“Rex looked round and he told John that the pews would fetch a pretty penny and he even offered to arrange the sale if John wanted him to. But John said he’d need the timber for balcony supports and staircases. Of course Rex wasn’t bothered one way or the other, seeing he was only out to do John a favour, but he did ask him not to destroy priceless pews for the cost of the wood. Rex said he could get him a load of timber for less than he could sell one of those pews for.”
“A very useful offer, ma’am. Did Mr Melada accept?”
“Rex wasn’t sure. John said if he let Rex do what he wanted it would make the deal self-financing and that would please Happy, although he said he didn’t think Happy would see it like that.”
“What then?”
“I think Happy must have spoken to Rex about it, because Rex said to John that Happy mistrusted John’s motives. Ulterior they were, said Rex, but John said not ulterior motive but profit motive was the name of the game.”
“Was that all?”
“No. Rex came back quite angry. He said he’d told John that Happy thought that he, John, was getting tired of her and once he’d got the place set up he’d use it as a love-nest for himself among other things. And that would be the end for Happy. Rex believed Happy. John always was a womaniser and he’d lived with Happy for four years, so of course he wanted a change. He’d seized on the church as a good way of doing it. Of course John denied it, but Rex didn’t believe him. He knew John too well. He knew he’d been with other women while living with Happy and it stood to reason a dowdy little thing like her couldn’t hold on to a man like John Melada for ever.”
“So they quarrelled?”
“Just a bit. More than they’d ever done before.”
“Your husband took Happy’s part. Did he like her?”
“He didn’t want to see her hurt.”
“Very commendable of him. What happened next? Surely that wasn’t the end of the friendship between the two men?”
“It was almost. They met in a pub one night and I think things were back to normal.”
“Was that before Mr Melada knew he had been outbid for the church?”
“Oh yes. Yes, I think so.”
“Surely your husband must have told you: would have told you if Mr Melada had said a bigger bid had been put in?”
“He didn’t.”
“I see. How soon after that was it that Mrs Melada rang to ask to speak to your husband. The night you said he was out?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Please try to think, Mrs Belton. Was it the next night or two nights after?”
“When she rang? In the afternoon?”
“Yes.”
“That was two days after Rex had seen John.”
“Mr Melada had not returned home the night before. And your husband had only arrived home in time to go to bed. Wasn’t that unusual?”
“Well, yes.”
“Where had he been?”
“Out . . . with some customers. Oh, I don’t know.”
“You didn’t ask him?”
“No.”
“Not even though he came home hurt and you had to dress his wounds that night, all the next day and then the next morning, Friday, you had to go into Lincoln not for your usual groceries, but to replenish your medicine chest with Arnica, Witch Hazel, plasters and ointment?”
The dismay in her face might have been comical at any other time. Now it was pitiful. These men had known. Had known all the time. Her mouth had dropped open.
“How . . .?” she began. “How did you know that?”
“How we know is our affair, Mrs Belton. You used your husband’s car, so he wasn’t at work. He’d been at home ever since the night Melada disappeared, hadn’t he?”
There was no need for her to say yes.
“Did he fight with Melada?”
She nodded.
“What about?”
No reply.
“Come now, Mrs Belton. Your husband was doing one of his bits of business for his customers, wasn’t he? He was acting as agent for Alexander Heberden who had outbid Melada for the church. Melada had got to know or guessed. Is that right?”
“He’d guessed,” she whispered. “He said nobody knew about his bid except the office in Lincoln, the vicar and Happy, besides Rex and me. So it had to be one of us. He said he recognised Rex’s style or handiwork or something. Rex was the only one who knew Heberden and himself. . . .”
“He knew it was Heberden?”
“Oh yes. He’d asked who’d collected the key from the pub where it was kept.”
“Of course. But how did he get your husband to go to the churchyard?”
“I asked Rex that, and he said John didn’t. He followed him there.”
“Your husband was going?”
“Yes.”
“Why, Mrs Belton?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come along, Mrs Belton, why was he going there?”
“To pick something up, I think.” It was said in a whisper.
“He didn’t collect the key that night?”
“No.”
“So what he went to collect was in the churchyard?”
“I suppose so.”
“Something he had put there? Taken from the church and hidden for collection at a time when Heberden wasn’t with him? Something he wasn’t entitled to but which he reckoned had a market value and which Heberden would never miss?”
“It was only a little praying desk. A pre-something or another, Rex called it. A little carved oak thing.”
“A prie-dieu?”
“That was it.”
“Where is it now?”
By this time she was in tears. “Rex burnt it. Broke it up and burned it in the garden incinerator.”
Masters’ lips tightened. “He brought it home and destroyed it? Why? Because he knew it would link him with Melada’s death if he kept it or sold it?”
She nodded miserably. “He didn’t kill John. There was a fight. John started it. He went up to Rex and accused him of doing him dirt. Rex told him he had only done it because Happy had asked him to try and stop John buying the church.”
