by James Andrew
Then another thought occurred to Blades. Hadn’t Janet also directed them to Digby Russell when he had been under suspicion? In retrospect, he supposed that could have been a ploy to distract attention from her. What was it she had said? A charming man but smarmy. And she had said more than that. She had said he was a queer fish and she did not think much of him herself. Oh yes. And that was it. ‘He talks to the dead if you like and gets everyone to believe him.’ And she had said something about his eyes. Digby had a light-hearted way with him, but his eyes were different. She had made him sound sinister. Not that she had said that much, Blades supposed, though none of it had helped their suspect. But none of it had been damning and Blades did not suppose it pointed the finger at Janet now.
Peacock was driving with his usual placid concentration. Blades was often pleased with the backdrop of calm that Peacock provided.
‘So, it looks as if Janet could have bought the murder weapon,’ Blades said.
‘It looks likely,’ Peacock replied.
‘Although as the ironmonger had sold a few exactly the same from that drawer, it could have been purchased by someone else.’
‘Do you think one of our other suspects purchased one?’ Peacock asked.
‘If that’s the case, where’s the one Janet bought? We’ll have a search of the Wright house. The simplest explanation is usually the correct one but I really can’t think why Janet would have murdered Evelyn Wright.’
‘One of the purchasers Thompson described sounded like Jack Osgood.’
‘I’d wondered about that,’ Blades replied, ‘and Renshaw described his car but there’s still the matter of his alibi.’
‘We know he’s committed one murder and got away with it, so he’s capable of thinking he can commit another one without being caught.’
‘Are we sure he murdered his mother?’ Blades asked.
‘You’ve met him. Did he show any feelings at all about his mother’s death?’
‘None. I berated him for it.’
‘He’s callous,’ Peacock said, ‘just the type to have done that murder and this one too.’
‘A cold-hearted, self-centred bastard whooping it up on his mother’s money without a trace of conscience about how he acquired it?’
‘That’s him.’ Peacock nodded.
‘So he’d be perfectly capable of murdering Evelyn for her money. Except, as we’ve said before, he didn’t get any from her death.’
‘There is that,’ Peacock agreed.
Blades considered. ‘Maybe something went wrong, and he realised his charm wasn’t working so he killed her out of spite? He does have a certain self-conceit.’
‘I’d check Edward Thompson’s fingerprints against the ones on the poker we had down as the murder weapon,’ Peacock said.
‘I didn’t have him as a suspect.’
‘I don’t either, but they could still be his prints. He could have sold the poker to the murderer and handled it then.’
‘Which was a nice ruse on someone’s part to confuse us. Which it did. But we don’t have Thompson’s prints.’
‘Which is why I filched one of his pokers.’ There was a mischievous smile on Peacock’s face as he said this.
‘That’s theft, Sergeant Peacock.’
‘In a good cause, and I’ll find a way of returning it.’
Blades was looking at him askance but not without some hidden admiration. ‘You could have just bought one,’ he said. ‘Or we could have asked him for his prints.’ Then Blades became lost in thought and said nothing, just staring ahead of him.
Peacock glanced across. ‘Is everything all right, sir?’
That had to be it. Though I will need proof; it was odd, he thought. As a detective, he spent so long hunting down the truth but when he found it, it wasn’t something he’d slowly and agonizingly constructed out of half-hearted clues and suggestions. It was something that had found him. It ripped open the curtain it hid behind all by itself.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Mary was back at Elmwood Hall and she had not taken long to return. Perhaps she had never really wanted to leave. She had timed her arrival well for their break, but she knew the times of those. Katy had been about to finish whitening the front steps and was thinking about going through to the kitchen to put the kettle on for mid-morning tea. She had been smelling scones for a while, as they had been baked that morning by Janet.
‘There’s no getting rid of you, is there?’ Katy said. ‘Don’t you have a position yet?’
‘No such luck,’ Mary said.
‘It’s not supposed to be difficult. Big houses are supposed to be crying out for help. Are you making any effort or are you having a holiday?’
‘I’m happy to have a bit of time to myself, but I’d like a position. I’m in the way in our house. My sister was happy as Larry on her own after I left. The problem is the reputation this place has. As soon as they hear where you worked that’s the end of it. Elmwood Hall’s got a name as bad as a brothel. Maybe they’re afraid I’ll seduce the lord and master, and he should be so lucky. Or they don’t want somebody turning up in their house to murder me, or me murdering them more like.’
‘But your mum’s glad to see you back?’ Katy said. ‘She’s the one who took you away.’
‘I don’t think she expected to be stuck with me.’
‘It used to be a feather in your cap working at Elmwood Hall,’ Katy said. ‘Or so Janet says. Now the police keep asking if there were any other young men Miss Wright might have been seeing.’
‘Who’d have thought Miss Wright would be carrying on like that the age she was?’ Mary looked amused at the thought.
‘And who’d have thought any young man would have gone within a mile of her?’ Katy agreed. ‘Love is blind.’
‘Love of money in her case. Are they any closer to catching the man who killed her?’ Mary said.
