by Joyce Porter
The Hon. Con, who wasn’t often reduced to speechlessness, watched her go. She looked down at the sheets of paper which, covered in her sprawling handwriting, littered the desk. What had she gone and landed herself with this time?
This was precisely the question Miss Jones wanted answered when the Hon. Con got home that evening. Even a carefully edited version of Mrs Burberry’s problem had lashed her into a near fury.
‘Here, steady on, old girl!’ said the Hon. Con, backing away as Miss Jones advanced flourishing a carving knife which she just happened to have in her hand. ‘What else could I do?’
‘You could have said no!’ squeaked Miss Jones, looking like an enraged mouse. ‘You could never have opened that ridiculous advice bureau in the first place! You could sit right down now and write a letter to this lunatic woman and say that you are unable to help her!’
‘Can’t do that, Bones,’ objected the Hon. Con. ‘I’ve given my word.’
‘Then you’re as big a fool as she is, Constance! Wanting to get her son transferred to heaven – I’ve never heard such nonsense in my life!’
‘Her neighbours are being pretty rotten about it, too,’ the Hon. Con pointed out, still keeping a weather eye on the carving knife.
‘Blast her neighbours!’ shouted Miss Jones. ‘ What are our neighbours going to say?’
‘Luckily,’ said the Hon. Con stiffly, ‘I’m above such things. Thought you were, too, Bones.’
‘But what do you know about investigating cases of sudden death? And don’t you dare tell me again that it’s only a matter of common sense and a few text-books because we both know perfectly well that it isn’t. The trouble with you, Constance,’ Miss Jones added bitterly, ‘is that you’re selfish.’
‘Selfish?’ The Hon. Con didn’t allow herself to be put off her stroke by this sudden switch in tactics. ‘ What a rotten thing to say, Bones! It’s going to cost me the dickens of a lot of time and trouble and money to help this poor woman. What’s selfish about that, for God’s sake?’
‘Money!’ echoed Miss Jones, getting her second wind and switching again. ‘There’s another thing! You’ll go throwing your money around for the sake of some young lout you’ve never so much as laid eyes on, but if I ask you for a bit more housekeeping, that’s a different story, isn’t it? Prices in the shops are going up every day but you still expect the same standard of living on an allowance that wasn’t generous five years ago.’
‘Oh, heck!’ groaned the Hon. Con.
Miss Jones made an effort and pulled herself together. ‘Very well, Constance,’ she resumed icily, ‘ you make yourself a public laughing stock over this Burberry business, if you want to. Nothing that I say will make any difference, I’m well aware of that. What I think doesn’t mean a thing to you. I’m just the person who does all your cooking and washing and shopping and cleaning for you. As soon as anybody new and glamorous comes along, I get tossed aside like an old glove. All right – you go and fuss round your precious Mrs Burberry if you want to! See if I care!’ And, so saying, Miss Jones flung the carving knife from her, burst into hysterical sobs and rushed back into the kitchen.
The Hon. Con stared disconsolately after her. Old Bones couldn’t half work herself up into a paddy when she tried – and all over nothing. Fancy being jealous of Mrs Burberry of all people! Mrs Burberry? The Hon. Con had never given the woman a second thought. Well – not in that way, anyhow.
With a deep sigh she bent down and picked up the carving knife. Oil would have to be poured – but pronto! The Hon. Con hadn’t the slightest intention of jacking in her new venture before she’d even started but nobody knew better than she did that Miss Jones’s willing cooperation was absolutely essential. Somebody had to do the mugging about, hadn’t they? Oh, well – the Hon. Con hitched up her pants – up guards and at ’em!
The grand reconciliation scene took place in the kitchen though the price of peace was somewhat higher than the Hon. Con had expected. For forgiving and forgetting, Miss Jones demanded an extra pound a week on her housekeeping money and all the Hon. Con’s wheedling failed to knock it down by as much as a lousy sixpence.
‘Mind you, we’ll have to economize in other directions,’ she warned, trying to work out how she’d got herself into all this.
Miss Jones could recognize a capitulation when she saw one. ‘Of course, dear,’ she agreed graciously. ‘And now, tell me, where were you thinking of starting your investigations?’
