A Third Class Murder: a cozy 1930s mystery set in an English village

by Hugh Morrison

  ‘No,’ said Cokeley decisively. ‘Ten shillings is a fair price for nick-nacks like this’.

  ‘Nick-nacks!’ exploded Goggins. ‘That’s military history!’ He started taking items out of the box and slamming them on the counter, unwrapping them from their protective layers of newspaper. ‘That’s my father’s medals from Balaclava. And that’s a German bayonet that my lads had engraved for me in the South African war. And that’s a letter my grandfather got from Wellington after Waterloo. And those are my medals - my blasted medals - and you know that lot’s worth more than ten shillings.’

  Shaw, observing all this, realised he was in an awkward situation; unable to leave without attracting attention, he was now guilty of eavesdropping. He held his place in the corner, hoping for an opportunity to leave without being noticed.

  ‘Military memorabilia really isn’t worth much these days,’ said Cokeley, airily. ‘People have had enough of war since the last lot. Ten shillings, cash. Take it or leave it.’

  ‘Then I’ll damned well leave it!’ exclaimed Goggins. ‘Pardon me, miss,’ he added, with a nod to Miss Ellis.

  A woman, who Shaw recognised out of the corner of his eye as Mrs Cokeley, entered from the back parlour.

  ‘What’s all this noise?’ she said. ‘I can barely hear the wireless upstairs’.

  ‘Nothing my dear,’ said Cokeley. ‘Mr Goggins was just leaving. Be so kind as to help Miss Ellis pack these things away, would you?’

  ‘Anyone would think I’m the hired help,’ said Mrs Cokeley. ‘Well, since I’m here I suppose so.’

  Miss Ellis and Mrs Cokeley were absorbed in wrapping the items in newspaper and returning them to the box, watched over by Goggins, while Cokeley stood with his back to the shop, pretending to be interested in a minor adjustment to a cuckoo clock on the wall.

  Shaw spotted his chance to escape and backed deftly to the door. Miss Ellis gave the box to Goggins, who struggled slightly to balance it in front of him. He turned and saw Shaw framed in the doorway.

  ‘Morning vicar,’ said Goggins. ‘Didn’t hear you come in. You’re just the man I need to see.’

  ‘Good morning, Mr Goggins,’ said Shaw. ‘And what did you wish to see me about?’

  ‘When’s the next sale of works?’

  ‘Sale of works?’

  ‘Yes, you know,’ said Goggins, in a voice tinged with sarcasm. ‘The next church jumble sale.’

  ‘In about a month’s time, I believe,’ said Shaw, unclear as to why he was being asked.

  ‘Good,’ said Goggins. ‘Then you can have this lot.’ He nodded towards the box in his arms. ‘This old swindler Cokeley here says they aren’t worth more than ten shillings. Well if that’s all they’re worth, then I reckon you might as well have them to raise money for the roof fund. They might even fetch more, if anyone with a bit of Christian charity is left in this village.’

  Before Shaw could answer, he had the box thrust firmly into his arms by Goggins, who then pulled open the door violently.

  Turning to face Cokeley behind the counter, he added loudly ‘and that box is not the only thing in this place that I’d like rid of!’

  Turning back to Shaw, he nodded and said ‘good day to you, vicar’, then stomped out of the shop.

  Frank Symes, property developer and estate agent, lit his first cigarette of the day and leaned back in his modernist office chair, smoothing his brilliantined hair and running a finger along the pencil moustache on his rather ratty face.

  His partner Joe Davis, a short, round-faced man who handled the sales side of things, was at his desk on the opposite side of the office, engrossed in a telephone call. Their secretary, Ruth Frobisher, sat with a bored expression at the reception desk, idly filing her nails and pausing occasionally to stare out of the window.

  The office, at the bottom end of Lower Addenham’s high street, was little more than a shed on the edge of a field. Next to it, facing the road, was a large sign depicting a pastoral scene of a smiling family emerging from a Morris saloon car into the driveway of a mock-tudor semi-detached house with an immaculately kept garden.

  Above it were painted the words, in a typeface more suited to a cinema foyer than a rustic village: Live the Country Life in New Addenham for just £50 down.

  This billboard was reproduced in smaller size on the wall behind Symes’ desk.

