Murder in the Mill-Race

by E. C. R. Lorac

  “You’re assuming that the village knows what really happened?”

  “Yes. And they’re going to prevent us finding out. I don’t suggest the murder was a co-operative effort: co-operation in murder doesn’t happen in our experience. It’s my belief that the village knew the woman was a menace and feels justice has been done, but whether that’s so or not, they’re going to protect whoever it was who did the job—one of themselves, that is.”

  “Query, does Ferens know what happened?” mused Macdonald.

  “Might do. What do you think yourself?”

  “I should say he didn’t know, not as evidence goes. He’s got that sort of professional probity which bars telling plain lies. It isn’t entirely a moral quality. It’s an awareness of the loss of prestige—professional dignity—if found out. That type would hate to be bowled out telling a lie: they prefer to stick to the truth. But Ferens has done some guessing, as you and I are doing some guessing, and it’s my belief he staged that demonstration last night as a warning to somebody, or as a warning to the whole village. It was like saying, ‘You can’t get away with that one.’ That’s my belief, anyway, but he’s not likely to admit it.”

  “What’s the betting that this racket with the bag was worked last night—after Ferens’ demonstration?”

  “I think that’s quite possible. If so, it involves the fact that somebody had this bag in their possession.”

  Macdonald broke off, and was silent for a moment or two. Then he went on: “We’ve got to square the discovery of the bag with the assumptions we’ve made on the earlier evidence. Peel argued that an attache case, or a box containing documents, had been stolen from the office at Gramarye because he couldn’t find any personal papers. It seems possible to me that deceased carried her personal papers about with her in this bag. It’s large enough to contain quite a lot of stuff.”

  “That’s reasonable enough,” agreed Reeves. “Women do carry the most incredible lot of stuff around with them in their bags. I can quite see this Torrington dame being suspicious of everybody at Gramarye, and making a habit of taking this bag around with her whenever she went out of the house. She was evidently a methodical cuss, and a very careful one. She’d never have mislaid the bag or left it about.”

  “Well, if we accept that, it seems probable to me that whoever laid her out would have taken the contents of her bag. We’re arguing she was a blackmailer. If she carried that bag about with her habitually, it might well be argued that she’d got something valuable in it.”

  “O.K. The argument following that seems to be that the murderer pocketed the contents of the bag and then tore the straps off it to indicate that it had been snatched, and threw it in the stream—the safest thing to do with it. It might then have been washed downstream and found by somebody else. The latter party put it somewhere to dry, so that it was ready to plant in an emergency, so to speak. And planted it was.”

  “It’s a possible reconstruction,” said Macdonald, “but there could be plenty of variations on it. It was a neat enough idea putting it here, and I’m disposed to believe it could have been done last night, ‘after the demonstration,’ as you say. Anybody could have known that Greave was coming out here with Joe Grant to pick up the timber for the posts.”

  “And some could have known better than others,” meditated Reeves.

  “Well, when you’ve finished your job here, we’ll screw the door up. There don’t seem to be any more souvenirs about,” said Macdonald. “I’ll put the bag in my attache case and try to find out when deceased was last seen carrying it in the village. After that I’ll send it up to C.O. and see if the back-room boys can help. They ought to be able to tell us if it was ever in the stream at all, or merely held under a tap.”

  “Oh, they’ll tell you a lot—age, place of origin, habits of owner, and force required to sever straps to three places of decimals,” said Reeves, “but the village won’t tell you anything. They’ll run true to form with ‘I can’t rightly say. Maybe that is and maybe that isn’t.’ ” He paused as he put his insufflator and camera away. “I’m a bit surprised that Peel didn’t get on to the fact that the bag was missing. He was very good at the routine stuff.”

  “We can’t blame Peel any more than ourselves,” said Macdonald. “A leather handbag was found in deceased’s bedroom: it contained a purse, note case, handkerchief, and all the items you might have expected, including smelling salts and sal volatile.”

  “That was her Sunday-go-to-meeting bag,” said Reeves promptly. “The smelling salts was to ginger up any toddler who tried to be sick in church. The Sunday bag was probably a gift from titled employers. You ask if it wasn’t, Chief.”

