by L. A. Nisula
A Spartan Murder
copyright (c) 2015 L. A. Nisula
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All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction; any resemblance to actual places or persons is purely coincidental.
When Cassie Pengear is summoned to Oxford as a suspect in a murder, she assumes it’s by one of the Scotland Yard Inspectors who don’t appreciate her occasional help. She’s surprised to learn it’s from her friend Inspector Burrows and even more startling, he actually begins to give her information on the case of a murdered Oxford don. Startling until she realizes his two best suspects are committing a crime Inspector Burrows would rather overlook simply by being together. Now she’s keeping suspects' secrets while investigating blackmail and murder.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 1
It all began when I heard a pounding on my door just after seven one Friday evening. I wasn’t doing anything more pressing than sitting in my flat having a bit of cake and wondering if I should look into taking out some advertisements in the newspapers in Oxford offering my typing services, so I called, “I'll be right there, Mrs. Albright.”
“It's the telephone, Cassie,” my landlady called through the door. “One of your professors.”
I did typing for several professors, and I'd had papers from at least five of them recently, none of whom would use the telephone when a letter would do. Most hadn't progressed to the telegram or, heaven forbid, mechanical birds, so I had no idea whom it could be. I grabbed my key and hurried down the stairs to the foyer. When I got to the converted closet that served as our telephone cabinet, I found the earpiece resting on the desk. I held it to my ear and leaned in to the mouthpiece. “Hello, Cassandra Pengear speaking.”
There was no answer.
“Hello?”
Still nothing, but there were sounds, something like the shuffling of papers.
“Is anyone there?”
Still nothing. I wasn't sure what else I could do to get their attention, so I hung up.
Mrs. Albright was waiting by the door to her ground-floor flat. “Interesting?”
“I have no idea. One of the old dears probably didn't know how to work the thing.” I thought of all of the professors who sent me papers as old men hunched over their desks, even though I knew at least two of them were younger than I was and many not much older.
Mrs. Albright nodded. “I have almond cake, if you'd like some.”
I certainly couldn't say no to Mrs. Albright’s almond cake. I followed Mrs. Albright into her flat and forgot about my mysterious caller.
That is, I forgot about it until three days later when I was stumbling around my flat trying to sort out how to make tea and toast while I was still half asleep. That's when there was a very official-sounding knock on my door. I pulled my robe around myself and tried to figure out what had happened to the belt as I made my way to answer. I found the belt by stepping on one end and pulling it out of place. The knocking started again, and I was very tempted to ignore it completely and pretend to be asleep. But I got my clothing sorted out and pulled the door open as the knocking started for a third time.
I discovered that finding a policeman you don't know on your doorstep does wonders for waking you up. I wouldn’t recommend it, though. In any case, I didn't recognize the constable standing in the hall. He nodded once and said, “Miss Cassandra Pengear?”
“That's correct.” I pulled my robe in a little tighter.
“Your presence is requested in an investigation. I have the summons here.” He handed me an envelope.
I heard a creak on the stairs. I glanced over and spotted the top of Mrs. Albright's head. So she was keeping an eye on things. Probably ready to call one of my friends at Scotland Yard or bash the unknown constable over the head with a convent cooking utensil, whichever seemed more appropriate in the situation. As her flat was on the ground floor and I hadn’t sent the latchkey down in the pneumatic tube, she would have let him in and had the perfect excuse to ask him his business and get a good look at him. In any case, I felt much more secure knowing she was there.
I gestured to my state of undress. “As you can see, I'm not prepared to leave at the moment.” It was probably Inspector Wainwright. He and I didn't care for each other. He was the sort to send a formal summons even though he knew I'd respond to a simple telephone call just as well. Probably better, in fact.
“The summons contains all of the information. I was not told to wait. Please be at the appointed location at the appointed time.” He nodded once and turned to the stairs. Mrs. Albright didn't even pretend she hadn't been spying, just led him out to the front door.
I closed the door to my flat but didn't lock it. I got the kettle put on and was digging through my desk for a letter opener—a summons from Scotland Yard seemed formal enough to require it, although not formal enough to dress for—when Mrs. Albright knocked.
“It's open.”
Mrs. Albright came in with a plate of scones. “What was that all about? Did you know him?”
“No. Did you recognize him?”
She shook her head. “I'll see if Constable Triply got a look at him. He should have been coming past here around then, unless he saw something he needed to deal with.” Constable Triply's beat included the streets around Paddington and Marylebone, which were not exactly epicenters of crime, although he did stop to look into anything that might be suspicious, and it would be just my luck for him to find a gang of pickpockets in the Underground station or some urchins intent on vandalism right when I needed him to look at a policeman.
