Case for Sergeant Beef (3 page)

My enjoyment was irritatingly interrupted by someone approaching from the
other
direction, and you may imagine my annoyance when I found it was the pasty-faced curate from Barnford walking alone through the wood. And he was tactless enough to smile when he saw me crouching there. Really it is a good thing for him that I have decided that my victim shall be
quite unknown to me,
for I could have killed him for his cheerful loquacity.

‘How do you do?' he asked. He might as well have said, ‘Dr Livingstone, I presume?'

‘How d'you do?' I answered with assumed good humour.

‘Picking bluebells?' he asked.

‘I was just about to,' I said. ‘Lovely, aren't they? As a Londoner I find your countryside most attractive.'

And what must he do but start a long conversation while I brushed the leaves and a little dirt from my clothes. He came from London too it appeared, from Sydenham to be precise. He had only been here two years and remembered his first spring in Kent, so he knew
just
how I felt. The fool. If he knew just how I felt he would know that I wanted to assassinate him for his…smugness then and there.

And of course he turned the conversation to me. Where did I live? What was my name? Would I be attending his church?

To the last question I replied solemnly that indeed I should, every Sunday, for I realize that this will be an important part of the character I am creating for myself. A nice old church-going retired tradesman.
Not
chapel, I feel, and certainly not Roman Catholic. Too suggestive of earnestness or even violence. Church of England is the safest bet – so wholly non-committal and yet so thoroughly respectable. I invited the curate back to tea and flattered myself that I appeared delighted to watch him satisfying a
phenomenal appetite. No wonder he has a pasty look, and that his ears are bright red. Constipation, undoubtedly.

Really, considering it's only about six weeks since I first began to make definite plans, I think I have done very well. I have found the district, and the very point in that district for my purpose. Though I had all the British Isles to choose from I am satisfied that the spot I have finally selected could not be better. And I have so arranged matters that I have a perfectly natural reason for being near that spot at any time of day or night. I
live
here. Not bad for so short a time.

I must now go on to consider the method, and I need scarcely say that I have been giving very careful thought to that. Poison is out of the question, for the thing must of course be spontaneous. Poison means endless preparation and precaution for the layman, endless risk in obtaining it, endless trouble in administering it, and endless difficulties in making it appear as suicide. Besides if I am to murder my man at that point in Deadman's Wood (how I
delight
in that name) poison is unthinkable. What would I be doing standing there offering prussic acid to a chance pedestrian? It's absurd.

Nor do I need to employ any of those elaborate death machines so popular in murder stories, poisoned darts blown from pipes, injections, or poisoned scratches, weights timed to drop on unsuspecting crania – these are all the inventions of less fortunate murderers who have to wipe out a certain person at a certain time and place, and establish their own alibis. All quite unnecessary for me.

Strangling and suffocation are ‘out' too, if for no other reason than that of my inadequate height and strength. Drowning is of course out of the question, and such chancy things as bows-and-arrows or boomerangs I prefer not to consider. Then again I am not powerful enough for clubbing or smashing the head with some gardening tool like a spade, and an axe seems to me a clumsy weapon more suited
to early warfare than to a brilliantly-planned twentieth-century murder.

This brings me to a choice of two classes of weapon, a blade or a firearm. Each has its advantages of course. The blade, whether sword, spear, knife, dagger, or razor, is silent, but the gun is sure. At least it will be in my hands. For twenty years the only relaxation I have known from the work of my shop has been a little rough shooting I have had in Essex. I hired it with an old friend called Whitman, and we would miss very few week-ends. With a good
12
-bore on that path I could be as sure of my man as the hangman is of
his.
But of course, there's the noise, and the possession of a gun and many other factors. It will need a great deal of consideration.

Meanwhile Miss Shoulter has called – at least I suppose it was a call I was working in my garden this afternoon when I heard what I took to be a man's voice shouting from the gate.

‘Hullo! Are you Mr Chickle?'

