A Meddler and her Murder

by Joyce Porter

  ‘Stop that gibbering!’ The Hon. Con was only just restrained by an anxious Mr Welks from reaching across the counter and knocking some sense into the unfortunate Greek. ‘Oh, pull yourself together, man, and concentrate! Now, are you acquainted with Mr Torquil Pollock or are you not?’

  Theofylaktos rolled his eyes, nodded his head and said, ‘Neh!’

  Such bare-faced duplicity almost drove the Hon. Con berserk. Since Theofylaktos had taken the precaution of skipping nimbly out of range, there was nobody else she could get her hands on except Mr Welks. Nothing loath, she grasped him by the lapels and shook. ‘What’s the matter with this dolt of yours? He nods yes and says no!’

  Mr Welks prised the Hon. Con’s fingers loose and tried to remove the creases from his mohair and terylene mixture. ‘ ‘‘Neh’’ means yes in Greek.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you just know!’ stormed the Hon. Con before swinging back to her primary victim. ‘Did you ever see Mr Pollock with a girl?’

  Theofylaktos giggled.

  The Hon. Con appealed once more to Mr Welks. ‘What the blue blazes is that supposed to mean?’

  ‘I told you!’ hissed Mr Welks. ‘Torquil brought any number of young females in here. And, do try and keep your voice down, Constance! People are beginning to stare.’

  The Hon. Con was not, of course, unused to being the centre of vulgar curiosity and, indeed, tended to accept it as her due. On this occasion, though, she didn’t want the whole of Totterbridge’s beau monde (a married couple having a tight-lipped domestic brawl, an elderly man wasting his money plying the town’s best known amateur tart with Bloody Marys and another man sitting by himself at the far end of the bar) eavesdropping on her investigations. She turned her back on her audience only to find the craven Theofylaktos already cowering away in anticipation of the battering to come. The Hon. Con glared at him. ‘Teresa O’Coyne – the girl who was murdered in Sneddon Avenue – do you know her?’

  Theofylaktos smiled timidly and glanced at Mr Welks.

  Mr Welks sighed and wound up his wrist watch. ‘Pity you haven’t got a picture of the girl,’ he said again.

  Theofylaktos, with the well-known perversity of foreigners, suddenly began to behave like a civilized creature. His face brightened and he reached eagerly under his counter. ‘Ikona! he beamed. ‘Ephimeris!’

  The Hon. Con regarded him with the utmost disgust but her expression softened when a copy of the local newspaper was pushed into her hands. There on the front page was a large picture of Teresa O’Coyne beneath the resounding, if succinct, headline: LOCAL VICTIM.

  From that point on, the grilling of Theofylaktos proceeded more amicably if not more speedily. Through the combined efforts of all the belligerents it was eventually established that Theofylaktos had seen Torquil Pollock in the company of Teresa O’Coyne on several occasions.

  ‘Well, there you are, Constance my poppet!’ said Mr Welks, now thoroughly bored with the whole business and reduced to removing his watch from his wrist and shaking it. ‘We’ve uncovered the connection for you.’

  The Hon. Con moved quickly and blocked his attempt to sidle away. ‘But damn it all, Welks – I already knew that!’

  But Mr Welks, unlike Sergeant Fenner, had trained as a chorus boy in his youth. He chasséd elegantly round the Hon. Con and gesticulated with much conviction at a nonexistent head waiter. ‘Sorry, mon chèr, but Charles wants me. Crisis in the dining-room. I just knew the fillet mignon had gone beyond the point of no return.’

  The Hon. Con was forced to watch Mr Welks make his escape and some very bitter thoughts about the obligations of friendship passed through her mind.

  Behind the bar Theofylaktos looked at her expectantly. ‘A drink, lady?’ he asked.

  Since bar prices at The Martyr’s Head were well known to be astronomical, no query could have been better calculated to bring the Hon. Con back to earth.

  ‘Certainly not!’ she snapped. ‘I have a taxi waiting for me. And, as the barman shrugged his shoulders helplessly, she turned on her heel and marched out with unimpaired dignity.

  Chapter Ten

  ‘How frustrating for you, dear!’ Miss Jones threaded her needle with a fresh strand of wool, spared a lament in passing for the Hon. Con’s supposed allergy to man-made fibres, and picked up yet another sock.

  ‘Well’ sighed the Hon. Con, trying to be philosophical, ‘that’s the way the cookie sometimes crumbles. Still, you know, the more I think about this business, the more I reckon there’s something that just doesn’t add up.’

