Free Frequent Hearses by Edmund Crispin Page A

the Berenice Minuet, and fell into an unexpected fit of rage when told that the piece was too hackneyed; and Gresson—with one eye on the indistinguishable blondes, whom patently he hoped to impress—delivered himself of a dreary lecture, needlessly long, about the drinking customs of Pope’s age. But it was clear that the end was in sight: suggestions for changes in the script were few and trivial, and the discussions arising out of them wholly lacking in fervour. By a quarter to midday the conference had reached a stasis for want of matter, and it must have been at about this point that Maurice Crane got up abruptly and left the room. It seems curious that Fen, in view of the nature of his thoughts, did not pay more attention to this significant departure, but in fact he hardly noticed it. A monstrous premonition held him in trance. Someone had tried to obliterate Gloria Scott’s identity. Well—why? And there came to him, like the first stirring— “Lass’ mich schlafen” —of the dragon in Siegfried, a couplet from Pope’s ode which clamoured at his intelligence like a rune or an incantation: “On all the line, a sudden vengeance waits, And frequent hearses shall besiege your gates…”
    Maurice Crane was not away for long. He came back just as Stafford, amid universal relief, was pronouncing the meeting over. His face was white and beaded with sweat: he breathed stertorously, irregularly, painfully. His lips moved once, as he attempted to speak. Then he staggered, caught vainly at the doorpost, and fell. A single violent convulsion gripped him as he lay. When that had passed there was no further movement, and they saw that he was dead.

Chapter Two
    “You may be justified in making all this fuss,” said Humbleby. “Maurice Crane may have been poisoned—as you seem to imagine. But really, you ought at least to explain what it is that’s made you suspicious. The position at present is distressingly complicated and—um—irregular.”
    He looked for support to Superintendent Capstick, who responded with bemused signals of assent. In the twenty minutes since his arrival at the studios Superintendent Capstick had achieved a condition of bewilderment so complete and far-reaching that it had altogether bereft him of speech. By the antiphonal narrative of Fen and Humbleby his intellect had been utterly fogged, and for the moment, and in spite of the fact that theoretically he was in charge, he was capable of nothing more constructive than sitting and staring, with his mouth ajar. It must not, however, be thought that Capstick was a stupid man. He possessed, as a matter of fact, a very fair share of natural intelligence. But he had been haled away from the Gisford Police-station with his mind full of a cherished project for reforming the town’s traffic arrangements, and this preoccupation, combined with Fen and Humbleby’s allusive habit of speech, had disastrously limited his mental reach. He had not, so far, succeeded in grasping who Gloria Scott was, why she had committed suicide, what connection she had with Maurice Crane, what Fen was doing at the studios, or why it should have been suggested that in the manner of Maurice Crane’s death there was anything at all sinister; and being slightly awed by Humbleby, and much more awed by his surroundings (for he was an assiduous film-goer), he had not cared to press for a more lucid explanation of these matters than he had received so far. At Humbleby’s demand to Fen, therefore, he leaned forward hopefully in his chair: one point at least, he told himself, was going to be cleared up.
    But to his chagrin it was not. Fen grew testy at being pinned down, and spoke annoyingly of premonitions. The doctor, he said, had agreed that it might have been poison that had killed Maurice Crane; and on its being pointed out to him that the doctor had also agreed that it might not, he countered by reminding Humbleby that both Madge and Nicholas had testified to their brother