Thinner than water, p.18
Thinner Than Water, page 18
I wished that I was in a hotel in Spellbridge. Felix’s folly appalled me. I supposed that I might have tried harder than I had to check him, but I had found out so long ago how impossible it was to deflect him once he had made up his mind on a course of action that I had not put any real effort into it.
I did not believe that he could successfully forge evidence against Oliver Flint without getting into serious trouble himself. In fact, I did not really believe that Felix intended to do so. I thought that if he found the negative of the photograph that he had burnt he might use it to frighten Oliver Flint and make him vanish out of the lives of Nora and Rosie, but that did not mean that someone else, at some later date, might not be in terrible danger from him. Murder, as we all know, can become addictive. But Felix was never inclined to look ahead very far. His own habit of living from day to day seemed to him perfectly acceptable and he deeply disliked being forced to think about the consequences of his actions.
He was gone longer than I had expected, long enough for me to begin to feel anxious that something had gone wrong and that he was already in trouble. He might have been hunting about the studio when Oliver Flint had come in and caught him. If that had happened, could Felix have been his third victim? In the mood that I was in, it did not seem at all impossible. When the front doorbell rang I had a moment of terror that this was not Felix returning but Oliver Flint, that ogre, come to add a fourth murder to his score. Before opening the door, I slipped the chain into place, opened the door only an inch and asked, “Who’s there?”
“Me,” Felix answered impatiently.
I unhooked the chain and he came in, looking intensely irritated.
Strolling into the drawing room, he said, “Will you tell me, what’s the use of imagination? What’s the use of using one’s brains? What’s the point of having rather more perception than most people if it isn’t to make one a little quicker off the mark than the oafs who haven’t got any? Why was one given these things if they’re never of any use?”
“Haven’t you got the negative?” I asked.
“Oh yes, I’ve got that,” he answered indifferently. He took a small negative out of his pocket and, as he had with the print, set a match to it and as it flared tossed it into the fireplace. I did not even think of trying to stop him this time. “I found it at once in one of his files. The thing was hardly hidden. But the place was crawling with police and I thought in case someone had seen me arrive I’d better go into the house and say I’d come to ask how everyone was. That’s why I’ve been so long.”
“What were the police doing there? They haven’t arrested Gavin?”
“Gavin!” he said contemptuously. “No, they’ve arrested Flint.”
He seemed really put out about it. Groping for a cigarette, he lit it and hurled the match angrily into the fireplace.
I said, “But what’s wrong with that? If they’ve done it without finding the negative, isn’t it all to the good? But what evidence have they got?”
He threw himself down in a chair and said disgustedly, “Evidence! They’ve got witnesses, that’s what they’ve got. They haven’t had to use their imagination, or their intelligence, or their understanding of people. They haven’t built the truth up, little by little, as I have, by interpreting the odd scraps of information that came my way. They simply had the luck to pick up a couple of people who told them they’d practically seen the whole thing.”
“Bruno?” I said.
“He was the first one. He was in the house, of course, when the first murder happened. He was in the dining room, packing up the silver, when he heard someone come in by the back door. If Flint had come to the front door, he’d have seen Pete’s car and probably gone away, but as it was he sneaked in at the back and went straight to Hannah’s room without seeing Pete, who’d hidden behind a curtain. Then Pete heard Brownlow come downstairs and the quarrel and the struggle and a great yell from Brownlow. Then Flint got out fast and Pete went along the passage to see what had happened and found Brownlow dead. And looking out of the kitchen window, he saw a man running away and his description of him fits Flint. Pete got out fast himself then, and he got the idea that if he disposed of the silver fast, before the word of the murder got around, and then disappeared for a time, he might get away with it. He didn’t, of course, and this afternoon he made up his mind to tell the police what he’d seen because he thought they might not lean on him too hard about the silver if he told them what he knew about the murder.”
“Who was the other witness?”
“The Flints’ man, who was working in one of their fields when we went for our walk. Flint didn’t think he could be seen from where the man was, but he’d moved while Flint was here and the man saw him leave by the back door and make for the studio, and he was sure Flint had blood on the mack he was wearing. But the good man’s mind moved slowly and he didn’t decide what to do about it till he’d been home and talked to his wife. She told him to go to the police and finally he went to the man in Charlwood and told him what he’d seen. So then the police went along to the Flints’ house, found a bloodstained mack in the studio and arrested Flint. That’s all. Not what I’d call detection at all.”
“Just normal, reasonable police work,” I said. “Didn’t you say yourself that logically there must be more ways than one of proving that an event has taken place? Their way just happens to be different from yours. But what’s Flint’s motive supposed to have been?”
“You don’t have to prove a motive to get a man convicted of murder,” Felix answered. “At the moment the only one they’ve dreamt up is that Flint was furious with Brownlow because of that block of flats that was going to go up and spoil his view and went to the house to look for evidence of Brownlow’s bribery of Haycock, which he’d somehow got to know about, hoping to put a spoke in Brownlow’s wheel. Thin, very thin, and ridiculous, of course. Flint didn’t give a damn about the flats, because he and Nora were going to move to Portugal. But those witnesses and the bloodstained mack will finish him.”
