They Rang Up the Police: A classic murder mystery set in rural England (Inspector Guy Northeast Book 1)

by Joanna Cannan

Monday

  In the kitchen at number six Jasmine Grove the radio had been switched on since nine-thirty; the next-door terrier, aware that his master had returned from work, was rattling his chain and yelping in anticipation of a walk round the gasworks; in some further backyard a bantam had laid an egg and was loudly cackling; at the end of the road trams, grinding out to Streatham, tinged impatiently; every now and then the house shook as an electric train thundered beneath it.

  “And naw fer a bit of England, ’ome, and beauty,” said Jim Huggins.

  “Don’t you start getting fresh, Jim; not in this ’eat,” replied Mrs. Huggins.

  With a grunt of contentment, Jim Huggins sat down in a Windsor chair and bent forward to unlace his boots. “Yer right. It tis ’ot. All very well fer them ’oliday-makers, but it gets me in the feet.”

  “If you perspired freely, same as I do, you wouldn’t feel it so much,” replied Mrs. Huggins, wrestling with a tin of sardines. “Naw the key’s gone and bust, but that’s nothing new, is it?” She turned over the tin into a saucer patterned with rosebuds. “There, mister, yer tea’s ready.”

  Besides the tea there was a white loaf, half a pound of margarine, a slice of Canadian cheddar, some beetroot swimming in vinegar, a pot of strong tea, a jug of thin milk, a basin of lump sugar, a cold boiled onion, and seven fancy cakes on the table. Mr. Huggins liked his tea tasty. Sweet things played up his teeth. The fancy cakes were for Mrs. Huggins, who never ceased to laud the day when, at the age of twenty-one, she had had all her teeth extracted.

  Mr. Huggins got up, placed his boots on a shelf in the scullery, pulled a pair of felt slippers over his gray worsted socks, unbuttoned his uniform coat and took off his tie and his collar. Then he sat down at the table and sucked the last shreds of the ham sandwich he had had for lunch from his teeth, while he surveyed the fare provided.

  “Wot’ll you ’ave?” said Mrs. Huggins.

  Mr. Huggins answered by cutting a slice off the loaf, spreading it with margarine, mashing up a liberal helping of broken sardines and heaping them on it. He helped himself to a chunk of cucumber and half the onion and tipped into his plate the saucer which held the beetroot. Then he spoke: “Lettuses is cheap. Yer might of got us a nice lettus.”

  “Ar,” said his wife, “it ain’t cheap to buy maggots. But that’s men all over, looks at the outsides an’ no further. Same as when they’re courting.”

  After a long day’s work, Mr. Huggins had no taste for polemics. He changed the subject.

  “’Oliday crowds beginning.”

  “Ho, really. I thought nobody left London till after the Eton and ’Arrer.”

  “It ain’t that sort yet. It’s city workers; staggering, they call it. Like carrying their bags for themselves.” Mr. Huggins assumed a mincing accent. “No, thenk you, portah.”

  “Tries to look it and can’t,” said Mrs. Huggins.

  “Yer right.” Mr. Huggins smelt the cheese and then helped himself to a slice. “Wot’s that noise on the wireless?”

  “They calls it music,” said Mrs. Huggins scathingly. “Yer got in too late fer the talk. Nice voice ’e ’ad. The news’ll be coming on in a minute.”

  “News? There ain’t no football this month,” Mr. Huggins complained gloomily.

  As he spoke, the last item in a program of Elizabethan music drew to its sprightly close and a pleasant self-satisfied voice announced that before the news here was a police message. “Missing from her home at Marley Grange, near Melchester, since Saturday morning, the second of July, Delia Margaret Cathcart, aged forty-three, five feet four inches in height, gray eyes, fresh complexion, slim build, believed to be wearing a printed silk dress, navy blue hat, and shoes and to be carrying a rawhide suitcase, stamped with her initials. Will anybody who has any knowledge of her whereabouts communicate with the Melchester Police Station, telephone number, Melchester 23, or any police station.”

  “After ’er bit of fun the same as the rest of us,” Mrs. Huggins commented.

  “Old enough to know better,” said Mr. Huggins. “Raw’ide? A lot of them about nowerdays,” he added professionally.

  Mrs. Huggins helped herself to the last of the fancy cakes. “No use keeping ’em till they’re stale,” she remarked in parenthesis. Then, “I shouldn’t fancy raw’ide myself.”

