Furious Old Women (15 page)

“And did you see them?”

“No. None of them. But there was a rather extraordinary thing. I reached the house about half-past four. That was the time they liked one to call. As soon as I got in the drive I saw lights on so I thought it was all right. One of them was in, anyway. I hoped it was Millicent. She liked a proposition, bless her. But when I rang the bell, nothing. Not a sound. Not a reply. I rang several times and waited. Nothing at all. Extraordinary thing because they never burnt light when they were out. Very careful about things like that.”

“Didn't you try to get in?”

“I walked round, yes. All locked. Back door. Everything. Even the garage. I went away and had a cup of tea
in the village. Henson's the bakers do teas there. Then I came back. Must have been a quarter-past five by now.”

“It was a dark night, I believe?”

“Pitch black.
And there wasn't a light in the house.
What do you think of that? At four-thirty it's lit up like a Christmas tree. At five-fifteen not a glimmer. Makes you think, doesn't it?”

“It does. How long did you stay there?”

“I thought I might as well ring, in case. I went towards the door and I don't know what made me do it, but before I rang I stood still for a moment. I heard a noise which I recognized at once. Someone was opening the garage doors. I don't know if you've looked round the back of the house but the back door and garages open on to a separate lane.”

“Yes. I've seen that.”

“There is a way through from the garage into the house. So someone opening the garage doors could have come from inside the house.”

“Yes.”

“I waited. Listening.”

“Where was your car?”

“In the road outside. I couldn't be bothered to get out and open the gates.”

“I see. So whoever was in the house or garage might not have known you were there?”

“Almost certainly not. But I know the sound of those garage doors. Have known them for years. I heard them open, then a pause of about three minutes, then they were closed again. I still waited and presently, well down the road, I heard a motor-bike start up.”

“Is that all?”

“That's all. I started off for home puzzled but not really worried. Gladhurst has always seemed such a quiet little place. Only next day when I heard the news, I remembered all this. Anything else you want to know?”

“Up to you. If you've anything to tell me….”

“No. That's the lot. I've got to run round to the Swan. See a man. Little proposition.”

Five minutes after the live wire Dundas Griggs had left the bar, Carolus was amused to see Detective Inspector Champer walk in and ask the barmaid for Griggs.

“He's just this minute gone out. D'you know where he was going, Mr Durrell?”

She had interrupted a longer and duller story than before and received a shorter ‘No'. Mr Huxley was no wiser and Mr Hemingway hazarded the Queen Charlotte but Mr Balchin the builder who had talked to him there said he had left half an hour ago to come here, while Mr Powys thought he had gone home.

“That gentleman might be able to tell you,” said the barmaid, pointing to Carolus. “He was talking to him.”

Detective Inspector Champer unwillingly recognized Carolus and came across.

“Start at Maitland Villa?” asked Carolus.

Champer nodded.

“The Oak Café?”

“Yes.”

“Priestley's, the estate agents? Maugham's? Cronin's?”

“There were more than that. Where is the ——— now?”

“I shouldn't like to make rash guesses, Inspector. But he told me ten minutes ago that he was going round to the Swan to see a man about a proposition.”

Without a word the thick-set policeman pushed his way out of the door.

“So you found Mr Griggs?” said the barmaid keenly to Carolus.

“Yes. He turned up at last.”

“You staying here?” she asked, leaning intimately near.

“No. In fact, I'm due home now. Good-night.”

But when Carolus had reached his house it was in darkness. The Sticks had gone to bed. There was reproach in every one of his sandwiches.

T
HE
Reverend Bonar Waddell looked thoughtful. His finger-tips touched and he stared down at his desk.

“You really feel it necessary to discuss the matter with my curate?” he said at last.

“Not in the least. I want to ask him a few questions.”

“Quite. Yes. Naturally. Just so. Of course. To be sure. I understand. I hesitate only because knowing his disposition….”

“What is his disposition?”

“Excellent with boys,” said the vicar inevitably. “But diffident, shy, easily upset in adult matters. Between ourselves he is a cause of some anxiety to me. I recognize his value in his own field but I cannot leave much general work to him.”

