Corpse Path Cottage

by Margaret Scutt

  He said, not unkindly, ‘Hold on to yourself, you fool. Believe it or not, I’ve no idea what all this is about. Surely . . .’

  A sudden pounding of feet made both men turn. Across the field, splashing through puddles and slipping on patches of mud, tore two boys, a black spaniel racing ahead. The dog came panting to his master’s side.

  ‘And what the deuce is wrong with you? Is everyone mad this morning?’ demanded Mark, looking from the cringing dog to the distraught faces of the two lads with pardonable exasperation.

  The boys, who had pulled up and now stood trying to regain their breath, broke into simultaneous and gasping speech.

  ‘There’s a woman—’ said Ken.

  ‘By the gate —’ said Johnny.

  ‘Dead,’ they said together.

  There was a pause of stunned incredulity. The two men stood silent and motionless, as if the utterance of that one word had taken from them the power of speech and movement. It was Ralph who broke the silence.

  ‘No,’ he said loudly. ‘Oh God. No.’

  Mark disregarded him. Turning on the two boys, he urgently gripped an arm of each.

  ‘I don’t know if this is your idea of a joke—’

  ‘It’s true,’ said Ken.

  Johnny nodded dumbly.

  ‘All the same,’ said Mark, still holding them, ‘I think we had better see for ourselves.’

  ‘You take your hands off me, then,’ said Johnny, in a queer high-pitched voice. ‘Whadda you want to touch me for? I ain’t done nothen. And I ain’t goin’ back there neither, not if you was to pay me for it. Lemme go home. I want my mum.’

  With these surprising words, a loud sniffle escaped him and tears gathered in his eyes.

  ‘That’s all right — you’ll be able to go home,’ said Mark. ‘Just show us the spot first.’

  ‘It’s over here,’ said Ken, his own voice shaking slightly. ‘By the gate.’

  They followed him in a silence broken only by Johnny’s rending sniffs.

  ‘The dog found her,’ said Ken, in a hushed voice. ‘It’s in here.’

  He moved aside, and the two men who had loved her looked on what had been Laura Grey.

  She lay face downwards with her fair hair darkened by the rain, and by something which matted it above the left ear. One arm was flung clear of the body with fingers outstretched, and a great diamond winking on the third above the platinum wedding ring. She wore gumboots caked with mud, but beneath her transparent mackintosh showed the turquoise dress in which, the previous afternoon, she had drifted across the vicarage lawn.

  Mark bent forward and was pushed aside by a blow so heavy that he staggered and almost fell.

  ‘You damned murderer,’ whispered Ralph Grey. ‘You killed her. I knew it all the time. Keep away from her. Don’t dare to touch her. Laura — Laura . . .’

  He fell on his knees beside the body, clutching at the limp hand. Holding it, he looked up at Mark and said, quite calmly, ‘She’s dead. You killed her. I tell you; I knew it all the time.’

  ‘I didn’t kill her,’ said Mark dully.

  Ralph disregarded him. He laid the hand he held gently on the ground and staggered to his feet.

  ‘I feel so damned ill,’ he said. Turning away, he collapsed in a huddled heap on the ground, burying his face in his hands. A shudder shook his body, and another.

  With an effort Mark pulled himself together and spoke to the two staring boys.

  ‘Get the policeman, and tell him to bring a doctor,’ he said. ‘And hurry.’

  ‘Dad ought to be back from Grange by now,’ said Ken. ‘I’ll get him.’

  The two flying figures were out of sight almost before he had finished the sentence. Mark looked at Ralph to see that he was still huddled on the ground, still shivering. He gently touched the hand which Ralph had held. There was no life in it.

  He went over to the other man and touched him on the shoulder. Ralph lifted a ravaged face.

  ‘Come to the cottage instead of sitting there. I’ll get you a drink. You need one.’

  Ralph shook his head. He said in a flat voice, with no sign of anger or emotion, ‘She always hated to get wet.’

  ‘She wouldn’t know,’ said Mark gently.

