“Dad left everything to me. There was no one else. And my late husband was well-off. Titled, you know. An old Welsh family. Anyway, I’m not sure what I’m going to do with all that money. Not to sound ungrateful.” Phoebe Wells made a rueful face. “It’s just that I never had any children, nor even nieces or nephews. So I’ve been looking into charities.”
Rex decided he had mined Phoebe for sufficient information for the time being. He needed to get another perspective on the business of the judge’s alleged murder. “I’ll take the tea tray to the kitchen and save Annie a trip,” he said, pushing himself out of the armchair.
“How thoughtful of you. She is getting on a bit.” Phoebe stacked the crockery on the tray. “The kitchen is in the basement.”
“Your housekeeper knows nothing of your suspicions?”
“Lord no. Not until I can be certain. I don’t want to frighten the poor woman off.”
“What is Annie’s surname?”
“McBride.” Phoebe rose to open the double doors leading into the hall, and Rex carried the tray through them and down the stairs.
At the bottom he found a large kitchen housing a blue Aga with a backsplash of antique Dutch tiles. Annie stood at the porcelain sink, hands immersed in sudsy water washing a pile of cooking utensils, even though there was what appeared to be a perfectly serviceable dishwasher under the counter.
Startled by his presence, she glanced over her shoulder. Rex deduced she must be a bit deaf not to have heard him enter with a tray of rattling crockery. He wasn’t the most adept waiter in the world.
“Just leave it there,” she replied, nodding towards the counter, and thanked him for bringing it down.
“There are a great many stairs in this house,” he sympathized. “It must involve a lot of work.”
“It’s hard on the legs.” The black stockings failed to conceal the housekeeper’s prominent varicose veins. “But it’s a grand auld hoose, and Mrs. Wells doesna entertain much, so it’s no that taxing, especially since her father left us.”
“How was he to work for?”
“Didna have much to say for hisself. Did for hisself mostly, but he took breakfast and lunch in his room. It was too tiring for him to be going up and doon the stairs, so I helped wi’ the fetching and carrying.”
Rex wondered if she would stay on now. “You live in, I take it?”
“Aye, there’s a suite doon here for my use.”
Rex noticed a small seating area off the kitchen and a portable television on a shelf, switched on to the news. An anchor woman was reporting the disappearance of a fourteen-year-old girl in Kent, last seen walking home from school on Thursday. The landmark white cliffs of Dover loomed into view, not all that imposing in reality, as Rex recalled from a trip across the Channel to Calais. A photo of a smiling young face framed with long, light brown hair followed on the screen. The Port of Dover Police had launched an extensive search after a suspicious-looking transit van had been seen near the girl’s school.
“Mrs. Wells tells me you have family in Essex,” Rex said conversationally, turning back to the housekeeper. He really wanted to ask her about the mugging of the old man, but could not see how to broach the subject without appearing macabre.
“Aye, I plan on moving in wi’ my daughter and her three girls upon retirement, which is coming up.”
Rex leaned against the counter while Annie busied herself with scrubbing a colander. Her profile beneath the wiry grey hair presented a low forehead sloping to a button nose and a pursed mouth that all but disappeared in a pucker of wrinkles. A loose chin hung to her throat.
“You’ll be sorely missed,” he said. “Mrs. Wells speaks very highly of you.”
“I’m pleased to hear that,” Annie said without looking up from the sink.
He felt he would not get much else out of the housekeeper, who probably wondered what business any of this was of his. After all, she didn’t know he was supposed to be investigating a murder. He left her to her chores and re-joined Phoebe in the drawing room just as she was ending a phone call.
“That was Andrew Doyle, a former clerk of court in Edinburgh, calling to see how I was. Such a sweet old dear.”
“The name rings a bell. He must be retired now. Talking of retirement, Annie says she’ll be leaving you soon.”
