Enough to Kill a Horse
Elizabeth Ferrars was one of the most distinguished crime writers of her generation. She was described by
Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine
as ‘The writer who may be the closest of all to Christie in style, plotting and general milieu’. Born in 1907 in Rangoon, Burma, the author grew up in Hampshire, England, before studying journalism in London. Her first crime novel,
Give a Corpse a Bad Name
, was published in 1940. During her career, she wrote more than seventy novels and became immensely popular in America, where she was published as E.X. Ferrars. In 1953, she became a founding member of the British Crime Writers’ Association and, in the early 1980s, was awarded its Silver Dagger for a lifetime’s achievement. She died in 1995.
ELIZABETH FERRARS
THE LANGTAIL PRESS
L
ONDON
This edition published 2010 by
The Langtail Press
www.langtailpress.com
First published 1955
Enough to Kill a Horse © 1955 by Peter Mactaggart
ISBN 978-1-78002-030-3
CHAPTER ONE
The faint tinkle of the shop-bell interrupted Fanny Lynam in her attempt to think clearly about the coming weekend. Muttering annoyance, she levered her heavy body out of a deep armchair. Martin, the cat, dislodged without warning from her lap, slithered to the floor, mewing resentment. His yellow eyes followed her suspiciously as she went to the door, while Spike, the dog, lifting his head from the hearthrug, gave a drowsy yelp in formal recognition of the presence of strangers.
Fanny did not hurry, but paused by the table to stub out her cigarette and again before a mirror to fumble for a moment with her short, rough, greying hair. The mirror, framed in gilt, was old and precious, and Fanny’s face, reflected in the flawed and sombre depths of the glass, was robbed of its florid colour; her short-sighted eyes had a blank, fierce stare and her full, firm chin looked long and hollow. This view of herself did not disturb her.
As she went slowly down the passage to the shop, her loose felt slippers slapped on the stone floor. She was wearing slacks that had fitted her two years before, but which no longer buttoned comfortably at the waist. Above them she wore a shapeless sweater, knitted by herself for her second husband, Basil Lynam, who had not protested when she had decided to borrow it back from him. Round the high collar of the sweater she wore a fine Victorian necklace of seed pearls. She was a shortish woman, fifty years old, lethargic in her movements and at the moment vague and self-absorbed in manner.
‘Good morning,’ she said automatically as she entered the shop.
It was full of sunshine. It streamed in through the one narrow window that overlooked the village street and showed up the film of dust on the polished surfaces of table and tallboy, bureau and carved chest. The air was full of moving specks of dust.
The customer, a woman in a fur coat and small hat, had taken a pewter tankard from a shelf and was turning it round in her gloved hands.
Going forward with her saleswoman’s smile, Fanny said, ‘Yes, that mug’s nice, isn’t it? You’ve picked the good one. The other two are reproductions.’
‘How much is it?’ the woman asked.
‘I think it’s thirty shillings. May I take a look? … Yes, thirty shillings,’ Fanny said. ‘It’s part of a set really, but I’ve been selling them separately.’
‘It’s got initials on it,’ the woman said. ‘I’d prefer it without initials.’
‘You can easily have them taken off,’ Fanny said. ‘I could get it done for you in two or three days for about five shillings.’
‘I shan’t be here for two or three days, I’m just driving through,’ the woman said.
‘I could send it after you.’
‘Oh no, thank you, I don’t think I want to bother. How much is that little china jug over there?’
This was the question, Fanny knew, that the woman had come into the shop to ask.
‘Oh, that – I’m afraid that’s rather expensive,’ Fanny said. ‘It’s genuine Chelsea.’
‘How much?’
‘Six pounds.’
The woman gave a startled laugh, asked the price of one or two other knick-knacks, remarked what a beautiful day it was for the time of year, and left.
Fanny, who had not expected to make a sale and whose thoughts had barely left the subject with which they had been busy all the morning, turned and went back along the stone-flagged passage to the sitting-room.
It was a big room with a low ceiling and with most of one wall taken up by a great fireplace. Logs were stacked there, ready for lighting, but just then the room was warmed only by an electric fire. This was set close to the chair in which Fanny had been sitting and which Martin the cat had now adopted for himself. Most of the stone floor was covered by a deep grey carpet. There were several easy chairs, a long bookcase, some old prints of birds and flowers and the gilt-framed mirror.
As usual, in passing the mirror, Fanny cast a glance at the strange, drowned face that gazed back at her as out of a shadowed pool. Then she crossed the room to the deep embrasure framing one of the small windows and stood looking intently down at a photograph that stood on the sill, next to a Spode bowl full of daffodils. The photograph had been standing there for three days, but Fanny had still not made up her mind what she thought about it.
For what did a photograph tell you at the best of times? A photograph could lie with far more authority, could perpetuate a far more impenetrable deception than any painting.
Luckily, perhaps, Fanny had to make a telephone call that morning to her friend, Clare Forwood, and so could not spend much more time staring at the photograph, asking herself unanswerable questions about it. She had meant to telephone Clare immediately after breakfast, but then had slipped into a spell of musing and chain-smoking and it had been a shock, when the shop-bell roused her, to realize how late it was. Turning now from the window with an uneasy sigh, she jolted Martin out of the chair, sat down and reached first for a cigarette, then for the telephone.
She gave Clare’s Hampstead number. While she waited, the cat, purring noisily, sprang on to her knees and started to turn round and round there, seeking for perfect comfort. In a mood of irritation, Fanny pushed him off. She avoided looking towards the window and the photograph, but picking up a pencil and old envelope, started drawing squares and circles.
