by Mark Place
A terrific yell from outside seemed to be cut off mid-way and was followed by a silence so profound that Mrs Ramsay felt a real feeling of alarm spring up in her breast. Really, that silence was most unnatural. She stood uncertainly, the dust-pan with broken china in her hand. The kitchen door opened and Bill stood there. He had an awed, ecstatic expression most unusual on his eleven-year-old face.
‘Mum,’ he said. ‘There’s a detective inspector here and another man with him.’
‘Oh,’ said Mrs Ramsay, relieved. ‘What does he want, dear?’
‘He asked for you,’ said Bill, ‘but I think it must be about the murder. You know, the one at Miss Pebmarsh’s yesterday.’
‘I don’t see why he should come and wish to see me,’ said Mrs Ramsay, in a slightly vexed voice. Life was just one thing after another, she thought. How was she to get the potatoes on for the Irish stew if detective inspectors came along at this awkward hour? ‘Oh well,’ she said with a sigh. ‘I suppose I’d better come.’
She shot the broken china into the bin under the sink, rinsed her hands under the tap, smoothed her hair and prepared to follow Bill, who was saying impatiently, ‘Oh, come on, Mum.’
Mrs Ramsay, closely flanked by Bill, entered the sitting-room. Two men were standing there. Her younger son, Ted, was in attendance upon them, staring at them with wide appreciative eyes.
‘Mrs Ramsay?’
‘Good morning.’
‘I expect these young men have told you that I am Detective Inspector Hardcastle?’
‘It’s very awkward,’ said Mrs Ramsay. ‘Very awkward this morning. I’m very busy. Will it take very long?’
‘Hardly any time at all,’ said Detective Inspector Hardcastle reassuringly. ‘May we sit down?’
‘Oh, yes, do, do.’
Mrs Ramsay took an upright chair and looked at them impatiently. She had suspicions that it was not going to take hardly any time at all.
‘No need for you two to remain,’ said Hardcastle to the boys pleasantly.
‘Aw, we’re not going,’ said Bill.
‘We’re not going,’ echoed Ted.
‘We want to hear all about it,’ said Bill.
‘Sure we do,’ said Ted.
‘Was there a lot of blood?’ asked Bill.
‘Was it a burglar?’ said Ted.
‘Be quiet, boys,’ said Mrs Ramsay. ‘Didn’t you hear the—Mr Hardcastle say he didn’t want you in here?’
‘We’re not going,’ said Bill. ‘We want to hear.’
Hardcastle moved across to the door and opened it. He looked at the boys.
‘Out,’ he said.
It was only one word, quietly uttered, but it had behind it the quality of authority. Without more ado both boys got up, shuffled their feet and shuffled out of the room.
‘How wonderful,’ thought Mrs Ramsay appreciatively. ‘Now why can’t I be like that?’
But then, she reflected, she was the boys’ mother. She knew by hearsay that the boys, when they went out, behaved in a manner entirely different from at home. It was always mothers who got the worst of things. But perhaps, she reflected, one would rather have it like that. To have nice quiet attentive polite boys at home and to have little hooligans going out, creating unfavourable opinions of themselves, would be worse—yes, that would be worse. She recalled herself to what was required of her, as Inspector Hardcastle came back and sat down again.
‘If it’s about what happened at Number 19 yesterday,’ she said nervously, ‘I really don’t see that I can tell you anything, Inspector. I don’t know anything about it. I don’t even know the people who live there.’
‘The house is lived in by a Miss Pebmarsh. She’s blind and works at the Aaronberg Institute.’
‘Oh, I see,’ said Mrs Ramsay. ‘I’m afraid I know hardly anybody in the lower Crescent.’
‘Were you yourself here yesterday between half past twelve and three o’clock?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Mrs Ramsay. ‘There was dinner to cook and all that. I went out before three, though. I took the boys to the cinema.’
The inspector took the photograph from his pocket and handed it to her.
‘I’d like you to tell me if you’ve ever seen this man before.’
Mrs Ramsay looked at it with a slight awakening of interest.
‘No,’ she said, ‘no, I don’t think so. I’m not sure if I would remember if I had seen him.’
