A Six-Letter Word for Death

by Patricia Moyes

  “I’m sorry to disturb you,” Henry said meekly. “I was looking for Mr. Timmond.”

  “I’ll send him out to you, and welcome,” said the cook. “He’s had three cups already, and I’ve got lunch to see to.”

  A minute later, Henry and Timmond were in the stable-yard, with the kitchen door closed firmly behind them.

  Henry said, “So you found the saddle.”

  “That we did, sir. And with the girth broken. I don’t understand it, and that’s a fact.”

  “Sir Robert tells me that you did tell him about the frayed rope-end—”

  “I tried, sir, but he wouldn’t listen. Just said that Mr. Peter must have tethered Melly at his parents’ home, and I suppose that’s the truth of it, because there wasn’t no rope-end where we found the saddle, even though there’s trees on the other side of the track. I had a good look myself.”

  “The other side?” said Henry.

  “The side away from the sea, sir. On the far side of the path, there’s quite a little spinney. But no rope on any of the trees.”

  Henry said, “So the saddle was on the cliffside of the path.”

  “Right at the edge, sir. ’Twas a wonder it didn’t go over with poor Mr. Peter. Well, you wouldn’t have expected to find it anywhere else, would you, sir?”

  “No,” said Henry thoughtfully. “No, I wouldn’t. Well, Mr. Timmond, my wife and I are off home soon. By the way, if the cook mentions that somebody called to see you—”

  Timmond winked. “I’ll say you was a gentleman from the feed company, sir. I quite understand.”

  “Thank you,” said Henry. Then, “What do you quite understand, Mr. Timmond?”

  “Well, sir…” Timmond hesitated. “I know who you are, sir, and I know you think there was something odd about Mr. Peter’s death, just as I do, sir, even though everything seems to fit so nice and proper. And if there was any hanky-panky…well, you never know, do you, sir, with all them strangers in the house—writers and so on. I’m glad you was here, sir, and if there’s anything I can do to help—”

  “Thank you, Mr. Timmond,” said Henry.

  By the time Henry got back to the house, Dr. Cartwright’s gray Lancia was already at the front door, and the butler was loading the suitcases into the trunk. Emmy and Cartwright were in the drawing room with Lady Oppenshaw.

  “Ah, there you are, Mr. Tibbett.” Pamela Oppenshaw’s voice was muted with grief. “You should be off if you’re to make the ferry in good time.” She paused. “Barbara has asked me to say good-bye for her. She doesn’t feel able to—”

  “Of course, we quite understand.” Henry’s voice, equally hushed, was joined by an assenting mumble from Dr. Cartwright.

  A couple of minutes later, the Lancia, with its driver and passengers, was purring down the drive to the main road.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE ROUTE TO the car ferry at Fishbourne went through Ventnor, up the coast road through Shanklin and Sandown, and then to the island’s main town, Ryde. It was as Dr. Cartwright was negotiating Ryde’s narrow streets that Henry suddenly said, “Just a moment. I’ve had an idea. There are other ferries this afternoon, aren’t there?”

  Surprised, the doctor said, “Of course. Or you can fly if you like, or take the hovercraft. It’s only five miles over the water to the mainland.”

  “Then,” said Henry, “I think we’ll leave you here, have some lunch, and do a bit of exploring. You’ve always wanted to see something of the island, haven’t you, darling?” he added, to Emmy.

  “Yes, I have,” said Emmy, who had never given a thought to the Isle of Wight before their invitation to Carnworth. “What a good idea.”

  “But… I can give you a lift all the way to London,” protested Cartwright.

  “Please, Doctor. It’s very good of you, but—”

  “Oh, very well, if that’s what you want,” said Cartwright. He pulled the car to a halt beside the curb, and Henry jumped out and began taking suitcases from the trunk. Quickly, Emmy followed him. Cartwright shrugged, waved, and drove off toward Fishbourne, leaving the Tibbetts and their luggage on the pavement.

  Emmy said, “So I’ve always wanted to see the Isle of Wight, have I?”

  Henry grinned at her. “Sorry, darling. I have a lot of explaining to do to you, but I didn’t dare do it at Carnworth.”

