The Woods Murder

by Roy Lewis

  ‘All right, Wilson. Now I’m going down to Lendon’s office first. You’ve got a man down there?’ When Wilson nodded, Crow continued, ‘And after I’ve taken a preliminary look there I’ll be off up to Lendon’s house in . . . er . . . Kenton Lane, isn’t it? Right. If anything turns up, then, it’s the office or the house.’

  ‘Fine. I’ll be away now, sir — the personal details on Lendon are in that file, by the way.’

  After Wilson had gone Crow looked through the file.

  The bare details were there - Lendon’s war record, his entry into the firm, his politics, his local interests, professionally and socially. Unmarried. Housekeeper . . .

  The dossier must have been Simpson’s work. Swift and efficient, for Lendon had died in the night, some twelve hours ago. But now Lendon’s life must come under Crow’s microscope. It was one of the things that he disliked, really, this probing into motivations. He could not deny that it fascinated him, but his very fascination in a sense repelled him. People should not need to have the protective shellac scraped away from their private lives. But it happened. In a murder enquiry it happened.

  Unmarried. No children. No relatives, apparently. Would Lendon be mourned? Lawyers often were not . . . the thought lingered with him as the car took him swiftly through the town.

  Crow was interested to note that the offices of Lendon, Philips and Barrett lay in the more fashionable area of the town’s business community. In his experience, solicitors seemed to prefer the older Victorian premises — or perhaps it was the nature of their kind that they should foregather in musty dwellings. Charles Lendon’s firm was in the newer part of Canthorpe’s office accommodation, however. Premises probably started in the late thirties and now solidly respectable, all brick and stone instead of the glass and plaster jerry-building that would be going on in the outskirts of Canthorpe.

  It would seem that Lendon had had the ability to choose well with his employees too. During the course of the afternoon Crow spoke with each of the staff briefly: they were a youthful lot, on the whole. The two assistant solicitors seemed a bright young pair, if a bit callow, particularly the rotund one; the blonde in reception had a giggling fit while he spoke to her but he didn’t mind that; the legal executives seemed a conscientious, hard-working group. Philips, the ex-partner, had already called at headquarters and Crow would have to have another word with him later, but it was the articled clerk in whom he became particularly interested.

  Cathy Tennant.

  She interested him for several reasons. First, there was her direct appraisal of his physical characteristics: she looked him over, noted his appearance and then dismissed it. It was, he realized, of no relevance to her opinions. He was pleased about that: like her, he believed in reaching decisions about people that were uninfluenced by their personal appearance. Her personal appearance of course was not against her. She was, he observed, a little on the small side in height, but her figure was a balanced one, and her face a neat oval. She had expressive eyes — they would occasionally betray her, he felt-and her skin was clear, her smile friendly. Decidedly, an attractive girl.

  But Cathy Tennant also interested him in that she seemed particularly aware of her surroundings, of people, of events, of motivations. She would be a useful sounding-board, and possibly informative too. Yet she seemed curiously unable to discuss Charles Lendon. For a while he thought that it betokened some sort of intimacy between herself and the dead man, but he dismissed the thought. Her inhibition had another explanation: he guessed it was that she had been unable to reach personal decisions about Lendon, and now her doubts would perhaps never be resolved.

  Altogether, an interesting young creature.

  ‘Now then, Miss Tennant, you’ll be as aware as I that in an investigation of this nature it’s virtually impossible to say what is or is not important. I’ve spoken to the others in the office, and now I ask you the two questions I asked them. Can you think of any reason why your principal should have been murdered? Is there any event during the last few weeks which might throw some light on his murder? Before you answer, I should add that we are in one of those unfortunate situations where even gossip must be retailed, for within it may lie grains of truth.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ Cathy Tennant said, ‘that you will already have been regaled with more than enough gossip about Charles Lendon. Particularly his . . . affairs of the heart.’

