Twelve Horses and the Hangman's Noose (Mrs. Bradley) Page 12

  “Wasn’t it rather dark for that?”

  “Sunset at 6.7 p.m., sir, if you remember.” He produced a small diary which supplied the printed information. “They could manage all right. We didn’t want any workmen’s clutter in odd holes and corners, not with the county surveyor coming along.”

  “I see. We can take it, then, that when you looked in at five-thirty the plants and flowers had not been moved.”

  The caretaker looked at him woodenly.

  “As, until that moment, sir, I had not had the advantage of observing the arrangement of plants and flowers, the headmaster having deputed one of his prefects to lock the hall, it’s hard to say what had been altered and what had not. All I say is that I’m certain there wasn’t no corpse.”

  “I think we may take it for granted that nothing had been moved up to that time. Now, then: how long was the hall left unlocked and who, besides yourself, knew that it was unlocked?”

  “As I was saying, sir, the women cleaners had gone home, the other caretakers was otherwise engaged upon their duties, and the piano needed dusting. I goes off, therefore, to procure a duster…”

  “Where from?”

  “The woodwork shop, sir, it being a sight nearer the hall than the brooms and brushes cupboard which is out by the canteen exit.”

  “How long…?”

  “Call it near enough twenty minutes, because on me way I spots a light left on in the flat.”

  “The flat is on the way to the woodwork shop, I take it?”

  “No, sir. I spots the light from acrorst the quad.”

  “But what took twenty minutes?”

  “Clearing up the mess in the flat, sir, which me and the cleaner had words about in the morning, her swearing black’s white as she left everythink in order and me averring what I do know to be the truth, viz., that there was a heap of wood-shavings disposed of very untidy underneath the kitchen sink.”

  “Who is in charge of the flat?”

  “Young Mr. Turnbull, same as he is of the woodwork shop.”

  “Ah, yes, the master whose duster you had gone to borrow.”

  “As though,” continued the caretaker aggrievedly, “it wasn’t enough trouble with never being able to get in there after school in the ordinary way, with him and that young Mr. Spencer havin’ of their tea and playin’ cards!”

  “Perhaps I had better have a word with Mr. Turnbull,” said Sir Mallory, glancing at the headmaster. Mr. Bond nodded and the caretaker went off on the errand. Mr. Turnbull, a full-faced young man with hairy hands, looked truculent.

  “Is it your practice to sweep wood-shavings underneath the sink in the school flat?” asked Sir Mallory.

  “Sometimes. Why not? It’s the cleaner’s job to clean up.”

  “She says she does, but the caretaker doesn’t believe her.”

  “If you knew,” said Mr. Turnbull furiously, “the state in which I sometimes find my workshop in the morning, you wouldn’t believe either the cleaner or the caretaker.”

  “Just so. May I ask whether you were still in the building at half-past five on that Opening evening?”

  Mr. Turnbull stared at his inquisitor.

  “What the devil does it matter?” he demanded nervously.

  “Only to this extent. Between half-past five, when, on the caretaker’s own admission, the hall was unlocked without Mr. Bond’s knowledge, and half-past six, when the hall was officially, so to speak, unlocked, a dead body was inserted. Now, the only time when this could have been done was while the caretaker was getting into the flat, cleaning it, and then looking for your duster. It appears that if he found himself in immediate need of such an article, he was in the habit of procuring it from the woodwork shop.”

  “Blasted cheek!”

  “The point is, Mr. Turnbull, who would have known of this habit of his?”

  “Not me, certainly.”

  “And, at the time, you were—?”

  “Can’t remember. Somewhere in the building, I expect. Most of us would have been smoking and talking until six. Cleaned up, then, and went on duty.”

  “Your duty being—?”

  “Chivvying parents into seats and making certain that none of them sat in the reserved rows in the front.”

  “Will you tell me in detail how you spent the time between half-past five and six? Were you, for example, playing cards?”

  “Good Lord, no! Half an hour isn’t any good for playing cards. I should have had to keep one eye on the clock all the time.”

  “Well, what were you doing?”

