Bismarck Herrings (Timothy Herring)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “ ‘Or think you heaven is deaf, or hath no eyes?

  Or those it hath, smile at your perjuries?’ ” retorted Timothy. “And now, shall we, or shall we not, put on formal raiment before we dine?”

  “Oh, heavens, yes! It seems years and years since I saw you in a dinner jacket. And after dinner we will go through our letters. There might be something important. You never know.”

  There was one letter in particular which had its own interest. It was from young Coningsby. He apologised for troubling Mr. Herring, but a very sad thing had happened at Lady Matilda’s Rest. One of the old ladies, a Mrs. Dasti, had been killed by a falling chimney and the police had been informed. Miss Coningsby-Layton was worried and upset. The police were not satisfied. There had been an inquest—perhaps Mr. Herring had seen a report in the newspapers—and it had been adjourned pending further enquiries. Under the circumstances, did Mr. Herring think that Coningsby could apply to the committee for three days’ leave of absence? He knew that family matters should not be allowed to impinge upon his work, but his aunt was in a great state of confusion and distress . . .

  “The letter is dated the 24th,” said Timothy. “Poor old Coningsby. He must be wondering why the hell I haven’t either written or ’phoned. I know the address of his lodgings. I’ll ring him at once, and tell him to go ahead with lending his aunt the benefit and support of his presence. As soon as you go to the school I’ll get along to headquarters and deal with the back-log of the Phisbe correspondence for him. It will keep until then. Wonder what the police don’t like about the old lady’s death? And why should a chimney pot fall? I thought we were told they’d all been shored up.”

  “Failing an answer from you, Mr. Coningsby has probably written to the president,” said Alison. They continued to leaf through the pile of envelopes. “Yes, here’s an envelope in his writing,” she went on. Timothy read the letter.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “He’s given Coningsby carte blanche and he supposes I’ll be glad of a job when you go to school, so that’s all right. The post office has been notified to redirect all the Phisbe correspondence to this address. How thoughtful of the president!—I don’t think!”

  “Well, you’d rather deal with it here than stay at your club or an hotel, or keep making trips up to Town,” said Alison sensibly, “and I shall be relieved to know that you’ve something useful to occupy your mind while I’m away.”

  “You know,” said Timothy, disregarding this insult, “I rather think I’d like a word with Miss Coningsby-Layton myself to find what all this is about. Why shouldn’t the police be satisfied? Surely they don’t think another of the inmates got hold of a chimney-stack and crowned Mrs. Dasti with it! Peculiar name. Wonder what her nationality is? She seems to have an Indian flavour about her, but I don’t remember seeing anybody there who looked other than basically English.”

  “Indian . . .” said Alison thoughtfully. Timothy glanced at her sharply.

  “Rings a bell, you think?” he asked.

  “Oh, no, not really. I mean, it couldn’t be more than coincidence. What would an elderly woman in an almshouse have to do with smuggling in illegal immigrants? It isn’t as though she could put them up in her tiny cottage, or give the smugglers an all-clear signal, or what else do—what’s the word—contacts get up to?”

  “Heaven knows. All I know is that the penalties are pretty severe if you’re caught. One bloke got seven years just recently, and his assistants four years each.”

  “Well, you go along and see what it’s all about. I expect you’d rather go on your own, wouldn’t you? You won’t want me cramping your style. Oh, but, look, Tim, I don’t want to be separated from you, even for a couple of days, before I have to go off to the school. Why shouldn’t you leave me at Herrings? Then, when you’ve spoken to Miss Coningsby-Layton, you could come back to the Hall for the night.”

  “I don’t want to sleep at the beastly place, and I’m certainly not going to leave you there, even during the day.”

  “That’s silly. There’s an army of gardeners and workmen, and you could be back before they go home at the end of the day. Oh, Tim, I’m dying to see that countryside again. Look, if you don’t want to leave me there alone—ridiculous though that is, and not a bit complimentary, either—let’s see whether Diana Parsons will come. How would that be? Tom’s seen the almshouses, and maybe he’s just as keen as you to find out why the inquest has been adjourned, and all the rest of it. Ring them up, and see what Tom has to say. I don’t see why we should be frightened off your property by that insolent windbag of a Kilbride Colquhoun and that nasty Jabez Gee, or anybody else, and that includes the ghost.”

