by Leo Bruce
“Yes. I wasn’t thinking of that. But why didn’t you go up to the house when you found the Bomberger? It was your nearest telephone.”
“Do you know, Carolus, I’ve never quite known the answer to that one. Why didn’t I? It was a bit of a shock finding her head there and not being sure whether there was any body to it or not, as it were. I mean you know I’m a fairly unruffled type, but really, before breakfast, Bomberger’s face grinning up at you … well, I was shaken. So I suppose I acted on instinct. I hated that house and everything in it. I just rushed back the way I came. Besides, I may have had some intuition about the people there. Either that they knew nothing about Mrs. Bomberger’s death or that they knew too much. I only know that blindly and instinctively I avoided them and phoned the police from a booth on the promenade.”
“Quite understandable. Have you seen any of the household since?”
“Oh yes. Quite a lot.”
“What’s your impression?”
“Well, naturally they’re worried and upset. One expects that. But somehow I think it goes farther than that. If you want me to say what I think, it’s that they’re frightened. Scared stiff.”
“Really? Of what?”
“I don’t know. They all behave as though they were listening for the ticking of a time-bomb.”
“One would have thought they’d be showing signs of relief. Considering what she was, I mean.”
“Perhaps that will come later. Just now they’re terrified of something. I feel sure of it. Gracie’s perhaps the worst. And the police found out about some poison she bought.”
“How do you mean?”
“Oh, quite harmless. I don’t know whether it was weedkiller or rat-poison, but there was enough of it to kill half a dozen people. Only Gracie had never opened the packet or the tin or whatever it was.”
“Then why was she worried about it?”
“I don’t know. She was in a fearful tizzy. One way or another, they don’t seem able to appreciate their luck yet.”
“Are they so lucky? What about the will?”
“From their point of view it’s not as good as it might be because she leaves a thumping big sum to found a Literary Award. There’s quite a large annuity in perpetuity for The Lillianne Bomberger Prize for the Best Detective Novel of the Year. It is to be chosen by a committee consisting of the Commissioner of Metropolitan Police, the Vice Chancellor of Oxford University, the President of the PEN Club, the Chairman of the Publishers’ Association and the Editor of The Times Literary Supplement. It takes quite a bite out of her capital, but it leaves those round her a few thousand each, with larger allotments to the relatives, Gracie and Babs Stayer and Ron Cribb. There is nothing for Ron’s little son and nothing for any other member of her family. Pink and Graveston are well looked after, and the doctor and gardener get quite handsome sums. There is something for her husband, if he still exists.”
“Do you think he does?”
“Yes. I’m almost sure. But I should imagine that Pink knows for certain.”
They could see the house, surrounded by trees and shrubs and looking rather gloomy now that the sun was down. Carolus stood watching for a time, but nobody was in sight. The ugly Gothic structure had open windows, but otherwise might have been uninhabited.
“Can we go back over the cliff?” asked Carolus.
“Yes. There’s a footpath.”
They climbed steadily upwards from the bay, and when Carolus reached the top he said, “I can’t think why Lillianne’s murderer wanted anything more elaborate than this. She had her bath-chair. A small push as he left her and an easy ‘accident’ could have been staged.”
“It would have to be after dark,” said Fay. “There’s the coastguard station along there with windows commanding most of the cliff. Besides, this footpath is used a lot, as you see.
“Was she ever wheeled up here?”
“Yes, oddly enough, lately she insisted on it, I think because Graveston could scarcely pull her up the hill. He would suggest other ways to go, but she would say, ‘No, Graveston, I’m very well aware that you wish to avoid any little extra trouble and that the perfectly idle life you have here makes even the smallest effort unwelcome to you. But though I have learnt to sacrifice myself to the whims of you all, there are things on which I must insist if I am to live any longer. One of them is fresh upland air such as we found at the cliff-top. We will take that route. Thank you.’ Then Graveston would puff and sweat up this hill path.”
