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by Gladys Mitchell


  “And this satisfied the Colonel?”

  “They said he certainly seemed a bit happier, but blustered again when they said they’d like to speak to his wife, so they agreed that he should stay in the room while she was questioned.”

  “But he did not do so?”

  “Now how do you know that?”

  “I was asking a question, not making a statement.”

  “Well, you seem to have made a shrewd guess, then. Mrs Batty-Faudrey put on a grande dame act and became very haughty, so apparently the Colonel decided that she was more than equal to the situation, and slid out, leaving her to cope. This she did remarkably well.”

  “Could she account for her movements on the evening of Spey’s death?”

  “Yes, she could. She went to a Soroptimist meeting at which she introduced the speaker and acted as chairman.”

  “So she cannot give an account of what Giles and the Colonel did at the time?”

  “Not with any certainty. She thinks they watched television. She had invited the speaker and a couple of Soroptimist members to tea, a ceremony from which the Colonel and Giles had opted out, and she did not see either of the men again until she got back from her meeting. That, she thinks, was at about half-past ten, because, when the meeting was over, the Soroptimists threw a sherry party.”

  “Where was the meeting held?”

  “At the Town Hall, because the Mayoress, who is a member, gave the sherry party in the Mayor’s parlour.”

  “Oh, well, all that must be true, because it would be so easy to check on it. Besides, whoever the guilty person may be, it cannot be Mrs Batty-Faudrey.”

  “No, I don’t think it could possibly be a woman at all, because of the nature of the crimes.”

  “I wonder at what point it was suggested to Mr Spey that he should retain his Henry VIII costume in order to be photographed wearing it?”

  “The only person who might have been able to tell us is Gordon, and, of course, he is dead. I still don’t see why there was such a long gap between Spey’s death and his own.”

  “Oh, I explained that to Laura. Mr Perse’s second pageant was seen as a trap, and, so far as the murderer knew, Gordon was the only person who could spring it. Gordon’s murder was a panic measure, so, of course, was Spey’s. It is highly probable that neither man had an inkling of the murderer’s identity.”

  “Why should he have thought Spey had?”

  “Spey must have lingered in the Town Hall for a little while after Gordon had gone over to the public house. The murderer’s guilty conscience did the rest.”

  “So he has a conscience, has he?”

  “His wife has seen to that. The next thing is to interview the girl on whose behalf Mr Luton tackled Giles Faudrey on the night of the dress rehearsal.”

  “You think Luton believed that the girl laid her ruin at Giles Faudrey’s door, as the saying is?”

  “Oh, no. I am sure that Mr Luton had extracted the correct information from the girl and had expected to confront the Colonel with his evidence. Finding nobody but Giles at home, he confided it to him instead, and Giles, who is a thorough-paced young scoundrel, saw a golden opportunity to blackmail his uncle in return for keeping the bad news from his aunt.”

  “You’d think that the old man would have murdered the girl if only he’d had the opportunity.”

  “He cannot have had the opportunity, but, apart from that, I am quite certain that Mr Luton was able to assure Giles that nobody else—not even the girl’s mother—knew the truth. The girl’s mother believed that Giles was the baby’s father.”

  “Then why didn’t she denounce him?”

  “Why should she, when the money was coming in so regularly?—the Colonel’s money, of course.”

  “You don’t know that for certain, though, do you?”

  “I thought it was perfectly obvious, but you could find out.”

  Laura returned half-an-hour after her husband had left the house.

  “Oh,” she said, “so Gavin’s been here, has he? I smell his pipe. What does he think about things?”

  “He is convinced that Giles Faudrey is a blackmailer and that Colonel Batty-Faudrey is a murderer.”

  “Ah, that’s what I was coming to. It can’t be true, you know. The whole thing’s out of character.”

  “In what way, child?”