  “Well, all right, but if Tom and Diana can’t make it, we don’t go—at least, you don’t. Understood?”

  “I suppose so. Why don’t you give my clothes to the poor and put me in rompers and buy me a teddy bear?”

  “Because I can’t afford it. Don’t be so up-stage and naughty. Anyway, all right. I’ll ring up Tom directly after dinner.”

  He found Tom Parsons eager to talk.

  “I’d have rung you if I’d known you were back,” said Tom. “Look, Tim, there is something fishy about that so-called accident. I don’t wonder the police are cagey. You remember that I had a look at those almshouses? Well, granted that sooner or later they’d have to come down or else have a big reconstruction job done on them, they weren’t in an immediately dangerous condition, and that I’ll swear.”

  “The chimneys looked a bit pie-eyed, I thought.”

  “I know, but they’d been strengthened. They weren’t in a condition so dangerous that they would topple. I put it up to the local council and they referred me to their surveyor. He’s a reputable man and the last chap to claim that a building was safe if it wasn’t. It wouldn’t do the council the least bit of good to employ a yes-man, you know. Besides, the fellow is a freelance in his own right. I mean he doesn’t need to keep in with the local authority in order to make a living. He’s a properly chartered auctioneer and surveyor with a big practice, and if he says those chimneys were safe enough I’m prepared to believe him au pied de la lettre. The roofs (and that, of course, includes the chimney-stacks) were inspected six months ago because the warden thought they looked a bit askew, and anything which needed attention was shored up. It was the lath and plaster which didn’t seem to me to be worth preserving. The roofs, and all that appertained thereto, were safe enough.”

  “High winds?”

  “There haven’t been any.”

  “A careless chimney sweep.”

  “Oh, I know all the possibilities. Now you’re home, what about going down there and having another yarn with the warden? I’ve heard from Coningsby. I suppose you have, too. His aunt is all upset about what’s happened, and who can blame her?”

  “What about meeting me with Diana and Alison? There’s a very decent hotel in Cambridge where we could spend the night.”

  “Hang on a minute while I canvass Diana’s views . . . She says why can’t we spend the night at Warlock Hall? She’s heard it’s haunted and, after my description, she can’t wait to look it over.”

  “Well, Alison wants to see it again, too, so . . .” The arrangements were made. Tom and Diana were to come down from Shrewsbury, spend a night at Timothy’s Cotswold home, and then the two couples, in Timothy’s car, would go to Warlock Hall and while the men visited the almshouses their wives would plan curtains and interior decorations as though Timothy’s suggestion of either selling or demolishing the mansion and building a country cottage in its stead had never been made.

  “Yes, my old ladies have been dispersed,” said Miss Coningsby-Layton, “and I am to leave just as soon as the resumed inquest is over. The council have been subjected to some very adverse criticism, but, really, Mr. Herring, I think it is undeserved. The cottages were very thoroughly surveyed only six months ago, when the scheme for their demolition was first put out. The survey was Lady Princeps’s idea. She and one o
r two others were against demolition and made themselves very vociferous on the subject and I believe it was their insistence which led to the survey being made. The chimneys were all shored up as a result and, although it was agreed that it was only a temporary measure, they were considered to be safe enough. I cannot understand why one of them should fall, still less why it should fall in the way it did, and neither can the police. Of course, they ask all the questions but they do not tell anything, so I have no idea what they think or what they have to go on in thinking it.”

  “I can understand why they’re not satisfied,” said Parsons. “What exactly happened? Except that a chimney fell and killed someone, I don’t know anything much about it, and Herring hasn’t even read the accounts in the newspapers—not that they’ve given it much space. He’s been holiday-making in the English Channel, coast-crawling in a motor-cruiser, which is why he hadn’t answered your nephew’s letter. We came along to find out how you were situated and whether there is anything we can do.”

