Buried for Pleasure (24 page)

So much Fen himself had anticipated. What he had not anticipated at all was the perverse local reaction to his words. His first intimation of this came from Mr Judd on the following morning, the Saturday. Fen had risen late; and when about midday he drifted into the bar of the inn, he found Mr Judd perched on a stool there, watching the graceful movements of Jacqueline with the stony intentness of a cat watching a bird. Fen had not been looking forward to meeting Mr Judd; though he knew that Mr Judd's devotion to the cause of independence in politics was almost wholly egotistical, he none the less felt guilty of a profound and far-reaching betrayal. He was the more surprised, therefore, that Mr Judd should greet him with such obviously unfeigned cordiality.

‘My dear Fen, this
is
a pleasure. Come and have a drink. What is it to be?'

‘Well, whisky.'

‘A large whisky, Jacqueline, my dear. . . . Fen, I must congratulate you on your speech last night.'

‘Congratulate me?' Fen repeated incredulously.

‘Of course. It was delicious.'

‘Are you sure, Judd, that you understood what I was saying?'

Mr Judd chuckled as he paid for the whisky. ‘Certainly I did. You made a savage attack on the British people and prophesied for them a future of irremediable disaster.'

‘But you can't possibly
approve
of my having done that.'

‘I don't agree with you,' said Mr Judd more seriously, ‘but that doesn't alter the fact that it was enormous fun.'

Fen was dismayed. ‘Fun?' he said.

‘Just that. Do you know the essays of H. L. Mencken?'

‘I'm inordinately fond of them. I can't subscribe to half he says, but the way he says it is masterly.'

‘That's what I mean about your speech. Naturally, I was startled at first, but I soon settled down to enjoy myself.'

‘
But I was being deliberately insulting
.'

‘Agreed. But you must remember that the insults were more or less impersonal. What's more, it was obvious that you were thoroughly happy, and happiness is infectious. What's
more
, very few people took you seriously.'

‘Are you saying that they regarded the whole thing as a sort of music-hall turn?'

‘Well, in a way. It's difficult to explain, I'm afraid, but there's a queer instinct in people which makes them rather enjoy being cheerfully and exaggeratedly abused. That's why hell-fire preachers are so popular. And even when you're being offensive, my dear fellow, you continue to radiate a most seductive personal charm.'

‘
Charm
,' Fen muttered, much disgruntled.

‘Of course, some people were angry. But a quite surprising number weren't. It was all such a
relief
, you see, compared with what they expected. Oh, dear, I'm explaining this very badly. But the fact itself remains: you may have antagonized a few people, but your catharsis has probably gained you more votes than you've lost. Be honest: wouldn't you vote for a candidate who had the courage to make a speech like that?'

‘Well, I'm damned,' said Fen in deep disgust.

In the afternoon he drove into Sanford Morvel to see Wolfe.

‘Well, Professor Fen, you've certainly caused a sensation,' Wolfe greeted him. ‘I wish I'd been there.'

‘Look here, Wolfe, is it true that people actually didn't
mind
what I said last night?'

‘Oh, the stuffier folk are up in arms about it, as you'd expect. But lots of your audience loved it. One man I talked to said he'd been longing all his life for a political bloke to get on his hind legs and say something like that. This man was going to vote Labour – in fact, he came to your meeting to heckle – but he's decided now to vote for you instead.'

‘Good God,' said Fen indistinctly.

After a few more inquiries he reluctantly abandoned the topic and got down to business. During the night he had reached a definite conclusion regarding the identity of the murderer
X
; and since there were loose ends to be tidied up, and the process might take time, he wished to make sure that this person did not escape from the neighbourhood, or make a further attempt to kill Jane Persimmons, before he was in a position to get an arrest warrant. With this end in view, he communicated certain opinions to Wolfe. And Wolfe was dumbfounded.

‘Good Lord, sir,' he said. ‘I never dreamed. . . . Then I take it you want me to keep an eye on her.'

