Murder Strikes Pink

by Josephine Pullein-Thompson

  ‘What about tradesmen delivering? Baker, butcher, greengrocer? Saturday’s usually a busy day.’

  ‘Normally I’m at a show on Saturdays, so we’ve got all the arrangements cut and dried, if I do want anything left it’s put in one of the containers in the back porch. On Saturday the baker did call, but I didn’t speak to him.’

  ‘What did you do all day?’ Flecker inquired.

  ‘Oh, I gave the young horse a school in the paddock and then I caught up with some chores, letter-writing and so on. I was quite glad of a day off I can tell you.’ She gave her small, hard laugh. ‘I don’t get many in the summer I can assure you.’

  ‘Your girl groom wasn’t on duty?’

  ‘No, it was Rosemary’s Sunday off and since we weren’t going to Upshott I told her she could get off on Saturday as soon as she’d fed and mucked out. That’s right, isn’t it, Rosemary?’

  ‘Yes, and I caught the nine o’clock bus,’ agreed the red-haired girl groom. ‘Shall I take him in now, Miss Scott? He’s had his fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Yes, take him in and put on another lot of Ref. Lotion,’ directed Christina.

  Flecker said, ‘I know I’m being tiresomely persistent, but we’ve had a report that you were seen at the show on Saturday afternoon.’

  ‘Who says they saw me there?’ demanded Christina.

  ‘That doesn’t really matter, does it?’ said Flecker.

  ‘Of course it matters if it’s their word against mine.’

  ‘You were said to be wearing a navy blue dress and dark glasses,’ Flecker told her.

  ‘What nonsense. I haven’t a navy blue dress, anyway. I don’t like navy, I’ve never had a navy dress in my life.’

  ‘Well, that sounds conclusive,’ said Flecker, putting his envelopes away.

  ‘I suppose one of those secretaries made it up,’ said Christina, suddenly filling with righteous indignation. ‘Really, how low can people sink? What can they get out of all this vicious tittle-tattle?’ She answered herself. ‘I suppose their lives are so dull they need a little malicious gossip to brighten them up.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have called life with Miss Thistleton dull,’ observed Flecker. ‘From what I’ve heard it sounded a hair-raising experience; something like living on the slopes of an active volcano.’

  *

  The secretaries had fallen out over their mid-morning coffee. Joy, who was making the most of her holiday, had jeered at the more conscientious Molly, who was religiously devoting all her normal working hours to the sorting, labelling and re-filing of T.T.’s papers.

  ‘I can’t think why you want to wear yourself out over that,’ Joy had said. ‘No one’s told you to do it.’

  ‘I can’t take Mr. Keswick’s money, I mean it wouldn’t be right, not to take it and do nothing in return,’ Molly had answered.

  ‘It isn’t Laurence’s money; not yet anyway. We’re being paid by the estate and they’ve got to pay someone to keep the house aired.’

  ‘I don’t like to take money from anyone without doing something in return, I mean it seems very wrong to me,’ answered Molly obstinately.

  ‘Well, so long as you don’t think you’re doing anything productive,’ Joy had spoken maliciously, ‘because from what I know of your filing and labelling someone will have to do it all over again.’

  Molly had protested incoherently against the unkindness and injustice of this remark and when Joy had refused to retract it, she had retired into a hurt silence. They were still in the morning-room rather obviously not speaking when the detectives were shown in by one of the daily women.

  Flecker said, ‘Good morning, we’ve come to bother you again, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh, it’s no bother; Chief Inspector, I mean we want to help,’ Molly answered as she hurriedly filed a sheaf of letters under the wrong headings.

  ‘We enjoy visitors,’ Joy told him, ‘at least I do; Molly may regard them as time-wasters interrupting her valuable work.’

  ‘Oh Joy, how can you be so unkind?’ exclaimed Molly hotly, and becoming flustered she upset a carton of paper clips, which cascaded in a silver shower all over the carpet. ‘Oh dear, I am so clumsy,’ she exclaimed piteously. Browning went to her aid and Flecker sat down opposite Joy. ‘Two rather frivolous questions first,’ he said, looking at his envelopes. ‘Why does Mrs. Maggs keep her radio wrapped in newspaper? And have you ever seen Miss Scott wearing navy blue?’

