They Died in the Spring

by Josephine Pullein-Thompson

  Flecker gave Hedley a despairing look and the doctor did his best. “Very good of you to come over,” he muttered out of the corner of his mouth. “Very prompt. But the Chief Inspector has been explaining the situation and now we know the facts we quite understand his point of view.”

  “I don’t,” said Dobson, looking at Flecker. “Not after what I heard as I stood in the doorway. I don’t understand it at all.”

  Flecker tugged distractedly at his forelock. Blast the man, he thought; why of all moments did he have to choose this one? “I can’t explain now, sir,” he said, “but everything is under control and eventually will be made plain. Do you want to talk to Dr. Hedley or shall I carry on?”

  “If Dr. Hedley’s withdrawn his complaint we’ve nothing to talk about; you carry on.”

  Flecker shuffled his envelopes. “Well, as I was saying when the Chief Constable came in, the situation is serious.” He looked round at his audience and this time he got the reaction he hoped for. Paul Barclay said, “Look here, Chief Inspector, I think I’d better come clean,” and then, becoming nervous at the attention that was focused on him, he tried to play down his words. “Well, not clean exactly, because I didn’t actually tell you in the first place, I simply failed to contradict you when you got it wrong. But, what I really mean is, that I think you ought to know, because then you’ll see that you’re completely on the wrong track, as far as Lesley—Mrs. Carlson—is concerned.”

  Flecker looked at Browning, who at once whipped out his notebook, and then he asked a little grimly, “Well, what is it, Mr. Barclay, that I ought to know?”

  “It wasn’t entirely for my own good.” The abject look of the apologetic spaniel had appeared on Barclay’s face. “At first, you see, I was determined not to drag Lesley in at all, so I stretched the time I spent with the Sinclairs and the time I would have taken to shut up the chickens and kept quiet about coming here. Then we heard about the six o clock shot, so it still seemed sensible to leave the Sinclairs as late as possible even though you didn’t believe the chicken business. It wasn’t until Lesley told me about Hilda and her husband that I realized we could do any harm by being a bit inaccurate. When Lesley telephoned me and said that you were on to her, I said at once that I’d better come clean. She wouldn’t hear of it, but obviously it was my duty, I mean I couldn’t do anything else. Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that Lesley—Mrs. Carlson—couldn’t have been at Well Cottage or in the plantation when the shots were fired, because at six-five, at the latest, she was up here with me.”

  Flecker pushed rather wearily at the lock of hair which had fallen over his face. “Let’s get this straight,” he said. “As far as I can make out you want to amend your earlier statements about the time you left the Sinclairs on the night of the murders?”

  “That’s right,” said Barclay, brightening up at Flecker’s euphemism.

  “What time did you leave then?”

  “Well, that’s the trouble, I don’t really know to this day what time I did leave, but the point is that when I got up here and found no one at home I looked at my watch and found that it was just after six. Then, just a few moments later, Mrs. Carlson came in. She was very out of breath; she’d been to the post and run all the way back and it couldn’t really have been as late as six-five.”

  “When you arrived, did you come straight upstairs or did you ring the bell and wait on the doorstep?” asked Flecker.

  “I think I did what I usually do, gave a ring and then came up.” Barclay looked puzzled.

  “And then, did you look in all the rooms before you settled down to wait?”

  “Well, yes, I did. I knew Mrs. Carlson was expecting me, so when she didn’t seem to be about, I thought she might be ill or something, so, naturally, I had a look round.”

  Flecker got up. “It would be nice,” he said, “if I could believe you, but I’m afraid you’ve told me so many different stories that I can’t. At the best, you’re an unreliable witness; at the worst, well, you and Mrs. Carlson could be accomplices—there are one or two jobs, like putting Miss Schmidt in the well, which would have been done easier by two people.”

  Paul Barclay groaned, “Oh lord, this is the most horrible situation.”

  Hedley darted him a furious look. “And you dragged Mrs. Carlson into it,” he snapped.

  “I know, and I couldn’t be more sorry.” Barclay sounded as though he meant it.