  “I will. You’re probably right over that one.”

  “They do crop up, don’t they?” said Reeves reflectively.

  CHAPTER XIV

  “Can you identify this bag, Mrs. Yeo?” asked Macdonald.

  The Chief Inspector had put his attache case on the counter of the village post-office-cum-shop, and felt rather like a commercial traveller as he raised the lid to display his wares.

  Stout Mrs. Yeo stared: took off her glasses and stared afresh. “Well, I never did,” she exclaimed, “if that be’n’t Sister Monica’s old bag. Years it was Sister had that bag. I do mind her telling me her had had that bag when her first come here, and that’s a tidy time ago, as you’d know, sir.”

  “Can you tell me when you last saw her carrying it?” asked Macdonald.

  “Now that be’n’t so easy,” countered Mrs. Yeo. “I mind she had it last Christmas, when her come collecting for a children’s party. In Bristol, ’twas. Coloured pickaninnies, her said. Christian, of course.”

  “But haven’t you seen it since then?” asked Macdonald.

  “Maybe I have and maybe I haven’t,” said Mrs. Yeo. “It’s like this, sir. Sister always wore that long cloak, and if so be she carried the bag under her cloak, you wouldn’t notice like.”

  “But didn’t she take her purse out of the bag to pay for her shopping?” asked Macdonald.

  “Why, sir, Sister didn’t do no cash shopping,” said Mrs. Yeo. “Gramarye was registered here for fats and sugar and that, but Sister never did no little bits of shopping. A weekly order ’twas, all very businesslike; Sister and Cook would make out the order every Saturday to be delivered Monday, and bill at the end of each month paid by cheque. And if anything was forgot ’twas Sister’s rule they must do without till the next week. Very exact was Sister.”

  “Didn’t she ever buy any stamps or any sweets?” persisted Macdonald.

  “She’d buy stamps ten shillings at a time,” said Mrs. Yeo, “about once a month ’twas, and always paid for by ten-shilling note. Nurse Barrow would come in with a list, neat as anything, twenty-four twopence halfpennies, forty-eight halfpennies, thirty-six pennies. Always the same. I do know Sister’s stamps by heart. And the little maids—the children—they’d send picture postcards home every other week, if so be as they’d got a home or an auntie to send to.”

  “And about the sweets,” put in another voice from the back of the shop. “Sweets was ordered, too, every week, and the points pinned on the order all neat and correct. Boiled sweets mostly ’twas, and chocolate creams for saints’ days and festivals. As good as a ‘Churchman’s Calendar’ Sister’s order was, her never forgetting no holy days.”

  “That’s right,” agreed Mrs. Yeo, “and the sweets went on the bill like the rest, Sister saying that sweets were part of the children’s rations. But ’twas all ordered, no chance buying, so to speak. If you’d care to step inside, sir, I could show you some of Sister’s lists. A rare beautiful hand her wrote.”

  “Thank you very much, Mrs. Yeo. I should like to see them if you can spare the time.”

  “I can and welcome, sir,” said the stout soul heartily. “If you’ll come this way, Rosie can mind the counter a*bit.”

  She lifted a bead curtain and opened a door which had glass panels in it and led the way into a comfortab
le stuffy little sitting room whose window was gay with the variegated geraniums popular in the village.

  “Now do you sit down, sir,” said Mrs. Yeo. “I’m glad to have a chance to talk to you, and that’s a fact. Some o’ the things they’re saying in this village do keep me awake at nights. Such nonsense I never did hear. But first I’ll show you Sister’s lists, like I said.”

  She opened a drawer and pulled out some sheets, neatly clipped together, and handed them to Macdonald. “There they be, sir, and if everyone was as neat and tidy as that, Rosie and me’d be saved a lot of trouble. Rations for eighteen, as you see, all worked out in weights: twelve children, six adults—that be Sister Monica, Nurse, Cook, and the servant girls—and you’ll mark as chocolate creams is ordered on the last list, that be for Midsummer; Saint John, he be Midsummer saint. And the adding up done, too, and never no mistake.”