  “Where on earth did you go at half past four in the morning?”

  “Oh, you were awake, were you?”

  “Of course I was.”

  “I went where we’re going now, as soon as I’ve made a phone call and we’ve had something to eat.”

  “And where is that?”

  “Ventnor Police Station.”

  From a nearby public call box, Henry got in touch with the police station and asked for Detective Sergeant Hemming. He was in luck. Hemming had just returned from the hospital morgue, where he had spoken to Dr. Spenceley and viewed the remains. He proposed to visit Carnworth Manor after lunch, for a talk with the Oppenshaws, and later he would go and see Peter Turnberry’s parents.

  Meanwhile, Hemming was in his office at the station, where he took Henry’s call. Naturally he mentioned neither his previous activities nor his future plans to his anonymous caller, who said that he wished to see the detective sergeant concerning the Turnberry case. He merely said that he would be at the station until one o’clock, after which he would be out for the whole afternoon.

  “I’ll be along at once,” said Henry. “I’m speaking from Ryde. Please don’t go until I get to you.”

  Outside, he hailed a cab and said to Emmy, “No lunch for the moment, I’m afraid.” To the cabby, “Ventnor Police Station, as fast as you can. And please wait for us there. We shan’t be very long.”

  Detective Sergeant Hemming was mildly—but only mildly—intrigued by his mysterious caller. In his mind, Peter Turnberry’s death had been a pure and simple accident, and the inquest would be a formality. However, any sort of violent death aroused a few crackpots with theories to propound. Certainly the very last thing he expected was a visit from a detective chief superintendent from Scotland Yard, and accompanied by his wife, of all things. Sergeant Robinson, true to his word, had written nothing in his log about Henry’s early-morning visit before he went off duty.

  Hemming was a smallish, stout man with shrewd little eyes. He sat behind his desk and scrutinized Henry’s credentials with an amazement that was not apparent, for his face had the bland unexpressiveness of an undercooked suet pudding.

  At last he said, with patent untruth, “Well, Chief Superintendent, I’m delighted to see you. Delighted and honored. But I don’t believe the Chief Constable has requested any assistance from the Yard in this matter.”

  “You’re quite right, Sergeant.” Henry smiled hopefully, but got no response. “I came into this simply because I was a fellow guest at Carnworth Manor, and…well, I’m naturally inquisitive, as I’m sure you are.”

  “I do my job, I hope, sir,” said Hemming woodenly. “It’ll be up to the coroner’s court to decide what happened to the poor gentleman, won’t it?”

  “Of course it will,” said Henry. “But I thought you ought to know that certain evidence was tampered with.”

  “Tampered with?” There was a faint reaction in the suet pudding. “What makes you say that…sir?”

  Henry said, “I’ve a confession to make to you, Sergeant.”

  “A confession?”

  “I visited this station in the early hours of this morning, spoke to your sergeant, and borrowed your police car.”

  “Well, I’ll be—Sorry, sir. Yes, of course, sir, if you considered it proper.”

  “I didn’t consider it at all proper,” said Henry. “But it was the only thing to do. I paid for the petrol and turned the odometer back eight-point-six miles, which was the distance I traveled. So long as I suspected that there was a murderer in the vicinity, I didn’t want to leave any traces. Now, however, the Carnworth house party has dispersed, and apart from Dr. Cartwri
ght, I don’t suppose any of them will be called to give evidence at the inquest. I shall, however, give evidence, and it may well overturn the verdict of accidental death. That’s why I came to see you.”

  “I really don’t understand what all this is about, sir,” said Hemming. “All I’ve been able to gather to date is that you and Sergeant Robinson conspired to misuse Her Majesty’s property, to wit, one police vehicle—”

  “Please let me explain,” said Henry.

  “Very well.” Hemming had by now dropped the “sir.” He could foresee trouble, and trouble was what he didn’t want, not here on the island.

  Henry said, “When Peter Turnberry didn’t come back to Carnworth last evening, nobody worried very much. They naturally thought he had stayed on with his parents. However, when his mare arrived home in a sweat, with no saddle, at about half past six, there was very natural alarm. Sir Robert Oppenshaw and his daughter, Barbara, set out at once on horseback to explore the cliff path.”

