Late and Cold (Timothy Herring)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “She’s got those two brats of her own to think about.”

  “Her brother’s children, do you mean?”

  “Bless your kind heart!”

  Then there had followed a remark about trousers, but that had been brought in to disguise the spitefulness (as he had thought it at the time) of the suggestion that Bryn and Bron were Marion’s own children, and illegitimate at that. Then, much later in his acquaintance with her, Leonie, he began to fear, had hit another nail on the head.

  “I didn’t even know that Olwen existed.”

  “That’s a lie, for a start.”

  What was more, Leonie had gone on to prove that it was a lie, Timothy uncomfortably remembered. Add the business of the poker coupled with her own admission that she had let the monk into the Phisbe house, and there, he thought ruefully, it began to look as though there was a case fitted. A week later he received a third letter from Grant.

  Bearing in mind your instructions not to proceed with the matter under review, I now have to inform you that Scotland Yard have also dropped their own enquiries into the bona fides of Miss Marion Jones’s confession that she stabbed Mr. Pembroke Jones in the back. As I thought he might, Detective-Inspector Hearnes examined the possibility of Miss Marion Jones’s leaving school before it closed for the day, but the head teacher declared that this was impossible, as her teachers would not dream of leaving the building without permission while school was in session. Needless to say, this assertion did not convince the Detective-Inspector, but as the police themselves are assured that the confession was one of the many which they receive as soon as a spectacular case is reported in the newspapers, they have decided to disregard it, particularly as Mr. Jones, from the beginning, has refused to press charges. In fact, I am told that, but for the discovery of Miss Olwen Jones’s body in the well at Nanradoc Castle, the police would never have pursued the minor matter of the stabbing.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The Woodpecker and the Crow

  Timothy found Grant’s news inexpressibly cheering. Marion, it seemed, was cleared. If the police had written off her confession that she had stabbed Pembroke, they were not likely, he thought, to be pursuing her for the murder of Olwen Jones. This led him to reconsider the evidence against the trousered woman and the unsavoury black-robed Ignatius.

  One thing was very clear. At Olwen’s death they had gained a permanent home and a tax-free income of sixty pounds a month. He put this to Grant and suggested that the information might be handed on to the police. Grant scratched his chin.

  “The police know all about that couple, sir. The Woodpecker and the Crow are the detective-inspector’s names for them. I knew a bit about them myself when I was in the Force. We had them on a number of charges at different times.”

  “Really? Rather bold of them, then, to come forward at once, like that, wasn’t it?”

  “Probably thought it was better than hiding away until the police winkled them out, I fancy, sir. You and Miss Marion Jones had both seen them and could describe them, although I’m bound to admit that the trouser-suit and the religious outfit are new.”

  “Are they married?”

  “No, sir, brother and sister. They go under a number of aliases, but we always booked them under the name of Birds—Claribel and Hubert Birds.”

  “What’s their speciality?”

  “What isn’t? We’ve had them for shop-lifting, false pretences, back-street abortions, credit by fraud, money by menaces—you name it, they’ve tried it.”

  “Just petty criminals, in fact.”

  “Just petty criminals. That’s why I can’t see them as murderers. Their kind don’t step out of their class. They never mix themselves up in anything big. The major crimes frighten them. Any experienced police officer will tell you that.”

  “There are exceptions to every rule, though. Besides, you mentioned back-street abortions. Aren’t those murders? What I want you to do now is to see whether you can trace any of the servants who were at Nanradoc when the Birds went there first.”

  “The simplest thing would be to advertise for the servants, sir. Then you could get their stories at first hand.”

  “That’s an idea,” said Timothy.

  “Then, if you have no further instructions, Mr. Herring . . .”

  Timothy was immensely surprised at the finality of Grant’s tone.

  “You want to pack up the job?” he asked.