  ‘They do sound a bit off the point,’ Joy agreed, ‘but I expect there are wheels within wheels. Mrs. Maggs, poor dear, is more than a little dotty. She keeps her wireless wrapped up so that “they” shan’t see her. The entire staff tried to persuade her that “they” couldn’t see her, but she wouldn’t be convinced and when she’s tired of an argument she just takes refuge in her deafness.’

  ‘I see,’ said Flecker. ‘I just wondered. Now what about Miss Scott and navy blue?’

  ‘We don’t see much of her out of riding clothes,’ answered Joy thoughtfully. ‘Of course she’s no idea of dressing. She tries to be very feminine and it doesn’t suit her; she goes in for frills and bows and floral patterns and she wears decollete dresses for the evening when she has the shoulders of an ox. I don’t remember her in anything as plain and suitable as navy.’

  Molly, who was listening to the conversation now that her paper clips were restored to the desk, broke in: ‘That wedding, Joy. You know the one I mean. The two showjumping riders. T.T. only gave them a set of tray cloths and we thought it a bit mingy of her, and then afterwards she was rather cross that she’d gone at all because —’ Molly flushed. ‘Well, because —’

  ‘Because the infant arrived very shortly afterwards,’ Joy interrupted. ‘Yes, but what’s that got to do with this?’

  ‘Christina was there, don’t you remember? Looking much smarter than she usually does, we remarked on it afterwards. She was wearing a two-piece, don’t you remember, a navy linen two-piece, saddle-stitched in white.’

  ‘Yes, so she was, but that was two years ago and I’ve never seen her in it since.’

  ‘Never mind, it’s still very interesting,’ said Flecker, making a note. Then he looked at his watch. ‘Would it disturb you if I came back after lunch and had a session with the scrapbooks?’ he asked.

  ‘It won’t disturb me,’ Joy laughed. ‘I’m planning a restful afternoon — a deck chair in the shade. But Molly’s engaged on a tremendous reorganization of the filing system; she’s trying to impress the executors with her efficiency; I don’t know whether she can spare you the room.’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t make fun of me, Joy.’ Molly Steer sounded cross as well as hurt. ‘Of course the Chief Inspector can have this room. I can easily work somewhere else.’

  ‘But I don’t have to look at the scrapbooks in situ,’ Flecker told her. ‘I can have a deck chair in the shade too.’

  ‘No, no,’ Molly objected vehemently. ‘Of course you must have the room, it won’t inconvenience me at all. I wouldn’t dream of not letting you have it, I should be so hurt, I mean —’

  ‘Right you are,’ said Flecker hastily as he got to his feet. ‘I’ll reappear about two. Sandwiches at the Station Hotel and then we’ll put you on the train for London,’ he said to Browning as they stood for a moment outside the house blinking in the hot, bright sunshine. ‘I want you to visit the British Show Jumping Association,’ he continued when they were in the car, ‘they hang out in Bedford Square. Collect a list of the rules and find out every possible way of cheating that exists.’

  Flecker spent the afternoon happily absorbed in the pictorial records of T.T.’s one-sided life. Molly Steer, making frantic efforts not to disturb him, crept in and out at intervals to collect some forgotten paper from filing cabinet or desk; quite unaware that her elephantine creepings were far more disturbing than any normal walk. Her over-zealous efforts for quietude invariably ended by her blundering into a piece of furniture, dropping the stapler or closing the drawers of the metal cabinet with a crash, whereup
on she would look anxiously round at Flecker. After the first time, when a stream of abject apologies was invoked by his asking if she had hurt herself, he kept his eyes on the scrapbooks and pretended to be completely engrossed.

  When he had finished Flecker wandered out to the garden and found the secretaries drinking tea on the lawn. They pressed him to join them and when the great fuss which arose over a cup and a chair had died down Joy asked whether his search through the scrapbooks had been a success, whether he had found what he wanted.

  ‘I don’t altogether know what I want,’ Flecker confessed. ‘But if one chases all the red herrings with equal assiduity eventually everything is made plain; at least that’s my experience.’

