The Case of the Ghost of Christmas Morning (Anty Boisjoly Mysteries Book 2)

by PJ Fitzsimmons

  “Absolute pleasure, Vic,” I said, entrusting the paper to my inside pocket.

  “I seek the unvarnished truth, you understand. No need to spare my feelings.”

  “I’ll have you crying like a schoolgirl, Father, you have my word on it.”

  “Oh, uh, quite. Well, thank you, Mister Boisjoly.”

  I moved to intercept Monty as he and Cosmo were absorbed by the snowy night, but Ivor drew me back with a compelling inquiry: “Did Mister Padget tell you, Mister Boisjoly?”

  “He may well have,” I replied austerly. There was something worryingly self-satisfied in Ivor’s tone. “The vicar and I share many confidences and a wide range of interests.”

  “I’m referring to recent revelations regarding your aunt and Major Fleming.”

  “Have there been such revelations?”

  Padget and Ivor shared an uncomfortable moment.

  “Why, yes,” said Padget. “Did you not know?”

  “Possibly. It depends almost entirely on what we’re talking about.”

  “Miss Boisjoly and the major were to be married. I had been calling upon them at Tannery Lodge to discuss a high church ceremony.”

  Ivor, to his credit, strained every muscle in his face in an effort to appear sympathetic.

  “That hardly proves that she killed him, Inspector,” I said. “If anything, it makes it less likely.”

  “That isn’t all of it, Mister Boisjoly.”

  “Very well, what is all of it?”

  “I regret to say, Mister Boisjoly,” said Padget, “that the major intended to break off the engagement.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Hildy Discovers Her Hidden Depths

  “I don’t object to you persecuting my aunt, you understand, Inspector.”

  Ivor and I were walking in the direction of the hill, he to continue to Constable Kimble’s cosy little constable cottage on the border of Steeple Herding, and I to return to the house of my aunt. The night was cold and still, and the snow had ceased falling.

  “It’s all part of the game, of course.” I continued my theme. “You focus the combined energies of the forces of the state on establishing a case against a single helpless old woman, while I doggedly pursue the real killer. These are the ground rules and I accept them.” I cast a sideways eye at the inspector to see if he was picking up on my subtle ironies. He was lighting his pipe. “I just think you might make a show of actually investigating the crime. Couldn’t do you any harm, you know. Gets you out and about, you’ll meet new people. You never know, Inspector, if you broaden your horizons you might find any number of people to railroad for a crime they couldn’t possibly have committed.”

  “Are you quite finished, Mister Boisjoly?”

  “I think you know me better than that. Have you spoken to Cosmo Millicent?”

  “The major’s nephew? Yes, we spoke to him this afternoon.”

  “Then you know that he was counting on the hero’s blessing to write a tell-all biography.”

  “We do.”

  “Well, what if the major denied said blessing?” I asked. “What if the major dismissed the project, and then went on to disparage Cosmo’s vocabulary and his approach to omniscient voice? He strikes me as the sensitive sort of poet.”

  “By all accounts the major was cooperating with the book,” said Ivor between puffs on his pipe.

  “And this Montgomery Hern-Fowler cove. He breezes into town and a few days later his old army buddy is dead with a knife in his back,” I observed. “Plainly metaphorical, to my mind. Perhaps the Flight-Lieutenant was resentful of the major’s celebrity. I can see it as though it was playing out right there on that snowdrift — a line of brave boys, shivering in a dark, wet, trench, as the first grey glow of dawn outlines the horizon. An ominous hush descends. Then the major gives the order to go over the top and drawn, as these young men are, from the cannon-fodder class, over they go. Flashes of blinding light, ricochets of flying shrapnel, chaos and fury, young lives wasted in a single charge, and the hill is taken. Then the major steps up and plants the flag and declares the battle won, and he’s in all the papers back home and gets a letter from the king. You can see how that sort of thing would engender bitter feelings.”

  “The major was Hern-Fowler’s wingman,” pointed out Ivor. “They only ever saw a trench from five thousand feet.”

  “The principle stands. In any case, I’m just getting started. Everett Trimble. Did you speak to him?”

