Sid gasped, while George looked alarmed. “Carving knives? Are you sure about this, m’m?”
“Well, no, not first hand,” Elizabeth had to admit. “Polly told Violet, who told me. But I’m sure-”
“Begging your pardon again, m’m, but I can’t see how I can arrest people even if they are carrying a knife. Not without murderous intent, that is.”
Elizabeth curled her fingers into her palms. “George, they are not going on a picnic. Why else would they carry knives?”
“To protect themselves? These are dangerous times after all, what with a murdering Nazi running around the woods. Then there’s the rest of his crew. What happened to them? What if they met up with our bloke, and now there’s a crowd of them out there, all gunning for us? We could all be stiff’uns before the day is out.”
“God save us all,” Sid muttered, clutching his chest.
Elizabeth had to admit she hadn’t thought of that. “All the more reason you should stop Rita before she takes those fools into the woods,” she snapped.
“That’s as may be, m’m, but if Mrs. Crumm is determined to spend the day in the woods with her friends, there isn’t a whole lot I can do about it. My advice is to just let them be.”
She glared at him in frustration. How someone could manage to look like a saintly monk yet be so infuriating was beyond her. “George, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were afraid of tackling Rita Crumm.”
“When it comes down to facing a bunch of hysterical women armed with bread knives, m’m, I’d say that a certain amount of prudence is called for,” George said carefully.
“Carving knives, George. There’s a difference.”
“Yes, m’m.”
“Lady Elizabeth’s right, George,” Sid said eagerly. “My Ethel’s bread knife has got little jagged edges on it, but the carving knife is bigger, and it’s got a strai-”
“I know what a bloody carving knife looks like,” George growled, “so pipe down Sid, and let me take care of this.” He glanced up at Elizabeth. “Please excuse us, m’m.”
“You’re excused.” Elizabeth folded her gloved hands in her lap. Obviously, as usual, she would have to take care of Rita and her troops herself. Abandoning the subject, she said tersely, “What about that army lieutenant, Jeff Thomas? Have you spoken to him?”
“Yes, m’m, I have.” George’s expression suggested he was doing his best to humor a particularly trying client. “Lieutenant Thomas has not left the base for the past week. He’s in quarantine in the sick bay. Chicken pox, I believe.”
Elizabeth straightened in her chair. Then obviously it wasn’t Jeff Thomas who was arguing with Amelia the other night. So who had spent the evening with the dead girl? Who had argued with her late at night beneath Sheila’s window? Could it have been Maurice after all?
Feeling disheartened, Elizabeth asked, “Did you question Sheila Macclesby yesterday?”
George’s face seemed to close up. “I’m not at liberty to say at this time, m’m.”
She leaned forward. “George, I’ll be seeing her sooner or later. She’ll tell me if you were out there.”
“Well, I suppose I can say that I was at the farmhouse, yes.”
“You can say you talked to her,” Sid said helpfully and received a glare for his efforts.
“Did you happen to question her son?” Elizabeth gave Sid an encouraging smile. Sometimes she learned more from Sid’s artless comments than from all of George’s ponderous reports.
“I spoke to him, yes.” George frowned. “For all the good it did. Wouldn’t say a word.”
“He’s not right in the head, m’m,” Sid put in. “That’s why he won’t talk.”
“I wish you wouldn’t bloody talk quite so much.” George glanced at Elizabeth. “Pardon me again, m’m.”
Elizabeth nodded. “What about the land girls? Did you talk to them?”
“Yes, m’m, I did.” George put his pencil down and leaned back in his chair. “I don’t wish to be discourteous, Lady Elizabeth, but if you ask me, all this questioning is nothing but a waste of time. We’re pretty sure this German bloke did it, and when we catch him we’ll prove it.”
“But what if he didn’t? What if someone else killed Amelia? All the time you are chasing after the German, the real murderer could be free to kill again or at the very least have time to cover his tracks. We have to consider all possibilities, George. We can’t just assume someone’s guilt because they happen to be in the vicinity.”
