The Valentine Murder

by Evelyn James

  The vet took a moment to consider the question.

  “Between eleven and twelve,” he said. “Probably closer to eleven. I went to the farm and dealt with a cow with a bad foot. Took about an hour. I rode home and reached the surgery at half one.”

  Clara was running this through her head, how it fitted with the timeline Mr Spinner had offered them.

  “Did you see Mr Beech on your way back?” Tommy asked.

  “No,” the vet replied. “I keep thinking, you know, was he lying dead in that field when I cycled back? You can’t see over the hedge near the road to the ground, so if he was there, I wouldn’t have spotted him. Still, it makes you shiver to think about it.”

  “You didn’t happen to see anyone else in the field that day?” Clara asked, knowing it was a remote hope.

  The vet perked up.

  “Oh yes,” he said. “I don’t know who it was, because I only saw them from behind, but there was a woman in that field when I first rode past. She was talking to Mr Beech.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “A woman,” Tommy said as they stood outside the vets contemplating what they had heard. “Another witness to Mr Beech’s last days.”

  “Or his killer,” Clara said grimly. “Which is why she has not come forward.”

  “The vet didn’t come forward,” Tommy pointed out.

  “He did not think his testimony important,” Clara countered. “He just glimpsed Mr Beech in a field. He was unaware how that could be significant in calculating a timeline for the killing.”

  “Do you think the woman was Hanna Beech?”

  Tommy’s question echoed the thought that had already gone through Clara’s mind. She did think it likely the woman was Hanna, who else would go to see Mr Beech in the field? And if it was her, and her reasons for seeing her father were innocent, why had she not told the police? Could it be that Hanna had murdered her father?

  “This does not take Spinner off the hook,” she said. “He would have gone back past that field shortly before the vet was riding past. He still could have killed William Beech.”

  “But it does explain why he never saw William, as he claimed,” Tommy said. “We were assuming he had to be lying, that it was impossible for him not to see the man as he walked past him. But we now know that when Spinner was walking into Hangleton, Beech was not in the field. He was at the vets with three abandoned kittens in his pockets. By the time Spinner was walking back again, Beech might already have been dead. Spinner could actually have been telling the truth.”

  That was a very good point.

  “We should pass all this information on to the Inspector,” Clara decided. “He needs to know.”

  “Before we do that, can we call in on Annie?” Tommy asked casually, as if it did not matter one way or the other if they did not.

  Clara wanted to chuckle at his efforts to pretend he was not anxious to see Annie.

  “Why not?” She said. “Maybe Mr Blyth or his daughter can tell us who owns a car in the area?”

  They returned to the car and updated Jones on their plan. He gave his usual quiet nod of understanding and then drove them off. They did not notice his slight smile as he thought about getting another slice of one of Annie’s legendary cakes. There were certain benefits to being a driver to the Fitzgeralds.

  They arrived at the farm just ahead of another rainstorm, this one with an icy edge that made some of the droplets feel on the verge of becoming hail. They dashed indoors as soon as Annie opened the door and settled comfortably before the kitchen range.

  Ellen was in the laundry room just off the kitchen, placing clothes into the big copper boiler. She still looked exhausted. Clara gave her a sympathetic smile.

  “How is Gus?”

  “I would like to say better, but right now he just seems the same,” Ellen replied, managing to maintain a smile though it looked forced. “We’ve got the doctor returning this afternoon. Annie was quite insistent.”

  Clara could see Annie pulling a face out of the corner of her eye. She said nothing.

  “I hope he is on the mend soon,” she said to Ellen, and then joined the others at the table.

  “How goes your case?” Annie asked. She had had her hands in a big bowl of water as she washed potatoes before peeling them.

  “Well, we now know that Mr Beech was alive at around eleven that day,” Tommy answered. “But that he was likely dead before half one. And a woman visited him in the field close to the time he died, but she has not come forward as a witness.”

  Ellen emerged from the laundry room, her attention grabbed by this news.

