Dying In The Wool: A Kate Shackleton Mystery

by Frances Brody

  ‘It looks like a fall down the stairs. But it’s possible that both Paul and Lizzie’s deaths weren’t accidental. There may be a connection with Mr Braithwaite’s disappearance.’

  Hector stopped in the middle of the field and reached for the bridle. The horse came to a standstill. He produced a small stone bottle from his saddle bag, took out the cork, wiped the mouth on his sleeve and offered it to me. ‘It’s ginger beer.’

  My first impressions of Hector had been of an affable, hearty young man. Now, watching him play for time, it occurred to me that he was not quite all he should be in the brains department. He was still a child who would not look out of place in his old boy scout uniform. I refused the ginger beer. He put the flagon to his lips and drank.

  ‘Hector, I’ve had to look at two bodies this week. All I want from you is some information. You avoid talking to me about your time in the boy scouts …’

  ‘Because …’

  ‘Because you were one of the boys who found Mr Braithwaite, weren’t you?’

  I had struck home. His hand trembled slightly as he put the ginger beer bottle back in the saddle bag. ‘Well, what if I was? It doesn’t mean …’

  ‘No more excuses, Hector. If you won’t talk to me, then speak to the CID inspector. Let him decide whether there’s a connection between then and now.’ I yanked on the reins and turned to go back the way we had come.

  It was a long moment before Hector called, ‘I say, hold the horse, Kate! Don’t go all official on me.’ He hurried to my side.

  ‘I’m right aren’t I?’ I said, sounding like a stern school-teacher, not turning back yet in case he thought I would relent.

  ‘All right, all right. I’ll tell you. Yes, I was one of the boys who found him. And I was the oldest.’ He waited until I had turned the horse and we were once again crossing the field towards the Braithwaites’ house. ‘Soon as I sent young Ashworth to fetch the scoutmaster I knew I’d done the wrong thing.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because Mr Braithwaite seemed dazed. He just said to me, “Bugger off. Leave me be.” If I had buggered off and let him be, he might have come round, he would have got up, and got home eventually. Instead, it became this … It just got out of control. The minute I saw Mr Wardle’s eyes – Scoutmaster Wardle, the way he looked, a kind of triumph. And Mr Braithwaite groaned, and he didn’t have the strength, but he tried to kick out.’

  ‘I don’t see what else you could have done.’

  ‘There was something not quite right, all us lads felt it. “You saw this,” Mr Wardle said. “You may be called upon to give an account.” I gave Mr Braithwaite my handkerchief to wipe his face and hands. He didn’t have the strength so I did it for him. There was blood on his mouth, as if someone had punched him. I dipped the hanky in the beck and wiped his mouth. His front tooth was loose.’

  ‘This was with Mr Wardle looking on?’

  ‘I can’t remember. Perhaps Mr Wardle hadn’t reached us and I was just trying to help Mr Braithwaite. His knuckles were scraped, as though he’d been in a scrap. The face of his watch was cracked. There was a bit of check material caught in the watch chain.’

  I tried not to sound incredulous or critical. ‘Did you say anything about this at the time?’

  ‘I put the scrap of material in my pocket, and forgot about it until later, until it was too late.’ He spoke to the grass, to cover a lie or his puzzlement.

  ‘What did you do with the watch, and the material?’

  ‘I tucked the watch in his pocket. I kept the bit of check. Still have it, with my scouting bits and pieces, my axe and my whistle and so on. I was going to give it to you …’ he tailed off miserably.

  ‘You still can give it to me. As soon as possible. Hector, from what you say about Mr Braithwaite’s loose tooth and scraped knuckles, perhaps you’re right and he had been in a fight.’

  ‘I suppose I thought he’d been duffed up.’

  ‘Why did you think he’d been attacked?’

  ‘Stands to sense. A man of Mr Braithwaite’s standing wouldn’t start a fight. I feared someone had taken him by surprise and got the better of him. From the scrapes on his knuckles he’d fought back but come off worse, and he’d be too proud to admit it. Someone must have given him a real pasting. He was like one of those punch-drunk boxers.’

  ‘Do you have any idea who might have attacked him?’

