The Winter Mystery

by Faith Martin

Yes, Bert Kelton for one didn’t believe his father’s accusations against the cook. Interesting, that, Jenny thought. Very interesting.

  ‘And where had you been all morning?’ Ford asked the youngster, with no particular emphasis, but again, before Jeremy could open his mouth, his father leapt in.

  ‘Up at the far corner of Dingle field,’ he said quickly. ‘That’s over near Ashcroft’s place, as far from here as you can get on our property.’ He made it a point to draw their attention to the fact. ‘He was taking some winter feed to the yearling rams we’ve got up there. Need to keep them fat for market,’ he added.

  But again, no one was interested in the livestock.

  ‘I see.’ It was Moulton who said the words, but Jenny was beginning to wonder if he saw at all.

  Ford did.

  She certainly did.

  Any one of them could have done it.

  Bert, Bill and Jeremy were all alone. Any of them could have come back to the farm, watching and waiting for an opportunity, then observed the cook leaving for the hen house, and crept into the kitchen to kill Sid. Then it was just a question of quickly making their way back to the fields, only to return at lunch time all innocent and seemingly unknowing.

  Delia might have the best alibi of all, if her friend and her friend’s mother, Cordelia Bray, could assure them that Delia had been in their sight all morning.

  Stan Kelton, working in the tack room, was the nearest on the spot of all of them. And, to police eyes, she herself was right on the spot as well. Nobody, nobody at all, had an alibi.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Detective Chief Inspector Bryant arrived with a small army of men less than half an hour later. A small man, he had a small man’s bluster, amply backed up by a large moustache and a suit that Sergeant Ford would never have been able to afford if he’d lived on bread and water for a month.

  ‘So, Moulton,’ the chief inspector said, rubbing his hands together briskly and peering carefully at Sid Kelton’s body, which hadn’t yet been either moved or touched. ‘Looks like a pretty nasty but straightforward business.’ Which was somewhat unhelpful, Jenny privately thought, but had more sense than to say.

  Moulton nodded obediently, if a shade dubiously. Although he rather doubted the accuracy of his superior’s summation, he was, nevertheless, the only one present to actively welcome his officious and pompous company. With the chief inspector on the scene, he felt that heat was off himself. Or so he thought.

  ‘What’s the story so far then?’ Bryant asked with ghoulish relish, his little button eyes snapping around the room, resting on each member of the Kelton family in turn. He seemed to be buzzing with thought and speculation, and Jenny felt her spirits finally lift a little. At least the man had a bit of get-up-and-go about him.

  The sheepdog, which was obviously unnerved by all the activity, and on hearing yet another stranger’s voice in the midst of his territory, chose that moment to decide that he really couldn’t keep quiet any longer, and let out an ear-piercing bark. At the same time, he jumped down from the seat under the table and proceeded to give Bryant’s ankle a thorough sniffing.

  The dapper chief inspector leapt back as if he’d been shot. ‘You great hairy miserable dollop,’ he squeaked, although no doubt he’d meant it to come out as a leonine roar. He hopped nervously from foot to foot and scowled down at the animal ferociously.

  Not a particularly dog-friendly sort of man, the chief inspector, Jenny mused, hiding a smile behind her hand and pretending to smother a cough.

  The sheepdog, never having heard a human being make quite that sort of noise before, looked up at him curiously, head turned to one side, ears pricked up in interest. Perhaps he’d do it again?

  Bert stepped forward without a word and grabbed the dog by the collar. The mutt tenaciously dug all four sets of claws into the flagstones as best he could, guessing — quite accurately — that he was about to be turfed out ignominiously on his ear. His claws scraped gratingly across the floor as Bert pulled him to the door and neatly ejected him.

  Bryant straightened his tie and pretended his dignity had not been severely ruffled. Taking the cue, Moulton nodded at Ford. ‘Sergeant Ford, read back the initial statements please,’ he ordered, a past master in how to pass the buck without seeming to.

  But Ford related the events without mishap, even managing to make it sound as if he’d covered much more ground than he actually had, in the half an hour or so that had been made available to him.

  Inspector Moulton was not the only one who knew how to deal with the top brass.

