Death of an Old Girl

by Elizabeth Lemarchand

  ‘Yes, there was sir. They remarked on how tough it was on Eccles to have her living so near, and he seems to have spoken his mind about her pretty freely.’

  ‘What did you make of him yourself?’

  ‘He’s a truculent customer. A red-headed Scot, bald on top. Canny though. I don’t see him committing an unpremeditated murder, somehow.’

  ‘We’d better look into his movements on Saturday evening, all the same. Let’s push off and find him…’

  Jock Eccles, run to earth at the Plough, was both truculent and uncooperative. When offered the choice of sitting in the police car or being taken to Lindbridge police station he boarded the vehicle with muttering resentment, and sat down heavily. When asked where he had been between seven and eight o’clock on the previous Saturday evening, he demanded angrily if he were being accused of the murder.

  ‘If I were charging you, you would have been cautioned,’ Pollard told him. ‘You are simply being asked to help the enquiry by answering a simple question. Where were you?’

  With great difficulty it was established that Jock had finished his clearing up at the School by about a quarter-past six, and had returned home, got his bicycle, and come along to the Plough for a drink.

  ‘When did you go back to the Lodge?’

  ‘I didna luk at my watch.’

  ‘How long had you been back before that Jaguar went up the drive?’ asked Toye.

  ‘Just a wee while.’

  ‘I think we all could do with a drink,’ said Pollard, with a glance at Toye, who got out of the car and went into the Plough.

  If not exactly mellowed, Jock became slightly less aggressive after some refreshment. While affirming that a man couldn’t be expected to know the very minute he stepped outside his door, he volunteered the information that Bert Heyward came along on his bicycle shortly afterwards, having stayed on at the Plough for a game of darts.

  ‘Did you see anyone else you know?’ asked Pollard as casually as he could.

  ‘Ay. Mistress Thornton came oot frae Applebys and crossed ower to the gates.’

  ‘Did you speak to her?’

  ‘For why should I be bletherin’ wi’ the puir body just hame fra’ her mither’s graveside?’

  Asked if he had noticed in which direction Madge had gone, Jock gave Pollard a long, hard look.

  ‘If she’d murdert the auld yin up in the studio, ye couldna blame her, but she dinna gang that way a’ aw’. She was awa’ doon the park to the wee path that rins to the Staff Hoos. I watched her a while, draggin’ her step wi’ her heid doon…’

  ‘The landlord says Eccles was there, right enough,’ Toye reported, ‘and Heyward too. They turned up at unusual times because of Festival. They’re both regulars, you see.’

  Pollard grunted, and they drove to Linbridge police station in silence.

  ‘I’m sorry to have kept you so long,’ Pollard said, striding into the room where George Baynes still sat in an apathetic huddle. ‘It was unavoidable. You’ll be glad to get away for a meal, I’m sure. I’ve rung Mr Yelland, and he’ll look you up at the White Horse after dinner.’

  George blinked.

  ‘You mean I can go?’

  ‘Yes. As far as the death of Miss Baynes goes, I’m not making a charge, largely as the result of your cousin’s statement.’

  ‘My cousin?’

  ‘Miss Madge Thornton. She’s your first cousin once removed, the daughter of your late great-uncle, Mr John Baynes, who was killed in the First War. She wasn’t born in wedlock, incidentally… Perhaps I had better explain…’

  ‘What happens about the breaking and entering charge?’ asked Inspector Beakbane, when an unusually subdued George had departed.

  ‘God knows,’ replied Pollard wearily. ‘I couldn’t care less at the moment. Two days of blood, toil, tears, and sweat, and we’re back where we started.’

  ‘You want a drink,’ said Beakbane. ‘When you’re my age, my lad, you’ll know you can’t start properly on a case till you’ve cleared the ground.’

  Fifteen

  ‘During the summer term the pupils make occasional expeditions to Whitesands where they enjoy the stimulating sea bathing under careful supervision.’

