The Murder of Busy Lizzie

chapter nine

Questions and Answers

Tell me where is fancy bred,

Or in the heart or in the head?

How begot, how nourishèd?

Reply, reply.’

William Shakespeare

« ^ »

Well, but, Father,’ said Margaret later on, ‘Seb and I didn’t even know Aunt Eliza and we like it here. Couldn’t we stay? It’s a bit hard on Miss Crimp, after she made room for us when we weren’t even booked in, if all three of us just walk out on her.’

‘Well, yes, there is something in that, I suppose,’ said Marius heavily. Although he had not seen his sister for more than twenty years, he was shocked by her death and the manner of it and wanted only to leave the island and return to his quiet existence and his caustic but practical spouse. ‘I suppose there is no reason why you two should not stay if you wish to do so, but I shall go on this afternoon’s boat. I must attend the inquest, I suppose, for the look of the thing, if for no other reason, and there is nothing for me here now, so, when I go, I shall not, I imagine, need to return. The interment will be in the family grave, of course, but there is no need for either of you two or your mother to attend the funeral.’

‘And then there’s the will,’ said Sebastian to his sister, after they had returned to their chalet. ‘Personally, I think The Tutor is starry-eyed if he thinks that, after all those years of separation and the row with Boobie, Aunt Eliza has left him anything.’ .?

‘To do him justice, Seb, I don’t believe he’s given a thought to that side of things, although, of course…“ She remembered her father’s remarks on the subject.

‘Oh, well, he will. After all, what was the idea behind this expedition? Of course at present he’s suffering from horror, but he’ll come to and begin taking notice as soon as the funeral is over. One wouldn’t blame him. His generation are like that. Always, after the pious snuffle, the eye to the main chance.’

‘I shouldn’t think there would be a “main chance” with Miss Crimp in possession of the place. She has a calculating and fishy eye.’

‘Well, what are we going to do with ourselves this afternoon?’

‘There’s not so very much of it left. Seb, why have you changed your mind about wanting to stay here? The last I heard was that we would have exhausted the island in another day or two. Why did you tell me to tackle The Tutor and beg him to let us stay?’

‘Ah!’ said Sebastian, investing the word with deep meaning.

‘Oh, come on!’

‘Wait until he’s cleared off back to the mainland, then I might tell you. Meanwhile, I have two thoughts about this afternoon. One is that I want to have another word with Ransome about witchcraft. That business of the headstones and the rope ladder was rather intriguing. The other is that I want to see a man about a boat.’

‘You’re not thinking of going round to those rocks where they picked up—where they found her—are you? Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea at all. The men with Dimbleton had an awful job, and they know the coast and you don’t. Besides, the police inspector may still be around and he won’t want you messing about down there.’

‘Why not? He can’t prevent me from doing a spot of deep-sea fishing, and I shan’t be in charge of the boat. That will be J. Dimbleton’s job.’

‘Oh, well, then, I’ll come with you if he’ll let you hire from him. Seb, do you think Aunt Eliza ever went to the mainland?’

‘Difficult to believe that she did, but, if not, why not? I’m sure La Crimp thought she’d gone.’

‘But it was such a peculiar thing of her not to be here on the day she knew we were coming.’

‘You think Crimp was lying, then? And why do you think our booking wasn’t registered?’

‘I don’t know what to think, but I’ll tell you what, Seb. I’ve a good mind to pump our chambermaid. She seems a simple soul and all the servants are bound to be full of chatter about Aunt Eliza’s death.’

‘There’s another tiny point which occurs to me. We were told that the farmer chap — Ransome’s father — and his wife chartered Dimbleton’s boat to go across for their shopping. Of course, if it happened to come cheaper than the regular mainland run, well and good, but do you really think it would?’

‘Ransome would know. We’ll ask him. We don’t have to mention the farmer. We can make the enquiry, all innocent-like, when we mention we want to hire the boat for ourselves.’

A pass-key turned in the lock of the chalet door and the chambermaid came in. She stopped short when she saw that the occupants were at home.

‘Oh, sorry, sir,’ she said. ‘I’ve been given the afternoon off, so I just come in to turn down the beds.’