‘Dunno yet,’ growled the Hon. Con, staring sulkily at the gas stove. ‘Never could think on an empty stomach.’
By breakfast the following morning the atmosphere had got pretty well back to normal. The Hon. Con came bouncing into the dinette as though she hadn’t a care in the world.
Miss Jones paused in mid-pour. ‘Are you going out, dear?’
‘Of course,’ said the Hon. Con, carefully draping a table napkin over the skirt of her best blue serge costume. ‘Have to skip the old knees-full-bend this morning. Shove us the cow’s juice over, there’s a good chap!’
‘Where are you going?’
The Hon. Con shook out the Financial Times and loaded her mouth with the first spoonful of All Bran. ‘Gerrumphation,’ she said.
Miss Jones regarded the bespattered table cloth with resignation. Really, one did sometimes wonder where dear Constance had been brought up. Her father may have been a viscount but her table manners were straight out of the gutter. ‘What was that, dear?’
‘The police station,’ repeated the Hon. Con, deciding on this occasion not to follow up the information by any reference to people with cloth ears. ‘Worked out my plan of campaign in bed last night. Got to get the groundwork straight first, you see, because that Burberry female wasn’t very informative yesterday. I should have cross-examined her more closely but – well – I was a bit at sea, really. Soon get the hang of it, though. I did think about toddling round to see her again this morning but then I reckoned I’d do better to get another angle on the situation. The cops seemed obvious.’
‘But will they give you any information?’
The Hon. Con looked surprised. ‘Why shouldn’t they? Nothing secret about it, is there? According to the Burberry woman the case is over and done with as far as the police are concerned.’
‘They may not like you trying to reopen it.’
The Hon. Con paused with another spoonful of All Bran at the ready. ‘ They’ll have to lump it then, won’t they?’ she asked.
She was still in this mood of sweet reason when, half an hour or so later that morning, she breezed into Totterbridge’s central police station.
‘Can I help you, madam?’ The young policeman behind the counter had a quick bet with himself. Six to four somebody’d nicked her poor old pussy cat.
‘Like to have a word with Detective-Sergeant Fenner,’ said the Hon. Con.
The young constable chalked one up to himself. Not only lost her poor old pussy but wanted the CID to find it for her! He smiled encouragingly at the Hon. Con. ‘ P’raps you’d like to tell me about it first, would you, madam?’
‘No,’ said the Hon. Con, very polite, ‘I wouldn’t.’
‘Oh.’ The young policeman retreated to his second line of defence. ‘Well, I don’t think Detective-Sergeant Fenner’s available just at the moment, madam.’
‘Out, is he?’
‘Yes,’ – the young policeman latched happily on to the suggestion – ‘as a matter of fact, I think he is, madam.’
‘Liar!’ said the Hon. Con calmly. ‘I saw him walk in here not three minutes ago. And don’t try telling me he’s gone out again because I’ve just checked and his car’s still in the car park. Black Morris 1100 with a pink furry dog in the back window – licence number BDY 996 C – right?’
The young policeman eyed her with distaste. The lengths some people would go to for their damned cats! ‘I’ll just ring through to make sure he’s not engaged, madam.’ He made as if to move away from the counter.
But the Hon.
Con was still at least two jumps ahead of him. ‘What’s the matter with this telephone?’ she demanded, pointing to the instrument which lay not six inches away from the young policeman’s hand.
The young policeman managed a feeble smile. ‘ Nothing, madam.’ He picked the receiver up. ‘What name is it, madam?’
‘The Honourable Constance Morrison-Burke. Sergeant Fenner will remember me. Tell him it’s a matter of life and death.’
The young policeman made one last effort to save public time and money. ‘Sergeant Studdy’s much better with cats, madam.’
‘Cats?’ The Hon. Con’s voice ricocheted off the oak panelling. ‘What the blazes are you rambling about, Constable? Who said anything about cats?’
The young constable felt himself going red. He stammered out an apology and decided to let Detective-Sergeant Fenner fight his own battles. He pushed the telephone away, opened the flap and came out from behind his counter. ‘I’m sure Sergeant Fenner will be able to spare you a few minutes,’ he said smarmily. ‘I’ll take you straight up to him.’
