The Case Of The Dead Wait

3.

“This can’t be true,” Laura said. “You’re in the clear. Your pies were analysed today and there’s nothing toxic in them.”

With a stare like the condemned woman in a silent movie, Gertrude said, “Follow me,” and started towards the gate.

Laura looked at Rosemary. They’d been in dangerous situations before. Rosemary shrugged. At least Gertrude wasn’t wielding that cleaver. They went after her.

She paused at her garden gate and turned the flashlight beam on Rosemary and Laura to check that they were behind her. Then she led them to her greenhouse and unlocked the door.

The place would have been creepy even in daylight, with a huge overhanging vine that still had some of its leaves, brown and contorted. Other skeletal plants in pots had been brought in for the winter. Gertrude edged around a raised flower bed in the centre and directed the flashlight at a dark shape on the floor.

A man’s body.

“I killed him,” Gertrude said with a stricken sigh. “I never looked here when I smoked out the pests on Christmas Eve. I just put down the stuff and set light to it.”

“He is dead, I suppose?” Laura said.

Rosemary leaned over for a closer look. “Well dead, I would say.”

Gertrude was still reliving the experience. “I made sure it was smouldering and got out, locking the door behind me. Opened it an hour ago and found him. I can only suppose he was drunk and crept in here to sleep it off.” She paused. “Will I go to prison?”

“Let me have the flashlight,” Laura said. She edged past Gertrude for a closer inspection. “I can’t say I know him intimately, but isn’t this one of the carol singers, the tall one, Balthazar?”

“Ben Black? It is!” Gertrude said in despair. “God forgive me. What have I done?”

“Unless I’ve got my facts muddled, you haven’t done anything at all,” Laura said. “You fumigated on Christmas Eve after visiting me, am I right?”

Gertrude nodded.

“That was in the afternoon? You locked the door and didn’t open up until today? You left the key in the lock?”

Another nod from Gertrude.

“Think about it,” Laura said. “Ben was alive and singing carols that same evening. He couldn’t have been trapped in here. See, there’s dried blood on the back of his scalp. It looks as if someone hit him over the head and dumped the body in here. Yes, we will call the police, but I don’t think you’re in any trouble.”

Over cocoa that night, with the dog asleep in front of a real log fire, Rosemary summed up the case. “What we have are two impossible crimes. One man poisoned by a harmless mince pie and another bludgeoned to death in a locked greenhouse.”

“The second crime isn’t impossible,” Laura said. “The key was in the door. Obviously the killer could get in and out. They put the body in there and locked it again thinking it might not be found for some time.”

“They?”

“Could be a man or a woman. That’s all I mean.”

“Then are we agreed that there’s only one killer?” Rosemary said.

“Let’s hope so.”

“So why was Ben Black bumped off?”

“Because he knew something about the first crime?”

“Very likely. And why did the first crime take place?”

“The death of Douglas Boon? It could have been a mistake,” Laura said. “Maybe he ate a poisoned pie intended for Ben Black.”

“I don’t think so,” Rosemary said. “Remember, Douglas was a gannet. He was guaranteed to take any pie that was offered except one of Gertrude’s.”

“Hers were on the heavy side,” Laura recalled.

“So if we assume Douglas ’s death was planned and carried out in cold blood, what did Ben find out that meant he had to be murdered as well?”

“It’s got to be something to do with the mince pie Wilbur found under the lavender bush,” Laura said.

“Another harmless pie?”

They were silent for some time, staring into the flames. “Do you think that young vicar is all he seems?” Rosemary said.

Laura frowned. “I rather like him.”

“A bad sign, usually,” Rosemary said. “Let’s go and see him tomorrow.”

“Won’t the police say we’re interfering?”

“They’re going to be ages getting to the truth, if they ever do. For them it’s all about analysing DNA evidence, and we know how long that takes. A good old-fashioned face-to-face gets a quicker result.”

Overnight it snowed and they both slept late.

“It’s the total silence, I think,” Laura said. “I always get a marvellous sleep when there’s a snowfall.”