‘Just give me twenty-four hours,' said Fen. ‘That should be enough.'

He drove back to the inn and sought out Myra.

‘Myra,' he said, ‘I want you, please, to remember everything you can about the afternoon Jane Persimmons had her accident.'

‘I'll try, my dear. Where do you want me to start?'

‘Let's say five o'clock. With as much detail as you can manage.'

‘Well, at five o'clock I was having tea in my room with Jackie, and Jackie was mending a ladder in her second-best nylons for the dance we were going to in the evening.'

‘Was Jane Persimmons about?'

‘I think she was in her room, my dear, though I wouldn't absolutely swear to it.'

‘And Bussy – Crawley, that's to say?'

‘He was out. I know that.'

‘Right. Go on.'

Myra frowned with the effort of recollection. ‘Well, nothing happened that I can remember till the Superintendent arrived from Sanford Morvel. That'd be about twenty past. I gave him a cup of tea, and he sat down and we chatted, friendly like. He'd had complaints we weren't closing dead on time, and I don't say we always do, but he hasn't any more use for these ruddy puritans than I have, so he just warned me, quite pleasantly, to be a bit more careful in future, or he'd have to take official notice of it. Then he got up and went at – let's see, it'd be just before six. Only he didn't drive off straight away: he tinkered about a bit inside the bonnet of his car.'

‘Yes, never mind him,' said Fen. ‘What did you do?'

‘I opened up the bar and – no, wait, I didn't do that straight away. The girl, that's Jane Persimmons, hadn't said if she was going to be in for dinner, so I went up to her room to find out.'

‘You were alone?'

‘No, Jackie was with me. She was going to change.'

‘So you knocked' – Fen wanted minutiae at this stage – ‘on Jane's door.'

‘Yes, I did, and opened it straight away without waiting for an answer.' Myra was quick-witted enough to understand what had motivated Fen's prompting. ‘The girl was standing by the window where the dressing-table is, and when I looked in she put something quickly into a drawer, as though she didn't want me to see what it was.'

‘And you
didn't
see what it was?'

‘I'm afraid not, my dear. And then – –'

‘Just a moment. Can you remember exactly what time it was?'

Myra smiled her worldly and charming smile. ‘Oh, I'm the perfect witness, sir. Just as I knocked on the door the church clock was striking six. I know that because, of course, the bar's due to open at six, and I was keeping an eye on the time.'

‘Good,' said Fen. ‘And what happened after Jane put whatever it was into the drawer?'

‘I asked if she'd be in to dinner and she said “yes”. and she was going out for a walk first. So she picked up her bag and came out on to the landing and shut the door behind her, and we went downstairs together.'

‘Was Jacqueline with you all this time?'

‘Yes, she was.
She
came downstairs, too, because I suddenly remembered the potatoes weren't peeled, and I asked her to do it because I had to open the bar, and it's a messy job, so she didn't want to change till it was finished.'

‘And then?'

‘Then the girl left us at the bottom of the stairs and went out. I saw she stopped and talked to the Superintendent for a minute or two, but I don't know what it was about. She set off along the road, and Jackie went into the kitchen, and I went down to the cellar to put on a new barrel of mild. About five minutes after that I heard your Scotland Yard friend shouting for me, and it turned out he was leaving and wanted his bill in a hurry. So I gave it him and took his money, and went and opened the bar. And a bit later Diana drove him to the station in her taxi, and after that nothing happened till you came in and told me about the accident.'

‘Good,' said Fen. ‘That's as far as we need go. Now, about this dance you and Jacqueline visited in Sanford Morvel. What time did you arrive there?'

‘About a quarter to eleven, my dear.'

‘And you left when?'

‘One a.m. prompt.
Good Night Sweetheart, God Save the King
, and out you go.'

‘And did either you or Jacqueline leave the dance at any time?'

‘No, my dear. It wasn't us that knifed the detective.'

‘I didn't imagine it was,' said Fen, smiling, ‘but I believe in stopping loopholes.'

