The Longer Bodies Page 6

  ‘I don’t know, Mrs Puddequet. I’ll go and ask,’ said Miss Caddick obediently.

  ‘Send the sergeant to me. I’ll talk to him,’ squealed the old lady, slapping the arm of the bathchair with rage. ‘How dare he come chasing his ridiculous ne’er-do-wells into my house!’

  In a short time Miss Caddick returned with the sergeant in tow. He was red and warm, for he had just cycled too rapidly, and too soon after breakfast, up a fairly steep hill.

  ‘Now, sergeant,’ snapped Great-aunt Puddequet.

  ‘Well, mam,’ replied the sergeant, wiping his face, ‘it’s like this. Police Constable Copple of this village rung us up an hour ago to say a certain Jacob Hobson, also of this village, has never been home since tea last night, and they can’t find him anywhere.’

  ‘But what—’ began Great-aunt Puddequet.

  The sergeant held up a large, red, soothing hand.

  ‘One minute, mam. We have evidence to show that this Hobson was at the pub—public house in the village until about a quarter-past nine last night. He then announced ’is intention of coming here to complain about the state of the roof of his cottage, it being on your land and him hoping you would do something to have it repaired, and he was seen by reliable witnesses to start off in this direction. He was pretty well drunk, mam, according to the same witnesses, and the idea of his wife is that he may have fallen in your lake.’

  ‘Fallen into the mere?’ squealed Great-aunt Puddequet with tremendous vigour. ‘Then she can think herself lucky if he has! A drunken, poaching, graceless, wife-beating ruffian if ever there was one.’

  ‘And do you think he has fallen into the mere, sergeant?’ enquired Timon Anthony.

  ‘Well, sir, it’s no odds to me what he’s done, but his wife seemed certain that’s what must have happened, so Constable Copple asked if we’d come over with the apparatus and get permission to drag the lake. I suppose you’ve no objection, mam?’ he added, turning to Great-aunt Puddequet. ‘You see,’ he added tactfully, ‘if he has fell in the lake, he’ll have to be got out some time, so it may as well be now.’

  ‘I have every objection!’ shrieked the old lady. ‘But get on! Get on! Amaris Cowes, come out and see the sunk garden!’

  ‘Let in the clutch, Companion Caddick,’ whispered Hilary to the motive power of the bathchair. Miss Caddick, looking very pale, started at hearing herself addressed, and hastily ran the bathchair out on to the terrace.

  Malpas turned to the sergeant.

  ‘No need to go to all that bother unless you like, sergeant, you know,’ he said, good-naturedly. ‘At least, not at first. One of us will go on to the high diving-board and look down into the water. Then, unless he’s caught up among the weeds downstream, we ought to spot him easily enough if he’s there. But wouldn’t a body—Hullo! What the devil’s up with you?’ He broke off at sight of his young brother’s face.

  ‘He’s there! He’s there! He’s drowned all right!’ stuttered Hilary, with cheeks like chalk. ‘I—I dived right on to him before breakfast! I knew it was a face! Couldn’t have been anything else. A dead man! Ugh!’

  II

  With rubber-soled shoes on his feet, a sweater pulled over his running vest, a light-coloured knapsack slung on his back, and watched by a small crowd of interested spectators—which included the sergeant from Market Longer, Constables White and Willis, also from Market Longer, Constable Copple, the lugubrious village policeman, the Yeomond family, with Celia and Clive Brown-Jenkins, Richard Cowes, Timon Anthony, Kost the trainer, Joseph Herring, the knife-and-boot boy, Miss Caddick and the undergardener, Malpas climbed up to the high diving-board.

  Steadying himself by the back rail, he tested the spring of the board, then walked out to its extreme end, and gazed earnestly into the water.

  ‘I see him!’ he shouted. ‘Flat on the bottom!’

  At the same instant a cry from the sports field attracted attention, and Amaris Cowes came bursting out of the lower gate and ran towards the edge of the mere.

  ‘Sergeant,’ she cried, coming up to the director of the operations, ‘you are to find the statue of the mermaid. It has been stolen from the sunk garden. My great-aunt is worried to death about it.’

