lies in lashbrook 5

 

Chapter 5

 

Ida whirled into the police house.

“Alex! You have to do something!  Gladys and Ruth and I all had nasty letters, and Ruth was having hysterics. I left Gladys calming her down to come and get you.”

“Did you bring the letters? Tim is officially in charge of the case, though I’ve negotiated the loan of Harris.”

“Yes, they have typed envelopes and horrid cut out messages,” said Ida. “Gladys and I are accused of being London whores corrupting innocent village girls and spreading diseases, and Ruth was accused of setting her cap at a London swell and hoping he won’t mind that she’s a scarlet woman who already expected one gentleman to marry her while he laughed at her.”

Alexander read them through, passing them to Tim.

“There’s an emphasis on us being Londoners,” he said. “Whoever is writing does not know of our association with the village. The attack on Ruth Fringford is especially dirty; she is vulnerable.”

“I made Campbell stay to help Ida; he was simmering and ready to knock down anyone who disparaged Gladys,” said Ida.

“And as well he is that way inclined, not about to accuse Gladys of anything,” said Alexander, grimly. “We’re having a rehearsal this evening, aren’t we?”

“Yes, and Braithwaite already volunteered to provide a supper of sausage and chips, although he’s not open generally,” said Tim. “He likes to keep tabs on H... on Maud, and it’s one thing that stops her haring off to London on her night off. I’d forgotten.”

“You ask Fred if you can have a word and address the cast to forewarn the cast, and tell them to bring any nasty letters to you, and to urge anyone who has one to come forward,” said Alexander. “We don’t want anything festering. And emphasise that of those you’ve seen, the letters contain provable untruths.”

“Aren’t you going to address them, sir?” asked Tim.

“Oh, no, no; I’m not here at all in an official capacity,” said Alexander. “It’s your bag.”

“I’m not sure I’m capable,” Tim demurred.

“I’m here to give advice,” Alexander reassured. “But I have no official standing.”

“I look on you as my superior, sir,” said Tim.

“All very well, but I am supposed to be resting,” said Alexander. “I’ll put as much as I have into helping you, of course, but I’ll be damned if I do it officially and shorten my leave.”

Tim Mapp said nothing; he knew that Harris would take orders from Mr. Armitage, as was only proper, since Harris had long tenure as a sergeant.  And like as not, Mr. Morrell would as well if he came.  It would be an open secret who was really in charge, but it did not bother Tim, as long as the unpleasantness was sorted out.

 

 

When the cast met, Fred rapped on the stage for silence.

“Mr. Mapp has an announcement to make, and it’s a police matter,” he said.

Tim came forward, flushing to be ‘Mr. Mapp’ with his official hat on, so to speak.

“Several people got some rather unpleasant anonymous letters,” he began, without preamble. “And I’m asking anyone who gets one to bring it to me. I’ve called in Scotland Yard to help, as this is a bit out of my league.”

“Isn’t that overkill for some potty little problem?” asked Edgar Thripp, who had accompanied his aunt.

“This isn’t a potty little problem, with due respect, Mr. Thripp, anonymous letters can lead to more trouble,” said Tim, with dignity. “And as the writer is not even close to knowing anything about some of the people she is writing about, she’s making wild guesses, and sometimes wild guesses come close to the mark.”

“Oh, I say! Never thought of that,” said Edgar. “Really? Sounds like it might be an outsider then,” he added. “Or someone socially isolated.”

“I dunno that we have anyone in the village who fits that description, unless you count Mr. David Henderson, who isn’t exactly a part of the village, however old his family is,” said Tim. “And he isn’t likely to be aiming letters at people he probably doesn’t know exist, and nor would he write like that to his sister and her companion.”

“He has a sister?” said Edgar.

“Me,” said Ida. “And Gladys, also referred to as a Londoner as well as an unpleasant epithet, a daughter of Farmer Price, who is likely to put anyone who wrote about his daughter in such terms through his steam hay-baler. And there’s been nonsense written about others too, so I assume whoever is doing it knows nothing, so nobody need fear bringing these things to the police.”

