by Mike Ashley
Anastasia stared at him. “Well I’m baffled. A man dies at nine o’clock in a locked room then jumps or falls from the window half an hour later with the only key still in his pocket. But come on, Sherlock. Was the suit of armour computer operated? Or was the murder committed by the resident ghost? Let’s hear your brilliant theory.”
He looked at Anastasia Hardy and saw a sceptical smile on her lips. “I’ll have to ask you to do something for me first, ma’am. Something that would be . . . er . . . better coming from a woman.”
“What is it?” she asked, warily.
When Calthwaite told her she raised her eyebrows. “Are you sure that’s necessary?”
“Oh yes, ma’am.”
“Right, Calthwaite, you lead the way. And let’s just hope this doesn’t lead to questions being asked in high places.”
They re-entered the hall. This time the children seemed quieter, more subdued.
“Mrs Pablos, could we have a word outside in the entrance hall, please?” said Anastasia sweetly. Muriel Pablos glanced at Vicky Vine and followed Anastasia from the room, her long skirts rustling against the stone floor. “If you’d be good enough to lift your skirts up,” she said when they were outside.
Muriel looked at her in horror. “This is outrageous . . .”
“I’m not suggesting a strip search, Mrs Pablos. Just lift your skirts up. It’ll only take a moment. Constable,” she said firmly to Joe. “Stand by the door and make sure no one comes in.”
Muriel Pablos looked round in helpless terror. Then she slowly raised her skirts to her knees showing a shapely pair of suntanned legs.
“A little higher, please, Mrs Pablos.”
Muriel Pablos was about to refuse. Then, as though she knew she was defeated, she lifted the skirts higher to reveal a length of red silken rope, coiled about her body.
“Untie the rope, please Mrs Pablos.”
Muriel Pablos slowly uncoiled the rope and it fell to the ground. It was in two sections, each with a burned end. Anastasia summoned PC Joe Calthwaite back and he stood, staring at the rope as though the sight amazed him.
“Well, Constable,” said Anastasia. “Are you going to tell us how it was done?”
Calthwaite took his notebook from his top pocket and pulled himself up to his full height. “Well, ma’am, I first became suspicious of Mrs Pablos when the car park attendant told me that her car was already in the visitor’s car park when he arrived this morning at eight forty. He said he saw it later in its usual place in the staff car park, and I found that she’d signed in for work as normal at quarter-past nine. We were told by Mr Samuels, the curator, that Jonathan Pleasance locked himself in the tower room when he was working and didn’t let anyone in, so then I began to think. If nobody was let in then the killer must already have been there, probably hidden in the chapel. Pleasance arrived before nine o’clock so his killer must have been there earlier, already hidden. The key was only used by Pleasance – nobody else bothered locking the room – so it was easy. All the killer had to do was wait, kill Pleasance with the sword, lock the door as he or she left, drive round into the staff car park and then arrive for work as normal.”
“But the key was found on the body . . .”
“I’ll be coming to that, ma’am. Next I tried to work out exactly how it was done; how it was made to look as though Jonathan Pleasance had fallen from the window. Then I saw the lengths of rope stored in the chapel and an odd number of candles on the altar . . . three . . . so it was possible that one was missing. I found some candle wax on the floorboards in the middle of the tower room and I started to think. What if the body had been held by the open window with a length of rope secured to, say, that heavy oak side table: then if a lighted candle was placed under the rope so that it burned through slowly to give the murderer plenty of time to establish an alibi. Then the murderer would need some excuse to get away in order to hide the rope and candle once the body had fallen. That’s where the miniature tape recorder came in. The curator uses one to dictate letters and his secretary said that she’d mislaid it for a while. I think the killer borrowed it and recorded a bloodcurdling scream to be played at the appropriate moment in front of a full audience to provide the perfect alibi. Nobody else in the building heard it because the tape was only played in the great hall. Then the killer ran upstairs to call the police. But first she made a detour and unlocked the tower room to deal with the incriminating evidence; she hid the burned candle and matches in those big padded sleeves where she’d hidden the tape recorder. Then she put them in the window seat until they could be disposed of properly. It’s a pity 8C had to find them and give the game away isn’t it, Mrs Pablos? And the rope . . . well what better place to hide it than underneath a huge Elizabethan skirt. Am I right so far, Mrs Pablos?”
