by Evelyn James
The Fitzgeralds and Jones headed off instead for the address of Mr Gage. To see if Mr Beech’s oldest friend could shed any light on his death.
They left Hangleton and drove back into Hove, taking a winding route Jones had devised from the map he kept in the glove compartment of the car. The cottage Mr Gage now resided in sat alone on a pretty lane, surrounded by expansive fields, though in the distance Clara spied the skeletal framework for new houses, suggesting the isolation of the cottages would not last forever.
The cottage looked dull and grey in the February gloom, the garden, which was no doubt lush and vibrant in summer, seemed dead and overgrown. The first touches of spring had yet to arrive here.
Clara led the way along the garden path and knocked on the old front door, which looked in need of a lick of paint. Tommy gave a slight shiver behind her. The sky was not lightening up and the wind was brisk. It felt as if it had rained for days.
The door was answered by a woman in her early fifties, her arms sopping wet from scrubbing the brick floor of the hallway. She stared at her visitors with a wary look, no doubt concerned they were about to step on her clean floor and ruin it.
“Yes?”
“We were hoping to speak to Mr Gage,” Clara explained, producing one of her business cards. “Have you heard the news about Mr William Beech’s death?”
The woman peered at the card, not wanting to actually touch it. Her face was sombre.
“Bill is dead?”
Clara braced herself. She had feared news of the incident had not gotten this far afield.
“Mr Beech perished on the fourteenth of February. The worst of it is that he was killed by someone unknown. Mr Spinner, who was employing Mr Beech at the time of his death, has asked us to investigate the matter.”
The woman went extremely pale and Clara was certain she swayed on her feet. One hand went out to clutch the door frame and support her.
“This is very unexpected,” she whispered, her voice dried up at the news. “Why do you wish to see my father?”
“We hoped to ask him about Mr Beech, to discover if there was anyone who held a grudge against him. Few in Hangleton really knew him, you see.”
“My father has not seen him since Christmas,” the woman shook her head and already she was thinking of excuses to turn them away.
“Mr Gage may still know something. It might not be that this incident was sparked by a recent event, it could be that it has its roots in something that happened years ago,” Clara persisted.
“We have come a long way,” Tommy added. “Hanna Beech is obviously very distressed by all this.”
The woman seemed to start, as if she had forgotten Beech’s daughter in the confusion.
“Oh, poor Hanna,” she said. “She is all alone now.”
She did not, however, make any move to allow them in.
“Mr Gage may be able to provide us with useful information that could lead to the killer of his old friend,” Clara pressed. “We shall be very considerate when speaking to him and will aim not to distress him.”
The woman, Gage’s daughter, seemed undecided.
“My father is frail these days. I don’t think he needs a shock like this.”
“At some point the police will most likely pay you a visit,” Clara explained. “Would it not be better for us to break this news to him before they do? The shock of seeing policemen on the doorstep would be even worse.”
Gage’s daughter was still agitated, but finally gave in. She stepped back and pointed to a doorway at the end of the hall.
“He is in the kitchen, it is the warmest place in the house,” she nudged her bucket of water out of their way. “I would join you, but I have so much work to do…”
“Never you fear,” Tommy told her brightly, “we shall be tactful.”
Considering her earlier concern for her father, Gage’s daughter did not seem to feel it necessary to join them as they spoke with her father. She allowed them to go through alone and enter the kitchen which was, indeed, the warmest place in the cottage. Too warm for Clara’s liking. The small kitchen was dominated by a range that was pouring out excessive amounts of heat. The door to the room had been firmly closed, a draught excluder tucked along the bottom to prevent even a drop of heat escaping. An old man sat in a worn armchair by the range, wrapped up in a shawl, with a blanket over his knees. He gave them a bright-eyed look as they entered the room.
“Now who are you?” He asked, curious.
