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

by Joanna Cannan

  “There’s no need to waste time on him. Forbes is our man. While you’ve been enjoying the sights of London, I’ve picked up a real clue. Two nights ago, at the Basket Makers’ Arms, Forbes paid for a round of drinks with one of Miss Cathcart’s notes.”

  “Oh!” Guy stood silent for a moment. Then, “Not traced any of the others?”

  “Yes, there’s another. Given in at a garage in Great Hitherford, in payment for a can of petrol, by a lady who’d had a breakdown.”

  “A lady?” Guy could have embraced the Superintendent. “Did they note the number?”

  “Couldn’t; they didn’t see it. She’d run out of petrol and walked to the garage.”

  “Damn!”

  “If she’s one of Forbes’ fancy ladies, we’ll soon pick her up.”

  “She can wait, anyhow,” said Guy, moving towards the door. “I’ve got a couple of calls to make before the inquest. The public library and — where is Giles’ Square?”

  “Second turn to the left after the library. But what’s the idea?” Guy, however, had rushed out and was careful not to see the Chief Constable’s Daimler nor to hear the peremptory summons from its horn. A few minutes later, rudely interrupting a discussion on moss-stitch, which a young female librarian was carrying on with a matron in search of a nice love story, he was told where to find the encyclopedia. COLE to DAMA. Licking his thumb, he rapidly flicked over the pages until he came to the article he wanted. Anomalous di — what a mouthful!…ah, this was better…represents the most common form, being a characteristic of about four percent of males and one-tenth of this proportion of females…one-tenth of four percent — an outside chance, but outsiders sometimes came home…

  ****

  “What a dreadful bare little room,” said Nancy. “And, darling, how cold!”

  “I’m glad I had the sense to put on my coat,” said Mrs. Hemmings. “Jess, girl, you must be frozen in them short sleeves.”

  “I’m shivering,” said Sheila, “but I suppose that’s nerves.”

  “It’s trembling, Miss,” said Jessie. “I’ve nothing to fear, but my legs are all of a shake. Is this where they locks people up?”

  “No,” said Elspeth. “This is just a waiting room for witnesses. Would you like my coat, Miss Sheila? I’m quite warm.”

  “No, thank you,” said Sheila rather coldly. “You’d better all sit down, if there are enough chairs.”

  Taylor said, “Seeing as we’re witnesses and not criminals, they might of given us something better than ’orse-’air to sit on. It’s apt to strike cold.”

  “You should wear more,” said Mrs. Hemmings unsympathetically. Jessie began, “Will any of us be wanted in court, Miss? I do ’ope not. I’ve nothing to ’ide, but all the same I don’t fancy it, some’ow. Don’t know what you won’t catch, either…” She broke off as the door opened and a rat-faced girl walked in, looking here and there and everywhere with her bright, shifty brown eyes.

  Sylvia Smallbone had been persuaded by Guy to join his party, just to sit in a waiting room for half an hour or so with some other ladies. He had made it right with the management of the Red Lion and he had promised Sylvia that it would be to her advantage and that when it was over he would explain the idea. Sylvia was feeling important. She shot a disdainful glance at the party already in possession. None of them was so stylishly dressed as she was in her mauve jumper, mauve halo hat, and gray flannel coat and skirt.

  Scarcely had Miss Smallbone seated herself than the door opened again and, dressed dramatically in black and orange, Gerda Willoughby strode into the room. “Oh, Miss Cathcart…and Nancy… I’m so sorry. I’m sure that in your great grief you don’t want to be bothered by me, but I was told that I must come. I can’t think why they want me. I don’t know anything about your poor sister, but I feel that perhaps I ought to have taken legal advice, only solicitors are so sordid and everything’s so simple and nothing’s ugly if you just bare your soul. So I thought, well, that’s what I shall do if I have to answer any question: just bare my soul.”

  Sheila said, “I wonder why they wanted you to come. Of course that Northeast man isn’t very intelligent…”

  “Oh, don’t you think so? I’ve had some thrilling conversations with him. We discussed Time…”

  She was interrupted by the appearance of a stocky blue-eyed middle-aged man. He said, “Excuse me, ladies,” and, taking pains not to trip over anyone’s feet, he stepped across the room and stood with his back to the fireplace. He remained there for about five minutes. Then he sighed heavily, said, “Excuse me, ladies,” and left the room, stepping as carefully as when he had come in.

  “I wonder who that was?” said Nancy.

  “Another witness, I expect,” said Mrs. Willoughby. “He struck me as a typical member of the lower middle class, quite cancerous with respectability. As he stood there by the fireplace I could see right into his twisted little soul.”

