Zen there was Murder Read online

  Zen there was Murder

  H. R. F. KEATING

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 1

  The two girls were going together from room to room, carrying piles of sheets and pillow cases, deftly making beds.

  ‘Schnell, schnell,’ said the blonde one.

  ‘We should be speaking in English,’ the dark one said.

  Plump, serious.

  ‘It is so silly to pretend we are English when you cannot even express yourself clearly,’ the blonde said.

  ‘But that is the pact, and after all it is what we are here for,’ said the plump girl.

  ‘That is why we say we are here. Other people say we are here to make beds. Which is the truth?’

  A malicious twinkle in the bright blue eyes.

  ‘But it is necessary to do some work to stay here so long,’ the dark girl said.

  ‘Though it would be a little better if the work gave us some chance of speaking English.’

  The dark girl plonked a pillow down at the head of a bed and gave it two smart taps.

  ‘In any case there is not much to do this time,’ she said. ‘Seven people only.’

  ‘They will not be very young,’ the blonde girl said. ‘They will be the sort that pretend we are not here.’

  ‘You are always too pleasure minded.’

  *

  ‘That’s all very well,’ said the heavily built young man with the thick black hair, ‘but it doesn’t tell us what we really want to know.’

  He uncrossed his legs and sat up straighter in the stackable green canvas chair. Then he adjusted the thick horn-rimmed spectacles on his prominent aquiline nose.

  Ready for a scrutiny.

  He glanced round at the others and at the large finely proportioned room and put his question.

  ‘After all what we’re here for is basically to find out one thing. Simply this: what is Zen?’

  The man sitting opposite them, palms resting dormant on the flimsy trestle table, the Japanese, grinned.

  The widespread lips showing the stubby teeth.

  His head – shaved bare with two vigorous tufts of black hair at either side – was thrust forward. Beneath the bushy black eyebrows the large eyes alert but not restless. The broad shoulders relaxed under the loose folds of a black kimono.

  ‘That is excellent,’ he said. ‘Go straight to the heart. That is the way. But it is not easy.’

  Only a slight failure to sound the l in ‘excellent’ marred his English.

  ‘Well then,’ said the heavily built young man.

  Putting on weight. The features fleshy and a little pallid.

  His eye was suddenly caught by a loose thread on the cuff of his heavy tweed suit. He flicked it off.

  ‘Well then, I’ve no doubt we’re all here because we can see that Zen is pretty important. I, for one, haven’t come unprepared. I’ve done a good deal of reading on the subject one way and another, and -’

  ‘How many books?’ said the Japanese.

  ‘I – I’m sorry. I don’t quite gather...’

  The Japanese grinned again. He looked one by one at the half-dozen sheets of paper on the table in front of him, and the grin slowly faded.

  ‘There was a list of names,’ he said. ‘The warden gave it to me, but it has gone.’

  He looked up at the man with the question.

  ‘You will have to tell me your name yourself,’ he said.

  ‘It’s Stuart, actually. Alasdair Stuart.’

  ‘Then I ask: how many books have you read about Zen, Mr Stuart?’

  ‘Well, actually, not any books, as such. I meant I’ve come across a good many – that is, several articles about it.’

  ‘That is good. Books about Zen are legs on a snake.’

  The woman sitting next but one to Alasdair Stuart took the cigarette from her wide scarlet-slashed mouth and put a question abruptly.

  ‘Legs on a snake?’

  ‘A snake has no need for legs,’ said the Japanese.

  ‘That’s just the point,’ Alasdair Stuart said.

  A reassertion.

  ‘We’ve all pretty well grasped that. No doubt that’s why we’re here. The thing to do is to ask the expert. To come to the fountain head. Mr – er – Utamaro, could you begin by telling us in your own words just exactly what Zen is?’

  Mr Utamaro rose to his feet. In a single movement. He walked round the table towards Alasdair Stuart. Power and dignity in the unhurried stride.

  ‘This is Zen,’ he said.

  His hand went to Alasdair Stuart’s prominent nose and tweaked it hard. The sudden smooth movement. An uncoiled spring.

