Masterstroke (The Simon Bognor Mysteries) Read online

  ‘No,’ Bognor agreed. He wasn’t sure he didn’t also agree with his colleague’s character assessment, but he judged it better not to say so. Their coffee arrived. Bognor was mother. The inspector took his milky with three sugars.

  ‘Well,’ said Bognor, a shift of tone indicating that the time had come to cease frivolous small talk and move to the agenda. Also that he was not only mother but chairman too. ‘What progress have you made?’

  ‘I’ll be quite candid,’ announced Smith. ‘The fact is we’ve made very little progress at all.’

  ‘I see.’ Bognor examined his finger tips and waited.

  ‘Fact is, Simon …’ He paused. ‘Don’t mind if I call you Simon, do you?’

  Bognor shook his head to convey that the familiarity was perfectly in order, if not wholly desirable.

  ‘Fact is, present company excepted, it’s never easy dealing with the college people.’

  ‘I can imagine.’ He could too – only too well.

  ‘Frankly I’m out of my depth. So I’d value your co-operation, I would really.’

  ‘You shall have it.’ Bognor was as susceptible to flattery as the next man. Perhaps more so, since he was so seldom accorded it.

  ‘You must have discovered something,’ he prompted.

  ‘Right.’ The inspector drew breath. ‘One. The deceased was poisoned. I’ve got a name for the stuff back at the office. Our experts say it acts in about an hour.’

  ‘And the time of death?’

  ‘About three.’

  ‘And he was drinking in Mitten’s rooms until about a quarter to.’

  ‘So I understand.’

  ‘Could it have been self-administered?’

  ‘No trace of a supply in the Master’s lodgings. No sign of any suicide note. No evidence of depression. I’m inclined to rule that one out, until we find something to prove otherwise.’

  ‘His wife had died.’ Bognor remembered Lady Mabel well. Small, pear-shaped, nearly always smiling, she had never ironed out her northern accent as her husband had done. She was an unusual Master’s wife. Very few airs and graces. He’d no idea how she and her husband had got on together. Well enough, as far as could be seen. Nothing spectacular. Certainly nothing to suggest that Lord Beckenham would be so grief-stricken at her passing that he would commit suicide.

  ‘That was three years ago,’ said the inspector. ‘Let’s forget the idea he killed himself.’

  ‘All right,’ said Bognor. ‘Method. I suppose someone spiked his drink.’

  ‘Looks like a Mickey Finn,’ agreed Smith. ‘Had a bit of luck there.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Post-mortem was done unusually fast, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Don’t ask me why. I think it’s partly a question of Mitten and his friends pulling rank. Showing they can cut through the red tape.’

  ‘That follows.’

  ‘Result of that is that we know it’s murder before Monday morning. And Mr Mitten’s scout doesn’t come in till Monday morning, so the glasses haven’t been washed up.’ He paused. ‘So we’ve had them removed for analysis.’

  ‘Very good,’ said Bognor. ‘Which will demonstrate conclusively that his drink was fixed.’

  ‘I hope so. And that proves that he was done in by one of the people drinking with him in Mitten’s rooms, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said Bognor. ‘The Master always drank a peculiar sort of Polish raspberry firewater. No one else ever touched the stuff. Doctoring that would have been a sure-fire way of getting him.’

  ‘Sound thinking,’ said Smith.

  ‘Not mine. That’s Mrs Bognor’s theory.’

  Smith raised his eyebrows. ‘She in this line of country, too?’

  ‘Not officially, no, but she is an ever-constant help in time of trouble.’

  ‘Not just a pretty face?’

  ‘No. Definitely not.’

  The inspector lit another cigarette and drew on it, then breathed out, watching the smoke as if it might have some message for him.

  ‘On the assumption,’ he said, as the smoke drifted away across the lounge, ‘that the Master’s drink … his glass, not the bottle … was fixed during your late-night session after dinner, who could have done it? And how?’

  Bognor closed his eyes and tried to visualize the scene. It was surprisingly easy. Old Beckenham in his equally ancient dinner jacket, literally green with age, the edge of his bulging waistcoat showing broken stitching, the shoes split. Mitten in his tobacco-brown smoking jacket. Hermione in that clinging, backless black number. Vole pinkly chubby. Edgware so very neat, everything creased razor-sharp including the parting of his hair. Rook flashily expensive with heavy gold cufflinks and matching studs in his old-fashioned boiled shirt. Crutwell smoking a pipe, Mr avuncular housemaster himself.

