Our Jubilee is Death

by Leo Bruce

  “If the police want the results of my work on the case they can have them. But I’m not anxious to give them to anyone else.”

  “Come, Deene, this is not like you. You have always presented to an audience of those concerned a spirited account of your investigations. You have never failed to keep those who heard you in suspense until in the fullness of time you revealed the murderer’s identity. Why not again?”

  “It’s not that kind of case. It’s a sickener this time.”

  “All the same, I feel it is the appropriate gesture. By it you rid yourself of all responsibilities and can leave Blessington-on-Sea without regret. I suggest my hotel as the venue and six o’clock this evening as the time. I will make myself responsible for the presence of all concerned.”

  “If the police want it,” said Carolus. “Only if the police will agree to be there.”

  “I will make it my business to see them at once. I will also see whether I can persuade Mr George Stump to lend his presence. Who knows but that on hearing your exposition he might express some interest in a written account of the whole crime? That indeed would be a feather in your cap, Deene.” He seemed to remember suddenly that he had Ethel Pink with him. “But your first obligation is to relieve, so far as you are able, the doubts and difficulties of the bereaved.”

  “You really want to know what happened to your sister?” Carolus asked.

  Ethel Pink stiffened.

  “Of course! What else?”

  “It won’t make pleasant hearing.”

  “It won’t scare me, if that’s what you think. Nine years at St Mervyn’s would cure anyone of being frightened too easily by words.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of your being scared.”

  “Or shocked either. If you had had to deal with assistant masters like ours you’d be unshockable. So you can tell me whatever you think about poor Alice.”

  “It seems to me that Miss Pink speaks for all,” put in Mr Gorringer. “In view of this latest outrage I do not think that even members of the stricken family will wish you to practise reserve. Let us have the truth, the whole truth … I need not complete the quotation.”

  “You shall hear the results of my enquiries.”

  “Miss Pink should be a lesson to us all in the fortitude with which she bears her burden. It need be no secret from you, Deene, that last night I offered to Miss Pink the vacancy on our staff occasioned by the departure from our ranks of Mrs Critchley and she has accepted. The headmaster of St Mervyn’s, whom she has so loyally served, implied a certain criticism of her in a letter she recently received, actually suggesting that she is the cause of his losing so many assistant masters. As I pointed out, what are assistant masters when it is a question of a proficient matron? Miss Pink resented this criticism and has agreed to join us at the beginning of the new term.”

  “Splendid,” said Carolus sincerely, thinking how appropriate the arrangement was.

  “Now we must be gone. There are arrangements to be made for your little—seance, shall we say?”

  When the echoes of their footsteps had died, Priggley said, “Thank God I’m not a boarder. You really are going through with it? Audience and all?”

  “Why not? If the police agree.”

  “I suppose it’s all right. Seems a bit gruesome, with last night’s corpse scarcely cold, as Mrs Plum would say.”

  “Murder is gruesome. Now I want you to round up the squint-eyed character Poxton. Also Bomberger. I don’t know where you’ll find Poxton, but Bomberger’s at Peep O’Day.”

  “Right.”

  “Make sure they’re there this evening. And Primmley. But not Graveston. I want no one from Trumbles. Mrs Plum. George Stump. Cupperly. My cousin Fay.”

  “I’ll do my best. It’s not a big lot this time, is it? Not like some of your parties.”

  “No. It’s not.”

  “You sound pretty sour about it all.”

  “I am.”

  When he was left alone, idly shuffling his notes of the case without re-reading them, Carolus felt none of the gusto with which he usually approached his exposition of a crime. This had been from the first an unsatisfactory affair, into which he had been drawn against his instincts by the coincidence that his cousin had discovered the body.

  It was impossible to feel anything but sympathy for those who had lived with Lillianne Bomberger, and though by no process of muddled thinking could this sympathy be turned to a palliative for any murderous intentions they might have formed, yet it was impossible to feel quite the same anger over the murder of Lillianne Bomberger as over that of someone kind and selfless.

