As they moved slowly forward, Mrs. Evans wondered whether Mrs. Mumsby had kept her promise about the thousand pounds, and what she could do about it if she hadn’t.
Mr. Proudfoot wondered how the case of Frazer v. Frazer was progressing, and whether he’d be able to catch the three o’clock train back to London.
Mrs. Partridge remembered that Pussy’s father had never had a funeral. “A bomb fell just where he was standing... He was my friend as well as one of my best officers. I can only offer you my sincerest sympathy...”
Major Jeans was thinking that if he was not very careful, he would end up in as lonely a death as Mrs. Mumsby. He could think of worse ways of dying than when holding a trout rod in his hand, though, and they suddenly seemed near to him.
I wish I hadn’t made an exhibition of myself, thought Claude. I must pull myself together. They’re all beginning to notice things and to talk, but they don’t understand. I should never be able to make them understand...
Mr. Weston’s thoughts were all of Claude.
Gunn wondered whether there was a Supreme Being, and whether Mrs. Mumsby had met Him yet. It was difficult to know what to believe in these days. One day he’d know...
One day, thought Pussy, I shall be dead and Piggy will be dead and Mother will be dead and – oh hell! why did I come to this miserable funeral?
I wonder which of them really murdered her? thought Mr. Winkley.
Chapter 20
Pussy Partridge and Gunn edged away from the little group in the churchyard as soon as they decently could. They had sat holding hands in the back pew of the bare, grey church, not unimpressed by the simple burial service, and had followed the heavy coffin, its brass fittings glittering in the sunshine, reverently enough. But the vicar’s exhortation to them to move near the grave’s edge and gaze for the last time on the coffin, struck that artificial note which so unexpectedly crops up in religious ceremonies, and so readily offends the realism of modern youth.
When they were out of earshot, they both made noises indicative of a desire to be sick, laughed, and immediately felt better.
“It makes you want to be married in a register office,” remarked the girl, with an inconsequence which Gunn understood.
“Yes,” he agreed. “I quite like going to church, but you have to be such a blooming hypocrite to stomach it sometimes. Of course, this doesn’t concern us really because we hardly knew Mrs. Mumsby, but if anyone you loved was being buried, and you believed in God and Heaven, and all that, how could you be expected to sob over the wormy parts in public, so that the local busybodies could go home and say, ‘It was a lovely funeral; we all enjoyed it; I wept like anything’? It’s all very fine for us to be told that we ought to conform to old customs, but you and I and our children are the people of the future; why don’t they conform to our ideas a bit? Yet the Church is all right on a big occasion. They did the Coronation jolly well. I still remember those trumpets.”
They walked in unaccustomed silence for a few minutes.
“It makes you want to do something about the murder.” said Pussy suddenly. “I mean, she ought to be alive in this sunshine, and not lying dead in the ground. We don’t seem to be doing enough, somehow. Do you think Mr. Winkley’s all right?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, he said we’d never make good detectives unless we suspected one another. He’s obviously a bit suspicious of us, so perhaps it’s time we began to suspect him. After all, he’s done some rather queer things – like going out in the dark to look for that fly, for instance. We’ve only got his word for it that he did find it down by the lake, and for all we know, he might have found some other clue besides. It seems to me that we’ve really got as much cause to suspect him as the others.”
“Oh, nonsense!” laughed Gunn. “He’s a decent sort. You can’t suspect him.”
“Oh, can’t I?” retorted Pussy. “They’re all decent sorts, and one of them did it. There isn’t one of them that I don’t like, except Major Jeans, and he’s just silly.”
“I thought you were convinced that the Major was the murderer,” returned Gunn. “You never know where you are with women: they never think the same thing for two days running. And anyway, you dragged Mr. Winkley into this affair. He wasn’t sure that she had been murdered, until you started telling him of your suspicions. He might just have gone down to look for that fly because he’d noticed that it was a special kind, and thought he’d like to try it for himself.”