“You ought to be glad,” I said. “Nora and Rosie, not to mention Gavin, will never see the photograph, yet Oliver won’t go free. You’re spared the responsibility of making any decision about it.”
“There’s that, of course.” Felix was always thankful to be spared responsibility. “All the same, I hope you understand my feelings.”
“I think I do. You’re the frustrated artist. I’m sorry it hurts. But if I were you I’d stick to selling houses. It’s more impersonal. What are you going to do now? Go home tomorrow?”
“Are you?”
“If the police don’t want us, though I suppose we’ll have to come back for the inquest.”
“You’ll be driving straight home, won’t you?” he said. “I’ll be going to London by train. So will Kay, I expect. I think I’ll telephone her in the morning and see if we can travel together. I’ll be going to bed now. All this cerebration takes it out of one.”
I said that I would go to bed too. We went upstairs, kissed each other good night at the top and went to our rooms.
In the morning Felix brought me a cup of tea, but he did not linger to talk, and when presently I went downstairs I found that he had braved the horrors of the kitchen in order to make coffee and toast, which he had taken into the dining room. He told me that he had already telephoned the police and made sure that there was no need for us to stay and that he had then telephoned Kay in Paul Haycock’s flat and arranged with her that they should travel to London together by the eleven-forty.
“D’you feel like driving me into Spellbridge,” he asked, “or shall I phone for a taxi?”
“I’ll drive you in,” I said. “But we ought to get in touch with Gavin first and tell him we’re leaving. We don’t want him to come here and simply find an abandoned house.”
“Of course not,” Felix said. “Will you phone him?”
“All right,” I said and as soon as I had finished my coffee I looked for the Flints’ telephone number in the directory, dialled it and was answered by Gavin.
He sounded exhausted and confused and, when I tried to tell him that Felix and I were leaving, kept interrupting me to apologize for having dragged us into the situation that we were all in. I did not think that he was really taking in what I was saying and was glad when Rosie took over from him and said very calmly that she hoped that we should meet again when times were better. I thought that there was not much doubt which of the two of them would supply the strength that is needed in any marriage.
While we were talking Felix wandered into the drawing room. I found him there, handling the Steuben owl that had taken his fancy earlier. I knew the acquisitive look on his face. If I had come in a moment later, the owl would have vanished into his pocket.
“No!” I said.
He started slightly, looked at the owl regretfully, then put it back on the mantelpiece.
“Charming thing,” he said. “But, after all, I don’t much want to be reminded of the last few days.”
I left him, hoping that he would not pocket anything else while I was out of the room, and went upstairs to pack my suitcase.
We left the house at about half past ten, drove into Spellbridge, picked up Kay and went on to the station. I did not wait to see them off but when they had got out of the car drove on, leaving them standing side by side, waving after me.
I wondered if I should feel better or worse if I thought there was the slightest chance of a relationship between them lasting. I knew that they understood one another pretty well and thought that at the moment that would be good for both of them. But I had always believed that the only hope for Felix, the only thing that would ever keep him straight, would be marriage to a very rich wife, preferably somewhat of an invalid. He would look after her with the utmost tenderness, while her money would save him from the unpleasant necessity of doing any more hard work. Kay did not fit the bill. But that did not save me from feeling a kind of deep loneliness as I drove off, leaving them together.
I was meaning to drive straight on to the motorway and make my way homewards, but seeing a stationer’s which happened to have an empty parking space in front of it, I thought that I would stop there and buy a newspaper, to see if the two murders figured in it and if there was any mention of the fact that a man was helping the police with their enquiries. I was crossing the pavement when I almost collided with a tall, hurrying man who was going to pass on with a word of apology when he stopped and exclaimed, “Mrs. Freer!”
It was Stephen Ledbetter. He lifted his hat.
“A very cold morning,” he observed, which it certainly was. His thin face looked pinched with the chill of it. “Are you leaving us?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I tried telephoning the house not long ago,” he went on, “but got no answer, so I telephoned the Flints and spoke to Gavin. Those poor people, I wish there were something one could do for them, but in the end time is the only thing that can help. Is your husband with you?”
“No,” I said, “he’s left for London.”
“Then you’re alone. I wonder, are you in a great hurry to be off, or have you time to stay on for a little and have lunch with me? It would give me great pleasure if you would. I feel that this isn’t the best of times to be alone. It’s too easy to start brooding over one’s own inadequacy and in the end that does no good to anybody.”
I said that I had the same feeling and that I would be delighted to have lunch with him. There are times when the company of a kindly, elderly man is very steadying. We headed towards the Golden Fleece, where he told me the roast beef and Yorkshire pudding were excellent.
We hope you loved Thinner Than Water. If you’re a fan of E.X. Ferrars’s sharp characterizations and wry wit, you may also like her novels featuring retired professor Andrew Basnett, another amateur sleuth with a keen eye for subtleties. First in that series is Something Wicked, and we’ve included the first chapter here to give you a taste. Enjoy!
Something Wicked
Chapter One
“But of course you must let me pay rent for the place,” Professor Basnett said. “I couldn’t think of staying there otherwise.”
