by H. Y. Hanna
“Ah… then I’ll have to be quick, won’t I?” said Mannering. “You made a dreadful mess in my conservatory, you know—my poor Pandorea will take months to recover—and of course, once I saw the broken screen, I knew you’d found out my little secret. Ah… what a shame. I was really growing quite fond of you, Miss Lancaster, and had been looking forward to teaching you more about gardening. It is really such a rewarding pastime…” He advanced towards her.
Poppy whirled and ran. The cottage was tiny and there were not many places to run to. The bedrooms were out of the question—he would easily corner her there—so her only hope was to go through the kitchen to the greenhouse at the rear and escape out of the back door. Then, even if she couldn’t double around to the front, she could still use the hole in the wall to get through to Bertie’s place! Bertie, with his fiesty little terrier and his wonderful inventions—he would come to her rescue.
And there are garden tools in the greenhouse as well, she remembered with sudden elation. A whole array of garden forks with lovely sharp prongs and spades with heavy metal edges. She could grab something on her way out, so that she’d have something to defend herself with. Besides, Suzanne was on her way too. Official help was coming…
Poppy raced into the kitchen, her feet slipping on the worn linoleum flooring, and was dismayed to hear Mannering’s footsteps right behind her. He moved much faster than she’d expected for an older man. Her heart lurched with fear as she felt something grab her arm just as she rounded the kitchen counter.
“No—!” she gasped, trying to jerk her arm loose.
But she felt herself being yanked backwards and thrown violently against the wall, the impact knocking all breath from her lungs and smacking her head so hard that she saw stars. She crumpled to the floor and lay still for a moment, gasping and trying to recover.
Then she heard a click. She jerked her head up to see Mannering standing by the door that led to the greenhouse. He had just locked it and was now pocketing the key. Her escape was cut off, and also her access to any weapons.
Mannering turned back and faced her, tutting as if she were a naughty child. “Dear me, Miss Lancaster… this is all so unnecessary. I do so abhor having to hurt anyone but you are leaving me no choice—”
“Let me go!” gasped Poppy. “You… you can’t hope to get away with it again. The police will figure out it was you who murdered Pete Sykes.”
“Oh, I doubt it, my dear. There are so many more worthy suspects.”
“Like Hubert Leach, you mean? Oh my God, that was all a lie, wasn’t it?” she said, the truth suddenly dawning on her. “He never said anything about contesting the will. You made up that rumour and put it into my head!”
Mannering gave a modest cough. “Yes, rather clever of me, if I do say so myself. Especially as I had to come up with something on the spur of the moment. When you started telling me your theory about Sykes being involved in the illegal plant trade—very astute of you, by the way—I knew I had to do something fast. Even though you thought it was Hubert who was Sykes’s client and not me, it was still too close for comfort. I didn’t want the police investigating Sykes’s plant smuggling activities and possibly tracing something back to me. Focusing on the will instead should hopefully send the investigation off in a different direction.”
Poppy stared at him, not wanting to believe how easily she had been fooled. All her indignation and anger at Hubert had been unnecessary; her cousin might have been a buffoon but he wasn’t a sinister manipulator like she’d thought. No, this man was the manipulator—and he had manipulated her so easily. Yes, he had been clever, making sure that he had shown doubt and worry that they were accusing an innocent man; he’d counselled caution like a typical lawyer and reminded her that it was all “speculation”—all while continuing to poison her mind against her cousin.
If he had simply attacked Hubert outright, it might have looked suspicious, so he had cleverly seeded it, then used reverse psychology to convince her of her cousin’s guilt. And she had played right into his hands. Poppy felt ashamed of how easily she had been led, how much she had accepted his words without questioning.
Then she snapped herself out of it. No time for remorse and recriminations now. There’ll be time for that later—if I get out of this alive.
