After the Exhibition: A Jack Haldean 1920s Mystery (A Jack Haldean Mystery)

by Dolores Gordon-Smith

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Colin.’ She was irritated by his lack of understanding. ‘The cat ran down the path and clicked the latch with its front paws. The door swung open and I … I went in.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Never mind why!’ she snapped, her irritation growing. ‘I just did.’

  Colin’s hand still rested on the gear lever. ‘As a matter of fact, I’ve seen the cat do that before,’ he admitted. ‘Tell me exactly what you thought you saw.’

  ‘I did see it,’ she muttered. As briefly as she could, she told him what had happened.

  Colin looked at her in disbelief. ‘Honestly, Betty, it sounds like a nightmare. You must’ve been dreaming.’

  ‘I wasn’t,’ she protested. ‘It wasn’t a dream, I tell you.’ A sudden memory came to her. ‘Colin! The cat!’

  ‘What about the wretched cat?’

  ‘The cat was inside the cottage, not outside. Someone must’ve shut it out. I told you I heard footsteps. Someone went into the cottage and moved the body. There’s the curtains, too. They were pulled together in the parlour but you looked through them. Someone must’ve drawn them open.’ She sat back in the seat. ‘We have to report this, Colin. We have to tell the police.’

  She could see his face, indecisive in the gas light from the lamp-post.

  ‘Give me a cigarette,’ she said. ‘I dropped my handbag in the cottage.’

  He absently pulled out his case and, lighting a cigarette for her, took one himself, then sat, chin in hand, thinking.

  ‘You dropped your bag in the cottage?’ he repeated.

  Betty nodded.

  ‘That’s something that can be proved, at any rate,’ he muttered. ‘All right, Betty, we’ll tell the police.’

  Four

  ‘And did you tell the police?’ asked Jack.

  ‘We did, Mr Haldean.’ She raised her hands and dropped them helplessly into her lap. ‘They found what Colin found, which was nothing.’

  ‘And this was last Saturday, you say?’

  ‘That’s right. Colin drove me to the local police station and Constable Shaw went with him in the car to investigate. They didn’t go in, but looked through the window. As there was nothing out of place, Constable Shaw said he’d go back the next day.’

  ‘And did he?’

  ‘Yes. He came up to the house and returned my bag. He’d spoken to Signora Bianchi’s daily woman, Mrs Hatton. She’d found my bag in the parlour. She’d thought it must belong to her mistress, but couldn’t explain how it got there.’

  ‘What about Signora Bianchi herself?’

  ‘That’s just it. Apparently Signora Bianchi left Whimbrell Heath two days previously. She told Mrs Hatton she’d be away for a few days. She didn’t know when she’d be back.’ She looked at him with wide, puzzled eyes. ‘I didn’t know what to do. Everyone in Whimbrell Heath says I had a nightmare. That’s the polite version, but all I can say is, if I did have a nightmare, it was the most realistic nightmare I’ve ever had. In the meantime, Signora Bianchi is missing. I’m convinced she’s been murdered, but no one’s doing anything because they all think I’m nuts or something.’

  Jack glanced at Bill. ‘It would be a good time to commit a murder, wouldn’t it, Bill? Wait until the intended victim has announced she’s going away for an indefinite period, bump her off, hide the body, and it could be weeks before anyone raises the alarm.’

  ‘M’yes,’ said Bill. ‘Signora Bianchi would have to come back to the cottage, of course.’

  ‘There might be any number of reasons why she’d do that. She could’ve received a message saying there was some crisis or other, or someone could’ve arranged to meet her there. The person who sent the message would have to know where she was, of course, but if he – I say he for convenience – was planning a murder, that’s not too far-fetched. There is another explanation, of course. Rather than being the victim, Signora Bianchi could be the murderer. She could’ve asked an unsuspecting victim into her cottage easily enough’

  ‘Blimey, Jack, isn’t this complicated enough for you as it is? The trouble, as I see it, is that Askern didn’t believe anything untoward had happened, and neither, by the sound of things, did this Constable Shaw. The result is that he wouldn’t have made a proper investigation and so what we’re left with is Miss Wingate’s story.’

