by Bruce, Leo
“Besides,” she added, “Anybody doesn’t get through all that lime juice in the middle of winter unless it’s to drink with Something, do they?”
She recalled the two visits of Millicent Griggs just before that lady’s death and said that ‘as far as she could tell’ the conversation had been amicable. She had noticed when she showed out Miss Griggs that she looked ‘flushed up’ and as though she’d ‘had one or two’ but she might have been mistaken. As for the visit from Miss Flora Griggs on the day of Miss Vaillant’s death Mrs Rumble ‘couldn’t say much’. It was a Saturday and she was in a hurry to get off and do her week-end shopping. She had shown in Miss Flora and ‘seen them settled without any words’ in her presence. Asked if she meant the ladies hadn’t spoken she looked at the Coroner as though she was sorry for his stupidity. ‘Of course they spoke,” she said. “I mean they had no Words while I was there.” It dawned on the Coroner that this indicated not conversation in dumb-show but absence of any altercation, so the point was left behind.
Asked whether Miss Flora Griggs was still in the house when she left, Mrs Rumble said, yes. She had gone to the sitting-room where they were to say good-afternoon before leaving. She had already been paid. She found the two ladies looking a little ‘worked up’ if they knew what she meant, but she still heard no actual Words. Just as she came into the room she heard Miss Flora say something like ‘your idols may be broken ‘and she had thought that sounded a bit nasty till she had heard it followed by Ezekiel something or other and realized that Miss Flora was only saying bits of the Old Testament as she often did. She wondered now whether it had referred to the new statue which Miss Vaillant had got down from London and which was upstairs all in the sacking it had come in. Miss Vaillant had told her this was for the new Lady Chapel they were making in the church and the vicar had just agreed to it.
Further she said that Miss Vaillant had seemed in good spirits lately and that she, Mrs Rumble, would never believe whatever anyone might say, that she had done away with herself on purpose. In her view, a drop of gin sometimes when you felt a bit low was one thing and taking your own life was another, a dictum which met no contradiction though the Coroner recalled the witness to the facts of the case rather than her own opinions.
The greatest surprises during the inquest were provided by a Mr Sturdis, a London solicitor who had handled the dead woman’s affairs. Her real name, it appeared, was Grace Vallance and she was the daughter of a city outfitter who had wisely sold his business and premises before the great monopoly chain stores had pushed out small enterprise, He had retired to Folkestone with a comfortable fortune. He had accommodatingly died before dying had been made too expensive and Miss Vaillant had enjoyed an income, with all taxes paid, of some two thousand pounds a year to which she had added a thousand by progressive but slow reduction of capital. It was on his advice that she had adopted this course since she had no near relatives. The system had been calculated to provide a sufficient income however long Miss Vaillant’s life might be and whatever further burdens of taxation might be laid on her shoulders. Mr Sturdis looked rather complacent about it.
Her will was a somewhat complicated one but the chief beneficiaries would be the Reverend Bonar Waddell and the Parish of St Jude, Gladhurst. There were conditions laid down for this, however, which might cause some difficulties, as for instance the introduction of incense during the service known as Sung Eucharist, the use of a Sanctus bell, something called Reservation for the Sick and a number of other changes which must be made in the church ritual before the local charities or the vicar himself could benefit under the will. A codicil had recently been added for the benefit of those charities, chiefly, Mr Sturdis understood, among the youth of the parish, sponsored by the Reverend Peter Slipper. These again were restricted by conditions. The Scout Troop, for instance, was to receive an annuity of £100 for the purchase of equipment, etc, but this was payable only if it could be shown that eighty per cent of the boys over fifteen were regular communicants. There was also a sum of £500 for Mrs Rumble.
It would be a difficult will to execute, Mr Sturdis said, and he did not envy the executors appointed, Commander Fyfe and Mr John Waygooze.
No evidence was given of any other caller at the Old Vicarage, either on the Saturday or during the evening or night.
