by T E Kinsey
‘He’d not be easily visible in the dark, Constable,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘How did you come to notice him from the road?’
‘I was cuttin’ through the churchyard, m’lady, on my w—’
‘On his regular patrol,’ Sergeant Dobson interrupted. He clearly saw no need to introduce distracting details of Constable Hancock’s off-duty activities.
‘I see. But you had no lantern?’
‘Beg pardon, m’lady?’ said Hancock.
‘The sergeant told us that it was he who brought a lantern. I’m not trying to catch you out, dear, but the detective will. If you don’t want to let on that you were cutting through the churchyard on your way back from . . . ’ She paused for a moment. ‘Maude Holman’s house?’
Even in the pre-dawn gloom I could see the tall constable blush. It was well known that he was walking out with the baker’s daughter, but perhaps not how long he lingered at the house once the rest of the family had gone to bed.
‘. . . then perhaps the two of you need to sort out a consistent story. But that’s by the by. There was the lightest frost but the ground is still soft from the recent rain. You’ll be looking for footprints before the detective gets here, I’m sure.’
‘Naturally, m’lady,’ said the sergeant.
‘Good man,’ she said. ‘And you’ll almost certainly examine his clothes to see if there’s any clue as to what sort of instrument caused his fatal wound.’
‘We shall, yes.’
‘And you’ll search the vicinity for other signs of activity, of course.’
‘Of course,’ said the sergeant.
‘Then you seem to have everything in hand. I can’t think what you were worried about. Would you think it awfully improper if we were to take a look ourselves? I promise not to disturb anything too much.’
‘That’s rather why I invited you over, m’lady,’ said the sergeant. ‘You might not have the trainin’, but you’ve shown us before that you have a keen eye.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, and stepped delicately across the soft ground to the base of the tree, where she crouched down beside Mr Newhouse’s body.
Careful not to disarrange his clothing too much, she examined his jacket. She seemed reluctant to unbutton his waistcoat but felt across its surface with her fingertips, inside and out. At length, she stood and made her way back to where we waited.
‘There are no holes in his jacket, his waistcoat, or his shirt,’ she said. ‘But there’s blood on the shirt and the lining of the waistcoat. Not as much as one might expect, but it seems to indicate that there’s a wound of some sort under there. So whatever pierced his chest managed to do so without disturbing his clothing.’
‘Just as we thought in the dark,’ said the constable.
‘There’s something else odd, too,’ she said.
The two policemen looked blankly at her.
‘It was perishing cold out last night, and Mr Newhouse is without his overcoat. We know he possessed one – he was wearing it when he arrived at the house on Monday. He wasn’t dressed for outdoors.’
‘’Pon my word, you’re right,’ said Sergeant Dobson. ‘When you comes upon a corpse, the thing you notices is that the poor blighter’s dead. You don’t always see all the other irregularities.’
‘I think you’re right, Sergeant,’ she said. ‘Whereas I was expecting him to be dead, so I was able to concentrate on other details. Now, for all that we’ve been careful not to disturb the ground too much, it seems it was to no avail. You see how the ground is all churned up? I fear there’s precious little to be learned from any marks there.’
‘You’re sure that’s not us, though, m’lady?’ said Constable Hancock. ‘I wasn’t none too careful ’fore I realized as how he was dead.’
‘Quite sure, Constable,’ she said. ‘We’ve left our tracks in the frost. Do you see? The other muddle is all frosted over – the marks were left before the frost settled. I don’t think it will tell us much.’
The sergeant diligently noted all these observations so that he could present them as his own.
The light was growing by the moment and there was already a definite glow to the east as dawn approached. While our policeman friends made their notes and agreed upon how they would present things to the Bristol detective, Lady Hardcastle and I took advantage of the increased visibility and conducted a little search of our own.
We circled the tree, and didn’t have to go far before we found something the others definitely needed to see.
‘I say, Sergeant,’ I said. ‘You might want to make a note of this.’
Dobson walked over and looked at the spot I indicated.
