A Meddler and her Murder

by Joyce Porter

  ‘Why didn’t she then?’ asked the Hon. Con.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Adam Spennymoor gazed bleakly out of the window. He seemed willing to talk, though, even to the Hon, Con. ‘She hadn’t any qualifications, of course, and she didn’t fancy working in a shop. Besides, in a way she was learning things at the Hellons.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes,’ – he laughed rather dryly – ‘polish’.

  ‘Polish?’

  ‘What you rich floozies get in your high-class finishing schools in Switzerland. You see, Terry – though she’d never admit it – had come straight out of the bogs somewhere in Ireland and she just didn’t know how to behave in good society. Which fork to use and what clothes to wear and how to answer the telephone. Bloody stupid things that we do without thinking about, but they still matter, don’t they? Now, on that level, she could learn a lot from a couple like the Hellons. Josie runs that house like something out of a glossy magazine. And then there was the telly. That taught Terry plenty about how the upper half lives and, believe me, she was a quick learner. You know,’ – Adam Spennymoor turned to the Hon. Con and addressed her with more animation than he’d shown so far that afternoon – ‘some lucky devil could have done a real-life Pygmalion act with her. The basics were all there. All you’d have to do was smooth off a few rough edges and teach her a few tricks.’ He ran his tongue over dry lips. ‘she’d have made a lovely hobby for somebody.’

  ‘Eve,’ said the Hon. Con disapprovingly, ‘thought she was a bit of a monkey.’

  ‘Eve?’ Adam Spennymoor’s face lost its sparkle. ‘ Well, she would, wouldn’t she?’ He helped himself to a crumpled cream horn and dropped it on his plate. ‘Terry O’Coyne was a man’s woman. You could hardly expect the old biddies round here to appreciate her. Besides,’ – he gave the cream horn a disgusted poke with his fork – ‘ Eve got all her information from Josie Hellon and she’s a sour-faced, jealous bitch if ever there was one.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘You obviously don’t know her!’ He gave a sharp bark of a laugh. ‘She gave poor little Terry one hell of a life! Always nagging and finding fault and going on as though that snotty-nosed brat of hers was the bloody centre of creation. And as mean as hell about food, too. Now,’ – he appealed to the Hon. Con – ‘you’d never believe that about somebody in Josie Hellon’s position, would you? Just because she was fighting a losing battle against the middle-age bulge, she couldn’t understand a kid of Terry’s age having a normal, healthy appetite. Used to begrudge her every bloody mouthful! Now, just take the milk, for example! When Terry had been out for the evening she liked a glass of hot milk before she went to bed and a bite of anything that happened to be left over. No harm in that, you’d imagine, but old Ma Hellon used to do her nut. Claimed that there was no milk left for breakfast but, as Terry told her, that was ridiculous because the milkman always comes at half-past seven and they’re never up before eight. I suppose she imagined that blasted baby’d wake up in the middle of the night screaming for sustenance and she’d have nothing to stuff it with except a couple of tons of that formula muck. And biscuits! Do you know, Josie Hellon actually used to count the bloody biscuits and then make snide remarkers about mice! Honestly, I’ve …’

  ‘Talking about the murder, are you?’ It was Eve Spennymoor back with the fresh tea and, if she noticed that her husband shut up like a clam as soon as he became aware of her, she didn’t show it. ‘Oh, look! That’ll be Gilbert!’

  Three pairs of eyes followed intently as a sleek grey Jaguar nosed its way, with police assistance, through the gaggle of spectators, newspaper reporters and television men and into the garage which stood almost opposite Paradise Cottage.

  ‘Yes, it’s Hellon, all right,’ said Adam, pouring himself out a cup of tea as the garage doors were quickly closed on the car and the crowd shepherded back away from the house again. ‘He’s not broken his neck about getting back, has he?’

  ‘Hasn’t he?’ asked the Hon. Con, antennae quivering.

  Adam Spennymoor fished his saccharine tablets out of his waistcoat pocket. ‘ Well, he was only supposed to be in Birmingham, for God’s sake! You could get back from Birmingham in three hours on a bloody bicycle.’

  ‘Maybe he has done,’ said his wife reasonably. ‘Perhaps he wasn’t told until lunch-time.’

