Fall of a Philanderer

by Carola Dunn

  While the morose gardener cranked away, Mrs. Hammett fired her opening salvo: “So, Mr. Fletcher is a London detective. It’s disgraceful the local police can’t manage without help, seeing what we pay in rates!”

  “I dare say they could, but since my husband was already involved as a witness …”

  “It seems mighty odd to me, a Scotland Yard man just chancing to be in Westcombe. ’Twouldn’t surprise me if he were investigating George Enderby.”

  “We’re supposed to be on holiday, Mrs. Hammett. Believe me, if we’d known a local citizen was going to be bumped off, we’d have gone somewhere else.”

  “There was something very fishy about that man, coming down here with his fancy woman and marrying Nancy Pinner. What became of that woman, his so-called sister? If anybody saw her leave, it’s more than I’ve heard. What if him and Nancy did away wi’ her? I reckon they guessed Mr. Fletcher was on to them and Nancy pushed him over, so’s he couldn’t blame her for it.”

  “You think his wife killed him?”

  “Well, no, I wouldn’t say that. Most think ‘twas Peter Anstruther, from what I’ve heard, acos o’ the rumpus in the Schooner. But I’ve got my own ideas.” Her mouth set in a firm line.

  Daisy would have pursued the subject, but Stebbins came round from the front of the car, crank in hand, and said grim-faced, “’Twon’t start, missus.”

  “What do you mean, it won’t start?”

  “I’m a gardener, not a shover.”

  “Did you pull out the choke, like the master said?”

  “No,” Stebbins said sulkily. “He said that’s what to do when her’s cold, but her bain’t cold after coming up the hill from Coleman’s.”

  “Try it!” commanded Mrs. Hammett.

  A couple of cranks later, the motor started. In a clash of gears, the Humber lumbered onward.

  “You were visiting the Colemans?” Daisy asked. She recalled that Sid the beachcomber was the younger brother of a farmer called Coleman, described by Anstruther as a brute.

  “Edna Coleman’s my cousin, and a more feckless creatur I have yet to meet. Didn’t I warn her that girl of hers is a sly-boots and bound to come to no good end? And what do I find out Friday but Olive has been meeting George Enderby, and we all know what that means! And her just turned sixteen.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “So off I goes Sat’day morning to warn Edna, blood being thicker’ n water, as they say. Keep her close, says I. Not a word to Alfred—that’s her husband—or he’ll half kill her. Free wi’ his fists, is Alfred, not but what nobody could blame him for taking a strap to Olive, nor he wouldn’t need to if Edna had brought her up proper. So what happens this morning first thing? I get a message from Edna by Ned Baxter that picks up the milk cans for the dairy when he’s not lobstering, that Olive didn’t come home last night and is she wi’ me?”

  “I take it she wasn’t,” said Daisy, unable to imagine a less likely refuge.

  “That she wasn’t. ‘James,’ says I to Mr. Hammett, ‘there’s trouble. I must go to my cousin Edna’s this morning. You’ll take the ferry to the office and let me have the motor.’ Which he does, and never a complaint, I’ll say that for him, though well I know he don’t like that good-for-nothing driving his precious car.” She jerked a fierce thumb at Stebbins’s resentful back. “Aye, and Mr. Fletcher ought to take a good look at him, too. His wife’s a giddy creatur as has been seen wi’ you know who.”

  The car was now creeping downhill in low gear. Daisy wondered whether the “chauffeur” was nervous about hills or had wrecked the gear-box and couldn’t change up. At any rate, the result was quite enough noise to shield their conversation from Stebbins.

  “Is your cousin’s daughter still missing?” she asked.

  “Not a sign o’ her. And for why? Acos Edna went and did just what I said not to. The silly goose told Alfred about Olive and George Enderby! After Sunday dinner, she said, when he were full o’ beef and taties and plum pie. You’d think she’d know by now Alfred isn’t one to be mellowed by a good meal. He took after Olive and she ran out wi’ him after her. And he come back and she didn’t.”

  “Gosh, you don’t think he did her a mischief?”

  “Her or Enderby or both.”

  “You must tell the police!”

