by J F Straker
‘Yes, sir, he told us that,’ Pitt interrupted. ‘What was the matter on which Bright wished to consult you?’
The solicitor frowned. ‘Normally I’d think twice before telling you that. But in this case it can’t do any harm. The poor chap’s dead, and anyway it was completely trivial. No use to you fellows, I’m afraid.’
‘Nevertheless we’d better have it.’
‘Of course. Well, apparently he’d been having an affair with some woman in the village (he didn’t get around to naming her), and last Sunday it so happened that they were together in the vicinity of Mytton Cottage about the time Cluster was murdered. He said he’d given you a different account of his movements that evening, which he now wished to correct; but the lady in question thought otherwise. What he wanted from me was an assurance that her name need not be divulged. He was also worried as to how serious an offence he had committed in making a false statement.’
The two policemen looked their astonishment. ‘Do you mean to say he cycled into Tanbury just to put a tomfool question like that?’ asked the incredulous sergeant. ‘And him with a sore head, too!’
‘No,’ Mace said firmly. ‘That’s what he actually said, but I think he intended more.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘Just his manner. He was obviously uneasy; almost frightened, I’d say. He kept edging up to what I thought was going to be a startling pronouncement, and then shied away. Brought out these trivial queries instead.’ He shrugged. ‘Don’t ask me why. Maybe he just lost his nerve.’
‘And he gave no hint of what this pronouncement might be?’
‘None whatever — except that it had to do with Cluster’s death.’ Mace hesitated. ‘I had it in mind that he was going to confess to the murder — or at least to some knowledge of it. But you fellows should know more about the possibility of that. I’m only guessing.’
Pitt was disappointed; he had hoped for so much more. If Miss Mytton was right there were many things Bright could have told them, and that now would never be told.
‘What time did you leave the office yourself, Mr Mace?’ he asked.
‘Just after seven.’ The solicitor grimaced. ‘Bright wasn’t my last visitor that evening. A few minutes after he left Miss Justin arrived.’ The grimace broadened into a grin. ‘Now you’re going to ask me what she wanted, eh? Well, I’ll tell you; she was snooping. She wanted to know what Bright had had to say. Apparently he had told her he was coming to see me.’
‘Did you tell her?’
‘There wasn’t much to tell, was there? But no, I didn’t. I pointed out that I couldn’t divulge a client’s business. I also asked her why, since she had obviously been waiting outside my office for Bright to leave, she hadn’t asked the man himself.’
Norris-Kerr nodded his approval. ‘What did she say to that?’ Pitt asked.
‘She said she didn’t want Bright to think she was spying on him. But between ourselves I fancy she thought I’d be the easier nut to crack.’
‘Did she stay long?’
‘About twenty minutes. When she left she very kindly gave Miss Stewart a lift home. Oh — Miss Stewart’s my secretary. The poor girl lives some way out of town, and I always feel rather guilty when I keep her late. Have to take her home myself sometimes. And now I come to think of it, that would be why Miss Justin came back through Little Blazing. From Miss Stewart’s place it would be quicker than going back through the town.’ His eyes widened. ‘Now I get it. It was Miss Justin who told you Bright had been to see me.’
‘Not directly. Miss Justin confided in Miss Mytton, and Miss Mytton confided in me.’
Mace laughed. ‘I suppose you know those two ladies have set up in opposition to you? Private enterprise versus official-dom.’
Pitt sighed. ‘I don’t know about being in opposition. The impression I got was that Miss Mytton considered the police too incompetent to deal with the matter unaided, and was prepared to give us the necessary helping hand.’ He shook his head, a faint smile lighting his face. ‘It may be kindly meant, Mr Mace, but it’s help we could do without; if you’ve any influence with the lady I’d be glad if you would head her off. We may seem slow, but we get along better without interference. All we want from the public is information.’
‘Head her off?’ Mace shook his head in mock reproach. ‘My dear Inspector! Why, that practically amounts to lese-majesty!’ On a more serious note he added, ‘Certainly I’ll do what I can. But Miss Mytton is a law unto herself.’
