A Painted Devil

by Jamie Probin

  It was true that Mrs Wall could not tell him of a single person who had paid with a five pound note during the previous week, because she could in fact remember several people who had. With commendable honestly she confessed she could not be sure she had not forgotten anyone, but she felt certain that her memory was not astray in listing Andrea Ketterman, Agatha Stretham, Catherine Bowes and Richard Carmichael as all having used a five pound note during the last seven days. She commented that it began to stick in her memory, since it was a greater quantity of five pound notes than she would normally expect to receive in a week. Hollingsworth thanked Mrs Wall and took his leave to make contact with the local constable, a PC Smethurst, whom he had wired earlier.

  Hollingsworth faced a quandary: The chief constable had managed to keep the Metropole murder as merely a ‘minor incident’ as far as the public were concerned, and it had warranted minimal press coverage before vanishing altogether. He doubted many of the public would even remember the supposed suicide now, outside of Upper Wentham at least, and none were aware of a potential murder investigation.

  Hollingsworth liked it when murderers thought they had successfully avoided detection. This murderer had tried to make his handiwork look like suicide, and must now believe that he had succeeded. Furthermore he was, it seemed, unaware of any trace on the banknotes in his possession, and therefore the possibility remained that he could be ‘caught in the act’ one day.

  A murderer who has dropped his guard, and might be induced to give himself away with a careless act or word, was the only type of murderer Hollingsworth could feel positive about. His instinct was to maintain the status quo and hope that his quarry might fall into such a trap. However with no other leads at all, and the realistic possibility that no more may be forthcoming, he had to play his trump card now. No matter how innocently the question was phrased, if one of the people he spoke to were the murderer, or a knowing accomplice, then they would immediately realise that the money they had was traceable, and that the police were still investigating the case. Their guard would be back up, and the money would be removed from circulation.

  There seemed no other option though; and besides, Hollingsworth consoled himself, there were some murderers who were more likely to give themselves away when on their guard than when relaxed. Some murderers were too clever for their own good and, when threatened, could not resist returning to action in order to complicate the trail. And when Hollingsworth thought back to the scene in the Metropole, he thought he saw the fingerprints of a criminal who was indeed too clever for his own good.

  PC Smethurst turned out to be an enthusiastic individual of quite astonishing height. Many country policeman, in Hollingsworth’s experience, joined the force for a quiet life of respectable importance. Smethurst, however, seemed to have signed up with the conviction that it could only be a matter of time before a case came his way, the magnitude of which would make Jack the Ripper look like a petty miscreant.

  As soon as Hollingsworth mentioned the Metropole murder, the young man’s eyes almost jumped from their sockets and he seemed quite put out at Hollingsworth’s insistence on a cup of tea before venturing forth to talk to the list of interviewees.

  Although two months had passed since he had met her at the Metropole, thoughts of “better the devil you know” passed through Hollingsworth’s mind as he and Smethurst walked to see Andrea Ketterman first. The young lady lived in a modest cottage, where the door was opened by a formidable lady.

  ‘You must be Miss Ketterman’s aunt,’ smiled Hollingsworth warmly.

  ‘I’m Laura Debney, yes,’ came the suspicious reply.

  ‘Is Andrea in, Mrs Debney?’ chipped in Smethurst.

  Suddenly the old lady thawed and smiled at the constable.

  ‘Oh hello Gerald, I didn’t notice you there.’ Hollingsworth wondered how it was possible to miss the gigantic frame of the young man, and he wondered if the lintel of the front door hid his face from the inside. ‘I’ll just call her for you.’

  Moments later the demure figure of Andrea Ketterman entered the cosy living room.

  ‘Detective Inspector Hollingsworth!’

  Hollingsworth smiled cheerfully and bowed with a touch of irony.

  ‘A pleasure to meet you once again Miss Ketterman.’

  ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ She looked at him in amazement, which quickly turned to suspicion. ‘Is this about Ronald? Surely the police do not investigate suicides this thoroughly?’

