by Nine Tailors
“Yes—but your luck will come more at the end of life than at the beginning, because the other sort of people won’t understand the way your mind works. They will start by thinking you dreamy and romantic, and then they’ll be surprised to discover that you are really hard and heartless, they’ll be quite wrong both times—but they won’t ever know it, and you won’t know it at first, and it’ll worry you.”
“But that’s just what the girls say at school. How did you know? … Though they’re all idiots—mostly, that is.”
“Most people are,” said Wimsey, gravely, “but it isn’t kind to tell them so. I expect you do tell them so. Have a heart; they can’t help it. … Yes, this is the place. Well, you know, it isn’t very much overlooked, is it? That cottage is the nearest—whose is that?”
“Will Thoday’s.”
“Oh, is it? … And after that, there’s only the Wheatsheaf and a farm. Whose is the farm?”
“That’s Mr. Ashton’s place. He’s quite a well-to-do kind of man, one of the churchwardens. I liked him very much when I was a kid; he used to let me ride on the farmhorses.”
“I’ve heard of him; he pulled my car out of the ditch one day—which reminds me. I ought to call and thank him personally.”
“That means you want to ask him questions.”
“If you do see through people as clearly as that, you oughtn’t to make it so brutally plain to them.”
“That’s what Uncle calls my unfeminine lack of tact. He says it comes of going to school and playing hockey.”
“He may be right. But why worry?”
“I’m not worrying—only, you see, Uncle Edward will have to look after me now, and he thinks it’s all wrong for me to be going to Oxford. … What are you looking at? The distance from the South gateway?”
“Uncomfortably discerning woman—yes, I was. You could bring the body in a car and carry it round without too much difficulty. What’s that, there, close up by the north wall of the churchyard? A well?”
“Yes; that’s the well where Gotobed gets the water for washing out the porch and scrubbing the chancel and all that. I think it’s rather deep. There used to be a pump there at one time, but the village people used to come and use it for drinking water, when the village well ran dry, and Mr. Venables had to stop it, because he said it wasn’t sanitary, drinking water out of a graveyard; so he took the pump away, and paid for having the village well dug deeper and put in order. He’s a frightfully good old sort. When Gotobed wants water he has to haul it up as best he can in a bucket. He grumbles a lot about it. The well’s a great nuisance, anyway, because it makes the graves on that side very damp, and sometimes in the winter you can’t dig them properly. It was worse before Mr. Venables had the churchyard drained.”
“Mr. Venables seems to do a lot for the parish.”
“He does. Dad used to subscribe to things, of course, but Mr. Venables generally starts things, when it’s anything to do with the Church. At least, when it’s things like drains, it’s probably Mrs. Venables. Why did you want to know about the well?”
“I wanted to know whether it was used or disused. As it’s used, of course nobody would think of hiding anything large in it.”
“Oh, you mean the body? No, that wouldn’t have done.”
“All the same,” said Wimsey. … “Look here! forgive my asking, but, supposing your father hadn’t died when he did, what sort of tombstone would he have been likely to put up to your mother? Any idea?”
“None at all. He hated tombstones and wouldn’t discuss them, poor darling. It’s horrid to think that he’s got to have one.”
“Quite. So that for all anybody knew, he might have had a flat stone put down, or one of those things with a marble kerb round and chips in the middle.”
“A thing like a fender? Oh, no! he’d never have had that. And certainly not chips. They always reminded him of that fearfully genteel kind of coffee-sugar you get at the sort of places where everything’s served on mats and all the wine-glasses are coloured.”
“Ah! but did the murderer know your father’s feelings about coffee-sugar and wine-glasses?”
“Sorry—I don’t know what you’re driving at.”
“My fault; I’m always so incoherent. I mean—when there are such lots of good places for putting bodies in—dykes and drains and so on, why cart one at great risk and trouble to a churchyard to plant it where it might quite easily be dug up by a stonemason smoothing away the earth for a fenderful of marble chips? I know the body was a good two feet below ground-level, but I suppose they have to dig down a bit when they set up gravestones. It all seems so odd and so rash. And yet, of course, I can see the fascination of the idea. You’d think a grave was about the last place where anyone would look for a stray body. It was sheer bad luck that it should have had to be opened up again so soon. All the same—when you think of the job of getting it here, and digging away at night in secret——! But it looks as though it must have been done that way, because of the rope-marks, which show that the man was tied up somewhere first. It must, I mean, all have been deliberate and thought-out beforehand.”
