Who Killed Charmian Karslake? (7 page)

Hepton was the quaintest of old-fashioned villages, or perhaps we should say, since it boasted a market consisting of a few stalls in the little cobble-paved street, the tiniest of market-towns. It nestled under the shadow of the Abbey, and to the true Heptonian the Penn-Moretons represented the ruling class, all that they knew of rank, or wealth, or culture.

True, the King and Queen were higher, but then the King and Queen did not come in the way of the Heptonians. Sir Arthur and Lady Penn-Moreton were good enough.

On the morning after the discovery of Charmian Karslake's murder, Stoddart and Harbord walked slowly up the village street from the Abbey, glancing curiously from side to side.

To reach it from the Abbey they had to cross a wide, open space, still known as the Bull Ring. On one side were the schools and the schoolmaster's house, on the other the church, the Abbey Church, as it had been at the Dissolution. It was little altered now, save in heavy wooden pews which had been put in by laterday Protestants.

Once past that there were little, old-fashioned shops on one side, with high steps leading up to them. On the other was the butter and poultry market. Heavy oak standards of stout lattice-work at the sides and overhead, the fine old justice-room in which the local magistrates still sat to adjudicate upon the cases of drunkenness or pilfering that might be brought before them.

The justice-room was well worth the antiquaries' attention, but Stoddart only bestowed the most cursory glance upon it. All his attention was given to the shops on the other side, or rather to the names upon them.

By the local Bank he stopped and looked up the village street that led to the almshouses and past them to the open country beyond.

“Quaint old spot, isn't it?” he said to Harbord. “Matter of fact, Sir Arthur told me it was said to be the original Dickens' Sleepy Hollow. Well, here we come to the parting of the ways. I will have a look at the shops and then have a glance at the ‘Moreton Arms,' which seems to be about the biggest pub hereabouts, while you prowl around in the churchyard, get a look at the register if you can, and see if you can meet with the name – names I should say.”

“Names!” Harbord repeated in a puzzled fashion. “Karslake, of course one understands, but –”

“Karslake and Charmian, of course,” the inspector said quietly. “In fact I think the Christian name is the more important, as it is the more distinctive of the two.”

“Charmian Karslake.” Harbord repeated the two words thoughtfully. “Certainly it sounds like an assumed name.”

“The sort of name an actress assumes,” Stoddart added. “Well, so long, Alfred, we shall meet again at the Abbey.”

Harbord turned in at the old lych-gate leading to the churchyard, while Stoddart proceeded with his saunter up the narrow street, looking from side to side at the names over the shops, Thompson, Dickenson, Grey, Walker, and other stranger names probably indigenous to the district, Frutrell, Furniger, Thorslett, but no Karslake.

Evidently there was little business doing this morning. Of customers very few shops had any sign. In many cases, white aproned or black aproned, the tradesmen stood at their doors passing the time of day with the passersby or exchanging remarks with their next-door neighbours.

Stoddart guessed rightly that nothing but the terrible occurrence at the Abbey would be talked of for many a long day at Hepton. He made his way to the upper part of High Street, and after a lingering glance round turned in at the “Moreton Arms.” The bar was at the right-hand side of the red-bricked passage. A hubbub of conversation arose from within, hushed as Stoddart stood at the door. He went forward to the counter where a buxom-looking barmaid was serving out foaming frothy glasses of ale.

“Good morning, miss,” he said politely, as she glanced at him. “A sherry and bitters, please.”

She served him quickly and went on to a tall, stout-looking man, who had followed him in. This individual was evidently something of a stranger, like Stoddart himself.

As he ordered a pint of Bass's best, he said cheerfully:

“Terrible affair that at the Abbey?”

“Terrible!” the barmaid assented, with an uneasy glance at Stoddart.

The newcomer looked at him too. “You have heard of it maybe, sir?”

“I have,” Stoddart told him in a noncommittal tone. At present he was uncertain whether the reason for his presence at Hepton was known or not.

Quite evidently this new-comer desired to be friendly. “Can't understand a woman being shot in her own bedroom, and the murderer getting away with it. Can you, sir?” turning suddenly on the detective.