  In a corner, trying to appear as inconspicuous as possible (not an easy feat, to be sure, considering her size and visual impact), Jenny watched and listened, her heart sinking ever deeper into her boots. If Moulton had failed to fill her with confidence, Chief Inspector Bryant was now filling her with downright foreboding. Unless she was mistaken, he was showing all the signs of a rat about to desert a sinking ship. And her gloom was quickly vindicated.

  ‘Right, well, I can see you have everything under control,’ Bryant said, much to Moulton’s utter dismay. ‘Needless to say, we’re going to keep on this till we have a result,’ Bryant turned quickly, spearing his underling with a gimlet glance, checking for any sign of rebellion.

  But although Moulton could have matched Jenny Starling, misery for misery, not a flicker of it showed on his face. ‘Of course, sir,’ he said, voice as bland as milk.

  Bryant’s tense little shoulders relaxed and he nodded. Good man, Moulton. He might not have many high-ranking cases under his belt, but it was clear that nothing fazed him. And clearly, the man was far more at home in this kind of environment than himself. That damned dog with its muddy paws. Another moment and it would have stuck its nose in his crotch, no doubt.

  He looked at his watch. ‘Right, the boys should have taken casts from those footprints by now,’ he said, and mumbled, rather reluctantly, ‘Good thinking, that, Moulton. The scarf. It showed initiative.’

  Sergeant Ford cast a quick, guilty glance at Jenny, but Moulton was already taking the credit with a dry, ‘Thank you, sir, I do my best.’

  Bryant bristled out, as energetically as he’d bristled in. Stan Kelton, who’d remained narrow-eyed and stiff-lipped throughout, let out a snort as the door closed behind him. ‘Fat lot of good he was,’ he snarled.

  Nobody, for once, disagreed with him.

  The police surgeon arrived just as Bryant exited, and walked straight in to examine the body, not even glancing at the silent assembly. As he touched Sid’s neck and officially proclaimed him dead, Delia made a small sound and fainted. Luckily, Jeremy was on hand to catch her.

  The doctor, a fat-faced individual in his early sixties, looked up from the body and sighed, but not totally without sympathy. Delia was a pretty young girl, after all, and looked a pitiable sight, lying limply in her nephew’s strong arms.

  ‘Better take her upstairs. Sleep’s the best thing for shock. Make sure you cover her with plenty of blankets, mind,’ he added, and gave the young lad an encouraging smile.

  ‘Ah, let’s all get out of here,’ Stan Kelton said heavily, and for once his sons were quick to comply. In the living room they huddled around the fire, each and every one of them studiously avoiding looking at the set of accountancy books that Sid had been working on just a few hours ago. They were still lying around haphazardly on the small coffee table next to his favourite armchair, as if expecting him to come back any moment and take up where he had left off. And the fact that he would now never be able to do so made a lump rise to more than one throat.

  * * *

  Jenny remained in the kitchen, watching everything. For one thing, it was her domain and she’d have felt out of place in the living room with the rest of the family. For another, she was curious to see if the doctor found anything abnormal during his initial examination. Although what that might be she had, as of that moment, no idea.

  Apparently there was nothing to catch his attention, and within the
hour the police team had bagged the knife, which the doctor had carefully removed, and had collected several small bits and pieces that would be taken away for analysis. Finally, two sturdy constables came and carried the body away. Jenny supposed they would be having trouble getting a mortuary van out to the farm. Not for the first time, she cursed the snow that was keeping the Kelton home so isolated.

  Without Sid, the room seemed strangely empty.

  As the last of them left, Jenny finally roused herself. ‘Can I clean the floor now?’ she asked, looking around the filthy floor and already reaching automatically for the mop.

  Moulton jumped, having forgotten that she was there, and then looked down at the floor. He frowned. ‘Ye-es,’ he said, reluctantly and uncertainly, elongating the word as he did so. He’d seen for himself a team of men search the floor and pick up the odd piece of frozen mud. And there was nothing to be discovered from the muddy footprints themselves, that was for sure. The Kelton family and half the Thames Valley Police Force had trampled all over the kitchen floor that morning.

  Still, he didn’t like it. He didn’t like making decisions at all. Not even the small ones.

  Jenny picked up the mop and set to. She felt utterly depressed.

