They Rang Up the Police: A classic murder mystery set in rural England (Inspector Guy Northeast Book 1)

by Joanna Cannan

  Guy’s blue eyes always looked a little blank, but scarcely anything escaped them. He had noticed the movement of her hands and now he said, “Are you married?”

  Elspeth gave a gasp. “Good gracious no. What on earth makes you think so?”

  It wasn’t well done. It wouldn’t have deceived anyone. But there it was. With a laugh, which sounded rather false to him, he said, “Oh, I don’t know. Somehow, you give that impression,” and he went on to discuss the subject of Delia’s clothes; if she had been starting off in a hurry, where would she be likely to hang up, or throw down, her woolen dressing gown?

  “Oh, she would never throw anything down,” said Elspeth, looking happier. “She’s very tidy. She always hangs that dressing gown in her wardrobe; there’s a hook on the back of the door, but she won’t have anything there but her hunting crop. And I don’t think that in any circumstances she would have taken that old woolen thing with her. She only used it when she slept in the garden.”

  There were other questions which Guy wanted to ask, but they were personal ones and on the subject of her own affairs, this angelic looking creature was not, he considered, to be relied upon. He dismissed her, and almost immediately the immaculate and efficient Taylor walked briskly in.

  “Good morning, sir,” said Taylor, although it was she who had opened the front door to him. “A fine day again! I don’t know as I can help you, but I’ll try all I can. I’ve nothing to ’ide. My name’s Patricia Gwendoline Taylor, aged twenty-eight, and I’m parlormaid here. I came with a good reference from the Honorable Mrs. Sprott.”

  “Thank you,” said Guy. “Now, Miss Taylor, what is your own private opinion about this affair?”

  Taylor studied her nails — a virginal occupation, Guy thought, not like that telltale twisting of a recently discarded ring.

  “If you’ll excuse my mentioning such a thing, sir, I should say that there was a member of the stronger sex involved. I’m engaged to be married myself, so I understands these things.”

  “You mean — a married man?”

  “Well, that I can’t say. Either a married man or one in a different walk of life — any’ow someone of whom her mother wouldn’t approve.”

  “Have you any facts to give me, or is this only an idea?”

  “It’s not a very nice thing to say,” replied Taylor, “but, in a way of her own, Miss Delia is one for the men. She ’asn’t got no ‘it,’ I grant you, but she talks about sports and games and gets off that way. She likes young men about the place, too. In my belief, it was that that made her sack her old groom and take on that iggerant young Ames. She’s always out on ’orseback with him or in the stables, and she’s always giving ’im presents. ’Is wife don’t care for it, and I don’t blame ’er.”

  Servants’ gossip, of course. If Guy won a football pool or rose to be Chief Commissioner, he was damned if he’d keep any. Could there be smoke without fire? But what a poor fire! Ames had got home at three o’clock, and Delia had left the Grange before seven and taken the 11:35.

  “All the same,” he said, “I don’t see how Ames could have upset Miss Delia — you know, my own opinion is that she’s suffering from loss of memory. Now, Miss Taylor, while you waited at table, did you ever hear any criticism of Miss Delia from the rest of the family?”

  No, Taylor had never heard any words pass. Very fond of each other the four ladies were — darling this and darling that — in Taylor’s opinion, it was soppy. On the Friday night she had gone to sleep as soon as her head had touched the pillow. Her room was next to Elspeth’s, on the south side of the house and even if she had been awake, she wouldn’t have heard anything.

  So Taylor went away — to get on, she said, with her silver, and, after writing up his notebook, Guy rose and stretched himself. He must look into this unsavory gossip about Ames, and he must delve into the past of poor pretty Elspeth. In the meantime, a nose-round was indicated.

  For everything was still so damnably vague. Go on and ferret out that Delia and her groom were lovers, that Elspeth was married and had six children, that Funge had hung round the Grange till midnight whistling; and where were you? Delia Cathcart had walked through the barrier on the up side platform at Melchester Station in good time for the train at 11:35, and there wasn’t a scrap of evidence to show that any harm had come to her. The only thing to do when a case got into a state like this was, he considered, to empty your mind of your theories, shut your eyes and open your mouth and see what Father Christmas would give you.

