The Nursery Rhyme Murders

by Gerald Verner

  “Well, we haven’t actually given it up,” remarked Mr. Budd gently. “We can’t neglect the possibility until we’ve proved it to be wrong. Let’s say that the probabilities point to its not havin’ been suicide.”

  He scratched the lowest of his many chins and pursed up his lips.

  Roger was not impressed. It seemed to him that this stout, sleepy-eyed man, who spoke so slowly and deliberately, was unlikely to be much good at discovering anything. A very large number of people had suffered under the same delusion.

  “What do you want to ask me?” he demanded curtly.

  Mr. Budd regarded him through half-closed eyes. He was perfectly well aware what he was thinking. He had seen the same expression so often before and it invariably gave him a great deal of inward amusement. He had also found it invaluable in the past, to create just this impression on people. They were so very apt, to their cost sometimes, to underestimate the quickness of the brain behind that lethargic exterior.

  “Well, sir,” he said after a pause. “I’d like to hear your account of your sister’s movements on the day prior to her death. Was she in her usual spirits? Did she seem to have somethin’ on her mind? Did she have any letters or telephone calls that mornin’ or durin’ the day? Just tell me everythin’ you can remember. Don’t try an’ pick out the things you think might be important. You can leave me to sort them out. Just give me the lot, sir.”

  Roger gave him the lot. And when it was all said and done it amounted to very little. Sybil had spent that last day very much like any other. She hadn’t gone out except for a brief walk in the garden. She hadn’t had any letters, at least not to his knowledge, or any telephone calls, again as far as he knew. She had certainly seemed worried and dispirited, but then that had been her normal state recently. Roger explained that he had found this change in her when he had returned from abroad.

  Mr. Budd listened quietly until Roger had finished. Then he said: “And you had no idea of anythin’ that would account for this change in your sister, sir?”

  Roger hesitated for a moment.

  “I thought it was due to her husband’s behaviour,” he said, and explained Sir Basil’s addiction to horse-racing and pretty women. “I’m quite sure I was wrong, now,” he ended. “There was something else.”

  Mr. Budd nodded.

  “I think you’re prob’ly right,” he said. “I believe, Lady Conyers retired early that night?”

  “Yes,” answered Roger. “Very soon after dinner.”

  “An’ nobody saw her after that until her body was found in the mornin’?”

  “So far as I know that is correct.”

  Mr. Budd continued to scratch his chin.

  “There’s nothin’ you heard, or noticed, that night that ’ud be likely to help us?” he asked after a pause, and Roger shook his head.

  “If there had been I should have mentioned it before,” he said.

  “Ah—yes, no doubt you would,” remarked Mr. Budd staring up at a corner of the ceiling. “Of course, you would. Well, I think that will be all for the moment, Mr. Marsden. Perhaps you’d ask one of the other people here to step in?”

  Roger nodded.

  “Any one in particular?” he inquired.

  “No—no, just as they happen to be available,” said Mr. Budd helpfully. “I’ll be seein’ ’em all, so it don’t matter in what order.”

  “We’ve been over all this, you know,” remarked Inspector Crutchley when Roger had gone.

  “Yes, yes, I know,” agreed the stout superintendent. “But I like to get these things first hand, if you know what I mean?”

  The inspector looked as if he not only knew what he meant but privately thought that the whole thing was a waste of time. If this, he thought, was the way Scotland Yard went about things, it was a wonder to him how it ever got any results at all.

  Mrs. Mortlock came in. She came in very quickly, and there was almost an eager light in her eyes as they swept over the little group by the fireplace.

  “This is a terrible affair—terrible,” she said breathlessly. “It’s been a great shock to us all, especially my poor step-brother.”

  “You’re Mrs. Mortlock, are you, m’am?” said Mr. Budd. He eyed her sleepily, and came to the conclusion that whether it was a shock to her or not, she was thoroughly enjoying it. A good-looking woman, but with a hard mouth that was reflected in her eyes. “I’d like you to tell us anything you can about the day preceding Lady Conyers tragic death.”