  “In every way. I can see why the Colonel might have murdered Falstaff, and, in a panic, thought he’d better get rid of Spey and Gordon. But why the elaboration? Why put Falstaff and basket in the Thames? Why decapitate Henry VIII and hang Edward III from the Druid’s Oak?”

  “I thought we had settled all that.”

  “If the murderer was Giles Faudrey, yes, but not if he’s the Colonel.”

  “Much more so. The Colonel, as an old campaigner, is not destitute of cunning, nor is he afraid of a little bloodshed. It is because he has the name for being…”

  “An old stick-in-the-mud?”

  “Yes, if you care to phrase it so—that the ritualistic nature of his behaviour (after the straightforward killing was done) would deflect suspicion from him. Your own reactions give me the impression that his instinct in the matter was sound. Incidentally, there was a little more in it than that.”

  “But why go to the length of murdering people? Why didn’t he stick to stout denial—always a sound defence, so long as you don’t weaken.”

  “He did not think that stout denial would stand him in good stead if his peccadillo came to the ears of Mrs Batty-Faudrey. She had already seen him with a girl on his knee when Mr Luton (inadvertently or not) turned the lights up at an unfortunate moment during the masque at Squire’s Acre Hall some two years ago. She is not the woman either to forgive or forget such an episode.”

  “You mean his name was mud with her, and she’d have been only too ready to believe he’d got that servant of theirs into trouble? But, after all, what was he scared of? These things have been hushed up before and they’ll be hushed up again.”

  “He was terrified of the divorce court.”

  “But surely, for her own sake, Mrs Batty-Faudrey wouldn’t really have gone as far as that!”

  “Well, it is my firm conviction that the Colonel thought she would. And, remember, he probably has nothing to live on but his Army pension. His wife owns Squire’s Acre and holds the purse-strings, as she pointed out at that lunch we gave her.”

  “Poor wretched old man!” said Laura. “Well, the police have yet to find out how the murder of Gordon was contrived. What did you mean, by the way, when you said, a while ago, that there was a little more in it than an attempt at camouflage when he did those strange and rather beastly things with the bodies?”

  “I have already explained that. Think back a little.”

  “Oh—success or non-success with women! All the Colonel could do was to take a willing turtle-dove on his knee in a darkened chamber, and get a servant-girl, who was either too terrified or too flattered to prevent it, with child. Well, I wonder what the end of it will be? The local police aren’t going to like the idea of arresting him, you know.”

  The local police were not faced with this unpleasant necessity. Gavin called next day with the news that the girl had named the Colonel, and not Giles, as the father of her baby, and that the Colonel had blown his brains out.

  “Giles has been arrested as an accessory after the fact,” added Gavin. “There’s no doubt the Colonel may have needed help in getting Spey’s body to the private road where it was found, but, even if he didn’t, Giles must have known about the murder of Spey, since both he and his uncle were together at Squire’s Acre that night. As for stringing up Gordon, well, there it is almost certain two men must have been involved.”

  “Has anything more come to light concerning the death of Gordon?” asked Dame Beatrice.

  “No, it hasn’t, so far as actual proof is concerned, but I think we are entitled to guess what must have happened. Gordon was very much in evidence, it seems, during Perse’s
pageant. He was with his class, watching the Romans at the bottom of Ferry Lane in the morning, and he was with the children again at the Garter ceremony in the Town Hall. We think he was followed home by Giles and persuaded—probably didn’t really need persuasion—to show up at the Butts for the eighteenth-century election. He could have been throttled there under cover of the riot between the louts and the Grammar School. It was practically, if not quite, dark by the time that fight got under way, I’m told. We know Giles was at the Butts at the beginning of the affair, probably spying out the lie of the land. Of course, we shall never be able to prove whether we’re right about this, unless Giles chooses to come clean, and I doubt whether he will.”

  “The Colonel may have left a confession which implicates Giles,” suggested Laura. Her husband shook his head.

