The Reichenbach Problem, Page 28

  Turning to the murderer, whoever it was might have come with the express purpose of killing him. Whoever it was, if this was the purpose, might not have remained. They might have left immediately, to return to wherever they had come from. Far away. Another country? Another continent, even.

  It was too frustrating. All detective fiction relies on a conceit. A conceit that the murderer waits around long enough to get themselves caught. How I hated my bonny, neat stories. All constructs and lies, sleights of hand and trompe l’oeils. All designed to misdirect the reader.

  Around and around the mulberry bush I went: Why would a murderer wait around to be caught? Examine the motive, I told myself. Why would a victim allow himself to be killed? The murderer either was no longer around or was capable of going to ground. Why would they need to carry on planting clues, as if they were a protagonist in one of my stories? For I believed that was what was happening. It seemed to me that if Brown had been despatched, it had been done perfectly neatly. No loose ends to be tied up. And yet… Here a lost and found ouzo stopper. There a pipe knife in a gully. Here slits in telegrams. There rumours and gossip seeking to have me excised from the equation. Real life just was not like that. Therefore there had to be another reason altogether why I was stumbling on these things. Either I was being given anise-seed rags for a serious purpose, or someone was intent upon making a fool of me.

  If it was for a serious purpose, why the anise-seed rags? To put the hounds off the scent, perhaps? What scent? The thing was, I was not on any scent. Perhaps whoever it was did not know this?

  On the other hand, what if all this was in order to ridicule me? Why? Because they didn’t like me? Reason enough, I supposed. Because they didn’t like Sherlock Holmes? Also reasonable. Because they hated both me and my Holmes stories? My success? A stronger reason; starting to get strong enough to amount to a motive. But then, if people don’t like someone or something, they simply avoid them or it. Or make it clear that they don’t like them.

  However, if they hate them, that is different.

  Hate has a habit of hiding itself.

  A poem of Blake’s came to me; about hate. About how hate can be nurtured behind false smiles and a pretence at friendship.

  Hate is a very powerful motive. Hate if sunned with smiles and watered with tears can move someone to action. Dislike is generally passive or, if active, motivates a person away from the object of dislike. Hate can become obsessive and verge on mania, or at least overbalance into it.

  I sat down on my hay bales and began to compose a list in my mind of all the people who would have hated me for Holmes. Hated me enough to bait me and goad me with these parodies of clues. And then I desisted. The list was simply too long and impossible to compile because of all the anonymous people who may have read my stories and resented me for them.

  I tried another tack. I returned to the question: If there were a murderer, why were they still here? Because they lived here? Because they had to be here? Because they wanted to be here?

  Round and round… and round… and round the dashed mulberry bush.

  I peered out again from my hide. The sun was busy baking the high land. I became aware, in the distance, of the sounds of the hay harvest recommencing. They had finished in my immediate vicinity in the last day or so, and were now working the meadows further up towards the mountains. The swish swish swish of scythes was soothing, rhythmic. They were collecting winter fodder. They had to keep the animals fed through the long, dark, snowed-in months. Otherwise there would be no milk, no meat for the community. It was seemingly unimportant to make hay while the sun shone, and yet it was vital to the whole food chain.

  I thought of Hugo. And then of Francesca.

  And so the long morning wore on.

  I listened to the church clocks striking the quarters, halves and hours. I peered through the crack between the wooden walls, and watched the cats in pursuit of mice and voles in the recently shorn meadow.

  In the distance, along the main street, I believed I could see Marie pushing Plantin in his rolling chair. I imagined them smiling in the clean, warm, alpine summer’s day. How I longed to be just strolling along with them, taking the air.

  I thought of my clean, comfortable, welcoming room, with its breakfasts on the balcony overlooking the shining mountains.

  It was too much for me.

  I felt lonely, desperate, lost and exiled.

  I wanted Touie. I wanted my family. I wanted to be home.

