A Bedlam of Bones (15 page)

It wouldn’t have been so bad if they had arrived separately; but appearing as they did, within ten minutes of each other, was – to put it politely – challenging. Neither would it have been quite so dire had Maud not brought Gunga Din. Faced with mistress and dog on their own I can cope fairly well, but the addition of Mavis Briggs created a situation of fearsome consequence.

It was Wednesday afternoon, generally a fairly slack period, and other than the crossword before Evensong I had nothing especially to do. So when an unexpected telephone call from Mrs Tubbly Pole announced that lady’s imminent arrival, though surprised I was not unduly perturbed … That is to say until she revealed the purpose of her visit: to ‘ferret out, my dear, a little more of your murky mystery!’

So acute are my personal sensitivities to the ‘Fotherington Case’ that my immediate reaction was one of frenzied horror. Was she really bent on its resurrection? First time round had been bad enough
*
, but to have her sleuthing yet
again
into that awful business was more than flesh and blood could stand. What on earth could I do?

‘Why?’ I asked faintly. ‘I thought you’d already written one novel based on it – surely you don’t need another.’

‘No, no,’ she said impatiently, ‘that was
Murder at the Moleheap
– jolly good too, it was. But there’s no more mileage there. What I want to know about now is this
recent
business in that woman’s garden – the anonymous body. It’s been in the newspapers but no details yet, so I just thought that my old friend in Molehill might have an idea or two.’

‘Well he hasn’t,’ I replied. ‘Not a clue.’

‘You are so modest, my dear,’ she chortled. ‘There’s more in that head than one might think!’ There being no answer to that, I cleared my throat. ‘Now,’ she continued avidly, ‘have you spoken to the garden owner yet? What has she to say about it all? You know, I have a theory that it may have been a lover whom she had tired of – blew his head off and then left him out in the rain while she was thinking what to do. Have you considered that, Francis?’

I admitted that on the whole I had not, and that given the lady in question, it seemed highly unlikely.

‘Ah,’ she replied darkly, ‘but if you knew human nature as I do, you would realize that the improbable is always possible. I haven’t been a crime writer all these years without discovering that it is often the most innocent-seeming who are the most dastardly!’

‘Is that so?’ I remarked drily.

‘Oh yes. Anyway, I’ll tell you more when we arrive.’

‘We?’

‘Well I know you would like to see Gunga Din again, and as you know, he is
so
fond of you! Expect us in half an hour. Toodle-oo.’

I went into the kitchen, cheered by her claim that there was ‘no more mileage’ to the Fotherington affair, and abstractedly started to assemble tea things; then, remembering the bulldog’s penchant for gin, checked the level in the bottle … low. Too bad. I had no intention of sacrificing my après-Evensong comforts to those of the dog. He would just have to go without. Unchristian? Undoubtedly.

She arrived, vivid and volatile, accompanied as promised by her rather less than animated companion. He greeted me solemnly and rolled a bulging eye. Hmm, I thought, if he thinks that’s going to produce the tipple, he’s in for a disappointment. To my relief, however, Maud declared that the ‘little boy’ was on the wagon but that a drop of Schweppes in a saucer would be most acceptable. It evidently was, for after a few ruminative laps he went and sat quietly by the French window, gazing intently at two butterflies crawling up the pane.

With dog thus occupied and mistress firmly settled on the sofa, we turned – or she did – to things criminal, namely the abandoned corpse. Despite reluctance to get drawn into her speculations, it would have looked strange had I kept silent, and so I did my best to appear suitably intrigued. She romped on merrily, then asked why I was sure that her original theory about it being a despised lover was so unlikely.

I closed my eyes in a spasm of pain, and then opening them, said quietly, ‘I think you will see why at any moment.’ She followed my gaze through the window, to the front gate and the figure of Mavis Briggs purposeful with asparagus.

I do not like asparagus and I could have done without Mavis, but clearly both were to be my lot that afternoon and I coped as best I could – which was not terribly well.

Each visitor recognized the other from Maud’s recent literary talk when Mavis had had the temerity to quiz the novelist about the importance of the ‘moral dimension’. According to Colonel Dawlish, the author’s puzzled response that as far as she was aware there wasn’t one, had not won favour with Mavis, who spent the rest of the session tut-tutting loudly. (‘Frightful racket!’ he had complained.)

