Death at Gallows Green (11 page)

“Yes.”

“But the Standing Joint Committee has recommended a generous pension.”

Sheridan leaned forward and put his elbows on the chief constable's desk. “The investigation,” he said pointedly, “is my concern at the moment.”

The superintendent gave the man's elbows a distasteful look. “My dear, ah, Sheridan,” he said. “While the widow is due every sympathy, surely she cannot expect me to jeopardize the investigation by revealing its details.”

“Details are not necessary,” Sheridan said. His eyes were hard as brown-bottle glass. He fixed them on the chief constable. “A general outline will do.”

Pell frowned. “I am afraid,” he said carefully, “that I must refuse your request. I—”

“To whom have you assigned the investigation?”

“Why, I—” Pell's frown became a scowl. “I quite fail to see why it is any concern of—”

“To whom?”

The chief constable felt cornered. “P.C. Bradley, from Manningtree, will be doing the legwork,” he said stiffly. “I, of course, will be informed of each development. Now, I must insist that you—”

“I met Bradley at the funeral. He's a boy. Why was Laken taken off the case?”

The chief constable puffed out his cheeks, feeling his face redden. “I am not in the habit of discussing police affairs with civilians. Now, if you will be so good as to—”

There was another knock on the door, and the chief constable felt a great relief. P.C. Nutter came in. “Sorry fer th' int'ruption,” he said. “Superintendent Hacking has sent fer ye, sir.”

The chief constable did not rise. “Inform the superintendent that I shall be there shortly,” he said. “And show this gentleman out, Constable Nutter. Our business is concluded.”

Sheridan got up and jammed on his hat. “You're making a mistake. Laken is your best man.”

Pell did not answer. For several minutes after Sheridan had gone, he sat musing. Then he hoisted himself up and faced the map. He took down one blue pin and moved a black pin a precise quarter of an inch to the left. He surveyed the map for a moment, his lips pursed. In his careful planning, had he overlooked something he should have considered? He thought not. At last he turned and walked, stiffly, to the door.

C
harles Sheridan, his hat pulled down over his ears, rapidly took the stairs to the basement of Town Hall, where he pushed his way through the door of the Colchester Department of Police. A stout sergeant wearing a too-tight uniform jacket looked up from a stack of papers on his desk and gave him a weary nod of recognition.

“Morning, Sir Charles,” he said, moving his elbows. As he did so, several sheets cascaded to the floor and he bent to pick them up. In the process, his pen flipped out of the inkwell, raining droplets of ink on the desk. With an even wearier look, the sergeant resumed his seat. “How c'n I be o' service, sir?” He picked up the pen wrong end first and looked dismally at the ink on his fat fingers.

“Why don't they buy you a fountain pen, Battle?” Charles asked. He took out a handkerchief and offered it. “Is Inspector Wainwright, in?”

“With respect, sir,” Battle said, “th' budget's a bit light with regard t' fountain pens.” He wiped off his fingers and made as if to return it. Then, noticing with some confusion the inky stains on the snowy cotton, he pulled it back and stuffed it in his pocket. “I'll see if th' inspector's available,” he said, red-faced. As he stood, he dislodged a ledger that fell from the corner of the desk, knocking over a can and spilling dirty sand and the chewed stubs of cigars onto the floor. A moment later, when he returned with the news that the inspector was in, he had a broom in his hand and a resigned look on his round face.

The inspector's basement office was a square, dingy room with one window let into the wall near the ceiling and gridded over to hinder access from the street. His desk was a table piled with papers, boxes of evidence, and a crumpled paper parcel that from the look of it had recently contained eel pie and baked potato. Inspector Wainwright stood in the corner, taking down two crockery cups from a shelf over a gas burner on which a chipped enamel kettle was beginning to steam.

“Tea?” he asked morosely.

“Yes, thank you.” Charles sat down on one of the two chairs. “It's good to see you in such high spirits.”