“But no self-respecting man would do a thing like that.”
“No. But a fisherman might; he’d do anything which would help him to bring in more fish than the next fellow.”
“Well, if we’re suspecting the others of murdering Mrs. Mumsby, we might as well include him.” persisted Pussy. “He had as much opportunity as anyone else, and as much motive, too, because no one seems to have any at all. He did get hold of the fly that killed her, he suggested poison, and did you notice how he walked to the church today right behind everybody else? We do exactly what he tells us to do, and for all we know, it may be part of a deep scheme to put us both off the scent.”
Gunn sighed.
“If you’ve begun to suspect him, I suppose we shall have to do something about it,” he said. “You really are the most obstinate creature I’ve ever come across. If only you’d set your heart on marrying me, there’d be some sense in your pigheadedness: it’s wasted on old Winkley. Look here, Pussy, the one person in the hotel who knows more about the visitors than anyone else is Mrs. Evans. If we stroll back towards the churchyard, we shall meet the others coming away, and perhaps we could talk to her.’’
“Sorry, darling.” said Pussy, “but I must get into some comfortable clothes.” and they continued on their way to the hotel.
As Gunn held open the door with his lengthy arm, under which Pussy passed without ducking her head, he said, “I must get some cigarettes.” and they both turned into the office.
Of all the parts of The Fisherman’s Rest, the reception office was the most modern. It had recently been built on the site of a dark cubby-hole which used to house the hotel stationery, spare electric light bulbs, old account books, and all the odd buckets and spades, dried seaweed, cheap novels, knitting, and scarves, left by visitors. Its lath-and-plaster walls were hidden behind imitation oak panelling, on which a series of coloured pictures of salmon and trout literally rubbed shoulders with highly glazed advertisements for fishing tackle and the wares of local tradesmen. Near the single, low window, stood a large, mahogany, glass-fronted show-case, which, in the height of the season, was filled with reels, baits, priests, lines, and the less necessary luxuries of fishing. Now, only a single spinning reel and a few boxed Spoons and Devons could be perceived on its spacious shelves. The lower half of the case was divided into narrow drawers, which held casts and glass-covered divisions for flies of various kinds. A wide oak counter, with a hinged flap, extended across the width of the office, and held the Visitors’ Book, and packets of chocolates, cigarettes, and postcards. A glass door at the back of the office led into the Evans’ private sitting-room which was a kind of Bluebeard’s Chamber to all of the visitors except children, who emerged from it with biscuits or toffee-apples clutched in their hands, and slightly shamefaced looks on their faces.
Gunn pushed Pussy in front of him through the office door, and tapped on the counter.
There was a rustling of paper, a wet, squeaking sound, and then the small, slight figure of Mr. Evans rose from behind the counter. His grey hair was scanty, his eyes small and set too close together, his forehead low, and his face as pale as a white rabbit’s. Pussy noticed, with disgust, that he wore no collar, but had only a stained and torn woollen cardigan over his coarse flannel shirt.
As he looked at them, his moist red underlip protruded, and catching the thin, silky edge of his moustache with an experienced flick, sucked at it with every appearance of enjoyment.
“Twenty Churchman? Ta. Everything go off all
right?” he said.
“Oh yes, I suppose so,” replied Gunn, stripping the cellophane from the green packet, and throwing it on to the floor. “That’s if you are referring to the funeral. I should have thought that some of the others might have got back by now, but I didn’t see any sign of them.”
“Ah, they’ll have gone into the vicarage for a glass of wine I dare say,” said Mr. Evans, pulling his lips back from his teeth, like a horse, and sucking his discoloured dentures. “The vicar doesn’t get much chance of a gossip at this time of the year. We’re mostly chapel people in Wales, and chiefly his congregation are summer visitors. He gets lonely, and he’d be glad of company.”
“I see,” said Gunn. “By the way, I’d better have a few flies while I’m here.”
“Trout flies, sir?”
“No, salmon.”
