Murder in the Afternoon: A Kate Shackleton Mystery

by Frances Brody

  ‘Yes. If they’d been any bigger you’d call them vulgar, gypsy like.’

  ‘Thank you, Pamela.’

  ‘That kitten, what colour is it if it’s not entirely ginger?’

  I pictured the peculiar little creature. ‘It’s ginger, tabby and white.’

  ‘Oh.’ She could not hide her disappointment. ‘Mrs Hood said it was a ginger tom.’

  ‘I’ve no idea what sex it is.’

  Marcus was listening in the hall. We went back into the drawing room before he spoke. ‘So who is the mysterious Mrs Alexander?’

  ‘Georgina Conroy.’

  He sighed. ‘You have a limited choice of suspects.’

  ‘That’s not the reason. It’s her jewellery.’

  ‘Pamela is suggestible. You gave her the information.’

  ‘Georgina married Bob Conroy in January, 1922. I remember seeing the date in the church register and thinking that he took his time to find a wife. Bob and his brother Simon jointly owned the farm. Four months later, Simon was dead – an accident, tumbling into the quarry while trying to rescue a lamb.’

  ‘Yes, an accident.’

  ‘With Simon out of the way, the farm is owned by Bob, and when he dies, in another accident, it will come to her. She’ll move on. I asked her about the advertisement that was in Ethan’s pocket. She claimed to know nothing about it.’

  ‘Did you ask Bob about it?’

  ‘Yes, but by then she’d told him to say nothing, probably claiming she would be embarrassed to own up to her method of finding a man. He was holding something back. I should have pressed him.’

  ‘I’ll interview him. But he was drunk when the fire started, Kate. She didn’t arrange that.’

  ‘She’s clever, takes advantage of whatever opportunity comes her way.’

  Marcus reached for my hand and said softly, ‘And she lets Mary Jane off the hook because she has a reversible cape? I don’t think so.’

  There was no point arguing. If I did, it would only fix him more firmly on Mary Jane. So I simply tried to offer him another idea. ‘Ethan went to see Georgina, supposedly to confide in her about his marital troubles with Mary Jane. What if he went to see her because he knew she had schemed to have Bob sell the farm? Ethan had found the latest advertisement, the exact same wording as her previous one, and he knew she was behind it.’

  ‘There’s an awful lot of supposition there, Kate.’

  I had said too much. A hint should have been enough. If Marcus would not investigate Georgina Conroy, then Sykes and I would. But his doubts dented my confidence.

  The telephone rang.

  Pamela got to it first.

  A moment later, she opened the drawing room door. ‘Mr Charles, it’s the station master at Leeds, wishing to speak to you.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Marcus went into the hall. I did not follow him, to watch him pick up the speaking device, to listen to half a conversation. I waited.

  Either this was nothing to do with the well provided woman, Mrs Alexander, or I was right and she and her advertisement amounted to something. Only it could not be Georgina Conroy. Even the voice was wrong.

  Pamela stepped into the room and closed the door on Marcus’s conversation.

  She looked sheepish. Had she come to tell me that the kitten would not be suitable?

  ‘What is it, Pamela?’

  ‘That lady visitor, when I said about her hands.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘She has a wart on her right middle finger. Was I right to notice it? No one can help warts can they?’

  ‘No, I suppose not. Thank you, Pamela.’

  ‘Do you think …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I could take the tram to where you live, and I could look at the kittens.’

  Wakefield must be teeming with unwanted cats, but Sookie’s strange hybrid intrigued. ‘What a good idea,’ I said, trying to make myself sound convincing.

  She looked pleased with herself. ‘I’ll talk to your mother about it.’

  When Marcus came back, his face was unreadable. He looked at me as though I had hailed from another planet, and then he said, ‘It looks as if you may have been right.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Mrs Alexander took off her wig and spectacles in the ladies’ room at Leeds railway station. She emerged blonde and rather well less well endowed than the person who called here, and with her cape reversed to bottle green. She may not be connected to the murder, Kate, but she’s up to something. Your father had the ticket collector report on her destination. Great Applewick.’

  ‘Georgina Conroy.’

