So Bad a Death (7 page)

“A murderer,” I said.

“A murderer? Now let me see. Yes, we are doing a scene from
Richard III.
I should be able to fit you in nicely. It is such a pleasure to find someone so enthusiastic. Not like dear Brenda. She was always making fun at rehearsals. President or no, I had to get her to resign from the dramatic society. It really caused quite—”

“Excuse me,” I said, getting up. Yvonne Holland had slipped away from the official table; under cover of serving the afternoon tea, she was making for the back of the hall. I followed her. She sat down near the door, holding her cup aslant so that the tea spilled into the saucer, soaking one of Connie's ham sandwiches.

“I couldn't stand any more either,” I told her, as I sat down beside her. “Is it always so grim?”

“I don't have to come often,” she replied hesitantly. “Usually Mrs Mulqueen or Ursula does. But Mr Holland wanted me to come today. He is closing this hall,” she went on jerkily, dropping her lashes over sudden tears. “I had to tell them. It was so awful standing up in front of them all. I'm sure they thought it was my fault.”

“He gave you the unpleasant task of breaking the news on purpose?” I queried.

The girl nodded.

The handbell on the table was rung again and again and the stolid-looking woman in the horn-rimmed glasses stood up and started to rattle off a quantity of notices of future activities.

“Closing this place doesn't seem to have mattered much,” I observed.

The secretary on the stage took off her glasses and peered down to where we were sitting. “If everyone kindly listened to the announcements maybe I wouldn't have to repeat myself.” She replaced her glasses and went on with the notices.

“Let's get out of here,” I suggested to Yvonne.

“I can't,” she whispered back. “Mr Holland—”

“Rot,” I said, pulling her up.

The horn-rimmed secretary paused again.

“She has just remembered she left the gas on,” I explained, pushing Yvonne out the door.

“Spare me from women in bulk,” I said, when safely outside.

We strolled over the grass together. Groups of children were playing among the garden seats under the trees. Tony was having toys snatched from him by a flaxen-haired little girl in a very short frock.

“Would you like to see my baby?” Yvonne asked shyly. “You didn't that day, did you? He is just over here.”

“Who is that with the children? And why must she sit on the ground? She looks appalling.”

“Miss Potts-Power,” Yvonne answered, with a faint sparkle in her voice. “She is on the crêche committee. She loves children.”

“And tells everyone so. I know the type.”

I watched the dumpy girl on the lawn endeavouring to draw Tony onto her knee, one hand brushing back his hair in a disgusting fashion.

“What a darling little boy!” she cooed. “What is your name, my pet?”

The darling little boy smacked her hand away without ceremony and fled to my side.

“What is his name, Mrs Matheson?” Miss Potts-Power asked, advancing on her knees after him.

“Anthony John. I'm sorry he hit you, but he is rather shy. Not used to large gatherings, are you, Tony?”

I loosened the clutch on my leg. Tony retreated still further behind Baby Holland's pram. “He'll come round presently,” I said. “Just leave him be.”

“What a lovely name!” remarked Tony's pursuer idiotically. “Come here, Anthony, and we'll play gee-gees.”

The horrible woman actually put the palms of her hands on the ground, presenting her fat behind invitingly. Tony, displaying a masterly sense of timing, dodged round the other side of the pram and back to the other children. Miss Potts-Power got up and tried desperately not to look hurt.

I felt it was for me to make up for Tony's lack of taste, and said hurriedly: “It is very good of you to play with the youngsters.”

“Oh, but I love to,” exclaimed Miss Potts-Power, trying to tidy her damp wisps of hair. “I simply adore children. It must be lovely to have a baby. If poor mother,” she continued in a regretful tone, “wasn't an invalid and needed me, I would have got married and had dozens.”

Yvonne took this statement seriously. She spoke in a low tense voice. “I wanted a lot of children too. If only—” She broke off and tried to hide her flushed face by bending over the baby. There was an awkward silence.

I was relieved to see Brenda Gurney coming across the lawn to meet us.

“Cowards, both of you,” she declared pleasantly. “Yvonne, I am so sorry. We all understand. Most of us, anyway. I'm afraid Connie is after your blood. Here she is now.”

Yvonne's hand went to the buttons of her jacket again.

Connie came up like a destroyer. “It is just too ridiculous for words. Yvonne, you must do something. What reason has Mr
Holland for closing the hall? Can you tell me that?”

“He didn't say, Connie,” the girl stammered.

“You asked him, of course,” Connie said scathingly. “Really, Yvonne, in an emergency like this you should assert yourself.”

“Leave her alone,” Mrs Gurney interposed good-naturedly. “Everything will turn out all right.”

Connie swung to starboard. “It's all very well taking that attitude, Brenda, but I think you are to blame for Mr Holland's nastiness. Everyone could guess who you were taking off at Marion's auditions last week. That sugary little sneak—I know Ursula Mulqueen is related to you, Yvonne, and I'm sorry—must have told her mother.”

“What did you do?” I asked, as Brenda Gurney listened to the tirade with an amused smile.

“Marion was playing up to Ursula Mulqueen, although she really is a good little actress. You'd be amazed. I couldn't stand the crawling, so when my turn came I gave an interpretation of her ladyship from the Hall among her villagers.”

“Something will have to be done,” Connie declared. She was becoming quite heated. “Something drastic.” Her eye lighted on me.

“I must go,” I said hurriedly, strapping Tony into his pusher. “I'll see you again some time, Connie. It has been a grand afternoon.”

