Death on Allhallowe’en (13 page)

‘Did he get on with the people here? The older people, I mean. I know he was popular with the younger crowd.'

‘No. He didn't. He was cold-shouldered from the first. Whether they didn't like his book or didn't like him, I don't know. But the Matchlows and the Murrains and that lot would have nothing to do with him, which made it very awkward for me. I expected Judith Matchlow to call and she didn't. I got to know her later through the W.I., but we were never what you'd call friends.'

‘But there was no open difference between your husband and Matchlow?'

‘Not till the big row—almost a year ago.'

‘You knew about that?'

‘Only what everyone else knew. Connor never went into it. It appeared he went to call on Matchlow to complain about something and they had a regular set-to. All the village knew about it, though no one seemed to know the exact reason. I didn't like it. It made it so awkward for me. Besides, you never know with people like that.'

‘Never know what?'

‘Well, I mean. They're supposed to have powers. Look what's happened now.'

'You think your husband's death may have been brought about by witchcraft?'

‘I don't know about that, but it's very strange, isn't it? You see, I know there was something they wanted from Connor. Some
object
he possessed.'

‘What made you think that?'

‘You come to know these things—living with a man. However secretive he may be. Scraps of telephone conversation. Things he does and says.'

‘Some information perhaps?'

‘No. It was an object.'

‘You mean a talisman? A fetish? Some kind of relic?'

‘I don't know what it was, but I know it was something they were trying to get hold of. I asked my husband about it one day and he as good as admitted it. “But they won't get it,” he said.'

‘Could it have been the book he was writing?'

‘No. I don't think so. Though, mind you, he always locked up all his papers when he wasn't working.'

‘He hadn't a safe?'

‘No. But a very heavy oak cupboard.'

‘And you suggest that it was in order to get possession of this
thing,
whatever it was, that they murdered your husband?'

Carolus used ‘thing' as she did, giving it the vaguest connotation.

‘Oh, no. I can't imagine anyone here murdering. They are spiteful people, suspicious and peculiar, but you couldn't think of them as murderers. I wouldn't say that for a minute. If it wasn't an accident last night it must have been some stranger in the hall.'

‘It could scarely have been an accident, Mrs Horseman. It was carefully planned, whoever did it.'

‘You see, I know so little about Connor's affairs. And what little I know I had to find out for myself. There was a funny thing happened with Gerald Murrain once. Connor had been working on his book all the morning and in the afternoon,
about tea-time, I was out. Here, as a matter of fact. I've always been friendly with Margaret Lark. Ebby Smith was in the garden. He used to give us a day a week. He's got green fingers, you know, whatever else he is. Connor get rid of him after that day, but I missed his help. However, I was telling you, at about four o'clock Ebby came and tapped on the study windows.

‘Connor was annoyed because he hated being disturbed while he was working, but Ebby beckoned him out and he went, leaving his books open on the table and the page he was writing on the blotter. Ebby persuaded him to walk right down the garden, then kept him arguing about some plants Connor had bought. When Connor got back to his study Gerald Murrain was sitting there.

‘Connor was furious and asked what he was doing there. Gerald said good afternoon in his ingratiating way, then calmly told him he wanted to see Connor for a moment, and had been shown into this room. “Who showed you in here?” shouted Connor, because he knew the house was empty. Gerald said it was a woman. Connor asked if he meant me, and Gerald said, no, another woman. An old one, with a stick.

‘I don't know whether you know,' continued Mavis, ‘that there's a story about our house. Thumpings are supposed to be heard made by an old woman with a stick. Connor almost went for Gerald Murrain. He told him to get out and never come back. Gerald kept saying that he only wanted to consult Connor for a moment, but Connor shouted,
Get Out!
At last Gerald walked out. After that relations with the Murrains, too, were strained.'

‘Yes. I see. And you only learned of that by hearsay? Your husband never told you of it?'

