Feted to Die: An Inspector Constable Murder Mystery

by Roger Keevil

“Other call?”

  “Yes, Mr. Allday. You mentioned another phone call from Miss Biding. Copper?”

  Dave Copper thumbed back through his notebook. “Yes, sir – got it here. You told us that Miss Biding called you this morning.”

  “Oh yes, of course. That. Yes, Laura phoned this morning – I suppose it must have been about twenty past twelve or so, I think. I’d totally lost track of time, and she called me to say she needed my help.”

  “Help, sir?”

  Robin shifted in his chair uncomfortably. “With the guests, you know,” he said. “Just … well, keeping the conversation going, looking after the vicar, pouring oil, that sort of thing.”

  “Oil, sir?”

  “On troubled waters.” And in response to Copper’s raised eyebrows, “I imagine you’ve been told by now, Horace could quite easily raise a few hackles, even when on the surface he was appearing to be at his most charming. In fact, especially when he was being charming.”

  “But Mr. Cope had left the gathering by the time Miss Biding called you, hadn’t he, Mr. Allday?”

  “But I wasn’t to know that, was I? Anyway,” he hurried on, “Laura phoned me, and I was at my office in the village which is only about five minutes away, so I dropped everything and drove up to the Hall straight away. I didn’t bother to ring the bell when I got here – I just came in through the front door, because that one’s never locked, and found everyone else in the drawing room.”

  Dave Copper consulted his notebook again. “Which would have been what time, sir?”

  Robin gazed at the ceiling. “It would have been about ten minutes before Mr. Pugh went out to check on Horace, so it would have been about twenty to, I suppose. And I didn’t leave until after he came back and told us what he’s found. And then I called 999.”

  “From in here, sir?” asked Andy Constable.

  “Yes, inspector,” replied Robin, puzzled. “Why do you ask?”

  “No particular reason, sir,” smiled Constable. “My colleague just likes to make sure all the details are correct. So if there’s nothing else that strikes you, Copper …?”

  “No, sir.”

  “ … then I think we’ll leave it at that for now. But if you’d ask Miss Biding to come in here, we can just verify this business about the phone calls and a few other things. Just to make sure all the details are correct. Right, Copper?”

  As Robin Allday made his escape from the library, Andy Constable couldn’t help laughing at the look of consternation on the solicitor’s face. “And what, sergeant, is your assessment of Mr. Allday’s state of mind at this present moment?” he asked.

  “If you’ll pardon the expression, sir, bricking it,” responded Copper. “But at least we’ve got an explanation now for how that letter of his came to be here. I reckon he told Miss Biding about it when they spoke on the phone, and then he brought it up here to show her. To try and work out what to do, I suppose. But … how about this? He tells Miss Biding about the letter, but before he gets here, she nips out to put a stop to Horace’s little plan, but they never get a chance to talk about it when he arrives because they’re all together in the drawing room, so when the body gets found he dumps the letter in here when he phones us. And he thinks she’s done it, and he’s afraid of being brought in as an accessory!”

  Andy Constable nodded approvingly. “Nice theory, sergeant. But there’s one thing I’d like to know. If Miss Biding called him at twenty past, and he came straight here, which takes five minutes, how come he didn’t arrive until twenty to? Did Mr. Allday find something unpleasant to do to fill in those missing minutes? Or has somebody got their timings wrong?” He smiled grimly. “Let’s hope Miss Biding can help us.”

  Laura Biding took her place facing the inspector with an air of outward calm, belied by the hands which twisted together in her lap.

  “We’re sorry to have kept you waiting so long, Miss Biding,” said Constable.

  “That’s perfectly all right, inspector,” replied Laura. “I do understand that you need to find out everything that everybody knows if you are to find out who killed Uncle Horace.”

  “Hmmm,” mused Constable. “Uncle Horace. And that’s what you usually called him?”

  “Yes,” said Laura uncertainly.

  “Not the ordinary uncle-niece relationship, though, was it? Even allowing for the fact that Mr. Cope wasn’t actually your uncle, was he?”