  ‘We’ve had Mrs. Chesterfield on the telephone twice this afternoon trying to catch Mr. Keswick,’ Molly told Flecker. ‘It’s funny, I mean it’s peculiar really, that the Down End Farm telephone is disconnected or something, but I suppose they may have forgotten to pay the bill. Anyway, Mr. Keswick hasn’t been over and Brenda doesn’t expect him until tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Did Mrs. Chesterfield say why she wanted him?’ asked Flecker, who thought that he knew.

  ‘No, just that if we saw him to tell him to ring her at once.’

  Flecker finished his tea and produced his envelopes. ‘There’s one point that still puzzles me,’ he said. ‘So very few people have admitted to knowing of the emergency basket and even fewer to the knowledge of the thermos. Mr. Keswick, for example, knew of the emergency basket, but apparently had no idea that Miss Thistleton drank milk shake. Mrs. Farrell didn’t know anything about the emergency basket or thermos. Could Miss Scott have known about them as they were normally carried in the car and not in the horse-box? Did other owners like the Pratts and the Chesterfields see T.T. drinking her milk shake?’

  ‘Helen Farrell knew about the emergency basket,’ Joy told him. ‘Remember that time at Badminton, Molly, when she broke the shoulder strap of her slip? T.T. sent you all the way to the car park for the emergency basket. Then when you got back after a three-mile walk, Helen didn’t want a safety pin. She had taken the slip off in a ditch, using two young cavalry officers as a screen.’ Joy laughed. ‘Poor old Molly; you should have seen her face,’ she told Flecker, ‘when she found she’d made the journey for nothing.’

  ‘So Mrs. Farrell knew of the basket,’ said Flecker thoughtfully. ‘What about the thermos? Could she have seen T.T. taking thirst-quenching draughts?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’ It was Molly who answered. ‘You see, I mean T.T. didn’t very often drink it; I mean not as often as we took it with us. I mean, as often as not we brought the milk shake home again with us in the evenings. It was like all the other things we took with us; she didn’t really need them, but there was terrible unpleasantness if any of them were left behind.’

  Flecker looked at her sharply. ‘Are you sure about that?’ he asked. ‘Mrs. Maggs seemed to think that it was very rare for the thermos to come back full.’

  The secretaries looked at each other and then Joy gave her whimsical laugh. ‘I’d better come clean,’ she said. ‘I used very often to drink the shake when we got back. You see I’m as anxious to put on weight as Molly is to lose it; and it stopped poor old Maggs feeling that her work was wasted.’

  Flecker pushed back his hair and gave a small groan. ‘Who knew that you were in the habit of drinking it?’ he asked.

  ‘Just Molly, oh and Charity Chesterfield; I told her once when she was going on at me about my being so thin.’

  ‘No one else? Not Miss Dix or either of the Keswicks?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so; I don’t really see how they could.’

  ‘Who drank it on Friday?’

  ‘No one,’ answered Joy. T.T. never asked for it and I didn’t get a chance — she was in such a mood when we got home she kept us on the run for hours. Poor old Maggs must have tipped it down the sink.’

  Flecker got up. ‘Well, thank you,’ he said absent-mindedly, ‘and thank you for the tea. I must be off.’

  He drove back to Hamberley reflecting rather drearily on human nature, on the ‘still, sad music of humanity’ and on the heredity, the complex fusion of genes, which made one what one was. Freed of Browning’s presence he didn’t have to disguise his interest in his pigeon-hole at the George, but there was no letter. Lesley hadn’t written. He reminded himself that she had no reason to write, that the arrangements for her trip to town were all made, but his heavy and obscure feeling of gloom refused to lighten. It was too early for a drink, so he retired to his bedroom and there, two hours later, Browning found him, coatless and dishevelled, deep in thought and surrounded by a confusion of used envelopes covered in obscure notes.

  ‘Well, they were very helpful,’ Browning reported breezily. ‘A nice lot of people and there aren’t so many ways of cheating after all, not when you get down to it. Do you want to hear about it right away or shall we have dinner?’

  ‘If it’s time for dinner we’d better have it,’ answered Flecker, and knowing Browning’s dislike of going in late and finding all the best dishes off, he hastily put on his coat.

  Browning looked at him disapprovingly. ‘You can’t go down like that, sir,’ he said. ‘Your tie’s under your left ear and as for your hair —’

  ‘Oh hell,’ swore Flecker, making for the mirror.

