Lord Peter Views the Body · The Undignified Melodrama of the Bone of Contention (6/8)

A long, mouldering room, in the frigid neoclassical style, the library was melancholy enough in the sunless grey afternoon, even without the signs of neglect which wrung the book-collector’s heart. The walls, panelled to half their height with bookcases, ran up in plaster to the moulded ceiling. Damp had blotched them into grotesque shapes, and here and there were ugly cracks and squamous patches, from which the plaster had fallen in yellowish flakes. A wet chill seemed to ooze from the books, from the calf bindings peeling and perishing, from the stains of greenish mildew which spread horridly from volume to volume. The curious musty odour of decayed leather and damp paper added to the general cheerlessness of the atmosphere.

“Oh, dear, dear!” said Wimsey, peering dismally into this sepulchre of forgotten learning. With his shoulders hunched like the neck-feathers of a chilly bird, with his long nose and half-shut eyes, he resembled a dilapidated heron, brooding over the stagnation of a wintry pool.

“What a freezing-cold place,” exclaimed Mrs. Hancock. “You really ought to scold Mrs. Lovall, Mr. Burdock. When she was put in here as caretaker, I said to my husband⁠—didn’t I, Philip?⁠—that your father had chosen the laziest woman in Little Doddering. She ought to have kept up big fires here, at least twice a week! It’s really shameful, the way she has let things go.”

“Yes, isn’t it?” agreed Haviland.

Wimsey said nothing. He was nosing along the shelves, every now and then taking a volume down and glancing at it.

“It was always rather a depressing room,” went on Haviland. “I remember, when I was a kid, it used to overawe me rather. Martin and I used to browse about among the books, you know, but I think we were always afraid that something or somebody would stalk out upon us from the dark corners. What’s that you’ve got there, Lord Peter? Oh, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. Dear me! How those pictures did terrify me in the old days! And there was a Pilgrim’s Progress, with a most alarming picture of Apollyon straddling over the whole breadth of the way, which gave me many nightmares. Let me see. It used to live over in this bay, I think. Yes, here it is. How it does bring it all back, to be sure! Is it valuable, by the way?”

“No, not really. But this first edition of Burton is worth money; badly spotted, though⁠—you’d better send it to be cleaned. And this is an extremely fine Boccaccio; take care of it.”

“John Boccace⁠—The Dance of Machabree. It’s a good title, anyhow. Is that the same Boccaccio that wrote the naughty stories?”

“Yes,” said Wimsey, a little shortly. He resented this attitude towards Boccaccio.

“Never read them,” said Haviland, with a wink at his wife, “but I’ve seen ’em in the windows of those surgical shops⁠—so I suppose they’re naughty, eh? The vicar’s looking shocked.”

“Oh, not at all,” said Mr. Hancock, with a conscientious assumption of broad-mindedness. “Et ego in Arcadia⁠—that is to say, one doesn’t enter the Church without undergoing a classical education, and making the acquaintance of much more worldly authors even than Boccaccio. Those woodcuts are very fine, to my uninstructed eye.”

“Very fine indeed,” said Wimsey.

“There’s another old book I remember, with jolly pictures,” said Haviland. “A chronicle of some sort⁠—what’s ’is name⁠—place in Germany⁠—you know⁠—where that hangman came from. They published his diary the other day. I read it, but it wasn’t really exciting; not half as gruesome as old Harrison Ainsworth. What’s the name of the place?”

“Nüremberg?” suggested Wimsey.

“That’s it, of course⁠—the Nüremberg Chronicle. I wonder if that’s still in its old place. It was over here by the window, if I remember rightly.”

He led the way to the end of one of the bays, which ran up close against a window. Here the damp seemed to have done its worst. A pane of glass was broken, and rain had blown in.

“Now where has it gone to? A big book, it was, with a stamped leather binding. I’d like to see the old Chronicle again. I haven’t set eyes on it for donkey’s years.”

His glance roamed vaguely over the shelves. Wimsey, with the booklover’s instinct, was the first to spot the Chronicle, wedged at the extreme end of the shelf, against the outer wall. He hitched his finger into the top edge of the spine, but finding that the rotting leather was ready to crumble at a touch, he dislodged a neighbouring book and drew the Chronicle gently out, using his whole hand.

“Here he is⁠—in pretty bad condition, I’m afraid. Hullo!”

As he drew the book away from the wall, a piece of folded parchment came away with it and fell at his feet. He stooped and picked it up.

“I say, Burdock⁠—isn’t this what you’ve been looking for?”

Haviland Burdock, who had been rooting about on one of the lower shelves, straightened himself quickly, his face red from stooping.

“By Jove!” he said, turning first redder and then pale with excitement. “Look at this, Winnie. It’s the governor’s will. What an extraordinary thing! Whoever would have thought of looking for it here, of all places?”

“Is it really the will?” cried Mrs. Hancock.

