The Young Widow

by Cassandra Chan

  “So I’m rather afraid,” Gorringe was saying apologetically, “when the question of this rumor came up, I rather jumped at the chance to hand things over to you. Not that I believe it,” he added, “but it’ll have to be looked into all the same, and that’s out of my jurisdiction.”

  “What rumor?” asked Carmichael, turning over a page of the case file.

  “It’s there,” said Curry. “That last statement. Actually, it took us a hell of a long time to dig it out—nobody wanted to repeat it to policemen known to be friendly with the Berownes. You see how our hands are tied.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Carmichael. “But the rumor?”

  “It started with Mrs. Langston—an old cat if ever there was one,” said Andrews.

  “Quite a coincidence, really,” said Gorringe. “This Mrs. Langston only moved to Peaslake a year or so ago. Previously, she had lived in Kent, in Hawkhurst, I think. Anyway, it was the same town that Mrs. Berowne had come from, where she had been married to William Burton who died a couple of years before she married Geoff Berowne. That’s common knowledge. What Mrs. Langston supplied was the fact that William Burton was an elderly man and that at the time of his death, there were rumors in the town that Mrs. Burton had killed him for his money. He was a well-to-do man, you see.”

  Carmichael digested this in silence, not liking it very much. “Well, we can certainly check into that,” he said. “Tell me, you all know Mrs. Berowne. Do you think she’s guilty?”

  There was dead silence. No one looked at him.

  The pause was becoming awkward when at last the chief constable sighed. “I’ve always liked Mrs. Berowne very much,” he said slowly. “She’s a charming woman and I thought she and her husband were a very affectionate couple. I find it difficult to believe she murdered him. But neither can I discount it.”

  Carmichael wasn’t about to discount it either, although he could see evidence was going to be hard to come by. Andrews had said as much, apologizing for handing Carmichael a probably unsolvable case. “There’s nothing to get hold of, you see,” he had said. “Lilies of the valley bloom all over the estate. Any one of them could have picked some, put the water from the vase into a bottle, and tipped it into the coffeepot. We’ve got nothing to say it was more likely this person than that.”

  Carmichael emerged slowly from the lift, the case file in one hand and his raincoat in the other. He spotted Gibbons lounging on a bench against the far wall of the lobby, reading a local paper. Somehow the sight of his sergeant cheered Carmichael up. He had a high opinion of Gibbons’s talent and abilities, and it was a relief at his age to have a sergeant who could be depended on to follow things up properly and not miss anything along the way. He had not, many years ago, been too sure about the idea of university-educated policemen, but if ever there was justification for the notion, Gibbons was it.

  He crossed the lobby briskly.

  “Good morning, sir.” Gibbons folded the paper and set it aside. “How was your meeting?”

  Carmichael snorted. “The case is a mess,” he said. He handed Gibbons the case file and began struggling into his raincoat. “How was the train ride down?”

  “Well, actually, sir, I caught a lift.”

  “A lift?” Carmichael paused in adjusting his collar.

  “Yes, sir. Phillip Bethancourt brought me down.”

  “Did he indeed?” Carmichael turned to peer out the glass doors into the car park, his eyes fixing accurately on the gray Jaguar and the tall, slender young man beside it, standing bareheaded in the drizzle and smoking a cigarette.

  “I told him,” said Gibbons, “that you probably wouldn’t want him along when we went to the Berownes’, but he said he’d wait anyway. I think, sir, he’s curious as to why we’re being given the case at all.” Gibbons looked up hopefully, for he was at least as curious as Bethancourt, but Carmichael was staring outside and thinking.

  Bethancourt’s father had been to school with the chief commissioner and word had come down that, when it wasn’t inconvenient, Bethancourt was to be allowed to look on during investigations. His father evidently cherished hopes that this would inspire his son to join the force, but these hopes had not thus far borne fruit. Mostly Carmichael hadn’t minded. Bethancourt kept discreetly in the background and had even been quite helpful once or twice. And he came from a wealthy family, like the Berownes. Perhaps he would understand these people better than Carmichael or his middle-class sergeant ever could.