  *

  The small, persistent noises which for some time had been insinuating themselves into Joy’s dream suddenly brought her with a jolt to full consciousness. It’s only a cat, she told herself, as her meagre body in the faded pink nightdress clung desperately to the soporific wellbeing of bed. But it didn’t sound like a cat, it sounded horribly as though someone was trying to break in. Nonsense, she thought, you’re imagining things. You’ll end up as silly as Molly. But the small noises persisted. Her heart was hammering with a violence quite out of proportion to her mental fear as she slid out of bed, slipped on her dressing gown and crept to the window. Her bedroom looked, as almost all bedrooms did, over the lawn.

  The garden seemed very quiet and still, and strangely shadowed in the silver light. There was no sign of an intruder, but again came the ominous noise. It came from below and from the right. Someone was trying to open the drawing-room french windows. She drew back into the comforting darkness of the room and thought.

  She might look a fool if she telephoned the police and it turned out to be a cat, but she wasn’t going to risk a closer look. She was still debating whether to put her head under the bedclothes and forget it — after all everything was insured — or to risk a snub and telephone the police, when a crash from downstairs made up her mind for her. ‘Help, Joy, help. Burglars, help, police!’ squealed Molly’s voice from the hall. Joy darted into T.T.’s bedroom, dialled 999 and explained the situation calmly and competently, unmoved by Molly’s continued shrieks. As she replaced the receiver she heard a car engine. The police already? she wondered, but decided that it was too soon. There was no sound in the house now. Joy armed herself with one of T.T.’s stout hunting crops and crept out on to the landing. She stood listening intently. Nothing. She began to feel afraid.

  Surely nothing could have happened to that fool Molly? But it would be just like her to blunder to a bloody and unnecessary death. She decided to put on the lights. Anything was better than the eerie uncertainty of darkness. She found the switches and simultaneously illuminated the landing, the stairs and the hall.

  There was no one to be seen. Cautiously she began to descend the stairs. Halfway down she paused, for though the hall was brightly lit and obviously empty the passage to the kitchen disappeared in a brooding darkness.

  Anyone might be lurking there; and the light switch was in the passage itself. Joy turned. It would be safer to await the arrival of the police in a locked bathroom. She began to retreat upstairs, looking anxiously over her shoulder for a pursuer. Then she heard Molly’s voice in the morning-room. ‘I want the police,’ she cried breathlessly; ‘tell them to come quic
kly. Oh, Whittam House —’

  ‘I’ve already sent for them,’ called Joy, exasperation in her voice as her fears departed abruptly. She hurried down to the morning-room. ‘You are a fool, Molly, I rang them hours ago. They’re on their way.’

  Molly, trembling with fright, trying to answer Joy and to explain to the police that they had already been summoned, became quite incoherent and Joy snatched the receiver from her and explained what had happened herself. They were still wrangling contentiously over who was to blame for the muddle when the local patrol car came racing down the drive and stopped with a dramatic scrunch of tyres on gravel. Molly, suddenly becoming aware that her only garment was a low-cut and almost transparent nightdress, fled upstairs as Joy hurried to open the front door.

  ‘You’re too late, I think he’s gone,’ she told the sergeant who precipitated himself into the hall. ‘It sounded as though he was trying to break into the drawing-room, there,’ she indicated the door and watched from a discreet distance as the sergeant burst in. But the room was empty and the windows still closed. ‘He didn’t get in then,’ said the sergeant, opening a french window and stepping out on the lawn where two constables appeared from the shadows to join him.

  ‘I’ll go and dress,’ Joy called to them.

  While the secretaries dressed another police car arrived carrying, among other things, photographic equipment, and, shortly afterwards, Flecker and Browning drove up, having been summoned by the Hamberley police when they realised that it was the murdered woman’s house that was involved. The detectives, unshaven and still slightly bemused by their sudden awakening, joined the group round the drawingroom windows, on one pair of which an amateur-looking attempt at breaking in had been found.

  ‘Looks as though he tried to lever them open with a screwdriver, sir,’ the uniformed sergeant told Flecker, ‘but he knew enough to wear gloves.’

  Having arranged for one party to search the house and the other the grounds, Flecker interviewed the secretaries.

  ‘You don’t think it was just the imagination of a couple of hysterical women?’ asked Joy.