  Delicately put, thought Crow; certainly far more delicately than Philips and the others had phrased it. But then, perhaps Cathy Tennant’s youth still caused her to romanticize matters to some extent. From what he had so far heard, Lendon had possessed little romanticism. Rather, his appetites had been fleshly and considerable in their indulgence.

  Martha would have liked that phrase, thought Crow : liked it, and laughed at it. She was a good wife; she always took some of the wind out of him in his more portentous moments.

  He collected his thoughts again and regarded the girl sitting before him. She was frowning slightly and staring at the floor, her hands still in her lap.

  ‘There is something,’ Crow suggested.

  ‘Yes.’ Her voice was subdued and tinged with reluctance. ‘I . . . well, I just don’t know how important it is but you people must be judges of that, obviously. The fact is, a week ago, on the Friday, I inadvertently overheard Mr Lendon quarrelling with someone in his office. They were both very angry . . .’

  Crow listened without interruption while she gave him details of the quarrel. Her small-boned face was serious, yet not lacking in animation, and once more he obtained the impression that she would be a good witness and one able to grasp, hold and produce details in a way many people could not.

  ‘And you’ve no idea who the person might be — the one Lendon quarrelled with in the office?’

  Cathy Tennant shook her head.

  ‘No. Well, that isn’t strictly true, because I’m sure that I do know who it is, somehow, for the voice had a familiar ring; yet I just couldn’t place it at the time. It might come back to me.’

  Crow smiled slightly, and shifted his long legs.

  ‘We must just hope that it does. Good. Now you say that you overheard the quarrel, and then this man left. Did anything else occur that afternoon — did you see Lendon again?’

  Again the girl nodded, and Crow was quick to notice the side-slipping glance, the lowering of her eyelids. He was aware that she was reluctant to give him the next piece of information; he suspected that the reluctance was born of sympathy for the person involved.

  ‘Mr Lendon also had an argument with a man called Carson. They . . . they almost came to blows.’

  As he listened to her account of the interview between Lendon and Carson that Friday afternoon a week earlier, Crow realized why the girl was reluctant, realized why she desired to utter no condemnation of Carson. The man had lost his treasured daughter; in some way he felt that Lendon had been responsible for that loss, and from Lendon he had received nothing but opposition. But the spasm of sympathy that shot through Crow himself at the image presented by the distraught Carson in Cathy’s account did little to inhibit his decision that this was a line he would have to follow up. Miss Tennant knew that as well as he did, and it accounted for her hesitation: she saw as clearly as he that Carson’s conduct last Friday might well have some bearing upon the discovery of Lendon’s body at Insterley.

  ‘You’ve been most helpful, Miss Tennant,’ Crow said with quiet emphasis. ‘I’m much impressed by your clarity and I trust you’ll have no objection if I ask you once more. Apart from these two incidents that you mention, was there anything else which might have a bearing upon Lendon’s death? Any problems in the office, or with clients, that you are aware of? Did Lendon have any enemies? Is there anyone against whom he might have nursed a grudge, or who might have had cause to dislike him? I repeat, any line you can give us, however slight, might be of the greatest use.’

  She hesitated for a moment and then slowly shook her head. At her denial Crow felt
something cold move in his stomach. It was an experience he hated, but it was not new to him. It came of a conviction that a person whom he had begun to respect was holding something back from him. And on this occasion, it came to him with regard to Cathy Tennant. He liked her, for her features, her honesty, her clear, expressive eyes. But those eyes had not met his when she had said there was no further information she could impart.

  Crow stared at her lowered head. It was a situation he always felt he was ill-equipped to handle, yet it was one which he came across from time to time. It was symptomatic of the regard that he had for people, all kinds of people; he respected their feelings, tried to understand their motives, accepted their desires to hide unpalatable truths. But it was his job to draw out the truth, whether it might hurt or not. It was a part of the job that he hated.

  And he would have to do it with this young girl. But not now.

