“Is that all you heard of the conversation? It seems like little proof of an argument,” Edwina said.
“There was far more information to be gleaned from their demeanors. Mrs. Kimberly went so far as to jab Geraldine in the shoulder several times. I remember watching Geraldine reach up and rub the spot as if it hurt her,” Prudence said, with a ring of satisfaction in her voice. “If Geraldine had gone to the constable to swear in a complaint, it would not have surprised me. To think, I would have been a witness.”
Edwina almost felt sorry for Prudence when she heard the note of wistfulness in the postmistress’s voice. What sort of a life was she leading that being called as a witness to a minor assault charge seemed like such a pleasurable activity? Edwina was more grateful than ever for Beryl’s suggestion that they open the enquiry agency. She would have hated to have turned out to be someone with such a small life. She suddenly found the atmosphere in the shop depressing and oppressive. She gave Beryl a look that she hoped indicated she wished to leave.
“Take heart, Miss Rathbone,” Beryl said. “I am quite sure the constable will be eager to hear your statement about the argument you saw. It seems you were a witness, after all, considering Geraldine has turned up dead.”
“If I were you, I’d close up shop for a few minutes and head over to let her know what you saw. It could prove invaluable to her investigation,” Edwina said.
“Do you really think so?” Prudence asked, stepping out from behind the counter and ushering them towards the door.
“It would be your civic duty,” Beryl said.
Prudence nodded and yanked open the door. She flipped the sign hanging upon it to the CLOSED side, waited for Beryl and Edwina to exit, then pulled it firmly shut not even remembering to lock it behind her.
“That serves Constable Gibbs right for being so dismissive, doesn’t it?” Edwina asked as she watched Prudence practically break into a trot as she struck off in the direction of the crime scene.
“It also means that the longer the constable is tied up with Prudence, the later it will be before she interviews anyone else. Since we are in the village already, let’s take the opportunity to ask a few more questions of our own, with the hope it will help secure Frank’s release.”
“What did you have in mind?” Edwina asked.
“I want to ask Sidney Poole once more about his story concerning the night of Hector’s murder. Why don’t you run your errands to the bakery, like you planned, and keep your ears open for anything that might be said about Geraldine,” Beryl said.
With that, they parted ways, having agreed to meet back up by teatime at the Beeches.
Chapter 36
When Beryl entered Sidney’s butcher shop, he was nowhere to be seen. She opened and closed the door a second time, hoping the jangling of the bell would call him from wherever he had gotten off to. She expected he was still behind the shop, keeping an eye on the activity at the crime scene or simply talking it over with the other shopkeepers if Constable Gibbs had completed her search of the area.
Beryl had no interest in encountering Constable Gibbs for a second time that afternoon. Truth be told, she was not eager to catch sight of the unfortunate Geraldine a second time. While she tried to take a matter-of-fact attitude towards most of life’s tragedies, the fact was, like so many others, Beryl had seen far too many dead bodies in the course of her lifetime.
She didn’t like to dwell upon the horrors she had witnessed during the war years, but it could be said she had seen more than her fair share of them. Her eagerness to travel the globe had brought her in contact with the war on many fronts, and no matter where she roamed, the consequences had been devastating. From Africa to France and even to the Russian front, Beryl had memories she wished to block out. Geraldine’s lifeless eyes staring up at the sky had reminded her of another young woman, whose body she had stumbled across deep in enemy territory on one of her ventures. She pushed the thought from her mind, strode to the wooden counter, and firmly depressed the service bell.
Sidney appeared a moment later. His round cheeks were flushed, and she thought that for a man who was so used to cutting up carcasses, he looked rattled by a human corpse appearing behind his shop.
“Are you here to do some shopping, Miss Helliwell?” he asked. “I have some smoked ham that’s just arrived, and I understand it’s very good today.” He gestured towards the window where cuts of meat hung from hooks for all the village to see. Beryl politely turned and glanced in the direction he indicated, not wishing to dismiss his offerings so lightly.
