Groaning Spinney Read online

  ‘That certainly is a point. It can be cleared up by sending her identity card for comparison,’ said the latter. But the police had been intelligent enough to anticipate Jonathan’s thought. The first anonymous letter had undoubtedly been written by Mrs. Dalby Whittier, but whether, as Jonathan pointed out, of her own free will or under duress had still to be proved.

  ‘Of course, she may have been in love with Tiny. In that case she would have hated anybody in whom he seemed to take any sort of interest,’ said Deborah. ‘We always thought of her as practically middle-aged, but she was younger than Tiny or Bill.’

  ‘It’s not the first letter that matters so much, except to us personally,’ said Jonathan. ‘We’ve got to find out whether Mrs. Dalby Whittier wrote any more of the things before we make sure of Tiny.’

  ‘I wonder where that typewriter is?’ said Deborah.

  ‘At the bottom of the millpond, most likely,’ said her husband. ‘The police ought to drag every pond in the neighbourhood. Ten to one it’s been thrown away somewhere.’

  The next piece of news was brought by Farmer Daventry.

  ‘I’ve been going through poor Mr. Bill Fullalove’s papers,’ said he, ‘and I find he used to have a typewriter, but there isn’t any typewriter in the place now, and Mr. Tiny, he declares there never has been one at the bungalow. I don’t know what to make of it, I’m sure.’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Jonathan casually, ‘you didn’t happen to find any typewritten papers among Bill’s effects?’

  ‘Yes, I did;, only one, though. It was in a kid’s book on Mr. Bill’s bookshelf. There beant many books at the bungalow. Mr. Tiny and Mr. Bill each had a shelf of ’em in ’is bedroom.’

  ‘What did you do with the paper?’

  ‘Nothing. Left it where it was. But I did mention it to Mr. Tiny. He agreed that Mr. Bill must have used a typewriter at some time, but he went on and said that there never had been one brought to the bungalow, same as he told me before. Proper put out he was about it.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Jonathan. ‘Look here, Daventry, are you going back that way?’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t, but I could do.’

  ‘Good. Come along, then. I want to borrow a book. I suppose that will be all right?’

  ‘Oh, no, I don’t think so, sir. There’s the question of probate. I think we ought to keep all the stuff together just now, do you see.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I’d forgotten all about that. All right, then. But I’d like to see that bit of typing. Bill joined Tiny here at the bungalow as soon as he gave up the sea, and surely he wouldn’t have had a typewriter on board ship with him? If he had, he’d have brought it along.’

  ‘He may have had regular lodgings ashore, sir. Portsmouth, or Southsea, or somewhere.’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course. Well, come on, and let me see this typewritten paper.’

  The paper was a quarto sheet torn raggedly at the bottom, and bore, in careful typescript, the excerpt from Sir Thomas Browne’s Christian Morals:

  ‘Lastly, if length of Days be thy Portion, make it not thy Expectation. Reckon not upon long Life: think every day the last, and live always beyond thy account. He that so often surviveth his Expectation lives many Lives, and will scarce complain of the shortness of his days. Time past is gone like a Shadow; make time to come present. Approximate thy latter times by present apprehensions of them: be like a neighbour unto the Grave, and think there is but little to come. And since there is something of us that will still live on, join both lives together, and live in one but for the other.’

  Jonathan read it through twice. He had a quick hand and eye, and found no difficulty, while affecting to put the paper back inside the book, in secreting it from Farmer Daventry and, later, in transferring it to his pocket-book. He thought it might interest his aunt.

  He was disappointed, therefore, when she declared, after closely comparing it with the typescript of one of the anonymous letters, that it had been done on another machine.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he demanded. Mrs. Bradley handed him her magnifying glass.

  ‘But, all the same, this is a clue of the first importance,’ she assured him, as he handed back the glass and she picked up the piece of paper. ‘If we could only discover who typed it and which of the inmates of the bungalow had taken the trouble to keep it, we should be able, I think, to eliminate one of our suspects. What was the title of the book in which it was found?’

