Murder in the Mill-Race

by E. C. R. Lorac

  “Quite so, madam. Could you tell me if Sister Monica had any old friends outside this village?”

  “I cannot give you a precise answer either way,” she replied, “but think for yourself. If you had made your home in one place for thirty years, identifying yourself with the life of that place, giving all your affection and loyalty and devotion to the work you had made your life, is it not probable that other interests and friendships would have slipped into the background? I think this was so in the case of Sister Monica. To the best of my knowledge and belief she neither wrote letters nor received them, apart from those concerning her work at Gramarye. That was what I meant when I said it was her life.”

  A few minutes later sergeant and constable were walking away from the house, across the garden of the Manor House.

  “What’s your opinion of all that, Briggs?” asked Peel. He knew Briggs well, and trusted him.

  “Well, since you’re asking me, Sergeant, I reckon she laid it on a bit too thick,” said the constable. “I’ll make allowances: deceased was a rum ’un, we all know that, but I can’t swallow all this selfless stuff, if you see what I mean. Too much of it, if you ask me. Makes you wonder.”

  “Too much of all of it,” thought Peel. “Too much dizziness. Too much devotion. Ten pounds a month . . . paid in cash. Doesn’t sound natural, somehow. None of it.”

  3

  “If you won’t take it amiss, Doctor, I’m coming to you for a bit of straight plain common sense,” said Sergeant Peel, and Raymond Ferens grinned sympathetically.

  “Have a glass of beer first, and then tell me your troubles,” said Ferens.

  “Well, thank you kindly, sir. I reckon I could do with it,” said Peel. “All this highfalutin’s got my goat. There’s not a soul in the place can even mention deceased in an ordinary voice. They clasp their hands and lower their eyes and tell you she was a saint. . . . Thank you, sir,” he added, taking a deep draught of well-cooled ale. “What do you make of all this saint stuff, sir?”

  “It’s no use asking me, Sergeant. I’m sorry, but it’s not my province. As you know, the children’s home was not in my care. Dr. Brown retained his position as M.O. there. My own contacts with Sister Monica were of the brief and casual variety—time of day, the weather, and suchlike. And I’m not going to repeat gossip.”

  “Very good. Doctor. Are you willing to answer this question: so far as your observation of her goes, was she a normal, healthy creature?”

  “I’ve no ground for opinions about her health. From the look of her, I should have judged her to be physically strong; she looked tough to me, but my opinion is of no more value than your own. As for normal in the usual sense of the word, no, I don’t think she was. Her appearance was eccentric and her manner studied. She was a bit odd. But women who stick to the same limited environment for thirty years, and are in absolute authority in a small establishment, do tend to get odd.” He broke off, and then added: “I take it you’ve seen Dr. Brown?”

  “Yes, sir. I mean no disrespect to Dr. Brown when I say this. He’d known her for so long that he couldn’t see her as she really was. You understand what I mean when I say a person can become a legend. They all say, ‘She was a wonderful woman.’ Dr. Brown said it too. I came to you because you’re a newcomer, sir. You saw this place with a fresh eye, and if I’m anywhere near the mark, you’re not one who’d be hoodwinked by a legend.”

  Sergeant Peel was trying hard to express what was in his mind without giving offence, and he mopped his face as he spoke, while Ferens chuckled.

  “Very astute of you, Sergeant. You’re quite right. I’m not impressed by legends. Tell me what you’re really trying to get at. I’m quite trustworthy. I won’t repeat anything you say, but I’ll tell you if I think you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  “Thank you, sir. You couldn’t put it fairer than that. You ask me what I’m getting at. It’s something like this. I’ve got a feeling they’re all putting on an act, and it’s the same act. Sister Monica was a saint. Well, sir, was she?”

  “I suppose it depends on what you call a saint,” replied Ferens. “I’ve never met one. I shouldn’t know.”

