by Leo Bruce
Tom Raikes seemed pleased enough to see me, and, finding that he was staying in Lewes, I arranged to meet him for a drink at the Black Lion at seven o’clock. I did not mention that Beef was with me, but knowing Tom Raikes I felt that he probably guessed the reason I wanted to see him. However, he seemed quite eager to meet me and I left it at that.
Beef was pleased at the arrangement and insisted at six o’clock on our going to the Black Lion “so as to be in plenty of time and not to miss him”. He filled in the time of waiting by roping me in to make a four at darts against two race-goers who were, even with Beef handicapped by my inaccurate throws, what he termed “easy meat”. Having won several pints off them, we were just finishing the last game when Tom Raikes walked in. I bought him a pint and, as I had left Beef his favourite double top to finish, it was only a matter of seconds before he joined us. I introduced them and we all sat down at a small table.
I did not know what Beef wanted so I began by telling Raikes of our luck over Silver Fox.
In the pause that followed this Beef broke in, “Look here, Raikes, you know who I am and what I’m doing here. I just want to ask you a few questions. I know you needn’t answer them, but I think, somehow, you will.”
He paused in a heavy dramatic way and then went on.
“You took the odd twenty quid from Miss Fielding’s bag the very day she was poisoned, didn’t you? When you were fixing the curtain rod.”
“Well, I’m not saying I did or I didn’t,” Raikes replied, looking a bit hangdog but not really worried, I felt. “How was I to know she was going to die that day?”
“That’s as may be,” Beef answered.
“Stop that,” Raikes said, in a voice I had never heard him use before. “You’re not going to try and get me mixed up in that.”
“I should just like to know,” Beef went on evenly, “what game you and Mr. Hilton Gupp are up to. That’s what I’d like to know.”
This time there was no doubt that the bolt had gone home. Raikes, in spite of all his faults and weaknesses, had often shown shame but never before had I seen fear in his eyes.
“What do you mean?” Raikes asked, more to gain time, it seemed, than information. “I suppose you saw him with me today. Well, why shouldn’t he be at the races the same as Mr. Lionel here.”
“There’s more in it than that,” Beef replied. “Why did you tell him about the key of the medicine cupboard being found on the top of Mr. Vincent Townsend’s wardrobe?”
Raikes looked pale and shaken. He mumbled something about running into Gupp and casually mentioning what his wife Mary had told him. “Anyway, I must be getting along now, Mr. Lionel,” he said to me, and without a word or a glance at Beef he strode out of the pub.
As soon as we were in the car on our way back to Hastings I couldn’t help asking Beef the question that was puzzling me.
“The money was stolen, then, after all?” I asked. “I never quite understood about it being overlooked and then turning up again.”
“’Course it was,” Beef replied. “Why do you think young Charlie sold his motor-bike? He knew his dad too well. He knew where the money had gone and he and his mum weren’t happy till it was put back.”
“By jove,” I said. “Why of course. I’ll get the boy the best bike that money can buy as soon as our legacies come through. That depends on you, Beef. It seems to me that we’ve had a lovely afternoon racing, but we’ve not got much forrader with the clearing up of the case.”
“I call it a very satisfactory day,” Beef replied. “In every respect.” And he patted his wallet affectionately.
8
It was nine o’clock when we reached Hastings and as it was rather late to ask for a meal either at Camber Lodge or at the pub in which Beef was staying we went into a restaurant. We had not had much to eat all day and we were both hungry, so little was said till we had eaten. As we lit up pipe and cigarette afterwards, Beef began to talk reflectively.
“I’ve just one or two things to clear up here tomorrow,” he said, “and then I’m off back to my other case in the Cotswolds. You’d better come along. Give you a much better story to write up than this one. Real nasty atmosphere down there.”
“I’ve been away a long time already,” I protested. “I’m not at all anxious to interest myself in another case before you have solved this one. After all, this has a personal urgency. It was my aunt who was murdered and my brother and I who may be suspected by the police.”
“I’ll come back to this,” said Beef. “But in the other case the scent will be getting cold unless I go ahead at once. There’s no reason why this shouldn’t be left for a few days. We’ve done all the immediate things.”
