by Ann Purser
Meanwhile, Deirdre had said firmly that she and Gus would search in the woods for any further clues. After all, if it had been Ulph burying jewellery, he was obviously in a hurry and might well have dropped another piece somewhere close to the mound. Ivy said helpfully that she could still remember roughly where the mound was and could give them directions. And then perhaps Whippy could do a retrieving job?
“All you have to do,” she advised, with very little knowledge of dogs, “is give her the scent of something belonging to Ulph, and she’ll lead you to the jewellery.”
Gus had smiled. “Not as easy as it sounds, Ivy. First, where do we get something belonging to Ulph? And second, I don’t know about other whippets, but Whippy has never retrieved anything in her life. She is much more likely to make for home.”
“That could be interesting,” Ivy had muttered, and Gus had changed the subject.
Now Deirdre said she would fetch a spade from the gardener’s shed. Gus, still reluctant to excavate, proposed a better plan. “Let’s walk down Hangman’s Lane and collect a walking stick from my house. I doubt if Theo would object to me thrusting a stick into the ground in the appropriate place. We’d soon know then if there was anything solid buried there.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Deirdre said. “Don’t be such a wimp! Theo won’t suspect us of poaching! I didn’t know you would be so law-abiding. But still,” she added, seeing a bleak look on Gus’s face, “we’ll do as you say.”
Gus nodded gratefully, and they set off.
Halfway through the village, they met Miriam on her way to the shop.
“Hi, Gus!” she said cheerfully. “Good meeting? Are we anywhere near finding the solution to the missing hand? I’ll be pleased to assist, if you need help. There’d have to be some adjustment to fees, of course. But it might speed things up?”
Deirdre kept quiet, and Gus politely refused Miriam’s offer.
“She’s a frightful woman, isn’t she,” Deirdre said, when they were safely on their way.
“Oh not really. She’s a very generous person, and quite lonely, I think. I know she is unstoppable and has a hide like a rhinoceros, but as a neighbour, she could be worse.”
“Point taken,” said Deirdre. “Goodwill to all men. Come on, let’s venture into the wild, wild woods.”
MEANWHILE, BACK AT Springfields, Roy said he would book the taxi for the next day, having apparently convinced Ivy that there was not much chance of seeing regulars in the café, unless they went there at roughly the same time as before.
“I am sure there are useful things to do here in Barrington this afternoon,” he said, and Ivy finally agreed. “I shall have my usual rest,” she said, “and think of a line of enquiry we can follow up today. In fact,” she added, mounting the stairs to her room, “a good idea is already germinating.…”
Roy once more marvelled at the resources of his beloved and retired to the lounge, where he happily indulged in a nostalgic conversation with his friend Fred. During the course of their talk, with both of them yawning and rubbing their eyes, Roy suddenly snapped awake at something Fred had just said.
“Did you say your father was a woodman?” he asked.
“Oh yes. He did other jobs for the Roussels, of course. Full-time employed there. But he always did all the wooding necessary, clearing away the underbrush and keeping an eye on the saplings. He loved it, did Dad. Knew all the birds and animals. You should’ve heard him on the subject of badgers! He knew every sett in those woods. Used to stay up all night, just to watch the young ones come out and play around. Just as well he’s dead and gone, what with all this talk of culling. A bloomin’ disgrace, if you ask me.”
“So did you know your way around in there, in amongst the trees?”
“Good God, boy, yes! Used to go with Dad, when he’d let me. Young Roussel would come, too. Mind you, he weren’t supposed to. Used to sneak out without telling. He was a dab hand at creeping about unseen like.”
“You mean the Roussel who’s still up at the Hall?”
“O’course. Mr. Theodore, it was. He was only a lad then. Even now, he keeps a close eye on those woods. Trespassers beware!”
Roy could take a hint. He left the lounge quietly, and made for his own room, thinking it was just as well Gus had won his point about spade versus walking stick.