  ‘We were all a bit pissed,’ he said, opening his eyes. ‘In fact to be quite honest, at breakfast on Sunday morning the others claimed I’d said several things of which I had no recollection whatever.’ He laughed a hollow laugh. Inspector Smith, for once, did not join in. Bognor coughed. ‘Well, as you’ve probably seen, Mitten’s rooms consist of that little entrance hall where he has the elephant’s foot umbrella stand and the coat hooks. Then there’s the dining-room. Then the drawing-room/study and then the bedroom leading off that. The drinks are in a corner cupboard in the dining-room.’

  ‘And you were all in the drawing-room?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Doors shut?’

  Bognor closed his eyes again and concentrated. ‘Most of the time, yes. I seem to remember someone protesting about the draught. But there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing.’

  ‘Did Mitten help you to drinks or did you help yourselves?’

  ‘He gave us our first ones. After that we just helped ourselves. Quite a lot. Hence all the to-ing and fro-ing.’ Bognor was beginning to feel uncomfortable. He knew he was not under suspicion. Not really. And yet this felt like a proper interrogation.

  ‘What were you drinking?’

  ‘What, me personally?’

  ‘Yes, you personally.’

  ‘Cognac. Brandy. Hine.’ He drank some more coffee and noticed that the palm of his right hand was sweaty. He hoped it was just the central heating.

  ‘And after the first drink, which was handed to you by Mitten, you helped yourself?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Several times?’

  ‘’fraid so. Yes, several times.’

  ‘And when you helped yourself, did you help anyone else?’

  Bognor’s face contorted itself with the effort of remembering through the fog of alcohol and cigars.

  ‘I think so,’ he said at last. ‘As far as I can remember, whenever anyone went to get another drink they sort of looked round to see if anyone else wanted a refill and took an extra glass or two with them. But it was all pretty chaotic.’

  ‘So at one time or another everybody left the room to get drink?’ The little man was leaning forward, his breath quickening. His face had lost much of its roundness and had developed unsuspected sharp edges so that it was almost ferrety. Bognor began to wonder if he was quite the oaf he had appeared to be on first acquaintance.

  ‘Not Lord Beckenham. He remained rooted to his chair throughout. Threatening to go pop at any moment.’

  Smith raised an interlocutory eyebrow.

  Bognor emitted a cracked, humourless chuckle. ‘Figure of speech,’ he apologized. ‘Unfortunate choice of phrase.’

  ‘No, not at all. Very apt. Very apt indeed.’ Smith’s eyes were very black. They were screwed up now, and Bognor was reminded of raisins in a steamed pudding.

  ‘Otherwise everybody went out, except for Hermione Frinton.’

  ‘Male gallantry survives in Apocrypha, eh?’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Bognor was feeling most discomfited. ‘I seem to remember a certain amount of badinage about Germaine Greerism and whether a female Fellow could be one of the chaps. That sort of thing.’<
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  Smith’s expression indicated that he saw nothing humorous in this. It also implied that such childishness was only to be expected. ‘Was everyone drinking brandy?’

  ‘As I said, the Master was drinking his raspberry tipple. Some of the rest of us were on brandy, some on Scotch.’

  ‘Scotch with water?’

  ‘I suppose so. Yes.’ Bognor racked his brains feverishly. A piece of scum from the top of his coffee had attached itself in a thin film to the bottom of one of Smith’s two front fangs. Bognor was becoming mesmerized by it. He felt like a rabbit trapped by a car’s headlights. Why am I reacting like this? he thought nervously. I’m totally innocent and yet this man is going to make me confess to something in a minute. He’s eerie.

  ‘Where did the water come from?’

  ‘Um,’ said Bognor desperately. ‘Water?’

  ‘For the Scotch,’ prompted Inspector Smith.

  ‘Oh. From a jug.’ Bognor scratched his thinning hair. ‘No, no. I tell a lie. No jug, no jug. Some people went out to the scout’s pantry on the landing where there was a sink. And some people went into Waldy Mitten’s bedroom and filled their glasses from his washbasin.’

  Inspector Smith nodded sagely. ‘Scout’s pantry?’ he repeated.

