Bismarck Herrings (Timothy Herring)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “Because they were friends of his, that’s why.”

  “I’ll ring her up and ask for their address. It’s an awfully long shot, because they won’t want to get involved, but I think it’s worth a try. You mean they might possibly know whether he was in Ipswich when Mrs. Plumb was murdered?”

  “Well, perhaps it’s because of the play, but I somehow feel that a stab in the dark is something in his line.”

  “Yes, that’s another point, though.”

  “What is?”

  “The stab-wound must have been given in the dark. How did he know the exact place to strike? She seems to have died immediately and without a sound.”

  “You learn quite a lot when you’re being coached for duelling on the stage, and he may not have killed her in the dark. There’s a time, at the beginning of the interval, when people are scrumming for ice-cream and soft drinks and everybody’s attention is distracted and the sales girls are too busy serving down at the front of the auditorium to take any notice of anything else. It’s possible she stood up to go to the front, and he did it then. It’s much more likely to have been done when she was on her feet than when she was sitting down.”

  “But the body wasn’t discovered until the lights went up at the end of the afternoon performance and people got up to go home for their tea.”

  “Let’s leave the technicalities to the police. You ring P.-B., if you think it’s any good.”

  “I don’t think it is, but I have a particular dislike for Colquhoun, and I don’t see why he shouldn’t stand trial with the other two, especially as I know he’ll crack if ever they stick him in the dock. He’s just about as yellow as they come. There’s another thing against the theory that she was stabbed during the interval, when the lights were up, though.”

  “And that is?”

  “It was an afternoon performance. The cinema would have been almost empty. There wouldn’t have been much sale of ice-cream and things.”

  “At a mid-week showing and the place full of old age pensioners at half-price, and the shop assistants having their half-day off, darling?”

  “You have an answer for everything.” He rang Miss Pomfret-Brown, but before he could put his question she had news for him.

  “We’ve found Grete,” she said. “At least, my hound did.”

  “Bismarck?”

  “Bismarck in person. I’m sorry to say—although I never took to the gal—she’s badly injured. It’ll be touch and go.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “Stabbed in the ribs. Meant for the heart, I daresay, but missed by that fraction of an inch which makes all the difference.”

  “Can she talk?”

  “Naturally not, at present. Detectives at her bedside night and day. Most inconvenient. She’s in the sick-room here, and it means I’ve got to find somewhere else to put any of my malingering hussies who’ve decided to take a rest-cure.”

  “What’s happened?” asked Alison, sotto voce.

  “Grete’s been stabbed.” He handed over the telephone. “You have a go. Ask her where it took place. You know the school buildings much better than I do.”

  Alison cut short a bout of “Hallo, hallo”-ing on the part of the impatient and irascible head of the school by asking,

  “Where was she found?”

  “Oh, it’s you,” said Miss Pomfret-Brown. “In that cubby-hole off the gym. where we used to keep the tennis nets until that blasted Macbeth had it all cleared out because, forsooth, he had to have a dressing-room all to himself.”

  “Then was the cubby-hole empty when Grete went into it?”

  “Well, you don’t think damned Macbeth was in there puttin’ on his sporran or something, do yer?”

  “You’re out of period, darling P.-B. It would be his byrnie or his cows’ horned helmet, you know. You mean the tennis nets had not been put back, I think.”

  “You and that young Herring comin’ over? Could do with a bit of low company.”

  “We’ve got Macbeth, I think,” said Alison, putting down the receiver. “He’s the only one of the gang who would have known about that cupboard. I wonder how he found out that Grete was at the school? Anyway, I suppose he realised that P.-B. would soon turn her inside-out about what had been going on at Herrings before we took possession.”

  “I wonder what her part in the doings really was?”

  “Organising the shipments, perhaps. It must have been fairly important if it was worth the risk of killing her.”

  “Then she couldn’t possibly have been in those attics all the time. You don’t think she was really a prisoner there, and that the call for help she wrote on the matchbox was genuine?”

  “That could well be. ‘But wonder on, ’til Truth make all things plain.’ Let’s pack a bag and go down and comfort P.-B.”

  “So Grete may turn out to be innocent, after all,” said Timothy, “and Bismarck’s love of her to be pure from the taint of nationalism.” He stroked the silken-coated dachshund which had just leapt with a lolloping thud on to his knees and was squirming himself into a comfortable position there. “They say dogs always know.”

  “Bismarck don’t,” said his owner. “No discretion or powers of selection whatever. Terrorises the tradespeople, on whom we depend for our sustenance and well-bein’, and makes friends with tramps and people who come beggin’ for subscriptions and tryin’ to sell me raffle tickets. Yes, you!” she added sternly to the dachshund who, ignoring her summing up, made himself into the shape of a blackpudding on Timothy’s lap and fell asleep.

  “Tell me more,” said Timothy to Miss Pomfret-Brown.

  “The skipper of a Dutch boat brought her over from West Germany. All she wanted was to get to England. She was frightened because she hadn’t a permit or a passport. She’d only been at Herrings a week before Mr. Parsons and you turned up that first time. I don’t believe a word of it, any of it,” said Miss Pomfret-Brown. “They can’t pull the wool over my eyes!”

  “She swore that nobody except Mrs. Gee knew she was there. Anyway, Jabez couldn’t have known, or he wouldn’t have bolted like that when I whistled and Grete yelled out,” said Timothy.