The police said their piece, the vicar was called, then Miss Flora Griggs described her call on Grazia Vaillant at the latter’s urgent request. Her evidence was somewhat confused and rhetorical, and really added very little to that already known. Miss Vaillant, she said, had plied her with strong drink, and when asked to be a little more explicit she let fly a covey of quotations from the Old Testament which seemed to confuse if not to embarrass the Coroner.
“Do you mean she poured out a drink for you?” he asked, trying to make poor Flora more specific.
“‘Take the wine of the cup of this fury at my hand’,” said Flora and the Coroner was puzzled till she added, “Jeremiah XXV, 15.”
“Please be definite about this, Miss Griggs. Were you actually handed a glass containing gin?”
“I have no idea what it contained,” said Flora. “I knew it was an abomination and would not take it in my hand.”
“So two glasses had been poured out?”
“I think so.”
“You refused them?”
“Most indignantly.”
“Did you shortly leave the house?”
“I paused only to leave on the table some short tracts, which if this unfortunate woman would have turned in her wickedness and read, would have saved her soul alive.”
“I see. And when you left she was in good health and spirits?”
“‘Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning to follow strong drink; that tarry late into the night, till wine inflame them! ‘Isaiah V, 11.”
“Do you mean that Miss Vaillant already showed the influence of alcohol?”
“She was a wine-bibber. That was sufficient.”
The Coroner gave it up.
The verdict was eventually and inevitably one of Accidental Death by poisoning caused by an overdose of barbiturate.
For some days after this Carolus did not go over to Gladhurst and was interested to realize that five weeks had now passed from the date of Millicent Griggs’s death. It was at least comforting to know that the police were taking as long as he was to reach any sort of conclusion. Now and again a daily newspaper would remind the public of this by talking about the unsolved mystery and recalling the fact, no doubt considered picturesque, that the body had been buried in an already dug grave. This had gripped Press imagination from the first.
One evening as he finished dinner in his home, Carolus had a surprise. Mrs Stick came in showing every sign of her most ardent disapproval.
“There’s someone to see you,” she said. “I’ve shown him into the little sitting-room because I didn’t know what else to do, but I thought you said we weren’t going to have any murderers and that coming here this time?”
“What’s his name?”
“Griggs, he says, and it didn’t take me long to know where I’d heard that name. I haven’t said you’re in yet, only that I’ll go and see, so what shall I tell him?”
“Show him in, please, Mrs Stick.”
“There! I knew it. And Stick and me just settling down to the television. Now we shall have to miss half the programme because I wouldn’t turn the lights down with anyone like that in the house, not for anything.”
“You could lock your door.”
“It wouldn’t be the Same Thing,” said Mrs Stick and went out to usher in Dundas Griggs.
“Had a job to find you, old man,” this one began.
“You had a job to find me?”
“Yes. I knew you taught here but I couldn’t find out where you lived. In the end someone showed me the headmaster’s house and I asked him.”
“Oh.”
“Inquisitive old character, isn’t he? Wanted to know my name and busine
ss and everything. I nearly said I was a copper come to arrest you.”
“I hope you did nothing of the sort,” said Carolus, picturing Mr Gorringer as he received the news.
“No. I just said it was in connection with the Gladhurst Case.”
“That was bad enough.”
“Oh, I don’t know. He seemed quite intrigued. ‘Any new developments?’ he asked in a stage whisper. I was just as corny. I put my finger on my lips. He nodded, and gave me your address. So here I am.”
“Have a drink?”
“I don’t mind. Dropper Scotch if you’ve got one. I’ve come to see you about something rather serious.”
“Yes?”
“It’s my Aunt Flora. She’s in a bad state, old man.”
“She seems to have been somewhat distressed at the inquest.”
“It’s since then. I don’t know if she’s going off her rocker. She has started accusing herself now. Fortunately only in the household. But you never know where that will stop.”
“Accusing herself of what?”
