The Dudleys of Budleigh

by P A Nash

  The ACC got up. “Oh, and one other thing. If you should decide to help us as community consultants, then on behalf of the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary, thank you!”

  And with that, she left the room, shouted: “I’m ready, George.” There was the sound of heavy boots from somewhere within the house. Thirty seconds later the immaculately spotless police car burst into life and the ACC had left the premises.

  ***

  After the ACC had left, the four of them sat down waiting to hear about the post mortem.

  Ella asked the most obvious opening question, “What does the post mortem say?”

  PC Hydon read from a piece of paper. “It’s only the preliminary findings but they say he definitely died from a heart attack.

  “Well, that’s what we saw,” Frank added.

  “But,” continued Alf, “the heart attack was caused by a reaction to some as yet unknown chemical.”

  “Is that murder?” Ella exclaimed, “But how?”

  “It says here that they found a series of puncture marks in his arm. Some of them are very recent — maybe the last couple of days. They think the chemical could have been injected.”

  “Could they be self—administered?”

  “We don’t know. Yet.”

  “Could he have swallowed something?”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Exactly,” said Elsie. We were with him for the whole day. He hardly ate any food. He drank very little liquid. My dad and I were the only people who had any contact with him yesterday. My dad is a doctor, not a murderer and I certainly didn’t kill him.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No, nothing that we didn’t know already. He died instantly.”

  “Does that mean that the chemical killed him instantly? If so, it happened inside a locked police station cell with no windows with two highly respectable witnesses in attendance. There was also one way into the building and it was guarded by the police force’s largest officer.”

  “It must have happened last night at the police station? Did he get an opportunity to inject himself?”

  “No, Frank and I were sitting in the room beside him. We didn’t take our eyes off him for nearly two—and—a—half hours. And nobody got past PC Hydon.”

  “Perhaps there were chemicals already in the room,” said Frank.

  “I don’t see how but we’ll need to get that checked.”

  “Or it was put on his clothes and he rubbed against it.”

  “We’ll test them.”

  “Perhaps someone fired a blowpipe dart at him.”

  “Into a room with no window?”

  “Or a drone dropped poison on him.”

  They all looked at each other. Ella burst out laughing. “I think we’re getting into the realms of fantasy. Let’s look at this logically.”

  There was a short period of silence as each of them gathered their thoughts together.

  Ella started the brainstorming session herself. “We need to find this doctor. Find out if they injected him with anything. Search this house to see if there is any syringes or needles lying around…‌.”

  “We already searched,” interrupted Alf.

  “Yes, but did you know what you were searching for?”

  “No, we searched thoroughly,” said PC Hydon in a gruff very official voice. “We looked for medicine bottles, tablets and chemicals. So far we’ve found nothing of that kind of thing here.”

  “We have, however, found the name of his doctor,” added Elsie. “It’s a Doctor D. Moore.”

  Frank smiled. “Dudley?”

  “Wouldn’t that be a coincidence?”

  Ella was on a roll again. “Talking of Dudley, shouldn’t we go through his case files and find out if any Dudleys have a grievance against him?”

  “Good idea. If we speak to Mrs Aylesbeare, his office secretary, surely she’ll know?”

  “Then, if we find any Dudleys, we need to interview them and see if we can discover a motive.”

  “Motive. Means. Opportunity. Alibi.” Alf’s voice listed the mantra.

  “I’ll need to get the whiteboard out of the garage once again at this rate!”

  Elsie had been jotting the bullet points down in her notebook. “Right, here’s a plan of campaign. One — we interview the Doctor. Two — we meet up with Mrs Aylesbeare. Three — we conduct a thorough search of the house and his office — now we know what we’re looking for!”

  Alf was not amused.

  “Seeing as you’ve been to his office before,” said Ella to Elsie, “why don’t you and Frank go there?”

  “Alf and I will search this place once more. I bet there are outbuildings and probably a loft and a cellar.”

  “There is,” said Alf, “ and they were very messy.”

