A Pocket Full of Rye mm-7 Read online

  Neele got up and went into the outer office. A little desultory work was being done but the typewriters were not going at full speed.

  "Miss Griffith? Can I have another word with you?"

  "Certainly, Mr Neele. Could some of the girls go out to lunch? It's long past their regular time. Or would you prefer that we get something sent in?"

  "No. They can go to lunch. But they must return afterwards."

  "Of course."

  Miss Griffith followed Neele back into the private office. She sat down in her composed efficient way.

  Without preamble, Inspector Neele said:

  "I have heard from St Jude's Hospital. Mr Fortescue died at 12:43."

  Miss Griffith received the news without surprise, merely shook her head.

  "I was afraid he was very ill," she said.

  She was not, Neele noted, at all distressed.

  "Will you please give me particulars of his home and family?"

  "Certainly. I have already tried to get into communication with Mrs Fortescue, but it seems she is out playing golf. She was not expected home to lunch. There is some uncertainty as to which course she is playing on." She added in an explanatory manner, "They live at Baydon Heath, you know, which is a centre for three well-known golf courses."

  Inspector Neele nodded. Baydon Heath was almost entirely inhabited by rich city men. It had an excellent train service, was only twenty miles from London and was comparatively easy to reach by car even in the rush of morning and evening traffic.

  "The exact address, please, and the telephone number?"

  "Baydon Heath 3400. The name of the house is Yewtree Lodge."

  "What?" The sharp query slipped out before Inspector Neele could control it. "Did you say Yewtree Lodge?"

  "Yes."

  Miss Griffith looked faintly curious, but Inspector Neele had himself in hand again.

  "Can you give me particulars of his family?"

  "Mrs Fortescue is his second wife. She is much younger than he is. They were married about two years ago. The first Mrs Fortescue has been dead a long time. There are two sons and a daughter of the first marriage. The daughter lives at home and so does the elder son who is a partner in the firm. Unfortunately he is away in the North of England today on business. He is expected to return tomorrow."

  "When did he go away?"

  "The day before yesterday."

  "Have you tried to get in touch with him?"

  "Yes. After Mr Fortescue was removed to hospital I rang up the Midland Hotel in Manchester where I thought he might be staying, but he had left early this morning. I believe he was also going to Sheffield and Leicester , but I am not sure about that. I can give you the names of certain firms in those cities whom he might be visiting."

  Certainly an efficient woman, thought the Inspector, and if she murdered a man she would probably murder him very efficiently, too. But he forced himself to abandon these speculations and concentrate once more on Mr Fortescue's home front.

  "There is a second son you said?"

  "Yes. But owing to a disagreement with his father he lives abroad."

  "Are both sons married?"

  "Yes. Mr Percival has been married for three years. He and his wife occupy a self-contained flat in Yewtree Lodge, though they are moving into their own house at Baydon Heath very shortly."

  "You were not able to get in touch with Mrs Percival Fortescue when you rang this morning?"

  "She had gone to London for the day." Miss Griffith went on, "Mr Lancelot got married less than a year ago. To the widow of Lord Frederick Anstice. I expect you've seen pictures of her. In the Tatler – with horses, you know. And at point-to-points."

  Miss Griffith sounded a little breathless and her cheeks were faintly flushed. Neele, who was quick to catch the moods of human beings, realised that this marriage had thrilled the snob and the romantic in Miss Griffith. The aristocracy was the aristocracy to Miss Griffith and the fact that the late Lord Frederick Anstice had had a somewhat unsavoury reputation in sporting circles was almost certainly not known to her. Freddie Anstice had blown his brains out just before an inquiry by the Stewards into the running of one of his horses. Neele remembered something vaguely about his wife. She had been the daughter of an Irish Peer and had been married before to an airman who had been killed in the Battle of Britain.

  And now, it seemed, she was married to the black sheep of the Fortescue family, for Neele assumed that the disagreement with his father referred to primly by Miss Griffith, stood for some disgraceful incident in young Lancelot Fortescue's career.