They could see Blessington-on-Sea stretched out in a crescent beneath them, with the Royal Hydro Hotel the most conspicuous building of all.
“I simply can’t stay at that place,” Carolus confided. “I never know whether I’m in the Spanish Patio or the Viennese Lounge. I must find a flat, or something, even if it’s only for a fortnight.”
They bought the Blessington-on-Sea Advertiser and began to look through the Accommodation to Let column without much encouragement. But at the foot was a small note Wee Hoosie, Sandringham Terrace, 2 sit 2/3 bed, mod cons. Reliance geyser, let furn immed. Apply premises.
“No, Carolus,” said Fay. “There is a limit. Even to escape the Royal Hydro. The Sticks wouldn’t stand for it.”
“I suppose not,” said Carolus, and they parted.
But when he reached the Royal Hydro, the young woman whom he had seen on arrival was in wait for him.
“Oh, Mr Deene,” she said, “Ey’d not the slatest ideea you were the detective. Ey faind it quate interesting. Ey don’t ectually read many novels because Ey haven’t the tame, but Ey know your neem well.”
Carolus stared blankly at her as though waiting to know where this would lead.
“It must be quate a nace lafe, being a detective. No wonder your were interested en what Ey was eble to tell you ebout Mrs Bomberger. Oh, end Ey’ve telephoned to a gentleman friend of mane who is on the Blessington Edvertiser, and he’s coming to call on you this efternoon. Ey thought it would be nace for you to have the publicity and so on.”
Carolus fled to his car and drove to Sandringham Terrace. He found Wee Hoosie, a semi-detached brick villa, and rang the bell. This brought a head from the door in the other half of the semi-detachment.
“She’s away,” said a woman without preliminaries. “I’m looking after it. If you want it it’s eight pounds a week with everything in except light where there’s a metre and coal which you get by the sack from Simmonses. She’s got linen and that and the place is spotless, because I do it myself and could go on obliging if anyone wanted though not in the evening.”
“When could I move in?”
“Well, there’s nothing to stop you once you pay a week in advance, which you can do to me, because she didn’t want agents and that mixed up with it and keeping half it for themselves. I mean you could move in today if you wished, only you better have a look to see if it suits.”
Carolus took a hurried and somewhat disturbing glance at a front room having a plush-covered dining-table, a cottage piano with brass candle-holders, six black horsehair chairs, billowing lace curtains on wooden rings and poles, and a collection of large framed photographs chiefly of weddings. He hastily wondered how he would be able to enter himself into this crowded arena, but thought that even if it was by crawling on all fours under the table it was better than the Royal Hydro.
He pulled out eight pound notes and handed them to the woman, who said she would give him the receipt later.
“Of course she has got rather a lot of stuff,” she admitted, “and the bedrooms are the same. It’s through her having come into all her sister’s things just after their mum died who had a much bigger house on Victoria Hill. Still, you’ll find your way about, I expect. Mind that hat-stand! I’ve caught myself a nasty knock on there before now, and what she wants with this china umbrella thing I can’t think, but there you are, she won’t part with anything.”
Carolus drove, too fast he feared, to the Royal Hydro and packed his bags. Then he stopped at a post office and se
nt off a wire to his housekeeper and returned to Wee Hoosie. It was only then he realized that he had missed his lunch.
5
NEXT day he started direct investigation by paying a call on Ron Cribb.
He found Beddoes Farm about five miles inland, an isolated group of buildings on the open Suffolk countryside. There was a rough road up to the house, which stood a little apart from the farm and faced towards the sea. It was a typical small farm-house of the eighteenth century with a modest portico and one long window on each side of it.
The door was opened by Gloria Cribb, and had he only heard her name and not remembered Fay’s description of her as a ‘handsome blonde’ he would have known who she was.
“Oh she said, “Fay told us about you. Come in.”
She sat opposite to Carolus, and although her manner was not altogether easy she spoke in a pleasant, good-humoured voice.