  Mr Utamaro stepped back and laughed. A long guttural peal.

  Alasdair Stuart took out a white handkerchief and dabbed at his nose.

  There was a rustle of quickly suppressed movement among the others. Chairs scraped back half an inch. Hands lifted and dropped.

  ‘That’s very good,’ said the woman who had asked about the snake’s legs. ‘That’s the sort of thing I’m here for. It makes lovely copy, but couldn’t you tell us all the same what Zen is? I believe in asking the key question first.’

  Mr Utamaro turned to her.

  She took the cigarette from her mouth and held it vertically in front of her. The long fingers, the lean hand.

  ‘If you try playing games,’ she said, ‘I shall burn you.’

  ‘Very good,’ said Mr Utamaro. ‘Burning the hand that tweaks the nose: that is Zen.’

  ‘All right, you should know. But that isn’t going to satisfy the readers of The World.’

  ‘The World,’ said the girl on the extreme left. ‘I didn’t know you wrote for The World.’

  The youngest of the group. Probably little more than twenty. Pertly pretty. Dressed in a sleeveless white blouse and a wide sweeping short skirt in bottle green. A little plump, with smooth dense white skin. And pale red hair, thick and long, caught into a pony-tail.

  She had been sitting very still. As if the least move would attract attention to her. But at the mention of The World she leant forward and looked intently at the older woman.

  Open-mouthed.

  ‘Honor Brentt,’ said the dapper man sitting between the journalist and Alasdair Stuart.

  With a knowing air. His pencil-thin moustache, hair firmly slicked into place, dark flannel suit, white shirt, bright stripy tie.

  ‘Honor Brentt’s Thursday Page,’ said the girl with the pale red hair.

  The open mouth closed in a momentary pout. She looked hurt and puzzled.

  ‘She also happens to be my wife,’ said the dapper man. ‘May I introduce myself? Manvers is the name. Gerry to my friends, and I won’t tell you what to my enemies.’

  The girl sat back in her chair, watchful again.

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ she said.

  Gerry Manvers looked round.

  ‘That’s a bit more pally,’ he said. ‘Here we are stuck here for a week and nobody knows anybody. Let’s have some how-de-dos.’

  He smiled, even white teeth flashing.

  The members of the group looked at each other half-surreptitiously. An unwilling thaw.

  ‘Well, pet, I’ve told you my name,’ Gerry Manvers said to
the girl. ‘How about telling the waiting world yours? I’ll bet it’s something pretty fancy.’

  ‘It’s Flaveen Mills, actually,’ the girl said.

  ‘Flaveen, what did I tell you. A smashing name. All right then, here we go. Flaveen, allow me to introduce Mr Alasdair Stuart, the well-known breeder of double-barrelled cocker spaniels.’

  Flaveen giggled.

  Alasdair Stuart crossed the semicircle of chairs and shook hands with her.

  ‘Delighted, Miss Mills,’ he said. ‘But please don’t run away with the idea that I’ve anything to do with dogs – beyond having a couple of the beggars at home – I’m a schoolmaster actually. Got a little prep school down on the south coast. Giving myself a bit of an intellectual treat for the last week of my holidays.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Flaveen.

  Alasdair Stuart looked back at his chair.

  He looked at Flaveen, who was looking at her chubby foot in its neat white sandal.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘- er, do call me Alasdair and all that, won’t you?’

  Flaveen looked up at him.

  ‘Pleasure,’ she said.

  ‘Well, we’ll be seeing more of each other then, er – Flaveen.’

  ‘Yes,’ Flaveen said.

  Alasdair walked back to his place. The others watched him. The shoe on his right foot squeaked slightly.

  Mr Utamaro chuckled.

  ‘Who is going to speak now?’ he said.

  ‘If somebody’s expected to speak, I’m quite happy to,’ said Honor Brentt. ‘After all, I specialize in having plenty to say for myself. What would you like to know? Shall I tell you about my husband? He’s a fool, you know. It’ll be obvious enough to everyone by the end of the day, if not sooner. So I may as well be the first to say it. He’s not here out of any passionate interest in Zen.’

