Murder in the Cotswolds (The Sheriff Chick Charleston Mysteries Book 5)

by A B Guthrie

  “Pleasantly,” Charleston answered. “Nothing to do this morning, and I’m thinking of taking a stroll myself, just chatting with people. Your husband, Mrs. Vaughn? What about him? Would he mind passing the time of day?”

  “He’d welcome it, but the house is hardly far enough away for a real walk. It’s just one street over”—she pointed—“and two streets up, on the corner. You’ll notice the flowers, a lot of primroses.”

  “Maybe I’ll go then.”

  “Shall I call him for you and ask him?”

  “I don’t want to push.”

  “Nonsense.” She lifted the phone from the desk behind her, dialed, spoke, and came back. “He’ll be delighted,” she said.

  He had no difficulty in finding the house. In front of it primroses of all hues marched, curved, straightened out and marched back, all in order, all, it seemed, in step, each carrying its own blooming guidon. That was the thing about flower gardens in England. They were disciplined, formal, each shaped as if to the demands of a blueprint—which maybe they actually were. And the flowers in this climate bloomed and bloomed in a way to astonish a Montanan. Lucky back home to grow a few petunias.

  He knocked on the door and waited and presently heard halting steps. The door opened. In the doorway stood a man with a cane in his hand. He wore an open yellow shirt, brown trousers, and bedroom slippers. His face was checked and seamed like a dried mud flat.

  “Good morning, Mr. Vaughn,” Charleston said. “I’m the man your wife called you about. Charleston’s the name.” He held out his hand. “I’ve come a-visiting.”

  Vaughn took the hand in a gnarled one. “Bullshit! You’re an American law officer, and I’m a suspect. Come in, damn it, come in. You talk like an American.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “I’m a bit contaminated from hearing you Yanks.”

  Vaughn turned unsteadily, feeling with his cane. He led the way into a small sitting room. “Take a seat.” With one hand on a chair arm and his stick in the other, he did so himself. Once down, he took a puffing breath. “How’s the murder scene?”

  “Cloudy,” Charleston answered. He lowered himself into a chair.

  “So you’re raking field and stream, huh? Count me out. I’m hors de combat.”

  “But you’re able to move about?”

  “You know I am, if you remember. I was in the lobby when you checked in at the inn.”

  “I remember.”

  “It’s just on good days I hobble down to the inn. They come once in a while, not often enough. But I manage to care for my flowers. Doesn’t take much time or effort.”

  “There’s just one word for your garden. Beautiful.”

  “Thanks. Mostly I just sit around and cuss the luck.”

  “That help?” Charleston smiled as he asked.

  Vaughn smiled in return and gave a small, rueful shake of his head. “Doesn’t hurt, and it lets off steam. Oh, I get along. There’s Rose. She’s damn near a daughter, and she comes every day and knocks up the place, and maybe cooks a little something for me to eat later. A good girl, Rose. You know her?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Worries me sometimes. You know, it’s a sad fact, but she’s maybe not too bright in the head. She’s gentle and good-intentioned and not hard to look at. And you might say at her age she’s ripe.” Vaughn shook his head. “Some day some bloke will get to her, and there’ll be all hell to pay. I wouldn’t like it, of course, but my wife, now! When she learns, she’ll be fit to be tied. One big blow-up. Got her own ideas about morals. Old-fashioned from heaven. God’s right above us with his eye peeled. Smiles on the righteous, and to burning hell with the sinners. A true believer, that’s Helen.”

  “You’re not so devout?”

  Vaughn laughed without mirth. The laugh added wrinkles to his face. “Devout? Jesus! Who’s devout with a pain in his arse, not to mention hands, legs, and backbone? No, I’m not devout. I got a thing or two to say to God if ever I meet the bastard.” He sighed then, the laugh gone. “Oh, well, hell. There’s no sense in fighting over religion. It seems to help my wife. She’s not very well. And I keep my mouth closed.”

  Charleston nodded.

