Nest of Vipers

Chapter Thirteen

Another Case for the Police

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‘SO here’s a pretty kettle of fish,’ said Laura to the Detective Superintendent. ‘A nice thing for the wife of an Assistant Commissioner at New Scotland Yard to go about the place snooping in at windows and discovering dead bodies.’

‘Mustn’t pull your rank, you know, Mrs Gavin,’ said the Superintendent, with an avuncular smile.

‘I must. Otherwise you might think I’d done the job myself,’ retorted Laura. ‘I know you lot! The first person on the scene is also the first to be suspected.’

‘Oh, no. That honour, ma’am, goes to the last person known to have been present. I may tell you – but this is not for publication at present – that our investigations into the death of Miss Minnie have caused us to keep a wary eye on this Black Magic gang, and even now that this Bosey whom we think was their leader has gone, if we can catch them putting even half a foot wrong, it’s curtains for their organisation, because we shall jug the lot of them. They wouldn’t be any loss to society, I assure you.’

‘You haven’t really got anything on them yet, then?’

‘Only simple faith that they’re up to N.B.G. That goes especially for Minnie and this Bosey who kept the junk shop. We’ve been able to trace their movements over the last ten years or so, and everywhere they went there are histories of missing schoolgirls. Those two beauties are out of it now, but the rest of their crew must have guilty knowledge of what went on. Of course, girls do go missing, the silly little what-I-won’t-describe, but the coincidences occurred a bit too often to be ignored, and we were getting ready to crack down on this little organisation when this chap, who seems to have been the boss-cat of a very dirty alley, got himself bumped off.’

‘Or bumped himself off,’ put in Dame Beatrice, who, by previous agreement, had left the opening exchanges to Laura as the person who had first seen the body.

‘As you say, ma’am,’ said the Superintendent noncomittally. ‘That could be so of course. Only thing is that those milk bottles seem to tell a different story.’

‘Have you spoken to the milkman?’

‘We have, ma’am. Most of his ilk are sharp-witted fellows who soon smell a rat if milk is left on a doorstep, especially if the householder is elderly and lives alone. This chap seems to have been an exception. He’s also an auxiliary. The regular deliveryman happens to have been down with flu during the period under advisement. This chap says he noticed that two bottles hadn’t been taken in, and that there was a CLOSED notice on the shop door, but he didn’t know what to do. He left the third bottle, but had wit enough to report at the depot. They told him not to leave any more, but, the next time he called, all the bottles had disappeared. However, he obeyed orders and did not leave any more milk, figuring that the customer, with three bottles in hand, was hardly short of milk and would contact him when he wanted more. All the householder had to do was what most of us do, just stick a note in an empty bottle, but Bosey doesn’t seem to have done this.’

‘Apparently not, Superintendent. I spoke to the man myself on one occasion.’

‘The milkman? Really, ma’am? How was that, then.’

‘Mrs Gavin and I had visited the shop and she had made a purchase. In the back of the shop I had seen a picture which, I thought, had magical connections and I wanted to persuade the proprietor to sell it to me, but the shop was closed. Although there was no milk on the step, I noticed that the man did not leave any.’

‘Well, the bottles do pose a problem, Dame Beatrice. Now, ma’am, the doctors (we had two of them, our own and an outsider) agree that the corpse was at least three days old when they examined it, so who but the murderer took in the milk?’

‘These are indeed deep matters, Superintendent.’

‘What we and our colleagues in the other parts of the country where Minnie and this man are known to have lived are doing next is to check up on the parents of the missing schoolgirls. One of them – one of the fathers or boyfriends, presumably – may have got to know something of these Satanists’ nasty little activities and trailed them down here and exacted a private vengeance, and if what we think happens to be true – molestation of virgin girls after kidnap and followed by the ritual death of the victims – well, speaking ex-officio, I damned well don’t blame him. Still, my job is my job, and, if I can find him, it’s my job to bring him to book.’

‘Were there fingerprints on the milk bottles?’

‘Yes, but nobody’s that we could check up on. That’s the worst of murder. Unless there’s direct evidence and provided the man or woman only does it once and has never been in our records for any other crime, fingerprints don’t mean a thing.’

‘What about the weapon?’

‘It was sticking into him. It was a broad-bladed kitchen knife and as sharp as a razor. He was sitting at his desk, we think, and the murderer sneaked in – probably from the shop if it was open – and caught him napping. Then either he fell or was tumbled on to the floor the way you found him. Well, he deserved what he got. He was a swine all right, if we read the papers in his desk and filing-cabinet correctly. They were in code, of course, but our experts soon broke it down and the details, although given in what we believe is a very low key, were horrifying enough, in all conscience. If somebody did take the law into his own hands and kill a monster, well, as I said, I’m only too sorry it’s my job to catch the fellow, that’s all.’

