Groaning Spinney

by Gladys Mitchell

  ‘I can’t make any sense out of it, except that I can’t see Tiny Fullalove as a murderer.’

  ‘I know. It is very mysterious in itself, this whole business, and I feel that somewhere behind it there is another mystery. If we could solve this second mystery I believe the first would solve itself.’

  ‘The first job is to trace the wife,’ said Jonathan, ‘but I imagine that that’s being done. Trouble is that, being a sailor, Bill may have married abroad.’

  ‘If you will allow me to offer one piece of advice,’ said Mrs. Bradley to the Chief Constable, ‘it is that you have the body of Mr. Bill Fullalove exhumed as soon as may be.’

  ‘But—oh, hang it! Why? The thing is, I don’t want to!’

  ‘Because from the wood beyond the world the world should be visible.’

  ‘You talk in riddles,’ said the Chief Constable, uneasily.

  ‘So does the Sphinx, yet it preserves its reputation for wisdom,’ said Jonathan, grinning. ‘Be a man! Ask for the exhumation order and let’s get cracking. It’s a shame to tease him,’ he added, when the Chief Constable had gone. ‘Do you really know anything? If so, I wish you’d tell me.’

  ‘What I surmise isn’t knowledge. I wonder how Tiny Fullalove’s knee is getting on?’ said Mrs. Bradley. Her nephew, regarding this as a change of subject, nodded.

  ‘I really must go and see him,’ he said. ‘Of course, a nice smack on the kneecap with a hammer … but why should I part with my theories any more than you do with yours?’

  ‘I daresay we are both being quite unfair,’ said Mrs. Bradley. ‘Yes, go and see him, by all means. You ought to have gone before, as you suggest. You’ve been most unneighbourly!’

  ‘You’re perfectly right,’ said Jonathan. ‘I ought to have gone before, but I do hate going into nursing homes and hospitals. Besides, I’ve conceived a dislike of the swine since Christmas.’

  He went that same afternoon. Tiny was pleased to see him, but looked at him with shrunken little eyes. He said that his knee was going on as well as could be expected, but that he supposed it would be a long job. He asked about the inquest and the funeral, and then mentioned Mrs. Dalby Whittier.

  ‘I feel worried about her,’ he said. ‘She hasn’t written. Anstey has a key to the bungalow and sends on letters. It seems queer that she should just pass up on us. On me, I mean. She was going to stay with relatives in London, but she didn’t leave any address, so I don’t know how to contact her. I owe her a month’s pay, too. She wouldn’t take December’s money before she went. Said that for one thing it wasn’t due, and for another that she’d only spend it in London. I hope she hasn’t gone down with flu or pneumonia, or something. The weather must have been even worse than it seemed, to finish poor Bill like that.’

  ‘I rather wanted to ask you about Bill,’ said Jonathan, ‘if you didn’t mind. How long was he out that day?—and where had he been?’

  ‘As I wrote in my report to the coroner, I’m most uncertain, actually. The poor old chap was mad on natural history, as you know, and he’d been out to the badgers’ earth in Groaning Spinney. At least, that’s where he intended to go, because he said so.’

  ‘Anstey seemed to think he’d gone to Gloucester,’ said Jonathan. ‘How did he get hold of that idea?’

  ‘It’s a queer business,’ said Tiny, passing a hand across his eyes. ‘Damned queer. He was a far better life than I was, don’t you know. I should never have thought…’

  ‘No,’ agreed Jonathan. ‘I don’t think anybody would. By the way—this woman to whom he left his money? Have you any idea? … Or am I being too curious? I mean, I’d no idea old Bill was married.’

  ‘As I’ve told those damned lawyers,’ said Tiny, ‘I don’t believe he was.’

  They talked on other subjects for about half an hour, and then Jonathan, rising to go, cleared his throat and spoke his mind.

  ‘By the way, Fullalove, I have perhaps strange views on the subject, but when you are up and about again I shall be very much obliged if you’ll bear in mind that the very slightest attempt on your part to embarrass or annoy people will result in your being back in this nursing home immediately and probably permanently.’