  “I don’t suppose as it’s really raw. Any’ow, no rawrer than other leather. Light-colored so as to look different. Come to think of it, one passed through me ’ands only yesterday. Left on the rack. I took it along to Lost Luggage.”

  “Yer’d never believe ’ow careless some people are!”

  Mr. Huggins was thoughtfully packing his pipe. “Funny about that there suitcase. It must ’ave been the one o’clock slow. Now where does thet come from? Woking; but where before thet? Melchester’s down beyond Woking. Passenger might of got in there. Though why anyone should want to travel from Melchester slow, only Gawd Almighty knows.”

  “And ’E won’t split,” said Mrs. Huggins. “Perhaps they got out at Woking.”

  “They might of.”

  “Delia Margaret and something beginning with C. I suppose yer didn’t ’appen to notice the initials.”

  “In a manner of speaking I did.” Mr. Huggins lapsed into painful thought, while his wife cleared the table. “For Gawd’s sake, Win, ’ave yer finished? I can’t seem to get my mind working with you lumbering around.”

  “Lumbering?” cried Mrs. Huggins. “It ain’t my fault I ain’t slim built.”

  “I ain’t blaming yer. Even at yer best, yer weren’t no glamor girl.”

  “And you ain’t no Gary Cooper.” Mrs. Huggins lifted the tin tray and carried it into the scullery.

  Jim Huggins cast his mind back. He could see the suitcase, the solid leather and strong shiny plated fastenings; he could feel the weight of it in his hand. He would have bet confidently on the weight, cautiously on the measurements, but, though he was almost sure he had noticed initials, he couldn’t visualize them. Presently his wife came back into the kitchen. “Well ’ave yer cast yer mind back?”

  He shook his head. “Not thet it really matters.”

  “Naw, isn’t thet just like yer? Don’t want a reward.” Winnie Huggins wasn’t really avaricious, but there were one or two things — a matching tea service, a sideboard like her sister, Elsie’s, a pair of nice vases for the mantelpiece — that she could do with.

  “There ain’t been no mention — so fer; and I shall deal with the matter termorrer,” replied Mr. Huggins, becoming official. “If them initials is right thet case’ll be opened if I ’ave to ring up the perlice.”

  Mrs. Huggins’ natural caution reasserted itself. “Naw, Jim, don’t yer go getting yerself mixed up with anything. And if they do open thet raw’ide case, don’t yer go getting too near — it may be a torso…”

  Since British working men and minor officials do not err on the side of precipitation, it was noon on the following day before a raw-hide suitcase, stamped with the initials D.M.C., was opened with all due authority at Waterloo Station. It was found to contain: one pair blue silk pajamas, one blue kimono, one pair satin bedroom slippers; brown lace evening dress and brown velvet coatee; one set of peach-colored underclothes; two pairs of silk stockings; one pair green evening sandals; one maroon evening bag; one pair silver brushes and tortoiseshell comb; one sponge bag, containing sponge, face flannel, toothbrush and powder.

  4

  Wednesday

  Detective-Inspector Guy Northeast, of the C.I.D., sat in a third-class carriage and gazed sullenly through the window, which the elderly lady opposite had asked him to close. He had passed through the emulous little heaths of Surrey into the pleasant farmlands of Hampshire and corn was ripening and bullocks fattening, but neither the beauties of nature nor the prospect of a satisfactory harvest could brighten his mood of black despondency. He was crying for the moon. Like many another he was asking to be given back an hour, which had long since passed into that exasperating unimaginable nowhere wher
e the flame of the candle goes. — the hour between nine and ten of that blasted Monday morning, when with heaven knows what ideas in his silly young head he had dashed out of Aunt Millie’s house in Raynes Park, where he had been stopping over the weekend, and had traveled, hurrying from tram to bus and from bus to underground, to enlist in the Metropolitan Police Force.