  ‘It’s possible. I’m not jumping to conclusions. Sergeant Sharp will meet the train.’

  I felt a sense of panic. Sergeant Sharp would frighten her off. She’d bolt.

  He read the look on my face. ‘I want him only to confirm that she gets off the train, and make a note of the time, in case we need that information for evidence. I’d like some answers from that lady.’

  ‘About Ethan’s murder?’

  ‘Not yet. Personation is a misdemeanour but only if it’s for the purpose of fraud or to obtain property.’

  ‘Personation! Marcus, she killed Ethan.’

  ‘I’ll speed up the search warrant for the farm.’

  ‘Marcus, I have an idea.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘That farmhouse and the outbuildings will be devilish to search. There’s one person who’ll know every nook and cranny of the place.’

  ‘Bob Conroy? He’s in no fit state and he’s still under suspicion.’

  ‘The little girl, Millie. She’s browbeaten and scared of Mrs Conroy, but little girls look into everything. Let me go there with her, and see what we find.’

  Marcus frowned. ‘And have Mrs Conroy deny all knowledge of whatever you find, say that Mary Jane’s sister went to the house to incriminate her? No. We’ll do this in the usual way, Kate, no unorthodox methods.’

  ‘All right. But I have one small suggestion.’

  Four

  Austin stayed with his grandma, in the second house on the right in White Swan Yard. Safety in numbers, that seemed to be Millie’s feeling. She would only come with me to the farm if Harriet came too. The two girls sat side by side in the motor, sharing Gerald’s motoring coat, and with a blanket around them. The goggles were too big, but they did not seem to mind.

  I stopped the motor on the lane that led to Conroys’ farm, outside the farm cottage. Arthur opened the door, but it was Mrs Sharp, the police sergeant’s wife, who stepped forward to meet the children. Billy, the sheepdog, pushed past her and leaped at Millie, licking her face, wagging his tail.

  Harriet shot me a glance. ‘When can I see Mam?’

  ‘Soon.’

  I hoped it would be soon.

  When they had disappeared into the tiny cottage, I drove on, finally leaving the Jowett by the farm gate.

  Carrying my satchel and brown paper carrier bag, I stepped into the yard.

  Mrs Conroy took a long time to come to the door. While I waited, it struck me that a pie and a fruit cake might be overdoing the commiserations, and one would have been enough.

  She smiled with something like relief on seeing me. ‘Come in. I feared it would be bad news about Bob.’

  ‘Haven’t you seen him yet?’ I followed her into the spotless kitchen.

  ‘They keep promising. You know hospitals, never tell you a thing.’

  I handed her the carrier bag. ‘I thought you might not be up to preparing food.’

  She took the bag from me, and lifted the cake and pie onto the table. ‘Thank you, but I’ve no appetite.’

  I noticed the tea chest at the side of the table. She had been packing. When she saw me looking, she said, ‘No point in shillyshallying. Now the farm’s sold we shall move on just as soon as Bob’s well enough. The livestock is sold.’

  ‘Mrs Conroy, I want to ask you something.’

  ‘Sit down then.’ She sighed. ‘I’m
sorry I haven’t put on the kettle since this morning. But you’ll have a drink of something?’

  ‘Yes, if you’ll join me in a slice of cake.’

  ‘You’ve talked me into it.’

  She disappeared, returning with glasses, a bottle, plates and a sharp knife. ‘Ask away,’ she said as she cut into the fruit cake.

  For a few seconds, I couldn’t avert my eyes from her hands. A ring on each hand, one of them a buckle ring. From somewhere the words popped into my head. By our deeds will you know us. By our hands will you know us. ‘She has a wart on her middle finger,’ Pamela had said.

  She poured a glass of homemade wine.

  On the middle finger of her right hand, Georgina Conroy had a wart.

  ‘Mrs Conroy, when Ethan came to see you, what was that about?’

  She handed me a slice of cake. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any harm in telling you now, though I would hate to hurt Mary Jane.’

  I sipped the wine, a little sweet for my taste. ‘I can’t imagine what would make things worse for her than they are already.’

  ‘He came to me because he was unhappy, and he asked for my advice.’