  “Who are you thinking it was?” She asked curiously.

  Tommy and Clara said nothing, they did not want to reveal their suspicions. It seemed unkind to slander Hanna’s name when she could not defend herself. Ellen, however, was not a stupid person.

  “Hanna Beech?” She queried aloud. When she received no response, she continued. “There aren’t that many women in old Beech’s life and who would have a motive, other than his daughter?”

  “Now that is ridiculous,” Annie scoffed. “Why would a devoted daughter kill her aging father?”

  Ellen shook her head.

  “Who knows what goes on behind closed doors?”

  “I would rather think it was some stranger, a witch from London like all Hangleton is talking about, who came here to sacrifice Mr Beech, than to accuse his grieving daughter,” Annie said firmly. “Think of the violence meted out to the old man. What daughter would do that?”

  “Hanna Beech did not seem a violent person,” Clara said carefully. “But I am told she is very good at hiding her emotions.”

  “Well, I hope you shall be getting more proof than what you have before accusing her,” Annie said stoically. “Poor woman has enough trouble without being called a murderer.”

  “On that we can agree,” Clara replied. “Now, there is another unfortunate death we have been asked to investigate. This time the tragic demise of a Labrador.”

  “Oh dear,” Ellen said sombrely. A dog lover herself, she knew the anguish the sudden passing of a dog could cause. “Would that be one of the Piers’ animals?”

  “It is, how did you guess?” Clara asked.

  “Most folk around here have sheepdogs or terriers to suit their needs. The Piers are known for their Labradors. Also, they are the sort to have the money to hire detectives to investigate the death of a dog,” Ellen did not have to say that many people around Hangleton would think twice about hiring someone to investigate the death of a loved one, let alone an animal. It was not because they did not care, it was just they had to be pragmatic.

  At that moment Mr Blyth tramped in through the back door, looking very wet and unhappy. Patch strolled in beside him, shook himself vigorously and stalked off to his basket by the range. Annie pulled a face as she looked at the muddy droplets the dog had showered the kitchen dresser with.

  “Father, had you heard one of the Piers’ dogs had been killed?” Ellen said as her father removed his cap with a look of disgust at the sodden item.

  “I hadn’t,” he admitted. “What happened?”

  “Hit by a car,” Clara said. “Then the culprit carried the body up to Spinner’s Farm and dumped it on his doorstep. The dog’s name was Betty.”

  “Of all the wicked things to do,” Mr Blyth’s face had darkened. He glanced over at Patch, as if reassuring himself the dog was still present. “Accidents happen, sure enough, but to not own up to it honestly, that’s wrong.”

  “Mr Spinner is convinced someone put the dog there as a warning, or to scare him, because of all this talk in the village about Mr Beech behind haunted by a black dog that forewarned him of death,” Tommy added to the conversation.

  “Oh, that story!” Mr Blyth snorted. “Do you know how many times I have been followed home by a dog that weren’t my own? Countless times. When Mr Crake’s old collie went a little senile, it would follow anyone who happened to go past. I lost track of how
many times I was halfway home and realised it was behind me, so I had to turn around and take it back.”

  “People are getting carried away,” Clara agreed with him. “I am not convinced there is any supernatural element to Mr Beech’s death.”

  “Hanna might have done it,” Ellen said in a low voice to her father. “She was seen with him the day he died.”

  “A woman was seen with him,” Clara corrected, wishing she had not mentioned what the vet had said at all. She did not want wild rumours flying about that Hanna was responsible for her father’s death. “We do not know who it was.”

  “Hanna doted on her father,” Mr Blyth said, refusing to believe she could have harboured ill-intent towards the old man. “In any case, she was at work that day.”

  “Maybe she slipped away?” Ellen persisted. “It happens. I always thought Hanna was too reserved. It made me uneasy.”

  “Don’t start talking rot,” Annie corrected her firmly, she would not stand such nonsense. “No one is going to leave this house and start saying Hanna Beech might be a killer. That would be wrong.”

