Our Jubilee is Death

by Leo Bruce

“I want you to make a careful examination of the old brake-cable. Is it worn out? Was it ordinary wear and tear? And so on. If anyone sees you there you’ve come by Mr Cribb’s orders to take the battery to be recharged. Get away as soon as you can, but not until you’ve made a thorough examination.”

  “Shall be done. Where shall I see you?”

  “At the house I’ve taken furnished.”

  “Address?”

  “Wee Hoosie …”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You heard perfectly well. Wee Hoosie, Sandringham Terrace. You can wait about there till I get back. That will be in a couple of hours.”

  Carolus returned to his guests to find Ron more sullen than before. A good meal failed to cheer him, and he expressed anxiety to return to his farm.

  “So much to do,” he muttered fretfully.

  Carolus did not think it necessary to delay their return much longer, for it was past three before he eventually dropped the couple at their front door and drove into Blessington.

  Priggley was astride his motor-cycle at the gate of Carolus’s temporary home.

  “The Sticks arrived, took one look at Wee Hoosie and fled,” said Rupert.

  “You don’t mean they’ve gone back to Newminster?”

  “It would be no more than you deserved if they had. ‘Wee Hoosie’! It makes me sick to my stomach. But they’ve only gone for a walk. Their luggage is in the coal-shed.”

  “Come in,” said Carolus, opening the front door and revealing the hat-stand and umbrella-pot.

  “I think I would rather not, if you don’t mind, sir. I’m no archaeologist, and I’ve always had rather a thing about tombs.”

  “Inside!” snapped Carolus, and Priggley opened the door of the front room. He quickly closed it again.

  “I feel one owes some respect to the dead,” he said unctuously.

  “What dead?”

  “All dead. Everywhere. It smells of them.”

  “Bit musty, perhaps. Open a window.”

  “Did you say musty, sir? Yes, I thought you did. I don’t argue over words. But don’t talk in that frivolous way of opening windows. Even if there was room for me to reach them, they’re obviously not made to be opened till all the other tombs give up their dead.”

  When Carolus had squeezed his way across and pulled aside the lace curtains he found that Priggley was right.

  “And what do you suppose these are?” asked the odious boy, indicating the wedding groups.

  “Family photographs,” suggested Carolus.

  “You relieve me. I thought they were illustrations for the case-histories of one of our bolder psychiatrists.”

  “Suppose you tell me what you have to report?”

  “You’ll find it disappointing. The old cable had been eaten away by acid from the battery which was just above it. Perfectly natural.”

  “Think so?”

  “Why not?”

  “You may be right. It’s rather a coincidence that the battery was flat and Cribb wouldn’t take it in to be recharged.”

  “Anyway, the Bomberger was poisoned and died of an overdose of sleeping-pills and was found buried in the sand, so what’s a brake-cable to do with it?”

  “I like collecting scraps of information. Did anyone see you out there?”

  “Not that I know of. I left everything as I found it. So you’re not disppointed in my information?”

  “Dear me, no.”

  At that moment there was knocking at the back door and Rupert admitted the Sticks. Mrs Stick hastily and fearfully glanced round the kitchen, which held among other miscellaneous effects a walnut Victorian couch, a wicker arm-chair, a grandfather clock and a quantity of fire-irons which appeared from their size and variety to be intended to stoke the furnace of an iron-smelting works. A kitchen range, a vast coal-scuttle and stacks of china which overflowed an enormous dresser left her just room to pass sideways across the room. In awful silence she viewed the entrance passage and mounted the stairs. The three males below heard her open each door in turn and descend again.

  “Well, Mrs Stick?” said Carolus heartily.

  “I beg your pardon, sir, but did you see over the rooms before taking the house?” she asked.

  “Not all of them, Mrs. Stick. Why?”

  “It’s not for me to say, sir. Only I never thought that Stick and me would have to get into bed by hopping over a hip-bath and vaulting a clothes-horse. And I wouldn’t have supposed you want three commodes and a what-not in your room.”

