Aunt Dimity: Detective

by Nancy Atherton

  “I didn’t shed a tear when I found her,” Sally acknowledged. She smiled ruefully at Dick. “To be honest, I was convinced you’d smacked her—to keep her from turning you in to the inland revenue. And I didn’t blame you, either.”

  “Decent of you, Sally.” Dick nodded toward George Wetherhead. “My money was on old George. I thought he’d whacked her with his crutch to keep her from blabbing about his affair with Miranda.”

  “Did you really?” George’s face lit with delight. “I didn’t kill Pruneface, Dick, but it was kind of you to think of me.”

  “My pleasure,” said Dick with a friendly nod.

  I didn’t know whether to be amused or disgusted by the abrupt change in atmosphere. The tense confrontation engineered by Lilian Bunting had suddenly turned into a convivial gathering of neighbors eager to clear up a slight misunderstanding. Murder accusations weren’t hurled, but tossed lightly between suspects, and the accused responded not with howls of protest but with good-humored, low-key denials.

  “I have to admit that I thought Miranda might’ve had a hand in Pruneface’s death,” George said, going with the flow. “I’m sure you’ve heard the lies she concocted about Miranda’s medicinal herbs.”

  The villagers’ hesitant nods and sidelong glances suggested that although they were less certain than George that all of Miranda’s herbs were strictly medicinal, they’d still rather side with her than with Pruneface.

  “The wretched woman threatened to turn Miranda in to the drug squad,” George went on. “I would’ve understood if Miranda had thumped her.”

  “You sweet creature,” said Miranda, patting George’s knee. “I was out of patience with Mrs. Hooper, but I don’t believe in violent retribution. I was quite willing to leave her fate in the hands of the goddess.”

  “Let’s see now . . .” Dick licked his pencil and applied it to his notepad. “I didn’t smash her head in, nor did my wife, and Sally, George, and Miranda claim they didn’t. So that leaves . . .” He circled three names on his scribbled list. “Mr. Barlow, Jasper, and Peggy.”

  “I’d cross Peggy off the list if I were you,” Sally advised. “Why would she knock off an old chum?”

  “You’d have to ask her,” Miranda murmured.

  I was about to step in when I was distracted by a faint, familiar yapping coming from outside the schoolhouse. A cool breeze fluttered the paper napkins on the refreshments table as the outer doors opened. Claws skittered on the cloakroom floor, and Buster bounced into the room, followed closely by Mr. Barlow.

  As the terrier gamboled merrily around the circle, greeting all and sundry, a second man entered the room. He was in his mid-fifties, I guessed, with a sprinkling of gray in his thick dark hair. He scanned the faces in the room anxiously, as if hoping to find someone he knew. When his eyes met Peggy Taxman’s, his chest heaved.

  “Mrs. Taxman?” he said.

  “M-Mark?” Peggy gasped, and toppled slowly from her chair in a dead faint.

  Chapter 24

  If Jasper hadn’t broken her fall, Peggy would have broken her head. The stranger rushed forward to help Jasper prop her up, and Mr. Barlow seized Buster’s collar to keep the frisky terrier from licking Peggy’s face. Lilian fetched a cup of water from the ladies’ bathroom, dampened a paper napkin, and applied it to Peggy’s temples.

  While everyone else milled around Peggy, I kept an eye on Nicholas. The commotion had broken his trance. He blinked, as if emerging from a deep sleep, and stiffened when he caught sight of Mr. Barlow. He turned toward me, but before he could say a word, Peggy’s eyelids fluttered open.

  She raised a trembling hand to touch the stranger’s face. He gazed down at her tenderly and nodded.

  “That’s right, Mrs. Taxman,” he said. “I’m your son.”

  Everyone froze. Even Buster stopped squirming and pointed his twitching nose in Peggy’s direction.

  A sob caught in Peggy’s throat. “Y-your name,” she stammered. “What did they call you?”

  “Harry,” he replied. “Harry Mappin, after my father.”

  Peggy pushed herself into a sitting position and said fiercely, “Your father’s name was J. Mark Leese, and don’t you forget it.”

  “No, ma’am,” Harry said gently. “I won’t.”

  Lilian Bunting applied the dampened napkin to her own temples as she stood. She touched Sally’s arm, then Miranda’s, and the milling villagers gradually cleared a space around the tableau on the floor.

