‘Well, you get used to them, don’t you? And the snakes and the spiders and the scorpions and all the rest. You learn to live with them. They never worried me.’
The colonel said drily, ‘Frog End must seem a bit on the quiet side.’
‘It certainly does.’
‘But you have a resident celebrity at the Hall to liven things up: Lois Delaney.’
‘Yes, she has a flat downstairs but we never see her. Did you meet her just now?’
‘Unfortunately not. I’m a big fan but she didn’t answer the door.’
‘As a matter of fact, I came across her many years ago when I first when out to Singapore – before I met Jean.’
‘Oh?’
‘She was touring in Blithe Spirit and there was a big party given at Raffles after the performance for the company. I had happened to be invited. Somebody played a piano and she sang several Coward songs.’
‘I didn’t realize she could sing.’
‘Oh yes, she was very good. It was quite an evening. I’ll never forget it.’
‘Did you actually meet her?’
‘Yes. I saw quite a bit of her while she was in Singapore.’
‘What was she like?’
Roy Ward said, ‘Delightful. Charming.’ He added quietly, ‘The most beautiful woman I ever saw.’
How many other men, the colonel wondered – himself included – had thought exactly the same thing?
He finished the excellent sherry and Roy Ward saw him to the door.
‘You must come and have another drink when Jean gets back.’
‘Thank you, I’d like that.’
‘Where do you live?’
‘Pond Cottage. It’s by the green. Do call in any time you’re passing.’
He proceeded to the next flat and pressed the bell. As he waited, a door at the end of the corridor opened.
‘They’re away. Gone abroad. Who let you in?’
‘The caretaker.’
‘He’s not supposed to. It’s against our security rules.’
The woman came closer. She was a type he had come across before. A woman of an age even more uncertain than Lois Delaney’s but who had never ever been remotely beautiful. Her grey hair was waved in corrugated iron ridges, and she had a thin and bloodless mouth. Her resentment of the poor hand life had dealt her was written in her face. She would be carping, critical, bitter, and often trouble-making.
‘I’m very sorry to have disturbed you,’ he said. ‘I’m collecting for a charity.’
‘I don’t give to charities. It all gets spent on the people who run them.’
‘Then I won’t trouble you any further, madam,’ he said politely. He turned away and she called after him.
‘They should never have let you in.’
A narrower flight of stairs went on up to the attics. In Naomi’s childhood days this would have led to the servants’ bedrooms – dormer-windowed rooms with cheap lino floors, iron bedsteads, pine washstands, china ewers and bowls. There might have been rag rugs, thin cotton curtains, a patchwork cushion, perhaps a framed sample of wool cross-stitch: Thou God Seest Me.
He pressed the bell beside the door, which was opened by a girl – no thin-lipped grey gorgon this time, thank goodness. She was somewhere in her early thirties, he reckoned, and so still a girl to him. Her hair was chestnut-coloured and long – worn twisted up in a careless, wispy knot on the top of her head and secured with a tortoiseshell clip. She was dressed in jeans and some kind of loose smock. Once again, he apologized for intruding.
She put her head on one side. ‘Donkeys? Goodness, that’s a new one.’
‘They need saving. Some people treat them very badly. It’s a good cause.’
She smiled. ‘I’m sure it is. And I rather like them. Come in while I find some money.’
He followed her into a long room that was obviously being used as a studio. One end was taken up with a trestle table, easel, paints, brushes – all the clutter of an artist. The rest of the room was furnished with a very modern sofa, equally modern chairs and a coffee table. Not to his taste but he knew that he was hopelessly old-fashioned.
‘They knocked three poky rooms into one,’ she said, seeing him looking round. ‘Rather a good idea, really, and it was just what I wanted for work.’
He glanced with interest towards the trestle table. ‘What sort of work do you do?’
‘I paint plates. Come and see. I’m doing one at the moment.’
He looked down at the china plate and the delicate painting of two goldfinches perched on the branches of some flowering shrub.
