The Riddle of the River (7 page)

‘That’s when he stepped back inside and closed the door rather firmly,’ grumbled Pat. ‘I can’t even say he was disagreeable – but he certainly wasn’t friendly. Well, you see how it was.’

I couldn’t help laughing at his discomfiture, and even more at the style of his notes. But I was brought suddenly back to earth by his next words.

‘Vanessa, we’re going to have to take this to Fred. It’s too important to go on playing with. This Archer
must
know who the girl was, and the police will get it out of him if we can’t. I feel we don’t have the right to waste any more time.’

‘You are right,’ I said slowly. ‘I have begun arranging a possibility for myself to meet Mr Archer, but I am almost certainly going to run into the same difficulty as you, apart from the fact that it may take days if not weeks to organise. We can’t wait so long. You are right; we must go and see Inspector Doherty.’

‘And this very minute,’ said Pat. ‘I feel bad already about not going yesterday. As far as I know – and he promised to keep me abreast – he’s got nowhere as yet with the stuff from the Missing Persons Bureau. Come along, Vanessa, get your things on!’

‘Hm,’ I said, thinking how uncomfortable it was going to be to explain about the identification of the bracelet. ‘Do I have to come? Can’t you explain it all to him yourself?’

‘Nonsense. He’s sure to have questions to ask you,’ he said obliviously. ‘Come along, do – it won’t take much time. He’s not working tonight. We’ll find him at home.’

I yielded, ran upstairs to explain my errand to Arthur, and left with Pat, buoyed up by a comfortable feeling of relief at the idea of delivering the whole puzzle over to the capable hands of the police. Yet when we reached Inspector Doherty’s little terraced house on George Street, I felt a little nervous
again. What if I was about to disturb an important policeman with nothing but a heap of nonsense? I wished I had been able to conclude the investigation with all its details by myself. But it was too late, and too urgent for that.

‘Vanessa’s found out who she is, Fred,’ announced Pat with his characteristic careless haste, as soon as the door opened, whilst poor Inspector Doherty was still peering half-blind into the darkness to make out who his visitors were.

‘No, I haven’t,’ I objected quickly.

‘Oh, Pat dear, how nice of you to come by,’ said a friendly voice from within, and a female version of Pat appeared in the hall behind him, complete with red hair, freckles and irrepressible gaiety.

‘My sister Molly,’ he told me, drawing me inside as though the house belonged to him, pushing freely past his brother-
in-law
, and kissing his sister warmly on the cheek. During this time, the inspector slipped quickly back into the dining room, where we found him seated at an imposing mahogany table which dwarfed the humble room, in front of the remains of what looked like a most appetising plate of ginger pudding.

‘Don’t mind him,’ said Molly Doherty. ‘He’s just finishing. Here, Fred, run along to the sitting room and talk. I’ll take the things out to the kitchen.’

‘I’m not done yet,’ he protested, hastily scooping up the last morsel as she swept his dish out nearly from under his fork. ‘Oh all right, Pat. I see you’re just bursting with the discovery, and I’ll admit that, pudding or no pudding, I’m longing to know what you’ve found out.’ He rose, and leading us to the little adjoining parlour, he looked at us expectantly.

‘Vanessa had better tell it,’ said Pat.

‘I really wish I had more to tell,’ I began. ‘Unfortunately, it
isn’t true that I know who the girl is. But I believe I have found someone who must know.’

‘All right,’ he said, ‘that sounds like a good start. Who is it, and how did you find the person?’

I hemmed for a moment, wishing but not seeing how to avoid mentioning the bracelet.

‘What happened is that, as soon as I saw the dead girl’s Chinese bracelet in your office, I believed it might have been sold at Robert Sayle’s,’ I finally chose to say. ‘They had a whole collection of such items for sale a week or two ago. I enquired with the girl who sells them, and she remembered the bracelet quite well. She said it was one of a kind, for most of the other bracelets in that lot of imports were carved ivory bangles, whereas this one was a string of intricate beads.’

‘She recognised the bracelet from a description?’ he asked, eyeing me sharply.