Phoebe sighed in mild frustration. “I’ll have to find someone else or sell this place. It’s really far too big for me.” She put her hand to her temple. “I think I’ll lie down, if you don’t mind. Will you be all right? Let me show you to your room first so you can settle in. Just come and go as you please and make yourself at home.”
“Thank you. I’ll see if I can talk to the stamp dealer. May I take the finished album to show him?”
“Of course. I’d be curious to see if it’s worth anything.” Phoebe led Rex upstairs, explaining on the way that her father had slept at the opposite end of the house from her front-facing bedroom, and consequently she had not heard anything the night of his death. “However,” she added, “I am a light sleeper, so the intruder must have been very quiet. I suppose that’s why they’re called cat burglars.”
Rex paused on the landing. “Going back to the old man who was mugged … ”
Phoebe turned to face him. “Mr. Rogers. Yes?”
“You don’t see a connection with your father’s death?”
“Not really. They’re so different. I mean, Dad’s murderer had to have been a professional to get in and out without being noticed, don’t you think?”
Rex pondered Phoebe’s reasoning. Perhaps her murderer had just been lucky. Or perhaps he didn’t exist at all, except in her own mind.
Four
Rex stood leafing through a moleskin-covered album entitled “Worldwide” on the inside page in green ink, written in the judge’s distinctive curlicue longhand. Multicolour postage stamps of different shapes and currencies swelled the gridded pages arranged by country of origin, everywhere from Norway and Spain to the Sudan and minor republics. Postmarked images of ships, astronauts, birds, buildings, and flags were interspersed with mint commemorative sets of topical themes and religious scenes.
By far the largest number of stamps featured Queen Elizabeth II’s crowned head in various muted shades assembled under Great Britain and its Commonwealth Realms. Some preceded her long reign. A few looked to be quite old, but how rare, Rex could not tell.
Had the alleged murderer been seeking valuable stamps, unaware that the completed album was secreted in the locked drawer of the desk, or had he found what he was looking for in the unfinished collection lying on top? Rex hoped the dealer would be able to shed some light on the matter.
The missing album had left a large space in the centre of the desk. On the periphery remained a soaking bowl, a magnifying glass, miniature tongs, and a box containing a jumble of small glassine envelopes, first-day covers, and packets of adhesive hinges.
“Where did he procure the stamps?” he asked Phoebe who was quietly watching while he examined the items.
“He sent off for them, mostly, and he attended stamp auctions. My husband received international mail from his book publications and saved the envelopes for him. Dad wasn’t at his collection all the time. It was more of a hobby than an investment, I think. He also liked to compile crossword puzzles for the Canterbury Tales, a weekly newsletter for retirees. It helped occupy his time and kept his brain active.”
Inserted among the reference works on philately and stamp catalogues stacked beneath an angle-poise reading lamp lay a hardcover Oxford English Dictionary. Law books lined the surrounding shelves.
“Anybody at the newsletter I should talk to?” Rex queried, turning towards Phoebe and resting a hand on the back of the brown leather chair in front of the desk.
“I don’t think he ever met the editor in person. They talked on the phone, and Dad sent his crosswords by post.
He’d use a theme connected with Canterbury, like Chaucer, for instance. I could never finish one. Far too erudite for me. A small prize was awarded for the first correct entry, usually a book on local history.” Phoebe sighed. Rex had noticed she did that a lot. “Not sure what I’ll do with this room now,” she announced. “Perhaps keep it as a library. Would you like any of the books? I’m sure Dad would have wanted you to have some.”
She walked towards the large sash window across from the desk. “I could turn it into a sewing room as it gets decent light, but I don’t do much dress-making these days.”
The multi-paned window, draped and valanced in russet brown velvet, took in a view of the rear garden. As Rex approached, his gaze alighted upon a hexagonal whitewood summerhouse in the middle of the lawn, with what looked to be a gold-painted pineapple atop its cupola.
“The summerhouse was there when we bought the property,” Phoebe explained beside him. “It has wooden benches built into the six walls. I put cushions inside when the weather’s nice so I can sit out and read. You should see it when it’s surrounded by roses.”
