Hasty Death

by M C Beaton

  ‘But, Dad!’

  ‘Do as you’re told or I’ll take my belt to you!’

  The motor car and body were slowly winched up out of the Thames.

  Philip’s face was red with excitement. ‘Let’s get this back afore anyone sees us,’ he said. ‘Hop in the tractor.’

  ‘But, Dad, the body.’

  ‘I’ll tell you about that.’

  Philip drove carefully back to his smithy, looking carefully left to right to make sure no one was watching. It was still very early and his smithy was on the outskirts of the village.

  Outside the smithy, he unhitched the motor car and pushed it inside. ‘Now, you,’ he said ferociously to his son, ‘not a word of this or I’ll beat the living daylights out of you. Run along. You say one word and I’ll get to hear of it. Poor gentleman probably was drunk and drove straight into the river.’

  The boy scampered off. Philip shut the double doors of the smithy and locked and bolted them. Then he stood and stared at the car in delight. It was a Spyker six-cylinder engine, four-wheel drive. Other cars only had rear-wheel brakes. He had seen a photograph of it in the London Illustrated News showing it parked outside the Crystal Palace. The Spyker factory was in Trompenburg, Amsterdam. The family name was Spijker, but the firm’s name was Spyker, largely because the motor cars were exported to English-speaking countries.

  He was itching to get to work on it, but first he had to get rid of that body. He unlocked the doors of the smithy and peered out. No one around. He went to the stables and hitched up the pony to the trap. Then, with his powerful arms, he lugged the dead and wet body of McWhirter and threw it in the back and covered it with sacking. The river had washed the blood away and swollen the corpse, so he did not, in his excitement, notice the bullet-hole in the back. He relocked the smithy and left a note on the door to say he would be back later.

  He set off, driving steadily through the sunny, leafy lanes, his heart singing with gladness. There was a generous God in heaven who had sent him a Spyker.

  He made a leisurely journey, stopping often to rest and water the pony. At last he saw a thickly wooded area beside the main road with a sandy track running into it and drove along the track to where the trees and underbrush were dense.

  He heaved the body out of the cart and carried it over to a large tree and propped it up against the trunk. The dead man was wearing an expensive watch but he decided not to take it. The beautiful car was enough. He would tell the villagers that a gentleman had left it with him for repairs and had never come back.

  The following morning Mr Jerry awoke with a groan. His head ached and he could hear the pounding of the breakfast gong. Normally guests rose when they felt like it, but this was Sunday and Lady Glensheil was determined that all should breakfast early and go to church.

  Little flashes of his behaviour at the dinner table came into his mind and he groaned and pulled the quilt up over his ears. No doubt his wife would be in shortly to scream at him. Until then, he would enjoy as much peace and quiet as he could.

  His valet entered quietly and said, ‘Wake up, sir. Her ladyship wishes your presence in the dining-room.’

  ‘Tell her I’m sick,’ he moaned. ‘Tell her I’m dead.’

  ‘What about Mrs Trumpington? Her lady’s maid says her door is locked and she cannot rouse her.’

  ‘She’s probably dead as well. Go away!’

  He tried to get to sleep again, but, aware of another presence in the room, feebly opened his eyes.

  His wife’s maid, Bartlett, was looming over him. She was a powerful woman and he was almost as frightened of her as he was of his wife.

  ‘What are you doing in my room?’ he demanded, struggling up against the pillows and then groaning and clutching his head.

  ‘I cannot get into madam’s room. The door is locked and she expressly told me to rouse her in time for the church service.’

  ‘I’m sure they’ve got spare keys to all the rooms in the servants’ quarters. Now, leave me alone !’

  The church was small and old, smelling strongly of essence of villager, because the sun striking in through the stained-glass window was heating up the crowded congregation.

  The vicar was frightened of Lady Glensheil, and in an effort to please her had written a very long sermon indeed. And as the sermon had to do with helping the poor and Lady Glensheil firmly believed the poor had brought their poverty on themselves by drink and gambling, she glared at the vicar from under the shadow of an enormous straw hat laden with waxed fruit. Lady Glensheil was often attacked by petty meanness and she had instructed her maid to take the waxed fruit out of the bowl on the dining-room sideboard and attach it to her black straw hat. Although the maid had stitched diligently, attaching the fruit by putting a net over each piece, each item was heavy. A banana detached itself and fell on to Lady Glensheil’s lap, to be followed by an apple.