  “This village has always kept itself to itself,” went on Peel. “We never heard anything much about it at Milham Prior, but since the older children have been sent down to our schools, it’s been a bit different. Children chatter to each other, and a bit of what they chatter about gets through to the parents. The children don’t think Sister Monica was a saint. Some of them were frightened of her. They said she knew everything. The fact is, sir, I’ve reason to believe she was one of those women who nosed out secrets.”

  “I shouldn’t be surprised, Sergeant.”

  “No, sir. I reckon you wouldn’t. Now being a nosy parker isn’t my idea of being a saint, for all they say. And I reckon deceased was knocked over the head from behind and then shoved into the stream.”

  “So you may. But you’ve got to remember there’s another possibility. There’s evidence to show that deceased has been suffering from giddiness lately. She’s certainly had one or two tumbles.”

  “Do you reckon it was possible she fell, knocked herself silly, and then rolled into the stream, sir?”

  “It’s possible, yes. If she were standing on that bridge, came over faint, and went at the knees, there’s a chance she might have knocked the back of her head on the handrail behind her as she fell, and her body might have slipped backwards under the handrail into the water. I’m not saying that’s what happened, but it’s a possibility.”

  “Maybe it is, sir, but somehow I can’t see it happening like that, not unless she’d got some actual disease which made her liable to tumble—epilepsy, or something of that kind. They’ll find that out at the autopsy, I expect. As for all this dizziness, well, it seemed to me they all laid it on too thick, like her ladyship did with her saintly stuff. You’ll excuse me if I’m putting it crudely, sir, but there’s such a thing as overdoing it.”

  “I get you, Sergeant. Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”

  “That’s the size of it, sir. And not only the lady. Those two women at Gramarye—Barrow and Higson—they simply echoed each other. ‘Her came over dizzy: terrible dizzy Sister was.’ And those bits of servant girls—cheeky pieces they’d be if they acted natural—all casting their eyes up and saying Sister came over dizzy. I tell you, it put me in mind of a Greek play they did at that queer school Dartmouth way—fates or furies or some such all chanting in chorus. That’s what it was like, sir, sort of chorus of fates.”

  “Very cogently put, Sergeant. You’ve got an analytical mind, but it’s worth remembering this. Sister Monica was a dominating woman. I’ve no doubt she trained all those domestics to be faithful echoes of herself, and it hasn’t worn off yet. They’ll come natural later on, when they’ve got over the shock of her death.”

  “Maybe they will, sir, but I feel bothered about the whole thing. There was that other case of drowning—the Bilton girl. I never believed we got to the bottom of that. And I’m not going to take anything on its face value this time.”

  Ferens sat very still; he recognised the sergeant for what he was: an honest, painstaking officer, by no means devoid of intelligence, capable of a more imaginative and analytical approach than might have been expected, and the sergeant was appealing to him—Ferens —for help, on the grounds that an intelligent newcomer to the village should be able to give some helpful counsel.

  “I entirely agree with you,” said Ferens quietly. “You’ve got to examine everything both sides, so to speak. You’ve come to me to ask me for help—an honest opinion, or information if I’ve got any. Don’t think I’m holding out on you. I’m trying to be honest in my turn. I have no firsthand information, and I’ve told you I won’t repeat hearsay. Village gossip is the devil. I’ll think the whole thing over very carefully, and if I think of anything which bears on the matter and which it is my duty to tell you, I’ll let you know.”

  “Very good, D
octor. That’s all I want. I’ve gone farther in talking to you than I’d’ve risked with anyone else, and I’ll tell you what’s really bothering me. They all say she was a saint, but if I know my onions, the woman’s death has been an almighty relief to the lot of them, high and low alike.”

  “I think you’re probably right, Sergeant. But keep a sense of proportion. You’ve talked to me off the record, so to speak, and I’ll do the same to you. I’ve known people who were described as saints, especially after their death. And I’ve often been aware of an element of thankfulness mingled with the tears in the house of mourning.”

  Peel allowed himself a quiet chuckle. “Does me good to hear you talking, Doctor.”

