by Otto Penzler
“Hello, Muriel,” said Vicky, trying to sound cheerful. “8C today. They shouldn’t be much trouble but we’d better search them on the way out. After that unfortunate incident with the penguin on the zoo trip last year, I’m not taking any chances.” She lowered her voice. “I was thinking about your Francesca last night. How is she?”
Muriel Pablos managed a weak smile. She looked strained and tired, older than her forty-eight years. “Still the same,” she said quietly.
Vicky sighed. “Daughters are such a worry. It was always a pleasure to teach your Francesca … unlike some.” She looked at her charges, whose volume was increasing with their restlessness. It was time to begin the tour before a minor riot broke out. “We’ll get started then, Muriel. Ready?”
Muriel watched, straight backed and silent, as Vicky brought some order to 8C. After the din had died down—and all chewing gum had been collected efficiently in a paper bag—she led the way slowly towards the house with a ragged procession of pubescent youth trailing behind.
The excitement began, from 8C’s point of view, when they were in the Great Hall. But it wasn’t the magnificent hammer-beam roof that grabbed their undivided attention. It was the scream … a desperate, primeval cry. It came when Muriel Pablos was in full flow, giving a colourful, fleas and all, description of Elizabethan life. The unearthly sound made her stop in mid-sentence.
“Sounds like someone’s being murdered, Miss,” a precocious thirteen-year-old girl speculated knowingly.
“Someone’s met the ghost, miss,” the smallest boy, who looked no more than ten, added with relish.
Then two crop-haired boys skulking by the window turned towards Vicky, their faces ash pale. “We saw him, Miss,” said one of them in an awed whisper. “He fell … like he was flying. He’s there … in the courtyard. Do you think he’s dead, Miss?”
Vicky and Muriel pushed their way through the crowd of children who were standing, still as startled rabbits. When they reached the leaded window which looked out onto the cobbled courtyard, Muriel knelt up on the window seat and her hand went to her mouth. “It’s Jonathan. He was working up in the tower room. I’ve always said that window was dangerous. I’ll have to call an ambulance … the police. The nearest phone’s in the office upstairs.” She scrambled to her feet, preparing for flight.
Vicky took a deep breath as she stood in the doorway watching Muriel hurry away up the great staircase. Then she turned to her class, who had fallen uncharacteristically silent. “There’s been a terrible accident. As soon as Mrs. Pablos gets back from calling the police, I’ll go out and see if there’s anything I can do. In the meantime can everyone stay away from the window,” she added firmly.
Surprisingly, 8C behaved with impeccable restraint until the police arrived.
“Suicide? Chucked himself from that open window up there?” Detective Inspector Anastasia Hardy looked up at the squat, square tower which glowered over the courtyard. “Not much mess, is there … considering?” She wrinkled her nose and turned away from the corpse of the fair haired, once handsome man who lay at her feet in an untidy fashion.
The young doctor who was kneeling on the cobbles examining the body glanced up at her. “Not suicide,” he said casually. “He was already dead when he hit the ground. That’s why there’s not much blood about.” He turned the body over gently. “Here’s your cause of death … look. Knife wound straight to the heart. And he’d been dead at least half-an-hour before he fell. Sorry to add to your workload, Inspector.”
Anastasia Hardy turned to the young uniformed constable standing a few feet away and gave him the benefit of her sweetest smile. She found charm worked wonders with subordinates. She herself had worked for a host of unpleasant superiors on her way up the career ladder and had always vowed never to follow in their footsteps.
“Constable Calthwaite, have you checked that window yet?”
“The door to the tower room’s locked, ma’am, and the only key was in the possession of Mr. Pleasance … er … the deceased. I had a look through his pockets before the doc got here and I found it … a big old iron thing. With your permission, ma’am, I’d like to try it in the locked door … make sure it’s the right one,” said Joe Calthwaite, eager to make a good impression.