“No, really,” Peter Dilly, his nephew, answered. “I don’t want any rent. It’s an advantage to me to have someone living there through the winter, seeing the pipes don’t freeze and that squatters don’t move in and settle, or burglars break in and steal my priceless treasures. If you’d really like to stay there, Andrew, you’ll be more than welcome.”
Though he was the son of Andrew Basnett’s sister, who had died when Peter was a child, he had never called Andrew uncle in his life. As a child of three Peter had settled for Andrew and had stuck to it ever since. Peter was now thirty-five and Andrew was seventy.
“Of course I realize the money doesn’t mean anything to you now,” Andrew said, “but perhaps if I paid in cash so that the taxman needn’t know…”
“That isn’t the point,” Peter said. “Don’t you understand, I like the thought of you living there if it’s got any attractions for you? I’m glad for once to be able to do something for you, instead of its always being the other way round. And a pretty small thing it is, as I’ve just explained, since I’d far sooner have someone living there for the next few months than just leave the place empty.”
“Very well, if you’re quite sure. I’m very grateful.”
They were having lunch together in Soho. The attraction for Andrew Basnett of borrowing his nephew’s cottage in the Berkshire village of Godlingham was that his own flat in St. John’s Wood was about to be redecorated. At last, after seeing it grow shabbier and shabbier since the death of Nell, his wife, ten years ago, he had made up his mind to have it painted right through, had given a good deal of thought to the choosing of new colours, had felt interested and stimulated at the idea of change, and then had thought with horror of having to live in the midst of the upheaval while the work was in progress.
The men on the job would probably bring a radio with them, which they would play all day at its loudest. At intervals they would want cups of tea. They would discuss football at the tops of their voices. The quiet life, which was the only kind of life that Andrew could endure nowadays, would be shattered. In a state of sheer panic he had almost made up his mind to cancel the whole project when his nephew, as they were drinking sherry before this lunch that they were having together, had asked if by any chance Andrew would care to borrow the cottage in Godlingham, as Peter himself intended to spend the winter in Paris.
“It’s only three miles from Maddingleigh, which is less than an hour from Paddington,” Peter said, “so you could get up to London quite easily and keep on with your work, and my precious Mrs. Nesbit would come in once a week to do the cleaning, just as she does for me, and I expect you’d find the neighbours friendly if you felt like company, though you can be as quiet as you like if you want. I know you like walking, and the downs are there, right at the back door, for when you feel like it.” He finished his sherry and put his glass down. “Just a suggestion,” he said. “Think about it. No need to make up your mind on the spot. I just thought perhaps you might enjoy a change.”
It did not take Andrew a moment to make up his mind. But then there followed the inevitable argument about the rent, though this was little more than a formality, since Andrew knew that Peter would refuse to accept any payment, as Peter had known that Andrew would do his best to insist on a normal businesslike arrangement between them. Luckily for both of them, the money was of little importance to either. Andrew, since his retirement three years ago, had an adequate pension as well as some investments left to him by Nell, and could easily afford to pay a reasonable rent, while Peter, who had started life as a schoolmaster but had recently discovered a knack for writing science fiction, which had turned out surprisingly successful, and who might almost be called rich, certainly had no need for any additional income. For his selfrespect, however, each felt that there should be at least a token argument, though Andrew had known from the beginning that he would give in, since after all it was the rational thing to do, Peter being so obviously pleased to be able to make a generous gesture.
The work that Andrew was doing, to which Peter had referred, was the writing of a life of Robert Hooke, the noted seventeenth-century natural philosopher and architect, celebrated for pioneering microscopical work in a variety of fields, and particularly renowned as the first microscopist to observe individual cells. Andrew, who had been a professor of botany in one of London University’s many colleges, had always felt a particular interest in him and for the last two years had made a habit of going twice a week to work on his papers in the library of the Royal Society in Carlton House Terrace. The first year after his retirement he had spent on a slow journey round the world, lecturing in the United States, New Zealand, Australia and India, but he had started his book soon after arriving home and had been absorbed in it ever since.
Whether it would ever be finished was a matter of uncertainty. As he kept destroying almost as much of it as he added to it week by week, it never seemed to grow any longer. Nevertheless, the work was important to him and one of the attractions of Peter’s offer was that, although Godlingham was in the country, the journey to London was so short that it would be easy to keep up those bi-weekly visits to the Royal Society.
Apart from that, Andrew knew the cottage, knew that it was comfortable, well heated, convenient and quiet. He had spent several week-ends there with Peter while he had still been a schoolmaster, teaching in the nearby school known as Newsome’s, named after the family who had once inhabited what was now only a small portion of the buildings. Peter had left his job soon after his books had begun to sell successfully, but had kept on the cottage. Andrew knew that nothing could suit him better.
“When shall I take over?” he asked once the matter of the rent had been disposed of. He was thinking of the men with their radio and their cups of tea and their football talk and was hoping that after a brief talk with their foreman to make sure that he understood what was to be done, he could arrange to avoid them altogether. The key to the flat could be handed over to the porter, who was an obliging and responsible man and could safely be left in charge. “When are you leaving?”
