Sleeping Murder

CHAPTER 6 Exercise in Detection

‘Where do you think the body was? About here?’ asked Giles.

He and Gwenda were standing in the front hall of Hillside. They had arrived back the night before, and Giles was now in full cry. He was as pleased as a small boy with his new toy.

‘Just about,’ said Gwenda. She retreated up the stairs and peered down critically. ‘Yes—I think that’s about it.’

‘Crouch down,’ said Giles. ‘You’re only about three years old, you know.’

Gwenda crouched obligingly.

‘You couldn’t actually see the man who said the words?’

‘I can’t remember seeing him. He must have been just a bit further back—yes, there. I could only see his paws.’

‘Paws.’ Giles frowned.

‘They were paws. Grey paws—not human.’

‘But look here, Gwenda. This isn’t a kind of Murder in the Rue Morgue. A man doesn’t have paws.’

‘Well, he had paws.’

Giles looked doubtfully at her.

‘You must have imagined that bit afterwards.’

Gwenda said slowly, ‘Don’t you think I may have imagined the whole thing? You know, Giles, I’ve been thinking. It seems to me far more probable that the whole thing was a dream. It might have been. It was the sort of dream a child might have, and be terribly frightened, and go on remembering about. Don’t you think really that’s the proper explanation? Because nobody in Dillmouth seems to have the faintest idea that there was ever a murder, or a sudden death, or a disappearance or anything odd about this house.’

Giles looked like a different kind of little boy—a little boy who has had his nice new toy taken away from him.

‘I suppose it might have been a nightmare,’ he admitted grudgingly. Then his face cleared suddenly.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t believe it. You could have dreamt about monkeys’ paws and someone dead—but I’m damned if you could have dreamt that quotation from The Duchess of Malfi.’

‘I could have heard someone say it and then dreamt about it afterwards.’

‘I don’t think any child could do that. Not unless you heard it in conditions of great stress—and if that was the case we’re back again where we were—hold on, I’ve got it. It was the paws you dreamt. You saw the body and heard the words and you were scared stiff and then you had a nightmare about it, and there were waving monkeys’ paws too—probably you were frightened of monkeys.’

Gwenda looked slightly dubious—she said slowly: ‘I suppose that might be it …’

‘I wish you could remember a bit more … Come down here in the hall. Shut your eyes. Think … Doesn’t anything more come back to you?’

‘No, it doesn’t, Giles … The more I think, the further it all goes away … I mean, I’m beginning to doubt now if I ever really saw anything at all. Perhaps the other night I just had a brainstorm in the theatre.’

‘No. There was something. Miss Marple thinks so, too. What about “Helen”? Surely you must remember something about Helen?’

‘I don’t remember anything at all. It’s just a name.’

‘It mightn’t even be the right name.’

‘Yes, it was. It was Helen.’

Gwenda looked obstinate and convinced.

‘Then if you’re so sure it was Helen, you must know something about her,’ said Giles reasonably. ‘Did you know her well? Was she living here? Or just staying here?’

‘I tell you I don’t know.’ Gwenda was beginning to look strained and nervy.

Giles tried another tack.

‘Who else can you remember? Your father?’

‘No. I mean, I can’t tell. There was always his photograph, you see. Aunt Alison used to say: “That’s your Daddy.” I don’t remember him here, in this house …’

‘And no servants—nurses—anything like that?’

‘No—no. The more I try to remember, the more it’s all a blank. The things I know are all underneath—like walking to that door automatically. I didn’t remember a door there. Perhaps if you wouldn’t worry me so much, Giles, things would come back more. Anyway, trying to find out about it all is hopeless. It’s so long ago.’

‘Of course it’s not hopeless—even old Miss Marple admitted that.’

‘She didn’t help us with any ideas of how to set about it,’ said Gwenda. ‘And yet I feel, from the glint in her eye, that she had a few. I wonder how she would have gone about it.’

‘I don’t suppose she would be likely to think of ways that we wouldn’t,’ said Giles positively. ‘We must stop speculating, Gwenda, and set about things in a systematic way. We’ve made a beginning—I’ve looked through the Parish registers of deaths. There’s no “Helen” of the right age amongst them. In fact there doesn’t seem to be a Helen at all in the period I covered—Ellen Pugg, ninety-four, was the nearest. Now we must think of the next profitable approach. If your father, and presumably your stepmother, lived in this house, they must either have bought it or rented it.’

‘According to Foster, the gardener, some people called Elworthy had it before the Hengraves and before them Mrs Findeyson. Nobody else.’

‘Your father might have bought it and lived in it for a very short time—and then sold it again. But I think that it’s much more likely that he rented it—probably rented it furnished. If so, our best bet is to go round the house agents.’

Going round the house agents was not a prolonged labour. There were only two house agents in Dillmouth. Messrs Wilkinson were a comparatively new arrival. They had only opened their premises eleven years ago. They dealt mostly with the small bungalows and new houses at the far end of the town. The other agents, Messrs Galbraith and Penderley, were the ones from whom Gwenda had bought the house. Calling upon them, Giles plunged into his story. He and his wife were delighted with Hillside and with Dillmouth generally. Mrs Reed had only just discovered that she had actually lived in Dillmouth as a small child. She had some very faint memories of the place, and had an idea that Hillside was actually the house in which she had lived but could not be quite certain about it. Had they any record of the house being let to a Major Halliday? It would be about eighteen or nineteen years ago …

Mr Penderley stretched out apologetic hands.

