The Nine Tailors (11 page)

“Forgive me if this letter is somewhat meandering and confused; I am writing in some perturbation of mind. I may add that our Ringers retain a most pleasant and grateful recollection of the help you gave us with our famous peal, and would, I am sure, wish me to remember them to you. “With kindest regards from my wife and myself,

“Most sincerely yours,

“THEODORE VENABLES.”

“P.S.—My wife reminds me to tell you that the inquest is at 2 o’clock on Saturday.”

This letter, dispatched on the Friday morning, reached Lord Peter by the first post on Saturday. He wired that he would start for Fenchurch St. Paul at once, joyfully cancelled a number of social engagements, and at 2 o’clock was seated in the Parish Room, in company with a larger proportion of the local population than had probably ever gathered beneath one roof since the spoliation of the Abbey.

The coroner, a florid-faced country lawyer, who seemed to be personally acquainted with everybody present, got to work with the air of an immensely busy person, every moment of whose time was of value.

“Come now, gentlemen.... No talking over there if you please... all the jury this way.... Sparkes, give out these Testaments to the jury... choose a foreman, please.... Oh! you have chosen Mr. Donnington... very good.... Come along, Alf... take the Book in your right hand... diligently inquire... Sovereign Lord the King... man unknown... body... view... skill and knowledge... help you God... kiss the Book... sit down... table over there... now the rest of you... take the Book in your right hand... your right hand, Mr. Pratt... don’t you know your left hand from your right, Wally?... No laughing, please, we’ve no time to waste... same oath that your foreman... you and each of you severally to keep ... help you God... kiss the Book... on that bench by Alf Donnington.... Now then, you know what we’re here for... inquire how this man came by his death... witnesses to identity... understand no witnesses to identity. ... Yes, Superintendent?... Oh, I see... why didn’t you say so? Very well... this way, please.... I beg your pardon, sir?... Lord Peter... do you mind saying that again... Whimsy?... Oh, no H... just so... Wimsey’ with an E... quite... occupation?... what?... Well, we’d better say, Gentleman... now then, my lord, you say you can offer evidence as to identity?”

“Not exactly, but I rather think...”

“One moment, please... take the Book in your right hand... evidence... inquiry... truth, whole truth and nothing but the truth... kiss the Book... yes... name, address, occupation we’ve got all that.... If you can’t keep that baby quiet, Mrs. Leach, you’ll have to take it out. .. Yes?”

“I have been taken to see the body, and, from my observation I think it possible that I saw this man on January 1st last. I do not know who he was, but if it is the same man he stopped my car about half a mile beyond the bridge by the sluice and asked the way to Fenchurch St. Paul. I never saw him again, and had never seen him before to my knowledge.”

“What makes you think it may be the same man?”

“The fact that he is dark and bearded and that the man I saw also appeared to be wearing a dark blue suit similar to that worn by deceased. I say ‘appeared,’ because he was wearing an overcoat, and I only saw the legs of his trousers. He seemed to be about fifty years of age, spoke in a low voice with a London accent and was of fairly good address. He told me that he was a motor-mechanic and was looking for work. In my opinion, however...”

“One moment. You say you recognise the beard and the suit. Can you swear...?”

“I cannot swear that I definitely recognise them. I say that the man I saw resembled the deceased in these respects.”

“You cannot identify his features?”

“No; they are too much mutilated.”

“Very well. Thank you. Are there any more witnesses to identity?”

The blacksmith rose up rather sheepishly. “Come right up to the table, please. Take the Book... truth... truth... truth... Name Ezra Wilderspin. Well now, Ezra, what have you got to say?”

“Well, sir, if I was to say I recognised the deceased, I should be telling a lie. But it’s a fact that he ain’t unlike a chap that come along, same as his lordship here says, last New Year’s Day a-looking for a job along of me. Said he was a motor-mechanic out o’ work. Well, I told him I might do with a man as knowed somethin’ about motors, so I takes him on and gives him a trial. He did his work pretty well, near as I could judge, for three days, livin’ in our place, and then, all of a sudden, off he goes in the middle of the night and we never seen no more of him.”

“What night was that?”

“Same day as they buried her ladyship it was...”

Here a chorus of voices broke in: “January 4th, Ezra! that’s when it were.”

“That’s right. Saturday, January 4th, so ’twere.”

“What was the name of this man?”

