Murder in Advent

by David Williams

  There was hesitation before she uttered, ‘Nobody,’ and shook her head.

  ‘Dr Welt . . .’

  ‘Oh, no,’ she gasped. ‘Not Donald, he couldn’t. He wouldn’t. Not for me, he wouldn’t. He didn’t stay. He just went in through the door and came back out again. Straight away. I don’t know why.’ And here was a blurted outcry that came straight from the heart, with no pretences.

  ‘The Old Library door?’

  ‘No. He never went near the library. The cloister door. I saw him. When I was waiting. He didn’t see me. I was hiding like. In the cloister garden. Till Mr Pounder come out . . . Came out.’

  ‘You were still hiding? Because you didn’t want to explain to anyone what you’d been doing? Not even Dr Welt? You’re sure of that?’ Olive Merit sounded unconvinced.

  ‘That’s right, miss. But I wanted to see Mr Pounder when he was leaving. To say there was no hard feelings. About losing his temper, you know?’

  ‘And perhaps to collect the twenty pounds he owed you?’

  ‘That as well, miss. I suppose.’ She looked down at the handkerchief she’d been kneading in her lap. ‘But he never come out . . . Came out.’

  ‘Did you not think you should go back and see he was all right?’ asked Treasure.

  ‘Not at first, I didn’t. Then I thought he must have left by the other door.’

  ‘You didn’t think he might be lying up there hurt?’

  ‘Not really.’ This was whispered. ‘Except . . .’

  ‘Except what, Cindy?’

  ‘Well, when I was thinking perhaps I ought to go back, Canon Jones went in.’

  ‘That would be at about ten past seven,’ Treasure said.

  ‘About. And then I saw Don . . . Dr Welt coming back. So I went to wait for him at his front door. He thought I’d just got there.’

  ‘And have you seen or spoken with Dr Welt today?’

  ‘No, miss. Honest.’

  ‘Well, you’ve just corroborated something he said about himself,’ Treasure confirmed. ‘A moment ago I was merely going to say the police believe he may be able to help them in pointing to someone else who could have been involved in Mr Pounder’s death. Someone who died in an accident earlier tonight.’

  The girl looked up. ‘Not Canon Jones, was it? Like the police thought?’

  Treasure glanced at Olive Merit. ‘No, not Canon Jones. I’m afraid it was Mr Nutkin, the Chapter Clerk.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  ‘I’m sure Miss Merit being there loosened the girl’s tongue,’ said Treasure. ‘Astute of you to know where Cindy had been all day. And that she’d been mixed up in Pounder’s demise.’

  The Dean smiled pensively. ‘Just . . . just following my nose.’

  ‘You’d have obliged by telling us a bit earlier, sir,’ said Detective Chief Inspector Pride reflectively but without rancour. He stirred his coffee.

  ‘I considered it, Mr Pride. But there seemed no purpose in leading you to suspect a probably innocent girl. You might have arrested her and slacked off finding the real culprit. Temporarily, of course,’ the cleric added, but with only the degree of tempering he considered appropriate. He was getting his own back for what he considered the police mishandling of Canon Jones.

  It was eleven o’clock on Saturday morning. The three men were seated in Dean Hitt’s study. Mrs Hitt had provided coffee then left, she said, to complete an important errand. She and Treasure had talked briefly alone when she had let him in.

  ‘The girl was very nearly culpable, sir,’ said the policeman, then immediately wishing he hadn’t. He hoped the others would overlook the observation.

  ‘Difficult that,’ mused Treasure promptly. ‘Like being a tiny bit pregnant.’ He glanced mischievously at the policeman, then turned to their host. ‘Dean, why don’t you tell Mr Pride just how you knew about Cindy’s relationship with Pounder?’

  The Dean sniffed. ‘He was a creature of habit. Or his laundress was. Probably his daughter. He changed his shirt once a week. On Sundays. For more than a year on Fridays he’s always reeked of a loathsome but distinctive cheap scent which stayed on him till Saturdays. Same thing recurred every week. Seemed to me he picked it up from Cindy Larks. She’s the only female in the community I know who wears the stuff. Fairly assaults you when she even passes. She passes me. Often twice a day. When the choir leaves the chancel after services. As I say, Pounder used to acquire the smell between evensong on Thursdays and matins on Fridays. Since he slept at his daughter’s and Cindy Larks spends her late Thursday evenings with Donald Welt, it didn’t require a massive intellect to know when he got the stuff on him – and roughly how.’ He stopped himself from adding that Welt also had the same scent about him from time to time.

