The Witches of Wandsworth

by Pat Herbert

  “Well, Mrs Aitch,” said Bernard, as the cheese and biscuits were passed around, “even you must admit this meal is worthy of you.” He didn’t say it was actually better, although he thought it.

  Nancy, in unaccustomed party mood, even managed to smile at this. She didn’t often get invited to dinner parties. “Well, I like a night off sometimes,” she said. “I think I wouldn’t ’ave put so much mint sauce on the lamb, though.”

  Bernard laughed. “Maybe you’re right.”

  Elvira was basking in the praise heaped on her culinary skills. The colonel, especially, was eyeing her with more interest than he had ever shown before. Vesna had always been his favourite, but he was obviously thinking how good it would be to have this kind of meal every day. Elvira avoided his gaze, blushing. If she suspected he was going to propose to her, she didn’t allow the thought to linger.

  “I’m so glad you all enjoyed the meal,” she said. “But I – I have to admit that I had an ulterior motive in gathering you all here tonight.”

  The assembled company looked at her expectantly. Elvira wasn’t used to such attention, and she grew nervous. It was time, she knew, to tell everything, but now the moment was here, she found herself wavering. After all, what purpose would it serve now? Henry was free, so she didn’t need to say anything. But then there was Jeanne Dupont. She had the right to know what happened to her father. Her conscience had borne her guilt and shame for too long. Once they all knew the truth, they could go to the police. Do what they like. She wouldn’t stop them. She couldn’t stop them.

  “Yes,” she continued, looking now at Jeanne. “You came to find your father, dear, the father you never knew, and you wanted me to tell you about him.”

  Jeanne smiled, but said nothing.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to tell you when I met you,” Elvira continued. She looked around at everyone. Nancy looked quite relaxed, the wine obviously doing her good; Colonel Powell looked puzzled, while both Bernard and Robbie sent her warning looks.

  “Please bear with me, everyone. I don’t want to spoil the party atmosphere. I’ve enjoyed it so much, and I look on each of you as my friends. And that is why I must tell you what I’m about to tell you. Then you can decide what must be done.” She paused before adding, “If anything.”

  Jeanne spoke. “I would rather you told me in private, Elvira,” she said, “if it is about mon père, do zese peoples need to know?”

  Elvira nodded slowly. “I think they do, yes. You see your father, Rodney Purbright, is the key to everything.”

  “Everything?” Colonel Powell spoke up. He was looking remarkably sober for a change, despite the excellent wine on offer.

  “Yes. He is the key to the murder of Helen Carstairs.”

  There was a collective intake of breath. Only Jeanne didn’t understand the significance of what Elvira said.

  “But, let me start at the beginning.” Elvira held up her hand. “And please don’t interrupt until I’ve finished. It’s taken me a long time to get up the courage to do this.”

  Bernard looked worried. “Is this something we should all hear, Elvira? Robbie and I know certain things, as does Colonel Powell. Mrs Aitch doesn’t know what we know – ”

  Nancy sniffed, “I know more’n you think,” she piped up.

  Elvira smiled at her. “I’m sure you do, dear,” she said. “And I’m happy for you all to hear what I have to say. I wouldn’t have asked you all here if I wasn’t.”

  “Might I suggest you get on with it, then?” urged the colonel.

  “Yes. I intend to. Now, Jeanne, you asked me what your father was like and I wasn’t very forthcoming. I’m sorry, but that was because I couldn’t think of one good thing to say about him. He was manipulative, overbearing and he frightened me and Vesna very much. When he came back from the War, we were shocked as we had been told by the War Office that he was dead. We don’t know how the mistake occurred, but we believed he’d done something pretty awful to get out of active duty. Anyway, as Vesna believed her fiancé was dead, she had got engaged to another young man. Purbright wasn’t having that, so he saw to it that he was frightened off for good. He pushed him in the canal and, to this day, he has suffered with his chest.”

  Jeanne’s eyes filled with tears as Elvira went on to tell her the depths to which Purbright had sunk, and what Vesna was finally forced to do.

