by Leo Bruce
“I see. Anything else?”
“Not that I can think of. Unless you would like to see Aunt Lillianne’s room or anything? It’s all been cleaned up now.”
“No. I won’t trouble you to show me that. I should like to come out again tomorrow if I may?”
“Yes, yes. Do. Mr Deene …”
Carolus looked at the unhappy young woman quite steadily.
“Mr Deene, I feel I can trust you. Even if you did find out something I … we … if…”
“Miss Stayer, I shall sound very priggish and pompous, but with all my heart I recommend you not to hold back information in this matter. Whoever and whatever it may involve. I will see you tomorrow.”
Carolus escaped with Fay without having to see Babs and Alice Pink again.
“What do you think of them?” said Fay as he drove back to Blessington.
“Fools. Worse. Oh, Fay, why do people, people of the kind we know and understand, commit murder? Anything rather than that. Surely. Starvation, misery, even death better than the curse of Cain. Sorry, my dear. I’m being portentous. Come and see whether Mrs Stick has managed to turn round sufficiently to give us dinner.”
Priggley awaited them in a ‘front room’ from which sufficient furniture had been cleared to admit the three of them.
“You didn’t tell me you were going out to Bomberger’s,” he complained. “However, I’ve improved the shining hour.”
“One of the forward and dizzy young women you call pieces of homework, I suppose?”
“That’s a corny term, anyway. No, I was interested in Beddoes Farm. I decided to have a look round on my own. I left the bike a mile away and actually walked to the place. Walked, on my two feet. Is that devotion to duty?”
“You had no business to go out there again.”
“I found chummy just finishing his job of changing the hand-brake cable.”
“He saw you?”
“Certainly not. If he had I was going to ask for work on the farm during my summer holidays. There are unbelievable drears from squalid schools calling themselves the Public Schools Farmers’ Aid, or some such thing. They actually plough and whatnot, I believe. So mine would have been quite plausible. But he didn’t see me. On the contrary, I saw him. He picked up the old cable from where he’d chucked it and with it in his hand started off on foot from the shed. It was getting slightly duskish, but not nearly dark enough. I had to stay where I was and watch him across country. He made for a group of trees. I’m sorry if this all sounds nauseatingly R. L. Stevenson or John Buchan or something. I assure you, I don’t want to be a Mountie. Too ludicrous. But I did go across to that group of trees afterwards. And what do you think I found? said little Red Riding Hood. A pond, Carolus. That character with the worn cable had felt strongly enough about it to walk across two fields and chuck it in a pond. Now, congratulations to me, and for God’s sake let’s have a drink.”
7
MRS STICK had indeed managed to ‘turn round’, for at that moment she came in to ask how many there would be for dinner.
“Can we manage three, Mrs Stick? Or am I asking too much on the day of your arrival?”
“If it’s for Miss Fay and this young gentleman we can do it, sir. I’m not saying there would be enough for anyone …”
“Quite. Yes, it’s for the three of us here. By what euphemism you speak of a ‘young gentleman’ I cannot think.”
There was some discussion among the three of them after Mrs Stick had left the room as to whether that desiccated pucker round her mouth had been a smile. If so, it was unprecedented.
“Oh, by the way, sir, the creature with the bangles wants to speak to you. ‘Please tell Mr Deene Ey shall be on duty tonate and have something to tell him.’ ”
Carolus sighed.
“Couldn’t you get it out of her?”
“I tried, but no. ‘Ey’m sorry et’s a confeydential metter.’ ”
“That’s the hell of this sort of job. One just can’t afford to risk it. It’s probably that her young man wants to be a detective, but it might be something. I’ll walk back to the hotel with you later.”
Mrs Stick gave them grilled lamb chops and a cheese soufflé. They spoke no more of the case while they were eating this, but afterwards Fay returned to the subject of Gracie.
“She’s frightened,” said Carolus. “A very frightened young woman.”
“I know. I should think most people would be when they’re interrogated so much. I rather like Gracie. I’m very, very sorry for her.”
“Sure you’re not confusing the two?”
“I suppose you will tackle Babs tomorrow?”
“I suppose so. Though I don’t expect a lot from her. Or Alice Pink.”
Under a brilliant August moon Carolus and Priggley walked round to the Royal Hydro, passing along the promenade among the holiday-makers.
‘The creature with the bangles’ smiled from behind her desk when she saw Carolus approach alone.
“Ey’m sorry you hevvn’t stayed with us, Mr Deene. Ey feel there mate have been so many little theengs for you to observe here.”
“You wanted to see me?”
“Yase, Mr Deene. A metter Ey feel Ey should tell you about. An individual keem here this morning and meed enquiries about you.”
“Can you describe him?”
“Ey theenk so. He was a very shifty-looking individual. He hed a pronounced squeent.”
“What? Oh yes, I understand. Gold teeth, had he?”
“How deed you know that? Ey suppose thet’s being a detective. Yase. Several noticeable gold teeth. A tall individual. Most disagreeable. In feet, Mr Deene, hed it not been a metter which Ey thought mate interest you Ey should not have conversed with heem.”