“Sounds like arrested development.”

“Arrested? Oh no. I trust nothing of that sort. But he is temperamental. Easily put out. Alarmed by details. I remember one occasion on which our local constabulary in the person of Slatt asked him some questions. Mere trivialities, referring to a dog licence or something. I found him in a highly distressed condition. I had to mediate between him and Slatt as best I could. I seek to impress on you his somewhat excitable character.”

“I don't think you need worry. I only want to see him for a moment.”

“Then go ahead, my dear chap! Go ahead! Let us put this canker from our midst. If my curate can assist you
I feel sure he will be only too glad. I ask you but to approach him with tact.”

“Where will I find him?”

“Now? Ah hum. It is his Boys' Club hour. At our village hall. The Griggs Institute is its official designation, presented as it was by the father of the Misses Griggs. There he will be organizing one scarcely knows what.”

“Really?”

“The summer camp. Amateur theatricals. Basketball. He is full of ideas. I find myself bound to check his exuberance at times, standing as I do between the parents and him. Last summer he organized an excursion to the coast and the boys' impersonation of Ancient Britons was altogether too realistic. Parents complained of clothes ruined by woad and I received a very unpleasant letter from the Municipal Council. Woad, it was made clear, is no longer sufficient protection for public decency. Several visitors had been outraged by the scene presented. Slipper at once undertook to see that Ancient Britons in future should wear at least bathing slips if not football shorts. I need scarcely say that he had taken no active part in the scene, his rôle being that of a fully clad Boadicea, watching from a chariot.”

“That was something,” said Carolus encouragingly.

“Unhappily he is not always content with a watching brief. There was an unfortunate incident at their summer camp two years ago. Oh, most unfortunate. I nearly lost one of my best bell-ringers over it. I found myself torn between my loyalty to my curate and my duty as vicar of this parish. It was all very upsetting at the time. However, Slipper's inexhaustible enthusiasm carried the day. With discretion and a little tolerance and the general goodwill which I have always tried to promote the little incident soon became past history. Yes, you go and see my good curate. You will find him busy, I'm sure, but never so deeply involved that he cannot pause to answer questions.”

The Reverend Peter Slipper did indeed appear shy as
he disentangled himself from his responsibilities. He was a pale serious young man with a nervous hesitation in his speech. He led Carolus to a small office behind the stage and it seemed as they entered that a sultry hush fell over the mob of youngsters in the main hall. As Carolus entered there had been pandemonium. Now there was no more than a hum of talk.

“It's a Club Night tonight,” explained Mr Slipper. “Wednesdays and Saturdays, Club. Mondays and Thursdays, Scouts.”

“What is the difference?” asked Carolus curiously.

“
Every
difference. The Boy Scout Movement and the Boys' Club Movement are entirely different things.”

“I see. What happens on Tuesdays and Fridays?”

Mr Slipper's face fell.

“Waygooze has those,” he said. “He's the choirmaster.”

“The boys of Gladhurst seem to have a busy week.”

“Even then we haven't enough time, really. They have to pass their tests for badges and there are rehearsals to get in and a thousand activities.”

Carolus began to understand the universally-held opinion of Mr Slipper.

“I want, if I may, to ask you a couple of questions,” said Carolus.

Mr Slipper started slightly.

“It's about the afternoon on which Miss Griggs was missed.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Can you remember what you did that day?”

“I was busy all the morning. The D.C. had come over to see me. The District Commissioner, I mean.” Seeing Carolus still a little puzzled, as though he thought he was in pre-war Burma, Mr Slipper added, “Scouts, you know. Each county has a County Commissioner and under him are a number of District Commissioners. Ours drove over that day to discuss our Jamboree. He could not stay to lunch, perhaps fortunately, as my digs are scarcely …”

“And after lunch?”

“I spent the afternoon preparing for the cookery tests which were to be held that evening. The boys themselves were out borrowing frying-pans and primus stoves but I made the necessary purchases at Jevons's Stores. Young Jevons is one of our Rovers, a ripping chap.”

