The Ely Testament (28 page)

Once the body was removed, Francis examined Chase's workshop with the help of several lamps. Then, with Constable Collis, he came back the next day and went over the scene again. After that he questioned Cyrus Chase about the access to the outbuilding. Chase said that there was only one key for the padlock, which he kept in his possession, but that he had reason to believe that lately someone might have made a copy. He rather thought one or two items had been disturbed inside the building. Why hadn't he changed the lock? asked the Inspector. He'd been intending to, was Cyrus' simple answer.

The possibility that Cyrus or Bella (or both) murdered Fort was one of the first that Francis considered. He talked to the servants in the Prickwillow Road house but nothing much came of it. The staff who tended on Mr and Mrs Chase were as affected by the murder as their mistress, and were busy either having the vapours or attending to those who were having them.

From Mattie, Inspector Francis learned that she had not seen Mr Chase during the afternoon until the Ansells arrived at around five o'clock. Cyrus was sitting in the drawing room and reading a periodical. Mattie said that she rather thought her employer might have been dozing when she knocked to announce the visitors. If this was the behaviour of a murderer, then it was astonishingly cool and calm behaviour. And Cyrus didn't strike Francis as especially cool and calm. Having discovered what Cyrus Chase did, he thought of the inventor merely as being a bit odd. Premature burial did not rank highly on the Inspector's list of worries. From Mrs Chase's personal maid, Francis discovered that Bella spent the afternoon in her room. She had gone there after he'd talked with her about the
first
murder, that of Charles Tomlinson, in order to establish her whereabouts on the Sunday afternoon (at Evensong etc.).

If the murderer of Eric Fort was not someone from within the Chase household then it must have been an outsider. No one had been seen, no suspicious figures lurking outside the house, no interlopers in the garden. Yet it had been a gloomy afternoon, with dusk beginning to come down. Though the trees were not thick with leaves any more they would still provide some cover for anyone determined to sneak on to the Chase property.

By the light of the following day, Francis, accompanied by Constable Collis, walked very carefully around the house and the garden. There were quite substantial gaps between the villa and the adjoining houses on both sides. One of them was fenced with a gate, though the gate was latched rather than locked. The other side was open but planted up with shrubbery. It was easy to gain access to the garden and to Chase's workshop by either route, without disturbing anyone inside. In fact a trespasser would only be seen by someone looking out of the window at the moment he happened to pass, and as there were only a few small windows to the sides, the chances of going undetected were high.

The whole thing was baffling. Francis was happy to admit to Collis that he was baffled. He had no false pride. He was even in the dark about why Eric Fort was planning to call on Cyrus Chase. The inventor of the security coffin informed him that he believed it was to do with a device which he was developing to reduce the risk of premature burial. Fort represented an important London firm interested in the device as a commercial prospect. Chase claimed not to know any more. In any case, Fort never got to him but was intercepted before arrival. Francis made a mental note to ask the Ansells whether they were aware of any more details concerning Fort's trip, since they had shared the train journey to Ely.

Otherwise, he was in the dark. Then he received another visitor. This one wished to talk not about the Fort murder but the Tomlinson one. He was a clergyman from St Ethelwine's in the village of Upper Fen. His name was George Eames. His first words, once the introductions were made and the niceties exchanged, were, ‘I have a confession to make, Inspector.'

Sleuth hounds

T
om and Helen Ansell returned to Cambridge on the evening following the discovery of the body of Eric Fort. It was the second time they had gone back to the Devereux Hotel and discussed a murder to whose aftermath they were witnesses. Another murder occurring in the same town and at around the same time of day and being investigated by the same Inspector. If it were not so grim, the situation might have been almost comic in its coincidences.

The Ansells had given some preliminary details to Inspector Francis – about their visit to the police-house, about finding Fort's body in the company of Cyrus Chase, and the likely timing of the murder – but had so far said nothing concerning John Jubb's tale of George Eames and the stuffed monkey. There had not been the opportunity, since the policeman was otherwise occupied.