He cut short Pussy’s exclamation of surprise by treading on her toe, and winked as he apologized for his clumsiness.
“If you know what you want, yourself, Mr. Gunn – Mrs. Evans usually serves the gentlemen with their fishing tackle, and I’ve heard them say that she knows as much about flies as any of them. Quite an expert at tying them, she is, too, but I don’t know much about them myself.”
He lifted his coat from a chair, and struggled into it, then lifted the flap of the counter, and came towards them. Pussy saw that the coat did not match his trousers, and felt suitably revolted.
What a man for a hotel proprietor! she thought. No wonder his wife keeps him in the background as much as possible.
Mr. Evans opened the miniature drawers in the case, and apologized when he saw that most of the labelled divisions were empty.
“Rather low in flies we are at this time of the year, sir. The season will soon be over, and it’s not worth our while to order more.”
“I dare say I shall find what I want here.” returned Gunn. “You must find things very quiet with so few visitors staying in the hotel.”
“Yes, indeed, but we are glad of it. Such a rush that we have in the season, and the hotel full of strange maids and them all quarrelling, and the visitors ringing bells all day, and children being sick! We’re always glad when the rush is over, though we like counting the money we make, oh yes!”
Pussy was surprised to find Mr. Evans so eager to talk with them. He was usually a taciturn individual who passed by with no other greeting than a surly nod. Today he was quite garrulous.
“Do the same people come every year?” she asked, for she had by now perceived the trend of Gunn’s thoughts, and did not want to be left out of things.
“A lot of them do, miss,” replied Evans. “The fishing’s good here, the best in Wales, so they say, and Mrs. Evans has a way with her. Major Jeans comes in July and stays till the last day of the season. He always has the same bedroom, number five, the only single one we have with a double bed in it...
Trust him, thought Pussy. That man lives on hope!
“Sir Courtney Haddox comes in September. He and the Major are old cronies, always chaffing each other about their fishing. Very jolly indeed. He never brought his sister with him before, but always used to sit at the Bachelors’ table in the dining-room with the Major and Mr. Winkley and the other gentlemen.”
Pussy stared.
Jolly was not an adjective she would ever have used in connection with the General. Perhaps he was different, though, when old Fish-face wasn’t with him. She didn’t blame him for that: she found Miss Haddox rather exhausting, herself.
Gunn placed two flies on the palm of his hand, and turned to the corridor in order to see them better.
I wish he wouldn’t, thought Pussy, with a shudder. Flies on the palm of a hand will always remind me of Mrs. Mumsby, just as a hand in a silk stocking always reminds me that I want another pair.
Apparently they reminded Gunn of her, too, for he remarked:
“Mrs. Mumsby lived here permanently, didn’t she? She must have known all these people as well as you did.”
Mr. Evans jerked his head in assent.
“Oh, better, sir, better. She was always a great one for the men, and I’ve thought that some of them came to see her as much as they came for the trout.”
“They weren’t so keen on catching her, though,” laughed Pussy.
“I wouldn’t say that, miss. She was a fine-looking woman, and attractive to some. I don’t care for these skinny women myself. She was a widow, too, with plenty of money, and she wasn’t mean with it. You might call her a very good catch indeed.”
“What about the others?” asked Gunn. “Were they regulars too?”
“I never saw Mr. and Mrs. Pindar before,” replied Evans, sucking his moustache, “nor Mr. Weston and his son, nor you, sir, for that matter. But I’ve seen your young lady a good many years ago when she made sand-castles on the beach, and played about the hotel in rompers.”
Pussy grimaced.
“And of course your mother has been here for the last three years, miss, in July or August. Mrs. Mumsby used to admire her clothes, and they saw a lot of each other. Your mother will miss her.”
“That must have been when I was abroad,” said Pussy slowly, “but I didn’t know...”
She broke off abruptly, as she felt Gunn’s hand on her arm.
“I’ll take this one,” he said to Mr. Evans. “How much is it?”
“Half a crown, sir.”
