“Right, you carry on then, Miller.” Dobson turned to Flecker. “And, if you want my advice,” he said, “you’ll look for Miss Schmidt’s boy friend. To my mind there’s no two ways about this case. The girl was carrying on a clandestine relationship; they kept it that dark there must have been something disreputable about it. She met the man at Well Cottage and quarrelled with him. He hit her over the head and disposed of her body in the well, but for some reason or other Colonel Barclay constituted a danger. Very likely he knew of this fellow’s association with Miss Schmidt or, more likely still, he came by that evening just as the murderer was leaving the cottage and our fellow knew that as soon as the body was discovered, he would give the game away. Anyway, he followed the Colonel down into the wood, got his gun away from him and there you are. All you’ve got to do is to find Miss Schmidt’s boy friend and that’s that.”
“Yes, sir,” said Flecker, getting to his feet. “Still, I gather that your men have already tried that line without success.”
“That’s no reason to give it up,” snapped Dobson. “Tomorrow,” he went on, “there’s the inquest on Miss Schmidt, but Miller will see to that, leaving you free to carry on with the investigation. I shall be in town for a conference, so, if anything out of the way occurs, you’ll have to contact Gage or my deputy, but on Friday I shall be over here for a progress report; Miller will let you know when.”
“Right you are, sir,” said Flecker, making for the door. “We’ll be on our way.” Browning hastily gathered up his chief’s forgotten possession—the folder containing the case notes and a pair of leather and string driving gloves—and followed him from the office. As the door closed behind them, Superintendent Gage raised his pale blue eyes towards the heavens in an affected gesture of dismay. “Well, really, sir, what have they sent us?”
Dobson’s lined face shrank into a scowl. “I don’t think they set much store by our intelligence up there,” he said, indicating the general direction of London. “I told them that we hadn’t anyone of sufficient experience to handle this case, not that we hadn’t anyone.”
*
Browning drove, Miller sat in front to direct him, and Flecker travelled at the back. They drove uphill. First along the wide, straight dual carriageway of the Bretford road and then on a narrow winding road, which led, between low, moss-covered banks, through the depths of the great beech woods.
Flecker, immersed in thought, stayed silent, and Browning took it upon himself to ask Miller where they should stay.
The Inspector, who had been embarrassed by the churlishness of his superiors, was delighted to help. “Now don’t you worry,” he said, “I’ll fix you up directly I get back. Just come into the station when you knock off and if I’ve gone there’ll be a message for you. Oh, look now, we’re just coming into Winmore End. That’s the police house where young Random lives. He’s made it very nice inside; done it all up himself, in this contemporary style. And on your left now, there’s the green. The largest of those three cottages is the Sinclairs’. And that’s the Old Rectory; the new one and the church are up at the back there. In a minute we shall pass Well Cottage, it’s on the left too. There you are; it’s a tumble-down little place. And now the drive to The Paddocks, that’s Colonel Barclay’s house, you can’t see it very well for the trees. The next turn on the left is ours, Clint’s Lane, it takes us as near to the larch plantation as we can get in a car.”
Browning drove slowly down the lane, past the Barclay home farm buildings, and stopped outside Clint’s Cottages. The three men climbed out into the full blast of the bitter east wind, which swept across a cold expanse of grey-green fields.
“We’ll get down into the woods,” shouted Miller, above the gusty buffets. He turned and led the way down a narrow, but now well-trodden path. The shorter side of one small field brought them to Clint’s Copse and Miller stopped to point out the shepherd’s hut standing in the lee of the wood. “Not much of a place, especially in the winter,” observed Browning, looking at the old green hut with its iron wheels and tin stove-pipe. “It’s not my idea of a home.”
“Many a shepherd’s survived a lambing season in there,” said Flecker cheerfully. “I expect with their dogs and a couple of orphan lambs, they could get quite a fug up. And then they didn’t hold with all this washing; I expect that made a difference.”
