Bismarck Herrings (Timothy Herring)

by Gladys Mitchell

  Timothy did not think it was possible, under the circumstances, to trouble the other relatives. He did not even ask for their address.

  “I’ve been carrying coals to Newcastle,” said Timothy, as he drove Alison home on the following Friday afternoon. “The police had been keeping an eye on Mrs. Plumb. They seem to have taken even more notice of her statement (and her attempt at a further statement) than the coroner did, but they were caught napping when she went to the cinema. She was sitting in the back row downstairs and all the murderer had to do was to lean over and stick her. At that time in the afternoon the place was full of old age pensioners, and nobody seems to have taken a blind bit of notice until somebody, squeezing past her, pushed against her and she just keeled over. They thought at first she was ill and an usherette and the manager got her out to the vestibule before they spotted the knife.”

  “How absolutely beastly!”

  “Yes. Anyway, it’s right out of my hands now. As soon as I recalled to the police what she had said at the inquest, they said they knew all about it and more or less told me to quit meddling. At that, I suggested that they should come over to Warlock—to Herrings—to find out whether the palliasses had been replaced. They were polite but sceptical, and proved justified in their attitude. There wasn’t a hair or a hide of anything to suggest illegal immigrants, and nothing to show that a boat had ever used the broken jetty. I’m afraid they regard me as a crank and a busybody, and that’s all I get for trying to do my duty as an honest and upright citizen.”

  “Well, Herrings has one thing in its favour. P.-B. approves of Grete’s teaching of German and is now pulling strings to get her political asylum over here. Grete has come across with her whole story and, so far as it can be checked, it seems to be the truth. She’d fallen foul of the Communists and had to get out. In West Germany she met this Dutch sea-captain. He seems to have fallen for her, they had an affair, I gather, and as he wanted to see more of her and has a wife in Holland, he smuggled Grete across to England, kept her hidden on his boat (while the Pakistanis were taken to Herrings, I suppose), and then saw nothing for it but to hide her up at the Hall after Jabez and the others had cleared off on another excursion.”

  “Sounds credible, I suppose, but what did he intend to do with her after that?”

  “She doesn’t know. She never saw him again.”

  “The dirty fellow! How long was she up at the Hall, then?”

  “Only a matter of weeks, it seems, and frightened to death all the time in case the men or Mrs. Gee found her.”

  “Ah, yes, Mrs. Gee. I suppose she was cognisant of the fact that Herrings was being used as a dumping ground for illegal immigrants?”

  “Oh, she must have been. For one thing, I expect she was responsible for feeding them while they were there. I think her departure was expedited not so much by the advent of our workmen as because she realised the game was up, so far as using Herrings as a base was concerned.”

  “You know, those men were up to something far more serious than introducing illegal immigrants into the country. I think dope, as well as Pakistanis, came over from Germany or wherever it was.”

  “Brought by the Pakistanis?”

  “Oh, no. I think their only aim and object was to get into the country. The dope was something quite other. It seems to me that the ship brought it over with the Pakistanis, but without their knowledge, and that Mrs. Dasti peddled it on certain Saturdays in Horsebridge while apparently engaged with her shopping. Mrs. Plumb let it out that she had followed her one Saturday, and, finding that, if the coroner wasn’t interested in this dangerous statement, the police were, the murderous devils of smugglers did for her at the very first opportunity they had presented to them.”

  “But how could they be sure that she hadn’t already told the police all she knew?”

  “I suppose because the police, so far, had only kept an eye on her. They hadn’t actually contacted her. Too busy looking about them to trace the dope, which they must have guessed at, same as I have done, I suppose.”

  “Do you think—I mean, you don’t think, do you, that . . .”

  “Yes, I do think so. I think somebody who was also keeping an eye on her spotted my car outside that house in Ipswich and recognised it.”

  “That could only be Jabez or Mrs. Gee.”

  “Or anybody else to whom Jabez had given a description of the car and its number, of course.”

  “Then they would have seen you go back to that house after Mrs. Plumb had been murdered!”

  “Yes, that’s on the cards, of course. Mrs. Plumb wasn’t living there, though.”

  “But, Tim, it could mean that you’re no safer than Mrs. Plumb was! After all, she did live there for a week or so! Didn’t you say that was the address she gave at the inquest?”

  “Not to panic, darling girl. If a murderer has been keeping tabs on me, he already knows that I’ve been to the police and must have spilled my little bag of beans.”

  “There’s such a thing as revenge, and they stop at nothing nowadays,” said Alison, white-faced.

  “For which reason, as I am a man of foresight and inexpressible caution, when we get to Stroud this time, you are jolly well going to stay in the Cotswolds with me, and that means you will not be going back to the school. I shall keep you under my eye and the police are prepared to be our guardian angels until all this wretched business has been cleared up. Nobody’s going to hurt me, but I don’t want you kidnapped and held to ransom or something.”

  “Oh, don’t be silly! Nobody is going to pick on me! Of course I shall go back to school. Whatever next?”

  “I’ve told you. I don’t often lay down the law about your comings and goings, but I’ve made up my mind about this, and it’s final.”

