A Country Way of Death (The Inspector Felix Mysteries Book 4)

by R. A. Bentley

  'Ugh! That's horrid!'

  'There's a lot more where that came from, believe me.'

  'Do you mean to say you've seen other letters like this one,' frowned Lavinia.

  'Lord, yes! If the case is lurid enough you'll often get several. Mostly they're time-wasters. This is different, of course. I don't remember another from the victim.'

  'Whoever it was died of natural causes anyway,' said Rattigan.

  'That at least seems clear enough,' agreed Miles. 'Or it's what he wanted us to believe. There's nothing to suggest he meant Baverstock, but who else would it be? It also implies he was a witness to it; unless he was trying to defend someone.'

  'Perhaps the lady in the case?' said Connie delicately.

  'Who seduced him,' said Daisy.

  'Daisy Felix! What do you know about it?' demanded Lavinia.

  'Well she did, didn't she? She tempted and ensnared him and he had a conscience about it. That's plain enough.'

  'There are other lusts of the flesh, you know,' chuckled Miles. 'However, you may be right.'

  'Don't forget there's money involved,' said Rattigan. 'He could as easily have lusted after that. He's lifted the gold and silver quote verbatim, or so I should imagine, which suggests it was important to him.'

  'Maybe they stole it from Baverstock?' suggested Daisy. 'He died and they pinched it.'

  Connie nodded her agreement. 'The thing he couldn't take with him.'

  'There seems to be more than one party involved, though,' cautioned Rattigan. 'As I read it, the gold and silver belongs or belonged to them, not Baverstock, who according to Sir Rupert was penniless. Whoever they were, Rowsell didn't like them, that's pretty clear.'

  'I don't think he cared much for Baverstock either,' said Daisy, 'what with the smiting and all. He doesn't seem to have liked any of them.'

  'Don't forget that if he'd troubled to use them, the biblical references would have been in quotation marks,' said Miles. 'You mightn't be expected to take them entirely literally. The gold and silver quote could as well refer to just one person. It was just the closest he could get.'

  'You know, if he'd come to me, I should probably have referred him to an alienist,' said Roger. 'The chap sounds mentally ill, or brewing up for a breakdown.'

  The family having left them in peace, Miles and Rattigan took out their pipes.

  'I suppose they'll be discreet?' said Rattigan diffidently.

  'The girls? Heavens yes. Connie would never say anything, and Daisy's been trained from the cradle. If people knew what was said at a doctor's table they'd be horrified.'

  Rattigan chuckled. 'I can believe it. Breach births with your lunch.'

  'Oh, you get the lot, all the ills that man is heir to. Puts you off your feed sometimes. Fascinating though.'

  'You never fancied medicine yourself?'

  'No, I was always more attracted to the humanities. That's not to say it hasn't been extremely useful on occasion. What have we got?'

  Rattigan sighed and opened his notebook. 'All rather woolly, isn't it? Suspicion, speculation and hearsay. Apart from the murder, of course, and nothing very concrete on that so far.'

  'And the killing of the dog. Not that I'm equating them. It'd be hard to convince me they're not connected, although we can't assume it absolutely.'

  'And another death by natural causes, if we're to believe it.'

  'I'm inclined to do so. Or at any rate, Rowsell probably did. However, if it's Baverstock he's talking about, and presumably it is, what would kill a man of twenty-two that could be mistaken for murder? That's what he was telling us presumably: it might have appeared to be murder but it wasn't.'

  Rattigan pulled forward the letter. '"I was not the instrument of his death, nor was any man,"' he quoted. 'Perhaps suggesting there was more than one possible suspect, apart from himself?'

  'You could interpret it like that. So here we have master Baverstock, struck down in the flower of his youth by some act of God . . .'

  'And not in his bed, since he was seen to leave the Hall.'

  'Well, we're told he was. We'll need to check that. Anyway, he dies, and cannot therefore continue with his plans. What were his plans?'

  'To marry Ellen. And Ellen didn't know where he'd gone.'

  'Unless, of course, she was lying. No, that won't wash; she went to her grave, poor girl, still hoping he'd come back.'

  'We've only got Miss Pruitt's word for that.'