Rather absently, Pitt thanked him. Bright’s death was very much a headache. He had no doubt that both Miss Justin and Miss Stewart would confirm that the man had left Mace’s office, as the solicitor had said, at six-thirty or thereabouts. The doctor was positive that he was dead within the next half-hour. The time limits, therefore, were narrow enough; it wasn’t ‘when’ that was the difficulty, but ‘where’ and ‘why’. Particularly ‘where’. Not, according to the doctor, where the body had been found. Someone, therefore, had killed Bright elsewhere, either by accident or with intent, and had then dumped body and bicycle on the road — presumably in the forlorn hope that he would be thought to have fallen off his machine coming down the hill. And if it was murder — why? Jealousy? Both Cluster and Bright were reputed to have been involved with Mrs Colling — and both had died violent deaths. And Bright...
‘Anything else, Inspector?’ asked Mace.
Pitt shrugged off his reverie. ‘There is one other matter, sir. You remember telling me you met Miss Justin at the gate of her house on Sunday evening? Well, she confirms that. But there’s one point on which you and she disagree. You told me you didn’t see Stolpe, Miss Justin says she did. Quite distinctly, she says. How do you account for that?’
Mace shook his head. ‘I don’t. I suppose I was concentrating on the car and the road; I certainly didn’t see him. As far as I remember I didn’t see anyone.’
‘Thank you, sir. Now, might we have a word with your daughter while we’re here? We won’t keep her long.’
The solicitor hesitated. ‘Couldn’t it wait until tomorrow?’ he asked. ‘She wasn’t feeling well at dinner and has gone to bed. Of course, if it’s urgent—’
‘No, sir, it’s not urgent. Tomorrow will do.’
When they had gone Mace went in search of his wife. He found her in the sitting-room. ‘How’s Sybil?’ he asked, more sharply than he was wont to address her.
‘Don’t ask me,’ Julia said crossly. ‘I’m fed up with her moods and tantrums. It’s time you took her in hand, Edward. I can’t do a thing with her.’
‘Has she gone to bed?’
‘I suppose so. She went up to her room, anyway. Goodness knows what caused her to fly off the handle like that. This has been a difficult week for all of us, of course, with the police poking their noses into everything, but I should have thought Sybil was too self-centred to let that worry her. It couldn’t be because of the accident you were telling us about at dinner; she didn’t even know the man. At least—’ Her eyes widened in horror. ‘Edward! She didn’t know him, did she?’
‘Don’t ask me. She tells me no more than she tells you. But she could have met him. He was Clara’s gardener.’
‘I don’t mean like that,’ Julia said impatiently. ‘But she’s out so often of an evening, either in the car or wandering around the grounds.’ Julia always referred to the garden as ‘the grounds’. ‘She could easily be meeting a man without our knowing. Not Clifford — she won’t look at him nowadays — but someone undesirable; you know what she is. And it was just after you’d told us about the accident that she ran out of the room.’ She clapped both hands to her cheeks, squeezing her lips into a vertical line. ‘Edward! How ghastly if it were that!’
As the conviction grew in her that her suspicions were correct she proceeded to work herself into near hysteria. Sybil and a common gardener! The very thought was unbearable. She must speak to Sybil at once. It could not wait until the morning.
‘You’re wor
king yourself into a state for nothing,’ Mace said. ‘Even if it were true, the man’s dead.’ But he did not dissuade her from speaking to Sybil. ‘The police will want to see her tomorrow. We may as well know what she intends to say.’
Mention of the police served to intensify Julia’s fears. She swept up the stairs and into the girl’s room in an agony of despair.
Mace stood in the doorway. Sybil was stretched out on the bed, still fully dressed, her face buried in the pillows. She did not move or look up at her mother’s entrance.
‘What’s been going on?’ Julia demanded. She grasped the girl’s shoulder and pulled her on to her side. ‘Sybil, listen to me. Have you been getting yourself involved with this man Bright that was killed this evening?’ Her voice was urgent without being harsh, but her grip tightened. ‘Answer me, Sybil. Have you?’
Sybil took her hands away from her face and wriggled out of her mother’s grasp. There were tears in her eyes and her cheeks were flushed.