  “I think they must all have known she was there,” said Alison. “You believed at the time that Gee thought you were the police, and that’s why he ran. Anyway, I suppose Grete will be deported as soon as she’s fit again, unless she can persuade our people to grant her political asylum. Are you going to back her up, P.-B.?”

  “Not I,” said the headmistress stoutly. “I’m absolutely sure she’s a wrong ’un. I agree that blasted Macbeth tried to settle her hash, but she had more to sell to the police than you think, young Herring. At least, that’s my opinion. Why don’t you get ’em to put her in workmen’s overalls and confront her with that matron who recognised t’other feller? I think you might get a surprise. Remember that long hair don’t mean anything nowadays. Ain’t a sex-symbol the way it used to be, distinguishin’ the hussies from the oafs.”

  “Good lord!” said Timothy. He stared in sudden comprehension at Alison.

  “Enter the missing Jankers, I think,” she said.

  “Then why did they say they’d have to tell Jankers about their plans that night?” asked Timothy.

  “What somebody said a minute ago. She couldn’t have been in yer house that night,” said Miss Pomfret-Brown.

  “But I heard her cry out. I know I did.”

  “ ‘The screech-owl screechin’ loud, puts the wretch that lies in woe in remembrance of a shroud,’ ” said Miss Pomfret-Brown. “That’s what it was, mark me words.”

  “Perhaps it was the ghost, after all,” said Alison. “Or, more probably, she didn’t altogether trust them and had slipped back secretly to overhear their plans.”

  “Well, it will be a nice little job for Dunne, said Timothy. “He can have a lot of fun proving that she was in Ipswich on the day Mrs. Plumb was murdered. One thing: if Grete is Jankers, Gee (or, more probably, Mrs. Gee) will have told her all abo
ut the danger they had to fear from Mrs. Plumb’s spiteful old tongue, and that means we have found Mrs. Plumb’s murderer. It’s quite likely, on the face of it, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Well,” said Timothy, many weeks later, “you’ve had the Christmas you wanted.”

  “Yes, indeed,” said Alison, looking at the huge log fire which burned in the Tudor grate. “I said, right at the beginning, that I wanted to spend Christmas at Herrings, and it was more than sweet and lovely of you to agree. You didn’t really mind it, did you, though?”

  “No, I suppose not. Anyway, I’m glad all those people have gone away and I’ve got you to myself again.”

  “And you’re glad of that, after being saddled with me for two years and three months? I can’t help feeling that our marriage is lasting unfashionably long. What did you think of Pollingford Manor?”

  “Apparently it’s been falling to bits for the last two centuries. Nobody has lived there for donkey’s years.”

  “I know. I’ve been given official permission to have it pulled down.”

  “You’ve what?”

  “Well, its land marches with ours, and it’s an eye-sore since we had the woods tidied up on that side of the estate, so I bought it—oh, with my own money, of course—and it’s going the way of all flesh in the spring.”

  “The devil and all! What on earth will you get up to next?”

  “I was wondering whether we ought to begin our seven sons, darling, but I think perhaps we’ll limit them to two. Your favourite son shall inherit the Cotswold hills and mine shall have the river, the marshes, and the sky.”

  “You’re still in love with this countryside, Alison, aren’t you? Look, I’ll sell up the Cotswold place, if you like, and then we can live here always. I really wouldn’t mind, if you think you’d be happier that way.”

  “Oh, Tim! And give up our heated swimming pool! All the same, now we’ve cleaned out this lake, it will be marvellous to bathe here in the summer.”

  “Good lord! To hear you talk, I should think our unfortunate children will all be born with webbed feet.”

  “Would that disqualify them from the Olympic Games, do you suppose?”

  “Stop fooling. Let’s be serious for once.”

  “Darling, I am being serious. There’s something I have to say.”

  “Oh, well, carry on, if you must.”

  “Do you remember all those sayings?—you know, ‘I’m all right, Jack,’ and ‘You can have any colour you like,’ and so on?”

  “Of course.”

  “All right. It’s only this: please, never include me out.”

  “I’ve no idea what you mean. Expound, my angel.”

  Alison stood up, went across to him, and sat on his knee.

  “Well, it’s only this,” she said. “I want to be an equal partner. You’re too fond of all this ‘women and children first’ stuff. I don’t want to be included out whenever anything is difficult or dirty or dangerous. That’s all. Is it agreed?”

  “Have it your own way. I can refuse you nothing. And I don’t care if our children do have webbed feet. What can I expect when I’ve married a naiad?”

  “Perhaps you can expect to hear the songs the sirens sang.”

  “I don’t want a siren-song. Sooner or later, I’d like to settle for a son.”

  “I will attend to the matter personally, and I don’t think he’ll have webbed feet.”

  “He can have a fish’s tail, for all I care, so long as he comes to me from you.”

  About the Author

  Gladys Mitchell was born in the village of Cowley, Oxford, in April 1901. She was educated at the Rothschild School in Brentford, the Green School in Isleworth, and at Goldsmiths and University Colleges in London. For many years Miss Mitchell taught history and English, swimming, and games. She retired from this work in 1950 but became so bored without the constant stimulus and irritation of teaching that she accepted a post at the Matthew Arnold School in Staines, where she taught English and history, wrote the annual school play, and coached hurdling. She was a member of the Detection Club, the PEN, the Middlesex Education Society, and the British Olympic Association. Her father’s family are Scots, and a Scottish influence has appeared in some of her books.