The Sword in the Stone-Dead, page 18
part #1 of Great Vicari Mystery Series
“Do you have one?”
“No, mine’s tiny. It came from a fishing game. You can pick up pins with it, but not swords. When are you going to start?”
“Soon,” Malloy said.
“I bet it’s really cold in there,” Timothy said. “And dirty.”
Malloy looked down at his white shirt, then back towards the inky water. He pulled the shirt off over his head.
“How did you get that bruise on your chin?” Timothy asked.
Malloy was tempted to say he got it while drowning a brat in a pond, but he thought better of it.
“Someone hit me,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because I kept asking questions.” Malloy was beginning to shiver.
Timothy laughed. “That’s not true. Is it? You’re covered in goose bumps, and you’re not even in the water yet.”
Malloy moved towards the water’s edge. Mud squelched between his toes.
“Watch out for alligators,” Timothy said. “And leeches, they stick to your skin and suck your blood out.”
Malloy was knee deep in the water now.
“If you see anything swimming towards me, shout,” he said.
“I will.” Timothy sat on his haunches and began his vigil, scouring the surface of the pond for tell-tale ripples. “What about mosquitoes?”
“It’s too cold for mosquitoes,” Malloy said, trying not to let his teeth chatter.
“That’s lucky.”
“I’m the luckiest man alive.” He planted the hoe on the bottom of the pond, gripped it tightly, and swept his leg left and right, exploring the bottom of the pond with his foot.”
“Aren’t you afraid you’ll step on the sword and cut one of your toes off?”
“I wasn’t afraid of that, no.” Malloy hadn’t given this any thought, until now. He began probing the bottom of the pond with the end of the hoe instead.
“Are there any fish in there?”
“Haven’t seen any yet.”
“If there are fish, do you think they might have nibbled my sister’s body?”
“Fish don’t have teeth.”
“Sharks do,” Timothy said, “they’re fish. And piranhas. I read about them in a book about jungle explorers. They eat people.”
“Explorers?”
“No, piranhas.”
“You’re right, there’s no piranhas. But I think I just stepped on a dead frog.”
“Can I see?”
“Shouldn’t you be inside, getting spanked or something.”
“Oh, I’m never spanked.”
“You surprise me.”
“No sword?” Timothy asked.
“No sword.”
“You’re going to have to go deeper, towards the fountain, and get your head under.”
“What I need is a small boy on the end of a piece of string,” Malloy muttered.
“What?”
“It’s not ‘what,’ it’s ‘pardon me’.”
Timothy giggled. “You sound like nanny.”
“Your nanny sounds like an Irish bloke?”
“No, she sounds like a Scottish bloke.”
As he swept the hoe back and forth, it became snagged in something soft. Thinking it had become entangled in weeds, Malloy drew it out. Wrapped around the end of the hoe was a hessian sack. The words ‘Jersey Potatoes’ were clearly legible on the fabric: it had obviously not been in the water long. But it did not contain the sword. Malloy wadded it up and threw it towards the bank, as close the boy as he could without actually hitting him. He resumed wading through the soupy water.
“You made it to the middle!” Timothy said.
Malloy placed a hand on one of the hideous bronze dolphin-monsters, pleased to have made it without the need to submerge his head in the murky water. The cold greenish-black water lapped under his armpits, and he shivered. He decided he would circle the fountain, and then work his way back to shore in a widening spiral, probing the bottom of the pond with the staff as he went. But he had taken only a single step when his foot slipped across the surface of a slimy rock and unable to maintain his balance he fell face forwards with splash.
Malloy’s head broke the surface. He spat out the pond water and gasped for air. As the water drained from his ears, he became aware of shrieks of laughter from the bank. Timothy was doubled-over, hands on his knees, red-faced and crying with laughter. His gasps for breath were louder than Malloy’s.
Sir Geoffrey’s sour-faced butler came striding out of the gatehouse and hurried towards the boy. He cast a glance towards Malloy, silently accusing him of being responsible for Timothy’s undignified outburst. He took the boy by the arm and led him, protesting, inside.
“Don’t worry about me, I’m alright,” Malloy spluttered, “no help needed here!”
He spat loudly, and then set about completing his search of the pond as quickly as he could.
When the head of the hoe struck something metallic, Malloy felt a rush of anticipation, but it was not the missing sword: it was the axe Kimball had used on Oliver Garvin’s sports car. Malloy hurled it towards the bank in frustration.
As he approached the edge of the pond, Malloy became aware that he was being watched from the bushes to the right of the gatehouse. At first he thought it was the boy, back to renew his enjoyment at Malloy’s discomfort. But the outline of the concealed figure was an adult. Pretending he was unaware of his watcher, Malloy trudged up out of the water and towards his discarded shoes and shirt. His skin was covered with a greenish slime, and his trousers blotched with something darker. He looked down at his white shirt, and then at his stained hands.
“I should have given this more thought,” he said to himself. “I’m going to need a towel.”
