Dead of a Counterplot

By Simon Nash

When a student is found murdered at Mudge Hall, lecturer and literary critic Adam Ludlow pursues her killer around the seedy pubs, nightclubs, and boarding houses of early 1960s London. He meets small-time criminals, a communist cell, and a police inspector keen to show off his knowledge of English Literature. But to solve the mystery, Ludlow must discover the secret of an incriminating bracelet.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Long Lane Press
• Release date: May 30, 2012
• ISBN: 9780956887832

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Dead of a Counterplot

Simon Nash

Copyright Simon Nash 2012

Published by Long Lane Press at Smashwords

DEAD OF A COUNTERPLOT

SIMON NASH

This book is fiction. All characters and incidents are entirely imaginary.

First published in England by Geoffrey Bles Ltd. 1962. This edition reproduced for Long Lane Press by arrangement with the author.

DEAD OF A COUNTERPLOT. Copyright © 1962 by Simon Nash. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Publication Data

Dead of a Counterplot.

Originally published: London : G. Bles, 1962.

This edition: Long Lane Press, 2012

Title. DEAD OF A COUNTERPLOT

ISBN 978-0-9568878-1-8

Also by Simon Nash:

KILLED BY SCANDAL

DEAD WOMAN’S DITCH

DEATH OVER DEEP WATER

UNHALLOWED MURDER

ABOUT SIMON NASH

Simon Nash is the pseudonym of Raymond Chapman, university teacher, now Emeritus Professor of English at the University of London and non-stipendiary priest in the Anglican diocese of Southwark. The name was formed from the maiden names of his two grandmothers. He wrote the first of his five detective novels, Dead of a Counterplot to submit to a competition arranged by the publisher Collins, which hoped to find a new writer to carry on the established tradition of dons and detective fiction which includes Michael Innes (pseudonym of J.I.M. Stewart). The novel did not win the competition but it was picked up by Geoffrey Bles and was published in 1962.

Over the following four years Chapman wrote four more novels as Simon Nash, before the demands of an academic career overtook his novel writing. All five of the Simon Nash novels feature Adam Ludlow, an academic and literary scholar who gets drawn into murder situations and solves them by a mixture of deduction and applying apparently irrelevant special knowledge. Ludlow’s skill as a literary critic becomes demonstrably ‘useful’ in reading clues and understanding character traits and motives. His method follows the traditional style of an amateur detective who solves the mystery but keeps amicable relations with the police officer investigating it. A number of suspects are followed through the story, with dropping of clues and ending with a confrontation of the murderer in a sudden explanation.

While Chapman did not have a long career writing as Simon Nash he did have some impact as a writer of stories that are archetypes of the academic-as-detective subgenre. Most notably Killed By Scandal (1962), a tale of murder and intrigue in an amateur dramatics society, is among the ninety crime and detective novels named by Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor in their influential Catalogue of Crime, first published in 1971. Killed by Scandal was also republished by Garland in 1983 as one of the ‘Fifty Classics of Crime Fiction 1960-75’. The other three Simon Nash novels are Death over Deep Water (1964), Dead Woman’s Ditch (1964) and Unhallowed Murder (1966). All five novels were republished in the United States by Harper Row in 1985.

Among Chapman’s many other books are The Victorian Debate; English Literature and Society 1832-1901 (1968), Linguistics and Literature (1973), The Language of English Literature (1982), The Language of Thomas Hardy (1990), and Forms of Speech in Victorian Fiction (1994). He has also written several books on Anglican liturgy.

CHAPTER 1

When Bernard Mudge was a student at North London College towards the end of the last century, the authorities were far from looking on him as a potential benefactor. After failing for the second time to get any sort of a pass in the B.A. (General) degree, he left the University of London and all its works behind him and entered his father's brewery. Since two wars and increasing taxation failed to quench the thirst of Londoners, he prospered so greatly that the legend Mudge's is Marvellous appeared everywhere on hoardings and public transport. Yet his years at North London College must have held for him a charm that his lecturers had never suspected, for gifts came often and richly from him as the profits of the brewery increased. When he died in 1947, a widower without children, there was a good deal of speculation in the Senior Common Room about what his will would produce. For dons are worldly men, who sometimes lift their eyes to look around and see what the great chance is bringing them. A professor will thrust his department forward like a beloved but needy child when there is talk of bequests and benefactions. What Bernard Mudge did in fact leave to his old college was a singularly hideous house in Hampstead, built by his grandfather who had founded the firm, and enlarged by the succeeding generations of Mudges. The terms of the bequest were clear. The house was to be used as a Hall of Residence for male students of the college and was to be known for all time as Mudge Hall.

It's not quite what we would have chosen, said the Warden some twelve years later, but we were lucky to get it when we did.