  “I promised Edna I wouldn’t go to the police till tomorrow. Alfred’ ll take it out on her if they come nosing round, see, and maybe Olive’ll come home today.” Mrs. Hammett gave Daisy a look heavy with significance.

  “I see,” said Daisy.

  Daisy needed time to consider how much of the woman’s farrago to pass on to Alec. That rubbish about Nancy Enderby doing away with Georgie Porgie’s “sister,” for instance, would not be appreciated. Mrs. Hammett had not even seemed to believe it herself.

  Of course, Alec must certainly be told about Olive Coleman’s disappearance, but half an hour’s delay couldn’t make much difference. Daisy felt badly in need of inner fortification before she faced him with the information that yet another near stranger had confided in her instead of the police.

  17

  By the time Mrs. Hammett delivered Daisy to the Anstruthers’, the girls had already changed into frocks for lunch. They were sitting in the garden with Baskin, who was pointing out different kinds of seagulls as they swooped over the ruffled waters of the inlet.

  “I thought they were just gulls, Mummy, but they’re all different. Look, that one’s a … a tern, isn’t it, Mr. Baskin?”

  “A common tern,” he confirmed.

  “One good tern deserves another,” said Deva, sending herself and Belinda into fits of giggles.

  Without mentioning that she had taken advantage of his kindness to do some sleuthing, Daisy thanked Baskin most sincerely for having kept her charges amused all morning.

  “We learnt lots of stuff, too, didn’t we, Bel?”

  Baskin grinned. “I can’t help it,” he said to Daisy.

  “Did you say thank you, girls?”

  “Of course, Mummy. We said thank you most frightfully much. It was ripping!”

  Ravenous, Daisy went on into the house for a wash and brush up. Baskin went with her. As they entered through the back door, out of hearing of the girls, he said, “Can you tell me, Mrs. Fletcher, are the police going to object if I go off hiking this afternoon? I rather gather I’m on their list of suspects. I should have made more effort to hide my interest in Enderby.”

  “As long as you don’t leave the district, they can’t object. But would you please write a note to Alec saying you’ll be back, because if I tell him, he’ll say I’m interfering.”

  “Oh, will he!” Baskin said with a laugh. “I wouldn’t want to subject you to such an accusation.”

  “He will anyway,” she sighed. “I’ve found out something I simply have to tell him.”

  “I suppose it was you who told him about the questions I’d been asking. Oh, I don’t blame you! I know it looks fishy. I just wondered if it might have been Mrs. Anstruther doing her bit to divert attention from her husband.”

  “No, it was me.”

  “I.”

  “I beg your … ? Oh, grammar! I should think being married to a teacher must be even more exasperating than being married to a policeman! It was I. But don’t worry, I’ve found another two suspects to add to the list. I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me why … ?”

  “No,” he said firmly. “There’s no reason now why anyone should ever know. I’ll see you at lunch.”

  Daisy went slowly upstairs, thinking. Donald Baskin certainly didn’t behave like someone who had just committed murder, nor like someone who feared arrest for a murder he didn’t commit. He freely admitted that the death of Enderby had resolved a serious difficulty for him, yet refused to explain the difficulty. Innocence? Or guilt combined with overconfidence?

  Approaching the parish hall after a hurried lunch, Daisy hoped Alec would be there. If she was faced with the misleadingly mellow Inspector Mallow, should she
give him her information or just leave a message for Alec?

  She closed her umbrella and pushed open the door. Inside was even gloomier than outside. As she peered at two indistinguishable figures seated at a table with their backs to what little light came through the high, rain-spotted windows, one of the men got up and came towards her.

  Bald, lean, stooped: “Good afternoon, Mrs. Fletcher,” said Mallow in his smooth, mild voice. “The chief inspector is on the telephone to London. We are rather busy.” He didn’t say aloud but his manner clearly conveyed, “You’re interrupting important business, little woman.”

  “You’ll be even busier,” said Daisy, “when I’ve told Alec what I’ve found out.” She marched past Mallow to the table.

  “Hold on a minute,” said Alec into the telephone and covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “Great Scott, Daisy—”

  “I’ve important information for you, darling.”

  “What?”

  “Two new suspects.”

  He sighed. “Right-oh. Half a tick.” He returned to his conversation.