  ‘Constance, dear,’ – Miss Jones peered over the top of her reading glasses in alarm – ‘your trousers aren’t on fire again, are they?’

  The Hon. Con obligingly twisted round to have a look. ‘Just steaming a bit.’

  ‘I can’t think why that taxi-driver didn’t bring you right home,’ grumbled Miss Jones, resuming her darning, ‘instead of making you walk all the way from the corner on a night like this.’

  The Hon. Con concealed the fact that she had no intention of pursuing this particular topic any further by abandoning her station on the hearth rug and flopping down in her armchair. It wasn’t that she had anything to hide from Miss Jones – well not really. It was more a question of what the heart doesn’t know, the tongue doesn’t nag about. Besides, Miss Jones wouldn’t be at all interested in knowing about Charlie. Charlie! The Hon, Con’s lips parted in a faint smile as she remembered how gratified she had been to find Charlie waiting for her when she emerged from the hotel. Cracking good scout, Charlie was! And how considerate she’d been, suggesting that the two of them should repair to a nearby lorry drivers’ cafe for a cup of coffee. The Hon. Con had been tempted. And even more tempted when Charlie had suddenly had a still better idea and invited the Hon. Con back to her flat instead. ‘My friend’s away for a few days,’ Charlie had said with that frank, boyish grin of hers, ‘but I make a pretty good mug of instant, if I do say it as shouldn’t. We could sit by the fire and have a good old pow-wow in comfort.’

  Unfortunately, the Hon. Con’s friend had not similarly flown the nest but would be waiting back at Shangrilah for a blow-by-blow account of how the Hon. Con had spent her evening. And there would be no glossing over the odd hour here or there, either. When it came to an interrogation, nobody could hold a candle to Miss Jones.

  ‘… discrepancy?’

  The Hon. Con came out of her reverie with a start as she caught the tail-end of Miss Jones’s question and, with that special tone of outraged innocence only attained by those with a guilty conscience, hotly denied that her story had contained any discrepancies whatsoever.

  ‘You said that there was something that didn’t add up, dear,’ said Miss Jones mildly. ‘ I was merely asking if you’d found some sort of discrepancy.’

  ‘Oh,’ said the Hon. Con, going a rosy pink. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘That’s all right, dear.’ Miss Jones continued with her darning and placidly registered the fact that dear Constance had something on her mind. Time, aided by Miss Jones keeping her eyes and ears wide open, would doubtless reveal what it was.

  ‘Yes, well,’ said the Hon. Con, ‘the thing is that everybody keeps saying that Teresa O’Coyne wasn’t the kind of girl who hopped straight into bed with every man who asked her.’

  Miss Jones forebore to comment on the crudity of the Hon. Con’s phraseology. ‘Everybody says, dear?’

  ‘Well, Torquil and Adam Spennymoor – to name but two. And you needn’t look like that, Bones! I’ll bet any money you like Adam tried to get off with her and failed. So – you see where that gets us, don’t you? Here’s a young woman, notoriously sparing of her favours, smuggling a chap up to her room at Mrs Hellon’s in the dead of night, Now, I’m as ready as the next man to give her the benefit of the doubt, but I’m blowed if I can see what she was up to if it wasn’t a bit of you-know-what.’

  Miss Jones didn’t bother to remind the Hon. Con that she herself had said pretty much the same thing only the day before. ‘I don’t
think there’s any real discrepancy there, dear. All you’re really saying is that the poor girl wasn’t promiscuous. That doesn’t mean that she couldn’t fall deeply in love.’

  ‘Trust you to come up with something sloppy like that, Bones!’ said the Hon. Con, curling her lip. ‘ I just hope you remember that it was her blooming Prince Charming who croaked her.’

  ‘We all make mistakes, dear,’ murmured Miss Jones, ‘especially when we are young and where the heart is concerned. Teresa simply wanted to get married. Well, what could be more natural? I expect she longed to have a hubbie and kiddies of her own just like everybody else. Then, one day, she met a handsome young man, perhaps, and fell head over heels in love with him. He deceived her, of course, like men do and pretended that he wanted a sweet little home and family as much as she did.’ Miss Jones’s eyes filled with tears but she choked them back and carried on. ‘ Well, one can guess what happened next. She trusted him absolutely and so, when he begged her to anticipate her marriage vows, she succumbed to his entreaties.’ It was no good. Miss Jones’s feelings got the better of her and she had to break off and make use of her handkerchief. ‘Some gentlemen can be very persuasive.’

