by J F Straker
‘I don’t know. Aunt Charlotte drew a lot of money out of the bank this week, but I expect she took most of it —’ She paused, remembering that Aunt Charlotte had never gone on that shopping spree. ‘Wasn’t there . . . didn’t you find . . . ?’
He shook his head. ‘No keys, no money. No doubt the killer took those. It may be that Mrs Lane surprised him as he was trying to force the safe and —’ He stopped abruptly. ‘Who were her solicitors?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said again. ‘I think they were a London firm.’
‘Your aunt does not appear to have confided in you over much.’ It was casually said, but somehow the words had a sinister ring. ‘Perhaps with good reason,’ was what they seemed to imply. ‘We may have to force that desk.’
‘I don’t mind,’ she said.
‘Right.’ Officialdom seemed suddenly to drop from him like a cloak. ‘That’s all for tonight, Miss Messager — and thank you. Are you sleeping here?’
She shuddered, appalled by the thought. ‘Oh, no! I’ve got a room at the hotel.’
‘Very sensible. So have I. I’ll send you back in a car.’
She thanked him for his offer, declining it. ‘A friend brought me. He’s waiting outside.’
‘Mr Farrel?’
She nodded, feeling the blush creeping up her neck. Damn! she thought. Why does Desmond’s name keep cropping up? He will begin to think . . .
‘I’d like to meet him,’ Pitt said.
He went out to the hall, and she heard him talking to some one. When he came back he said, ‘You’ll be wanting a few things for the night, eh?’ Elizabeth hesitated. She wanted them, but she dreaded the thought of going upstairs . . . passing Aunt Charlotte’s door. Noting her hesitation, he said gently, ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of, you know. It is just as it was, you’ll see nothing to distress you. But if you’re nervous Constable Drake can go with you.’
‘Thank you,’ she said gratefully, surprised that he could be so genial, so — so fatherly.
‘Just the essentials, eh? You can collect the rest tomorrow. You have a key? Good. We’ll see the Greens off the premises before we leave — they’re not staying either, I’m told — and lock up. No need for you to worry. But I’ll keep the back-door key for a day or two if you’ve no objection.’
He ushered her into the hall. She had a brief glimpse of Desmond staring at her from the sitting-room, and then she was walking behind Constable Drake along the narrow passage. As she passed the kitchen door she noticed that it was slowly opening.
She turned her head and went quickly up the stairs. Mrs Green could do her gloating without her.
Inspector Pitt liked the look of Desmond Farrel. The Inspector was wont to class all young men who wore drainpipe trousers and Edwardian-style jackets as Teddy Boys, and to dismiss them from his esteem forthwith. But this young man looked clean and healthy. His hair, although overlong, was not cut in some preposterous, outlandish fashion. Nor did he wear a string tie.
‘This is a nasty business, Mr Farrel,’ Pitt said pleasantly. ‘Shaken you all up a bit, I dare say.’
‘It has indeed.’ Desmond smiled faintly. ‘It’s rather out of our line.’
‘It would be. Did you know Mrs Lane well?’
‘No, I didn’t. Hardly at all, in fact, although I used to see her about the village occasionally.’
‘But you are a friend of her niece?’
‘Yes.’ Desmond tugged nervously at his ear. ‘I know it sounds odd, Inspector, but Miss Messager’s friends weren’t welcome here. I don’t think there was anything personal in it; Mrs Lane just didn’t like her niece to have friends. She was — well, difficult.’
‘So I’ve gathered,’ Pitt said. ‘It doesn’t seem to have been a happy association.’
‘That’s putting it mildly. I can’t speak from first-hand knowledge, of course, but from what Elizabeth has told me her life must have been absolute hell.’
‘It’s over now,’ Pitt said. ‘Did you call at this house Thursday afternoon or evening, Mr Farrel?’
The suddenness of the question took Desmond by surprise — as it was intended to do.
‘No. I hardly ever came to the house. I thought I’d explained that.’
‘Ah, yes. But you telephoned Miss Messager that evening?’
‘Did I?’ What had Elizabeth said? He had told her to stick as closely as possible to the truth. ‘No, I think it was the other way round. She rang me.’