‘He did not come to this house on any occasion—trying to sell you insurance or anything of that kind?’
Mrs Ramsay shook her head more positively.
‘No. No, I’m sure he didn’t.’
‘His name, we have some reason to believe, is Curry. Mr R. Curry.’
He looked inquiringly at her. Mrs Ramsay shook her head again. ‘I’m afraid,’ she said apologetically, ‘I really haven’t time to see or notice anything during the holidays.’
‘That’s always a busy time, isn’t it,’ said the inspector. ‘Fine boys you’ve got. Full of life and spirits. Rather too many spirits sometimes, I expect?’
Mrs Ramsay positively smiled. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it gets a little tiring, but they’re very good boys really.’
‘I’m sure they are,’ said the inspector. ‘Fine fellows, both of them. Very intelligent, I should say. I’ll have a word with them before I go, if you don’t mind. Boys notice things sometimes that nobody else in the house does.’
‘I don’t really see how they can have noticed anything,’ said Mrs Ramsay. ‘It’s not as though we were next door or anything.’
‘But your gardens back on each other.’
‘Yes, they do,’ agreed Mrs Ramsay. ‘But they’re quite separate.’
‘Do you know Mrs Hemming at Number 20?’
‘Well, in a way I do,’ said Mrs Ramsay, ‘because of the cats and one thing and another.’
‘You are fond of cats?’
‘Oh, no,’ said Mrs Ramsay, ‘it’s not that. I mean it’s usually complaints.’
‘Oh, I see. Complaints. What about?’
Mrs Ramsay flushed.
‘The trouble is,’ she said, ‘when people keep cats in that way—fourteen, she’s got—they get absolutely besotted about them. And it’s all a lot of nonsense. I like cats. We used to have a cat ourselves, a tabby. Very good mouser, too. But all the fuss that woman makes, cooking special food—hardly ever letting the poor things out to have a life of their own. Of course the cats are always trying to escape. I would, if I was one of those cats. And the boys are very good really, they wouldn’t torment a cat in any way. What I say is cats can always take care of themselves very well. They’re very sensible animals, cats, that is if they are treated sensibly.’
‘I’m sure you’re quite right,’ said the inspector. ‘You must have a busy life,’ he went on, ‘keeping those boys of yours amused and fed during the holidays. When are they going back to school?’
‘The day after tomorrow,’ said Mrs Ramsay.
‘I hope you’ll have a good rest then.’
‘I mean to treat myself to a real lazy time,’ she said.
The other young man who had been silently taking down notes, startled her a little by speaking.
‘You ought to have one of those foreign girls,’ he said. ‘Au pair, don’t they call it, come and do chores here in return for learning English.’
‘I suppose I might try something of that kind,’ said Mrs Ramsay, considering, ‘though I always feel that foreigners may be difficult. My husband laughs at me. But then of course he knows more about it than I do. I haven’t travelled abroad as much as he has.’
‘He’s away now, isn’t he?’ said Hardcastle.
‘Yes—he had to go to Sweden at the beginning of August. He’s a constructional engineer. A pity he had to go just then—at the beginning of the holidays, too. He’s so good with the children. He really likes playing with electric trains more than the boys do. Sometimes the lines and the marshalling yards and everything go right across the h
all and into the other room. It’s very difficult not to fall over them.’ She shook her head. ‘Men are such children,’ she said indulgently.
‘When do you expect him back, Mrs Ramsay?’
‘I never know.’ She sighed. ‘It makes it rather—difficult.’ There was a tremor in her voice. Colin looked at her keenly.
‘We mustn’t take up more of your time, Mrs Ramsay.’
Hardcastle rose to his feet.
‘Perhaps your boys will show us the garden?’
Bill and Ted were waiting in the hall and fell in with the suggestion immediately.
‘Of course,’ said Bill apologetically, ‘it isn’t a very big garden.’
There had been some slight effort made to keep the garden of No. 62, Wilbraham Crescent in reasonable order. On one side there was a border of dahlias and Michaelmas daisies. Then a small lawn somewhat unevenly mown. The paths badly needed hoeing, models of aeroplanes, space guns and other representations of modern science lay about, looking slightly the worse for wear. At the end of the garden was an apple tree with pleasant-looking red apples on it. Next to it was a pear tree.