  ‘Now, Honor, Honor. You know I’m just nuts about Zen. If only I could catch on to what the hell it is.’

  ‘Listen, Gerry, darling.’

  Honor leant towards him and put a lean brown arm on his shoulder.

  ‘You’re a pet and I love you very much. Just keep your silly mouth shut.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Gerry, ‘tell the world about me. You always do. Give them the old, old story. “ I Married A Pinhead” by Honor Brentt, the Woman They Can’t Silence – or can’t stop talking, it comes to the same thing.’

  ‘Well,’ Honor said, ‘I don’t believe in delicate reticences. People notice what goes on, it’s no use pretending they don’t. And if they know about a thing anyhow it makes it much easier if everyone can talk about it.’

  The cigarette in the gesturing hand flicking up and down.

  ‘Look,’ she went on, ‘before a couple of days are out everybody here will know I dragged Gerry on this job because I couldn’t trust him at home. If I’m there, he knows I’m watching him. But if I go away, he’d just bring his office popsy straight home with him. He’s that sort. I’m telling you now so you won’t go gossiping about it behind my back.’

  ‘Everyone can just pretend I’m not here,’ said Gerry.

  He winked at the clergyman sitting next to Flaveen. Unabashed. The clergyman – elderly, very tall, thin, a prominent adam’s apple dodging in and out of his dog collar – slightly inclined his head. The long strands of white hair stirred.

  ‘It is part of the way,’ said Mr Utamaro. ‘It is some of the answer. But let me first tell you the names of the others. Then we shall all know each other.’

  He dived at the papers on the table in front of him, looked at the first one he picked up and smiled.

  ‘It seems I have not after all lost what was entrusted to me,’ he said. ‘So we will be able to know each other after all.’

  He sat back in his chair and laughed. His broad body shaking.

  ‘There is the Rev. Cyprian Applecheek,’ he said.

  The clergyman smiled beneficently.

  ‘There is Miss Olive Rohan,’ said Mr Utamaro.

  Miss Olive Rohan. Sitting next to Mr Applecheek. In her late middle age, with grey hair straight and cut short. A firm mouth – lipstick her sole concession to make-up – wide-set eyes, a broad brow. She wore a tweed costume, cut by a country tailor, worn but still good.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ she said.

  Addressing one of the fine painted panels on the wall over Mr Utamaro’s shoulder. As having more in common with it than with the people beside her.

  ‘And there is Mr James Henderson,’ Mr Utamaro said. ‘I have told you his name: you know him.’

  He chuckled again. The black kimono quivering.

  ‘Generally known as Jim,’ said the last of the group, the man of twenty-six, sitting between Miss Rohan and Gerry. The voice coming from between clenched teeth; the unyielding accent of the north of Ireland. He wore a sports jacket of Donegal tweed, brown flecked with glowing colours, and creaseless grey trousers. His complexion ruddy from long hours spent in the open. His wiry hair perfunctorily brushed. Dour.

  ‘Mr Utamaro’s right,’ Honor Brentt said. ‘They don’t tell you much, names. But anyhow you know a bit more about me than you might. And about this man I married.’

  Again she put a hand out and touched Gerry. He appeared to take no notice.

  ‘He cheats me and I love it,’ she said. ‘He takes no notice of me. He prefers his beastly little Carrots at the office to me. Don’t you, Gerry? Go on, tell them. Tell them all.’

  ‘I love your lovely lolly,’ said Gerry.

  Easily.

  ‘That’s why you married me, isn’t it?’ said Honor.

  ‘You have to put up with this sort of thing, folks,’ Gerry said. ‘It goes on all the time wherever we are. Brentt and Manvers, soul-strippers. I’ll tell you how it was really: I wasn’t even tempted to marry her for her money. I just married her and then found out it was the big fat salary cheque I was interested in after all. I don’t fall for temptation: it’s just that I never even see it. I’m down the plughole before I know what it’s all about.’

  ‘Now isn’t that extraordinarily interesting,’ said Mr Applecheek.

