Stately Homicide

by S. T. Haymon

  ‘So you did go back to the Hall?’

  ‘Actually, no.’ Francis Coryton’s tone was apologetic. ‘I recognise how annoying this must be for you, Inspector: having such a promising lead fizzle out – but there it is. Man proposes, dog disposes, even though I set out with the murder weapon actually in my hand. I must digress to tell you that Jane and I and Lulu have been looking recently at a television series about how to train your dog. I’m bound to say Lulu didn’t seem to think much of it, but Jane and I thought it was terrific; and high time, as now at last seemed possible, to turn Lulu into a civilised member of society. So, as the programme advised, I bought a choke chain – only, unfortunately, Lulu took against it. Either we didn’t follow the TV instructions properly, or Lulu didn’t appreciate that being half-asphyxiated whenever she did something wrong was really for her own good. After a number of differences of opinion on the subject I’d given up even trying to get the damn thing on – but, as it turned out, the outlay on that chain wasn’t all loss, because even though it didn’t work on a dog, I thought it might work quite well on a human being. Even before the night of the party I’d often thought – in a purely hypothetical way, you understand – of using it on the bloody woman who did the television programmes.’

  Francis Coryton broke off. The glasses became disconcertingly blank. Jurnet waited, making no comment.

  Then the curator said, in a quite different voice: ‘I am, Inspector, as you’ve no doubt perceived, a frivolous man. I tend to talk lightly of serious things. But now, I assure you, I speak seriously. I had genuinely forgotten about Jane’s key to the curator’s flat when I handed over the rest. Now, I had it in my pocket, the dog chain in my hand, and murder in my heart. Lulu ran ahead, snuffling in the hedge bottoms as the fancy took her. It was, as you will remember, a lovely night. I felt extraordinarily peaceful. It isn’t often that I know unequivocally what I have to do, and the unaccustomed absence of doubt made me feel serene and purposeful. In the moonlight every leaf, every blade of grass, was astonishingly beautiful. The beech trees in that tongue of woodland which comes down to the lane about halfway along were powdered with a green iridescence. There were none of the usual night noises. It seemed to me that nature itself was holding itself in abeyance so as not to disturb my concentration on the task in hand. Even Lulu seemed to sense the unearthly enchantment – until, that is, we actually came abreast of the wood. Then, with a sudden outburst of hysterical barking that made even the moon wince, she made for the trees, disappearing from sight.’

  Coryton shifted in his chair, clasped his strong, stubby fingers, and sat looking down at them.

  ‘I could have left her,’ he continued presently. ‘Gone on with my murder. There was nothing to stop me. You notice the possessive “my”? Yes, in the brief interval since I had decided upon it, it had become very dear to me. It filled all my imaginings. Lulu would have come home sooner or later. Perhaps she had scented a rabbit or a badger – I don’t know what set her off – only that the hideous noise advertised that she too had murder in her heart, and that if I continued on to Bullen Hall I should be no better than a stupid tyke who couldn’t even learn manners from the television.’

  The man took off his glasses, as if it had become important that the Detective-Inspector should see his eyes. In the event, they were grey and rather bulbous, revealing nothing of interest.

  ‘Lulu came back presently. I don’t think she’d caught anything. How could she hope to, the silly bitch, making all that noise? Anyway, there was no blood on her muzzle. She seemed suddenly tired and depressed, disoriented – just like myself. I got the choke chain on her without any difficulty and we went back home together.’

  The curator picked up his glasses and hooked them over his ears.

  ‘I opened the front door, let the dog in, came in myself, and turned to lock up. And what do you think? When I turned round again, there, in the middle of the hall rug, was a great big puddle, and Lulu looking up at me as if to say, hang it all, old cock, there have to be some compensations.’ The glasses glinted with a sardonic glee. ‘As for me, being house-trained, I went to the loo and pulled the chain.’

  ‘Jurnet said: ‘There must be a lot of valuable stuff at Bullen Hall.’

  Francis Coryton beamed his admiration of this new move.

  ‘So I still haven’t convinced you of my innocence! Ah well! It doesn’t do, does it, to assume all policemen are, by definition, thick behind the ears?’

