Pageant of Murder

“What did you make of his character?”

“He was one of these insufferably well-intentioned little men. You know that he used to run a Sunday School, of course, but that wasn’t the limit of his disinterested good works. He was a peacemaker, and I maintain that peacemaking causes a person to be so much disliked that none but those with the hide of a rhinoceros should attempt it.”

“Had Mr Luton such a hide?”

“I think he must have had—yes. There was such enormous scope for peacemaking in the drama club that anyone not possessing the said hide must have given up the unequal struggle, and Luton never did. I think somebody got sick of his public-spiritedness and bumped him off, you know.”

“Was peacemaking his only social error?”

“No, no. He was for ever putting in “a word in season”, if you know what I mean. “I don’t want to interfere in any way, and I expect you think it’s no business of mine, dear old chap, but mightn’t it be better if—” all that kind of thing. Well meant, I don’t doubt, but damned irritating, all the same.”

“Gosh!” said Laura. “No wonder he got himself murdered. Did he ever try it out on you?”

“Oh, yes, more than once. The first time I bore with him in a mood of silent contempt. The second time I treated him to some four-letter words he probably hadn’t heard since his schooldays. After that, he gave me up as a bad job, I think, although he did tell me that he had not voted for me at the local election, and deplored the fact that such as I should be in a position to put the morals of the people of Brayne in jeopardy.”

“How did he come to obtain the part of Falstaff in the play, I wonder?” said Dame Beatrice.

“I don’t know. I should guess that nobody else wanted it, so Sir Highmindedness nobly took it on. I expect that to shove him in the washing-basket gave the rest of the cast much pleasure.”

“I wonder what made the Dramatic Society choose an excerpt from The Merry Wives of Windsor?”

“There were two reasons, as I see it. First of all, there was the question of the title. We of Brayne are, for the most part, suspicious of and allergic to Shakespeare. The Merry Wives and A Comedy of Errors are probably the only works by the Bard which you could bill in our borough if you wanted to sell more than the first two rows of seating in the Town Hall. We go by titles. Even A Midsummer Night’s Dream would be suspect. Secondly, a play had to be chosen in which the talent and beauty of Mesdames Gough and Collis should be seen to be equally bright. Except for Cecily and the other gal in The Importance of Being Earnest—and, even then, both, to my possibly untutored mind, are completely overshadowed by Lady Bracknell…”

“Yes, we’ve met Mrs Gough and Mrs Collis,” said Laura, interrupting the flow. “Did you go to the performance on the night when Luton was killed?”

“No, I did not. If I had gone, it would have been in support of Timms, who runs our school choir, but I opted out, and the short straw fell to Manley.”

“You didn’t go?—and you a Councillor?”

“I pleaded that it would make the cast nervous if they knew that a former shining light of the drama club was in front. I was thanked personally by the Mayor for my public spirit.”

“What did you do, then?”

“Alas, darling Laura, I went wenching, and spent the evening in a very dull pub with a dead-from-the-neck-up blonde in the environs of the Charing Cross Road. I almost wished I’d gone to witness the downfall of The Merry Wives!”

“Who was the girl?”

“How should I know? I picked her up in a bus. Her name was Heliotrope and her boy-friends, so she informed me, (and, incidentally, everybody else in the bus), called her Hell. All I can say is, if hell is as dud as she was, I shall buy myself a nimbus and opt for heaven.”

“So you can’t produce an alibi for the evening of the performance in the Town Hall?”

“Well, I shan’t attempt to track down Heliotrope, if that’s what you mean, and I don’t suppose the barmaid would remember me after all this time. If she did, I’m certain she wouldn’t remember which evening I was there.”

“It’s a great pity you weren’t with the Mayor and the rest of the Councillors that night,” said Laura, sternly.

“Oh, I don’t know. I’ve enjoyed today’s lunch, which I certainly shouldn’t have been given if I hadn’t been under suspicion of being a murderer, should I? Add to that my never-failing delight in your society, darling Laura…”

“Take it as read. Now, then, we know that you were well acquainted with Spey and Gordon.”

Julian’s lighthearted manner dropped from him.

“Yes,” he said, soberly, removing his gaze from Laura’s face and fixing it unseeingly on a corner of the handsome, old-fashioned room, “I was well acquainted with Spey and Gordon, and if anything I can say or do will help to find their murderer, you can count me in.”

“Did you gather or deduce, from their conversation or demeanour, that either or both of your friends guessed the identity of the murderer of Mr Luton?” asked Dame Beatrice.

“No, ni l’un, ni l’autre,” responded the young man. “I’m certain they hadn’t, either of ’em, an inkling. But I’m equally certain the murderer thought Spey had, and then I believe he had another think, and concluded that Spey might have told Gordon his suspicions.”

“The whole thing, then, as we have assumed from the beginning, hinges upon the death of Mr Luton. From what you have told us this afternoon, it seems to me probable that Mr Luton was responsible for borrowing the sword from Colonel Batty-Faudrey’s armoury. I wonder how much credence we should attach to Mr Giles Faudrey’s asseveration that he did not set eyes upon his visitor that night?”