  “I had to help her cover up the murder. She was my sister.”

  “But zis is terrible!” Jeanne screamed. “What – what happened to his body?”

  There was a deathly hush as Elvira cleared her throat.

  “Colonel, do you remember asking me how I got my roses to bloom so well?”

  “Er – yes, I do. I was very envious at the time. But – but what’s that got to do with the murder?”

  “Because that’s where we buried his body. Under the rose bushes in the front garden. They’ve not done so well in recent years, as I’m sure you know.”

  The evening had started off so well, but suddenly the assembled company felt like they were in an Agatha Christie novel with Elvira as Miss Marple, naming the murderer and the modus operandi.

  Jeanne stood at this point, ready to leave. “No matter how bad a person my father was – or you thought he was – zat is no excuse for murder. Now where did you put my coat?”

  Bernard got up and came round the dining table to join her. “I don’t think you’re being entirely fair,” he said quietly to Jeanne. “I understand how you feel, but Elvira was only protecting her sister. She had no part in your father’s actual murder.”

  Jeanne seemed to calm down a little. “No, but she helped her – how you say? – dispose of ze body. Zat is punishable in law, yes?”

  Bernard nodded. “Yes, but surely you can understand her wanting to protect her sister?”

  “I suppose so,” she said grudgingly, looking at Elvira with hurt in her eyes. “I liked you,” she said to her. “How could you do such a thing to another human being?”

  “I’m sorry, Jeanne,” was all Elvira could say. “Please don’t go.”

  Everyone in the room echoed this sentiment. The men, especially, as she was so pretty, and the smell of her French perfume was intoxicating them. Nancy Harper, not in the least impressed with the woman’s beauty or smell, piped up again now.

  “Get off your high ’orse, ducks. Worse things ’appen at sea. Sounds to me like this Purbright bloke got off lightly. You never knew ’im so don’t make out you’re so upset. Give Elvira a break. This must be ’ard for ’er, telling us all this.”

  There was a tangible gathering of bated breath while they waited for Jeanne’s reaction to this piece of Harper homespun philosophy. To their collective relief, she laughed.

  “You are right,” she said. “I am on – how you say? – ze high horse. I will get off immediatement. But it is still murder, even if he was no good.”

  “But the murderer is dead.” Robbie, who had been unusually quiet during these exchanges spoke. “And Elvira is still alive and deserves a chance of happiness for all she’s been through.”

  He gave Elvira the benefit of one of his devastating smiles. She felt herself blushing again as a warm feeling spread throughout her body to her very toes.

  “Anyway,” said Colonel Powell, “what has this murder to do with the Carstairs case? Am I missing something?”

  “I’m coming to that,” said Elvira, still flushed with pleasure at Robbie’s championing of her. “It has a bearing, I can assure you. But, the only problem is, I don’t think you will believe me.”

  It was Bernard’s turn to speak. “I will, for one,” he said.

  Robbie grinned and echoed this sentiment.

  The other three just looked puzzled.

  “Don’t know ’ow you know you’ll believe ’er without ’earing what she ’as to say,” Nancy pointed out, not unreasonably. She was enjoying herself immensely.

  “It depends whether you believe in the supernatural,” said Elvira. “I take i
t that Bernard and Robbie do, because they have experienced the intense cold that I have lived with for over thirty years. This cottage was colder than an igloo up until just a few days ago.”

  “I thought it was rising damp,” said Jeanne, now reseated, her search for her outdoor coat abandoned for the moment.

  “Rising damp doesn’t cause it to be that cold,” said Elvira, “but the presence of a restless spirit does.”

  “But it’s warm in ’ere,” Nancy pointed out. “Too Pygmalion warm if you ask me.”

  “It’s fine now, but it wasn’t up until a few days ago.” In fact, Elvira was feeling much too hot at that moment, she had got so used to the cold.

  “So, are you saying your cottage is haunted?” Colonel Powell seemed excited at the idea.

  “Yes, Colonel, at least, it was. By Rodney Purbright. But he has gone now. He’s had his revenge on Vesna.”