Stoddard took a long pull at his drink before answering, then he said slowly:

“Has he got away with it? Has it been proved that the murderer was ‘he' at all?”

The hand with which the barmaid was manipulating the big brass taps obviously trembled.

The rubicund stranger paused in the very act of raising his glass and stared at the detective.

“I say, sir, does that mean –”

Stoddard smiled grimly. “It does not mean anything but a plain statement of fact. Miss Karslake is quite as likely to have been shot by a woman as by a man. By the way, I hear she was a stranger hereabouts.”

“That she was,” said the newcomer, who seemed to be constituting himself the spokesman of the assembly.

“We are not much for going up to London, we Hepton folks, and this was the first time she ever come here.”

“Was it?” Stoddart questioned.

“Why, of course it was,” the burly one said positively. “Who has been getting at you?”

“Nobody.” Stoddart looked round. “But I thought I had heard of people named Karslake living in Hepton and she might have been a connexion.”

“What be 'e a saying Karslakes. Course there is Karslakes in Hepton. 'Tain't spelt like this woman's though.”

The interruption came from an old man cowering down in the chimney-corner seat and holding out his trembling old hands to the heat.

Inspector Stoddart turned to him. Here was what he had been trying to find – one of the forefathers of the hamlet.

“You have known Karslakes in Hepton, sir,” he said, with a deferential air to which the old man was quite unaccustomed.

“'Ees, 'ees, sir,” he quavered. “So do many of these 'ere folks too. Only our Karslake, 'taint spelt like this 'ere pore thing's. Karslake, I understand hers was – spelt with a K like. While ours was Carslake, spelt with a C. That's what made folks not recognize the name. But if it were spelt different folks wouldn't be unlike, would they?”

“I suppose not”, the inspector said slowly. “But now these Carslakes spelt with a C, are there any of them left in Hepton?”

“Now, no, sir.” The old man shook his head. “The last of 'em, Mrs. Lee Carslake, she lived at the Red House, a bit out o' town that were. Everybody knowed her – a widow woman – her man had been a doctor over at Peysford Green, and when he died she come back to live at Hepton. Hepton born and bred she was. Father was Lawyer Herbert, buried at back o' church he is. Ay, Hepton born and bred were Mrs. Lee Carslake.”

“Had she any children?” the inspector inquired in as conversational a tone as he could manage.

“Ay! Chillen, yes. Of course she had.” The ancient scratched his head. “A matter of four or five boys and then the youngest, the purtiest little wench ever I see.”

A little girl! The inspector felt that he was striking oil at last.

“What was her name?” he asked abruptly.

“Her name?” the old man repeated. “Well, now, it was Missy Carslake I called her, when I spoke to her, which wasn't often. Her mother, I have heard her call her Angel or someut like that.”

But other memories were waking.

“Mrs. Lee Carslake. The Red House,” said a little man who had been standing at Stoddart's elbow ever since he came in. “I never thought of her when you began to talk about Karslakes. An' yet I used to do bits of gardening jobs for her, time gone by. Her little wench, I heard her mother call her Lotty time nor I can remember.”

“Lotty!” The inspector thought a minute. “That will be short for something, surely. A pet name you might say.”

“Ay, like enough! But I don't know what it might be,” the first speaker went on. “I never heard her spoken of as anything but Miss Carslake; Charlotte the word may be.”

Charlotte and Charmian. The inspector's heart felt perceptibly lighter. Things were beginning to shape themselves much as he had expected.

“Where are they now, Mrs. Carslake and her daughter?” he questioned. “I presume they have left Hepton.”

“Ay. They are not here now,” the old man quavered. “A matter of going on for twenty years it is now. Mrs. Carslake, she never left it, I should say. Carried out of her house she was and into the old church and put in aside of her father, back o' the church. That's how Mrs. Carslake left the Red House. She didn't never leave Hepton.”

Stoddart took another drink before he went on.

“And Miss Karslake, what became of her?” he asked at last.

