The Heel of Achilles: A Golden Age Mystery

by E.

  “You mean he had not lived long enough in the place to have ceased being a stranger?” suggested Kenway. The inspector had been born in a country village, and knew the feeling against what are called ‘outsiders’.

  “No. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t like that at all, Inspector. That kind of feeling has died out here. We are so close to London, you know, and most of our people actually work in London and live here. No. It seemed to be some quality in him which did not attract folks.”

  “Well, supposing that went for men. What about ladies—Mrs. Andover, for instance?”

  The landlord laughed. “That was one of the little jokes we had among ourselves, and didn’t tell Canley. Everybody except Canley knew all about it. She’s rather notorious round here. Canley had the idea that he was the only, and great, lover of the lady. He wasn’t. But nobody dare tell him so.”

  “What kind of woman is she?”

  “Actually she’s quite good company. And a good-looker. She’d got a little money of her own—left her, I reckon, by some man in the past. I’m told that it is enough for her to live upon. The trouble with her is that she seems to be a ‘beauximaniac’.”

  “Beauximaniac?” Kenway laughed and looked quizzical inquiry. “That’s a new one on me,” he said.

  “Beauximania—one who has a mania for beaux. I invented the word for her,” elucidated the landlord. “She can’t keep away from men. The obsession made her a bit of a nuisance. I had to stop her coming in here unless she had an escort. I asked Mackenzie’s advice about that. Mind you, she had a genius for keeping each of her various men unaware that they were receiving her intimate favours. They knew, of course, that the other men took her into a pub and bought her drinks, but they didn’t know the afterwards—in the dead of night. I reckon, though, that Canley had found out. And in the row that followed, I had to turn them both out of here.”

  “Row?” The inspector started slightly. “When would that be, landlord?”

  “Last night, as a matter of fact.”

  “What!” Kenway became alert. “Do you mean to say that they were rowing in here last night? What time would that have been?”

  The landlord thought back. “Now, let me see, who was in here? Bill Adams, Julian Evans, Andrew Melville—he never comes in before nine o’clock, and he’d been in about twenty minutes—it would be about nine-thirty, I suppose. My lady came in with Ted Appleton. He was one of the men Canley did not know about. They ordered drinks. They were drinking snugly and happily and then suddenly Canley himself came in and spotted them.”

  The landlord chuckled at the recollection. “Ted drank up his port and hopped it. Canley went over to her, and sat down, and then the row started. I asked them to leave, and watched them start off together down the road. You know, I have an idea that Canley had hoodwinked her, because my lady was always very careful not to bring somebody else into a pub if her particular fancy man was likely to be in the same place. And she knew that Canley was mostly in here.”

  “He did not threaten any violence, I suppose?” asked Kenway.

  “Who? Canley?” Mr. North laughed. “No fear! The lady has a whale of a temper and if it had come to any violence, I reckon it would have been Canley who would have been at the wrong end of it.”

  “Aye, Mrs. Andover could hold him with one hand and spank him with the other,” said Mackenzie in confirmation.

  “In which direction did they go when they left? You said that you watched them down the street.”

  “All I can say is that they went in the direction of the crossroads. They have four different choices from there.”

  Inspector Kenway got to his feet. “Well, we’ll be moving on, Mackenzie,” he announced. “Thank you very much for your help, Mr. North. I will remember to point out to my friends the inn which Turpin never visited.” They laughed together. Outside, they walked along in the direction of the main street.

  “Where next, Inspector?” queried Mackenzie.

  Kenway wrinkled his brows in thought. “Perhaps before we see Mrs. Andover we ought to check up on that time,” he said at last. “Where can we find Ted Appleton?”

  “In the grocery shop across the Green in front of us,” said Mackenzie. “It’s a prosperous business and Ted is what they call ‘warm’ in money.” He looked across as the ting-tong of the doorbell announced the opening of the shop door. “And here,” he announced, “here, by a dispensation of providence is Ted himself coming towards us. We can get him alone in the open air.” He waited, and halted the grocer.

