Lies in Lashbrook 16

 I don't know if anyone noticed but I was rather pleased with the title and its double meaning as well as being alliterative - that the truth lies in Lashbrook as well as there being lies in Lashbrook.

Chapter 16

 

Mrs. Tweedie-Banks kept her dustbin in a little alcove in the fencing, with a gate which actually had a window box affixed to it, so that plants in the box hid the gate.

“The lengths some people go to,” said Alexander.

“We have a warrant to search, so we can heave it out, and search,” said Jeff. “And thank you for finding old shirts to put on backwards and gardening gloves this time.”

“I should have thought last time, but we’ll still pull the same trick with the newspaper,” said Alexander.

Two women came and watched. One was a tall, well-built woman with dark hair, the other was small, blonde, and with an air of fragility.

“Is this about poor little Irma?” twittered the blonde. “Will you be searching our dustbins, too?”

“Only if you think it likely that anyone from either of these two cottages put Irma’s diary in it,” said Alexander. The two women exchanged glances.

“Margie, go and get our gloves. I’d rather offer our bin contents voluntarily,” said the blonde.

“Yes, Winnie, I agree,” said her companion. “And more newspaper.”

The newspaper was ‘The Oxford Journal’ and had no holes in it when Winnie Harmon and Margie Goodie laid it out. They emptied their bin.

“We won’t get in your way,” said Winnie Harmon. “Would tea be acceptable or do I need to dig out spirits?”

“Tea would be very welcome,” said Alexander.

“I’ll bring the catering pot and mugs,” said Winnie.

“Bless you!” said Alex.

There was a surreal quality to drinking tea on the grassy verge of a country road, with primroses in the ditch and a few bluebells in the shade, surrounded by rubbish. There was little enough to be found, however, and certainly nothing that might be a diary. Both bins were refilled carefully.

“Is she in jail?” asked Marjorie Goodie.

“She was remanded for contempt of court,” said Jeff. “Thirty days.”

“We’ll put her bin out on Monday and put it away after they’ve been,” said Marjorie.

“Thank you. Very neighbourly of you considering that I believe she has not been a good neighbour to you,” said Alex.

Marjorie shrugged.

“You can’t leave full bins. It’s not healthy,” she said.

 

The two women cleared away the mugs whilst the police trio went inside the house.

“I always feel uncomfortable, turning over other people’s lives,” said Alexander.

“You have an excess of niceness,” said Jeff. “But I suppose it is something of a violation.”

“Leave everything as we found it,” said Alexander.

Vera Tweedie-Banks was an obsessively tidy woman; even her rubbish had been tied up in bags in the bin. They searched rubbish still in the house on the kitchen floor on more newspaper, ‘The Times’ this time, which was neatly stored in a cupboard; and Tim hauled the re-bagged rubbish out to the dustbin.

“No reason to invite the few early flies to lay eggs or rats to come in, my lad,” said Jeff. Tim did not disagree.

“Well, I think we can say that was a wasted afternoon,” said Alexander.

“Not wasted, but just productive in a negative sort of way,” said Jeff.

“Yes, you’re right,” said Alexander. “We have proven that she probably isn’t the poison-pen because she doesn’t even take the ‘Oxford Journal,’ and there is no sign of any construction of letters... there’s a gazebo, though, and we ought to take a look at that.”

The gazebo showed no sign of ever having been used for anything but sitting in the garden. The searchers were glad to drive back, dropping off Tim, and returning to Heywoods Hall.

“Are we going to let the village know we have a suspect?” asked Jeff.

“If they don’t know it by now, the gossip pipeline has sprung a leak,” said Alexander. “But yes. And we’ll talk freely about it at rehearsal tomorrow. Chummie really has to send more notes if he has someone to frame, so it’s another opportunity to trip him up.”

“You’re convinced it’s a man?”

“I’ve been thinking of the letters sent and although pedantic and fussy like a middle aged woman might write, they have innuendo without the gleeful prurience I might expect,” said Alexander.

Jeff nodded.

“I see what you mean,” he said.

 

 

oOoOo

 

The gathering at the village hall on Saturday afternoon was sober, yet had an air of excitement.

“Is it true that you caught the poison-pen, Mr.  Morrell?” asked Maud.

“We have a strong suspect in custody,” said Jeff.  “It became apparent that there was a person who is of the anticipated type, who has demonstrated malice and an antipathy against the murdered women, including Sally Braithwaite. We think we have a strong case against her.”

