Gin and Murder

by Josephine Pullein-Thompson

  ‘We usually eat in the saloon bar,’ said Flecker ruefully.

  ‘God!’

  ‘Hilary’s making some fresh tea,’ said Elizabeth.

  ‘Shall I fetch some more cups and plates?’ offered Deborah.

  ‘Yes please, Debby, unless Hilary’s already got them,’ answered Elizabeth.

  Mark, standing on the bricks in front of the fireplace, leaning with one arm on the chimneypiece, said, ‘I’ve got a bone to pick with you, Chief Inspector.’

  ‘Oh?’ Flecker looked at him inquiringly. ‘What about?’

  ‘You never told Nan I didn’t want any lunch; it caused a major incident. Everyone thought that I was dead. We had tears.’

  ‘Oh dear, I am sorry,’ said Flecker. ‘I forgot all about it. My memory’s appalling.’

  ‘I’m terribly absent-minded too,’ said Elizabeth. ‘And Mark, you’re not all that reliable yourself.’

  ‘There is also a long yellow garment in my office,’ Mark went on, ignoring Elizabeth. ‘I’m not much of a detective, but I strongly suspect that it’s the Chief Inspector’s muffler.’

  ‘Oh, and we’ve got the Chief Inspector’s gloves,’ said Hilary, coming in with the teapot. ‘He left them here last night.’

  Browning looked reproachfully at Flecker. ‘I’ll have the gloves please, miss,’ he said to Hilary. ‘Otherwise they’ll be left here again.’

  ‘“Who is on my side? Who?”’ asked Flecker sadly.

  ‘You ought to have been brought up by Nan,’ Jon told him. ‘“A place for everything and everything in its place,”’ he added in falsetto accents. ‘She gets livid with us if we leave our clothes about.’

  ‘My mother always said that too,’ Flecker answered. ‘And she used to say, “Where you put it, there it’ll be”, as well. And she got livid, but none of it had the desired effect.’

  ‘His mother wanted him to be a parson,’ said Browning, who always regarded Flecker’s near miss at the church with great pride.

  ‘And why weren’t you a parson?’ asked Elizabeth, looking at Flecker and passing cups of tea to all the wrong people.

  Flecker pushed hopelessly at his hair. ‘Because I fell in love during my first term at Oxford,’ he answered. ‘And being young and foolish and possessed of high principles, I insisted on marrying the girl. Then I couldn’t wait five years for an income so I abandoned theology and joined the police.’

  ‘You hadn’t much of a vocation, then?’ said Elizabeth.

  ‘No, none at all. My mother didn’t believe in them. She was a remarkable woman in many ways — a north-country miner’s daughter. She decided that my eldest brother, Henry, should read law and he did, very much against his will; but he’s done frightfully well. John wanted to teach, but he was intimidated into being a doctor and now he’s a very successful heart specialist. I’m the black sheep.’

  ‘Was the rash marriage a success?’ asked Elizabeth.

  ‘Mummy, really!’ said Hilary. And Mark said, ‘Elizabeth, you’re the limit. Stop prying into the Chief Inspector’s private affairs. Don’t tell her anything,’ he advised Flecker. ‘She’s Auntie Maudie, or someone, to one of those appalling magazines for women. She’ll dissect your marriage on her problem page.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t really a problem,’ said Flecker. ‘Marrying an undergraduate was a step up. Being married to a constable on the beat wasn’t, and I didn’t make a very good husband.’

  ‘And police hours are enough to break up any home,’ grumbled Browning.

  ‘What a shame,’ said Elizabeth to Flecker.

  Hilary got up. ‘I must go and feed the horses,’ she announced.

  ‘We’ll help you,’ said Deb, looking at Jon.

  ‘Will we?’ Jon shuddered. ‘It’s jolly cold out there.’

  ‘Yes,’ Deb spoke emphatically. ‘Come on.’ And Jon went without more ado. Flecker, watching Mark, saw that he was following Hilary with his eyes as she left the room. His face was still expressionless. He could be concealing a multitude of sins, thought Flecker, or there might be no more than showed in the heavy-eyed pallor — just grief and strain. As the door closed Mark caught his eye and returned his speculative gaze unflinchingly. Elizabeth, becoming aware of the atmosphere, said, ‘For goodness’ sake sit down, Mark, you’re both acting as a firescreen and looking forbidding.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Mark answered and sat obediently.

