The Chessman

by Dolores Gordon-Smith

  ‘By George,’ muttered Ashley. ‘Lilies. Mrs Dyson, can we have a closer look at your flowers?’

  ‘The lilies?’ asked Mrs Dyson, puzzled. ‘Yes, of course.’

  She walked across the lawn to where the tall white flowers stirred gently in the breeze. ‘These are Regale lilies. They have a wonderful smell and they grow even on our chalky soil. I wish you could’ve seen them earlier in the week,’ she added wistfully. ‘They looked magnificent, but a dog or something got in and broke down all that centre section. At least, Frederick says it must’ve been a dog, but I didn’t agree. I thought it was much more likely to be naughty children, taking them for their mothers, perhaps, as the flowers weren’t trampled on the ground, there was a whole lot of them gone …’

  She stopped, her voice trailing off. She put her hand to her mouth and swayed. Jack quickly put his hand under her arm. She looked as if she might faint.

  ‘Those were the lilies in church,’ she whispered. ‘Our lilies.’ She turned a stricken face to them. ‘Who would do this? Who would use our lilies in our church. Can there really be anyone who hates us so much?’

  ‘Let’s go inside,’ said Jack. ‘I think you need to sit down.’

  Jack liked the look of Frederick Dyson. He was a big, burly, square-shouldered man in his forties, who hurried into the hall at his wife’s call. ‘Hello, Superintendent,’ he began, then broke off as he saw his wife. ‘Phyllis! What’s wrong?’

  ‘Mrs Dyson’s had a shock,’ explained Ashley. ‘It looks as if the flowers that were scattered on the body in the church came from your garden, sir.’

  ‘They were our lilies, Freddy,’ broke in Mrs Dyson on the verge of tears. ‘Someone came into our garden and took them.’

  Frederick Dyson whistled soundlessly. ‘Did they, by George? Phyllis, come into the sitting room, dear. Do you want a cup of tea? No? You need something. You look worried to death.’

  Once in the sitting room, he poured his wife a brandy from the decanter on the sideboard and added a splash of soda. ‘Now, drink that, and you’ll feel better.’

  He stuffed his pipe with tobacco from the jar and lit it with a worried air. ‘Please smoke,’ he said absently to Ashley and Jack. ‘Are you sure they were our flowers?’

  ‘I don’t think anyone else in the village has Regale lilies,’ said Mrs Dyson, sipping her brandy. ‘Besides that, they were damaged in the week. You know they were. They have to be our flowers.’

  Mr Dyson patted his wife’s hand with clumsy sympathy. ‘It seems incredible,’ he said gruffly. ‘The whole thing is crazy.’

  ‘Actually, sir, distressing as it is, it might work to our advantage,’ said Ashley. ‘It could help us establish when the body was left in the church. If you can remember when the flowers were damaged, it would be a great help.’

  Frederick Dyson looked helplessly at him. ‘I really couldn’t say.’

  ‘Wednesday morning,’ said Mrs Dyson, distantly. She gave herself a little shake. ‘That’s when I saw the damage. The garden was fine on Tuesday afternoon. The damage must have been done late on Tuesday. I had Guides on Tuesday and I needed to get to the hall early because Corrie Dinder wanted to see me about the river trip. I usually get out in the garden after Guides at this time of year, but I couldn’t, because Lucy Palgrove called to see me about more wool for the Mothers’ knitting circle. By the time she’d gone, it was time for the news on the wireless. Frederick and I always listen to the wireless together, so I didn’t get out that evening.’

  ‘You’re sure it was Wednesday morning you noticed the damage, Mrs Dyson?’ asked Jack.

  She nodded. ‘Yes, that’s right. I called Freddy out to see what had happened, didn’t I, Freddy? You said at first it was probably Charlie Brandreth’s chickens that had got in. That’s happened before.’

  ‘Charlie Brandreth keeps the Red Lion,’ put in Mr Dyson. ‘Those chickens of his get everywhere.’

  ‘It’s the gate,’ explained Mrs Dyson. ‘The frost this winter lifted the stones on the path and the gate won’t shut properly.’

  ‘If the gate was open, I think you could see the bank of lilies from the road, couldn’t you?’ asked Jack.

  She nodded. ‘Yes, you can. People have said how nice they look.’ She gulped. ‘I was cross about the lilies. I knew it couldn’t be chickens and then Frederick said it was probably a dog, but I knew it wasn’t, because the flowers weren’t just trampled, they were missing.’