Anastasia nodded. She’d let Constable Calthwaite have his moment of glory … or disappointment. He was young and keen; his enthusiasm almost reminded her of her own when she had first joined the force … before paperwork and the exhaustion of combining police work with family life had set in.
Calthwaite chatted as he led the way up the winding stairs that led to the tower room. “Someone’s already talked to the staff, ma’am. It seems nobody was near the tower when Mr. Pleasance fell. And everyone has someone to back up their story. There was a school party in the Great Hall and a couple of the kids actually saw him land in the courtyard. They heard a scream too. A costumed guide was with them … a Mrs. Muriel Pablos: she called the emergency services. And their teacher, Mrs. Vine … Actually,” he said, blushing, “she used to teach me. I was in her class.”
“Really?” Anastasia smiled to herself. “So you can vouch for her good character?”
“Oh yes. She’s a brilliant history teacher. And I know Mrs. Pablos too, but not very well. Her daughter, Francesca, and I were in the same class at school. Francesca works at the museum now.” A secret smile played on the constable’s lips and Anastasia suspected that he’d once had a soft spot for Francesca Pablos.
“I think we’d better talk to the school party first then. They’ll be causing a riot if they’re shut up in that Great Hall for much longer.”
“Actually ma’am, they’re looking round the house. Mrs. Pablos asked me if she could show them the other wing … the parlour, the kitchen and a few of the bedrooms. I didn’t think it could do any harm.” He looked worried, as though he might have made some dreadful mistake.
“You did the right thing, Constable. As long as they don’t go near the murder scene it’ll keep them out of mischief.”
“Here we are, ma’am … top of the tower.”
“Good,” said Anastasia. The climb had left her breathless. She told herself she should join a health club, take more exercise … if she could ever find the time.
PC Joe Calthwaite drew a large iron key from his pocket and placed it in the lock of the ancient door. It turned and the door opened smoothly.
The tower room was larger than Anastasia had expected; a square, spacious chamber lit by a huge window that stretched from floor to ceiling. A section of the window stood open, like a door inviting the unwary to step out into the air.
“Dangerous to leave that window open,” Anastasia commented. “Anyone could fall out.”
“Someone just has, ma’am.”
“And the doctor said he’d been stabbed … he’d been dead at least half-an-hour when he fell. Which means somebody threw or pushed the body out … not difficult … the window reaches to the floor.”
“But the door to this room was locked and the only key was in Pleasance’s pocket. He was locked in here alone. How does a dead man throw himself from a window in full view of a pair of spotty schoolboys? And he screamed, ma’am. Don’t forget they heard a scream.”
They stood in the middle of the room, looking round, noting every item, usual and unusual. A massive oak table with sturdy, bulbous legs stood against the wall opposite the window. On it lay piles of leaflets advertising the delights of Bickby Hall and other local attractions. In contrast, a large modern work table stood in the middle of the room. A painting, a portrait of a man in eighteenth-century dress, lay at its centre surrounded by an assortment of trays containing cleaning fluids and materials.
The curator of Bickby Hall had already told one of Calthwaite’s colleagues that the dead man cleaned and restored paintings. Jonathan Pleasance had divided his time and skills between the museum in the town centre and the various stately homes and art galleries round about. An evil smelling wad of cotton wool lay
, marking the cheap plywood of the table: Pleasance must have been working, removing years of grime from the portrait, just before he died. Calthwaite sniffed the air. The chemical smell was strong. But there was something else as well.
Against the far wall stood a suit of armour, the kind found in stately homes and second rate ghost movies. As Calthwaite stared at it, it seemed to stare back. It leaned on a sword and the young constable’s eyes travelled downwards to the tip of the blade. “Ma’am. That stain on the sword. Looks like blood.”
Anastasia Hardy had been gazing at the open window. Now she swung round, taking a notebook from her capacious handbag. “So what have we got, Calthwaite? A man falls from a window and there’s a scream as he falls. Everyone assumes it’s an accident … or even suicide. Then the doctor ruins it all by saying he was already dead when he fell, killed by a stab wound. He didn’t stagger round the room, injured, then tumble out of the open window. He was already well and truly dead. He was alone. The room was locked and the only key was on him when he fell so the killer couldn’t have escaped and locked the door behind him. I assume that door is the only way in.”