  “Finishing my tea and talking to various people.”

  “In the staff Common Room?”

  “No. I’m not considered good enough to hob-nob with Masters of Arts.”

  “Come, come, Turnbull!” said Mr. Bond. “That is an unnecessary comment. If you have no information to give, I am sure Sir Mallory will excuse you.”

  Turnbull took himself off.

  “I had no idea,” said Mr. Bond peevishly, “that the caretaker was in the habit of borrowing the masters’ dusters. He has no right to do so. He is well supplied with items for cleaning. In any case, why should he require a duster at all? The women cleaners see to all that sort of thing. I do not credit this story of dusting the piano. But, tell me, is it in order for me to inquire into the pertinence of this introduction of dusters as a leitmotif?”

  “Certainly. We have to find out where the body was hidden before it was introduced into the hall.”

  “A duster would scarcely serve to screen it from view!”

  Sir Mallory smiled non-committally.

  “You see,” he said, “between ourselves, I feel that your caretaker must be involved. He unlocked the hall (which you yourself had had locked and which you fully expected to remain locked) at an hour when it was pretty certain he would not be seen to do this. The school cleaners had gone home, the other caretakers were engaged upon tasks which he himself had set them, you and your staff were in the masters’ Common Room except for those who had gone home for tea, and, apparently, Mr. Turnbull—”

  “Yes, but that tea-break was an elastic hour, and why should anyone here know anything about this man Jenkinson? Wandles Parva, where he was employed, is fifteen miles away!”

  “Jenkinson had contacts in Seahampton. I suppose,” said Sir Mallory suddenly, “your caretaker hasn’t a brother who owns a boat?”

  “I know nothing of his private affairs.”

  “How long has he been here?”

  “He was appointed two years ago. Although the school was officially opened this year, we have been running, surrounded by workmen and their paraphernalia, since 1951.”

  “He came straight into the job from outside, then?”

  “Yes, but with excellent references.”

  “Quite, quite.”

  “What I don’t understand,” said Mr. Bond, “is that, if he is in any way involved in this curious business, he should confess that he did unlock the hall and go to find Turnbull’s duster.”

  “Better to confess than be found out,” Sir Mallory observed.

  CHAPTER 11

  HORSES GO VISITING

  A general impression appeared to prevail that it shewed a great fault somewhere that the fates had not arranged for some less valuable cranium to receive the blow.

  WILLIAM CYPLES

  Sir Mallory had been invited to dinner at the Stone House.

  “You see,” he said, appraising Dame Beatrice’s sherry and taking another sip, “it’s all very difficult. I don’t suppose it’s a criminal offence to put a body amongst somebody else’s flowers. I can’t get anything more out of this man Betters, the caretaker. He won’t agree that he should not have unlocked the hall before half-past six. Reiterates that he always has a last look-round before all school functions and adds darkly that I ‘don’t know Mr. Bond. Put a peck of dust under his nose and he’d never see it.’ I retorted that dust was not Mr. Bond’s business, but the man simply looked righteous and said he took hi
s duties seriously.”

  “You know, what worries me about this Jenkinson business is that it was so bizarre and unnecessary to ‘plant’ the body in that extraordinary place,” said Gavin. “Surely, the person who is responsible for his death would have been much safer if he had left him where he fell? What sort of mentality causes a man to make a mock funeral like that? It seems insane, unless—”

  “Yes?” said Sir Mallory.

  “Dinner is served,” said Célestine, from the doorway.

  “What were you going to say?” asked Sir Mallory when they had taken their places at table.

  “Only this: couldn’t it have been a joke?—not a very kindly one, it’s true—but may not somebody who didn’t like him much have filled him up with whisky, or whatever his tipple is, and then have shot the anti-drink stuff into his glass, thinking that he’d come round later with a nasty taste in his mouth?”

  “It would explain a lot,” Sir Mallory agreed.

  “It would explain still more if somebody did it who didn’t much Like Mr. Bond, either,” said Laura. “Imagine the situation at the school Official Opening if Jenkinson had got up in the middle of Dame Beatrice’s address or the parson’s violin solo!”

