Murder Is Easy Read online

“She didn’t suspect her husband of trying to do her in?”

  “Oh, no, that idea never occurred to her!”

  Miss Waynflete paused a minute, then she asked quietly:

  “Is that what you think?”

  Luke said slowly:

  “Husbands have done that before and got away with it. Mrs. Horton from all accounts was a woman any man might have longed to be rid of! And I understand that he came into a good deal of money on her death.”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “What do you think, Miss Waynflete?”

  “You want my opinion?”

  “Yes, just your opinion.”

  Miss Waynflete said quietly and deliberately:

  “In my opinion, Major Horton was quite devoted to his wife and would never have dreamed of doing such a thing.”

  Luke looked at her and received the mild amber glance in reply. It did not waver.

  “Well,” he said, “I expect you’re right. You’d probably know if it was the other way round.”

  Miss Waynflete permitted herself a smile.

  “We women are good observers, you think?”

  “Absolutely first class. Would Miss Pinkerton have agreed with you, do you think?”

  “I don’t think I ever heard Lavinia express an opinion.”

  “What did she think about Amy Gibbs?”

  Miss Waynflete frowned a little as though thinking.

  “It’s difficult to say. Lavinia had a very curious idea.”

  “What idea?”

  “She thought that there was something odd going on here in Wychwood.”

  “She thought, for instance, that somebody pushed Tommy Pierce out of that window?”

  Miss Waynflete stared at him in astonishment.

  “How did you know that, Mr. Fitzwilliam?”

  “She told me so. Not in these words, but she gave me the general idea.”

  Miss Waynflete leant forward, pink with excitement.

  “When was this, Mr. Fitzwilliam?”

  Luke said quietly, “The day she was killed. We travelled together to London.”

  “What did she tell you exactly?”

  “She told me that there had been too many deaths in Wychwood. She mentioned Amy Gibbs, and Tommy Pierce and that man Carter. She also said that Dr. Humbleby would be the next to go.”

  Miss Waynflete nodded slowly.

  “Did she tell you who was responsible?”

  “A man with a certain look in his eyes,” said Luke grimly. “A look you couldn’t mistake, according to her. She’d seen that look in his eye when he was talking to Humbleby. That’s why she said Humbleby would be the next to go.”

  “And he was,” whispered Miss Waynflete. “Oh, dear. Oh, dear.”

  She leaned back. Her eyes had a stricken look in them.

  “Who was the man?” said Luke. “Come now, Miss Waynflete, you know, you must know!”

  “I don’t. She didn’t tell me.”

  “But you can guess,” said Luke keenly. “You’ve a very shrewd idea of who was in her mind.”

  Reluctantly Miss Waynflete bowed her head.

  “Then tell me.”

  But Miss Waynflete shook her head energetically.

  “No, indeed. You’re asking me to do something that is highly improper! You’re asking me to guess at what may—only may, mind you—have been in the mind of a friend who is now dead. I couldn’t make an accusation of that kind!”

  “It wouldn’t be an accusation—only an opinion.”

  But Miss Waynflete was unexpectedly firm.

  “I’ve nothing to go on—nothing whatever,” she said. “Lavinia never actually said anything to me. I may think she had a certain idea—but you see I might be entirely wrong. And then I should have misled you and perhaps serious consequences might ensue. It would be very wicked and unfair of me to mention a name. And I may be quite, quite wrong! In fact, I probably am wrong!”

  And Miss Waynflete set her lips firmly and glared at Luke with a grim determination.

  Luke knew how to accept defeat when he met it.

  He realized that Miss Waynflete’s sense of rectitude and something else more nebulous that he could not quite place were both against him.

  He accepted defeat with a good grace and rose to say good-bye. He had every intention of returning to the charge later, but he allowed no hint of that to escape into his manner.

  “You must do as you think right, of course,” he said. “Thank you for the help you have given me.”

  Miss Waynflete seemed to become a little less sure of herself as she accompanied him to the door.

  “I hope you don’t think,” she began, then changed the form of the sentence. “If there is anything else I can do to help you, please, please let me know.”

  “I will. You won’t repeat this conversation, will you?”

