Nest of Vipers mb-55

by Gladys Mitchell

  ‘If any, yes, of course, but I have a feeling that our murderer may have slipped through our fingers.’

  The Superintendent stared at her.

  ‘Is that another of your hints, ma’am?’

  ‘Perhaps. Need I say more?’

  ‘No, I daresay you need not. It would explain a good many things, but I’ll have to mull it over in my mind. Yes, it would explain quite a lot, that would, but we’ll have to add chapter and verse before it’ll be acceptable in a court of law.’

  ‘But it is feasible, you think?’

  ‘Oh, undoubtedly, especially taken in conjunction with the changed lock on the bungalow door. When could that have been done, though, without Miss Nutley knowing? We understand that she wouldn’t allow any tampering with any of the fastenings – no bolts, no safety gadgets, no anything – unless she authorised the job and supervised it herself.’

  ‘Have you forgotten, or did you not know, that Miss Nutley was accustomed to drive from Weston Pipers into the town quite frequently in order to swim from a beach which was more attractive than the one at the bottom of Weston Pipers’ lawn? At least, that was her excuse, but I think you will find that on these occasions she was absent for longer than was needed for a swim, and quite long enough for a lock to be changed in her absence.’

  ‘Yes, and, of course, we know from the Nosey Parker at Number Twelve in the next street that she used to visit that junk shop now and again, probably before Piper came back from Paris. May I ask how you plan to proceed, ma’am?’

  ‘Certainly. I shall go to Weston Pipers again and speak to the groundsman, Penworthy.’

  ‘We’ve tried him, but he seems a bit of a dim-wit.’

  ‘It was he who gave us the clue to the buckets of sea water. Once it was realised that Miss Minnie need not have been drowned in the cove and her body carried back to the bungalow, one part of the puzzle fell into place and the first doubts were cast upon the likelihood of Mr Piper’s guilt.’

  ‘It wasn’t the drowning itself so much as his motive, ma’am. There doesn’t seem any reason to disbelieve the story that, until Miss Nutley and Piper had the downstair windows made secure, Minnie used to break in and snoop around looking for a later will than the one which gave Piper his inheritance.’

  ‘But Miss Nutley, later on, after Miss Minnie’s death, did the same thing.’

  ‘Guilty conscience, I reckon, ma’am, or just ornery curiosity about some of the guests’ sleeping habits. There’s a crazy streak in that lady, ma’am.’

  ‘A tearful one, at any rate.’

  ‘I don’t think her conscience would let her rest. There’s no doubt in my mind that she did her best to frame Piper for the murder. I’m almost inclined to put her back on my list of suspects, you know. I reckon she’s capable of murder. She’s big-built and, for a woman, very muscular. It wouldn’t have taken her long to overpower Minnie, who was a little thing and old.’

  ‘I know. I also thought of her at first, but the problem there is that she did not have a key to the new lock on the bungalow until you gave her one.’

  ‘Well, I reckon that’s right enough. Mr Piper and Mr Evans let us in after they’d busted a window and climbed in and found the body, and we gave Minnie’s own key to Miss Nutley after we’d concluded our investigations at the bungalow.’

  ‘Yes. When I took over the bungalow for a few days, I remember that Miss Nutley’s own key would not operate the lock and she was obliged to return to the house for the key you had given her.’

  ‘Well, that only means one thing, ma’am. Except for Mr Piper breaking the window, which he admitted doing, and which we thought at first was a suspicious circumstance, as he claimed he had lost his key to the bungalow—’

  ‘Found later by you and Miss Nutley. At the time, she was ignorant of the fact that neither it nor the duplicate in her own possession, would open the bungalow door.’

  ‘So, ma’am, the suspects are narrowed down in number, it seems to me.’

  ‘Quite so. It appears that Miss Minnie herself opened the door to her murderer.’

  ‘That’s it. She must have done.’

  ‘On the evidence we have been given, she made it a point never to open the door to anyone.’

  ‘We only know that from Piper, though. She might have made exceptions he didn’t know about. From your own researches of which you have been good enough to keep me informed, it seems that several of the tenants of Weston Pipers had visited that hell’s kitchen on the top floor of that junk shop. Couldn’t Minnie have been persuaded to let one or two of them into the bungalow?’

