A Colourful Death_A Cornish Mystery

by Carola Dunn

  “No, sir.”

  “What? What’s that? Bixby assured me Pearce had the culprit in custody already. Some sort of artist, wasn’t it? You haven’t let him slip through our fingers, I hope?”

  “Certainly not, sir.” Scumble sounded shocked. Megan had never guessed he could act so well. “The man is still in the building.”

  “I’m not talking about his physical presence, Inspector. You’re not going to let him slip through some loophole in the law?”

  “I hardly think he need look for loopholes, sir. As things stand, we have no case against him. There never was anything but the accusation of a hysterical woman, which is contradicted by the physical evidence. I’ve got the forensic and medical reports here to show you.”

  Superintendent Egerton waved them away. “Are you telling me DI Pearce arrested this fellow on the word of an hysterical female? Without any other evidence? The man must be stark raving mad.”

  “Oh no, sir, I’m sure Mr Pearce would never do anything so … so … unwise. ’Specially with a popular local artist who’s an up-and-coming star on the London arts scene. Mr Gresham was never arrested, never charged, though I’m afraid he spent an uncomfortable night in the cells. But there, from what I hear you’ve got ’em set up all comfy-like, not like in the bad old days.”

  Something sly in Scumble’s tone reminded Megan of hearing Egerton described as a “bring back flogging” copper. Or was it “hang, draw, and quarter ’em”?

  The super’s cheeks swelled. “Is he going to lodge a complaint?”

  “I doubt it, sir. A very easygoing gentleman. Not the sort to hold a grudge. Nor to stab someone in the back, though it’s true you never can tell.”

  “So you’ve released him?”

  “Yes, sir, but kept him close, like. We still have to check his alibi for the actual time of death.”

  “Any chance Pearce was right to pick him up, if for the wrong reasons?”

  “I rather doubt it, sir. The alibi looks good. But like I said, it’s got to be checked.”

  “Quite right, quite right. Then I suppose you’ll have to start from scratch.”

  “I wouldn’t say that, sir. We—Sergeant Pencarrow and me—we’ve got a few cards up our sleeves.”

  “I’m glad to hear Pearce didn’t completely drop the ball.”

  “Mr Pearce didn’t pass on any names, sir. Well, you couldn’t expect him to, could you, seeing he was sure he’d got the case sewn up. These are leads we’ve developed ourselves. Of course, Mr Pearce would soon have found ’em if he’d stayed with the case.”

  “Of course,” said Egerton grimly. “Right, get on with it.”

  Megan followed Scumble out of the room. With the door firmly closed behind them, she asked, “Which leads are those, sir?”

  “We’ll find ’em, Pencarrow, we’ll find ’em. Don’t forget, we’ve got a nest of commies to roust out to begin with. I wonder if your auntie’s managed to infiltrate,” he added jocularly. He was very pleased with himself.

  Though quite impressed by the way her gov’nor had handled the Super, Megan was less than thrilled at the thought of Aunt Nell, all unwary, infiltrating a bunch of possibly murderous commies, even if they weren’t actually communists. Still, it wasn’t Scumble who had sent her to Cold Comfort Farm, or whatever it was called. DI Pearce was to blame. Megan hoped Egerton gave him a rocket.

  “What did you get from Gresham?”

  “Uh … sir?”

  “Come on, Pencarrow, I didn’t send you out to babysit him. Don’t tell me you spent nearly an hour discussing the flowers that bloom in the spring. Tra-la.” He stopped with his hand on the door-handle of their room and gave her an enquiring look.

  “He confirmed that Stella Maris Weller made a pass at him, which he rejected. In an extremely insulting manner.”

  “Ah, he did, did he?”

  “The implication being that he had no motive of jealousy for doing in Geoffrey Clark.”

  “I wasn’t born yesterday, Pencarrow. I can see an implication when it bites me in the arse. What I can’t see—yet—is the relevance. He’s already got an adequate motive. At least, I assume so. I want to see those paintings of his, and I’d really like to see the note he claims Miss Stella Weller left for him. Though unless she wrote the date and time on it, it won’t be conclusive. You’ll have to go and see this artsy-fartsy London dealer anyway.”