  Sir Mallory considered this remark earnestly—a reaction which Laura had not expected.

  “The trouble about that is, that it suggests a boyish prank,” he said. “But Mr. Bond, who strikes me as a pretty sound type, does not connect it with his boys. I think he would know. Good headmasters have a sixth sense about these things. If he says he doesn’t connect it with the school, I should say he’s right.”

  “There’s such a thing as not wanting such a connexion to be made,” said Gavin, who took a wary attitude towards what appeared to be virtue. But Dame Beatrice said crisply:

  “Mr. Bond is an honourable man.”

  This dreadful statement was received in dead silence by the gentlemen and with an incredulous giggle by the uninhibited Célestine, who then retired hastily. Laura said pointedly:

  “That brings us back to the masters.”

  “Back?” Sir Mallory looked surprised.

  “Well, to them, then.”

  Dame Beatrice, accustomed to the workings of minds more subtle and less ingenuous than Laura’s, asked, almost sharply:

  “So you’d thought of one of the masters in connexion with this extraordinary lying-in-state, had you, child?”

  “Not until now,” said Laura hastily.

  At this moment the telephone rang and Célestine came back to announce that the call was for Gavin.

  “Damnation!” said the gentleman. “That means the last of my leave.”

  “Melancholy but true,” reported Laura a few minutes later. “He’s got to go back tomorrow morning.”

  “In that case,” said Dame Beatrice, “he and I will drive to London together. You take the day for yourself, but please do not get into mischief.”

  So, on the following morning, Laura waved the two of them good-bye and went to the garage to get out her latest toy, a motor-scooter. In five minutes she was out on the Seahampton road.

  Seahampton was a deceptive and interesting town. It had grown considerably since the end of the First World War, and its two distinct parts had no connexion with one another. New Seahampton with its factories, housing estates, and modern residential area of bungalows and four-bedroom-houses, contrasted oddly with the original village on the creek.

  Old Seahampton was a jumbled collection of houses large and small. It had its own public-house, a Saxon church, and a sea wall round part of the harbour. It was a place of yachts and yachtsmen, boats and boatmen, and it stood on a creek which dog-legged its course from Seahampton to the Sound. Between the church and the jetty was a house which stood on a point of land so that it was three-quarters surrounded by water. Laura, who visited Old Seahampton often in the summer, because she liked the place and frequently hired a boat there, had always been intrigued by this house. She had never seen anybody enter or leave it, although there had been long days in the summer when she had spent hours fishing from the sea wall and had picnicked there without leaving the spot except for a drink at the inn, the Blue Finn.

  On this particular day she reached Old Seahampton at a time when lunch was “on” at the Blue Finn. She went into the low-beamed dining-room and there she ate soup, roast pork, and Dutch apple-tart. Then she looked about her with interest. There was a romantic, troubadour streak in Laura which demanded excitement. At the Blue Finn, however, the company appeared to consist of two men in tweeds, a woman with a Sealyham, a youth of about nineteen who was smoking a pipe for (Laura decided) the first time, and two middle-aged women in corduroy slacks. Of anything sinister or in any way interesting there was no sign whatsoever. It was her intention, when she had finished her after-lunch cigarette, to go into New Seahampton and take a look at the school, although what was to be gained by this she had not the least idea. As she sat in the window-seat smoking and looking out over the harbour she saw a gipsy bring round a couple of horses. She recognised them at once as Criollo and Appaloosa from the Elkstonehunt stables.

  “Now what?” thought Laura, studying the set-up with interest. The horses were taken charge of by the potman of the inn, as though this was a normal and oft-repeated procedure, and the gipsy went into the public bar, so that Laura lost sight of him immediately.

  The familiar feeling of detective fever swept over her. She finished her drink and strolled out into the sunshine. There were very few people about. The most noticeable was an artist who was making a charcoal sketch of the harbour preparatory to committing himself to oils. He had not been there when Laura had gone into the Blue Finn, and she had scarcely done more than stroll over for a cursory and surreptitious glance at his sketch when the gipsy came out of the inn and walked towards them.