  ‘It was a kid’s nature study book. What not to pick and eat on country walks. Not exactly, one would imagine, the particular cup of tea of either of the Fullaloves.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Deborah. ‘I knew a sailor once who used to take Little Meg’s Children to sea with him every voyage, and read it at least twice before he came home again. He said it used to make him cry just as well as if he had gone to the pictures.’

  ‘It’s frightfully odd, that, about the pictures,’ said Jonathan. ‘Lots of fellows have confessed to me that they cry at them. I suppose there’s a psychological explanation. Most of the chaps are quite tough, in the normal way, too.’

  ‘It’s the darkness, and the feeling that you can release emotion without anybody knowing,’ said Deborah. ‘Most people say they feel all the better for a good cry. Personally, if I do cry at the pictures, I come out feeling completely chewed up and with a frantic headache.’

  Mrs. Bradley, who had not cried since she was four, but who believed that crying at the pictures was a morbid symptom and reflected deep-seated neurosis built on self-pity, made no contribution to the discussion. Neither did she return the typescript to her nephew, although, in the privacy of her room, she studied it long and thoughtfully. She could think of nobody in the village who would be at all likely to type out and keep a longish and very apt quotation from Sir Thomas Browne. Then a possible explanation came to her, and she smiled.

  11. What’s in a Name?

  *

  ‘I have and always had the manners of a hawk,

  I am not lured with love; there must be meat under the thumb.’

  William Langland

  * * *

  NOTHING OUT OF the way occurred for about another fortnight, and then Jonathan received a telephone message from the farmer.

  ‘Rather a facer for Mr. Tiny, I’m afraid, sir. He was telling me he thought he would be entitled to claim Mr. Bill’s insurance money, as he was positively certain Mr. Bill wasn’t married, whatever he might have put in his will. But now, it seems, somebody has turned up, and reckons to be the lady Mr. Bill had secretly made his wife. Myself, I’ve been expecting her. Stands to reason Mr. Bill had something up his sleeve to make such a will as that.’

  ‘Good Lord!’ said Jonathan. ‘That’s torn it!’ He hastened to communicate these tidings to his aunt. Mrs. Bradley was delighted.

  ‘In Shakespeare’s words, “This falls out better than I could devise,”’ she observed. Her nephew studied her, and then said:

  ‘You know, you are pretty sure that you know the name of Tiny Fullalove’s accomplice.’

  ‘Am I?’ enquired his aunt. ‘I see no reason for your having come to that conclusion.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Jonathan.

  ‘I need not. I had hoped you might have thought of something else.’

  ‘And that is?’

  ‘No. You tell me. I should like to check my findings.’

  ‘Well, don’t laugh, then. I have at times rather wondered whether Bill was killed in mistake for Tiny, that’s all. There’s the question of the curry, you know. Tiny loved it, apparently. Bill didn’t like it at all. The murderer (if not Tiny) might not have known that.’

  ‘What a different light would be shed upon the affair if your words were true!’ said Mrs. Bradley.

  ‘Yes. For one thing, I might be very seriously involved, if the thing did turn out to have been murder.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Well, perhaps not involved, exactly, but I might find that I had some awkward explaining to do. After all, I am known to hav
e a grievance against Tiny Fullalove. Suppose that it was Tiny, and not Bill, who had been found dead? After all, I’m known to have been the one to find the body! Where should I stand?’

  ‘Upon honour, scruple and your dignity, child, as you do now. And remember what I have already said upon the subject.’

  Jonathan laughed, but Mrs. Bradley, humming a few bars from the Mikado, regarded him dolorously.

  ‘No, but, really,’ he continued, watching her face, ‘it could be deuced awkward, and it’s of no use to blink the fact. Still, we’re tilting at windmills, aren’t we? All the same, somebody took a fair amount of trouble to make certain that it was I who found the body. I wonder, though …’

  ‘Say on, child.’

  ‘Well, the point about the whole thing that baffles me is the time-scheme. It goes back to what Sally once said. How could Tiny Fullalove (supposing him to have murdered Bill and Mrs. Whittier) have known that Bill would pass out just when he did? I mean, he had to cook up this alibi about having damaged his knee, he had to time it right, he had to get me up to that gate at the top of Groaning Spinney to find Bill’s body, and he had to fit in his own re-entrance to the bungalow. Suppose he did fake his accident, he had to time that crawl pretty carefully. He had to damage himself sufficiently for the injury to pass muster with the doctors, too, and yet not sufficiently to cause permanent inconvenience to himself. You know, the more you look at it … yes, I do see what you mean about the time of Bill’s death—rigor mortis and the cold and all that… but I think it would have taken somebody with even more brains than Tiny possesses to work all that out, and put it over. By Jove …!’

