by Roger Keevil
“And these interesting contents would be …?”
“There’s whisky – I can’t go so far as to tell you which brand, but it’s definitely Scotch, single malt, and an un-peated variety. It’s identical to a sample we took from a decanter in the drawing room.”
“It’s a classic whisky tumbler – no great surprises there. I’m guessing that the surprises are still to come.”
“There was also some water, sir. It seems that the drinker liked a modest splash of water with his Scotch.”
“And …?” Constable raised an interrogative eyebrow.
Una Singleton took pity on the inspector. “And,” she finished with an impish grin, “a dose of a rather potent raticide.”
“You what?” asked Copper.
“Rat poison to you, David … sergeant, I mean,” replied Singleton.
Copper brightened. “Now that, guv, I am going to make a note of. That’s as nice a classic method of doing away with someone as I’ve ever heard of.”
“And you also might want to make a note,” continued Singleton, “that it is also very often the murder weapon of choice in rural agricultural circles.”
“You’re kidding. How come?”
“It’s actually one of the first things one of the old hands explained to me when I moved here and started getting involved with cases out in the sticks,” explained Singleton. “If you think it through, it’s really quite obvious. Wherever you have livestock, you have stores of feed for them. And there’s nothing a rat likes more than a nice bulging feed store – it’s like a rodent supermarket. So farmers have to use all sorts of methods to keep the little bug… little burglars out of their corn bins – traps, sticky panels, and those nice green plastic housings …”
“… in which they place rat-bait,” completed Constable. “Very neat.”
“But Sir Richard wasn’t a farmer,” objected Copper.
“You’re forgetting Punter,” said the inspector. “Lady Olivia’s horse. There’s obviously a store for his oats somewhere near his stable, so I wouldn’t mind betting that there would be some kind of anti-rat precautions in place. We’ll check up on that when we’re back at the house.” He paused for a moment in thought. “And this glass was on Sir Richard’s desk, you say?”
“That’s right, sir.”
“I remember Lady Olivia said something about the family gathering for drinks before dinner, guv. And then when Mrs. Wadsworth turned up, Mr. Pelham told Sir Richard, who then went through to the library. He must have taken his drink with him. We’d better ask Mr. Pelham how come the poison got into the whisky.” Copper grinned. “Wow! I’d love it to be him. Wouldn’t it be great to have a case where the butler actually did it?”
“Calm down, sergeant.” Constable couldn’t help himself smiling at his junior colleague’s remark. “Before you get carried away, you ought to bear in mind that, according to Mr. Pelham himself, he never handled the family’s drinks because they always did them for themselves. So you’re going to have to find another culprit.”
“Rats!” exclaimed Copper. “Sorry, guv … that one came out by accident.” He chuckled. “Mind you, guv, if Sir Richard was seen off by a dose of rat poison, it’s not absolutely inappropriate, is it? I mean, if we believe what Mrs. Wadsworth told us, he was something of a love-rat, wasn’t he?”
“Oh please, spare us the tabloid clichés,” sighed Constable. He raised his eyes skywards and turned back to Una Singleton. “Shall at least some of us try to remain focussed? How about prints on the glass?”
“Several, sir,” she replied. “We took the precaution of scanning everyone’s in the house, chiefly for elimination purposes, should it be necessary. Sir Richard’s, of course. And there were also some from the housekeeper, and from Lady Olivia and Mr. Booker-Gresham, but they could all quite possibly have come from simply touching or moving the glass. Sir Richard’s were the ones that overlay all the others.”
“And so the last one to handle the glass.” The inspector gave a wry smile. “No doubt, in one of Copper’s more fanciful scenarios, Sir Richard took a dose of poison and then, just to make sure, stabbed himself in the chest.” He sighed. “Right, moving on. What else do we have?”
“Now we’re heading over to the fireplace, sir. And in the log-box alongside it, we found this.” Singleton held up a clear plastic bag, in the corner of which could be seen nestling a slim and elegant cigarette lighter.
“Very smart,” remarked Copper. “Gold?”