The old gentleman scratched his head. “Don't know as I ever heard. Went away from Hepton, she did, with her brothers, before her mother was cold in her grave you might say. Ondaycent other folks called it. Word came back to Hepton that one of the lads, the youngest, was killed in the War. But Miss Lotty, I never heard what come o' Miss Lotty. Maybe she got married. Fine, upstanding, personable sort of wench she were.”

“I was just about to ask you what she was like. Good-looking, was she?”

“Ay. You would call her that. Like one of they young larches in the copse down Homer way. Tall she was, and a pair of bootiful eyes, I mind. T' young men would be after her soon enough, I reckon.”

“And her hair – light or dark?” the inspector asked, striving to keep the eagerness out of his voice.

“Well – er, I don't rightly remember much o' that,” the old fellow acknowledged. “Lightish like, I should say, and long down her back, not cut off like these young girls nowadays.”

“Her golden hair was hanging down her back,” murmured the inspector's first friend, who was evidently by way of being facetious.

“Still, twenty years ago, or eighteen years ago is not so long but that there must be some people in Hepton who would remember Miss Carslake and know what has become of her.”

“Dare say there are,” assented the other man in a listless tone, apparently losing interest in the subject. He picked up his empty glass and looked into it reflectively.

The inspector took the hint for both his loquacious friends. He got little more out of them, however, except the remark that old Dr. Brett, him as had give up doctorin' and gone to live retired in a house on the Bourton Road – he'd know all there was to know of the Carslakes.

At any rate there seemed to be little more to be gleaned at the “Moreton Arms.” A glance at his watch showed Stoddart that there was time to spare before lunch, and after a moment's indecision he made up his mind to seek an interview with Dr. Brett. If the old doctor had retired, probably time hung heavily on his hands and he would welcome a visitor and a chat over old days.

Just past the “Moreton Arms” the main street divided itself into two roads, one, that on the right, going on past what was known as the high causeway to the range of hills overlooking the wide level ground that stretched over to Lichfield. These hills running more or less continuously to the Welsh borderland were known as Hepton Edge. The other road ran by the old Vicarage to the nearest town of Bourton. On this road, the very few houses that had been added to Hepton in the memory of living man had been built. To one of these comparatively modern abodes the inspector was directed when he inquired for Dr. Brett.

The doctor was at home, he was informed by the smiling, white-capped maid who answered the door. Apparently Hepton required no credentials, there was no question of his admission. He was taken at once to a pretty little drawing-room with enough old silver about to make a thief's eyes water.

Dr. Brett did not keep him waiting long. He was a fussy-looking little man with a bush of white hair and what looked like the remains of side-whiskers, contrasting oddly with his rosy cheeks and pale blue eyes.

The inspector stood up. “Dr. Brett, I presume?”

The doctor bowed. “You have the advantage of me. But the maid understood that you wished to speak to me on business.”

“I did, sir.” The inspector handed him a card. “You will see, I am from Scotland Yard.”

“Dear, dear, yes – ‘Detective Inspector Stoddart,'” he read. “Dear me, yes. I suppose you are here in Hepton in order to investigate this shocking affair at the Abbey. But I don't know that I can be of any assistance to you. I have long ago given up practising.”

“So I have heard,” the inspector said quietly. “Nevertheless I am here to ask your assistance this morning. I believe you knew a Mrs. Carslake at the Red House?”

“Knew her! Bless my life, of course I did,” the doctor ejaculated. “But sit down, Mr. – Stoddart” – consulting the card again – “and tell me what I can do for you. Poor Eleanor Carslake, I was at her wedding. I brought all her children into the world, and I went to her funeral. Saw her laid to rest in Hepton Churchyard, to my mind the prettiest in England. Dear me, yes, I should say there is no one in Hepton who knows more about Eleanor Carslake than I do.”

He took off his glasses and wiped the dew from them.

“Now, tell me, what you want to know,” he began as he replaced them, “though I cannot conceive why Scotland Yard should make inquiries about Eleanor Carslake.”

“It is not really Mrs. Carslake herself about whom I wanted to ask a few questions. It is really about her daughter.”

“Ah, poor Lotty!”

In some curious fashion the muscles of the doctor's face began to stiffen.