Grave Mistake ra-30

by Ngaio Marsh

  “Where is Claude now?”

  Verity said uncomfortably that he had been staying at Quintern but she didn’t know if he was still there.

  “I see. Tell me: when did Mrs. Foster remarry?”

  “In — when was it? In 1955. A large expensive stockbroker who adored her. He had a heart condition and died of it in 1964. You know,” Verity said suddenly, “when one tells the whole story, bit by bit, it turns almost into a classic tragedy, and yet, somehow one can’t see poor old Syb as a tragic figure. Except when one remembers the look.”

  “The look that was spoken of at the inquest?”

  “Yes. It would have been quite frightful if she, of all people, had suffered that disease.”

  After a longish pause Verity said: “When will the inquest be reopened?”

  “Quite soon. Probably early next week. I don’t think you will be called again. You’ve very helpful.”

  “In what way? No, don’t tell me,” said Verity. “I–I don’t think I want to know. I don’t think I want to be helpful.”

  “Nobody loves a policeman,” he said cheerfully and stood up. So did Verity. She was a tall woman but he towered over her.

  He said: “I think this business has upset you more than you realize. Will you mind if I give you what must sound like a professionally motivated word of advice? If it turns out that you’re acquainted with some episode or some piece of behaviour, perhaps quite a long way back in time, that might throw a little light on — say on the character of one or the other of the people we have discussed — don’t withhold it. You never know. By doing so you might be doing a disservice to a friend.”

  “We’re back to the Will again. Aren’t we?”

  “Oh, that? Yes. In a sense we are.”

  “You think she may have been influenced? Or that in some way it might be a cheat? Is that it?”

  “The possibility must be looked at when the terms of a Will are extravagant and totally unexpected and the Will itself is made so short a time before the death of the testator.”

  “But that’s not all? Is it? You’re not here just because Syb made a silly Will. You’re here because she died. You think it wasn’t suicide. Don’t you?”

  He waited so long and looked so kindly at her that she was answered before he spoke.

  “I’m afraid that’s it,” he said at last. “I’m sorry.”

  Again he waited, expecting, perhaps, that she might ask more questions or break down but she contrived, as she put it to herself, to keep up appearances. She supposed she must have gone white because she found he had put her back in her chair. He went away and returned with a glass of water.

  “I found your kitchen,” he said. “Would you like brandy with this?”

  “No — why? There’s nothing the matter with me,” said Verity and tried to steady her hand. She took a hurried gulp of water.

  “Dizzy spell,” she improvised. “ ‘Age with stealing steps’ and all that.”

  “I don’t think he can be said to have ‘clawed you with his clutch’.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Anyway, I shan’t bother you any longer. Unless there’s something I can do?”

  “I’m perfectly all right. Thank you very much, though.”

  “Sure? I’ll be off then. Goodbye.”

  Through the drawing-room window she watched him go striding down the drive and heard a car start up in the lane.

  “Time, of course, does heal, as people say in letters of condolence,” she thought. “But they don’t mention the scars and twinges that crop up when the old wound gets an unexpected jolt. And this is a bad jolt,” thought Verity. “This is a snorter.”

  And Alleyn, being driven by Inspector Fox to Quintern Place, said: “That’s a nice intelligent creature, Br’er Fox. She’s got character and guts but she couldn’t help herself going white when I talked about Schramm. She was much concerned to establish that they hadn’t met for many years and then only once. Why? An old affair? On the whole, I can’t wait to meet Dr. Schramm.”

  iii

  But first they must visit Quintern Place. It came into view unmistakably as soon as they had passed through the village: a Georgian house halfway up a hill, set in front of a stand of oaks and overlooking a rose-garden, lawns, a ha-ha and a sloping field and woodlands. Facing this restrained and lovely house and separated from it by a shallow declivity, was a monstrous Victorian pile, a plethora of towers and pepper pots approached by a long avenue that opened, by way of grandiloquent gates, off the lane leading to Quintern. “That’s Mardling Manor, that is,” said Alleyn, “the residence of Mr. Nikolas Markos, who had the good sense and taste to buy Troy’s Several Pleasures.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought the house was quite his style,” said Mr. Fox.