  He understood perfectly the feeling which had prompted the words. To him, also, out of all the pattern of violent death, the shocking thing seemed that one so pampered and luxurious should have been the target of the rain. In a little while the thought of murder and all its surrounding and sordid accompaniments would take its rightful place. For the moment, that one pathetic detail swayed the imagination of both men. Little cause as she had given Mark to pity her, his heart was wrung for Laura Grey, who had hated to get wet.

  ‘Why did you do it?’ asked Ralph suddenly. There was still no anger in his voice. It remained flat and dead, as if after that initial outburst, with the realization of his wife’s death, all power for emotion had left him. He did not look at Mark as he spoke but gazed away towards the wood and the thick tracery of green above the fronds of bracken.

  ‘I told you before, I didn’t kill her,’ said Mark. ‘I had no idea that she was here, and I don’t know why she came. Why should you think I did it?’

  He spoke as one curious for an answer, but the accusation had brought him neither fear nor anger. Ralph’s frozen calm might have communicated itself to him, for he spoke as if their conversation were the merest stuff of everyday. Afterwards he was to remember this and wonder at himself.

  ‘Well, of course, she wouldn’t be here,’ said Ralph reasonably, ‘unless it were to see you. And she would never have slipped away on such a night if you had not some hold over her. I don’t know what it was yet, but I shall find out.’

  For the first time, and with a definite shock, Mark became conscious of his own position. The quiet voice, so calmly denouncing him, was no longer a mere background to his thoughts, but the shape of things to come. All his reactions had been numbed by the impact of the discovery, but now they rang a warning bell. Innocent men had found themselves suspected before now — for all he knew had paid on the gallows a debt they did not owe. Laura was dead, and Corpse Path Cottage was all too near at hand. Fate had brought him here, innocent as a lamb to the slaughter, and fate, apparently, had not finished with him yet.

  ‘Look here,’ he said, speaking urgently. ‘I tell you once again that I knew nothing of this. Laura—’

  As if the sound of the name had stabbed him back to life, Ralph sprang to his feet, his face suddenly congested with dark colour.

  ‘Laura. Yes. The name comes very easily, doesn’t it? What was she to you?’

  Mark made no reply, and Ralph lost his final shreds of control. His hands shot out and gripped the other man’s throat.

  ‘Now, then,’ said a surprised but authoritative voice, ‘what’s going on here?’

  At the critical moment the arm of the law had arrived.

  * * *

  Superintendent White was a large man, so massive of build that his actual height of well over six feet was seldom realized. His face was heavy and highly coloured, in keeping with the slow Dorset drawl of his speech. In his youth a fine figure of a man, he was now running to flesh, but his girth did not prevent him from showing a quite surprising turn of speed when the occasion demanded it, just as the heavy features and slow speech served to mask an equally agile brain. The newly appointed Chief Constable, Sir Henry James, now facing him across the desk in his office, was wondering if the brain were agile enough for the investigations which lay ahead.

  He said, his clipped speech contrasting strongly with the Super’s measured utterance, ‘Right. Let me just run over it to see if I’ve got the details. Matter of fact, murder is a new angle for me.’

  ‘I’m not all that familiar with it myself, sir,’ said the Super. ‘It’s not an everyday occurrence with us, thank God.’

  ‘No. Well, let me see. Deceased Mrs Laura Grey, twenty-eight, wife of Ralph Grey, God’s Blessing Manor, was discovered
between 9.30 and ten this morning at the entrance to a small copse beside a right of way locally known as Corpse Path. Appropriate name, by the way,’ said Sir Henry, with a short laugh.

  ‘Very, sir,’ agreed the Super.

  ‘Yes. Shot through the head by a revolver, the bullet entering just above the left ear. Death must have been practically instantaneous and occurred between nine and midnight the previous night. Can’t they get it any nearer than that?’

  ‘Not from the doctor, no. Further questioning as to the lady’s movements should help.’

  ‘Quite. And I know you won’t let anything slip in that line. To continue, the body was discovered by two lads on their way to the wood. Coming back across the field they ran into a man named’ (the Chief Constable consulted his notes) ‘Mark Endicott, who lives in a cottage in the field itself, and was then in conversation with the husband of the deceased.’