Presently a voice spoke remotely in her ear. It sounded impatient, because Clare Forwood hated being rung up during the morning, when she was writing.
Fanny said, ‘About that man Poulter, Clare …’
The impatience vanished from Clare Forwood’s voice.
‘Yes?’ she said quickly.
‘I’ve fixed it for you,’ Fanny said. ‘He’s coming to cocktails on Saturday. So all you have to do, if you still want to meet him, is come down for the weekend.’
‘How did you work it?’ Clare asked.
‘He walked into the shop yesterday,’ Fanny said. ‘He bought a rather horrible corner-cupboard I’ve had on my hands two years. Then he stayed on talking. He wanted advice on woodworm, he said. And one thing led to another till I took the plunge and simply invited him. He seemed very pleased, so I think it must have been what he wanted. Can you manage next weekend?’
‘Oh, yes. And thanks, Fanny, thanks very much. Though I almost feel …’ Clare’s voice had changed again, sounding hesitant and guarded. ‘I’ve been thinking it over since I told you I’d like to meet him, and really it seems rather stupid. I’m so bad at meeting strange people.’
‘You mean you
don’t
want to meet him now?’ Fanny asked.
‘Oh, I do,’ Clare said, ‘but when it actually comes to the point, I’m afraid I’ll – well, you know what I’m like.’
‘Look,’ Fanny said, ‘I only asked him because you wanted me to.’
‘Yes, I know. But I suppose I never seriously expected you to do anything about it.’
‘And there’s something I want you to do for me in return,’ Fanny went on firmly, ‘so for heaven’s sake don’t walk out on it now. Kit’s gone and got himself engaged. I haven’t met the girl yet – I’ve only got her photograph – but she’s coming down next weekend. Well, will you pick her up and drive her down with you?’
‘I see,’ Clare said and was silent for a moment. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘But tell me, Fanny, did you tell Poulter that I’d be there or say anything about my specially wanting to meet him?’
‘Not a thing.’
‘So if I don’t feel like it, I needn’t even talk to him?’
‘You needn’t say a word.’
‘Good. Who is the girl, Fanny?’
‘Her name’s Laura Greenslade. She’s a journalist. Among other things, she does scientific bits for lots of papers and Basil says that, all considered, they aren’t too bad. The funny thing is, she was a student of his once. He remembered her as soon as he heard her name, though he doesn’t seem able to remember much else about her, except that he thinks there was something or other peculiar about her. Being Basil, that might mean she’d murdered her grandmother or that she could waggle her ears, the second being rather the more interesting. But the really peculiar thing, in my view, is her wanting to marry Kit. She’s extraordinarily beautiful – to judge by her photograph – she’s clever and she’s making a good income. And none of that can be said about Kit.’
‘You sound a bit worried,’ Clare said. ‘Are you?’
‘Oh no, I’m not, I’m glad, I’m really delighted,’ Fanny said. ‘It’s time Kit got married. And I’ve been planning how to convert the house so that they can have part of it completely to themselves. Fortunately, having once been two cottages, it’ll be quite easy to make it into two again. The only trouble is, a half is going to be a little small for them, as there’s a child. She’s been married before. Her husband was killed in the war and the child’s been living with Laura’s mother, but of course she’ll want to have her here once she’s married and got a proper home.’
‘I see,’ Clare said.
‘Why do you say “I see”, like that?’ Fanny asked.
‘How did I say it?’
‘Significantly.’
‘I didn’t mean to. But I still think you sound worried.’
‘Naturally I’m very nervous,’ Fanny said. ‘That’s partly why I’m anxious to have you here this weekend. You may be bad at meeting people, but you’re quite good sometimes at summing them up, and if you have her with you when you drive down you’ll really have a chance to find out what you think about her.’
‘What difference will it make what either of us think about her?’
Fanny jabbed her cigarette at the ashtray with a small, fierce gesture.
‘None at all, of course,’ she said. ‘But I’d still like to know what you think. That’s natural, isn’t it?’
‘When d’you want us to arrive?’ Clare asked.
‘Can you manage lunchtime on Saturday? … Good, I’ll expect you around one. And don’t worry about meeting the Poulter man, Clare. He seemed to be a very mild old thing. You’d never think he’d ever owned a string of newspapers.’
Fanny rang off. Martin the cat, taking this as a propitious sign, jumped up on to her lap again and this time was allowed to remain. One of Fanny’s hands started to slide softly over the smooth fur of his back. The other hand, having got rid of her cigarette, went on absently drawing squares and circles on the old envelope. Then presently she began to write on it. She wrote: ‘Stuffed olives. Salted almonds. Cheese straws. Sausages. Anchovies. Biscuits. Lobster …’
She paused there, looking fixedly at what she had written, then she underlined the word ‘lobster’ several times.
At that point she was interrupted by the opening of the door. It was Kit Raven, her half-brother, who came into the room.
Kit was twenty years younger than Fanny. His mother, dead many years before, had been only twenty-three when she had married Fanny’s father. She had been a stolid, good-natured girl who had always treated Fanny with affection, though she had worried continually over what she had considered the wild and disorderly life led by Fanny before and during her first marriage. On her death, only two years after that of her elderly husband, Fanny had been almost surprised at the strength of her grief for her stepmother, and, rather wryly, she sometimes said now that if Christine had lived to see it, she would have been more than delighted at the change that had come over her on her marriage to Basil Lynam. That Fanny would give up the stage, live in the country, grow fat, keep a dog and a cat, sell antiques and join the Women’s Institute, was something that Christine would never have believed possible.