  ‘It is possible, certainly, although, except for one person, it seems to me unlikely.’

  ‘And that one person could have been Miss Barnes, who used to give her those lifts into the town and was in the running to become a sacrificial virgin. That’s who you meant when you spoke of the murderer slipping through our fingers, wasn’t it? You mean she’ll have cooked up an alibi.’

  ‘I was not thinking of Miss Barnes, Superintendent. If you remember, you were convinced that this was not a woman’s crime and I agree with you. However, I shall know more perhaps, when I have paid my next visit to Weston Pipers.’

  ‘Right. You do that, ma’am. We’ve still got plenty on our plate trying to trace those missing schoolgirls. Either they or their bodies must be somewhere about. We’re still going through Bosey’s villainous records.’

  (2)

  ‘I am afraid that any morbid discoveries the police may make regarding the fate of the missing schoolgirls will represent but a Pyrric victory,’ said Dame Beatrice to Laura, ‘since it will have cost the taxpayers a great deal of money and bring less than comfort to bereaved parents, for the prime movers in this truly infernal business are both dead. Do you care to accompany me to Weston Pipers? Do as you wish, for neither of us, I am afraid, is exactly persona grata where Miss Nutley is concerned.’

  ‘Nothing would keep me away.’

  They went to Weston Pipers, Laura driving, on the following morning and pulled up in front of the house. Early daffodils and late crocuses were showing in the beds under the windows of Niobe’s office and Chelion Piper’s study, the tide at the foot of the lawn was at the full and the groundsman Penworthy was leaning against the handle of a garden roller watching other people at work.

  The work in question was the demolition of the bungalow. Already the doors and window-frames were out and stacked on the grass, and workmen were beginning to load them on to a lorry. A pile of broken glass was lying nearby and other workmen were digging a deep hole in the soft earth at the foot of the high bank near the back of the bungalow as a repository for the glass and any other unsaleable rubbish. Standing by and occasionally dabbing at her eyes with a lace-edged handkerchief, was Niobe.

  Dame Beatrice got out of the car, closely followed by Laura, and went up to her.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Nutley,’ said Dame Beatrice briskly. ‘Rather early, I’m afraid, for a social call, but this is nothing of that kind. I want a word with your man Penworthy.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Niobe. ‘Well, there he is—’ she raised her voice – ‘idling his time away as usual. Oh, good morning, Mrs Gavin. Do you know Mrs Farintosh, then?’

  ‘I work for her, only I know her as Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley,’ said Laura.

  ‘Well, yes, of course, I know that now, but I knew her first as Mrs Farintosh. There’s Penworthy. Help yourselves. Is it – may I know what it’s about?’

  ‘Oh, yes, certainly,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘It is in connection with the death of Miss Minnie.’

  ‘I see. Yes, I suppose the police are still trying to find out about that, now they’ve seen fit to release Chelion. I can’t think Penworthy will be of any help, though.’

  ‘So you are having the bungalow pulled down,’ said Dame Beatrice, gazing admiringly at the orderly nature of the wreckage.

  ‘Yes, it seemed the best thing. I am going to have a heated swimming pool in its place.’

&nb
sp; ‘That, perhaps, will be pleasanter for Mr Piper than bathing from the beach, and will save your own journeys into the town when you wish to bathe.’

  Niobe looked suspiciously at her, but Dame Beatrice remained bland and seemed innocent of intending any double meaning. Then Niobe said, as unrestrained tears began to pour down her face:

  ‘Chelion won’t be using the pool. He isn’t here. He’s going to be married. He’s left me Weston Pipers and some money. I don’t suppose I’ll ever see him again.’

  ‘Dear me!’

  ‘I expect it’s all for the best.’ Niobe began some vigorous mopping-up operations. ‘He can’t feel any kindness towards me now.’

  ‘I am sorry to hear it. Just a word with Penworthy then, if I may.’

  Penworthy, who had heard Niobe’s strictures, was now engaged with the roller, but thankfully abandoned his task when Dame Beatrice approached.

  ‘Mornin’!’ he said. ‘You want to know some more about them old buckets of sea water? Drownded in one on ’em, they says. What you think to that, eh?’

