by Leo Bruce
Carolus was wondering when he would be allowed to leave, and the same problem seemed to be worrying Mrs Plum.
“If you go marching out of the front door, one of them’s bound to see you,” she said.
“Does it matter much now that you’re no longer working up there?”
“Well, I don’t want them to know my business, specially when it’s anything like this. One of them’s bound to tell her, where you’re living, when she comes back and that would never do. Still, I don’t see much help for it, I must say, so you better go as quick as you can and turn down the road first like you did before.”
Carolus obeyed, wondering once more whether he would ever hear the name of ‘her, where you’re living’, since in all the references to his landlady she had never been given more than a pronoun. He decided he would not ask, for surely he had plenty of questions to put without this one.
A heavy sea-mist came up that evening and enveloped the town. It was so thick that at eight o’clock, when Carolus set out for the pub called the Prince of Wales Feathers, which he had learned was the one designated by Mrs Plum, he left his car and went on foot.
A burly landlord, giving him a fair measure of whisky, said that yes, he knew Tom Primmley. He was up in the club-room at the moment with the rest of the committee, but they usually broke up about now, and he’d catch him coming down.
“Nasty business that where he works, isn’t it? You couldn’t ask for a more generous lady than Mrs Bomberger,” said the publican.
Carolus was interested in this, positively the first words he had heard in praise of the dead woman.
“In what way, generous?” he asked.
“She’d done a lot for the town. No one asking her for a subscription was ever turned away. Mind you, I’m not saying she didn’t like her name on the list and in the paper and that, but I reckon she was entitled to it. Even the clergy only had to go to her.”
“You’d say she was popular in Blessington?”
“She wasn’t known much personally. But when it came to giving she was the first. Ah, here’s Tom. Tom, this gendeman’s waiting to speak to you.”
Primmley was a merry little man with thick grey hair and a healthy red face. He looked enquiringly at Carolus.
“Mrs Plum told me I should find you here,” Carolus explained. “I hear you have something to tell me. My name’s Deene and I’m trying to find out the truth about Mrs Bomberger’s death.”
Sitting behind a pint of ale in a corner of the bar, Primmley talked with a natural chuckle running among his words.
“It’s not really much, sir, but as I’d told it to the police I thought I might as well tell it to you. Fair’s fair, isn’t it? I’ve read enough detective novels to know that it isn’t always easy for anyone like you to get at the truth.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s like this. I never had much to do with them up at the house. My wife and I have got our cottage and a little girl, with another expected. Mrs Bomberger used to leave me alone generally, though she could be very sarcastic about the garden sometimes. ‘Oh, Primmley,’ she would say in that nasty, pleased-with-herself way of hers, ‘I’m quite aware that I mustn’t expect to see miracles, but in view of the very large sum I spent on plants and seeds at your request I do think I might sometimes have a little colour about the place. I know that people write very poetically about the bare earth, but it does grow somewhat monotonous.’ And that with my dahlias ablaze and winning every prize at the show and the chrysanths coming along lovely. Still, it never worried me. You see, sir, when you work in a garden it’s as though it was your own and you’ve no one really to please but yourself. However, that’s not what you want to know.”
“Please go on.”
“Right up to the last the wife and I never thought of anything. She’d heard a few bits here and there from Mrs Plum, whose late husband was a distant relative of hers, but nothing out of the usual. Nor on the last day there wasn’t. I did my work and didn’t see anything much of them. It was during the night.”
“Yes?”
“The wife’s a very light sleeper. Any little thing will wake her, and she has a job to get off again. That night I felt her shaking me. I wasn’t best pleased about that, but I could see she was a bit upset. ‘Whatever’s the matter?’ I asked. ‘Oh, Tom, you’ve left the light on in your potting-shed,’ she told me. ‘I woke just now and went to look out of the window.’ I asked what had woken her, but she didn’t rightly know. She said she thought she’d heard someone talking over there, but she couldn’t be sure whether it wasn’t in her sleep. ‘Anyway, I got up and looked out,’ she said, ‘and saw the light in your shed. However did you come to leave it on?’ ‘I didn’t,’ I said flat, because I wanted to get back to sleep. ‘I didn’t do any such thing. I haven’t been in the potting-shed since five o’clock when I put my tools away, and there was plenty of light then. Besides, I never leave it on.’ ‘Well, it’s on now,’ she said, and I got up to look. When I reached the window the wife was quite excited. ‘Someone’s put it out!’ she said. ‘I saw it on as plain as anything just now. Someone must have seen it and put it out.’
“It was a funny thing, because my wife’s a sensible woman. She’s a good bit younger than me, but I’ve never known her imagine things like that. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’ll go across and see what it’s all about.’ ‘You’ll do no such thing,’ she said; ‘waking the child and everything. You go back to bed.’ I wish I had gone now. I might have had something worth telling. But when it all came out what had happened in the night the wife was right, of course. ‘Didn’t I tell you?’ she said almost before we heard the news. ‘You might have got your throat cut.’ That’s what she said. But then women are always right, aren’t they, sir?”
Fortified with another pint, Tom Primmley prepared to answer questions.
“What time did this happen?” Carolus asked.