I straightened up and saw a woman with a long sunburnt face and shapeless check tweeds standing there with two spaniel puppies on leads. I never forget my character as that of an amiable old gentleman, and walked across to her smiling in the most friendly way.

‘I am, and you must be Miss Shoulter. Do come in.'

‘ ‘Fraid I can't,' she yelled in that ear-splitting male voice of hers. ‘Got the pups with me. Thought I'd just come and say hullo, as we're neighbours.'

‘That's very good of you,' I smiled.

Then she kept me talking there for five minutes, though I was impatient to get back to my flower-bed. Maddening woman. Why should she think I am interested in her dogs? I asked her at last why she didn't breed retrievers.

‘Why? Fond of shooting?' she said. Such a direct question. I was taken off my guard.

‘No,' I said. Then I built up a bit more of my character. ‘I couldn't bear to hurt live creatures,' I added.

‘No need to do that,' she shouted. ‘Been shooting all me
life and don't believe I've caused any pain. Not as much as nature causes with
her
ways of killing, anyway.'

‘Do you do any shooting now?' I asked.

‘Not much. I've got a couple of guns still.'

‘Perhaps you feel that living alone …' I began. But she gave a great vulgar hoarse laugh.

‘Me? I can look after myself without guns,' she said. And looking at her I thought it only too likely to be true.

A minute later she was gone, leaving me quite a lot to think about.

I have engaged a housekeeper, an excellent woman named Mrs Pluck. I am paying her rather large wages, but she is more than worth it, for she is not only a splendid cook with a passion for keeping the house scrupulously clean, but she has what almost amounts to a mania for punctuality. Although she carries a wrist-watch her first request was for a kitchen alarm clock and she seems always to keep an eye on the time. This will one day serve my purpose, I feel sure. If I can depend on her to notice the times of my comings and goings the day will come when she will provide an alibi.

She is, I must admit, slightly forbidding in manner and appearance, nearly six feet in height and with a face that might justly be called gaunt. She appears to be extremely muscular and her hands are as large as those of a man, with powerful bony wrists and fingers. However, I have no wish for personal beauty in a housekeeper. Her other qualities are an ample compensation for her severe mien.

I thought I would test her to-day.

‘What time was it when I came in?' I asked very casually when she was laying the table for my simple evening meal.

‘Just five minutes to six,' she said sharply, without pausing to remember or consider at all.

What could be more precise or satisfactory?

‘Thank you, Mrs Pluck,' I said. I'm afraid I'm a bit vague about time. You must keep me up to scratch, you know.'

‘Your meals will always be ready on time,' she said rather
grimly and left me to sip the sweet sherry of which I have always been so fond.

I learnt something to-day which, if it is true, will mean that my decision in the matter of weapons has been made for me. A man called Richey, whom I have engaged to work in the garden two days a week, mentioned that the last tenant of ‘Labour's End' had rented the shooting in Dead-man's Wood for an absurdly small price from the owner, who lives a dozen miles away.

‘He only paid a pound or two for it,' Richey said. ‘Because there's nothing
there.
A few rabbits you might get and a left-over pheasant or two from the time they did preserve. But nothing to pay money for. Still if you
think
you could find any sport.'

I laughed inside myself. If I think I could find any sport. Richey would be surprised if he knew
what
sport I think I could find.

But it's an idea. If I do decide that a gun is the best weapon – well, there I am with a gun, and every right to be there. And if a man is found shot in Deadman's Wood it would have been an accident, or suicide, or somebody else. It could not possibly have been that little quiet studious man Mr Wellington Chickle. Why should it have been? What motive could he possibly have had?

I only wonder whether perhaps I'm getting away a little from my original conception – the spontaneous crime. I remember writing in this Journal that if a man of good character suddenly killed the
first person who came along,
unless he was actually seen in the act he could not be suspected. But am I beginning to complicate matters? I don't think so, really. I'm giving myself a reason for being in the place with the weapon
in case
I should be observed.

I am writing this evening to the owner of the shooting rights to see whether an arrangement can be made. If it can I think I'll decide on the gun. All details can wait for that.

