A Six-Letter Word for Death Read online

  “Go on,” Henry said.

  “My dear Henry, you’re the detective.” Edwin Manciple wiped the remains of sherry trifle off his lips with his damask table napkin. “Nevertheless, certain things are obvious. For instance, the clues came in groups.”

  “That’s true.”

  “The first couple were Lady Fanshaw and W. Cartwright. The surname spelled with a W, I presume, since the clue talked about its being displaced, but making no difference to the pronunciation. Now, may I ask if you have made any effort to establish a connection between those two people?”

  “You may, and I have.”

  “Aha. Go on, Henry.”

  “He is a famous ear doctor. She was an extremely rich woman of American origin who died a few years ago. The bulk of her fortune went to the present Lord Fanshaw, her son. But she also remembered her doctors in her will.”

  “What did she die of?” asked the Bishop.

  “Not of deafness.” Henry grinned. “Few people do. No, the poor lady died of cancer, and the major medical bequest was to the doctor who helped her to leave the world as painlessly as possible. Nevertheless, Dr. William Cartwright does seem to have given her great relief in her later years from her deafness—which is a disability nobody ever seems to take very seriously until they have suffered from it, or had to live with someone who does.”

  The Bishop nodded sympathetically. “I think you met my late sister Dora.”

  “I certainly did.”

  “Tragic affair. We don’t discuss it in the family anymore—no point, is there? But you may remember what a great trial her deafness was—not only to herself, but to all of us.”

  “I do.”

  “I think she—or for that matter, any of us—would have been prepared to reward a doctor who helped her in that way, if we could have afforded it. You will take some coffee? Or better, a plate of Stilton with some of the club’s excellent port. That’s the thing. Waiter!”

  When negotiations over cheese and port had been concluded, the Bishop leaned forward across the table to Henry, and said in a hissing whisper, “How much?”

  “Oh, just a small piece, please,” said Henry. “I’ve never been a great one for blue cheese,” he added, watching in fascination as the tiny cheese mites, just visible to the naked eye, writhed on the blue and white creamy surface.

  “No, no, no,” said Edwin testily. “I meant—how much?”

  Comprehension dawned, as it always did sooner or later, when one was dealing with Edwin Manciple. “A hundred thousand,” said Henry.

  Edwin whistled. “A hundred? And this was a comparatively minor bequest?”

  “The will isn’t secret,” Henry said. “Her personal maid and her butler got the same, and the cancer specialist got half a million.”

  “Nevertheless, a strong motive,” pronounced Edwin, digging heartily into the Stilton, mites and all. “Motive enough for many men. And as a doctor—well, let’s say no more about that one. Proceed.” He took a sip of port. “My word, this is good, is it not? Best in London, if you ask me. What did Professor Frederick Coe have to do with a lady named Felicity Orwell, and who is Alice?”

  “Felicity Orwell was Alice’s aunt,” Henry said. “Alice is Mrs. Coe.”

  “Is she indeed?” Edwin’s eyes lit up. “You begin to interest me. Alice in her little blue gown, Twelve Down, if I remember rightly.”

  “But there’s not the slightest suspicion of—”

  “Of what?”

  “Well,” Henry admitted, “when Miss Orwell became very ill and couldn’t live on her own anymore, Professor and Mrs. Coe took her into their house and gave her the most devoted care.”

  “For what ailment?”

  “Chronic bronchitis. She only lived a few months, as a matter of fact. But during that time, she changed her will and left all she had to the Coes. Not an enormous fortune, like the Fanshaw affair, but certainly a useful addition to anybody’s savings.”

  “Ha,” said Edwin. “So there we have two. I suspected from the beginning that there would be three.”

  “Who are the others?” Henry asked. “You haven’t explained the latest clues to me yet.”

  Edwin picked up the puzzle, adjusting his pince-nez. He said, “There is a lady called Jean Warfield, who appears to have suffered a misfortune of some sort on a beach. Or at the hands of a character called Beach. This is not clear. Her connection is with two people—both identified by Christian names only. Barbara and Peter, who is said to ‘hold the keys’—but this may be a mere punning reference to Saint Peter and the keys of heaven. I would say, knowing him—”

  “Knowing whom?”

