Jack on the Gallows Tree Page 7

  “Do you know a painter called Johnson? Mr Ben Johnson?”

  “Him? It wasn’t him. I knew him when he used to bring me shoes that hadn’t much left of them to repair. That was in the old days, before he was famous. It’s different now. But he never dresses himself up in big hats and that.”

  “You’re convinced your man was a stranger?”

  “Yes.”

  “I won’t keep you from your work then, Mr Humpling. And I won’t trouble you again.”

  “That’s all right. Only it’s the Time. Someone will be on at me for not having their shoes ready.”

  From the shop Carolus turned towards the centre of the little town. Buddington did not cover a large area and to Rupert’s disgust Carolus had left his car at the hotel.

  “Where now?” sighed Rupert. “This foot-slogging is killing me.”

  “I want to see the lady who lost her lilies.”

  “A pretty piece of alliteration, but what do you really think you’ll gain by it? However, let’s do another mile or two’s tramp.”

  “It’s not far. Nothing is in Buddington. Primrose Cottage, 77 Station Road, is the address.”

  “And the name?”

  “Gosport. Mrs Gosport.”

  They found her at home. Station Road was a long street of identical red brick houses with small gardens in front of them. The street led from the station to Market Street, itself a turning off the Promenade, the principal street of the town. Primrose Cottage was at the Market Street end, so that it was not far from the Granodeon Cinema, and the Dragon Hotel. For that matter it was not far from Dehra Dun and Rossetti Lodge, or from any other point in Buddington.

  Mrs Gosport was a neat and beady-eyed little woman who received them with a smile, the first they had been given by anyone they had interrogated.

  “You can see where they were taken from, can’t you?” she said pointing to the stumps from which two candida lilies had been cut. “It was a shame, because they weren’t fully out and I always give them to St Augustine’s, which is the church I go to. Two they took, and they were going to be a picture. Well, you can see from the rest.”

  “You’ve never lost anything from the garden before?”

  “Not to mention, I haven’t. I once caught the little girl next door picking one of my cornflowers, but that was a long time ago and she wanted it for a botany class. I told her she should have Asked, that’s all. They’re wonderful smelling, my lilies. The lady next door says she can smell them all over the house.”

  “You know that lilies were found on the two bodies, don’t you?”

  “That’s just it. Some people think they were mine, but of course you can’t be sure. There’s others grow lilies in the town, though not to come up to mine. There’s Smitherses the nurserymen, though Mr Smithers himself said to me, ‘We can’t grow lilies like yours, Mrs Gosport.’ ”

  “The police seem to believe they were yours, anyway.”

  “I’ve heard they do but they’ve never been to see me about it. I went round and reported it on the morning after they’d gone and the Sergeant said they’d do everything they could. I didn’t know about the murders then, you see. But those investigating haven’t troubled to come and see me, though they went twice to Mrs Plummer’s.”

  “Oh. Why?”

  “She’s supposed to have seen something on the night. She lives right opposite to where Mrs Westmacott lived, though I don’t believe she knew the poor lady more than by sight.”

  “You knew Mrs Westmacott?”

  “She came to St Augustine’s where I go and I saw her every Sunday. But no. The police haven’t asked me anything. Too busy listening to what Mrs Plummer had to tell them about a stranger going to the house that night. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”

  “It certainly does,” said Carolus truthfully. “Have you any idea what time your lilies were stolen?”

  “Not really. They were there when I came in from the pictures at six o’clock and when I went to the door in the morning they’d gone. That’s all I know. My sister who lives with me’s a ninvalide, and sleeps in the front, but she never heard anything.”

  “Wouldn’t the thief have been seen?”

  “Not if he was careful. We’re farthest away from a street lamp here and it’s dark at night. He could have nipped in the gate and popped out again without anyone knowing anything about it.”

  “I expect that’s what he did.”

