Grave Matters

by Margaret Yorke

  ‘Well, she was a nice old thing. I’d like to know what happened. I don’t suppose there’ll be any more about it in the paper.’

  ‘There’ll have to be an inquest,’ Patrick said.

  ‘One of those policemen friends of yours would tell you about that,’ Jane said. ‘If Ellen can’t, I mean.’

  ‘True enough. I’ll see what I can discover,’ Patrick said. ‘Now, what’s the other news, the good bit?’

  ‘I’m pregnant, Patrick. I really am, this time. It’s all set,’ Jane said, and her whole voice changed. ‘I didn’t tell anyone except Michael until it was quite safe. Isn’t it wonderful?’

  ‘How marvellous, Jane. I am glad. Take care. Don’t get all in a fuss about poor Miss Forrest and upset yourself.’

  ‘I won’t. In fact I was resting, feet up, you know, all relaxed, when I read it in the paper. Otherwise I’d have missed it.’

  Jane, longing to provide Andrew with a brother or sister, had had two miscarriages and begun to lose hope.

  ‘So you knew that day when you came to the dentist. I thought you looked rather smug.’

  ‘Don’t be wise with hindsight. I’ve been being very careful, no dashing about, but everything’s all right now.’

  ‘I’m so glad, Jane dear.’

  ‘I thought you would be, but you needn’t start clucking like a broody hen yourself. You get on with ringing up Ellen. Do you know where to find her?’

  ‘Of course I do. We’ve been in touch about Miss Brinton’s books.’

  ‘Oh, have you, indeed? That’s nice. Keep it up. And tell me what happens – some of it, I mean. The part about poor Miss Forrest.’

  ‘I will. Old ladies do have heart attacks, Jane. She did seem fragile. Probably she just chanced to have hers in rather an unusual spot.’ Patrick decided to ignore Jane’s oblique reference to any dealings he might have with Ellen.

  ‘I wonder what she was doing in the British Museum,’ Jane said.

  ‘People do go there, dear. I sometimes do myself,’ said Patrick.

  III

  Ellen supplied the answer to this question.

  ‘She often went there in cold weather. It’s warm, and you can sit comfortably for ages gazing at things and no one disturbs you,’ she said. ‘And there’s food and a loo and all that, laid on. It saved her heating bills. She lived in a rather grim little bed-sitter. That’s why she loved going down to Meldsmead and particularly for as much as a whole week, like she’d just spent there. It was free, there was food in tins already there to eat up, and she felt by listing the books that she was earning her keep.’

  ‘Was she as hard up as all that?’ Patrick asked.

  ‘Mm. I don’t suppose she’d taken out any insurance scheme of her own while she was working, so she had to dip into her savings. And until this year she’d always gone abroad – I expect she had to economise pretty rigidly to find the cash for that.’

  After Jane’s telephone call, Patrick had rung up Ellen and arranged to meet her for dinner the following evening. He had a tutorial and a lecture during the day and could not go up any earlier; in any case, she would have been free only in her lunch hour. Now they were dining in rather a pleasant small restaurant not far from Covent Garden; the atmosphere was tranquil and the tables were far enough apart to allow some degree of insulation from the conversation of others.

  ‘Poor Milly. Of course it was a heart attack,’ said Ellen, toying with her smoked trout. ‘She was flaked out after sorting all those books. I was afraid it might be too much for her. Some of them were pretty heavy tomes, and she dusted them all while she listed them. She should have spent longer doing it.’

  Patrick had already discovered through his friend Detective-Inspector Colin Smithers that there would be no inquest on Miss Forrest. The autopsy had shown heart failure and multiple fractures. Her little bones must have been as frail as those of a sparrow.

  ‘The awful thing was,’ Ellen went on, ‘that I was there.’

  ‘What do you mean? In the British Museum with her?’

  ‘In it, but not with her. I was late, and she was dead when I got there. They were carting her out to the ambulance. I didn’t realise who it was at first.’

  ‘Do you mean you were meeting her?’

  ‘Yes. She’d asked me to. We were going to have lunch together, just a snack, you know, in that subterranean place. I was to meet her in the hall at the foot of those stairs she fell down. I suppose she’d spent the morning upstairs somewhere among the drawings or something.’