  Hollingsworth had given much thought to this interview. In general his questions about the banknotes would sound completely innocuous to anyone, except of course the murderer. But Andrea Ketterman knew that he was in charge of the Metropole investigation and, moreover, he had already observed that she was not stupid. She would quickly realise that all was not as it seemed, and in a village like Upper Wentham that would mean it would be less than three hours before the murderer knew that his handiwork had been detected. Andrea Ketterman was the one person he needed to have a good explanation for, and he had decided that something very close to the truth was the best policy.

  ‘The thing is, Miss Ketterman, we now doubt that the motive for Mr Asbury’s suicide was your rejection.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘We think it was blackmail.’

  Hollingsworth proceeded to explain how Ronald Asbury closed his account, withdrawing the entire balance in cash, the disappearance of all that money and how two of the banknotes had been traced back to Upper Wentham since the suicide. Most of the tale was exactly as it happened, and no doubt the streets of the village would soon buzz with the rumour that a blackmailer lived amongst them – but at least the idea of murder should be absent.

  ‘And how can I help you?’

  Hollingsworth swallowed and tried to ignore his instinct to keep his cards tight to his chest.

  ‘Mrs Wall informed me that during the last week several people paid with a five pound note. Your name was one that she mentioned. Could you tell me where you obtained that note?’

  Andrea looked taken aback. Then her eyes narrowed.

  ‘You mean, did I have one of the notes than Mr Asbury withdrew from his bank? Really inspector, surely you are not accusing me of blackmailing the man whose proposal I turned down?’

  Hollingsworth shrugged. He noticed that her emotions were less raw than during their last meeting. She had obviously come to terms with her ex-suitor’s death.

  ‘To be honest with you Miss Ketterman, I doubt that very much. But you see I have a list of people who might be the blackmailer, and I have to assume that the culprit will not tell me the truth when I ask him or her. So the best plan is to get the truth from everyone else until I only have one suspect left.’

  Andrea melted as quickly as she had frozen.

  ‘How clever you are detective inspector. Did I really pay with a five pound note? Gosh, I don’t remember having such a large… oh, wait! Yes, I do remember. About a fortnight ago I had to visit Cheltenham and I feared I might miss the train back, so I withdrew five pounds in case I needed a taxi. In the end I caught the train quite easily, so I still had the note. I really don’t like having such large amounts of money on me, so Mrs Wall kindly let me use it even though I was only buying some stamps.’

  ‘Where did you withdraw the note?’

  She told him the name of a well-known bank, whose branch in Farringham held her account.

  So, thought Hollingsworth to himself as he walked to the home of Agatha Stretham, he could see three possibilities resulting from his interview with Andrea Ketterman.

  The first – and most likely, he supposed – was that Miss Ketterman’s note was not the one that alerted Percy Greenspan, and thus irrelevant to the case.

  The second was that Andrea Ketterman was lying to him, and had actually received the money directly from Ronald Asbury; if this were true she would probably also be his murderer, or at least an accomplice.

  Thirdly it was possible that she had been truthful, and yet
the note was the one for which he searched. In that case, the person who originally received the money then paid it into Andrea Ketterman’s bank, where it stayed (unnoticed by the tellers – not every bank can have a Percy Greenspan on its staff) until withdrawn by Andrea.

  The saving grace to all these theories was that each originated from the same, as-yet-incontrovertible fact: that whoever received the money from Ronald Asbury, whether by theft or blackmail, must live in, or at least spend time around, Upper Wentham. Furthermore, since Hollingsworth was not prepared to believe that a murder occurred entirely unrelated to these events, then the murderer must also be closely linked to Upper Wentham. The result of this was that the motive for Ronald Asbury’s murder must lie somewhere in the people and history of the village through which he now walked. It was, he admitted, still possible that the five pound note was given freely by Ronald Asbury to someone quite innocent, and was unrelated to the murder, but Hollingsworth very much doubted it. In any case he had no other possibilities to explore, and would be focussing his investigation in the village of Upper Wentham unless subsequent evidence pointed elsewhere.