  “And you’d have been dead right. I can’t imagine what possessed him to buy such a monumental piece of complacency unless it was to tease himself with an uninterrupted view of a perfect house,” said Alleyn and little knew how close to the mark he had gone.

  “Did you pay a call on the local Super?” he asked.

  “Yes. He’s looking forward to meeting you. I got a bit of info out of him,” said Mr. Fox, “which came in handy seeing I’ve only just been brought in on the case. It seems they’re interested in the deceased lady’s stepson, a Mr. Carter. He’s a bit of a ne’er-do-well. Worked his way home from Australia in the Poseidon as a ship’s steward. He’d done porridge for attempted blackmail and sussy for bringing the hard stuff ashore but they haven’t got enough for a catch. He’s staying up at Quintern Place.”

  “So Miss Preston thought. And here we go.”

  The approach was through a grove of rhododendrons from which they came out rather unexpectedly on a platform in front of the house.

  Looking up at the facade, Alleyn caught a fractional impression of someone withdrawing from a window at the far end of the first floor. Otherwise there was no sign of life.

  The door was opened by a compact little person in an apron. She looked quickly at the car and its driver and then doubtfully at Alleyn, who took off his hat.

  “You must be Mrs. Jim Jobbin,” he said.

  Mrs. Jim looked hard at him. “That’s correct,” she said.

  “Do you think Miss Foster could give me a moment if she’s in?”

  “She’s not.”

  “Oh.”

  Mrs. Jim gave a quick look across the little valley to where Mardling Manor shamelessly exhibited itself. “She’s out,” she said.

  “I’m sorry about that. Would you mind if I came in and had a word with you? I’m a police officer but there’s no need to let that bother you. It’s only to tidy up some details about the inquest on Mrs. Foster.”

  He had the impression that Mrs. Jim listened for something to happen inside the house and not hearing it, waited for him to speak and not hearing that either, was relieved. She gave him another pretty hard look and then stood away from the door.

  “I’ll just ask my colleague to wait if I may?” Alleyn said and returned to the car.

  “A certain amount of caginess appears,” he murmured. “If anything emerges and looks like melting away ask it if it’s Mr. Carter and keep it here. Same goes for the gardener.” Aloud he said: “I won’t be long,” and returned to the house.

  Mrs. Jim stood aside for him and he went into a large and beautifully proportioned hall. It was panelled in parchment-coloured linenfold oak with a painted ceiling and elegant stairway. “What a lovely house,” Alleyn said. “Do you look after it?”

  “I help out,” said Mrs. Jim guardedly.

  “Miss Preston told me about you. Mrs. Foster’s death must have been a shock after knowing her for so long.”

  “It seemed a pity,” Mrs. Jim conceded economically.

  “Did you expect anything of the kind?”

  “I didn’t expect anything. I never thought she’d make away with herself if that’s what’s meant. She wasn’t the sort.”

  “Everybody seems to thin
k that,” Alleyn agreed. The hall went right through the house and at the far end looked across rose-gardens to the misty Weald of Kent. He moved to the windows and was in time to see a head and shoulders bob up and down behind a box hedge. The owner seemed to be crouched and running.

  “You’ve got somebody behaving rather oddly in your garden,” said Alleyn. “Come and look.”

  She moved behind him.

  “He’s doubled up,” Alleyn said, “behind that tallish hedge. Could he be chasing some animal?”

  “I don’t know, I’m sure.”

  “Who could it be?”

  “The gardener’s working here today.”

  “Has he got long fair hair?”

  “No,” she said quickly and passed her working hand across her mouth.

  “Would the gentleman in the garden, by any chance, be Mr. Claude Carter?”

  “It might.”

  “Perhaps he’s chasing butterflies.”

  “He might be doing anything,” said Mrs. Jim woodenly.

  Alleyn, standing back from the window and still watching the hedge, said: “There’s only one point I need bother you with, Mrs. Jobbin. It’s about the envelope that I believe you put in Mrs. Foster’s desk after her death.”

