by Bruce, Leo
He left the house soon afterwards feeling depressed and frustrated. He decided to leave Gladhurst at once and return to his own house. His suspicions were turning to conviction, though he had very little concrete evidence behind him.
“The hell of a case,” he thought. “All in the air and what little comes down to earth is nasty. And only one way to proceed, press and press for the truth till it takes its ugly shape.”
“Really, Sir, you look quite done up,” said Mrs Stick when he was at last in his own armchair. “I wish you wouldn’t overdo it. We shall have you on our hands ill again if you go on like this. You’re burning the candle at both ends, what with flying over to that place and doing your school work as well.”
“I’m all right. What are you going to give me to eat, Mrs Stick?”
“I’ve got a nice green pea puray to start with and I’m just going to fry the cruttons for it. Then there’s a tiny bit of sole and a fricassay of veal. You’d like a bottle of the Shatto Margo, wouldn’t you?”
“Wonderful. You’re an angel, Mrs Stick.”
“I don’t know about an angel but if someone didn’t look after you I don’t know where you’d be. Poking about with corpses all day—it’s not natural. I was only saying to Stick….”
“You’re not an angel if you don’t bring my dinner.”
“All right. I’ll be ten minutes because I won’t be hurried when it’s taken trouble.”
“Where’s the wine?”
“Here it is, of course. You wanted it shombray, didn’t you?”
Carolus forgot the irate old women and the lying young ones for a blissful hour. Then, when he had lit a cigar, he began to make curious half-decipherable notes.
12
BURLEY was an unbeautiful town lying in the midst of a pleasant countryside, like Ashford in Kent or Didcot in Berkshire. It consisted for the most part of streets of medium-sized houses though there were a few more pretentious ones and some slummy little roads of cottages. There was a cattle market and a few uninteresting industries, several Victorian Gothic churches, a fine collection of red-brick chapels, a new town hall and a palatial public lavatory in the town’s strategic centre.
Carolus had the address of Dundas Griggs but had been warned that he lived in rooms and was scarcely ever in. When he had asked Mrs Bobbin what was her nephew’s occupation she had been rather vague.
“Dundas? Oh he’s always busy with schemes of one sort or another. Knows everyone. Always trying something new. What is called a live wire, I believe, though it doesn’t seem to get him anywhere.”
Carolus went to his address and found it a solid house called Maitland Villa. His enquiry for Mr Griggs led to a flood of information from a woman with a toupée and glasses.
“No, he hasn’t been home since he went out this morning. He’s often in about this time but you can never tell with him. He’s here, there and everywhere. I tell you where you might find him—round at the Oak Café. There’s two or three of them often in there together at teatime. If not, you could try Mr Priestley’s office. Or Maugham’s the tobacconist’s, where he gets his cigarettes and sometimes stops for a chat. Of course, you never know, he may have driven out to Burnside where the new estate’s going up because he’s been popping over there for something or other. But I think you’ll find him in the Oak Café.”
“Thank you,” said Carolus, making for the gate. But he knew, only too well, the symptoms of tautology.
“If not he’s sure to be at Priestley’s. He goes in there almost every day. That’s the estate agent’s just at the bottom of the High Street. If you do miss him there you ask Mr Maugham not three doors away. I don’t think he’ll have gone out to Burnside.”
“No. Well, thank you….”
Carolus had got the gate half open but it was an optimistic gesture.
“Tell you what, though, he might have decided to have his hair cut. If so it’ll be at Cronin’s on the way to the cattle-market. He was saying he needed a haircut so perhaps that’s where he’s gone. They don’t close till six, so there’d be time for him to have gone to the Oak Café first. That’s where you’ll find him. It’s not very far, if you take this road and keep left at the fork. You’ll see it Up—‘Oak Café’ on your right. They’ll tell you in there if he’s been in.”
“Thank you,” said Carolus, firmly crossing to his car.