  ‘I wish something would happen to make that tiresome man finish his sermon,’ she said.

  The door of the church suddenly burst open and Bartlett rushed in, shrieking, ‘She’s dead! My mistress is dead. He killed her!’

  That shut the vicar up. The congregation sprang to its feet.

  ‘Good thing Kerridge is here,’ said Harry, who was next to Rose. ‘I’ll go and fetch him.’

  Mr Jerry had risen and locked his own bedroom door. He climbed back into bed and sank down under the covers. Peace at last.

  Then he heard a frantic rattling at the doorknob and Bartlett crying, ‘Murderer. I’m getting the police.’

  ‘Ghastly rotten, rotten creature,’ he muttered. He closed his eyes and blessed sleep came at last.

  He awoke half an hour later. Someone was shaking him. He blinked and looked up. Detective Superintendent Kerridge, having obtained the spare key from the servants’ hall and flanked by Captain Cathcart, was staring down at him.

  ‘What the blazes . . .’ he began.

  ‘Please get dressed, sir,’ said Kerridge. ‘Your wife is dead.’

  ‘She is? I mean, how? Choke on some food? Always was a greedy woman.’

  ‘No, sir. Mrs Trumpington has been strangled.’

  ‘Good Gad! Here, hand me that dressing-gown. Where’s my man? I must get shaved.’

  ‘Mr Trumpington, that can wait. We have questions we must ask you immediately.’

  Now thoroughly frightened and with his mind racing, Mr Jerry got out of bed and put on his dressing-gown and slippers. What had happened last night? What had he done? He could remember her shouting at him. Then all was blank.

  While he sat down in his private sitting-room, Harry went back into the bedroom. Mrs Jerry was lying there, her eyes protruding and her tongue sticking out. He averted his eyes and turned his attention to the bedside table. There was a champagne bottle there. He peered down into it. It was empty. He looked down into the wastepaper basket.

  There were several scrunched-up pieces of paper and a champagne cork. He smoothed out the pieces of paper but they were merely notes reminding Mrs Jerry about jobs to give to her maid, like mending a tear in a gown and checking the inventory of the lace box.

  Two local policemen entered the room. ‘What are you doing here, sir?’

  ‘I have the superintendent’s permission.’ Harry was about to turn away, but then he frowned and stooped and picked up the champagne cork. He looked at the dead body again. She hadn’t struggled. Although fat, she had been a powerful woman. Surely she would have thrashed around as she fought for her life.

  He produced a magnifying glass from his pocket and studied the cork. There was a little hole in the top. He went quickly into the sitting-room and interrupted Kerridge’s interrogation of Mr Jerry.

  ‘Come over here to the window,’ said Harry, ‘and look at this. Here, take my magnifying glass.’

  Kerridge peered at it. ‘What’s up with it?’

  ‘That tiny little hole. She didn’t struggle. She may have been drugged. Someone could have taken a hypodermic syringe and injected some sort o
f drug into the bottle.’

  ‘But why go to such lengths?’

  ‘To stop her making a noise.’

  ‘We’ll need to wait for the results of a full postmortem to find out. I wonder how the door got locked on the inside.’

  ‘Easy,’ said Harry. ‘Bartlett said she got the spare key from the servants’ hall. Therefore our murderer must have done the same thing. Maybe he meant to return later and make sure he hadn’t left any clues.’

  ‘Were you all in church?’

  ‘All except Mr Trumpington here. Look at him. I really think he was out for the count all night. Oh, I’ve just remembered something. He told the dinner table last night that he knew about the blackmail and that he would pay a fortune for the evidence against his wife.’

  ‘How did he know?’

  ‘Lady Rose told him.’

  ‘I should arrest him now.’

  ‘If it were simply a matter of her being strangled in a drunken rage, perhaps I might believe he did it. But I firmly believe she was drugged first.’

  Kerridge turned to the crumpled figure of Mr Jerry. ‘Go to your room, sir. We will wish to question you further.’