“Then the murderer couldn’t have thought about it earlier than New Year’s Day when Mother died. I mean, he couldn’t have counted on having a grave handy.”
“Of course he couldn’t; but it may have happened at any time since.”
“Surely not at any time. Only within a week or so after Mother died.”
“Why?” asked Wimsey, quickly.
“Why, because old Gotobed would be certain to notice if anybody had been digging his grave about after the earth had been firmed up properly. Don’t you think it must have happened quite soon—probably while the wreaths were still on the grave? They stayed there for a week, and then they looked dead and beastly, and I told Gotobed to chuck them away.”
“That’s an idea,” said Wimsey. “I never thought about that—not having had very much to do with the digging of graves. I must ask Gotobed about it. I say! Can you remember how long the snow lay after your mother died?”
“Let me see. It stopped snowing on New Year’s Day, and they swept the path up to the south door. But it didn’t start to thaw till—wait! I know! It was during the night of the second, though it had been getting sort of warmer for two days, and the snow was kind of damp. I remember quite well now. They dug the grave on the third, and everything was all sloshy. And on the day of the funeral it rained like billy-oh! It was dreadful. I don’t think I shall ever forget it.”
“And that took all the snow away, of course.”
“Oh, yes.”
“So it would have been easy enough for anybody to get to the grave without leaving footprints. Yes. I suppose you never noticed yourself that the wreaths had been moved, or anything?”
“Oh, no! As a matter of fact, I didn’t come here much. Dad was so ill, I had to be with him—and anyway, I didn’t think of Mother as being here, you know. Lord Peter, I think all this business about graves is hateful, don’t you? But I’ll tell you who would have noticed anything, and that’s Mrs. Gates—our housekeeper, you know. She came down every day. She’s a perfect ghoul. She kept on trying to talk to me about it, and I wouldn’t listen to her. She’s quite nice, really, but she ought to live in a Victorian novel, where people wear crape and weep into the tea-cups. … Oh, dear! there’s Uncle Edward looking for me. He looks quite dyspeptic with disapproval. I’m going to introduce you to him, just to embarrass the poor dear. … Uncle Edward! This is Lord Peter Wimsey. He’s been so kind. He says I have a creative imagination, and ought to be a writer.”
“Ah! how do you do?” Mr. Edward Thorpe, forty-four, very correct and formal, presented a bland Civil-Service front to the impact of Wimsey’s personality. “I believe I have met your brother, the Duke of Denver. I hope he is quite well … Quite … quite so. … It is very good of you to take an interest in my niece’s young ambitions. All these young women mean to do great things, don’t they? But I tell her, authorship is a good
stick, but a bad crutch. Very distressing business, this. I am so sorry she should be dragged into it, but of course, in her position, the village people expect her to—ah!—enter into their—ah!—their—um——”
“Amusements?” suggested Wimsey. It came upon him with a shock that Uncle Edward could not be many years older than himself. He felt for him the apprehensive reverence which one feels for a quaint and brittle piece of antiquity.
“For anything which touches them nearly,” said Mr. Thorpe. Gallant fellow! Deeply disapproving, he yet sought to defend his niece against criticism. “But I am taking her away for a little peace and quietness,” he added. “Her aunt, unhappily, was unable to come to Fenchurch—she suffers sadly from rheumatoid arthritis—but she is looking forward to seeing Hilary at home.”
Wimsey, glancing at Hilary’s sullen face, saw rebellion rising; he knew exactly the kind of woman who would have married Uncle Edward.
“In fact,” said Mr. Thorpe, “we are leaving tomorrow. I am so sorry we cannot ask you to dine, but under the circumstances——”
“Not at all,” said Wimsey.
“So I fear it must be a case of Hail and Farewell,” continued Mr. Thorpe, firmly. “Delighted to have met you. I could wish that it were under happier circumstances. Ah—good afternoon. Please remember me to your brother when you see him.”
“Warned off!” said Wimsey, when he had shaken hands with Uncle Edward and bestowed on Hilary Thorpe a grin of understanding sympathy. “Why? Corrupting the morals of youth? Or showing too much zeal about digging up the family mystery? Is Uncle Edward a dark horse or a plain ass, I wonder? Did he go to his brother’s wedding? I must ask Blundell. Where is Blundell? I wonder if he is free tonight?”
