murder in oils 6

 

Chapter 6

 

Alexander gingerly sat down in a bright green square armchair, and found it more comfortable than it looked. He had helped himself to a plateful of mixed sandwiches, and some sausages on sticks with silverskin pickled onions, cheese, or pineapple.

“You make charming finger-food,” said Alexander to Ida as she perched on the wide arm of his chair with her own plate.

“We got in the onions and pineapple for the wake, but under the circumstances, it seemed a shame not to use them,” said Ida. “I don’t, somehow, think there will be many to the wake, David did have some idea of using the village hall – it’s behind the church – in an army surplus Nissan bow hut.[1] The old guildhall isn’t really big enough for receptions and the like, unless you enjoy being elbowed.”

“Timber framed building next to the pub, sliding sideways?” asked Alexander.

“The very same. But it’s been sliding sideways since at least 1488, so I doubt it’s going to go any further,” said Ida. “It’s a similar vintage to the house where I was born, on the other side of the village. It’s been let to some businessman for years because David wanted what he called a decent, modern house.”

“What a shame he fetched up here, instead of one,” said Alexander. Ida giggled.

“David thinks this house the paradigm of dwellings,” she said. “If my legacy had been enough I might have forgotten university to buy him out of Heywood Hall. It’s the name of the family who used to own it; it came to one of my ancestors about 1820. David says that if we had been manorial holders time out of mind, he might have put up with it for the kudos, but there’s no kudos in buying up old places.”

“You must take me over to see it, if that’s possible without trespassing.”

“Oh, easily; and if we go when the leaseholder is in London, Mary Fringford will show us over it. She’s the housekeeper, but she wouldn’t move to some ‘Nasty glass cube which looks like it ought to be a prison’ so David retained her and a few servants to see to tenants.”

“When does the lease run out?” asked Alexander.

“1925,” said Ida. “It was a ten year lease. David built this house before the war.”

“I have seen some gracious buildings in the style they are calling ‘Le Style Moderne,[2]’ but this isn’t one of them,” said Alexander.

“It’s ghastly,” said Ida. “There, a couple of sandwiches down the hatch and I feel much better; shall I go see how Gloria is, and take some sandwiches for Nurse Wandsworth?”

“Yes, do,” said Alexander.  “And assure Gloria that if any accident caused Basil’s death, she is not to worry.”

“But you think the hemlock poisoning was purposeful.”

“Yes, but introduced by whom?  Gloria was known to make the tobacco.”

“And could therefore be left as the scapegoat?”

“It is possible,” said Alexander.

“I can’t believe it of Gladys, who might have the knowledge, being a country-girl and having been a Girl Guide,” said Ida. “I have the knowledge.  So does Miss Truckle, and I would assume a nurse like Anna would know.  So would Cecily, Lady Baskerville, for that matter.”

“And who,” asked Alexander, “is Lady Baskerville?”

“Another survival from old times,” said Ida. “The family, I mean; Cecily is the same age as Basil, and her husband did not come back from the war. She lives in a cottage in the village with her little boy, Cyril, who’s nearly six.  It was a whirlwind romance and marriage when Major Baskerville was on leave. There’s no money, of course, and her faithful Aggie does all the heavy work and stays for her board and keep, and Cecily does her own cooking and washing up. I don’t say she hasn’t looked at David as a meal-ticket, though I don’t know if she’s precisely in love with him, she still misses her Dennis, but for Cyril, she’d make herself. I... mother love is supposed to be terrible and ruthless, do you suppose...?” she tailed off.

“It depends if she had access to the house,” said Alexander.

“Oh! It’s not kept locked at all,” said Ida. “Anyone can walk in at any time, and Cecily used to come and visit Helen most days while Cyril was at school.”

“I see,” said Alexander. “You just opened up the suspects to encompass the entire village.”

“Well, just because anyone could come in, it doesn’t mean they would,” said Ida.

“Who else might?”

“Well, only the tradesmen, if they were leaving things, though they’d usually go round the back, to the kitchen,” said Ida. “The postman would come into the vestibule, and leave any letters or parcels. We don’t have a butler, so David sorts the mail. He reads mine first,” she added, resentfully, “Though I do kind of understand that, in case one of Jonathon’s set wanted to send me a cigarette to get me addicted again.”

“And does Jonathon live nearby?”

“His folks live in Fringford; I think he lives in London,” said Ida. “I wonder if there are any more rolled pork with stuffing and applesauce sandwiches left; they came out very nicely, even if warm sandwiches aren’t ideal.”

“Finish mine,” said Alexander.

“Thanks, I don’t mind if I do,” said Ida. “Did you like them?”

