After the Exhibition: A Jack Haldean 1920s Mystery (A Jack Haldean Mystery) (7 page)

Fighting down the sensation, she scrunched her eyes shut and consciously lay still, her breath coming in little shallow gasps. She was lying on her side on the floor.

Cautiously she opened her eyes again. The room was dark, but there was a faint patch of light from the curtained window. She reached out a hand and felt the knotted fringe of a rug.

Something soft pushed against her hand. She gave an involuntary yelp of fear and started away. The soft something pushed against her again.

She suddenly realised it was the cat and nearly laughed in relief. The sound came as a harsh croak. Her mouth was horribly dry and tasted foul.

The cat rubbed itself along her, purring loudly. Betty rested her hand on the sofa for a moment before pushing herself unsteadily to her knees. With one hand on the wall, she managed to stand upright.

She took a couple of faltering steps across the floor to where she knew the door was, and, with the cat wrapping itself around her legs, managed to get across the room, into the hall and into the kitchen.

The kitchen curtains were drawn back and the scudding moonlight showed her the sink. Moments later she had reached the tap and was gulping water from her cupped hand.

With the water came strength. She bowed her head, resting it on the cold stone of the sink, letting the splash of the water from the tap soothe her forehead. She gripped the sink, trying to think what to do.

It was cold in the kitchen, colder even than in the parlour. She bit back a cry as something flapped on the floor. The cat pounced and she realised the flapping thing was nothing more than the kitchen rug, stirring in the draught that swept across the floor.

Giddy with relief, she raised her head and realised, with a little shock, that the kitchen door was open. Then she heard a sound that made her senses flare into terrified life.

Someone was crunching up the path outside the kitchen door.

With a whimper of terror, Betty flung herself out of the kitchen and into the hall, sheer panic swamping all thought and all sensation in blind terror. She scrambled to the front door, sobbing in relief as it opened.

Minutes before she could hardly walk, yet now she ran, fear fuelling her muscles, hurtling herself down the path, along Pollard Wynd and back to the village, not seeing anything but the path in the moonlight.

She must’ve been two hundred yards away from the cottage before her legs gave out. She managed to stagger a few more feet to a lamp-post and leaned against it, fighting for breath.

It seemed to take ages for her mind to stop whirling. She knew she should get help. She should tell the police, but that meant Constable Shaw, and his cottage was up the hill at the far end of Whimbrell High Street. She simply couldn’t face the walk.

A moving light briefly lit up the sky and, from somewhere out of sight, came the distant sound of a car engine, growing louder against the silence of the sleeping village streets.

The headlights illuminated the stone of the houses at the top of the road. Summoning up her strength, Betty staggered into the road, waving for the car to stop.

The car, an open tourer, pulled up to the kerb.

‘Betty?’ the driver called in astonishment. ‘Betty? What on earth are you doing here?’

It was Colin Askern. He climbed out of the car and came towards her. ‘Betty, are you all right? What are you doing out alone at this time? It’s way past midnight. You ought to be at home.’

Betty tried to speak, couldn’t, and, much to her distress, burst into floods of tears.

Colin drew back in alarm. ‘What the devil’s happened?’

Betty reached out her hand to him. ‘Colin! It was dreadful!’ Tears overwhelmed her again.

Colin took her hand, then, after a moment of indecision, put his arm around her shoulders and took a handkerchief from his pocket. ‘Here, use this. Tell me what’s happened.’ He gazed at her sharply. ‘Has someone attacked you?’

Betty nodded and Colin, with startled apprehension, drew back again. ‘Look, perhaps you’d better tell them all about it at home. Get in the car. I’ll run you home.’

‘It’s murder!’ Betty gasped desperately. ‘Signora Bianchi.’

‘
What?
’ She saw his face, ghastly in the moonlight. He seized her shoulders. His thumbs pressed hard through her coat and she knew he was within an ace of shaking her. ‘Betty! What d’you mean? What are you talking about?’

‘It’s Signora Bianchi,’ Betty said miserably. ‘I’ve just come from her cottage. She’s been murdered. She’s on the sofa in the parlour.’

‘No,’ said Colin, in a dazed voice. ‘No, she can’t have been. Get in the car, Betty,’ he said abruptly. ‘You wait here. I’ve got to see about this.’

Exhausted, she gratefully allowed herself to be escorted to the car, where she sat slumped in the passenger seat.

‘Stay there,’ said Colin, taking a rubber torch from the driver’s door. ‘I’ll be back soon.’