  “Well, it is extremely kind of you, but I don’t think there is anything to be done. The council are paying my salary until the end of the month and I believe I am to get a small honorarium, but after that I must find employment if I can. My nephew’s parents—my brother and his wife—have offered me a home, but naturally I do not want to be a burden on them. For one thing, my brother is not far off retirement and when he does retire their resources will be limited. In any case, I would not wish to sacrifice my independence, although, at my age, I think I shall experience some difficulty in finding any post for which I am fitted.”

  “I could offer you a temporary job, if you did not think it beneath you,” said Timothy. “For ten weeks I am to be a grass widower while my wife takes a temporary post at her old school. This means that I badly need a housekeeper. Would you consider such a position? I do so much wish you would.”

  “I would consider anything, Mr. Herring! It is most kind of you. But, really, it’s quite wrong of me to be thinking about myself at a time like this.”

  “Nonsense! That’s settled, then. And now I wonder whether you will tell us all about this extraordinary accident? We were a little curious about the woman’s name. Was she a foreigner of some sort?”

  “Oh, no, but she was the widow of an Indian. That accounts for the name. There have been police all over the place until yesterday, but I think they have finished their investigations now. At any rate, they’ve gone, so it will be all right, I think, to show you where the accident happened and to tell you what I know about it, which I’m afraid is very little.”

  The two men accompanied her into the garden which had once been the cloister-garth. The front doors of the Tudor cottages were closed and there was no trace of the accident which had resulted in the death of Mrs. Dasti except for a break in the line of chimney-stacks. Any débris had been cleared away and the deserted scene had its own melancholy.

  “Where have they taken the old ladies?” asked Timothy.

  “Oh, the oldest of all, five of them, are in the geriatric ward of the big hospital at Ownham. The others are in temporary accommodation, except for two whose relatives are prepared to take them until the new almshouses are built. Well, you can see for yourselves which of the chimney-stacks came down.” She pointed to the rooftops.

  “We couldn’t help wondering why the police have asked for an adjournment of the inquest,” said Timothy. “Was there something unsatisfactory about the identification of the body, or the medical report, or something?”

  “Oh, there was no doubt about the identification, and, of course, a very detailed account of each cottager comes to the council—came, I suppose I should say—and then was passed on to myself before anyone is—was—admitted here. The medical evidence also was clear enough, so far as it went.” She hesitated so long that Timothy put a question at the same moment as she began to speak again.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said, as their words coincided.

  “No, please . . . Oh, well, I’m not sure whether I ought to disclose this, but I don’t think the doctor told me in confidence what he must later have told the police.”

  “Oh, really? What was that?”

  “The doctor agrees that Mrs. Dasti was killed by a blow on the head, but he doesn’t think the falling chimney-stack did it.”

  “Where, exactly, did the chimney-pot fall, then?”

  “In Mrs. Dasti’s little garden plot at the back. The plots are very tiny and were really intended so that the women could hang out their bits of personal washing—their sheets were collected each week and sent to the laundry—and also so that they could have a fence between them and the river. The main channel runs quite close to the cottages at the back and some of the old ladies occasionally had young grandchildren brought to see them, and I expect you know what a great attraction water has for small children.”

  “Yes, indeed,” said Parsons. “So Mrs. Dasti was in her back garden when the chimney fell?”

  “Well, that’s where she was found, but the odd thing is that it wasn’t Mrs. Dasti’s pot which fell. It came from Mrs. Baines’s roof, three cottages away.”

  “And fell in Mrs. Dasti’s garden? That does seem unaccountable,” said Timothy. “Which was Mrs. Dasti’s cottage, then?”

  “This one. And another coincidence is that Mrs. Baines was over in the infirmary at the time, suffering from an attack of summer colic. I think she had been given some unripe plums and had eaten them raw when the sensible thing would have been to stew them with sugar.”

