Sins Out of School

by Jeanne M. Dams

  Hers was gravel.

  She was at the front door before I could ring the bell. She was less than five feet tall and certainly didn’t weigh as much as ninety pounds. She wore gray slacks tucked into yellow Wellington boots, an Aran Isles cardigan three sizes too big over a soft rose sweater in what looked like cashmere, and a belligerent expression. Her gray hair, still abundant, looked as though it had been styled with an egg beater, and a cigarette was tucked into the corner of her mouth.

  “Well?”

  “Miss Simmons?”

  “Nobody else living here.”

  “My name is Dorothy Martin. Margaret Allenby sent me with her love and a plate of scones.”

  The wrinkles of her weatherbeaten face crinkled into a grin. “Come in, then, why don’t you? Too cold to stand here passing the time of day.”

  She showed me into the front parlor. It was densely populated with old-fashioned furniture, lace antimacassars, and ornaments of the present-from-Brighton sort. In the grate a coal fire literally roared. I’d never heard a fire make so much noise, nor endured one that produced so much heat. I estimated the temperature of the room at close to ninety.

  “You’ll be too hot in that coat. Take it off. Take off that hat, which is the silliest thing I’ve seen in years. Take off anything you can, down to decency level. I’m old and I like it warm, but you youngsters can never take the heat.”

  My seventieth birthday wasn’t all that far away, and I hadn’t been called a youngster in at least thirty years. I forgave her about the hat (which was a perfectly respectable black velvet with only one huge red rose) and obeyed her, stripping down to silk blouse and wool skirt and wishing I had a bathing suit on underneath.

  “Now. I don’t propose to offer you tea, because it isn’t teatime, and if you’ve come from Margaret, you’re bungful of tea or coffee anyway. The loo’s through there, when you need it.” She gestured vaguely. “And I’m not going to offer you these scones, because she sent them for me. She’ll have told you I’m a frightfully rude old woman, so it won’t come as a surprise.”

  “She said you were remarkable.”

  “At my age, that means I’m breathing. Never mind. I’m young yet, by my family’s standards. That doesn’t mean I have time to waste, though. I might break the average and pop off any time. So speak your piece.”

  “I—uh—”

  “Margaret sent you here for some reason besides delivering scones. Don’t be stupid, woman! Tell me what she wants, or what you want.”

  I began to believe that Miss Simmons was not afraid of the Rookwoods. It might, indeed, be the other way around.

  However, I was determined not to be intimidated. “First I’d like a glass of water. With ice, if there is any.”

  Miss Simmons cackled. “American, aren’t you? Ice water, pooh! How about some good English beer? I’ve chilled lager, if you must have it cold.”

  The time was a little after nine-thirty in the morning. I accepted the lager. “I’ll get it, if you—”

  “I’ve still the use of my limbs, young woman. Sit. I think that chair can take your weight.” She pointed to a Morris chair sort of contraption that looked hideously uncomfortable, all wood and cracked leather arranged at odd angles. The seat was covered with perhaps a week’s supply of newspapers, a knitted tea cozy in shades of magenta and bilious green, and a dented, blackened tea tray that looked as if it might once have been priceless Georgian silver. I scooped the collection off onto the floor and sat, wondering if I’d ever be able to get out of the chair’s clutches.

  24

  MISS Simmons brought in the beer, mine in a thick, dimpled glass mug like the kind they once used in pubs, hers in a lidded pewter one dating back much farther.

  “Cheers,” she said, lifting her mug and draining off perhaps half its contents. “Aaah. Guinness is good for you. I know who you are.”

  “You do?” I had swallowed my sip of beer, or I might have choked on it.

  “You’re that American woman who keeps poking into crimes, and who stole the most eligible widower in town right out from under our noses.”

  “That’s me. And he’s a treasure, let me tell you.”

  Again the cackle. “I do like a person who isn’t touchy. Can’t abide people who get their feelings hurt.”

  “I should imagine you know quite a few people who do get their feelings hurt.” I put down a healthy swig of beer. The room was, if possible, getting even hotter.

