The Secret of High Eldersham

by Miles Burton

  “Well, that’s all to the good,” commented Colonel Bateman. “I saw the Coroner, and he will arrange to hold the inquest here on Monday. I then saw Mr. Thorold, who could tell me very little about Whitehead, beyond the fact that he was an ex-policeman, and an excellent tenant in every way. By the way, he is sending a man out to-morrow to take charge of this place temporarily until he can find a new tenant. Then I met Inspector Young’s train and drove him straight out here. That’s all I have to report. Ah, here is Dr. Barrett. Well, doctor, what do you make of it?”

  “The man was stabbed from behind with a broad-bladed weapon, such as a butcher’s knife,” replied Dr. Barrett. “The blow must have been delivered with considerable force, and by a man who had some knowledge of anatomy. The main artery is severed, and death must have been practically instantaneous. There are no marks on any other part of the body, no signs of a struggle or anything like that. In my opinion the blow was delivered before the victim was aware of the presence of his assailant.”

  “I’m much obliged to you, doctor. That settles that point, at any rate. Now, Inspector, we are in your hands. Is there any assistance that we can render you in your investigation?”

  “I think not, thank you, sir,” replied Young. “I shall remain here, of course, with Constable Viney. I dare say that there is a spare bed in the house, or, if not, I can find one in the village. I shall naturally report any progress I may make to you.”

  “Very well. If you have no further questions to ask, we will get back to Gippingford. There is a telephone in the village, should you wish to communicate with us. In any case, I shall run over here sometime to-morrow morning. Come along, Superintendent. Doctor Barrett has an appointment and is anxious to get back, I know. Good-bye, Inspector, and good luck to you.”

  The car having driven off, Inspector Young returned to the bar, where Viney was awaiting him. “Now we can get to work,” he said cheerfully. “Sit down, constable; I want to have a chat with you. I’m a stranger here, and I’ve never been in this part of England before. You’ve been here some years, I understand, and I expect by this time you know all about the place and the people who live in it. I got the impression from the Chief Constable that there was something queer about the place, but what it was, exactly, I couldn’t quite make out.”

  “Well, it is a queer place, sir,” replied Viney. “I’m from East Anglia myself, and I know that our folk are always a bit shy with strangers, but I never knew it so bad as it is here. I think it’s because all the people have married among themselves for so long that they’re all sort of related like. They settle things among themselves, you’ll never hear of one of them going to law with another, or anything like that. And they don’t like outsiders coming in and interfering with their affairs. And, you can take it from me, sir, strangers don’t never prosper in High Eldersham.”

  “You mean that they are frozen out, that people won’t trade with them, and that sort of thing?”

  “Not only that, sir. They don’t seem to have any luck, as you might say. Soon after I came here, one of the biggest farms in the parish was for sale, and it was bought by a gentleman from the other side of the country. He brought his men with him, and a very good farmer he was, by all accounts. But nothing went right with him. Two of his horses died within a month of his coming here, to begin with. Then his carter fell sick, and Doctor Padfield didn’t seem able to do anything for him. At last his wife, who was as good a farmer as he was, and had never had a day’s illness in her life, got that run down she couldn’t do her day’s work. Doctor Padfield told her straight out that the place didn’t suit her. She stuck it as long as she could, but in the end they sold the farm and went away. It was bought, pretty cheap, I believe, by a brother of the man who owned the next farm.”

  Inspector Young smiled. “Well, that was a chapter of accidents, certainly,” he remarked. “But, after all, that’s only an isolated case, which might have happened to anybody anywhere. Nobody could help the place not agreeing with the farmer’s wife, could they? And this isn’t the only place where horses die and carters go sick, you know.”

  “Ah, but that wasn’t the only case, sir,” replied Viney. “It’s not more than a year or so since another stranger took a lease of the very next farm to this, the first house on the left as you go down towards the village. He had the finest herd of Jerseys as ever I see, and he used to send his milk into Gippingford, all done up special in them glass bottles. Fetched a very high price, they used to say. Well, after a bit there was an epidemic of sorts broke out in the town, and they traced it to this chap’s milk. It seems they found some germ or other in it. Well, naturally, people wouldn’t buy his milk after that, and he went broke. Cleared off in the night, he did, leaving his cows behind him. So that was another stranger as couldn’t get on in High Eldersham.”