  ‘Scout’s pantry. Sort of servant’s kitchenette.’

  ‘But no scout?’

  ‘Not that I could see.’

  ‘But he’d have served at dinner?’

  ‘Probably.’

  Smith pulled out a shorthand notebook and made a scribbled entry in pencil. ‘I’ll have to talk to him,’ he said, ‘and I’m going to have to talk to the others. Mitten and Frinton I’ve spoken to already. Frinton’s in the clear, I suppose, being one of ours in a manner of speaking.’ He sniggered mirthlessly. ‘No reason not to suspect Mitten. Bit of a pooftah, is he?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Everyone seems to think that. My guess is he’s sexless.’

  ‘Never made a pass at you, then, did he? Eh?’ Smith sniggered again. Bognor felt this was more like chief-inspector chappie.

  ‘No, never, I’m pleased to say.’

  ‘Obviously knew your attentions were otherwise engaged, eh? With the future Mrs Bognor, eh?’ For a hideous moment Bognor was sure that the diminutive detective was going to say ‘nudge nudge, know what I mean?’ in the manner of the man in the Monty Python sketch, but mercifully he simply-put his notebook away and licked his lips in a tentative fashion, succeeding, incidentally, in removing the coffee stain from his tooth. ‘And then we have Messrs Edgware, Vole, Rook and Crutwell,’ he said. ‘What about them?’

  ‘Well.’ Bognor looked at his watch. ‘As a matter of fact I’ve got a rendezvous with Sebastian Vole in ten minutes’ time at the Turf. Can we adjourn this till a bit later?’

  ‘Certainly, Simon. Only too glad. I’ve set up a little incident room in the college. The old Shakespeare Room.’

  ‘Yes, I remember it. The college’s most famous alumnus.’

  ‘Really?’ The inspector seemed surprised. ‘I had no idea that Shakespeare was an Oxford man.’

  ‘No,’ said Bognor, ‘nor have most people.’

  3

  HE WAS LATE FOR his meeting with Vole. It was twelve-forty-five by the time he had shaken off the policeman, relieved himself at the Randolph urinal, and ambled along the Broad, pausing to inspect the books in the window of Blackwell’s and marvel at the papier mâché hideousness of the new emperors’ heads outside the Sheldonian. ‘Beerbohm would have hated you!’ he called out in disgust, causing several human heads to turn. He hurried down the absurdly narrow alley which led to the pub and burst in to find Vole sitting at the bar with a neat Scotch and a pint of Guinness in front of him. Also The Times folded in four with the crossword uppermost.

  ‘Ah, Simon,’ he said. ‘Five, three, seven. “What don had to change in mistake for ‘sensational’?”’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Sebastian. You know perfectly well I can’t understand crosswords. Monica’s the crossword queen.’

  ‘Quite right. Let’s ring her up. This is driving me crazy.’ Vole spoke sorrowfully. ‘What’ll you have?’ he asked.

  Bognor opted for a Guinness but no Scotch. ‘Well then, what’s all this?’ he asked brusquely. ‘I’m very busy, you know,’ he added, thinking of Hermione Frinton’s legs.

  ‘We can’t talk here,’ said Vole, gazing around the room at the scattering of students and tourists.

  ‘I told you that earlier,’ said Bognor with asperity.

  ‘Man must eat. Sure you won’t have a Scotch?’

  ‘No. How long have you been here?’

  Vole indicated the crossword which was three-quarters complete. ‘Long enough to do that,’ he said.

  ‘How many drinks have you had?’

  ‘Not nearly enough,’ said Vole. ‘Let’s eat.’

  Vole ordered a packet of cheese and onion crisps and another round of drinks. Bognor asked for a pasty. Despite his irritation with Vole he was quite worried about him. He seemed to have disintegrated visibly since Bognor had last seen him at breakfast in Hall a few days before. Now his clothes had a slept-in appearance. He was unshaven. And he bulged. You could not say positively that he was overweight and yet, somehow, he bulged. Like a frog. Bognor knew the feeling. It came from over-indulgence, lack of exercise and, above all, anxiety.

  ‘I thought you’d have left Oxford by now.’ Bognor was being aggressively conversational. ‘Matter of fact, I was rather hoping I’d have to fly over to Prendergast to interview you. What kept you?’

