Mrs. Malory and a Necessary End (Mrs. Malory Mystery)

by Hazel Holt

  “Of course. When?”

  “I have to go out now, but tomorrow morning about ten—will that be all right?”

  “Of course.”

  It seemed as if things were moving at last. I went back into the kitchen, removed Foss from one of the cardboard boxes, and began to pack away the utensils to put out for the dustman.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It was a largish kitchen knife that Bob showed me.

  “It looks like it,” I said doubtfully. “I mean, it’s the same shape and everything. But I can’t swear to its being the one—there was nothing distinctive about the one in the storeroom.”

  “How about this, then?” He opened another plastic container and showed me a piece of cloth. It was badly torn, and brown stains covered part of the design.

  “Can you open it out for me? That’s better. I think—yes, I’m sure. It’s one of our T-shirts—or part of it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Oh yes, it’s the pheasant one. I noticed it specially. Jean and I were joking that Norma would probably throw it out because of it being politically incorrect—blood sports, you know.” I shuddered. “Not the happiest of phrases. Sorry.”

  “And did she? Throw it out?”

  “I don’t know. It wouldn’t be actually thrown out. It was rather a good cotton so it would just go with the stuff to be recycled.”

  “And where was that kept?”

  “There’s a box under one of the tables in the storeroom. Then, when it’s full, it goes out to one of the sheds at the back until the recyclers come and collect it.”

  “I see.” He thought for a moment. “Desmond Barlow died instantly and he fell just beside one of the tables. I suppose the murderer bent down to remove the knife. I’ve never quite worked out why—it must have been an unpleasant thing to do and, as you say, there was nothing distinctive about it. Anyway, he (or she) just grabbed what came to hand to wrap it up and wipe the blood off it….”

  “And took it away.”

  “Yes. Why do that? That’s another question I can’t answer.”

  “Perhaps they panicked and snatched it up without thinking.”

  “Possibly…” He was silent for a moment; then he closed up the containers. “Presumably, if you’re right about the T-shirt, Mrs. Lucas will be able to identify it, too.”

  “I’m pretty sure she will—it was an unusual design. Will it help to know where it came from?”

  “Not particularly, but it all begins to fit in.”

  “Why on earth would the murderer take it up to West Hill and hide it in a gorse bush? Why not just throw it into the sea?”

  “It’s not as easy as you’d think. No good doing it at high tide because it might just stick in the sand and be revealed when the tide goes out. And—well—you know how far the tide goes out along this coast….”

  “I know. You’d have to walk halfway to Wales just to get to the water’s edge and then it would be too shallow.”

  “No, it was quite reasonable to think that it would be safe in a gorse bush in the middle of the moor. It was amazing luck that particular dog went along that particular path.”

  “And smelt the blood?”

  “Possibly, though it was quite old by then, so it might just as well have been a rabbit it was after. Lucky for us, anyway.”

  “No fingerprints, I suppose.”

  “No. Wiped clean, of course. But definitely Desmond Barlow’s blood on the fabric.”

  “So not a lot of help?”

  “It always helps to find the weapon. And if we do manage to find a suspect—well, they would have had to take it up there by car. I mean, you could walk up there from Taviscombe, but not so easily at night, and it would probably have been at night—you know how impossible it is to do anything on even the remotest part of the moor during the day without somebody seeing you.”

  “Perhaps someone saw a car parked along there that night?”

  “It’s worth making inquiries. We might make a public appeal—that might shake the murderer, to know that we’ve found the knife.”

  “Did that inspector ask you about the knife?” Jean asked me.

  “Yes. And the piece of cloth.”

  “It was that T-shirt, wasn’t it, the one with the pheasants?”

  “I’m pretty sure it was.”

  “It’s weird, really,” she said. “When it happened, when we came back here after everything was cleared up, it didn’t really sink in. I mean, I knew Desmond was dead, but it didn’t seem real. Do you know what I mean?” I nodded. “But seeing the knife and that bit of the T-shirt—well, it brought it home all right. That he wasn’t just dead, but he’d been murdered.”

  “I know.”

  “Here, in this very storeroom. Right here, where we’re standing.”

  “I know. I try not to think about it.”

  We were silent for a moment, and then Jean said. “How do you think Norma feels? She’s never seemed very upset.”

  “Perhaps, like the rest of us, it hasn’t really sunk in.”

  “Perhaps,” she said doubtfully. “But it isn’t really the same. For one thing, she stays here sometimes when we’re closed. I don’t think I could do that. Could you?”

  I shook my head. “No, I couldn’t.”

  “I can see she didn’t like Desmond and must have been glad to be rid of him, but still, here in the storeroom, all by herself at night….”

  “I don’t think Norma has much in the way of an imagination,” I said. “She certainly wouldn’t picture it—what happened here—in her mind. She’d just get on with what she was doing.”

  “I suppose so. Still, I think it’s a bit odd.”

  “I suppose Inspector Morris asked her about the knife, too?”

  “Oh yes. I asked him when I went down to the police station. He asked everybody. She didn’t say anything about it to me. And that’s odd, too, if you ask me.”

  “Where is she today? She hasn’t been in all morning.”