“No doubt about it, I should say,” observed Wimsey coolly. “Last Will and Testament of Simon Burdock.” He stood, turning the grimy document over and over in his hands, looking from the endorsement to the plain side of the folded parchment.

“Well, well!” said Mr. Hancock. “How strange! It seems almost providential that you should have taken that book down.”

“What does the will say?” demanded Mrs. Burdock, in some excitement.

“I beg your pardon,” said Wimsey, handing it over to her. “Yes, as you say, Mr. Hancock, it does almost seem as if I was meant to find it.” He glanced down again at the Chronicle, mournfully tracing with his finger the outline of a damp stain which had rotted the cover and spread to the inner pages, almost obliterating the colophon.

Haviland Burdock meanwhile had spread the will out on the nearest table. His wife leaned over his shoulder. The Hancocks, barely controlling their curiosity, stood near, awaiting the result. Wimsey, with an elaborate pretence of noninterference in this family matter, examined the wall against which the Chronicle had stood, feeling its moist surface and examining the damp-stains. He compared them with the corresponding mark on the book, and shook his head desolately over the damage.

Mr. Frobisher-Pym, who had wandered away some time before and was absorbed in an ancient book of Farriery, now approached, and enquired what the excitement was about.

“Listen to this!” cried Haviland. His voice was quiet, but a suppressed triumph throbbed in it and glittered from his eyes.

“ ‘I bequeath everything of which I die possessed’⁠—there’s a lot of enumeration of properties here, which doesn’t matter⁠—‘to my eldest son, Martin’⁠—”

Mr. Frobisher-Pym whistled.

“Listen! ‘To my eldest son Martin, for so long as my body shall remain above ground. But so soon as I am buried, I direct that the whole of this property shall revert to my younger son Haviland absolutely’⁠—”

“Good God!” said Mr. Frobisher-Pym.

“There’s a lot more,” said Haviland, “but that’s the gist of it.”

“Let me see,” said the magistrate.

He took the will from Haviland, and read it through with a frowning face.

“That’s right,” he said. “No possible doubt about it. Martin has had his property and lost it again. How very curious. Up till yesterday everything belonged to him, though nobody knew it. Now it is all yours, Burdock. This certainly is the strangest will I ever saw. Just fancy that. Martin the heir, up to the time of the funeral. And now⁠—well, Burdock, I must congratulate you.”

“Thank you,” said Haviland. “It is very unexpected.” He laughed unsteadily.

“But what a queer idea!” cried Mrs. Burdock. “Suppose Martin had been at home. It almost seems a mercy that he wasn’t, doesn’t it? I mean, it would all have been so awkward. What would have happened if he had tried to stop the funeral, for instance?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Hancock. “Could he have done anything? Who decides about funerals?”

“The executors, as a rule,” said Mr. Frobisher-Pym.

“Who are the executors in this case?” enquired Wimsey.

“I don’t know. Let me see.” Mr. Frobisher-Pym examined the document again. “Ah, yes! Here we are. ‘I appoint my two sons, Martin and Haviland, joint executors of this my will.’ What an extraordinary arrangement.”

“I call it a wicked, unchristian arrangement,” cried Mrs. Hancock. “It might have caused dreadful mischief if the will hadn’t been⁠—quite providentially⁠—lost!”

“Hush, my dear!” said her husband.

“I’m afraid,” said Haviland grimly, “that that was my father’s idea. It’s no use my pretending he wasn’t spiteful; he was, and I believe he hated both Martin and me like poison.”

“Don’t say that,” pleaded the vicar.

“I do say it. He made our lives a burden to us, and he obviously wanted to go on making them a burden after he was dead. If he’d seen us cutting each other’s throats, he’d only have been too pleased. Come, vicar, it’s no use pretending. He hated our mother and was jealous of us. Everybody knows that. It probably pleased his unpleasant sense of humour to think of us squabbling over his body. Fortunately, he overreached himself when he hid the will here. He’s buried now, and the problem settles itself.”

“Are you quite sure of that?” said Wimsey.

“Why, of course,” said the magistrate. “The property goes to Mr. Haviland Burdock as soon as his father’s body is underground. Well, his father was buried yesterday.”

“But are you sure of that?” repeated Wimsey. He looked from one to the other quizzically, his long lips curling into something like a grin.

“Sure of that?” exclaimed the vicar. “My dear Lord Peter, you were present at the funeral. You saw him buried yourself.”

“I saw his coffin buried,” said Wimsey mildly. “That the body was in it is merely an unverified inference.”

“I think,” said Mr. Frobisher-Pym, “this is rather an unseemly kind of jest. There is no reason to imagine that the body was not in the coffin.”

“I saw it in the coffin,” said Haviland, “and so did my wife.”

“And so did I,” said the vicar. “I was present when it was transferred from the temporary shell in which it crossed over from the States to a permanent lead-and-oak coffin provided by Joliffe. And, if further witnesses are necessary, you can easily get Joliffe himself and his men, who put the body in and screwed it down.”