  “No guts, that’s their trouble. Can’t take the truth. You’re here about the Doyles.”

  If I kept on being surprised by what this woman said, I’d waste a lot of energy. “I am. Second sight, or did someone tell you?”

  “Common sense. You fancy yourself some sort of sleuth. You’ve come to me. Only people I know who’ve got themselves mixed up in murder are the Doyles. Q.E.D.”

  “You wouldn’t make a bad detective yourself. So you knew the Doyles?”

  She finished her beer and put the mug down on the floor, the only available flat surface. “Want another?”

  “I’m still working on this one, thank you.”

  “Hmph.” She lit a cigarette.

  I couldn’t tell if her disgust was directed at my wimpy speed of consumption, or my implied criticism of her more robust drinking habits. I smiled.

  “The Doyles. She’s a mouse, he was a bastard. The child’s peculiar. What else do you want to know?”

  “Ultimately I want to know who killed him, but—”

  “Why?”

  “Why what? You lost me.”

  “Why d’you want to know whodunit? To put ’em in quod? Or give ’em a medal?”

  “He wasn’t a nice man,” I said. “But I don’t approve of murder.” I sounded prim even to myself.

  “Hmph! Milk and water, like all C of E people.”

  “You prefer the militancy of the Chapel of the One True God?”

  “All right, all right, no need to get nasty. I went to that place for years because my dear papa went, and dear Papa may have been the crotchetiest old fool in England, but he also had money. I didn’t want him to go and do something stupid with it, did I? I know which side my bread is buttered on.” She looked around the crowded, stifling room with complacency. “I’ve this house now, and plenty of money to last me the rest of my life, even if I live to some damn-fool age like Papa. So it was worth all that ranting and raving and hellfire. Not that I didn’t give them some of their own back every now and then.” She smiled reminiscently.

  We seemed to have wandered rather far from the subject. “The Doyles?” I prompted.

  “What about them?”

  “What I really need to know is what John Doyle was doing two days before he died, and that evening. He—”

  “Can’t tell you that. Hadn’t laid eyes on the man in better than a year. Glory be to God.”

  “I agree with you about that. I’m grateful I never had to meet him. But what I was about to say was that he did a couple of odd things those last few days. He went to London, for one thing, on a working day, and told a colleague at the bank that it was on business. Would you have any idea what kind of business?”

  “Other people’s business, no doubt. That’s what Doyle poked into. Liked to catch people out. Reveled in it. One thing for sure, it was chapel business. He did a lot for that chapel. Kept the books, for one thing, or audited them, or some such.”

  “Was he paid for doing that?”

  She snorted while drawing on her cigarette and set off a coughing fit that lasted so long I was alarmed. I tried to struggle out of the chair, but she waved me back.

  “Don’t fuss,” she said when she could speak again. “I don’t need a nursemaid. But don’t ask me again about old Rookwood paying anybody to do anything, or I might have a fit of apoplexy and die on the spot.”

  “Doyle did the work as a volunteer, then?”

  “He did it,” said the old woman, emphasizing her words with little jabs of her cigarette, “so he’d be in
the know. There’s a lot to learn from a set of ledgers if you know how to read between the lines, and Doyle knew, of that you can be certain. He might find out something discreditable about someone, you see? Something he could use to hound them. And if you want my opinion, which I gather you do or you wouldn’t be here listening to an old woman natter on, that’s what he was doing in London. Chasing something down, somehow, something he could use against someone. And if you’re not going to strike a medal for the man who killed him, you just find out who it was, and I’ll take care of the reward.” She sat back and lit another cigarette from the stub of the last one. The air was growing thick with smoke, and I was dizzy from the heat, but I was learning things.

  I persevered. “Hmm. That’s a new thought, and a useful one. I can figure out a way to follow up on that. Tell me something else. A man I know thought Doyle was meeting a woman in London. Is that likely?”

  “Having an affair, you mean? Never knew an Anglican yet who could call a spade a spade. I’d say it was about as likely as a hurricane in the desert. John Doyle got off on power, not sex. He despised women even more than he did men, and if a tart had offered him a free session, I expect he’d have spent it preaching to her about her sinful ways.”

