The Blackwoods Farm Enquiry (An Ivy Beasley Mystery) (18 page)

AT ROY’S INSISTENCE,
he and Ivy decided on Sunday being a day of rest. It was also a good opportunity for Ivy to do some serious reading of her course work. She was not usually one for spending hours with a book, preferring to be on her feet doing something practical. Long years of her mother asking her what she thought she was doing sitting about had engrained the habit.

Now, at the beginning of a new week, she was pleased to see a bright sun shining through her curtains. “Fine before seven, rain before eleven,” she said, adjusting the old saying to suit herself, and then remembered she had two walks to make today. Up to the Manor House College, meeting Rickwood for a peep into the dark chamber—if he had found the key—and then across the field behind Blackwoods Farm with the other students, and to discuss what they had seen. She planned to walk back to Springfields for tea. She sat up in bed, and then lowered her legs to the floor. She pulled up her nightdress and examined her calves and feet. Not too many knotty veins, and her ankles, her best feature, were as slender and trim as ever. So were they up to tramping across fields?

“Of course they are,” she said. She stood up and walked round the room. All muscles working well. She must select a good pair of walking boots, and nice thick stockings.

A tap at the door heralded Katya with morning tea. “Up already, Miss Beasley?” she said.

Ivy returned as athletically as possible into bed and said she was looking forward to early-morning biscuits and a cuppa. She had been searching for a pair of woollen stockings, she said. “I have quite a lot of walking to do today, and my feet will need support!”

“The forecast is for rain this afternoon, so don’t forget to take a brolly. And your mobile phone, so that we can come and get you if you’re miles from home.”

“Oh, I shall be only as far away as the college.”

“Morning, Ivy!” said a voice from the landing. Roy stood there grinning at her, and looking rather handsome in his paisley dressing gown and velvet slippers, his silvery hair pleasantly tousled. “Nice legs, if you don’t mind my saying so, Miss Beasley,” he added.

“Roy! How long have you been standing there?” Ivy quickly pulled the covers over her lower half.

“Long enough, my love. Morning, Katya. I shall leave you two ladies to your machinations, and see you at breakfast very shortly.”

• • •

“PERHAPS YOU SHOULD
call your Mr. Smith and see if he’s found the key,” said Roy, greeting Ivy from the breakfast table. “If not, we won’t waste any more time with it. You won’t want to miss the field walk with the other students. We could perhaps meet the agent at lunchtime at Blackwoods, and then you could be in time for the walk. Or will that be too much for you? Do you know, it’s at times like this that we could do with another seat on the trundle.”

“I shall be fine,” said Ivy, silently agreeing with him about the spare seat. “I’ll give him a ring straight away.”

“Lovely morning, Roy!” said a voice behind them as they set off to meet the agent. They turned to see Gus and Whippy standing in the road.

“Hello, old chap! Safely back home, I’m glad to see. Sorry you couldn’t make tea yesterday! And Whippy, too. Good dog, pleased to see her master!”

“I’m taking her for a long walk, Roy, and thought I’d have a look, from the outside, of course, at Ivy’s college in daylight. I haven’t seen it since it was all finished, up and running, apart from under Rubens’s burglarproof spotlight the night we found Whippy.”

“We’re meeting the estate agent, and hope he has found the key to the dark chamber. Eleanor’s nephew, Rickwood Smith, claims it is a broom cupboard and not important. I think we know otherwise. Do you fancy joining us?”

“Does he think you might buy? I really had no idea that Rickwood Smith was in a position to be selling it. Is he now the rightful owner?”

“Not sure. He seems to be acting in lieu of, if you know what I mean.”

“So we still don’t know who owns it now? It really would make a difference to our enquiries. If inheritance was the motive for her murder, and it proved to have been murder, then our Mr. Rickwood Smith is not looking good.”

“I agree,” said Roy. “Perhaps Deirdre could help there? She is well in with Inspector Frobisher, and could wheedle some information from him. Could you ask her, Gus? That is definitely what we have to find out.”

