by Emily Organ
“No.”
“Oh.”
“But that doesn’t mean to say there wasn’t one,” said Mrs Trollope. “Perhaps the assassin was wearing a disguise.”
“I like that theory, Mrs Trollope. I like it very much.” Churchill felt her spirits begin to lift again. “Pembers, I think we need to go and speak to Mr Smallbone. Thank you, Mrs Trollope, and all of you, for your help today. I think we’re one step closer to finding Mrs Furzgate’s murderer.”
Chapter 15
“I see you’ve managed to remove the ‘t’ from the glass door, Pembers,” said Churchill. “We’re down to ‘kins’s Detective Agency’ now. Nice steady progress.”
“There’s a lot of scraping involved,” replied Pemberley.
“And it looks like Mr Smallbone has just opened up for the day,” said Churchill, surveying his bric-a-brac shop from the office window. “We should get in there before any customers turn up.”
“Do you think Mrs Trollope told us everything she knew about Mrs Furzgate?” asked Pemberley.
“Of course! Why wouldn’t she?”
“It felt as though she was holding something back.”
“Nonsense!” said Churchill, turning away from the window to face her secretary. “I know Mrs Trollope’s type; there are thousands of them up in London.”
“Oh dear, are there?”
“Yes! She’s that certain sort of sort. You know?”
“I don’t think I do.”
“Yes, you do. A good sort. You may have noticed that we got on like a house on fire. Mrs Trollope wouldn’t keep anything from me, I feel sure of it. It’s not the done thing among ladies like ourselves.”
Pemberley raised a sceptical eyebrow as Churchill turned back to the window.
“Smallbone’s putting up the trestle table outside his shopfront. He clearly hasn’t heard the forecast for rain later.”
Pemberley joined Churchill at the window.
“His antiques are about to get rather soggy,” said Pemberley.
“Shall we go and have a chat with him about the deceased busybody?”
“Good morning, Mr Smallbone!” said Churchill as they approached him. “What a lot of toasting forks you have there.”
He took a pause from his work of laying them out on the trestle table.
“Them’s companion sets. Antique companion sets.”
“Are they indeed? I can only see forks.”
“I’ve got pokers inside.”
“Sounds uncomfortable.”
“And shovels in there ’n’ all.”
“What about brushes?” asked Pemberley.
“And brushes as well. They goes for ten shillin’s each, but if you buys a complete set it’s yours for two quid.”
“Two pounds for a fireside companion set?” Churchill said scornfully.
“I could do two for three pounds and ten shillin’s. That sound any better?”
“Not really.”
“How’s about three for five quid?”
“No.”
“What are you ladies doing ’ere, then? I’ve got a nice copper bed warmer just come in. Fancy a look?”
“We’ve come to speak to you about Mrs Thora Furzgate,” said Churchill.
“I ain’t got time for that now. I’m workin’.”
“Laying out toasting forks on a table, you mean?”
“I got customers to see to.”
“Where?” Churchill peered in through the door of his shop. “I don’t see any customers, Mr Smallbone.”
“They’ll be along ’ere shortly.”
“Which gives you a few moments to speak to myself and Miss Pemberley about Mrs Furzgate.”
“No it don’t. Goodbye.”
Mr Smallbone stepped in through the doorway of his shop.
“Why won’t you speak to us Mr Smallbone?” Churchill probed.
He slammed the door shut on the two ladies and glared at them through the window.
“Would you look at that, Pembers! What a rude man!” declared Churchill.
“I ’eard that!” Mr Smallbone called through the window.
“Good! You were supposed to!” shouted Churchill in reply. She bent down and pushed open the letterbox. “Can you tell us if you were at Piddleton Hotel on the day that Mrs Furzgate died?”
“No I weren’t! Why would I ’ave been?”
“Because you bore a grudge against Mrs Furzgate.”
“It weren’t no grudge. She were the one what accused me of wrongdoin’!”
“What exactly did she accuse you of, Mr Smallbone?” Churchill began to feel a sharp pain in her back from all the bending over.