  “All right, one more. The night he died, he was out very late. His wife went to bed at midnight and he wasn’t home yet. He said he was going to a church meeting, but that doesn’t sound very likely to me. I’ve never known any church meeting to go on that late, even among us Church of England types, and we’re pretty sociable. Obviously, you don’t think he was out indulging in an orgy.” (There, was that spadelike enough for her?) “What’s your best guess?”

  But she shook her head. “Don’t know. Not got a clue. This wasn’t the Wednesday prayer meeting?”

  “After that, Amanda said he told her.”

  “Well, then—unless he was spying on someone. That might have been it. He did that once, a boy who lived nearby, who—”

  “Yes, I’ve heard that story, and it was painful enough the first time. Any more and you’ll have me rethinking that medal. Just one more question and then I’ll leave you to your own affairs.”

  “Leave me and my smoke-filled house, you mean. I can see you sitting there thinking thoughts about lung cancer and trying not to cough.”

  “Indeed. But at your age, you’ve made your choices and don’t need me to preach at you. And I expect I won’t die from an hour of secondhand smoke. But I do have some questions that I need answered by someone who’s still a member of Rookwood’s chapel. Can you give me the name of anyone who doesn’t think he’s the cat’s pajamas, and who wouldn’t mind talking to me?”

  “Do you ever go to pubs, or are you too afraid of smoke?”

  “I like pubs. I prefer them not to resemble one of Dante’s inner circles, if possible. Why?”

  “Do you know the Bell, down by the river?”

  “I know where it is. I’ve never been in it.”

  “Go. The publican is a man called Bell, if you believe it. Samuel Bell. Sam and his wife are Scots, and they joined the chapel when they moved down south because they thought it sounded like good old John Knox’s brand of religion. By the time they found out what it really was, they were involved, but they don’t like it. They’ll give you an earful if you go at a time when they’re not too busy. Not lunchtime. They do you a good lunch, but they’re run off their feet then.” She looked at the mantel clock, a Victorian horror of black marble and gilt cupids. “Now would be as good a time as any, if you think you can drink another beer at this hour without ruining your reputation.”

  “Right.” With some difficulty I wriggled out of the chair and stood up. “Would you like to come with me? I’ll stand you a Guinness.”

  “Lord save you, I’ve been drinking milk. That’s why I put it in the pewter pot, so you wouldn’t see. Just having you on, m’dear. This old stomach can’t take the good stuff anymore. Have to drink milk. Pah!”

  “Well, I must say! You are an unprincipled old woman, and the Baptists are welcome to you. May I come and see you again sometime? In summer, perhaps,” I added hastily, “when we can sit outside?”

  “You and that handsome husband of yours can take me rowing on the river. I’ll criticize his rowing technique and eat all the picnic lunch.”

  “It’s a deal. I’ll see myself out.”

  “Not that far to the door, is it? Mind you come, after you’ve found out all about it, and tell me.”

  “I’ll even bring you all the malicious gossip I can dig up.”

  “You be careful, young woman, or you’ll be just as wicked as I am one day!”

  I had, I thought as I walked down the front path to the gate, been told that the true English eccentric was dying out. If it was so, I’d surely had a rare privilege that morning in meeting one of the best of the breed.

  25

  SAMUEL Bell was a man in his fifties, at a guess. He didn’t look at all like my idea of a publican. He was pale and lean, rather than round and rubicund, and looked very much like someone who would approve of John Knox’s austere precepts. The perfect dour Scotsman, one would have thought. I wondered how he had ended up in the beer business, until his wife entered carrying a tray of glasses.

  “I’ve polished them, Sam. That machine has got to be repaired. It leaves them all streaky.” She spoke with a lovely burr. It matched her face, for Mrs. Bell was a bonnie lass indeed. Younger than her husband, she had roses in her cheeks that would have sent Robert Burns into ecstasies of comparison. Her hair was still black and lustrous, her figure buxom without being in the least blowsy.

