Murder in the Museum (Fethering Mysteries) (26 page)

‘Like what?’

‘Look at this.’

Her eyes followed his finger to the sentence in which ‘Pickles’ referred to his aunt: ‘I don’t think she likes anyone – certainly not me or Mr Lloyd George, so she’s in an even sourer mood than usual.’

‘OK, Lloyd George was still Prime Minister in 1917, but he actually took over the job in December 1916. Wouldn’t his appointment be what made the aunt “sourer than ever”?’

He raised a hand to curb objections. ‘All right, that one’s arguable, but these two references to the Somme seem very odd.’

Again his finger found the relevant passages.

‘I’d like to get a bit of revenge for all those chaps Strider lost on the Somme. He seemed raring to go back, didn’t he, champing at the bit to get back and finish the job?’

and

‘Did you hear, incidentally, that old “Rattles” Rattenborough, School Captain of a couple of years back, has died of wounds he sustained during that Somme fixture? Bit of a damper when you hear about chaps you know, but it seems to be happening all too often these days.’

‘Now the Somme Offensive started in July 1916 and, OK, it was dreadful, left deep scars on the country. But by December 1917, the Third Battle of Ypres – all the horrors of Passchendaele – had happened. Surely those’d be more in the mind of a war-watching schoolboy than the events of nearly eighteen months before? And can you really believe that it had taken eighteen months for “Pickles” to hear about the death of a school captain?’

‘Ah, that one’s not certain,’ Carole pointed out. ‘He died of “wounds sustained during that Somme fixture”. We don’t know how long that process took.’

‘Take your point.’ Laurence Hawker nodded in appreciation. Then his finger moved quickly to another line. ‘But look at this. This is the clincher.’

Carole read, ‘Now our boys have got those newfangled tanks out there, it shouldn’t take long.’

‘British tanks were introduced to the Battle of the Somme in September 1916. Surely fourteen months later our schoolboy wouldn’t be describing them as “new-fangled”? Three months later, maybe.’

Coughing lightly, he sat back with an air of triumph, and took a long drag from his cigarette.

‘So what are you saying, Laurence?’

‘I would stake my reputation as an academic – or even something of real value,’ he interpolated with a self-deprecating grin, ‘that the date on this letter has been changed from “1916” to “1917”.’

‘But why would Graham Chadleigh-Bewes want to do that?’

‘Don’t know . . . unless, as I said, it was a feeble attempt to make Professor Teischbaum’s research look iffy.’ He reached forward. ‘But this is designed to have the same effect.’

What he picked up was the photocopied page from Felix Chadleigh’s diary, which began: ‘12 November 1917. The Lord and all the Holy Saints be praised! After all the exhausting uncertainty of the last few months, we did finally today take possession of Bracketts.’

‘This is an even cruder forgery,’ said Laurence. ‘I don’t know who Graham Chadleigh-Bewes thought he was going to fool with this. He’s just written in “1917” over that blotch of ink.’

‘And are there internal inconsistencies?’

‘Yes. If this was written only a fortnight after his son’s death at Passchendaele – I think we can assume the family would have heard the news by then – saying “Here we will put our griefs behind us” seems somewhat understated.’

‘Yes. And you think Graham Chadleigh-Bewes did this for the same purpose as the other one?’

‘Must’ve done. For some reason best known to himself the authorized biographer of Esmond Chadleigh was trying to make the unauthorized one believe that the Chadleigh family moved into Bracketts a year later than they actually did.’

At that moment their researches were interrupted by a ring at the doorbell. It was Jude.

Carole ushered her neighbour into the sitting room. Laurence Hawker didn’t rise from his seat or acknowledge Jude with more than a casual wave. He was preoccupied by the photocopies on the table. There was anxiety in Jude’s face as she looked at him – hardly surprising, thought Carole. Any woman would look anxious if she knew her lover had just spent the night with another woman.

Laurence looked up for a moment. ‘I came round because your house is completely devoid of whisky.’

‘How disastrous for you.’ To Carole’s mind, the remark should have been said more sardonically; and then Jude compounded the offence by saying, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll go down to Allinstore and get some later.’