  “If he did, it’s been destroyed,” he said. “We’ve searched Squire’s Acre thoroughly. By the way, Laura, when you found the head you might also have found the axe. We had to do a lot of dredging for it, but it turned up all right in the end.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The Special Sub-Committee Disbands

  “…should be grateful for their diligence in setting down, and preserving these details of the life of the old town at a time when the whole country was passing through internal troubles of a most serious nature.”

  « ^

  It was a year or two later.

  “It having been signified by the powers that be,” said Alderman Topson, the chairman, “as how we are soon to lose our identity as a separate borough and be merged with the towns of Gistleward and Hansbury Heath in accordance with some…”

  “Bloody nonsense!” interpolated Councillor Beaton.

  “Some interference enacted by them as ought to have their heads examined, it becomes our duty, being the special-appointed sub-committee for the purpose, to seek ways and means of bringing the said merger to the attention of the public, most of which is apathetic to the point at issue. The Chair is open to any suggestions.”

  “It won’t do a scrap of good. The whole thing is signed, sealed and settled,” said Councillor Perry. He had touched off gunpowder.

  “It’s a crying shame, that’s what it is!”

  “It’s a politician’s bit of homework, no doubt about that!”

  “There’s no damn’ sense in it!”

  “We were a market town when Gistleward and Hansbury Heath were a couple of little villages!”

  “We’ll be losing our very name, next thing you know. It’s iniquitous! It didn’t ever ought to have been allowed. Them as did it should be strung up on lamp-posts!”

  “Can’t be done! Hanging’s finished, and what I say—”

  “This,” said the chairman, “is not going to get us nowhere. Suggestions is what we’re asked for, not a lot of bellyaching about something as can’t be helped. I’m agreeable with all that’s been said, but that ain’t what we’re here for. Now, who’s going to make a suggestion?”

  “What about an inter-district sports day? I reckon our schoolchildren could make rings round all of theirs.”

  “Ah, they could do that all right, and we could follow it up with a swimming gala. What have we got a Public Baths for?”

  “That’s all too ordinary. We want something more striking. What about tolling the church bells and having a service on funeral lines, with hymns appropriate?”

  “Why don’t we have a town crier to go round and say we’re going to cut down the Druids’ Oak and make a bonfire of the logs? Symbolic, if you see what I mean.”

  “You don’t want a bonfire of the logs. Auction ’em off, is what I say. Make very nice souvenirs, they would, and the money could go towards a tea for the old folks, with black-edged invitation cards and a chocolate cake as centrepiece.”

  “A competition for the best letter sent to the local newspaper saying what people think about the merger, and advising them not to mince their adjectives.”

  “A bit dicey, that idea,” said the chairman. “An action for libel might be brought. I should have to ask the Town Clerk.”

  “You might be able to persuade one of the Sunday papers to print the letters, if they were sufficiently scurrilous,” said Councillor Perse, who, tongue in cheek, had proposed the competition. “Or the B.B.C. might be interested—in a different way, of course. Panorama might give us a spotlight, or perhaps Tonight would do it. There’s been a lot of feeling about these mergers. I don’t believe the public is as apathetic as you say, especially if rates go up.”

  “We could lobby our M.P. and see if he couldn’t do something for us. These plans haven’t happened yet. There might still be time to get things altered, don’t you reckon? Seems to me…”

  “Don’t you believe it! It’s all cut and dried, I tell you! All we can do is make Gistleward and Hansbury Heath damned well sit up and take notice!”

  “Now, look,” said the chairman, “this sub-committee is on the wrong lines. We got to be constructive. All you’re doing is fashioning spanners to throw into the works. You won’t stop the machinery, but you will make for a lot of nasty ill-feeling. Now, let’s make a fresh start. We can show we disapprove without going out of our way to get ourself disliked. I daresay Gistleward and Hansbury Heath feel just the same as we do, if the truth was only known. It’s up to us, I reckon, although strongly disapproving, to act like gents and ladies and not lose none of our dignity.”