  “Miss Torrington seems to have taken a lot of trouble,” said Macdonald. “Did she always bring you this list in herself?”

  “Her used to, sir. Every Saturday morning, like clockwork, but this last year, her’d changed a lot. These last months, Sister often sent Nurse over with the order. Seemed as if Sister didn’t want to come into village. Her’d be with the children in the garden and in the park, and her came to church same as ever: every soul in Gramarye came to church Sunday mornings, and they had a cold meal because Sister didn’t hold with Cook working on the Sabbath. But somehow her had taken against coming shopping in the village. There was some foolish things said, sir, and some downright unkind ones, about Sister and the collections she made for charity. Maybe ’twas time her gave that up. I know me own memory isn’t what it was, and Sister’s wasn’t neither. But there was no call for hard words.”

  “Are you quite sure of that, Mrs. Yeo? Haven’t you ever spoken any hard words about Miss Torrington yourself?”

  Mrs. Yeo’s round face flushed up, but she didn’t get flustered. “And if I have, sir, there’s not many folks in our village I haven’t got cross with, one way or another. Sister was bossy-like: she would do things her way, and she’d interfere in things that wasn’t rightly her business, like the Mother’s Union and the choir outing and Sunday-school treat. I know I’ve got proper mad with her at times. And we do seem to be more nervy-like than we used. I’m sick to death of this here rationing and government orders and prices going up and all the rest. Sister was too. Her was worried to death, poor soul, over costs going up all the time, and her that careful. Maybe I have got mad with her when she was alive, but I was taught to respect the dead, sir, meaning no offence.”

  “So was I, Mrs. Yeo,” said Macdonald quietly, “but I am a policeman. The only way we can do our work is by getting at the truth: the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And the idea underlying police work is to protect the innocent and punish the guilty. To respect the dead and thereby let the guilty go unpunished does not ensure justice, but the reverse.”

  “That’s true enough, sir, but why you do make so sure that there’s guilt in our village, I don’t rightly see.”

  “Because I believe that Miss Torrington was murdered, Mrs. Yeo, and it’s my job—and yours too—to bring a murderer to trial. Whatever a person’s just grievances may be, and no matter what threat is held over a person, murder is no way of settling the matter.”

  “God ha’ mercy, need you tell me that, sir? I do know that as plain as you do. But how do you know her was murdered? Be’n’t you guessing, like Sergeant Peel did?”

  “No. I: m not guessing,” said Macdonald, his quiet voice giving emphasis to his words. “Let’s put it this way. You’re used to judging weights—butter and fat and the rest. Your own experience tells you if a package is what it ought to be. I’m used to judging probabilities about sudden deaths. My own experience tells me when appearances aren’t to be trusted. I haven’t asked you to point a finger condemning anybody. But I do ask you to answer a few very simple questions.”

  “I’ll answer them if I can, sir.”

  “Very good. You’ve told me that that bag was Miss Torrington’s. You’ve recognised it. Did she always carry it about with her when she was out of doors?”

  Mrs. Yeo wiped her eyes. Tears had been running down her face, but she spoke steadily, though her voice was husky. “Her used to do, sir. I’m telling the truth when I say her didn’t come into village much of late. But I’ve been in with her many a time helping with a sick neighbour, at nights maybe. Her always brought that old handbag along with her, and her nursing bag, too. But her didn’t use it Sundays. On Sundays her’d have the new bag Lady Ridding gave to her when we closed down the Red Cross room in institute after peace day.”

  “Did you ever see inside this old bag when she was using it?”

  “Not so as to really see. There was papers in it, old letters and that, and her money, and some little books, notebooks and that. ‘Twas all full up, bulging-like.”

  “Was it heavy? Did you ever pick it up?”

  “I did once, and I mind I laughed at her, saying she’d been robbing bank, ’twas so heavy, and her said her’d got her keys in it. Her always carried they, seeing those young servant maids came from bad homes and ‘twasn’t wise to trust they.” Mrs. Yeo broke off, and then said: “Was her robbed, sir? Did someone snatch her bag down there by the mill?”

