“My apologies, sergeant. I respect your attitude.”
“If you have any information to give which will help us in our enquiries, it is your duty as a citizen to place it at our disposal.”
“It isn’t information, it’s a hunch. Do you read P. G. Wodehouse, sergeant?”
“No, sir. He comes under the heading of light literature, and I prefer my reading to be purposeful.”
“Oh, then you won’t have met Jeeves and his preoccupation with the psychology of the individual.”
“No, sir, and I fail to perceive what bearing, if any, Mr. Wodehouse’s books will have upon the matter under review.”
“What I said. The psychology of the individual. You will find, if you probe deeply enough, that poor old Pembroke was stabbed by the wife of his bosom as the upshot, or final word, in a domestic fracas or set-to. And I don’t suppose for a single instant that she wished to do more than to remind him that an Englishwoman’s home is her castle.”
“Sir?”
“Pembroke, who, like all artists, is a law unto himself and has no consideration whatever for the feelings of others, had mooted a scheme for introducing into his home his own small daughter and her twin cousins, and was also, I believe, prepared to offer sanctuary to Miss Marion Jones. I deduce, therefore, that Mrs. Pembroke’s action in piercing her spouse with one of my steak-knives was merely in the nature of a gentle and timely rebuke, and an indication of her dissatisfaction with these plans.”
“But, sir, the act was premeditated. Why else would she have purloined your knife?”
“Why did twelve other jokers purloin my knives? Souvenir-hunting is one of the curses of this misguided age.”
“I admit that you have a point there, sir. But the wound stopped short of Mr. Jones’s heart by only a fraction of an inch, remember.”
“A fraction of an inch for which I’m certain Mrs. Pembroke will have allowed. There can’t be much that a sculptor doesn’t know about the human torso. Having given Pembroke the jolt of his life, she will confess to him, get a tanning (I hope), and Pembroke will call off the hunt and refuse to press charges. He will also drop Marion Jones like something red-hot. You’ll see I’m right, if you live long enough. And now, if there’s nothing further, I’d like to get back and have some lunch. Thanks for the talk. I’ve enjoyed it.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
After the Inquest
“So there’s no doubt about it,” said Timothy to Parsons, who had attended the inquest on the remains found in the well. “I didn’t see how there could be.”
“No. According to Droit, who did the autopsy, the remains were human and of the female sex. The height was about right, allowing for the absence of flesh-pads on the soles and heels, and so forth, and the age of the bones corresponds with the evidence of Olwen Jones’s birth-certificate. There was enough hair left to give some idea of the woman’s colouring, and the dental work corresponds with her dentist’s records. There were no occupational marks or scars, (another thing these forensic fellows look for), but there was plenty of evidence of the accident which rendered Olwen Jones completely lame from the age of about twenty-five.”
“So the verdict is murder.”
“Well, it had to be, otherwise why should anybody have buried the body in the well?”
“I suppose the police will soon pick up those two beauties?”
“If you mean Father Ignatius and the woman who also calls herself Olwen Jones, there’s no need. They’ve come forward.”
“What!”
“Indeed they have. I had it from Leonie Bing, who knows the Chief Constable. The papers haven’t got hold of it yet—or, if they have, they’ve been told to shelve it for the present—but your two beauties put in an appearance at Caernarvon and offered to give any help in their power.”
“Well, I’m damned!”
“I should think they will be. I mean, I agree with you that they must be guilty. Unfortunately, there’s another suspect.”
“Not Marion?”
“Well, she’s rather put herself in the picture, you know. I mean, to face the extremely awkward facts, whereas this precious couple are the likeliest people to have put Olwen Jones out of the way, Marion had a far stronger motive.”
“Not while little Miranda is alive, you know. Besides, to have a motive for murdering someone doesn’t necessarily mean that you do murder him. Did it come out at the inquest . . .”