“I’ll accept that. But as persuasion wouldn’t work, your husband saw another way to stop Melada, and at the same time to make a bit of money for himself?”
She nodded again. “John was bigger and stronger than Rex. Rex got hit about the face and he said John would have beaten him up badly. But then John stumbled over something in the long grass and hit his head on a gravestone. Rex thought he was just knocked out, but he wasn’t. He was dead.”
“I see. So your husband panicked, instead of going to the police. He buried the body.”
“He always had samples of tools in the car. He had a spade.”
“I see. He buried Melada, picked up the prie-dieu which he knew was not only covered in his prints but which he knew the police would discover could only have been moved by him, and came home to you?”
“He was in an awful state. I looked after him, but he couldn’t go to work for the next two days, and after that it was the weekend to give him more time. But that girl kept ringing up to talk to him and tell him John was missing. . . .”
“I know,” said Masters sympathetically. “It must have been a terrible and worrying time for you.”
“And then . . . and then. . . .”
“Yes?”
“I’d got him all healed up and nothing had happened about John, so we were feeling a bit safer. He went out on the Wednesday evening and . . . and he just never came back.”
“And you’ve no idea where he was going or why?”
“I don’t know anything about it, except that he was quite worried. He said he’d got another job on. I told him to forget it, but he said it wouldn’t wait.”
Masters got to his feet.
“My advice to you Mrs Belton, is to try to forget all about it. I know that will be difficult, and it may be that we shall have to take a complete statement from
you. But we shall do our best to keep things quiet. After all, we can’t proceed against your husband, so there will be little point in pursuing the matter. We shall do our best. You do yours. If and when the statement is taken, hold nothing back. Make a clean breast of it. You will feel better and a lot of the worry will go.”
“Rex wasn’t a murderer.”
“That’s just as well,” said Green, “otherwise you might have been taken up as an accessory.”
*
“Where to now, Chief?”
“What’s the time? Twenty to one? Back to our hotel. We’ll see Mrs Heberden this afternoon.”
“I wonder if there’s beef pie on the menu?” murmured Green.
Chapter Seven
She was between fifty and fifty-five by Masters’ guess. Her face showed it, but her figure didn’t. She was gracious, in attitude, in movement, in manners. Her husband had been found, less than twenty-four hours earlier, dead in a sealed tomb built for one of his ancestors—killed in a way nobody as yet knew how—and yet she met her visitors as though they were welcome guests in normal life. Her hair was greying, but attractively coiffeured. Her summer frock was of simple cut, in well-pressed flowered cotton. She ushered them into the sitting-room and seated them in chintz-covered chairs that had seen years of service and offered still more.
“We’re on a melancholy errand, ma’am,” said Masters.
“You’re on an errand at a melancholy time,” she said so gently as not to make it appear a correction. “That is certainly not your fault, and I understand I am in your debt.”
“How, ma’am?”
“For finding Alexander. You do realise, don’t you, that had he not been found now, it is possible that he would always have been thought of as missing and I would have been left in a state of uncertainty and doubt for ever.” She smiled a little. “You see, I can’t think that anybody else would have bought St John’s and, even had they done so, that they would have uncovered the tomb after finding it sealed so firmly.”
“If the discovery has relieved your mind in any way, ma’am, we are very pleased.”
She got to her feet, picked up an onyx cigarette box from a coffee table and handed it round. Masters declined, saying he preferred a pipe. She asked him to smoke it if he wished.
It was all far more easy-going than Masters had dared hope. Green was at his most affable, heavily gallant. He didn’t address Mrs Heberden as love or lass, but he got close to it, as though to indicate that she and he were of the same generation.
“We’ve been wondering,” he said, “why Mr Heberden bought that church. We know, of course, that it’s been connected with the family since the year spit, but it’s been standing empty, available and for sale for years.”
“As you say, Mr Green, it has been our church for—as my grandson would say—yoinks. But Alexander, who wasn’t a great churchman, though he was, I believe, a good Christian, was quite content that it should remain empty.”
“He told you so?”
“He never mentioned it. Had he had ideas on the subject or had even thought about it, he would have talked to me. As we never discussed it, I feel safe in saying he was content that it should remain as it was, unused.”
“So what made him change his mind?”
“The man Belton, who sometimes called on him to discuss farm machinery, told him a story which disturbed him greatly.”
“And what was that, ma’am?”
“That the church was to be sold off very cheaply under the pretext that it was to be turned into a holiday retreat for artists. But, in fact, this pretext was to be a cover for the setting up of something much less desirable. Probably for the making of pornographic films and the production of scatological literature.
“As I said, he was a good Christian. By that I meant that he believed in standards and principles and lived up to them. Inbred in him was a sense—a protective sense—as far as our part of the country was concerned. He believed it was his duty to prevent the influx of people and, if you like, industries, which would have a deleterious effect on our area or indeed on the country as a whole.”
“So why didn’t he object to the Redundant Churches Commission?”