‘That’s it,’ said Ted, pointing at the space between the apple and the pear, through which the back of Miss Pebmarsh’s house showed clearly. ‘That’s Number 19 where the murder was.’
‘Got quite a good view of the house, haven’t you,’ said the inspector. ‘Better still, I expect, from the upstairs windows.’
‘That’s right,’ said Bill. ‘If only we’d been up there yesterday looking out, we might have seen something. But we didn’t.’
‘We were at the cinema,’ said Ted.
‘Were there fingerprints?’ asked Bill.
‘Not very helpful ones. Were you out in the garden at all yesterday?’
‘Oh, yes, off and on,’ said Bill. ‘All the morning, that is. We didn’t hear anything, though, or see anything.’
‘If we’d been there in the afternoon we might have heard screams,’ said Ted, wistfully. ‘Awful screams there were.’
‘Do you know Miss Pebmarsh, the lady who owns that house, by sight?’
The boys looked at each other, then nodded.
‘She’s blind,’ said Ted, ‘but she can walk around the garden all right. Doesn’t have to walk with a stick or anything like that. She threw a ball back to us once. Quite nice about it she was.’
‘You didn’t see her at all yesterday?’
The boys shook their heads.
‘We wouldn’t see her in the morning. She’s always out,’ Bill explained. ‘She usually comes out in the garden after tea.’
Colin was exploring a line of hosepipe which was attached to a tap in the house. It ran along the garden path and was laid down in the corner near the pear tree.
‘Never knew that pear trees needed watering,’ he remarked.
‘Oh, that,’ said Bill. He looked slightly embarrassed.
‘On the other hand,’ said Colin, ‘if you climbed up in this tree.’ He looked at both boys and grinned suddenly. ‘You could get a very nice little line of water to play on a cat, couldn’t you?’
Both boys scuffled the gravel with their feet and looked in every other direction but at Colin.
‘That’s what you do, isn’t it?’ said Colin.
‘Aw, well,’ said Bill, ‘it doesn’t hurt ’em. It’s not,’ he said with an air of virtue, ‘like a catapult.’
‘I suppose you used to use a catapult at one time.’
‘Not properly,’ said Ted. ‘We never seemed to hit anything.’
‘Anyway, you do have a bit of fun with that hose sometimes,’ said Colin, ‘and then Mrs Hemming comes along and complains?’
‘She’s always complaining,’ said Bill.
‘You ever get through her fence?’
‘Not through that wire here,’ said Ted, unguardedly.
‘But you do get through into her garden sometimes, is that right? How do you do it?’
‘Well, you can get through the fence—into Miss Pebmarsh’s garden. Then a little way down to the right you can push through the hedge into Mrs Hemming’s garden. There’s a hole there in the wire.’
‘Can’t you shut up, you fool?’ said Bill.
‘I suppose you’ve done a bit of hunting about for clues since the murder?’ said Hardcastle.
The boys looked at each other.
‘When you came back from the cinema and heard what had happened, I bet you went through the fence into the garden of 19 and had a jolly good look round.’
‘Well—’ Bill paused cautiously.
‘It’s always possible,’ said Hardcastle seriously, ‘that you may have found something that we missed. If you have—er—a collection I should be much obliged if you would show it to me.’
Bill made up his mind. ‘Get ’em, Ted,’ he said.
Ted departed obediently at a run.
‘I’m afraid we haven’t got anything really good,’ admitted Bill. ‘We only—sort of pretended.’ He looked at Hardcastle anxiously. ‘I quite understand,’ said the inspector. ‘Most of police work is like that. A lot of disappointments.’ Bill looked relieved.
Ted returned at a run. He passed over a grubby knotted handkerchief which chinked. Hardcastle unknotted it, with a boy on either side of him, and spread out the contents. There was the handle off a cup, a fragment of willow pattern china, a broken trowel, a rusty fork, a coin, a clothes-peg, a bit of iridescent glass and half a pair of scissors. ‘An interesting lot,’ said the inspector solemnly.
He took pity on the eager faces of the boys and picked up the piece of glass.
