The Haunted Lady

by Bill Kitson

  I decided to let Eve answer that. For one thing, she had been the one to insist on this visit. For another, I’d no idea what Marjorie was driving at. I wondered briefly what the level in the sherry decanter was like.

  ‘It depends,’ Eve replied, apparently unfazed by the bizarre question. ‘Some of them are very interesting. Others, like Adam’s, are downright boring.’

  I’d never kept a diary, as Eve knew, but then I realised that she was merely saying what she thought Marjorie wanted to hear. Perhaps Eve was as suspicious as me about the sherry decanter. Whatever her mental process, the reply worked, and Marjorie expanded on her original odd question.

  ‘When I was clearing old boxes of junk from one of the rooms, I came across a dozen consecutive diaries written by a former vicar of St Mary’s. According to parish records he was the incumbent until his death in 1961. The entry I wanted to show you was written only a few weeks before he died. There had been quite a lot of entries further back about the struggle to raise money for the new roof the church was apparently in great need of, and then I came across this one.’

  She opened the diary at the relevant page and pointed to it, before passing the book to Eve. I read the entry over Eve’s shoulder. It wasn’t easy, because the vicar’s handwriting rivalled a doctor’s for lack of legibility. “Wrote to Kershaw today to thank him for his generosity both in providing the remaining funds that will enable us to go ahead with replacing the roof, and in arranging to have the diptych of Mary Magdalene cleaned, restored and kept safe while the renovation work is being carried out in the nave and Lady chapel. I hope Harfleur makes a good job of it, and look forward to the end result when the painting is re-hung.”

  ‘That seems to indicate where the painting went,’ Eve commented, ‘but what happened to it after Harfleur finished working on it?’

  It was a very good question, but one for which, at that time, none of us could find an answer. Nor did it, as Eve pointed out, provide a motive for Casper Harfleur’s murder, let alone that of Mark Bennett. It was logical to assume that both crimes had been committed by the same person, unless there were two homicidally minded men roaming the locality.

  When we returned home, we discussed the find again. ‘We can now connect Andrew Kershaw with Casper Harfleur,’ Eve said, ‘but where does Mark Bennett fit into the picture?’ She giggled. ‘Sorry about that; it was a bad enough pun to be one of yours. I could understand it if Bennett had taken the painting for cleaning and restoration, but why give it to Harfleur? For all Kershaw knew it could have ended up with a fake Mona Lisa on the front and Van Gogh’s sunflowers when you turned it back to front.’

  It was Eve’s last phrase that caused the penny to drop. ‘Hang on, let’s get that ledger of Bennett’s out of the safe. I’ve an idea what that mysterious set of letters and numbers refers to.’

  We opened Bennett’s book and I read the entry again. ‘H C H T I W D E R O T S K A P P D M M 1. Yes, I was right. Using Bennett’s back to front code, it comes out as “One Mary Magdalene diptych per pro Andrew Kershaw stored with Casper Harfleur.” That seems to indicate that Bennett was also involved in the restoration project. Not only is the coded entry a sign that Bennett had something to do with it, but the date tallies with what the former vicar wrote in his diary. Now we have a connection between all three, Kershaw, Bennett and Harfleur. What we don’t have is anything that remotely suggests a motive for the murders.’

  ‘Or where the diptych disappeared to,’ Eve added. ‘I thought I’d throw that in to stop us getting over-excited.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Next morning, Michael and Chloe came to see us. Their purpose, it seemed, was to discuss what Marjorie had discovered in the old diary, and to ask if we had found anything further.

  ‘We think that Casper Harfleur might have been asked to do the cleaning and restoration work on the diptych, and that Mark Bennett could have stored it until the roof repairs were complete, but what happened to it after that is a mystery. We wondered if the whole thing might have been forgotten, because the minister died and then your father was too preoccupied with your mother’s illness to be concerned about a painting.’ Eve looked at me, wondering if I was in agreement before continuing. Our minds were so in tune that I guessed what she was about to say and nodded. ‘We have some news about your father and mother,’ she told Chloe. ‘I’ll let Adam explain.’

