by Q. Patrick
But now it was the Archdeacon’s turn to be upset. This strange, odd-looking little woman had just announced quite calmly that she could be no one else but Lady Crosby (née Cynthia Burwell, and at one time a great London heiress)—a member of that glittering and impeccable aristocracy which he had always regarded with so much deference and awe. The second richest woman in England! A public philanthropist, benefactress and club-woman! And he, Archibald Inge, had had the impertinence to enter into conversation with her in the hopes of borrowing her Punch! To chat with her, almost flirtatiously, and air his views on the science of deducation! Phew! that’s what came from riding in a first-class carriage!
It was too ludicrous, too undignified—altogether too improper for a man of his standing on the force. He was shocked at his naïveté and ignorance. Important people, he reflected, especially important women, should wear labels when they appear in public—labels to prevent well-meaning citizens from undue familiarity or from making fools of themselves. The Archdeacon was no socialist but a devout believer in the divine right of the landed gentry!
By this time the train had reached Bath and Lady Crosby had thrown away her half-smoked cigarette. She was staring thoughtfully out of the window at the grey stones of the old city. Presently she turned to the Archdeacon who somehow looked much smaller, for all his bulk, as he sat in his own corner wondering at his own temerity.
“Well, you can go ahead. I suppose you will want to ask me a thousand questions now. We may as well get it over and done with, though heaven knows I can’t help much.”
“Thank you—er—thank you, my lady,” the Archdeacon was unaccustomed to dealing with titles, “perhaps—if you would be so kind—a hint or two as to the girls’ characters, their forebears—” She silenced him with an imperious gesture. His ceremonious and obsequious manner obviously displeased her.
“I’m not the queen of Spain, man,” she snapped, “if you want to know anything, talk to me as you would to any ordinary woman—your wife, your mother, your landlady. You have your duty to do, and I suppose it’s my duty to help you all I can.”
The Archdeacon shuffled his feet nervously.
“As I told you, the mother, Mrs. Lubbock, was first maid and finally nurse to my mother, Mrs. Burwell, for over twenty years. A faithful soul and a good worker, if a trifle—” She paused, looking for a word which she did not find.
“She has—or rather, she had—three daughters. Isabel, the eldest, was efficient and hard-working, but a terrible shrew. None of our village swains ever liked her much. Too sharp-tongued and too sharp-featured! A disagreeable character, but a good maid—at least, so I understand from Mrs. Ribson, whom I saw yesterday, by the way. Amy, the second girl, was a sweet, amiable thing and at one time had all the young men in the village after her. She turned up her nose at the yokels after she went into service at Lady Barchester’s, but I don’t think she caused enough bad blood so that anyone would feel exactly murderous about her. I understand, however, that Will Cockett, the village carpenter, is still hopelessly devoted. Lucy, the youngest, is the loveliest thing you ever saw. Now if it had been she who had been killed it might easily have been a case of Cherchez I’homme. She’s far above her sisters in every way—intelligence, looks and education. I’ve always believed in education for girls with real brains and ability, like Lucy Lubbock, though heaven knows I was considered crazy myself for going to Girton; but things were different in those dark days.”
She rattled on and on. The intimate and homely quality of her conversation upset the Archdeacon far more than if she had used the grand manner adopted by the aristocracy of fiction. He would have known where he stood then! Never had he imagined that a great lady could be garrulous and communicative like this—especially in trains! In fact, he shared the American view of the English aristocracy—that they were coldly reserved, unapproachable, close-lipped and remote except when they were among their blue-blooded peers. However, here was valuable information, of a kind, and even if he did not dare to bring out his note book and squared paper there was no reason why he should not make the most of his opportunity to glean knowledge.
“And is the father living?” he asked with deference, when Lady Crosby had finished airing her views on women’s education.
