Chapter 17
Alexander arose to find Mary in a grim mood.
“There’s more of them letters has come overnight,” she said. “And on a Sunday, too!”
“Not the post, then,” said Alexander. “Someone has been up all night.”
“I don’t suppose we are the only ones targeted,” said Jeff, only slightly behind Alexander in rising. “We have to acknowledge this.”
“No, we don’t, not as someone else doing it,” said Alexander. “We tell everyone that we believe that the person in custody had already paid someone to deliver letters on Sunday, an unknown and innocent delivery agent, whom we are seeking to interview.”
“I like it,” said Jeff. “He should get pretty frustrated.”
“I want to see Dr. Brinkley before the service, and ask him to make an announcement to this effect,” said Alexander.
“You can’t ask a man of God to lie!” said Jeff, shocked.
“I shan’t ask him to,” said Alexander. “I’ll ask him to make an announcement giving our thoughts on the matter so he reports truth as he knows it; and I’ll take the sin of lying onto my own back. I’d as soon do that as have someone else killed. Anyone who saw him would think him a fool, not a knave, and would be less likely to put themselves in harm’s way; and as he wants our suspicion away from Vera Twiddly-bonk and on his ultimate victim, he can’t kill her out of hand without at least some build-up of suspicion towards her. If she supposedly commits suicide confessing in some kind of letter, there will be questions asked if we don’t have her clearly in mind. I don’t care how stupid he thinks us in looking the wrong way at the wrong person when he has so cleverly led us to the ‘right’ person.”
“It’s the way of crooks to think themselves so clever,” said Jeff. “It will frustrate him no end to refuse to believe his clues.”
“If there wasn’t the serious business of a life to save, it would almost be funny, to watch his frustration,” said Alexander, with a snigger. “Mary, I hope you don’t expect the letters to the girls to actually be given to them?”
“No, Mr. Alexander, I picked them up before Ruth or Millie could find them,” said Mary. “I read the one to Ruth, very short, says she’s a scarlet woman.”
Alexander ripped open the letters to Gladys and Ida.
“Much the same; someone was in a hurry,” he said. “Oh, ours are virtually identical, stupid copper, has no idea how the educated can run rings around those who are not.”
“My goodness, I don’t suppose Eton will be happy to know you are thought to be uneducated,” laughed Jeff.
“Winchester, actually, and not for long; only to get me some contacts. I was largely educated by the local grammar school,” said Alexander.
“I stand corrected,” said Jeff.
“But it’s a valid point,” said Alexander. “Anyone who knows me knows I had a good education and have a degree from Oxford from which I planned to make the police force my career, only the Kaiser had other ideas. I did my basic training and about three weeks on point duty, before I decided to volunteer before I was called up. I didn’t want to end up as a grunt with total idiots telling me to do things I knew were stupid, so I went in to the Royal Engineers. They make you pass an exam for that, so I was commissioned right away, and when they wanted volunteers for a secret weapon, I said yes. So, I was one of the thirty-two who drove the first tanks at Flers-Courcelette in September of Sixteen. I hated them with a passion, but they got better.”
“You don’t get commissioned in the Engineers without mathematics,” said Jeff. “Chummy is an idiot.”
“Of course he is. Only idiots reckon that crime is a short cut to wealth,” said Alexander. “But like many other rats, he has low cunning.”
Jeff sniggered.
“The thought of a precious creature like you on point duty, like any other bobby, white sleeves and directing idiots around Oxford Circle is actually quite funny. I can see you correcting the grammar of the costers.”
“I’ll have you know I can do a burst of cockney as well as anyone,” said Alexander.
The Heywood Hall party were early to church, and Alexander bearded Dr. Brinkley in his vestry.
“We think there has likely been an outbreak of poison-pen letters overnight, and wondered if you would care to make an announcement from the police,” said Alexander.
“I will do anything I can to help,” said the vicar. “Oliver received one accusing him of smuggling gin, which he thought amusing, considering he brews his own; and I had one accusing me of interfering with choir boys. Most unpleasant, and one does worry about folk saying ‘no smoke without fire,’ but I preserved it, and Oliver’s missive for you to look over.”
“Thank you,” said Alexander. “And as Tim was one of your choir boys, the idea of him not subsequently nicking you makes a mockery of the suggestion.”
“I was walking out with Sally Braithwaite, as it happens,” said Brinkley. “Not a girl of our class, but a sensible body, which is a good thing in a vicar’s wife; we had some stupid quarrel because I wanted her to have elocution lessons. She broke off the understanding and threw herself into partying. I feel somehow responsible... but the poison-pen has not poked me in the conscience over that.”
“The poison-pen has never been a part of village society per se,” said Alexander. “Unlike you, and the shop-keepers, school mistresses, and those involved in Scouting and Guiding, the party does not know the small gossip that everyone else does.”