  “I think our interests may not, in the future, be entirely mutual, sir.” Grant accepted Timothy’s cheque with brief thanks and a very direct and sympathetic look, and, with Grant’s departure, Timothy’s newly-acquired feeling of relief vanished. Grant’s parting remarks could mean only one thing. He believed that the police had dismissed Marion’s confession of the stabbing because they intended to bring the much graver charge against her of having murdered Olwen.

  Timothy gave his head an abrupt and vigorous shake to clear it, then he sat down, lit a cigarette, and planned the wording of his advertisement. When he had written it out, he took another sheet of paper and wrote out his reasons for refusing to suspect Marion.

  To begin with, there was the nature of the crime itself. It had been a beastly crime; a brutal crime; moreover, it had been a man’s, not a woman’s, crime. It was impossible to conceive of a young woman bashing and battering to death another young woman—a lame young woman, at that—in the fashion suggested by the medical evidence. Of course, there had been the business of the poker. But no! The brutality which had killed Olwen Jones was a man’s brutality, was the brutality of savage male violence and vindictiveness, he assured himself.

  Then there was the business of filling in the well. He had touched on that before. He could not envisage the thin, ill-nourished Marion undertaking the mammoth spadework which that operation would have entailed. Besides, what had she gained by the death? According to the evidence of the doctors, the body had been in the well for a couple of years. During that time Marion had been very hard put to it to make ends meet. Until she wrote to Phisbe she had asked nobody for help, it seemed. She had been prepared to look after the baby Miranda because the money Pembroke paid her was a little more, no doubt, than Miranda actually cost to keep, although Marion, he remembered, had not admitted this. Of course, if she had attacked Pembroke . . .

  Timothy began to feel worried. Carefully he underlined the word Pembroke; then he enclosed it in a neat rectangle; then he shaded the rectangle in. Pembroke? Well, why not? Here was somebody who must count, if the police wanted to establish motive. Timothy’s imagination took charge. The accident to Olwen. Pembroke blaming himself for it. The amputation. The continued remorse felt by Pembroke. The artistic temperament. (Timothy was prepared to believe that there was such a thing, and that it was not manifested only by prima donnas and leading actresses). Better to put an ugly thing right out of the way, rather than allow it to remain a constant, an unendurable reproach until one’s life’s end. The brutal attack. The extra, unnecessary blows. The moments of sheer destructive madness. Oh, yes, it could have been Pembroke all right. He was powerful enough, and, being an artist, probably got carried away.

  Not that Scotland Yard were likely to embrace Timothy’s theatrical theory. Well, there was no need for them to do so. If they wanted to find a motive (not that it was necessary to show motive when a case of murder came to be tried) they had only to note that, with Olwen out of the way, Pembroke automatically became the sole owner of Nanradoc.

  But was the sole ownership of Nanradoc such a prize to an already wealthy and fashionable painter married to a well-known and probably well-off sculptor? Most of the estate was worthless, and thousands would need to be spent on the house to render it reasonably comfortable. Besides, there was the difficulty which Timothy had foreseen previously. Pembroke would have to ask leave to presume that his sister was dead before he could call himself the sole owner of Nanradoc, and, if he had murdered her, this would appear an extremely dangerous request to make. Timothy tore up h
is notes and went for a long walk over the hills.

  His advertisement, inserted in four daily, three evening, three Sunday, and two Welsh local papers, brought responses in the middle of the following week. The first person who turned up claimed to have been the Nanradoc cook. Timothy, whose experiences in helping to administer Phisbe’s charitable affairs had early developed in him a sixth sense which smelt out cheats and charlatans, received her kindly, asked her to describe the Nanradoc kitchen and what could be seen from its windows, and, still urbane, dismissed her at the end of ten minutes.

  The next fish which came to this net introduced herself by means of a letter.

  “Being in weak health and living on Government Pension and small savings,” it said, “cannot afford the fare unless really something to my advantage, meaning a bit of money, to show for it. If genuine, send my fare, please, which can be deducted from expectations, or you could come here.”

  The address on the letter was Swansea. Timothy sent a postcard, asking the writer to expect him. She turned out to be a small, circular, round-headed Welshwoman with grey hair and a suspicious manner.

