Faintley Speaking

Chapter Eleven

MR TRENCH

‘… by fines so heavy that for some time afterwards a Castillian would take off his hat at sight of a piece of gold.’

helen simpson – The Spanish Marriage

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Early on Monday morning Mrs Bradley went in person to Miss Golightly to ask for Trench’s address. Miss Golightly had to be persuaded into giving it. She could not imagine, she said, that Mr Trench was involved in Miss Faintley’s affairs. He was a most reliable and unassuming man.

Mrs Bradley explained that if anyone on the school staff was involved it had seemed likely that it must be either Mr Trench or Mr Bannister. She added that she had had Mr Bannister to her country house for the week-end and had questioned him. Now it was Mr Trench’s turn, and she proposed to interview not only Mr Trench but his wife.

‘I understand that she is an invalid,’ she added, ‘but as I am a doctor you need have no fear that I shall upset her if she really appears to be ill. And do you mind not telling Mr Trench that I am going to see his wife? What is she like, by the way?’

‘I have never met her,’ Miss Golightly replied. Then she gave the address, and added, ‘How I do hate all this! It seems dreadful to go behind the backs of my staff. I’ve never done it before.’

‘You haven’t had one of them murdered before,’ Mrs Bradley pointed out in mild tones. ‘By the way, I have sent Miss Menzies to you this morning, but her fortnight was up on Friday, and I should be grateful if you would release her before the end of the week. I want to get back to Cromlech. There is not a great deal more that we can do here at present, when once I have interviewed Mr and Mrs Trench.’

‘I see. Perhaps you would like me to release Miss Menzies after the end of to-morrow.’

‘If that would not inconvenience you too much.’

‘No, no. I think that will be all right. The Office have now promised me a Supply. I will ring them immediately.’

Laura, informed during the course of the morning of her impending release, was duly grateful.

‘I don’t mean I haven’t enjoyed it,’ she said. ‘It’s been fun in a way. But… well, you know how it is!’

Miss Golightly agreed that she did, and added thoughtfully that she imagined nature study and botany were not favourite subjects with Miss Menzies. Miss Menzies, grinning wryly, replied that she preferred English, and added Miss Topas’ famous rider to text-books on botany that she knew only one Natural Order – that of Fools! Miss Topas, she added, was a genius, and had lectured at College in history.

So Laura and her headmistress parted on terms of mutual and undisguised friendship and relief, and Laura, at lunch-time, broke the news to Miss Cardillon that on Wednesday the school was due for a change on the staff.

Mrs Bradley, meanwhile, had parked her car some distance from Trench’s house, and had gone on foot to interview his wife.

The door was answered by a middle-aged woman wearing a soiled dressing-gown. Her hair was untidy and last night’s make-up was still on her face. Her eyes were hooded under deeply purple lids and her speech was thick and slurred.

‘Yes, dear?’ she asked, holding on to the door for support. ‘If it’s Trench, he isn’t at home.’

‘It isn’t your husband I want to see. It’s you.’

She wondered, however, whether much was to be gained from a woman who was so obviously drunk. In vino veritas, no doubt, but that did not necessarily imply giving correct and intelligent answers which could help an inquiry into a case of wilful murder.

‘Me? What about? I don’t know you, do I? I don’t remember meeting you before. But I get muddled, you know, dear. It’s my head. You wouldn’t believe the headaches I get. Something cruel.’

She swayed a little.

‘No, you haven’t met me before,’ Mrs Bradley assured her. ‘I am connected with the police.’

‘I haven’t done nothing that I know of.’ She looked alarmed, and straightened up a little. ‘I’ve paid my way, so far as I remember. I may be D.,’ she added, with a pathetic attempt at a propitiatory smile, ‘but I’ve never been D. and D., dear, not to be a nuisance outside, that is. Unless I’ve forgot. I do forget things sometimes. I never had much of a memory, even as a girl at school.’

‘School? Ah, yes. Your husband’s a schoolmaster, I believe.’