  “Most decidedly so.”

  “Memorable encounter, isn’t he?” I said. “Rather like stepping out of a calm reverie and into traffic in Piccadilly Circus. Did you know that his father served with Flaps?”

  We had arrived at the crossroads and stopped there in the stillness. We looked back on the little, snow-coddled village. Ivor drew luxuriously on his pipe.

  “He mentioned it. Claims the major saved his life.”

  “I heard that. Did he say how?”

  “Indeed he did,” said Ivor. “Couldn’t have stopped him if I’d tried — turns out the major never mentioned it and it was Hern-Fowler told him that it was Fleming that noticed Sargeant Trimble’s poor depth perception, and made him chief mechanic so that he wouldn’t have to fly.”

  “Is that all?” I asked. “When I learned that Everett’s father owed the major his life, I naturally assumed that there would have been more drama — shells bursting overhead as, his own body riddled with bullets and shrapnel, he carries his wounded brother through the smoke and mire of no-man’s land, breathing a hoarse vow through clenched teeth, ‘Not this time, Jerry. Not this time.’”

  “No, the major merely gave him a comfortable ground assignment. If it’s drama you want, though, Sergeant Trimble was killed in a chance encounter with a propeller at RAF Acklington toward the end of the war.”

  “How darkly ironic,” I observed. “Perhaps Everett’s motive has a more recent origin, then. Did you know that he was mounting a national-scale public relations campaign to raise the profile of the town of Graze Hill, the foundation of which was the fame of Major Fleming?”

  “Of course. There’s meant to be a bronze statue erected right there.” Ivor pointed with his pipe at the town square formed where the road angled before the church. The golden cow glistened hideously in the moonlight. “Hardly a motive for murder. Quite the opposite I’d have said.”

  “I understand the unveiling is being pushed forward,” I said. “Could it be that the famously publicity-shy major was unwilling to participate in the crass exploitation of his reputation?”

  Ivor removed his pipe from his lips to allow them to shrug noncommittally. “It’s generally understood that the major was finally coming to terms with his fame. He was frequenting the Sulky Cow, attending church, keeping company with your aunt…”

  “Talking of the pub, what do you make of Sally-Ann Barnstable?” I asked with adroit deflection. “She affects to have resented the major’s Saturday matinées, but what sort of pub landlady objects to crowds of thirsty revellers?”

  “The sort who isn’t a landlady at all, I’d venture,” said Ivor, smoking and gazing upon Graze Hill like a man about to tell a wry punchline. “It’s not her pub, after all.”

  “Isn’t it?” I asked. “Everyone seems to think it is. Whose pub is it?”

  “Miss Barnstable is broadly referred to as the landlady because in practice she functions as such, but the Sulky Cow belongs to her father, one Mister Michael Barnstable.”

  “Michael? Do you mean to say that Soaky Mike is the proprietor of the Sulky Cow? And Sally’s father?”

  “He is.”

  “Blimey. No wonder she keeps such a warder’s eye on him — he’d drink all the profits in a single sitting.”

  “I daresay he would.”

  “You’ve met him then,” I said. “Did you gather that Soaky Mike is among the few who have a natural immunity to the charms of Flaps Fleming?”

  “If you’re referring to Mister Barnstable’s stated belief t
hat the major wasn’t the hero he claimed to be, I don’t think there’s much to it.”

  “These things often run deep, Inspector. I once knew a boy at Eton who was unrepentant in his seditious views of Prime Minister Asquith. Turns out that he had cause — his allowance had been stopped for proposing to the downstairs maid something he’d read in a poem by D.H. Lawrence.”

  Ivor regarded me as though trying to recall what particular species of rare bird I was.

  “You went to school with Lord Asquith’s son?”

  “He was only Prime Minister Asquith at the time.”

  “Nevertheless,” resigned Ivor. “Mister Barnstable contends that the major couldn’t have piloted a plane with only one eye, because he wouldn’t have been able to see the stick shift.”

  “But… the major lost his eye in battle. Air battle.”

