Bleeding Hooks

by Harriet Rutland

  “Yes... at least... I came next,” said Claude. He passed a weary hand over his pale, clammy forehead. “Do you mind if I sit down?” he asked. “I’ve been sick, and I still feel a bit shaky. Seeing her like that...” He shuddered. “It upset me.”

  Mr. Weston moved nearer to him, and led him to a convenient rock where he could turn his eyes away from Mrs. Mumsby, and still face the constable.

  “It was the lobster,” said Mr. Weston. “You know I didn’t feel so well myself after eating it today. It’s a bit late in the season for lobster, and nothing upsets me so quickly.”

  “’Tis the voice of the lobster, I heard him declare

  You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair,”

  said Claude with a ghost of his usual manner. Then his voice changed. “Oh God! How can I be so callous? Mother Mumsby! Poor Mother Mumsby!”

  Lloyd looked perplexed.

  “Your mother, was she, sir? I didn’t understand...”

  “Oh no,” said Claude. “I only called her that for fun. She didn’t mind, you know. In fact she rather liked it. You see, she was always so kind to me.”

  “I see,” said Lloyd, moistening his pencil. “Well, there’s nothing to be done until the doctor comes.”

  But it seemed as if Claude could not stop talking.

  “We must have been close to her all the time,” he said. “We were sitting on the other side of that wall. I wanted to stretch my legs, so I took my rod and went to fish off the rocks. It’s high up there, and I could see right down on to this part of the lake. I saw Mrs. Mumsby lying there, so I rushed down and – and she was like this!”

  He buried his face in his hands and began to cry.

  Mr. Weston put out a hand and stroked the copper-coloured hair.

  “Poor boy!” he said. “You should never have seen her like that.” He turned to Lloyd. “My son was very fond of her,” he explained.

  They were interrupted by a voice from the wall.

  “Is anything wrong? Can we help?”

  Sir Courtney Haddox walked through the gap in the wall, his lean head thrust forward. He turned to give a hand to his sister, then went on:

  “We heard voices, and it seemed strange –”

  “It’s the Merry Widow,” said Major Jeans. “She’s had a stroke – or – or something.”

  He appeared to give some deliberate significance to the words, and Mr. Winkley intercepted a look which seemed to impart some warning to the newcomers.

  Miss Haddox pushed forward and looked down at Mrs. Mumsby. She gave a loud cry, and running back to her brother, clutched him round the neck and began to laugh and scream alternately. Finally she threw herself on to the ground and arched her body in the stiff convulsions of hysteria.

  Sir Courtney made sympathetic clucking noises and surveyed her with helpless concern. But to Mr. Winkley’s critical eyes the attack looked too deliberate to be authentic.

  Mrs. Pindar grasped her husband’s arm.

  “Take me away. I can’t stand any more of this,” she whispered, and he put his arm around her and led her gently towards the edge of the lake, where they sat with their backs to the others.

  “Where’s the doctor?” growled Major Jeans. “We can’t stay here all day.”

  The constable’s reply to what he assumed to be a reflection on his efficiency was luckily interrupted by the sound of a vehicle approaching along the road with a noise like an out-of-date threshing machine. It stopped with a squeaking of brakes which put a surprisingly speedy end to Miss Haddox’s hysterics. She sat up, and took the cup of water which one of the ghillies was still holding patiently.

  In a few minutes there appeared a brisk little man with long, silvered hair and bushy eyebrows, carrying a salmon rod in one hand, and a black leather bag in the other. His eyes were red, and his temper raw, from lack of sleep.

  “Huh! Mrs. Mumsby, eh?” he exclaimed. “She might have known that I’d been up all night delivering twins. That woman never had any consideration for me.” He came forward and looked down at the twisted body. “Huh!” he said again.

  “Dead as a doornail! I told her that heart of hers would play this trick on her one day. Well, what’s this?” he snapped, looking round at them all. “A Court of Inquiry, eh? Arrested anyone yet, Thomas? No? What’s wrong with you then? Right arm paralysed?”