  Guy Northeast was the fifth child and third son of a Wiltshire farmer. For three generations the Northeasts had farmed Thorn End. Roger, the eldest son, would follow his father; Jim was developing a successful sideline breeding and breaking hunters; Pam managed the poultry; Dinah ran the dairy; and when Guy, at the age of sixteen, drank two glasses of port after Christmas dinner and suddenly found he had courage to ask his father if he could go to Canada and be a Mounted Policeman, he was firmly told there was plenty for him to do on the farm. Guy at sixteen had been big, slow and speechless — a perfectly helpless person in spite of his broad shoulders, iron biceps and huge red hands. He had given up his dream of tracking desperate criminals over snow-covered canyons, and had settled down to do all the jobs that were beneath Roger’s dignity, spoiled Dinah’s hands, got on Pam’s nerves, or bored Jim. After four years of it, he threw a turnip at Roger and went to stay with his Aunt Millie while the storm died down.

  Millie Northeast had married beneath her. She had married the head footman at the Towers; but Thomas had prospered, and he and his wife now owned a private hotel inhabited by old ladies and young male clerks. Millie had therefore no hesitation in recommending her nephew to strike out on his own, and she did not consider that to be a constable on point duty was an unfitting occupation for a yeoman’s son. She pressed Guy to stay on with her and correspond at a safe distance with his family, and after several heated letters had passed between Thorn End and the Walmer Private Hotel, he received a grudging admission that it was no use crying over spilt milk; what was done was done; and, if he liked to lower himself, he was welcome. In three months Guy was thoroughly homesick, tired to death of hearing people say, “Northeast? Ha-ha! I’d sooner have Southwest,” and fed up with his work, which he found agonizingly monotonous after the varied and hypothetical work of the farm. He possessed, however, his fair share of the admirable vice of false pride, and he stuck out the first dull years, and presently discovered, to his intense surprise, that his common sense, good manners and ability to act on his own initiative had, after all, been noted by his apparently unimpressionable superiors. He was transferred to the C.I.D. and luck was with him at first, but, since he had been promoted to be Detective-Inspector, it had deserted him; he had bungled the Oughborough case, and believed it wasn’t by chance that since then only dull routine enquiries seemed to come his way.

  Now he was traveling through Hampshire to investigate the disappearance of a spinster of uncertain age, who was obviously suffering from sex repression. “Nothing much in this, Northeast,” Superintendent Hannay had said. “Of course, the bag turning up at Waterloo may indicate that she is in London; otherwise there’s nothing that Melchester couldn’t handle. However, the Chief Constable down there seems to be a friend of the family and he’s been pulling strings here — got a wife who’s got a brother who’s got a wife who’s got a husband. You’d better take the bag down and get it identified and look round a bit. I expect you’ll get a pretty frigid reception from the blokes at Melchester.”

  So Guy, looking out of the window that he’d been weak-minded enough to shut, was wishing he had remained a farmer. Roger had been irritating, but not half as irritating as a succession of sergeants, detective-inspectors, superintendents and assistant commissioners; when Guy’s father had died, he had left him a thousand pounds and that would have been enough to start farming in a small way on his own. A farmer’s life was disheartening, but at least he was his own master; as a policeman, however high you rose, you always had someone above you, someone to look down his nose at you, thinking of Lady Oughborough’s emeralds and Flash King’s acquittal, and saying, “There’s nothing much in this, Northeast,” and meaning even you can’t bungle such a simple little case as this…

  The train slowed down. The old lady who had wanted the window shut asked if she was right for Melchester, and Guy said she was, and lifted down her luggage, and the luggage belonging to a respectable young person in gold spectacles, and the rawhide suitcase with the initials D.M.C. and his own substantial brown leather one. The train drew up, and he carried his bags to the exit and out into the station yard. Outside the station were four or five taxis, a bus from Marley-in-the-Marsh and several decrepit cars attached to trailers containing pigs or poultry; girls in tweeds with spaniels at their heels were anxiously enquiring for hampers from the agricultural show at Lesser Pocklington. Guy, realizing that if he wasted no time he might catch an afternoon train back to London, blowed the expense and took a taxi to the police station, where he asked for the Superintendent. A moment later he was shaking hands with a rather frigid Dawes, who eyed the card he presented with suspicion.

  “Well, Northeast, I don’t see why they should have troubled you with this little affair. Girls will be girls — even in the provinces.”

  The omission of his rank, obviously with intent, and the somewhat unnecessary stress on the word “provinces” showed him that he must be tactful. He said, “Quite so, sir, but our experience is that girls from the country are rather inclined to get into trouble in our wicked city.”

  “Why should you assume that Miss Cathcart is in London?”

