Feted to Die: An Inspector Constable Murder Mystery

by Roger Keevil

  “That, sergeant,” responded Andy Constable grimly, “is what I intend to find out.”

  Chapter 6

  The sunlit promise of the day had vanished. Dammett Hall had developed a forlorn air in the thin drizzle which had started to fall as the detectives drew up outside the front door, and the strings of coloured bunting decorating the facade of the building hung limply. A few hunched figures could be seen scuttling to their cars and vans clutching boxes of ceramic dragons and armfuls of hand-knitted cardigans. A scattered handful of somewhat bedraggled boy scouts were collecting litter in black bin-bags. The village constable still stood at the top of the steps, slightly damp but exuding keenness.

  “Well, Collins, anything to report?” asked the inspector.

  “No sir, nothing really,” answered the young officer. “You’ve just missed the van, sir. They’ve taken Mr. Cope away, and I think SOCO have finished inside as well, because they went about ten minutes ago. Some of the people from the village have been clearing their stalls and leaving, but I thought you wouldn’t mind that so I let ’em go ahead and do it. I hope I did right, sir, but as you hadn’t said anything, I reckoned it’d be all right. But everybody else is still in the house like you said.”

  “Good man. I’ll be inside questioning the suspects, if anyone wants me.”

  “Actually, sir …”

  “Yes, Collins?”

  “There was somebody who wanted a word, sir. Mr. Porter … Gideon Porter … he owns the Dammett Well Inn. That’s the pub in the village. He said he had a couple of things you might want to know about. He’s over there in the beer tent.”

  “Reliable, is he?” put in Sergeant Copper. “I’ve met a few pub landlords in my time that I wouldn’t trust as far as I could throw them.”

  Collins laughed. “I don’t think you ought to try that with old Gideon, sergeant, if you don’t mind me saying so. He must weigh about eighteen stone. But he’s as honest as you like. He’s never so much as offered me a free pint, so you can take that as you may. I’d trust him.”

  “Thank you, Collins,” responded the inspector. “We’d better have a word with him.”

  The beer tent stood by the garden wall close to the gate which Constable surmised led through to the Secret Garden where Horace Cope’s booth had been set up. Gideon Porter was just finishing stacking a pile of beer-crates as the detectives entered the tent. He mopped a pink and perspiring face as they introduced themselves, and moved behind a trestle table obviously intended to serve as a bar, where several rotating optics stood dismantled.

  “I’m glad you’re here, gents,” he declared. “Young Robbie Collins told you I had a couple of snippets for you, did he? Only I thought I ought to tell you, because you never know, do you? I don’t suppose either of you fancies a drink while you’re here, before I put these away? No, of course not – not while you’re on duty.” He smiled roguishly as both detectives shook their heads. “Sure I can’t tempt you? No? Oh well. I think I will, if you don’t mind. That’s the advantage of running a pub, see. You can always have a bit of a noggin in times of stress.” He poured himself a generous whisky.

  “Bit stressed, are we, sir?” enquired Dave Copper.

  “Well, who wouldn’t be?” replied Gideon. “This business with Horace is pretty ghastly, you got to admit.”

  “So, you were a friend of Mr. Cope’s then, Mr. Porter?” asked Andy Constable.

  “Ah. Well.” Gideon shifted awkwardly. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say we were actually friends, but I knew him quite well because he came into my pub a lot. Mind you, everybody in the village does at some time or another, so I don’t suppose that tells you anything.”

  “So you wouldn’t say you were close?”

  “Lord, no, anything but. No, that’s not fair. In my business you get the habit of getting on with everybody. But to be frank, he wasn’t really my sort of bloke. Don’t get me wrong – he was always pleasant enough to me, but I always got the feeling he wasn’t quite as nice as he made out.”

  Constable’s interest was aroused. “What makes you say that, Mr. Porter?”

  “Well, inspector, …” Gideon took a deep breath. “You might laugh, but I reckon being a pub landlord is a bit like being a priest. You know, the secrets of the confessional and so on, if you get my drift. People say stuff, and they don’t always pay too much attention to who’s listening. I’m not normally one to repeat things, but I suppose this murder business makes it a bit different. Now you take the other day. Horace came into the pub with that cousin of his, Albert. Do you know him?”