  Crow took a quick look around Lendon’s room before he left the offices. Detective-Sergeant Turner was already there, looking through the drawers of Lendon’s desk.

  ‘Have you checked his appointments book?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I’ve been making notes of all the appointments he’s made of recent weeks, but there are a number of blank spaces which—’

  ‘All right, you can let me have a rundown of the general picture later. There’ll be someone on duty here at the office tonight?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Constable Pitt will be here.’

  ‘Make sure the door to this room is locked. I don’t want anything in here disturbed.’

  As he turned to leave the room Crow noticed the heavy filing cabinet just inside the door. He tried the top drawer. It was locked.

  ‘No sign of the keys yet, sir.’

  ‘They’re probably among his effects. Get them up here as soon as possible and get this cabinet opened. What about the anteroom over there?’

  ‘There’s a cabinet in there too, but again it’s locked.’

  ‘Same thing applies, Turner. I’m away now to the Old Mill. If I’m wanted I can be contacted there this afternoon.’

  Chapter 7

  In the fading afternoon light the tree-lined track that led up to the Old Mill looked cold and uninviting, rutted with car wheels, and rendered stark by the bare-armed alder and mountain ash, but Crow could imagine that during the summer months the track would certainly be a pleasant one to walk along. He had gathered that the area was regarded locally as something of a lovers’ trysting-place and in a sense this was borne out by the number of spaces churned out by parked cars on the sides, under the trees. Crow suspected that couples would make use of the track both in summer and winter, but he equally well knew that although there could be a courting couple who might be able to help in their enquiries, the chances of finding such a couple were not great: young people were reluctant to disclose their courting habits, even when a murder investigation was on hand. And, of course, some of the relevant couples would not want the fact of their courtship to come to light.

  The track had left the main road through Insterley some fifty yards below, and about another sixty twisting yards ran ahead through the trees to the Old Mill. The mill proved to be the remains of an old granary, where possibly great wooden arms had once provided the motive power to grind the wheat, but it had been converted into living accommodation at least fifty years ago, and was now uninhabited, its stone decaying, weather-beaten and yellow. The roof had fallen in and the whole structure presented a morose appearance, sullen at the lack of attention paid to it by modern society. Yet it possessed an old-world charm too, a charm that saved it from ugliness and still made it an acceptable meeting-place in whose shadows young lovers could find solitude.

  But one man had found only death.

  As Crow got out of the car Detective-Sergeant Wilson left the small group of constables engaged in searching the area in front of the mill and approached the chief inspector.

  ‘Anything yet?’ Crow asked.

  ‘I’m afraid not, sir. Perhaps you’d like to have a glance inside at the scene, but though there are a few signs of someone having waited there it doesn’t look as though there could have been much of a scuffle.’

  Crow followed the burly figure of the sergeant into the ruined mill. Wilson pointed to the entrance leading into the inner room on the ground floor.

  ‘The body was found just here. It was lying face forward, with the knees drawn up, the trunk twisted, the face down on the ground.’

  ‘And no scuffle, you say. Does that mean that he might have been meeting someone here that he knew?’

  ‘I imagine he must have made some sort of assignation. After all, why else would he come here? And as to his knowing the killer, well, whether he did or not, it seems to me that it could all have been a matter of surprise. He was lying here in the doorway, sir. It would have been relatively easy for someone to stand just here, behind the wall of the door-frame, and step out with the weapon as Lendon approached. The skewer could have pierced his heart almost before he was aware that there was anyone in the mill.’

  Crow stared thoughtfully at Wilson’s broad face. The detective-sergeant was not a fanciful man: he tended to be direct in his remarks, and he aired his prejudices and his beliefs in a refreshing way for he recognized them as such, and was not afraid to have them attacked. Crow nodded.

  ‘You used the word “assignation”, Wilson. You think he might have been meeting a woman?’

  ‘I understand he was something of a womanizer, sir. This is a spot well known to courting couples.’

  ‘Could a woman have driven that skewer in?’

