Death of an Unsung Hero

by Tessa Arlen

  Inspector Savor had lost his scornful look. “Get on with it, man.”

  “Certainly, sir. You see, he’s a bully is old Bill, but he sometimes takes a bit of a dislike to certain types. We had a gardener’s boy once; Tommy was nice little chap but he was scared stiff of Bill. I swear that old bird would sneak about and hide to wait for Tommy if he so much as tried to creep up that part of the drive. Over six feet Bill’s wingspan is, tried to measure it once and he damn near took me leg off!” His voice was rich with pride—he certainly had the inspector’s attention. “Oh yes, he’s an impressive sight all right when he’s angry is Bill, and he has a hiss like a viper. No matter how hard Tommy ran, old Bill was on him. You should have seen the lad’s calves—covered in great black bruises they were. And he had it in for the lieutenant.” He nodded his head at Lieutenant Phipps, who was drooping in silent dejection. “He’s a right old bugger, in’t he, sir? Old Bill took a dislike to you the first time he saw you. Whenever Bill was on that side of the orchard the lieutenant would take the long way round.”

  Mrs. Jackson could tell that Inspector Savor didn’t like any of this. He looked around the room and then over at his prisoner. “Sounds like a lot of mumbo jumbo to me,” was all he could think of to say.

  “That’ll be because you are from the town, sir.” Mr. Thrower was having none of this superior talk from a jumped-up Market Wingley lad. “Hard to understand country ways if you are born and bred in a town. If you want to walk down to the orchard along the east drive toward Iyntwood, let’s see for ourselves if that old gander will let you pass. If he don’t take a liking to you I hope you have a good pair of legs on you and know how to use ’em.” Thrower’s shoulders shook with a silent inner laugh, as he looked around the room to include them all.

  Phipps came out of his reverie. “That goose,” he said without regard for the gender of geese or those around him, “is a right royal bastard, sir.” He addressed the only man with any real authority in the room.

  Major Andrews had been listening to the gardener’s story closely. “So do you think the gander can tell if people are intimidated by him?” It was clear that Major Andrews was interested by this information, for he muttered in an aside to Corporal Budge, “That could be quite a useful therapy, Budge, herding Bill.”

  “Yes, sir, old Bill knows who to pick on.” Thrower turned back to Savor: “You have to have felt that powerful beak penetrating the tender flesh of your nether quarters to really understand how fearsome Bill is, Inspector.” Mrs. Jackson wondered if gardener and gander shared the same likes and dislikes. “And what is more, I drive the geese off the lake every afternoon just after two in the afternoon. And yesterday,” he pulled an old turnip-shaped watch out of his pocket, looked at its face, and then turned it toward them so they might verify its accuracy. “I was held up a bit by Mrs. Thrower and it was right on a twenty past two when I drove the geese into the orchard. I saw the lieutenant shoveling his apples and he still had a way to go. I expect old Bill spotted Lieutenant Phipps right off as he was leaving with his wheelbarrow and cut him off at the drive.”

  “So you see, Inspector,” Mrs. Jackson so loved to have the last word, “Lieutenant Phipps left the hospital at two o’clock with everyone else, walked down to the orchard and arrived there at ten past two, spent fifteen minutes loading up the apples into his barrow and started up the drive, and there was Bill, so he turned around and went back to the north gate to take a detour through the kitchen garden. He must have spent barely two minutes in the kitchen garden … enough to take in what had happened to the captain, before he…”

  Mr. Thrower liked to have the last word, too: “… Legged it for help. There’d be no time at all for him to conk the captain one on the head and then hide his weapon, that’s for sure.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Just after breakfast the following morning, Clementine managed to waylay her daughter as she walked across the drive to her motorcar. She noticed that Althea was wearing her Women’s Land Army uniform in the khaki so loved by everyone in Britain these days, and decided not to comment on her whipcord breeches; try as she might, she found the sight of them jarring. At least they are modestly covered by her tunic, she thought as she took in a pair of driving goggles worn, as Harry wore his, over her cap, where they could do no possible good at all. For some reason that Clementine could not fathom, her daughter was carrying a riding crop in her hand. She wondered if this was to discipline her motorcar if it showed signs of lagging, or whether it was required uniform.

