Spotted Hemlock

chapter seventeen

The Gentlemen Raise Their Voices

‘Fritz, who was never taken by surprise by events of this kind, had time to fire before the birds were out of reach.’

Ibid.

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There was one last port of call and Dame Beatrice, having telephoned the local police, made it before she returned to the village of Wandles Parva. She went to Highpepper Hall.

‘I want,’ she said to Mr Sellaclough, whom she found sipping his mid-morning glass of Madeira, ‘if I may, to interview those of your students who were responsible for introducing dead rats and rhubarb into the Calladale soil. Let me hasten to add that this is no punitive expedition. It is from the highest motives that I desire to possess this information.’

‘Take a glass of Madeira with me, and tell me more, Dame Beatrice. I have no doubt that the students responsible will give you every assistance in their power if the matter is one of importance.’

Dame Beatrice accepted the glass of Madeira and recounted as much of the story as was necessary for the object she had in view.

‘So, you see,’ she concluded, ‘it would help a good deal if I could establish, once and for all, that the Calladale horseman was not one of your students dressed up to alarm the young women. If it was not, then there is only one thing for me to think, and I have thought it already.’ She told the Principal what she thought had happened.

‘Good heavens!’ said Mr Sellaclough. ‘But what a bizarre notion! Why not a car?’

‘I have no doubt that a car was waiting, if what I suspect is true. The reasons for choosing to leave Calladale on horseback may have been to avoid making the noise a car would be bound to make and also because the ghostly hood and voluminous attire made an effective disguise. It would be too much to expect that you know of a heavy grey horse in the neighbourhood of Calladale? It had not occurred to me until very recently that the horse must be traced, but my latest researches have revealed that it is essential to find it.’

‘I’ll put it to the college at lunch about the rats and rhubarb, unless you’d care to address the gathering yourself. It might be quite a good idea if you did. I don’t suppose young men in the mass hold any terrors for you, do they?’

So the midday meal at Highpepper was enlivened by the presence at the staff table of a small, black-haired, very sharp-eyed old lady who was introduced by Mr Sellaclough as ‘that very distinguished psychiatrist and investigator of crime, Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley,’ and who rose to the sound of slightly ironical cheering.

‘I will not detain you for more than a moment, gentlemen,’ she said. ‘I am here to invite two of those who interred the rats and the rhubarb to dine with me in the private room of the hotel which I am led to believe you are accustomed to patronise in Garchester. Perhaps I might be permitted to have a word with my guests at the conclusion of the meal.’

‘In my study,’ said Mr Sellaclough. ‘And I am asked by Dame Beatrice to say that nothing in the nature of disciplinary action is contemplated. The matter under review is an exceptionally serious one, but has nothing to do (so far as we know) with the college.’

He took his guest straight to his sanctum and in a few minutes there came a tap at the door. Mr Sellaclough pressed his buzzer and Soames and Preddle came in.

‘I’ll leave you,’ he said. ‘Sit down, Mr Soames and Mr Preddle. Gentlemen, you may smoke.’

‘I know that your time is very fully occupied,’ said Dame Beatrice to the students, as soon as the door had closed behind their Principal, ‘so I will come straight to the point. Where did the rats come from?’

The two young men looked at one another. Then Soames replied that they had come from ‘an old rat-catcher chap named Benson.’ He added that he hoped the girls at Calladale had not been annoyed.

‘Where can I get hold of Benson?’

Preddle told her that, far from his time being fully occupied, he had little or nothing to do that afternoon and would escort her to Benson’s cottage if she would give him time to change. Beautifully dressed and carrying an impeccable hat, he returned in short order. Dame Beatrice found Mr Sellaclough, with Preddle’s help, thanked him for his co-operation and his hospitality and was introduced to Soames’ new car, a dashing sports affair in silver and bright blue.

Old Benson’s cottage proved to be about a mile from the front gates of Highpepper and to be picturesquely situated in front of a small wood. The old man was chopping some kindling, but looked up when the car braked opposite his garden gate.

‘Good-day, sir,’ he said to Preddle. ‘Job for the college again?’

‘No, not this time, Benson. Dame Beatrice wants a word with you.’

