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

by Dolores Gordon-Smith

  Bill was sitting on the bench under the oak tree outside the Brown Cow, smoking his pipe and reading the paper. With half a pint of bitter by his side he looked the picture of content. ‘Miss Wingate’s gone back to Whimbrell House,’ he said, shading his eyes from the sunshine. ‘It’s been very quiet. Your Spyker’s received some admiring glances but nobody’s paid me the slightest bit of notice. I saw Askern earlier on but I don’t think he spotted me.’

  Jack paused, his hand on the car door. ‘Are you sure, Bill?’

  ‘Fairly sure,’ said Bill, climbing in. ‘He certainly didn’t say hello if he did see me, and there’s no reason why he shouldn’t.’

  ‘Unless he is our man, of course.’

  ‘If he is, he’d surely want to know what I was doing here. My real concern is that old fossil back at the chantry will tell everyone that Miss Wingate was there together with you and me.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ replied Jack, climbing into the driver’s seat. ‘I don’t think he really registered you were there at all.’ He started up the car. ‘He’s what you might call single minded, is our Mr Cadwallader, and, in my opinion, a bit cracked on the subject of the late Mr Lythewell.’

  ‘He liked him, did he?’

  ‘I’d say worshipped would be the precise verb,’ said Jack with feeling. ‘You may laugh, but it’s a bit wearing after a time. Is there anywhere else you want to go, or do we head back to civilisation?’

  ‘London for me, Jack. I want to have a word with Sir Douglas Lynton about what we’ve found. I don’t mind telling you that those hairs trapped in the sofa and the silk caught on the wheelbarrow made quite an impression on me.’

  ‘So you do think Signora Bianchi was murdered?’ said Jack, letting in the clutch and pulling out onto the road.

  ‘I think it’s looking that way. Incidentally, I did see you put that photo of Askern’s into your pocket, didn’t I?’

  ‘Absolutely you did,’ said Jack. He took a hand off the wheel and, fishing the photo of Signora Bianchi out of his pocket, handed it to Bill. ‘I can’t help wondering if I’ve come across Signora Bianchi somewhere,’ he said. ‘She looks vaguely familiar.’

  ‘Does she?’ said Bill with interest. ‘That might be useful.’

  ‘Only if I can put my finger on where it was I saw her. I’ve been racking my brains, but I can’t place her.’

  Bill studied the photo for a few moments. ‘She’s certainly a good-looking woman.’ He bit his lip and sighed. ‘Askern’s a fool to get involved with a woman like that. She looks like trouble to me.’ He put the photograph down and drummed his fingers on his knee thoughtfully. ‘I hope that’s all there is to it – an affair, I mean. I could see you working out how Askern could be our man back at the cottage, and I must say I have to agree he’s a possible.’ He sighed once more. ‘However, that’s some way down the road.’

  ‘Quite a long way, I’d say. Incidentally, Bill, you know Colin Askern is fairly keen on money?’

  ‘He’s not unique in that respect.’

  ‘No, I daresay he isn’t, but according to my pal Henry Cadwallader, there’s a rumour old Mr Lythewell left some buried treasure and Askern would love to get his hands on it.’

  ‘Buried treasure?’ repeated Bill sceptically. ‘You’re having me on.’

  ‘No, I’m not. Apparently old Mr Lythewell was loaded. Absolutely bursting with money, so it was said, but when Mr Daniel Lythewell came to inherit the firm, it had all – or most of it anyway – mysteriously disappeared.’

  ‘Money does that,’ said Bill with a grin.

  ‘So I thought, especially if you’re given to building temples to an overwhelming ego with religious leanings.’ Bill looked puzzled. ‘That’s what the chantry is, Bill. Nothing more or less. However, apparently the chantry money is all accounted for and there’s still a massive hole where the dibs should be.’

  ‘That’s interesting. I can’t see where it gets us, though.’

  ‘No, me neither,’ said Jack, giving the steering wheel a twiddle to avoid a straying hen. ‘However, there’s something about the thought of huge amounts of vanishing cash that always shouts, “Motive!” at me.’

  ‘I can’t see it’s any sort of motive for bumping off Signora Whosit.’

  ‘Not at the moment, no. We might come up with something, though.’

  ‘We might,’ said Bill guardedly. ‘Did you spot anything interesting in the chantry? I know you thought it might be a good place to leave a body. And why is it called the chantry, anyway?’