“How the job was done? Oh, yes, these Keith Simpson types are nothing if not thoroughly painstaking. She’d been well and truly coshed, and more than one blow had been struck. The bones of the head showed all that.”
“But a girl like Marion wouldn’t . . .” Timothy stopped short. The picture of a heavy iron poker lying across a bed came before his mind’s eye, and memory repeated in his ears a girl’s hysterical cry, Please don’t come upstairs!
“Are you sure she wouldn’t?” Parsons asked. “She had a good deal to gain, you know. Pembroke, I’m sure, would have let her have the house to live in. Besides, there was that attack—that murderous attack—on Pembroke on the night of the medieval banquet. If both he and his sister were out of the way, the whole of the Nanradoc estate would come to Marion automatically.”
“Not, as I say, while Jones’s baby daughter was alive.”
“No,” said Parsons, giving Timothy a very significant look, “not while Jones’s baby daughter was alive. And if Marion Jones had managed to put Jones out with that steak-knife, how long do you suppose Jones’s baby daughter would have remained alive, eh? Oh, don’t look so frantic. I’m acting as devil’s advocate, that’s all. These are facts which have to be faced, and I’m afraid that, sooner or later, your Marion will be called upon to face them.”
“Don’t call her my Marion. She means nothing to me in that way. All the same, I’d better go and see her, I think.”
“Take my advice, and stay clear. There’s nothing you can do to help her at this juncture.”
“Isn’t there? That’s what you think. Let’s look on the other side of the picture. Suppose that Marion did do for Olwen. You don’t mean to tell me that the police are going to believe she buried her in that well? How could she have done that?”
“She couldn’t. At least, I can see it would be very unlikely that she could have filled in the well afterwards, although there’s no doubt she could have pitched the body into it.”
“But the well was filled in.”
“I’ve no doubt that Father Ignatius and his friend will have a story to cover that fact. We mustn’t underestimate them. They’re as wide as a church door and not half as well-meaning. They filled it in, of course.”
“Where’s the baby now, I wonder?”
“Miranda? Back with her parents, I hope. If you’re going to contact Marion you’ll be able to find out, won’t you? You know, Tim, it doesn’t add up. I mean, apart from being able to live at Nanradoc House rent-free, what had that pair to gain by slaughtering Olwen Jones and having a go at Pembroke?”
“I don’t know.” Timothy spoke gloomily. “There must be more to it than meets the eye. All the same . . .”
“All the same, you’re not going to believe that Marion’s guilty. Obstinate old son of a gun, aren’t you?”
“Well, do you think she did it? There’s no proof that she even knew Nanradoc existed until she heard of it from Jones.”
“Oh, come, now, Tim! That can’t be true. They’re cousins. She’d have known about the family estate.”
“She said she hadn’t met Jones since she was a small kid, and had never, so far as she knew, met Olwen. And that makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“No, it doesn’t. If she met Jones, she would have met Olwen at the same time. It stands to reason.”
“Oh, nonsense! She’d have remembered, I’m sure.”
“If she murdered Olwen, she’d also lie about her. (I’m still only acting as devil’s advocate). I don’t believe she did it, but it’s reasonable to look on all sides.”
“Ah, but that’s just the point. It’s quite possible—indeed, it’s highly probable—that at the time when Olwen was killed, Miranda wasn’t born. Miranda is only two years old, I think you said, and, according to the medical evidence at the inquest, Olwen would have been dead longer than that.”
“And Pembroke and Leonie didn’t really intend to have children. They slipped up over Miranda. Yes, I see,” said Timothy. “So, if the police take the line you’ve indicated, there’s a case, and a strong one, against Marion. They’ll have to show that Marion made that attack on Pembroke, though, if it’s to hold water.”
The next step was a cry of despair in the form of a letter from Marion herself. It was waiting for Timothy when he returned to his Cotswold home, and had been delivered on the previous morning. The police had been to the boarding-house where she and the children were staying and, in consequence, she had been asked to leave.