“I ain’t sayin’. Now go away!”
Pemberley bent down and joined Churchill in shouting through the letterbox. “Did she accuse you of selling fake antiques, Mr Smallbone?”
“I don’t sell no fake antiques!” He pressed his nose and thick moustache up against the window glass and glared at the two women.
“Then why did she make the accusation?” shouted Churchill.
“’Cause she ’ad a screw loose!”
“Did she buy something from you she wasn’t happy with?”
“Yeah, she bought a nineteenth-century telescope with a two-and-three-quarter-inch objective lens. It ’ad an equatorial mount an’ all.”
“What on earth is that?” asked Churchill.
“It’s when the mount is fitted with a polar axis that can be lined up to point at the north celestial pole,” clarified Pemberley. “In layman’s terms it means the telescope can follow the stars as they move across the sky.”
“How do you even know that, Pembers? And what does that have to do with anything?”
Her secretary shrugged in reply. Churchill could feel her patience leaving her and hammered angrily on the shop door.
“Mr Smallbone, can you please open up so we can continue our conversation on a more conventional footing?” she shouted. “I’m rather tired of having to bend over to bellow through a letterbox.”
Mr Smallbone did as she requested but regarded them both with a sulky face.
“It sounds as though Mrs Furzgate bought a rather expensive telescope from you, Mr Smallbone, what with its equator thingummy.”
“Equatorial mount,” corrected Pemberley.
“She got it for a song,” he replied. “I practically gave it away to ’er. I only wish I’d ’ung onto it and sold it to someone who was willin’ to give me a proper price.”
“How much did you sell it to her for?”
“Fifty pounds.”
“Good grief!”
“Practically gave it away, as I said. And then she ’ad the nerve to come back ’ere and tell me it weren’t even an antique. She demanded a thirty-pound refund!”
“And did you refund her?”
“No chance! And that’s ’ow all the trouble started.”
“All the trouble, Mr Smallbone?”
“Yeah, she called me a crook an’ a thief. An’ a miscreant an’ a reprobate. She even called me a wastrel.”
“Mrs Furzgate must have eaten a dictionary for lunch that day,” chuckled Churchill.
“It ain’t a laughing matter,” he replied.
“No, it certainly isn’t, especially if this trouble you describe ultimately led to her murder.”
“Murder?! What you talkin’ about, Mrs Churchill? She slipped and fell down the stairs.”
“Her godson, Mr Cavendish, believes she was murdered.”
“What, like someone’s pushed her?”
“That’s what he thinks.”
“Well none of this trouble led to me pushin’ ’er, if that’s what you’re wonderin’. I weren’t even there!”
“But did you perhaps hire an assassin to do the deed?” asked Pemberley.
Mr Smallbone’s moustache bristled defensively. “A what now? An assassin? Me hire an assassin? Over a thirty pound refund?”
“She called you a wastrel, Mr Smallbone.”
“Y
eah, but it ain’t an insult a man would murder somebody over. I got bigger fish to fry.”
“Such as what?”
“What d’you mean?”
“What are your bigger fish?”
“My bigger fish?”
“That require frying? It was you who used the phrase, Mr Smallbone. It’s rather an empty one if there’s no meaning behind it.”
“You’re wastin’ my time now. Are you gonna buy anythin’?”
“We are merely carrying out an investigation on behalf of Mr Cavendish. I shall make a note of everything you’ve told us this morning and return with any further questions, if I may.”
“Only if you buy summat.”
“Do you ever think of anything other than money, Mr Smallbone?”
“Have you been and ’arassed Bodkin yet?” he asked.
“Mr Bodkin the baker? Should we?”
“Yeah. All I done was sell Mrs Furzgate a telescope. He was ’er lover.”
Churchill’s mouth made a repetitive gasping motion as she tried to comprehend what Mr Smallbone had just told her.
“Lover, you say?”
Mr Smallbone nodded.