‘They ask lots of different questions, but they don’t tell us anything,’ Katy said.
‘What questions?’ Mary asked.
Katy looked back at her. ‘They’ve fairly been going on about that poker.’
‘The one that shouldn’t have been there?’ Mary said.
‘That’ll be the one,’ Katy replied.
‘I don’t understand that,’ Mary said. ‘Why kill her with a different poker?’
‘You’ve got me.’
‘Here, have you thought of going to the police yourself?’
‘About what?’
‘You know, what you said.’
Katy stared back at her. ‘That’s nothing. I’d just be adding to the talk.’
‘Maybe.’
Janet’s voice, older and harsher, now butted in. ‘What’s nothing?’ she said. Neither Mary nor Katy had seen or heard her coming out and they wondered how long she had been standing there. Katy’s mouth was open as she looked at her and thought about what to reply.
As she could not think of anything else to say, she just said, ‘Nothing.’
Janet glared at her. ‘Then don’t gossip about it,’ she said.
The fact that Janet was annoyed worried Katy. It did not do to get on the wrong side of her, and that was what she had done.
‘But you can come out with it to me,’ Janet said. ‘What was all that about?’
Katy did not elaborate, and Mary kept quiet too.
‘Finish that step then,’ Janet said. ‘That’s what you should have been doing instead of gossiping.’
Then she turned on her heel and started to go in, before turning and saying. ‘Then you’d better come in for your mid-morning break. And you’re welcome too, Mary.’ And she managed to give her a welcoming smile. ‘How are you keeping?’
‘So-so,’ Mary said.
‘You’re welcome to join us,’ Janet said.
Mary followed at Janet’s heels as she went indoors again. Katy finished off before joining them. She saw that plates with scones and butter and jam had been placed on the kitchen table. The butter would be bought, bu
t the jam was Janet’s own as well as the scones. Everything would be light and full of flavour, the preparation timed to perfection. Janet was as punctilious in her cooking as she was in supervising the work of other servants.
Janet poured tea into china cups and offered sugar and milk. It was a long day in service and both Katy and Janet knew to make the most of opportunities to put their feet up. Katy sliced her knife into her scone and started spreading butter.
‘There’s enough talk about this place these days without us making any more,’ Janet said.
Katy cursed herself for not seeing Janet earlier.
‘Aren’t you jealous?’ Mary asked Janet. ‘It sounds as if old Miss Wright was having quite a time of it.’
‘She disgraced herself.’
‘Servants never have as much fun,’ Mary said.
‘She didn’t want any scandal attaching itself to the place from servants,’ Katy said. ‘I’d have to sneak out to see boyfriends, and well away from here.’
‘All my adult life I’ve been in service,’ Janet said. ‘I’ve worked my fingers to the bone. I didn’t think I was doing it for a trollop.’
Katy and Mary’s eyes met for a moment before they looked away again. Both avoided looking anywhere near Janet as they concentrated on sipping tea.
‘I could have had a husband,’ Janet said, then became lost in thought. To her discomfiture, a tear appeared in her eye before being wiped away.
Katy was surprised at such emotion from Janet and at the news. She couldn’t imagine Janet with a man, but she replied, ‘He’d have been glad to have you. Any man would die for your cooking.’
‘You, young things,’ Jane said. ‘You think that Great War’s the only war there’s ever been, but there were plenty before it, the Boer War for one, even if it wasn’t as big. You didn’t know I had a beau who was killed in that, did you?’
Mary and Katy looked at her. Realising her mouth was open, Katy quickly shut it. ‘He was a sergeant from Wales and a tall good-looking fellow; he was walking out with me before a bullet took him. So instead of marrying him, I did my work here and looked after the house for Miss Wright’s father, and for Miss Wright, and that was my life.’
‘That’s sad,’ Mary said.
‘I didn’t know,’ Katy said.
‘I don’t think I’ll stay in service,’ Mary said. ‘Not that I seem to be able to find another job in it. I want to get married and have kids. And servants never seem to manage that. There isn’t any time for it.’
‘He wanted to marry me before he went back out to South Africa,’ Janet said, ‘but we couldn’t organize it in time. So I never knew my Dai.’
There was silence again. Katy wasn’t used to such confidences from Janet, and Mary looked embarrassed.
Then Janet continued as if she hadn’t just been discussing her own life. ‘You won’t get a job outside service,’ Janet said.
‘No? Why not?’
‘Once you’re in service you’re in it for life. That’s why. Another employer won’t take you.’
‘I don’t believe that,’ Mary said.
‘You hear it over and over,’ Janet said. ‘Girls go applying for jobs and they’re suitable, and the employer wants them but when he finds out they’ve been in service they change their minds.’
‘But why?’ Mary asked.
‘We’re the lowest of the low. Don’t you know that? It provides us with a roof over our heads and keeps us off the streets but we’re at someone else’s beck and call all the time. We fetch their privies and clean their toilets and front steps and back steps and everything in between. And nobody respects us for that. Why should they?’
