C S Lewis and the Country House Murders (C S Lewis Mysteries Book 2) (31 page)

I found Plumwood Hall in a state of disarray when I arrived back in time for lunch. The sudden reappearance of Edmund, and his settlement into the Hall, had put the place at sixes and sevens. Keggs looked distracted and maids were still rushing around getting Edmund’s new living quarters ready for him.

Somewhere in the distance I could hear Sir William giving orders as a footman staggered past under a load of fresh linen. The house could not have been in more turmoil if the king had announced his imminent arrival for a brief, informal visit.

Well, I thought to myself, it’s not every day that a favourite brother and uncle comes back from the dead. This, of course, set my mind back onto the lines Jack and I had been debating. Edmund had never really been dead. Jesus, on the other hand, had been certified as definitely dead by Roman soldiers who were experienced executioners. They were tough nuts unlikely to make a mistake. He’d been buried by his friends who’d also seen the dead body at close quarters. Then his grave was found empty and his followers insisted they’d been chatting to him. Rather a significant difference from Edmund’s return from his non-existent grave. And rather more impressive.

In the meantime, Lady Pamela had allowed Will to take Edmund out onto the terrace to sit in the sun. Will was sitting beside his rediscovered uncle babbling away happily. Edmund did not seem to be taking any of this in, but that did not appear to bother Will, who kept on chatting. Douglas, on the other hand, I had encountered stamping sullenly down the gravel drive in the direction of the village and, I felt sure, in the direction of the village pub and a pint or two.

Feeling famished after my long morning walk I made my way to the kitchen.

‘Hello, Mrs Buckingham,’ I said cheerfully, ‘what’s happening about lunch?’

‘Well may you ask, Mr Morris,’ she replied without looking up from the ham she was slicing. ‘It seems no one has the time to sit down to a proper lunch the way folk should, so I’ve been told to put a cold collation on the sideboard in the breakfast room.’

Then she looked up, took pity on me and added, ‘Can I make you a nice ham sandwich, sir? Ham and mustard perhaps?’

I accepted her offer with alacrity. Ten minutes later I was sitting at my desk, near one of the tall windows in the library, with a ham sandwich and a cold glass of cider. Eating the last of the crusts, and brushing the crumbs off my desk, I looked up to see the odious Inspector Hyde walking down the drive towards the house.

As I watched he paused and pulled a folded piece of blue paper out of the inner pocket of his coat. This he unfolded and reread. Then, with an unpleasant smile on his face, he returned the paper to his coat and resumed walking. His eyes had the gleam of a rattlesnake that has just spotted breakfast.

That sheet of blue paper was, I was certain, the warrant for my arrest on a charge of murder. Hyde the Horrible had been hungry for that piece of paper for days now, and it seemed as if he had finally bullied poor old Colonel Weatherly, as Chief Constable, into agreeing that the warrant should be issued.

I suddenly had an empty feeling inside me. It was as if a vacuum pump had been applied to some of my major organs, with the result that from the chest to the hips I was rattling like an empty drum. They talk about having butterflies in the stomach; well, I had a large swarm of assorted winged insects knocking themselves out in my inner parts.

Leaving the library I hurried to the main hall where, on a side table, stood the only telephone in the house. The front door bell was ringing as I picked it up. I asked the local operator to connect me to
The Cricketers’ Arms
.

Hearing a click at the other end, I said, ‘Is that you, Rose?’

The local supplier of spiritous liquors agreed that it was.

‘Is Mr Lewis there, please?’

In response Alfred Rose had to leave the phone to investigate. While he was away and the line was silent, Keggs glided gracefully to the front door and opened it, revealing the sinister form of Inspector Hyde on the doorstep.

‘No, sir, I can’t see him anywhere,’ said Rose after picking up on his end of the line.

‘Would you give him a message for me as soon as you can, please?’

The publican said he would.

‘Please tell Mr Lewis that I’m about to be arrested . . . no, say that I
have
been arrested . . . and charged with murder.’

