They finished up the breakfast in record time and left Simpkins at the Beeches. He offered to do the washing-up and mentioned that there were a few hardwood cuttings he wished to pot that afternoon. He and Edwina conferred briefly about the value of forsythia and flowering quince before Edwina could be convinced to fetch her hat and be bundled into the car.
Chapter 27
The reading room was empty when Edwina pushed open the heavy door and stepped inside. As always when she entered the light-filled space, with its shelves and shelves of books, she felt perfectly at home. If there was one place in the world she loved almost as much as the Beeches, it was the Walmsley Parva reading room.
Her mother had not approved of many of the sorts of books that Edwina enjoyed and had not allowed them to be stocked in the library at her home. Edwina’s father had been far more encouraging of her thirst for adventure novels but had found it difficult to stand up to his overbearing wife. As a compromise, when she was still quite a young girl, he had taken Edwina to the reading room and introduced her to the delights of popular fiction.
While Mrs. Davenport had been convinced of the value of improving literature and nonfiction, Edwina’s mild-mannered, bespectacled solicitor father had shown a surprising side to his character when he suggested to Edwina that he had always delighted in the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Wilkie Collins. He had admonished her not to tell her mother unless she asked directly about their trips to the reading room.
Edwina had made a point to select some things that her mother would believe were suitable on every visit in order to have a truthful but not entirely revelatory conversation with her mother about her current reading list. Over the years she had managed to work her way through much of the reading room’s collection. It was not until several months after her mother’s death that she had finally allowed herself not to add a cookery book or a history of the Visigoths or some such thing to her reading stack in order to fend off her mother’s admonishments.
It should have felt like a liberation to no longer need to continue the deception, but in fact, the first time she had not selected an improving book from the stacks had been a low point in Edwina’s life. It was as if in that one small act, she had accepted that her mother was well and truly gone from the face of the earth. Fortunately for Edwina, Beryl had appeared on the scene not long after and had raised her spirits considerably.
Edwina carried Hector’s books back to their spots and replaced them neatly on the shelves, sliding each carefully in next to its neighbor, except for the book she wished to keep for herself. That she had left back at the Beeches. But she reminded herself to update the reading room logbook so that others would know where the volume had gone and when it was expected to return.
As she ran her finger along the column and looked for Hector’s name in order to mark that his latest loans had been returned, she was not surprised to see that the book she wished to take out had been borrowed several weeks prior. She knew that she had been waiting for what seemed like forever, but Edwina had considered it possible that she was simply being impatient and unreasonable.
It was gratifying to realize that she had not. In the past, reading had taken up much more of her free time, and she had found it far more difficult to wait for her turn with popular volumes. Now that she and Beryl were involved with their private enquiry business, she had far too many distractions to spend much energy chomping at the bit for others to hurriedly return books.
Hector had borrowed the book more than six weeks earlier. How like such a man of poor character to be so selfish, she thought, tapping forcefully on the line in the ledger where he had written his name. She lifted the pen and marked the date when she had returned it.
The lengthy time during which the book had been in Hector’s possession certainly did not help to narrow down the time frame for the letter she had found tucked inside it. Still, she felt slightly proud of herself that she had thought to double-check such a thing. She made her own entries in the logbook, cast a fond glance around the reading room, and headed off to the butcher shop.
Sidney Poole stood behind the counter of his shop, looking as though he had nothing whatsoever to do. There were no other customers in this shop, and Edwina felt her timing was impeccable. She pulled the grocery list envelope from her handbag and stepped up to the counter.
“Good day to you, Miss Davenport,” Sidney said. “I’ve got a nice bit of lamb set aside if you’re interested.”
He inclined his head towards the back room, and Edwina understood that he was trying to offer her something special. She wondered at his motives. Did he have a guilty conscience about Hector’s murder? Sidney was not in the habit of treating her with special consideration. At least he hadn’t been over the course of time when her finances had fallen into arrears.
Beryl’s arrival and additional sources of income—gambling winnings and generous, albeit sporadic, alimony payments—had put her housekeeping accounts back on solid footing. But she didn’t think they had improved to the point where Sidney Poole would be holding back choice bits of lamb on her account. This was worthy of investigation.
“While that sounds simply lovely, it’s not, in fact, why I am here,” Edwina said, tapping on the envelope and sliding it across the counter. “Do you remember when you sold these items to Hector Lomax?”
Sidney picked up the envelope and squinted at it. Hector wrote in a clear hand, and Edwina was surprised to see Sidney taking his time over the handwriting. Was he having the sort of vision trouble so many people did in the middle years of life? Or was he using it as a ruse to buy some time to concoct a response to her question?
“Let me pull out my ledger,” Sidney said. “Hector usually put things on account, to be billed later. But I don’t have to tell you how that goes, do I?” Sidney gave Edwina a look that at one time would have brought a flush of shame to the back of her neck. Fortunately, Edwina found that she had been feeling much bolder since Beryl’s arrival. Was it the constant influence of her courageous friend or the newfound self-confidence she felt from her work as a private enquiry agent? Perhaps the source of the confidence did not matter as much as the fact that it had become a habit and a way of life.
