He brooded.
“You didn’t know Edie, did you? My wife. No, of course you didn’t. She was quite different from all this lot. Younger, for one thing. She was in the W.A.A.F. She always said her old man was crackers. He is, you know. Mean as hell over money. And it’s not as though he could take it with him. It’s got to be divided up when he dies. Edie’s share will go to Alexander, of course. He won’t be able to touch the capital until he’s twenty-one, though.”
“I’m sorry, but will you get off the table again? I want to dish up and make gravy.”
At that moment Alexander and Stoddart-West arrived with rosy faces and very much out of breath.
“Hallo, Bryan,” said Alexander kindly to his father. “So this is where you’ve got to. I say, what a smashing piece of beef. Is there Yorkshire pudding?”
“Yes, there is.”
“We have awful Yorkshire pudding at school—all damp and limp.”
“Get out of my way,” said Lucy. “I want to make the gravy.”
“Make lots of gravy. Can we have two sauce-boats full?”
“Yes.”
“Good-oh!” said Stoddart-West, pronouncing the word carefully.
“I don’t like it pale,” said Alexander anxiously.
“It won’t be pale.”
“She’s a smashing cook,” said Alexander to his father.
Lucy had a momentary impression that their roles were reversed. Alexander spoke like a kindly father to his son.
“Can we help you, Miss Eyelesbarrow?” asked Stoddart-West politely.
“Yes, you can. Alexander, go and sound the gong. James, will you carry this tray into the dining room? And will you take the joint in, Mr. Eastley? I’ll bring the potatoes and the Yorkshire pudding.”
“There’s a Scotland Yard man here,” said Alexander. “Do you think he will have lunch with us?”
“That depends on what your aunt arranged.”
“I don’t suppose Aunt Emma would mind… She’s very hospitable. But I suppose Uncle Harold wouldn’t like it. He’s being very sticky over this murder.” Alexander went out through the door with the tray, adding a little additional information over his shoulder. “Mr. Wimborne’s in the library with the Scotland Yard man now. But he isn’t staying to lunch. He said he had to get back to London. Come on, Stodders. Oh, he’s gone to do the gong.”
At that moment the gong took charge. Stoddart-West was an artist. He gave it everything he had, and all further conversation was inhibited.
Bryan carried in the joint, Lucy followed with vegetables—returning to the kitchen to get the two brimming sauce-boats of gravy.
Mr. Wimborne was standing in the hall putting on his gloves as Emma came quickly down the stairs.
“Are you really sure you won’t stop for lunch, Mr. Wimborne? It’s all ready.”
“No, I’ve an important appointment in London. There is a restaurant car on the train.”
“It was very good of you to come down,” said Emma gratefully.
The two police officers emerged from the library.
Mr. Wimborne took Emma’s hand in his.
“There’s nothing to worry about, my dear,” he said. “This is Detective-Inspector Craddock from New Scotland Yard who has come to take charge of the case. He is coming back at two-fifteen to ask you for any facts that may assist him in his inquiry. But, as I say, you have nothing to worry about.” He looked towards Craddock. “I may repeat to Miss Crackenthorpe what you have told me?”
“Certainly, sir.”
“Inspector Craddock has just told me that this almost certainly was not a local crime. The murdered woman is thought to have come from London and was probably a foreigner.”
Emma Crackenthorpe said sharply:
“A foreigner. Was she French?”
Mr. Wimborne had clearly meant his statement to be consoling. He looked slightly taken aback. Dermot Craddock’s glance went quickly from him to Emma’s face.
He wondered why she had leaped to the conclusion that the murdered woman was French, and why that thought disturbed her so much?
Nine
I
The only people who really did justice to Lucy’s excellent lunch were the two boys and Cedric Crackenthorpe who appeared completely unaffected by the circumstances which had caused him to return to England. He seemed, indeed, to regard the whole thing as a rather good joke of a macabre nature.