Carole knew her neighbour had taken many roles in her relationships with men, but never imagined that one of them would be that of doormat. Why did Jude seem to be in thrall to this man who – even though Carole had warmed to him a little over the previous half-hour – remained an egocentric poseur?

‘Since we’re all having a drink . . .’ Jude hinted.

Carole didn’t point out that in fact only Laurence was having a drink so far, but went to open a bottle of white wine. She didn’t entirely condone the concept of drinking through a Sunday afternoon, but then Jude was her guest . . .

While she was in the kitchen, she could hear a whispered exchange between Jude and Laurence . . . well, she could hear that there
was
a whispered exchange, though frustratingly she couldn’t make out any of the words. Jude’s tone was concerned rather than – as it should have been – admonitory, and Laurence’s replies were weighed down with his customary languor. Carole wondered what was going on. Whispering was out of character for Jude.

She came in with the open bottle of wine and two glasses on a tray. (Trays were another of the inescapable legacies of her middle-class upbringing. Food or drink should be carried into a room on a tray – and then, in an ideal world, placed on an individual small table beside the chair of each guest. Carole still felt a slight frisson of audacity in dispensing with the individual small tables.)

‘Has Laurence been telling you about his detective work?’ she asked as she poured the wine.

‘No. Why, what’s happened?’

Laurence lit up another cigarette, and let Carole provide the recap on his discoveries.

‘ . . . so the biggest question we’re left with,’ she concluded, ‘is why Graham Chadleigh-Bewes would want Marla Teischbaum to believe that the Chadleigh family moved into Bracketts a year later than they did?’

‘Yes . . .’ Jude gave the problem a moment’s thought, and then shook it out of her mind, setting the blonde bird’s nest of hair quivering. ‘Sorry, I can’t think about that. My mind’s too full of what I’ve been doing this morning.’

‘Yes, I wondered where you’d been,’ said Carole, not quite managing to iron all of the reproof out of her tone.

‘I had a call from Sandy Fairbarns, my contact at Austen Prison . . .’

‘Has Mervyn Hunter been found?’

Jude raised a plump hand. ‘All in good time. She put me in touch with a friend of Mervyn. Down’s syndrome boy called Jonny Tyson, who works as a Volunteer up at Bracketts.’

‘I remember meeting him. He was the one who actually uncovered the skull in the kitchen garden.’

‘Right, Carole. That’s him. Anyway, Sandy thought Jonny might have some idea where Mervyn was, so I went to see him.’

‘And did you get anything useful?’

‘Nothing absolutely definite, but I’m pretty certain Mervyn spent last Thursday – and quite possibly Friday – at Bracketts.’

‘If he was there on Friday . . .’

‘Exactly, Carole.’ Jude grimaced. ‘Maybe Graham Chadleigh-Bewes has to relinquish his Prime Suspect status.’

‘But I thought you said you couldn’t imagine—’

‘Oh no, I’m sure Mervyn didn’t do it, but I’m not sure the police are likely to be so imaginative. They tend to think in pretty straight lines. If you have a convicted murderer at a scene of crime – and you happen to know that that murderer has a particular dislike of the victim . . .’ She completed the logic with an eloquent shrug.

As the revelations built up, a gleam of excitement grew in Carole’s grey eyes. She had almost forgotten Laurence Hawker was in the room. She and Jude were together again on an investigation. ‘So where did Mervyn hide at Bracketts?’

‘Don’t know. Jonny wouldn’t tell me. Or, to be more accurate, I don’t think he actually knew.’

‘The Priest’s Hole?’

‘I know it was designed as a hiding place, but it’s a pretty obvious one. Every visitor to Bracketts has it pointed out to them.’

‘But the house was closed on Thursday and Friday, after the press got hold of the story of the body in the kitchen garden.’

‘I know that, Carole, but there were still staff and people around. Maybe Mervyn could have actually spent the night there, but during the daytime he must’ve been somewhere else.’