“Very much,” said Alexander. “Do you think Jonathon or his set would go to the trouble of killing to get you addicted again?”

Ida considered.

“Ethically and morally, I doubt it would trouble him.  Making that amount of effort for one person? I don’t see him working up that much sweat.” She slid off the arm of the chair to go and construct a plate of sandwiches for the nurse.

“You need not think that flirting with her will get her much of a dowry, even if she isn’t likely to drag your name through mud,” said Miss Truckle, spitefully. She looked older than her years.

“My dear woman, I could buy Henderson out; acquit me of being a gold digger. Miss Henderson has been able to give me a pithy description of a lot of people of interest,” said Alexander. “And don’t take out your spite on me because Henderson has fired you. It isn’t fair, he should have ascertained that you understood the situation in the first place, and should have taken more notice of his sister. But then, that’s Henderson for you.”

“It’s your fault, pointing it out,” she hissed.

“Well, maybe it is, because seeing a vivacious young woman treated like an imbecile angered me, rather,” said Alexander. “But you could have asked questions, rather than pushing on bull-headedly in belittling the girl in public. That would have been nasty even if she had been feeble-minded, and dressed to impress rather than to make a point. She is beautifully turned out, and far more obviously a lady than some of the jazz set and flappers one meets.”

“She has good taste,” said Miss Truckle, grudgingly. “But what am I to do? Mr. Henderson never gives references if he sacks anyone.”

“You know this for sure?” asked Alexander.

“Oh, yes; Foster is his man, now, but when I first came here, his man was one Brian Keller. Mr. Henderson thought Keller was making up to his wife, and fired him, and struck him when he asked for a reference.”

“Hell’s bells!” said Alexander. “And here’s someone who might have a grudge against the family and nobody thought to mention it?”

“Oh, dear! Ida wouldn’t have noticed,” said Miss Truckle. “You have to be fair to me, when I first came, she would sit and stare at the wall for as much as twenty minutes at a time, completely oblivious. She gave every impression of not being all there.”

“I suppose it could be an artefact of her mind clearing itself,” said Alexander. “He should have been frank about her problems.”

“Indeed, he should,” said Miss Truckle. “Had I known what was wrong, I would have given her more apparent freedom, and watched her more closely in other ways.”

“Well, I’ll write you a reference as someone who has had experience with a girl who has had addiction problems, if you can manage that,” said Alexander. “Tell me about Keller. Does he live nearby?”

“Yes, he’s a village man,” said Miss Truckle. “He works for Miss Midwinter, the milliner, a genteel lady who sells haberdashery as well. He buys in gents’ goods to sell through her, and does ironing for anyone who wants it. It isn’t much of a living, but he isn’t a proper gentleman’s gentleman. It’s not pleasant visiting the haberdasher when he’s there, he leers at one so horribly, though that might be because of us being from Foursquares. Ida hates it, which is why I took her to Harrods.”

“I see,” said Alexander. “And doubtless he knows that the house is never locked. And if he was still after the services of the late fair Helen, he might have gone in search of her, and in a struggle at the top of the stairs, she might have fallen. As a former member of the household, he would know about Basil’s tobacco.”

“I... I think Basil would have wheeled himself out to confront him,” said Miss Truckle. “You can’t fault his bravery, however ripe his language and how unsuitable for a young girl to hear... but as her brother, one could scarcely... oh, dear, but Keller was in the infantry in the war, and he’d know how to kill someone, wouldn’t he? Or maim them enough that it would be easy to poison him... Oh, dear!”

“Certainly someone of interest,” said Alexander. “Anyone else with a grudge against Mr. Henderson?”

“Oh, dear! I cannot think... no, it is too trivial,” said Miss Truckle.

“Sometimes, things which seem trivial are very important,” said Alexander, encouragingly, with a surreptitious glance at his watch. Getting evidence from a witness in full flow was more important than being on time for something which was not his speciality.

“Well, Mr. Henderson quarrelled regularly with the tradesmen, over inflation, you know. I don’t perfectly understand it, but I am sure that Mr. Lloyd-George did his best, and though one might deplore his private life and lack of moral continence, he is a very good Prime Minister, or was, I should say, now we have Mr. Law, and we will see if inflation improves.”

“It’s caused by the removal of young men from the work force into the army, creating scarcity through a drop in manufacture of goods not necessary to a war economy,” Alexander explained, kindly.

“Oh! If anyone had only explained it as clearly as that, I am sure I would not be muddled at all,” said Miss Truckle.  “And of course, things haven’t been grown or canned, at least, not the sort of luxury goods Mr. Henderson expects to have all the time.”