  “I’m glad you came and asked me about it. You’d have thought the police would have done, wouldn’t you? After finding them on the bodies and that. But no. They’ve time to see that Mrs Plummer, asking her all sorts of questions, so the lady next door to her told me, but not to come here. You can’t help thinking, can you?”

  “No,” said Carolus.

  He could see that reiteration was about to set in and prepared to take his leave. Not liking to ask any precise directions, he intended to find the home of Mrs Plummer by enquiries on the spot. But Mrs Gosport voiced the suggestion herself.

  “I should go and see her if I was you,” she said bitterly. “And hear whatever it was kept her talking to them for an hour or more. You can tell her you’ve been to see me about the lilies, then she’ll know she’s not the only one with information.”

  “Thank you. Which is her house?”

  “House? She hasn’t got a house and never has had that I remember. She’s a caretaker, so-called, for the house opposite Westmacotts’. Charlton, its name is, a big grey house. You can’t miss it. Yes. You tell her I had some information for you. She won’t like that.”

  “If by any chance you should lose any more lilies, will you let me know at once? My name’s Deene and I’m staying at the Royal Hydro.”

  “Yes. Certainly I will. That’s a promise.”

  Carolus was so sure Mrs Plummer would not like references to Mrs Gosport that he kept the source of his information about her till he had heard what Mrs Plummer had to say. She was, unexpectedly, a jovial-looking person who invited him into Charlton as though it was rather a joke. Indeed, in appearance it was, a huge house like a commercial hotel in the Midlands, leather armchairs, Turkey carpets, ponderous furniture and brassware. They went to the dining-room, which had a mahogany table capable of seating twelve large persons and a sideboard with an array of giant electro-plated dish-covers.

  “Well!” said Mrs Plummer cheerfully. “You want to know what I know about the murder opposite, do you? I’m not surprised, because as far as anyone can tell I saw the murderer. What do you think of that?”

  “Very interesting,” said Carolus inadequately.

  “I can tell you the time and everything.”

  “Can you indeed?”

  “Yes. It was just gone eleven.”

  “What was?”

  “When I saw this man. My husband had gone to bed. He’s a fitter at the gasworks and I always say it makes him sleepy. ‘I think I’ll go up,’ he said as soon as he’d finished his supper. Or rather down, because we sleep in the basement. He won’t even sit up ten minutes for the telly. It’s bed for him as soon as ever he can. I switched off at eleven o’clock, because there was boxing coming on, which I don’t like. Then I went to the front door to let the dog out.”

  “That would be about five past eleven?”

  “Just about. I was standing there waiting for the dog and thinking it was chilly and I’d better leave him out for a minute when this man came along.”

  “Which man?” Carolus couldn’t refrain from asking.

  “This man I’m telling you about. He gave me quite a turn.”

  “Why?”

  “There was something funny about him. Big black hat like Guy Fawkes. A long black sort of cape. Dark glasses. I stood there watching, ready to slam the door to if he was to come anywhere near. He went right up the steps of the house opposite, where Mrs Westmacott lived.”

  “Did you notice whether he hesitated at all, Mrs Plummer? Or did he walk straight up as though he knew the house?”


  “I can’t say I noticed him hesitating. No, he went straight up the steps. It seemed late for anyone to be going there, but they’re funny people the Westmacotts and I didn’t think much about it till afterwards. Of course when I heard what had happened I told the police.”

  “You didn’t wait to see him let into the house, then?”

  “No. I wished I had of done. But the dog ran in past me and I didn’t want to catch my death of cold.”

  “It’s a pity we don’t know who let him in. If he was let in.”

  “Well, of course he was. He murdered her, didn’t he?”

  “He may not have been admitted at all. And if he was, there is no certainty that he was responsible for the death of Mrs Westmacott. Was he carrying anything?”

  “Not that I noticed.”

  “No lilies, for instance?”

  “Lilies?” Mrs Plummer laughed. “Oh, you’ve been listening to old Gosport, have you? She’s got lilies on the brain.”

  “All the same two of hers were stolen that evening. And both the dead women had lilies in their hands.”

