Bring Forth Your Dead

by Gregson, J. M.

  ‘But he didn’t, you see.’ The cool voice from the doorway had the effect of a bucket of cold water upon fighting dogs. The two white faces which had been facing each other with such concentration across Craven’s desk turned dazedly towards the source of the interruption.

  Lambert stood assessing them for a moment before he came unhurriedly into the room. He gestured to them to sit down. Obedient as children, they drew apart and sank back into their chairs. The two men who had been interrupted were wondering how long the CID men had been there, how much they had overheard, and Lambert read the thought as clearly as if it had been writing for him. He gave them a mirthless smile in recognition of the fact; he had no intention of enlightening them. He sat and looked at them for a moment and said to the panting Andrew Lewis, ‘Did Mr Craven not tell you that the pigs were due to arrive at any time?’

  Lewis’s wan cheeks gave a small wince of pain. He said sullenly, ‘I didn’t believe him.’ Then, with the swift naïvety which went with his youth, his face brightened and he said, ‘Have you come to arrest him?’

  Lambert did not smile. It was Hook who said, ‘Were you expecting us to?’

  Lewis said, ‘Yes. He did it. It’s obvious.’ The terse statements were stubbornly delivered, but he felt faint now as his confidence dropped away. These large, impassive men reminded him by their mere arrival that he was an amateur in the presence of professionals. He said, ‘I came here to make him confess.’ It sounded ridiculous; yet he had been sure when he burst in here that he would wring the admissions he wanted from the man opposite him.

  Craven saw his discomfiture, watched the conviction which had been invested in him by his burning anger pass as abruptly as that fury. He said, ‘This is your murderer, Superintendent, as I’ve no doubt you know. He was threatening more violence when you arrived.’ His voice sounded peevish and empty, his assertions as weightless as those of the younger man who had accused him.

  Lambert looked from one to the other, not troubling now to disguise his distaste. The language might be adult, but the attitudes were those of boys separated in the playground. He said, ‘Have either of you anything to add to the statements you have already signed?’

  The two men looked automatically at each other, like actors anxious not to be upstaged. Then they shook their heads together like comic clones, their first and last action in unison that morning. Lambert said to Lewis, ‘I suggest you do not make contact of this kind again with anyone else involved in this murder inquiry. Indeed, I forbid it. Any suspicions or observations you entertain should be relayed to us.’ Lewis looked thoroughly cowed as he stood to go. Lambert let him get half way to the door before he said, ‘Incidentally, it was not Mr Craven who told us about your use of that medicine cabinet. I have no intention, of course, of telling you who did. Your accusation of Mr Craven merely illustrates the sort of difficulties you bring upon yourself by actions like those you took this morning. You have the number of the CID room: ring it if you feel you have anything useful to contribute to our work. Please do not leave the area without informing us of your intentions.’

  It was patently a dismissal, and Andrew Lewis was only too ready now to get away. He went quietly through the outer office, passing without a glance the secretary he had so recently overwhelmed. Lambert did not trouble to watch him go; he had transferred his attention the man behind the big desk before Lewis had moved three yards.

  Because he felt the weak man’s compulsion to fill the silence, David Craven said nervously, ‘That’s your murderer, in my view. But I suppose you need the evidence.’

  Lambert did not bother to respond. He let the silence stretch until Craven felt compelled to lift his eyes from the desk to the faces of the men who studied him. Then he said, ‘We arranged to see you this morning because of one or two queries relating to your conduct in the months before your father’s death.’

  They saw fear now in that tortured face; fear so clear that Hook wondered for the first time if this man had really the nerve for murder. But as long as the death had been presumed to stem from natural causes, there had been little need for nerve once the killing had been achieved. Craven asked from a dry throat, ‘Oh yes? How can I help you?’

  Lambert said, ‘The chief area of difficulty for us is that of the new will your father proposed to make. No draft of it has ever been found: either none ever existed, or it has been destroyed. We have had views from various people as to what the new will would have contained: in my view, one person at least knew your father’s intentions, but perhaps I shall never be able to prove that.’

  Perhaps Craven thought he was being invited to fill the pause, for he said defensively, ‘I didn’t destroy any draft. I never even saw one.’

  Hook extracted his photocopy of Craven’s statement from his document case, though he knew the words he had originally written down himself clearly enough. He said, ‘Yet when we interviewed you after the exhumation, you indicated clearly that you thought your father intended to cut you out of the new will.’

  ‘I —I thought he did. Are you picking me up now for being honest?’ Craven’s tone was a mixture of puzzlement and apprehension.

  Lambert said quickly. ‘We should simply like to be absolutely clear. Did you or did you not know the contents of this will that everyone claims not to have seen?’

  ‘Yes. Well, I think so.’ He shook his head hopelessly and said, ‘It’s so long ago now. I had a blazing row with Dad when he found that I proposed to dispose of Tall Timbers after his death. He threatened to disinherit me there and then. When I heard he was making a new will, I suppose I assumed that was the purpose. Angela was closer to him than anyone, and she certainly thought that was to be the change, after he had talked to her. Margaret Lewis was so damned smug that I thought she knew as well…’

  Lambert listened very carefully to Craven’s rather disjointed recall of the events of some seventeen months ago. When he was sure it was finished, he said, ‘Briefly, then: your father threatened during your quarrel to disinherit you. When you heard of a revised will, you assumed, reasonably enough, that the major change would be to cut you out. This seemed to be confirmed by the views of your sister and Mrs Lewis, who may have known more details of the new draft than ever came to your notice. Is that a fair summary?’