‘It’s not finished yet,’ she said. ‘And it’ll have a gold rim, to set it off. It’s called “Golden Song”. I specialize in birds and flowers but I do other commissions, too. Commemorative plates, birth plates, wedding plates, christening plates . . . all that sort of stuff. As long as people pay, I do it.’
First, the dolls downstairs and now this, he thought. There must be something about the house.
‘It’s beautifully painted,’ he said – which, indeed, it was.
‘Thank you. I hate the plates, to be honest, but the punters love them. Did you come across Neville and his dolls downstairs?’
‘Yes, indeed.’
‘He tipped me off about the US market. It’s a gold mine. Americans love collecting things like this and they pay very good money.’ She waved a hand towards some canvases stacked against the walls – not pretty birds and blossoms but bold, modern splashes of colour. ‘That’s my real work, but, of course, it doesn’t sell anything like as well and I have to earn a living.’
She fed some coins into the tin and he handed her a donkey badge.
‘Thank you very much.’
She let him out of the flat door. ‘Happy New Year.’ He’d almost forgotten about it. ‘And to you.’
‘Jeanette’s the name. Jeanette Hayes.’
He told her his.
She looked at him curiously. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever met a real live colonel before. Never moved in those sort of circles.’
‘We’re quite normal,’ he said, smiling. ‘At least, I hope so.’
A woman was waiting in the hall at the foot of the stairs he saw her as he turned the corner of the last flight: a dumpy figure in a flowered overall, one hand gripping the newel post and staring up at him.
‘You must be the gentleman Stanley let in to do the collecting.’
‘That’s right,’ he said, hoping there wasn’t going to be any trouble.
‘I’m Mrs Barnes. My husband and me are caretakers here. I was wondering if you’d got any answer from Miss Delaney in Flat Two?’
‘No, I’m afraid I didn’t. Perhaps she’s away?’
She shook her head. ‘No, she’s not. She can’t be. She was here yesterday evening and she always tells us if she’s going away so we can keep an eye on things. I’m a bit worried, sir, to tell you the truth. I rang her bell a few times earlier this morning to see if she wanted me to come and give the flat a bit of a tidy-up for her. It’s hard to get any cleaning help round here, so I’ve been going in twice a week to see to things.’
‘Well, perhaps she’s gone out?’
‘No, she hasn’t. Her car’s there and it hasn’t been moved you can tell because of the snow. I was wondering if something had happened . . . whether I should open the door?’
‘You have a spare key?’
‘Yes, sir. Me and Stanley keep keys to all the flats – so we can get in if anything goes wrong. Water leaks, or power failures, or something like that. But, of course, we wouldn’t dream of entering unless we felt the matter was urgent.’
‘No, I’m sure you wouldn’t,’ he said soothingly. ‘Supposing you ring the bell once again, and, if there’s still no answer, you could take a look – just to make sure all’s well.’
‘Would you mind accompanying me, sir?’
He was often called upon to do something authoritative. It was the ‘colonel’ bit, he assumed. People looked to him
to decide what was the best action to take. But, in this particular case, he really had no idea. Lois Delaney might have an overnight male visitor, or she might be nursing a thumping New Year hangover, or she might simply not wish to be disturbed. In any of those cases, she was going to be far from pleased at somebody invading her privacy. On the other hand, Mrs Barnes seemed genuinely worried and she did not seem the excitable type.
He went with her to the door of Flat 2 and stood by while she produced a key from her pocket and fitted it into the lock. He fully expected a security chain to hold the door but, instead, it opened freely and Mrs Barnes poked her head inside and called out.
‘Miss Delaney . . . excuse me, but are you all right? Miss Delaney?’
There was no answer. The light was out in the hallway, and in the kitchen near the door and when they advanced into the sitting room, it was in darkness, too – the curtains still drawn across the windows. The scent of some expensive French scent lingered on the air. The colonel found a light switch and clicked it on but nothing happened. He tried another switch with the same result.
‘I think the fuses must have blown, Mrs Barnes. Do the flats have their own electricity circuits?’
‘Yes, sir. They’re wired separately, with their own meters.’