“Stephen Driver, he called hisself. Didn’t say much; only that he’d been trampin’ about a goodish time, lookin’ for work. Said he’d been in the Army, and in and out of work ever since.”

“Did he give you any references?”

“Why, yes, sir, he did, come to think on it. He give me the name of a garridge in London where he’d been, but he said it had gone bankrupt and shut up. But he said if I was to write to the boss, he’d put in a word for him.”

“Have you got the name and address he gave you?”

“Yes, sir. Leastways, I think the missus put it away in the teapot.”

“Did you take up the reference?”

“No, sir. I did think of it, but being no great hand at writing I says to myself I’d wait till the Sunday, when I’d have more time, like. Well, you see, before that he was off, so I didn’t think no more about it. He didn’t leave nothing behind him, bar an old toothbrush. We ’ad to lend him a shirt when he came.”

“You had better see if you can find that address.”

“That’s right, sir. Liz!” (in a stentorian bellow). “You cut off home and see if you can lay your ’and on that bit o’ paper what Driver give me.”

Voice from the back of the room: “I got it here, Ezra,” followed by a general upheaval, as the blacksmith’s stout wife forced her way to the front.

“Thanks, Liz,” said the coroner. “Mr. Tasker, 103 Little James St. London, W.C. Here, Superintendent, you’d better take charge of that. Now, Ezra, is there anything more you can tell us about this man Driver?”

Mr. Wilderspin explored his stubble with a thick forefinger.

“I dunno as there is, sir.”

“Ezra! Ezra! don’t yew remember all them funny questions he asked?”

“There now,” said the blacksmith, “the missus is quite right. That was a funny thing about them questions, that was. He said he ’adn’t never been in this here village before, but he knowed a friend as had and the friend had told him to ask after Mr. Thomas. ‘Mr. Thomas!’ I says. ‘There ain’t no Mr. Thomas in this here village, nor never has been to my knowledge.’ ‘That’s queer,’ he says, ‘but maybe he’s got another name as well. Far as I can make out,’ he says, ‘this Thomas ain’t quite right in his ’ead. My friend said as he was potty, like.’ ‘Why,’ I says, ‘you can’t mean Potty Peake? Because Orris is his Chrissen name.’ ‘No,’ he says, ‘Thomas was the name. Batty Thomas, that’s right. And another name my friend gi’n me,’ he says, ‘was a fellow called Paul—a tailor or some’in o’ that, living next door to him, like.’ ‘Why,’ I says to him, ‘your friend’s been havin’ a game with you. Them ain’t men’s names, them’s the names of bells,’ I says, ‘Bells?’ he says. ‘Yes,’ I says, ‘church bells, that’s what they is. Batty Thomas and Tailor Paul, they call ’em.’ And then he went on and asked a sight o’ questions about they bells. ‘Well,’ I says, ‘if you want to know about Batty Thomas and Tailor Paul, you better ask Rector,’ I says. ‘He knows all about they old bells.’ I dunno if he ever went to Rector, but he come back one day—that were the Friday—and says he been in the church and see a bell carved on old Batty Thomas’ tomb, like, and what did the writing on it mean. And I says to ask Rector, and he says: ‘Did all bells have writing on ’em,’ and I says, ‘Mostly’; and arter that he didn’t say no more about it.”

Nobody being able to make very much sense out of Mr. Wilderspin’s revelations, the Rector was called, who said that he remembered having seen the man called Stephen Driver on one occasion when he was distributing the parish magazine at the smithy, but that Driver had said nothing then, or at any other time, about bells. The Rector then added his own evidence about finding the body and sending for the police and was dismissed in favour of the sexton.

Mr. Gotobed was very voluble, repeating, with increased circumlocutory detail and reference to what he had said to Dick and Dick to him, the account he had originally given to the police. He then explained that Lady Thorpe’s grave had been dug on the 3rd of January and filled in on the 4th, immediately after the funeral.

“Where do you keep your tools. Harry?”

“In the coke-house, sir.”

“Where’s that?”

“Well, sir, it’s down underneath the church—where Rector says the old cryp used to be. Makes a sight o’ work, that it du, a-carryin’ coke up and down they stairs and through the chancel and sweepin’ up arter it. You can’t ’elp it a-dribbling out o’ the scuttle, do as you like.”

“Is the door kept locked?”

“Oh, yes, sir, always kept locked. It’s the little door under the organ, sir. You can’t get to it without you have the key and the key of the west door as well. That is to say, either the key of the west door or one of the church keys, sir, if you take my meaning. I has the west door key, being ’andiest for me where I live, but either of the others would do as well.”

