Death at Hallows End (20 page)

“And the other two thirds?”

“One of them is to be divided between you two.”

“And the other?”

“The other goes to Hickmansworth,” said Carolus, and, before he could hear any comment, walked away.

N
EXT MORNING WHEN
S
NOW
dropped in, Carolus told him he was returning to Newminster.

“There's nothing more for me to do here.”

“You think you know the truth about all this?”

“Yes, but I haven't a hope of even convincing you, let alone proving it. I haven't even much circumstantial evidence. In other words, I've got only an amateur's theory without support or substance. I should be ashamed to put it to you or anyone else. A couple of whys would demolish it.”

“And you don't think you can substantiate it by continuing to work with us?”

“No. Unless there are some new developments.”

“Such as?”

“Such as another death. Or the discovery of Humby's body—for I believe him to be dead.”

“You don't even want to see the result of the fingerprint test on Hickmansworth's station wagon?”

“I think I know what that will be. But I don't think it will help us much, unless we come to know where the car was driven that night. I'd be grateful if you'd phone me in an idle moment…”

“Thanks. I haven't many of those. Still, I'll phone you the result of that test. It was, after all, you who suggested it. I think you're a bit of a defeatist, Mr. Deene.”

“Perhaps. You'll find I'm interested enough if anything breaks. It's just that until that happens I'm wasting time.”

“To go away and wait for another murder …”

“I didn't suggest that. We don't know there has been one murder yet. I don't think there will be another death. Unless, of course, we're dealing with a lunatic or lunatics, and so far there's no sign of that.”

“None at all,” agreed Snow.

“Besides, you know, I have my job to think of. The school terms starts on Friday. And I don't really think you'll be sorry to have me out of the way.”

Before Carolus left the Falstaff, he had a word with Mr. Sporter.

“This is my telephone number in Newminster,” he said. “If anything startling happens down here, will you let me know?”

“I'll be only too glad, natch, to do so. Even if it only seems triv to me,” said the landlord. “Guest-wise you've been exemp.”

“Thanks,” said Carolus and was soon on his way to Newminster, perhaps, he thought, for the last time over this road.

Mrs. Stick received him sceptically.

“That's what you
say,
sir, that you've finished with it. Me and Stick knows better. It only needs one of them to come calling here and you'll be off again.”

“But school starts on Friday, Mrs. Stick.”

“School! A lot you care about school when you're after one of these murderers. I don't know how the Headmaster puts up with it, upon my word I don't. I was only saying to Stick, whatever do the boys' parents think, I said, having their sons taught by someone who's larking about with murderers half his time.”

“What have we for lunch, Mrs. Stick?” asked Carolus, to lead her to happier topics. But she was curt.

“Potto fur,” she snapped and went out to her kitchen.

Carolus spent the day working on his notes—not of the Hallows End case, but of constitutional changes under Cromwell and the Commonwealth, for the Lower Sixth. It was not until six o'clock that Mrs. Stick came to summon him to the telephone.

“What did I tell you?” she asked triumphantly. “It's one of your policemen. Snow, he calls himself.”

“Why not?” asked Carolus mildly. “That's his name. He has been here before.”

Snow sounded pleased.

“We found a small collection of good prints,” he said. “They were all pretty close together — apart from those of the Hickmansworths, of course. Whose do you think?”

“Cyril Neast's,” said Carolus.

“If you know so much, Mr. Deene, I don't know why you've chucked up the case. Cyril Neast has a perfectly good explanation for them, however. When young Hickmansworth came to Monk's Farm to ask if they knew anything about the will, Cyril came out into the road with him to see him off. He stood talking with him for some minutes after Edgar Hickmansworth was in the driving seat. He was leaning on the car. Young Hickmansworth remembers him being there.”

“Where were the prints?”

“On the bonnet, as a matter of fact. He must have opened the bonnet to flood the carburettor or something. Edgar doesn't remember him doing that.”

“Well, thanks,” said Carolus.