  Mrs. Mortlock was only too willing. She burst into a flood of speech, describing in detail everything that had happened. But there was nothing that they had not already heard from Roger Marsden.

  “Poor dear Sybil hadn’t been very well, you know, for some time past,” she said. “All those headaches she suffered from. I always said she ought to have done something about it. I’m afraid my step-brother was to blame for that. He never would take them seriously. It was his opinion that all she needed was more exercise and fresh air. But, of course, it was much more serious than he imagined. As this terrible affair has proved. . . .”

  “You think these headaches had somethin’ to do with her death?” asked Mr. Budd as she paused for breath.

  “Why, of course,” declared Mrs, Mortlock. “They must have affected her mind, poor dear. That’s why she did it.”

  “It’s your opinion that Lady Conyers took her own life?” inquired Mr. Budd gently.

  Mrs. Mortlock nodded.

  “I’m quite sure of it,” she said. “I’m the only member of the household who thinks so, but I have no doubt whatever. She had been behaving most peculiarly for a long time. She would sit staring at nothing and never hear you if you spoke to her. I’m quite certain that her mind was slightly deranged.”

  “How do you account for this bit out of a nursery rhyme that was scribbled on her bedroom door?” asked Mr. Budd.

  Mrs. Mortlock shrugged the nursery rhyme out of existence.

  “People who are not quite themselves sometimes do strange things,” she answered. “Any other explanation is ridiculous. Nobody would want to poison Sybil—that’s absurd. She must have done it herself.”

  “Are you suggestin’, m’am,” said Mr. Budd, “that Lady Conyers’ mind was so badly deranged that she suffered from homicidal tendencies?”

  Mrs. Mortlock looked really shocked.

  “Good gracious, no!” she exclaimed. “What on earth put such an idea into your head?”

  “It seems to me,” explained the stout man, “that that ’ud be the only way to account for your theory that the poor lady committed suicide.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

  Mr. Budd stifled a yawn.

  “It couldn’t be a coincidence,” he said, “that there was another bit out of the same nursery rhyme on the door of Jackson’s Folly, where that feller was killed. So the only conclusion you can come to is that, if as you think, Lady Conyers wrote the one on her door, she must’ve written the other. An’ that implies that she was responsible for the death of Sam Sprigot. . . .”

  “That’s impossible—impossible,” said Mrs. Mortlock, but there was no conviction in her voice.

  “There’s evidence that she was there that night,” said Mr. Budd. “The scarf we found belonged to Lady Conyers. . . .”

  “But she didn’t take it there,” broke in a voice from the door. “I’ll tell you who took it there.”

  They turned quickly.

  Tony Harper was standing on the threshold.

  Chapter Seven

  He had come in so quietly that no one had heard him until he spoke. His face was strained, and Mr. Budd thought that he looked like someone who was near the point of physical exhaustion.

  “Well now, sir,” said the stout superintendent smoothly, “That’s very interestin’. So you can tell us how Lady Conyers’ scarf came to be found in Jackson’s Folly, eh? Would you first mind tellin’ us who you are?”

  It was Mrs. Mortlock who supplied the informa
tion.

  “This is Mr. Harper, my step-brother’s secretary and estate manager,” she said, and the newcomer shot her a quick and rather resentful look. “I can’t imagine how you know anything about the scarf,” she continued. “You’ve never mentioned it before. . . .”

  “No, sir,” broke in Inspector Crutchley. “I questioned every one in the house about that scarf, including you, and you never said anything then.”

  “Didn’t I?” The tone of Harper’s voice was a little defiant. “Well, maybe I didn’t. . . .”

  “Why was that?” said Mr. Budd in his most avuncular manner. “You must’ve realised that it was important. .?”

  “I didn’t want to make more trouble than there was already,” replied Harper. “If you want to know who took that scarf, it was Sir Basil.”

  “Basil!” exclaimed Mrs. Mortlock. “What nonsense . . .!”

  “Oh no, it’s not nonsense,” retorted Harper. “He took it. I saw him.”

  “I don’t believe a word of it,” began Mrs. Mortlock angrily, but Mr. Budd stopped her.

