“Maybe not, but pending further enquiries, we have him in custody. The person who âfinds' the body is naturally suspect â and Jordan's known to have a temper, I gather â and to drink â and no one seems to have seen him at any time yesterday.”
“But look here â murder!”
The inspector raised an expressive eyebrow, but remained silent.
“Well,” Sebastian said awkwardly, at last, preparing to leave. “You've heard what I came to tell you ⦔
“Thank you. I appreciate that, sir. I take it you'll be staying here for the present.” This did not sound like a question. “You may have been the last person to see her alive, see. Apart from her murderer, of course.”
Sebastian felt a sense of unreality sweep over him. Was the inspector, simply because both he and the victim had arrived from London on the same day, suspecting some connection between them? Did he believe a word of Sebastian's story? Did he think he had murdered the woman? “Sorry, I can't stay. I'm due to drive Miss Fox back to London on Monday. She came down with me.”
“Miss Fox? Who's she? Did she see the woman under the trees, as well?”
“No.” Sebastian explained who Louisa was, and where she lived. “She has lectures to attend in London next week. It's important she gets back.”
“I'm sorry, but unless we get this cleared up before then, you may have to ask Miss Fox to find some other means of getting
back â she shouldn't have much trouble getting a train from Bridgnorth.” Meredith had seemed to have the business so very much at his fingertips, with little doubt as to the identity of the murderer, that Sebastian was surprised when he added, “It's a puzzle, this one. Unknown woman, not obviously a vagrant, no obvious motive for her being killed, unless it was the theft of her handbag. Not the sort of thing that happens in these parts, at all â it looks very much as though we're going to have to borrow a detective from London to help us out on this. We've telegraphed for one, and with luck he might be here by Monday, Tuesday at the latest. That's why I have to ask you to stay â until he's had a word with you.” He stood up and extended a hand. “Thank you for coming in, sir. That's all I have to say for now.”
It occurred to Sebastian that the inspector was by no means as confident as he had sounded, that perhaps he didn't believe Jordan was undoubtedly guilty; he had, after all, just admitted that this was being regarded as no ordinary, common or garden murder â if any murder could ever be called that. He began to have the impression that there was also a great deal more that the man might have said, had he so chosen, about who this woman might be, and why she was here. And again he thought that perhaps it was no coincidence she had been found in the Belmonde woods, and that, having been found there, it might well turn out to be nothing short of a catastrophe for the hitherto unassailable Chetwynd family.
The news that a body had been discovered on the estate was brought to Sir Henry by Seton, via one of the estate men who had come upon an almost incoherent Jordan in the woods, mumbling and ranting about dead bodies. Having first made sure, by demanding to see the body in question himself, that Jordan had not been drunk or taken leave of his senses, and that the woman was certainly dead, Will Shefford had guided him into the little bothy where the gamekeeper kept his tools and his fencing and the feed for his pheasant chicks, and where he'd been sleeping the previous night on a rough truckle bed, keeping watch for poachers. His chicks, which he'd hand-reared since spring, were almost ready to be released into the wild, and he'd slept with one ear open and his shotgun at his side, ready to scare off any intruders.
“I suppose I mun leave you, Tom,” said Shefford, “while I go tell Mr Seton.” He looked doubtfully at the keeper, and then around the bothy. An empty bottle told its own story. “You got coffee or summat up here, then?”
No answer came from Jordan, and Shefford filled the keeper's blackened tinkers' kettle from the stream and set it to boil, after feeding the dying fire with dry wood. He found tea, but no milk, laced the brew with plenty of sugar and thrust a mug into Jordan's hand in the hopes that he would drink it.
“Don't you go doing anything daft, Tom â we'll be back just now.”
With this further injunction, Shefford had hurried to the house on the edge of the park where Seton and his wife lived, to find them still at breakfast. After that the matter was taken out of his hands by the agent, who first saw to it that the police were informed and then went up to the bothy, and Jordan, to await the arrival of PC Simmonds, after which he felt it was more than time to inform Sir Henry, who couldn't be found for some time.
Eventually the search led to the little room off the long gallery where Henry kept his coin collection. Seton saw immediately
that something was troubling him; he could spend hours poring over the collection which he'd begun when he was a boy, and which included a louis d'or of exceptional value to him because it had reputedly been given to a Chetwynd by Louis X111 himself. He resorted to examination of his precious collection in times of stress as other men might seek solace in drink, or women, and to find him there when he should have been at church reading the lesson was indeed an indication that something was deeply troubling him.
After the news was broken to him, he returned with Seton to the clearing where the body had been found, only to be told by Will Shefford that both body and gamekeeper had already been taken away by the police.