“As I said, it doesn't get us much farther.”

But it seemed to make Carolus very thoughtful for the rest of that evening. As Mrs. Stick reported to her husband, he sat in his chair without a book, “looking nowhere, as you might say. You could tell he was thinking of murders.”

Next morning, Wednesday, he was undisturbed until a little past eleven when Sporter rang up. The landlord of the Falstaff sounded very unlike himself. He was serious, somewhat awed, it would seem, by the solemnity of his news.

“Darkin's dead,” he stated. “Apparently suicide. He was found in a meadow near Monk's Farm with a twelve-bore beside him and most of his head shot away.”

Carolus cut him off as briefly as he politely could.

“I'll come straightaway,” he said, and with only a brief word to Mrs. Stick, he started out on the familiar road to Hallows End.

He had lost all hesitation. He no longer thought of awaiting the discovery of Humby or anything else. He recognised that he must act quickly if yet another life was not to be lost.

He found Snow at Monk's Farm. Snow also had a set face and spoke curtly. He did not remind Carolus that he had said he didn't think there would be another death unless they were dealing with lunatics.

“You'd better see Stonegate if you want details. He found the body. Only one thing I can tell you that may be relevant: Darkin phoned a solicitor yesterday, John Stuffart of Stuffart and Stuffart in Cashford, and made an appointment for today. Otherwise it's all yours. Death instantaneous of course. Barrel probably in his mouth. Half his head blown away. There'll be a post mortem.”

“You might examine the guts as well.”

Snow gave a grim smile.

“If you'd seen the thing, you wouldn't bother about poison.”

“I think I should. I can only suggest it, of course, but I'd like very much to see a report on the contents of the stomach and ducts.”

“I shall get that automatically. A post mortem covers everything. If it's at all unusual I'll let you know. Now I must get back to the grindstone. I can't afford fancy theorising, Mr. Deene.”

Carolus grinned.

“Where's Stonegate?” he asked.

“He has taken the day off in anticipation of the rush to see him. If he wasn't the last to see Darkin alive, he was at least the first to see him dead. It's a big day for him. You'll find him at his cottage or at one of the pubs.”

“Thanks. One other small thing. Any footprints near the body?”

“None found. But the place might have been chosen. Short hard grass. Not a chance of a footprint or anything else.”

Carolus drove straight to Stonegate's thatched cottage. The door was opened by Doll almost before he knocked. She did not seem to find the occasion a solemn one.

“You can't help laughing at Dad,” she said. “He's sitting there in his best suit waiting for the photographers. He said to me just now, he said, ‘I think I'll give the name as George Stonegate instead of Joel. It'll look better in the papers. Less old-fashioned'.”

A stern voice from the inner room called Doll to her duties, and she showed Carolus in.

“Ah, yes,” said Stonegate. “The gentleman from Newminster interested in crime. Well, you've got enough of it now to keep you busy.”

“How did you come to find the remains of Darkin, Stonegate?”

“You may well say remains. If you could have seen it. With the ground all round spattered too …”

“Yes. How did you chance to come on it?”

“It wasn't chance. I was carrying out my duties. Mr. Neast wanted that hedge repaired.”

“Which hedge?”

“The hedge between our land and Hickmansworths'. It's fallen in in places. You used not to be able to get through that hedge wherever you looked. But in this last year or two it's gone all to pieces. So I was on my way down there to see what it needed. I took the old path which used to lead right from Monk's Farm to Hickmansworths' in the old days. But when they fell out Neasts had the stile taken away and the hedge closed. Only you could still get through there. The Rector had something to say at the time about it being a Right of Way. Anyway, I took that path. Just as I was coming to the boundary between the two farms what should I see but…”

“Darkin,” supplied Carolus.

“Yes. What there was left of him. You could see ten feet away where there were bits of brain and that. It would turn you up. I used to work in a slaughter-house and …”

“Yes. How was he lying?”