  He went out of the front door into the blazing sunshine. Well, of course, it hadn’t been like this when Delia Cathcart, in her striped pajamas and woolen dressing gown, had gone out to sleep on the lawn. Then there had been utter darkness under the tall hedges, moonshine across the glaring gravel and on the lawn. Supposing that someone standing under the hedge had whistled to Delia? She would have got up and gone across the lawn to him and they would have stood in the shadow talking, making plans. “I’ll pick you up soon after seven tomorrow morning,” Willoughby would have said. “If I leave it till later, my wife will have a thousand and one questions to ask. And let’s waste hours of time dawdling about dear old Melchester,” he must have said, “and then we can catch a nice slow train that stops at all the stations. And I don’t like that old woolen dressing gown of yours,” he must have said, “or those pink striped pajamas; when you take them off be sure to hide them — bury them or burn them or wrap them round a stone and throw them into a duck pond.” It was odd how a matter-of-fact fellow like Dawes could support such a theory; but perhaps it wouldn’t have occurred to him to reconstruct the insane conversation, which, if he were right, must have passed between Delia and Captain Willoughby.

  And supposing Ames had been the whistler? The middle of the moonlit lawn was rather an exposed spot for a necking party; again, Delia would have risen from her bed and met him in the shadow of a building or a hedge. A less tidy garden might have told tales, but this damnable lawn was mowed and rolled till it looked like a billiard table and a backbreaking survey of the roots of the hedges yielded nothing.

  Wondering what sort of a fool he must have looked to the maids, whose caps, as he rose from all-fours, bobbed away from the windows, Guy straightened his back and abandoning the lawn walked out of the wicket gate and towards the stable. Flavia’s loose box was empty and Ames was nowhere to be seen, so it was to be assumed that he was out exercising her.

  Seizing this heaven-sent opportunity, Guy walked into the forage room and into the harness room that opened out of it. Ames smoked Park Drives, read John Bull and was an indifferent tack cleaner. He collected cigarette cards, followed greyhound racing, and took more pride than you would have guessed in his personal appearance. That was all.

  Guy came out into the sunshine. The messy bit of ground at the side of the stable was quite a relief from the rather suburban tidiness of the rest of the property. Here were ladders, an old hen coop, the garden roller, and the midden was piled high against the wall of the stable. There was good stuff at the bottom of it, the countryman observed, but the top argued sinful extravagance; for some time — probably since the old groom had left — an unnecessary amount of straw had been taken from the manure out of the loose boxes. Ames was extravagant and — vide Taylor and Jessie — Delia had been too infatuated to check him.

  Well, this piece of ground wasn’t a romantic meeting place, but it was a good place to hang about: you could approach by Lovers’ Lane, walk in at the five barred gate and slip up the back drive into the shadow of the shrubbery. Tired after your day’s work, you would lean against the stable wall, smoke a cigarette and throw the fag end on the midden. But that was five days ago! With one horse stabled, at least ten barrow loads had been piled on since then, and Ames had probably pitched dozens and dozens of cigarette ends there as he went backwards and forwards on his lawful occasions.

  Then Guy, looking at the midden, saw something which might have escaped the eye of a sharper man. Above the heap, the usu
al cloud of tiny flies was swarming, but, crawling up the stable wall, circling round, returning and crawling back into the straw, were half a dozen large lazy blowflies. There shouldn’t have been anything in the midden to attract blowflies; no gentleman’s groom or gardener but only the most untidy negligent people would throw a carcass there. But perhaps it was a dead rat or a sparrow. Guy took a pitch-fork, which was against the wall, mounted the heap and began to turn the straw over.

  The first he saw of Delia Cathcart was her hand with a gold signet ring on it and the sleeve of her brownish woolen dressing gown. He wasn’t squeamish, but in the sunshine, with the fantails cooing, it was rather horrible, and he stopped forking while his stomach settled. Then, with more caution, he set to work removing the top layers and, when he had used his hands to scoop away the manure, which had dropped through his pitchfork, there she lay with open eyes, blankly gazing at him. Rigor mortis had long passed; she lay limply with her arms outstretched, as though crucified.