‘That’s outrageous, Mr Morris,’ spluttered Rose over the phone. ‘You’re as innocent as a daisy, you are.’

‘Thank you for your confidence, Mr Rose—but passing on the message is important and, I have to tell you, fairly urgent.’

He promised to get on to it at once and rang off.

I turned around to find Inspector Hyde standing by my elbow, smiling like a crocodile about to devour a native on the banks of the Nile.

‘I have here a warrant for your arrest, Mr Morris,’ he boomed like a railway guard making an announcement he wanted to be heard the length of the platform, ‘on a charge of murder.’ The volume went up ever further on those final words. Then he gave me an evil grin as his words echoed around the mansion. He may have had some doubts about whether there was enough evidence to convict me, but he was determined to embarrass me.

‘You have the right to remain silent,’ he continued, still under the impression that he was addressing the Albert Hall, ‘but anything you do say may be taken down and used in evidence against you.’

‘I’m innocent—use that in evidence against me!’

‘Now, if you’d just come with me please, sir.’

‘Hyde,’ I said, ‘you’re an ass.’

‘If you say so, sir, but you’re still under arrest.’

‘In fact, I’d say you’re an ass in a million.’

‘If you say so.’

‘Worse than that, you’re an ass in two million. Possibly in three.’

‘If you say so. But you’re still under arrest.’

By this time Keggs had re-entered the hallway and was staring at us.

‘Is there anything I can do to assist you, Mr Morris?’ he said in a dignified way. Then he made his own contribution to the situation by attempted to kill Inspector Hyde with a withering glance. It was a razor-sharp, knife-like glance that would have had most strong men buckling at the knees. But Hyde remained unwithered.

‘Thank you, Keggs,’ I replied. ‘But I’ve left a message for Mr Lewis. He’ll take care of things.’

‘Oh, I doubt there’s anything your important friend from Oxford can do for you now, sir,’ cooed Hyde triumphantly. ‘You will discover, sir, that the law will take its course.’

‘Shall I inform cook that you won’t be in for tea, sir?’ asked Keggs, now giving Hyde the frost treatment by completely ignoring the policeman’s presence in the building.

‘That would be for the best, I think, Keggs. I anticipate that Inspector Hyde’s mistake will take a little while to sort out.’

‘Very good, sir,’ said Keggs, as he turned and floated away, using the form of shimmering levitation known only to butlers.

‘Now, Mr Morris,’ said the inspector, ‘will you come quietly?’

‘Certainly not! I intend to make sarcastic remarks all the way from here to your odious police station.’

‘Very well, sir,’ grinned Hyde, his hand sliding towards his pocket, ‘since you’ve informed me that you intend to resist arrest I shall have to handcuff you.’

‘Don’t pretend to be an even bigger idiot than you look, Hyde. In fact, come to think of it, no one could possibly be as big an idiot as you look. I am definitely
not
resisting arrest. I simply intend to provide a running commentary throughout his whole procedure.’

Disappointment flooded Hyde’s face as he withdrew his hand from his pocket.

‘In that case, sir, I’d like you to come with me now, please. I have a car waiting at the end of the drive.’

I was sitting in a police cell. I had to keep looking around to convince myself this was all real. How had Mrs Morris’s little boy come to be locked up in a police cell? And not for some bit of trivial fun, like stealing a policeman’s helmet on boat race night. For murder. How had it come to this?

Well, I knew the answer, of course. The reason it had come to this bore the name of Hyde and had the face of a weasel and the heart of a skunk. That man was definitely off my Christmas card list.

This being my first police cell I took a look around. It was somewhat on the small side and was clearly in need of a decorator’s touch. The bunk, the commode, the small table and the chair had all been painted in either light battleship grey or dark battleship grey. This seemed to show a lack of imagination. Or had the police station obtained a job lot of these two colours from the Amy and Navy Stores at a knockdown price?