“And I suppose you must disregard poor Vera Tweedie-Banks as a suspect now,” said Brinkley.
“Oh, not at all,” said Alexander, praying for forgiveness for blatantly lying to a man of the cloth. “We think that the missives sent out overnight had been pre-arranged, and that a third party who is innocent of wrongdoing took pay to deliver them, or was convinced to do so as a prank or some harmless reason. And I wished you to reassure the congregation of that.”
“Oh! I certainly shall,” said Brinkley.
The service opened with ‘Be Thou my vision,’ to make sure that the congregation was awake from a good sing-song before Dr. Brinkley took the pulpit.
“Before the sermon, I want to share with you all that I’ve been speaking with the Scotland Yard officers,” he said. “I suspect that some of you received, as I did, a poison-pen letter this morning. I have to tell you that the inspectors do not think that this is in any way indicative that they have the wrong person in custody. Mr. Armitage informs me that the force believes that the letters delivered today had already been written, and given to some innocent third party, either for pay, or to deliver as a prank. I have been asked to reassure you that there is nothing to worry about.”
A voice near the back cried, ‘No! They’re wrong!’. Alexander smiled. It was the voice he expected.
Dr. Brinkley frowned, but moved into his address. He took the text ‘Judge not, lest ye be judged,’ and expanded upon the unfortunate poor sick mind which could see only fault and which reached out with accusations, uninformed and groundless for the most part, from a poor ignorant soul who did not understand the victims of her unstable hatred.
“That’s the closest I’ve ever come to pitying Vera Tweedie-Banks,” rumbled Fred Chaffinch, audibly. “Better orator than that rat-faced little trouble-maker with the pathetic moustache in Germany.”
“Fred!” hissed Polly, repressively.
Dr. Brinkley regarded Fred over his glasses.
“You should pity her, Fred,” he said. “So much hatred is a blight upon the soul, and only the Good Lord can ease her pain. And the pain is indicated by how she feels a need to strike out blindly, unable to make any guesses at anything known to everyone able to interact socially with the rest of the village. She has alienated herself, and in doing so has thrust away the sympathy she needs to heal her soul. Whether it can be done in this life, who can tell, but if she is also the killer of three women, those of us who mourn them for personal reasons need to pray for the strength to forgive, and let the Good Lord judge her. ‘Vengeance is Mine, saith the Lord, I will repay.’”
“Amen,” said Alexander.
“That dark duty being over, whilst we walk yet in the austerity of Lent, let us remember how our Lord fasted in the wilderness before the ordeal He knew He would face, and sing ‘Forty days and forty nights,” said Brinkley.
Amabel Brinkley launched into the well-known hymn at her usual fast pace. It made it almost jaunty, drawing a slightly pained look from her uncle.
A lesson in the words which the poison-pen would have been wise to take to heart, thought Alexander, pondering on the words at the end of the chorus, ‘Tempted, and yet unbeguiled.’
The Girl Guides trooped to the front of the church, where they sang, ‘All in the April Evening’ with clear young voices.
Alexander frowned.
He shuffled along to Tim Mapp, who was sitting with Maggie Squires.
“Where’s Emma?” he asked, quietly but sharply of Maggie.
Maggie put her hand to her mouth.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “She got up and went down, but she ran up to bed again, and wouldn’t get up. I thought it was nerves. I told her it was no worse than singing in the chorus for the Mikado.”
“She found a letter,” said Alexander. “Let me through.”
“We’re coming,” said Tim.
Jeff was following, and Alexander waved back the rest of his household. They hurried out of the church.
“Maggie, go home and check if she’s still there,” said Alexander. “Tim, go to the railway station; one of the porters is an atheist, and he holds the fort there. See if she took a train. Jeff, we’ll go down to the weir. If we find nothing, we’ll come back to the empty house, in case she’s hiding.”
They separated, and Jeff followed Alexander slithering down to the river bank from the road bridge, a common enough shortcut to have a rather treacherous path worn in the grass at the side of the bridge. Alexander set up a ground-eating trot, hurrying on to where Theodore Savin had decided to skip church and all the pitying looks to tackle the overgrown trees and bushes. Of Theodore there was no sign at first, then Jeff gave a shout, pointing into the drowning machine below the weir. The ladder Theodore had been using was propped against the bank, hooked, fortunately, on a snag of a cut-down bush. The other end of the ladder churned like one of the new electric mixers, with Theodore’s head and another head, thrashing in the seething waters below the weir.
“Fuck!” said Alexander. He peeled off his jacket and unbuttoned his braces. “Jeff, I’m going along the ladder; join my braces to yours and get them through the back of my belt. You stay on the bank and yell like mad. Tim should be coming back, and should hear you.”
