Jack on the Gallows Tree

by Bruce, Leo

  “What time?”

  “Don’t ask me that. It’s years since we’ve had a clock in the house, though my husband’s never been late for his work. He works for Mr Raydell, the farmer at Lilbourne, and he seems to know by instink when it’s time to get up in the morning. Winter and summer it’s the same. Our old clock went wrong ever so long ago and I’ve never bothered. So I can’t tell you what time it was we heard that dog.”

  “But approximately?”

  “We were just thinking about going to bed. Somewhere round about nine, I daresay. Only don’t take me up on that.”

  “Was it very unusual to hear a dog barking?”

  “Certainly it was. There isn’t a house for half a mile here and this dog was barking as though it was shut up. Went on, it did. I said to my husband, I said, ‘I wonder whatever that is?’ He said it must be someone out in the road with a dog. Well, we get them stopping along this road in cars at night. You wouldn’t believe they could be that shameless. I don’t know, I’m sure.”

  “So you thought it was a dog belonging to someone in a car?”

  “Well, what else was there to think? I said to my husband, ‘You better go out and see what’s the matter,’ I said, but he wasn’t having any of that. Why should he, that’s what I say. We weren’t to know someone was being strangulated not a stone’s throw away, were we? Anyway, there it was. After a time the barking stopped.”

  “Did you hear a car drive away?”

  “Well, we wouldn’t, would we? Not with them passing all the time. We never even knew one had stopped, to tell you the truth, though we might have guessed it from this dog barking.”

  “When did you first know about the murder?”

  “Not till halfway through the next morning. It was Thickett found her and of course he wouldn’t say anything to us.”

  “Oh. Why not?”

  “We weren’t speaking. Hadn’t been for a long time. Well, I wouldn’t demean myself. Not with all I know about him. Must be more than a year since we haven’t spoken. So he wouldn’t say anything to us. It was the police came and told me first, wanting to know what I knew about it. They’d taken the poor lady away by then, so I never saw the way she was laid out, but from all accounts it was enough to upset anyone, lying there as though she was waiting to be measured up.”

  “Thickett’s the roadmender, I believe?”

  “That’s what he calls himself, but by what I can hear he may not be much longer now the Council’s got to know about him.”

  “Where does he live?”

  “Right the other side of Buddington, but if you want to see him he’ll be in the Star at Lilbourne at twelve o’clock. He always takes his bit of dinner in there, such as she gives him, though from all accounts she’s too busy running down to the Bottle and Jug near where she lives to think about giving him a proper dinner. Anyway, he always takes it into the Star as regularly as clockwork and has it with a pint of mild, that’s why my husband won’t go there midday. So if you want to see him about anything, there you are.”

  “Thank you, Mrs Goggs.”

  On the way to the car, Rupert, who had remained silent during this interrogation, grinned broadly.

  “I thought at first she was going to make a nice suspect,” he said. “Looked it, didn’t she? But she turned out to be just as garrulous as all the rest of them. Pity, really.”

  Carolus said nothing. But in a moment he stopped and turned back.

  “Mrs Goggs!” he called.

  The woman appeared again.

  “What is it this time?” she asked. “Anyone would think I’ve got nothing to do.”

  “Do you grow lilies in your garden?”

  “Lilies? You mean the big white ones?”

  “Yes.”

  “What they call Madonna lilies, you mean?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Or some people call them Easter lilies because they come early?”

  “Do they? I daresay. Do you grow them?”

  “No. I can’t say I do,” said Mrs Goggs regretfully. “She’d got some in her hands, hadn’t she? So they told me. No. My husband won’t have anything like that. He says it makes him think of funerals. Well, it does, doesn’t it? And the smell. Still there you are.”

  This time Carolus reached the car.

  “The Star at Lilbourne I take it?” said Rupert. “I might have known. There’s always a pub in your cases. I believe you like all that phony darts-with-the-locals stuff. Personally, it makes me sick to my stomach. Hacking jackets and pipes and patronizing shove ha’penny.”