“Yes, indeed. I know absolutely from personal experience that the dark chamber is a small bedroom, recently occupied, and with a fire escape outside. We can point out that it would be very unusual to have a fire escape going down from a broom cupboard.”

“Ivy and I had coffee Saturday in Oakbridge, Gus, and happened to have a waitress who had known the village, and remembered Eleanor Winchen Blatch. Also remembered that Eleanor had once gone into the café on her own, looking like a tramp, and had argued about the bill, and refused to put out her cigar!”

Whippy, losing patience, started to pull on her lead, whimpering. “Right, dog, off we go.”

• • •

AS GUS WALKED
up the road towards the college, he thought he might have a quick preliminary look at the Ferguson tractor. He was as keen as Roy to rescue it, but when he approached the barn, he saw that the bar was down and padlocked.

He turned around for a last look at the field, and by then it was empty all but for the lame ewe munching sheep nuts from an old bucket that Gus could have sworn was not there when he first walked into the yard. More evidence of Mr. Smith as owner?

IVY HAD ALREADY
told the college she would not be in on Monday mornings, but she would be there for the afternoon walk, she had said, and added that she hoped everyone would enjoy it. Rickwood the tutor had mapped out the morning’s work, which was to consider how well students looked around them, noting down what they saw.

By the time Ivy, Roy and Gus arrived outside Blackwoods Farm, the agent was waiting for them.

“Good day, sir,” said Gus. “I see you’ve brought your brolly. The weather’s a bit uncertain today.”

Roy smiled. He could see that Ivy was impatient to get on and into the farmhouse, so he said nothing. Rickwood took charge, and after one or two more pleasantries, they walked into the yard and up to the back door, which he opened with a flourish.

“Here we are again, then,” he said.

“I am assuming,” said Ivy, following into the kitchen, “that you have the key to the little chamber? Otherwise, I know you were going to cancel this meeting.”

Rickwood looked uncomfortable, and pulled a large bunch of keys out of his pocket. “I am reliably informed,” he said, “that the key to the broom cupboard is among this lot. I’m afraid I haven’t had a moment to check, but I am sure we shall find it.”

Gus raised his eyebrows. “I do hope so,” he said. “You wouldn’t have wanted to waste three people’s time, I am sure.”

“Perhaps you would like to have another quick look at the rest of the house, before we open the cupboard?”

“No, thanks,” said Ivy. “Straight upstairs, if you please.”

They trailed up the stairs and stopped outside the dark chamber. Rickwood fumbled amongst his keys, until Ivy got cross and said he clearly had no intention of finding the key.

“Shall I have a go?” said Gus, and Rickwood handed over the keys. In very little time, the key was found and put smoothly into the lock. Then Gus pushed the door. It remained shut, and he pushed again, this time with knee and shoulder. It remained shut.

“Let me try,” said Rickwood, but he, too, had no luck.

“Bolted inside the door,” said Ivy. “We’ll have to force it.”

“I think not, Miss Beasley,” Rickwood objected. “There is a fire escape leading to it, and I am prepared to go up and see what I can find. If it is only a walk-in cupboard full of sheets and pillowcases, as I think, I hope that you will be happy with leaving the bolted door until I can arrange for professional help.”

Gus cleared his throat. “Mr., er, Smith,” he began. “I myself, in my right mind, and in broad daylight, have seen the interior of this room, accessed by this door, and the exterior fire escape, locked top and bottom. I suggest you believe me, and arrange for someone to show the interior to Miss Beasley and Mr. Goodman as soon as possible.”

While the others were walking back along the landing and downstairs, Ivy bent down with her eye to the keyhole. Nobody there, then. She continued to look for a few seconds, but there was no movement detectable inside the chamber, and she followed the others downstairs and out into the yard.

• • •

RICKWOOD SMITH SAID
an edgy good-bye to Roy and shook hands with Gus, and said he would be in touch as soon as he had freed the door into the broom cupboard. He called the college office and reported that he and Miss Beasley would be returning straight away for the field expedition.