  ‘The husband of the deceased,’ echoed the superintendent, in a completely expressionless voice.

  The two men looked at one another for a moment, sharp grey eyes holding sleepy brown.

  ‘Does Grey happen to own the cottage?’ asked Sir Henry.

  The Super shook his head.

  ‘No, sir. It belonged to one of the villagers, a man named Fairfax. He put it up for sale in the early spring, and this Endicott bought it. Nothing to do with Mr Grey at all.’

  ‘I wondered. Rather strange,’ said the Chief Constable, drumming thoughtfully on the surface of the desk. ‘However. The boys told of their discovery, and the two men accompanied them to the spot where the body was lying. On seeing his wife, Grey struck Endicott, remarking, “You damned murderer, you killed her. I knew it all the time.” And what, precisely, do you make of that?’

  ‘Well,’ said the Super slowly, ‘it might mean anything or nothing.’

  ‘A very profound remark,’ murmured the Chief Constable, gazing at the ceiling.

  The Super’s colour deepened slightly. Of course, it had to be this new man when a thing of this kind broke. With old Colonel Lee you knew where you were — he could listen without damn fool interjections which made a man feel he had talked utter rubbish. Too quick, altogether. You didn’t get there any faster in the end by being so smart. He looked at the sharp features of his superior with no sign of the dislike he felt showing in his heavy face.

  ‘I mean to say, sir, the lady was rather remarkably attractive. Not the usual type of farmer’s wife at all. Or so I am told.’

  ‘Grey is a gentleman farmer, of course. His family has been in the Manor for generations. But I understand you. You mean that he was jealous?’

  ‘I gather from PC Marsh that he was well known in the village to be madly jealous. His wife was a great deal younger than he, and scarcely the type to be buried in the country. Stagey — a real pin-up girl was the expression the PC used.’

  ‘I have heard that the marriage aroused a good deal of comment. Picked her up in London, didn’t he?’

  ‘I believe so, sir. We shall have to go into all that, of course.’

  ‘Yes. And there had been local gossip about her and this Endicott?’

  ‘That’s the strange part of it,’ said the Super, looking rather pleased. ‘There wasn’t.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. There had been scandal, bags of it, in connection with Laura Grey and a young bank clerk named Brian Marlowe. As far as I can gather, Endicott had never so much as spoken to her.’

  ‘That’s queer, as you say. But Grey must have thought he had some reason, to speak as he did. You don’t think the affair with Marlowe was merely a cloak?’

  ‘I doubt it, sir. Pretty difficult, you know, in a village like God’s Blessing. And another thing, Endicott didn’t arrive in the place until the beginning of April, and Mrs Grey was away for a month after that. It didn’t leave much time for anything to work up between them.’

  ‘No, there is that.’

  ‘Besides, he seems to be a peculiar character. Some sort of writer, who goes out very little. The entire village has the fixed idea that he’s a man with a past. He comes out of the blue, pays a fancy price, even by modern standards, for a tumbledown shack slap in the middle of a field, and has nothing to do with anyone. At least, that isn’t entirely correct. There has been some talk about his being friendly with his nearest neighbour, a Miss Faraday.’

  ‘Living alone?’

  ‘Not now, sir. She did for a spell after her mother died last December, but now she has a lodger — a Miss Morris, who teaches at the village school. Miss Faraday teaches music at Lake Girls’ School.’

  ‘Is she young?’

  ‘Fortyish. Typical spinster, very nervous and fluttery, PC Marsh says.’

  ‘He seems to be an observant fellow.’

  The Super scented sarcasm and spoke rather quickly.

  ‘You can’t live in a place like God’s Blessing without hearing all the details of your neighbour’s life.’

  ‘Yes. I wasn’t thinking of that. I was wondering why you yourself seem to take such an interest in this fluttering spinster.’

  The Super, a just man, gave Sir Henry a high mark for observation.

  ‘I’m interested in everything connected with the case, sir. Naturally,’ he said gently. ‘But when anonymous letters come into it—’

  ‘A middle-aged spinster is your first buy?’

  ‘I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. They’re not invariably written by spinsters, or even by women. Not by any manner of means. But she can’t be left out of our calculations.’