  “If you don’t both stop talking about dragging me into it, I shall go mad,” said Lesley, and there was slightly hysterical note in her voice. “I’m not the sort of person to be dragged into things, but if anyone did drag me into this it was Charles.”

  Dobson was looking mystified and as Flecker got to his feet, he took pity on him. “Charles was Mrs. Carlson’s husband, sir,” he said. “He died some years ago. You shall have a full report this evening.” He made hurriedly for the door.

  “Here, wait a minute,” called Dobson.

  Flecker turned back reluctantly. Couldn’t the wretched man see that he was trying to escape without further explanations? “Yes, sir?” he asked, in what he hoped were intimidating tones.

  “Where are you off to now?” asked Dobson.

  “There are one or two points still to be cleared up—” Flecker kept it vague.

  “And,” the Chief Constable let his eyes travel over Lesley Carlson and Barclay, “what about everything else?”

  “All under control,” answered Flecker briskly and, turning, he hurried downstairs. As he crossed the yard, he caught a brief glimpse of a yellow head which, at the sight of the detectives, was quickly withdrawn into the stable. The boy, thought Flecker, had evidently spent the morning watching the comings and goings, and the Lord only knew what horrible construction he had put on them. He turned back. “Anthony,” he called, “here a minute.”

  A little sheepish at having been caught lurking, Anthony emerged.

  “We’ve just been seeing your mother about the jumble,” Flecker told him, feeling that this was a fairly reassuring subject. “It seems that the murderer may have taken some clothes from the stable on the night Colonel Barclay was killed, but your mother hasn’t seen any suspicious characters about.”

  “Nor have I,” said Anthony thoughtfully. He looked at Flecker in an undecided way for a moment and then he added, “But there weren’t any clothes in the stable on Saturday, they didn’t come until about Monday.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Flecker.

  “Well, yes.” Anthony looked embarrassed. “You see, Gillian Willis was away and I don’t like David Felton much, he’s—well, a bit feeble, so I hadn’t all that much to do and I spent quite a lot of time in the stable looking at the jumble—people send all sorts of peculiar things. Anyway, I’m sure there weren’t any clothes there on Saturday, but there were on Monday, because Gillian was back and we dressed up in them.”

  “That’s very useful,” said Flecker slowly. “But wait a minute. You went out to tea and the cinema with the Feltons; what time did you go?”

  “Oh, about five to four. They only live just over there.” He pointed vaguely in a south-westerly direction.

  “And did you look at the jumble just before you went out?”

  “Yes. I wanted to take my bike to the Feltons, but Mummy said I couldn’t because it would be dark when I got back, so, when I put it away in the stable I looked to see if Mrs. Willis had brought any more jumble, but she hadn’t.”

  “And you didn’t look on Sunday?”

  “No, we went out all day.”

  “And on Monday the clothes were there. What time of day did you find them?”

  “It was in the morning. Gillian came back from Wales on Sunday and she came round to see us on Monday morning.”

  “And you haven’t seen anyone unexpected wandering into the yard?”

  “No, I’ve only seen us and the Willises and Uncle Paul and, of course, the milkman and the butcher and the baker and the man who brings vegetables. No one suspicious.”<
br />
  The boy still looked worried to death, thought Flecker. He looked round to see if the Chief Constable was in the offing, but there was no sign of him yet. “What makes David Felton so feeble?” he asked chattily.

  “He isn’t weak and feeble exactly, he’s just feeble; you know, he does senseless things. He’s always pushing you for no reason and he won’t sit still in boats. We took him on the river once, but Mummy said never again. He ruins everything. Once he found an air gun and some slugs in the Feltons’ loft, and it was one of Mr. Harris’s Rectory days, so he made a super target and started to teach us all to shoot. But David would fool about and point the gun at everyone and in the end Mr. Harris took the slugs away and wouldn’t teach us. He was afraid that David would shoot someone in the eye or something and then he’d be blamed.”

  “A real public nuisance number one, in fact,” said Flecker. “Well, thank you very much for helping us; you’ve been more use than all the grown-ups put together. We’re going to call on Mrs. Sinclair next; see you later.”

