Murder Is Easy (6 page)

“That's a very handsome cat. Have you had him long?”

Miss Waynflete shook her head.

“Oh, no, he belonged to an old friend of mine, Miss Pinkerton. She was run over by one of these horrid motorcars and of course I couldn't have let Wonky Pooh go to strangers. Lavinia would have been most upset. She simply worshipped him—and he is very beautiful isn't he?”

Luke admired the cat gravely.

Miss Waynflete said: “Be careful of his ears. They've been rather painful lately.”

Luke stroked the animal warily.

Bridget rose to her feet.

She said, “We must be going.”

Miss Waynflete shook hands with Luke.

“Perhaps,” she said, “I shall see you again before long.”

Luke said cheerfully: “I hope so, I'm sure.”

He thought she looked puzzled and a little disappointed. Her
gaze shifted to Bridget—a rapid look with a hint of interrogation in it. Luke felt that there was some understanding between the two women from which he was excluded. It annoyed him, but he promised himself to get to the bottom of it before long.

Miss Waynflete came out with them. Luke stood a minute on the top of the steps looking with approval on the untouched primness of the village green and the duck pond.

“Marvellously unspoilt, this place,” he said.

Miss Waynflete's face lit up.

“Yes, indeed,” she said eagerly. “Really it is still just as I remember it as a child. We lived in the Hall, you know. But when it came to my brother he did not care to live in it—indeed could not afford to do so, and it was put up for sale. A builder had made an offer and was, I believe, going to ‘develop the land,' I think that was the phrase. Fortunately, Lord Whitfield stepped in and acquired the property and saved it. He turned the house into a library and museum—really it is practically untouched. I act as librarian twice a week there—unpaid,
of course
—and I can't tell you what a pleasure it is to be in the old place and know that it will not be vandalised. And really it
is
a perfect setting—you must visit our little museum one day, Mr. Fitzwilliam. There are some quite interesting local exhibits.”

“I certainly shall make a point of doing so, Miss Waynflete.”

“Lord Whitfield has been a great benefactor to Wychwood,” said Miss Waynflete. “It grieves me that there are people who are sadly ungrateful.”

Her lips pressed themselves together. Luke discreetly asked no questions. He said good-bye again.

When they were outside the gate Bridget said:

“Do you want to pursue further researches or shall we go home by way of the river? It's a pleasant walk.”

Luke answered promptly. He had no mind for further investigations with Bridget Conway standing by listening. He said:

“Go round by the river, by all means.”

They walked along the High Street. One of the last houses had a sign decorated in old gold lettering with the word Antiques on it. Luke paused and peered through one of the windows into the cool depths.

“Rather a nice slipware dish there,” he remarked. “Do for an aunt of mine. Wonder how much they want for it?”

“Shall we go in and see?”

“Do you mind? I like pottering about antique shops. Sometimes one picks up a good bargain.”

“I doubt if you will here,” said Bridget dryly. “Ellsworthy knows the value of his stuff pretty accurately, I should say.”

The door was open. In the hall were chairs and settees and dressers with china and pewter on them. Two rooms full of goods opened at either side.

Luke went into the room on the left and picked up the slipware dish. At the same moment a dim figure came forward from the back of the room where he had been sitting at a Queen Anne walnut desk.

“Ah, dear Miss Conway, what a pleasure to see you.”

“Good morning, Mr. Ellsworthy.”

Mr. Ellsworthy was a very exquisite young man dressed in a colour scheme of russet brown. He had a long pale face with a womanish mouth, long black artistic hair and a mincing walk.

Luke was introduced and Mr. Ellsworthy immediately transferred his attention to him.

“Genuine old English slipware. Delicious, isn't it? I love my bits and pieces, you know, hate to sell them. It's always been my dream to live in the country and have a little shop. Marvellous place, Wychwood—it has atmosphere, if you know what I mean.”

“The artistic temperament,” murmured Bridget.

Ellsworthy turned on her with a flash of long white hands.