  “Oh yes,” put in Dave Copper. “We’ve met Mr. Ross. We had quite an interesting interview with him earlier.”

  “Ah. Well then, you’ve probably got a bit of an idea what he’s like.” Gideon chuckled. “It’s not funny really, but we all call him the Human Sponge – I don’t think I’ve ever seen him buy his own drink. He always got Horace to pay – well, either Horace or anyone else who happened to be standing there at the time. He ain’t too fussed.”

  “Now I should have thought that would put people’s backs up, wouldn’t you, sergeant?”

  “Not any more,” answered Gideon. “It might have at first, but Albert’s done it to so many people that it’s a bit of a standing joke with my regulars. It’s quite comical – Albert comes in on his own, and they all start shuffling up the other end of the bar so’s not to get caught.”

  “And was Horace in on the joke?”

  “Lord, no. You daren’t say anything to Horace – he’d have been up in the air about it straight away. He had a bit of a temper on him sometimes.”

  Andy Constable felt that the conversation seemed to be straying from the point. “So what has this got to do with what you were saying about the other day?”

  “Ah, well, that’s the whole thing, you see,” explained Gideon. “Now that particular day, Horace was in one of his bad moods, so that’s how come I heard what I did.”

  “Which was …?”

  “Well, Horace and Albert were stood at one end of the bar, and Horace was hissing on something about ‘not putting up any longer’, and then Albert said ‘But what do I do? Where do I go?’, and Horace said he didn’t really give a damn, pardon the language, and he said Albert had a week to sort it out, or else.” Gideon paused for breath.

  “So not a particularly cousinly conversation then, Mr. Porter? Any ideas on what it was all about?”

  Gideon pulled a wry face. “Well, there is a bit of background there. I might be wrong, but I don’t reckon Horace trusted Albert one little bit, for all that he was family.”

  “And what makes you say that?”

  “You see, Horace had been going on to anyone who would listen about this new TV show he was going to be on – well, so he said, although I think Seymour Cummings had other ideas. Anyway, Horace was telling people how he would be spending a lot more time away in London, and I think he wanted Albert out of the cottage before he went.”

  Dave Copper looked up from his notebook. “Now why do you think he would want that, sir? When we spoke to Mr. Ross, we got the impression that he was looking after Mr. Cope’s cottage while he was staying there, as some sort of unpaid housekeeper.”

  “Hmm, that’s as may be,” responded Gideon. “Now Robbie Collins says you’ve been up at the cottage, so you know better than me what it’s like. I’ve never been in there meself, but talk is it’s all a bit …” He paused as if in search of the right word.

  “Exotic?” suggested the inspector with a slight smile.

  “Aah, you may be right. I wouldn’t like to judge. So anyway, what with Horace being very nicely off, thank you, which he never made a secret of, and him being a bit … arty, so to speak, we all knew that he had quite a few pretty nice bits and pieces up there. But from what I can gather, there have been some of his antiques go missing – really valuable Georgian silver and paintings and suchlike. He was a bit of a collector by all accounts, was our Horace
.”

  Andy Constable raised an eyebrow. “Missing, you say?”

  “That’s right – missing,” retorted Gideon in heavy tones. “It was all put down to a burglary, but if you ask me, it didn’t quite add up. Course, they had Robbie Collins in, but he never got anywhere with it. Nice enough boy, but when all’s said and done, he’s just the village bobby. He’s not a professional like you gents. But I reckon Horace had found out something and he suspected Albert of pinching his things and selling them off, and that’s what the row was all about. Not that it would surprise me. Since he lost all his money in shares and stuff, Albert’s never had two ha’pennies to rub together, poor sod.”

  “Yes sir,” said Dave Copper. “Mr. Ross told us about his run of bad luck before he moved down here from London.”

  “London!” Gideon smacked his forehead. “That was the other thing! Good job you said that, sergeant, else I’d have forgotten. That’s my trouble, you see. I get talking, and stuff goes clean out of my head.”

  “So?” enquired Constable. “London?”

  “London!” repeated Gideon in meaningful tones. “That’s another thing I overheard a nice little snippet about. Here, inspector, you could do your crime statistics a power of good, you know.” He chuckled. “You ever want to know anything, you just come and stand in my pub for a bit.”

  “So tell us about this snippet?”

