Jack on the Gallows Tree Read online

  “What was wrong with Burne-Jones?” asked Carolus provocatively.

  “Nothing, except that he couldn’t paint. A glazier …”

  “You mean he did stained glass?”

  “A paviour …”

  “He was a mosaicist.”

  “A tiler, a blacksmith, a needleman, plasterer, organ-decorator, upholsterer, book-illustrator, anything you like, but don’t call him an artist. As for Rossetti …”

  “Yes?”

  “Jejune. Timid. Thin,” said Ben Johnson.

  “Really. I’d no idea. Is that why you disliked the idea of meeting Mrs Westmacott?”

  “Partly. She and her circle were still living with those old arty-crafties. But partly it was the woman’s shameless persistence. She never let up. On the very evening she died I had a call from her, as you probably know.”

  “I didn’t know. Do the police?”

  “Must do. I made no secret of it at the time.”

  Ben Johnson looked a little uncomfortable, as though he had let out more than he meant.

  “What time was it?”

  “Eightish, I should say. Extraordinary. Began talking about when I should come round presently. Seemed tickled to death. Expecting me.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I worked the old receiver gag on her. It never fails. You can buy me a drink for telling you. It’ll save you quids in time and boredom. When you get some garrulous nuisance on the phone you hang up, but while you’re talking, not while he or she is. Talkers like that never suppose that anyone will cut himself off. You remove the receiver for five minutes and you’re free. It works every time and never gives offence. ‘Oh but Mrs Westmacott …’ I said that evening and bang! ended the conversation.”

  “Most interesting,” said Carolus. “I daresay we all have occasions for that. She did not come through again?”

  “No. I went out soon afterwards.”

  “Where?”

  “None of your business.”

  “So you’ve still never seen Mrs Westmacott, nor she you?”

  “Never hide nor hair, as they say. And now, what do you think about it?”

  “I haven’t got to the stage of suspicion backed with more than guesswork.”

  “You think it was a homicidal maniac?”

  “No. I think these were carefully planned murders by person or persons with motives.”

  “For both?” asked Johnson sceptically. Carolus did not answer.

  After a while both Johnson and Carew went to talk to others of their acquaintance. Carolus found himself alone for a moment with Priggley.

  “Have you ever seen any of that man’s paintings?” asked Rupert.

  “No.”

  “God!”

  Miss Shapely cleared her throat.

  “It’s unbelievably bad. Fetches thousands. It’s the avant-garde of last year and there’s nothing more dated than that.”

  “What does he paint?”

  “Crucified spiders. Skulls caught in cobwebs. Tortured vultures. You know the sort of thing.”

  “I don’t, but I’ll try to guess. Now who else is there? I wonder if that farming character is here. The one with the ocelot.”

  Carolus leaned across the bar somewhat and asked Miss Shapely.

  “Mr Raydell? Yes, that’s him talking to Mr Carew. Mr Raydell! Here’s a gentleman asking for you.”

  The farmer was as beefy and sanguine-looking as a farmer is expected to be, and seemed quite ready to talk. He had heard that Carolus was investigating the case.

  “They tell me you’ve got an ocelot,” said Carolus.

  “Yes. Friendly little beast. Not very popular in this bar though.”

  “I should think not,” said Miss Shapely. “Don’t you ever think of bringing that savage brute here again.”

  “Wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  “That may or may not be true, but my bar’s not a menagerie, Mr Raydell.”

  Miss Shapely moved away to honour someone by serving him.

  Raydell laughed.

  “She didn’t take kindly to Angela,” he said. “I had to come and make peace with her a few nights later. At first I didn’t think she’d serve me, but, as you see, she relented. It was old Dan Westmacott who brought her round.”

  “Dan Westmacott?”

  “Yes. Dante, his full name is. Neighbour of mine and a dam’ good chap. Not like that sissified brother of his. We came in together.”

  “Which night would that have been?”