I found my letter opener and got the envelope opened. Inside was a train ticket to Oxford and a formal letter requesting my presence that morning at eleven and giving an address. The most surprising part was that it was signed by Inspector Burrows. He was a friend of mine, and he certainly knew a friendly note would have been all I needed to come in and give whatever assistance was needed. I held the letter out to Mrs. Albright.
She read it over and handed it back. “It doesn't say why, though.”
“I know. That's not like him. At least I can prove I haven’t been to Oxford recently. Everyone I work for there uses the post. What possible business could I have there? What could he, for that matter?”
Mrs. Albright got cups from my kitchen and started sorting out the tea. “I would assume it has something to do with the university. Does he say which college?”
I glanced at the address he’d given me. “Serringford.”
“And do you know anyone there?”
“I don’t know. It sounds familiar.” I left Mrs. Albright to set out breakfast and went back to my desk. I took the stack of completed typing requests and started sorting through, looking at the addresses. “Here it is. Professor John Headly, Serringford College, Oxford. I typed up a paper on Greek history for him. Something about the economy and class systems, and the decline of Sparta. All very dull. Hardly memorable. One of those things they publish because they have to publish and the journals take because they need to fill the
pages.”
“So not worth murdering over?”
“Not that I can see. I suppose if there was plagiarism, but if I were going to plagiarize a paper, I would have picked something more interesting. Of course, it could be a brilliant piece in its field.” I sat at the small table where Mrs. Albright had laid out the tea and scones. “I suppose I'll have to go down and ask him myself. I wonder if I should pack a bag.”
“It can’t hurt to be prepared,” Mrs. Albright said as she helped herself to the tea. “If there is a murder, you never know how long you’ll be.”
~*~*~
When I got off the train in Oxford, I found Inspector Burrows himself waiting for me on the platform. He took my carpet bag from me without comment and nodded in the direction of the exit.
“You know you could have just sent a letter. And we do have a telephone at Paddington Street.”
He smiled. “Normally I could have. But I do have to be formal when I request a murder suspect's presence.”
“Suspect?”
He didn't answer as he started walking out to the street. I had to hurry to catch up with him.
“You mean I’m actually a suspect?”
“You received a telephone call from the victim on Friday.”
I stared at him. “How do you know that?”
“We were able to check with the switchboard and found out who he had telephoned.”
“And you knew it was to me?”
“To the number of your building. Given the fact that he was an Oxford don—I know you do work for several—and the fact that he was murdered shortly thereafter, it didn’t seem to be a stretch that it would be you he had telephoned.”
“Who was he?”
“You don’t remember speaking to anyone?”
I thought. “Someone telephoned on Friday, around seven, but I didn’t speak to him.”
“That’s the call. Why didn’t you speak to him?”
“He wasn’t there. Mrs. Albright must have though, since she came upstairs and told me it was someone from Oxford. Although neither of us would know what he sounded like, so anyone could have claimed to be him.”
“But she spoke to someone?”
I nodded.
“And she didn’t get a name?”
“Mrs. Albright just said one of my dons was on the line. I’m assuming it’s Professor Headly?”
“Do I want to know how you got that name?”
I grinned. “Simple deductive reasoning. He’s the only don at Serringford College I’ve worked for recently.”
“All right. Tell me exactly what happened.”
“I was in my flat, and Mrs. Albright knocked on the door and told me someone was on the line for me, so I went down to answer.”
“Immediately?”
“Yes, I mean I was having some tea. I put my fork down and grabbed the key and went down.”
“And how much time would you say elapsed between the time Mrs. Albright stopped talking to someone and you picked up the receiver?”
“Not long. How long does it take for her to come up to my room and me to go down? Not more than a couple minutes.”
“You’ve never timed it?” He seemed amused.
“Of course not. Have you?”
“Thirty-eight seconds each way.”
“You’re serious?”
He nodded.
“All right, then approximately seventy-six seconds later,” I paused to see his reaction.
“We’ll say ninety seconds, to give her time to give the message and you time to get to the door.”
“All right, ninety seconds later, I picked up the receiver, and there was no one there.”
“And what exactly did you say?”
“The sort of thing you say in that situation. Probably, ‘Hello, this is Miss Pengear. Hello, hello. Are you there?’ No one said anything.” I stopped and tried to remember what it had sounded like. Inspector Burrows noticed and leaned against a hitching post, seeming in no hurry at all. “I’m certain the line was still engaged, so he hadn’t hung up while I was gone. I didn’t hear any talking or breathing, so I don’t think he was listening. There were some papers moving, I think. I suppose he must have put the receiver down on his desk or something like that.”
