The Case of the Gilded Fly
Read The Case of the Gilded Fly Online
Authors: Edmund Crispin
EDMUND CRISPIN
For Muriel and John
donurn memoriae causa
Note
As the setting of this story is a real place, more or less realistically described, it must be emphasized that the characters in it are quite imaginary and bear no relation to any living person. Equally fictitious are the college, hotel and theatre in which most of the action takes place, and the repertory company I have portrayed bears no relation to that at Oxford, or indeed anywhere else that I know of.
E.C.
Hast thou done them? speak;
Will every saviour breed a pang of death?
Marlowe
To the unwary traveller, Didcot signifies the imminence of his arrival at Oxford; to the more experienced, another half-hour at least of frustration. And travellers in general are divided into these two classes; the first apologetically haul down their luggage from the racks on to the seats, where it remains until the end of the journey, an encumbrance and a mass of sharp, unexpected edges; the second continue to stare gloomily out of the window at the waste of woods and fields into which, by some witless godling, the station has been inexplicably dumped, and at the lines of goods trucks from all parts of the country, assembled like the isle of lost ships of current myth, in the middle of a Sargasso Sea. A persistent accompaniment of dark muttering and shouting, together with a brisk tearing of wood and metal reminiscent of early Walpurgis Night in a local cemetery, suggest to the more imaginative of the passengers that the engine is being dismantled and put together again. The delay in Didcot station amounts as a rule to twenty minutes or more.
Then there are about three
fausses sorties
, involving a tremendous crashing and jolting of machinery which buffets the passengers into a state of abject submission. With infinite reluctance, the cortège gets on the move at last, carrying its unhappy cargo in an extremely leisurely manner through the flat landscape. There are quite a surprising number of wayside stations and halts before you arrive at Oxford, and it misses none of these, often lingering at them beyond all reason, since no one gets either in or out; but perhaps the guard has seen someone hurrying belatedly down the station road, or has observed a local inhabitant asleep in his corner and is reluctant to wake him; perhaps there is a cow on the line, or the signal is
against us â investigation, however, proves that there is no cow, nor even any signal,
pro
or
contra
.
Towards Oxford matters become a little more cheerful, within sight of the canal, say, or Tom Tower. An atmosphere of purposefulness begins to be felt; it requires the utmost strength of will to remain seated, and hatless, and coatless, with one's luggage still in the rack and one's ticket still in an inside pocket; and the more hopeful occupants are already clambering into the corridors. But sure enough, the train stops just outside the station, the monolithic apparitions of a gas-works on one side, a cemetery on the other, by which the engine lingers with ghoulish insistence, emitting sporadic shrieks and groans of necrophilous delight. A sense of wild, itching frustration sets in; there is Oxford, there, a few yards away, is the station, and here is the train, and passengers are not allowed to walk along the line, even if any of them had the initiative to do so; it is the whole torture of Tantalus in hell. This interlude of
memento mori
, during which the railway company reminds the golden lads and girls in its charge of their inevitable coming to dust, goes on usually for about ten minutes, after which the train proceeds grudgingly into that station so aptly called by Max Beerbohm âthe last relic of the Middle Ages'.
But if any traveller imagines that this is the end, he is mistaken. Upon arrival there, when even the most sceptical have begun to shift about, it is at once discovered that the train is not at a platform at all, but on one of the centre lines. On either side, waiting friends and relations, balked at the eleventh hour of their re-union, rush hither and thither waving and uttering little cries, or stand with glum, anxious faces trying to catch a glimpse of those they are supposed to be meeting. It is as if Charon's boat were to become inextricably marooned in the middle of the Styx, unable either to proceed towards the dead or to return to the living. Meanwhile, internal shudderings of seismic magnitude occur which throw the passengers and their luggage into impotent shouting heaps on the floors of the corridors. In a few moments, those on the station are surprised to see the train disappearing in the direction of Manchester, with a cloud of smoke and an evil smell. In due time it returns backwards, and, miraculously, the journey is over.
The passengers surge self-consciously through the ticket-barrier and disperse in search of taxis, which in wartime collect fares without regard of rank, age or precedence, but according to some strictly-adhered-to logic of their own. They thin out and disappear into the warren of relics, memorials, churches, colleges, libraries, hotels, pubs, tailors and bookshops which is Oxford, the wiser looking for an immediate drink, the more obstinate battling through to their ultimate destination. Of this agon there eventually remain only a solitary few who have got out to change, and who dawdle unhappily on the platform among the milk-cans.
To the ordeal described above the eleven persons, who, at different times and for different purposes, travelled from Paddington to Oxford during the week of 4â11 October 1940, reacted in different and characteristic ways.
