Murder in Oils 13

 

Chapter 13

 

“Dear me,” said Mr. Blakecastle, “Proper bubble-and-squeak, how nice, I haven’t had that in such a long time. Is that reheated battered sausage claimed by anyone? No, excellent... a second egg? I don’t mind if I do. What an excellent cook you have.”

“That’s me,” said Ida.  “I did ask Wandsworth if she was well enough to be back on duty, but our night excursion prostrated her. Fortunately, I like to cook. It’ll be finger food for the wake, sausage rolls, sausages on sticks, and sandwiches and I ordered cakes in from the bakery because there’s only so much I can manage, and I did everything else instead of dinner, hence the fish and chips.”

“I am sure it will be delightful,” said Mr. Blakecastle. “What an asset you will be to Mr. Armitage when he entertains!”

“I need to move out of my bachelor digs,” said Alexander. “There’s a Tudor property which David owns, the ten year lease is coming up for renewal, and if the current leaser is willing, I’d like to take it over.”

“Why would you want that sad old ruin? I can build you something like this,” said David, for once breakfasting with them.

“I hope it’s not a ruin, upkeep is your responsibility unless a separate agreement is made,” said Alexander. “I like old houses. And wouldn’t feel secure in this one.”

Gladys brought coffee to Alexander.

“The items you asked for are with Mr. Campbell, them wearing best today; and I’ll get them back before they miss them.”

“You are a good girl,” said Alexander, slipping her a few coins.

“Ooh, sir, you don’t have to, I am more’n happy...” Gladys demurred, but took the coins. “I’ll have the other item back to Mr. Campbell soonest.”

 

Alexander finished his breakfast.

“I’ll be at the funeral in time, but I’ll find my own way there,” he said. “I set my sergeant something to do in the village, and I want to consult him.”

“Keller,” said David, forgetting Alexander’s criticisms of his house.

“He has featured in my enquiries,” said Alexander.

“Knows all the access panels, too,” said David. “By Jove, Alex, you’re quite right about security, when someone proves unsatisfactory, they might well do something unconventional.”

“Even so,” said Alexander.

“He’s a filthy little sod,” said David. “All charm of manner, and finding excuses to touch Helen, when holding chairs for her,  passing her anything, and helping with her coat, and he was always murmuring about how difficult her life must be. How the hell did he figure that?”

“You aren’t the easiest person to live with, David, but I have to say, Helen seemed to find your autocratic bearing more comforting than otherwise,” said Ida. “She was quite old-fashioned and she hated the modern way of women’s independence. She liked David telling her what to do. I can’t see it myself, but there’s no question but that she found Keller’s attentions distressing.”

“She asked me, rather hesitantly, like a frightened bird, if I would not mind giving him his congé,” said David.  “Afraid she would offend me, poor girl! Well, when she told me about how he was suggesting assignations, that offended me, and when I confronted him, he had the cheek to say that she needed a real man, not a cold fish like me! I really did not understand what he meant.”

“You find it hard to express the more tender emotions,” said Ida, dryly. “But Helen was satisfied, so that’s all that matters.”

“Exactly,” said David.

 

Alexander met Harris in the pub. The hour had not struck at which Englishmen could imbibe alcoholic beverages, and Alexander never drank until after five, in any case.

“See Keller?” asked Alexander.

Harris expressed a brief, invective-filled description of the said Brian Keller, which would have surprised Keller's parents had they known of their own supposed origins.

“And besides that?” said Alexander, blithely ignoring several distinct biological unlikelihoods and a calumny which would have been actionable if published.

“He has an alibi for when Helen Henderon was killed and the time in which we think Mr. Basil Henderson was slipped the tobacco.”

“That seems a weak point to me, you know,” said Alexander. “He sees murder most foul done; surely Basil wouldn’t remain just sitting there.”

“Perhaps chummy tries to talk him into thinking it was an accident?” said Harris, using the police slang for an unnamed or unknown suspect.

Alexander stiffened.

“That’s it,” he said. “Now, chummy was probably considering getting rid of him, anyway, and had the hemlock prepared. Wheeling Basil back into the studio... talking about a tragic accident, asking his advice, perhaps. Knocks off his tobacco pouch, apologises, picks up any spilled, but not hard to be out of sight from him, and put in the deadly stuff. Says ‘here, have a smoke, it’ll calm you down, and then you can help me confess to David.’  Am I making sense so far?”