  “It’s through her having come into her sister’s things just after their mum … mother died,” explained Carolus. “She won’t part with anything.”

  Mrs Stick sniffed.

  “It’s clean, isn’t it?” asked Carolus.

  “It’s clean, yes, sir. But how’s it going to be kept clean, that’s what I want to know? If I can’t get into the rooms, how am I going to dust them? As for cooking anything— well, there’s nowhere to put any food if you was to buy it, and whoever did the beds must have been a contortionist made of india-rubber, which Stick and me are not. Where your clothes are going goodness only knows, but I shouldn’t be able to unpack them even if we found room for a shirt or two. I’ve already nearly tripped over a hassock and a slop-pail, and upstairs there’s texts on all the walls and wash-stands and corner-brackets and dressing-tables wherever you turn.”

  A relief was provided by the arrival of his next-door neighbour with Carolus’s receipt.

  “I’ve got an empty bedroom,” she volunteered, “where you could put some of it if you can’t manage. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind that. It would give you room to turn round, wouldn’t it?”

  They set to work.

  6

  CAROLUS felt that he could no longer postpone a visit to the dead woman’s home, and that evening decided to go with his cousin to Trumbles. He felt that, introduced by Fay, he would be less formidable and less annoying to the three women, who, he gathered, appeared to be near distraction after the horror of the murder itself, the inquest and the searching enquiries of the police.

  He started on the road he had taken that morning when on his way to Beddoes Farm, but on Fay’s instructions turned left by a narrow lane which led only to the house. It looked much as Agincourt had said, modern Gothic and ugly.

  As they drew near they met an individual walking towards them, and Carolus slowed down.

  “Who’s this?” he asked Fay.

  “Never seen him before.”

  “Not the odd man or the gardener?”

  “No.”

  The question was scarcely necessary, for the man looked raffish and seedy, not in the least like someone who worked for steady wages. Carolus thought there was something suggesting the gypsy about him, yet that was not quite what he appeared. Fairground? Just possibly. He was a tallish man with a squint and a mirthless grin with which he replied to Carolus’s stare, showing a number of gold teeth.

  The front door was opened by Alice Pink, to whom Fay introduced Carolus. They went into a large panelled room full of ill-arranged flowers and met Gracie and Babs Stayer. But before taking note of his surroundings Carolus asked about the man in the lane.

  “Just now?” said Gracie Stayer. “There has been no one here this afternoon.”

  “No one,” repeated Alice Pink solemnly.

  “But he must have been coming from the house,” said Fay, and described the man they had seen.

  “What an extraordinary thing!” exclaimed Babs, who, like the other two, seemed very disturbed by these questions. “Not a soul has been here, I assure you.”

  “Could he have been to see someone else in the house?”

  “There is no one else. Graveston has gone to Laymouth and the gardener left two hours or more ago. Besides, we should have heard.” Gracie Stayer sounded genuinely perplexed and nervous. “It is yet another mystery connected with this ghastly affair.”

  Carolus at once confirmed in his mind an anomalous aspect of the whole case. Ever
yone agreed that Lillianne Bomberger was an odious woman, everyone thought she should have been murdered years ago, everyone knew that those round her had been relieved by her death of an intolerable strain, yet neither in these three women nor in the couple he had seen this morning was there any suggestion of relief; on the contrary, they looked ill with worry and anxiety.

  Gracie Stayer was tall and dark and gave the impression of being prematurely old. Sad, anxious eyes looked out from a face which, though not actually lined, was drawn and tired. She was the kind of young woman who is called intense.

  Suddenly she said in a voice which suggested hardly repressed hysteria, “I should like to speak to you, Mr Deene. Alone.” Then, turning to the others as though to explain, she said, “Well, I must have advice from someone who understands these things.”

  Fay tactfully rose, and Babs Stayer and Alice Pink accompanied her from the room.

  “I don’t know what to do,” said Gracie. “I don’t know what to do. The police keep questioning me.”

