The Corpse in the Cellar (26 page)

‘I'm sure that in due course she'll explain that to us when she's interviewed under caution,' replied the policeman.

By now Jack had finished his breakfast and he rose from his seat. ‘Inspector,' he said, ‘could you and I have a chat in private please?'

Crispin seemed surprised by this unexpected request, but he replied, amiably enough, ‘Certainly, sir, if you wish.'

Jack led him outside to the lawn behind the pub running down to the river. There I could see them through the window, pacing back and forth in the golden morning sunshine. As they walked Jack was speaking, gesturing emphatically with his hands. The inspector was listening politely but seemed to be unpersuaded by whatever it was Jack was saying. Jack would make a point emphatically and Crispin would shake his head slowly. Then Jack left him and dashed back inside.

Coming back to the breakfast table he said, ‘Warnie, old chap, do you still have that whatsit that we found in the rubbish bin at the bank last night?'

‘The old screwdriver? Safely stowed in my pocket, old chap.'

‘May I have it please? I want to show it to the inspector.'

‘Certainly,' mumbled Warnie, withdrawing the oily rag from some recess deep within his coat. Jack grabbed it and rushed back outside to continue his conference with the Scotland Yard man.

I resumed my spot at the window, watching the silent pantomime, trying to work out what was going on. First Jack handed over the grimy package to Crispin, then he began making those methodical gestures I've seen him make in a lecture hall at Oxford often enough—the gestures that marked out the stages of a tight, logical argument. Crispin continued to look sceptical.

But after a while there seemed to be a change in the tone of the conversation. Crispin began asking questions, pointing first in one direction and then in the opposite one. Whatever Jack's answers were they must have been satisfactory because before too long the inspector was nodding his head, and the two of them looked more like conspirators than debaters.

The conference drew to a close. Inspector Crispin left through the front door of the pub, and Jack returned to our breakfast table to pour himself another cup of tea and spread another slice of toast with marmalade.

‘Well?' I said. ‘Are you going to tell us what all that was about?'

‘I've managed to get our good friend Crispin thinking down fresh channels,' Jack replied with a sly grin.

‘Got him using his little grey cells,' Warnie chuckled, ‘as Mrs Christie's little French detective calls them.'

‘Belgian,' I said pedantically.

‘Who? What?' asked Warnie through a mouthful of toast.

‘Hercule Poirot is Belgian, not French,' I explained.

Warnie blinked at me and then said, ‘Ah yes, of course. You're quite right, old chap. Foolish of me.'

Jack swallowed the last of his toast and gulped down the last of his tea. As he rose from the table he said, ‘There's something else I've just remembered that I need to explain to the inspector. I'm off to the police station.'

Jack took three steps towards the door with Warnie saying to his retreating figure, ‘Are we still free to leave, then?'

‘I'm afraid not, old chap,' said Jack turning around. ‘And Morris—I have a job for you.'

I nodded, raised my eyebrows and waited for him to explain.

‘I want you to find Ruth Jarvis. You'll remember we were told she's staying with her mother. Find the address. Our publican's wife, Annie Jones, should be able to tell you since she and Ruth are cousins.'

‘And when I have the address?'

‘I want you to pay a call on Ruth Jarvis. See what you can find out about the mortgage taken out by Nicholas Proudfoot. She might have keys and be able to let you into the bank to look at the books. She might even remember something. But ask her—see what you can find out.'

With that he turned on his heels and disappeared rapidly.

I found Annie Jones tidying up behind the bar. In reply to my question she explained that Ruth's mother lived in a cottage on the riverbank, and gave me directions to find it.

I went back to the snug to find that Warnie had spread out
The Times
over the breakfast crumbs and was engrossed in its pages.

‘I'm off to carry out Jack's assignment,' I said. ‘You coming with me?'

Warnie emerged from his reading to a sufficient level of consciousness to decline the invitation. In fact, he said, he might take his newspaper out into the sunshine for a leisurely read. He toddled off to do this while I headed out of the pub in the direction of the river.

The River Plum wound around half the town. Not far from the railway bridge that connected Market Plumpton with the wider world, I found the towpath and followed it in the direction indicated by Annie Jones's instructions. For the first part of my walk I had the river on my left and the high brick walls of the backs of houses on my right. Steadily the ground on my right, sloping down to the river, got steeper, and instead of houses I was soon brushing past willows and heavy undergrowth. Then I rounded a bend and saw the cottage, sitting almost on its own peninsular with the river waters swirling around.

‘That must be very damp,' I thought to myself. ‘Can't be at all healthy.'

I knocked on the front door and it was opened by Ruth Jarvis herself.

‘Good morning, Ruth,' I said. ‘You remember me? Tom Morris.'

She nodded.

‘May I come in?'

She was clearly surprised by my visit, but she stood to one side and ushered me into the small, low-beamed thatched cottage. The front door opened into a narrow whitewashed hallway. Ruth led me down this and showed me into a small parlour. It had the air of being a rarely used ‘best room'—not used by family but reserved for visitors.

She waved me into an overstuffed armchair and sat down facing me.

‘I can't imagine what you want to talk to me about, Mr Morris,' she said.

‘I don't know whether you've heard or not,' I began, ‘but we three Oxford gentlemen have been making some inquiries of our own into the mysterious and tragic death that we were witnesses to.'

‘I've heard,' she said. ‘So has everyone in town. You can't keep secrets in Market Plumpton.'

‘Well, my friend Mr Lewis is, at this very moment, conferring with Inspector Crispin from Scotland Yard. From that I take it that our private inquiries have become a bit more official. At any rate, Jack—Mr Lewis—has sent me here to ask you some questions.'

