‘I don’t quite know yet, Mrs Milman. I’m so sorry. I’ll let you know after church.’
‘Don’t trouble. The food will be there if you want it and if you don’t, it comes in.’
Mrs Milman gathered up the crockery and vanished with a clatter.
‘I couldn’t find Miss Baynes last night,’ Madge said, breaking in on a remark by Mary Brenyard. ‘ It was so strange … the house was all shut up.’
The others exchanged a quick glance.
‘She had gone out to dinner with one of her old friends, I expect,’ Ruth Layton said easily. ‘Mrs Elkinshaw, you know, or Mrs Steadman, perhaps. They were both at Festival.’
‘Perhaps she had,’ replied Madge tonelessly. ‘I felt a bit worried.’
‘I’m sure you needn’t have. Anyway, you’re almost certain to see her in church. I’m afraid we’re both having a godless morning and getting on with our packing.’
Madge walked the short distance to the parish church alone, and chose a seat from which she could keep the south door under observation. The faithful trickled in and took their places. The ringers brought their last change to its conclusion, and the five-minute bell took over. The organist embarked on a voluntary, and late-comers scurried into pews. An upsurge of the congregation greeted the appearance of the choir… Until the end of the Venite Madge continued to glance round uneasily.
During the last hymn she hurried out, dropping her prayer-book and drawing some curious stares. Regardless of the heat, for the fine weather was continuing unabated, she set off along the half-mile of road to Applebys as fast as she could. Her breath soon began to come in gasps, and she could feel her heart pounding, but she did not slacken pace until she saw Applebys, a couple of hundred yards ahead. Arriving at the gate at last, she paused as if to brace herself, and then went purposefully up the path to the front door.
The sight of the Sunday Times in the letterbox, and a bottle of milk on the step brought her to an abrupt halt. After an indecisive moment or two she put her finger on the bell-push, and pressed tentatively at first, and then hard, for a full twenty seconds. Nothing happened. Almost running round to the garden she peered once more through the ground-floor windows, and finally discovered that the kitchen window was open at the top. Pushing up the bottom sash, she listened intently. Except for the rhythmic ticking of the hall clock audible through the open door, complete silence reigned within: the lifeless silence of an empty house. She called, and it seemed as though the echoes of her voice would never die away. She made a sudden movement of withdrawal, hitting her head painfully on the window, and almost crying, she hurried in the direction of the Meldon gates. Half-walking and half running, she covered the interminable length of the drive, and stumbling into Old House and up the stairs hammered on the door of Helen Renshaw’s flat.
Helen Renshaw, on the point of going out to lunch, looked in amazement at the flushed, perspiring figure, with hat askew and shoes white with dust.
‘Why, Miss Thornton!’ she exclaimed, ‘is something wrong?’
Madge nodded, tried to speak, and failed.
‘Just come in here and tell me about it.’ Helen took her by the arm and guided her to a chair in the cool sitting-room.
‘Now, what has happened?’ she said.
‘It’s — it’s Miss Baynes. I’ve just been to Applebys.’
‘Is she ill or hurt? Is a doctor wanted?’
‘I don’t know… She — she isn’t there.’
‘Isn’t there?’ echoed Helen. ‘But Miss Thornton, why should she be? She’s almost certainly out with some of her old friends who were here yesterday.’
‘She can’t be … she wasn’t there last night either. And the milk hasn’t been taken in… We must tell the police quickly… Oh, please ring them up.’
‘But how do you know that Miss Baynes wasn’t at Applebys last night?’
With some difficulty Helen established the facts of Madge’s call at the house on the previous evening. Attempts to reason with her achieved nothing: becoming increasingly incoherent she reiterated that the police should be rung up. Helen tried another tack.
‘Look, Miss Thornton,’ she said. ‘Let’s just think about all this from Miss Baynes’ point of view. I really can’t ring up the police, you know. She would think it the most impertinent interference in her private affairs, and quite understandably. After all, it’s quite natural that she should stay out with her friends later than nine o’clock, and make an early start on a lovely summer morning, isn’t it? She may even have decided to spend the night at a hotel with Mrs Elkinshaw, who lives in Yorkshire and doesn’t come this way very often. You’ve had a very sad and trying time this week, and it has upset you, and made things get out of proportion. But if you will take my advice, you’ll leave Miss Baynes to her friends over this weekend. She doesn’t like interference, does she?’