  “Do you think it would be all right for me to go up to the flat now?” asked Anthony wistfully.

  “I should give them about five minutes more,” advised Flecker. “I think the Chief Constable wanted to talk to Dr. Hedley and they both seemed in rather bad tempers.”

  “Was that the Chief Constable who asked me to show him the way up? Lor’!”

  “Oh dear, oh dear,” said Browning as he followed Flecker down the passage to the Green, “and I never thought she’d be mixed up in it. She seemed such a nice girl—such a sporty sort, somehow.”

  “Who?” asked Flecker vaguely.

  “Why, young Mrs. Barclay of course. As soon as you mentioned an accomplice, I saw you were on the right track, and yet you didn’t seem satisfied that it was Mrs. Carlson you were after. But it was young Mrs. Barclay who swore she brought that coat over before Saturday. I suppose she and young Paul wanted to get rid of the old Colonel,” he went on thoughtfully. “They found him a bit too bossy or they got tired of seeing him throw the money around and then Miss Schmidt caught them at it, so she had to go too.”

  “And Mrs. Carlson’s obliging with an alibi?” asked Flecker.

  “Very likely Barclay’s tricked her into it somehow and, of course, she’s never been sure of the time he got there.”

  “No, but she thinks she caught the six-five post and, from your information, the post office seems very certain that it went punctually that evening; if only the headmaster of Longmead is an efficient type or has an efficient secretary.”

  “Supposing the old Colonel had planned to go off with Miss Schmidt,” said Browning, following his own train of thought. “Supposing he told the family he was going to sell up and go abroad. Young Paul didn’t fancy being out of a job with no money and no farm, so he and his missus decide to do the Colonel in. Then, naturally, Miss Schmidt has to go too because she knows they’ve been told. There,” he said with cheerful complacency, “and what do you think of that for a bit of deduction?”

  Flecker paused, his hand on the Sinclairs’ gate. “Jolly good,” he answered, “except that I think young Mrs. B would have rigged up some sort of an alibi; I think she would have had a telephone call during the murder she wasn’t committing if nothing else.”

  “Oh my lord, you don’t mean you think,” began Browning and then he noticed that Flecker, his head through the kitchen window, was already talking to Veronica Sinclair.

  At the sight of Flecker, a distraught look crossed Veronica’s face, and when he asked if he might come in and ask one question, she answered in harassed tones that she was nearly mad already. “What with the babies and the lunch and I simply must do some shopping this afternoon; couldn’t the question wait until tonight? Shush, William, darling, you can see Mummy’s talking.”

  “I’m afraid it can’t wait,” answered Flecker, “but it won’t take a moment and you can stir the lunch as you answer. We’ll let ourselves in,” he added, as he saw by Veronica’s face that her resolve was weakening.

  The kitchen was in its usual incredible confusion and, while Simon and Lucy, both absorbed in their occupations, played under Veronica’s feet, William propelled a battered wooden lorry up and down the room to the accompaniment of an ear-splitting roar, more reminiscent of the sound of a squadron of jet planes taking off than one elderly lorry.

  “I’m afraid we’re back to the evening of the murders and the time you put the family to bed,” Flecker shouted to be heard.

  “Shush, William, darling,” Veronica cried plaintively, but to no avail. “You said that your brother left while you were bathing the family,” Flecker consulted an envelope, “but that as you’d taken your watch off . . .”

  “Lucy!” cried Veronica, diving under the kitchen table. “You naughty girl, that’s today’s Times and Daddy hasn’t even looked at it yet.” She retrieved an armful of tattered, crumpled pages. “Oh dear, Aubrey will be furious,” she said.

  “Try the iron and some Scotch tape, madam,” advised Browning. “It’s wonderful what you can do.”

  Flecker said, “Please try and cast your mind back to that Saturday evening.” And Browning, hearing a note of desperation in the Chief Inspector’s voice, tried to quieten William.

  “I reckon that lorry wants seeing to,” he remarked seriously; “it wouldn’t make all that noise if there wasn’t something wrong. I think you’ve lost your silencer; like me to have a look?” Clutching his lorry possessively, William retired to a corner of the room and, for a brief space, quiet prevailed.