  “Well, I’m going to drive home and change into some old clothes. I’ll be back in an hour.” She got up and left the room before anyone else could agree or disagree.

  Alf got up as well. “I’d better change into my search togs. I’ll get Ella a couple of pairs of official disposable gloves and footwear.”

  Elsie turned to Frank. “Let me phone Mrs Aylesbeare and get her to meet us at the office. I found her number in poor old Mr Buckerell’s telephone book. He had a really old fashioned book by the phone in the hall.”

  Frank wandered around the house whilst Elsie phoned Mrs Aylesbeare. It was a typical 1930s detached house. The sort of house that would play its part in a Miss Marple murder novel in a quaint Devon village.

  The house was tidy, no dust on the wooden polished floorboards or around the light fittings and appeared to be in good condition. For a bachelor, he was either an exceedingly good housekeeper or he employed one.

  “Frank?”

  WPC Knowle had finished her phone call.

  “Mrs Aylesbeare will meet us at his office in twenty minutes. She seems very keen to help us.”

  “Good,” said Frank. “Let’s walk there. Walking is good for your wellbeing.”

  “Yes, I know, it gets the brain cells churning.”

  “Exactly. I’m looking forward to meeting Mr D. Moore, the Doctor. If he’s not our man, then we’ll just have to widen our search. I reckon our murderer is one of the Dudleys of Budleigh.”

  Chapter 4 – Check the Complaints

  Frank and WPC Knowle arrived at the office of the late Anthony Buckerell at the same moment as Mrs Aylesbeare. They followed her up the stairs in single file. Mrs Aylesbeare unlocked the office door and welcomed them in.

  “Please enter, my dears. Isn’t this exciting?” She was a small well—rounded lady, wearing an ankle—length patterned woollen coat and a flowery yellow hat. She carried a large brown corduroy handbag. She reminded Frank, at once, of how he imagined Miss Marple would look straight from the pages of one of Agatha Christie’s novels.

  “This is Frank Raleigh, he’s a consultant appointed by the Assistant Chief Constable to provide a community—based viewpoint and I’m WPC Knowle. We spoke on the phone a little while ago.”

  “Yes, I know.” She smiled in a welcoming manner. “Please sit down, make yourself comfortable and ask me anything you like.”

  WPC Knowle began by explaining why they were here in the office. “We thought, at first, that Mr Buckerell had died from a heart attack. However, our pathology people think that Mr Buckerell may have been poisoned.”

  “Poisoned. How astonishing!” Instead of showing some form of emotional distress or shock, Mrs Aylesbeare appeared animated and even delighted.

  “So we’re investigating to see if anyone had a reason to kill him.”

  “He didn’t die by having poison in his coffee, did he? I mean, that would be the perfect crime for Mr Buckerell. He loved his coffee. Every morning he took his table by the window at Earls. Oh, my word. Poisoning by coffee would be perfect. He didn’t, did he?”

  “Not as far as we know.”

  “Good. However, he wouldn’t have been the first.”

  “Pardon?”
<
br />   “The Queen of Crime. Black Coffee. She wrote that as a play in 1930.” She paused to take a breath. She had the perfect Miss Marple voice.

  WPC Knowle took the opportunity to get in a word edge—ways. “How do you know all this?”

  “The little grey cells, my dear!”

  “Interesting,” said Frank.

  “The truth is never horrible, only interesting.”

  “I don’t understand you?”

  “Dame Agatha wrote that in Black Coffee. Surely you’ve heard of Dame Agatha Christie? The world’s greatest detective authoress. I would say, perhaps, even the world’s greatest authoress, full stop.”

  “Lots would agree with you,” ventured Frank, “but…‌”

  “And she was Devon born and bred!”

  “Yes. Lovely.” WPC Knowle thought she had lost total control of the situation.” Let’s get back to the matter in hand!”

  “Sorry, my fault,” Frank apologised.

  “We need your help.”

  Another expectant smile appeared on the old ladies face. “Fire away. This is so exciting, my dears!”

  “We think that somehow Mr Buckerell may have had some problems with a Dudley. Do you recall any Dudleys in any of his cases in the past few years?”