  “A moment, Althea, please,” she called, and her daughter half turned at the top step.

  Everyone who met them remarked at how closely Althea resembled her; they had the same oval face and delicate chin. But the eyes that turned toward Clementine were the intense blue of her father’s and brother’s and her gaze was just as direct. “Good morning, Mama, I am awfully late.” Althea greeted her in a brisk tone of voice—a warning for her to say what she wanted to without too much ado. To back up her need for haste she waved her crop at her motorcar, its coachwork shining in the morning sun and a Women’s Land Army pennant—a sheaf of golden wheat on a green ground—fluttering in the morning breeze.

  “I won’t keep you long, darling. Do you know if the officers on farm detachment stayed at their designated farms all day yesterday?”

  Althea’s gaze became thoughtful. “Captain Standish was working at Dodd Farm—I dropped him off myself at about a quarter past eight. Lieutenant Forbes walked down to the Home Farm from the hospital—he was leaving as I arrived; I can’t imagine that they left their farms. I dropped Ian at Brook End last, and he didn’t go anywhere at all after that. Mama, I must be on my way…”

  Ian? She must be referring to Lieutenant Carmichael. Clementine was so taken aback by the informality of her daughter referring to one of their officer-patients by his Christian name that whatever she was going to say next went completely out of her head. Ian? Why on earth did Althea think it was acceptable to call this complete stranger Ian? She recovered from her astonishment and decided that she simply must know more before her twenty-one-year-old daughter drove off for the day, no doubt to spend more time with this Ian. She walked down the steps and around the front of the motor, opened the door of the passenger seat, and got in. “Such a lovely morning, I’ll come along for the ride.” That’s the way, take a nice bright but firm tone with her, she thought, and don’t allow yourself to be persuaded that her spending time quite alone with young men is acceptable because it is her job.

  “Mama, I simply don’t have time to take you for a ride this morning.” Althea was still standing on the drive looking particularly put out. Is she alarmed at the idea of my accompanying her to Brook End Farm? Clementine watched the expression on her daughter’s face set and patted the driver’s seat next to her in invitation. “One day when you are not too busy I would love it if you were to teach me how to operate a motorcar.”

  “I would be happy to. It does rather take more than a morning though. Perhaps when you and Mrs. Jackson have solved your crime, and you have some time to yourself, then we could dedicate a week or two to the business of teaching you to drive.” Althea opened the door on the driver’s side.

  How on earth does she know about our inquiry? “Solving our crime?” she said, feeling almost guilty of breaking the law.

  Althea was clearly enjoying the fact that she had surprised her. “Did you imagine for one moment that Harry wouldn’t tell me? Darling Mama, I had absolutely no idea that it was you who worked out who killed Teddy until Harry told me how clever you were. And that business up in London at Hermione Kingsley’s dinner party? I was simply amazed that it was you and Mrs. Jackson who got to the bottom of all of that.” Clementine couldn’t help but notice that Althea’s eyes were shining with pure pleasure as she informed her that she knew about her rather eccentric interests. “I think inquiring must be a jolly sight more interesting than gardening. Exercises the brain and keeps you on your toes. It is not good fo
r us to settle too thoroughly into a life of habit.” She ended on this rather patronizing note as she slammed the door of her motorcar shut.

  “A life of habit?” Clementine pretended to be taken aback. “Let’s not talk about your addiction to world travel, then—a habit that only a war could break.” She caught her daughter’s eye and they both laughed, lightening the tension considerably. “Gardening and making inquiries are very similar interests: they both require patience, observation, and a strong appreciation of both harmony and things that don’t fit together, as well as the willingness to painstakingly weed through either information or a herbaceous border.” This made her daughter laugh even more, as if she had said something enormously funny.