This shot went home. Madge nodded, reminiscently and unhappily.
‘I’m going to drive you back to the staff house in a few minutes,’ Helen went on. ‘Then after lunch, have a good rest on your bed, and you’ll feel much more yourself by tea-time. Will you go down and sit in my car? I’m not quite ready.’
Madge got up still distressed, but calmer.
‘Thank you, Miss Renshaw. You’re so kind. I’m sorry I — I made a fuss. I —’
‘Don’t worry about it any more,’ said Helen, escorting her to the door.
After Madge had gone, she stood in the middle of the room frowning. It really was heartless of Beatrice Baynes to go off like this without a word to Madge. The least she could have done in the circumstances would have been to invite her to spend the day at Applebys.
Going over to the telephone she lifted the receiver and dialled the number of the School Sanatorium.
‘Sister? It’s Miss Renshaw speaking. I’m most reluctant to worry you, but I’m really bothered about Miss Thornton… You noticed it too, did you?… Well, in view of everything, a drive after tea and then supper with you would be just what she wants, I should think, poor woman… I’m more grateful than I can say: it would be difficult to cancel my own engagements, and she’s badly in need of a little human kindness… You’re a real Christian. Goodbye.’
It was as she went downstairs that she suddenly wondered why Beatrice Baynes had not gone to the funeral herself. Madge was her godchild, as she frequently emphasised, so there must have been some link with the family.
After some hours of the soothing, yet bracing company of Sister Littlejohn, and a bedtime sedative, Madge Thornton slept well on Sunday night. When she woke, she lay in bed for a time thinking. When she had had her breakfast she would go straight to Applebys. Aunt Beatrice never went out before ten.
Beyond this her plans were vague. She couldn’t stay on at the staff house, of course: Mrs Milman was going on holiday at the end of the week. If there was no invitation to stay at Applebys, she’d better go home and decide what to do about the house and the furniture. It was all hers now. The lawyer had been very kind … perhaps he would help her, if Aunt Beatrice didn’t.
It was a cooler day, with more wind and cloud than of late. Madge took the footpath through some fields and Meldon Park, branching off across the grass towards the Lodge. Her lips moved soundlessly from time to time as she framed sentences to say to Aunt Beatrice. She was so abstracted that at the gate of Applebys she almost collided with Mrs Hinks, the daily woman, who had cycled along the road from Trill.
‘Morning, Miss,’ said the latter, a brisk person in her forties. ‘I’m sure you must be real glad term’s —’ She broke off abruptly at the sight of two full milk bottles and a copy of The Times outside the front door. ‘Bless my soul,’ she exclaimed. ‘And there’s the Sunday paper too. I hope Miss Baynes ain’t poorly.’
Closely followed by Madge who was babbling incoherently, she hurried round to the back door on the west side of the house. It was locked.
‘Kitchen window open, too,’ she said. ‘I can’t made it out. What’s that you’r
e saying, Miss?’
Madge’s narrative became increasingly disjointed.
‘Miss Baynes never said nothing to me about goin’ away,’ asserted Mrs Hinks. ‘Nor yet to stop the milk. Good thing I’ve got a key. We’ll go inside and see if she’s left a note.’
The hall was stuffy, with the scent from a bowl of overblown roses hanging in the air. Mrs Hinks hurried into the kitchen.
‘Why, look there,’ she said, pointing to a trail of old newspapers scattered over the floor. ‘That’s never Miss Baynes, leavin’ the place like that. Proper queer, I call it. Reckon we’d better go over the ’ouse, Miss. There’s no note, ’ere.’
After a hasty glance into the other ground-floor rooms, she led the way upstairs. The door of Beatrice’s bedroom was propped open by a chair. The bed showed no signs of having been slept in, and the room was perfectly tidy, except for a pair of expensive-looking black shoes lying in front of a chair.
‘She can’t have gone away,’ Madge burst out. ‘There’s her brushes and comb, and all her washing things.’ She pointed to the fitted basin in the corner. ‘I know something dreadful’s happened — I knew it all the time, and they wouldn’t listen. Oh, Mrs Hinks, what are we going to do?’ She began to sob.