  “I wonder whether, on our way out, you would allow us to take a look at the cottages from the back?” said Timothy. “Mr. Parsons and I did stroll round that way when we were here before, but if Mrs. Dasti was in her back garden when she was killed, it might be helpful if we saw the roofs from that side.” He counted along the row. “I see that Mrs. Dasti’s was number six.”

  “Please look at anything you like, if you think it will be of any help. My nephew is with me, as I expect you know, but he can suggest nothing, although, of course, I am glad to have his company. I’m afraid you will have to go all the way round the buildings if you want to get to the backs of the cottages. The path follows the river, which winds in a big loop round Lady Matilda’s Rest. Would you care to have a word with Wilfred before you go?”

  “Your nephew? Oh, yes, I’d like to see him,” said Timothy. “There are one or two queries in the Society’s correspondence that he’ll probably be able to settle.”

  Young Coningsby seemed pleased to see them and was grateful for the leave of absence from his duties. While the warden went off to make a pot of tea, Timothy asked him whether he had any theories.

  “About the death of Mrs. Dasti?” said Coningsby. “Well, I understand that the pieces of the chimney-pot were lying around her in her little back garden, but she couldn’t have been killed there, you know. She must have been in Mrs. Baines’s garden for some reason, mustn’t she?—and somebody moved the body and the bits of the chimney to her own. Not very bright thinking, in my opinion, Mr. Herring, but, of course, most murderers are amateurs.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Speculation and an Inquest

  “But cry thee Mercy: exercise thy nailes

  To scratch or claw, so that thy tongue not railes:

  Some numbers prurient are, and some of these

  Are wanton with their itch; scratch, and ’twill please.”

  To the Detracter

  Allowing Coningsby’s somewhat thought-provoking remarks to go unchallenged, the two men, accompanied by Miss Coningsby-Layton, went out by the lower door of her tower, took leave of her, and strolled under the archway past the porter’s lodge. They turned their heads as Timothy heard his name called. The porter, whom Timothy recognised from his first visit to the almshouses, caught up with them.

  “You’ll have heard what’s happened to us, sir,” he said. “Very strange doings, if you ask my opinion.”

  “Strange?” said Timothy. “Lamenta
ble, I think, but why strange?”

  “More in this than meets the eye, sir. Why should all our old ladies be hustled off like this just because an accident happens? That’s what I ask myself.”

  “I should have thought it was obvious. The cottages are not considered safe. How are you yourself placed?”

  “Not too good, sir. They’ve offered me a park-keeper’s job over in the town. Not what I’ve been used to, sir. They’ve give me a house, too—I will say that for the council—but I got to pay rent, which I never did here. But it’s poor Miss Coningsby-Layton as I feel most sorry for. A lady of her years and refinement to be thrown out like an empty bottle, sir, not good enough, that is not, and I don’t mind who hears me say it.”

  “Your sympathy isn’t altogether necessary,” said Timothy. “Miss Coningsby-Layton will be all right. We’ve just been hearing about it. I don’t terribly take to that man,” he added to Tom Parsons, as they turned to the right at the great gates and took a field-path towards the river. “Underneath his concern I detected insolence, I thought.”

  “The council seem to be looking after his interests better than those of Miss Coningsby-Layton, but perhaps a man of his age is easier to place than a lady of hers. She would be at a bit of a loose end if you hadn’t taken her on. Why don’t you like the caretaker?” asked Parsons. “I thought his concern was genuine enough.”

  “Oh, it’s one of those Dr. Fell things, then. What do you make of Coningsby’s remark about the chimney-pot?”

  “Reasonable enough, of course. I’d like to attend the inquest. Just depends what I’ve got on hand whether I can make it.”

  “I shall go.” The path led them again to the right. They followed it behind the Tudor infirmary and the east end of the church, after which it bent to the right once more to continue along the complete length of that small but perfect building. A tall fence marked off part of the grounds and then the path brought the two men on to the bank of the river at the backs of the almshouses. The privet hedges which separated the gardens one from another were low, had been well-clipped, and were in good repair, but the long fence which cut off the ends of the tiny plots from the river bank was broken in several places and needed attention all along its length.