Dead In The Morning

by Margaret Yorke

  “Who is it? Who’s out there?” called a deep voice from the drawing-room.

  Cathy made a face.

  “That’s Gran. We’ll have to go in,” she muttered, and led the way.

  “It’s Dr Grant, Grandmother,” she said, as he followed her into the room.

  “How do you do, Mrs Ludlow,” Patrick said, walking towards the corner by the fireplace where the old lady sat. “My sister and I are so very sorry to hear about what has happened. I came to see if I could be of any assistance to you at this time.”

  “How good of you, Dr Grant,” said Mrs Ludlow. She surveyed him imperially from top to toe in her frank manner, as he stood there calmly, staring back at her. She was a dominating presence, even in her chair. He saw the neat, proud head, defiantly held in spite of age, the piercing eyes, the hands clasped on her lap above a silver-headed stick laid across her knees. She looked very small, but it was difficult to tell if this were a true impression or one caused by her crippling illness.

  “Come along and sit down, Dr Grant,” she said at last, pointing to a chair that faced her. “Cathy, pour Dr Grant some sherry.”

  Cathy obeyed, and then sat down on the window seat, riveting her gaze on Patrick in a fashion that he found flattering, but mildly disconcerting in view of Jane’s recent remarks.

  “This is a sad business,” he said.

  “It’s most unfortunate,” said Mrs Ludlow. “She was a good cook.”

  Patrick was at once reminded of Lady Macbeth.

  “I can’t see why the police need to make so much of it,” the old lady went on. “She must have had a heart attack. But I understand there are formalities.”

  Obviously Mrs Ludlow could not be told that the police suspected a member of her family had set out to poison her, and the wrong person had taken the poison. Playing for time was clearly the line being taken; she could doubtless be strung along for some days by this means, and her immobility would prevent her from stumbling on the truth. But she would have to know in the end.

  “You have a lovely house, Mrs Ludlow,” Patrick said, changing the tack, and felt Cathy breathe a sigh of relaxation.

  “I’m glad you admire it, Dr Grant. It was built for me when I came here as a bride,” Mrs Ludlow said. “All my children were born here, and so was Cathy. You doubtless know that my husband gave his life for his country in the First World War?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry,” Patrick murmured. The archaic phrase was oddly moving; he perceived that she had never recovered from this blow.

  “He was a good man, a real man,” she said. “There is his photograph.” She pointed to one in a silver frame that stood on the table beside her.

  Patrick dutifully rose and inspected the photograph, which showed a young man in captain’s uniform. He had a neat moustache and a steady expression, but these did not mask the sensitivity of the face that was repeated in Cathy’s.

  “A fine-looking man,” said Patrick, feeling this to be a most inadequate comment. He wondered if the owner of those fine-drawn features had really been as tough as his widow seemed to believe.

  “Yes,” said Mrs Ludlow. “And he would have been disappointed in the young of today if he had lived to see them.”

  Patrick doubted it; the mouth in the photograph was generous and mobile; the eyes had a faraway look; it was neither a saint’s nor an ascetic’s face, but nor was it that of a bigot.

  “Gran finds everyone a disappointment after Grandfather,” Cathy observed. “Even her own children.”

  “Not your father,” Mrs Ludlow said. “He’s the only one to come anywhere near your grandfather.” She turned to Patrick. “Cathy’s father was born after my husband died. I named him Gerald, for his father.” She went silent after this, brooding to herself, and rocked a little as she sat. Cathy exchanged an alarmed glance with Patrick.

  “Gran, are you all right? Do you want one of your little red pills?” she asked.

  “Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous, girl,” snapped the old lady. “Red pills, white pills, blue pills. It’s all pills these days,” she grumbled. “And other pills too, for girls who should know better. What a world! I suppose you get a lot of that at Oxford, Dr Grant?”

  “Girls who should know better, do you mean? Oh, and young men too,” said Patrick. “After all, it takes two to make that sort of mistake, doesn’t it?”

  Cathy snorted at this and had to pretend to cough. To her astonishment a wintry smile appeared among the lines on her grandmother’s face.