Unfortunately, so had the tendency of tradesmen to become far more outspoken with the upper classes than ever they had been before the war. Edwina was all for changes of her own but was not always so inclined to be in favor of those embarked upon by others. This would never do. She would need to find a way to put him in his place if she wished to trade with him without trepidation.
“Yes, why don’t you do that,” Edwina said. “I haven’t much time to wait, so if you would attend to it immediately, I would appreciate it.”
“Busy with another investigation, are you?” Sidney said, lifting the ledger from beneath the counter and spreading it out between them.
“As a matter of fact, I am,” Edwina said.
“Isn’t this the sort of thing that Constable Gibbs should be asking?” Sidney said, running his finger along the ledger and then turning the page.
“I’m working on behalf of the client, who is not being served well by Constable Gibbs’s line of enquiry,” Edwina said.
“Young Jack Prentice, I believe, isn’t it?” Sidney said.
“Where did you hear that?” Edwina said.
“Everyone in the village is talking about it. No one thinks it likely that you and Miss Helliwell will come to any sort of success with this case. Here it is, a leg of mutton. Purchased six days ago. Was that all?” Sidney asked.
“It’s everything from the butcher on Hector’s list, but not everything I wanted to ask you about,” Edwina said. She stepped a little closer to the counter and looked Sidney directly in the face. “It’s my understanding that you had an argument yourself with Hector not long before he died. I was curious what it was about.”
“I am not in the curiosity business,” Sidney said. He closed the ledger with a bit more vigor than Edwina felt it required.
Good, she thought. She was getting under his skin.
“I understood it was likely that it had something to do with your wife,” Edwina said.
“Who said that?” Sidney said.
“I wasn’t sticking my nose in. I just happened to be at Alma’s beauty parlour when the subject of Hector came up. Your wife did not seem very happy about his behavior, and I assumed that you are the sort of husband who would be interested in defending her honor,” Edwina said.
Sidney was the kind of man who would not be able to resist flattery, especially where it concerned chivalrous behavior. She had often noticed him helping elderly women cross the street or brushing grit from the knees of small children who had taken a tumble outside his shop. Despite the fact that his business was one that dealt with the grizzlier side of food production, she knew him to be a man with a very tender heart.
“As much as I hate to say it, you’re right about the argument with Hector,” Sidney said.
“What exactly was he doing?” Edwina asked.
“He kept coming into the shop and bringing her gifts and cards,” Sidney said.
Despite having heard from Beryl that Hector had offered Alma a ring, she felt a slight shock of indignation. To bring gifts to another man’s wife, at her place of work, in front of the rest of the village, was outrageous. No wonder Sidney had been angry about the incident.
“What sorts of gifts?” Edwina asked.
“Flowers, baskets of fruit, even bits of jewelry,” Sidney said. “Alma was beside herself about the whole thing.”
“Well, of course she was. No decent woman wouldn’t have been,” Edwina said. “What did he hope to gain by that kind of behavior?”
“He seemed to think he could convince her to leave me,” Sidney said.
Edwina thought she had never heard of something so ridiculous in all her life. Alma and Sidney Poole had been married for over twenty years. The notion of her running off with another man seemed entirely preposterous. But from the look on Sidney’s face, he did not share her complete faith in his wife’s ability to resist the clumsy wooing of another man.
“I shouldn’t have thought you would have anything to worry about on that front,” Edwina said soothingly.
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Sidney said, running a fleshy hand across his brow. He exhaled deeply, and Edwina found she felt quite sorry for him. “But you never know, do you? You know, I’ve been worried about something like this happening my entire marriage.”
Edwina was even more shocked. The Pooles had always seemed like a solid example of a successful and prosperous marriage. The idea that Sidney felt some trepidation as to its constancy provided Edwina with a remarkable insight into the lives of one of her fellow villagers.
“I certainly would not be one to tell you how to run a marriage. After all, it’s not as though I’m an expert on such matters,” Edwina said. “But I do know that Alma never has anything but supportive and fond things to say about you whenever I’m in the beauty shop.”
“Things like this just make me crazy,” Sidney said.
“What is it that you think could happen? Why are you so worried?” Edwina said.
“My Alma is so glamorous, I’m constantly afraid that she’ll feel too good for me. After all, I’m no Douglas Fairbanks, am I?” Sidney gestured to his watermelon-sized stomach and gave Edwina a sad grin.
Edwina had never given much thought to whether or not Alma was glamorous. Although, by the standards of Walmsley Parva perhaps, it could be said that she was a well-turned-out woman. Until Beryl had arrived in the village, Edwina supposed an argument could be made that Alma was the most fashion-conscious, sophisticated, and glamorous-looking woman in the village. Her position as proprietress of the only beauty salon in town required she project a certain sort of image.
“I can see why you would be upset. Did something bring it all to a head that night at the pub?” Edwina asked.
“Alma told me that Hector asked her to run away with him. He said they could make a new life together somewhere far from here,” Sidney said.
Edwina noticed a slight wobble in his lower lip. His tenderhearted nature extended to his marriage, from the looks of it. She felt an overwhelming urge to pat his hand but of course refrained from doing so. It was hardly the behavior of a savvy investigator to comfort those being interrogated.
