Jack on the Gallows Tree (18 page)

“No. I'm going to lock this door for ten minutes, because I want to be undisturbed. Then I'll phone the police.”

Carolus remained in a deep armchair, but he had not that yogi-like immobility that was his at times, for now he was not facing a problem so much as deciding on a course of action.

At last he rang John Moore. He spoke carefully and seriously.

“Look, John, another lily has been stolen from the front garden from which two were taken before the murders.”

“Have you rung to tell me that?”

“Yes. It seems to me a very serious matter.”

“You still believe another old woman is going to be attacked?”

“I do. I want to make you believe it.”

“Who is it to be this time?”

“Almost certainly the Westmacotts' housekeeper, Mrs Bickley.”

“What do you expect me to do about it?”

“Protect the woman.”

“I could almost believe you are trying to make a fool of me.”

“Someone is, John. Someone who went to enormous trouble and some risk to leave a lily on each of two corpses and has now stolen another. But there is a kind of fooling that is more deadly than the most solemn behaviour. Will you at least let me tell you what I want you to do?”

“Go ahead.”

“I realize that you're in a difficult position. You've only just taken over here and all you've got to go on are my prognostications, which wouldn't convince any one of your superiors. So I won't ask impossibilities. But surely you can give your men a general alert? Something to the effect
that there is reason to think that another murder may be attempted tonight? At least the suspects in this case, if any of them behaves in an odd way, may come under observation. It can't do any harm, surely?”

“I suppose not. In general terms like that. Anything else?”

“Yes. I want you, personally, to come with me to Bickley's cottage behind Rossetti Lodge and remain there for a couple of hours while Bickley shows himself in the Dragon. You can be off duty, surely, or else asking Mrs Bickley a few questions? You're not committing yourself.”

“I could do that, but what good would it be? Do you think the murderer is going to walk in?”

“Yes, John, I do.”

“I think you're barking, Carolus. I've always thought so. But I'll come.”

“Good. Thank God you're in charge of this case instead of some moron who would already have made an arrest. Where can we meet?”

“Unobserved, you mean? I suppose your sense of melodrama demands that.”

“I demand it, anyway. The Bickleys have their own little door in Orchard Street. We can get in that way without being seen.”

“In that case I'll meet you outside the Windmill; that's a small pub on the corner of Orchard Street.” “At eight o'clock?”

“Yes. You're really in earnest, Carolus?”

“Dead earnest. I shall go now to the Dragon and remain there till I come to meet you. I want to see who shows up. And leaves. But I'll be at the Windmill on the dot. We might almost synchronize watches.”

“If it would amuse you. It is six twenty-four.”

Almost as soon as Carolus had put the receiver down the bell rang again. It was Mr Gorringer.

“I realize,” he said, “that while you are engaged in work
of this kind you cannot be responsible for the behaviour of people you introduce to me. But really, Deene. Seaweed for lunch and at teatime the gross impertinence …”

“I can't really stop now,” said Carolus. “I have to run.”

“Whither, Deene? I have not come to Buddington for nothing. Pray tell me where you will be pursuing your enquiries this evening?”

“At the Dragon. If you like to come to the bar there in ten minutes you will find me. I shall …” At that point Carolus did what Ben Johnson had described as ‘working the old receiver trick' on the headmaster and fled from the room.

But as he pulled up at the Dragon he saw a tall figure standing outside and in spite of the cap pulled over the eyes and the heavy muffler he recognized the headmaster.

“An adventure indeed,” said Mr Gorringer. “I may say that I have not done what I believe is inelegantly called pub-crawling since my undergraduate days. I am relieved to see that you are not accompanied by the boy Priggley.”

“No. Priggley has made himself scarce for the last day or two. I suppose he has found what he no less inelegantly calls ‘a piece of homework'.”

“You don't mean that the boy may have formed some undesirable liaison?”

“No reason to think that. He has taste of a sort. Let's go in.”

Miss Shapely received them with regal geniality and poured their drinks herself.

“I forgot to mention,” said Carolus aside to Mr Gorringer, “that you're a television photographer. Talk about the lighting, or something.”