  School Prospector (1885 edition)

  Pollard was a strong swimmer, and striking out soon left the few belated bathers in the shallows far behind. The water was deliciously cool, and smelt tangy and salty. The sun had finally disappeared for the day behind a bank of stratus cloud scored by thin parallel lines of bright gold. Overhead was a vast aquamarine emptiness. At last he stopped swimming, rolled over on to his back and floated tranquilly, staring upwards… Water did something to you when your mind was so scribbled over with facts and impressions that there seemed no hope of ever sorting out your data, scrapping the irrelevancies, and distinguishing the real pointers. A merciful process of obliteration set in, giving you to some extent a fresh start. Gently rising and falling with the swell beneath him, Pollard relaxed. He watched first one star and then another come out in the deepening blue-green vault above him, until he lost count and felt a sudden desire for the world of men and action. Turning over again he made for the shore with a powerful crawl stroke, and saw the Whitesands esplanade leap into loops and festoons of light from end to end. Then his feet encountered warm, yielding sand, and seconds afterwards he stood on the beach and shook himself like a dog.

  Ten minutes later he emerged from a bathing cabin, handed in his hired trunks and towel, and went in search of a meal. The esplanade and streets were full of strolling holidaymakers who had eaten and were streaming out of the hotels and boarding-houses. Pollard made his way through the crowds with some difficulty, and found a half-empty grill room, where he ate ravenously. Then he rang Jane from a public call-box.

  The conversation brought her very near, the sounds of the flat coming across as a background to her voice. They were invariably discreet when he was out on a case, and had a simple code. ‘Ground floor,’ he replied in answer to an enquiry about where his hotel room was situated, and so conveyed a complete lack of progress.

  Without comment Jane remarked that the art teachers’ refresher course on which she had been engaged ended the next day, and that from then on the flat would be continuously manned. He replied that he had no plans at the moment, but was undoubtedly returning to London in the near future.

  ‘On no account overlook the importance of the leading role in the play when you’re casting the parts,’ she said just before they rang off. ‘Try to get right inside the character and think her thoughts.’

  With the words still echoing in his ears Pollard replaced the receiver. It was at the precise moment when he turned to emerge from the stuffy and constricting telephone kiosk that he knew intuitively that the living Beatrice Baynes had experienced the same kind of constriction in the narrow confines of the puppet theatre. Startled at the strength of this impression, for he was not a fanciful man, he stood for so long with his hand on the door that an irascible face materialised and peered at him. Coming out with a hasty apology Pollard set out for the car park, guided through the streets by his subconscious mind and surprised to find himself standing by his car, key in hand. He got in and hesitated. Ideas were flooding into his mind and he must have solitude in which to evaluate them. The prospect of Linbridge police station and his depressing little bedroom at the White Horse was intolerable. Making a quick decision he switched on the engine and threaded his way through the town to the suburbs and open country beyond. Driving slowly he saw a lane which seemed to lead up to the ridge of hills behind Whitesands, and chanced his luck. It held. He met no other car and climbed quickly until the gradient flattened out at the top. A gate giving on to a carried hayfield stood conveniently open. He turned the car in, bumped over a few yards of rough ground, and turned off the ignition and lights. Air full of delicious country scents and tiny muted sounds came in at the window. Far below, Whitesands scintillated to the water’s edge, beyond which sea and sky became indistingu
ishable. Was that a ship or a star? He sighed contentedly, lit a cigarette and began to order his thoughts.

  In retrospect it was astonishing that he had never visualised Beatrice Baynes snooping from inside the puppet theatre. He had assumed, without giving the matter any real thought, that she had been on the fire-escape, if eavesdropping on Clive Torrance and Ann Cartmell, or simply sitting in the studio if lying in wait for Bert Heyward. It was now established beyond any reasonable doubt that Bert Heyward was not the murderer, so therefore one could tentatively work on the hypothesis that Cartmell and Torrance had been Beatrice’s target… Of course, she could hardly have failed to attract notice if she had been hanging about on the fire-escape. There’d have been quite a lot of people about in the Quad and the grounds. The puppet theatre gave cover, and far better facilities for seeing and hearing. He’d been a clot not to think of it before…

  Pollard lit another cigarette, and hoisted his left leg up onto the passenger’s seat. He could visualise that small, determined figure coming into the studio and glancing sharply round, so intent on her unpleasant little scheme that she was oblivious of its squalidness… She’d manoeuvred herself into the tall hessian-covered box, and adjusted the curtains to give herself an adequate view of the room without running the risk of being seen… Utterly grotesque behaviour in a woman of her generation and education… Jane was right, though: Beatrice’s mentality was baffling, but after all, it was her murder he was investigating, and he must make an effort to piece her together from all the sources available to him.

