Death at Hallows End (18 page)

“Not always,” admitted Carolus, and set off on foot for the place where he had left his car. Still the windows of the Neasts' bungalow were black. Nor was any light visible in the Falstaff when he reached it. He let himself in and secured a few hours' sleep.

Next morning he had to wait till Snow came, and this made him angrily impatient. At this point in his investigation speed seemed important to him and he knew exactly what he must do next.

When Snow arrived, Carolus gave him Spaull's report and told him briefly of Puckett's certainty that the grave had been disturbed, but did not mention Gallup's failure to report what Mrs. Rudd had told him. He had already complained of Gallup's indiscretion about the exhumation, for that was a breach of security for which any policeman should be reprimanded. But this was natural stupidity and he saw no reason to damage Gallup's career for that.

When, however, Snow asked him, after reading Spaull's report, what he expected to find in Rudd's grave, he curtly said “Rudd,” and left Snow to draw his own conclusions. He had a job to do now and it was an important one. He was gong to see the Hickmansworths.

Of this family he knew only five facts. One, that they were reputed to “keep themselves to themselves.” Two, that they were illegitimate cousins of the Neasts. Three, that it had originally
been through them that the Neasts had bought Monk's Farm. Four, that five of them had come to Hallows End Church that Sunday night. Five, and most speculative of all, that Puckett had suggested that it might be their car that had passed his cottage twice in the night hours of Saturday to Sunday. Now he meant to meet this mysterious family.

He soon found it was going to be no easy matter. Their large farm lay near a by-road as narrow as Church Lane, and the house, a rambling old building built onto in various styles during its three centuries of life, stood quite alone, more than five hundred yards from the present farm buildings. He was able to drive up to it by muddy and rutted tracks, but when he pulled the bell chain of the front door and heard a weary tinkling somewhere deep in the house, he felt that he might be the first stranger to do so for many years.

A rather handsome young woman, with dark gypsyish features, opened the door eighteen inches and said “Yes?”

“May I see Mr. Hickmansworth?

“Who shall I say?”

Carolus gave his name, and was left for some minutes with the door shut in his face. Presently the young woman returned.

“He wants to know on what business?” she said tonelessly.

“Please tell him it is personal but very urgent. I don't want to sell him anything, or ask his opinion for a poll.”

“I'll see,” she said, and again left him outside a closed door.

This time it was opened by a powerful-looking man in his fifties with a hard ruddy face and thick grey hair.

“I'm Hickmansworth. What the devil do you want?”

Carolus gambled.

“I'm investigating the disappearance of Duncan Humby,” he said. “I want to know whether a car of yours was out at a late hour the night before last.”

It was evident that he had scored a bulls-eye. The farmer looked at him with an angry baffled expression for a moment, then said, as though he were giving an order rather than an invitation, “Come in.”

Carolus followed him to a small, fireless, book-lined room.

“Sit down,” he said and did so himself, staring meanwhile at Carolus. “How did you know that?” he said at last.

“I didn't,” admitted Carolus. “I guessed it.”

There was another brief silence.

“Thing is, I didn't know it myself till yesterday morning.” Carolus saw that he would hear more without pressing the matter and sat waiting. “Who are you, anyway? Police?”

“No. I was a client of Humby's. I have promised both his wife and partner I would try to trace him.”

Hickmansworth considered.

“Have a drink?” he suggested.

Carolus thought his hand trembled slightly as he poured out two stiff measures of Scotch.

“It's no good your coming here,” he said. “There's no one in this house knows anything about it. But what you say about the car is right. It was out during Saturday night.”

“Who took it?”

“That's what I'd like to know.”

“Was it the station wagon you went to church in on Sunday?”

“You're very observant. Yes. The station wagon. We keep it down at the farm. There's only one garage up here and my son-in-law uses that for his car, a new Austin. We keep a pretty careful check on the mileage of the farm car for income tax purposes. My son went to take it out on Sunday morning and saw the petrol was down, so he checked with the mileage shown when he put it in on Saturday afternoon. The car had gone forty-two miles.”

“You are certain no one from here had used it?”

“Of course I am. We play bridge every Saturday night and were up till two in the morning. No one left the house after that.”

“So you think someone from outside took your car and used it?”

“I don't think. I know. It's too easy. You saw where the farm buildings are? We hear nothing from there.”

“What about the ignition key?”

“It's always left in. We all use the old thing at times.”

“I believe you're related to the Neasts?” Hickmansworth chuckled.

“I thought everyone knew that story,” he said. “We are. On the wrong side of the blanket.”

“And to Grossiter?”

“Well, yes. But he would never have admitted it. The old man had two older sisters and he quarrelled with both of them. One married Neast and produced those two characters at Monk's Farm. The other was my mother, and she was never married at all because my father's wife was alive and wouldn't divorce him. When eventually she died, my mother and father never bothered to marry. It would have been absurd at their time of life with me grown up as a bastard. Though I daresay if they had, Grossiter might have forgiven them and I might have had a cut at the millions.”

Carolus thought he seemed remarkably good-humoured about it all.

“It's good of you to tell me about this,” said Carolus.

“I thought everyone knew,” he said casually.

“Did you ever meet Grossiter?”

“Never in my life. When the old man quarrelled, he quarrelled. He cut his other sister out, Neasts' mother, for taking my mother's part.”

“Did you know he was staying at Monk's Farm?”

Hickmansworth hesitated.

“Yes. I did. Things get about in a district like this.”

“But you didn't make any attempt to see him?”

“No. Not while he was staying with those precious cousins of mine. I rather thought I might have a try to see him when he returned home, but it's too late to think of that now. I don't mind telling you this, Deene, but I can't quite see what it has to do with Humby's disappearance.”

“Humby, as you must know by now, was taking a will to Grossiter to be signed.”

