The Valentine Murder

by Evelyn James

  Mr Spinner greeted them with his usual charm.

  “I would have thought you might have been a tad nicer to the people who have convinced me of your innocence,” Park-Coombs told him, his moustache flicking in annoyance.

  Spinner seemed staggered by this news. He stared at the inspector gormlessly for a moment, then he recovered himself.

  “You best come into the kitchen.”

  Mrs Spinner was sitting at the kitchen table, a plate of mutton and boiled potatoes waiting before her. She did not seem worried by the appearance of the visitors. There was no indication that she felt guilty or nervous that she would be discovered in her crime. Clara started to wonder if maybe they had got it wrong. Maybe Mrs Spinner was innocent and someone else entirely had been in the field that day murdering Mr Beech.

  Spinner sat down at the table, not offering his guests a chair.

  “They say they can prove me innocent,” he said cheerfully to his wife. It was one of those rare times he had a genuine smile on his face. Kate Spinner appeared delighted.

  “That is wonderful!”

  “We now know,” Clara interrupted, “that William Beech was not even in the field at the time you first went past it that morning. He was at the veterinary surgery, having discovered a litter of abandoned kittens and carried them there in his pockets.”

  “Well!” Spinner grinned, and he cast the inspector an arrogant look. “See?”

  “It would seem Mr Beech was already dead by the time you were returning in that direction,” Clara continued before he could goad the policeman further. “We have a witness who confirms that there was no sign of Mr Beech in the field around one o’clock. Your statement that you never saw Mr Beech that day, which at first seemed ludicrous, now is proven true.”

  The smile on Spinner’s face had spread from ear to ear. Inspector Park-Coombs burst his bubble.

  “I shall add, sir, that your behaviour during this case did not act in your favour. The handling of the murder weapon was suspicious, and your contradictory statements even more so. You acted like a man with a guilty conscience.”

  Spinner lost his smile.

  “Hardly the point, I was honest with you,” he snorted. “I let you take my trousers, though they were my work pair and I needed them. And I let you snoop around here. Its been a right nuisance, I tell you, the worry has kept me awake at night. I should ask for compensation.”

  “Just try,” Inspector Park-Coombs snarled.

  Clara quickly jumped in.

  “There are a couple of things that have come to our attention which require an explanation to finish this case,” she said.

  “I thought you said I was innocent, and you could prove it?” Spinner snapped at her.

  “That is absolutely true,” Clara agreed. “I also told you that finding the actual killer would ensure your innocence could not be disputed.”

  Spinner frowned, not understanding.

  “Am I in the clear, or not?”

  “The police have enough evidence to support your innocence, but what of everyone else? A man’s reputation is critical when he is in business, and the locals don’t have access to the information the police and I do. I have heard several people muttering that you must have killed Mr Beech.”

  “What? Why would they?” Spinner blustered.

  “For the simple reason that you are the obvious suspect,” Park-Coombs said, with just a hint of pleasure at seeing Spinner cower at this information.

  “That can’t really believe that?” Spinner said, but the question was more to himself. He had suddenly lost his appetite and pushed his plate away from him. “Then you have to find the real killer!”

  Clara had hoped he would say this.

  “Precisely. Which is why I have a couple of questions for Mrs Spinner.”

  Mrs Spinner gave a small start and Clara thought she saw the first trace of anxiety on her face.

  “Me?”

  “You were seen in the field talking with Mr Beech the day he died,” Clara lied. They could not be sure it had been Mrs Spinner, but it was a sound hunch.

  Mrs Spinner blinked in a bemused fashion.

  “That is true,” she said sharply.

  Her husband turned to her swiftly.

  “You never said!”

  “It didn’t seem important,” Mrs Spinner shrugged.

  “What time was it you saw him?” Mr Spinner was demanding of his wife.

  “Around ten,” she said.

  “No, Mrs Spinner,” Clara picked up her lie. “It was after eleven, that is when the witness was going past.”