  “Alarian? Why me, sir?”

  He gave her an evil grin. “You’re the one with friends in the Met. I’m sure the boy wonder’ll be happy to go with you to hold your hand.”

  Megan didn’t bother to protest. It was true that Ken, a detective sergeant with the Metropolitan Police, would probably be helpful, and the fact that she’d prefer not to see him, let alone ask for his assistance, would not weigh with the gov’nor, even if she wanted to tell him so, which she didn’t.

  “But we mustn’t keep Mr Gresham waiting any longer in case he decides to lodge a complaint! The victim’s gallery first, I think. Let’s get this show on the road.”

  In spite of the inspector’s words, it was some time before they left Bodmin. They needed officers to go house-to-house in Padstow, and it turned out, in the face of Scumble’s expressed disbelief, that the Bodmin district really was unusually busy. Egerton had instructed his flock to cooperate, but the better part of the morning was gone before the caravan of two pandas and the 1100 got under way.

  In the meantime, taking advantage of the bustle and confusion, Nick had slipped out into the town, returning with a drawing pad and a box of coloured chalks. He took no further notice of proceedings.

  SIXTEEN

  Eleanor and Jocelyn took two colanders full of pea-pods through the back corridor to the kitchen.

  “Is there anything else we can do to help?” Jocelyn enquired.

  “No, thanks, Mrs Stearns. It’s all under control. There’s just the four of us. The ravening hordes are supposed to forage for themselves in the middle of the day. You won’t mind Doug in his work-clothes, I hope? No point him changing when he’ll go straight out again after.”

  “Of course not,” Eleanor assured her, while Joce murmured something not quite appropriate about the labourer being worthy of his hire. “I’d really like to see more of the workings of Tom’s pottery before the police interrupt.”

  They went out to the courtyard.

  “What are you plotting, Eleanor?” Joce asked suspiciously.

  “Plotting? What do you mean?”

  “I know that look.”

  “Not plotting, just thinking. Wondering.”

  “Wondering what?”

  “I can’t do anything about it at present anyway. It wouldn’t be fair to Margery. So you can stop worrying. Will you come with me to watch Tom Lennox make those dishes you so admire?”

  “I suppose I might as well. It’s very inconsiderate of the police to keep you waiting.”

  Tom’s door still stood open. Approaching, they heard the whir of his potter’s wheel. Above it rose the sound of a female voice.

  “Champagne!” exclaimed Jeanette. “I want the real thing.”

  “Do you think that’s a good idea?” Tom queried. “The fuzz are going to think it’s pretty odd to celebrate the murder of a fellow-artist so … so blatantly.”

  Eleanor held Jocelyn back, too intrigued to worry about the ethics of eavesdropping.

  “You can’t expect me to pretend to mourn him. If you hadn’t heard me scream … But I can wait for the Champagne till Nick’s safe for sure.”

  “Till after the funeral. And the inquest.”

  “Inquest! Does there have to be an inquest when he was so obviously murdered? I mean, you can’t stick a dagger in your own back, either by accident or on purpose, can you? Not that Geoff would ever have committed suicide. He had far too high an opinion of himself. An inquest! Oh, Tom, do you think we’ll all have to go? As witnesses?”

  “I don’t know about that,” the potter said grimly, “but you’ve got to face it, t
he police will be asking us all a lot of questions.”

  “I can’t talk to them!” Jeanette sounded panic-stricken.

  “You won’t have any choice. None of us will. You needn’t be afraid I’ll tell them anything, though. You know I’d do anything—”

  “Yes,” said Jocelyn loudly, “I would like to see more of Mr Lennox’s methods.” She gave Eleanor a reproachful look, to show she felt she had been led astray, and marched into the workshop.

  Eleanor sighed and followed. In theory, naturally she disapproved of eavesdropping. In general. But there were times …

  Such as when one was attempting to track down a murderer. The trouble was, the new scrap of information that Eleanor had collected, before Joce’s scruples overcame her, had made her less certain than ever that this was a murderer she wanted to see caught.

  What had Geoffrey done to frighten Jeanette? she wondered, while apparently listening intently and nodding intelligently to Tom’s explanation of some process or other. Perhaps the girl was oversensitive? Much as she was coming to dislike and despise Geoffrey Clark, she must try to be fair.

