A Picture of Murder

by T E Kinsey

  ‘And what was that?’ asked Skins.

  ‘A submarine,’ I said.

  ‘What’s one of them when it’s at home?’ he said.

  ‘The Germans call it an Unterseeboot – an under-the-lake boat. Or under the sea, at any rate.’

  ‘You’re havin’ us on,’ said Skins. ‘A boat underwater? Who’d sail it? Mermaids?’

  ‘You can be such an idiot sometimes, mate,’ said Barty. ‘You should pay more attention to what’s going on in the world. They’re watertight. No one gets wet.’

  ‘What’s the point of that, then?’

  ‘You can’t see them coming,’ said Barty. ‘One of them could sneak up on your ship and sink you before you even knew they was there.’

  Skins digested this for a moment. ‘And the Germans have got one?’ he said at length.

  ‘Many more than one by now,’ I said. ‘And even more deadly than the one we saw. Remember, this was ten years ago.’

  ‘Blimey,’ said Skins. ‘I ought to pick up a newspaper once in a while.’

  ‘We found ourselves a place to hide among some wooden crates and metal drums,’ I said. ‘Lady Hardcastle sketched the boat and the dockyard while I made notes about all the personnel and equipment we’d seen. Then we sneaked out the way we came and were back in bed with no one the wiser.’

  ‘Not even the other servants knew we’d been out,’ confirmed Lady Hardcastle. ‘All that remained was for me to add a covering letter to my drawings and Flo’s notes and slip the whole lot into the diplomatic bag for onward transmission to London. A couple of days later we were on our way back to Shanghai.’

  ‘It should have been just another job,’ I said. ‘We’d done dozens like it over the years, but this time it all went horribly wrong.’

  ‘We should probably have left China there and then,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘The Boxer Rebellion had started. The violence was mostly confined to remote rural districts, but it was beginning to spread to the cities on the coast. It wasn’t a safe time to be a European in China. But we stayed. We were safe. Of course we were – we were British. Who would dare . . . ?’

  ‘Not the Chinese rebels, as it turned out,’ I said. ‘We’d been back for a couple of weeks and one day Lady Hardcastle went for lunch with a friend while Sir Roderick stayed at home to finish some work in his study. I went along to the club to keep Lady Hardcastle’s friend’s maid company. It was great fun, as I recall. When it was all over, we went back to the house, but there was something wrong. Neither of us could put our fingers on exactly what had spooked us, but all was not quite right. Then we saw that the front door had been forced. Lady Hardcastle put her finger to her lips and we stepped in as silently as we could.’

  ‘That was when we saw our lovely Chinese maid lying in a pool of her own blood on the tiles,’ she said. ‘She was still breathing, but she was out cold. I think that angered me as much as anything else that horrible day. One accepts that one is placing oneself in danger, but Mrs Lee was a non-combatant. How dare someone wallop her round the head and leave her for dead? We might have left at that moment and gone to seek help, but my blood was up. We kept a revolver in a drawer in the hall table “just in case” and I’m afraid I took it out.’

  ‘Meanwhile,’ I said, ‘I could hear voices in Sir Roderick’s study. A German voice said something like, “We cannot tolerate your spying any longer, Hardcastle.” Then Sir Roderick said, “I’m sure I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about, Herr Ehrlichmann. I am a representative of Her Majesty’s government here in China. The very suggestion that I have been involved in ‘spying’ is impertinent in the extreme. I should go so far as to say that it is slanderous.” He could be very imperious when he chose to be.

  ‘The German man carried on: “I would find your indignant denials much more convincing and much less amusing had we not intercepted your report. We know you were in our naval dockyard, ‘Diamond Rook’. Not the most impenetrable of code names. And now you must pay the price for your meddling. You have been a . . . What is the expression you use . . . ? A ‘thorn in our side’? Yes, you’ve been a thorn in our side for far too long. It is time we plucked you out.”’

  Lady Hardcastle’s eyes were moist with tears as I spoke. She took a sip of her hot chocolate and used the movement to try to disguise the fact that she was wiping them away.