I did not like to confess what was in my mind.
“Well, I had thought there might be a novel in this case,” I said at last. “And the fact that it was my aunt would give it a more personal and interesting appeal.”
“So there ought to be in the other case,” said Beef sulkily.
“Two novels?” I exclaimed.
“Well, perhaps you could make one book of the two of them,” suggested Beef. “Suppose we was to let them run neck and neck? Do a little bit of this one, then a little bit of that, I mean. How would that be?”
“It wouldn’t do at all. People don’t want to be jerked away from one case to start all over again in another. That’s why books of short stories are never successful.”
“Don’t you be too sure,” said Beef. “If I was reading I should like a bit of contrast. Anyone could have too much of your aunt’s case—dear old lady though she may have been. This other chap who’s got himself murdered is a very different kettle of fish. You have a try at making one book of the two. I think it would turn out all right.”
I shrugged.
“If you’re determined to take up the Cotswold case again I suppose there is nothing for me to do but come with you. But I shall have to look in at my flat on the way and pick up a suitcase.”
“That will suit me nicely,” said Beef, with enthusiasm. “I’d like to look in and see my old woman, too. It’s just as quick to motor through London, in fact quicker by the time you’ve mucked around side roads.”
“I can see it’s the car you really want, Beef,” I said, laughing.
“Well, in this case it would come in very handy. The place where the murder was done is miles from anywhere. Nearest pub is seven miles. That shows you, doesn’t it?”
“What’s the case all about, Beef,” I asked, “and how did you come into it?”
“It’s a funny case,” he said ruminatively, sending up enormous waves of smoke from his pipe. “A wealthy old chap was found hanging from a beam in his house. At first it was thought to be suicide. That’s how I came to be called in, see? His brother is a clergyman with a large family. The old boy who’s dead was a widower. Though he hadn’t left his brother the money, which all goes to a niece, he’d taken out a huge insurance of about thirty thousand pounds, and that went to his clergyman brother in trust for his children. But of course the clergyman realised quick when he heard that his brother had been found hanging that if it was suicide he wouldn’t get a penny from the insurance. So he comes along to me the very same day as he heard—that was the day after the murder—and employs me to find out if there’s any chance of foul play, as they say. There’s a bit more to it than that. The clergyman knew that his brother was hated by pretty well everyone and that more than once he’d been threatened with violence.”
“And was it murder?” I asked.
“Oh yes, clear as daylight, but that’s about all that is clear, same as in your aunt’s case. You see, it looks like money again being the motive, though there’s other motives too in this case. He was a nasty, mean, miserly old man and a lot of people would like to have bumped him off, whereas I can’t think of anyone wanting to do in your aunt. As nice an old lady as you could meet, I’m sure. You can see that from the house and the servants. You wait till you see this barn of a place in the Cots
wolds. Gives you a nasty turn every time you look round. Well, you’ll soon be seeing it for yourself. You ought to be able to make something up about the atmosphere of a place like that.”
The first surprise I had the next morning was to find no Edith Payne and only one place laid.
“Miss Edith went off to London as soon as you’d gone yesterday,” Ellen told me. “She’s only taken a suitcase and says she’ll be back in a few days, Mr. Lionel,” Ellen went on, becoming almost human as excitement crept into her voice. “You know how she’s been since your aunt died? Like a death’s head you might say. Well, yesterday she calls me up to her room and there she was packing. She looked ten years younger, her face all flushed and that excited I didn’t know what to make of it. ‘I’m going to London today,’ she says. ‘I’ll be back in a few days and I’ll have a great big surprise for you’.”
“Was there a letter for me from my brother?” I asked casually.
“No, sir,” Ellen replied. “But there’s been one the last two mornings from him for Miss Edith. She’ll show you them, I daresay, when she gets back.”
I was a bit worried about this news. Was it possible that Vincent and Edith had cleared out? I turned to the paper and finished my breakfast. It was no use worrying until I had more facts. I was just going out to smoke in the garden when Ellen reappeared and I could tell by her manner that she had more to tell me.