‘Then you're beginning to see daylight?'

‘Lots of it.'

‘I wish,' said Myra wistfully, ‘that I'd been at your meeting last night.'

‘Oh, to hell with my meeting,' said Fen crossly, his personal misgivings returning in full spate. ‘I wish I'd just withdrawn my candidature and left it at that.'

Myra was greatly surprised. ‘But don't you
want
to be elected, my dear?'

‘Not now. I did at first, but not now.'

‘Well, if that's so, you've wasted a devil of a lot of money.'

‘Yes,' said Fen impenitently. ‘Oh, there's one other thing I was wanting to ask, Myra. Was Jane Persimmons away from the inn earlier on the day of her accident?'

‘Yes, my dear. She wasn't here for lunch, and I don't think she came back until about four.'

‘Did you see her come in?'

‘No, I didn't. I only heard her. Is it important?'

‘Not essential. It might possibly have confirmed what's already obvious. . . . Well, thank you, Myra.'

‘You're welcome, my dear.'

Samuel appeared. He was clutching, by the neck, a scrawny chicken which to judge by olfactory criteria had been dead far too long.

‘Urrggh,' he said disgustedly on perceiving Fen.

‘You may get your peacocks yet,' said Fen encouragingly to Myra. He left her to contend alone with Samuel's disreputable bargaining, and was pleased if not surprised when Jacqueline, located in the kitchen, corroborated her narrative in every detail.

Leaving the inn, he encountered Mr Beaver uselessly examining his nugatory blueprint. The destruction was by this time far-reaching; dust seeped perpetually under the doors, like smoke in a burning house; doomed islets in a rising flood, Fen's room and Myra's and Jacqueline's and the bar were alone untouched. And now it seemed that the bar, the very heart of the inn, was about to succumb.

‘We've got to take that beam away from the ceiling,' said Mr Beaver. ‘That's going to be a job.'

‘I think, you know,' Fen ventured, ‘that it might be rather a dangerous thing to do. The beam is probably an organic part of the house's structure.'

‘It'll be all right,' said Mr Beaver with distinct surliness. Myra's uncomplimentary estimate of his staying-power had apparently been accurate.

Fen devoted the next twenty-four hours to establishing beyond all possible doubt that Myra and Jacqueline had been uninterruptedly dancing, on the previous Monday night, between eleven and one. Such thoroughness was foreign to his nature, but in this instance he thought it worth while. Finally, towards midday on the Sunday, he visited the hospital and ascertained from a number of doctors and nurses that by no conceivable eventuality could Jane Persimmons have recovered consciousness between the moment of her accident and the following Thursday afternoon; the suggestion that unconsciousness might have been feigned was met with a contemptuous and unqualified negative. Jane, he learned, was decidedly better; Diana and Lord Sanford had three times tried to see her, but for the moment it was desirable that she should do no talking. There was good hope of a rapid and complete recovery.

So that, Fen reflected, was that.

He drove to the Town Hall for the result of the poll.

Throughout the previous day the inhabitants of the neighbourhood had trickled to the polling-booths. At six o'clock the polling-booths had closed and a count had begun. By nine o'clock a recount, and by eleven a third. This conscientiousness was explained by the eventual verdict, which was as follows:

‘
Damn
,' said Fen.

Strode and Wither shook his hand with unconcealed resentment. He made a brief and unenthusiastic speech to a small crowd which had gathered to hear the announcement; and although they vaguely cheered, they were clearly disappointed by its conventionality.

‘Congratulations, old boy, and may your shadow never grow less,' said Captain Watkyn. ‘I told you all along that your final speech would get you a lot of votes, and so it has. Not a very big majority, perhaps, but in my opinion that's because we never got that blasted loudspeaker van back on the road. . . . I tell you what, we'll have a drink on this.'

Fen looked at his watch. It was half past midday. ‘There's something I must deal with first,' he said. ‘I'll meet you at “The Fish Inn” in about an hour.'