Furious Old Women (16 page)

“It was badly blood-stained?”

“Very badly. Horrible in fact. Now I can't wait any longer. I can't afford to miss one like this.”

He strode away, his long shanks and thin body exaggerated by the yellow overhead light.

Carolus was about to drive on when he saw Slatt. It seemed that the policeman had been observing him during his conversation with Mugger and now approached.

“You know what the Inspector told you, don't you?” he said as though he were addressing a small and naughty
boy. “You've no business to be nosing round with what doesn't concern you. I should very much like to know what you were asking Mugger.”

“Really? Perhaps Mugger will tell you.”

“I'm surprised you encourage him,” said Slatt. “He gives more trouble than all the rest of the village put together. I hear you've been round to see Miss Vaillant, too. I can't see how she can concern you. What I'm always afraid of is a burglary there. She's all on her own and the house is full of valuables. Antiques and that.”

“I know. There's a landscape by Constable.”

“Police Officer!” said Slatt, so alert for the offensive word that he could not wait to study niceties of meaning.

“I'm always forgetting,” said Carolus. “A landscape by Police Officer. But I shouldn't have thought there was much danger of burglary in a place like this.”

“If there can be murder there can be burglary,” said Slatt darkly.

“What really seems to distinguish your village is the enmity between its inhabitants. Particularly the older ones.”

“You don't know the half of it,” said Slatt. “There's the three old sisters to start with. There was no love lost among them. I've heard that Mrs Bobbin could lay her tongue to some terrible language when she was put out with the one that's been done for. The other one would shout the Old Testament at both of them. Proper slanging match. That's only what I hear, though.”

“Of course.”

“Then the vicar's wife's not much better. You should have heard her going on about the Miss Griggses according to what they tell me. Talk about words! Miss Vaillant's different. She's sweet as sugar till suddenly she's raging like a wild cat. Funny, isn't it? Then look at Mrs Rumble!”

Carolus put in a mild defence of the sexton's wife. “You don't know her, that's all I can say,” returned
Slatt. “She's got a wicked temper. Commander Fyfe's wife's just the same, only she's laid up half the time. They say you can hear her shouting at him from two doors away. Then what about Mrs Pinton?”

“I don't know her.”

“She's the doctor's wife. I've seen her lose her temper as much as any of them. As for them up at what they call Hellfire Corner—well!”

“I believe Mugger's married?”

“There's another one! I thought she was going for me the other morning when I had to ask her something. She was out the back, doing her washing.”

“No woman likes a man to watch that.”

“Perhaps that's what upset her. She seemed to have a lot of it. And of course with Mugger out poaching at night there was blood on things. But it wasn't that. It was me seeing her without one of these washing machines ail the women have.”

“You mean she was using an old-fashioned cop … police officer?”

Slatt seemed not to notice this gaffe.

“Turned on me something wicked, she did. What business had I got coming out to her back yard? You're right in what you say about this village. When George Larkin's wife was alive she was no better. It was always my belief that she knew about him and Miss Griggs going off together when they were young and never forgave him for it. She never liked the old ladies, anyway, and didn't want young Bill to have anything to do with them.”

“Yet I understand that Miss Griggs has remembered both the Larkins in her will.”

“That's the funny part of it. She's left Bill just as much as his father and he was nothing to do with her. Of course, after George Larkin's wife died, young Bill used to go up and see the old lady. They're very deep, those Larkins. Both of them. You never know where you are with them.”

Suddenly Slatt became alert.

“They're coming out of the Griggs Institute,” he said. “All those young devils'll be raising Cain in the street if I don't get down there.”

“They don't seem to be making much noise,” said Carolus.

“It's not that. They get all over the place laughing and talking. If I'm not there they think they can do what they like.”

“You'd better go and show them they can't,” said Carolus and Slatt, unconscious of irony, pushed his cycle away.

Carolus decided to have a last drink in the Black Horse before leaving for home, and found himself, as on his first night, beside the informative Mr Lovibond.