‘He doesn’t schoolmaster it here,’ said Mrs Trench austerely, with a dignity which was somewhat marred by a slight belch. ‘Pardon. If we’re going to talk about Boffin, you’d better come in. My neighbours is all ears, as you’d imagine.’

She led the way along a smelly passage into a littered room. Bread, cheese, a half-empty bottle of brandy, some unwashed cups, a piece of knitting, a novelette, a scattered pack of cards and a book on fortune-telling were on the table, and dust was thick on mantelpiece, sideboard and the wooden arms of chairs. The curtains were drawn across the windows and the electric light was on. Crumbs and cigarette ash covered most of the hearthrug, and a couple of empty brandy bottles were standing in the alcove next to the fireplace. The room was airless and stank of drink and stale tobacco.

‘And now, what do you want?’ demanded Mrs Trench in altered tones. ‘Boffin didn’t send you, did he?’

‘I want some information about the late Miss Faintley,’ said Mrs Bradley coolly. ‘Did you and Mr Trench know her before she came to live in Kindleford?’

‘Miss Faintley? Who’s she?’

‘She was a teacher at the school.’

‘So he’s been up to something! I guessed as much! Him and his N.U.T. Conferences! I thought as how they seemed to come round pretty often! Carrying on with the lady teachers, is he? I wonder how long that’s been going on?’

‘It is nothing of that kind, Mrs Trench. The police are inquiring into the circumstances under which Miss Faintley met her death, and we think your husband might be able to help a little.’

‘Him?’ The woman looked shocked. ‘There’s nothing like that about him! He wouldn’t harm a fly! If the coppers have got suspicions of my husband they must be even bigger fools than I take them for!’

‘They are not fools, Mrs Trench, and they do not suspect your husband of having committed a criminal act. Did you go away for a summer holiday this year?’

‘No, I didn’t. I stayed here in Kindleford, same as I always do. I haven’t had a decent holiday, not since the war.’ She wiped her eyes, and continued in maudlin accents: ‘The war upset me properly. We wasn’t here then; we was near London, and the bombing got on my nerves, and I haven’t really ever got over it.’

‘No, it was a bad time,’ said Mrs Bradley, who had remained in London, mostly at a casualty clearing station, during the worst of the air-raids. ‘Well, thank you for our little chat. I had better go now. Don’t get up. I can see myself out.’

She went at once. No protestations followed her. The moment she reached the front door Mrs Trench reached for the brandy and slopped some into a glass, fumbled in her dressing-gown pocket for cigarettes, and, after four attempts, managed to light one.

Mrs Bradley returned to Kindleford school and decided not to wait until the children were dismissed before interviewing Trench. The discovery that Mrs Trench was an habitual inebriate sufficiently explained her husband’s excuses for his absence from school functions. To these she could never accept an invitation, and probably (thought Mrs Bradley) the unfortunate man felt that it was better to be at home to make certain that she did not, in her drunken wilfulness, come to the school entertainments, and, by her conduct, betray the secret he had guarded so jealously for so long.

The trouble was that it seemed only too likely, in view of the amount of money her brandy-tippling must cost him, that Trench might have been tempted to augment his income by dabbling in the affairs of the fern experts, whatever those affairs might be. It seemed highly probable that he and Miss Faintley had been in collusion, even in partnership, over the delivery of the mysterious parcels, and that she had felt perfectly safe in advising him to be at the public telephone in Park Road to take an emergency call.

Miss Golightly seemed to extend a rather frigid hand when Mrs Bradley arrived at the school.

‘Interview Mr Trench here?’ she asked. ‘I suppose, if you want to, you must. You had better talk to him down here in my room. I will look after his class while you see him. Let me see, now… oh, yes.’ She pressed a buzzer at the side of her desk and a boy with a cow-lick and a large, solid girl appeared. ‘Mr Trench in the woodwork centre,’ she said. ‘Ask him to get all tools put away, library books out, and to come to my room as soon as he can manage it. My compliments, as usual, of course. You go, Roberts. Marion, run across to the cookery centre and ask Miss Welling to spare me a moment if there is nothing in the ovens. If there is, tell her I will come over to her. My compliments, of course, as usual.’

