The Sussex Downs Murder

by John Bude

  Now a human corpse may be concealed in various ways, some more efficacious than others. It may be buried, dissolved in acid, thrown into the water, or burnt. As Meredith was now beginning to think, Rother’s murderer had resorted to the last expedient. In some safe place the body had been dissected, according to Professor Blenkings, with a surgical saw, and the limbs and trunk burnt, either in part or whole, in the lime-kilns at Chalklands. In this manner, no doubt, the murderer intended to hide the identity of his victim and possibly broadcast the bones piecemeal so that the crime might never be discovered at all. As Meredith reasoned, portions of the sawn-up body would have been placed at intervals during the last ten days, obviously at night, on the kiln or kilns. With lime being sent out to various builders in the locality there was quite a chance that an odd bone or two in a fair-sized load would rouse no comment. The average workman would think they were animal bones and, if the Professor had not been on the spot, the thigh-bone would have been cleared up with the rubbish.

  “Pure theory at the moment,” Meredith argued with himself, “but at any rate a workable basis for investigation.”

  He realized, as the car drummed through the crowded streets of Worthing, that an immediate visit to Chalklands was imperative. He wanted to acquaint himself with two things—firstly the method employed in lime-burning, and secondly with a complete list of orders dispatched from the farm since July 20th. In the meantime he hoped Worthing would be able to supply him with a little more evidence.

  In this he was not disappointed. Sergeant Phillips, Professor Blenkings, and an inspector were waiting for him in the latter’s office. On the table was a brown-paper parcel.

  “Well,” said Meredith after introductions, “what luck at Timpson’s?”

  “The devil’s own,” answered the Inspector. “Take a look at this little lot.”

  And with the air of a salesman displaying a tasteful line in neckwear, the Inspector opened out the parcel. In the centre of the paper was a heap of bones—some big, some small, some thick, some thin, some straight, some curved.

  “Good heavens! I suppose there’s no doubt that they are parts of a human skeleton, Professor?”

  The Professor stepped forward and peered through his spectacles which he now wore in place of his green sun-glasses. After a quick examination he shook his head.

  “Dear me, no—there’s no doubt about their origin.” He picked up a couple of the smaller bones and held them out on his palm. “Now just look at these, gentlemen. Two beautiful examples of metacarpel from the hand of an adult male. And here”—he held up another specimen. “The upper half of a sawn-off tibia. Whilst this curious-looking object is what we call the sesamoid patella. You may be aware of what that is in common speech, eh, gentlemen?”

  “A knee-cap,” hazarded Meredith with a wink at the Inspector.

  “Quite right,” beamed the Professor, as if congratulating a student on an unexpected piece of bone-lore. “A human knee-cap. This really is a most comprehensive collection, isn’t it? First a femur, then a tibia—ah, and here’s a pretty portion of fibula, to which must be added our sesamoid patella. In other words we could almost construct the framework of a right-hand male leg from the hip to half-way down the shin. Most interesting, eh?”

  “Very,” said Meredith dryly. “And extremely helpful, too, sir. Now suppose by any chance I am able to collect the…well, let us say the missing pieces of the jig-saw, could you fit the puzzle together for me, Professor?”

  “Most certainly. I could make you a really lovely skeleton, provided all your bones belong to the same adult.”

  “Do these seem to fit?” asked Meredith patly.

  “At a casual glance I should say ‘Yes’—but if I may take them with me I could—”

  “Do. And let me know the result as soon as possible.”

  “Tomorrow at the latest.”

  “Good. Would you get in touch with me direct—Lewes 0099?”

  The Professor beamed again. “It’s all very unusual, isn’t it? Dear me! I never suspected that one day I might be called in to help to solve a murder. Most interesting. Most interesting.”

  And collecting up the relics, the Professor bade the officials good day and disappeared humming a little tune.

  “That old fellow’s going to be useful,” was Meredith’s inward comment as he left the police station. “If we get anything like what he calls ‘a comprehensive collection’ there’ll have to be an inquest. But it will take an outsize piece of luck, I reckon, to prove the identity of the skeleton!”

  As it was then very late he decided to visit Chalklands the following morning.

  Just after nine o’clock, therefore, his car turned up the lane which led to the farmhouse from the main road and a little later drew up in front of the long white verandah. A girl was watering some potted geraniums, ranged in tiers, between two enormous sash-windows. On seeing the car draw up she put down her can and came forward to greet the Superintendent.

  “Good morning, ma’am. Is Mr. William Rother around anywhere?”

  “My husband? Yes, I think he’s out by the kilns somewhere.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Rother. Perhaps, as I’m not in uniform, I ought to explain that I’m a police superintendent investigating the disappearance of your husband’s brother. My name’s Meredith.”

  The girl looked startled for a moment, then, with an uneasy glance round, said in a low voice:

  “My husband’s worried to death over this dreadful affair, Mr. Meredith. It seems to be preying on his mind. Although he says little about it, I know he’s thinking and thinking all the time about John. Tell me honestly—what chance do you think there is of John ever turning up?”