  ‘Did you often meet her there?’

  ‘No. We’d never done it before. I knew she spent hours in museums and galleries and things because Amelia used to meet her in them. That’s how I knew about her being hard up and all that. Amelia used to stay in a private hotel in the Cromwell Road, when she came up to London – Milly hadn’t got room for her, but it was always called “staying with Mildred.” I didn’t know her all that well; we’d met a few times of course. She missed Amelia dreadfully. I think she felt her last link with her own generation had gone. I suppose she was still suffering from the shock of it.’

  ‘I expect she was.’ Patrick looked across the table at Ellen. She was looking very pale tonight and there were shadows under her eyes. ‘Did she have any particular reason for wanting to meet you?’

  ‘She had something to tell me. She said I was right about Abbot’s Lodge. That’s all she’d say on the phone.’

  ‘What could she have meant? Do you think it was about its reputation, or what you said about feeling the atmosphere there to be hostile? You told me that when we were alone in the garden but I suppose you’d mentioned it to her too?’

  ‘Yes, I had. I – the firm, that is – had been trying to find a house for the Bruces for ages, and I was very keen to get something that would be just right for them. I told Valerie and Mildred I wasn’t altogether happy about Abbot’s Lodge.’

  ‘What do the Bruces think about the house’s reputation?’ Patrick asked.

  ‘They just laughed about it,’ Ellen said.

  ‘You told them?’

  ‘I had to. I couldn’t let them buy it without knowing about it. I’d got to know them quite well during their search. My boss would probably slay me if he knew I’d tried to put them off it. It’s not the way to sell houses.’

  ‘Well, the Bruces have been all right so far, haven’t they?’ Patrick asked.

  ‘I suppose so.’ Ellen sounded doubtful. ‘Carol twisted her ankle that afternoon we were there, do you remember? And she’d put her foot through the floorboard earlier. And David said she’d scratched her arm on a rusty nail in the cellar.’

  David had said so, had he? And when had he told Ellen that?

  ‘Maybe she’s just accident-prone,’ he said lightly. ‘You’ve been down again, have you?’

  ‘Yes. I collected Milly the weekend before last, while Val was away in Denmark on some job. She lets me use her car if she’s out of the country. Then I met her at Heathrow last weekend and we both went down to Meldsmead.’ Ellen took a sip of the excellent claret they were drinking with their pheasant. ‘We went out to drinks in the village on Saturday evening – people had heard the Bruces had moved in and wanted to be friendly. When we all left, their car – the Bruces’, I mean – had a puncture.’

  ‘That smooth BMW? What a pity,’ Patrick said.

  ‘It wasn’t David’s car. It was Carol’s Lancia. It’s rather unusual, isn’t it, to have complete flats like that? When you’re parked? More often tyres go down gently, don’t they?’

  ‘Well, yes. But nails and things do lie around,’ said Patrick. ‘It doesn’t necessarily mean that a ghost from Abbot’s Lodge followed the Bruces down the road and slashed the tyre. Where was the party?’

  ‘At the Bradshaws’. He’s a market gardener who lives down the lane near the church.’

  Patrick’s chatty friend from the pub.

  ‘Was it a good party?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so, as these things
go,’ said Ellen. ‘It was prompt of the Bradshaws to ask them so soon.’

  ‘Meldsmead must be a friendly place.’

  ‘It is, fairly. Of course, it’s so small that any newcomer is an object of curiosity. And Abbot’s Lodge has been empty so long that I should think everyone was extra eager to inspect the Bruces.’

  ‘What’s Mrs. Bradshaw like?’ Patrick asked. ‘I’ve met him.’ He had already told Ellen about his visit to the Meldsmead Arms, the day they met.

  ‘Very efficient,’ said Ellen. ‘She must be a great blessing to Mrs. Merry – the vicar’s wife. She helps with things in the village, bazaars and so on. Denis was in the Army, he took up market gardening when he retired. I suppose Madge got used to running things when they were in the Army, organising the soldiers’ families and so on. I imagine that still goes on.’

  Patrick felt sure it did.

  ‘What do you do at weekends if you’re not at Mulberry Cottage?’ he asked her.