  I began by telling them what we’d learned from Zeke Calvert and Tom Fox, plus part of what we had inferred from Cooper. ‘He told us he was from the Foreign Office, but we think different. We believe he was from one of the intelligence departments, either MI5 or MI6, and that your father was involved in espionage back in the late 1950s.’

  ‘This is all a bit frightening,’ Chloe said, ‘and I don’t understand why all this is going on now. Why would people be getting het up about something that’s over twenty years old? What did my father do that is so important after all this time? None of it makes sense. Not only has that man from some mysterious government department been sniffing around to discover what you know, but a private detective came to the Grange asking questions about my father.’

  Eve and I looked at one another, recalling what Susan Barnett had told us about a sinister visit she’d had. ‘What private detective?’ Eve asked.

  ‘I think he said his name was Lumsden. He claimed to be from London, but his accent seemed all wrong. He asked about my father and also about those poor men who were murdered.’

  ‘Mark Bennett and Casper Harfleur?’ Chloe nodded by way of reply to Eve’s question. ‘What precisely did he want to know?’

  ‘He was talking to Uncle David, not me, but I ...er ...listened in. I couldn’t hear every word, but I think he mentioned something about paintings. Then Uncle David got annoyed and told him to get lost. That was when Lumsden started to threaten him. Uncle David told him that if he ever came near Elmfield Grange or any of us again, he’d either turn the dogs on him or shoot him.’ Chloe grinned and added, ‘We don’t have any dogs, and Uncle David rarely takes his gun out of the cabinet.’

  ‘We’d better keep our eye out for this Lumsden character,’ Eve said. ‘Did you get a look at him? I mean a good enough look to describe him?’

  Chloe thought about it for a moment. ‘He was like that detective in The Maltese Falcon.’

  ‘You mean he looked like Humphrey Bogart?’

  ‘Not facially, it was the way he was dressed. It was almost as if he was playing a part.’

  ‘You mean he was trying to appear like he imagined a private eye would look?’

  ‘Yes, but it was more than that. Even the style of his suit was wrong. It was really old-fashioned, like something from a black and white film.’

  ‘We’ll keep our eyes peeled for Sam Spade lookalikes. Tell Chloe your theory, Adam.’

  ‘It was something Councillor Fox told us.’ I explained about Tom’s encounter with her father in Dinsdale. ‘I think it’s possible that your mother died from radiation poisoning. Don’t get me wrong – as Eve said, this is nothing more than a theory. However, given that we believe your father was involved in espionage and that he knew her ailment was incurable even without taking her to hospital, it seems the likeliest scenario. I can understand how distressing that might be, and the only crumb of comfort I can give you is that, if I am right, and as you’re obviously fit and healthy now, there is no chance of it being hereditary.’

  ‘We ought to re-examine that book Susan Bennett left us,’ Eve suggested shortly after the young couple had left. ‘For all we know there might be more clues in there. Just because we haven’t spotted them doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Even if they don’t relate to the whereabouts of that diptych, some of the other transactions might provide a motive for the murders.’

  ‘I thought we weren’t working on the murders,’ I said, only to be met with another of those looks.

  I was still pondering the recent meeting. Although Chloe had been understandably distressed by the suggestion as to
how her mother had died so young, she and Michael had seemed far happier together. Eve’s idea brought me back to the grimmer events of recent weeks.

  We retrieved the ledger from the safe. ‘You concentrate on the people who bought items from Bennett,’ Eve instructed me, ‘and I’ll look at the vendors to see if there are any initials we can attribute to people we recognise.’

  ‘Aye aye, ma’am.’ I gave her a mock salute.

  I had only got halfway down the first page, which contained the earliest transactions recorded, when Eve pointed to one of the entries. It detailed the sale of a pair of Giovanni Bellini miniatures that Bennett had sold in January of 1962. The figure paid for the paintings was huge even now, but for those days it was an eye-watering sum. Despite Eve’s guiding finger, when I read the details I failed to see what had interested her. The buyer’s initials were followed by the letters US, which together with the dollar symbol I took to mean that the purchaser lived in America. The seller’s initials, JD, also meant nothing to me. I tried to puzzle it out for a few minutes, not helped by Eve’s quiet chuckle, before admitting defeat. ‘OK, I give in.’

