Groaning Spinney

by Gladys Mitchell

  ‘And we know what you done about it, too, so don’t think we don’t. You can’t keep everything dark for thirty years, you——’ Followed a rude description.

  ‘And the second letter?’ said Mrs. Bradley, when she had been told the tale up to this point and had read the first letter. ‘To what extent does it embroider the theme?’

  ‘To a very considerable extent. It states that Bill Fullalove was murdered, and accuses me of murdering him to shut his mouth,’ said Emming. ‘Absurd, as well as nasty, because if this——’ he hesitated—‘this person knows some thing about me it wouldn’t be much good my murdering Fullalove. The whole thing’s ridiculous, but it stinks, and I want to know what I ought to do about it. Of course, even if Fullalove did know anything about me, I really can’t see that he would be particularly interested. After all——’ he gave a short laugh—’I’m not the only bastard in the county!’

  ‘So the actual fact is true?’ said Mrs. Bradley. She had been wondering how to put this question (although she had guessed the truth from a remark made previously by her nephew) but now the way was clear. The young man’s expression became good-humoured. It was obvious that he was relieved.

  ‘Well, yes,’ he answered frankly. ‘It is perfectly true in a way. But I was registered in my present surname owing to the kindness and decency of my father’s brother. He married my mother at once, saying that it was no fault of hers that my father had been killed before he could fulfil his obligations, and then he himself, poor, decent chap, went into the trenches and was killed within a month. That’s my family history, and I don’t see why I should be ashamed of it. But the thing is—well, you know what it’s like in a village. I was conceived out of wedlock, although I was born in it, so to say. If people in a small place like this intend to make a mountain out of a mole-hill they’ll do it, and it’s a bit awkward for the person who’s then got to climb the mountain.’

  Jonathan nodded. Mrs. Bradley cackled and poked her nephew in the ribs. Emming showed neither embarrassment nor resentment at her reactions.

  ‘Let’s all have a drink,’ said Jonathan, ‘and, Emming, while I’m getting it, you can tell my aunt what your alibi is for the time of Fullalove’s death. No, I’m perfectly serious! I’m beginning to get a line on this anonymous letter-writer. He or she knows that something was wrong about that death! There’s some grain of truth in every one of the letters, underneath all the nastiness. A chap like Bill Fullalove doesn’t snuff out like that, a mile and a half from his home. Of course, I don’t necessarily mean the poor old chap was murdered, but, once mud begins to fly, you never quite know who’ll be plastered. Tell her about your choirboys’ pig-club, Emming, and what a stink that made in the village.’

  ‘I sometimes think my nephew has an odd fashion in words,’ said Mrs. Bradley, joining in Emming’s laughter as Jonathan went out. ‘Please tell me about the pig-club. Did you cheat the government out of their half of the pig-meat, or did you undercut the village butcher’s prices?’

  ‘We haven’t a village butcher. Of course, if somebody kills a pig but really, though,’ said Emming, firmly refusing to be side-tracked, ‘what am I to do about this business?’

  ‘We must all set to work to find out who writes the letters,’ said Mrs. Bradley. ‘You know the people in this village pretty well by now. Have you no suspicions on which we could set to work?’

  ‘Never a one,’ replied the young man promptly. ‘Except for Tiny Fullalove, I haven’t made an enemy in the place, so far as I know. Besides, I can’t think of more than one person besides myself who could possibly have known …’

  ‘Jon,’ said Mrs. Bradley, when the guest had gone, ‘be careful what you say. My secretary sometimes talks about sticking one’s neck out, and if I understand her metaphor——’

  ‘You mean that supposing there did happen to be something queer about Bill’s death, and it could be shown that Emming had a motive for causing it——’

  ‘I am not so much concerned about Mr. Emming,’ said Mrs. Bradley. ‘It’s you I’m thinking of.’

  ‘Me? Oh, Lord, that business about Deb, you mean! But that was Tiny, not Bill.’

  ‘I know. But you know what gossip can do. And if, as this anonymous correspondent suggests, that whole episode was Deborah’s fault, how are you going to prove that it might not have been Bill as much as Tiny who tried his luck?—No, don’t fume. It suits your saturnine cast of countenance, but it doesn’t assist a reasoned argument.’

  Jonathan laughed. Then his face lengthened again into its usual melancholy furrows.