IVY LAY STRETCHED out on her bed, with her shoes neatly tucked away where she wouldn’t trip on them when she got up. Her eyes were closed, but she was not asleep. For the first time, she strongly disagreed with her Roy, though she had not argued. I’m learning! she said to herself. If, instead of waiting until tomorrow, they had got their taxi to take them to Oakbridge straight after lunch, they could have had coffee or, if too late, a cup of tea in the café and started asking around. The waitresses, for instance, would surely have remembered Ulph, with his shock of dark hair and hunted look.
Still, she had given way, remembering her mother’s unlovable habit of always being in the right, positively, unassailably in the right. So now, what could they be doing usefully today? Gus and Deirdre had gone down to the woods, so that was out. What about Roussel? Hadn’t somebody said Ulph’s father had been a friend of the Roussels? Perhaps Mr. Theo would remember some useful snippets of information. Deirdre had already done some enquiring in that direction, but Ivy suspected two percent of her time with Theo Roussel was devoted to enquiring and ninety-eight percent larking about upstairs.
Yes, that was it. She and Roy would go for a casual walk through the Hall park and maybe bump into the squire. It was not open to the public, but Ivy did not believe in STRICTLY PRIVATE notices. What harm could two old persons possibly do to a park that had been there for hundreds of years?
She and Roy met at the top of the stairs, and she told him what they would be doing until suppertime. “We can skip tea, or, who knows, if we meet Theo, he might ask us in for a cuppa? After all, he happily opened up the gates for us once before.”
Roy smiled. “Highly unlikely this time, I’m afraid, my dear. He is much more likely to send us packing. Very politely, of course. Anyway, the chances of meeting him are slim, but I do agree with you that we should be out taking the air, after being cooped up in Tawny Wings all morning. Give me five minutes, and I shall be ready.”
The two were a familiar sight in the village now. People smiled and greeted them warmly. Several elderly people said they wished they could afford to live in Springfields. It must be such a splendid place, if that pair was an example of Mrs. Spurling’s brand of care.
As they approached the park gates, Roy was hoping to see them closed. He was not a natural trespasser. But they were wide open, and Ivy sailed through as if she lived there. He followed a few yards behind but soon could see the familiar figure of the squire standing on the flight of steps that led up to the main door of the house.
“Good afternoon, Miss Beasley, Mr. Goodman,” Theo said politely. “Can I help you? We are not actually open to the general public.”
Ivy frowned. “We are not the general public. We are here on Enquire Within business. We were hoping you could perhaps help us with a case we are investigating?”
Theo thought hard. He remembered Ivy Beasley only too well as the fierce old duck who had helped to solve the big problem he had had with his housekeeper. And dear little Deirdre had asked him something to do with the enquiry agency quite recently. He could not for the life of him remember what it was about. He was, he recalled, fully occupied with something else at the time! Was it about his friend Ulph’s son?
“Well, now, I haven’t much time, I’m afraid, but fire away. What was it you wanted to know?”
Grasp the nettle, thought Ivy, and said firmly, “I believe you were a friend of a Mr. Ulph? He’s dead now, so we have learned, but his son is known to have been in the village and around, and we are anxious to contact any of his friends.”
“You mean Sebastian? The one who jumped off a roof to his death in Oakbridge? Terrible business! Glad his father is dead, you know. Such a nice f
amily, but Sebastian was a bit of a black sheep. Got mixed up with an appalling woman, I remember.”
“That’s the one,” said Roy, who was now feeling reassured by Theo’s willingness to listen. “He played the saxophone rather well.”
“Played up here, at the hunt ball, didn’t he? I was too busy for a chat, but you could tell he was streets ahead of the other so-called musicians. Frightful business. Now, what was it? Oh yes, do I know any of Seb’s friends. I’m afraid not, unless you count Sid and His Swingers. Oh, and yes, there was this woman. Something to do with one of my tenants in the cottages. Halfhide, wasn’t it? Divorced, of course, but someone said he’d had a visit from her. Stayed overnight with Miriam Blake—might have been Miriam who told me. Memory going, you know! Advancing old age—might be joining you in Springfields soon! Mind you, Miss Beasley, even as a schoolboy I could never remember things. Dates, kings and queens, that sort of thing. Now, I really must be going. You’ll be fine with the gates. We won’t shut them until after you’ve gone. Good day to you both!”