  ‘More tea, anyone?’ Elizabeth asked into the silence which followed. ‘More cake, chocolate biscuits?’ The three men shook their heads. Elizabeth turned towards Flecker. ‘How’s the case going, Chief Inspector?’ she said easily. ‘Any new developments?’

  ‘Nothing very startling. Our pathologist hasn’t bestirred himself yet. The mills of justice grind slowly —’

  Silence fell again, but this time it was broken by Browning. ‘Did Mr. Broughton say that you wrote for one of the women’s magazines, madam?’ he asked Elizabeth. ‘Mrs. Browning’s a great reader; she has her book regularly every week. She’d be very amused to hear that I’ve met one of the writers.’

  ‘I write for rather a dull one, Women of the World. You can have a copy for Mrs. Browning if you like.’ She crossed the room to fetch one. ‘I write under my maiden name,’ she went on, ‘but you’ll know my piece because there’s a frightful photograph of me trying to look gracious and not succeeding.’

  Browning was thanking Elizabeth when Hilary’s head appeared round the door. ‘Could we have the Chief Inspector in the kitchen for a minute or two?’ she asked. They all looked round at her in surprise.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Flecker, getting to his feet.

  ‘What’s going on now?’ asked Mark.

  ‘Nothing much,’ Hilary told him. ‘It’s all under control.’

  ‘Do you want me?’ asked Elizabeth.

  ‘No, only the Chief Inspector.’

  Flecker went out and Mark and Elizabeth looked at each other in baffled silence.

  ‘Do you think there’s been another murder?’ asked Elizabeth.

  ‘I shouldn’t worry, madam. Probably the children have thought of something,’ said Browning soothingly. And then they sat in silence, Browning turning the pages of Elizabeth’s magazine, Mark, nodding in his chair, practically asleep and Elizabeth worrying over her husband’s late return and wondering where all this misery and violence would end.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  MARK WAKENED ABRUPTLY when Flecker came back into the drawing-room. ‘Hell!’ he said, rubbing his eyes. ‘Elizabeth, why didn’t you kick me on the shins or throw something at me?’

  ‘I thought a sleep would do you good,’ she answered. ‘And this is hardly a time to bother about party manners. Well, Chief Inspector?’

  Flecker crossed the room and looked down at Mark, ‘We seem to have found your arsenic, Mr. Broughton,’ he said.

  ‘Oh; where?’

  ‘I understand that it is at present concealed in the sleeping compartment of a hutch, occupied by a ferret, name of Rasputin,’ said Flecker with an unnaturally straight face.

  ‘What?’ demanded Mark loudly as he sprang to his feet. ‘Do you mean to tell me that Deb and Jon have had that blasted stuff the whole time?’

  ‘I understand they took it from the shelf in the garden shed on Saturday after hunting and handed it over to Rasputin for safe keeping,’ said Flecker quietly.

  ‘And I’ve been cudgelling my miserable brain till I’ve nearly gone mad,’ roared Mark. ‘God! They’re going to get the rough side of my tongue.’

  He started for the door, but Flecker reached it first and barred the way.

  ‘Now then, sir,’ he said. ‘They’re pretty scared and worried by what they’ve done as it is. Anyway, they only did it on the spur of the moment and they’ve been trying to find someone to consult ever since. They even lay in wait for Hollis, but apparently he passed by on the other side. Go and sit down, sir, please.’

  Mark scowled at him. ‘Your mother was wrong,’ he said. ‘You should have b
een the headmaster of a prep, school — little boys, eight to twelve, are just about your line.’ But he turned obediently and went back to his chair.

  Flecker turned to Browning. ‘Will you take the children over to Lapworth in the car,’ he said. ‘They’ll show you the hutch and control the ferret. Treat the tin gently, I’d like whatever prints there are. Oh, and if Miss Chadwick’s willing, I should take her along too.’

  ‘Right, sir,’ said Browning briskly.

  ‘Drive carefully,’ Elizabeth called after him.

  ‘If anyone’s to blame for this it’s Captain Bewley,’ said Flecker as he sat down. ‘Do you remember Jon giving you a message from Bewley on Saturday evening? He says that you were feeding hounds at the time.’

  ‘Yes,’ answered Mark, casting his mind back. ‘I remember that he and Deb both looked very worried. He said that Vickers had been murdered and that Bob had had a detective round who knew all about what is now called the “hunt quarrel”, but nothing about arsenic.’