“What do you think? Murdering Grazia Vaillant, of course.”
“But …”
“It appears that when she called on her that afternoon old Vaillant tried to get her to take a tot. Vaillant said, and for all I know it may have been true, that Millicent hadn’t been above it on those last two occasions she called on her. Whether or not there was anything in this, she had backed the wrong horse with Flora. The old girl ‘started like a guilty thing surprised’ and almost threw it back in Vaillant’s face.”
“Yes. We know all this.”
“But what you don’t know is when Flora was a bit calmer she told Vaillant the best way of resisting the temptation to drink the awful stuff. Cheerio, by the way. If the terrible habit had such a grip on her that she couldn’t resist, she was to take one of these dear little pills which Dr Pinton had prescribed and she would find herself asleep in ten minutes with all temptation gone. And she gave her a couple of Minerval tablets.”
“But Grazia Vaillant was already taking Minerval.”
“So it appears. But she never told Flora. Perhaps she didn’t want to hurt her feelings. I don’t know. Now Flora thinks she killed her.”
“If those are her only grounds for thinking so, it’s ridiculous.”
“That’s what I tell her. But she won’t listen to me. Threatens to go to the police and give herself up.”
“I shouldn’t worry about that. Champer’s cocky and self-important but he’s not a half-wit. In murder cases the police often get quite a number of peculiar people accusing themselves. So long as all she has to confess is handing over two Minerval tablets, I don’t think your aunt will be in trouble.”
“You won’t go and see her, then?”
“I don’t think it’s necessary. I’m pretty busy at the school just now. I warned Mrs Bobbin in the first place that this could only be a part-time job for me.”
“There is another aspect of it, old man.”
“Yes?”
“Flora’s inclined to be a suicidal type.”
“I hadn’t heard that.”
“Runs in the family. My grandfather, who built the Griggs Institute and what-not at Gladhurst, cut his own throat. They could get away with calling it an accident in those days. I shouldn’t be a bit surprised to see Flora do something of the sort particularly if the police take no notice of her confession.”
“Still, I don’t quite see what I can do about it. You had better call in a psychiatrist.”
“Think so? You may be right. Must do something. I thought at least I’d put it to you.”
Carolus was wondering what it was he disliked about Dundas Griggs. His live-wiriness? Or his habit of saying ‘old man’? No. Something deeper than those.
“I mean,” added Griggs rather fatuously, “we don’t want another death in Gladhurst, do we?”
“Personally, I didn’t want any,” said Carolus shortly.
“No. Of course. I meant….”
“I think I understand what you meant. Have another drink?”
“Thanks. You see it’s a bit uncomfortable when you stand to benefit.”
“I suppose so.”
“Not that there’s likely to be much. If I know anything about Flora it will mostly go to her pet charities. But there’s bound to be something.”
“You feel that makes you a suspect?” said Carolus rather brutally.
“How can I be a suspect? The old girl’s not even dead yet.”
“Two women are.”
“Yes. But … That’s absurd, of course. No one could possibly….”
“Most murders are like that, Mr Griggs. No one could possibly have done them. Yet always somebody has.”
Dundas Griggs stood up.
“Thanks for the drink,” he said. “I’ve said what I felt I ought to say. Since my aunt, Mrs Bobbin, consulted you, I mean. I’ll run along.”
Carolus showed him to the front door.
17
WHEN Carolus next went over to Gladhurst he found the Reverend Bonar Waddell in some perplexity.
“The testamentary dispositions of these two good ladies,” said the vicar, “well-meaning and generous though they are, have given us all food for thought. Lawyers, executors, churchwardens and clergy, we are all concerned to follow their wishes as far as we are able and at the same time not to lose the little benefits for our parish institutions which they offer. My own share I would gladly sacrifice if it helped to provide a solution, but unhappily the same conditions apply to the church and parish charities as to the bequests to me.”
“It must be very difficult for you,” said Carolus, fascinated as usual by the vicar’s agility in proceeding in two opposite directions at the same time.
