The Gypsy Hill Murders (The Ralph Chalmers Mysteries Book 1)

by P. J. Thurbin

  At that Jane slumped back onto her pillows, relieved but exhausted now that she had told someone what she had been doing at the ice house. Ralph tried to get her to relax and told her that the police would take care of everything and that they were interviewing everyone.

  He knew it wasn’t the best moment, but he felt that he had to tell her how much he missed her when she left Cambridge to pursue her career in Egypt. And how happy he was that she was back in his life. Jane appeared surprised and at the same time pleased that he had told her how he felt. She told him that she hadn’t realized until she saw him just then how important it was to her that fate had brought them together again, although perhaps the circumstances might have been a bit less dramatic. Jane felt slightly embarrassed, particularly as here they were, two mature people talking like a young couple.

  “It looks as though I’m not as self sufficient as I thought,” Jane said. “If they haven’t found who it was following me this morning, when I get back to work I might be in need of a minder after all.”

  At that moment the constable appeared, and seeing them deep in conversation coughed discretely, having assumed that Ralph and Jane were husband and wife.

  ”Sir, if I could ask you to wait outside. Inspector Linham is on his way and I am not supposed to let anyone speak to Miss Ryman-Jones before he gets here.”

  Ralph said his goodbyes to Jane, promising to come to see her the next day. He then made his way back to the college and a meeting that Granger had called to discuss developments on the Centenary project. Jack Welsh had meanwhile told Jim Stocker, in no uncertain terms, that if he said anything to the police about the Will and Jack’s involvement, then he would make certain that Granger knew everything about Stocker’s private life and some of his goings on at the college with students as well as his drinking and gambling troubles.

  Chapter 10

  The meeting that Granger had called was held in what was known as the boardroom in Kenry House. It was an oak-paneled room with floor to ceiling French Doors that opened out onto sweeping lawns. A large refectory table dominated the room and there was just enough room at the side of a large marble fireplace for a trolley on which coffee and biscuits had been set out. Granger liked to hold his meetings there because it gave him an opportunity to dominate proceedings by placing his high backed dark-oak chair at the head of the table. He had called the meeting to update the staff on progress with the Centenary celebrations. Once he made sure that everyone was paying attention and not scurrying around getting coffee and biscuits, he began.

  “I know that you are all aware of the incident that took place and wanted to tell you that Miss Jane Ryman-Jones is recovering well. With regards to our visit to France, the first thing you need to know is that the Vice Chancellor is pleased with the arrangements that I have made for the Centenary. Ralph has done some work on our potential links to France and he has also found a Hotel near Peronne that my secretary is checking out. We might use it for our conference venue next month.”

  Ralph moaned inwardly. It was the same old Granger. Pulling someone’s name into his orations but making sure that their contribution to things was seen as mundane and not central to his strategy. He went on to talk about the links to the Sorbonne and Dideret Universities and Ralph could see that he was building up to something. Peter Cavendish, Katie, David, and Jim Stocker had all been included in the meeting. Ralph couldn’t understand why, as he was the only one who reported to Granger, as his Head of School. The others were from other schools and would normally not have been there. Granger continued.

  “Some of you may be wondering why I have invited you to this meeting. Well the VC has asked me to get a team ready to go to France that is representative of a wide section of what we do here. I have cleared it with your Heads of School that for this you will be reporting to me. I’m sure that will make a nice change and you will soon get used to the way we do things in my school. We do it right first time and on time.”

  Ralph could only hope that the rest of his friends at the meeting could see that this was only Granger’s style, and how acutely embarrassing it would be if they thought that he was being serious when he said these sorts of things. Granger then filled in some of the details of his plan.

  “Peter, I want you to come to France prepared to give us a rendition of the piece that you have composed for the Centenary. They have a famous organ in the Abbey near where we will be staying. I expect you have seen a lot like it and will make a good job of it. We will have a big audience so you will have to be on form that night. The VC has also agreed that wives and husbands can come along on the trip and feels that will make it easier when we are socializing with the French.”

  Ralph could see Peter squirm. Here he was a graduate of one of the top institutes of organ music in the world and was being asked to entertain an audience as though he was a performer at a wedding reception. And further, that he now had the tricky business of either telling his wife that she could come to the event, or to not tell her and hope that she would not get to hear about it from someone else at the college. It was not unusual for them to entertain as a couple, but they limited these events to small dinner parties with a few of their close friends.

  Travelling to France and having to act as though he enjoyed socializing was a situation that Peter would rather have avoided. But then he reflected that there would probably be a lot of free wine about, and he could do with some time away from all the tensions that had been building up following the recent incidents on site and the stresses at home.

  But Peter’s mind was far away from what he saw as the trivia that Granger was expounding. He was still puzzling over why he and his friends had been interviewed by the police. Was it a game to make them sweat and then incriminate themselves in some way? He dragged himself back to what was going on in the meeting. It must be, he thought, that Granger had all of them lined up for a part in his schemes for glory. Granger turned his attention to Katie.