  “Welcome to Finch, Mr. Mappin,” Lilian said with astonishing aplomb. “May I offer you a cup of tea?”

  “We’re going home,” Peggy barked. She allowed Jasper and Harry to haul her to her feet, straightened her dress, and glared defiantly at her neighbors. “I had a baby when I was a girl, and I gave him up for adoption. There you have it! And that’s all you’re going to get till I’ve had a chance to speak with my husband and m-my boy.” She hooked one hand through Jasper’s arm, and the other through Harry’s, and marched them out of the schoolhouse without a backward glance.

  One by one, the villagers returned to their chairs. Sally Pyne opened her mouth, but closed it again without emitting a syllable. Miranda Morrow studied her silver rings, Christine Peacock scratched her head, and George Wetherhead appeared to be thoroughly at sea. Dick Peacock watched Mr. Barlow, who was looking from Lilian to Nicholas as if awaiting instructions.

  Nicholas was the first to break the silence. “Mr. Barlow,” he said, “would you be so kind as to tell us where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing?”

  Mr. Barlow released Buster’s collar, swung Jasper Taxman’s chair around, and straddled it, his arms folded across the back. Buster curled alertly at his feet.

  “I never pretended to like Mrs. Hooper,” he said gruffly. “I know trouble when I see it, and Mrs. Hooper was trouble with a capital T. I watched her stirring her little wasps’ nests all winter long, and when she kicked my pup, I decided that enough was enough. If she wouldn’t leave Finch voluntarily, I’d find a way to make her go. That’s why I went to Birmingham, to have a chat with that son of hers.”

  “You told us you were going up north to visit family,” said Sally.

  “That came later,” said Mr. Barlow, “after I learned from Mrs. Hooper’s son that his mother never lived in Birmingham.”

  The villagers exchanged glances, then sat forward, their chins in their hands, enraptured by the new, exciting tidbit Mr. Barlow had unearthed.

  “Prunella Hooper was from Whitby,” said Mr. Barlow. “That’s where she met Peggy Taxman.”

  “Peggy said—” Christine began, but Mr. Barlow would brook no further interruptions.

  “Peggy lied,” he said bluntly. “You and I know that Peggy Taxman never lies, even when we wish she would, so it struck me as strange that she’d tell a lie about Mrs. Hooper. Then it struck me that maybe Mrs. Hooper had invented the lie and forced Peggy to go along with it.”

  Sally grunted. “I can’t see anyone forcing Peggy to do anything.”

  “What if Mrs. Hooper had something on Peggy?” Dick interjected. “Some secret Peggy didn’t want us to know.”

  “Such as an illegitimate child?” Miranda suggested, gazing toward the cloakroom.

  “You want me to tell the story?” Mr. Barlow asked with a touch of petulance. “Or do you want to go on guessing?”

  “Forgive us, Mr. Barlow,” Lilian said hastily. “Please continue.”

  “I was born near Whitby, in Scarborough,” he said. “I still have family up there, so I decided to go see ’em. I figured they might’ve heard of Mrs. Hooper. A woman like that always leaves a trail. . . .”

  Mr. Barlow’s relatives had heard of Mrs. Hooper. What’s more, they’d been able to put him in touch with several of her former neighbors, classmates, and coworkers, some of whom had been willing to describe the havoc she’d wrought in their lives.

  “Leopards don’t change their spots,” said Mr. Barlow. “Prunella Hooper pulled the same nasty tricks in Wh
itby that she pulled in Finch. She spied on people, eavesdropped, started rumors, made threats, spread lies. She befriended folk, then waited for her chance to stab ’em in the back. That’s what she did to Peggy. . . .”

  The trail of contacts had led Mr. Barlow to an old people’s home near Whitby, where he’d struck gold in the form of an elderly resident called Mick Shuttleworth.

  “Old Mick had lived in the boardinghouse run by Prunella Hooper’s mother,” said Mr. Barlow. “He was there after the war, when Prunella befriended a pregnant girl who was staying with an aunt just up the street. Mick still remembered the girl’s name—Peggy Stanton.” He nodded to Lilian. “Church records’ll confirm that Stanton was Peggy Taxman’s maiden name.”

  Mick Shuttleworth had seen Prunella in action, stirring wasps’ nests in the boardinghouse, and he knew that she would cause young Peggy grief. He’d tried to warn Peggy to steer clear of Prunella, but Peggy wouldn’t hear a word said against her friend. When Prunella got wind of Mick’s efforts, she forced him to leave the boardinghouse.