  Then had gone up the blank wall of lies against which he could make so little progress culminating in the death of Alice Pink on the night before she was to have told him everything.

  He had been tempted then to leave the case. It had none of the particular subtleties he most enjoyed unravelling. He saw it for what it was, a clever and unscrupulous piece of work for which, it seemed to him, the one responsible might easily escape the consequences. But he had gone on until too late, and the third death had followed so closely on his resignation that he could not now retire from the scene without giving his own conclusions.

  However, as he admitted, he had asked for it. He had deliberately come to this unpleasant little town, and he could not deny that it was because he loved criminal investigation for its own sake. Now he must take the consequences.

  When Mrs Stick brought in his tea he knew that she, too, had reached that point of exasperation at which she might easily and once and for all give notice.

  “We really can get away tomorrow, Mrs Stick. Unless you and Stick like to stay down here for a while and have a real holiday while I go abroad?”

  “Stay down here, sir? There isn’t neither of us would think of it for a moment. Stick says he scarcely dare push his shrimping-net in the sea for fear of bringing up another corpse, and I don’t want to stay in the place a minute longer than I can help, I’m sure. It’s got so as no one knows who’s going to be next.”

  “I quite understand. You would like to return to Newminster?”

  “As fast as ever the train can carry us. The party next door where we’ve put the furniture was only saying this morning when we heard the news, ‘Well, your gentleman,’ she said, ‘doesn’t seem to have done much good, does he? Another one Passed On, and it wouldn’t surprise me if there was more on the way.’ It’s not very nice for me to hear such things about where I work.”

  “No. I’m sure it isn’t.”

  “Still, it’s to be hoped you’ve had enough not to want to get mixed up in anything more for a bit, and that’s a blessing, anyway. We’ve got everything packed and ready to go tomorrow.”

  “Good.”

  Carolus decided to lie down for an hour’s rest before facing the ordeal that lay ahead of him, but at a quarter to six he was ready and drove round to Seaview.

  He found Mr Gorringer waiting in the small entrance hall of the hotel.

  “I have not had the pleasure of meeting your cousin, Deene. I understand that she is well known in the theatrical profession.”

  “Fay? Yes, she’s quite a star in her way. She’s staying here and should be around somewhere. Is there anywhere in this hotel where people sit?”

  “Beyond the dining-room there does not appear to be much accommodation. I have arranged for us to use a room on the first floor called the Residents’ Lounge, which will be reserved for us. I have seen Detective Inspector Whibley, who will be here in a moment, though he appears to treat this occasion with levity.”

  “Can’t we get a drink?”

  “Not until six o’clock, I fear. I myself feel the need of some refreshment in these distressing circumstances.”

  “Here’s Fay. Mr Gorringer, Fay. He likes to be in at the kill.”

  Mr Gorringer bowed and attempted a smile.

  “Your cousin,” he said to Fay, “has a most unfortunate way of speaking of these things. It is true that on more
than one occasion I have been present when he has made his … exposition. But not always with pleasure. I cannot take the same view as he does in these affairs.”

  “Carolus is incorrigible. I asked him down because I was sorry for the unfortunate women out at Trumbles, and now two of them are dead.”

  “Sad, I know. But I feel it only fair to Deene to hear his explanation before condemning him. Let us now withdraw a little while those concerned are arriving. It will save a great deal of embarrassment, I think.”

  At six o’clock a young lady in black lace opened a small bar at the end of the passage and Carolus was able to fortify himself with a large whisky and soda.

  “I have no doubt that there will be surprises, eh, Deene?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. It’s fairly obvious, really. Anyone who knows all the facts should be able to say at this moment exactly how it happened and who is responsible.”