  Alison glanced at his profile, but it told her nothing at all.

  “I am going back, you know,” she said, a shade of irresolution in her tone. “I shall be perfectly safe at school.”

  “My adored Sabrina doesn’t think so. All arrangements have been made to take care of your classes, and she says that if you dare to darken her doors on Monday afternoon, with or without police protection, she’ll take a stick to you. Now will you do as you’re told!”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Suspicions and an Invitation

  “Put in Feare, and hope, and doubt;

  What comes in, runnes quickly out;

  Put in secrecies withall,

  Whatere enters, out it shall.”

  Upon Himselfe

  “I suppose you know I hate you,” said Alison in bed on the Sunday night.

  “Alas, yes, although I can’t think why.”

  “You’re a blackmailer.”

  “Harsh words.”

  “And a busybody.”

  “You must have been in correspondence with the police. That’s what they think.”

  “I want to go back to school tomorrow.”

  “And I don’t want you to. Can it be that an irresistible force has met an immovable mass?”

  “You’re an arrogant pig!”

  “Now, now!”

  “Well, you are, and I wouldn’t take the slightest notice of you if you hadn’t got P.-B. to back you up.”

  “You wouldn’t worry if I woke screaming in the night wondering what might be happening to you? This gang have already murdered two women, you know.”

  “Oh, all right!” said Alison crossly. “Have it your own way! I suppose you will, whether I say so or not.”

  “Too true. Can’t we be friends? As a matter of fact—and I confess it with shame—I can’t do without you any longer. I don’t believe for an instant that any danger threatens either of us . . .”

  “Liar!”

  “Come, come!”

  “Well, you are! Why is that policeman here on guard if there’s no danger?”

  “May I continue? I can’t do without you any longer. As for the policeman, he’s here as a precautionary measure, and that’s all.” He gathered
her up. “Come on, be good. I’m sorry for my arbitrary actions, but being bossy comes naturally to me and you knew that before we were married. Besides, we may be in for something interesting. I’ve had a letter from a neighbour of ours at Herrings.”

  “When did it come?”

  “On Friday, before I went along to collect you.”

  “What does it say?”

  “It’s an invitation to a cocktail party. It comes from a chap called Lorrimere who lives at a house called Lorrimere Court. I’ve looked it up. It’s marked on the map and I think it must be that Georgian house I told you about which stands near the mouth of the creek.”

  “The one with its own landing-stage?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Tim, I’ve just thought. What about Grete?”

  “She isn’t invited, so far as I know.”

  “Don’t be silly. I mean, if you don’t think I’d be safe at school—I don’t believe a word of this ‘can’t-do-without-me’ stuff, because you’ve just made that up to soft-soap me . . .”

  “You wound my loving heart.”

  “Be quiet! If I wouldn’t be safe, why should she be? If she’s been hiding at Herrings all these weeks, she must have overheard some secrets.”

  “Yes, well, we’ll hope that nobody knows she was there except us. She’ll be safe enough. Sabrina will keep an eye on her, and when it all comes out the police will protect her if necessary. Anyway, she isn’t my pigeon, but you are, and, anyway I don’t want to go alone to this cocktail party. I can and will have my hand held.”

  “Why do you want to go? It isn’t like you to be so eager to plunge into the social whirl, especially cocktail parties, which you’ve always said you loathed.”

  “I wondered whether, living so near, this Lorrimere fellow might know something of the comings and goings up and down the creek and the river.”

  “And if he does?”

  “Then, in my cagey way, I shall persuade him to loosen up. Then I can act upon the information, if necessary.”

  “After drinking his gin?”

  “Good lord, you don’t suspect him of being mixed up in the smuggling racket, do you—a gentlemanly local landowner?”

  “Stranger things have happened. I don’t want to go to his party and you can’t make me. You are cagey, and I know jolly well there’s something up your sleeve.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of trying to force you to go to a social gathering you did not wish to attend. All right, you go back to school, if that’s what you want.”

  “It isn’t. I’m sick of school.”

  “Nobly spoken. So I won’t go to the cocktail party, either. How’s that for a bit of marital reciprocation?”

  “Fine. We’ll get up ever so late tomorrow morning and have breakfast at twelve and lunch at four and tea at seven and dinner at ten.”

  “What devils we are! Sleep tight.”

  “Tim!” said Alison, about half an hour later, knowing that he was still awake.

  “What now?” he asked. “Why aren’t you asleep?”

  “I’ve been thinking about Grete.”

  “Strangely enough, so have I.”

  “Do you really think she could have been hidden away in that house for all that time without the Gees knowing anything about it?”

  “You and I must be telepathic. I’ve been having the same idea.”

  “So that means you don’t think she could, and neither do I.”

  “We talked about her stealing food and its being put down to Jabez raiding his mother’s larder, but, for a lot of the time Jabez wasn’t even there, and Grete—”

  “Would still have had to find something to eat. Surely the Gees must have known she was there, and if so . . .”

  “Are you still surprised I’ve taken you away from the school?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you suspected Grete?”

  “Because I thought you’d swallowed her story and wanted to believe in her innocence and help her.”

