by J F Straker
‘I hope so.’ She gave him a faint smile in return. ‘I’ll do my best, anyway, not to let you down. But I warn you’ — the smile vanished suddenly — ‘if I find out later that I was wrong, that one of you did kill Aunt Charlotte, I’ll break my promise at once. There won’t be any warnings then.’
‘Fair enough,’ Desmond said. ‘I reckon that goes for all of us.’
A light patter of feet along the corridor, and Dulcie Rivers came into the room without knocking. As always, she was dressed to kill. A tight-fitting black woollen jumper emphasised her curves, the full red skirt was designed to flare out with every turn of her slender body, displaying an over-generous length of nylon-encased leg. Her long, pointed finger-nails were blood-red; not a hair of her blonde head was out of place.
‘Quite a party,’ she said, twirling to look at them all in turn, happily aware of male eyes gazing hungrily at her legs. ‘H’m! Cosy — but glum.’ She stopped pirouetting to face the girl. ‘I’m sorry about your aunt, Elizabeth.’ (There was no sorrow in her voice.) ‘Mr Farrel asked me to tell you that you can have a room here if you want one.’
Elizabeth thanked her mechanically. She had not hitherto given much thought to the future, but she knew that she could never go back to the house. Not alone, and to sleep.
‘It will have to be one facing north,’ Dulcie went on cheerfully, taking the drink which Desmond had poured for her. ‘The Inspector and the Sergeant have booked the only two vacant rooms on this side.’
That startled them, as she had known it would.
‘The police?’ Desmond said sharply. ‘You mean they’re staying here?’
‘They are that. Booked in half an hour ago. I didn’t take much to the Inspector, but the Sergeant —’ She smiled reflectively. ‘He’s quite a pet.’
Michael said nervously, ‘Are they actually in the building at this moment?’
‘No. They’ve gone back to the scene of the crime.’ She turned again to the girl. ‘They want to talk to you, Elizabeth. Mr Farrel told them you were here. The Inspector said he’d like to see you at The Elms just as soon as you can make it.’ She shuddered theatrically. ‘I don’t envy you, my dear. He’s positively grim!’
Chapter Six
An Exaggerated Expression of Dislike
‘The perfect murderee, eh?’ the inspector commented, unconsciously echoing Des-mond’s words. ‘A woman born to be killed.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Ted Williams said politely.
He was always polite to police inspectors, particularly on meeting them for the first time. And Detective-Inspector Pitt did not look like a man who would take kindly to familiarity from a young constable. He was a long, lean, solemn-looking man, with dull grey hair receding from a high forehead. Ted would have considered him too old for the job (he formed that opinion of most of his superior officers, subconsciously willing them out of his way) had it not been for his soldierly bearing and the alert, watchful eyes.
‘And did you collect all this dirt from Mrs Green?’ asked Pitt.
‘Not all, sir. Some of it’s from my own knowledge, or from what I’ve heard in the village. There’s a lot of gossip in Milford, sir.’
‘There is in most villages,’ Pitt said.
The glow through the small study window indicated that Watkins and his gang were still busy in the yard. They would be clearing up now. The body had already been removed to the mortuary, and it was unlikely that the well had any further secrets to reveal. If it had they must wait until the morning.
Pitt turned from the window. He took an envelope from his pocket and tipped a small metal object into his upturned palm. ‘This glove-fastener,’ he said, once more examining it. ‘Show me exactly where you found it.’
Williams bent, pointing to the rear of the desk. ‘Just about there, sir. It was almost hidden in the fringe of the carpet.’
‘And you’ve no idea where I might find its twin?’
‘No, sir. I’ve been thinking about that. But it’s a common type of fastener, isn’t it? I mean, there must be hundreds of them in the district.’ His face reddened slightly as he added, ‘Matter of fact, I’ve got fasteners like that on a pair of gloves at home.’
‘But neither of them missing, I hope.’
The constable laughed dutifully. Pitt returned the fastener to its envelope, and the envelope to his pocket. ‘All right, Williams. I’ll see the Greens now. The woman first.’
