The Watersplash (14 page)

Inspector Abbott went over to the Church Room with the Vicar, who would have preferred to show him the church.

“Perhaps some other time when you are not on duty,” he said in a regretful voice. “We have a list of the incumbents from 1250 onwards, and there are a good many points of interest besides the Crusader’s tomb, which is in an unusual state of preservation. The Church Room, which was very kindly given by the late Mr. James Random, has, I fear, a strictly utilitarian appeal. Fortunately, the Vicarage screens it from the road, and these poplars from the churchyard.”

It proved to be one of those large plain structures, admirably adapted to its purpose but devoid of charm. The door was locked, but as the Reverend John Ball explained, the key was not far to seek, since it hung on a nail at the side of the shallow porch—“Out of reach of the children, but convenient for any of the church helpers.”

As they entered upon a big bare room which smelled powerfully of varnish, Frank made discreet enquiries with regard to these helpers. It appeared that Mrs. Jonathan Random came in and out to do the flowers.

“There is a most convenient little room through there with running water and a sink, and of course it saves a great deal of mess in the church. The Sunday School meets here, and we have a small lending library supervised by Mrs. Pomfret and Miss Blake. One of them, or of their helpers, makes a point of being on duty from six to half past on Wednesdays and Fridays, and for half an hour after the Sunday morning service. Now let me see who the helpers are. Miss Sims of course— she is Dr. Croft’s housekeeper. And I believe Mr. Random’s housekeeper from the Hall occasionally takes a hand.”

Frank looked about him. A row of uncurtained windows broke the varnished wall on either side. There were a number of rush-seated chairs, a singularly hideous yellow harmonium, and, at the far end, the shelves which housed the library. In the opposite corner to the harmonium there was a writing-table, and upon the writing-table a rather elderly-looking typewriter.

“The gift of Mr. Arnold Random. It was his brother’s, and he very kindly presented it to the Room after Mr. James Random’s death.”

“And who uses it, sir?”

Mr. Ball gave his genial smile.

“Oh, most of our helpers can type a little, I think. Not in a very professional manner, but sufficiently well to produce a legible notice, or texts for the children to learn at home—that kind of thing, you know.”

“Do you mind if I try my hand at it?”

“No, no—of course not.”

Frank sat down at the table, found a sheet of paper, slipped it into the machine, and began to type in a style which no doubt compared favourably with that of the helpers. What he typed was a copy of the note which had brought Clarice Dean to her death:

“All right, let’s have it out. I’ll be coming back late tonight. Meet me at the same place. Say half past nine. I can’t make it before that.”

He left it without signature, folded the sheet, and put it away in his pocket-book. After which he allowed the Vicar to show him round the church, where he duly admired the Crusader, one Hugo de la Tour, and some fine brasses. At his own request he was conducted to the grave of Christopher Hale—dismissed rather contemptuously by Mr. Ball as “really comparatively modern, but of some topical interest.”

When he had read Kezia’s verses and admired the accuracy with which Miss Silver had rendered them, he took his way back to the house and asked if he might have a word with her before leaving.

It was characteristic of her kind heart that she should reassure him as to Annie Jackson before making enquiries as to whether he had met with any success.

“She has had a nice cup of tea, and is now really quite recovered. It is always distressing to have to question someone who is in trouble, and I am sure you will be glad to know that she is not any the worse for the experience—” She paused, and then added, “physically.”

“And just what do you mean by that?”

“That she has something on her mind. She fainted because she was frightened. You asked her whether she had gone to meet her husband at the watersplash, and she was suddenly very much afraid—so much afraid that she fainted.”

“You think she did go to meet him?”

“I think she may have done so.”

“Do you think she pushed him in?”

“I think she may have seen the person who pushed him in. And if she did—”

“If she did?”

“She may be in danger herself, and she may know it.”

