by L. A. Nisula
Inspector Wainwright left the steam gig near the square in the center of Eybry and climbed out. I followed. Inspector Wainwright ignored me as he entered Mr. Elliott’s shop.
There were three groups of walkers in the shop, one at the counter and two pairs looking at the hampers. They all turned when we entered. Inspector Wainwright hadn’t brought any uniformed officers, but he still managed to look like a policeman searching for wrong-doing. Apparently, Mr. Elliott thought so as well as he came over to us directly. “May I help you, sir?” No mention of him being an inspector.
“I need to see your back room, if you don’t object.”
There really was nothing for Mr. Elliott to say to that except to agree, although he seemed to be trying to come up with something. The group at the counter grabbed their sandwiches and hurried for the door. Mr. Elliott looked at the other two groups by the hampers and seemed to be ready to say something, if he could only think what, as Inspector Wainwright headed for his back room. When Mr. Elliott looked ready to ask a question, Inspector Wainwright gestured in my general direction. “I believe Miss Pengear was going to order some sandwiches.”
“Sandwiches, yes, sandwiches.” Mr. Elliott turned to the counter, seeming relieved to have something mundane happening. “And how may I help you?”
Apparently, Inspector Wainwright had decided to make use of me as a distraction. I turned my attention to the menu board and tried to figure out what Mrs. Albright might like.
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Mr. Elliott said. It took me a moment to realize the walkers were still standing behind us, listening.
I decided to help him out and said, “I think he just wants to re-trace the route the miscreant took.”
“Of course, that makes sense.” He kept glancing back at the walkers as he made my sandwiches, but he seemed grateful that I hadn’t mentioned anything as shocking as murder. At least, he piled a good bit of cheese on my sandwich.
When I got to the churchyard with my parcel of sandwiches, Inspector Wainwright was already there. I assumed he’d taken Mr. Elliott’s route, checking as he went. He was on his hands and knees, going over the ground near the gate again. I knew he liked to be thorough, but that area had been gone over so many times before, I doubted there was anything more to be found. As I watched him, I realized he was searching quickly, without his usual care, and was fanning out from the gate, searching further away as if he were trying to find the next place to examine closely. I went up to the gate and asked, “Any luck?” to let him know I was there.
He didn’t look up. “I didn’t think Oakwood Cottage was in this direction.”
“It isn’t, but I thought you might like to know where I found the wallet.” I didn’t wait for him to answer but opened the gate and crossed the churchyard to the spot I remembered. “It seemed like a strange place for it to have fallen out considering where the body had been left, but if the murder took place here as well...” I thought Inspector Wainwright was going to make some snide comment, but standing in the location where I’d found the wallet, something else from that morning struck me just then. “The button.”
“You haven’t mentioned a button before,” Inspector Wainwright muttered.
“I didn’t find it, Constable Edwards did. When I passed the churchyard after you visited the cottage for the first time, he was searching the churchyard and asked if the button he’d found looked like it belonged to anything Mr. Hoyt had been wearing. It didn’t, but he said he’d keep it anyway in case he needed it later. I didn’t notice what Mr. Reynolds was wearing when he was arguing with Mr. Burton—and before you say anything, I didn’t know there would be a dead body involved so lunch seemed much more important—but it might be worth checking it against his clothing. Then you could put both Mr. Hoyt and him in the churchyard, and if Mr. Simmons saw them...”
Inspector Wainwright cut me off. “And where was Constable Edwards when he found it?”
“He’d already found it when I spoke to him, but he said it was over by the back gate.”
“Putting it fairly close to where you found the wallet.” Inspector Wainwright got to his feet.
I was prepared to follow him when the side door to the church opened and the vicar came out. He spotted Inspector Wainwright, and I could see him hesitate, wondering whether he ought to go over and try to find out what was going on in his churchyard or leave Inspector Wainwright to it. I decided to help him. “Hello, Mr. Morton.”
“Good afternoon...” I could see from the way he hesitated that he remembered having met me but not the circumstances.