  He blushed and shook his head. ‘No, I don’t know.’

  ‘Hector? Hector, please look at me.’ Reluctantly he turned his troubled face and gazed at me. He gulped, then said, ‘I knew Uncle Arthur was angry with Mr Braithwaite, but I didn’t know why. I suppose I thought it may have been Uncle Arthur, attacking from behind. He was supposed to have been with us, supervising the camp, but he was nowhere to be seen. Arthur Wilson is not a gentleman. I wondered if this snatch of stuff might have been from his shirt.’

  ‘But it wasn’t?’

  ‘I asked Auntie Marjorie, what was Uncle Arthur’s opinion of check shirts. He has a low opinion and doesn’t own one. Says that check shirts are a disgrace to the human race.’

  ‘Wouldn’t he have been wearing a scouting uniform?’

  ‘He and Mr Wardle wore what they pleased. I didn’t know what Uncle Arthur had on under his coat.’

  If it had been anyone else but Hector telling the story, I would have not have believed his confusions and assumptions.

  ‘I’m still not sure why you didn’t tell Constable Mitchell what you’ve told me.’

  Hector looked as though he would burst into tears. ‘He would have badgered me and I might have said too much.’

  ‘I have a feeling you might not have told me this if Mr and Mrs Kellett had not been killed.’ And if I hadn’t threatened you with the CID.

  ‘Perhaps not.’

  ‘So, you think there’s a connection and that’s why you’re telling me now.’

  ‘It’s nothing I know for sure, just a feeling. I can’t tell Tabby that I was part of her father’s downfall. Yet if I keep it to myself it’ll eat away at me. I’m hoping you’ll say …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That the cracked watch face, the scrap of material, that what I’ve told you would make no difference. That it all would have happened anyway. I loved Tabby even then. She was magnificent and entirely out of my reach. I was just a gangly idiot.’

  So what’s changed, I asked myself. The horse tired of standing still and began to move again. Looking down on Hector gave me a distinct advantage.

  ‘Go on, Hector.’

  ‘After what happened with her father, I wanted to tell her. It would have given me an excuse to speak to her, if I could have found my tongue. I hung about their house and grounds, waiting. Then someone told me she’d gone away, and that she had a chap who’d returned wounded, and she’d gone to see him. And of course she was in the VAD. She only ever came home for short visits, and by the time I’d hear “Tabby Braithwaite’s home” she’d be gone.’

  ‘You thought Mr Braithwaite had been attacked. Was there anything else unusual about him?’

  Hector patted the horse’s neck absent-mindedly. He looked at the ground as though searching for a four-leaf clover.

  ‘That was the odd thing, Kate. He didn’t seem to know me, know who I was. All right, so I was just another boy in scout uniform. But really, I’d expected him to remember me. We were supposed to be helpful to people in the scouts, good turns and all that sort of stuff. I was wandering about one Saturday, thinking about being helpful, and also looking for shelter from the rain. It’d started to rain stair rods. I went into the Braithwaites’, hoping to see Tabitha to tell you the truth, but also thinking I might shelter in one of their out-buildings. Mr Braithwaite was there. He was obviously busy and I hoped he might be taking the motorbike to pieces or something. But he was packing stuff into the sidecar. When I offered to help he was a bit rude to me.’

  ‘Can you remember what he was packing?’

  ‘No. No
t after all this time, except one thing, one odd thing.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘He was packing a bucket and spade. And I thought, no wonder he’s being rude. He’s gone mad. Losing Edmund has sent him mad with grief, that’s what I thought. He let me clean the motorbike, and gave me a tanner. So he should have remembered me.’

  ‘How did he seem in himself on that day he was packing the motorbike?’

  ‘Sad of course. He’d lost Edmund you know, but cheerful as well. Isn’t that odd? Sad and cheerful.’

  ‘Hector, thank you for telling me. I’ll keep your confidence. I’m sure what you did or didn’t do that day wouldn’t have made any difference.’

  He opened the second gate. I held the horse steady until he closed it again, so slowly that the horse grew impatient, threw back its head and snorted a cloud of air from its nostrils.