After a pause he said,

“Keep an eye on her. Don’t let her go out alone after dark. Don’t let her go down to the splash. If she were found drowned there, it would be quite a plausible suicide. And now here’s one of the facts you were talking about. The note that brought Clarice Dean to meet the person who murdered her was typed on the machine in the Church Room.”

Miss Silver said,

“Dear me!” And then, “The Church Room?”

He nodded.

“In the odour of varnish and sanctity. Perhaps by one of the church helpers, or by anybody else in the parish capable of reaching the door key which hangs conveniently from a nail in the porch at about the height of the top of my ear. Everybody just helps himself and goes in and out upon his, or more probably her, parochial occasions. It might be Mrs. Pomfret, who is a well-to-do farmer’s wife, or Miss Sims, or Miss Blake, or Mrs. Jonathan Random who does the flowers, or the Vicar, or the Vicaress, or any other of the adult inhabitants of Greenings. Arnold Random may have slipped across to the Church Room and done it. Edward Random could have had the same bright idea. The only certainty is that the note was typed on that machine. The “e” is worn in exactly the same way as in the note, and the “m” is defective—looks as if someone had taken a chip out of it—possibly one of the Sunday School children. Well, there you are—we have achieved one fact at last, and it leaves the case as open as the sky.”

I really do not see why I should have to answer any more questions, Inspector Abbott.”

Miss Mildred Blake sat stiffly upright on an old-fashioned chair with a long straight back and a small unyielding seat. She was engaged in darning the right elbow of a very old black cardigan already converted into a kind of patchwork by a series of previous repairs. She held her needle poised as she spoke, and looked at Frank with severity.

Miss Ora was regarding him in quite a different manner. Personable young men were an agreeable change. There had been a time when she had attracted them, and though of course it would have been very inconvenient to have to keep house and look after children, she did sometimes regret that she had never been able to make up her mind between Cyril Jones and George Norton. She had liked Cyril the best, but he had got tired of waiting and married a horrid dark girl who played badminton. She frowned at the recollection, but she smiled upon Frank Abbott.

“It must be very tiresome for you having to go round asking a lot of questions which people don’t want to answer.”

Miss Mildred stabbed her darn with an angry needle.

“Really, Ora—I haven’t the slightest objection to answering any necessary question. But since Inspector Bury has already been here twice, once by himself, and once with this other Inspector, I fail to see—”

Frank’s cool gaze rested upon her. Now why all this heat? If she could have run the needle into him, it would have given her a good deal of pleasure. He said,

“I won’t keep you any longer than I can help. There is just a small matter which I hope you may be able to clear up.”

“I have already told you that I know very little about Miss Dean.”

“I realize that. But this has nothing to do with her. Mrs. Ball tells me that you were at a sewing-party in the Vicarage on Friday week.”

“Certainly. I am most regular in my attendance.”

“Mrs. Ball says that the party broke up soon after ten o’clock, but that you had left rather earlier as you wanted to have a word with Mr. Arnold Random, who was in the church playing the organ.”

“Yes. He always practises on Friday evenings.”

“You went over to the church to speak to him. I suppose you took the direct path from the Vicarage?”

“Of course.”

“When you reached the church, was he still playing?”

“No. He was beginning to put the music away.”

“He was alone?”

“Naturally. The organ has been supplied with electricity from the Hall—there is no need for a blower now. It used to be most inconvenient. Fanny Stubbs was the last one we had, and she was most unreliable.”

“I see. Then you are quite sure that Mr. Random was alone in the church?”

She gave him her hard black stare.

“Of course I am sure!”

“How long did you stay, Miss Blake?”

“A few minutes. Mr. Random was putting things away. Then he locked up and we went home.”

“Together?”

“As far as this house—yes.”

“Did you fall in with any of the ladies who were coming away from the work-party?”

“No—it was too early.”

He said, “Past ten o’clock?”

She had a grim smile for that.