  ‘That’s likely, isn’t it?’ Adam Spennymoor seemed to be in a very aggressive mood. ‘You know Josie! I’ll bet she was on the phone to dear old Gilbert before she even rang the police.’

  ‘Could be,’ said Eve mildly. She glanced questioningly at her husband. ‘How come you know he was in Birmingham?’

  ‘Oh – somebody at the Club mentioned it.’

  ‘But Gilbert’s not a member, is he?’

  ‘I didn’t say he was, did I ?’

  ‘My, my,’ said Eve Spennymoor with an apologetic smile at the Hon. Con, ‘we are an old cross-patch today, aren’t we?’

  Chapter Four

  ‘Makes you thank your lucky stars you’re not married!’ commented the Hon. Con as she told Miss Jones about her visit to the Spennymoors. ‘Adam was just spoiling for a row. I’ll bet they had a fair old punch-up as soon as I was out of the way.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think it would come to that, dear. Eve knows how to handle him.’

  ‘He’d get a rolling pin round the ears if he was my husband,’ said the Hon. Con stoutly. ‘ Nasty tempered brute! And why’s it always got to be the woman who smooths things over and makes all the sacrifices?’

  ‘Marriage is a matter of give and take, dear,’ rejoined Miss Jones, recalling what she had read about the blessed state in women’s magazines.

  ‘Yes, and we know who does the giving and who does the taking.’

  ‘Well, Eve’s managed to keep them together all these years and I don’t suppose she’d have achieved that by losing her temper. Poor woman, she’s not had too easy a time, you know.’

  ‘Hasn’t she?’ The Hon. Con prided herself on not being one to listen to gossip, which put her at a considerable disadavantage when it came to detecting. Luckily Miss Jones had an ear which was permanently pinned to the ground.

  She turned up trumps now, regaling the Hon. Con with an astonishingly detailed account of the ups and downs of the Spennymoors’ married life. It had not been without its squalls. Miss Jones carefully plotted the more significant ones. ‘And so you see,’ she summed up, ‘Eve has had to keep quite a sharp eye on him, without letting him realize it, of course.’

  ‘Golly-gosh!’ said the Hon. Con, puffing out her cheeks to indicate her astonishment. ‘I never knew old Adam was a womanizer! Must say, he’s always behaved like a perfect gentleman with me.’

  Miss Jones put her coffee cup down on the occasional table and bent forward to poke up the fire.

  The Hon. Con glanced at her suspiciously. ‘Ever made any improper advances to you, Bones?’

  The back of Miss Jones’s neck went pink, the combined effect no doubt of her exertions with the poker and the heat from the fire.’ Of course not, dear.’

  ‘You sure? Some men do find you quite attractive, you know. I’ve noticed it before.’

  Miss Jones wouldn’t have been human if she hadn’t felt a tiny thrill of pleasure but she hastened to put the Hon. Con’s mind at rest. ‘I told you, dear, Adam Spennymoor’s weakness is young women. Young girls, really. In fact, the older he gets, the younger the girls appear to be.’

  ‘Disgusting!’ grunted the Hon. Con. She passed her cup over for a refill. ‘That O’Coyne wench can’t have been more than a teenager.’

  ‘Oh, come now, dear!’ Miss Jones knew the perils of letting the Hon. Con jump to conclusions like that. ‘I’ve never heard the faintest suggestion that he’s been paying any attentions to her. He tends to go in for the less respectable type of girl. You know, the kind you pick up in bars and on street corners.’

  ‘He knew a heck of a lot about her,’ said the Hon. Con obstinately.

  ‘Well, the
Irish are supposed to be great talkers, aren’t they? She probably told him her entire life story while he was giving her a lift into town.

  ‘No alibi, either,’ said the Hon. Con, whose mind needed more than Miss Jones’s anxious chirruping to get it out of its groove.

  ‘Now, Constance, that’s not quite true, is it, dear? You told me yourself that he said …’

  ‘Precisely! But what he said ain’t evidence, is it? He claims he was home by half past twelve but he could have been out half the night. Eve didn’t know one way or the other because she’d already gone to bed.’ The Hon. Con spooned up the coffee-sodden sugar from the bottom of her cup and consumed it noisily. ‘And, you’ve got to admit it, Bones, this farmer client out in the wild sounds deuced fishy.’