  ‘There’s something else.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I knew I’d made a pig’s ear of everything, calling the scoutmaster and so on. So on the Monday, it was a school holiday, I took myself over to Milton House because I heard that Mr Braithwaite had been taken there. I saw him.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘He was walking in the grounds. He spoke to me at the side gate. It wasn’t locked, but we just spoke through the bars of the gate. He seemed a bit more himself, and he asked me to do something for him.’

  ‘Kate! Hector!’ It was Tabitha, hurrying across towards us from the house.

  ‘Good Lord,’ Hector said. ‘She mustn’t know.’

  ‘You can tell me later. This could be important.’

  He gulped, waving to Tabitha who had slowed down now that we walked towards her.

  The four of us sat down to breakfast. I was not very hungry but knew I should have something before my journey home. Hopes of seeing Mrs Braithwaite’s reaction to the news of Lizzie Kellett’s death were dashed. She had heard about it from her maid, and Tabitha had been told by Becky.

  Tabitha sipped tea and nibbled at half a slice of toast. ‘Horrible, horrible,’ she said, over and over. ‘To think of poor Kellett scalded, and blackened by dye, and then the shock of the freezing beck, and now this. Do you think Mrs Kellett hit the bottle? Marjorie Wilson had given her a flask of brandy. If she’s unused to drink, she could have tripped down the stairs.’

  Tabitha gave up on her half slice of toast. She looked as if she might be sick as she watched Hector tuck into eggs, bacon, well-done sausages, black pudding and fried bread. With a dramatic glance around the table and a tremor in her voice, she asked, ‘Is there a curse on this place?’

  Mrs Braithwaite attempted to look serene, but her eyelid twitched. She toyed with a kipper. ‘Nothing is connected, Tabitha, and yet everything is. Perhaps we live in a time of shadows. But the shadows will pass. We will see a better tomorrow. What else can we do but keep on going? You and Hector have your wedding to think of. Now you must decide on the honeymoon. It’s mad to have left it so late.’

  Hector was caught with a mouthful and made a valiant attempt to chew it down in something of a hurry so as to help his future mother-in-law in her efforts to change the subject. ‘There’s some caverns opened up at Stump Cross.’

  Tabitha turned a lighter shade of pale. ‘Caverns?’

  Hector grimaced as Evelyn’s well-shod toes kicked his ankles.

  ‘Paris would be grand, if you don’t mind doing the talking, Tabby.’

  ‘My mind won’t work.’ Tabitha moved crumbs from the edge of her plate so they made a small island in its centre. ‘I can’t think.’

  ‘Nonsense, dear. It’s tragic, and obviously they were our employees and we’ll have a responsibility to see things done properly, but we weren’t close to the Kelletts.’

  Hector crunched his fried bread.

  ‘Eat something, Tabitha. Keep your strength up,’ Mrs Braithwaite ordered. ‘You too, Kate.’

  We finished breakfast. Evelyn and Tabitha went upstairs. I managed to detain Hector with the excuse that I wanted him to draw me a map of the most direct route from Bridgestead back to Leeds. Pencil in hand, he drew a dot. ‘This is Bridgestead. You are here …’

  ‘Keep drawing, Hector. But tell me, what did Mr Braithwaite ask you to do for him that day?’

  ‘I can’t draw and talk.’

  ‘Then just scribble. I know the way.’

  ‘Do you? Then why …? Oh I see. Right.’ He pressed so hard on the pencil the point broke.

  ‘You saw Mr Braithwaite by the side gate of Milton House?’

  ‘Yes. He looked different, in that hospital uniform they used to put men in.’

  ‘Hospital blue,’ I prompted.

  ‘Yes, a bit like workmen’s overalls. Quite the wrong outfit for Mr Braithwaite. I’ll never forget his bruised face, and the cut on his lip. He knew who I was, and that I’d helped him with the motorbike. He asked would I do something for him, and there’d be a shilling in it when he had his wallet by him. I agreed straight away, just glad to help him in his troubles, and to do something for Tabitha Braithwaite’s father.’

  He came to a full stop, and gazed at the useless pencil. I made a powerful effort to quell my rising impatience as he drew a small pen knife from his pocket and started to sharpen the pencil point.