  ‘One thing at a time, mam, one thing at a time, if you please,’ said the sergeant testily. ‘We’re looking for a body at present. We can’t tackle more than one thing at a time.’

  He looked up at Malpas, who was now seated on the end of the board with his legs dangling into space.

  ‘Throw them in, sir!’ he cried.

  Malpas pulled some pieces of white stone, residue of Great-aunt Puddequet’s crazy paving in the sunk garden, from the knapsack he wore, and, taking careful aim, tossed them down into the water. Then he returned to earth, went into the bathing hut, where he was immediately joined by the trainer Kost, and in a very few moments they emerged, clad in bathing-costumes, and took up a position at a spot indicated by the sergeant.

  ‘There he is, sir,’ said he. ‘Spot him? I saw him at once when you started chucking in the bricks.’

  Malpas nodded, glanced at the trainer, and, at a given but, to the watchers, an imperceptible signal, the two magnificent swimmers dived into the icy waters. In a second or so, their heads rose above the surface.

  ‘Found the missing statue, I think,’ grunted Malpas. He took a deep breath, and dived to the bottom again with a strong knife which the sergeant had handed to him.

  ‘Having to cut him free of something that’s been used to weigh down the body,’ explained Timon Anthony to the girls. ‘Hadn’t you two better cut off? You don’t want to see him brought to the surface. It won’t be a bit nice.’

  Before Priscilla or Celia could reply—before, in fact, they had realized the sinister purport of Timon’s opening sentence—the sergeant abruptly suggested that everyone belonging to the houseparty except Timon Anthony himself should be going about their business. He wound up this curt appeal with some obscure remarks about a song and dance and a poppy-show. Anthony he retained first as representing Mrs Puddequet, the owner of the house, and secondly as a person who could identify the body if it proved to be that of Hobson.

  The little crowd dispersed, and were just in time to intercept Great-aunt Puddequet’s bathchair, which was propelled this time by Amaris Cowes. They persuaded the old lady, much against her will, to return to the house.

  ‘And is it Hobson?’ demanded Great-aunt Puddequet.

  It was undoubtedly Hobson. Both Constable Copple and Timon Anthony identified the corpse unhesitatingly.

  ‘Not much doubt as to how he came by his death,’ said the sergeant shortly, as the two swimmers, cold and exhausted, disappeared into the bathing hut to dress. ‘Turn him over, Willis.’

  Constables White and Willis stooped and turned the sodden, ugly, pitiful thing on to its face. The top of the skull had been fractured by a heavy blow.

  ‘But what beats me—’ said the sergeant, frowning. Then he stopped and looked at Timon Anthony.

  ‘Am I in the way? Sorry,’ said the young man. ‘I’ll go. Any message for Auntie?’

  ‘You can tell her the truth if you like,’ replied the sergeant, recognizing that the apparent flippancy of the young man’s last remark was due to excess and not lack of feeling. ‘Break it easy, sir. She’s a goodish age, remember. Lucky it isn’t anybody in the family. Still, it’s never nice to have a murder about the place.’

  He looked down at the body.

  ‘He was one that could be spared easy, I reckon. Copple, when you’ve sent a message through to the station for me, perhaps you’ll let his wife know what’s happened. She’ll be glad to have the uncertainty out of her mind.’

  ‘She’ll be gladder of more things than that,’ replied the village policeman, with prophetic gloom.

  The sergeant gazed glumly down at the corpse. ‘And I’d be glad to know how you came by that cosh on the nut, mister,’ he said to himself, ‘for, speaking without previous experience of a murder case, I don’t seem
to call to mind any instrument that would make quite that sort of a mess of the top of a chap’s head, blowed if I do! But we’ll see what the M.O.’s got to say.’

  Chapter Six

  Great-aunt Puddequet is Happy

  MRS HOBSON RECEIVED the news of her husband’s death without visible emotion. She was a poor, thin, haunted-looking creature, who, having listened in silence to all the sensational details of the crime from Constable Copple, merely observed at the end in an oddly weary tone:

  ‘Well, Mr Copple, you know as well as anyone the way it’s been with me. What’s the sense of making out I be sorry? I bean’t sorry. I be glad.’

  The constable shook his head sympathetically. At the last moment of departure he turned, twirling his helmet awkwardly between his large red hands.