Her eyes darted frantically around the room as she racked her brains for a way to escape. With the greenhouse door locked, the back door was out of the question now, but perhaps she could retrace her steps through the house and get out of the front door? Except that the door leading to the hallway was on the other side of the kitchen and she didn’t know if she could get there fast enough. If her legs had been rubbery earlier, now they felt completely like jelly—jelly that had been sloshed around a lunchbox and then left outside in the sun for a few hours. She would probably only manage three unsteady steps before Mannering caught her again and she winced at the thought of another violent impact against a wall. Her head was still hurting from where she had smacked it when he had hurled her the first time.
Hoping to distract him and keep him talking, Poppy said: “So Sykes was smuggling plants into the country for you?”
“Oh yes, Pete Sykes was very helpful… very helpful,” said Mannering, his eyes taking on a distant look. “He had all sorts of contacts, and of course, working in a nursery meant that he had regular shipments of plants to hide things in. It helped that your grandmother herself sold orchids in the nursery—oh, completely legitimate cultivars, which had been hybridised by plant breeders, of course—but it meant that she had regular shipments of orchids from the Far East, and it’s so easy to slip a wild specimen in amongst the boring domestic lot.” He made a contemptuous sound. “Most Customs officials can’t tell the difference between a run-of-the-mill Phalaenopsis and the exquisite, rare Paphiopedlium.”
It was all exactly as I’d thought—except that I’d got the wrong man, Poppy thought grimly. She had been blinded by Mannering’s professional reputation and kindly manner and—yes, she had to admit it—his paternal attitude. She had been so flattered and touched by his interest and solicitude, that she had never thought to question the reasons for them.
But now that she was looking at things with new eyes, she realised how odd so much of his behaviour had been. His generous invitation to dinner—surely he didn’t invite every new client to his home, just because they were a stranger in the area? It had simply been a ploy to find out more about her discovery of the body and the police investigation, and to gain her trust so that she would confide in him.
Poppy realised that the lawyer was speaking again and dragged her mind back to the present.
“…was a wonderful arrangement and it would have gone on swimmingly, if it hadn’t been for Sykes’s greed. In our last exchange, he demanded that I not only pay him the agreed fee for the orchid but also another sum for his silence! Yes, can you believe it? He actually tried to blackmail me. Really, it was very cheeky of the boy,” said Mannering, shaking his head and tutting, once again sounding like a weary headmaster discussing a naughty child. “Of course, I couldn’t have it. Such behaviour had to be nipped in the bud. And when I spotted the spades in the greenhouse, I thought—how simple: one little knock on the head and that’s that.” He smiled in a benign manner.
“So you buried him in the flowerbed and then planned to move the body later on?”
Mannering nodded. “Yes, that’s right. It had been very dark the night before when I killed him, you see, and to be honest, it had been a rather impulsive decision, so I hadn’t given any thought as to how to dispose of the body. I assumed that it would be safe enough temporarily buried in the flowerbed, as I knew that Mary Lancaster was dead and the property was deserted.” He gave her a reproachful look. “Naturally, I hadn’t expected you to come up all of a sudden—you gave me quite a shock, my dear, when I arrived back from London and my secretary told me that you’d taken the keys and were planning to stay at the cottage.”
Mention of the keys ma
de Poppy realise something else. “The keys! It wasn’t Jenny Sykes who took them… it was you!”
He smiled complacently. “Yes, well, I knew that if I took the keys in the outer office, it would push suspicion away from me because everyone would assume that I would just use the keys in the safe in my own office. Taking the main bunch made it look like someone from the outside was involved.”
“And it was easy for you because you would have known exactly when your secretary popped to the toilet,” said Poppy, marvelling at how it all fitted. “And then… when it was obvious that you couldn’t dissuade me from staying, you tried to prevent me from exploring the garden and going into the flowerbeds by concocting scare stories about tramps and thorny brambles and other hazards in the garden.”
She strained her ears for the sound of a car in the lane outside. Where is Suzanne? Why isn’t the inspector here yet?
Poppy glanced at the old lawyer again, desperate to keep him talking. “It was all just a ploy to keep me from discovering the body, wasn’t it?”