  “Perhaps they think you haven’t told them the truth, Miss Stayer.”

  “But I have. It’s about the poison, chiefly. You see, I bought some arsenic weed-killer.”

  “What was that for?”

  Gracie Stayer had no sense of fatuity when she replied, “For killing weeds.”

  “Yes. But I meant what particular weeds?”

  “Oh, in the drive,” said Gracie eagerly. “There were so many weeds in the drive. Aunt Lillianne hated to see it.”

  “Did she tell you to get the weed-killer?”

  “No. She didn’t actually tell me.”

  “You have a gardener, haven’t you?”

  “Primmley, yes.”

  “Why didn’t you tell him to deal with the weeds, Miss Stayer?”

  This question seemed particularly to upset Gracie Stayer. She pulled at her handkerchief, and Carolus wondered if she was going to start crying.

  “You’re as bad as the police,” she said resentfully.

  “I only want to arrive at the truth. I can’t be of much use to anyone till I know the truth.”

  “But on this I can’t answer you. I don’t know why I didn’t tell Primmley. It was an impulse, I suppose. I thought of the weeds when I was in Cupperly’s—the chemists—and asked them if they had a good weed-killer. They showed me this and I bought it. That was all.”

  “You see, Miss Stayer, perhaps the police think it rather odd that a member of the household who is not usually concerned with the garden should suddenly, without consulting the gardener, purchase weed-killer.”

  “Yes, but the tin was never opened. They could see that. The seal wasn’t broken. Yet they have questioned me again and again.”

  “Interrogation is terribly trying, I know.”

  “Besides, Aunt Lillianne died of an overdose of sleeping-pills, didn’t she? They know that. Why do they have to go on about a weed-killer?”

  “I honestly don’t know. But the police have a way of reaching the truth in the end.”

  This did not seem to do much to console Gracie Stayer.

  “Would you mind telling me what you were wearing on the night of your aunt’s death?”

  Gracie Stayer, who had intended to ask Carolus for advice and now found herself narrowly questioned, looked rather baffled.

  “I’m just trying to remember,” she said, but one could almost hear her saying to herself, ‘Why is he asking me this?’ “I remember. I had on a black frock—almost new.”

  “What shoes?”

  “Really! Have you found some footprints or something?”

  “It would help me if you could tell me that.”

  “I think it was a black velvet pair.”

  “Could you be sure?”

  ‘Why is he asking me? Why is he asking me?’ said Gracie’s tortured eyes.

  “Yes, I’m sure it was.”

  “Were they nearly new, too?”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “Could I see them?”

  “Why? Why do you want to see them? No, you can’t. It’s absurd. I thought you were going to help us, not be fifty times worse than the police. No, you can’t see them.”

  “If you want to get at the truth, Miss Stayer, I will help you. If you have something to conceal, I shall be very far from helpful.”

  “I haven’t anything to conceal. Of course I haven’t.”

  “Then would you please show me those black velvet shoes?”

  “I can’t. I haven’t got them. They were uncomfortable.”

  “What did you do with them?”

  “Oh, I can’t remember now. Gave them to Mrs Plum.”

  Carolus pretended to make a note, which seemed to agitate Gracie further.

  “No. I’m not sure what I did. Threw them away, I think. Put them in the dustbin. That was it.”

  “Wouldn’t it be better to tell me the truth about this, Miss Stayer?”

  “I’m telling you all I remember.”

  “It is just as you wish, of course.”

  “But I am telling you all I remember.”

  “What time did you go up to your bedroom that evening?”

  “About eleven, I think.”

  “Did you go straight to bed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Read in bed?”

  “Sometimes. Not that night.”

  Gracie was calmer.

  “No one came to your room during the night?”

  “Not till …”

  “Yes, Miss Stayer?”

  “Not till the morning.”

  “Who came then?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Who usually came?”

  “Well, no one. I was nearly always the first up. I would get Aunt Lillianne’s breakfast.”

  “But that morning someone did come to your room?”

  “Yes. It was Babs. I remember now.”