  “Why the cliff path?”

  “Because Mr. Turnberry had arranged to meet me privately at five o’clock at Carnworth Manor, and the only way he could have been back in time was to take the cliff path.”

  “I see, sir.” Hemming, Henry was delighted to realize, was intrigued at last. “What was this meeting to be about?”

  “I’ve no idea,” said Henry. “At least—well, we’ll talk about that later. For the moment, something else is puzzling me, and I hope you can throw some light on it. It’s obvious that Peter Turnberry wanted to go to St. Lawrence for some reason before he came to see me. Why didn’t he go by car, instead of on horseback? Didn’t he drive? There was no driving license in his wallet.”

  A slow smile spread over Hemming’s face. “I can tell you that all right, sir. He didn’t have a license because the magistrate took it away from him last sessions. Three convictions for speeding in six months. We’d been after him for some time.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant,” said Henry. “That explains why he had to go on horseback. Anyhow, you can see the logic of the Oppenshaws’ setting out to ride along the cliff path to look for him. Sure enough, they spotted the poor chap—on the rocks below the cliff. The lifeboat was called out, and Dr. Cartwright and I went with it. Turnberry was already dead—but you know all this.”

  “Yes, sir. Not the first time such an accident has happened. I spoke to Sir Robert this morning, as a matter of fact. I’ll be going along to Carnworth Manor later, and I intend to pick up the saddle.”

  “Yes,” said Henry. “The saddle. That’s just the point.”

  “What’s the point?”

  Henry said, “If Turnberry had fallen as he was supposed to have done, due to a broken girth while cantering at full speed, both he and the saddle would have rolled to the cliff edge, and either fallen over or stopped at the brink of the precipice.”

  “That’s just what did happen, according to Sir Robert,” said Hemming.

  “No.” Henry was quiet and very serious. “That’s why I borrowed your car this morning. There was the saddle and the rope-end.” He explained what Timmond had found on Melisande’s bridle.

  “Tethered at the Turnberry house—”

  “No,” said Henry again. “Please let me tell you this my own way, Sergeant. Everybody in the Manor knew that Sir Robert was going out early this morning to look for the missing saddle. So somebody got there first, moved the saddle, and cut the rope-end off the tree.”

  “How do you know, sir?”

  “Because I was up even earlier, Sergeant, and I borrowed your car to get as close as I could to the spot where Turnberry fell. The saddle was on the inland side of the path, under the trees, and the rope-end was still tied to a branch nearby. Naturally, I didn’t move or touch anything. I was on the spot at half past five, and left about a quarter after six. By the time I had delivered the car back here and spoken to Sergeant Robinson—who, by the way, is not in the least to blame for any of this—and then walked back to the Manor, I was just in time to see Sir Robert setting out, a little after seven. I suppose he found the saddle at eight, or thereabouts. By that time, somebody had moved the saddle to the seaward side of the path, where you would expect to find it, and the rope-end had gone. That’s what I mean by tampering with evidence.”

  Hemming sat for a moment in silence. Then, reluctantly, he said, “We’ve only Sir Robert’s word that he found the saddle where he said he did.”

  “No, we haven’t,” Henry said. “Mr. Timmond, his groom, was with him. He confirms that they found the saddle on the seaward side of the path. He also made a special search for the rope-end, and found nothing. He seems to me to be a reliable person.”

  “Yes, sir. I know him well.”

  “At the hospital last night,” Henry said, “I saw an orderly laying out the contents of Mr. Turnberry’s pockets.”

  “That’s right, sir. I’ve got them here now. Nothing at all unusual. The keys were to the Turnberry house. Just what you’d expect.”

  “I know,” said Henry. “That’s what puzzles me.”

  “Puzzles you, sir?”

  “Yes.” Henry rubbed the back of his neck with his left hand—an unconscious gesture that always meant a problem. “Why did he ride over to see his parents?”

  “Well…” Hemming was growing stodgier again. “Why did the chicken cross the road, sir? If you’ll forgive me. The chicken wanted to get to the other side, and Mr. Turnberry wanted to go to his parents’ home.”