“Of course, it’s fair enough. The woman has her living to earn, and the sort of people who live in these parts are going to take a very dim view of a house which is visited by the police,” she wrote. “We’ve no option but to get out, and I’m at my wits’ end. If only I’d never heard of Nanradoc . . .”
“But you must have heard of it long before you said you did,” thought Timothy, remembering Tom Parsons’s arguments, and raising his eyes for a moment from the letter.
“. . . I shouldn’t be in such a mess now. The police asked all sorts of questions, some of which I couldn’t really answer. Surely they can’t think I had anything to do with Olwen’s death?”
“But that’s just what they do think,” Timothy pointed out, when he drove over to see her. “But, before we go any further, there are two things you must do. First, whether they like it or not, Miranda must be returned to her parents.”
“Oh, Tim, why? If my household must be made smaller, I’d rather part with Bryn and Bron than with her. Besides, she’s so little, she’d never understand if I let her go to strangers.”
“I know it’s hard, Marion, but I don’t see that you have any choice. If anything were to happen to that little girl while she’s still in your charge, you’d be up against it with a vengeance. Don’t you see that? It’s no good arguing. Until this beastly business is completely cleared up you must put the kid back where she belongs, and that’s with Pembroke Jones and Leonie Bing.”
“They may not be willing to have her.”
“Oh, yes, they will. They’ve jolly well got to have her. Now to the rest of your affairs.”
“I’m worried sick, Tim. Wherever we go, it will be the same tale while this police questioning is going on.”
“There is just one place where it won’t be the same tale, and that’s in my own house. You’ll have to camp there for a bit, and, at risk of sounding unchivalrous, I’m bound to say that I hope it won’t be for long.”
“In your house? Oh, but, Tim, what will your neighbours say?”
“I haven’t any. My place used to be a posting inn. It’s at the top of a long hill, with a village on either side in each valley. I’m miles from anywhere. That’s why I bought the place. I can always come up to town, or have people to stay when I’m in need of company, otherwise, except for the servants, I’m on my own. You may find it dull, but at least, if the police descend on you, you can be badgered without the risk of being chucked out.”
She did not cry, or cast herself into his arms, this time. She sat and gazed at him, and for a full minute she did not say a word. When she did speak, it was to say:
“I’ve brought enough trouble on you. I’ll give myself up, tell them I did it, and let them send me to prison. I shan’t be badgered there, either.”
“Oh, don’t be a little fathead!” said Timothy, vexed. “What would be the use of your saying you did it, when, in no time, they’ll find proof that you didn’t! All you’d get is just the kind of notoriety that, particularly in your job, is the last thing you want.”
“Yes, but that’s another thing: my job,” she said. “How can I go to the Cotswolds and still keep my job?”
“You can’t—not your present job. I shall pay you to act as my temporary housekeeper.”
“But I have to give notice—lots and lots of notice—before I can leave.”
“It will have to be skipped. Suffering from a severe nervous breakdown (not that the medical profession, I’m given to understand, recognises any such thing, but it strikes a sympathetic chord in the lay mind) ought to do the trick. I’ll word the letter for you.”
“What are you grinning about?”
“Financial problems too unwieldy for the undersigned to surmount without assistance.”
“Oh, Tim! How horrid you are!” But, to his relief, her face cleared and she laughed. “I shall have to tell the police where I’m going, I suppose. That’s another thing: do you think they’ll let me?”
“I don’t think they can stop you unless they charge you, and they are hardly likely to do that.”
Her face changed again. In a subdued way she said,
“I can’t stand the uncertainty, Tim.”
“But there isn’t any uncertainty. How can there be?”
“It’s the attack that was made on Pembroke.”
“Well, you didn’t attack him, did you?”
“Who do you think did?”
