Churchyard and Hawke (29 page)

Licking dry lips, Woods nodded.

‘Good! You said you went up to your bed and pretended to be asleep when she returned. How long was it before she came up to bed?’

‘I told you that the last time you interviewed me.’ Chester replied.

‘You did and before I ask you again I want to remind you of what I have just told you about telling me a lie. Now, how long was it before Peggy came back to your room.’

Woods licked his lips again, then, the words being uttered with apparent difficulty, he said, ‘I don’t know . . . I’m not very good at guessing time.’

‘Try again, Woods.’

‘About twenty minutes.’ He sounded as though he was being strangled as he spoke.

‘That’s better than the time you gave us in your last statement, but I’m still not satisfied. How long . . . ?’

‘It might have been half-an-hour . . . I can’t do better than that. Tell me what it is you want me to say and I will.’

‘I want you to tell the truth. That will do for now . . . but I am afraid you are not going to be allowed to return to work just yet, Woods.’

To Tom, he said, ‘We should have brought more men with us, sergeant, but as we didn’t I would like you to handcuff Woods and have him locked in a secure outbuilding until we have finished here.’

‘What for? I’ve done nothing . . .!’ Woods was still protesting when, handcuffed, he was led outside by Tom.

Tom had returned to the study, having locked Chester Woods in the woodshed, situated close to the kitchen door, when a bleary-eyed Harry Clemo was shown into the study. The gamekeeper had been on anti-poacher patrol all night and had been summoned from his bed to be questioned by the two policemen.

As taciturn as when Tom had interviewed him previously, he was also almost as nervous at being questioned by the police for a second time as Woods had been.

With Clemo, Amos wasted no time in preliminaries, but came to the point immediately.

‘When my sergeant questioned you about your movements on the night that Laneglos was burgled, you gave him a statement that you had met with Peggy Woods in the hay barn, but that you did nothing more than talk.’

‘That’s right, and that’s all we did.’

‘I’m not questioning that, Clemo, what I want to know now is what you talked about.’

‘I think that’s our business, not . . .’

‘I don’t give a damn what you think, Clemo. I’m conducting a murder investigation and if you don’t co-operate now I’ll have you taken to Bodmin police station and locked up in a cell until you do . . . is that clear?’

Visibly shaken by Amos’s vehemence, Clemo nodded vigorously.

‘Good! What did you talk about?’

Gulping, Clemo said, ‘She didn’t make a whole lot of sense . . . she spoke of having enough of Chester and said we should go away together. She was all het-up, and excited and . . . I don’t know, she just didn’t seem normal, somehow. I said we couldn’t possibly go away together because we had no money . . . I only said that to try to calm her down, I never had any intention of going away with her, money or not, but it didn’t work. She said she’d be getting some money soon . . . enough to last us until we’d found work together somewhere. I would never have gone away with her, but because she was so agitated I was worried about what she might do if I told her, so instead I said I’d think it over.’

‘How long were you in the hay barn talking to her?’

‘Couldn’t have been longer than ten minutes at the most. As I said, she didn’t seem normal, somehow, so I said I had to get back to patrolling the woods the other side of the estate before someone found out I wasn’t there. I left the hay barn then and I suppose she must have gone back to the house.’

‘You suppose? You didn’t see her go?’

‘No . . .’

It seemed that Clemo was about to say more. When he did not, Amos prompted him, ‘I think you have something more to tell us, what is it?’

‘Probably nothing at all, but, like I said, she was behaving a bit peculiar. She was even worse when I met her a few days later. She was waiting for me near my cottage when I set off on my usual night patrol and was so excited I thought she’d had a brainstorm, or something. She said that things had got even better and that when we went away together now she’d have enough money for us to start a proper new life together. That we’d be able to have our own public-house far away from Laneglos. Somewhere where we weren’t known.’

‘Did she say where this money was coming from?’

‘No, and I didn’t ask her. When Peggy gets like that, as she does sometimes, it’s better to humour her and wait until she gets back to normal again.’

Amos exchanged glances with Tom before speaking to Clemo again, ‘When you say Peggy sometimes acts in a peculiar manner, what exactly do you mean?’

‘It’s difficult to explain, really. She just doesn’t somehow seem normal. I used to put it down to her being a bit hot-tempered and thought perhaps all Irish women were like that, but just lately she’s gone all . . . oh, I don’t know, but the way she behaves worries me sometimes . . . she just doesn’t act normal!’