“Because to have done so without proof of his allegations would have been libellous. Before one could object one would have to have proof that the undesirable act was proceeding. Or at any rate, that is how Alexander viewed the matter. He didn’t want to be sued for defamation.”
“He thought it would be cheaper to buy the church?”
“Most assuredly he did when Mr Belton said he could get it for him for as little as five thousand pounds.”
“Plus a little something as an agent’s fee.”
“Naturally.”
“Would it surprise you to know that the man whom your husband outbid had only offered two thousand and would most certainly have got what he wanted had your husband not intervened?”
“I wonder why Belton told Alexander to bid five thousand when, say, two thousand five hundred would have done the trick? There would be nothing more in it for Belton as agent.”
“That’s easy,” said Green. “Melada was proposing to raise three thousand for modernising the place. Perhaps he had raised some of it and had told Belton how much. Belton wanted to make sure your husband’s bid topped everything Melada could rake up.”
“I think I understand.” She was hesitant.
“Don’t try, lady. The games these wheelers and dealers get up to are beyond the comprehension of such as you. But more to the point, can you tell us why your husband should have gone to the church that evening?”
“I’m afraid not. I was away at the time.”
“Have a guess. Was there anything urgent he wanted to do there that he’d told you about?”
“Just the opposite. He said he wasn’t even going to think about it until after all the summer shows were over. Then it would give him something to do in the winter.”
“Turning it into a music centre?”
She smiled. “That was largely my idea. I approved of buying the church, but I definitely thought that once we owned it we should do something with it.”
“Has the sale been finally settled?”
“Not yet. But I shall go through with it. I shall turn it into some sort of cultural centre in memory of Alexander.”
“A wise idea, ma’am.”
She looked at Masters. “It’s a little early, perhaps, but it is hot. Could I offer you tea?”
“You certainly could. We shall be delighted to join you.”
*
They were back in Webb’s office by five o’clock. Masters waited until a few minutes past the hour before ringing Watling, to give the pathologist a little leeway in case he had overslept.
Watling wasted no words. “I have my colleague here with me, Superintendent, and also his written report. His answers are exactly the same as mine. He, too, has been unable to isolate in either of the two bodies presented to us a cause for the fatal respiratory depression. That’s it officially. Unofficially, we’re bloody well stumped.”
“Thank you, doctor. It was what I expected so I’m not disappointed.”
“I am. I wish we could have helped.”
“In that way, so am I. But you know what I meant. Thank you for all the work you and your colleague have done. It has been very useful.”
“You’re joking, of course.”
“Not at all. At least you established what it wasn’t. We haven’t had to hare round the countryside looking for supplies of strychnine or arsenic or whatever.”
“There’s that, I suppose. But it’s a bit negative, isn’t it?”
“True. But even negatives are facts, and facts are what we both rely on.”
“I’m pleased you can take it so well. How are things going? Still keeping up the good work?”
“I believe we are. The pace may not have been quite so hot as yesterday, in that we haven’t uncovered any more dead bodies, but we’ve moved along a bi
t. When I see you I’ll explain.”
“You propose to call on me?”
“I have it in mind.”
“When? And what for?”
“I expect the day after tomorrow, though I can’t guarantee that.”
“What for?”
“I can’t tell you yet. It’s just an idea I have. I think I’d like to clarify things in my mind and then try it out on you.”
“As you wish. You’ll always be welcome and I’ll give you any help I can.”
“You’re very generous. Goodbye, doctor.”
*
“What was all that about?” asked Green who had been standing by during the phone call.
“It will take a session to tell you, Greeny. I want the help of your prodigious memory as well as your help in doing a number of jobs here.”
“Here? You say that as though you’ll be somewhere else.”
“Depending on what comes out of our session, I may be. Reed and I may have to go to London for the day tomorrow. We’ll take the train and leave the car with you and Berger.”
“It’s not just a swan is it?” queried Green.
“You’ll be able to judge that for yourself after we’ve talked. Right now, I think we’d better put Webb and Iliff in the picture. I don’t want them to feel left out just because they weren’t with us today. And by the time we’ve finished with them it’ll be time for a bath and a change and a long, cold drink before dinner.”
“Now you’re talking. Let’s get weaving. And incidentally. . . .”
“Yes?”
“What’s wrong with a long, cold drink before a bath as well as after?”
“You’ll be wanting one during your bath next.”
“Not a bad idea, that.”
*
They talked in Masters’ room after dinner. Green sprawled in the armchair, Masters on the bed.
“I want the benefit of your elephantine memory, Greeny.”
“Oh yes? What about?”
“Sometime—within the last twelve months, I think—there was a fatal accident to a veterinary surgeon reported.”
“That’s right. He’d accidentally injected himself with some drug he was shoving into an animal. From what I remember of the account, such accidents are by no means unknown, but when they’re using the really strong drugs they’re supposed to have another syringe ready filled with antidote. So they can bung it into themselves, or their assistants can, if the animal rears at the wrong moment and the vet himself gets the shot intended for the horse or cow or whatever.”
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