  “But I told you before, inspector, it was just a sort of courtesy title. It started when I was quite young. Everybody does it, don’t they? I mean, you can’t call your parents’ old friends Mr. or Mrs. so-and-so, can you?”

  “Ah, now we come to the other point, Miss Biding. Old friends. So you’d describe you and Mr. Cope as old friends too, would you?”

  “I … I suppose so. Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Well, there’s the thing, Miss Biding. You see, from one or two things we hear, your relationship with Mr. Cope wasn’t entirely friendly, was it? In fact, we gather that there had been some tension between you and Mr. Cope only a couple of days ago. You met up, I believe, and had a conversation which wasn’t exactly amicable? Didn’t Mr. Cope make some suggestions which seemed to upset you? And weren’t there some unfriendly remarks about your mother?”

  Laura’s calm exterior vanished. “Who the hell …?” she exploded. “Oh, of course! Amelia! Blasted gossip! I might have known she’d be listening in. And what else did she tell you?”

  Andy Constable hesitated. “I think we’ll keep the rest of our conversation with Miss Cook private for the moment, Miss Biding,” he said. “That is, unless there’s any further information which you’d like to volunteer?”

  “No.” Although Laura flushed slightly, she pressed her lips together and seemed determined to say nothing further.

  “Very well, Miss Biding. So let’s move on to what happened this afternoon.” Andy Constable turned to his colleague. “Copper, I think you’ve got some details you need to check up on.”

  “Right then, miss.” Dave Copper opened his notebook again. “It’s the timings, miss. Once we’ve got those clearly sorted out, then we can have a better idea of who had the opportunity to kill Mr. Cope. Sorry, ‘Uncle Horace’, if you prefer.”

  Laura snorted with irritation. “All right, sergeant, you’ve made your point. So maybe Uncle Horace wasn’t quite the dear old family friend I said he was, but I couldn’t have killed him, could I?”

  “How so, miss?”

  “For a start, you know where I was all the time. I was in the drawing room with Mother and the others to start with, and then I went out to get more drinks, but Helen was with me then, and after that I came in here to make a phone call to Robin Allday – you know all about that, I suppose?”

  “We have been told about the call, yes, miss,” confirmed Copper. “Whether we know all about it, I couldn’t say.”

  “Oh … right.” Laura paused, disconcerted. “Anyway, after I spoke to Robin, I went back into the drawing room, and I didn’t leave the room after that. And then Robin arrived a bit later, and then Mr. Pugh came back, but he went out again to open the gate to the Secret Garden at about ten to one. So that’s it,” she finished triumphantly.

  “So then, Miss Biding,” resumed Inspector Constable, “According to your reckoning, nobody could have murdered Mr. Cope?”

  A sudden thought seemed to strike Laura. “Unless you count dear Mr. Pugh, of course. After all, he was the only one who went out to the Secret Garden on his own. Why don’t you ask him if he did it.”

  Chapter 12

  “Do you know what, Copper,” sighed Andy Constable, running his hands through his hair. “There are two things I’m getting heartily sick of.”

  “What’s that, then, sir?”

  “People not telling us the truth, and this damned library. I have the stupidest feeling that it’s sitting here looking at me smugly, thinking ‘Well, I know what happened, even if you don’t’.”

 
; “If you don’t mind me saying so, sir, isn’t that just ever so slightly paranoid?”

  Constable smiled. “You’re absolutely right, sergeant. These people are driving me loopy.”

  “In which case, sir, I have a solution. I reckon it’s all down to lack of fluids. What you need is a cup of tea.”

  “Oh hell!” Constable leapt to his feet. “Amelia Cook! She’ll be hopping up and down. I promised we’d go and see her to find out what it was she was going on about. Come on, we’ll kill two birds with one stone. We’ll see if we can persuade her to make us some tea while we’re at it.”

  As the two detectives emerged into the hall, P.C. Collins was just coming back through the front door.

  “The vicar’s safely back at the vicarage, sir,” he reported. “Sorry I’ve been quite a time, but he would ask me in and insisted on making me a cup of tea. I don’t know why it is, but people always seem to think that a policeman wants a cup of tea.”