  “Because her suitcase was found there, sir,” said Guy, making an effort to show the respect that the Superintendent clearly expected from a mere inspector.

  Dawes beat a tattoo with his pencil on the table while his slow brain worked. “What evidence have you that the bag you’ve found is Miss Cathcart’s?”

  “Well…it’s made of rawhide and it’s got the right initials.” Then, realizing that he might have to work for a time with this self-opinionated provincial, he added in a conciliatory tone, “But that’s not what you or I would call evidence, Super.”

  “Your first job is to get it identified, Northeast.”

  “Yes, that’s why I was sent down and because somebody seems to have been pulling strings.”

  “That Mrs. Cathcart; she seems to think no one has anything better to do than to be at her beck and call. If you don’t find the daughter soon, she’ll write to the Prime Minister or the Archbishop of Canterbury.”

  “Mightn’t a mother like that make a daughter want to leave home?” asked Guy thoughtfully. “You know, Super, there’s a lot in this case that doesn’t open and shut.”

  “So Scotland Yard’s trying to make a puzzle of it, are they?” sneered the Superintendent. “You can take it from me, Northeast, the young lady — though she’s no chicken, really — has found a gentleman friend to be kind to her for a nice long weekend. Suppressed sex, that’s what it is.”

  “Then why did she leave her luggage on the rack of the carriage?”

  “Just came over flustered, never having been naughty before.”

  “Ye-es; that’s possible, I suppose. Did anyone happen to notice her at the station?”

  Superintendent Dawes was rather taken aback. “That’s an angle that needs investigating, of course. I’ll have that looked into while you’re trotting out to Marley Green with the suitcase.” He got up to show that the conference was ended, but Guy had not come all the way from London to be so cavalierly ushered out of an office.

  “There’s not a great deal in this suitcase; I mean not exactly a trousseau.”

  “Packed in a hurry — never having been naughty before.”

  Guy still sat firm. His chief in London wanted a report, and trivial though this case might be it was his duty to make a thorough investigation while he was about it. “Have you any objection to my making a few routine enquiries of the family and servants while I’m at the house?”

  “You can waste as much time as you like; it won’t affect our county rates.” Then softening slightly
, Dawes added with an air of generosity: “I’ll lend you my notebook; that’ll give you something to read on the bus.”

  “Thank you. And when should I get back?”

  “There’s a bus about five that’ll give you time to pay a few calls — you’ll see I’ve jotted down some names in my notes. I’d advise you to see a certain Mrs. Willoughby and ask her a few questions. I understand from the Chief Constable that her husband left her on Saturday, and, if I wanted to cherchez, I’d cherchez for the gallant Captain. Now, if you want to catch the Little Hitherford bus, you’d better be getting along to the Town Hall.”

  This time Guy took the hint. “Right you are, Super. Seeing as I’ll be seeing you again, do you mind if I leave my own suitcase here?”

  “You’d better, Northeast. It’ll be a damn sight safer than on the rack of a bus.” The Superintendent’s grim face relaxed as he chuckled at his own joke.

  So Guy took the Little Hitherford bus and bumped out to Marley Green smelling hay and reading the Superintendent’s notes. After asking his way at the Dog and Duck, he walked down the dusty road and turned in at the white gate of Marley Grange.

  The drive, with never a weed in it, led him past the stable yard, clean as a new pin; bearing right it widened into a sweep of golden gravel under the short north wall of the house. On his right ran a tall yew hedge, newly clipped; and on his left was a broad herbaceous border and the apple orchard beyond. Evidently, he thought, there’s someone about the place who knows how to keep the servants up to their work, and he thought, what an unlikely setting for any kind of tragedy! He walked up to the front door and pressed the electric bell, noticing how bright the brasses were, how spotless the paint work. A fair-haired maid in a brown uniform promptly admitted him. He followed her through the cool hall into the drawing room.

  Sheila Cathcart was sitting at the piano. Coming through the hall he had heard what sounded like classical music, and hoped this wasn’t going to be the sort of case you read about in novels, where the detective knows that the victim couldn’t have been in the music room at the time stated, because so great a musician would never have played Puccini. The sun, streaming in through the south windows, turned Sheila’s lovely auburn hair to a flaming aureole; he imagined her beautiful, and was conscious of disappointment when the maid gave his name and she turned towards him and he saw an ugly woman.