  Meredith hesitated, appraised the agitated young lady with a judicious eye and for some instinctive reason decided to equivocate.

  “It’s quite beyond me to say. Missing people have sometimes turned up years after their disappearance.”

  “But hurt like that—surely it’s inconceivable that he could have wandered far?”

  “But we’ve no idea how badly he was hurt, Mrs. Rother. What makes you say that? I never mentioned the details of what we found to your husband.”

  “But…but I’ve been reading the newspaper reports,” answered the girl, obviously ill at ease on being picked up on this point. “They mentioned the terrible blood-stains.”

  “Exaggeration.”

  Meredith dismissed her fears with a shrug and took closer stock of Mrs. William Rother. He noticed that her natural prettiness was partially cancelled out by the drawn lines of her mouth and the dark smudges under her clear grey eyes. It was obvious that her husband was not the only one worrying about John Rother’s disappearance. She was younger than he had anticipated—twenty-five or -six perhaps, at least ten years younger than her husband. Her vivacity, he thought, was her greatest charm—a vivacity that sent shades of expression coursing through those clear grey eyes and lent to her youthful figure an air of delicate vigour.

  “Fine-drawn,” was Meredith’s inward comment. “With a brain behind her good looks.”

  “Can you tell me,” he went on aloud, “which way I have to go to the kilns?”

  She came down to the gate and directed him.

  “Look—behind those bushes to the right. You can see the smoke rising.”

  Meredith touched his hat and set off on foot to where the great white belches of smoke were rising and thinning away down the wind. Clear of the bushes he came suddenly on the kilns.

  A wide sweep of downland lay in the distance beyond the natural wall into which the kilns had been sunk. An extensive though deep valley, divided by the unseen main road, dropped from the farm level and up again to the tree-crested hump of Highden Hill. To the right, only just glimpsed in the clumps of summer trees, huddled the tiled and thatched roofs of the village. On a higher level, its grey stone sombre against
the blue sky, stood Washington Church, with the Vicarage crouching under the lee of its northern shadow. Directly below the kilns ran a continuation of the lane up which Meredith had driven, obviously linking up again with the main road. A low flint wall edged the thirty-foot sheer drop between the kiln-level and this lane, which at that point was bordered by stables on the far side and on the near side by a sort of yard where the lime was loaded on to the wagons. Standing below in this yard, watching a carter harnessing his horse, stood William Rother.

  Meredith leant over the little wall and let out a call.

  “Excuse me a moment, sir. Can you come up?”

  Rother looked up quickly, recognized the Superintendent, nodded, and started off up the lane on a détour which would eventually bring him on to the higher level. Arriving there he held out his hand. Meredith was shocked by the man’s appearance. In ten days his entire face had altered. From a thin, white mask, hollowed here and there as if by a sculptor’s chisel, burnt the dark, over-bright eyes of a man who is on the verge of a nervous collapse.

  “My God, sir!” was Meredith’s involuntary exclamation. “You look ill.”

  “I am ill,” replied Rother in level tones, with expressionless eyes. “Do you wonder at it? Tell me”—he placed a thin, nervous hand on the Superintendent’s sleeve—“tell me—have you brought any news?”

  “I’m afraid not, Mr. Rother. I’m out here on another line of inquiry. Connected with your brother’s disappearance, I admit, but at the moment a private matter. You understand?”

  “Perfectly.” The voice sounded totally disinterested. “What exactly do you want to know?”

  “I want to know how you make lime?” said Meredith bluntly.

  Rother eyed the Superintendent suspiciously, as if uncertain whether he had heard aright.

  “But what has that got—”

  “Please, Mr. Rother, I explained before, this is a private police investigation. All I’m asking for is information, and it’s for your own peace of mind if you let me have it.”

  “Very well.” Rother lifted his narrow shoulders. “I’ll restrain my natural curiosity. Well, the process is simple enough. Here are the kilns—three of them—twenty feet deep or there-abouts. The fires are lit in the first place at the bottom of the shaft, and after that, except for purposes of repair, the kilns are never let out.”

  “How do you keep them alight?”

  Rother pointed to two heaps—one black, one white—on each side of the kiln’s circular mouth.

  “Chalk and powdered coal—cullum, we call it locally. When the kilns are banked up, usually twice a day, we shovel on one layer of chalk to one layer of cullum. By the time the red-hot chalk reaches the base of the shaft it has been transformed by combustion into lime. Down below there are brick arches terminating at the bottom of each kiln. The men use these arches to dig out the lime, the chalk level automatically falls at the top, and the kiln is restoked with more layers of chalk and cullum. To put it as simply as possible, when a kiln is functioning properly, it consists of three layers. At the bottom pure lime, in the middle red-hot chalk in the process of being changed into lime, at the top pure chalk alternating with layers of unburnt cullum. You follow me, Mr. Meredith?”

  “Perfectly, sir. You’ve told me exactly what I was after. When are the kilns usually banked up?”

  “Early morning and late afternoon.”

  “Would the level have fallen at all during the night?”

  “To a certain extent—yes—due to the crumbling process of combustion.”