  ‘Ah, you think you know someone who would have the brains that you doubt whether Mr. Tiny Fullalove possesses?’

  ‘Well, if Bill was murdered, and if it wasn’t old Tiny who did it, there must be somebody else, accomplice or not.’

  ‘You do not suggest that Mr. Bill was in some way hoist with his own petard? …You don’t think … enlarging on your previous suggestion … that Mr. Bill intended to kill Mr. Tiny, and that something went wrong, and Nemesis very rightly took a hand?’

  ‘No,’ said Jonathan. ‘No, I don’t see Bill as a person trapped in the pit he had dug for another. Besides, he wasn’t poisoned. We can’t even prove that he was murdered, and it’s my belief we never shall.’

  ‘You forget the dogs’ chains and leads, child, and the fact that they were found by Mr. Emming in my presence and that of two other witnesses.’

  ‘Emming, yes. He’s quite the village mystery man, isn’t he? But we can’t prove anything against him. I mean, anybody grubbing about it Groaning Spinney might find almost anything. I daresay Anstey hid the chains and things when they found the dogs had died. That is, if the dogs did die.’

  ‘We shall trace those dogs, alive or dead,’ said Mrs. Bradley. ‘By the way, I wonder how much Mr. Bill liked the Navy, and I wonder how much Mr. Tiny liked giving up the Indian Police?—And, talking of the Indian Police, are you quite sure that you do justice to Mr. Tiny’s mentality?’

  ‘So we’ve come back to Tiny, have we?’

  ‘Not at all, child. We have never left him. However, we are still waiting for evidence (of which there is still almost none) for our theory that the first death was murder. As for Mr. Tiny …’

  ‘What about him?’ asked Jonathan, watching her. ‘And, by the way, that idea that Mrs. Dalby Whittier might have been married to one of the Fullaloves seems to have sprung a leak, doesn’t it?—But what was that again about Tiny?’

  ‘I wonder what his Christian name is, child, that’s all.’

  ‘Oddly enough, it’s William. Bill’s real name was Clarence, so, of course, he had to be called Bill.’

  ‘Yes. Clarence Fullalove does not, somehow, suggest a Naval officer. And Tiny, I suppose, rather liked his nickname?’

  ‘Very pleased with it. Introduced himself to everybody as Tiny. It is only by the merest chance I know his name was William, and I’m sure he doesn’t know I know. I borrowed a jacket from him when I arrived at the bungalow wet through one day, almost as soon as I came here, and I wore it home. I shoved my tobacco pouch into the pocket, and, when I went to pull it out, I pulled out his identity card with it. I’d never given it another thought until now. I say, though …!’

  ‘Yes, yes, and indeed yes,’ said Mrs. Bradley. ‘It certainly gives one a reason for deep thought and dark suspicions.’

  ‘Still, it would be the insurance company’s business, to begin with, I suppose?’

  ‘Undoubtedly. Our Mr. Tiny may or may not be a murderer, but there is some reason for thinking that he has had an opportunity for fraud.’

  ‘But he’s a murderer, too!’ said Jonathan. ‘On that motive alone he must be! Look here, how about this for a reconstruction? Bill decides to marry. He may even have got married. It certainly seems as though he did. He doesn’t tell Tiny. The reason he doesn’t we don’t know. Bill thinks a married man ought to insure his life, but he knows he’s not a good bet from the Company’s point of view. Right, says Tiny, (not realizing, of course, that Bill is married), let me go and be vetted. I can give my own name, which is William, so there’s no catching us out on that. Meanwhile, if I conk out, you can collect the boodle in the name of William Fullalove, and, as everybody knows you as Bill, there you are, as right as a trivet, same as me if I’m the lucky bloke.’

  ‘Very nice,’ said Mrs. Bradley, ‘Bill was the sound life and Tiny the uncertain one, and Bill it was that died.’