‘And you are as welcome as the flowers in May,’ said Sebastian. ‘Tell me, though, for I am a neophyte in these matters, what is the reason for the ritual?’

‘The what, sir?’

‘This turning down of beds. What’s the object of it?’

‘We just haves to do it, sir. It’s laid down.’

‘I thought Friday was your afternoon off,’ said Margaret. ‘Why has it been changed to today?’

‘In the ordinary way, yes, tomorrow, miss, but it’s been changed because of the upset.’

‘Mrs Chayleigh’s death?’ asked Sebastian.

‘That’s right, sir. We might be wanted tomorrow to answer questions, so Miss Crimp give me and Walter, as should be having our half-day tomorrow, she give us today instead.’

‘By questions, do you mean questions from the police,’ asked Sebastian.

‘That’s right, sir. “Answer up prompt and truthful,” Miss Crimp says, “and, if you don’t know, don’t hang about and waste the inspector’s time. Just say you don’t know. And what on earth they think you can know has me beat,” she says.’

‘And do you know anything?’

‘Not to say know, sir, not nothing I don’t, but if they was to ask me did I see her get on the boat, well, I did not, sir, and nobody’s going to make me say as I did.’

‘But how could you see her get on the boat?’ asked Margaret. ‘You weren’t down at the landing-stage, were you?’

The girl hesitated.

‘Come on,’ said Sebastian. ‘You can tell us. In fact, we’d very much like to know. You may not have been told this, but Mrs Chayleigh was our aunt. Her real name was Miss Lovelaine. She was my father’s only sister.’

‘Oh, sir, you’re having me on!’

‘No, he isn’t,’ said Margaret, ‘so tell us what you know. It might be very important.’

‘Miss Crimp said not to talk to anybody but that inspector.’

‘By “anybody” she only meant newspaper reporters,’ said Sebastian craftily. ‘She didn’t mean Aunt Eliza’s relatives.’

‘Well…’ The chambermaid thought it over. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘p’raps you do have a right to know. I’m allus supposed to be doin’ out the chalets, see, when the boat puts in, but I ain’t, because when I’m doin’ out the chalets it’s easy enough to slip away and get down to the beach, and my feller’s one of the boatmen, see? Miss Crimp and Mrs Chayleigh is always kep’ very busy when the boat puts in, because there’s them as is comin’ to the hotel and there’s them as is leavin’ and there’s often stores to be seen to, oh, and a mort o’ things to do. Of course, I never knew, not till all the rumours started, as Mrs Chayleigh was thought to ’ave caught the boat. All I know is as she never did. You won’t let on as I’ve told you, will you? I could get in trouble if it was knowed as I slipped away from me work to ’ave a word with Bob.’

‘You’d have been in trouble if Mrs Chayleigh had caught the boat,’ said Margaret, ‘wouldn’t you?’

‘Oh, I knowed where she was. She was over to Puffins, that big ’ouse in the dip. I ’eard Miss Crimp say as there wasn’t nobody else free to go.’

‘Go? What for?’ asked Sebastian.

‘Oh, to drop in some bacon and eggs for the visitors what was rentin’ the ’ouse for the summer. They never knew I ’eard, but it never crossed my mind. I never thought no more about it, ’cept to watch out. I just watched ’er go down the dip and then I run out and down the cliff road. I didn’t talk to Bob not more than ten minutes, in case I should be missed, and because he was busy checking the people as was wanting to be took out to the steamer and gettin’ their luggage aboard. I come up the road behind the new lot of visitors, and I never see Mrs Chayleigh again.’

‘But didn’t that surprise you?’ asked Sebastian.

‘Oh, no, because when Miss Crimp started to fret I thought Mrs Chayleigh had caught Thursday’s boat, you see, being as I knowed she hadn’t gone over on the Wednesday.’

‘Eggs and bacon?’ said Margaret. ‘But why take them all that time in advance?’

‘In advance of what, miss?’

‘Oh, nothing, really. Look, we’re keeping you here talking when it’s your half-day off. I’m awfully sorry.’

‘What was that about eggs and things?’ asked Sebastian, when the chambermaid had gone.