  ‘Look here, Janey,’ he said, ‘don’t ’ee take it amiss what I be saying, but I wudden be too free with trollopsing round the place telling folks you be glad Jacob’s been took. And mind what ’ee say and how ’ee say it when the inspector and the sergeant from Market Longer come to see ’ee. Happen I see ’em down the street now.’

  He had barely taken his leave after this friendly warning when the inspector and the sergeant thundered at the door. She let them in, dusted two chairs, and stood meekly before them, both work-roughened hands rolled up in her apron, while the two police officers seated themselves.

  ‘Sit down, please, Mrs Hobson,’ said the inspector. ‘This is a bad business, and we’ll get over this part of it as quickly as we can. You must answer my questions as promptly as possible, and please be very careful what you say.’

  With this kindly preface he elicited for the second time that day all she knew of the events which led to the murder of her husband. At the end, the inspector read to her what she had stated.

  ‘Now, Mrs Hobson,’ he said, ‘do you know of anyone who had a grudge against your husband?’

  She could think of no one.

  ‘I suppose I be about the only one, sir,’ she stated calmly. ‘Jacob was a merry, loud-laughin’ sort of chap with his mates, they tell me. He was free with his money, too. I never see very much of it. Friday was his kind of royal day at the public house. He was paid on a Friday, you see.’

  ‘Did he seem to have anything on his mind at all? He came home to tea, you said.’

  ‘He talked a rare lot about the roof. What a disgrace it was, and how he’d take pewmonia with it, and what he’d say to old Mrs Puddequet up at the House when he went to talk to she about it, and how he reckoned he’d go to her there and then, but afterwards he reckoned he’d have a drink first because he didn’t see why her should waste his evening and do him out of his drop of beer; and then a deal about the honest working man that some chap as ought to know better had talked about over in Market Longer where Jacob abeen on a job these two months painting the new houses there; and so on and on, till his rant fair head-ached me.’

  ‘I see. And that gave you the idea that he might have staggered into old Mrs Puddequet’s pond?’

  ‘Ay, sir, it did that. When the clock struck twelve and no sign of him, drunk or sober, thinks I that Jacob have been run in by Mr Copple for bad behaviour, or he’s slipped into the ditch, or else that he did go up to the House and maybe he’s walked into the lake. But I didden do much hoping. I reckoned it would be a big lake would drown my sorrows.’

  The inspector grunted. After a pause for rumin-ation, he suddenly barked:

  ‘Can you swim, woman?’

  ‘Oh, no, sir!’ said Mrs Hobson, mildly scandalized.

  The inspector grunted again, made an entry in his notebook, snapped it shut, and informed her that she would be wanted at the inquest. Then, followed by the sergeant, he left the cottage.

  ‘Ought to be her, without a doubt,’ he said moodily, as they strode down the village street, ‘but, of course, she couldn’t have done it.’

  ‘I don’t know. She’s got no alibi; you noticed that, sir, I suppose?’

  ‘Alibi? What’s a woman like that want with an alibi?’ grunted the inspector. ‘She’s got alibi written all over her.’

  ‘She never went to Copple’s cottage until after twelve o’clock, sir,’ the sergeant argued, stoutly maintaining his position, ‘and that was two hours after the doctor thinks Hobson was killed. It wants thinking about, that does, to my mind. Alibi she may or may not ’ave had—perhaps, as you say, it doesn’t matter—but she had motive for ten! Used to knock her about something cruel, ’e did! I had it from Copple—and others.’

  The inspector grunted again.