“He doesn’t seem to be at home,” said Browning.
Clint’s Copse was composed entirely of beeches, but to provide cover for his pheasants, Colonel Barclay had planted and carefully cultivated large clumps of rhododendron and the dark, dismal green of their leaves added to the wintry aspect: the pewter grey trunks of the beeches, the purplish green of the shrivelled bramble bushes, the frost-faded brown of last year’s leaves. The lower slopes on both sides of the shallow valley had been planted with larches, which had not waited for spring weather. Their bright and tender green was dazzling after the uniform drabness of the rest of the countryside, and the tiny red flowers of the female trees gave them a festive look. The path led down through the larches to the floor of the valley and brought the three men to a wide grass track, which bisected the plantation and ran parallel to Clint’s Lane.
“It was just along here that they found the Colonel’s body,” said Inspector Miller. “You can still see the bloodstains; it hasn’t rained since.”
Flecker beat his cold hands against his body and became businesslike. “When they found him he was lying in a prone position, his feet to the north, his head to the south; it looks as though he was walking the same way as we are. Where does this track go?” he asked Miller.
“Well, I’ve never been along it myself,” answered Miller. “At least, not all the way, but at the end of the plantation it narrows and winds through the beechwoods, then it takes you along the headland of a ploughed field and comes out close to Well Cottage—that’s what Random tells me.”
“And the other way?” asked Flecker.
“That joins up with a lane that’s marked on the map. It’s a rough job, something like Clint’s. It’s signposted as unfit for motor traffic, but you can get a car down if you don’t mind risking your tyres and scratching the paint. It runs between two villages—Birketts Heath and Redpole Green.”
“Right,” said Flecker briskly. “Well, let’s take a look at Well Cottage on our way back to Crossley, then you give us the local dope on it too.”
Cement rendered over the local building material of brick and flint, Well Cottage was unbrightened by white or colour-wash; it stood at the side of a solitary ploughed field, crowded round by woods. A dangling length of gutter, sagging tiles, a square of cardboard substituted for a missing windowpane, gave it a dreary, derelict air.
“I don’t know that I wouldn’t rather have the shepherd’s hut now,” said Browning, gazing about him with disapproval. Except for four or five ancient standard roses, which lined the path from the rickety, home-made gate to the cottage door, the garden was given over entirely to the cultivation of vegetables and it looked as though Harris had done most of the hard work before he received his notice to quit. The well was at the back of the cottage, conveniently placed for the wash house, and, Flecker observed, out of sight of the road. The wellhead had disappeared except for a foot of crumbling wall, but the wooden cover was in good repair and lifted easily. The dark depths looked like the depths of any other well. The terrain, thought Flecker, was not proving very helpful; he let the cover fall back into position and wiped his hands on his overcoat.
Miller bent to re-padlock. “Would you like to see inside?” he asked. “I’ve got a key. It wasn’t locked at the time of the murder,” he went on as he led the way into the cottage. “There’s plenty of bolts on the inside of the door as you can see, but the key’s been lost for years. Harris says he never had one and never bothered about locking up; nothing much to lose, I suppose.”
Empty, except for a squalid sofa, exuding springs, and a worm-eaten wooden chair, the cottage displayed all its imperfections.
Damp-stained walls, rotten floorboards, crumbling plaster and smoke-grimed ceilings; it was a depressing sight, and Flecker contented himself with a perfunctory glance at each room, refusing to be drawn by Browning’s tirade against the authority which allowed a man to live in a cottage unfit for habitation by animals.
“Come on,” he said, “you can devote yourself to housing reforms when you retire.”
“Retire on a police pension?” said Browning in a voice of scorn. “Not a hope, we shan’t be able to afford it. If I could get the money together, I’d plan to take a nice country pub, but with the kids growing so fast and all these bicycles and books and school uniforms, I reckon it’ll be a nightwatchman’s job for me.”