  “Cathy has some foolish notion of going to Oxford,” Mrs Ludlow said. “I tell her she’d be wasting her time and her father’s money, of which he’s little enough as it is.”

  “Father can afford it, Gran. He wants me to go,” said Cathy.

  “Why don’t you approve, Mrs Ludlow?” asked Patrick. “I should have thought you’d be an ardent feminist.” He could easily imagine her campaigning for the vote. But then he realised that all her latent energy had turned inwards, towards her family.

  “A woman needs a man to look after and a nursery of children. That’s her function,” Mrs Ludlow said. “One your aunt Phyllis has signally failed to fulfil, Cathy. Don’t follow her example.”

  “Gran, that isn’t fair,” she said. “Aunt Phyl’s had rotten luck. You shouldn’t talk like that about her. And where would I be now, but for her?” She didn’t quite dare to add, “or you, come to that.”

  Good for Cathy, Patrick thought. He sent her an approving glance.

  “She married a little pipsqueak, so what did she expect? Marry a proper man, Cathy, and then you won’t go wrong,” said Mrs Ludlow. “Someone like Dr Grant here. You’re married, of course?” she asked, turning to him fiercely.

  “I’m not, as a matter of fact,” Patrick admitted.

  At this moment, fortunately perhaps, Phyllis Medhurst came into the room.

  “Ah, Dr Grant, I wondered who was here. What a nice surprise,” she said, with her pleasant smile.

  Patrick rose to greet her, and wondered how her mother failed to see the likeable woman so clearly recognised by everybody else.

  “Dr Grant kindly called to offer sympathy,” said Mrs Ludlow. “He’s in charge of Tim, I think you said, Phyllis?”

  Phyllis agreed.

  “Hm. A very spoilt young man,” pronounced his grandmother. “His mother and his aunt here have made a fool of him by letting him do exactly as he wanted all his life. Now he’s a wastrel.”

  “Oh, hardly that,” protested Patrick. “A lot of young men go through a phase which can be very trying for the older people who have to deal with them.”

  “I would not permit my children to behave as the young of today do,” said Mrs Ludlow.

  “You’re too harsh, Mother,” Phyllis said.

  “You know nothing about it, Phyllis. You have no children of your own,” said Mrs Ludlow.

  Phyllis turned that ugly, dull red that Patrick had seen before. She got to her feet without a word and walked towards the door, but Mrs Ludlow called her back.

  “Phyllis, I will stay up for dinner tonight,” she said. “I’m hoping Dr Grant will join us. Will you?” she asked, and gazed upon him genially.

  Patrick demurred, but only slightly; he was eager to stay, and when Phyllis and Cathy both urged him to accept the invitation, he agreed, and telephoned to Jane who had plenty to say to him about his sordid motives. But he saw that Phyllis and Cathy could be helped if he acted as a buffer between them and the old lady, so throughout the meal he set out to charm her. He could talk entertainingly on a number of subjects, and despite his remark to Betty Ludlow he knew a good deal about certain aspects of horticulture, so that he was able to discuss intelligently what plants were hard to grow in this area and to marvel appropriately when Mrs Ludlow claimed success with them. She promised to show the garden to him when he called again.

  After the meal she allowed Phyllis to wheel her towards the lift at the back of the hall, up to bed, and Patrick helped Cathy clear away.

>   “Gran took a fancy to you,” Cathy said. Watching her grandmother’s response to him had been a revelation.

  “She’s remarkable,” he said with truth. “So’s your aunt.”

  “Aunt Phyl’s a darling,” Cathy said, and added, “Gran’s so mean to her.”

  “It’s odd, that,” Patrick said. “Perhaps they’re too much alike to get on well together.”

  Cathy stared.

  “I don’t think Aunt Phyl’s a bit like Gran,” she said. “She’s much kinder.”

  Patrick did not think it would be prudent to say that he could imagine Phyllis growing into quite a formidable person if she had power to wield.

  “What happened to the Charlotte Russe?” he asked, as they stacked the plates in the dishwasher.

