The Valentine Murder

by Evelyn James

“We have sausages and potatoes for supper,” Ellen called out to her father. “I’ve rung mother and she says that everything is fine at the farm. She said if you were not home by eight, she would assume you were staying here for the night.”

  Mr Blyth gave a slight wince as he took a chair at the table.

  “Don’t say I fancy a walk home after today,” he sighed. “Every winter is a little harder on my hips.”

  “You could give up the farm, come live with us,” Ellen said to him lightly.

  “Now wash your mouth out, young lady,” Mr Blyth said with a smile. It was plain this was a conversation they had frequently, and which always resulted in Mr Blyth refusing to give up his farm. “Where is this food I have been promised?”

  They all settled around the table, appreciating the warmth of the kitchen. Baby Gus, as the toddler of the family was known, was playing with blocks on a rag rug, while the twins were sleeping in their crib. Bramble, who had been left behind while the dog hunt was in progress, was watching Baby Gus with grave intensity, as if he had undertaken to guard the infant with his life. He was keeping a keen distance from Patch too, just in case the other dog was not welcoming to canine guests.

  O’Harris had laid the watch on the table and was now turning it back and forth in the flicker of the light from the oil lamp. Tommy borrowed the lamp from where it was set on the windowsill and brought it closer to assist him.

  “It appears to be an inscription marking the reason the watch was presented to someone,” O’Harris said. “I can read 1855 and something like ‘in recognition of the heroic bravery,’ then it is rather worn away before ‘saving of the lives of… from drowning.’ Does any of that make sense?”

  “Why don’t we try the old trick of rubbing over the back with paper and pencil?” Tommy suggested. “It might help. Annie, is there any paper and a pencil in the house?”

  Annie did not reply instead Ellen, whose house it was and who was fully aware of where everything was kept, pointed out a drawer in the Welsh dresser that contained string, paper and pencils. Tommy retrieve the items and handed them to O’Harris. He laid the paper over the back of the watch and started to rub with the pencil. The words started to appear, a little clearer now, though parts were still too worn away to read. O’Harris removed the piece of paper and read from it aloud.

  “This watch was presented on 7 August 1855 in recognition of the heroic bravery of Mr Jacob Beech, whose selfless actions resulted in the saving of the lives of three boys from drowning when their boat capsized. Presented by the Mayor of Hove.”

  “Oh, of course!” Mr Blyth said. “My grandfather would talk about that. Old Jacob Beech had rescued these lads from the river. He weren’t old then, though, he were but a young man himself. He nearly drowned in the process. Had to swim out three times for all the boys. People called him a hero and clubbed together to give him that watch.”

  “Jacob Beech?” Clara tested the name in her mind. “Was he a relation to William Beech?”

  “He was his late father,” Mr Blyth nodded happily.

  Clara’s eyes fell on the watch.

  “And William kept his father’s watch?”

  “Oh yes, always carried it on him,” Mr Blyth agreed. “Proud of it he was.”

  And then slowly it dawned on him what he was saying, and his eyes fell on the watch along with everyone else’s.

  “William’s watch,” he whispered in a hush. “What were it doing in a rabbit burrow?”

  “I don’t know,” Clara said, staring at the watch as if it was some terrible thing. She was feeling a tremor of unease. “But we need to take this to the police.”

  Chapter Five

  Annie insisted they eat dinner before they left to speak to the police, and no one ever argued with Annie when it came to meal arrangements. Ellen was close to falling asleep at the table, so exhausted from taking care of three small children and her sick husband. Clara did not want to impose on the family any longer than she had to. When dinner was done, she gave O’Harris and Tommy a conspiratorial look and then made her excuses to Annie.

  “Take good care, old thing,” Tommy said to Annie as he started to leave. He kissed her on the cheek and for a brief moment they slipped into a comfortable embrace neither wanted to break. Then one of the babies began to cry and Ellen nearly fell off her chair as she jerked awake.

  Annie stepped back from Tommy.