‘But you’re a skilled cook,’ Katy said. ‘Most people couldn’t do what you do.’
‘Which might impress anybody if I was doing it all for myself. But I’m a servant. I do all the menial work while my lords and mistresses lounge about.’
‘What about the nobility of labour?’ Katy replied.
‘The dogma they give out in orphanages? Maybe. But most people see us as skivvies. And Miss Wright took our hard work and the freedom it gave her to act like a hussy.’
Katy looked at Janet. There was an intenseness in the way Janet spoke that Katy was wary of. Why did she find it frightening?
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
When Constable Flockhart walked into the station, no one said anything at first. After all, what was unusual about a police constable walking into a police station? And Flockhart was his usual self after a shift, a bit weary but affable – a quick pleasantry on the way past the desk, obviously glad to see the back of duties till the next time like everybody else, just the end-of-duty report to write up and he was finished. He opened the door of the constables’ office, pulled out a seat, and started writing.
Then Sergeant Ryan’s face appeared round the door, followed by the rest of Sergeant Ryan as he strode up to where Flockhart was seated. ‘So, what’s up?’ Ryan said.
Flockhart blinked as he looked up from his report. He gave Ryan a nervous smile. ‘Glad the babysitting duties are over,’ he said. ‘They were boring.’
‘Who said they were finished?’
Flockhart looked back at him. ‘The message came through,’ he said.
‘What message?’
‘The phone call?’
Ryan gave him a questioning look and waited for him to explain.
‘It was Mary who told me,’ Flockhart said. ‘I was outside the front door when she came out all excited and talking nineteen to the dozen. She did get it right, didn’t she? Said Janet had called her back as she was leaving, it was such good news. There had been a phone call, Janet said, and she started asking Mary if she didn’t feel like coming back there to work, seeing there was no danger now and she couldn’t get a position anywhere else. Very cheerful Mary was. She said she didn’t think there was any way her mother would want her to come back but she’d think about it. She’s been having nothing but fight after fight with her sister since she went home again, Mary says.’
‘So, who was this message supposed to be from?’
Flockhart scratched his head. ‘That Mary didn’t know. It was Janet that passed it on to her.’
‘I thought Mary left.’
‘She came back for a visit,’ Flockhart explained.
‘I didn’t think they would call off that watch yet,’ Ryan said. ‘There was that intruder you reported.’
‘I thought about that,’ Flockhart said. ‘It was probably just one of them up in the night.’
‘So why would they need a window open to get in?’
‘I wondered about that too,’ Flockhart said. ‘But we’ve no proof anyone tried to go in that way. There were no marks on the ground outside. Someone probably forgot to shut it before going to bed.’
‘You think?’ Ryan replied.
Flockhart gaped back at him. He was feeling uneasy about this. But he hadn’t done anything wrong. Had he?
‘I’ll check this with Inspector Blades,’ Ryan said.
A few moments later, Ryan returned with both Blades and Peacock.
‘You received a message you were to leave your guard duty at the Hall?’ Blades said. Flockhart thought the look on his face unusually anxious.
‘Yes, sir,’ he replied but felt no confidence as he said this.
‘Not from us, you didn’t,’ Blades said. And Flockhart thought he’d never seen Blades’ face that pale before.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Couldn’t Peacock drive any faster? Blades thought.
‘Put your foot down, man,’ he said.
‘I am driving fast,’ Peacock replied but pressed his foot further on the accelerator anyway. At the next bend, the wheels screeched, and the car seemed to be pulling against him as they rounded it. He thought for a moment it was going to skid and he would lose control, but then they were round that bend and racing on to the next.
‘I hope we’re on time,’ Peacock said.
‘So do I,’ Blades replied
. ‘I didn’t think it would come to this. I should have acted by now.’
‘So which one is it?’ Peacock asked. ‘Who phoned up to draw Flockhart off?’
‘Flockhart was told someone phoned up. He didn’t say he’d heard any phone ringing. It’s someone who was already there. It’s Janet.’
‘She’s cleared the field to kill Katy?’
‘Charlie Falconer can’t have been the only one who spotted something. Some of the things Katy said. I should have got it earlier than I did.’
‘Janet must know we’d suspect anyone who arranged for the police guard to be cancelled.’
‘She’s panicked. Faster man,’ Blades bellowed. ‘She won’t hang about.’ Peacock put his foot right down and the car roared faster. ‘But get us there in one piece.’ Peacock gripped the wheel harder but didn’t let his pace slacken.
But he was still able to ask Blades more questions. ‘So that attempt Flockhart reported was by someone inside the house?’
‘Who made it look as if someone from outside came in.’
‘But Janet?’
‘I’d a blind spot for her too. And she’s committed two murders. What’s the easy way out of problems for her now?’
Peacock accelerated past a carriage, spooking the horses that were drawing it in the process, then, as he reached the next bend, he found himself swerving to avoid a car coming around it. Then they were there, in front of Elmwood Hall. Peacock braked. Blades opened his car door and ran towards the house.
