Jack on the Gallows Tree (8 page)

“The body of Miss Carew was not by the roadside, was it?”

“No,” conceded Thickett, “because it had been dragged into the quarry. Otherwise it would have been.”

“Think so?”

“Stands to reason. Where were the shoes they found? Where was the hat?”

“What hat?”

Thickett eyed him triumphantly.

“Oh you don't know about the hat?”

“No.”

“There was a woman's hat on the ground.”

“Where?”

“Between the road and the quarry.”

“Whose was it?”

“Miss Carew's. What do you think of that?”

“Not much. Rather natural isn't it, if she was dragged across? Her hat fell off in the process.”

“You don't think much of that? All I can say is, the police investigating thought a lot of it. A lot of it, they thought, when I told them.”

It seemed that Mr Thickett was not impressed by Carolus as an investigator.

“Then what about the lilies?” asked Mr Thickett.

“What about them?”

“They were in her hands.”

“I know.”

“Perhaps you don't think much of
them?”

“How many were there?”

Mr Thickett stared at Carolus, blinked twice, and said—“What do you mean?”

“How many stems were there?”

“One.”

“How many flowers on it?”

“That's funny,” said Mr Thickett seriously. “You don't think much of the hat but you want to know how many flowers there were. As if it made any difference.”

“It makes every difference.”

Mr Thickett considered.

“If it makes every difference I have no objection to telling you. In my station in life I'm considered to be a very
observant man. The police said to me themselves, ‘If you hadn't noticed what you did, Mr Thickett, I don't know where we should be'. Miss Carew might have been lying out there to this day. I might not have had to spend a day at the inquest.”

“Do you remember how many there were?”

“Three,” said Mr Thickett. “If it's of any interest to you. There was three. No more and no less. I can answer for it. But where does that come in?”

As though rather baffled by that question Carolus hurriedly asked another.

“How did she look? The dead woman, I mean?”

“Horrible,” said Mr Thickett.

“Do you mean the expression on her face?”

“That's just what I do mean. It was horrible. In my simple way of life I have become accustomed to seeing things that would upset most people. I was first on the scene when there was that car smash last year and three died outright and the other later in hospital. Scarcely recognizable they were. But it didn't turn me up like this did.”

“What kind of expression?”

“What
kind
of expression? What kind of expression would you expect anyone to have when they'd just been strangled? It was horrible. I can't say more than that. Horrible. As if the eyes were popping out of her head and her mouth wide open.”

“You were very upset?”

“I'm not easily put out, but yes I
was
upset that morning.”

“Yet you did not go to the cottage a few yards away?”

“Goggses? No.”

“Why not?” asked Carolus mischievously.

“In my calling,” said Thickett, “I have to get used to abuse and slander. There's always someone ready to say you're not doing your job properly. But when it comes to
taking anyone's character away, well. That's all I can say.”

“So you went to the call-box?”

“I did. And in a few minutes the police were on the spot. I will say that. They did not waste any time. Almost the first words they said to me were—'It's a good thing you found it, Thickett.' And it was a good thing, when you come to look at it. Otherwise them that did it would never be found.”

“Why do you say ‘them'? Do you think there was more than one?”

“I shouldn't be surprised. If you'd seen the expression on her face.”

“But if there had been more than one wouldn't they have carried the body instead of dragging it?”

“Unless one of them was to have stayed in the car.”

“In that case the dog would have been quietened, surely?”

“Oh, I don't know anything about that,” said Thickett severely. “I believe there was some story told about a dog barking, but was it a reliable Source where that came from? That's the question.”

Carolus invited Thickett to drink and the roadmender agreed to a pint as though he were making a concession. The landlord, who had never moved from behind his bar, took no part in the conversation to which he listened avidly.

“Then,” said Mr. Thickett, “there's the question of Compensation.” Carolus showed that he did not understand. “For me. For finding it.”

“I don't quite see …”

“Nerves,” explained Mr Thickett with an altogether new enthusiasm. “Nerves. All shattered to pieces. In-som … can't sleep at night. Nightmares.”

“I understood you to say that in your calling …”

“Not corpses, we don't reckon on. Not with expressions like that to haunt you for the rest of your life.”

“What about the National Health? Doesn't that provide for the after-effects of corpse-finding?”

“I shall have to see about it, I suppose. Unless the relatives act as they should. It's upset my wife, too. She says she can't hardly bear me coming home in the evening for fear I've found another one.”

“That's surely not very likely?”

“You never know. In my calling …”

“An occupational hazard, you think? At all events I'm much obliged to you, Mr Thickett.” Carolus passed him a pound note which disappeared as though a conjuror had held it. “You've been most helpful.”

“Did She tell you where to find me?”

Carolus, who was accustomed to meet pronouns unrelated and incorporate, appearing from nowhere, as it were, was somewhat at a loss this time.

“Her near the quarry,” explained Thickett, unable to pronounce the name.

“As a matter of fact she did,” said Carolus.

“I thought so. It only shows.”

“She also said you were clever, Mr Thickett.”

“That's no compliment coming from her. I make no claims to cleverness or anything else. It wouldn't do in my walk of life.”

“Did you know the other murdered woman?”

“I attend St Augustine's church,” said Mr Thickett, “so I could scarcely help knowing her by sight, could I? Poor lady, I'm told she looked as horrible as the one I found. What kind of a madman would do a thing like that, I should like to know?”

“Not mad,” said Carolus, “clever.”

He left Thickett staring up over his tankard.

“I
T'S
all very interesting,” said Rupert Priggley over lunch “and I've no doubt you're beginning to ‘see light' or ‘form the first vague idea', or whatnot. But you must admit you're being rather leisurely about it.”