  ‘I apologize most humbly,’ said Tiny at once. He kept his eyes on Jonathan’s face. ‘It was … well, dash it, you must know how these things happen. It certainly won’t occur again. Just a moment’s sheer idiocy … I’m really most terribly sorry. I wouldn’t for the world have been offensive.’

  ‘All right,’ said Jonathan. ‘So long as that’s completely understood. And I shall also be obliged if you’ll refrain from clouting kids you find on my land.’

  ‘They were doing damage, you know, and I am your agent,’ said Tiny, with considerably more assurance.

  ‘Take their names, then, next time, and keep your hands to yourself.’

  ‘Damn it, Bradley …’

  ‘All right. But don’t forget.’ Jonathan, feeling relief at ridding himself of his temper, suddenly grinned. ‘Look after that knee, now, and let’s soon see you hopping around. Oh, and Mrs. Dalby Whittier’s being looked for. She seems to have done a disappearing trick. As far as is known, she never turned up in London—at least, the police don’t think she went anywhere near her relatives.’

  ‘Good Lord!’ cried Fullalove. ‘I hope nothing serious has happened! She would take the short cut through the woods and over the estate! I told her to go round by the road!’

  ‘Well, there it is!’ said Jonathan. ‘And, of course, it wasn’t snowing then!’

  Fullalove looked at him closely, but Jonathan gave nothing else away.

  8. Reappearance of a Housekeeper

  *

  ‘My tale was heard, and yet it was not told;

  My fruit is fallen, and yet my leaves are green.’

  Chidiock Tichborne

  * * *

  CHIEFLY BECAUSE HER niece Sally proposed to extend her visit into February, Mrs. Bradley was persuaded to stay on at the manor house much longer than she had intended. There was already, even at the end of January, the faintest feeling of Spring, and what with that, the fact of Sally’s visit and the even more important fact that Deborah wanted her to stay as long as she felt she could spare the time from her work, Mrs. Bradley became almost one of the family and was soon as well known in the village as Jonathan himself.

  There were no more anonymous letters, and there was no more news about a possible exhumation. The whole subject of the death and of the poison pen might have been allowed to drop, in fact, but for Sally, who said one day, when she and her aunt were walking briskly back to the house after their morning constitutional:

  ‘Talking of anonymous letters, did you know we had a maid once who wrote them?’

  ‘No, I didn’t know.’

  ‘I thought not. Mother would hate the family to think that she’d engaged an unsatisfactory servant.’

  ‘How did you discover what was happening?’

  ‘Well, we didn’t, for nearly four months. She used to write the letters on her afternoon out and post them in various pillar-boxes, so it wasn’t at all easy to find her out. But one day she was a bit too clever. She wrote a letter to Mother and put in something which only a person living in our house could know.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Where Mother kept the wine-cellar key. Even Higgs, our butler, didn’t know. You see, Mother’s got a “thing” about drink, and she said she would never put temptation in anybody’s way. But this girl found out one day about the key because we were having some house repairs done and she came in just as Mother was taking out the key to hide it somewhere else from the workmen. She accused Mother in the letter of being a secret drinker, so, of course, we tumbled to her.’

  ‘I see,’ said Mrs. Bradley, very thoughtfully. ‘Too clever, but not quite clever enough to hide the fact. Go on. You’ve something else in your mind.’

  ‘Well, it’s only this—and, mind, I may be talking medical rubbish. But—well, when doctors f
ix the time of death, don’t they go by the stiffness of the body?’

  ‘Yes. What about it?’

  ‘Take Mr. Fullalove,’ said Sally. ‘He might have been dead longer than the doctors thought. If so, Mr. Tiny would have had time to establish an alibi for the time of his cousin’s death. He could have typed the notes to Anstey and Jonathan. He might have taken the risk of being seen pushing them under Anstey’s door, for there was nobody to fear, I suppose, so long as Anstey or his wife or Jonathan didn’t catch him at it, and he could then have damaged his knee.’

  ‘You are referring to the fact that the weather was so cold,’ said Mrs. Bradley. ‘But there is Jonathan’s evidence to consider. The body was not hanging over the gate when he went up to the bungalow, but it was there when he returned. That fixed the time of the death almost more surely than the medical evidence, you know.’