  “Just a minute, m’am, if you please,” he said. “Let’s get this straight. You saw Sir Basil Conyers take this scarf belonging to Lady Conyers, to Jackson’s Folly?”

  “I didn’t see him actually take it to Jackson’s Folly,” said Harper. “But I saw him pick it up and put it in his pocket before he went out.”

  Mrs. Mortlock uttered a sound that was suspiciously like a snort, but the big man ignored her.

  “Tell us exactly what happened, sir,” he said.

  “It was just after dinner,” explained Harper. “Lady Conyers was carrying the scarf when she came down. She put it on the back of her chair when she sat down to dinner. When she left the table it was still on the back of her chair. Sir Basil picked it up and put it in the pocket of his dinner jacket. . . .”

  “I don’t remember anything of the sort,” snapped Mrs. Mortlock.

  “You’d already gone into the drawing-room,” said Harper. “There was only Sir Basil and I left in the dining-room.”

  “I can’t understand, sir,” said Inspector Crutchley, frowning. “Why you couldn’t have told us this before.”

  “Neither can I,” declared Mrs. Mortlock. “However, it’s quite easily settled, isn’t it? Sir Basil will be able to confirm it, if it’s true.”

  “If you think I’m lying . . .” began Tony Harper, aggressively.

  “We have to check these sort o’ things, you know,” interrupted Mr. Budd diplomatically. “Shortly after what you’ve been tellin’ us, Sir Basil went out, didn’t he?”

  “Yes,” answered Harper sullenly. “He forced himself on Angela. . . .”

  “Really,” said Mrs. Mortlock indignantly. “I don’t think it’s necessary to go into all that. . . .”

  But Mr. Budd thought otherwise and said so. He insisted that Tony Harper should give a detailed account of what had happened, and Harper did so.

  “It can have nothing to do with this other matter at all,” said Mrs. Mortlock disapprovingly. “There was nothing in it. Just that my step-brother preferred to have company during his walk than to go alone. As a matter of fact he left Miss Trevor in the village. . . .”

  “Oh, he did, did he?” said Mr. Budd with interest. “Now, where did he go?”

  “I understand,” retorted Mrs. Mortlock, “that he went to the Bull.”

  “I see,” remarked the big man. “What time did he come back?”

  “I can’t tell you,” she answered. “I went up to my room soon after he went out.”

  Mr. Budd looked at Harper but he shook his head.

  “I can’t tell you, either,” he said. “I never saw Sir Basil again that night. I had some work to do and I spent the rest of the evening doing it. I’ve a work-room near my bedroom.”

  Inspector Crutchley cleared his throat.

  “You heard somebody come in late, m’am, didn’t you?” he interpolated. “I remember you asking Miss Trevor and Sir Basil if it was either of them.”

  She flushed, and there was an expression of annoyance on her face as she replied:

  “I did think I heard someone about. But that was very late.”

  “How late?” demanded Mr. Budd quickly.

  “I don’t know—it must have been after twelve. I had been in bed some time.”

  “Is your room on the same floor as Lady Conyers?”

  “Yes. It’s at the other end of the corridor.”

  “What was the sound you heard. Somebody moving about?”

  “Yes. I thought I heard somebody come up the stairs. . . .”

  “And pass your door?”

  She shook her head.

  “No, they didn’t pass my door. It was a very faint sound. I may have been mistaken.”

  “Where’s this work-room of yours, sir?” asked Mr. Budd, turning his sleepy eyes on Harper.

  “On the floor above Mrs. Mortlock’s,” said Harper. “It wasn’t me she heard, if that’s what you mean. I never came down again.”

  Mr. Budd asked several more questions but he failed to elicit anything further of interest. Neither was he more successful with Angela Trevor.

  She had started off with Sir Basil but he had left her in the village. Almost immediately after he left her it had started to rain. She had taken shelter in the church porch until it had stopped for a while, and then gone back to Marbury Court. She didn’t see anybody on her return and had gone straight up to her room.

