Furious Old Women

by Bruce, Leo

  His first call was at the vicarage. Mrs Waddell opened the door and spoke with something like a note of triumph.

  “My husband’s preparing his sermon for tomorrow and cannot possibly be disturbed. My daughter’s out on her bike.”

  “That’s all right,” said Carolus blandly. “It was you I hoped to find at home, Mrs Waddell.”

  She gave him a short defiant stare, then said: “Come in, then.”

  “I must really apologize for troubling you again,” said Carolus. “You’ll think I’m an awful idiot. The thing is, I’m trying to work out a complete timetable for everyone’s movements after two-thirty that day and I find I have a blank in yours.”

  “It sounds like a sort of game,” said Mrs Waddell grimly.

  “Not really. It’s rather important. You explained to me that you had your Mother’s Meeting from four to six, I think. That was at the Griggs Institute, perhaps?”

  “It was.”

  “I see. But it’s only about five minutes from here and your daughter remembers you returning at 6.45 or more. It is that three-quarters of an hour I want to fill in.”

  “I find the query somewhat impertinent, Mr Deene, but in order not to be badgered with further questions I will tell you at once. The Scouts were holding their Cookery Tests at the Institute. I watched for a time to see that everything was all right. Last year there was nearly a nasty accident.”

  “Did you speak to Mr Slipper?”

  “No. He hates being interrupted while he is with his boys. I just stood in the shadows at the back for a while, then came away.”

  “No one saw you?”

  “I shouldn’t think so. They were furiously concentrated on their pancakes.”

  “Thank you, Mrs Waddell. I needn’t take any more of your time.”

  On his way round to Commander Fyfe’s he caught a glimpse of a somewhat bizarre group. Mr Slipper was in the full uniform of a Scoutmaster and with him were several sturdy Rovers with a laden pushcart. Carolus sighed. It was an excellent thing, the Boy Scout Movement, but why oh why did it encourage grown men whose physiques could not stand the test to wear this uniform? For healthy youngsters, splendid, but for curates no longer youthful, with angularities like Mr Slipper’s, fatal. Those blue knees! But he waved a greeting to the curate and drove on towards The Fairway.

  Fortunately he found himself stopped in the road and without any explanation Fyfe climbed in beside him.

  “The very man I want to see!” he said. “Most extraordinary thing. Could we drive on a little? Out of the village perhaps?”

  When they had reached a fairly open stretch of road about a mile away, Fyfe dropped his voice.

  “It’s Dundas Griggs,” he said. “He guessed it was I who told you he was over here.”

  “How did he guess that?”

  “Because he saw me when he was driving his Vauxhall and stopped.”

  “You didn’t tell me.”

  “So many strange things happened that day. I couldn’t tell you them all. I’ve seen him over here before. He goes to call on the old ladies; then we usually meet at the Black Horse in the evening. Saloon bar, of course. It’s quiet there. He told me that afternoon he had a little proposition for me.”

  “Quite a Euclidian, Mr Griggs.”

  “I beg your pardon? Oh. Who is this coming down the road on a bicycle? You see you never know here.”

  “You were telling me about that afternoon.”

  “Yes. Arranged to meet for a drink later. I told you. I was able to leave the house for a while. My gardener and his wife … television….”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  “Then the really extraordinary thing happened. I can’t think why I didn’t tell you before. Griggs never turned up. I waited an hour for him. Not a sign. Never came. What do you think of that?”

  “Very bad manners.”

  “Manners? But don’t you see, man? He’s the nephew of the murdered woman and on the night of her death he fails to keep an appointment! Doesn’t it strike you as sinister?”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “Then today. Over here again. Remonstrating with me for having told you he was in Gladhurst that day. Says he doesn’t want to get mixed up in the thing. He was quite annoyed. I consider that highly significant.”

  Carolus proposed to drop Commander Fyfe at his home but he grew somewhat nervous at the prospect.