“I may as well confess that I personally was against having you in on this. I’m sure the police will clear it up, and in any case it doesn’t seem all that important to know who killed Lillianne Bomberger, even if anyone did. But I was overruled. That doesn’t mean I shall be awkward about it. I’ll answer any questions you like.”
“You said something rather interesting then, Mrs Cribb. ‘Even if anyone’ killed Mrs Bomberger. Do you think it might have been suicide?”
“Could be. Why not?”
“She couldn’t very well have buried herself in the sand, could she?”
“No. I don’t say that. But that’s not what killed her. I mean it’s possible she killed herself. Or it could have been an accident. I can’t see that it was certainly murder.”
Carolus had the impression that Gloria was now talking for the sake of it. She seemed to have become restless and uncomfortable.
“But surely that would be terribly out of character, wouldn’t it? To commit suicide, as far as I understand it, would be to oblige almost everyone—the last thing she would wish to do.”
Gloria smiled nervously.
“I suppose so. Unless she had some reason that we don’t know about. But you talk as though we all wished her dead. I don’t think it went as far as that. She was intolerable in many ways, and I don’t think there was anyone really fond of her, but I shouldn’t like to say more than that.”
“Tell me about that last day.”
“So far as I was concerned nothing happened till about six o’clock, when I heard Ron on the phone and guessed what it was.”
“What was he saying?”
“He was trying to get us out of going over to Trumbles. This was always happening. She would take it into her head that she would like to play Bridge in the evening and phone to ask us to dinner. We would accept and then, just before the conversation finished, she would say she wanted us to stay the night. She was nervous and wanted a man in the house. That evening Ron was really quite firm. He said that Mrs Beale, our foreman’s wife who used to look after my small son, was ill and it was impossible.”
“Was she ill?”
“She wasn’t very well. But that was nothing to Lillianne. ‘Really, Ronald, if you are so irresponsible as to start a family when you have no means of supporting it …’ That sort of thing. In the end, of course, we gave in.
“When we arrived there, she was all smiles. She had got her own way, you see. That always tickled her. We had dinner and the usual four at Bridge, Ron and I against Lillianne and Babs. Lillianne played quite well—she was the best Bridge player of us in any case. And oddly enough she behaved herself reasonably well over the game and never held post-mortems. That evening she won a little, and went off to bed at something shortly before ten. Then a phone-call came through.”
“It’s the first I’ve heard of that.”
“It was soon after ten. Alice Pink answered it. A man’s voice asked for Mrs Bomberger. Alice said, ‘Who’s speaking?’ and the voice said, ‘Tell her Mr Green wants to speak to her. She’ll understand.’ Rather an odd thing to say, we thought.”
“Rather. Yes.”
“Alice got through to Lillianne. The house has extensions everywhere. She told Lillianne what the man had said, and Lillianne shouted ‘What?’ as though she wouldn’t believe it. Then she said, ‘Put him through’, which Alice did.”
“No one listened to the conversation?”
“No. You can tell when the receiver’s off the hook. Alice wouldn’t dare. But it went on for some minutes.”
“None of you had any idea who Mr Green might be?”
“We discussed it, of course. We came to the conclusion that the one thing we knew about him was that he wasn’t Mr Green. Nobody would give a name and say, ‘She’ll understand’, if that was his own name. But we’d no idea who it was. She didn’t often get telephone calls because she let it be known that they disturbed her.”
“Did you hear or see any more of her that night?”
“Not really. Apparently she phoned down to Alice Pink and told her to get us all off to bed as soon as she could. It disturbed her to know we were sitting downstairs and perhaps discussing her. Besides, one of her meannesses was electricity. We broke up before eleven.”
“That’s all? Nothing during the night?”
“Nothing.”
“Thank you, Mrs Cribb. I wonder if I can see your husband?”
“Ron’s working on the car. You’ll find him in the garage just across the yard. If he gave as much time to the farm as he does to his car …”
“An enthusiast? I’m told I’m just as bad.”