  ‘Curiously, your wife says she doesn’t find the scent at all intrusive,’ said Treasure. ‘For instance, she didn’t notice it at the Brastows’ when you called for the Canon last night. I must say, I wasn’t conscious of it when I went there, either.’

  ‘Well, I found it impossible to ignore.’

  ‘Depends on how well a person’s olfactory sense is developed,’ observed Pride learnedly, and to the mild surprise of the others.

  The Dean nodded. ‘Agreed in principle, but in this case it also had to do with a probably idiosyncratic distaste for the stuff. After all, it must be sold on a commercial basis. If most people dislike it as much as I do, the makers would go bust.’

  ‘In any event, it explains why you were so certain Cindy was in that basement flat,’ said Treasure.

  ‘Quite certain,’ said the Dean emphatically.

  ‘You were right about the girl’s grandfather having no time for her, Mr Treasure. Almost the first thing he admitted when I got out there last night.’

  ‘Before the more substantial confessions. He’d gone off Pounder, too, you say, despite their having been army buddies?’

  ‘In a way, yes, sir. Seems that’s why Pounder left money to the girl. Sort of compensation for her grandfather being mean to her.’

  ‘And his own conscience, I expect.’ This was Treasure. ‘Even so, I assume it was Daras money. Or, rather, money given to Daras by Nutkin for passing on.’

  ‘That’s the gist of it, sir. Like you predicted, Nutkin bought a Magna Carta copy from Daras three years ago. It’s reasonable to suppose Nutkin substituted it for the original, which he then sold to a dishonest collector.’

  ‘Reasonable but unproven,’ Treasure put in heavily. ‘With the added supposition that the buyer of whatever was sold was the unknown American bidder of three years ago. And the same party who sent Hawker here on Thursday.’

  ‘I should think so, sir. And we got a name from Hawker, when he was running scared last night. It’s another private investigator, of course. In Miami, Florida. Unlikely to divulge the name of his client, probably, but there’s time enough for that.’

  ‘And nobody noticed the switch?’ put in the Dean.

  ‘If there was one,’ said Treasure, staring hard at the policeman. ‘According to Laura Purse, a seventeenth-century facsimile produced in the scriptorium here could have been pretty well indistinguishable from the original. It might not have withstood a special expert scrutiny, but there’s been no occasion for one of those from the likely time of any substitution until this week. Only Pounder twigged what might have happened.’

  ‘Even though he wasn’t an expert,’ said Pride.

  Immediately the Dean commented: ‘Not an expert in the technical sense. But he cared more about that parchment than he did for most things. Knew enough to spot it if something was wrong. Or even sense it.’

  ‘But not report it, sir?’

  ‘To have gone to what he knew had to be the source of any substitution. His friend Daras,’ argued Treasure. ‘Is that right, Mr Pride?’

  ‘Who bribed him into keeping his mouth shut. That’s correct, sir.’

  The Dean made a face at the policeman’s words. ‘I trust some kind of finesse had to be applied.’

  ‘
It did, sir. Daras isn’t admitting it directly, but he’s implied Pounder accepted the switch was official but had to be kept dark. That the proceeds were going towards maintaining the cathedral.’

  ‘And he believed it,’ said the Dean, sighing. ‘Even stopped referring to knowing about a source of Magna Carta copies. Of course, he was really a very simple man. And there was one large anonymous donation to the Fabric Fund at the time. What you might call Nutkin’s conscience money, because that’s what it was. That and the hope I’d add it to his catalogue of good works when the Chapter came to recommend him for inclusion in the Honours List. Pounder would have known about the donation – everybody did – but not who had made it.’

  ‘A simple man with a venal side, sir.’

  ‘You mean he was easily talked into taking his share?’ This was Treasure.

  ‘About taking half of what Daras told him he got for the copy, sir. That’s what Daras said last night.’

  ‘As straightforward as that? He wasn’t told who’d done the buying?’