  ‘Sometimes I stay in London. Sometimes I go home. I’ve already told you I get on well with my family,’ she said.

  ‘You seem to expect me to be surprised,’ said Patrick mildly. ‘Even some undergraduates like their parents, oddly enough. In any case, I should think you have few foes.’

  For some extraordinary reason, as he looked at her, he longed to quote Byron and tell her that she walked in beauty. There was some magic, ethereal quality about her tonight. No female had ever had this effect on him before. He took a stern grip on himself, lest his lunatic emotions be reflected in his face.

  ‘The next time someone’s down at Mulberry Cottage I’d like to come over and talk about the books,’ he said. ‘Our librarian is very interested in a lot of them.’

  ‘You could come almost any time,’ Ellen said. ‘I’ve got a key now, and Valerie says I can go there whenever I like for the moment. She’s going to do it up, but it’ll take ages to arrange about a grant and all that.’

  ‘Would your aunt part with the books individually? She could sell the whole lot to some bookseller, but it might pay her to dispose of them separately, and some of my colleagues would be very anxious to get hold of certain ones.’

  ‘You told me in your letter,’ Ellen reminded him. ‘I’m sure Valerie would let any of your colleagues take their pick before selling the rest. There hasn’t been time to ask her, since you wrote. But I think you can take it she’d agree.’

  Patrick knew that Bernard would be eager to grab the plums from Miss Brinton’s library at the first opportunity. The difficulty would be to avoid having to bring him on the expedition to collect them.

  ‘May I come and pick out a few fairly soon?’ he asked. ‘Is there a chance that you’ll be going down there before long?’ He did not want to discuss the books with Valerie; he wanted to inspect them with Ellen.

  She shrugged.

  ‘I’ve no plans for next weekend. And the garden should be cleared up before the winter,’ she said.

  Patrick would get a few titles out of Bernard instantly. Then he could take some stalling action. It would be very pleasant to prolong negotiations through the winter weekends; Homer by firelight, with Ellen: what could be more alluring?

  She agreed that he might call for her at Mulberry Cottage at noon on the following Sunday and take her to lunch in Andhurst as a preliminary to their bibliographical discussion.

  ‘And your aunt too, of course, if she’s there,’ he said, fervently hoping that Valerie would have other plans.

  He drove her back to her flat in Earls Court, where she put a cool hand in his on her doorstep and thanked him for the evening. Before he could take any further action she had opened the door and vanished inside, leaving him gazing at the solid slab of black-painted wood. He got back into the Rover and sat for some minutes staring at the building, imagining her walking up the stairs to her flat, which she had told him was on the top floor. No lights went on, so it must overlook the gardens at the back of the house. She would not look out and see him still below, a faithful sentinel. It was pointless to remain, so he started the car and drove off towards the Westway and the fast road to Oxford. Soon he was cruising smoothly along the M40, back to his celibate quarters at St. Mark’s. As he drove, he thought about how he would see Ellen again on Sunday, and he had reached the Beaconsfield by-pass before he started to turn over in his mind the curious fact of Miss Mildred Forrest’s wish to talk to Ellen about the reputed jinx on Abbot’s Lodge.

  PART THREE

  I

  Andrew Conway at three years old was an energetic little boy, keenly interested in all that went on around him. Jane often thought he had inherited some of his uncle’s curiosity. He still had what was called a rest every afternoon, when he lay on his bed with his teddy bear and a book. Sometimes he did nod off for a short time, but more often he lectured his teddy on the events of the morning, or carried on long conversations with imaginary people. On the Sunday after Miss Forrest’s death, when he had been banished in this way, Jane sat on the sofa in the sitting-room with her feet up, looking at the Sunday Times crossword, while Michael read the Business Section.

  After a time she said: ‘I wonder how Patrick’s getting on.’

  ‘Hm? What’s he doing? I thought he was coming to lunch,’ said Michael.

  ‘He cancelled. He’s gone down to Hampshire to see that girl,’ said Jane.

  Michael looked at her over the top of his paper.

  ‘You don’t mean to tell me that Patrick’s seriously interested in someone you’ve found for him?’ he said. ‘It’s your broody condition running away with your imagination.’

  ‘I didn’t find her for him, he did it himself,’ Jane said, and frowned. ‘She may be awful.’