“I had one, but I burned it,” said Polly Chaffinch. “Stupid-like comments about wanting to leave Fred and go off and sing in the West End. Like you say, Miss Ida, a load o’ nonsense. Sayin’ I’d go off with Mr. Armitage, indeed! No offence, Mr. Armitage, but you aren’t my Fred, and I’d not like the uncertainties of being a London p’liceman’s missus. And you no more than a boy from my point of view.”

“Oh, I quite understand, Mrs. Chaffinch,” said Alexander, gravely. “You know where Fred is at any moment of the day; Ida has to deal with not knowing where I am, or whether I’ve been killed by villains.”

“You’re a policeman? I thought you were a gentleman,” said Edgar.

“The two are not, I assure you, mutually exclusive,” said Alexander. “I’m on medical leave, so I thought I’d take it in Heywood Hall, which David is giving to Ida and me as a wedding present. Why he prefers some modern building to a nice old pile with pedigree and character I do not know, but he finds my tastes as incomprehensible as I find his.”

Ida laughed a rather brittle laugh.

“We like David a lot better when we don’t have to see him very often, and I consider I have adequate chaperones in the Hall so I don’t have to stay with him,” she said. “And if the poison pen makes anything of us living together under one roof, let them. This is 1923, not 1823.”

“Brava,” said Alexander. “Does that mean I can, like Koko, flirt, leer, and wink before we are connubially linked?”

“Only up to the point where I decide that my hatpin is needed to protect my virtue,” said Ida.

The mangled quote from one of Pish-Tush’s songs broke the tension, and everyone laughed.

“Who is playing Pish-Tush?” asked Ida.

“I am,” said Tim Mapp.

“Our great Mikado, virtuous man

When he to rule this land began

Resolved to try

A plan whereby

Young men might best be steadied

So he decreed, in words succinct

That all who flirted, leered or winked

(Unless connubially linked)

Should forthwith be beheaded

Beheaded, beheaded

Should forthwith be beheaded

And I expect you'll all agree

That he was right to so decree...”

The chorus joined in happily that he was right and they were right, and all was right as right can be.

“Good, good, but let us take it from the start so we know our positions,” said Fred. “We missed Tim yesterday for being on duty. We’ll start with ‘If you want to know who we are, we are gentlemen of Japan, and sing it like you mean it; Nanki Poo, stand by.”

They pushed on with little trouble through Ida and Gladys performing an impromptu shuffling dance around Polly Chaffinch in ‘Three little maids,’ and Alexander’s additional verse of the list song.

“I think we’ve come on very well,” said Fred. “Sorry to leave Katisha out, Miss Thripp, but we are gelling as a troupe, and introducing some good things. Another couple of days rest won’t hurt your voice, either.”

“Indeed, no, thank you,” fluttered Miss Thripp, smiling at Alexander since her secret medicine had arrived.

“Well, I think our dinner is here,” said Fred, as Braithwaite came in with a couple of baskets and the boy who helped out. “No fish today, of course,  but Neddy has sausage and chips.”

“I brought the jar of pickled onions, and some mushy peas as well,” said Braithwaite. “And someone gave our Stan a most unpleasant letter to give to me which suggests that Mr. Armitage is debauching my Maud; and I say, he’d better not try,” he added pugnaciously.

 “I only have eyes for Ida, as you well know,” said Alexander, mildly. “And Maud can give as good as she gets; a good Girl Guide like Ida and Gladys.”

“He isn’t my type, da,” said Maud. “And Tim Mapp’s been telling us that the poison pen don’t know nothing about nobody anywise, just makes guesses.”

“Well, I don’t say as I believed it of the Major,” said Braithwaite, mollified. “But it ain’t right, sending nasty anonymous notes. And Stan, poor brat, tuppence short of a shilling, can’t tell me who gave it to him.”

“Perhaps he can describe who it was,” said Alexander.

The lad, who was about twelve, looked confused.

“Nobody give it to me,” he said. “It were poked under the door of the shop.”

Alexander hid a sigh.

“And you can’t blame Stan for not taking a gander at who it was; he works hard, I give him that, and doesn’t stand around gawking,” said Braithwaite.

“He’s not your son, is he?” asked Alexander.