  “She give it to the gardener about a week before she died and said he was to put it there. He give it to me and asked me to. Which I did.”

  “And you told Miss Foster it was there?”

  “Correct. I remembered it after the inquest.”

  “Do you know what was in it?”

  “It was none of my business, was it, sir?” said Mrs. Jim, settling for the courtesy title, “It had ‘Will’ written on the outside and Miss Prue said it was a stinker. She give it to the lawyer.”

  “Was it sealed, do you remember?”

  “It was gummed up. Sort of.”

  “Sort of, Mrs. Jim?”

  “Not what you’d call a proper job. More of a careless lick. She was like that with her letters. She’d think of something she’d meant to say and open them up and then stick them down with what was left of the gum. She was great on afterthoughts.”

  “Would you mind letting me see the desk?”

  Mrs. Jim’s face reddened and she stuck out her lower lip.

  “Mrs. Jobbin,” Alleyn said. “Don’t think we’re here for any other purpose than to try and sort matters out in order that there shall be no injustice done to anybody, including Miss Prunella Foster, or if it comes to that, to the memory of her mother. I’m not setting traps at the moment, which is not to say a copper never does. As I expect you very well know. But not here and not now. I would simply like to see the desk, if you’ll show me where it is.”

  She looked fixedly at him for an appreciable interval and then broke out: “It’s no business of mine, this isn’t. I don’t know anything about anything that goes on up here, sir, and if you’ll excuse my speaking out, I don’t want to. Miss Prue’s all right. She’s a nice young lady for all you can’t hear half she says and anyone can see she’s been upset. But she’s got her young man and he’s sharp enough for six and he’ll look after her. So’ll his old — his father,” amended Mrs. Jim. “He’s that pleased, anyway, with the match, seeing he’s getting what he’d set his heart on.”

  “Really? What was that?” Alleyn asked still keeping an eye on the box hedge.

  “This property. He wanted to buy it and they say he would have paid anything to get it. Well, in a sort of way he’ll get his wish now, won’t he? It’s settled he’s to have his own rooms; self-contained like. I’ll show you the desk, then, if you’ll come this way.”

  It was in a smallish room, known in her lifetime as Sybil’s boudoir, which lay between the great drawing-room and the dining-room where, on the day of the old gardener’s death, the Upper Quintern ladies had held their meeting. The desk, a nice piece of Chippendale, stood in the window. Mrs. Jim indicated the centre drawer and Alleyn opened it. Letter paper, stamps and a diary were revealed.

  “The drawer wasn’t locked?” he asked.

  “Not before, it wasn’t. I left the envelope on top of some papers and then I thought it best to turn the key in the lock and keep it. I handed the key to Miss Prue. She doesn’t seem to have locked it.” She waited for a moment and then, for the second time, broke out

  “If you want to know any more about it you can ask Bruce. He fetched it. Mrs. Foster give it to him.”

  “Do you think he knows what was in it? The details, I mean?”

  “Ask him. I don’t know. I don’t discuss the business of the house and I don’t ask questions: no more than I expect them to ask me.”

  “Mrs. Jobbin, I’m sure you don’t and I won’t bother you much further.”

  He was about to shut the drawer when he noticed a worn leather case. He opened it and disclosed a photograph, in faded sepia, of a group from a Scottish regiment. Among the officers was a second lieutenant, so emphatically handsome as to stand out from among his fellows.

  “That’s her first,” said Mrs. Jim, at Alleyn’s back. “Third from the left. Front row. First war. Name of Carter.”

  “He must have been a striking chap to look at.”

  “Like a Greek god,” Mrs. Jim startled him by announcing, still in her wooden voice. “That’s what they used to say: them in the village that remembered him.”

  Wondering which of the Upper Quintern worthies had employed this classy simile, Alleyn pushed the drawer shut and looked at the objects on the top of the desk. Prominent among them was a photograph of pretty Prunella Foster: one of the ultra-conservative kind, destined for glossy magazines and thought of by Alleyn as “Cabinet Pudding.” Further off, and equally conventional, was that of a middle-aged man of full habit and slightly prominent eyes who had signed himself “John.” That would be Foster: the second husband and Prunella’s father. Alleyn looked down into the pink-shaded lamp on Sybil Foster’s desk. The bulb was covered by a double-glass slipper. A faint rumour of sweet almonds still hung about it.