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Old Amelia Brinton’s great-niece. I must have told you. He met her when he called at Amelia’s cottage a few weeks ago. He happened to be near there. You know how he does these impulsive things.’ Michael did. ‘He took a fancy to her.’

  Michael knew that Patrick often took fancies to girls, but never strongly enough to want them permanently around.

  ‘Don’t count on it lasting,’ he advised. ‘Patrick’s pretty set in his ways. He’s probably happiest flitting from flower to flower. What’s this one’s particular charm?’

  ‘He hasn’t told me. I just know she’s somehow different from the others in the past. And she’s muddled up with all these old ladies who keep falling down stairs,’ said Jane. ‘You know, Amelia in Athens, and now Miss Forrest in the British Museum.’

  ‘They chose some pretty illustrious stairs on which to expire,’ said Michael.

  ‘Like being run over by a Rolls, you mean? I know. But there’s a third one. Patrick only told me about her the other day, when he cried off for this weekend. It’s a woman in Meldsmead who fell down some steps in the garden and twisted her ankle.’

  ‘She didn’t die?’

  ‘No. And she isn’t old.’

  ‘Anyone can have a domestic accident,’ said Michael.

  ‘You’re starting to talk like Patrick,’ Jane complained.

  ‘What’s wrong with that? I know you love him dearly. In fact I’ve always thought there was something Grecian, or do I mean Egyptian, like the Pharaohs, in the brotherly love between you,’ said Michael, grinning at her.

  ‘I won’t be provoked,’ Jane said, looking prim.

  ‘You’ll hate it if he marries. Some other woman muscling in when you’ve him and me, ready to dance to your tune,’ Michael went on. ‘And Andrew will join your band of adorers – he has, in fact, though his powers are limited still.’

  ‘If Patrick could only be half as happy as we are, I’d rejoice,’ Jane said, very seriously. ‘But I’m afraid for him.’

  ‘He’s probably only buttering this girl up because he’s intrigued by something in the set-up,’ said Michael. ‘The old ladies and their tumbles, perhaps.’

  ‘There’s something odd about one of the houses in Meldsmead. The one where the other woman fe
ll and twisted her ankle. It’s ill- fated in some way,’ Jane said.

  ‘Well, there you are, then. He wants some problem to chew over, so he’s found one. This girl’s just an excuse. Don’t worry about it. He’s got a genius for getting mixed up with odd types, I agree, but he won’t marry one.’

  ‘He’s been around so often when people are up to no good, I sometimes wonder if he acts as a sort of catalyst. By just being there, perhaps he sets off the chain of murky events.’

  ‘Darling, don’t be crazy. It’s just chance. He’s happened to be present when people have died in mysterious circumstances once or twice, and being Patrick, he’s seen more of what’s gone on under the surface than other people.’

  ‘There’s something bothering him about Miss Forrest,’ Jane said. ‘Poor old Amelia’s death really was a most unlucky accident – some rough youth rushed up those steps leading up to the Acropolis and jostled against her when she was standing above a sheer drop, and she fell. Someone younger wouldn’t have, or if they did, would have bounced.’

  ‘And Miss Forrest got dizzy. Bad heart, wasn’t it? Maybe she shouldn’t have walked up the stairs.’

  ‘I’m surprised she did. There are lifts,’ said Jane.

  ‘Perhaps she went up by lift and was walking down,’ Michael suggested. ‘That would seem reasonable. There must have been witnesses.’

  ‘Oddly enough, there were very few people about at the time, Patrick said. Evidently no one else was on the stairs. She pitched down on her head.’

  ‘Well, she wasn’t pushed if no one else was around,’ said Michael. ‘You usually ridicule Patrick when he gets these fanciful notions.’

  ‘I know. But he’s been right before, so I’m beginning to take him more seriously,’ Jane said. ‘When he suspects foul play, I mean, like they say in the papers.’

  ‘Well, he doesn’t suspect it this time. He’s just using it as an excuse to get together with this dolly-bird, and good for him,’ Michael chuckled.

  ‘That’s the direct opposite of what you said a moment ago,’ Jane declared triumphantly. ‘You said she was an excuse to get a foot in that house with the bad reputation.’