by J F Straker
They were not long in coming. The tramp of feet overhead shifted to the stairs. She could hear men talking in the hall; and then the inspector came into the room, followed by the sergeant and a uniformed constable.
He gave a quick glance round and walked over to where she sat. He was about to speak when he noticed the picture over the fireplace, and moved closer to inspect it.
‘Dutch school,’ he remarked. ‘Seventeenth-century, isn’t it?’
Surprised, Miss Mytton nodded. ‘By Hobbema, reputedly,’ she said. ‘Are you an expert, Inspector?’
‘Not me.’ He spoke brusquely, as though annoyed with himself for stepping momentarily out of his official guise. ‘Now, Mrs Mytton...’
‘Miss Mytton,’ she corrected him, flushing. She did not regret her single state, but it sometimes rankled that she had never been asked in marriage.
‘I beg your pardon. And let me introduce myself. I am Detective-Inspector Pitt, of the Criminal Investigation Department.’
He asked her about the previous evening; when she had left the cottage, who knew she was away, where she had spent the night, and all the details of her return that morning and her discovery of the body. Miss Mytton watched the constable’s pencil moving rapidly back and forth across his notebook as she talked, and wondered whether she would have to sign a statement.
‘Do you recognize the knife, ma’am?’ Pitt asked, producing the green-handled weapon that she had seen protruding from John Cluster’s back. He held it gingerly by the blade.
‘Certainly. It’s my poultry-knife. I keep it on the dresser over there.’
‘And the dead man? Cluster, isn’t it?’
‘John Cluster. He’s a farmer — lives at Trant Farm,’ Miss Mytton told him. ‘His land adjoins mine to the north. Married, but no children.’
‘Was he a friend of yours?’
‘Certainly not,’ she said sharply. ‘He was a most unpleasant man. We disliked each other intensely.’
It was not, she realized, a politic statement to make to a police-officer about someone found murdered on one’s own bed. But she had never bargained with the truth. In any case, there were others who would undoubtedly tell him of the feud that had existed between herself and the dead man.
‘You’ve no idea, I suppose, how he came to be in — where you found him?’ the inspector asked delicately.
Miss Mytton had no idea at all. John Cluster had to her knowledge never set foot on her land in the last five years. Why he had come to the cottage that Sunday night, and how he had managed to gain admittance, were as much a mystery to her as they were to the police.
‘The murderer could have unlocked the door for him,’ Pitt said. ‘Who knew where the key was usually left?’
Miss Mytton enumerated the persons concerned. But none of them, she averred stoutly, would have murdered John Cluster.
‘Why not?’ he asked.
She realized that she could not answer that question. Shannon and George Colling were perhaps Cluster’s most bitter enemies. Stolpe, she knew, disliked him; Cluster had made a point of referring to him as ‘The Hun,’ which Stolpe resented. As for Sir Richard...
She decided that she did not know about Sir Richard; disconcerted, she announced that the kettle was boiling, and vanished into the kitchen. But the inspector was not so easily side-tracked. When she returned with the tea-tray he said, ‘You mean these people were his friends?’
‘Not exactly,’ she confessed. ‘It’s just that I can’t envisage any of them as a murderer.’
He smiled faintly, and asked her to tell him what she knew of John Cluster; and having no inhibitions about speaking ill of the dead she readily complied. Much of her information was second-hand; but most of it was accurate, and all of it was uncomplimentary.
‘H’m! Sounds an unpleasant character,’ was Pitt’s comment.
‘That, Inspector, is the understatement of the year.’
He asked her if she had any objection to her fingerprints being taken. ‘For elimination purposes only,’ he assured her. ‘They will be destroyed as soon as we have finished with them.’
Miss Mytton had no objection. ‘What I do object to, Inspector, are those boxes on the hall carpet. I know they’re there to protect the footprints until you’ve photographed them, or whatever it is you do with footprints. But do they have to be fish-boxes? And not long separated from the fish, either, my nose tells me.’
He laughed at that. It was an odd sound to come from such a solemn face, but she welcomed it. It showed he had a sense of humour. That, she thought, should make him easier to handle.