  Mrs Spinner stiffened, but that was the only sign she was concerned by this information.

  “You saw him after I walked past him!” Spinner snapped. “And you said nothing! You could have confirmed I was telling the truth! Instead you let me swing, let them think I was lying!”

  Mrs Spinner gave a noncommittal twitch of her shoulders. She was untroubled by her husband’s tone.

  “That brings us to another curious piece of information,” Clara said.

  Mr Spinner’s attention shot back to her.

  “Which is?”

  “Mr Spinner, were you aware your wife was paying Mr Dundle for your farm equipment?”

  Spinner opened his mouth, words failed him for a moment, then he blustered.

  “I was going to return the equipment. I was waiting for him to send me a notice that he wanted it back. While I had it, seemed no harm using it.”

  “Mr Dundle sent you two notices informing you he would reclaim the equipment if the repayments were not met,” Clara explained. “Are you saying you never saw those?”

  Spinner shook his head and she believed him. He was a blusterer and a fool, but he didn’t have the gall to lie so blatantly. If he did, he would have told a more convincing story about his movements the day Mr Beech died.

  “I guess your wife intercepted those letters,” Clara turned her attention to Mrs Spinner, who was sitting very upright and prim. She looked haughty, as if it was everyone else’s fault that she had been caught out in a lie.

  “Well?” Spinner demanded of his wife.

  “Yes, I saw the notices and I opened them. Had I known sooner you had stopped the payments I would have wrung your ears, but as it was, I saw it would do no good. After the humiliation of the tractor being taken back, I couldn’t go through the same again with the other things. People talked for weeks about the tractor – weeks! I decided to find the money myself and pay off the goods.”

  “Where did you find the money?” Spinner asked, stunned at what his wife was saying.

  Mrs Spinner was silent, so Clara filled in the gap.

  “William Beech was known to have a lot of money stashed away. He had inherited it from his late wife.”

  Spinner gaped.

  “You took money from old Bill?”

  His wife was unmoved.

  “Mr Beech owed us a good deal. We let him work as he pleased and paid him enough to keep a roof over his head. We were good to him. In any case, I was desperate, and it was easy to speak to him on the matter and persuade him to loan me the money.”

  “Mr Beech was a kind and generous soul. You played on his good nature and you robbed him of his savings,” Clara told her starkly, she wasn’t going to pussyfoot around what the woman had done. “Did you ever intend to pay him back?”

  Mrs Spinner said nothing. Her silence answered the question.

  “You didn’t just use the money Beech gave you for the repayments, however. You had other debts,” Clara pressed her.

  Mrs Spinner remained tight-lipped.

  “And then,” Clara continued, “the money ran out. On February fourteenth, William Beech told you he could give you no more. That was why you were in the field with him.”

  Mr Spinner was swinging his head from Clara to his wife, his mouth wide open like a stunned fish. Mrs Spinner held her tongue.

  “You lost your temper with Mr Beech,” Clara pushed to her final conclusion. S
he was unsettled by the way Mrs Spinner had grown silent and had a slight smile on her face. She was acting as if she had already won. “You needed that money and you thought he was lying to you. You could not accept you had bled him dry. That was when your rage took over and you swung at him, knocking him to the ground. Fury engulfed you and you lashed out at him, slashing his throat before pinning him to the ground. You kept quiet about being in the field, hoping no one had seen you, and with the police circling your husband, feeling confident he would take the fall for the murder.”

  Mrs Spinner was smiling and stifling a laugh as Clara told her tale. Alastair Spinner looked both dazed and frightened. He moved his chair a good foot away from his wife.

  “Is it true?” He asked her.

  Kate Spinner turned her eyes on her husband and began to laugh. The laugh started low, then it rose to a hysterical pitch and she rocked back in her chair. It only lasted moments, though at the time it seemed to go on forever. When she stopped, Mrs Spinner rubbed tears from her eyes.

  “Your face, Alastair!” She said.