  “I just want some information,” said Carolus mildly. “And you’ve heard where we shall find Thickett.”

  “If he turns out to be a picturesque gaffer with an accent like a BBC rustic and a clay pipe, I shall walk straight out.”

  But Thickett was not like that. He was ginger-haired and had a fine glossy moustache. He sat bolt upright at a white scrubbed table in the clean little public bar of the Star, and eyed Carolus and Rupert with solemn curiosity. The landlord, a jolly little man, served them with bitter and seemed about to start a cheerful conversation when Carolus turned to the roadmender.

  “Mr Thickett?”

  “That’s my name.”

  “Mine’s Deene. I’m trying to find out something about the death of Miss Carew.”

  Mr Thickett sat still, eyeing Carolus without hostility but as though he needed to hear more before speaking.

  “I’m acting for her cousin, Miss Tissot.”

  Still there was no response from Thickett.

  “I understand you found the body?”

  “In my humble calling,” pronounced Mr Thickett with no humility in his manner, “I am accustomed to finding all sorts of things left by the roadside.”

  “Not corpses, surely?” put in Rupert Priggley.

  “Not necessarily corpses,” agreed Mr Thickett, “but all sorts of things.”

  “The body of Miss Carew was not by the roadside, was it?”

  “No,” conceded Thickett, “because it had been dragged into the quarry. Otherwise it would have been.”

  “Think so?”

  “Stands to reason. Where were the shoes they found? Where was the hat?”

  “What hat?”

  Thickett eyed him triumphantly.

  “Oh you don’t know about the hat?”

  “No.”

  “There was a woman’s hat on the ground.”

  “Where?”

  “Between the road and the quarry.”

  “Whose was it?”

  “Miss Carew’s. What do you think of that?”

  “Not much. Rather natural isn’t it, if she was dragged across? Her hat fell off in the process.”

  “You don’t think much of that? All I can say is, the police investigating thought a lot of it. A lot of it, they thought, when I told them.”

  It seemed that Mr Thickett was not impressed by Carolus as an investigator.

  “Then what about the lilies?” asked Mr Thickett.

  “What about them?”

  “They were in her hands.”

  “I know.”

  “Perhaps you don’t think much of them?”

  “How many were there?”

  Mr Thickett stared at Carolus, blinked twice, and said—“What do you mean?”

  “How many stems were there?”

  “One.”

  “How many flowers on it?”

  “That’s funny,” said Mr Thickett seriously. “You don’t think much of the hat but you want to know how many flowers there were. As if it made any difference.”

  “It makes every difference.”

  Mr Thickett considered.

  “If it makes every difference I have no objection to telling you. In my station in life I’m considered to be a very observant man. The police said to me themselves, ‘If you hadn’t noticed what you did, Mr Thickett, I don’t know where we should be’. Miss Carew might have been lying out there to this day. I might not have had to s
pend a day at the inquest.”

  “Do you remember how many there were?”

  “Three,” said Mr Thickett. “If it’s of any interest to you. There was three. No more and no less. I can answer for it. But where does that come in?”

  As though rather baffled by that question Carolus hurriedly asked another.

  “How did she look? The dead woman, I mean?”

  “Horrible,” said Mr Thickett.

  “Do you mean the expression on her face?”

  “That’s just what I do mean. It was horrible. In my simple way of life I have become accustomed to seeing things that would upset most people. I was first on the scene when there was that car smash last year and three died outright and the other later in hospital. Scarcely recognizable they were. But it didn’t turn me up like this did.”

  “What kind of expression?”

  “What kind of expression? What kind of expression would you expect anyone to have when they’d just been strangled? It was horrible. I can’t say more than that. Horrible. As if the eyes were popping out of her head and her mouth wide open.”

  “You were very upset?”

