The Act of Roger Murgatroyd (8 page)

‘Aha.’

‘Aha, indeed. Caught you out there, didn’t I? I mean, to look at me now, who’d ever suspect such a thing? But there you are. The police, naturally, have a set of my fingerprints
and, if this business explodes in our faces, it would be extremely disagreeable for me, innocent as I am. And for poor Mary, of course, who’s even more innocent. Not to mention Selina.’

‘I see …’ said Trubshawe, who visibly hadn’t expected such a revelation. ‘So the Yard actually knows your name?’

‘H’m?’

‘I said, the Yard knows your name?’

‘Well, in fact, no.’

‘But they must do, man, if, as you say, you have a criminal record.’

‘No, they don’t. Because Roger ffolkes isn’t my real name.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t you see, I had to change my name. After I’d – well, after I’d paid my debt to society, I left to make my fortune in America and, when I returned, I couldn’t take the risk of one of my former accomplices tracking me down. I’d done jolly well for myself in the States and I felt I deserved a new life. So, surely forgivably, I gave myself a new identity.’

‘Then what
is
your real name?’

‘It’s Roger all right – just not Roger ffolkes.’

‘Roger what?’

‘Well …’

At this point, the Colonel slowly and almost conspiratorially began casting glances around the room, even though there was no one in it but himself and the Chief-Inspector.

Then, just as he was about to speak, there was a knock at the door.

‘Er, yes, who is it?’

‘It’s Farrar, sir.’

‘Ah, Farrar. Come in, will you?’

‘Sorry to interrupt you, sir, but you should know – you and Mr Trubshawe – that your guests are already on their way downstairs.’

‘I see. Well, thank you. Ready for them, are you, Trubshawe?’

‘Yes, Colonel, I am. But you were going to –’

‘We’ll speak about that later, shall we? When we manage to have a private moment together.’

‘Just as you say, sir, just as you say.’

In ones and twos, confidently and timidly, the ffolkeses’ guests trooped into the library, its walls lined ceiling-high with identically bound volumes which, as most of them were not merely unread but unopened, made the shelving appear as though it were supporting row after row of
cigar-boxes
.

Only Selina, still too distressed to make a re-appearance, was missing. But, in the twenty minutes which had elapsed since the others had retired to their rooms, they had all made themselves as presentable as they could for the trial they knew lay ahead of them.

Clem Wattis, to be sure, still looked very much the English Vicar incarnate, with his dog-eared dog-collar and raggedy ill-fitting cardigan, its leather elbow-patches so threadbare they themselves seemed in urgent need of patching. The Doctor, for his part, had gone for a prudently countrified look – checked sports jacket, impeccably creased corduroy trousers and tan suede shoes. As for Don,
his canary-yellow V-necked jumper and tartan bow-tie instantly identified him as your typically modern American college student.

Evadne Mount, meanwhile, was wearing one of her yolk-of-egg tweed outfits, along with a pair of singularly unbecoming suet-coloured stockings and shoes so sensible, as they say, you felt like consulting them on whether you should cash in your shares in Amalgamated Copper. From her wardrobe Mary ffolkes had selected a flower-patterned taffeta dress that was unabashedly unfashionable but probably pricier than it looked. Madge Rolfe sported a stylishly plain frock of pale red crushed-velvet, a frock that, even if one had never set eyes on it before, one might have guessed had been worn more than once too often. And the Vicar’s wife had on a shabby brown cotton skirt with, over its matching blouse, a woollen cardigan nearly as shapeless as her husband’s.

Then there was Cora Rutherford. Like all of her thespian ilk, she was always ‘on’, even in deepest Dartmoor. She had decked herself out in a tailored suit in pleated grey tweed and a high-collared silk shirt, around which she’d negligently flung a chic fox-fur throw. Though her eyes were lavish with mascara, and her lips with cyclamen, her only jewellery was a pair of virtually invisible pearl earrings. The actress herself – the message came across loud and clear – was the jewel.

They were all requested to take seats around the Chief-Inspector, who stood in the centre of the room in front of a massive mahogany desk on top of which sat two of Roger
ffolkes’s embossed stamp albums, an extra-large magnifying-glass, the typewriter on which Gentry’s notes had been typed out and, of all unlikely, unlovely artefacts, one of those ‘humorous’ ashtrays on whose rim a diminutive top-hatted toper unsteadily supports himself against a lamppost.

When everybody was settled, the Colonel mutely signalled to the detective to assume command.

‘Well now,’ said the Chief-Inspector, ‘I’d first like to thank you all for being so prompt. Each of you knows why you’re here, so the only thing that remains is for me to decide the order in which you’re questioned.’

He reflectively scanned the party as though he hadn’t already made up his mind who his first victim would be.

‘Perhaps I might call on you, Vicar,’ he said at last, ‘to open the batting?’

The Vicar almost leapt out of his chair.

‘Me!’ he exclaimed. ‘Why … why me?’

‘Well, somebody has to go first, you know,’ said Trubshawe with an only just perceptible twinkle in his eye.

