Swing, Swing Together

CHAPTER 39

Jim Hackett’s suicidal leap from the Iffley Queen had various consequences. It earned Thackeray, his rescuer, a column of tribute in the Oxford Times and a cold that stayed with him for a month. It inspired a question in Parliament about the safety of life belts, after the one Thackeray had carried to Hackett had proved incapable of supporting him. And it gave Percy Bustard time to consider his position.

“Drink your cocoa, Jim, and don’t say a word,” he advised his accomplice, now swathed, like Thackeray, in a blanket, but with one arm handcuffed to a table in the saloon. “There’s no evidence against us. A decent lawyer will see us through. We can answer any charge they bring.”

Cribb smiled. “Feeling more confident, now you’re out of your skirts, Mr. Bustard? He’ll need to be a very good lawyer. I made a bad mistake early in this case-spent the best part of a week tagging after the shirttails of three gentlemen interested in other things than murdering university dons-but this time I don’t think I’m wrong. You murdered a tramp by the name of Walters on Tuesday night at Hurley, and Henry Bonner-Hill on Saturday morning in Oxford.”

“We were not in Hurley on Tuesday night.”

“Miss Harriet Shaw-a young lady you’ve met more than once-observed three men in a boat above Hurley Lock in the early hours of last Wednesday morning. The passenger was Walters, probably drunk, and the two oarsmen answered your descriptions-one much larger than the other.”

“That’s not much of a description,” commented Bustard. “If Miss Shaw persuaded herself that she saw Jim and me, she’s mistaken. We slept in the boat at Wargrave on Tuesday night. I don’t know whether you’re familiar with the River Thames, old sport, but Wargrave is a good ten miles upriver from Hurley and, more to the point, there’s Hambleden and Marsh Locks in between. The locks are closed at sundown. We couldn’t have brought the boat to Hurley without shooting the weirs.”

“Yes, I’m familiar with the story,” said Cribb. “You were careful to mention that you bought a veal and ham pie in the George and Dragon. But Jim Hackett corrected you, said it was the Dog and Badger.”

Bustard shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps it was.”

“The only Dog and Badger for miles around is in Medmenham,” said Cribb. “It happens to be P. C. Hardy’s local pub. There’s no Dog and Badger in Wargrave. I’ve checked the county gazetteer.”

“Slip of the tongue,” said Jim Hackett.

“Stow it!” ordered Bustard immediately. Then, affecting unconcern again, he asked Cribb, “Why do you suppose we should have wanted to murder a common tramp?”

“Not for his money,” answered Cribb. “We found thirty pounds on the body. He was killed to practise the method. You reasoned that nobody would take much interest in a tramp who drowned in the river. You met Walters somewhere in the neighbourhood of Medmenham-quite possibly the taproom of the Dog and Badger-filled him with liquor, walked him to the river and took him aboard the boat. He was nine parts drunk by then, and I dare say you gave him some gin or whisky to do the rest. You rowed towards Hurley and heaved him over the side, taking care to hold his head and shoulders under long enough to fill his lungs with water. Pity you gripped him so tightly. You left some bruises round the neck. There was also a dog bite on his leg.”

“A dog bite!” said Bustard. “That’s ridiculous! We haven’t got a dog.”

“Not now, Mr. Bustard, but you had one at the time. Fox terrier, I think. Miss Shaw noticed it sitting at the front of your boat. A nice domestic touch, that. Pity it got too excited when you were struggling with Walters’ body and fastened its teeth on his leg, because you had to get rid of it after that. It’s no good asking what you did with the poor animal. I suppose it went the same way as Walters. Nobody’s going to get excited about one more dead dog in the Thames.”

Jim Hackett started to say, “We didn’t drown the-” when Bustard nudged him so sharply that cocoa spilled over the blanket.

“If you didn’t drown it, then I’ve a theory that it’s buried on Phillimore’s Island,” said Cribb. “You lit a fire there. If we dig underneath the ashes, I reckon we might find what’s left of that unfortunate dog. A fire is a useful way of covering freshly dug earth. Yes, I think we’ll send a little exhumation party to Phillimore’s Island.”