Chapter Five
Having taken Inspector Miller back to Crossley, Flecker and Browning drove through Winmore End again and on to Shepherd’s Hill. Thanks to Miller’s minute directions, they found the scattered hamlet and Stones Farm without difficulty. The young Barclays lived in a small, square, unembellished farmhouse. It was built of red brick, which the passage of almost a hundred years had weathered to a soft rose-colour; the woodwork, recently repainted, was a rich utilitarian brown.
Paul Barclay answered the door. He had just come in from the farm and had changed his boots for slippers; there was mud on his corduroy trousers and a film of chicken meal whitened his old tweed jacket.
“We’re Metropolitan police officers,” Flecker explained. “I expect you’ve heard that we’ve been asked to help the local force.”
“Yes, they told us at the inquest this morning that you were coming,” said Paul Barclay, leading the way into the dining-room. “It’s a bad business,” he went on, looking at the detectives with a mournful expression in his brown spaniel eyes. “Do sit down.” He pulled out a chair for himself and they all sat at the oval mahogany dining table.
“Yes, it’s a bad business,” said Barclay again, in even more depressed tones.
“I’m afraid I’ve a good many questions to ask you, sir,” said Flecker, sorting his handful of envelopes.
“That’s all right. Fire away,” answered Barclay, concentrating his attention on a broken thumbnail. “I only want to get this beastly business cleared up.”
“Good. Number one then: who told Colonel Barclay that there were rabbits in the plantation?”
Paul Barclay looked up in surprise. “Rabbits?” he asked. “What on earth have they got to do with it?”
“I don’t know. I’m trying to find out. Did you know that there were rabbits about again?”
“No,” said Barclay slowly, “I can’t say that I did. This is a rabbit-free area, officially, and that makes us liable to prosecution if we don’t get shot of them quickly. It seems funny that my father never mentioned them to me.”
Flecker studied an envelope reflectively. “Of course, he only told Mrs. Barclay that he was going to see if there was any truth in the rumour that the rabbits were back. Perhaps he was going to investigate before he mentioned them to you?”
“It still seems funny to me,” replied Barclay, picking at his thumbnail.
“You mean it was out of character?”
“Yes.” Barclay tore his attention from his thumbnail and looked the Chief Inspector in the face. “It seems funny,” he explained a little ruefully, “because I would have expected a major flap.”
“I see. Well, that’s helpful; we will continue to take an interest in the rabbits. Do you shoot?”
“Yes. I’m not as keen as Father was, nor such a good shot, but I don’t mind turning out if anyone wants an extra gun and I rather enjoy getting something for the pot.”
“Where do you keep your gun, or guns?”
“Oh, up at The Paddocks at this time of year; Father had rigged up a little gunroom.”
“In your father’s wallet, apart from the rest of his money, we found five one-pound notes in a sealed but unaddressed envelope. Have you any idea for whom or what they were intended?”
“No,” Barclay shook his head, “not a clue.”
“Was he in the habit of paying anyone in cash?”
“No, he was rather against it. He didn’t approve of people doing jobs in the evening and getting paid in cash for this ‘skip the income-tax’ racket. He was all for private enterprise, but he liked it to be above board, if you know what I mean.”
“Was there anyone he might have had to tip or give a present to?”
“I can’t think of anyone.”
“No one in difficulties he might lend a fiver to?”
“No,” Barclay shook his head, “he wasn’t too keen on lending money.”
“He never said anything to you about receiving a threatening letter or anything like that?”
“No, not a word.”
“Well, now for Saturday. I’m sorry about this, I expect you’re fed to the back teeth with Saturday, but needs must. You had tea with your parents?”
“Yes.”
“Was there any special reason for it? I mean, was it a social occasion arranged beforehand or did you just drop in?”
“I think I told Mother that I would try to look in,” Barclay answered uncertainly. “Everything depended on whether we got back from the hunter trials in time. You know what these affairs are; sometimes they drag on till dark, but this one was quite well run and my wife’s horse did rather well in the open class so she decided to call it a day and didn’t bother with the pair class.”