“It’s hallmarked,” confirmed Singleton. “And from a rather exclusive shop in the Burlington Arcade in London. And before you ask, yes, there are fingerprints.”
“Do we know whose?”
“Not as yet. They don’t tally with anyone in the house, but of course, we haven’t had a chance yet to get through all the people who may be involved in the case.”
“I’m prepared to hazard a wild guess as to whose it is,” said Constable. “But what I can’t guess is what it’s doing in a library log-box.”
“I don’t think you’ll need much in the way of guesswork when you see this, sir,” said Singleton, indicating the next item on the table. Encased in plastic, the impressive formal document was printed on heavy cream paper in a typeface intended to resemble a flowing cursive script. The effect was grand and stately, marred only by the fact that the document finished abruptly halfway down with a line of burning.
“It’s a will, guv,” exclaimed Copper. “Which it looks as if someone has tried to destroy.”
“I see your detectional skills are as finely honed as ever, sergeant,” remarked the inspector. “There’s no slipping anything past you.”
“Be nice to know what it says, guv. What with the fancy writing and the plastic, I can’t make out a thing.”
“We thought that might be a problem,” smiled Singleton. “So, specially for Sergeant Copper, we made a copy of the contents.” She handed over a sheet of typescript.
“Come along then, sergeant,” said Constable. “What’s it all about?” He leaned back against the table edge with an expectant expression on his face.
Dave Copper cleared his throat self-consciously. “Here goes, sir. ‘This is the last will and testament of Richard James Jolyon Cavendish Effingham, Baronet, Member of the Most Noble Order of the British Empire, of Effingham Hall, Knaggs End, in the County of Wessex.’”
“That’s more like it. I do like a nice will in a murder case,” commented the inspector. “Rich sources of motive, as a rule. Go on.”
“‘I hereby revoke all earlier wills and testamentary dispositions.’”
“Nothing unusual there.”
“‘I hereby appoint as executor of this my will the senior partner at the time of my death of my legal advisors Messrs Cheetham and Partners, Solicitors and Commissioners for Oaths, of Knaggs End.’ That’s interesting, guv. Do you suppose that could be this Miss Robson-Bilkes I haven’t tracked down yet?”
“Could easily be, sergeant. Which gives you even more reason to speak to the lady.”
“‘I direct that my debts shall be paid and my funeral expenses settled from my estate.’ Debts? Wonder if that’s significant, sir?”
“I doubt it. It’s a perfectly normal provision, and we’ve had no hints that Sir Richard was in any kind of financial trouble. Carry on. Let’s get to the meat of this thing.”
“Righty-ho, guv. ‘I give bequeath and devise the sum of two years’ salary each, as payable at the date of my death or at the date of their leaving my employment, whichever shall be later, to my employees Edward John Pelham, Elspeth Mary Carruthers, and Elias Jeroboam Diggory in recognition of their long and faithful service to me and my family.’ That’s quite generous of the old boy. I wouldn’t mind if the Chief Constable popped off and left me two years’ salary in his will.” Copper grinned. “If he starts looking a bit peaky, do you suppose you could put in a word for me, sir?”
“I think the accent was on ‘long and faithful service’, Copper,” replied Constable. “W
hich yours is unlikely to be if you don’t get back to the point.”
“Sorry, sir. Carrying on. ‘I give bequeath and devise …’” Copper broke off. “How come they always have to say the same thing three times? Do you reckon it’s all a ploy to bump up the lawyers’ fees?” At a look from the inspector, he hastily resumed his reading. “… ‘give bequeath and devise the sum of One Hundred Thousand Pounds Sterling each absolutely free of charges and inheritance taxes to Sarah Jane Wadsworth, to James Arbuthnot Booker-Gresham, and to Owen Elliott.’ Wow! Now that’s meaty, if you like.”
“At last,” smiled the inspector. “Something that we can treat as a potential motive.”
“And not just one, but three,” pointed out Copper. “Or even six, if you count the servants.”
“Yes. That doesn’t exactly clarify matters. Although I’m pretty confident we can rule out the staff. They were all fairly well accounted for. But it does give us another line of investigation. So, what other nuggets are there?”