“Miss Pengear. We met at the memorial for Mr. Hoyt.”
“Of course. Oakwood Cottage. You came with Miss Hayworth and Miss Dyer. Is the inspector with you?”
“I think he’d rather you didn’t put it that way. He’s looking for evidence again.”
“Then I won’t disturb him. I didn’t know if he needed someone to show him where something was. Do you happen to know what he’s looking for?”
There didn’t seem to be a gentle way to put it. “The murder scene.”
“Then I had definitely best leave him to it. But I shouldn’t be in his way if I get the boxes.”
I was curious what he meant by get the boxes, so I followed him along the side of the church to a sort of small lean-to against the side of the building. I would have expected it to be filled with gardening items, but instead, it was stacked with boxes, enough that they were piled outside of it as well.
Mr. Morton realized I had followed him and kept speaking as if it were part of the same conversation. “I put this up so people could leave things and not worry about them getting wet, but no one bothers to stack things properly inside so half of it ends up on the lawn anyway. Rather like the luggage rack on a train, I suppose. There’s supposed to be room for six boxes inside; what would you bet we find two taking up all the space? No, it looks like Mrs. Greene has managed to take up the entire thing with this. Now really, who at our jumble sale is going to buy a hat rack shaped like an elephant with one ear missing?” He pulled out the box which did indeed have an elephant-shaped hat rack with a missing ear sticking out the top. “Oh well, I suppose we should be glad for what we get. Maybe we can have a tombola or a coconut shy and make it a prize.”
I looked at the lean-to and its distance from the back gate. It wasn’t exactly close, but not so far that it could be ruled out as the meeting place. “Have you been collecting here for a while?”
“Since the beginning of last month. Were you interested in our jumble sale? It will be the week after next if you’re still in the area. I’m sure you’ll be shocked to know the proceeds are going to repair the downspouts. I have never yet been in a church that did not need some sort of roof repairs. I’m sure there’s the start of a homily there, but I’ve never bothered to puzzle it out.”
“If we’re still at the cottage, we’ll try to come.” That seemed non-committal enough but still enthusiastic. Perhaps we could find something for Mrs. Foster to thank her for the loan of the cottage.
“Then we’ll look forward to seeing you, if you can attend.” He picked up the box of odds and ends and started towards the door.
As I wasn’t able to see much of what Inspector Wainwright was doing, I picked up a box of linens and followed him inside and to a storage room behind his office.
“Thank you. Two people does make it easier. I like to leave a couple of things outside to encourage more donations, but nothing that could get spoiled by the rain. If you wouldn’t mind putting those with the housewares. Mrs. Todd is trying to make some order out of all of this mess. I think they’re back by the tea urn.”
I brought the box of linens to the stack of other boxes, all filled with household goods that no one wanted. Most of the contents were mismatched place settings, cooking pots with shaky handles, and one box of overly-elaborate cake pans that still had bits of failed cakes stuck in the grooves. But it was an old carpet draped over one of the boxes in the back that caug
ht my eye. Something about it was familiar. It was a wool rug with a pattern of pale roses on it. It took me a moment to realize where I’d seen one like it before and another moment to see the significance. I stroked the pile and realized it was not as well cared for as Mrs. Foster’s rug. Bits of wool came off in my hand.
Mr. Morton came by with a bit of chalk and wrote the date on the box I’d just put down. “Did you see something that interested you?”
“You said these are kept outside?”
“For a while, yes. We try to bring them in before it rains, but people drop things off when it suits them.”
“Do you know when this would have been outside?”
“There should be a date on the box for when we brought it in. Here it is. That’s Mr. Simmons’s handwriting. He brought it in on Tuesday, most likely in the morning as that’s when he normally comes. I can ask him what time, if he remembers. I don’t know how long it would have been sitting out there. I try to bring things in every day, and he did the best he could while I was away, but he also works at the manse, so it’s not quite so easy as it is for me. Does that help?”
“I think so.” It meant the box could have been outside on the day of the murder, and Mr. Hoyt could have fallen against the rug as he was killed.