Mr Gage had suffered the consequences of years of toiling outdoors in all weathers. His hands were gnarled, the joints swollen and stiff. His shoulders hunched over, and his head tipped forward. His face was drawn, there being no flesh on the bone, which gave him the disturbing appearance of a bare skull, especially with his thinning hair. Clara was reminded of one of those crude skulls carved on old gravestones as she looked at the man’s face.
“Mr Gage, I am Clara Fitzgerald, this is my brother Tommy. We are private detectives, currently in the employment of Mr Spinner.”
“Private detectives,” Mr Gage relished the two words and seemed extremely delighted by the news. “Why ever are you here?”
“We come bearing unfortunate news,” Clara confessed. “Mr William Beech has sadly passed away. He was murdered on Valentine’s Day.”
There was no way to blunt the news, to make it any better. Clara thought it kinder to simply explain the situation and not drag the matter out. Mr Gage took the information with surprising fortitude.
“Bill is dead,” he repeated to himself. “Murdered? That is… well, not how I expected him to end his days.”
“We are sorry to be the bearers of this news,” Tommy spoke. “We have come because we hoped you could tell us something about Mr Beech that could give us a clue to who might wish him harm. Mr Spinner has hired us to investigate his death.”
Mr Gage snorted.
“There is your most likely suspect,” he said with surprising venom.
“Mr Spinner?” Clara asked, playing dumb.
“Alastair Spinner is a slug. I told Bill that, and I shall tell you it too. I never liked him.”
“You know, in the scheme of things, it seems to me that if anyone was to be murdered it would be Mr Spinner,” Tommy remarked. “No one seems to like him, except his wife and, I presume, his father. Whereas it has been hard to find a soul who would say a bad word against Mr Beech.”
“Bill was no trouble to anyone,” Mr Gage agreed with him. “Though, some were unnaturally afeared of him because of all the talk of him being a wiseman.”
“We heard about that,” Clara said, pulling herself out a chair from the table so she could sit. It was a tight squeeze, the chair barely being able to move before it hit the wall. “We have heard lots of rumours about what Bill could do. Hanna is denying he believed in magic, however.”
“Hanna would,” Mr Gage chuckled to himself. “Hanna is a woman with her mind firmly set in the here and now. She never had time for Bill’s old ways.”
“Do you believe in witchcraft?” Tommy asked him.
Mr Gage’s eyes twinkled.
“I find myself contemplating a lot of things as I sit here. My days are growing shorter, and yet they also seem to be lasting longer. If you see what I mean. I remember the past, my days with Bill and the things I might have laughed at back then, now I see in a new light. But…,” Mr Gage turned his gaze about the room, “no, I don’t believe in witchcraft. I do believe that other people believe in it, however.”
“And Bill, did he believe he had powers?” Tommy continued.
“Oh yes,” Mr Gage nodded. “Not as much as other people gave him credit for. He did not think he could change the weather, for instance, though I once heard it said if you wanted good weather for your harvest, go ask Bill Beech.”
Mr Gage laughed to himself.
“Bill was in tune with nature, and that made him seem magical. But some of the tales they told were complete nonsense. I once heard it said he tied a toad t
o a miniature plough and had it hop along pulling it. Depending on who tells you the story, he either did it to curse someone’s field, or to make it more abundant. That’s how silly folks get.”
“Why were people so convinced Mr Beech had these powers?” Clara asked.
“I dare say there were a number of reasons,” Mr Gage shrugged. “To my mind it was because Bill was such an outsider. He didn’t talk much, even when working with folk, and he never drank. Country folk are always a little suspicious of a fellow who doesn’t drink. Seems unholy to them. He was also very good with the cattle and other animals. People thought that was magic, but really Bill was just patient and kind.
“You know, come to think of it, that was probably what made him seem so odd to folks. He never rushed, he seemed to always know his purpose and to be prepared to take the time to achieve it. No one could make him work any faster and you could no more pin him to a deadline than you might pin the weather. Other folks rushed here and there, but Bill kept his own pace. He stood apart and people saw that as peculiar.”