Gervase Fen, Professor of English Language and Literature in the University of Oxford, frankly fidgeted. At no time a patient man, the delays drove him to distraction. He coughed and groaned and yawned and shuffled his feet and agitated his long, lanky body about in the corner where he sat. His cheerful, ruddy, clean-shaven face grew even ruddier than usual; his dark hair, sedulously plastered down with water, broke out into disaffected fragments towards the crown. In the circumstances his normal overplus of energy, which led him to undertake all manner of commitments and then gloomily to complain that he was overburdened with work and that nobody seemed to care, was simply a nuisance. And as his only distraction was one of his own books, on the minor satirists of the eighteenth century, which he was conscientiously re-reading in order to recall what were his opinions of these persons, he became in the later stages of the journey quite profoundly unhappy. He was returning to Oxford from one of those innumerable educational conferences which spring up like mushrooms to decide the future of this institution or that, and whose decisions, if any, are forgotten two days after they are over, and as the train proceeded on its snail-like way he contemplated with mournful resignation the series of lectures he was to deliver on William Dunbar and smoked a great many cigarettes and wondered if he would be
allowed to investigate another murder, supposing one occurred. Later he recalled this wish without satisfaction, since it was to be granted in that heavily ironic fashion which the gods appear to consider amusing.
He travelled first-class because he had always wanted to be able to do so, but at the moment even this gave him little pleasure. Occasional pangs of conscience afflicted him over this display of comparative affluence; he had, however, succeeded in giving it some moral justification by means of a shaky economic argument, produced
extempore
for the benefit of one who had unwisely reproached him for his snobbishness. âMy dear fellow,' Gervase Fen had replied, âthe railway company has certain constant running costs; if those of us who can afford it didn't travel first, all the third-class fares would have to go up, to the benefit of nobody. Alter your economic system first,' he had added magnificently to the unfortunate, âand then the problem will not arise.' Later he referred this argument in some triumph to the Professor of Economics, where it was met to his chagrin with dubious stammerings.
Now, as the train stopped at Culham, he lit a cigarette, threw aside his book, and sighed deeply. âA crime!' he murmured. âA really splendidly complicated crime!' And he began to invent imaginary crimes and solve them with unbelievable rapidity.
Sheila McGaw, the young woman who produced the plays at the repertory theatre in Oxford, travelled third-class. She did this because she thought that art must return to the people before it could again become vital, and she occupied herself with showing a volume of Gordon Craig designs to a farmer who was sitting next to her. She was a tall young woman, with trousers, sharp-cut features, a prominent nose, and straight flaxen hair cut to a bell. The farmer seemed uninterested in the techniques of contemporary stage-craft; an account of the disadvantages of a revolving stage failed to move him; he showed no emotion, except perhaps for a momentary disgust, on being told that in the Soviet Union actors were called People's Merited Artists and paid large sums of money by Josef Stalin. At the advent of Stanislavsky, seeing no opportunity of flight, he came off the defensive and attempted an outflanking
movement. He described the methods used in farming; he waxed enthusiastic over silage, the bulling of cows, bunt, smut, and other seed-borne diseases, chain-harrows of an improved type, and similar subjects; he deplored with a wealth of detail, the activities of the Ministry of Agriculture. This harangue lasted until the train finally got into Oxford, when he bade Sheila a warm farewell and went away feeling slightly surprised at his own eloquence. Sheila, who had been somewhat taken aback at this outburst, eventually managed to persuade herself by a form of autohypnosis that it had all been very interesting. However it seemed likely, she reflected with regret, that a farming life bore little actual resemblance to Eugene O'Neill's
Desire under the Elms
.
Robert Warner and his Jewish mistress, Rachel West, travelled up together for the first performance of his new play
Metromania
at the Oxford Repertory Theatre. It had come as somewhat of a shock to his friends that a satirical dramatist as well known as Warner should have had to put on a new play in the provinces, but there were one or two excellent reasons for this. In the first place, his last London production had despite his reputation not been a success, and the managements, assailed by a first-class theatrical slump as a result of the blitz, had become extremely wary; and in the second place, it contained certain experimental elements which he was not entirely certain would come off. From all points of view, a try-out was indicated, and for reasons which I need not go into now, Oxford was chosen. Robert was to produce the play himself, with the company as it stood, but with Rachel, whose West End reputation was a more than adequate box-office draw, in one of the leads. The relationship between Robert and Rachel was an amiable and enduring one, and during the last year had become almost platonic; moreover it was backed by common interests and a genuine mutual esteem and sympathy. From Didcot onwards they sat in silence. Robert was in his late thirties, with rather coarse black hair (a rustic forelock drooping over his brow), heavy horn-rimmed spectacles shielding alert, intelligent eyes, tall, rather lanky and dressed inconspicuously in a dark lounge suit. But there was a certain authority in his bearing and
an impression of severity, almost of asceticism in his movements. He reacted to the dallyings of the railway company with practised self-control, only getting up once, to go to the lavatory. Passing down the corridor, he caught a glimpse of Yseut and Helen Haskell two or three compartments away, but passed hurriedly on without attempting to speak to them and hoped they had not seen him. Returning, he told Rachel they were on the train.