Fen Country Read Free Page B

that I got into conversation with Isobel’s husband, Peter Doyle. He was drinking a fair amount. And by a quarter to eight he had reached the stage of insisting that I return with him to the Copping house for a meal.
    “I didn’t at all want to do that, but as he already knew that I’d been proposing to dine at the pub, alone, it was difficult to refuse. So in the end I gave in, and we set out to walk to the house by way of the fields.
    “It was a beautiful evening: I enjoyed the walk thoroughly. There was a cat, a handsome little high-stepping tortoiseshell cat, which adopted us, following us the whole way. ‘She seems to want to come in,’ I said when we arrived at the front door. And, ‘That’s all right,’ said Doyle vaguely. ‘Isobel and my father-in-law are both fond of cats.’ So she did come in, and she and I were introduced to Isobel together.
    “I quite liked Isobel. But it was clear from the first that relations between her and her husband were very strained. We all talked commonplaces for a while, and then Doyle suggested that as there was still a little time to use up before dinner, he should take me to meet his father-in-law, who would probably not be joining us for the meal.
    “‘He hasn’t been too well recently,’ Doyle explained. ‘You know, broody a bit… But he’d never forgive me if I let you go away without his meeting you.’
    ‘Well, of course I mumbled the usual things about not wanting to be a nuisance and so forth. And I can tell you, I should have been a good deal more emphatic about them if I’d known then what the inquest subsequently brought out: that for a long time now Clifford Copping had been seriously neurotic, with suicidal tendencies… However, I didn’t know, so I allowed myself to be overruled. Her father was in the top room of the tower, Isobel said. So to the tower, still accompanied by our faithful cat, Doyle and I duly went.
    “It stood apart from the rest of the house, 50 feet high or more, with smooth sheer walls and narrow slits for windows; date about 1450, I should think. I expected it to be fairly ruinous inside, but surprisingly, it wasn’t. On the top landing Doyle paused in front of a certain door. I was a little way behind him, still negotiating the last flight of stairs.
    “If you don’t mind waiting a moment, I’ll just go in and warn him that you’re here,’ he said—a proposal which didn’t seem to me to march very well with his assurance, earlier on, that his father-in-law would never forgive him if I left without being introduced. However, of course, I agreed—whereupon he produced from his pocket a key which I’d seen Isobel give him, and proceeded to unlock (yes, definitely it was locked) and to half-open the door. He looked back at me then, saying in a low voice:
    “‘I expect you’ll think it’s odd, but my father-in-law does like to be locked in here from time to time, so long as it’s Isobel who keeps the tey: he trusts Isobel completely. Being shut in, and having these tremendously thick walls all around him—it gives him a feeling of security. Of course, locking him self in is what he’d really like best, but the doctor won’t allow that. That’s why all the bolts have been taken away.’
    “‘Ah,’ I said. And something of what I felt must have showed in my face, because Doyle added:
    “‘He’s all right, you know… But naturally, if you—I mean, would you rather we didn’t?’
    “ ‘Yes, I’d very much rather,’ would have been the truthful answer to that. But Doyle’s question was plainly of a piece with the Latin Num?: it expected a negative—and got one. So then we stopped talking, and, while I waited nervously on the stair, Doyle entered the room. And found the body.
    “Actually, to be just and exact about it, it was the cat which saw the body first. While we’d been talking the cat had been looking into the room, and not at all liking what was in there. You know how they arch their backs, and