“Lady Elizabeth,” George began speaking very slowly and clearly, as if explaining something to an infant, “there are three things that a constable takes into account in a murder case.” He held up his fingers one by one. “One, there’s motive. Two, there’s opportunity. Three, there’s alibi.”
Containing her irritation with remarkable constraint, Elizabeth said quietly, “As far as the German is concerned, there appears to be only one of the three you can count on-opportunity. But without the murder weapon you have no proof of anything. Have you found the axe yet?”
“No, m’m, we haven’t, but that doesn’t prove anything. According to the medical examiner, the victim was killed very late at night, and the body was then moved to its final destination. Since we have no way of knowing exactly where the victim was killed, we don’t know where to start looking for the axe.”
“That’s if she was killed with an axe,” Sid added.
Elizabeth snapped her gaze to his face. “There’s some doubt of that?”
Sid nodded. “The doctor doesn’t think it were an axe that split her head open. He thinks the Nazi hit her with some kind of garden tool with a blunt edge. Like a hoe or a spade.”
George sent a scathing glance at Sid. “That was supposed to be confidential information.”
“Sorry,” Sid muttered.
“Makes no difference.” George sighed. “Since we know the victim wasn’t actually killed in the woods, the German must have killed her somewhere else, then carried her into the woods after she was dead. Wherever he killed her, that’s where the murder weapon will be. He could have armed himself with a hoe or spade from any of the farms around here. Or any houses, come to that.”
“But most likely at the Macclesby farm,” Elizabeth said dryly, “considering that’s where the victim lived and had presumably arrived home late that night. Not to mention she was heard arguing with someone there. I should think that would be fairly obvious.”
George looked offended. “Naturally I conducted a search of the premises, and there were several tools in the vicinity. None of which appeared to have been used as a murder weapon.”
Elizabeth didn’t answer. She was remembering Maisie’s missing spade that turned up later in the toolshed. If Amelia was killed at the Macclesby farm, it appeared more and more as if Maurice might be involved. On the other hand, there were also the questions of who had kept Amelia company on her last evening on earth and where she had spent her final hours.
“None of the tools I looked at,” George said, “had any signs of damage or bloodstains. That doesn’t mean the Nazi didn’t take it with him, to keep as a weapon. Then again, he could have found it anywhere. Then again, we don’t know for certain that the young lady was killed at the Macclesby farm.”
Elizabeth glanced at the large clock above George’s head. If she was going to talk Rita Crumm out of her foolhardy expedition, she had to leave now. Since both George and Sid seemed convinced the German pilot had committed the murder, there was no point in wasting her time or theirs until she had more information. In the meantime, she had a group of imprudent housewives to save.
“Well, I’ll pop in tomorrow to see if you have any more news,” she said, rising from her chair. “In the meantime, I’d appreciate it if you would call me if there are any further developments. My housemaid has to cycle home past those woods. I’d like to know when the German is captured so that I no longer have to be concerned for her safety.”
“I’ll be sure that you get the message, m’m,” George s
aid, stumbling to his feet. “Thank you for stopping by.”
“Not at all, George. Thank you for answering my questions.”
“Yes, well, you can thank Sid for most of that.” The unfortunate Sid received another baleful glare. “Oh, I almost forgot. The victim’s parents are driving down today to claim the body. I thought you’d want to know.”
“Thank you, George. I trust you can take care of that?”
“Of course, m’m. No need to worry on that account. Just one word of warning, though, if I may. I’d steer clear of Mrs. Crumm and her brood. Never know what she’ll be up to next, but one thing I do know, she’s quite capable of taking care of herself.”
“I’m sure she is,” Elizabeth said as she headed for the door, “but it’s not Rita I’m worried about. It’s all those empty-headed, trusting fools who plunge joyfully into jeopardy behind her.”