  Poppycock. Why had Ethan really come? Because, voracious reader of newspapers, he had spotted her personal advertisement and linked it with a previous one that Bob Conroy had replied to.

  She poured a glass for herself and raised it to me. ‘Here’s to better times. All things will pass.’

  ‘Cheers.’ I raised my glass. ‘Why would Ethan have come to you, and not to Bob? After all, those two were old friends.’

  ‘I was a shoulder to cry on. Ethan and Bob had a fall out over something or other, like little boys. Ethan was dead set against Bob selling the farm, and there was something else too, but I’m not sure what.’

  I did not tell her that it was because Ethan had discovered Bob informed on him and his political activities. Perhaps she did not know that, though I guessed not much would pass this woman by. Keep her talking. Hope that she will give herself away.

  ‘Mrs Conroy, I’m trying to understand what was going on. This is a little awkward, but Mary Jane and your husband, were they … well, closer than they ought to be?’

  She bit her lip. ‘Do you know … Now that you say it, I wonder if Ethan did suspect something going on between Bob and Mary Jane. They always got on so well. There was something there when you saw them together, an understanding.’

  I took a chance. ‘Perhaps that’s why Ethan encouraged Bob to marry. Bob told me it was Ethan who urged him to answer your advertisement I think.’

  She looked at me quickly. Her lips parted but she said nothing.

  ‘Sorry. He did wish he hadn’t told me.’ I continued. ‘Of course Mary Jane didn’t know how you and Bob met. You’ll have to excuse that he told me. I caught him at a weak moment, in the churchyard, at his brother’s grave’

  She wouldn’t be able to catch me out in a lie, not with Bob in hospital and in no position to make a denial. No doubt she had sworn Bob to keep quiet about how they met. She was not speaking. I was meant to make her talk, and all the words were coming from me. She would be a hard nut to crack. ‘Bob said he’d seen you leave the vicarage. That you must have been having a word with Miss Trimble.’

  The denial came quickly, too quickly. Her lips formed a grim line. ‘What are you getting at? I did not leave the farm on Monday.’

  I had not mentioned Monday. Now it was my turn to wait.

  She steered the conversation. ‘I didn’t visit Miss Trimble. Bob went to see her. He was thinking of having a commemorative window designed in honour of his parents and his brother.’

  ‘Ah yes. His brother met with an accident shortly after you and Bob married.’ I kept my voice light, sympathetic, without a hint of accusation. ‘Miss Trimble thought she saw Mary Jane by the quarry. But that was you, wasn’t it?’

  She reached for the wine and poured herself a drop more, offering the same to me. I declined.

  Her hand was steady as she returned the bottle to the table and raised the glass. ‘It’s been such a bad business. It puts us all on edge. But you’re wrong.’

  ‘What puzzled me was Bob’s brother’s death, when he was searching for the lost lamb in the quarry. But then, there was no lost lamb was there? You told him a child had come reporting the lost lamb. No one ever found out who that child was. But of course there was no such child. You made that up. You went with him. You pushed him. That’s why no lamb was ever found.’

  She laughed. ‘Are you mad? Why would I do that?’

  ‘So that when you killed Bob, there would be no one else who could lay claim to a share of the farm. Only Ethan was very inconvenient. He’d noticed that you got a little ahead of yourself and advertised in the paper again. When I showed the advertisement to Bob, it gave him quite a shock.’

  ‘Have you told anyone about your wild ideas, Mrs Shackleton?’

  I turned the bottle around so that the label faced me. ‘Dandelion wine. It should be sweet, unless it’s laced with something. You should have stayed with Miss Trimble until she died.’

  For the first time, Georgina Conroy looked rattled. She rubbed the ball of her thumb against the wart on her finger. ‘She was dead.’ Immediately, she realised her mistake and tried to swallow her words. ‘The doctor pronounced her dead.’

  ‘She talked to me. She tried to tell me. You gave her a bitter drink, and told her it was dandelion wine. You thought there’d be plenty of time for her to die before her brother returned, and her housekeeper. She’d already begun to lose feeling in her feet, her legs, her lower body. But somehow she tumbled off the sofa, dragged herself across the room. And then there was me, being nosey.’

