A Six-Letter Word for Death

by Patricia Moyes

  “I could use one,” said Vandike with a sardonic smile. He began stripping off the wetsuit, to reveal ordinary swimming trunks underneath. “Returning from the dead not once, but twice, is quite an effort.”

  Dr. Cartwright said, “But yesterday, Tibbett told us that you—”

  “I knew he wasn’t dead,” said Myrtle. “I told you so, Mr. Tibbett, and you wouldn’t listen.”

  Henry said, “After yesterday’s little charade, Mrs. Waterford, I thought that you might come and confide a little more in me. But you didn’t.”

  “I had promised Harry,” said Myrtle. “I’m a woman of my word, I hope.”

  “What had you promised Harry?” demanded Fred Coe, handing Vandike a large Bloody Mary.

  “He came to see me last Tuesday,” said Myrtle. “He was driving a hired car. He was all dressed for climbing, and he wanted to change at my house on the way to London. He told me he would come back in the afternoon and return to Wales. He also said he suspected he might be in danger, and he had decided to disappear for a few days. He said I shouldn’t be alarmed at any reports of his death, and that I was to tell nobody that he was actually alive and well and in hiding. I did my best; Harry and I have always been friends. But when Chief Superintendent Tibbett convinced me that he had proof that Harry had been to see me, well, what could I do? I told half the truth.”

  Henry said, “Emmy remarked to me yesterday, after my little talk, that parts of it were not true, and that some of you must know it. We have just heard from Myrtle. What about you, Dr. Cartwright?”

  Cartwright had gone very pale. “I’ve nothing to tell,” he said icily.

  “Oh, yes, you have,” said Henry. “A great deal. You were staying here when Jeannie was drowned. You knew that her death was not accidental. You were almost certainly deputed to keep Barbara out of the way during the actual murder.”

  “I—” Cartwright began.

  “Anyway,” Henry went on, “now that she has recovered her memory of the incident, she’ll probably be able to tell us. You also knew that Jeannie had had an illegitimate son, and you were instrumental in handing the baby over to Harold Vandike for adoption. Yes, Harry?”

  “Certainly he was,” said Vandike. He waggled a reproachful finger at Cartwright. “Really, Bill, you should have come clean. After all, it wasn’t against the law.”

  “All this,” said Henry, “was before Pamela Warfield married Robert Oppenshaw. In fact, Jeannie’s baby must have been born shortly after Warfield’s death. The only explanation of that will is that Francis Warfield knew that his fifteen-year-old daughter was pregnant. I don’t think he would have wanted an adoption, but by the time the child was born, he had no say in the matter, and a teenage daughter with an illegitimate baby would have been highly inconvenient to the widowed Mrs. Warfield—the more so since the child would have done her out of her inheritance. Jeannie herself couldn’t have known the provision her father’s will made for her child—and Pamela certainly must have drilled into her that a baby was the last thing a young, pretty, and eligible girl needed.” Henry looked around at the others. “Well? Correct so far?”

  “To the best of my knowledge,” said Cartwright stiffly. “But if you are accusing me—”

  “I’m not accusing you, Dr. Cartwright. I am merely speculating. Lady Oppenshaw obviously had a very strong hold over you, or she could not have made you give her the drug that was intended to knock Harry out before his murder.”

  Cartwright began to protest, but Henry held up his hand. “All right, Doctor. I told you I was guessing, and the police do not take action on guesses. Nevertheless, there is a very obvious explanation of the hold that the Oppenshaws have over you. You were the father of Jeannie’s baby.”

  Dr. Cartwright said nothing. Henry went on, “Jeannie was a minor. You were a young doctor. If the truth got out, your career would have been ruined before it started. Ever since, you’ve been at the mercy of the Oppenshaws.”

  “Not the Oppenshaws.” Cartwright was as precise as ever. “Pamela only. Robert knew nothing about the baby, and still doesn’t.”

  Henry turned to Vandike. “And you? Did you know whose child it was?”

  Vandike hesitated. “Well, I—”

  “Of course you did,” said Henry. “You told the Turnberrys that both parents were ‘healthy and of good family.’”