  “Of course not. I shan’t say a word to anybody.”

  Luke hoped that that was true.

  “Give my love to Bridget,” said Miss Waynflete. “She’s such a handsome girl, isn’t she? And clever too. I—I hope she will be happy.”

  And as Luke looked a question, she added:

  “Married to Lord Whitfield, I mean. Such a great difference in age.”

  “Yes, there is.”

  Miss Waynflete sighed.

  “You know that I was engaged to him once,” she said unexpectedly.

  Luke stared in astonishment. She was nodding her head and smiling rather sadly.

  “A long time ago. He was such a promising boy. I had helped him, you know, to educate himself. And I was so proud of his—his spirit and the way he was determined to succeed.”

  She sighed again.

  “My people, of course, were scandalized. Class distinctions in those days were very strong.” She added after a minute or two, “I’ve always followed his career with great interest. My people, I think, were wrong.”

  Then, with a smile, she nodded a farewell and went back into the house.

  Luke tried to collect his thoughts. He had placed Miss Waynflete as definitely “old.” He realized now that she was probably still under sixty. Lord Whitfield must be well over fifty. She might, perhaps, be a year or two older than he, no more.

  And he was going to marry Bridget. Bridget, who was twenty-eight. Bridget, who was young and alive….

  “Oh, damn,” said Luke. “Don’t let me go on thinking of it. The job. Get on with the job.”

  Fourteen

  MEDITATIONS OF LUKE

  Mrs. Church, Amy Gibbs’s aunt, was definitely an unpleasant woman. Her sharp nose, shifty eyes, and her voluble tongue all alike filled Luke with nausea.

  He adopted a curt manner with her and found it unexpectedly successful.

  “What you’ve got to do,” he told her, “is to answer my questions to the best of your ability. If you hold back anything or tamper with the truth the consequences may be extremely serious to you.”

  “Yes, sir. I see. I’m sure I’m only too willing to tell you anything I can. I’ve never been mixed up with the police—”

  “And you don’t want to be,” finished Luke. “Well, if you do as I’ve told you there won’t be any question of that. I want to know all about your late niece—who her friends were—what money she had—anything she said that might be out of the way. We’ll start with her friends. Who were they?”

  Mrs. Church leered at him slyly out of the corner of an unpleasant eye.

  “You’ll be meaning gentlemen, sir?”

  “Had she any girl friends?”

  “Well—hardly—not to speak of, sir. Of course there was girls she’d been in service with—but Amy didn’t keep up with them much. You see—”

  “She preferred the sterner sex. Go on. Tell me about that.”

  “It was Jim Harvey down at the garage she was actually going with, sir. And a nice steady young fellow he was. ‘You couldn’t do better,’ I’ve said to her many a time—”

  Luke cut in:

  “And the others
?”

  Again he got the sly look.

  “I expect you’re thinking of the gentleman who keeps the curiosity shop? I didn’t like it myself, and I tell you that straight, sir! I’ve always been respectable and I don’t hold with carrying on! But with what girls are nowadays it’s no use speaking to them. They go their own way. And often they live to regret it.”

  “Did Amy live to regret it?” asked Luke bluntly.

  “No, sir—that I do not think.”

  “She went to consult Dr. Thomas on the day of her death. That wasn’t the reason?”

  “No, sir, I’m nearly sure it wasn’t. Oh! I’d take my oath on it! Amy had been feeling ill and out of sorts, but it was just a bad cough and cold she had. It wasn’t anything of the kind you suggest, I’m sure it wasn’t, sir.”

  “I’ll take your word for that. How far had matters gone between her and Ellsworthy?”

  Mrs. Church leered.

  “I couldn’t exactly say, sir. Amy wasn’t one for confiding in me.”

  Luke said curtly:

  “But they’d gone pretty far?”

  Mrs. Church said smoothly:

  “The gentleman hasn’t got at all a good reputation here, sir. All sorts of goings on. And friends down from town and many very queer happenings. Up in the Witches’ Meadow in the middle of the night.”

  “Did Amy go?”

