Untimely Death

by Cyril Hare

  “Fascinating, fascinating!” he murmured, toying with a magnifying glass. “Let me see that I have this right, Inspector. The contents of envelope ‘A’ are fragments of sawdust from the cold store of Mr. Joliffe’s butcher’s shop; the contents of envelope ‘B’, dust and other material from the floor of Mr. Joliffe’s van; the contents of envelope ‘C’ consists of material taken from the deceased’s jacket, consisting partly of sawdust identical with exhibit ‘A’, partly of dust identical with exhibit ‘B’. ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ alike are impregnated with blood, which, on analysis, proves to be animal, but not human.”

  “Quite right, my lord.”

  “Good! Now let me see if I appreciate the significance of the button. That was found at Satcherley Way, I think you said?”

  “About half a mile to the west of Satcherley Way, my lord. On the edge of the road.”

  “A button identical with those on the deceased’s clothing. Your theory is that the deceased met his death at that spot. How, by the way?”

  “I’m not in a position to say, my lord.”

  “Pity. Never mind, that is a side issue. Having died there, he was taken to the cold store, via Bolter’s Tussock. Curious, that. Why stop half-way?”

  “Mr. Joliffe’s statement, my lord——”

  “Tut, tut! I can’t have that. If you can’t answer the question, you can’t answer it. Now can you answer this one? Granted that you can prove that the body was in the van and in the cold store, how do you prove that it was there before Sunday, when Mr. Gilbert Gorman died?”

  “The butcher’s premises were shut from the close of business on Saturday until Tuesday morning, my lord. If the body didn’t get in there by Saturday evening, it didn’t get there at all.”

  Mr. Justice Pomeroy nodded. Then he looked at the clock. A tidy-minded man, he disliked leaving the fag-end of a case to be finished on the second day. At the same time, he disliked sitting beyond his accustomed time.

  “Well, Mr. Twentyman?” he said.

  “If your lordship will allow me one moment,” said Twentyman.

  He consulted briefly with the solicitors instructing him and then announced that on behalf of the trustees of the settlement he did not propose to contest the case any further. Subject to his costs being provided for, he was prepared to consent to the declaration claimed by the Plaintiff.

  “Very well, Mr. Twentyman. I think you are wise. There will be a declaration as prayed.”

  Mrs. Gorman stood up.

  “Then who has won the day, my lord?” she asked.

  “Mr. Dick Gorman has won the day, madam, just as you said he would. Whether his victory is any profit to him depends on what happens on another day—in the third week in June, I think you said?”

  Mrs. Gorman nodded silently and walked out of court. Pettigrew, following her with his eyes, was pleased to see Dick Gorman catch her up and engage her in what seemed a friendly conversation. Mr. Joliffe followed them out, and turned down the corridor in the opposite direction. He was quite alone.

  CHAPTER XV

  Post-mortem in Fleet Street

  Pettigrew did not wait to talk to Manktelow or to Mallett, or to anyone else. He felt suddenly in urgent need of fresh air, and made his way straight out of the building. Once beyond the doors, he halted, irresolute. Eleanor, he suddenly remembered, had decided to come to London to join Hester Greenway, who was making one of her very rare descents on the metropolis on some obscure expedition. Had he arranged to meet Eleanor, and if so, where and when? Feeling thoroughly stupid, he dawdled there, his mind a complete blank, while homing barristers, witnesses and solicitors’ clerks swirled past him.

  “Well, Frank! Thank goodness you waited for us—I thought we were never going to get out of that place.”

  Pettigrew turned to see his wife coming towards him, accompanied by a weatherbeaten woman who could only be Hester Greenway.

  “Where do you come from?” he asked in surprise.

  “From the public gallery in the Court, of course. Do you mean to say you never saw us?”

  “No,” said Pettigrew rather shaken. “I didn’t.” As a good witness should, he had turned towards the bench to give his evidence. The public gallery, in any event, was the last place to which a man of his training would think of giving his attention. “You never told me you were coming,” he added reproachfully.