  ‘You’re taking a very serious view of these letters, aren’t you?’ he said. Mrs. Bradley nodded slowly and rhythmically.

  ‘A very serious view,’ she agreed. ‘I begin to see the pattern behind them. We must certainly watch our words and not appear to know more than we do. There is a great deal more in this business than the desire to give pain and anxiety. Another thing: Mr. Emming has just told us that the only enemy he has made (to his knowledge) is Tiny Fullalove. I suppose Tiny isn’t our anonymous friend? We did wonder whether he sent the notes himself to you and Anstey. Couldn’t he——’

  ‘Oh, he isn’t the type. These people are always thwarted spinsters and so forth. Fullalove is a hairy-heeled brute, but he’s definitely not thwarted——’

  ‘Except by Deborah,’ Mrs. Bradley pointed out.

  ‘And he’s definitely male,’ concluded Jonathan, scowling again, however, at the reference to his wife. The rest of the conversation was interrupted by a call on the telephone.

  ‘I can’t talk over the ’phone, Bradley,’ said Doctor Fielding’s voice, ‘but if I could come along when I’ve finished my round, I’d be glad.’

  ‘Another anonymous letter?’ said Jonathan, putting down the receiver. ‘Will you bet on it?’

  ‘No,’ replied his aunt. ‘I regard it as a certainty, and it is my practice only to bet on certainties when I myself have proposed the wager. At what time do you expect him?’

  ‘Oh, at about half-past twelve. He’s got nobody but Baird’s man Evans, down with flu, and young Bob Datchett, with broken chilblains on his feet, and old Mrs. Dear with her arthritis.’

  ‘I wonder whether he’ll expect to stay to lunch?’ asked Deborah anxiously, when she was told of the visitor. ‘There are exactly three chops.’

  ‘Then he can’t,’ said Jonathan decisively. ‘I’m not giving up my chop to anybody, and you’re not to, and Aunt Adela is our guest and therefore can hardly be mulcted of hers, because that would bring shame on the household. He’ll have to trot back to his bit of corned beef, or gaucho horse, or whatever it is. I can give him a drink, and that’s all.’

  ‘I don’t suppose he’ll accept one,’ said Deborah, ‘if he’s got another round this afternoon.’

  ‘He can’t possibly have another round this afternoon. There’s nobody to go round to, unless he goes and looks up Tiny Fullalove in that nursing home. Anyhow, you’d better put lunch off until two. He’s got something important to say, and it may take some time.’

  ‘All right. Was your parcel this morning what you wanted?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t. It was simply a lot of tripe about the geology of the Pitcairn Islands, and as I can’t work if I can’t get the materials I want, I’m going to smoke a pipe and read the new Nicholas Blake.’

  ‘You can’t. I’ve got it.’

  ‘Then,’ said Jonathan, ‘you can jolly well hand it over.’

  Doctor Fielding came at ten minutes past twelve, accepted gin and tonic, and came at once to the point.

  ‘It’s your aunt I want, not you. At least, I may want you later as a witness. I’m getting anonymous letters.’

  ‘Been accused of poisoning the patients?’

  ‘Much worse. I could disprove that easily. This would mean an exhumation job if the writer’s serious and chooses to follow up the matter.’

  ‘Oho! Don’t tell me. I can guess. Bill Fullalove.’

  ‘Who told you? Have you
had one too?’

  ‘Yes. So has young Emming, the choir bloke. So has the vicar. But they’re not all about the same thing.’

  ‘I say, we don’t want a public pest in the village! That sort of round-robin stuff can have serious consequences. How many letters have you had?’

  ‘One. Emming’s had two, and the vicar’s had one about Emming.’

  ‘So have I, dash it! Two letters, I mean. The first one suggested that Bill Fullalove had been murdered, and the second one accused me of being aware of the fact and of conspiring to hush it up.’

  ‘Good Lord! The idiot must be crazy!’

  ‘That’s just the trouble,’ said Doctor Fielding. ‘She probably is, but there’s just the chance she might not be. That’s why I want to talk to your aunt. She’s better qualified than I am and she’s seen plenty of corpses, murdered, suicided and just plain. I’d like her professional observations on Fullalove’s death. She saw the body when I did.’