  “She did go once, sir, I believe. Stayed out all night and his lordship found out about it (she was at the Manor then) and spoke to her pretty sharp, and she sauced him back and he gave her notice for it, which was only to be expected.”

  “Did she ever talk to you much about what went on in the places she was in?”

  Mrs. Church shook her head.

  “Not very much, sir. More interested in her own doings, she was.”

  “She was with Major and Mrs. Horton for a while, wasn’t she?”

  “Nearly a year, sir.”

  “Why did she leave?”

  “Just to better herself. There was a place going at the Manor, and of course the wages was better there.”

  Luke nodded.

  “She was with the Hortons at the time of Mrs. Horton’s death?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir. She grumbled a lot about that—with two hospital nurses in the house, and all the extra work nurses make, and the trays and one thing and another.”

  “She wasn’t with Mr. Abbot, the lawyer, at all?”

  “No, sir. Mr. Abbot has a man and wife do for him. Amy did go to see him once at his office, but I don’t know why.”

  Luke stored away that small fact as possibly relevant. Since Mrs. Church, however, clearly knew nothing more about it, he did not pursue the subject.

  “Any other gentlemen in the town who were friends of hers?”

  “Nothing that I’d care to repeat.”

  “Come now, Mrs. Church. I want the truth, remember.”

  “It wasn’t a gentleman, sir, very far from it. Demeaning herself, that’s what it was, and so I told her.”

  “Do you mind speaking more plainly, Mrs. Church?”

  “You’ll have heard of the Seven Stars, sir? Not a good-class house, and the landlord, Harry Carter, a low-class fellow and half-seas over most of the time.”

  “Amy was a friend of his?”

  “She went a walk with him once or twice. I don’t believe there was more in it than that. I don’t indeed, sir.”

  Luke nodded thoughtfully and changed the subject.

  “Did you know a small boy, Tommy Pierce?”

  “What? Mrs. Pierce’s son? Of course I did. Always up to mischief.”

  “He ever see much of Amy?”

  “Oh, no, sir. Amy would soon send him off with a flea in his ear if he tried any of his tricks on her.”

  “Was she happy in her place with Miss Waynflete?”

  “She found it a bit dull, sir, and the pay wasn’t high. But of course after she’d been dismissed the way she was from Ashe Manor, it wasn’t so easy to get another good place.”

  “She could have gone away, I suppose?”

  “To London, you mean?”

  “Or some other part of the country?”

  Mrs. Church shook her head. She said slowly:

  “Amy didn’t want to leave Wychwood—not as things were.”

  “How do you mean, as things were?”

  “What with Jim and the gentleman at the curio shop.”

  Luke nodded thoughtfully. Mrs. Church went on:

  “Miss Waynflete is a very nice lady, but very particular about brass and silver and everything being dusted and the mattresses turned. Amy wouldn’t have put up with the fussing if she hadn’t been enjoying herself in other ways.”

  “I can imagine that,” said Luke drily.

  He turned things over in his mind. He could see no further questions to ask. He was fairly certain that he had extracted all that Mrs. Church knew. He decided on one last tentative attack.

  “I dare say you can guess the reason of all these questions. The circumstances of Amy’s death were rather mysterious. We’re not entirely satisfied as to its being an accident. If not, you realize what it must have been.”

  Mrs. Church said with a certain ghoulish relish:

  “Foul play!”

  “Quite so. Now supposing your niece did meet with foul play, who do you think is likely to be responsible for her death?”

  Mrs. Church wiped her hands on her apron.

  “There’d be a reward, as likely as not, for setting the police on the right track,” she inquired meaningly.

  “There might be,” said Luke.

  “I wouldn’t like to say anything definite.” Mrs. Church passed a hungry tongue over her thin lips. “But the gentleman at the curio shop is a queer one. You’ll remember the Castor case, sir—and how they found little bits of the poor girl pinned up all over Castor’s seaside bungalow and how they found five or six other poor girls he’d served the same way. Maybe this Mr. Ellsworthy is one of that kind?”

  “That’s your suggestion, is it?”

  “Well, it might be that way, sir, mightn’t it?”

