Furious Old Women

by Bruce, Leo

  Rumble grinned.

  “Going to try the old woman?”

  “There are one or two things I want to ask her.”

  Rumble seemed amused at that.

  “I wish you luck,” he said darkly.

  “I gather you don’t approve of Miss Vaillant’s religious views?”

  “It’s not that. It’s the work it makes. Processions and that. She wants to start burning incense all over the place. It was Commander Fyfe who stopped that by asking what the Insurance people would say about it. I’ve got my job as verger without dressing up in lace and carrying a banner on a pole. Besides people don’t like it. The collections have fallen off since she started persuading the Reverend Waddell. We don’t get the weddings we did, either. Baptisms are down. And Confirmations are nowhere. It all means less for me and it’s little enough as it is. There was a lot of trouble last Ash Wednesday when she wanted the vicar to start smudging everyone’s faces with charcoal. Have you ever heard anything like it? Miss Griggs, the old lady that’s been done for, asked if she wanted to turn us all into chimney sweeps. The Reverend Waddell didn’t know what to do.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Well, he did her and no one else. That was his way out of it. She walked about looking as though she’d been cleaning out the grate and forgotten to wash. She couldn’t complain because she’d got what she wanted and Miss Griggs couldn’t say much either because no one else had it. But they were like two tiger cats, those two. Never knew two women hate one another as they did and the vicar’s wife hated the pair of them. Nice state of affairs.”

  “Very.”

  “You go across and see the old woman. She’s at home now. But don’t blame me if she won’t let you in. She’s very funny about things.”

  “I can only try,” said Carolus.

  “I hope you do find out who done it,” chuckled Rumble. “Though with no disrespect I can’t help smiling when I think how cross the old lady would have been if she’d known she was going to be banged on the head. She was one to fly into a fit of temper anytime. Well, all three of them were—Mrs Bobbin perhaps most of the lot. I often think it is a village for that. There was the lady who’s Gone and her two sisters, and my old woman who is as bad as any of them, and that Miss Vaillant, she’s got a temper too, and the vicar’s wife and one or two more. Not old Flo, though. You never see her put out whatever happens. But Mugger’s wife was another who flies off the handle at the least thing. You’ve never seen such tantrums as we have here. But it never bothers me. I just laugh.”

  “Very sensible. Tell me, since you worked for her you must have known something of Miss Millicent Griggs?”

  “Want me to tell you straight? “Rumble did. “That’s what she was. Mean with her sisters and everyone else. Always right, if you know what I mean. Do anyone a nasty turn. Not like that Miss Flora who is sincere in what she thinks.”

  “Thanks, Rumble.”

  “Well, I wish you luck with my old woman. Only if I see you flying down the road in a minute I shan’t be surprised.”

  As Carolus left him he heard him singing blithely. Hook, Line and Sinker was the number he chose to volley among the gravestones.

  Carolus decided that if he was to get any information from Mrs Rumble strategy would be necessary. He knocked loudly at the cottage door and when it was opened by a dishevelled and irritated woman with her mouth already open to abuse him he spoke before she could.

  “I’m enquiring about a pair of galoshes,” he said.

  The effect was as startling as he hoped. The lower jaw dropped farther and the eyes searched his. Then Mrs Rumble looked quickly up and down the street and said, “Come inside quick and let me shut the door.”

  In a musty and cold front room she faced Carolus with a defensive expression.

  “What galoshes?” she asked.

  “Don’t let’s beat about the bush, Mrs Rumble. You know quite well what I mean.”

  “I’ve never Took anything in my life,” she said. “Least of all out of the church.”

  “No?”

  “Certainly not. I wouldn’t if you was to pay me. Things left behind in the pews and that.”

  “What do you do with them?”

  “If there was anything left behind I should take it to the vicar.”

  “Did you take the galoshes to the vicar?”

  “I was going to. Soon as ever I had a minute.”

  “Did you tell him you’d found them?”

  “Not yet, I haven’t. I haven’t had a chance to turn round.”