Ivy said good-bye to Gus and Roy, and walked away to join the students gathering outside the college. The sun was again struggling through the clouds, and it looked promising for what Rickwood the tutor insisted on calling their “Awareness Experience.”

SOME TIME WAS
spent, once all the stragglers had been accounted for, going from one empty stable to another. The big barn was still locked, Ivy noticed, so Gus’s tractor was safe from marauding vintage Ferguson fanciers. She had decided to hang back, in order to encourage the students to be first through the gate and into virgin territory.

“Hey, look at this!” shouted one of the girls, emerging from a small loose box with a pail full of—what? Ivy had an idea, but one of the lads walked over to the girl. “Sheep nuts, you dope! Everybody knows that!”

There was a chorus of contradiction, some saying that of course not
everybody
, and some pronounced the contents of the bucket as chicken corn, all squashed into pellets and containing every vitamin that a hen could possibly need to lay an egg a day.

Then, having exhausted that amazing discovery, another girl was exclaiming at the sight of a lame sheep approaching from the other side of the gate.

“It’s heard you rattling the bucket,” said the boy who knew all about farming. “Best give it a few pellets on the ground. It may have been fed this morning already.”

“Do you think it’s laid an egg?” said one joker. The little group moved through the gate and into the field, and Ivy followed. She had made a small note. “Sheep well fed. Who is feeding it?”

The sheep was not stupid. It singled out the girl who had held the bucket and butted her back. She screamed, giving a predatory male the excuse to hug her close.

“Oh, for God’s sake!” said the knowledgeable student, “It’s only a sheep! And a lame one at that!”

The students were now walking in single file across the field, keeping to the muddy path that led straight to the spinney. Rickwood had lingered behind with Ivy and Samantha, saying he wanted the students to have a completely new confrontation with what the field could offer.

Ivy resisted the temptation to say that it was only a field, wasn’t it? Both she and Rickwood were rewarded with a sudden yell from one of the lads. “Hey! Look at this!”

He was holding up high what looked like a dark-coloured rag, and Ivy and Rickwood hurried to look. By the time they caught up, one of the girls had turned away in tears, and a hush had fallen over the rest. “It’s a dead cat, I think,” said Samantha, bolder than the rest.

Ivy marched forward and looked closer. “It’s a hot water bottle cover, you sillies,” and took it firmly away from the girl. “Probably dropped by a child. I’ll take it back and wash it out. Then we can put it in the shop, in case anyone claims it.”

“Very reassuring, Miss Beasley,” said Rickwood under his breath. “Why don’t we put it under the hedge and collect it later. Now, shall we move on?”

All were busily noting down the discovery of a hot water bottle cover in their notebooks. Ivy did the same, and added, “Nicely made cover. Finders keepers?”

They were now two thirds of the way across the field, and the pace quickened. As they reached the spinney, one of the girls announced her intention of going back the long way round, by road.

“I’d feel safer, Rickwood, with houses and cars and people to look at. I don’t mind going off on my own, and I’ll make lots of notes.”

“Sorry, can’t allow that,” said Rickwood. “Rules, rules. We all have to stick together. We’ll go to the other side of the spinney and then turn round.”

“But it’s starting to rain, so please can we all go back round the road? We can walk faster, and it will be just as interesting. More interesting than a stupid sheep and a hot water bottle cover, in fact,” said the girl.

“I have seen you all taking copious notes, so I am sure our expedition will have been profitable. And we’re more than halfway through. So come on, adventurers, storm the spinney and then we’ll turn back.”

The thought of being more than halfway round seemed to buck up the group, and they set off through the trees at a good pace, Ivy and Rickwood bringing up the rear. The rain was not so heavy under the leafy trees, but as they emerged into the field, the wind was now driving it, almost sleet, horizontally across.

“Can we shelter in Rickwood’s old henhouse over there? Or we can go back to my house?” shouted Samantha.