  The inspector laughed. “That is because, Collins, on this occasion they would be absolutely right. Come on – you can come and join us in the kitchen for another cup, if you’ve got room, and a bit of Miss Cook’s famous cake, if there’s any left. And we’ll make sure she doesn’t blame you for us keeping her waiting and making her late.” He pushed his way through the baize door from the hall and on into the kitchen, stopped short, and groaned.

  Amelia Cook was seated at the table, a large rich fruit cake in front of her, with one inviting slice cut from it and waiting on a doily-covered tea-plate next to it. As appetising as it looked, no-one was tempted to sample it, even though it was the last cake Amelia would ever bake. The cake-knife, gleaming stainless steel with an antler handle, protruded from the side of her neck where it had been driven down into her chest.

  Dave Copper was already on the phone as Andy Constable stepped forward to take a closer look at the body. Ignoring the murmured words in the background – ‘another one’, ‘bit late for an ambulance’, ‘get SOCO back here’ – the inspector beckoned Collins forward. “Come and take a look at this, lad.”

  “Do I really have to, sir?”

  Constable smiled grimly. “First body, is it?”

  Collins nodded.

  “Then you absolutely do have to, son. This is why we do our job, and the more you know, and the sooner you know it, the better you get. Just remember not to touch her – we’d better leave all that to the doctor. So, what do you see?”

  “Well, she’s been stabbed, sir. Sorry, sir – that sounds stupid.”

  “It’s not stupid at all, Collins. It might be obvious, but if I told you the number of cases where people have got things wrong by overlooking the obvious, you’d be amazed. So come on – what can you tell?”

  As the young P.C. wrinkled his forehead in concentration, Dave Copper moved forward but the inspector waved him back, mouthing ‘Give him a chance’. “She’s just sat there,” said Collins, “so she can’t have been expecting it. I mean, if she’d been having a row with somebody, she’d have been up and about, or facing them. It looks as if whoever did this was behind her.”

  “Good thinking, Collins. And so …?”

  “So …” Collins spoke slowly as the thoughts formed in his mind. “So she must have known whoever it was, and trusted them. I mean, if you’re worried about someone, you don’t let them prowl about behind you with a knife in their hand, do you?”

  “You don’t. So, a friend, then?”

  “But that could mean anybody, sir. And why would they do it? Everybody in the village liked Amelia – I’ve never heard anyone say a bad word about her.”

  “Fortunately, we don’t have to worry about everybody in the village,” remarked Constable drily. “I’m assuming we only have to worry about the people in this house. Providing that the kitchen back door’s still locked, Copper,” he said, as a sudden thought struck him.

  “Yes sir. Solid as a rock, and the key’s still here in the lock.”

  “So just our six, then. Copper, you’d better go through to the drawing room and make sure that they’re all still there. If somebody’s done a runner, we might have a bit of a clue as to who’s done this. In any event, tell them they’re going to have to sit tight for a while longer.”

  “Shall I tell them what’s happened, sir?”

  “Best not for the moment,” replied Constable. “Just tell them there’s been a development – a bit of a complication. You never know, it might make whoever was responsible a bit jumpier, and when people get jumpy they make mistakes.”

  As the door closed behind the sergeant, Andy Constable turned back to Collins. “So then, lad, what else have we got?”

  “I’ve been thinking, sir,” said Collins. “The cake and the knife, sir. I reckon I know what must have happened. Someone’s come in here, sir, and they’ve been talking to Amelia, and she’s cut them a bit of cake – no, she offered them some cake, so they’ve cut themselves a slice, and then, while they’ve still got the knife in their hand, they’ve gone round behind her and stabbed her.”

  “Spur of the moment?”

  “I think it must have been, sir. If you’re going to come in here intending to kill someone, you’re sort of going to come prepared, aren’t you? Not just grab a handy cake-knife. But I still don’t see why.”

  “Think it through, Collins. Why do people kill people? Come on, you’ve covered this sort of stuff in your training.”