  “Then, that makes sense of what I saw,” he said.

  “Yes, Colonel, you saw me and Vesna carry Helen Carstairs’ body in a roll of carpet past your cottage.”

  “And that wasn’t all I saw,” he said.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Elvira was thrown for a minute. Just what had the colonel seen? He’d already said he’d seen Vesna and herself that night carrying the rolled-up carpet past his cottage. What else was there to see? Did he follow them and see them dump the body? Well, if he did, it didn’t matter anymore.

  She looked around the room at the expectant faces. What was going through their minds? she wondered. Did they believe her capable of murder? Did they think she had murdered Purbright and just put the blame on her sister now that she wasn’t there to defend herself? No, she thought. Bernard believed her, she was sure. And so did the handsome doctor. The only ones who viewed her with suspicion were the colonel, Mrs Harper and Jeanne. Jeanne, being French (half, anyway), probably viewed all English people with suspicion, so that didn’t count.

  “What happened to Helen? That’s what you’re all wondering,” she stated. “And I am about to tell you.”

  Her audience glanced at each other before returning their full attention to her. This evening was turning out to be one of the strangest in their lives.

  “She came to us that evening in a very distressed state, telling us she was going to have a baby and she needed help to get rid of it. Her father would kill her if he found out, she said.”

  That, so far, was easy for her audience to believe. They nodded in sympathy at the plight of the poor girl.

  “So, what could I do? Turn her away to face the wrath of her father? Carstairs isn’t an easy man, although he is a fair one. But when it came to his daughter, I don’t know how he would have reacted, and I wasn’t prepared to find out. Nor was Vesna. She was already making up the powder.” She paused. “Yes, she made it up, not me. But I would have done, if she hadn’t.”

  The gathering was with her so far. But, she feared, the parting of the ways would be coming soon.

  “When she had taken the powder, we advised her to go home immediately and have a hot bath, as hot as she could bear it. But she said she would be unable to do that, as they only had baths at set times, and they would suspect something at once. So, we said she could have a bath here.”

  “Reasonable enough,” mumbled Robbie, “although, as a medical man, I would say that hot baths, accompanied by gin, hardly ever work.”

  “The powder was more potent than gin,” Elvira pointed out. “It had worked in the past, although not always. I told the police, and you, too, Bernard, that it hardly ever worked. That was untrue, I’m sorry.”

  She now felt the room begin to turn against her. Never mind, she thought, casting a glance at the envelope tucked behind the mantel clock.

  “Anyway, Helen went upstairs and ran the bath as I told her. It was then I heard a noise in the kitchen.” It was at that moment, as she was telling her story, she remembered exactly when she had heard the noise of the cutlery drawer being rattled. “Although I didn’t realize it at the time, I now know it must have been Vesna.”

  “What was she doing and why is it important?” asked the colonel.

  “I’m coming to that. Let me tell it in my own way, please.”

  The colonel harrumphed but let her carry on.

  “I was sitting here in the parlour, looking through a magazine, I remember, feeling nervous and worried about the poor girl, when I heard a scream from upstairs. I thought Helen had probably just cried out because the water was too hot, but I ran up the stairs to make sure she was all right. When I reached the landing, Vesna was standing there, holding a blood-soaked bundle.

  “Bundle?” Nancy Harper looked puzzled. “Bundle of what?”

  “I will tell you, dear, if you’ll let me,” said Elvira, impatient now to get to the end of her narrative.

  “Well, I only asked,” sniffed Nancy, looking around for back-up.

  “Quite right, quite right,” obliged the colonel.

  “The bundle was the murder weapon wrapped in a towel. Vesna said it was dripping all over the bathroom, so she had wrapped it up. I pushed past her and saw Helen sinking into the bath water. I’ll never forget it. It was pink and foamy. And she was dead. I could tell. Her eyes were glassy, and her mouth was open, still in mid-scream, the pink water dripping down her chin. It was – horrible!”

  Bernard resisted the temptation to get up and go over to her. He could see she was about to collapse with the strain of her confession.