  “Mick wouldn’t say what lies she spread about him,” Mr. Barlow said grimly, “but I imagine they were along the same lines as her lies about Kit and Nell. It made the old gentleman’s blood boil to think of it, all these fifty years later.”

  Mick had kept an eye on Peggy even after he’d left the boardinghouse, and when she’d given birth, he’d made it his business to find out where the baby had gone in case Peggy ever came looking for her child.

  “That’s how I found Harry Mappin,” said Mr. Barlow. “He’d been given to a couple in Pickering. Harry knew he’d been adopted, but he was one of thousands of wartime babies whose records were shifted from pillar to post. He’d had no luck tracing his birth mother.”

  Lilian looked at Mr. Barlow with a faint air of reproof. “Was it necessary to bring Mr. Mappin here?” she asked. “Mrs. Taxman might have appreciated a word of warning.”

  “Harry wouldn’t wait,” said Mr. Barlow. “And I can’t say that I blame him.”

  Lilian remained doubtful. “But to introduce him so publicly—”

  “Isn’t that what you wanted?” Mr. Barlow pushed himself up from his chair. “It’s like you said to me before I left, Mrs. Bunting: There’ve been too many secrets floating around this village, too many people being hurt by half-truths. It was time to clear the air.”

  A murmur of assent filled the schoolhouse, but Miranda didn’t add her voice to it.

  “Have we cleared it, though?” she mused aloud. “I wonder . . .”

  Dick stroked his goatee. “The way I see it,” he said, “Pruneface threatened to tattle about Harry unless Peggy sided with her against us.”

  “There’s more to it than that, isn’t there, Nicholas?” When Nicholas didn’t reply, Miranda looked at me. “Were you able to confirm my suspicions, Lori? You’ve been poking and prying so zealously. You must have learned something by now.”

  I glanced uncertainly at Nicholas. “I, uh, don’t think this is the time or place to—”

  “I’m sorry, Lori, but Mr. Barlow is quite right,” Lilian interrupted. “It must all come out, here and now. I would urge you to share with us whatever you and Nicky have learned.”

  “I can’t,” I said. “Peggy spoke to us in confidence. I won’t betray her trust.”

  “Nicky?” said Lilian.

  “I’ll leave it to Ms. Morrow,” Nicholas said softly. “Her conclusions were essentially correct.”

  Miranda wasted no time in telling the others about the argument she’d overheard at the Emporium.

  “The quarrel led me to believe that Mrs. Hooper wasn’t paying one cent in rental fees to Peggy,” Miranda concluded, “and that Peggy was giving her money from time to time, to keep her mouth shut.”

  “Now we know why,” Dick commented. “Who would’ve thought it of Peggy? Having a baby out of wedlock when she’s always telling us to mind our morals.”

  “Maybe that’s why she tells us to mind our morals,” said Christine. “She’s seen what happens to those who don’t.”

  “You’re missing the point.” Sally Pyne jumped to her feet, too overcome by indignation to remain seated. “It was nobody’s business but hers. Pruneface had no right to hold it over her. Poor old Peggy . . .” She ground her teeth. “It doesn’t bear thinking about.”

  “We must think about it, though,” Christine said gravely. “You know what I mean. If anyone had a motive to kill Pruneface, it was Peggy.”

  “So what if she did?” retorted Sally.

  “I’d vote to pin a medal on her,” George Wetherhead chimed in.

  Mr. Barlow put two fingers in his mouth and whistled shrilly, silencing the chatter.

  “Listen up,” he said. “Peggy Taxman didn’t kill Pruneface Hooper.”

  “How do you know?” Sally asked.

  “I was there when it happened, that’s how.” Mr. Barlow glanced at Nicholas. “I saw Pruneface Hooper die.”

  My jaw dropped, Dick sputtered, and Sally’s eyes nearly popped out of her head, but Nicholas didn’t turn a hair.

  “Pardon?” Christine said weakly.

  “You heard me,” said Mr. Barlow. “I’m surprised you haven’t been told about it already.”

  Nicholas bowed his head. “Mr. Barlow,” he murmured, “if you would be so kind as to explain . . . ?”