He hastened to catch the Superintendent, who had dutifully attended the funeral, and arranged to run over to Leamholt after dinner. Gradually the congregation melted away. Mr. Gotobed and his son Dick removed their official “blacks” and fetched the spades that leaned against the wall near the covered well.
As the earth thudded heavily upon the coffin lid, Wimsey joined the small group that had gathered to discuss the ceremony and read the cards upon the wreaths. He stooped idly to examine an exceptionally handsome and exotic floral tribute of pink and purple hothouse exhibits, wondering who could have gone to so much expense for the unknown victim. With a slight shock he read, on a visiting card: “With reverent sympathy. Lord Peter Wimsey. St. Luke XII. 6.”
“Very appropriate,” said his lordship, identifying the text after a little thought (for he had been carefully brought up). “Bunter, you are a great man.”
“What I really want to know,” said Lord Peter, as he stretched comfortable legs upon the Superintendent’s hearth, “is the relation between Deacon and Cranton. How did they get into touch? Because a lot seems to turn on that.”
“So it does,” agreed Mr. Blundell; “but the trouble is, we have only got their words to go on, and which was the biggest liar, the Lord God only knows, though Mr. Justice Bramhill made a guess. There’s no doubt of one thing, and that is that they knew each other in London. Cranton was one of those smooth-spoken, gentlemanly sort of crooks that you meet hanging about the lounge in cheap-smart restaurants—you know the type. He’d been in trouble before, but he gave out he was a reformed character, and made quite a spot of money writing a book. At least, I suppose somebody wrote it for him, but he had his name put on the cover, and all that. There’ve been several of that sort since the War, but this chap was a smart lad—a bit ahead of his time, really. He was thirty-five in 1914; not educated anything to speak of, but with a kind of natural wit, sharpened by having had to look out for himself, if you take my meaning.”
“Just so. A graduate in the University of the world.”
“That’s very well put,” said Mr. Blundell, welcoming the cliché as an inspiration. “Very cleverly put indeed. Yes—that’s just what he was. Deacon, now, he was different. A very superior man indeed, he was, and a great reader. In fact, the chaplain down at Maidstone said he was quite a remarkable scholar in his way, with a poetic imagination, whatever that may be exactly. Sir Charles Thorpe took quite a fancy to the fellow, treated him friendly and all that, and gave him the run of the library. Well, these two met in some dance place or other, some time in 1912, when Sir Charles was staying in London. Cranton’s story is that some girl that Deacon had picked up—Deacon was always after a skirt—pointed him out to Deacon as the author of this book I was telling you about, and that Deacon made out to be tremendously interested in the book and pumped him a lot about crooks and their doings and the way they worked their little games and all that. He said Deacon made a dead set at him and wouldn’t leave him alone, and was always kind of hinting that he was bound to go back to the old life in the end. Deacon said different. He said that what interested him was the literary side of the business, as he called it. Says he thought, if a crook could write a book and make money, why not a butler? According to him, it was Cranton made a dead set at him, and started pumping him about what sort of place he’d got, and suggesting if there was anything to be pinched, they should pinch it together and go shares, Deacon working the inside part of the job and Cranton seeing to the rest—finding a fence and settling the terms and so on. I daresay it was six of one and half-a-dozen of the other, if you ask me. A pretty pair they were, and no mistake.”
The Superintendent paused to take a long draught of beer from a pewter mug and then resumed.
“You understand,” he said, “this was the story they told after we’d got hold of ’em both for the robbery. At first, naturally, they both lied like Ananias and swore they’d never seen each other before in their lives, but when they found what the prosecution had up against them, they changed their tune. But there was this about it. As soon as Cranton realized that the game was up, he adopted this story and stuck to it. In fact, he pleaded guilty at the trial and his one idea seemed to be to get Deacon into trouble and have him gaoled good and hard. He said Deacon had double-crossed him and he was out to get his own back—though whether there was any truth in that, or whether he thought he would get off easy by making himself out to be the poor unfortunate victim of temptation, or whether it was all pure malice, I don’t know. The jury had their own idea about it, and so had the judge.