Forty-five
UNAWARE THAT THEIR colleagues were also out collecting evidence, Gus and Deirdre had reached the woods and plunged in. In no time, they were completely lost, circling round and round, arguing about which way to go. Then they began to see odd holly bushes and a rabbit warren that they recognised and found themselves in exactly the spot where Miriam and Rose had seen the severed hand.
Gus stopped, and said, “I remember Miriam said it was by this tree. See? It has been marked in blue paint as one to be felled. Diseased, she said, and a danger to the others.”
“I reckon these woods are a danger to more than just trees,” Deirdre grumbled, picking her way through brambles and nettles. She was happier in an urban jungle, with pavements and signposts.
“Hold my hand, Deirdre love,” said a sympathetic Gus. “If we go straight ahead from here, like Ivy said, I guarantee we will come across the badgers’ sett.”
“Okay, I’ll believe you, though thousands wouldn’t. But oh, hang on a minute, Gus.”
“What is it?” said Gus, as he watched Deirdre bend down to pick up something half buried by brambles. “Here, let me do it. You’ll scratch yourself to pieces.”
But Deirdre was pulling out something covered in earththat looked to Gus like a filthy glove. “Now,” Deirdre said triumphantly, “how about this! A rubber glove, in exactly the same spot as those women found the hand—or should we say glove? What’d’you bet it is the same one? D’you know what I think, Gus?”
He shook his head. “Go on, tell me.”
“I think Ulph or someone else buried something here and then dug it up again and took it to the new place. Being a musician, he would obviously not want to damage his hands and used rubber gloves. In a rush to get away, he probably left one behind, pushed under the leaves and stuff. Maybe he was rumbled and needed to find a better hiding place for the jewellery? Here, you take it. It’s horrible!”
“It’s just a dirty rubber glove. Anyway, let’s get going and see what else you can find.”
This time they went straight to the mound of earth, Gus leading the way. A couple of yards away from it, he stopped. “Oh no!” he said. “Just look at it, Deirdre.”
“Blimey! Grave robbers,” said Deirdre. “They got here before us.”
In front of them, they could see that the mound had been taken apart, with heaps of earth in all directions. They walked forward and Gus poked around in the loose soil, but found nothing.
“What a mess!” said Deirdre. “If it was Ulph, you’d have thought he’d have tidied up a bit, just to cover his tracks.”
“In too much of a hurry, I suspect,” Gus replied. “Look about for footprints.”
They walked around, eyes down, but their own footprints were inextricably mixed up with others in the loose earth.
“I suppose we’ve failed, then?” Deirdre said sadly.
“Oh, that’s where I disagree, Mrs. B,” said Gus, smiling at her mournful face. He walked away a couple of paces from the mound. “What about this?” He speared a piece of screwed-up tissue. “Ta-ra!” he shouted. “Perfectly clear, I reckon. Someone has risked being discovered digging for buried treasure, and we can be sure the stuff has gone. Not likely to have been Ulph, at least, not since he got ill. But whoever took it, he or she is very possibly touting it around for sale amongst insalubrious buyers.”
“SO WHAT DO you suggest we do next?” Deirdre and Gus were making their way back down Hangman’s Row, when they caught sight of Roy in his trundle outside the village shop.
“We’ll catch them up and have a talk at Springfields. Ivy will certainly be able to rustle up a cup of tea in the summerhouse. Then we can swap the results of our enquiring this afternoon. No doubt, Deirdre love, that we shall have the most important piece of news.”
“And then?”
“The police,” said Gus. “From past experience, they’ll be close behind us, but we must do our citizen duty and tell them what we have found.”
“Including the earrings? After all, they point directly at your charming ex-wife.”
Gus thought for a moment. “You may be right,” he acknowledged. “But Kath is unlikely to have taken on a dirty digging job. She would have had help. And if so, who? Her erstwhile lover is dead.”
“Dirt never hurt anybody, and she might have been desperate.”
“Mm. But there’s bound to be another swain. Rich, young and probably strong, with an emphasis on the ‘rich.’ Kath only trawls around for her kind of love in the upper echelons of society.”
“So you fell into that category?”