  “The compiler of this crossword,” said Edwin. “Knowing him, I think that Jean Warfield died—or maybe was drowned—near a beach. ‘Put an end to an unlucky number,’ the clue says, and ‘Jean’ is Thirteen Across. The little black sheep in Eleven Down is ‘Baba’—you know the ditty, ‘Baba, black sheep, have you any wool?’” sang the Bishop in a cracked tenor, causing several members to suspend their meals and look austerely at the Manciple table.

  “I know it,” said Henry hastily.

  “Well, Baba sounds to me very much like a nickname for Barbara,” said Edwin, relapsing into normal speech. “And the compiler hopes she has an alibi. As to the others, you—Henry Tibbett, I mean—are warned that you are dealing with something big. That’s Fifteen Across. You are told that the pen is mighty, but not to underestimate the sword. I take this to mean that the whole farrago has something to do with writing, and could turn violent. Lord Peter Wimsey you got of your own accord, as you told me—but I still believe that another Peter figures somewhere here. Of course, Peter could be a surname. Barbara Peter. Worth investigating. ‘Em’—a standard printers’ measure—makes up half the name of your charming wife. How is Emmy?”

  “Very well, thanks,” said Henry. He was beginning to feel slightly dazed.

  “The final and inevitable ‘et,’” the Bishop went on with relish, “of course refers to the last words of Julius Caesar, ‘Et tu, Brute?’ I need hardly tell you that it means, in Latin,‘You too, Brutus?’—but to translate it as ‘And you, you brute?’ is probably the oldest schoolboy howler in the book.

  “Still, I have a feeling that everything clued means something in this extraordinary puzzle. I think that somebody was involved in a murder, or a supposed murder, who might have been presumed to be perfectly innocent, a friend of the victim’s. Have some port, dear fellow. You notice that I am passing the decanter with the sun, even though there are only two of us. A curious superstition—but one tends to stay with the old ways.”

  Henry did not pick up the decanter. Instead he slapped his forehead and exclaimed. “Of course! I’m an idiot. I should have seen it sooner.”

  “Seen what, my dear fellow?”

  “The pen is mightier than the sword,” said Henry.

  The Bishop looked puzzled. “That’s right. That’s one of the clues.”

  “It’s the clue,” said Henry. “You see, in a few weeks I’m due to address a group of writers—they call themselves the Guess Who club, because they all use pen names. This crossword is obviously something they’ve thought up to tease me with.” He poured himself a glass of port. “I suspect,” he added, “that my leg is being pulled out of its socket. I can’t thank you enough, Bishop.”

  “Call me Edwin, please, my dear Tibbett. Edwin. And may I call you Henry?”

  “I thought you always had.”

  “Have I? Ah, well, one grows forgetful, Mr. Tibbett. I am happy to have been of assistance.”

  “You’re probably the only person in the world,” said Henry, “who could have helped me out of this one.”

  “Helped you out?”

  “As well,” Henry added, “as giving me a most excellent lunch.” He was trying not to look at the cheese, whose mites now seemed to be semaphoring for assistance. “Many, many thanks, Edwin.”

  As the two men rose to leave, Henry said, “Just one more question, if
I may?”

  “Certainly, Tibbett—or may I call you Henry?”

  “You are a great expert at solving crossword puzzles, Bishop. Is there such a thing as a—well—a signature that one can come to recognize?”

  Edwin shook his head. “They’re not signed,” he said. “Not in this country. I believe in America—”

  “I didn’t mean an actual signature,” said Henry. “I meant—can you tell me who composed this crossword that we’ve been dealing with?”

  “With which we have been dealing,” murmured Edwin automatically. “My dear fellow—of course. I have been trying to tell you all through lunch, but you seemed to think it was compiled by a woman.”

  “I’m sorry. I—”

  “You would like to know his name?”

  “I certainly would.”

  “This puzzle,” said Edwin, with some solemnity, “was compiled by Harold Vandike of Oxford University. I happen to know that he also compiles the only Sunday crossword worth doing, and I would know his style anywhere.”

  Back at the Yard, Henry consulted with C.R.O., with Inspector Reynolds, and with other colleagues, but as far as Barbara and Peter were concerned, he got nowhere. There were, of course, a number of Warfields in the Births, Marriages, and Deaths record office—some dead, some still living. None appeared to have been christened Jean.