“We have heard it said he was afraid of dogs and ghosts,” Clara added.
Mr Gage became a little more serious.
“That is true enough, and I dare say he was right to have those fears. He once was followed by a black dog home from the fields. It followed him three days. He told me of it, said he felt it was something ominous. I told him it was just a stray dog. But that third day, when he walked home followed by the dog, he found his sister had died quite suddenly. The dog never showed after that,” Mr Gage clenched his knotted fingers around the blanket on his lap. “Now, we can all say it was coincidence. I have told myself that was what it was. No one wants to start thinking the sight of a black dogs means a loved one is about to die. However, the story no one knows, because Bill only ever confided it to me, is that three days before his wife passed over, God rest her soul, Bill was followed by that same black dog homeward. Each day, until the third, when he walks into his cottage and finds young Hanna crying over her mother who lay dead on the floor. Her heart had given out.”
Mr Gage pulled a face.
“You can’t tell a man it is all coincidence when something like that happens twice.”
The room, despite the blazing range, seemed to have grown cold. Clara, of course, did not think the dog was an omen. She thought it more likely a stray dog had followed Mr Beech. Might it not be the case that such a thing had occurred before, without anyone dying afterwards, and Mr Beech had forgotten about those mundane encounters? Clara preferred such explanations to saying that Mr Beech had his personal harbinger of death.
“I can see you are unconvinced,” Mr Gage smiled at them. “All I can say is that things are different in the countryside.”
“I suppose it is difficult for us to fathom. We live in a town with electric light inside and outside the home. There is not really much room for ghosts,” Tommy said.
“That I appreciate,” Mr Gage chuckled. “My own daughter is very sceptical about these things. But when I was a boy, we all firmly believed in ghosts and God, as did our parents and grandparents. You remembered on Halloween to make sure the house was swept and some fresh bread baked in case the dearly departed popped in for a visit, and you made sure to open the doors and windows wide the next day to let them out again. You counted your magpies and tossed salt over your shoulder into the Devil’s eye. Most of this stuff you did without even thinking about it. It was habit. I suppose Bill was one of the oldest people left in Hangleton of that generation. Most of us farmhands don’t make old boys. The years take their toll.
“Bill was the middle child of a family of eight, you know, and he was the last left alive. All of them gone, and it seems only yesterday we were stood together in church, mumbling our hymns, and hoping to be free to get out and play soon.”
Mr Gage gave a long sigh.
“They are all gone and with them a way of life that shall never be seen again. I am not certain it is a wise thing to live so long, when all those you knew have departed this life and gone on ahead.”
“I am sorry we had to bring you this news,” Clara told him, genuinely sympathetic.
Mr Gage neatened the blanket on his knees.
“Oh, I knew one day I should hear Bill had passed if I did not go before him. Last Christmas I thought he was a goner. He had this nasty cough and was laid up in bed, looked a poor old thing and I said to myself he was not long for this world. Then, blow me, if the old coot did not fight through it and get back on his feet,” Mr Gage smiled at this memory. “He always was one for surprises.”
The old man was quiet a while. It seemed appropriate to give him time to take in what had happened. A clock on the dresser ticked off the quarter hour and gave a wheezy chime that tailed off indecisively. Mr Gage raised his eyes to Clara.
“Would you kindly tell me exactly how my friend died?”
Chapter Twenty
There was no easy way to talk about the slaying of William Beech. You could only explain what had happened in plain words, trying not to sensationalise the information, or make it more dramatic than it already was. Clara took things slowly, laid out the incident as Dr Deáth had extrapolated it element by element. She didn’t go too far into detail, that seemed unnecessary. It was enough to give the bare bones.
William Beech was first hit on the head and knocked to the ground. Then someone took up his hedging blade and cut his throat before he was pinned to the earth with a pitchfork.