  ‘And I understand Ralph Grey had a letter?’

  ‘Yes, sir. That was what sent him straight to Endicott when he discovered that morning that his wife was missing. He had been up all night himself with a sick cow — he’s trying to work up a herd of TT tested Jerseys, and she was a valuable animal — and didn’t discover her absence until he got home.’

  ‘He took no notice of this letter at the time he received it?’

  ‘So he says, sir. I think myself it worried him a bit. I imagine he’s never been too sure of his wife, and anonymous letters are nasty things, you know, very nasty. They lie fallow, as you might say, for months, but you don’t forget them.’

  ‘He didn’t, evidently.’

  The Chief Constable cleared his throat raspingly. ‘Well, that’s about as much as you actually know. The scene of the crime didn’t help you much, I understand?’

  ‘No, sir. The rain had washed away any footprints. The ground where she was lying was practically a bog.’

  ‘And no sign of a weapon?’

  ‘None, sir. We’ve searched all around, of course. Her handbag was lying near the body, but nothing else.’

  There was a pause. The Super looked down at the large fingers resting on his knee, and the Chief Constable looked at him.

  ‘Well,’ said Sir Henry at last.

  The Super looked up. A slow smile creased his face.

  ‘That’s the question, isn’t it, sir?’

  The Chief Constable gave a short bark of laughter and looked across the desk with more approval than he had shown hitherto. The fellow was quick enough on the uptake, it seemed, for all his heaviness of feature and slowness of speech. And his record was good, too, of course. The old man, his predecessor, had spoken most highly of him. But then — the Chief Constable began drumming on the desk again — the Colonel had really been past his work. Far too inclined to leave things in the capable hands of the Super and hope for the best. And that was all very well in minor cases, but there was nothing minor about this. Murder, with a capital M. Murder of a young and beautiful woman. Quite likely to prove a crime passionnel. There would be newspaper headlines screaming all around the country, masses of publicity, and himself newly appointed. And there was this fellow on the other side of the desk, like a large dog placidly awaiting the bone which he knew to be his due.

  ‘Of course,’ he said irritably, when the pause had lasted for some minutes, ‘I, personally, would prefer that we kept
it in our own hands. Naturally.’

  ‘Naturally, sir,’ murmured the Super.

  ‘At the same time, if — mind, I say if — outside help is to be called in, now is the time. There should be no delay.’

  ‘Most unfair to turn it over to others once the scent is stale,’ agreed the Super dreamily.

  The Chief Constable suddenly gave vent to his irritation. He banged his fist on the desk.

  ‘Damn it, man, don’t sit there cooing at me! Why the devil can’t you speak out and say what you think?’

  The Super, seeming neither surprised nor perturbed by this outburst, looked at him but did not speak. The Chief Constable glared back at him. Slowly the colour which anger had brought to his face faded. He sat back in his chair, and his lips twitched.

  ‘You win. Have it your own way,’ he said, as if the other had spoken.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said the Super gently.

  ‘And I only trust you won’t give me cause to regret it.’

  ‘So do I, sir, I’m sure,’ said the Super.

  CHAPTER XVI

  THE SUPER PAUSED AT the field gate, leaned his arms along the top bar, and gazed thoughtfully at the path leading to the copse. With the brown tweed coat wrinkled across his powerful shoulders and the placid contentment written on his large face, he might have been a farmer surveying his domain, and unusually conscious that all was well with it. The police car modestly parked a little way down the lane appeared to have no connection with him.

  Having viewed the landscape to his own satisfaction, the Super opened the gate and strolled meditatively into the field, observing without surprise that many feet had trodden the path since his last visit. God’s Blessing was in the news at last, and somewhat stunned by its own importance. On the previous day, Mr Richards had preached, without pleasure, to a gaping and overflowing congregation, the main part of which, he could not but feel, had entered the church moved by curiosity pure and simple. The Ring and Book had sold out before seven o’clock. Young men with notebooks had appeared from nowhere, scribbled strange hieroglyphics, and disappeared again. But the day of rest had passed, and with the dawning of Monday, the full force of the invasion was checked.