The first surprise of that extraordinary evening came when Thickett entered the bar. He was, of course, served by Fred. Carolus noticed that he was wearing what could only be described as a Sunday suit.

“He very rarely comes here,” said Miss Shapely in answer to an enquiry when Thickett had taken his pint to a far corner. “I've no doubt he finds other places more suitable. Not that I've ever had any Trouble with him. He seems to behave himself.”

There were other familiar faces. Charlie Carew was in conversation with Ben Johnson. They sat one on each side of a small table on which an aspidistra in a large pot irrelevantly flourished. At some distance from them Dan Westmacott and his wife sat with Raydell. Carolus nodded and smiled to them. Old Mr Sawyer was busy re-ordering. There were several rather nondescript strangers, but two customers whom Carolus hoped to see before he left the bar, notably the chauffeur Wright and the car-park attendant Gilling, had not yet appeared. Bickley, he knew, would not leave his wife.

Luck was with him in another respect, though. Or was it? The Baxeters paid one of their rare visits and came straight across to Carolus.

“I need scarcely say,” the Colonel began, “that we drink nothing here but lemon juice. But my wife and I pay a visit occasionally for the sake of good fellowship. We do not wish it to be thought that our rational way of life makes us unsociable.”

“We are quite gregarious, you see,” added Mrs Baxeter.

Mr Gorringer, mellowed by a whisky-and-soda, became very courteous.

“I'm glad to have the opportunity,” he said, “of thanking you again for that delic … er excel … that most interesting lunch.”

“You like our simple fare? You should try my wife's mock pigeon pie. Made from aubergines and coco-butter,” said the Colonel.

“And prunes,” put in his wife.

“No doubt most health-giving. But we must not distract Deene. He has us all under observation, I suspect. Who,
may I ask, is that particularly loud-voiced individual in corduroys?”

“That's Ben Johnson, one of the best of the modern painters.”

“The name is familiar to me,” said Mr Gorringer unsmilingly. “Somewhat morbid subjects, I believe?”

“Writhing skeletons and death-watch beetles,” said Carolus. “I think you said you knew him, Colonel?”

“I said I had met him once,” said the Colonel bitterly. “He was an acquaintance of the late Miss Carew.”

“And with him?” went on Mr Gorringer, who was enjoying himself.

“That's Charlie Carew, the nephew.”

“Ah, the bar, I see, is a hotbed of suspects.”

“Want some more?” said Carolus. “At the table behind you is sitting the elder son and heir of the other murdered woman. With him is his beautiful wife and a farmer who owns an ocelot.”

“Dear me. A veritable detective's paradise. May I invite you all to join me in another glass? We will drink to a swift solution to this problem.”

“Lemon juice,” stipulated the Colonel.

“Did you not find, sir, that your rules of health were somewhat ill-attuned to a military life?”

“When I was in the Army,” admitted Colonel Baxeter, “I had not yet met my wife. Naturism was still foreign to me.”

“Ah. As well, perhaps,” said Mr Gorringer genially.

Watching Miss Shapely, Carolus saw her face suddenly brighten.

“Well you
are
early tonight, Mr Gilling!” she exclaimed with scarcely disguised joy.

“I couldn't stand another minute of it,” said the car-park attendant who had entered hurriedly. “My sciatica is playing me up something dreadful tonight and I'm more than half sure I've got appendicitis coming on. It seems to
shoot right up and down my right side. I don't like giving in, because we ought to grin and bear it, oughtn't we? But with my catarrh as well I didn't feel I could stay over there another minute.”

“There! What are you going to have?”

“There's only one thing'll do me any good and that's a drop of gin. I'd give my right hand for a nice light ale, but you know what it would do to me, don't you?”

“It's too bad,” said Miss Shapely vaguely but fondly. “Try that and see if it picks you up a bit. You want looking after, that's what's wrong with you.”

An argument seemed to have arisen between Charlie Carew and Ben Johnson, both of whom had been drinking somewhat heavily.

“All I said,” Charlie Carew maintained, “was that there is a story going round that you were expected there that night.”

“And I say I never had any intention of going near the place.”

