The Case of the Gilded Fly (23 page)

For some time Donald and Jean had walked in silence, a
silence on both sides of embarrassment, and a little of shame. Then Donald said:

‘I seem to have been making a damned fool of myself. First over this girl; then by telling a lot of silly lies over what I was doing at the time of the murder. But you know why I told them, don't you?'

Jean's eyes were soft. ‘Yes,' she said, ‘I think I know. But really it wasn't necessary.'

‘Jean,' he said. ‘Then you didn't – ?'

‘Darling, it's really intolerable of you to suspect that. Why should I?'

‘I just jumped to conclusions, I suppose. Silly of me. You know I've been a bit mad these past few months.'

She said softly: ‘Were you really in love with her, Donald?'

‘No.' He hesitated. ‘That is – I don't think so. I think I was just fascinated by her beastliness. Despite the Helens of this world, men will still run after shop-girls. You know – in the circumstances I've got a nerve to say it, but – I think I'm in love with you.'

‘Oh, Donald. How nice you are.'

‘I'm not. I've behaved perfectly abominably.'

‘So have I. If I'd had a little more common sense, I'd have realized it was only an infatuation. Now' – her face clouded – ‘it's too late.'

Donald looked uncomfortable; he poked idiotically at a fallen leaf with the ferrule of his stick. ‘No,' he said slowly, ‘I don't think it's too late. Don't you see the way her death has cleared everything up? It's brought us together again, and Rachel and Robert – the whole atmosphere's better, and there seems to be no one who hasn't gained by it.'

Jean said sombrely: ‘Someone killed her. Who?'

‘Whatever Fen says, I think it was suicide; and I hear that's what the police think too. I hope to God they're right. What a glorious relief it would be if it all ended that way.'

She answered: ‘Fen knows what he's doing, I'm afraid. It's maddening that it should all rest with him; I don't want to see anyone hanged for this. He wanted me to give away –'

Donald looked at her quickly. ‘Give away what?'

Her manner was guarded. ‘You know.'

He nodded, then stopped and turned to face her, putting his hands on her arms. ‘Jean,' he said, ‘I've made up my mind. As soon as this term's over, I'm going to volunteer for the R.A.F. It seems to contain most of the organists in the country anyway. You'll have finished here by then, and – well, as soon as I get my commission, I should like you to marry me.'

She laughed – a small, happy laugh. ‘Oh, Donald, how lovely that will be. I – I shall give up the theatre and keep house for you. I think that's really what I've wanted all along.' She looked at him for a moment with tears in her eyes. Then they kissed.

Somewhere, out of the mists of enchantment, a clock chimed. Donald jumped as though he had been shot. ‘Lord,' he said. ‘Mattins in a quarter of an hour.' He took her hand. ‘Come on, darling. I shall sit and plan a full choral service for our wedding – “Let the Bright Seraphim” for the anthem, and I'll hire St Paul's Cathedral choir to sing it!'

‘People appear to get married,' said Nicholas to the blonde, ‘for no reason at all. The reasons adduced by Christ's church on earth have become, thanks to the march of science, grossly inadequate. I like to observe, though, the way the standards of the church have dropped. Originally, complete continence was the standard of virtue, and marriage a derogation of it. Now, marriage is the standard of virtue, and unmarried love the derogation. No one nowadays takes seriously the imputation of feebleness contained in the words “such persons as have not the gift of continency”.' He sighed. ‘It's a great pity no one has any regard for chastity nowadays; even the church has more or less abandoned it, along with Commination Service and other inconvenient and uncomfortable parts of its rites.' He smiled benevolently. ‘Of course, there are advantages to marriage: it eliminates the tedious and anaphrodisiac process of wooing, for one thing.'

‘Oh, don't try to be clever, Nick,' said the blonde disgustedly.

‘On the contrary: I was trying to bring my conversation down to a level where it would be comprehensible to you. Have another drink?'

‘No, thanks.' The blonde crossed her very attractive legs and adjusted her skirt over them with meticulous care. ‘Tell me about the murder. I want to hear all about it.'

Nicholas emitted a snort, of disgust. ‘I'm fed up with the murder,' he said, ‘I never want to hear another word about it to the end of my life.'