“You didn't tell me you were finding out about the murder when we had our chat before,” said Lovibond. “Still, I don't suppose you want to tell your business to everyone, especially when it's something of that sort. It was young Laddie Grey told me. One of the nicest chaps you could wish to meet. He came in my shop the other day to buy a bulb for his motor-bike. I think I told you I keep a little electric shop down the road. Yes, young Laddie came in and mentioned to me that you'd been asking him questions.”

“Was it a headlight bulb he wanted?” asked Carolus casually.

“No. It was for the light on his sidecar, because I saw him fix it in. So you've been round asking everyone, have you?”

“Yes. I seem to have met a good many of the inhabitants of Gladhurst.”

“Talked to old Flo yet?”

“I have met her. Yes.”

“She's a Character, isn't she? You never know who you'll see her with next. There's a story going round about her and Fyfe who lives up at The Fairway. I shouldn't be surprised, mind you. It wouldn't be the first
married man, not by a long way. But she doesn't mean anyone any harm. It's only the wives get a bit upset when stories get back to them. Not that my old woman would bother. As long as I don't forget her light ale when I go home at night she never says a word.”

“That's good.”

“Look at old George Larkin watching the clock. He knows Slatt's outside holding his watch. He'll start shouting ‘Time!' in a minute.”

Carolus decided to leave before the split-second ejection by synchronized watches had taken place.

C
AROLUS
was free for the following week-end and wanted to spend it in Gladhurst. But before arranging this he approached the headmaster for formal leave of absence, a gesture of courtesy which he would not omit.

He found an opportunity of speaking to Mr Gorringer on the Wednesday afternoon, for a lecturer was due to address the school on Tanganyika (with lantern slides), and afternoon classes were therefore cancelled. The lecturer was late and the Headmaster paced impatiently before the moderately-sized room known as the Great Hall in which the school's 250 boys were gathered.

“Ah Deene, you find me in a frame of mind by no means equable. If there is a fault to me unforgivable it is that of unpunctuality. Our lecturer is already ten minutes late.”

“The fog, perhaps.”

“Fog? It was his duty to provide against all climatic exigencies. His fee is twelve guineas, which, though it includes expenses, seems to be adequate.”

“I wonder what his agent stings him, poor devil,” said Carolus.

“That, my dear Deene, is not our affair. Thirteen minutes. The boys will grow restless shortly.”

“I want to be away this week-end, headmaster.”

“Again? Really Deene, you are quite deserting us. Have you no wish to see our match against St Hildegarde's? And perhaps you have forgotten that the Dean of Bodmin is preaching in the School Chapel on Sunday?”

“It's rather an urgent matter. I feel if I can stay a weekend among these people at Gladhurst I can get the thing cleared up for good. It's the way one knows a village like that.”

“At least I respect your candour, Deene, in telling me the reason you wish to elude us again. That much I appreciate. But I could have wished that the promise of a hard-fought football match, together with the celebrated eloquence of the Dean of Bodmin … However, I will not stand in your way. It shall never be said that I adopt a restrictive or a carping attitude towards my staff. You may go and I hope will return with all mysteries elucidated.”

“Thank you.”

“Dear me. A full quarter of an hour late. I shall be constrained to send the boys back to their classrooms and abandon all thought of the lecture, for which, fortunately, the fee has not yet been paid. So we are to hear shortly the identity of this brutal murderer at Gladhurst? I trust you will make me among the first to hear details? I must tell you a witticism of my wife's on that subject. She … Ah, but unless I mistake me this is our lecturer at last….”

The headmaster hurried forward and Carolus, with a sigh, sat to see lantern slides of Tanganyika. These consisted largely of hefty negroes in postures which, the lecturer assured his audience, were those of a native dance.

