will be seething with coppers.'

Fen stirred uneasily on his regal eminence. ‘Did you go through Bussy's pockets?' he asked. ‘And look at his luggage?'

‘We did,' Humbleby answered. ‘And found nothing to the purpose. Whatever views he may have had about Mrs Lambert's murder, he evidently didn't write them down. So as regards that we're as much in the dark as ever, unless' – he glanced up at Fen – ‘you have any notion of what he was planning to do.'

‘None whatever, I'm afraid,' said Fen truthfully. ‘I was to have heard about it when I met him at the hut. I take it' – he peered down at Wolfe – ‘that the Lambert investigation hasn't produced any results so far.'

‘None. I was going to ask the Chief Constable to call in the Yard in any case – and now Humbleby's here I shall be only too glad to hand the whole depressing business over to him.'

‘Thanks,' Humbleby said. ‘It sounds an alluring prospect.'

‘There's just one thing.' The mood of catechism had not yet left Fen. ‘How did Bussy cover his tracks in doubling back here?'

‘We're still not entirely sure.' It was Wolfe who replied. ‘We know he took a London ticket at the station here, and we know he changed on to the London train at Sanford Morvel. After that it gets vague, but we think he slipped off the train at Wythendale, pinched a bike in the town, rode it to Sanford Condover, abandoned it there, and walked the rest of the way to the golf-course.'

‘And his luggage?'

‘He put it all in the guard's van and left it to go on to Paddington.' Humbleby stood up, brushing grass and earth from the seat of his trousers; and as he did so the Church clock struck six. ‘Time's hurrying chariot,' he murmured. ‘Unluckily it drives us towards something less agreeable than the complaisance of a coy mistress; it drives us – to descend to the rather squalid facts – towards a conference with the Chief Constable. If we're to be punctual, Wolfe, we must go.'

‘I agree,' said Wolfe; and he also got to his feet. ‘Well, thanks for your help, Professor Fen. I'm afraid we shall want you at the inquest tomorrow.'

‘I was resigned to that,' said Fen.

‘It may assist your election campaign. Or then again' – Wolfe became pensive – ‘it may not. Still . . . '

He paused, and a look of amazement appeared on his face.

‘What on earth,' he demanded in a different tone, ‘is that?'

CHAPTER 12

F
OR
some time now a distorted noise had been approaching the vicinity of the inn. All three of them had heard it, without, however, pausing in their conversation to consider what it might be. Now, merging as it was into distinct utterance, it could no longer be ignored – and in another moment its source came sluggishly into view. This was a loudspeaker van, moving along uncertainly in third gear, and driven by a middle-aged lady whose unbending and ferocious preoccupation with the task suggested little previous experience of it; all about the van were pasted posters advertising the merits and integrity of Gervase Fen; and from the quadrifoliate loudspeaker on its roof there issued, horribly amplified, the voice of Captain Watkyn.

‘
VOTE FOR FEN
,' it said, ‘
THE CANDIDATE WHO
is this ruddy thing still working old boy well what were you making faces for then oh I see
WHO WILL PROTECT
YOUR
INTERESTS AGAINST CLASS DISCRIMINATION AND FACTIONAL STRIFE BY WHICH I MEAN THE LABOUR AND CONSERVATIVE GANGS THE CANDIDATE WHO WILL JUDGE EACH AND EVERY ISSUE ON ITS OWN MERITS AND WHO WILL
. . .'

With intolerable slowness the sound receded up the village street, leaving a trail of hysterically barking dogs in its wake. Fen stared after it in great embarrassment. ‘I think,' he said thoughtfully, ‘that I may have to put a stop to that sort of thing.'

‘Ah, well, it's all part of the game, no doubt.' Humbleby spoke with great disingenuousness. ‘We shall see you, then, at Sanford Morvel Town Hall tomorrow afternoon.'

‘Two-thirty, to be exact,' Wolfe supplied; then a new thought occurred to him. ‘About the Persimmons girl. . . .'

‘Oh, yes,' said Fen. ‘How is she?'

‘Worse, I'm afraid. They don't think she'll last much longer. And I haven't been able to find a trace of any relatives, so the poor kid will die alone. . . . I suppose . . .' Wolfe frowned suddenly – and a moment later relaxed again. ‘Lord, no; I'm getting murders on the brain.'

‘It was certainly an accident, if that's what you're getting at.'

‘Oh, yes, I've no doubt of it, really. Still, I wish I'd seen it happen – and if I'd stayed two minutes longer I should have done.'

Fen was surprised. ‘I didn't realize you were here,' he said. ‘I suppose it was your car I heard driving away.'

‘Probably. I had to come over and investigate some busybody's complaint about drinking out of hours. The girl actually spoke to me as I was leaving – she'd lost her Personal Points, or something, and wanted to know – –'

‘All this may be very absorbing,' Humbleby interrupted with impatience, ‘but really, Wolfe, we must be moving.'