“Good Lord!” exclaimed Gunn. “What a price! I can get about ten sea-trout flies for that.”
“There’s a lot more dressing on a salmon fly, sir,” returned Mr. Evans. “That’s a fairly cheap one. We do have them as expensive as six shillings. They go partly by the size, sir.”
“I suppose you haven’t got a salmon fly in stock like the one on Miss Partridge’s beret?” asked Gunn.
Mr. Evans stared at the fly, licked his lips nervously, and dried them on the back of his hand.
“No,” he replied. “No, I never saw one like that before in my life.”
Gunn flipped a ten-shilling note on to the counter, and began to turn over the pages of the Visitors’ Book as he waited for change.
“I see that Mr. Winkley hasn’t registered,” he said.
“That’s nothing, sir,” said Mr. Evans, “though Thomas Lloyd would have us fined for it if he knew. But we shall have his address at the end of the book with all the other regulars. There’ll be his telephone number, too, for I well remember writing it down myself. He was expecting a registered letter the last time he stayed here, and I was to telephone him if it came after he had left. Yes, I remember thinking that he must be with some big business firm in the City, but when I mentioned it to Major Jeans, he only laughed at me, and said I ought to get a wireless. But I don’t hold with all this wireless, sir; it isn’t natural, and it’s my belief that it’s to blame for all this international trouble in the world today. Excuse me, sir, but I think that’s the telephone.”
He handed over Gunn’s change, and disappeared into the sitting-room, closing the door behind him.
“Well, we’ve solved one mystery, even if it did cost me half a crown.” whispered Gunn. “We-know now why Mrs. Evans always keeps her husband out of sight.”
Pussy frowned.
“What d’you mean?” she asked.
Gunn placed his hand to his lips, and lifted his elbow.
“You should have smelt his breath,” he said. “I wonder...” He dived under the counter-flap and reappeared on the other side holding up a bottle. “Here’s the evidence, Inspector. Lock him up before his wife gets at him!”
But Pussy was not listening. She was gazing in horror at the last page of the Visitors’ Book. Gunn leaned across and looked at the words which the polished oval of her nail indicated.
“Telephone. Winkley. Whitehall 1212,” he read aloud. “Pussy, you blasted little fool! Now look what you’ve got us into!”
Pussy relapsed into the vernacular.
“A flat-foot floogie!” she exclaimed. “But he has quite ordinary-sized feet!”
Chapter 21
In the summer, meals at The Fisherman’s Rest were served in a large room which had been added so recently to the other part of the building that, in the sunshine, it smelled like a newly cut jigsaw puzzle. When the “get-rich-quick” season was over, the visitors who remained were transferred to the old, fusty, but cosy dining-room at the front of the hotel. At lunch-time, except on the wildest of days when no boat could get out on the lake, this room was either empty or populated entirely by women, but on the day of Mrs. Mumsby’s funeral, most of the tables were filled, since those who had attended the church ceremony had not thought it worth while to go fishing until the afternoon. It was obvious, however, that Major Jeans, Mr. Winkley, and the Westons did intend to go out, because they had already changed into the shapeless, nondescript tweeds which the true fisherman wears on his fishing expeditions, and which bristled with an assortment of flies, indicating to the initiated as many years’ service as the medals on a Guardsman’s dress uniform.
The four men sat at a rectangular table known as the Bachelors’ Table, which was centrally placed near the hearth, over which hung the stuffed record salmon caught by a famous statesman on the fly. The carving-chair, which stood with its back to the fire at the head of the table, was referred to as “the Chair of Honour”, and for the last few weeks, it had been occupied by Major Jeans. It was assigned to the bachelor who had been a regular visitor to the hotel for the greatest number of years, and so it should have been reserved for General Haddox, but, owing to the presence of his sister, he had been relegated (for so he regarded it) to a table for two in the window, from which he cast longing glances at the “bachelors” whenever they laughed aloud at a joke, which they frequently did.
Bleeding Hooks Page 12