  “Precisely,” confirmed Ivor. “And aeroplanes don’t have gearboxes. You see why I didn’t take ‘Soaky Mike’ very seriously.”

  “I do,” I confessed. “That still leaves us the mysterious Trevor Barking — blacksmith, industrialist, inventor, sculptor, reluctant yet admirably competent church layman. He’s a dark horse, that one.”

  “What about him?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Probably,” said Ivor. “You see, Mister Boisjoly, what you amateur enthusiasts fail to understand is that most police work is dull, repetitive, rote. Asking questions, noting the answers, moving on. Mister Barking has been thoroughly interviewed.”

  “Ah, well, then. You’ll already know about the yo-yo syndicate.”

  We shared a moment of calm reflection, then, listening to the creak and crackle of the woods, and breathing in the cool, crisp air lightly scented with the smoke of coal and wood and pipe tobacco.

  “The what?” asked Ivor, finally.

  “Mister Barking was relying on the major to back his British yo-yo franchise.”

  “What is a yo-yo? And why would it need to be franchised?”

  “It’s a child’s toy,” I explained. “Apparently they’re the leopard’s loungewear in America, and Barking has a plan to corner the UK market. All he needs is ten thousand pounds of what he calls ‘working capital’.”

  “And the major gave it to him?”

  “The major was playing his cards close to his chest, according to Barking,” I explained. “He was giving him five thousand pounds up front, with a further five thousand to follow as production kicked into gear.”

  “So you’re saying Barking was running some sort of fiddle, and when the major wanted to know how his money was being spent, Barking killed him.”

  “Well, no,” I said. “In fact, it would appear that Barking had yet to receive the first instalment. He tried to touch me for it, in fact. That’s how I learned of the enterprise.”

  “That sounds like the opposite of motive to me, Mister Boisjoly,” said Ivor. “Indeed, of all the spinsters, bachelors, and gin-soaked widowers that the season has marooned in Graze Hill, the only one who wasn’t in some fashion indebted to the major is your aunt. Even Mister Padget was counting on a significant donation to do up the church.”

  “Must have been a very significant donation indeed. I happened to cast my eyes upward during Lo! He Comes With Clouds Descending and I could clearly make out Ursa Minor through a substantial hole in the roof.”

  “I noticed that.”

  “And yet there are disbursements for four-way clocks and, of all things, golden calves on the belfry,” I said.

  Ivor and I were once again musing on the glittering monstrosity on top of the church when there came to us a most unexpected sound…

  “Moo?”

  We shared a curious glance and then proceeded along the path formed of sleigh-tracks until we were almost in sight of Herding House. There, embedded in a snowbank up to her briskets, was Hildy the midget cow. By all appearances, she had been drawn by urgent business on the other side of the hill and was heading that way when her little legs proved unequal to the task.

  “How the devil did that happen?” asked Ivor.

  “Careful breeding,” I explained. “That, Inspector, is a best-in-show specimen of the Graze Hill Golden. Unique to the region. Notice the slightly elongated yet proportional back, the broad, foreshortened neck, the copper-toned pelt and matey expression. Note also that the snowbank in which she finds herself stuck is little more than a foot deep.”

  Hildy looked at us with a doleful expression of wounded pride, and spoke a plaintive “moo” that conveyed in a syllable, “If you’re going to laugh then go ahead and get on with it.”

  “What do we do?” asked Ivor, with that disarming tone of those who find themselves out of their depth, and assume that others do not.

  “Will Constable Kimble be in?” I asked. “You could pop over and bring him back. I imagine he could sling a medium-sized cow over his shoulder. I’ll keep Hildy company.”

  “I think not.”

  “I think I should. We have a bond.”

  “I mean that I have no intention of walking fifteen minutes to the police cottage and back in aid of a stranded cow.”

  Further debate was rendered academic by crunching footsteps heralding the arrival of the keeper of the Sulky Cow.

  “What are you doing with my cow?” demanded Sally with that air of easy authority God grants innkeepers and traffic magistrates.

  “Good evening, Sally,” I said. “At the moment we’re doing what we can to comfort the poor creature. She’s stuck in the snow.”

