“Where, Mr Garrard?”
“A village called Holkham Staith, not fifteen miles from here, but that’s hardly the point.”
“I’ll be the judge of what is the point,” I said. He didn’t know it, and not many do, but I’ve had a certain amount of success as an amateur detective. My investigative skills are known only to my intimates. “I know Holkham.” I also knew a limerick about a young fellow of Holkham, but this wasn’t the moment to speak it. “What’s the young man’s name?”
“Digby, sir. Horace Digby.”
“It sounds respectable.”
“He’s of good family, sir. He’s related to the Digbys of Denbighshire.”
“It doesn’t always follow that good blood will out. What were your instructions to Digby?”
“To take the train to Lynn, never letting go of the valise, and then hire a cab to convey him here.”
“You saw him depart on the 21st?”
“I did, sir. I watched him get into a cab outside my shop in the Haymarket.”
“Well, gentlemen,” I said with all the authority of an experienced investigator, “we’ll not solve the mystery by standing here. We must drive out to Lynn and see if Digby arrived.”
Garrard rather undermined my announcement. “Sir, I already spoke to the stationmaster when I got in this morning. He confirmed that a young man answering Digby’s description alighted at the station at noon on the 21st and hailed a four-wheeled cab.”
“And what is the description Digby answers to?”
“Tall, very tall, about six foot three, lean, and wearing a Norfolk jacket with a distinctive green and yellow tweed design.”
“Sounds hideous. Hat?”
“A brown bowler, sir.”
“Well, if he hailed a cab at Lynn and it didn’t get here, where would he have gone?”
“Holkham?” Knollys suggested.
“My thought exactly. Let’s track the quarry to his lair.”
In no time we were in one of my two-horse carriages gliding through the snowy landscape. In any other circumstances it would have been a delightful drive, with a clear blue sky above. My driver knew the route to Holkham and so do I, for that’s where the Earl of Leicester resides and he’s a shooting man. We once bagged upwards of 1,600 fowl there in a single day – sixteen guns, that is.
This time we weren’t bound for Holkham Hall unfortunately. Far from being of good family, as Garrard claimed, Digby’s people were in trade, as horse dealers. I didn’t much care for them and I don’t think they cared for me, even when Knollys told them who I was.
“We ’aven’t seen ’un in weeks,” was the reply to my question.
“Your Royal Highness,” Knollys prompted the man.
“Months,” the man added. “When was it we last saw ‘’Orace, Betty?”
“’Orse fair,” the mother said.
“We ’aven’t seen ’un since ’orse fair,” the man said.
“Your Royal Highness,” Knollys said.
“Not that we don’t trust you, but we’d like to look around your property,” I said. “Your son has disappeared with a substantial amount of jewellery and a silver inkstand.”
“What would we be doing with a silver inkstand?” the man said.
“What would anybody be doing with a silver inkstand?” the woman said.
Knollys was about to say his piece again, but I flapped my hand.
I started a cigar before going inside. You never know what vapours you will encounter in such a household. Without being uncivil to the Queen’s humble subjects, I have to say that this wasn’t Holkham Hall. The only good thing about it was that there weren’t more rooms. We searched the kitchen and front room and looked inside two bedrooms. There were no signs of a recent visitor, nor of the missing valise. They had five pathetic horses standing in the snow at the back.
“They need blankets,” I said.
“Where would we get blankets?” the man said insolently.
“I’ll have some sent over before the day is out. See to it, Francis.”
“You’re a gent,” the woman said unnecessarily.
“See that you put them over the horses and not your own bed,” I said. “Come, gentlemen. We must pursue the trail elsewhere.”
In sombre mood, we got back into the carriage.
Garrard cleared his throat. “Your Royal Highness, the class and manners of those people shocked me to the quick and I apologise profoundly for putting you through such an ordeal. It’s apparent that Digby misinformed me as to his origins. I shall take it up with him as soon as he is found.”
“Save your breath,” I told him. “That’s of small account compared to the loss of the Christmas presents.”