“You’re going to need hosing down and scrubbing with a yard brush,” said a voice behind him. Malloy turned. Crawley held a greyish towel out towards him. “It’s not one of the good ones,” Crawley said.
Malloy took the towel and nodded his thanks.
“You are to go round to the rear and in through the kitchen, do not go through the house. They are filling a bath for you below stairs. I brought clean clothes down from your room. And, for future reference, the pond is not for swimming.”
“I was not swimming,” Malloy protested. “I was drowning.”
“Next time, do it in the lake.” Crawley turned back towards the gatehouse, pausing only to shout into the bushes to his right. “And you, boy, get out of there, you’re trampling the Narcissi.”
A figure detached itself from the foliage, stared past the butler at Malloy, and then turned and ran.
“Who was that?” Crawley asked.
“Artie Delancey,” Malloy said, scrubbing at his arms with the old towel.
Crawley looked with horror at the rapid discolouration of the towel. “He was watching you swim.”
“I was not swim—”
“In round the back, not through the house,” Crawley repeated. “It’s bad enough those police constables blundering about the place, moving the furniture and scratching the floor. We don’t need you ruining the rugs as well.” With that, he disappeared back inside.
* * *
“I suppose they all think I did it?” Fulbright said.
“Did you?” Vickery asked.
“Don’t be a bloody fool, if I was going to kill her, do you think I would have painted myself into this corner—made it look as if only I could have done it?”
“You are not the only one who lacks a satisfying alibi: there are two others,” Vickery said. “But to answer your question, one way for a murderer to divert attention is to make himself seem too obvious a suspect, perhaps even to claim that someone has staged circumstances so as to incriminate him.”
“That’s too ridiculous even to work on stage, never mind in the real world. Do you really think I could have killed her?”
“In the heat of the moment, perhaps.”
“Because of my temper,” Fulbright said.
“You must admit, it does rather cast you in a poor light.”
“I didn’t kill her. And neither did Margot.”
“Why would you think Margot was a suspect?” Vickery asked.
“Because she also lacks a satisfactory alibi, as you put it, or has she provided some proof that she was elsewhere at the time of Eleanor’s death?”
“She was with you,” Vickery said.
“She told you that? No, of course she didn’t. You guessed.”
“She asked you to go upstairs and fetch the wrap she had left there. I imagine she made sure that you would not be able to locate it. And a few minutes later, she followed you up.”
“And why do you deduce that she would go to such lengths to ensure I was kept away from the assembled company?”
“Are you aware that Mr. Kimball is an accomplished mimic, and that his vocal imitation of you is really very good?”
“That’s what they were up to down here, is it? All having a jolly old laugh at my expense?”
“Don’t the common folk always mock their king in private?” Vickery asked.
“What did he say about me?”
“I believe he performed a routine using your voice, though the content did not relate to you directly.”
“But he still made me look a damned fool!”
“One assumes that was his intention, yes. I did not see the performance, but I have had sight of the script. Considerable effort appears to have gone into it.”
“There was a script? That wouldn’t have been Kimball’s work, he has trouble composing a telegram.”
“You do not think he wrote the routine?”
“He would have had a co-writer at the very least,” Fulbright said.
“Interesting,” Vickery said. “Do you know if Mr. Kimball is in possession of a typewriter?”
“I doubt it, his messages are always handwritten. Penmanship like a doctor’s.”
“But there would be a typewriter at the film studio?”
“One in the office, another backstage, and probably one in the props cupboard. Plus whatever the current writer is using, though some of them would be more at home with a wax crayon.”
“Do you have a typewriter, Mr. Fulbright?”
“A big old Underwood, sits on a table behind the desk at home. I’ve used it twice. Or attempted to. How anyone gets the letters onto the paper in the right order is beyond me. But that’s what secretaries are for.”
“Do you have a secretary?”
“Had several, none of them stayed above a month. All useless. If you want to know about typewriters, talk to Bannister, he operated one during the war. He can hit the keys better than any woman I’ve ever seen. When he’s sober.”
“Does he drink as a result of his experiences in the Great War?”
“He sat behind a desk in Whitehall. He drinks because it is the only thing that gives him the courage to walk out on stage every night. Is Bannister the third suspect?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You said there was Margot, me, and one other.”
“Artie Delancey.”
“Artie?” Fulbright didn’t sound as incredulous as Bannister had.
“Do you think he is capable of murder?” Vickery asked.
“Artie’s tougher than he looks. You should have seen him after the beating he took last year. Three men. You couldn’t recognise his face. Look at him now and you’d never know.”
“He was on the receiving end of violence, but did he fight back?”
“If he had, he probably wouldn’t have survived.”
“Then you do not believe he is capable of violence?”
“Put him in the ring with the gloves on, no. But put him in the shadows with a dagger, perhaps.”
“Or a sword?” Vickery asked.
“Have you found it yet?”
“Malloy is still looking.”
“That why he looked like he had been swimming in a sewer?”
“My fault, alas. Why do you think Eleanor Trenton was murdered?”