“The police asked me that. But it’s just what I can’t tell you. It was well on in the night, I’m sure of that, but it was before any sign of morning. I never thought to look at my watch.”
“When you went over to your potting-shed did you find anything out of place?”
“Not to be certain of, I didn’t. I never lock it; you don’t need to round here and it’s right near the house. The door was shut as usual. Everything seemed just as I left it, unless it was …”
“Yes?”
“I can’t be sure of this, but I did think that perhaps the big tools in the corner had been interfered with. I told the police that, and they took them all away to look for finger prints. The wife heard afterwards that on one spade they’d found Graveston’s prints and questioned him about it. But Graveston told them he’d borrowed that spade from me a day or two before to dig up where a drain was blocked outside the kitchen window.”
“That was true, was it?”
“Quite true. I don’t get on too well with Graveston, who’s a sign-the-pledge chapel-goer, but it’s true enough he borrowed a spade, and I don’t think I’ve used it since. Anything else you want to know?”
“No. But if you do see anything up at Trumbles that strikes you as odd you might let me know. Mrs Plum knows where I live.”
“I will, sir. Mrs Bomberger left me a bit of money, but I don’t like to take it till this is all cleared up.”
“How are you going to get back in this mist?” asked Carolus.
“Oh, that’s all right, sir. I know the way like the back of my hand. I’ve got my old bicycle. I shall go round by the road.”
As Carolus groped his way to Wee Hoosie he was glad that he had no need to visit Trumbles that evening.
13
NEXT morning Carolus was awakened by Mrs Stick. The little woman sounded perturbed.
“Miss Fay’s here,” she said, “and wants to see you at once. Says it’s important.”
“Tell her I’ll be down in a minute.”
Carolus dressed and found Fay bolt upright on one of his horsehair chairs.
“Oh, Carolus, it’s really rather awful. Pink—you know, Alice Pink the Secretary who looks rather like a bat. I don’t mean a vampire, just an ordinary domestic bat—well, she has disappeared.”
“I shan’t hurry you, my dear Fay, or ask you questions, because I realize that you’ll tell me all you know in good time if you’re allowed your measure of chaos.”
“You know I can never get things straight, as people say, but this really does seem a bit upsetting. I mean the poor creature’s been in such a tizzy for weeks that anything may have happened. For years, really. Bomberger was a sort of huge Kali to her. She just walked out of the house last night, it seems, and hasn’t come back. It wasn’t so unusual for her to go out at night—just lately she’s been behaving like somebody in Wuthering Heights or something. But it is unusual for her not to come back.”
“I see that,” smiled Carolus.
“Oh, shut up! You know what I mean. I was in my bath this morning when Babs phoned and told me. I asked if she wanted me to tell you, but she didn’t seem to know. Pink’s not been more odd than usual during the last few days; she is, of course, psychopathic. The two girls are quite worried about it. They’re alone in the house with that fearful Graveston.”
“Have they told the police?”
“They hadn’t when they phoned me. I begged them to at once. I hope they will. It seems Pink took no baggage with her, which makes it all a bit sinister. Of course she may have escaped on impulse, but if she meant to come back it looks as though she has had it.”
“When she went for these nocturnal walks which way did she take?”
“According to Babs, what Pink has taken to doing in the evening is to put together for herself a few sandwiches and march off at about eight, staying out till ten or eleven. She didn’t like having her evening meal with them, apparently. They even thought at first that she was meeting someone, but Graveston saw her quite alone in the shelter at the top of the cliff, eating her sandwiches and, according to him, ‘swallowing from a flask’ which he suspected to contain alcohol. She has rather taken to a drop of gin since Bomberger’s death, it seems.”
“Was that the route she took last night?”
“They don’t know. It was misty, you remember, one of those heavy sea-mists which last a few hours and come and go with the moon. No one saw her leave, but they realized she had gone at about eight-thirty and got very worried. In fact Babs went off to try to find her, shouting her name all over the place without result. When she got back she sent Graveston, and as Primmley came in about that time she sent him. The Cribbs were spending the evening at Trumbles, and it seems they went out and looked for her, too. Gracie and Babs couldn’t bear to think of that poor thing wandering about in the mist, and stayed up till all the search-parties were back with nothing to report. They went to bed at last hoping that she would come in during the night, but this morning, when Babs went to Pink’s room, she found that the bed hadn’t been slept in, and came down to phone me.”
“I suppose I shall have to go out there,” said Carolus. “I didn’t want to again. They lie so.”
“Poor things! What do you expect them to do? Everyone lies over a thing like this.”
“Yes. Pink did certainly. All right, let me eat something and we’ll go.”
Mrs Stick brought in coffee and rolls, and Carolus munched quickly while Fay rattled on.
“I do think you might have solved the thing before this, Carolus. That wretched Pink wandering about somewhere …”
“If she’s still alive.”
“Why not? I shouldn’t have thought there was anything suicidal about her. A nervous string of a woman like that is usually as tough as they come in a crisis. You don’t think she has been murdered, do you?”
“I think it’s possible.”