“Sorry, guv, but that’s where it runs out. There’s the start of another line beginning ‘I give …’, but that’s where it’s burnt away. See, if you look at the original, you can see.”
“Quite.” Constable leaned over the document to examine it closely. “You can just make out the start of a word further along that line … ‘est…’ … could be ‘estate’ but there’s really no way of knowing. Singleton, I don’t suppose you have any magical means of resurrecting the burnt portion in order to find out what it said?”
“Sorry, sir. Sometimes we can, but the remnants were too disintegrated to do anything with.”
“A shame. It looks as if we might have been getting to the interesting parts. Not that what we’ve got isn’t interesting. And highly suggestive, in some cases. Can we take this copy with us, Singleton? I think I need to sit down quietly and think about it.”
“Of course, sir.”
“In the meantime, what more do we have?”
“We’re still in the library, sir. And the last thing we have is a dog lead. It was lying on the floor between Sir Richard’s chair and the door to the hall.”
Constable shrugged. “Any reason why it should be of particular interest? We’ve met the dog. She seems an amiable enough old animal, so I’m assuming you haven’t uncovered some reason why she would want her master dead. Plus, I seem to remember the butler mentioned that when Sir Richard returned from his afternoon walk, he had the dog lead with him when he went through to the library with Mr. Worcester. Isn’t that right, Copper?”
“It is, sir,” confirmed the sergeant. “That’s what Mr. Pelham told us.”
“It was something Dr. Livermore mentioned, sir,” said Singleton. “I think it may have been as he was leaving, and he just tossed over his shoulder a remark about some marks around the victim’s neck. We took some photos, and we also took the dog lead, just on the off-chance. It’s a good job we did. The marks on Sir Richard’s neck and the pattern of metal links on the lower portion of the lead match. I’d say it was a racing certainty that the lead was used in strangulation.”
Constable grimaced. “Well, it’s not a startling revelation. The doctor did canvass the possibility of that. Any information as to who had been handling the lead?”
“Far too much for comfort, sir. All the members of the family had handled it at some time or another, as well as the butler and the housekeeper. And everything is so jumbled that I doubt if I can give you any sort of time-line.”
“Not to worry,” sighed the inspector. “We’ll have a confirmatory chat with Dr. Livermore. We’re due to see him when we’ve finished here. So, moving on. What’s next?”
“This, sir.” Singleton held out a long thin object, encased in clear plastic wrap like its fellows.
Dave Copper let out a guffaw. “So that’s what one of those looks like,” he exclaimed in delight “I’ve always wondered. Cor, that takes me back.”
Constable exchanged glances of amused bewilderment with Singleton. “Any chance of an explanation as to what on earth you’re going on about, sergeant?” he asked mildly.
“It’s a ‘stick with an ‘orse’s ‘ead ‘andle’, isn’t it, guv,” grinned Copper. “Just like the one in the old music hall poem.”
Light dawned. “Oh, that. ‘Albert and the Lion’. Good grief. I haven’t heard that for years. Stanley Holloway, wasn’t it, if I recall correctly? Isn’t that all a bit before your time?”
“Maybe so, guv, but whenever our family all got together – you know, Christmases and so on – my grandad always used to recite the poem to all of us kids. It was kind of his party piece. You know, I bet I could still remember most of it.”
Constable turned to Singleton. “I always suspected Sergeant Copper would regress to his childhood, given half a chance,” he murmured in an aside which made no attempt at discretion. “However, in the here and now, we appear to have an item which somehow relates to a murder enquiry, so let’s all be a little more serious.” He regarded the object. “Right. Clearly a walking stick. Wood – couldn’t guess at what sort, but I don’t suppose that is relevant anyway – topped with a silver handle in the shape of a horse’s head. Are those hallmarks I can see?”
“Yes, sir,” confirmed Singleton.
“So, solid silver. A valuable item. Not, presumably, ‘the finest that Woolworth’s could sell’. And we’ve heard mention of a walking stick before in our various conversations, so I’m assuming that this is the property of the late Sir Richard. You’ve checked?” A nod. “Why is it here?”