‘It’s the drains,’ said Benson. ‘If there wasn’t drains, there wouldn’t be varmint. You wants your drains clearin’ out.’

‘She doesn’t want you to go ratting for her, you old chump! I said she wants a word with you.’

‘Not about rats?’

‘Yes, about rats, but not my own personal rats,’ Dame Beatrice explained. ‘What I want to know, Mr Benson, is where the rats came from that you sold to Mr Soames and Mr Preddle at the beginning of this term.’

‘It was a bit before the beginning of term, actually,’ said Preddle. ‘You remember, Benson? You got us a splendid collection. We told you we were experimenting with them as manure.’

Benson received this reminder with wheezy mirth.

‘Tell you anything, the young,gentlemen will,’ he confided to Dame Beatrice. ‘Course, I never believed it. Up to one of their larks, I reckoned. Why, I could tell you…’

‘Yes, another time, you old liar,’ said Preddle. ‘Dame Beatrice hasn’t got all the afternoon to waste listening to your tall stories. Fire away, Dame Beatrice, or he’ll talk you into a coma.’

Dame Beatrice accepted this advice.

‘All I want to know,’ she said, ‘is where those rats came from.’

‘Where they come from? Why, all over the place. The farms round ’ere is fair drippin’ wi’ rats. Drop from the thatch, they do.’

‘Do you know Calladale, the agricultural college for women, twenty-five miles from here?’

‘Ah, that I do. Why, I remember, one time, they ’ad to fetch me in to put down their varmint. Somebody ’adn’t ’ad no more sense than to store ’op-manure in the cellars. They was knee-deep—ah, waist-deep—in rats. My word! I never seed so many o’ the varmint in my life, and when Mr Soames and Mr Preddle came along orderin’ me to find ’em an ’underd rats, I says to ’em, I says, “Why don’t you gennelmen go to Calladale College?” I says. You’ll mind me makin’ the remark, Mr Preddle, sir? “Why don’t you go over to Calladale College?” I says. “That’s where they grows rats on their gooseberry bushes.” Them was my words, wasn’t they, Mr Preddle, sir?’

‘Just about.’

Old Benson chuckled and threw a bit of stick at a cat which was creeping up on a robin.

‘And do you know what?’ he said, an expression of great cunning spreading itself over his wizened and grimy countenance, ‘That’s just where the bulk o’ they rats o’ yourn came from, Mr Preddle, sir. Never knoo that afore, did’ee?’

‘Good Lord!’ exclaimed Preddle. ‘Talk about carrying coals to Newcastle!’

‘But this is fantastic!’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Tell me, Mr Benson, did you find any difficulty in getting into the Calladale cellars?’

‘Difficulty? Why should I? Me and the boiler-’and there, we’ve knowed each other since ’e was born.’E’s me nevvy.’

‘Indeed! Did Miss McKay know that you went ratting in her cellar?’

‘No need for ’er to know. ’E pops me into the ’ouse, Tom do, and down the cellar, and we makes a goodish rattling noise to scare ’em into their ’oles, and then I ins with me apparatus and smokes ’em out and the dog, ’e gets plenty. That’s a good dog, that is. Belongs to the landlord at the Bull. Of course, I don’t allus work wi’ a dog, but the gennelmen needin’ the carcasses nice and fresh like, it were the best way to oblige ’em, so I made out. Never git rid of them rats in that cellar, I reckon, not while there’s still the smell o’ that ’op-manure about, which it smelt like a brewery first time they called me in.’

‘Did any rats escape from the inner cellar to the concreted one where the college staff keep their heavy baggage?’

‘Nary a one, mum. We see to that, my nevvy and me. Wouldn’t ’ave done to ’ave ’em gnorin’ the ladies’ baggage. No. We scares ’em into their ’oles and then we opens the door and nips in quick, and shuts the door be’ind us, and then I smokes ’em out wi’ me apparatus and the dog done the rest. No, you can rest assured, mum, that if there’s a complaint about rats gettin’ into that baggage-room down there, it wasn’t nothing to do with me nor young Tom nor old Towser.’

‘There is no complaint,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I am much obliged to you for your information.’ She tipped the old man and Preddle drove her back to the college. ‘Seven o’clock this evening, then,’ she said to him as they parted.

