The Valentine Murder

by Evelyn James

  “How can you know that?” Tommy asked.

  Dr Deáth put down the blade and picked up Mr Beech’s right hand instead.

  “Because of this deep cut to his finger and across the knuckles. Mr Beech was raising his hand to ward off the blade.”

  Clara found herself leaning forward to see the wound, even though she didn’t really want to see it. There was something so horrible about this whole situation and the picture Dr Deáth was painting for them that it was hard to believe it was real. Clara had dealt with several murders over the last couple of years, but the gruesomeness of this one, the sheer extreme of violence inflicted on a man who was vulnerable and could have done nothing to fight off his assailant, was too disturbing to be able to properly comprehend. And, at the back of her mind, Clara kept thinking that the person responsible might have been Alastair Spinner. She might have stood in the company of a man capable of outrageous violence and brutality.

  “So, he was dead before the pitchfork went into him?” Tommy asked, as if this was a small mercy that made him feel better about the whole thing.

  “Dead or dying,” Dr Deáth replied. “I have considered the pitchfork a lot. Where did it come from? It is not a tool used for hedging, so it seems unlikely it was simply picked up at the scene.”

  “The killer may have brought it with them,” Clara elaborated. “It is the sort of tool a farm labourer could easily have been carrying around with him.”

  “I think the handle of the pitchfork might have been what was used to hit Mr Beech over the head. It is not easy to see, but I think there is blood on the wood,” Dr Deáth explained. “Why it was then turned over and used to pin Mr Beech to the ground is more curious. The man had to have been on the cusp of death or have already passed on. The pitchfork was therefore unnecessary to finish him.”

  “It was one last act of savagery,” Clara said solemnly. “The person who did this was so full of anger and rage that they just could not stop lashing out, even when their victim was already dead.”

  Her own words made her shudder. The person behind this assault was twisted, for sure, but they must also have a terrifying temper to act in such an outrageous fashion.

  “Oliver said the pitchfork was pinning Mr Beech down?” Tommy said. “I have trouble picturing that.”

  Dr Deáth picked up a ruler that was near to hand, it was a foot long one.

  “The pitchfork went in at an angle of forty-five degrees, with the handle slanted over Mr Beech’s face,” he demonstrated this with the ruler. “The prongs were through the neck and shoulder, and the handle had been wedged in the branches of the hedge so firmly, it required us to drag the body forward before we could remove it. There was no purpose to that. At least none I can see.”

  “No practical purpose,” Clara corrected him. “It may have held a symbolic purpose, or it might have been a pure act of spite.”

  “Well, that is beyond what I can tell you from the remains of our friend here,” Dr Deáth said with a soft smile. “Other than the wounds, my post-mortem revealed an old man in declining health. His lungs looked tuberculotic, his heart was sound enough, but he was curled up with arthritis. It was in his spine, his hands and his feet. If I could look inside his joints, I would suspect his knees and hips to be riddled too. How the man worked at all I can’t say. He must have been in constant pain.”

  That only seemed to make his death more cruel and unnecessary.

  “There is one last thing,” Dr Deáth waved a finger in the air as a thought came to him. “Mr Beech had just consumed a sandwich and a piece of cake at the time of his death. His stomach had barely begun to digest them. I don’t know if that will help you to narrow down a time for his demise, but I thought it might be important.”

  “What is your estimate of his time of death?” Clara asked.

  “The cold temperature makes it awkward, but I do not believe he could have died later than one o’clock in the afternoon, and no earlier than nine in the morning. Does that help?”

  It meant that Mr Spinner would have been able to kill Mr Beech. He had told them he had been heading back to his farm at half twelve, or thereabouts. Mr Steadman thought the time closer to noon, and of the two, he seemed a more reliable source as Spinner had obviously been drinking. He also walked past the exact spot where Beech died twice during the window of time Dr Deáth had suggested. That was far from promising.