  ‘Of all the romantic twaddle!’ snorted the Hon. Con. ‘He was probably a dirty old roué with pots of money! Teresa O’Coyne wasn’t after love in a blooming cottage, you know. She was looking for a millionaire and a meal ticket in the Ritz for life.’

  ‘You’re very hard, Constance,’ said Miss Jones sorrowfully.

  ‘I believe in looking facts straight in the face! Not that it really matters who the blighter was. All I’m concerned with is tracking him down, confronting him with his heinous crime, unmasking him and handing him over to British Justice!’

  Miss Jones merely pursed her lips and folded up the Hon. Con’s favourite diamond-patterned socks before putting them neatly on one side. ‘And how much nearer are you to that, dear?’

  The Hon. Con sprawled deeper into her chair and stuck her feet out towards the hearth. ‘I’ve definitely eliminated Torquil.’

  ‘Oh, good! I’m so pleased, for his grandmother’s sake.’ ‘But, damn it all, she must have had an assignation with somebody!’

  ‘Perhaps she was simply accosted in the street, dear.’ Miss Jones unfolded one of the Hon. Con’s shirts. ‘ You know what it’s like late at night after the public houses have closed. Some men lose all control.’

  The Hon. Con wriggled irritably. ‘ If this joker was as pickled as all that, he’d hardly be in any fit state to kill her, would he?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Miss Jones as she rooted through her button box, ‘it was because the murderer was drunk that he wasn’t able to – er – consummate the – er – if you know what I mean.’

  The Hon. Con sat upright and stared at Miss Jones with unflattering astonishment. ‘ That’s quite a good idea, Bones! I hadn’t thought of that. They do say excessive drinking leads to impotence, don’t they?’ The Hon. Con brought the word out boldly. Well, damn it all, there was no point in mincing matters. ‘On the other hand, though,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘drink usually makes men more objectionable – doesn’t it? – not less.’

  ‘Perhaps it depends upon the quantity consumed,’ suggested Miss Jones, only too conscious that neither she nor the Hon. Con had much first-hand knowledge of the topic under discussion.

  ‘Perhaps,’ agreed the Hon. Con, equally dubiously. ‘I wish we knew where the dratted girl spent her last evening.’

  ‘She hadn’t been to The Martyr’s Head, then?’

  ‘Seems not. I wonder if Mrs Hellon knows anything?’

  ‘If she does, dear, she’ll be bound to have told the police.’

  ‘And a fat lot of help that is!’

  Miss Jones decided not to remind the Hon. Con that she was supposed to be working in close co-operation with the police. It would be too much like kicking a man when he was down.

  ‘Think I might pop round in the morning and have a little chat with Mrs Hellon.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think you can do that, dear!’ Miss Jones bit the end of her thread off with practised teeth.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, she’s gone.’

  ‘Gone? Gone where?’

  ‘Into a nursing home, dear. Her nerves are absolutely shattered and she was getting quite hysterical at the idea of staying on in that house. It must have been a terrible experience for her, poor woman. Mrs Monday was saying the police haven’t really been able to question her properly yet.’

  ‘Mrs Monday?’

  ‘The egg lady, dear.’

  ‘Don’t say she’s been round shooting her mouth off again!’

  Miss Jones began to fold up the Hon. Con’s shirt. ‘She called in this evening while you were out, with a broiler for us. And, whatever you say, dear, she does seem to know what’s going on. I’m not interested myself, of course, but I thought you might be.’

  The Hon. Con scowled into the fire. Things had come to a pretty pass when the only way she could get any information was by courtesy of a perishing female chicken farmer. ‘Did she say anything else?’

  ‘Only that the police were wondering why Mrs Hellon didn’t wake up, dear. Or, at least, hear something. One can appreciate their point of view. I mean, the Hellons’ house is quite big but it isn’t a stately home or anything, is it? It does seem odd, when you come to think about it, that Mrs Hellon didn’t hear anything suspicious or unusual during the night.’

  The Hon. Con chewed her bottom lip. ‘Do the police think the girl cried out?

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, dear, but you’d imagine there’d be some noise, wouldn’t you? I’m sure if it was you being murdered in your bed, I’d be awake in an instant.’