“Have you heard about the vicar, sir?” she asked. “Terrible it is. I don’t know what Miss Fielding would have said if she’d been alive. Perhaps it’s as well she’s spared it.”
“What is all this about the vicar, Ellen?” I asked rather impatiently.
“Gone right off his head. Loopy, sir, they say. He was taking a christening yesterday afternoon when he was suddenly took queer. Nearly drowned the poor little thing, so I hear. Overwork, they say. It’s all that restoration he’s having done. Been working day and night and practically not a bite to eat, so his housekeeper tells me. They’ve taken him to a private mental home.”
I could stand no more shocks just after breakfast and went out into the garden to wait for Beef, who said he would be up about half-past ten. Before I went out I had told Ellen I was leaving and asked her to pack my things.
When Beef arrived, I told him first about the vicar, but he didn’t make any comment. Then I gave him Ellen’s story of Edith Payne going to London.
“She’s gone to meet my brother Vincent, I’m sure. You don’t think they are doing a bunk, Beef?” I asked anxiously, feeling almost a traitor to my brother in suggesting it.
“More like wedding bells, I should say,” Beef replied.
“I hope so,” I said, though I didn’t fancy Edith as a sister-in-law. At that moment Ellen came out with a silver tray in her hand. It was a telegram from Vincent.
“Married to Edith by special licence today. Love from us both, Vincent,” I read, and showed it to Beef.
“I wasn’t far out, was I?” was all he said. “It’s time we had a talk with the police.”
Inspector Arnold greeted Beef and myself in his usual impersonal way.
“I’m afraid I haven’t had any luck with that receipt form you left with me,” he said to Beef. “None of the local people know anything about the Church Missions Society, but I’ve sent it up to the Yard. They’ll be able to give us an answer, but I don’t think I shall worry very much about it.”
Beef mentioned that we had seen Gupp yesterday, but again he showed little interest. “There’s no breaking his alibi. We’ve tried everything,” was his only comment.
“Well, I’m off back to that case in the Cotswolds,” Beef told him.
“Oh, you’re interested in that fellow who was found strangled and then hung up on a rope, are you?” Arnold commented. “Looks interesting.”
When Beef told the Inspector that I was going with him, he made no remark. My brother Vincent’s name came up, just as we were leaving, and I mentioned that he was being married that very morning.
“Yes, we know all about that,” Arnold said, rather grimly, I thought.
“I expect he found running a House at Penshurst all by himself rather too much. All the housekeeping, you know,” I said to the Inspector.
“Possibly,” he said. “There’s also a very convenient law that a wife can’t give evidence against a husband, and vice versa. Good day.”
I was a good deal worried by the Inspector’s remark. After a while I could not help asking Beef if he really thought that the Inspector suspected my brother and Edith, but got little comfort from him.
“Well, you’re all bound to be under suspicion till it’s cleared up,” he said. “There are not many flies on Inspector Arnold. Very little goes on that he doesn’t know about.”
We collected Beef’s things from the pub where he had been staying and drove to Camber Lodge.
“It will feel strange,” Mary said, when I went to say goodbye. “Nobody in the house, not even Miss Edith. I don’t know what we shall do with ourselves.”
“Oh, we’ll all be back soon for one of your real dinners, Mary,” I answered.
Charlie had put my bag in the car and we set off for London.
We stopped for the usual ill-cooked meal that hotels on main roads still serve as lunch and arrived at my flat about tea-time. Beef had never seen the small flat near Marble Arch where I lived, so I asked him in.
“So this is where you write up my cases, is it?” he said, looking around. “Very comfortable, too. Be able to afford something a bit bigger if this case turns out all right,” he added.
There had been no further police activity concerning me as far as I could gather, and after putting together some clean underclothing, a tweed suit, and, on Beef’s advice, my thickest overcoat (“The nearest village is called Cold Slaughter,” Beef explained, “and when the weather’s nasty I should think it could be about the coldest and bleakest place in England”), we drove to the drab little house that Beef had taken when he first set up as a private detective. It was as near Baker Street as he had been able to manage. Mrs. Beef, a kindly countrywoman whom Beef had married in his early days as a constable in a small village, gave us tea. She obviously thought the world of her husband and sent him off with solicitous instructions about looking after himself.