‘Yes,' said Wolfe obediently. ‘Sorry . . . Till tomorrow, then.'

Fen watched them as they strode off across the lawn – Humbleby small and dapper, Wolfe large and decidedly imposing. For a few minutes he remained where he was, brooding over the facts which the interview had brought forth. Then he sighed, clambered down from the roller, collected his cushions, and headed for the inn.

The cushions belonged in the bar; and the task of replacing them was enlivened by an acrimonious discussion which was raging there when Fen entered – a discussion which involved Jacqueline, Myra, a louring youth, and a buxom village girl whose health and vitality illumined a frame that was Renoiresque in the outspokenness of its contours. Apart from them, the bar was empty.

‘I'm not getting mixed up with no police,' the louring youth was saying doggedly across a half-pint of mild. ‘What I says is, once they got yer, they got yer. I'm not gettin' mixed up with no police.'

Myra was indignant. ‘And what about justice, Harry Hitchin? You don't think about that, do you? Here's a poor devil been horribly murdered, and you and Olive saw the man as did it, and all you do about it is sit there on your bottoms saying you're not going to get mixed up with the police. Well, I know what's going to happen to you. You're going to get yourselves thrown in gaol for being accessories after the fact, you mark my words.' And at this point Myra became aware of Fen's presence. ‘If you don't believe me, you just ask that gentleman there.'

Harry Hitchin and Olive turned to look at Fen, and Olive emitted a little shriek.

‘That's 'im,' she said, pointing dramatically. ‘That's one of 'em.'

‘Of course it is.' Myra was disgusted. ‘It was Professor Fen who found the body.'

‘I'm not getting mixed up with no police,' Harry Hitchin repeated apprehensively. ‘Not me, I'm not.'

‘What is all this?' Fen demanded.

‘Go on, Harry,' Myra urged. ‘You tell him about it. He's not the police.'

‘'Ow 'm I to know that? It's a trap, that's what it is.'

‘You had better' – Fen spoke with Rhadamanthine severity – ‘tell me everything you know. Otherwise it's the lock-up for both of you.' They stared at him with antagonism. ‘The caboose,' he added for full measure. ‘The Big House. I'll have a small whisky, please, Myra.'

A muttered conference ensued between Olive and Harry Hitchin. Fen received his whisky and contemplated them grimly as he drank it. Presently Harry said reluctantly: ‘Well, we don't mind
you
knowin' of it.'

‘That's very generous, I'm sure. What did you see, where, and when?'

‘It were last evenin'.' Harry gulped beer in an attempt to refresh jaded nerves. ‘We was in the gorse by fourth green.'

‘The gorse. Surely, in the
gorse
, you can't have been – –'

‘We was mollocking,' said Harry with distinct satisfaction. ‘She'm a rare un for mollocking, is Olive.'

Olive appeared gratified by this tribute. ‘Me Grammer,' she remarked, ‘me Grammer allus says: “When oats be cutting, maids be riggish.”'

‘Your grandmother is clearly a depraved old woman. . . . What time did you arrive there?'

‘'Twere near eleven,' said Olive; the moral defeat of her paramour seemed to have fanned into life whatever sparks of common sense she possessed, and she took up the tale with some zest. ‘And moon were almost full. Me Grammer, she says: “When moon be full, lads'll be wenchin.”'

This repository of erotic lore, Fen foresaw, was likely to keep the point of the recital almost indefinitely in abeyance. ‘For heaven's sake,' he said, ‘leave your grandmother out of it.'

‘She'm a rare un,' Harry interpolated – feeling, perhaps, that he must not lose the conversational initiative altogether. ‘A rare un, is Olive's Grammer.'

‘Evidently she is. But at the moment I'm trying to get at what, if anything, you both saw.'

‘You just keep your trap shut, 'Arry 'Itchin,' said Olive with sudden ferocity, ‘or you'll be after fashin' the genulman.' And here she grinned enticingly at Fen and hitched her skirt several inches above the knee, possibly with a view to repairing whatever social damage Harry's indiscretion might have done. ‘'Twere full moon, then,' she resumed, ‘an' we weren't 'ardly settled in gorse afore we sees a Stealthy Form goin' into 'ut.'

‘A Stealthy Form? Does that mean someone you can't identify?'

Olive nodded. ‘We was too far off to see 'oo 'twas.'

‘But anyway, it wasn't a woman?'

‘Might 'a' bin a woman,' said Olive. ‘Woman in trousers, that's to say. Some girls, they wears trousers, and you sees their fat 'ips fair bustin' out of 'em.' She paused, contemplating this indelicate vision with evident pleasure. ‘Might 'a' bin a man, though,' she admitted after some thought.