“At a first glance,” said Mr Waddell, “the conditions they lay down might seem to conflict one with another. Miss Griggs, for instance, stipulates that there shall be no Popish practices in the church while Miss Vaillant insists on the introduction of certain items … details … small etceteras of ritual. One has to realize at once the force of the word Popish. Far be it from me ever to introduce anything to which that word could justly apply. If I, for instance, were to appear in the triregenum, the tiara or triple crown worn by the Pope, with a cross ornamented on my shoe for the kisses of my congregation, I think there would be no doubt that I should be indulging in what Miss Griggs calls ‘Popish practices’, but I cannot see that fulfilling the simple conditions laid down by Miss Vaillant can be held to be so.”
“I see your point.”
“Then Miss Griggs stipulates that there shall be ‘no chanting of Masses’. Have I not frequently expostulated with Miss Vaillant against her use of that word with its most unfortunate associations? No, there shall certainly be no chanting of Masses. We have Sung Eucharist and that is quite enough.
“There is another seeming conflict. Both wills make reference to confession, Miss Vaillant insisting that the ‘Sacrament of Confession’ shall be encouraged while Miss Griggs makes it a condition of her bounty that ‘no confession boxes’ shall be seen in the church. We shall therefore have to do without any of those—in any case rather ugly—wooden erections which some Anglican and all Roman Catholic churches have installed. Then Miss Griggs, fortunately using somewhat archaic language, demands that there shall be no ‘graven images’ in the church. She could be assured, if she were alive, good soul, that the life-sized statue which Miss Vaillant has purchased for our new Lady Chapel is certainly neither ‘graven’ nor an ‘image’; it is a plaster figure of Our Lady of Lourdes, admittedly purchased from the firm of Burns, Oates and Washburne, but Lourdes now has surely ceased to be a merely sectarian place of pilgrimage.
“None of the other little demands of Miss Vaillant conflicts with the conditions of Miss Griggs, the use of a Sanctus bell, the ringing of the Angelus, Reservation of the Sacrament, until we come to one which both ladies mention specifically and which puts us all in a quandary.”
“What is
that?” asked Carolus with genuine interest.
“Incense!” cried the vicar. “Miss Griggs says there must be none of that ‘nauseous and Roman Catholic incense’ in the church and Miss Vaillant makes the ceremonial use of incense at Sung Eucharist, at the Gospel, Offertory and Elevation, a condition for all her benevolence. What am I to do?” asked Mr Waddell.
“You should be able to see a way, surely,” encouraged Carolus.
“I hope, perhaps I may have done so,” said the vicar. “It is, you will observe, nauseous and Roman Catholic incense’ which Miss Griggs objects to. We will have none of it. We will purchase our incense from the excellent old Anglican firm of Mowbray’s which will be quite another matter. No one can then say that we are ignoring the wishes of either of the dead and the parish will benefit accordingly.”
“Excellent,” said Carolus in congratulation. “There was something else I wanted to ask you about. Laddie Grey and Naomi Chester are both, I believe, parishioners of yours?”
The vicar pursed his lips.
“They both live in the parish. Grey and his wife were married over at Breadley where she lived but I christened their child. Naomi Chester I do not often see in church.”
“They hope one day to get married,” said Carolus.
“That depends on a number of things,” pronounced the vicar. “By the law of the land, Grey’s wife’s insanity does not provide grounds for divorce until the unfortunate woman has been confined as incurable for five years. That leaves nearly two years in which some change may take place.”
“Then?”
“Then, if Grey is given a divorce, I shall have to decide whether or not I should be doing my duty in marrying him and Naomi Chester. On the one hand under the law of 1937 I cannot be compelled either to marry them or to allow their marriage to take place in my church. Convocations, indeed, have resolved that marriages of divorced persons should not take place in church. On the other hand civil law allows me to use my own discretion. I shall have to decide.”