Death of a Busybody

by George Bellairs

  “So only the vicarage side-windows overlook the field here,” he said, “and, unless someone were actually wandering about in it, the murderer could carry on unseen.”

  “Yes,” replied Oldfield, “but he’d be running a grave risk. The vicar’s house practically covers the whole view, except that just under the near side of the hedge, here. Now, that’s the place where it seems most likely Miss Tither was laid-out. Then she was carried, not dragged, mind you, because we examined the ground for traces. She was carried under cover of the hedge, and through the gap and down to the pool. Unless, as you say, someone was prowling round the field, the murderer would be operating under a screen of trees practically all the way.”

  “Well,” suggested Littlejohn, “let’s try a reconstruction of the crime. Everything points to a murder, or, at least, a blow, struck under the cover of the hawthorn, as obviously it would have been the height of folly to try it in midfield, on the road, or in the church or vicarage grounds. The point is, how was she decoyed under the hedge?”

  “Perhaps the murderer waved to her or called out.”

  “Yes. That could be, but do you remember what was found clutched in her hand?”

  “The tract with the rude word scrawled across it?”

  “Exactly. Could it have been used as a banner, let’s say, to attract her attention? Mr. Claplady’s plan is about the size of the tract which was produced to the Coroner. We’ll put it on the hedge, here, and see if it’s visible from the path branching to the Evingdon Road.”

  Littlejohn laid his white paper in the branches of a bush near the gap in the hedge and the two strolled to the spot mentioned. The map was quite visible.

  “Probably the tract was placed near the spot where the path cuts the hedge. The gap there would provide cover for the murderer as he waited for his victim. Then, the blow having been struck, he’d about twenty yards to go to the cesspit. Let’s look at the hedge near the place.”

  The two men retraced their steps and began to examine the hawthorns, now turning darker green and brown with the approach of autumn. About a yard from the gap on the Evingdon Road side, Oldfield found something.

  “Here we are, Littlejohn,” he said excitedly. Three broken twigs, recently snapped, revealed a projecting spike of thorn. “A good spot on which to impale the warning to the ungodly, with an added commentary,” said Littlejohn.

  “But, why the commentary, as you call it?”

  “Just to hold her attention for a minute. Otherwise, she might just have snatched it down and carried it off before the murderer could strike.”

  Oldfield rubbed his chin and gazed in the direction of the cesspool.

  “But why carry her to the drain, raise the cover and throw her in?”

  “Perhaps the murderer saw Gormley at work there. It’s visible from the Stretton Lattimer Road. He knew—and this shows he’s familiar with goings-on in the village—he knew that the place was only cleaned out half-yearly. Gormley had just finished. What better hiding-place? And, in addition, the majority of such contraptions greatly increase the rate of decomposition. He might have fancied, with some justification, that before the next clean-out, the body would have almost disappeared. Gormley comes along, shovels it out with a lot of other rubbish, bears it off to the tip, and there’s an end of it. Gormley’s almost a half-wit and it’s even chances he wouldn’t have guessed what he’d unearthed. Even if the crime did eventually come to light and be investigated, the concealing of the body gave the murderer time to cover his tracks, recover his poise and nerve and, perhaps make an orderly and normal-looking flight. He counted without Gormley’s eccentricities, however, and hence, the police are right on his heels. We mustn’t let the trail get cold, Oldfield.”

  “The point that puzzles me, however,” interposed Oldfield, “is, what was Miss Tither doin’ between leaving Haxley and getting herself murdered? Where was she goin’ in the first place and for what purpose? Harriwinckle’s scouring the village, with little success, I’m afraid, to try to find out the answer.”

  As though waiting for his cue, however, the constable suddenly breasted the rise and appeared, making gestures that he had news. He joined his superior officers, almost bursting with his information and from his exertions.

