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.”