Furious Old Women

by Bruce, Leo

  “I don’t think you need worry. I only want to see him for a moment.”

  “Then go ahead, my dear chap! Go ahead! Let us put this canker from our midst. If my curate can assist you I feel sure he will be only too glad. I ask you but to approach him with tact.”

  “Where will I find him?”

  “Now? Ah hum. It is his Boys’ Club hour. At our village hall. The Griggs Institute is its official designation, presented as it was by the father of the Misses Griggs. There he will be organizing one scarcely knows what.”

  “Really?”

  “The summer camp. Amateur theatricals. Basketball. He is full of ideas. I find myself bound to check his exuberance at times, standing as I do between the parents and him. Last summer he organized an excursion to the coast and the boys’ impersonation of Ancient Britons was altogether too realistic. Parents complained of clothes ruined by woad and I received a very unpleasant letter from the Municipal Council. Woad, it was made clear, is no longer sufficient protection for public decency. Several visitors had been outraged by the scene presented. Slipper at once undertook to see that Ancient Britons in future should wear at least bathing slips if not football shorts. I need scarcely say that he had taken no active part in the scene, his rôle being that of a fully clad Boadicea, watching from a chariot.”

  “That was something,” said Carolus encouragingly.

  “Unhappily he is not always content with a watching brief. There was an unfortunate incident at their summer camp two years ago. Oh, most unfortunate. I nearly lost one of my best bell-ringers over it. I found myself torn between my loyalty to my curate and my duty as vicar of this parish. It was all very upsetting at the time. However, Slipper’s inexhaustible enthusiasm carried the day. With discretion and a little tolerance and the general goodwill which I have always tried to promote the little incident soon became past history. Yes, you go and see my good curate. You will find him busy, I’m sure, but never so deeply involved that he cannot pause to answer questions.”

  The Reverend Peter Slipper did indeed appear shy as he disentangled himself from his responsibilities. He was a pale serious young man with a nervous hesitation in his speech. He led Carolus to a small office behind the stage and it seemed as they entered that a sultry hush fell over the mob of youngsters in the main hall. As Carolus entered there had been pandemonium. Now there was no more than a hum of talk.

  “It’s a Club Night tonight,” explained Mr Slipper. “Wednesdays and Saturdays, Club. Mondays and Thursdays, Scouts.”

  “What is the difference?” asked Carolus curiously.

  “Every difference. The Boy Scout Movement and the Boys’ Club Movement are entirely different things.”

  “I see. What happens on Tuesdays and Fridays?”

  Mr Slipper’s face fell.

  “Waygooze has those,” he said. “He’s the choirmaster.”

  “The boys of Gladhurst seem to have a busy week.”

  “Even then we haven’t enough time, really. They have to pass their tests for badges and there are rehearsals to get in and a thousand activities.”

  Carolus began to understand the universally-held opinion of Mr Slipper.

  “I want, if I may, to ask you a couple of questions,” said Carolus.

  Mr Slipper started slightly.

  “It’s about the afternoon on which Miss Griggs was missed.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Can you remember what you did that day?”

  “I was busy all the morning. The D.C. had come over to see me. The District Commissioner, I mean.” Seeing Carolus still a little puzzled, as though he thought he was in pre-war Burma, Mr Slipper added, “Scouts, you know. Each county has a County Commissioner and under him are a number of District Commissioners. Ours drove over that day to discuss our Jamboree. He could not stay to lunch, perhaps fortunately, as my digs are scarcely …”

  “And after lunch?”

  “I spent the afternoon preparing for the cookery tests which were to be held that evening. The boys themselves were out borrowing frying-pans and primus stoves but I made the necessary purchases at Jevons’s Stores. Young Jevons is one of our Rovers, a ripping chap.”

  Carolus confessed to himself that his next question was one of sheer human inquisitiveness.

  “What purchases?” he asked.

  “They pass out on a pancake,” explained Mr Slipper rather obscurely. “No eggs, of course. Flour, milk, frying-fat. They have to eat them afterwards. That’s the test. Those without indigestion get badges.”