  “I found where Miss Tither was a-goin’ on the morning she was killed, sirs,” he said, gulping to recover his breath. “During the inquest, a message came over the telephone, which Mrs. Harriwinckle tuck, her always standing-by whenever I be about my business. Well, it was from Miss Satchell, as keeps the roadside tea-house at the Stretton cross-roads. She said she wanted to speak to me. So, when I gets in, I rings her up. She tells me that on the mornin’ of the croime, Miss Tither called there at about half-past ten and stayed till eleven, persumably waitin’ for somebody or other. Then, at eleven—Miss Satchell’s sure of the time, because at eleven she starts gettin’ ready for lunches—at eleven, then, Miss Tither gets awful cross, makes clickin’ and snorting noises loike, and pays fer ’er coffee and offs in a temper.”

  “Good, Harriwinckle. I’m glad your efforts have come to somethin’,” said Oldfield encouragingly, to which the constable was heard to reply that it was Miss Satchell, not himself, as earned the praise. “She said she heard of the croime yesterday, but ’twasn’t till this mornin’ that she realized that what she knew might be of h’importance.”

  “Now,” said Littlejohn, “we’ve to find out whom she was meeting.”

  “Oi’m comin’ to that,” said Harriwinckle, now almost exploding with eagerness to get the rest of his tale off his chest. “Miss Satchell said as Miss Tither axed her as she came in, if a clergyman had been about yet, and that if she saw one on the road, to call ’im in, else tell her. Now, sirs, could that a bin the Reverend Claplady? A tall clergyman, Miss Satchell wuz told, come to think of it, though. That doesn’t sound loike vicar to me. Still, he moight pass for tall in a crowd o’ little uns.”

  “No, I think not,” answered Littlejohn. “I can guess who it was. Miss Tither, according to the maid, Russell, wrote to a clergyman on Sunday and posted the letter. I think we’ll find it was Mr. Wynyard she was expecting.”

  “Well, I’ll be dashed!” said Oldfield. “Things are warming up.”

  They explained to the bewildered Harriwinckle who Mr. Wynyard was.

  “I think the reverend gentleman is the next on the agenda and we’ll find him at Briar Cottage, where he’s now camping,” said Littlejohn.

  “We’d better not both go,” suggested Oldfield. “Might scare him into complete silence. I’ll be getting back to Evingdon. I’ve lots to do. Let me know if there’s any other way I can help.”

  Before parting, the three men examined the gap in the hawthorn hedge for any traces which might have been overlooked. Livestock had used the whole neighbourhood pretty freely and all the searchers found were the hoof-marks and droppings of cows and a confused mass of horseshoe and hobnail prints. The party broke up at the village centre, Oldfield leaving for his headquarters, the constable turning in at his home and Littlejohn making for Briar Cottage.

  The maid opened the door to the Inspector and conducted him to the drawing-room to wait the arrival of Wynyard. The place was stuffy and smelled of damp. Two heavy oil-paintings hung on the walls. An abundance of photographs in frames, scattered round the room. Albums, bound volumes of devotional magazines, novels of a moral type, a stereoscope with a pile of views to fit it, arranged in orderly fashion on tables of bamboo or of other Victorian styles. An old plush-upholstered suite, with a sofa; a heavy sideboard. Antimacassars on the suite; lace cushions on the sofa; a dish of artificial fruit and ugly vases containing paper flowers on the sideboard. A whatnot and an overmantel loaded with trifling ornaments, apparently souvenirs. Scores of them. Little salt-cellars, jugs, cups and saucers bearing coats-of-arms. Coloured tumblers, bone napkin rings and paper-knives with inscriptions concerning the resorts of their o
rigin. A glass globe which, when shaken, caused a snowstorm over the house and church in its inside. Littlejohn was shaking the globe when the door opened and the Rev. Athelstan Wynyard entered. He was carrying Littlejohn’s card in his hand. He gave the detective a flabby handshake.

  “Inspector Littlejohn. Ah, yes. Pray be seated. Smoke, if you wish. My cousin never allowed smoking in here, but the smell of tobacco will do the place good.”

  Littlejohn expressed his condolences.

  “Very sad. Indeed a tragedy, and you may rely on my co-operation, as far as is possible, in laying by the heels the monster responsible.”

