Gin and Murder

by Josephine Pullein-Thompson

‘It’s beyond me,’ Bewley answered. Why should anyone murder Vickers for that matter? I think there’s someone about with a screw loose.’

  ‘You arrived early at the Chadwick party, before Vickers. You didn’t see anything at all unusual going on with the drinks?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. You’re not going to suggest that Chadwick poisoned him, are you?’ he asked indignantly.

  ‘Sugar, sir?’ said Browning. ‘One or two?’

  ‘Two for me,’ answered Bewley, looking inquiringly at Flecker.

  ‘The Chief Inspector doesn’t take it, sir,’ Browning told him. ‘Ah, I’ve been longing for a nice cup all afternoon,’ he added, sipping in a satisfied manner.

  Flecker pushed back a lock of unruly hair, looked at Bewley and said, ‘It’s no use being indignant. Someone at that party killed Vickers and the same person, almost certainly, killed Mrs. Broughton. Of course it’s not pleasant to think that you’ve been hunting and drinking with a murderer, but there’s no sense in burying your heads in the sand. Mrs. Chadwick thinks it must be chronic arsenic poisoning caused by a painted ceiling at Catton Hall; Miss Chadwick favours a contaminated gin bottle; you want a madman. All right, have your madman, but face the facts — he’s one of your friends.’

  ‘O.K., Chief Inspector, you win,’ said Bewley meekly. ‘I arrived first. I talked to the Chadwicks, who appeared to be their normal selves, with all screws at the appropriate tension. They don’t altogether approve of me, but they’re always very nice and polite and Hilary’s glad of the odd horse to hunt, especially when her brother’s home on leave. When Vickers and Antonia Brockenhurst arrived Vickers monopolized Hilary; Charlie poured out drinks; everyone seemed to be having the cocktail — it was one of Charlie’s specials. Couldn’t pin the murders on Antonia, could you?’ he asked suddenly. ‘She’d be no loss.’

  ‘I’ll do my best for you,’ said Flecker with a grin. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, the Chadwicks, Ma and Pa, and I, had to talk to Antonia. She rides a bloody good race, I’ll give her that, but she’s hell indoors. We all wagged our tails like mad when Holmes-Waterford and then the Dentons came in.’ He dwelt for a moment on the Dentons’ name and then went on. ‘The party got going after that and I’m afraid I got a bit high on Charlie’s special. I remember that I collected Clara from Vickers, who was looking at her as though she were something the cat had brought in, and that we had a nice chat in a corner until Mark came to take her home. The next excitement was Vickers feeling sick. I was roaring with laughter at the great man passing out on a couple of short drinks but luckily, Charlie, Elizabeth and Steve Denton were sober enough to realize that it wasn’t that. When they reached the stage of sending for Skindle and then the ambulance, I sobered up sharpish.’

  ‘Did everyone behave more or less as you would have expected them to behave?’ asked Flecker. ‘You didn’t see any unexpected hysterics?’

  ‘No, no hysterics, no fireworks, no nothing. We all behaved like — no wait — Antonia Brockenhurst, she went a greenish colour. I thought — Oh God, it’s the crab patties, now we’ll all be off to hospital. Then Charlie, who was acting as a sort of liaison officer between Elizabeth and Steve, who’d got Guy upstairs, and the rest of us in the drawing-room, came in and said that Skindle was sending Guy to hospital and that he was a very sick man indeed; and Antonia went a shade greener, and later on gave a sort of whimper and said, “why doesn’t that ambulance come?”’

  ‘You haven’t invented this because Miss Brockenhurst would be “no loss”, have you?’ asked Flecker.

  ‘No,’ Bewley answered emphatically. ‘It’s the truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God.’

  ‘All right,’ said Flecker. ‘Now tell me your opinion of Mr. Broughton; I haven’t met him yet.’

  ‘Mark wouldn’t hurt a fly. He wouldn’t kill a kitten, much less Clara.’

  ‘What about foxes?’ asked Flecker.

  ‘Well,’ Bewley grinned, ‘he has to kill a few to please the farmers and keep hounds in blood, otherwise he wouldn’t. But seriously Mark’s a very good chap. He’s the sort of person one trusts with one’s money and, though he’s so dam’ attractive to women, with one’s wife. He is also a fool. He thinks that everyone is as trustworthy as he is. We’ve all been pretty good about his money. I’ve never sold him a bad horse, or even an expensive horse.’

