Trouble in the Town Hall

by Jeanne M. Dams

  She tried to think what she really must do while I assessed her. Her hair was in strings, her face, blotchy from crying, was innocent of makeup, and her frilly blue blouse and brown-and-orange tweed skirt didn’t go together. Balled up in one hand was a damp handkerchief which the other hand picked at.

  “You’re very kind, but I—I have a bit of a headache, and—”

  I could stand it no longer. “Clarice, I can well believe you have a headache, but there’s a lot more to it than that. You’re a wreck. I’ve never seen you like this. Is it Archie?”

  She looked terrified. “No! No, of course not! There’s nothing wrong with Archie—he—I have a headache, that’s all.”

  “You’re on the verge of a nervous breakdown,” I said flatly. I had lost my patience. “When will your husband be home?”

  “Soon. You mustn’t—”

  “I intend to see to it that you’re looked after, since he doesn’t seem to be doing a very good job. Clarice, you must see that you need help. You’ve been falling apart ever since that wretched murder—”

  She went even whiter than before and slid off the couch to the floor as Mr. Pettifer walked into the room.

  “May I ask,” he said with cold fury, “precisely why you are bullying my wife?”

  “Bullying! I’m trying to—we can’t stand here arguing, she’s fainted, she needs—”

  “I believe I am the best judge of what she needs. You will have the goodness to leave my house, Mrs. Martin!” He turned his back on me, picked up Clarice with a strength I hadn’t known he possessed, laid her on the couch, and began chafing her wrists.

  “But—she needs a doctor, I could—”

  “Get out!” It was a stage whisper, with the effect of a roar.

  I got out.

  And just what, I thought as I drove slowly down the wrong side of the fortunately deserted street, was that all about? Was she afraid of Archie? Did he beat her, after all? If so, he was careful to make sure it didn’t show; her face was a mess, but it wasn’t bruised. He certainly had a temper, but he had treated her gently when he’d picked her up, and only two days ago she had acted—well, to tell the truth, she’d acted like a teenager in love, mooning about Archie, making excuses to bring his name into the conversation.

  Was she afraid for him? I was sure she’d had suspicions all along that he was involved in the Town Hall murder. That could explain her behavior. Suppose Archie had managed somehow to convince her that he was in the clear, and then—yes! And then Barbara Dean said something to her that awakened her suspicions with more force than ever! Hence her collapse. It would have to be something to do with Sheffield. Was Archie the crooked contractor after all? And why wouldn’t Barbara talk to me about Sheffield?

  The blare of a horn shocked me back onto my side of the road, where I promptly stalled the engine and sat for a moment, quivering. When my mind began to function again, I realized the Archie-as-criminal-contractor theory wouldn’t fly. He’d left Sheffield far too long ago. But logically, Barbara Dean must have said something to send Clarice into a tailspin. Well, why not ask her again?

  I peered out the car windows; I’d been driving more or less aimlessly for a few minutes while my thoughts were racing after an explanation. Sherebury isn’t a big town, but it can be confusing, and I wasn’t sure quite where I was. The Pettifers live in an exclusive development, all cul-de-sacs and curves, which adjoins a lovely old neighborhood with even more narrow, curvy streets and complicated hills.

  There was something familiar about the area, though. Surely I’d been here before? These houses looked familiar. The big stone one, especially—

  The big stone one was Barbara Dean’s house. I’d been there only once, to a genteel sort of tea party for the bookshop volunteers, but I was certain.

  Almost certain, at least. I got out of the car. There was no harm in ringing the bell. If it was the wrong house, I could apologize, go home, and phone the blasted woman. If I was right, she could hardly refuse to let me in, and it was just possible I could extract some information.

  I rang.

  And rang once more.

  And waited.

  The rain was setting in hard now, and obviously no one was home. Of course, Barbara was a widow and lived alone. If this was even her house. I gave up, splashed back to my car, and drove off, peering anxiously past the monotonous swish of the windshield wipers. After three random turns, I had no idea at all where I was. It wasn’t yet six, but the clouds were so dark and the rain so heavy I could see very little. There wouldn’t be a soul on the street in this downpour; asking directions was out.