Mrs Pluck gave me an excellent soufflé this evening. Really, that woman's a treasure. And when I enquired gently what time it was when I went to bed last night she answered me pat- Eleven-twenty, sir. I heard you close your door.' So even in the night hours she notices what time things happen.

Some new books arrived from Bumpus's to-day, or rather some old books they had been able to obtain for me. Among them some detective novels by a writer new to me – Leo Bruce. He relates the investigations of a certain Sergeant Beef, through an observer called Townsend. Very ingenious. But not as ingenious as I'm going to be. I should like to see Sergeant Beef at work on
my
crime!

I met Flipp and his wife to-day. Another piece of luck – Flipp is fond of shooting and goes down to the marshes, somewhere Rye way I gather, for duck when he can get petrol for his car. Hasn't done much since the war, but says he has a
12
-bore. So that's three in the district – mine, Miss Shoulter's, and his. It begins to look as though the whole thing is being made too easy for me.

Flipp is a big man who is in some business in London which does not take too much of his time. He goes up to town twice or three times a week, I gather, and does not worry if he misses even that. If it is of any interest I can easily find out the nature of this business. He looks more like a farmer, a heavy hard-drinking man, who swears too much, even using rather strong language in the presence of his wife. She, poor woman, looks anaemic, a frost-bitten unhappy creature very much under Flipp's thumb.

I met them on the road on their side of the wood. I was taking a leisurely stroll and they came striding up behind me as though they were soldiers marching, at least Flipp walked like that and his wife hurried along beside him as though she was afraid of being left behind.

‘You've just come to live at that bungalow with the silly name, haven't you?' was Flipp's greeting to me.

I showed no annoyance.

‘Good afternoon,' I said, raising my hat. ‘Yes, I have just come to live here. I suppose “Labour's End” does sound rather an odd name, but in my case it's appropriate, you know. My labours are ended, you see.'

‘Lucky man,' said Flipp. ‘How d'you like Barnford?'

‘Charming,' Charming,' I told him.

‘Think so? Bloody awful hole, I think. Cold and damp.'

‘I must say I haven't found it so,' I said.

‘But you haven't spent a winter here yet, Mr Chickle,' his wife put in as though she had to say something.

‘That's very true,' I smiled.

‘Better come in and have a cup of tea,' said Flipp. ‘Our place is just up the road.'

‘I should be delighted. I wonder what made you come here if you think so little of the place?'

He did not seem to like that question and answered it rather gruffly.

‘Edith Shoulter found the place for us.'

‘Oh, you knew Miss Shoulter before you came here?' I asked. I was naturally interested.

‘Known her for years,' grunted Flipp. ‘That's our place you can see ahead of you.' And he began to take even longer strides so that I was quite out of breath when we arrived at ‘Woodlands.'

The first thing I noticed in the hall was his gun – a
12
-bore.

‘Fond of shooting?' I asked casually.

It was then that he told me about the duck. I pretended to be only politely interested and soon changed the subject to gardening.

It was six o'clock when I got back to ‘Labour's End', having refused a drink from Flipp before leaving. I found that the afternoon's post had come in and there was a letter from the owner of Deadman's Wood. He says that he cannot honestly ask anything but a nominal rent for the shooting since I shall find nothing but a few rabbits, but if I like to send him a fiver each season I am welcome to pot what I like over his ground. I chuckled at the phrase ‘pot what I like.' He would be surprised if he knew its full implications for
me.

It is past midsummer now, and a long time since I added anything to my Journal. The truth of the matter is I am in
something of a quandary. My scheme seems to be losing its most essential quality, that of spontaneity. Willy-nilly I find myself making plans, just as lesser murderers must have done. I have to keep reminding myself that the secret of my success will lie in the casual nature of the enterprise. I still maintain that if I just go out and kill someone, anyone, without an elaborate design, I shall be safe from discovery; but that if I begin to play with strategy I shall call attention to myself. The trouble is that the ordinary precautions need so much forethought.