  ‘Come into the bedroom,’ said Harry. ‘As far as I remember, there wasn’t a glass.’

  ‘Maybe the maid took it away.’

  But when Bartlett was summoned, she said she had not touched anything.

  ‘No glass,’ mused Harry. ‘Of course she was greedy enough to drink from the bottle. It must have been someone she knew and wasn’t frightened of.’

  ‘Like the husband?’

  ‘I’m sure it’s someone else.’ Harry went to the window and opened it. Then he bent and sniffed.

  ‘Smell this. I think after she had been drugged, our murderer poured the contents of the champagne that was left out into the garden and some of it splashed on the sill.’

  ‘There are reinforcements arriving,’ said Kerridge. ‘I’ll have all their rooms searched.’

  ‘Tell your men to look for a hypodermic’

  ‘You should have put gloves on before you touched that window.’

  Harry sighed. ‘If you think this lot are going to let you take their fingerprints without a direct order from the prime minister, then you are very much mistaken.’

  ‘I wish I were a man,’ said Rose fiercely to Daisy.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Captain Cathcart is up there with the police, being informed of everything. We just have to wait until he deigns to tell us something.’

  ‘I wonder why she was killed?’ said Daisy. ‘If she was killed and didn’t choke to death shoving food in her mouth.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s murder. I wonder if she knew who the murderer of Freddy Pomfret was. Just suppose he collected the evidence against her when he shot Freddy and decided to do a bit of blackmailing himself. He goes to her and she tells him she’s had enough and is going to tell the police. What else could he do but murder her?’

  ‘I wish we could get out of here,’ mourned Daisy. ‘I’m frightened to death, I can tell you. Telby Castle seems exciting now, looking back on that murder last year, but at the time I was scared and unhappy, and I’m scared and unhappy now.’

  Rose gave her a quick hug and Daisy looked at her in surprise. Rose was normally not given to demonstrations of affection.

  ‘I sent a footman off with a telegram to my parents,’ said Rose, ‘which means that they will shortly arrive to remove me from here as soon as possible and the field will be left to Captain Cathcart.’

  ‘The press will be here soon as well,’ said Daisy.

  ‘Perhaps not. I think that Scotland Yard will want to keep this quiet as long as possible.’

  ‘They can’t,’ said Daisy. ‘All the village was there when that maid burst into the church crying murder.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve just thought of something.’ Rose bit her lip in vexation. ‘They’ll be searching all around the countryside just in case it was someone from outside. What if they come across McWhirter’s body in the Thames? Then it will all come out, me being in the asylum.’

  Far away, a poacher was making his way through a thick wood. He had no fear of meeting a keeper. The keepers hardly ever patrolled these woods and his pockets were empty of game.

  He came across a dead man propped up against a tree. He stood stock-still. Crows and foxes had already begun their destructive work. And then he noticed how the sunlight shafting through the trees glinted on the gold watch on the man’s wrist. He bent down and removed it and tucked it into his rags. Then he searched the pockets and found a wallet in the inside pocket. The money inside was wet. He scratched his head. It hadn’t been raining for days. Still, the notes could be dried out.

  He felt the cloth of the man’s motoring coat. Good material. It would fetch a bit at the pawn.

  He rolled the body until he got the coat off. A good coat and trousers and silk waistcoat were revealed.

  He looked quickly around, but the wood was completely silent. He busily got to work. The river had washed all the blood away and he was disappointed to find a hole in the back of the coat. But, undeterred, he stripped off and dressed himself in the corpse’s clothes and then, heaving and panting, dressed the corpse in his own rags.

  Then, gagging slightly at the smell from the already decomposing body, he dragged it farther deep into the wood and covered it with leaves.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Harry reassured a still worried Rose later that day. ‘Becket and I took the body really far away and the water was deep and black.’

  Rose said, ‘The water would be black at night. What if it’s clear during the day?’

  ‘Oh, it’ll be fine,’ said Harry, although he suddenly felt uneasy. ‘Have you been interviewed yet?’

  She shook her head. They were standing together outside the house on the front lawn. A tendril of hair floated loose from Rose’s elaborate hair-style. He felt a tug at his heart but quickly reminded himself how infuriating Rose could be with her unfeminine independence.