Rex could picture the delightful setting. No doubt the view was one of the reasons the judge had taken this room. His eye followed a crazy-paving path through the flowerbeds, shrubs, and silver birch trees to a separate garage. He supposed the garages had replaced the coach-houses originally built for the affluent terrace of homes. “Is that gate by the garage kept locked?” he asked.
“Yes, but anyone halfway fit could get over it. It leads to New Street. The intruder must have climbed the drainpipe to gain access to this room. I would have notified the police, but I thought they’d only think I was overreacting from grief. And quite frankly I didn’t relish the idea of them traipsing all over the house and poking around until I was quite sure the watch and album weren’t lying around somewhere. Dad would lose things in the strangest places.”
“My mother does the same thing with her keys and her knitting; puts them down and then forgets where.” Rex pulled back the iron catch on the window frame and pushed up the lower panel, which opened with relative ease and only a faint squeak. Sniffing the metal tracks, he was unable to detect any distinct odour of lubricant. “When was this last oiled?”
“My handyman takes care of all that, but I haven’t had to call him in a year. He’s been coming since before my husband died. Doug couldn’t put up a shelf to save his life and he never had the right tools. He said it wasn’t worth his time fiddling around with that sort of thing when an expert could do it in half the time.”
“What is the name of your handyman?”
“Alan Burke.”
Rex could find no suspicious gouges or scratches on the windowsill or frames. Old defects had been painted over. No evidence of fingerprints existed, at least none visible to the naked eye. However, a professional housebreaker would have worn gloves, he reflected.
“Has the room been cleaned since your father passed away?”
“Annie came in and did a thorough clean and airing.”
The queen-size bed, flanked by matching antique nightstands and shade lamps, had been stripped. A copy of Bleak House missing a dust jacket sat on the near-side table, a yellow silk ribbon separating half the thick block of pages. The judge’s spectacles were still folded on top of the cover.
If the housekeeper had cleaned thoroughly enough, any clues would have been eliminated; an unfortunate state of affairs, in the event the police were called.
“Did you check the window that night?”
“I didn’t think to. The curtains were drawn, and, anyway, Dad never opened the window, and that particular night it was damp and cold. I only discovered it was unlocked the next morning.”
“And the exterior doors?”
“They’re fitted with alarms.”
Rex tried to imagine what the old man would have thought upon finding a stranger in his room. If indeed it was a stranger. Possibly he had not had much time to react. “Any dogs in the neighbourhood that might have been heard barking in the night?” he asked. He knew he was grasping at straws. Over a week had passed since the judge’s death, and he doubted any of the neighbours would remember a disturbance in the wee hours.
She thought for a moment. “There’s a dachshund at the far end of the street, but I never hear it.”
“Any sensory lights?” Rex asked, peering out again into the garden.
“Just a security light by the garage. It’s not very bright.”
“I’ll take a look when I go down. Have you had much rain this past week?”
Phoebe nodded. “A fair amount.”
She looked tired and drawn, and sounded weary. Rex told her he would get on with his investigation and let her rest. She nodded gratefully and took off to her room, saying she would see him later.
He stopped by the guest suite he had been allocated at the top of the stairs and exchanged his shirt for a cashmere sweater to wear beneath his tweed jacket. He planned to walk to the stamp dealer’s shop and take in the cathedral and the ruins of the Norman castle while he was about it. In the event he was on a wild goose chase, he thought he might as well do some sightseeing and make the most of his sabotaged weekend.
Five
At the bottom of High Street by the bridge over the River Great Stour stood Westgate, a turreted medieval gatehouse sixty feet high built of Kentish rag stone, the last of seven once posted around the city. Motorised traffic now passed in steady procession under the arch between its drum towers. On a weekday Rex imagined the road became rather congested.