‘I’m afraid it’s not possible to tell you, Mr Reed. Our records do not go back that far—not, that is, of furnished or short-period lets. Very sorry I can’t help you, Mr Reed. As a matter of fact if our old head clerk, Mr Narracott, had still been alive—he died last winter—he might have been able to assist you. A most remarkable memory, really quite remarkable. He had been with the firm for nearly thirty years.’

‘There’s no one else who would possibly remember?’

‘Our staff is all on the comparatively young side. Of course there is old Mr Galbraith himself. He retired some years ago.’

‘Perhaps I could ask him?’ said Gwenda.

‘Well, I hardly know about that …’ Mr Penderley was dubious. ‘He had a stroke last year. His faculties are sadly impaired. He’s over eighty, you know.’

‘Does he live in Dillmouth?’

‘Oh yes. At Calcutta Lodge. A very nice little property on the Seaton road. But I really don’t think—’

‘It’s rather a forlorn hope,’ said Giles to Gwenda. ‘But you never know. I don’t think we’ll write. We’ll go there together and exert our personality.’

Calcutta Lodge was surrounded by a neat trim garden, and the sitting-room into which they were shown was also neat if slightly overcrowded. It smelt of beeswax and Ronuk. Its brasses shone. Its windows were heavily festooned.

A thin middle-aged woman with suspicious eyes came into the room.

Giles explained himself quickly, and the expression of one who expects to have a vacuum cleaner pushed at her left Miss Galbraith’s face.

‘I’m sorry, but I really don’t think I can help you,’ she said. ‘It’s so long ago, isn’t it?’

‘One does sometimes remember things,’ said Gwenda.

‘Of course I shouldn’t know anything myself. I never had any connection with the business. A Major Halliday, you said? No, I never remember coming across anyone in Dillmouth of that name.’

‘Your father might remember, perhaps,’ said Gwenda.

‘Father?’ Miss Galbraith shook her head. ‘He doesn’t take much notice nowadays, and his memory’s very shaky.’

Gwenda’s eyes were resting thoughtfully on a Benares brass table and they shifted to a procession of ebony elephants marching along the mantelpiece.

‘I thought he might remember, perhaps,’ she said, ‘because my father had just come from India. Your house is called Calcutta Lodge?’

She paused interrogatively.

‘Yes,’ said Miss Galbraith. ‘Father was out in Calcutta for a time. In business there. Then the war came and in 1920 he came into the firm here, but would have liked to go back, he always says. But my mother didn’t fancy foreign parts—and of course you can’t say the climate’s really healthy. Well, I don’t know—perhaps you’d like to see my father. I don’t know that it’s one of his good days—’

She led them into a small black study. Here, propped up in a big shabby leather chair sat an old gentleman with a white walrus moustache. His face was pulled slightly sideways. He eyed Gwenda with distinct approval as his daughter made the introductions.

‘Memory’s not what it used to be,’ he said in a rather indistinct voice. ‘Halliday, you say? No, I don’t remember the name. Knew a boy at school in Yorkshire—but that’s seventy-odd years ago.’

‘He rented Hillside, we think,’ said Giles.

‘Hillside? Was it called Hillside then?’ Mr Galbraith’s one movable eyelid snapped shut and open. ‘Findeyson lived there. Fine woman.’

‘My father might have rented it furnished … He’d just come from India.’

‘India? India, d’you say? Remember a fellow—Army man. Knew that old rascal Mohammed Hassan who cheated me over some carpets. Had a young wife—and a baby—little girl.’

‘That was me,’ said Gwenda firmly.

‘In—deed—you don’t say so! Well, well, time flies. Now what was his name? Wanted a place furnished—yes—Mrs Findeyson had been ordered to Egypt or some such place for the winter—all tomfoolery. Now what was his name?’

‘Halliday,’ said Gwenda.

‘That’s right, my dear—Halliday. Major Halliday. Nice fellow. Very pretty wife—quite young—fair-haired, wanted to be near her people or something like that. Yes, very pretty.’

‘Who were her people?’

‘No idea at all. No idea. You don’t look like her.’

Gwenda nearly said, ‘She was only my stepmother,’ but refrained from complicating the issue. She said, ‘What did she look like?’

Unexpectedly Mr Galbraith replied: ‘Looked worried. That’s what she looked, worried. Yes, very nice fellow, that Major chap. Interested to hear I’d been out in Calcutta. Not like these chaps that have never been out of England. Narrow—that’s what they are. Now I’ve seen the world. What was his name, that Army chap—wanted a furnished house?’

He was like a very old gramophone, repeating a worn record.

‘St Catherine’s. That’s it. Took St Catherine’s—six guineas a week—while Mrs Findeyson was in Egypt. Died there, poor soul. House was put up for auction—who bought it now? Elworthys—that’s it—pack of women—sisters. Changed the name—said St Catherine’s was Popish. Very down on anything Popish—Used to send out tracts. Plain women, all of ’em—Took an interest in natives—Sent ’em out trousers and bibles. Very strong on converting the heathen.’