  PC Smethurst interrupted his thoughts to announce they had reached the home of the second person on their list.

  The quaint cottage of Agatha Stretham matched its owner perfectly. One look at the fragile frame of the eighty-two year old was enough to convince Hollingsworth that his list of suspects had decreased by one,

  Nevertheless he found himself powerless to resist her determination to install him in her living room (quite the daintiest room Hollingsworth had ever seen) and ply him with tea and crumpets that had a suspicious smell of mothballs about them. After several aborted attempts to retract his explanation for his presence, he accepted his lot and listened to a lengthy monologue recounting how Mrs Stretham had needed to exchange a five pound note for five one pound notes in the Dr Barnardo’s charity box. This would have been tedious enough by itself, without the constant random tales of various nieces and nephews interspersed with no obvious reason.

  After rejecting a third cup of tea Hollingsworth managed to finally take his leave, before the name of yet another in a seemingly interminable line of great-grandchildren could be smuggled into the conversation.

  Chapter 7

  Hollingsworth scowled at PC Smethurst as they made their way to the next port of call. Smethurst was well aware of the nature of the investigation, and Hollingsworth felt it would not have been too much trouble for him to suggest discounting Mrs Stretham from the interview schedule. A degree of enthusiasm was always commendable in young constables, but if the young man had genuinely envisioned Mrs Stretham jumping on a train down to Southampton, shooting Ronald Asbury, dragging his body to the bed and then hopping back on the train in time for her afternoon nap, then he was worryingly delusional. At one point during their visit Mrs Stretham had nearly choked to death on a jam tart; Hollingsworth felt that any person in a case who cannot even be certain of surviving afternoon tea, could probably be safely discharged from suspicion. In fact, he considered, one of the greatest mysteries of the case may prove to be how on earth the old lady had made it to Mrs Wall’s shop and back without shuffling off her mortal coil.

  By this point Hollingsworth was also irritated at himself for ignoring Smethurst’s suggestion that they drive to the house of Catherine Bowes. He was firmly of the opinion that walking is good for helping arrange one’s thoughts, but he had not appreciated just how far from the village centre the house was, nor quite how warm the day was becoming.

  ‘Here we are sir.’

  Hollingsworth looked where his colleague was indicating, and saw an enormous manor house rising imperiously from perfectly manicured lawns. For a moment the inspector’s brain could not quite make sense of what he was seeing, such was the colossal scale of the building. On either side of the wrought iron gates stood thick walls a good eight feet high, yet they were almost inconsequential in comparison. Hollingsworth had never seen a house so huge, and the idea of someone who frequented the village shop living here seemed utterly incongruous. Then he realised that Smethurst was not pointing at the manor house, but slightly past the gates, and on further analysis he saw the small lodge set just inside.

  ‘That’s Blackwood Manor,’ explained Smethurst, indicating (somewhat unnecessarily) the gigantic edifice beyond. ‘It belongs to our local squire, Sir George Wentworth. Miss Bowes’ sister married Sir George, and he gave her the Lodge here to live in.’

  The name of Sir George Wentworth caused a vague recollection in the back of Hollingsworth’s mind, but he could not take his attention from the gothic monolith before him. The manor sprawled leisurely across the grounds with no necessity of consideration for space. In comparison, the lodge looked like a child’s dollhouse; yet when the men reached its door it revealed itself to be a substantial house in its own right. It was, reflected Hollingsworth, almost twice the size of his own modest cottage.

  ‘I don’t mean to be rude, sir,’ said Smethurst, ‘but I think you may get a better reception alone from Miss Bowes. She doesn’t like me very much.’

  ‘She doesn’t?’

  ‘No. Last year she wanted me to arrest a young man from the village, Tom Gaines, whom she accused of trying to break into her house.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Well, for one thing, no one actually got into the house, although there were definite signs of attempted entry. And for another there was no evidence whatsoever of it being Tom Gaines. She just accused him because she dislikes him.’

