Buried for Pleasure. Edmund Crispin

he was a man of great initial determination but little staying-power.

      Of Jane Persimmons, he learned that she was very quiet and reserved, that she had not disclosed her business in the village, that Myra liked her, and that she was fairly certainly not well off.

      ‘Then she’s a stranger in the district?’ Fen asked.

      ‘Yes, my dear. And the man is, too – Crawley, I mean. Have you seen him yet?’

      Fen said that he had.

      ‘He’s a queer one,’ Myra went on. ‘Come here three days ago. Off on his own all day and every day – sometimes doesn’t even have breakfast. Says he goes fishing, but no one ever comes here to fish: there’s nothing in the Spoor but two or three minnows. And anyway, it’s obvious he knows no more about fishing than my backside. He’s a mystery, he is. Jacqueline mistrusted him from the start – didn’t you, Jackie?’ she said to the blonde barmaid.

      Jacqueline, who was patiently polishing glasses, nodded and favoured them with a radiant smile. Fen noted, for Mr Judd’s future information, that she was wearing a plain black frock with white at the wrists and neck, and a rather beautiful old marcasite brooch.

      Myra was regarding her with considerable fondness.

      ‘Isn’t she lovely?’ said Myra with proprietary pride. ‘Talk about dumb ruddy blondes.’

      The dumb ruddy blonde, unembarrassed, glowed at them again, like a large electric bulb raised gently to its fullest power and then as gently dimmed.

      ‘And she’s everything you imagine blondes with figures aren’t,’ said Myra. ‘Goes to church regular, looks after her pa and ma in Sanford Morvel, doesn’t smoke or drink, and hardly ever goes out with men. But, of course, the only thing people want to do is just look at her – almost the only thing, that is,’ Myra corrected herself in the interests of accuracy.

      Jacqueline smiled exquisitely a third time, and continued peaceably to polish glasses. A customer came in, and Myra abandoned Fen in order to attend to him. At the time of Fen’s return to the inn, all had been quiet. But now a light tapping from some other quarter of the building indicated that Mr Beaver’s interregnum, whatever might have been its cause, was over. The tapping grew rapidly in vehemence, and was soon joined, fugally, by other similar noises.

      ‘My God,’ said Myra. ‘They’re off again.’

      Fen thought the moment appropriate to demand an explanation of the repairs.

      ‘It’s quite simple, my dear,’ said Myra. ‘In the normal way we only get the locals in here, and, of course, that means the pub doesn’t make much money. So Mr Beaver decided he’d like to turn it into a sort of roadhouse place, swanky-like, you know, and expensive, and get people to come here in their cars from all over the county.’

      ‘But that’s a deplorable ambition,’ Fen protested.

      ‘Well, you can understand it, can’t you?’ said Myra tolerantly. ‘I know there’s some as say the village ought to stay unspoiled, and all that, but it’s my opinion that if people aren’t allowed to make as much money as they can we shall all be worse off.’

      Fen considered this fiscal theory and decided that, subject to a good deal of qualification, there was something in it.

      ‘But still,’ he said, ‘it does seem a pity. You know the sort of customers you’ll get; loud-voiced, red-faced men with Hudson Terraplanes and toothbrush moustaches, and little slinky girls with geranium lips and an eye to the main chance, smoking cigarettes in holders.’

      Myra sighed a little at this vision of the coming Gomorrah, but – since unlike Fen she was not prone to aesthetic bigotry – did not seem, he thought, to be seriously dismayed.

      ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘it’s their pub to do what they like with. They tried to get a licence for the renovations, but the Ministry refused it. So they’re doing the whole thing themselves.’

      ‘Doing it themselves?’

      ‘There’s a regulation, you see, that if you don’t employ workmen, and don’t spend more than a hundred pounds, you can do up your house, or whatever it is, yourself. Mr Beaver’s got his whole family at it, and some of his friends drop in now and again to lend a hand.’

      ‘Surely, though, it’s a job for an expert.’

      ‘Ah,’ said Myra sombrely. ‘You’re right there, my dear. But that’s Mr Beaver all over. Once he gets an idea into his head, nothing’ll stop him. And if you ask me—’

      But what more she would have said Fen never learned. Even as she spoke, he had been conscious that a large and noisy car was pulling up at the door of the inn.

      And now, with the consciously grandiose air of a god from a machine, a newcomer strode into the bar.

       Chapter Six

      The newcomer was a man of between thirty and forty, though a certain severity of expression made him seem rather older. He was tall and stringy, with a weather-beaten complexion, a long straight nose, bright, bird-like eyes, and thin brown hair which glistened with bay-rum; and he wore jodhpurs, riding-boots, a violent check hacking coat, and a yellow tie with horses’ heads on it. In his hand he carried a green pork-pie hat with ventilation holes in the top, so that it looked as if someone had been shooting at him.

      He stalked to the bar, rapped on it, and demanded peremptorily to be told if Professor Fen were available.

      ‘I am Fen,’ said Fen.

      The newcomer’s manner changed at once to one of great affability. He took Fen’s hand and joggled it up and down prolongedly.

      ‘My dear sir,’ he said, ‘this is a very great pleasure. Damme yes. Delighted, and all that… What are you having?’

      ‘Bitter, I think.’

      ‘A pint of bitter, Miss, and a large Scotch for me.’

      ‘You are Captain Watkyn?’ Fen asked mistrustfully.

      ‘You’ve got it in one, old boy,’ said Captain Watkyn with enthusiasm; it was as though he were commending Fen for the solution of a particularly awkward riddle. ‘The old firm in person, at your service now as always… Well, bungho.’

      They drank.

      ‘It’s a good thing you’re a drinking man,’ Captain Watkyn added pensively. ‘I had to act for a T.T. once – Melton Mowbray, I think it was – and between ourselves, I had a pretty sticky time of it.’

      ‘Did he get in?’

      ‘No,’ said Captain Watkyn with satisfaction, ‘he didn’t. Mind you,’ he went on hurriedly, perceiving in this anecdote an element which might be interpreted to his own disadvantage – ‘mind you, he wouldn’t have got in even if the King – God bless His Majesty – had been sponsoring him… I tell you what, we’ll go and sit over by the window, where there’s some air.’

      Carrying their drinks, they moved to the embrasure he had indicated and settled down there, Captain Watkyn with the relieved sigh of one who, after long and tedious journeyings, has returned home.

      ‘Snug little place,’ he observed, looking about him. ‘Might be a bit quieter, though, mightn’t it?’

      Fen agreed that it might.

      ‘Well, never mind,’ said Captain Watkyn consolatorily, as though it had been Fen who had complained. ‘You might be very much worse off, if I know anything about it… Well, now, sir, you must let me have your instructions.’

      ‘What,’ Fen asked, ‘has been happening so far?’

      ‘A great deal,’ Captain Watkyn replied promptly. ‘A great deal has been happening.