  ‘You believe me, Mr Rackham, don’t you?’ asked Betty urgently.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Bill heartily. Just a shade too heartily to be absolutely convincing to someone who knew him well, thought Jack. ‘Absolutely, I do.’ However it reassured Betty Wingate, who looked relieved.

  ‘And can you do something about it? The local police won’t lift a finger, but you’re Scotland Yard, aren’t you? I mean, you’re in a different league. I’ve told you what happened and if you investigate it properly, then I’m sure you’ll find something, something to prove this poor woman has been murdered.’

  Bill rubbed the side of his nose with his finger. ‘Well, I’m sorry, Miss Wingate, I don’t know if I can. It doesn’t work like that, I’m afraid.’

  Betty Wingate’s brows drew together. There was a flash of anger in her blue eyes. ‘You don’t believe me! You said you did and I thought you would, but it’s just like talking to Colin and Aunt Maud and everyone else.’

  ‘It’s not a question of belief,’ said Jack, hastily throwing some metaphorical oil on these troubled waters. ‘As you said, Bill is part of Scotland Yard. But Scotland Yard can’t just roll up off their own bat. What happens is the local police force have to be faced with a crime that the Chief Constable decides they need specialist help with. That usually means something big, like murder, which the local chaps have probably never dealt with before and where the solution isn’t obvious. So they call in the experts, who are the Scotland Yard detectives, to conduct the investigation. A lot of Chief Constables don’t like calling in the Yard as they see it as an admission of failure.’ He grinned disarmingly. ‘They have to be convinced that a crime has occurred, of course, and it isn’t just, if you’ll excuse the phrase, a mare’s nest.’

  Betty was visibly mollified. ‘I didn’t know that’s how it worked. In the films, Scotland Yard just come and catch the crook.’

  ‘That’s films for you,’ commented Jack wryly. ‘Real life with the awkward bits left out.’

  ‘I can’t believe this red tape!’ said Betty passionately. ‘Signora Bianchi has been murdered! I didn’t know her well and I didn’t like her much, but she’s been murdered! I’ve told everyone who I can think of telling, but no one wants to do a thing to help.’

  ‘We didn’t say that, exactly,’ murmured Jack. ‘Bill brought you to see me, Miss Wingate.’ He put his head on one side and lifted an eyebrow at his friend. ‘I rather think there was a reason for that.’

  Bill grinned in embarrassment. ‘It’s an awful cheek. It’s just that …’ He broke off, glanced at Betty, then looked away. ‘I can’t do anything, Jack, but you’re a free agent. Sorry. You’ve probably got quite enough to do as it is without looking for work. Forget it.’

  Jack linked his hands together behind his head and stretched out in his chair with a smile. ‘Forget it? That’s even harder than doing something about it.’ Besides that, he added to himself, it’d be nice to see a bit more of Betty Wingate.

  ‘Then you’ll do it?’ asked Bill. ‘Thanks, Jack. You’re a pal.’

  Betty looked at them both blankly. ‘I’m sorry, but did I miss something? I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about. What is it Mr Haldean’s going to do?’

  ‘Investigate your mysterious vanishing lady,’ said Jack, reaching out for a cigarette. He lit it and blew out a long mouthful of smoke. ‘Run round, ask questions and generally make an absolute nuisance of myself to all concerned.’

  ‘But why?’ demanded Betty. ‘I mean, I could do that. I have done that.’

  ‘Ah, yes, but I’m a pocket genius,’ said Jack with a smile. ‘If only I was wearing a false beard and whiskers, I could tear it of
f and you would see the celebrated features of the modern Sherlock Holmes. Conundrums confounded, secrets solved, deceptions detected – that’s a blinking good bit of alliteration off the top of my head, even though I say so myself – crooks caught and murders … Damn! I can’t think of a word that starts with M and means solved, but you get the drift. All this done while-you-wait. Distance no object. No job too small and families waited upon daily.’

  Bill smothered a laugh but Betty looked at Jack blankly. ‘Excuse me? I don’t think I understood any of that.’

  Bill intervened. ‘What Haldean is trying to tell you, Miss Wingate, is that, despite all the evidence to the contrary, he’s not certifiably loopy but is actually very good at solving mysteries.’