‘Have you got a torch?’
‘I’ll fetch one, sir.’
She was back in a moment and he took the torch from her – a heavy-duty affair with a powerful beam. He shone it around the room, illuminating pale silk upholstery, tasselled cushions, fringed lamps, glass tables, gilt-edged mirrors, a plethora of silver-framed studio portraits. A star’s room, if ever there was one.
‘The bedroom’s next door.’ Mrs Barnes had spoken in a church whisper. ‘Should we go in?’
‘I think we’d better.’
She knocked at the closed door and then opened it. The room was also dark and the torch showed that the shiny peach bedcover and the arrangement of matching cushions were undisturbed. The French scent was overlaid now by a more pungent one of pine.
‘Is that a bathroom through there?’
Mrs Barnes nodded. ‘Do you mind looking, sir?’
The bathroom door was ajar and, by the torchlight, the colonel saw the plastic-covered electrical cord snaking in through the gap from a power point in the bedroom skirting board.
He said in the tone he had used to issue army commands that needed to be obeyed without question, ‘Stay exactly where you are, Mrs Barnes. Don’t move and, whatever you do, don’t touch anything.’
He pushed the door further open with his booted foot and shone the torch inside.
Lois Delaney was lying naked in the bath to the left of the doorway. She was facing him, her head and shoulders above the water, the rest of her body beneath. He saw at once that she was dead and the obvious cause of her death an electric hairdryer – was submerged beside her body, its cord caught up on her big toe. Her eyes, shining like emeralds in the torchlight, were wide with surprise, her mouth a little open.
He said crisply, over his shoulder, ‘Go and call the police, Mrs Barnes. Quick as you can. Tell them Miss Delaney has been found dead.’
She gave a shriek of horror. ‘Oh, my God! Oh, my God! What a terrible thing to happen! Oh, my God!’
‘Do what I said, Mrs Barnes. At once.’
He waited alone with the dead actress. He would have liked to cover her nakedness for the sake of her dignity but nothing could be done for her, nothing touched, nothing moved. The water looked greenish and smelled strongly of the pine bath essence that she must have tipped in from a big glass bottle up on a shelf.
Her half-open mouth looked for all the world as though it was about to speak to him. To tell him something. But, of course, it couldn’t. Tragic to think that the gloriously husky voice would never be heard again. He turned the torch away from the bath.
He had remembered the third silent thing now.
The falling snow . . . the hour before the dawn . . . the mouth of one just dead.
Four
‘We’ve met before, haven’t we, sir? The case of Lady Swynford.’
The colonel rose slowly to his feet. ‘Yes, indeed.’
Detective Inspector Squibb of the Dorset Police looked as natty as ever – sharp grey suit, gleaming white shirt, silk tie, trendy haircut. No particular accent from no particular place.
‘You remember Detective Sergeant Biddlecombe?’ He nodded. ‘Certainly.’
The sergeant was much older than his superior – ruddy-faced and rumpled, with a rich Dorset burr. Chalk and cheese.
Squibb said, ‘I’d like a few words with you, sir, if you don’t mind. Before you’ll be permitted to leave the Hall.’
‘Of course.’
Mrs Barnes, still very shocked and upset, had been allowed go and lie down while the police carried out their work, and the colonel had waited patiently in the sitting area at the far end of the hall in front of a vast stone fireplace. The other residents had been peremptorily ordered to stay in their flats. Eventually, Lois Delaney’s body had been removed on a trolley.
They sat down and the police sergeant produced his notepad and clicked his biro into action.
Inspector Squibb picked up the Save the Donkey tin from the table and looked at the picture. ‘You were collecting for this charity, then, sir? Not one I’ve ever heard of, I’m bound to say.’
The colonel didn’t care for the faint smirk that went with the remark. ‘The prevention of mindless cruelty to animals is a fairly worthwhile cause, as I’m sure you’ll agree.’
‘Oh, of course, sir.’