When Saturday came, Carolus set off immediately after morning school, having a delightful sense of escape. It was not often he allowed himself a night away from Newminster during term-time but the reason he had given to the headmaster in this case was a genuine one. He believed that a small thing like going to bed and waking up in Gladhurst, spending Saturday night in the pub and Sunday morning in the church, being for a few hours one of the village inhabitants, might make all the difference to his understanding of them. And on that depended the whole case.

His first call was at the vicarage. Mrs Waddell opened the door and spoke with something like a note of triumph.

“My husband's preparing his sermon for tomorrow and cannot possibly be disturbed. My daughter's out on her bike.”

“That's all right,” said Carolus blandly. “It was you I hoped to find at home, Mrs Waddell.”

She gave him a short defiant stare, then said: “Come in, then.”

“I must really apologize for troubling you again,” said Carolus. “You'll think I'm an awful idiot. The thing is, I'm trying to work out a complete timetable for everyone's movements after two-thirty that day and I find I have a blank in yours.”

“It sounds like a sort of game,” said Mrs Waddell grimly.

“Not really. It's rather important. You explained to me that you had your Mother's Meeting from four to six, I think. That was at the Griggs Institute, perhaps?”

“It was.”

“I see. But it's only about five minutes from here and your daughter remembers you returning at 6.45 or more. It is that three-quarters of an hour I want to fill in.”

“I find the query somewhat impertinent, Mr Deene, but in order not to be badgered with further questions I will tell you at once. The Scouts were holding their
Cookery Tests at the Institute. I watched for a time to see that everything was all right. Last year there was nearly a nasty accident.”

“Did you speak to Mr Slipper?”

“No. He hates being interrupted while he is with his boys. I just stood in the shadows at the back for a while, then came away.”

“No one saw you?”

“I shouldn't think so. They were furiously concentrated on their pancakes.”

“Thank you, Mrs Waddell. I needn't take any more of your time.”

On his way round to Commander Fyfe's he caught a glimpse of a somewhat bizarre group. Mr Slipper was in the full uniform of a Scoutmaster and with him were several sturdy Rovers with a laden pushcart. Carolus sighed. It was an excellent thing, the Boy Scout Movement, but why oh why did it encourage grown men whose physiques could not stand the test to wear this uniform? For healthy youngsters, splendid, but for curates no longer youthful, with angularities like Mr Slipper's, fatal. Those blue knees! But he waved a greeting to the curate and drove on towards The Fairway.

Fortunately he found himself stopped in the road and without any explanation Fyfe climbed in beside him.

“The very man I want to see!” he said. “Most extraordinary thing. Could we drive on a little? Out of the village perhaps?”

When they had reached a fairly open stretch of road about a mile away, Fyfe dropped his voice.

“It's Dundas Griggs,” he said. “He guessed it was I who told you he was over here.”

“How did he guess that?”

“Because he saw me when he was driving his Vauxhall and stopped.”

“You didn't tell me.”

“So many strange things happened that day. I couldn't
tell you them all. I've seen him over here before. He goes to call on the old ladies; then we usually meet at the Black Horse in the evening. Saloon bar, of course. It's quiet there. He told me that afternoon he had a little proposition for me.”

“Quite a Euclidian, Mr Griggs.”

“I beg your pardon? Oh. Who is this coming down the road on a bicycle? You see you never know here.”

“You were telling me about that afternoon.”

“Yes. Arranged to meet for a drink later. I told you. I was able to leave the house for a while. My gardener and his wife … television….”

“Yes. Yes.”

“Then the really extraordinary thing happened. I can't think why I didn't tell you before.
Griggs never turned up
. I waited an hour for him. Not a sign. Never came. What do you think of that?”

“Very bad manners.”

“Manners? But don't you see, man? He's the nephew of the murdered woman and on the night of her death he fails to keep an appointment! Doesn't it strike you as sinister?”

“Not necessarily.”

“Then today. Over here again. Remonstrating with me for having told you he was in Gladhurst that day. Says he doesn't want to get mixed up in the thing. He was quite annoyed. I consider that highly significant.”