Death at Hallows End, page 5
“I can try,” said Carolus, “if you’ll tell me …”
“They’ve just lost one of their men. Old Harold Rudd. Lived in a cottage near the churchyard. Died over at Swanwick in the Ospittle. His old woman’s still in the cottage.”
“Really? Which way do I go?”
“Those Neasts have just come into a lot of money from their uncle.”
“Yes. I know. Is this the road to their farm?”
“He was Took too. Funny, isn’t it? Just after old Harold Rudd. Then there’s this fellow disappeared.”
“Quite. If I drive…”
“They don’t know where he is and I don’t suppose they ever will.”
“You don’t? Perhaps you know where his car was found?”
“I know all right. Just opposite where there’s three elms standing together on the road to the farm.”
“But which is the road to the farm?”
“That’s where they found his car. But they can’t find him. How could he have got away from there without anyone seeing him? That’s what I want to know.”
Carolus resigned himself.
“Is it a big farm?” he asked.
“Not extra. They pulled the old house down years ago. Otherwise it would have fallen down. Rotten all through, they said. Neasts built themselves a bungalow when they came here.”
There was a pause and Carolus made a last desperate attempt.
“You said the road …”
“I didn’t say nothing about it. But no more did you say what you wanted up there. Still, I’ll tell you. Keep on down here for a bit and you’ll see it turn off to the right. It’s got a notice up Church Lane. Take that and you’ll come to it. Not more’n a mile away. You pass my cottage on the way. The only house you do pass. I’ve lived up Church Lane for years.”
“Thanks,” said Carolus and drove on.
He found the turning. The road here was truly narrow but after a few hundred yards broadened slightly. He looked out for the three elms standing together and, when he was approaching them, stopped.
Yes, it was possible for a car to be in to the side here and for another car to pass it. But only just. If Duncan Humby was still at the wheel of his car when it stopped here, he must have deliberately pulled it in to leave room for others. There was no sign of any wheel tracks on the grass edges, but that meant nothing, for it had rained since. If there had been anything of the sort, presumably the police would have seen it when they were first informed. He was accustomed to coming too late into an investigation for that sort of evidence and knew that it was not, in any case, his strong point.
He drove on. When he first saw the house at Monk’s Farm, he thought that if the old character in the village had not told him that it was a bungalow he would never have recognised it as a farmhouse at all. It was large as bungalows go, but shoddy-looking and bare, with no attempt at a garden about it. It had the ugliness of a blatantly new building set in otherwise unspoiled surroundings. It was some distance from the farm buildings which were farther down the road, so that it was necessary, presumably, for the brothers to come out of their silly little front gate and walk a few hundred yards on the tarmac road every time they wished to reach the fine old buildings of the farm, which were unspoiled by corrugated iron.
Carolus took this in as he passed slowly on his way to the church that he could see ahead. It was a surprisingly fine Norman building, and, like so many churches in the eastern counties, far too large for its present parish. As he approached it, he saw ahead of him a small clerical figure on a bicycle. They reached the church’s gate at the same moment and smiled at each other.
“Come to see the church?” said the Rector, a rotund and cheerful little man in his forties.
“It looks very fine from the road,” said Carolus noncommittally.
“It is very fine,” said the Rector, who always spoke with such emphasis that he seemed to think he was giving his hearers a surprise with each new sentence. “I could sometimes wish it was not so fine and large, but a mile nearer the village. I might be able to fill it then. As it is we’re lucky if we get a dozen to Mass on Sunday. But we get scores of people on weekdays coming to look at the architecture.”
“You’re High Church then?” said Carolus who had no idea the Rector would not care for the expression.
“We’re Catholic,” said the Rector smiling. “‘High Church’ is a dated term used by Protestants and such. Like to have a look around?”
They entered the church together.
“We’re particularly proud of the font,” said the Rector, waving his hand towards it. He went on to speak informatively of ecclesiastical architecture, particularly as exhibited here.