Mr. Morton slid his fingers along the pile of the carpet, shaking loose a few more fibers. “If I were to hazard a guess, I would say Mrs. Townsend dropped this off. Her cat is always scratching at rugs and ruining them. This looks like his handy-work. You could ask her if she did leave it and if she remembers when. Or the inspector could. I assume this has to do with the murder?”
“It might. I should go get him.”
“Of course.”
I hurried outside to fetch Inspector Wainwright.
Inspector Wainwright was right where I’d left him, having moved only a few feet from where I’d found the wallet. I could tell from the way he almost turned to look in my direction that he’d heard me approach, so I didn’t bother greeting him with more than, “Inspector, do you still have the carpet wool you showed me the other day?”
“Miss Pengear, do you think I carry around bits of your carpet? If you were planning on repairing it, you’ll have to wait until the case is closed.”
“It isn’t our rug anyway; it’s Mrs. Foster’s. Besides, I don’t think it’s part of that rug.”
That got his attention. He stood up and waited for me to continue. I saw I had his attention and started back to the church. Inspector Wainwright didn’t say anything but he did follow me through to the storage room. Inside, I pointed to the boxes. “Collection for the church jumble sale. They’d been left by the side of the church, in that little lean-to. Mr. Simmons brought these inside on Tuesday. Look at the rug on top. I think it’s the same pattern as the one at Oakwood Cottage. And that means your fibers would match.”
Inspector Wainwright came over to the box in question and spread out the rug. I could see the pattern was indeed the same. Probably something many houses in the village had at one time or another. Inspector Wainwright took out the bits of wool he’d found on the body—it seemed he was carrying them around—and held them against the rug. As he ran his hand over the pile, trying to get it into a position where he could compare the colors, more fibers shook loose. He held those against the ones he’d brought, and it was clear they were a match.
“Do I have to walk you all the way back to Oakwood Cottage before I return to the station, or can you get there on your own with no detours or dead bodies?”
“I suppose it will all be boring paperwork from here.”
“Indubitably.”
“Then the cottage seems more interesting.”
He turned to Mr. Morton. “Would you like a receipt for this?”
“It isn’t really ours, I suppose, and I do trust you taking it. Although, those are donations for the jumble sale supporting the church repair fund. There’s a collection box near the door.”
Inspector Wainwright snorted and walked out. Mr. Morton watched him leave, considering whether or not to follow.
“You’ll have more luck if he thinks no one notices than if you try to guilt him into a donation.”
“Then perhaps I should re-arrange the boxes and note that he took the rug before I go out.”
I nodded.
“Although I ought to check the collection box on my way out.”
I smiled. “Then perhaps I should help you with the boxes.”
When I got back to Oakwood Cottage, Mrs. Albright was pleased with the sandwiches and even more pleased with the summary of recent events in the case as that meant we might be able to have a proper holiday. We spent most of the evening poring over what I’d learned that afternoon and trying to figure out if Inspector Wainwright would have enough evidence to charge Mr. Reynolds at once, or if he would need to find something else to connect him to the death, and whether or not the spare pound Mr. Morton had found in the collection box had indeed come from Inspector Wainwright. Mrs. Albright did have one new detail to add.
“I asked Mrs. Otway and Mrs. Dalby where they first heard the rumors about Mrs. Hoyt and Mr. Elliott. You’ll never believe, but both of them said it was Mr. Reynolds. He had told them he saw the pair while he was doing his rounds. No doubt he told half the people he ran into about it, and once the rumor got started, he simply had to nod his head and wait for it to spread.”
I made a note to mention that to Inspector Wainwright. Every little bit would help him build his case. “He must have been planning the murder for weeks, long enough for him to have started the rumors about Mr. Elliott and Mrs. Hoyt, giving him a place to shift the blame if he needed it. It must have been quite a shock to him to find Mr. Hoyt’s body back in the churchyard when he’d just left him in Mr. Elliott’s shop.”
Mrs. Albright nodded. “It would have seemed as if his victim were following him around. But I wonder why he moved him again instead of simply leaving him there.”