  “I’d have to have a think and then go through the files. We kept quite meticulous records, you know.”

  “I’m sure.”

  Frank jumped in again. A sparkler this time rather than dynamite. “Was Doctor Dudley Moore ever a client?”

  “Who? I don’t know a doctor named Dudley Moore. He was a jazz pianist, wasn’t he? Mr Buckerell used to love him and those two other British pianists — Roy Budd and George Shearing. Yes, he loved the jazz piano. Then there were the Americans like Erroll Garner, Fats Waller and dear old Oscar Peterson. We used to have the music on sometimes in the office. Some of it, I liked but I used to really love the more romantic pianists. Richard Clayderman. Russ Conway. Liberace.”

  “A Doctor called Dudley Moore, not a pianist?”

  “I was just coming to that. If you’d meant Daniel Moore, that would be another matter. Daniel Moore is, or should I say, was, Mr Buckerell’s doctor. He used to visit him every month for his vitamins.”

  “Doctor Moore used to visit him?”

  “No, Mr Buckerell used to visit Dr Moore. Mostly in his surgery. Occasionally, if Mr Buckerell forgot the appointment then Dr Moore might come here.”

  “For vitamins?”

  “Yes, get me more. He used to say. I think he said it as a joke. One of his very rare jokes! Mr Buckerell wasn’t much for jokes. “

  ***

  Ella arrived back at Mr Buckerell’s house to find PC Hydon standing at the front door holding her protective clothing. A pair of what looked like white plastic bags for her feet and similar–looking gloves for her hands. She laughed as she put them on. “I feel very much like a professional policewoman now I’m wearing these. Do I need a bodysuit as well?”

  “No, I don’t think that will be necessary.”

  Ella wasn’t quite sure if PC Hydon was joking or being serious. She decided that discretion was the better part of valour. She stood there and awaited further instructions.

  “Right. We’re going to be looking for syringes, needles or any form of suspicious tablets, bottles or chemicals.”

  “OK, where do we start?”

  “In the rubbish bins. We went through them but as you said earlier, I expect we didn’t search very thoroughly!”

  “I didn’t mean…‌”

  “Well, I’ll check the upstairs rooms and you check out the rubbish bins. As you probably know, there’s three types of bins, general rubbish, recyclables and food. Best, if you check all three!”

  He went through the house to the back door and led Ella out to the back of the garage. The bins were spaced out against the garage wall. In front of each bin was a large square of black plastic. PC Hydon lifted up each bin in turn and deposited the contents onto the corresponding black plastic.

  “Enjoy,” he said as he walked back towards the house.

  Ella spent the next hour up to her elbows in the rubbish. There wasn’t too much general rubbish but it took Ella a while to sort meticulously through it. She made certain that no needle had been hidden in any piece of rubbish. She picked out one pill bottle and put it to one side.

  The recyclable rubbish was treated in the same way. There was far more of it. She went through newspapers, empty envelopes and cardboard packaging. There was no sign of any incriminating material apart from one half of a plastic medicine spoon. She spent a long time unsuccessfully searching for the other half.

  The food bin was more challenging and infinitely messier. The thin plastic bags Mr Buckerell had used to contain the food waste had split open. The smell of rotten vegetables and mouldy bread coupled with a mountain of discarded tea bags reminded Ella of bygone days dealing with sick children. Days she thought she’d never have to go through again!

  There was what looked like unfinished cauliflower cheese, a mound of potato peelings and what might have been the remains of a takeaway curry. Ella carefully and cautiously went through the food waste feeling for any needles or discarded tablets. After a fruitless 20 minutes, she was convinced that Mr Buckerell or any other unknown person did not dispose of any incriminating material in any of the three rubbish bins.

  She called out to PC Hydon. “I’m finished down here.”

  A bathroom window opened and PC Hydon stuck his head out and looking down shouted, “Did you find anything I might have missed?”

  “Only a..”

  “Don’t tell me. You found a pill bottle and half a plastic medicine spoon?”

