The sergeant’s round reddish eyes gazed at him.
‘All the oxen and the asses,’ continued Murdo relentlessly, ‘that one could covet. Is there not something there too? Crimes unimaginable. A fiction of such remarkable cunning that it is difficult for us to understand the ramifications of its plot. The sex, the murders, the casual examples of incest, sodomy, black magic and theft. The silences on important matters like justice and religion. It has been clear to me for many years that at the back of all this was Calvin. Tell me this,’ said Murdo earnestly, ‘if you were going to investigate a criminal would you not ask yourself certain questions? Ah, I see that you would. Who, you ask, gains by such an immense crime. And you must answer if you look around your country today that the only person to gain must be Calvin. Wasn’t it he and his church who became triumphant? Who therefore would be more likely to bring such a result about? Ah, you are now going to ask me the most penetrating question. Opportunity. Did Calvin in fact have the opportunity? You may say reasonably enough that Calvin lived centuries ago but was not so old as the Bible. That puzzled me for a while too, till eventually I saw the solution to it. And I found the solution, as commonly happens, in his own work. You remember that he mentioned a number of people who lived to the age of eight hundred. I believe that Calvin lived to the almost unimaginable age of 22,000 years five months and two days. He waited and waited, keeping his manuscript intact, till one day the printing press was invented and he pounced (is it a coincidence by the way that Calvin differs from Caxton by only three letters?).
‘I can tell you, sergeant, that on that day Calvin was in his element. Imagine what it must have been like for him to know that his book, once a scroll, would be read all over the world, that boats would ferry his best-seller to the ignorant Africans, Asians and the Scots. Imagine the size of the royalties.
‘And now he is here and I have seen him. He will hardly leave his house (for his cunning is supernatural) and I only saw him briefly while he was completing his toilet on the moor. He will speak to no women and if any come near him he will shake his stick at them and mutter words like, “Impudent whores, prostitutes of the deepest dye.” And that is another thing,’ said Murdo vigorously, boring his eyes towards the crab-red eyes of the sergeant. ‘A writer can be told by his convictions, by his mannerisms. Calvin hated women and this appears in the Bible. In nearly every case the women are either treacherous or boring. He hated sheep as well: think of the number that he sacrificed. Who is this man then, this woman-hater, this sheep-hater-genius who has deceived so many million people, ambitious inventor of strange names? What other evidence do you need?’
He stopped and the silence lasted for a long time.
‘But I have not,’ Murdo continued, ‘reached the highest point of my deductions yet. It came to me as a bolt from the blue as bolts often do. The beauty of it is breathtaking. Let me list those things again: a man who hates women, who deceives men, who lives thousands of years, who will stop at nothing for gain, who has come out of hiding at this present disturbed time, who wears a bowler hat, whose sense of humour is so impenetrable that no one can understand it, who imposes such colossal boredom on the world that no one can stay awake in his presence, a man who uses boredom as a weapon. Who, I repeat, is this man? I will tell you,’ and he lowered his voice again. ‘I believe that this man is the Devil.’ He leaned back in triumph. ‘There, I have said it. Think how many problems that solves at a stroke. Think how the knots untie themselves, if we once understand that Calvin is the Devil. Everything that was opaque to us before is now crystal clear. All the questions that we need to ask are answered. You must,’ he said decisively, ‘send a Black Maria for him at once, or a green one or even a blue one, before he can start on more books of such length. Is he planning to come out of hiding to demand his royalties? Think of our country. How could it withstand such a demand? Surely you of all people can see that . . . Ah, I understand, you aren’t going to do anything. I was afraid of that. Well, don’t say that I didn’t warn you when the consequences of his arrival here become clear.’ He backed towards the door, the sergeant leaning across the desk towards him. ‘Remember that I warned you. You have my phone number, my fingerprints. I have nothing to gain. We know who has something to gain.’ He screamed as he went round the door. ‘Put him in a cell or he’ll destroy us all. Bring him in on suspicion of loitering, of parking on a double yellow line, of singing at the Mod.’
The sergeant strode towards the door and locked and bolted it. He was breathing heavily. And even yet he thought that he could hear that voice shouting, ‘ . . . for being a hit man for the Educational Institute of Scotland.’
After the Dance
I had met her at a dance and we went to her house at about eleven o’clock