‘Tell me, does Peggy have any possible access to arsenic?’

Clemo seemed taken aback by Amos’s question, but he replied. ‘It would be easy enough for her to get hold of some if she wanted it. It’s refined at the mines up around Caradon, on Bodmin moor and we buy a fair amount to poison foxes when they get troublesome and also use it to keep down rats. It’s kept in the gamekeepers’ store room. Peggy knows it’s there.’

Amos was about to question Clemo further when there was the sound of raised voices from the passageway outside the study. A few moments later the door was flung open and a highly agitated and still handcuffed Chester Woods stumbled into the room.

‘Quick . . . you must stop Peggy!’ Looking at Harry Clemo, he said, ‘It’s all your fault.’ Turning towards Amos, he cried, ‘She had the kitchen key to the wood shed and came and let me out. After asking why they’d locked me up she wanted to know what questions you’d been asking me. When I told her and said you’d got Harry in here she went berserk. She said if she couldn’t have him then no one else was going to. When she left me she said she was going to the kitchen for a kitchen knife . . . I think she’s gone after Dot and the kids.’

CHAPTER 41

Amos, Tom and Harry Clemo sprinted for the gamekeeper’s cottage as fast as they could, with a still handcuffed Chester Woods lumbering after them and gradually receding into the distance.

The gamekeeper’s cottage was at the edge of a wood and although there was no sign of anyone there, the front door was standing open. Although he was short of breath, Amos said, ‘Begin shouting . . . It doesn’t matter what you shout . . . but make it loud!’

The three men began shouting, Harry Clemo making the most noise of them all. When they arrived at the cottage Amos went in first but the others were not far behind him. All the inner doors were open downstairs, although there did not appear to be anyone here. Then they heard the sound of a child crying . . . and it came from upstairs.

This time it was Harry Clemo who led the way. Two of the three doors on the small landing were open. The third was closed - and the sound of crying came from behind it.

Clemo tried the door, but there appeared to be something against it on the inside, preventing it from opening.’

‘Dot! Dot, are you there . . . it’s Harry!’

‘Oh . . .! Thank God.’ It was a woman’s voice and the next moment there was the sound of a piece of furniture being moved and the door opened to reveal an ashen-faced woman and, behind her were two children with grubby, tear-stained cheeks.

Trying to hug his wife and the two children all at the same time, Harry Clemo, said, ‘Are you all right . . . ? What’s happened?’

‘Peggy Woods has been here - I think she’s gone mad! I saw her coming when I was looking out of the window, she was brandishing a kitchen knife and shouting something that I couldn’t make out. I grabbed the children and took them upstairs to our bedroom. They helped me shift the bed and then that old chest of drawers against the door. We were only just in time. We heard Peggy crashing around downstairs, then she came up here and tried to get into the bedroom. She was shouting that she was going to kill us all. The girls were terrified - so was I. What’s happened to make her like that?’

Ignoring the question, Amos asked, ‘Do you know where she went?’

Dot Clemo shook her head, ‘If you didn’t see her when you came in the front she must have gone out the back door when she heard you coming. She could be anywhere.’

‘You have a gun in the house?’ This to the gamekeeper.

‘Yes.’

‘Then get it, load it, lock all the doors and stay inside until I get word to you that Peggy Woods has been caught. We’ll head back to the house.’

Amos and Tom met a breathless Chester Woods when he was still some distance from the gamekeeper’s cottage and Amos ordered him to turn back and hurry to Laneglos as fast as he was able, explaining briefly, ‘Peggy has probably gone back there . . . and she’s dangerous. Get there as quickly as you can.’

Fast as they were, Peggy had beaten them to it. Amos thought the house resembled a disturbed wasp’s nest, with servants, stable-hands and even gardeners hurrying in and out seemingly aimlessly.

They were met at the main entrance by Lord Hogg who was at a loss to know what was happening in his house. "The butler tells me the assistant cook has gone berserk, do you know what is going on?’

‘Where is she now? Amos asked.

‘She has shut herself in the dairy armed with a kitchen knife and is threatening to kill anyone who dares to go in there.’

‘Will you take me there, please?’

The dairy was off the kitchen, beside the scullery and there were a great many excited servants coming and going in the kitchen. Ordering everyone outside except Tom and Lord Hogg, Amos advanced to the door of the dairy and knocked heavily upon it.