  “Very appropriate. So you purchased the ingredients?”

  .” Yes.”

  “What time do you think you reached Jevons’s Stores?”

  “I imagine in the region of 3.45.”

  “Whom did you meet?”

  “Now let me see. Oh yes. Our Churchwarden. Commander Fyfe.”

  “Was he alone?”

  “Well, as it happens he had stopped for a moment to address a few words to … a parishioner.”

  “You mean Flo?” asked Carolus rather brutally.

  Mr Slipper nodded.

  “It wasn’t more than a minute. Just passing the time of day …” he explained eagerly.

  “Of course. Anyway, I like Flo. Don’t you?”

  “Oh, I scarcely … indeed I have never … I do not criticize … It’s a matter for the vicar.”

  “Who else appeared in the village street?”

  “Naomi Chester. I saw her pass while I was in the Stores. She seemed in a great hurry.”

  “You don’t remember anyone else?”

  “No. I daresay there were others. I was, of course, preoccupied. These cookery tests! Last year the boys got rather excited and upset some hot fat. Lawrence Tilley’s hand was rather badly burnt. In fact he couldn’t use it for some days. I had a great deal on my mind.”

  “You have a motor-cycle, Mr Slipper?”

  “A Lambretta, yes.”

  “But you did not use it that afternoon?”

  “No. I was on foot. My digs, the stores and this hall are all within a few hundred yards of one another.”

  “Did you see Rumble or Mugger?”

  “I don’t remember seeing either. When I had made my purchases I went back to my digs to tea then came round here at five o’clock for the tests. We had seven passes.”

  “I congratulate you. And I’m most grateful for your patience in answering my questions. I won’t interrupt your Club Night any further.”

  As he left the hall the din that rose behind him was like that of a wild beasts’ cage at feeding time.

  Carolus intended leaving at once for Newminster but as he passed the Black Horse he saw Mugger emerging and stopped his car. Mugger, tall and angular in the light thrown by the bulb over the inn sign, did not look furtive. When he spoke it was in his usual serious tones.

  “Evening, Mugger,” said Carolus.

  “I can’t stop now,” said Mugger. “I’ve got one waiting for me out by the cricket field.”

  “I shan’t delay you long,” promised Carolus.

  “Better not, because I don’t want to miss this one. Just right she is, if you know what I mean.”

  “Yes, yes. I wanted to ask you about a sheet.”

  Nothing was changed in Mugger’s posture or expression.

  “What sort of sheet?” he asked.

  “Come now, Mugger. Don’t let’s waste time and words. You don’t suppose I meant a sheet of paper or part of the rigging of a ship. You know exactly which sheet.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. And what’s more I shall have to hurry. They won’t wait all night.”

  “Then let’s be explicit. I haven’t made myself difficult about the sum of money….”

  “There was no money,” sighed Mugger, but almost mechanically.

  “So why not trust my discretion over this?”

  “What d’you want to know?”

  “Where you found it.”

  “Up in the loft of the furnace room,
of course. With the other things.”

  “With them?”

  “Well, just beside. It was crumpled up and stuffed into a box.”

  “Blood-stained?”

  “Yes.”

  “What on earth induced you to move it, Mugger?”

  “Well, a sheet’s a sheet, nowadays.”

  “I find you very hard to understand. You leave the jewellery and take a sheet.”

  “The sheet could be washed, couldn’t it? There’d be nothing to say where it come from. But jools, that’s different. The police can trace them. Before I knew where I was I’d be up for murdering the old lady which I never done.”

  “I see. Where’s the sheet now?”

  “Never mind that. It’s been washed. You’d never know it from any other, now. And if you were to go and say anything I should know nothing about it. Never seen a sheet. Never heard of one. Never spoke to you about it. And no one would know any different.”

  “It was badly blood-stained?”

  “Very badly. Horrible in fact. Now I can’t wait any longer. I can’t afford to miss one like this.”

  He strode away, his long shanks and thin body exaggerated by the yellow overhead light.