‘I’ll take this. It may just possibly tie up with something.’
Colin had picked up the coin and was examining it.
‘It’s not English,’ said Ted.
‘No,’ said Colin. ‘It’s not English.’ He looked across at Hardcastle. ‘We might perhaps take this, too,’
he suggested.
‘Don’t say a word about this to anyone,’ said Hardcastle in a conspiratorial fashion.
The boys promised delightedly that they wouldn’t.
Chapter 11
‘Ramsay,’ said Colin, thoughtfully.
‘What about him?’
‘I like the sound of him, that’s all. He travels abroad—at a moment’s notice. His wife says he’s a construction engineer, but that’s all she seems to know about him.’
‘She’s a nice woman,’ said Hardcastle.
‘Yes—and not a very happy one.’
‘Tired, that’s all. Kids are tiring.’
‘I think it’s more than that.’
‘Surely the sort of person you want wouldn’t be burdened with a wife and two sons,’ Hardcastle said sceptically.
‘You never know,’ said Colin. ‘You’d be surprised what some of the boys do for camouflage. A hard-up widow with a couple of kids might be willing to come to an arrangement.’
‘I shouldn’t have thought she was that kind,’ said Hardcastle primly.
‘I don’t mean living in sin, my dear fellow. I mean that she’d agree to be Mrs Ramsay and supply a background. Naturally, he’d spin her a yarn of the right kind. He’d be doing a spot of espionage, say, on our side. All highly patriotic.’
Hardcastle shook his head. ‘You live in a strange world, Colin,’ he said.
‘Yes we do. I think, you know, I’ll have to get out of it one day…One begins to forget what is what and who is who. Half of these people work for both sides and in the end they don’t know themselves which side they are really on. Standards get gummed up—Oh, well—let’s get on with things.’
‘We’d better do the McNaughtons,’ said Hardcastle, pausing at the gates of 63. ‘A bit of his garden touches 19—same as Bland.’
‘What do you know about the McNaughtons?’
‘Not much—they came here about a year ago. Elderly couple—retired professor, I believe. He gardens.’
The front garden had rose bushes in it and a thick bed of autumn crocus unde
r the windows. A cheerful young woman in a brightly flowered overall opened the door to them and said:
‘You want?—Yes?’
Hardcastle murmured, ‘The foreign help at last,’ and handed her his card.
‘Police,’ said the young woman. She took a step or two back and looked at Hardcastle as though he were the Fiend in person.
‘Mrs McNaughton,’ said Hardcastle.
‘Mrs McNaughton is here.’
She led them into the sitting-room, which overlooked the back garden. It was empty.
‘She up the stairs is,’ said the no-longer cheerful young woman. She went out into the hall and called,
‘Mrs McNaughton—Mrs McNaughton.’
A voice faraway said, ‘Yes. What is it, Gretel?’
‘It is the police—two police. I put them in sitting-room.’
There was a faint scurrying noise upstairs and the words ‘Oh, dear. Oh, dear, what next?’ floated down. Then there was a patter of feet and presently Mrs McNaughton entered the room with a worried expression on her face. There was, Hardcastle decided quite soon, usually a worried expression on Mrs McNaughton’s face.
‘Oh, dear,’ she said again, ‘oh, dear. Inspector—what is it—Hardcastle—oh, yes.’ She looked at the card. ‘But why do you want to see us? We don’t know anything about it. I mean I suppose it is this murder, isn’t it? I mean, it wouldn’t be the television licence?’
Hardcastle reassured her on that point. ‘It all seems so extraordinary, doesn’t it?’ said Mrs McNaughton, brightening up. ‘And more or less midday, too. Such an odd time to come and burgle a house. Just the time when people are usually at home. But then one does read of such terrible things nowadays. All happening in broad daylight. Why, some friends of ours—they were out for lunch and a furniture van drove up and the men broke in and carried out every stick of furniture. The whole street saw it happen but of course they never thought there was anything wrong. You know, I did think I heard someone screaming yesterday, but Angus said it was those dreadful boys of Mrs Ramsay’s. They rush about the garden making noises like space-ships, you know, or rockets, or atom bombs. It really is quite frightening sometimes.’