  “Did you kill him?” Spinner asked in a quieter tone.

  “Oh, of course I did,” Kate Spinner groaned. “I thought I got away with it too. They seemed sure to put the noose around your neck, until you hired this woman to sniff around.”

  “We will need to take your clothes, to test for blood,” the inspector said calmly.

  “I washed them,” Kate Spinner waved her hand.

  “That won’t matter,” the inspector replied. “And you won’t have the excuse that you got bloodstained working on the farm.”

  Mrs Spinner snorted.

  “Please yourself.”

  She did not seem to realise the gravity of the situation and it occurred to Clara that the woman was unhinged, detached from reality. Of course, any person who could savagely kill an old man had to be a little crazy.

  “Why did you take the body of the dog and put it on your doorstep?” Tommy asked her.

  Kate Spinner looked him straight in the eyes.

  “I thought it would be funny. I thought it would scare my stupid husband to death. He had heard all the talk of black dogs associated with Bill and he believed it. I was also trying to nudge the police in the right direction, or rather the wrong direction. If you were all terribly distracted, you would never consider me.”

  Mr Spinner looked as if he had just discovered a tiger in his kitchen. He glanced at Clara helplessly. There was nothing she could do for him.

  Inspector Park-Coombs stepped forward.

  “I am arresting you, Mrs Kate Spinner, for the murder of William Beech.”

  Kate Spinner smirked at him.

  “If you must,” she said.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  They watched Mrs Spinner being taken away by the police. Alastair Spinner looked too shocked for words and as soon as his wife was gone, he slammed the door of his house and disappeared inside, resolutely avoiding Clara and Tommy.

  “He is going to be a challenge to get your fee off,” Tommy said, wincing at the thought.

  “Oh, I have a plan to deal with any reluctance. After all, thanks to your detective work we now know that his father is an MP, and I doubt Mr Spinner senior will want it to be known that his son has been neglecting his debts.”

  “Isn’t that blackmail?” Tommy asked her.

  “It is gentle persuasion,” Clara replied. “As it is, I think Alastair Spinner and his father should be grateful that I was able to prove him innocent of this crime. The police were awfully close to arresting him, don’t forget and that would have been a true scandal.”

  “Still going to ruffle feathers with Mr Spinner’s daughter-in-law now charged with murder.”

  “Not as serious as his son being charged, however,” Clara was thoughtful. “They can distance themselves. It might just save Mr Spinner senior’s political career.”

  “Then again,” Tommy said, “it might not.”

  “Well, that is hardly our problem. Time we saw Squire Piers and told him what happened to Betty, don’t you think?”

  Jones drove them to the squire’s stately home. The sound of the dogs barking was still loud. Clara wondered how they slept at night if the dogs persisted in making such a racket. They didn’t bother with the front door but went straight to the gate that led to the kennels. Marjorie was there, dishing out food to excitable dogs. She spoke to each one by name as she gave them their bowl.

  “Major, here is your grub, try not to break the bowl this time. Duchess, it’s a little less than usual, but one does have to watch one’s waistline, doesn’t one? Hunter, you know the rule, all four paws on the floor before you get your bowl. That’s better.”

  Marjorie exited a kennel and glanced up at her guests.

  “Hello again,” she said uncertainly. “Do you have news?”

  “Yes,” Tommy took the lead. “We know what happened to Betty.”

  Marjorie closed and locked the kennel door, her eyes on the dogs rather than looking at the Fitzgeralds. She wanted to know what they had to say, and yet at the same time she did not.

  “You better come in so daddy can hear this too,” she said at last.

  Squire Piers was in his study going through a large diary, making notes about shooting days, training days and other events that kept the kennels terribly busy. As always, around him were dotted a dozen or so dogs, of various breed and size. However, there was a noticeable absence. A basket sat empty by the fireplace, the other dogs giving it a respectful berth. This appeared to be Betty’s bed, a silent reminder of the one who was missing.

  “Daddy, the Fitzgeralds have returned with news about Betty,” Marjorie approached her father.