  ‘So you know that, do you? You were a great help, you know. Will you help me again?’

  Penworthy wiped the palm of his hand down the side of his trousers. Dame Beatrice took the hint and produced a fifty pence coin.

  ‘I likes to be helpful, I do,’ said Penworthy, taking the coin and giving it the benison of a slight spit on the reverse side before he tucked it away. ‘What would it be this time?’

  ‘Trespassers.’

  ‘Trespassers?’

  ‘Trespassers.’

  ‘Oh, them! Only ent ever been one or two. They come paddlin’ round at low tide along the foreshore. Ent nothin’ to stop ’em, not at low tide.’

  ‘I am surprised that this only happened once or twice, if it is so easy to get to these grounds that way.’

  ‘Course there might have been more. If I’d been in the kitchen up at the house getting my elevenses, any number could of come and I wouldn’t see ’em, but you wouldn’t get ’em comin’ this time of year. Nobody wouldn’t come paddlin’ round the creek at this time o’ year. Come to think of it, though, I do recollect of one what come, but I don’t reckon he paddled, ’cos he had his shoes and socks on, you see.’

  ‘How observant you are! Did you speak to him?’

  ‘Ar, of course I did. I said as how he was on private property. He said he had heard a friend of his, Mr Shard, had rented a flat here, and he give me ten p. to go and find out if Mr Shard would come out and speak to him.’

  ‘Did you not think that a very strange request? Why could he not have gone up to the house?’

  ‘He had give me ten p., so I went, but when I got back, me having to go by way of the kitchen, not being allowed the front door, and having to find somebody as was willin’ to take a message to Miss Nutley’s office to ask her to get hold of Mr Shard, and me ’angin’ about only to find as Mr Shard had gone out, well, when I goes back to tell the feller, what does I find but he’s gorn. Got tired of waitin’, I suppose, and me takin’ all that trouble.’

  ‘Can you describe the man?’

  ‘Ar, reckon I can, near enough. He was a shortish, roundish kind of feller with one of them faces, all smooth-shaven and a bit yeller, what look as if they’re smilin’ until you look at their eyes. Some kind of a foreigner, though you couldn’t tell that from the way he talked, and his hair was jet black and quite thick and looked kind of greasy.’

  ‘That is a very good description. Had you ever seen him anywhere before?’

  ‘Not so far’s I know. I reckon I’d have remembered him if I had.’

  ‘Now how long ago was this? Can you remember?’

  ‘Oh, that’s an easy one. He come the day I took the last buckets of sea water up to the bungalow door. The arrangement was that when the old lady wanted her sea water she put out the buckets first thing in the mornin’. She never stuck to no regular days, but it was always three times a week she had the sea water. Well, I used to fill the buckets as soon as the tide come in and took ’em to her front door and give her a knock and a shout, and then, when she felt like it, which was always in my dinner-time, so I never see her do it, she took ’em in.’

  Dame Beatrice took Laura, who had been talking to Niobe, in tow, they drove back to the hotel and she telephoned the Superintendent. He came round at once and listened to the story.

  ‘The description fits Bosey well enough,’ he said, ‘but there is no proof that he was admitted to the bungalow.’

  ‘It seems to me significant that those were the last buckets of sea water which Miss Minnie seems to have required. Besides, I think, now that we know the connection between them, that Bosey was the only person Miss Minnie would have admitted to the bungalow.’

  ‘But why should Bosey have murdered his right-hand helper?’

  ‘Because he no longer trusted her. She must have miscalculated in some way, and her usefulness had not only gone, but she may have brought you and your police force very close to him. We shall never know the details, but I think it highly significant that, following his visit, Miss Minnie needed no more sea water baths.’

  (3)

  ‘So now we come to your affairs, Miss Kennett,’ said Dame Beatrice.

  ‘They don’t bear looking at,’ said Billie. ‘I suppose you’ve got it all worked out. Oh, well, I don’t care what happens now.’

  ‘I hear that Mr Piper has left Weston Pipers to Miss Nutley and has gone away to be married.’

  ‘Yes, to Elysée. They are going to live in Paris.’

