The Riverboat Mystery

by Faith Martin

  It was only good manners to give the widow the benefit of the doubt in a case of murder, she always thought.

  ‘And it is murder, of course,’ she murmured out loud, and then could have kicked herself. About to kneel down beside Olney’s body, Rycroft suddenly looked up in mid-crouch, his eyes narrowing.

  Then at last he smiled and straightened up.

  ‘I agree. I’ve never known anybody yet tie a rope around their ankle, throw him or her self into a river, drown, and then get up and tidily stow themselves away into a cupboard.’

  Jenny sighed.

  ‘Any idea about the note?’ Rycroft asked, hating himself, and having to force out every syllable.

  But Jenny surprised him. First of all, by having an answer, and second of all, by divulging it so quickly.

  ‘Hmm. I rather think you’ll find that’s the result of David Leigh’s handiwork. As Olney’s solicitor it would have been an easy matter for him to get Olney’s fingerprints on a piece of paper. Slipped underneath or on top of other papers that needed Olney’s signature, for example. Or maybe he just filched a bit from the Olneys’ bureau on some social occasion — I suppose they would have entertained the Leighs in their home at some point. And of all of us, he’s the most likely person to have specialist knowledge — or have access to specialist knowledge — on the subject of forgery. How to do it, and how to avoid detection.’ She waved a long and rather elegant hand in the air in a vague gesture. ‘You know, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Rycroft, after his initial surprise, thought it over. ‘But why forge a suicide note, and then put the body in a cupboard and fairly advertise the fact that it was murder?’

  Jenny frowned then shrugged. ‘Just because he forged the note doesn’t necessarily mean he did the killing,’ she pointed out reasonably.

  ‘He was in cahoots with someone else, you mean?’

  Jenny thought about it, then shook her head. ‘No, that would hardly make sense either. I think, perhaps, David Leigh intended to kill Olney. Or at least had fantasized about it. But somebody else beat him to it.’

  ‘Or else he was very clever, and planned it to look that way. A sort of double bluff,’ Rycroft said, giving the cook a fascinating glimpse into the way his convoluted mind could work. ‘Any idea why, though? We need a motive.’

  Jenny was beginning to like the way Rycroft’s mind worked. He went right for the nub of a problem with the unerring instinct of a weasel going down a rabbit hole. She liked that in a policeman.

  ‘I have no idea, specifically,’ she admitted. ‘I can only say that it was obvious that David Leigh hated Gabriel Olney intensely.’

  At that, Rycroft perked up. ‘Oh?’

  But now Jenny was staring at the body. She looked in detail at Gabriel’s shirt, now dry. Her eyes followed the clean white folds, and then moved down, over his dark blue slacks, to his bootless, pale foot.

  ‘Can you turn him over?’ she asked respectfully.

  Rycroft did so, somewhat impatiently. ‘So you think Leigh hated Olney? That’s significant, at least.’

  ‘Hmm?’ Jenny said, distracted, still staring at the body. Rycroft looked down, but couldn’t see what was so fascinating to her. Olney was beginning to dry off now. His hair was dry and clean, but his moustache was still somewhat limp.

  ‘David Leigh, Miss Starling,’ Rycroft prompted with a touch of asperity.

  Jenny dragged her eyes from the body, a puzzled frown still wrinkling her forehead. ‘Leigh? Oh, yes, David Leigh. He hated Mr Olney certainly, but he was not the only one, I’m afraid.’

  Rycroft felt his spirits sink. ‘Oh? Who else was there?’

  Jenny shrugged. ‘Well, Mr Olney was making a very determined play for Mrs Leigh.’

  ‘Ah,’ Rycroft said. ‘So that’s why Leigh had a down on him,’ he said, totally missing the point.

  Jenny, with a slightly sinking heart, hoped that he wouldn’t prove to be one of those officials who had a frustratingly one-track mind.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said firmly, watching the man’s face fall. ‘I don’t even think, in fact, that he noticed much. Or, if he did, it certainly didn’t worry him. And nor should it have. Dorothy Leigh is devoted to her husband — anyone with even a half-decent pair of eyes in their head can see that. She’s the sort of woman whose life revolves around that of her husband and home. And, when the baby’s born, around her child too. I doubt she’d even think of looking at another man.’