Knollys said, “It suggests that the fellow is a blackguard.”
“Not at all,” I said. “You can’t know the wine by the barrel. I’m not judging him until we find him with the booty in his hands.”
“But how shall we trace him?”
“We must find the cabman who picked him up from the station. He’ll know where he put him down.”
“Brilliant!” Garrard said.
We drove to Lynn by the shortest route, still a cold journey of some fifteen miles. The snow scene was starting to lose its charm.
“How many cabs ply their trade at Lynn station, would you say?” I asked the others.
“Upwards of thirty. Fifty, even,” Knollys said, betraying some despondency. He has never had much faith in my investigations. “I’ve seen the line in the station yard.”
“But not all of them are four-wheelers, as this was,” Garrard said. “Most are hansoms. We’re not looking for a hansom.”
“Good thinking,” I said.
At the station, we lost no time in finding the station master. He must have seen my coat of arms on the carriage, for he’d donned his silk hat, which he now doffed with a flourish and a bow.
“You are the principal witness,” I told him. “You saw a tall man carrying a large valise and wearing a loud Norfolk jacket arrive here two days ago, on the 21st.”
“I spoke to him, Your Majesty,” he said.
“Royal Highness,” Knollys corrected him.
“You spoke? That’s interesting. What did he have to say?”
“That he was bound for Sandringham with a valuable cargo and didn’t want the inconvenience of standing in a queue for a cab, Your Royal –”
“Definitely our man,” I said. “You summoned a four-wheeler?”
“The cleanest on the stand, Your –”
“Ah! So you can identify the driver, no doubt.”
“His name is Gripper.”
“And is he here this morning?”
“No longer, Your –”
“What do you mean by that?”
“He was here twenty minutes ago. He picked up a fare, a gentleman from London. They’ll be well on their way to Sandringham by now.”
“To Sandringham?” I said. “I’m expecting no visitors today. Describe this traveller.”
“Middle-aged, brown suit and matching bowler, a rather military bearing and clipped manner of speech.”
“He spoke to you?”
“He wanted to know about the man you’re interested in, the tall man with the valise.”
“Did he, by Jove! Back to the carriage, gentlemen. I sense a kill.”
When we arrived at Sandringham, I was alarmed to see the four-wheeler on the drive in front of the main door with no sign of the driver or his mysterious passenger. I jumped out and rushed inside. A footman came to greet me.
“Where are the visitors?” I demanded.
“Sir, there’s a gentleman in the ballroom with Her Royal Highness.”
Fearful for Alix, I dashed in that direction, pursued by Knollys and Garrard. The moment I entered the ballroom I saw my darling wife standing in front of the Christmas tree with a brown-suited fellow holding a bowler hat.
“Don’t move, my man!” I shouted. “Alix, step away from him at once.”
To my amazement and confusion she simply laughed and said, “Oh, Bertie, don’t make an exhibition of yourself. This is Sergeant Cribb, the famous detective. Come and shake his hand.”
“What’s a detective doing in my house?”
“Detecting,” she said. “I invited him here. The presents for the servants haven’t arrived and I thought we should find out why. I was just explaining about the tree and our custom of giving presents on Christmas Eve.”
“Fine tree, sir,” Sergeant Cribb said.
Ignoring him, I crossed the room and addressed my wife. “You invited this man here without consulting me? I don’t want a police investigation. That’s the last thing we want after the year we’ve had.”
“He’s an ex-policeman, dear, and very discreet.”
“Retired on a modest pension, sir,” Cribb said. He didn’t look old apart from a few silver hairs, but policemen retire younger than most.
“And he comes highly recommended by the Chief Constable,” Alix said. “We have to deal with this matter expeditiously.”
“But you didn’t speak to me about this.”
“Because you were off doing other things. It’s such a busy time.”
I looked at Francis Knollys and rolled my eyes. “Well, Sergeant Cribb, what do you have to tell us apart from the fact that we have a fine tree?”