  “Well, there’s all the obvious things, sir, like domestic violence or robberies that go wrong.”

  “Which is obviously not the case here.”

  “So what, then, sir?”

  “Threat, Collins. People kill people because they’re a threat to them.”

  “But sir,” objected Collins, “how could Amelia be a threat to somebody? She was just a nice old lady – she wouldn’t have hurt a fly. All right, she was a bit of a gossip, but that’s not going to be a reason to kill someone, is it?”

  Inspector Constable smiled grimly. “You know, Collins, that’s exactly where you’re wrong. Threats aren’t always physical, you know. Very often it’s what somebody knows about you that is the threat – to your position, to your career, to your family. And that’s just the sort of threat that’s pushed our murderer over the edge.”

  “Murderer, sir? Singular? So you reckon whoever did this is the one that killed Horace Cope?”

  “I think the chances of having two separate murderers in the same house on the same afternoon is stretching coincidence a bit too far, Collins,” replied the inspector. “Look at the similarities. The attack came from behind. So somebody the victim knew and had no reason to fear. Somebody who probably didn’t set out to kill, but grabbed the opportunity with what was to hand. You had it right when you said whoever it was had been talking to Amelia. Or rather, she was talking to them. She said something which proved that she knew the reason why Horace Cope had been killed. And so she got herself killed into the bargain. She may not even have realised exactly what it was she knew, or why it was dangerous.” He shook his head in frustration. “Poor silly woman.”

  “But how do you find out what it was that she knew, sir?” asked Collins.

  “Oh, she’s already told us, Collins. I’m sure of that. The only trouble is, she’s told us too much.”

  “How do you mean, sir?”

  “Sergeant Copper and I have been talking to our suspects while you were taking the vicar back to the village. We’ve had them all in the library, one by one, and we’ve winkled out a few things which they weren’t too eager to tell us about first off.” Constable snorted. “You will learn in this job, Collins, if you haven’t learnt it already, that the world is full of people who are stupid enough to think that you’re stupid, so they think they can get away with not telling you the truth. Anyway, it turns out that pretty much all of that lot next door had had some sort of trouble with Horace Cope which Amelia Cook had overheard or seen or been told about. We’d had a very long chat with
her earlier on, and it came as a bit of a surprise to a few people as to what we knew. Put a few cracks into a few people’s stories. So every one of them left the library with some reason not to be too pleased with Miss Cook.”

  “And the murderer was afraid that what Amelia knew would lead you to them, sir? Is that it?”

  “That’s exactly it, Collins. One of them has come in here after leaving us, and they’ve ended up making sure that Miss Cook didn’t tell us any more than she already had. And then it looks as if they’ve calmly gone back in to join the others in the drawing room.”

  The door to the passage opened, and Dave Copper put his head into the kitchen. “SOCO are on their way back, sir. They reckon they shouldn’t be long.”

  Inspector Constable took a deep breath. “Right, then – we’ll let them get on with it. Not that I expect they’ll tell us much we haven’t already figured out. Collins, you’d better stay here until they arrive and bring them in here. Come on, Copper – back to the library.” He led the way into the hall.

  As the two detectives sank back into the leather sofas flanking the library fireplace, Andy Constable gave a deep sigh.

  “I’m depressed, Copper.”

  “Any particular reason, sir? That is, apart from the fact that we’ve got two dead bodies?”

  Constable smiled ruefully. “You’re right, Copper – that does tend to put a bit of a damper on things. No, I mean that I get demoralised when a group of people who seem so pleasant on the surface turn out to have a whole bunch of skeletons in the cupboard. I’m sure everybody was nicer when I was a kid.”

  “Doesn’t it sort of come with the territory, sir? I mean, haven’t you got used to that by now? After all, it’s what we deal with, every day.”

  “You’re right of course, sergeant, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it.” He gave a slight shake as if to pull himself together. “So, let’s think. First things first. We need to figure out which of our suspects had the strongest motive for wishing Horace Cope out of the way.”

  “He had something on all of them, by the looks of it, sir, so that’s not going to be easy,” remarked Copper.