  Squire Piers raised his head to his guests, looking bleak.

  “I’ve braced myself for it. Tell me the hideous details.”

  “It was a complete accident,” Tommy explained. “A young lady named Miss Bright was driving down the lane behind Spinner’s Farm when Betty ran across the road. She hit her and killed her instantly.”

  Squire Piers grimaced.

  “Miss Bright informed me she intends to come here and speak to you personally. She is deeply sorry about what happened.”

  “Why did she not bring us Betty back, if she was so upset?” Marjorie said tearfully, her resolve slipping. “Why did she carry her up to the Spinners’ house?”

  “That is just the thing, she didn’t,” Tommy continued. “Just after they hit Betty, a woman appeared through the hedge and picked up the dog. She barely said anything, but Miss Bright and her companion assumed the woman was the dog’s owner. The woman was actually Mrs Spinner and she took Betty to the farm to scare her husband and to distract attention from herself. You see, Mrs Spinner murdered William Beech.”

  There was instant silence at this revelation, until the squire found his voice.

  “She did it? She brutally killed old Bill?”

  “Mr Beech had been loaning Mrs Spinner money to pay for goods her husband had bought and could not afford the repayments on,” Clara elaborated. “On the day he died, she had gone to him for more money, only to be told he had no more money to give her. She became enraged and killed him. She hasn’t explained why she attacked him so violently, and I am not sure she ever will. I don’t think she really knows herself why she snapped the way she did.”

  Everyone became solemn for a while. It was not easy to know what to say, how to respond to such a revelation. Marjorie at last took a breath and spoke.

  “We asked you to find out what happened to Betty and you have done that,” she said. “Daddy has prepared a cheque for you.”

  Squire Piers was stirred into action and drew a cheque from a drawer. He handed it to Clara.

  “Oh, this is too much!” Clara said hastily.

  “Betty was worth every penny,” Squire Piers said with tears in his eyes. “You’ll take it and not argue.”

  That was his final word. Clara knew when not to argue.

  “There is one
other thing,” Marjorie said, nodding to her father who nodded back. “Please, bear with me a moment.”

  She left the room.

  “Betty will be irreplaceable,” Squire Piers glanced over at the empty dog basket. “She might have been a rubbish gundog, but she was perfect in every other way. I shall miss her every day.”

  He took a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose heartily.

  “Dogs work their way into your heart,” Tommy said sympathetically.

  “That they do, Mr Fitzgerald. I can tell you are a dog man.”

  “I am.”

  “Knew it from the first we met,” the squire dabbed at his eyes. “Betty was extra special. Only a dog person could understand that.”

  Marjorie returned to the room. In her arms was a fat puppy; a black Labrador with soft eyes and sharp teeth. It was gnawing on Marjorie’s fingers industriously. Clara’s eyes widened as she felt an ominous premonition of what was about to happen.

  “This is Pip,” Marjorie said, depositing the pup into Tommy’s arms. “She is Betty’s niece, and we both agree, daddy and I, that she could find no better home than that of the Fitzgeralds.”

  Clara started to open her mouth, but Tommy was faster off the mark.

  “She is mine? Why, I don’t know what to say.”

  “No need to say anything,” the squire told him promptly. “She is a gift, a thank you from Betty herself. May she carry on my dear Betty’s legacy and be a good and faithful friend to you both.”

  “You will accept her, won’t you?” Marjorie said with an anxious frown on her face.

  Clara was going to protest yet again, but Tommy was working against her.

  “Of course! How could I refuse?” Tommy was smitten.

  Clara gave in. Turning the puppy down now would not only upset the squire and his daughter but would have Tommy in a sulk for weeks. He was already completely under the dog’s spell. In any case, they had been very generous with the amount they had paid her for solving their case and it would be churlish to refuse their final gift.

  “Thank you again,” the squire said to them. “You might not have been able to bring Betty back to us, but you have answered our questions.”