  Vandike did not reply, but Fred Coe said, “That wasn’t true. Pamela told us this morning about Jeannie’s illness—”

  “There wasn’t anything the matter with Jeannie,” said Henry. “Vandike knew it, and so did Cartwright. Pamela lied to her husband to make him feel better about drowning her stepdaughter. Because, you see, Robert Oppenshaw had to have that money then and there, or he’d have lost his chance to buy the firm. It’s obvious that Pamela only told him after they were married that the money wasn’t hers except for a life interest, and that only Jeannie’s death could enable her to inherit outright. When Pamela married Oppenshaw, she knew she must get rid of Jeannie before her twenty-first birthday. In a way, Robert’s financial position was a godsend to her.”

  In a shaking voice, Dr. Cartwright said, “The Turnberrys? You mean—Peter was my son?”

  “Yes, Doctor.”

  “Oh, my God. And to think that I—” He stopped abruptly.

  Henry said to Vandike, “I was explaining this morning that neither the natural nor the adoptive parents knew one another’s identity. But Pamela Oppenshaw knew, didn’t she?”

  “She insisted,” said Vandike. “I was able to assure her that the Turnberrys were a thoroughly suitable couple. Good solid business people who would give the boy a decent start in life.”

  Henry said, “Of course, you didn’t know the provisions of Francis Warfield’s will until quite recently, when Roger Talbot got a copy of it during research for your book.”

  Vandike’s face darkened. “No, I did not. And I can tell you, Tibbett, that when I read that will, I was appalled. I saw at once that Pamela had had him adopted to do him out of his inheritance. The fact that she then remarried, and that Jeannie was drowned before her twenty-first birthday—well, it had to make one think. But what could I do? I had compromised myself by telling Peter that he was adopted and disclosing his mother’s identity. Law or no law, a lawyer was never entitled to do that. I had also shown him the documents.”

  “Shown? Not given?”

  “Of course not. I only discovered during the Carnworth week that Peter had gone back to my chambers and persuaded the clerk to let him take the papers out for another look. Since the clerk knew he had seen them with me, he saw no harm in it. Just for a few minutes. Long enough to get them photocopied. Peter told me that week that he had photocopies at his home in St. Lawrence, and that he was prepared to produce them, if necessary. He also told Pamela Oppenshaw that he knew his true identity and that if Barbara didn’t marry him, he had evidence to prove that Carnworth should be his.”

  “It was quite a coincidence,” said Henry, “that the Turnberrys should leave London and come to live so close to Carnworth.”

  Harry raised his eyebrows slightly and smiled. “Not really,” he said. “Peter was one of my pupils at Oxford, and naturally I took an interest in him. He told me his father was planning to semiretire to the country. I knew that the St. Lawrence house was for sale, and I thought it would be nice for Peter to spend some years in the part of the world that had been his mother’s home. I plead guilty—the suggestion came from me. In all innocence.”

  “I’ll have to accept that,” said Henry. “You told Peter who he really was some years ago, but you only recently realized the implications, when you read the will. You told him about that too, of course, and you were determined to get the young man his lawful inheritance, if you could. You suggested the crossword puzzle lark, and compiled it in such a way as to throw all the attention on Jean Warfield’s death, hoping I would solve the whole thing. I fear I let you down.” He paused. “I’m afraid Peter let you down too.”

&n
bsp; “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean. He was ambitious, grasping, and not very scrupulous. You were fond of him, and inclined to be indulgent about his faults—but you’ve just told me that he cheated you over the documents. You know that he proposed to Barbara simply to get hold of Carnworth, one way or the other. When she broke the engagement, he was desperate. When he went riding to his parents’ house that day, you knew very well what he was going to fetch. You couldn’t risk your career and reputation by letting me see those documents. So you determined to intercept Peter on his way home, and get the papers back. You took out the day-sailer, beached her in Smuggler’s Cove, and were prepared to climb the cliff to the path. But you were too late, weren’t you?”

  Slowly, Harold Vandike nodded. “He was already dead, lying on the rocks. I went through his pockets, but the papers weren’t there. So I got back into the boat and finished my day’s sail.”

  Emmy broke in, “Why on earth didn’t you raise the alarm then?”