  “Fancy you remembering it! None of us could bear to touch it,” Cathy said. “We threw it away.” She hesitated. “You were at the inquest, weren’t you? Father said so.”

  “Yes, I was.”

  “You saw Alec Mackenzie. Martin brought him up here. He was absolutely stunned. He couldn’t believe his mother would ever commit suicide. I’ve been thinking.”

  “Yes? What have you thought, Cathy?”

  “About that pie. The lemon meringue, I mean. It was meant for Gran, wasn’t it? By chance she didn’t eat it, and poor Mrs Mack did.” She looked up at Patrick with enormous, solemn eyes. “It was one of us, wasn’t it, one of the family I mean, who did it?” As she said the words the full implication of them swept over her.

  Patrick spoke impulsively.

  “Cathy, come down and stay with us till this is over. You’re too young to be mixed up with it,” he said.

  She drew herself up and looked at him again, this time with a proud expression; he saw the family resemblance, and he saw his error.

  “I’m not a child,” she said. “I have to stay.” Then her face softened, and she added, “But thank you, all the same.”

  “I’m sorry. You’re right. You must stay. Forget it,” Patrick said. “I just wanted to get you out of the horrors.”

  “What frightens me is that whoever it was might try again,” Cathy confessed.

  “I don’t think you need be afraid of that,” said Patrick. “Whoever it was will have had a bad fright and won’t risk another attempt”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” said Patrick firmly.

  “The police are bound to find out who it was?”

  “I expect so,” Patrick said. “In time.”

  “But one of us! Aunt Phyl, or Father, or Uncle Derek! It can’t be true! She’s awful, I know, and very cruel, but to want her dead! I can’t believe it’s true,” said Cathy, and Jane would have looked very ironically on the scene that followed as Cathy wept bitterly and Patrick mopped her up.

  To help her, he decided to invent.

  “It could have been an outsider, someone from the past,” he said. “You were all out on Saturday night. Someone may have called. Only Mrs Mackenzie would have known if that was so.” As it was, at least three people had been there that night, himself and the two Ludlow boys.

  “Oh, could that have happened?” At this new idea Cathy looked more cheerful.

  “It’s possible. Your grandmother has lived a long time and she may have made some enemies. It might be someone with a grudge going back for years.”

  “Oh, it might, mightn’t it?” Cathy clutched at this. “Gran is a great one for feuds. She wouldn’t talk to Mrs Bligh for twenty years, because the Blighs cut their spinney down and when it was burnt the smoke all blew this way.”

  “There you are, then. There must have been other things like that. One of your grandmother’s old enemies has become a nut and sought revenge,” said Patrick.

  “If they saw the tray, they’d know it was for Gran,” Cathy said. “But how would they find the pills, or get past Mrs Mack?”

  “They might have hidden somewhere. In the lift, perhaps, waiting for their chance,” Patrick invented wildly. She was much too sharp. She’d see through it very soon. It was a red herring and he doubted if it would last her for the night, but it might.

  When Phyllis came downstairs they were sitting peaceably together in the drawing-room drinking their coffee, and Patrick had his diary out, planning a date for her to come to lunch next term and be taken round to meet his aunt, the Principal of St Joan’s.

  III

  “And then?” demanded Jane. She was sitting on the sofa reading when Patrick arrived back at Reynard’s, with a Rachmaninov record playing, waiting to hear how he had employed the evening.

  “Gerald and Helen Ludlow came up after dinner. He seems a decent sort of chap; hidden fires, I’d say - not much visible on the surface but plenty there in fact. She’s rather reserved.”

  “You’d be reserved if you’d just got married and found yourself in the midst of a murder,” said Jane. “What’s her history? Cathy doesn’t seem to know much about her.”

  “So you’ve been giving way to vulgar curiosity too, have you?” Patrick teased her.

  “We had this conversation some time ago, when Cathy first heard about the marriage,” Jane said primly. “It didn’t matter then. We weren’t mixed up with melodrama.”