‘Did she mention Mrs Lane at all?’
Desmond shook his head. Safer to be vague. However had this damned telephone call managed to crop up?
‘Honestly, Inspector, I can’t remember. She may have done. It was just a casual conversation. I think we made a date for the next day. Yesterday.’
There were footsteps on the stairs.
‘That’ll be Miss Messager,’ Pitt said, leading the way out of the room. ‘She’s been packing. Good night, Mr Farrel, and thank you. I expect I’ll be seeing you at the hotel.’
When they had gone he stood for a while in the narrow hall, pulling thoughtfully at his lower lip with finger and thumb.
‘I wonder,’ he said softly. ‘It could be.’
Sergeant Watkins came out from the kitchen, closing the door behind him. He was a square, tough-looking young man with carroty hair and an amiable face smothered in freckles. He played lock forward for the county, and had already collected a Welsh trial cap.
‘All ship-shape out back, sir,’ he said cheerfully. The ‘sir’ was accorded more on account of the Inspector’s age than his rank. Jim Watkins was no respecter of rank. ‘Got rid of your girl friend, I see. Anything doing?’
‘Romance,’ Pitt said. ‘Is that in your line at all, Jim?’
‘Not exactly. I work on a less exalted plane.’ He grinned. ‘Even so, I have my moments. Why?’
‘She rang him up Thursday evening as soon as she got back. She was out with him until nearly midnight yesterday, and again today. What does that suggest to you?’
‘Looks like he’s getting it regular,’ the Sergeant said coarsely. ‘Think they were in it together?’
‘I don’t know.’ Pitt was used to Jim Watkins’ one-track mind. He had known him since he was a kid, had pounded a beat with the boy’s father. ‘But the aunt didn’t like him, wouldn’t have him in the house.’ He snapped his fingers, as though reaching a decision. ‘Is the gardener still here?’
‘In the kitchen with his missus. They’re rarin’ to go. The old lady has made so many pots of tea, every time one of ‘em moves it sounds like the tide coming in.’
‘Tell her to make another. I want a word with her husband.’
* * *
Walter Green was not happy. He had had time for reflection. Charlotte Lane’s murder had done more than set his wife’s tongue wagging and her ears pricking; it had put paid to his job. The niece wouldn’t keep him on; not after that scene this morning. And full-time gardeners weren’t much in demand in Milford now; it would mean jobbing work . . . or the council . . . or maybe the building lark. He realised now that he had been well off with Mrs Lane. She had had her tantrums and her funny ways, but often she never came into the garden for days on end. The money had been regular, and he knew where he was. And there’d been pickings.
As a matter of routine Pitt took him through the statement he had previously made to Constable Williams. Then he said casually, ‘Were there many visitors to the house?’
Green shook his head. ‘Not during the day there wasn’t. I wouldn’t know about the evenings, not being here.’
‘Miss Messager is an attractive young woman.’ Pitt forced his face into what he imagined to be a leer. He should have left this to Jim Watkins, he thought regretfully.
‘Didn’t the lads of the village take her out?’
‘They may have took her out, but they didn’t come to the house. They didn’t dare. Mrs Lane would have sent ‘em packing.’
‘So you have never seen Miss Messager with a young man?’
&nb
sp; ‘Not as I can think on. Leastways —’
He paused. ‘Yes?’ prompted Pitt.
‘Well, there was a morning last week when she come up from the river through the copse. I reckon she’d been down there with young Mr Farrel. I seen his Wolseley in the lane a few minutes later.’
Farrel again! Concealing his elation, Pitt got rid of the man and sent for his wife.
Mrs Green came into the room bearing a cup of tea in one hand and a tin of biscuits in the other. She was gracious and eager and verbose; this was her day, and she intended not to waste a moment of it. Having delivered herself of her offerings, she settled herself uncomfortably on the edge of a chair and prepared — almost demanded — to be interviewed.
Pitt found it an exhausting business, and was glad of the tea. Mrs Green’s replies were far from brief. They wandered here, there, and everywhere; when he brought her up short with a question she listened politely, straining to be off again. And off again she was, almost before he had finished speaking. But through all her verbal meanderings one theme was nakedly obvious — her dislike of Elizabeth Messager.