‘With a rose in my hair,’ said Preddle, ‘and old Soames on a lead with a tartan bow on his collar.’

There was no doubt but that the saloon bar of the hotel had become a home from home to Highpepper youth. The door which led into it from the hotel vestibule was open, and Dame Beatrice, glancing in, discovered it to be crowded with young men who bore the unmistakable Highpepper stamp. They were, for the most part, extremely well-dressed, were large and healthy, had loud voices and brown faces. They held pint pots of beer and exchanged ribaldry and repartee with the two giggling barmaids, and when their pots needed replenishing they threw heaps of small change in a lordly manner on the bar counter where it had to be picked up wet with the overflow of that generous topping from the draught-beer which the barmaids inevitably gave.

Dame Beatrice enquired at the reception desk for the location of the private dining-room she had bespoken and a porter was summoned to show her the way to it. Scarcely was she installed when her guests arrived. Dame Beatrice drank sherry and the young men pink gin, and dinner was served at half-past seven. Goose with apple and prune stuffing followed what Dame Beatrice described as an honest, old-fashioned Brown Windsor soup, and the repast continued with apricot pie and ice-cream and concluded with a savoury.

The young men, respectful of good and plentiful food since, like the students at Calladale, they lived from one meal to another and were always hungry in between, entertained her almost affectionately in a relaxed, delightful way and, at the end, when the waitress had cleared the table, they lounged in two of the armchairs with which the room was provided and invited their hostess to come to the point.

‘What do you want to know about the rats and the rhubarb?’ asked Soames. ‘You know where the rats came from, and we can soon tell you about the rhubarb. At our end-of-term dance it formed the sole subject of conversation of a young girl whom some of us felt called upon, as hosts, to squire round the ballroom. So I said “Why not?” The rats, I admit, were an afterthought, and not a particularly good one. Now to tell us what it’s all in aid of.’

‘The murder of Carrie Palliser, the young woman whose body was found in the coach. It was owing to the fact that the Calladale students were anxious to return the rhubarb, which they felt certain had come from Highpepper, that the body was discovered at the time. There is not much doubt that whoever put it there hoped it would lie hidden much longer.’

‘More difficult to identify it,’ said Preddle, nodding his head. ‘Wasn’t it thought at first to be the younger sister, though? I saw something in the local paper, didn’t I, indicating that it was the elder one, after all?’

‘That is impossible, Mr Preddle! The police have been most careful to keep that particular bit of information out of the news. The dead girl was buried in the name by which she was identified, and she was identified as Norah Coles, née Palliser, a student at Calladale College. Officially, the body is still that of Norah Coles.’

‘Then where did I get it from?’ asked Preddle, frowning. ‘Because it really isn’t a new idea to me that it was the older sister.’

‘I would very much like to know where you got it from. Possibly from Mr Basil? I believe he was once a lecturer at Highpepper.’

‘He was, yes, but that was long before my time. No, it wasn’t from Basil. Could it have been from one of the Calladale girls?’

‘That also seems unlikely. But, if so, which one, Mr Preddle?’

Preddle, perplexed, scratched his head.

‘How can I make myself remember? Let’s see. I know so many of them in a vague and amateurish way. All the same, I suppose I ought to be able…’ He frowned. ‘Oh, yes, I know! It didn’t seem possible, you see, as I pointed out to Miss Colin.’

‘How, not possible?’

‘Well, we heard that Miss Palliser—Mrs Coles, the one at Calladale, of course—was going off on a holiday toot with Basil. You reminded me that he used to be one of the lecturers at our place. Well, from what I can learn, it was quite incredible that one of Basil’s piecee-missies should have gone and got herself murdered. Quite out of character, if you understand me.’

‘I don’t understand you, Mr Preddle. I knew of the holiday adventure, of course. They appear to have spent a week together at the Bracklesea holiday camp. Then we were given to understand that Mr Basil went climbing in the Cairngorms with a friend and broke his leg. This report of his accident turned out to be false.’