  ‘I think Bennett sold those paintings on behalf of Andrew Kershaw or his wife.’

  How Eve had deduced that from the information on display was a complete mystery to me. She was wearing an extremely smug expression as she began her explanation. I would have taken her to task on this, but value my health too much.

  ‘When we looked through this book last time we only concentrated on deals involving Kershaw or Harfleur. We never thought to look for anyone closely connected to them. I believe Bennett sold those miniatures on behalf of Chloe’s mother, using her maiden name to disguise the transaction.’

  ‘Hang on, though, that doesn’t make sense. The initials in the book are JD, which suggests someone whose names begin DJ and we were told that Chloe’s mother’s maiden name was Hunter.’

  Eve’s expression grew smugger. ‘You’re quite correct, Adam, and the rest is only supposition. Debbie Kershaw’s maiden name might well have been Hunter, had she been English, but what if she wasn’t? Everything we’ve heard suggests that Debbie was from abroad, both the fact that she spoke with a slight accent and that we know Kershaw spent a lot of time overseas. We believe he was working as a secret agent, and met Debbie during the course of that work. Do you agree so far?’

  I nodded, the suspicion growing in my mind that Eve was stringing this out to wring the last ounce of enjoyment from her triumph.

  ‘Isn’t it logical to assume that given the political situation back then that the likeliest place for Kershaw to be operating would be on the other side of the Iron Curtain?’

  ‘I suppose so.’ The more I thought about it, the likelier it seemed. ‘Yes, I’ll go along with that, but where does that lead us?’

  ‘Think about it, Adam, which countries immediately spring to mind when someone mentions the Iron Curtain?’

  Yes, she was definitely prolonging my agony. ‘Russia and East Germany, I suppose.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Eve cried. ‘And what is the German word for hunter?’

  ‘Of course! Jäger is German for hunter, which would give the initials DJ for Debbie – or Deborah – Jäger. Eve, that is absolutely brilliant. The inscription on the back of Chloe’s locket contained DJ. I take my hat off to you. Or I would if I was wearing one.’

  ‘Thank you, but we’ve no proof, though. For all we know these paintings could have been sold by someone called Daniel Jones.’

  ‘That might well be true, Eve, but there had to have been a strong reason for Bennett to be scared enough about his safety and anxious enough about the contents of this book to entrust it to Susan. It can’t only be down to the entry regarding the diptych. I think we should check the rest of this book very carefully.’

  Despite a prolonged search, we failed to find anything that could have been remotely connected to Andrew Kershaw or his wife, or for that matter Casper Harfleur. Having secured the ledger in the safe, I suggested that at some stage we should return to Elmfield Grange and confront David and Valerie Kershaw with our findings.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea, Adam,’ Eve demurred. ‘For one thing they weren’t living at the Grange when all this went on, and to be fair we haven’t really got enough to go on yet.’

  I suggested an alternative, which also met with a thumbs-down from Eve. ‘I think we ought to consider something radical like taking everything we know to the police. They might meet with more success than us. Let’s face it, they couldn’t achieve less.’

  ‘I’d agree with you, but I don’t think DS Holmes has the experience or seniority to follow up on sensitive information. Not only that,’ she continued, ‘I imagine someone like Cooper would either run rings around Holmes or put him in his place most emphatically.’

  I had to admit that in both instances Eve was dead right, and it was equally frustrating that we were unable to call on a more senior police officer to assist us with our enquiries.

  We were scheduled to attend Dinsdale Gala and Family Fun Day, but I had reservations about going. ‘It seems that every time we go into Dinsdale somebody either gets murdered or bashed over the head.’

  Eve was surprised by my reluctance. ‘We can’t simply stop going to places just because there might be some trouble. If we carried on at that rate we’d never leave the house.’

  ‘That has its attractions, as long as we lock the door and don’t answer it,’ I told her. ‘We could stay in bed all day and make love.’