“Your wife didn’t go out to tea with you?”
“No, she had the horse to do.”
“So you left your wife to cope, tea’d with your parents and then visited Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair. Were they expecting you?” asked Flecker.
“No, I just dropped in on them.”
“You left their house at ten minutes past six, drove back here, put the car away, shut up the chickens and came in at approximately seven-thirty. Correct?”
“Yes, quite correct,” Barclay answered.
“Do chickens pay nowadays?” asked Fletcher, in less official tones.
“No, they don’t.” Barclay spoke emphatically. “They’re a sore subject with me. All this dam’ egg-washing—we’re lucky if we get to bed at midnight on Wednesdays—the packing station collects on Thursdays—and at the end of it all, where are you? You’re lucky if you’ve paid for your labour, and as for a profit margin for insurance against a bad year, you haven’t a hope in hell. Then there’s the depreciation in houses and equipment and so on.”
“How many do you keep?” asked Flecker.
“Oh, we’re reduced a lot lately; we’re down to three hundred laying hens. I dug my toes in at day-old chicks this year.”
“You and your father farmed in partnership, I gather. Was he a sleeping partner?” asked Flecker.
“No, far from it. He was a very active one; well, at least since he retired. He was in insurance in quite a big way, you see, and I used the farm a lot. He walked round on Sundays, shot over the land and paid rather less income tax than he would have done without a farm. Then, when he retired, he began to take a more active interest and we agreed that he should lord it up at Winmore End and I here at Shepherd’s Hill.”
“And all this was arranged quite amicably?” asked Flecker.
“Oh yes, perfectly amicably,” answered Barclay.
Flecker shuffled through his envelopes. “Well, that seems to be the lot for now,” he said. “Do you think I could see the two Mrs. Barclays? One at a time, but it doesn’t matter which one comes first.”
“Yes, of course.” Barclay got to his feet. He looked less depressed now that his interview was over. “I expect it’ll be my mother first,” he said. “I know she’s in.”
Flecker paced up and down as they waited. “Lord, this room’s cold,” he complained, and then he asked, “How long did it take us to get here from Winmore End?”
“About ten minutes,” answered Browning.
“Give him the benefit of the doubt; say he left the Sinclairs at six-fifteen and took another fifteen
minutes to get back here, could he have taken the best part of an hour to shut up three hundred hens?”
“Not unless each one had a house to itself,” answered Browning, as Mary Barclay came in.
Forewarned by the presence of a police car in the drive, Mrs. Barclay had changed into an undarned grey cardigan and tidied her beautiful white hair. Across her shoulders she wore a grey angora shawl, which gave her no air of the displaced person, but rather enhanced her stateliness and seemed to increase her height.
The detectives stood up. “Good evening. Detective Chief-Inspector Flecker,” said Flecker, pointing to himself, “and Detective-Sergeant Browning. Won’t you sit down?”
Mary Barclay sat down and let her glance travel quietly over the two men. Flecker became preoccupied with his envelopes and Browning, finding the silence interminable, observed that it was very cold for the time of year.
Flecker looked up. “Who told Colonel Barclay that the rabbits were back?”
Mrs. Barclay thought for a moment or two. “I’ve really no idea,” she answered.
“Was your son there when they were mentioned?”
“No, he’d left. I was in the kitchen making the dogs’ dinners when the Colonel put his head round the door and said that he was going to see if it was true that there were rabbits about again. I saw him go down the garden with his gun; there’s a gate at the bottom of the vegetable garden which leads directly on the fields.”
“Is there a path from this gate to some specific part of the property?” asked Flecker.
“No, there’s no path, but our land is well gated. You can walk from Church Field, in the village, to the Hangings, our other boundary, without any trouble at all.”
“No crawling under barbed wire or pulling bedsteads out of gaps?” said Flecker with a grin.
They Died in the Spring Page 5