“The police!” growled Henry. “I suppose by that you mean Joe Simmonds? What the devil does he mean by taking away my gamekeeper?”
“Begging your pardon, Sir Henry, it were the Bridgnorth inspector as took him away.”
Seton intervened to say, “They'll need to get the straight facts from him, and they could hardly keep him here.” He added, “I think it might go very badly for him. The woman seems to have been strangled, you know â and though he says he found her â”
“If Jordan says that, he's telling no more than the truth. Whatever his faults, he's no liar.”
Shefford nodded. “That's right. Never knowed Tom Jordan tell a lie.”
Seton also was inclined to be of the same opinion, but he thought any man might be a liar if he found himself faced with a murder charge. He kept his counsel, however. Sir Henry had been in a strange mood for the past week, and he seemed very shocked at what had happened â though possibly, Seton felt, more at the impropriety of such an event occurring on his land than of a woman having cruelly died there. But then, such a woman could be nothing to him, after all, a stranger with whom he had never had any contact.
“What was the woman doing up here in the first place?” Henry said brusquely, confirming Seton's belief. “Getting herself killed, what's more?”
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Detective Chief Inspector Crockett, from Scotland Yard, arrived at Wolverhampton High Level station the morning of the following day, which he considered nothing less than miraculous in the light of the short time he'd had to prepare himself. It had been an annoyance hard to swallow when the summons had come from Shropshire. He'd had to make hasty arrangements for someone else to take over the case he'd been engaged on for the last six weeks, and was just nearing completion, but he wasn't anxious to displease the Assistant Commissioner, who had stressed the importance of an immediate response. Moreover, the Chief Constable in Shrewsbury had said he wanted the best man available, and Crockett couldn't deny he was that man, and that his superiors had agreed enough with his estimation to send him.
He had been advised to take a train to Wolverhampton, where someone would be waiting with some form of transport for the rest of the journey, rather than take the other line to Bridgnorth with the number of changes which would be necessary. Quicker this way, perhaps, he told himself, but hardly could it have been less unpleasant. For the last half hour or so, the train had been thundering through a dismal landscape of factories, filthy canals and chimney stacks belching forth black smoke. Out of the carriage windows for mile upon mile he'd been regaled with the spectacle of chain-making shops, foundries and heavy metal works wedged huggermugger in between narrow streets of terraced red brick houses. He'd caught glimpses of fiery infernos through the open doors of great sheds, peopled with teams of men sweating at the forges and furnaces. “Like the god Vulcan and his myrmidons,” had murmured the talkative old gentleman who was his companion in the compartment, to an uncomprehending Crockett: there was nothing godlike about the scene to him, as the train roared on and the clang of metal and the screech of grinding machinery sounded even above the noise of the carriage wheels. The roar of industry, the heart of England â ye Gods, no wonder they called it the Black Country!
Never mind, he told himself, it should prove an incentive for him to crack the case as soon as possible so that he could get back to the Smoke â which he'd once believed to be the dirtiest
place on God's earth. And well it might be, but at least it was civilised.
Inspector Daffyd Meredith was there on the platform to meet him. They exchanged a brief handshake on introducing themselves, but Crockett said nothing more, just gave Meredith a curt, unpromising nod. Meredith showed no indication that he'd expected anything else, and led the way out.
As they emerged from the station, the London man coughed ostentatiously, looking around with unconcealed distaste at the pall of smoke and grime hanging over the town. He was somewhat mollified to see a gleaming motorcar waiting for them, impressed despite himself. Even the Metropolitan police were still making do with bicycles and public transport. He was beginning to feel quite affable by the time they were seated in the red leather interior behind the driver, with the hood thrown back to the bright sunny day and the town left behind.
Meredith had decided that the journey from Wolverhampton to Belmonde would provide the opportunity, not only to give the London detective the facts of the situation, but also for them to get each other's measure, and he was rather glad, in view of Chief Inspector Crockett's demeanour so far, that he'd asked for a motor rather than a pony and trap â and that he'd chosen to meet the detective personally. His wife was always telling him not to judge a person's character by their taste in clothes: she liked a man to be as smart and up-to-date as his circumstances would allow, whereas Meredith tended to feel that any red-blooded male who showed too much interest in how he dressed wasn't to be trusted. He therefore held his peace for the time being and tried not to look too obviously sideways at Crockett.