  “No! Don’t stop right outside. You never know. It doesn’t do in a place like this. Leave me by the Griggs Institute. I’ll walk home.”

  At the Black Horse he found George Larkin alone, for the doors had only just been opened.

  “I wonder if you could let me have a room for tonight?” asked Carolus.

  “We don’t Do rooms.”

  “Oh. Pity.”

  “I’ll ask Mrs Crutch who looks after that side of it. She might be able to.”

  He returned after a few minutes.

  “She says there is a room. But you mustn’t expect too much. It’s clean and that and she’ll air the bed. That’s all.”

  “What more could one want?”

  “Some expect a lot.”

  “I’ll bring my bag in.”

  “All right. Bill will take it up. You’ll want something to eat presently, I suppose?”

  “Whatever’s easy.”

  Carolus ordered a drink and after it was poured the innkeeper returned to his static contemplation of the wall opposite, expressionless solidity on his face. It was ten minutes before the first of his Saturday night customers came in.

  This was Rumble, looking particularly pleased with himself. His gnomish head on his stocky body suggested one of Disney’s seven dwarfs. He accepted a pint from Carolus and at once began to congratulate him.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it!” he said admiringly. “There you was in the kitchen drinking tea. It’s as much as I dare do to sit in that chair which is supposed to have belonged to her father. However did you manage it?”

  “I’ve yet to see all this bad temper your wife is credited with.”

  “Bad temper? You try living with her. Anyway, she’ll be in presently and you can see for yourself. I’ve got something to tell you, though. Might be of some help to you. See, Mrs Bobbin called me into the hall today to help put the furniture back now that Laddie Grey’s finished painting in there. Miss Flora was out and I didn’t know where she’d gone but while I was still indoors she came storming in. I’ve never seen her anything like it. Firing texts off at the top of her voice. It appears she had been to Miss Vaillant’s.”

  “What sort of texts?”

  “All about the Wicked. ‘The wicked laid a snare for me’, she says from Psalms.’ A woman with the attire of an harlot and wily at heart’, from Proverbs, I think it was. But we’ve had all this before about Miss Vaillant. It was something else made me think.”

  “Yes?”

  “She started on about ‘be not among wine-bibbers’, and causing strong wine to be poured, and strong drink is raging, and all that. It sounded to me as though somebody had offered her a nip and she’d turned up her nose at it. What do you say?”

  “I didn’t hear it,” said Carolus guardedly.

  “I thought you’d like to know, anyway. This pub soon gets filled up on a Saturday, doesn’t it?”

  The bar was certainly growing crowded. When Flo came in and was greeted on all sides, there seemed to be a hilarious atmosphere.

  “There you are!” said Flo to Carolus as though they were old friends. “You haven’t taken me out in that car of yours yet, have you? There’s a promise for you! Perhaps you’re waiting for the nice weather. It reminds me of a fellow I knew once who used to say it was no good going out except in the Spring. What an idea! I asked him what he did all the rest of the year. Not that I minded, because he wasn’t the only pebble on the beach. We shall all start singing presently so I don’t know what you’ll say about that. Saturday night, after all.”

  Carolus saw Mr Lovibond making his way acros
s and knowing that the little electrician regarded him as a protégé he made room for him and invited him to drink.

  “The vicar will be in presently,” said Lovibond surprisingly. “Always comes in for a few minutes on Saturday evening.”

  And sure enough before eight o’clock, complete with clerical collar and bland smile the Reverend Bonar Waddell was amongst them.

  “I see you are quite an habitue,” he said to Carolus. “Ah well, there’s no harm in a little cheerfulness at the end of a week. I myself am in a slightly more difficult situation. On the one hand many of the most sincere and loyal members of my congregation, including the landlord himself, are customers here and appreciate my presence for a short time. On the other hand many no less earnest folk in the parish regard strong drink as the devil’s potion and a public house as a place of evil.”