“Because of me,” Fulbright said, without hesitation. “Someone wanted to hurt me, by taking her from me. And they rubbed salt in the wound by making it look like I was the one who killed her.”
“You do not think that she might have had enemies of her own?” Vickery asked.
“She was a girl, she wasn’t old enough to have made enemies.”
“Then we come full circle and must ask again who might have a motive for wishing you harm?”
“We are back where we started, with you having achieved nothing,” Fulbright said. “If you had gotten to the bottom of this business with the letters, Eleanor would still be alive.”
“You think the letters and the murder are connected?” Vickery asked.
“It stands to reason, doesn’t it? When the letters did not produce the desired effect, they turned to more dramatic action.”
“‘Dramatic action,’ an interesting choice of words. This whole thing does seem a little theatrical, doesn’t it? A dead woman found floating in a pond like Ophelia. Murdered using a medieval broad sword. With the whole thing surrounded by the mystery of the poison pen letters.”
“Well, I suppose so—”
“And all the time, you are refusing to share with me the content of those letters. What is the letter-writer trying to force you to do? And how did they think murdering Miss Trenton might be the final encouragement you needed?”
“The letters are the ramblings of an idiot—”
“They were written by someone who bears a grudge, for some wrong they believe you did to them, perhaps years ago. If I knew what the subject of the letters was, I might be able to identify the murderer. I want to see the rest of those letters, including the missing pages.”
“I burned them.” Fulbright was defiant.
“You will have to share the contents of the letters with the police.”
“If I must share that information with a professional investigator, I will.”
“Then you do have something to hide,” Vickery said.
“And I also do have an alibi for the time of the murder,” Fulbright said smugly. “I was with Margot.”
“That is not enough, a husband and wife providing alibis for one another, with no corroboration from anyone else. Who is to say that you are both telling the truth? Or who is to say that you and Margot were not accomplices, committing the murder together, and then covering up by providing each other with a plausible alibi? The professional investigators will want to dig much more deeply into the relationships between you and Margot and Eleanor Trenton.”
“Let them, I have no guilty secrets to hide.”
“Those letters seem to indicate otherwise,” Vickery said.
“They are gibberish, no one will take them seriously.”
“You took them seriously enough to engage me to look into them. And now that you have connected them with a murder, the professional investigators will, I am sure, want to take them very seriously indeed. Even if you are innocent, your name will be connected with murder on the front pages of tomorrow’s newspapers. Is that the publicity you wanted for your motion picture?”
“I have nothing more to say to you—get out!”
* * *
Malloy sat in the zinc hipbath set in front of the fire in a low-ceilinged room off the kitchen. The warmth had finally worked its way into his blood, and he was feeling content once more, especially so since the cook had slipped him a good measure of whisky to make sure he ‘didn’t come down with a chill.’ Malloy closed his eyes and breathed deeply.
“No sign of the sword?”
Malloy’s eyes snapped open. Vickery was leaning against the mantelpiece.
“No, and it wasn’t in the pond either,” Malloy said.
“Cook asked me to bring this in,” Vickery said, pointing to a large folded white towel sitting on the hearth. “She said this wasn’t one of the ones they used for the dog, if that means anything.”
“Crawley,” Malloy said, as if that explained everything. “How did your morning unfold?”
“I appear to have narrowed it down to three suspects,” Vickery said.
“Quick work.”
“Unfortunately, I don’t think any of them actually did it.”
“And none of them had the decency to confess?”
“I have spoken to two of them, but have been unable to corner Artie Delancey.”
“You should have been outside chest-deep in pond water,” Malloy said.
“I should?”
“Artie Delancey was hiding in the bushes, watching me.”
“A secret admirer? That explains Margot’s comment: she said you might have a better chance of questioning Artie than I did. Did you speak to him?”
“Crawley frightened him off.”
“I know that feeling,” Vickery said. “What happened to the Inspector and his handful of coppers?”
“Debney has gone off to the village to try and locate a mysterious ‘someone’ who might have ‘hinformation germane to the hinvestigation.’ He’s taken one of the plods with him, and the other two have gone off wandering around the lake looking for footprints that might lead them to the murder weapon. They’ll be back shortly for more tea, I expect.”
“We need to locate Artie Delancey before they do. Will you do something for me?”
“What, now?” Malloy glanced down at his naked self in the cooling bathwater.
If Vickery had been wearing glasses, he would have looked over the top of them, instead he raised an eyebrow and pursed his lips.
“Does it involve wading navel-deep in pond scum in my underwear?” Malloy asked.
“No.”
“And it doesn’t involve getting wet?”
“Not very. But it may involve undressing again, at least partially.”
“Tell me more!” Malloy grinned.
“I want you to go and see if you can tempt Artie Delancey out of the bushes so that he’ll speak to you.”
“And how am I going to do that?”
“I was thinking perhaps you might go out and wash one of the cars. Preferably mine. If you’re out there alone, he might be inclined to approach you.”
“Do you really think that will work?”