  “I confess to finding it hard to understand how an old man can be slain like this,” Dr Deáth spoke, for once losing his usually nonchalant façade. “I’ve seen a lot of things, but thankfully not often a case like this.”

  There was nothing more to add. The sheet was restored over Mr Beech’s face, taking away the sight of his mutilated body, though the memory would linger in their minds for a long time. Clara and Tommy thanked the coroner and headed outside once again.

  “Any thoughts on what to do next?” Tommy asked as they stood on the road, contemplating where to go.

  “We have more people to talk to,” Clara decided. “We should try to find Hanna Beech and discover if her father had any enemies, and if we can track down Matthew Yates, that would be useful too. We need to know more about William Beech to understand why he was killed.”

  Tommy glanced up at the sky, grey and overcast, the threat of rain looming.

  “Could we ask Captain O’Harris for a lift again?”

  Clara followed his gaze. As if to settle the matter, a huge drop of rain plummeted to the ground at her feet.

  “That might not be a bad idea,” Clara agreed. “We have a lot of ground to cover, after all.”

  “And the bus drops us outside Hangleton,” Tommy added ironically. “Because that makes sense.”

  Amused by his grumbling, Clara led the way home, to make a phone call and ask O’Harris for a favour.

  Chapter Thirteen

  O’Harris was happy for them to use his car, but he was not available himself, having work to attend to at the convalescence home. He supplied his apologies and his driver Jones and told Clara he hoped he would see her soon. She hoped so too.

  On the way back to Hangleton, Tommy became restless.

  “It wouldn’t hurt to check on Annie, would it?” He said. “After all, her friends might know some more about Mr Beech or Mr Spinner.”

  Clara smiled at him and patted his hand.

  “We shall call on Annie,” she assured him. “I am certain she is perfectly all right.”

  Annie was indeed all right. She was in her element looking after a household of people, three of whom were under the age of four. She had been baking to her heart’s content, had sorted out Ellen’s pantry and organised it in a manner she considered far more practical. She had washed the kitchen from top to bottom and had then moved on to the rest of the downstairs rooms. The windows sparkled and the old tiles of the hallway no longer looked a dingy grey-brown, but a pleasant cream colour. Even the unfortunate Patch had endured a bath and a brush, too in awe of Annie’s sheer determination to snap at her hands.

  Ellen’s views on Annie’s unstoppable cleaning operation were difficult to determine, as she seemed oblivious to the changes in her home. She was still exhausted, despite her friend taking over the running of the house. The twin babies were not sleeping for longer than an hour or two and the toddler was suffering from an earache that made him fretful. Then there was Gus.

  Poor Gus seemed no better than the day before and Ellen was growing increasingly concerned that he was not improving. She was struggling to get him to eat or drink, and though no one said a word out loud, the undercurrent of the household was that Gus could be dangerously ill. Could, indeed, be dying.

  Clara quickly grasped that this was not a topic anyone wished to discuss, and Annie had forced a cheerful expression on her face for the sake of the unhappy family. Her exuberant cleaning might have been taken as another sign of her attempts to keep her own worries at bay by activity.

  She welcomed them in, not surprised this time to see them.

/>   “Thomas Fitzgerald, wipe those dirty shoes before you step onto my clean floor!”

  Tommy glanced down at his feet. There were traces of mud on the edges of his shoes from his short walk across the farmyard. He diligently rubbed his feet on the mat, looking sheepishly at Annie. She folded her arms across her chest and nodded at him, satisfied.

  “No Captain O’Harris?” Annie asked, noting Jones and the car.

  “He could not leave the Home,” Clara explained. “He was kind enough to lend us the car and, of course, Jones.”

  Jones tipped his cap to Annie, who gave him a smile.

  “You have arrived just in time. My fruit cake has finished cooling and needs some willing souls to eat it,” she said, ushering them through the house while keeping a close watch for any footprints they might leave behind.

  “You’ve come a long way to check on me,” Annie said as they entered the warm kitchen. Clara immediately noticed that it smelled of bicarbonate of soda and fresh baking. There seemed to be a gleam to every surface, even the wooden table. “I did tell you there is a telephone here.”