  ‘Not for me to say.’

  ‘Modest as well! I should have known you’d never overlook that line of country. Been helping myself over the years – is that the way your thoughts are running? An ivory here, a medieval enamel there, nothing big enough to be missed among all that embarras de richesse, but, added up, worth a king’s ransom: – and suddenly, with the imminent arrival of a new curator, the day of reckoning is at hand! The inventory will be gone over, the discrepancies noted. I shall stammer and prevaricate, guilt written all over my face. Mr Shelden will have no alternative. The police must be called in – you yourself, Inspector, for all I know, arriving hotfoot with the manacles. How much simpler for all concerned, how much more economical of effort and public money, to push the new man off the roof and continue as if nothing had ever happened – at least until the next nosy parker shows up, by which time I shall either have arranged a credible fire in which the inventory will be destroyed – not so easy, that, with the accountants and the trustees each having copies, to say nothing of the volunteers, each with a list of what’s on show in his or her particular territory; or else have successfully transferred my ill-gotten gains to some South American country which has no extradition treaty with the UK, where Jane and I can live out our twilight years indulging all the vices we’ve never been able to afford in our years as pillars of the Norfolk cultural establishment.’

  Coryton opened a cupboard and brought out a number of loose-leaf books, bound in sumptuous red morocco.

  ‘Jeno did us proud, didn’t he? There’s one of these for the furniture, one for paintings, one for silver, another for china, and so on. Christie’s did them originally, when the Trust was set up, and we’ve been updating them ever since. There has to be a record and, of course, a valuation we can use as a basis for calculating insurance cover.’ Smiling: ‘Not that the Trust’ll get back a penny if you find that I really have been making away with its property. We’re only covered for fire. We couldn’t possibly afford the premiums to cover theft. The best we’ve been able to do was fit the alarms your Crime Prevention Officer recommended, and hope for the best. And even those are only in the state rooms, not the wings.’

  ‘And even those in the state rooms,’ the detective pointed out with some grimness, ‘were switched off on the night of the party.’

  ‘But that,’ the other protested, ‘was on Elena’s account! I knew she’d be wanting to come and go through the house, not go round outside. The police wouldn’t have thanked me any more than she – you know how she hates fuss – if the alarms had gone off accidentally, and brought your cohorts at the gallop, all to no purpose.’

  ‘Bad enough to have left them turned off while the party was on. You could at least have remembered to switch them back on after it was over.’

  ‘I didn’t forget. I had fully intended to tell Shelden the system should be turned back on, last thing, and show him where the master switch was. But after what happened I thought; “You’re curator now. Look after your own bloody burglars!”’

  ‘I see.’ Jurnet thought for a moment. Then: ‘Were there any plans for checking the inventory to coincide with the change of management?’

  ‘Indeed there were. In Shelden’s interest as well as my own. Not exactly coincide, mind you. Bullen isn’t a holiday let where the incoming tenant can check with the landlord as soon as he arrives how many sheets and egg cups he’s made himself responsible for. Took us best part of two weeks, one way and another. Elena, in her high-handed way, thought it all a waste of time, but old Cranth
orpe, the other trustee, sent down a couple of his clerks, and we all mucked in. Oh, you don’t have to worry –’ chuckling at the detective’s changed expression – ‘the clerks did the actual checking. They were instructed to satisfy themselves that the item listed was actually in front of their eyes before making that all-important tick.’ Ending with pride: ‘The only thing unaccounted for was a brass weight off an Edwardian postal scale.’

  ‘Not bad.’

  ‘So we thought. A tribute, not just to ourselves, but to the type of person who comes to look round Bullen Hall.’ Coryton continued: ‘If you’re going to say somebody could still have stolen something after the inventory was checked, you’re quite right, of course. The possibility of theft is always present. But equally, if something was taken after the checking was over, it doesn’t begin to fit in with murder. A thief would be particularly careful that nothing should disturb the even tenor of our ways. Without a murder to gum up the works, and provided he chose his loot with care, it could be years before anyone noticed anything was missing. With it – or even if Shelden’s death was accepted as an accident – there was bound to be yet another check when yet another replacement curator arrived on the premises.’

