Fen Country (4 page)

“Thanks,” she said, trying to speak lightly, and failing. “Thanks. I was hoping you might be willing to listen, and—well, anyway, here’s what happened…”

Gina had only two living relatives, she said: her grandfather, Lord Stretham, who lived at Horton Manor, a few miles the other side of Abingdon; and her cousin, Humphrey Linster. Three months previously, these two had gone off together on a long cruise, in an attempt to bolster up Lord Stretham’s failing health.

The project had failed, however: Lord Stretham had returned to Horton Manor three days ago in an ambulance, bedridden. And although in himself he remained reasonably cheerful, there was no certainty that he would last out the year.

On their return, the travelers had found Gina waiting for them at the house. She had wanted to do a drawing of an Adam fireplace in one of the rooms. Sketching, her hobby, now and again earned her a little pocket-money, and there was a series to be completed by the end of the week…

“There are actually two Adam rooms in the manor,” she told Fen. “They’re connected, end to end; and a year ago Grandfather had them locked up, because they weren’t being used enough. He was quite willing to let me have the key—incidentally, he’d taken the key with him on the cruise—and also he asked me to stay a couple of nights, and of course I said I’d be glad to.

“After I’d seen them settled in I duly went off and did my drawing. As Grandfather had warned me, it was very dusty and musty in there, after being shut up for so long. Oh, and I should explain that it was the fireplace in the first of the two rooms that I was interested in; I never went into the further room at all.

“When I’d finished, I closed up the shutters again, and locked the door carefully after me. But having done that, I unluckily forgot, for the time being, to return the key. It stayed with me till after lunch the following day—yesterday, that is. Unfortunately, I’m quite sure that no one had the chance to ‘borrow’ it from me during the time it was in my possession.

“The next thing that happened was that an acquaintance of Grandfather’s, a man called Henry Challis, dropped in unexpectedly for lunch (this is still yesterday I’m speaking of). And
he
wanted to look at the Adam rooms.

“Grandfather asked my cousin Humphrey to show them to him after lunch, and told him to be sure not to miss the big eighteenth-century musical-box in the first room, and in the second, the pair of hideous great ornate gold candlesticks which someone had given to Gladstone in 1868 and Gladstone had hurriedly passed on to my great-great-grandfather; their gold made them worth about £400 apiece, Grandfather said, but aesthetically they were quite monstrous, of course.

“So presently Humphrey and this man Challis came to me for the key to the rooms, which I still had, and they went off on their tour of inspection… Challis”—Gina grimaced—”well, I’m afraid there’s no possible chance of his having been in collusion with Humphrey; nor of his having told lies for any other reason.

“Anyway, in they went, and Humphrey opened the shutters in the first room and left Challis playing with the musical-box there while he went on to let some light in on the further room. After a bit Challis joined him, and they saw straightaway that one of the candlesticks was missing.

“Humphrey muttered that they ought both to be there, because they had been when he and Grandfather had been in the rooms just before they set off on the cruise. They should have been standing one at each end of the mantelpiece, he said: but now, only too obviously, the left-hand one had vanished.

“When Challis heard this, he fetched a chair and got up on it—that particular mantelpiece is above eye-level—to have a closer look. And there he saw the—imprint, I suppose you’d call it, of the candlestick’s base: a clean, distinctively shaped patch without any dust on it worth speaking of.

“They called Holmes, the manservant, and the three of them searched the room. No candlestick. The windows, as well as being shuttered, were nailed, and quite evidently neither they, nor the expensive lock on the door leading to the rest of the house, had been tampered with in any way; I checked that myself, before I left.

“As to Challis or Humphrey or Holmes having the wretched thing hidden on their—on their persons, the mere size of it put that possibility completely out of court.”

Gina flushed slightly. “So you see the situation that that left me in. Grandfather wouldn’t even listen to me. He just turned his head away and said there was no point in laboring the matter, but that in the circumstances I might feel happier if I didn’t remain in his house. So by dinner-time I’d packed up and left…

“There’s no question of prosecution, of course,” said Gina in conclusion. “But just the same, Professor Fen,
I did not steal that candlestick.”

