Jack on the Gallows Tree (6 page)

“That,” said Gabriel Westmacott, “is a matter of opinion. I venture to doubt, however, whether any of the great men whose names I revere, the associates of my grandfather, would have been able to bear the sight of his mangled atrocities.”

“Quite,” said Carolus adequately. “I shall probably want to ask you some more later, Mr Westmacott, when I have gone farther into this thing.”

“I shall be prepared to answer,” said Gabriel solemnly, “but I should like to know now whether you have formed any suspicion.”

“None, except that I do not believe the two murders were
the work of a maniac with a lust for killing. I believe that there was calculated motive behind them.”

“Indeed!” said Gabriel Westmacott and soon after took his leave.

O
N
the following Tuesday Rupert Priggley walked into Carolus's room before he was up.

“I thought I told you to spend your Easter holidays with the Hollingbournes?” said Carolus snappily.

“I thought that was your rather immature idea of humour, sir,” said Carolus's least favourite pupil. “They're going to Cornwall. I couldn't have stood saffron cake and art colonies, even if the Hollingbournes themselves were not unthinkable. There are four children, you know, three male and a girl of seven. But let's come to realities. You've taken on the case, of course?”

“I suppose so. In a rather half-hearted way. I haven't started investigating.”

“Good. Then the Bentley will be useful.”

Carolus sat up in bed.

“You haven't had the impertinence to drive my car without permission?”

“Calm now, sir. Calm before all. It's outside, in perfect condition. I missed both an insane lorry-driver and a woman in a Wolseley.”

“You insolent young blackguard …”

“No, no, sir. It's my biological equipment that's at fault. My responses are out of harmony with the social forces. Nothing organic, no endocrine disorder or anything like
that. It's due to an over-aggressive and defiant behaviour pattern during the growth process. I'm an over-compensated psychopath …”

“You're a rat. Give me the car keys. I suppose you'll have to lunch with me before I send you back. Go down and wait in the lounge.”

Rupert grinned.

“I thought you'd succumb,” he said. “Who do we interview first?”

Carolus went alone that afternoon to Dehra Dun, the home of Colonel and Mrs Baxeter. The name had led Carolus to imagine a house full of Benares ware and trophies with tiger skins on the floor and the triumphs of taxidermy grinning down from every wall. Not a bit of it. Dehra Dun had been named by a previous occupant and the house was notable for its windows of some health-giving glass, its violet ray lamps, its open baskets of fruit and vegetables arranged as ornaments. It had the carpetless appearance of an expensive hospital.

Colonel Baxeter was a little brown wrinkled man with strong white hair, bright blue eyes and an excessively washed and hygienic appearance. His wife was a Brunnhilde.

“We're nudists,” said the Colonel alarmingly, as though to explain the open windows and his own open shirt on this chilly day.

“And vegetarians,” added his wife.

“Really? And did Miss Carew share your views?”

“Not altogether. She had our detestation of stuffy, unhealthy rooms,” said the Colonel, ignoring Carolus's shiver. “But she was not a member of the Vegetarian Society.”

“Nor of the Naturist League,” put in Mrs Baxeter whose habit it was to add a footnote to her husband's remarks.

“She took a certain amount of alcohol,” went on the Colonel. “To our own cocktail, a delicious mixture of natural fruit juices, she added a modicum of gin. She had
not our abhorrence for meat on the ground that it is full of excretory substances and is tissue-destroying in man.”

“Also that flesh-eating involves an immense volume of pain for sentient animals.”

“Quite,” said the Colonel. “We did not, of course, impose our views on our guest and her own diet was prepared for her. She also smoked, though my wife and I would not think of damaging our lungs with tobacco smoke.”

“Or sacrificing our good health to the vice of nicotine.”

“No? But she was a very healthy woman, I believe?”

“She was no more unhealthy than others who have these habits. You are investigating her death, I think?”

“I'm trying to find out who killed her. I should like to ask you a few questions, if I may.”

“By all means,” said the Colonel. “We are anxious to render every assistance. In many respects we had a strong regard and affection for Sophia.”