A bit of a dandy, this DCI had turned out to be â a check suit and a well-brushed brown bowler, grey suede spats and a silk handkerchief in his top pocket, at the moment being employed to flick away imaginary smuts from the pristine cuffs of his immaculate shirt and â God save us! â a pink carnation in his buttonhole. Meredith couldn't resist an inward chuckle â he hoped that in the large travelling bag he'd offered to carry for the detective were a pair of stout boots, at least. Prancing about the woods at Belmonde wouldn't do his spats or his shiny shoes
much good. Some sort of waterproof could doubtless be found for him, if necessary, but a man's boots needed to fit his own feet. He might have been surprised had he seen Crockett, who liked to think of himself as a master of disguise, dressed up when necessary with a beard and a spotted handkerchief around his neck, his hands filthy and thick grime under his nails.
But as their journey proceeded, Meredith saw that Crockett might do, after all, for within a mile or so of the big town, the scenery had improved, and with it his temper. As they bowled along from Staffordshire and into Shropshire, through villages and leafy lanes, with wooded hills rising in the distance, Crockett almost visibly thawed. He began to speak of the case, and to ask for the facts.
“So she was from London, then, the victim?”
“Well,” Meredith replied in his considering way, “we know she came on the train from London. But whether she lived there, of course, is a different matter.” He went on to say that, unlike Crockett himself, she had chosen to arrive at Bridgnorth. Passengers arriving there with a London ticket were few and far between, and a woman answering her description had been remembered by the ticket collector. She'd made enquiries as to what means she should employ to get to Belmonde village, and had been directed towards the local carrier, who was picking up deliveries of goods which had been brought in the guard's van of the very same train she had arrived on. The carrier, Timothy Childe, had been spoken to and said he'd dropped her off at the gates of the Abbey. He also said she'd had some sort of fancy way of talking when she asked him for the ride â London or some such, he couldn't rightly say- at any rate it wasn't Welsh, that being the only foreign accent he'd have recognised. By that criterion, both detectives were âforeigners'.
Apparently, Childe had claimed he and his passenger had no more conversation after that; Constable Simmonds had added that this was very likely the truth. Unless he'd completely broken with the tradition of a lifetime, Childe would have been, if not actually drunk, at least well away by that time in the afternoon. His horse knew its own way home, and he usually slept with the reins slack in his hands, in the way of carters the world
over. He'd reckoned the lady had paid him a shilling, but couldn' t recall whether she'd taken it from a purse or handbag, or simply from her pocket. She certainly didn't have any baskets or bundles with her. “So, she's a complete mystery,” finished Meredith.
“I suppose you know,” said Crockett, after a pause, “that Mr Montague Chetwynd, MP is the brother of your Sir Henry Chetwynd?”
Meredith inclined his head. “That's so. And he was staying at Belmonde last night.”
“Was he, by Jupiter?”
Crockett said no more, for they were now approaching Bridgnorth, which looked worth more than a second glance. He'd felt a great pity as he'd passed through the Black Country for all the people who were forced by circumstances to live there, and was pleasantly surprised to find something far different here. The picturesque little town rose high above the Severn on sandstone cliffs, tier upon tier, so steeply that access to the High Town, Meredith informed him, was only by way of a punishingly steep and tortuous road, or by several equally demanding sets of steps which had been carved over the years into the soft red sandstone â or nowadays by the new cliff railway, of which the inhabitants were very proud. “Won't need to bother about that, though, Mr Crockett, you'll be served very well at the Falcon in the Low Town where we've put you up.”
Crockett nodded and instantly resumed the conversation where he'd left off, before they should be interrupted by arrival at the inn, where they must stop to leave his bag. “You'll be aware also, I suppose, that Mr Montague Chetwynd is one of those in the Houses of Parliament who is strong against these viragos who are clamouring for the vote?”
“Thinking of that speech of his in the Commons last month?”
Meredith's response showed that he'd got there before him; he wasn't such a bumpkin as he'd at first seemed to Crockett, misled by his slow speech and deliberate responses, and accustomed as he was to the Cockney sharpness of his underlings, and the general pace of things at Scotland Yard. “Yes. We have been wondering if the victim might have been one of them â¦had she
known he was to be there.” He added drily, “Up to all sorts of mischief, these women in London, we hear â though of course, we're not of enough importance here to attract that sort of attention.”
Crockett saw that Meredith's tongue was firmly in his cheek, and warmed further to him. He appreciated a man with a sense of irony. And he had to allow that it was, so far, the only explanation which seemed to fit: that the victim could be one of these so called suffragettes, who would go to any length to publicise their cause; who actually seemed to relish imprisonment. Crockett sighed. He definitely did not want this case to have anything to do with these pesky females, who unfortunately included in their number a certain young lady who had declined as yet to become Mrs Crockett in favour of casting in her lot with them, and for whom he had a very soft spot. In his opinion the Prime Minister, Mr Asquith, had got it right when he refused to listen to them. But even if this woman had been a suffragette, the most rabid anti-franchiser could scarcely have thought that grounds enough to kill her?