Poppy Redfern and the Midnight Murders

by Tessa Arlen

  Her eyes welled. “Some days are better than others, but it’s best to keep busy. This terrible business with Audrey has brought it all back. Poor girl, thank the Lord she wasn’t too badly . . .” She finished mashing and bent down to open the oven door. Before the war, Mrs. Wantage had her pick of great houses to work at, but she prefers to help us out. She and Granny are good friends in the way of women who have nothing in common whatsoever, but respect and like each other, and I knew Granny had been over to Mrs. Wantage’s cottage several times since Ivy’s death.

  “It’s good to see you here again, Mrs. Wantage,” I said rather awkwardly. “I am so sorry about Ivy.”

  “Thank you, my dear.” Her smile was shaky, and she turned away. The subject was closed, and I wandered into the dining room and set the table to give her time to collect herself. She came in to fill the water glasses, her face determinedly cheerful.

  “That American chap popped in here earlier on, wanted to know if you would like to go to the pictures with him in Wickham. Said it was the one with that cowboy in it. Can’t remember the name. He left a note for you.” She handed over a folded slip of paper.

  “Looks like I’m going to miss Sunday lunch this weekend. Want to catch a Bogart movie tonight? Pick you up at six? G.”

  I decided to say no when he turned up. I would tell him what Ilona always says when she refuses an invitation: How kind of you, darling. But not tonight; I have to darn my socks.

  I went into the drawing room and pulled out my list of embrocation users. Every single one of them was in the clear, except for Mrs. Glossop and Sid Ritchie. I wrote another name down on it. Supposing Bill had said good night to Audrey, left her, and then doubled back and surprised her as she was leaving the lambing hut? He is a large man; he could easily overpower Audrey. But if Bill Peterson was our murderer, he would have had no difficulty at all in strangling her, so surely there would have been no need to hit her over the head with a brick? Almost as soon as I had written his name, I crossed it through.

  Was I being a bit too gullible about the Americans?

  TWENTY-ONE

  Hullo there, Poppy!” It was Fenella Bradley—again—hailing me from the other side of Streams Lane where it forks left to go up to the Bradleys’ Victorian redbrick country house. For a girl who had a fascinating life in London, Fenella was spending a lot of time in our dull little backwater these days. She was driving her father’s Daimler and looking ravishing in a deep red suit the color of garnets. After the bruising I had received at her hands the last time we met, I approached with caution.

  “Just popped down to see the Aged Ps.” Fenella loves to churn out bits of Dickens; it’s what sets her apart from other girls who are merely gorgeous. “Everyone’s talking about your Sunday lunches—I would love to come. Can you squeeze me in?”

  And of course, I fell for it, completely forgetting that it doesn’t do to be too complacent about Bradley attendance at village functions because they always manage to let you down if a more enticing invitation crops up. “Of course, we would be delighted for you and your sister to join us,” I said.

  “Do you really do all the cooking? How clever you are, Pops.” When Fenella isn’t being patronizing, she is quite charming.

  “Actually, Lieutenant O’Neal is the cook. We invite three men from the base and one or two couples from the village. It is part of our—”

  “Oh, please count me in!” she said carelessly as she turned large blue eyes on me with that imploring look she does so well, especially when she is quite sure her wishes will be granted. “I would love to come, really I would. I can peel potatoes, you know.” Then she remembered a little too late: “Who is on your guest list from the village this coming Sunday?”

  “Sid Ritchie,” I said and watched her eyes wander away to the road ahead. “And Bert and Mrs. Pritchard. And since we are one short from the American side, I can fit you in quite easily.” She managed not to flinch at the thought of sitting down with the Pritchards and Sid Ritchie. But she looked almost afraid when she asked, “Short of who on the American side?”

  “Lieutenant O’Neal. Duty calls, apparently.”

  “Oh, but he’s the cook—you can’t do without him, surely?”

  I watched her bright smile fade at the thought of lunch without Griff O’Neal after she had begged for an invitation. “Delighted you can come, Fenella. Arrive early if you can, and I’ll show you how to make a wine reduction!” I smiled my most winning smile.