  ‘But not so good about his wife?’ asked Flecker quietly.

  ‘No, not nearly so good about his wife. Clara was quite a girl, and an M.F.H. is a very busy man. Clara was generous, quite the most generous woman I’ve ever known. She’d give away her horses, her money, her clothes. If she liked you she wouldn’t refuse you anything, and I mean anything.’

  ‘I see,’ said Flecker. ‘Well, thank you very much for being so frank.’

  ‘And thank you for the nice cup of tea, sir,’ said Browning. Then he looked at Flecker and asked, ‘What have you done with your gloves, sir?’

  ‘My gloves?’ Flecker looked guiltily round the room.

  ‘They may be in the car, but I’ve got a feeling I left them at the Chadwicks’.’

  ‘So have I,’ said Browning in resigned tones.

  ‘Never mind,’ Flecker told him. ‘We’ll get them tomorrow.’

  Realizing that Flecker was thinking, Browning held his peace until he had the engine running. ‘The Dog and Duck, sir?’ he asked.

  ‘Can you keep going for another half hour on that cup of tea? Langley’s only two miles from here and I’d like to see Miss Brockenhurst tonight.’

  ‘Right you are, sir,’ said Browning cheerfully. ‘But I know your half hours. And we shan’t get any overtime for it — and no thanks either, I don’t suppose.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  NO ONE ANSWERED the front door at Sleeches Farm and, after banging for some time, Flecker and Browning made their way round to the back of the house where chinks of light from a window seemed to indicate life.

  Browning beat upon the back door with his gloved fist and started a chorus of barking, which angry yells of ‘Quiet!’ from within failed to silence. The door was finally opened by Antonia Brockenhurst. She was wearing a dirty pair of corduroy slacks and three pullovers, which protruded, in clashing layers, at the cuffs and collar.

  ‘From Scotland Yard,’ was all that Flecker attempted to shout above the noise of the dogs.

  ‘Stop it, Tiger,’ she roared, and then, in the comparative quiet which followed, she said, ‘Do come in, I was just cleaning tack.’ The kitchen, an unpretentious farmhouse room with a brick floor and unpainted dresser, was full of dogs; boxers and spaniels of all ages and sizes. The dresser and a deal table were covered with saddlery and the wherewithal to clean it; at another table a redheaded woman with spectacles was cutting up dogs’ meat. The visibility was reduced by a pall of smoke which filled the room, and the air reeked of cooking offal. The dogs became boisterously welcoming and the barking abated. Browning amused the boxers while Flecker explained the purpose of their visit; the spaniels were intent on the preparation of their dinners.

  ‘Oh yes, of course,’ said Antonia Brockenhurst, ‘you’d better come into the other room. Oh, this is my partner, Miss Chiswick-Norton.’

  ‘I can’t shake hands ’cos they’re all dog dinnery,’ cried Miss Chiswick-Norton shrilly and she smiled a confiding and toothy smile at the two detectives. ‘Do tell me, did Mr. Broughton do it?’ she asked. ‘We’ve been wondering; bothering our little heads. I’m so fed up that I missed all the excitement. Just like me to go away at the wrong moment. Do you suspect Antonia? Whoo hoo!’ She laughed shrilly. ‘I’ve always loved thrillers; it is exciting to meet real detectives. Have you found many fingerprints? Will they hang Mr. Broughton, or will he plead guilty but insane?’

  ‘Mrs. Broughton was enough to drive anyone nuts,’ Antonia shouted her partner down. ‘She drove me nuts in one afternoon; at the puppy show, do you remember?’

  ‘Oh rather, it was too funny if it hadn’t been so embarrassing. She’d escaped
from the old lady who looked after her; in the end the children came and took her away. I don’t think he ought to have kept children and a drunken wife in the same house, do you? He could have put his wife into a home or sent the children away for their holidays.’

  ‘Mrs. Broughton didn’t like being in a home,’ said Antonia. ‘She hated it and everyone knows that Mr. Broughton likes to take the children about with him.’

  ‘I still think it was wrong. Here we are — dinnies! Boxers in the hall, spaniels in the kitchen, puppies in the scullery; the small fry are so messy,’ she said with a toothy smile at Browning. Antonia went to the hall and began to shout, ‘Tiger, come here, will you! Trixie, Tessa, Tantivy, do as you’re told!’