  They finished their drinks, and at ten past six went up to the Residents’ Lounge to find their audience almost complete. Detective Inspector Whibley smiled broadly to Carolus, as though to excuse his attendance at something so frivolous. Mrs Plum, away in a corner, obviously had her heart in her mouth, if not shivers running up and down her spine. Cupperly had brought his fierce-looking wife. The Matron-to-be of the Queen’s School, Newminster looked severe and George Stump bland and expansive. Bomberger and Poxton had apparently made friends. No one was present from Trumbles itself, or from what Mr Gorringer called the afflicted family, but Primmley was there and so was Rupert Priggley.

  “Now, Deene,” said Mr Gorringer, and there could be no more delay. Carolus took the plunge.

  19

  “WHEN I began to look into the death and burial of Lillianne Bomberger, the first thing I noticed was the conspiracy of lies which surrounded it. I will tell you what lies I mean in a moment, but in the meantime I want to say why they seemed significant. This was a matter of life and death and of the macabre discovery of a woman’s corpse. If anyone lies in a case like this it can only be with very good reason. Nobody tells a series of prearranged lies for appearances’ sake.

  “That does not mean that anyone who lies is a murderer—of course not. He may lie to cover up someone or something or some act which has no direct connection with the murder. But if one can distinguish his lies and discover why he is telling them, one is going to come pretty near to a solution.

  “I spoke of a conspiracy of lies, and I soon realized it existed, though I could not tell at first whom it embraced. Certainly some women were concerned in the burial of Mrs Bomberger. No man alone could have dressed her correctly in the very elaborate clothes she wore when she was discovered, and if she dressed herself Miss Pink in the next room must have heard her. Besides, when I reached Trumbles all three of the women there were obviously scared and obviously concealing information.

  “Take Gracie’s shoes, for instance. It occurred to me that if she had gone down to the beach when Mrs Bomberger was buried she would be unlikely to stop to put on plimsolls or anything. So I asked her what shoes she had worn and quickly perceived that she had not her answers ready. She contradicted herself several times, said the shoes were nearly new, that she had given them to Mrs Plum …”

  “That was a lie if ever there was one,” Mrs Plum could not help interrupting, “because she never gave me nothing of the sort, and if she had of done it would of given me the shivers to have worn them, thinking where they might have been!”

  “Then,” went on Carolus, “she said she had thrown them away, and so on. Babs tried to repair the damage next day, but only succeeded in showing that she was in the conspiracy too.

  “Then, whatever lies they had prepared for their movements, they had forgotten to arrange what they should say about the morning. Gracie Stayer, having used an unfortunate phrase about not being disturbed ‘until’, had to say that Babs had come to wake her at eleven, whereas Babs said that having read a few pages of Mr Gorringer’s forthcoming book instead of taking sleeping-pills, she slept right on till Mrs Plum called her to say the police had arrived …”

  “I can afford to let that pass,” rumbled the headmaster. “Critical opinion from those to whom I showed the manuscript has been encouraging enough to make the woman’s statement an absurdity. Besides, you are showing her to be untruthful. Proceed, Deene.”

  “Miss Pink’s interrogation came after the others, and there had been time to give her the most plausible story of the three. But these were only some of the lies. No one admitted to hearing anything unusual during the night, or leaving his or her room. Yet between 10 p.m. and the next morning the following things must have happened:

  “Lillianne Bomberger was dressed in an elaborate gown.

  “She was taken out of the house and down to the beach (for we know that, having taken so many sleeping-pills, she could not possibly have gone out herself).

  “Though Miss Pink denied having entered Mrs Bomberger’s room that night, we know from her letter to her sister that she had actually given her sleeping-pills.

  “The key of the drinks cupboard had been brought from Mrs Bomberger’s room and some whisky and other drinks consumed.

  “The glasses used for this, besides ash-trays, had been washed up.

  “The bath-chair kept in the outer scullery had been cleaned.

  “A light had been switched on in the potting-shed and shortly afterwards switched off again.

  “Now I don’t think you will call it exaggeration when I say there was a conspiracy of lies. One or two people might conceivably have slept through this and had no concern with its events—a whole household could not have. But everyone in this household, including the Cribbs, who stayed the night, and Graveston, who was employed there, told the same lies. Therefore—and this was an interesting conclusion—everyone was in the conspiracy.”