  ‘Very wise. That will take Miss Barnes well away from all her unhappy memories.’

  ‘They weren’t all unhappy, you know. It was just that it took me a long time to accept the fact that Elysée was hetero and not homo. Are you prejudiced against people who don’t conform?’

  ‘Only against such people – if one is justified in calling them people – as Miss Minnie and Bosey.’

  ‘So somebody killed Bosey and got away with it. At the resumed inquest – my paper sent me to cover it – the verdict was suicide. Anyway, suicide or murder, it was much too easy a death for that monster.’

  ‘Why didn’t you put the milk bottles into the refrigerator?’ asked Dame Beatrice. Billie stared at her. Then she laughed.

  ‘So you know,’ she said. ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘By inference, deduction and the laws of probability.’

  ‘So what are you going to do about it?’

  ‘Nothing, of course,’ said Dame Beatrice, blandly surprised by the question. ‘Who am I to upset the findings of a coroner’s jury?’

  ‘You mean you’re going to let me get away with it?’

  ‘Well, you yourself have stated that it was too easy a death for such a monster.’

  ‘After I’d made Elysée tell me some of the truth – I don’t suppose for a moment I got it all – I began to wonder about Minnie’s death. I knew it couldn’t have been Piper. I did wonder about Niobe Nutley, but I don’t believe Minnie would have allowed her inside the bungalow.’

  ‘I agree. When did you kill him?’

  ‘First thing on the Monday morning. Sunday’s milk was still on the step, but I left it there.’

  ‘Was the shop open so early?’

  ‘Yes. I got there sharp on nine and he was just opening up. He recognised me, not as Elysée’s friend, but as the reporter who’d covered the preliminary inquest on Minnie. I’d met him, you see, when it was over, congratulated him on the way he’d given his evidence and asked him whether he could supply me with anything more about her for my paper. This was before I knew that Ellie was mixed up with the two of them, of course, so the interview was quite friendly.’

  ‘So presumably he left you to look around his shop on that Monday morning.’

  ‘I asked whether I might and he agreed and said he had some paper-work to finish, so would I shout if I found anything I wanted to buy. He went off and I turned the card round on the door so that it said CLOSED, picked up t
he milk bottle from outside the door, bolted the door as quietly as I could and sneaked along by the way I had seen him go. I had a knife – razor-sharp it was, too – because, of course, I was prepared for a fight when I tackled him about Ellie.’

  ‘You thought you could win if it came to physical combat?’

  ‘I had the knife. He was sitting at the big desk, bent over it, but he heard me and swung round. Then he jumped up and I don’t know whether he panicked or whether he thought I’d turn and run, but he rushed me, so I stuck out the knife and that was that. Then I got back as far as the door and fainted.’

  ‘You did not faint!’

  ‘Actually, no, but one always puts in a bit of local colour. If I’d been writing this up for my paper, I should certainly have said the woman fainted, whether she did or not.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Yes. Look here, you must have had something definite to go on in suspecting me. What did I do wrong? – apart from breaking the sixth Commandment, I mean.’

  ‘Psychologically you were my first suspect, unless (as was possible, of course) some person quite unknown to me had done the deed. My other suspect would have been Niobe Nutley, but I soon dismissed her from my calculations because, far from objecting to Bosey’s experiments, I think she enjoyed them because she had to find compensation for Piper’s defection.’

  ‘She could have ended up on that sacrificial altar, the same as I was afraid, when I got at the truth, Ellie might have done.’

  ‘I think Niobe Nutley felt that, with her weight and strength, she could have held her own against him if matters went beyond the merely obscene and looked like ending fatally for her.’

  ‘Did you ever suspect Ellie?’

  ‘No. She had taken matters into her own hands to protect her life, even though, in so doing, she had had to sacrifice what some might call her virtue. Besides, I cannot see her as a killer.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right enough, I suppose. So what do you want me to do? – give myself up?’

  ‘Why? Your story makes sense. You carried the knife in self-defence and Bosey rushed you and spiked himself on it. Maybe you should not have been carrying an offensive weapon, but that is the most, so far as I am concerned, which needs to be said. But the milk bottles still puzzle me. Can you explain?’