  ‘Oh, of course!’ said Sally, crestfallen.

  ‘I am more interested, really, in the anonymous letters,’ Mrs. Bradley continued. ‘You see, the fact that they have suddenly ceased is rather curious.’

  Sally looked at her sharply.

  ‘You mean that the person who wrote them may be dead? And the police are still looking for that Mrs. Dalby Whittier? Do you think she wrote the letters?’

  ‘I don’t know. In any case, how could she have typed them?’

  ‘Yes, the typewriter is the snag. But Bill Fullalove made a will and nobody has turned up to claim the money. The lawyers have advertised. I should think they’d have to let Tiny have it in the end. And if he did kill Bill——’

  ‘Killed Bill, watched for Jonathan to leave the bungalow, carted the body through deep snow and flung it over the gate before Jonathan got there, staged his own injury, crawled back, and waited to be found by the people who brought home his cousin’s body … the snow having blurred, or, with luck, covered up all traces … yes, I know,’ said Mrs. Bradley. ‘But there’s no proof that Bill was killed, Sally. The death was by misadventure. He died of cold and exposure. No exhumation will prove otherwise.’

  ‘I know. But just suppose! Nothing has gone wrong, so far, and once it is clear that there is never going to be any claimant for Bill’s five thousand pounds, Tiny will be entitled to collect it, and there is the motive for murder. That’s how it seems to me, anyway.’

  ‘Your remark about your maid, the too-clever one, opens up a field for speculation,’ said her aunt. ‘You see, if Tiny has anything to hide, one would imagine that the last thing he would want is to have his cousin’s body exhumed. Therefore, unless he also is trying to be too clever, he is not the author of the anonymous letters. Yet the letter sent to Anstey was typed on the same machine as all the anonymous letters which have been shown to the police. Now it seems more and more certain to me, as time goes on, that Anstey’s note must have been sent by Tiny, whether he did the actual typing or not. I wish we could see the letter which he himself is supposed to have received at the nursing home. According to the matron there, it really did come by post and it really did give him a bad shock.’

  ‘There’s no doubt that by getting Bill exhumed he thinks he can dispose once and for all of any doubts about Bill having died a natural death,’ said Sally, ‘but——’

  ‘Why should he suppose that people would suspect anything else, though?’ Mrs. Bradley enquired. ‘The verdict at the inquest was quite clear. I don’t think for one moment that Tiny wants Bill’s body exhumed.’

  ‘Well, somebody evidently does. And, look here, Aunt Adela! This business that the anonymous letters have ceased! It means that Tiny did write them, only he now has no opportunity of getting them posted secretly. All his correspondence is sent out from the nursing home, and is posted by one of the staff, so he daren’t send the anonymous ones out, or somebody might suspect! How’s that for a reconstruction? And you’re wrong about the cold and exposure! Tiny poisoned Bill and somebody found it out—Mrs. Dalby Whittier, I expect.’

  ‘Is there really a secret poison unknown to science? It is certainly true that there are poisons which are very difficult to detect after death. Unfortunately for the convenience of murderers, however, they leave very decided symptoms at the time the victim dies, even if the poison itself leaves no trace afterwards.’

  ‘You’re pulling my leg,’ said Sally. ‘All the same, I still think there was something fishy about Bill’s death. He dies in the snow—and a perfectly healthy man, according to the insurance people, shouldn’t really have done that!—Tiny gets injured—nobody knows quite how or exactly when!—and the housekeeper (who might know something awkward) disappears! Then there are all these letters, and now, as you say, they have ceased. I think you ought to start throwing your weight about. It’s more than time these mysteries were all cleared up. If you sat down for a couple of hours and made your mind a blank, you’d get on to the truth in no time!’

  Mrs. Bradley received this involved tribute with an appreciative hoot of amusement.

  ‘What you want is a nice brisk walk,’ she said. Sally shuddered.

  ‘What a horrible idea! I took Rhu out to Topstone before breakfast and nearly walked my legs off up those hills!’ she protested. Hearing his name, the great dog got up from the hearthrug and poked his nose affectionately into Sally’s hand. ‘Nothing doing,’ she told him. The dog lay down again. The Boxer puppy burrowed against his side.