  “I’m not easily put out, but yes I was upset that morning.”

  “Yet you did not go to the cottage a few yards away?”

  “Goggses? No.”

  “Why not?” asked Carolus mischievously.

  “In my calling,” said Thickett, “I have to get used to abuse and slander. There’s always someone ready to say you’re not doing your job properly. But when it comes to taking anyone’s character away, well. That’s all I can say.”

  “So you went to the call-box?”

  “I did. And in a few minutes the police were on the spot. I will say that. They did not waste any time. Almost the first words they said to me were—’It’s a good thing you found it, Thickett.’ And it was a good thing, when you come to look at it. Otherwise them that did it would never be found.”

  “Why do you say ‘them’? Do you think there was more than one?”

  “I shouldn’t be surprised. If you’d seen the expression on her face.”

  “But if there had been more than one wouldn’t they have carried the body instead of dragging it?”

  “Unless one of them was to have stayed in the car.”

  “In that case the dog would have been quietened, surely?”

  “Oh, I don’t know anything about that,” said Thickett severely. “I believe there was some story told about a dog barking, but was it a reliable Source where that came from? That’s the question.”

  Carolus invited Thickett to drink and the roadmender agreed to a pint as though he were making a concession. The landlord, who had never moved from behind his bar, took no part in the conversation to which he listened avidly.

  “Then,” said Mr. Thickett, “there’s the question of Compensation.” Carolus showed that he did not understand. “For me. For finding it.”

  “I don’t quite see …”

  “Nerves,” explained Mr Thickett with an altogether new enthusiasm. “Nerves. All shattered to pieces. In-som … can’t sleep at night. Nightmares.”

  “I understood you to say that in your calling …”

  “Not corpses, we don’t reckon on. Not with expressions like that to haunt you for the rest of your life.”

  “What about the National Health? Doesn’t that provide for the after-effects of corpse-finding?”

  “I shall have to see about it, I suppose. Unless the relatives act as they should. It’s upset my wife, too. She says she can’t hardly bear me coming home in the evening for fear I’ve found another one.”

  “That’s surely not very likely?”

  “You never know. In my calling …”

  “An occupational hazard, you think? At all events I’m much obliged to you, Mr Thickett.” Carolus passed him a pound note which disappeared as though a conjuror had held it. “You’ve been most helpful.”

  “Did She tell you where to find me?”

  Carolus, who was accustomed to meet pronouns unrelated and incorporate, appearing from nowhere, as it were, was somewhat at a loss this time.

  “Her near the quarry,” explained Thickett, unable to pronounce the name.

  “As a matter of fact she did,” said Carolus.

  “I thought so. It only shows.”

  “She also said you were clever, Mr Thickett.”

  “That’s no compliment coming from her. I make no claims to cleverness or anything else. It wouldn’t do in my walk of life.”

  “Did you know the other murdered woman?”

  “I attend St Augustine’s church,” said Mr Thickett, “so I could scarcely help knowing her by sight, could I? Poor lady, I’m told she looked as horrible as the one I found. What kind of a madman would do a thing like that, I should like to know?”

  “Not mad,” said Carolus, “clever.”

  He left Thickett staring up over his tankard.

  7

  “IT’S all very interesting,” said Rupert Priggley over lunch “and I’ve no doubt you’re beginning to ‘see light’ or ‘form the first vague idea’, or whatnot. But you must admit you’re being rather leisurely about it.”

  “I’m on holiday. Recovering from an illness.”

  “Oh phoo-ee. If you thought there was any urgency you’d be leaping about in disguise or tearing round cross-examining people like a lunatic. I suppose you’ve got your reason for playing it slow. Or is it the effect of this town?”

  Carolus took a glance round the dining-room. It was the briskest scene of the day at the Royal Hydro.