  “I wasn’t going to do that,” Ellen retorted to Annie, crossly. “I was just telling father.”

  “Rumours spread like fire,” Annie wagged a wet finger at her. “Hanna doesn’t need anymore difficulty in her life.”

  “Who else could it have been?” Ellen said, a little angry now.

  That brought them all to silence. None of them had a good answer. The woman who had been in that field had, for one reason or another, failed to come forward and say she saw Mr Beech. She was perhaps the last person to see him alive, could even have seen his killer, if she was not the killer herself. Finding her was now extremely important, but also a task no one was sure how to undertake.

  “Going back to Betty the Labrador,” Tommy tactfully changed the subject before Annie and Ellen had the chance to row further. He had gotten the distinct impression the pair of women had been in each other’s company too long and were starting to annoy one another. “We want to trace the car that might have hit her, so we can work out who was responsible. Then we may know who put her body outside Spinner’s door and why.”

  “Marjorie Piers is very cross about that,” Clara added. “Understandably.”

  “There aren’t that many cars about here,” Mr Blyth mused. “And how many would be going past Spinner’s Farm at night, hm?”

  Jones politely cleared his throat.

  “If I may offer a suggestion?”

  He was usually so quiet and innocuous, that his intervention took everyone by surprise. It was likely the first time Mr Blyth and Ellen had actually heard his voice.

  “Feel free,” Clara told him.

  Jones looked around at them and then sat up a little straighter.

  “I was thinking, the one place around here where people would know everyone who has a car must be the local garage. At some point, everyone needs to go there for repairs or a tyre. I noticed a garage on the outskirts of Hangleton.”

  “Of course!” Mr Blyth slapped his forehead, feeling foolish he had not thought of the suggestion. “That is owned by Charlie Manners! I should have thought of it sooner! Anyone who has a car or a tractor with a problem, he is the man to go to. He must know every car owner in the district.”

  Jones looked satisfied that he had supplied a solution. Clara was delighted too.

  “That is our next avenue for investigation,” she agreed. “It might not lead us to the killer of Mr Beech, but it might help us resolve who brought about the death of Betty.”

  “When you do find out who did it, you best warn them,” Mr Blyth said sinisterly.

  “Warn them?” Tommy asked.

  “You find who failed to bring Betty back to the Piers, and the good squire will probably take out his best shotgun and shoot them just to make a point,” Mr Blyth answered.

  Clara thought he was joking, until she saw the look on his face.

  “This is all very alarming,” Annie said as she dropped a peeled spud back into the water. “Murdered old men and dogs, what is the world coming to?”

  “Personally, I blame the radio,” Ellen said stoutly. “Have you heard some of the programmes they have on there? All violence and people getting shot or robbed. People listen to that all day and they get it into their heads that that is the way the world works!”

  Clara exchanged a look with Tommy but did not argue with Ellen’s irate announcement. Instead she took the topic onto a gentle tangent.

  “I have heard today that Mr Beech was known to have had a lot of money in his bank account,” she said casually.

  “Oh yes, left to him by his wife,” Mr Blyth nodded. “He never spent a penny of it, mind you. Bit of a miser.”

  “Except, it appears his bank account is now virtually empty, and no one is sure where the money went.”

  That brought a thoughtful silence to the table.

  “Hanna does not appear to have suddenly come into a lot of money,” Clara added. “In fact, she had recently been asking her father for a little extra to buy more coal, on account she was concerned the house was too cold and damp for him.”

  “If Hanna didn’t have the money, then who?” Mr Blyth asked the question that had been plaguing them all.

  “There is only one other person Bill spent much time with and who would be brazen enough to ask an old man for money,” Ellen snorted.

  She didn’t need to elaborate for them to all guess who she meant, but Mr Blyth said it aloud anyway.

  “Spinner.”