“Or else Priestley’s office,” he heard as he climbed into it. “Or if not …”
“Good-bye!” called Carolus cheerfully as he started the engine.
The manageress of the Oak Café was a stately person in black who addressed most of her remarks to the girl in the cash desk.
“Mr Griggs? Isn’t that the gentleman who usually sits with Mr Mortimer and Mr Conolly? Yes, I know. He’s left, hasn’t he? “She turned to Carolus. “He’s left,” she said.
“Long ago?”
“Was it long ago?” the manageress asked the young lady in the cash desk. “It would be about ten minutes,” she said when she had received a reply.
“No idea where he was going?”
“Do you know where he was going?” the manageress asked her assistant. “No, I’m afraid I can’t say where he was going.”
Priestley’s, ‘the estate agents at the bottom of the High Street’, were scarcely more informative.
“No, not been in here this afternoon, old man,” said a tall, thin character in checks who was smoking a pipe which jumped when he talked. “Very often comes in here about this time but he hasn’t been in today. I don’t know where you’ll get hold of him. Tried Maugham’s, the tobacconist’s? But I shouldn’t have thought he’d have gone there without coming here. It’s only a few doors away.”
Behind the counter of Maugham’s was a fair-haired youngish man with a neat moustache.
“Griggs? In here a few minutes ago. In a hurry about something. Bought his cigarettes and was off without waiting to see today’s Results. No, I don’t know where you’d find him now. Unless he’s back at where he lives, Maitland Villa in the Gladhurst Road. I can tell you where he’ll almost certainly be after opening time, that’s the Saloon Bar of the Chequers. Just opposite the Town Hall.”
It was not difficult to find Cronin’s, the hairdressers ‘on the way to the cattle-market’ but an elderly barber at the chair nearest the door, while never ceasing to snip at a small boy’s hair, gave Carolus no encouragement.
“I know the gentleman you mean,” he said. “If he’d gone anywhere to get his hair cut it would have been here. But we haven’t seen him this afternoon. He may come in presently, of course. I know he wants a haircut because he told me so in the street yesterday. Hold still. There’s a good boy. If you’d like to wait….”
“No, thank you very much. I must go on.”
It had occurred to Carolus that rather than pursue Dundas Griggs when he was reasonably sure to find him ‘after opening time’, he could fill in the remaining hour by trying to confirm Mrs Rumble’s rather extraordinary story about Grazia Vaillant. He made for Forster’s Stores.
Yet when he was alone with the manager in a small office at the back he suddenly realized how impertinent and irrelevant his enquiry must seem. The manager seemed a kindly type but Carolus felt he must approach the matter with care.
“Look here,” he said. “I don’t want you to answer my questions if they go against the grain. They’ll seem rather cheek to you. The truth is I’m a private detective trying to get at the truth in the matter of an old lady’s death at Gladhurst.”
“Oh yes, I’ve read the case.”
“I’ve been at Gladhurst some weeks, on and off, and I must say I find it a hotbed of scandal and malice. One story told me is about a customer of yours, a Miss Vaillant.”
“I know Miss Vaillant.”
“Someone informs me that Miss Vaillant has started secretly swigging gin. It may be nothing to do with the case but it may have a connection.”
“I understand.”
“I am told she gets h
er gin here in single bottles which she takes away more or less surreptitiously.”
“I don’t see why I shouldn’t tell you, though I depend upon you to treat the information as strictly in confidence. It is perfectly true. Horseley’s. In oval-shaped bottles which she slips in her shopping bag.”
“That’s kind of you.”
“Tell you something else. The lady who was murdered has been a customer of ours ever since I came to the shop as a boy. She has never been known to order anything alcoholic till about a week before her death. Then she came in and asked me for a bottle of the same, ‘for purely medicinal purposes’, she said. So I suppose she had started having a little quiet one sometimes, too.”
“Looks like it. Thanks awfully and I’ll respect your confidence.”
“That’s all right.”
Carolus felt he should give some further explanation.