  ‘Of course it doesn’t, dear! Adam does the accounts for lots and lots of people who live outside the town. He’s always complaining about having to drive out and see them. In any case, it’s the sort of thing the proper authorities could check very easily, if they wanted to. Have you finished with your cup, dear?’

  ‘Eh?’ The Hon. Con had stopped listening as soon as Miss Jones had begun speaking in the sweet voice of reason.

  ‘Your cup, dear! There’s that nice animal series on the television in half an hour and I thought I’d just get the washing up done before it starts.’

  ‘Hm,’ said the Hon. Con as she let Miss Jones relieve her of her cup. ‘I hope you realize that Eve Spennymoor hasn’t got an alibi, either.’

  ‘Oh, Constance, dear, don’t be ridiculous! What on earth would Eve Spennymoor be doing murdering the Hellons au pair girl?’ Miss Jones was getting quite irritated with the Hon. Con.

  ‘Saving Adam from her clutches, of course! Probably saw the O’Coyne kid as the serpent in the Garden of Eden and therefore scotched her. I’m telling you – Adam was pretty taken with that girl. You could tell by the way he talked about her.’

  ‘But Constance,’ wailed Miss Jones, ‘you just can’t go around like this suspecting your friends of murder! It’s so un-Christian, dear.’

  ‘Pshaw! said the Hon. Con.

  ‘And, in any case, you’re only guessing. You’ve got no evidence.’

  ‘I happen to be formulating a few hypotheses,’ said the Hon. Con grandly. ‘And if you want to watch the telly, you’d better get your skates on.’

  Miss Jones threw an anxious glance at the clock. ‘Perhaps you could give me a hand, dear, and then …’

  ‘Sorry!’ The Hon. Con pulled herself up out of the armchair. ‘Got to do my exercises.’ She slapped herself resonantly on the spare tyre. ‘ You don’t want me getting fat, do you?’

  ‘No, dear,’ said Miss Jones and withdrew, outwitted, to the kitchen while the Hon. Con prostrated herself on the hearth rug and commenced a series of somewhat laborious pushups.

  She had reached five and was blowing hard when the front door bell rang. Out at the sink Miss Jones had just finished drying the cutlery. Both women stopped and listened.

  Miss Jones appeared in the sitting-room doorway. ‘Who on earth can that be, dear?’ she asked nervously.

  The Hon. Con, looking like a stranded whale, was gathering, her strength for an attempt on number six. Jolly simple way to find out,’ she puffed.

  ‘Would you like to answer it, dear?’

  ‘You’re on your feet, Bones,’ said the Hon. Con reasonably as she sank back with a sigh of relief on to the hearth rug.

  Miss Jones continued to dither in the doorway. ‘Suppose it’s the killer?’

  ‘Now there’s an idea!’ The Hon. Con scrambled excitedly to her feet and, arming Miss Jones with the poker, led the way hopefully to the front door.

  It was not the killer.

  Sergeant Fenner raised his hat, ‘Good evening, Miss Morrison-Burke! I wonder if we could just have a word with you and Miss Jones?’

  ‘We?’

  A second masculine figure loomed up out of the darkness. It was young, pink, and under strict instructions to keep its bloody mouth shut.

  ‘Detective Constable Peach, said Sergeant Fenner. ‘We are making enquiries concerning the death of Miss Teresa O’Coyne.’

  ‘Didn’t imagine you’d come to read the blooming gas meter,’ grunted the Hon. Con, letting her realization that Sergeant Fenner had not undergone a change of heart about mutually beneficial co-operation get the better of her. ‘Wipe your feet!’

  Since she then turned on her heel and stumped off back to the sitting-room, it was left to Miss Jones to do the honours of the house and it took some time before the two detectives, relieved of their hats and coats, were ushered once more into the Hon. Con’s presence. She had planted herself squarely in front of the fire, detemuned not to be out-dominated by anybody.

  ‘Take a pew!’ she commanded and watched with malicious amusement as her visitors sank almost without trace in the depths of the three-piece. Her attention was deflected by the sight of Miss Jones grovelling apologetically round her feet. ‘What the blazes are you doing, Bones?’ she demanded.

  ‘I’m just returning the poker, dear,’ Miss Jones murmured before skipping nimbly out of range and perching herself primly on the pouffe.

  The Hon. Con waited until Miss Jones was sitting comfortably. ‘Right!’ she nodded peremptorily at Sergeant Fenner. ‘Shoot!’