“No, Mrs. Lubbock was a widow when she first came to us at Crosby Hall. I know nothing about him at all except that he hadn’t left her a penny. He may not even be dead for all I know, but he has been conspicuous by his absence for over twenty years. She has never referred to him in any way, but some man must have been responsible for the three girls. At any rate, there they were, large as life, and they stayed in the servants’ quarters until they were old enough to go out and work for themselves. My husband didn’t like to have them around but my mother would have no one near her but Lubbock. Lubbock couldn’t be separated from her children, so there you were—the old story of the irresistible force and the immovable post!”
“Had they been much in Crosby-Stourton lately?”
“I was surprised to learn—and to learn in so tragic a manner—that they had been there at all. They almost never came home and I don’t know what brought them this time. Can’t have visited their mother for years and years. She used to go up to town sometimes to visit an invalid sister and she’d see them then. But they’re quite strangers in the village. It’s a complete mystery to me. There had been a fuss about their home—a charming place called Lady’s Bower—my husband wanted to turn them out and I had been hearing nothing but Lubbock, Lubbock, Lubbock for days before I went to London. Now, I suppose, I shall go on hearing it for a different reason!”
The Archdeacon’s brain was doing its best to collect the nuggets of fact from all this mass of verbiage. There was a calculating, shrewd light in his usually benevolent eyes as he said, “and this youngest girl—did she like her sisters? Was there perhaps any family dispute, any—?”
Lady Crosby started visibly at the implications in the question.
“Nonsense, my dear man, Lucy Lubbock is a sweet child and my own particular protégée. She couldn’t quarrel with anyone if she tried. The idea, if it is an idea, is preposterous.” She looked annoyed and the Archdeacon spread his hands in an apologetic gesture.
“The whole thing is all wrong,” she said at last, “and very upsetting, very upsetting indeed. I’m particularly sorry about Amy. She was a good girl. I never liked Isabel much, and probably there were plenty of others who shared my opinion. But murder! Why, they are a couple of stupid village girls—insignificant, unimportant people who could not possibly have been in anyone’s way. Oh well, what’s the use of thinking about it, and here’s Temple Meads station where we have to change. Ugh! how I hate Bristol.”
The Archdeacon politely collected her luggage and escorted her across the network of platforms which stretched out drearily under the dark vault of Bristol station. When the small local train carried them out into the sunny countryside of Somersetshire, Lady Cynthia Crosby sat in one corner saying nothing at all and the Archdeacon sat in another—pretending to read the much coveted Punch, but in reality thinking, and calculating—furiously.
As the train drew into Crosby-Stourton station the Archdeacon peered out of the window in a vain attempt to catch a glimpse of Crosby Hall. In spite of his disconcerting journey, he was now happily looking forward to the time when he should make his bow at that historic seat and dazzle its inmates by a display of his extraordinary talents. “Just a matter of simple mathematics,” he could hear himself saying, with becoming modesty, to an admiring and mystified circle of the élite. The Archdeacon smiled a deprecating smile.
Lady Crosby’s voice broke in upon his pleasant reverie.
“There! I see you’re sleuthing already! Looking for the scene of the crime, I suppose. But you can’t see it from here. No indeed. Lady’s Bower is some little distance from the station. One of the nice things about it, you know. But then, you’ll see for yourself. No wonder the Americans are after it. I always think it’s o
ne of the loveliest….”
But the Archdeacon was too busy with the luggage to listen to a full inventory of the charms of Lady’s Bower, and when at last they stood upon the platform, Lady Crosby turned away from him to the smart young chauffeur who was already shouldering her shabby valise.
“Very good, Briggs. Straight to the Hall if you please.”
Then, before she trotted off to a magnificent waiting Daimler, she looked back at the Archdeacon with a gracious nod:
“Good luck, Inspector. Thank you for the cigarette,” and the Archdeacon was left alone on the platform. Not quite alone, for now a moth-eaten ticket collector shambled out of the waiting room and favored him with a long stare.
“Be you the gentleman from London, sir?” he asked.
“I daresay,” said the Archdeacon with an unaccustomed frivolity born of great and sudden expectations.