Arthur Blake was launched again on his pet theme. In the chair opposite him, Adam Ludlow took another sip of his whisky and listened without enthusiasm to the late October rain beating against the window. The two men were brought together less by any real kinship of spirit or interest than by the fact of being bachelors who were well past forty and had come to realise that they were unlikely to make much more progress in their careers. Too old to mix easily with the younger lecturers, not senior enough to call together their own respectful circle, they fell into each other's company as soon as the long vacation was over. Blake, short and tubby, with a fringe of fair hair at the back of his prematurely bald head, peered over his glasses as if in continual surprise at having got as far as he had. He was warden of Mudge Hall mainly because he had been the only bachelor on the staff of the college at that time who was a suitable age for the post. He had never really understood his students, but felt that he was somehow doing a useful job. Adam Ludlow, on the other hand, carried his tall, thin body with a stoop of perpetual irritation at not having got farther than he had. He could have been a brilliant scholar, and he knew it. He could have been near the final step to a chair of English, instead of being shunted off down the branch line that leads to the buffers of a Senior Lectureship. The combination of a small private income, a diversity of non-academic interests and a lazy nature would keep him where he was. Knowing his own ability, he fluctuated between inordinate pride in each new achievement and abysmal self-depreciation at each new setback. He was also clear-sighted enough to recognise his own moods. Now he half closed his deep, grey eyes under their rugged brows and sympathetically nodded his untidy head while he wondered whether he could decently hang on until the rain eased a little.

Yes, they certainly are a handful, Blake was saying with that air of mingled pride and despair with which wardens habitually regard their flocks.

They seem quiet enough tonight, said Ludlow.

It's early yet—only twenty to eleven. Saturday always brings them back late. We'll hear them all right, later on.

I ought to go, said Ludlow without conviction.

Don't move, my dear fellow. One develops a kind of sixth sense about which noises are significant. Anyway, Latham's in charge tonight. We do alternate weekends, and he won't call me unless there's an emergency—which there never is. Let him cope.

Stuart Latham, Blake's sub-warden, was at that moment coping with the biggest emergency that he or anyone else in Mudge Hall had ever had to face. Five minutes before, he had had a knock on his door from Tom Ferris, the night porter.

Excuse me, sir, said Tom, thrusting round the door his face, that always gave the impression of being half-shaved, but there's something you ought to know.

This was a well-known introduction to trouble. Latham groaned and murmured, Well?

It's Mr. Trent. He had that girl in earlier this evening —you know, the one what's a Commie, and she hasn't come out. She was going to see him, and I put her in the book, but he hasn't been along since to sign her out.

Are you sure, Ferris? I don't want to go down for nothing.

Now Mr. Latham, sir, have you ever known me to make any mistake when it was a matter of discipline?

Latham was tempted to refer to the time when Tom had roused him at two in the morning with the report that there was a girl in the Hall, only to track down the distinctive high-pitched laugh of an African student. He said nothing, but got up and followed the porter down to the next floor. All seemed quiet. Ominously quiet, thought Latham. He went to the door marked 27, Tom in watchful attendance behind him like a sergeant ready to take any man's name at the Orderly Officer's command. Latham knocked on the door. No answer. He knocked again, louder.

Trent, are you there?

Silence. Latham rattled the door.

It's the Sub-Warden. Please open the door, Trent.

He turned to the patient Tom.

He must have taken her out.

I'll swear he hasn't. He hasn't signed her out in the book. Latham was on the point of giving up. Then he decided it was time that Tom Ferris was put in his place and taught to be more careful.

I'm going up to get the master-key, he said. If the room is empty, I shall tell the Warden that you brought me out for nothing. Tom made a noise between a snort and an apologetic grunt, and stood back while Latham stamped back upstairs, to return a minute later with a key in his hand. He went to the door, and knocked again.

Trent, I'm going to open this door: I insist on coming in. Still silence. Only the rain caught up in a flurry of wind on the other side of the house. Tom Ferris urged him on.

She's still there, he said, I'll stake my reputation on it. Latham put the key in the lock and threw open the door. Tom's reputation was safe. Jenny Hexham was there, and would not leave it for any rule of discipline that was ever made.

Ludlow had just decided that he could not politely stay any longer when there was a knock on Blake's door that seemed to be caused by the impact of a whole body rather than a set of knuckles. This impression was confirmed immediately when the door burst open and a red-haired man of about thirty fell rather than stepped into the room.

Ah, Latham, said Blake with the air of a man who has long ceased to be surprised at anything. You know our colleague Ludlow in the English Department, I hope —though the staff is such a size nowadays that one can't guarantee knowing people any more; Latham is my Sub-Warden, Ludlow ...

She's dead, squeaked Latham, murdered. That boy Trent must have done it. Horrible. Come quickly. Get the police.

Calm yourself, my dear fellow, said Blake, giving him a glass of whisky, what has young Trent been up to now? He's one of yours, isn't he? he added to Ludlow, rather accusingly.

Robert Trent? Yes, he's one of my finalists. A very good lad too. What's the trouble?

