Ned Beauman - Boxer, Beetle

Out on her balcony with a Sobranie Evelyn looked down at the pond, where a stiff breeze whisked the sunlight gently through the water. It occurred to her that if she were a girl in a melodrama she would presumably take Morton’s death as a punishment for her little crime with Sinner and be scared off sex for the rest of her life. But actually she had always felt it was natural that things happened all at once. Still, it was impossible to clear her head because thinking about one just reminded her of the other, as if the events were two older, taller girls throwing a ball back and forth to keep it out of her reach and she would have to run endlessly from tormentor to tormentor until she collapsed from exhaustion. What she’d done with Sinner wasn’t horrible like what had happened to Morton — she felt deeply grateful for it, in fact — but it was still perplexing down to her bones. And now there began to emerge a third, kindred uneasiness, a stealthier, more complicated thorn: the guilty possibility that really she cared more about what had happened last night in the music room than what had happened (at exactly the same moment, for all she knew) over in the library — the possibility that even if she never saw Sinner again (and they had still only really met twice) she would still remember his face for longer than she would remember Morton’s. She had always known that one day she would escape from the Wykehamist and all that he represented, but she had never guessed, nor truly desired, that it would happen so soon, or so drastically. The border between her past and her future, hostile countries, had been drawn in blood.

Downstairs, in the library, Erskine found Bruiseland, Aslet, Amadeo and the Mowinckels standing in a row along the smeary brown trail that led from the brass brain to the French windows. Like soldiers at a frontier they did not seem to want to step over it. He thought of Fluek, that disputed village.

‘We’re certain it couldn’t have been suicide?’ said Aslet.

Erskine noticed that a few of Morton’s hairs were still stuck to the floorboards.

‘Secret agents of Zion,’ said Berthold Mowinckel. ‘Not for years have they struck so deep into the heart of the nobility.’

‘It was no secret agent of Zion who produced a pistol at dinner last night,’ muttered his son.

‘What are you suggesting?’ said Amadeo.

‘I have read some of your poetry. “The Bliss of Violence”?’

‘I wonder why you would make these baseless insinuations unless you yourself have something to hide?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Berthold Mowinckel. ‘Unlike his late brother, my son would never have the courage to do something like this.’

‘Courage? No. Stupidity? Perhaps.’

‘Do you wish to settle this like men?’ said Kasimir.

‘What do you mean?’ said Amadeo.

‘A duel.’

‘Oh, steady on,’ said Aslet.

‘A duel! How laughably quaint,’ said Amadeo. ‘But, still, why not?’

‘Choose your weapon, then.’

‘Let me see. I choose.…’

‘Yes?’

‘An electric tin-opener.’

‘You are mocking me!’ shouted Kasimir Mowinckel. He snatched up a brass poker and lunged at Amadeo, but the poker thumped harmlessly into the kidneys of Battle, who had entered the room without anyone noticing and interposed himself at the last moment. ‘Lord Erskine would be very grateful if his guests might join him in the drawing room,’ said the butler.

They did as they were told. Erskine’s father waited until they were all assembled and then said, ‘I’m happy to inform you that at least one part of this unpleasant ordeal is over. We know who is responsible. Battle has made a search of the house and has found various things missing. These include much of our most valuable silverware and jewellery. They also include a footman, a maid and all of their personal effects. It is all too clear what took place last night. The two servants were planning to elope and also to burgle the house while they were at it. Morton must have caught them in the act, and they decided they had no choice but to murder him. Such things happen quite often these days. The police will be on the look-out and I don’t expect they shall get far.’

‘Which servants?’ said Erskine.

‘Godwin, and that girl of your sister’s.’

‘Tara?’

‘Yes.’

Erskine felt great relief about Sinner, but he still couldn’t help saying, ‘They wouldn’t have eloped. She detests him. I remember Evelyn saying so.’

‘I think my daughter probably has better things to do than keep up-to-date with her servants’ romantic lives. Or at least I hope she does.’

‘Have you told her? She’ll be upset.’

‘Your mother will tell her.’

‘Were either of these servants Jewish?’ said Berthold Mowinckel.

‘If it were up to me I’d have my footmen neutered,’ said Bruiseland.

‘Will the conference continue?’ said Aslet.

‘That boy, whatever his faults, was supposed to be my son-in-law,’ said Erskine’s father. ‘The conference will not continue.’

‘Why put your trust in the police?’ said Amadeo. ‘We should capture these beasts ourselves.’

There was a small cheer, and soon the five fascists were rushing off to find out how many hunting dogs you could fit in a motor car. Erskine followed them as far as the hall, not wanting to be left alone with his father, and then sneaked upstairs to his bedroom and woke up Sinner.

‘Something pretty bad has happened. Morton’s dead. You know, my sister’s fiancé.’

‘Do they know who did it?’ said Sinner. His face showed no reaction.

‘Two of the servants here.’

‘Which ones?’

‘Godwin the footman and Tara the maid. They’ve run off with a lot of valuables. My father says Morton must have caught them and so they beat him to death and threw him in the pond. It’s rather horrifying. But a relief in a way because — I won’t lie to you — I did think for a moment it might have been—’

‘No,’ said Sinner.

‘What?’

‘That’s wrong.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It weren’t them.’

‘How can you possibly know that?’

‘I seen it. Well, I ain’t seen it, but I heard it. Last night.’

‘What do you mean? Who was it, then?’

‘The beefy old toff.’

‘Bruiseland?’

‘Yeah.’

‘That’s nonsensical.’

‘I heard it,’ said Sinner.

‘Why on earth would Bruiseland want to murder Morton?’

‘He thought he was trying to blackmail him.’

‘Morton thought Bruiseland was—’

‘No, the fat one thought the other schmuck was sending the fat one letters.’

Erskine’s heart almost stopped when he remembered what he’d heard through the library door the previous afternoon. Still, there were other ways that Sinner might know about that — one of the other servants might have eavesdropped on a related conversation and then gossiped about it.

‘I was talking to Tara last night,’ said Sinner. ‘She didn’t say nothing about wanting to leave. And your sister says she hates that other bloke.’

‘Yes, but. …’

‘The other schmuck got done in the library, right? So how could he have caught ’em stealing? What would they be stealing from a library?’

‘My father owns some important rare books,’ said Erskine, but he realised how implausible it sounded that servants fleeing a house on foot would decide to weigh themselves down with a few antique folios.

‘And, last, that slimy one — what’s his name?’

‘Godwin?’

‘He couldn’t knock the wings off a moth. How was he supposed to smash the other schmuck’s face in on that machine?’

‘Fine, fine, I admit all that, but still, Bruiseland — it’s too ridiculous.’ And then Erskine remembered something his sister had heard from Casper Bruiseland: that on the day Leonard Bruiseland’s wife had finally left for Florence, he had strangled all five of her terriers with his bare hands.