  Inspector Reynolds, a meticulous note-taker, did jot down the names of all the Warfields who had died in the fairly recent past. His first entry was Francis Arthur Warfield, of natural causes at the age of sixty-two, in London, twenty-four years ago. Then came Letitia Warfield, of natural causes, aged ninety-two, in Brighton, twenty years ago. Herbert and his wife, Agnes Warfield, had both been killed in an aircraft accident eighteen years earlier. The following year, Eugenia Warfield had died accidentally at the age of eighteen. Subsequently, Joan Warfield had committed suicide at the age of twenty-four, and a few days later Teresa Warfield, aged seventy-eight, had succumbed to natural causes. Both came from the same town in the north of England. Coincidence? Or was Teresa, Joan’s grandmother or great-aunt, already ill and shattered by the young woman’s suicide?

  In Derek Reynolds’s careful report, however, the name of Eugenia Warfield was circled. In the margin, he wrote, “Eugenia—Jean?” The finding of accidental death had been given by a coroner’s jury at Ryde, Isle of Wight. The cause of death was drowning.

  CHAPTER THREE

  SEVERAL WEEKS EARLIER, Henry had received an invitation, on impressively embossed notepaper, from Sir Robert Oppenshaw of Oppenshaw and Trilby, the publishers. Sir Robert informed Henry of the existence of a very small private club called the Guess Who. It consisted of a group of successful writers (all published by Oppenshaw and Trilby, of course) who for one reason or another wrote under pen names, and carefully guarded their real identities.

  The club was purely social, Sir Robert explained, and met four times a year for a private dinner in a London club. They also held a week-long meeting each summer at Sir Robert’s country place, Carnworth Manor, on the Isle of Wight. During this week, a guest speaker was invited to address the club on some topic of interest to the members, who wrote in the field of crime or mystery fiction. He named several previous speakers: a world-famous pathologist, a top American literary agent with wide knowledge of world markets, a representative of a renowned public relations firm in London. This year Sir Robert, his wife, and the members of the club would feel honored if Chief Superintendent Tibbett of the C.I.D. would be good enough to consent to speak to the members about police procedure. Henry and his wife were cordially invited to be the guests of Sir Robert and Lady Oppenshaw at Carnworth Manor for the final weekend of the meeting. The Oppenshaws hoped that the Tibbetts would be able to arrive on Friday evening. Henry could give his talk on Saturday morning, and then, Sir Robert hoped, enjoy the rest of the weekend at Carnworth. With Emmy’s enthusiastic approval (August is dull even in Chelsea) he had accepted the invitation.

  Back in his office, Henry thought about the group of writers, all working in the field of crime and mystery and all under assumed names. They clearly knew who the guest speaker at Carnworth was going to be. This crossword and its clues, so like the improbabilities of a “classic” detective story of the thirties, must be a joke thought up by the Guess Who club, and Professor Harold Vandike must be a member. A little test to see if a real-life C.I.D. man could solve mysteries as efficiently as the sleuths of fiction. Henry was a little annoyed at the waste of time involved, but thanks to Inspector Reynolds and Edwin Manciple, he felt that he had done fairly well in coming up with the solution, and he could not deny that he had enjoyed himself.

  Just to check, he put through a call to Sir Robert Oppenshaw at Carnworth Manor. Without surprise, curiosity, or hesitation, Sir Robert told him the name of the London club where the Guess Who members held their dinners, and the date of the most recent one. As Henry had suspected, it was just four days before he had received the crossword and the first set of clues.

  Each of the five members of the Guess Who club had a different reason for using a nom de plume and keeping his or her true identity strictly under wraps. For instance, admirers of Tex Lawrie, that tough and casually amorous private eye of fiction, would undoubtedly have been disillusioned to know that his creator, Jack Harvey (a character, the publisher’s blurbs subtly suggested, that much resembled a real-life Tex), was actually Mrs. Myrtle Waterford. Myrtle was a highly respectable, still pretty woman in her late fifties, married to the branch manager of a well-known bank in a small country town. Apart from the publicity image, the fact that she was Gerald Waterford’s wife had a great deal to do with Myrtle’s decision to build a wall between herself and Jack Harvey. The Waterfords were respected in their local community, and Myrtle sat on several ladies’ committees under the banners of various charitable enterprises. Jack Harvey (and, for that matter, the lusty Tex Lawrie) was entirely a matter between Myrtle and her typewriter.