  Other pictures on the walls showed the various types of houses that were to form part of the estate of New Addenham; there was the Tudorbethan, in detached or semi-detached; the Hathaway Bungalow with art-deco stained glass door, and, Symes’ favourite, the Hollywood Mexican Moderne, with its gleaming white walls, green tiled roof and curved Crittal steel windows.

  ‘Yes sir, that’s right,’ said Davis to a customer on the telephone. He continued his rapid sales patter. ‘Fifty pounds down for the Hathaway or the Shakespeare bungalow, then a pound a week for ten years at five per cent, and the fresh country air is free of charge.’

  Davis looked over at Symes and winked, making a thumbs-up sign. ‘Yes sir, do call in, yes we look forward to seeing you. Good day to you, sir’.

  Davis replaced the receiver in its cradle. ‘That’s another interested party, Symie my boy,’ he said, clapping his hands together and rubbing them. ‘Won’t be long before we get our first sale, and once this lot’s gone we’ll be off and doing it somewhere else. Symes and Davis houses from here to London.’

  ‘You can certainly talk the talk, Joe,’ said Symes, turning a fountain pen over in his fingers, ‘and I hate to keep a good man down, but you’re forgetting one thing. We can’t sell anything until old king Cokeley sells up.’

  ‘I still don’t understand what the problem is with him,’ said Davis.

  ‘Look, I’ll explain it to you again,’ replied Symes. He turned to Miss Frobisher, who was now primping her blonde hair while looking at herself in a small compact mirror. ‘Ruth, sweetheart, get me the file on Cokeley, will you?’

  Miss Frobisher looked up with a start. ‘Cokeley? Is that the stout party that’s been in here a few times?’

  ‘That’s the one,’ said Davis. ‘Runs the old junk shop up the road.’

  ‘Oh, him,’ said Miss Frobisher with a shudder. ‘Undresses me with his eyes, does that one’.

  Davis laughed. ‘How does that work, then? I thought most men used their hands.’

  Miss Frobisher scowled. ‘Oh leave off Joe. I don’t mind men looking at me, but only the ones I like’.

  Symes sighed. ‘Dear oh Lord. I know we pay you mainly to be a bit of window dressing but you can at least pick up a file and pass it over, can’t you? There’s a good girl.’

  Miss Frobisher stood up, loudly extracted a file from the metal cabinet, and sauntered over to Symes’ desk, where she slapped it down with such force that his empty teacup rattled in its saucer.

  Symes raised his eyes heavenward and unfolded some plans from the file, as Davis came over to his desk.

  ‘It’s all to do with his property, see’, said Symes, tracing his finger along the plans until he came to the outline of the shop. ‘His old junk shop is right in the middle of where we need to build the access road to the estate. But he’s refusing to sell.’

  ‘I know all that,’ said Davis, ‘he keeps coming in here and agreeing then upping the price. But I still don’t understand why we need to build the road exactly there. I’m a good salesman - my life, I could sell sand to the Arabs, not that I’m likely to meet any round here - but a town planner I am not.’

  ‘If we knock down Cokeley’s shop we can build a short access road onto the estate,’ replied Symes. ‘That means it’s only five minutes’ walk from the station. We can’t knock down any other properties because they’re in a long line and we’d have to buy up the lot. Cokeley’s is detached so it’s the only one we need to get rid of’.

  ‘It’s only a row of old houses, not the blooming Maginot Line,’ quipped Davis. ‘Why can’t we just build a road around them?’

  ‘Because then yo
u’re extending the road nearly a mile from the station,’ said Symes wearily. ‘Not only do you have to pay for all that to be built, it adds to the journey time for commuters. Twenty minutes’ walk to the station instead of five. That means they can’t get to work in Norwich or even Ipswich in less than an hour because there’s no direct trains from here.’

  ‘Won’t they all have motor cars?’ asked Davis.

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ said Symes. ‘I know some of the houses have garages, but that’s mostly for show. To make them feel like the they’re the sort of people who can afford a motor car. But with the amount we’re charging them they’ll be lucky to have enough left over for a bicycle.’

  Symes chuckled at his own joke and continued. ‘No, they’ve got to be able to get to the station easily. So unless we build that road, the only buyers will be the local yokels and they haven’t got two pennies to rub together.’