The revelation left Churchill feeling unsteady on her feet, so she rested up against the door frame for support. “Pemberley, did you know about the relationship between Mrs Furzgate and Mr Bodkin?”
Pemberley’s eyebrows were raised halfway up her forehead. “No! I had no idea, Mrs Churchill.”
“Me neither. However, it explains why Mr Bodkin was so keen to leave when she visited us that time. I can only guess there had been some sort of rift in their relationship by that stage.”
“Perhaps one of ’em ’ad spurned the other,” suggested Mr Smallbone.
“Perhaps. Well, we’ll need to go and ponder on that one. Thank you for your time, Mr Smallbone.”
“I don’t s’pose you fancy a look at the bed warmer before you go?”
“That almost sounds like a proposition, Mr Smallbone. No thank you.”
“You’d better go and find out what Bodkin was keepin’ warm in ’is oven for Mrs Furzgate, eh?”
“That’s quite enough, thank you, Mr Smallbone. Goodbye.”
Chapter 16
“I shall need a little fortification before we speak to Mr Bodkin about his love affair with Mrs Furzgate,” said Churchill, biting into a cherry bun. Pemberley poured her a cup of tea. “Thank you, Pembers. You are a love.”
“I thought I had a good idea of who was with who in this village,” said Pemberley, “but I knew nothing of the relationship between Mrs Furzgate and Mr Bodkin.”
“It seems our Mrs Furzgate had a few secrets of her own. Is Mr Bodkin a married man?”
“Yes.” Pemberley’s tone was deeply disapproving.
“Goodness me! It’s quite shocking then, isn’t it?” Churchill picked up another cherry bun. “I wonder how Furzgate even went about it. It’s not the usual sort of thing for a woman of her age. Where does one even start if one wishes to begin such a dalliance? Once one becomes a widow there’s usually an assumption that those dallying days are behind one.”
The second cherry bun remained poised in Churchill’s hand as she ruminated over this. It had never occurred to her to form a romantic attachment with anyone other than Detective Chief Inspector Churchill.
“And we now know where Mrs Furzgate’s telescope came from,” said Pemberley.
“She paid quite a bit for it, didn’t she? That explains why there wasn’t really anything else of any value in her home. All the money went on that thing, with its equator whatsit. I say, we haven’t yet received a visit from the reporter Smithy Miggins, have we?”
“Mrs Duckworth probably didn’t even pass on the message.”
“I suspect you’re right, Pemberley. Despite answering her fair share of doors, she strikes me as the sort of woman who believes message delivering is beneath her.”
“Is that someone coming up our stairs?”
“I do believe it is, Pembers.”
Churchill shifted uncomfortably in her seat as Mr Greenstone shuffled into the room with his hat in his hand.
“Oh, hello,” he said.
“Mr Greenstone!” said Churchill, placing the cherry bun back on her desk and rising to her feet. “How lovely to see you again! How’s Zeppelin?”
“I came here to ask you the same question.”
“Did you now? Do take a seat, Mr Greenstone. Would you like some tea and cake?”
“No, thank you. I’ve just eaten my breakfast.”
“Have you indeed? My husband was a late riser too given half a chance. He was never given a quarter of a chance though!”
Churchill laughed at her own quip, while Mr Greenstone took a seat across the desk from her with his shoulders slumped.
“So you’re still no closer to finding out who’s been feeding my cat?” he asked.
“Not yet, Mr Greenstone. However, I have been conducting some reconnaissance around your home.”
“I know. I saw you, didn’t I?”
“That’s right! You did indeed. And the reconnaissance phase will continue until I have ascertained who has been feeding Zeppelin.”
“I haven’t seen you around there recently, though.”
Churchill chuckled awkwardly. “We do happen to have other clients, Mr Greenstone, and we need to ensure that each case is given an equal amount of attention.”
“If you’re busy you can refund me the ten pounds and I’ll find someone else who can help.”
“No, no, Mr Greenstone, there’s no need for that. We will find out who’s feeding your cat. Just a few days more is all we require.”