“I'm on holiday. Recovering from an illness.”

“Oh phoo-ee. If you thought there was any urgency you'd be leaping about in disguise or tearing round cross-examining people like a lunatic. I suppose you've got your reason for playing it slow. Or is it the effect of this town?”

Carolus took a glance round the dining-room. It was the briskest scene of the day at the Royal Hydro.

“After all, it's quite a lurid little affair,” went on Rupert. “Two elderly ladies, whose only offence appears to be that they had a lot of money, strangled in the same night and in the same district. You can't call it dull, can you? Yet here you are, asking a few questions, interviewing a few people who even you could scarcely call suspects …”

“I don't see why not.”

“Mrs Goggs? Thickett in his humble calling? The Baxeters? Come now, sir.”

“Who would you say was a suspect?”

“Well, anyone in the town, I suppose.”

“Why limit it to the town? There's the man who bought gold from each of the two women. He lives in London. No, Rupert. You've missed the whole point.”

“Go on. I'll buy it. I'll be Doctor Watson. What's the whole point?”

“This case is unique in my experience. In every other murder case I've ever touched the motive has been clear and I've had to look for suspects. In this I've got my suspects and cannot for the life of me understand the motive.”

“Money, surely.”

“How? No one benefits from the death of both women.”

“I see what you mean. What do we do, then? Bash on regardless?”

“Exactly. Routine enquiries. You'll find it will take shape.”

“Who is next?”

“A bootmaker called Humpling.”

The shop was a small one-room affair and its proprietor, a thin and nervous-looking man whose face wore a perpetually crestfallen expression, was at work in it. Carolus explained his business.

“Oh dear,” said the bootmaker in a somewhat whining voice. “I've told the police all I know. It seems very hard that I should have to go over it again.”

“You don't
have
to,” said Carolus. “You can refuse to tell me anything at all.”

“It's the Time it takes,” moaned Mr Humpling.

“You could go on working surely?”

“Let's get it over with. What do you want to know?”

“About that pair of shoes that were found near Miss Carew's body.”

“I'd repaired them. Never mind how I know. There's a way I have of putting two tacks in together so that I can always tell a pair of shoes I've repaired. I knew I'd done these.”

“Recently?”

“They'd scarcely been worn from the time I had done them.”

“But you've no means of knowing when that was?”

“No, I haven't. Might have been any time. I've had this shop for nearly twenty years.” He broke off to answer a woman at the counter. “No, they're not ready,” he said. “I'll try and finish them by tomorrow.” The woman expressed her annoyance and went. “See? They're on at you the whole time. Don't seem to understand there's others to be done.”

“Must be very tiring,” said Carolus soothingly.

“It's not the work, it's the people. I'd work all right if they'd only leave me in peace. I've only got one pair of hands. I told one the other day, I'm not an Indian goddess, I said. What more do you want to know so that I can get on?”

“A pair of shoes was missing from here, wasn't it?”

“One. In all the time I've been here.”

“When did that happen?”

“About six months ago. Some time before Christmas. They belonged to a man called Purley, who has left the district. The fuss he made you'd have thought they was solid gold. You see I used to keep the shoes that were ready on a rack by the counter. I've altered it since this happened. Anyone could have reached across when I wasn't looking, and that's what must have happened.”

“You don't think it was the pair the police found?”

“It could have been, I suppose. I'm not to know, really. They were size eight, anyway.”

“You've no suspicion as to who could have taken them?”

“I told the police I hadn't. But since then I've come to remember. There was that artist chap who called about that time.”

“Who was that?”

“I don't know his name. He brought a pair of shoes to be repaired.”

“How do you know he was an artist?”

“You could tell. He wore a big black hat and a cape.”

“A beard, of course?”

“No. I don't think he had a beard. But dark glasses; I remember those.”

“What makes you think he had anything to do with the shoes?”

“I didn't like the look of him and it was about the same time. There was something funny about him. Besides, I'd
never seen him before and haven't since. All the others who came at that time were regulars.”

“Five good reasons, but not quite enough to convict your artist.”

“No. I don't want to convict anyone, but I'm sure it was him took those shoes.”

“Do you know a painter called Johnson? Mr Ben Johnson?”

“Him? It wasn't him. I knew him when he used to bring me shoes that hadn't much left of them to repair. That was in the old days, before he was famous. It's different now. But he never dresses himself up in big hats and that.”

“You're convinced your man was a stranger?”

“Yes.”

“I won't keep you from your work then, Mr Humpling. And I won't trouble you again.”

“That's all right. Only it's the Time. Someone will be on at me for not having their shoes ready.”

From the shop Carolus turned towards the centre of the little town. Buddington did not cover a large area and to Rupert's disgust Carolus had left his car at the hotel.

“Where now?” sighed Rupert. “This foot-slogging is killing me.”

“I want to see the lady who lost her lilies.”

“A pretty piece of alliteration, but what do you really think you'll gain by it? However, let's do another mile or two's tramp.”

“It's not far. Nothing is in Buddington. Primrose Cottage, 77 Station Road, is the address.”

“And the name?”

“Gosport. Mrs Gosport.”

They found her at home. Station Road was a long street of identical red brick houses with small gardens in front of them. The street led from the station to Market Street, itself a turning off the Promenade, the principal street of the
town. Primrose Cottage was at the Market Street end, so that it was not far from the Granodeon Cinema, and the Dragon Hotel. For that matter it was not far from Dehra Dun and Rossetti Lodge, or from any other point in Buddington.

Mrs Gosport was a neat and beady-eyed little woman who received them with a smile, the first they had been given by anyone they had interrogated.