  Hollingsworth dismissed Smethurst accordingly and rapped firmly on the front door of the lodge.

  The thick oak door creaked open in response, revealing a plump, middle-aged woman with rosy cheeks and a stern expression.

  ‘Is Miss Bowes at home?’ inquired Hollingsworth, correctly surmising that this was not she.

  The woman looked at him coldly.

  ‘She’s about to take her morning nap,’ she said, as if only an idiot would not know this. ‘I’m Mrs Dale. What do you want?’

  ‘I won’t keep her long. My name is Detective Inspector Hollingsworth.’

  The policeman found that this kind of slightly melodramatic disclosure of his profession typically inspired a mixture of awe and fear in the class to which Mrs Dale belonged, but in this case the woman at the door did not flinch. Her eyes showed an awareness that she could not win the battle of wills, but this only served to make her attitude more hostile.

  ‘What do the police want with Miss Bowes, I’d like to know? You’d better not go upsetting her. She’s sensitive.’

  ‘I’ll be gentle,’ smiled Hollingsworth. His manner remained affably calm, and showed no signs of friction.

  If anything, his refusal to return her hostility antagonised Mrs Dale even further. She was the kind of woman who loved nothing more than a good argument, preferably one in which she could seize a perceived high moral ground and rain guilt down on her opponent. It irritated her that this policeman was not becoming officious in the face of her brusque attitude. She scowled at him as she retreated inside the house.

  Inside, the true size of the Lodge became even clearer. The broad, high-ceilinged parlour was twice the size of the largest room in Hollingsworth’s house, and he estimated there were perhaps twice the number of rooms. He thought back to his initial notion from the road that the Lodge was a small building. Seeing it now made him realise just how enormous Blackwood Manor must be.

  The parlour of the Lodge was sparsely decorated, but with an elegance which suggested that taste, and not lack of money, had dictated the minimal furnishing. A large oil painting of a mountain lake hung above the fireplace and drew an admiring glance from Hollingsworth. His attention was then attracted to a welsh dresser, adorned with willow-patterned plates, on which stood two large frames containing photographs.

  The picture on the right showed a slender, young girl with a face that was both very pretty and yet inherently sad. Her thick blond hair cascaded around
her delicate shoulders, and framed her sharp, angular features. She posed against a background of a clear lake with stunning mountains rising beyond, and yet she was the most beautiful part of the scene. The second photograph showed the same girl, slightly younger but with her face just as attractive and her eyes just as sad, standing beside another woman. This second woman was stockier, with softer features, but unmistakeably related to the girl in some way. “Older sister” was Hollingsworth’s guess, and he turned out to be right.

  ‘My sister was a pretty young thing wasn’t she?’

  He turned to see Mrs Dale pushing a wheelchair through the wide doorframe. The woman seated in the chair, although now much older, was obviously the elder girl from the latter photograph.

  Hollingsworth groaned inwardly at the realisation that this was Catherine Bowes. He was now three quarters of the way through his list of people from Mrs Wall. The first was already definitively associated with the investigation, and it seemed impossible Andrea Ketterman would take money from Ronald Asbury in a way that her presence at the Metropole was so evident, then voluntarily return to the scene with the police present. Next on the list was the frailest old lady he had met in his life, and now he was confronted by a woman confined to a wheelchair. Was someone having a joke with him? Surely one of the people to have used a five pound note at Mrs Wall’s shop would at least prove physically capable of the murder of Ronald Asbury?

  ‘Thank you Maureen.’

  The woman’s words were pleasant but firm. Mrs Dale accepted her dismissal unhappily.

  ‘Make it quick,’ she told Hollingsworth, frostily, ‘and don’t upset her.’

  The woman in the wheelchair smiled at Hollingsworth.

  ‘Hello detective inspector, I’m Catherine Bowes. Don’t mind Mrs Dale. She is devoted to me, but perhaps a little overprotective at times.’

  Hollingsworth smiled back, and looked back at the photograph.

  ‘Your sister is certainly beautiful, Mrs Bowes.’