  Mrs Conroy grabbed at the sharp kitchen knife. As she lunged at me, I jumped from the chair, grasped the chair back and whipped it round, using it as a shield. She came at me. With all the force I could muster, I brought the chair down on her arm. The knife clattered to the floor. We faced each other.

  ‘Miss Trimble’s words meant nothing, until today, until you kindly brought out your homemade wine. Is that what you took with you when you visited her? Do you have a special dandelion wine recipe, for murder?’

  She stared at me, her face a mask. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I want to have Mary Jane freed, and she will be set free, because Bob has confessed. Mary Jane will need money. I expect as a well provided woman you already have a little nest egg. Is that why Ethan cut out your first advertisement, because he thought Bob would find a wife who could help him financially, bring the farm through difficult times?’

  ‘Oh yes, Ethan thought that all right, that I would pour good money into this place. A fool and money are soon parted, but I’m no fool. As a going concern, this farm isn’t worth a pint of sour milk. But I’m admitting nothing. Your accusations are preposterous.’

  ‘I don’t care what you’ve done. I want to help Mary Jane. Bob’s confessed to killing Ethan. Mary Jane will be freed, but she’ll need money.’

  ‘I like Mary Jane. If she needs money, I’ll help her. But what is it you want? Why are you saying these things to me?’ She was walking a tightrope of denial, and yet testing me out. Could I be bought?

  ‘For myself? Nothing, except to know why you killed Ethan.’

  We stood at some distance from each other. I still held onto the bentwood chair like a shield.

  ‘Why would I kill Ethan? Bob has confessed. You didn’t know Ethan. He had a sneaking admiration for me, someone who cocks a snook to all that’s holy. So what if I advertised for a husband?’

  At last, an admission. Would that be the only one? If Ethan had fallen out with Bob, he could still have wanted to spare his friend’s feelings, and his pocket, by giving Georgina a warning that she must leave without taking Bob’s money, the proceeds of the farm sale.

  My silence worked. She spoke again. ‘You can’t connect me to what happened to Ethan.’

  ‘We’ll see.’

  She gave a lopsided smile
that curdled my blood. ‘So … I’m a murderess am I? Well then, you think because we both drank from the same bottle of dandelion wine you are safe. But what you did not see was what I sprinkled at the bottom of your glass. If you’re helpful, I could fetch the antidote.’

  She was bluffing, or was she?

  ‘Then fetch the antidote for yourself, because I switched the glasses while you were cutting the cake.’

  She laughed. ‘Clever. You and Ethan would have liked each other.’

  ‘Yes, I think we might.’

  ‘Whereas Bob is a drippy sort, trailing on Ethan’s coat tails, slavering after Ethan’s wife.’

  She took a step towards me, and perhaps there was nothing threatening in it, but I didn’t take the chance. I brought the full of force of the bentwood chair down against her knees. ‘Is that how you felled Ethan before you hammered him to death?’

  She gave a cry of pain, and then, ‘You can’t prove a thing.’

  I am not usually a violent person, but there was one thing Georgina Conroy was right about. I would have liked my brother-in-law. And it made me angry to think of Harriet and Austin growing up without a father. All the same, I resisted the urge to execute her and claim self-defence.

  ‘I won’t have to prove anything, Mrs Conroy. But I have a feeling you’ll have an awful lot of questions to answer.’

  Through the window, I saw Marcus striding up the yard towards the house, his sergeant beside him, with the confident glow of a man with a search warrant in his pocket. Sergeant Sharp brought up the rear.

  I went outside.

  Marcus hurried towards me, motioning the other two on towards the farmhouse. ‘Kate! You were to wait in the farm cottage with the children.’

  ‘Oh? Sorry. I thought it might be helpful to make sure Mrs Conroy was home. Now, unfortunately, she’s had an argument with a chair.’

  ‘What was going on in there?’

  ‘Hold your horses, Marcus. I think you might be interested in what Mrs Conroy had to say.’

  I told him of our exchange, and about the mystery of Miss Trimble’s last words: bitter, dandy. ‘You’ll find the dandelion wine on the table, and more in the pantry I should think.’