  Sitting down, Daisy managed with difficulty not to give Mallow a smugly triumphant look. As with the shock he had given Cecily Anstruther, he was only doing his job. It was his manner she objected to, now that she had seen through the sympathetic pose.

  Alec finished on the ’phone and hung up the receiver. “Who?” he asked, turning to a fresh page in his notebook.

  “The first is just a possibility: Tom Stebbins.”

  “We know about him. He’s disappeared.”

  “He looks like our man,” put in Mallow.

  “Disappeared? When?”

  “He wasn’t at his job when I went to talk to him this morning.”

  “Bolted,” said Mallow.

  “No he hasn’t. Not this morning, anyway. He was driving Mrs. Hammett. He’s the most appalling driver. I don’t think their car will ever recover.”

  “How do you know?”

  “You should have heard the gear-box! Oh, she stopped to give me a lift when I was walking home. It was lunchtime when she dropped me off, just about three quarters of an hour ago, so he hadn’t skedaddled at that point. The person who’s disappeared is the farmer’s daughter.”

  “What? Wait. Mallow, see if the Hammetts are on the telephone and if so ring up and ask if Stebbins is there. And if so, cancel the alert. Say there may be another coming up. Go on, Daisy—the farmer’s daughter? Who is she? What do you mean, she’s disappeared?”

  Daisy related the story Mrs. Hammett had told her. “And now she’s afraid Coleman might have killed his daughter as well as Enderby.”

  “Great Scott! Why didn’t she come straight to us?”

  “She promised her cousin—Mrs. Coleman—she wouldn’t tell the police till tomorrow. That’s why she told me. They’re still hoping Olive will come home of her own accord, and if your men start poking around, Coleman’s liable to go for his wife, I gather. Then you might end up with three bodies.”

  “We may have to bring him in and hold him for questioning,” Alec said grimly. “Have you a description of the daughter?”

  “No. I was afraid to ask in case Mrs. Hammett had second thoughts about telling me everything and clammed up.”

  “Never mind, we’ll get it out of the parents. With any luck, they’ll have a photo. Thanks, Daisy. Don’t worry, we’ll do our best to protect Mrs. Coleman and we’ll find Olive, alive or dead.”

  As Daisy left the parish hall, an umbrella with a girl’s face beneath it appeared above the hedge surrounding the garden next door. “Hullo,” she said.

  Surprised, Daisy responded, “Hullo?”

  “I suppose you’ve been talking to the police?”

  Having just come out of police headquarters, Daisy couldn’t credibly deny it, even if she had wanted to. “Yes, I have.”

  “Would you mind awfully if I asked you a question?” The head disappeared, then bobbed up again.

  “Not at all, though I can’t promise to answer.”

  “I say, would you mind awfully waiting just a sec while I run round by the gate? I’m standing on tiptoes, you see.” Once more she vanished and reappeared. “And I can’t keep it up for long.”

  “I’ll wait.” Daisy strolled down the street to meet her, reaching the gate in the hedge just in time to see the sign on it, THE VICARAGE, before the girl opened it.

  “Hullo! I’m Julia Bellamy. My father’s the vicar. He’d be livid if he knew I’d accosted you like that. I’m awfully sorry and all that, but you’re the first person I’ve seen coming out who looked like someone I could talk to. I’d invite you to come and sit in the garden, only it’s raining and Mother would be bound to see us and she’d start asking questions.”

  “Who could blame her? But as it happens, I’m quite respectable. I’m Mrs. Fletcher. My husband’s in charge of the investigation.”

  “That divine chief inspector? He’s frightfully nice, isn’t he? Oh goody, you’ll be able to tell me everything. Are you going somewhere? May I walk with you?”

  “Certainly. I’m going up to the post office for postcards and a library book, if you want to come along. Alec doesn’t tell me by any means everything, though, and I can’t necessarily pass on what I know.”

  “There’s only two things, really, though of course I’m dying of curiosity, like everyone else. Is it all right if Popsy comes too?” Miss Bellamy added as a large black dog arrived panting at her heels. “She’s very friendly. Popsy, say ‘How do you do?’ She’s awfully clever, too. She was the one who found the earring.”