  'True.'

  'And he didn't necessarily die in Bettishaw.'

  'Also true. But I think we have to assume for now that he did. He died and presumably was surreptitiously buried. Why would they do that?'

  'To create the impression that he was still alive and had simply gone away.'

  'Yes, it has to be that doesn't it? Or at least to make it impossible to prove otherwise. With no corpse and the likelihood he'd done a bunk they'd have known the police would give up eventually.'

  'Sounds like the Godwinstowe case; except that one wasn't planned.' Rattigan puffed thoughtfully at his pipe. 'Of course, this mightn't have been either. They might simply have planted him in a panic. What if . . .' he began. 'Hmm no, that's no good. It's quite difficult, when you think about it, to confuse natural causes with murder. There's poisoning I suppose.'

  'Yes, it could be that. Not much else, I agree. No, wait! Perhaps we're misleading ourselves. Not natural causes but an accident.'

  Rattigan looked doubtful. 'Would that count as smitten by God though?'

  'I don't see why not. It probably would to Rowsell anyway, especially if he didn't approve of Baverstock. How about this? Baverstock accidentally shoots himself, or meets with some other fatal accident that looks suspiciously like murder. Someone has threatened or spoken against him and here he is, dead.'

  'Bringing us nicely back to the message on Ellen's carol-service score.'

  'Quite so. Under some circumstances it might be hard to get out of that. One can imagine a court being convinced of the threatener's guilt; or at the least he'd have trouble proving his innocence. Someone says, "Don't worry, old chap, we'll dispose of the body and people will think he's cleared off. No-one need ever know."'

  'Yes, although in that case several people must have been involved.'

  'Because of all the carrying and digging? There may well have been. But however many there were, Rowsell's part in it seems to have been critical. He's somehow induced to keep quiet and for whatever reason suffers from a guilty conscience. Eventually, perhaps, he shows signs of being a nuisance and has to be eliminated, suggesting, of course, that the threatener is still around.'

  'Or one of his pals. But if Rowsell was able to show that our threatener didn't, in fact, murder Baverstock, would they have wanted him dead? It'd be a bit foolhardy, wouldn't it? Especially if he was the only witness, which he might have been.'

  'That's a good point,' admitted Miles. 'Go on.'

  'Well, that's it really. Except – and here's another thing – if he, or someone, could show the threatener was innocent, why all the secrecy? Maybe there was something else involved. If you look at the legal and ethical aspects of it – of concealing a death, that is – no-one appears to have suffered directly but Ellen Titmus, who's been gone twenty years. You might not want it known about, even after all this time, but would you really kill someone to keep it quiet? Unless our murderer was being improbably clever, the risk of getting caught was considerable, and with the inevitability of bringing us into it. Seems to me there must have been some other illegality involved, possibly much more serious, and with the urgent need to get rid of Rowsell before he talked.'

  Miles nodded thoughtfully. 'Yes, soundly argued. And if there was something else, that's perhaps where the gold and silver come in. They surely must do, in some way or other.'

  'Smells of Sir Rupert to me,' averred Rattigan, sitting back. 'Best arrest him now.' The two men began to laugh.

  'That's quite an edifice we've built, even by our standards,' said Miles, knocking out his
pipe. 'I wonder how much of it is true?'

  'Maybe none of it,' admitted Rattigan. 'But none of it's impossible either.'

  'Well, talking of Sir Rupert, I'd say our next job is to try and reconstruct Baverstock's last hours, which makes Bettishaw Hall our first port of call.' He paused for thought. 'No it isn't. I'll tell you what we'll do; we'll talk to Josie Clement. We need her statement anyway and she told me in the Bell that she worked at the Hall before she was married. She also dated Rowsell then.'

  'Did she now! When was that?'

  'Not sure. But given they're the same age it might just have been at the right time. Also, as you rightly pointed out, she could have done it.'

  'Only theoretically. What would be her motive?'

  'I can't imagine, unless she and Rowsell were somehow involved in the Baverstock affair. It's hard to imagine a woman you've know half your life bashing a man over the head in cold blood, but I'm reminded that they stun the pigs with a hammer before they cut their throats. It's not as alien to her as it would be to most people. She could have feigned the shock readily enough.'