“Well, now. In April 1914 this wedding of Mr. Henry Thorpe’s came along, and it was pretty well known that Mrs. Wilbraham was going to be there with her emerald necklace. There wasn’t a thief in London that didn’t know all about Mrs. Wilbraham. She’s a sort of cousin of the Thorpes, a lot of times removed, and long way back, and she’s got a stack of money and the meanness of fifty thousand Scotch Jews rolled into one. She’ll be about eighty-six or seven now and getting childish, so I’m told; but in those days she was just eccentric. Funny old lady, stiff as a ramrod, and always dressed in black silks and satins—very old-fashioned—with jewels and bangles and brooches and God knows what stuck all over her. That was one of her crazes, you understand. And another was, that she didn’t believe in insurance and she didn’t believe a lot in safes, neither. She had a safe in her town house, naturally, and kept her stuff locked up in it, but I don’t suppose she’d have done that if the safe hadn’t been put in by her husband when he was alive. She was too mean to buy as much as a strongbox for herself, and when she went away on a visit, she preferred to trust to her own wits. Mad as a March Hare, she must have been,” said the Superintendent, thoughtfully, “but there! you’d be surprised what a lot of these funny old ladies there are going about loose in the world. And of course, nobody ever liked to say anything to her, because she was disgustingly rich and had the full disposal of her own property. The Thorpes were about the only relations she had in the world, so they invited her to Mr. Henry’s wedding, though it’s my belief they all hated the sight of her. If they hadn’t have asked her, she’d have taken offence, and—well, there! You can’t offend your rich relations, can you?”
Lord Peter thoughtfully refilled his own beer
-mug and said, “Not on any account.”
“Well, then,” pursued the Superintendent, “here’s where Cranton and Deacon tell different tales again. According to Deacon, he got a letter from Cranton as soon as the wedding-day was announced, asking him to come and meet him at Leamholt and discuss some plan for getting hold of the emeralds. According to Cranton, it was Deacon wrote to him. Neither of ’em could produce a scrap of evidence about it, one way or the other, so, there again, you paid your money and you took your choice. But it was proved that they did meet in Leamholt and that Cranton came along the same day to have a look at the house.
“Very good. Now Mrs. Wilbraham had a lady’s maid, and if it hadn’t been for her and Mary Thoday, the whole thing might have come to nothing. You’ll remember that Mary Thoday was Mary Deacon then. She was housemaid at the Red House, and she’d got married to Deacon at the end of 1913. Sir Charles was very kind to the young couple. He gave them a nice bedroom to themselves away from the other servants, just off a little back stair that runs up by the butler’s pantry, so that it was quite like a little private home for them. The plate was all kept in the pantry, of course, and it was supposed to be Deacon’s job to look after it.
“Now, this maid of Mrs. Wilbraham’s—Elsie Bryant was her name—was a quick, smart sort of girl, full of fun and high spirits, and it so happened that she’d found out what Mrs. Wilbraham did with her jewels when she was staying away from home. It seems the old girl wanted to be too clever by half. I think she must have been reading too many detective stories, if you ask me, but anyway, she got it into her head that the best place to keep valuables wasn’t a jewel case or a strong-box or anything of that kind, that would be the first thing a burglar would go for, but some fancy place where nobody would think of looking, and to cut a long story short, the spot she pitched upon was, if you’ll excuse me mentioning it, underneath one of the bedroom utensils. You may well laugh—so did everybody in court, except the judge, and he happened to get a fit of coughing at the time and his handkerchief was over his face, so nobody could see how he took it. Well, this Elsie, she was a bit inquisitive, as girls are, and one day—not very long before the wedding—she managed to take a peep through a keyhole or something of that kind, and caught the old lady just in the act of putting the stuff away. Naturally, she couldn’t keep a thing like that to herself, and when she and her mistress got to Fenchurch—which they did a couple of days before the wedding, the first thing she had to do was to strike up a bosom friendship with Mary Deacon (as she was then) for the express purpose, as it seems to me, of telling her all about it in confidence. And of course, Mary, being a devoted wife and all that, had to share the joke with her husband. I dare say it’s natural. Anyhow, counsel for the defence made a big point of it, and there’s no doubt it was that utensil kept Elsie and Mary out of quod. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said to the jury, in his speech, ‘I see you all smiling over Mrs. Wilbraham’s novel idea of a safe-deposit, and I’ve no doubt you’re looking forward to passing the whole story on to your wives when you get home. And that being so, you can very well enter into the feelings of my client Mary Deacon and her friend, and see how—in the most innocent manner in the world—the secret was disclosed to the one man who might have been expected to keep it quiet.’ He was a clever lawyer, he was, and had the jury eating out of his hand by the time he’d done with them.