  She put her hand to the back of her mouth. ‘I thought it was Ben and Nathan Halford. They’re very naughty little boys, but it wasn’t them, was it?’

  Ashley shook his head. ‘No, Mrs Dyson, it wasn’t.’ He glanced at Jack. ‘If the damage was discovered on Wednesday morning, that means we’re looking at Tuesday night.’

  ‘What beats me,’ said Mr Dyson, ‘is how the feller got into the church in the first place. He could’ve climbed through a window, I suppose.’

  Mrs Dyson shook her head. ‘That’s not possible, Frederick. The church windows are far too high for anyone to climb through and the windows in the vestry won’t open. You know I’ve complained about those windows before. I’ve asked Tom Hernshaw – he’s the church warden – to see to them lots of times and he always says that he’ll “get round to it”.’ Her voice was steadier now. ‘He’s been getting round to it for the last three years.’

  ‘What about the window in the passage?’ asked Ashley.

  Mrs Dyson shook her head. ‘That won’t open either. It looks as if it should, but it won’t. I’m sure all it needs is a drop of oil on the ratchet. I’d do it myself, only I can’t stand heights.’

  ‘You leave that window alone, Phyllis,’ said her husband in some alarm.

  ‘It doesn’t sound as if the windows are a possibility,’ said Jack. ‘Especially if you think the chap was encumbered with a body to heave about. I don’t think he’d be able to climb a ladder.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Ashley. ‘Which means, of course, that he must’ve come through the door.’ He glanced at Mr Dyson. ‘You stated that the church is always kept locked unless there’s a service, didn’t you, sir?’

  Mr Dyson nodded. ‘That’s right. We had some trouble with tramps breaking open the alms box, so I decided the best thing to do was to keep the church locked.’

  ‘When is it open, Mr Dyson?’ asked Jack.

  ‘Sunday is the busy day, of course. We have Matins at half eight and Communion at eleven. Evensong is at five o’clock. During the week, we have Matins every day, again at half eight, and Evensong at five.’

  Ashley nodded. ‘So you’ve been in the church, morning and evening, every day this week. Have you noticed anything out of place?’

  Mr Dyson shook his head. ‘I honestly can’t say I have.’

  ‘You haven’t found the church open when it shouldn’t have been, for instance?’

  ‘No. As a matter of fact, I can’t remember that’s ever happened.’

  Ashley sat back with a frown. ‘What happens to the keys when you’re conducting a service?’

  ‘I usually leave them on a hook in the vestry. When I’m at home, I always hang them up in the hall. Those are the set I gave you this morning, Mr Ashley. I’ve got a spare set, which are in my desk, but I hardly ever use those. The keys in the hall are the ones that Phyllis or myself or the girl give to anyone who wants to go into the church. Tom Hernshaw, the warden, has a set, too, but those are for his own use. He doesn’t lend them to anyone.’

  Ashley took the church keys from his pocket and put them on the table. ‘May we see the spare set, sir?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Mr Dyson walked to his desk and produced a second bunch of keys. ‘What are you hoping to find?’

  ‘I really wanted to see they were where you left them, sir,’ said Ashley. ‘I don’t suppose many people know these keys are kept in your desk, do they?’

  Frederick Dyson shrugged helplessly. ‘I never made any secret of it.’

  Ashley nodded. ‘Fair enough. What’s
the procedure for handing out the keys, Mr Dyson?’

  Mr Dyson looked vaguely alarmed. ‘We don’t have a procedure as such. Someone comes to the door and asks, and I, or Phyllis, or the girl, let them have the keys. We always know who they are and what they want them for, of course. In a place like this, everyone does know everyone else and what their business is. It’s not like a city parish. And don’t run away with the idea that people are popping in and out of church all day.’ He gave a sudden smile. ‘It’s as much as I can do to get them to come on Sunday.’

  His face fell. ‘I don’t know if I can possibly tell you who’s asked for the keys this week but I’m certain that they wouldn’t be handed out to someone we didn’t know.’

  Jack picked up the keys and weighed them in his hand thoughtfully. ‘Is there a list of parish activities we can look at?’ he suggested. ‘It might jog your memory.’

  ‘There’s the parish magazine,’ said Mr Dyson. He went to his desk and took out a copy. Sitting beside his wife, he opened the magazine.