  “I’d love to, Poppy.” She returned my smile with one equally winning. “I’ll confirm as soon as I check with the Ageds about their plans.” She pulled a wry face at the domineering old couple who ran her life, released the hand brake, revved the engine, and then shot off down the lane in what I would have called reckless driving in anyone but a Bradley.

  It was of course inevitable that Fenella could not after all join us for lunch. “Wish I could join you on Sunday, but my parents have included me in their plans. Please invite me again—some other time,” she had written on a little card that plopped through the letter box onto the coir mat promptly on Saturday morning. Mrs. Wantage brought it to me and was quick to fill me in on the rest of the scenario.

  “The Bradleys are entertaining on Sunday.” She smiled with the suspicion of a wink. “I’m making one of my mutton curries for them. They are having lunch for Colonel and Mrs. Smithers, Lord and Lady Kingsbridge, and Fenella has asked that nice Lieutenant O’Neal to make up the numbers. I’m glad she thought to tell you she couldn’t make it, because I didn’t know whether I should inform you of their plans or not. Especially since they invited your nice American chap.” Mrs. Wantage looked at me out of the corner of her eye to see if I was upset that Griff would not be slogging away in my kitchen but sitting down to luncheon in the Bradleys’ baronial dining hall. “Not that it will be a patch on roast beef and your lovely Yorkshire,” she said as a consolation, and flicked her duster at the Bradleys and their snooty friends.

  I didn’t know whether to laugh or grit my teeth that Griff was lunching at the Bradleys with Fenella. Why on earth hadn’t he said so in his note to me? It is all too ridiculous, I decided, as I went upstairs to change for patrol. Why on earth shouldn’t he have lunch with the Bradleys? I kicked my shoes off across the room. When this wretched war was over, he would go back to America anyway.

  * * *

  —

  SUNDAY LUNCH WAS a tedious affair, especially as Sid was at his most self-conscious. The Pritchards did their best to divert some of his more searching questions of our American guests about their Mustang fighter planes.

  “If one of your Mustangs was in a dogfight with a Spit, I think the Spitfire would win because of its superior attributes, like speed, climb, and maneuverability,” he said in his Biggles voice. The only reason it didn’t come off as downright patronizing is that he is so genuinely proud of his beloved Spitfire.

  “Probably,” Lieutenant Hawkins, who piloted a Mustang, agreed. “But they were built for different purposes. Your Spitfire is an interceptor, while the P-51 is a long-range escort fighter.”

  There was a pause as Sid decided whether or not he was being put in his place.

  “So, you see,” Lieutenant Hawkins added in a neutral voice, as he glanced at his navigator, who was busily cutting up meat, “you can’t really compare them, can you? Although I would give anything to fly a Spitfire.”

  Sid stared at him for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders. “It was just a hypothetical question,” he said.

  Without Mrs. Pritchard and her happy laugh, and Bert, with his determined mine-host jocularity, it would have been a disaster. Granny looked tired and Grandad tried to jolly Sid along, but he was at his most obdurate. As I watched him I thought how much fun he was when he was imitating his favorite comic characters from It’s That Man Again, instead of being stuffy about aircraft. Poor Sid. At least he was trying to get along wi
th our Americans.

  As soon as coffee had been served and all our visitors had made a beeline for the front door, Sid followed me into the kitchen and insisted on helping me with the washing up. He was particularly bad at it, and it was depressing watching him make a sudsy mess when it was usually Griff and I who did the washing up together.

  “I’ve been thinking about what you said the other night. And I’m sorry that I got so angry about what’s been going on in the village. You are right about the Americans; they are here to help us. And if one of them is a murderer, it doesn’t mean they are all bad.” He glanced at me to see how I was taking his about-face.

  “Good, I’m glad you feel that way.”

  He swirled soapy water with his dish mop, and I could tell there was more to come.

  “What is it, Sid?”

  “I just feel I should . . .” He stared down at a dish covered in suds. “What I mean is . . . I think . . .”

