Superfluous Women (28 page)

Alec would say, “Don't interfere.” And this time, he was probably right.

Carrying umbrellas, Daisy and Isabel walked down Orchard Road and crossed Station Road to the post office. Isabel went in. Daisy went on towards the station. At the near end of the bridge over the railway cutting, she stood aside to let a couple of women with shopping baskets go by in the opposite direction: The footway on the bridge was so narrow pedestrians could pass each other only with difficulty. Once the way was clear, she crossed the bridge and had just reached the far end when she heard hurried footsteps following her.

She glanced round and saw Isabel, practically running after her and about to call out. With a wave, Daisy turned right and moved a few feet down the slope to the station, where the pavement was wider.

Isabel caught up. She clutched Daisy's arm with one hand, the other flapping an envelope with a foreign stamp. “From France!”

“Gosh! From Mrs. Gray? Hold it still, do. I can't read it.”

“No,
to
Mrs. Gray.” Isabel handed it to Daisy. “I can't make out the postmark, can you?”

Daisy peered at the blurry impression. “St. Tropez, I think. It's taken a long time to get here. It's dated the fifth.”

“The post office has held it for a week, expecting her to write with a forwarding address. They should have given it to the police, shouldn't they?”

“Yes, but never mind. You can hand it over in person to the inspector.”

“I … Or you could give it to Alec.”

“He'd be bound to think there was something fishy about my having it. Better that it go straight from your hand to Mr. Underwood's. I'll go to the police station with you, if you like, but first I want to ask about her luggage.”

“All right. I'll come, too.” Isabel tucked the letter into her string bag and they set off down the hill. “The stationmaster is in charge of left luggage, and he knows me from when I was constantly dashing back and forth to Wycombe. I bet he knows I bought the Grays' house, so he won't be surprised if I ask about her trunks.”

“Whereas if I do, he'll either guess that I'm just being nosy or assume the police sent me to ask—if he knows about Alec—which could lead to trouble when he finds out they didn't.”

Isabel grinned. “It sounds as if you're often in trouble with the police.”

“Only because they regard any attempt to help as interference. I don't know why I bother.”

“Insatiable curiosity? There's the stationmaster now, looking portentously at his watch. Must be a train due.”

The burly man in the smart uniform frowned at his gold pocket watch and peered down the line towards High Wycombe. The wail of a whistle came to Daisy's ears. The stationmaster's frown vanished; he stowed away his watch and prepared to welcome the up-train to his station.

Daisy and Isabel waited until the train had made its brief stop, allowing two women, laden with loot from the Wycombe shops, to alight. As the stationmaster turned back towards his lair, Isabel accosted him.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Jenkins.”

“Afternoon, miss. Summat I can do for you?”

“I hope so. I'm Miss Sutcliffe. I daresay you heard I bought Mrs. Gray's house recently?”

“That I did,” he responded cautiously. “And I heard Mrs. Gray was foully done to death in that same house.”

Isabel turned to Daisy. “Is it all right if I explain?”

“You'll be Mrs. Scotland Yard?” asked the stationmaster.

“I am. I'll tell you what happened, if you promise not to pass it on.”

“I won't. The comp'ny don't put gossips in charge of stations. We see things and we hear things and we keep our mouths shut. Not like the county police. That Sergeant Harris, he's in a mint of trouble on account of not holding his gab.”

“So I believe.” Daisy wanted to give him as little information as was necessary to persuade him to help. “The thing is, the death occurred before Miss Sutcliffe and her friends moved in. The body was in the cellar and they didn't have a key. Because it's been several weeks, it's … not easy to identify, so the police are not absolutely certain it's Mrs. Gray.”

“Is that so! I'd reckernise her, surely. Always popping up to town, she was. Come through this very station four or five times a week, sometimes.”

“Do you think you would? Of course, you'd be willing to try, a responsible person like you. Shall I mention it to the inspector?” Best to keep Alec out of it as much as possible, though his profession had given her a chance with Mr. Jenkins.