  ‘I shall need your full name and current address . . . er . . . madam,’ Ford said, for the first time realizing that he hadn’t asked her for the information before. When she’d introduced herself at the telephone kiosk, she’d only referred to herself as Miss Starling, and both men had more or less promptly forgotten it, in the current excitement.

  He shot Moulton a guilty look.

  Jenny, her mopping finished, sighed deeply. Her parents had run true-to-type in the eccentricity of forenames for their only child.

  ‘My name,’ she said firmly, ‘is Miss Jennifer Zenobia Lucretia Minerva Starling.’ She added the address of her little bedsit as an afterthought. She doubted she’d be staying there for long anyway.

  Both Moulton and Ford were staring at her openly now, her simple introduction more than enough to make them both gape. Moulton in particular felt like falling to his knees and kissing her feet, but thankfully restrained himself.

  ‘Miss Jenny Starling?’ he repeated, hardly able to believe his luck. ‘You, er, are the same Jenny Starling who had a hand in helping to solve that nasty poisoning business at a birthday party last summer, aren’t you?’

  He just managed to contain a whoop of joy as she nodded reluctantly.

  ‘And you solved that locked-room murder case the year before, right?’ Sergeant Ford piped up.

  Again, the cook nodded reluctantly. ‘I did have the pleasure of helping some people out of a bit of a tight spot, yes,’ she said, in massive understatement.

  ‘Splendid,’ Moulton said happily. He didn’t add anything else, but then he didn’t need to. Jenny glanced at Sergeant Ford to see if he shared his superior’s unusual enthusiasm. Ford, though, was frowning. And it was a very familiar sort of frown indeed to the unhappy cook. She’d seen it on many a policeman’s face in the past, which was not surprising really, since she had it on good authority that her name was now famous — or, more accurately, infamous — in police circles. Nobody liked a busybody around to muddle up his own investigation, even if she did have a very disconcerting habit of being useful at times. It all smacked too closely of popular detective fiction for most coppers to stomach.

  Usually, Jenny made it her practice to avoid policemen, who in turn were very grateful for her efforts in this direction. But Moulton, it seemed, was going to prove the exception to the rule, as his very next words showed.

  ‘So, Miss Starling, what do we do next?’

  She was just about to open her mouth and say that she didn’t particularly want to do anything next, when the door opened on a blast of cold air, and Mrs Jarvis bustled in.

  ‘Oh, but that’s cold out there. Mind if I have a cuppa before I go on to the . . . vill . . . age . . .’ Her voice trailed off as she took in the presence of the two strangers and, for the first time, sensed the unmistakable odour of tragedy in the air.

  Her appearance on the scene gave Jenny the sudden and disorientating sensation that she was in the middle of a not particularly good farce. She almost expected an unseen audience to laugh and applaud at this entrance of the light comic relief.

  ‘Whatever’s the matter?’ Mrs Jarvis said in alarm, pulling off her bobble hat and her cheeks turning rosy red in the warm air of the kitchen.

  ‘Who are you, madam, if I might ask?’ Ford leapt in, notebook in hand.

  ‘Well, I’m Mrs Jarvis, of course,’ she said, as if she suspected Ford fell little short of a Toc H lamp in the brightness stakes.

  ‘She’s the daily here,’ Jenny explained quietly.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Mrs Jarvis demanded sharply, her lower lip beginning to tremble. ‘You’re the police, ain’t yah?’ she challenged with her hands on her hips, her voice defying them to deny it.

  ‘We are, madam. I’m sorry to say Mr Kelton has been murdered. Would you mind telling me where you’ve been this morning?’ Ford tried again.

  Mrs Jarvis’s jaw dropped for a moment, and then her eyes began to glitter. A wide and unpleasant smile quickly curved along her face. Both policemen began to stare at her in astonishment.

  ‘No, Mrs Jarvis, that’s not it!’ Jenny said sharply, understanding that smile and the meaning behind it all too well. ‘It wasn’t Stan,’ she added quickly, than added more quietly, her voice bleak, ‘It was Sid.’

  Mrs Jarvis gasped once, went white, and tumbled onto a chair, one hand pressed against her skinny bosom.