‘In that case he did mention something, almost as though it were a joke, about finding Gerald creeping round the house and throwing him out. But I never cared for Alice Murrain so this time it didn't matter so much. There's something very creepy about her I think. Don't you?'

'Toads, perhaps,' said Carolus absently. ‘What else did you pick up of your husband's affairs, Mrs Horseman?'

‘Nothing, really. I've told you he kept them to himself. Oh, there was one other thing. I don't know if I'm doing right in telling you, and it may have nothing to do with what you want to know, but
I
thought it was funny.

‘It was just after he'd had that row with Matchlow. He was out all day till about six o'clock. I don't know where he went—sometimes it was to the library at Maidstone to look at old books on Kent. But he never said anything to me. We were having something to eat in the dining-room when he seemed to suddenly remember something. He jumped up, said he wouldn't be a minute, and went through to the study. I thought he was going to make a phone call, but he was back almost at once, putting his fountain-pen away. He went upstairs later—we have no downstairs loo—and it gave me a chance to nip in the study and see what he had written down. It didn't take much finding; it was on his jotter. All I could see was three figures—6,66 with a comma after the first six.'

‘You're sure about the comma? Aleister Crowley called himself the Beast 666.'

‘There was a comma there all right. I wrote it down myself later, because I thought it looked peculiar.'

Carolus felt he had pressed Mavis rather hard with questions, but she seemed quite unmoved.

‘I've just two more questions I want to ask you,' he said. ‘I hope I'm not tiring you?'

‘Oh, no. It's only right if you're going to find out about the whole thing. I'll tell you what I can.'

‘You know that Drummer Sloman has been taken away for questioning?'

‘Yes, but I don't believe he did it. Do you?'

‘I certainly don't think he fired the fatal shot in the hall last night,' said Carolus evasively.

‘Connor was friendly with him. They used to go ferreting together.'

'A ghastly sport. If you can call it a sport.'

‘I don't know anything about that. More than once Connor brought the young man back to tea. He was always very civil and well-behaved. But just lately they didn't seem to get on so well.'

‘Thank you. And the last thing. Did your husband ever mention the Beacon?'

‘Not to me. But he knew about it. He used to leave his books open on the arm of a chair. I saw one,
Archaeologia Cantiana
, laid open at the page about the Beacon. I don't know if I did right in looking to see what he'd been reading, but it was that.'

‘You've been most helpful, Mrs Horseman.'

Mavis seemed to think that a more solemn manner was called for.

‘I wish I could have told you more. It's a terrible thing when anyone's shot like that.'

‘Yes.'

‘Right through the heart, they said. I'm glad I wasn't there to see it. And there'll be an inquest, of course. I shall have to go to that. I've got a black dress that could be altered. From the time my first husband died.'

‘I did not know you'd been married before, Mrs Horseman.'

‘Oh, yes. My first husband was an auctioneer.'

She sounded as though nothing, no memory or present event, could ruffle her.

But something did. Margaret Lark came into the room looking startled.

‘I've just heard something,' she said to Mavis. ‘I hope it won't upset you.'

Carolus wondered if anything could.

‘Well?' asked Mavis.

‘Your house was broken into last night.'

‘Mean to say the police didn't leave a guard on it?' asked Carolus.

‘Evidently not. I hear it has been ransacked.'

The effect on Mavis surprised them both.

'Oh, no !' she cried and raised the back of her hand to her mouth. ‘My mink ! I only bought it last week!'

‘From what I'm told,' said Margaret, who seemed equally lacking in a sense of proportion, ‘it was chiefly in the study. All your husband's papers have gone.'

‘I suppose we were insured,' said Mavis. ‘But they never give you the same. And I shall need it this winter—I feel the cold terribly. You'd have thought the police … I mean, when Connor had just been shot and I had to sleep somewhere else, they should have thought of it. It's too bad. I shall claim for every single thing. I had better go round there at once.'