  “I can remember it perfectly,” Veronica’s voice was sharp. “Hilda was going to London and I started to bath the babies earlier than usual; I thought I’d get them all in bed in good time and anyway it wasn’t very entertaining in the sitting-room, Paul and Aubrey were both in bad tempers, they did nothing but argue.”

  “What time did you begin the bathing?” asked Flecker.

  “Oh, about twenty to six, I think. We usually push them off to bed about six.”

  “And you heard your brother leave, but you didn’t look at your watch?”

  “That’s right, the watch was in the medicine cupboard out of reach of the babies.”

  “Still, you must have had a fair idea of the time. We’re in rather a quandary.” Flecker pushed at his hair. “You see your brother has amended his original statement. Look, tell me honestly, what time do you think he left?”

  “We told Inspector Sims it was about six,” Veronica answered. “Afterwards he got it into his head it was later; ten past six was the time he settled on, but privately I thought that it was much more like five to. It was no use trying to put him right, though, and he was absolutely beastly about looking for Hilda when she was first missing. He simply wouldn’t listen if he wasn’t interested in what you were saying.”

  “But you should have made him listen,” Flecker remonstrated with her. “You can’t let the police trot round with their heads full of inaccurate information in a murder case; there might be very serious consequences.”

  “I don’t agree. What harm could it do, since we knew very well that Paul hadn’t been murdering anyone, but was up in Lesley Carlson’s flat; it was far more important to save his marriage than bother with that silly old Sims.”

  Flecker said gravely, “I’m afraid you’re quite wrong about this. Things aren’t always as simple as they seem; you might have done incalculable harm. Now you’re not telling me that your brother left at five fifty-five to get rid of me so that you can cook the lunch in peace?”

  “I said, about five fifty-five,” corrected Veronica. “I can’t swear to it exactly, my watch was in the medicine cupboard. No, that’s the truth.”

  “Good enough,” said Flecker. “Thank you, Mrs. Sinclair. Good morning.”

  The detectives were out of the house before the full import of Flecker’s words sank in; he said I was quite wrong, thought Veronica suddenly. He can’t mean . . . With a whimper of horror she dashed for the front door, but Fl
ecker and Browning had already disappeared. “But he can’t mean it,” wailed Veronica aloud, “he can’t mean he really thinks it was Paul.”

  Flecker said, “Let us sit upon the ground, and tell sad stories of the death of kings, or rather let us repair to the Carpenter’s Arms and, over lunch, I will tell you what I’ve deduced, and you can pick holes in it.”

  “We’ve reached that stage, have we?” asked Browning. “Well, I must say I could do with the glass of beer; we’ve had a busy morning.”

  “I was sorry you missed Hedley’s performance,” said Flecker lightly. “At one point I thought I was going to get socked on the jaw. He’s formidable when he’s roused.”

  “Went for you, did he? I gathered from what the Chief Constable said that there’d been a spot of trouble. That was funny, you know.” Browning laughed reminiscently. “Mr. Dobson coming up like that. I saw him, you see, when he first came in, and tried to draw your attention to him, but you were busy talking. Then he saw what I was up to and signalled to me to keep quiet and there he stood in the doorway listening to every word.”

  “He very nearly upset the apple cart,” said Flecker, as they came up to the car. “Hullo, what’s Mrs. Carlson looking for?”

  Lesley Carlson was standing at the stable gate, looking up and down Church Lane; her face, which bore an anxious expression, brightened at the sight of the detectives. “You haven’t seen Anthony, have you?” she asked.

  “Anthony?” said Flecker sharply. “Since when has he been missing?”

  “He’s not missing exactly, he just hasn’t turned up for lunch yet and Dr. Hedley wants to take us out. I don’t know where he can have got to, his bike’s in the stable. I rang the Willises and he’s not there.” She looked up and down the lane again. “Usually, he’s so good about meals, but of course, his watch may have stopped or something.”

  “Have you tried the Feltons?” asked Flecker.

  “No, I don’t think it’s terribly likely—”

  “Well, you telephone them, just in case; we’ll have a scout round.”