“Not telling,” he said, and laughed. “Come on, girl, let’s give the others a nice surprise.”
“YOU’D BETTER TAKE off your shoes, both of you,” said Ivy. “La Spurling is very strict about mud on the carpets.”
“But aren’t we going to the summerhouse?” Deirdre said, looking at her soil-caked sandals.
“She’s put carpet down in there,” Ivy said. “Sometimes I think she does it to annoy.”
Gus and Deirdre dutifully took off their shoes and stepped onto the grass green carpet.
“I’ve got muddy feet,” said Deirdre. “Shall I take them off as well?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Ivy. “No need to be childish.”
Roy abandoned his trundle, and they arranged themselves in a semicircle in the shade. Sunlight filtered through the trees, and the summerhouse was a cool retreat.
“All we need now is tea,” said Gus. “Would you like me to petition the gaoler?”
“No need,” said Ivy, and at that moment Katya appeared with a tray of tea and scones.
“Mrs. Spurling says to tell you the rest of us had tea some while ago, but she is once more bending the rules. What does that mean, ‘bending the rules’?”
“Just that she is very kindly taking care of us, my dear. And thank you. Did you bake those scones?”
Katya nodded. “My boyfriend is coming soon, and I shall try him out on them.”
“Try them out on him,” corrected Ivy, with a fond smile. “Run along now, and get yourself prettied up.”
How does she do it? Roy wondered. So sharp with everyone else, even me sometimes. And yet Katya can do no wrong. Ah well, there’s no explaining the contrary ways of my Ivy.
Tea poured and scones buttered, Ivy took the lead. “So what did you find out in the woods?” she asked.
“You tell.” Deirdre looked at Gus and nodded encour-agingly.
“Well, it was rather extraordinary,” he said. “First Deirdre risked life and limb to delve into the brambles and brought forth a filthy rubber glove.” He looked at Ivy and Roy for gasps of surprise but met none.
“Well,” said Ivy, “I for one had already decided that the hand was nothing more than a work glove, left behind by somebody. Ulph could have had to move jewellery buried there and, being a musician, would have worn gloves to protect his hands. He was most likely in a rush and so dro
pped one of them. Or could’ve been anybody, blackberrying maybe. I reckon we’ve all come to the conclusion that there was no dead body. So what else?”
Deirdre and Gus looked crestfallen, but Gus continued bravely. “And when we finally found the so-called badgers’ sett, it had been desecrated.”
“What do you mean?” Roy said. “You’re not telling us it was a grave?”
“No, though you could say it was a burial place of sorts.”
“And?” Ivy was losing patience with Gus’s customary love of spinning out a story.
Deirdre took over. “It was a real mess. Earth everywhere, and the mound levelled to the ground. I reckon he’d dug out all the stuff, then put some earth back into the hole and chucked the rest around to cover footprints.”
Ivy nodded approvingly. “Very succinct,” she said. “So when you say ‘he,’ are you referring to Ulph, and do we need three guesses to decide what ‘stuff’ was hidden there?”
“Jewellery. Valuable jewellery,” Roy said. “Almost certainly. But I think we must think carefully about who the excavator might have been and when the deed was done.”
“Before Ulph’s illness and death or after? That is the question.” Ivy helped herself to another scone, and spread butter as if punishing it.
“Well, obviously not Ulph, not once he was dead!” said Gus. “Unless he really was the Green Man of the Woods and made a ghostly return. And dropped a very real used tissue?”
“Or,” Ivy continued, “unless he had instructed someone else to do it for him.”
“Like who?” Deirdre was desperately trying to keep up.
“Take your pick,” Roy chimed in. “Could have been James from the shop or Tom, Dick or Harry from the pub. Or David Budd or his boss, Theo Roussel.”
Ivy stared at him. “Are you being serious, Roy? If you ask me, this is not a matter for levity.”
Fortunately, Katya appeared once more. “More hot water for the tea?” she said. “I am just on my way out but thought you must all be thirsty, being out in the sun all afternoon. But it must have been lovely, strolling around the village and watching the children playing in the recreation ground. There now,” she added, filling the pot, “second cups for all.”