Muriel Pablos looked at him, pleading. “You knew my Francesca at school, Joe. You know what a lovely girl she is. She met this older man at work in the museum: she was besotted with him, completely infatuated, but she wouldn’t tell me his name . . . I never guessed it was Jonathan Pleasance. Then one day he saw me alone and he started to talk about their relationship. The things he said . . . the way he talked about Francesca. He was just using her and he said he intended to end their affair soon because she was getting too possessive . . . too clinging. He said that if she made things awkward for him, he’d make sure she lost her job at the museum: he was going to tell lies about her . . . say she was incompetent. I couldn’t just stand by and watch him ruining her career . . . her life. I did it for my daughter.”
Anastasia nodded, wondering how she would have felt if such a thing had happened to her own daughter. Then she dismissed the thought and reminded herself of her profession. “Is there anything else you want to say before I arrest you, Mrs Pablos?” she asked sympathetically before reciting the familiar official words.
“I came in at eight this morning and parked in the public car park at the back so none of the staff would see me,” Muriel began quietly. “The tower room wasn’t locked – only Pleasance ever locked it – so I hid myself in the chapel. When he came in just before nine I killed him. Then I rigged up the rope and the candle, locked the door behind me, got into my car and arrived for work as usual. I had taken pieces of rope home and experimented so that I could time his fall for when I was showing Vicky’s class round. When I went upstairs to call the police I made a detour to the tower room like Joe said. I wiped the tape on my way up and put the recorder back on Mrs Barker’s desk when I went in to tell her what had happened.”
“But the room was locked and the only key was found on the body. According to everyone’s statements you never went out into the courtyard . . . never went near the body,” said Anastasia, puzzled. Muriel Pablos stood silent. She was saying nothing.
As Muriel was led to a waiting police car, PC Joe Calthwaite walked round to the back of the house where 8C were boarding their coach. He waited patiently until their teacher had counted them on before he spoke to her.
“You were always fond of Francesca weren’t you, Mrs Vine,” he began gently. “Francesca was brilliant at history, your star pupil. You must have been delighted when she got that job at the museum. I think Mrs Pablos told you about Pleasance and Francesca. I think you helped her. When she came downstairs again you left her looking after your class while you went to check the body for signs of life before the ambulance arrived. I think she’d locked the tower room door behind her and then she passed you the key. While you were bending over the body you put the key in his pocket. Is that right, Mrs Vine?”
Vicky Vine smiled and shook her head. “I couldn’t stand by and watch that man hurt Francesca. I had to help somehow.” She took a deep breath. “What gave us away?”
“Do you remember when the chemistry lab burned down? I smelled petrol on the culprits’ clothes.”
“How could I forget.”
“Well this time it was candles . . . I kept smelling candles. I’ve always had a good sense of smell.”
As Joe Calthwaite put an arresting hand on her shoulder, his old teacher looked into his eyes and smiled.
A TRAVELLER’S TALE
Margaret Frazer
Margaret Frazer was originally the alias of two writers, Gail Frazer and Mary Monica Pulver, who between them produced the popular series of novels featuring medieval sleuth, Dame Frevisse. The series began with The Novice’s Tale (1992). Gail is now continuing the series on her own. The following story, whilst not featuring Dame Frevisse, is also set in the 1400s. It fits into that sub-category of the impossible crime, which is the “locked-carriage” story. Gail toldme an interesting aside. “Would you believe that the carriage would not have been called a carriage then? But better a little anachronism, I say, than the major confusion for readers if I’d properly called it a chariot!”