  ‘Yes. Does this alter anything?’

  ‘It’s possible it might. There is one other thing we wanted to check with you. It relates to the same period the months before your father’s death. In fact, we can date this one quite precisely: we are interested in your reaction to a letter sent to you by the Manager of the Oldford branch of the National Westminster Bank on 27th August last year.’

  ‘Six weeks before my father’s death.’ Craven was as acutely aware of the significance of the date as the men questioning him; he looked as if he was genuinely puzzled about what was coming next. ‘I had many letters about credit at that time. My company was in difficulties. Fortunately for both of us, George Taylor at NatWest was persuaded to wait a little longer.’ Craven’s attempt at urbanity tailed away as he realised these men were investigating the very death which had brought about the revival of his fortunes.

  Hood produced another of his documents, with a flourish worthy of Rushton. ‘This is a copy of the letter sent to you by Mr Taylor. It draws attention to your failure to respond to the Bank’s ultimatum about meeting at least the interest on your loans, and asks you to arrange an appointment urgently to see Mr Taylor.’

  Craven was unabashed: he had obviously been used in the dark days to such summonses, but they were a thing of the past, his attitude proclaimed. He managed a semblance of relaxation as he said, ‘It was a near thing for me financially at that time, I admit. But it’s all water under the bridge now, Sergeant, and I can’t see how this connects with my father’s death.’

  ‘Then I shall enlighten you,’ said Lambert unsmilingly. As always, suspects were ordinary citizens unless and until they were proved guilty: that did not mean you had to like them. ‘We wis
h to check Mr Taylor’s recall of the subsequent interview against your own, to see if the two recollections tally.’

  Perhaps Craven caught now at least an intimation of what was coming. He said cautiously, ‘It was an anxious time for me. I had a lot of meetings of this kind. I’m not sure I can—’

  ‘Mr Taylor is quite clear about the exchanges. He says you used an argument he had not heard from you before.’

  ‘That’s quite possible. Frankly, I was at my wits’ end to stave off the institutions for a little longer, and any argument was welcome—’

  ‘But you told Mr Taylor that there would not be long to wait for a dramatic improvement in your circumstances. Because your father was dying. Because he would be dead, in your phrase, “within weeks”.’

  Craven was wide-eyed with shock. His eyes were fixed on Lambert’s watchful, inscrutable features, as though held by some primitive spell. Eventually he faltered, ‘I was in all kinds of difficulty at the time—prepared to use any argument…’

  ‘Are you saying that Mr Taylor’s account of what you said is substantially true?’

  ‘It may be…Yes, I suppose it is.’ He nodded miserably, as if admitting for the first time to himself that he had used such an argument.

  Lambert was sure the man had forgotten the details of the occasion until reminded of them at this moment. That did not diminish its significance. ‘How did you know that your father was going to die, Mr Craven?’

  The man seemed to have shrunk behind his own large desk. He stared at its surface now, as if to look elsewhere would shatter what degree of brittle control he retained. It took him a long time to say, ‘I was desperate. People were closing in on me from all sides. I was facing the bankruptcy court and worse. I used any and every argument with those who were pressing me. Dad was ill, failing even, with what I thought at the time was heart disease. I know I argued with various people who were threatening me that he wouldn’t last long and that his death would solve my financial problems. If George Taylor says I used that argument with him, I’ve no reason to doubt him.’

  His broken delivery of this was a strain on all of them. When Lambert was sure this was all that would be volunteered, he said, ‘You asserted within six weeks of your father’s death that you knew he would be dead “within weeks”. That has a precision of timing that must surely strike you as quite chilling, now that your father’s death is established as murder.’

  Craven said wretchedly, ‘I’m not proud of using Dad’s illness like that. Financially, I was existing from day to day. I said Dad would be dead in a few weeks because that was the maximum extension I could hope for—if I’d thought they’d give me a few months on the basis if my expectations from the estate, I’d have said that.’

  Lambert studied him, weighing his arguments, trying to assess the possibilities of his unlikely account being true. He said, ‘Had you any innocent reason to feel your father might be near death?’

  Craven looked like a drowning man who had been thrown a lifeline but had lost the co-ordination to grasp it. He began to speak, stopped, and shook his head hopelessly. Finally, speaking very quietly, he managed to put together, ‘Only the evidence of my own senses when I visited him. He looked terrible, and his voice was getting weaker. You notice these things when you only see someone once a week. But I’m sure Angela and Margaret Lewis, who were seeing him every day, thought the same thing; I know they were getting more and more anxious about Dad’s condition.’

  ‘What about Walter Miller and Andrew Lewis? Did they express the same concern?’

  ‘I don’t remember. I didn’t see very much of them at that time. Miller’s visits didn’t coincide with my own. Lewis was in the house, but he made himself scarce when any of us was around.’