“The same reason he moved it to begin with. He knew he’d been seen there. Mr. Simmons told me he’d seen him around when I was looking for witnesses.”
“And the ladies at Mulberry Cottage didn’t want the sergeant poking around there, so moved him along to Lord Hector’s, thinking his father would get him out of any trouble.”
“Lord Hector didn’t want to have to tell his father about the trouble and wasn’t sure he’d bail him out anyway, so he and Mr. Briggs moved him here, thinking it would be Mrs. Foster who found him. I got the impression Mrs. Foster doesn’t approve of him or Mr. Briggs.”
“Lord only knows where she’d have moved him.” Mrs. Albright shook her head. “I hope the sergeant appreciates that we reported him and didn’t just pass him along so he wouldn’t disturb our holiday.”
“I was wondering just how far he might have gotten if we hadn’t reported him. All the way to London, I would think. I wonder what Inspector Wainwright would have thought of the case then.”
“He should be grateful he doesn’t have that complication. So what are our plans for tomorrow now that dead bodies aren’t involved?”
Chapter 25
AFTER BREAKFAST THE NEXT MORNING, I collected up Miss Hayworth’s black coat from the memorial and started for Mulberry Cottage. It made a good excuse to pay a call on them and find out if the village had heard about the end of the case. When I arrived at Mulberry Cottage, Miss Dyer was outside sorting through her painting kit.
“Miss Pengear, hello. We were hoping you’d call.” She left her brushes and came to greet me. “Nora! Miss Pengear is here! All anyone in the village knows is that Mr. Reynolds was arrested yesterday and Constable Edwards went to Stow-on-the-Wold to question Mr. Sundur about his dealings with Mrs. Quimby’s. Sergeant Harris isn’t saying anything, merely growling at anyone who asks, I don’t think anyone’s dared ask Inspector Wainwright, and all the constables seem to be rushing about, finishing up the case I assume, and don’t have time to talk. But we thought you would know what had happened.”
<
br /> “Embezzlement and blackmail,” I told her.
“We knew you’d know. But don’t say anything else until Nora is here or she’ll have my head.”
Miss Hayworth came outside just then. “And I’d be completely justified. I’ve put the kettle on, but we’d rather not wait if you don’t mind.”
I quite understood the need to hear all the details quickly, so I joined them in the chairs behind the cottage and gave them the broad outlines of the case then settled in with a cup of tea to fill in the details. I was just telling them about finding the hearth rug when we heard the gate swing open. We all turned to see who was barging in uninvited.
Lord Hector came around the corner of the cottage, looking quite cheery and not at all put out by the fact that none of us greeted him. “Good morning, ladies. I came by to see if anyone had heard what’s happening in the village. Freddie heard that the case was solved.”
It seemed easiest to tell him and send him on his way. “Mr. Reynolds was arrested. Blackmail leading to murder.”
“Blackmail’s a nasty business to be on the receiving end of. I can almost feel sympathy for him. But does that mean I’m free to go?”
“I would think so, but you ought to ask Inspector Wainwright to be certain.”
“Well, better him than Sergeant Harris.”
“Does that mean you are leaving?” Miss Dyer asked.
“It does indeed. I have done it, ladies. I have found my profession.”
“I’m afraid to ask,” Miss Dyer said.
“I don’t know why. My ascent into respectability is entirely due to you lot.”
“Us?” I wasn’t sure I wanted any part of whatever his new profession was.
“What have we done now?” Miss Hayworth asked with a smile.
“Now, now, I assure you, it’s all quite respectable,” Lord Hector said quickly. “I have become an art broker. Every artist has pieces that are not quite up to their standard, and for every monied person looking for quality, there are dozens of cheap rich people looking to own something they can show off to their friends and make themselves look as if they’re in on the avant-garde of the art world. I shall facilitate the transactions and charge a nice commission, paid by the wealthy customers, of course. Lord Hector Gibbons, acting as a go-between for artists with no funds and patrons with no taste.”