  “So how do you manage?” asked Carolus, fascinated as usual by the delicate balances which Mr Waddell held in his hand.

  The vicar smiled.

  “I come here, as you see, but only for a short time on Saturday. And I invariably order for myself a lemonade.”

  “Very ingenious.”

  The vicar looked more grave.

  “But tell me,” he said. “How go your investigations?”

  “It’s a complicated case.”

  “That’s just what we all thought at first it was not. Brutal, predatory, savage, cowardly, it seemed but of almost primitive simplicity. Now that we know the motive was not mere robbery it wears another complexion.”

  “Yes. It seems to bring it home to the village, doesn’t it?”

  The vicar looked anxious.

  “There are times when I almost wonder whether it would not be better left a mystery, Mr Deene,” he said. “I see, of course, that ‘vengeance is mine’, that such a crime cries out for it, but then I think, too, that revelation will mean more bloodshed, more suffering by those perhaps not directly concerned. I am torn in my hopes and sympathies. Ah well, I must greet some of these good people. Good evening, Frank. Good evening, Mugger. Ah, Rumble. Er hum, good evening, Flo. I see you well, Mrs Rumble? That’s right. Full chime of bells tomorrow, Gidley? Splendid. Ah, Laddie. And Bill. Nice to see you all. No, no thank you. I’ve had my allowance. I must be making my way homewards. Good-night, Larkin. Goodnight to you, Deene. Good-night, all! Good-night!”

  Though he went out amid the smiles of the customers, the vicar’s departure seemed to remove a little constraint from the assembly.

  “Well now we can have a sing-song,” said Flo exuberantly. “Come on, Mrs Chester! You’re not going to sit there like a mute, I can tell you. We know what you can do when you get started, can’t she, Mr Lovibond? It reminds me of the married couple that were worried because …”

  “Now, Flo.”

  “All right, Mr Larkin. I wasn’t going to say a word. Only we must have a bit of a sing if it’s only to make the Sheriff wild. He’s standing outside already looking at his watch.”

  Carolus found himself wedged in a corner with Mrs Rumble.

  “Is that right you’re staying here tonight?” she asked.

  “Yes. I thought …”

  “You know she still hasn’t taken a drop. Funny, isn’t it? Mind you, I don’t know what happened this afternoon when that Flora Griggs got there. I hope she’s not as bad as the other one. But anyway, up to then she hadn’t touched it. Must have given her a nasty shock, that other.”

  “Perhaps that was it.”

  “Now, Rumble, don’t you hang round here because you’ve had one pint off the gentleman and I’ll see he doesn’t buy you any more. You’ve had enough already by the looks of it.”

  “I haven’t….”

  “Now don’t keep on or I shall Tell you. You go and talk to old Mugger, he’s more your mark.”

  It seemed but a few minutes after that when George Larkin was shouting “Time!” and the exodus was made in good order and swiftly under the eye of Slatt.

  Carolus went into the open air with the rest and found himself standing almost alone with a somewhat argumentative man of large proportions.

  “What I say is,” said this individual, “I’m one of the few blacksmiths left working a forge.”

  “I daresay,” said Carolus.

  “And it’s an old trade and a good one.”

  “It’s both, yes.”

  Slatt was approaching.

  “A man who can work with iron, is a man,” said the blacksmith.

  “You’re right,” said Carolus. “You know what Kipling says:

  ‘Gold is for the mistress—silver for the maid!

  Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.’”

  “What did you say?” asked Slatt.

  “Sorry,” returned Carolus.

  “Police officer for the craftsman, cunning at his trade.

  ‘Good!’ said the Baron, sitting in his hall,

  ‘But Iron—Cold Iron—is master of them all!’”

  “That’s right,” said the blacksmith.

  Carolus bade them both good-night and joined the Larkins, father and son, in a plentiful cold meal. He found that his bedroom overlooked the lower part of the village and against a cold moonlit sky he could see the silhouette of the church tower.

