by Clara Benson
‘It was quite ridiculous,’ said Norman Tipping. ‘Two grown men behaving in that way. They were forever glaring and growling at one another. Once I came upon them standing each with his gun pointed directly at the other, and told them both in no uncertain terms how silly they looked. Of course, that’s why we—why everyone—immediately thought it was old Norris who’d done it, as everyone knew about the feud. But I gather he has an alibi.’
‘Yes, he has,’ said Sergeant Primm.
‘Then who killed him?’ said Norman.
Inspector Jameson was just about to reply when he suddenly spied a pair of eyes peering at him from behind a tree. They seemed to belong to a boy of about eleven.
‘Hallo,’ he said. ‘Who’s this?’
‘It’s Peter,’ said Norman, as Peter Montgomery stepped out and smiled shyly round at them all. ‘What are you doing here, Peter? Run along home, now. This is not the place for little boys. I’m surprised your mother allowed it.’
‘Oh, but she’s here too,’ said the boy, and Inspector Jameson looked up as a woman came into view. She was slim and fair, with bright blue eyes, and Jameson thought she was the prettiest woman he had ever seen.
‘Hallo,’ she said as she arrived. She did not wait for a reply, but immediately went across and took Margaret Tipping’s hand kindly. ‘How are you, Margaret?’ she said. ‘I hope you’ve managed to get some sleep. I was just coming to see you. I do wish you’d let me help you with something. There must be such a lot to do.’
‘Thank you, Kathie,’ said Mrs. Tipping with perfect equanimity. ‘It’s terribly kind of you, and of course you shall help, but it’s all been such a shock and I’m not quite sure where to start.’
Norman introduced Kathie to Inspector Jameson with a proprietorial air, and she turned her smile on him and said how reassuring it was that the police could always be relied upon to work night and day when dreadful crimes of this nature came along, and never to rest until the criminal was caught. Without quite meaning to, Jameson immediately found himself resolving inwardly to do as she said and leave no stone unturned in his attempts to solve the mystery, even though the case was not strictly his.
‘Are you really a detective?’ said Peter suddenly. ‘From Scotland Yard?’
‘Now, Peter,’ said Kathie. ‘You’re not to bother the police while they’re working. This isn’t a game. He’d like to be a detective when he grows up,’ she explained to Jameson with another smile.
‘Should you?’ said Jameson to Peter, who blushed at being addressed directly by the great Scotland Yard inspector, and then nodded.
‘It’s not all fun and games, I’m afraid,’ said Jameson. ‘In fact, it’s jolly hard work sometimes.’
‘I don’t mind hard work,’ said Peter stoutly.
‘Then perhaps we shall see you at the Yard one day,’ said Jameson.
‘I should like that,’ said Peter, his eyes shining.
‘Have you any other questions at present?’ said Norman. Jameson gave a negative and he said, ‘Then we shall go back, if you don’t mind. I think Mother has been here long enough. Do come back with us,’ he went on to Kathie. ‘Mother would be glad of the company, I’m sure.’
Margaret Tipping nodded, and Kathie said, ‘All right, then—but only if I can help in some way. Come along, Peter.’
The four of them went off. Angela said she had to get back to Two Tithes and excused herself too, leaving Inspector Jameson and Sergeant Primm alone.
‘No surprises about what’s going to happen there, I reckon,’ said Primm, with a nod towards the departing group.
‘What do you mean?’ said Jameson.
‘Tipping and Mrs. Montgomery. He’s been courting her for months now,’ said the sergeant.
‘Oh?’
‘Yes. The Cardews are keen on the match. Lady Cardew is her sister, you know. They’ve got plenty of money but they begrudge having to pay the boy’s school fees. They want him off their hands. That’s rich people all over for you.’
‘Does she like him?’ said Jameson.
Primm shrugged.
‘Who knows with women?’ he said. He glanced about and shivered. ‘It’s getting chilly, don’t you think, sir? What do you say we go back to the station and talk over the case there?’