‘Yes, but I …’

‘Yes?’

‘Well, it does seem unfair to pick on … to …’

‘Of course, if you’d rather not, perhaps you yourself would nominate one of your friends to take your place?’

‘Oh, but that’s also unfair! Oh, calamity!’ groaned the Vicar, who looked as though he were about to burst into tears.

‘Come now, Mr Wattis,’ said his tormentor gently but firmly, ‘aren’t you being a little childish? I promise I’ll do my utmost to make it all as painless as possible.’

Aware not only from the Chief-Inspector’s rebuke but also from the way his friends were staring at him that he had let himself be shown in a rather unattractive light, the Vicar now hastened to retrieve his composure.

‘Oh well … in that case, Mr Trub – I mean, Inspector Trub – that’s to say,
Chief
-Inspector Trub. Trubshawe! I suppose if you really think …’

‘Yes, Vicar, I do. I really do,’ the policeman nimbly cut in. ‘However –’ he began to add.

‘Yes? You say however?’ the Vicar once more interrupted him, and this time his already squeaky voice came perilously close to cracking.

‘However, I say – in the light of Miss Mount’s account of last night’s events, an account with which, I noted, not one of you present – you yourself included, Vicar – chose to take issue, I feel duty-bound to advise you that the phrase “as painless as possible” shouldn’t be construed to mean that our conversation will be totally, ah, pain-free. You do realise I’m going to have to ask you some very probing – indeed, some very personal – questions?’

‘Oh dear, I – I just don’t know whether –’

‘Questions,’ pursued Trubshawe, who was no longer prepared to be put off his stride by the clergyman’s interjections, ‘that, had I been assigned to this case in an official
capacity, I would be asking you teat-a-teat, as the Frogs say, in the privacy of your own home or in a police station. But since everyone, you again included, fell in with the Doctor’s proposal that my interrogation, which, I repeat, is wholly informal –’

Now it was Cora Rutherford’s turn to interrupt.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Trubshawe, we know all that!’ she snapped. ‘Do stop blethering, will you!’

‘Patience, dear lady, patience,’ Trubshawe calmly retorted. ‘When it comes, as it will, to your own turn, you may not be quite so desirous to have things rushed. The fact is that my presence is extremely irregular, and I wish to make sure you all understand that no one is actually, legally, obliged to undergo questioning here and now.’

‘But, I tell you, we do understand!’

‘Also,’ he went on unperturbed, ‘that, if you do agree to be questioned, then, notwithstanding the fact that you aren’t under oath, there’s simply no point to the exercise if you end by telling me less than the unvarnished truth – or at least what you sincerely believe to be the unvarnished truth. Aren’t I right? You do see what I’m driving at, Vicar?’

Clem Wattis bristled at what he clearly felt was a slander on his character.

‘Well, really! I must protest – I really must lodge a protest, Chief-Inspector. You appear to be singling me out in an offensively gratuitous fashion!’

‘Please, please, Mr Wattis, let me assure you. No offence was intended. If I put it to you in particular, it’s only because you’re the one who’s going to set the ball rolling.’

The Vicar was now so flustered that beads of sweat glistened atop his bald head and his owlish horn-rimmed glasses were starting to cloud over.

‘Oh well, if you – if you insist. After all, as a man of the cloth, I’m bound to tell the truth anyway. I mean, I’m bound by a higher authority than yours.’

‘Yes, yes, of course, I quite understand. So shall we …?’

‘Uh huh,’ said the Vicar unhappily.

‘Good,’ said the Chief-Inspector. ‘Now – I’d like to start by inviting you to relate your own experience of the Christmas dinner party. The way Miss Mount described it – that, for you, was substantially accurate, was it?’

Clem Wattis shot a quick, helpless glance at his wife. She said nothing, but, with nervously rocking little nods of her head, appeared to be encouraging him to speak up. It couldn’t have been easy for her, however, knowing as she did what was in store for him, and her lips were pursed so tight you felt that, if she were to relax them, her whole face would unravel.

‘Well, Inspector – oh dear, I keep getting it wrong, don’t I? – I mean, Chief-Inspector –’

‘That’s quite all right, Reverend. As I say, I’m retired, so my rank is only a courtesy. Please go on.’

‘Well, Evadne certainly – she certainly “caught” Raymond
Gentry. I mean, I know one should never speak ill of the dead – indeed, a man of my vocation shouldn’t speak ill even of the living – but I am only human, after all, I don’t pretend to be saintlier than any of my flock, and I cannot deny I took an instant dislike to that young man. There, I’ve said it!’

‘An instant dislike, eh? Mostly, I suppose, for the same reasons as Miss Mount?’

‘Absolutely. So sad, too. Our little gathering was just getting going when he turned up with Selina. Then the atmosphere became quite inspissated.’

Trubshawe blinked.

‘Did it now? Can you give me a “for instance”?’

‘I can give you many “for instances”. Right from the start Gentry insisted on letting us know that he was among us only because poor, benighted Selina wanted him to meet her people.