  “I didn’t know I was. It was Hester’s idea. Oh, that reminds me——”

  She introduced her husband to Hester in due form.

  “I thought you put up a jolly good show,” said Hester, shaking Pettigrew’s hand warmly. “I wanted to clap, but Ellie said I’d only put you off. Do tell me one thing, though. Did the pony bolt with you?”

  “It did,” said Pettigrew. “How did you know?” To his great surprise, he found himself thinking that he was going to like Miss Greenway very much.

  “Well, for one thing, those Gorman ponies always will if you give them half a chance. Mind you, I don’t blame you for not telling the judge, when he was asking all those silly questions, but I think he ought to have guessed that was why you didn’t stop to look at the body.”

  “It’s not the only thing he ought to have guessed,” remarked Eleanor.

  Hester smiled at Eleanor, and Eleanor smiled at Hester. It was the kind of smile that passes between people of superior intelligence in the presence of a deplorably ignorant third party.

  “Well?” said Pettigrew. “What ought he to have guessed?”

  “That Mrs. Gorman was going to have a baby, of course. It was obvious. We spotted it the moment we saw her.”

  “It wasn’t only the judge, it was the whole lot of you,” observed Hester. “‘My lord, this has taken me entirely by surprise’.” She gave a very passable imitation of Manktelow’s manner. “I never saw a crowd of men look so silly. Two of them detectives, too! Mr. Parkinson!” she called out, suddenly. “Don’t go, Mr. Parkinson. I’ve something I wanted to ask you.”

  Inspector Parkinson, with Mallett by his side, was just leaving the Law Courts. He stopped and took off his hat to Hester.

  “I wasn’t expecting to see you here, Miss Greenway,” he said.

  “Never mind what you were expecting. It’s what Edna Gorman’s expecting that we were talking about. Didn’t either you or Mr. Mallett guess?”

  “To tell you the truth, ma’am, we hadn’t given it a thought. And now, if you’ll excuse us——”

  “Of course I won’t excuse you. There are dozens of things I want to hear about, and so does Mrs. Pettigrew. Mr. Pettigrew, isn’t there somewhere near here where we can get some tea? I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m simply dying for a cup.”

  “It’s very kind of you, Miss Greenway, but I really ought to be getting along.”

  “Well, if you must, Inspector, I suppose you must. But I thought you told me the other day that you wanted one of Jeannie’s puppies …?”

  *

  So it was that to his great surprise Pettigrew found himself playing host to a party of five in a Fleet Street teashop. It was a somewhat constrained party at first, but once he had persuaded Mallett that he bore him no malice the atmosphere became friendly enough.

  “The first thing I want to know is,” said Hester Greenway, as soon as the cups had been poured out, “When are you prosecuting that odious creature Joliffe?”

  “What do you suggest he should be prosecuted for, ma’am?” asked the Inspector cautiously.

  “Good gracious, I don’t know. That’s your business, not mine. Making a fool of the coroner, I suppose.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not an offence known to the law, ma’am.”

  “But he must have done something!”

  “I can’t help thinking Miss Greenway is right,” Pettigrew put in. “I’m deplorably rusty in these matters, but might I suggest that our old friend, a Common Law Misdemeanour——”

  “Against the Peace of our Sovereign Lady the Queen, her Crown and Dignity.” Mallett rolled the phr
ase lovingly round his tongue.

  “Exactly. There must have been something like this before at some time.”

  “Rather over a hundred years ago, sir,” said Parkinson. “You’ll have heard of the Resurrection men, no doubt.”

  “Then you have considered a prosecution?” said Pettigrew.

  “It was not a matter for me to consider, sir. I reported the matter to the Chief Constable and he took the advice of the Director of Public Prosecutions. And the decision was—not to prosecute.”

  “Why on earth not?” asked Hester.

  “I rather think that some doubt was felt as to whether a conviction would be secured in such an unusual class of case.”

  Something in the Inspector’s tone put Eleanor on enquiry. “Was that the only reason for not prosecuting him?” she asked. “Or was there something else?”