  “Sometimes it’s easier to just say a thing.”

  He cleared his throat. “Right then . . . I want to warn you about your friend Griff O’Neal.” My heart sank. “I sort of lost my nerve the other night when I told you about seeing him in his car after curfew. But since you are not involved with him or anything . . .” I nodded and tried to breathe. “You should know that on that night, when I saw him in his car, it was pulled over to the side of the road and a young woman in a yellow dress got into the passenger seat.” I dried knives and forks very carefully, so I wouldn’t have to catch his eye.

  “Why are you telling me this, Sid?”

  “I don’t know. I just thought it was something you should know.”

  “Even though I have told you that there is nothing between Griff and me, other than my grandparents’ Sunday lunches?” He slopped water down the front of his shirt.

  “What about all those walks with the dog, trips into Wickham to the flicks, and to visit Audrey? And all those patrols he did with you when he was off flying? Everyone in the village thinks he’s sweet on you.” A nauseating expression, which made me harrumph and fold my arms.

  “Everyone? You mean Mrs. Glossop and her pals? Well, they are utterly wrong, aren’t they?” I said. But I could feel a lump building in my throat and I felt humiliated and silly standing in my kitchen being informed by Sid Ritchie that Griff was not the man I thought he was.

  “She had dark hair,” said Sid. “Tallish. Slender.”

  I acknowledged each detail with a nod. “When was this?” I heard myself say with a calm I was far from feeling.

  He handed me a plate to dry. “I can’t remember exactly. After Doreen, though . . . and before . . .” He heard himself and turned to look at me, his face horrified. “Oh no, it couldn’t be. Poppy, it couldn’t be.”

  “Couldn’t be what?” I asked.

  “Because it was the night before we found Ivy, that’s why. Cripes, Poppy! Dark hair, tallish, slender, that’s . . . that’s Ivy.” His face was pale, and his large brown eyes were wide with the horror of what he had said.

  “I hope you told Inspector Hargreaves about all this, Sid.”

  “Why . . . ? No . . . I haven’t. Of course I haven’t. It only just came to me.”

  Did I believe him? I thought over what he had told me, and a cool voice in my head told me that I should pay very close attention. “Sid, I don’t want to be an alarmist, but this sounds very serious.” I made my voice as flat and dispassionate as I could. “If you really think you saw Lieutenant O’Neal giving Ivy a lift the night before she was murdered, you must go to the police. You certainly don’t want to be withholding information from them, do you?” I watched his face flush.

  “But supposing it wasn’t the night before Ivy was killed? Supposing it was several nights before? You know how bad I am about things like that.”

  “Are you saying you are not sure?”

  “Yes, I think I am. What shall I do?”

  “Sid, it’s up to you. If it was the night before Ivy died, then you must speak out. If you are not sure, then . . . you’re not sure.”

  I honestly don’t know how I got him out of the kitchen and on his way home with a little packet of cold roast beef for sandwiches, but I managed it without losing my temper, or being unkind, which was the main thing.

  “I can’t be sure,” he kept wailing as I escorted him to the front door. “I mean, it could just as easily have been after we found Ivy. It’s so long ago now. And it might not even have been her.”

  “So, if it wasn’t Ivy, who else could it have been—what did she look like?”

  “I only saw her from behind. She was wearing a yellow dress and high heels. So, she might have been shorter than I thought. It was so long ago.”

  So long ago? It was three weeks since we had found Ivy. I fumed as I thanked him for half doing the washing up.

  “Poppy, I’m so sorry about the washing up.”

  “Sid, please don’t worry. I’ll finish it.”

  I returned to the kitchen and started the laborious business of rinsing all the soapy dishes left in the sink. Granny came in and picked up a tea towel. “Weren’t you a little bit sharp with poor Sidney?” Evidently, she had heard only the tone of our conversation and not its content. Otherwise she would have agreed that he was being particularly half-baked.

  “No, not really,” I said, wishing I could be alone for just five minutes. “He does talk such rot sometimes.”

  “Yes, I know, dear. I’m sure he can be very trying. But the poor boy means well, and he doesn’t have much confidence.”