  She couldn’t speak for Jocelyn or her ethics, whether inspired by middle-class or church conventions, but to Eleanor, fairness was infinitely more important than a spot of eavesdropping.

  Jeanette had slipped out. Now Oswald returned.

  “No good, I can’t concentrate,” he grumbled. “I wish the fuzz would buck up and show up.”

  “Don’t we all,” said Tom, continuing to mould clay as he talked. “I just want to get it over, and Jeanette’s having fits for fear it’s Mrs Trewynn who’s got hold of the wrong end of the stick, rather than Stella.” He smiled at Eleanor and shrugged. “I know who I believe. Stella’s always had a tendency to see what she wants to see.”

  “Otherwise she’d never have fallen for Geoff,” Oswald agreed. “Thinks—thought, that is, the sun shone out of his … er, sorry.”

  “And vice versa. A mutual admiration society. If anything, he was nuttier about her. I’d have thought she’d be able to stop him slashing Nick’s paintings.”

  “Maybe she didn’t try too hard. She wasn’t all that keen on Nick. Besides, I don’t think I’d want to get in the way of Geoff with a knife in his hand.”

  “Sounds as if he went berserk again,” Tom conceded. “He’d never concede that Nick’s a better painter.” He turned to Eleanor. “What’s all that about, Mrs Trewynn? Stella had too much else on her mind to tell us exactly what set Geoff off.”

  Eleanor told them, omitting her part in connecting Nick with Alarian in the first place. She didn’t want to detract from his success. Nor did she want to be besieged with requests for introductions. Not that she thought it likely. Oswald seemed to have a realistic view of his abilities as an artist, Tom regarded his work as more craft than art, and both men apparently considered Nick’s luck to be deserved.

  “It’s not just the technique,” Oswald said with a sigh, “though he’s streets ahead of me there—”

  “Not streets,” Tom consoled him, “just a few dozen yards.”

  “That’s as may be. But he has the imagination to go with it.”

  “Not to worry. When he’s rich and famous we can boast that we knew him when he was just another unknown.”

  “Yeah, and sponge on him! That’ll be the day.”

  They both laughed. Tom gave a twirl to the pot on his wheel, which now looked like a serving dish, and said to Jocelyn, “How does that look to you, Mrs Stearns?”

  “Beautiful. An elegant shape.”

  “What colour, or colours, would you like it?”

  “Me? Oh, but … I did tell you, Mr Lennox, that much as I admire them, I can’t afford your wares.”

  “This is a gift. Or will be, assuming it comes out of the kiln in good shape. You can’t always guarantee the results.”

  Jocelyn was rarely taken aback, and Eleanor had never before seen her so flummoxed. She was actually at a loss for words.

  “But … but … why?”

  Tom grinned at her. “Call it a reward for so bravely rushing to support your friend in this den of iniquity.”

  The vicar’s wife turned bright pink, another first as far as Eleanor knew.

  “I’ll leave you to choose your colours,” Eleanor said tactfully, or perhaps cowardly. She wasn’t sure whether Joce was flattered or considered the potter grossly impertinent. “It’s time I had a look at Oswald’s pictures, if you’d like to show me, Oswald?”

  “If you like.”

  “But I’d like to talk to you later, Tom, about an idea I’ve just had.”

  “Anytime. I’ll be here.”

  She and Oswald went out into the courtyard. There they met Albert. He was coming from the mini-bus parking place, gazing past them towards the far end of the row of studios opposite Oswald’s.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  Eleanor and Oswald turned. Stella was lifting a box into another mini-bus, this one a blue, gleaming vehicle that looked as though it might even be comfortable and certainly didn’t smell of pigs.

  “It’s Friday. It’s just Stella going to work,” Oswald said to Albert. “The home she works at send their bus to fetch her,” he explained to Eleanor. “They have trouble keeping staff.”

  “She and the driver were loading stuff when I drove in, and they’re still at it.”

  “Oh dear,” said Eleanor, “I’m afraid it’s my fault.”

  “Your fault?”