  “Can we have a word with you, Ted?” he asked.

  “Sure thing, Inspector.”

  Kenway introduced himself. “We are trying to trace the wanderings of James Canley last night, before he died, Mr. Appleton. Now, we gather that you saw him in the Miller’s Arms during the time you were there with a lady. Is that so?”

  “I did, Inspector, yes. But not to speak to.” He smiled sheepishly. “As a matter of fact, when he came in I skedaddled. I was with Mrs. Andover, and she was Canley’s pigeon—”

  “So I’ve heard, Ted,” said Inspector Mackenzie. “I’m surprised at you being with her, seeing as how Canley was about the place.”

  “Wouldn’t have been if I’d known he was around, although I knew her before he ever came here,” retorted Appleton. “As it happened, she said that Canley had gone to Esher or somewhere, so I. . . er . . . dallied an hour or two with her. At least, that was to have been the idea,” he corrected. “We went into the Miller’s Arms for a drink, to start the evening off right, and lo and behold, before we could swallow it, in comes Canley and starts over to me. I wasn’t going to have any argument with Canley, so I lit out.”

  “What time would that be?” asked Kenway.

  “I can tell you to within a couple of minutes—twenty-five past nine.”

  “You saw no more of Canley, I suppose?”

  “Not a sign. I went home, and there I stayed.”

  “Mr. Appleton lives by himself, over his shop,” explained Mackenzie.

  “No message of goodwill, or otherwise, from Canley, I suppose?” asked Kenway.

  Appleton shook his head, waved a hand and resumed his joumeyings.

  “Well, that’s that,” said Kenway. “We didn’t learn much there we didn’t already know, but we’ve confirmed the time with that given by the landlord. We’ve got Mrs. Andover with Appleton up to practically half past nine. At that time he handed her over, unwillingly, I suppose, to Canley. After half past nine, Appleton saw them going towards the cross-roads. So it seems to be pretty clear that it was somewhere between a quarter to ten and half past ten that Canley was killed.”

  “Half past ten, Inspector. Why half past ten exactly?” Mackenzie looked puzzled.

  “Because, Mac, after he had been killed and was, I suppose, still in the cottage, the murderer had to make all arrangements in the cottage to show that Canley was alone all night. At least, that is what he thought he was doing. They’d take a pretty time, you know, and then he had to carry Canley to the railway and arrange the accident. I reckon all that would take him the best part of an hour to carry out, so that the last train down was to be the presumed death of Canley, I guess the man was killed about ten-thirty. Inductive reasoning, Mac. We’re great on inductive reasoning in the Yard.”

  Mackenzie grunted. “If I talked like that, old Ypres would call it guess work, and tick me off,” he mourned.

  “There’s a difference between guess work, and assumption based on facts,” said Kenway, reprovingly. “In this case we’ve got a person so keen on removing all traces of having been in the cottage, that we can find out through his over-carefulness exactly what he did. Knowing what he did, Mac, we do not guess, but estimate the time he took to do it. From that estimate we arrive at an approximate time of death. But, anyway, this is getting us nowhere. Having now been left with Canley in the company of Mrs. Andover at the cross-roads, we had better, I think, tackle Mrs. Andover, and see what she did with him. That ought to take
us a little nearer the fatal time of half past ten. Where does she live?”

  “Only a stone’s throw from Ted Appleton,” chortled Mackenzie. He led the way to a house just round the corner from the grocer’s shop, and rang a bell. “She has a couple of rooms and a bathroom here—a kind of self-contained flat,” he explained in a whisper. “Here she is.”

  Mackenzie had stated that Mrs. Andover could hold Canley in one hand and spank him with the other; and Kenway, when he found himself face to face with the lady, realized that he had not exaggerated.

  Mrs. Andover was what is known as a strapping woman. Not in the sense that she was gross or over-sized; she was beautifully proportioned and shaped, with broad shoulders and hips that had the look of strength about them. Her breasts were set high, and stood out from her body, firmly. She stood tall and stately, a perfect animal.