“I’d like to speak to the estate manager, sir.”
“To Hammond? He’s got nothing to do with it.”
There was a silence that would have done for a lying-in-state.
Eventually Cribb glanced towards Alix. She gestured to the footman. “Find Mr Hammond and tell him he’s wanted here.”
I said, “It’s the missing jewellery we’re exercised about, not the damned Christmas tree.”
“There may be a connection, sir,” Cribb said.
“And I’m a Dutchman.”
Presently Hammond made his entry. He was looking mightily perturbed, and I was perturbed, too, when I saw the state of his boots. Containing my displeasure, I gestured to Cribb to ask his questions.
“Fine tree,” he parroted.
“Thank you, sir,” Hammond said.
I told him he had no need to address Cribb as if he was a gentleman.
“I think it’s the biggest I’ve seen,” Cribb said.
Alix intervened to say it was a living tree still attached to its roots.
“Capital, ma’am,” Cribb said, and turned back to Hammond. “When I was being driven through the grounds I noticed a small group of evergreens not far from the carriage path. Was this tree dug from there?”
“Yes.”
“A home-grown tree. How charming.”
Alix lavished a sweet smile on Cribb. I was starting to doubt her loyalty.
“And now, Mr Hammond,” Cribb said, “I’m going to ask you to show me precisely where the tree was growing.”
“I can do that.”
“You’ll ruin your shoes,” Alix said. “The snow’s quite deep. Bertie, have you got some galoshes to protect Sergeant Cribb’s shoes?”
What next? I thought. Gritting my teeth, I clicked my fingers and sent a flunkey for enough overshoes for the four of us men. Alix elected not to come. She hates the cold.
Suitably attired, we left the house, Hammond leading. Before we’d gone a few yards Cribb left the party and trotted over to the cab still waiting near the entrance. Attached to the front below the driver’s seat was a spade.
“You might care to look at this, sir,” Cribb called out.
The insolence of the man. I know what a spade is. I’ve turned enough first sods in my time. But the other two went to look, so I joined them, not wishing to seem churlish.
Cribb said, “A necessary tool for a cabman in the depths of winter, a spade. You never know when you’ll need to dig yourself out.”
Then he held it horizontally towards me as if he was passing across a stuffed salmon for my inspection. “Take a close look at the dried mud attaching to the shoulder. I’ll pick some off for you.”
He scraped some off and I found myself constrained to look at fragments of dried mud lying in his palm.
“Do you see the pine needles?”
Now that he mentioned the fact, I did. I gave a nod.
“That’s all right, then,” Cribb said, taking back the spade and shouldering it like a rifle. “We’ll have a use for this, I think.”
Hammond had by now got some way ahead. We stepped out and caught up with him a short distance from the evergreen copse.
“Now, Mr Hammond,” Cribb said, “kindly show us precisely where the Christmas tree was growing.”
Hammond started to point and then drew back his hand and scratched his head instead. “Well, I’ll be jiggered.”
To borrow the words of the carol, the snow lay deep and crisp and even.
Even was the operative word.
“You dug out a large tree,” Cribb said to him, “so where’s the large hole?”
“Caught out, Mr Hammond,” I said. “In spite of all the instructions to the contrary, you sawed the thing off at the base.”
“I swear I didn’t, sir. It took six of us a morning and an afternoon to dig under the roots.”
“Perhaps you filled in the hole?” Knollys suggested.
“I wouldn’t do that. Not when the tree has to be put back after Twelfth Night. May I borrow that spade?”
He started scraping away the layer of snow. Below it, the ground was even, but the soil was soft. “Someone else filled it in.”
“Keep at it, Mr Hammond,” Cribb said. “Dig out the soft stuff.”
Hammond went at it with a will. We all had to stand back as the spadefuls of earth flew about us.
Cribb said, “Wait. What’s that dark material?”
“It’s fabric.” Hammond bent down and scraped with his fingers and unearthed a brown bowler hat.
“Just the beginning,” Cribb said. “Dig some more, Mr Hammond.”