“You have never watched a church work-party break up. Mrs. Ball provides tea and cake, and there is a lot of chatter. As far as I am concerned, I pack up my work and go, but she is lucky if she gets rid of most of them by a quarter past ten, and I have seen Miss Sims come home after the half hour. The smaller the village, the more there is to say, you know.”

Miss Ora fingered the pink edge of her shawl.

“Very interesting things can happen in a village,” she said. “And you get to know about them, which of course is what makes them so interesting. Now, in a big town you can live next door to someone and never know a thing about them. I remember poor Papa used to say that if you could take the roof off every house in Embank, a lot of people would have to leave the place and change their names. You know, Inspector, even when someone is living in the same house like Clarice Dean you don’t really know what is going on—do you? Why, we didn’t even know she was out of the house the night she was drowned—but girls always do slip out. It wasn’t the first time, I suppose, and of course she didn’t know it was going to be the last.”

“You think she had been slipping out at night?”

Miss Ora’s blue eyes widened.

“Oh, I expect so. She was crazy about Edward Random, you know.”

Miss Mildred said, “Ora—” in a repressive tone. A frown drew her brows together until they made a straight black line above the jutting nose. She looked Frank Abbott in the face and said,

“Since you insist on asking all these questions, you may as well have the truth. What my sister says is true—Miss Dean was making a dead set at Edward Random. I do not pretend to know when the affair began, or how far it had gone, but I believe he was already sick of it, and it would have been better if she had been warned in time. But that sort of girl never is, and they haven’t the sense to see that it really isn’t safe to go on. I have known Edward Random since he was a child. His temper has always been a difficult one, and since his mysterious and unexplained absence, which I suppose you have heard about, he has really been what I can only call morose. In fact the last man to play tricks with. But her pursuit of him was shameless. And now, Inspector Abbott, I must really ask you to go.”

Frank went.

As soon as he had left the house Miss Mildred rang up Mr. Arnold Random. To his rather weary “Hullo?” she responded briskly.

“It is I, Arnold. The Inspector from Scotland Yard has just been here to ask about my coming over to speak to you in the church on Friday week. He wanted to know whether you were alone there. Such an extraordinary idea! I can’t think what can have put it into his head. Of course I told him just what happened—that you had finished playing and were putting away the music—that we talked for a minute or two and then locked up and came away together. You remember the work-party at the Vicarage had not broken up, so we did not see anyone as we came along the street. You are, of course, in a position to confirm all this. Really, police officers are most intrusive, but I suppose they have their duty to do, and of course we all wish the whole matter to be satisfactorily cleared up.”

At the other end of the line Arnold Random stared blankly at the opposite wall and said,

“Of course.”

Mrs. Ball and Miss Silver took tea with the Miss Blakes, following a most pressing invitation from Miss Ora.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Ruth said in an apologetic voice, “but she rings up and makes it practically impossible to say no. If we hadn’t been able to go today, it would have been the next day, or the next, or the next, so I thought it would be better to get it over. Once she knows anyone has a visitor she can’t rest until she has had them to tea—and she really does have a very dull life, poor thing.”

Miss Silver said she would be delighted to have tea with the Miss Blakes.

“An invalid is deprived of so much.”

They found Miss Ora in her best shawl—quite a new one of a delicate shade of blue, the price of which had filled Miss Mildred with gloom. Her hair was disposed in very becoming curls, and she was wearing her mother’s rings, a diamond half hoop and a diamond and sapphire cluster on one hand, and a pearl and turquoise on the other. She received her guests with smiling amiability.

“My sister will not be long. She is just making the tea. Mrs. Deacon goes away after lunch, you know, and my health quite prevents me doing anything. I am really helpless without a nurse. Miss Dean’s death has been a sad deprivation. Such a shocking affair! You will have heard of it of course from Mrs. Ball. Even the Vicar, who is so strict about gossip, would hardly expect her not to talk about a murder which took place, as you may say, at his own doorstep.”

Miss Silver agreed that it was all very shocking, adding that they must hope that it would prove to be an accident.

It needed no more than this to set Miss Ora off. Edward Random and his strange disappearance—“For disappear he did, and everyone thought he was dead. And no explanation— not even to his stepmother or his uncle, for I asked Emmeline Random myself, and all she did was to look vague—really sometimes one would think she wasn’t quite all there—and to say she wouldn’t dream of asking. A girl is very foolish to embark on a flirtation with a young man who has a background like that. I am sure you will agree? And his temper—simply shocking! You know, I called to him out of this window on the very first day he was back. There he was, striding down the street as if the whole place belonged to him and looking— well, arrogant is the only word I can find to describe it. And when I called out to him and said how glad he must be to be back, and when was he going to come up to see me and tell us all about where he had been and what he had been doing, what do you think he said?”

“Young men can be very impatient,” said Miss Silver.

Miss Ora fluttered the white curls with a very decided toss of the head.

“Impatient? He looked as if he would like to murder me! And he said, ‘I’m afraid you wouldn’t be interested’—just like that, and he walked on. I could believe anything of him after that!”

Ruth Ball felt her colour rising. John would certainly disapprove of this conversation, and Miss Silver was encouraging it—it was no good pretending that she wasn’t. And how was it to be checked? John always said, “Your presence should be enough, my dear,” and in his case, of course, it was. But she wasn’t nearly so good—all she could do was to be uncomfortable and feel herself getting red.

Miss Silver was not unaware of this discomfort. She regretted it. But Miss Ora must not only be allowed to talk, she must be encouraged to do so. In the ten minutes or so which went by before the arrival of the tea she heard all about Jonathan Random’s debts and Emmeline’s cats.

“Really quite a mania, and most insanitary! Kittens all over the place! As my sister told Arnold Random—she has a great deal of influence with him, you know—they are friends of very long standing—in fact they might easily have been something more, only it didn’t come to anything— Dear me, where was I?… Oh, yes, she told him quite plainly—Mildred is always frank—that he had much better give her notice to quit and get the place cleaned up.”

It was at this point that Ruth Ball found herself unable to keep silence.

“Oh, Miss Blake, he couldn’t! Not his own brother’s widow!”

Miss Ora turned placid blue eyes in her direction. So long as she was comfortable, what did it matter if another woman was turned out of her home? She said in her amiable-sounding voice,

“Well, I believe he has done so.”

A fierce little verse from the Psalms about people who were enclosed in their own fat came up in Ruth’s mind. David said it, and it was in the Bible, and whether John would approve of it being applied to one of his parishioners or not, that was how she felt about Miss Ora Blake. She gave her really quite an indignant glance. But Miss Ora slid away from it.

“It is really very good of you both to come out to tea with me. I have been an invalid for so long that I feel it is very brave of anyone to be out in the dark—and I am afraid it will be very dark indeed by the time you leave. Such a dull evening. And of course no street lighting—one of the drawbacks of living in a village.”

Miss Silver smiled.

“I really do not mind the dark at all. I have an excellent torch.”

Miss Ora nodded.

“We have one too, but of course I do not use it myself.”

Miss Mildred came into the room as she spoke, carrying a small and rather dirty japanned tray with a teapot and hot water jug of heavy Victorian silver. When she had set it down and shaken hands with Mrs. Ball and Miss Silver, her sister pursued the theme.

“Miss Silver has a very good torch, Mildred. I was telling her that we have one too.”

“I suppose everyone in Greenings has one,” said Miss Mildred in her deep voice.

Miss Silver coughed in an interrogative manner.

“You go out a good deal in the evenings?”

The remark was addressed to Miss Mildred, but it was Miss Ora who answered it.