  She was, too, a good-looking woman, who earlier in life had undoubtedly been handsome. A hardness in the lines round her mouth, and too much rouge in the cheeks signalled to some extent the beginning of the fading of the fortune of face and figure, but she was still a woman at whom men would look twice. Junoesque, was the description that ran through the mind of Kenway, as he studied her. She greeted the two men surprisingly.

  “Do come in. Inspector Mackenzie, and bring your friend,” she invited sweetly. “I am sure this will be a most delightful visit—for Mrs. Julian.”

  “Mrs. Julian?” queried Kenway. ‘Where does Mrs. Julian come in, and who the devil is she?’ he asked himself under his breath.

  Mrs. Andover laughed trillingly. “She’s looking from behind her curtain in the window across the street,” she explained. “She’ll probably write to the Chief Constable or The Times about it. Just fancy, a police inspector and another man . . . stopped half an hour, my dear, and in broad daylight.”

  “Another inspector, Mrs. Andover,” said Kenway smilingly. “That makes two of them.”

  He followed Mackenzie into the house. Mrs. Andover placed them in a couple of armchairs, and arranged cushions behind for their shoulders. She lolled herself on a settee, sinking slinkily into its depths.

  “Now, let’s hear it,” she invited. “I suppose it’s about Canley?”

  “It is, Mrs. Andover, yes.” Kenway took over the questioning. He spoke curtly; he felt revolted at the casualness of her mention of the man who had been her lover, and who had died tragically. “You know, of course, what has happened?” he asked.

  “I know that he was found dead on the railway, yes.”

  “We are trying to find out what he was up to on the lines at that hour of the night,” explained the inspector.

  “Then I am afraid I cannot help you very much.” Mrs. Andover made the statement with definiteness. “In point of fact, I would like to know myself what he was up to last night. He seems to have been intent on playing me for a sucker.” She gazed in self-appreciation at an ample display of shapely leg.

  “Shall we start from nine o’clock, Mrs. Andover?” Kenway developed a business-like air. “Or perhaps a little later than nine o’clock. You left the Miller’s Arms with him after a somewhat heated argument, and started out in the direction of the crossroads. Where did you branch from there?”

  “I branched into this room, Inspector. Where Canley went I do not know. I told him to go to the devil. He seems to have taken me literally at 11.35 p.m., but where he went in the interim, I have not the least idea.”

  Kenway had been jerked to surprise at the woman’s statement. He watched her face as he asked, quietly, and with a disarming smile: “At eleven-thirty-five? Why do you pick on that time, Mrs. Andover?”

  If he expected her to show embarrassment, or confusion, he was disappointed.

  “I should hardly think his body could have been missed if it had been lying on the lines before the last train of the night passed,” she replied. “But anyway, I am told by my landlady’s small child that the 11.35 pm. train knocked him down.”

  “I see.” It was after a moment’s reflection that Kenway played his real opening gambit.

  “But, Mrs. Andover, you were in Canley’s cottage last night, were you not?” The question came in quiet conversational tones.

  The woman sat up in surprise, and stared at her visitors. “I told you that I came straight home,” she said. Kenway produced his cigarette-case and proffered it. He lighted Mrs. Andover’s weed, and with exaggerated care, selected and puffed at one himself. “Why prevaricate with us, Mrs. Andover,” he said. “I know that you were in the cottage last night.”

  “Indeed!” she became sarcastic. “And how, may I ask, do you know that—or suppose you know it?”

  “That is simple, madam. You left a—shall we say, an ensemble there.”

  Mrs. Andover laughed. “That, my dear Inspector, is nothing to go by. I was in the cottage most nights and I frequently left—er—ensembles there. The ones to which you refer may have been there a week or more.”

  “Not unless they possess the attributes of a chameleon, Mrs. Andover.” Kenway spoke sharply and caustically.

  “I don’t get that, Inspector.”

  Kenway explained the attributes of the colour scheme of the chamaeleon vulgaris. “If the ensemble in question had been left there the previous night, Mrs. Andover, they must have mysteriously changed colour within twenty-four hours because they were not black the previous day.”

