Our Jubilee is Death (16 page)

“Do you think it was suicide, Mr Deene?”

“I have no opinion.”

“You don't wish to say any more?”

“If you are open to a suggestion, Detective Inspector…”

“Certainly, Mr Deene. Cer-tainly. We're always open to suggestions. We're not the hidebound fools you private investigators seem to think.”

“Then I suggest that when you have recovered the body of Alice Pink you have an autopsy in …”

“Of course we shall. But in these cases it's seldom much use. How can any doctor say whether a wound was received before the fall or during it? The limbs will be damaged, anyway.”

“I wasn't thinking of the limbs, so much as the intestines.”

“Good gracious, Mr Deene. You surprise me. From what you say I shouldn't have thought we had to look farther for the cause of death than the fall down the cliff-side.”

“It is merely a suggestion.”

“I'll bear it in mind, Mr Deene, and should there be any result I will see that you hear of it. After all”—the Detective Inspector beamed—“after all, we owe you our prompt discovery of the cadaver, don't we?”

“Perhaps you feel like throwing me a few more bits of information.”

“Such as?”

“Oh, never mind.” Carolus knew that he would hear nothing which the police regarded as important.

“I'll tell you one thing,” said the detective, with a confiding smile. “One thing that you may not know, that is. Bomberger was in the town at the time of his wife's death.”

Carolus said, “I had suspected it, but I'm grateful to you for telling me. Where can he be found?”

“Lives in Brighton. You can find him at a pub called the Green Star.”

“Under his own name?”

“No. White.”

He knew from the detective's seeming generosity that not the slightest suspicion, in the police mind, attached to Bomberger.

“I'd better tell you something, too,” he said. “Though if you don't know this you ought to. You have better means of discovering it than I have. There is inherited lunacy in the Cribb family.”

“I didn't know that, Mr Deene. But I do not think it very significant, since the only members of the family with whom we have to deal are certainly sane people.”

“That is so.”

“Now I must go out and find this unfortunate woman's corpse. Still recognizable, I suppose?”

“Just,” said Carolus and left.

He managed to eat a quick lunch which Mrs Stick had ready for him, but he was restless and did not mean to remain more than a few minutes in the stuffy, crowded atmosphere of Wee Hoosie. Stick, using the carpenter's tools which he dearly loved, had managed to unscrew the windows and let in a little air, but an age of unventilated living had made the house a tomb. Or so it seemed to Carolus that afternoon.

He was going out of the door when he saw approaching a fine, masterful woman with unnaturally auburn hair and a determined chin.

“Mr Deene? My name is Ethel Pink.”

“But…”

“There is nothing miraculous in my appearance,” she admitted in a firm voice. “Miss Stayer told me of your telegram. It has crossed me, as it were. I was coming to see Alice in any case. At her urgent request. Fortunately the school holidays made possible my absence from St Mervyn's.”

“Come in,” said Carolus. “Miss Stayer sent you to me?”

“She suggested that you might be able to tell me something about my sister's sudden disappearance.”

“Unhappily I can, Miss Pink. Your sister is dead.”

The Matron of St Mervyn's looked at Carolus steadily, and it was impossible to guess her emotions.

“Murdered?” she said at last.

“Possibly.”

“It can't have been suicide.”

“I don't know.”

“Where was she found?”

“Half-way down the highest cliffs near here.”

“Pushed over?”

“The body hasn't yet been recovered. The police have that in hand.”

“Bound to be publicity, I suppose? Name Pink and that?”

“I'm afraid so.”

“Bad for the school.”

Carolus looked rather bitterly at Ethel Pink.

“You should meet Mr Gorringer,” he said. “You two would get on wonderfully well. Now I should like to ask you a few questions, if I may. Had your sister any tendency to suicide?”

“None. As a girl she was more frivolous than I, but later learnt a sense of responsibility. I have no doubt she was an excellent secretary.”

“When did you see her last?”

“A year ago. We spent a week together in London. Three theatres and the Academy.”

“Did she discuss her employer then?”

“Frequently. She wished to leave Mrs Bomberger.”

“Why didn't she?”

“A mystery. When it came to it she wouldn't. A complete mystery.”

“She was well paid?”

“I believe so. That was not the reason, however. Alice had means of her own,” said Ethel Pink surprisingly.

“Then why?”

“I never knew the late Mrs Bomberger, but I gather she
had considerable force of character. Alice had none. None.”

“I see.”

“All our lives she has had to lean on me. Fortunately my character and constitution have enabled me to supply the necessary drive.”

Carolus nodded in complete agreement.

“You think she stayed with Mrs Bomberger because she was too weak to leave her?”

“Exactly. She was putty, Mr Deene. Putty. Which makes her death the more extraordinary. My sister would not have had the courage for suicide. Quite out of the question.”

“You may well be right.”

“She was certainly murdered. No doubt of it. I can supply the explanation.”

“Really?”

“Yes. She knew too much. That's what caused her to be liquidated.
She knew too much”

“What evidence have you for that?”

“Her last letter. Received two days ago. Leaves not a doubt of it.”

“May I see it?”

“Of course. I have no secrets. Except one,” she added as a grim afterthought.

“That?” asked Carolus, fascinated.

“How to deal with the staff at St Mervyn's. Believe me, that's a secret I've had to learn. It's a case of the survival of the fittest at St Mervyn's.”

“It must be a very interesting school.”

“It is. Here's the letter. Read it for yourself. You'll see that it leaves no room for doubt.”

Carolus read:

Dear Ethel,

I am writing this under a great stress and I hope you will appreciate the seriousness of it, as I badly need your
advice and if possible your presence here. Do you think you could manage to come as soon as possible? It would be a great relief to me if you could. Of course I realize that your responsibilities and obligations at St Mervyn's are
paramount,
but this is a case of life and death.