Jameson assented and the two of them went off, Jameson thinking what a pity it was that a woman like Kathie Montgomery should be thrown away on a man like Norman Tipping.
NINE
Back at the little police station in Banford Green Sergeant Primm and Inspector Jameson sat at opposite sides of the sergeant’s desk and consulted their notebooks.
‘Tell me about this alibi,’ said Jameson. ‘This Norris chap looks like a perfect suspect if ever I saw one, but you say he couldn’t have done it.’
‘No,’ said Primm. He flipped over a page and prodded at his notebook with a pencil. He cleared his throat and began. ‘So, then, as you know, Saturday was the day of the church fête, and most people were there. This is what we know so far: early on Saturday morning Tom Tipping helped set up some of the stalls in Tithes Field. At eleven o’clock the fête was declared open, and Tipping stayed until about a quarter to twelve then left, as he had some things to see to on the farm. His wife was looking after the cake stall, and he promised to come back later and help clear up. He went home by his usual route, which was along Dead Man’s Path. There he encountered Andrew Norris, and at about five to twelve, according to a number of witnesses from the village who were heading for the fête at that time, the two men had a loud argument in which Norris threatened to shoot Tom Tipping if he ever found him trespassing on his land again. This was a fairly frequent occurrence, by the way, so the witnesses didn’t think much of it. At any rate, the argument subsided when the villagers arrived, and Tipping passed on. He arrived home and had a cold lunch, then at about twenty minutes to two took his shotgun and went out with his dog. This was his usual time to go out, and we know he did it on this day because he was met on Dead Man’s Path by his son Norman Tipping and Mrs. Montgomery, who were heading to Tithes Field themselves. Mrs. Montgomery had been helping at the fête, but I gather she’d run home to fetch something and just happened to meet Norman Tipping on her way back. According to them, Tom Tipping said he would see them later and then passed out of sight. They hadn’t gone more than a couple of hundred yards when they heard the sound of a shotgun going off. They were a bit puzzled but not particularly so, and they didn’t bother turning back. A little farther on, they met Daniel Tyler from Burdett’s going the other way, and it was he who discovered Tom Tipping’s body a few minutes later, lying there with nobody near him except the dog. Tyler hared after Norman and Mrs. Montgomery in a great state, found them just going into the fête, and told them what had happened. They ran back with him and called the doctor, who called us. And a very pretty mess it is too,’ he finished, sitting back.
‘Yes,’ said Jameson. ‘Still, the presence of witnesses seems to narrow down the time of death nicely. He must have died at—what? A quarter to or perhaps ten to two?’
‘Thereabouts,’ agreed Primm. ‘And at that time Andrew Norris was in the Red Lion, having a bite of lunch with his man Ben Shaw. Ben has sworn to it, as have the landlord and two of his regular customers, who were the only people there at the time, business being quiet on that day because of the fête. Norris and Shaw arrived at about a quarter past one, and went into the snug. They were brought some cold meat and cheese at half past one, and then left the place at ten past two. The landlord was in the tap-room with his eye on the door to the street all that time, and swears that Norris didn’t leave. It’s a great pity,’ he went on. ‘If it weren’t for his cast-iron alibi then that would be that: we could lock him up and forget about it. The two of them have been fighting over that path for years, the silly old goats.’
‘Does it really belong to Norris?’ said Jameson.
‘I couldn’t tell you,’ said Primm. ‘He got the idea that it was his about twenty years ago, an
d went to law about it. It never got resolved, though, as there’s just enough doubt in the deeds to his land to make it uncertain. What is certain is that everyone has used Dead Man’s Path freely for centuries, and he’s not going to stop them now. It’s really just a convenient excuse for him to make things difficult for Tom Tipping.’
‘Do you mean the feud came before the dispute over the path?’