  “We happened to be in the area,” Clara replied.

  Annie shot her a look.

  “A case?”

  Clara nodded. It was unnecessary to say more, considering there was only one crime of sufficient heinousness that could have drawn their attention. Annie pressed her lips together into a tight line. The thought of the murder of Mr Beech was a cloud hanging over them all. Three Pigs Farm would never shake its association with the gruesome slaying that had occurred just across the fields.

  “Who has hired you?” Annie asked.

  “Mr Spinner, he is concerned that he has come under police suspicion and wants us to prove him innocent,” Clara explained. “As a consequence, it is necessary to investigate the murder and attempt to prove who might have been responsible.”

  “The police were out there again this morning,” Annie said. “Looked to be conducting a search. Mr Blyth came in and told me. They were taking a good look around Spinner’s Copse. Why do they suspect Mr Spinner?”

  “Nothing concrete,” Clara said with a shrug. “But he has been behaving oddly ever since the murder and he walked past the crime scene twice on the day it happened, yet he claims he never saw Mr Beech, alive or dead.”

  “You should talk to Mr Blyth. I am sure he could provide you with more information,” Annie filled the large teapot from a kettle on the range. Overhead a baby started to wail. “Twins. Double trouble.”

  “How is Ellen?”

  “Tired,” Annie shrugged. “Worried.”

  That was all she would say on the subject. Clara was tempted to ask if the doctor should be summoned for Gus, but decided it was not her place. In any case, she knew as well as anyone else that there was truly little doctors could do for people suffering from influenza. Gus was on his own. He had to prove he was a fighter or else make his wife a widow.

  Annie was cutting up her fruit cake when Mr Blyth walked in the back door. He did not seem surprised by the guests, but then nothing seemed to surprise Mr Blyth. He wiped his feet thoroughly on the doormat before taking a step forward and Tommy exchanged a look with Clara, who smirked. Annie had deployed her household tyranny on the old man as well, it seemed, and he had been swiftly taught to make sure his boots were clean before he crossed her kitchen floor.

  “There is fruit cake and fresh tea, Mr Blyth,” Annie called over.

  The old farmer looked pleased by the news.

  “Just what I need,” he sagged down into a wooden chair beside Tommy, giving a slight groan. “The top meadow has flooded, and a couple of sheep had wandered into the water and got stuck. Sheep are damn stupid.”

  Mr Blyth shook his head at the idiocy of his woolly charges.

  “Had to get a rope around them and drag them out. All the time I had the rest of the flock debating if they should wander into the water too. This is why I don’t have sheep anymore.”

  “Have an extra big slice,” Annie consoled him, placing a hefty slice of cake at his side.

  “Thank you, Annie,” Mr Blyth tucked into the cake gladly.

  Clara decided there was no reason to delay explaining her purpose there.

  “We have been employed by Mr Spinner, in our capacity as private detectives,” she said. Mr Blyth did not look up from his cake.

  “Does the old fool want you to find something he has lost?” He said like. “Like his good manners?”

  Mr Blyth smirked at his own joke.

  “He fears the police suspect him of killing Mr Beech and wants us to prove his innocence,” Clara replied, seeing no reason to hide the truth. The way the police were poking about, it would not be long before the whole area knew that they were interested in Spinner and his association with Mr Beech.

  Mr Blyth paused in the consumption of his cake.

  “Now, that is interesting.”

  “What I really need is to know more about Mr Beech, to determine why he was killed,” Clara explained. “Even the police think it an outside chance this was the work of a lunatic.”

  “And there was his watch in Spinner’s Copse,” Mr Blyth mumbled to himself. “And the police all over Spinner’s farm this morning.”

  “Spinner didn’t strike me as a violent man,” Tommy interjected. “Belligerent, yes, but not a physical sort of person.”