I took the High Wycombe road, followed the bypass leaving Oxford, a crown of spires in the gathering dusk, passed through Witney, caught a passing glimpse of the beauty of Minster Lovel and Burford, and then, leaving Oxfordshire as evening was beginning to close in, entered the long high bleak stretch of road that leads into Gloucestershire.
9
After some twenty miles or so of the main windswept road, we turned off to the right. A signpost gave several names, none of which I had ever heard before, but among them I could see Cold Slaughter 16 miles. This, Beef told me, was a village some five miles from the house where Edwin Ridley had been murdered. “There’s quite a nice little pub there where I stayed before,” he added. “I’ve sent them a telegram, so they’ll be expecting us.”
We were driving now down quite a narrow lane. The country had become more hilly and wooded. I could see little but the walls of grey Cotswold stone on either side. Occasionally we passed a cluster of farm buildings, but for the most part the countryside looked wild and deserted. Once we came on a small village at the bottom of a steep hill, but before we had time to see anything the lane swerved abruptly and we were climbing again.
The wind had risen, with night coming on, and a fine rain had begun to settle on the windscreen. I was glad when at last at the top of a hill I saw some lights below and knew that we must be close to our destination.
“This looks like it,” Beef said, as we passed a cottage or two. The road opened up after the first few houses into an open space and I could see that Cold Slaughter was quite a small village.
“The Shaven Crown. There’s our pub,” Beef said, pointing out to me a building that in our headlights looked cold and austere. There were lights shining ins
ide, however, and I was glad the journey was over. I had not made any further protest at Beef’s dropping my aunt’s case to continue his investigation of this one because I realised that it would be useless. Once a resolve had formed in his thick head, nothing could shift it. He had promised faithfully to return to Hastings, and I had to admit that the Cotswold murder sounded a promising one from the literary point of view. Besides, although I would not admit it, I had rather come round to Beef’s suggestion about running the two stories in harness. Why not? Two murders on the same day being investigated by the same detective at the same time . . . they were linked securely enough to make a single novel. At any rate, I had decided to try them like that.
I drove the car under an old arch into a large courtyard, where we left it and entered the bar. Half an hour later, with the car safely parked in a garage, our bags in our rooms, a large whisky in my hand and the smell of a meal being prepared for us, I began to feel more cheerful. After an excellent supper of veal cutlets and Welsh rarebit, Beef told me what he had discovered so far about the death of Edwin Ridley.
I was to learn much about Edwin Ridley, his early life and his business as publisher, from his brother, Alfred, the clergyman, and from an old friend of mine, who was also my literary agent, Michael Thorogood. What I gathered from Beef that evening were the facts about Ridley’s murder so far as Beef had managed to learn them in the few days he was down here, before he received my letter about Aunt Aurora’s death and left for Hastings.
“Well,” Beef began, “as I told you, the morning after Edwin Ridley was found dead the police naturally got in touch with his nearest relative. That was his brother, the clergyman. He’s the one I told you about. He was in a nice state, thinking his children might lose all the insurance, the whole thirty thousand quid, if it turned out to be suicide. All he knew was that his brother had been found dead with a rope round his neck. He had heard about me by chance—I’d once helped some friends of his wife over a little matter of retrieving a stolen necklace—and he hops in a taxi and comes rushing round to me. We have a little argument over the fee. He was nearly as close with money as his brother must have been. You could see he was torn between parting with a few quid and losing the chance of a fortune. All he wanted me to do was to see that the coroner’s verdict wasn’t suicide. ‘If I take up the investigation,’ I said to him very dignified, ‘I shall probe it to the depths. One hundred quid,’ I said, ‘and expenses limited to fifty. That’s my last word.’ He tried to beat me down on expenses, but he saw it was no good and eventually agreed. I came down here that very day, landed up at the nearest station, hired a car, and reached the house. I was lucky to catch the Superintendent in charge there and get in right with him. I showed him a letter from the Rev. Alfred Ridley, authorising me to act for the family, and he became quite pally. I think he was glad of a bit of support. He hadn’t had many big cases round here.”