  “Right you are. So, the other day … ooh, must have been last week sometime, I suppose. It had gone a bit quiet, and there wasn’t anyone else in at the time, so I was having a chat to Robin Allday … I expect you know him? The solicitor?”

  “Yes,” said Constable. “We know Mr. Allday. In fact, we’ve already had a word with him this morning. Why, is there something else that he may be able to help us with?”

  “Well, of course, it may all be nothing to do with anything, and I wouldn’t want to stir things up for Robin, being as he’s a good bloke and a good customer and all.”

  “Why don’t you just tell us what it is and leave us to be the judge?” suggested the inspector gently. “If it’s not relevant, we can quite easily forget anything you tell us. So, you were having a chat about …?”

  “Oh, just this and that, really, nothing special, but anyway, we got on to property prices. Course, they’re all over the papers at the moment, and Robin knows all there is to know round here, ’cos he does all the conveyancing and suchlike, that is if there is any, you know what the market is, and it was saying in the paper the other day that they don’t know whether it’s all going to go up or down, so I’m just glad I inherited the pub from my old dad ’cos I ain’t got to worry about that sort of thing, except of course for the smoking business which hasn’t done me a lot of good, but I suppose you have to put up with these sorts of things … now, where was I?”

  “Property.”

  “Ah, that’s right. So there we were, just chatting like, and in comes Horace and he walks up to the bar, and he obviously heard what we were saying, and he says, ‘Ah, Robin. Property. That’s just what I want a quiet word with you about, if you don’t mind, Gideon.’ And I thought, ‘Alright, squire, I can take a hint,’ so I got on with clearing up a few glasses down the other end of the bar.”

  “So you didn’t hear any more of what it was about?” asked Constable.

  “Ah, well, see, inspector, that’s just where you’re wrong.” Gideon had the grace to look faintly embarrassed. “I did hear. I don’t know why, but I thought there was something in his manner, if you get me. Horace’s, that is. And also there was the fact that he obviously didn’t want me to hear, and I got to admit I’m as curious as the next man. Well, it’s only human nature, isn’t it? So there I was thinking ‘What’s he up to?’, so I listened in a bit when they weren’t paying attention.”

  “So if I could just make a note of what it was that Mr. Cope wanted to talk to Mr. Allday about,” suggested Dave Copper.

  Gideon grew a little pinker. “Honestly, I don’t much like talking about people behind their backs, gents. There’s some dreadful gossips in this village, which I don’t hold with. Now a bit of harmless chat, that’s one thing, but repeating confidential stuff – well, that’s different. I wouldn’t normally do it, but I suppose as it’s a question of murder …”

  Andy Constable adopted his most reassuring tones. “We can be very discreet, Mr. Porter,” he coaxed. “If it’s appropriate. So …”

  “Well, inspector, if you say so. It turns out that Horace is buying a flat in London – I don’t know exactly where, ’cos I didn’t hear that bit – and he wants Robin to do some sort of fiddle on the deeds to avoid paying stamp duty or something. And not only that, but there was something about putting it in someone else’s name because of Capital Gains Tax.”

  Dave Copper beamed. “I love it. Now that is a very juicy bit of fraud, isn’t it sir? That’s about the first definite bit of motive we’ve come up with. I can see that we’re going to have to have another nice long conversation with Mr. Allday.”

  “Let’s not be too hasty, sergeant,” replied the inspector. “Don’t forget, Mr. Cope might have intended to buy this flat and engage in this fiddle that Mr. Porter mentions, but he certainly won’t be going ahead with his purchase now, will he? And in case it’s slipped your mind, the doctor’s got Mr. Cope down at the mortuary, so it won’t be too easy questioning him on the subject, will it? Plus there’s the matter of hearsay evidence – I don’t know that the courts would be too keen on relying on Mr. Porter’s eaves-droppings.”

  Dave Copper’s face fell a little, and Gideon Porter hurried to join in. “Hold on, because you didn’t let me finish. That wasn’t the end of it. See, Horace stood there looking smug, ’cos that was always his way anyway, but then Robin said he was a professional man, and he couldn’t do that sort of thing, and then Horace said ‘I don’t see why not, you’ve done it often enough before for other people’.”

  “And how did Mr. Allday respond to that?” asked Constable.