“Oh, I am so relieved,” said Miss Thripp. “I mean, it’s terrible to be thinking of someone under the weight of so much ill-will, but nice to know that all this will stop. We all have felt under the strain, and under suspicion; why, some of the less pleasant boys in my classes were chanting ‘Poison teacher, poison teacher,’ at me the other day as if they thought that I was the poison pen! It’s going to be very hard to teach next term if this is not cleared up by then if some of them have got hold of such a horrible idea.”

“Indeed, it makes your position quite untenable,” said Alexander. “I am sure it will all be cleared up by then.”

“What if you have the wrong person?” asked her nephew, fondly patting his aunt’s hand. “That could make it worse.”

“It means we keep digging,” said Morrell. “But at least we haven’t had to arrest any of the cast.”

There was laughter at this.

“If it was a detective story, it would be me, as the least likely suspect,” said Fred. “Not that I’m sure how to set about writing such letters; it must make a mess, and my Polly wouldn’t let me do so, I’m sure.”

“So, you think anyone married to, or living as a family member with, the poison-pen would know?” asked Alexander.

“Well, in a two up two down cottage like ours, yes,” said Fred. “We have the kitchen and parlour, and I’m not allowed in the parlour in my boots, and upstairs there’s our bedroom and when it became clear we weren’t going to be blessed with children, the railway had the other bedroom made into a bathroom and enlarged the kitchen into the lean-to.”

“And we’re saving up for when you retire to buy somewhere of our own; we don’t want to spend out on making improvements to a house tied to Fred’s job,” said Polly. “He has his shed in the garden with his toy railway, well, it’s the old air raid shelter he would dig when there were zeppelins going over, so he has plenty of room, and the shed is on top of the entrance for the garden. He’s got a lovely layout down there, and scenery, you could almost believe it was real.”

“I must come and have a look, sometime,” said Alexander. “I’m impressed by people who can make miniatures.”

“Do! Just drop in, no need for ceremony,” said Fred, with enthusiasm. “I have the school children down sometimes.”

“Oh, yes, it is lovely,” said Miss Thripp. “Tiny people made of cardboard which Fred paints himself, and hedges made, I believe, out of sponges painted green.”

“I’m thinking of getting some of the new electric trains, but the track would have to be all new too,” said Fred, wistfully.  “I suppose I could give my old clockwork trains and track to someone.  I wonder if it’s worth starting a model railway club?”

“Definitely,” said Alexander.  “An excellent excuse to start playing with trains before Ida and I even start a family.”

“I wouldn’t mind it, myself,” said Jeff. “I wonder if Millie would be interested.”

“Oh, that’s a good excuse,” laughed Alexander. “Hey, Edgar, do you like trains? Hello, he slipped out.”

“Oh, he’s not really interested in watching us rehearse; he goes home and comes back to collect me,” said Miss Thripp. “He’s missing how strong my voice is getting with your mother’s medicine, Mr. Armitage.”

“I’m glad it’s working,” said Alexander. “Fred, you should celebrate your role as Mikado by having a little figure riding on a buffer of a parliamentary train, stopping at every stop.”

“It’s a damn good punishment for the offence,” said Fred. He boomed out in song,

The idiot who, in railway carriages

Scribbles on window-panes

We only suffer

To ride on a buffer

In Parliamentary trains

 

My object all sublime

I shall achieve in time

To let the punishment fit the crime

The punishment fit the crime;

And make each prisoner pent

Unwillingly represent

A source of innocent merriment!

Of innocent merriment!

 

Alexander raised his own voice in song.

The fool who scrawls nonsense and lies

On malice plainly bent

Is sent to the City to write little ditties

On banal advertisement

Where’ere he sighs to write more lies

To deadlines by decree

On laxative cures or worse, he endures

On ladies’ corsetry.

 

“I’m putting that in,” said Fred. “Write it down, Alex, my boy!”

“Yes, Fred,” said Alexander, meekly. “And keep my addition to Koko’s list song?”

“Yes!” said Fred, hooking his thumbs into his braces, and rocking back on his heels. “We want to make a statement that this village rejects all vile peddlers of lies and innuendo, and that we laugh at poison-pens.”

“Bravo, Fred,” said Miss Thripp.  “That’s the spirit.”

“Well, that’s cheered us all up, so let’s have a full run-through,” said Fred. “Only two more rehearsals and we’ll make them both dress, Monday evening and Wednesday afternoon and a good thing our newest cast members know all the words, for their understudies never have managed it.”

“I’d like a run-through with makeup as well,” said Alexander. “Maybe we can just do that and wigs today?”

“Yes, by all means,” said Fred. “Makes sense. And with dress as well on Monday, when we come in, and get kitted up right away.”

The rehearsal went well, bar Dan freezing at his second big number.