Initially, therefore, a froideur of mutual suspicion hung in the air, but I rather clumsily broke the ice by telling Mavis how much my guest sympathized with her dreadful experience with the body. It was meant to kill two birds with one stone – to mollify Mavis while at the same time slaking Maud’s rampant curiosity. In fact it produced such a barrage of excited dissonance as each strove to wield her oar, that I was reduced to escaping to the garden under the pretext of seeing off the pigeons.

When I returned, although things had calmed somewhat I did not get the impression that they were entirely ‘at one’. Despite their shared interest in the topic (Mavis as drama queen and Mrs Tubbly Pole playing amateur detective), I sensed that neither was overly impressed with the other – Mavis still doubtful of Maud’s literary propriety and the latter clearly bored with her fellow guest’s vapid prattle.

I was just wondering how to get rid of Mavis, or at least turn the conversation, when, grabbing the tea pot, Mrs Tubbly Pole splashed a dark stream into the visitor’s cup and pushed the plate of buns in her direction. It was, I think, an effort to keep her quiet, which for a time it did.

During the pause Mrs T.P. turned to me and, cutting across both our companion and the previous topic, said, ‘Tell me, Francis, have you seen much of Freddie Felter recently? I’ve been giving him some thought and come to a conclusion about which I’ll tell you
later
.’ She nodded meaningfully in the direction of the munching Mavis.

‘Er, no, not really,’ I answered vaguely, ‘except at Lavinia Birtle-Figgins’ housewarming. Saw him there briefly.’ I shot a fond glance in the direction of Gunga Din, hoping to divert her attention, but the dog seemed to have disappeared.

‘Was Turnbull with him?’ she asked.

‘Well, not with him as
such
. But he was there with Lavinia – helped her to organize the thing. They are quite close.’

‘Hmm,’ she brooded. ‘So what’s F.F. like these days? Still as slimy?’

I was about to give a non-committal response, when there was a neighing laugh from Mavis. ‘F.F.? Weren’t those the initials on that handkerchief in your car, Canon – you know, the one you thought was yours?’

‘Oh, I’ve got handkerchiefs all over the place,’ I said lightly, cursing Mavis’s elephantine memory. ‘Always dropping them!’

She laughed. ‘Yes, but do they all bear the initials F.F.?’ And turning to Maud she exclaimed breathily, ‘Did you know that in the Canon’s family, the name Philip is spelt with an
F
? Isn’t that quaint? I’ve never heard of such a thing before! Have you?’

‘Of course,’ answered Mrs T.P. woodenly. ‘It’s a medieval derivation.’

‘Well I never! But tell me, how—’

She never completed her question. For at that moment the bulldog came lumbering back, advanced slowly towards her, and with a guttural grunt hauled itself on to her lap. Here he floundered while Mavis screamed and sent buns and crockery flying. Undeterred, the creature proceeded to smother her in lavish and snorting endearments while the object of his affections drummed her heels and tried vainly to beat him off.

‘Absurd!’ I heard Maud expostulate. ‘Just keep still and give him a pat.’

That was the last thing Mavis was going to do, and I rose hastily to pull the dog away. Indeed, such was my haste that I knocked over a small table of books, scattering the volumes in all directions. Then just as I was reaching for the dog’s collar, with a cascade of squawks Mavis heaved the friendly one to the floor where he emitted an anguished roar. This coincided with a similar eruption from the owner. ‘Come to Mummy!’ bellowed an enraged Mrs Tubbly Pole. ‘Look what you’ve done to him!’

Mavis’s departure was swift and unceremonial. Mrs Tubbly Pole’s was slower and more thoughtful. After she had demanded that I yield my remaining gin to soothe the victim’s injured psyche, she tried to quiz me re the handkerchief. ‘What was that bit about spelling your second name with an F?’ she asked suspiciously. ‘I’ve never heard such nonsense! There’s more to this than meets the eye. If I were a private dick in one of my novels I’d say you had been giving that toad Felter a lift!’ She gave a caustic laugh.