“Not that terrible phrase, Miss Conway. No—no, I implore you. Don't tell me I'm all arty and crafty—I couldn't bear it. Really, really, you know, I don't stock handwoven tweeds and beaten pewter. I'm a tradesman, that's all, just a tradesman.”

“But you're really an artist, aren't you?” said Luke. “I mean, you do water-colours, don't you?”

“Now who told you that?” cried Mr. Ellsworthy, clasping his hands together. “You know this place is really too marvellous—one simply can't keep a secret! That's what I like about it—it's so different from that inhuman you-mind-your-own-business-and-I-will-mind-mine of a city! Gossip and malice and scandal—all so delicious if one takes them in the right spirit!”

Luke contented himself with answering Mr. Ellsworthy's question and paying no attention to the latter part of his remarks.

“Miss Waynflete told us that you had made several sketches of a girl—Amy Gibbs.”

“Oh, Amy,” said Mr. Ellsworthy. He took a step backwards and set a beer mug rocking. He steadied it carefully. He said: “Did I? Oh, yes, I suppose I did.”

His poise seemed somewhat shaken.

“She was a pretty girl,” said Bridget.

Mr. Ellsworthy had recovered his aplomb.

“Oh, do you think so?” he asked. “Very commonplace, I always thought. If you're interested in slipware,” he went on to Luke, “I've got a couple of slipware birds—delicious things.”

Luke displayed a faint interest in the birds and then asked the price of the dish.

Ellsworthy named a figure.

“Thanks,” said Luke, “but I don't think I'll deprive you of it after all.”

“I'm always relieved, you know,” said Ellsworthy, “when I don't make a sale. Foolish of me, isn't it? Look here, I'll let you have it for a guinea less. You care for the stuff. I can see that—it makes all the difference. And after all, this
is
a shop!”

“No, thanks,” said Luke.

Mr. Ellsworthy accompanied them out to the door, waving his hands—very unpleasant hands, Luke thought they were—the flesh seemed not so much white as faintly greenish.

“Nasty bit of goods, Mr. Ellsworthy,” he remarked when he and Bridget were out of earshot.

“A nasty mind and nasty habits I should say,” said Bridget.

“Why does he really come to a place like this?”

“I believe he dabbles in black magic. Not quite black Masses but that sort of thing. The reputation of this place helps.”

Luke said rather awkwardly: “Good lord—I suppose he's the kind of chap I really need. I ought to have talked to him on the subject.”

“Do you think so?” said Bridget. “He knows a lot about it.”

Luke said rather uneasily:

“I'll look him up some other day.”

Bridget did not answer. They were out of the town now. She turned aside to follow a footpath and presently they came to the river.

There they passed a small man with a stiff moustache and protuberant eyes. He had three bulldogs with him to whom he was shouting hoarsely in turn. “Nero, come here, sir. Nelly, leave it. Drop it, I tell you. Augustus—
AUGUSTUS,
I say—”

He broke off to raise his hat to Bridget, stared at Luke with what was evidently a devouring curiosity and passed on resuming his hoarse expostulations.

“Major Horton and his bulldogs?” quoted Luke.

“Quite right.”

“Haven't we seen practically everyone of note in Wychwood this morning?”

“Practically.”

“I feel rather obtrusive,” said Luke. “I suppose a stranger in an English village is bound to stick out a mile,” he added ruefully, remembering Jimmy Lorrimer's remarks.

“Major Horton never disguises his curiosity very well,” said Bridget. “He did stare, rather.”

“He's the sort of man you could tell was a Major anywhere,” said Luke rather viciously.

Bridget said abruptly: “Shall we sit on the bank a bit? We've got lots of time.”

They sat on a fallen tree that made a convenient seat. Bridget went on:

“Yes, Major Horton is very military—has an orderly room manner. You'd hardly believe he was the most henpecked man in existence a year ago!”

“What, that fellow?”

“Yes. He had the most disagreeable woman for a wife that I've ever known. She had the money too, and never scrupled to underline the fact in public.”

“Poor brute—Horton, I mean.”

