So Bad a Death (19 page)

“That's quite possible. The wood is divided from the road by a barbed-wire fence. He might have got through the fence and caught his leg.”

John shook his head in a dissatisfied way. “Have you found out who reported the body?” I asked, still trying to make helpful suggestions.

“No. But that's nothing, People don't like being involved with bodies, especially with those of well-known persons. Anonymous reports are not uncommon at Russell Street.”

I sighed and thought again. A silence fell, to be broken when John said: “By the way, Maggie, I meant to ask you before. What did you mean—”

“Hush,” I interrupted hastily and got to my feet. “Was that Tony calling?”

“I didn't hear him.”

“I'll go and have a peep at him.”

I got out of the room quickly, closing the door behind me. If I stayed out long enough John would get on with his notes and shelve what he wanted to ask. Tony was sleeping deeply as I had expected, but I wasted time straightening his bedclothes and dawdled back to the study. John must be given ample opportunity to defer any leading questions.

Then quite suddenly I was overcome by that uncanny sensation that all this had happened before. The circumstances and my actions were vaguely familiar. At first I thought the feeling might be connected with some hitherto unremembered dream. Then I saw the shadow against the leadlight of the front door and hurried forward. During the evening a banging noise had sounded from the wood now and then. Ernest Mulqueen was still putting his rabbits out of their misery.

But it was not Ernest who stood on the porch that night. It was Elizabeth, his wife. I was taken aback at seeing her, and my first instinctive thought was “Now, what does she want?”

“Mrs Matheson, how nice to find you in,” Mrs Mulqueen said, extending a gracious hand. “I was out for a little stroll. I simply had to get out of the house. So many memories of poor James.”

I cast her a close look. She wore a musquash coat slung across her shoulders, the arms hanging loose. The low V of her black dress held a diamond clip. With her fading hair hidden by a chiffon turban of scarlet that matched her lips and nails, she looked twenty years younger.

I took her down to the study, grateful for her presence insofar as I was cold and John could hardly start questioning me now.

After its first look of irritation, John's face settled into a polite mask. He hated having his thread of thought interrupted. Mrs Mulqueen kept up a patter about poor dear James that told nothing and committed herself not at all. John did not use her unexpected visit to any advantage. I don't think he was interested yet. His one idea was to find that clue to fix the inquest decision the following day.

In fact, no one was very interested, either in each other or in the conversation that we all pushed along. I noticed Mrs Mulqueen glance at the clock once or twice, and about ten times that number at the tiny jewelled watch on her wrist. A hectic flush grew up gradually under her skilfully tinted cheeks.

After some time she leapt up right in the middle of a sentence and said: “I really must go now. They will be wondering what has become of me at home. Please don't get up, Mr Matheson. Or should I say Inspector?”

John held open the door.

“Not yet, anyway,” he said, very pleasantly. I glanced at him sharply, but Mrs Mulqueen did not seem to take in the significance of his remark.

We both followed her down the hall to the front door. She thanked us for cheering her up and making her forget poor dear James for a while. I wondered again how we had done this, and murmured some conventional reply.

We watched her to the curve in the flagged path before John closed the door. The gate clicked as I turned off the porch light. John gave me a heavy look and went back to the study.

“Sorry, darling,” I said, following him.

“The trouble with you, Maggie,” he informed me, “is you don't know when to stall people off. You'd let them talk and pour out their troubles, imaginary and otherwise, until the cows come home.”

“That's your own system, my boy,” I retorted. “I learnt it from you. Let them talk. You'll soon find out what they are hiding. Those were your own sage words. What's the matter?”

John had cocked his head on one side and raised a hand for silence. I listened in the stillness of the room. The night sounds were very clear. I made a vague decision to inquire some time what exactly went to make up those sounds. The only one I could recognize was a rhythmical throb from the frogs in the creek at the bottom of the garden.

“What are you listening to?” I asked.

“Nothing,” John said with a grin. “It was a ‘lack of' I was trying to hear. There has been some occasional banging going on in the wood, but it has stopped now for some time. I am curious to know what it was.”

“Easily explained,” I said airily, and went on to tell him about Ernest Mulqueen and the gin set in the wood.

“Just a minute,” John interrupted. “Wasn't that it again?”

I listened again for a moment or two. I opened my mouth to pass an inane remark about hearing things, when a sound did happen. It froze me to my chair, but my eyes darted to John's face. A woman started to scream shrilly. A short sharp sound that ended before it should have—as though it was stifled before conclusion.

IV

John moved at once. “I'm going out. Stay here, Maggie. Ring Billings to come over at once.”

I wanted to say “Don't go,” or to beg to go with him.

He said over his shoulder, reading my thoughts: “You can't leave Tony here by himself.”

I had the calling line at the Hall almost before the front door banged. John's footsteps running along the path the other side of the hedge came to my ears, at the same time as Sergeant Billings' slow voice. I told him briefly that Inspector Matheson had gone up to the wood and wanted the Sergeant to join him.

I felt a vague admiration not unmixed with surprise when Sergeant Billings said he would come at once without further questions. The receiver was banged down in my ear. There was nothing
more I could do but sit about and wonder how long John would be and what he would find up there in the wood.

In the hurry and scramble I had noticed him open a drawer in his desk and pull out a torch. I went over to the window and pulled back the curtain, straining my eyes to catch a glimpse of light amongst the darkness of the trees.