This attitude, Lucy noted, was most unpalatable to his brother Harold. Harold seemed to take the murder as a kind of personal insult to the Crackenthorpe family and so great was his sense of outrage that he ate hardly any lunch. Emma looked worried and unhappy and also ate very little. Alfred seemed lost in a train of thought of his own and spoke very little. He was quite a good-looking man with a thin dark face and eyes set rather too close together.
After lunch the police officers returned and politely asked if they could have a few words with Mr. Cedric Crackenthorpe.
Inspector Craddock was very pleasant and friendly.
“Sit down, Mr. Crackenthorpe. I understand you have just come back from the Balearics? You live out there?”
“Have done for the past six years. In Ibiza. Suits me better than this dreary country.”
“You get a good deal more sunshine than we do, I expect,” said Inspector Craddock agreeably. “You were home not so very long ago, I understand—for Christmas, to be exact. What made it necessary for you to come back again so soon?”
Cedric grinned.
“Got a wire from Emma—my sister. We’ve never had a murder on the premises before. Didn’t want to miss anything—so along I came.”
“You are interested in criminology?”
“Oh, we needn’t put it in such highbrow terms! I just like murders—Whodunnits and all that! With a Whodunnit parked right on the family doorstep, it seemed the chance of a lifetime. Besides, I thought poor Em might need a spot of help—managing the old man and the police and all the rest of it.”
“I see. It appealed to your sporting instincts and also to your family feelings. I’ve no doubt your sister will be very grateful to you—although her two other brothers have also come to be with her.”
“But not to cheer and comfort,” Cedric told him. “Harold is terrifically put out. It’s not at all the thing for a City magnate to be mixed up with the murder of a questionable female.”
Craddock’s eyebrows rose gently.
“Was she—a questionable female?”
“Well, you’re the authority on that point. Going by the facts, it seemed to me likely.”
“I thought perhaps you might have been able to make a guess at who she was?”
“Come now, Inspector, you already know—or your colleagues will tell you, that I haven’t been able to identify her.”
“I said a guess, Mr. Crackenthorpe. You might never have seen the woman before—but you might have been able to make a guess at who she was—or who she might have been?”
Cedric shook his head.
“You’re barking up the wrong tree. I’ve absolutely no idea. You’re suggesting, I suppose, that she may have come to the Long Barn to keep an assignation with one of us? But we none of us live here. The only people in the house were a woman and an old man. You don’t seriously believe that she came here to keep a date with my revered Pop?”
“Our point is—Inspector Bacon agrees with me—that the woman may once have had some association with this house. It may have been a considerable number of years ago. Cast your mind back, Mr. Crackenthorpe.”
Cedric thought a moment or two, then shook his head.
“We’ve had foreign help from time to time, like most people, but I can’t think of any likely possibility. Better ask the others—they’d know more than I would.”
“We shall do that, of course.”
Craddock leaned back in his chair and went on:
“As you have heard at the inquest, the medical evidence cannot fix the time of death very accurately. Longer than two
weeks, less than four—which brings it somewhere around Christmas-time. You have told me you came home for Christmas. When did you arrive in England and when did you leave?”
Cedric reflected.
“Let me see… I flew. Got here on the Saturday before Christmas—that would be the 21st.”
“You flew straight from Majorca?”
“Yes. Left at five in the morning and got here midday.”
“And you left?”
“I flew back on the following Friday, the 27th.”
“Thank you.”
Cedric grinned.
“Leaves me well within the limit, unfortunately. But really, Inspector, strangling young women is not my favourite form of Christmas fun.”
“I hope not, Mr. Crackenthorpe.”
Inspector Bacon merely looked disapproving.
“There would be a remarkable absence of peace and good will about such an action, don’t you agree?”
Cedric addressed this question to Inspector Bacon who merely grunted. Inspector Craddock said politely:
“Well, thank you, Mr. Crackenthorpe. That will be all.”
