Thackeray’s mouth shaped as if to whistle, but drew in breath instead. “Killing two men in cold blood like that! The calculation in it-it’s horrible. Most murders you can understand, even if you don’t altogether agree with the outcome. Jealous husbands, neglected wives, sons and daughters wanting to inherit-murder’s a family thing, as often as not. But killing strangers as a way to pass the time on a river trip isn’t nice, not nice at all.”
“It’s beyond understanding,” said Harriet, still tortured by the knowledge that she might have averted Bonner-Hill’s death. “Where is the reason in it? It’s quite insane.”
“I can’t agree with that, miss,” said Cribb. “There’s a good intelligence behind all this. It may be inspired by the Devil, but it’s coolly planned, I’m sure of that. Here we are at the end of a summer when young men in hundreds have taken to the river, paddling gaily up to Oxford like the three in Mr. Jerome’s book. It’s high ton-the thing to do. Good sport, good exercise, good fun. A world away from sudden death. Who would believe in a party of assassins in a skiff? Murderers in straw hats? It’s preposterous-and that’s why they’ve done it. Three men in a boat, not to mention the dog, doing the journey in the book lock by lock, pausing only to commit jolly little murders at intervals along the way.”
“For amusement, Sarge?” said Thackeray, his face a study.
“Well, it wasn’t for gain, or they’d have taken the money the tramp was carrying. Can you think of any other reason? I wondered first of all whether the first murder-of Choppy Walters-was to try out the method. If you think of it callously, as they would, a tramp is a perfect subject for trying out your skills as a murderer. Nobody notices a vagrant, or misses him when he isn’t seen any more. If that’s what the first murder was about, a dress rehearsal, so to speak, it suggests that the second was the real performance. In other words, they’d been planning Bonner-Hill’s destruction from the start. A neat idea-until you recollect that Bonner-Hill wouldn’t have been alone in the backwater without Fernandez getting laryngitis, and that’s a circumstance they couldn’t have planned for.”
“So they happened to see Bonner-Hill alone in his punt and decided to kill him, just like that,” said Thackeray, still struggling to accept the truth of what he was saying.
“Just like that.”
“And they’re quite liable to do it again. Glory, Sarge, we’ve got to stop them this time!”
For Harriet, the last two words were twists of a dagger. She covered her face with her hands.
CHAPTER 21
Late that afternoon a small group assembled in the City Mortuary for the formal identification of Bonner-Hill’s remains. Out of respect for Mrs. Bonner-Hill, who was coming from an address in Windsor, Cribb had exchanged his boating costume for a borrowed suit. Harriet, her eyes still red from crying, was wrapped in a black shawl. The attendant made the understandable error of supposing her the freshly bereaved widow and was murmuring condolences until Cribb explained that she was there in case Mrs. Bonner-Hill needed support from one of her own sex. With that made clear, the attendant’s conversation switched to horse racing and the entry for the Cesarewitch. A movement outside the door caused him just as suddenly to revert to: “… and so young, and with his whole career ahead of him. He would surely have risen in the University were it not for this. Ah! This must be …” The voice trailed respectfully away.
“Mrs. Bonner-Hill,” announced the man who had pushed open the door.
The young widow was heavily veiled and in deep mourning.
“This is Sergeant Cribb of the police,” explained the attendant. “And Miss Shaw. Sometimes, on occasions such as this, it is helpful if another lady …” He left his sentences unfinished from forbearance, not forgetfulness. Predictably in Oxford, he was a very polished mortuary attendant.
“Jacob Goldstein, manager of the Playhouse at Windsor,” said Mrs. Bonner-Hill’s companion, so young that for a moment it was not clear whether he was referring to somebody else, but as he said no more, the inference was that he had introduced himself. Dark-complexioned, with a handsome, sensitive face, he wore a lightweight black overcoat. The quality of the cloth suggested that the Playhouse did not run at a loss.
“Shall we go through to the …?” the attendant suggested.
“That is why we are here,” said Goldstein. “Are you prepared, my dear?”
Mrs. Bonner-Hill made a small sound of acquiescence from under her veil. They filed into a room without windows. It was cold and smelt of carbolic. The body was on a wooden trolley covered by a grey sheet. First, the attendant drew Mrs. Bonner-Hill to a table at the side of the room. “His clothes,” he whispered, turning over the jacket to reveal the lining. “Are you able to state with certainty …?”
She nodded.
“Was there anything in the pockets?” Cribb inquired.
“A small amount of money and a handkerchief,” confided the attendant. “The practice is to deliver all such things to the executors. The recently bereaved are thus spared the …”
“Shall we do what we came to do?” asked Goldstein, moving towards the trolley. His eagerness to get the formalities over must have been to spare Mrs. Bonner-Hill unnecessary distress, but Harriet could not exclude the thought that there was probably a 7:30 performance at Windsor that evening.
“As you wish. Madam, if you would kindly stand just here …”
Harriet, too, stepped forward, ready to justify her presence.
“You won’t see much through your veil, Melanie,” Goldstein gently pointed out.
Mrs. Bonner-Hill lifted it and revealed a face of unarguable beauty, the more winsome for its tiny indications of strain, the slightly pursed lips, damp eyelashes and just perceptible creasing of the forehead. Her eyes were large and blue and her hair, clustered in natural curls, was so fair that against the veil it could have been white.
“If you’re ready …” said the attendant, taking hold of the edge of the sheet. He peeled it back.
Harriet, poised to cope with an hysterical woman, need not have bothered. The hysterics happened, but their force was directed elsewhere. “Dead!” cried Mrs. Bonner-Hill as if she had not expected it. “My Harry dead! Oh, Jacob, what shall I do?” She clutched Goldstein determinedly round the waist and pressed her face sobbing against his chest. “Widowed, at twenty-six! What will become of me?”
Cribb motioned to the attendant to replace the sheet. They steered the distracted widow into the anteroom and found a chair for her, but she still clung to Goldstein. Harriet decided that Mrs. Bonner-Hill’s suffering was so extreme that nobody could censure her for forwardness in regard to Mr. Goldstein. Circumstances could provide exceptions to polite convention. It was unfortunate that he was not a few years older, an uncle, say, or a friend of her father’s, but she could not be blamed. Her grief might have appeared just a little histrionic, and she was, indeed, an actress, but this was quite outside the repertoire of romantic comedy.
Cribb leaned confidentially towards the attendant. “I believe you make a good, strong cup of tea in these places.”
In ten minutes Mrs. Bonner-Hill had recovered sufficiently to relax her hold on Goldstein and accept the cup which was offered. The theatre manager took out his watch and glanced discreetly at it.
“Your husband owned a property in North Oxford, I understand,” Cribb said to Mrs. Bonner-Hill. Conversation was difficult in these circumstances, but he was not the sort to be inhibited. “It’s a consolation to have somewhere to live. Will you go there for the next few days? There are formalities to attend to, of course. It would be difficult from-where are you residing at present? — Windsor.”