Edmund Crispin - Buried for Pleasure

Fen rummaged in his mind, seeking not for that book of Mr Judd’s which he thought the best, but for the one which Mr Judd was likely to cherish most. ‘ The Screaming Bone ,’ he said at last.

‘Admirable!’ said Mr Judd, and Fen was pleased that his diagnosis had been correct. ‘I’m so glad you enjoyed that one, because the critics were very down on it, and yet I’ve always thought it the finest thing I’ve done. Mind you, the critics are down on all my books, because they haven’t any psychology in them, but they were particularly harsh about that one… You’re very perceptive, Professor Fen, very perceptive indeed.’ He beamed approval. ‘Still, we mustn’t waste time talking about my nonsense,’ he concluded insincerely. ‘Where are you heading for?’

‘I think’ – Fen glanced at his watch – ‘that it’s about time I was strolling back to the village.’

Mr Judd’s face fell. ‘What a pity – I have to go in the opposite direction, or we could have walked along together and talked,’ he said with great simplicity, ‘about my books. Still, you must come and have a meal with me – I live in a cottage only a quarter of a mile from here. What about lunch today?’

Fen said: ‘I’m afraid, you know, that I’m going to be very busy during the coming week,’ but Mr Judd’s disappointment was so manifest and poignant that he was moved to add: ‘But I dare say we can fit something in.’

‘Please try,’ said Mr Judd earnestly. ‘Please try. My telephone number is Sanford 13, and you needn’t hesitate to ring me at any time. Where are you staying?’

‘The Fish Inn,’ said Fen.

These words produced, unexpectedly enough, a marked change in Mr Judd. A new light appeared in his eyes – a light which Fen could not but associate with the more disreputable antics of satyrs in classic woods. In tones of reverence he said:

‘The Fish Inn… Tell me, have you come across that beautiful girl?’

‘The blonde?’

‘The blonde.’

‘Well, yes. She brought me my early morning tea.’

Mr Judd drew in his breath sharply.

‘She brought you your tea ,’ he said, somehow investing Fen’s prosaic statement with the glamour of a phallic rite. ‘And was she wearing that powder-blue frock?’

‘I can’t really remember,’ said Fen vaguely. ‘It was something tight-fitting, I think.’

‘ Tight-fitting ,’ Mr Judd repeated with awe. He looked at Fen as he might have looked at a man who had lit a fire with bank-notes. ‘Do you know, I think she’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen… Do you think she reads my books? I’ve never dared ask her.’

‘I doubt if she’s intelligent enough to read anyone’s books.’

Mr Judd sighed. ‘It’s just as well, perhaps,’ he said, ‘because she mightn’t like them…’ He veered from the topic with obvious reluctance. ‘Well, well, I mustn’t keep you.’

‘Don’t forget your revolver,’ said Fen.

‘No, I’d better not do that. Apart from anything else, I haven’t got a licence for it.’

‘And by the way – what is the point of throwing it into the pond and pulling it out again?’

‘That,’ Mr Judd explained, ‘is because the murderer wants to give the impression that he left it there at the time of the murder, and only retrieved it a good deal later , for fear of its discovery. The detective, of course, finds it somewhere quite different.’

‘But why should the murderer want to give that impression?’

Mr Judd became evasive. ‘I think you’d better read the book when it comes out. I’ll send you a copy… You realize about the coat, of course. It belongs to the victim, and the murderer wears it inside out so that when he carries the body the coat gets bloodstains on it where they ought to be, on the inside .’

‘Yes,’ said Fen. ‘Yes, I’d grasped that.’

‘Very quick of you. Well, you’ll let me know when you can pay me a visit, won’t you? I shall look forward to it, look forward to it enormously. I live a very solitary life, because there’s no one intelligent to talk to in Sanford Angelorum except the Rector, and his interests are confined to theology and birds and gardening, about all of which his information is tiresomely complete. Yes, you must certainly come and have a meal, and I shall be interested to hear any criticisms you may have to make about my books… Yes. Well, goodbye for the present.’

‘Goodbye,’ said Fen, shaking him by the hand. ‘I’ve very much enjoyed meeting you, and I hope I didn’t interrupt your test.’

‘Not in the least,’ Mr Judd assured him. ‘All I had left to do was to take the body into the village and put it on top of the War Memorial… Well, then, I shall hope to be seeing you.’

They parted cordially, Mr Judd to retrieve his revolver and Fen to return to the village, full of regret at having missed seeing Mr Judd hoisting an imaginary corpse on to the War Memorial, and speculating on Mr Judd’s murderer’s motives in performing this laborious and public act.

He had reached the point provisionally identified as Sweeting’s Farm, and had worked out a rambling, intricate theory about Mr Judd’s murderer which involved the propinquity of an expatriate tulip-grower from Harlingen, when he saw approaching him, at a slow and thoughtful pace, the self-styled Crawley, who was now wearing a tweed cap and a tweed knickerbocker suit and carrying a fishing-rod in a manner which suggested that he was unused to it.

The conviction of having seen or known this man in some other context returned to Fen with redoubled force. He decided to accost him and, if possible, resolve the problem.

In this project, however, he was over-sanguine. The man looked up, observed his purposeful approach, glanced hurriedly about him, and in another moment had bounded over a stile and was hastening precipitately away across the field to which it gave access.

Shaken at being thus obviously avoided, Fen halted; then resumed his walk in a less cheerful mood. At one time and another he had made contact with various persons whom the law regarded with disfavour, and it was not impossible that ‘Crawley’ was one of them. In that case Fen had a responsibility for preventing whatever mischief might be contemplated – only the trouble was that he could not be sure that any mischief was contemplated…

He inspected the miscellaneous lumber-room of his mind in the hope of enlightenment, but vainly. He was still inspecting it, still vainly, when he arrived back at the inn.

His walk had taken him longer than he imagined, and it was already ten past eleven. The bar, however, got little custom before midday, and it was empty except for Myra, for the blonde, and for a sullen-looking Cold-Comfort-Farmish sort of man who was looming across at Myra and speaking slowly but with great vehemence.

‘I’ll ’ave ’ee,’ he was saying, ‘I’ll get ’ee, see if I doan’t.’

He pointed a dramatic finger at Myra who, nevertheless, did not seem much perturbed. ‘Don’t be so ruddy daft, Sam,’ she said.

‘I doan’t mind you’m being a barmaid,’ the Cold-Comfort-Farmish man resumed graciously. ‘I’m not one o’ your proud ’uns. Come on, Myra, be a sport. ’Twoan’t take not five minutes.’

Myra, unmoved by this promise of despatch, indicated Fen.

‘You’re making a fool of yourself in front of the gentleman, Sam,’ she said. ‘Finish your drink like a good boy and go back to the farm. I know you didn’t ought to be here, and you’ll cop it if Farmer Bligh finds out.’

The passionate rustic turned upon Fen a look of intense hatred, emptied his glass, wiped his mouth, muttered something derogatory to womanhood and strode out of the bar. In a moment he reappeared outside the window, which was slightly grimy, traced on it with his forefinger the words I LOVE YOU in reverse, so that they could be read from inside, glowered at them all, and went away.