  ‘I asked Henry Cadwallader that. I don’t suppose anyone ever went and chanted in it. No, it’s called a chantry because it’s a nice, medieval-sounding word that Mr Lythewell liked. The place was never consecrated because the local vicar had a bit more sense than Mr Lythewell bargained for. As far as spotting anything, the quick answer is I didn’t. However, with Mr Cadwallader constantly at my side, I wasn’t able to lift paving stones and tap walls.’

  ‘No, I can see how you’d be hampered. It can’t involve too much effort, though. Our chap didn’t have unlimited time to dispose of the body.’

  ‘No … What do we think actually did happen that night?’

  Bill clicked his tongue. ‘I think the set-up is probably something along the lines of what you suggested back in Chandos Row. X, the murderer, waits until Signora Bianchi has said she’s going to be away for an unspecified time, then gets her to come back to the cottage on some pretext or other. Then, knowing that her absence won’t cause any sort of stir locally, he has days, if not weeks, to dispose of the body.’

  ‘That’s the local angle, certainly. However, where did Signora Bianchi stay when she went away? If it was a hotel, we might be stumped. She’d merely leave the hotel to return home and no one would be any the wiser, but if she was staying with friends, they’d notice she was missing.’

  ‘They’ve kept pretty quiet about it if they have.’

  ‘M’m, yes. Depending on who her friends were, they might not like the idea of contacting the police.’

  ‘They were on the wrong side of the law, you mean?’

  Jack shook his head. ‘Not necessarily. As she was Italian, they could be Italian too, with limited English and a distrust of authority. Or, damnit, she could’ve just told them she was off home and therefore they wouldn’t have any cause for alarm.’

  ‘These are all paths we’ll have to explore. I’m glad you picked up that photo. That’ll make a search much easier.’

  ‘A picture’s worth a thousand words, as they say. There’s one thing that I think is fairly certain. Our killer is a local man. The way the body was disposed of more or less proves that. I doubt anyone from outside the area would think of loading a body into a wheelbarrow and taking it across the fields.’

  ‘I think you’re right.’ Bill scratched his chin. ‘Jack, I know you had hopes for the chantry, but I’m not so sure. You can’t get a car down Pollard Wynd to Signora Bianchi’s cottage, but that field path is a fairly direct route to a proper road. What if the killer had a car waiting on the road by the field gate?’

  ‘He could’ve done,’ agreed Jack. ‘He could easily have done. If that’s the case, with any luck, someone will have seen it. I wonder if Lythewell and Askern employ a night-watchman? He might’ve seen something.’

  ‘Again, that’s something we’ll have to chase up. I’m trying to get the sequence of events clear.’

  ‘Okay. The killer lures the Signora to the cottage, chloroforms her and then bumps her off. The chloroform tells us this is a planned murder, not an assignation that went tragically wrong, by the way. I don’t believe anyone walks round with chloroform in their pocket just on the off-chance.’

  ‘No, you’re right there,’ agreed Bill. ‘So far, so good. Then poor Miss Wingate comes on the scene. She gets chloroformed in turn, while the killer does what?’

  ‘He leaves the body in the pigsty. That could be because he was arranging an alibi.’

  ‘Or moving his car into
position.’

  ‘Or, as you say, moving his car.’ Jack drove for a couple of minutes in silence. ‘It could be a lot simpler than that, of course. Say Miss Wingate is right and it was about half past nine when she was attacked. That’s still fairly early in the evening. At this time of year it’s still dusk. The killer might have been waiting until he thought it was safe to move.’ He clicked his tongue in irritation. ‘There’s too many ifs, Bill. I’m not sure what our next step should be.’

  ‘I know what mine is,’ said Bill. ‘I’m going to speak to Sir Douglas Lynton. What’s more, I’ll be very surprised if he doesn’t want to have a word with you, as well.’

  The next day, Jack received an invitation to call on Sir Douglas Lynton at Scotland Yard. When he was shown into Sir Douglas’s office, he wasn’t surprised to see Bill Rackham there.

  ‘Come in, Haldean,’ said Sir Douglas hospitably. ‘I gather you’ve found an entirely new way for my chief inspectors to spend their days off. Help yourself to a cigarette, by the way. The box is on the table.’

  Jack pulled up a chair and took a cigarette with a grin. ‘I’m sorry, sir. I hope we didn’t tread on any official toes.’