  “I wonder why he went away,” said Nancy.

  “Oh, he’ll come back in a minute,” said Mrs. Willoughby. “I expect he’s just gone to see a man about a dog — men always do.”

  But the stocky man didn’t come back. The next person to enter the room was a tall constable, who told Sheila that she was wanted in court.

  Sheila leapt to her feet and stumbled out, kicking Miss Smallbone on the ankle and treading on Taylor’s corn. Taylor drew in her breath and Miss Smallbone muttered, “Clumsy thing!” Then there was silence. Jessie stared at Miss Smallbone. Miss Smallbone stared at the dirty mark which Sheila’s shoe had left on her art silk stocking. Nancy twisted her fingers. Gerda Willoughby gazed at a shaft of sunlight. Elspeth sat like a statue. Mrs. Hemmings snuffled and Taylor, vainly striving to stifle the gurglings of her gastric juices, from time to time murmured, “Pardon me.”

  And presently the door opened and Sheila stood there again. She had taken off her glasses and was wiping them with her pocket handkerchief. She said, “I was only wanted to give evidence of identification. The inquest is adjourned for a week and now we can all go home.”

  “What — aren’t none of us wanted?” said Mrs. Hemmings in a bitterly disappointed tone.

  “Not today. The police are so inconsiderate!”

  “Never mind,” said Gerda Willoughby. “Of course, it’s been horribly sordid, but it’ll make us more sensitive to beauty, so in a way, you see, it’s been good for our souls. I feel terribly hurt — ugliness does hurt me terribly — and I’m going to rush off now to be healed by flowers and trees and birds.”

  She rushed. Nancy turned to Sheila. “Was it very dreadful, darling?”

  “Not as dreadful as I expected. I was only asked if I had identified the body and when Delia was last seen alive and if she was in good health and whether she often slept out — I think that was all. Inspector Northeast described how he found Delia and Doctor Baker gave some medical evidence, which was rather horrible. None of the jury asked any questions. I suppose next week there’ll be more.”

  “Didn’t they say anything about suspecting anyone?”

  “No, darling. I suppose they’ll bring that up next week.”

  “Oh, dear. How slow they are!”

  “What does it matter?” said Sheila wearily. “Nothing they do can bring Delia back to us again. Let’s go now, darling. I want to get away from here.”

  ****

  “Well, that went off all right,” said the Chief Constable. “We may be old-fashioned down here, Inspector, but we have got a coroner who knows how to do what he’s told.”

  “That’s right, sir,” corroborated the Superintendent. “And it won’t take us a week to get our man. We’ve just got a little tidying to do.”

  Guy said, “Excuse me, sir, I want to put through one telephone call. Then I think we shall have all the evidence we need.”

  Both men stared at him.

  “All right. You won’t be long?”

  “No, sir. It’s only a local call. I’ll come along to the Superintendent’s office.” />
  Guy left them to go into a telephone kiosk and the Chief Constable said, “Mysterious feller! Has he got something up his sleeve, do you think?”

  “He may have. I advised him this morning to concentrate on Forbes.”

  While the two men waited at the station, conversation languished. Dawes sat like a graven image, but the Chief Constable beat an impatient tattoo on the table, cleared his throat and twice turned round to glance at the loudly ticking clock on the mantelpiece. He had opened his mouth to make some remark, when Guy came in, grinning.

  Carruthers glared at him, and the grin vanished. “Now, Northeast, let’s hear what you’ve been up to.”

  Guy was rather pleased with himself and, in a hurry to receive their compliments, thoughtlessly began, “The idea really came to me over a glass of beer at the Dog and Duck.”

  He saw the two men exchange a glance and he went on quickly. “I was there…er…primarily on business. You may remember, sir, that we agreed I should concentrate on alibis for the time the suitcase was planted in the train. Before going out to Marley, I called at the cafe where Jessie and Funge had their ‘elevens’ on the Saturday morning, and the waitress, who had attended on them, supplied them with a cast iron alibi. My next job was to check up Ames’ movements…”

  Dawes interrupted, “But it was a woman who planted the suitcase. Ames isn’t a woman, Northeast.”

  “No, sir,” Guy said patiently. “But I had to see if I could eliminate him. I discovered that he had been playing in the final of the village darts competition at the critical time on the Saturday morning. So Ames was apparently out.”

  “Not very close reasoning, Northeast,” said Major Carruthers. “If he had a female accomplice he might have handed over the suitcase to her whenever he wanted.”