‘I wasn’t involved with him,’ she said stormily. ‘We were in love.’ Bitterness crept into her voice. ‘You can’t understand that, can you, Julia? You’re shocked as hell. But it’s true. I loved him, and we were going to be married. We’d have been married already if I hadn’t been a coward. And now—’ She threw herself back onto the pillows, so that the words were muffled. ‘Now he’s dead, and I wish I were too.’
Chapter Six
Friday, November 18
Since she presumed that her friend would be in no condition to come to her, Miss Mytton went to Miss Justin. She found the latter less hysterical than she had expected. From Edward Mace’s telephoned account she had gained the impression that Clara was prostrate with grief; but either Edward had magnified the grief, or a night’s rest had proved more of a solace than usual. She was upset, naturally (it was bad enough having her gardener killed, let alone being practically a witness to his death); but she certainly was not prostrate.
‘I wonder why the inspector is so interested,’ Miss Mytton commented, after listening to Miss Justin’s account of the tragedy. ‘If it were just an ordinary accident wouldn’t the local police deal with it?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Miss Justin. ‘What did you tell him — the inspector, I mean — about William?’
Miss Mytton flushed guiltily. Not because she had given information to the police; it had been her duty to do that. But Clara conceivably had some justification for accusing her of jumping the gun. No promises had been made, but it had been agreed that nothing should be said about William until they had learned the result of his interview with Edward Mace.
To placate her friend she gave as detailed an account as she could remember of her talk with the inspector.
‘It seemed the right thing to do, dear,’ she said. ‘I’m quite convinced the Collings are involved somehow. Even your poor William hinted at that, didn’t he? And yet there was that wretched Elizabeth doing her utmost to implicate Tom! Tom, of all people! Why, he wouldn’t hurt a fly! I suppose she now considers herself too good for him — the slut! But you wouldn’t think she’d go to that extreme to be rid of him, would you?’ Miss Justin said nothing, but continued to stare at her thoughtfully. ‘Anyway, I was determined she shouldn’t get away with it. In fairness to the Collings I had to give them one last chance, but they wouldn’t take it. Or Gwen wouldn’t. There were the usual lies. Only this time I knew she was lying; it was clear as daylight that there was something between her and William, even though George did his best to back her up, poor thing. Well, I wasn’t going to have Tom made a scapegoat for women like her and Elizabeth. I just had to speak to the inspector and let him know what was going on.’
Miss Justin sighed. She was not in an argumentative mood. Miss Mytton, who had not expected to be let off so lightly, looked at her friend more closely. She saw how drawn was her face, how dark and tired her eyes. Well, it must have been a harrowing experience, she thought. But I wonder just how attached Clara was to that gardener of hers.
‘That may partially explain the inspector’s interest in William’s death,’ she went on. ‘After what I’d told him he must have realized that William could be an important witness. Yet I can’t help thinking it goes deeper than that.’ She frowned. ‘What made you come home through Little Blazing last night, Clara? Why didn’t you use the main road as usual?’
Miss Justin shrugged. ‘No particular reason. I just did.’ She sighed. ‘How I wish I hadn’t!’
But Miss Mytton was off on another tack. ‘If you ask me, Clara, I’d say William’s death wasn’t accidental. I think he was murdered. That would explain everything.’
‘Would it?’ Miss Justin did not sound greatly interested. ‘Why should anyone want to kill William?’
‘Someone tried to kill him on Wednesday,’ Miss Mytton pointed out. ‘Wasn’t it to be expected he’d try again? The question is — who? I suppose George Colling is the obvious answer.’
‘Because of Mrs Colling?’
‘Either that — or because one of them killed Cluster, and they suspected that William knew it. They wouldn’t trust him with a secret like that, would they? They wouldn’t trust anyone.’ Her eyes lit up suddenly. ‘Don’t forget, Clara, that whoever killed him must have known he was cycling into Tanbury yesterday evening. And who more likely to know that than Gwen?’
