by Bruce, Leo
“Thanks,” he said. “I’ve seen all I want.”
“Then we will wend our way,” said the Vicar. “I was coming to see you anyway this afternoon.”
“I know. You phoned.”
When they came out of the wood they seemed to leave its gloom behind them and turn to topics which for Mr Gusset at least were evidently brighter.
“We’re having the Scouts’ camp next week,” he said. “I hope Gregory’s permission to use Hill Wood still holds?”
“Of course.”
“Fine! Splendid! Couldn’t be better for the lads. They can have a dip in the old millpond then. Jolly for them first thing in the morning. Wash the cobwebs away.”
“How many will you have this year?”
“Six. There were only five last year, so we’re increasing. The Boys’ Club’s gone up, too. Nine, counting Tom Richards, who’s not Quite Right, you know. I really feel we’re getting somewhere. I had eleven for Sung Eucharist last Sunday. I quite understood your absence, of course. I’m afraid the Mothers are declining, though. Only six last meeting. Television’s the counter-attraction.”
“Is it?”
“I fear so. The Institute’s never been what it was since they began getting sets. It makes work in a parish like this so much harder. Big parishes don’t notice it. But with my gallant four hundred.”
“Is that the total population?” asked Carolus.
“It is. But we make an effort to hold things together. The choir is magnificent. Simply magnificent. Since Gregory started giving them the Annual Treat they have never failed me. Of course we have to stick to the familiar tunes. But they’re keen, bless them. Keen.”
Marylin seemed to feel that Carolus was growing a little restive.
“You won’t mind if Mr Deene asks you a few questions, will you? We’ve all had to face it, you know. Where were you at the time of the crime, and so on.”
“Of course not. Of course not.”
“Let’s start with that, then, Mr Gusset. Where were you?”
“Where was I? Now let’s see. I went to the Place that afternoon to see Gregory. About the Guild, you know. I found that he had left to have tea at the Packinlays.”
“You didn’t know it was his custom?”
“No. I didn’t. I set out to walk across to the old lodge.”
“You came this way?”
“Not quite. I took the short cut across the big meadow. But it’s not very far from here.”
“You did not hear any shot fired?”
“No, no.”
“That is rather odd. The time of the murder seems likely to have been between three-thirty and four. That is just the time at which you were walking from the Place to the Packinlays’ house.”
“I say, you have got it taped! Am I a suspect?”
“I didn’t say that. But I can’t understand your not hearing those shots. Three, there would have been.”
“Of course, I might have heard them without remembering. I might have thought it was just the gamekeeper.”
“Did you?” asked Carolus.
“It’s a funny thing, but now you come to press me I do seem to have some sort of remote recollection of something of the sort. Three shots, you say? It could be. It could be.”
“But was it?”
“I cannot go farther than that. When the police first asked me I said no, quite definitely and in all honesty. I had no recollection of anything of the sort. But in the light of what you say … I still may be mistaken, of course.”
“You are quite certain that you did not pass through Burghley Wood, Mr Gusset?”
“Oh, quite certain of that. Everyone calls me Gus, by the way. Even the lads, I’m ashamed to confess. I try not to keep up the dignity too much. It’s a barrier in my work.”
“When did you first hear what had happened?”
“To Gregory, you mean? Oh, next morning. I did not even know that he was missing that night.”
Mr Gusset came back to the Place to tea, but soon took his departure. When he had gone Marylin turned to Carolus.
“You don’t actually suspect Gus, do you?”
“I honestly haven’t got anything that you could call a suspicion of anyone yet.”
“Where do you go from here?”
“After Socker, you mean? Oh, I must see Lance Willick. I haven’t met him yet, and he’s really the most important person in the case.”
“In what way?”
“He’s the heir. Also, he’s the only man in the world, apparently, who admits to being a friend of Larkin’s. Moreover he can tell me a lot of things I don’t know about Larkin.”
“It’s a pity you missed him.”
“If Packinlay had told me yesterday that he was here I would have come up. It might have saved me a trip to Tangier.”
“Didn’t Gilbert tell you? He knew, because they met. How very odd!”
“There are a number of things about this case, small things most of them, which are even more odd. I’m utterly at sea, but I’m not worried by that. I like odd things.”
10
WHEN THEY were driving back to the hotel Carolus told Rupert that after he had seen Socker he would have finished here.
“I suppose you’re going to pull that corny line about not knowing the murderer till the last minute.”
“I honestly don’t know. Who do you think?”
“I’m the stooge. I’m not supposed to have theories.”
“But you’ve got one?”
“Yes. I think Larkin was employed by Lance Willick to do it.”
“Plausible. What have you to support it?”
“Nothing in the line of fingerprints and whatnot. But it does seem likely. Here’s this Lance living in Tangier and friendly with the frightful man that Larkin appears to be. Larkin knows Gregory’s habits …”
“How? To our knowledge he had never been here.”