  “Tell him he can come,” said Carmichael abruptly. He shrugged off the raincoat he had just donned. “We’ll go down to the canteen and run over the case file briefly. I could use a cup of coffee anyway.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Gibbons, surprised. He rose from the bench and went out in the rain to collect his friend.

  Peaslake was some miles from Guildford. Gibbons drove the police Rover capably through the rain, while Carmichael puffed on a cigar and read over Mrs. Berowne’s statement for a third time. Bethancourt followed them in the Jaguar.

  “Is this the turnoff, sir?” asked Gibbons.

  Carmichael lifted the case file and glanced at the ordinance survey map underneath. “That’s right.” He gazed out the windscreen while Gibbons negotiated the right-hand turn, and then asked, “Were you and Bethancourt roommates at Oxford?”

  “Oh, no, sir,” said Gibbons, rather surprised. “He was at Merton.” Silence greeted this information, so Gibbons added, “I was at St. Johns. The buildings aren’t even adjacent.”

  “But you were close? Read the same subject, perhaps?” It had suddenly occurred to Carmichael to wonder how his brilliant, ambitious, hard-working sergeant had become such close friends with a man who, while brilliant in his own way, was anything but ambitious and hard-working. Lazy was a better adjective for Bethancourt.

  “No, sir,” answered Gibbons, glancing in the rearview mirror to make sure the Jaguar was still in sight. “Phillip read classics. We didn’t really know each other very well then. We became friends in London, a year or so after we came down.”

  “Oh,” said Carmichael, not much enlightened.

  “We happened to run into each other during the Hopkins case,” explained Gibbons. “You remember it, sir?”

  “Certainly, Sergeant. You were very clever over it, as I recall.”

  Gibbons said nothing, merely nodding appreciation of this accolade. In fact, it had been his chance meeting with Bethancourt in a pub that had produced the clever idea which led to the case’s solution. It had also resulted in Bethancourt’s devouring interest in murder cases and had cemented the firm friendship between the two men. Sometimes, thought Gibbons, fortune smiled on you when you were least expecting it.

  “So what’s our line on this case, sir?” he asked.

  Carmichael snorted. “The wife, of course,” he answered. “It’s usually the spouse, and if you want my private opinion, Gibbons, the real reason Surrey CID called us in is because they couldn’t find enough evidence for an arrest.” He sighed. “Let’s hope we have better luck.”

  “Yes, sir.” Gibbons slackened his speed as they approached a town. “Where to now, sir?”

  “This must be Peaslake,” said Carmichael, referring to the map. “We go straight through.”

  They drove through the town—still referred to as “the village” by the inhabitants, but grown considerably beyond that in recent years—and came out again into the country. A mile or so out of the town, they turned off onto a narrow, winding country road with large houses set well back from the street and screened by trees and hedges. After another mile or so, a high redbrick wall sprang up on their right, and they followed its curve for some ways until both road and wall straightened out, and an opening appeared in the red brick marked by granite pillars with wrought-iron gates standing open.

  “This is it,” said Carmichael, peering at a stone plaque set into the wall beside the gates. “Hurtwood Hall,” he read, and grunted. “Well, that’s certainly descriptive.”

  Gibbon
s turned into the drive, which was overhung on either side by large plane trees. The lane curved gently, leading them on, out from the trees, and ending in a sweeping circle before the house. This was a huge, redbrick Victorian monstrosity and Carmichael found himself thinking that if he had amassed a fortune, he would never by any chance spend it on a residence like this. Gibbons drew the car up to one side of the drive, and the gray Jaguar came to halt just behind it. Bethancourt got out and joined them, peering upward at the house through the fine rain.

  “What on earth do you think they do with all the old servants’ quarters?” he asked.

  “It’s pretty awful, isn’t it?” said Gibbons in a low voice.