‘Mrs Colling wasn’t the only one,’ Miss Justin objected. ‘I knew. So did the Colonel. And the Wests. And you know what a gossip Mary is. She probably told half the village that William was going to see a solicitor.’
Miss Mytton admitted the truth of this. ‘But none of them had a reason for killing William. The Collings did. Two reasons, perhaps. I admit that when you first told me about William and Gwen Colling I thought he might have murdered Cluster. But now that he himself has been killed it has to be one of the Collings. There’s really no one else, is there?’
‘Perhaps not,’ her friend agreed. ‘Only if they were afraid that William might talk wouldn’t they have killed him before he spoke to Edward, not after? Otherwise it’s like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.’
*
George Colling sat down heavily on the settee, stretched out a leg, and rubbed his aching thigh.
‘I don’t like it,’ he said morosely. ‘I don’t like it one little bit. If Missemily starts gassing about you and William it won’t be long before every one’s saying I killed him.’
His wife sniffed derisively. ‘Let them. Who cares what they say?’
‘I do, for one. And so might the police.’
‘But it was an accident, wasn’t it? That’s what I heard.’
‘There’s some as says it wasn’t.’ He bent his leg and stretched it again. ‘And if it wasn’t I’ll be the first for questioning. You can bet your life on that.’
‘I don’t see why.’ She shrugged. ‘You must have a guilty conscience.’
He flushed angrily. ‘You worry about your own conscience; mine’s clear enough.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘If I’ve kept quiet about what Missemily said about you and Bright it isn’t for want of thinking.’
It was her turn to be angry.
‘You’re a fool, George. You know damned well I wasn’t out with him Wednesday. You told Missemily so yourself.’
‘Not Wednesday, no. But how about Sunday and Monday?’
She said, getting up, ‘I may have seen him. I may even have spoken to him — I can’t remember. But I certainly wasn’t with him. Not in the way you and Missemily mean.’
He watched her as she moved restlessly about the room. ‘Did he call here Monday while I was out?’ he asked.
‘I told you, I don’t remember. But if he did it wasn’t to see me. I suppose it hasn’t occurred to you that if Missemily was wrong about Wednesday she could be wrong about the other days? You pay too much attention to what that old woman says, George. Everyone here does. But she’s just an interfering old busybody, and half the time she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. If you weren
’t so easily taken in by her high and mighty ways you’d see that for yourself. But no; it’s “Missemily this” and “Missemily that,” and I’m just about fed up with it. Missemily, indeed! There isn’t a thing happens in the village without her sticking her long nose into it. Not even murder. You’d think Cluster was killed ’specially for her benefit, the way she’s been snooping and prying.’ She snorted angrily. ‘If you took more notice of me and less of Missemily we might get along better.’
‘So I did before Sunday,’ he said bitterly. ‘But not anymore. Not after the lies you’ve told me. I’ve lost all faith in you, Gwen, and you may as well know it.’
For a moment she stared at him. Then she sat down at the table and began rolling the cloth nervously between her fingers.
‘If that’s the way you feel there’s not much point in our going on, then, is there?’ she said. ‘I may as well clear out.’
She waited expectantly for his protest. She had threatened to leave him before, although she had never really intended to implement the threat. But it had proved the surest way of frightening him into subservience.
This time he did not give the expected response.
‘We’ll talk about that later,’ he said. ‘No one’s leaving until Cluster’s murder has been cleared up. Bright’s too — if he was murdered. The police’ll see to that.’
*
Sybil Mace wore no make-up and her face was pale. Her chin cupped in her hands, she sat by the window gazing out into the garden, where the morning sun glinted on the wet leaves. As the two detectives came into the room she gave them a slow, detached glance and then turned back to the garden.
Julia looked apprehensively from her daughter to the policemen. ‘Is it all right for me to stay?’ she asked, for once unsure of herself.
The sergeant stared at her; he seemed to consider her something of a curiosity. Pitt said, ‘Of course. Unless Miss Mace objects, that is.’
‘Naturally my daughter would prefer me to be present.’ Giving Sybil no time to contradict her, Julia went on hastily, ‘We didn’t expect you so early. If my husband had known he’d have waited. He has only just left.’