  “The night those two poor women were murdered. In fact driving home I must have passed quite close to the body of one. Just near Goggs’ cottage. Goggs works for me.”

  “Yes. You must have if you went that way home after ten.”

  “More like one in the morning. I had to meet someone after they shut.”

  “I see.”

  “You must allow us rustics our pleasures.”

  “I should be the last to want to interfere with them. What about Westmacott?”

  “Oh, he went off somewhere soon after we’d conciliated Shapely.”

  “You didn’t see him again?”

  “Not that evening.”

  “And you arrived here at what time?”

  “Couldn’t have been long after opening time. When I eventually got in my old housekeeper was waiting for me. She’s deaf as a post and gets very worried if anything unusual takes place. That evening she happened to be sitting near the telephone soon after we’d gone out when she heard it ring. She never hears it in the ordinary way. She picked up the receiver but couldn’t get a word. She thinks it was a woman’s voice. She imagined all sorts of things, poor old girl. Thought I’d driven into a ditch or dropped dead or something. When I was late coming home she nearly went out of her mind.”

  “Did you ever hear what the call was?”

  “Never; I don’t get many calls, either.”

  “You say you came in to town with Dante Westmacott. Do you mean you shared a car?”

  “No. We both had things to do in the town. We came in each under his own steam, agreeing to meet here. You should come and meet Dan. Nice chap. His wife’s our local beauty. When you’ve had enough of the old trouts at the Hydro come out to Lilbourne and feast your eyes on Gloria Westmacott. She’s something.”

  “Thanks. Was either of you acquainted with Miss Carew?”

  “I wasn’t. I believe Dan had met her once. Anyway, why not come out for a drink tomorrow evening? I’ll ask Dan and Gloria and you can have a good natter. You may find out something useful. Say about six?”

  “Thanks. I’d like to.”

  “I’d be pleased to see this thing cleared up. Damnable business—two old ladies.”

  “Did you know Mrs Westmacott?”

  “Not directly. But funnily enough my old housekeeper did. Years ago, it seems. She can tell you a good deal about her in her young days.”

  “What’s your housekeeper’s name?”

  “Lightfoot. Grace Lightfoot. Most inappropriate because she clumps about like an elephant. Well, see you tomorrow.”

  Carolus watched him push his way to the other end of the bar, where he joined a large group.

  “Wonder why he should be so keen on my going out there.”

  “Perhaps he wants you to see his ocelot.”

  “Perhaps. This place is getting packed, isn’t it?”

  “But not out of control. Shapely’s got them where she wants them. Is there anyone else with whom you want to scrape acquaintance?”

  “Yes. Three if we’re lucky enough. Gilling the carpark man from the Granodeon. I gather he never misses. Two other possibles—Wright the chauffeur and Bickley who works for the Westmacotts.”

  “Don’t expect too much.”

  “We’ll see.”

  10

  THE bar of the Dragon was now at its most crowded. It was a large room, but there was little empty floor space and the few tables and many chairs left almost no room in which customers could move about. There wer
e not many

  women in the bar and the few there seemed to keep as far from Miss Shapely as possible.

  “It doesn’t do,” she confided in Carolus. “It’s all right if they come in with a gentleman, otherwise I don’t encourage it. You never know.”

  “Quite,” said Carolus understandingly.

  Conversation was animated but never rowdy, and there were no groups of men who stood with bent heads while one of them talked in a low voice till all stood up to laugh—in other words no dirty stories. Miss Shapely dealt with demands for drinks or deputed them to Fred, and all was order and decorum.

  “We’ve missed dinner,” said Rupert Priggley. “Do you think we could get a sandwich?”

  Carolus asked Miss Shapely.

  “I’ll send to the kitchen,” she said, as though unable in her august situation to deal with the matter directly.

  “Has Gilling come in yet?”

  Was it possible that there was a faint suggestion of softening, of warmth almost, in Miss Shapely’s manner? That could not possibly be a blush on her cheek, but did not her eyes sparkle a mite?

