Fen Country Read Free Page A

they’ve agreed to that. But from what you’ve told me, l’ve no doubt about the result.”
    “I just don’t understand, sir.”
    “Oh, come, George. Surely even you realize by now that the person you thought was Miss Preedy is in fact your aunt; and the person you thought was your aunt was in fact Miss Preedy?
    “Nor,” Fen went on, “is there much difficulty about the motive. Here is your aunt, running out of money, with the life insurance her only possible resource. So what does she do? Answer: she comes with Miss Preedy to England, where they aren’t known, swaps roles, and commits murder with a view to inheriting half the life insurance.”
    Fen reached for a cigarette. “You were brought into it as legatee and as visitor to the cottage, in order to diffuse a suspicion which must otherwise have been fairly concentrated. And in case for any reason that failed, the burglary was faked to make a supplementary red herring.
    “How your aunt persuaded Miss Preedy to the substitution we shall probably never know. But to judge from your description, Miss Preedy was a very biddable person, very much under your aunt’s thumb. ‘I don’t know why she’s doing this.’ Poor creature, she had her suspicions, even so.”
    “But how did you know, sir?”
    “The radio, George,” said Fen. “The radio, of course. It was playing quietly, you remember. Your ‘aunt’ had a deaf-aid on, too.
    “Now, you were talking to her—to start with, anyway—in a low voice. If she was in fact deaf, then the deaf-aid must have been amplifying your voice considerably.
    “But in that case, it was also amplifying the radio. If the woman you were speaking to was genuinely deaf—genuinely using the deaf-aid—then the radio must all the time have sounded quite loud to her, even though it sounded quiet to you.
    “Can you conceive anyone so circumstanced speaking to you in a low voice, whispering to you? Do you naturally speak to people in a low voice, when you have the radio on loud?
    “So the answer was obvious: the woman you spoke to wasn’t deaf at all. And once I realized that a trick had been played, it didn’t take much inquiry to find out why.”
    Fen sighed. “Yes, I’m sorry, George; your Aunt Fancy is going to hang. And it’s The Merchant, after all, which has the last word.”
    “Shakespeare, sir?”
    “Shakespeare. Let us,” said Fen, “all ring Fancy’s knell ”

The Hunchback Cat
    “We’re all superstitious,” said Fen. And from the assembled party, relaxing by the fire, rose loud cries of dissent. “But we are, you know,” Fen persisted, “whether we realize it or not. Let me give you a test.”
    “All right,” they said. “Do.”
    “Let me tell you about the Copping case.”
    “A crime,” they gloated. “Good.”
    “And if any of you,” said Fen, “can solve it unassisted, he (or she, of course) shall be held to be without stain.
    “The Copping family was an old one, and like most old families it had its traditions, the most important of these being, unfortunately, parricide. “This didn’t always take the form of actual murder . Sometimes it was accident, and sometimes it was neglect, and sometimes Copping parents were driven by the insufferable behavior of their offspring to open a vein in the bath. Nonetheless, there it was. As the toll mounted with the years, the Coppings inevitably became more and more prone to brood.
    “By 1948, however, there were only two Coppings in the direct line left alive—Clifford Copping, a widower, and his daughter Isobel. Isobel, moreover, was married, and consequently no longer lived in the family mansion near Wantage. In August of 1948, however, she and her husband went to Wantage for a short visit. And that was when the thing happened.
    “As for me, I was making a detour through Wantage, on my way back from Bath to Oxford, so as to be able to have dinner at the White Hart. And it was in the bar of the White Hart, at shortly after six in the evening,