‘Rather a long story which I’ll tell you sometime,’ I parried. ‘But if you don’t mind, not just now, Maud, I’m a little fatigued.’

After she had gone I surveyed the fall-out from their visit: the debris of broken china, far-flung books and squashed buns. Chewing dolefully on one of these, I set about tidying things up. With or without the gin, that evening’s choral service would be a balm and therapy of which I had much need …

As it happens Evensong did do the trick, and despite the run-in with Maud and Mavis, the continuing embarrassment of the flower fiasco, and not least the visitation from Slowcome, I returned home moderately refreshed. Indeed, such was the refreshment that my spirits remained buoyant until a late breakfast the following day. At this point, however, tensions resumed and I started once more to contemplate the mystery surrounding Felter and our ill-judged disposal of his body.

I munched my toast despondently and wondered what on earth I should do if the tedious Slowcome succeeded in linking us with the corpse. It wouldn’t just be Clinker who was suspected of murder – we should all be in the can! And meanwhile the killer was loose, presumably well away and smug at the possibility of there being a ready-made set of scapegoats – or fall-guys, as the Americans put it.

I gazed at the dog snoring blissfully by the boiler and wished I could share its ease … Still, I thought, no point in crossing premature bridges. Even when Felter was identified (which he surely would be), despite my anxiety, I reasoned that there was nothing to make the police suspect the wretched man had ever been near the bishop’s Palace – let alone in the Reverend Oughterard’s car.
Except
, I recalled with a pang, the initialled handkerchief and Mavis’s babbling tongue … Nasty. (And I wasn’t too keen on Mrs T.P.’s crack about my giving him a lift, either!)

The handkerchief, of course, I had got rid of – but not Mavis’s memory, and there was no knowing when, or with whom, she might mention the thing again. It was a worrying problem and for the moment there seemed no answer … I sighed and returned my gaze to the sleeping dog, and wondered not for the first time how on earth it could see anything through that impenetrable mop. Looking at Bouncer put me in mind of Gunga Din and his owner’s latest whim – a richly embroidered dog-coat to clothe his portly flanks. Absurd!

And then, of course, I had my answer:
embroidery
. Yes, not only would I resolutely stick to my yarn about the initials (modifying it to invent a family soubriquet for Philip – Fillo, perhaps) but I would get Primrose to embellish a dozen handkerchiefs to that effect. Thus, flaunting the letters
F.F.
I could blow my nose with casual panache and bamboozle the lot of them – Maud included! Primrose naturally was bound to grumble, but with a little cajoling and promise of remuneration she would soon yield.

I grinned, congratulating myself on the neatness of the plan, and in lighter mood poured more coffee and smothered the toast in peanut butter. I was just poised to bite into this when the telephone rang. It shrilled insistently and Bouncer awoke with a bark. There was no choice but to answer.

Still smarting from Gladys’s visit, I was far from pleased to hear her husband’s voice. ‘I am in a call box,’ the bishop announced, ‘and will be with you in ten minutes. Kindly do not leave the house.’ He rang off and I was left staring at the receiver.

‘Oh, what the hell now?’ I protested to the cat. ‘What the ruddy hell now?’

MY LORD BISHOP
, it said,
I KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE DONE.
That was all. Short, crisp, unadorned, unsigned.

I stared down at the paper in my hand and then up at its recipient, the stark monosyllables dancing before my eyes.

‘When did this come?’ I whispered.

‘The morning delivery,’ he replied. ‘Typed brown envelope, first class, smudged postmark.’

I gazed at the black capitalized message, trying to make it speak, to see something in it other than those nine faceless words.

‘But how on earth …’ I began.

‘I do not
know
, Francis! Obviously someone else. And neither do I know what it
means
,’ replied Clinker, cheeks grey and drawn. ‘An allusion to the past? Or to the disposal of the body? Your guess is as good as mine …’ He paused, and then added ruminatively, ‘What an effing bastard.’

I could merely nod, having nothing more useful nor more apt to say.

‘She’ll divorce me, you know.’

‘What?’

‘Gladys, she won’t stand for it. Couldn’t bear the scandal. She’ll go to her sister in Brussels.’