  Rycroft nodded, obviously thinking that that was only as it should be.

  Jenny was rather of the opinion, however, that too much devotion and adoration could be just as dangerous as too little.

  ‘So Olney was after her because of the challenge, was he? Some men are like that.’ He looked down at the corpse but his face revealed neither disgust nor admiration. ‘An ex-soldier, I believe.’

  But again the cook shook her head. ‘I don’t think that was it, no. Oh, it added a little piquancy, I suppose. But what he really wanted was a cat’s paw.’ And when Rycroft looked blank, added succinctly, ‘Divorce.’

  Rycroft stared at her. ‘You think he wanted to divorce his wife?’

  Jenny nodded. ‘I do.’

  ‘Why?’

  The cook thought of Jasmine’s hot and hungry look that first morning, when she’d spotted Brian O’Keefe’s half-naked torso, and shrugged.

  ‘I imagine it had something to do with a man. Mrs Olney is very attractive, as you’ve probably already observed, and she is twenty years or so younger than her husband.’

  Rycroft grunted. ‘So that’s the Leighs and Mrs Olney. Anyone else who might want our chap here dead?’

  Jenny sighed. ‘I’m afraid so. Mr Olney and Lucas Finch had a terrible argument yesterday afternoon.’

  ‘How terrible?’

  ‘Mr Finch had Gabriel Olney by the throat. Quite literally, I mean. I had to insist that Lucas put him down. Mr Olney was turning a quite unbecoming shade of purple,’ she said, in massive understatement.

  Rycroft swore roundly. As an effort at profanity, it was well beneath the parrot’s expertise, but the high squeaky voice with which he made his delivery might well have caught the bird’s attention, had he been present.

  ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘I think you’d better talk to Captain Lester about that,’ Jenny said at last. ‘I don’t know any of the details, but yesterday evening Mr Finch announced that he’d sold the Stillwater Swan to . . .’ She nodded down at the corpse, her eyes once again lingering in a puzzled frown on the cleanly drying body at her feet.

  ‘Sold the Stillwater Swan? What, this boat?’ Rycroft asked doubtfully, and obviously not grasping the significance at all.

  Jenny sighed. As a general rule, she would never knowingly drop anybody in the cacky-cart, but when it was murder, you had no choice but to be a tattletale.

  ‘Lucas loves this boat like . . . well . . . like Dorothy Leigh loves her husband — with a blind kind of devotion. And I have no doubt whatsoever that he was somehow coerced into parting with it.’

  Rycroft considered this for some time. ‘So. Our victim was blackmailing Lucas?’ he mused at last.

  ‘I can’t say that for sure, of course, but there was definitely some sort of paperwork involved in the argument yesterday. I saw Mr Olney put some papers away in his pocket,’ the Junoesque cook agreed.

  ‘Right.’ If he was feeling a bit battered by the relentless information being poured down on his head, Rycroft showed no sign. ‘So that’s—’ he counted them off ‘—four possible people who wanted our chap dead?’

  Again, the cook heaved a massive sigh. ‘Both the captain and engineer work full-time for Lucas Finch. Both live in cottages on his grounds. Gabriel Olney was a do-it-yourself kind of man. He wanted the Swan to himself. I believe, although I don’t actually know,’ she said, determined to be scrupulously fair, ‘that last night Olney told Tobias and O’Keefe that their services would no longer be required.’

  Rycroft sighed.
Heavily. ‘So they lose their jobs and their homes as well in one fell swoop.’

  Jenny shrugged. ‘Lucas might have been prepared to let them stay on at the cottages, but I’m sure he would have charged them rent.’

  Rycroft finally hunkered down on his knees and looked at the dead man glumly. ‘Not very popular, were you, chum?’ he murmured. ‘Is there anybody you didn’t tick off?’

  Jenny also took the opportunity to stoop down beside the body, her nose twitching.

  She carefully shut her lips most firmly and then took several long breaths up her finely quivering nostrils. She had a cook’s delicate nose, one that was used to picking up the faintest nuances of aroma.