When Carolus could venture to turn the conversation, he asked if the brothers Neast were among the Rector’s congregation.
“Unhappily we don’t see eye to eye on a number of points. They go over to Swanwick where my colleague Sumper provides them with eleven o’clock service and all that sort of thing. I understand they are very devout in their own way, but they heartily disapprove of what they call my popish practices. The east window …”
Carolus had lost him again.
“I believe you buried one of your parishioners last Saturday,” said Carolus when there was a momentary pause.
“Yes. Poor old Rudd. A dear old sinner who never came near us though he lived a few yards away. His wife is a little better. She does sometimes turn up for Evensong. I came out this afternoon to have a look at the grave, as a matter of fact. Mrs. Rudd wants to erect quite a mausoleum over it, I gather.”
Carolus accompanied him towards the proposed site of this.
“Are you serious about a mausoleum?” he asked innocently.
“No. But it’s rather a large affair of the old-fashioned slab kind which will look a bit out of place among more modest gravestones. See what you think.”
They went into the churchyard and saw a fresh grave still earth-covered.
“If I had guessed what she wanted I’d have had Rudd buried elsewhere. I hate ostentation. But farm workers are highly paid nowadays and they can afford this sort of thing. I never expected it of Annie Rudd, though.”
They reached the lych-gate.
“My Rectory is in the village. I know my wife would be delighted to give you a cup of tea if you would care to call. I’m going straight back there.”
“That’s awfully kind of you, padre. I’m afraid I can’t make it today, though. I have to see the Neasts.”
“Ah,” said the Rector inscrutably.
“Why is theirs called Monk’s Farm?” Carolus asked.
“Because it was the monks’ farm,” said the Rector with enthusiasm. “This was the church of a fair-sized abbey which was destroyed in Henry VIII’s reign. The farmland stretched over the very ground the Neasts occupy now. There was a beautiful old house, I believe, but the Neasts pulled it down when they came. Or so I’ve been told. It was before my time.”
“They have something pretty hideous in its place.”
“It’s not beautiful, is it? But I daresay more convenient. Well, I must leave you, I fear.”
They bade each other goodbye and the Rector was soon cycling vigorously homeward.
Carolus had no intention of calling on the Neasts at this point, but when the Rector was well out of sight, set out on foot for a cottage beyond the churchyard, which he presumed was Rudd’s.
A knock brought a tall and powerful-looking elderly woman to the door where she stood arms akimbo.
“Mrs. Rudd?” he enquired.
“Yes.” She sounded dubious and peered at Carolus in the failing light.
“I’m a friend of the man who disappeared from his car down the lane here. I am trying to find out what has become of him,” Carolus explained.
“But whatever has that got to do with me, may I ask?” She was not hostile, but seemed genuinely puzzled.
“Nothing, I’m sure, but I thought I had better see everyone living up this lane.”
“You better come in to the fire, then. We can’t stand shivering out here in this cutting wind.”
Carolus followed her into a lamplit kitchen where a coal fire burnt in the range. She told him to sit down and did so herself.
“I don’t know why you should ask me,” she said. “I was too taken up with my husband’s dying to know anything about it.”
“Your husband worked for Neasts?”
“Yes, for fifteen years. It was only when the new laws came in that they paid him properly, but then they couldn’t help it. He was all right in the last few years but his working stopped him from drawing his pension.”
“He died in hospital?”
“Yes. Cancer. He’d been feeling off for some time and I kept telling him, why don’t you go to the doctor, I said. When at last he did go it was too late. He had a lot of pain towards the end. I don’t like to think about it, really.”
“Which day did he die?”
“On the Wednesday and buried on Saturday afternoon. There was a lot turned out for it and I must say the wreaths was lovely. Reverend Whiskins, well, Father Whiskins he calls himself, did the burial service. They’d brought the body over from the hospital at Swanwick, you see.”
“I understand you are putting a very fine memorial over his grave.”