  For the first time in years, I wept.

  Father Vernon returned. He noticed my sombre, subdued appearance, but I did not apprise him of my current melancholy. Instead, I told him of some of my thoughts about motive and asked if he could do a little investigating, since I was hamstrung by this hayloft. I did not know what he may find, or how he may begin to go about such enquiries.

  “That is, if you do not mind making such enquiries?”

  “You need to know.”

  “And what if they discover you have been helping me, and throw you into jail?”

  Father Vernon shrugged and smiled gently. “I am a friar. A cell is a cell, be it institutional or monastic. I can pray anywhere. And in the end I will be found innocent.”

  “Surely you would be charged with helping me evade justice, as they would perceive it…?”

  “I would be found innocent, because you are. God will provide. And even if he does not, he is still God.”

  With those reassuring words, and leaving me with some bread, cheese and water – prison fare – he left.

  I was still not certain that he would not return with a policeman or two. But I refused to allow myself to think those thoughts. I ate my lunch and drank the water. It was growing, as I suspected it would, unbearably hot.

  I had finished the water. The inside of my mouth started to taste like chalk. Shortly my lips would crack as a riverbed in drought. Worst of all, considering my need for secrecy, I couldn’t smoke my pipe. Although that was just as well, bearing in mind the fire hazard a few dry hay bales and a desiccated wooden structure represented.

  I looked out through one of the cracks again.

  Eva was heading towards the hotel. In my confinement, I began to remember the first day. Those few, precious moments of happiness, that sense of freedom and friendship before the world turned sour and I was left blundering about in this present fog and turmoil. I remembered the alpine meadows, sweet with fragrance, and tried to recall the honey smell of the edelweiss…

  “I need to get into the village,” I said.

  Father Vernon had returned, thankfully, with some more water.

  “Why?”

  “To stretch my legs, to smoke, to feel human and not a prisoner…”

  I also knew I needed to telegraph Flemyng and ask him to establish for me who exactly Brown was. But since I had told no one of my Whitehall contact or my wires, and had determined to keep it a secret, I did not mention this. Should anyone ever let slip Flemyng’s name or cricket scores or some such privy information, I would know immediately that it was they who had read my wires.

  Father Vernon surveyed me. He had uncovered nothing of note with his own recent prowling around. I do not doubt he thought I was completely mad to consider venturing back into the village. I, a wanted man. But he also understood that I may be more able to discover things than he. He also realized, I am sure, my burning need to engage in some activity. I would simply go mad, cooped up as I was.

  His eyes lit up and his mouth shaped into a crescent smile. “I will see what I can do… I will be back shortly.”

  I sat on the hay and peered again through a crack between the wooden planks of the loft. I watched Father Vernon leave, framed by the backdrop of clouds bubbling up around the mountains. Then I moved back across the floor and looked out through another of my spy holes, down into the village main street. My gaze was met almost immediately by the sight of Hugo returning from the meadow with a scythe. His shirt was off his back and draped across his shoulders. I fe
lt a pang of remorse that I could have treated him so cruelly. Then I remembered that it was he who had started the fight, and those feelings evaporated swiftly. It was only a day or so ago that he had been cutting the hay right beneath where now I sat. Most probably, I was sitting upon the hay he had scythed. It gave me a sense of irony to dwell upon this trivial point.

  Having nothing better to do, boredom carried me off to sleep.

  When I awoke, it was still hot and stuffy. But the reason I had woken was because, only lightly asleep, my ears had heard someone approaching the building. I shuffled across as quietly as possible to look out through a crack at whoever it was. My beady eye spied a returning Father Vernon carrying a box, and with a capacious bag slung over one shoulder.

  Upon entering, he proffered the box. “I have a disguise for you in here…”

  “A disguise?”

  “You shall have to shave off your walrus moustache and take off your spectacles, of course. They are quite part of you.”

  “My moustache?”