‘We’ll remove them immediately,’ he said. ‘I apologize.’
They went out into the yard. Some of the spectators still waited hopefully in the drive, but the ambulance had gone. Miss Mytton presumed that the body of her uninvited and unwelcome guest had gone with it.
Penelope Hooper was still by the fence, and her face brightened as she saw them. Sergeant Norris-Kerr grinned at her amiably from behind the inspector’s back — a grin that vanished abruptly as his superior officer turned.
‘Who’s the girl?’ Pitt asked.
Miss Mytton told him. Penelope, sensing that she had become the focus of their attention, left the fence and began walking back to the Hall. The inspector’s eyes followed her thoughtfully. Then he turned to the sergeant, who was gazing in the same direction.
‘Norris-Kerr!’
The younger man jumped. ‘Sir?’
‘You’d better make some inquiries at the Hall; it’s just possible someone there may be able to help. And Sergeant...’
‘Sir?’
‘Watch your step.’
Norris-Kerr departed with alacrity. Miss Mytton wondered at the significance of that last remark; surely they were not anticipating trouble at the Hall? She was about to explain that the Hoopers were extremely nice people, not at all the sort to be involved in a murder, when she caught sight of the faint smile on the inspector’s face and understood.
‘A lady-killer, eh?’ she said.
‘He thinks he is.’
He walked over to her two employees, who still stood where she had seen them from the window; Miss Mytton, determined to miss nothing, followed in his wake. But this time she was to be disappointed. Politely but firmly he told her to go away.
She gave in gracefully; there was no point in irritating the man. And much as she would have liked to be present at the interviews she knew that Tom and Erich would give her a full account of them later.
Erich Stolpe was nervous, as Miss Mytton had told the inspector he would be. He was sensitive about his German ancestry. Pitt did not rush him, and after a rather incoherent protest that he knew nothing of the murder and had been nowhere near the cottage the previous evening the interview proceeded more rationally. Not that it was very informative. He lodged with a Mrs Pocock in Quarry Lane, a turning some three hundred yards south of the Hall. On the previous evening, he said, he had gone for a walk along the Tanbury road, leaving his lodging about nine-forty and returning at half-past ten. A few cars had passed him, but so far as he could remember he had met no pedestrians.
‘Were you alone?’ Pitt asked. And, when the man nodded, ‘You get plenty of exercise in your job here, I imagine. Why go walking at night?’
Stolpe shrugged, licking his lips nervously. ‘It was Sunday. And I like walking.’
It was Shannon’s turn next. He too lived in Quarry Lane, a few doors up from Stolpe, and he too had been out the previous evening. He had left his home at eight-thirty, he said, and had returned two hours later.
‘And where were you during those two hours?’ asked the inspector.
Shannon looked at him, his dark, unshaven face expressionless. ‘Just out,’ he said tersely.
‘Were you alone?’
‘No.’
‘H’m! Well, that’s helpful. Any other information you’d care to volunteer?’
The irony was wasted. Shannon continued to stare fixedly at the oth
er’s gaunt face. In his youth he had been a boxer, and the experience had taught him two things; watch the other man’s eyes, and keep your temper.
‘No,’ he said again.
That seemed to create a deadlock. ‘Not exactly loquacious, are you?’ Pitt said, controlling his annoyance. ‘How well did you know the dead man?’
‘No more’n I had to.’ Shannon decided that the time had come to give a little. He had no wish to antagonize the police. ‘I didn’t like him. Used to work for him until he give me the sack. But I didn’t kill him. Last time I saw Cluster was at the pub Saturday night.’
‘But you don’t wish to tell me where you were last night, or who you were with?’
‘I was with a girl,’ Shannon said. And that was all he would say.
Norris-Kerr returned from the Hall with a self-satisfied smirk on his face but no worthwhile information. The son, Clifford, had been out when he called, but none of the rest of the household had seen or heard anything unusual.
‘Was the son out last night also?’ asked Pitt.
‘Yes. He went for a walk between nine and nine-thirty, according to the girl. She heard him come in.’