  ‘All right. That doesn’t affect my argument. Take it the other way round. Bill takes out the policy under the name of William, and the insurance doctor, perhaps a bit dubiously, passes him. Well, the other one is still sitting pretty. Either of ’em can be William Fullalove: Tiny because it’s his name, and Bill because everyone not in the know thinks Bill is the shortened version.’

  ‘I should like to be there when the lawyers interview this woman who claims to be the widow,’ said Mrs. Bradley with apparent inconsequence.

  12. Enter Two Gravediggers

  *

  ‘Benigne he was, and wondrous diligent,

  And in adversitee ful patient’

  Geoffrey Chaucer

  * * *

  THE WOMAN WHO had come to claim Bill Fullalove’s property was named Carol Letchworth Fullalove, and was less than thirty years old. Local gossip suggested that she would have difficulty in proving her case, unless her marriage lines were quite above suspicion, but once she had come and gone—for she returned to her home in Portsmouth after spending a couple of nights in Cirencester—talk and speculation died down and Tiny merely shrugged when her name was mentioned.

  His knee mended, and soon he was able to reduce his two sticks to one, and limped only very slightly as he went upon his lawful occasions. He was not asked to the manor house any more as a visitor. If he came, it was strictly on business connected with the estate, and he interviewed Jonathan alone and always in the library.

  Towards the end of February Jonathan had received a letter from Miles Obury. Obury proposed to stay at a hotel in Cirencester, but asked to be made free of Groaning Spinney so that he could continue his badger-watching. It was time for the cubs, he pointed out, and although he had some excellent and quite remarkable pictures of adult badgers, he had none of the youngsters. He added that Mansell would be staying in the neighbourhood also, for he had permission to make a trial trench in the mound at Cissington to find out whether a summer dig there would be valuable.

  Jonathan groaned, and tossed the letter to his wife.

  ‘Oh, bother!’ said she. ‘I suppose we must ask them to stay here. I wouldn’t mind if the food weren’t such a business. They’ll have to exist on Mrs. Humper’s chickens, that’s all!’

  ‘No, I’m not going to ask them to stay,’ said Jonathan, with spirited inhospitality. ‘I’m damned if I am. Could you manage a couple of lunches, and perhaps a dinner? And I’m damned if I’m going to ask Tiny. After all, they were more Bil
l’s pals than his. Look here, don’t let’s ask them at all.’

  ‘Oh, I expect we can manage,’ said Deborah. ‘It’s really breakfast that’s the worst. People always expect a cooked one in other people’s houses! So long as they’re not here for that!’

  Miles Obury’s first task on the day which followed his arrival at the inn, not in Cirencester, after all, and distant only three miles or so from the manor house, was to reconstruct, with the aid of the suspected changeling, Farmer Daventry’s carter Ed Brown, the platform in the tree from which to take his flashlight photographs.

  It was Jonathan who had recommended Ed.

  ‘If there are any badger cubs, they’ll probably amble out and climb all over Ed,’ he had observed. ‘And, if they don’t, at least he won’t frighten them away!’

  He said nothing of Will North’s theories about the extra snow, and Obury and Ed made the platform safe again for the spring and summer, and, greatly to Obury’s joy, on the second day he was there he saw two cubs gambolling outside the sett in broad daylight. The early light of the year was not very good from a photographer’s point of view, but he got what he hoped would be a reasonably clear picture, and presented Ed with five shillings.

  A robin, which, in the friendly manner common to his species, had followed the proceedings from a very short distance away, flew up to Ed and perched upon his shoulder. Jonathan, who was with the two men, laughed aloud, but the robin was not alarmed.

  ‘Well, then, you old you, you,’ said Ed. The robin cocked an eye sideways, and, apparently not caring much for Obury and Jonathan, flew into a bush from which he continued to watch the three men.

  ‘Very tame, aren’t they, robins?’ said Obury, packing up his traps.

  ‘Ah,’ agreed Ed. ‘This wood be full of they grey squirrels, too. Will North, he shoots ’em. Pests they be, he says. Queer how nature prey on nature. Parson talk about the brotherhood of man, but Nature know better, I reckon.’