You have read in the paper, I expect, of the death of Mrs Bomberger and how her body was found buried in the sand. Unfortunately I know something of the circumstances which I cannot repeat, for reasons which I will explain to you when you come (as I hope you will). The police have questioned me
rigorously,
and that is a very disagreeable experience. Also a private detective named Carolus Deene. I am sorely tempted to tell him what I know and have done with it, but there are reasons why this would be a foolish step to take.

I think you will realize the seriousness of my position when I say that
it was I who gave Mrs Bomberger her sleeping-pills that night.
I really do not know what to do for the best and have recently come near to the sin of self-destruction.

If we could only have a good talk about it, as we used to talk in our bedroom at Basingstoke (remember?), I should feel better and perhaps you might see a way out of this difficult situation. But you have so often said that St Mervyn's comes first that I wonder whether you will be able to come in answer to this urgent appeal.

I will write no more now, only hoping that you will come.

Your affectionate sister,

Alice.

“I don't quite see how this letter is evidence that your sister knew too much, as you put it. It seems to me to involve only herself.”

Ethel Pink looked at Carolus in a manner usually reserved for members of the staff at St Mervyn's who had encroached on her province.

“You don't? My dear man, it's obvious. ‘I know something of the circumstances which I cannot repeat', she says.”

“It may be something which only implicates herself.”

“Nonsense! It's as plain as a pikestaff. The poor girl knew too much and has suffered for it.”

“She admits to having administered the pills from which, as far as we know, Mrs Bomberger died.”

“Alice could never administer anything, least of all a large and busy school. But let that pass. What are you doing about her death?”

“I have reported it to the police. They have probably recovered the body by now and will require you to identify it.”

See how you like that, Carolus could not help thinking.

Ethel Pink nodded. “It will be my duty,” she said. “I meant what are you doing about her murderer? When will he be discovered?”

“I do not know yet that she was murdered.”

“I shall stay here till you have cleared the matter up!” threatened Miss Pink.

“That is for you to decide, of course.”

“I shall see the police myself and tell them my sister was murdered.”

“Yes. Do that.”

“I understand you're a schoolmaster?”

“I am. Yes.”

“Ttssstt!” said Miss Pink contemptuously, and left after the briefest nod of leave-taking.

This time Carolus made no attempt to go out, but sat down in the least uncomfortable of the chairs as though, like a Yogi, he could think deeply and to order. He remained nearly an hour there and was disturbed only by the entrance of Priggley.

“What do you want?” he asked wearily.

“Nothing, really. It's just that I'm getting a bit worried about this case, sir. You really are slipping, you know.”

Carolus did not reply.

“For instance, do you deny that you could have prevented the death of Alice Pink?”

“I don't see how.”

“Are you anywhere near a solution?”

“If you want me to be really explicit, I am and I'm not. It's all terribly circumstantial. There's nothing for me or the police to get our teeth into.”

“I see that. But if these two women were murdered it does make you look a bit slow, to say the least of it.”

“I know. I don't pretend to be happy about this case.”

“It looked like a pretty frolic to start with, didn't it? I mean no one could miss the Bomberger.”

“Apparently not.”

“Oh, by the way, I've got something to tell you. That squint-eyed character is back. Or else he never left the town. I saw him today. Very down-and-out he looked.”

“Is he at the same boarding-house?”

“No. I went round to see my friend Mrs Salter. He left there at once.”

“I'm glad you did that.”

“You're not forgetting the farmer chap with the worn brake-cable?”

“I'm not forgetting anyone.”

“Then do let's have some action, sir. The thing's gone far enough.”

“In your odious lingo—I couldn't agree with you more.”

Mrs Stick brought in the tea, and Carolus guessed from the expression on her face that Ethel Pink's visit had not been unobserved. But this was bad diagnosis.

“How are you enjoying Blessington, Mrs Stick?” asked Rupert Priggley mischievously.

“Enjoying it? How can anyone enjoy a place where Stick only has to go out to do a bit of shrimping when he sees the fire brigade and police and all of them out recovering a dead body from the side of the cliff not half a mile from where the other one was found? We shall have one in the wardrobe next, I shouldn't be surprised, if we go on getting mixed up in such things.”

She put down the tray and left the room in what Wilde once called ‘a marked manner'.

T
HERE
were two or three more routine enquiries which Carolus had to make, and the most urgent was an interview with Cupperly the chemist. Carolus believed that on this might depend his whole case. If Cupperly was communicative and accurate and gave certain information which Carolus already suspected, then there would be no more mystery about the death of Lillianne Bomberger. That of Alice Pink was a simpler matter altogether.

But would Cupperly be communicative? Carolus was only too aware of his own amateur status. Whereas the police had only to walk in and show their cards, Carolus had to depend on the goodwill of the chemist, his recognition that Carolus did not come out of idle curiosity and his willingness to give information about his customers' purchases, which in a certain sense was a breach of confidence.

However, Carolus thought he was more likely to get the facts he wanted from Cupperly than from the police, so he set off for the chemist's shop before ten o'clock in the morning, when he thought it would not be too busy.

The shop was in one of the principal streets of the town, but it was not large, and when Carolus entered he was the only customer. That special smell of soap and scent which is common to all English chemists' shops but imperceptible in those abroad, was potent here. One had the impression of walking into an atmosphere sanitary, scrubbed, disinfected and scented. And behind the counter stood the very personification of all this, a fair-haired man with rimless glasses who looked as though he had just come from a vigorous masseur in a hygienic Turkish bath and been shaved and scrubbed and polished. He was about forty
years old, and Carolus thought as he saw his shining white coat and brilliant fingernails that there is a kind of personal cleanliness which almost amounts to morbidity.