  ‘I think the pathologists will say that considerable force was used, but that it wouldn’t be beyond a woman.’

  ‘And if it wasn’t done by a woman, you think that a woman was somehow involved. Lendon was killed by a rival, you think?’

  ‘Possible, sir.’

  ‘We’re moving too fast, Sergeant. You’ve reached conclusions about Charles Lendon’s character and you’re letting them lead you by the nose.’

  ‘It’s one of my failings, sir,’ replied Wilson stolidly and without offence. Without glancing at him, Crow knew that there would be a twinkle in his eye.

  ‘Anyway,’ Crow continued, it looks as though the blow was delivered swiftly, then—’

  ‘And he died quickly. He fell forward, perhaps against his assailant, and on to his knees. Then forward on to his face, twisting slightly.’

  ‘The killer didn’t bother to remove the weapon.’

  ‘That could have been panic, or it could have been deliberate. I doubt whether we’ll gain much from our possession of the weapon. Old, rusty, probably picked up in here.’

  ‘You sound pessimistic, Wilson.’

  ‘It’s another of my failings, sir.’

  Crow stared moodily at the floor. His back was beginning to ache. Tall thin people had weak backs, he’d once heard. He himself had never had any trouble until recently, and that was due to a stupid lifting of a bag of plaster left behind by workmen at his home. It had cost him a slipped disc and three weeks off work. It had cost his colleagues on the murder squad extra duty. But it had meant that there had been three weeks when Martha had not needed to keep a bag packed in the hall, ready for the urgent call to the next assignment.

  ‘By the way, sir, this is Roberts. . .liaison officer with the lab people.’ Crow shook hands with the short, stocky sergeant.

  ‘Did the scene-of-crime unit pick up anything with Chief Superintendent Simpson’s preliminary investigation?’ asked Crow.

  Roberts shook his head positively.

  ‘No, sir. The super just sealed off the area, really, and got things sorted out ready for your arrival.’

  There was that in Simpson’s favour at least, thought Crow. Touchy he might have been, but he didn’t meddle. Roberts seemed eager to speak and Crow raised his bushy eyebrows.

  ‘I just wonder whether the lab boys might not come out and have a scrape around as well, sir. The super didn’t suggest it,
but—’

  ‘Why do you think it a good idea?’ Crow’s voice was gentle.

  ‘Well, they’re scientists, after all, and they might pick up something which we’d miss, sir.’

  ‘How long have you been on liaison, Roberts?’

  ‘Two months, sir.’

  Crow nodded.

  ‘Well, take it from me, Roberts, if anyone will find anything here it’ll be your colleagues on the force. They’re not trained scientists, but they are trained to use their eyes. If you’re asking for my view, a lab man is wasting his time coming out with a scene-of-crime unit. He’s in the lab to evaluate what we bring him. He’s no more capable of finding useful evidence in the first instance than we are — perhaps less so. We find the evidence, he gives us an opinion. It’s better that way.’

  Roberts seemed a little crestfallen. Crow could not help that. He paced towards the entrance, stooping instinctively as he came out of the Mill even though the high doorway in no sense threatened his tall sparse frame and domed head. It was a matter of habit.

  ‘I’m pushing off now, Wilson, and leaving you to it. I’ll see you back at the hotel at nine tonight, and we’ll have a short conference, unless anything turns up in the meanwhile, of course.’

  ‘Where will I find you if you are required, sir?’

  ‘In the first instance,’ Crow replied sombrely, ‘at Charles Lendon’s house. I understand he had a housekeeper. I must have a word with her. Later, I’ll be in the office, until nine.’

  The constable driving the car climbed in behind the wheel and Crow settled himself against the cushions in the rear seat with a sigh. His back was easier now. They jolted their way out of the lane and Crow asked the driver to detail the route to him as they drove towards Lendon’s house. It proved to be no more than a mile and a half distant. Lendon must have walked from his home to the Old Mill.