The Hon. Con forgot all about these cats that had suddenly started messing things up. ‘Jolly dee!’ she chortled. ‘ Lead on, laddie!’
Chapter Three
Detective-Sergeant Fenner was a good, clean living man, faithful to his wife and kind to his children. He was conscientious, too, with excellent annual reports and a flattering number of commendations on his police record. He thought about all this as he watched the Hon. Con settle herself down in the visitor’s chair.
She opened the conversation chattily. ‘ Stupid lad you’ve got on the desk this morning.’
‘Isn’t he just? Never mind, he won’t be there much longer.’
‘Oh, there’s no need to move him on my account.’
Sergeant Fenner’s bleak little smile didn’t extend beyond the corners of his mouth. ‘I was thinking, I confess, rather more of my own convenience.’
The Hon. Con wasn’t really interested. ‘ Well, now, and how’ve you been keeping since I saw you last, Sergeant?’
‘Pretty well, thank you, madam,’ Sergeant Fenner admitted cautiously. ‘ The human constitution has amazing powers of recuperation.’ He saw the Hon. Con’s ample brow begin to crease into a frown and thought he had gone far enough. ‘And how are you these days, madam?’ he asked quickly.
‘In the pink, as always! I see to that. Physical fitness is a bit of a fetish of mine.’
‘Is it, indeed, madam?’ murmured Sergeant Fenner. ‘Fancy.’
‘Still, I’ve not come here to waste your time discussing my health.’ The Hon. Con hitched her chair forward and prepared to lower her voice to a confidential bellow.
Sergeant Fenner couldn’t resist it. ‘ What have you come to waste my time for then, madam?’ he asked softly.
It took the Hon. Con a split second before she caught on that this must be a little joke. Inevitably she exploded into a shout of laughter, slapped her thigh ecstatically and waggled a playful finger. ‘Cheeky devil!’ she twitted him
Sergeant Fenner felt ashamed of himself. ‘How can I help you, madam?’ he asked politely.
The Hon. Con wiped the smile off her face. ‘Got a bit of a problem on my plate,’ she said seriously. ‘Thought of you right away.’
‘Too kind.’ Sergeant Fenner was already forgetting his good resolutions.
‘Nonsense! Credit where credit’s due, Sergeant. You’re a bright fellow. Spotted that as soon as I laid eyes on you. Kind hearted, too,’ she added quickly.
Sergeant Fenner felt the skin on the back of his neck tingle. Flattery, in his experience, was so often the prelude to a really stinking kick in the teeth.
The Hon. Con was bursting with pride but she tried to conceal it. ‘Matter of fact,’ she went on gruffly, ‘I’ve been asked to reinvestigate the Burberry case. The boy’s mother came to see me about it. Damned cut up, she was. Only child and all that. Felt I had to do what I could for the poor woman.’
‘That young yobo who killed himself in the Kama Sutra?’ Sergeant Fenner was aghast. ‘ What does she want you to do about it? Resurrect him?’
The Hon. Con’s face slid into a scowl. ‘There’s no need to be blasphemous,’ she said crossly. ‘I quite understand that people like you and me have to preserve a certain amount of professional detachment, but one can go too far. Poor Mrs Burberry just wants her son’s name cleared. She doesn’t believe he committed suicide and she’s engaged me to prove that he didn’t.’
Sergeant Fenner forced himself to think this over. ‘Why?’ he asked at last.
‘Why what?’
‘Why does she want you – or anybody else – to prove her son didn’t kill himself?’
It was the Hon. Con’s turn to pause and cogitate. The bit about Mrs Burberry wanting to get Rodney admitted to the joys of heaven wasn’t going to go down too well with Sergeant Fenner. Even Miss Jones had found it difficult to swallow, and, with determination, she could usually be induced to believe anything. ‘Vengeance,’ said the Hon. Con firmly. She didn’t count it as lying if it was in a good cause. ‘That’s natural enough, isn’t it? Here’s her only child being murdered and nobody’s doing a damned thing about it. How would you feel if your son’s killer was walking around free as air?’
‘Is that what she told you?’
‘More or less,’ said the Hon. Con, looking him straight in the eye.