Wainwright gave his caller a sideways glance as if to determine whether he was joking. But he apparently found nothing to smile at, for his long grey face remained gloomy. “No biscuits,” he remarked, and poured boiling water onto a spoonful of tea leaves in a cracked pot.

“I can do without biscuits,” Charles said. “Tell me about Pell.”

Inspector Wainwright's face, if possible, grew even more gloomy. He put the lid on the pot.

“Well, then,” Charles asked, “what about Hacking?”

Wainwright's thin mustache drooped. He put his hands in his pockets and stood stoop-shouldered, pondering the teapot. After several moments, he took his hands out of his pockets and poured the tea, then carried the cups to the table, where he pushed papers aside to clear a space. He still had said nothing other than “Tea?” and “No biscuits.”

Charles sat back in his chair and regarded the inspector. They shared a fairly recent acquaintance, having jointly apprehended the killer of an unfortunate foreign gentleman whose remains had been discovered in an archaeological dig. During the investigation, their relationship had grown from mutual suspicion to grudging respect. But even on the crime's resolution, Wainwright had not seemed cheered by their success. In the several months Charles had known the inspector, he had yet to see the man smile.

Charles accepted his cup and looked around for the sugar. “I take it,” he said mildly, “that you do not have a high opinion of either of your superiors.”

With a long sigh, the inspector broke his silence. “Th' Colchester Telephone Exchange has signed on twenty-seven subscribers.” He took a packet from his pocket, mournfully counted out four cubes of brown sugar into his tea, and handed the packet to Charles. “The Colchester Police haven't yet subscribed. ‘Twill be next month, th' superintendent tells me. But he's very mean as to ha‘pence, and that's what he's been tellin' me for th' past year. Next month.” He stirred his tea with a bent spoon.

“I see,” Charles said. When he had first met Inspector Wainwright,, the man was hoping for a typewriter to assist with mountainous paperwork. But judging from the stacks on both his and Sergeant Battle's desks, his hopes had been disappointed. “It appears that neither Hacking nor Pell has a great interest in making the force more efficient.”

The inspector gave his bleak assent.

Charles shook his head. “Well, I suppose I can understand. Little money, less imagination. But why in God's name did Hacking put Pell in charge of the Oliver murder? And why did Pell take Laken off the case and replace him with a green recruit?”

“Sheer baboonery,” Wainwright said with an infinite sadness. “Pell's too wrapped up in his shippin' business t' take any notice of what's afoot, an' Hacking's too bone-lazy t' care. Doubt we'll see any improvement in th' force until they're gone, which won't be in my lifetime.” He sighed heavily. “But at least they don't have sticky fingers, as they do at th' Yard.” Wainwright never failed to bring up the moral corruption of the Metropolitan Police Force, whose scandals were regularly exposed in the newspapers. It was in his nature to be heavily burdened with the melancholy knowledge that all men—even, on occasion, the police—had their dark side.

Charles leaned forward. “What have you heard about the Oliver case?”

Wainwright sipped his tea. “Sheep-stealers,” he said.

Charles frowned. “But if there were sheep-stealers about, I don't understand why Constable Laken wouldn't have known. The two districts are contiguous, and Laken is a careful policeman.”

“Careful as may be,” Wainwright replied. “But there are gypsies abroad, and where there are gypsies, there are sheep-stealers. At least that's the theory.”

“Whose theory?”

“Hacking's. And Pell's.”

“But I don't see the evidence for it,” Charles persisted. “Laken tells me that no one has reported the theft of an animal. And if Oliver had received such reports, he would have informed Laken.”

Wainwright shrugged. “Well, it's Hacking's theory, and he's not the sort to require a lot of evidence. Pell told him, I guess. Pell is the one who set Oliver to work on it, anyway.”

“So it's Pell's theory?”

“Pell or Hacking, what does it matter?” Wainwright was philosophical. “Theories are easy. They come like flashes. It's the evidence that's harder.”

“Is something being done to discover evidence?”

“You'll have to ask P.C. Bradley. That's his business.”