  “Like I was saying, I get along.” He paused as if thinking about getting along. “My wife pops around whenever she can and once a week spends the night. I’m not so old or crippled that I don’t like a woman in my bed. I can click all right, but I have to be careful.”

  “That’s something.”

  “And my wife doesn’t seem to mind,” Vaughn went on as if he so seldom had visitors that he didn’t balk at intimacies. “I don’t know as she gets any joy out of it, but she accepts me for what I am.”

  He continued, his voice touched with sadness now, “She lost a lot of vitality and spirit after a heart attack a year ago. She’s not like her old self. Now everything seems to fuss her. I don’t know how long she can go on managing the inn. She has good help from Mrs. Witherspoon, of course, and Constable Doggett is always on call in case of trouble. But I don’t know about that joker. He’s so bloody stupid. He wouldn’t know he had walked in shit unless someone told him so.”

  Charleston thought to change the subject by asking, “What did you do before you retired?”

  “I was in wool. A broker. Bought and sold and made money. Business was good in those days, and I put enough aside to buy the inn. Lucky thing I did. That was before taxes got so high a man couldn’t save sixpence. Goddamn greedy government. But what about yourself? You haven’t said more’n a word. No chance to, with me rattling on.” His pouched eyes were inquiring. “Where’s home?”

  “In the state of Montana, U.S.A.”

  “Montana?”

  “Interior northwest of America, against the Canadian border.”

  “Married?”

  “Yep. Very happily.”

  “Children?”

  “No. Hopeless, it seems.”

  “Too bad. Maybe for the best. Who knows. And now you’re helping our little boys with the batons?”

  “I’m not sure. Make it I’m trying to.”

  “Say, how about a drink?”

  “Thanks. Too early for me. I have to be going, anyhow. Now, don’t get up.”

  Mr. Vaughn stood up regardless. He put a hand on Charleston’s shoulder. “Come back. Hear me? I don’t mind being a suspect, so come again.”

  Out on the main street, Charleston looked at his watch. He had time enough, if none to spare, and ahead was the chemist’s shop. He made for it. The town had wakened up to the noon hour. There was movement on the streets, bustle at the crossings, people in the stores. He went into the chemist’s. A small man was attending to one customer, another stood waiting. When they had what they wanted, the little man asked, “Help you, sir?”

  He was, in country terms, the spittin’ image of Walter Witt, even to the eyeglasses. Take away his occupational apron, put a business suit on him, and there was the exact double.

  “A package of razor blades, Swords,” Charleston told him.

  “Right here, sir. Anything else?”

  “That’s all.” Charleston held out a five-pound note and, as the man made change, said, “I believe I’m acquainted with your brother.”

  The man smiled. “Old Ponzi. Quite a character. We’re twins, you know. Here’s your change.”

  “You could pass for each other.”

  “I know. He’s an operator. Where did you meet him?”

  “At the Ram’s Head Inn. We’re both lodgers.”

  The man’s expression changed from amiability to concern. “I know now. You’re the American investigator.” The eyes widened. “But he can’t be in trouble?”

  “At this point everyone is suspect.”

  “I understand that, but you’re barking up the wrong tree there.” He added as an afterthought, “Terrible thing, that knife murder.”

  “No disagreement there.”

  Witt excused himself to wait on a customer and on his return said, “All we
get is rumor. Nothing for sure. Tight-lipped, you police are.”

  “You’ll hear when the time comes.”

  “Humph. If ever.”

  “Not too long, we hope. Your brother’s evidence is of no help, so far as we can see now.”

  Witt pulled in a breath. “He couldn’t be guilty. I swear to that. We’re identical twins. Just like one person in a way. Feel the same impulses, have the same potentials, the same restraints.”

  Charleston’s thoughts dodged back to his first conversation with Mrs. Witt. Twins? “Closer in a sense than man and wife.” So she had said. An interesting observation, considering …

  “I’m glad to have your opinion, Mr. Witt. What do you know about your brother’s companions? Or the late Mr. Smith?”

  “I never met any of them before, except Walter’s wife. She’s all right.”

  “You met the rest after they came here then?”