Betty put her head back against the cool leather of the seat. She didn’t exactly fall asleep, but drifted into semi-wakefulness.

She came to with a start when Colin climbed into the seat beside her. ‘Well?’

‘Nothing,’ he said curtly, throwing the torch into the pocket on the door. ‘The cottage is locked up, tight as a drum, but I shone the torch through the windows. I could see the sofa in the parlour as plain as day and there’s nothing out of place. That damn cat gave me a dickens of a turn. It came clawing at my ankles when I was looking through the window, little beast.’

‘So you don’t know if there’s anything there or not?’

‘There’s nothing there,’ said Colin shortly, starting the car. ‘You’ve had a bad dream, Betty. That’s the only explanation. It beats me what you were doing in Signora Bianchi’s cottage in the first place.’

‘I saw a light,’ Betty said wearily. ‘I saw a light and then the cat opened the door.’

Colin paused with his hand on the gear lever. ‘The cat opened the door? Betty, are you feeling all right? You’re not ill, are you?’

‘Don’t be stupid, Colin.’ She was irritated by his lack of understanding. ‘The cat ran down the path and clicked the latch with its front paws. The door swung open and I … I went in.’

‘Why?’

‘Never mind why!’ she snapped, her irritation growing. ‘I just did.’

Colin’s hand still rested on the gear lever. ‘As a matter of fact, I’ve seen the cat do that before,’ he admitted. ‘Tell me exactly what you thought you saw.’

‘I
did
see it,’ she muttered. As briefly as she could, she told him what had happened.

Colin looked at her in disbelief. ‘Honestly, Betty, it sounds like a nightmare. You must’ve been dreaming.’

‘I wasn’t,’ she protested. ‘It wasn’t a dream, I tell you.’ A sudden memory came to her. ‘Colin! The cat!’

‘What about the wretched cat?’

‘The cat was
inside
the cottage, not outside. Someone must’ve shut it out. I told you I heard footsteps. Someone went into the cottage and moved the body. There’s the curtains, too. They were pulled together in the parlour but you looked through them. Someone must’ve drawn them open.’ She sat back in the seat. ‘We have to report this, Colin. We have to tell the police.’

She could see his face, indecisive in the gas light from the lamp-post.

‘Give me a cigarette,’ she said. ‘I dropped my handbag in the cottage.’

He absently pulled out his case and, lighting a cigarette for her, took one himself, then sat, chin in hand, thinking.

‘You dropped your bag in the cottage?’ he repeated.

Betty nodded.

‘That’s something that can be proved, at any rate,’ he muttered. ‘All right, Betty, we’ll tell the police.’

‘And did you tell the police?’ asked Jack.

‘We did, Mr Haldean.’ She raised her hands and dropped them helplessly into her lap. ‘They found what Colin found, which was nothing.’

‘And this was last Saturday, you say?’

‘That’s right. Colin drove me to the local police station and Constable Shaw went with him in the car to investigate. They didn’t go in, but looked through the window. As there was nothing out of place, Constable Shaw said he’d go back the next day.’

‘And did he?’

‘Yes. He came up to the house and returned my bag. He’d spoken to Signora Bianchi’s daily woman, Mrs Hatton. She’d found my bag in the parlour. She’d thought it must belong to her mistress, but couldn’t explain how it got there.’

‘What about Signora Bianchi herself?’

‘That’s just it. Apparently Signora Bianchi left Whimbrell Heath two days previously. She told Mrs Hatton she’d be away for a few days. She didn’t know when she’d be back.’ She looked at him with wide, puzzled eyes. ‘I didn’t know what to do. Everyone in Whimbrell Heath says I had a nightmare. That’s the polite version, but all I can say is, if I did have a nightmare, it was the most realistic nightmare I’ve ever had. In the meantime, Signora Bianchi is missing. I’m convinced she’s been murdered, but no one’s doing anything because they all think I’m nuts or something.’

Jack glanced at Bill. ‘It would be a good time to commit a murder, wouldn’t it, Bill? Wait until the intended victim has announced she’s going away for an indefinite period, bump her off, hide the body, and it could be weeks before anyone raises the alarm.’

‘M’yes,’ said Bill. ‘Signora Bianchi would have to come back to the cottage, of course.’