  Beakbane had been the first, presumably primed by Constable Freeth, for the Inspector had said that he himself had never seen her. A wealthy old girl living just across the road, he’d remarked, as they walked through School Wing towards the studio. A tartar … some bee in her bonnet about the School…

  Fair enough, thought Pollard. Beakbane’s comments and the set-up at Applebys underlined a built-in assurance, based on an established social position and plenty of money. The ample, solid comfort of the house returned to his mind. Sitting pretty, Yelland had said… All this reinforced by an aggressive character and quick temper. The sort of overbearing old woman a village bobby would hope not to get embroiled with… But none of these things had deterred the murderer. Did this suggest that he was a stranger? Or someone mentally unbalanced?

  There had been a faintly surprised look in the glazed eyes … the astonishment registered in the last fraction of consciousness that a violent physical assault could happen to her. He remembered how the body had looked so small that it might almost have been one of the puppets, except that nothing artificial could ever look as lifeless as a body which had once breathed and moved. She’d been lying in a theatrical sprawl, almost tragi-comic, with the pointed toes of the rather old-fashioned shoes pointing upwards and outwards, and one arm flung out in a violent gesture of abandon, just as she had crashed out onto the floor at the feet of the horrified Mrs Bennett, the whole attitude a travesty of the personality indicated by the decorous clothes. Then a closer look had shown the cleaner the brutally-shattered skull. Tragi-comedy had become undiluted tragedy.

  Helen Renshaw’s account of Beatrice had been objective and analytical, as if she were discussing a problem pupil. She had effectively conveyed a dynamic, frustrated elderly woman, no longer dangerous because impotent to put the clock back. Surely Beatrice must have known this: she was very far from being a fool, according to both Helen Renshaw and Yelland. Perhaps, Pollard thought, she had compensated by telling herself it was a point of honour to carry on the losing battle.

  Several people had mentioned the outbursts of temper. Yes, Beatrice would have had little instinct of self-preservation in face of threats or an attack. Even if there had been a chance, it probably never occurred to her to try to escape. And she was undoubtedly a fighter: the initial challenge might well have come from her.

  Pollard shifted his position. Dimly he felt that he was groping in the direction of what actually happened in that scene of savage violence which had ended Beatrice’s life.

  Surely the person who could do more than anyone else to fill out her personality for him was Madge Thornton, inarticulate though she was. Her whole life had been shaped by her godmother’s mentality. How utterly ruthless and how secretive Beatrice had been about the relationship between the two of them. What had Yelland said? Miss Baynes was a woman who kept her own counsel, wasn’t it? Family feeling had been relentlessly sacrificed to family pride. Even in this modern age of changing moral standards there didn’t seem to have been the slightest sign of compromise and an acknowledgment of the blood tie. A most extraordinary rigidity, thought Pollard, and all of a piece with her hostility to the changes at Meldon. All the same, the unconcealed disappointment in Madge showed that family feeling still ran strongly below the surface… So did the practical toleration of George’s deficiencies… But she had found it bitter that Madge, a Baynes, was a dreary failure, a tolerated academic drudge at Meldon whereas a chit like Ann Cartmell could bring distinction to the School…

  Pollard metaphorically sat up. Of course this made Beatrice’s virulent dislike of Ann even more explicable. The girl had not only revolutionised the art department, one of the last strongholds of the old order, but her ability and popularity and personal attractiveness only served to make the unfortunate Madge Thornton’s lack of these things more conspicuous, at any rate in Beatrice’s eyes…

  He carefully stubbed out his cigarette, tossed it through the window and lit another. Had he given enough attention to this almost pathological hatred of Ann Cartmell? It had rather tended to get submerged in Beatrice’s overall hostility to the new regime, hadn’t it?