In only a few minutes Hammond exclaimed, “Oh, my Lord.”
He’d uncovered a human hand and part of a sleeve of yellow and green tweed.
“Horace Digby, poor fellow,” Garrard said.
In the warmth of the house I treated them to hot punch. We’d left some gardeners outside to warm themselves by extracting the rest of the corpse from the hole.
I waited for Alix to join us, and then said, “This is all very remarkable, Sergeant Cribb, but it hasn’t brought back the missing jewels unless they’re in the hole as well.”
“No, they’re not, sir. I recovered them earlier. Excuse me a moment.” He left the room.
We were lost for words. We simply stared at each other until he returned carrying a valise and a large silver object that I recognised as an inkstand, Alix’s Christmas present.
“What’s that ugly thing?” Alix said.
“The murder weapon, ma’am,” Cribb said.
All my good intentions dashed in a couple of sentences.
“Then who is the murderer?”
“Gripper, the cabman,” Cribb said. “I have him cuffed, hand and foot. He’s quite secure, lying on the floor of his own cab. It was a crime of opportunity and it happened on the 21st, before the snow came. Digby got into his cab at Lynn station and said he wanted to be driven to Sandringham. It was pretty obvious that the valise contained something valuable. All the way here the cabman planned the robbery. Inside the gates where it was quiet, he stopped and told Digby to hand over the booty. Digby put up a fight, but the cabbie grabbed something heavy – and I think it was that silver object – and brained him with it. He may not have intended murder, but that’s what it became. It was his good luck that a hole big enough for a grave had been dug nearby. He dropped the body in and used his own spade to cover it with the excess soil beside the hole. That’s how he got the pine needles in the mud. And there was more good luck for him when the snow came, levelling everything.”
“But bad luck when you came along,” Alix said, her voice overflowi
ng with admiration.
“Yes, I got the gist of the story from the stationmaster at Lynn. It was a risk using the same cab, but I fancy the killer thought he’d got away with it. And he wasn’t likely to attack me with nothing in my hands. I arrested him on suspicion as soon as I got here.”
“You’re a brave man, as well as a fine detective,” Alix said, actually clapping her hands. “Isn’t he a brave man, Bertie?”
“Where were the stolen jewels?” I asked.
“In the box seat he sits on.”
“Speaking of boxes, do we have a Christmas box for Sergeant Cribb?” Alix asked.
She looked to me, I looked to Knollys and he sniffed, sighed and took a couple of gold sovereigns from his pocket.
“And there’s his fee, of course,” Alix said. “Twenty-five pounds, I suggest.”
Cribb looked as if his Christmas was just beginning.
As for me, I’ve never felt the same about Christmas trees. Before Papa made them popular, we had something rather better. The custom was to hang up a bough entwined with mistletoe, holly, ivy and other evergreens, candles, apples and cinnamon sticks. It was called the kissing bough and when I’m King I intend to reinstate it.
If the Queen allows.
SAY THAT AGAIN
We called him the Brigadier with the buggered ear. Just looking at it made you wince. Really he should have had the bits surgically removed. He claimed it was an old war wound. However, Sadie the Lady, another of our residents, told us it wasn’t true. She said she’d talked to the Brig’s son Arnold who reckoned his old man got blind drunk in Aldershot one night and tripped over a police dog and paid for it with his shell-like.
Because of his handicap, the Brigadier tended to shout. His “good” ear wasn’t up to much, even with the aid stuck in it. We got used to the shouting, we old farts in the Never-Say-Die Retirement Home. After all, most of us are hard of hearing as well. No doubt we were guilty of letting him bluster and bellow without interruption. We never dreamed at the time that our compliance would get us into the High Court on a murder rap.
It was set in motion by She-Who-Must-Be-Replaced, our so-called matron, pinning a new leaflet on the notice board in the hall.
“Infernal cheek!” the Brig boomed. “They’re parasites, these people, living off the frail and weak-minded.”
Murder on the Short List Page 15