  ‘Alright, I get it now,’ said Davis, frowning. ‘The old blighter’s got us over a barrel, hasn’t he?’

  ‘He has indeed,’ replied Symes. ‘With all the money we’ve, or rather, I’ve, invested in this project, we’ve had it if we can’t get our hands on that land.’

  ‘Well I’m not giving up yet,’ said Davis. ‘If you think I’m going to go back to collecting rents in the Old Kent Road, you can think again. There’s lots of people we owe money to and some have persuasive methods of getting it.’

  An idea struck Symes. ‘What day is it?’

  ‘Wednesday, why?’ said Davis.

  ‘Didn’t we try to get old Cokeley in here for a meeting last Wednesday and he wasn’t having it, said something about always going in to Great Netley for lunch at the King’s Head on a Wednesday?’

  ‘Cor blimey, you want I should be his social secretary now?’ replied Davis in an annoyed tone.

  ‘No, he’s right,’ replied Miss Frobisher, not looking up from filing her nails. ‘I remembering him saying it. Wednesday’s half-day closing here, not that you two slave drivers take any notice of it’.

  ‘Right then,’ said Symes with an enthusiastic smile. ‘Today’s half-day closing for us as well. We go into Great Netley, go to the King’s Head and see if we can’t buy the old miser a few drinks and win him over.’

  ‘Well…alright,’ said Davis uncertainly.

  ‘That’s a date, then,’ said Symes. ‘But if that doesn’t get him to sell up, we’re going to have to think of something that will solve the problem of Mr Cokeley for good.’

  Chapter Two

  S haw was in his study, seated at his battered roll-top desk. He was going over his notes for his lunch meeting with William Soames, Rector of Great Netley, concerning the joint Whitsun services and procession.

  The custom of a large procession to celebrate Pentecost had been falling off in recent years, and so it had been decided to combine the work of the two parishes, holding a service in Great Netley and then processing to Lower Addenham for another service followed by a Sunday School tea for the children, who would undoubtedly be tired after the four-mile walk.

  Shaw paused and looked out of the window of his small study at the daffodils on the neat front lawn of the vicarage. Beyond them on the lane he noticed a young man bicycling past; he tried to place him but could not, and reflected with a tinge of guilt that he always felt a little more comfortable with the administrative work of the parish than with attempting to remember the names and faces of his flock.

  Events, meetings, services, these were predictable and satisfying, but people were sometimes…difficult, he concluded, and the scene he had witnessed at Cokeley’s shop this morning only confirmed that. He glanced down at the cardboard box full of Goggins’ war mementoes, making a mental note to ask their owner if he really had meant what he said about donating them. Unsure of their true value, he locked them in the battered Georgian cabinet by his desk, as a precaution against the highly unlikely event of the vicarage being robbed.

  His thoughts were interrupted by a timid knock at the door. After Shaw had said ‘come in’, Hettie bobbed in the doorway .

  ‘Please sir, there’s a gentleman to see you.’

  Shaw turned in his chair. ‘Does this gentleman have a name, Hettie?’

  Hettie blushed. ‘Sorry sir. Yes sir, it’s Mr Goggins’.

  ‘Very good,’ said Shaw. ‘Send him in, please.’

  Hettie bobbed and stepped aside into the little hallway. ‘Send him in’, thought Shaw, was a trifle pretentious an order for a house of these proportions, when the visitor could obviously hear what was going on, but he could never think of a better alternative.

  Goggins stepped into the study and nodded at Shaw, who stood up to shake his hand.

  ‘Morning again, vicar,’ said Goggins. ‘I’m sorry you had to witness that little scene in the shop earlier.’

  Shaw waved his hand as if to dismiss the matter. ‘Won’t you sit down, Mr Goggins?’

  ‘No thank you, I’ll be brief. I meant what I said about those things.’

  ‘Things, Mr Goggins?’

  ‘Mementoes. Old war relics. Junk, as Cokeley would call it. I meant what I said. You can have them for the next jumble sale.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ said Shaw. ‘I have just locked them away for safe-keeping. Some fascinating things…a letter from the Duke of Wellington, no less.’

  ‘That’s right. Given to my grandfather. Got injured at Waterloo, right next to the Duke’s entourage.’