  “Well, I did at first, but the more I keep thinking it over, the more unlikely it seems that she’s a genuine refugee. For one thing, if what she says is true, why, having crossed the border, didn’t she stay in West Germany? Why all this elaborate business of getting herself smuggled away on a ship leaving from Holland?”

  “It was a Dutch ship, but it probably left from West Germany. We mustn’t lose sight of the fact that her story may be true, of course. She may have had very good reasons for coming to England. Perhaps the Dutch boyfriend insisted on it, as he was bound for our shores.”

  “Oh, of course. I suppose you didn’t happen to put that match-box in your pocket?”

  “No, I can’t be bothered with matches as a general rule. Besides, I shoved it underneath my pillow that morning and forgot all about it later on. What about it, anyway?”

  “Grete said she wrote a call for help on it. I wonder whether it’s still there under the pillow?”

  “Hardly. Mrs. Gee is certain to have made the bed, and that means she must have found it.”

  “I’m not so sure that she would have made the bed. I remember that you, with your tidy, masculine, unhygienic habits, pulled the covers straight, plumped up the top pillows, and neatly covered it all up with the embroidered counterpane before we left.”

  “Yes, but Mrs. Gee knew we’d slept in it. She’d be certain to make it properly after we’d gone.”

  “My poor innocent, nobody re-makes a bed, once it appears to be made up, unless they want to change the sheets. Mrs. Gee, knowing we’d only slept in it one night and might be popping in again at any old time, would never have dreamed of changing the sheets. As it happens, we’ve never slept there again. Oh, dear! I suppose somebody else might have done, though. Grete herself, perhaps.”

  “To satisfy ourselves, then, we’ll go along and take a look. Anyway, I imagine the newish divan bed in the attics was Grete’s sybaritic couch.”

  “I don’t suppose it will lead to anything, but I’d like to clear it up—the match-box business, I mean.”

  “Me, too. I remember now that the fat bloke, your Macbeth, wanted to kip down in that room, but the others wouldn’t let him. I stretched myself out on it when I was there alone, of course, but I didn’t undress, so I didn’t get between the sheets and I certainly didn’t think about the box of matches. We’ll go there tomorrow. Meanwhile, that being settled, let us seek the baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe, the poor man’s wealth, the prisoner’s release, the indifferent judge between the high and low, and, in other and lesser words, go to byebyes.”

  “Macbeth doth murder sleep. I wonder how much of a villain that man really is?”

  “You’re not to think about murder. Don’t—it’s the wrong time of night. Besides, I fancy Jabez Gee is the strong-arm man of that particular outfit. I can’t see Macbeth as a murderer.”

  “Jabez Gee may not be too particular about what he does, but I doubt whether he organised that business of the broken chimney-pot. Not that it was a very brainy idea, as it turned out.”

  “That’s what someone else said. Coningsby I think it was.”

  “When did you first suspect Grete of being one of the gang?” asked Alison, on the way to Herrings on the following morning.

  “Oh, fairly early on, I think. If she had been what she pretends, I don’t see why she didn’t make direct contact with us the night we slept there, instead of leaving the box of matches on my bedside table. That’s another thing: we must have a go at finding that secret stair, or whatever it is. There must be one, or how did she get into the state bedroom?”

  “I thought you were leaving the problem to the surveyor.”

  “Not any longer. If there is a means of access to that room by some way other than the obvious door, I don’t want to lose any time finding it.”

  “It can’t matter much, now that she’s left the house. Meanwhile is there anything else about Grete! I mean, I think, after all, that I can quite understand why she didn’t make contact with us that
first time. She would have been cautious, naturally, because she wouldn’t have had a clue about us, would she?”

  “No, but, against that, I’ve been to the house several times on my own, and she must have realised that I had no connection with those men. She may even have realised that I was the new owner, and that I’m utterly harmless, yet she waited until you and Diana were alone in the house, and the Gees, mother and son, had both hopped off and left the place, before she made any move. Where exactly did you find her?”

  “I thought I told you. We found her when we went up to the attic floor.”

  “Whereabouts?”

  “In the end room of all. You have to go through all the other rooms to get to it.”

  “Yes, I know. She also haunted the musicians’ gallery, and that must have been to keep in touch with Mrs. Gee, I think, by way of the old air-raid shelter. Did you winkle her out, so to speak, or did she manifest herself?”

  “We heard her singing. I thought it must be Mrs. Gee come back, but when we went into the end room, Grete was standing there. She said she was glad to see us. I thought nothing more of it than that at the time, although Diana was a bit taken aback. I only thought that it was all rather interesting, and it did seem to explain the ghost. Grete asked whether Mrs. Gee was anywhere about, and when I explained that I thought she had gone for good, Grete seemed much relieved and insisted on making us a cup of coffee—our coffee, needless to say.”

  “Of course she knew very well that the Gees had gone. That’s why she was so anxious to contact you. She knew that the Hall had blown a fuse so far as the smuggling was concerned, and I suppose she was getting to the end of her resources with regard to food. She would hardly have risked going shopping, and maybe she hadn’t any money, at that.”