  “Some sort of meeting. She said it was important—something to do with this place, I suppose—but, of course, she didn’t tell me what it was.”

  I suddenly remembered that Anthea had called some sort of extra committee meeting at Brunswick Lodge (that I’d managed to get out of) for eleven this morning. I had a shrewd idea that’s where Norma was. But I didn’t tell Jean.

  “Well, we’re not very busy,” I said. “So it doesn’t really matter.”

  “We’re not very likely to be—busy, I mean.” Jean nodded to the street outside, where the rain was being driven along by a strong wind.

  “That’s true. If it’s just rain, people shelter in the doorway and sometimes come in to pass the time in the dry. But no one would want to be out in this unless they really had to.”

  “I’m afraid I have to, at lunchtime,” Jean said. “I promised George I’d go up to the golf club to see if he left his other pair of glasses there. I’d like to go up there at about twelve thirty, because Bill, the steward, will be there then and he’s the one who’s mostly likely to know. So would you mind taking a later lunch—that is, unless Norma comes back before then?”

  “No, that’s fine. I brought sandwiches anyway because I didn’t want to go out in this weather. But as you say, I doubt if there’ll be anyone in.”

  * * *

  As it happened, I was mistaken. Just after Jean left and I was thinking of my sandwiches, the door opened and a figure, muffled up in a long raincoat and a waterproof hat, came in. It was Agnes Davis. She deposited her dripping umbrella carefully in the large pottery vase we keep for that purpose, took off her hat, shook the rain from it and came over to the counter.

  “Miss Davis,” I said in surprise. “Isn’t it a dreadful day! What can I do for you?”

  She looked slightly affronted at being addressed by name by someone she didn’t know, but said, “Can you tell me, please, if Mrs. Barlow is away? I have telephoned several times and yesterday I called at the house, but there has been no r
eply.”

  “No, she is away.”

  “I see. Perhaps you could very kindly let me know when she is expected back.”

  “I’m so sorry but I’m afraid I don’t know—no one does.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “She just went—we don’t know for sure where she is. She did say she was selling the house, so I suppose she may come back for that.”

  “Selling the house? She can’t do that! And what is happening about the contents?”

  “Is there something special you want to ask her about?”

  “My pamphlets! I need them for the vicar.”

  “Oh, I see. And were they in the house?”

  “I gave them to Mr. Barlow; he promised to take the greatest care of them—they are quite irreplaceable.”

  “Oh dear. Well, all I can tell you is that the police are trying to get in touch with Mrs. Barlow—I believe they want to speak to her.”

  “The police? Why do they want to see her?” She looked at me sharply. “Do they think she is responsible for this terrible thing?”

  “Oh, I don’t think it’s anything like that,” I said. “I think they too would like to look for some documents that may be in the house.”

  “Documents? What documents?”

  “I really don’t know.”

  “But what am I going to do about my pamphlets?” she insisted.

  A sudden thought struck me. “When did you give them to Desmond—Mr. Barlow?”

  “It was that evening—the evening of the day he…”

  “The day he died?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh well, then, they won’t be at the house, will they? He didn’t go back there….”

  She was silent for a moment. “Then where are they?”

  “I suppose they must be around here somewhere.”

  “Well…” She looked at me expectantly.

  “You gave them to him in the storeroom—out at the back?”

  “As the shop was closed I naturally went round to the back entrance.”

  “Of course.” I hesitated; then I said, “I’ll just go and see if there’s any sign of them. What do they look like?”

  “They are pamphlets,” she said with elaborate patience, “mostly relating to aspects of Christian ritual—there is a very important one dealing with transubstantiation.”

  “Right. I’ll see if they’re there.”

  I went through into the back, leaving the door open so that I could hear if anyone else came into the shop, and looked round in a cursory fashion, but I couldn’t see them.

  “I’m so sorry. I can’t seem to find them,” I said.

  “Well, really, they can’t have just disappeared!”

  “No, of course not, but, of course, things have been a bit at sixes and sevens ever since—well, you can imagine, what with the police here….”

  “You don’t think the police have taken them away?”

  “I wouldn’t think so, unless they thought they might be relevant to the case.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, they’re naturally interested in what happened that evening when the shop was shut, who was here and so on.”

  “I have already spoken to the police about my visit to Mr. Barlow and I cannot imagine how my pamphlets would, in any way, be relevant, as you call it.”

  “No, of course not. Well, I’ll organize a thorough search. I’m sure they’ll turn up.”

  “They are extremely important. I promised them to the vicar last Sunday—I naturally expected that they would have been returned to me by now. I know that Mrs. Barlow is not the most efficient person in the world—I remember how careless she was about the raffle tickets at last year’s summer fete—but I did think she would have seen to my property, and she must have known that those pamphlets were my property and should have been restored to me.”

  “I think she’s been under a lot of stress lately,” I said soothingly, “and there has been so much to see to.”

  “I am fully aware of that. And naturally I have waited until a decent interval elapsed before making my request. But to hear that she’s suddenly decamped like this, without a word!”

  “Actually,” I said, losing patience, “she wouldn’t have known anything about them if you brought them here to the shop and didn’t take them round to the house.”