“Happy to help, madam. I wouldn't put meself forward, but if they was to request, I wouldn't say no. Now, what is it I can do for Miss Sutcliffe?”

Isabel retrieved the letter from her shopping bag. “I just picked this up at the post office. It's addressed to Mrs. Gray. It ought to be sent on to her if she's alive, or returned to the sender with an explanation if … if not. But there's no return address on the envelope. I'm sure you'd have told the police if she'd left any bags with you.”

“I would, natural.”

“I wondered, though, whether she forwarded a trunk from here, and if so, whether you remember the address it was sent to.”

“There was three.” Mr. Jenkins visibly went through an internal debate. “Reckon it can't hurt to tell you ladies. Not that I remember the addresses, mind, just the towns. She sent two trunks to some place in France with a saint's name. Not one of our English saints. I 'spose the Frogs have their own saints.”

A saint on the Riviera? “St. Tropez?” Daisy asked.

“Like that, but with a zed on the end. Trop-pezzzz,” he buzzed, “that's it. What the street was I can't tell you after all this time. Six weeks, must be, or more. The comp'ny'd have records, though.”

“I hadn't thought of that! Of course they would, in case the trunks didn't arrive, or were damaged in transit.”

The stationmaster nodded sagely. “Happens. T'other trunk, that one went to Paris, a fortnight or so later. Now what was the hotel? A king—not a name, something like ‘His Majesty'.”

“The Majestic?”

“That's it. If there's nothing else I can help you with, the down-train is due in two minutes.”

Daisy left it to Isabel to thank him, as another layer of protection against being accused of interfering. They left the station and trudged up the hill.

“If you don't mind,” said Daisy, “would you tell Mr. Underwood you made enquiries with the intention of re-addressing the envelope, then realised that it ought to be turned over to him right away? And leave me out of it?”

“If that's what you want. He … They should be pleased, shouldn't they? They can get in touch with the hotel. If Mrs. Gray never turned up, she must be dead.”

“Not necessarily, but it would be another nail in her coffin, so to speak. I wonder what the letter says. I expect it's from the friend she was going to stay with, asking why she hasn't arrived yet.”

“More than likely. It's a pity we haven't got a full address. There must be millions of English people in St. Tropez. Well, dozens.”

“Probably hundreds. But Alec says the French police are far more efficient—or fussy, if you prefer—about keeping track of who's where, especially when foreigners are concerned. With the name, they'll be able to find her if they need to.”

Drizzle started falling again as they walked up the curving lane towards the Old Town. Daisy opened her telephone-box-red umbrella and Isabel her conventional black. It was only about a mile, and after the steep slope up from the station it wasn't much of a hill, but Daisy began to flag. She still hadn't regained all her strength after her illness.

They crossed London End to the Saracen's Head and went on past the hotel along Windsor End. Just before they reached the police station, Isabel stopped suddenly.

“What on earth are they doing?” she exclaimed, staring across the road.

“What? Where? Oh, good gracious, I didn't spot them.”

In the graveyard, half visible through the rain, Alec, Underwood, and Ernie Piper stood among the trees and tombstones. They appeared to be solemnly discussing one of the stone memorials.

“Daisy, could they be going to exhume Mr. Gray?”

“Is that his tombstone?”

“I have no idea.”

“I doubt it. They can't prosecute a dead person. The school's just behind those yews, isn't it? What do you bet they're going after Cartwright?”

 

TWENTY-SIX

Running footsteps
on gravel. Alec swung round to see a small boy in grey shorts and a green blazer, without his cap. Satchel in hand, he dashed along the path from the school, towards the street. With his free hand he seemed to be rubbing away tears. One of his dark grey knee socks had sagged down to his ankle and on the skinny calf two dark red weals were clearly visible.

Alec decided he was going to enjoy confronting Cartwright.

Pennicuik emerged from the shrubbery. “That's the last of 'em, sir, poor little blighter.” He aimed the announcement halfway between Alec and Underwood, uncertain to whom he was meant to report.

“Let's go.” The inspector took the lead.