  “I understand. The Gospel thumper has been snooping around again, I suppose? All right. It is true that I was there last night. I expected to spend the night there—at least until the small hours. But at eight-thirty Canley pushed me off, and came out with me. He said that he had some business to attend to, and did not know when he would be back—but certainly not before midnight.

  “We parted at the main-road junction. I walked back towards here, and ran into Ted Appleton, told him I was at a loose end because Canley had gone to Esher for the night, and we went into the Miller’s Arms for a drink. Then Canley appeared. Ted hopped it”—she grinned broadly—“and Canley and I had a bit of an argument. North said it would be better if we went out until we had decided the matter. Which we did—as I have already told you.”

  Kenway digested the statement in silence. He was seeking to find a flaw in the timing, but could not do so. It all corresponded with the figures given by Mr. Appleton himself and by the landlord. Appleton’s statement did not matter; he might have some reason to shield the woman, but there could be no such argument in the case of the landlord; and his times coincided with those given by the woman. There was one point, however, that might pay for a little probing, the inspector decided. He tried it.

  “You said just now, Mrs. Andover, that you yourself would like to know what Mr. Canley was up to last night, and you mentioned something about playing you for a sucker. Do I take it that that referred to his sudden appearance in the Miller’s Arms after he had told you that he was going to Esher, or wherever it was he was going?”

  “That was in my mind, yes.”

  “You think he was trying to catch you out?”

  “I thought it rather looked that way, which is why we had the argument.”

  “Did he know that you knew Mr. Appleton?”

  “Certainly. He knew that we were acquainted. We have all three shared a round of drinks together before now.”

  “But did he know you knew him in the phrase which Mr. Appleton used—to dally with you for an hour or so?”

  “As to that, Inspector, I do not know—nor do I particularly care. No man orders me about.”

  “You are quite sure, Mrs. Andover, that you were not in the cottage after eight-thirty?”

  “Quite sure.”

  “What time did you reach the cottage?”

  “I cannot say for certain. But I should think it would be about five minutes to eight.”

  “What did you do with the dinner things?”

  The woman stared in surprise. “The dinner things?” she echoed.

  “What on earth have I to do with h
is meals? In fact, I did not see any dinner things. Canley was sitting in the armchair by the fire when I arrived, reading a racing paper.”

  “Nothing on the table at all?”

  “Not to make me notice anything.”

  “No whisky for instance?”

  “None. We had nothing to drink. We had other distractions.”

  “And after you left Canley you came here?”

  “That is so, Inspector.”

  “And stayed here all night?”

  Mrs. Andover nodded.

  Kenway reached for his hat and coat. So did Mackenzie. Mrs. Andover accompanied them to the door. She looked across the road and saw the quiver of the curtains in the window of the house opposite. She laughed, placed a hand on the shoulders of Inspector Mackenzie, and waved at the figure behind the curtains.

  Kenway looked across at the recipient of the favour, but saw nobody. Mrs. Andover smiled. “Only the lady behind the curtains, Inspector,” she said. “I like to acknowledge her kindly interest.”

  The two men walked away. “Well? What do you make of it?” Inspector Mackenzie quizzed.

  “Blest if I know what to make of her story, Mac. I think I’ll pop back to the Yard, and see what the doctor can see in it. Meanwhile, you might have a go at some of the other lights o’ love of the lady, and see if they know anything. We should, I feel, try for a confirmation that Mrs. Andover was, as she says, in her rooms from just turned nine-thirty onwards. We have only her word for it. Can you get into conversation with the prying Mrs. Julian without Mrs. Andover knowing? She seems to maintain surveillance over the comings and goings from Mrs. Andover’s.”

  “I think there is a back entrance through the garden,” decided Mackenzie.

  “Then go to it, my lad.”

  CHAPTER XX

  It was not only to Doctor Manson that Inspector Kenway told the story of Mrs. Andover. His arrival at the Yard coincided with a call by the Assistant Commissioner for information on the inquiry.