  “The earring?” Daisy enquired as they set off towards the village centre.

  “Oh, you don’t know! That’s one of the things I particularly wanted to ask you about, because it was Popsy who found it and I picked it up and I had to have my fingerprints taken, for elimination. They didn’t take Andrew’s—he was mad as fire. I just wondered if they’d found any other fingerprints on it. Besides mine, I mean. And whether it’s an important clue. Andrew’s sure it must be.”

  “Andrew?”

  “Andrew Vernon. He’s Dr. Vernon’s nephew. He’s been coming here every summer for ages and he’s a particular friend of mine.”

  “Oh yes, Alec mentioned him. A medical student, isn’t he?”

  “That’s right. Only he’s frightfully interested in solving crimes, too. Medical jurisprudence, he calls it. He’s gone to watch the autopsy, would you believe it? He’s positively gloating over this murder and mad keen on helping Mr. Fletcher. He found the splinters in Enderby’s neck that prove he was murdered, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t know, and he really shouldn’t have told you.”

  “Oh, he made me swear ‘cross my heart and hope to die’ I wouldn’t breathe a word. The chief inspector’s your husband, so it doesn’t count. Besides, Andrew said it would come out at the inquest. If he hadn’t found them, the doctor doing the autopsy would have, anyway. Andrew noticed some more splinters on the cliff path and some mysterious marks in a sandy spot, but they didn’t seem to mean much, which is why he was so pleased to find something this morning.”

  “But it was you—your dog, at least—who found the earring which may or may not be significant. Where was it?”

  “Up on the cliffs. Andrew told me he was going up there with a bunch of bobbies to search for clues. He said I couldn’t go with them, so I took Popsy for a walk,” Miss Bellamy revealed defiantly.

  “Naturally,” said Daisy with a smile of approval.

  “We didn’t get in their way. But I saw one of the bobbies find a jacket, which I’m sure was that snake Enderby’s. It’s all very well for Daddy to say, ‘De mortuis nil nisi bonum,’ and not to be un-Christian, but he was a snake!”

  “I know. What happened next?”

  “They all hunted madly on hands and knees in the heather around where they found the jacket, and Andrew found something else, something small, but he won’t tell me what it was.”

  “The rotter!”


  “That’s what I said. I hoped you might know. Anyway, they all moved away towards the cliff edge. Of course Popsy was sniffing around where they’d been crawling, but she wasn’t as interested as she would have been if they’d been other dogs, not till she found a rabbit-hole right by the main stem of a big clump of heather. She started digging, and when I managed to haul her out, there was the earring caught in the ruff around her neck. Her fur is pretty shaggy there.”

  Daisy glanced down at Popsy, who looked pretty shaggy all over. “What sort of earring?” she asked.

  “Oh, a horribly vulgar dangly diamanté thing, all sparkly.”

  “The height of fashion in London.”

  “No, is it? Mother would never in a million years let me wear anything so flashy! Oh dear, I hope you don’t … ?”

  “Not I. Did you give it to the police up there right away, or bring it down to Alec?”

  “I was about to hand it over to the sergeant in charge up there when Andrew got all upset because I’d touched it and left my fingerprints on it. It’s not as if I’m a burglar!” Miss Bellamy said indignantly. “Ordinary people aren’t always thinking about fingerprints. Mr. Fletcher said most men would have done just the same.”

  “Of course they would.”

  “Well, Andrew took it from me with his blasted forceps—that’s why they didn’t take his fingerprints, which jolly well serves him right—and he tucked it away in an envelope and we brought it and the jacket down to Mr. Fletcher. And the other thing he found, as well, that he won’t talk about.”

  “You have no idea what it is?”

  “Not the foggiest. He wouldn’t even give me a hint. I do think men are sometimes the pink limit, don’t you?”

  “Absolutely,” said Daisy. Which wasn’t really fair, because this time Alec had been far too grateful for the information to kick up a dust about how she had obtained it.

  “Well, now,” said Inspector Mallow, “it’s a proper marvel what Mrs. Fletcher comes up with!”

  Alec still was not sure whether Mallow was admiring or sarcastic. “If only half of what she told us is accurate, it’s of vital importance,” he pointed out.