“A dead dog won’t prove much, even if you find one,” said Bustard.

“On the contrary,” said Cribb. “If its teeth match the marks on Walters’ leg, that’s evidence strong enough to hang you.”

Bustard was unmoved, even if Jim Hackett winced at the mention of hanging. “You really haven’t explained why we should have gone to so much trouble to kill the tramp.”

“I told you. You were trying out the method. You were going to Oxford to do a job of murder and you wanted to be sure of getting it right. And you did, of course, apart from the fact that you killed the wrong man. Bonner-Hill, poor man, came to the rendezvous instead of Fernandez.”

“Rendezvous? Fernandez? This is all a cipher to me, old boy.”

“It was to me until I realized you were sent to kill Fernandez, and not Bonner-Hill,” said Cribb. “Fernandez had been fishing for pike on Saturday mornings for two years. Anyone who wanted to kill him must have known they could rely on him being on the river on a Saturday. Just to make sure, a letter was sent from London telling him to be in a certain backwater if he wanted to be shown where a large pike could be found. You were waiting there for him, but Bonner-Hill arrived instead. Thinking he was Fernandez, you murdered him. I’ll make a guess and say you used chloroform or ether instead of alcohol to render him insensible first.”

“Make as many guesses as you like, old sport,” Bustard airily said. “You’ve still got to find a reason why Jim and I should have wanted to kill this fellow Fernandez.”

“That took a little trouble to establish,” said Cribb. “Even after I’d convinced myself Fernandez was intended as the victim, it wasn’t easy. A philanderer like that makes no end of enemies-jilted ladies, jealous husbands and the like. Someone got so agitated about him three months ago that they wrote to Scotland Yard suggesting he was Jack the Ripper. Nasty thing to do. They must have known the Yard would have to investigate. Detectives came to Merton to question him, and when he unwisely gave a false account of his movements at the time of the Whitechapel murders, they began to consider him as a serious suspect. He had claimed to be visiting his uncle, who is Deputy Governor at Coldbath Fields, on the night of the Ripper’s fifth murder, but when asked, the gentleman said he hadn’t seen Fernandez for a full year. Inspector Abberline, the man in charge of the Ripper investigation, visited Fernandez himself and put some sharp questions to him. It turned out that he wasn’t Jack the Ripper. He had been trying to preserve a lady’s reputation.”

“Very reassuring for Oxford University,” commented Bustard, “but I fail to understand what connection it has with Jim and me.”

“So did I, until I looked into it,” said Cribb. “On Saturday, we found you beside Bonner-Hill’s body, if you remember.”

“Attempting to resuscitate him,” Bustard pointed out.

“I don’t deny it. By then you’d realized that you had murdered the wrong man. You must have taken his pocketbook before you tipped him in the river, thinking it would hinder identification. After the body had floated away with the current, you opened the pocketbook and found Bonner-Hill’s name inside. In a panic you rowed after him and got him onto the bank to try resuscitation. At the time, I had the idea fixed in my mind that we were looking for three assassins, not two, so I put it down to coincidence that you were there beside the body. Later I saw it in a different light. And I understood why you had been in such a hurry to get to Oxford that you had abandoned your boat at Benson on Friday afternoon and completed the journey by bus. You had to be sure of being in Oxford for the meeting with Fernandez on Saturday morning.”

“Ah yes. The rendezvous,” said Bustard sardonically. “I suppose you think Jim and I wrote the letter telling Fernandez where to meet his murderers.”

Cribb shook his head. “Not you, Mr. Bustard. The person who gave you your orders. Oh, I considered carefully whether you or Mr. Hackett had a motive for murdering Fernandez, and I couldn’t find one. But when I put together everything you had told us about yourselves, I understood your part in this conspiracy.”

“Everything we told you? What do you mean?” Bustard was speaking more guardedly now.

“Well, you told me yourself that you met Mr. Hackett when he was working for your father-in-law, but you didn’t tell me the nature of the business. As that policeman commented on Saturday, it looked more like labouring than business from the state of Jim’s hands.”