Primm nodded.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘They haven’t got on for years, ever since Tom married Margaret about forty years ago. Norris was sweet on her, you see, but Tipping stepped in, and they’ve been rowing ever since. ’Course, it’s not so much the woman they’re fighting over—it’s more that old Norris is a bad loser and can’t bear to be beaten. Tipping got what was his, you see, and now Norris wants to pay him back.’
‘Goodness me,’ said Jameson. He glanced at his watch. ‘It’ll be lunch-time soon, but if you don’t mind I’d like to go back to Dead Man’s Path first and look around more carefully, this time without interruptions.’
‘Right you are, sir,’ said Sergeant Primm.
Inspector Jameson looked about him as they came out of the police station. They were in the centre of the village, which was laid out around a large green. Many of the buildings were ancient and had thatched roofs, and the whole effect was very attractive and quaint. Of course, the signs of modernity had inevitably encroached upon even this quiet place, and on market days (for Banford Green, although now considered merely a village, had once been a thriving market town and still proudly held to that tradition), the cobbled streets that led off the green tended to be crowded with motor-cars and vans. Otherwise, there was little to disturb the peace, and as Jameson eyed the pretty cottages with their window-boxes full of flowers, he understood why people might choose to live here.
A few doors along from the police station was the Red Lion Inn, where Andrew Norris and Ben Shaw had had their lunch on the day of Tom Tipping’s murder. It looked pleasant enough, and Jameson made a note to speak to the landlord. The two policemen crossed the green and walked down a narrow street, then turned left. This brought them to the entrance to Tithes Field and the start of Dead Man’s Path. Tom Tipping’s body had been found some way along it, and Jameson paused again to look about him.
‘As you can see, sir,’ observed Sergeant Primm, ‘even if Andrew Norris did somehow manage to sneak out of the inn, he’d have been in full view of everyone in the street and couldn’t possibly have run all the way here, shot Tipping and then come back without someone seeing him.’
‘Is this the only way to Dead Man’s Path from the Red Lion?’ asked Jameson.
‘Unless you can run through brick walls,’ said Primm, and pointed. Just past the entrance to Dead Man’s Path was a lane. Jameson walked a little way down it and saw on the left farther down a row of tiny terrace cottages. Opposite them was the church, a pretty building of grey stone with a mossy roof, which sat within a quiet churchyard.
‘The inn backs onto those houses,’ said the sergeant, who had followed him. ‘You’d have to jump over them to get here.’
‘I see. That seems to settle it, then,’ said Jameson.
They returned up the lane and entered Dead Man’s Path. The sky was still gloomy and the path was even darker than it had been that morning. Nobody was about, and they reached the spot where Tom Tipping had died without meeting anybody. Sergeant Primm looked about him warily.
‘I’m not one for believing in ghosts,’ he said, ‘but Margaret Tipping was right enough when she said this place was haunted. It’s not the pleasantest of spots.’
‘No,’ agreed Inspector Jameson. ‘Why is it called Dead Man’s Path?’
‘I don’t know,’ said the sergeant. ‘But I’ve lived here all my life and my father used to call it by that name, and his father before him.’
‘But where does it go? It’s not a short-cut from the village to the fête, as far as I can tell. It starts at Tithes Field and leads—where?’
‘There are farmhouses and cottages up that way,’ said Primm. ‘Mrs. Montgomery lives in one of them, and some of the farm-hands who work around here live in the others. And a little farther up still there are some newer houses, which were built when the river flooded about thirty years ago and washed away a street of old cottages on the lower land.’
‘I see,’ said Jameson.
A church bell rang out suddenly in the silence and made them both jump.
‘I didn’t realize we were so near the church,’ said Jameson. He peered through the trees and saw the tumble-down wall of the churchyard. ‘Hmm,’ he went on. ‘Whoever did it might have come here by any number of ways, it seems. He might have come from the fête in Tithes Field at that end, or from the houses at the other end.’