  ‘I’ll fetch her. Help yourself to another drink.’

  ‘A short one, then, if I may. Don’t be long. Lunch is at one, and I’ve promised faithfully to be back because Millie wants to go into Cheltenham this afternoon, and the shops shut at five or thereabouts.’

  ‘He doesn’t propose to stay to lunch, and he wants Aunt Adela,’ announced Jonathan. His aunt accompanied him to the study and Doctor Fielding was brief and lucid.

  ‘Not to beat about the bush, Mrs. Bradley,’ he said, ‘I’ve been informed by an anonymous correspondent that Bill Fullalove was murdered.’

  ‘Yes, that’s my opinion, too,’ said Mrs. Bradley.

  ‘Your opinion? Do you mean——?’

  ‘It is impossible for me to make any clear or even rational statement in support of my opinion,’ said Mrs. Bradley, ‘but I had some opportunity of observing Mr. Bill Fullalove during Christmas, and there seemed no reason to suppose that he would collapse and die of cold during a walk in the snow. But, of course, I did not test his heart, and, in any case, it is not my business to challenge the verdict given at the inquest.’

  ‘Quite so. Well, if he was murdered, I’m in the cart, and in it with me is the police surgeon. We both examined the body and there was no sign of foul play, and no possible symptoms of poisoning.’

  ‘Did you look particularly?—I mean, had you poison in mind?’

  ‘I did not think of murder by poison. Such an idea would never have entered my head. But one does think of suicide and accident, naturally, and had there been the very smallest grounds for suspicion, I’d have seen about an autopsy. But I can assure you solemnly that there was not the slightest suggestion of anything of the kind. You’re an authority on forensic medicine, and you know all the signs of death by poisoning as well as I do.’

  Mrs. Bradley nodded.

  ‘It couldn’t have been poison,’ she said, ‘in the accepted sense of that term. Now, would you be prepared for an exhumation?—I mean, if there were anything else to go on besides these anonymous letters?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s rather sticking my neck out, isn’t it?’

  ‘The days of the martyrs are over, of course,’ said Mrs. Bradley, with an amused glance at her nephew.

  ‘No, but look here,’ said Doctor Fielding, ‘if anything seems likely to blow up, I’m prepared to repeat, very loud and clear, what I thought at the time—that I was astonished that Fullalove died like that. Not that he’d ever been my patient, mind you.’

  ‘Good,’ said Mrs. Bradley. ‘I, too, saw the body, as you say, although I did not examine it closely owing to the difficulties out there in the snow and the degree of rigor. But let us risk a stern rebuff, and see what the police surgeon has to say.’

  The police surgeon, as was only to be expected, was rather terse.

  ‘Plenty of people die of cold and exposure in weather like that,’ he said. ‘And hadn’t the man lived in India?’

  ‘No. He was ex-R.N.,’ said Jonathan (having put down the receiver) when Mrs. Bradley appealed to him. ‘It was Tiny who’d lived in India. I’ll go and see Tiny in that nursing home. He should be able to tell us more about Bill’s health than anyone else can except Bill’s doctor, and we don’t know yet whether Bill ever went to a doctor.’

  ‘We might also try to find out where Mrs. Dalby Whittier is staying,’ suggested Deborah, who had come in. ‘She might know something, too.’

  ‘I suppose she’ll come back when Tiny is out of the nursing home,’ said Jonathan.

  ‘I suppose so—but Bill Fullalove—it’s incredible!’

  ‘Well, if it should turn out to be murder, and if I had to bet, I think I would bet on Tiny,’ said Jonathan thoughtfully. ‘For one thing, I can’t see who else would have known Bill well enough to have murdered him, or even to have wanted to murder him.’

  ‘These are deep waters,’ said Mrs. Bradley solemnly. ‘But I’ve been promised a chop for lunch. Give me, please, a glass of your excellent dry sherry, and let us forget these incalculable and meretricious problems, and concentrate upon food.’ She thought of the long spill and the short spill, and said no more.

  Doctor Fielding rang up Jonathan next day with the tidings that he had received a visit that morning during surgery hours from the police surgeon and an inspector from Cheltenham. There had been some discussion, but of an abortive type, the doctor thought.