  ‘Sid?’ she whispered. ‘Oh no, not Sid!’ she all but wailed. ‘No, that can’t be. It’s the devil. He should have been the one killed,’ she mumbled, in her state of shock and confusion seeming not to care that Sergeant Ford was writing down every incriminating word she said. She suddenly sat up straight, her nostrils flaring. ‘Who did it? Which dirty dog did it?’

  Suddenly she shot up to her feet again, the chair wobbling behind her and finally falling to the floor, the crash it made sounding loud and harsh in the quietness of the room. ‘It was him, wasn’t it?’ she breathed, her eyes going alarmingly round and wide. ‘He did it. The devil!’

  Sergeant Ford frowned over his notes. What had started out as a promisingly unusual reaction from a potential suspect looked to be turning out into nothing more than the ravings of a religious lunatic.

  ‘We don’t know who did it, Mrs Jarvis,’ Jenny said warningly, but the daily was having none of it.

  She turned to Moulton, instinctively picking him out as the one with superior rank. ‘You must arrest him. Right now.’

  Moulton coughed into his fist. ‘I doubt if even the chief constable himself has the power to arrest the Devil, madam,’ he responded, deadpan.

  ‘Not the real Devil, you idiot,’ Mrs Jarvis said, almost jumping up and down on the spot in frustration. ‘I mean him! Stanley.’

  Ford and Moulton exchanged uneasy but speculative glances. Jenny shook her head and sighed. She was getting one mother and father of a headache.

  ‘What makes you think Mr Stanley Kelton killed his brother, Mrs Jarvis?’ Ford asked, his tone so reasonable that it made Jenny’s teeth grate together.

  ‘It stands to reason, don’t it?’ Mrs Jarvis said, her tone getting higher and higher as she stared from policeman to policeman. ‘How dense can you be?’ she wailed, her Oxfordshire old-country accent becoming ever thicker as she became more and more distressed. ‘That man’s the devil himself. He cares about nothing and no one. He thinks he’s above everyone and everything . . .’

  At last, sensing that she might be making a bit of a fool of herself, Mrs Jarvis trailed off. She looked at the policemen for several minutes, breathing deeply. Then she slowly sat down once more.

  Eventually, she looked across at the cook. ‘Well, it has to be him,’ she insisted petulantly. ‘It has to be,’ she repeated in a hiss, although Jenny had offered no adverse comment.
‘You mark my words,’ she rallied a bit, ‘when all’s done and dusted, it’ll turn out to have been that devil what done it.’ Then an astonishing look of cunning crossed her face. ‘Or was responsible for it, anyhow,’ she added, somewhat more cryptically.

  Jenny couldn’t help but feel a great deal of sympathy for her. If one of the inhabitants at Kelton Farm was the murderer (and who else could have done it?), she too hoped that it was Stan Kelton. But, she wondered bleakly, wasn’t that just the ultimate in wishful thinking? At this point, there was no more reason to suspect Stan than anybody else. She’d have to be careful and not let her own dislike of the man colour her judgement, she told herself firmly. What she needed now was to keep a clear and level head. And she certainly couldn’t rely on any help from Mrs Jarvis in maintaining it.

  ‘What did you do after leaving here this morning, Mrs Jarvis?’ she asked quietly instead, and from the corner of her eye, saw Sergeant Ford bristle. She was obviously trespassing on his terrain now, but it couldn’t be helped; she had a better insight into the inter-relationships seething around at Kelton Farm than either policeman, which gave her an unfair advantage. Luckily, the sergeant made no comment, but duly jotted down Mrs Jarvis’s story quickly and concisely, contenting himself with just the odd, fulminating look in the cook’s direction.

  Mrs Jarvis, it seemed, had returned home for her purse, stopped to make herself some lunch, and then decided to pop in for a cuppa at the farm before going on to the village. What she didn’t admit to, but what all of them knew, was that she’d been deliberately dragging her feet, so to speak, because it was Christmas Eve, and she resented having to work it at all.

  As an alibi, it was no better than anybody else’s. She could have returned at any time and killed Sid.

  With her story told, she seemed reluctant to leave, such was her curiosity. And it was Moulton who finally had to more or less manhandle the daily out of the kitchen and send her on her way to the village to do her postponed bit of shopping. And once she’d arrived there, they all knew that she’d make it her business to spread the gossip as quickly and as self-importantly as possible.