  15

  CAROLUS was awakened by a loud persistent knocking on his door before it was light. There is always something slightly macabre about knocking like this, forceful, unhurried, continuous. Carolus thought of Macbeth and how well Shakespeare had used that sound to introduce the horrible bloodstained humour with which he heightened the effects of his tragedies.

  “Come in!” he shouted, switching on the light.

  George Larkin entered.

  “There’s someone downstairs wants to see you. Urgent.”

  How typical of him not to say who it was when he knew perfectly well.

  “All right. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

  He dressed as quickly as he could, washing in cold water in the china bowl on the mahogany stand. He hurried downstairs and in the Larkins’ little sitting-room found Mrs Rumble.

  He was accustomed to seeing her long plain face set in lines of ferocity. Now she looked startled and anxious.

  “Come outside a minute,” she said. “I want to speak to you.”

  Carolus followed her to the inn yard.

  “I don’t know whether I done right. I thought once they get in you’ll never be able to find out anything. So I’ve come to tell you first. She’s dead.”

  “Miss Vaillant? “Carolus scarcely needed to ask.

  “Yes. Dead as a doornail. Slumped across the settee with an expression on her face as though she’d like to kill you.”

  “But you ought to have gone to the police.”

  “I am going. But you may as well have a look first. You might find something. They’ll never let you near when they get there. Come on quick and no one will be the wiser.”

  It was altogether too tempting. Carolus realized that the consequences might be serious but he had to chance that.

  They drove swiftly to the Old Vicarage.

  “Put your car over there as though you were in church for early Communion and no one will notice it. There will be several there. That’s it. Now we go in round the back.”

  Mrs Rumble had her key of the back door and admitted them.

  “Was this locked?” asked Carolus.

  “Oh yes, so was the front. This way.”

  There certainly was an expression of apoplectic anger on the face of Grazia Vaillant where she lay twisted half across the settee. It was as though she knew herself to be dying and instead of commending her soul to God, as the expression used to be, she was angry at being subjected to the indignity and uncertainty of death. The eyes were wide open in a fixed indignant gaze and the hands were twisted as though she had suffered convulsive movements.

  “Quite cold, of course?”

  “Yes. Must have been dead for hours. From yesterday evening very likely.”

&n
bsp; Miss Vaillant’s bag was open beside her on the floor and she was dressed in one of her curious coarse outfits with large jewellery, the whole suggesting a Balkan peasant woman. The curtains had been drawn close and it was by electric light that Carolus and Mrs Rumble stared at her.

  “Do you think she was murdered?” asked Mrs Rumble.

  “How can we possibly know till after the doctor’s report?”

  “I suppose not. I mean, she looks as though she’s been murdered, doesn’t she?”

  “She looks very distressing. Which is the cupboard you told me about of which you have a key?”

  “This one,” said Mrs Rumble and opened a little cupboard on one side of the sideboard.

  “Well! That’s a funny thing,” she said. “There was a bottle nearly a third full here yesterday. I told you she hadn’t touched it since the other one died. Now it’s gone, bottle and all.”

  Carolus went to the back door and saw the old well which Mrs Rumble had mentioned. It was one of those deep narrow shafts which drop darkly down to a just visible black surface of water.

  “That’s where she must have thrown the bottle like she did all the other ones.”

  They returned to the room where Miss Vaillant’s body lay and Carolus looked down on it unhappily.

  “What did she carry in her bag?” he asked. “No! Don’t touch it! Let me look in.”

  With a handkerchief over his finger Carolus gingerly turned over the contents.

  “About ten pounds in money,” he said. “Would that be usual?”

  “Just about. She didn’t draw a lot at a time. She liked paying things by cheque.”

  “There’s a tube of Minerval. They’re very powerful tranquillizers. On Doctor’s prescription only. Did she take many?”

  “I bought that tube new for her a week ago. She must have been taking them since then. In fact I know she has because 1 happened to notice yesterday there was only two left.”