  Samuel’s face lighted up when he saw her. They had been married—how long, I wondered?—and he looked like a honeymooner.

  I had just come in and was the only customer in the pub. Appetizing smells hinted that lunch was being prepared, but the only edibles on display at the moment were packets of crisps and a tray of Scotch eggs in a glass-fronted cooler.

  “Now, then, what can I get you, dear?”

  “Some mineral water, please, and a Scotch egg. I’ve just come from a visit to a friend of yours, and she plied me with beer at nine-thirty in the morning. I need something to absorb it.”

  “Ah, that’ll be Miss Simmons. She will have her little joke with visitors. Fizzy or plain?”

  “Fizzy, with ice and lime, please.”

  “How do you know Miss Simmons?” asked Mrs. Bell as she uncapped a bottle of water and poured it into a glass, adding a wedge of lime and the single small ice cube that is standard issue in England. She put a Scotch egg on a small saucer and put saucer and glass on the bar in front of me.

  “I don’t know her, not really. I met her just this morning, sent by Mrs. Allenby. Are you acquainted with her? Her husband’s dean of the Cathedral.”

  “Aye, we know her.” Samuel sounded unexpectedly pleasant. “A good woman. As is Miss Simmons, if a wee bit unconventional.”

  Mrs. Bell laughed, the rich, full-bodied laugh of a woman who enjoys life. “A shocking old sinner, she is, but we love her. She’s well, I hope? You said Mrs. Allenby ‘sent’ you.”

  “Miss Simmons is in roaring good health and spirits and will probably outlive us all. I went there, not to look after her, but to seek some information. And she sent me to you two. My name is Dorothy Martin, by the way, and I’m a friend of Amanda Doyle.” That was stretching a point, but I thought of myself as her friend, even if she might not agree.

  “I see.” Samuel looked thoughtful. “I’m Samuel Bell, as you doubtless know, and this is my wife, Jean.”

  “Bonnie Jean,” I said. “Or do you know Brigadoon?”

  “That song I know,” he said, and gave his wife another of those adoring looks before turning back to me. “You’re helping Mrs. Doyle, then? I think I saw you in chapel on Sunday, and you looked—um—a mite out of place, with the hat and all.” He eyed today’s hat, but unlike Miss Simmons, forbore to comment. “Was that why you were there, on Mrs. Doyle’s behalf? It’s a
shocking thing has happened to her.”

  “It is, and I’m trying to help all I can. I’m helping the police, in fact.”

  “Oh, aye. You’d be the chief constable’s new wife, would you no’?”

  “I would.” I fought to keep the accent and lilt out of my own speech. It’s contagious. “The former chief constable, that is. At any rate, I’ve looked into one or two matters for the police in the past, and I’m involved in this one because I feel very sorry for Mrs. Doyle, and worried as well.”

  “I’ve heard they’ve no suspects for the murder,” said Jean, giving the r’s their full due. “And in that case …”

  “Yes, well, there you have it. I don’t think Amanda Doyle is any more capable of murder than my cats. Less, in fact. The cats dispatch small rodents with great enjoyment, but I can’t imagine Amanda killing even a mouse. I fear for her, all the same, and for her little girl. So I’m trying to find out what her husband did the week he was killed. He told Amanda he was at a church meeting that Wednesday night. Would you know anything about that?”

  “Prayer meeting,” both the Bells said in unison. Jean made a face and added, “I went, but it’s the last time. The business is enough of an excuse, and I hate the meeting anyway. Sheer hypocrisy, the greater part of it. They stand and pray aloud, you know, and ask the Lord to forgive others for their terrible sins. Naming the people and listing the sins, you understand.”

  “I know about the prayer meetings, and though I didn’t know exactly what went on, I can’t say I’m surprised. This meeting was after that. Mr. Doyle hadn’t come home by midnight.”

  “But that’s not possible, Mrs. Martin.” Jean shook her head decisively. “The prayer meeting was over before eight, and the Rookwoods always lock up the chapel afterward. I remember Mrs. Rookwood standing there, jingling the keys, hustling us out.”