‘Peggy, it’s Superintendent Hawke, can you hear me? I want to speak to you.’

When there was no reply he repeated the knock and call and this time put his ear against the door.

Straightening up, he said, ‘I think I can hear her being sick.’ Thumbing the latch, he flung the door open and the three men saw Peggy Woods seated on the floor, slumped against the wall. Beside her was a pint measuring jug and a stoneware jar resting on its side, in which was a small quantity of white powder. There was more white powder scattered around the jug . . . and there was evidence nearby that she had recently been sick.

As the three men cautiously entered the dairy, Peggy let out an open-mouthed scream of pain and Amos said, ‘She has poisoned herself . . . Tom, send one of the servants to fetch a doctor . . . as quickly as you can.’

Clutching her stomach and gasping with pain, Peggy said, ‘A doctor won’t be able to do anything. I’ve taken enough arsenic to kill a horse . . .’

Her statement ended abruptly as she doubled up with pain once more. When she raised her head again, she looked up at Amos and said hoarsely, ‘I’d rather it ended here, like this. I’ve watched men and women die at the end of a rope, in Ireland and there’s no dignity in it. This way is better.’

‘We’ll see about that when the doctor gets here, Peggy. In the meantime, are you able to tell me exactly what it is you’ve done . . . ?’

CHAPTER 42

Peggy Woods died before the Bodmin doctor could be found and brought to Laneglos. It would be later confirmed that she had taken a massive dose of arsenic from the stock she kept hidden on a high shelf in the dairy behind some old pans and pots that were no longer in use and where none of the much smaller dairymaids could even see it, let alone reach it down.

Her death and the events that had brought it about horrified the whole of the servant staff at the great Cornish house. She had never been popular with anyone and in recent weeks her increasingly erratic behaviour had meant she was even more isolated than ever, but the manner of her self-inflicted death affected them all deeply.

Lord Hogg was equally shocked, but he found time to thank Amos and Tom for their diligence in the investigation which had resulted in the removal of the self-confessed murderer from his household.

At the Hawke home later that evening, when Talwyn brought in the last of the dishes to be placed on the table for their meal, she said, ‘There, that’s everything, so now I don’t have to keep jumping up to go out into the kitchen you can both tell me what happened at Laneglos today, instead of sitting here looking smug.’

‘I don’t think smug is the right word, Talwyn. We’ve solved the murders of Enid and Lord Hogg, certainly, but there has been too much tragedy involved for it to be a cause for celebration.’ Amos went on to tell Talwyn of the traumatic events of the day, his narrative occasionally helped by Tom.

After hearing their story of the various happenings that day, Talwyn asked, ‘When did you finally realize the murders had been committed by Peggy Woods?

‘She became an immediate suspect after I spoke to the honourable Charles Delville on our night journey back from London. As you know, he had been our main suspect until then, especially after we confirmed his valet’s story of seeing a quantity of arsenic in Delville’s London house - even though the arsenic container was full and didn’t seem to have ever been opened. However, he told us that Peggy had approached him saying she knew Enid was pregnant by him and that Lord Hogg had threatened to strike him out of his will and refuse to pay any more of his debts if he got any more of the Laneglos servant girls pregnant. She threatened to tell Lord Hogg about Enid unless Delville paid for her silence. He agreed to give her the sum she asked for, although he told her he didn’t have it immediately to hand. Tom and I later learned from Clemo, the Laneglos gamekeeper who had been having a long affair with Peggy, that it was about this time she wanted him to leave his wife and family and go away with her, saying she would soon have enough money to keep them both until they could find work.’

‘You already knew about the affair, of course, because Clemo had admitted it to you in his statement.’

‘That’s right, but it was no more than a casual, albeit long-standing affair as far as Clemo was concerned, he had no intention of ever taking it any farther, but Peggy didn’t know this. She was totally obsessed with him and had been ever since she came to Laneglos. In fact, the only reason she married Ctester Woods was to divert attention away from her relationship with him. So, when Enid became so upset about her condition and told Peggy she was going to report what had happened with Delville, Peggy could see her misplaced dream of running away with Clemo disappearing. On the evening of the night raid on the house, she lured Enid to the Laneglos church on the pretext of accompanying her to collect the candlesticks and altar crosses for cleaning. She murdered Enid and hid her body beneath the altar. There was a great deal of confusion at the house in the aftermath of the ball and everyone was tired, so Enid simply wasn’t missed.’