The weather had continued mild, though cloudy, well into the afternoon, and he strolled up the semi-pedestrianised street among the Saturday shoppers and tourists, thinking how nice it would have been to be taking in the historic sites with Helen. A group of Americans had paused in front of the ornately fronted Caffè Nero where, the guide was explaining, Queen Elizabeth I had stayed in 1573 when it was the Crown Inn.
Minutes later, Rex came across a narrow shopfront with “Stamps & Collectibles” scrolled in black lettering on the glass. Chock-full of antiques and curios, it conjured up a distinctly Dickensian feel, an impression reinforced when he stepped inside and saw a diminutive man behind the counter dressed in a black waistcoat and jacket and bearing the sombre and solicitous air of an undertaker.
“Good day to you,” he greeted Rex, his grey face set in an expression of helpful enquiry, one immobile eye fixed at nothing in particular while the other regarded his visitor.
“You are Christopher Penn, the owner?” Rex enquired, towering over him.
The man nodded and smiled without parting his thin bloodless lips.
“I’m a colleague of the late Gordon Murgatroyd.” Rex placed his business card on the mahogany counter. “I believe you were acquainted with the judge?”
“Indeed, sir. And sympathies.” Elbows propped on the counter, Penn raised folded hands to his chin. “I’d not seen him in a long while. I sent his daughter a condolence card when I heard the sad news. I would have sent flowers, but they were expressly discouraged.” He smiled sorrowfully. “What can I do for you?”
Rex removed the stamp album from the canvas shopping bag lent him by Annie before he went out on his excursion. “His daughter, Mrs. Wells, is interested in a quick evaluation of his collection.” He set the album down on the counter. “I thought I’d bring it in and get your professional opinion, if you’d be so kind.”
Penn hummed and hawed as he turned the stamp-laden pages, occasionally peering through a magnifier, using his good eye. Rex could not help but observe that he had long, translucent fingers resembling tentacles. Rather than stare, compelling as the man’s appearance was, he looked about him at the wares crammed and stacked on shelves and cubby holes against the walls. A musty whiff of mildew pervaded the cluttered space, and he imagined years of accumulated dust lurking in every corner and crevice.
“None of these are mounted,” the dealer murmured, calling back Rex’s attention.
“Is there anything a layman like myself would miss, an imperfection that would increase the value of a stamp, perhaps?”
“Not that I can see.” Penn’s right eye looked downwards while the glass one gazed ahead disconcertingly at Rex’s midsection. “Judge Murgatroyd was an amateur philatelist.” He stressed the word “amateur” with mild disdain. “These Victorian ones are nicely preserved, but not all that rare. The collection is a bit of a hodgepodge, to be honest. We have here an almost complete floral set of Hungarians from the mid to late twentieth century, but almost is the operative word. Hmm … This one from India might conceivably sell for twenty euros shopped to the right buyer … ”
Nothing worth murdering for so far, it seemed. Rex waited while the dealer completed his inspection and mumbled the occasional observation, much of it lost upon him.
“It’s a nice collection,” Penn said at last, closing the album. “But I personally wouldn’t offer more than two hundred pounds for the lot. If Mrs. Wells has the time and inclination, she could try selling individual items on eBay, to someone, say, interested in expanding their Egyptian or Japanese collection. If you’d care to leave this with me, I could possibly select a few to buy on my clients’ account?”
“I’m not sure she wishes to sell the album or else break it up,” Rex demurred, not feeling at liberty to leave the un-inventoried collection in the dealer’s hands.
Penn nodded. “Quite. It may well hold sentimental value for her.”
“Mrs. Wells may also have wanted to know how much to insure it for, had it been worth doing. But thank you, Mr. Penn. I very much appreciate your time, and I’ll pass on your comments.”
The doorbell chimed, and a young couple entered the shop and began browsing among the oil lamps and hand-painted crockery and old silver spoons piled upon pine chests and sagging gateleg tables. Rex packed up the album and thanked the dealer again for his time.
Judgment of Murder Page 2