  “I shall be just fine,” she promised him. “It’s not as if I shall be leaving the house and roaming the countryside.”

  Tommy did not look entirely convinced, but he did not argue. He followed Clara and O’Harris to the waiting car. It was pitch black outside, not even a wisp of a moon to give them some light, and a fine drizzle was falling, the sort that seemed to get into your bones and made you feel wetter than if you had been caught in a heavy downpour.

  Clara was glad when Jones turned on the car headlights and a small chunk of the world was illuminated by the beams.

  “Brighton police station?” Jones asked her.

  “Yes, please,” Clara said.

  Jones turned the car around in the farmyard and they watched the beams pick out the walls and timbers of the outbuildings in a staccato set of images, like the flicker of a movie reel. Then they were out on the road and the high hedges made everything feel claustrophobic.

  “Hard to think of a gruesome murder occurring out here,” O’Harris said, trying to see across the fields without success.

  “I don’t know, seems the perfect place to commit a nasty crime,” Tommy said, still feeling morbid. “No one is likely to see you. Think when we looked for Patch, we didn’t see another soul except for ourselves.”

  That thought brought them back to silence again.

  Clara had the pocket watch wrapped in a handkerchief in her lap. She had vaguely thought about the possibility of fingerprints when she used her clean hanky to package it up, but she was not convinced the police would find any. Not only had nearly all of them handled the watch, but it had been sitting in the soil with a dog scrabbling around it.

  The watch was worrying her a lot. Why had it been sitting in a rabbit hole in a lonely copse? If the killer had dumped it, why had he taken it in the first place? She wished she had asked Mr Blyth just how far they were from the site of poor Mr Beech’s murder when they found the watch, but she was also glad she had not. Had they discovered the farm was situated close to the murder scene, Tommy would never have left the house, convinced Annie was in mortal peril.

  “In novels, the watch always stops at the time of death of the murder victim,” O’Harris remarked, making an effort to lighten the mood.

  “Yes, that is terribly convenient,” Clara smirked. “Killers seem to have a habit of breaking watches to assist the police in deciding when the victim died.”

  “I suppose it helps with the crafting of the story,” O’Harris replied. “Some of these writers need all the help they can get.”

  “Sherlock Holmes would have determined the killer’s age, appearance, religious inclinations and name from a single clue like that,” Tommy said from the front seat.

  “If only police detection was as simple in real life,” Clara chuckled. “I shall inform the inspector that he has all he needs to catch the murderer right here.”

  In that moment they all seemed to realise how light-hearted they were being about a grisly murder of an old, vulnerable man and the conversation lulled once more. They maintained their silence this time for the whole journey to the police station.

  It was well into the evening and the big blue lamp outside the station door that proclaimed ‘police’ in black letters on the glass was brightly glowing over the pavement. Everywhere had a wet sheen to it, and the roads and buildings looked almost as if they had been slicked with oil. Clara made sure the watch was wrapped up well in the hanky as she exited the car. She was not surprised that both Tommy and O’Harris followed her, though she would have been happy to go into the police station alone.

  Insi
de, the desk sergeant gave Clara a thoughtful look as he took a sip from a strong cup of tea. It was a quiet weekday evening, no trouble at the moment, and Clara’s appearance was a welcome break from the monotony of simply standing and watching the doors.

  “Miss Fitzgerald.”

  The current desk sergeant was a far cry from his predecessor who had despised Clara, and she always greeted him warmly.

  “Good evening, Sergeant. Is the Inspector about?”

  “Still in his office,” the desk sergeant had a grim look. “There has been a nasty bit of business over in Hove.”

  “I have heard,” Clara admitted. “In fact, that is why I am here. I think I may have something relevant to the case for the Inspector.”

  “He isn’t in a great mood,” the desk sergeant warned her. “This murder has ruffled more feathers than you might imagine. Some silly fool has spread the story that a maniac is on the loose. You can imagine the trouble that has caused us. All afternoon I have been receiving calls from concerned old ladies and gents, about suspicious people hanging around their houses or gardens. Of course, a constable has to be sent out just to be sure and to calm them down. Nothing sinister about the reports though.”