“I shall keep that in mind, but it’s Edwina who is generally responsible for such decisions. I would not dare to purchase an entire ham without her expressly wishing me to do so. She’s rather a stickler about the housekeeping,” Beryl said.
“What brings you in, then?” Sidney asked. “I saw you behind the shop, so I know you know about Geraldine. Are you here on the case?” He came out from behind the counter and stood next to her, leaning his considerable bulk against a freestanding shelf holding some dusty tins of smoked tongue.
“I’m afraid I need to ask you again about your whereabouts at the time of Hector’s murder. I’ve spoken with your wife, and she has confirmed that she was not actually at home when you say that the two of you were together,” Beryl said.
Sidney’s posture improved instantly. He had not been expecting her question. That much was clear.
“The fact that she wasn’t home doesn’t mean that I wasn’t there,” Sidney said.
“It’s not just your wife’s inability to give you an alibi for the time of Hector’s murder that brings me in. I’ve also interviewed a witness who saw you arguing with Hector just in front of the cinema. I seem to remember you telling me you did not see him again after you left the pub.”
Sidney swallowed, and Beryl watched his Adam’s apple bob slowly in his thick neck. His eyes darted towards the door, as if he wondered at his chances of giving her the slip. While she was not a small woman, she would bet on herself against Sidney in a footrace if it came to that. Besides, she would not be above sticking out her foot and tripping him if he was foolish enough to make a run for it. Fortunately, he decided upon the high road.
“I did speak with Hector. I had had too much to drink at the pub, and the more I thought about his forward behavior towards my wife, the angrier I became,” he said.
“Going past the cinema wasn’t the fastest route to get home. What made you decide to go that way? Were you following Hector?” Beryl asked. She kept her eyes trained on Sidney’s face, hoping to detect a subtle tell if he was lying.
“I decided to take the long way home. I was hoping to sober up a bit before I got there, and I wasn’t in any hurry to do so, anyway. I had lost quite a bit of money on the Derby, and I wasn’t eager to have to tell that to Alma,” he said.
“So you weren’t following Hector on purpose?”
“No, not at first, but when I saw him up ahead of me, I quickened my pace in order to confront him.”
“Did you threaten him?” Beryl asked.
“I expect that I did. I can’t remember for sure. Like I said, I did have quite a lot to drink,” Sidney said.
“Did you have so much to drink that you can’t actually remember whether or not you harmed him?” Beryl said. “It wouldn’t be the first time someone killed another person while in a blind drunken rage.”
“I admit to having had too much to drink and to following Hector out of the pub. I caught up with him in front of the cinema and gave him a whacking great piece of my mind. But I didn’t lay a hand on him.”
“Is there anyone who can vouch for you about that?” Beryl asked.
“Since Alma wasn’t home, I don’t suppose there is. You can believe me or not.”
“What about Geraldine? Do you have any thoughts about what might’ve happened to her?” Beryl asked.
“None whatsoever. Geraldine was always a nice girl, and I can’t think of a reason anyone would have had
to hurt her. It’s just a shame, really. I can’t imagine what the village is coming to,” Sidney said.
“Have you ever heard anyone mention that Geraldine listened in on telephone conversations?” Beryl asked.
“I’ve never heard something like that, and I don’t think it’s nice of you to be putting about that sort of a rumor. Like I said, Geraldine was well liked, and I expect that it will turn out to be some sort of a madman who just came upon her, dragged her out behind the shop, and killed her right there,” Sidney said.
Beryl thought he seemed to have developed quite a detailed imagining of the crime. Then again, she had to wonder if he had imagined it or if he was, in fact, remembering exactly what had happened.
Chapter 37
Minnie Mumford’s tea shop was known for its delicious cakes and scones, but Edwina decided to purchase her baked goods from the bakery up the street. She did not wish to endure any barrage of questions from Minnie that a stop into the Silver Spoon Tearoom was likely to yield. The bakery sat at the far end of the street and was better known for its loaves of whole-meal bread and floury baps than teatime treats, but Edwina felt she had made the right decision.