  She gave me a hard look. “Very well. I will hope you are able to find them. Father Weston was most interested.”

  “Father Weston?” I said. “I don’t think I’ve heard of him at St. Mary’s. Is he new there?”

  “I no longer go to St. Mary’s. I find the atmosphere at All Saints much more congenial.”

  She put on her hat and collected her umbrella and left the shop. Almost immediately after she had gone Jean came back.

  “Was that Agnes Davis who was just here?” Jean asked curiously.

  “It was.”

  “What did she want? I don’t think I’ve ever seen her actually in the shop—she used to come round the back to see her friend Desmond.”

  “That’s what she came about.” I told Jean about the pamphlets. “Have you come across them?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Not that I can remember, and I think I’d have remembered something like that. I mean, we do get some odd things in here, but not religious pamphlets!”

  “Perhaps Norma may have seen them.”

  “Perhaps she threw them out—just the sort of thing she would do.” She laughed. “If she has I’d like to be there when she tells Agnes what she’s done!”

  “Oh dear, perhaps I’d better have a proper look—I will do, after I’ve had my sandwiches.”

  “Can you be a dear and put the kettle on? I’m dying for a cup of tea.”

  “They weren’t there,” I said to Rosemary. “And I had a really thorough search.”

  “And you think Norma might have thrown them away?”

  “Not thrown them away exactly. We usually put things like that—you know, magazines and old paperbacks—out for the wastepaper. Not the council collection, but a special one that comes every month, and they haven’t been since Desmond died. The boxes of the stuff are in one of the sheds at the back, and I had a look through them. There’s no sign of the pamphlets.”

  “Odd.”

  “I know.”

  “I suppose someone might have taken them.”

  “The staff, you mean? Well, it wasn’t me and it certainly wasn’t Jean, and I can’t imagine that Dorothy or Margaret would be interested in a pamphlet on transubstantiation.”

  “Or Norma?”

  “No way. Oh well, Father Weston will have to remain unenlightened.”

  “Edna was right, then, about Agnes leaving St. Mary’s now that Desmond’s gone and latching on to the hapless young man at All Saints. Well, I suppose she has to have some interest in her life, poor soul. Edna and her chums will be sorry, though.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Yes, one less thing to gossip about.” She laughed. “I wonder if the people who left St. Mary’s because of Desmond will come back now.”

  “I wouldn’t think so,” I said. “They’re safely in the bosom of the Methodists by now.”

  All the time I was occupied with other things—walking Tris, putting antiflea stuff on Foss (no easy task), taking things out of the tumble drier and deciding they didn’t need ironing, preparing the vegetables and the fish for supper, letting Foss out, letting Foss in again—I was thinking about the pamphlets and wondering what on earth could have happened to them. But there seemed no explanation. And then I wondered if I ought to tell Bob Morris. It seemed such a trivial thing to bother him with—and yet any unexplained mystery might just have something to do with the murder, the tiniest thing could provide a clue, or something leading to a clue.

  The potatoes and mushrooms were done and I was just about to take the fish out of the oven when the phone rang. Resignedly, I switched everything off and hoped it wasn’t going to be a long call.
<
br />   “Mrs. Malory, sorry to ring you so late.” It was Bob Morris. “I’ve just got back from Bristol and I thought you’d like to know that Sophie Randall is out of danger and is going to be all right.”

  “Thank goodness for that. Those poor Randalls have had so much worry! Were you able to speak to her?”

  “Just briefly. But it’s as we thought—she did steal the money from the till.”

  “Does that mean… ?”

  “Yes. Desmond was dead when she went into the shop.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “So even though she found him dead she went ahead and stole the money from the till?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s horrible.”

  “I agree. But she was in a bad state—desperate for drugs and the money to buy them.”

  “But still…”

  “She’d gone round the back and seen the light was on in the storeroom so she hung about, hoping whoever was in there would go. After a while she got impatient—like I said, she was desperate—so as the door was open a crack, she looked in and, seeing nobody there (as she thought), she went in. She nearly fell over Desmond Barlow’s body, and that really shook her. She said she started to run away; then the need for the money sent her into the shop to rob the till. Then she ran away.”

  “And she didn’t raise the alarm—he might not have been dead, only injured.”

  “She’d just stolen some money—she wasn’t likely to phone the police, even anonymously. Her sense of self-preservation was too strong for that.”

  “How did she know that there was money in the till, anyway?”

  “Apparently when no one has time to go to the bank, the money’s hidden in the shop. And to show passersby that the till is empty (to discourage burglars), they leave it open.”

  “Oh yes, of course, Norma told me when I first went there. I’d forgotten. And Desmond obviously hadn’t had time—what with all those visitors—to empty it.”

  “So what time was she in there?”

  “Not surprisingly she’s a bit vague. After she left the shop she went looking for her drug dealer and couldn’t find him for a while until she tracked him down in one of the pubs. He’d been watching the football on the TV there and the match was just finishing—he made her wait until the end. That’s why she remembered it. I checked, and the match he’d have been watching ended at ten o’clock. So assuming it took her about half an hour to find him, she must have left the shop at around nine thirty.”