  “When did you find them?”

  “Last Sunday morning. That’s the day before yesterday.”

  “Where were they?”

  “Pushed right underneath at the back of the church. They might have been there for weeks.”

  “You don’t know to whom they belonged?”

  “No. I don’t. If I did I’d have run straight round with them. It’s my belief they were left behind by some visitor a long while back.”

  “Wouldn’t you have found them, in that case?”

  “I might have if what I was paid for looking after the church was enough for me to be looking everywhere morning, noon and night, but it’s not. I can’t go washing and polishing on my hands and knees every day in every square inch of that yewje building, can I?”

  “I suppose not. Did you do all the cleaning in the church?”

  “All except the brass, I did. Miss Griggs liked to do that herself.”

  “Do you remember going over to the church on the morning when your husband found her body? The Friday morning, I mean.”

  “I’m not likely to forget it.”

  “Did you notice then whether the brass had been cleaned recently or not?”

  “Not then, I didn’t, but later in the day I did. I noticed it hadn’t been done for a week or more and I thought, I suppose that’ll be expected of me now that Miss Griggs isn’t any longer here to do it. Well, I can only do so much, I thought.”

  “You are quite sure no one had cleaned it or started to clean it on the previous afternoon?”

  “Certainly Miss Griggs hadn’t. She always started with the lectern which is a neagle with its wings holding up the Bible. Her father gave it to the church and she thought a lot of it. It was that I noticed that day. It was ever so tarnished all over.”

  “Thank you. That’s very helpful.”

  “Are you from the police, then?” asked Mrs. Rumble.

  “No. I’m just trying to find out who killed Miss Griggs.”

  “You don’t need to say anything about those galoshes, do you? It might be thought bad of.”

  “Certainly not. But if I may suggest it, I think you should report finding them.”

  Mrs Rumble looked at him dubiously then seemed to take a momentous decision.

  “I’d just put the kettle on when you knocked,” she said.

  Carolus waited.

  “I don’t know whether you’d like a cup of tea. Only you’d better come through to the kitchen where there’s a fire.”

  Comfortably seated in what he supposed was Rumble’s chair, Carolus prepared to ask more questions while the unprecedented affability of Mrs Rumble lasted.

  “I understand you work for Miss Vaillant?”

  “Well, I do, yes. I can’t give all my time to the church and it helps.”

  “You share her religious views, I believe?”

  “I wouldn’t call it that. Only I do think it brightens things up to have a bit of colour and music instead of psalms, psalms, psalms all the time. I don’t say I should want to go as far as what she would, especially when she came back from Spain last year and wanted to start teaching the choir to do a dance in the middle of the chancel. But if those Miss Griggses had their way it would be one long Bible meeting.”

  “You think Miss Vaillant sincere in what she wanted?”

  “Well, if the truth were known … I don’t know whether I ought to Speak …”

  “Yes?”

&
nbsp; “The truth is, she Drinks,” whispered Mrs Rumble. “There. Truth will out. Secret, of course. No one ever had any idea about it except Forster’s Stores over at Burley where she got the stuff and brought it away in her own car. Gin it was. She used to put lime juice in it to take the taste away. I wouldn’t have known myself if I hadn’t happened to have a key which fitted the cupboard and could see the bottle. But she wasn’t the only one.”

  “She wasn’t?”

  “No. And this will surprise you. Old Miss Griggs Liked a Drop, too. What do you think brought them together right at the end? Miss Griggs went to see her twice after they hadn’t been speaking for I don’t know how long. The first time I met her coming out. All flushed up she was, besides I could smell her breath. Oh, I thought, so you Like a Drop, too, do you? They forgot all about their differences after that.”

  “You say Miss Vaillant kept her gin in a locked cupboard?”

  “Yes. In her sitting-room. Only one bottle at a time. She’d rather have died than let anyone know about it. You know what she does with the empty bottles? It just shows you how cunning they are. There’s an old well outside the backdoor. They say it’s ever so old and goes down no one knows how deep. She’d fill the empties with water so that they’d sink, then drop them down and no one was to know any different.”