  CHAPTER VI

  “This is going to be one of those tiresome cases where we suspect everything and can prove nothing,” said the Barnsford Inspector to Peel. “My own feeling is that deceased was a bit bats. I think she was regarded as a menace in the village, but they’ll none of them admit it, and this story of her tumbling just about makes it probable that she did fall in the river herself.”

  “Something’ll turn up,” said Peel doggedly.

  It was Peel who produced the next item of evidence. The observant sergeant had noticed that the letter box at Gramarye was a very solid and businesslike affair, a stout box firmly screwed to the back of the front door, its lid secured by a padlock, the key of which had been on the key ring found on Sister Monica’s body. Peel, on the principle “you never know your luck,” had gone to Gramarye on the morning of the twenty-fifth to see if any letters had arrived. His luck was in. He found a typewritten envelope addressed to “Miss Torrington.” Inside it was a half-yearly dividend warrant for £12-10-0 from the South West Building Society, and Peel promptly sat down to think and to do a little arithmetic, to the tune of “this is a very different cup of tea.” The sergeant had been puzzled by the absence of any personal accounts. Despite Lady Ridding’s firm statement of the cash basis of all Sister Monica’s monetary transactions, Peel felt that there must be some records of her personal expenditure. He could not believe that a person who had kept such detailed and elaborate accounts of the institution she ran could have refrained from keeping accounts of the spending of her own income. Peel sat and pondered. He had some money invested in a building society himself and he knew the current rates of interest. £12-10-0 for the half year—that meant interest on a capital sum of one thousand pounds, a sum which took a bit of saving, thought Peel to himself. Could she have saved it? Pencil in hand, he worked out sums on the basis of Sister Monica’s salary over a period of thirty years. It was obvious at a glance that it meant saving an average of thirty-three pounds a year over all that period. “I suppose it’s possible if she was one of the careful kind,” thought Peel, “and she hadn’t many expenses. But we shall have to find out how she paid it in, whether it was by little instalments at first and then bigger ones year by year, or whether it was in several hundreds at a time. Of course, there was the sister who died . . . She may have left her the money. That’ll mean searching at Somerset House.”

  Peel sat and thought for some time, and by the time he met his superior officers, who had come to make arrangements for the inquest, Peel had a number of ideas to put forward, including the suggestion that deceased might have had “other irons in the fire”—further capital in addition to that in the Building Society.

  The Divisional Inspector looked at the sergeant with a thoughtful eye. “What’s in your mind, Peel?”

  “Two things, sir. First, I’m pretty certain something’s been stolen: an attache case or cash box, maybe. That dame—meaning deceased—must have kept personal records of some kind. Where’s her Building Society book, for one thing, and her chequebook or savings bank book? Second, when a woman’s told everybody she despises money and then turns out to have a nice little sum invested, I want to know where she got it from. Maybe I’m doing a bit of fancy thinking, but deceased was a very queer party indeed, to my way of thinking.”

  2

  The Deputy Chief Constable, the Divisional Detective Inspector, and the Milham Prior police met for consultation that evening. Major Rootham, who was acting as Chief Constable during the illness of the permanent C.C., gave it as his opinion that the whole case indicated dirty work, and not in one direction alone.

  “Deceased has been paying ten pounds a month into the Building Society over a period of eight years,” he said. “The money was paid in pound notes, posted in registered envelopes. That is to say, she paid her entire salary in since 1943. Yet she must have paid out money for clothes and other personal expenses. This indicates that she had other means, of which at present we know nothing unless we assume she spent nothing but the interest on the capital sum.”

  “I think Sergeant Peel’s got a suggestion to make there,” said the Milham Prior Inspector. “He’s only got rumour to go on, but it’s a very suggestive rumour.”

  “Well, sir,” said the sergeant, “ever since the outbreak of war, when collections for various funds were run in most localities, deceased organised all the collections, apart from National Savings, of course. There were any number of good causes during the war—Red Cross, prisoners’ comforts, help for bombed areas, refugees and evacuees, to say nothing of the funds of the village institute and various collections in connection with the church. I’m told that none of these accounts was audited or examined by anybody in authority. Sister Monica was trusted to run the whole thing: she was so good at collecting money, and it saved everybody else trouble. Its worth noting that in the last year or so she has been relieved of all these extra duties. They’ve got a new treasurer for the institute, and the churchwardens have taken over all the collecting for the church. Now I’m ready to admit that I’ve got these stories from sources which couldn’t be used as evidence—but I reckon it’s worth looking into.”