  ‘Well, I’d like a walk, but not with Rhu, nor even with you, Sigfried,’ said Mrs. Bradley. ‘I think I’ll adopt your valuable suggestion, Sally, and make my mind a blank. It will be just as useful as continuing to allow it to run round like a white mouse on a wheel. The fact remains that we have no evidence, and suspicions without evidence are merely tiresome.’

  She clothed herself for her walk, and Sally watched her out of the window as she crossed the lawn towards the rhododendrons.

  ‘Where’s Aunt Adela? It’s almost lunch time,’ said Deborah, an hour and a half later.

  ‘Hurrying uphill towards us at a pace that can’t be good for her,’ said Sally, again at the window.

  ‘Goodness! She must be hungry!’ said Deborah anxiously. ‘She certainly ought not to hurry uphill like that! Or else—you don’t think anything else has happened, do you?’

  ‘She’s positively sprinting,’ said Jonathan, watching his elderly aunt with narrowed eyes.

  It was not because she was hungry that Mrs. Bradley was hastening towards the house, nor even because she might be keeping lunch waiting. She had news, and the news was of such a nature that all else, even lunch, had to wait whilst she told her tale.

  ‘The body of a woman identified by Will North, myself and Farmer Daventry (who had met us and was walking with us at the time) as that of Mrs. Dalby Whittier, is lying in a deep dip in one of the farmer’s fields. If Will North had not spotted a hawk, and if Mr. Daventry had not decided that a sheep which he lost in the snow, and which has not been found yet, might be the reason for the hawk’s appearance, we should not have known she was there.’

  ‘Then you’ve actually seen the body?’

  ‘Yes, I have. Both men plunged down the hillside and I followed. Will has gone for the village policeman, Mr. Daventry has gone for Doctor Fielding, and I’ve come back to tell you.’

  ‘I must ring up the inspector in Cheltenham again,’ said Jonathan. ‘We’d better have lunch at once, Deb. There may be plenty to do later on. Oh, Lord! First Bill and then …’

  ‘Lunch!’ said Deborah, horrified. ‘You surely can’t want lunch?’

  ‘Of course, chump. Get a move on,’ said Jonathan, with the brusqueness he felt was needed. ‘Damn it, we’re not going to starve! Whatever next? We may be kept busy for hours!’

  9. Bridge of Sighs

  *

  ‘Before I pilgrim it to Rome, I will seek—Saint Truth.’

  William Langland

  * * *

  THE INQUEST ON Mrs. Dalby Whittier was held in the village schoolroom as the day was Saturday. The schoolchildren, to their annoyance, were
, of course, strictly excluded, but everyone else in the village attended the interesting and melancholy ceremony.

  The coroner, Mr. Baird’s lawyer from Cheltenham, was capable and precise. His jurymen, dressed in their Sunday clothes, comported themselves with the stiff dignity shown by all villagers on solemn occasions, and listened with rather anxious attention whilst the coroner gave them the usual little homily … ‘formed any previous opinion … verdict based solely on the evidence … types of witnesses … enable this poor woman to be buried …’

  Evidence of identification was given by Tiny Fullalove, who slightly exaggerated his limp as he walked from his seat to the witness box.

  ‘When did you last see the deceased alive?’ he was asked. Tiny did not hesitate.

  ‘On the afternoon of Christmas Eve, December the twenty-fourth.’

  ‘When did you next see her?’

  ‘When I was first called upon to identify the body.’

  Farmer Daventry was next called. He described the finding of the body. Then the doctor gave evidence.

  ‘I was called by John Daventry to the dip in what we call Swallow Field. There I saw the body of the deceased. She had been dead for several weeks, perhaps four and possibly for as much as six.’

  ‘You can’t put it nearer than that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Will you tell the jury what you found when you examined the body?’

  ‘I found that the deceased had taken poison.’

  ‘And that was the exact cause of death?’

  ‘Yes. I discovered that the deceased had taken an overdose of belladonna.’

  ‘It would not be in the public interest to ask you to specify the amount of the dose. You are satisfied that it was sufficient in itself to cause death?’