  Laura deemed that his business, if he had any, was with the artist, but he caught up with her as she walked away and said:

  “Lady, you want to buy a couple of ponies out of the Forest, cheap?”

  “No, thanks,” said Laura.

  “I’ll let you have them dirt cheap, lady. Give me a five-pound note and they’re yours. Make lovely presents for your sister’s children, lady.”

  “I’m not in the market for ponies; I haven’t a sister and I haven’t five pounds to spare,” announced Laura firmly. “Please go away.”

  “You want a ride in a boat, then?”

  “No. Go away.”

  “I hire you a nice horse. Go pretty well. All round the harbour for five bob. Come on, lady. Do me a favour. It’ll bring you luck. You’ve got a lucky face, lady.”

  “Where’s the horse?”

  “You can have your pick, lady. Right here in the stable of this pub. You come with me.”

  “Not so. You bring the nags out here where I can see them properly. I know that stable. It’s as black as night.” She had no intention of being taken for a ride, either actually or metaphorically, but the situation was intriguing and she hoped to learn something from it. The gipsy took a cigarette stub from behind his ear, glanced at it, lit it, and swaggered away. The artist left his sketch and came over to Laura.

  “Is that chap annoying you?” he asked.

  “Not particularly. He wants to sell me ponies and take me for rides in boats and hire me a horse. I’ve settled for the horse.”

  “I should be a bit wary if I were you. He’s up to n.b.g., I fancy.”

  “I’m pretty sure of it,” said Laura, uncertain whether to confide the fact that she had recognised the horses. Discretion—never Laura’s strongest characteristic—almost lost the day, but there was something so intriguing about the fact that these horses from Elkstonehunt had turned up at the Blue Finn that she put her lips together, turned to look at the inn, and added: “Here he comes again, anyway.” She strolled towards the gipsy, who was leading the grey mare Appaloosa. Criollo, the strawberry roan, followed behind like a dog.

  Laura’s one fear was that it would be obvious to th
e gipsy that the horses recognised her. She took sugar from her pocket and hoped that their response to this gesture would appear to account sufficiently for their friendliness.

  “You like horses, lady?” The gipsy eyed the sugar.

  “Oh, yes. I like all animals.” Laura stroked Criollo’s muzzle. “I’ll have this one. It seems friendly. Oh”—she glanced down at her tweeds and brogues—“I can’t ride in these clothes. Sorry. Another time, perhaps.”

  The gipsy kicked at a root of grass. (The land between the church and the sea wall was a small open common.) Laura took half a crown from the pocket in which she carried a little loose change. The gipsy spat on the ground as she offered it, turned away, and walked back towards the inn. The horses went with him.

  The whole episode held the fascination of sheer mystery. Laura could make nothing of it. Then, on the small jetty used by yachtsmen she spotted a man who sometimes crewed for her in yacht-racing. She waved to him. He responded, and they joined forces for a drink. The Blue Finn was still open.

  As they went into the saloon bar, a low-ceilinged little room with a bow window which overlooked the harbour, Laura saw, out of the tail of her eye, the gipsy leaving the inn. She turned and stared at his retreating back. He had come from the direction of the stables and was hurrying towards the broad path, flooded at full tide, which followed the curve of the harbour. He passed the Yacht Club, a moored sea-going cruiser of considerable size but very old-fashioned design, and in a minute was out of sight behind some cottages whose high door-sills were almost at the edge of the water.

  “What’s eating you?” inquired her companion.

  “Nothing much,” she answered. “Look here, do you mind if I ’phone before we have our drinks?”

  “Go ahead. What shall I order for you?”

  “Half of draught bitter, please.”

  She had often telephoned from the Blue Finn. This time she rang up Cissie Gauberon.

  “Speaking,” said Cissie.

  “Well, do you know that a gipsy is over here at Seahampton with Criollo and Appaloosa?”

  “A gipsy? Oh, you mean Zozo.”

  “Do I? As long as it’s all right.”