  ‘There was a gunshot,’ I continued. ‘Somehow it was all the more shocking for being so quiet. We heard the sound of a body slumping to the floor and then the German man burst out of the room. He skidded to a halt when he saw us there, with Lady Hardcastle pointing the revolver at him. His own weapon was a tiny single-shot pistol. He laughed. He said, “Ah, the good lady wife. And with a gun. How charming. It is a pleasure to meet you, Lady Hardcastle, but get out of the way. I have no quarrel with you.” Cool as you please, she just cocked the revolver and said, “You have the advantage of me, Mr . . . ?” His smile was fading a little by this point. He clicked his heels and with a little bow, he said, “Herr Günther Ehrlichmann of the Imperial German Embassy, at your service.” Lady Hardcastle hadn’t taken her eyes off him. She said, “Well, Herr Ehrlichmann, I think you’ve made one or two rather silly mistakes.”’

  ‘He was such an arrogant piece of work,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘Just standing there, smirking at me, with Roddy lying, shot, in the next room.’

  ‘He was,’ I agreed. ‘He said, “I don’t think so, your ladyship. I am not the sort to make mistakes. Now get out of my way and I might forget how foolish you are being. I have said that I have no quarrel with you but you do not, I think, wish to join your husband.” He took a step towards her, reaching for the gun. And she pulled the trigger.’

  ‘I wanted him alive,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘I wanted him to answer for what he’d done, so I took him in the shoulder. The shock of it made him flinch away and he stumbled back against the doorframe.’

  ‘She told me to go and check on Sir Roderick,’ I said. ‘He’d been shot through the eye and I returned to the hall, shaking my head. Lady Hardcastle said, “More than two mistakes, actually, you Teutonic nitwit. In the first place, Roddy was not a spy. I am Diamond Rook, you dunderhead. Second, you came armed only for a single shot. What kind of inept assassin are you?” There was a flash of movement and suddenly Ehrlichmann was holding a knife in his uninjured hand. He threw it at her, but from his position slumped on the floor, there was no power or accuracy in the throw and she dodged it easily. “Third,” she said, “you allowed yourself to be goaded into disarming yourself. If you’re the best weapon Imperial Germany has at its disposal, the world is safe. Fourth, you killed my darling husband.” He was still defiant. He said, “And why was that Kartoffelkopf’s death a mistake?” And then she said, “Because of mistake number five. For reasons I can’t fathom, you still don’t actually believe that I’m about to kill you.” He did, indeed, look genuinely shocked as she pulled the trigger again and ended his life.’

  The two musicians sat in stunned silence.

  ‘Then how . . . ?’ said Skins.

  ‘How did he turn up in your club in the West End?’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘That’s what I’d like to know. Harry said nothing else?’

  ‘Nothin’,’ said Skins.

  ‘Well, I think you can understand my scepticism,’ she said.

  ‘After all that, I reckon we can,’ he said.

  ‘I’d still like to know what happened next,’ said Barty.

  ‘I think we need to save that for another time,’ I said. ‘The short version is that we saw to Mrs Lee and called the consulate. Or tried to. It was under attack, you see. A group of Boxer rebels had taken it upon themselves to strike at European targets in Shanghai.’

  ‘I managed to speak briefly to the duty officer at the consulate,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘He just told me to get out of the city as fast as I could. “Take a boat to anywhere,” he said. But we couldn’t, you see. We spent the rest of the day trying, but it was hellishly difficult to get to the docks.
And we soon learned that the Germans were looking for their missing assassin. For the reasons you now know, and which they were slowly fathoming out, Ehrlichmann wasn’t going to be reporting in. They had a pretty good idea who to blame and so they were watching the docks and every shipping agent in town. We had no choice but to pack light and head inland.’

  ‘But China’s huge,’ said Skins. ‘I’ve seen it in an atlas.’

  ‘Huge, indeed,’ she said. ‘That’s why the rest of the story will have to wait. It took us two years to get across China and another two to get home from India. There’s a lot more to tell. But for now, I’m declaring it bedtime.’

  Chapter Nine

  Once again, despite the excesses of the night before, I didn’t manage to sleep in and I was up with the lark on Thursday morning as usual. Significantly before the lark at that time of year, in fact. I still knew nothing of the matutinal habits of larks, but I’d lay a hefty wager they were still slumbering in their larkish nests while I was stumbling into our darkish kitchen.