But as Williams turned to the door it opened from without. A plain-clothes policeman poked his head into the room and announced, ‘There’s a Miss Messager to see you, sir. The dead woman’s niece.’
‘Oh! Is Sergeant Watkins still out in the yard?’
‘Yes, sir. Do you want him?’
‘Not yet. Show Miss Messager in here, will you? And send in that stenographer.’ He turned to Williams. ‘I’ll see the Greens later.’
‘Very good, sir. I’ll tell them to wait.’
‘Wait? Are they going anywhere?’
‘They’re moving out, sir — back to their cottage.’
‘Because of the murder?’
‘Partly that, sir.’ Williams looked uncomfortable. He had his suspicions about Elizabeth Messager, but it was not for him to discredit her to the Inspector. ‘You’ll remember I told you about that scene this morning, sir, when Mrs Green brought the coffee in and —’
‘Oh, that. Yes, I remember.’
Pitt studied the girl carefully as she came into the room. He usually tried to curb his instinctive likes and dislikes, finding that often he preferred the suspects to the witnesses; and even an elderly policeman could be susceptible to feminine good looks. But he did not consider Elizabeth good-looking. Attractive, perhaps, with that red-gold hair and pointed face and trim figure; but not pretty. He thanked her politely for coming, expressed his sympathy, and placed a chair for her to sit on so that the only light in the room illuminated fully her pale face.
Elizabeth’s first impression of the Inspector was that he needed feeding up. Yet he was no thinner than, for instance, Michael Lane; perhaps it was the long, gaunt face and the hollows in his cheeks that gave her that impression. She was too nervous to study him closely, but she could see what Dulcie had meant when she had described him as grim.
‘I want to take you through the events of last Thursday, Miss Messager.’ Where he stood his face was partly in shadow, accentuating the hollows. His voice was cool and impersonal. ‘I have here some notes made by Constable Williams after your talk with him this morning; they are of no value in themselves, of course, but they give me a line to work on. Correct me if they prove misleading.’ She nodded. ‘Now, on that day Mrs Lane had intended leaving here to stay with a friend —’ He leaned forward to see more clearly the name written in Williams’ notes, and for the first time Elizabeth was aware of his eyes. They were oddly youthful and clear for a man of his age. ‘— a Mrs Donelly in Purley. I understand you don’t know the exact address.’
‘I’m afraid not. There may be some correspondence in the desk which would give it to you. I haven’t a key, but I expect you found —’
She paused, shuddering. For the first time she realised in full what murder implied. She had a brief mental picture of Aunt Charlotte’s body, dumpy and lifeless, lying grotesquely at the bottom of the well — limbs broken, perhaps, the stupid, too youthful finery torn and filthy and blood-stained. And the face, caked with slime and mud and make-up — how did that look now?
There was a glass of water on the small table beside her. She sipped it eagerly, heedless whether it was there for her use or not. The faintness passed, and she relaxed against the hard back of the chair.
‘There were no keys in your aunt’s handbag when we recovered it.’ He said that more gently, but his voice was again brisk and impersonal as he went on, ‘However, this Mrs Donelly should not be hard to find; there can’t be many ladies of that name living in Purley.’ He referred again to the notebook. ‘Mrs Lane was due to catch the six forty-five train from Tanbury
to Victoria, and had ordered a taxi to take her to the station. Six miles — say twenty minutes. The taxi should have been here around six-fifteen. You are certain it was ordered?’
‘Yes. I heard her on the phone about a week ago. But I don’t know where she ordered it from, or whether it arrived. I was out that afternoon.’
‘Did she have an account with a car-hire firm?’
‘I’m sure she didn’t. She always paid cash. She liked handling money.’
He picked up some envelopes from the top of the desk. ‘Are these the only letters that have arrived for her since Thursday?’
‘Yes.’