  “Was Mrs Bomberger the only member of the household who took sleeping-pills?”

  “Well, proper sleeping-pills, yes.”

  Carolus smiled.

  “What are ‘proper sleeping-pills’?” he asked.

  “I mean, Aunt Lillianne had them prescribed by Dr Flitcher. They were terribly expensive. He prescribed some others for us called Komatoza. For Babs and me, that was.”

  “Were they effective?”

  “Well, to tell you the truth, Mr Deene, we sometimes believed they were just as good as Aunt Lillianne’s, though they cost a tenth of the price. They looked just the same, anyway.”

  “Oh. Did Miss Pink take any?”

  “Well, yes. You know life with Aunt Lillianne was rather a strain, and I think we all felt we needed a little help to sleep at night. She took something quite different called Bromaloid, which was in liquid form.”

  “I see. So only you and your sister took Komatoza?”

  “That’s right.”

  “How many did you take?”

  “The chemist said it didn’t matter up to six or so. But we never took more than two each.”

  “You bought them from the chemist who made up your aunt’s?”

  “Cupperly’s. Yes. Where I bought the weed-killer. You still haven’t told me what to do about that.”

  “I have, Miss Stayer. I have told you to be frank.”

  “Yes. But why do they keep on now? Why, Mr Deene? They know Aunt Lillianne was not poisoned by weedkiller. Why do they keep asking me questions?”

  “I can’t tell you that. But you say you have nothing to conceal, so I should not worry any more. Tell me, Miss Stayer, have any of you ever been down to the beach at night?”

  The last of Gracie’s self-control broke at his question. Through angry tears she almost shouted, “No! no! Why do you ask such questions? We never went out at night. Scarcely into the garden, even. Aunt Lillianne did once want to be wheeled into the garden by moonlight, but never more than once. And never farther than the garden. Why do you ask? What right have you to ask?”

  “No right at all. I only
wanted to know whether the beach in Trumbles Bay was customarily quite deserted at night.”

  “Oh, quite. I should think, that is. I’ve never been down there.”

  “So that if Mrs Bomberger walked down herself to the beach that night, or if she was decoyed there, or wheeled there in her chair, or died first and was taken there—however she got there, in fact, no one need have seen it? No one, unless someone took her?”

  “I suppose … oh, it’s dreadful! There was no one about. There can have been no one about. We should have heard. It would have come out at the inquest. However she got there, there was no one to see, I’m sure.”

  “How do you think she got there, Miss Stayer?”

  “I’m beginning to think she must have walked there. To meet someone, perhaps. There was that phone call.”

  “But that can’t have been so very unusual. Mrs Bomberger must have had calls from people whose names you don’t know?”

  “Yes. Sometimes. But it was so extraordinary coming on the very night.”

  “You think she went down to the beach to meet this man who called himself Green and that he murdered her?”

  “I know it sounds extraordinary.”

  “She is supposed to have died of an overdose of sleeping-pills.”

  “I don’t see how they can tell. She had been in the water for hours. Suppose he made her unconscious in some way, then buried her up to the neck and let the tide drown her?”

  “It’s not a nice thought.”

  “It’s horrible. But then the whole thing is horrible. And my aunt, let’s face it, was a very horrible woman.”

  Carolus felt that Gracie at last was ‘being herself’.

  “You’ve no idea who ‘Green’ might be?”

  “We’ve thought about that. There was a Mr Green with her publishers at one time, but we can’t think it was him. Very quiet man who worked in the production department and had to see Aunt Lillianne about a dust-jacket she didn’t like. But he left and went to some other publishers. I’m sure it wasn’t him.”

  “In fact, Miss Stayer, you have nothing else to tell me?”

  “Well, Mr Stump came up to the house that evening. Just before the phone call, I think. Or was it just after?”

  “Did he see Mrs Bomberger?”

  “Not that we know of. There had been a terrible quarrel between them and my aunt had given orders that Mr Stump was not to be admitted. Miss Pink opened the door and refused to let him in.”