  Guy got down from the midden and went quickly through the yard into the harness room. There he found a horse rug, which he took back and laid over the body. Then he walked up the drive to the house. The front door stood open and, as he passed through the hall, he could hear voices in the drawing room.

  He knocked at the door, and was told to come in. Sheila, at the piano, was poring over a page of music; Nancy, seated on the sofa, was darning a stocking.

  He said, “I wonder if I might telephone?”

  Sheila said, “Oh, certainly,” but neither she nor her sister moved, and he had to say, “Could I have the room to myself for a minute?”

  “Oh — I’m sorry,” stammered Sheila. “Come along, Nancy. We’ll camp in the dining room, shall we, darling?”

  Nancy gathered her things together with exasperating slowness, and Sheila, picking up The Times, turned over a vase of flowers and cried out that she must fetch a cloth and mop up the water. Guy said his handkerchief would do, sacrificed a clean one, and at last got quit of them. Then, on thorns lest Ames should return to the stable in his absence, he made haste to call the Melchester Police Station.

  “Northeast speaking. I say, sir…”

  “Oh, it’s you, is it?” said the Superintendent. “Want to know if the Yard have rung you up? Well, they haven’t. I must say they’re taking their time…”

  “It wasn’t that. It was to tell you that I’ve just found Miss Cathcart’s body.”

  “Good lord! Where?”

  “At the Grange. Buried in the midden, sir. Will you come along with the whole boiling? You’ll attract less attention if you turn up Lovers’ Lane and come in the back way. Now, I must get back. I don’t like leaving the body.”

  He jammed down the receiver and tiptoed across the room, anxious not to be delayed by questions from Sheila or Nancy. As he passed through the hall, the dining-room door opened and Sheila’s voice behind him said, “Oh — Mr. Northeast…” but he ignored her and, listening tensely for the sound of hoofs, hurried back to the stable.

  The yard, as before, was deserted. On the brown roof the fantails cooed; a pair of them, flying across to the fir trees, broke the silence with the sound of wings, and their blue shadows swept across the cobbles. Beyond the yew hedges and the lawn the white house stood solid and comfortable; Delia Cathcart had had most things — money in her pocket, country life, the affection of her family, good living, servants to wait on her, horses in her stable — what had gone wrong that someone had so hated her? Well, say she’d missed love and, because she’d been too stupid to see that life’s only a chapter, she’d snatched and grabbed, thinking that was the way to gather roses. Into whose garden had she trespassed? Gerda Willoughby’s? That poseuse could kid herself into anything. Haggard Mrs. Ames’s? Was it a woman’s crime anyway?

  ****

  A car hooted. Guy hurried down the back drive to the gate. Dawes climbed out of the small blue police car. His jaw was thrust forward. He looked stern, determined and in charge.

  “I’ve brought a couple of constables,” he snapped, indicating the huge figures clambering out of the car with difficulty. “The fingerprint man and the photographer are just behind. Ambulance on its way. Doctor Baker should be here, and I’ve phoned the Chief Constable. Where’s the body?”

  “This way,” said Guy and led him to the midden.

  “Well,” said Dawes, looking unmoved on the limp body, “that settles it. We know what we’re up against now, Inspector. Murder!” Guy was unreasonably irritated. He said, “Or manslaughter.”

  “Oh, naturally,” said Dawes, “but not loss of memory. Hullo, that sounds like Doctor Baker.”

  The police surgeon was a little man with a skipping step and a fussy manner. Shepherded by one of the outsize constables, he sprang, elflike, from the laurels. “Tch, tch,” he said. “Miss Delia Cathcart. I’ve played tennis with her.”

  He skipped over to the midden and began a quick examination, chirping, “Tch, tch,” and, “Dear me, dear me,” and “A bad business!” Then, “Bluntish instrument,” he said, “but with an edge to it — I’d say a hatchet that needed sharpening. One blow, struck slightly from above, and she died at once. Oh yes, oh yes, a blunt hatchet.”

  Guy asked, “And when…?”

  “Can’t tell you that, my dear man. Much too late to give more than a guess, and guessing doesn’t help anybody.”