  He beamed round happily. The adam’s apple dipping beneath the dog collar.

  ‘Extraordinarily interesting to us all – though of course one would have preferred not to hear it. Tell me, Mr Manvers, if I may ask a thoroughly personal question: do you never feel tempted by, as it were, temptation itself? You never feel the urge to put yourself in the way of having to struggle to avoid evil?’

  ‘I’ll be perfectly honest, padre,’ said Gerry. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Splendid,’ said Mr Applecheek. ‘Splendid, splendid. Wonderfully pagan. Though wrong, of course.’

  ‘Mr Utamaro,’ said Miss Rohan, ‘I would like to get back, if we may, to what we were discussing a few minutes ago. I confess I am still confused about the exact meaning of Zen.’

  Disapproval. Back to normal.

  ‘I will tell you a story,’ said Mr Utamaro. ‘It is about a goose.’

  He thrust forward his head and honked deeply two or three times.

  Miss Rohan pursed her lips.

  ‘And the goose,’ Mr Utamaro went on, ‘has been put in a bottle while it is a fledgeling and now it is a big, fully grown bird. And it must be got out of the bottle, but the bottle must not be broken. You are to do it. At once. In what you call double-quick time.’

  He pointed at Miss Rohan. She looked at the others.

  ‘Hurry, hurry,’ said Mr Utamaro. ‘Get the goose out. And do not harm it. Quickly, quickly.’

  ‘I suppose you are implying that my question can have no answer,’ Miss Rohan said.

  ‘No, no. The goose must be got out of the bottle. Miss Brentt, can you do it? Be quick, be quick.’

  ‘It’s a simple impossibility,’ Honor said. ‘And if you’re going to tell me it can be done in Tibet, I shall say I’d like to see it with my own eyes.’

  Mr Utamaro laughed.

  ‘You can’t do it,’ he said. ‘But it is easy. Listen.’


  The semicircle of intent watchers. The Japanese sitting at the table in front of them, hands held high, animated.

  ‘Now,’ he said. ‘There, it’s out.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ said Honor. ‘It’s nonsense. I don’t think I could even use it in the paper.’

  ‘Good, good,’ Mr Utamaro said. ‘It is nonsense. That is what we want.’

  ‘Very clever,’ Honor said. ‘But it’s just so much talk. Life isn’t like that. It’s -’

  ‘Oh, but it is,’ Flaveen said,

  A bolt from the blue.

  The vacant face suddenly lit up.

  ’That’s just what it is like,’ she said. ‘It’s the same as when is a door not a door, or when is someone in this house and not in it. He’s perfectly right when you come to think of it.’

  She looked round at them.

  A puppy negotiates its first trick.

  ‘Barmy, if you ask me,’ said Gerry.

  ‘But I would like to hear all the same what you think life is like, Miss Brentt,’ said Mr Utamaro.

  Honor did not answer.

  ‘It is difficult, isn’t it, Miss Brentt?’

  ‘Difficult? What’s difficult?’

  ‘To say what life is like. But you were going to tell us.’

  ‘Was I?’ said Honor. ‘I forget what I was going to say. I don’t suppose it was very important.’

  Interest lost.

  ‘I know what’s biting you,’ said Gerry. ‘That balloon.’

  Honor turned to face him.

  ‘Don’t go on about that now, damn you,’ she said. ‘I was never worried about the ruddy balloon until you started.’

  ‘No,’ said Gerry, ‘only rang me up from your office and talked of resigning. It nearly turned the blower blue.’

  ‘This isn’t the balloon those three girl dancers are going to go to the North Pole in, is it?’ said Alasdair.

  ‘That’s the one,’ said Gerry. ‘All set to entertain the lonely scientists. And Honor’s editor booked her in for the first lap. Thought it would be a cinch for her. Only what he didn’t know was that she’s so scared of heights she’s convinced herself that she’s only got to set foot in the thing for the whole shot to go for a Burton.’

  ‘Shut up, Gerry,’ said Honor.

  She looked round the room. Daring comment.

  No one spoke.