  “I daresay. But what does she know about it? The police haven’t even been to see her.”

  “You saw no lilies, anyway?”

  “I didn’t. But there was no telling what he may have had under that big cloak of his, was there? He could have carried all the lilies she could grow and no one would be any the wiser.”

  “You had never seen this visitor before?”

  “Never. There’s plenty of funny people used to go to the house, but I’d never seen him.”

  Carolus thanked Mrs Plummer, and resisting the temptation to look under the dish-covers followed her from the dining-room. At the front door he paused.

  “Yes, you can see the entrance clearly enough,” he remarked.

  “It’s lit up at night by that street-lamp right over it.”

  “Could he see you, do you think?”

  “I should doubt it. Our people don’t like these bushes cut and as you see they screen us off a bit. Besides, he had those dark glasses on, like a blind man with a collecting-box.”

  Rupert Priggley fell into step with Carolus as they walked away.

  “That’s quite enough for this afternoon, surely, sir? I feel as though I was on a route march.”

  “I thought I was being leisurely?”

  “Yes, but do let’s keep our sense of proportion. There’s no need to rush at it.”

  “You can have an hour’s break,” said Carolus grimly, “but at six o’clock sharp we go to the bar of the Dragon. I want to get there at opening time.”

  “Who do we meet there?”

  “Almost everyone of any importance in the case, I hope.”

  Rupert sighed noisily.

  “I almost wish I’d gone to Cornwall with the Hollingbournes,” he said.

  8

  THAT evening at the Dragon changed the whole aspect of the matter, for during the course of it Carolus realized that the double murder at Buddington could no longer be regarded as a pleasant holiday task, a problem to be solved at leisure, something to occupy him during convalescence. He was up against intelligence, desperate cunning and a kind of diabolic nerve. Carolus saw that unless he discovered the whole truth and acted promptly a particularly vile murder might go unpunished, for, able and resourceful as John Moore was, there were methods the police could not use and they might well be those necessary here.

  Besides, during that evening Carolus met a number of people whose connections with the case would seem to be a good deal closer than those of persons who had merely seen or heard something on the night. He learned, moreover, some surprising facts. In a word, it was that evening at the Dragon which brought him to himself, which made him cease to be a dilettante playing round with sometimes irrelevant questions, and turned him into the Carolus of other grim and ugly occasions when he had had to show courage and energy as well as his gift for problem-solving.

  But the change in Carolus was an inward one. It was once said of him that his reason for investigating murder was that it was the only thing he took seriously. His debonair and flippant manner remained unchanged, but secretly he resolved that nothing, no deceit or bluff or false trail already or about to be laid, should divert him. Whatever it cost him in time, health or energy, in concentrated angry thought or deliberate outward hypocrisy, he would solve this thing. He recognized a challenge, he saw that imagination and intelligence had been used and an elaborate network of deceit was there to entrap him. There was nothing slapdash or impulsive in the way the two women had been killed. If ever there was a calculated crime, this was it. Carolus realized that it called for equally calculating and ruthless methods of investigation.

  The afternoon ended as trivially as it had begun. At tea-time he approached Miss Tissot. It was a busy hour at the Royal Hydro, for the guests had been nearly three hours without food and eyed with anxious avidity the trays brought to them in the Palm Lounge. Neat but satisfying sandwiches, heavily buttered crumpets and a selection of creamy cakes were set before each of the guests, and a party of foreigners near Carolus watched with wonder as the elderly English disposed of them. They had heard of the English having meals between meals, but they had never seen them in action.

  Miss Tissot was not behind her fellow-guests in this, but looked up from the manipulation of a particularly well-buttered crumpet when Carolus introduced Rupert Priggley.

  “Priggley?” she said, lifting her nostrils as though the word denoted a bad smell. “What a very unfortunate name!”

  “Italian derivation,” improvised Rupert, who had learned something of Miss Tissot from Carolus. “The original form was Parri-Galli. There was a Cardinal Parri-Galli who was an enemy of the Borgias. His brother, my ancestor, escaped to England and, embracing Protestantism, anglicized his name. The present Conte de Parri-Galli lives in San Remo.”