“It was something that was mentioned when we were at the house, sir. I can’t remember offhand who said it – it might have been the butler – but anyway, the dog lead and the walking stick were somehow referred to in the same sentence.”
“I remember that too, guv,” interjected Copper. “Mr. Pelham said Sir Richard took the lead and the walking stick when he went out with the dog. And didn’t he say that it turned up in the hall stand later?”
“He did,” said Constable. “I recall saying we’d look into that. It seems our SOCO friends beat us to the punch.”
“It was just an instinct, sir.” Singleton smiled in self-deprecation. “I always remember what you told me in that case at the theatre. ‘Never disregard that itch at the back of your brain,’ you said. And this was one of those itches.”
“Which you felt compelled to scratch?” smiled the inspector. “And the result was …?”
“Blood, sir. Deep in the crevices of the moulding of the horse’s head. Not much, and there had been an obvious attempt to clean it all off, but there was enough.”
“Enough to identify whose? I’m guessing we can all work out the answer to that.”
“Quite right, sir. It was Sir Richard’s. Other than that, there’s not a lot I can tell you. And, of course, the cleaning has wiped away any traces which might have indicated who last handled it.”
“I think we can reasonably suppose that it wasn’t Sir Richard himself. It looks pretty clear to me that here we have the famous blunt instrument which the doctor spoke of. Used to deliver that nasty wound to the victim’s head.”
“I’m going to take another closer look at it myself under a microscope, sir,” said Singleton. “Just in case there’s anything my team have missed.”
“Let me know if you find anything. And it looks as if we’re coming to the end of our list.”
“We are, sir. Just one item left. And here it is.”
“More silver,” remarked Constable. “A hip flask. Just the sort of thing you’d want to take with you when you go walking the dog on a crisp winter’s day. Which this wasn’t, but let’s not split hairs. Also Sir Richard’s?”
“We think not, sir. You’re looking at the back. Turn it over.”
Constable did so. Engraved in an escutcheon, in a proud gothic script, were the letters ‘O.E’. “I see what you mean. Obviously not the dead man’s initials. Has this been shown to anyone in the house?”
“The butler,
sir, and the gardener. They both said they didn’t recognise it.”
“But the initials, sir,” broke in Copper. “Bit of a give-away, aren’t they? ‘O.E.’ - surely that’s got to be Owen Elliott.”
Constable smiled. “Has it, sergeant? Has it really? That’s the only ‘O.E.’ you can think of in the case?”
Copper looked baffled for a few moments, but then slapped himself on the forehead. “D’oh! Sorry, guv – being dense. There’s also Lady Olivia – Olivia Effingham. But surely it’s got to be one of those two.”
“Just a couple of flaws in your thinking,” replied the inspector. “One, Owen Elliott told us he didn’t drink. We can check with the local pub, of course – they would most likely know one way or the other – but alcohol is a great way of putting on weight, whereas most jockeys are more concerned with getting weight off. Just a thought. And as for her ladyship, this isn’t a particularly ladylike item, is it? Far too masculine to be tucked into a lady’s handbag or whatever. So I suspect we will need to continue to think about this flask.” A pause as a thought struck him. “Hold on a second, Singleton. You haven’t told us why we’re thinking about it in the first place. What’s peculiar about it?”
“Not so much what as where, sir. It was found by one of the team in one of the flowerbeds outside the library windows. There are still some odd little traces of earth sticking to it, if you look closely, from where it was most probably dropped. And there were also footprints in that same flowerbed, but before you get your hopes up, I have to say that they were so badly scuffed that it wasn’t possible to tell much about them other than that the footwear was almost definitely male. Maybe some sort of boot.”
“Gardener’s wellies?” hazarded Copper. “Wouldn’t that be logical?”
“With Lady Effingham on the warpath about her precious borders, I can’t see Diggory trying to get away with that. But we’ll check with him anyway. Hmmm.” A wry smile. “Not making this easy for us, are they?” he commented to his junior colleague. “How about contents, Singleton?”
“Whisky, sir,” she said. “Single malt, exactly the same type as was found in Sir Richard’s glass.”