  Wynyard was a tall, heavily-built man. Dark, sleek hair; tanned, almost baked skin; large, heavy face; brown eyes, with slightly bloodshot whites. Heavy lips which seemed to be prevented from sagging only by an effort of will. A well-preserved man for a missionary labouring in the South Seas. Evidently knew how to take care of himself and his stomach!

  Mr. Wynyard was on his guard. Littlejohn felt he had something on his mind which was causing him uneasiness.

  “I gather you’re Miss Tither’s nearest relative and as such you’re probably in her confidence, sir. Now, in the course of our enquiries, we have learned that she wrote and posted a letter to you last Sunday and that she expected you to meet her at a roadside tea-house on the Evingdon Road on the morning she was murdered. Further, you did not keep the appointment. Can you explain the position?”

  The clergyman looked sheepish and plucked his lower lip in embarrassment. Then, he hemmed and hawed guiltily. Littlejohn, his pipe burning nicely, his eyes mild and twinkling, waited in patience.

  “Well…well…ahem…it’s this way, Inspector. My cousin apparently has been under some misapprehension concerning my position with the missionary society I serve. She thought I was in some outpost, engaged on active evangelical work, whereas, I am the business agent for the society at the main port in our group of islands. Many of my colleagues are, of course, up country, but I remain at the port…”

  Aha, thought the Inspector. Miss Tither thought you a hero and made you her heir on the strength of it! Somebody put her wise and she got mad. As though reading his thoughts, the minister continued.

  “…The matter was never discussed between us, until someone must have vindictively spoken about my duties. My conscience is quite clear, my dear Inspector. I’m doing a very vital job, in spite of the fact that I say it myself, a very vital job, for which my employers think I have a flair. Were I not suited for it, I would be in the other parts of the vineyard, serving as missionary.”

  “You never told Miss Tither, then, just what your job was?”

  “No. She wrote now and then and I answered her letters, giving the collective experiences and duties, rather than dwelling on my own small part.”

  In other words, he’s passed himself off as a missionary to please the old girl and capture her imagination and money, thought the detective, and then added aloud: “Now about the letter, sir. Can you come to that?”

  “It was strange in tone and content, Inspector. But first, let me say with emphasis, I was not in the vicinity at the time of the crime. My colleagues in London will fully confirm that statement. I was at our headquarters in Paternoster Row. When I stayed with my cousin—I was lecturing at Evingdon and other places at the time, raising funds for the Cause—I gave her an outline of my proposed itinerary until I was due to sail back in the middle of next month. According to plan, I should have been in Leicester on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday of this week. Instead, I received a wire to return to headquarters for a conference first thing on Monday. I gave Miss Tither the address of my host-to-be in Leicester and said I would be pleased to hear from her there and, if she cared to make the journey, would welcome her visit whilst I was in the vicinity. She addressed her letter to me, care of Mr. Hawker, my host. It arrived on Monday, just after I’d left, and Hawker re-addressed it to me in London. It reached me too late for me to keep an appointment which she suggested for the morning of her death. I wired, but, alas, she was no more when the message reached this house.”

  The parson’s face assumed a lugubrious expression. Littlejohn half expected Wynyard to strike up a homily on the transience of human existence or drone off into the burial service. Instead, he took a letter from his pocket. He hesitated and then, opening it, read it to his listener in an unctuous, resonant voice, reminiscent of the lectern.

  “Miss Tither’s letter goes:

  ‘Dear Athelstan,

  Information of a rather distressing kind has been communicated to me this week-end. I hope it is libellous, in which case, I shall know what to do. I must tell you that a certain Mr. Lorrimer of this village, who has connections in your field of labour in the South Seas, tells me that your work consists, not of converting the heathen to The Light, but of acting as what he calls shipping-agent for the Society you serve.

  I cannot understand this, in view of what you have given me to understand and the anecdotes concerning how you have saved so many souls from destruction, which you have related to me. I would like to see you at once. I have meditated and prayed on this matter and at last made up my mind what procedure to adopt. I would like you to come here to discuss things, but, until you have vindicated yourself, I feel embarrassment will be saved to both of us if we meet outside. A friend of mine, Miss Satchell, keeps a roadside café on the Evingdon Road, at the junction of the Stretton Road and I suggest you meet me there at 10.45 on Wednesday of this week. There is a good train—the only express of the day—which leaves Leicester at 8.15, arriving in Evingdon at 9.45. You will have ample time to get to Miss Satchell’s by a quarter to eleven. I would like you to bring some clearer evidence of your activities and duties, if you please.