Suddenly I thought I saw a figure slipping out of the thicket onto the path above the house. It was no more than a lighter shadow against all that darkness. On impulse I hurried down the passage to the front door and out onto the porch. The figure had broken away from the track again. I hastened down the flagged path to the front gate, just in time to see the someone having difficulty in getting through the fence fifty yards down the road. The figure hugged the shadows until it went beyond the vision of my straining eyes.

I stayed at the gate, thinking hard. Sergeant Billings' bicycle lamp came weaving its way along the road. He jumped off just where the hedge joined the road and did not see me.

I called his name urgently. He glanced around at once.

“Here,” I called. “At the gate. It is Mrs Matheson.”

He came up, the bicycle lamp in his hand.

“Where is the Inspector?” he asked.

“Somewhere up in the wood,” I replied, shading my eyes against the light he flashed on me. “Tell me quickly, did you see anyone on the road as you came along?”

He shook his head, anxious to join John. I did not detain him and went slowly back to the study. Mechanically I picked up a cigarette and John's automatic lighter that lay on the desk. But I did not light the cigarette. I dropped it extravagantly to the floor, and slipping the lighter into the pocket of my jacket made for the front door again. This time I locked it after me with a vague prayer for Tony's well-being and the comforting reflection that this new impulse would only take me a short time and not far from the house.

Outside, the road was deserted. I hurried along to a certain point. There I flicked the lighter, thankful for the still autumn night and promising to buy a torch the following day for my exclusive use. Bending double on the grassy bank alongside the road, I ran the tiny
flame carefully along the middle strand of the barbed wire.

Presently there was a small hiss and my own breath blew out the flame in excitement. I stood upright and flicked the tiny wheel again, cursing my suddenly clumsy fingers. Holding the flame steady, I bent down again and found what I was looking for. Twisted in the jagged wire and hardly visible even to me, who knew what to look for, were half a dozen short silvery hairs. The flame had singed a couple, but I recognized them beyond any doubt as belonging to the fur coat Elizabeth Mulqueen had worn that evening.

I pulled out my handkerchief and tied it round the wire. I wasn't going to risk missing John's commendation.

I got back to the house just in time. John and Sergeant Billings came down the path. They were not alone. Between them they supported a man who dragged his feet as though he was drunk.

John saw me waiting on the porch. “Get some water and a sponge, Maggie, please. And see if there is some brandy in the house.”

Filled with curiosity at the turn of events, I hurried down to the kitchen. When I came back with a bowl of water and the remains of the Christmas pudding brandy, I found the strange man laid out on my lounge-room couch. He was conscious but dazed, and bled from a cut in one corner of his mouth. I could see he was making a desperate attempt to gather his wits together, and felt rather sorry for him. He was not much more than thirty and was quite good-looking in a bucolic sort of way.

I handed John a towel wrung out in cold water and watched his ministrations in silence.

“Sticking plaster, Maggie?”

I made for the medicine chest in the bathroom.

When I came back into the room, I heard Sergeant Billings say in a quiet tone: “It's him, sir. I could swear to it. Hearing him in the dark like that brought it all back to me.”

John did not reply. He cut off a strip of adhesive tape and clapped it skilfully over the cut. Then he got to his feet and went over to the tray. He poured out a small quantity of brandy and gave it to the stranger to drink.

It was never John's way to heckle anyone when he was down, even in execution of his duty. I considered that admirable trait one of the main factors contributing to his successful career. He worked with his brain, not merely relying on circumstances. He gave the stranger time to pull himself together before he spoke. He asked his name and what had happened to him out there in the wood.

The stranger replied to the first question after some hesitation: “Nugent Parsons.” Almost as though he was speculating on a false name.

However, no one could possibly think of a name like Nugent on the spur of the moment. But as to how he was injured and what he was doing in the wood, he remained obstinately silent.

Then John sprang his surprise, or rather Sergeant Billings'.

I told him afterwards it was mean of him to steal the Sergeant's thunder.

He asked in a clipped, clear voice: “Was it not you who rang the Middleburn police station early this morning to report the dead body of James Holland?”

CHAPTER SEVEN

I

Nugent Parsons nearly fainted under the sudden verbal attack. The strip of plaster became one with his face. I still felt sorry for him, although I appreciated John having his job to do. It was rather like eating your Christmas turkey, but refusing to see it killed. Parsons had been so much caught on the hop, as it were, that his obvious agitation could be interpreted only one way.

John said: “You were in the wood adjoining Holland Hall last night. Why?”

Parsons realized the way out of this predicament was not silence. It was too serious to remain silent. The consequences would be damning. On the other hand the explanation he gave was just as bad. Considering murder was the subject around which the discussion revolved, it was very poor. To say lamely that he had been for a walk and had accidentally stumbled on the body did not have much force about it.

“The wood is private property,” John said. “Is it your custom to take a walk through other people's estates?”

Nugent Parsons replied swiftly to this. “I am employed at the home farm. There is no fence separating it from the rest of the property.”

“Where exactly did this walk of yours begin and what route did it follow?” There was a sceptical note in John's voice.

Parsons hesitated too long before he answered: “I walked from the men's quarters along the road and then cut round the other side of the Hall through the wood back again.”

“What time was that?”

“About seven, I think. It may have been some minutes after. I went as soon as I finished my evening meal.”

I glanced at John quickly, wondering if he was thinking of the shadow we had seen slipping through the trees as we had gone along the drive. But he was after another point.

“That means you must have found Mr Holland's body very soon after the shot. Why didn't you advise the police at once?”