  Betty looked at Jack in disbelief. ‘You’re a private detective?’ She paused uncertainly. ‘I can’t …’ She swallowed, then met his gaze squarely. ‘I can’t afford to pay anyone to investigate.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ he said. ‘I don’t do this as a business.’ He looked at her and grinned. ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking, but tell me, Miss Wingate, after your adventure, did you suffer from spots?’

  ‘Spots?’ She looked understandably affronted. ‘What d’you mean, spots? Are you serious?’

  ‘I’m very serious. Spots as in little pimples, you know? I’m sorry if it’s a rather personal question.’

  ‘It’s certainly that.’ Betty shrugged. ‘That’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever been asked. Does seeing a murder usually bring on spots?’

  ‘So did you? Have spots, I mean?’

  Betty bridled with irritation. ‘Yes, I did, if you must know, although I—’

  ‘Were they round your mouth?’

  ‘Yes, as a matter of fact they were.’

  Jack turned to Bill. ‘Chloroform, Bill. You must’ve thought the same when you heard Miss Wingate’s story and she talked about the hospital smell.’

  ‘I still don’t see what you’re getting at—’ began Betty, when Jack interrupted.

  ‘You were chloroformed. That’s what knocked you unconscious. One of the after-effects of chloroform applied to the skin is a rash of tiny blisters.’

  ‘Gosh,’ said Betty, impressed despite herself. ‘So that’s what it was!’ She looked at Jack with growing respect. ‘It sounds as if you might be good at this, after all.’

  Bill laughed. ‘He’s not bad. I told you as much.’

  ‘So you’re going to look into what I saw, then?’ demanded Betty.

  ‘Absolutely I am. Were you going back to Whimbrell Heath today?’

  Betty nodded. ‘I don’t want to be away longer than I can help.’

  ‘Then why don’t we run down together? My car’s garaged round the corner and it should be a pleasant trip.’ He caught the expression on Bill’s face and added, ‘Can you come too, Bill? Not officially, you understand, but just for the ride.’

  Bill smiled and put his hands wide. ‘As I said before, it’s my day off, and a trip to the country with friends sounds just the ticket. Thanks, Jack. I thought I could rely on you.’

  Jack parked the Spyker beside the Brown Cow in the middle of the village. It was a pleasant spot, with a bench in the shelter of a shady oak tree. The post office and a parade of shops stood across the square and, behind them, a wide grassy bank led down to where a stream, nearly wide enough to be a river, gurgled against the piles of a stone bridge.

  ‘The car should be safe enough here,’ said Jack, climbing out and offering his hand to Betty. ‘Is it far to Signora Bianchi’s cottage?’

  ‘About half a mile or so, but there’s nowhere closer to park.’

  Beech View Cottage was much as Jack had imagined it from Betty Wingate’s description. It was a small, brick-built Victorian building with a slate roof, a black-painted wooden porch and a small, flower-edged lawn in front. It was attractive enough in a homely sort of way, but certainly not a likely place to find the sophisticated sort of woman Betty had described Signora Bianchi as, living or dead.

  The cottage stood by itself, its nearest neighbours two or three hundred yards up the road on the corner of Bridge Street. The name of the cottage faithfully represented the surrounding countryside. There were plenty of beech trees and, for that matter, lots of other types of trees to view. There were trees behind the house, trees across the narrow road and a line of trees running along the edge of the fields which bordered Greymare Lane.

  It was a delightful place on this sun-filled afternoon, but Jack could imagine it having a very different atmosphere by the light of a scudding moon, with the wind soughing through the branches.

  Bill looked up and down the road and frowned in disapproval. ‘This was a pretty isolated place for you to find yourself in, Miss Wingate.’

  ‘I know,’ she said with a shudder. ‘I don’t mind admitting, I got thoroughly rattled.’

  ‘Let’s take a closer look,’ said Jack, opening the gate and walking down the path. ‘I don’t suppose there’s anyone in, but you never know your luck.’

  Rather to his surprise, his knock was answered. A grey-haired woman wearing a wrap-around apron and holding a duster came to the door. She must be Mrs Hatton, the daily.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ said Jack, raising his hat. ‘We were hoping to see Signora Bianchi.’

  ‘She’s away for a few days, sir. I’m not sure when she’ll be back, I’m sure.’ Mrs Hatton looked up and nodded in recognition at Betty. ‘Hello, Miss. Did you get your bag back? Bert Shaw told me as how it was yours. I couldn’t think how it came to be in the parlour, but Bert told me some tale about how you’d been in the house. How the door came to be unlocked I don’t know, because I’m always careful to make sure everything’s fast before I go.’