“Well, Lance knows them and can tell Larkin. Larkin’s a fool in some ways and Lance persuades him that if he goes over and gets away before he’s arrested he can’t be extradited from Tangier. Actually I believe extradition is a bit tricky. Larkin swallows this and agrees to do it for half the lolly. He flies over, shoots Gregory and flies back—all in order. Lance has explained that he can’t do it because he couldn’t collect if he couldn’t go to England. When Larkin gets back to Tangier he finds that he can and will be extradited, so he decides to go home and try to fight it out. After all, nobody saw him do it. There’s only circumstantial evidence against him. But on the way his nerve fails and he decides to commit suicide. Voilà. All weighed and paid. How do you like it?”
“There is nothing impossible about it, but it leaves too many factors unaccounted for.”
“I thought you’d say something like that.”
“Also there is nothing really to support it. Not a shred of evidence. It’s a feasible theory. It could even turn out to be the truth or very near it. But we can’t possibly say yet. We haven’t seen Lance Willick.”
“Soon put that right. I’ve always had a faint hankering after the excitements of Tangier.”
“You’ll probably find it’s as quiet and orderly a place as any other.”
“We are going, then?”
“Yes. The ship on which Larkin was travelling, the Saragossa, sails on Tuesday. I’ve been lucky enough to get two passages on her. You’d better cable to your father for permission.”
“He’d think I was nutty. I haven’t asked his permission to do anything since I was ten.”
“Maybe, but you’re not coming with me till you’ve got it. Mr Hollingbourne is staying at St Leonards-on-Sea, I gather. You could …”
“All right. All right. I’ll cable.”
The public bar of the Barton Bridge Hotel had not been given what Mr Habbard called ‘the amenities required by modern motorists’. It had benches and bare wooden seats and distempered walls. Its dart-board was well lit, its shove-ha’penny table well placed and its bare stone floor clean, but the
re was nothing ornate or antique about it.
The barman was alone when Carolus entered, reading his evening paper, and he looked up without curiosity and poured drinks without comment.
“Has a man called Socker been in?” asked Carolus.
“I don’t know anyone. I only started here today.”
“I see.”
Presently Socker came in, leading by a piece of cord a mongrel with some retriever blood. He sidled up to Carolus, who greeted him by asking what he would have.
“Rum,” he said unexpectedly, then added with a confidential leer, “it keeps your pecker up.”
His drink bought, Socker waited for a question before starting any idle chatter.
“Do you know Lily Gunn?” asked Carolus.
Socker grinned.
“Know her? Ay. She’s a kissy, cuddly little piece, if ever there was one. She’s a buxtom young party, like that. She don’t mind a walk in the woods on a nice summer evening. She’s not one of them to go crying to anyone nor yet to ask for this or that. She don’t scratch or bite nor yet giggle and simper. She’s as pretty as a picture, and she’s not afraid of the dark. She’s …”
“I see you know her intimately. Have you seen her during the last month or so?”
“Seen her? Of course I’ve seen her. I’ve seen most of her, if the truth were known. Seen her and dandled her and coddled her….”
“You must have an interesting love-life,” put in Rupert Priggley.
“I’ve seen her, all right. Chucked her and wheedled her….”
“Have you talked to her much?”
“Talked? Not much talking with her. There’s cooing and wooing and …”
“Did you ever talk to her about the late Mr Willick?”
Socker looked at Carolus as though he was insane.
“Now what on earth do you think would make me waste my time talking about Mr Willick with a nuzzly, nestly little duck like that? If I talked to her at all it was all lollipops and pretty one, not serious about other people or anything of the sort. She’s not a moppet to go sermonizing to, but a flimsy, flirty little pet to take in the meadows.”
“What I want to know, Socker, is something important. Will you please think back and give me a careful answer? Did Lily Gunn ever ask you anything about Mr Willick? And did you ever tell her or anyone else about his afternoon walk?”
“Now you’re coming round to it and I can make sense of what you say. Lily Gunn never asked me anything except whether her dress was spoilt. And I never told anyone that Mr Willick was having a game with that stuck-up piece at the Old Lodge….”
“What?” Carolus was genuinely shocked.
“What?” mimicked Socker. “What else? He went there every afternoon, and sometimes Packinlay was in and sometimes Packinlay was out. But there was always a nice big chair and that mopy, dopy one who never speaks a word but didn’t need to when he was calling on her.”
Socker was leering revoltingly.
“Have you any reason for saying such a thing?”
“Isn’t it reason enough that he went there every afternoon and she with her big buxom shape and her husband out so that they could romp and rumple to their hearts’ content?”
“I see. It’s just a guess of yours.”
“You’d guess it, too, if you know as much of the girls round here as I do. Since I was twelve I’ve been watching them, and when I could …”
“Yes, yes. I’m sure you’re very experienced. The point is, did you tell anyone what you thought about Mr Willick and Mrs Packinlay? After all, you told me readily enough.”
“Ay, but he’s dead, the poor old beggar, and he’ll never be able to smack and dally her again. While he was having his spooning I’d never have said anything about it.”
“Did you see Mr Willick on the day he was murdered?”
“No. I was over at Hill Wood, on the other side of the estate.”
“Alone?”
A crafty look came into Socker’s face.
“Why shouldn’t I have been alone? I can’t always have flesh and foolery to play with.”
“But were you?”
“Most of the time.”
“Who was with you?”