“My dear, so marvellous to have a distinguished detective living in this lawless district. Harold will be frightfully interested when I tell him. You'll be at Brenda's next week, of course. I'll see you then.”

I was embarrassed and must have shown it. Mrs Gurney said in her tolerant, amused way: “Give me time, Connie. I haven't asked her yet. But you will come, won't you, Mrs Matheson? This day next week.”

“I'd love to. Are you coming my way?” I asked Yvonne.

III

“Dear little things, aren't they?” I remarked, as we passed noisily through the village. Tony was tugging at his straps irritably and baby Holland kept up a continuous whimper in spite of his dummy.

The habitual scared-rabbit expression on Yvonne's face gave way to tenderness as she looked down at the pale little face of her son.

We began to climb up to Holland Hall. “You take Tony up the hill,” I suggested. “I'll push your pram. What on earth possessed you to get such a heavy one?”

Her voice sounded bitter. “Mr Holland ordered it. It was the most expensive in the shop.”

“You know,” I remarked tentatively. “You shouldn't let those Hollands order your life for you all the time. Stand up for yourself a little.”

She made no reply to this. She was staring down at Tony, who was very intrigued by the change of driver.

I went on, feeling my way carefully. “By the way, where is the local Health Centre? I haven't had Tony weighed for an age.”

“In Mainbridge Road. It runs off from the street which goes down by the Post Office.”

“Sounds fairly complicated. Perhaps you could come with me and show me the way. What day do you go?”

Yvonne replied stonily: “I don't go at all. Mr Holland doesn't like it.”

“Why ever not? If you had a chat with the sister in charge it would probably make all the difference to this little fellow. Does he always cry like this?”

“No, only just lately. He's teething, Nurse says. She was my husband's nurse and knows a lot about babies. That is another reason why I don't visit the Health Centre.” She finished rather defiantly, as though daring me to think her weak-willed.

“Your husband's nurse, eh? She must be fairly old.”

“The Health Centre sister is not young.”

“So you have been to the Health Centre,” I said swiftly. “Why didn't you go back?”

“I've told you,” she replied, becoming distressed. “Mr Holland doesn't like it. That one time I went there was a terrible row. I live in his house. I must do as he wishes.”

“Even when it concerns your child's welfare? And talking about Jimmy, there is just one thing I have been wanting to do ever since I saw him.”

I stopped the pram, jerking on the brake with my foot, and bent quickly. The dummy was lying slack in the child's mouth.

The pale lips did not close on to it as I gently unpinned the cord with which it was attached.

“Just this,” I said, and threw the dummy with all my strength over the hedge into a fairway of the golf course.

Yvonne looked horrified. “You shouldn't have done that. Nurse will only get him another one. And it does quieten him.”

“If she gets him another one it'll be your turn to play ball with it. Don't be a foolish girl. Dummies are senseless, unhealthy things. Now promise you'll take me to the Health Centre tomorrow. I'll call for you about three.”

Yvonne glanced about her as though frightened someone might hear.

“Please don't come up to the house. Wait here at the gates.”

“Then you'll come?”

“I may be able to slip out. Please don't be angry if I can't manage it. Thank you for wheeling the pram.”

“Till tomorrow then?”

She nodded. I turned off smartly in case she changed her mind, and headed back to the village.

Middleburn had a neat little shopping centre devoid to date of any chain stores. I learned later that James Holland discouraged them. As he held mortgages over the majority of the shops, the entrance of any combine interest into the village would weaken his alarmingly big influence.

I established relations with a garrulous butcher and, by abrupt contrast, a taciturn grocer. The latter eyed me with suspicion when I followed up an explanation of our recent arrival in Middleburn by asking for sundry goods which were difficult to acquire. The fruiterer, however, greeted me by name. He dabbled in psychology, which had won him more custom than the other two greengrocers in High Street. He made it his business to learn the names and circumstances
of newcomers to Middleburn. If he knew that the budget would not stand the largest apples, he whispered confidentially that the cheaper ones were a much better buy.

It seems ludicrous that such mundane matters should have been the cause of dragging me further into the web. And yet that is just what happened. If I had not been bent on consolidating my position with the tradespeople, I would never have chosen to cross the road at that particular moment. I would not have overheard those few words which were to make me waver in my determination to keep away from mysteries.

A big maroon car had slowed down in answer to a signal from the pavement. I paused on the road for a moment, waiting for it to park. The woman who had attracted the driver's attention pulled open the front door as I skirted the back of the car. I was sufficiently close to hear her say in a low, rapid voice: “If you don't do something very soon that child will die. It's murder!”

“I can do nothing,” was the reply. “It is too dangerous. We can only wait.”

The front wheels of Tony's pusher were on the pavement; the back ones and my feet were in the running water of the gutter. I gave the pusher a jerk which sent it up on the footpath and sauntered casually alongside the maroon car.

“Wait!” exclaimed the woman. “Don't you want to stop this horrible business?”

“Quiet,” said the man urgently. “We will talk about it again. Get in.”

I stopped fiddling with Tony's straps and glanced up. As the man leaned over to shut the door of the car his eyes met mine.

They looked puzzled for a moment, then troubled. He frowned, his hand moving over the dashboard uncertainly. The car started with a jolt. I watched it go down the street, driven by the unwelcome visitor I had seen bending over Yvonne Holland's baby at the Hall.

CHAPTER THREE

I

The telephone was ringing as I came in the gate of the Dower. I left Tony on the porch with a word of warning and hurried inside to answer it.

A pleasant masculine voice said: “Mrs Matheson? I have a message from your husband. He is delayed at the office and will not be home for dinner.”