  ‘I suppose,’ he said sarcastically, ‘that you think the woman we’ve just spoken to—height about five feet four, weight about seven stone eight—hit the man Hobson on the head hard enough to crack his skull like you’d crack the top of an egg with the bowl of a teaspoon! If she had made up her mind to bash him one for luck she’d have picked up the poker and sloshed him as he sat in a chair. But a woman like that would more probably have tripped him up on the stairs, or jabbed him in the ribs with a table-knife, or, better still, poisoned his grub. You can’t really see that woman following him up to Longer and waiting until he got right under the windows of the house before socking him on the head with—we don’t yet know what, but something pretty heavy and, according to the doctor, quite blunt—rounded in fact. Don’t forget that he was about six or seven inches taller than herself; it isn’t the easiest thing in the world to bring off a really juicy clout on a head that’s higher than your own. Then, again, how could a woman of her physique lug a man weighing every bit of twelve stone across that sports ground and over two fields to the lake? It’s impossible. But, more than anything else, think of the body in the water. She can’t swim, so I suppose she picked up the dead Hobson and tossed him lightly through the air for a distance of twelve yards ten inches! Then she skipped back to the sunk garden for the statue of the little mermaid, which weighs exactly seventy-six pounds seven and three-quarter ounces, and tossed it in on top of the body? Further, as she can’t swim, she made a magic spell which bound the statue and the body together with seven yards of strong twine. I hope also that you noticed one of the gymnasium ropes is missing. I expect she swallowed that—and then she woke up!’

  The sergeant grinned good-humouredly.

  ‘I see what you mean, sir,’ he said. ‘I only meant she had the motive. That’s all. And no alibi, sir.’

  II

  ‘Reporters,’ said Great-aunt Puddequet, ‘this is the sports ground. The object on your left is the long-jump pitch, and the figure in the foreground is my grandnephew Francis Yeomond. The idea of the sports ground, reporters—’ She broke off, and, leaning forward in the bathchair, reached out with her umbrella, from which she would seldom allow herself to be parted, and prodded the reporter on her right with swift and decided jabs of the pointed ferrule.

  Miss Caddick gasped, and, hastily reversing gear, drew the bathchair a couple of yards backwards. To her mind, the persons of representatives of the press were sacrosanct. She said as much, meekly, but with complete assurance.

  ‘Companion,’ squealed old Mrs Puddequet, justly incensed at being deprived of her legitimate prey, ‘don’t be a fool! The boy on the right is not attending!’

  ‘No, Mrs Puddequet,’ responded Miss Caddick soothingly, ‘but we must think of habeas corpus! And now you are a little fatigued. Will you not return to the house and rest awhile?’

  Great-aunt Puddequet snorted with contempt at this eminently reasonable proposal.

  ‘The inspector and the sergeant will be here again this afternoon. The inquest is on Monday. I have sent Mrs Hobson five pounds. The statue of the little mermaid was retrieved from the deep by Grandnephew Malpas Yeomond this morning. I love my love with an M because he was murdered. Pippa Passes,’ she observed, with startling emphasis and great satisfaction. Miss Caddick, a serious student of what she herself always termed English Literature, not knowing what to make of this surprising te deum, compromised with her intelligence by smilin
g with vague pleasure and nodding her neat head to indicate that she recognized the title of the mentioned poem; then, taking firm hold of her courage, she turned the bathchair in the direction of the house, while the reporters made swift tracks for what they were already calling the Fatal Mere.

  It was Great-aunt Puddequet’s custom when something caused her particular pleasure to murmur in reverent tones, ‘God’s in His Heaven. All’s right with the world.’ When her conscience informed her, however, that her joy was ill-founded or was the result of envy, hatred, malice or any other of the virile human emotions which her generation classed among the seven deadly sins, she was in the habit of remarking in a loud and cheerful voice, ‘Pippa Passes.’

  This meant the same thing as the quotation, was a code rendering of a great spiritual truth, and possessed, in common with most other codes, the inestimable advantage of being uninterpretable by the chance hearer.

  Having delivered her mistress over to the company of Amaris Cowes, who had promised to teach her a new version of the game of Patience, Miss Caddick went in search of Joseph Herring.

  The Scrounger was cleaning out the rabbit-hutches. Old Mrs Puddequet’s pets were nibbling some early spring greens at his feet. The new arrival, previous name unknown, seemed to have settled down without trouble, and, like his companions, was making brisk headway with the succulent provender.

  ‘Oh, Herring,’ said Miss Caddick, ‘you are to go up to the house and put away the bathchair. Mrs Puddequet will not require it again until after lunch. You will please go at once.’

  Joe regarded her sourly.

  ‘Ho?’ he observed truculently. ‘I will, will I? And what about the b— rabbits? Am I to give over cleanin’ of ’em out? You know best, of course.’

  He readdressed himself to the good work, and whistled insolently.