  They climbed the steps to the front door, which was opened, after a little delay, by a middle-aged woman in a blue cleaning smock. She ushered them in, saying Mrs. Berowne was expecting them. “If you’ll just come this way,” she said. Her voice was low, and she avoided meeting their eyes, as if their presence made her nervous.

  Carmichael smiled genially. “Would you be Mrs. Mary Simmons?” he asked pleasantly.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You live in, don’t you?”

  She shot him an anxious glance, as if this interest in her was somehow menacing. “Yes, sir,” she answered, and motioned with relief toward a large drawing room. “In here, please, sirs. I’ll just tell Mrs. Berowne you’re here.”

  She beat a hasty retreat while Carmichael was saying thank you.

  The decor of the room was unexpectedly pleasant and tasteful. Before the somewhat ornate mantelpiece were drawn up two comfortable-looking armchairs, patterned in a very faded medieval forest brocade. A little beyond them were gathered two more armchairs, a sofa, and a love seat in a bold flower pattern, all grouped about a deep green carpet and an oaken coffee table. The effect was cozy, and quite homey.

  For all that, the house had a curiously empty feel to it. It had been built to house a large Victorian family with at least a dozen servants, and something in the silence of the room proclaimed that four women were not enough to fill it. It had the air of a home after all the children had left.

  The three men divested themselves of their raincoats and settled themselves on the sofa and armchairs. Gibbons produced a notebook and pencil, while Bethancourt examined the coffee table. Carmichael leaned back in the very comfortable sofa and took in his surroundings with a sharp eye.

  Then Annette Berowne came into the room.

  She had an air about her that drew all their eyes and kept them. There was a peculiar kind of grace to her movements; she seemed to drift, rather than walk, into the room, and though her heart-shaped face was serious, there was an indefinable expression in her eyes that seemed to welcome them.

  “Hello,” she said, and gave them a smile that warmed her brown eyes and made dimples flash in her cheeks. “I’m Annette Berowne.”

  She came forward and offered Carmichael a small hand with rose-tipped nails, delicate but firm in its touch.

  “Detective Chief Inspector Carmichael, ma’am,” he answered. “This is Detective Sergeant Gibbons, and our colleague, Phillip Bethancourt.”

  She shook hands with all of them and then sank, rather than sat, into a chintz-covered chair and turned melting brown eyes expectantly toward Carmichael, who smiled neutrally at her.

  The effect she had on the three men facing her was varied. All three were aware that she was their first suspect in the murder of her husband, yet there was a kittenish quality to her that made thinking of her as a murderer difficult. Carmichael firmly reminded himself that poison was a woman’s weapon and tried to order his thoughts, which were unaccountably in disarray.

  Gibbons arranged his notebook with great care and inspected his pencil point, all the time intensely aware of the woman seated to his left. She was not, he felt, at all what he had thought she would be. He had rather been expecting the kind of woman his grandmother called a “floozie,” but that did not describe Annette Berowne in the least. He noticed that beneath her welcoming expression she looked tired, with dark smudges under her eyes and a slightly strained quality to her marvelous smile. Unexpectedly, he felt a pang of sympathy for her. He glanced at Bethancourt to see what his friend thought of her.

  Bethancourt alone noticed that she was not beautiful and thought what a pity that was. She was not plump, but neither was she possessed of the kind of figure obtained by rigorous dieting and even more rigorous exercise. There was a fullness about her hips and abdomen, offset by the generous swelling of her breast. Bethancourt’s standards, exemplified by Marla Tate, were high, and this woman did not meet them. Yet he was quite unable to look away from her, which said much about the feminine mystique she embodied. He thought that if she had possessed beauty as well, she would have been phenomenal.

  He felt Gibbons’s gaze on him, and shifted to meet his eyes, giving a slight shrug to indicate he didn’t know what to make of Annette Berowne either.

  “First, Mrs. Berowne,” said Carmichael in his gravelly voice, “let me offer our condolences on your loss. I understand that this is a very sad and difficult time for you, but I’m afraid we must ask you to go over your evidence once more.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “Daniel—that is, Commander Andrews explained that you would need to ask me things.” She kept her eyes fixed on Carmichael, as if he were a difficult schoolmaster who might at any moment produce a question she could not answer. Carmichael had an irritating impulse to soothe her fears.