“You have no idea where she intended to go when she left you that evening?”

“None. It was not her habit to apprise us of her movements. She frequently went to the cinema, for instance, but knowing that the very thought of its smoky and unhealthy atmosphere was painful to us, she rarely mentioned it. That evening she said at dinner that she was going out. That was all.”

“There was the phone call,” remembered his wife.

“Ah yes. While we were having our evening fruit cocktail the phone rang and I answered it. The call came from a phone box. I distinctly heard the pennies drop. A high-pitched voice asked for Miss Carew.”

“Do you mean a woman's voice?”

“Not necessarily. It was an artificial and squeaky voice which might have been assumed by a man disguising his own. Sophia went to the phone, which is in the hall, and we did not hear her conversation. But we did hear her a few minutes later shouting into the phone as though she was
trying to make a deaf person hear. ‘Can't you
hear
me?' she said several times, then, as though exasperated, put the receiver down. It was shortly after this that she said she was going out.”

“Did she seem at all worried?”

“No. Elated if anything. She mentioned that she would take Skylark with her. This referred to her dog, a Kerry Blue. She was extremely fond of animals of all kinds, a taste which we could not share. Sophia was a member of the Royal Zoological Society and frequently spent days at the Zoo. This was unaccountable to us, who cannot bear to see any animal in captivity.”

“Even a dog?” asked Carolus.

“There you touch another matter. My wife and I object to domestic animals not on ethical grounds but because we find it unhygienic to share living quarters with germ-carriers and carnivores.”

“But you allowed Miss Carew to keep Skylark?”

“There is a yard in which the dog could enjoy a certain liberty and at the same time be isolated from our living-rooms. But Sophia had him to sleep in her room, took him for walks, even fondled him. He invariably occupied the seat beside her in her motor-car, so that when my wife and I drove with her we sat at the back. Even had we wished to sit otherwise I do not think the dog could have been induced to yield his seat, a state of things which I find open to criticism.”

“But Skylark was a well-behaved dog,” said Mrs Baxeter.

“Where is he now?” asked Carolus.

“In this back yard behind the house. He was found in Sophia's car in the car-park of the cinema on the morning after the murder.”

“Miss Carew had many friends?”

“In Buddington very few. She was a member of a London club and had a wide acquaintance in town. But not here.”

“Who, for instance?”

“Her cousin, Miss Tissot, for whom you are acting. We have not met her, though it is our hope and intention very shortly to meet her. We are co-beneficiaries under Sophia's will and I feel that we should become acquainted. Then there was Sophia's nephew, Charles. We do not care for him, but out of our regard for Sophia we have entertained him here on several occasions.”

“What's wrong with him?”

“Nothing, I daresay, if you view life as he does. We found him altogether lacking in idealism.”

“Materialistic,” added Mrs Baxeter.

“Of recent years he has deteriorated badly. He was a healthier man when his wife was with him. They were enthusiastic cyclists.”

“Really? That seems very out of character.”

“It is with the Charles Carew of today. He has become a gross eater. If not a sot, at least a heavy consumer of alcohol. But we have rather high standards for our friends. I do not condemn the man. I say merely that he was not quite the type we should normally have encouraged.”

“Anyone else?”

“Sophia was acquainted with a man named Ben Johnson, a painter I believe.”

This was said in a peculiarly stony manner. It was evident that the Baxeters disapproved far more strongly of the painter than of Charlie Carew.

“He is a very good painter,” said Carolus.

“I should prefer not to discuss him. On the only occasion on which we met his language in front of my wife, indeed his whole presence, was most offensive.”

“Intolerable,” said Mrs Baxeter.

“Had Miss Carew any visitors lately?”

“Yes. About a week ago Gabriel Westmacott called.”

Carolus showed his surprise.

“I understood that Miss Carew and the Westmacotts were unacquainted.”

“They were. She had never met Gabriel Westmacott. He called one afternoon and we were present when she received him. In this room, as a matter of fact. It seemed he had come to ask her a favour.”

“How very odd. What was it?”