“Oh, no—not at all. Just church, and the Vicarage work-party on Fridays. There is really no entertaining at all since the war—people have not the staff. But Mrs. Ball’s parties are so very pleasant, everyone says. I only wish I could go to them.” She beamed upon Ruth. “Mildred is most regular—in fact I don’t know when she missed. Except, of course, last Friday, when we all thought we would go early to bed. Miss Dean had a headache—at least she said she had, but we found out afterwards that it was just an excuse to run out and meet whoever it was that murdered her—and I suppose most of us can make a guess as to who that was!”

Miss Silver said,

“Poor thing! And you did not hear her go out?”

“Oh, no—we had no idea. Mildred had a headache too. Of course I always go to bed early myself—Dr. Croft says it is most important. So we were going to have an early night, only of course in the end we were up till all hours. Such a terrible shock, the Doctor coming round and telling us Miss Dean was dead, when we had no idea that she was even out of the house. And you know how it is, if you are waked out of your first sleep, it is most difficult to go off again.”

Whilst this narrative proceeded Miss Mildred had been putting about three drops of milk into each of the cups and pouring out a faint straw-coloured brew, all in a grim silence. For which it was perhaps hard to judge her. Her manner was certainly not pleasant, but her sister must be trying to live with.

Reflecting on this, and looking at Miss Ora in her shell-tinted shawl, Ruth Ball could not help feeling irresistibly reminded of a pink blancmange—the sort you have at children’s parties, all shapeless and wobbly. As for Miss Mildred, she thought that she had never seen her look more dingy. She had not troubled to change out of her shabby clerical grey, and it seemed to have entered upon a new phase of deterioration. The sagging skirt was crumpled at the hem, and either there were new stains upon it and upon the cuffs, or else the overhead light showed them up more plainly. It shone down upon the greyness of her skin, and on the hands which looked as if they had not been washed for quite a long time. She poured out the tea in a manner which did very little to suggest hospitality, and broke in upon her sister’s remarks as to the courage required to go out in the dark with a sharp,

“It would be a great deal better if more people stayed at home. All these girls slipping out to go walking in dark lanes with their young men—well, it isn’t surprising if they get into trouble. And if one of them gets herself murdered, it’s no more than is to be expected.”

Miss Silver gazed at her innocently.

“You mean that poor Miss Dean. Do you think that she was meeting someone?”

Miss Mildred thrust a plate of bread and butter at her and said in her harshest voice,

“I think she was meeting Edward Random. She had been running after him ever since she came here. Nobody could help noticing it.”

Miss Ora heaved a sigh.

“Of course we don’t know that he murdered her.”

Mildred Blake turned a frowning gaze.

“I didn’t say that he had, Ora. Perhaps we had better talk about something else. Will you have some bread and butter, Mrs. Ball? I hear Annie Jackson has moved in at the Vicarage. How do you find her? I thought she looked very strange at the funeral.”

Ruth Ball pressed her lips together and was thankful that Miss Silver absolved her from the necessity of answering.

“A very trying experience, poor thing. She is sadly shaken.”

Miss Mildred drank from a scalding cup to which she had added neither milk nor sugar.

“I have known her for years,” she said—“all the time she was with Lucy Wayne. I never thought it would take very much to send her off her balance. Her father was a cow-man on the Burlingham estate. He drank and beat his wife. None of the children were very strong in the head. Annie certainly couldn’t have been, or she wouldn’t have married that good-for-nothing William Jackson. Lucy left her five hundred pounds, and of course that was all he was after.”

If the tea was a meagre one—a plate of bread and butter that was really margarine, and a plate of home-made biscuits, with a slab of fruit cake which Miss Mildred made no attempt to cut; if the milk ran short and there were only half a dozen lumps of sugar in the Victorian basin which could easily have accommodated a pound—there was at least no stint about the gossip which flowed in rich profusion.

As they walked home, Ruth Ball said with vexation in her voice,

“Every time I go there I make up my mind never to do it again. But what is one to do? It’s go, or start a quarrel—and you simply can’t do that in a village.”