  'And Bert?'

  Miles shook his head. 'It's an appealing idea, but it appears he was at that moment at our kitchen door, attempting upon the chastity of my intended with some choice slices of ham. He seems to have taken rather a shine to her.'

  'You'll want to watch her, you know, what with the hundred pigs and all. Might he have been giving himself an alibi?'

  Miles chuckled. 'He might. But how would they know in advance that Rowsell would be there, buying petrol?'

  'If he used to visit them, he might have told them so. We don't know when he came up here last.'

  'Yes, I suppose that's possible.' Glancing at the clock, Miles pushed back his chair and stood up. 'That's enough for tonight, I think. How are you getting on with Mrs Piper? Giving Reuben a run for his money?'

  Rattigan chuckled. 'I might at that. She's a nice lady, and a darned good cook.'

  Miles frowned. 'But you eat here.'

  'Er, well, supper, you know. And a bite with my first cup of tea.'

  Chapter nine

  Next morning saw them making their way along the track to Bere Farm. With the snow gone, it had reverted to its normal winter state of deep, cloying mud, not helped by a thin drizzle.

  'Don't you get fed up with this?' said Rattigan, pointlessly wiping his shoes on a tussock of grass.

  'You get used to it. I'd be on horseback a lot of the time normally. You don't fancy that, I suppose?'

  'No thank you, sir.'

  'Thought not. Hello, the builders are in.'

  A carpenter had parked his van outside the farmhouse and was fitting a frame into the front door aperture.

  'Is Mrs Clement at home, do you know?' asked Miles.

  'Mmm mmm' nodded the man, driving in a nail. He prudently removed another half-dozen from between his lips before continuing. 'Not too good today though. She's upset about that chap that was murdered yesterday. She knew him apparently.' He turned to observe them more closely. 'You the police?'

  'Yes we are.'

  'Not what you expect out here, is it? I was at the garage myself just now, filling up.'

  'You're not local then?'

  He shook his head. 'Romsey. Handy this, for when we've nothing else on. What we calls a hospital job. They sells a few pigs and we tiles the roof for 'em. Sells a few more and we glazes some windows. Been at it, oh, ten, twelve years. That's the new door over there, the one with the stained glass. Nice innit?'

  'Very nice. Worth a pig at least.'

  The man laughed. 'And the rest! I'll say this, they only buys the best. Should be a little palace when it's finished. Not so little either.'

  'How do you get on with Mr Clement?'

  'Never hardly seen him; she does it all. Sharp too. She don't miss much.' He grinned good-naturedly. 'And just for the record, I wasn't here yesterday.'

  They found Josie baking.

  'I had to do something or I'd go mad,' she said. 'He wasn't a close friend but we've known him so long and it was such a terrible shock. I can't stop thinking about it. I suppose you want a statement or something?'

  'If you would oblige, Josie. It has to be done, I'm afraid. Also, I'm interested in the disappearance of Linsey Baverstock. There's a faint possibility that the two things might be connected. You said you worked at the Hall. Were you there then?'

  'That was twenty years ago!' said Josie. 'But yes, I was.'

  'What did you do?'

  'Housemaid. There wasn't much for girls then apart from farm work – still isn't, come to that – and I didn't fancy going into service miles from home, so it was the Hall or nothing. I was lucky to get it.'

  'Did you live in?'

  'Yes, I had a nice little room to myself. I quite liked it there really. The money wasn't much but we were treated well and I got on with the others. They didn't mind you going into the village or having friends, so long as you did your work.'

  'Many other servants?'

  'About the same as now I think. They don't live all that high, if you know what I mean. There was me and Irene, the other housemaid, and Cyril Jackson the butler – he's still there, of course – and Mrs Wheeler the cook, and a kitchen maid, Elsie, and Lady Willoughby's personal maid, Hortense, who was French. That was the lot, I think.'

  'No coachman?'

  'Oh yes, Ted Willis. I was forgetting. He left when they got a car though. Cyril drives that. Oh and Eustace did the grounds. Still does.'

  'Old Eustace Peartree, the sexton?'