  Carolus was about to drive on when he saw Slatt. It seemed that the policeman had been observing him during his conversation with Mugger and now approached.

  “You know what the Inspector told you, don’t you?” he said as though he were addressing a small and naughty boy. “You’ve no business to be nosing round with what doesn’t concern you. I should very much like to know what you were asking Mugger.”

  “Really? Perhaps Mugger will tell you.”

  “I’m surprised you encourage him,” said Slatt. “He gives more trouble than all the rest of the village put together. I hear you’ve been round to see Miss Vaillant, too. I can’t see how she can concern you. What I’m always afraid of is a burglary there. She’s all on her own and the house is full of valuables. Antiques and that.”

  “I know. There’s a landscape by Constable.”

  “Police Officer!” said Slatt, so alert for the offensive word that he could not wait to study niceties of meaning.

  “I’m always forgetting,” said Carolus. “A landscape by Police Officer. But I shouldn’t have thought there was much danger of burglary in a place like this.”

  “If there can be murder there can be burglary,” said Slatt darkly.

  “What really seems to distinguish your village is the enmity between its inhabitants. Particularly the older ones.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” said Slatt. “There’s the three old sisters to start with. There was no love lost among them. I’ve heard that Mrs Bobbin could lay her tongue to some terrible language when she was put out with the one that’s been done for. The other one would shout the Old Testament at both of them. Proper slanging match. That’s only what I hear, though.”

  “Of course.”

  “Then the vicar’s wife’s not much better. You should have heard her going on about the Miss Griggses according to what they tell me. Talk about words! Miss Vaillant’s different. She’s sweet as sugar till suddenly she’s raging like a wild cat. Funny, isn’t it? Then look at Mrs Rumble!”

  Carolus put in a mild defence of the sexton’s wife. “You don’t know her, that’s all I can say,” returned Slatt. “She’s got a wicked temper. Commander Fyfe’s wife’s just the same, only she’s laid up half the time. They say you can hear her shouting at him from two doors away. Then what about Mrs Pinton?”

  “I don’t know her.”

  “She’s the doctor’s wife. I’ve seen her lose her temper as much as any of them. As for them up at what they call Hellfire Corner—well!”

  “I believe Mugger’s married?”

  “There’s another one! I thought she was going for me the other morning when I had to ask her something. She was out the back, doing her washing.”

  “No woman likes a man to watch that.”

  “Perhaps that’s what upset her. She seemed to have a lot of it. And of course with Mugger out poaching at night there was blood on things. But it wasn’t that. It was me seeing her without one of these washing machines ail the women have.”

  “You mean she was using an old-fashioned cop … police officer?”

  Slatt seemed not to notice this gaffe.

  “Turned on me something wicked, she did. What business had I got coming out to her back yard? You’re right in what you say about this village. When George Larkin’s wife was alive she was no better. It was always my belief that she knew about him and Miss Griggs going off together when they were young and never forgave him for it. She never liked the old ladies, anyway, and didn’t want young Bill to have anything to do with them.”

  “Yet I understand that Miss Griggs has remembered both the Larkins in her will.”

  “That’s the funny part of it. She’s left Bill just as much as his father and he was nothing to do with her. Of course, after George Larkin’s wife died, young Bill used to go up and see the old lady. They’re very deep, those Larkins. Both of them. You never know where you are with them.”

  Suddenly Slatt became alert.

  “They’re coming out of the Griggs Institute,” he said. “All those young devils’ll be raising Cain in the street if I don’t get down there.”

  “They don’t seem to be making much noise,” said Carolus.

  “It’s not that. They get all over the place laughing and talking. If I’m not there they think they can do what they like.”

  “You’d better go and show them they can’t,” said Carolus and Slatt, unconscious of irony, pushed his cycle away.

  Carolus decided to have a last drink in the Black Horse before leaving for home, and found himself, as on his first night, beside the informative Mr Lovibond.