  Lancelot Fortescue! What a name! And what was the other son – Percival? He wondered what the first Mrs Fortescue had been like? She'd had a curious taste in Christian names…

  He drew the phone towards him and dialled TOL. He asked for Baydon Heath 3400.

  Presently a man's voice said: "Baydon Heath 3400."

  "I want to speak to Mrs Fortescue or Miss Fortescue."

  "Sorry. They aren't in, either of 'em."

  The voice struck Inspector Neele as slightly alcoholic.

  "Are you the butler?"

  "That's right."

  "Mr Fortescue has been taken seriously ill."

  "I know. They rung up and said so. But there's nothing I can do about it. Mr Val's away up North and Mrs Fortescue's out playing golf. Mrs Val's gone up to London but she'll be back for dinner and Miss Elaine's out with her Brownies."

  "Is there no one in the house I can speak to about Mr Fortescue's illness? It's important."

  "Well – I don't know." The man sounded doubtful. "There's Miss Ramsbottom – but she don't ever speak over the phone. Or there's Miss Dove – she's what you might call the 'ousekeeper."

  "I'll speak to Miss Dove, please."

  "I'll try and get hold of her."

  His retreating footsteps were audible through the phone. Inspector Neele heard no approaching footsteps but a minute or two later a woman's voice spoke.

  "This is Miss Dove speaking."

  The voice was low and well poised, with clear-cut enunciation. Inspector Neele formed a favourable picture of Miss Dove.

  "I am sorry to have to tell you. Miss Dove, that Mr Fortescue died in St Jude's Hospital a short time ago. He was taken suddenly ill in his office. I am anxious to get in touch with his relatives –"

  "Of course. I had no idea –" She broke off. Her voice held no agitation, but it was shocked. She went on: "It is all most unfortunate. The person you really want to get in touch with is Mr Percival Fortescue. He would be the one to see to all the necessary arrangements. You might be able to get in touch with him at the Midland in Manchester or possibly at the Grand in Leicester . Or you might try Shearer and Bonds of Leicester. I don't know their telephone number, I'm afraid, but I know they are a firm on whom he was going to call and they might be able to inform you where he would be likely to be today. Mrs Fortescue will certainly be in to dinner and she may be in to tea. It will be a great shock to her. It must have been very sudden? Mr Fortescue was quite well when he left here this morning."

  "You saw him before he left?"

  "Oh yes. What was it? Heart?"

  "Did he suffer from heart trouble?"

  "No – no – I don't think so – But I thought as it was so sudden –" She broke off. "Are you speaking from St Jude's Hospital? Are you a doctor?"

  "No, Miss Dove, I'm not a doctor. I'm speaking from Mr Fortescue's office in the city. I am Detective-Inspector Neele of the C.I.D. and I shall be coming down to see you as soon as I can get there."

  "Detective Inspector? Do you mean – what do you mean?"

  "It was a case of sudden death. Miss Dove, and when there is a sudden death we get called to the scene, especially when the deceased man hasn't seen a doctor lately – which I gather was the case?"

  It was only the faintest suspicion of a question mark but the young woman responded.

  "I know. Percival made an appointment twice for him but he wouldn't keep it. He was quite unreaso
nable – they've all been worried –"

  She broke off and then resumed in her former assured manner:

  "If Mrs Fortescue returns to the house before you arrive, what do you want me to tell her?"

  Practical as they make 'em, thought Inspector Neele.

  Aloud he said:

  "Just tell her that in a case of sudden death we have to make a few inquiries. Routine inquiries."

  He hung up.

  Chapter 3

  Neele pushed the telephone away and looked sharply at Miss Griffith.

  "So they've been worried about him lately," he said. "Wanted him to see a doctor. You didn't tell me that."

  "I didn't think of it," said Miss Griffith, and added: "He never seemed to me really ill –"

  "Not ill – but what?"

  "Well, just odd. Unlike himself. Peculiar in his manner."

  "Worried about something?"

  "Oh no, not worried. It's we who were worried –"

  Inspector Neele waited patiently.