  And don’t think, Sergeant Fenner muttered savagery to himself, that given half a chance and a loaded revolver I wouldn’t! However, beggars don’t ride and he had to content himself with getting out his notebook and pencil. ‘ We’re making enquiries about the death of Miss O’Coyne,’ he began again.

  ‘But why come to us?’ Miss Jones wanted to know in a voice which came out much louder and shriller than she had intended. ‘We had nothing to do with it.’

  I wouldn’t mind so much, thought Sergeant Fenner who’d had a long day, if they didn’t all say the bloody same things. ‘ We’re interviewing everybody, miss,’ he explained, following his own script patiently. ‘We just want to know if you saw anything or anybody at all suspicious round about the time of the murder.’

  Miss Jones’s face cleared. ‘Oh, you mean like a tramp?’ She beamed happily at the two policemen. Now, that was something like! Tramps were always committing murders and were much more appropriate as suspects than a nice, respectable couple like the Spennymoors.

  ‘Did you see a tramp, miss?’ asked Sergeant Fenner, leaning forward eagerly.

  Miss Jones’s pleasure was undiminish ed. ‘Oh, no!’ she said laughingly. ‘ In fact, now you come to mention it, I haven’t seen a tramp for years. Not since I was a girl, really. They used to call at our house frequently, in the old days of course, what with my dear father being in Holy Orders and everything, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in Totterbridge.’ She appealed to the Hon. Con. ‘Have you, dear?’

  ‘No!’ growled the Hon. Con. ‘And I haven’t seen any sinister heathen Chinee or one-legged sailors gripping naked cutlasses in their teeth, either!’ Whereupon, having given vent to her opinion of the line the official police investigation was taking, she folded her arms across her chest and clamped her mouth resolutely shut.

  Sergeant Fenner sighed and doodled a well-built figure in slacks in his notebook. Thoughtfully, he pierced its heart with a dagger. ‘Well, have you noticed any strangers hanging about the district?

  ‘There’s the new curate from St Boniface’s, Miss Jones proffered after a long pause when it became obvious that the Hon. Con was not going to say anything. ‘He’s been calling on everybody. I don’t know whether you would count him but there’ve been a lot of complaints. He’s certainly a very odd looking young man. He has little coloured flowers painted on his clerical collar.’

  Sergeant Fenner prayed for strength. ‘Anybody else?’ he asked, adding a few dripping drops of blood to the bit of the dagger poking out of the back. ‘Or anything at all that has struck you as being out of the ordinary?’

  ‘Had half a ton of household rubbish dumped in my back garden last week,’ contri
buted the Hon. Con grumpily. ‘ Don’t suppose vindictive harassment like that’s of any interest to the police, though.’

  ‘Well, not really,’ murmured Sergeant Fenner.

  ‘Thought not,’ sniffed the Hon. Con. ‘ Too busy running youth clubs for young hooligans and shoving the cost on the rates.’ This was a bitter reference to the latest effort by the local constabulary at improving community relations. ‘Still, if you’re looking for subversive elements in this part of Totterbridge, you could do worse than have a squint at the layabouts in the bungalows at the bottom of my garden.’

  ‘They are the ones who dumped the rubbish, are they?’ asked Sergeant Fenner, managing to produce quite a good imitation of sympathy. ‘Well, I’ll have a word with the man on the beat about it.’ He looked across at his companion. ‘Make a note of it, will you, Peach?’

  By the time Detective Constable Peach, a lad with a future, had carefully inscribed. ‘Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party’ in his notebook, the atmosphere in the sitting-room had eased considerably. The Hon. Con was highly delighted at having acquired an impressive ally in her persecution of the bungalow tribe and Sergeant Fenner reckoned he’d bought his hostess’s good-will pretty cheaply. Of the minor protagonists, Miss Jones was quite happy to have suspicion fall on anybody as long as they weren’t friends of hers, and Detective Constable Peach wasn’t there to enjoy himself, anyhow.

  ‘I wonder,’ Sergeant Fenner resumed, smiling encouragingly at Miss Jones, ‘ if either of you knew the deceased at all? We are trying, you see, to build up a picture of her life since she came to Totterbridge. Mr and Mrs Hellon have been able to give us a certain amount of information, of course, but they know comparatively little about her activities in her free time, outside their residence.’