Mr Gage listened with his head down, sometimes nodding to indicate he understood. When they were done, he took a shaky breath which turned into a cough.
“Was his throat cut just the once?” He asked.
“Three times,” Clara confessed, wishing he had not asked for this detail.
“That is curious, given the circumstances,” Mr Gage toyed with his blanket again, it was an action that gave him time to think without appearing to. “I don’t suppose you are aware, considering it is one of those old country superstitions that are fast becoming a running joke among the educated modern folk, but there is a symbolism to things done in threes.”
“I was aware,” Clara said. “However, I would be interested to hear more.”
“If you want to kill a witch, you are best to kill them thrice,” Mr Gage said. “My old grandmother taught me that. In fact, anyone suspected of magical dealings or devil work should be killed thrice. The old way was to strangle them, bludgeon them and stab them.”
“You make it sound as if such things were occurring within your lifetime,” Tommy said, feeling grim at the talk.
“Not quite my lifetime, but certainly my grandmother’s,” Mr Gage said with perfect seriousness. “It didn’t happen in Hangleton, but in a hamlet nearby called Thornley. Thornley is almost abandoned now, but in my grandmother’s day it was home to a few families who had been there for generations. One of those families were the Bowles, who had never been any bother to anyone. Which is why what happened came so out of the blue.
“Thomas Bowle was a farm labourer. He would have been in his thirties at the time this all occurred. Some say he was always a touch soft in the head, but nothing that was very troubling. Plenty of folk are odd without being harmful.”
“This is starting to sound ominous,” Tommy said.
Mr Gage ignored the interruption.
“One June day, Thomas Bowle is heading off to work the fields, as usual. Upon his route he encounters an old lady called Sarah Harper. Thomas had known Sarah all his days, for she lived in the cottage next to the one his parents resided in. There had never been a cross word between them, as far as anyone knew. Sarah was not the sort to start an argument, she was a rather quiet soul, all told.
“Well, you can worry over the whys and the wherefores forever, but all I can say for certain to you is that day Thomas Bowle gets it into his head that Sarah Harper has to die. That she is a witch who has laid the Evil Eye upon him bringing him all sorts of ill luck. The day before his scythe broke in the midst
of cutting grass, and that used to be thought an ill omen. And Thomas had been having these headaches that plagued his waking moments and caused him to struggle to work.
“Dress it up how you wish, Thomas came to the conclusion that he had been cursed and Sarah was the one to have done it. When he first thought to kill her even he wasn’t sure, but in that lane, seeing her coming towards him, he made up his mind.”
Clara had gritted her teeth, anticipating the climax of this tale.
“Thomas lunges at her with his pitchfork, which he was carrying as he was off to move some hay from a barn,” Mr Gage continued. “He stabs her in the throat and shoulder and pins her to the ground in one frightful charge. Poor Sarah starts to scream ‘murder, murder!’ People start to rush over, as this occurred not far out of the hamlet and the houses were close. They find Thomas stood over Sarah, trying to pull out his pitchfork and finish her. Someone grabs him, someone else frees Sarah and helps her to her home where she is bandaged up as best can be. She died two days later, and that must have been a miserable death.
“In the meantime, the magistrate has been summoned and he questions Thomas. All he can get from him is this nonsense about him being cursed and that he had to kill the witch. He keeps saying it over and over. The locals are shocked, naturally, but when the magistrate asks around, he discovers that Thomas was not the only one who thought Sarah Harper was a witch. Several people were of the same opinion but considered her harmless. No one thought she would have placed the Evil Eye on a person, though many believed she was capable of it.”
“That is simply horrible,” Clara said as the old man paused. “That poor woman. What became of Thomas Bowle?”
“He went to trial and was deemed insane, but those were the days when a court of law did not consider insanity a reason to spare the man the noose. He was hung for his crimes and to his dying day he insisted he had been doing the world a favour by killing a witch.”