“Ah, you’re the devil with your questions,” said Socker, looking, however, as though he thoroughly enjoyed them. “There’s a fine old piece of a schoolmistress who likes a walk through Hill Wood and knows when I’m coming over there. She’s as tall as a man and strong as a horse, but she has a way with her and a nice big upper part, and she doesn’t fidget and fuss with a man, but knows what he likes….”
“So you met this lady. At what time?”
“It wasn’t getting dark nor yet wasn’t it sunlight. Round about five, I daresay. I keep no watch.”
“What were you doing till then?”
“I was busy with my work.”
“Did you hear any shots that afternoon?”
“No. But it’s a long way from Burghley Wood to where I was. I wouldn’t hear any shots from there. If I had, I’d have gone over pretty quick.”
“You know Lily Gunn’s mother?”
“Known her for years. She was a saucy piece in her day. You didn’t have to persuade her long to come and see the primroses. She liked a joke all right and a lot more besides when I was a boy and she a young woman.”
“Have you seen her lately?”
“Lately? She’s past it years ago. She’s got to the stumping round and wheezing stage.”
“I meant, to talk to,” said Carolus with some exasperation.
“Oh, to talk to. Yes, I saw her in here the other night. First time for a long time. I told her she was putting on weight. Getting a big thing I couldn’t make my arms meet round, I said.”
“Once again, Socker, this is important. Did you mention Mr Willick to Mrs Gunn?”
“No, I was laughing at her for a dumpling, not talking about anyone.”
“You never saw the man who is believed to have murdered Mr Willick? The man who stayed here?”
“No. I never saw him.”
“That night Mrs Sweeny sent you to look for Mr Willick. You knew the way he usually went. Did you follow it? Or were you dandling and coddling, as you call it?”
“I followed it as best I could and I used the torch Mrs Sweeny had given me, but I saw nothing at all. Of course I did what I was told to do. I can’t always be at hugging and pulling, can I, and I hadn’t seen anyone that evening, though I thought I was meeting a …”
“Yet on the following morning you found Mr Willick’s body at once?”
“That was different because it had been pulled out of the path by the legs and hidden in the undergrowth. I found it because I saw where it had been pulled, but it was hidden well enough not to be seen at night.”
“What about your dog?”
“I hadn’t got a dog that day. Some wicked bastard had poisoned my old dog Randy a few days before and without naming names I believe it was someone up at the Place who didn’t like his bark. Well, a dog has to bark, hasn’t it? My cottage isn’t as near as all that, anyway. This one, I call Roger, was only given me yesterday.”
“What did you do when you found the body?”
“Didn’t touch it. Went over to Packinlays at once and told him. He got on the telephone to the police.”
“Thank you, Socker. Another rum? Good.”
Next day Carolus drove towards London at some speed and discouraged any conversation from Rupert. He was now deeply interested in the case and wanted to consider the various facts he had learnt in Barton Abbess and decide what inferences could safely be drawn from them.
It did not seem strange to him that none of the people concerned had an alibi. People rarely do have alibis, in fact. He had made the experiment himself of pinpointing a moment on a certain date, then seeing what sort of alibi he could provide for himself, and the result had nearly always been negative.
All of them—Marylin, the Packinlays, Socker, Gusset, the Hoppys and Ridge—had be
en doing perfectly everyday things. There was nothing odd in any of their behaviour that afternoon as they described it now. But so far as they could prove to the contrary any one could have been at the scene of the crime at the time when it happened. Even Ridge could have obtained transport of some sort and been up to Burghley Wood and back again while the garage was fitting the spare part.
So far as he had yet discovered, there could be only one motive for the murder, whoever had committed it—money. Even Larkin, to the best of Carolus’s present knowledge, had no other motive. It was pretty flimsy as a motive for Gusset or Hoppy, it was understandable for several whose benefits were larger, it was out of the question as a motive for Marylin.
They came to the outer suburbs of London very quickly as it seemed and Carolus stopped at a phone-box.
“I want to see Mrs Roper if she’s still in London,” he explained to Rupert.
She was, but intended to leave in the morning.
“Better drive straight here. The Badmington.”
Carolus had once already faced the rather overpowering atmosphere of this ladies’ club.
“Wouldn’t you care to dine with me somewhere?” he pleaded.
“D’lighted. Meet at the Badmington first. See you.”
The receiver was down. He dropped Rupert to send his cable, arranging to pick him up later, then drove to the stern portals of the Badmington Club, which were guarded by what appeared to be a female commissionaire. He asked for Mrs Roper and was told she would be down in a moment.
“You haven’t changed in the least,” he said when the former Bugs Fitchley, her hands in the pockets of a tweed costume, towered over him.
She shook her head.
“Keep the weight down,” she said. “Shadow-boxing half an hour a day.”
She strode with him to the bar.
“Beer?” she said.
“Thank you.”
“Two pints,” she told the barmaid.
“How long have you been married?” asked Carolus.
“A year. Must meet Phil. He’s a pet.”
It really sounded as if she meant a domestic one.
“I should like to.”
“Now—business,” said Mrs Roper as though this frivolous and expansive conversation had gone on too long. “Larkin was murdered.”