“Hector had plans to up and leave Walmsley Parva?” Edwina asked.
“For all I know, it was just so much banter on his part. Alma told me that he made the same sorts of propositions to all sorts of women and that I shouldn’t be so concerned that he had singled her out for any special attention,” Sidney said.
“But this happened just before your argument at the pub?”
“It happened earlier that day. He stopped into her shop and made the suggestion in front of the shampoo girl, Hattie. Alma told him to get out and then came right over to let me know. I couldn’t believe it when Hector had the gall to come in here and try to buy some sausages from me.”
“You refused to sell him anything?” Edwina said.
“In fact, I did. I told him that from now on he needed to get his meat somewhere else, since this butcher shop was off limits to the likes of him,” Sidney said, crossing his arms across his chest. “He didn’t take my words too kindly.”
“So you took up the argument again at the pub later that day?” Edwina said.
“Just the sight of him pushed me nearly over the edge, but when he started making comments about Alma’s legs and comparing them to the leg of mutton he had purchased at the store a couple days earlier, I lost my temper,” Sidney said.
“I should think you would have. Did anyone else in the pub hear his comments?” Edwina said.
Even if Sidney were not the one to have killed him, he would make a very fine suspect if anyone else knew the extent of Hector’s effrontery towards Mrs. Poole.
“I was in a blind rage, so I haven’t any idea who heard what. I know he leaned forward when he said it to me, so it’s possible he was speaking in a low tone. Hector was someone who enjoyed being sly,” Sidney said.
“I don’t suppose you have an alibi for the time of his death, do you?” Edwina asked.
“I shouldn’t think so. I took my time getting home after I left the pub. I wanted to cool down before I saw Alma. It always upsets her to see me so angry,” Sidney said. “Not that I needed to worry about that.”
“Why? Wasn’t Alma home when you returned?” Edwina said.
“She didn’t arrive for quite some time afterwards,” Sidney said. “Does it matter?”
Edwina wasn’t sure how much to tell him. Alma being away from home could be very significant to the investigation indeed. She seemed to remember quite distinctly that Alma had said she was at home with her husband at the approximate time of the murder. She was going to have to discuss the matter with Beryl. If neither of the Pooles could give an alibi for the other, either one of them made a very fine suspect.
Chapter 28
The Palais Cinema, owned and operated by one Clarence Mumford, sat in a position of prominence on the high street of Walmsley Parva. The afternoon matinee was scheduled to start momentarily, and Beryl spotted the ticket girl, Eva Scott, making change for a final patron. Her timing could not have been more perfect to stop by and ask the young woman a few questions.
Beryl pushed open the heavy glass door with its polished brass handle and allowed it to swish shut behind her. As she crossed the plush carpeting and delivered a beaming smile to Eva, she wondered what her life would have been like if she had accepted the repeated invitations by a well-known film director to star in one of his many productions.
She had toyed with the idea from time to time and had even gone so far as to visit one of his sets in order to be better informed about the ins and outs of the industry. While she did not feel proud of those things that were not of her doing, but rather were gifts of nature, she realized that she had a highly photogenic face. Whe
never she appeared on newsreels or in newspaper articles or magazines, she was well aware that she looked every bit a starlet.
But the film director, handsome though he was, had set her internal alarm ringing. She had made one or two foolish decisions with men in her earlier years and through hard-won experience had learned not to repeat them. After all, what fun were mistakes if you kept making the same ones? She vastly preferred all new mistakes. She was all the more certain she had made the right decision when, after turning him down for a fifth time, a scandal broke involving him and a cruel assault on a very young girl.
Beryl was all for people having the sort of fun they chose behind closed doors. But she only approved if all parties involved were consenting wholeheartedly. Still, she couldn’t help wonder about the path not taken whenever she looked up at the large posters with their leading ladies splashed across them, doe eyes and red lips staring down at her, as if to say she could have been amongst their ranks.
All in all, she thought, she was far better off living the sort of footloose life she had embarked upon. Even if that life had surprisingly taken her wandering feet to a tied-down place like Walmsley Parva. Beryl was a great believer in the unimaginable occurring. Just because the average starlet was barely out of her teens did not mean that she and Edwina would never make a splash on the screen.
For all she knew, someone would wish to commit their exploits to film one day, and perhaps the pair of them would play themselves on the silver screen. With that happy notion in mind, she threw back her shoulders and crossed the now empty lobby to where Eva Scott leaned against her fist across the glass-topped counter.
“Quite a crowd today, Eva,” Beryl said.
Eva straightened up and smiled back at her. The two of them had gotten to know each other when Beryl had first come to Walmsley Parva. Eva had an acquaintance with some of the people involved in the very first case she and Edwina had solved. They had been fast friends ever since. Beryl saw a bit of herself in the younger woman, who seemed to chafe at the strictures small village life constantly sought to impose upon her. Beryl thought it her civic duty as a woman of the world to give encouragement to those whose wings looked likely to be clipped.
Murder Cuts the Mustard Page 17