  Luke admitted that it might. Then he said:

  “Was Ellsworthy away from here on the afternoon of Derby Day? That’s a very important point.”

  Mrs. Church stared.

  “Derby Day?”

  “Yes—a fortnight ago last Wednesday.”

  She shook her head.

  “Really, I couldn’t say as to that. He usually was away on Wednesdays—went up to town as often as not. It’s early closing Wednesday, you see.”

  “Oh,” said Luke. “Early closing.”

  He took his leave of Mrs. Church, disregarding her insinuations that her time had been valuable and that she was therefore entitled to monetary compensation. He found himself disliking Mrs. Church intensely. Nevertheless the conversation he had had with her, though not strikingly illuminative in any way, had provided several suggestive small points.

  He went over things carefully in his mind.

  Yes, it still boiled down to those four people. Thomas, Abbot, Horton and Ellsworthy. The attitude of Miss Waynflete seemed to him to prove that.

  Her distress and reluctance to mention a name. Surely that meant, that must mean, that the person in question was someone of standing in Wychwood, someone whom a chance insinuation might definitely injure. It tallied, too, with Miss Pinkerton’s determination to take her suspicions to headquarters. The local police would ridicule her theory.

  It was not a case of the butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker. It was not a case of a mere garage mechanic. The person in question was one against whom an accusation of murder was a fantastic and, moreover, a serious matter.

  There were four possible candidates. It was up to him to go carefully once more into the case against each one and make up his own mind.

  First to examine the reluctance of Miss Waynflete. She was a conscientious and scrupulous person. She believed that she knew the man whom Miss Pinkerton
had suspected, but it was, she pointed out, only a belief on her part. It was possible that she was mistaken.

  Who was the person in Miss Waynflete’s mind?

  Miss Waynflete was distressed lest an accusation by her might injure an innocent man. Therefore the object of her suspicions must be a man of high standing, generally liked and respected by the community.

  Therefore, Luke argued, that automatically barred out Ellsworthy. He was practically a stranger to Wychwood, his local reputation was bad, not good. Luke did not believe that, if Ellsworthy was the person in Miss Waynflete’s mind, she would have had any objection to mentioning him. Therefore as far as Miss Waynflete was concerned, wash out Ellsworthy.

  Now as to the others. Luke believed that he could also eliminate Major Horton. Miss Waynflete had rebutted with some warmth the suggestion that Horton might have poisoned his wife. If she had suspected him of later crimes, she would hardly have been so positive about his innocence of the death of Mrs. Horton.

  That left Dr. Thomas and Mr. Abbot. Both of them fulfilled the necessary requirements. They were men of high professional standing against whom no word of scandal had ever been uttered. They were, on the whole, both popular and well liked, and were known as men of integrity and rectitude.

  Luke proceeded to another aspect of the matter. Could he, himself, eliminate Ellsworthy and Horton? Immediately he shook his head. It was not so simple. Miss Pinkerton had known—really known—who the man was. That was proved, in the first case by her own death, and in the second case, by the death of Dr. Humbleby. But Miss Pinkerton had never actually mentioned a name to Honoria Waynflete. Therefore, though Miss Waynflete thought she knew, she might quite easily be wrong. We often know what other people are thinking—but sometimes we find out that we did not know after all—and have, in fact, made an egregious mistake!

  Therefore the four candidates were still in the field. Miss Pinkerton was dead and could give no further assistance. It was up to Luke to do what he had done before, on the day after he came to Wychwood, weigh up the evidence and consider the probabilities.

  He began with Ellsworthy. On the face of it Ellsworthy was the likeliest starter. He was abnormal and had possibly a perverted personality. He might quite easily be a “lust killer.”

  “Let’s take it this way,” said Luke to himself. “Suspect everyone in turn. Ellsworthy, for instance. Let’s say he’s the killer! For the moment, let’s take it quite definitely that I know that. Now we’ll take the possible victims in chronological order. First, Mrs. Horton. Difficult to see what motive Ellsworthy could have had for doing away with Mrs. Horton. But there was a means. Horton spoke of some quack nostrum that she got from him and took. Some poison like arsenic could have been given that way. The question is—Why?