“Leonie. She’s quite capable of it, as I’ve already said to somebody else—Tom Parsons, I think it was. Why do you think Pembroke hasn’t pressed charges? He knows she did it. And why do you think she alleges (good word, that!) she spotted you handing round the festal eats and clearing the tables afterwards? Because she wants to alibi herself. If you ask me, the same applies to her statement that she saw old Ignatius hanging about down by the new hut. If one cat won’t jump, perhaps the other may. That’s the way she argues. I’d take a bet on it.”
“When could you have us down in Gloucestershire?”
“At the drop of a hat. Your furniture is in store, so you’ve nothing to do but pack a couple of suitcases and get a certificate from your doctor.”
“The twins will drive you out of your mind, won’t they?”
“They won’t have the chance: while I’m giving them and you—but not Miranda, mind!—houseroom in the Cotswolds, I shall be staying at my club.”
“Oh! Oh, will you?” Remembering Parsons’s insinuation that Marion was in love with him, he thought she sounded deflated.
“Yes. You’ll be quite all right. The servants will do all that’s necessary. There’s a whacking great common where the twins can play, and there’s a golf-course quite near. Do you play golf?”
“No. Tim, what are your servants going to think when I turn up with two eight-year-old children and take possession?”
“They’ll think what I tell them to think. But if you’re fretting about it, simply buy yourself a plain gold ring, put it on the third finger of the left hand, and you become my cousin, recently widowed, from New Zealand.”
“I’m not in the mood for being laughed at.”
“For heaven’s sake! Who’s laughing at you? The point is that it doesn’t matter a two-penny damn what my servants think. Any guest of mine is—well, that’s what she is. Now do stop raising these feeble-minded objections. Everything’s under control.”
The one thing which was not under control was Marion herself. Two days after he had notified his chauffeur to meet them at the station, and to see her and the twins off to Gloucestershire, he received a letter from her.
“Pembroke and Leonie have agreed to look after all three children, so your chauffeur has taken us to Mold. I am giving myself up to the police for stabbing Pembroke. Thank you for everything.”
Timothy rang up Pembroke and obtained his confirmation of the news.
“We’re keeping Marion here for the present. I’m afraid she’s bound to be arrested,” said Pembroke.
“Suppose you deny her story
? You decided not to press charges, I thought.”
“Quite right, and I’m not pressing charges. I shall stick to my previous story. Actually, it’s true. I don’t know who stabbed me. Unfortunately, that doesn’t help Marion.”
“Mind if I come along and talk to her? I take it she isn’t yet under arrest.”
“It’s only a question of time, I’m afraid. By the way, they’ve put Scotland Yard on to the case.”
“Rather a small job for the Yard to tackle, I should have thought.”
“Well, the trouble is, you see, that I don’t think they’ll stop at the minor charge. They’ll assume that if she tried to do for me, she did do for Olwen.”
“Good heavens, what next? Expect me without fail tomorrow afternoon! The girl must be off her head!”
“Something funny somewhere, as you say. Right! Be seeing you!”
When he reached the bungalow next day, it was to find that Marion had locked herself in her room and that Pembroke and Leonie were in the middle of an argument. They broke it off when the charwoman showed Timothy in, but he caught one sentence from Pembroke.
“I can’t,” Timothy heard him say. “How can I? I’ve got to give evidence at the trial.”
“I’ll tell you another thing you’ve got to do,” said Leonie, when she had greeted Timothy and had promised to tell Marion that he had arrived. “You’ve got to trace the Nanradoc deeds, and you’ve got to find out what’s happened to Olwen’s money and whether she made a will.”
“I’m not going muck-racking round! I shall sell Nanradoc, and . . .”
“You can’t sell Nanradoc unless you can find the deeds.”
“. . . and I have enough money, and so have you, for anything we and Miranda may need, so that’s that.”
“In any case, you can’t sell Nanradoc over Miranda’s head.”
“Can’t I? You wait and see.”
“Meanwhile,” said Timothy, “what about Marion? You don’t believe that she stabbed you, and I’m absolutely sure she didn’t.”
Late and Cold (Timothy Herring) Page 17