  Vandike said, “There was nothing I could do for Peter. Somebody had killed him and taken the papers. It didn’t take much reasoning to decide that it was the Oppenshaws—probably Pamela. The fact that she had those papers gave her a stranglehold over me. I decided to keep out of the whole thing. I didn’t even go to see Peter’s parents the next day. I simply couldn’t face them, knowing that Peter must have been murdered. With Peter dead, the Oppenshaws had nothing to fear—unless I made a fuss. So I didn’t make a fuss.”

  “Just a minute,” said Emmy. She turned to Henry. “The Oppenshaws couldn’t have killed Peter. They both had perfect alibis—you told me that yourself.”

  Henry said, “I know I did, and I believed it at the time. As you all know, the Oppenshaws were at a large tea party given by Lady Whitstable, and my inspector found a witness to swear that their car never left the house. Well, Sir Robert’s alibi is indeed foolproof, for he was talking to that witness throughout the crucial time. However, as soon as I heard that Dr. Cartwright had taken his car out that afternoon, I knew that Pamela Oppenshaw’s alibi wasn’t unbreakable after all. That’s what you meant, wasn’t it, Dr. Cartwright, when you began to say just now ‘to think that I—’? You were under orders, but you never dreamt that you would be instrumental in killing your own son.”

  “It seemed such a little thing,” protested Cartwright miserably. “Pamela Oppenshaw simply asked me to be at the back entrance to Lady Whitstable’s house at a quarter past four. To leave my car with the keys in it and go for a walk. Come back at five and drive it back to Carnworth. I’d no idea—”

  “Never mind that for now,” said Henry. “It’s easy enough for a guest at a big party to slip out the back way; so long as she’s not gone too long nobody will notice. However, Pamela had to get her timing just right. She could calculate just when Peter would arrive at the one point where the cliff path passes close to the road. Incidentally, her one bad mistake was to tell me that the road never went near the path.

  “Anyhow, she was in a desperate hurry. She had to knock Peter out—with a tire iron, I suspect—search his pockets for the papers, which she found, rip the girth and tether Melly—”

  “If she had an alibi for the actual time of the murder,” said Emmy, “why did she tie the horse up?”

  “That’s easy,” said Henry. “She didn’t want the alarm raised too soon, because she was determined that her husband should be the first person to ride out and look for Peter. She knew that she had some things to tidy up at the murder site the next morning, and she didn’t want any strangers getting there first. She must have taken the car and driven up there as soon as Sir Robert and Timmond left the Manor at seven. They had a forty-minute ride to get there, so she could easily have fixed the evidence and been on her way home by then.”

  He turned again to Vandike. “You thought you could keep out of trouble by not making a fuss. You were wrong. Pamela Oppenshaw killed Peter and found the papers—but they were photocopies. You still had the originals, and you knew the truth. If you had really died, what would have happened to those originals?”

  Vandike said, “Those relating to the Turnberrys would have been returned to them. Jeannie was dead, and the father was not named, at Jeannie’s request. So those papers would have been sent to the next of kin.”

  “To Pamela Oppenshaw?”

  “That’s right.”

  “So,” said Henry, “you see why you had to be disposed of. It must have been quite a shock when she telephoned you in Wales and suggested a meeting at Myrtle’s house.”

  “Lady Oppenshaw!” exclaimed Myrtle. “I’d no idea—”

  Ignoring her, Vandike said, “Yes, she telephoned. But it was I who suggested Myrtle’s house as a rendezvous. Her idea was that I should come up to Reading by train, where she’d meet me, and we could discuss various matters. I wanted to know what she was up to, and I realized I might be in danger, so I was determined that a couple of people, at least, should know what had really happened. Especially when she suggested that I tell people at Aberpriddy that I was going out for a solitary climb. She said she’d drive me back there after we’d had our little talk. That’s why I hired a car and came to town to see you, Tibbett. I was damned if I was going to be set up for murder so easily. Pamela wasn’t too pleased with the idea of meeting at Myrtle’s place, but I said it would be more private, and that I’d make sure Myrtle was typing away at the new Jack Harvey mystery when I met the Bentley in the driveway.”