  ‘Not exactly,’ said Sir Douglas, ‘although I had to be fairly diplomatic on the telephone this morning with Commander Pattishall, the Chief Constable of the Surrey force.’

  ‘Very good of you, I’m sure, sir,’ muttered Bill.

  ‘Just a little oil to keep the wheels turning, you understand,’ said Sir Douglas. ‘It’s difficult enough to get the local constabulary to refer matters to us at the best of times, without charging in and inventing murders for them.’

  ‘Inventing, sir?’ asked Jack.

  Sir Douglas shrugged. ‘The supposed crime is the murder of Signora Bianchi. Leaving aside the self-confessed report of trespass by Miss Elizabeth Wingate, which is hardly our concern, the Surrey police have no record of any crime. However, Pattishall’s a sound man. I’ve met him a few times and, once I’d reassured him that there was no possible slur upon him or his men, he was prepared to listen. Like you – and I must say I share this view – he finds the evidence that you and Mr Rackham gathered yesterday disturbing. He could think of no good reason for anyone to transport expensive silk in a gardener’s wheelbarrow. Added to the strands of hair you found caught up in the frame of the sofa and Miss Wingate’s account of what she saw, it has, he agreed, an ugly suggestiveness about it. Therefore, gentlemen, I am pleased to tell you that Commander Pattishall has agreed to call us in.’ He raised an eyebrow in Jack’s direction. ‘Do I take it you want to continue to be involved in the case?’

  ‘Absolutely, I do,’ said Jack. ‘I warned Archie Keyne, my editor, that I was going to be otherwise engaged for the next few days. This has the makings of a really meaty problem. Not only is there a disappearing body, there’s disappearing treasure, too.’

  Sir Douglas hid a smile. ‘Disappearing treasure? Yes, Rackham told me about that. You’ll probably find that the taxman’s had it all.’

  Jack grinned. ‘That’s very cynical, sir. It takes all the thrill out of discovery.’

  ‘Cynical, eh?’ said Sir Douglas with a laugh. ‘No, Haldean, just realistic. If the taxman didn’t take his cut beforehand, then he’ll certainly have it afterwards. Now, I gather you think the murderer is a local man. I agree. Rackham told me of your concerns as to Miss Wingate’s safety. Naturally, that’s a concern I also share. Granted that our first priority is to ensure Miss Wingate’s safety, there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that a full investigation is underway. I think the best way to achieve that is to go to Whimbrell Heath openly and make a proper search of Signora Bianchi’s cottage.’

  ‘Sir Douglas arranged a search warrant this morning, Jack,’ put in Bill. ‘You won’t need to sweet-talk the charwoman this time.’

  ‘I didn’t hear that remark,’ said Sir Douglas with a smile. ‘The other thing we can do is to find as much information as we can about Signora Bianchi. If she’s an Italian national, as seems to be the case, she must have a passport, for instance. I want to know who she is, who saw her last and who her associates were. You know the drill.’

  Bill nodded. ‘I do, sir. Haldean picked up Colin Askern’s photograph of her yesterday.’

  ‘Have you got it, Haldean?’ asked Sir Douglas.

  Jack handed it over and Sir Douglas studied it for a few moments. ‘She’s a good-looking woman,’ he commented. ‘A very good-looking woman.’

  ‘We can’t use it without Colin Askern’s permission,’ said Jack. ‘He took the photo, after all.’

  ‘No, you’re right, we can’t,’ said Sir Douglas. ‘Never mind. If necessary, we can ask him. So, Rackham, I’d like you to return to Whimbrell Heath today. You could,’ he suggested, ‘start by asking questions about Signora Bianchi at the village post office. If Whimbrell Heath is like any other village, everyone will know within the hour exactly who you are and why you’re there.’

  ‘I’d say so, sir,’ agreed Jack. ‘The news’ll go round like wildfire.’

  Six

  For the second day in a row, Jack parked the Spyker under the oak tree outside the Brown Cow. Whimbrell Heath Post Office and General Stores (Mrs K. Sweetiman, Prop.), their immediate destination, was in the middle of a parade of shops on the other side of the square.

  The post office had the sharp, dusty smell of roast coffee and dried fruit. Open boxes of prunes, raisins, dried currants and apricots stood in front of the shelves of packets, tins, jars and bottles of sweets. Mrs Sweetiman herself stood with her back to a wooden counter weighed down with cheese, butter and ham, operating the bacon slicer.