Jim Hackett turned his palms and studied them as if he had never noticed them before.

“The curious thing about Jim Hackett,” Cribb went on, “is his habit of quoting from the Bible. He’s plainly not the sort to have been a theologist, or a vicar. And the texts he quotes are all of a kind. Improving texts, I think they might be called. ‘Be sure your sin will find you out.’ ”

“Numbers, Chapter 32, Verse 23,” said Jim Hackett automatically.

“Stash it, you loony!” ordered Bustard.

“‘Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment,’” said Cribb. “‘Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the evening.’ I’m sure you recognize them, Mr. Bustard. They are the texts your father-in-law, Matthew Fernandez, displays on the walls of Coldbath Fields House of Correction. Jim is a graduate of the Steel. He’s seen those texts so often that he quotes them all the time. The labouring Jim did was hard labour. Five years of it altogether. He’s a ticket-of-leave man. I’ve checked by telephone with Mr. Barry, the warder-in-chief. No wonder his hands are rough, after five years of turning the crank and picking oakum. Yet he’s a good man to have in an assassination party-strong, obedient and experienced in violence.”

Jim Hackett beamed at the compliment.

“Jim’s muscle and your head were a useful combination, as Fernandez Senior decided when his thoughts turned to murder.”

“Good Lord!” said Thackeray.

“It had shocked him to the marrow being visited by Abberline and questioned about the Whitechapel murders. He knew his nephew had a fast reputation, but it had never caused him serious embarrassment before. This was too appalling for words-the police, coming to the Steel to interrogate him about a false alibi. Unendurable. Whether his nephew was Jack the Ripper or not, it couldn’t go on, for the sake of the family-that family he parades so proudly in the prison chapel every Sunday. Now that his nephew was known to the police, they’d be back every time a woman cried rape within twenty miles of Oxford. It would be common knowledge in the Steel in no time at all. After that the Home Office. He’d be asked to resign. You can’t have a Deputy Governor related to a man who could be Jack the Ripper. For the sake of his reputation, his job, his family, he had to wipe John Fernandez off the face of the earth.”

“And you really think the Deputy Governor of the Steel arranged for his nephew to be murdered!” said Bustard. “That’s a little hard to credit, if you don’t mind me saying so, old boy.”

“Not at all,” said Cribb. “In my experience, a man like that is quite capable of murder. Prison is a world on its own, as Mr. Hackett will tell you.”

“For a prisoner, maybe,” said Jim Hackett, “but not for the Deputy bleeding Governor!”

“Don’t be so sure. Fernandez has his life centred on the Steel. He’s in his element with his systems and routines, doing everything by numbers. The beauty of it is that it’s so tidy. Nothing can go wrong for long, because he’s got it all under control. If a man holds up the system, he puts him on the crank. It soon brings him round. There’s a remedy for everything. For a man like Fernandez it’s a perfect way of life, until something threatens it from outside. What does he do then? He looks round for his remedy. The fact that it means murdering his nephew is of no account. That’s the solution to his problem, so he applies his mind to achieving it. Being the methodical man he is, he works out a way to do it that will seem like an accident, or suicide at worst. He knows his nephew’s custom of fishing, so he devises a plan to dispose of him by drowning. He writes a letter making sure that he will come to the appointed spot. Of course, he can’t risk going to Oxford himself, so he calls in his son-in-law and explains what needs to be done for the sake of the family. You are to travel up to Oxford by boat like all the others doing the thing in the book. You’re splendid for his purpose: one of the family, but without a jot of sentiment. You’ve never met John Fernandez, so he won’t recognize you when you come face to face. Unhappily for Bonner-Hill, it works in reverse-you don’t recognize him. Have I got it right this time, Mr. Bustard?”

Bustard gave a joyless smile. “I’m afraid you have, old sport.”

“Strewth!” said Jim Hackett. “We’re blown! ‘God be merciful to me, a sinner.’ St. Luke, Chapter 18, Verse 13. If you and I swing for this, somebody ought to go with us.”

“We’ll make damned sure he does, Jim, old boy,” said Bustard.