  “I have to inform you I have a brother in the kitchen,” she said, in the unmistakable accents of South Wales, “so, if you were thinking of trying any funny business, I would not, indeed, if I were you.”

  To this Timothy, who enjoyed warfare, countered with:

  “I might give you the same warning, Mrs. Lloyd. I have already had one claimant who attempted to impose on me. We have at last come across a will made by a former employer of yours (if you can satisfy me that you were in fact in her employment) in which she allocates a sum of fifty pounds each to all servants still in her employment at the time of her death. Now,” said Timothy, becoming impressive, “you saw in my advertisement that the place of employment was Nanradoc House in North Wales. What was the name of your employer?”

  “My goodness! Fifty pounds! Well, that’s nice, now, isn’t it? My employer at Nanradoc—five years I was there—lonely but beautiful, wouldn’t you say?—Snowdon and the lakes and the river and all that, you know—yes, indeed, and my employers was Mr. Pembroke Jones and his sister, Miss Olwen Jones. Good they were to me, you know, but a bit standoffish like.”

  “Can you describe them?” He was sure that Mrs. Lloyd was genuine, but it did not hurt to take precautions.

  “Describe them? Not very good at that sort of thing I am not. Mr. Pembroke was tall—a big man like an ox, red in the face and with a big, firm voice—a nice bass, not a tenor, I would have thought—and Miss Olwen, difficult to think they had the same mam and dad, so frail she was and rather on the small side, but with a temper! Take the skin off your face she would, with her rages.”

  “I suppose you know she was found dead about a month ago?”

  “I read about it in the paper. And not buried too soon. Rotting, they think, poor soul, before she was put down the well. There’s dreadful for you, isn’t it?”

  “Can you remember exactly when you left her service?”

  “Oh, because of the fifty pounds, then?”

  “I want to know more. You see, as we cannot—that is to say, as the doctors cannot—establish exactly when Miss Jones died, we have decided to honour the terms of the bequest and to give the legatees their money which Miss Jones obviously intended them to have. The only thing is that, as one of the executors, I have to be very, very certain that I’m getting hold of the right people. Now, can you tell me, first, who were your fellow-servants, secondly, how you came to leave your employment and, thirdly, anything else which will contribute to my belief that you are indeed entitled to your fifty pounds?”

  “What sort of things would you want to know, then?”

  “I can’t give you a lead. Won’t you cast your mind back and let me have your impressions? Little personal things might help. You mentioned that Miss Jones had a hot temper, for instance.”

  “You spoke of fellow-servants, I believe. Well, there were only the three of us in the house itself, and, outside, a couple of gardeners. David and Gelert Lewis they would have been. Brothers. And inside, with me, Bertha Lewis (sister) and Betty Powell, my kitchen-maid.”

  “Rather a small staff for that sort of house, wasn’t it?”

  “Not so bad until Miss Olwen had her accident. Very sad it was, and Mr. Pembroke blaming himself for it. But after they left, he and his wife—English; I never took to her—then the work seemed rather heavy, although better when the healers came.”

  “The healers?”

  “Oh, yes, indeed. I’m chapel myself, but Miss Olwen took the fancy to go to Chester in her car and look at an exhibition of Mr. Pembroke’s pictures—very clever he is at the painting, you know—and she came back with the healers.”

  “I thought she had to use an invalid carriage after the damage to her leg. Was there room . . . ?”

  “Oh, it wasn’t a real invalid carriage. It was a car all right, with some adjustments, I believe. She had a false foot, you know—very expensive, from the Continent, I believe, not National Health, anyway—so that she could drive the car. Brought the two of them back, she did, and them offering to help in the house and garden—do anything for her, they would.”

  “How long did this state of things last?”

  “I don’t remember how long—six months, perhaps—I couldn’t really say.”

  “And what put an end to it?”

  “The coming of the disciples.”

  “Oh, the followers of Father Ignatius?”

  “Yes. They came, and we went.”