  “How did you come to be aware of it?”

  “I saw her one night when I’d gone back for something. She never knew I saw her.”

  “Did she stick to one brand of gin?”

  “Yes. Horseley’s. You know the bottles? Kind of oval shaped.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Well, my nephew works over at Forster’s Stores in Burley.”

  “You think she drank regularly?”

  “No. I’m sure she didn’t. It was only about once a week. When she couldn’t resist it, I suppose. You know what secret drinkers are, don’t you?”

  “You don’t think she was at all violent when she had been drinking?”

  “I know very well she was. I’ve come in in the morning more than once and found things broken which could only have been on purpose.”

  “And you don’t think her reconciliation with Miss Griggs went very deep?”

  “No, I don’t. They’d been at one another’s throats too many years for that.”

  “How do you suppose, then, that they came to talk intimately enough for Miss Vaillant even to suggest a drink?”

  “Well, when I took their tea in on Miss Griggs’s first visit, I heard something. Miss Griggs had just noticed the tube of Minerval tablets which Miss Vaillant had. They’re for sleeping, prescribed by Dr Pinton. ‘Oh’, she said, ‘Dr Pinton gives you these, does he?’ I make no doubt she took them, too. That may have set them talking.”

  Just then the back door opened and Rumble entered. If his wife had shown surprise when Carolus first appeared Rumble was now dumbstruck at the scene which greeted him.

  “What are you gaping for?” asked his wife. “Never seen a gentleman drink a cup of tea before?”

  “Not in this kitchen, I haven’t,” said Rumble recovering himself.

  “Well, you’re seeing it now so take those filthy boots off and sit down and behave yourself.”

  Rumble gave his tolerant grin.

  “I don’t know how you managed it,” he said to Carolus.

  “Now don’t Start,” said Mrs Rumble. “Upon my soul I don’t wish anyone any harm but I can’t help thinking it’s a pity there’s not more Taken in this village. Rumble’s never happy unless he’s digging a grave.”

  “I thought he was always happy.”

  “That’s just Appearances,” said Mrs Rumble. “He’s got to be out there measuring it up and getting it right or else he’s not fit to live with. I know. I’ve seen him looking round wondering who the next will be.”

  “Any ideas on the subject? “Carolus asked Rumble.

  Rumble smiled again.

  “If I had, I shouldn’t say,” he replied.

  “I hope there’s not going to be any more,” announced Mrs Rumble. “One’s quite enough to upset us all.”

  When Carolus left she followed him to the door.

  “What do you think I ought to do about those galoshes?” she asked.

  “I think you should take them to the police and tell them where you found them.”

  “Who? Slatt?”

  “Yes. He’s your local policeman. They may have some bearing on the case.”

  “You think they were Miss Griggs’s, then?”

  “I think it’s very likely.”

  “I’ll run round with them straight away,” said Mrs Rumble. “I shouldn’t want anyone to think I’d Take anything.”

  “Of course not.”

  She hesitated.

  “Nearly new, they are. Just my size. Still if you say it’s best I’ll run round with them.”

  “Do you mind if I see them? “Carolus asked.

  For one moment Mrs Rumble hesitated, then she said—”

  No. I don’t mind. I’ll fetch them in a minute.”

  Carolus examined a pair of brown galoshes, size eight, nearly new and made by Skilley and Harman.

  “Yes, I shall run round with them at once,” repeated Mrs Rumble regretfully.

  “Good-night. Thank you for my tea.”

  7

  CAROLUS wondered whether he was not treating the case in too leisurely a manner, but reflected as he had often done that criminology must remain nothing to him but a hobby. He had no intention of neglecting the job of teaching which he had set himself because without it he was in danger of becoming a mere rich dilettante. The discipline imposed by school life was, he knew, the one thing which kept him from all the fatuous forms of time-wasting practised by people who had money and no occupation.