“Were you not to Koko plighted...” Alexander started him off, and Dan picked it up with a surreptitious ‘thumb’s up,’ to Alexander.

“I could be prompt, if you wanted,” said Jeff, when the performance was over.

“Aren’t you supposed to be out there, catching the poison pen? Or do you think the person you arrested is it?” asked Fred.

“I think that chummy is associated with the players,” said Jeff.

“Well, maybe you’re right, and maybe you’re wrong, but it can’t hurt,” said Fred.  “Right, off with makeup, and that’s important too, to know how long we take.”

Alexander went into his dressing-room, a grandiose name for one of the small meeting rooms divided up with screens to give some privacy for the men, and saw an envelope on the desk which served to lay out grease paint and hold a small mirror. It had familiar cut out letters on it saying ‘Mr. Policeman.’ He pushed aside the screen.

“Someone is going to some pains to make sure we know we have the wrong person as poison pen,” he said, to Jeff.

“What shall we do, announce it?”

“No, I think we should keep it quiet,” said Alexander. Jeff went behind the screen with him.

“Hell! This is cramped. If I accidentally goose you, it isn’t deliberate,” he said.

“I shan’t take it as a promise of marriage, then,” said Alexander.

“Fool,” said Jeff. “Shall I open it whilst you take that muck off?”

“Yes, do,” said Alexander.

“It says, ‘You think you’re so clever, mister clever London copper, but you don’t know anything.’ And that’s it,” said Jeff. “Why did he pick you, not me?”

“Because I have a desk on which to leave it; he can see that two square feet of desk means status,” said Alexander. “And you can’t argue with status. I think it was for whichever of us he could get it to.”

“That makes sense, hence the anonymous ‘Mr. Policeman,’” said Jeff.  “And fast on the heels of saying we had caught someone who was possibly chummie.”

“And only really one person it could be, now,” said Alexander. “But it’s a thin story to take to a magistrate for a search warrant.”

“It is,” said Jeff. “I wouldn’t want to present it, though with your élan and ability to play off your come-hithery with the beaks it might get done.”

“Come-hithery, nothing. Some of them have just dandled me on their knee as a baby until I leaked on them,” said Alexander. “But I don’t know as many of them as you seem to think, and I still need enough just cause to go poking about regardless.”                                 

“How are we going to catch him?”

“Watch him,” said Alexander. “And hope that he doesn’t move to kill anyone else.”

“Not going to be easy,” said Jeff.

“I suspect there will be an outbreak of poison-pen letters tomorrow or the next day,” said Alexander. “I wish we could afford to put a watch on him all the time, but all we can do is our best.” 

 

Jurij Korybut, space cadet

 remember I was messing around with the idea of a graphic novel?  well, I've been playing with cartoon style on Night Cafe. The story starts at the bottom and goes to the top; I can't flip it without rearranging every pic.  Anyway, here's the collection if anyone wants to take a look. It's in the 'Happy Jurij' universe at an unspecified sf time period. I'm adding to it as and when. I shall probably turn it into a novel novel sometime perhaps with some of the pics in it.

 

https://creator.nightcafe.studio/collection/pM4mosCTFHngFLKADL6p?ru=CardinalBiggles 

lies in lashbrook 15

 

Chapter 15

 

Alexander stood at the graveside. The Girl Guides had turned out in uniform to follow the coffin of Irma; and the Braithwaite family had come in solidarity.  Alexander could not see anyone there for Violet Savin except her husband. Theodore Savin was sobbing quietly. He had already received a phone call from Superintendant Barrett confirming that Savin had been in the office all day and had not taken French leave at any time.

Alexander put a hand on the man’s shoulder.

“Thanks,” said Theodore. “I appreciate it.”

“I need to ask you for help with Irma’s diary but it will do on Monday,” said Alexander. “After the inquest.”

“God! There’s that, too,” said Theodore.

“Hang on there,” said Alexander. “I take it you had no trouble from work about taking time off?”

Theodore snorted.

“I’m being docked pay.  Having close relatives die is an inconvenience to the firm, and I am made to understand it. But then, I have less to spend it on, so why should I care? Sometimes I have the mad thought of sending in my resignation, but I’m not sure where I would go or what I would do.”

“I understand,” said Alexander. “You have been working hard for your daughter, to give her a good start in life.”

“Yes, you understand,” said Theodore. “I could probably live on my savings if I invested wisely; I don’t need to be beaten down by my superiors. And if I spent them on living, Vera has no chance of challenging any will I might make and getting any of it.”

“I should think there’s no challenge if you left it to your niece and nephews; but don’t let your mind drift towards an early grave for yourself, it’s not healthy,” said Alexander.

“I’ve precious little left to live for,” said Theodore.

“Nine out of ten people who try to commit suicide bungle it badly,” said Alexander. “Then it becomes my job because it’s illegal, and I hate having to arrest people who have crippled themselves or who are dying slowly and painfully because they got an overdose wrong. Please don’t become one of my clients.”

“You know, that’s a more powerful argument than to say that it’s wrong, or that I should find something to live for,” said Theodore. “Really, so many people bungle it?”

“Oh, hell, yes,” said Alexander. “If you overdo an overdose, your body can reject it but still be damaged. If you try to hang yourself and get the knot wrong, someone might easily cut you down, jumping off buildings or bridges can make a mess of your bones without necessarily killing you, so there you are, just as miserable, but stuck in a wheelchair and needing someone to change your underwear when you have accidents because you can’t feel what’s going on down there....”

“Stop! I won’t try,” said Theodore. “I was considering the drowning machine, like Al.”

“At that, if you don’t get the angle right, you can be spat unceremoniously out of it, battered but alive,” said Alexander, mendaciously. It could rarely happen that people survived a drowning machine of a weir, but it was unlikely. However, if it kept Theodore hanging on to life and ready to rebuild, he would lie about it. “Violet may not have been a good wife to you, but there are other women out there.”

“I still loved her, you know,” said Theodore. “I got angry with her often, but I still loved her. I’ll think about it, but not yet.” 

“A word of advice?” said Alexander.

“I’ll always listen.”

“Don’t turn Irma’s room into a shrine,” said Alexander. “Get some of her friends to clear it, and each take a memento. Then you’ll know she will be remembered, but without letting it consume you. Maybe let out the room to students, it’s close enough to Oxford that someone who can’t afford to live in the city would be glad of it, and it would give you some company in the evening”

Theodore nodded.

“I’ll think about that; thank you,” he said. “And a small fee for the room would supplement my income if I left work, which I believe I might.  I did all the work in the garden, I’ve half a mind to set up as a gardener-handyman.”

“If you need a loan for equipment, I’m willing,” said Alexander. “And as our gardener at Heywood Hall is disobliging if it doesn’t involve his idea of seasonal planting, I imagine I’ll be a customer and willing to help out with some of the ideas I have for the place.”

“Well, then! I’ll go back to work next week, after the inquest, to put my affairs in order, which should not take longer than Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, then it’s bank holiday Friday and Monday for Easter, and I’ll call in my resignation on Tuesday third of April,” said Theodore. “I can almost hear Irma approving, she said I gave too much of myself for too little appreciation.”

“And maybe your first job can be for the parish in cutting down those damned bushes on the river walk,” said Alexander. “And that an act for Irma, too.”

“I’ll do that for free over the weekend,” said Theodore. “Gladly and willingly. I don’t want anyone else’s little girl killed in what should be plain sight.”

Alexander hid a smile of satisfaction; he had hoped that Theodore might feel that way, and would distract himself in hard work.

Theodore went to have a word with Mrs. Marion Squires, Maggie’s mother, thanking her and the Girl Guides for turning out, and asking if the girls would care to help strip Irma’s room, taking a keepsake and any clothing they fancied.

“Well, now, Mr. Savin, that’s generous,” said Mrs. Squires, who also answered to ‘Captain’ or ‘Cap.’ “We usually meet on a Tuesday, perhaps though it’s holiday we could have an extra meeting to help you out?”

“Certainly,” said Theodore. “I... I have no objection if the girls would like a bonfire in the garden as well, and I can get in some potatoes and sausages to wrap in foil to bake. Irma loved cook-outs.”

“Well, that’s very generous of you,” said Mrs. Squires. “I’ve a new child, one of eight children and the only girl, her parents farm; could I ask for Irma’s uniform for her? It will be a little large, but she can grow into it.”

“Certainly, and her Girl-Guide handbook, too,” said Theodore. “And her camping handbook; together that’s five bob. Not easy for a poor family to find.  And if there’s anything that the child needs to buy and cannot, let me fund it so she does not feel humiliated.”

“You are all that is good.”

“I recall Irma learning the rules, and that a Guide is a friend and a sister to all guides. I would do as much if Irma had had a sister.”

“I think Irma would be very pleased,” said Mrs. Squires, dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief.

Theodore also shook hands with all the Braithwaites, a wordless exchange in which all exchanged more than could ever be said. He accepted a hesitant invitation from Braithwaite to take pot luck with them for lunch. Alexander was glad; though he had no objection to inviting Theodore back with him, he was hoping that Jeff and Tim would be at Heywoods Hall for lunch, with a budget of news they could talk about more freely concerningVera Tweedie-Banks than they might in front of her cousin and neighbour.

 

 

Tim greeted Mary and Ruth a bit self-consciously, and flushed when he would have reached for a knife and fork whilst Jeff murmured a grace. Alexander and Ida were used to Alexander’s father saying grace, and if Jeff was willing to do it, they accepted it.

Alexander carved the leg of mutton which Mary had served, passing down slices to the women first, and including Millie in that, and then the men.

“We could do with two sets of cruets, really,” said Alexander. There were nine of them at the table with Gladys and Campbell.

“I’ll get another set out,” said Mary, standing up.

“It’ll do next time,” said Alexander. “We shall just have to plaintively ask for the mint sauce.”

“Oh, now that is in two bowls, Mr. Alexander; the one at your end is hiding behind the potatoes.”

“There now, couldn’t see for looking,” said Alexander, cheerfully. “But I can smell it and it’s tantalising me. Let us do justice to this before giving up your budget of news; thank you, Mary, for filling the inner policeman at midday after a hard morning.”

“I did think that going to a funeral or going to court were equally depressing tasks in need of cosseting,” said Mary.

“I’ll take a funeral every day,” said Alexander. “Assuming they are not bad people, you know where they’re going, which isn’t necessarily true when up before the beak.”

“Mr. Alexander!” said Mary.

Alexander grinned unrepentantly.

“Vi Savin isn’t bad enough to go down, and Irma, poor child, had little opportunity to sin much in this life. Sorry, I’ve been talking Theodore out of suicide, and it makes me facetious when trying to cope with it.”

“What’s suicide?” asked Millie, with devastating clarity. There was a very loud silence.

“Well, Millie,” said Jeff, “It’s really a very grown up thing when grown ups are very sad, and they want to go to sleep for ever and ever and not get on with life.”

Millie digested this.

“I wouldn’t like to do that,” she said.

“No, it doesn’t really solve any problems,” said Jeff. “But that’s one thing policemen are for, to help people to manage without it.”

“Oh!” said Millie. “Can I....”

“May I,” corrected Ruth.

“May I have more peas, please?” asked Millie.

“Goodness, more?” said Ruth, spooning some out for her daughter. “Considering you were eating them raw all morning, while you helped me shell them, I’m surprised you have room.”

“I like peas,” said Millie.

“How do we have peas in late March?” asked Alexander. “These taste fresh, not canned and if Millie has been shelling them....”

“The forcing-house,” said Mary. “We have year round cucumber, too.”

“It works on waste heat from the kitchen and laundry,” said Campbell. “And a southerly aspect carefully angled for the best sun.”

“Well, that stopped a tirade of mine in its tracks,” said Jeff. “Actually, I love the luxury and I’m not going to be a hypocrite about it.”

“It’s not too far to commute by train,” said Alexander. “I’m thinking of taking up cycling so I can take my bike by train into London, and living here if I’m not tied up late on a case.”

“I haven’t cycled in years since I came out by bike to the cottages,” said Jeff. “My backside is still complaining.”

“I haven’t cycled since I was on the beat,” said Alexander. He cocked his head, hearing a loud bicycle bell. “It’ll be good for us.  Now, I can hear the ice-cream man, which I asked to call, so as you’ve finished eating, Millie, perhaps you will take a bowl out, and get a dozen good scoops of ice-cream and nine half-bars of Cadbury’s flake, and you can keep the tenth half flake for running the errand.”

“I’ll go and help her,” said Ruth, sliding off as her daughter took off on sturdy little legs. “She’ll never carry the bowl.”

“No, but I want little pitchers with big ears out of the room,” said Alexander. “Jeff can fill you in later.”

 

“And there’s not much to tell,” said Jeff. “She was expecting to be remanded on bail for the wasting of police time, and for being the poison-pen, and she did not take that well. Her solicitor told her to plead guilty to wasting police time and hope to get off with a fine, but no. She opened that big mouth of hers and told the judge he was a fool and in on a conspiracy to silence her from saying that she knew that Theodore Savin had killed his wife. Well, the beak asked us some questions regarding that, and I told him that Savin had an unassailable alibi which had been checked by Scotland Yard, and that the idea of him murdering his wife was purely in Mrs. Twiddly-bonk’s head. I did remember to call her Tweedie-Banks.”

“Just as well,” said Alexander.