  “Yes, I can see how the place acquired a peculiar reputation,” said Young. “But, after all, this has nothing to do with the case of this man, Whitehead. The natives do not seem to have had anything to do with the misfortunes of these strangers, which were obviously due to circumstances. I’m not going to believe that somebody in the village stuck a knife into Whitehead just because he did not happen to be a native. Now, tell me something about the village, and the people who live in it.”

  “They say that years ago the village used to be a fair sized port, before the mouth of the river got silted up, sir. Now you can’t get anything bigger than a barge up, and that only at certain tides. You see them lying sometimes at the old quay, loading corn or beet, but that isn’t often. There’ll be a round dozen farmers in the parish, and a couple of decent sized houses. Sir William Owerton lives in the Hall, he’s an oldish gentleman, a bit of a scholar, with a son in India and a daughter that lives with him. About a mile away is Elder House, belonging to Mr. Hollesley. Fine sportsman is Mr. Hollesley, shoots, keeps a beautiful little yacht, and all that. Lives there with his mother, who’s pretty nigh bed-ridden, when he isn’t in London. They do say that he’s sweet on Sir William’s daughter.”

  “Oh, they do, do they? What about the village itself? Who lives there?”

  “There aren’t any gentlefolk, bar the parson and Doctor Padfield. Parson’s an old man who was born in the next parish, and Doctor Padfield’s father was a big farmer somewhere hereabouts. They’re natives, so to speak, both of them. Then there’s the village shop, and the rest is all cottages, what the farm hands and such live in. There’s not much to be seen in High Eldersham, that I can promise you, sir.”

  “It doesn’t sound a very lively place, certainly,” agreed Inspector Young. “Now then, Viney, you know these folk pretty well. Do you think it likely that any of them would have deliberately murdered Whitehead?”

  “No, sir, that I don’t. They’re a queer stand-offish lot, but this I will say for them. I’ve never found what you might call a real bad character among them, and that’s more than you can say for a lot of villages. There’s one or two of them like Ned Portch, who get a bit noisy like if they has a drop too much liquor, but that’s all. And, since Mr. Whitehead’s been here, none of them have had a chance of taking too much. He wouldn’t serve them if he thought they’d had enough already. Why, it’s not more than a month ago that he turned Ned Portch out of this very bar, and told him to keep away from the place.”

  “I see. Well, now that I know something about the people here, I can have a look round for myself,” said Inspector Young, after a meditative pause. “It seems to me, Viney, that the first thing to be done is to find out who was up here last night, and if possible, who last saw Whitehead alive. Will you take a stroll round the village, and see what you can learn? I want to stop here and examine the house.”

  Viney accordingly set out along the road that led to the village. He had not gone far before he overtook an old man walking in the same direction, with a sheep dog by his side.

  “Good-afternoon, Mr. Hammond,” said Viney pleasantly. “You�
�ve finished work early to-day, then?”

  “Finished? Who says I be finished?” replied the old man. “I’ve got they sheep to hurdle up over by the hanging ground afore I knocks off. I be coming from the big flock over by the marshes. Been out there all the morning, I have.”

  The marshes were some little distance from the village. If old Hammond had been there all day, it was unlikely that he had heard anything of the tragedy of Mr. Whitehead. But Viney knew from experience that it was hopeless to try to extract information from any of the High Eldersham people by direct questioning.

  “I didn’t see you up at the Rose and Crown last night, Mr. Hammond,” he remarked casually.

  “Then you didn’t look far,” replied the old man. “I was a-sitting up there in the corner, along of Bob Marsham and the rest.”

  “Oh, I didn’t look in, I only glanced through the window as I was passing. Cold outside it was, too. Reckon you didn’t turn out till closing time, Mr. Hammond.”