  Maybe if I tried to head downhill? That at least would bring me to the main body of the town, and with luck to a street I recognized. How lost could one get, for heaven’s sake, in a town the size of Sherebury?

  Very lost.

  The last straw was when I slithered down a steep, nasty little cobbled lane, took the sharp turn at the bottom too fast, and came to a shuddering stop a couple of feet from the edge of the riverbank.

  That scared some sense into me. There was no point in my continuing to drive aimlessly in this weather. If I had to, I could walk home. At least I knew where the river was, though I wasn’t familiar with this part of it. I must be on the very edge of town, even if I wasn’t certain whether it was the east or the west edge. I abandoned the car to its wildly unsuitable and probably illegal parking spot and set out, umbrella-less, to seek help.

  And there, looming out of the rain and put there by all the saints, was a pub, a large, well-known riverside pub that was supposed to have good food. Then this was the Lanterngate area, to the west, and only five minutes from the High Street. Well, no matter that I now knew where I was and where home was; I was tired and wet and hungry, and I made for the sign of the King’s Head like a homing pigeon.

  “’Struth, madam, been out for a dip in the river, have you, then?”

  I dripped copiously on the flagstone floor as I walked into the bar and cast bitter glances at the stone-cold hearth. “No,” I answered the barman through chattering teeth. “Just a dip in your lovely English climate. Is there someplace where I could dry off a bit, do you think?”

  “Sarah!” he bellowed through a doorway, and a comfortable-looking woman bustled in, a white apron around her ample waist. “Sarah, love, take the lady upstairs and get her dry. Here you are, dear.” This was to me, as he handed me a balloon glass with something amber in it. “Keep the cold out. On the house.”

  “Oh, dear, dear, dear,” murmured Sarah. “You look like a drowned kitten, you poor thing. You come right through with me.”

  The King’s Head, it seemed, was an inn as well. Sarah, presumably the innkeeper’s wife, led me up steep, narrow stairs to a small room with a sloping floor and chintz curtains, and switched on the electric space heater that stood forlornly in a large fireplace.

  “Now just you get out of those wet things, dear, and here are towels and a bathrobe. I’ll have to bring you something of my own to wear whilst we dry your clothes in the kitchen.”

  “But—I’m not spending the night, you know. I just came in for a meal—”

  “That’ll be all right, dear. Don’t worry. You’re American, aren’t you?”

  I admitted it.

  “Well, we can’t have a visitor getting pneumonia, can we? Whatever would you think of us? Now you just drink your brandy and warm yourself at that nice electric fire and I’ll be back in a tick.”

  “No, I do appreciate this, but I actually live in town, just at the other end, near the Cathedral. I should go home, really, I can’t—”

  Sarah put her hands on her hips and studied me. “Of course, dear! You’re Mrs. Martin, aren’t you? I didn’t recognize you, with your hair all streaming. Now, you’re not getting any younger, dear, if you don’t mind my saying so. I couldn’t rest easy, letting you go back out in the wet, cold through as you are. You’ll have a nice meal, won’t you, and your own things will dry and you’ll go home feeling much
better. You just leave things to me.”

  I gave in gratefully, Sarah bustled out, and I was glad to strip to my underwear, dry myself on the rough towels, and slip into the thick terry-cloth robe. I was warming my hands in front of the heater when she came back with an armful of clothes.

  “Here you are, dear. The dress’ll be big on you, but it has a belt, and I’ve brought you a nice cardi to keep you warm.”

  I slipped into the navy blue dress and white cardigan sweater.

  “There now!” said my rescuer delightedly. “That isn’t so bad, after all!”

  “It’s wonderful,” I said sincerely. “This is so very kind of you, and I don’t even know your name—except Sarah.”

  “Sarah Hawkins. My husband and I own this place; he’s Derek, down in the bar.” She shook hands, the formal gesture seeming a little odd from someone who had seen me in my skivvies a moment before.

  “Well, Mrs. Hawkins, I certainly owe you a great favor. Now about that meal—do you really have room for one more for dinner? I’m sure you’re busy.”