“A lot, sir,” said Harris. “Mr. Basil likes a pipe, and perhaps he doesn’t want to condemn out of hand, especially if he either likes, or dislikes, chummy.”

“So he take a good pull, maybe comments that it tastes a bit queer. And chummy makes surprised noises, and keeps him talking until it takes hold, and then tells him that he is dying. He has nothing to write with as such, but he’s been working on some cubist work, maybe, and when left for chummy to disappear off to seem innocent, and Basil, bless him, modifies his painting to put in the staircase and Helen falling, and her killer up above. And scrawls my name on the palette with the knife for Ida.  Chummy might or might not manage to get a look at what he painted, but can’t interpret it, or doesn’t have time to do so, or thinks we can’t tell anything from it.”

“We can’t; the figure kicking Mrs. Henderson down the stairs is not extraordinary,” said Harris.

“But I do draw your attention to the angle of the head,” said Alexander. “I thought it suggestive.”

“Well, since you took a photo of the room with the pictures as they were, I see what  you mean,” said Harris. “It ain’t enough for court, though.”

“No; I don’t even know if a shoe print will be, but it will help,” said Alexander. “We have a lot of circumstantial evidence.  I am hoping she will have a go at me.”

“You be careful, sir,” said Harris.

“I will be,” said Alexander. “I’m going away for the rest of the weekend, after the funerals. And I’ll be doing some checking, too, on what happened to her family. But I’ll be back bright and early on Monday.   I take it that, foul as Keller is, you couldn’t pin anything on him?”

“Only being a slimy little turd, but that ain’t on the statute books yet,” said Harris. “Lady Baskerville, now she seems a real lady. She’s full of praise for Mr. David, account o’ how he lets her have her cottage at a very low rent and sees she’s got plenty to eat.  He knows his noblessy obleejy thing,” he added.

“Pity he doesn’t have a bit more finesse with actual people,” said Alexander, dryly.

“Well, she’s one person as seems to approve of him, without knowing him very well,” said Harris. “She was a lot of ‘poor Helen this, poor Helen that,’ but mostly it seems about Helen desperately wanting a child, rather than about puttin’ up wiv ‘is ‘igh-an’-mightiness.”

“The village opinion has rubbed off on you,” grinned Alexander.

“Well, I don’t hear much of a good opinion of Mr. David nowhere.”

“Poor David.  He’s not likeable, but he’s not a bad man, just rather single-minded and sure that he’s always right.”

“The plain word for that is ‘bully,’ sir.”

“Well, he can be, but he doesn’t mind being stood up to, if you can prove your point,” said Alexander. “He has had some huge shakes of his ego and world structure lately. I hope it doesn’t all erupt at once.”

“So do I, sir. Shall we be getting on for the church?”

“Yes, I think so,” said Alexander. “My car is packed to get back to town; I’m taking Ida to my mother for safety, and Basil’s paintings to stop anyone destroying them, and whether you take the train up to town or stay put, I leave up to you, but if you didn’t have anything planned, having your eyes here won’t upset me any. I’ll be back first thing Monday so if you do take time off, let me know to pick you up.”

“Sir,” said Harris. “They do uncommon good fish and chips here.”

“Good man,” said Alexander correctly interpreting this that Harris intended to stay.

 

oOoOo

 

Alexander and Sgt. Harris insinuated themselves discreetly in the back of the church as the funeral party from Foursquares came in.

There was some hissing as David came forward. He looked confused.

Ida flushed. She looked white and strained, and Alexander longed to run to her. Gloria, deprived of David’s arm, and Alexander having forgotten that he said he would escort her, was leaning heavily on a cane and limping in what Alexander thought an exaggerated fashion. Ida put up her chin.

“I wish you will not! Please don’t spoil my last memories of my brother and of my sister-in-law,” she said, in a soft, but carrying voice. “You are cruel to do this, and no Christians to attack us in church like this when we are mourning.”

The hissing subdued somewhat.

“It ain’t you, Miss Ida, it’s that murderous brother of yours,” spoke up a male voice.

“Why, Keller, that’s slander, and untrue,” said Ida.

“If he didn’t push her down the stairs, he druv her to suicide,” said Keller. “The sweetest lady as ever stepped! Turned me off because I wanted to rescue her....”