‘No, Vanessa showed her the bracelet,’ intervened Pat, rescuing me. ‘I – ah, borrowed it temporarily. Did you notice it was missing?’

‘I did,’ said Fred. ‘It didn’t occur to me it might be you who took it, you rascal. I couldn’t think where it had got to. But then I found it again – oh, I see, you actually put it back when you came by the other day! Now I know why you asked to see the girl’s things again.’ He glared at Pat. ‘You made off with Crown’s evidence, Pat. That’s very bad; I’m astounded at you. Believe me, this is the last time I’ll show you anything in my office.’

‘But it was useful, Fred! It was in a good cause,’ said Pat. ‘You see, as soon as Vanessa took a look at the bracelet, I saw the cogs in her brain begin whizzing like mad. So I knew that she needed it.’

‘You should have told me that right away,’ he said.

‘But I wasn’t certain,’ I answered quickly. I was about to add that I had never suggested Pat steal it for me, but decided this was too childish and that my share of the blame must be accepted with no moral detours.

‘That doesn’t matter. The right thing to do was to tell me then and there,’ he said severely, then relaxed somewhat. ‘Well, all’s well that end’s well. Go on. Let’s hear your story.’

‘All right’, I said meekly. ‘So, as I was saying, the girl remembered selling the bracelet to a man who was accompanied by the dead girl. She identified her from the photograph you gave me. But the main thing is that she actually recognised the man as a person who passes fairly regularly in the street in front of the shop. She promised to write to me the next time she should see him, and she did so. She had managed to slip away from her counter for a few minutes, and followed him as far as Petty Cury, where she saw him go into Heffers bookshop and enter into conversation with the clerk there. I then spoke with the same clerk, and discovered that the person in question is apparently none other than the clerk’s own father, a gentleman by the name of Geoffrey Archer. He lives towards Grantchester, in a manor called Chippendale House. The girl from Robert Sayle’s confirmed the identification of Mr Archer as the gentleman who bought the bracelet, accompanied by the dead girl, whom she identified from the photograph. That’s all I’ve been able to find out up to now. But you will probably be able to get the girl’s identity from Mr Archer directly.’

The inspector had drawn a pad towards him and was writing busily.

‘We thought we’d come to you with this,’ said Pat, wisely
suppressing all mention of his unsuccessful interview attempt. I supposed that he felt that the inspector would view that as a piece of clumsy interference.

‘I’ll see him tomorrow,’ he said. ‘If this turns out to be correct, it’s going to be very useful. I’m grateful for your help. Now, listen to me,’ he added, fixing me with a look of authority. ‘Don’t you go meddling in this business any further. You must realise that it may be dangerous. The girl was murdered, and any person you encounter while meddling around might be the murderer. You realise, don’t you, that you can’t be allowed to take that risk. This absolutely and completely goes for you, too, Pat. Out of it. Right?’

‘It’s our meddling that brought you this key information,’ grumbled Pat resentfully.

‘Yes, but it mustn’t go any further! I’m saying what I’m saying for your own safety,’ retorted his brother-in-law. ‘And for mine, too. Your sister will kill me if I let you go stumbling into danger.’

‘All right, all right,’ said Pat, ‘I’ll stop detecting if you promise to tell me what you find out from Mr Archer and I can put it in the newspaper. Will you do that?’

‘It’s a bargain, for the girl’s name at least. I’ll let you know, and you
keep out
.’

I remained silent, but Inspector Doherty turned to me relentlessly. ‘Thank you again, Mrs Weatherburn. Good work,’ he said. ‘That’s quite enough for now, please. You can leave the rest of it to the police.’

The boy stood alone on the edge of the stream, concentrating so deeply he lost touch with his surroundings. He had borrowed the family’s dishes for an experiment, and was attaching them all together with a complicated arrangement of knotted string. His first thought, as the entire pile went crashing and splashing onto the wet rocks below, was that his experiment had failed. Only afterwards did he wonder if his father might not be angry.

‘Remember that Ernest is coming here tonight,’ said Arthur, as he settled himself at the breakfast table and poured out a cup of pleasantly steaming coffee. ‘His lecture is this afternoon. Shall I bring him home for dinner?’