  Jurnet observed: ‘You’ve been giving this a lot of thought.’

  The glasses twinkled with some show of agitation as Coryton inquired, the note of anxiety in his voice not entirely humorous: ‘I haven’t gone and overdone it, have I? Given myself such a clean bill of health as to make it positively suspicious?’ When no answer was forthcoming, he said, hesitating a little over the words: ‘As we’re on the subject of theft, there is perhaps one other thing I ought to mention. One of our volunteers at Bullen is – was – a thief. When he applied to become a helper he came to me and told me quite frankly that he had had a number of convictions, but that was all behind him: only he felt in justice to the Trust he ought to mention it. I liked him enormously. I still do, and I’ve no reason to fear that my trust in him was misplaced.’

  ‘If you mean Percy Toller, Percy and I are old friends. Matter of fact, I had a few words with him in the Library on my way here. He was the one said I’d never find you without a guide – only, of course, he couldn’t leave his post to show me the way.’

  Percy Toller had, in fact, been standing in the Library, head to one side, studying the portrait of George Bullen, Lord Rochford. His absorption was such that he started in alarm when Jurnet’s voice sounded at his back.

  ‘Just to let you know you’ll have to alter that guide book of yours. If you’d been at the party you’d have heard all about it. Stop press news: Georgie boy and his sister did have it off together. Ask Mr Coryton: he’ll confirm. Proved beyond a shadow of doubt. What d’you think of that?’ The detective re-examined the portrait in his turn, discovering to his annoyance – it must, he decided, be a trick of light, the time of day – that the first owner of Bullen Hall had indeed been the very double of one Ben Jurnet of the Angleby CID. The painted face scowled back, seeming no better pleased with the resemblance than did the one of flesh and bone contemplating it. ‘If they hadn’t got him for that,’ Jurnet continued, ‘I’d have run him in myself for passing himself off as a police officer.’

  ‘Didn’t I say so?’ the little man demanded absent-mindedly. He did not seem quite his usual, cheery self. ‘Anne Boleyn. A queen! Who’d ’a’ thought it?’

  ‘Henry VIII, for one. Not as bad as mother and son, father and daughter, I’ll give you that. But all the same, a crime against nature.’

  ‘Who’d ’ a’ thought it?’ Percy Toller repeated. He looked and sounded disconsolate. Then, with a shake of the head: ‘It’s no use, Mr Jurnet. I know he did very wrong, but I just can’t get het up about it. Not after all this time standing face to face – your face, Mr Jurnet! It’d be like turning your back on an old friend. There must’ve been some extenuating circumstances.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like love,’ the little man said, with a simplicity that cut Jurnet to the core. ‘If Mollie’d been my sister I wouldn’t ’ve let a little thing like that stop me.’

  ‘If Mollie’d been your sister you’d never have thought to fall in love with her in the first place. Mind you,’ Jurnet finished, smiling, ‘if she had been your sister and turned out teas like the one she laid on for us at a moment’s notice, that would have been extenuating circumstances!’

  ‘Mollie can do that with her eyes closed and one arm tied behind her back.’ The retired burglar cheered up a little. ‘Know what she said after you left, Mr Jurnet? That you were as smashing as ever to look at, but a sight too skinny. What you needed was a wife to fatten you up a bit. Hope you don’t think I’m speaking out of turn, Mr Jurnet.’

  Jurnet said: ‘You tell Mollie the reason I’m not married, I’m still looking for a girl like her.’

  ‘I’ll tell her! I’ll tell her soon as she gets back.’ In response to the detective’s questioning look: ‘Her nephew in North Walsham – he come over for her yesterday. They all turn to Mollie when anything needs doing! His wife’s due home from hospital today with the new baby, and could Auntie come over to help get them settled in comfortable? He’s bringing her back tonight. I always kid her she fancies you, Mr Jurnet, and if I get run over by a bus I know who’ll be standing in my shoes if she has any say in it. And you know what she says? If she was twenty years younger and she thought she had a chance, she’d ’a’ pushed me under one years ago!’