Mannering nodded but he barely seemed to be listening. He had bowed his head and seemed to be contemplating something, his fingers steepled under his chin. Keeping her eyes on him, Poppy began to edge away. Her legs were feeling a bit stronger now and she felt a flash of renewed hope. Perhaps she could get out through the front door after all…
Mannering raised his head. “Well, I’ve enjoyed our little chat, my dear, but time is pressing on and I really can’t have you sharing your clever theories with the police…” He advanced towards her. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to—”
A loud clatter interrupted him. Mannering turned around. The sound had come from the back of the kitchen. Poppy saw that the door to the pantry was slightly ajar, and a tin of beans rolled out, coming to a stop by Mannering’s feet. The lawyer frowned. He glanced at Poppy, then stepped across to fling the pantry door fully open. At the same moment, there came another loud clatter and a mini-avalanche of tins tumbled out of the pantry.
“What the—!” Mannering cried.
He tried to dodge the rolling tins, but instead stepped on one and reeled backwards. Cursing, he toppled over, just as an enormous ginger tom sprang out of the pantry, tail stiff and whiskers bristling.
“N-OW!” yowled Oren.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Poppy needed no further urging. She lunged for the door to the hallway and ran, tripping and stumbling, through the cottage and towards the front door. It was shut and it took a horribly long moment to wrestle with the doorknob… but then she wrenched it open… she was free!
She staggered out. But someone grabbed her from behind in a body tackle. She screamed as they both went down, crashing to the porch. Rolling over, Poppy found that Charles Mannering had one arm clamped around her legs, the other one reaching for her neck.
“Let me go! Let… me… go!” cried Poppy, trying to kick him.
But he didn’t loosen his grip, even an inch, and she felt panic overwhelm her. How can an old man be so strong?
She screamed again, thinking of Bertie—only a few hundred yards away next door. Surely he’d hear her? Surely he’d come to help? Or Suzanne… surely she must have arrived by now? Surely she must be in the lane outside?
But no one came and her scream faded away in the night. As the cruel grip on her tightened, Poppy felt a wave of despair. No one was coming to help her, she realised. And Mannering was on top of her now, pinning her down with his body. His hands were moving to her throat, choking off her next scream.
She had to find a way to save herself… or she would die.
She gasped and sobbed, struggling with all her might. Her arms flailed as she groped desperately around for something, anything, that might be a weapon.
Then her fingernails scraped against something coarse and hard. Terracotta. The rim of a pot.
The potted alstroemeria that she had set beside the front door.
Poppy grasped it with the last of her strength, heaved it up, and smashed it down on Charles Mannering’s head.
There was a clatter of shattering terracotta.
Clumps of soil and pieces of broken pot fell into her face.
Then she felt Mannering slump onto her, his body becoming a dead weight.
Poppy lay stunned for a moment, then she wriggled madly, desperate to get out from underneath him. She managed it at last and sat up shakily, her breath coming in shuddering gasps.
“Poppy? What on earth…?”
Poppy turned to the familiar voice. Suzanne Whittaker was just opening the garden gate. She came slowly up the path, staring at the scene in front of her. Oren trotted suddenly out of the cottage and met her halfway down the path, saying reproachfully:
“N-ow?”
Poppy caught her breath on a half-sob and fought the urge to laugh hysterically. For once, she totally agreed with the ginger tom’s grumbling. The police arrive now? When it’s all over?
Suzanne gave the cat an absent-minded pat, then came forwards, staring at Mannering, who lay out cold on the ground, with chunks of broken terracotta scattered around his head. She crouched down and reached out to check the lawyer’s pulse.
“Poppy—what the hell happened here?”
But Poppy wasn’t listening. She was staring at the lump amongst the broken terracotta. Bereft of its pot, the alstroemeria was tipped helplessly on its side, its mass of fleshy white roots exposed, its stems hanging limply, as it lay in the spilled compost.
“Oh!” she cried, scooping the plant up in both hands and looking frantically around, like somebody holding a gasping goldfish, searching for a bowl of water.