  “We are that,” she said with satisfaction. “If you wouldn’t mind sharing a table? There’s one of our residents dining alone, and he never minds a bit of company. You’ll find him a very pleasant gentleman, friendly, but not—you know.” She cocked her eyebrows to indicate that I was safe from molestation, and I grinned.

  “Sounds fine to me.”

  I was settled at a table for two, my brandy had been topped up, and I had ordered a substantial meal before I had cause to change my mind. I was scrabbling in my purse for a tissue when a familiar voice made me look up.

  “Well, well, what a pleasant surprise! Our good hostess told me I was to have a dinner companion, but she didn’t mention your name. Doing well, are you, Mrs. Martin, eh?”

  Herbert Benson clapped me on the shoulder with a heavy, ringed hand, scraped back his chair, put down his large glass of gin, and sat down, beaming all the way to the edge of his bright-brown hair.

  15

  THERE WAS NO help for it. Mr. Benson might not be my favorite person, but I could scarcely stalk out of the King’s Head in a downpour, wearing someone else’s clothes. I was stuck.

  “Why, Mr. Benson,” I said with as much charm as I could muster, “I had no idea you were staying here. I would have thought you’d have found a house. How long have you been living in Sherebury, then?”

  “Few months. To tell the truth, I’ve been too busy to look for a place of my own, and the Hawkinses do me very well here.” He waved the matter away and went straight to the issue I wanted to avoid. “How’re you getting on with your roof?”

  My soup was served just then, which gave me an excuse for a brief reply. “Well, the tarp keeps the house more or less dry, and I have hopes the grant applications may be approved soon.”

  “Ah, well.” He made a large gesture. “You’d have done better to leave it to me, you know. But—” He waved his right hand airily again and one of his rings slipped from his finger, clattering to the table. He put it back on and continued without missing a beat. “No harm done, and no offense taken, I’m sure. No need for you to worry about that!”

  What chutzpah! He’d neatly turned his irresponsibility into my transgression—and then forgiven me for it! Torn between irritation and admiration, I concentrated on my soup.

  “I’m afraid I won’t have the time to take on those windows we talked about,” he went on.

  Well, thank goodness for that, anyway. Clearly I was no match for this man. If he’d decided he wanted to oversee the rest of my renovations, I’d not only have ended up with plastic windows, but been convinced they were what I wanted.

  “I’m on to quite a good thing, actually,” he went on. “Set to build those new blocks of flats for Pettifer. You’ve heard about them, I’m sure, going to pull down the old Victorian terraces near the university, not that they’ll need much pulling down, ready to fall down by themselves, and put up nice new flats, modern, convenient . . .”

  Ugly, I thought. But, looked at with the dispassionate eye I was trying to cultivate, the old ones weren’t all that beautiful, either. Old and quaint, but dilapidated. Perhaps Pettifer was right, and they should be replaced. At any rate, Benson, with his love of modernity, was probably more safely employed on new buildings. However . . .

  “Oh, yes? I’m surprised you’re involved in that project, Mr. Benson.” It was catty, but I felt I had the right to a lick or two. “Somehow I got the impression you and Mr. Pettifer were—not on very good terms. And surely his own men don’t have enough to do right now. Why would he hire someone else to take over the job for him?”

  My soup bowl was replaced by a plate of sausage, lamb chop, steak, bacon, liver, mushrooms, tomato—loaded with fat and cholesterol, and smelling wonderful.

  “Oh, Archie and I are good friends, you know,” Benson said, finishing his gin. “Here, waiter, I’ll have the mixed grill as well, and we’ll share a bottle of Australian claret, eh, Mrs. Martin?” He beamed at me. “No, we may quarrel from time to time, as old friends do, but when we can see it in our way to do the other a favor, we do it. There’s too much between us for us not to be friends, you see.”

  The last remark made me look up sharply. There was more than a hint of a nudge-and-wink in Benson’s voice, and an unmistakable leer on his face.

  “What do you mean?”

  My tone would have frozen an unruly fourth-grader back in my teaching days, but Benson was beginning to feel his gin, and took no notice.