‘Nothing much, except that, as the stuff comes up fresh from the farm, and Dame Beatrice and Laura didn’t come on that Wednesday but a week later, I can’t see any point in Aunt Eliza’s going over to Puffins on the Wednesday, afternoon.’

‘Oh, I expect Dame Beatrice’s servants were coming by the Wednesday boat to get the house ready. The stuff would have been for them.’

‘Then they might know something about what happened to Aunt Eliza that afternoon.’

‘No, because the boat wouldn’t have been in when Aunt Eliza went across to Puffins. You know, Maggie, she seems to have disappeared from that house, doesn’t she? I think we might do a lot worse than go over there and have a word with Dame Beatrice.’

‘But, Seb, we’ve never met her!’

‘The Tutor has—and we know Laura. Come on, let’s take the bull by the horns. There’s something dashed peculiar about all this, and I think we ought to try to sort it out.’

‘But if those provisions were meant for the servants, and the servants were expected that Wednesday, there’s nothing to sort out, is there?’

‘There is, if Aunt Eliza meant to dump the provisions and catch the boat and obviously didn’t catch it. Besides, how would she get into Puffins, anyway, to leave the things? Would she have had a key?’

‘She could have left them in the porch or somewhere, I suppose.’

‘Well, I’m going to clear it up, if only for my own satisfaction. Coming with me?’

Dame Beatrice greeted the young people kindly and offered them tea. She and her secretary had knocked off work on the Memoirs and were ready, she informed them (with a terrifying leer) for intellectual conversation.

‘Not intellectual, I’m afraid,’ said Sebastian. ‘The fact is that we’ve just heard a rather incredible tale about Mrs Chayleigh—our aunt, you know—and as this house was mentioned we thought you might like to hear it.’

‘Rather incredible?’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Delightful. Do go on.’

‘You, Seb. You don’t waffle as much as I do,’ said Margaret.

‘Well, I don’t want to waste time by going over well-trodden ground,’ said Sebastian. ‘Dame Beatrice knows about Aunt Eliza.’

‘Ah, yes. Yes, indeed,’ murmured Dame Beatrice. ‘You don’t have to be sorry for us,’ Sebastian went on. ‘We’ve never met my aunt. There was a family row before we were born. Then Aunt Eliza wrote a surprising sort of letter inviting my father to bring us all here for a month’s holiday. My mother wouldn’t come. When we arrived there was no Aunt Eliza and no rooms booked. Miss Crimp took us in, though, and then there began this panic because Aunt Eliza was supposed to have gone over to the mainland and she hadn’t said a word to Miss Crimp about our coming and she didn’t return to the hotel. The next thing, as you know, Dame Beatrice, was the discovery of her body.’

‘Which has now been transported to the mainland.’

‘Yes. The next part of the story we’ve just had from our chambermaid at the hotel. She says that on the Wednesday, exactly a week before we came here—we came, you remember, on the same day as you did—Aunt Eliza came to this house with some provisions. She doesn’t seem to have been seen alive again. The idea was that, after she’d left the food here, she was to catch the Wednesday boat for the mainland, but it seems certain that she couldn’t have done. For one thing, this maid says that she would have spotted her.’

‘Why?’ asked Laura. ‘Why would the maid have spotted her?’

‘She’d popped down to the landing-stage to have a word with her young man,’ Margaret replied.

‘And as she was A.W.O.L.,’ added Sebastian, ‘she would have been keeping her weather-eye open. Besides, if our aunt had ever left the island, it’s most unlikely her body would have been found off the east cliff.’

‘Well, as to that,’ said Laura, ‘it could have been carried that way on Dead Man’s Day, the race I told you about the first time we were swimming. You remember that, I expect. All the same, it does seem certain that Mrs Chayleigh never left this island, no matter where the body was put into the water.’

‘The body? You mean she wasn’t drowned?’

‘We must wait for the result of the autopsy, of course,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘but my own opinion would be that the chief injury she had suffered (however it was caused) must certainly have killed her. That wound on the head was not sustained after death. Of that I am reasonably certain. But your statement that she called here to deliver a parcel of goods is most intriguing.’

‘We thought they might have been for your servants, if somebody came here to get the house ready before you arrived,’ said Sebastian.