‘I expect the police will go round with you to see what's missing. They should be here in a minute. Hadn't you better wait till they come?'

‘Perhaps I had. But I want to know about my mink. Couldn't you telephone, Mr Deene?'

‘I suppose so,' said Carolus rather grudgingly.

He left the two women, and when he came back a few minutes later looked serious.

‘It appears that your husband's desk has been rifled and
all
his papers taken. A mink coat is lying on the bed upstairs.'

‘Thank God,' said Mavis.

‘Your husband's book may have meant years of hard work.'

‘I suppose so. I'm very sorry, of course. Out on the bed? That shows they meant to take it. Perhaps they were frightened at the last minute. I hope they haven't handled it. I can't wait to go round and examine it. Would the insurance company pay for cleaning? They ought to, when it's a burglary. And what about my pearls?'

A bell rang.

‘That must be the police,' said Margaret Lark and hurried from the room.

One of the plain-clothes men who had come to the hall last night had brought another older man this morning. Carolus knew neither, but concluded that this was the CID inspector handling the case. The day was gone, he reflected, when a spectacular murder of this kind merited a Superintendent—crime had become too widespread for such specialisation.

They took Mavis into the Rector's study and closed the door. Meanwhile Carolus asked Margaret Lark how she knew about the burglary at Horseman's.

‘Billy Trotter,' she said. ‘He takes the milk round. He's in the kitchen now if you want to see him. He discov'd the burg.'

‘I'll go out to him if I may.'

He found Billy Trotter to be an urban-looking young man with long curly hair, a small beard and a pipe. Carolus introduced himself and Trotter said, ‘Oh, yes,' in a knowing manner.

‘I gather you were the first on the scene?' Carolus said.

‘So far as I know. It was about seven o'clock. You've never seen such a bloody mess in your life.'

‘Bloody?' Carolus asked, but the word had only been used for emphasis.

‘The empty milk bottle was out on the step—I suppose Mavis had put it out before she knew about her husband. I had actually changed the bottles before I realised that anything was wrong. Then I noticed one of the study windows was open. They have latticed windows—it's one of those

“quaint old” houses built about thirty years ago. This window was swinging loose. That's funny, I thought.

‘It had rained in the night, but you could still see the footprints, all slushed over, in the flower-bed outside the window, though you couldn't tell much more than that they were a man's. I didn't think there was anyone in the house, but I spent about five minutes ringing the bell in case there was.'

‘What made you think there was no one there? Mrs Horseman might have been.'

‘I was at the dance last night,' said Trotter. ‘I'm in the band. Play the drums, as a matter of fact. We were all hanging about the place after it happened last night. I had heard Mavis had been taken to the rectory. Anyway, no one answered the bell so I decided to have a look.'

‘Rather a risky procedure. You might have been suspected of the burglary.'

‘That's what the coppers said when I reported it. They said I had no business to climb in the study window. But I'd seen enough from outside to know the place had been turned over and how was I to know that whoever had done it wasn't still there?'

‘I see your point, but I agree with the police. However, you climbed in.'

‘The whole room was littered, but no written stuff. Stationery, old newspaper cuttings, odds and ends emptied out of drawers, books pulled from shelves as if to see what was behind them, but not a scrap of manuscript.'

‘Or typescript.'

‘I don't think Horseman used a typewriter. There wasn't one there, anyway. But there was more than just searching among papers. Chair-covers had been ripped, carpets pulled up to see if there was any sign of the parquet being disturbed. A proper search job. Tell you what I thought. I thought the coppers themselves had been there looking for something. They didn't seem to have missed a single hiding-place.

‘The rest of the house was much the same only not so
thorough, of course. There couldn't have been time in the night to look everywhere, even if there were half a dozen searching. But cupboards and drawers and places like that had been gone over.'

‘What about breakages?'

‘Oh, God, yes! Drawers had been forced open and cupboards broken into. It looked as though they'd used a crowbar or something like that. The police will know.'