  She reconsidered her statement as the two men stared at her in surprise. “Well, not mine, exactly. The police detective who sent me here. I heard Stella having a row with Margery, saying she was going to move out because Margery was harbouring a friend of the man who killed Geoffrey. Which he didn’t, of course. Nick, that is. Didn’t kill Geoffrey.”

  “I expect it’s hard on her, too, being right here where she was with him,” said Albert. “When my wife died, I just wanted to get away from everywhere we’d ever been together.”

  “It was just the opposite for me,” Eleanor told him. “When Peter was killed, all I wanted was to retreat to Cornwall. We were both born here and always came back for our holidays. But then, we’d spent so much time abroad. But what will Stella do? Will she be able to stay temporarily at the convalescent place, do you think?”

  “Oh yes,” Albert assured her. “She has a room there. She always spends Friday afternoon to Monday morning there. Weekend staff’s even harder to find than weekday, so she’s left more or less in sole charge.”

  “Or so she’d like us to think,” said Oswald.

  “It’s not as if it was a hospital, though she did once tell me that Dr Fenwick, the owner, has a flat there where he spends most weekends and he’s always on call. That was quite a while ago, but I imagine it’s still the case. She’s not a fully qualified nurse.”

  “If I was old and ill,” Oswald commented, “I wouldn’t want Stella looking after me. Typical of her, going off like this, not thinking of anyone else. How’s she going to get into Padstow? The rest of us will have to cover her days at the shop.”

  “She can catch a bus. There are plenty between Wadebridge and Padstow. Should we go and say good-bye, do you think?”

  “Not me!”

  “Someone ought to.” Albert hesitated, then squared his shoulders and marched off across the courtyard.

  “I’m not staying to watch the slaughter. If you’d really like to take a gander at my daubs, Mrs Trewynn…?”

  “Yes, of course.” Eleanor went with him, but her mind was elsewhere. “Stella seems to have had three … well … places of residence,” she mused aloud. “I’m sure someone said she lived with Geoffrey. As Margery was planning an artists’ colony, I assume his bungalow has a studio she could use, and he has—had one behind his gallery in Padstow as well. Why on earth would she go on paying for her own studio and bedsitter?”

  “Well, er, you see,” Oswald mumbled, not looking at her, “they lived together in the sense that they were�
��um—lovers. I mean, they—um—you know, slept together as well as being in love with each other. But Stella isn’t the sort to give up her freedom for love. I mean, she wasn’t faithful to Geoff, or anything. He didn’t own her just because she loved him. He wasn’t faithful to her, either, come to that, however crazy he was about her. I mean, that’s all sort of old-fashioned, if you know what I mean. People can’t own each other.”

  “Oh,” said Eleanor blankly. Though she did her best to make allowances for what some called the “generation gap,” there were certain aspects of contemporary mores that she would never understand. She could tell herself that equating faithfulness with ownership was no more outré than many customs she had seen in far parts of the world, but the truth was, she hadn’t expected to come home and find conventions of morality so altered.

  Oswald hurriedly changed the subject. “Here they are,” he said, with a gesture encompassing a covered easel and several stacks of unframed pictures leaning against one wall.

  The paintings were of local landscapes, beauty spots, and landmarks such as Jamaica Inn. Though pleasant enough, they somehow lacked the vividness of Nick’s work, evident even in his “tourist” paintings of similar scenes.

  Eleanor would have liked to ask what made the difference, but in spite of his acknowledgement of Nick’s superiority, it would hardly be kind. Besides, if he knew, presumably he’d do whatever it took to improve his.

  “Very attractive,” she offered.

  “At least I make a living of sorts at it, which is more than most artists can say. I know I’m not brilliant,” Oswald admitted bitterly, “but Geoff had no call to say they’re junk.”

  SEVENTEEN

  On arrival in Padstow, the police convoy parked in the yard of the station, now closed thanks to Dr Beeching’s cuts. Scumble gathered his team around him.

  They were all Bodmin officers, because strictly speaking it was Bodmin’s case. Megan knew surprisingly few of them. Launceston and Bodmin were not distant geographically, but on the whole each district’s CID was kept busy on its own patch. Rarely did either suffer a major crime that required collaboration. However, as the only female detective based in North Cornwall, she was recognised by all.