  “I can see that,” said Sally, hands on her hips and fire in her eye. “What I want to know is how it happened.”

  “Ah, there you take us into uncharted territory. It’s never my practice to evade responsibility but my hands, in this rare case, are clean. She was like that when we got here.”

  Sally shook her head in dismay and disappointment.

  “There’s a shovel in the little barn behind the pub,” she said.

  “I’ll make keen note of it,” I said, momentarily baffled, but then Sally glared at me beneath hooded eyes, and I saw the light. “Ah. I’ll just go and fetch it, shall I?”

  I skidded and slipped back down the hill to the manger. While there I noted that Hildy’s confinement was enforced with a simple stile — in effect, she had been on her honour to remain under house arrest but, pining for my company, had tracked me like a leopard until meeting her match in a fourteen-inch snowdrift. I collected the shovel and used it as a walking stick to scamper back to the scene of the emergency. In the perhaps five minutes I had been gone, I felt, there had occurred a palpable change in the general attitude toward Boisjolys. Sally had positioned herself in front of Hildy, offering spiritual comfort in the form of a familiar face and, I expect, performing a forensic examination of Hildy’s breath.

  “Mister Boisjoly, what did you do with the remains of the mulled wine?”

  I smiled limply.

  “Before we address that, Miss Barnstable, I can tell you that one thing I didn’t do with it is allow it to fall into the hands of Soaky Mike. I knew that you would disapprove.”

  “You fed my cow mulled wine?”

  “It was heavily diluted with snow. There was an incident.”

  Ivor assumed the distance and disposition of a bystander, and smiled happily at the ad-hoc nativity.

  “Casting a detective’s eye over the scene of the crime,” he observed with the flat, academic detachment of one who can refer to a cow stuck in a snowbank as a crime scene, “I would say that the cow, having tasted the wine and found it pleasing, was induced to seek a second helping. She must have endeavoured to follow Mister Boisjoly. The poor animal’s probably been trapped here for hours.”

  “Thank you, Inspector,” I said with theatrical irony, then turning to Sally, “I’ll just dig her out, shall I?”

  Sally replied with a very eloquent crossing of the arms and lowering of the brow. I applied myself to identifying the business end of the shovel and, within minutes, I was excava
ting a quite well-engineered trench into the snowbank. Hildy watched me anxiously as I worked, and began her little teeter-totter dance as liberty approached. Then as she was led to freedom she mooed a festive song of her own invention.

  I sank my shovel into the bank and leaned on it and wiped from my brow the residue of more physical work than I’d done since my rowing days.

  “Well, good job we came along when we did, what?”

  Sally turned slowly back to me, like one of those Bavarian clockwork figures, just marginally more terrifying.

  “I’ll take that.” She held out her hand and I passed her the shovel. “And I’ll thank you, Mister Boisjoly, to in future refrain from interfering with my cow.”

  “I’m not sure a charge of interfering with livestock is warranted. I merely shared with Hildy a little Christmas cheer.”

  “You got her drunk.”

  “My dear Miss Barnstable...” I began the traditional refrain of a man with nothing to say in his defence, but was spared the need to exhaust all variations of “uhm”, “ah”, and “eh, what?” by Hildy, who was once again mooing a plaintive call. She had stumbled directly into another snowbank.

  “You’re a fish out of water in this part of the country, aren’t you?” said Ivor as we watched Sally, finally, lead Hildy back to her stable.

  “A very apt metaphor, Inspector,” I agreed. “Indigenous dairy folk probably learn at their mother’s knee that cows can’t hold their liquor.”

  “I would have thought that most people, balancing the issues, would err on the side of not feeding mulled wine to a cow.”

  “Most people wouldn’t impersonate the Aga Khan to smuggle a donkey into the winner’s circle at Epsom either, but have you ever been stuck with a hatpin by the queen mum? The world needs its unconventional thinkers.”

  “Sometimes, Mister Boisjoly, things are exactly as they appear.” Ivor knocked out his pipe meaningfully on his heel. “The only person in Graze Hill who had cause to kill Major Fleming is your aunt, and the tracks in the snow mean that she’s also the only person who could have done it.”