  Dr. Rippington Roberts (his somewhat imposing name was due to the foresight of his mother who had decided before his birth that he should become a doctor, and had invented an imaginary family name to supplement the more ordinary Roberts) handed his salmon rod reverently to a ghillie, plumped his bag on the grass beside Mrs. Mumsby, and followed it rheumatically.

  He made a formal examination of the body, then sat back on his haunches, and gazed at it in puzzled silence, while the others looked on as if fascinated.

  “Anyone with her when she died? John? No, you wouldn’t be.”

  Suddenly he pounced on Mrs. Mumsby’s left hand, and turned it palm uppermost, revealing a wound in which was embedded a small object, barely recognizable as an artificial fly.

  “That’s it!” he exclaimed triumphantly. “I knew there’d be something to account for it. She was turning over her flies, and got one stuck in her hand. The shock of it killed her.”

  Thomas Lloyd waggled the point of his pencil up and down on his protruding tongue.

  “But that would hardly be enough of a shock to kill her, Doctor, surely,” he said.

  “Huh! You know more about it than I do, do you?” snapped the doctor.

  “No, no, Doctor, but I hope I know my duty,” said Lloyd.

  “I hope you do, man,” retorted the doctor, “though if you do, I don’t see how you happened to be here at all at this time of day. But that’s just like you, Thomas. You always get there before me. You even got yourself born before I arrived.” (This was a sore point between them.) “As for the shock not killing her, it was just the kind of thing I’d told her to avoid. Her heart was in a rotten state and any sudden pain like that would be too much for it. We all know that you’ve got a bee in your bonnet about people not dying natural deaths, but how else do you suppose they’d be likely to die in a peaceful place like Aberllyn? There’s only one death that’s likely to occur from unnatural causes. That will be by poisoning, and the person will be yourself. Just look at your tongue, man – God knows it’s long enough! I’ve warned you that you’ll poison yourself if you go on licking that pencil any longer. But you’ll never learn. You made yourself sick as a child by licking all the gum off your uncle’s stamps and I suppose you’re too old to change.”

  A subdued murmur of amusement ran round the little circle of people whose day’s sport had been so tragically spoiled. It relieved the tension among them, and they began to talk quietly together. The Major exchanged a few words with his ghillie, Miss Haddox became quite normal and took her brother over to join the Pindars, and even Claude managed to smile wanly at his father.

  But Mr. Winkley stood still, looking thoughtfully down at the fly which protruded from the dead woman’s hand.

  Chapter 9

  After the doctor had composed Mrs. Mumsby’s twisted limbs, and had released the salmon fly from her hand, two of the ghillies improvised a stretcher and settled her body in the boat. The constable seated himself in the bows, and John Jones pulled towards the head of the lake, looking as unperturbed as ever.

  “Charon,” murmured Major Jeans.

  “I beg your pardon,” said Mr. Weston.

  The Major started, as if he had not realized that he had spoken aloud.

  “Fellow who used to row the souls of the dead across the what’s-its-name, and take the coins off their closed eyes for fare. ‘Per twopence per person per trip,’ as Sam Small would say. That’s it. Charon. I never could think of a good name for that fellow before –”

  But Mr. Weston had moved away.

  The other boats followed Mrs. Mumsby’s in unstudied order, for despite the favourable conditions, everyone
seemed to take it for granted that fishing was over for the day. Nor did it occur to them as strange that in this age of individuality they should all be moved to act in accordance with some ancient herd instinct. When the boats were beached, they set out silently, took off casts, reeled in lines, removed reels, took down their rods, and placed them in the khaki-coloured canvas cases, which were tied with as many bows as a bride’s rest-gown.

  Thomas Lloyd crossed over towards them.

  “You’d better go back to the hotel.” he remarked. “The car will be here soon, and John Jones and I will wait. It was a pity to spoil your day’s fishing, but it couldn’t be helped, indeed.”

  All, except Claude, formed a little group, and walked slowly, talking, towards the hotel. He followed a little way behind, whispering brokenly to his agitated monkey. Behind them came the ghillies, laden with luncheon-baskets, mackintoshes, spare rods, nets, gaffs and fish. They clacked together in Welsh.