“No, guv’nor, his ma useder watch Maudie when she was little, and my Billie too, but she died, and the missus and me, we took in young Stan, him being a bit slow, and not being fair to put him on the parish. He won’t starve, I matched his ma’s little bit savings in a trust fund.”

Alexander nodded. Braithwaite was a stern father and dour of countenance, but he had a good heart.

Braithwaite and Stan joined them to eat.

“I don’t often fancy my own wares but this is different,” said Braithwaite.

“It were someone tall,” blurted out Stan. “What put the note through. I seen his shadow on the door curtain.”

The chip shop had a net curtain on the inside of the door, like the bakery. It reduced the number of flies in summer.

“He?” said Tim. “Most writers of these sorts of notes are women.”

Stan shrugged.

“Wasn’t looking; couldn’t say.” He bit into his pickled onion with relish. “Tall, anyway. Above the ‘closed’ sign.”

“You daft critter,” said Braithwaite, without rancour. “That’s most adults. Including women. Come to think, it was a bit pedantic, like a lady author.”

Stan shrugged.

“Taller ʼn me, anywise.”

Stan was scrawny and no more than four feet six, so this was not helpful.

“You did well to remember as much as possible,” said Alexander. “Fred, what do we owe you?”

“Neddy and I are standing it,” said Fred.

“My turn next time,” said Alexander. “Wednesday half closing for the next?”

“Yes,” said Fred. “I want to run through Pish-Tush’s scenes with Pitti-Sing early while Tim’s got a quiet hour, with the spurious and lurid description of the death of Nanki-Poo and the subsequent declaration that the Mikado’s word is so powerful that his declaration that something should be done makes it morally so.”

“Swallered a dictionary, you have, Fred,” said Braithwaite. “Spurious, lurid, subsequent; you trying to impress the Major?”

“Some of us read dictionaries when things are quiet, to better ourselves,” said Fred, with dignity.

“Well, be careful, or someone will think you’re the toffee nosed writer of the letters,” said Braithwaite. “Talking about debauching! The secret smutty thoughts of a schoolmarm.” He took his leave with Stan.

“Dear me, anyone would think he considers school teachers to be in some wise deficient,” said Miss Thripp.

“The aggressively ignorant tend to do so,” said Alexander, mildly. “They fear learning, and the concept that those who have control over society are educated, and associate it vaguely with the idea that the ‘haves’ are the enemy of the ‘have nots’ which is what got the mess that Russia is in.”

“Yet, there’s a lot of talk about Communism at Oxford,” said Edgar.

“Yes, and they make suckers of young idealists to cause trouble here, for no good reason,” said Alexander. “I had a nasty spy case with a vicious murder through that when I was abroad for my health. The British worker is not like the downtrodden Russian peasant, and makes his feelings clear, which means he does not have to revolt. He has his union rep to make waves for him in most cases. And even Braithwaite is no Bolshevist, just stroppy.”

“Your health?” asked Edgar.

“I was injured in the line of duty; had my belly slit rather nastily with a knife,” said Alexander, shortly. He did not want to go into detail of a most unpleasant period of being tortured by a pair of young psychopaths.

“Oh!” said Edgar. “Most unpleasant.”

“Yes, well, it’s why I’m still on leave three months later, not allowed to do anything which might open things up again,” said Alexander. “Not idle, just not fully fit.”

“I remember the story in the newspaper,” said Miss Thripp. “Very nasty! Don’t you remember, Edgar, dear, I said at the time, that’s that nice Major Armitage who was friendly with Basil Henderson, and found out about the housekeeper being so nasty, when that old fool Dr.  Craiggie would try to cover up his murder, having got quite the wrong end of the stick.”

“This is why I want a doctor from Oxford to look at you, Aunt Betty,” said Edgar.

“Oh, stuff and nonsense, my boy, I’m so much better now,” said Miss Thripp. “And the thrill of the play will help, I’m sure.”

“I hope so,” said Edgar.

The company drifted out, with Fred locking up.

“Well, that went well,” said Ida.

“Just as well, as we have just ten days to the performance on Easter Saturday,” said Alexander. “It’s as well you know all the words.”

“I couldn’t carry Yum-Yum in so short a time, but I can handle Pitti-Sing,” said Ida. “Now, flirt, leer, and wink on the way home.”