Alec glanced back to see if anyone had observed them. On the far side of the street flaunted a bright red umbrella. He sighed. Still, Daisy was preferable to a crowd of curious locals.

The sound of four determined men tramping along the gravel path was very different from a scared schoolchild fleeing. Intimidating, Alec thought with pleasure. He reminded himself that they had no firsthand evidence against the schoolmaster, nothing to justify a charge of indecent assault, far less one of murder.

An alarmed face peered out through the schoolroom window, then disappeared.

Leaving Pennicuik outside to ward off interruptions, Underwood marched straight in without knocking. Cartwright had his back to the door, standing at the blackboard, cleaning it with a feverish motion. He turned slowly, trying to look surprised.

“To what do I owe the visit, gentlemen?” His voice quavered.

“Acting on information received, sir,” said Underwood, at his most stolid, “and pursuant to our enquiries regarding the death of Judith Gray, widow of Albert Gray, of Cherry—”

“I know where the bloody woman lives! Lived.”

“‘Bloody'?” Alec repeated. “You disliked her?”

“I hardly knew her,” Cartwright said sullenly.

“Hardly?” asked Underwood.

“I suppose we may have spoken once or twice, at a dinner party or some such occasion.”

“It strikes me as a bit odd that you know her address if you'd only met once or twice, casually.”

“Someone must have mentioned it in my hearing. I have an excellent memory.”

“Good, good.” Underwood rubbed his hands together. “Nothing better than a witness with excellent memory, don't you agree, Chief Inspector? You'll have no difficulty, then, Mr. Cartwright, remembering whether you've ever been to Cherry Trees?”

“Nev—I … hm … Possibly.” From adamant to peevish in two and a half words. “In my position in the community, I and my wife receive many invitations. I can't be expected to remember everyone who's asked us over for drinks before dinner.”

“In spite of your excellent memory. Ah well, perhaps Mrs. Cartwright will be able to tell us.”

And now he was alarmed. “There's no need to bring my wife into this!”

“‘This'?”

“This … This nonsense. Insinuating that I was involved with Judith. With Mrs. Gray. Why would a smart, well-off young widow like that want anything to do with the likes of me? A penniless schoolmaster with no prospects and twenty years her elder … But she married a man thirty years her elder and more!” Now he was disgruntled.

“Judith?” Eyebrows raised, Underwood let the name hang in the air. The silence stretched for all of twenty seconds, that must have seemed an age to Cartwright.

He capitulated. “All right, I admit I called at Cherry Trees, just to offer neighbourly condolences. Mrs. Gray was very friendly, invited me in, offered a drink. She
asked
me to call her by her christian name.”

“She was friendly, so you called again.”

“Only once or twice.”

“Mrs. Gray was friendly still, perhaps a little flirtatious? The sort of manner more appropriate to her gay circle of London friends, perhaps.”

“She led me on.”

“You tried to kiss her. She rebuffed you. You quarrelled, and—”

“No! It's not true.”

“You didn't try to kiss her?”

“I—No, of course not. I'm a married man, with a position to uphold.”

“You weren't considering that,” said Alec, “when you made advances to the others.”

“W—” Cartwright moistened his lips. “What do you mean?”

With distaste, Underwood told him, “Three young women have affirmed that you attempted to fondle them against their will.”

“Liars! They're all the same.”

“Relying, no doubt, on your position to give you greater credibility than them. However, they're unknown to each other and they all tell the same story.”

The schoolmaster sank onto the tall stool behind his lectern desk. “How—how did…” His voice failed him.

“You must realise,” said Alec, “we can't ignore the possibility of your having behaved in the same way with the murder victim.”

“I didn't kill her.”

“We'd like you to come across to the station—”

“People will see! The rector—”

“The rector already knows about those three incidents.”

Cartwright buried his face in his hands.

*   *   *

“Here comes Vera,” said Isabel.

Vera scurried across the street, almost running. “Your umbrella caught my eye, Daisy.” She was very pale. “Oh, it's awful. Alec, and his sergeant and Inspector Underwood marched into the juniors' classroom. Are they going to arrest Mr. Cartwright?”