When that April with his showers sweet
The drought of March has pierced to the root . . .
Then long folk to go on pilgrimages . . .
Damn. He hated that verse.
Not hated, Thomas amended. Was only brutally tired of it, having heard it a few too many times in his life to want it wandering through his head at odd moments. Besides, this wasn’t April and he was on no pilgrimage: it was definitely January and he was simply going home after rather too long a time at Westminster, where he’d only gone because he was needed to make a little peace between his cousins Hal and Gloucester, and if ever there was a thankless task in the world, that was it because the only peace either of them wanted was the other one out of his way – forever and in every way, for choice.
Ah, well. He had done what he could for now. They wouldn’t kill each other this month, likely, and he’d be home by supper if the weather held and nobody’s horse threw a shoe on the ice-set road.
Thomas eyed the grey, lowering sky and judged there was good chance the snow would hold off for the few hours more of riding he needed. January’s trouble was that the days were so short. And cold. He huddled his cloak more snugly around his shoulders and was glad of his fur-lined boots and that he had given pairs for New Year’s gifts to Giles and Ralph. They were riding behind him now without the displeasure that servants as good as they seemed able to make known without sound or gesture, when they did not approve of whatever their master had dragged them into – such as the long ride from London into Oxfordshire in a cold January with snow threatening – when there was no real need except that Thomas wanted to be home and with his books and family. And although whether those in service to him liked him or not, came second to whether or not they served him well, for choice he preferred to have people around him whom he liked and who, though he could live without it, at least somewhat liked him, too. Hal – otherwise my Lord Bishop of Winchester and son of a royal duke – had been known to tease him that such concern came from his somewhat low-born blood, to which Thomas invariably answered in return that it came from his good common sense and Hal ought to try it some time, thank you very much. Then they would laugh together.
Why was it he could talk and laugh and enjoy Hal’s company, and talk and laugh and enjoy Gloucester’s company, and all that Hal and Gloucester could do with each other was hate their respective guts? It was tedious of them and more tedious that they needed him to sort them out. Maud would say so over and over when he reached home, until he had given her kisses enough and her present from London – a pretty gold and enameled brooch this time – to make her feel she had been missed while he was gone, and then she would begin to tell him all that had happened the week and a half he’d been away and everything would be back to where it had been before he had left.
The road slacked downward and curved left and he knew that around the curve, beyond this out-thrust of trees, the Chiltern Hills fell steeply away to the lowlands that reached westward for miles upon miles, an open vastness that on a clear summer’s day at this hour would be filled with westering sunlight like a bowl full of gold, but today would be all dull shades of lead and grey. But Thomas had seen it from here in every season and weather and loved it every time and way, and besides, from here there were not many miles left to home, though it was further than it seemed because the steep, long drop from the Chilterns had to be managed first and . . .
With a slight sinking of spirits Thomas saw trouble ahead. A carriage stopped right at the crest above the first long downward drop of the road; and by the scurrying of three men around it and the woman standing to one side, wringing her hands and wailing, it was halted for more than the necessary checking of harness and wheels before the start of the treacherous way down.
With wanhope that it was not as bad as it looked, Thomas raised a gloved hand out of the sheltering folds of his cloak and gestured Giles to go forward and ask what the trouble was and if they might be of help, little though he wanted to be; and while Giles heeled his horse into a jog past him, Thomas put his hand back under his cloak, loosened dagger and sword in their sheaths, and then, as he and Ralph drew nearer the carriage, pushed back his cloak to leave his sword-arm free, on the chance this was after all a waylaying rather than simply someone else’s trouble.
Just for a moment then the possibility of robbery took stronger hold as Giles, after a brief word with the men there, drew his horse rapidly around and headed back with more haste than a carriage’s breakdown warranted, shouting well before he was back to Thomas’s side. “There’s some people dead here!”