“You see, if they simply ordered gin or Scotch or anything else there would be nothing to it. Even if they didn’t want it themselves it might be for entertaining. But when two elderly women who spend most of their time in activities connected with the parish church suddenly start secretly drinking gin, knocking it back when they’re alone, hiding it from their servants, it does seem rather significant.”
“Well, there it is. We haven’t sold a bottle to Miss Vaillant since the other old lady died, by the way.”
“Perhaps that’s sobered her. Good-bye and thanks.”
On the stroke of six o’clock the Saloon Bar of the Chequers was opened and Carolus walked in, the first customer. An enthusiastic young woman behind the bar served him.
“I’m waiting for Mr Griggs,” said Carolus.
He’s sure to be in presently,” said the barmaid, leaning across towards Carolus.
“I don’t know him by sight. Will you point him out to me?”
“Of course I will. The moment he comes in.”
As the room began to fill and Carolus received no sign from the barmaid he grew impatient. At half-past six he asked the girl if Griggs had come in.
“Not yet. I can’t understand it. He’s always in at this time. Wait a minute. I’ll see if anyone knows. Mr Durrell! D’you know where Mr Griggs is?”
Mr Durrell was telling a story and did not like being interrupted.
“Haven’t seen him,” he said curtly.
“Oh dear, someone must know. He often goes in to Huxley’s the bookmaker’s to put something on a horse. Have you see him, Mr Huxley?”
“Not today, I haven’t.”
An informative gentleman broke in.
“Tell you where you’re sure to find him. Round at the Queen Charlotte. I know he had to go in there because he was meeting Balchin the builder. Or if not….”
“Thank you,” said Carolus. “But I’m not going to start that routine again. I’ll wait here till he shows up.”
The barmaid blinked reproachfully.
“Mr Hemingway’s sure to know,” she said. “If he says Mr Griggs is round at the Queen Charlotte you can be sure he is.”
“Thank you. I’ll wait and chance it.”
“Mr Powys might know …” suggested the barmaid.
“I’ll wait.”
He was rewarded at last, because at half-past seven a thin jocular man, all neck and wrists, long teeth and chuckles, came in and was told from all sides that Carolus was waiting for him.
“Me? Certainly. Oh yes. My aunt’s murder. We’ll sit over here. What are you having? I’ve had a very busy day. You know what it is rushing round?”
“I do indeed,” said Carolus, with some feeling.
“I heard someone was looking for me. I thought it was in connection with a piece of property I happen to know about. Cheerio. Yes, Aunt Milly’s death. Terrible, wasn’t it? At her age. Have a cigarette? I don’t know. There’s an awful lot of violence in the papers. When it happens in a small village it seems worse, somehow. (I’ll be with you in a minute, Mr Waugh. I’ve got that estimate for you.) I was quite upset when I heard about it….”
“When did you hear about it?”
“The murder, you mean? I can’t just remember now. Must have been the day after it happened. That’s right. My landlady told me. She’d heard on the telephone. Someone had rung me up and she’d taken the message.”
“You knew nothing the same night? The Thursday night, I mean?”
“Thursday? No. How could I? No one knew till next morning.”
“What time did you get back from Gladhurst that evening?”
“Gladhurst?”
“Gladhurst.”
“Oh, that. Yes, I just popped over to see the old ladies. Little proposition I had to suggest. Business. Nothing of consequence.”
“And did you see them?”
“No. None of them. But there was a rather extraordinary thing. I reached the house about half-past four. That was the time they liked one to call. As soon as I got in the drive I saw lights on so I thought it was all right. One of them was in, anyway. I hoped it was Millicent. She liked a proposition, bless her. But when I rang the bell, nothing. Not a sound. Not a reply. I rang several times and waited. Nothing at all. Extraordinary thing because they never burnt light when they were out. Very careful about things like that.”
“Didn’t you try to get in?”