On the other side of the tree, nestled among the roots, was a small doll. It was dressed in a neat, grey suit and wore a large, military-style moustache. A long pin, topped with a blood-red bead, pierced the doll’s heart.
Very soon after the sun had first begun to peek through the gaps between the houses to the east of the village, we heard the sputtering progress of a motor vehicle coming from the Bristol Road. It wasn’t long before it turned on to the road around the village green and began making its way towards the pair of little cottages that served double duty as both police station and accommodation for our two policemen. Constable Hancock was despatched on to the road to direct the driver to the scene of the crime instead.
The motor van was painted black, and the driver and his mate were sombrely dressed. As the van pulled up, they both stepped smartly out and presented themselves to Sergeant Dobson. There seemed to be some disagreement over what was to happen next. I couldn’t quite hear all of the conversation but when the immortal phrase ‘We got our orders, a’n’t we?’ drifted across the frosty grass, I knew that the sergeant was on a hiding to nothing.
The driver’s mate returned to the van and took a stretcher from the back. Within moments, Basil Newhouse’s body had been placed on the stretcher, covered with a sheet, and carried to the back of the van. There was nothing the two village policemen could do but watch as the van spluttered round the green and headed back towards the city.
Ten minutes later, we heard the sound of another vehicle coming from the Bristol Road. A smart new motor car took the same route around the green, heading for almost exactly the spot so recently vacated by the van.
I nudged Lady Hardcastle as I recognized both the occupants of the motor car.
‘Inspector Sunderland, my lady,’ I said. ‘And your friend Dr Gosling.’
We had met Inspector Oliver Sunderland shortly after first moving to the village eighteen months earlier. We had ‘assisted’ (or ‘interfered’, depending upon one’s point of view) in the investigation of a couple of ‘minor unpleasantnesses’ (as Lady Hardcastle subsequently termed them), and we and the inspector had eventually formed a friendship born of mutual respect.
Dr Simeon Gosling was an old friend of Lady Hardcastle’s. He worked at the Bristol Royal Infirmary and had provided valuable information on naturally occurring poisons.
‘Goodness, so it is,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘How lovely. Let’s go and say hello.’
Dr Gosling parked the motor car neatly at the curb and the two men climbed out.
‘Inspector Sunderland,’ called Lady Hardcastle. ‘How wonderful to see you.’
The inspector smiled ruefully. ‘Good morning, my lady,’ he said. ‘I might have known you’d be here.’ He turned to his travelling companion. ‘Gosling, may I introduce Lady Har—’
‘Emily and I are old pals,’ interrupted Dr Gosling. ‘What ho, old girl. Interfering again?’
‘You know me,’ she said.
‘Only too well, old thing, only too well.’ He bounded over and hugged his friend. ‘I say, I knew you were living in the middle of nowhere, but I hadn’t realized you were quite this remote. It’s taken us an absolute age to get here.’
‘It’s only fifteen miles, Sim, dear. Are you sure it’s not just because you drive like my grandmama?’
The inspector confirmed
her guess with a frustrated nod, which Dr Gosling caught out of the corner of his eye.
‘You’re welcome to take the train next time, Sunderland, old boy,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Just say the word. Don’t mind my own company on a long drive.’
The village policemen had joined us by now and Inspector Sunderland attempted his introductions again.
‘Good to see you, Sergeant Dobson,’ he said. ‘And Constable Hancock?’
‘Hancock, sir, that’s right,’ said the constable.
‘This is Dr Gosling, our new police surgeon.’
‘How do you do, sir?’ said the sergeant.
‘Police surgeon?’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘You never mentioned your new job, Sim, dear.’
‘Spur-of-the-moment thing. Job came up and I thought, “Dash it all, Simeon, do you want a life of adventure, or do you want to calcify in the dingy corridors of the BRI?” I gave it a moment’s careful consideration and here I am.’
‘I keep telling him not to hold out too much hope for a life of adventure,’ said the inspector. ‘But it’s refreshing to have an enthusiastic man on the job for a change. Dr McDermott was a fine physician but you’d never describe him as being overbrimming with joy and wonderment. Even “cynical” and “jaded” didn’t really do him justice.’