“All right. All right,” said Charlie Carew. “No need to get excited.”

“Do you think I'd have been to see that old bitch?”

“Mr Johnson,” called Miss Shapely. “You know very well I won't have Language in my bar!”

“What language?”

“Beginning with B,” explained Miss Shapely, drawing herself up sternly.

“There are lots of words beginning with B,” said Ben Johnson and named two of them loudly and unforgivably.

“You will kindly finish your drink and leave, Mr Johnson. And don't come into my bar again.”

Ben Johnson named two more.

“Fred!” called Miss Shapely menacingly.

But Ben Johnson, shouting the final and by far the most forcible word beginning with B, stumbled out. Charlie Carew laughed noisily.

“There is nothing to laugh at, Mr Carew,” said Miss Shapely.

“He missed one!” said Charlie Carew. “What about bottom? Does it qualify?”

They never knew the answer, because Miss Shapely's attention was distracted by the entrance of the chauffeur Wright, with a shy-looking girl who seemed likely to be his ‘young lady'.

In a few minutes Wright, having deposited the girl at the only table remaining unoccupied, approached Carolus.

“You'll excuse me, sir,” he said somewhat smarmily, “but that's the man I told you about. Sitting alone by the door. The one who looked in the car windows, I mean. With the ginger moustache.”

“Yes, I thought it was,” said Carolus carelessly.

“What do you think I ought to do about it? My young lady's very upset.”

“Nothing,” said Carolus firmly. “She'll get over it.”

Wright seemed dissatisfied, but slowly returned to his table.

“Mystery upon mystery,” said Mr Gorringer, almost gleefully.

Soon afterwards the Baxeters prepared to leave. Mr Gorringer bowed gravely.

“Most enlightening,” he said insincerely to Mrs Baxeter who had been talking about vegetarian cookery when the argument broke out. “I must suggest that my wife experiments with some of these salubrious dainties.”

“Tell her to try nut fish,” advised the Colonel. “Chopped pecan nuts and hominy, with breadcrumbs, walnuts, grated onion, hard-boiled eggs, all moulded to the shape of whatever fish you prefer.”

“And chopped parsley,” his wife reminded him.

“Sounds delec … appetiz … very nutritious,” smiled Mr Gorringer.

“Are you going straight home?” asked Carolus casually.

The Colonel stared for a moment, then remembering the morning's conversation smiled broadly.

“I don't think you need feel any concern for my wife,” he said and the two left the bar.

Carolus noticed that Thickett closely followed them.

It was now a quarter to eight and Carolus prepared to leave for his rendezvous with John Moore. He did not want Mr Gorringer to accompany him.

“Look, headmaster, I have to leave you for a time. I wonder if it would be possible for you to stay on here and make notes of one or two things for me?”

“Certainly, Deene. I have told you I am willing to lend my aid.”

“What about your dinner?”

“I told Mrs Gorringer I might not be present for the evening meal, known as early supper at the Osborne. She most wittily misquoted Wordsworth in reply.

I take my little Gorringer

And eat my supper there,

she said. Now who is to be observed?”

“Shortly, I think, a man named Bickley will come in. He is a typical ex-policeman in appearance. I should like to know what time he comes and leaves.”

“You shall,” pronounced the headmaster.

“Then that group of Westmacott and his wife and Raydell. Also the man Gilling. It is possible that Ben Johnson or Thickett may return. But I would ask you particularly to notice Charlie Carew.”

“You may rely on it, Deene. A novice in such things I may be, but long years of observing boys has taught me something. Anyone else?”

“The chauffeur who spoke to me, and the girl with him. That's all.”

The headmaster was visibly preparing himself for the strain. His cap was pulled a little farther over his eyes and
he took up a commanding but not brightly lit position at the end of the bar.

“It would indeed be a surprise to the many Old Boys and present boys, not to mention the Governors and staff of the Queen's School, Newminster, if they became aware that their headmaster had engaged himself in one of these criminological exercises of yours, Deene. It is scarcely in keeping with the position I occupy.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
they might well ask one another in amazement. But since you assure me that the cause is worthy and may assist you in the detection of a murderer, I succumb.”