  “But very roughly…”

  “She’s been dead four or five days.”

  “She was missed on Saturday morning,” said Guy, “and she was last seen by her family on Friday evening, but there’s some evidence that she was alive at eleven-thirty on Saturday.”

  “Can’t confirm that,” said the doctor. “Can’t deny it, either. Sorry, can’t help you. Delia Cathcart. Dear me, dear me. A bad business.” His last words were drowned by a roar from the shrubbery, “Where’s Dawes? Where’s Northeast? Come along, man, move to it!” and, followed by a beetroot-faced constable, the Chief Constable, dressed in white flannels, a dark blue jacket, a Panama hat and a regimental tie, came striding towards them.

  Dawes sprang to attention. “Glad I caught you, sir,” he said. “I rang you as soon as Inspector Northeast reported finding the body. There it is, sir.”

  “Good God,” said the Chief Constable. “On the midden!”

  Dawes continued: “Doctor Baker gives as the cause of death a blow from a bluntish instrument, probably a hatchet.”

  “Good God. And the time?”

  “Four or five days ago.”

  “Good God, Doctor, is that all you can do for us?”

  “That’s all, Major. Much too late, you see. No use guessing.” The Chief Constable swung round on Guy.

  “Well, Northeast, who did it?”

  Guy did his best. “I picked up a lot of useful information this morning, sir. I suggest that when the body’s been removed, we have a talk in the harness room. And, by the way, sir, what about breaking it to the family?”

  The Chief Constable growled, “That can wait, can’t it?”

  “I don’t think so, sir. They’ve only got to look out of one of the upstairs windows and they’ll see the ambulance. Besides, one of the young ladies might come strolling down here.”

  “Good God! That wouldn’t do. I suppose you want me to break it?”

  “I think that would be best, sir. After all, you know them socially.”

  The Chief Constable made no reply but braced his shoulders and, with the look of a man who doesn’t shrink from an unpleasant duty, went striding off towards the house. Acting his part, thought Guy, and wished he had one. It must be a help in life, he thought, to have a character to live up to; to be Carruthers, a soldier and a gentleman, or Dawes, a man of iron and thunder. They knew where they were, those people.

  The police surgeon, skipping up to Dawes, said, “You’ll want a P.M., I suppose, Superintendent?”

  “Sure.”

  “Right. Right. I’ll get through with that this evening and I’ll let you have a rep
ort tonight or first thing tomorrow. I doubt if there’ll be much more to tell you. Miss Delia Cathcart. Yes, yes. A bad business. Extraordinary thing to happen.”

  He chirped on, but above his voice Guy had caught the sound of hoofs — eager hoofs, stepping delicately down the high road. The photographers were busy with their cameras and the ambulance men were standing ready; Dawes was making some reply to the Doctor, so Guy faded off down the path and met Ames at the gate. Flavia was fussing about the cars in the Lane, and Ames, with an angry scowl on his face, was kicking her along, impatient of her affected terror. Guy spoke to the mare. She promptly lost interest in the cars and quieted down.

  Guy said to Ames, “The police are in charge here now. I’d be obliged if you’d turn that mare out in the paddock.”

  “Can’t do that,” said the groom sulkily. “She’s standing in by Miss Cathcart’s orders.”

  “I told you that the police were in charge here,” said Guy evenly. “Put the mare out and then you can get off to your dinner.”

  “I can’t put her in the paddock, sir,” said the groom with a change of manner. “She and Skylark will be kicking. I could put her in the orchard, here.”

  “That’ll do.”

  The groom opened a gate on the left, which led into an apple orchard. He unsaddled Flavia, took off her bridle, and, as she spun round to gallop off, gave a slash with his switch at her hind quarters. It was a small thing, but Guy, who had once had his ears boxed for swishing a halter behind a pony he’d unloosed, knew at once that there was some truth in the gossip he’d listened to that morning — it wasn’t for his way with horses that Ames had kept his place as groom to Miss Delia Cathcart.

  “All right,” he said. “You can go down the lane. I’ll take the saddle and bridle.”

  “Anything wrong, sir?” asked Ames, shooting a quick dark glance at him.