  “Only that Mr. Post. Ben’s his name.”

  “What about him?”

  “Nothing. I didn’t take to him.”

  Again a customer interrupted their conversation. When he had gone, Charleston said, “You spoke of your brother as Ponzi?”

  “Oh, you know. Full of business. How to make money. That’s him. I didn’t mean he was a con man like old Ponzi you still hear about in America. He’s an operator, maybe a business genius. Wants me to sell out and go with him to South America. He has interests here and yonder.”

  “A financier?”

  “I suppose. But I don’t know about throwing in with him. Got a nice little business and a home right here, so maybe I say no. Depends. Won’t hurt him to wait.”

  Charleston nodded, said, “Thanks for the blades,” and turned away. A fourth customer, the fifth counting himself, was entering the shop as he went out. Nice little business, all right.

  Chapter Ten

  He walked to the Stag and Hind, noting on the way that time had slipped up on him. Traffic on the walks had slowed. There were fewer cars on the street. Women were making last-minute purchases. Two old women, one with a cane, poked along, enjoying the sun.

  Old women with canes. He kept seeing them. It was as if, in spite of gimpy legs and perhaps laboring lungs, they would join the crowds or else. Else what? Molder in their lodgings, alone. Well, cheers for them. Go to it, grandmas.

  The noontime trade at the pub had thinned. The bald man behind the counter waited on his order. Charleston looked at what was offered. The man said, “Bangers good today, sir, but they’re always good, come to that.”

  “What’s the difference between a banger and an ordinary sausage?”

  “Aw,” the man said, expanding. “It’s the difference between a prime piece of meat and a so-so one. Bangers and mash, meaning mashed potatoes, sir, is almost as standard as fish and chips.”

  “That’s for me, then, and thanks.”

  “Inquest today, so I hear. And will you have a pint with your lunch, sir?”

  Charleston took the plate and the pint to a table and proceeded to eat, watching the time as he did so.

  The inquest, he had learned, was to be held in the town hall, a two-story building two intersections up from the pub. It contained, he’d been told, a courtroom of sorts for the hearing of minor cases. He stood on the street for a moment, watching the people, the moving cars. The air was just chill enough to be bracing. The sky shone clear with one wandering cloud in it, but it was not the deep, wide, forever sky of Montana. Be thankful anyhow, he told himself.

  At five minutes before two o’clock, he entered the hall, climbed the steps to the courtroom and walked in. The coroner was just seating himself. Below him at the side the jurors sat waiting. At a glance he saw in the front row Perkins and Hawley and, presumably, the witnesses. Among them were Rose, Mrs. Vaughn, Mrs. Post, Constable Doggett, and a professional-looking man he took for the pathologist.

  The coroner, a round man with a round face and a patient air, called for order as Charleston seated himself. Along with him perhaps a dozen of the curious, mostly men, waited.

  Perkins ushered Mrs. Post to the witness stand, where she sat imperturbable. She wore a dark, tailored suit that an admiral might have admired. After she had given her name, the coroner asked, “You were a sister of the deceased?”

  “I was.”

  “And have you identified the body?”

  “I have.” She barely opened her mouth as she spoke, as if taking care not to squander words.

  “Identified it beyond any doubt?”

  “Beyond any doubt.”

  “Identified him as whom?”

  “My brother. Oliver C. Smith.”

  “That’s the full name?”

  “No. Oliver Cromwell Smith.”

  A look of astonishment came on the round face. He said, “Really?” as if not expecting an answer. Then, “That’s all, Mrs. Post, thank you.”

  He paused a minute, gazing down at a paper before him, while the jurors, Charleston supposed, chewed over the fact that a man’s given name could be Oliver Cromwell. If there were Irishmen in the box, they would be glad he was dead.

  The coroner sighed and looked up. Perkins steered the stranger to the stand.

  “Your name?” the coroner asked.

  “Justin Godwin.”

  “Your business or profession?”

  “I’m a qualified pathologist. In the profession for years.”

  “I have no doubt of that, sir, but we have just your word.”