‘It is a pity the shop is comparatively isolated,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘You might have obtained useful information from the neighbours.’

‘He was too fly a bird to want neighbours, ma’am, with the kind of doings we reckon went on in the top-floor rooms of that shop. A well-meaning party in the next street, Number Twelve, contacted us but wasn’t helpful.’

‘I take it that the question of suicide is not ruled out? People do stab themselves, and a nice mess some of them make of it,’ said Dame Beatrice.

‘Suicide? But I’m sure we’ve been very careful not to ring any alarm bells. No, my view is that some father with a real grievance had been brooding over things until he couldn’t live with himself until the deed was done. My God! If one of those schoolkids had been my daughter, I’d have finished him off myself and be damned to my career and everything else!’

‘A man of blood and iron,’ said Laura, when they had left the Superintendent.

‘A man whose professional training has not warped his social conscience. Well, there are various steps which you and I can take. First I want another talk with that milkman.’

‘If he’s as moronic as the Superintendent thinks, he won’t be much help. In any case, I expect the regular milkman is back on the round by now. Influenza doesn’t last all that long unless you die of it.’

‘There speaks the heartless healthy.’

‘Nonsense! I have every sympathy with illness. Well, if you’re going to seek out the milkman, what do you want me to do?’

‘Do nothing at all, and in your own masterly fashion, just for the present. Later on I shall be requiring signal service from you. You will have to conduct an interview which in your hands may bear fruit, but from which I myself should most probably obtain nothing at all.’

‘If you still suspect Niobe Nutley of murdering the Minnie woman, who killed the shopkeeper? Niobe would have had no motive for that.’

‘Who knows? – although I think you may be right. Besides, I no longer suspect Niobe any more than others I could mention. Since we discovered the antique shop and its varied contents, including the dead body of the proprietor, my range of suspects has been considerably widened.’

‘You don’t really think the police believe Bosey performed human sacrifices, do you? It seems utterly incredible to me.’

‘It is not incredible at all. As we have reason to know, there are monsters among us. I am afraid that the Superintendent’s observations on the matter are of the utmost importance and it is more than possible that whoever killed Bosey (unless he committed suicide) may have scotched the snake, not killed it. Oh, I am quite certain that the Superintendent’s remarks were far more than lurid hints. I think the police were closing in on these so-called Panconscious People and I think the death of Miss Minnie is proof of that. Well, now, if you will stay in the hotel tomorrow and await my return, I may come back with news. There may be telephone calls while I am out, so it will be as well if somebody is available to answer them.’

George drove her into the town next morning and parked the car outside the house nearest to the shop, the number twelve mentioned by the Superintendent. Dame Beatrice rang the bell and asked whether the milkman had called that morning, adding, with specious truth, that she had not seen him that day. The housewife, a kindly body with a strong local accent, stated that the milkman had left her herself a pint bottle, as usual, and that it was ‘the right man on the round again, and not that silly boy who was always making mistakes.’

Had the woman any idea of the time of day?

‘When he called? No, not to half an hour or so, I haven’t, but he was in the road when I went out shopping at ten, and my milk was on the step when I came back about eleven.’

‘Oh, thank you so much. I am sorry to have troubled you. No doubt they will be able to supply me with milk at the supermarket.’

‘Anyway, you’re welcome to come in and have a cup of tea, my dear. You must be desperate for one.’

Dame Beatrice went in and, over very strong tea and a home-baked scone, she and her hostess were soon deep in conversation. Dame Beatrice admitted to being a newcomer to the neighbourhood and, to avoid any reference to her present address, stated that she had spent a short time at Weston Pipers.

‘You probably know it,’ she said. ‘It is a very large house in the next village and has been converted into flats.’

‘I expect you left there on account of the murder.’

‘Yes, chiefly that, but I also found it very expensive.’

‘Did you know the party who was murdered?’

‘I do not think anybody knew her. I am told that she kept very much to herself. In any case she was dead before I arrived.’

‘The murderer must have known her, mustn’t he?’

‘Unless he was a burglar and killed her so that she should not scream and raise the alarm.’

‘A burglar? Oh, well, in a rich place like Weston Pipers that might well be, but that couldn’t be so with our murder, could it?’