‘Now, no one could be fonder than I am of Selina ffolkes, but she has, I fear – and I’ve had occasion to say so to her face, so I’m not telling tales out of school – she has never been too fastidious in her choice of male companions.’

Then, realising that Don was glaring at him, he added a hurriedly improvised postscript:

‘Er … that’s to say, not until now.’

Mopping his brow with a handkerchief which had been discreetly handed to him by his ever-watchful wife, he sought to get back on track.

‘Gentry simply couldn’t resist driving home to us how much more amusing – no, no, no, not amusing,
penetrating
– that was the word – Evadne hit it on the nose, he used that word “penetrating” so often it, well, it penetrated right into my brain, giving me quite a migraine, something I –’

‘Vicar,’ said Trubshawe, ‘if you would …’

‘What?’

‘… stick to the point?’

‘Well, I’m sorry, Inspector,’ said the Vicar querulously, ‘but, as you’ll see, this is the point. If his prattle hadn’t given me one of my splitting headaches, along the whole right side of my face, I might have been able to adopt a more benevolent, more truly Christian, attitude towards him. I might have tried harder to feign interest in his addle-pated talk about the “crowd” he moved in, all those vegetarians, Egyptologists, fakirs, Cubists, Russian dancers, Christian Scientists, amateur photographers, Theosophists and goodness knows what else! Now there’s a “for instance” for you.’

‘What is?’

‘Theosophists. Evie omitted to mention how much Gentry went on about conducting séances at the Planchette, making contact with Those Who Have Passed Over, you know, all that silly spiritualistic hanky-panky. In his foetid little mind he realised that, as an Anglican clergyman, I couldn’t possibly approve of such pagan foofaraw, so he taunted me and taunted me and I could see him, with a sly, lethal glint in his eye, simply waiting for me to rise to the bait.’

‘And did you?’

‘Inspector, I must tell you that even in this agreeable little backwater of ours I’ve been buttonholed by potty-mouthed disbelievers before, and I find that the only way to handle them is to refuse to descend to their level. So I said to him, “I know what you’re up to, young man. I can put two and two together.”’

‘What was his answer to that?’

‘Oh, he was awfully clever – as usual. “Yes,” he said, in that nasal whinny of his which drove us all to distraction, “you can put
two
and
two
together – and come up with something
too
,
too
ridiculous!”’

‘I see …’ said the Chief-Inspector, suppressing a smile. ‘So you think he was being deliberately rude to you?’

‘I don’t think, I know. He never let a chance go by to mock my most deeply held beliefs. When the Colonel passed some blameless remark about the Great War – you remember, Roger – about how we’d stemmed the tide against the Hun, I observed that being born British meant that one had drawn first prize in the Lottery of Life. Gentry being incapable of offering any plausible argument against that, he simply scoffed. And I mean scoffed!

‘You know, Inspector, until I met him I never really knew the meaning of that word. I mean to say, I know what it looks like, what it physically looks like, when somebody sneers, for example, or frowns or scowls. But scoffs? Well, Raymond Gentry truly,
physically
, did scoff. He made an
extremely
indecent noise by blowing saliva through his lips. Obscene little bubbles were actually visible between his front teeth. Ah, I see you don’t believe me, but – Evie? Aren’t I speaking the truth?’

‘Why, yes, Clem, I never thought of it like that,’ said Evadne Mount. ‘Yet you’re right. Gentry really did give a new meaning to the word “scoff”. I assure you, Trubshawe, Clem’s made quite an insightful remark there.’

‘Why, thank you, Evie,’ said the Vicar, unaccustomed to compliments from somebody generally so parsimonious with them.

‘And it’s a remark, if I’m not mistaken,’ said Trubshawe, ‘that brings us to the very crux of the matter.’

‘The crux, you say?’

‘I mean the War. You just referred to the Great War.’

The Vicar blanched. Here it was. Here and now was what he dreaded most. If ever a face was an open book, it was his at that instant.

‘You’ll recall, Vicar,’ the policeman continued, ‘that the first line of Gentry’s notes read: REV – WAR. And, later, Miss Mount made mention of what she called aspersions, aspersions that Gentry cast on your war record. Isn’t that so?’

‘Er … yes,’ said the Vicar, ‘that – that is correct.’

A few seconds elapsed during which neither he nor Trubshawe nor anybody else spoke. Like a group of miscreant schoolboys who, waiting in a morose huddle to be punished by their headmaster, anxiously scrutinise the features
of the first boy to emerge from his study for any external clues as to the nature of that punishment, the ffolkeses and their guests were probably thinking as much of their own future plight as of the Vicar’s present one.

‘Would you care to elucidate?’ Trubshawe finally asked.

‘Well, I – I – I don’t really see how …’

‘Come now, sir, we did all agree, did we not? The unvarnished truth? So shall we have it?’

The wretched clergyman, at whom seemingly not even his wife could for the moment bear to look, realised there was no longer any escape.