  “I am driving straight to Brook End Farm this morning. The Land girls have already picked up the farm-detachment officers and I will be spending all morning there. There is so much to do…” Blue eyes turned toward Clementine and a slight frown made a brief appearance. Clementine understood that she was not welcome on Althea’s farming jaunt.

  “That’s quite all right, you can drop me on Brook End Lane. I will walk back to the house across the fields. A perfect morning and I could do with the exercise.” She adjusted the brim of her hat and smiled, happy at the prospect of a drive with her daughter. “Where is Harry, by the way?” So much for promises from reliable family chaperones.

  “He went over to Brook End Farm earlier; one of the tractors won’t start. He bet me five bob that it wouldn’t be long before I was interviewed, either by you or Mrs. Jackson.” The motorcar was fitted with an electric starter and she put her foot down on the accelerator and started down the drive at a sedate pace. “This slow enough for you?” She gave her mother a cheeky smile. “Now what can I tell you?”

  “It’s about the officers on farm detachment. How, for instance, would you know if they had spent all day at their farms?”

  “Well for a start, Forbes at the Home Farm was out in the fields and he would have not been working alone but with the Land girls and farmers. He doesn’t know how to use a scythe so he was probably stooking wheat. Standish at Dodd Farm might have been actually at the farm because their crop is already in. But if either of them went off for an hour or two it would have been very noticeable. I will check if you would like me to.”

  “And the other officer, the one at Brook End, what about him?” Her voice must have sounded critical, because her daughter hesitated for the slightest fraction of a second.

  “No need to check. I gave Ian … Lieutenant Carmichael a plowing lesson with Dolly in the morning. And then just before luncheon he took her down to the pasture and came back to the spinney, you know by the ten-acre, and we had a picnic there.” Clementine had been wondering about this picnic off and on ever since last night. She was quite aware where the spinney by the ten-acre was. It was a particularly picturesque spot, perched up on top of Marston Downs. A romantic place to spend time with a young man, she concluded, with a sizable flicker of apprehension. After lying awake at three o’clock in the morning for over an hour she remembered that she had met Lieutenant Carmichael outside the hospital as she and Ralph were returning home on the afternoon Captain Bray’s body had been found. He was the one with the attractive, open, boyish face. But there are so many boys, she thought as she drifted back to sleep. The world is full of them: polite, dutiful, patriotic boys all getting blown to bits in the war.

  But this morning was a beautiful one, and the little car zipped along the narrow lane with its tall hedgerows. The airy boughs of beech trees cast dappled, dancing shadows and the air had the sweet, rich smell of dew-soaked grass as it dried in the sun. Clementine’s reverie of the peaceful countryside was interrupted by her daughter’s voice. “You have gone very quiet,” she said. Althea’s pretty bay-brown curls fluttered around her jaunty little cap as she glanced over at her. And Clementine decided that her concern for the unchaperoned picnic was not one that should be discussed now. Timing was everything when you needed to make your point with firm emphasis.

  “Really? I was just thinking that I didn’t know you could plow.”

  “My plow lines are as straight as a die. Old Mr. Lawrence taught Harry and me when we were younger. Plowing, once well taught, becomes second nature; it’s like riding a bicycle—once learned, never forgotten. There is a real art to it, Mama, you should learn, then you can help us with winter plowing.”

  Clementine’s smile became a little fixed. Althea was teasing her. She knows I disapprove of her spending time alone with this Carmichael—with any young man—and now she is being pert. But she wanted information. “So, Lieutenant Carmichael and you spent the morning plowing and then he put the horse out to pasture, the one at the bottom by Brook End Lane?”

  “Yes, that’s right. And I went on up to the spinney and unpacked the luncheon basket.” Picnic baskets seemed to be popping up all over the place yesterday, Clementine thought with a grim expression on her face. “And Lieutenant Carmichael joined me about twenty minutes later. So that would make me his alibi”—another glance to see how her mother was taking this rather startling information—“wouldn’t it?”

  At least she has stopped calling him Ian, Clementine thought, but all she said to her daughter was, “Any idea of the exact time?”