  “If you could just tell us, ma’am, about the day of the murder.”

  She nodded compliance. “It was a beautiful day,” she said in her soft voice. “The first nice one in ever so long. There were some errands I wanted to run in the village and, once I was ready to go, I went into Geoffrey’s study to let him know. I asked him if he wanted to come with me, but he had some papers to go over and said no. Kitty came in with his midmorning coffee just as I was leaving and we went out together. I told her where I was going and she asked me to pick up a tin of pears.”

  “Kitty is your cook?” asked Carmichael.

  “Yes.” She nodded, and a lock of dark blond hair fell over her cheek. “Katherine Whitcomb—she’s our old cook’s niece.”

  “You said she brought in Mr. Berowne’s midmorning coffee? Do you know what time this was?”

  “He always had his coffee at eleven,” she answered. “I checked my watch as I left the house, and it was a minute or so past eleven then.”

  “Now you said you asked Mr. Berowne if he would go to the village with you.” Carmichael’s tone was ruminative and gentle. “Yet you knew he was just about to have his elevenses.”

  “Oh,” she said, “I told him I’d wait if he wanted to come. It would only have been twenty minutes or so.”

  Carmichael nodded. “Now, I want to ask you about the tray. Did you—incidentally, didn’t you often take it in to your husband yourself?”

  “Usually, if I was in the house,” she agreed.

  “But you didn’t that day?”

  She looked a little helpless. “No,” she said. “Daniel Andrews asked about that as well, but there wasn’t any particular reason. I just didn’t. I was in my room changing, and looking forward to going out, and once I was ready, I just ran down to the study. I didn’t think of the coffee and I didn’t forget it either.”

  “I understand,” said Carmichael soothingly, sounding as if he really did. “Did you notice the tray when Miss Whitcomb brought it in?”

  “Not particularly,” she said. “I think it seemed just as usual. The same coffeepot and everything, I mean.”

  “Could you describe how it was usually set out?” asked Carmichael.

  “Oh, certainly.” She smiled at him, apparently pleased at being asked a question she could answer definitively, and the dimples flashed in her cheeks. “It was always exactly the same,” she continued. “A plain cup and saucer, the Rockingham coffeepot, and a little plate of biscuits. Oh, and a napkin.”

  “No cream or su
gar?” asked Carmichael.

  “No, he never took any.”

  “And the tray seemed as usual to you that day?”

  “I think so,” she answered. “Certainly I noticed nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “Did Miss Whitcomb pour a cup of coffee for Mr. Berowne?”

  “Oh, no.” She shook her head. “She just set it down on the table. He liked to let it cool a few minutes, so that he wouldn’t burn his tongue gulping it down.” Her smile this time was sad. “He drank nearly everything that way, all in one swallow, except for port and cognac.”

  “Very well,” said Carmichael, going on to the next matter. “Now, as you left the study, you told Miss Whitcomb you were going into the village and asked if she needed anything?”

  “Yes, that’s right. At first she said no, but then she changed her mind and asked for the tinned pears. I told her I’d pick them up and then I left.”

  “I understand you had decided to walk to the village.” Carmichael said it evenly, but she did not seem alarmed.

  “Yes,” she said. “I usually drive, but it was such a lovely day, I decided to walk. I felt I wanted some fresh air, you see. So I left the estate by the back gate and took the footpath across the fields. I was halfway there when I suddenly thought that I hadn’t seen my library card in my wallet while I was checking my money. It was the whole reason for the trip, you see,” she added confidingly. “The library rang that morning to say a book on roses I’d been wanting had come in. Anyway, I stopped and checked, and the card wasn’t there. So I started back for it, wondering where I could have left it, and at last I remembered seeing it on the bureau and sticking it in my pocket. I was more than halfway back to the estate by then, and I thought of getting the car. But I decided not to. It was still a beautiful day, you see.”