“He behaved very nicely to her—always the officer and gentleman. Personally, I wonder he didn't take a hatchet to her.”

“She wasn't popular, I gather.”

“Everybody disliked her. She snubbed Gordon and patronized me and made herself generally unpleasant wherever she went.”

“But I gather a merciful providence removed her?”

“Yes, about a year ago. Acute gastritis. She gave her husband, Dr. Thomas and two nurses absolute Hell—but she died all right. The bulldogs brightened up at once.”

“Intelligent brutes!”

There was a silence. Bridget was idly picking at the long grass. Luke frowned at the opposite bank unseeingly. Once again the dreamlike quality of his mission obsessed him. How much was fact—how much imagination? Wasn't it bad for one to go about studying every fresh person you met as a potential murderer? Something degrading about that point of view.

“Damn it all,” thought Luke, “I've been a policeman too long!”

He was brought out of his abstraction with a shock. Bridget's cold clear voice was speaking.

“Mr. Fitzwilliam,” she said, “just exactly why have you come down here?”

L
uke had been just in the act of applying a match to a cigarette. The unexpectedness of her remark momentarily paralysed his hand. He remained quite motionless for a second or two, the match burned down and scorched his fingers.

“Damn,” said Luke as he dropped the match and shook his hand vigorously. “I beg your pardon. You gave me rather a nasty jolt.” He smiled ruefully.

“Did I?”

“Yes.” He sighed. “Oh, well, I suppose anyone of real intelligence was bound to see through me! That story of my writing a book on folklore didn't take you in for a moment, I suppose?”

“Not after I'd once seen you.”

“You believed it up to then?”

“Yes.”

“All the same it wasn't really a good story,” said Luke critically. “I mean, any man might want to write a book, but the bit about
coming down here and passing myself off as a cousin—I suppose that made you smell a rat?”

Bridget shook her head.

“No. I had an explanation for that—I thought I had, I mean. I presumed you were pretty hard up—a lot of my and Jimmy's friends are that—and I thought he suggested the cousin stunt so that—well, so that it would save your pride.”

“But when I arrived,” said Luke, “my appearance immediately suggested such opulence that that explanation was out of the question?”

Her mouth curved in its slow smile.

“Oh, no,” she said. “It wasn't that. It was simply that you were the wrong kind of person.”

“Not sufficient brains to write a book? Don't spare my feelings. I'd rather know.”

“You might write a book—but not that
kind
of book—old superstitions—delving into the past—not that sort of thing! You're not the kind of man to whom the past means much—perhaps not even the future—only just the present.”

“H'm—I see.” He made a wry face. “Damn it all, you've made me nervous ever since I got here! You look so confoundedly intelligent.”

“I'm sorry,” said Bridget drily. “What did you expect?”

“Well, I really hadn't thought about it.”

But she went on calmly:

“A fluffy little person—with just enough brains to realize her opportunities and marry her boss?”

Luke made a confused noise. She turned a cool amused glance on him.

“I quite understand. It's all right. I'm not annoyed.”

Luke chose effrontery.

“Well, perhaps, it was something faintly approaching that. But I didn't think much about it.”

She said slowly:

“No, you wouldn't. You don't cross your fences till you get to them.”

But Luke was despondent.

“Oh, I've no doubt I did my stuff pretty rottenly! Has Lord Whitfield seen through me too?”

“Oh, no. If you said you'd come down here to study the habits of water beetles and write a monograph about them, it would have been OK with Gordon. He's got a beautiful believing mind.”

“All the same I wasn't a bit convincing! I got rattled somehow.”

“I cramped your style,” said Bridget. “I saw that. It rather amused me, I'm afraid.”

“Oh, it would! Women with any brains are usually cold-bloodedly cruel.”

Bridget murmured:

“One has to take one's pleasures as one can in this life!” She paused a minute, then said: “Why are you down here, Mr. Fitzwilliam?”

They had returned full circle to the original question. Luke had been aware that it must be so. In the last few seconds he had been trying to make up his mind. He looked up now and met her eyes—shrewd inquiring eyes that met his with a calm, steady gaze. There was a gravity in them which he had not quite expected to find there.