Tom thought he ought to write again to David Mackenzie with the news that they would be detained in Cambridge for a while longer. Although Ernest Lye was free, he and Helen were likely to be required as material witnesses to this second killing. How should he phrase it? Mr Mackenzie might start to wonder why this stretch of the fen country was suddenly becoming so murderous. And why the Ansells, apparently by chance, were to be found on the scene of every serious crime. Tom and Helen were certainly wondering.

‘You've recovered?' Tom said to his wife.

They had managed to eat a little supper – appetites better than they were yesterday after Charles Tomlinson's death – and were now fortifying themselves with brandy. Helen said brandy was more effectual than smelling salts as a restorative. They were comfortably ensconced in armchairs on either side of a slumbering fire in the sitting room of their hotel suite.

‘Almost recovered. It's not the first time we've stumbled across a body, Tom. Not even the first time this week. I wouldn't say I am getting used to it but . . .'

‘If you wrote it in a story, it would scarcely be believed.'

‘Do not be so sure,' said Helen. ‘You can get away with a great deal of implausibility between hard covers.'

‘Anyway, we must go back to Ely tomorrow—'

‘Back again . . .'

‘Back again, to see that Inspector Francis, and this time tell him everything.'

‘You're making it sound as though we set out to conceal things.'

‘We haven't deliberately been concealing anything,' said Tom. ‘It's just that this business has grown so tangled. It's like . . . like the maze in Ely Cathedral.'

‘That is a labyrinth rather than a maze,' said Helen. ‘And the cathedral labyrinth was not tangled. The path may be tortuous but it is clear. You will reach the end if you do not deviate from the right course.'

‘Very well,' said Tom, who had been pleased with his maze analogy and was less pleased to be put right. ‘In that case, perhaps you'd like to conduct us to the end, Mrs Ansell.'

‘In the manner of an investigator?'

‘Do you think Mr Pinkerton in the United States employs female agents?'

‘If he doesn't, he should do,' said Helen. ‘They call them sleuth hounds over there.'

Both of them took more brandy. They felt light-headed, either because of the drink or what they had been through, or both.

‘Poor Fort,' said Helen. ‘I feel sorry for him.'

‘Why? He was following us around and making a nuisance of himself, sending silly cryptic messages.'

‘Nevertheless justice should be done. A solution ought to be found to both these murders.'

‘Then lead us to the solution then, Mrs Pinkerton.'

‘Taking Mr Tomlinson first,' said Helen, putting down her glass and tapping her elegant forefingers together. ‘By late this morning we already knew that there were at least two individuals who might have been his enemies. There is Mr Lye, whose wife had a – what did we call it? – a closeness with Mr Tomlinson.'

‘Yes. And suspicious circumstances meant that he was arrested on the evening of the murder. Even though he's been released, he is not necessarily out of the woods yet. And the second individual?'

‘Number two is someone we have not yet met,' said Helen. ‘The cleric from Upper Fen, George Eames, who was humiliated by Tomlinson all those years ago – the affair of the stuffed monkey, remember? – and who may have encountered Charles Tomlinson again and who, if he did encounter him, might have been driven to take a delayed revenge . . .'

‘May and might and if,' said Tom. ‘I don't think those little words would stand up in court. Not without evidence.'

‘Evidence like blood on a cuff?'

‘That and a bit more. Go on.'

‘By this afternoon we'd learned of two more people in the – what shall we call it? – the anti-Tomlinson party.'

‘Eric Fort was fearful of him, didn't like him.'

‘To put it mildly. When he heard of the murder, he said it was no more than Tomlinson deserved.'

‘He didn't seem surprised to hear the news either.'

‘As if he already knew about it – or had done it.'

‘Fort was on his way to see Cyrus Chase in Ely,' pursued Tom. ‘Mr Chase may have had an excuse to dislike Tomlinson if he'd stolen some idea of his connected to that security coffin.'

‘I thought we weren't allowing little words like “may” and “if”, Tom.'

‘I make an exception for myself.'