  Harry had told her as much as he knew.

  ‘If only it could have been someone from outside,’ said Rose. ‘Have you seen Daisy?’

  ‘I think she’s talking to Becket.’

  ‘She is not much use as a companion at times. She should be on duty.’

  ‘Not the little radical you try to be,’ said Harry. ‘When the chips are down, you are as class-ridden as anyone in society.’

  ‘That is not true, you hateful man.’

  Harry looked ruefully after her as she walked away.

  A footman came out of the house and said Lady Glensheil wished to speak to him.

  Her ladyship was in the morning-room. Mr Jerry was sitting on a sofa beside her and she was holding his hand.

  ‘Ah, here you are,’ she trumpeted. ‘Not much of a detective, are you?’

  ‘There was no way I could anticipate this murder,’ protested Harry. ‘Mrs Trumpington was a suspect. . . I’m sorry, Jerry.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said gloomily. ‘If she hadn’t been murdered and left me as the prime suspect I would be celebrating, and there’s no use pretending otherwise. She wasn’t always like that, you know. When I married her, she was a pretty little slip of a thing and I thought myself the luckiest man in England. Don’t get married, Harry. They all turn out the same.’

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ said Lady Glensheil frostily. ‘I am married.’

  ‘But Glensheil’s never around, is he?’ said Mr Jerry, made tactless in his distress.

  ‘Never mind that. Captain Harry, you must do something about this dreadful business before we are all murdered in our beds.’

  ‘I will do my best. Kerridge is a brilliant policeman.’

  ‘Nonsense, the man’s as thick as two planks.’

  ‘His manner and appearance are deceptive.’

  The butler entered. ‘The police wish to interview you now, my lady. They are in the estate office, as you wished.’

  ‘Very well.’ She rose majest
ically to her feet and adjusted her hat. After having given her lady’s maid a row over the waxed-fruit disaster, Lady Glensheil had changed all her clothes, feeling that a new outfit was called for in such distressing circumstances. Lady Glensheil never went hatless during the day. She was wearing a broad-brimmed felt hat decorated with a stuffed seagull with small ruby eyes.

  She turned in the doorway and glared at Harry. ‘Do something,’ she snapped. ‘You’re a detective, so detect!’

  After she had gone, Harry turned to Mr Jerry. ‘Have you the slightest idea what your wife could have been up to that would make her the target of blackmail?’

  ‘Can’t think.’

  ‘Could she have been having an affair?’

  ‘I don’t know. I was in India last year for a few months. Maybe then. But who would want her?’

  ‘It’s the evidence that Freddy had. Did the murderer find it? Or did Freddy have it hidden somewhere?’

  ‘Blessed if I know. Wait a bit. We put valuables in safe-deposit boxes at the bank.’

  ‘Surely the police thought of that when they were going through his bank accounts.’

  ‘Might have come under a different department at the bank.’

  ‘I’ll use the phone. Blast! There isn’t one, and its Sunday anyway. I’d better see Kerridge.’

  Harry nearly collided with Lady Glensheil as she emerged from the estate office.

  ‘Have you done anything yet?’ she demanded.

  ‘Give me time,’ said Harry patiently.

  He went into the office. Kerridge was seated behind a desk, with Inspector Judd, stationed in a corner, holding a large notebook on his knee.

  ‘I’ve just had an idea,’ said Harry. ‘Look, Pomfret may have put any blackmail evidence in a safe-deposit box at the bank.’

  ‘Lady Rose Summer,’ announced the policeman who was on duty outside the door.

  ‘Come in and sit down, Lady Rose,’ said Kerridge. He thought she looked a picture. She was wearing a white lace blouse with a high boned collar and a dark skirt of some silky material which rustled when she walked.

  ‘No,’ he said to Harry. ‘We did check that. Mr Pomfret did not have a safe-deposit box.’

  ‘Now that Mrs Trumpington is dead,’ said Rose, ‘perhaps it might be an idea to check if Mrs Stockton or Lord Alfred have been paying out any large sums of money recently. You see, if whoever murdered Freddy took blackmail material, he might have decided to go into business himself.’