  ‘Thanks very much!’ The Hon. Con slept like a log herself and hadn’t much sympathy for those who claimed that they barely closed their eyes all night. ‘ Did your eggy chum have any theories as to why Mrs Hellon snored through it all?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Apparently she took a sleeping pill.’

  ‘A sleeping pill?’ repeated the Hon. Con slowly.

  Miss Jones glanced curiously at her friend. ‘ You said that in a very funny sort of voice, dear. Not everybody is blessed with your strong nerves and cast-iron constitution, you know. Mrs Hellon’s obviously an extremely sensitive, highly-strung person and, what with her husband being away such a lot and the new baby and everything, she probably feels she just can’t cope without sleeping pills. I must say, I wouldn’t fancy being all alone in a great rambling house like that.’

  ‘Hardly alone with an au pair girl living in,’ said the Hon. Con with a disparaging sniff.

  ‘Now, don’t be silly, Constance, dear! You know perfectly well that on the night we’re speaking about Teresa O’Coyne was out for the evening. Poor Mrs Hellon was quite alone – apart from that tiny baby – and was most likely jumping a mile every time a board creaked or the fridge switched itself on.’ Miss Jones sighed sympathetically. ‘ I know just what it’s like. I feel the same when you’re out late at night, dear.’

  ‘Huh,’ said the Hon. Con. ‘ Well, it’s getting pretty late now, old fruit, so how’s about my cocoa? I’ve got a jolly hard day ahead of me in the morn.’

  The Hon. Con’s hard day got off to a poor start when it emerged over breakfast that Miss Jones did not know to which nursing home Mrs Hellon and her nerves had retired.

  ‘In any case, dear, it wouldn’t be any good because I’m certain they won’t be letting her have any visitors.’

  Fiddlesticks!’ The Hon. Con had no intention of letting Miss Jones evade her responsibilities as easily as all that. ‘A chat with an old friend and neighbour’ll do her the world of good. Buck her up.’

  ‘Yes, dear,’ said Miss Jones soothingly. ‘Do you want this last piece of toast?’

  ‘Might as well,’ grunted the Hon. Con. ‘No point in letting it go to waste. Be a pal and shove the marge across.’

  Miss Jones did as she was requested and managed to keep a straight
face at the same time. The margarine represented a small, secret triumph for her, dating back to the last stringent economy campaign but one which the Hon. Con had instituted in response to the ever-spiralling cost of living. Miss Jones had not argued and the Honourable Constance Morrison-Burke was now probably the only person in the country consuming best quality butter under the delusion that it was cut-price, bulk-bought margarine.

  ‘You know, Bones,’ she said as she licked her fingers clean, ‘you really can’t tell the difference.’

  Miss Jones smiled. ‘More tea, dear?’

  ‘Mr Hellon,’ said the Hon. Con. ‘He’d know where his wife is. You could give him a ring, Bones, and sort of ask him casual like.’

  ‘Oh, he’s not at home, either.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘This business trip he was on is frightfully important and, as soon as he’d answered their questions, the police said he could go back to Birmingham again. I expect that’s partly why Mrs Hellon went into the nursing home – so that he could get away.’

  ‘Oh, crikey!’ growled the Hon. Con. ‘ Is there nobody left in the house at all?’

  Miss Jones had visions of the Hon. Con trying her hand at burglary in an effort to inspect the scene of the crime and so she hastened to scotch the idea before it got firmly embedded in the Hon. Con’s skull. ‘I believe Mr Hellon’s mother has come down to look after the house and that poor little baby. And it’s no good asking me to give her a ring, Constance, because they’ve had the phone cut off. There were so many calls, some of them quite awful I understand, that Mr Hellon’s mother just couldn’t cope.’

  ‘Who told you that?’ The Hon. Con was eyeing Miss Jones suspiciously. It was dashed odd that she could always produce chapter and verse to demolish whatever line of action she didn’t want to take.

  ‘Mrs Monday, dear!’

  ‘Surprise, surprise!’

  Miss Jones began to clear the table. Was she, perhaps, being a little too unhelpful? She stacked the dirty dishes on the draining board before going back to the dinette for another load. The Hon. Con was still sitting, as black as thunder, at the table. Oh, dear! Miss Jones didn’t know what to do. At times, admittedly, the Hon. Con was inclined to let her enthusiasms run away with her but Miss Jones defied anybody to claim that her heart, at least, wasn’t in the right place.