  “So, there you have it,” she continued after she had taken a few moments to compose herself. No one spoke in the meantime. “The rest you can probably work out for yourselves.”

  “So, you took zat poor girl’s body to the Common, wrapped in a roll of carpet?” Jeanne was incredulous.

  “Yes, I – we did. Vesna told me she hadn’t been aware of what she was doing. I couldn’t – wouldn’t – believe it. Why would she have stabbed her like that? What possible reason? She had just helped her, for God’s sake.”

  “What was ze reason, then?” asked Jeanne.

  “She told me only later that night. This is where you won’t believe me.”

  Elvira eyed them one by one. Bernard and Robbie would believe her, she knew. But no one else. She wouldn’t herself, if someone told her what she was about to tell them.

  “She told me Rodney Purbright told her to kill Helen. He said she had to, to even the score. She had killed him and now she had to pay. He said the girl was herself when younger. She had to kill herself!”

  There was a collective intake of breath. Even Bernard gasped at this. He hadn’t expected that. Robbie was the only one who seemed unfazed.

  “Was Helen so like your sister as a young woman?” he asked.

  “Almost identical. She could have been her daughter.”

  The colonel spoke into the silence that followed this comment. “I believe you,” he said.

  Elvira turned to him in surprise. “You do?”

  “I do.” He smiled, looking around him at the amazed faces. “You see, I saw him that night, following you.”

  “Saw him? Saw who?” Elvira’s hand went to her mouth in astonishment.

  “That Purbright feller. I wasn’t sure until now, but that’s who it must have been.”

  “It couldn’t have been him, Colonel,” said Elvira, trying to be patient but not quite succeeding. “He’s been dead for over thirty years!”

  “I know that. It was him, though. I thought I must have had the DT’s when I saw what I saw. You all know my reputation – well, apart from you, Jeanne – no, don’t try to deny it…”

  He paused. No one did.

  “I’m fond of a drop, I admit, but now I know I wasn’t seeing things.”

  “But you must have been, Colonel.” Elvira was insistent.

  “It was his ghost, of course. You see, he disappeared as I was watching him. He was laughing. I couldn’t hear him, but I could see the smile on his smug face. It was the last thing to disappear. Like the Cheshire cat.�
��

  “You are wrong!” cried Jeanne suddenly. “You are all wrong. My father was a handsome young man. He wasn’t a monster, like you all want to believe. Look.”

  She fumbled in her handbag and brought out the old sepia photograph of Purbright in his solder’s uniform. “See! How could a man as handsome as that be so wicked?”

  The colonel stared at the photo, ignoring the woman’s assertion. “Yes, there’s no doubt about it. That’s him! That’s who I saw following you, Elvira.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  “Well,” sighed Elvira. “There you are. It’s not very believable, is it? But, just ask yourselves this: would I be telling you such a story if it wasn’t true? Would I even be telling you anything at all? What possible motive could I have for making this up?”

  “You’re quite right,” said the colonel. He turned to the others. “I can vouch for what Elvira’s told you, at least about what I saw.” He turned back to her. “I take it you didn’t know you were being followed?”

  “No, of course not.” She gave an involuntary shiver.

  Jeanne stood up, this time seemingly determined to find her coat and leave. “I find zis all very strange,” she said. “I do not believe one word of what you have said. I think we should tell the police that you are mad and have killed two people. You may have killed others, no?”

  “Come off it,” said Nancy, getting up on her fat little legs with an effort. “You ain’t got no proof of that. Elvira’s always been straight with me and with the vicar, too. And the doc. We all stand by ’er. You can protest all you like, Miss Fancy Pants, but we know Elvira and she ain’t no mass murderer.”

  Jeanne couldn’t help but smile. Nancy Harper was the sort of Englishwoman she had heard about but never met. Until now. A no-nonsense Cockney with a heart of gold.

  “You are right,” she said at last. She could feel everyone in the room willing her to agree with Nancy. “I am ze outsider here, and I will not interfere.” And, to prove she meant it, she tore the photograph of her father in two. Everyone clapped.