  Miss Tissot’s nostrils were lowered somewhat and Carolus took advantage of this to warn her that the Baxeters were hoping to make her acquaintance. After all, they were fellow beneficiaries under Miss Carew’s will.

  “I trust nothing of the sort will be necessary,” said Miss Tissot. “It would be most distasteful to receive persons of their type. It is bad enough to find myself cheek by jowl with the riff-raff in this hotel….” She stared ferociously at a colonial bishop and his family and let her gaze dwell on a Q.C. famous for his successful prosecutions in cases of fraud. “These Baxeters, I understand, belong to some disreputable religious persuasion and hold nameless orgies in enclosed areas of woodland.”

  “They are Pantheists and practise nudism,” admitted Carolus, “but I imagine with the greatest of propriety.”

  “Vulgar,” said Miss Tissot, attacking a meringue. “Small wonder my cousin met her death in that extremely plebeian way. I warned her of her folly a score of times. However, if I am forced to meet these people it need be nothing but a formality connected with my cousin’s will.”

  Punctually at six o’clock Carolus drove up to the Dragon and parked his car.

  The Dragon was for many years the principal hostelry in Buddington, but with the building of the Royal Hydro it had become a ‘good-class Commercial’. It preserved its Georgian façade, on which a newly-painted sign hung under a bracket of elaborately wrought iron. In spite of the fact that it was owned by one of the big catering syndicates and managed by an Old Rugbeian it had kept something faintly Dickensian in its atmosphere. Its bar was a popular meeting-place with a clientele which Miss Shapely, who was in charge of it, called ‘very mixed’.

  In charge? Carolus soon found that was an understatement. Not the captain of a ship, the head prefect of a public school, the sergeant of a platoon of recruits knew an authority so absolute as hers. For fifteen years Miss Shapely had ruled it while managers came and went, scarcely presuming to look in and certainly never interfering with her.

  She was a splendid woman, august and stately, who moved like a ship under sail and talked in a throaty contralto. She spoke of
her domain as ‘my bar’ and seemed so much a part of it that she could scarcely be imagined elsewhere. Young barmen were employed to assist her, but none had lasted more than a few months and some had left after a week. She called them all Fred, ignoring any hopes they might voice of keeping their own names. If one of them, serving a customer at the far end of the bar, attempted a snatch of conversation Miss Shapely would call him briskly to another duty. It was her bar and there must be no whispered pleasantries by her assistant.

  If Miss Shapely was not beloved in the town, she was revered and the favour of her smile and recognition was eagerly sought. She accepted a drink as Queen Victoria might have accepted a gift from some flamboyant and barbaric tributary. No one had ever discovered her Christian name, but that was a small matter, since the man with the courage to use it had not been born.

  Carolus, entering with Rupert, found that they were the only customers.

  “Good evening,” he said brightly and asked for his drinks.

  “Fred will serve you,” announced Miss Shapely and seemed interested in far-away serious things.

  How did one start, wondered Carolus, at a loss for once. Nice bar you’ve got here? Been a lovely day? No. Neck or nothing. He stood square in front of Miss Shapely.

  “I have come to see you,” he said, “on a matter of some importance.”

  Miss Shapely’s eyes reluctantly met his.

  “If it’s anything to do with the business …”

  “No. No. I shouldn’t trouble you with that. I wanted your opinion.”

  “I never talk to the press,” said Miss Shapely.

  “Naturally not,” said Carolus.

  “I do not approve of opinion polls.”

  “Of course you don’t. I entirely sympathize. I am investigating the two murders …”

  “I couldn’t give any statement to ordinary police officials. The Chief Constable is a customer of mine and if he requires any information from me he will ask for it.”

  Carolus was desperate. He decided on a gamble.

  “No. No,” he said, “you misunderstand me. I’m not a policeman. I’m investigating for Television.”