Furious Old Women (19 page)

When Carolus either ignored these strange histrionics or appeared to put them down to some physical disorder and enquired after Mr Gorringer's health, the headmaster could keep silence no longer.

Ah, Deene, Deene,” he said, lugubriously. “I was deeply distressed to read of a second death at Gladhurst. Surely that might have been prevented? One could almost allow oneself the fell notion that death follows your investigations. I should be loath indeed to think such a thing.”

“We don't even know what caused her death.”

“Oh, quite. One must not be premature in supposing the worst. But I could have wished that in a case you were investigating the death roll could have been limited to one.”

The headmaster passed on, his gown billowing, and Carolus made his way to his classroom.

Next day he received the
Burley Watchman
with a full account of the inquest on Grazia Vaillant. The Coroner, it appeared, had known his job and left nothing un-probed which could assist in revealing the full truth. Grazia had died of an overdose of the barbiturate which was used in Minerval tablets. An empty tube of these was found in her bag, bearing her finger-prints and hers only.

The pathologist who had conducted the post-mortem had also discovered a quantity of alcohol, probably swallowed in the form of gin and lime juice within a short time before death. The assumption was—though the Coroner stressed that it was no more than an
assumption—that Miss Vaillant had drunk a quantity of gin and lime sufficient to upset her judgment and had then swallowed the Minerval tablets.

Dr Pinton, the village doctor, gave evidence and said that he had been prescribing Minerval for Miss Vaillant for two years. She was a perfectly reliable patient who knew that she should never take more than one, or at the most two, tablets at a time. Asked if these tablets were particularly dangerous in conjunction with alcohol, the doctor said that this was so if either of the two was taken in excess. He had mentioned to Miss Vaillant that Minerval should not be taken after or with alcohol in any quantity, as he did whenever he prescribed Minerval, but he had done so more as a formality than anything else. He had never had any reason to suppose that Miss Vaillant drank more than a very occasional glass of wine with a meal. He was most surprised to hear the pathologist's report.

He described Grazia Vaillant as a woman whose feelings could sometimes be violent but who was usually well-disposed, perhaps rather gushingly so, in conversation. She was in no way abnormal, an enthusiast in religious matters but not a fanatic. He would not describe her as unbalanced. A little eccentric, perhaps, and exceptionally anxious to get her own way but not psychopathically so. He had prescribed Minerval for her because she lived so much on her nerves and energy that a tranquillizer at night was beneficial.

Asked how many tablets of Minerval he thought would be fatal he said that with the alcohol she had drunk he thought six would be sufficient, though death would not necessarily be immediate but would be preceded by first a period akin to inebriation, then coma, then death.

Mrs Rumble, eyeing the Coroner and everyone else with the greatest hostility, had given details of Miss Vaillant's private life. Asked if she had reason to think Miss Vaillant drank spirits when alone she said: “I don't know about spirits. She liked a drop of gin.” However, she gave
no details of the quantity purchased or where it was bought, only saying that she had seen gin in one of the cupboards and that though the empty bottles were always thrown away and the glass washed up, it didn't deceive her.

“Besides,” she added, “Anybody doesn't get through all that lime juice in the middle of winter unless it's to drink with Something, do they?”

She recalled the two visits of Millicent Griggs just before that lady's death and said that ‘as far as she could tell' the conversation had been amicable. She had noticed when she showed out Miss Griggs that she looked ‘flushed up' and as though she'd ‘had one or two' but she might have been mistaken. As for the visit from Miss Flora Griggs on the day of Miss Vaillant's death Mrs Rumble ‘couldn't say much'. It was a Saturday and she was in a hurry to get off and do her week-end shopping. She had shown in Miss Flora and ‘seen them settled without any words' in her presence. Asked if she meant the ladies hadn't spoken she looked at the Coroner as though she was sorry for his stupidity. ‘Of course they spoke,” she said. “I mean they had no Words while I was there.” It dawned on the Coroner that this indicated not conversation in dumb-show but absence of any altercation, so the point was left behind.