She left the warmth of the station and climbed aboard her motorcycle. Although the rain had ceased, she could feel a distinct nip in the air. The smell of dried grass and corn stubble had given way to the pungent aroma of seaweed and salt. The winds had shifted. Soon the nights would be drawing in, and morning frost would coat the bare branches of the oaks and beech trees in the woods. Already the prickly burrs were falling from the chestnut trees, and the children would be gathering them to roast in the fireplaces.
Elizabeth secured her hat by tying her scarf under her chin. She hoped fervently that mothers would make every effort to keep their children out of the woods until the German was captured and the murder solved. Time was of the essence, and it seemed unlikely she would receive much help from the local constabulary.
There wasn’t much she could do about capturing the German pilot, she acknowledged, as she sailed down the High Street with her skirt tucked up beneath her as much as modesty allowed. But she had managed to solve one murder without too much help from the police. There was no reason why she couldn’t do it again.
She arrived at the village green just as Rita Crumm climbed up on the small pavilion, prepared to address her enthusiastic, if misguided, band of followers.
The roar of Elizabeth’s motorcycle momentarily distracted the excited group, and several women turned to wave at her as she coasted to a halt.
Obviously put out by this unwarranted interruption, Rita screeched at the top of her lungs, “Ladies! Pay attention! We are here to serve our country today. So please stop nattering like magpies and listen to me.”
Chatting busily, the women ignored her.
Elizabeth cut the engine, and in the deafening silence that followed, Rita bellowed, “I said, will you bloody fools listen to me!”
The women stopped talking. A couple of them giggled and were immediately nudged into silence by others.
“That’s better.” Rita tossed her head, and the little tight curls on her forehead bounced up and down. “This is serious. If we are going to hunt down a German we have to do it”-she raised her voice and yelled-“ quietly.”
“You tell ’em, Ma!” a high-pitched voice encouraged from the front of the crowd.
Elizabeth recognized Rita’s daughter, Lilly, who had apparently taken a day off from the factory to join in the hunt. The stupidity of this woman in placing her own child in jeopardy astounded Elizabeth. Rita, however, seemed just as shocked to see her daughter standing there.
“Why aren’t you at work?” she demanded.
“I’ve come to help you find that murdering bugger, haven’t I,” Lilly declared in a close emulation of her mother’s strident voice.
“Over my dead body,” Rita snapped back. “You get your blinking arse back to work this minute. I never heard of such a thing, taking off like that. You could lose your job over this.”
“I wish.” Lilly stuck her fingers into her muddy blond hair and fluffed up the curls. “They’re not going to sack me, Ma… they need all the help they can get down there.”
“I don’t care if they sack you or not. You’re going back there this minute.”
“Aw, Ma… I want to help you find that Nazi. I even brought a knife with me.”
Sunlight glinted on the blade of a wicked-looking butcher knife in Lilly’s hand. A woman standing close to the young girl screamed.
“Shut up, you silly cow,” Lilly muttered.
“You tell her, Lil,” someone else called out.
Rita’s face had turned crimson. “This is a job for grown women,” she howled, “not children! Go back to work, Lilly, or I’ll lock you in your bedroom when I get home.”
“I’m not a child!” Lilly yelled back. “I’m seventeen. If I’m old enough to die from a bomb falling on me, I’m old enough to hunt down the bugger what’s dropping them, so there!”
“Here, here! Yay!” The women clapped and cheered.
“Let’s find the bugger and kill him!” someone else called out.
A roar of approval went up from the crowd.
Deciding it was time she intervened, Elizabeth stepped forward. A path miraculously cleared through the crowd in front of her. Amid murmured greetings, which she acknowledged with a gracious nod, she headed for the pavilion.
Rita watched her approach, her grim expression warning Elizabeth that she had no easy task in front of her. She climbed the worn steps of the pavilion and reached Rita’s side.
“Lady Elizabeth,” Rita muttered, her lips so thinned the words barely slipped through. “What a surprise. Have you come to join us in the hunt?”
“Certainly not.” Elizabeth turned to face the crowd and raised her voice. “Listen to me, all of you. The military has sent soldiers to search the woods for the German pilot. If you go in there today you could very well be mistaken for him, and someone could get badly hurt. Please, go home and let the soldiers do their job.”