Suddenly not minded to go closer, drawing rein and putting hand to sword-hilt openly, as Ralph moved closer up on his flank, Thomas asked, “I beg your pardon?”
“There’s people dead,” Giles repeated, stopping beside him. “You know William Shellaston? A merchant from Abingdon?”
“By name.” Thomas urged his horse forward. “It’s him?”
“And his wife and son, looks like.”
“All of them dead? How?”
“There’s none of that lot knows. It’s only just happened. Or they only just noticed. It’s odd, like.”
Thomas supposed it was, if three people were dead and their servants had “only just noticed”. But he was to them now, clustered beside the carriage, the woman still sobbing for the world to hear.
“I told them who you are,” Giles whispered at Thomas’s side. “That you’re a coroner and all.”
“In London,” Thomas pointed out, annoyed. For no reason anyone could explain, the office of Chief Butler to the King included the office of Coroner of London, and by that, yes, he was a coroner but, “I’ve no jurisdiction here.”
“They don’t need to know that,” Giles replied. “What they need is someone to settle them and tell them what to do.”
And here he was and had to do it Thomas supposed, and summoned up what he had heard of William Shellaston. A wine merchant whose wines were never of the best, a bad-humoured man, heavy-handed, not given to fair-dealing if he could help it, with a mind to join the landed gentry and the purchase of a manor lately near Henley to help his ambition along. Exactly the sort of man Thomas avoided like the plague because the only interest that sort had in his acquaintance was how much he could do for them.
Well, there wasn’t much to be done for him now, if he was dead, Thomas thought, dismounting beside the servants and the carriage that was of the common kind – long-bodied, with low wooden sides, closed in by canvas stretched over metal half-hoops, and high-wheeled to keep it clear of muddy roads. The richer sort were painted, sides and canvas both, but this was all brown wood and bare canvas, nothing to make it remarkable except, Thomas noted, it was solidly built, the only expense spared seeming to have been to decorate it for the eye.
The servants had all begun to talk as soon as his feet were on the ground. “Be quiet,” he said, so used to being obeyed it did not surprise him when they fell silent; then said to the man he had singled out as babbling the least at him, “What’s in hand here?”
“They’re dead. All three of them! We stopped to tell Master Shellaston we were about to start down. He hates to be surprised by the su
dden drop and we’ve orders to always stop to tell him. Only when I called in, no one answered and when I looked in to see why, they were all . . .” He swallowed as if holding down his gorge. “. . . dead.”
“That’s all you know?”
The man nodded, tight-lipped over apparent gut-sickness.
“That’s all any of you know?”
More nods all around.
“No outcry? Nothing? No sign of how they’re dead?”
“Nothing,” the woman answered, her voice rising shrilly. “They’re just dead and it’s awful and . . .”
“I’ll see for myself,” Thomas said curtly, less because he wanted to see anything and more to stop her carrying on. He moved to the carriage’s rear, the usual way in. The chain meant to go across the gap to make falling out less easy had been unfastened at one end and looped aside, the last link dropped into the hook on the other side, and the heavy canvas curtain meant to keep draughts out strapped aside, out of the way, giving him a clear view of the long tunnel of the carriage’s inside. He stepped up on a chest that had been taken out and set down on the ground for a step – its usual use, to judge by its dried-muddy bottom and the footmarks on its top – and ducked inside. Or as clear a view as the shadows and grey light allowed him; the flaps over the window on each side of the carriage, meant for air and light and a sight of the countryside in better weather, were closed and it took a few moments for his eyes to get used to the gloom.
His sense of smell worked faster. There was a reek to the place that said death, and he pulled a fold of his cloak over his mouth and nose before he ventured further in, able to see well enough now not to tread on . . . anything . . . before he reached the windows. Thomas held his breath while dropping his cloak’s fold long enough to roll up and tie the window flaps out of the way to give better light and eventually, he hoped, better air.