  “Yes. That’s Mr Gilling by the door. That very quiet respectable-looking gentleman with the raincoat.”

  The description made Mr Gilling unmistakable and Carolus soon had him in conversation. He was respectable to the point of despondency.

  “You look after the cars at the Granodeon, don’t you?”

  “Only to Oblige, I do. I’ve got my pension from the army and don’t need to do it. But I like to do something and the doctor told me I oughtn’t to be idle. It’s my kidneys.”

  “Yes?”

  “Chronic. I get cold shivers, racking headaches, pains all down my back. Still, we have to carry on, don’t we? Can’t give way. I look after the car-park, yes. But I was only saying to Miss Shapely the other day, I don’t think I can keep on with it. Too much of a strain for anyone in my condition.”

  “But you were there on the night of the murders?”

  “I’m there every night. It’s the Worst Thing for me, I daresay, but we must do something. I wouldn’t mind so much if it weren’t for my gall-stones. Play me up properly, they do. Put the liver out of order. You don’t know what they are till you’ve had them.”

  “Don’t you get treatment?”

  “Certainly I do. I don’t know what we should do without the National Health.”

  “Well, we couldn’t afford to have kidney and liver trouble.”

  “They’re nothing to speak of really. We have to make the best of things, don’t we?”

  “Will you have a drink?”

  “I’ll have a little gin. I’d dearly like a nice light ale, but I daren’t touch it. It’s my flatulence. I get awful pains just here over the heart and palpitations you wouldn’t believe. Then the giddiness. No, I daren’t touch beer or tea. I’ll just have a little gin to relieve it, because that’s the best thing.”

  “Do you remember that evening, Mr Gilling?”

  “I’m not likely to forget it. I had a terrible day that Thursday. It was my ulcer. Vomiting all day, I was. I thought to myself, I can never go on duty tonight with this. But there you are, we have to, don’t we? Yes, I remember that Thursday.”

  “What time did you get to the car-park?”

  “I nearly always get there round about four o’clock unless I’m suffering too much. Then at five I slip up to the café, where the manageress lets me have a cup of coffee. She’s a friend of Miss Shapely’s and a very nice respectable person. Then I stay in the car-park most of the time till nine o’clock, after which I come over here. You see, I can’t walk about much. Lumbago.”

  “Lumbago?”

  “Acute. All round the lower part of the back. I can hardly get up when I’ve once sat down, and as for walking anywhere—well, I couldn’t do it. Yes, I was over at the car-park that day till nine.”

  “You don’t remember Miss Carew’s car being brought in?”

  “No. It wasn’t. Not while I was there. I knew her car well. She’d nearly always got the dog with her and used to leave it in the car when she went into the pictures. She’d sometimes leave me a few biscuits or a bone or something to give him if he got restless. I knew her, too. She never forgot to ask after my chilblains, because she’d suffered with them, too, and told me the best thing for them—painting with iodine. I should have noticed if she’d come in.”

  “Suppose someone else was driving her car?”

  “I should have seen it. No, it must have come in after nine o’clock since they found it there in the morning. Between nine and half-past ten, about, when the entrance is locked.”

  “But if someone brought it in then wouldn’t he or she have been taking a risk of being seen afterwards? Leaving the car-park, I mean?”

  “No. There’s a way out round the back for anyone on foot. Leads into Station Road. He could have put the car in and gone out that way.”

  “Or she could.”

  “Miss Carew, you mean? Wasn’t she dead by then?”

  “We don’t know the time of her death.”

  Mr Gilling seemed taken aback by that.

  “I thought you knew that,” he said. “You mean she might have gone out to where she was found in someone else’s car?”

  “Why not? Do you know a farmer called Raydell?”

  “Yes. Just left here, hasn’t he? He upset Miss Shapely the other day.”

  “Do you know his car?”