‘Now, Miss, we’ve got to act sensible,’ said Mrs Hinks stoutly. ‘Getting’ ’ysterical won’t ’elp nobody. Sit down a bit while I takes a look round.’
Pushing the unresisting Madge into a chair, she quickly searched the other bedrooms, looking in cupboards and under beds. Then she went downstairs again and investigated the sitting-rooms.
‘Miss Thornton,’ she called excitedly a few moments later. ‘Summat’s bin took from the droin-room.’
Madge stumbled to join her, choking back her tears.
‘See, Miss? The silver snuff-box off this table. Very valuable, Miss Baynes said. There’s been a break-in, if you asks me.’
‘But where’s Aunt Beatrice?’
Something in the pitch of Madge’s voice made Mrs Hinks decide to seek for reinforcements.
‘I reckon as we’d better go across to the School, Miss. There’s Miss Renshaw will say what’s to be done. I don’t want to take no liberties.’
‘I said the police ought to be told. I said so yesterday morning…’
‘That’s right, Miss,’ agreed Mrs Hinks pacifically, as they hurried up the drive… Proper gave me the willies, she did, she told her husband afterwards. Like a sleepwalker she was, you might say.
The secretary’s office was empty. Mrs Hinks, unfamiliar with the front regions of Old House, gazed round helplessly, and was heading for the kitchen when Jean Forrest came out of the library.
‘Oh, Miss,’ Mrs Hinks exclaimed thankfully, ‘Applebys ’as been broke into, and we can’t find Miss Baynes nowhere.’
Helen Renshaw, interrupted in a session with Joyce Kitson, listened to Mrs Hinks with a slight sense of uneasiness, increased by the fact that Madge remained perfectly silent, staring straight in front of her. She made a quick appraisal of the situation and turned to Joyce Kitson.
‘I want you to ring up the White Horse at Linbridge, and ask if Mrs Elkinshaw is staying there, and if Miss Baynes has been in. If not, try Mrs Steadman at Whitesands… It may be,’ she went on, addressing the other two, ‘that Miss Baynes has moved the snuff-box herself for some reason. I don’t want to call in the police until we’ve done all we can to contact her.’
‘Yes, Miss,’ replied Mrs Hinks, somewhat overawed by her surroundings. She unobtrusively patted her perm, and wished she were wearing something better than her working cotton frock.
In the ensuing silence Helen took up a pencil to give the appearance of working. It really was beginning to look rather an odd situation… Ought she, perhaps, to have taken some steps yesterday…?
After an interval Joyce Kitson came back.
‘Mrs Elkinshaw has been staying with Mrs Steadman,’ she reported, ‘and left for London by the morning train yesterday. They both went back to Applebys after Festival, and had sherry with Miss Baynes. Miss Watman was there too, and all three left together about seven. Mrs Steadman says Miss Baynes said nothing about going away, and she hasn’t heard from her since.’
Helen put down her pencil.
‘In that case,’ she said calmly, ‘I think we had better report this possible burglary to Constable Freeth at Trill. Will you see if you can get him for me, Joyce? And perhaps Miss Thornton and Miss Hinks could wait in your office? He may want to come up here before going to Applebys.’
Over the telephone this was the course of action she suggested. Constable Freeth agreed with alacrity, a burglary and a mysterious disappearance promising an interesting variation in his normal routine. In less than a quarter of an hour he had propped his bicycle against the portico of Old House, and was being shown into Helen Renshaw’s presence.
He listened attentively to her brief summary of the situation.
‘I think, madam, I’d better first have a word with the ladies that came over here from Miss Baynes’s, and then go and take a look myself. If there are what you might call suspicious circumstances, like signs of breaking and entering, I’ll be contacting the Inspector over at Linbridge. As to Miss Baynes herself, well, I don’t rightly know just yet. Maybe something’ll turn up to show it’s all quite straightforward-like. Perhaps you’ll call these two ladies in?’
Helen pressed a bell-push on her desk, noting with amusement a reluctance to become embroiled with Beatrice Baynes which was equal to her own.
‘By the way,’ she said, ‘Miss Thornton is very distressed at the moment. Her mother died last week, and she is a godchild of Miss Baynes.’
‘I’ll bear it in mind, madam.’