  You will appreciate, Athelstan, that should the story which I am told prove correct, I shall have to alter my Will. I was leaving you my small worldly wealth for the expansion of the Kingdom through your work and should this not be practicable, in view of your more restricted duties—and, may I say, the fact that you have deceived me—I propose to replace your name by that of a charity in which I am deeply interested at home.

  I pray that this statement I have heard may be false and that you will be able to refute it. In such case, I propose to take legal action against the slanderer. Otherwise, it pains me to say that you and I have come to the parting of the ways.

  I have written frankly to you and not without pain and prayer. I feel that you should know what is troubling my mind beforehand in order that you may be prepared to meet it. Should you clear the matter to my entire satisfaction, I will beg you on my knees to forgive me.

  I am anxiously and hopefully awaiting our meeting.

  Yours sincerely,

  Ethel Tither.’”

  Mr. Wynyard sheepishly raised his eyes from the letter as he ceased reading and gazed at Littlejohn. It was obvious that Miss Tither’s suspicions were correct and that she had been accidentally or wilfully misled; probably the latter.

  “I’d like a copy of that letter, Mr. Wynyard. Perhaps you’ll lend me the original until I can have one made? The contents will be treated as confidentially as possible.”

  The missionary handed over the document and Littlejohn put it in his notebook.

  “And now, sir. About your movements at the time of the crime. You were in London, you say.”

  “Yes, Inspector. I left Leicester the first thing Monday morning. I stayed at my usual hotel, ‘The Peveril’, in Coram Street, and attended conferences at our headquarters in Paternoster Row. I was there from ten until noon on Wednesday and the Secretary of the Society will confirm that. The details are: Mr. Alexander Colquitt, Secretary, The Jabez Colquitt Mission, Colquitt House, Paternoster Row, London, E.C.4.”

  Littlejohn noted the particulars.

  “I take it the funeral will be to-morrow, Mr. Wynyard.”

  “Yes, at 2 o’clock in the churchyard here
.”

  “Thank you for your help, sir.”

  They parted and Littlejohn made his way to “The Bell”, there to telephone to Cromwell, his subordinate at Scotland Yard, to check Wynyard’s alibi. Here indeed was a motive for the crime, if Wynyard was about to be cut out of Miss Tither’s Will. He was hardly the type to commit murder, however. More likely to rely on unctuous persuasion.

  His business at the inn finished, the detective made his way through the village to Mr. Haxley’s cottage. He thought a word with one of the last to see Miss Tither alive was called for, in addition to the fact that he wanted to check up on Harriwinckle’s earlier impressions.

  Mr. Haxley was at home and the Inspector was ushered into his study, where the stocky little man was improving the binding of what appeared to be second-hand books, by pasting strips of thin leather inside the backs.

  “Glad to see you, Inspector,” greeted the infidel, the object of so much tractarian bombardment by Miss Tither. Anyone more unlike a heathen could not be imagined.

  “Excuse me carrying on with this job. We can talk as we work, eh? These are some volumes of Cruden’s Concordance I picked up for a song in Evingdon the other day. I’m just putting them ship-shape and then I’ll give ’em to Claplady. Not got much room for this kind of stuff myself, but it’s a public duty to see that every parson has a Cruden. Old Claplady hasn’t, so I’m giving him one. Help yourself to a cigar, Inspector. Those in the box there are good ones. Put a few in your pocket.”

  This perfect spate of goodwill almost bewildered Littlejohn. He accepted a cigar, but declined to carry any off with him.

  “I called about your last meeting with Miss Tither, Mr. Haxley. We know now that she eventually arrived at Satchell’s tea-rooms after leaving you, but I wonder if you saw anyone about, in the field or on the road, after she left you.”