  They sought out the maid who had taken up the glass of water which Lady Conyers had every night. She was a buxom girl who had been in service at the Court since she had left school. She had taken up the water while everyone was at dinner. She had taken it early because, lately, Lady Conyers had been in the habit of going to bed early and she didn’t like to be disturbed. The maid had heard nothing during the night. She slept with the other servants at the top of the other wing so it was unlikely that she would have.

  Inspector Crutchley, who had been over all this ground before Mr. Budd’s arrival in Marbury, was obviously bored. He was even more so when the stout man suggested that they should visit Lady Conyers’ bedroom. However, he agreed with as good a grace as possible, and unlocked the door.

  Mr. Budd stood on the threshold and looked round the dainty, beautifully furnished room with sleepy interest. The room had not been touched since the tragedy and, after a moment or two, he moved about slowly, peering at the various articles that lay scattered about just as Lady Conyers had left them.

  Leek and Crutchley watched him from the doorway, the latter rather impatiently.

  The glass of water and the sleeping tablets had been removed and tested for fingerprints, but there had been none with the exception of Lady Conyers’ own.

  “We searched the whole place thoroughly,” said Inspector Crutchley in answer to a murmured question from the big man. “There was nothing to help us in this business.”

  “It seems that if it was murder,” remarked Mr. Budd. “It must have been an inside job. I don’t see how anyone could’ve got in from outside very easily. Let’s go an’ see the gardener.”

  This did surprise the inspector.

  “Why do you want to see him?” he demanded.

  “They’ve got some very nice roses here,” answered the stout superintendent. “Very nice, indeed. Now, roses are a hobby o’ mine. I’ve got some o’ the best roses you ever saw at my little place at Streatham. Beautiful things.”

  Inspector Crutchley was not in the least interested in roses. He said so.

  “Ah,” said Mr. Budd, shaking his head sorrowfully. “You’ve missed a lot in life if you don’t like roses. One o’ the loveliest flowers in the world, that’s what they are.”

  They found the gardener just on the point of going home to his cottage. They were lucky to have found him at all, as he explained at some length. If he hadn’t been finishing putting in some cuttings in the greenhouse, they wouldn’t have done.

  Mr. Budd launched into admiration of
the roses, and Leek and the inspector stood patiently by while they compared notes concerning pruning, budding, grafting, and the best fertilizer.

  The conversation developed into a discussion on various kinds of garden pests.

  “There’s one thin’,” remarked Mr. Budd, “that I can’t stand. Wasps. They scare me stiff. I expect you get a lot of ’em round here?”

  The gardener admitted that they did get a good few. He pointed to an old tree trunk that sprawled picturesquely by a grass covered bank.

  “Found a nest there t’other week,” he informed them. “Dratted things. Got stung, I did.”

  “There’s a nest at Kenwiddy’s,” said Mr. Budd unblushingly, and to Leek’s surprise. “Down at the bottom of the garden. . . .”

  “There’s only one way ter take a wasps nest,” said the gardener. “An’ that’s cyanide. Sulphur ain’t no good, but cyanide finishes the beggers afore they know what’s ’appened to ’em.”

  Inspector Crutchley’s expression changed. So this was why Mr. Budd had been so eager to talk to the gardener? His respect, which had been rapidly fading, took a turn in the opposite direction.

  “I agree with you,” said Mr. Budd. “I s’pose you couldn’t let me have a bit? I’d like to take that nest.”

  “You can ’ave some, an’ welcome,” said the gardener. “I’ve got a packet over in the shed.”

  He led the way over to a toolshed, opened the door and went in. Going over to a shelf that stretched along one wall and was littered with all kinds of odd jars and bottles, he put up his hand to a spot near the other end.

  And then he stopped, with his gnarled old fingers still crooked to take down the packed he had expected to find.

  “Well now, that be queer,” he said wonderingly. “It’s gone. It was ’ere last week. I wonder who could a’ took it?”

  Mr. Budd wondered too. But he didn’t have to wonder “why”.

  That was where the cyanide had come from that had killed Lady Conyers.

  Chapter Eight

  “Now we know where the cyanide came from,” remarked Mr. Budd as they left Marbury Court.