‘Certainly,’ I said. ‘Let me see, what shall we have? Roast beef, I think, don’t you? What is he lecturing on?’

‘Recent experiments in electromagnetism,’ he replied. ‘Interesting stuff, though rather far from my speciality. Perhaps, if I don’t understand his lecture, you’ll manage to get a translation for laymen out of him at dinner.’

‘If I feed him well enough, maybe,’ I said. ‘All right, I will try. Gravy, perhaps…’

‘Gravy, by all means,’ he laughed, gathering up papers and putting on his coat. ‘He was looking peaky in London, don’t you think? Thinner and paler than usual. Hope he’s all right today.’

I spent the day as domestically as can be, playing in the garden with the twins while Sarah went to the shops for some ribbon, then discussing the details of the menu with Mrs Widge, then out with Sarah for the afternoon walk. It was only after we returned and the children were taken off to the nursery for their supper of bread-and-milk that I found myself alone, and only then did I realise with what unconscious anxiety I had been waiting for news from Pat. I started up
eagerly when, towards six o’clock, I heard the little jingle of the bell of the garden gate. But it was Arthur and Ernest who appeared, divesting themselves of their jackets and settling themselves on the grass, in the rays of the late afternoon sunshine. There was a silence.

‘How was the lecture?’ I asked, taking it upon myself to break it. Ernest closed his eyes and did not answer.

‘Most interesting,’ said Arthur. ‘Quite revolutionary stuff, some of it. You must tell Vanessa more about it, Ernest.’

‘Oh, quite,’ he said, not opening his eyes. There was another small silence.

‘Ah, is Kathleen well?’ I asked, gathering the twins onto my knees, as they suddenly formed a small crowd around me, eyeing the stranger suspiciously.

‘Very well, very well,’ replied Ernest a little moodily, and the conversation lapsed again. He seemed to be in a dreadful mood. I rose and went into the kitchen, hoping that dinner would provide a diversion.

The roast was done to a turn, surrounded by new potatoes and glazed carrots. Mrs Widge was stirring the gently bubbling soup while Sarah, momentarily free from twins, was adding a large bowl of flowers, as a finishing touch, to a table already pleasantly laid with the pretty Limoges porcelain that Arthur had had delivered in a large box after his last visit to France, and which we kept for use only in the presence of guests.

‘Everything is ready, ma’am,’ she said as I glanced over the table to see if anything was missing. ‘I’ll put the children to bed now.’

Fresh and dainty as always (when she might well have presented an exhausted and harassed appearance, given the
infinite quantity of hard work she performed every single day), she stepped into the garden and announced, ‘Dinner is served.’

This rather formal statement roused the gentlemen, who were now lying propped on their elbows, while Arthur recited ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ with suitable drama, both twins draped heavily over him and clamouring for more every time he stopped to draw breath.

‘Time to go in now,’ he said, sitting up and shaking them off. They responded unanimously with a wail, containing various primeval shrieks and long-drawn-out syllables.

‘Now, now,’ said Sarah, taking over and scooping them up. ‘What kind of behaviour is that? Come with me at once – we’ll go upstairs and have games and stories.’

Their screeches diminished in volume at once. Arthur kissed them and brushed grass off his trousers. We settled ourselves around the table and Mrs Widge brought out the soup, and I tried once again to make small talk, hoping that Ernest’s mood was not going to render the evening endless and heavy. Fortunately, he seemed to realise that the necessities of politeness demanded that he respond to my encouraging questions, and taking refuge in science, he became first courteous, then loquacious, and finally positively excited.

‘The world is trembling on the verge of fundamental discoveries, explaining the true nature of all things!’ he told me.

‘All things?’ I replied, taken aback by the megalomaniac echo in this somewhat overglorious statement, but attempting to look duly impressed.

‘Far more than you would believe,’ he said. ‘If I told you
that we were approaching a complete understanding of the nature of light and matter, and force and energy, you would perhaps not blink an eye. But I and others believe that these things will lead even further, to discoveries about the very nature of life and death, and the soul itself.’