‘It doesn’t sound much like Mrs Burberry to me. I worked on that business, you know, and I got to know both Mr and Mrs Burberry pretty well. Now, if you’d told me that Mrs Burberry had got young Rodney heavily insured and she couldn’t collect because of some suicide clause – well, I’d have said that that sounded a good deal more her style.’
The Hon. Con, like so many of us, tended to hear only what she wanted to hear. ‘ I say,’ she said, beaming happily, ‘that’s a dollop of luck, isn’t it? You actually being on the case, I mean. Well, that simplifies everything.’
‘Now, wait a minute …’
The Hon. Con steam-rollered happily through the interruption. ‘You can just give me a quick run down now on all the relevant features of your investigation and then, if you’ll let me have all the files and reports and photographs and things, I’ll take them home and work through them at my leisure. Oh, good heavens, Sergeant’ – killing a second interruption without a qualm – ‘ you can trust me! I hope I know how to deal with official documents at my time of life. It’s not as though I’m asking you to lend them to just anybody, is it? I’ll sign a receipt for them, of course.’
Sergeant Fenner swallowed hard. ‘That’s not quite the point, Miss Burke,’ he said tightly.
‘Morrison-Burke, if you don’t mind!’ snapped the Hon. Con, who was very sensitive about some things. ‘Well, what is the point?’
Sergeant Fenner tried to put it in words of one syllable so that there should be no misunderstanding. ‘Neither you nor any other member of the general public can be allowed access to police files. It is quite out of the question and I’m sure you appreciate why. I sincerely hope that you are not going to go any further with this Rodney Burberry business but, if you are, you’ll have to do it without any assistance from us. In fact, in all fairness, I feel I must warn you …’
‘Hold it, Sergeant! Am I to take it that you are refusing me your cooperation?’
Sergeant Fenner was relieved that the point had been grasped so quickly. ‘That is precisely the situation,’ he said.
‘I see.’ The Hon. Con didn’t appear in the least disconcerted. Not being by any means as big a fool as many people thought her, she had foreseen this eventuality. She gave Sergeant Fenner one last chance to capitulate gracefully. ‘Can’t I persuade you to change your mind?’
You couldn’t persuade me to change my socks, duckie, thought Sergeant Fenner unkindly. ‘ I’m sorry, Miss Morrison-Burke’ – he shook his head – ‘ but, as a police officer, I have no choice in the matter.’
The Hon. Con smiled, leaned back in her chair and c
ontemplated the ceiling. ‘Recall the occasion of our last meeting, Sergeant?’
Sergeant Fenner winced. ‘When you burned down the Parish Hall at St Cuthbert’s? Yes, now you come to mention it, I recall the occasion very well. Vividly, in fact.’
The Hon. Con removed her gaze from the ceiling and directed it at Sergeant Fenner. ‘There was a lot of talk at the time,’ she pointed out,’ that I’d done it deliberately.’
Sergeant Fenner managed an uncertain laugh. ‘Ah, but that was just the Rector’s wife, wasn’t it? She seemed to have her knife in you, for some reason.’
‘She wasn’t the only one,’ said the Hon. Con darkly.
Sergeant Fenner began to look really worried. ‘But you assured me it was a pure accident – and all the evidence seemed to support it.’
‘Well, of course it was an accident!’ said the Hon. Con indignantly. ‘I don’t look like an arsonist, do I? I was giving the Young Wives’ Christian League my talk on ‘‘The Aristocracy and What It Means Today’’ and I merely planned to augment and illustrate my thesis with a simple practical example.’
‘You did explain at the time.’
‘My point was, you see, that the cream rises to the top of the milk and that people like me, with blue blood in their veins, are society’s natural leaders. No reflection on the rest of you, of course, but you can’t make silk purses out of sows’ ears and it’s no good pretending you can. Look at ’em these days! The House of Commons packed with hoi polloi and riff-raff – and the Lords not much better! No wonder the country’s going to the dogs! And, talking about dogs, there’s another case in point. Mongrels may be intelligent and all that sort of thing, but you don’t find ’em carrying off the championships at Cruft’s, do you?’
Sergeant Fenner shook his head dumbly and prayed for an instant crime wave.