“Well, I like something with a bit of show to it and Mr. Neast has been very good about that, I must say. I thought to myself they could underpay him all those years, then want to make a lot of it when he’s gone. Still, I must say they’ve been very good about it.”
“They lost a relative of their own two days after your husband was buried,” Carolus remarked.
“Yes. I heard about that.”
“You never saw the gentleman?”
“No. According to what I hear he only came to the farm a few days before he died, and never went out so far as anyone saw. They only had the doctor to him after he was gone, so they tell me. It seems funny, doesn’t it?”
Carolus thought that if he heard the word “funny” misused again he would throw up the case. It was beginning to haunt him.
“Do you remember last Monday afternoon, Mrs. Rudd? That was the day on which my friend set out for Hallows End and disappeared.”
“Not specially, I don’t. It was a nice afternoon, if that’s what you mean.”
“Did you go out?”
“Not to say out, I didn’t. I fed my chickens and shut them up about five o’clock, I should say, then I was busy looking at the cards from the funeral.”
“When you were out of doors, did you hear anything unusual?”
“Goodness me, whatever do you mean?”
“From the farm or anywhere?”
“I shouldn’t have heard anything from the farm, not if they were all murdering one another. It’s too far away. Besides, there was no one there. Mr. Stonegate went home early that day because he wasn’t well, and the Neasts was over at the market at Cashford.”
“You don’t know what time they came back?”
“Well, they’re usually back by about five, but of course I can’t say to the minute. I didn’t see or hear anything of them that evening but then I wouldn’t, would I?”
“And since then? Have you noticed anything unusual?”
“Not to say unusual I haven’t. But there’s one man I don’t like the look of, that’s the one they call Darkin who came with the Neasts’ uncle. Him I don’t like the look of at all.”
“I wonder why?”
“Well, why doesn’t he go away now the old man’s body’s been taken away and cremated? What’s he still hanging round for, that’s what I’d like to know. I saw him this afternoon creeping round all in black and I said to myself you’re a nice one, aren’t you?”
“The cremation was only this morning, Mrs. Rudd.”
“But what’s he coming back here for? His job’s finished, isn’t it?
“Have you spoken to him?”
“I had to answer civil when he spoke to me, saying he’s sorry about my husband and that. If you ask my opinion he’s not all there, the way he looks at you. There’s something funny about him anyway. Why, what’s the matter, sir?”
“Nothing. Nothing. You were saying?”
“Yes, well, I don’t like him, that’s all. I never did from the first. He’s Chapel, too. I heard him on about the Reverend Whiskins one day. What business is that of his, I’d like to know. If Reverend Whiskins is a bit on the High side and likes a few candles and that, it’s us who’ve got to put up with it, not him. I saw him yesterday morning prowling round the church and the churchyard as though he’d like to blow it up. And when he went down to my husband’s grave, I went out to him. ‘You keep away from that,’ I said. ‘That’s no business of yours.’ ‘I was only admiring the flowers,’ he told me. ‘Well, you admire them somewhere else,’ I said. ‘That’s my old man’s grave, that is, and it’s not for other people to come nosing at.’ He went off after that but I was glad I told him.”
“You don’t feel so strongly about your late husband’s employers?”
“No. I can’t say I do. They’re a funny pair, there’s no mistake about that, but not like what this Darkin was. Mean? Well, they are mean. I’ve never known them do a thing for anybody. But they’ve lived here a long time and we’re used to them, as you might say. They’ve never said a word out of place to me, anyhow.”
“What about the other man on the farm, Joel Stonegate?
“Stonegate? Oh, he’s all right, I suppose. My husband and he never really got on, but I don’t say the fault was all on one side. I’ve nothing to say against him. And he sent a lovely bunch of chrysanths to the funeral besides coming with his daughter.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Rudd. You’ve been most helpful.”
“I can’t see how anything I’ve told you will help to find the gentleman missing, I’m sure. Was he coming to the farm, do you know?”
“He was on his way to see Mr. Grossiter, the Neasts’ uncle.”