  “You didn’t tell me you were finding out about the murder when we had our chat before,” said Lovibond. “Still, I don’t suppose you want to tell your business to everyone, especially when it’s something of that sort. It was young Laddie Grey told me. One of the nicest chaps you could wish to meet. He came in my shop the other day to buy a bulb for his motor-bike. I think I told you I keep a little electric shop down the road. Yes, young Laddie came in and mentioned to me that you’d been asking him questions.”

  “Was it a headlight bulb he wanted?” asked Carolus casually.

  “No. It was for the light on his sidecar, because I saw him fix it in. So you’ve been round asking everyone, have you?”

  “Yes. I seem to have met a good many of the inhabitants of Gladhurst.”

  “Talked to old Flo yet?”

  “I have met her. Yes.”

  “She’s a Character, isn’t she? You never know who you’ll see her with next. There’s a story going round about her and Fyfe who lives up at The Fairway. I shouldn’t be surprised, mind you. It wouldn’t be the first married man, not by a long way. But she doesn’t mean anyone any harm. It’s only the wives get a bit upset when stories get back to them. Not that my old woman would bother. As long as I don’t forget her light ale when I go home at night she never says a word.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Look at old George Larkin watching the clock. He knows Slatt’s outside holding his watch. He’ll start shouting ‘Time!’ in a minute.”

  Carolus decided to leave before the split-second ejection by synchronized watches had taken place.

  14

  CAROLUS was free for the following week-end and wanted to spend it in Gladhurst. But before arranging this he approached the headmaster for formal leave of absence, a gesture of courtesy which he would not omit.

  He found an opportunity of speaking to Mr Gorringer on the Wednesday afternoon, for a lecturer was due to address the school on Tanganyika (with lantern slides), and afternoon classes were therefore cancelled. The lecturer was late and the Headmaster paced impatiently before the moderately-sized room known as the Great Hall in which the school’s 250 boys were gathered.

/>   “Ah Deene, you find me in a frame of mind by no means equable. If there is a fault to me unforgivable it is that of unpunctuality. Our lecturer is already ten minutes late.”

  “The fog, perhaps.”

  “Fog? It was his duty to provide against all climatic exigencies. His fee is twelve guineas, which, though it includes expenses, seems to be adequate.”

  “I wonder what his agent stings him, poor devil,” said Carolus.

  “That, my dear Deene, is not our affair. Thirteen minutes. The boys will grow restless shortly.”

  “I want to be away this week-end, headmaster.”

  “Again? Really Deene, you are quite deserting us. Have you no wish to see our match against St Hildegarde’s? And perhaps you have forgotten that the Dean of Bodmin is preaching in the School Chapel on Sunday?”

  “It’s rather an urgent matter. I feel if I can stay a weekend among these people at Gladhurst I can get the thing cleared up for good. It’s the way one knows a village like that.”

  “At least I respect your candour, Deene, in telling me the reason you wish to elude us again. That much I appreciate. But I could have wished that the promise of a hard-fought football match, together with the celebrated eloquence of the Dean of Bodmin … However, I will not stand in your way. It shall never be said that I adopt a restrictive or a carping attitude towards my staff. You may go and I hope will return with all mysteries elucidated.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Dear me. A full quarter of an hour late. I shall be constrained to send the boys back to their classrooms and abandon all thought of the lecture, for which, fortunately, the fee has not yet been paid. So we are to hear shortly the identity of this brutal murderer at Gladhurst? I trust you will make me among the first to hear details? I must tell you a witticism of my wife’s on that subject. She … Ah, but unless I mistake me this is our lecturer at last….”

  The headmaster hurried forward and Carolus, with a sigh, sat to see lantern slides of Tanganyika. These consisted largely of hefty negroes in postures which, the lecturer assured his audience, were those of a native dance.

  When Saturday came, Carolus set off immediately after morning school, having a delightful sense of escape. It was not often he allowed himself a night away from Newminster during term-time but the reason he had given to the headmaster in this case was a genuine one. He believed that a small thing like going to bed and waking up in Gladhurst, spending Saturday night in the pub and Sunday morning in the church, being for a few hours one of the village inhabitants, might make all the difference to his understanding of them. And on that depended the whole case.