  “Yes, but I can’t say whether it was in the park that night. It is sometimes, but I can’t remember every car that comes in. I very often wait till they’ve parked them and give them their ticket as they go out. I can’t run round with my sciatica. It cripples me in this weather. Have to Lay Up with it some days. You don’t know what it is.”

  “So you can’t really say what other cars were in the park that night?”

  “No. I can’t. Not to be sure. I remember Miss Carew’s wasn’t because I heard about her next day, and remembered at once. Otherwise I shouldn’t. I forget things, you see. With these fits of neuralgia I get, things go out of your mind.”

  “You can’t, for instance, recall whether Miss Tissot’s chauffeur brought her car in?”

  “We can very soon ask him because that’s him over there. Just come in. Very respectable young man. Miss Shapely thinks a lot of him, I believe. Shall I call him across?”

  “Yes,” said Carolus.

  “I shall have to go over and get him,” explained Mr Gilling. “I can’t make my voice heard with this laryngitis I get. Seems to come on worse in the evening.”

  But at that moment young Wright saw that Mr Gilling was attempting to catch his attention and came over.

  “Evening, Mr Gilling,” he said. “How are your varicose veins?”

  “Terrible, yesterday, they were. Swelled up to twice the size. I thought I should have to go into hospital with them. But we mustn’t give in, must we? Make the best of things. This gentleman wanted to know if your car was in my park on the night of the murders?”

  Wright looked startled, as well he might at this question. He was a tall very solemn-looking young man with something furtive and restless in his brown eyes.

  “Are you Mr Deene, sir?” he asked Carolus. “Yes? Miss Tissot told me you were investigating. I hope I can give you some helpful information. Yes, the car was in the cinema car-park because Miss Tissot had given me permission to drive it that evening. I was taking my young lady to the pictures.”

  “Did you need the car for that?”

  “My young lady lives about three miles out at a village called Tillshill, and I went to fetch her and afterwards drove her home.”

  “She would remember that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I shouldn’t like her asked. She comes of very respectable people. Her father is the postmaster.”

  “That’s all very well, Wright, but aren’t you forgetting that two women have been murdered? If you need an alibi the ‘respectability’ of your girl’s parents will have to b
e outraged. This is a serious matter.”

  “But why should I need an alibi, Mr Deene?”

  “I don’t know that you will. I said if you need an alibi. What time did you go to the pictures?”

  “The half-past six house. Came out before nine.”

  “Then what did you do?”

  “Went and had a coffee in the cinema tea-room.”

  “And after that?”

  “I drove my young lady home.”

  “Straight home?”

  “We had a little run round.”

  “In which direction?”

  “Lilbourne way, if you want to know.”

  “That’s in the opposite direction from Tillshill, isn’t it?”

  “Almost. Yes. It was just a little run round.”

  “I see. Did you come back through Buddington?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact we did.”

  “What time would that have been?”

  “I don’t know. We’d just had a little run round.”

  “About eleven?”

  “Certainly not later.”

  “Then you drove out to Tillshill?”

  “Yes. Straight away.”

  “No little run round this time?”

  “No.”

  “So you were back at the hotel with the car parked before midnight?”

  “Well before.”

  “Anyone see you?”

  “I don’t think so. There was no one at the hotel garage. All asleep. I met no one on my way to bed.”

  “How do you like working for Miss Tissot?”

  “Miss Tissot is a Lady, Mr Deene. I owe everything to her, including my education. She had me taught to drive.”

  “Yet she was thinking of doing without a car, wasn’t she?”

  “Some of her investments were disappointing. She thought she might not be able to afford it. But of course now she has come into money from Miss Carew.”

  “So you will keep your job?”

  “Oh I don’t think Miss Tissot would have let me go in any case.”

  “Now please answer this carefully, Wright. On that Thursday on which the two old ladies were murdered did you see or hear or notice anything which you think might be important? Either in Buddington or on the Lilbourne road or anywhere else?”