“Whatever it is,” Rosemary said, “I’ve had a few ideas about these deaths and I’d like to try them out on you.”

After breakfast they put on wellies and took Wilbur for his longest walk yet. He was more frisky than ever, bounding through the snow regardless of that mince pie the day before. People might spurn Gertrude’s cooking, but this hound had thrived on it. Along the way, they kept a lookout for yew trees, and counted five in and around the village, and three yew hedges. Over a pre-lunch drink in a quiet corner of the pub, Rosemary unfolded her theory to Laura and it made perfect sense. They knew from experience that theories are all very well, but the proof can be more elusive. They decided to go looking for it late in the afternoon.

“Are we clear about what each of us does?” Rosemary said.

“All too clear,” Laura said. “You get the inside job while I wait out here with Wilbur and freeze.”

“He’ll be fine. He loves the snow and he’s got his coat on. Just stroll around as if you’re exercising him.”

They had parked outside the village church.

Rosemary went in and found the vicar slotting hymn numbers into the frame above the pulpit.

“Busy, I see.”

He almost dropped the numbers. “You startled me. I have a choir practice shortly.”

“I know. We had a walk this morning, and I saw the church notice board.”

“We meet earlier when the schools are on holiday.”

“A smaller choir now.”

“Sadly, yes. Plenty of trebles and altos, but only one tenor remaining. I’m going to miss Ben and Douglas dreadfully.”

“Would you mind if I stay and listen?”

He looked uneasy. “I don’t know what sort of voice they’ll be in after Christmas. There’s always a feeling of anticlimax.”

“If it’s inconvenient, Vicar, I’ll go.” She watched this challenge him. He was supposed to welcome visitors to his church.

After a moment, he said, “Stay, by all means. But I must go and turn up the heating. I don’t insist they wear vestments for practice, but I don’t like to see them in coats and scarves.”

“Of course.”

Little boys started arriving, standing around the vestry on the north side, chattering about their Christmas presents. The choir stalls gradually filled. Two women choristers appeared from the vestry and so did Colin Price. He recognised Rosemary and smiled.

The practice was due at four. Some were looking at their watches. It was already ten past. The organist played a few bars and stopped. Everyone was in place except the vicar.

There was a certain amount of coughing. Then, unexpectedly, raised voices from the direction of the vestry. The vicar was saying, “Outrageous. I can’t believe you would be so brazen.”

A female voice said, “I’ll be as brazen as I like. I’ve got what I came for and now it’s up to the police.” It was Laura.

“We’ll see about that,” the vicar said.

“Get your hands off me,” Laura said.

Rosemary got up from the pew where she was sitting and walked quickly around the pulpit to the vestry. The door was open. Inside, the vicar was grappling with Laura, pressing her against the hanging coats and scarves.

Rosemary snatched up a brass candlestick and raised it high.

Over the vicar’s shoulder Laura said, “No, Rosemary!”

Distracted, the vicar turned his head and Laura seized her chance and shoved him away. He fell into a stack of kneelers.

He shouted to Rosemary, “Don’t help her. She’s a thief. I caught her going through people’s clothes.”

Laura said, “You were right, Rosemary. There were pastry crumbs in his pocket. Oh, get out of my way, Vicar. I’m going to make a citizen’s arrest.”

She dodged past him and ran into the main part of the church in time to see a small figure making an exit through the west door.

Rosemary, some yards behind her, called out, “Laura, that man is dangerous.”

“So am I when roused,” Laura said.

She dashed up the aisle and out of the church to the car park. There, the runaway, Colin Price, was standing by his pickup truck. But he’d shied away from the door because a dog was baring its teeth in the driver’s seat.

“Wilbur, you’re a hero,” Laura said when she’d recovered enough breath. Before going in to search the vestry, she’d noticed the door of the pickup was unlocked, so she’d installed Wilbur in the cab as a backup.

Colin wasn’t going to risk opening that door and he knew he wouldn’t get far through the snow on foot. He raised both hands in an act of surrender.