“I see. So it won’t take much longer, then?”
“No, we’re almost there with it. Look, we even have Zeppelin up on our incident board!”
“So you have. His face doesn’t look quite like that, though.”
“It’s merely an artist’s impression. If you have a recent photograph we could use that instead.”
“I do.” Mr Greenstone’s face brightened. “I’ll bring it in!”
“Marvellous.”
“I do hope you manage to find the person who’s been feeding him. It’s terribly upsetting when he sniffs at the food I give him, then turns his nose up at it and walks out the door.”
Mr Greenstone’s eyes were damp.
“We’ll find the culprit, Mr Greenstone. Don’t you worry. Pop off home and find a nice photograph of Zeppers for our incident board, and I’ll get right onto it.”
Mr Greenstone popped his hat back on his head and shuffled away.
“Pembers, get out there and find out who’s feeding that cat,” said Churchill once Mr Greenstone had left. “I’d forgotten all about him. I’m going downstairs to speak to Mr Bodkin.”
“What does the cat look like?” asked Pemberley.
“There’s a picture of him on our incident board.”
“But that’s an artist’s impression. Which I drew!”
“Well, he’s grey and quite fat. Well-padded, I should say, not fat. You’ll find him, Pembers. Now shoo.”
Chapter 17
“Good morning, Mrs Churchill. The usual elevenses?” asked Mr Bodkin as he tucked six eclairs into a paper bag.
Churchill pursed her lips and surveyed the baker in the light of Smallbone’s unexpected revelation. She concluded that somewhere beneath the bald head, thick eyebrows and generous dusting of flour lay the heart of a Lothario.
“Are you all right, Mrs Churchill?” he asked, holding his hand out for the money.
“I’m fine, thank you, Mr Bodkin. May I speak to you in private, please?”
“I’ve already offered you a generous discount, Mrs Churchill, and while you’re a much-respected, loyal customer, I can’t be increasing it any further, I’m afraid. I’ve got a business to run.”
“It’s not that at all, Mr Bodkin. It’s about another matter.”
Mr Bodkin glanced about him, as if evaluating all the work he had to
get done. “Just for a minute or two then, Mrs Churchill. That’s fourpence for the eclairs.”
After paying him, Churchill followed Mr Bodkin into the bakery at the back of the shop, where a young, gangly man with a cigarette in his mouth was kneading dough.
“Hop it for a minute will you, Bodger?” said Mr Bodkin. “Mrs Churchill and I need to have a private discussion, apparently.”
The youth leered suggestively before leaving the bakery through the door at the back.
Churchill looked around for somewhere to sit or something to lean against, but everything was covered in a thick layer of flour. She looked down at her crimson twinset and noticed she already had some on her bosom. Brushing it briskly away only added more flour, which had somehow found its way onto her hands.
“This is a rather floury place, Mr Bodkin.”
“It’s a bakery.”
“I need one of those white coats so I don’t get it on my clothes. I suppose it’s rather too late for that now.”
She noticed Mr Bodkin was politely averting his eyes from the flour all over her chest.
“What can I help you with, Mrs Churchill?”
“It’s something of a rather sensitive nature regarding the late Mrs Furzgate.”
The baker groaned. “Please don’t ask me about that woman.”
“I’m afraid I must, Mr Bodkin. Her godson, Mr Cavendish, has asked me to investigate her death.”
“Why on earth has he done that?”
“He believes her death was suspicious.”
“I’ve got nothing to say on the matter. I must get back to work, Mrs Churchill.”
“Do you have something to hide, Mr Bodkin?”
“Why would I have something to hide?”
“It only makes you seem suspicious, you know.”
“Does it?”
“Yes, so you may as well just come out with it.”
“Come out with what?”
“The details of your close relationship with Mrs Furzgate.”
Mr Bodkin groaned again. “How do you know about that?”
“I never reveal my sources, Mr Bodkin.”
“Our love affair has nothing to do with anyone else.”
“I’m trying to find out the motive behind the killing.”