  “I think so, Mrs. Yeo. It was empty when it was found, but there’s a very strong old-fashioned safety catch on it, and I don’t think it would have come undone by itself.”

  2

  “Why didn’t you report that this bag of Miss Torrington’s was missing, Hannah?”

  Macdonald was sitting in the Warden’s office at Gramarye. The bag lay on the desk in front of him, and it was the first thing Hannah Barrow set eyes on when she came into the room. She was as neat and clean as ever, if less severely starched, but her wrinkled pippin of a face seemed to have shrunk and puckered, and her eyes were frightened and sunken. She stared at the bag as though she couldn’t take her eyes from it, and her fingers knotted themselves into contortions, with her knuckles showing white and shiny.

  “Missing? That there? ’Tis an old thing. Sister was a-going to give that away. Her had a new one. Sergeant took it, with Sister’s purse and notebook and all. I showed it to he—a good new bag ’twas.”

  “Yes. I know that Sergeant Peel has the new bag,” said Macdonald, “but Miss Torrington only used that one on Sundays. She always took this one with her whenever she went out, as you know quite well. But when the sergeant asked about her handbag, you told him about the new bag, but you didn’t say anything about this one.” He spoke slowly and evenly, without any suggestion of sharpness in his voice, as patiently as a schoolmaster might talk to a dull pupil, and with the same expectant note of one who hopes for the right answer. Hannah’s mental age, he had concluded, was about twelve, but on the whole a very unintelligent twelve.

  “Him didn’t ask me,” she said, pulling at her fingers till the joints cracked.

  “He asked you if anything was missing,” persisted Macdonald. “You knew this bag was missing, but you didn’t say so.”

  There was a long pause, then she answered as a dull child might answer: “If so be I had, Sergeant’d have said I stole mun. I know he. Terr’ble sharp him be.” She broke off and then added: “Us all knew Sister kept that bag by her. I said to Cook, ‘Sister’s old bag’s not nowhere,’ and Cook said, ‘That be’n’t our business. Us hasn’t got t’ old bag. Likely it fell in millrace or maybe they’ve got it. But it be’n’t our business.’ And I said, ‘That’s right, that be. If I say Sister’s old bag be’n’t here, Sergeant will say, “ ’Tis that old fool Hannah stole he.”’ Him went all around, opening everything with Sister’s keys, counting this, counting that, spying and staring and jumping out on we with questions till us was fair dazed like.”

  Some part of Macdonald’s mind was almost fascinated by the singsong drone of Hannah’s voice: there was a peculiar primitive rhythm to her sentences, and this, together
with the liquid Devonshire vowels, gave the effect of some ancient ballad, akin to song rather than speech.

  “What did she keep in this bag, Hannah?” asked Macdonald, sensing that he was more likely to get an answer by the method of assuming that Hannah knew all that there was to be known.

  “Us never knew for sure, sir. If Sister sent for we, ’twasn’t like you saying, ‘Come right up to table,’ or ‘Sit down, Hannah.’ Us stood by the door and took our orders without drawing near. And if so be ’twas something to be fetched and paid for, Sister would put the money down on that table there, always just right, and make me count it out, but fares or stamps or register letter, and she’d say, ‘Put that in your pocket, Hannah, to keep it safe.’ But she’d never open her bag and take out her purse. ‘Never put temptation in no one’s way,’ Sister would say, meaning them young girls we had who knew no better,” ended Hannah sanctimoniously.

  “Did Sister carry the bag about with her when she was in the house?” asked Macdonald.

  “No, sir. Only when her went out. Her locked it away in the house. I can’t say for where. I never did see where she kept mun, and none other did, neither.”

  “But she kept her keys in the bag, Hannah,” said Macdonald mildly, careful not to let his voice give away that he was getting more and more interested. She came right up to him, a withered elderly little body who put out a knobbly hand and touched Macdonald’s arm with the confiding gesture of a child.

  “Her had two lots of keys, her must have,” said Hannah. “Her never did say so, and I never saw them together, but her must have had two lots.”

  “How do you know?” asked Macdonald, and she replied simply: