Lies in Lashbrook 19 casuistry bonus

 

Chapter 19

 

Theodosius Montague Ffoulkson glared over his spectacles.

“A second body in just a few days? With due respect, Inspector Morrell, whilst one killing might be seen to be unfortunate in a community, a second killing appears to reflect on the constabulary as distinctly careless.”

Jeff was stung.

“We believe that her words to you at her daughter’s inquest, implying she knew more were the source of the second tragedy. That the killer lay in wait in her own home, boldly entering shortly after the police had been conducting a search for evidence, was not something we feel we could have predicted. However, there is reason to suppose that there were family reasons for both killings, tied up with the psychopathy of the poison-pen writings, and based on the fact that the person we have in custody did not mingle with the villagers, thus being unable to make accurate digs at those to whom she had written. She is a deeply disturbed person currently serving time for contempt of court, having called the judge a fool and worse. However, there is a small margin for doubt, as other poison-pen letters were delivered subsequent to the suspect’s arrest, but it is equally possible they were set up beforehand.  The law requests a verdict of person or persons unnamed to be returned.”

“I will determine whether to direct such a verdict when I have heard all the evidence,” said Ffoulkson, severely.

Jeff bowed his head in acquiescence. He would expect nothing  else from the acidulated little coroner; but he had made a play which Ffoulkson would understand, as he and Alexander had discussed. Alexander knew Ffoulkson better than Jeff did, and was able to assure Jeff that though the coroner seemed fussy, he was as sharp as a whip, and would read what Jeff did not say. A man of long experience, he would hear Jeff say, without saying, ‘We are fortunate to have in custody someone who could be blamed and who is out of the way, while we wait for the one we really suspect to trip up over their own cleverness.’ That meant they need not waste too much time on Vera Tweedie-Banks here, merely establishing that she had interfered with a crime scene and admitted to finding Irma’s diary, which had apparently been destroyed.

Theodore Savin testified that he had come home from work and found his wife dead, whereupon he had admitted that he had foolishly laid her down and took the knife out of the wound.

“And Vera accused me of killing my wife. I can’t see why anyone would think I would want to kill poor Violet,” he said, bewildered.

“Eh, if you don’t know, you’re the only one who doesn’t,” called a wag from the back.

“Order!” said Ffoulkson.

“I would like to answer the rude fellow,” said Theodore. “It is true that Violet was not much of a mother to Irma, nor a good cook, and that we had our differences.  But you see, she was a disappointed woman in so many ways.  She thought a man with a job in the city would have drive and ambition; and I have neither. I did try, but I was miserable, and moved to another, less demanding job, where I would get to see my wife and child. Then, too, Violet wanted to be an artist.  I think she may have hoped to have an illicit affaire with Basil Henderson, war hero, artist, and despite losing his legs, a good-looking and personable man. I suspect the notoriety was as attractive to her as Basil himself, who was not a man to interfere with married women. She went to him for art lessons, and he was brutally honest.”

“Odelique with cauliflower hands!” gasped Alexander. “Oh, I do beg your pardon, Mr. Ffoulkson, I recognised one of my brother-in-law’s paintings suddenly as being Mrs. Savin. He could have a cruel streak when painting what he saw, if people irritated him. Sorry, Theodore.  I’m sure Ida will let you have it, if you want.”

“Thank you, but no. I would rather remember her in my own roseate vision, not through the eyes of Basil Henderson who, I fear, probably saw her all too clearly,” said Theodore. “She liked to play at being an artist, and I’m afraid she wasn’t very good, but I was happy to buy her art materials and take her to galleries, because it gave her pleasure. I know she had a lover in Oxford, I could smell his cologne on her on Thursdays. But she was usually sweet to me after that, and I confess, I enjoyed it, and liked to pretend I was her lover. She deserved a better man than me, so I felt I had to make up for her disappointment in me.”

“Mr. Savin, I don’t think she knew how lucky she was,” said Ffoulkson.

“His friends agree,” said Alexander, quietly.

Firmly instructed, the jury meekly brought in a verdict of murder by person or persons unknown, but believed to be the poison-pen.

Edgar Thripp buttonholed Jeff as everyone filed out.

“Look here, you’re Alex Armitage’s boss, can’t you stop him telling lies about me?”

“Strictly, he’s senior to me, but as he’s on sick leave, I’m technically in charge of the case. What lies do you think he has told? You had better be sure, because the Yard take frivolous charges seriously,” said Jeff.

Edgar flushed.

“He told the lady I’m walking out with that I have a child,” he said.

“Well, yes, it is common knowledge, you know,” said Jeff.

“It’s not true! I haven’t slept about!” said Edgar. “I’ll sue!”

“You had better hope, then, that your handwriting, when examined by an expert, doesn’t match the letter you wrote to Ruth Fringford sneering at her for being a foolish little girl and telling her she should have used herbs if she didn’t want to be... ‘up the spout,’ I think was your charming phrase. I’ve seen the letter.”

“And Ruth went sneaking around my aunt, too,” said Edgar.

“No, I think Mary Fringford told Miss Thripp what you had done,” said Jeff.  “Millie has your ears as well.”

“Well, nobody would believe my aunt; I’m sure she is the poison pen.”

“She can’t be,” said Jeff. “She has been schoolteacher for so long, she wouldn’t make fundamental mistakes about people like the total dumbbell who is writing the fiction that constitutes most of the total bunk the poison-pen comes out with. Indeed, the idiot doesn’t even manage the prurient glee most poison-pens manage.”

“She hides it well, but I suspect my aunt is losing her marbles,” said Edgar. “Take thinking that she can sing in the play. Chaffinch is a good sort and doesn’t dare exclude her, but she has this weedy, warbling voice with a wheeze in it, and when she makes a fool of herself, I’m afraid it will break her mind totally.”

Jeff stared at him.

“There’s nothing wrong with Miss Thripp’s voice,” he said. “You must be dreaming.”

“I... after her bronchitis, she had problems,” said Edgar.

“Oh, but she’s fully recovered now, I’ve heard her sing. She has a fine voice. You can’t have been paying enough attention; I expect writing your book has taken up most of your time and thoughts, and you’re conflating fiction within it with truth.”

“Perhaps that’s it,” said Edgar, clenching his teeth hard together. Jeff thought it made him look rather like a rat.

He subdued a snigger. Edgar was frustrated because he had, essentially, written a script which people were supposed to follow, and even killing witnesses did not seriously deviate from that; but now people were not following it at all.

 

Meanwhile, Alexander fell into step with Theodore.

“Theodore, I need to borrow Irma’s teddy-bear. I think she hid her diary inside him.”

Theodore stared.

“I... that could explain much. She did tell me that Mr. Buttons – for his eyes, you know – knows all her secrets.”

“Campbell rang your sister yesterday and said one of us would run you back to hers; mind if we go now?”

“No, not at all. And thank you for taking me in, yesterday, and letting my sister know. And for loaning me a decent suit. I’d better go back to yours and change.”

“You’re welcome to keep it; it looks better on you than it does on me,” said Alexander. “I usually wear grey or brown, I don’t know why I tried dark navy. I have a black suit, as one does, but I look like a mobster in navy.”

Theodore laughed, a rather short laugh, but with genuine amusement. “I don’t think you would ever look like a mobster,” he said. “But thank you, it’s an excellent cut and fits me remarkably well.”

“I need to lose weight; I have put on a pound or two, waiting to heal,” said Alexander, ruefully. “Fortunately, you’re the same build I used to be.”

“That’s Violet’s cooking, I’m afraid,” said Theodore. “I think I might take a class in cookery.”

“I’m sure Mary would be pleased to teach you,” said Alexander.

 

It rained as they drove over to Bicester to get Mr. Buttons. Theodore’s sister embraced him.

“Is it true he was being a hero?” she asked Alexander.

“Yes, he used a ladder to go into the weir to rescue a young girl who turned giddy and fell in,” said Alexander, he and Jeff having hit on that fiction for Emma’s sake, so that nobody would quiz her about an abortive suicide attempt. Neither of them wanted to arrest a fifteen year old girl. And it was an age at which girls were a little unstable. There was no point making anything of it. In a few years’ time, Emma would doubtless realise that one of the young men she did not even notice at the moment was the one for her. Theodore asked Alexander in, and his sister bustled off to get a cup of tea. Theodore returned from where he was sleeping with the teddy bear, the black boot-button eyes shining as if with secret knowledge. He wore a waistcoat.

“Well, Mr. Buttons, I’m sorry to perform an operation on you, but we need to find if you have a loose seam,” said Alexander. “Oh, look, under his waistcoat, his back seam is held together with safety pins.”

“Well, I never,” said Theodore, as Alexander eased out a roll of exercise books.

“I imagine the seam split, and when she found her mother pried, as well as using Morse, she decided to hide the physical diary,” said Alexander. “I suspect she excavated a little sawdust from his stuffing at a time, maybe burned it on her fire.”

“That is possible,” said Theodore. “Once she was a Girl Guide, we let her tend her own fire.”

The earliest writings were in a childish hand, about childish doings. And then the comment, ‘Mummy has been looking in my diary and criticising my friends so I will write in Morse Code from now on, because she can’t read it and can’t pry because, Mummy, that’s what it is if you look again, so there.”

“Poor Irma,” said Theodore.

“At least she has dated them in normal dates,” said Alexander, extracting the most recent. “I hope my Morse is not too rusty.”

“And that she has not further encrypted it,” said Theodore. “She’s... she was clever enough, you know, to do it as so-called ‘Back Latin’ or with a one letter shift.”

“Ohho, is that what you were doing during the war?” asked Alexander. Theodore looked uncomfortable.

“Strictly speaking, I’m still not supposed to speak about it, but... well, yes. Being supposedly in supplies covered it.”

“At least you will be able to read her diaries to feel closer to her,” said Alexander.

“I don’t know if I should,” said Theodore. “I don’t want to violate her privacy.”

“I think she’d understand,” said Alexander. “And I have to violate her privacy; it’s what policemen do.”

 

As it happened, Irma had not bothered to further encode her writing, and Alexander soon found his knowledge flowing back as he read the most recent diary. Irma’s writings were mostly about boys, as might be expected.  Billie Braithwaite had asked her out, and she had turned him down before he got the idea she might want to spend her life smelling of fish. She mentioned that Edgar Thripp was handsome in a brooding sort of way, if rather old – Alexander chuckled over that, and the thought that Edgar would be horrified – and musing on whether someone as old as in his twenties would be more satisfying as a boyfriend or whether it was better to stick to someone not nearly geriatric.

“Mr. Thripp is very intense, and he makes me think of Mr. Rochester in ‘Jane Eyre,” she had written. “And he is supposed to be very romantic, though I think that keeping a mad woman in an attic is rather impractical. She would be better in a nursing home or something. And I think he should have been man enough to acknowledge Adele.  Some people say that Mr. Thripp has a daughter; I wonder who it could be. I don’t think he’s old enough for it to be me.” Alexander sniggered. Edgar was twenty-four.

Another entry made him sigh.

“I do wish Mumsy wasn’t so silly over painting. She isn’t any good at it, which wouldn’t matter if she enjoyed herself, but she is always going on about how hard it is to have the muse.  She boxed my ears because I suggested she take liver pills for it. She’s sore because the Players didn’t come running to ask her to paint the flats for the show, and Mr. Chaffinch turned her down when she suggested it and said he wanted the village of Tittipu in Japan, not paintings of what a blind man sees in fever dreams. It wasn’t kind, but you have to be blunt enough to offend Mumsy if you want to choke her off an idea. And then she goes all intense and you can’t get to talk to her for weeks without vague answers which are no answer at all. I bet she’s not that scatty at her fancy man in Oxford, or he’d ditch her.”

And then the last few entries.

“Need to slip out early tomorrow, Tony Ambridge lost his football over the school wall on purpose to kiss me, and promised to slip out before school tomorrow. It is rotten luck for the grammar school boys that they have to board and have such long terms.”

 

“Well! I was in the village on my way to see Tony, and guess who I saw? Mr. Thripp, and he was poking something under the door of the fish shop. That daft boy was in there sweeping up. Well, I didn’t want to be caught by a grown-up, so I went round the back, and got to Lover’s Lane.  And Tony gave me a lovely kiss over the wall, and groped me a bit, and the rotter undid my brassiere from the outside and said smugly that it was a knack, and that he’d do it up for me if I’d take off my jumper for him to get at it. Well! I slapped his face, and dodged into the empty house to put it right. I can just hear Mumsy if I went home with undone corsetry!”