Latham expanded his previous disjointed remarks. Blake seemed inclined to disbelieve him, taking the line that they were always up to something, especially on Saturdays.

But, he added thoughtfully, you say she's still in the room? That won't do—it's well after ten-thirty. All guests must go.

She can't go, said Latham helplessly, she's dead.

Nonsense. Perfectly healthy girl. I expect she's fainted. Better tell Matron, and leave it to her.

I think we ought to go over, said Ludlow.

The Warden's flat was across the courtyard from the other wing, but they were spared the need of going out in the rain by a covered bridge. By the time they arrived, the corridor outside room 27 was no longer so peaceful. Several students were clustered around the doorway, held back by Tom who seemed quite unperturbed by the whole thing. They made way for Blake and Ludlow; Latham seemed unwilling to enter the room again.

It was not a large room. The area considered suitable for a student to work and sleep is not large. Being in his third year, Trent had one of the better rooms in the Hall, but it still gave little floor-space among the furniture. The body of Jenny Hexham seemed disproportionately large, sprawled on the hearth-rug in front of the gas-fire. The little crowd in the doorway could see that she had been strangled with the orange silk scarf that she wore. Her handbag lay open by her head, its contents spilt out on the rug. She lay face upwards, her left arm by her side, her right arm thrown out towards the open window as if in a last indication of the way her killer had gone. The window was wide open. The wind, blowing against the other side of the building, had not disturbed the curtains, which hung straight down as if they had just been drawn. The fire-escape from the room, a complicated affair of webbing and canvas which was fixed above the window, had been unfastened and hung down into the darkness. An upright chair was overturned behind the door, but there was no other sign that any struggle had taken place. The untidy divan-bed, the desk with scattered notes for an essay, the bookcase beside it—all looked as any student's room might be expected to look. The gas-fire was lit but turned down low.

Blake stood in the middle of the room, refusing to believe that such a thing had happened in his Hall and still inclined to regard the whole affair as a misunderstanding. Ludlow waited for an instant to take in the whole scene, then moved with a speed that surprised those who knew his usual lethargic movements. In two strides he was at the window, looking down into the courtyard. He then studied the fire-escape. It was one of those devices by which people can descend alternately from a height. There are two lengths of canvas, each with a sling at the end. The first man goes down, his descent controlled by a spring in the body of the apparatus, and when the second one follows him the first sling is drawn up again. This movement is repeated as often as may be necessary. Ludlow laid his hand on the sling which hung limp and empty in the window. Then he bent down by Jenny Hexham and felt her wrist.

Get a doctor, he said to the gaping group in the doorway, though I'm afraid it's too late. And telephone to the police.

For a moment nobody moved. Everyone looked at the Warden.

It will cause a scandal, said Blake. This is the sort of thing that gets us a bad name.

It is to be feared that being Warden of a Hall of Residence tends to limit one's standards of morality. Ludlow knelt by Jenny, pulling loose the scarf round her neck.

I say, don't you think you ought to leave that until the police come?

The speaker was a tall, plump young man with straight fair hair brushed up in front. Ludlow gave him one of his famous looks, usually reserved for those who suggested that Bacon was Shakespeare, or that Pope was not a true poet.

If you did something about calling the police, it would be more useful than interfering with a work of mercy.

He began artificial respiration. Henry Prentice, the student who had spoken, went away, followed by Tom Ferris. Another voice was heard from the doorway, this time with a strong foreign accent:

Leave her alone. It is better that she should be dead. She was a bad woman.

And an English voice answered him with a note of hysteria, You swine, what do you know about it? The new speaker pushed his way into the room; he seemed on the verge of tears. Let me come in, he said, I'm her cousin.

Blake was moved at last from his inaction by having a student to deal with.

I'm sorry, Hexham, but there seems to be nothing you can do. We must wait for the police.

Michael Hexham knelt down opposite Ludlow. He looked at his cousin's distorted face and shuddered. Then he ran to the window and looked out. Suddenly he turned again to the body on the floor. His normally high-pitched voice rose to a scream, as he pointed first at Ludlow, then at the group in the doorway:

Her bracelet—he's stolen her bracelet.

CHAPTER 2

Without any of them actually saying it, Blake, Latham and Ludlow decided that they had better stay together until the police came. Dr. Hastings, who regularly attended the Hall, lived only a few doors away and came at once. He having quickly declared Ludlow's efforts to be useless, the three men were not sorry to leave him with the body while they withdrew to Latham's rooms on the floor above. Henry Prentice fulfilled one of the ambitions of every student by dialling 999 and calling Scotland Yard. Within a very short time, Tom Ferris was showing in two police officers.

Good evening, gentlemen, said the first. I am Inspector Montero: Spanish descent, a long time back. This is Detective-Sergeant Jack Springer.

Known in the Force as Spring-heeled Jack. Springer took up his cue with an alacrity that made the two men sound like a pair of cross-talk comedians.

But there was nothing comic about Montero. Barely reaching regulation height, he had worked up from the