“On his back. You could see that by his jacket, not by his face. There was nothing much left of that. It was like …”

“Where was the gun?”

“Right beside him and his thumb still caught round the trigger. He'd probably leaned down over the gun with its barrel in his mouth and pulled, so it had knocked him right back. You've never seen such a sight in your life. All over the grass …”

“What time was this?”

“When I found him? Must have been getting on for ten o'clock. I'd been up since seven, but over the other side beyond the church.”

“Did you hear the shot?”

“I thought you'd ask me that. They all will, you can be sure. Well,” he announced magnanimously, “I'm not going to
say I did because I didn't. Isn't it enough to have found his remains as you call them? It wasn't pleasant, I can tell you that. Why, before I knew, I'd stepped in it and all my boot…”

“Surely if the shot had been fired since you reached the farm, you'd have heard it?”

“Well, I'm not going to say I did because I didn't,” repeated Stonegate. “But it's hard to see why not. I was out working earlier than usual—before half past seven, and you wouldn't think he'd of got up and gone out after rabbits before then, would you? I mean it wouldn't have been hardly light.”

“Do you know if anyone else heard the shot?”

Stonegate looked cagey.

“I've been given to understand,” he said grandly, “that Mrs. Rudd has some story to that effect, but you know how much you can believe women. I'd say I'd heard it if I had …”

“You bet you would,” said Doll, coming into the room. “He can't get over it,” she explained to Carolus, “it being Mrs. Rudd and not him heard the poor man shoot himself. ‘Another time', he says, ‘if ever you hear anything like shots and that, you let me know'. He's a scream really.”

“But you're sure you would have heard it, Stonegate, if it had been fired after you reached the farm?”

“Certainly I should. That's what I say. He can't have done it any later than seven-fifteen say, or I should have heard him. Hullo! Who's this coming? Doll. Tell him Mr. Stonegate's engaged for the minute but will see him in due course. It's a reporter, you can see that. Has he got his camera, Doll? And you don't show him in till I'm ready. Where's my boot with the blood on it?”

Carolus made his escape and drove to Mrs. Rudd's where he received rather a different welcome.

“Oh, it's you again is it?” the big woman said. “You'd better come in out of the cold. It's a nasty chilly day.”

“I understand you heard a shot fired early this morning?” said Carolus.

“Yes. I told the police gentlemen all about it.”

“What time was it?”

“I can't say, not to the minute. I was worrying about Mr. Spaull going off without his breakfast.”

“Mr. Spaull? I thought he'd gone back to his work in New-minster?”

“So he had. But he came down last night on his motorbike to get his washing he'd left behind because I hadn't finished it for him. It was such a nasty night, I said, why don't you stay till the morning, because his room was just as he left it and it wasn't a night to go running about on a motorbike. So he said he would, but he'd have to be off early in the morning to get to his work in time but he wouldn't disturb me going off. Whatever time it was I don't know, but I heard him getting dressed and then creeping downstairs not to wake me.”

“Did you hear him start his motorbike?”

“No. He must have wheeled it away not to make a noise round here, but he was like that, thinking of others instead of himself all the time. After he'd gone I couldn't get to sleep again thinking I might have got up and given him a bit of breakfast, when suddenly I heard this shot.”

“How long after Spaull left the cottage?”

“It's hard to say, but it must have been at least half an hour I should think. You couldn't tell where it came from, but it wasn't near at hand. It might have been from where they found the body. When I heard about it I said to myself that must have been the shot, I said. It's not nice to think of though, is it? I mean I wasn't much taken with that Darkin but you don't want anyone to shoot themselves.”

As Carolus left the cottage he saw Holroyd Neast standing by his car.

“Good morning,” said Neast, almost ingratiatingly. “This is a bad business, isn't it?”

“Yes,” said Carolus. “Was there nothing in his behaviour which might have led you to fear something of this kind?”

“Absolutely nothing. On the contrary, he seemed very cheerful yesterday. He had arranged to see a solicitor about his inheritance today.”