  The kitchen lantern hung from a pulley in the centre of the ceiling. I untied the cord from the cleat on the wall and lowered the lamp on to the new kitchen table. A good maid always has a box of matches in her apron pocket and I used one to light the lamp before hauling it back up to the ceiling and tying off the cord.

  It wasn’t until I crossed the room to light the range that I noticed something terribly amiss. Lying on the flagstone floor, a half-eaten apple in her outstretched hand, was our young actress guest, Euphemia Selwood.

  ‘Oh, for the love of . . . ’ I said, more exasperated than shocked. ‘Not again.’

  I checked for a pulse in her neck, and again at her wrist just to be certain; she was definitely dead. As undetective-like as it might seem, my first thought was not of waking Lady Hardcastle before summoning the police, but of shielding Edna and Miss Jones from the sight of a dead body in their place of work. They both had a latchkey for the side door, so I threw the bolt to make sure they couldn’t come in without my also being there to keep them away from the corpse.

  I hastened upstairs and shook Lady Hardcastle awake, trying to rouse her quietly so as not to disturb our guests.

  ‘What on earth is the matter?’ she said blearily. ‘I thought we’d discussed this need of yours to waken me before dawn. I’m not one of Nature’s early risers, dear, I’m really not.’

  ‘I know, my lady,’ I said. ‘And I think you have to agree that I’ve been very good about that lately, but an emergency has arisen and I really do need your full, fully-conscious attention.’

  She struggled into a sitting position and looked about in the gloom.

  ‘It’s still dark,’ she said. ‘And you’ve brought no tea.’

  ‘Both these things are true, and I apologize. But the situation is somewhat urgent and there was no time to light the range and brew tea.’

  She yawned extravagantly. ‘Well?’ she said. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Euphemia Selwood is dead.’

  ‘She’s what? Oh, for the love of . . . ’ she said. ‘Not another one.’

  ‘My sentiments almost to the word. I found her on the kitchen floor with an apple in her hand.’

  ‘Another Witch’s Downfall death, then. That’s the way her character died, is it not? A poisoned apple.’

  ‘Just so,’ I said. ‘We need to tell Sergeant Dobson and Inspector Sunderland. If I go into the village and try to knock up the sergeant, can you take care of the phone call to the Bristol CID?’

  ‘Of course, dear. We’d better get cracking.’

  So I got cracking. I hastened to fetch my hat and coat and to put on some outdoor boots. By the time I was ready to scoot out of the front door, Lady Hardcastle was already in the middle of her telephone call.

  ‘. . . Yes, I’m aware it’s early . . . No, I didn’t expect the inspector to be there at this hour . . . No, nor the police surgeon . . . Quite so, that’s why I wish you to take a message . . . No, Sergeant, you’re not a hotel porter, I understand that. If you were a hotel porter you’d be a good deal more helpful . . . I shall take whatever tone I please, Sergeant, you’re getting in the way of one of Inspector Sunderland’s cases . . . Very droll. All I ask is that you tell the inspector that Lady Hardcastle has informed you that there’s been another death, that it looks like murder, and that it is almost certainly connected to the first . . . I didn’t say so before because you chose to spend so long lecturing me on the inspector’s working hours . . . Very well, I’m most grateful to you, and I’m sure the inspector shall be, too . . . And good morning to you, Sergeant.’

  She returned the earpiece to its hook on the side of the telephone. I feared for a moment that the wooden box might fall from the wall with the force of it, but it was made of sterner stuff.

  ‘All done, my lady?’ I said.

  ‘Of all the impudent . . . ’

  ‘I’ll go and speak to our own sergeant.’

  ‘Dear old Sergeant Dobson,’ she said. ‘That other fellow is the sort that gives our police force a bad name.’

  I let myself out and went to summon our own ‘dear sergeant’.

  For reasons long since lost in the mists of bureaucratic inscrutability, Littleton Cotterell was the hub of the local police network. As Sergeant Dobson and Constable Hancock were always quick to point out, they served not only the village in which they were stationed, but also villages and hamlets for miles around. It was for this reason that their accommodation was so generous – the two officers had a small cottage each, adjoining the police station itself – and their bicycles were so well maintained.