“He likes messing about. I say, he makes trouble just to put it right. And he won’t take anything to the garage. He’s really obstinate about that. Lately, for instance, his battery’s been down, and rather than have it charged up he has been using the starting-handle every time.”
Carolus smiled.
“That is carrying things rather far,” he admitted.
“Anyway, you’ll find him across there. That middle shed. Perhaps you’ll bring him over for a drink when you’ve asked what you want?”
“Thank you very much.”
When Carolus stood in the entrance to the garage he could see no one, but sounds were coming from under the car. Lying beside it was a new brake-cable.
“Mr Cribb,” he said.
The sounds stopped. There was a long pause. Then Ron Cribb emerged looking, Carolus decided, nothing short of terrified. No ordinary summons to a man in a normal condition of mind could have produced those staring eyes in a drawn face, that look of amazement and horror.
“Who … who are you?” he asked, never taking his eyes from Carolus.
“My name’s Deene. Your wife said I should find you here. Putting in a new brake-cable?”
Carolus was trying to be calming and chatty.
At first he thought that Ron Cribb was going to seize the brake-cable from where it lay. He looked at it then back to Carolus.
“What… what…” he mouthed.
“I understood from my cousin Fay that you didn’t mind my coming down and asking a few questions about Mrs Bomberger’s death. I’m sorry if I startled you.”
“Startled? No, no. I didn’t hear you coming, that’s all. I was working.”
“Hand-brakes are a bore. Cable broken?”
“No. Worn. Let’s go over to the house.”
“I hear you’re like me—you loathe having other people to do your repairs. I’ve never put in a new brake-cable, though. Tricky?”
“No. Easy enough. I’ve had enough of it now, though. Been working for more than an hour.”
“I hear your battery’s down.”
“Who told you that?” flashed Ron Cribb angrily. “What business? … I’m taking it in today.”
“Where do you go for repairs when you’re forced to? I shall probably need something while I’m here.”
“Lindon’s. They’re the best. Let’s go over to the house.”
Carolus seemed to turn away unwillingly. When they reached the house Gloria had evidently be
en upstairs to ‘tidy herself’ and looked rather splendid with her brilliant fair hair and good full figure. She at once offered them drinks. Carolus noticed when Ron was pouring himself a stiff whisky that his hand was trembling.
They chatted in a desultory way about Lillianne Bomberger and her last evening, but Carolus was careful to ask no leading questions and show no great curiosity. Presently the conversation turned to his own Bentley Continental, and Ron showed an intelligent interest.
“Would you both care to see how you like it?” asked Carolus. “Why not come for a little run and have lunch with me in Norwich? I’m told that there’s one decent restaurant.”
Gloria was pleased, but Ron, who was a little surly-looking at the best of times, said slowly, “I want to finish the job I’m doing.”
“You can do that when we come back,” said Gloria peremptorily, and her husband could not very well refuse to go.
Carolus drove them northward, skirted Yarmouth, and was able to open up on the main Yarmouth-to-Norwich road. They spoke little, luxuriating in the big car’s smooth performance at speed.
In Norwich he pulled up at a restaurant called the Brass Owl, and they went into a large, comfortable room. Settling his guests at a table, he excused himself and made for the telephone.
Luckily Rupert Priggley was in the dining-room of the Royal Hydro.
“You didn’t tell me you were leaving this fearful hotel,” reproached Rupert.
“No. I hoped to shake you off. But I don’t know whether you most resemble a burr or a leech.”
“A lure or a bitch? Hard words, aren’t they, sir? And now I suppose you want me to be useful.”
“Yes. Got a pen? Go out at once to Beddoes Farm, about five miles inland from Trumbles Bay. I’ve got the farmer and his wife here to lunch in Norwich, so you won’t see them. In the yard behind the house is a garage, and in that a Morvin four-seater. Beside it on the floor is a new brake-cable. Got all that?”
“Yes. Exactly.”