‘There speaks the physicist,’ I said. ‘Surely you are not one of those who believe that thoughts and emotions can be reduced to equations!’

‘No,’ he said. ‘But I believe the universe around us is filled with mysteries that are not, in fact, impenetrable, if one approaches them with an enquiring, but not a doubting mind.’

‘Well, yes,’ I assented. ‘I suppose that all scientific discoveries may be thought of that way.’

‘They can, certainly. But most of them tend to centre on the physical world which surrounds us. My belief is that tremendous progress can also be made by applying such methods to human phenomena! I am not claiming to quantise or predict feelings; no. But such well-known and yet insufficiently understood, insufficiently proved, insufficiently mastered experiences as out-of-body motion or communication with far-away people, both dead and alive, should and must have scientific explanations.’

‘Oh!’ I said. ‘Perhaps I am too much of a rationalist, but I have always wondered if such things were not fairy tales or hoaxes.’

‘No. They are not always hoaxes,’ he said. His expression grew intense, and he leant over the table towards me till he nearly dipped his shirtfront into the soup.

‘Have you read H G Wells’s latest story in the
Strand Magazine
?’ he asked.
‘The Stolen Body?
On the man with an incredible out-of-body experience?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘but I have read
The Plattner Story
. Of course, it is fascinating and most entertaining, the description of the parallel world inhabited by Plattner after the explosion. A very interesting idea. But still, Wells only means such tales to be purely amusing fiction to entertain us for a moment, does he not?’

‘No,’ he replied flatly. ‘It would be pointless to invent such stories. There would be no use for authors. Every one of us can invent some answer to the question: imagine that you left your body; where would you be, and what would you see? No, the power of Wells’s tales is that they are based on true experiences.
The Stolen Body
is astonishing. He explains in detail how a man can achieve his aim of departing from his own body, not by some gimcrack explosion, but after weeks of effort and intense concentration.’

‘And where does he go?’

‘Nowhere. He remains in London, something like Plattner, but he can hover above it, see into people’s rooms and minds; not exactly reading their thoughts, but making some kind of contact with a deep part of their brain, so that in certain cases they can perceive or hear him.’

Arthur was too polite to comment, but threw me a little look that clearly said ‘nonsense’. I smiled. There are times when I am truly pleased to be a woman. A man must either be above taking such childish rubbish as anything more than fairy tales, or struggle against the silent contempt of his fellows. A woman may serenely allow herself to entertain such fantasies and let her imagination roam, without being required to classify herself strictly as a believer or a disbeliever.

‘It is rare to find a scientist who believes in psychic phenomena, is it not?’ I asked non-committally.

‘Rare, perhaps, but certainly not non-existent,’ he replied. ‘Why, I myself learnt about all this and became interested as a student up in Liverpool, thanks to my own professor of physics.’

‘Not Professor Lodge!’ exclaimed Arthur.

‘Yes, Sir Oliver Lodge. One of our great physicists if anybody is.’

‘Indeed, he has made some extraordinary mechanical discoveries, according to what I have heard,’ said Arthur. ‘But didn’t he also design some experiments to detect the ether?’

‘He did, although they are generally considered to have been unsuccessful,’ said Ernest. ‘The results are difficult to interpret. But then, so are the results of Michelson and Morley’s experiment, which is always hailed as a great success!’

‘The Americans, Michelson and Morley, designed a most astute experiment to measure the speed of the ether wind, about ten years ago,’ explained Arthur, turning to me. ‘Instead of which, their experiment seems to have established the non-existence of ether as a material substance.’

‘I know the ether is supposed to be whatever fills up the universe, where there is no matter,’ I said. ‘But I didn’t know it was supposed to be a wind.’

‘It isn’t; that’s the whole point,’ said Ernest. ‘It’s supposed to be at rest throughout the universe. That’s why something that goes rushing through it at great speed should cause a resistance which would be felt as a wind. Our Earth is constantly moving, both rotating around the sun and spinning around its own axis, so one would expect to find an ether wind, analogous to the air resistance you encounter if you run swiftly forward.’