‘The Basil I’ve heard about wouldn’t have gone nearer the Cairngorms than Sauchiehall Street,’ said Soames. ‘My older brother was up when Basil was at our place. He seems to have been a bit of a legend. I can’t think why Ma McKay took him on. Surely his reputation had gone before him?’

‘One can hardly think so. Some facts are known to students, I believe, which would be received with incredulity in the Staff Common Room.’

‘You’re telling us, Dame Beatrice!’ said Soames, grinning. ‘But to Preddle’s point. Why “out of character,” old man?’

‘Once a girl gets into Basil’s grip, she stays gripped until he’s tired of her. He hadn’t got tired of Mrs Coles. They used to meet in road-houses and motoring hotels and so on, near Garchester, and frequently, at that.’

‘The week at the holiday camp may have caused an old man’s fancy to shy away from thoughts of love,’ suggested Soames. ‘Oh, I received some instruction in Eng. Lit. at school,’ he added, for the benefit of Dame Beatrice.

‘It does not appear to be the case that Mr Basil had fallen out of love with Mrs Coles,’ said she. ‘When he pretended that he was in hospital with a broken leg, Mrs Coles was keeping house for him in Northern Ireland. She was thought to have returned to college at the beginning of term and then disappeared. Several weeks later came the discovery of the body which was identified by her mother. Of course, the sisters were much alike. But I confess that I do not take your point, Mr Preddle, that it could not have been Mrs Coles’ body.’

‘Well, thank God for my good dinner and if you must know, Dame Beatrice, she’s been seen. I remember everything now.’

Dame Beatrice was not often completely taken aback, but Preddle’s statement astonished her beyond measure. She did not ask him whether he was certain that his information was correct. She felt sure it was.

‘Tell me more, Mr Preddle,’ she said. ‘We cannot leave it at that. Chapter, verse and witnesses, if you please.’

‘I had it from my tutor, Gastien. The best plan would be for you to meet him. He was with Upminster, only Upminster doesn’t know the girl, so he won’t be much good to you as a witness. I don’t know how Gastien came to recognise her, as a matter of fact. Oh, yes, I do, too! He is—or was—very pally with Basil, so I dare say he saw the girl several times with him. I don’t suppose he realised that she was a Calladale student, though. His brain’s very myopic except where his job and his beer are concerned.’

‘But this sounds as though Mrs Coles went about openly with Mr Basil.’

‘Of course she did. Basil always has some wench or other in tow. He’s notorious for it. I heard he got the sack from our place—only it was given out that he had relinquished the job of his own free will, because that sounded better— because he bestowed his favours on one of the housemaids. Of course, I don’t know whether that’s true. It may just be a bit of common or garden slander. Personally, I should think it is that; otherwise Sellaclough would hardly have let Miss McKay take him on her staff. Still, straws show which way the wind blows, and there’s no smoke without fire.’

‘You do not know, of course, what Mr Gastien thought when he saw Mrs Coles, but do you know, more or less, when it was?’

‘I do know what he thought, as it happens. Upminster was in the showers with me last Wednesday, and as we were drying ourselves he said, “Rather a rum thing happened this morning. I was in the bar with Gastien, sampling the brew, when in walked a female dressed in black, with a scarf pulled round her face as though she’d got toothache or something, and asked for twenty cigarettes and a box of matches. Gastien didn’t turn and look at her, but she was reflected in the mirror behind all those bottles and Toby jugs and tankards and things. When she spotted him she simply turned and bolted without the cigarettes and matches. Gastien turned and looked fairly thoughtfully at the door, which was, as usual, propped open, and said, “My boy, you had better take me home. This is the kind of thing which has made men sign the pledge, and, what’s more, stick to it. I’ve seen a ghost. I thought that a young woman Basil used to trot around came in here and asked for cigarettes and matches.” ’

‘Yes?’ said Dame Beatrice.

‘Well, of course, Upminster told him a female had just been in and asked for cigarettes and matches, and described her. He said that Gastien looked at him in an owlish sort of way, and said, “She couldn’t be the girl I’m thinking of. The girl I’m thinking of is dead.” You have a talk with Gastien, Dame Beatrice, and get it straight from the horse’s mouth.’

Dame Beatrice did this at the following midday. Having been apprised of his habits, she met Mr Gastien in the hotel bar at precisely a quarter to twelve, it being his daily custom, it appeared, to leave college at eleven sharp, whatever duties he was engaged upon at Highpepper, and drive into Garchester for his midday refreshment. He usually brought a couple of Highpepper students with him, and it was understood that these bought his chaser of gin when he had had sufficient beer, and drove him back to the college.

By previous arrangement, the two students on this particular and important occasion were Preddle and Soames, who were in a position to introduce him to Dame Beatrice and include her in the party.

‘Basil?’ said Mr Gastien, when his thirst was somewhat alleviated and the object of the meeting had been introduced. ‘Oh, yes, Basil. About time he came back, I should think. He isn’t back, is he? Can’t be, or that young woman of his wouldn’t be knocking about on her own. And she is knocking about on her own. Met her—well, I won’t say met her, because she walked in here last Wednesday morning when I was with Lord Robert Upminster and dashed out again as soon as she realised I’d spotted her. Girl isn’t dead, as we were given to understand. Something very fishy must have been going on.’

‘Murder has been going on, as we knew,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘but a mistake was made by the person who was called upon to identify the body.’

‘So that was it! Glad I know. Thought I was seeing things. Thank you, Mr Preddle. A double, eh? Very generous. Very generous indeed.’

Preddle received this tribute—a stock phrase with Mr Gastien—with a polite inclination of the head. His tutor swallowed the gin at a gulp, smacked his lips, licked them and looked expectantly at Soames, who rose immediately and went to the bar counter. The little ceremony was repeated, but this time the gin was sniffed at and sipped. Mr Gastien then glanced expectantly at Dame Beatrice. Scarcely thinking that this was a hint to buy him a third gin, as he still had almost all of that provided by Soames, she continued her remarks.

‘Yes. Mrs Coles had an older sister who so much resembled her in appearance that the distressed mother, who was called upon to identify the body, mistook her for the younger daughter because she was wearing the Calladale blazer. The face, in any case, was much disfigured.’

‘Oh, well, that would seem to let Basil out. Always afraid the girl had tried to blackmail him or something, and he’d got rid of her. Quite a relief.’

‘It is not in the public interest, at present, that the wrongful identification should be disclosed.’

‘No, no, of course not. I won’t breathe a word. You fellows must be discreet, too.’ He sipped gin. ‘Murderer must be allowed to think he’s got away with it. The police will get him easier that way. Well, this is all very interesting, I must say. Let me get you more sherry, Dame Beatrice. Are you staying here to lunch?’

‘No. I am lunching in Calladale College, at the invitation of Miss McKay. No more sherry, thank you.’

‘What I can’t understand,’ said Soames, ‘is why the girl chose to come in here for cigarettes and matches. I mean, it wasn’t early closing day or anything of that sort. She could have gone into a shop. Girls of that age don’t usually patronise a bar on their own.’

‘For that very reason she chose to do so, I take it,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Dressed as she was, and with her face covered up, she was less likely to be recognised at the bar counter than she might have been at a shop in this rather small town. I don’t suppose the barmaids had ever troubled to notice her before. It is not likely that she had ever ordered drinks from them. Her escort would have done everything necessary in that way.’

‘I doubt whether Basil often brought her in here,’ said Mr Gastien, ‘but, if he did, it would be as you say. I mean, look at it! It’s always like this in here, especially on Saturdays and Sundays, and those, if I know anything of the regulations at Calladale, are the only days on which, in the ordinary way, she would be able to get away from college. Oh, there’s the mid-week half-holiday, of course.’

The dense and noisy crowd of young men who, by this time, were thronging the bar, certainly gave point to his words. Persons seated at the tables would be almost completely screened from the barmaids. Dame Beatrice nodded.

‘The most interesting aspect of the whole business,’ she observed, ‘is that, knowing (as she must do by this time) that a mistake in identification has been made, she does not wish to put it right, but hides and skulks in this extraordinary way. There can be two possible explanations. Either she killed her sister or else she herself is in danger. I prefer the latter theory. I think she goes—or believes she goes—in fear of her life, and that is why the police have not found her. In any case, on their own submission, they are looking for a dead girl, not a living one.’