  ‘I’ll be with you in a minute,’ she said, turning her head as they joined the queue. She deftly wrapped the rashers of bacon into a neat parcel of greaseproof paper. ‘Now then, Mrs Hawley,’ she said to the woman in front of them, ‘that’s half a pound of bacon, a tin of tomatoes and a quarter of acid drops. That’s sevenpence ha’penny, please. Did you hear about the burglary down Pollard Wynd?’

  Jack and Bill exchanged glances.

  ‘I did indeed,’ said Mrs Hawley, delving into her purse. ‘It’s at that foreign woman’s, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s Annie Hatton’s fault,’ said Mrs Sweetiman knowledgably. ‘She told me she let two strange men into the house yesterday, which is a thing I’d never a-thought Annie Hatton would’ve done. I thought she’d have been more careful than that. She said they seemed like gents, but you can’t tell nowadays, can you? They must’ve been eyeing the place up.’

  ‘I wouldn’t care to live down Pollard Wynd,’ said Mrs Hawley. ‘It’s too cut off for me and there was that tale about a murder.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Bill. ‘Has there been a burglary at Signora Bianchi’s house?’

  Mrs Sweetiman and Mrs Hawley looked at him. ‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Mrs Sweetiman. ‘She’s away from home at the moment, so it must’ve been an easy job. I don’t know what’s been taken. What would you be wanting, sir?’

  ‘We wanted Mrs Hatton’s address. It concerns Signora Bianchi.’ The two women looked at him quizzically. ‘I’m from Scotland Yard.’

  ‘Well, I never,’ breathed Mrs Sweetiman, gaping at him.

  ‘Mrs Hatton is the Signora’s charwoman, isn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. Annie Hatton does for the foreign lady. If it’s her you want, she’s down Pollard Wynd at the moment, along with Bert Shaw. He’s the police,’ Mrs Sweetiman added helpfully.

  ‘We’d better get along there right away,’ said Jack, tipping his hat to the women. ‘Thank you very much, ladies.’

  They left the post office, a buzz of voices breaking out behind them.

  ‘Do you realise we’ve been taken for burglars on the strength of our visit yesterday?’ asked Jack. ‘I’m glad we appear to be gentlemen, at any rate.’

  ‘Yes, I did realise that. But we know we’re not burglars, so who the dickens was the burglar? I don’t know if Miss Wingate told anyone
we’d been yesterday,’ he said as they walked quickly down the street.

  ‘After what we said to her? I thought she’d stay stumm.’

  ‘Then it’s a pretty rum coincidence,’ said Bill. ‘Unless your old fossil, Cadwallader, told someone.’

  ‘I thought we were safe there, but the charwoman could’ve gossiped about us,’ said Jack. ‘She could’ve easily mentioned that two strange men turned up with Miss Wingate.’

  ‘Yes, she could,’ agreed Bill reluctantly.

  ‘And you were outside the pub,’ pointed out Jack. ‘You didn’t think Colin Askern or anyone else spotted you, but …’

  ‘Askern could’ve done, all the same,’ finished Bill. ‘Damn!’

  The door of Signora Bianchi’s cottage was standing open. Bill knocked and called as they went in to the hall, to be met by a wary ‘Hello’ from the kitchen.

  Mrs Hatton and Constable Shaw were sitting at the kitchen table, with a cup of tea apiece.

  Mrs Hatton looked at them apprehensively, then rose to her feet, clutched the table and pointed at them. Her voice rose to a squeak of fear. ‘It’s them! These are the men who broke in, I tell you!’

  ‘We’re not burglars—’ began Jack, but was interrupted by Mrs Hatton.

  She looked wildly at Constable Shaw. ‘Do something! Here they are, bold as brass! They’re looking to see what else they can steal, I’ll be bound.’

  ‘We’re not burglars,’ repeated Jack patiently.

  ‘Don’t give me that! You were here yesterday! Don’t try and deny it because I know better. I seed you, with my own eyes.’ She turned to Constable Shaw again. ‘These were the men I was telling you about. These are the ones who came yesterday. I told you, they knew all about the key under the plant plot and I didn’t say nothing to them about it.’

  PC Shaw stood up, stroked his moustache and eyed them dubiously. ‘I have to ask you to state your business here,’ he said ponderously. ‘I may say that the circumstances seem very suspicious.’