  'Yes, except he wasn't old then of course. Not so old anyway. He doesn't do the flowers though. Charlie Wright comes up from Nether.'

  'Can you tell me what happened that day? Anything you can remember. I don't expect a detailed account after all this time.'

  Josie glanced doubtfully at Rattigan, his pencil poised over his notebook. 'I don't know that there's anything to tell really. He just upped and left. That was in the evening. I wasn't actually there, as it happens. I was out with Bert. We'd not long started courting.'

  'Oh I see. That's a pity. That you weren't there, I mean. I understand Baverstock was about to get married. Did you wonder where he'd gone, when he didn't come back?'

  'Well, we assumed he'd run away; it seemed the only explanation. He wasn't local, so he could go where he liked, couldn't he? There was nothing to keep him here, and he didn't get on with his Uncle. I really felt for Ellen though. She didn't deserve that.'

  'Did you like her?'

  Josie shook her head regretfully. 'No, I can't say that I did very much. None of us did – us girls, I mean – but you had to feel sorry for her, especially as things turned out.'

  'Why didn't you like her? Because she was pretty? Not to say you weren't, of course, Josie.'

  Josie gave a pale smile. 'I'm glad you added that, Miles! I don't know that she was so very pretty anyway. She was the sort men want I suppose, like a little doll, but she didn't have much of a figure. She tended to put on airs, which was what we didn't like about her. Her dad was only a farm-worker when he was alive, same as mine. Not even as good really, because mine was a cowman. Anyway, it was rotten what he did to her. Baverstock, I mean. He's got a lot to answer for.'

  'What about the young men of the village? Did they like him?'

  Josie considered this. 'I should think they hardly knew him. He was a different class from them of course, and he didn't follow the hunt or drink at the Bell, that I know of, so they wouldn't have mixed very much. They were all after Ellen though, bees round a honeypot, so I expect some of them didn't like him for taking her away from them.'

  'Any rivalry between them?'

  'Before Baverstock, do you mean? Yes, there was. They just about all went with her at some time or other, and it got a bit confusing over who was the latest. Sometimes she had a couple on the go at once, or that's what it felt like. I don't recall any of them actually fighting over her but they might have done. You can't really blame her though, can you,
given what happened to her? A short life and a merry one.'

  'Did Bill Rowsell go with her?'

  'Bill! I should hardly think so. He was really shy. Well, he was with me. When we walked out, it was me that made the running. He might have done, I suppose.'

  'Was he religious at that time?'

  Josie frowned. 'Yes, always has been. Why?'

  'It was just something his father said. How well did you know Baverstock?'

  Josie threw her hands up. 'Oh, Miles, you do jump about, don't you? Hardly at all, is the answer to that. I was just a servant there, don't forget. I might say, "Anything else, sir?" And he might say "No, that will be all, Mills," and that would be that.

  Mills was my maiden name.'

  'Polite, then?'

  'Yes, always. But not friendly.'

  'Are there others that were at the Hall at the time, apart from Jackson, that we could talk to?'

  Josie thought for a moment. 'No I don't think there are. Cook retired and went away to live with her son, and Lady Willoughby's maid left when she died. I expect she went back to France. She was a bit queer, she was. Well, I thought she was. That was the first Lady Willoughby, of course. She died soon after I left.'

  'What about the kitchen maid?'

  'She left. I don't know where she went. And Irene married the village policeman and they went to Winchester with his job.'

  So you and Jackson are the only ones left who remember that time, apart from Sir Rupert?'

  'Yes, I suppose we are. Though I doubt if the others could have told you much more, except maybe Hortense.'

  'What was the first Lady Willoughby like?'

  'Oh, she was sweet. She was smashing looking and a little bit dark-skinned: sort of foreign-like. She talked a bit foreign too. I expect he met her in India.' Josie smiled in reminiscence. 'And she was completely feather-headed! I reckon poor Elsie had more brains than she had.'

  'What did she die of?'

  'I don't know. She just went to a skeleton. It was very sad.'

  'Were you aware that Mr Baverstock planned to leave when he did? Didn't it seem a bit odd? For all you knew then, he might as well have hung on and married from there, for the sake of a few days.'