  Tommy shuffled his feet, conscious that he too had succumbed to panic at the discovery of a murderer in Hove.

  “Anyway, you know the way to the Inspector’s office, here, wait a moment and I shall make a cup of tea you can take to him. A peace offering,” the desk sergeant scuttled away to give instructions for tea to be made for the inspector. He was not gone long and returned with a cup and saucer and a plate of biscuits. “See if these don’t cheer him up.”

  “Thank you,” Clara said, honestly glad of his help, then, with her gifts in hand, she headed up the stairs followed by Tommy and O’Harris.

  Clara knew the inspector’s office well, they had held many a meeting there, discussing some case that was causing them both issues. Her working relationship with the inspector was generally very good. She avoided stepping on his toes and he avoided referring to her own investigations as interfering. They often shared information, though occasionally she knew the inspector would prefer her not poking around in his business. She rather felt her arrival was going to paint her in a bad light, make it look as though she could not resist becoming involved in a murder. From the outside, it might almost appear ghoulish that she was showing an interest in a crime when she had not been asked to investigate it. But she could not help when a coincidence involved her in a crime, could she?

  Apprehensive, and with the teacup rather perilously balanced in her hand, she attempted to knock at the door. O’Harris saw her struggling and quickly interceded, rapping his knuckles on the wood. There was a long pause before they were asked to enter. O’Harris turned the door handle and pushed the door open for Clara. She stepped inside first, with the boys behind her.

  Inspector Park-Coombs was sat at his desk, leaning over some papers that did not seem to please him. He looked up as he heard a person enter.

  “Clara?”

  “I brought you tea and biscuits,” Clara said quickly, wanting to explain her presence before he had a chance to start thinking about what she was doing there. “I also bring something that might be important in your Hove case.”

  She deposited the cup and biscuits on his desk and then drew out the pocket watch, placing it right before him, on top of the papers, and unfolding the handkerchief.

  “What is this?” Park-Coombs said.

  Clara sensed a note of annoyance in his tone – was it because he thought she was putting her nose where it should not be?

  “Mr William Beech’s pocket watch,” Clara said quickly. “We discovered it while searching for a missing terrier called Patch who had found himself down a rabbit hole. The watch was also in the rabbit hole.”

  Park-Coombs frowned at her.

  “What were you doing in Hove?”

  She could almost hear him mentally add, ‘were you poking around my crime scene?’

  “Annie has gone to assist a friend in Hove whose husband is sick with ‘flu. They live at Three Pigs Farm,” Tommy was the one to come forward and explain. “It was my fault we were out there. When I heard about the murder in Hove, I became afraid for Annie and insisted we go out to see she was all right and warn her.”

  “Warn her?” Park-Coombs asked.

  “About there being a savage killer on the loose, a madman,” Tommy blushed a little as his own words came back to him. They did sound ridiculous when you said them aloud.

  Park-Coombs gave a small groan.

  “How far has that rumour gone?” He moaned to himself, then to the others. “There is no reason to suppose a lunatic is on the loose. Clearly a horrible crime has been committed, but at this stage I don’t feel the public should be afraid for their lives. Though, seeing the number of telephone calls my desk sergeant has received today, I am obviously not believed in this statement.”

  Park-Coombs suddenly paused, a thought coming to him.

  “Where is Three Pigs Farm in Hove?”

  “Oh, I have a map from the car,” O’Harris pulled the map from his pocket. He had used it that afternoon to help them locate the farm, giving Jones’ directions from the back seat. He opened it to the correct section and spread it out on the inspector’s desk. “Three Pigs is right here, down this lane.”

  The farm was marked on the map, a small red square indicating where the farmhouse stood.

  “Where did you find this watch?” Park-Coombs continued.

  O’Harris turned the map around so he could look at it properly.