Carolus confessed to himself that his next question was one of sheer human inquisitiveness.

“What purchases?” he asked.

“They pass out on a pancake,” explained Mr Slipper rather obscurely. “No eggs, of course. Flour, milk, frying-fat. They have to eat them afterwards. That's the test. Those without indigestion get badges.”

“Very appropriate. So you purchased the ingredients?”

.” Yes.”

“What time do you think you reached Jevons's Stores?”

“I imagine in the region of 3.45.”

“Whom did you meet?”

“Now let me see. Oh yes. Our Churchwarden. Commander Fyfe.”

“Was he alone?”

“Well, as it happens he had stopped for a moment to address a few words to … a parishioner.”

“You mean Flo?” asked Carolus rather brutally.

Mr Slipper nodded.

“It wasn't more than a minute. Just passing the time of day …” he explained eagerly.

“Of course. Anyway, I like Flo. Don't you?”

“Oh, I scarcely … indeed I have never … I do not criticize … It's a matter for the vicar.”

“Who else appeared in the village street?”

“Naomi Chester. I saw her pass while I was in the Stores. She seemed in a great hurry.”

“You don't remember anyone else?”

“No. I daresay there were others. I was, of course, preoccupied. These cookery tests! Last year the boys got rather excited and upset some hot fat. Lawrence Tilley's hand was rather badly burnt. In fact he couldn't use it for some days. I had a great deal on my mind.”

“You have a motor-cycle, Mr Slipper?”

“A Lambretta, yes.”

“But you did not use it that afternoon?”

“No. I was on foot. My digs, the stores and this hall are all within a few hundred yards of one another.”

“Did you see Rumble or Mugger?”

“I don't remember seeing either. When I had made my purchases I went back to my digs to tea then came round here at five o'clock for the tests. We had seven passes.”

“I congratulate you. And I'm most grateful for your patience in answering my questions. I won't interrupt your Club Night any further.”

As he left the hall the din that rose behind him was like that of a wild beasts' cage at feeding time.

Carolus intended leaving at once for Newminster but as he passed the Black Horse he saw Mugger emerging and stopped his car. Mugger, tall and angular in the light thrown by the bulb over the inn sign, did not look furtive. When he spoke it was in his usual serious tones.

“Evening, Mugger,” said Carolus.

“I can't stop now,” said Mugger. “I've got one waiting for me out by the cricket field.”

“I shan't delay you long,” promised Carolus.

“Better not, because I don't want to miss this one. Just right she is, if you know what I mean.”

“Yes, yes. I wanted to ask you about a sheet.”

Nothing was changed in Mugger's posture or expression.

“What sort of sheet?” he asked.

“Come now, Mugger. Don't let's waste time and words. You don't suppose I meant a sheet of paper or part of the rigging of a ship. You know exactly which sheet.”

“I don't know what you're talking about. And what's more I shall have to hurry. They won't wait all night.”

“Then let's be explicit. I haven't made myself difficult about the sum of money….”

“There was no money,” sighed Mugger, but almost mechanically.

“So why not trust my discretion over this?”

“What d'you want to know?”

“Where you found it.”

“Up in the loft of the furnace room, of course. With the other things.”

“
With
them?”

“Well, just beside. It was crumpled up and stuffed into a box.”

“Blood-stained?”

“Yes.”

“What on earth induced you to move it, Mugger?”

“Well, a sheet's a sheet, nowadays.”

“I find you very hard to understand. You leave the jewellery and take a sheet.”

“The sheet could be washed, couldn't it? There'd be nothing to say where it come from. But jools, that's different. The police can trace them. Before I knew where I was I'd be up for murdering the old lady which I never done.”

“I see. Where's the sheet now?”

“Never mind that. It's been washed. You'd never know it from any other, now. And if you were to go and say anything I should know nothing about it. Never seen a sheet. Never heard of one. Never spoke to you about it. And no one would know any different.”