  Pussy Partridge and Gunn were standing outside the hotel, and greeted them boisterously.

  “What ho! You look like a funeral. What brings you all back again so early?”

  “Mrs. Mumsby is dead,” said Major Jeans solemnly.

  They roared with laughter.

  “So you’ve really got rid of her at last,” said Gunn. “I always said that woman would die an unnatural death.”

  “Which of you killed her?” asked Pussy.

  They gazed at her in horrified silence.

  “Well, you needn’t all look so guilty,” went on Pussy. “*You can’t all have done it, you know, unless you set on her like a pack of hounds and tore her limb from limb, and I hardly think you’re bloodthirsty enough for that, although I’ve heard each one of you say at different times that you could just murder that woman.”

  Major Jeans flashed a look of hatred at her, and stormed into the house. Mr. Weston passed without a word. Mrs. Pindar made a spasmodic little movement with her hands; Mr. Pindar propelled her gently towards the front door and glared at Pussy over his shoulder.

  “Rotten bad form!” he exclaimed.

  General Sir Courtney Haddox dropped his fishing rod and swore execrably. His sister ignored Gunn, and said icily to Pussy, “I suppose you think you’re clever, but you’re merely being offensive.”

  Pussy stared after them, and her arched eyebrows lifted until they nearly met the blonde widow’s peak of hair on her forehead.

  “Well!” she exclaimed. “What’s the matter with them all?”

  Gunn shook his head.

  “It beats me,” he said. “Let’s ask Claude.”

  Claude walked slowly over the small grey river pebbles which covered the front drive of the hotel, dragging his coat along the ground, and looking the picture of misery.

  “Hallo, Claude. What’s happened? Lost sixpence and found a farthing?”

  Claude halted abruptly.

  “Mrs. Mumsby’s dead,” he said in a dull voice. “Heart failure, the doctor says, but she must have died in agony. She looked awful.” He gulped. “I saw her... I...”

  Gunn and Pussy looked at each other in consternation.

  “And I thought they were joking,” remarked Pussy. “We’ve certainly put our foot into it this time.”

  Gunn nodded.

  “Both feet, hard,” he replied. “Thank God for a sensible explanation anyway, Claude. From the look of them we thought someone had murdered her.”

  Claude stared at them in horror.

  “Don’t say that!” he cried. “Oh, don’t say that!”

  He dropped his coat, and rushed blindly into the hotel, slamming the door behind him.

  Piggy Gunn blew out his cheeks like his Disney namesake and deflated them slowly.

  “Well!” he exclaimed. “It’s beyond me. Here we are, you and I, stuck in a lousy fishing hotel at the wrong end of the year amongst a lot of dismal Jimmies, and do we bring sunshine into their lives or do we not?”

  “We do not,” replied Pussy promptly. “If you ask me, it looks jolly fishy for them to act in that way, and a few gentle inquiries wouldn’t be out of place. We might find more in this than meets the eye.”

  “Trust you to do that,” returned Gunn, ruffling his tousled hair. “But don’t forget that if you start asking questions, it might give other people the same idea, and before we know where we are, someone will want to know what we’ve been doing today.”

  “M’m,” replied Pussy, with a knowing nod. “I get you. I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “And what have you been doing?” asked a gentle voice behind them.

  They jumped round as if startled by a shot, and saw the long, lean figure of Mr. Winkley sitting on a white-painted hotel seat, examining the flies in his old trilby hat.

  Pussy ignored the question.

  “You’ve been out on the Big Lake today. What have you got to do with this commotion about Mrs. Mumsby?” she demanded.

  “Oh,” replied Mr. Winkley. “Didn’t you know? I killed her!”

  The two young faces crinkled with mutual smiles.

  “Sez you,” retorted Gunn.

  “Sez I,” returned Mr. Winkley, grammatically.

  Chapter 10

  “I must say I don’t like the look of it,” said Pussy seriously as she stumped out the stub of her Russian cigarette.

  It was six o’clock the same evening, and she and Gunn were sitting alone among the empty tea-tables in the lounge.

  “There’s something wrong somewhere,” she went on. “I can feel it in my bones.”