  “Ah, but I did that, I was back in the village come nine o’clock. And there wasn’t many left up there when I came away. Only Ned Portch and one or two others, that I mind.”

  A few yards further on Mr. Hammond parted from the constable, turning off through a gate into the fields. But Viney had learnt something from his conversation. An hour or so before closing time the only customers at the Rose and Crown had been Ned Portch and one or two others. It was rather curious that Portch should have been there. Since he had been shown the door by Mr. Whitehead he had frequently declared, with considerable heat, that he would not enter the place again, even if he had to walk to the Black Dog in the next parish for his beer. He must have thought better of it, obviously. Anyhow, Ned Portch was a possible source of information. It might be worth making inquiries in his direction.

  Viney continued on his way towards the village, until he reached one of the scattered cottages of which it consisted. He knocked on the door, which, after a while, was opened by a middle-aged woman in an apron. It seemed to Viney that she suddenly went deadly pale at the sight of him, and made a movement as though to slam the door in his face. As it was, she thought better of it, and, planting herself squarely in the doorway, surveyed the constable with an obviously forced smile.

  “Good-afternoon, Mrs. Portch,” said Viney politely. “Your husband isn’t back from work yet, I suppose?”

  “No, that he isn’t, Mr. Viney,” she replied. “Were you wanting to see him?”

  The anxious note in her voice could not be mistaken. “I just wanted a word with him, that’s all, Mrs. Portch,” said Viney. “As a matter of fact, I wanted to know what time he left the Rose and Crown last night. It has been reported to me that there were some gipsies about yesterday evening, and I wondered if he had seen them on his way home.”

  “I—I don’t think he came straight home last night, Mr. Viney,” replied Mrs. Portch hesitatingly. “It was past eleven when he came in, and then he went straight to bed. But I’ll ask him about those gipsies when he comes in, if you like. Maybe he saw them up by the coach road.”

  “Oh, don’t bother, Mrs. Portch, I’m sure to run across him later in the evening.” And, to Mrs. Portch’s intense relief, Viney turned away. But he did not pursue his inquiries elsewhere. An idea had come to him, an idea pregnant with such grave possibilities that he hastened back to unfold it to Inspector Young.

  Chapter IV

  Inspector Young had despatched Viney on his errand as much to be left alone as in the hope that the constable would secure any useful information. He realised that he was thrown entirely upon his own resources, and rather gloried in the fact. He recognised in Colonel Bateman a chief constable who, while anxious to help in every possible way, had no knowledge of police work other than routine. Bass, he gathered, was bitterly jealous of the affront put upon the local force by the summoning of the man from Scotland Yard, and it was pretty certain that he would not be sorry to see the failure of the investigation. And Viney—well, he was just the usual village constable, nothing more and nothing less.

  The Inspector smiled as he considered Viney and his queer stories. It was perfectly plain to him that the man, an ordinary countryman with a veneer of police training, had been so long in High Eldersham that he had become saturated with local legend. In his own interests, thought Young, he ought to be transferred to a town where he would have a chance of coming into contact with the realities of life. But, for the present, he could be useful, if only as a means of introducing Young to the local worthies.

  Now, as to the crime itself. It seemed quite obvious from the position of the body as first seen by Viney, and also from Dr. Barrett’s examination, that Whitehead had been taken unawares. The probability was that he was dozing in his chair over the fire, and that his assailant had crept up from behind without being heard. The Inspector had already examined the bar very carefully, and had found no signs of blood in any other part of the room. This disposed of the possibility of the body having been moved after the blow was struck.

  The next point of interest was the state of the doors and windows upon Viney’s arrival. There were only two doors to the house. The front door, which was the one used by the customers, opened directly into the bar. This had been locked, but the key had not been in place. The back door, opening into the kitchen, had also been locked, and Viney had found the key on the inside. All the windows had been closed and fastened.

  Where was the key of the front door? If Whitehead had been alive at ten o’clock, when the bar closed, he would, according to his usual habit, have locked the front door. He might either have left the key in the lock, or have put it in his pocket. Had the latter been the case, any one possessing a duplicate key could have opened the front door from outside and entered the bar.