  “To talk to them?”

  “One must presume so, sir.”

  “Then why didn’t he telephone? Why did he set out on a long ride that involved missing his lunch?”

  “Missing his lunch?” At last, a responsive chord seemed to have been struck in Sergeant Hemming. Clearly, for him, lunch was something with which only the gravest emergency could interfere.

  “Yes. And then he could only have stayed a very short time, and was riding back as hard as he could, by the shortcut over the cliffs.” There was a heavy pause. Henry said, “You must see it, Sergeant. Peter Turnberry went to St. Lawrence to collect something.”

  “What, sir?”

  “I don’t know. Something small, that he could put in his pocket. Something that he didn’t want anybody to know about. And yet, when he was found, that object wasn’t there.”

  “I see what you’re driving at, sir,” said Hemming, with no enthusiasm. More and more, he felt, this case might have nasty and unsettling repercussions. Why couldn’t people mind their own business? A simple riding accident. Now, with this Chief Superintendent shoving his nose in, there could be all sorts of awkward complications.

  Henry went on, “What time were you thinking of visiting the Turnberrys, Sergeant?”

  Thankful to be on what seemed a safer topic, Hemming said, “Well, sir, I’m off for my lunch now.” The sergeant obviously had no intention whatsoever of emulating Peter Turnberry and missing a meal. “Then I thought I’d go to the Manor to see Sir Robert and get the saddle. I’ll have a word with Joe Timmond while I’m there, too, in view of your information. Then on to the Turnberrys.”

  “That’s very good,” said Henry, a little enigmatically. “And when you get the saddle, I do advise you to examine the broken girth very thoroughly. Well, my wife and I will get ourselves something to eat, too, and then we have to get back to London.”

  Hemming stood up. Awkwardly he said, “As a matter of procedure, sir…”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, what I mean…you’re not taking this case over, are you, sir?”

  Henry looked shocked. “Of course not, Sergeant. It’s entirely your case—unless and until your Chief Constable decides to call in the Yard, which would surprise me. I’m here just as a member of the public, giving information.”

  “Thank you very much, sir,” said Hemming.

  The cab was waiting outside the police station in the sunshine. Henry asked the driver to take them back to Ryde, and sought his advice on a good place to have lunch. Apart
from a few friendly remarks from the driver—“You’ll be down on holiday from London, I wouldn’t wonder?” and “Lovely weather for once—last summer was terrible”—to which Henry replied monosyllabically in the affirmative, the ride was made in silence. Once Emmy said, “Henry, there’s something I—” but he gave her a warning look, and she shut up.

  After a pleasant but hurried lunch, Henry said, “Now we must hire a self-drive car. I noticed an office when Cartwright dropped us off.”

  Formalities were soon concluded, and Henry was behind the wheel of a lively little sedan, headed once more down the coast road toward Ventnor, and beyond it to Carnworth and St. Lawrence.

  Emmy said, “What are you being so mysterious for? I only—”

  “I don’t want anybody at Carnworth Manor to know that we didn’t go back to London this morning,” Henry said.

  “Why?”

  “Because it might be dangerous. Because somebody might repeat it to one of our fellow guests, for example.”

  “Dr. Cartwright knows,” Emmy said.

  Henry frowned. “I know,” he said. “I didn’t see how it could be done without his knowing. Anyhow, I just hope… well, it’ll be a while before Cartwright reaches London, anyhow.”

  “So where are we going now?” Emmy asked. “Isn’t this the way back to Carnworth?”

  “Yes, but we’re not stopping there. We’re going to see the Turnberrys. Before Sergeant Hemming gets there.”

  “Well,” Emmy remarked, “the Turnberrys are almost certain to tell somebody at the Manor that we’ve visited them.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. In any case, it won’t matter so much then.”

  “I give up,” said Emmy. “Anyhow, can I finish what I was going to say in the taxi?”

  Henry took his eyes off the road long enough to give her a big smile. “Of course, darling.”

  “Well, I just remembered. After you went sneaking out at that ungodly hour, I drifted off to sleep again. I can’t possibly tell what time it was…but I had the impression that I heard a car engine, somewhere in the distance. I thought it must be on the road.”