‘What about?'

‘The mortgage held by the bank over Nicholas Proudfoot's farm.'

‘I'm not sure I can talk about that, Mr Morris,' said Ruth, looking nervous and chewing her bottom lip. ‘After all, it's bank business, and bank business is terribly confidential.'

‘But in this case, Ruth,' I persevered, ‘there's been a murder. A particularly horrible murder of someone who was dear to you. Surely in this instance . . . '

She still looked doubtful, so I continued, ‘And at any rate, the mortgage is now over—Nicholas Proudfoot is also dead and the property has been resumed by the bank. Surely that means that the file is now closed and you're free to talk about it.'

‘Yes, I suppose you're right,' she said slowly. ‘What do you want to know?'

‘Well, Jack wanted to know if you have a key to the bank—if you can let me in to have a look at the books. I assume he wants to know the pattern of payments.'

‘We don't need to go to the bank for that, Mr Morris,' she replied. ‘It was so unusual I remember quite well.'

I sat back in the big old armchair and rested my head on the antimacassar while Ruth told her story.

‘Nicholas was about my age—we were in school together—so even though the bank's accounts are confidential, and I would never have told anyone, I couldn't help noticing when the mortgage was taken out, and when the payments were made.'

‘And was there a pattern to those payments?' I asked.

‘At first Nicholas came in once a month, regular as clockwork, and made his payments. He'd spent the money he raised with the mortgage to improve the property—buy new farm machinery and fix the fences. He was pleased as Punch. He seemed to think he'd made a really good investment and the mortgage would be paid off in no time.'

‘But this changed?'

‘There was a long dry spell, and a very cold winter, so the crops were poor. Everyone in the district was saying that. Then stock prices fell and the farmers were getting less at the farm gate. For those who had no debt it didn't matter much—they just tightened their belts and waited for it to pass. But it was cruel for those who had payments to make.'

‘Like Nicholas Proudfoot?'

‘Poor Nick. Every time he came into the bank he looked more worried. Then he missed a payment. Then made a late payment. Then missed another one. So Mr Ravenswood summoned him in to call him to account. Everyone in town will tell you how strict Mr Ravenswood is over bank business. He never gives an inch of slack. Not that I can blame him for that. I suppose he has no choice really—he has to answer to the bank's head office.'

‘So he made demands on Nicholas Proudfoot?'

‘Yes. I remember the day Nick and Amelia came in. They were in Mr Ravenswood's office for such a long time. In the end there were raised voices and a lot of shouting. When they came out, Amelia was in tears and Nick was looking like thunder.'

‘So why wasn't the mortgage called in immediately after that meeting?'

‘I think Nick must have found another source of income.' Ruth was looking into the distance, as if seeing those past events again.

‘What makes you say that?'

‘Well, a few days after that awful row, Mr Ravenswood drove out to the farm and spoke to them again. A little while later I noticed in the book that payments were being entered against their mortgage.'

Again Ruth was staring dreamily. Then I realised that she was looking at something over my shoulder. I turned around and the door of the parlour, which had been open a few inches, closed silently as I watched. Someone had been at the door, listening to our conversation. But who? Ruth Jarvis's elderly mother? Perhaps—some old women are inveterate gossips. And if not her, then who?

I tried to muster my thoughts and bring them back to the issue of the Proudfoot mortgage that Jack wanted me to investigate.

‘So if the payments were being made,' I said, trying to focus, ‘why was Nicholas Proudfoot so angry on that morning when Jack and Warnie and I were in the bank?'

‘I don't know,' said Ruth, shaking her head and looking genuinely puzzled. ‘Perhaps Nick felt that the bank was bleeding him dry—taking every last penny. I really don't know. But I've never seen him look that furious, not even on the day he had that awful meeting with Mr Ravenswood.'

‘Yes, he certainly looked volcanic when we saw him,' I agreed.

I took Ruth over the same ground several times but she was able to add nothing to it. And she kept looking nervously over my shoulder, as if she expected someone to appear in the doorway to the front parlour—someone she'd prefer me not to see.

When she showed me out into the narrow hallway and led me to the front door, I had that uncanny feeling of eyes staring at the back of my neck. I quickly turned around, quickly enough to see a door swinging closed, but not quickly enough to see whoever was behind it.

Well, I thought as I walked back down the towpath, I have some information for Jack—and another little mystery to share with him.

As I may have mentioned before, I have the ability to report conversations verbatim, and this is what I did when I returned to the pub. Jack was already there, having completed his second consultation with Inspector Crispin, and he drank in every word I said eagerly.

We were sitting in the front parlour of
The Boar's Head
. Warnie was smoking a cigarette, Jack was puffing on his pipe and all three of us had a pint of bitter in front of us.

‘So how close are you to solving the whole thing?' I asked. ‘The puzzle of how Franklin Grimm was killed when he was in the cellar alone, and by whom, and why?'

‘I have almost all the pieces in my hand,' said Jack. ‘The one missing piece I can guess at—and Inspector Crispin is currently searching for that piece to turn the guess into reality.'

‘There you are!' chortled Warnie. ‘I knew you'd solve the mystery before the lads from Scotland Yard.'

‘Let's not be too hasty, old chap,' Jack said with a hearty laugh. ‘I'm sure I have all the pieces; what I have to do now is put them together so they make a complete picture.'

‘Oh, I see,' said Warnie, looking a little deflated as he wiped froth off his moustache. ‘Rather like a jigsaw puzzle then?'

‘Something like that,' Jack agreed.

‘And what about us being allowed to leave and get on with our holiday?' I asked.