  “Very well.” Mr. Barlow waited until Sally had resumed her seat before speaking. “When I took Buster for his run that morning, I spotted Pruneface standing in her usual place, snooping on Dick. She had a curling iron in one hand, and she was holding back one of those hanging plants with the other so she could get a clearer view of the pub.” He demonstrated Mrs. Hooper’s stance, then went on.

  “Buster’s barking must’ve startled her because the next thing I knew, she let go of the plant. It swung across and whacked her”—he touched the place on his head where Nicholas had touched me—“here. She went down like she’d been poleaxed.”

  Christine gaped at Mr. Barlow. “Pruneface Hooper was killed by a flowerpot?”

  “I’d say she killed herself,” Mr. Barlow opined, “but a flowerpot’s what bashed her head in.”

  “Why didn’t you report it?” asked Sally.

  “I didn’t know she was dead,” said Mr. Barlow. “I thought the flowerpot had knocked her silly, but I didn’t know it had killed her. I laughed when she went down.”

  “I heard you,” Sally said faintly.

  Mr. Barlow bent to fondle Buster’s ears. “I told myself that Buster had gotten his own back on her and that she deserved a bump on the head for kicking him. That’s what I told the police when they tracked me down yesterday.”

  Sally put a hand to her forehead. “The police have known the truth since yesterday?”

  “If they’d done their job right, they’d’ve known it a good deal sooner,” said Mr. Barlow. “Isn’t that right, Detective-Sergeant Fox?”

  A profound hush fell over the room as everyone turned to look at Nicholas.

  He closed his eyes. “Yes, Mr. Barlow. If we’d done our job right, we’d have closed the case last week.”

  Chapter 25

  Miranda clapped her hands. “I knew it!” she exclaimed. “Auras never lie. I did invite you to bring the drug squad with you to tea, if you recall, Detective-Sergeant.”

  Dick eyed me reproachfully. “You brought a copper into my pub and didn’t bother to tell me?”

  I sensed Nicholas’s gaze on me but refused to look at him. “I didn’t know he was a copper, Dick. He didn’t tell me.”

  Sally looked thunderstruck. “The two of you, thick as thieves, and he never told you he was a policeman? Well, I never . . .”

  Christine addressed Lilian. “You must have known. He’s your nephew—isn’t he?”

  “Don’t be silly, Christine,” said Lilian. “Of course Nicky’s my nephew, and I’m well aware of his profession. When he came to stay, I asked him to—” She broke off as Nicholas got to his feet and strode out of the
schoolhouse. “Lori,” she said worriedly, “go after him. Please.”

  I felt so hurt and humiliated that I was tempted to turn a deaf ear to her plea. Nicholas had lied to me, used me, and left me to face my neighbors without a word of explanation. He’d demanded the truth from everyone else, but he hadn’t had the decency to tell it to me.

  Worst of all, he’d made me feel stupid. I’d noted his observation skills and his polished interrogation technique—I’d even described his good cop/bad cop routine to Aunt Dimity—but I hadn’t suspected for one minute that he might actually be a cop. He’d telegraphed his occupation in a hundred different ways, but although I’d seen the pieces, I’d been too thickheaded to see the bigger picture.

  I’d trusted Nicholas, and in return he’d made a fool of me. If he hadn’t left his trench coat behind, I might have climbed into my Rover and gone home to sulk.

  But I couldn’t ignore the lightning bolt that illuminated the schoolhouse windows. When it was followed by a crash of thunder and a sudden, heavy downpour, I let out an aggrieved sigh, snatched the black trench coat from the back of the chair, and raced out of the schoolhouse, grabbing my own jacket on the way.

  I saw Nicholas at once, a solitary figure silhouetted against Miranda’s hedge by a second lightning flash. He stood with his head in his hands, unmoving, despite the driving rain.

  “Nicholas!” I shouted, running up Saint George’s Lane. “You idiot!” I came to a halt before him, panting. “You forgot your coat.”

  His arms fell to his sides, but he said nothing. Rain streamed from his face and hair, and his tweed blazer was soaked through, but he made no effort to take the trench coat from me.

  I threw it around his shoulders and glared at him. “Planning to stand here all night?”

  Still he said nothing.

  “Are you trying to catch pneumonia?” I demanded truculently. “You’re crazy if you think I’ll let you off the hook that easily.”

  He made no reply, but gazed down at me with such a look of hollow-eyed despair that my anger leached away, to be replaced by uneasiness.