“That accounts for it, then.”
“For what?”
“For his car being up this lane. No one hardly ever comes up the lane unless it’s to see the church, and there’s a nice few in the summer do that. You see it doesn’t lead anywhere after here. As soon as I heard about the car being there in the evening I said to myself, whatever was it doing in this lane, then? But what you say accounts for it.”
Carolus rose to bid her goodbye and as he did so was surprised to hear someone descending the narrow staircase of the cottage. He had assumed that Mrs. Rudd was alone, and looked enquiringly at her.
“That’s my lodger,” she said, but offered no further explanation.
Carolus heard the front door open and someone go out into the night, but it was too dark to see.
“I didn’t know you took lodgers,” he said.
“No more I don’t usually. But when Rudd was taken to hospital and I was on my own here, it seemed a chance, and he’s a very quiet young man.”
“Has he been here long?”
“He came the day after Mr. Grossiter arrived at the farm, I think it was. The Rector sent him to me. He’s studying for an exam and sits reading books all day and writing bits on little sheets of paper. Doesn’t go out much.”
“You say he’s a young man?”
“Not more than twenty-two or three I shouldn’t say he was. He’s very polite and that, but it wouldn’t do for anyone to offend him, either.”
“What makes you say that?”
“He practises boxing and that. He’s got one of these punch balls up in his room and thinks nothing of lifting weights up and down which would do for anyone else. There’s only one thing I don’t like about him—that’s his young lady. She came over to see him last Monday. I could see at once what she was.”
“What was she?”
“No better than what she ought to be, and with airs and graces of I don’t know what. Spoke to me like dirt, she did. She was trying to get him to do something he didn’t want to, too. ‘You must do it,’ I heard her say. No, I didn’t like her.”
“What is your lodger’s name, Mrs. Rudd?” asked Carolus.
“Spaull. Funny name, isn’t it? Humphrey Spaull.”
Carolus bade Mrs. Rudd goodbye and went to his car to drive down to the village. He was determined to make one more call tonight, but to leave the Neasts until tomorrow. First, however, he would have to phone Mrs. Stick, and for this he drove to a phone box which he remembered seeing in the centre of the village.
His housekeeper answered in alarmed tones.
“Yes? Who is it? Who? Oh it’s you, sir. It gave me quite a turn ringing here with the house empty.”
“Isn’t Stick there with you?”
“Stick? Oh, yes. He’s here. Your dinner will be ready in an hour. I’ve got a nice lapper oh for you.”
“What did you say, Mrs. Stick?”
“You’re having rabbit tonight.”
“Oh, I see, yes. Lapereau. But I’m afraid I shan’t be back, Mrs. Stick. I’m still sixty miles away. I think it would he better If I stayed the night here,”
“Well, of course it’s not for me to say but you never know what damp sheets you may lie in and catch your death. I don’t say anything about the dinner, though I did marinade the rabbit yesterday and was going to cook it ar lar Bordelice with a bottle of Bow Jolly. Still, if you want to eat some rubbish they give you out, you must do as you think fit. Oh, and there’s a policeman called. A Sergeant Snow. He said he’ll be in Newminster tomorrow again and will call on you about seven.”
“What did you tell him, Mrs. Stick?”
“You know very well what I told him. Not if I had my way he wouldn’t call, I said. But it’s no good talking. I’ll put the rabbit back in the marinade and tell Stick to double-bar everywhere. We can’t tell who may be hanging round in the night, now you’ve got mixed up again. Good night, sir.”
CHAPTER SIX
CAROLUS HOPED FOR GREAT results from the call he meant to make in Hallows End that evening, and in any case realised that for a particular reason it was necessary before he tackled the Neasts. Joel Stonegate, cycling home that Monday afternoon at about four o’clock, according to the landlord of the Falstaff, had actually seen Duncan Humby in his car. With any luck he might remember the car’s position in the road, so that Carolus would know whether or not the Neasts could have passed it without difficulty on their way home from market.