  ‘No, sir. And, as you said, the money didn’t really come from Daras. Only through him. And it wasn’t part of his takings. It was an extra thirty-five thousand provided by Nutkin. Stuck in Daras’s throat, that did. He figured if Nutkin could afford a fat sweetener for Pounder, then he, Daras should have got more in the first place. Seems it’s what soured his relations with Pounder later.’

  ‘I wonder how much Nutkin did get?’ Treasure mused. ‘Four hundred thousand, perhaps? Less the hundred and twenty thousand for Daras, Pounder, and what he gave to the cathedral. He probably cleared well over a quarter of a million.’

  ‘And Daras volunteered all you’ve told us, Mr Pride?’ the Dean asked doubtfully.

  ‘Pretty well, sir. When he knew Nutkin was dead, and I faced him with the fact he stood to be accused as an accessory to Pounders’ murder.’

  ‘That was a bit sharp.’

  ‘You should ask Mr Treasure about that, sir. It was his idea.’

  The Dean grunted. ‘Mightn’t Nutkin have sold the copy and left our Magna Carta where it was?’

  ‘Highly possible,’ said Treasure vehemently and with a conviction he didn’t feel nearly as strongly as the emphasis suggested. ‘Something we’ll never know for sure, of course.’ He paused to allow Pride to weigh the point. ‘One has to admit a substitution seems the more likely event. In the circumstances.’ He paused again, firmly to demonstrate his objectivity.

  ‘Except our own expert, Miss Purse, didn’t spot it,’ put in the Dean.

  ‘Right. It was only the amateur Pounder who, it seems, may have smelled a rat,’ agreed Treasure. The policeman simply looked thoughtful as the banker went on. ‘Of course, a crooked buyer would almost certainly have his purchase authenticated, whereas the Magna Carta on show here would go on being accepted as it had been for centuries. And Nutkin must have been sure that in turning down an offer for four hundred thousand pounds the Chapter was effectively saying it had no intention of selling the Magna Carta. Not ever.’

  ‘And that it would never need to have it validated. He was wrong on both counts, of course.’ The Dean fingered the saucer of his coffee-cup. ‘And you became convinced last evening, when we were at the Merits’, that Nutkin was the villain?’

  ‘For three slim and unrelated reasons that fuse into a big one when you think about them,’ Treasure explained. ‘Nutkin had almost certainly known the Daras family since his youth. He was the only person I’d told I’d changed my mind about selling, and he just as certainly carried barbiturates and hadn’t admitted it. It was Glynis Jones who said to me yesterday that Daras must have had professional help – with his accounts, collecting rents and so on. Then Mrs Nutkin implied the Daras family had been clients of the Nutkin family firm for three generations. It was a reasonable guess that as a young articled clerk Nutkin had been the Darases’ rent collector and general legal factotum.’

  ‘He was, sir. And the firm still is. And it was how he came to know about the Magna Carta copy.’

  Treasure nodded. ‘After he’d talked to me on the telephone on Thursday afternoon, Nutkin had very little time for taking avoiding action. But he needed to take some. And pretty swiftly, for fear the Magna Carta was spirited away to the vault of a local bank. Remember, the potential buyers were a good deal more security conscious than the Chapter had been.’

  ‘And they’d certainly have had the thing validated,’ said the Dean slowly.

  ‘And exposed as a fake, if it was. To which one could say “So what?”’ the banker observed. ‘Could a fraud have been traced to Nutkin?’

  ‘Without doubt, sir. In time. He couldn’t have risked it. Knowing Daras.’

  The Dean cleared his throat. ‘I prefer to believe he’d have seen exposure of a fake as something that would have cost the cathedral over a million pounds. That he’d have felt responsible for that loss, and that he saw a way of avoiding it. He was a strange chap with a strong conscience.’

  The policeman threw Treasure a look redolent of disbelief but he said nothing.

  ‘Was he especially religious?’ asked the banker.

  ‘I doubt it, though he may have thought he was. People can delude themselves in that area,’ replied the Dean. ‘Fact is, up to last Thursday he’d got away with a large haul of cash without actually harming anyone. And he’d given back a bit of it. Now it seems he was about to rob us of a much bigger sum. Morally indefensible? Condemning himself to everlasting damnation? Depends on how he saw it.’

  ‘But then he committed a murder, sir.’