“They need our help out there,” Rita declared, addressing the housewives, who were muttering to each other again. “We know those woods better than any soldier. We know where to look.”
“And what will you do when you find him?” Elizabeth demanded. “He’s not going to understand anything you say.”
“He’ll understand this.” Rita brandished a carving knife in her face.
The crowd sent up a few half-hearted cheers. “I don’t want to hurt no one,” someone said. “I faint at the sight of blood.”
“Blood!” someone else exclaimed. “No one said anything about no blood!”
“We’re not going to use the knives!” Rita wailed. “They are just to frighten him, that’s all.”
“Can’t we frighten him with our fists?” someone asked.
“What fists?” her neighbor demanded. “I ain’t got no fists.”
“I’m going home,” someone else called out. “I don’t want to be shot at by no soldiers.”
A chorus of “me neither” greeted the woman’s announcement.
Ignoring Rita’s frantic pleas, the housewives began drifting off, one by one, until only three remained, one of whom was Lilly.
“You still here?” Rita punched her fists into her hips. “I thought I told you to go back to work.”
“I’m going,” Lilly mumbled. “It’s more fun there than standing here watching a bunch of old biddies wetting their drawers at the thought of being shot at. Blinking good job they’re not in the real army. We’d lose the bloody war.”
“Watch your bloody language in front of Lady Elizabeth!” Rita shouted.
“Sorry, m’m,” Lilly hunched her shoulders and grabbed the bicycle she’d leaned against the wall of the abandoned sweet shop. “Better watch out if you go in the woods, Ma. One look at your face, and that Nazi’ll run all the way back to Germany.” She swung a leg across the saddle in a most inelegant manner that would have been embarrassing were it not for the fact that she wore slacks. “Ta ta for now!” With a last defiant wave of her hand she wobbled off down the lane.
“You must excuse my daughter, Lady Elizabeth,” Rita said, her face flushed as red as a beetroot. “She’s going through that age, you know.”
Not quite certain as to what exactly “that age” referred to, Elizabeth smiled instead. She was so immensely relieved that a potentially dangerous situation had been successfully defused she felt like beaming at everyone. Even Rita Crumm. “I’m so glad you all changed your minds,” she said.
“Oh, I think you deserve the credit for changing their minds, Lady Elizabeth,” Rita said, ice forming on her words. “I do hope the soldiers have better luck in finding that murderer today. I should hate for someone else to be killed because they didn’t have enough people out there looking for him.”
Although she refused to let Rita see it, Elizabeth felt a strong pang of apprehension. She felt perfectly justified in persuading the women not to go into the woods. As far as the murderer was concerned, however, she couldn’t help feeling she wasn’t doing everything she could to find out who had killed Amelia Brunswick.
What was even more disturbing, she couldn’t rid herself of the notion that she already had the answer to the puzzle. It was buried so deeply in the recesses of her mind, however, that she could not bring it to the surface, no matter how she struggled. She could only hope for now that her fears were unfounded and that poor Maurice Macclesby had not hacked Amelia Brunswick to death with a spade.
CHAPTER9
Elizabeth arrived home to the news that Sheila Macclesby had rung with an urgent message for her to call back.
“Sounded real upset, she did,” Violet said, her wooden spoon swishing around in the vegetable soup she had boiling in the pot. “Wouldn’t tell me what she wanted, though.”
“I’ll go up to the office and ring her after lunch.” Elizabeth removed her gloves and sat down at the table. “Did you ring the council members?”
“Polly did. They’ll all be at the town hall at half past two.” Violet dished up a bowl of the soup and carried it over to the table. “Here, eat that. You look a bit frazzled.”
Elizabeth ran a hand though her tangled locks. “It was that beastly shower this morning. It soaked my hat. I don’t think it will ever be the same again.”
“Panama hats are not supposed to be worn in the rain.”
Death Is in the Air Page 9