Pitt grunted. ‘Keen walkers in these parts, aren’t they? Well, let’s move on to Trant Farm and the widow. We seem to have run dry here.’
Elizabeth Cluster had once been pretty in a doll-like way, but married life had aged her. The blonde hair had lost its sheen, the cheeks and the watery blue eyes were sunken. Her skin was coarse and lined, her hands scarred and work-worn, with dirty, unkempt nails. She looked more like a woman in her forties than a girl of twenty-nine. Yet even in the few hours that had elapsed since she had heard of her husband’s death she had shed a little of her listlessness and indifference to life. Visions of a new era, of an end to drudgery and bullying, were forming in her mind. But the event was still too recent for Elizabeth to adjust her outlook fully. Only those who knew her intimately — and they were few — could have recognized the metamorphosis that was taking place.
To the detectives, coming from Miss Mytton’s spotless and well-appointed cottage and the splendours of the Hall, the interior of the farmhouse afforded an unpleasant contrast. Dirt was everywhere. The furniture was soiled and shabby, and in the parlour a broken window admitted the odours of sty and stable — an odour in some ways preferable to that which pervaded the rest of the house.
‘I’m sorry we have to bother you so soon after your husband’s death,’ the inspector apologized. ‘But it’s important that we should learn what we can about his movements yesterday.’
‘Don’t ask me,’ Elizabeth said indifferently. ‘I’m the last person as would know.’
‘But you must have seen him at some period of the day,’ he persisted.
‘He was in for his lunch and his supper; where he got to between whiles I wouldn’t know. He went out again about half-past seven, and he wasn’t home by eleven. That’s when I went to bed. And I haven’t seen him since, neither. Nor heard him — which I would have done if he’d come home at all.’
‘Did he say where he was going?’
‘He didn’t have to. He went where he goes every night, I reckon — to the pub. You’ll get more information there than you will from me.’
‘How about yourself, Mrs Cluster? Were you at home last night?’
‘Where else would I be?’
She was looking at the sergeant as she spoke, and saw him nod his head as if in complete agreement. They think I’m past it, she reflected bitterly. Well, maybe I look that way now. But I’ll show ’em. I’m not a has-been yet.
The inspector pinched his lower lip between forefinger and thumb and pulled at it thoughtfully.
‘I gather your husband wasn’t popular in the village.’
‘He wasn’t popular at home neither,’ she said bitterly. ‘Five years we’ve been married — I was his second wife — and that was five years too many. I come here to work as a servant while his first wife was alive, and that’s what I’ve been ever since. He never give me a penny for the house or myself; it’s all gone on drink.’ She was working herself into a state of hysteria, and swept an arm dramatically round the room. ‘You think I like living in a pigsty like this, being treated worsen his animals? Though they never got much out of him either, come to that.’ The arm moved towards the inspector, and she pointed a grimy finger at his stomach. ‘Popular? Why, he had more enemies than a dog has fleas.’
*
The people of Cheswick, to whom murder was normally something one read about in the newspapers, accepted its sudden occurrence in their midst with remarkable calm. There was an ‘I told you so’ air about the village; they had been prophesying for years that something unpleasant would happen to John Cluster, and there were some who could not conceal their satisfaction at being proved right. The two pubs did their best business for months; but whereas Joe Smart of the Grapevine decided that he could do with a murder a week if it made the customers that thirsty, Bert Cummings’ enthusiasm was tempered by the thought that he had lost his best customer.
As soon as the news reached her Miss Justin hastened to commiserate with her friend. She swept into Mytton Cottage, embraced Miss Mytton with unusual warmth, and almost overwhelmed her with sympathy.
‘How absolutely terrible!’ she exclaimed. ‘Of course, we’ve all been saying for years that something like this would happen. You said so yourself, didn’t you, at the Maces’ party on Saturday? But here! In your house! How could he bring himself to do such a thing?’
Miss Mytton smiled. ‘Aren’t you getting rather mixed, Clara? Cluster didn’t do anything — it was done to him. I doubt whether he even had a say in the matter, poor man.’