“Yes, I was pleased with myself,” said Jeff.  “And she went on and on about vagrants in the police force eating out of dustbins, and I explained that we were looking for a diary which might contain clues; so she held forth about how there was nothing but squiggles. I told the judge that the girl was studying Pitman’s shorthand, and that breaking and entering to read her diary was part of our case against the accused. So she set up a screech and said it wasn’t breaking and entering if you knew where the key was hidden, and got cagey when the beak asked if she had permission to come and go at will, and asked if she was in the habit of doing this, and after some humming and hah’ing, she admitted it, and he said, ‘A persistent offender, then,’ and she called him an evil old bastard, begging pardon of the ladies, and the upshot was she was sent down for fifteen days for contempt of court, and when she shrieked more, he extended it to thirty days.”

“Did you get a search warrant?” asked Alexander.

“I did,” said Jeff. “This afternoon?”

“Might as well get it over and done with,” said Alexander. “Oh, look! Ice cream and flakes. Splendid!” as Ruth came in carrying the bowl. Millie’s mouth was suspiciously stained with chocolate.

The company tucked into vanilla ice cream with half a flake bar each, and when given permission to leave the table, Millie trotted off on her own small concerns.

“Back to the dustbins, I fear,” said Alexander.

“‘Lay on, Macduff, and cursed be he who first cries ‘hold! Enough,’” said Jeff.

“Have I ever told you about how my ancestor, the Bow Street Runner, tortured two actors into giving their testimony by mentioning Macbeth, or quoting from it every time they turned obstreperous?” asked Alexander.

“No, how did that work? Surely they knew the play,” said Jeff.

“Actors are as superstitious as sailors,” said Alexander. “And they have to go through a ritual of turning around and quoting from ‘Hamlet’ if anyone calls it by name, not ‘The Scottish Play,’ or who quotes from it.”

“How do they rehearse?”

“Apparently, that’s different,” said Alexander. “Tim, are you ready?”

The young policeman gave a shy grin.

“‘When shall we three meet again?’” he quoted.

Jeff and Alexander laughed.

“Now that would be a performance, the three witches all men in drag,” said Alexander. “I wonder if Fred would go for it?”

“If it has comedic value, Fred would go for it,” said Tim.

 

lies in lashbrook 14

 

Chapter 14

 

“I phoned my sister,” said Savin. “She’s willing to have me; I should have checked before, but she said she can find a bed for me.  Ronald and George -her sons, my nephews - are willing to share a room, which is kind of them.” He gave a hysterical giggle. "With 'Bicester' rhyming with 'sister' it's almost a lymerick... 'I once had a sister in Bicester, until a solicitor kissed her; he put aside deeds to marry with speed, and 'twas only then that I missed her.'" 

“Write it down; I expect Irma would have liked it. I am glad you have some family who can help,” said Alexander. The drive to Bicester was otherwise silent, until Savin murmured directions when they got there. He got out of the car with his old army kitbag.

“You forgot the teddy bear,” said Alexander, picking it up.  “He has pretty hard stuffing, doesn’t he?”

“Not the most comfortable to hug,” said Savin. “But he smells of my little girl. And I need that right now.”

“Understood,” said Alexander. He noticed that Savin had not wanted a keepsake of his wife. A woman came out of the house and hugged Savin, drawing him in, a girl of about twelve and two older boys, or really, young men, with her, surrounding their uncle, and chattering to him. Alexander drove away, and back to Lashbrook village.

Vera Tweedie-Banks was audible when he got to the police house.

“Goodness, Tim, what are you going to do with all that row?” Alexander asked.

“Go over to the Clene Shepe to sleep,” said Tim. “I can’t be expected to do my job if I don’t sleep and she isn’t going anywhere. It’s all mod cons, she has a toilet pan and a sink behind a screen, and I’ll leave food and water.”

“It’s not as if she’s in danger, after all,” said  Alexander. “If she isn’t the poison-pen, the real one has no reason to kill her, as she knows nothing, indeed, she lets him off the hook for a while, if I am right, though if the reasoning is to throw the blame on a female relative, then more letters have to be sent whilst she’s in custody.”

“I’m hoping she’ll shut up while we are at the autopsy,” said Tim. “The Hell! We shall have to have her at the inquest.”

“Have you got that booked?”

“Yes, can’t be done until Monday,” said Tim. “I asked for an official car and a policewoman to take her into Oxford for a preliminary hearing tomorrow. She’ll be up before the magistrate and she’s plainly guilty of wasting police time, and I’m hoping she will be held in contempt of court if she goes off on a tirade there. And I think there’s enough evidence to commit her to trial for being the poison pen and potentially a killer.”

“Make sure she has a solicitor,” said Alexander. “I am glad I’m on leave; I can’t cope with her.”

“I think her solicitor is old Benbow,” said Tim. “I’ll phone him up; he can talk through the bars while we’re at the inquest.”