‘Our murder? (The subject had come up easily and early.) ’Oh, you mean the man who kept that little shop on the corner. No, I shouldn’t think there was much worth stealing there.’

‘A load of old rubbish, that’s all. But he had other irons in the fire, so ’tis said.’

‘I heard he used to work at the local cinema.’

‘Oh, that was only very part-time. No, there used to be cars parked in this road after the shop was shut – big cars, some of them – and ladies in evening dress. We reckon he used to run a gambling place. The police came once or twice, but it seems they never found anything that shouldn’t have been there, and there was never noise or anything to complain of. Perhaps he was licensed or something, and the police couldn’t touch him.’

‘The police have been there again, I suppose, if he was murdered.’

‘Oh, yes.’

They discussed the gory details with relish.

‘Somebody who owed him gambling money. I wouldn’t wonder,’ said the woman. ‘Debts of honour they call them, and you can’t be made to pay, I don’t believe, but still no need to murder him, was there?’

‘Did nobody but women in evening dress get out of the cars? Were there no escorts?’

‘Now and again there would be gentlemen. There was one little tiny fellow I saw a couple of times. I only noticed him because he was so very small. Like a little doll he was. Of course it wasn’t the same lot come every evening. It was as if they all had their special times. I suppose there wasn’t much room for them all to come at once.’

‘Were any of the women noticeably tall?’

‘Tall? Oh, yes, a couple of them were, but the pretty one only came during the day. She was a good deal younger than the other. They never came together, not so far as I’m aware, and I haven’t seen the older one for weeks.’

‘Did you ever see a much older woman go that way in the mornings?’

‘Well, not very recent I haven’t. She used to come along some mornings – not every morning it wasn’t – and I reckon she used to go to the shop to do a bit of cleaning. Hurrying and scurrying she used to be, and with her head down as though she didn’t want to be noticed or to stop and speak to anybody. Her clothes was quite good, but sort of old-fashioned, as though she was poor but respectable and as if she’d known better days. Perhaps she hurried along because she felt that doing a cleaning job kind of demeaned her, though what I always say is that honest work is honest work and don’t demean anybody, not if they was the richest in the land.’

‘This, you say, was on certain mornings. You never saw her in the evenings, I suppose?’

‘Oh, well, yes, but it would have been months ago. That’s when I see her with the older one of them two tall ladies. They come together in one of the cars I mentioned, but I only see them once or twice, though there might have been times when I didn’t see ’em. Them times I did see ’em, the old one was still dressed the same, that’s how I recognised her. She was acting more like a chaperone, I suppose, though that do seem a bit out of date these days, don’t it? But it was mostly in the mornings I see ’em, and not together then they wasn’t, the tall one in the same car, which she left a bit beyond my front windows but still in this street, and the old one on her own, like I said, scurrying along on foot. But I haven’t seen anything of her for quite a week or two lately, so I reckon either she give up the cleaning job or else he sacked her.’

‘But you can’t be sure that either she or the tall younger woman visited the antique-dealer’s shop, can you?’

‘Well, being as you ask me, dear, yes, as it happens, I can be sure. Mind you, most times I only see one or other of ’em by accident, like as I might be cleaning my front windows or doing a bit of dusting in there, but sometimes I would have my hat and coat on to do my shopping early, and I walked up the street instead of down it and had to come past the shop and then there’s a flagged alley, a bit further along, which takes you down to the shops along the front.’

‘And you actually saw one or other of them go into the shop?’

‘I did that and with my own eyes. The time I saw the young tall lady, she was carrying a bundle, so I reckon she had tooken something to try and sell. The old one always carried a bag, but I reckon that was only her working overall.’

‘But once she wasn’t carrying anything, and another young lady came after her with it, but did not catch up with her.’

‘Now how do you know that?’ asked the woman, wide-eyed.

‘Only because that particular young lady was resident at Weston Pipers, and to that extent I became acquainted with her.’ Dame Beatrice did not say that she and Elysée had not been resident at the same time, but the woman asked no awkward questions and they parted with mutual expressions of goodwill.

‘Heaven bless the uneventful lives of home-based women,’ said Laura, when she had heard the story. ‘They notice everything, they remember everything and they often add up correctly. So you didn’t see the milkman?’

‘There was no point, since he is the wrong milkman. In any case, I do not think the one the police interviewed can be of any further help. All the same, I think this kindly and unsuspecting soul I visited has advanced the enquiry a little. She may have established a definite connection between Niobe Nutley and Miss Minnie. This, I imagine, would have been when Niobe made the excuse of coming to the town to bathe from the beach here. Were there any telephone calls?’