 

“The rehearsal was fun, but what was really odd was that the Braithwaites had a poison letter. The boy saw a figure and swore he could not say who it was, and I nearly told him it was Mr. Thripp, but suppose Mr. Thripp is the poison-pen? I don’t know why he would do it, but I managed to whisper to him that I saw him, and asked what it was worth to stay quiet. He has asked me to meet him on the river path, near the rowan tree, where it’s so overgrown, and he’d give me something. I wonder what! It might be money, which is always useful, or maybe he’ll show me how a grown man kisses. I’m really excited. I can’t wait to write all about it.”

 

Alexander shook his head, sadly. Poor silly girl.

“Did you find it?” asked Theodore.

“Yes, and I’m not showing you,” said Alexander.

Theodore snorted.

“I’m not an idiot. It’s that Thripp fellow, isn’t it? I can read clues too.”

“Theodore, if you won’t give me your word as an officer and a gentleman to leave me to do my job, I’ll arrest you even if I have to invent a reason.”

“I won’t lay a finger on him unless it looks as if he’s going to get away with it. And then I’ll kill him,” said Theodore, flatly.

“I didn’t hear that,” said Alexander.

“I don’t even care if I’m hung for it,” said Theodore.

“No, but in time you might,” said Alexander. “And do you think Irma wants her dad hung? You live for her and I’ll get this piece of shit if it’s the last thing I do.”

Theodore gave a curt nod.

“I’ll stay out of your way; but if you want me to be bait, I’m more than happy to say I found and read Irma’s diaries.”

“You know what? I’ll keep it in reserve,” said Alexander.

“Thank you,” said Theodore.

 

lies in Lashbrook 18

 

Chapter 18

 

Alexander had only the haziest memory of being bundled into the car and driven home, helped up to bed and undressed by Campbell, calling him ‘You bloody fool, Major, sir,’ in an affectionate tone. He came to as the hazy sun indicated that it had crept to late afternoon, striking low across his bedroom. Jeff had come in with a mug of tea.

“Campbell said you were stirring,” he said. “Craiggie says you’ve strained the wound but he doesn’t think you opened anything inside, but he’ll be over later, and will stay for dinner.”

“It doesn’t feel spongy as if there was blood leaking inside, and it doesn’t really hurt,” said Alexander. “But I’ll be glad to have Craiggie check; the ride on that ladder was wilder than any fairground; actually, it was wilder than the trip I once took in a Brisfit[1] to take a look at the terrain from above, and we ran into a circus,[2] and came home hedge-hopping. I tell you, gunnery up in one of those crates is not like firing a tank cannon, it’s like targeting a fly with a pea shooter whilst being tossed in a blanket.”

“I ’eard you had three confirmed kills whilst acting as impromptu rear gunner, sir,” said Campbell, who was also hanging around.

“The blighters were on our tail; I could scarcely miss,” said Alexander. “Cured me of any desire to move into the RFC, though. Those crates were flimsy as a matchbox. My leather coat stopped more bullets than the plane’s hull did, I swear; I shook two spent rounds out of the leather. I came close to needing new trousers after that little trip.”

Campbell laughed in the way of a man who appreciates a brave man admitting to fear in a humorous fashion. His former man, Basil Henderson, had been a pilot, flying a Sopwith ‘Camel.’ He had seen plenty of pilots virtually falling out of aeroplanes which were more hole than vehicle. The average survival for a pilot once joining the theatre of war was eleven days during the most intense fighting, and those who survived longer were usually exceptional flyers and rapidly became aces.

“It was heaving people around which did the damage,” said Jeff. “I should have been the one to go in.”

“And I remember you saying that you can only swim if you can keep one toe on the ground,” said Alexander. “We’ll attend to that in the summer, and I’ll get you swimming properly.”

“I appreciate that,” said Jeff.

“How’s Theodore?” asked Alexander.

“Still asleep; Mary gave him a drop of laudanum, to keep him from brooding,” said Jeff.

“Campbell, I’d be glad if you’d set up a camp-bed in his room tonight,” said Alexander.

“Yessir,” said Campbell. “Unless the medic ’as to cut you open to stop you poppin’ your clogs.”

“Cheerful bugger,” said Alexander.

 

Alexander insisted that he could get dressed, and that Craiggie could poke at him on a chaise longue. Before the doctor arrived, however, he had visitors in the persons of Dr.  Brinkley, and his niece, Amabel.