‘H’m! Personal correspondence only. No bills. Well, it may come on Monday.’ He noticed her obvious bewilderment, and smiled. It was a disarming smile, seeming to change the whole expression and structure of his face. It surprised her almost as much as his words. ‘I was musing aloud. The point is, you see, that if the taxi had to return without a fare the firm will be sending in a bill. They would still charge for the journey.’
‘Yes, I suppose they would.’
‘A bill would have given us the name of the firm. But we can’t wait until Monday; it means checking with all the car-hire firms in the district. What time did the Greens leave the house on Thursday?’
‘Shortly after lunch. I didn’t see them go, but it was certainly before half-past two.’ She paused. ‘Inspector, at what time did my aunt die?’
‘Difficult to say. Late afternoon or early evening is as close as the doctor can put it. It’s two days, you see, and the conditions —’ He decided not to enumerate the various factors governing the cooling of the body; it might distress her. ‘Why, miss?’
‘Well, it just occurred to me that if she was killed before the taxi arrived the — the murderer could have gone back to Tanbury in it. The driver wouldn’t know there was anything wrong. Or — why, it could even have been the taxi-driver himself, couldn’t it?’
He smiled again. I wish he would keep on smiling, she thought. I wouldn’t feel so nervous then.
‘I congratulate you, Miss Messager. Now you know why I am anxious to trace the taxi.’ It sounded sincere; there was no trace of patronage. Then the smile vanished, and a steely ring came into his voice as he said, ‘You went out that afternoon about five o’clock, didn’t you? In response to a telephone message that turned out to be bogus?’
Elizabeth nodded, suddenly frightened. So far it had been easy, far easier than she had dared to expect. He had not badgered her, he had even smiled at her. But now . . .
‘Suppose you tell me about it?’
She told him. It was a rambling, incoherent account with considerable prompting from the Inspector. When it was done he said slowly, ‘Didn’t Mrs Lane object to your going out that afternoon?’
‘Yes. But I couldn’t let my friend down.’
‘Was it a man or a woman on the phone?’
‘A woman, I think. That was what it sounded like; but I suppose it could have been a man. I didn’t recognise the voice.’
He wrote down Valerie’s address, and that of Henry Torreck; she had told him of the intruder Henry had heard in the garden, and of the unlocked back door. Henry and Mrs Green could be expected to mention those facts if he questioned them later; it would be foolish to omit them now. But she did not mention her telephone call to Desmond — and that was a mistake.
He said, those keen eyes of his intent on her face, seeming to mesmerize her, ‘Mrs Green tells me that when she and her husband returned that evening you were talking to some one on the telephone.’
She felt herself flushing. ‘Was I? Oh, yes. I’d just rung up a friend to — to’ — her mind groped wildly — ‘to tell him I was back.’
‘He had expected to see you that evening?’
Had he? She must not go far from the truth; they might question Desmond before she could warn him. ‘Lie only when lies are essential,’ Desmond had said, before wishing her luck as she left him at the gate. ‘Otherwise stick to the truth. It’s safer.’
‘Yes,’ she said. Had she not been out she would have seen him; he had intended giving her a note to put in Aunt Charlotte’s room. ‘And I had promised to meet him the next day. I wanted to check on the time.’
That, too, was true.
He made a note of Desmond’s name and address, and she allowed herself to relax a little, hoping he had not noticed the fright he had given her. But fear was still with her. She had known there would be questions against which she must be on her guard, questions for which she had answers ready. But this had not been one of them. Would there be others equally unexpected, and which she might not be able to parry so successfully?
Pitt began to ask her about the Friday. Elizabeth sat up. She knew what was coming; this was something she could deal with.
‘You were not worried when the telegram arrived that morning?’
‘No,’ she said, and braced herself for the expected ‘Why?’ But it did not come. Instead he said, a hint of laughter in his voice, ‘I’m not surprised. It was, of course, quite obviously bogus.’
Lips parted, she stared at him. How could he know that? He couldn’t know it. He must be guessing, it wasn’t possible that . . .
He was waiting for her to speak. She shook her head, stammering a confused reply. ‘I — I’m not sure that . . .’