“I walked round, yes. All locked. Back door. Everything. Even the garage. I went away and had a cup of tea in the village. Henson’s the bakers do teas there. Then I came back. Must have been a quarter-past five by now.”
“It was a dark night, I believe?”
“Pitch black. And there wasn’t a light in the house. What do you think of that? At four-thirty it’s lit up like a Christmas tree. At five-fifteen not a glimmer. Makes you think, doesn’t it?”
“It does. How long did you stay there?”
“I thought I might as well ring, in case. I went towards the door and I don’t know what made me do it, but before I rang I stood still for a moment. I heard a noise which I recognized at once. Someone was opening the garage doors. I don’t know if you’ve looked round the back of the house but the back door and garages open on to a separate lane.”
“Yes. I’ve seen that.”
“There is a way through from the garage into the house. So someone opening the garage doors could have come from inside the house.”
“Yes.”
“I waited. Listening.”
“Where was your car?”
“In the road outside. I couldn’t be bothered to get out and open the gates.”
“I see. So whoever was in the house or garage might not have known you were there?”
“Almost certainly not. But I know the sound of those garage doors. Have known them for years. I heard them open, then a pause of about three minutes, then they were closed again. I still waited and presently, well down the road, I heard a motor-bike start up.”
“Is that all?”
“That’s all. I started off for home puzzled but not really worried. Gladhurst has always seemed such a quiet little place. Only next day when I heard the news, I remembered all this. Anything else you want to know?”
“Up to you. If you’ve anything to tell me….”
“No. That’s the lot. I’ve got to run round to the Swan. See a man. Little proposition.”
Five minutes after the live wire Dundas Griggs had left the bar, Carolus was amused to see Detective Inspector Champer walk in and ask the barmaid for Griggs.
“He’s just this minute gone out. D’you know where he was going, Mr Durrell?”
She had interrupted a longer and duller story than before and received a shorter ‘No’. Mr Huxley was no wiser and Mr Hemingway hazarded the Queen Charlotte but Mr Balchin the builder who had talked to him there said he had left half an hour ago to come here, while Mr Powys thought he had gone home.
“That gentleman might be able to tell you,” said the barmaid, pointing to Carolus. “He was talking to him.”
Detective Inspector Champer unwillingly recog
nized Carolus and came across.
“Start at Maitland Villa?” asked Carolus.
Champer nodded.
“The Oak Café?”
“Yes.”
“Priestley’s, the estate agents? Maugham’s? Cronin’s?”
“There were more than that. Where is the ——— now?”
“I shouldn’t like to make rash guesses, Inspector. But he told me ten minutes ago that he was going round to the Swan to see a man about a proposition.”
Without a word the thick-set policeman pushed his way out of the door.
“So you found Mr Griggs?” said the barmaid keenly to Carolus.
“Yes. He turned up at last.”
“You staying here?” she asked, leaning intimately near.
“No. In fact, I’m due home now. Good-night.”
But when Carolus had reached his house it was in darkness. The Sticks had gone to bed. There was reproach in every one of his sandwiches.
13
THE Reverend Bonar Waddell looked thoughtful. His finger-tips touched and he stared down at his desk.
“You really feel it necessary to discuss the matter with my curate?” he said at last.
“Not in the least. I want to ask him a few questions.”
“Quite. Yes. Naturally. Just so. Of course. To be sure. I understand. I hesitate only because knowing his disposition….”
“What is his disposition?”
“Excellent with boys,” said the vicar inevitably. “But diffident, shy, easily upset in adult matters. Between ourselves he is a cause of some anxiety to me. I recognize his value in his own field but I cannot leave much general work to him.”
“Sounds like arrested development.”
“Arrested? Oh no. I trust nothing of that sort. But he is temperamental. Easily put out. Alarmed by details. I remember one occasion on which our local constabulary in the person of Slatt asked him some questions. Mere trivialities, referring to a dog licence or something. I found him in a highly distressed condition. I had to mediate between him and Slatt as best I could. I seek to impress on you his somewhat excitable character.”