“Fine,” said Alexander. “I don’t know him.”

“He’s a fussy little man who doesn’t take any nonsense,” said Tim, happily. “I want to write down for him any evidence that she may be the poison-pen.”

“Firstly, proximity to the two women killed, who claimed to know who the poison-pen was,” said Alexander, as Tim took notes.

“Maggie will type this up for me,” said Tim, his ears going red at his untidy writing. “She can use carbon paper for several copies, she’s very good.”

“An excellent help-mate,” said Alexander. “You should indent for the cost of her services; I’ll sign you off on it.”

“Really? If she can be paid that will really help,” said Tim.

“The government did not ought to rely on wives and girlfriends to work unpaid,” said Alexander. “Anyway, the lady has a record of criticising others, which could be a clue to her identity as the poison-pen.  Of course, many do swallow resentments and store them up, but she is a woman at this certain age when things can break out, and the poison-pen is lashing out at those to whom Mrs. Tweedie-Banks has no other opportunity of normal interaction.”

Tim hesitated over the spelling and Alexander took his pen to write in ‘interaction’ for him. Tim flushed and nodded thanks.

“And she admitted breaking and entering and looking for Irma’s diary,” he said. “Though she denies burning it.”

“I’m inclined to think that she did not, in fact, find Irma’s diary,” said Alexander.  “Mrs. Savin described it specifically as Morse Code, and I suspect Irma of using that since she learned it at Girl Guides.  Mrs. Tweedie-Banks described it as ‘dots, squiggles, and dashes.’ And what course was Irma taking?”

“Shorthand,” said Tim. “That could easily describe the Pitman shorthand outlines. Especially at the early stages where she is putting in dots for vowels to remind herself.”

“Quite,” said Alexander. “Now, I am hoping that whoever killed Mrs. Savin, and somehow I can’t see Twiddly-bonk using a kitchen knife, made the same mistake and burned Irma’s practice books. Come to think of it, I did not see any, and at the time, in my mind, her father had taken them with the course books, but why would he?”

“No, indeed,” said Tim. “So, the diary is still somewhere. But where? Not under the pillow or under the mattress, or even in the ottoman thing which Ida searched.”

“She ferreted about deep in the golf bag as well as checking inside all the books Irma thought she had grown out of but did not want to pass on,” said Alexander. “And the trinket chest. The drawers were all flung onto the floor so it was easy to check the backs and bottoms for anything taped onto them. Ida sounded every floorboard for a loose one. The walls are plaster, distempered, so nothing there.”

“I don’t know where she might have stuffed it,” said Tim, frustrated. “Perhaps the killer did find it, and burned the shorthand books as well, just in case.”

“Or burned earlier volumes with the shorthand books,” said Alexander. “You gave me a thought, though; I need to search one more place but I need Theodore Savin.”

“It won’t be up the chimney; there was a coal skuttle, so she’s used to have a fire there,” said Tim.

“I’ll keep my own counsel, if I may,” said Alexander. “I don’t want to upset Savin if I don’t have to.”

“I’ll see what I can come up with, too,” said Tim. “I think Ida checked any pockets in clothing.”

“She did, and seams in the dressing-gown,” said Alexander.

“It seems that Irma went to a lot of trouble to hide it; I wonder why,” said Tim.

“Well, for one thing, she was a rather romantic girl, who would see a secret diary as filled with romance,” said Alexander. “Moreover, we know her mother pried, or she would not have known that Irma began logging her thoughts in Morse.  And if Irma knew or suspected that Twiddly-bonk was in the habit of using the concealed back door key to poke around, even more reason to conceal the diary.  I would imagine a question Twiddly-bonk should be asked is whether this was the first time she had effected an entry, and whether she was in the habit of it, and if she did so in the houses of other neighbours.”

“Habit of breaking and entering won’t look good,” said Tim. “The neighbours on the other side are Miss Harmon and Miss Goodie; they’re... well, you know, but in a more regular way, a nice couple and no trouble. Though I believe Miss Goodie, who’s a large woman and none of it is fat, has been known to threaten Mrs. Tweedie-Banks.”

Alexander nodded. Their relationship was their own business, but having the aggressive Mrs. Tweedie-Banks interfering in it would not be helpful. If one of them was capable of enforcing their privacy, that would help.

“I don’t think the killings were about any kind of sexual frustration,” said Alexander. “I think Mrs. Tweedie-Banks uses her personality as intimidation rather than anything else. I doubt she did lust after either Savin woman, or she’d have shown it in more than just trying to overwhelm Violet as Savin described. Strangling can be a sex crime, but the efficiency and rapidity of the killings of Sally Braithwaite and Irma Savin suggest more a brutal expediency. As does a knife to the carotid artery. So, if the killer is a man, the same applies.”