The smirk vanished and the questions started. What time had he arrived at the Hall? Which flats had he called at? Who had he spoken to? Who had he seen? How had he come to discover the body? He controlled his irritation at the brusque and rather accusing manner in which they were asked. He described how Mrs Barnes had been worried about Miss Delaney and had asked him to go with her into Flat 2, which had been in darkness with none of the lights working. How Mrs Barnes had fetched a torch. How he had shone it into the bathroom and seen Miss Delaney lying in the bath. How it had been very clear that she was dead. As he spoke, the electric logs on the fireplace hearth were flickering away merrily.
‘Did either of you touch or move anything?’
‘Only the doors. Mrs Barnes opened the entrance door and the one to the bedroom. The bathroom door was slightly ajar and I opened that with my boot.’
‘Very wise, considering.’
‘Yes, I’d noticed the electric lead. Then I saw the hairdryer in the bath. She had obviously been electrocuted.’
‘An accident, you thought?’
‘Hardly. Nobody in their right mind would use or touch anything live while taking a bath. Either she had done it deliberately herself, or somebody else had.’
‘But you hadn’t seen anybody about the Hall or in the grounds? A visitor, a stranger?’
‘No. Nobody.’
‘Have you ever been here before?’
‘No, never.’
‘You’re not acquainted with any of the residents?’
‘No. I’d never met any of them.’
‘You didn’t know the deceased, then?’
‘Only by reputation. She was a very well-known actress, of course. I’d seen her on the London stage, but I’d never met her in person. I wasn’t aware that she was living at the Hall until this morning. I don’t believe it was common knowledge in the village.’
‘A bit past it, wasn’t she, sir? Over the hill.’
He wished more than ever that Lois Delaney had not been exposed to the merciless eyes of the police: the dyed hair, the crow’s feet, the jaw line sagging, the body no longer firm.
He said coldly, ‘She was still a very beautiful woman.’ Another faint smirk, or had he simply imagined it? In any case, it was pointless defending her to this cocky young man whose idea of female beauty would be something very different from his own.
‘Well, thank you, sir. That will be
all – for the moment. I’ll be interviewing all the residents, as well as Mr and Mrs Barnes. I take it that you’ll be staying in Frog End for the next few days? You’ll be required to attend the inquest, of course, and you may be needed for further questioning.’
‘I have no plans to go away.’
The inspector stood up. ‘Don’t go making a habit of it, will you, sir?’
‘A habit of what, Inspector?’
‘Finding dead bodies.’
He hadn’t imagined the smirk this time.
He walked back through the snow to Pond Cottage and left the collection tin and the badges on the hall table. Later on, he would take them over to Miss Butler across the green; for the moment, he felt in need of a stiff drink. Thursday, who had re-established himself at the end of the sofa, opened his yellow eyes as he went into the sitting room and then shut them again. The colonel lit the log fire, poured himself a neat whisky and sat down in his wing-back tapestry chair.
What a sad business! A woman like Lois Delaney to end her life so ignominiously. He could vaguely remember some other case of another woman celebrity – a TV personality killing herself in the same way, only it had been with an electric fire, not a hairdryer. Murder seemed most unlikely, on the face of it. The murderer would have had to run a bath, persuade the victim to undress, get in and stay there obediently while the hairdryer was fetched, switched on and chucked into the water. Rather far-fetched, to say the least.
And yet he couldn’t forget the half-open mouth, the lips parted as though she had wanted to speak to him – if only she could. The third and most silent thing of all – the mouth of one just dead.
Somehow Lois Delaney had not looked as though she had wanted to die; on the contrary, he had the strongest feeling that she had wanted to live. He shook his head and downed some more whisky. He was definitely getting over-fanciful in his old age.
‘You never told me you knew her, Neville.’
‘I don’t tell you everything that’s ever happened in my life, Craig, dear boy. There isn’t time. I came across her in my costume design days. As I recall, I did her dresses for Blithe Spirit and one of those Rattigan plays – French Without Tears, I think.’
Another thing kept from him. He pouted. ‘I didn’t know you did theatre costumes.’
THREE SILENT THINGS a cozy murder mystery (Village Mysteries Book 2) Page 5