  As I crossed the green, I noticed that there was a light in the police station window. I felt the tiniest twinge of relief that I wasn’t going to have to spend the first five minutes of my errand hammering on the sergeant’s front door. Someone was already awake.

  My relief was short-lived. I found the front office, with its lamp burning brightly, completely deserted. They kept a little brass bell on the counter so that visitors might summon one of the officers if they were working in the back office or attending to a prisoner in the cell. I didn’t have time for that. I lifted the flap in the counter and made my own way through to the office. There was no one there. I ventured further and eventually found Constable Hancock, fast asleep on the cot in the cell.

  It seemed I wasn’t to be spared from hammering on doors, after all, but at least this way I would be able to gauge the effects of my efforts. I beat the side of my fist three times on the open door of the cell and the effect was not only easy to gauge, but also extremely pleasing.

  The constable jolted instantly awake and tried to stand to attention.

  ‘I weren’t asleep, Sarge, I swears,’ he mumbled as his knees betrayed him and he flopped back on to the iron-framed cot. ‘I was just . . . ’ He noticed me. ‘Oh, Miss Armstrong, it’s you. How did you . . . ?’

  ‘Good morning, Constable,’ I said brightly. ‘I’m sorry to awaken you so early, but there’s been . . . an incident at the house, and we need you to attend as quickly as you can.’

  His senses were returning as he fumbled with his tunic buttons. ‘What sort of incident?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m rather afraid it might be another murder,’ I said, and explained the circumstances of my grim discovery.

  ‘’Pon my word,’ he said. ‘We’d better get the sergeant. He won’t want to be left out of this, not with the inspector from Bristol placin’ so much trust in him yesterday.’

  We heard someone moving about in the front office.

  ‘Hancock!’ It was Sergeant Dobson. ‘Where the dickens are you, boy?’ Heavy boots on the flagstones. ‘If you’s asleep in that blasted cell again, I swear, I’ll . . . Oh. Good mornin’, Miss Armstrong.’ He knuckled his forehead.

  ‘Good morning, Sergeant,’ I said. ‘I hope you don’t mind my being back here. We need urgent help up at the house and I found the station open but no one at home. Constable Hancock was out here checking the
cell so he didn’t hear when I rang the bell.’

  There was doubt in Dobson’s eyes – from his earlier remark it was apparent that Hancock had often been caught sleeping his way through night duty – but he seemed to decide that my concerns were more pressing.

  ‘What sort of help, miss?’ he said, favouring Constable Hancock with a sidelong I’ll-deal-with-you-later glance.

  Once again, I recounted the events of the morning so far.

  The sergeant scribbled a few details in his notebook. ‘We needs to . . . What was that phrase the inspector used, Hancock? Secure the . . . ?’

  ‘Preserve the scene of the crime, Sarge,’ said the constable.

  ‘That’s it, we need to preserve it. Hancock, get yourself over to Lady Hardcastle’s house and don’t let no one interfere with nothin’.’

  ‘Right you are, Sarge.’

  ‘I’ll join you both presently. I’d like to telephone Bristol myself, just so’s they knows we’s dealin’ with it, like.’

  The constable and I hurried out.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said as we retraced my frosty footprints across the green.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For not snitchin’ on I,’ he said earnestly. ‘Ol’ Sergeant Dobson’s been on my back these past few weeks. I can’t seem to do nothin’ right.’

  ‘I’m sure he just wants you to do well,’ I said. ‘It’s his job to encourage the careers of junior officers.’

  ‘I s’pose,’ he said. ‘But I appreciates it anyway. It weren’t the first time I kipped down in that cell. ’T i’n’t too comfy in there, but sometimes you just has to. They late nights is killin’ I.’

  ‘That’s no good at all. Perhaps we can take your mind off it by trying to fathom what – or, rather, who – is killing our houseguests.’

  Back at the house, Lady Hardcastle was dressed (after a fashion – we would definitely need to make some adjustments if she were to have to venture out in public). She greeted us both and apologized for the lack of tea.