  So when a case like this came along, however keen his curiosity and however strong his determination to discover the truth, he could only pursue his enquiries when his duties at the Queen’s School, Newminster, permitted him to do so. If the police succeeded before him, or made an arrest while he was still asking questions, it would be just too bad. He could do nothing to prevent it.

  Besides, as he had always recognized, his method was not a rapid one. He had a gift for making people confide in him but it took time to hear them and it was fatal to attempt to hurry them. Out of those confidences would emerge the truth, a hint here, an odd fact there, and slowly the whole thing would fall into shape. But he had to take his time.

  Even so, however conscientiously he might stick to his work at Newminster, he felt that his frequent absences after school hours had not escaped the attention of Mr Gorringer and that sooner or later he would be faced with one of the headmaster’s semi-confidential, for-your-own-good orations. It came sooner than Carolus thought. He found himself one morning striding up and down the quadrangle beside Mr Gorringer, whose hands were clasped behind him under the folds of his gown. The headmaster was even more facetious than Carolus had feared.

  “A bird has whispered in my ear …” he began.

  Carolus stared with stupefaction at the huge hairy orifice surrounded with tufted chasms which the headmaster had mentioned and wondered what bird would dare approach its sinister network. A vulture, perhaps.

  “That our Senior History Master is again immersed in the contemporary. That you, Deene, albeit with a discretion for which I am glad, are once more, as it were, on the trail.”

  Carolus wondered. Should he quote Kipling? ‘The Long Trail—the trail that is always new’. On the whole, no.

  “And unless Rumour plays us false, it is the village of Gladhurst which claims so much of your time.”

  Mr Gorringer was hardest to bear when he was playful.

  “That’s right,” said Carolus.

  “An interesting case?” queried Mr Gorringer.

  “Quite.”

  “That, no doubt, accounts for your hasty departures from Newminster,” said the headmaster in a rather more serious voice. “Oh, believe
me, Deene, I make no stricture. I recognize each man’s right to his private interests. I have not openly criticized Hollingbourne’s predilection for poultry-keeping on a scale which might almost be termed avicultural though I am relieved to know that as he has accepted the housemastership of Plantagenet he will reduce his stock to domestic dimensions. Even Beardley’s commercial interest in antiques has met no more than a meaning frown from me. I am not on this, as on previous occasions, requiring that you should desist from your enquiries for I recognize that in your more recent cases you have shown a greater discretion than of yore. I only ask that in pursuing your hobby you do not involve us all. That your position as Senior History Master here is not a matter to be bandied to and fro by all and sundry and that in no case should the Press be aware of it.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “My wife joins me in her solicitude, though she was unable to resist a witticism when she heard the name of the murdered lady. ‘Mr Deene’, she said, ‘is doubtless out to discover why the sea is boiling hot, and whether Griggs have wings.’ I must say, I derived considerable amusement from the mot”

  “Yes,” said Carolus, unable to think of another comment.

  “Very well, my dear Deene, I have full confidence in you. I must have a word with the music master. Ah, Tubley …”

  Even his housekeeper seemed less disturbed by the participation of Carolus in a case so far away than she had been on other occasions.

  “Well, I must allow,” she said when she brought in his lunch, “that if you will get yourself mixed up in crimes and horrors I wish they was all like this one. I was only saying to Stick, there’s scarcely been a word in the newspapers and not a soul calling here at all hours without our knowing if it was a murderer or not. Are you going over there again this afternon, Sir?”

  “Yes, Mrs Stick. I have to meet several more of the inhabitants.”

  “Then you be careful and don’t eat or drink anything when you don’t know where it’s from. You oughtn’t to be hanging about after dark, either. If they can do for an old lady they can do for you, make no mistake.”

  “Thank you, Mrs Stick, I’ll be careful. Leave me out some sandwiches in case I’m late.”

  “There! And I’d got a nice piece of turbot for your dinner and was going to make you a Creep Suzette to follow. I shall wait till half-past eight and if you’re not here I shan’t cook at all. I won’t serve things rechauffay, so it’s no good asking me to.”