  “If you want to get out there…”

  “But… without my spectacles… I shall be blind as a bat.”

  He reached into the box and produced a selection of eyewear.

  “Try these. It is a hotel lost property box. I take it you do not want any umbrellas, snuff boxes or false teeth?” he continued, producing the items one after the other like a magician.

  “No, I do not.”

  “I often collect these boxes from the hotels around here. Since they have not been claimed, I reserve the right to send them on to the city where the poor may benefit from them. These will all go there, too. Except, perhaps, one pair of spectacles, hopefully. So – try these on…”

  I found a pair that did not give me a headache and allowed me to see with a degree of clarity. Satisfied with my new appearance, the priest then produced a friar’s brown habit from his bag.

  “I am to wear this?”

  “Of course. Folk may wish you good-day at a distance, but other than that they tend to give Franciscan friars a wide berth. I trust it is out of respect and deference to our holy calling. Moreover, I am always having brother priests up here; one more won’t make any difference. They come here for a rest. To think, to sit, to pray. To refresh themselves before returning to the fray. The only danger is if they spot your mountain tan. Or if someone thinks to talk to you, to perhaps enquire politely how you got here. But it is nearly dusk. Besides, I doubt they would get that close or be that suspicious. Nothing happens here. More, even if something does happen, it is assumed it is nothing. Now, come along and shave off that moustache…” He produced shaving implements, a bowl and a bottle of water from his pack. “And, when you are done, I shall give you a tonsure.” A large, threatening pair of scissors emerged after the shaving materials.

  “I will not have you shave my head. I am thin enough up top as it is.”

  “Then you may borrow my wide-brimmed straw hat.” He said this quickly enough to make me suspect that there had never been any real intention of providing me with the monk’s pride and joy.

  The hat was followed almost immediately by a lady’s handbag.

  “And this?”

  “Contains rouge. One of my parishioners left it behind last week. I have been meaning to return it to her. Now I know why I was not meant to, quite yet. She did not need it in a hurry.”

  “Yes, but… why rouge?”

  “Once you have shaved your moustache off, the lip underneath will be pale and white in contrast to the rest of your ruddy face. It should be enough to fool the casual observer. As I said, no one looks closely at a friar. I can vouch for that.”

  We set about my transformation.

  “Would you like to act, doctor?” He was smiling broadly as he applied the finishing touches to the rouge upon my newly shaven upper lip.

  “I should like that very much. But I would not act in anything where I had to pretend to be something I am not.”

  “But this is what all acting is, surely?”

  “No – one acts by being something one is not. No pretence.”

  My first deed upon being released from my jail was to light my pipe and luxuriate in every moment of it. I moved about the village cautiously at first. Huddled and shuffling. However, I noticed that people were turning to glance at me as I passed. So I decided to behave more boldly. I stood more upright and lengthened my step. Now people weren’t giving me a second thought. Father Vernon was right. People simply pass the religious by without a second glance. It was as if I did not exist. I was of no interest to them. So I made my way along to the telegraph office. I wanted to compose my request for information about Brown’s personal history from Flemyng. Late in the afternoon, as it was, I hoped that the office had not yet closed.

  It was good to be out in the fresh air. Good to be among people again – albeit people who could at any moment betray me to the police and seal my fate for ever.

  To my great relief, the telegraph office was not yet closed. I composed my message.

  URGENT. NO CRICKET.

  WHO IS PETER BROWN.

  PERSONAL HISTORY PLEASE.

  There was no need to use the cipher; I was not asking for anything that needed to be kept from any unknown reader. Besides, I needed a response as quickly as possible. Turning the information into a scorecard would only delay matters. I did not sign it, for fear of revealing my identity to the telegraph clerk.

  Then I tore the message up.