“It would be better, I think,” he said meditatively, “not to tell you anymore lies.”

“Much better.”

“But the truth's awkward…Look here, have you yourself formed any opinion—I mean has anything occurred to you about my being here?”

She nodded slowly and thoughtfully.

“What was your idea? Will you tell me? I fancy it may help somehow.”

Bridget said quietly:

“I had an idea that you came down here in connection with the death of that girl, Amy Gibbs.”

“That's it, then! That's what I saw—what I felt—whenever her name cropped up! I
knew
there was something. So you thought I came down about that?”

“Didn't you?”

“In a way—yes.”

He was silent—frowning. The girl beside him sat equally silent, not moving. She said nothing to disturb his train of thought.

He made up his mind.

“I've come down here on a wild goose chase—on a fantastical and probably quite absurd and melodramatic supposition. Amy Gibbs is part of that whole business. I'm interested to find out exactly how she died.”

“Yes, I thought so.”

“But dash it all—
why
did you think so? What is there about her death that—well—aroused your interest?”

Bridget said:

“I've thought—all along—that there was something wrong about it. That's why I took you to see Miss Waynflete.”

“Why?”

“Because she thinks so too.”

“Oh.” Luke thought back rapidly. He understood now the underlying suggestions of that intelligent spinster's manner. “She thinks as you do—that there's something—odd about it?”

Bridget nodded.

“Why exactly?”

“Hat paint, to begin with.”

“What do you mean, hat paint?”

“Well, about twenty years ago, people
did
paint hats—one season you had a pink straw, next season a bottle of hat paint and it became dark blue—then perhaps another bottle and a black hat! But nowadays—hats are cheap—tawdry stuff to be thrown away when out of fashion.”

“Even girls of the class of Amy Gibbs?”

“I'd be more likely to paint a hat than she would! Thrift's gone out. And there's another thing. It was
red
hat paint.”

“Well?”

“And Amy Gibbs had red hair—carrots!”

“You mean it doesn't go together?”

Bridget nodded.

“You wouldn't wear a scarlet hat with carroty hair. It's the sort of thing a man wouldn't realize, but—”

Luke interrupted her with heavy significance.

“No—
a man
wouldn't realize that. It fits in—it all fits in.”

Bridget said:

“Jimmy has got some odd friends at Scotland Yard. You're not—”

Luke said quickly:

“I'm not an official detective—and I'm not a well-known private investigator with rooms in Baker Street, etc. I'm exactly what Jimmy told you I was—a retired policeman from the East. I'm horning in on this business because of an odd thing that happened in the train to London.”

He gave a brief synopsis of his conversation with Miss Pinkerton and the subsequent events which had brought about his presence in Wychwood.

“So you see,” he ended. “It's fantastic! I'm looking for a certain man—a secret killer—a man here in Wychwood—probably well-known and respected. If Miss Pinkerton's right and you're right and Miss What's-'er-name is right—that man killed Amy Gibbs.”

Bridget said: “I see.”

“It could have been done from outside, I suppose?”

“Yes, I think so,” said Bridget slowly. “Reed, the constable, climbed up to her window by means of an outhouse. The window was open. It was a bit of a scramble, but a reasonably active man would find no real difficulty.”

“And having done that, he did what?”

“Substituted a bottle of hat paint for the cough linctus.”

“Hoping she'd do exactly what she did do—wake up, drink it off, and that everyone would say she'd made a mistake or committed suicide?”

“Yes.”

“There was no suspicion of what they call in books, ‘foul play' at the inquest?”

“No.”

“Men again, I suppose—the hat paint point wasn't raised?”

“No.”

“But it occurred to you?”

“Yes.”

“And to Miss Waynflete? Have you discussed it together?”

Bridget smiled faintly:

“Oh, no—not in the sense you mean. I mean we haven't said anything right out. I don't really know how far the old pussy has gone in her own mind. I'd say she'd been just worried to start with—and gradually getting more so. She's quite intelligent, you know, went to Girton or wanted to, and was advanced when she was young. She's not got quite the woolly mind of most of the people down here.”