‘I’ll start to grate on you in the end, Sunderland,’ said Dr Gosling. ‘I do try, but I’ve been told more than once that I’m better in small doses.’
‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ said Inspector Sunderland. ‘But to business. Sergeant? Constable? I believe you have a body to show us.’
Two conflicting expressions were fighting for control of the sergeant’s face. Somehow, contrition got the upper hand and anger was forced into temporary retreat as he said, ‘I’m sorry, sir, but the mortuary men just took him.’
‘They what?’ said Inspector Sunderland furiously.
‘Just afore you arrived, sir. They turns up in their wagon and insists they got their orders to take ’e away. Nothin’ I could do. I’m so sorry.’
‘Not your fault, Sergeant,’ sighed the inspector. ‘They did have orders to pick up the body and I didn’t say anything to the mortuary about waiting for us. I didn’t think I’d have to – I thought we’d be here first.’ He looked at Dr Gosling, who smiled sheepishly.
‘Sorry, Sunderland,’ he said. ‘I honestly had no idea we were in a race.’
‘Nothing to be done about it now,’ said the inspector. ‘Let’s have a look at where the body would have been if it were still here.’
‘Right you are, sir,’ said Sergeant Dobson. ‘He was over y’ere.’
While the four men examined the ground around where the corpse had lain, Lady Hardcastle and I loitered by Dr Gosling’s motor car.
‘What do you think?’ I asked. ‘It was carefully staged to look like witchcraft, wasn’t it?’
‘Artfully, one might say,’ she replied. ‘And we know from the business with the séance a few months ago that there are plenty hereabouts who will swallow that one hook, line, and whatnot.’
‘It’s the way his character died in the moving picture,’ I said.
‘I know.’
‘Wouldn’t it be super,’ I said wistfully, ‘if just once we could have a little fun without finding ourselves up to our knees in corpses?’
‘I’m not certain we should mention our knees in public, dear,’ she said. ‘This isn’t quite as permissive a place as London, you know. They’s afraid of ladies’ knees out y’ere.’
‘Duly noted,’ I said. ‘But you know what I mean. Every time we think we’ve got the chance to enjoy ourselves, someone comes along and dies. Quite aside from anything else, it’s so . . . what’s that phrase you use? “Statistically anomalous”?’
‘The high incidence of murders in the area certainly doesn’t match the national trend,’ she said absently. ‘The inspector remarked upon it when we first met him.’
‘It’s not just this area, though, is it?’ I persisted. ‘We went away for a week’s motor racing in Rutland and were scraping bodies off the tarmac before I even had a chance to get behind the wheel.’
‘Do you think perhaps we’ve been hexed?’
‘Well, you did insist on turning away that old woman in Bucharest a couple of years ago. I was sure she was a witch.’
‘Whereas I was sure she was a chancer who thought she could tap a rich lady for a few bob if she muttered some threatening-sounding curses in broken English.’
‘We’ve certainly had more than our fair share of bad luck ever since,’ I said.
‘On the contrary, I’d say we’ve had splendidly good luck. Look how many people have come to a sticky end while we continue to thrive.’
I harrumphed.
‘Don’t do that, dear. It makes you sound like a distressed water buffalo.’
I scowled instead. She ignored me.
‘Look out,’ she said. ‘Here come the boys.’
Inspector Sunderland and Dr Gosling walked out of the churchyard, leaving the local men in charge of the scene of the crime.
‘Still hanging around, Emily?’ said Dr Gosling. ‘I thought you’d have beetled off for some breakfast while the boring stuff was going on.’
‘We’re hungry for news,’ she said.
‘There’s not much to tell you beyond what you – I beg your pardon – beyond what Dobson and Hancock have already discovered,’ said Inspector Sunderland.
Dr Gosling smiled at this. He looked to the inspector for confirmation that it was all right to speak. The latter nodded his assent.