  ‘Cookery hints,’ she said, taking the magazine from him and leafing through the pages. ‘How to re-model last year’s hat, notes of the knitting circle, the Brownies’ outing … Here we are. The parish diary. Friday is flowers and choir practice in the church and the Ladies’ Aid Society meet here, in the Vicarage. That’s this evening. We’ll have to cancel the choir practice, Freddy. Thursday, church warden’s meeting at six thirty.’

  ‘Tom Hernshaw would’ve used his own keys for that,’ put in Mr Dyson.

  ‘Wednesday morning is church cleaning,’ continued Mrs Dyson.

  Ashley looked up sharply. ‘Wednesday morning? That’s the morning the damage to the lilies was discovered. Who does the cleaning? I wonder if they saw anything out of place?’

  Mrs Dyson shook her head. ‘I’m sure they’d have mentioned it if they thought there was anything unusual or untoward. Mrs Clegg and Mrs Howard do the actual dusting and mopping, then Mrs Cunningham-Price and Corrie Dinder do the brasses. They’re all most respectable and, indeed, unimaginative women, but they do notice things and comment on them.’

  ‘Mrs Cunningham-Price?’ said Mr Dyson, wryly. ‘I’d say so.’

  ‘Where’s the stuff kept for cleaning the floors and the brasses?’ asked Jack. ‘They must need mops and cloths and Brasso and things.’

  ‘In the broom cupboard.’ She swallowed. ‘That’s in the passage where the body was found.’

  ‘What about Tuesday?’ asked Ashley.

  ‘Nothing happens on Tuesdays or Mondays,’ said Mr Dyson. ‘No one asked for the keys on Tuesday, did they, Phyllis?’

  ‘No, they didn’t, Freddy. Doreen – that’s the girl – would’ve mentioned it if they had.’

  Jack glanced at Ashley. ‘It looks as if someone waited their moment, got into the vestry and took a wax impression of the key.’

  ‘An impression?’ queried Mr Dyson. ‘That sounds very elaborate. Why not just take the key?’

  ‘Because the keys are all accounted for, sir, and seem to have been accounted for all week,’ said Jack, sitting forward in his chair. ‘I think we can rule out anyone who asked for the keys openly. Neither Superintendent Ashley nor I believe for a moment that the murderer turned up at your door and simply asked for the keys. That really does beggar belief. And yet, as the windows can’t be opened and the church shows no sign of being broken into, that means the murderer used a key. Unless the murderer was able to take a key and return it without your knowledge – and, granted the body was left in the church at night, that seems unlikely – they have to have taken an impression of the key. The obvious time to have done that is when it’s hanging up in the vestry.’

  ‘They’d have to know the routine of what happens when in the church of course,’ said Ashley. ‘Mind you, the parish magazine would tell them that. I did wonder if this was going to be a Scotland Yard job, but we’re back to somebody local with local knowledge, aren’t we, Haldean?’

  ‘It certainly seems like it,’ agreed Jack. He looked at the Dysons. ‘Talking of local knowledge, I know there’s no one who’s officially been reported as missing, but can you think of anyone who’s not been seen for a few days?’

  Mr Dyson clicked his tongue. ‘There’s no one—’ he began, when his wife interrupted him.

  ‘What about that chauffeur of the Vardons, Frederick? No one’s seen Jonathan Ryle since that terrible fight at the weekend.’

  Ashley hunched forward in his chair. ‘Fight? What fight?’

  Mr Dyson frowned at his wife. ‘Ryle left on Sunday. It’s a man who’s been missing since Tuesday we’re looking for, Phyllis. I’m sure the Superintendent doesn’t want to hear about our little local troubles.’

  Jack looked at him quickly. There was an odd note of reproof in his voice.

  Mrs Dyson had picked up the note of reproof as well. ‘You can’t ignore what happened, Frederick.’

  ‘It was nothing,’ said Mr Dyson. His wife gave a disbelieving snort.

  ‘Let me be the judge of that, sir,’ said Ashley, unconsciously slipping into his official manner.

  Mr Dyson looked distinctly ill at ease. ‘It was something and nothing.’

  ‘It was a great deal more than something and nothing!’ said his wife, reproachfully. ‘The thing is, Mr Ashley, Frederick thinks it looks bad for one of his parishioners. Although why you should be so sensitive about Ned Castradon’s feelings, Freddy, when he couldn’t give tuppence for yours, I don’t know.’

  ‘Mr Castradon?’ asked Ashley. Jack could hear the suppressed excitement in his voice. ‘Perhaps you’d tell me what happened, Mr Dyson.’