  “What you really mean is that deceased helped herself from the collections:1” asked Major Rootham.

  “Well, sir, I believe that other people think she did,” said Peel, “but I’m wondering if she did a spot of blackmail as a side line. We don’t know yet what other investments she’s got. But one thing I’m certain of: she must have had some private papers in that house, and probably some cash as well, and we can’t find a trace of anything of the kind.”

  “You think somebody in the house robbed her?” asked Rootham.

  “I think somebody robbed her,” said Peel, “but it’s not easy to see how they disposed of the proceeds if it was anybody in the house who did it. There’s the three young servant maids. I wouldn’t put it beyond any of them to steal, but I don’t think they’d commit a murder, and you’ve got to remember that deceased was a big strong woman. Then there’s this to it. Hannah Barrow cleaned that room deceased used as a study: the maids were never allowed into it except when the Warden sent for them. Hannah says there’s nothing missing.”

  “But deceased wouldn’t have kept her private papers in a box anyone could snaffle,” said the Inspector. “She’d have kept them locked away somewhere.”

  “Yes, sir,” agreed Peel, “and if that’s the case, how did someone open the drawer or cupboard where she kept them: Her keys were in the pocket of her cape when her body was found. I found them there myself, including the keys of all the drawers and cupboards in the house.”

  “I agree with Peel that that is a problem,” said Major Rootham. “The theory at present is that deceased was stunned by a blow on the back of her skull, and then pushed into the millstream. I’m willing to believe a murderer who knew that deceased habitually carried her keys in that pocket might have taken them out of the pocket, but if that were the case, why were the keys found in the pocket when the body was taken out of the water? Have you identified all the keys on that key ring, Peel?”

  “Yes, sir. Every one. There are eleven keys: front door, garden door, storeroom, roll-top desk, two cupboards and petty-cash box in office, medicine cupboard, linen cupboard, stock clothing cupboard, and bookcase. I haven�
��t found any other cupboard, door, or box which is locked, except the pantry and suchlike, and the cook has those keys.”

  “Then it looks as though there must be a hiding place in the house you haven’t spotted, Peel,” said Rootham. “It’s a very old house. There are probably hiding places which it would take an expert to find. I agree that deceased must have had some private papers somewhere. We’ve no grounds for supposing they’re stolen: that’s only a supposition.”

  “I thought myself that there might be a hiding place in the house, sir. I asked the bailiff about it—Sanderson. He’s been over the house with the estate joiner and mason. They all say there’s no hiding places in the fabric. And the loft is clean as a whistle and the cellars too. Never seen a house with so little junk in it. It’s a puzzle and no mistake.”

  “Look here, Peel, we’re in danger of getting confused by considering too many details,” said Major Rootham. “I think it’d be a good idea to have a restatement of the whole case and see if there’s anything we can eliminate. You have a go at it, Peel. You’ve put in a lot of work and you know the background. I often find it helps if you state a problem clearly, in your own words.”

  “Very good, sir.” Peel waited for a minute, thinking hard, then he began: “The minute I heard of Sister Monica’s death, I thought of the other case—Nancy Bilton was drowned in that millstream, also at night. I was never satisfied that we got at the truth over that, and I had a feeling that Sister Monica knew more than she admitted. I know that feelings aren’t any good as evidence, but I believe that in police work you develop a sense which helps you to sum up witnesses. You know when someone’s holding out on you, even if you can’t prove it.”

  The Divisional Inspector put in a word here. “I know what Peel means, sir. I think he’s right. You can always tell the straightforward witness, who pours out all he knows with a mass of irrelevant detail, from the witness who’s cagey and watching his step.”