  “We went up into this big field and then across this stile where a public footpath is marked. So, this copse must be where we found Patch and the watch.”

  He turned the map back to Park-Coombs, his finger pressed to a symbolic drawing of trees that were labelled as Spinner’s Copse. The inspector picked up a pencil from his desk, studied the map for a moment or two and then drew a careful X on the paper.

  “That is where we found the body of William Beech,” he said.

  Clara was peering over O’Harris’ shoulder and she felt herself grow cold as she saw how close the X on the map was to where they had been searching for Patch. It could not have been more than a mile to the murder scene.

  Tommy came to look, noticing the sudden tension in his sister. The colour drained from his face.

  “That is right near Three Pigs Farm!”

  “Actually, I would say it is a good five or six miles from the farmhouse,” Park-Coombs said, noting his concern. “There is no reason to be worried about Annie.”

  Tommy was not convinced.

  “The killer was in that very area just a few hours before Annie arrived at the farm. She had to walk from the bus stop, think of that! She might have walked right past the killer!”

  “Tommy, you are being irrational about this,” Clara informed him. “Annie is at the farmhouse with several other people. If there was anyone we should be worried about, then surely it must be Mr Blyth who has to walk about the fields tending the cattle alone?”

  Tommy was not satisfied, but he said no more.

  The inspector, meanwhile, was opening up the handkerchief to examine the watch.

  “We noticed that Mr Beech had a watch chain in his vest pocket, but no watch,” he said. “We asked his daughter, who told us he always carried the watch with him. We assumed the killer took the watch, perhaps suggesting a motive of robbery for the crime.”

  “Perhaps?” Clara had picked up on his inflection on the word.

  “For a start, what criminal robs a poor old farm labourer who is unlikely to be carrying more than a few pence on him, if that? Hardly worth the risk. And then there is the brutality of the crime. It would have taken little effort to knock Beech down, grab his belongings and run. There was no need to hack him up like that. Now you bring me this watch, dropped barely a mile from the crime scene. That says to me the person who took it did not want it, so why steal it in the
first place?”

  “Maybe they thought it was valuable at the time, but when they got a little further away, they realised it was only brass,” O’Harris said.

  “Could still have been pawned for a few shillings,” the inspector replied. “Enough for a warm supper for a few nights.”

  “Perhaps the robber feared the watch could be identified and that might lead back to him?” Tommy suggested.

  The inspector rubbed the back of the watch.

  “It’s almost worn away. Bit of sandpaper or a file, that inscription would be gone for good. No, it strikes me that this watch was not taken for the purposes of selling it on, which rules out the motive for the murder being robbery.”

  “Then why take it?” O’Harris said.

  It was Clara that provided the answer. She had been following the conversation keenly and already had an idea in her mind. She smiled at the inspector.

  “It was taken to make it appear that robbery was the intention of the killer,” she said. “To throw suspicions elsewhere. As soon as the murderer was far enough away, they dumped it down a rabbit hole where it should never have been found.”

  “Had it not been for an erstwhile terrier, it would have been gone for good,” O’Harris nodded.

  “And so now I have more reason than ever to suspect this was a crime committed by someone who knew Beech, and knew about his watch,” Inspector Park-Coombs steepled his fingers together and tapped them to his lips. “That gives me a very good idea of who to suspect. A very, very good idea.”

  Chapter Six

  Tommy did not sleep well that night and when morning came he felt drained and foul tempered. He had been worrying about Annie, about her proximity to a ghastly murder and about Park-Coombs statement that he had a good idea who was responsible for the crime. That should have made him feel better, knowing that the inspector had a hunch who was the killer. But it didn’t, because it had suggested to him the man was local to the area, had known William Beech for the inspector to connect his name to the crime, and that also meant he was likely known to the residents of Three Pigs Farm. He could be someone they saw everyday – the milkman, the butcher’s boy, the rat-catcher – he could be someone that Annie would see during her time at the farm and that was a thought that nagged at his mind constantly.