  ‘No, they didn’t mention the arsenic to you. Apparently Bewley said, “If he’s got any arsenic about tell him to get rid of it pronto”, so they decided to do that for you.’

  ‘I’ll wring Bob’s neck next time I see him,’ said Mark ferociously.

  ‘You needn’t bother. I’ll speak to him about it tomorrow.’

  ‘A lot of good that’ll do,’ said Mark. ‘Bob hasn’t a better nature to appeal to.’ Then he asked, ‘Well, do I stop being suspect number one?’

  ‘Well,’ answered Flecker, to be frank, I’m afraid not.’

  ‘But there were other people with grievances against Vickers,’ protested Mark. ‘Now that you’ve found my arsenic why shouldn’t I move down one for a change?’

  Flecker looked at Elizabeth. ‘Is this all right, Mrs. Chadwick?’ he asked. ‘I didn’t mean to turn your house into a temporary police station.’

  ‘Quite all right,’ answered Elizabeth. ‘After all, the murderer used my house and I should like to have the ghosts laid.’

  ‘Well in that case I’ll just get my notes; I left them in my overcoat pocket,’ said Flecker. ‘Oh, no I didn’t,’ he added as he reached the door. ‘Here they are.’ And he produced them, now in a tidy bundle, from his hip pocket. ‘I’m going to be honest with you, Mr. Broughton,’ he said, as he came back to the fire. ‘And it’s sometimes difficult to be honest and tactful at the same time.’

  ‘Fire ahead,’ said Mark, with a grin at Elizabeth. ‘I’ll take my pill without any jam.’

  ‘Do be serious, Mark,’ Elizabeth told him. ‘Mr. Flecker’s doing his best for us, and it’s a serious matter.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m serious enough,’ Mark answered grimly. It’s my wife who is dead and my neck that’s in danger. But finding that tin of weedkiller has cleared the air a bit; at least I don’t suspect myself now.’

  ‘Finding that weedkiller doesn’t make so very much difference,’ said Flecker, ‘except of course that it saves me the trouble of looking for it. You see from my point of view much the same possibilities have to be taken into account. You could easily have helped yourself to a spoonful or two at any time and then just waited your opportunity —’

  ‘My opportunity,’ interrupted Mark in exasperated tones. ‘My opportunity to rush off to a party with my pockets full of arsenic and poison Vickers because he’d suggested he’d like to be joint master of the hounds. Oh for heaven’s sake, man, don’t start that again — it’s such nonsense.’

  Flecker said, ‘In the police we are taught to search for the concrete rather than the abstract; the method, rather than the motive. But in this case so many of the suspects have had equal opportunity and would all have used more or less the same method, consequently I am driven back to motives. The joint mastership question could have been a contributory factor, especially if you were a fanatic over your hounds — which I don’t think you are. But I’ve afraid I’ve heard of a much more convincing motive for you than that.’ He could see both Mark and Elizabeth from where he sat and watched their faces as he went on: ‘The suggestion is that you have been fond of Miss Chadwick for several years and when you saw Vickers was making headway with her you killed him, and then Mrs. Broughton, because they stood between you and Miss Chadwick.’

  Mark’s face only hardened, but Elizabeth’s wore a look of horror. ‘Oh, no,’ she protested.

  ‘I’ve got some nice friends if they all rush off to the police suggesting that sort of thing,’ said Mark bitterly. ‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked Flecker. ‘Deny that I’m fond of Hilary? Of course I can’t. I can’t truthfully say that there haven’t been occasions when I wished I were free. Of course I hated Vickers’ guts, but that doesn’t make me a murderer.’

  ‘No, I know it doesn’t,’ answered Flecker. ‘I realize your predicament, but I’ve got to suspect everyone until I find the murderer. Do you want me to go on being honest, or would you prefer some tact?’

  ‘Go on, let’s have it and get it over,’ said Mark wearily.

  ‘Well, you knew that Vickers was to be here on Friday evening. Do you remember Commander Chadwick telling you?’

  ‘Yes, he asked if I minded. I don’t know what the hell he expected me to say to that.’

  ‘That knowledge meant that you could have come prepared. Then you stayed as far away from Vickers as possible, which would be the obvious thing for the murderer to do, until you said you must go and find your wife; that is the time when you could have committed the murder. You must have had to be very quick; but then whoever did it must have been quick, and prepared to run an enormous risk.’