  With some prompting from his wife, the story of the quarrel came out. ‘Although what caused it, I’ve no idea,’ finished Mr Dyson. ‘I may say that Castradon did not appreciate my interference.’

  ‘The language,’ said Mrs Dyson firmly, ‘was awful. Ned Castradon was beside himself.’

  ‘Did he threaten this man, Ryle?’ asked Ashley.

  Mr Dyson didn’t answer but Mrs Dyson nodded vigorously. ‘He most certainly did. It was only Frederick’s intervention that stopped them killing each other.’

  ‘Phyllis,’ said Mr Dyson warningly, ‘don’t exaggerate.’

  ‘What did he say?’ asked Ashley.

  ‘Oh, Lord.’ Mr Dyson took a deep breath. ‘I’m sure he didn’t mean it.’

  ‘What did he say?’ repeated Ashley.

  Mr Dyson looked thoroughly unhappy. ‘He said if he saw Ryle again, he’d kill him.’ He caught a look from his wife. ‘All right, Phyllis! He said he’d murder him,’ he muttered.

  ‘Did he, by Jove,’ muttered Ashley with great satisfaction.

  ‘Good heavens, Superintendent, the two men had just come to blows! You’d expect threats of that nature to be bandied about. It doesn’t mean anything.’

  Ashley looked up and smiled. ‘Perhaps it doesn’t. I know perfectly well that a man can let himself be carried away.’

  ‘There’s more to it than you realize, Superintendent. Ned Castradon had a rotten time of it in the war and his temper is very irascible. However, he’s a well-respected man, as was his father before him. He’s honest and straightforward and the very last person to be mixed up in a horrific business like this. He certainly wouldn’t allow his wife to be the one to discover the body. He’d never subject her to that sort of ordeal.’

  Ashley nodded. ‘I appreciate your opinion, sir. It’s good to have what you might call an insider’s view of the situation.’

  Jack admired Ashley’s air of complete acceptance of the vicar’s opinion. Knowing him well, he could see just how satisfied Ashley was with the information he had gathered.

  ‘I’ll keep the keys to the church for the meantime, if I may,’ said Ashley, rising to leave, ‘but I’ll let you have them back as soon as possible.’

  Ashley preserved a decent silence until they were out of the front door and well out of earshot. Then he turned to Jack and, with a broad grin, rubbed his ha
nds together.

  ‘How about that? We’ve got the tartan threads and the matchbox, a violent quarrel with threats being bandied about, a possible identification for the victim and – I really appreciated this point – a man who’s got a real grudge against the vicar. Our Mr Castradon obviously didn’t like Mr Dyson butting into his fight with Ryle one little bit.’

  ‘Murdering a man and sticking him in a cupboard in the church is a bit of an extreme reaction, wouldn’t you say?’

  Ashley laughed. ‘Come on. You know as well as I do that what seems to be an extreme reaction to an ordinary person is more than enough cause for someone who’s unbalanced.’ He looked at Jack keenly. ‘What’s bothering you? Something is.’

  Jack shrugged in dissatisfaction. ‘Nothing really. I agree that with the lead we’ve been given, you have to chase up Castradon and see what his alibi’s like for Tuesday. After that, it might very well be an open-and-shut case. I suppose what’s really bothering me is Mr Dyson’s assessment of Castradon’s character. He seemed to think it was so utterly incredible that Castradon would kill a man in that way.’

  ‘Parsons are paid to think the best of everyone,’ said Ashley. ‘I’m a policeman. I’m not.’ He glanced at his watch and clicked his tongue. ‘I doubt if Dr Lucas will have performed the post-mortem yet. I’d like to know what the results are before we see Mr Castradon.’

  ‘I’d better be getting back to Belle and Arthurs’,’ said Jack. ‘I don’t want to be late for dinner and I’d like to see if I can pick up some local gossip. If the local solicitor fighting in the street didn’t set everyone by their ears, I know nothing about village life.’

  ‘Can you meet me after dinner?’ said Ashley. ‘I’d like to know if you’ve heard anything interesting.’

  SIX

  Isabelle and Arthur’s house was on the outskirts of Croxton Ferriers. The house, Jack remembered with a grin, had been the cause of some debate between his cousin and her husband.

  Some months previously Arthur’s Aunt Catherine had asked him to take over the running of her neglected estate. Arthur flung himself into the task with unbounded enthusiasm and announced that the job came with a house he described as a little Jacobean gem.