  “She was a widow,” Patrick said. “You knew that. Presumably an impecunious one, since she was companion to some wealthy American woman. But there may have been a particular reason for her to want that sort of job;’ she may have had a yen for travel or something. I can’t see her as a go-getting career girl per se, but she might be a scholarly type. Her relationship with her husband intrigues me; he’s badly smitten, there’s no doubt of that, but it’s less easy to observe her feelings.”

  “If she’s reserved, as you say, she probably saves her demonstrations for when they’re alone, and quite right too,” said Jane austerely.

  “She may have married for security,” Patrick said. “It’s been known.” He mused. “She’s not a girl - I’d say she’s about thirty-four.”

  “Do you find her attractive?” Jane inquired with interest. She had often wondered what sort of woman appealed to her brother.

  “I’m not sure,” Patrick said. “She’d be a challenge - she seems so well controlled. She has potential, shall we say?”

  “Hm. Well, who’s your favourite candidate for the role of murderer?” Jane asked.

  “I’m still guessing,” Patrick said. “I have an idea, but it needs some facts to back it. I’m still in the dark about the motivation behind all this, and I haven’t yet met Derek Ludlow. I saw him at the inquest, but I haven’t spoken to him.”

  “You should tell the police that those two grandsons were at Pantons on Saturday night,” Jane said. “It’s their job to decide what’s relevant, not yours.”

  “The boys must have a chance to account for themselves first,” said Patrick. “No one seems to know where Tim is, but Martin’s address is no secret. I shall go and call on him tomorrow.”

  “What do you hope to find out from him?”

  “The truth about his marital problems. His mother seems to think things are dicey there. He may have money worries, or problems connected with his work. The most obvious thing is that he wanted to touch his grandmother for a loan. I gather from Cathy that she holds the purse- strings pretty tightly. She’s a rich woman, but she controls everything herself. Cathy’s father has done very well in business, but without any help from his mother.”

  “So I should hope,” said Jane.

  “Yes. But Derek has been through some rough times. It might have been reasonable to expect a little rescue operation, when the children were young and he was finding it hard to get going after the war. However, nothing doing. And Cathy doesn’t think Phyllis has much cash. Of course, she doesn’t need a lot, living free.”

  “Free, but not independent,” Jane said. “Cathy seems to have waxed very confidential.”

  “She did,” Patrick said happily.

  Jane gave him a look.

  “I wish you wouldn’t inte
rfere,” she said. “It’s your duty to tell the police all you know, instead of poking about quizzily on the edge of this affair.”

  “Ah, but it’s so interesting,” Patrick said. “And I’m managing to work my way into the middle of it. I’m really helping the cause of justice by finding out things they’d never think about.”

  “The police would get there in the end,” said Jane. “How do you suppose they manage when you aren’t around? And they’ve got all the equipment - fingerprint kit and so on. You’re only equipped with curiosity.”

  “You forget my trained mind,” Patrick said. “This case is a question of character. Personalities are what matter. Is it a crime of passion, or of greed?”

  “Hardly passion, surely, with a woman of nearly eighty in the centre of the web?”

  “I’m not so sure. There is passion here. Gerald’s for his wife, Betty’s for her son, perhaps even Phyllis is affected by passion of a kind,” said Patrick. “We shall have to wait and see.”

  WEDNESDAY

  I

  Phyllis Medhurst walked along Fennersham High Street carrying a loaded shopping basket and two library books. She entered the Cobweb Cafe, looked about her for a moment, and then went quickly towards a corner table where a large man with a bald head and spectacles was already seated.

  “Phyllis, my dear,” he said, rising to greet her. He took her packages and stowed them out of the way, and held her chair for her. Then he signalled to the waitress and ordered coffee for them both.

  “Well, how are you?” he asked.

  Phyllis looked at him.

  “I can never lie to you, Maurice,” she said. “You see through me straight away. I’m desperate.”

  “My dear, why not let me help you?”

  “You can’t, Maurice. You must keep out of the way till this is all over. Then we’ll think of something,” she said.

  “But it’s ridiculous to go on like this,” said Maurice. “Snatching chances to meet, like a pair of children whose parents aren’t on speaking terms.”

  “If you come to church in Winterswick again there’ll soon be talk,” said Phyllis, but she smiled.