  In the kitchen, Miss Chiswick-Norton shrieked, ‘Susan, Simon, Sarah —’ The dogs rushed obstinately in the wrong directions and the detectives looked at each other in despair.

  ‘Let’s get the puppies, sir,’ suggested Browning. ‘That might help things along a bit.’ It was easy enough to collect the puppies, fat squirming spaniel pups and the older boxers, which had reached the lanky stage, and to deposit them in the scullery; the difficulty lay in escaping from the scullery without a puppy accompaniment. In the end Flecker got away by leaving Browning behind. In the kitchen the spaniels were now feeding in an orderly fashion, each wearing a clothes peg to hold back his long ears. ‘Look after my sergeant,’ Flecker told Miss Chiswick-Norton. ‘I’ll go through and talk to Miss Brockenhurst.’

  The sitting-room was cold with the dampness of a rarely used room and Flecker began to shiver as soon as he sat down.

  ‘This won’t take long,’ he said. ‘First of all, did you see anyone at the Chadwicks’ party taking any interest in any glass, full, empty, their own or someone else’s? They might have been rescuing a drowning fly, removing cigarette ash or pursuing a piece of cork; I’m interested in the most innocent actions.’

  Antonia thought carefully before she answered. ‘No, I didn’t see anything of that sort at all.’

  ‘You didn’t talk to Mr. Vickers, did you?’

  ‘No, only on the doorstep, while we were waiting to be let in.’

  ‘What did you talk about then?’

  ‘Oh, the weather, I think.’

  ‘And after that?’

  ‘That was all.’

  Flecker smiled, ‘You must be better at spinning the weather out than I am,’ he said. ‘I find that it does for one remark, possibly two and then you both say the same thing at the same moment, feel a little foolish and introduce some other topic hastily.’

  ‘We just waited in silence.’

  Flecker felt that there was a tension in the air; he decided on a shot in the dark.

  ‘My notes tell me that you’re a very well-known point-to-point rider,’ he said. ‘Did Mr. Vickers ever take part in a point-to-point?’

  ‘Yes, at one time he raced quite a bit, then he broke his collar bone two seasons running and I think his parents made him give it up.’

  ‘How long ago was this?’

  ‘Oh, about five or six years ago, I suppose.’

  ‘Did he come to Catton Hall in those days?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. I don’t think the Pierces had it then.’

  ‘Where did you live then, before you came here?’

  ‘Barsetshire,’ answered Antonia, avoiding his eye.

  You were good-looking once, thought Flecker, before you neglected your face and became hardboiled. You’re about the same age as Vickers and they tell us ‘Heaven has no rage, like love to hatred turned’. ‘Mr. Vickers also came from Barsetshire, I believe,’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I expect, that with riding as a common interest, you knew each other?’ he suggested gently.

  ‘When we were children we belonged to the same pony club and hunted with the same pack.’

  ‘And then you grew up and went to the same hunt balls?’

  ‘That’s old history,’ answered Antonia, turning on him suddenly. That’s all over and done with. Guy’s had plenty of girlfriends. If you want to pry into his love affairs you’d better get a bit more up-to-date; you’ll find some much more interesting ones, and you can try in Melborough for a start.’

  Flecker said, ‘Murder’s an ugly thing and the more one casts about for reasons and motives the more old history one stirs up.’ He paused. ‘Who, was the girl friend in Melborough?’

  Antonia was now ashamed of her outburst. ‘It’s nothing really,’ she said. ‘I oughtn’t to have mentioned it; I was upset.’

  ‘If,’ Flecker’s voice was emphatic, ‘it has the smallest bearing on the case you definitely ought to mention it. This isn’t an inquiry into who wrote “Miss Potts is a fool” on the blackboard, this is a matter of life and death — death for two people already. As far as the police are concerned, there’s no crime in being lovers, or in committing adultery, and I’m not contemplating a sensational article for the Sunday newspapers on Vickers’ love life.’

  ‘It was Sonia Denton, the vet’s wife, if you must know,’ said Antonia. ‘Steve Denton went away to help with a foot-and-mouth epidemic last autumn and Guy took Sonia out quite a bit.’

  ‘Are there any more of them?’ asked Flecker. ‘What about Miss Chadwick?’

  ‘Hilary never cared tuppence for Guy. If she’d married him it would have been for his money; she’s been in love with Mark Broughton for years.’