Suddenly, she was terrified that it was going to die—this plant that she had bought on a whim… this plant that had somehow saved her life. Nothing else mattered now, but saving it. Ignoring Suzanne’s bewildered gaze, Poppy hurried to the side of the path beside the front door and began digging in the soil. She had no trowel or fork, but she didn’t care, scraping with her bare hands until she had made a good-sized hole in the soft earth. Then she lowered the alstroemeria carefully into the depression, scooped the soil back, and tamped it down gently around it.
It was strange—she had never planted anything in the ground in her life, and yet it was as if… as if invisible hands were there, guiding her. She knew instinctively how big a hole to dig, how deeply to place the plant, how to gently firm the soil back around the stems…
“Poppy?” Suzanne rose from Mannering’s side, where she had been putting the lawyer in the recovery position, and came over to her. “Was there an accident? Mannering is out cold. What happened?”
“The alstroemeria saved my life,” said Poppy, hearing her own voice as if it were coming from far away.
“The what?” Suzanne frowned, then put a gentle hand on Poppy’s arm. “I think you’re suffering from shock. Why don’t you come into the cottage and I’ll make you a hot drink while we wait for the ambulance? I’ve called for back-up and—”
“I need to give the alstroemeria some water first,” said Poppy anxiously. “It needs water.”
Suzanne started to say something, then changed her mind. She nodded and helped to find the garden hose, then watched in bemusement as Poppy tenderly watered the plant. Finally, Poppy stood back, satisfied, and saw that the other woman was eyeing her dishevelled state, the bump on her forehead, the bruises on her arms.
“You’d better let the paramedics have a look at you too when they arrive,” Suzanne said. “You look like you’ve been through the wars.”
“That’s because Charles Mannering tried to kill me,” said Poppy bluntly.
Suzanne’s eyes widened. “What? Mannering? But—”
Poppy nodded. “He had to silence me because I knew the truth—that he was the one who had murdered Pete Sykes.”
Suzanne stared at her for a long moment, then sighed and put a gentle hand under Poppy’s elbow, steering her towards the cottage. “Come inside while we wait for the ambulance. I’ll make you a cup o
f tea—I have a feeling you have a lot to tell me.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“Now, are you sure you don’t want me to come up? Hospital food is terrible—I can bring some of my homemade chicken soup and—”
“No, no, Nell… there’s no need, honestly. They’re just keeping me in for observation, because I had a knock to the head; it’s a standard precaution… but I’m sure I’ll be released this afternoon.”
“What about that dreadful man? I hope he’s safely locked behind bars! What if he tries to attack you again?”
“Charles Mannering? He’s actually here in the hospital too, I think—but don’t worry, they’ve got a police guard on him. Suzanne—Inspector Whittaker—popped by to see me a short while ago and she told me they’ll arrest Mannering as soon as he’s released by the doctors. In any case, I don’t think he’ll be attacking anyone for a long time,” Poppy said dryly. “He had an even bigger knock on the head than I did, courtesy of a terracotta plant pot.” She sighed, then added, “I think the biggest punishment for Mannering will simply be taking him away from his beloved plants. He treats them like his children, you know. He talks to them and puts fleece around them in winter and stuff… I don’t know how he’s going to cope with being in prison without them.”
“You almost sound like you feel sorry for him,” said Nell tartly. “Don’t forget, dear—the man tried to kill you.”
“I know, I know…” Poppy sighed. “I still can’t believe it. It’s like my mind is struggling to understand it. I mean, he was so nice… it’s like he was two different people.”
“What I’m struggling to understand is why he had those orchids out in the conservatory. If they were illegal, why would he have them where anyone could see them?” asked Nell.
“Well, people would only have found them if they walked behind that screen,” Poppy reminded her. “And I suppose he had to keep them somewhere—so in fact, hidden amongst all the plants in the conservatory was probably the best place. Mannering’s housekeeper said that he normally only allowed guests to go in the conservatory when he was there. So that means he could always make sure they didn’t look behind the screen, like he did with me. But even if they did somehow find the grotto, the average person probably wouldn’t recognise the orchids and know that they’re endangered, smuggled specimens. So there’s very little danger of being exposed.”