‘I’ll know more once I’ve got him on the slab,’ said Dr Gosling. ‘I agree with . . . with “Dobson” that it was staged to look like a supernatural killing – the witch’s doll and whatnot. From the evidence on the ground, and from what Dobson has said about his examination of the body, there wasn’t a great amount of blood. The chances are that he was stabbed after he was already dead, although he might have been cleaned up before he was moved. But, as I say, that’s for the autopsy.’
‘You definitely think he was moved?’ I asked.
‘Yes, but not by witchcraft,’ said Dr Gosling.
I scowled at him, too.
‘From “Dobson’s” excellent observation about the lack of an overcoat,’ said the inspector, ‘we’re presuming the murder was committed elsewhere and the body brought here for maximum effect.’
‘You know about the moving picture, then?’ said Lady Hardcastle.
‘Hancock gave us the gist,’ he said.
‘More than just the gist,’ said Dr Gosling. ‘We practically had to stop him from acting the whole thing out.’
‘So we’re definitely working on the basis that the death and the moving picture are connected?’ said Lady Hardcastle.
‘“We”, my lady?’ said the inspector with a smile.
‘Oh, come now, Inspector,’ she said. ‘You can’t possibly imagine that we could be dragged out here before dawn to look at a corpse and then not involve ourselves in the case. You know us better than that.’
He gave his familiar throaty chuckle. ‘I do,’ he said. ‘Anyone else would be sent off with a flea in their ear for interfering, but you two . . . Well, you two are an altogether different kettle of fish. It happens that I have another couple of cases to be getting on with back in the city so I’m sure I should be most grateful to have a pair of competent amateurs such as yourselves poking about here in the village on my behalf. Sergeant Dobson already has cause to be most grateful to you – you’ve done much to make him look extremely competent this morning.’
‘One does one’s best,’ she said.
‘Just tread carefully,’ he said. ‘A staged corpse with a witch’s doll beside it means a planned murder, not a crime of passion. This is what the more sensational members of the press would call a “cold-blooded killer”.’
‘I’ll look after her,’ I said.
He looked at me for a long moment. ‘Of that, Miss Armstrong,’ he said at length, �
��I have always been quite certain.’
‘Is there anything in particular you’d like us to do?’ asked Lady Hardcastle.
‘Since the body has already been picked up, I shall need to return to Bristol with Dr Gosling,’ he said. ‘I’ll not be back until later this afternoon. If you could let me have a list of everyone involved with this moving picture business, I’ll have somewhere to start.’
‘Consider it done,’ she said. ‘Call for me at the house. We shall supply you with tea, cake, and a comprehensive list of suspects. I may even prepare my famous—’
‘Crime board?’ he interrupted.
‘The very thing,’ she said.
‘What the devil’s a “crime board”?’ asked Dr Gosling.
‘I’ll tell you on the drive home,’ said the inspector. He turned back to Lady Hardcastle. ‘One last thing before we go: I don’t suppose you know who Mr Newhouse’s next of kin might be?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ she said. ‘His friends are all staying at our house, though, so I could easily find out. I’m not certain of the protocol. Should we tell them of his passing or is that something you need to do?’
‘It ought to be one of us,’ he said. ‘But I’m sure they’ll take the news better from you. Just be sure to watch their reactions, though.’
‘Surely you don’t think . . . ’
‘It’s early days yet, my lady. I don’t think anything at all yet. Just keep your eyes open, that’s all.’
With a nod of farewell, we set off back towards the house, leaving them to their slow drive back to Bristol.
Edna and Miss Jones had arrived for work by the time we returned to the house.
Miss Jones rather excitedly told me that her mother had insisted she work longer hours to feed the ‘famous actors’, and began outlining her plans for more elaborately impressive evening meals. I let her babble on for a bit – there seemed little profit in spoiling her mood with the sad news from the churchyard.
Misses Drayton and Selwood were already in the morning room, sharing a pot of tea and chattering excitedly about the reaction of the villagers to their moving picture. I followed Lady Hardcastle into the room and closed the door behind me.