  “Granted, sir. I didn’t rule him out finally.” Guy couldn’t resist a sly glance at Dawes as he added, “I realized that I must still keep an open mind. I ordered…er…a snack and pondered again over my chart and I found myself asking, Mr. X, why did you make that mistake? If murderers never made mistakes they’d never be caught. I studied the marks I had given for the likelihood of making that mistake in packing the clothes. Could a woman have put in garments that not only didn’t match but positively shrieked? A woman had planted the suitcase, but I had marked all the woman suspects as unlikely to make the mistake. What had I missed?”

  He paused for a moment. The Superintendent’s cold eyes were skeptical. The Chief Constable was studying his nails.

  “Pondering over this point,” Guy went on, “I drove to the Grange to check up the housemaid’s alibi. By this time I had reason to believe that she was married to Forbes…”

  “What’s that? You never mentioned that point to me.”

  Guy badly wanted to get a bit of his own back by pointing out that, if the Chief Constable had allowed him to outline the reasoning on which the marks shown on the chart had been awarded, he would have been aware of the suspicions against Elspeth. But you did yourself no good by scoring off those who were in authority over you, so he said, “I only established the relationship yesterday.”

  “H’m. You’re not exactly cooperative, Northeast.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I questioned Elspeth closely as to her movements on Saturday morning and then, so as to confirm her statement, I asked if I might have a word with the Miss Cathcarts. When I went into the drawing room, Miss Nancy was doing needlework and she was surrounded by skeins of colored wool, just like those they used when I joined the Force, as a test for colorblindness. A colorblind woman could have packed that suitcase…”

  “Rather farfetched, what?”

  “Still, it explained a lot that had been mysterious before, sir. I don’t know whether you’ve studied colorblindness and Mendelism, but I used to dabble with sweet peas, and I’d read the subject up. I had an idea that colorblindness was a male complaint, transmitted from one generation to another through the female. My whole theory crashed if women couldn’t themselves be colorblind. From the Miss Cathcarts I got the address of a Melchester oculist, but, before bothering him, I checked up in the encyclopedia and found that one-tenth of four percent of women are colorblind.”

  With a groan of impatience, the Superintendent got to his feet. He addressed himself to the Chief Constable. “Don’t you think we’d better bring Forbes inside, sir, and leave these scientific details till later?”

  Guy said gently, “But Forbes isn’t our man.”

  “Then who is?”

  “It’s a woman.”

  “His wife?

  “No, sir.”

  “But, damn it all, Northeast, you’ve just been proving it is.”

  “No, sir. I’ve deduced that a colorblind woman packed the suitcase.” He paused for effect. “And my suspect was identified by the ticket collector at a parade I arranged this morning.”

  Dawes spluttered. “You held an identification parade? Where?”

  “In the waiting room at the Coroner’s Court. I had all our female suspects and one or two ‘supers’ for luck, and Janes spotted her at once. She had ample opportunity to commit the murder, to pack and plant the suitcase and, being colorblind — I’ve just verified that over the phone by consulting her oculist — she is unable to distinguish darkish greens from reds and browns. I must admit I can’t fathom the motive. A woman’s motive is often obscure, but we’ll get on to that later.”

  “Well — let’s know who it is.”

  Guy told them. The Chief Constable’s red face darkened to crimson. Guy slowly marshaled his evidence; she had been picked by the ticket collector out of a party of seven; no one had better opportunity of committing the murder, packing the suitcase and planting it in the train; no woman with a normal color sense would have packed a brown dress, green shoes and a red evening bag.

  The Chief Constable slumped in his chair. “Good God,” he muttered. “Good God!” Dawes, convinced and a little subdued, said, “We’d better be moving out to the Grange.”

  Carruthers said, “Yes, yes. You fellers start. My Daimler will soon overhaul you.” He passed his hand over his eyes and added in a low voice, very unlike his normal one, “A nasty business at any time, but when it’s one of your friends…” He left the sentence unfinished.

  Dawes and Guy went out. Carruthers got wearily to his feet, walked across the room and looked out of the window. He looked at a yellow brick wall, but he didn’t see it. He saw a dismal street and the rain falling and he heard a prison clock striking the hour.

  He walked back to the table and beat a tattoo on it. Women were different. Ineradicably he believed that. All his life he had given up his seat to ladies, opened doors for them, picked up their handkerchiefs; his mind connected them with the softer side of life, with flowers and firesides, children, chintzes and caresses — all wrong that the dainty gentle creatures should vote, earn, rule, or…be hanged. All wrong. Well, he’d stop it. His mind made up, he wasn’t the man to hesitate. He reached for the telephone receiver and gave the number of Marley Grange…

  ****

  Fifteen minutes later, Dawes and Guy, in the police car, arrived at the Grange. The day was cloudless; on the brown roof of the stable the fantails were cooing; waiting at the front door, Guy was once again conscious of the smell of hay. Taylor admitted them. “The Miss Cathcarts?” said Dawes, and Taylor answered, “Yes, sir; they’re at home,” and ushered the two men towards the drawing room.