  ”We need to show the French that we are open to all Nationalities here at Kingston, so Katie you will represent the British links to Australia. You don’t have to bring your boomerang. But your husband is, of course, invited.” He paused for effect and filled the silence with his own laughter.

  Katie, a Professor of Education, realized that she was being brought along as a side show. She was furious but realized that she was sitting in front of a throw- back to feudal times, and for the sake of her friends in the room decided to keep quiet. Granger turned to David.

  ”We need someone who can show the French that we have a Law School, and although I’m not sure that jurisprudence is main stream any more, you probably know enough about the legal side to fill any gaps, should they arise. I’m afraid you can’t bring the whole family, but we would be delighted if your wife could be there. We need people to make up the numbers at the dinners we are arranging. Of course you will probably have to stump up for a new frock. For your wife, of course.”

  Again he laughed at his own humour, but his audience just sat there in stunned silence.

  David mused that what Granger said was not particularly offensive. It was simply that in a situation where you could wield organizational power, it was totally inappropriate to make statements about people and their personal circumstances. In a normal social setting someone would have told Granger to ‘bugger off’ or at least to ‘put a sock in it’. But Granger had not finished. He was about to surprise everyone.

  “Jim, I want you to show these characters from Dideret University that we can match them with our teaching on the math’s and statistics front. Look Jim, you don’t need me to spell it out, but this could be your last chance to put the record straight. I’ve heard all about your drinking and other escapades and I’m giving you a chance to show us that you’re worth keeping on the staff. I want you to prepare a paper that will be the opener at our first meeting with the French.”

  Jim Stocker sat back with an amazed expression on his face . Here in front of his work colleagues, h
e was being effectively threatened. His activities were now open for all to see and hear. Granger swept on.

  “For the visit to France, the VC and I will be travelling with the Chairman of Baylis, the contractors, as they want to make some connections with French Universities for possible future construction works. We will be helping make some introductions for them. We’re going in the company executive jet. Margaret will make arrangements for the rest of you to fly British Airways from Heathrow as that’s the cheapest way. You will have to get a train from Paris to Peronne but you can sort that out with Margaret. We’ll get a coach to take you and your spouse’s to Heathrow. But the coach will leave from here, so don’t be late.”

  Once again the message was being used to underline Granger’s position as the holder of organizational power. The top group would go by executive jet while the troops would have to rough it on the cheap. No one was particularly surprised, but again it was the insensitivity that galled them. Granger then closed the meeting without asking if anyone had questions or input about their views.

  Chapter 11

  As the college day ended Jack Welsh made a tour of the site. Kenry House and the surrounding buildings fell into an eerie silence as the evening chorus of the birds died down. The old clock on the bell tower over the Victorian stables struck nine. Once he was sure that everyone had gone he decided that it was time to explore the ice house. As instructed by the police, Ken Roach had made a good job of securing the entrance to the ice house from the roadway outside Kenry House. So Jack decided that he would make his entrance through the cellars under Kenry House. Making sure that all the outside doors to the house were secure, he made his way down the steps to the cellar doors. He knew what to expect. In preparation he had taken a book out of the local library to find out how ice houses were constructed and used so that his search would be made easier.

  He had been surprised to read that ice was a luxury in Victorian times and had been imported to England by the Wenham Lake Ice Company in Massachusetts since around 1820. Prior to that time the ice had been of low quality, and was used for cooling dishes rather than being used to make ice cream and jellies. The construction of the ice house was similar to that of an Eskimo igloo with a limestone dome about 4 meters in diameter and some 3 meters tall and with the base, or floor being of brick and another 2 meters below ground level. So when Jack arrived at the underground door he knew that he would be about 15 feet below the road surface.

  As he made his way along the cellar passageway he used a torch since the lighting only went as far as the start of the tunnel. The door was in good order for something that had been underground for 100 years or more. As he undid the rusty bolts and grasped the iron ring handle he wondered if the ghost of the dead officer walked the cellars at night. He laughed inwardly at being so superstitious and gave the door a push.

  To his surprise it swung open easily and shining his torch ahead, he went in. The first thing that he noticed was that the walls had been fitted out with shelves on which he could just make out the remains of some boxes with the markings of the Wenham Lake Ice Company still visible. The place was damp and musty and he was careful to shine his torch before he took a step, just in case the place was a home for the rats that he had seen scurrying around in the cellars earlier that week. As he looked upwards he could see a pin prick of light filtering in from the top of the dome that formed the roof of the igloo.

  He had just started to pull out some of the boxes so that he could look for a place where the officer might have hidden the treasure, when he froze. Just above his head he noticed that some of the red bricks lining the walls had been disturbed. At first he thought that this might have been done some time ago by someone in a hurry. It looked as though someone had tried to push a box into a natural recess. But on closer inspection he could see that someone had been there quite recently as the bricks had been levered out with a chisel that had then been left on the side shelving. The chisel was brand new and could easily have been owned by one of the site construction workers. Perhaps one of the workers had done it after they had been told to block the dome access by the police.