‘No, of course not. What I meant was — well, what was he doing here? And on your bed, of all places. That’s what I can’t understand.’
‘Neither can I.’ Miss Mytton coughed. ‘To avoid any possible misunderstanding, Clara, may I remind you that I wasn’t here myself? I spent last night in London.’
‘Yes, so I hear. Though of course I wasn’t implying that you—’ Miss Justin was suddenly thoughtful. ‘You said nothing at the Maces’ about going away. Why? Was it a sudden decision?’
‘No, it wasn’t. I suppose I just forgot to mention it.’ Miss Mytton sighed. ‘I wish now that I’d stayed at home. This wouldn’t have happened then.’
Miss Justin did not share her regret. John Cluster’s demise, she said firmly, would be mourned by none. ‘Have the police any idea who killed him?’ she asked eagerly.
‘I’m sure they haven’t. They’re as puzzled as I am, I imagine. And really one can’t blame them. The whole thing’s most extraordinary. Tom says he was in here yesterday after collecting the eggs, but—’ Miss Mytton shook her head. ‘Well, he says he locked the door and put the key back in the greenhouse, but I can’t help thinking he’s mistaken. So if Cluster was in his usual drunken state and found the door unlocked he probably just wandered upstairs, lay down on the bed, and went to sleep.’
If Miss Justin did not regret Cluster’s death, she could still shudder at the thought of how that sleep had ended.
‘But why should he come here at all?’ she asked. ‘Even if he was drunk?’
‘I don’t know. He’s never been near the place since we had that row five years ago. I can only think that he lost his way and fancied himself at home.’ Miss Mytton looked almost lovingly round the comfortably appointed sitting-room. ‘But I find that a most unflattering reflection.’
‘And most unlikely, dear.’ Miss Justin looked thoughtful. ‘In a way there’s a similarity between this and Friday night, isn’t there? His coming up to my place to look for William, I mean, when he must have known William wouldn’t be there. Only he couldn’t have known you would be away last night, could he? Who did know, Emily?’
Miss Mytton knit her brows in concentration.
‘The inspector asked me that — and really, I don’t know. The Hoopers, the Collings, the Newcutters, Colonel Gresham, To
m, Erich — those for certain. Oh, and Jacob West! He was there when I told Ernest I wouldn’t be at church on Sunday. But I can’t be sure that I didn’t mention it to anyone else.’
Miss Justin stared thoughtfully out of the window. ‘That makes it difficult, doesn’t it? There are so many to choose from.’
‘Yes. But we can narrow them down. Only a few knew where I keep the key.’ Miss Mytton enumerated the few. ‘The Hoopers can be ruled out, of course. And Erich, perhaps; one doesn’t kill a person just for calling one names. But George Colling and Tom—’ She sighed. ‘I’m afraid those two are going to get a lot of attention from the police, Clara. And that’s a pity, because somehow I can’t see either of them as a murderer.’
Miss Justin did not point out that this more than narrowed the field; it practically eliminated it. She said hopefully, ‘Perhaps they’ll never discover who did it. They won’t get much help from the village when it comes to information.’
‘That’s what bothers me.’ Ignoring her friend’s exclamation of surprise, she went on, ‘I know I have a responsibility to the village, Clara; but I also have one to the police. Everyone has. And however sympathetic one may feel towards John Cluster’s murderer, people can’t be permitted to go around killing people in other people’s houses. Whatever my personal feelings, I ought to help the police in any way I can. And so should you, Clara.’
This did not strike Miss Justin as a particularly original thought, although it was not one with which she concurred. But she deemed it impolitic to voice either of those sentiments.
‘Of course,’ she agreed. ‘But what can we do?’
‘Well, for one thing, people are more likely to talk to us than to the police. They trust us. And we can pass the information on to the inspector.’ It occurred to Miss Justin that this would be abusing a trust. Perhaps Miss Mytton thought so too, for she added, ‘Only the vital information, of course.’
‘And how shall we know whether it’s vital or not?’
‘We must use our judgment.’ Miss Mytton spoke with unusual gravity. ‘It is the prerogative of people in our position.’