“And what do you think of him?” Craddock asked as Cedric shut the door behind him.
Bacon grunted again.
“Cocky enough for anything,” he said. “I don’t care for the type myself. A loose-living lot, these artists, and very likely to be mixed up with a disreputable class of woman.”
Craddock smiled.
“I don’t like the way he dresses, either,” went on Bacon. “No respect—going to an inquest like that. Dirtiest pair of trousers I’ve seen in a long while. And did you see his tie? Looked as though it was made of coloured string. If you ask me, he’s the kind that would easily strangle a woman and make no bones about it.”
“Well, he didn’t strangle this one—if he didn’t leave Majorca until the 21st. And that’s a thing we can verify easily enough.”
Bacon threw him a sharp glance.
“I notice that you’re not tipping your hand yet about the actual date of the crime.”
“No, we’ll keep that dark for the present. I always like to have something up my sleeve in the early stages.”
Bacon nodded in full agreement.
“Spring it on ’em when the time comes,” he said. “That’s the best plan.”
“And now,” said Craddock, “we’ll see what our correct City gentleman has to say about it all.”
Harold Crackenthorpe, thin-lipped, had very little to say about it. It was most distasteful—a very unfortunate incident. The newspapers, he was afraid… Reporters, he understood, had already been asking for interviews… All that sort of thing… Most regrettable….
Harold’s staccato unfinished sentences ended. He leaned back in his chair with the expression of a man confronted with a very bad smell.
The inspector’s probing produced no result. No, he had no idea who the woman was or could be. Yes, he had been at Rutherford Hall for Christmas. He had been unable to come down until Christmas Eve—but had stayed on over the following weekend.
“That’s that, then,” said Inspector Craddock, without pressing his questions further. He had already made up his mind that Harold Crackenthorpe was not going to be helpful.
He passed on to Alfred, who came into the room with a nonchalance that seemed just a trifle overdone.
Craddock looked at Alfred Crackenthorpe with a faint feeling of recognition. Surely he had seen this particular member of the family somewhere before? Or had it been his picture in the paper? There was something discreditable attached to the memory. He asked Alfred his occupation and Alfred’s answer was vague.
“I’m in insurance at the moment. Until recently I’ve been interested in putting a new type of talking machine on the market. Quite revolutionary. I did very well out of that as a matter of fact.”
Inspector Craddock looked appreciative—and no one could have had the least idea that he was noticing the superficially smart appearance of Alfred’s suit and gauging correctly the low price it had cost. Cedric’s clothes had been disreputable, almost threadbare, but they had been originally of good cut and excellent material. Here there was a cheap smartness that told its own tale. Craddock passed pleasantly on to his routine questions. Alfred seemed interested—even slightly amused.
“It’s quite an idea, that the woman might once have had a job here. Not as a lady’s maid; I doubt if my sister has ever had such a thing. I don’t think anyone has nowadays. But, of course, there is a good deal of foreign domestic labour floating about. We’ve had Poles—and a temperamental German or two. As Emma definitely didn’t recognize the woman, I think that washes your idea out, Inspector, Emma’s got a very good memory for a face. No, if the woman came from London… What gives you the idea she came from London, by the way?”
He slipped the question in quite casually, but his eyes were sharp and interested.
Inspector Craddock smiled and shook his head.
Alfred looked at him keenly.
“Not telling, eh? Return ticket in her coat pocket, perhaps, is that it?”
“It could be, Mr. Crackenthorpe.”
“Well, granting she came from London, perhaps the chap she came to meet had the idea that the Long Barn would be a nice place to do a quiet murder. He knows the setup here, evidently. I should go looking for him if I were you, Inspector.”
“We are,” said Inspector Craddock, and made the two little words sound quiet and confident.
He thanked Alfred and dismissed him.
“You know,” he said to Bacon, “I’ve seen that chap somewhere before….”
Inspector Bacon gave his verdict.