  Pollard considered the account given to him by Helen Renshaw of the extraordinary scene at the Annual General Meeting. Surely, he thought, an attack like that on a girl young enough to be your granddaughter, and who was guilty of nothing but professional success, indicated a quite alarming degree of hatred. Beatrice would clearly have gone to considerable lengths to damage the girl, and anything she achieved in this line would have useful repercussions on Helen Renshaw. There was therefore a strong case for assuming that she had gone over to the studio to try to discover something damaging about Ann Cartmell, and this raised a number of questions.

  In the first place, he thought, it was unbelievable that Beatrice Baynes would have gone to the length of hiding in the puppet theatre unless she knew for certain that Ann Cartmell was going to be there. Here he paused to remind himself that he had no evidence that the puppet theatre had been used for spying, only a compulsive hunch, and policemen were not allowed to build cases on hunches… He compromised by putting it on one side for the moment. The important thing was how Beatrice knew Ann would be there.

  Was it possible, he wondered, that there was some job to be done in the studio which always had to be left till after Festival supper, and that Beatrice had hoped to catch Ann Cartmell out over not doing it properly, or even, conceivably, in helping herself to school stationery or something of that sort? There had been a few odd bits of clearing-up which the girls had helped with… Pretty thin, he decided. So thin that it seemed legitimate to concentrate on the one definite fixture in the studio that evening: the visit of Clive Torrance to select the entries for the painting competition.

  Pollard lit a fourth cigarette and consulted his notes with the help of an electric torch. According to Torrance, the appointment had only been made that afternoon by means of a telephone call. Fairly early in the afternoon, presumably, if he had gone to a meeting afterwards. Was it likely that Beatrice Baynes had got to know about this call? Ann Cartmell wasn’t expecting it, and therefore someone would have gone round looking for her. Afterwards, in view of her feelings about Torrance, she was probably incapable of keeping the news of his visit to herself. Why should she, after all? It seemed perfectly possible that anyone with snooping instincts as strong as Beatrice’s might have got to hear about it. If he could only prove that she had, it would be almost c
onclusive evidence of why she went over to the studio at all.

  At this moment Pollard’s mind took a leap forward. If he were on the right track at last … if the motive for the expedition was to sit in on the meeting between Ann Cartmell and Clive Torrance, it cleared up the problem of when Beatrice went over to the School, and how she managed to do so unobserved. Her guests left her at five minutes past seven. Between this time and seven-thirty, when Festival supper began, a good many people would have been about, almost certainly strolling in the grounds as it was a fine evening… Pollard flicked on his torch again and hastily turned over some pages… Yes, Jock Eccles had only been back at the Lodge ‘a wee while’ before Torrance’s Jaguar went streaking up the drive, say at five minutes to eight. How long was a wee while? Five minutes? Ten? Even if it were as much as a quarter of an hour, Beatrice would have had ten minutes in which to get to the studio, during which the grounds were deserted. Jock Eccles and Bert Heyward were at the Plough, Jock probably on the way home. Mrs Eccles was helping in the School kitchen, and everybody else was either serving supper or eating it.

  He could visualise Beatrice waving off her friends at the gate and turning back into Applebys for the last time. She’d go across the hall to the kitchen — no! Hell! He ought to have seen the implications of the report on the autopsy. It had stated that apart from a small quantity of alcohol no food had entered her stomach for some hours. Of course that more or less ruled out the later times of going across which he had considered: she hadn’t waited to have any supper. But she’d gone upstairs and changed her shoes. He remembered the smart pair by the chair in her bedroom, and the more worn pair with the lower heels which had made the tell-tale scratch marks on the studio floor. There was something pathetically human about that last change of shoes…

  A distant vibration invaded his consciousness, increased steadily and resolved itself into the chugging of a motorcycle engine. Pollard watched an unsteady cone of light creep across the field, and the hedge on his left became sharply defined against the darkness of the sky. The rider cat-called at a supposedly necking couple as he went by, the light ebbed and vanished, and the noise gradually died down and was engulfed by the silence. Pollard’s spirits which had been rising rapidly suddenly slumped again.