  “You haven’t seen him when he has had a skinful,” Mr Blyth snorted. “I remember at Christmas he had been drinking a lot when we went around wassailing the trees and fields. Its an old tradition we do around these parts. We got to his farm and one of the men holding a wassail bowl dropped it, splashed it all over the ground. Well, Spinner declared this was terrible luck and that the fellow must have done it on purpose to curse him. He grabbed him by his jacket and was shaking him back and forth. Took two of us to pull him away. It was a nasty scene.”

  “Ironic, how Spinner’s superstitious fears have proven true,” Tommy observed.

  Mr Blyth did not look convinced.

  “We make our own luck or lack of it,” he said. “Spinner is an oaf.”

  “The question is, is he a murderer?” Clara’s words hung in the air.

  Mr Blyth gave a whistle.

  “You know, I could believe it. I think I have seen in that man something dark, something sinister.”

  “But why Mr Beech?” Tommy said. “What could he have done to infuriate Spinner to the point of this hideous crime?”

  Mr Blyth had no answer for that.

  “Have you spoken with old Bill’s daughter?” He asked Clara.

  “We have not, she was not home yesterday.”

  “You should catch her after four, that is when she finishes work. She might be able to tell you something,” Blyth finished his cake. “What has Spinner said about the day of the murder, aside from that he did nothing to Mr Beech?”

  “He has given us a list of the things he did, the people he met with. He had a bullock in a ditch that had to be pulled out by Mr Plainer, he discovered it first thing that morning and rang up Plainer to arrange for him to drag it out.”

  “Mr Plainer is the only one with a tractor around these parts,” Mr Blyth nodded. “Losing a bullock in a ditch, that’s careless.”

  The old man pulled a face at Spinner’s inadequacies as a farmer.

  “After telephoning Plainer, Mr Spinner went to see Mr Steadman, his crop seller. I don’t think it was a pleasant conversation.”

  “Never is with Spinner,” Blyth huffed. “That man has more chips on his shoulder than an army colonel. What did he do after seeing Steadman?”

  “He went for a drink. He was speaking with Steadman at around the time Mr Beech died. However, timings are difficult. Beech may have died before the conversation or even after it, and Spinner walked past the spot where he was working twice, once to reach Hangleton and again on the way back.”

  Mr Blyth nodded, fitting this information into a mental timeline.

  “That looks fishy, don’t it?
He could have seen the murderer, or Bill.”

  “Only, he denies seeing anyone,” Clara explained. “He says he did not know Mr Beech was working on his farm until Hanna Beech and Matthew Yates came to say Hanna’s father was missing.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t look much further for a killer,” Mr Blyth shrugged. “And you have to prove him innocent? I don’t envy you your task. I think I shall stick to wrestling sheep out of flooded meadows.”

  “What if he is guilty?” Annie said, a flicker of anxiety in her eyes.

  “Then I hand over everything I find to the police,” Clara told her. “I shan’t hide the truth, not even if Mr Spinner is paying me.”

  “He would be a damn fool to hire someone to prove his innocence if he was guilty,” Mr Blyth pointed out. “Even Spinner isn’t that daft.”

  Clara said nothing. People did peculiar things and it would not be the first time a guilty man had tried to prove he was innocent. With the evidence against him purely circumstantial, there was leeway enough to cast doubt on Spinner’s guilt. Of course, he might be banking on Clara being not as good a detective as she truly was, in which case, he would soon discover that once she started rooting for the truth, she usually unearthed it.

  “You should speak to Matthew Yates,” Mr Blyth said thoughtfully. “He worked for Spinner until last November. He left the farm with bad blood between them, but he has always been cautious in what he says about it. Think he feared Spinner would make it hard for him to find more work if he said too much about what had happened between them.”

  “Where can I find him?” Clara asked.

  “He works for Mr Plainer now, the irony, huh?” Blyth chuckled to himself. “Still, Plainer can’t stand Spinner, so it has a logic to it him hiring Yates. Yates is a good cattleman, one of the best. Had he still been in Spinner’s employed, that bullock would never have died in a ditch.”