“Where do you keep these keys?”

“Hanging up in my kitchen, sir.”

“Has anybody else got a key to the coke-house door?”

“Yes, sir; Rector has all the keys.”

“Nobody else?”

“Not as I knows on, sir. Mr. Godfrey hasn’t them all, only the key of the cryp.”

“I see. When these keys are in your kitchen, I suppose any of your family has access to them?”

Well, sir, in a manner of speakin,’ yes, but I ’opes as now you ain’t tryin’ to put anything on me and my missus, nor yet Dick, let alone the children. I been sexton in this—eighty year follerin’ on Hezekiah, and none of us ain’t never yet been suspected of ’ittin’ strangers over the ’ead and buryin’ of them. Come to think of it, this chap Driver came round to my place one morning on a message, and ’ow do I know what he did? Not but what, if he’d a-took the keys I’d be bound to miss them; still, none the more for that...”

“Come, come. Harry! Don’t talk nonsense. You don’t suppose this unfortunate man dug his own grave and buried himself? Don’t waste time.”

(Laughter, and cries of “That’s a good ’un, Harry!”)

“Silence, if you please. Nobody’s accusing you of anything. Have you in fact ever missed the keys at any time?”

“No, sir” (sulkily).

“Or ever noticed that your tools had been disturbed?”

“No, sir.”

“Did you clean them after digging Lady Thorpe’s grave?”

“’Course I cleaned ’em. I always leaves my tools clean.”

“When did you use them next after that?”

This puzzled Mr. Gotobed for a moment. The voice of Dick supplied helpfully: “Massey’s baby.”

(“Don’t prompt the witness, please!”)

“That’s right,” agreed Mr. Gotobed. “Massey’s baby it were, as you can see by the Register. And that ’ud be about a week later—Ah! just about.”

“You found the tools clean and in their right place when you dug the grave for Mrs. Massey’s baby?”

“I ain’t noticed nothing different.”

“Not at any time since?”

“No, sir.”

“Very well. That will do. Constable Priest.”

The constable, taking the oath briskly, informed the court of his having been called to the scene of action, having communicated with Superintendent Blundell, having assisted at the removal of the body and of having helped to search the clothes of the deceased. He then made way for the Superintendent, who corroborated his evidence and produced a brief list of the dead man’s belongings. These were: a suit of navy-blue serge of poor quality, much deteriorated by its burial in the earth, but apparently purchased fairly recently from a well-known firm of cheap outfitters; much-worn vest and pants, bearing (unexpectedly enough) the name of a French manufacturer; a khaki shirt (British army type); a pair of working-man’s boots, nearly new; a cheap spotted tie. In his pockets they had found a white cotton handkerchief; a packet of Woodbines; twenty-five shillings and eightpence in cash; a pocket-comb; a ten-centime piece; and a short length of stiff wire, bent at one end into a hook. The body had worn no overcoat.

The French money and underclothing and the piece of wire were the only objects which seemed to suggest any kind of clue. Ezra Wilderspin was recalled, but could not bring to mind that Driver had ever said anything about France, beyond mentioning that he had served in the War; and the Superintendent, asked whether he thought the wire could be anything in the nature of a pick-lock, shook his head, and said it didn’t look like anything of that sort to
him.

The next witness was Dr. Baines, and his evidence produced the only real sensation of the day. He said:

“I have examined the body of deceased and made an autopsy. I should judge the subject to be a man aged between 45 and 50. He appears to have been well-nourished and healthy. Taking into account the nature of the soil, which tends to retard putrefaction, the position of the body when found, that is, about two feet beneath the level of the churchyard and from three to four feet beneath the actual surface of the mound, I should judge the extent of decomposition found to indicate that deceased had been lying in the grave between three and four months. Decay does not proceed so rapidly in a buried body as in one exposed to the air, or in a clothed body as in a naked body. In this case, the internal organs and the soft tissues generally were all quite distinguishable and fairly well preserved. I made a careful examination and could discover no signs of external injury on any part of the body except upon the head, arms, wrists and ankles. The face had apparently been violently battered in with some blunt instrument, which had practically reduced all the anterior—that is, the front—part of the skull to splinters. I was not able to form any exact estimate of the number of blows inflicted, but they must have been numerous and heavy. On opening the abdomen—”