‘Exactly,’ said Arthur. ‘Michelson and Morley compared
the speed of light along the direction of the Earth’s motion – so where you would expect to get most resistance from the ether – with the speed of light in the perpendicular direction, where there would be less resistance. They found that the speed of light was identical in the two directions.’

‘How could they do that?’ I wondered. ‘How can one measure the speed of light?’

‘One can, actually, but that’s not what they did. They didn’t actually measure the speed. They compared the two speeds by sending out a single light ray through a piece of glass which was half-transparent, half a slanted mirror. The slanted mirror sent its half of the light ray off at a right angle to the other half. Then, by means of other mirrors some yards off, they sent the two halves of the ray back together again. They arranged the apparatus so that the interference fringes were perfectly matched; that is, one saw dark and light alternating lines on the screen they set up to catch the rays. The apparatus functioned over several months, so that eventually by the earth’s motion, it had turned to a right angle from it original position. The light ray that had been along the earth’s circumference was now perpendicular and the perpendicular one was now in the direction where some resistance from the ether wind might be expected. If the two rays were travelling at slightly different speeds, it would have been reflected in the interference fringes, which would have been shifted. But in fact, they were exactly as before. So they concluded that there was no ether wind which could make any difference to the speed of light.’

‘It’s not hard to come up with ether theories that don’t contradict Michelson-Morley,’ said Ernest. ‘Professor Lodge thinks that the Earth’s atmosphere might drag the ether along
with it, so that an experiment close to the Earth’s surface wouldn’t detect the wind.’

‘Why does one need ether at all?’ I asked. ‘Why can’t the universe just be empty for the most part, with stars and planets and things here and there?’

Both men began to answer me at once, but Ernest’s voice was the louder.

‘Because we have understood that the behaviour of light is a wave-behaviour,’ he explained. ‘Light behaves just like waves you see propagating in the sea, or ripples in water when you drop in a stone. Physicists have been able to determine the speed and the wavelength now; the wavelengths, I should say, because each colour has its own. But what is a wave, Vanessa? Do you know?’

‘Ah,’ I said, ‘a movement in the water?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But what many people don’t realise, is that the water only moves
up and down
when a wave passes through it. When you see a wave coming towards you on the beach, you may have the false impression that
water
from far off is coming towards you. But if you throw a rubber ball some distance away and watch its behaviour, you will see at once that it is lifted by the passage of the wave, and then lowered back to the place where you originally threw it. Actually, except at the very edge of the ocean, the particles of water are only temporarily displaced by the wave.’

‘Yes, well, all right,’ I said.

‘So the wave is just a force acting on the water, locally moving it up and down as it passes,’ he continued. ‘And that is how waves work in general. Sound, also, travels by waves – through the air. But our air is not emptiness, it is made up essentially of nitrogen, with some oxygen and a dash of other
elements. It is a kind of gas, with a certain thickness, which can be moved and shifted, as you can easily feel when you fan yourself. So it supports the motion of waves. Now, our air, or atmosphere, thins out to nothing as it goes up – virtually nothing is left after eighty miles or so. It’s just a kind of halo around the planet Earth. The question is: what lies outside it? Something must, for light reaches us through the space which is far beyond the atmosphere, from stars which are inconceivably distant. So, since light is a wave and a wave is a force acting on some material, we conclude that there must be some substance out there.’

‘Yet Michelson and Morley could not detect it, nor Sir Oliver, for that matter. I don’t say it isn’t a puzzle,’ said Arthur.

‘Oh, it’s there, all right,’ said Ernest. ‘The greatest minds believe in it, in fact the greatest minds invented it. Newton explains it in the
Opticks
, simply by the operation of removing air from a glass tube and leaving a vacuum behind. Light shone from the outside across the tube still goes through – ergo something is still in the tube, carrying it. He calls it the Medium – the ‘‘Etherial Medium”, and explains all refraction and diffraction of light by following its density, which will obviously be greater in the wide open spaces than within solid bodies. For that matter, according to Newton, the ‘‘Etherial Medium” explains every phenomenon of vision or perception or motion you can think of.’