“All right, sir. The County Constable’s waiting in his car. He don’t get out because his foot’s bad. This way, sir.”
Archer, the County Constable, was an elderly man with habitual expression of gentle reproach. All his life he had been an assiduous reader of detective stories, and the handling of a dramatic murder case had long been his avowed ambition. But the fact, in connection with his own county, had struck him as so surprisingly different from the fiction, that he was now glad enough that Sir Howard had insisted on calling in Scotland Yard. He welcomed the Archdeacon with a mournful cordiality, and directed his chauffeur to take them to the Crosby Arms.
“A great relief to see you, Inspector,” he said. “A great relief.This foot of mine keeps me pretty well housed. And there’s lots to be unravelled in this business though dear knows nothing may come of it. It’s all a bit of a muddle since our Coroner is away—holiday time, you know, and I’m not much more use than a corpse myself. However, Hoskins has taken the matter up with the county medical authorities and now that you are here everything is in apple-pie order.”
The Archdeacon smiled an Olympian smile, “Many of these cases seem difficult at first,” he said.
But in spite of the archidiaconal serenity the County Constable still looked worried. “Nothing new since this morning,” he said, “but I’ve arranged for you to have tea at the Crosby Arms with P. C. Buss. He’s a good fellow but a trifle windy. Knows every one in the village, you know, and that sort of thing. He’ll tell you plenty and you may be able to get something out of it all, though I must confess you’ll need a sieve to do it. He married the village schoolmistress, you see, and the strain has been rather great. But here we are. I’ll leave you here and you can get Buss to take you over to Lady’s Bower after you’ve, had your tea. That’s only a short distance, but my car, of course, is at your disposal for any longer trips. I’ll send it round this evening to the Inn garage. I must go home and turn in now—just got up to meet you, but the pain—Oh damn this gout and damn my port-wine drinking ancestors! Can’t tell you how relieved I am that you’ve come.”
The Archdeacon climbed out of the car, raised a benign hand in parting, and mounted the stone steps of the Crosby Arms in search of his tea and of P. C. Buss. Neither was hard to find. The Archdeacon first secured a room for the night and then sought the dining room, where he found his man straddling the hearth rug and holding forth on legal theory to a bewildered barmaid.
“Eventually,” the Constable was explaining, “the law must triumvirate, because it is omnivorous!”
“Lawks,” said the girl, “you don’t suspect that, do you?” with which admiring comment she made good her escape towards the kitchen.
“Tea for two, if you please,” said the Archdeacon as she passed him. “And plenty of bread and butter.”
As soon as the girl had gone on her errand the two men turned to each other.
“You must be Buss,” said the Archdeacon. “I’m Inspector Inge from Scotland Yard, and I’m relying very much indeed on your help in the solution of the case which has brought me to Crosby-Stourton.”
The Archdeacon well knew the value of the confidential manner, but this time his reward was almost too rich. Buss drew a deep breath, explained heartily that he was “ingratiated, sir, highly ingratiated,” and launched upon a thorough discussion of the unfortunate prevalence of poachers in Crosby-Stourton. He went into the various methods which he had devised for ridding the county of these pests, and, by the time tea was brought in, he had embarked on a new aspect of the problem—the value of catching potential poachers at a tender age and “repealing to their susceptibilities.”
With the end of his second cup of tea the Archdeacon stemmed the tide by a curt question:
“Has all this any bearing on the Lubbock deaths?”
Buss put down his cup and stared at the Archdeacon with a long resentful stare.
“Ah,” he said, and was silent.
“Well?” said the Archdeacon.
“Well,” said Buss, “it’s this way. ’E may ’ave been a poacher, and then again ’e may not.”
“Who?” said the Archdeacon, getting out his notebook with a perfunctory air.
“Ah,” said Buss, and took a large mouthful of bread and butter. “An obfuscated individual seen by me on Sunday evening in the vicissitude of Lady’s Bower.” The Constable waved his spoon impressively at the Archdeacon and relapsed into silence.