  “Well, then, to mark the occasion of the merger, what about excusing all the Council tenants a full week’s rent?”

  “That,” said the chairman austerely, “would lead to rejoicing, not disapproval, so that suggestion is Out. Now, then, Alderman Mrs Skifforth, I don’t think you’ve spoke yet.”

  “No, I haven’t. I’ve got an idea, but I don’t think I’ll put it forward. I don’t know, on thinking it over, how it will be received,” said the newly-created Alderman.

  “Oh, come, now! Make a contribution,” urged the chairman. “It’s up to all of us to put forward any suggestions.”

  “I’d really rather not.”

  “Well, then, before we go any further,” said a Councillor who happened also to be the landlord of The Hat With Feather “while the Alderman is making up her mind—which, as the only lady member of this sub-committee, I’m sure her ideas would be most welcome—I think, if you’d just stretch out from where you’re sitting, Councillor Perse, there’s some sherry in that cupboard, which, with permission of the Chair…” he looked enquiringly at Topson… “we might possibly sample while we’re waiting. Whisky for them that prefers, and there’s plenty of bottled beer.”

  “Well, thank you, Councillor Selby,” said the chairman. “After all, it’s a poor heart that never rejoices, as they say, and, of course, this merger might help out with the rates. Gistleward’s mostly residential, but there’s plenty of shops and factories in Hansbury Heath. I declare the meeting adjourned pro tem for twenty minutes. After that we’ll have to get on. There’s a full Council meeting at nine.”

  Whether or not two glasses of excellent sherry played any part in the matter, it transpired, after the interval, that Alderman Mrs Skifforth had abandoned her show of reluctance and was prepared to share her thoughts with the meeting.

  “I wondered,” she said, “whether we could have a torchlight procession—real torches, I mean, not electric bulb things-and beat the bounds for the very last time. I thought it would make a nice ending.”

  “I like that idea. It’s classy,” said the chairman. “It’s poetical and it’s local and it’s historic, and, whatever else we think of, we ought to include it in. Those in favour? Thank you. Carried unanimous.” He stared hard at Mr Perse, but that gentleman had raised a languid hand. “Well, now, anything else? We’ll have to be careful who’s to be handed the job of carrying them torches, by the way.”

  “It ought to be the Mayor and Corporation,” said Mr Perse, “and then, if the borough goes up in smoke, the accumulated rates will come in useful for re-building.”

/>   The chairman rapped on the table with his knuckles.

  “Order! Order! Any more suggestions?” he demanded. Time’s getting on, and frivolious comment is out of place. Now, then. We haven’t got very far yet.”

  “I vote we do the whole thing in the evening. What was that play where the chap took the head round in a hat-box?” asked Councillor Perry.

  “Do you mind?” pleaded Alderman Mrs Skifforth. “We’ve had enough of that sort of thing in Brayne, I should have thought!”

  “No offence. The title was all I meant. What was that thing called now? I took my missus to see it. It give her nightmare. Night…night…”

  “Night Must Fall,” said Councillor Perse.

  “That’s it. So in the evening we beat the bounds by torchlight, like the Alderman says, and then, when night has done falling, as you may say, why not follow up with fireworks in the park? Everybody likes fireworks.”

  “Ah, that’s it, fireworks,” said Councillor Selby. “A set piece of the Queen to finish up with, and we could floodlight the Mayor in his chain and robes and get a couple of planes to write Brayne For Ever right across the sky.”

  “Followed by singing Auld Lang Syne.”

  “Abide With Me, I reckon.”

  “Lead, Kindly Light ’ud be more like it, wouldn’t it?”

  “Procession of boats on the river, with lanterns and that, and the Eton Boating Song.”

  “Why the Eton Boating Song? Eton’s nothing to do with us,” said Councillor Beaton.

  The Councillor who had suggested it hummed the tune.

  “I thought that was the old-fashioned waltz,” said Beaton. “I done some of my courting to that tune.”

 

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