  ‘Still, they’re obviously interested in our anonymous correspondent,’ he added. The next visitor was for Deborah. Doctor Fielding had a very charming daughter of twenty. She was a level-headed and intelligent girl, and she came to give Deborah some news which Deborah was to pass on or not, at her discretion.

  ‘Proposed to you?’ said Deborah. ‘When was that?’

  ‘Last October. I turned him down. He seemed quite philosophical about it, that’s one thing.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Oh, he just said, “Righto. I didn’t think I had an earthly, and you’re quite right—I’m much too old for you. Still, if you should change your mind, remember I’m still in the market. I suppose you wouldn’t like to kiss and still be friends?” I said that I shouldn’t. He tried to grab me, but I smacked up at him pretty hard and turned nasty, so he chucked it. He went pretty soon after that, and when he was going I laughed—because he looked rather pipped and deflated—and told him that if I ever changed my mind, I’d let him know. I was sorry as soon as I’d said it, because he perked up quite a bit and looked hopeful again, so I added that I didn’t suppose I would change my mind because, as far as I knew, I didn’t particularly care whether I got married or not. He took that quite well, and went off more jauntily than I had expected. There must be something in me which appeals to the Fullalove family. Tiny proposed to me too—that was last August. It’s very embarrassing for a poor girl who only wants a bit of peace and quiet to get on with her work.’

  Deborah recounted this conversation to Mrs. Bradley.

  ‘Although I can’t imagine,’ she added, wrinkling her brow, ‘that Bill Fullalove would have been the type to commit suicide because of a girl. Besides, if there was no injury and no symptoms of poisoning, how did he manage to do it? Would he just have lain down in the snow? He was leaning on that gate when he was found.’

  ‘What is Miss Fielding’s work?’ Mrs. Bradley enquired.

  ‘She’s going to be a research chemist. She’s on holiday at present. Most of her time she is in London, at college, of course. I believe she’s exceptionally brilliant. Doctor Fielding doesn’t say much, but he’s frightfully proud of her.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Mrs. Bradley vaguely. Deborah glanced quickly at her, but the sharp black eyes and beaky little mouth betrayed nothing. Deborah knew better than to ask questions. She turned the conversation on to her bulbs, which seemed, she thought, in need of care and protection. Mrs. Bradley accepted the change of subject gracefully, and no more was said about poisons, chemistry, and violent death until the telephone rang and a voice asked for Jonathan.

  Jonathan, not too pleased at being di
sturbed, went to the telephone and listened. His brow creased perplexedly.

  ‘What was it?’ asked Deborah, when he put the receiver down.

  ‘The nursing home rang up. It seems that Tiny Fullalove—whose knee is still very painful—it looks like being a long job—has had an anonymous letter telling him his cousin’s body is to be exhumed. He’s in the devil of a state, naturally, and the matron is so worried about him that she got my telephone number from him and rang to see whether I could throw any light on the matter. I couldn’t, of course! Told her (not too truthfully) that I hadn’t the ghost of a notion of such a thing, and added that it must be quite ridiculous.’

  ‘What else did you tell her?’

  ‘The verdict at the inquest—misadventure—heart-failure due to cold and exposure. Told her as well that there were no queries from the jury, and that the medical evidence was perfectly straightforward.’

  ‘You reassured her, then?’

  ‘Good heavens, yes! Told her that, as a matter of fact, there had been one or two of these anonymous letters going round, and that we were going to get the police on to it.’

  ‘Yes, I see.’

  ‘She sounded a sensible sort of woman,’ Jonathan continued, ‘so I hope she can calm Tiny’s mind. Rotten thing really to be tied down like that with all this dynamite whizzing round the village…. Do you honestly think Bill was murdered? If so, how?’

  ‘My present theory is quite unsupported by facts. Did I hear you say that Sally was coming over?’

  ‘Yes. She’s bringing Rhu, and she’s longing to see you again.’ He accepted the change of subject with a grin. He knew that his aunt’s brain was never more busy than when she went off on a conversational sidetrack.

  7. No Names, No Packdrill

  *

  ‘Why art thou for delay?

  Thou cam’st not here to stay.’

  Richard Baxter

  * * *

  THE ARRIVAL OF Sally, niece to Mrs. Bradley’s first husband and cousin by courtesy to Jonathan, (she was on the Lestrange family tree and had no blood relationship with the Bradleys), coincided with that of the police.