“I will.” Charles finished his tea and stood. “You'll send word if you hear anything?”

The inspector nodded. His eyes were large and sad, like those of a bloodhound. “I could send it faster with a telephone.”

“No, you couldn't,” Charles said. “There's no telephone yet at Marsden Manor. Not likely to be for quite a while yet, either.”

Wainwright looked into his cup, found it empty, and pushed it away with a sigh. “By th' bye, what d'you hear of Miss Ardleigh?”

“I have a note from her,” Charles said, “asking me to call this afternoon. She seems to be adapting admirably to her responsibilities at Bishop's Keep.”

“Is that right?” Wainwright replied doubtfully. “Sergeant Battle rather wondered when he heard.”

“Heard what?”

Wainwright's shrug was eloquent. “That she was seen in a lane just at dark, riding a bicycle.” He paused, and raised his glance. “In the company of Constable Laken. Battle thought there might be something between them.”

“Ah,” was all Charles said, and made his face as blank as the word. But within himself, he felt the stirrings of something that could only be envy.

Ned Laken was a very lucky man.

K
ate knew Agnes Oliver well enough to have formed a high regard for her, and, added to that, a strong sense of obligation. Gallows Green was one of the nearby hamlets where Aunt Sabrina's benevolent presence had often been felt. The villagers were for the most part agricultural labourers, and while they did not think of themselves as poor, poor they were, the weekly wage seldom amounting to more than ten shillings. Aunt Sabrina had provided blankets in the winter and garden vegetables in the summer, and clothing and shoes for the children throughout the year. Kate was eager to continue her aunt's philanthropic work.

“It seems little enough to offer,” Kate had told the vicar, “when I consider how much I've been given.” Life had been difficult growing up in her uncle's household, for Sergeant O'Malley's wages as a New York policeman never quite stretched far enough to meet the needs of a wife, six children, and a niece. Kate had always expected to work hard for her own living. Finding herself an heiress had been a shock. She was anxious to make use of her legacy in a way that would bring credit to the memory of her aunt, and Agnes Oliver, who knew almost every family in the district, had helped her to do so by identifying those in the greatest need.

So it was that on the morning after their arrival at Bishop's Keep, Kate and Beatrix took a gingham-covered basket into the gig and set off toward Gallows Green, two miles to the northeast by lane, less by the footpath. The hamlet nestled into the shoulder of a long, gentle slope above the River Stour, the expanse divided by pollarded hedges and stone fences into neat fields. The morning was warm, and the horse chestnut trees on the green in the center of the village were masses of white blossom. The twenty or so cottages, the inn, and a small general grocery shop with a postal office in the rear were ranged in a rectangle around the green. There was no church or school, for these were in Dedham, close by.

At the far end of the rectangle sat the Olivers' whitewashed cottage with its thatched roof and diamond-paned windows with green shutters, the dooryard bright with foxgloves, irises, and daisies. Agnes Oliver answered Kate's knock wearing a plain black cotton dress under a grey apron. Her brown hair framed a face that was lined with grief, but she managed a small smile. “It was good of you to come, Miss Ardleigh.”

“I only heard of your loss upon my return yesterday,” Kate said, taking Agnes's hand in hers. “My dear Agnes, I am so very sorry. I hope you'll let me do everything I can.”

“Thank you,” Agnes said simply. She stepped back. “Will you come into the kitchen? I'd ask you into the parlour, but—”

Kate understood. Sergeant Oliver's body would have lain for a time in the parlour, for friends to visit. It would not be a happy place for Agnes for some while.

Kate introduced Bea and they followed Agnes into the small kitchen. An antique eight-day clock with a single hour hand ticked pleasantly in the corner. A braided rug of red and blue rags warmed the stone floor. Six bright oranges were heaped in a blue bowl on the table, and the room was tangy with their fragrance. The kettle was boiling, and while Agnes put tea leaves into a green teapot and added boiling water, Kate set her basket on the table.