To the delight of the choirboys, the practice was abandoned, and they were sent home. In the warmth of the vestry, Colin seemed not just willing to talk, but eager. “I’ve been an idiot. I should never have killed twice. It was meant to turn out differently.”

“Why kill at all?” the vicar said. He’d dusted down his clothes and was a dignified figure again.

“I hated Douglas Boon,” Colin said. “We were rivals in the old days, both of us dairy farmers, but he was so damned successful and I was failing on the paperwork. I couldn’t compete. Lost my contract and had to sell up, and of course there was all the humiliation of selling to him-and for less than it was worth. He had me over a barrel. So I was reduced to odd jobs. I’d see my beautiful herd every day when I was on my way to mow another lawn. The resentment festered. And then I learned that Ben Black had made him an offer for the land, a huge offer, and he was selling up, for millions. He could retire and live in luxury and my cows would go for slaughter. The anger boiled over.”

“But they weren’t your cows anymore,” the vicar pointed out. “You’d sold them.”

“You don’t understand about animals, do you?” he said. “I raised them from calves. They were a dairy herd, not for beef.”

“So you made up your mind to kill him,” Rosemary said, “and you chose poison as the method. The yew, because its dangers are well known to all farmers, and the mince pie because it was part of the tradition here.”

“And Boon was a glutton,” he said. “He was certain to take it.”

“Your wife had made a set of pies, knowing Gertrude would be round at some stage,” Rosemary went on. “You added seeds of yew to one of them and had it with you on Christmas Eve. When you got to The Withers you took the plate as if to hand it round, but you passed your poisoned pie to Douglas.”

Colin glared at her. “How do you know that? You weren’t even there.”

Laura said, “Pastry crumbs in your pocket, the obvious place to hide it. I checked your coat just now. That was what all the fuss was about. The vicar thought I was a thief.”

Rosemary said to Colin, “Thanks to Laura getting the poor man to hospital, the police were alerted. News of the poisoning went quickly around the village and at some point over Christmas, Ben Black got suspicious enough to come and see you. He threatened to tell the police. You panicked, cracked him on the head, and killed him.”

Laura said, “And transferred the body to Gertrude’s greenhouse in your pickup and trailer. She was under suspicion, so you thought you’d add to it. While you were in church just now I checked under the tarpaulin in the trailer. Bloodstains. The police will match them to Ben’s blood group.”

Colin’s shoulders sagged. All the fight had gone out of him.

In all the excitement, Laura hadn’t given a thought to her main reason for being in the house. Over supper that evening, she dropped her knife and fork and said, “The orchids. I’ve completely forgotten about them.”

She had visions of dead and drooping plants in their dried-up trays.

“What am I going to say to Mike?” she said as she raced to the conservatory.

But the orchids were doing fine, better than when she’d taken over. The droopy ones were standing tall.

“They benefited from being left alone,” Rosemary said. “He’s a novice at this. The roots of an orchid are covered by a spongy material that holds water.”

“Like a camel’s hump?”

“Well… I’m saying he must have overwatered them.”

That evening Wilbur was rewarded with a supper of chopped turkey and baked ham. After he’d curled up in front of the fire, Rosemary and Laura slipped out of the front door to make a call on a neighbour.

Gertrude invited them in and poured large glasses of sherry.

“I’m so grateful to you both,” she said. “I must have had calls from half the village saying how sorry they are for all I’ve been through. I kept telling them you two are the heroes.”

“Far from it,” Rosemary said with modesty.

“But you are. And you, Laura, being mistaken for a thief and wrestling with the vicar.”

“That wasn’t so bad.”

Rosemary said, “He’s rather dishy. She enjoyed getting into a clinch.”

They all laughed.

“And now,” Gertrude said, looking happier than they’d seen her, “another Christmas tradition. To ensure good fortune for us all in the new year, I insist that you have a slice of my homemade Christmas cake. You can make a wish.” She went out to the kitchen.

Rosemary said in confidence, “I’m going to wish that I survive this.”

Laura said, “I’m so glad I wore this cardigan. It’s got pockets.”