  Gunn slid his loose-limbed body still further back against the velvet cushions of an embossed hide chair, and sighed.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Pussy,” he said in an exasperated voice, “do stop harping on that string. You haven’t stopped all day. Just because a handful of people look upset and uncomfortable when you accuse them of murder, you imagine there must be some truth in it.”

  “It isn’t that so much,” replied the girl, frowning lines into her smooth forehead. “It’s Claude. He’s making as much fuss over Mrs. Mumsby’s death as I imagine you’d make over mine, and I can’t believe he was ever in love with her. He’s eighteen and she must have been forty-five if she was a day. Besides, she was almost repulsive with that great slug-like body of hers. There’s something sinister about the whole affair, somehow, and I believe Claude knows it.”

  Gunn sighed again.

  “If you ask me anything,” he said, “I think old Claude is going crackers. Look what an exhibition he made of himself at tea-time, when old Fish-eyes said all that about Mrs. Mumsby being an exceedingly vulgar woman, nouveau riche, and no breeding. Why, he looked as if he could have gouged her eyes out when she blithered about the Lord removing her from this earth because she was no longer useful nor ornamental.”

  He paused, and they both seemed to hear again Claude’s voice raised in his passionate outburst, “She wasn’t removed. She died from shock. Shock, I tell you. Shock!”

  “Well, of course, it was in pretty bad taste for her to say a thing like that when Mrs. Mumsby had only been dead a few hours. You know the old tag, ‘De mortuis, nil nisi bonum’, or ‘Don’t call the dead names: they make good bones’. But, hang it all, nobody takes the Haddox seriously, and he ought to have had more sense. It just shows you that you never know where you are with these artistic blokes and their lily-white hands.”

  He glanced surreptitiously at his own hands, sunburnt and tingling, with their well-manicured nails slightly dirty for the sake of masculinity.

  “That’s it,” said Pussy eagerly. “Shock. He’s been talking all day about people dying from shock.”

  “But why shouldn’t he?” said Gunn logically. “After all, he did like her even if she was a slug, and the doctor says that she died from the shock caused by getting that fly-hook stuck in her hand –”

  “Well, I don’t believe a shock like that would kill a mouse, even if it had a weak heart,” retorted Pussy.

  “Upon my soul,” said Gunn, “you’r
e the most obstinate, pig-headed woman I ever met in my life. You listen to a whole list of facts with a superior air, and then toss your head, and go off believing something quite different that you’ve invented yourself.”

  She laughed at him, and he wriggled uncomfortably.

  “Oh, all right,” he growled. “You think it’s queer, but all the same it’s none of your business. So what?”

  “So I’m going to make it my business,” said Pussy with her most engaging smile. “I do think there’s something queer about Mrs. Mumsby’s death, and I’m going to find out what it is. What’s more, you’re going to help me.”

  “Oh no, you can count me out, my sweet.”

  “If I do,” said Pussy vindictively, “I shall knock you out first! Look here, Piggy, you’re supposed to be staying here with us. Mother and I have come to this lousy place because you wanted to do some fishing –”

  “But it was your mother’s idea,” protested Gunn.

  “I know, but only because she wanted to give you something interesting to do to keep you out of mischief, and because she used to come here in the good old days, and she thought it was such a nice hotel, the poor lamb!”

  “And so it is.”

  Pussy stamped a petulant foot.

  “Of course it is, you boob, that’s the trouble! It’s too damned nice for words. No midnight parties. No cheery people. Nothing to do except catch a few miserable fish. If I stay here much longer I shall start growing fins and open my mouth like a trout –”

  “If you’d only shut it as often...” murmured Gunn.

  “Shut up, Piggy! I’m serious. I’ve gone for walks until I’ve worn holes in my shoes. I’ve looked at the sea till I feel in need of Mothersill’s. I know the titles of all the sixpenny books in the post office, and if I look at the lake any more I shall go and drown myself in it. It’s all very fine for you. You can fish and enjoy it, and you can amuse yourself pressing ‘Go’ and ‘Stop’ buttons on your cine-camera, but I shall go bats or cuckoo if I can’t find some way of brightening up the daily round.”