“Just so,” said Wimsey. “I’m not denying that the body was in the coffin when the coffin was placed in the chapel. I only doubt whether it was there when it was put in the ground.”

“That is a most unheard-of suggestion to make, Lord Peter,” said Mr. Frobisher-Pym, with severity. “May I ask if you have anything to go upon? And, if the body is not in the grave, perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling us where you imagine it to be?”

“Not at all,” said Wimsey. He perched himself on the edge of the table and sat, swinging his legs and looking down at his own hands, as he ticked his points off on his fingers.

“I think,” he said, “that this story begins with young Rawlinson. He is a clerk in the office of Mr. Graham, who drew up this will, and I fancy he knows something about its conditions. So, of course, does Mr. Graham, but I don’t somehow suspect him of being mixed up in this. From what I can hear, he is not a man to take sides⁠—or not Mr. Martin’s side at any rate.

“When the news of Mr. Burdock’s death was cabled over from the States, I think young Rawlinson remembered the terms of the will, and considered that Mr. Martin⁠—being abroad and all that⁠—would be rather at a disadvantage. Rawlinson must be rather attached to your brother, by the way⁠—”

“Martin always had a way of picking up good-for-nothing youths and wasting his time with them,” agreed Haviland sulkily.

The vicar seemed to feel that this statement needed some amendment, and murmured that he had always heard how good Martin was with the village lads.

“Quite so,” said Wimsey. “Well, I think young Rawlinson wanted to give Martin an equal chance of securing the legacy, don’t you see. He didn’t like to say anything about the will⁠—which might or might not turn up⁠—and possibly he thought that even if it did turn up there might be difficulties. Well, anyway, he decided that the best thing to do was to steal the body and keep it aboveground till Martin came home to see to things himself.”

“This is an extraordinary accusation,” began Mr. Frobisher-Pym.

“I dare say I’m mistaken,” said Wimsey, “but it’s just my idea. It makes a damn good story, anyhow⁠—you see! Well, then, young Rawlinson saw that this was too big a job to carry out alone, so he looked round for somebody to help him. And he pitched on Mr. Mortimer.”

“Mortimer?”

“I don’t know Mr. Mortimer personally, but he seems to be a sportin’ sort of customer from what I can hear, with certain facilities which everybody hasn’t got. Young Rawlinson and Mortimer put their heads together and worked out a plan of action. Of course, Mr. Hancock, you helped them enormously with this lying-in-state idea of yours. Without that, I don’t know if they could have worked it.”

Mr. Hancock made an embarrassed clucking sound.

“The idea was this. Mortimer was to provide an antique fly and four white horses, made up with luminous paint and black cloth to represent the Burdock death-coach. The advantage of that idea was that nobody would feel inclined to inspect the turnout too closely if they saw it hangin’ round the churchyard at unearthly hours. Meanwhile, young Rawlinson had to get himself accepted as a watcher for the chapel, and to find a sporting companion to watch with him and take a hand in the game. He fixed things up with the publican-fellow, and spun a tale for Mr. Hancock, so as to get the vigil from four to six. Didn’t it strike you as odd, Mr. Hancock, that he should be so keen to come all the way from Herriotting?”

“I am accustomed to find keenness in my congregation,” said Mr. Hancock stiffly.

“Yes, but Rawlinson didn’t belong to your congregation. Anyway it was all worked out, and there was a dress-rehearsal on the Wednesday night, which frightened your man Plunkett into fits, sir.”

“If I thought this was true⁠—” said Mr. Frobisher-Pym.

“On Thursday night,” pursued Wimsey, “the conspirators were ready, hidden in the chancel at two in the morning. They waited till Mrs. and Miss Hancock had taken their places, and then made a row to attract their attention. When the ladies courageously advanced to find out what was up, they popped out and bundled ’em into the vestry.”

“Good gracious!” said Mrs. Hancock.

“That was when the death-coach affair was timed to drive up to the south door. It came round the Back Lane, I fancy, though I can’t be sure. Then Mortimer and the other two took the embalmed body out of the coffin and filled its place up with bags of sawdust. I know it was sawdust, because I found the remains of it on the Lady-chapel floor in the morning. They put the body in the fly, and Mortimer drove off with it. They passed me on the Herriotting road at half-past two, so they can’t have wasted much time over the job. Mortimer may have been alone, or possibly he had someone with him to see to the body while he himself did the headless coachman business in a black mask. I’m not certain about that. They drove through the last gate before you come to the fork at Frimpton, and went across the fields to Mortimer’s barn. They left the fly there⁠—I know that, because I saw it, and I saw the bran they used to muffle the horses’ hoofs, too. I expect they took it on from there in a car, and fetched the horses up next day⁠—but that’s a detail. I don’t know, either, where they took the body to, but I expect, if you went and asked Mortimer about it, he would be able to assure you that it was still above ground.”