  ‘Research, actually.’ He flung a slug of whisky down his throat without appearing to swallow, and drowned it with beer. ‘For the book.’

  ‘Ah, the book.’

  ‘The book,’ Vole prodded Bognor’s chest with a fleshy forefinger, ‘is dynamite. It will singe not only your eyebrows, but the eyebrows of the world. It is dynamite.’

  ‘What’s it about, exactly?’

  For some reason Vole seemed to find this question amusing. ‘Ha!’ he exclaimed. ‘Ha! What’s it about? Ha! What isn’t it about, more like. I’ll tell you what it’s about. It’s about life.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Bognor, uncertain of the correct response. He hid his face and his confusion in his Guinness. When he re-emerged he tried, ‘What exactly about life?’

  Vole gazed around the room. ‘Tell you later,’ he said loudly, ‘when we’re outside.’ Then, more softly, he asked: ‘Did you like Beckenham?’

  ‘Yes. Quite.’

  ‘You know what?’ Vole was jabbing him again with that finger. Bognor had never known him so bellicosely drunk before in his life. Something had obviously happened to him in American academe. Or somewhere.

  ‘He was a shit.’ Vole followed this revelation with an unblinking stare as if to indicate that he had just made a very profound and meaningful statement.

  ‘I see,’ said Bognor, adding facetiously, ‘I suppose you’ve incorporated this verdict into your treatise on life?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, actually,’ replied Vole, jabbing away like a rejuvenated Muhammad Ali, ‘I have.’

  No more was said on the subject of Beckenham and the book until lunch was over. This lasted until closing time, which meant that Vole was even more belligerent and inebriated than before. He had almost struck Bognor for daring to suggest, albeit mildly, that cricket was in some ways superior to what Vole, semi-Americanized by his years at Prendergast, persisted in calling ‘the ball game’.

  Once outside Bognor said: ‘Why don’t we take a turn round Christ Church Meadow? Unlikely to be overheard there.’

  Vole grunted. The day which had earlier been clear and crisp had degenerated into greyness and drizzle. Damp seemed to rise up from the ground and even out of the buildings. They walked in silence past the domed bulk of the Radcliffe Camera. Bognor recalled happy hours inside, in the library, pretending to read Gibbon and de Tocqueville while actually thinking of girls’ legs and making a hundred before lunch at Lords. Leaving th
e Camera on their left they cut through the alley to the left of Brasenose, crossed the High and continued towards Merton.

  ‘Remember that dance at St Hilda’s when Scrimgeour-Harris broke his collar bone doing the twist?’ he asked Vole.

  Vole grunted again. ‘Scrimgeour-Harris is in Saudi, trying to sell cosmetics to the natives,’ he said. ‘I think that’s what he said. May have been Kuwait, but it was certainly cosmetics.’

  ‘That was the night Badman went off with that girl of Rook’s. The one with the teeth,’ continued Bognor.

  ‘And bandy legs,’ said Vole. ‘She was at St Hugh’s. Reading chemistry. I never knew what they saw in her.’

  ‘She was said to be extraordinary in bed,’ revealed Bognor.

  ‘Been to bed with one,’ said Vole, ‘and you’ve been to bed with the lot.’

  Bognor considered this for a moment. They had crossed cobbled Merton Street and were passing the little memorial to the college’s former pupil, Mallory, last seen with his partner, Irvine, heading towards the summit of Mount Everest. That lost hero seemed light years from this seedy present. Vole had presumably been to bed with Mrs Vole, but Bognor doubted whether he had ever been to bed with anyone else. His remark, with which Bognor was disposed to disagree, also struck him as being ill-researched. Instead of disputing it, however, Bognor said: ‘Your book. You were going to tell me about your book.’

  Vole did not reply. They passed through the iron gate into the meadow, and walked towards the Isis. Vole scuffed at the gravel. The mist hung above the scrubby ground like steam. Bognor had never understood why the Meadow excited quite such passion. Merton Tower – squatter, but in his view more beautiful than newly renovated Magdalen – was a plus, but the Meadow was just tatty grazing land for a few scruffy cows. It had been there a long time, that was all. There were many men in Oxford who valued permanence for the sake of permanence. Bognor, personally, found change reassuring. If things stayed the same too long they unnerved him.

  ‘How,’ asked Bognor, changing tack slightly, ‘does Beckenham come into your book?’