  *

  Flecker and Browning were in poor shape when at last they reached the Dog and Duck. Already hungry, cold and tired, they were reduced to an even more dreary state by the sight of their supper.

  ‘I thought it would be best to have it cold,’ said Mrs. Gordon, indicating corned beef; beetroot, bread and butter, soft biscuits and soapy cheese, ‘Not knowing what time you would be in. Would you like a cup of coffee? I’ve got the kettle on.’

  ‘Yes, please,’ answered Flecker, ‘and two double whiskies.’ Still in their overcoats they crouched dismally over the tiny electric fire until the whisky began to revive them. Then they tackled the unappetizing meal.

  ‘East, west, home’s best,’ said Browning suddenly. ‘If I had my time over again I wouldn’t be so daft as to go into the police. I’d go in for one of these thousand a year stunts, I’d be a docker or a miner. Rolling in money, a forty-eight hour week and the whole country quaking whenever you get out of bed on the wrong side. Honestly, sir, we’re mugs, that’s what we are. What about you? If you had your time over again would you stop on at college and become a parson?’

  ‘The devil dodgers are worse paid than the police; at least they’re worse paid than chief inspectors,’ answered Flecker. ‘And I daresay I wouldn’t have made a very good one.’

  ‘I don’t know, you’d have been all right in the pulpit. You’re just the one to preach a good sermon.’

  ‘What’s the public bar like?’ asked Flecker, changing the subject. ‘Is there a fire?’

  ‘It seemed a nice old-fashioned sort of place, not so poshed up as this,’ Browning told him. ‘Shall I go and make a recce?’

  ‘I’ll come. I’ve got to have another drink to take away the taste of that filthy coffee. I begin to feel like an F.B.I. type, downing all this Scotch.’

  ‘You don’t need to feel American for that,’ objected Browning. ‘These hunting people are just as bad. Mrs. Broughton drank, Mr. Broughton begins as soon as she’s gone, Captain Bewley thinks nothing of having a couple when he ought to be drinking a nice cup of tea — and goodness only knows what he’s put away by bedtime.’

  ‘I wonder what starts them off,’ said Flecker.

  ‘Having it handy, I expect. Either that, or a nip here and there for Dutch courage, as they grow older and the fences begin to look a bit big.’

  The noisy hilarity of the bar died away when Flecker and Browning went in and only partially revived as they ordered and consumed their drinks.

  ‘Well, I’m going to write up my notes,’ Flecker told Browning when he had finished his
whisky and had had a few words with the landlord.

  ‘Good night, sir,’ said Browning loudly and with great emphasis on the ‘sir’. Flecker knew that he was establishing his position — this is the great man, I’m merely one of you.

  He felt depressed as he climbed the steep oak stairs, hideously carpeted in red and green, and his depression increased as he surveyed the little beamed bedroom with its alien suite in imitation walnut, linoleum-covered floor and lace-muffled casement. He switched on the electric fire and scuffled in his suitcase for a writing-pad and pen. Now he must try to make something of what he had learned that afternoon. And then, as he sat before the fire, he realized that it wasn’t the cold and the corned beef, the pickles or the soapy cheese that had depressed him. It was the cheerless muddle of the world, ‘the still sad music of humanity’; the situations which drove people to murder.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ON WEDNESDAY MORNING Flecker began work at nine o’clock, when he telephoned the police station. He spoke to Fox, who told him that the gin bottle had proved untraceable; it was a product of the war years, of which the firm no longer possessed records. Having cursed mildly and under his breath, Flecker telephoned Marley and Skinner’s office in Melborough and asked for Steve Denton. On learning that Mr. Denton had only just come in he sent a message asking for an appointment at ten-thirty that morning, or at any other time that would be convenient. Mr. Denton would see him at ten-thirty. Flecker put down the receiver and wandered out to the yard, where Browning was already warming up the car.

  ‘Denton’s safely at work,’ said Flecker, ‘so we can go and see his missis. We don’t want to upset any apple carts, because if the poor wretch doesn’t know of his wife’s amours, he hasn’t a motive.’

  ‘When are we going to fetch your gloves, that’s what I want to know?’ asked Browning. ‘You’ll have chilblains for sure.’

  ‘Oh, I’m all right. But the weather seems to be settling down for a real freeze-up.’

  ‘Yes, they won’t get hounds out tomorrow; nor Saturday, if you ask me.’