‘Well, I do,' the blonde persisted. ‘Do they know who did it?'

Nicholas was sullen. ‘Fen
thinks
he knows,' he said. ‘I know he's been right on other occasions, but I don't believe in the infallibility of detectives.'

The blonde was emphatic. ‘If he says he knows, then believe me, he does. I've followed all his other cases, and he's never been wrong yet.'

‘Well, if he does, I hope he keeps quiet about it, that's all.'

‘Do you mean you don't want to see the murderer arrested? A nice thing,' said the blonde indignantly, ‘if people can go about killing girls and getting away with it.'

‘With some girls,' rejoined Nicholas severely, ‘it appears to be the only way.'

‘Who do you think did it?'

‘Who do
I
think did it? Good heavens, girl, I don't know. I expect I did it myself, in a moment of mental aberration.'

The blonde looked suitably alarmed. ‘No, really,' she said anxiously.

‘Lots of people had reason to, and half the town seems to be incriminated one way or another. Jean Whitelegge took the gun, Sheila McGaw owned the ring that was found on the body, Donald and Robert Warner and I were all about when it happened, and Helen and Rachel have no alibis. I plump for Helen, myself. She had the only real motive – money. And Fen's been running about after her with his eyes goggling and his tongue hanging out. He's always particularly nice to his murderers – before he has them arrested. Yes, I think Helen's the obvious choice; she's just the sort of sentimental, ignorant little thing who'd do something primitive like that.'

‘I suspect sour grapes,' said the blonde with unusual acumen. ‘She's been going about with that good-looking young journalist recently, hasn't she?'

Nicholas sneered. ‘Well, really,' he said, ‘if that's your standard of male beauty –'

‘All right, Mephistopheles,' the blonde interrupted with spirit, ‘we know anything outside your infernal, Byronic charm is anathema. You can get me another drink now, if you like. I'm going to gold-dig you for all I'm worth this morning.'

Nicholas rose with reluctance. ‘There are times,' he said, ‘when I wish that Timon's comments on Phrynia and Timandra had been a little more subtle and a little less openly offensive. They'd come in so useful.'

Robert and Rachel progressed in circles round Addison's Walk, the soft, clean, effeminate beauty of Magdalen just beyond them.

‘Are you nervous about tomorrow?' asked Rachel.

‘Not exactly nervous; excited, though. I think it's going to be a good performance. The company's played up brilliantly, and you, my dear, are God's own gift to a producer.'

‘Thank you, sir,' she said prettily.

‘A first performance,' he said. ‘Ridiculous effervescence of personal vanity. “Look at me, the brilliant Mr Warner, showing off with a gang of actors and actresses” – that's all it really amounts to. I remember the first play I ever had put on – at a little theatre club in London, when I was still a struggling, insignificant repertory actor of twenty-one. Lord, but wasn't that exciting! I went about pretending that it was the sort of thing that happened to me every day, and weaving fantastic daydreams about a year's West End run – which, I may say, never materialized.'

‘And I remember,' said Rachel, ‘my first part in London – a very tarty Helen in a production of
Troilus
. I imagined all the critics would give me flattering bit-part notices – “special attention should be given to Miss Rachel West, who makes a brilliant miniature of an unsympathetic part” – but in fact none of them said anything about me at all.'

Robert eyed her whimsically. ‘You see?' he said. ‘It's all vanity really. Costals, in Montherlant's novel, is the quintessential type of the artist – the self-sufficient, childish, ruthless egotist. Pulled to pieces, that's certainly all I amount to.'

She laughed. ‘Oh, no, my Robert,' she said, taking his arm, ‘no fishing for compliments. I'm not going to swell your vanity any further.'

He sighed. ‘How well you know me, my dear.'

‘After – what is it? – five years I ought to.'

‘Rachel,' he said suddenly, ‘would you consider marrying me?'

She stopped and looked at him in amazement. ‘Robert, my sweet,' she said, ‘what has come over you? Is this a belated consideration for my honour? I warn you, if you say that again, I shall take you at your word.'

It was his turn to look surprised. ‘You mean you would?'

‘Why the astonishment? My feminine instinct has always been to get married, only you don't want to, and anyone else would have been intolerable.'