  ‘But Chief Inspector,’ said Elizabeth, ‘if Mark was committing murder in order to marry Hilary surely he wouldn’t have done it in his future mother-in-law’s drawing-room?’

  ‘Was he expecting to meet Vickers anywhere else? Or would it have been his only opportunity to poison him at a party? In some ways it was a good idea to do it at a party; it has made things very difficult to prove. And then murderers never expect to be found out — at least those who premeditate don’t.’

  Neither Elizabeth or Mark had anything to say, so Flecker shuffled his notes and went on. ‘Now we come to the second murder. Well, there are undoubtedly other suspects here, for anyone who took the opportunity to kill Vickers at the party may have wished to silence Mrs. Broughton. If you didn’t poison your wife, you must see that we’ve got to discover how she came to have that bottle of gin. You say you had no visitors on Saturday or Sunday, yet somehow that bottle got in. Anyway, you were out hunting on Saturday — how do you know no one called?’

  ‘I asked Nan,’ Mark answered. ‘She said she hadn’t seen a soul all day.’

  ‘Except for the baker’s roundsman, the postman and probably the butcher’s boy,’ said Flecker sceptically.

  ‘Still, they wouldn’t have poisoned Clara.’

  ‘No, but they might have left a parcel.’

  ‘Then Nan would have known about it.’

  ‘Not if they met Mrs. Broughton in the garden.’

  ‘They all knew about my wife’s drinking,’ said Mark, avoiding Flecker’s eye. ‘It was common knowledge; everything was always done through Nan. Besides she was — well, what Nan called “poorly” on Saturday, she didn’t go out.’

  ‘What about Sunday then?’ asked Flecker.

  ‘No one delivers anything on Sundays.’

  ‘Newspapers?’ suggested Flecker.

  ‘Yes, they’re brought by a boy of about thirteen, who invariably leaves the News of the World instead of the Sunday Times.’

  ‘He could still have left a parcel,’ insisted Flecker.

  ‘Not without Nan seeing it,’ said Mark obstinately.

  ‘And you’re certain that none of the people who were here on Friday evening came near you?’

  ‘They certainly didn’t come near me personally, and Nan is sure that my wife saw no one.’

  ‘You didn’t have Mr. Denton to look at a horse or a hound? Mrs. Denton didn�
��t drop in with some animal medicine or to collect anything that her husband had left behind?’

  ‘No. Well, not to my knowledge anyway,’ answered Mark.

  ‘You can see why you’re still my chief suspect,’ said Flecker.

  Mark got up and leaned against the chimneypiece. ‘It really is the most bloody situation,’ he said.

  ‘I call that an understatement,’ said Elizabeth miserably.

  Mark looked down at her. ‘Don’t worry about Hilary. I’m not going to involve her in any way. I’ve never said a word to her, Elizabeth. Well, there was nothing much to say, was there? If she’d been someone else's daughter I might have set up a separate establishment, but as it was I couldn’t do a bloody thing.’

  ‘I’m not blaming you,’ Elizabeth told Mark. ‘I’m protesting at the bludgeoning of chance. What are you going to do, Chief Inspector, if you don't find any definite proof?’

  ‘Oh, we’ll solve it eventually,’ answered Flecker. ‘The statistics are with us. I always go through a banging my head against a brick wall stage, unless a crime is perfectly obvious.’

  ‘I know Mark could never have done this sort of a murder, with poison,’ said Elizabeth. ‘You’ll have to try some illogical method, Chief Inspector; a shot at random, an intuitive leap in the dark.’

  ‘I put my trust in inconsequent groping,’ Flecker answered. ‘Don’t worry yourself over it, Mrs. Chadwick, that’s what the ratepayers keep me for. That sounds like a car.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Elizabeth. ‘I wonder if it’s the children coming back?’

  They listened and in a few moments knew by the sound of voices that it was the children. Browning came in first. ‘We got it all right, sir,’ he said. ‘No casualties either. Old Rasputin’ll sleep a bit more comfortably tonight; he’ll have room to stretch out.’

  Deb and Jon came in and stood looking rather apprehensively at Mark. He managed to produce a smile for them.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said. The Chief Inspector tells me you’re nothing but a couple of crazy mixed-up kids — Ought to go home,’ he added looking at his watch. ‘We came to tea, not for the night.’