“Reverend, Miss Brinkley, nice of you to call,” said Alexander.

“Dear me, you may not think so, when I tell you why,” said Dr.  Brinkley. “I am here to support my dear niece, because she has something to tell you which might shake your faith in your belief in who is the poison pen.”

“I’m walking out with Edgar Thripp,” said Amabel. “Well, he came to church with his aunt, but he looked terrible, and I managed to coax him to tell me what was troubling him. He... he had a headache in the night, and went to his aunt’s room to ask if she had any ‘Daisies’[3] to take to cure the pain, and his aunt was not there.  He was puzzled and wondered if she also felt unwell, and went downstairs. She was not there. He went into the bathroom and found some pills to take and went back upstairs, but he glanced out of the window after putting out the light, and saw his aunt creep back into the house, with a big bag. He scarcely slept a wink for the rest of the night, though it was two in the morning. He believes his aunt is the poison-pen; and I hate to think ill of a colleague, but it does seem an odd coincidence, don’t you think?”

“Jeff, what time did we go up after writing up reports for the coroner tomorrow?” asked Alexander.

“Well after two,” said Jeff. “You went to lock the front door.”

“Yes, and there were no letters there then. But Mary found them in the morning when she came to unbolt it,” said Alexander. “Miss Thripp is quite cleared of having anything to do with delivering the letters, Miss Brinkley. You may rest assured of that.”

“Oh! I am so relieved,” said Amabel. “And Edgar will be relieved too.”

“I do hope you are not permitting him to take advantage of you, Miss Brinkley,” said Alexander. “Since he has been responsible for one proven and one conjectural pregnancy in the village already.”

“How dare you!” cried Amabel. “Why, Edgar is a gentleman! He would not take advantage of a lady!”

“Perhaps not of a lady, but he has one living daughter, who is acknowledged by Miss Thripp as her great niece, and who is the beneficiary of her will, to make up in some measure for her start in life,” said Alexander. “I wonder if Edgar Thripp is aware of his aunt’s will?”

“I am sure she has every right to leave her money wherever she pleases,” said Amabel. “I think someone has taken advantage of her, however, since he would not act like that.”

“As it happens, I have reason to believe that he was the father of Sally Braithwaite’s unborn child as well,” said the vicar.  “Perhaps you will listen to my concerns about your courtship with him now my dissatisfaction with his character is backed up by another.”

“If he got a girl pregnant, doubtless she was some hussy who entrapped him,” said Amabel.

“That’s defamation and also untrue,” said Jeff. “A girl of seventeen fooled into believing that he loved her.”

“What do you know? You’re an outsider,” said Amabel, rudely.

“Amabel!” the vicar was shocked.

“At least I associate enough with the village folk to know more about them than the poison pen; which Miss Thripp does as well,” said Jeff. “She would not make the positively laughable mistakes the poison-pen has made in some of the letters. Calling both Alex and me uneducated, for example; I did matriculate, but Alex was at Oxford and has a degree. Referring to Miss Henderson and Miss Price as actresses from London.  Miss Thripp has taught both of them in the school and knows very well who they are. Miss Thripp is an impossible suspect. I think perhaps you should go and relieve Edgar Thripp’s mind on that score.”

“And if he has settled down enough to be a model husband, of course, you are to be congratulated,” said Alexander. “I hope you will not mind supporting him whilst he writes his book.”

“What book? Edgar is not writing a book,” said Amabel.

“Oh, he has not told you about it? He told me he was writing a book about village life,” said Alexander.  “I think he would do better in researching it to mingle more, but perhaps he is relying on anecdotes from you and Miss Thripp.”

“I will ask him about it, how clever he is!” sighed Amabel.

She and the vicar took their leave.

“Campbell!” called Alexander. “You’re driving Miss Ruth and Miss Millie to visit my parents for a week or so.”

“You think he would try to kill an innocent child?” gasped Jeff.

“He hasn’t minded killing Irma, who wasn’t really an adult, has he?” said Alexander. “And now he knows he won’t inherit, he will want Millie dead before he tries to kill his aunt. If Millie does not die first, anything she has when she dies goes to her next of kin. Her mother. Only with Millie out of the way can he become a beneficiary of Miss Thripp.”