‘You realize it will involve a lot of rather tiresome gossip? About the imminence of little strangers and so on?'

‘That can't be helped. If people want to gossip, let them.'

He made her sit down on a bench facing the river. ‘For a long time now,' he said, ‘I've been lusting after permanence. It's wearing to hold out against the conventions of society indefinitely.'

‘That does a little take the edge off the compliment.'

He grinned. ‘I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I think it would be rather a good marriage, don't you? – one of those tranquil, permanent affairs. We know enough about one another to respect each other's madnesses and obsessions.' He mused. ‘Perhaps, like Prospero, I'm developing an obsession about marriage.'

She took his hand. ‘Has Yseut's murder got anything to do with this?'

‘Oh, a little, perhaps. An object lesson in the awfulness of unregulated sex.'

‘Robert' – her voice was serious – ‘what is going to happen about that – the murder, I mean? Do you think this man Fen really knows who did it?'

He shrugged. ‘I suppose so. I hope he keeps it under his hat till after tomorrow night, anyway.'

‘Wouldn't it be better if it were cleared up – rather than have it hanging over us?'

‘My dear, it might be one of the cast – you or me, for that matter. If it were Donald or Nick, I suppose it wouldn't matter. But if you asked me, he's not going to do anything about it at all.'

‘Yes, what
are
you going to do about it, Gervase?' asked Mrs Fen.

Fen absently retrieved a ball hurled more or less in his direction by his small son, and threw it back again. ‘Don't ask me,' he said. ‘I'm sick to death of the whole business.'

‘It's no good to keep on saying that,' said Mrs Fen reasonably, rescuing her knitting-wool from the attentions of the cat. ‘You've got to make up your mind one way or the other.'

‘Well, you advise me.'

‘I can't possibly advise you unless I know who did it.'

Gervase Fen told her.

‘Oh.' Mrs Fen paused in her knitting, and then added mildly: ‘But how extraordinary.'

‘Yes, isn't it? Not what one would have expected.'

‘I won't question you as to why and wherefore,' said Mrs Fen. ‘No doubt I shall hear all about it eventually. But I suggest you drop a gentle hint.'

‘I thought of that. But don't you see,
whatever
I do, I shall have it on my conscience till I reach the grave.'

‘Nonsense, Gervase, you're exaggerating. Either way you'll have forgotten completely about it in three months. Anyway, a detective with a conscience is ludicrous. If you're going to make all this fuss about it afterwards, you shouldn't interfere in these things at all.'

Fen reacted to this bit of feminine common sense in a characteristically masculine way. ‘You're most unsympathetic,' he said. ‘Everyone is. They advise me to read
Tasso.'
He evoked the image of a monstrous and far-reaching persecution. ‘Here am I on the horns of a Cornelian dilemma – torn between duty and inclination –' He wavered, forgot what he was talking about, and seized on the last thing he could remember. ‘Why has a dilemma
horns
, by the way? Is it a sort of cattle?'

Mrs Fen ignored the digression. ‘And to think,' she said, ‘that I never even remotely suspected. Mr Warner was lecturing me
on the murder, by the way, while you were downstairs. He said he thought the killer had come in by way of the West courtyard.'

‘Did he?' said Fen vaguely. ‘That was very lucid of him.'

‘As far as I could see, that was impossible, and I told him so. He seemed very disappointed.'

‘I imagine that was only politeness. He's quite genuinely not interested in the investigation. Not really surprising, when he's got a first night coming off on Monday.'

‘Is it a good play?'

‘Brilliant. Rather in the Jonsonian tradition of satire.'

Mrs Fen shuddered elaborately. ‘I never did like
Volponei
. It's cruel and grotesque.'

Fen snorted. ‘All good satire is cruel and grotesque,' he said. ‘John,' he added to his offspring, ‘you mustn't take the cat by the tail and dip it in and out of the pond like that. It's cruel.'

‘Well, anyway,' said Mrs Fen, ‘I shan't come and see it.'

‘You can't come and see it,' Fen answered rudely, ‘there's no room.' The phraseology of the more abominably offensive of creatures in
Alice
tended to insinuate itself into his conversation.