  Young approached the body, which had by now been laid out upon a table, and with deft fingers searched the pockets. He found several trifles of no importance, among which was a bunch of keys, all obviously too small to fit the door. This was interesting. The front door would not have been locked till ten o’clock. Suppose that Whitehead’s customers had retired early, say about half-past nine. Whitehead might well have seated himself in his chair by the fire, leaving the door unlocked in case some belated customer would present himself before ten o’clock, and then dozed off. If any one had been awaiting the opportunity to murder Whitehead, he could have crept in silently, committed the crime and departed, locking the door behind him and taking the key with him. This would have been a perfectly natural procedure on his part, in order to ensure that no one should enter the house and discover the crime. He would have also taken the precaution of putting out the lamps. This theory placed the time at which the crime had been committed between the moment when the last customer left the house and ten o’clock.

  The Inspector had reached this stage in his analysis when Viney returned, in an obvious state of suppressed excitement. He closed the door carefully behind him, and walked down the room to where the Inspector sat. “I’ve found out something I’d like to tell you about, sir,” he said impressively.

  “Very well, Viney, fire away!” replied Young cheerfully.

  “It’s like this, sir. You remember me telling you about Ned Portch, him that Mr. Whitehead turned out and refused to serve? Well, sir, Portch was up here last night, and didn’t get home till eleven o’clock.”

  “That sounds curious. Are you quite sure of your facts, Viney?”

  “Quite sure, sir, Mrs. Portch told me herself. Now this is the way I look at it, sir. Portch was no friend of Mr. Whitehead’s, as anybody in the village can tell you. He would have jumped at the chance of doing him an injury, to get his own back for being turned out of the house. And there’s more in it than that, sir. Mrs. Portch went all of a dither as soon as she saw me. She’d got something on her mind, I could see that at once. She didn’t ask me into the house, and she wasn’t going to tell me any more than she could help. She knows somethin
g about the business, I’ll warrant, sir.”

  “That certainly sounds interesting, Viney,” remarked the Inspector. “You didn’t see Portch himself, I suppose?”

  “No, sir, he wasn’t back from work. He’s one of Farmer Gulliford’s men, and has worked for him since he was a boy. Quiet sort of chap, except when he’s got a drop of liquor in him, when he’s apt to fly into a temper for nothing.”

  “I see. And what time does Portch usually get home in the evening?”

  “Depends upon the season of the year, sir. I reckon he ought to be back between six and seven this evening, sir.”

  “I think that I will go down to the village about seven, and interview this man Portch, leaving you up here in charge. Now, tell me exactly what passed between you and Mrs. Portch, what you said to her and what she said to you.”

  Viney complied with this demand, and, when he had finished, the Inspector lighted a pipe and smoked for some minutes in silence. Portch, it appeared, had remained among the last of the customers at the Rose and Crown the previous evening. He might well have left the house before closing time, and waited about outside until Whitehead was alone. Then, when the coast was clear, he could have peeped in through the window as Viney had done later. The lamps would have been alight, and he could have seen clearly the interior of the room. Then, when he was satisfied that Whitehead was dozing, he could have entered once more and committed the crime.

  The deed accomplished, his natural instinct would have been to get rid of the weapon and the key. He had probably carried them to some remote place, possibly an unfrequented spot on the bank of the river. Having disposed of them, he would have returned home, all of which would have taken some time, and would account for his not having reached his cottage before eleven.

  This was no more than a possible theory which fitted in with the circumstances. But to the Inspector it seemed not improbable. He knew from experience that brutal murders, inspired by some entirely inadequate motive, were not uncommon. They were nearly always due to the workings of an unbalanced mind, brooding over some fancied grievance, until the lust of blood was awakened. Then the hitherto harmless and peaceful individual became a criminal, endowed with the cunning and ruthlessness of a savage. He would await his opportunity and deliver the blow. And, the deed once perpetrated, he would return to normal sanity. It was not unlikely that the murder of Whitehead was due to such causes.