“Thank goodness for that, I hate complications of love tangles,” said Tim. “So, purely protective of the identity; and I wonder if the killer had done anything else, maybe a foray into poison-pen writing which Sally knew about?”

“It’s a good hypothesis,” said Alexander. “And Sally might have found out something about Tweedie-Banks when she was her companion, so it does not let her out. And a ligature strangling does not need extraordinary  strength.”

“Stabbing, though....”

“And it was a sharp steak knife which I wager would slide in like it was hot butter,” said Alexander. “We have no idea how deep it went, as Savin pulled it out. It doesn’t have to go far to nick the carotid. But whoever did it would surely be covered in blood from the initial arterial spray.”

“If it was a man, and personable, there was nothing to stop him stripping, borrowing Savin’s dressing-gown, and taking it off while she sat there,” said Tim.

“Good grief! That’s... oh, well, maybe it’s my generation that finds it shocking,” said Alexander. “I blame Hollywood; it makes people think that licentious behaviour is normal.”

Tim blushed, but laughed.

“I think it’s a reaction to the war,” he said.

“It may well be, but I can still be shocked whilst acknowledging the feasibility of the idea,” said Alexander.

“It’s something we discussed as Boy Scouts,” said Tim, blushing more. “We were discussing murder – you know, as little boys do – and how police methods could find out more, and one of the other boys said that if you could kill someone when you were in the nude, you could wash off any blood and be in the clear.”

“Good grief! Who was that?”

“I’m sorry, I disremember,” said Tim. “I can’t have been more than fourteen so it’s almost ten years ago. It was dark, and we were telling lurid stories. You know.”

Alexander nodded. He knew! He had not been a Boy Scout himself, being just too old for it, but he had camped with friends and cousins. Ghost stories and lurid penny-dreadful type stories were part of camping.

“So, basically, we have opportunity; motive of a sort; and a woman of the right age,” said Alexander. “That she was interfering in an ongoing investigation could be seen as another way to divert suspicion.  If my instincts didn’t tell me it was wrong, I’d say it was a strong case to take to court. It’s certainly strong enough to ask for a warrant to search her home for the diary, in case she was lying, for bloodstained clothing, and for evidence of cutting out letters from newspapers. You sent them off to forensics, of course?”

“Oh! Yes. The lab boys laughed at me when I asked about finger prints. They found marks of eyebrow tweezers, which suggests a woman, but some men use them for moustache shaping, too. They were all from the Oxford Journal, which so many people take you can’t really check.”

“Well, at least we know what papers to flick through when we have somewhere to search,” said Alexander. “I want to get into Twiddly-bonk’s dustbins too.”

“We can get a search warrant when we have her before the beak tomorrow,” said Tim. “Right, I’ll leave Maggie typing that up, she said she’d be a guard while I’m out at the inquest. And I suppose I should sleep here tonight.”

“Probably,” said Alexander. “It’s unlikely that anyone would sneak in to do away with her... and by the way, I just thought.  Savin might be leading up to framing her.”

“He’s totally cut up about his daughter,” said Tim.

“True,” Alexander agreed. “Though someone else, the one who killed Sally, might still have killed Irma, if she threatened to accuse him.”

“As if it wasn’t complex already!” said Tim.

 

oOoOo

 

“Well, well, here we are again,” said Dr.  Hammond, cheerfully. “You always generate a lot of business for me, Inspector Armitage.”

“That sounds like I go around killing them,” said Alexander.

“I suspect you make things happen by spooking people,” said Hammond. “And dig out disguised murders, too.”

“And go disinterring composted bodies which had been moved, I know,” said Alexander.

“Well, this one is straightforward, adult healthy woman around forty, give or take a few years, bled out in minutes from the carotid artery, occasioned by a knife strike to the neck. There would be some considerable arterial spray at first but the wound-track shows it was thrust in deep enough for the hilt to block the spray. Presumably she knew the killer as there are no defensive wounds.”

“Well, now we can have the funeral at least,” said Dr.  Brinkley. “I was going to bury her daughter tomorrow; we might as well bury both together so Theodore only has to go through it once.”

“That’s a good idea,” said Alexander.

“We’ll be in Oxford,” said Jeff.

“I’ll represent the Yard,” said Alexander. “Well, I shall be glad to get home tonight.”

“I don’t mind that it’s your home, it’s comfortable,” said Jeff. “And I like the company.”

“So do I,” said Alexander. “But I’m having the boiler updated.”

Jeff laughed.

“Well, yes,” he agreed.