  ‘Oh yes, and who would make the gallons of tea and coffee you put away on a daily basis? Or were you thinking of employing a manservant?’

  ‘No, that’s more your side of the family’s style. OK, so that plan is out of the window.’

  ‘Mind you, perhaps one day a week would be fun. I still think we should go to this gala though.’

  I relented, and the following day we set off for the show field. The event was hosted annually as a fundraiser for charity, and the recipients, who varied from year to year, usually benefitted to the tune of several thousand pounds.

  Fortunately, my dire forebodings that we might be acting as agents for the Grim Reaper proved groundless. The only untoward happening was a relatively minor mishap when one of the leading contestants in the sack race ended up with a badly sprained ankle.

  The Gala was well attended, and with the weather set fair, the refreshment stalls, the bars and the ice cream vans were all doing brisk trade. We waited our opportunity and when the queue for the barbecue dwindled, we joined it, where we encountered Scott Martin once again. It seemed he was another regular on the Dinsdale social scene.

  ‘I see I was wrong about David Kershaw,’ the solicitor said after greeting us. ‘Naturally it’s sad what happened to Harfleur, but from what I hear he was killed by the same weapon as Bennett. That tends to destroy the jealousy motive that had Kershaw in the frame according to the police and local gossip.’

  ‘Yes, it does rather put the scandalmongers to shame,’ I agreed, careful not to point out that Martin had been one of those. ‘And as far as we can see it appears to be a complete mystery.’ I paused before adding, ‘You seem to have some good sources of information.’

  Martin tapped the side of his nose. ‘It’s essential to know what’s going on in my line of work. That’s only part of it, though. Extracting the information is an art in itself but there’s far more to it than that. You have to be able to sift it and learn which bits to retain and which to discard as irrelevant.’

  ‘Irrelevant, or of no use to you?’ I asked. ‘It wouldn’t be much good getting a set of facts only to find out that they all worked against you.’

  ‘That’s very true, and I suppose that’s yet another talent entirely. The best advocates can make or break a case as much by what remains inside their briefcase as what is presented to a judge and jury.’

  Such a frank admission of the manipulation of the judicial process shocked Eve far more than it did me. All
in all, almost by default, it seemed that Johnny Pickersgill’s condemnation of the solicitor was now less unreasonable.

  Apart from Martin, we encountered a number of people we knew, including Tom Fox, who seemed rather subdued. I’d noticed him earlier in deep conversation with David Kershaw. Whatever the topic of their discussion had been, it appeared to have little to do with the game of quoits they were watching. As I’d turned my gaze from them I noticed the stranger from the train once more, reinforcing my earlier statement to the effect ‘that man gets everywhere’, which seemed to include social events of all descriptions. Although it wasn’t easy to be certain from the angle I was looking, it appeared that his attention was focused on Chloe Kershaw and Michael Phillips, who were intent on winning a soft toy by testing their angling skills on plastic ducks.

  Eve said, ‘Why don’t we find a seat so we can eat our burgers in comfort?’ She pointed to a newly vacated bench. ‘We’ll need to be quick before someone else grabs it.’

  As I turned to follow her I almost forfeited my refreshment when I collided with another visitor to the gala. I apologised, but without evoking a response. I muttered something about bad manners as I stared after him, and as he turned to one side got a good view of him for the first time. I recalled Chloe’s description of the private detective who had called at Elmfield Grange. ‘I bet that’s the bloke who went to visit Susan Bennett and put the wind up her,’ I told Eve as I took my place alongside her on the bench.

  ‘What bloke, where?’ Eve looked round.

  I pointed to the retreating figure. ‘You won’t be able to tell unless he turns round, but he’s very much as Chloe described him. That chap from the train is also here. He’s over by the side of the big marquee.’

  I pointed across the field, but the figure had vanished. ‘Or rather, he was here until a few minutes ago. That man is like a wraith. Now you see him, now you don’t. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Marjorie Phillips also saw him at the railway station I’d be almost convinced that I was seeing another ghost.’