Swing, Swing Together

CHAPTER 14

They managed to agree on one thing by the time they reached Culham: they needed a meal. At the ticket barrier Hardy asked if tea was served anywhere locally. “I can think of three places,” said the ticket collector after some reflection. “The first is in Culham, but that’s closed down. The second I wouldn’t recommend, and the third is the Railway Hotel across the road.”

It was an attenuated meal, owing partly to Thackeray’s repeated requests for more tea cakes and partly to a general understanding that it would not be prudent to get to Clifton Hampden before Sergeant Cribb. There was not much conversation, but Hardy did find the good grace to congratulate Harriet on pouring a perfect cup of tea, an observation she acknowledged with a nod. It would want more than that to reinstate him.

Towards six o’clock the waitress signalled that tea was officially over by laying the tables for dinner in a good imitation of a rifle volley. After a short consultation, Hardy approached her and asked for the bill. “You serve a good dinner too, by the looks of it,” he told her, indicating a table spread with various kinds of cold meat. “That large sausage at the back-is that the sort they call a polony?”

“I couldn’t tell you, sir. Germans is what we call them in the kitchen.”

“Do you have another one like it? I’d like to take one with me.”

“You’ll have to ask the waiter, sir. Germans are supposed to be for cold dinner, you see.”

“Is he available, then?”

“Just coming across the road from the station, sir. He comes on at six.”

It was the ticket collector. He had exchanged his railway livery for a black tie and tails. “Can I be of assistance, sir?”

“Yes,” said Hardy. “That-er-German on the table-”

“The polony, sir?”

“Polony. I’d like to buy it, or another like it.”

So when the party started along the road to Clifton Hampden, Hardy’s polony, wrapped in cheesecloth, perched on Harriet’s travelling case.

“That was a good thought,” Thackeray remarked. “You never know when you might need something to eat.”

“Oh, it’s not for eatin’,” said Hardy. “I’ve got something else in mind for this.”

The sunlight of early evening on the brickwork of the village produced a roseate glow of the intensity only a pavement artist would dare reproduce. The church stood high in the background and the river was to the right. When they were midway across the narrow, six-arched bridge to the Berkshire bank, Hardy asked Thackeray to put down the case, and drew him into a bay. He pointed to a moored skiff with the hoops up and the covers gathered along the top. As they moved on, they were able to see the name Lucrecia on the side. When they drew level, a dog barked twice. Smiles were exchanged. They had saved themselves fourteen miles of rowing.

The Barley Mow lay ahead, a timbered structure of genuine antiquity with whitewashed walls and a thatched roof.

“Before we go in,” said Hardy, “I don’t think Cribb will thank us if we walk straight up to him and say, ‘Here we are, Sarge.’ ”

“Which of us do you suppose would be so stupid as to do that?” Thackeray asked. He was still frowning as they entered and took their places at a corner table.

Cribb was sitting in an armchair facing the door, staring into his beer with the preoccupied air of an angler waiting for a strike. The only others present were three seated round a table against the window adjacent to the door. Without question they were the crew of the Lucrecia, a bearded man of Viking proportions telling a story in painstaking detail to his not too attentive companions, a short, squat man with glasses so thick that all you could see from the side was concentric rings, and another in a pinstripe suit, hunched over a glass of sherbet.

Hardy dipped his head under the beams to cross the floor to the bar, through a doorway opposite. Thackeray escorted Harriet to a table screened from the other group by a short projecting wall, but still visible to Cribb.

The narrative in the corner finished as Hardy ordered his two beers and a cider, so his conversation with the landlord was heard by everyone in the room.

“Come by the river, have you, sir?”

“Over the bridge, actually. The village is charmin’ from the river, but we wanted to see it at close quarters.”

“I hope it didn’t disappoint you.”

“Quite the reverse. It’s as pretty a spot as any of us have seen. We’d like to stay the night. Do you have three rooms-or a single and a double?”

“Whichever you like. Have you got luggage?”

“One case only. It’s all in one for ease of travellin’. We’ll take three single rooms, then.”

“Two, three and four,” said the landlord. “The gentleman in the parlour is in number one. The party in the corner are going on to Culham. They’re following the route of the-”

“Don’t tell me-Three Men in a Boat!” said Hardy, loudly enough to be heard at the end of the room.

The Viking turned in his chair. The others also moved their heads for a better view, and a low shaft of sunlight flashed on two pairs of spectacles. At the other table, Harriet’s hand caught Thackeray’s and held it.