For a while Fen pondered. Then he said: “Assuming that you
are
innocent, and that the key couldn’t have been borrowed from you while it was in your possession, and that Challis is honest—well, that really leaves only two possibilities, doesn’t it? Your grandfather or your cousin.”

“Yes, but how?”

“Oh, as to how…” Fen chuckled. “The ‘how’ is quite simple, I should say—and you don’t have to postulate any nonsense about duplicate keys in order to arrive at it, either.”

Then he frowned. “Proof, though… Ah well, there’s at least a 50-50 chance, I imagine. What I’ll do is go and see your grandfather about it: I do know him slightly…

“And then—let’s see, we’ve got a tutorial together in about a week’s time, haven’t we? With any luck at all, I’ll have some news for you then.”

It was Gina, radiant, who produced the first piece of news at their next meeting after the week had elapsed. “A letter this morning from Grandfather,” she exulted. “Very apologetic, and will I please forgive him and go and visit him again as soon as I possibly can. But he doesn’t explain
why
, and—”

“The ‘why’, I fancy,” said Fen, “is a letter he had from me, enclosing an authoritative laboratory report… Incidentally, I too have had an apology from him. He was pretty chilly when I went to see him, although he allowed me to do what I wanted (and also unwittingly gave me the chance to pay an unauthorized visit to a certain bedroom). Your cousin Humphrey, I’m afraid, will now be in just as great disfavor as you were; only
he
deserves it.”

Gina nodded soberly. “I thought it must be Humphrey,” she said. “But, honestly, I still can’t understand how he managed it.”

Fen snorted. “You take things too much for granted,” he said. “And of course, the thing you were taking too much for granted in this instance was that nice clean outline left by the base of the candlestick in the surrounding dust.

“Obviously—there being, apart from the duplicate-key hypothesis, no other conceivable explanation—obviously cousin Humphrey stole the candlestick
before
he and his grandfather went off on their cruise; intending, I imagine, to pawn it for ready money, and later to redeem and replace it…

“It must have come as a nasty shock to him when immediately on his return not one person but two were given the entrée to those rooms which only he and his grandfather had visited since they were shut up. You were a tolerable risk, since you were concerned only with the first of the two rooms—nor with the one where the candlesticks were. But Challis was a different matter.

“Challis’s attention had been specially drawn to the candlesticks, so that the disappearance of one of them was bound to be discovered—with the dust on the mantelpiece indicating plainly that it had been gone a good long time…

“Well, you’ll have realized by now what Humphrey did. While Challis fooled about with the musical-box in the first room, Humphrey went on into the second; and there had sufficient time to wipe the end of the mantelpiece where the stolen candlestick had stood; transfer to the cleared area the second (identical) candlestick; puff a layer of dust round it, with the help of his shaving-powder puffer, loaded in readiness with raw material from the vacuum-cleaner; and then, leaving a fine, sharp imprint, replace the remaining candlestick in its proper position.

“I myself found the puffer on my surreptitious visit to your cousin’s bedroom, By then he’d had time to wash it out and refill it with shaving powder; but at least it was
there
—and also I was able to make a note of the brand of shaving-powder he used…

“The dust surrounding the supposed imprint of the stolen candlestick—which happily he hadn’t a chance to tamper with—was thereupon sent by me, along with a sample from elsewhere on the mantelpiece, to a laboratory. The two lots proved to be substantially different—which unless one of them had been faked was a scientific impossibility. And to clinch it, identifiable grains of shaving-powder were found in the first sample.”

Fen smiled. “Satisfied?” he asked.

London clubs are not usually much frequented in the earlier hours of the day; so that when Sir Gerald McComas entered the main smoking-room of the United University shortly after 8:30 that sultry June morning, he found Gervase Fen in sole occupation. The two men were only slightly acquainted, and Fen was consequently a shade surprised when the millionaire art collector came over and settled down beside him.

Presently, however, he launched with perceptible effort into an appeal for help. It had to be someone he
knew
, he said; on the other hand, it mustn’t be anyone he knew
too well
—else the appearance, and perhaps also the substance, of impartiality would be lacking.