“Sharp customer,” he said. “So sharp that he cuts himself sometimes.”
II
“I don’t suppose you want to see me,” said Bryan Eastley apologetically, coming into the room and hesitating by the door. “I don’t exactly belong to the family—”
“Let me see, you are Mr. Bryan Eastley, the husband of Miss Edith Crackenthorpe, who died five years ago?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, it’s very kind of you, Mr. Eastley, especially if you know something that you think could assist us in some way?”
“But I don’t. Wish I did. Whole thing seems so ruddy peculiar, doesn’t it? Coming along and meeting some fellow in that draughty old barn, in the middle of winter. Wouldn’t be my cup of tea!”
“It is certainly very perplexing,” Inspector Craddock agreed.
“Is it true that she was a foreigner? Word seems to have got round to that effect.”
“Does that fact suggest anything to you?” The inspector looked at him sharply, but Bryan seemed amiably vacuous.
“No, it doesn’t, as a matter of fact.”
“Maybe she was French,” said Inspector Bacon, with dark suspicion.
Bryan was roused to slight animation. A look of interest came into his blue eyes, and he tugged at his big fair moustache.
“Really? Gay Paree?” He shook his head. “On the whole it seems to make it even more unlikely, doesn’t it? Messing about in the barn, I mean. You haven’t had any other sarcophagus murders, have you? One of these fellows with an urge—or a complex? Thinks he’s Caligula or someone like that?”
Inspector Craddock did not even trouble to reject this speculation. Instead he asked in a casual manner:
“Nobody in the family got any French connections, or—or—relationships that you know of?”
Bryan said that the Crackenthorpes weren’t a very gay lot.
“Harold’s respectably married,” he said. “Fish-faced woman, some impoverished peer’s daughter. Don’t think Alfred cares about women much—spends his life going in for shady deals which usually go wrong in the end. I dare say Cedric’s got a few Spanish señoritas jumping through hoops for him in Ibiza. Women rather fall for Cedric. Doesn’t always shave and looks as though he never washes. Don’t see why that should be attractive to women, but apparently it is—I say, I’m n
ot being very helpful, am I?”
He grinned at them.
“Better get young Alexander on the job. He and James Stoddart- West are out hunting for clues in a big way. Bet you they turn up something.”
Inspector Craddock said he hoped they would. Then he thanked Bryan Eastley and said he would like to speak to Miss Emma Crackenthorpe.
III
Inspector Craddock looked with more attention at Emma Crackenthorpe than he had done previously. He was still wondering about the expression that he had surprised on her face before lunch.
A quiet woman. Not stupid. Not brilliant either. One of those comfortable pleasant women whom men were inclined to take for granted, and who had the art of making a house into a home, giving it an atmosphere of restfulness and quiet harmony. Such, he thought, was Emma Crackenthorpe.
Women such as this were often underrated. Behind their quiet exterior they had force of character, they were to be reckoned with. Perhaps, Craddock thought, the clue to the mystery of the dead woman in the sarcophagus was hidden away in the recesses of Emma’s mind.
Whilst these thoughts were passing through his head, Craddock was asking various unimportant questions.
“I don’t suppose there is much that you haven’t already told Inspector Bacon,” he said. “So I needn’t worry you with many questions.”
“Please ask me anything you like.”
“As Mr. Wimborne told you, we have reached the conclusion that the dead woman was not a native of these parts. That may be a relief to you—Mr. Wimborne seemed to think it would be—but it makes it really more difficult for us. She’s less easily identified.”
“But didn’t she have anything—a handbag? Papers?”
Craddock shook his head.
“No handbag, nothing in her pockets.”
“You’ve no idea of her name—of where she came from—anything at all?”
Craddock thought to himself: She wants to know—she’s very anxious to know—who the woman is. Has she felt like that all along, I wonder? Bacon didn’t give me that impression—and he’s a shrewd man….