I refrained from offering my congratulations. And instead said stoutly, ‘Nonsense, sir, it will never come to that – and in any case, I’m sure Mrs Clinker would look upon this as a challenge. I can’t see her being defeated by some malicious little guttersnipe, whatever the circumstances!’

Actually, despite my aversion to the bishop’s wife – and even more to her sister, the appalling Myrtle – I think my words held a ring of truth. Presumably Clinker agreed, for he suddenly stiffened, and with a gleam of mild battle in his eye said, ‘You are right, Oughterard, she wouldn’t. And neither shall I. Whoever it is shan’t get away with it!’ But even as he spoke I could see the spirit slumping and the old fears jostling back: ‘But if it wasn’t only Felter – who else? Do you suppose there’s a whole
gang
of them out there?’

I was silent, grappling with similar thoughts … But I grasped at a straw: ‘You know, it would have been perfectly possible for him to have written that note earlier on, before visiting you, and for it to have got delayed in the post. There have been a number of strikes lately, the unions playing up again. Or maybe he had wanted to fox you and post it away from London, and gave it to someone else to mail at a later date, and then decided to approach you in person anyway.’

‘Could be,’ he muttered. But he didn’t sound very convinced. As neither was I.

I know what you have done
… It was the wretched ambiguity that was so puzzling. Obviously, if it meant the shifting of the corpse, then someone else was responsible. But if it referred to the Oxford business, it might just conceivably have been penned by Felter at an earlier date – although it was not in the style of the three previous notes. Those had been much more expansive – bantering, cocky; whereas this, apart from the mannered ‘My Lord Bishop’, was tersely deadpan. Nor was there any allusion to money, as there had been in the last one. If Felter had composed a fourth message prior to his fatal visit to the Palace, would he not have pursued the money aspect and made the demand more explicit? And besides, what had happened to the quacking duck? Had Felter grown bored with his puerile nonsense?

No, the straw was too pale and too weak: clearly another person was on the bishop’s trail. And despite the sparsity of the letter’s content, I felt a chilling fear. They were out to get him, all right – and quite possibly Ingaza too. But
why
, for God’s sake? Clinker was well heeled enough but he was no millionaire, and Nicholas’s funds were decidedly up and down. The wretched Felter may have felt he would try his luck with them for a single limited payment, but surely the financial potential was not enough to excite the persistence of a second pursuer? And even if it were, why continue to be so oblique? Why not just demand the damn money and be done with it?

Perhaps, I thought with a surge of anger, it was indeed the Oxford folly and some sanctimonious pygmy was intent on stirring mischief less for monetary gain than the satisfaction of massaging the egos of the righteous. Clinker’s gaffe may have been years ago, but the police still took a disproportionate interest in such ‘deviant’ behaviour and he was right to fear the threat of social disgrace  – if not gaol itself. Yes, whether simple blackmail, malicious revenge for some past slight, or a perverted sense of moral justice – whatever the motive, the bishop’s position was highly precarious … But then, of course, if it were the other blunder, disposal of the body, such a revelation could be equally dire – and substantially worse if they pinned a murder charge on him!

‘Have you spoken to Nicholas?’ I asked.

He shook his head. ‘Telephoned as soon as I read it, but that strange Eric person told me he had gone to visit an “old auntie” and wouldn’t be back till later … I didn’t know Ingaza had an aunt – and in any case, why should he suddenly need to visit her, for Heaven’s sake? I don’t believe a word of it! The fellow asked if I wanted to leave a message or my name, and when I said that neither would be necessary, he had the nerve to say, “Right-o, Bish, I’ll tell him when he’s back.” The effrontery!’ Clinker glowered, the note momentarily eclipsed by the impudence of Ingaza’s cheery house mate.

‘Actually,’ I murmured, ‘it’s true, he does have an aunt. Aunt Lil. Probably taking her to the Eastbourne bandstand. They go there sometimes and then stop off at Fullers for tea and ices, and walnut—’

‘Oh, blow the aunt!’ cried Clinker wildly. ‘What about
me
and this damn letter? I tell you, I shall be ruined and Creep Percival will dance on my grave!’ Not with that gouty leg, I thought.