  “Was there anything else you was wanting?” asked Mrs. Jim.

  “Not from you, thank you, Mrs. Jobbin. I’d like a word with the gardener. I’ll find him somewhere out there, I expect.” He waited for a moment and then said cheerfully: “I gather you’re not madly keen on him.”

  “Him,” said Mrs. Jim. “I wouldn’t rave and that’s a fact. Too much of the Great I Am.”

  “The—?”

  “Letting on what a treat he is to all and sundry.”

  “Including Mrs. Foster?”

  “Including everybody. It’s childish. One of these days he’ll burst into poetry and stifle himself,” said Mrs. Jim and then seemed to think better of it. “No harm in ’im, mind,” she amended. “Just asking for attention. Like a child, pathetic, reely. And good at his work, he is. You’ve got to hand it to him. He’s all right at bottom even if it is a long way down.”

  “Mrs. Jobbin,” said Alleyn, “you are a very unexpected and observant lady. I will leave my card for Miss Foster and I wish you a grateful good morning.”

  He held out his hand. Mrs. Jobbin, surprised into a blush, put her corroded little paw into it and then into her apron pocket.

  “Bid you good-day, then,” she said. “Sir. You’ll likely find him near the old stables. First right from the front door and right again. Growing mushrooms, for Gawd’s sake.”

  Bruce was not near the old stables but in them. As Alleyn approached he heard the drag and slam of a door and when he “turned right again,” found his man.

  Bruce had evidently taken possession of what had originally been some kind of open-fronted lean-to abutting on the stables. He had removed part of the flooring and dug up the ground beneath. Bags of humus and a heap of compost awaited his attention.

  In response to Alleyn’s greeting he straightened up, squared his shoulders and came forward. “Guid day, sir,” he said: “Were you looking for somebody?”

  “For you,” Alleyn said, “if your name’s Gardener.”


  “It is that. Gardener’s the name and gardener’s the occupation,” he said, evidently cracking a vintage quip. “What can I do for you, then?”

  Alleyn made the usual announcement

  “Police?” said Bruce loudly and stared at him. “Is that a fact? Ou aye, who’d have thowt it?”

  “Would you like me to flash a card at you?” Alleyn asked lightly. Bruce put his head on one side, gazed at him, waited for a moment and then became expansive.

  “Och, na, na, na, na,” he said. “Not at a’, not at a’. There’s no call for anything o’ the sort. You didna strike me at first sight as a constabulary figure, just. What can I do for you?”

  Members of the police force develop a sixth sense about the undeclared presence of offstage characters. Alleyn had taken the impression that Bruce was aware, but not anxiously, of a third person somewhere in the offing.

  “I wanted to have a word with you, if I might,” he said, “about the late Mrs. Foster. I expect you know about the adjourned inquest.”

  Bruce looked fixedly at him. “He’s refocussing,” thought Alleyn. “He was expecting something else.”

  “I do that,” Bruce said. “Aye. I do that.”

  “You’ll realize, of course, that the reason for the adjournment was to settle, beyond doubt, the question of suicide.”

  Bruce said slowly: “I wad never have believed it of her. Never. She was aye fu’ of enthusiasm. She like fine to look ahead to the pleasures of her garden. Making plans! What for would we be planning for mushrooms last time I spoke with her if she was of a mind to make awa’ wi’ herself?”

  “When was that?”

  He pushed his gardener’s fingers through his sandy hair and said it would have been when he visited her a week before it happened and that she had been in great good humour and they had drawn plans on the back of an envelope for a lily-pond and had discussed making a mushroom bed here in the old stables. He had promised to go into matters of plumbing and mulching and here he was, carrying on as if she’d be coming home to see it. Something, he said, must have happened during that last week to put sic’ awfu’ thoughts into her head.