“Apparently, ma’am.”
“And the stains on that sword certainly look like blood so that could be our murder weapon. I don’t suppose …” The inspector and the constable exchanged looks. “The killer might still be in here … in the …” They both focused their eyes on the suit of armour.
“I’ll check, ma’am.” Gingerly, PC Calthwaite took the helmet in both hands and lifted it up. It was heavier than he had anticipated but it revealed no guilty face within. The armour was empty. But there was nowhere else to hide in the room. Calthwaite looked round again slowly and sniffed the air. There was a smell, something altogether more homely than the chemicals on the table, more in keeping with the surroundings. It would come to him in time.
A large, faded tapestry hung to the right of the armour, giving relief to the stark white of the walls. Anastasia examined it and lifted the edge carefully, as though she expected it to disintegrate at her touch. “Well, well. Look what I’ve found,” she said triumphantly. Then she dropped the tapestry as though it had become red hot. “There’s some kind of room behind here. The killer might still be in there,” she mouthed.
“I’ll have a look, ma’am,” the constable whispered, suddenly nervous. The killer no longer had the murder weapon but Joe Calthwaite didn’t relish the thought of coming face to face with a desperate murderer on a dull Wednesday morning.
Happily his fears were groundless. The tiny room concealed by the tapestry contained nothing more alarming than a pile of superfluous publicity material, a few lengths of red silken rope used to keep the public from wandering where they shouldn’t, and a trio of wooden signs bearing bossily pointing fingers. But this room hadn’t always been used as a storeroom. It had once had another, more dignified, function.
The altar was still there at the far end, draped in a dusty white cloth and topped by an elaborately framed painting of a plump Madonna and Child. Two sturdy, unused candles on high wrought iron stands stood at the side of the room and three more candles with white, unburned wicks had been placed on the altar. It was a small chapel and it had probably been used for its proper purpose in the not-too-distant past. Joe Calthwaite could still smell candles, the waxy odour of sanctity. He had smelt them in the tower room too, mingled with the stench of Jonathan Pleasance’s chemical cleaners.
“There’s nobody in here, ma’am,” he said, turning to Anastasia who was standing behind him, her head bowed as though in prayer.
She looked up. “You’d better make a thorough search in case there’s some hidden cupboard or priest hole or something. Dead men don’t throw themselves out of windows. Someone or something was up here with him at nine forty when he fell.”
Joe Calthwaite nodded. A priest hole, a secret passage: it was obvious. With renewed enthusiasm he began to search; tapping walls, lifting altar covers, looking behind paintings and seeking out suspicious floorboards. However, the priest hole theory rapidly lost its appeal: there was no hiding place either in the tower room or the tiny chapel. And yet the door had been locked and the only key had been found on the body. Joe Calthwaite frowned in concentration as he stared down at the tower room floor. Maybe the killer had escaped through some sort of trap door. But the shiny oak floorboards lay there, mockingly even and undisturbed. Then he spotted a tiny lump of some solid substance on the floor near the middle of the room, interrupting the rich gloss of the wood. He knelt down and touched it with his finger.
“Have you found something?” asked Anastasia, who had been staring out of the window down onto the courtyard in search of inspiration.
“No, ma’am. I don’t think so,” he replied uncertainly.
He followed her down the narrow stairs. When they reached the point where they met the elaborately carved main staircase, Anastasia turned to him and sighed. “I suppose we’d better ask some questions. Where shall we start?”
It was virtually unanimous. Jonathan Pleasance was a man to avoid. Not that he worked at Bickby Hall full-time: he was only there two mornings each week, which seemed to be more than enough for most of the staff.