“So you think that one of us may have something to do with Humby? We knew nothing of the man. You'd better stay to lunch and meet my sons. You can ask them some of your questions then. Have another drink?”

“Thanks. The police are exhuming Rudd today,” Carolus remarked, watching Hickmansworth.

The man did not turn a hair.

“So I've been told. What are they doing that for? He died in hospital and was buried before Humby ever came to Hallows End.”

“They think there's been some interference with the grave,” said Carolus steadily.

“Oh, that's it, is it? Perhaps they'll find Humby's corpse in his coffin.”

Carolus said nothing for the moment, then changed the subject by remarking that he gathered Hickmansworth did not get on with the Neasts.

“I've known them from childhood. We spent a good deal of our childhood together, as a matter of fact. I put them in the way of buying Monk's Farm when it was on the market. Wonderful little property—I've often wished I'd bought it myself. But I can't stand Holroyd. Never could. Their mother was still
alive when I suggested their coming here. So was mine and the two were friends. But Holroyd's no man at all.”

“How long have you been here, Mr. Hickmansworth?”

“Best part of thirty years. Father and mother bought this place for me on my twenty-first birthday and moved here themselves from Haysdown where I'd been brought up. About ten years later Holroyd and Cyril bought Monk's Farm. After the two old ladies died, which they did within a year of each other, I told the Neasts to keep away from here and I've never spoken to them since.”

“Not even in the last week?”

Hickmansworth seemed amused.

“Clever, aren't you?” he said. “Know everything. I suppose someone saw my old car outside their house. It was my son, as a matter of fact. I wouldn't go near them. But I told him to see if they knew anything about the will.”

“And did they?”

“They said not. They had made no enquiries though. They ‘didn't like to.'”

“You had some expectations then?”

“Not really. My mother always said there would be nothing. But I couldn't help wondering. After all, I am the man's illegitimate nephew, and he had no one else to leave it to except the Neasts. I didn't fancy their chances. Now come to lunch.”

Carolus met Hickmansworth's wife, a dumpy cheerful woman of fifty, and their two sons Edgar and Paul. Edgar was rather good-looking, though his eyes were set too close together, and Paul had a vacant, almost half-witted look. They were both hefty fellows who had been working on the farm all the morning. The son-in-law John Cherry was not at home. He was an estate agent in Cashford and remained there at lunchtime. But his wife, the young woman who had opened the door to Carolus, was present and looked more attractive, Carolus thought.

It was a good meal. There was no sign of any servant in the house, but one of the two women was an excellent cook.

They chattered quite lightly and without embarrassment about events in Hallows End, and Edgar told him again about the mysterious night use of the farm car.

“Was the radiator still warm?” asked Carolus.

“I don't know. I'd had it running a while before I noticed the petrol had gone down.”

Hickmansworth himself told them about the exhumation.

“How ghoulish!” said Mrs. Cherry, and nobody else made any comment.

But later, while they were all having coffee, Hickmansworth turned to Carolus.

“Do you think you or the police will ever get at the truth of the whole affair?”

“Oh, yes,” said Carolus calmly. “More than one person is involved, and in such a case someone nearly always sees that it pays him or her to give Queen's Evidence.”

“Yes, I see that,” said Hickmansworth.

Carolus asked whether he might see the station wagon in question and Edgar agreed to take him across to the farm. Carolus saw that it was kept in an open-sided barn and that a good track led from the farm to the road. He also noticed the index number.

“Too easy, wasn't it?” said Edgar.

C
AROLUS DECIDED NOT TO
go to the churchyard during the exhumation, but to wait at the Falstaff where Snow had promised to call on his way back to London. It was not until past five that Snow appeared, and when he did so he shook his head.

“Nothing,” he said. “Rudd's coffin lid had never been unscrewed. The old boy was lying there quite undisturbed. Mrs. Rudd was delighted to see his watch on him as she had put it. He's being re-interred now with the parson present.”

“How did Whiskins behave over it all?”

“Very excited at first. Said whatever the law, we had no
right
to dig up a dead man. I thought he would get violent at one point. But he calmed down when he saw we meant business. This doesn't get us much farther, does it, Mr. Deene?”

“I don't know. We've eliminated one possibility.”

“At a good deal of public expense. You don't have to think of that, Mr. Deene, but I do. It will not do my reputation any good that I asked for an exhumation order that turned out to be for nothing.”

Carolus felt that Snow was delicately suggesting the contempt, shared by most CID men, for amateurs, and perhaps wishing he had never come to Carolus at all. As though to reassure him, he gave Snow a piece of information he had gathered.

“Quite by chance,” he began diffidently, “I've lighted on a piece of information which may be useful to you.”

He then told him Hickmansworth's story about his farm car being used in the night, taking care to show an open mind as to whether or not Hickmansworth and his son were speaking the truth.

“So I suppose you want me to arrest young Hickmansworth and charge him with attempted grave robbery?”

“No, but I wondered if you'd think it worthwhile to run over the car for fingerprints,” replied Carolus.
“I
know how evanescent they are, but on cars you sometimes get a greasy one that's there for months.”

Snow, still a little huffy, spoke as though he would be doing Carolus a personal favour by examining the Hickmansworths' farm car.

“I suppose we
could.
But we seem to be catching at straws, Mr. Deene. Give me a nice straightforward case with a bit of laboratory research and only one suspect…”

“And only one murder,” put in Carolus seriously.

Snow blinked, but said nothing, then stood up to go.

“All right,” he conceded.
“I
'll have the car examined. But I don't see it will tell us much, even if we do find some unexpected prints. What I want to find is Humby.”

With this last keep-your-nose-to-the-grindstone suggestion, Snow pulled on his overcoat and prepared to leave. He relented somewhat, however, before leaving Carolus.