  ‘Possibly unintentionally, you said, Mr Pride. Earlier, when my wife was here. In any case . . .’

  ‘That’s certainly my theory,’ Treasure interrupted. ‘For whatever reason, I believe he was determined to destroy that Magna Carta. He had very little time to plan, and very few aids. For instance, he had no access to a key to the Old Library nor to the Charter case.’

  ‘Of course, Ewart Jones had taken the Chapter House spares,’ the Dean agreed.

  ‘He’d discovered those had gone after Chapter meeting. So he had to get in while Pounder was in charge. He took a chance by lacing the chap’s tea with barbiturates. I gather he made the opportunity for that by coming into evensong after everyone else. I think he planned to go up to the library later when the old boy was asleep, break open the case, and take the contents.’

  ‘Not kill Pounder? Not start a fire?’

  ‘Difficult to be sure, Dean, but isn’t it more likely he changed his plan when he found Pounder already looking very dead indeed? Collapsed from heart failure, or else bludgeoned by a thief, as we all thought later. The paraffin stove was providential in the circumstances. I doubt he knew it’d be there, but it adapted perfectly to his purpose. Destroying the Magna Carta was a lot safer than taking it away. He must have been quite sure the fire wouldn’t spread, or perhaps he intended raising the alarm himself later.’

  ‘And was he just as sure Pounder was dead, I wonder, sir?’ Pride paused, then proceeded to answer his own question. ‘Well, I’d be inclined to give the benefit of the doubt on that one, I suppose. It’s often hard to find a pulse on the very elderly – especially if you’re in a panic. Heard enough coroners say as much.’

  ‘All of which seems to have left Nutkin with the perfect solution, and a still relatively clear conscience,’ added Treasure.

  ‘Except he went on to murder Duggan, sir.’

  ‘After he’d learnt from you, Chief Inspector, that he’d killed Pounder after all. Would that have made the difference?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ was the pragmatic response. ‘Since he knew Duggan was going to start blackmailing him. Him and Nora Jakes, Pounder’s daughter.’

  ‘How did he know that?’ asked the Dean, surprised.

  ‘Daras told him. Duggan was out at the farm yesterday afternoon. Seems Hawker’s enquiries about how to reach Daras set him thinking, that and the trouble Rory Duggan had reported seeing when he was out there earlier. Patrick Duggan had w
orked out whatever was leading people to Daras at this time could have something to do with Magna Carta copies. When he heard Pounder had left that money he was sure Daras and Pounder had been doing a deal with someone. He’d tied that in with Pounder’s murder. And he’d seen Nutkin going into the cathedral at twenty-five minutes past six on Thursday evening.’

  ‘But he hadn’t told the police?’

  ‘Would never have done that, sir. Making his own arrangements, you might say. Seems he’d told Commander Baer he thought he’d seen Nutkin that night. The Commander said he must have been mistaken.’

  Treasure smiled grimly. ‘Bliter mentioned it in turn to Nutkin, apparently, who said airily that Duggan had quite definitely been mistaken. Bliter accepted his word and said as much to Duggan, who pretended to agree he’d been wrong . . .’

  ‘Bliter having given him Pounder’s job as a sweetener? I don’t much care for that,’ said the Dean.

  ‘But you made Bliter cancel the offer.’

  ‘Certainly I did. I suppose that’s why Duggan went back to the truth?’

  ‘But still not to the police, sir. First, he was convinced if Pounder had got money, then Daras had got more – and for a Magna Carta copy. He said so to Daras, who made the mistake of pleading that Pounder had tricked him into parting with a copy for practically nothing.’

  ‘Which was a lie?’

  ‘It was, sir. Then Daras begged Duggan not to involve him, and swore the money he said Pounder had paid him had come from someone important in Litchester. Straight away Duggan said that someone had to be Nutkin and that wasn’t all Nutkin had been up to. He was half-guessing probably, but he’d got Daras in a real panic and he gave the game away. Duggan left saying if Nutkin and Pounder had done so well, then Nutkin and Pounder’s daughter could afford to push a bit of the proceeds his way for keeping quiet.’

  ‘How did Daras alert Nutkin that there was trouble?’ the Dean asked.

  ‘Telephoned him, sir. Straight after Duggan left. There’s a call-box on the road near the farm. Seems to be their only link with civilisation and progress.’