  Quite different was the perspective of Harold Vandike, a brilliant lawyer, athlete, Oxford don, writer of literary criticism, and compiler of the most erudite crosswords for a Sunday newspaper. In fact, under his own name he was currently at work on a history of Oppenshaw and Trilby, the venerable publishing house that brought out all his works and that had been founded in the eighteenth century by Richard Trilby. Harry Vandike was considered by many sighing ladies to be England’s most eligible bachelor (except that his biting, satiric wit might have been a little hard to live with).

  However, everyone enjoys at least one activity against which every predictable personal instinct should rebel. In Harold’s case it was the writing of sentimental Gothic mysteries about heroines in chiffon nighties, gaunt houses looming out of the mist, and enigmatic lovers with haunted faces and strong, sensitive hands. This he did, with great success, under the name of Elaine Summerfield. The reaction of the Senior Common Room alone, not to mention the serious literary world, would have been devastating, had Harold’s secret been revealed.

  The case of Dr. William Cartwright and Professor Fred Coe was something else again. Both in their forties, William and Fred were much respected in their professions. William practiced as a successful otologist in the Harley Street area of London, contributed brilliantly original papers to medical journals, and was esteemed by his colleagues. Fred was an economist, a prominent left-winger who dabbled in politics and lectured at the London School of Economics. His articles on the interrelation of recession and inflation had caused a sensation among the readers of learned economic journals. Only a handful of people, apart from their wives, knew that Bill and Fred were, jointly, Freda Wright, whose lovable, myopic, silver-haired Miss Twinkley was the favorite private detective of countless ladies in countless public libraries.

  Barbara Oppenshaw—at twenty-five, by far the youngest member of Guess Who—had an entirely different problem. She was a talented writer who had the misfortune to be the daughter of Sir Robert Oppenshaw, now the sole proprietor of the publishing house,
since the last Trilby had left for Australia many years earlier, when the business seemed on the verge of collapse. The name Trilby had been retained both for sentiment and prestige.

  The truth was that Oppenshaw and Trilby published Barbara’s books for no reason other than their excellence; Sir Robert was much too shrewd to risk money in the cause of nepotism. But, Barbara reasoned, whoever would believe that, if her name appeared on the title page? So she wrote as Lydia Drake, and Oppenshaw and Trilby was much gratified by the success of her bluff, pipe-smoking Scotland Yard detective, Superintendent Burrows.

  The idea of the Guess Who club had originated with Sir Robert Oppenshaw, who was not eligible for membership himself but happened to publish all the authors concerned. He was a very wealthy man—thanks to a private fortune, for publishers seldom make millions, whatever authors may think—and naturally it was to his house, Carnworth Manor, that the club members were invited for their annual Literary Week.

  The event was really no more than a pleasant social occasion, enriched by the famous hospitality of Sir Robert and his wife, Pamela. There was excellent food and drink; tennis, golf, and horseback riding (the Oppenshaws kept a small stable); and swimming and sailing, for the gardens of Carnworth led down to the English Channel, on the southern side of the island. However, to give the semblance of a literary seminar—and to make his expenses tax-deductible—Sir Robert always invited for the final weekend an expert in some field of crime.

  Barbara Oppenshaw had brought the news of Henry’s acceptance to the Guess Who dinner in London. Inevitably, the table talk turned to the differences between real-life policemen of the C.I.D. and the heroes and heroines created by the diners.

  Cartwright and Coe maintained that Miss Twinkley’s great strength lay in the fact that she was an amateur, unhampered by police procedure. This, they said—quoting Sherlock Holmes, Lord Peter Wimsey, and others—was the reason that most great fictional detectives were not policemen. Myrtle pointed out that Tex Lawrie was not really a detective at all, but an adventurer whose career inevitably involved him in criminal circles. Harold Vandike said sardonically that none of his featherbrained heroines would be able to detect a fox in a chicken coop, let alone a murderer.