‘Beyond those houses is open countryside,’ said Primm helpfully, ‘so anyone might have come from that way and done it. There’s nothing to say it was someone from Banford. It might have been someone who just happened to be passing.’
‘A random killing, you mean?’ said the inspector. ‘They’re pretty rare. Was the motive robbery, perhaps?’
‘No,’ said the sergeant. ‘That was our first thought, as a matter of fact. We’ve some troublesome gipsies hereabouts, but they’re not that sort. They’re more for the petty pilfering. They’ve never been known to attack anybody. We’ll have a word with them, though.’
‘Do,’ said Jameson. ‘Of course, with so many people out and about that day, whoever it was might have passed quite unnoticed. It would have been a matter of minutes to slip away from the fête and do the deed, for example.’
‘That’s true enough,’ said Primm. ‘There was a pretty large crowd there that day, and a lot of coming and going.’
‘Whoever it was took quite a risk, though, since anyone might have turned up—and in fact there were three people nearby at the time that we know of,’ said Inspector Jameson. ‘He must have arrived, shot Tipping and then run off as quickly as he could before he was caught.’ He turned his attention back to the path. ‘So, then, our murderer might have arrived from either end of the path, or he might have come from the lane and through the churchyard, or he might have come from that house over there,’ he indicated a large farmhouse that could just be glimpsed through the trees on the other side of the path, ‘which I take it is the Tippings’ house.’ He paused. ‘Where does Norman Tipping live?’ he said after a moment.
‘He has his own house on the edge of the village,’ said Primm.
‘Is he a wealthy man?’
‘I couldn’t say what he was before, sir,’ said the sergeant, ‘but I imagine he’ll be rather wealthier now that his father is dead.’
The words hung significantly in the air, and the two men exchanged glances.
TEN
On her way back to Two Tithes, Angela decided to take a detour through the old orchard in which she had spent many a happy hour stealing fruit as a child. She crossed Tithes Field and climbed over a stile, beyond which was the orchard itself. The place looked much the same as it had twenty years ago, and she smiled to herself as she recognized a pear tree that she had been especially fond of as a girl, since she was convinced it produced the sweetest pears of all the trees in the place. She passed through quickly, for she was looking for something in particular, which she soon found. Just beyond the orchard, at the top of a slight incline, stood a stately oak tree of great age. From here it was possible to get a glimpse of Two Tithes house through the trees, and it was here that Joseph the footman—now Doggett the butler—with the help of the old gardener, long dead, had set up a swing for young Miss Angela at her special request. And there it still was, its wooden seat slightly cracked and its ropes greying and a little frayed, with a bare patch of ground below it which indicated that it was still used frequently—presumably by local children. Angela smiled and for the first time felt something akin to a twinge of affection for the old place. She walked over to the swing and tested the ropes, then brushed off the seat and sat down
gingerly. It was something of a squeeze, and her legs were rather too long for it these days, but still it was a swing and it was hers. She pushed off with her feet and then let go, enjoying the long-forgotten sensation and recalling how delighted she had been when Joseph had first brought her here and proudly but shyly shown off his handiwork. Of course, she had been much more daring then, and had liked nothing better than to push herself as high as she could, then at the very highest point launch herself into the air to see how far away she could land. The swing had been the cause of many bumps and grazes, she remembered.
She was still swinging gently back and forth, letting her thoughts drift pleasantly, when she suddenly became aware of someone approaching. It was the second of the two young men she had spotted that morning crossing the garden at Two Tithes, and he did not appear to have seen her, for he was scribbling in his notebook as he walked, stopping only occasionally to gaze into the air for a second and then resume writing. After proceeding slowly in this manner for some minutes he finally drew level with the oak tree, and stopped short as a particularly splendid idea seemed to strike him.
‘Ha!’ he exclaimed. ‘That’ll get ’em, see if it won’t!’
He wrote down whatever it was, then closed his notebook with a snap and put it in his pocket. He took out a cigarette and inserted it into his mouth, then patted his jacket, looking for a light.