  But what worried Jack even more was that there were bits of broken box on the floor of the ice house that had army markings on them. He recognized them as being similar to those used by officers to transport documents and personal papers. As he bent closer to see if he could make out any of the markings, he noticed a leather satchel like a large brief case that had the name Captain Martin Bryman engraved on it in black. So the officer had hidden something in the ice house which had lain undisturbed for nearly 100 years. That is, until quite recently. As he straightened himself up he heard a noise, and turning in the restricted space he caught sight of a hooded figure before he sank into oblivion from a blow to the head.

  It seemed that a long time passed before Jack started to regain consciousness. His head throbbed from the blow and it was pitch dark. The battery must have run out in his torch. Whoever had struck him down had also shut the door to the cellar passageway. He tried to pull the door open, but whoever had shut it had also managed to secure the large bolts that doubled as a lock. He tried to take stock of his situation.

  It was most likely still Friday night and it was unlikely that anyone would be close enough to the domed roof to hear his cries. He tried to climb up on the shelving but it crumbled under his weight. He realized that he would have to find some way of surviving until Monday, and hope that someone would then hear his shouts for help. Just as he was about to make himself as comfortable as possible, he felt a spray of water in his face, it was coming from a hole that someone had made in the dome roof. What had at first been a trickle now turned into a torrent, as water under high pressure started to gush in to the ice house space. Jack realized that whoever had struck him and locked the cellar door was now trying to drown him as there was no easy way for the water to escape fast enough to stop the ice house flooding.

  The Victorian designers had made sure that the cellar door was in effect waterproof. To get into the ice house itself, it was necessary to climb two meters of steps before dropping down to the ice house floor. Jack tried not to panic. His army training made him focus his mind on survival. It struck him that as the ice melted there must have been some way for the excess water to drain from the confined space. Otherwise whenever anyone tried to get any ice they would have to stand in two meters of water. He mused that the Victorian builders must have realized that was not acceptable. So he began to look for some form of drainage system in the floor. In the dark this proved not an easy task and he could feel blood oozing from the blow that he had taken to his head.

  After what seemed like hours he managed to use the chisel he had found to scrape away years of brick and rubble from what must have been an original drain away in the brick floor. Having cleared it as best he could, he waited to see if the level of water, which was now up to his waist, was subsiding or at least not getting any higher. To his relief it seemed to be staying at that height or even falling slightly. At least he knew that he wouldn’t drown, and it gave him time to think who might have wanted to kill him?

  His first thoughts were that Jim Stocker could have found out from Ryman-Jones about the writing on the slate, attacked her as she was trying to enter the ice house from the dome, and gone looking for the Will, with the intention of forcing Jack to make a deal on sharing any gains. Then he must have found the treasure and decided to kill Jack to get all the money. But then killing someone just for money did seem a bit farfetched in today’s world. And although Stocker was a drunk and a gambler, was he really capable of killing someone? Not likely, mused Jack, because he knew from his army experiences that to kill someone, you had to either be in personal danger, crazy with rage or have enough hatred in you towards someone, that you were prepared to kill them. Jim Stocker did not, according to Jack’s reasoning, fit into any of those frames. Then there was Ken Roach. Jack wondered if he could be involved. He certainly was vicious enough to bash someone on the
head, especially if there was a lot of money involved. But how could he have known about the treasure? And would he be crazy enough if he had found it, to kill for it?

  But by now Jack was getting cold and starting to have a reaction from the blow that he had taken, and the blood that was still flowing from the wound. He started to hear voices and someone calling his name. He could see dimly in the cellar light a figure of an officer in the uniform worn in the First World War. He could make out the polished riding boots with a belt holding a Webley Revolver. “Sergeant John Ridgeway, why are you not at your post?” It was someone calling his grandfather, he thought. Then the officer started shouting, “Give the gun back, don’t be a dammed fool, man.” Then Jack heard the sound of a revolver shot and saw the officer stagger and fall into the arms of a second officer. Then the picture faded. As he sank into a torpor he could see that it was just starting to get light or at least that’s the last thing he remembered.

  One of the site contractors had arrived early to deliver some scaffolding and noticed water gushing from one of the water pipes outside Kenry House. He turned the water off but was puzzled as to why it had been feeding into what he thought was a hole in the ground. Having made his contribution, he decided to leave it to the site workers to sort out and drove off for his next delivery. Jack awoke as soon as the water stopped pouring into the cellar. But as he could hear no one in the grounds, there seemed little point in wasting his energy shouting for help.

  It was early Monday morning when one of the workers saw the water pipe and assumed that the students had been fooling around over the weekend, or perhaps it was some local kids who occasionally got onto the site from nearby houses. Jack heard voices and left no time in shouting for help to get him out. The workers soon opened the dome access, got a ladder and managed to lift Jack to safety. Feeling the warmth of the early morning sun was good, and he was glad to be alive.