  Althea blew her horn as they came up to a blind corner in the road. “Oh, Mama, you surely don’t think that Lieutenant Carmichael could have murdered Captain Bray? What about the men back at the Hall? It must have been one of the other officers, one of the ones that failed their Medical Board review last week.”

  “Nevertheless, Althea, can you remember the time you stopped plowing for luncheon, the time that the lieutenant left you?”

  “Well as a matter of fact I can: I said, ‘No wonder I’m famished, it’s nearly time for luncheon,’ and he said, ‘Back in a jiffy, poor old Dolly has earned her luncheon too,’ or something like that. And off he went down to the pasture to let her loose, and I looked at my watch and it was just a little before one o’clock.” She ended on what sounded to Clementine very much like a note of defiance.

  It would only take him just few minutes to walk Dolly down to the pasture but it would take longer to walk back up the hill, it gets steep below the spinney. Say twenty to twenty-five minutes? Probably closer to twenty, maybe even less; he must have been awfully keen to join her for a picnic à deux. She pictured Lieutenant Carmichael throwing open the gate to the pasture and speeding the young mare through with a hearty slap on her rump before setting out up the hill at a vigorous pace. She gazed out of the window at the hedgerow flashing past them at an alarming rate, and thought that Ian Carmichael had the perfect alibi—her daughter.

  “And do you happen to know how long it was before he joined you at the spinney?” She did her best not to sound too critical and she must have succeeded because her daughter answered quite unselfconsciously, “Yes, I do. He came puffing up the hill and said he was sorry to have taken so long, Dolly was playing up a bit, and I looked at my watch and it was just after twenty minutes past one.”

  “And after luncheon?” she asked, but with little interest for the answer except the hope that they had both finally rejoined the Land Army girls—who no doubt were all nudging each other in the ribs and rolling their eyes at Lady Althea Talbot strolling along in the company of Ian Carmichael. She gritted her teeth together. Say nothing, wait until this evening.

  “Oh, afterwards we went down to the pasture to catch Dolly so we could take her back up to the fields to pull the big wagon. She made a huge fuss about it and was being very naughty; Lieutenant Carmichael was running all over place. We caught her finally and were just about to walk her back to the farm along the lane and that’s when we saw Mr. Bray sitting forlornly in his motorcar.” She slowed down as they crossed the narrow bridge at the top of Brook End Lane.

  Clementine hardly dared ask what time that was and was not surprised when her daughter became vague about little things like the time of day. “I can’t be quite sure of th
e actual time, but it was probably about half past three or so. It took ages and ages to catch Dolly.” I am sure it did, Clementine thought, simmering at her daughter’s reckless attitude to convention, and what was worse, she didn’t, even now, seem to be aware of her tremendous breach of propriety, for on she went as if everything about her afternoon was quite acceptable.

  “Crops are all in at Brook End, so we can concentrate on helping Mr. Howard to get his wheat in. I simply can’t believe how stubborn he is. I think he just doesn’t like the idea of women working on his land, and he seems to have a deep prejudice against any help that isn’t local.” Althea skillfully negotiated a tight series of bends in the lane without slowing down, her right hand hovering over the electric horn, and pulled up at the bottom of the lane that led up to Brook End Farm.

  “Which way are you walking, Mama? Footpath across Holly Farm’s fields, or shall I drop you in the village?”

  “Here will do very well, darling.” Clementine got out of the motor and stood by the gate into the footpath through the wheat field. “Is this where Mr. Bray’s motorcar broke down?”

  “Right where you are standing, Mama. Have a lovely walk then. Got to dash now, cheerio!”

  Clementine stood by the side of the road and watched Althea drive on toward Brook End Farm in a cloud of dust. Moments later a motor truck full of Land girls came speeding along the lane. She waved to the driver to slow down and a gloved hand lifted in greeting.

  It is not a good idea for all these young women to be racing around the countryside, driving farm machinery, and picnicking alone with young men, she thought crossly as she opened the gate and set off along the footpath through the Holly Farm wheat field to home. In fact it is a very bad idea indeed; no wonder Mr. Howard doesn’t want the Land girls on his farm.