“Did somebody make a reference to the celebrated book by Mr. Jerome K. Jerome?” asked the man in pinstripes. As he spoke, his top lip rolled upwards to reveal a row of large, uneven teeth.

“Merely a quip,” said Hardy, appearing with his tray of drinks. “Three Men in a Boat. D’you see?”

If the man in pinstripes did see, he was not amused. “Are you familiar with the work, then?”

“I’ve heard of it, of course,” said Hardy, “but I wouldn’t pretend to have read it.”

“Just as well, sir,” commented the landlord, following him in to pursue the conversation. “These gentlemen know it better than a bishop knows his Bible. What does Mr. Jerome say about the Barley Mow, gentlemen?”

“Come, come. That’s no test at all,” said the large man. “It is well known that some of the book was written in this very house last summer. I’m sure you like to hear it repeated, Landlord, but anyone with the slightest knowledge of Three Men in a Boat must remember the complimentary things Jerome says about your inn. If you want to put our knowledge to the test, do us the credit of devising a more difficult question than that.”

The landlord coloured and found something needing attention in the taproom.

“I’ve got one for you,” said Cribb, apparently deciding that the conversation ought to be encouraged. “Where did the three men put up in Marlow?”

“Easy!” said the man with the thick spectacles. “The Crown. We were there on Tuesday night.” He spoke in bursts and with an excess of enthusiasm, as if every phrase ought to be punctuated with an exclamation mark.

“Splendid!” said Cribb, catching the habit. “What is it? — a pilgrimage you and your friends are making?”

The large man looked at each of the others and back at Cribb. “In a manner of speaking it is. We’re each of us admirers of Mr. Jerome’s work. From your question, sir, I take it that you share our enthusiasm.”

“It’s a book I greatly enjoyed, but never finished,” said Cribb. “I left my copy somewhere and haven’t picked up another since. My name’s Cribb, by the way. I’m travelling the lazy man’s way-by passenger steamer.”

“Humberstone,” announced the large man. “And my co-pilgrims are Mr. Gold”-he extended a hand towards the owner of the thick spectacles-“and Mr. Lucifer.” The lip lifted to display the teeth again in something between a smile and a snarl.

“So you stayed at the Crown on Tuesday,” Cribb repeated. “You must have passed through Hurley the day the body was picked up from the weir.”

“Body?” said Gold. “We heard nothing about a body.”

“Well, we wouldn’t have, unless we asked,” said Humberstone with a glare. “It isn’t the sort of thing people mention to strangers, like the weather.”

“A suicide, I suppose?” said Gold, shrugging off the rebuke.

“Only a tramp,” contributed the landlord, appearing again. “Probably drank too much and fell in. Carrying quite a lot of money, he was. Didn’t you see it in the newspaper?”

Lucifer shook his head. “One of our reasons for embarking upon this little excursion was to escape from newspapers and their dismal tidings. You cannot open The Times these days without reading of death and disaster. Thank Heaven for men like Mr. Jerome, who afford us a brief respite from such things.”

“I’ll drink to that,” said Cribb, lifting his glass. “It’s a wonderful thing to get out of the City for a bit and take a boat up the river, even if it’s only in your imagination. Are you gentlemen in business together?”

“We work for a prominent life insurance company, the Providential,” said Humberstone. “As you may imagine, there isn’t much occasion for jollity in the claims department, so Mr. Lucifer here occasionally reads us items from periodicals he buys at the station bookstall in the morning. One of these is Home Chimes, in which he found the first instalment of Three Men in a Boat. Gold and I were surprised to hear belly laughs coming from his corner of the office, particularly as his job is answering letters from the recently bereaved. We insisted that he read the chapter aloud. We read it every day for a week, until the next issue of Home Chimes appeared. It was such a wonderful pick-me-up that we got through our work in half the time, and the claims department was soon known as the jolliest office in the Providential. Naturally we all bought a copy of the book as soon as it appeared and read it from cover to cover again. It followed quite without question that we arranged to take our holiday together on the Thames. We know every incident by heart, and consequently everything along the route has its interest, you see. By the way, Lucifer, one shouldn’t suggest that death and disaster are totally absent from the book.”

“Ah!” said Gold. “The dog in the water at Windsor.”

“No, I think Humberstone must be referring to the woman in the water at Pangbourne,” said Lucifer. “That unfortunate creature of sin who put an end to her troubles by drowning herself-like your tramp, I presume, Landlord. Are bodies often recovered from the river in these parts?”

