Free The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin

terrible.”
    “It is terrible. You get older, but they’re always the same age. Like the emperor and the crowd in the Forum.”
    Then they talked about Jane Austen, a subject made difficult for Cadogan by his imperfect knowledge of that author. Mr. Sharman, however, made up for this deficiency in both knowledge and enthusiasm. Cadogan felt his dislike for the man increasing—dislike for his bleary little eyes, his projecting front teeth, his pedagogue’s assumption of culture; unquestionably Mr. Sharman was an unpleasant illustration of the effects of a powerful greed suddenly satisfied. He did not refer again to his inheritance, or to the ‘others’ who shared it with him, but perorated resolutely on Mansfield Park. Cadogan made monosyllabic replies, and considered with a certain impatience the curious behaviour of Gervase Fen. As it grew nearer lunchtime the bar filled up with hotel visitors, actors, under­graduates. The noise of chatter rose in volume, and the sunlight pouring through the Gothic windows cut the haze of cigarette smoke into pale-blue triangles. “The only solution, I think,” said someone suddenly and with conviction, “is liquid soap.” Solution to what? Cadogan vaguely wondered.
    “And then look at the character of Mr. Collins,” Mr. Sharman was remarking. With reluctance Cadogan focused his attention on this personage.
    At five minutes to midday there was a loud roar outside, accompanied by a clattering like saucepans at war. A moment later Fen pushed through the swing doors of the hotel to the sound of a sharp detonation. He was greatly exuberant, and carried a brightly jacketed book which he regarded with affection. Ignoring the bar on his left, he went on into the hotel proper, down a blue-carpeted corridor towards the porter’s box. Ridley, the porter, resplendent in blue and braid, greeted him with a certain apprehension, but he only entered one of the nearby telephone boxes. There he put through a call to Somerset House.
    “Hello, Evans,” he said. “Fen here… Yes, very well, thanks, my dear fellow, and how are you… ? I wonder if you’d look something up for me?”
    An indistinct crackle.
    “I can’t hear a word you’re saying… What I want is the details of the will of a Miss Snaith, Boar’s Hill, Oxford, who died about six months ago. It can’t have been proved until quite recently… What? Oh, well ring me back, will you? Yes… At the ‘Mace and Sceptre’. Yes. All right… Good-bye.”
    “My soul cleaveth to the dust,” he sang without much humility as he jogged the receiver-rest, inserted two more pennies, and dialed a local number. Once again the telephone shrilled in the study of the Chief Constable of Oxford on Boar’s Hill.
    “Well?” said that dignitary. “Oh, my God, is it you again? Not more about this Cadogan man?”
    “No,” said Fen, hurt. “As a matter of fact, no. Though I must say I think you’re being most unhelpful.”
    “It’s no use. The grocer’s kicking up a stink about it. You’d better keep out of the way. You know what happens when you start interfering in things.”
    “Never mind that now. Have you any recollection of a Miss Snaith who lived near you?”
    “Snaith? Snaith? Oh, yes, I know. Eccentric old lady.”
    “Eccentric? How?”
    “Oh, terrified of being murdered for her money. Lived in a sort of fortified grange, with damned great fierce mastiff dogs all over the shop. Died a short while ago. Why?”
    “Did you ever meet her?”
    “Oh, once or twice. Never really knew her. But what—”
    “What sort of things was she interested in?”
    “Interested  in? Well—education, I believe. Oh, and she was always writing a lot of trashy books about spiritualism. Don’t know if she ever published them. Hope not. But she was terrified of dying—particularly of getting herself murdered—and I suppose it consoled her to think there was an after-life. Though I must say, if I’m going to come back after I’m dead and