Asked whether Miss Flora Griggs was still in the house when she left, Mrs Rumble said, yes. She had gone to the sitting-room where they were to say good-afternoon before leaving. She had already been paid. She found the two ladies looking a little ‘worked up' if they knew what she meant, but she still heard no actual Words. Just as she came into the room she heard Miss Flora say something like ‘your idols may be broken ‘and she had thought that sounded a bit nasty till she had heard it followed by Ezekiel something or other and realized that Miss Flora was only saying bits of the Old Testament as she often did. She wondered now whether it had referred to the new statue which Miss Vaillant had got down from London
and which was upstairs all in the sacking it had come in. Miss Vaillant had told her this was for the new Lady Chapel they were making in the church and the vicar had just agreed to it.

Further she said that Miss Vaillant had seemed in good spirits lately and that she, Mrs Rumble, would never believe whatever anyone might say, that she had done away with herself on purpose. In her view, a drop of gin sometimes when you felt a bit low was one thing and taking your own life was another, a dictum which met no contradiction though the Coroner recalled the witness to the facts of the case rather than her own opinions.

The greatest surprises during the inquest were provided by a Mr Sturdis, a London solicitor who had handled the dead woman's affairs. Her real name, it appeared, was Grace Vallance and she was the daughter of a city outfitter who had wisely sold his business and premises before the great monopoly chain stores had pushed out small enterprise, He had retired to Folkestone with a comfortable fortune. He had accommodatingly died before dying had been made too expensive and Miss Vaillant had enjoyed an income, with all taxes paid, of some two thousand pounds a year to which she had added a thousand by progressive but slow reduction of capital. It was on his advice that she had adopted this course since she had no near relatives. The system had been calculated to provide a sufficient income however long Miss Vaillant's life might be and whatever further burdens of taxation might be laid on her shoulders. Mr Sturdis looked rather complacent about it.

Her will was a somewhat complicated one but the chief beneficiaries would be the Reverend Bonar Waddell and the Parish of St Jude, Gladhurst. There were conditions laid down for this, however, which might cause some difficulties, as for instance the introduction of incense during the service known as Sung Eucharist, the use of a Sanctus bell, something called Reservation for the Sick and a number of other changes which must be made in the
church ritual before the local charities or the vicar himself could benefit under the will. A codicil had recently been added for the benefit of those charities, chiefly, Mr Sturdis understood, among the youth of the parish, sponsored by the Reverend Peter Slipper. These again were restricted by conditions. The Scout Troop, for instance, was to receive an annuity of £100 for the purchase of equipment, etc, but this was payable only if it could be shown that eighty per cent of the boys over fifteen were regular communicants. There was also a sum of £500 for Mrs Rumble.

It would be a difficult will to execute, Mr Sturdis said, and he did not envy the executors appointed, Commander Fyfe and Mr John Waygooze.

No evidence was given of any other caller at the Old Vicarage, either on the Saturday or during the evening or night.

The police said their piece, the vicar was called, then Miss Flora Griggs described her call on Grazia Vaillant at the latter's urgent request. Her evidence was somewhat confused and rhetorical, and really added very little to that already known. Miss Vaillant, she said, had
plied
her with strong drink, and when asked to be a little more explicit she let fly a covey of quotations from the Old Testament which seemed to confuse if not to embarrass the Coroner.

“Do you mean she poured out a drink for you?” he asked, trying to make poor Flora more specific.

“‘Take the wine of the cup of this fury at my hand',” said Flora and the Coroner was puzzled till she added, “Jeremiah XXV, 15.”

“Please be definite about this, Miss Griggs. Were you actually handed a glass containing gin?”

“I have no idea what it contained,” said Flora. “I knew it was an abomination and would not take it in my hand.”

“So two glasses had been poured out?”

“I think so.”

“You refused them?”

“Most indignantly.”

“Did you shortly leave the house?”