  “Well,” said Gideon, “he just spluttered a bit, and Horace looked even smugger, and he said to Robin ‘Well, think it over. But it’s not going to do your career a lot of good if it gets out, is it?’, and then off he went.”

  “So what happened then?”

  “Course, I couldn’t say anything, could I, being as how I wasn’t supposed to have heard all of this. So I just quietly slipped Robin a large brandy – he looked as if he needed it, just sitting there a bit taken aback like.”

  “And in your opinion, could there be any truth in what Mr. Cope had said?”

  “I honestly couldn’t say,” asserted Gideon firmly. “Robin’s always been perfectly straight with me, so I take as I find.”

  “And he didn’t say anything at the time?”

  “Not a word, inspector. And I didn’t want to hover round him, so I popped down the cellar to get another crate of light ale up, and by the time I got back in the bar he’d drunk up and gone.”

  “And have you seen him since? Or Mr. Cope, for that matter? Was anything further said on the subject?”

  “Course I’ve seen Robin. He pops in most days – he was in yesterday, and I said I’d most probably see him up here. I cracked some joke about him getting Horace to tell his fortune, which he didn’t seem to find all that funny. He said he reckoned Horace knew too much about people already. But Horace – no, I don’t think I’ve seen him since. No, I tell a lie – I saw him go past with Albert while I was finishing setting up here, so that must have been around twelve-ish, but I was busy, and he didn’t speak. Lord …” He seemed struck by the thought. “That’d be the last time I saw him alive.” He shook his head. “You just never know, do you?”

  “Indeed you don’t, Mr. Porter,” agreed Constable. “So, if that’s all you can tell us, I don’t think we need to keep you any longer. You’ve obviously got your work cut out here.”

  “Oh, don’t fret about that, inspector,” smiled Gideon. “I got my two lads coming u
p from the village to get it all on the truck. We’ll have it done in a jiffy. To tell you the truth, the sooner I get back to the pub, the better. I got the feeling that tonight’s going to be pretty busy, what with this business with Horace. There’s nothing my customers like more than a good chin-wag about a bit of local goings-on, and it don’t get much better than this. If you see what I mean, and no disrespect to Horace, rest his soul.”

  As he turned to go, a thought occurred to the Inspector.

  “Just one thing, Mr. Porter. That little wooden gate just outside …?”

  “The one through to the Secret Garden? What about it?”

  “Did you notice anyone go through it after Horace Cope arrived?”

  Gideon scratched his head in thought. “I can’t say as I did, but mind you, I wasn’t paying that much attention on account of I was getting everything sorted out here. But I don’t see as how they could, because it’s always kept locked as far as I know. Course, it was going to be open today so’s people could go through and see Horace. Sorry, I don’t suppose that helps, does it?”

  “Not to worry, Mr. Porter. It was just a thought.”

  Chapter 7

  As Constable and Copper re-entered the hall of the house, they almost collided with the scurrying figure of Amelia Cook as she emerged from the drawing room carrying an empty tray, leaving behind her cries of “So kind, Amelia”, and “Thank the lord, I’m starving”.

  “Miss Cook, would it be?” enquired Constable. “We’d like a word, if we may …”

  “I can’t stop – I’m up to my ears in the kitchen.” And she disappeared at speed through the green baize door into the corridor, leaving the detectives to exchange amused glances before following her.

  The kitchen of Dammett Hall was a show-piece of the Edwardian architect’s art. Sparkling tiles of white and blue with interwoven art nouveau designs covered the walls to ceiling height, while along one side of the room an enormous cast-iron range with brass fittings offered a bewildering choice of oven doors, cooking plates, and water boilers. Shelves along another wall carried an impressive array of gleaming copper dishes and pans, while beneath the windows, which rose from above head height to the top of the room, a row of lead-lined sinks, interspersed with wooden draining boards, gave evidence that the scullery-maids of former days were not encouraged to gaze at the outside world as they worked. Discreetly placed, a modern range and refrigerator indicated that the room was not entirely for show. The centre of the room was dominated by a huge wooden table, scrubbed white, which at present was spread with baking trays, bags of flour and tubs of butter, china plates and dishes, and an incongruous pile of large tupperware containers. Amelia Cook stood at the head of the table, looking around as if uncertain what she should do next.