“I have a key to the henhouse, so we could shelter in there,” said Rickwood, “but from the look of the sky, the rain has set in for the rest of the day. Shall we take a vote? Everyone has rainwear, and we can dry out when we get back to college.”

“But I think Miss Beasley should go back to my house,” persisted Samantha. “My mother’s at home, and would be only too pleased to see her.”

Ivy smiled, and took the girl’s arm. “Very sweet of you, my dear,” she said, “but we’ll share my umbrella and be perfectly all right. Come on now, everybody, best feet forward!”

Eventually, damp and grumbling, the group began to walk the muddy path, even muddier now, back towards the farmhouse. Suddenly the leader stopped. “Hey, everybody!” he shouted. “First to notice something different gets a free pint in the pub tonight!”

All dutifully looked round the rain-swept field, shaking their heads. But Ivy smiled. She knew exactly what was different. The hot water bottle cover which had been put under a hedge had disappeared into her large brown bag.

• • •

BACK IN COLLEGE,
dried out against radiators, the group once more assembled in the tutorial room. A watery sun had emerged, cheering up the assembled group.

“Coffee all round?” said Rickwood. “And tea for Miss Beasley. And then, while memories are still fresh and notes decipherable, we will reveal what we have seen.”

This was more productive than Rickwood had hoped, and as each read out their notes and elaborated on them, he was delighted with the range of what had been spotted by a group of chiefly urban youngsters. Ivy, too, was pleased that in spite of the mud and rain, it had been a successful expedition.

There was one left to present her notes, apart from Ivy, of course, and that was Samantha. “It was a familiar route for me,” she said. “But strangely enough, looking at the field through the eyes of the others, I noted several previously unnoticed things. The hot water bottle cover I mistook for a dead cat, of course, and that was not there when I came to college this morning. I am sure of that. But when we were trying to get into the henhouse, I noticed footmarks. It was really muddy where we had been walking round, and most of the marks had been sludged together. But round the back, off to one corner, I noticed prints heading off in the opposite direction towards the corner of the spinney. Did anyone go out that way?”

All the rest claimed they had followed the route they had already taken. Rickwood said he had counted them all as they set off to return, and none had been missing. “Very well spotted, Samantha,” he said. “Whose prints do you think they are?”

Samantha smiled at him. “Yours,” she said. “I’ve been watching you, sir.”

“Indeed,” said Ivy approvingly, and making another note in her own little book. “Perhaps we can investigate further,” she added.

“Another day?” said one of the girls anxiously. “And in our own time? And when it stops raining?”

• • •

ROY WAS EXTREMELY
glad to see the college vehicle draw up outside Springfields, and Ivy nimbly alighting. He limped over to greet her in reception, asking her tenderly about the heavy rain, and had it all been too much for her?

“Quite the contrary,” she said. “It was most revealing. There was grumbling, of course, but we all arrived back in college in one piece. Even Rickwood Smith was impressed with the success. It was most amusing at times to hear the students’ notes, and as always, one clever-clogs had clearly made it all up.”

“Like what?” asked Roy. He saw from Ivy’s pink cheeks and shining eyes that she had had a great time.

“He noted a half-hidden unexploded wartime bomb over by an oak tree, and also a gap in the hedge where he had seen an enormous bull looking through, and so on.”

Roy laughed. “Let’s hope he
was
making it up, then. Perhaps we should avoid the field path in future.”

“Oh yes, and then there was a real dead body halfway across the field.”

“Don’t be silly, Ivy! Come on, tea awaits. Who was it, anyway?”

“It wasn’t a who. It was a cat. At least that’s what the students thought. I thought for one awful moment it was Tiddles, my very own Tiddles! But it wasn’t. It was a furry hot water bottle cover. We put it under a hedge to deal with on our return. But it had gone!”

“Probably the fox came back for it,” said farmer Roy. “Come along now. Anya has made us lemon tarts for tea.”