The Pleasure Cruise Mystery (31 page)

Among his son's many friends, for Frank Cornell had a genius for collecting friends of the most diverse temperaments, was a beautiful, sophisticated, at times rather wistful, young woman, Josephine Rivron, who became a regular guest at all John Cornell's week-end houseboat parties during the summer following his wife's death. It was at first thought by everyone that she was to be Frank Cornell's wife and some averred that he actually proposed to her but was refused. The news that she was engaged to the father therefore came as something startling and eruptive to all the family's relatives, friends and acquaintances. The engagement was the source of considerable malicious gossip and to the cynical it seemed clear that the young lady was in an unseemly hurry to lay hands on the loaded Cornell coffers. To marry the son was, so to speak, merely marrying a reversion. Josephine Rivron was naturally told by a candid friend all that was being said about her, but it failed to disturb her remarkable equanimity and exactly a year after their first meeting she became John Cornell's wife. Shortly afterwards John Cornell retired from business, bought Marston Manor and began to live the life of a country gentleman. The marriage was to all outward appearances eminently happy. John Cornell's effulgence dimmed to a natural glow and he settled down to enjoy his leisure, his wife's charming company and his country mansion.

During all the years of his unbending attachment to business, in moments of idle rumination John Cornell had looked forward to this time of retirement. At the core of his dreaming was a garden and flowers and an ineffable peace: it was a secret passion of which he was almost ashamed. He would have a magnificent garden and magnificent flowers, stupendous blooms like those he saw exhibited by commercial horticulturists at flower shows. The time had come to make his dream come true and he was daily to be seen in consultation with Braber, his gardener, planning the accomplishment of that dream. Josephine his wife was equally absorbed in Marston Manor for she had discovered an outlet for her domestic activities in the general adaptation of the old house to modern requirements, a moulding of a mediaeval skeleton to what she called “the amenities of up-to-date living.” With the help of the local doctor, Stanley Redgrave, who was versed in the lore of the English manor, she was accomplishing this task with a fine regard for its ancient beauty and in the process had become very friendly with her “medical adviser.” Then some years after their arrival at Marston, John Cornell suddenly fell ill. He had apparently been in robust health and there had been no warning symptoms of disease to herald the approach of a swift departure from life. His illness began with a violent headache, persistent vomiting and repeated convulsions. A period of wild delirium was swiftly followed by profound coma and within a week he was dead. Doctor Redgrave, who attended him throughout his brief illness, certified that death was due to pneumonia, and John Cornell was buried in the churchyard of All Saints', Marston-le-Willows. Josephine, his wife, was for a time prostrate with grief, and Marston-le-Willows sincerely mourned his loss for more material reasons.

A short obituary notice in a few of the London papers and half a column of kindly eulogy in the
West Suffolk Post
was all the publicity that was granted to the passing of John Cornell for the time being. It was as much as any man of his status could expect from a world mechanically industrial, not given overmuch to sentiment, and too preoccupied with the strenuousness of living to be arrested by any perplexing meditation on the mystery of death. But the passing of John Cornell was not going to be such an ordinary occurrence as it had first appeared. Six months after his burial something mysterious occurred in Marston-le-Willows, something that might be called in an increasingly trite phrase “a major phenomenon.” It was the first of the chain of startling events that made the name of Marston-le-Willows as well-known as that of Brighton. Perhaps an excerpt from the
West Suffolk Post
of the 15th of August will give an adequate description of the occurrence. It ran:

In spite of the great secrecy referred to by the
West Suffolk Post
, before nightfall on that memorable Sunday in August all Marston-le-Willows knew that the body of John Cornell had been exhumed, that the representations had been made to the Home Office by David Cornell, his blind brother who lived in a bungalow in the Manor grounds, and that it was suspected that the deceased had been poisoned. The days that intervened between the exhumation and the resumed inquest were days of intense, suppressed excitement. The outward calm of the village and its inhabitants seemed unreal, almost ominous, in conjunction with their inward and hidden tension. There was only one topic of conversation, but that topic was discussed in guarded whispers by one intimate friend with another. Even in the tap-room of “The Dog and Partridge” the subject was generally avoided by the handful of regular customers and if it happened to be touched on by some rash spirit, the landlord, Abner Borham, would display a childlike ignorance of the whole business. The only villager who blurted out what he thought was old Harry Weddup, the thatcher, but he was the licensed
enfant terrible
of Marston. He openly declared it was his opinion that the young wife had got rid of her aged husband by poison so that she could marry someone young and lusty like herself and enjoy the old man's money. Putting the matter in terms of horseflesh, he thought it was perfectly natural for a fresh young mare to get tired of a worn-out old hack who hadn't as much as a whinny left in him. He would say that on her behalf but it was all he could say. It was a damnable thing to poison the old man and she would certainly be found out, like Mrs. Maybrick, and pay “the dire penalty.” Serve her right, too. At this point, Harry Weddup (he had drawn his old age pension and drunk an extra pint or two) delivered a long lecture on the evil of old men hankering after and marrying young women. “Noo wine bust old bottles,” he declared, and if those gents got poisoned in the end it served them right, too. After this impartial dispensation of justice he fell into silence so that his words of wisdom might sink into the understanding of his somewhat facetious listeners.

The day of the resumed inquest, though opening with tremendous excitement, may be said to have ended in a weak anti-climax. The squib had hissed itself out instead of detonating. The
West Suffolk Post
's report was as follows:

No poison! So this was the mild sequel to a week of the tensest expectancy. Though the inhabitants of Marston-le-Willows said they were glad for the young lady's sake that such had been the verdict, they were really secretly disappointed. Their disappointment was an impersonal affair and had nothing to do with the protagonists in the drama. In their annoyance they thoroughly agreed that Mr. Godbold was perfectly justified in making his protest against the exhumation and some very unpleasant things were said about Mr. David Cornell, John Cornell's blind brother, who had been the prime mover in the whole unsavoury business. Prior to the verdict of the coroner's jury they had said that David Cornell was perfectly justified in seeing that the mystery of his brother's sudden death should be thoroughly investigated. Harry Weddup firmly declared his belief that the old man was poisoned by a “secret pisin” and that the doctor from London hadn't been able to detect the method. All Londoners were fools more or less but it was hardly fair to blame him. How could anyone be expected to detect a “secret pisin”? There the matter ended and Marston-le-Willows was lapsing into its normal quietude once more when another and more startling event occurred.

Exactly a week after the final inquest on John Cornell his son Frank was found lying dead on the half-landing of a staircase leading to the first storey of Marston Manor. He had been shot through the right eye and the bullet had come to rest at the back of his skull. The discovery was made by one of the maids who was taking up morning tea to the young man's bedroom. She fainted and let the tray crash to the floor. Making a swift recovery, she at once roused her mistress who after a lapse of a few minutes sufficiently recovered from her shock to telephone the police. The local sergeant and a constable soon appeared on the scene and after a brief examination the sergeant at once summoned Dr. Redgrave and informed the police at Bury St. Edmunds. Later in the day, the Deputy Chief Constable and a superintendent arrived at Marston Manor. After a very careful investigation and a thorough search for the weapon which could not be found, they concluded that the dead man had been murdered. The assistance of Scotland Yard was promptly asked for and Chief Inspector Heather with Detective-Sergeant Goss arrived from London by car and took charge of the case.