  Rycroft watched her in amazement and fascination for a moment, and then hastily — very hastily — followed suit. Rather belatedly he remembered her fearsome reputation and felt a moment of panic. Had he missed something? It would be just too damned humiliating to have the case solved by a modern-day Miss Marple!

  One moment of panic spread into more moments of panic, however, as his nose picked up nothing. No scent at all. So what the hell was she getting at?

  ‘What can you smell, Inspector?’ Jenny asked at last, that puzzled frown once more back on her face.

  Rycroft made a very agitated movement with his hands and abruptly stood up. ‘Nothing,’ he snapped, aggrieved. ‘I smell nothing at all.’

  Slowly, the cook rose to her own towering height, unknowingly adding to the inspector’s ire.

  ‘No,’ she finally said. ‘I can’t either,’ she added thoughtfully, making the policeman yearn to yank out great clumps of his hair by the roots.

  Mercifully for him, there was a sudden knock on the door and Sergeant Graves entered. He’d been gone such a short time, the cook surmised that the police must have rigged up some sort of transport system to and from the boat site. Probably some sort of scrambling-style motorbike or a quad bike. Something, at any rate, that was easy and safe to use over farming terrain.

  She wondered what the farmer thought about having the police crossing his fields. Probably not a lot, she mused with a wry twist of her lips.

  ‘We’ve got a 4x4 outside, sir, to take the body,’ Graves said respectfully.

  Jenny discreetly left. Rycroft watched her go, his face gloomy. ‘Everything we heard about her was spot on, you know, Graves,’ he said despondently. ‘She’s already onto something, but I’m damned if I know what it is. She’s got David Leigh pegged as the forger of the suicide note, and I’m not willing to bet so much as a penny that she’ll be proved wrong. And she’s got the rundown on every blasted person on the boat.’

  Briefly, Rycroft filled his sergeant in on Miss Starling’s view of the suspects.

  Graves whistled between his teeth. ‘Still, it does make our job much easier, doesn’t it?’ he finally said. ‘I mean, she’s not known for hogging the limelight, is she?’

  Rycroft reluctantly admitted that she wasn’t. As far as the public was concerned, all the murders that she’d helped solve before had been put down to the credit of the various police officers involved. There was that to be said for her.

  ‘But,’ Rycroft said grimly, ‘I want us to get there first. Have David Leigh checked out thoroughly — he had some reason, other than the victim making lovey-dovey with his wife, to hate Olney, and I want to know what it is. Also, find out what you can about the widow’s socializing habits. There’s a man lurking about somewhere, I’m sure of it. And I want Olney’s room turned inside out. He had some papers on him that had Lucas Finch grabbing him by the gullet. I want to know exactly what they are. And prioritize the background check on our Mr Finch. I’ve got an idea I’ve run across that name before somewhere. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if our cockney chum hasn’t got form of some kind.’

  Sergeant Graves nodded as he made copious notes, and left with the two sombre-suited men who had come to remove the body.

  Rycroft watched Gabriel Olney being loaded onto the stretcher, but still couldn’t for the life of him see exactly what it was about the body that had so intrigued the cook.

  *

  Once the galley was cleared, Jenny proceeded to prepare dinner. It was no longer going to be such a lavish feast. For a start, it wouldn’t have been appropriate. Secondly, it was getting too late in the evening, and the guests and the two policemen would need something in a hurry. And thirdly, with more people to cater for, she couldn’t afford to be so lavish with the food.

  She knew how these investigations could drag on. She could see them all still being on board the boat tomorrow night as well.

  She put the finishing touches to a huge steak and ale pie and stepped outside, on the lookout for Lucas, to announce that dinner was ready.

  But only Rycroft, Graves (who had returned after setting his superior’s orders in motion) and the two forensics sat around the main salon. The others, perhaps not surprisingly, had taken themselves off to less harrowing, calmer parts of the Swan’s interior.

  She wondered if somebody had sent for a doctor, just to check over Dorothy Leigh. A woman in her condition had to take care of herself and her unborn baby.