“What did he want to know?”
“He appeared to have gethered thet you were in some way interested in the kees. He weeshed to know who you were and what mate your connection be. Ey expleened to him thet you were a very feemous investigator.”
“What did he say to that?”
“He smeeled and said, “Oh is thet all?’ Ey said no more.”
“Thenk … thank you for letting me know.”
“Oh, nut et all. Ey’m most enterested. Ey faind et fescinating.”
Next day Carolus rose to face what he knew would be a tough day’s work. He had to go out to Trumbles as though it were his place of business. The interrogations with which he started his cases were often the most vital part of them and revealed the facts on which he based his later theory. ‘Where were you at the time of the murder?’ was something more than a cliché in these interrogations, it was a cogent and vital question and the answer to it might be the means of hanging a man. But all this meant hard work, and as he looked at his list of those he must interview at Trumbles he wondered whether after all detection for its own sake was worth while. Babs Stayer, Alice Pink, Graveston, Mrs Plum and Primmley the gardener. Then later George Stump, Dr Flitcher, Mr Cupperly, Harry Green, old Uncle Tom Cobley and all. But he would finish with Trumbles first, for if the idea that was beginning to take the first wisp of shape in his mind had any truth in it, it was at Trumbles that he would learn everything.
He started with Babs Stayer. Of the three women she was, he quickly realized, the least broken by life with Lillianne Bomberger and the least frightened by all that had happened since Lillianne’s death. She was a dumpy, downright girl who if she had been left in her natural surroundings would have been ‘a good sport’ and ‘great fun’, if not ‘the life and soul of the party’. She was not handsome, but she had a round face and good complexion; again one guessed what she would have looked like in other circumstances, a jolly, carefree, rather brazenly pretty girl.
She lit a cigarette.
“Shoot,” she invited.
“All right. Let’s start with the immemorial one. Where were you at the time of the murder?”
“Do we know what that was? Do we even know there was a murder?”
“We know that Mrs
Bomberger was dead before the tide reached her. We know therefore that she died between eleven and three. In fact we can be more accurate than that, but let’s take those as limits. Where were you between those times?”
“I went up to bed about eleven because poor Pink was fussing about the lights. I was reading for a bit …”
“What?”
“Not one of Aunt Lillianne’s books. It was something George Stump brought down in proof. You know my aunt insisted on seeing everything on the same publisher’s list as her books, and Stump and Agincourt used to send them down as bound proofs. I did not want to take any sleeping-pills, so I had chosen this as a bromide. It was enormously successful as that. I was asleep in two pages.”
“What was the title?”
“Something about a mortar-board by someone called Porringer.”
“The Wayward Mortar-board, by Hugh Gorringer.”
“Oh, you know the book?”
“No. The man. Please go on.”
“As I say, it put me out like a light and I slept right through to the morning.”
“Was that unusual?”
“Not if I’d taken Komatoza.”
“Do you usually take that?”
“Most nights if I’d seen much of Lillianne during the day. It was the only way I knew to rest my nerves.”
“So nothing disturbed you that night?”
“Not a thing.”
“What woke you in the morning?”
“Nothing. I slept right on.”
“But your sister says you called her.”
“Does she? I expect she’s right. It’s not very important.”
“I’m sorry to be so trite, but it’s really quite important. It’s an inconsistency, in fact a contradiction, and they are nearly always important. You say you slept right on till … ?”
“It must have been nearly eleven. I should think.”
“What woke you then?”
“Mrs Plum. Telling me that Lillianne had been found dead on the beach, and the police were here.”
“So that you slept the clock round? From eleven to eleven?”
“Yes.”
“And that is where the contradiction comes in, Miss Stayer. You must forgive me for being so interested in it. Your sister says you came into her room quite early that day and woke her, though usually it was she who woke you.”
“Could be. I’ve got an appalling memory. I may have got up that morning and made a cup of tea and taken her one, then gone back to bed.”
“But you can’t remember doing it?”
“No. I’m afraid I can’t.”
“Wasn’t it unusual for someone who frequently has to take sleeping-pills to sleep twelve hours like that?”
Babs shrugged.
“You should know,” she said.
“There’s another matter on which you may be able to give me some information. I understand that it was you who supplied Mrs Bomberger with her sleeping-pills?”
“That’s right. So far as anyone was responsible for the pills she took, I was. I had the prescriptions made up for her. But she never discussed them with me. She seemed to have a thing about them—secretive, you know.”
“You told her how many she should take?”
“That was easy. Dr Flitcher and the chemist both emphasized that she should never have more than one at a time. They had morphine in them.”
“Did your sister and Miss Pink know she was taking them?”
“I think so, vaguely. But neither had anything to do with it.”
“But did you give them to her at night?”
“No one gave her anything. She kept her pills in the cupboard in her room and took them as she needed them.”
“Was it your habit to go into her room at night?”
“Yes. When she was in bed. She was usually the first to go up, and I’d pop in to see if she wanted anything. She nearly always did.”
“But not her sleeping-pills?”