“And we’ll make up a dummy and put in her bed, and say that she is down with measles,” said Ida. “Which means the room must be darkened even during daytime, so that there is no damage to her eyes. And then we can pretend to have all gone out, and catch him red-handed.”

“I hope he does not try to do it during the inquest; we must attend,” said Alexander.

“Oh, the house will be empty.  Mary, Ruth, and Millie given the day off,” said Ida. “And then drop rumours that she came back crying and sick and has developed a rash.”

“I’ll have a word with Craiggie when he comes,” said Alexander. “Invite him for dinner again tomorrow; he’ll jump at it. Serena Craiggie’s idea of cooking, I gather, is to boil everything until it loses its colour.”

“Poor man,” said Ida. “I know; take a heap of food to the rehearsal and tell them we were going to have them over but that we think Millie has measles. The tale will spread faster than any infection.”

“Brilliant,” said Alexander. “And invite the Braithwaites too as it’s their day off. Ruth! We are disposing of you and Millie most high handedly because I fear for her life when Edgar Thripp realises that his daughter is the main beneficiary of his aunt’s will.”

“Is she?” said Ruth.

“As I understand it,” said Alexander. “She said, at least, that Millie would be well taken care of.”

“I’ll take her wherever you tell me,” said Ruth. “Jeff? You won’t let anyone harm her?”

“I’ll do my best to make sure she’s safe,” said Jeff.  He ruffled the effulgent locks of the little girl as she ran in behind her mother, looking a little mutinous. “You go and have a fun holiday with Uncle Alex’s Mama and Papa on a farm,” he said.

“Are there donkeys to ride?” asked Millie.

“There’s a donkey, who is mostly obliging,” said Alexander. “Kittens in the barn, a few spaniels, chickens, goats, a couple of cows, and a sow who farrowed a litter of twelve. We’ve had prize pigs for generations. They have bristles the same colour as your hair, Millie.”

“Really? I thought pigs were pink,” said Millie.

“Oh, some are black and some are black and white, and these are pink under their hair, like you are,” said Alexander. “I expect you’ll be allowed to help feed any baby animals who need it.”

By this time all truculence had passed and Millie was keen on her promised holiday.

“I am glad your mother takes in anyone you send to her,” said Jeff. “I’ve become very fond of that little girl.”

“I expect next time she visits it will be when mummy and daddy have a honeymoon,” said Alex.

Jeff blushed.

“Well, I could think of worse venues,” he said.

 

Doctor Craiggie came to give Alexander a more thorough check up.

“No oedema,” he grunted. “If you’d torn anything inside, I would be able to feel swelling as you bled into the belly cavity. Even so, I want you to look at your next stools before getting rid of them, and if there’s any blood, have your man take you into the hospital in Oxford and tell them it’s on my orders. I don’t have the fancy equipment a hospital has and apart from the feel of it, the only way I could tell for sure would be to open you up to check that you don’t need opening up.”

“Thanks,” said Alexander. “Doctor, I need to ask you to tell a lie for me.”

Craiggie frowned.

“Why?” he asked, bluntly.

“I want to catch a murderer red handed in an attempt to kill Millie Fringford,” said Alexander.

Craiggie was alert.

“If that child has witnessed anything, you should get her away,” he said.

“She’s already gone,” said Alexander. “But if you came over here tomorrow after a summons, you could let it be known at the rehearsal that it appears that the child has measles.”

“If you say the child is ill, and I recount typical symptoms, I don’t even have to lie,” said Craiggie.

“Even better,” said Alexander. “Well, then, I will phone you to ask you to attend on Millie tomorrow afternoon; Mary is going to bake pies and things for the rehearsal and I’ll apologise for not having people over, because of Millie being ill.”

“And I don’t mind pulling the wool over the eyes of anyone who would kill a child, and a dear little girl like Milliemolliemeggsie,” said Doctor Craiggie. “And for Mary’s cooking I’d waver over perjuring myself.”

 

---

[1] Bristol Fighter, a 2-seater WW1 biplane

[2] The so-called ‘flying circus’ originally referred to Jagdstaffel 1, under Manfred von Richthofen because of the bright colours chosen to paint the planes within it, and sometimes loosely applied to any squadron of German planes.

[3] A freely available analgesic which may or may not have worked

lies in Lashbrook 17

 

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.