‘There might be any number of reasons why she’d do that. She could’ve received a message saying there was some crisis or other, or someone could’ve arranged to meet her there. The person who sent the message would have to know where she was, of course, but if he – I say he for convenience – was planning a murder, that’s not too far-fetched. There is another explanation, of course. Rather than being the victim, Signora Bianchi could be the murderer. She could’ve asked an unsuspecting victim into her cottage easily enough’

‘Blimey, Jack, isn’t this complicated enough for you as it is? The trouble, as I see it, is that Askern didn’t believe anything untoward had happened, and neither, by the sound of things, did this Constable Shaw. The result is that he wouldn’t have made a proper investigation and so what we’re left with is Miss Wingate’s story.’

‘You believe me, Mr Rackham, don’t you?’ asked Betty urgently.

‘Oh yes,’ said Bill heartily. Just a shade too heartily to be absolutely convincing to someone who knew him well, thought Jack. ‘Absolutely, I do.’ However it reassured Betty Wingate, who looked relieved.

‘And can you do something about it? The local police won’t lift a finger, but you’re Scotland Yard, aren’t you? I mean, you’re in a different league. I’ve told you what happened and if you investigate it properly, then I’m sure you’ll find something, something to prove this poor woman has been murdered.’

Bill rubbed the side of his nose with his finger. ‘Well, I’m sorry, Miss Wingate, I don’t know if I can. It doesn’t work like that, I’m afraid.’

Betty Wingate’s brows drew together. There was a flash of anger in her blue eyes. ‘You don’t believe me! You said you did and I thought you would, but it’s just like talking to Colin and Aunt Maud and everyone else.’

‘It’s not a question of belief,’ said Jack, hastily throwing some metaphorical oil on these troubled waters. ‘As you said, Bill is part of Scotland Yard. But Scotland Yard can’t just roll up off their own bat. What happens is the local police force have to be faced with a crime that the Chief Constable decides they need specialist help with. That usually means something big, like murder, which the local chaps have probably never dealt with before and where the solution isn’t obvious. So they call in the experts, who are the Scotland Yard detectives, to conduct the investigation. A lot of Chief Constables don’t like calling in the Yard as they see it as an admission of failure.’ He grinned disarmingly. ‘They have to be convinced that a crime has occurred, of course, and it isn’t just, if you’ll excuse the phrase, a mare’s nest.’

Betty was visibly mollified. ‘I didn’t know that’s how it worked. In the films, Scotland Yard just come and catch the crook.’

‘That’s films for you,’ commented Jack wryly. ‘Real life with the awkward bits left out.’

‘I can’t believe this red tape!’ said Betty passionately. ‘Signora Bianchi has been murdered! I didn’t know her well and I didn’t like her much, but
she’s been murdered
!
I’ve told everyone who I can think of telling, but no one wants to do a thing to help.’

‘We didn’t say that, exactly,’ murmured Jack. ‘Bill brought you to see me, Miss Wingate.’ He put his head on one side and lifted an eyebrow at his friend. ‘I rather think there was a reason for that.’

Bill grinned in embarrassment. ‘It’s an awful cheek. It’s just that …’ He broke off, glanced at Betty, then looked away. ‘I can’t do anything, Jack, but you’re a free agent. Sorry. You’ve probably got quite enough to do as it is without looking for work. Forget it.’

Jack linked his hands together behind his head and stretched out in his chair with a smile. ‘Forget it? That’s even harder than doing something about it.’ Besides that, he added to himself, it’d be nice to see a bit more of Betty Wingate.

‘Then you’ll do it?’ asked Bill. ‘Thanks, Jack. You’re a pal.’

Betty looked at them both blankly. ‘I’m sorry, but did I miss something? I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about. What is it Mr Haldean’s going to do?’

‘Investigate your mysterious vanishing lady,’ said Jack, reaching out for a cigarette. He lit it and blew out a long mouthful of smoke. ‘Run round, ask questions and generally make an absolute nuisance of myself to all concerned.’

‘But why?’ demanded Betty. ‘I mean, I could do that. I have done that.’

‘Ah, yes, but I’m a pocket genius,’ said Jack with a smile. ‘If only I was wearing a false beard and whiskers, I could tear it off and you would see the celebrated features of the modern Sherlock Holmes. Conundrums confounded, secrets solved, deceptions detected – that’s a blinking good bit of alliteration off the top of my head, even though I say so myself – crooks caught and murders … Damn! I can’t think of a word that starts with M and means solved, but you get the drift. All this done while-you-wait. Distance no object. No job too small and families waited upon daily.’