She was even more convinced when she stepped into the warm, yeasty-smelling shop and spotted Nurse Crenshaw peering into a basket filled with baguettes.
“Hello, Nurse Crenshaw,” Edwina said. “Are you enjoying a rare afternoon off?”
“Rare and unexpected,” Nurse Crenshaw said. The nurse was a thin greyhound of a woman. Her features were delicate, and her aura was that of a quivering race dog. Edwina had never warmed to her, but as she was the nurse for the only doctor in Walmsley Parva, Edwina made a point of treating her with as much courtesy as she could muster whenever they met.
“Were you not expecting to have the afternoon off, then?” Edwina asked.
“No indeed. The doctor was called away on account of the tragedy with Geraldine, and he asked me to cancel all his afternoon appointments. He said that I was welcome to leave the surgery as soon as I had done so. Of course, I couldn’t telephone the patients, so I had to send an errand boy out with messages for them all.”
“What a lot of fuss,” Edwina said. “I don’t envy you the task of getting ahold of everyone. We’ve come to rely on the telephone so quickly, haven’t we?” Edwina said.
“It does make things much more efficient, at least when the switchboard operator is available to attend to her duties,” Nurse Crenshaw said, pursing her thin lips. Edwina marveled at the fact that the woman made it sound as though Geraldine was guilty of a dereliction of duty as opposed to being the victim of a violent crime. Still, there was no need to ruffle the nurse’s feathers.
“Beryl and I were rather inconvenienced by the inability to use our own telephone today, so I completely understand your difficulty. I hope you didn’t have too many appointments you needed to cancel,” Edwina said.
“Fortunately, there were only two. I was able to send a messenger to the vicarage and then along to the Smith farmhouse. Old Mr. Smith has not managed to recover completely from his bout with pneumonia over the winter,” the nurse said.
“I recommended that a visitor to the village, Mrs. Kimberly, make an appointment with the doctor for today. She was not one of the ones you had to cancel?” Edwina said.
The nurse’s face tightened. “Mrs. Kimberly was one of the fortunate patients to visit the surgery this morning. Not that it did her any good, mind you.”
“I should’ve thought the doctor would have been more than capable of addressing her difficulties. He is so well respected in the community,” Edwina said. She had not found him to be the most helpful of medical men herself, but there was no reason to put Nurse Crenshaw’s back up. It was widely known in Walmsley Parva that the nurse doted on her employer. Any harsh words of criticism were unlikely to endear Edwina to her.
“It’s hardly the doctor’s fault if the silly woman didn’t know he could be of no real use, considering she doesn’t actually have a medical problem,” Nurse Crenshaw said.
“She’s not beyond help, is she?” Edwina said. While Mrs. Kimberly had appeared unwell the evening before, she had not looked like someone wasting away. She had simply looked a bit green about the gills.
“I should think not. She’s just a time waster. Women these days seem to have less and less sense all the time,” Nurse Crenshaw said, lowering her voice. “After all, what sort of woman does not expect to feel queasy during the first few months she is expecting?”
Chapter 38
One thing Beryl had not counted on when she had proposed the idea of starting a private enquiry agency was how often she would encounter people who felt no compunction at lying to her. When she came to think on it, Beryl realized she had been lied to more frequently in the past few weeks than in the entire rest of her life put together.
At least she knew that she had been lied to more frequently. It was possible that she had been lied to at similar intervals throughout the rest of her life but had not spent sufficient time in any one location to confirm that such a thing had occurred. She did not care for the experience at all. The realization left her in a confrontational state of mind.
Feeling hot under the collar, she left the butcher shop and made straight for Alma’s House of Beauty. As she stepped through Alma’s doorway, she realized that Edwina had been lied to recently too. Beryl swept her gaze around the room, which was empty save for Alma, who stood behind her chair, sweeping hair off its surface with a small whisk broom. Alma looked up expectantly, but her smile faded as she took in Beryl’s expression.