  “You told me,” said Myrtle, with outraged dignity, “that you were driving to Great Middleford to change, and then on to London for some clandestine appointment. You said you would come back the same way, and advised me to stick to my typewriter and not to worry if I heard you’d disappeared.”

  “Correct, Myrtle,” said Vandike with a sardonic smile. “I certainly didn’t want you to worry. Actually, Pamela turned up a little late, and was surprised to see me in my city suit, with my climbing gear packed in the rucksack. However, as she had no intention of letting me get back to Wales anyway, she didn’t bother. She was in a rush to be off, and said we could talk in the car. I felt pretty sure she’d got hold of some sort of drug to knock me out—”

  Henry interrupted, “Dr. Cartwright, I presume?”

  Cartwright, who was sitting with his head in his hands, just nodded.

  “Well,” Vandike went on, “when she offered me a sweet—the top one of an open packet, of course—I pretended to take it, but actually I palmed it rather neatly and threw it out the window. Professional magic has always interested me, and I’ve dabbled a little in it. It comes in handy when I play my celebrated jokes on people.

  “Anyhow, pretty soon I pretended to pass out. I wasn’t in the least surprised when, as soon as she thought I was unconscious, she turned off the westward road and headed south towards Southampton. I had just time to register that before she pulled off the highway at a deserted spot and bundled me and my rucksack down on the floor of the car, next to the driver’s seat, and put a blanket over me. There’s room for that in a Bentley. I was glad of the rucksack. I reckoned if it came to the worst, I could put up a fight with a piton.”

  “And where did she meet Sir Robert?” Henry asked.

  “Don’t ask me. Some little deserted creek off Southampton Water. He was there in a biggish motorboat. Between them they got me aboard, and then began to discuss the best way to dispose of me. It’s an interesting experience,” Vandike added, “lying under a blanket pretending to be drugged and listening to the disposal plan.”

  Emmy shivered in the sunshine. “You were very brave,” she said.

  “I had no choice, dear lady. I’d managed to extract a piton from the rucksack, but otherwise I was completely unarmed. Finally it was agreed that Pamela should drive to the ferry and back to Carnworth, while Robert dropped me and my rucksack overboard from the boat. He had thoughtfully brought a lot of heavy stones to weigh me down. Robert was adamant that they shouldn’t tie me up. I had a feeling all a
long that he hated the whole business, and wanted at least to give me a chance, which was a relief. Anyhow, he simply loaded my jacket pockets with rocks, and Pamela made sure it was buttoned tight. The rucksack was heavy enough to sink on its own. In the unlikely event that my body somehow floated out of the jacket and was washed up—well, it would be another of those mysteries. Nothing to connect it with Carnworth.

  “So far, so good. I’m a strong swimmer, and I can stay underwater for quite a time. It would be easy enough to get out of the jacket. So long as Oppenshaw didn’t take me too far out before he jettisoned me, all would be well. Happily, he didn’t. He was only too keen to be rid of me. Personally, I don’t think he’d have gone along with the scheme at all, if he hadn’t had Lady Macbeth on his heels.”

  “Lady Macbeth?” said Myrtle.

  “Lady Oppenshaw, I should say. It was obviously the same with Jeannie’s murder. My lady is the driving force, but she makes sure the old man does the dirty work. Ever since Jeannie’s death, she’s had him where she wants him.

  “Anyhow, to get back to that eventful evening—Oppenshaw motored the boat down the creek and into Southampton Water. He knows those parts well, but luckily so do I. He aimed for the nearest deep water, and over the side I went. By the time I’d got out of that bloody jacket and surfaced, there was nothing to be seen of the boat but a couple of lights disappearing hell-for-leather towards the Solent.

  “I took it easy for a while, then swam ashore to where I could see some lights—it was only about a mile. By then, I wasn’t in what you’d call good shape. Sopping wet, exhausted, no jacket and no money, except for a few pence in my trouser pocket.

  “I found a telephone box and put through a collect call to the Turnberrys. James just had time to catch the last car ferry from Yarmouth, together with some dry clothes. He found me, we put up at some small hotel for the night, and went back to the island early the next morning.”