  Lambert stood up. ‘Sergeant Hook has made full notes on what you have said. We shall need you to sign a supplementary statement later.’ Craven nodded a dejected acquiescence; he couldn’t think this would read any better than it had sounded in his ears as he told it. ‘I repeat to you what I said to Mr Lewis. Come to us with any suspicions you may have in this matter: don’t approach the party concerned directly. And please do not leave the area without informing us.’

  They left him then, sitting miserably at his empty desk, staring unseeingly across the room at the alpine scene that seemed a part of a different and cleaner world.

  19

  On the two-mile journey to the Miller’s house, John Lambert was unusually communicative. Hook did not flatter himself that this sprang from a desire to keep him in the picture. Experience told him that the Superintendent was clarifying his own thoughts, organising his approach to the interview with Dorothy Miller which lay ahead of them.

  ‘Did you notice any point in our previous interview when Walter Miller seemed disturbed?’ said Lambert, as he guided the big Vauxhall cautiously round a sharp bend in the narrow lane.

  They thought of the big, affable American, handsome even in his seventies, confident in his account of Edmund Craven as fighter pilot almost half a century ago, anxious apparently that his old friend’s killer should be brought to justice. Hook said unhurriedly, ‘He seemed to become a little uneasy when he talked of wives. He’s not alone in that, of course.’ Behind the tiny male joke there was a real point; they had discussed it earlier in the progress of this investigation. But there had been no time to come back to it. After the victim had lain in his grave for thirteen months, this murder investigation seemed to the Sergeant to be proceeding at a headlong pace, as if events teemed upon themselves in a belated effort to make preparations to the corpse.

  That was an illusion, of course. A successful murder inquiry made things happen. It was when they were getting nowhere that the routine and the dead ends seemed endless. Those killings in which the only impulse was a distorted sexual drive could lead to hunts which lasted for many months, without any guarantee of success. The possibilities were too wide, the number of suspects almost as great as the male population of the area—always male, he thought, with a wry disgust in his own sex. In the present case the scents might be cold, but the number of suspects was probably no more than five: it seemed almost certain now that their killer must come from those people who had been constantly around Edmund Craven in his last months. And Bert Hook saw suspicion gathering comfortingly around his choice for the crime.

  He pulled his attention hastily back to the present topic, visualising the notes of the interview with Miller in his carefully rounded longhand, which he had studied as they set out towards the village where the Millers lived. ‘According to Miller’s account of their weekly chess meetings, old Craven only came to the Miller’s house when Dorothy Miller was out,’ he said.

  Lambert nodded, giving a wide berth to a child wobbling disconcertingly on a battered bicycle as she heard the sound of the car behind her. ‘Walter Miller seemed quite pleased when old Craven’s failing health meant he had to go each week to Tall Timbers instead of them alternating the venue.’ It was true, but Hook recalled it only now: as usual he was astounded by his chief’s recall of the nuances of an interview.

  They fell silent for the remaining two minutes of the drive, each forming his own picture of a Walter Miller thirty years younger, virile and handsome, sweeping the Mrs Craven they had never seen into an affair whose repercussions were possibly still resounding all these years after her death.

  Hook had his own image so vividly in his mind’s eye that he was quite resentful on Dorothy Miller’s behalf when she opened the door. She had a natural courtesy which made her smile a welcome to these two large men who arrived menacingly at her door, moving soundlessly over the thin coating of snow which had coated the long path. The mellow stone of the house looked warmer than ever against the snow. Behind the trees, the sun was a huge crimson ball in a perfect Cotswold sunset, so that the front of the house looked almost orange in its low rays. But behind, the woman’s quick, automatic smile there was anxiety, burning in her like a consumption, making the light brown eyes unnaturally
bright against cheeks which seemed for a moment to have caught the whiteness of the snow.

  Lambert turned down drinks, and for once his sergeant did not resent it. What the woman had to say to them must be said at once; any delay would be nothing less than a cruelty. The detectives sat together on the chintz settee, feeling overlarge for its cottage proportions; Dorothy Miller perched like an anxious sparrow on the very edge of the armchair opposite them. Hook wondered where her husband was. He had no doubt that there was no chance of his returning to interrupt them. Even in her distress, this woman was too well organised for that.

  She was anxious to talk, but she needed the formal introduction of Lambert’s ‘You wanted to speak to us, Mrs Miller,’ to ease her into speech.

  ‘Yes. Thank you for coming so quickly when I rang. Superintendent, there is something my husband concealed from you when you came here a few days ago.’

  Lambert felt the old, familiar surge of excitement at the prospect of new information. An unbidden flash of self-knowledge told him that it would be time to retire if that surge ever failed. The woman looked so distraught at her husband’s concealments that he said encouragingly, ‘That is never a good policy, Mrs Miller. But people hold things back far more often than you might think. Anyway, we’re here now for you to make amends.’ He smiled as encouragingly as if she were a distraught child. And for a moment he wondered if she would think him patronising. But this woman, who had struck them as so alert and in control during their previous brief contact with her, seemed to find only the reassurance he had intended in his words.