At last even her tap ran dry. The silence fell like a blessed relief on the Inspector’s tortured ears.
‘Another cup of tea, sir?’ she suggested. ‘There’s plenty more in the pot.’
He refused hastily, fearful that further refreshment might set her off again. ‘It’s late,’ he said. ‘You’ll want to be getting home. I’ll arrange for a car to take you.’
She thanked him, rose regretfully from her perch, and picked up the cup and saucer and the tin. The certainty that she was actually on her way encouraged Pitt to say, ‘One way or another, Mrs Green, you’ve painted a not very pleasant picture of Miss Messager. I’m surprised. She seems a nice young woman to me.’
‘You’re a man,’ Mrs Green said, as though that bald fact explained everything. ‘Mind you, I’m not saying she’s down-right wicked’ — she had been saying little else for the past half-hour ‘but she’s thoughtless and ungrateful. She didn’t treat her aunt fair, and that’s a fact. Not even after she was dead she didn’t.’
Since only a short while before Pitt had seen Elizabeth Messager alive and well, he was able to interpret correctly the intended meaning of this ambiguous last statement.
‘How could that be, Mrs Green?’ he asked.
‘Well, Mrs Lane told me herself as how Miss Elizabeth had given her her word she wouldn’t go out of an evening while she was away. And yet no sooner was her poor aunt’s back turned —’ Mrs Green paused, flustered, remembering that Charlotte Lane’s back had not been turned, it had been dropped down a well. Recovering, she went on, ‘That very same evening, sir, she didn’t come home till close on ten, it must have been. And she left the back door open, which was a wicked thing to do, this house being so far from the village and —’
‘How do you know she left it open?’
‘Because it was open when me and my husband come in. Miss Elizabeth said it wasn’t her as done it, but who else could it have been? I reckon she left it that way when she went out, so’s she could get in again. Mrs Lane never would give her a latch-key. She didn’t think it right, she said, for a young girl like her to have one.’
‘Miss Messager tells me her aunt gave her a latch-key that afternoon, before she left,’ Pitt said.
‘Give it her, eh?’ The woman snorted. ‘Well, that’s one way of putting it, maybe.’
The Inspector decided that Mrs Green would not make a very reliable witness where the girl was concerned. But he could not refrain from remarking, ‘So Miss Messager didn’t treat her aunt fairly, eh? But Mrs Lane, I suppose, was kindness itself?’
Sarcasm was wasted on Mrs Green. ‘She had her difficult moments,’ she admitted. (‘Never speak ill of the dead’ was an injunction as sacred to Mrs Green’s narrow soul as the Ten Commandments.) ‘Eggsentrick, you might say. There was them as couldn’t abide her.’ Forgetful of the cup and saucer in its grip, she extended her right hand impressively towards him in a dramatic gesture. The cup swayed precariously. ‘But she was goodness itself to Miss Elizabeth. Doted on her, she did, and that’s a fact.’
* * *
It was past midnight when the two detectives returned to the hotel, but they found Desmond waiting up for them. ‘I thought you’d be wanting a drink,’ he said. ‘It must have been quite a day.’
Pitt admitted that he could do with a whisky and water, and they went into the bar. The Sergeant settled for a beer.
‘On me,’ Desmond said, helping himself to a whisky.
He tried to pump them about the murder, but they evaded his questions.
After ten minutes of desultory conversation Jim Watkins finished his beer, stood up and stretched himself lazily, and said, ‘I’m for hitting the hay.’
As they left the bar Desmond said, ‘Any news of the picture?’
‘What picture?’ asked the Sergeant.
‘The portrait of Mrs Lane. It used to hang in front of the safe in her study. Miss Messager said it was missing. It seems an odd thing for some one to steal.’
Pitt nodded.
‘It wasn’t stolen, Mr Farrel,’ he said. ‘Whoever murdered Mrs Lane obviously hated the sight of her. He couldn’t even abide her picture. He threw it down the well after her.’
‘Good Lord!’
‘It does seem rather an exaggerated expression of dislike, doesn’t it?’ murmured the Sergeant, yawning.