“Were you dissatisfied with your wash and set the other day? Hattie is still learning, so sometimes things go a bit amiss,” Alma said.
“I am not here to discuss my hair but rather to discuss yours,” Beryl said, closing the gap between them and pointing at Alma’s head. “You led Edwina to believe that you had been busy dyeing your hair at the time of Hector’s death. She was easily taken in since she is not well versed in the properties of hair coloring.”
Alma’s eyes widened, and she clutched her small broom defensively in front of her torso, as if to ward off an attack on her vital organs.
“What makes you think that I was not telling the truth?” Alma said. One of her hands snuck up to the side of her head, and she carefully patted her hairdo.
“Your roots,” Beryl said, removing one of her gloves and reaching out to point her finger at Alma’s center part. “You would not have roots like that if you had colored your hair on Saturday evening. Where were you really?”
Alma’s shoulders slumped, and she dropped the broom with a clatter to the floor. She made her way around to the front of the chair and sat in it heavily. Beryl felt her anger evaporate as she looked at Alma’s stricken face.
“You mustn’t tell Sidney. Please, promise me you won’t tell him,” Alma said.
“I’ve had more than my fair share of husbands. Unless what you share with me is necessary to solve the case, I shan’t tell anyone save Edwina,” Beryl said. “But that’s the best that I can promise you. And I shall not stop asking questions until I get to the truth.” She sank into the seat next to Alma and pulled off her second glove. She wished for Alma to believe she had all the time in the world to hear her story.
Alma heaved a deep sigh. “I was with Milton Boyers,” she said.
Beryl looked at Alma with new respect. While she thought nothing of peering into cradles and extracting the contents, she knew most women were unlikely to do the same. And truth be told, even if they wished for dalliances with younger men, their interest was infrequently reciprocated.
Beryl did not think Alma likely to be such a woman. With her loose-fitting smock, slightly smeared lipstick, and sensible shoes, Alma was a dark horse indeed. Milton Boyers was no older than twenty-five, and despite her artful use of hair dye, Beryl estimated Alma to be in her fifties. Truly, the longer she thought on that, the more astonished she felt.
“No smoke without fire, then
,” Beryl said. “Your husband was consumed with jealousy, but he pointed his suspicions in entirely the wrong direction.”
“I don’t want you to mention it to my husband, because Sidney would be very jealous, but you have taken the entirely wrong impression. I was with Milton, and I was keeping it a secret because of Sidney’s jealousy. But I wasn’t doing anything wrong,” Alma said. “At least not in the way you are implying.”
Beryl noted two spots of bright color on Alma’s cheeks. If the hairdresser had not been conducting a romantic liaison, she wondered just what she had been up to.
“What were you doing with that young man, then?” Beryl said.
Alma glanced towards the door, as if to be sure no one was about to enter, before answering. “If you must know, I was giving him dancing lessons. The poor lad was entirely smitten with Geraldine, and he had been taking her out dancing in an effort to woo her.”
“Where did these so-called dancing lessons take place?” Beryl said, trying to keep the note of disbelief from her voice. Nothing about Alma suggested her middle-aged body contained the soul of a lighthearted dancer.
“Here in the shop, of course.” Alma swept her hand out in front of her. “The chairs all push back, and the curtains in the windows provided sufficient privacy. Milton would slip out the back door of the cabinetmaker’s shop, and I would let him in the back door here so that no one would see him.”
“How long had this been going on?” Beryl asked.
“A couple of months,” Alma said.
“And you just felt sorry for him? You were willing to risk trouble in your own marriage to help the boy out?” Beryl asked.
“Not exactly. He paid me for the lessons,” Alma said.
“From the looks of things, I should have thought that your shop and Sidney’s were both doing quite well. What need would you have had for the money provided by dancing lessons?”
Murder Cuts the Mustard Page 23