“However did he manage during the war, when getting a manservant was virtually impossible?” wondered Alexander.

“Oh! He had the use of the servants at Chequers, where he was supervising building underground bunkers and passages, and the like,” said Miss Truckle. 

“Here, I say, you can’t talk about things like that!” said Alexander, horrified. “Top secret and so on; how on earth do you know about it?”

“Oh, dear! Well, he mentioned it,” said Miss Truckle. “I didn’t realise it was top secret!”

“He’s a bloody fool,” said Alexander, forcefully.

“Oh, dear!” said Miss Truckle.

 

Alexander set off for the church just after the clock on the tower, around the side from the sundial, over the teaching porch, struck nine. He saw a couple of cars pulled up outside the church, one of them the rather battered Blitzen-Benz of the police surgeon, with which that worthy regularly left the speed limit smashed into more pieces than some of his clients. The other looked more respectable than the bullet-shaped racing model, a Hillman several years old.

He walked round the church until he found a light emanating from underground, and went down the steps into the crypt, where a generator hummed noisily to power a couple of powerful lights.

“What kept you?” asked Dr. Andrew Hammond.

“Witness,” said Alexander.

“Am I looking for anything in particular?”

“Samples from the man to show his blood level of coniine, he may have been smoking it, or it may have been otherwise presented, and his tobacco treated to hide where it came from.”

“I’ll do a full organ work up then,” said Hammond. “The woman?”

“Any evidence that she landed on her front at any point during her fall downstairs, and any evidence to suggest that she did not,” said Alexander. “Also a full look at the wound on her head, to check it was what killed her, and what shape we might have, and a look at her stomach contents and bloods to see if she was in any way stupefied when she fell.”

“And the kitchen sink?” asked Hammond.

“If it’s in either of them, yes,” said Alexander. “Harris is here, I see, clutching a package, and when you’ve committed to your results on the woman, I want you to look at the painting and see if it is consistent with how you believe she met her death.”

“Well, make yourself comfortable; this here is Doctor Craiggie, who was called in by the vicar.”

“And I am outraged that you should question my word, young man!” burst out Craiggie.

“I’m outraged that you should write off as suicide the death of a young man who loved life and fought to keep it, and put down as laudanum poisoning symptoms which included voiding himself, vomiting, and dilated pupils,” said Alexander.

“Well, what else might it be?” demanded Craiggie.

“That was for the coroner to discover, and with such results, the opposite to the symptoms of Laudanum poisoning, you should have called for an autopsy,” snarled Alexander. “I’m within an ambsace of arresting you for compounding a felony by wilfully concealing the signs of murder, because if you aren’t an accomplice to the killer, you’re a bloody senile old fool.”

“How dare you!  I was merely trying to avoid a scandal of two sudden deaths....”

“And blackened the name of Basil Henderson as a coward to take his own life when he was the last man on earth to have taken such a route!” shouted Alexander. “Basil was a friend of mine, and you have no right to sully his memory!”

“Gentlemen, please, I don’t want to have to listen to either of you,” said Hammond. “If you are going to fight, go outside and do it, and don’t expect me to patch up either of you for at least three hours.”

Alexander compressed his lips.

“I think it will be a good object lesson for Dr. Craiggie to see how many things he missed, and also to present his initial observations when he was called out after the death of each of them was discovered,” he said. “I pulled the coroner’s report and it was sketchy to say the least.”

“I didn’t want a good family to be caused a scandal!” said Craiggie, again.

“And when the killer kills again because of how much Miss Ida knows?” asked Alexander.

Craiggie paled.

“Surely nobody would kill that sweet child?” he demanded.

“Why not? Someone killed a woman said to be very sweet of nature, and also a man I know to be cultured, intelligent, damned talented, and a fine man and hero,” said Alexander.

“I... I had no idea it was murder,” said Craiggie, who was grey in the bright light. “I thought maybe an argument had got out of hand, and the lady fell... and Basil was always sweet on Helen... it seemed....”

“Convenient?” asked Alexander.

“Well... if you put it that way....”

“It does sound bad, doesn’t it? And it was,” said Alexander. “I’m not even sure if it’s legal for a coroner to be the family doctor of the deceased; opens up too much the chance of devil doctors poisoning their own patients for legacies, and writing them off as natural deaths. And don’t tell me it doesn’t happen, because it does.”

“The few unscrupulous who break the Hippocratic Oath...” muttered Craiggie.

“Which says, if I recall correctly, ‘First, do no harm,’” said Alexander. “And harm you have caused.”

 

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[1][1] Introduced in 1916

[2] Not known as Art Deco until 1968