  Perkins stood up. “If you’ll excuse me, sir. Dr. Godwin is well known to us in the C.I.D. He is our criminal pathologist, and his credentials are impressive.”

  “So be it, then. Now, Dr. Godwin, what can you tell us about the death of Mr. Smith, the deceased?”

  “He died of a stab wound in the heart. No other signs of injury or abuse. At the time of the stabbing he was in good health. I would say he was in early middle age.”

  “And what else, Doctor?”

  “He had engaged in sex recently, or at any rate had ejaculated.”

  “And the stab wound. What was its location precisely?”

  “Not to be technical about it, it was in the left back toward the side, over the heart.”

  “Did you draw any conclusions from its location?”

  “None except that the wound was fatal.”

  “Nothing more?”

  “I’m not fond of guesses.” A smile touched the pathologist’s mouth.

  “Could the wound have been inflicted during an embrace, say a woman’s embrace?”

  “I wouldn’t venture a conjecture.” The doctor might have been tempted to grin.

  “We have the evidence of semen.”

  “No question about that.”

  “And Smith was found lying dead in bed.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  Someone near Charleston broke out in a suppressed giggle. Next to him a man with a rabbit’s face said loud enough to be heard, “Now we’re gettin’ to it.” Sex had upstaged murder.

  “But you have no conjectures, Doctor?” the coroner persisted.

  “None. No theories.”

  “Can you give us the time of the deceased’s death?”

  “The indications are that he died about midnight on April 21. But allow an hour or so either way.”

  “I do believe that’s all, Dr. Godwin. Thank you. You may step down.”

  Perkins showed Rose to the stand then, and after her Constable Doggett and Mrs. Vaughn. Rose had on a flowered dress that might have been a trifle big, but not big enough to conceal the young, proud swell of her bosom. She seemed somewhat uneasy but spoke in a firm voice and repeated what she had said to earlier questioning. Doggett in his adenoidal voice said nothing new. Mrs. Vaughn alarmed the coroner. She took the stand unsteadily, her breath short and audible. The twitch of a muscle distorted her mouth. Her voice trembled when she said who she was. She had always reminded Charleston of a wren and now a wren in distress.

  The coroner held up his hand
and stayed his questions, his face kind and concerned. “Mrs. Vaughn?” he said softly. “Please don’t be upset or alarmed. This is a simple hearing, calling for simple answers. Would you like a glass of water? No? Just be at ease then. Take your time. It might help you to breathe deep.”

  She got through finally, and Perkins himself took the stand and told what he knew.

  “Your investigation has been going on since April 22, is that right?” the coroner asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you are no farther along than in the beginning?”

  Perkins turned to stare at him and took time in answering. “I wouldn’t say that, and, sir, I don’t care for the implications of your question.”

  The coroner leaned forward and pointed a finger. “I wasn’t implying anything, Inspector. You’re inferring from what, I’ll confess, was a poor choice of words. You haven’t determined the identity of the murderer? That’s the question.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Are there more witnesses?”

  “No, sir.”

  “To sum up,” the coroner said, looking toward the jurors, “that’s all that is known to date. A man has been killed, murdered apparently. No solution so far, but it’s early days yet. This hearing is postponed for ten days.”

  Superintendent Hawley set a brisk pace back to the incidents room, hardly pausing to introduce the new detective constable to Charleston. The man’s name was Rendell. He had alert eyes and a wide mouth that a brief smile spread.

  In the incidents room, Hawley, in Perkins’s chair, leaned forward to say, “So you’ve been fishing in the shallows and haven’t a minnow to show for it. It’s time for the deep waters, wouldn’t you say, Inspector?”

  “I suppose.”

  “And you, Mr. Sheriff?”

  “We may have netted a minnow or two.”

  “Show me one.”

  “In time, Mr. Superintendent, in time. I won’t burden you with conjecture.”

  “Good. No half-baked ideas.” Hawley turned away with an almost audible snort. “We’ll try the Americans again, Perkins. Who’s next? Who’s first?”

  From the rear Goodman spoke. “I think they’re ready. I asked them to be.”