“I suppose she’s going to be found with her head out of the sand, now. Why can’t you stop this thing, Carolus? You’re supposed to be such an ace. If there’s a murderer here you ought to have had him or her days ago, and if there isn’t you should have said so and stopped those women worrying.”
“What about the cousin and his wife?”
“Ron and Gloria? They simply say they could not find Pink or get an answer to their calls.”
“And Graveston?”
“Babs didn’t mention him.”
“Let’s get out there and hear some more lies,” said Carolus.
“Don’t be too hard on those two women, Carolus. They’ve had years of hell with Bomberger and a bad time since her death. They’re pretty near breaking-point. I know them.”
They reached Trumbles at about ten o’clock and were admitted by Gracie.
“No word?” asked Fay.
Gracie shook her head. “I’m afraid …”
Carolus tried in the interview that followed to treat the two sisters with more gentleness than on previous occasions. He started by questions about Miss Pink’s family.
“I believe she had a sister,” said Babs, “who is Matron of a hospital or boys’ school. ‘My sister, the Matron,’ was mentioned from time to time. No one else.”
“Where was her home?”
“We’ve never quite known. There was talk of ‘my old home in Hampshire’ and I don’t know why but I have an idea that her father was a solicitor. She may have said so.”
“Do you think we could find the sister’s name and address among Miss Pink’s papers?”
Watching closely, Carolus thought that the sisters narrowly avoided exchanging glances.
“I shouldn’t think so. She had practically no personal papers.”
“We could try,” said Carolus.
Babs rose quickly.
“I’ll run up and look at once,” she said. Before there could be any argument she left the room.
“Have you yet informed the police?” Carolus asked Gracie.
“No. Must we? It is so hateful to have them asking questions.”
“Of course you must. I suggest you do so immediately.”
“Babs said …”
“Miss Stayer, this is a serious and urgent matter. Fay, call the police at once.”
There was a general hesitation.
“I suppose you had better,” said Gracie at last. “There’s a phone over there. Oh dear, I shall be glad when all this is over.”
While Fay was still talking, Babs returned.
“I’ve found it,” she said. “Miss Ethel Pink, St Mervyn’s Preparatory School, Porthpillo, near Penzance. It was on a list of addresses in a drawer of her table.”
Carolus took the phone when Fay had finished and began to dictate. “Your sister Alice Pink worried by recent unexplained death of employer Lillianne Bomberger went out last evening not returned Stop. Possibly on her way to you Stop. Please wire whether other relatives or suggestions where might go. Stop. Police informed and all steps taken.
“Now tell me about yesterday,” he invited Gracie and Babs Stayer.
It was Babs who answered.
“She seemed rather depressed all day, but then she has been depressed lately. I suppose we all have. But she did not say anything unusual. She has formed some rather odd habits since my aunt’s death.”
“Such as?”
“Locking herself up in her room for long periods. And these evening walks on the cliff.”
“Always on the cliff?”
“We don’t know. The only time she has been seen was when Graveston came on her in that little shelter they have made right at the highest point between here and Blessington. She never ate much in the house, but she used to take sandwiches with her at night. It was rather peculiar, you will own.”
“Did she drink?”
“Never, when my aunt was alive. At least, not so far as anyone knew. But we have been rather surprised lately. She does like a nip. We caught her pouring herself out a snorter one morning. Graveston says she had a flask with her the other night.”
“Was it her flask?”
“I think it was Aunt Lillianne’
s. She had a little silver one which hasn’t been seen lately.”
“You think Miss Pink had it last night?”
“Probably. Actually, I never thought she would go out last night. There was a sea-mist all round us here. She went to her room at about seven and didn’t appear again. We prepared a scratch meal for ourselves and Ron and Gloria, who had come over. We called her when it was ready, but there was no reply. Then we rather panic’d, I’m afraid. I felt she ought not to be wandering about alone and went out to try and find her.”
“Which way did you go?” asked Carolus.
“Well, actually I didn’t go very far. It was a bit tricky last night, and I had an idea she had gone up on the cliffs. I shouted for her and started to climb a little way, but I’m afraid gave it up then.”
“How long do you think you were gone?”
“I don’t know. I daresay about twenty minutes.”
“Did it seem like that to you?” Carolus asked Gracie.
“Babs was much longer. She’s braver than she would have you think. I wouldn’t have gone out alone in that mist for anything. I’m sure she hunted everywhere.”
“Yes?”
“And even then she wouldn’t rest. She sent Graveston and Primmley out to look for Miss Pink. Then she suggested to Ron that he might have a look in the other direction, and he and Gloria went out. I didn’t like going to bed. Nor did Babs. And first thing this morning Babs went to her room and found she hadn’t been in all night.”
“Has anyone been over the cliff footpath today to see whether …”
“We sent Graveston up about half an hour ago. He should be back any minute.”
“There has never been any suggestion of suicide on her part?”
This was the first question which seemed to make the two sisters uncomfortable.
“I’ve always rather wondered,” said Babs at last. “But more in my aunt’s time than now. She seemed to me rather the type.”
“She has never said anything to make you anticipate this?”
“No. In moments of great stress she would talk about ‘ending it all’, as people do.”
“Has she had one of those moments of great stress lately?”