  Guy said, “We’ll find our way,” and stepped past her. He opened the drawing-room door and the Superintendent heard him say, “Oh,” and then, “Is your sister in? There are one or two questions that I’d like to put to her.”

  “She’s in her bedroom, I think. She was called to the telephone and then she went upstairs. Shall I…”

  “It’s all right,” Guy said. “I’ll go up.” He shut the door quickly and turned towards the stairs.

  “Why not have her fetched down?” whispered Dawes.

  “Listen!” said Guy. The house was
very quiet, but somewhere upstairs a dog was whining and scratching at a door. Guy didn’t wait for the Superintendent’s comment. Taking two steps in a stride, he ran upstairs.

  The door, at which the dog was whining, wouldn’t open. Guy shook it with no effect, and turned to Dawes.

  “Better get permission, sir…”

  The Superintendent went downstairs, spoke at the drawing-room door, and called up, “Carry on.” Guy put his shoulder to the door, the lock gave, and he stumbled into the room.

  It was full of sunshine. The window was open and the curtains were blowing in the breeze. On the floor near the writing table lay Nancy Cathcart. The sunshine fell brightly on her graying hair.

  Guy knelt down beside her. She was dead.

  He touched her right hand. It was warm and the second finger was stained with ink, not yet dry.

  Then in the doorway Sheila Cathcart screamed.

  Guy got up from his knees, but Dawes was supporting Sheila from the room, and talking fatuously but kindly about sparing her mother and looking on the bright side. One of the maids must have come running upstairs, for Guy heard Dawes say, “Take care of her,” and then he came back into the room. “Well,” he said, “we were too late, it seems.”

  “Yes, sir. But I can’t say I’m altogether sorry,” said Guy.

  Dawes was looking down at Nancy. “It doesn’t do to be soft,” he said, as though arguing with himself. “But, look here, Inspector, how did she guess we were after her? Did you give it away?”

  Guy was standing at the writing table. A book lay open there. The ink was fresh on the page and the last sentences were smudged as though by a trailing hand. He said, “Here you are, sir — Miss Nancy’s diary. I fancy it will give us the whole story, cut and dried.”

  ****

  Up there, in the tragic sunlit bedroom, with Dawes reading over his shoulder and breathing down the back of his neck, Guy could only glance quickly through the final pages of Nancy Cathcart’s diary; but, later on, as he sat in the lounge at the Red Lion with a long drink untouched beside him, he read through that heart-rending record of a long domestic tyranny. At what period of her life Nancy had first begun to hate her sister, he never knew; already in the January of the year she had written, “Of course D. has found out about the Christmas presents I gave the Appleyard children. She said she shouldn’t have thought that I would have spent so much on them. I said nothing, but felt like throwing my plate at her.” Later in January: “D. said I ought to start driving the big car again. Refused. D. laughed and said, ‘Poor baby!’ Poor baby! If she knew how I feel sometimes! If she knew what I used to feel like, driving that car with her sitting beside me and telling me what to do. God, how I hate her!” Then, “D. says I ought to take up golf. I won’t. I won’t.” And, “D. on about golf again. Why should I take it up when I don’t want to?” Then in February: “D.’s been nagging and nagging about my taking up golf, and I’ve given in as usual. She’s kindly presented me with some of her rusty old clubs and I’ve got to start tomorrow. Why does she always get her way? Why do we all give in to her? She doesn’t order us about but it’s that awful ‘I should have thought’ and ‘I shouldn’t have thought’ and ‘what a funny idea’ and ‘fancy.’” Then, the next day, “D. came home and told funny stories about my golf. She’s funny enough herself — she gets more like a horse every day, but no one tells funny stories about her.” In April the golf was apparently given up, for, “D. said that she could understand people not being able to hit a ball well, but she couldn’t understand people not being able to hit a ball at all. S. stood up to her, but was soon squashed and Mother burbled her usual piece about niches.” In May there had been trouble of another kind. “Poor darling John keeps on being sick and D. says it’s because I overfeed him. She wouldn’t have thought that I would have given him that fish last night. Damn her, he’s my dog, mine, mine. Mother got worried — I believe it was only because of the carpets — and when D. was out, S. telephoned for the vet. It wasn’t Mr. Ross who came, but his assistant. He’s nice and awfully good-looking. He gave me some pills for John and said he would call again in the morning. When D. came home she said we had panicked and that a tablespoon of castor oil was all John had needed.”