‘A logical assumption. Let us test it.’ Dame Beatrice rang the bell and an elderly, neatly-dressed, sharp-featured servant appeared.

‘Madame?’ she said, casting a brief but suspicious glance at the visitors.

‘Oh, Celestine,’ said her employer, ‘on which day did you, Henri and George get here?’

‘On the Saturday, madame, before you and Madame Gavin arrived on the following Wednesday.’ Celestine’s dark eyes said clearly that Dame Beatrice knew this perfectly well.

‘Splendid,’ said the latter. ‘And you found that some of the food was rather stale, perhaps.’

‘The food, madame?’

Dame Beatrice looked at Margaret.

‘The food?’ she repeated.

‘Eggs, bacon and butter. Other things as well, perhaps, but those, definitely, were mentioned.’

‘There was no food here when we arrived, madame, except that which we had brought with us. That we ate, and then George went to the farm which the agent had described to madame, and bought there the provisions which had been ordered.’

‘There was no parcel or basket of food in the porch or on the back step when you arrived?’

‘But no, madame. There was, however, a half-full tea-pot and two cups and saucers left beside the sink, as though some persons had taken tea together and had left the house without doing the washing-up.’

‘Had left the house? How long before you arrived?’

‘Oh, but I could not say, madame. Two or three days, perhaps. The tea in the pot was quite stale and the dregs in the cups were dried up.’

‘Were there any other signs that the house had been entered before your arrival?’

‘But no, madame, not the house. I think I would have noticed any other signs. There were no crumbs on the table and no unwashed plates. Nothing but the tea had been taken. Those who had drunk it were either very careless or were in a great hurry to depart.’

‘What did you make of all this?’

‘It was not for me to speculate upon it, madame, but it seemed to me that a tenant, such as yourself, had given up the house at the end of a holiday, and had left in a hurry to catch the boat.’

‘Of course. What else could you think? Perhaps you concluded that the food which was left had been ordered by this tenant to take home with her.’

‘But I am assuring madame that no food was left here. However, there is one more thing, if madame will pardon me. Some peasant of the island had killed a pig on the tiles outside the kitchen door. My mari and I found the carcass there.’

‘A pig?’

‘The carcass was there, as I say, madame, and a great deal of blood beneath it and around. Henri buried the carcass — he had need of doing so because of the flies, you understand. Madame will well believe that we also scrubbed and washed the tiles outside the kitchen door. Madame will find no traces of this bestial occurrence.’

‘Forensic will,’ said Laura, sotto voce.

‘Thank you, Celestine. And that is all you can tell us?’ said Dame Beatrice.

‘That is all, madame.’

‘Interesting,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘All the blood was under and around the dead animal, you say?’

‘Precisely, madame.’

‘Well, this begins to hot up,’ said Laura, when the servant had gone. ‘We may take it that the dead pig was a blind. Wonder whether it’s of any use to ask at the hotel whether anybody heard a pig being killed on that particular Wednesday?’

‘Of no use at all,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Nobody will have heard anything. These are islanders and clannish. I agree with you that a deception had been practised, but we shall not be told by whom.’

‘You mean the pig was killed elsewhere and the carcass and a bucket of blood brought here to cover up the bloodstains left by the murder of Eliza Chayleigh, don’t you? Pity Celestine washed away the evidence. Still the forensic people might make something of it. Wonder whose pig it was? If the police can find that out, it would be a pretty good pointer to the murderer. Trouble is, I expect that, as you say, these islanders are too clannish to give one another away, especially if murder is involved.’

‘That might be the very reason they might be persuaded to talk, I think,’ said Sebastian. ‘One thing: it looks as though the murder was premeditated. My aunt was sent here, and I bet the dead pig and the rest of it were on the spot, ready for the cover-up. What an absolutely beastly business it all is! Who on earth can have hated my aunt so much? It sounds as though Miss Crimp is involved.’

‘Miss Crimp is the likeliest, I suppose,’ said Margaret, ‘if we are going to mention names. If Aunt Eliza left the hotel, or, rather, her share of it, to her partner, it might offer a motive, don’t you think? But it’s really much too horrible to talk about. Father will have to tell the police and let them deal with it. There is nothing we can do on our own, is there?’