“Meaning?” said the Archdeacon. “Oh, I see. You’ve seen some one.”
The Constable’s face lighted up. “Blimey,” he said, “you’ve got it.”
The Archdeacon poured himself a third and last cup of tea, settled back in his chair and considered his companion. The third cup always inclined him to at least a charitable view, and this time there was a twinkle of genial amusement in his eye.
“Was the person you saw a stranger in Crosby-Stourton?”
“Yes, sir. I was hambulating ’ome past Lady’s Bower on Sunday evening at about six o’clock—while they must ’ave been ’aving tea inside—and the hindividual was as it were ’anging on the garden gate.”
“Did you speak to him?”
“No, sir. But I fixtured ’im with my eye. Might ’ave been about fifty, say. ’E was a bit dressy, you know, like a gentleman, but you never can tell because sometimes these rapscalliwag poachers….”
“Yes, yes,” said the Archdeacon hastily.
“Well, sir, I didn’t like ’is expressiveness if you take me, sir, and I daresay ’e didn’t care for mine, since when I got to the bend in the road and looked back ’e’d disappeared right out of sight and when you catch ’im you’ll ’ave the man who done it; that’s my convincement because why would anyone here in the village want to make away with them two girls?”
“And you haven’t seen him since?” asked the Archdeacon.
“No, sir. ’E seems to ’ave emanated.”
The Archdeacon made a note in his book. P. C. Buss craned his neck to see it, and perhaps was spared a pang by his failure, for the Archdeacon had written, in a neat, even hand, the following memorandum: “Stranger, male, seen by Buss near scene of deaths at 6 o’clock Sunday evening. Probably irrelevant?” Inspector Inge had learned to be as skeptical of the inevitable dark stranger who generally turned out to be nothing more sinister than, say, the village sweep returning home by a slightly unusual route.
“And now,” he said rising and shutting the note book with a snap, “if you would be kind enough we’ll push along to Lady’s Bower. And on the way I’d be grateful for anything you could tell me about the Lubbock girls and their past.”
“Mark my words,” said the Constable, rising slowly, “that man is hintricated.”
As they strolled together through the village he elaborated this theme, with sundry variations and grace notes, and when at length the two stood together on the doorstep of Lady’s Bower the Archdeacon found himself equipped with a resolutely open mind, a quantity of squared paper, and a confused impression of Amy Lubbock as Aphrodite plus, and of Isabel as Xantippe with a difference.
A knock brought Lucy to t
he door. She nodded to the Constable and welcomed the Archdeacon with quiet dignity.
“Here’s the detector, Miss Lucy,” said Buss with importance. “I’ve brought him.”
Lucy paused for a second to savour the implication that Buss had stormed Scotland Yard single-handed, and was returning to Crosby-Stourton with a captive Inspector. But the ghost of a smile died on her lips as she spoke to the Archdeacon.
“I’m glad you’ve come,” she said in a low voice, “and of course we’ll try to help you all we can. But please, oh please don’t ask my Mother anything more than you need to. She’s near the breaking point. It’s wonderful the way she’s kept going through these days, but there is a limit.”
Her eyes filled with tears as she spoke, and as the Archdeacon looked at her his thought echoed her words: “There is a limit.” There were cruel shadows under the grey eyes that met his own with a steady, candid look, and the girl swayed a little as she moved, almost as if she were walking in her sleep.
“Thank you for warning me,” he said gently. “I understand. But unless your mother is quite prostrated—”
“Oh, no,” said Lucy in a louder voice. “We’ve just been having a cup of tea. Won’t you come in?”
The Archdeacon, who had expected to find a buxom, flustered country wench, was struck by the grace and restraint of her bearing as she ushered them into the cottage. Buss shambled behind, twirling his mighty moustachios as was his habit when embarrassed. The presence of grief upset him fearfully, as many a mischievous small boy knew to his own advantage. Lucy led the Archdeacon to the chair by the window where Mrs. Lubbock was sitting, and spoke softly to the old lady.