‘Yes, there was one from Billie Kennett. She rather wanted to know what we were up to, I think, although she didn’t put it as baldly as that. She did say that, although she and the Barnes girl have teamed up again pro tem she doesn’t think it will last. Reading between the lines as an experienced woman of the world and the mother of a newly-married daughter, it sounded to me as though she believes Chelion Piper has got his eye on our Miss Barnes. At any rate, he seems to have gone to the length of plugging Polly Hempseed in the eye and, knowing what we do know, I would call that rather significant, wouldn’t you?’

‘It is easy enough to read too much into such incidents. I am not an upholder of private vengeance,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘But there are occasions on which it has my full sympathy.’

‘Is this one of them?’ Laura enquired.

‘No. I am speaking my thoughts aloud.’

‘I wonder what the police are doing about those two murders? From what we know now, they must be connected in some way.’

‘Only in one way, of course.’

‘Two ways, I would have thought. There is the Satanist angle and also there is the point that both Minnie and this Black Art leader must have been killed by the same person.’

‘I admit your first contention. Your second is much less certain.’

‘You don’t think the same person klled them both?’

‘People who kill more than once are apt to repeat their methods. Poisoners continue to poison, stabbers to stab. The two deaths we are considering have nothing in common except death itself.’

‘Couldn’t it be that the murderer used whatever means happened to be at his or her disposal?’

‘Yes, it could be so, of course. Well, I must have a word with the Superintendent. No doubt he will be interested to hear an account of my activities and the conclusions I have drawn from them.’

‘May one ask what conclusions you have drawn from them?’

‘Well,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘one of the conclusions I have drawn is that I think I may be inclined to keep the eleventh Commandment.’

‘Which is?’

‘Oh, come now! You, who must have been in hot water times out of number at school and you who, as I remember it, were not always a model student at Carteret College of Education, should not need to ask me that!’

‘No, honestly, I don’t get you. Is there an eleventh Commandment? If so, how come?’

‘Certainly there is an eleventh Commandment. Its place of origin, I believe, was Eton College, the pious foundation of King Henry the Sixth.’

‘Oh!’ said Laura, suddenly enlightened. ‘Tell a lie, tell a good ’un, and stick to it. Somehow, though, I shouldn’t have thought that kind of thing culd be in your line.’

‘In the ordinary course of events it would not, but circumstances, to quote a trite saying, do alter cases. With what are we confronted?’

‘Two murders.’

‘Of two infamous characters of whom the world is well rid.’

‘Do you mean you know who the murderer is, and that you’re going to cover up for him or her?’

‘I mean only that I think I know the identity of both murderers, and I think that one is male, the other female. If I am right – but I still can find objections to my conclusions – for the first I need provide no cover. For the second, well, we shall see what transpires. Edna St Vincent Millay was not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground. I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in a prison cell.’

‘I am fogged and bewildered.’

‘I may be wrong in my conclusions, of course, as I say. We must see what impression they make on the police. Of course those milk bottles may prove to present me with a problem. The Superintendent is anything but a fool.’

‘But you can’t take the law into your own hands!’

‘Perhaps I would need to love it before I did that. As it is, perhaps I have decided to ignore it.’

‘What have milk bottles to do with your decision?’

‘With my decision, nothing, but I doubt whether the Superintendent will be content to ignore them.’

‘If you’re so concerned about the milk bottles, why didn’t you shove them into the fridge while you had the chance?’

‘They were important evidence on two counts. They gave a pretty clear indication of the day, although not the time of day, on which the antique-dealer died. Apart from that, I had not formulated any theory, when we found the man’s body, as to the identity of his killer. I do not know now, for certain, who that was, but I have my suspicions.’

‘Well, I suppose it’s of no use to ask any more questions. Do we go and see the Superintendent again, or shall I ring him up?’

‘I will go alone to see him. You, as a policeman’s wife, might be wiser to stay out of all future proceedings.’

‘If you’re going to cook the books, I better had, but you know, Dame B., dear, I’m beginning to wonder whether you and I are on the same wave-length over all this. We are talking about Chelion pasting Polly in the eye, I suppose, and the possible implications of that action?’

‘You may be. I am not.’

‘And I’m to stay out of all the fun from now on?’

‘That would be expecting too much of you.’

‘I’ll tell you what I’d love to do, then; I’d like to pay Niobe a visit. I’d like to find out how much she knows about Barnes and Chelion Piper.’

‘A delicate subject and one far better left alone at present. Pay her a visit by all means, but take your friend the yataghan with you and be wary.’