  “Well, madam, now that you have raised the subject—this is in strict confidence, of course—there was at one time the possibility that Joliffe might be prosecuted on a graver charge.”

  Inspector Parkinson’s face was brick red from the strain of endeavouring to combine civility with his sense of police propriety.

  “You thought he’d murdered Jack?”

  “Really, madam, I haven’t said that. It would be most improper of me——”

  “He could have done it easily in a fit of temper, and then remembered that it wouldn’t pay him,” Eleanor went on, sublimely regardless of the Inspector’s embarrassment. “Or not murdered him—just manslaughtered him in his car by accident.”

  “Jack Gorman wasn’t killed by Mr. Joliffe’s car,” Parkinson volunteered. “As a matter of fact, I shouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t a car at all.”

  “Steady on!” said Hester. “We all read what the doctor said at the inquest.”

  “That doctor was a——” Parkinson hesitated, turned a darker shade of red and shut his mouth firmly. He opened it again to swallow down the last of his tea, and then with a mumbled apology left the teashop.

  “Well! If he thinks he’s going to get a pup from me after that …” was Hester’s disgusted comment.

  Pettigrew’s reaction to the Inspector’s disappearance was different. “Mr. Mallett,” he said, “when you were a Detective-Inspector did you discuss cases with members of the public?”

  “I did not, sir.”

  “Now that you are no longer in the force, do you feel at liberty to discuss this case with us?”

  “I think so, sir, yes.”

  “Then in that case, I think we should be grateful to Parkinson for taking himself off. I take it that everything he knows about this case, you know?”

  Mallett hesitated. He was a modest man, but he had a high regard for truth.

  “I think that would be an under-statement, sir,” he said.

  “Excellent! That is all I need to know about Parkinson. Will you therefore please take another of those sugar cakes and give your mind to the following questions: When, where, why, how and by whom was Jack Gorman killed?”

  Mallett demolished the cake in astonishingly quick time, brushed the crumbs out of his moustache and said, “When? Within fairly narrow limits, that presents no particular difficulty now. On this Saturday morning Jack Gorman must have left his wife early——”

  “I can help you there. I saw him. It was just day-break.”

  “That means that he was alive about half past five Greenwich mean time, or half past six by the clock. If Mr. Joliffe is telling the truth, and I think he is in this matter, he was dead by half past seven, which was when he found him while on his way to work that morning.”

  “Very well. That brings us logically to Where?”

  “Assuming that he was killed where Joliffe says that he found him—two assumptions this time, sir, but they seem to be reasonable ones—we can determine that exactly. I don’t know whether you know Satcherley Copse, sir?”

  Pettigrew closed his eyes and delved back into his distant memories once more. There came to him a recollection of waiting in a chilling wind and icy rain while hounds were hopelessly at fault in a tangle of neglected woodland. The pony coughed twice on the way home, and he was sick with fear that it would be unfit to ride the next hunting day. Yes he knew Satcherley Copse.

  “It’s a hanging wood above Stinchcombe Water,” he said.

  “Quite right, sir. And you get to it from the road by a gate near the top of Gallows Hill. That’s the direct road from Sallowcombe to Whitsea, of course. Joliffe found his son-in-law by that gate, his head and shoulders in the road, his feet towards the gate—which was open, incidentally, he says. I’ve been over the ground since, both with and without Mr. Parkinson, and, as you know, we did find Jack’s button. Apart from that, by the time we got there, there were no traces left. In any case, I should think that by midday on that same Saturday anything in the road or near it had been hopelessly obscured. Besides cars on the road, there must have been a couple of hundred horses at least through that gate within a few hours of Joliffe finding him.”

  “Of course. The meet was at Satcherley Way that morning.”

  “Yes, sir. And Mr. Olding tells me that the stag was roused in Satcherley Copse.”

  “In that case, the ground must have been a mass of hoofprints. So far so good. We’ve dealt with When and Where, but now I want to go to Why? And Why isn’t single here, but double or triple. First Why: Why was Jack Gorman on Gallows Hill at all?”