  I wanted to scream: I don’t have much confidence either, and apparently the man I am “sweet” on is not only secretive, but also might be a liar or even a murderer. And then, very unfairly, I wondered how I would know anything at all about this confusing world when I have been overprotected all my blasted life. But I bit my lip and finished rinsing the dishes.

  “Are you upset because Fenella Bradley invited Griff over for lunch?”

  “No, not really.”

  “I am afraid that Fenella is not a very straightforward girl.” I put down the dish mop and drained the sink. There are many character traits that Granny rates highly in young women, but being straightforward is at the top of her list. If Fenella was not straightforward, that meant she, in Granny’s parlance, was cunning, sly, and not truthful.

  I took off my pinny and hung it on a peg by the door. “I think she’s rather keen on Griff,” I said in a whisper, because it hurt like anything to say the words, even if it was to this kindly, sympathetic soul. Granny has always listened and given me practical advice on all my woes, until I turned fifteen and realized that there were things I could no longer ask her about.

  She came over to me, lifted my chin, and stroked my hair back out of my eyes. “Yes, dear, I’m sure she is. If only because she knows he likes to spend time with you. But you don’t seem to have much faith in yourself, do you, darling? Don’t underestimate yourself, Poppy. You are a lovely and intelligent young woman, and, most important of all, you are compassionate and kind.” She put her arms around me. “And what about Griff? Surely he has something to say about all this. I’m sure there is some rational explanation why he had lunch at Bradley Hall and didn’t tell you.”

  His lunching at Bradley Hall was the least of my concerns, because if Griff O’Neal had stopped to give Ivy a lift in his car the night before we found her under Streams Lane bridge, it didn’t really matter where he had breakfast, lunch, tea, or dinner, did it?

  * * *

  —

  I MADE MY escape into the orchard with Bess. I wouldn’t walk up the lane with her toward the airfield, in case I ran into Griff. And I didn’t want to walk through the village because now everyone believed that he was two-timing me with Fenella. I wanted to pack a bag, catch a train up to London, and volunteer to be a real ARP warden and not one who walked around a village ever
y night checking that everyone had the blackout curtain tightly drawn as I worried where the next dead body would turn up.

  I do wish you wouldn’t be so fatalistic, chimed in Ilona, which reminded me that I hadn’t written a thing about her for days. Why don’t you ask him outright?

  Honestly, for such a smart woman, Ilona can be an awful nitwit sometimes. I remembered how deftly Griff had avoided all information about Ponsonby. He never answered disconcerting questions, I realized, as I threw windfall apples for Bess. He skated lightly through life, relying on his ability to make things smooth and pleasant for everyone. I scowled and kicked a few dandelion clocks with my toe, sending showers of seed heads into the air. Bess ran after them, snapping and sneezing, and her clowning made me laugh.

  “’Ello, ’ello. Fought I would bump into you two if I walked good and fast.” It was Griff, striding through the orchard gate toward us, brandishing a stick for Bess and talking in his terrible cockney accent.

  “Hullo.” I stopped and stood there, completely uncertain of how to behave or what to say.

  “How was Sunday lunch without me? Did you overcook the beef—and the beans? I know how much you English love to boil your greens to death.” He turned and threw the stick for Bess. “You look like you’ve heard some bad news.” How right he was. “Everything okay?” His face was concerned. Not pretend concern, but what I prayed from the depth of my desperate heart to be simple, honest concern.

  I shook my head and laughed. “Everything’s fine,” I said.

  “Aha, so you did overcook the beef. You have that look on your face.” He was laughing. “C’mon, you can tell me.”

  “No, I didn’t—it was delicious.”

  “Lucky you—I had to have lunch up at Bradley Hall. Me and Colonel Duchovny. Boy, was it heavy going. Never had lunch with such a stuffy bunch.” He winced as he threw his next stick, and half lifted his hand to his ribs. “They all looked as if something smelled bad. Not enough gin in the world to loosen those people up. So, how were the Pritchards? Why am I asking? I bet it was a breeze.”