  ‘Great little kidder, Mollie. Don’t forget to learn your daily quotation while she’s away. What’s it today, Percy?’

  The little man hesitated a moment, cleared his throat. Then he recited: ‘“Rob me, but bind me not, and let me go.” John Donne, 1571–1631.’

  ‘That all there is of it?’

  ‘Tha’s all they give you. I just open the book anywhere, first thing after breakfast; and it’s whatever happens to catch my eye.’

  ‘Must’ve reminded you of the bad old days. Not that I recollect you ever tying anyone up in the course of a job.’

  Percy Toller looked horrified.

  ‘Frightening people out of their wits! You know I’d never do anything like that. Never went into a house without first making sure there was nobody at home.’ Shoulders drooping: ‘I hate Mollie not to be home, and that’s a fact. Even for a day. Especially when I –’ The little man stopped, seemed to fumble with his words, and began again. ‘It’s my night for my tutor, over in Angleby. I’ve got an essay to hand in, and Mollie always goes over it for spelling and grammar.’ There was another pause before he finished: ‘”From Pamela to Sense and Sensibility – the Emergence of the English Novel, 1740–1811” – that’s the title of it.’

  ‘Very interesting.’ Jurnet, who had received a strong impression that this was not what Toller had originally intended to say, pounced, though still in a tone of dulcet concern: ‘To say nothing of the way you must worry when she’s out somewhere, in case she comes down with another of her turns –’

  ‘That’s right,’ the other agreed, avoiding the detective’s eye.

  Jurnet regarded the retired burglar with a friendliness judiciously seasoned with a hint of threat.

  ‘Come off it, Percy! Don’t you think it’s time you let me into the secret of what you were really up to, the night of the party?’

  ‘No secret,’ Percy Toller insisted doggedly. ‘I was home with Mollie, like I told you.’ The little man moved his head, his whole body, in an ungovernable spasm of exasperation, surprising because it was so out of character. ‘How long does a bloke have to keep out of trouble before you coppers stop treating him like he was still a thief?’

  Jurnet said: ‘It’s not thieving we’re talking about, Percy. The subject’s murder.’

  ‘So I know all about Percy Toller,’ Jurnet assured the glasses.

  ‘He’s tremendously proud of being accepted as a Bullen Hall helper, and I’m sure you can rest assured, Mr Coryton, it wasn’t him took the weight off your postal scale. Beside which
,’ the detective pointed out, for the second time that day, ‘we’re not actually talking about thieving, are we? The subject’s murder.’

  ‘That’s what’s so incredible!’ the curator exclaimed. ‘I simply cannot imagine any of us here at Bullen Hall, myself included, when you come down to it, in the role of murderer.’ Brightening up: ‘There’s Ferenc and Jeno, of course. Splendid fellows, both of them – but after all, foreigners –’

  Jurnet made it clear he was in no mood for further jokes.

  ‘I’m surprised, after what happened the other night, you didn’t think to mention Mr Winter.’

  Coryton stopped fooling and said: ‘In case you haven’t found it out for yourself, Inspector, I want you to know that Charles Winter is the gentlest of souls. I suspect all potters are the same – that you can’t spend a lifetime handling something as brittle as clay without developing a special feeling for the frangibility of flesh and bone.’

  ‘Oh ah,’ Jurnet returned deflatingly. ‘Mr Winter also appears to have had a special feeling for the – frangibility, was it? – of Mr Mike Botley. Have you taken a look at that young man’s face lately?’

  ‘I’ve been in the Coachyard.’ Francis Coryton took off his glasses, as if, with them, he could remove the pained image trapped behind his eyes. ‘I can’t understand it! It’s so completely out of character. You saw for yourself that Charles had had too much to drink. But even so –’ The nondescript face looked crumpled and upset. ‘Especially as you can take it from me, Inspector, that what happened at the party was nothing to some of the humiliations Charles has put up with from that depraved little punk. There’ve been times, I don’t mind admitting, when I myself could have cheerfully strangled him, to shut him up once and for all. But Charles – he just stands there, his face grey like his clay, but still – the only way I can describe it – transfigured by love. Jane always says it’s an example to us all of what love’s really about.’