They Died in the Spring
Page 17
“No, it was money, I’m afraid, and such pathetically small sums too. She seems to have entered into a couple of hire purchase agreements without telling her husband and I suppose the new house cried out for this and that. Anyway, she determined to make capital out of the Colonel’s indiscretions and she must have written him blackmailing letters which either purported, or seemed to him, to come from Harris. The money was evidently to be left at or near the empty cottage and Barclay knew that Harris had seen him with Miss Schmidt. I suppose he paid the first two or three times, thinking that Harris just wanted to get his own back for being turned out of the cottage. Then, the week before the murders, he ‘went for’ Harris and blasted him up hill and down dale. I suppose he realized that Harris hadn’t an idea what he was talking about, because after that—I’m guessing shamefully now—he decided to take it out on the whole village by ploughing Church Field, and finally he lay in wait for his blackmailer.
“When Mrs. Willis, an armful of jumble to lend colour, went to look for her five pounds, she found the Colonel waiting for her. She would be particularly vulnerable to the sort of threats he would have made. Telling her husband, exposing her to the village and all the rest of it. I think he put the fear of God into her, and seeing Paul Barclay’s gun she picked it up and followed the Colonel down into the wood. And then, when she came back to Well Cottage to leave the other gun, she ran into Miss Schmidt.”
“And how did she get Miss Schmidt down the well?” asked Hedley. “You said that that was one of the things that could have been better done by two people.”
“Frankly,” said Flecker, “your guess is as good as mine. My rather childish mind associates wells with pussies and Miss Schmidt is said to have been fond of cats. It does seem fairly certain, from the lack of drag marks and bloodstains, except those which Mrs. Willis got through cleaning the gun, that Miss Schmidt was looking down into the well at the moment when she was clubbed. You remember she was clubbed twice; that would have made a fair amount of spattering.”
Lesley had turned rather pale and Flecker looked at her with concern. “Are you all right?” he asked. “I’m sorry, we’re all used to grisly details and I forgot that you weren’t.”
“Yes, I’m all right,” she answered. “I’m not usually squeamish; it’s just that when it’s all people you know—”
“Yes, well, let’s talk about something else: I gather that Anthony is going to be well enough to go back to school, so I suppose you’re still going to Longmead?”
“Yes,” Lesley said, looking a little defiant.
Hedley got up. “I’ve been trying to persuade Mrs. Carlson not to cut herself off from all her friends and go out at a time like this,” he said. “Quite unnecessary to go wearing herself out on a job,” he muttered angrily at Lesley.
Lesley said, “I want to get away from everyone and everything, because then, I think, I shall begin to see it all in perspective and when I can do that, I may know my own mind.”
Both her words and Hedley’s implied a wealth of earlier arguments. Flecker got to his feet and held out his hand. “Well, Mrs. Carlson,” he said with a forced briskness, “we must be on our way. I hope you enjoy the job and good luck with the perspective.” Lesley took his hand and simply smiled, but it was altogether too much for Flecker. He gave the doctor’s hand a perfunctory pump, left his mutter unanswered, and hurried down the stairs and across the yard to the car. “I’ll drive,” he called over his shoulder to Browning. If he drove he’d have to concentrate, he thought; he wouldn’t have a chance to think.
“Well, and that’s over,” said Browning, settling back as Flecker drove through Winmore End. “It’s made a very nice change and we can’t grumble about the weather; good as a holiday, really.”
There was a long silence and then Browning tried again. He looked sideways at Flecker. “I don’t think she’ll take the doctor, you know, he’s too bossy by half. Marriage, nowadays, generally tends to be more of a partnership, but if you ask me, the doctor would want it all his own way, and then there’s Anthony.”
“Some women like a masterful manner,” said Flecker, pretending not to see Browning’s disapproving glance at the speedometer as he let the car out down the dual carriageway.
“Some may,” agreed Browning, relaxing as the thirty-miles limit slowed Flecker up, “but from the way Mrs. Carlson spoke I don’t think she’s one of them.”
In Crossley High Street they joined the jam of traffic moving spasmodically towards the lights and Flecker, heartened by Browning’s words, let his mind go back to the Old Rectory flat. The sudden image of Lesley smiling tore at him with a breathtaking violence. Hell! he hadn’t felt like this in years; he switched his mind hastily to the more prosaic matter of ways and means—he could write and ask after Anthony, and then . . . He sat on, oblivious of the hideous crescendo of horns; it was Browning’s voice that shattered the spell. “They’re green, you know,” he said cheerfully, “and there’s a couple of hundred cars behind us all trying to get to the sea.”
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