Helen ignored him and ticked off their suspects (Ernest Lye, George Eames, Eric Fort, Cyrus Chase) on her fingers before saying, ‘Of course, there are probably other individuals we don't know about with a reason to hate or fear Mr Tomlinson.'

‘I should think so. He seemed a person easy to dislike or be afraid of. Now you've disposed of Tomlinson and come up with a quartet of individuals with a motive for murder, and allowed for plenty of others we are ignorant of, what about Eric Fort? Who killed him?'

‘The cast of characters is more limited here, very limited indeed, since we only know of Mr Chase, who did not have the appearance of a murderer but was sitting somnolently in his drawing room and reading a magazine called
Funereal Matters
.'

‘Nor did he look much like an inventor, even an inventor of security coffins.'

‘We can be certain of one thing, Tom.'

‘Yes?'

‘It wasn't Charles Tomlinson who murdered Mr Fort.'

‘And vice-versa. Or probably vice-versa. Doesn't Fort's death exonerate him from any role in Tomlinson's death?'

‘Unless he was not the main actor but an accomplice in the business.'

Tom had not thought of this possibility.

‘Mr Fort didn't answer your question, did he?' said Helen. ‘You asked why Tomlinson paid him to follow us. He was going to tell us later. Why not tell us there and then, in the coffee-house?'

‘I don't know. Maybe he was frightened. He was about to say something and then he stopped himself.'

‘Why should he be frightened of revealing the truth? Tomlinson was already dead. There's another thing, Tom. If Mr Fort was really being paid to follow us around and the rest of it, then why would it have been Mr Tomlinson who set him on to do it? I never met the gentleman at all while he was alive and you saw him for, what, a few minutes at Phoenix House.'

‘He might have learned about us from Mrs Lye,' said Tom. ‘But I agree, there does not seem to be any good reason why Tomlinson should have bothered us or been bothered by us.'

‘Which means . . .'

Helen paused. Tom glanced at her where she sat opposite him, the dying fire casting a faint glow on her cheek. She was looking away. He thought he knew what she was about to say, but did not want to interrupt. Then she gazed straight at him.

‘What it means is that there's someone else. Someone else who has been after us all this time.'

George Eames' Confession

‘
I
have a confession to make, Inspector.'

With these words, George Eames announced the reason for his visit to the Ely police-house.

‘You have, sir?'

Stephen Francis stared hard at the cleric sitting on the far side of his desk. Eames was a slight man, with features that were firm, almost rigid. Francis received the impression of one who was closed off against the world, shut up inside a shell.

‘I am aware that an individual by the name of Charles Tomlinson was murdered here in Ely on Sunday afternoon. Furthermore, I know that a second person by the name of Fort suffered a similar fate yesterday.'

‘You were acquainted with Tomlinson and Fort, Mr Eames?'

‘I was. Tomlinson I knew many years ago. The other one – Fort – I met only recently.'

Francis waited. Whatever Eames wanted to say was costing him an effort. The Inspector just stopped himself from drumming his fingers on the ordered surface of his desk. He looked out of the small barred window at the sunlit rooftops on the other side of Lynn Road. Was the gentleman opposite him about to confess to a murder? Or even to a couple of murders? Francis doubted it.

‘I – I . . . this is difficult for me to say, Inspector, but I had cause to dislike and distrust Charles Tomlinson.'

‘So did others, it seems.'

‘My reasons for hating him were particularly strong.'

An odd rippling movement travelled across George Eames' features, as though in register of some deep internal struggle. Francis drew his notebook towards him, as much to give Eames a chance to collect himself as anything else. He'd noticed how the clergyman's professed dislike of the murdered man had rapidly changed to hatred. And he wondered why the cleric should want to claim some sort of first place among Tomlinson's enemies.

‘Tell me about those reasons if you would, sir,' he said, at the same time spreading his hands as if to say, we have the time, we have all day. He didn't really. The Inspector was due to see Dr Wallace, who was at this moment casting a professional eye over the corpse of Eric Fort. But Francis felt that Eames was the sort of person who could only be teased out of his shell, rather than bullied.