“At her request because she felt threatened by the way you wouldn’t leave her alone!” said David, angrily. “I know you know how to get into Foursquares when it’s locked up, if anyone pushed her down the stairs, it was you, because she struggled to get away from your unwelcome embraces.”

There was a deadly silence.

Then Keller took a swing at David, who dodged it, and floored him with a punch which carried all his pent-up anger.

“Harris,” said Alexander.

Harris pushed forward, and interposed himself between David and Keller, as David looked as if he was considering hammering further blows on Keller’s groggy body.

“Come on, you,” said Harris, cuffing Keller. “Causing an affray in church!”

“No smoke without fire,” said a voice.

“There is when someone wot’s a person of interest like this uses a smoke grenade to cover his own misdeeds,” said Harris. “Quieten dahn, will yer?  This is a bleedin’ funeral, not a ruddy royal command performance at the bleedin’ ‘Ippodrome.”

There was a mixed response to Keller being forcibly removed, but most of the congregation seemed to approve, and the mood swung to greater support of the funeral party from Foursquares.

 

Alexander moved forward, and managed a word with the vicar before the bodies were taken out for the committal.

“Before we proceed, Inspector Armitage would like a word,” said the Reverend Brinkley.

“Good morning,” said Alexander. “I’m here as a mourner too, which most of you are not, just here for the prurient interest, and I don’t know about the Foursquares party, but I certainly resent that you’re only here for the show and the free food in the Nissan hut. Basil was a friend of mine. I will never forget my meeting with him, dragging his maimed body across No-Man’s land, the stench of burned flesh on him, agony and determination in his eyes.  I am one of the fortunate few to have a satirical painting of me, by Basil, which I’m not going to describe in church, but I remember Basil as a bloody good fellow, a hero, and a man of determination. A man who painted the murder of his sister-in-law whilst he was dying of poison, and left message for me to be sent for.  Now, there are reasons to exclude Mr. Henderson from the suspect list, tempting though he sometimes makes it to label him as the villain. Everything I have heard from those who lived within Foursquares, staff and family, make it abundantly clear that Helen welcomed her husband’s forceful nature and they were devoted to each other, even if they were not demonstrative. As to Keller, he isn’t the killer either, but he is wanted for questioning over a number of petty thefts. Scotland Yard is putting together the evidence to be sure that the right person is fingered.  I want the killer of my friend brought to book, and unfortunately, that Keller knows how to get into the house and may have been indiscreet about that has opened up the field considerably. It’s my job to catch a killer, and I think you might see I have more just cause than if I was merely here professionally, and I’ll thank you to mind your own business and let me mind mine. Nobody is going to get off scot free, believe me.”

He got a ragged cheer.

He turned to Basil’s coffin, came to attention, saluted, turned, and marched back down the aisle.

It occasioned surreptitious wiping of eyes from those who had been previously unmoved.  Harris had left Keller in what passed for a cell in the local police house, and returned to observe the funeral party.  The interment was carried out with quick efficiency, and most of the ‘mourners’ nipped through the gate at the back of the churchyard for the village hall.

Cecily Baskerville was with friends and family, embracing Ida.

“Someone else can preside over the Wake,” said Alexander, to Ida. “Gladys packed your overnight bag, and if you need anything else, you can borrow from one of my sisters.”

Ida smiled, tremulously.

“Thank you for telling them that David is cleared. Someone threw a clod of earth at us on the way down here. I was quite frightened in church; that awful man could have raised a lynch mob if he had tried, I think. I hate him! He tried to feel me up, and said nobody would believe the mad girl. He came to my room using the access panel, and I hit him where it hurts with the corner of a book. I figured out how to jam the panel, but if it was him who took the things that went missing, it wouldn’t surprise me.”

“Harris is going to get a search warrant to go over his place, and to question his girlfriends about ‘gifts,’ said Alexander.

“He told me he could get me more special cigarettes,” said Ida, suddenly.

Alexander stiffened, and he beckoned Harris over.

“Miss Henderson was offered opium by Keller,” he said. “You can add that to the charge sheet – and see what he knows.”

“Yessir,” said Harris, saluting his officer.

“Right; in you get,” said Alexander.

“How do you manage to be managing in a way I don’t mind, but David being overbearing puts my back up?” asked Ida.

“Because I am ineffably splendid and amazingly clever, and David reacts first and does any thinking a long way down the line,” said Alexander.