  “A couple of feet?”

  “Yes, quite that.”

  “Thanks. And now I wonder if you could let me have a glimpse of your order-book?”

  Chapter Three

  More Bones

  Whatever William Rother may have thought about Meredith’s strange request for a glimpse of the order-book he allowed no hint of it to show on his haggard features. He just muttered, “Very well,” in the toneless voice of a man who makes no resistance to a whim, however queer he thinks it, and led the way back to the farmhouse. This time they entered it from the back, first through a small courtyard sporting a fir tree and a square of unkempt grass, then across some uneven flags into an airy stone-floored kitchen, the centre-piece of which was an enormous, well-scoured deal table. At the far end of the kitchen, under a low window, was a second, smaller table covered with a red cloth and loaded with ledgers, files, letters, reference-books, inkpots, pens and paper. On the broad window-sill stood a portable typewriter.

  Rother smiled wanly.

  “The office,” he explained with a side-jerk of his head. “Such as it is. We don’t boast a study up here at Chalklands. Now what exactly are you after?”

  “I want a list, if possible, of all your customers supplied with lime during the last ten days—that is to say since the night of your brother’s disappearance.”

  “With the amounts delivered?”

  “Yes.”

  Rother picked up an ordinary black exercise-book and handed it to Meredith.

  “You’ll find everything you want there, Mr. Meredith. It seems an extraordinary request to me, but you know your own business best. I’d do anything to help solve the mystery of John’s disappearance, and if he’s dead—which I’m beginning to suspect—to hang the man who murdered him. But what you imagine you’ll get out of that order-book beats me!”

  “May I take a copy?”

  Rother nodded.

  “And in the meantime I want to walk out to the chalk-pit. If there’s anything further you want you’ll find me there. It’s directly behind the house.”

  “Thanks—that’s all I want to bother you with at the moment, Mr. Rother. I’ll just copy these data into my notebook and then I’ll be off. One other question before you go. Had your brother any particular friend with whom he was really intimate?”

  “Yes—Aldous Barnet, the novelist.”

  “The detective-story writer?” asked Meredith with a grin.

  “That’s him. He lives at a house called Lychpole near the church. He and John were at school together. You may know him?”

  “Well, I’ve read a couple of his books. I must say his Inspector Jefferies gets a darn sight more luck in his investigations than usually comes my way! The chap seems so brilliant that he doesn’t need to worry over the details of routine work. I envy him.”

  With a half-smile to show that he had registered Meredith’s amusement, William nodded, and with a preoccupied expression on his pale features wandered out of the door.

  Sitting at the window-table Meredith examined the order-book. It was much as he had expected. Column 1: Date when Order was Received. Column 2: Name and Address of Firm. Column 3: Amount of Lime Ordered. Column 4: Date of Delivery. Between Monday, July 22nd and Wednesday, July 31st (that was to say the previous day), twelve different firms had been supplied. The amounts varied between a yard and two and a quarter yards, which Meredith knew constituted what was commonly termed a “load” of lime. In most cases a full “load” had been ordered. Five of the firms were in Worthing, including Timpson’s; three in Pulborough; one at Steyning; one at Storrington; one at Ashington, and the remaining consignment, a yard, to the Washington Vicarage.

  As he was closing his notebook and replacing the order-book, a plump, red-cheeked woman bounced into the kitchen. Good nature exuded from every pore in her body. She wore a lilac printed frock with the sleeves rolled up to reveal a pair of brawny, sunburned arms, and a large, blue, serviceable apron was tied round what should have been her waist.

  “Oh Lawks!” she exclaimed, startled out of her normal composure by the unexpected intruder in her kitchen. “I beg ’ee pardon, I’m sure. I had no idea as to there being a stranger ’ere, surr.”

  “That’s all right, Mrs.…”

  “Kate Abingworth’s my name. I’m housekeeper up ’ere, surr. �
��Av been for the last fifteen years.”

  “Mr. Rother was just letting me copy out something.”

  “Ah, that’ll be Mr. Willum, poor feller.” And she shook her head in motherly commiseration. “’Ee’s eating less than enough to keep a sparrer on the wing these days, surr. It’s turrible to see ’im wasting away like ’ee be. Delicate ’ee always was, but this trouble what’s descended on this household ’as changed that young feller complete.”

  “Mrs. Rother seems upset too?” commented Meredith, always on the alert for possible information.

  “Ay, she’s took it ’ard, too, surr, ’as Mrs. Willum. But I don’t wonder, I don’t, seeing ’ow fond she were of Mr. John. Like ’usband and wife they were—if you’ll pardon my simple way of putting it. Not that things had gone as far as that, o’ course, but in their manner of fussin’ over each other. Like a ’en with ’er chick was Mrs. Willum with Mr. John—not that she ’asn’t done right and fair by Mr. Willum, but I’ve always up’eld—” And here Mrs. Abingworth lowered her voice and stepped closer to the Superintendent, almost speaking into his ear. “I’ve always up’eld as Mrs. Willum married the wrong man!”