Chapter Seven
Fear on the Common
Henry Torreck leaned forward to knock the bowl of his pipe against the brick fireplace. A little shower of burnt tobacco fell into the tiled hearth.
‘You’ve been listening to village gossip, Inspector,’ he said, reproachfully but without anger.
Inspector Pitt admitted the truth of the accusation.
‘I don’t like it any more than you do, Mr Torreck, but it’s part of the job. And we don’t believe all we hear; don’t believe any of it unless it has been checked and confirmed. Just occasionally we get something useful from it.’ He looked round the untidy, comfortable sitting-room, with its worn armchairs and carpet and the table littered with books and papers and empty teacups; bare of ornament and frills, a room lived in and not fussed over, a room ordered into disorder by men. It had an odour of dust and tobacco and, oddly enough, linseed oil; and through the half-open door came the all-pervading smell of boiling cabbage. ‘Just what happened to make you so bitter against Charlotte Lane, Mr Torreck?’
The other sucked strongly at his empty pipe. ‘You’ll have heard it all in the village,’ he said, and sucked again.
‘Maybe. But I’d like to hear it from you.’
Torreck shrugged. ‘No reason why you shouldn’t, if you’ve time to waste.’
All his working life, he said, had been spent in the employ of William Lane and Son, a firm of timber merchants two miles the other side of Wendingham; from junior clerk he had risen to become general manager and a trusted friend of the boss, Edward Lane. Charlotte West had been Lane’s secretary, and a thorn in the manager’s side — ‘efficient, but a damned sight too bossy; always trying to give me the run-around’ —and it had been a blow to Torreck when Edward Lane had suddenly married her and the couple had gone to live at The Elms. ‘I still can’t fathom what made him do it,’ Torreck confessed. ‘She was in her late forties, and no beauty. But he always was an odd chap; suspicious and a bit tight-fisted — but fair, very fair. I got along with him fine. We trusted each other, and if a difference of opinion cropped up we thrashed it out on the spot and promptly forgot it.’ He sighed. ‘They were good days.’
‘His marriage changed him, eh?’
‘Not him. He was as much the boss at home as he was at the yard. Charlotte got no change out of him. She liked me no more than I liked her; but she knew Edward looked on me as a friend, and she didn’t dare show her dislike in front of him. I spent a lot of time at The Elms. My wife had been dead some years, and Alan was away at boarding-school.
‘Some years after their marriage Charlotte’s niece came to live with them; the girl’s parents had been killed in a road accident. She was a nice kid — she and Alan got on fine together. That was six years ago; Elizabeth was thirteen then, three years younger than Alan. The boy practically lived at The Elms during the holidays. Alan being my son, Charlotte tended to ignore him; but I dare say she was glad to have some one around to keep Elizabeth amused.
‘Edward took a fancy to Alan. When the boy left school he offered to send him to Oxford — knowing, of course, that I couldn’t afford it.’
‘That wasn’t the action of a tight-fisted man,’ Pitt remarked.
‘No. Tight-fisted wasn’t the right word,’ the other admitted. ‘I should have said he was careful with money. He hated to see it wasted, and I guess he didn’t think sending Alan to Oxford would be a waste. And he did more. Shortly after that he told me he’d be making me a partner in the firm at the end of the year.’ He sighed. ‘Two months later he was dead. He was talking to one of the men in the yard, and suddenly collapsed. He died the next day.’
‘With nothing sealed or signed, I suppose,’ Pitt said. ‘You didn’t get your partnership?’
‘I did not. I got the sack instead. She didn’t waste any time over it, either. Some of the men walked out in sympathy; but that didn’t worry Charlotte, and it didn’t help me.’
‘What happened to the business?’
‘She sold it. I tried to get a job with the chap who bought it, but there was nothing doing. I’ve a shrewd idea that Charlotte had taken care of that.’
‘But why? What made her so vindictive?’
‘She was Edward’s wife, but she could never get close to him; he made it plain that he preferred my company to hers. Charlotte hated that; she was the sort of person who had to be first in any relationship. But she wasn’t first with Edward, and she blamed me for it.’
Looking at the grizzled, lined face opposite him, Pitt felt sorry for the man. Torreck was fifty-six, but he looked much older. No doubt the events of these last few years had helped to age him.