  ‘We’ve gone over everything, sir,’ the chief forensics man was saying. ‘Apart from the wet planking on the port deck, there’s nothing else amiss. In the rear engineering sections, there’s only the usual equipment you might expect. An axe for the wood, with a large plastic sheet covering the woodpile. It’s totally dry. There’s a loading trolley, a half-full coal room and plenty of oily rags. The equipment box for odds and ends is at the rear starboard deck. Again, it contains nothing more than you’d expect. Ropes, the same kind as the one used on the deceased, a block and tackle, boxes of nails, spare gauges . . . I’ve written it all down.’ He handed the detective the list.

  Rycroft scanned it without much enthusiasm. ‘And the boat itself? Any irregularities or instances of cut corners that could be offences?’

  But the man was already shaking his head. ‘Not that I know of, sir. Of course, this isn’t my field. But there’s a ship’s horn and a bell at the forward end. There are four life-rings, two on each side, both located at front and rear. Firmly fastened and fully inflated. The one on the rear starboard side, just above the equipment box, is on an especially large bracket. I imagine it was once used to hold something much heavier. And there’s a small lifeboat, situated at the rear, enough to seat ten people at a pinch. No, I’d say that the ship’s well run and as safe as houses.’

  Rycroft nodded gloomily. ‘I expected as much. But best to make sure. Well, that’s it then. And you’re sure there are no papers in Olney’s room?’

  The forensics man shook his head.

  So they’d gone missing, Jenny mused. Interesting, that. ‘And you’ve found nothing suspicious around the scene of the crime itself?’ Rycroft pressed.

  But it seemed that they hadn’t. Lucas Finch’s fingerprints were on the railing top, but then so were practically everyone else’s. More importantly — and revealingly — there were no fingerprints at all around the bottom of the railing, where the rope had been tied.

  ‘Humph. The killer obviously wore gloves,’ Rycroft sighed. ‘And presumably threw them away afterwards.’

  By now, Jenny knew, all the rooms on the boat had been thoroughly searched, and nobody had brought a pair of gloves with them. In high summer it was not so surprising, she thought. But surely, if somebody had brought gloves with them, it would mean the killing was premeditated.

  Somehow, Jenny Starling had the feeling that the killing of Gabriel Olney had been anything but. Still, you didn’t need gloves in order not to leave fingerprints, she quickly surmised. Any piece of cloth wrapped around the hands would do. But she didn’t think it would be very politic to point that out to Inspector Rycroft right now. He was already looking considerably miffed that the killer was not in any apparent hurry to make his life easier for him.

  ‘Dinner is ready, Inspector,’ she said quietly, making the man jump and look around at her suspici
ously. He wondered fleetingly how much she’d heard, then shrugged. The forensic report had hardly been important.

  But, in fact, Jenny had found it fascinating. And very illuminating.

  ‘Right. Well, go and find the others, will you, Miss Starling? We might as well all eat a decent meal together like civilized human beings. Even though one of them isn’t.’

  Jenny blinked at that rather unexpected statement, but followed the departing forensics team out onto the deck. This policeman certainly liked to do things differently all right. And she rather suspected he had the reputation as being a bit of a maverick, back at the old cop shop. She wondered if he was popular with his superiors, and somehow doubted it.

  On the riverbank, the cook noticed two constables helping Brian O’Keefe set up the tents. She wondered where Rycroft and Graves would be spending the night.

  She only knew that neither of them would be sleeping in her bunk. Nobody was going to filch her digs from her. No damned way!

  She was just about to call out that dinner was served, and ask O’Keefe if he knew where everyone was, when she heard the sound of a motorbike.

  She watched another young constable dismount and practically leap onto the boat. She wisely took a quick step back as he rushed past and then followed him in, wondering what all the excitement was about.

  ‘Sir, Constable Wright, sir.’ The young, red-faced bobby faced his superior with brightly gleaming eyes. He didn’t look any older than eighteen, Jenny thought with a smile. No doubt he’d never had a murder case before, and this was the height of excitement for him.

  ‘Slow down, Constable,’ Rycroft ordered prosaically. ‘You have news?’

  ‘We do, sir. We’ve been walking the riverside route the boat took, searching for witnesses who might have seen anything,’ he began, getting it all out in one shaky breath.

  ‘My idea, sir,’ Graves put in quietly. Obviously he was used to working on his own initiative, and was encouraged to do so, for Rycroft merely nodded.