  “It’s within easy walking distance of Sallowcombe, sir, and he had to go somewhere when he left. Other than that, I can’t suggest why he should have gone in that particular direction.”

  Hester Greenway chuckled.

  “I can,” she said. “He was within a mile of Highbarn Farm.”

  “Highbarn Farm?” said Mallett in surprise. “Tom Gorman’s place, do you mean?”

  “Certainly that’s what I mean.”

  “But what should he be going there for?”

  “What should anybody be going anywhere for at that hour of the morning? For breakfast, of course.”

  “You think that Jack Gorman expected Tom to give him breakfast?”

  Miss Greenway clicked her tongue in impatience at the denseness of the man.

  “Not Tom, of course. Everybody on the moor knows he couldn’t stand the sight of him. He wouldn’t have given him a crust of bread. But Ethel would.”

  “Who is Ethel?” asked Eleanor.

  “Tom’s wife, Dick’s sister, Jack’s cousin—she’d give him breakfast or—or—anything else he cared to ask for. So would nine women out of ten in a twenty mile radius. Surely you knew that, Mr. Mallett?”

  “I knew Jack Gorman had a certain reputation as a lady’s man, miss, but I’m bound to say it never occurred to me. You may be right, of course, but if he went to Highbarn, how was he to avoid meeting Tom?”

  “It was a hunting day, wasn’t it? And Tom was acting as harbourer while the regular man was ill. That meant he’d be up and out of the place hours before. No—Jack’s only trouble would be to finish his breakfast before Tom came back for his. But he was pretty expert at dodging husbands, was Jack. He was a character and no mistake!”

  Hester concluded her obituary of Jack Gorman with an indulgent laugh, in which Pettigrew joined and Eleanor rather pointedly did not.

  “Well,” said Pettigrew, “we’ve got a fairly plausible answer to that question, at all events. My next one comes back to Joliffe. According to his story, having found the body, he immediately decides to conceal it. Why?”

  “Because he knows that Gilbert is dying, sir, and he’s thinking of this base fee business if it is known that Jack has died first.”

  “Is he, by Jove? Then he’s a very learned butcher. I’m a lawyer, or used to be, and I shouldn’t know the first thing about it if Puffkins hadn’t expounded it in words of one syllable.”

  “I can explain that quite easily, sir. When he made Jack bar the entail, he was warned by the lawyer that advised him, of the importance of Jack surviving Gilbert.
But of course nobody then ever imagined that he wouldn’t.”

  “So much for that. Now for the next question. Having found Jack, he apparently just dumped him off the road at Bolter’s Tussock, where he wouldn’t be seen. Why didn’t he take him down and pop him into the deep freeze at once?”

  “He couldn’t do that. He’s only got a little two-seater car. How would he have looked arriving at his business with a corpse on the passenger seat?”

  “Granted. But at least I should have expected him to come back in double quick time with the van. Instead, he waited till late in the afternoon, which couldn’t have done Jack much good, considering the weather.”

  “There’s good reason for that. It wasn’t until the afternoon that he could get his shop and cold store to himself. I got some very interesting information from Joliffe’s shop assistant about what happened on Saturday. Joliffe had to choose his time carefully, so that he would be back in the place after the staff had gone. I don’t know what excuse he intended to give for taking the van out after the normal delivery times, but he had a bit of luck in the shape of a last-minute S.O.S. for meat from a local hotel. He told his driver that rather than keep him working late on overtime rates he’d do the job himself. So he left the assistant in charge of the shop, took the meat to the hotel, collected poor Jack, and timed himself to get back to the shop after everyone had gone.”

  Hester clapped her hands suddenly.

  “Of course!” she exclaimed. “And he told us just the opposite!”

  “Told you what, miss?”

  “Don’t you remember, Ellie? That afternoon when you came to see me and your car broke down, Mr. Joliffe said he couldn’t give you a lift home because he had to be back in the shop before closing time. The sly old sinner, that was exactly what he didn’t want to be!”