  “Ah, well, no need to spell it out to a clever lady like yourself, is there? We’ve all got our little secrets, haven’t we? I daresay Archie has one or two things up his sleeve that he’d just as soon didn’t get known, eh? An indiscretion or two in his past? That boy in the Town Hall, now. I fancied he had quite a look of—but least said soonest mended, eh? Here, now, you’re not drinking your wine!”

  “I don’t care very much for red wine,” I lied. Actually I didn’t care very much for Benson’s increasing inebriation, nor for his innuendos.

  “What a pity—you ought to’ve told me. Would you prefer white? Or a nice glass of beer, or—”

  “No, thank you.” Probably he meant well, I thought, trying to be charitable. “It’s very kind of you, but I really don’t want anything more to drink. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night, and I don’t like to drink much when I’m driving anyway. The English laws—” I stopped. Why was I explaining so elaborately?

  Benson leaned forward earnestly. “Ah, now, y’see, that’s your trouble. You let the law intimidate you. Planning laws, traffic laws. The way I look at it is, see, the law’s your servant. Who had the idea of laws to protect us in the first place? The common people, that’s who. Magna Carta and all that, the common people against the king. It’s even called common law, isn’t it? But now they have their laws here and their laws there and they’re all to put you under, keep you in your place. If a man’s to look out for himself, he has to find the way to get round them, thass all.” He burped. “’Scuse me.”

  Taking out a cigarette, he put it between his lips, struck a match, and paused, fractionally. “Don’t mind if I smoke, do you?”

  “Yes, I do mind, as a matter of fact.”

  He had already taken a long drag. He looked at me in astonishment and choked on the lungful of smoke that was seeping out of his open mouth. I looked pointedly at the cigarette; he extinguished it, carefully, and slipped it back into the packet in his shirt pocket.

  “Always happy t’oblige a lady,” he said cheerfully, and I was hard put not to roll my eyes to the ceiling. Just once I would like to catch the man out, put him in the wrong so firmly that he would be forced to apologize, but he seemed unable even to recognize his own sins, much less repent them. I hoped his shirt caught fire.

  “You’re sure you won’t have a li’l wine?”

  “I’m sure.” I was crisp. It had no effect whatever.

  “Making a mistake, you know. S’nothing like a nice gl
ass of wine, and this stuff’s very nice indeed.”

  He poured the rest of the bottle into his glass and his left hand caressed it, fat little fingers looking like sausages with rings tightly embedded in the flesh. His sibilants were beginning to hiss a trifle more than he intended.

  “’S’matter of fact, this was what I was drinking the night—the night of that meeting, you know. Good old Derek’s got quite a lot of it laid down, ’s good stuff . . . .”

  He was more than a little tight, and I didn’t like the way he was leaning toward me. “That would have been the night of the murder, wouldn’t it?” I said hurriedly. “When Mr. Pettifer was with you, after the meeting?”

  He looked at me with owlish solemnity. “Couldn’ deceive a lady, now could I? Don’t like to let down a pal, but mush—mussen lie to a lady. Lie to the police. Don’ like the poleesh. Laws, intid—timin—out to get you.” He finished his wine in one large gulp and began to sing. “All alone—I’m so all alone—” He broke off. “Can’t remember resh of wordsh. Alone. All alone. ’Scuse me.”

  He got up with careful dignity and walked in the direction of the stairway, wavering only slightly, but causing raised eyebrows as he passed. Mrs. Hawkins, drawn by the singing, came over to me, flustered.

  “Oh, dear, I’m so sorry, Mrs. Martin! I’ve never seen the poor man like that before. I suppose he was being convivial and lost count. Are you quite all right?”

  “Yes, thank you. It’s certainly not your fault. It’s been a long day, though, and I’m ready to drop. Are my clothes dry, do you think?”

  “I’m afraid they’re still quite damp. Why don’t you just wear that dress home? It’s too tight for me, you know, so I shan’t be wanting it till I can slim a bit.” She sighed, running her hands down her hips. “But our cook is so good—did you enjoy your dinner? You’ll have your sweet, won’t you, and some coffee to buck you up? It’s still raining.”

  I was too tired to resist, even if I’d wanted to. I did as she suggested, left when the rain finally stopped, and managed to find my way home before sleep caught up with me and blotted everything out.