“Miss Pinkerton had rather a woolly mind I should imagine,” said Luke. “That's why I never dreamed there was anything in her story to begin with.”

“She was pretty shrewd, I always thought,” said Bridget. “Most of these rambling old dears are as sharp as nails in some ways. You said she mentioned other names?”

Luke nodded.

“Yes. A small boy—that was Tommy Pierce—I remembered the name as soon as I heard it. And I'm pretty sure that the man Carter came in too.”

“Carter, Tommy Pierce, Amy Gibbs, Dr. Humbleby,” said Bridget thoughtfully. “As you say, it's almost too fantastic to be
true! Who on earth would want to kill all those people? They were all so different!”

Luke said:

“Any idea as to why anyone should want to do away with Amy Gibbs?”

Bridget shook her head.

“I can't imagine.”

“What about the man Carter? How did he die, by the way?”

“Fell into the river and was drowned. He was on his way home, it was a misty night and he was quite drunk. There's a footbridge with a rail on only one side. It was taken for granted that he missed his footing.”

“But someone
could
quite easily have given him a shove?”

“Oh, yes.”

“And somebody else could quite easily have given nasty little Tommy a push when he was window cleaning?”

“Again yes.”

“So it boils down to the fact that it's really quite easy to remove three human beings without anyone suspecting.”

“Miss Pinkerton suspected,” Bridget pointed out.

“So she did, bless her.
She
wasn't troubled with ideas of being too melodramatic, or of imagining things.”

“She often told me the world was a very wicked place.”

“And you smiled tolerantly, I suppose?”

“In a superior manner!”

“Anybody who can believe six impossible things before breakfast wins hands down at this game.”

Bridget nodded.

Luke said:

“I suppose it's no good my asking you if you've a hunch of any kind? There's no particular individual in Wychwood who gives you a creepy feeling down the spine, or who has strange pale eyes—or a queer maniacal giggle.”

“Everybody I've met in Wychwood appears to me to be eminently sane, respectable, and completely ordinary.”

“I was afraid you'd say that,” said Luke.

Bridget said:

“You think this man is definitely mad?”

“Oh, I should say so. A lunatic all right, but a cunning one. The last person you'd ever suggest—probably a pillar of society like a Bank Manager.”

“Mr. Jones? I certainly can't imagine him committing wholesale murders.”

“Then he's probably the man we want.”

“It may be anyone,” said Bridget. “The butcher, the baker, the grocer, a farm labourer, a road mender, or the man who delivers the milk.”

“It may be—yes—but I think the field is a little more restricted than that.”

“Why?”

“My Miss Pinkerton spoke of the look in his eyes when he was measuring up his next victim. From the way she spoke I got the impression—it's only an impression, mark you—that the man she was speaking of was at least her social equal. Of course, I may be wrong.”

“You're probably quite right! Those
nuances
of conversation can't be put down in black and white, but they're the sort of things one doesn't really make mistakes about.”

“You know,” said Luke, “it's a great relief to have you knowing all about it.”

“It will probably cramp your style less, I agree. And I can probably help you.”

“Your help will be invaluable. You really mean to see it through?”

“Of course.”

Luke said with a sudden slight embarrassment:

“What about Lord Whitfield? Do you think—?”

“Naturally we don't tell Gordon anything about it!” said Bridget.

“You mean he wouldn't believe it?”

“Oh, he'd
believe
it! Gordon could believe anything! He'd probably be simply thrilled and insist on having half a dozen of his bright young men down to beat up the neighbourhood! He'd simply adore it!”

“That does rather rule it out,” agreed Luke.

“Yes, we can't allow him to have his simple pleasures, I'm afraid.”

Luke looked at her. He seemed about to say something then changed his mind. He looked instead at his watch.

“Yes,” said Bridget, “we ought to be getting home.”

She got up. There was a sudden constraint between them as though Luke's unspoken words hovered uncomfortably in the air.

They walked home in silence.