It was obvious that while Madge still seemed to be in a kind of stupor, Mrs Hinks had reached the stage of pleasurable self-importance. She gave Constable Freeth a brief nod, indicating that she realised they were meeting on official terms, and sat expectantly, her hands folded in her lap. In answer to his questions she gave a clear, if slightly discursive account of her arrival and subsequent actions at Applebys.
‘I understand, madam,’ he said to Madge, ‘that you met Mrs Hinks at the gate, and entered the house with her?’
Madge turned her head slowly and stared at him, as if trying to get him into focus.
‘I knew she wasn’t there on Saturday night,’ she said thickly. ‘Then, on Sunday morning I asked her —’ she made a gesture towards Helen — ‘to send for the police, but she wouldn’t. Nobody would do anything. Nobody.’ Her voice had begun to rise ominously.
As they looked at her there came the sound of swing doors being thrust violently open, and heavy feet came running across the hall. Bert Heyward knocked and burst in simultaneously, closely followed by a woman in an overall. He was panting and white-faced.
‘’Scuse me, Miss,’ he gasped, with a bewildered glance at Constable Freeth, ‘it’s Miss Baynes. Terrible thing’s ’appened up to the studio. Mrs Bennett started to clean, and when she shifted that puppet theatre, Miss Baynes fell out, stone dead. There’s a great bash on ’er ’ead.’
A horrified silence was broken by a peal of laugher from Madge.
‘She’s had Festival hospitality till after breakfast on Monday,’ she crowed, and rocketed into hysterics.
How extraordinary it feels, Helen Renshaw thought, sitting at her desk, not to have the slightest idea of what is going on in the School, or the right to ask.
There had been a period of feverish activity. Constable Freeth had vanished with Bert Heyward, returning with the key of the studio in his pocket to monopolise the telephone in the secretary’s office. In his absence Helen had hastily summoned Sister Littlejohn, who had appeared in a matter of minutes and dealt with, and removed Madge Thornton. In the meantime, Joyce Kitson had found Jean Forrest and handed over Mrs Bennett and Mrs Hinks. Constable Freeth had looked in to say that Inspector Beakbane of the Linbridge Constabulary was on his way, and departed again to keep guard over the studio.
A call to the Chairman of the Governors had produced the information that Sir Piers Tracey was out on the golf course, but that his wife would go over and find him at once.
For the moment there was nothing further to be done. Better to make an effort to think clearly and face things which would keep nagging…
There was the sound of a fast car coming up the drive. It drew up on the gravel sweep, and two men in plain clothes got out. Helen heard Joyce Kitson cross the hall, and a man’s voice. There was a knock on the door.
‘Come in,’ she called.
‘Inspector Beakbane, Miss Renshaw.’
He looked more like a farmer… Brawny, with an impassive face and bright blue eyes. An outdoor man. About fifty-five.
‘Good morning, madam,’ he said politely. ‘Very sorry to hear about this. Just to put you in the picture, Dr Wallace, the police surgeon, is on his way. When I’ve had a word with him. I’d like one with you, if it’s convenient.’
‘Certainly, Inspector,’ she answered, ‘you’ll find me here. Please tell me if there is anything I can do.’
He thanked her and went off. Almost at once a second car drew up, and another man, presumably Dr Wallace, got out and came into the house. Someone must have been waiting for him: she heard voices, and then footsteps dying away. An uneasy silence descended once more. Resting her head on her hands, Helen had a sudden horrific vision of the inevitable arrival of the Press.
A telephone call to say that Sir Piers Tracey was already on the road to Meldon did something to dispel the sense of an all-enveloping nightmare. The return of Inspector Beakbane was almost welcome. Anything, she thought, to get moving, to get the preposterous, grotesque business cleared up as quickly as possible.
He told her gravely that the nature of the injuries precluded accident and suicide, and that he was treating the case as one of murder, and as she had expected, his first question was about Beatrice Baynes’s next of kin.
‘As far as I know, her only surviving relative is a great-nephew, a Mr George Baynes,’ she told him. ‘I think he lives in London, but am not sure. Unfortunately, the person who would know, a Miss Madge Thornton, is a godchild of Miss Baynes, and when she heard the news she collapsed, and was taken to our sick-bay. She is on the teaching staff here. Her mother has just died, and the two shocks were too much for her. Would you like to ring up the Sister in charge?’
Death of an Old Girl Page 4