“Occasionally, sir, occasionally. It’s more common the other side of Teddington, I believe, in the tidal river. The closer you get to London, the more unfortunates there are, you see. Women mostly, that have taken to a life of sin and come to regret it. I believe they jump off the bridges. I’d do the same if I was in their position, come to think of it, with that there Jack the Ripper stalking the streets murdering and mutilating those he finds.”

“The Ripper?” repeated Gold. “Hasn’t been heard of for months. Gone into retirement, in my opinion.”

“He obviously favours the winter for its dark nights and fog,” said Lucifer. “I have no doubt we shall hear of him again before the end of the year.”

“If the police were any good at their job, they’d have caught him long ago,” said Humberstone. “He leaves them enough clues. They even found the knife after one of the murders. A great long-bladed thing it was, with a wooden handle, and the blood still on it.”

Across the room Thackeray said confidentially to Harriet, “I think you ought to step outside for a bit, miss. This sort of conversation ain’t suitable for one of the fair sex.”

She had to make an effort to compose herself before replying. Thackeray’s suggestion had been kindly intended, no doubt, but what presumptions it made! “From what I have heard of Jack the Ripper’s doings,” she said, “my sex has more reason to be informed about him than yours. You may step outside if you like, but I shall remain.”

“Some say he took his own life after the murder in Miller’s Court,” Cribb was saying. “He spent at least an hour dissecting that unfortunate woman. It was the ultimate in his style of killing. There was nothing more dreadful he could do.”

“Yes, I am familiar with the theory,” said Lucifer, speaking with disquieting authority on this subject. “A man of his description is said to have drowned himself in the Thames a few days after. A very convenient occurrence, for it reassured the public that London was safe again and stopped the accusations of police ineptitude. My own belief is that Jack slaked his thirst for blood last winter, but it will be as irresistible as ever when the nights get long again. Would anyone care for another beer?”

“The conversation seems to have taken a morbid turn,” said Humberstone, pushing his glass towards Lucifer. “Whatever got us round to this subject?”

Cribb helpfully recapitulated. “Three Men in a Boat and a body in the river.”

“Who would have thought there was any connection at all between Jerome and the unspeakable Jack?” said Humberstone.

“It takes all sorts to make a world, eh?” said Gold. “Take any night last summer in London. There was Jerome under one roof writing a comic masterpiece and Jack under another brooding on murder and mutilation. Lord knows what was going on under all the other roofs.”

“Safest not to inquire,” said Cribb. “Mind, I don’t suppose it’s generally known that Three Men in a Boat is read aloud in a certain life insurance office, but if it hurts nobody, I don’t see that there’s anything offensive in it. Doing the river trip yourselves is a stunning idea, if I might say so, gentlemen. Are you following Jerome to the letter?”

“So far as we are able,” answered Lucifer. “He is disconcertingly ambiguous at times. In Chapter 18 you will find that the three sleep under canvas in the backwater at Culham. Next morning, two or three pages on, they wake up three miles downriver, for they proceed to pass through Clifton Lock.”

“Perhaps Jerome had a drink too many in the Barley Mow,” suggested Cribb. “But do you propose spending the night at Culham?”

“Most certainly. Like the characters in the book, we want to be in Oxford as early as we can tomorrow. We shall have to leave here in half an hour.”

“I don’t suppose you have a dog like the one in the book,” said Cribb.

“Oh, but we do. We borrowed one for the excursion from a friend of Gold’s. It answers to the name of Towser, which is a poor substitute for Montmorency, but we have problems enough persuading the beast that we are well-intentioned, without altering its name. The skiff, so far as we can ascertain, is exactly similar to the one in the book. And we are visiting the same places, but we are not so slavish in our length of stay. You will remember that Jerome’s immortal trio spent two days at Streatley. One only was enough for us.”

“Why was that?”

“We saw all that there was to see in one morning. A pretty place, but not one to linger in.”

“Marlow’s got more to offer,” added Gold. “I’d have spent another night in Marlow gladly.”

“It’s very comfortable at the Crown, I gather,” said Cribb, seizing on this.

“Oh yes. Comfortable, indeed.”

“I’m trying to think which hotel the Crown is,” Cribb went on. “Is it the one near the bridge?”

“Tolerably near, yes,” Gold cautiously replied.

“With a good view of the river, from the best rooms, of course?”

“I don’t quite recall.” Gold hesitated, taking off his spectacles and replacing them as if that might improve his memory. “We had rooms at the back, you see, so you wouldn’t see the river from there.”

“If it’s the Crown at Marlow you’re talking about,” said the landlord, “you wouldn’t see the river wherever your room was. It’s at the top of the High Street.”