‘Anyway . . .’ Jude sighed wearily, ‘it may all turn out to be academic. From our point of view at least. If they’re interested, I’m sure the police will be able to persuade Mervyn to tell them himself where he spent the time.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘They’ve caught him.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes. Had a tip-off from someone who’d seen a suspicious figure skulking round a remote barn up on the Downs. Mervyn Hunter’s back in custody.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘The police were only just behind me in visiting Jonny Tyson. I was just leaving when one of the detectives took a call on his mobile. It was the news about Mervyn’s recapture.’

‘Oh.’

‘He didn’t make any trouble, apparently. Gave himself up as meekly as a lamb.’

‘What will happen to him?’

Jude shrugged. ‘You know more about the Prison Service than I do, Carole. But I would imagine that – even if he doesn’t get done for the murder of Sheila Cartwright – he’ll get something added to his sentence . . . and he’ll have to complete it in a higher security nick than Austen.’

Carole nodded thoughtful agreement.

‘Which,’ Jude went on, ‘is quite possibly what he wanted. Why he went over the wall in the first place.’

There was a silence while they both processed the new information. Then, after a preparatory cough, Laurence Hawker said lazily, ‘Something else of interest I’ve found in this lot . . .’

Carole was instantly alert. ‘What?’

‘This business about the Priest’s Hole. We’ve all seen it, haven’t we?’

‘We went together,’ said Jude.

‘Of course we did. And I think we’d all agree that, though the room’s a fine bit of building work, and the sliding panel is well concealed to someone who’s unsuspicious, anyone who was actually
looking
for a Priest’s Hole in Bracketts would find it within five minutes.’

Jude nodded. ‘So what’s your point, Laurence?’

He picked up the photocopied sheet in the handwriting of Felix Chadleigh. ‘Given that, there’s an odd thing here in the diary entry of Esmond’s father for the day they moved into Bracketts.’ Laurence Hawker paused to cough before continuing, ‘He speaks of “a cunningly hidden and complex Priest’s Hole”.’

‘Maybe you should have a more detailed look around the Priest’s Hole at Bracketts . . .?’ Laurence Hawker went on.

‘See if there’s another secret hiding place Mervyn could have used?’

‘Something like that, Jude, yes.’ He tapped the pile of papers on the table. ‘Interesting, this lot. I wouldn’t mind finding out a bit more about Esmond Chadleigh’s murky past.’

‘Do you think he had a murky past?’ asked Carole.

He smiled at her mischievously. ‘I’m sure we all have murky pasts, don’t we?’

She didn’t grace that with an answer. Carole Seddon certainly did not have a murky past. Wistfully, she sometimes wished she had.

‘Where would you find out more information?’ asked Jude. ‘Up at Bracketts?’

‘Suppose there might be something up there.’ He coughed, stubbed out a cigarette in Carole’s rarely used ashtray, then immediately lit up another. ‘I’d be tempted to start with more traditional research sources.’

‘Is the internet traditional?’

‘I’m sure I’ll get on to that. But I was thinking of starting with local libraries, the County Records Office.’

That reminded Carole. ‘Marla Teischbaum’s been working there.’

‘Oh?’

‘When she last rang me, she said she’d found out an interesting new approach to Esmond Chadleigh, from research she’d been doing in the County Records Office.’

‘Oh.’ Laurence smiled. ‘Well, I might meet her when I go down there. Find out what she’s on to.’

‘Talk to her, do you mean?’ asked Carole, with her upbringing’s knee-jerk reaction to the idea of addressing anyone one hasn’t been introduced to. ‘Do you know her?’

‘No, but it’s always easy to start a conversation with an academic.’

‘Oh? How?’

‘Appeal, Carole, to the vanity which is common to all of us. I look up her details on the internet, then, on seeing her, say, “Excuse me, aren’t you the Professor Teischbaum, who wrote that brilliant paper on Darwinian imagery in Gerard Manley Hopkins’ later poems, which was published in the 1997
Sprachphilologische Ephemeriden der Litteratur Festschrift
. . .?” or whatever it happens to be – and I’m her friend for life.’