  ‘He swore me to secrecy. Wanted me to find where his motorbike had got to. I said it was probably where he always kept it. He said it wasn’t or he wouldn’t be asking. He said it was just the job for a boy scout – and to look in all the likely places till I found it, then come back and tell him, or tell Mr Kellett.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘Yes. It was in one of the outbuildings at the mill. He must have forgotten he’d left it there. I went back to tell him. He wasn’t by the side gate, so I just walked in through the front gate, trying to look as if I had some business there.’

  The pencil point was well and truly sharp. Hector turned it round and began to sharpen the other end.

  I wanted to reach out and stop him whittling the pencil any further. There’d be none of it left.

  ‘There weren’t many people about. One soldier sitting on a bench said good morning to me. Another was trying to walk straight. I felt bad. The last thing they would want was some stupid boy gawping. I nearly went up to one of them and asked should I join the army. Some lads my age did get away with it. I wish I had now. I wish I’d taken part. I’d be more of an equal with Tabby.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re telling me all this, Hector. It could be really helpful. Go on.’

  ‘Then I saw Mr Kellett. I knew him of course because he lived by the beck and I used to go there sometimes, fishing for tiddlers. I sauntered up to him and told him where the motorbike was. Poor chap. He was quite small, wasn’t he?’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He said, “Thanks, young Gawthorpe. Mum’s the word.” So you see, he wanted me to say nothing. I did as he asked. I never mentioned wiping Mr Braithwaite’s mouth, or the scrap of material, or looking for the motorbike. I was as good as my word. Until now.’

  There is something about boys who are up to no good – a shiftiness, a lightness of step. These two were running along the Bingley road, carrying something. They turned, about to disappear into a hedge.

  I drove alongside, pipped the horn and brought the car to a stop.

  ‘What have you got there, boys?’

  The elder held tightly to the top of a moving sack, his face set in a defiant glare. ‘Nowt!’

  The younger ran dirty fingers through his basin-cut brown hair.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked again. ‘If you tell me, you can have a ride on the running board.’

  They exchanged looks. The older flickered his eyes at the younger, unwilling to tell me himself but giving permission. Later he would be able to say, You snitched, not me.

  ‘It’s a black cat.’

  ‘What do you intend to do with it?’

  The older boy held the sack tightly, his knuckles turning white. ‘It can kill people.’
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  I stepped from the car cautiously. They could run and I would never catch them.

  ‘I can tell you for sure that cat was outside when the accident happened to Mrs Kellett.’

  Bravely, the younger boy piped, ‘It’s a witch’s cat.’

  ‘Just a minute, please.’ They looked on with interest as I reached into the car for my bag and took out my purse. ‘I’ll give it a new home, away from the village. And I’m not a witch.’

  The older boy grew bold. He looked directly at me. ‘You don’t look like a witch, miss.’

  ‘How much do you want for it?’

  Being asked to name a price left them speechless, but only for a moment. The older boy held onto the bag with difficulty now as the cat struggled.

  ‘It’s evil,’ he warned.

  ‘No. Animals aren’t evil. It’s people who do bad things. Animals only want to live.’

  We agreed on sixpence for the cat, and a further sixpence if they would help me transfer it to a more comfortable place for its journey. I feared the cat would die of fright if it travelled in a sack. It might die of fright anyway.

  I opened the larger of my canvas bags and took out my precious black box with its lid to keep it pristine. With only a few scratches to my hands and wrists, I managed to push the cat into the box, with the lid open a little so that it would not suffocate. The cat sat next to me in the front seat. The boys clambered onto the running board and held tight for the next half mile of my journey.

  I toyed with the idea of treating the lads to a speech, pointing out the error of their ways, but it would have fallen on deaf ears. They were entirely absorbed in the novelty of a motor car ride as far as the crossroads.

  Even after the boys jumped off, the mewling cat made it impossible for me to think. It miaowed persistently. I spoke soothingly. It stopped miaowing for a moment.

  ‘Are you still alive, cat?’

  It was.

  The mind is a terrible and a marvellous thing. Even when you are totally distracted and believe all thoughts have fled, some picture will suddenly insert itself and demand attention.