The Hall’s publicity office had once been an impressive bed chamber. Two people worked there: Jenny was a solemn dark haired young woman dressed in black as though in permanent mourning. Mark, in contrast, was an effeminate young man wearing a startling purple shirt. They were reluctant at first to speak ill of the newly dead. But gradually they grew more relaxed in Anastasia’s motherly presence and began to voice their true opinions. Jonathan Pleasance was an unpleasant, spiteful man, full of his own importance. He had made barbed comments about Mark’s sexual preferences and had made an arrogant pass at Jenny during the staff Christmas party. Mark and Jenny, seemingly united in their contempt for the dead man, provided alibis for each other. They had seen and heard nothing suspicious, and the first they knew of Pleasance’s death was when Muriel Pablos had burst in, breathless, to call the police after the schoolboys had seen the body hurtle down into the courtyard. Mark and Jenny displayed no emotion, spouted none of the routine clichés of grief. It was almost as if Jonathan Pleasance’s violent death didn’t surprise or bother them in the least.
Anastasia decided to question the catering and cleaning staff next. None of them had had much to do with Jonathan Pleasance but the interviews weren’t a complete waste of time. The chattiest of the cleaners was only too keen to reveal that the chapel was still used occasionally for special services: the last time had been a fortnight ago when the local vicar had christened the curator’s baby son there. Most of the staff had been invited, apart from Jonathan Pleasance, who had complained about having to clear his equipment from the tower room for the happy occasion. Joe Calthwaite sat behind the inspector with his notebook on his knee, pondering this interesting snippet of information. Could the aroma of burning church candles linger for a fortnight? He doubted it.
The inspector looked at her watch. It was time to speak to the top man, the curator himself. She liked to see witnesses on their own territory: the more relaxed they were the less they guarded their tongues.
If the curator’s secretary, Mrs. Barker, had been wearing a starched uniform she would have resembled an old fashioned nanny. As Anastasia and Calthwaite entered her small, well ordered office, she was holding a tiny tape recorder aloft in triumph. “The dictating machine … I’ve been looking for it everywhere, and it’s been hidden under the in-tray all the time.”
Mrs. Barker smiled warmly at the newcomers and appeared to be enjoying the drama of the situation. “I’ve never had much to do with Mr. Pleasance … and I can’t say I wanted to. I heard he was one for the ladies,” she said meaningfully with a wink which bordered on the cheeky. “In fact,” she said almost in a whisper, “he was … er … friendly with my boss’s sister and he let her down rather badly by all accounts. But of course it’s terrible that he’s dead,” she added as a righteous afterthough
t. “Was it an accident, do you think?”
Anastasia made no comment. “Where were you at nine this morning, Mrs. Barker?”
“Mr. Samuels and I were in here from half past eight working on an important report. Why?”
Before Anastasia could answer, a man emerged from the inner office. Petroc Samuels, curator of Bickby Hall, was a good looking man in his early forties. His body had lost the slender contours of youth and his dark hair was streaked with grey but his brown eyes sparkled with enthusiasm. He invited Anastasia and Calthwaite into his office and sat back in his swivel chair, relaxed, as the inspector began her questions in a deceptively gentle voice.
“I won’t pretend I liked Pleasance. He was good at his job but he wasn’t what you’d call a nice man. In fact I discovered what sort of person he was when my sister got involved with him about a year ago. But if we all murdered people we didn’t like, the population would halve overnight,” Samuels said with a nervous laugh.
“Where were you at nine forty when the body was found?”
“Here with my secretary.”
“We think he died about half an hour before that. Where were you then?”
“Here in the office. Mrs. Barker and I came in early to work on a report.”
“Did you hear the scream when Jonathan Pleasance fell?”
“I heard nothing. I’m rather confused, Inspector. How could he have fallen from the window if he was already dead?”
“That’s what we’re trying to establish, sir. Did he always lock the tower room door when he was working?”
“Yes. Always. He gets … er, got … extremely annoyed when he was disturbed. The chapel’s used for storage and from time to time people needed to go in there.”
“Who stores things in the chapel?”