“Just lately she had been right off them. ‘If I can snatch a few hours of dozing without narcotics it is so much better for me. But I don’t expect you to be interested in that. You have your own absorbing affairs.’ ”
“And had you?”
“What?”
“Affairs?”
“Singular, please. Yes, I’ve been in love with someone for a year, but he doesn’t come into this.”
“You’d rather not say who it is?”
“Oh, I don’t mind, now. His name is Mike Liggott and he’s a black-and-white artist working for an advertising agency. I met him on the beach last year and scarcely saw him again till his holiday this year. A fortnight ago we became engaged.”
“Your aunt did not know, of course?”
“Not? Don’t be absurd. There was nothing Lillianne did not know about anyone round her.”
“But how?”
“Pink, I suppose. I don’t altogether blame the wretched woman. She was terrified of Lillianne.”
“How did your aunt take it?”
“How do you think? Behaved as though I was a schoolgirl caught writing rude things on the lavatory wall. Talked about ‘vulgar intrigue’ and ‘servant-girl romance’. Forbade me to see Mike.”
“But you continued to do so?”
“Secretly, yes.”
“You intended to marry him in spite of your aunt.”
Babs paused then said “Ye … es,” rather dubiously.
“Surely there was no doubt about it?”
“You did not know my aunt,” said Babs sulkily.
“But she couldn’t prevent your marriage?”
“I would not put it past her.”
“How?”
Babs was silent.
“Please, Miss Stayer, explain this to me.”
“I’m over twenty-one, and she was not my guardian, anyway. But you just did not know that woman. If her own comfort was threatened, and her own domination of those about her, she would find a way.”
“I can see that she would try. But I cannot see any way. Unless there was anything she could have said to your fiancé …”
“She would have found a way. But that is only one of the reasons I can’t feel sorry—I know I ought to—I cannot feel sorry about her death.”
“There are just one or two odds and ends of questions I want to ask you,” said Carolus. He looked at a piece of paper, then, watching Babs carefully, asked, “Do you happen to remember what shoes your sister was wearing on the night of your aunt’s death?”
Babs was unnaturally cool, and Carolus gathered that, as he had anticipated, the answer was prepared.
“Yes. But I bet she can’t. She never remembers what she puts on. She was wearing a dreadful old pair of black velvet shoes. Really, a disgrace.”
“She said they were nearly new.”
Babs laughed.
“She wouldn’t have the remotest idea. My sister and her clothes are a family joke.”
Carolus found the idea of a joke in this family almost incredible.
“I told her a few days ago that she really must get rid of the things. She wanted to give them to Mrs Plum, but I told her she’d be offended. ‘Chuck them in the dust-bin,’ I said, ‘and if Plum wants them she can take them.’ That’s what she did, but I don’t suppose she remembers even that.”
“What shoes were you wearing?”
“What is all this about shoes? I mean, I’m quite willing to answer your questions if it will help you find out whether anyone actually killed Lillianne or not, and if so, who it was. But I can’t for the life of me see what my shoes and Gracie’s have to do with it.”
“They have, you know.”
“Oh, all right. I was wearing some rather pretty green leather shoes that evening. Want to see them?”
“No, thanks. Just one other thing. How many Komatoza tablets were you in the habit of taking?”
“Why?”
“It’s a small point. Don’t answer if you don’t wish to.”
“I’ll answer. Bu
t this is really the oddest cross-examination. You haven’t asked me a thing about Lillianne. I sometimes took several. Three or four.”
“No more?”
“I might once or twice have taken a second lot in the night.”
“Thank you.”
“Now suppose you answer me a few questions,” said Babs Stayer. “Was Lillianne murdered?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Why was she half buried on the beach?”
“I’m not being evasive, but I don’t know that, either. It’s the key to the whole thing. I hope to be able to tell you in time. I’m really only getting my bearings.”
“Do you want to see anyone else here?”
“Yes. Miss Pink. But I should like to come out this afternoon and see her. I have to go into Blessington now.”
“Right. I’ll tell her.”
“Thank you.”
“It seems to me, Mr Deene, that you’re missing a couple of important points. Two things happened that evening which were most unusual. George Stump called and was not admitted. And there was a phone call from someone who called himself Green.”
“I’ve got details about both of those.”
“You don’t think they had anything to do with my aunt’s death?”
“I haven’t an opinion to express,” said Carolus.
“Cagey, eh? Have a drink before you go?”
“No, thanks. I must run.”
He said he knew his way to the car and took his leave. As he went round to the side of the house where the car was he had to pass a small open window. When he was near it he heard someone making a hissing noise like an infuriated snake.
“Psst! Here, I’ve got something to tell you.”
Carolus didn’t turn his head, but pretended to be viewing the garden. The hoarse, conspiratorial woman’s voice continued:
“That’s right. Don’t turn round. I don’t want them to know I’m speaking to you, only when you hear what I’ve got to say it’ll stand your hair on end. I’ve seen things in this house to make your flesh creep. Things that would keep you awake at night. When I tell you everything you won’t know whether you’re coming or going. Only I can’t stop now because one of them’ll be out in a minute.”