“What did you think at the time?”
“Not much, honestly. I wasn’t expecting to be caught up in a murder. Despite what you think, I do go for months at a time without stumbling over a dead body. I get the impression that a lot of the dons I work for are absent minded. I get odd amounts of money from them, envelopes without the material I’m supposed to type up, things like that. If I thought anything, I suppose it was that a student or someone came in and distracted him, and he forgot about me. Does that help?”
“It does, actually. The receiver was in the cradle when I examined the room, so someone hung it up after he spoke to Mrs. Albright.”
“Any interesting prints?”
“Tons. His, the department secretary’s, half his students’, all of the teaching assistants’. It's the telephone for the entire department. Something about running the wire up from the floor below, or down from above. The fellow who explained it to me spent a great deal of time on the difficulty and very little on the actual result. Which, in this case, is if want someone’s prints on it, they’re probably there.” He started walking again.
I hurried to catch up. “How did you end up on a case in Oxford anyway?”
“We do have jurisdiction here, you know.”
“But I’m sure they have a perfectly capable police force. I would think they would want to handle their own murders.”
“The body was found in London. I got the case there. It took me two days to track it to the actual scene of the crime here in Oxford.”
“And you didn't turn the case over to them? I would have thought you were busy enough in town.”
Inspector Burrows stopped walking. “I was within my rights to keep the case. There were certain aspects of it that I found interesting.”
“Such as?”
Inspector Burrows started towards the cluster of buildings again. “For starters, a notorious murder-magnet received a telephone call from the victim shortly before the man died. I wouldn't want to unleash you on the Oxfordshire constabulary without fair warning.”
“Now you sound like Inspector Wainwright.”
“I would have thought you'd like a nice trip to Oxford. Haven't you ever wondered what your tame dons look like? And once you finished with them, there are some lovely examples of fan vaulting you may want to have a look at, not to mention the Bodleian Library.”
“What about the crime scene?”
“Far less picturesque than the Bodleian, and no fan vaulting whatsoever.” He held the door to the building that seemed to be our destination open for me.
So what was really going on? Why had my friend decided that this case was worth irritating the Oxford police force by taking it over? I was so intent on considering that, I almost missed the fact that he was leading me to the scene of the crime. As he was being so helpful, it seemed a good time to risk some questions.
“You said the body was found in London?”
Inspector Burrows seemed glad for the change of subject. At least he answered me. “That's right. St. Mary's Hospital. They were preparing some bodies for an anatomy class and realized they had one extra, so they called us in to see if it was a miscount or something more interesting. It wasn't a miscount.”
It also wasn't someplace I had any interest in visiting. “And it wasn't obvious he was the one that was extra?”
“They weren't idiots; he was their first suspect, but they also didn't want to rule out the idea that he had died of a perfectly normal fall or something similar. Not to mention the number of less than savory characters that end up in their theaters.” He grinned. “For someone who pokes around as many crime scenes as you do, you seem very adept at avoiding the actual bodies.”
“I would have thought that would please y
ou.”
“Oh, it does. It's just an observation. Since you didn't ask, he was coshed over the head.”
Now that was suspicious. Not the death, but Inspector Burrows's willingness to tell me about it. There was definitely something else going on. “Why was he in London?”
“I have no idea.” Then he realized why I had asked the question. “He wasn’t killed there, but in his office.”
“His office? How do you know?”
“The blood was a clue.”
I stared at him. “So the murderer just took the body away but didn't bother to clean up the crime scene? That sounds rather sloppy.”
“It turned out to be brilliant, though. No one saw anyone come in that night. No one saw anyone go out. And there were people around; students mostly, but still reliable witnesses, at least the ones that were sober. Somehow he managed to sneak in without causing comment, murder Professor Headly, and sneak out with the body.”
“And if he'd come back, you think he would have been seen?”
“I'm sure of it. You see, there's only one block of time I can see when he would have been able to do it. When the students were all in their rooms for curfew check at nine o’clock. Most of the staff had gone home by then. And the grounds were mostly deserted.”
“Is the curfew really that strict?”
“It is at the moment. Apparently the nearby colleges have been complaining about fighting and general drunkenness at Serringford, and that was the college’s way of trying to curb it, or at least appearing to do something. I assume they all know better than to think a house full of students will quietly stay in their rooms after lights out, but there would be a short period when they would, for appearances’ sake.”
“It's all suggesting an inside job, then.”
“It is.”
But not why he took the case. “So the killer had to know the routines of the school, and that curfew didn't really mean curfew.”
“Well, anyone who knows students would know that was true. But yes, familiarity with the school routine is most likely, or incredible good luck. Here we are.”