Jeff nodded, taking off his own braces without pausing, and tying a reef knot between the two back parts, and tying another reef knot of the front straps, one of which he passed through Alexander’s belt. He extended it further with a short length of rope Theodore had brought to tie up a bundle of rubbish, putting it through a buttonhole and tying a sheet-bend. He knew he was not a strong swimmer, but he was physically strong. He wrapped the end of the makeshift rope around his wrist, lay down flat, partly on the ladder, his other arm around the stump which held it, and prepared to hang on for dear life, intermittently shouting as loud as he could, “HELP!”
Alexander edged down the ladder, his weight adding to its stability, but dragging it further under water.
“Theodore! Pass her back to me!” he called. For a moment, he thought the man had not heard; and then the sodden head jerked, and Theodore Savin moved with what seemed awful slowness, in pulling the limp body of the young girl back towards Alexander. Alexander realised that Theodore was frozen and exhausted; the river was cold, and he was being continuously ducked and pulled up in the frantic motion of the ladder. He was further down in the water for Alexander’s weight on the ladder, but Alexander knew that the man would drown before he let another young girl go down – if indeed it was not already too late. He edged forward, and managed to grasp the girl’s wrist, and with this tenuous hold, started to move back up the ladder. Theodore was able to now get a second hand on the ladder, as Alexander felt Jeff assist his efforts by pulling. His feet hit the bank, and he let go with one hand, to pass the inert body of Emma Squires back to Jeff, before moving forward again to grab Theodore’s wrists, and half drag the swooning man back to the bank. Jeff landed all three, before turning his attention to Emma, laid on her front, and working her arms back and forth until she coughed, and sicked up a lot of water.
“You’ll have to go and get someone, Jeff; I’m all in,” said Alexander, wrapping the now sobbing Emma in his own jacket. Jeff found Theodore’s jacket and passed it to him, as the man finished vomiting his own load of river water, and passed his own jacket to Alexander.
“Tarpaulin,” croaked Theodore. “Better than sitting on the wet ground.”
Alexander helped Emma onto the tarpaulin on which Theodore had been gathering the cut branches, and turned it over to partly cover them.
“Sorry, Emma, but we’ll have to get uncomfortably close to you to keep warm,” said Alexander.
“Oh! I... I wanted to die, but oh, it was so frightening, and it wasn’t easy like they say drowning is!” sobbed Emma.
“You’re fifteen years old, and nothing is bad enough to need to die,” said Alexander. “What did that awful letter say?”
“You know I have a letter?”
“Other people had letters, mostly telling lies, so I assumed that was what upset you,” said Alexander, through wildly chattering teeth.
Emma sobbed more.
“It said that everyone knew I was making a fool of myself over my sister’s feeongsay,” said Emma, slaughtering the French word. “I tried not to show how I fancy Tim, I did, I did! And now everyone will know!”
“And you’ve done a good job, and even if Tim knows, he won’t say a word because it would hurt you and Maggie,” said Alexander. “And we’ll tell Tim it suggested you were making up to someone, unspecified and that you did not want to be thought a scarlet woman, which is this evil writer’s main comment to women, so you do not need to be embarrassed. Will that help?”
“Oh! You are so kind! And Mr. Savin is so good and kind to risk his life to rescue me!” Emma howled in earnest.
“I saw her jump, and I couldn’t leave her,” said Theodore. “I don’t think she realised I was there. I knew the weir would kill us both if I just went in after her, so I thought of that pesky rowan tree on the edge which let my girl get killed, and which I cut first. The ladder went over the stump. I had no idea that the ladder would thrash about so much. But without it I’d never have got her. I shoved one leg through the rungs and crossed my ankles and dove until I touched something which felt like hair, and I’m afraid I pulled the poor child up by the braid down her back.”
“Better a sore scalp than drowned,” said Alexander.
He could feel the pounding of feet on the path and lay back; he had not swallowed much water, but he felt sick and giddy both from reaction, and from the pull on his belly. It was mostly healed, but extraordinary exertion made him aware of it.
He was not displeased that Jeff and Tim had charged into church and mustered three stretcher parties from the Boy Scouts and that Dr. Craiggie was waiting in the rectory to look them all over. That wight’s cheerful, matter of fact voice put heart in him, and he suffered having his belly wound examined with care, and his chest sounded. Maggie and her parents were scolding and hugging Emma in equal measure.
“Don’t fuss her too much,” Tim said, firmly. “I’m sure that we all know that there are times when girls can be more easily upset than others and these letters are pernicious.”
Alexander was being scolded by Ida and Campbell, but he smiled sunnily at both of them.
“One death averted,” he said. “Tell Theodore he might as well come home with us to recover, rather than go home alone; he’s rather battered.”
Then he gave in to the wave of black exhaustion which had been threatening and let himself pass out.