  “Are you going to tell us,” broke in George Stump, “that Lillianne Bomberger was killed by a conspiracy of six people?”

  “I haven’t said anything about her being killed. I said only that there was a conspiracy, and I say now that it was to bury her in the way she was buried.”

  “Good God! But why?”

  “Please let me answer that question when I come to it. I have admitted that much I shall tell you is supported only by circumstantial evidence. I must reconstruct events as I see them.

  “At about two o’clock that morning it was discovered—by whom we do not yet know—that Lillianne Bomberger was dead. This caused an extraordinary flutter among those present in the house, and they met in what is called the large sitting-room to discuss the matter. Someone suggested that they needed a drink and someone fetched the key of the drinks cupboard from Mrs Bomberger’s room.

  “The reason why each of these people was so deeply concerned was that, however Mrs Bomberger may have died, almost everyone had planned, or intended, or hoped to kill her. Gracie Stayer had bought an arsenical weed poison which she intended to use when occasion offered. Graveston had persuaded Mrs Bomberger to be pushed in her bath-chair every afternoon to the clifftop, from which it would be easy, on the right day of low visibility, to let the chair run over the cliff.

  “Ron Cribb had the most ingenious plan. He had discovered that the cable of his hand-brake ran under his battery, so that by over-filling his battery with distilled water he could cause the acid from it to fall on the brake-cable and slowly, naturally, eat it away. No one examining it after any accident could suggest that it had been deliberately cut or frayed, yet when the moment came and there was only a strand left, he could put on the handbrake apparently quite securely, get out of the car, give it a shove from behind and watch it run over the edge of the cliff with Lillianne Bomberger inside it. It is an old gag for murder, but it works every time unless it can be proved that the driver omitted to put on his hand-brake.

  “Moreover, every one of them had plenty of motive. Lillianne Bomberger was a much-hated woman, particularly in her own household, and to each of them she had behaved abominably,
even to Gloria Cribb, whose child she resented. Ron Cribb she had reduced to bitterness by making him economically dependent, a position which his wife, with a growing son, would not let him escape. She had come between Babs Stayer and the man she wanted to marry, she had bullied and humiliated Gracie, Miss Pink and Graveston, who were all tied to her by the mysterious dominion she had obtained over their wills. And to all of them she was known to have left money.

  “So when Lillianne was found dead the whole household was scared and guilty and conferred on what should be done. Only the murderer or murderess knew the cause of her death—the rest were half thankful that it wasn’t through his or her particular line, half fearful that they might even so be blamed.

  “But someone at that conference, someone who had particular cause to be afraid, was strong-minded. In half an hour this person had persuaded them all, waverers and cowards and all, that they did not dare leave her body in the house, that any one of them might be accused of murder with previous attempts or plans as supporting evidence, and that the only hope was to get the body out of the house and make Mrs Bomberger’s death appear the work of someone not in the household. This person probably used as arguments that a phone call from an unknown man had come through that night, that George Stump had called …”

  “Ha! ha!” said Mr Gorringer derisively.

  “And that there was actually a novel of Mrs Bomberger’s called Life Has Death For Neighbour in which a woman murdered by her husband was found on the beach. People, particularly people with a guilty conscience, are not at their most strong-minded when woken at two o’clock in the morning. In the end this person, who had a particular reason for wanting it, succeeded in persuading the rest and they got to work.

  “Two or more of the women went up and dressed the body in one of the dead woman’s most elaborate gowns. Then she was carried to her bath-chair. I do not pretend to know exactly which members of the household went down to the shore, but certainly Graveston did with a spade that already and legitimately bore his finger-prints, certainly Gracie Stayer in her black velvet shoes, probably Babs Stayer, who took the precaution of wearing beach shoes, I imagine Ron Cribb, because as a man he could assist Graveston. Miss Pink and Gloria Cribb may have stayed behind. We shall know that in due course.”