Indeed, Creep Percival’s inability to dance was the one certainty I had in the matter. However, I tried to calm the bishop as best I could, assuring him (with failing conviction) that things were bound to blow over and to think of Mother Julian.

‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Er – well, you know, sir, “All things shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well …”‘

He regarded me glassily, and then said: ‘You may recall, Oughterard, that Mother Julian was not about to be accused of sodomy or of unlawfully concealing a corpse. Had that been the case, she may have been less sanguine … Now if you don’t mind, perhaps you could offer me something a little more sustaining.’ He stared fixedly at the whisky decanter, and I hastened to find a glass.

As we sat sipping and brooding, there was the shrill of the telephone, and I got up wearily, assuming it might be Colonel Dawlish complaining about the deputy church warden. In fact it was my sister’s voice, but without its usual briskness.

‘Are you alone?’ she breathed.

I told her that the bishop was with me.

‘Where?’

‘Not at my elbow, if that’s what you mean. He’s in the sitting room, guzzling my Scotch. I say, Primrose, have you got a sore throat? You sound a bit hoarse.’

‘Hoarse?’ she hissed. ‘I am unsettled, Francis, unsettled!’ Before I could ask why, she said, ‘I have just received a very peculiar communication – most peculiar.’

‘Oh yes? Turnbull proposed marriage, has he?’

‘Don’t be facetious,’ she snapped, ‘this is serious.’

I said that I was sure it was and that I was all ears.

‘Well there’s not much to hear, actually. It’s a message of some brevity: “What price the Canada geese?”‘

‘No idea. What are you talking about?’

‘Oh really, Francis!’ she expostulated at full volume. ‘Go back to Clinker and I’ll phone you later when you are more
attuned
!’

‘But Primrose—’ I protested. The line went dead; and perplexed, I returned to my visitor.

He prosed, fulminated and finally left. And thankful but worried, I went into the kitchen and started to open a tin of meatballs.

I was just throwing these into a saucepan and heating the stove, when light and alarm dawned:
Oh my God, she had had one too
!

Narrowly missing the sleeping cat, I sat down heavily at the table and pondered her words: ‘What price the Canada geese?’ My sister had only one connection with Canada: the paintings that she and Ingaza palmed off as original eighteenth-century pastorals and from which they made a ‘pretty packet’. It was a project and collaboration that had always perturbed me, but little had I thought that the gravest danger would be from blackmail. But that was obviously what it was, and judging from the note’s cryptic economy, it came from the same source as Clinker’s.

Shelving the meatballs, I lit a cigarette and brooded. Perhaps there
was
an outside chance of its being a coincidence … No, not even an outside. The provenance had to be the same. The person pursuing Clinker had also set their sights on my sister – and presumably, because it was their joint venture, Ingaza too. I groaned. Back to square one with a vengeance!

But who could possibly suspect that Primrose’s painting activities were anything other than above board? Court-auld shenanigans apart, until snared in Ingaza’s silky web, Primrose had led a life of patent, if impatient, rectitude. There was nothing dubious either in her past or her persona to suggest artistic chicanery. It would seem, surely, that the writer of the note had discovered the deception entirely by accident. But how? A chance remark? Unlikely from Primrose and certainly not from Ingaza. A loose tongue among the latter’s cronies? The Cranleigh Contact? Or … a picture of Eric, garrulous amidst beer and darts, sprung to mind, but I banished it instantly. No, at St Bede’s Nicholas had been attended by satellites of a sly discretion, and it was unthinkable that his present chum, though lacking their social grace, would not share that essential quality. Raucous though he might be, Eric was no blabbermouth.

I sighed, went into the hall and dialled. ‘Ah, Nicholas, glad to get you. Nice time with Aunt Lil?’

‘Knackered,’ was the terse reply.

‘All in a good cause,’ I answered vaguely. ‘Um – afraid I’ve got some bad news.’

‘You’re coming to Brighton.’

‘No, worse. Hor and Prim have both had blackmail letters – or at least I think that’s their object.’

There was a silence. And then he said slowly, ‘You mean since Felter?’

‘Yes,’ I said firmly, ‘since Felter.’

The response was explosive and unprintable.