All of the furniture was bolted to the floor. Perhaps this cell was frequently occupied by petty thieves and the fear was that unless everything was nailed down, one of these gentlemen might one day walk out with a chair, or possibly a small table, in his pocket.

I had failed to keep my promise of an ironic running commentary, and we had driven from Plumwood to Market Plumpton police station for the most part in sullen silence. Upon arrival I had been searched for dangerous implements and my fountain pen had been seized. What were they afraid of? That I would write a poison pen letter to Inspector Hyde? They also took away my tie and my shoe laces—presumably so that I could not hang myself from the light fitting.

The tie I understood, but had they taken a close look at my shoelaces? A mouse could not commit suicide with those shoe laces. Well, a very small mouse could, perhaps. But only if it was very determined.

In fact, I didn’t mind not having a tie. I kept telling myself I was having an afternoon off, relaxing in an open-necked shirt. The shoe laces were another matter. Without them the shoes flopped loosely on my feet, and made scraping sounds on the concrete floor as I paced back and forth in that small cell.

I threw myself onto the bunk irritated by my own pacing, and annoyed by the scraping sound of my loose, flopping shoes. Turning my head to one side I saw where an earlier inmate had scratched a message in the wall. My first puzzlement was how this person had succeeded in conveying into the cell an implement sharp enough to make those marks. My second was to decipher what the message said.

Paint had flaked off over the years making much of the scratched message unreadable. However, picking up the words ‘girl’ and ‘pearl’ I decided it was an attempt at poetry. I tried to imagine some mute, inglorious Milton composing lyric verse to while away the hours in this inhospitable room.

The turning of a key and the loud slamming of bolts announced the arrival of a visitor. The cell door swung open to reveal the bulky frame of my old friend Constable Dixon. The two of us had met on an earlier visit to Market Plumpton.

‘Dixon!’ I cried. ‘How delightful to see you again. How’s your mother?’

‘She’s very well, sir. Thank you for asking.’

‘And your feet?’

‘Still giving me some trouble, sir, but I’ve found a new powder that’s said to be a sovereign remedy for corns—so I’m about to try that.’

‘Good luck, Dixon. I trust that your corns will vanish like the mist at sunrise.’

‘You’re very kind, sir.’ Then he hesitated and recalled that he was here on official business. ‘Ah, Inspector Hyde will see you now. If you’ll just step this way please, sir.’

It was like being told that the dentist will see you now. And about as welcome.

I followed Dixon out of the cell and down a narrow corridor. He opened a door bearing the words ‘Interview Room’ and ushered me inside.

Inspector Hyde was already there and waiting for me. He was seated at a wooden table with the large, mute form of Sergeant Donaldson by his side. He waved me to the chair on the other side of the table, and I sat down facing him, waiting for the interrogation to begin.

There were papers spread out on the table, and Donaldson had a notebook and pencil in hand.

‘Now, Mr Morris—’ Hyde began, with a pretence of affability.

Before he could go any further I interrupted, ‘But this is not right.’

‘What’s not right?’

‘Don’t you have to apply thumbscrews or something of that sort before you begin asking questions?’

‘You will have your little jokes, won’t you, Mr Morris? But I can assure you that you won’t be joking by the time we’ve finished with you.’

‘I saw an American gangster movie last month,’ I said, ‘in which the New York police used bright lights and rubber hoses to break down their suspect. However, since their suspect was Edward G. Robinson it didn’t work; he refused to break. Then his gang raided the police station to break him out. They shot the policemen who’d used the bright lights and rubber hoses.’

Hyde took a deep breath, as if trying to be patient, then said through gritted teeth, ‘That’s not a scenario that’s likely to be followed here, Mr Morris.’

I rocked back on my chair and grinned at him. ‘You’re probably right. Especially as I don’t have a machine gun-armed gang waiting to break me out.’

‘If we can get back to the matter in hand, sir. On the table you’ll see a seating plan of the afternoon tea on the day that Mrs Connie Worth was murdered. Will you look at it please, sir, and tell me if it’s accurate according to your memory?’