  “How did you know?”

  “I found them when I searched through it all.”

  “I’m sorry I doubted you.”

  “That’s OK. The dustmen are coming tomorrow so you’ll have to return it all into the correct bins. Good luck!”

  PC Hydon’s head disappeared and the bathroom window was closed.

  ***

  Back at the solicitor’s office, Mrs Aylesbeare was having more luck than Ella.

  She had a pile of well—filled folders on her desk. “I’ve found fourteen Dudleys. Some of them are very superficially involved whilst others are essential parts of a case.”

  WPC Knowle and Frank drew up a chair each and sat down on either side of Mrs Aylesbeare’s desk. She handed over one file at a time giving a brief word of guidance or information as she did so.

  The next hour was spent in complete silence save for a few comments such as “Well, I never.” Or “Very interesting.” Both Frank and WPC Knowle took copious notes.

  When the final file was handed back to Mrs Aylesbeare, they looked at each other and smiled. “What did you make of that, Frank?”

  “Some very interesting cases but one thing stood out for me above everything else.”

  “Let me guess? Hold on for a moment, whilst I write your next comments down!”

  “Oh, a mind—reader as well as a police officer!” Mrs Aylesbeare clapped her hands in delight. “Go on, Mr Raleigh.”

  Frank took centre stage and addressed the expectant audience!

  “Four of these Dudleys…‌” He paused for effect. “…‌made complaints of one sort or another!”

  “Exactly what I’ve written down here in my notebook.” WPC Knowle held it up for Frank to see. The words “CHECK THE COMPLAINTS” were written in capital letters!

  Mrs Aylesbeare chuckled and clapped her hands once more in delight. “Progress!”

  “Right, I think, as a starting point we must concentrate on these four.”

  “Let’s gather the four files together,” said WPC Knowle. “I wrote down Dudley Gosford—Feniton.”

  Mrs Aylesbeare quickly flipped through the files before passing the correct one to WPC Knowle.

  “Dudley Weston!” Again Mrs Aylesbeare responded.

  “Dudley Musbury.” And again.

  “
And last, but not least, Dudley Widworthy.”

  WPC Knowle gathered the four files together and placed them neatly on the desk. “Put the others away so we don’t muddle anything up.”

  “Now Mrs Aylesbeare, are you able to tell us anything about these four characters?”

  “Absolutely!” She leaned forward as if to impart some newly discovered secret. “Mr Gosford—Feniton claimed that Mr Buckerell swindled him out of an inheritance. I think it was something to do with a forged birth certificate? He’d regularly write to us about some bogus complaint or another. The letters arrived, like clockwork, on March 18th every year. Almost like it was an anniversary or some special date. There was never any specific complaint just vague innuendos!”

  “Dudley Weston?”

  “Oh, he was silly. He claimed that Mr Buckerell was up to all sort of things. Again Mr Buckerell just dismissed it. He called it pathetic.”

  “Dudley Musbury was a sad case. His wife was seriously injured in a car accident. It quite turned Mr Musbury’s mind. They had almost been friends up till then.”

  “Almost?” queried Frank.

  “Well, to be honest, Mr Buckerell didn’t really have any friends.”

  “And Dudley Widworthy?”

  “He had a business selling herbal medicines. It went bankrupt. Blamed Mr Buckerell for some reason. But Mr Widworthy was a terrible businessman. He had really no idea.”

  “So we have a connection.” WPC Knowle was still furiously writing away in her notebook. “Four Dudleys each with a grievance of some sort. They each live in or around Budleigh.”

  Frank’s face broke into a grin. “The Dudleys of Budleigh.”

  ***

  Back at Mr Buckerell’s house, Ella and PC Hydon continued their search.

  “Has he got a safe?”

  “Yes, a really old rusty thing in the corner of his study. It was very small. I picked it up and gave it a shake. There was nothing in there.”

  Ella could imagine the scene. “Show me where it is.”

  She followed PC Hydon into the study and sure enough, in the corner, stood a medium–sized safe.

  “You picked that one and shook it?”