  “You gave in your notice?”

  “No, not exactly. We were put on board wages. We complained of the work and the crowding, and we didn’t like the way they built up the little chapel in the castle and held services there. Very heathen and strange they were. Not at all nice, indeed.”

  “This is a very strange tale you’re telling me, Mrs. Lloyd,” said Timothy, affecting stern disbelief.

  “Take it or leave it, it’s the truth, then, gospel,” she retorted, with Welsh fierceness.

  “What was that about being put on board wages?”

  “We complained, I told you, and Miss Olwen, well, she was put out, too. “I never intended this,” she said. “I shall have the police come and turn these people away. They can’t stay here. I shall speak to Father Ignatius, and, if he won’t get rid of them, I shall take steps.” Then she gave each of us our wages for a month and extra, you know, for food, and paid our fares home, and said she would tell us when to come back.”

  “And what did you think of this very extraordinary arrangement?”

  “What would you think of a month’s special wages and a month’s holiday and your fare paid home?”

  “I’d think there was something very peculiar indeed about it. Really, Mrs. Lloyd, didn’t it strike you at the time as a very odd business?”

  “As to that,” said Mrs. Lloyd, “we put our heads together in the kitchen and began to discuss, you know, and Gelert Lewis, always the clever one of that family, was sure Miss Olwen had no intention of getting the disciples out. He spoke of improper doings in the little chapel they built up, and he asked us hadn’t we noticed Miss Olwen getting a little queer in her ways, and he said—I give you his words—he said, ‘She does not want to get rid of the disciples; she wants to get rid of us. Plenty in the house to do the work and look after the garden,’ he said, ‘and our curiosity not to be satisfied. That’s what I think,’ he said. ‘Board wages and a month’s holiday be damned,’ he said. ‘I, for one, shall be giving in my notice as soon as the month is up. Come back into this wicked place I will not. There is hell fire waiting for such as these,’ he said. A very powerful speaker was Gelert Lewis, and preached lovely—a lay preacher he was—in chapel on Sundays.”

  “Did you send in your notice?”

  “Oh, no. I took a little job in a small draper’s to tide me over. Only a year and eight months to go before getting my government pension. I made up my mind, though, that, if Miss
Olwen wrote, I wouldn’t go back to her.”

  “Why not?”

  “I thought of what Gelert Lewis had said. Impressed I was. I wondered whether Miss Olwen’s accident had affected her brain.”

  “Well, Mrs. Lloyd, it seems to me that, technically, you have never left Miss Jones’s service. Therefore you are entitled to your fifty pounds, and here they are.”

  He left his advertisement in the various papers for another week, but received no answers. He came to the conclusion that the Lewis brothers must have given in their notices when their month on board wages was up, and had persuaded their sister to do the same. That left nobody free to answer his advertisement but the kitchen-maid. Knowing something of the North Welsh temperament, he wondered whether she was too shy or too distrustful of his intentions to come forward. In any case, he had what he wanted, and had noted Mrs. Lloyd’s address and obtained a receipt for his fifty pounds, which he considered money well spent.

  The case, he thought, was now sufficiently clear. The precious pair had contrived to get rid of the servants and then, probably, Olwen had intimated either that it was her intention to inform the police about the goings-on in the chapel, or else to complain that the disciples were squatters on her property and must be removed. On this they had taken themselves off, leaving Olwen at the mercy of the Woodpecker and the Crow. The regular arrival of Pembroke’s money for the servants’ wages had signed Olwen’s death warrant. It seemed a most probable solution to a sordid and horrible mystery. Timothy wrote to Grant, setting his conclusions before him and asking for an introduction to the detective-inspector in charge of the case.

  The only part of the mystery which remained unsolved had been touched on by Mrs. Lloyd. If the Woodpecker and the Crow were Olwen’s murderers, why (in the interests of their own safety) had they allowed the body to attain a state of putrefaction before they buried it? Could it be that they had found the body, and were not the murderers?

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “. . . the police with their enquiries.”