  ‘But Mr Goggins,’ ruminated Shaw, ‘these things may be valuable. Are you certain you want them sold for a few shillings at a church jumble sale?’

  ‘I’m a man of my word, vicar, and I meant what I said in the shop, the church can have them. It might remind that fellow Cokeley about the camel and the eye of the needle.’

  Shaw smiled at the reference to the biblical verse concerning avarice. He then decided to broach a difficult subject.

  ‘Forgive me, Mr Goggins, I don’t mean to pry, but may I ask why you were trying to sell the items?’

  Goggins cleared his throat. ‘I’d be lying if I told you I was just having a clear out, vicar. Fact is, things haven’t been going so well lately, not since my wife died, and I could do with a bit of money coming in.’

  ‘You’re a saddler by trade, I believe?’

  ‘Yes sir, that’s right. Saddler and bridle maker. It’s a dying trade, what with more motor cars on the roads every year, but I’m too old to learn another. Horses is my life, always has been.’

  There was an awkward pause, broken by Shaw. ‘Well, if I can be of assistance in any way…’

  ‘I don’t want charity,’ said Goggins firmly. ‘I just want a fair crack at the whip. That Cokeley, well, trying to sell me short on those mementoes, that was the last straw. He owns my cottage as well, see, and he was talking about turning me out because I couldn’t pay the rent. I suppose I just snapped.’

  Shaw took out his pipe and filled it slowly with his favourite Three Nuns tobacco, smiling as he remembered the lads in the trenches, back when he was a chaplain. ‘There’s the padre again enjoying himself with his three nuns,’ they’d joke, but it was all good natured. The Western Front seemed a world away now from the petty problems of a small English village.

  ‘I’ll have a think,’ said Shaw. ‘There might be something we can find for you. The diocese has some cottages to rent over at Great Netley, I believe. I’ll ask around.’

  Goggins gave what passed for a smile. ‘That’s very kind of you, vicar.’ He glanced at the long-case clock in the corner of the room. ‘Oh that reminds me, I’d best be off. I’m due in Great Netley this afternoon, the dairy wants some new bridles. I’ll need to get the next train, the 12.55.’

  Shaw put his unlit pipe into his pocket. ‘Good heavens, I’d clean forget that I’m due in Netley as well. I have a meeting with Mr Soames at half past one. Shall we walk to the station together?’

  ‘It would be a pleasure, vicar,’ said Goggins. ‘Bridles for dairy horses,’ he muttered, shaking his head. ‘I used
to make saddles for the Household Cavalry, and now I’m kitting out milkmen’.

  Shaw smiled as he held open the door for Goggins to collect his hat from Hettie.

  ‘Reg! Reg!’ called Mrs West up the gloomy staircase to her son, who was sprawled out on his crumpled bed in the little back bedroom of the cramped terraced house in the cathedral city of Midchester, a few miles from Lower Addenham.

  ‘What is it now, ma?’ said the young man.

  ‘Ain’t you never getting out of that bed, boy?’ continued his mother, yelling from the tiny hallway below. ‘I wants to do out that room and you wants to go and get a job.’

  ‘And you wants to put a bleeding sock in it and leave me be,’ said West under his breath. ‘Alright ma,’ he yelled. ‘Just give me five minutes.’

  He got out of bed and pulled on his shabby trousers, shrugging the braces over his long woollen combinations, then buttoned up his shirt. He tied a scarf round his neck to hide his lack of a collar and tie, and put his ill-fitting suit jacket on. He decided not to bother shaving, and just combed his hair instead, looking at his reflection in the cracked piece of mirror on the wall above the narrow bedroom fireplace.

  The mirror frame held a few yellowing pictures of film stars cut from newspapers. They had been there for at least five years, since before he’d been sent to prison. From what he’d seen since he’d got out, girls didn’t look so much like that now, and the films themselves had changed beyond all recognition.

  He’d heard inside from the newer lags about the ‘talkies’ but didn’t believe it himself. How could people talk in a film? That was like expecting a gramophone record to start showing pictures as it spun round. The only sound he’d ever heard in a cinema was the same old four or five tunes banged out by the pianist at the local flea-pit.

  So the first thing he’d done when he got out, before he’d even visited Maisie’s, the little knocking-shop down by the slaughterhouse, was to treat himself to a visit to the big new picture palace in Midchester city centre.