There proved to be nothing in the ovens, as the class was having an extra laundry lesson as a punishment for having eaten sultanas instead of dropping the full quota into the boiled puddings, so Miss Welling shortly appeared. She was an alert young woman of about twenty-eight, full of grievances, and Mrs Bradley’s presence did nothing to render her inarticulate.

‘And if I’ve told Susie Jenkins once to go and wash her hands and face before she comes to class, I’ve told her a dozen times, Miss Golightly. After all, if we can’t have personal hygiene in the cookery centre, where can we have it?’

‘Send her to me,’ said the headmistress, with (Mrs Bradley suspected) an inaudible but heartfelt groan.

‘And, Miss Golightly, I’m sure Brown’s are not sending me my full sugar. The staff are always complaining about no extra sugar for the stewed fruit… If it’s not Brown’s, then the children eat it, and I always keep everything locked up, so I don’t see how…’

‘Sugar for the stewed fruit is the business of the school meals service. The staff cannot expect to come on to the cookery centre for more, Miss Welling.’

‘Well, they always have,’ said Miss Welling, unanswerably, ‘and they think I’m being mean about it, and it’s most unpleasant, especially the men. They seem to think I’m made of sugar… no, I don’t mean that, exactly…“

‘I will put up a notice in the staff-room. And you had better go to Brown’s yourself instead of sending girls. And now, Miss Welling, what I really wanted to see you about… Oh, here is Mr Trench. Excuse me one moment. Ah, Mr Trench, Mrs Bradley, who is assisting the police in an inquiry into the circumstances of Miss Faintley’s death, would be glad of a word with you. She thinks you may be able to help her. Miss Welling, if you will walk across to the woodwork centre with me, I will…’

Her voice grew muffled and then faded, as she and Miss Welling went out. Mr Trench, a small, compactly-built man with greying hair and a weak chin, closed the door and looked inquiringly at Mrs Bradley.

‘I’ve been to see your wife,’ she said. His expression changed.

‘Yes? She’s – she’s quite an invalid, I’m afraid.’

‘Indeed? She seemed to know very little about Miss Faintley.’

‘I shouldn’t think she knew her at all. You will have gathered that my wife had really no connexion with the school.’

‘What was your connexion with Miss Faintley, Mr Trench?’

‘I don’t think I had much connexion with her. Our subjects did not overlap, and I —’

‘And you were only able to take an occasional telephone message. That much I understand. What I do not understand is this extraordinary business of the parcels of ferns.’

‘Ferns? Oh, but I had nothing to do with that.’

‘With what?’

‘Well, the parcels, you know. I know she used to collect them, and then, when she said would I go, and I rang her up… or, rather, she rang me up… well, she just wasn’t there, do you see?’

‘I know all this, Mr Trench. Miss Faintley is dead. She was murdered. We have to find her murderer. You agree?’

‘Of course I do. But I can’t help you. What happened was this: Faintley… Miss Faintley, I should say… asked me to go to the public telephone on the evening of the Old Scholars’ party. The time was fixed, and all that, and I went along to the telephone-box, as we’d arranged. I waited for the call. It did not come. I had to get home, and I was not really committed… I did not feel I was committed… to remain beyond the appointed time. So I left the telephone-box and went home.’

‘And you really felt you were fulfilling your obligations?’

‘Of course not,’ replied the wretched man. ‘But how could I have stayed out any longer?’

‘You would know that better than I. Tell me, Mr Trench, what sort of message did you expect to get from Miss Faintley that evening?’