  "It's difficult to say, really," said Miss Griffith. "He had moods, you know. Sometimes he was quite boisterous. Once or twice, frankly, I thought he had been drinking… He boasted and told the most extraordinary stories which I'm sure couldn't possibly have been true. For most of the time I've been here he was always very close about his affairs – not giving anything away, you know. But lately he's been quite different, expansive, and positively – well – flinging money about. Most unlike his usual manner. Why, when the office boy had to go to his grandmother's funeral, Mr Fortescue called him in and gave him a five pound note and told him to put it on the second favourite and then roared with laughter. He wasn't – well, he just wasn't like himself. That's all I can say."

  "As though, perhaps, he had something on his mind?"

  "Not in the usual meaning of the term. It was as though he were looking forward to something pleasurable – exciting –"

  "Possibly a big deal that he was going to pull off?"

  Miss Griffith agreed with more conviction.

  "Yes – yes, that's much more what I mean. As though everyday things didn't matter any more. He was excited. And some very odd-looking people came to see him on business. People who'd never been here before. It worried Mr Percival dreadfully."

  "Oh it worried him, did it?"

  "Yes. Mr Percival's always been very much in his father's confidence, you see. His father relied on him. But lately –"

  "Lately they weren't getting along so well."

  "Well, Mr Fortescue was doing a lot of things that Mr Percival thought unwise. Mr Percival is always very careful and prudent. But suddenly his father didn't listen to him any more and Mr Percival was very upset."

  "And they had a real row about it all?"

  Inspector Neele was still probing.

  "I don't know about a row… Of course, I realise now Mr Fortescue can't have been himself – shouting like that."

  "Shouted, did he? What did he say?"

  "He came right out in the typists' room –"

  "So that you all heard?"

  "Well – yes."

  "And he called Percival names – abused him – swore at him…? What did he say Percival had done?"

  "It was more that he hadn't done anything… he called him a miserable pettifogging little clerk. He said he had no large outlook, no conception of doing business in a big way. He said 'I shall get Lance home again. He's worth ten of you – and he's married well. Lance has got guts even if he did risk a criminal prosecution once – ' Oh dear, I oughtn't to have said that!" Miss Griffith , carried away as others before her had been under Inspector Neele's expert handling, was suddenly overcome with confusion.

  "Don't worry," said Inspector Neele comfortingly. "What's past is past."

  "Oh yes, it was a long time ago. Mr Lance was just young and high spirited and didn't really realise what he was doing."

  Inspector Neele had heard that view before and didn't agree with it. But he passed on to fresh questions.

  "Tell me a little more about the staff here."

  Miss Griffith, hurrying to get away from her indiscretion, poured out information about the various personalities in the firm. Inspector Neele thanked her and then said he would like to see Miss Grosvenor again.

  Detective-Constable Waite sharpened his pencil. He remarked wistfully that this was a Ritzy joint. His glance wandered appreciatively over the huge chairs, the big desk and the indirect lighting.

  "All these people have got Ritzy names, too," he said. "Grosvenor – that's something to do with a Duke. And Fortescue – that's a classy name, too."

  Inspector Neele smiled.

  "His father's name wasn't Fortescue. Fontescu – and he came from somewhere in Central Europe . I suppose this man thought Fortescue sounded better."

  Detective-Constable Waite looked at his superior officer with awe.

  "So you know all about him?"

  "I just looked up a few things before coming along on the call."

  "Not got a record, had he?"

  "Oh no. Mr Fortescue was much too clever for that. He's had certain connections with the Black Market and put through one or two deals that are questionable to say the least of it, but they've always been just within the law."

  "I see," said Waite. "Not a nice man."

  "A twister," said Neele. "But we've got nothing on him. The Inland Revenue have been after him for a long time but he's been too clever for them. Quite a financial genius, the late Mr Fortescue."

  "The sort of man," said Constable Waite, "who might have enemies?"

  He spoke hopefully.

  "Oh yes – certainly enemies. But he was poisoned at home, remember. Or so it would seem. You know, Waite, I see a kind of pattern emerging. An old-fashioned familiar kind of pattern. The good boy, Percival. The bad boy, Lance – attractive to women. The wife who's younger than her husband and who's vague about which course she's going to play golf on. It's all very very familiar. But there's one thing that sticks out in a most incongruous way."