“You see, sir, the fact is”—Sir Geratd explained, at long last reaching the nub of the matter—”the fact is that I’m rather afraid my daughter’s fiancé may have—well, to put it bluntly, may have stolen something from me.”

And then it all came pouring out.

Jane McComas had got herself engaged, it seemed, to a fledgling barrister by the name of Brian Ainsworth: a good enough fellow, though perhaps not quite the match for Jane that Sir Gerald himself would have chosen… Anyway, for the past few days this young man had been staying et the McComas house in Lowndes Square.

Yesterday afternoon he had taken Jane out to a cocktail party, from which they had returned only just in time to dress for dinner. And although Sir Gerald hated saying this, Ainsworth really had had several drinks too many.

When Sir Gerald mildly remonstrated as the young man reached a fourth time for the brandy decanter, a quarrel had flared up which had culminated in Ainsworth’s losing his temper completely and rushing out of the house into the night.

Unluckily, however, his headlong departure had carried him straight into the arms of a patrolling constable, whom in his anger he had unwisely tried to push aside; whereupon the constable had promptly arrested him for being drunk and disorderly.

“So he spent last night in a cell,” said Sir Gerald, “and this morning they’ll be hauling him up in front of a magistrate. That doesn’t matter, though; the really
serious
thing is that when I went back indoors after all this rumpus, I found that a small but valuable Leonardo drawing, a ‘Head of a man’, had vanished from a portfolio in my study.

“Now, the point is this. I’d last looked at that drawing shortly after lunch-time, and subsequent to that there were only two occasions when the study wasn’t either (a) well locked up or (b) occupied by me.

“The first of these occasions was during the afternoon, when I gave Jane the key so that she could fetch a book she wanted; and if you’re thinking that perhaps she didn’t lock up properly afterward you can put that out of your mind, because as it happens I went along to the study myself, and settled down there, before Jane left it. I’ve checked with her, and she’s quite certain that no one except herself can have entered the room during the fire minutes when she had possession of the key.

“Which leaves the second occasion. The study’s the most comfortable room in the house to lounge in, so after dinner I had our coffee and our drinks taken there. And that’s how it happened that for a minute or so young Ainsworth was left alone with the portfolio: you see, Jane, who was telephoning somebody from the hall, called me out to ask me some question about our plans for the next few days; and of course I never dreamed…

‘Well, damn it!’ said Sir Gerald unhappily. “I mean, partiality aside, it really is quite inconceivable to me that
Jane
can be the thief: the girl knows perfectly well that I’d gladly give her any amount of money if she wanted it, and no questions asked: for that matter, I’d willingly give her the drawing itself.

“And I dare say you see what I’ve been driving at: unless Ainsworth’s managed to jettison the drawing—which with police all round him would be a madly risky thing to attempt—he’s bound to have it still on him this morning when they let him go free… Yes, yes, I know they make people turn out their pockets before they’re shoved into the cells. But they don’t bother to do
more
than that—not with a man of Ainsworth’s class, on a drunk charge. Therefore, what I’m aiming at is to catch Ainsworth as soon as he comes out, take him to one of my offices near by, and—well, and ask him to agree to being searched.”

Fen stared. “I should hardly imagine,” he said presently, “that Ainsworth is going to like
that
suggestion very much.’

“No, of course he’s not.” Sir Gerald’s embarrassment was causing him to positively wriggle in his chair. “But you see the position I’m in. i don’t care tuppence about the wretched drawing; to save a scandal he can have that, and welcome. But if he really is a thief, then it’s essential I prove it to Jane before she goes off and elopes with him, or some other damn silly thing.

“What I shall actually say to him is that if he doesn’t agree to this… this admittedly very distasteful expedient, I shall simply hand him over straightaway to the police and leave them to deal with the affair.”

“H’m,” said Fen. “I should have thought, you know, that you had pretty conclusive evidence against him already.”

Jane insists that I must be mistaken,” said Sir Gerald. “About not having left the study unlocked, I mean. also I think that perhaps she suspects… no, never mind that. The important thing is that although she’s terribly angry about this scheme of mine, she has in fact agreed to come along. And the question now is, would you be prepared to come along, too, and see fair play?”