“It appeared that his mother, who does not leave her house very much, is apt to consider her drawing-room as something of a salon. She had through her husband some affiliation with the Pre-Raphaelites and William Morris. For years now, we gathered, she has sought to include this Mr Johnson in her circle. I find it inexplicable, of course, but Mrs Westmacott was a rich woman and accustomed to fulfilling her whims. She was aware that Sophia was friendly with Johnson and all else having failed she had sent her son to make a personal representation to Sophia to assist her. I think Sophia was amused. She shared our distaste for that kind of snobbery and tuft-hunting.”

“What you tell me is most interesting, Colonel Baxeter. It constitutes almost the only known link between the two cases. Any other visitors?”

“There was a person buying old gold,” said Colonel Baxeter. “We recommended him to her notice. His assistant called here one morning, a pleasant young woman who gave her name as Moira Long, and when my wife said she might find some pieces of old jewellery she no longer wanted she made an appointment for her principal to call that afternoon. He was a most presentable and reasonable person, who purchased what gold we had at the fixed rate. We were perfectly satisfied and recommended him to Sophia. She too sold him certain articles, but a heavy gold chain which she had always supposed to be gold turned out to be silver gilt.”

“How did you know that?”

“Mr Ebony, the buyer, scraped the surface with a small file and showed her the silver under the plating.”

“The whitewash,” said Carolus.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Nothing. Just an old gold-buyer's trick. When he had filed the surface he rubbed his thumb over it to clear the filings away. But his thumb had just touched the silver nitrate paste under the lapel of his jacket and made the rough surface appear silver.”

“If that's the case he succeeded in defrauding Sophia.”

“I'm sorry.”

“You seem to have an intimate knowledge of the subject,” said the Colonel severely.

Carolus smiled.

“It happens that I have just looked it up. I was, in fact, caught unawares when it was mentioned to me. A kind of fraud of which I had no knowledge at all. Now, was there anyone else?”

“I don't think so. I can't remember anyone.”

“The chauffeur,” said Mrs Baxeter.

“Oh yes. Miss Tissot's chauffeur Wright came a week or two back when Sophia's car was out of order. Her cousin had sent him to drive Sophia somewhere. I forget where. He wasn't very pleased when she insisted on taking Skylark in the car, I remember.”

Carolus's interrogation and the Colonel's willing answers were interrupted by Mrs Baxeter, who invited them to have some tea.

“Thank you,” said Carolus and ventured to add, “I suppose we couldn't have the windows closed for a little while, could we? I'm recovering from jaundice and not quite as Spartan as you in the matter of fresh air.”

With a suggestion of reluctance the Colonel closed the windows and after the icy air of the last hour the room seemed comparatively warm. Mrs Baxeter produced tea and to Carolus's relief it appeared to be the normal brew.

“We sometimes drink
mati,
a splendid beverage from South America,” said the Colonel, “and sometimes an excellent preparation called Vita-Tea. But we have no
objection to tea; we are less severe than many vegetarians and indulge in both milk and butter, though animal products. Have a piece of this fruitarian date cake? No? A nut finger? Oatcake? Wholemeal bread and groundnut butter? You remind me of poor Sophia. She never ate at teatime. It is one of our favourite meals. You should have a sandwich—Mock Salmon paste. That's homemade jam, carrot and marigold. Can't tempt you?”

“A biscuit, Mr Deene? Those are charcoal and hazelnut. Or another cup of tea?”

“Thank you,” said Carolus. “There's one thing I want to clear up. It is said that Miss Carew was totally unacquainted with the Westmacott family and that there was no connecting link at all. Except for that call by Gabriel Westmacott, was that the case?”

“Not quite. For some years it has been our habit to drive from time to time to Dante Westmacott's farm near Lilbourne, where we purchase fresh produce, uncontaminated by handling in the market. Mr Westmacott has come here on occasion and once met Sophia at lunch.”

“I see. There was no particular friendship between them?”

“Oh, none. I am certain that was the only time they met.”

“You never knew Mrs Westmacott senior?”