  Constable Waite asked "What's that?" just as the door opened and Miss Grosvenor, her poise restored, and once more her glamorous self, inquired haughtily:

  "You wished to see me?"

  "I wanted to ask you a few questions about your employer – your late employer perhaps I should say."

  "Poor soul," said Miss Grosvenor unconvincingly.

  "I want to know if you have noticed any difference in him lately."

  "Well, yes. I did, as a matter of fact."

  "In what way?"

  "I couldn't really say… He seemed to talk a lot of nonsense. I couldn't really believe half of what he said. And then he lost his temper very easily – especially with Mr Percival. Not with me, because of course I never argue. I just say, 'Yes, Mr Fortescue,' whatever peculiar thing he says – said, I mean."

  "Did he – ever – well – make any passes at you?"

  Miss Grosvenor replied rather regretfully:

  "Well, no, I couldn't exactly say that."

  "There's just one other thing. Miss Grosvenor. Was Mr Fortescue in the habit of carrying grain about in his pocket?"

  Miss Grosvenor displayed a lively surprise.

  "Grain? In his pocket? Do you mean to feed pigeons or something?"

  "It could have been for that purpose."

  "Oh I'm sure he didn't. Mr Fortescue? Feed pigeons? Oh no."

  "Could he have had barley – or rye – in his pocket today for any special reason? A sample, perhaps? Some deal in grain?"

  "Oh no. He was expecting the Asiatic Oil people this afternoon. And the President of the Atticus Building Society… No one else."

  "Oh well –" Neele dismissed the subject and Miss Grosvenor with a wave of the hand.

  "Lovely legs she's got," said Constable Waite with a sigh. "And super nylons –"

  "Legs are no help to me," said Inspector Neele. "I'm left with what I had before. A pocketful of rye – and no explanation of it."

  Chapter 4

>   Mary Dove paused on her way downstairs and looked out through the big window on the stairs. A car had just driven up from which two men were alighting. The taller of the two stood for a moment with his back to the house surveying his surroundings. Mary Dove appraised the two men thoughtfully. Inspector Neele and presumably a subordinate.

  She turned from the window and looked at herself in the full-length mirror that hung on the wall where the staircase turned… She saw a small demure figure with immaculate white collar and cuffs on a beige grey dress. Her dark hair was parted in the middle and drawn back in two shining waves to a knot in the back of the neck… The lipstick she used was a pale rose colour.

  On the whole Mary Dove was satisfied with her appearance. A very faint smile on her lips, she went on down the stairs.

  Inspector Neele, surveying the house, was saying to himself: Call it a lodge, indeed! Yewtree Lodge! The affectation of these rich people! The house was what he, Inspector Neele, would call a mansion. He knew what a lodge was. He'd been brought up in one! The lodge at the gates of Hartington Park , that vast unwieldy Palladian house with its twenty-nine bedrooms which had now been taken over by the National Trust. The lodge had been small and attractive from the outside, and had been damp, uncomfortable and devoid of anything but the most primitive form of sanitation within. Fortunately these facts had been accepted as quite proper and fitting by Inspector Neele's parents. They had no rent to pay and nothing whatever to do except open and shut the gates when required, and there were always plenty of rabbits and an occasional pheasant or so for the pot. Mrs Neele had never discovered the pleasures of electric irons, slow combustion stoves, airing cupboards, hot and cold water from taps, and the switching on of light by a mere flick of a finger. In winter the Neeles had an oil lamp and in summer they went to bed when it got dark. They were a healthy family and a happy one, all thoroughly behind the times.

  So when Inspector Neele heard the word Lodge, it was his childhood memories that stirred. But this place, this pretentiously named Yewtree Lodge was just the kind of mansion that rich people built themselves and then called it "their little place in the country." It wasn't in the country either, according to Inspector Neele's idea of the country. The house was a large solid red brick structure, sprawling lengthwise rather than upwards, with rather too many gables, and a vast number of leaded paned windows. The gardens were highly artificial – all laid out in rose beds and pergolas and pools, and living up to the name of the house with large numbers of clipped yew hedges.