  “That man is running his father’s farm into the ground. We have all been saying it for years. I can only imagine the debt he must be in,” Ellen said with a prim look on her face, satisfied her mutterings over the years had been proven right. “Never saw a worse farmer in my life. Cuts corners where he shouldn’t and splashes out money on fancy gadgets that are a waste. Think about that fancy milking machine he bought. Built in Sweden, for crying out loud, and supposed to be top notch. Only it arrives and the wiring for the electrics are different to British circuits and it can’t be set-up, or something like that.”

  “Electricity is a right waste,” Mr Blyth nodded to his daughter. “Always said the expense don’t justify it, and there are all the dangers of someone being electrocuted.”

  Tommy opened his mouth to protest this and Clara gave him a subtle shake of her head. Now was not the time to get into a debate on the health hazards of electricity in the home.

  “Well, if he done it, the truth will out soon enough,” Ellen said stoutly. “Never did like him, anyway.”

  And that, Clara reflected, was Spinner’s biggest problem. He was so disliked by everyone that no one was prepared to consider him innocent for a moment.

  Even Clara was starting to find it hard to believe his protests.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  After further discussion, Clara and Tommy decided to divide their efforts now they had two cases to attend to. Tommy would carry on pursuing the mystery of Betty’s death, which would also give him an excuse to stay close to Annie, and Clara would head back to Brighton to see the Inspector and update him on their latest discoveries. Naturally, Jones would go with her.

  They travelled to Brighton as the afternoon wound towards evening. Tommy would have to be retrieved later. Clara noticed there were more cars outside the police station than usual. She counted three, all black and shiny. Their presence meant Jones had to pull up further away from the station than normal. He apologised to Clara even though it was not his fault and would add no more than a few extra seconds to her walk to the station.

  Clara cast her eyes over the unfamiliar cars as she headed to the doors, wondering if their appearance was significant.

  She was barely inside the station when her question was answered. A man in a long black coat and fedora was loitering at the foot of the stairs, smoking a cigarette. Clara knew the inspector’s feelings about people smoking inside the station and so she was surprised by the sight. She glanced a
t the desk sergeant, who was not upbraiding the man as he would normally, implying the gentleman was somebody important. Or at least someone the policeman was not prepared to accost simply for smoking in the wrong place.

  Clara quietly stepped over to the desk sergeant, keeping one eye on the smoking gentleman, who was ignoring her.

  “Scotland Yard,” the desk sergeant whispered at the unspoken question she gestured to him with a slight tip of her head. “Their inspector is with ours right now. It isn’t going to be a good afternoon.”

  Clara was certain he had that right. Inspector Park-Coombs’ feelings on being usurped by Londoners could easily be guessed.

  “How long have they been here?” Clara asked.

  “Couple of hours, guess they will be going soon. They are going to set up a headquarters for themselves near the crime scene. I suppose in Hangleton,” the desk sergeant pulled a face as the Scotland Yard man ground out his cigarette on the tiled floor. “They don’t seem very civilised to me, for men supposed to be top police detectives.”

  As Clara turned to look back at the London detective, footsteps on the stairs indicated his superior was returning.

  “How many have they sent?” Clara asked the desk sergeant.

  “Just the two detectives,” he answered.

  “I saw three cars outside,” Clara said.

  “One belongs to the Chief Constable, another to the Londoners and the third will be the Mayor of Hove’s. He came too, to demand to know what progress is being made on the case. He is worried about this putting people off coming to Hove in the Spring. You know the rivalry between Brighton and Hove for visitors. He has convinced himself we are deliberately dragging our feet to spoil Hove’s reputation and cause more folks to choose Brighton instead.”

  “Oh dear,” Clara sighed. “The Inspector must have a real headache over all this.”

  “You’re not wrong on that.”

  The two London policemen were talking in low whispers, then they left the station and a short while later a car could be heard driving off. A few minutes after, two more men appeared on the stairs. Clara recognised the chief constable and turned her head away just in case he recognised her. The other man she guessed was the mayor of Hove.