She stopped. It was safer to say nothing. Let him think what he liked — she wasn’t going to grope blindly forward into some unknown trap.
‘Don’t tell me I overrated your intelligence, Miss Messager,’ he said quizzically. ‘Mrs Donelly is an elderly lady living, you tell me, in Purley, and anxiously awaiting your aunt’s arrival. But the telegram was handed in at Farringdon Street Post Office at eight twenty-five that morning.’ He paused, allowing his words to sink in. ‘They don’t seem to connect up, do they?’
Elizabeth was seized with a wild spasm of anger. How dared they involve her in this ordeal? Wiser! Safer! What did they know about it, sitting in a hotel room arranging everything so calmly, without a policeman in sight? How would they like to be in her place now — fencing, prevaricating, struggling to fool this unpredictable man who was so much more clever than they? At any moment she would be trapped into bursting the silly, swollen bubble, and he would know her for a liar and a . . .
‘No!’ she said sharply, as much in answer to her thoughts as to his question.
He studied her thoughtfully. Under the scrutiny of those keen eyes she felt her anger and her purpose slowly departing, and she said weakly, ‘I didn’t see the actual telegram. Mrs Green took the message over the phone.’
‘I see. So you believed it to be genuine. Yet you still were not worried?’
That gave her a breather. It was something she had expected, something she knew how to handle. She reeled off the ready-made answer — Aunt Charlotte’s selfishness and lack of consideration for others, her anticipated shopping spree — and felt her confidence slowly return. I’m over the worst now, she thought; it was silly of me to panic. There can’t be much more to come.
When he mentioned the note that Alan had pushed under the front door she tried to laugh it off as she had tried to laugh it off with Ted Williams. She had no way of telling if she had been successful, for he made no comment and his expression did not change.
‘And then you went out?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘With Mr Farrel?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where did you go?’
How on earth could that be important? At least, it was important, because they had gone to get married; but what could that matter to him? How could he expect that her actions on Friday might have a connexion with Aunt Charlotte’s death the day before?
‘To Tanbury. We had lunch there. Then we went for a spin, and later had dinner at the Tower Hotel. It was after eleven when I got back here.’
‘To be told by Mrs Green about the second telegram and the phone call from Mrs Donelly?’
‘Yes.’
<
br /> ‘You really were worried then?’
‘Of course.’
‘So you decided to inform the police — the next morning?’
It did not need the slight pause after ‘police’ to convey his meaning. His voice was suddenly stern, and heavy with sarcasm.
Elizabeth flushed. ‘It was very late,’ she excused herself. And then, remembering, ‘And Green told me he had already spoken to Mr Williams.’
Pitt nodded, as though he had anticipated that explanation. Abruptly he switched to the years before — the death of her parents, her life with Aunt Charlotte. It wasn’t pleasant for Elizabeth, and he seemed to appreciate that. It was almost apologetically that he said, ‘You weren’t happy here after your uncle died?’
‘No,’ she said reluctantly. ‘She wasn’t an easy person to live with.’
‘There was dislike — on both sides?’
‘Yes.’ It was a damning admission to make, but there was no avoiding it. And she could not tell him of that other side of Aunt Charlotte’s character; no one must ever know of that. ‘We just didn’t hit it off, I suppose. It was probably as much my fault as hers.’
Pitt turned his head and nodded, and Elizabeth realized with surprise that she had completely forgotten the presence of the silent constable in the far corner. It was a measure, she thought, of how her attention had been held.
As the constable left the room Pitt said, ‘Constable Drake has been taking note of what you have told me. It will be typed out in the form of a statement, and some time tomorrow afternoon I should like you to call in at the police station and sign it — provided, of course, that you agree with the contents.’ He walked over to the safe and stood looking at it. ‘You haven’t a key to this, I suppose?’
‘No.’
‘Some one has unsuccessfully tried to force it. Did you know that?’
‘Not until Mr Williams pointed it out to me this morning.’
‘Not a very hard nut to tackle, I imagine. Anything of value in it?’
