LITMIR.BIZ

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of Landseer, and unattractive plates depicting unstable Chinese bridges. There was an enormous stove along one side, with a kettle simmering on it.

      The confusions attendant upon the brewing of tea over, Mrs Wheatley hastened to a drawer and reverently brought forth a rather faded brown photograph.

      ‘Here she is, sir. Now, was that the lady you met?’

      Unquestionably it was, though the photograph must have been ten years old, and the face he had seen had been swollen and discoloured. Miss Tardy smiled kindly and vaguely at the photographer, her pince-nez balanced on her nose, her straight hair a little deranged. But it was not the face of an ineffectual spinster; there was a certain self-reliance in it, despite the vague smile.

      He nodded. ‘Yes, this is she.’

      ‘Might I ask if it was in England you met her, sir?’ Looking over his shoulder, Mrs Wheatley timidly twisted her blue apron in her hands.

      ‘No, abroad.’ (From the form of the question, a safe bet.) ‘And quite a long time ago now – six months at least, I should think.’

      ‘Ah, yes. That would be when she was last in France. A great traveller, Emilia is, and how she has the courage to live among all those foreigners is beyond me. You’ll pardon my curiosity, sir, but it’s four weeks since I heard from her, and that’s rather strange, as she’s always been a most faithful writer. I’m afraid something may have happened to her.’

      ‘Well, I’m sorry to say I can’t help you there.’ As he sipped his tea and smoked his cigarette in that cheerful, ugly room, under the anxious eyes of little Mrs Wheatley, Cadogan felt a slight dislike for his presence. But no purpose would be served by brutally telling his hostess of the facts of the case, even if he had really known what they were.

      ‘She travelled – travels – a lot, then?’ he asked in the tautologous fashion of modern conversation.

      ‘Oh, yes, sir. Small places mostly, in France and Belgium and Germany. Sometimes she only stops a day or so, sometimes months on end, according to how she likes it. Why, it must be three years if it’s a day since she was last in England.’

      ‘A rather unsettled sort of existence, I should have thought. Has she no relatives? She did strike me as being rather a lonely sort of person, I must say.’

      ‘I think there was only an aunt, sir…Let me give you another drop of tea in your cup. There…And she died some time ago. A Miss Snaith she was, very rich and eccentric, and lived on Boar’s Hill, and had a liking for comic poems. But as to Emilia, she enjoys travelling, you know; it suits her. She’s got a little bit of money of her own, and what she doesn’t spend on the children, she spends on seeing new places and people.’

      ‘The children?’

      ‘Devoted to children, she is. Gives money to hospitals and homes for them. And a very nice thing to do, I say. But if I may ask, sir, how was she looking when you saw her?’

      ‘Not too well, I thought. I didn’t really see much of her. We were thrown together for a couple of days in a hotel – the only English people there, you know, so naturally we chatted a bit.’ (Cadogan was appalled at his fluency. But didn’t Mencken say somewhere that poetry is only accomplished lying?)

      ‘Ah,’ said Mrs Wheatley. ‘I expect you found her deafness a trouble.’

      ‘Eh? Oh yes, it was rather. I’d almost forgotten.’ Cadogan wondered about the mentality of the person who would go up behind an old, deaf woman, strike her on the head, and choke her with a thin cord. ‘But I’m sorry to hear you’ve had no word from her.’

      ‘Well, sir, it may mean she’s on her way home from somewhere. She’s a great one for surprising you – just turning up on your doorstep without a word of warning. And she always stays with me when she’s in England, though goodness knows she’d be quite lost in Oxford, as I only moved here two years ago, and I know for a fact she’s never been here – ’ Mrs Wheatley paused for breath. ‘But I got that worried I went and asked Mr Rosseter – ’

      ‘Mr Rosseter?’

      ‘That’s Miss Snaith’s solicitor. I thought Emilia being a near relative he might have heard something from her when the old lady died. But he didn’t know anything.’ Mrs Wheatley sighed. ‘Still, we mustn’t cross bridges before we come to them, must we, sir? I’ve no doubt everything’s all right really. Another drop of tea?’

      ‘No, really, thank you, Mrs Wheatley.’ Cadogan rose, to an accompaniment of loud creaking, from his wicker chair. ‘I should be going now. You’ve been most hospitable and kind.’

      ‘Not at all, sir. If Emilia should arrive, who should I say called?’

      Fen was in an atrabilious mood.

      ‘You’ve been the devil of a time,’ he grumbled as Lily Christine III got under way again.

      ‘But it was worth it,’ Cadogan answered. He gave a résumé of what he had learned, which lasted almost until they were back at St Christopher’s.

      ‘Um,’ said Fen thoughtfully. ‘That is something, I agree. At the same time, I don’t quite see what we’re going to do about it. It’s very difficult trying to deal with a murder at second hand, and no corpus delicti. There must have been quite a substantial van knocking about when you were unconscious. I wonder if anyone in the neighbourhood saw or heard anything of it?’

      ‘Yes, I see what you mean: to cart toys and furniture and groceries about. But you’re quite right, you know: the problem is – why change the place into a toyshop at all?’

      ‘I’m not sure that that isn’t a bit clearer now,’ said Fen. ‘Your Mrs Wheatley told you Miss Tardy would be lost in Oxford. So if you wanted to get her to a place she’d never be able to find again –’

      ‘But what’s the point? If you’re going to kill her it doesn’t matter what she sees.’

      ‘Oh,’ said Fen blankly. ‘No, it doesn’t, does it? Oh, my dear paws.’ He brought the car to a halt at the main gate of St Christopher’s and made a feeble attempt to smooth down his hair. ‘The question is – who is her heir? You said she’d got an income of her own, didn’t you?’

      ‘Yes, but not very much, I fancy. I think she must have been a sort of Osbert Sitwell spinster, living cheaply in pensions, drifting along the Riviera…But, anyway, not well enough off to be worth murdering for her money.’ A violent detonation came from the exhaust pipe. ‘You really ought to take this thing to a garage.’

      Fen shook his head. ‘People will kill for extraordinarily small sums. But I must confess I don’t quite see the point of spiriting the body away when you’ve done it. Admittedly the murderer might be willing to wait until death was presumed, but it still seems odd. This Mrs Wheatley had no idea she was in England?’

      ‘None,’ said Cadogan. ‘And I gathered that if anyone on this earth knew about it, she would.’

      ‘Yes. A lonely woman whose disappearance wouldn’t cause very much surprise. Do you know’ – Fen’s voice was pensive – ‘I think this is rather a nasty business.’

      They got out of the car and entered the college by a small door set in the big oaken gate. Inside a few undergraduates lingered, carrying gowns and staring at the cluttered noticeboards, which gave evidence of much disordered cultural activity. On the right was the porter’s lodge, with a sort of open window where the porter leaned, like a princess enchanted within some medieval fortalice. In all, that is, except appearance, for Parsons was a large formidable man with horn-rimmed glasses, a marked propensity for bullying, and the unshakable conviction that in the college hierarchy he stood above the law, the prophets, the dons, and the President himself.

      ‘Anything for me?’ Fen called out to him as they passed.

      ‘Er – no, sir,’ said Parsons, gazing at a row of pigeon-holes within. ‘But – ah – Mr Cadogan—’

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