‘I didn’t know what to expect. My salary does not go far, and when Miss Faintley suggested that she was prepared to spend five pounds if I would accept a message, well, it was fixed up between us. I stood in the call-box quite a long time, but she didn’t ring, and so, as it was rather a nasty night, I went home, as I’ve told you, and thought no more about it. I just concluded she had changed her mind, and that I’d got very wet for nothing.’

‘Almost as soon as you left the box, that call came through. It was answered by an impartial witness who had gone to the public call-box on his own account, and accidentally received Miss Faintley’s message. When he heard of her death he went to the police.’

‘My God, then, I’m glad I wasn’t there to take it myself!’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘It wouldn’t do for the police to know I’d telephoned Faintley. They always suspect the worst! I’ve never been in any kind of trouble.’

‘Didn’t you think it odd that a fellow-member of your school staff should offer you five pounds for answering a telephone call?’

‘She said it was a matter of life and death. I took it that some near relative was ill.’

‘And during a matter of life and death, Miss Faintley was at a school party! It won’t do, Mr Trench. You are not doing yourself justice. You are an intelligent man… a professional man. Do you seriously tell me that that is what you thought?’

‘I didn’t trouble to think at all. I needed the money badly, and I was terribly disappointed not to get it. After all, it was no business of mine to worry about what Faintley was up to. I didn’t give a damn! And I’m not answering any more of these questions without a lawyer! Excuse me. I have to get back to my boys.’

‘One moment, Mr Trench,’ said Mrs Bradley; and so formidable was the strength of her personality and so persuasive her beautiful voice that the harassed man halted half-way to the door and turned round. ‘I am not a police officer. I am a psychiatrist and a doctor. Why have you allowed your wife to arrive at her present deplorable state? Why don’t you take her away from Kindleford to some larger, more interesting place? She’s killing herself. You must know that. She has no friends, no interests, here, and that is why she drinks as she does. You don’t even take her on holiday.’

She half-expected a vituperative outburst from Trench. He did open his mouth and he flushed angrily. But then he regained control of himself, stared at the carpet, and said, with difficulty:

‘She’s ruined my life. Why should I do anything for her?’

‘I don’t need to answer that question. Look here, man, you cannot allow her to commit slow suicide. If you do, you are as much of a murderer as the man who killed Miss Faintley. Get her away! Show her some affection instead of the pious horror which you affect! Take her out of herself! If she wants to drink, have people in, and all get drunk together!’

Trench looked up. He had had enough of it.

‘She’s hopeless,’ he said. ‘You’ve seen her, of course, and you know. You’re a — snooper! Keep your — nose out of my affairs, or I’ll…’

‘Yes?’ said Mrs Bradley calmly. She measured him with a mild, professional eye. ‘How many times did you work with Miss Faintley? How convenient has it been to have a wife who was seldom in a condition to ask any questions? What were you doing on all those occasions when you did not attend school functions on the excuse of having an invalid at home?’

There was no doubt about the effect of these questions on Trench. All the hysterical bluster had disappeared. He looked older. His weak chin was shaking with horror. His eyes, as they caught hers, were begging for mercy.

‘I swear,’ he stammered, ‘I swear I had nothing to do with Faintley’s death. I swear it by…’

‘No, don’t trouble,’ said Mrs Bradley briskly. ‘What you had better do is to go straight to the police as soon as school is over, and tell them everything you know. One thing in particular you must tell them. You must tell them that you are the person who met Miss Faintley in the cathedral city of Torbury, and you must explain to them the reason for your visit. I do not say confess to the murder. That might, at this stage, be going a little too far. By the way, I have a little present for you.’ She took out an envelope and produced a small piece of fern. Trench gave a horrified moan. She gave the sagging man a kindly pat on the arm and watched him stumble out of the room. The chisel he flung, as he turned round suddenly at the door, stuck in the wooden window-frame before it fell to the floor. Mrs Bradley darted to the door, slammed it shut behind him, shot the bolt which protected Miss Golightly from unauthorized visitors (especially from members of the staff who brought recalcitrant children to her or complaints against one another) and rang up the police.