  Jack glanced to the side of the porch where there was a large flower-pot holding a straggly yellow azalea. There was a rim of earth where it had been moved. ‘You don’t leave the key under the mat, by any chance? Or under the flower-pot?’

  Mrs Hatton drew back. ‘Now how did you know about that flower-pot? It’s true, as sure as I’m stood here.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘You haven’t been watching me, have you?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ Jack reassured her. ‘It’s just that I’ve got an aunt who lives in the country and she always leaves a key under a flower-pot.’ That wasn’t strictly true but it placated Mrs Hatton. ‘And if I could guess where the key’s kept, maybe someone else could guess as well.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Mrs Hatton doubtfully, ‘although who would be wanting to break in, I don’t know, without it being one of those nasty tramps we get. It’s been dreadful since the war, with tramps looking for what they can scrounge, but I’m sure no one like that’s been in this cottage. I’d have noticed if anything was missing. Bert Shaw asked me if there was anything missing and I told him no, there wasn’t.’

  ‘Did you hear what happened the evening Miss Wingate left her bag here?’ asked Jack. ‘About what Miss Wingate saw, perhaps?’

  Mrs Hatton glanced at Betty, cleared her throat in embarrassment, and looked away. ‘Well, I did hear something. It’s not that I listen to gossip, Miss,’ she added defensively to Betty, ‘but it’s been the talk of the village. You must’ve been dreaming, I daresay. You most probably had something that disagreed with you for supper. My mother, she could never tolerate trotters. Used to carry on awful after she had trotters, she did, and I expect you had something similar.’

  Betty turned to Bill and Jack. ‘You see? Everyone thinks I’m making it up, but I’m not.’

  ‘I didn’t say you did it deliberate, Miss,’ said Mrs Hatton in a wounded sort of way.

  ‘That’s just it, though,’ said Jack. ‘Some people are saying Miss Wingate’s making up a story deliberately, and so she’s asked me and Mr Rackham here to see if we can get to the bottom of it. So, although I don’t want to put you out, I was wondering if we could come and have a look inside and see if there’s anything we can discover.’

  Mrs Hatton looked very doubtful. ‘I�
�m not sure. It’s not really my place to be letting folks in to the house, what with the mistress being away.’

  ‘It’s all right, Mrs Hatton,’ broke in Betty. ‘You know who I am, and these gentlemen are my friends and friends of Mr Askern’s, too. You served with Mr Askern during the war, didn’t you, Mr Rackham?’ she added, turning to Bill.

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  Mrs Hatton wavered. ‘Well, I’m sure as it’ll be all right, being as how it’s you, Miss. You’d better step inside. You’ll excuse me getting on with my work, though, won’t you? I’ve got the upstairs windows to do yet.’

  ‘That’ll be fine, Mrs Hatton,’ Jack said with a smile. ‘The last thing we want to do is hold you up.’

  Mrs Hatton ushered them into the minute hall, hesitated by the stairs for a few moments then, as if reassured they weren’t about to immediately start looting the place, went back upstairs.

  ‘It’s lucky she was in,’ murmured Bill as her footsteps sounded overhead.

  ‘It is,’ said Jack. ‘Although there’s usually a key around somewhere.’

  ‘As a guardian of the law, I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that remark. What are you hoping to find, Jack? After all, if anything happened …’ He broke off as he saw Betty’s expression. ‘Whatever happened, I mean to say, it all happened days ago now.’

  ‘Yes, it did,’ agreed Jack. ‘I wish we could have been here sooner, but we have to take our crimes as we find them. I must say, I don’t really know what we’re looking for, but let’s start in the parlour. That’s where Miss Wingate saw the body.’

  Betty shivered as they went into the room. ‘I wish it had been a dream,’ she said. ‘I’ll never forget striking a match and seeing that woman’s face. It was horrible.’

  The parlour was a small, low-ceilinged room with dark sham oak panelling and well-used furniture. An attempt had been made to brighten the place up with some bright cushions, but the only items of real note were a grandfather clock and an unframed portrait photograph, propped up on the sideboard.