‘What I mean to do,’ said Sebastian, ‘is to hire Dimbleton’s boat and have a look at those rocks where my aunt’s body was found. I agree there’s been dirty work, and I’d like to find out more about it.’

‘You’re too young to be drowned,’ said Laura. ‘Look, I can think of a much better way of going about things, if you really intend to go ahead with a spot of investigation. If I were you I’d chuck the idea of the boat trip. It won’t bring home the guilt to any extent that will satisfy you.’

‘What do you suggest, then?’ asked Sebastian. ‘By the way, my father has gone home on this afternoon’s boat, so nothing we do now will concern him. There’s no bother on that score.’

‘I suggest,’ said Laura, ‘that we mobilise these bird-watchers. They have ropes, cameras, climbing things and heads for heights. The cliffs are their natural haunt. Get them on the job and make them report back to you. I myself could bear to know a bit more about what happened. It’s obvious your aunt met somebody at this house. What we’ve heard has interested me very much. What’s more, I’ve talked to some of these naturalists and, if you think well of the scheme, I can put you in touch with a small party of the best of them. Let them do the exploring from the face of the cliffs.’

‘But we wanted to see for ourselves,’ protested Margaret.

‘Much better leave it to the experts and let them do the donkey work. There’s another aspect, too, which, it appears, has already occurred to you. The police are apt to take a dim view of amateurs like yourselves who horn in on their preserves, whereas these bird-watchers are neither to hold nor to bind. Nobody is going to ask what they’re up to if they’re spotted climbing the cliffs and scrambling over the rocks and generally infesting the scenery. It will merely be assumed that they are about their lawful occasions and they’ll be left alone to get on with whatever breakneck expeditions they choose to embark on.’

Margaret looked at her brother. Sebastian nodded.

‘It makes good sense to me,’ he said. ‘When do we make contact?’

‘Well,’ remarked Dame Beatrice, when the young people had gone, ‘I must admit that your methods excite my admiration and envy.’

‘Oh, I intend to hire the boatman myself later on,’ said Laura. ‘He won’t suspect me, but he might think the police ought to be informed if close relatives of the deceased want to go in his craft to take a look at the spot marked X, don’t you think? After all, we’re now certain the woman was murdered. Another point: is it of any use, after this lapse of time, to subject this house to scrutiny of a more meticulous kind than so far we have accorded it? I regard it as a matter of more than passing interest that Mrs Chayleigh doesn’t seem to have been seen alive since she toddled over here with, or without, the viands. To my mind, the pig clinches matters. She was killed by that knock on the head, the pig’s blood was poured over her blood, and the pig left as a material witness while her body was flung into the sea. Be interesting to find out where, and I want to take a look-see.’

‘Very well, then: it shall be as you wish. By the way…’ Dame Beatrice fixed her sharp black eyes on Laura. ‘… I rely on you to see that your proposed boat-trip does not deprive me of my secretary and amanuensis. The Memoirs would suffer sadly without the assistance of your memory and imagination.’

‘Oh, I’ll be all right, and the chap won’t risk getting his boat bashed in, that’s for certain. We shall keep well off-shore and I shall rely on my binoculars to pick up any items of interest.’

‘That may, or may not, help the enquiry. What I should like to find out is what inducement was offered to Mrs Chayleigh which brought her to this house on the flimsy pretext of delivering a basket or parcel of food.’

‘Miss Crimp may have suggested that it was on her way to the boat, so if the maid was right, and Eliza agreed to come here, Miss Crimp can’t be concerned in the murder,’ said Laura, ‘because she remained at the hotel.’

‘We are in no position to name the murderer, in any case, but Mrs Chayleigh could have been followed here, you know. There was an interval while two people drank tea.’

‘Do you think it was Eliza and her murderer who drank the tea?’

‘Eliza and one of her murderers, you mean. What interests me is the flimsy reason for the errand which seems to have been given. One would have supposed that so trivial a commission could have been given to one of the hotel servants. Mrs Chayleigh must have expected to meet somebody here, but the probability is that we shall never find out who it was.’