“I paused only to leave on the table some short tracts, which if this unfortunate woman would have turned in her wickedness and read, would have saved her soul alive.”

“I see. And when you left she was in good health and spirits?”

“‘Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning to follow strong drink; that tarry late into the night, till wine inflame them! ‘Isaiah V, 11.”

“Do you mean that Miss Vaillant already showed the influence of alcohol?”

“She was a wine-bibber. That was sufficient.”

The Coroner gave it up.

The verdict was eventually and inevitably one of Accidental Death by poisoning caused by an overdose of barbiturate.

For some days after this Carolus did not go over to Gladhurst and was interested to realize that five weeks had now passed from the date of Millicent Griggs's death. It was at least comforting to know that the police were taking as long as he was to reach any sort of conclusion. Now and again a daily newspaper would remind the public of this by talking about the unsolved mystery and recalling the fact, no doubt considered picturesque, that the body had been buried in an already dug grave. This had gripped Press imagination from the first.

One evening as he finished dinner in his home, Carolus had a surprise. Mrs Stick came in showing every sign of her most ardent disapproval.

“There's someone to see you,” she said. “I've shown him into the little sitting-room because I didn't know what else to do, but I thought you said we weren't going to have any murderers and that coming here this time?”

“What's his name?”

“Griggs, he says, and it didn't take me long to know where I'd heard that name. I haven't said you're in yet, only that I'll go and see, so what shall I tell him?”

“Show him in, please, Mrs Stick.”

“There! I knew it. And Stick and me just settling down to the television. Now we shall have to miss half the programme because I wouldn't turn the lights down with anyone like that in the house, not for anything.”

“You could lock your door.”

“It wouldn't be the Same Thing,” said Mrs Stick and went out to usher in Dundas Griggs.

“Had a job to find you, old man,” this one began.

“You had a job to find
me
?”

“Yes. I knew you taught here but I couldn't find out where you lived. In the end someone showed me the headmaster's house and I asked him.”

“Oh.”

“Inquisitive old character, isn't he? Wanted to know my name and business and everything. I nearly said I was a copper come to arrest you.”

“I hope you did nothing of the sort,” said Carolus, picturing Mr Gorringer as he received the news.

“No. I just said it was in connection with the Gladhurst Case.”

“That was bad enough.”

“Oh, I don't know. He seemed quite intrigued. ‘Any new developments?' he asked in a stage whisper. I was just as corny. I put my finger on my lips. He nodded, and gave me your address. So here I am.”

“Have a drink?”

“I don't mind. Dropper Scotch if you've got one. I've come to see you about something rather serious.”

“Yes?”

“It's my Aunt Flora. She's in a bad state, old man.”

“She seems to have been somewhat distressed at the inquest.”

“It's since then. I don't know if she's going off her
rocker. She has started accusing herself now. Fortunately only in the household. But you never know where that will stop.”

“Accusing herself of what?”

“What do you think? Murdering Grazia Vaillant, of course.”

“But …”

“It appears that when she called on her that afternoon old Vaillant tried to get her to take a tot. Vaillant said, and for all I know it may have been true, that Millicent hadn't been above it on those last two occasions she called on her. Whether or not there was anything in this, she had backed the wrong horse with Flora. The old girl ‘started like a guilty thing surprised' and almost threw it back in Vaillant's face.”

“Yes. We know all this.”

“But what you don't know is when Flora was a bit calmer she told Vaillant the best way of resisting the temptation to drink the awful stuff. Cheerio, by the way. If the terrible habit had such a grip on her that she couldn't resist, she was to take one of these dear little pills which Dr Pinton had prescribed and she would find herself asleep in ten minutes with all temptation gone. And she gave her a couple of Minerval tablets.”

“But Grazia Vaillant was already taking Minerval.”

“So it appears. But she never told Flora. Perhaps she didn't want to hurt her feelings. I don't know. Now Flora thinks she killed her.”

“If those are her only grounds for thinking so, it's ridiculous.”