  Departing from our usual pattern would alert Flemyng to something amiss. Reading my message from his perspective, it could have been written by anyone. It could have been written by someone trying to get information out of him. Without his knowing that it was indeed me, Flemyng may reason that someone could have realized that the cricket was a code. They could have given up trying to decipher it, and had simply tried the direct approach in order to get some plain text, and facts, from England. Flemyng would reasonably assume it to be foolhardy to respond to such a blatant request. It would run the risk of revealing something detrimental to my personal safety. I clearly had to sign it with my own name. But that would mean giving away the fact that I was still in the village. I went out and sat upon the steps of the office. I smoked a pipe. Presently, I went back inside and rewrote my message, signing it with the words:

  REGARDS, IGNATIUS

  ASK STEEN

  Ignatius was my second given name. A name I shared with my old college friend Robert I. Steen. It was a link to enable him to certify for Flemyng that it was indeed me sending this curious missive.

  Then I sent it.

  Leaving the office, I was aware that I had finally gone beyond the point of no return. Of course, sending such a message was a huge risk. But, as I had reasoned, if anyone was reading telegrams on my behalf, then they probably already knew who Brown was. So Flemyng could tell them nothing new. If the reply never came, it would only mean again what I already knew. That someone was intercepting my wires. The only other risk was letting people know I was still in the village. But they would have to find me first. In the meantime, there was a chance that the grouse would be disturbed by all of this. It could drive my quarry straight into my waiting guns.

  I found myself wandering the village deep in these kinds of thoughts. I was still lost in this reverie when I almost banged right into the one person I most needed to avoid.

  “Hello, padre.” Holloway continued past, without pause. He was weaving slightly. Whatever he had just been indulging in had doubtless made him generally less inhibited with everyone he came across. Even Franciscan strangers. But I could see that he was also walking around in a fug. I wanted to chase after him. Shake him until his brain rattled. But, I supposed, it wouldn’t have rattled. It was clearly, at present, mush. I let him go. Which was a shame, because I might just have sought to make him agree he was my alibi. To know that my disguise was so effective was small consolation.

  I walked on towards my hotel. No particular reason, other than I was not rea
dy to return to my stifling eyrie quite yet. I passed Plantin and Marie, returning I assumed from an afternoon perambulation. They also did not give me a second glance.

  Unrecognized, unacknowledged, an extraordinary emotion then engulfed me. I wanted to be part of society again. I wanted my existence affirmed. I vowed there and then that if ever I got out of this whole catastrophe alive, I would never again scorn the company of members of the human race. Even members of the general public; no matter how gauche or satirical their approach to me may be. I would indeed welcome their attention and stop when they spoke to me, and give them the time of day when they asked for it.

  I reached the steps of my hotel. Despite any reservations I may have had, I realized I needs must go inside. I had sent a telegram to Flemyng. He was most likely going to reply to the customary address. Care of the hotel. I needed to let someone know that messages for someone called Ignatius should be held at the reception desk until collection.

  With a wry smile to myself, I assumed the name Brother Ignatius, the Franciscan friar, and stepped over the threshold into the hotel hallway. How I proposed to disguise my voice, I had yet to work out.

  Anton was there, diligently going over his books. He was an able and assiduous hotelier. His parents should have been proud of him. He looked up as I entered. I suppose my previous encounters had made me overconfident of my disguise. I watched as his eyes registered in turn welcome, curiosity, sudden recognition and then intense concern. To my dismay, I could see that he was about to raise the alarm. I had to act quickly.

  “Anton. Let me speak. Please.”

  He hesitated.

  “Anton, I know your secret.” I was taking a risk. I did not know his secret; I had only guessed. But this was a desperate moment, and it was all that I could think of in so short a space of time.

  “What secret?”

  “I know that you were interested when Holloway and I arrived. That you thought that we were more than simply friends. That this encouraged you, I believe, to reveal your innermost feelings to your close family. They have not, I suspect, reacted in quite the way you had hoped. My relationship with Holloway is not at all how you thought it, though. I nevertheless wish to apologize for being inadvertently the creator of the circumstances in which you find yourself.”