  “After all, it’s quite a lurid little affair,” went on Rupert. “Two elderly ladies, whose only offence appears to be that they had a lot of money, strangled in the same night and in the same district. You can’t call it dull, can you? Yet here you are, asking a few questions, interviewing a few people who even you could scarcely call suspects …”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  “Mrs Goggs? Thickett in his humble calling? The Baxeters? Come now, sir.”

  “Who would you say was a suspect?”

  “Well, anyone in the town, I suppose.”

  “Why limit it to the town? There’s the man who bought gold from each of the two women. He lives in London. No, Rupert. You’ve missed the whole point.”

  “Go on. I’ll buy it. I’ll be Doctor Watson. What’s the whole point?”

  “This case is unique in my experience. In every other murder case I’ve ever touched the motive has been clear and I’ve had to look for suspects. In this I’ve got my suspects and cannot for the life of me understand the motive.”

  “Money, surely.”

  “How? No one benefits from the death of both women.”

  “I see what you mean. What do we do, then? Bash on regardless?”

  “Exactly. Routine enquiries. You’ll find it will take shape.”

  “Who is next?”

  “A bootmaker called Humpling.”

  The shop was a small one-room affair and its proprietor, a thin and nervous-looking man whose face wore a perpetually crestfallen expression, was at work in it. Carolus explained his business.

  “Oh dear,” said the bootmaker in a somewhat whining voice. “I’ve told the police all I know. It seems very hard that I should have to go over it again.”

  “You don’t have to,” said Carolus. “You can refuse to tell me anything at all.”

  “It’s the Time it takes,” moaned Mr Humpling.

  “You could go on working surely?”

  “Let’s get it over with. What do you want to know?”

  “About that pair of shoes that were found near Miss Carew’s body.”

  “I’d repaired them. Never mind how I know. There’s a way I have of putting two tacks in together so that I can always tell a pair of shoes I’ve repaired. I knew I’d done these.”

  “Recently?”

  “They’d scarcely been worn from the time I had done them.”

  “But you’v
e no means of knowing when that was?”

  “No, I haven’t. Might have been any time. I’ve had this shop for nearly twenty years.” He broke off to answer a woman at the counter. “No, they’re not ready,” he said. “I’ll try and finish them by tomorrow.” The woman expressed her annoyance and went. “See? They’re on at you the whole time. Don’t seem to understand there’s others to be done.”

  “Must be very tiring,” said Carolus soothingly.

  “It’s not the work, it’s the people. I’d work all right if they’d only leave me in peace. I’ve only got one pair of hands. I told one the other day, I’m not an Indian goddess, I said. What more do you want to know so that I can get on?”

  “A pair of shoes was missing from here, wasn’t it?”

  “One. In all the time I’ve been here.”

  “When did that happen?”

  “About six months ago. Some time before Christmas. They belonged to a man called Purley, who has left the district. The fuss he made you’d have thought they was solid gold. You see I used to keep the shoes that were ready on a rack by the counter. I’ve altered it since this happened. Anyone could have reached across when I wasn’t looking, and that’s what must have happened.”

  “You don’t think it was the pair the police found?”

  “It could have been, I suppose. I’m not to know, really. They were size eight, anyway.”

  “You’ve no suspicion as to who could have taken them?”

  “I told the police I hadn’t. But since then I’ve come to remember. There was that artist chap who called about that time.”

  “Who was that?”

  “I don’t know his name. He brought a pair of shoes to be repaired.”

  “How do you know he was an artist?”

  “You could tell. He wore a big black hat and a cape.”

  “A beard, of course?”

  “No. I don’t think he had a beard. But dark glasses; I remember those.”

  “What makes you think he had anything to do with the shoes?”

  “I didn’t like the look of him and it was about the same time. There was something funny about him. Besides, I’d never seen him before and haven’t since. All the others who came at that time were regulars.”

  “Five good reasons, but not quite enough to convict your artist.”

  “No. I don’t want to convict anyone, but I’m sure it was him took those shoes.”