Cover Her Face (21 page)

Mrs. Piggott was reputed to take some trouble with her soups. This was true in so far as the packaged ingredients had been sufficiently well mixed to exclude lumps. She had even experimented with flavours and today’s mixture of tomato (orange) and oxtail (reddish brown), thick enough to support the spoon unaided, was as startling to the palate as to the eye. Soup had been followed by a couple of mutton chops nestling artistically against a mound of potato and flanked with tinned peas larger and shinier than any peas which had ever seen pod. They tasted of soya flour. A green dye which bore little resemblance to the colour of any known vegetable seeped from them and mingled disagreeably with the gravy. An apple and black currant pie had followed in which neither of the fruits had met each other nor the pastry until they had been arranged on the plate by Mrs. Piggott’s careful hand and liberally blanketed with synthetic custard.

Martin wrenched his mind from a contemplation of these culinary horrors and fixed it on the matter in hand.

“It’s curious, sir, that Dr. Maxie should have fetched Mr. Hearne to help with the ladder. It’s one that a strong man can manage on his own. The quickest way to the old stable block would have been down the back stairs. Instead of that, Maxie goes to find Hearne. It looks as if he wanted a witness to the finding of the body.”

“That’s possible, of course. Even if he didn’t kill the girl he may have wanted a witness to whatever was to be found in that room. Besides that, he was in pyjamas and dressing-gown. Hardly the most convenient garb for climbing up ladders and through windows.”

“Sam Bocock confirmed Dr. Maxie’s story to some extent. Not that it means much until the time of death is established. Still, it does prove he was telling the truth on one point.”

“Sam Bocock would confirm anything the Maxies said. That man would be a gift to the defending counsel. Apart from his natural gift for saying little while creating an impression of absolute and incorruptible veracity he honestly believes that the Maxies are innocent. You heard him. ‘They’re good people up at the house.’ A simple statement of truth. He would maintain it against the evidence of God Almighty at the Judgment Seat itself. The Old Bailey isn’t likely to frighten him.”

“I thought him an honest witness, sir.”

“Of course you did, Martin. I would have liked him better if he hadn’t looked at me with that curious expression, half amused, half pitying, which I’ve noticed before on the faces of old country people. You’re a countryman yourself. No doubt you can explain it.”

No doubt Martin could, but his was a nature in which discretion had long taken precedence over valour.

“He seemed a very musical old gentleman. That was a fine record-player he had. It looked funny seeing a hi-fi instrument in a cottage like that.”

The player, with its surrounding racks of long-play records, had indeed struck an incongruous note in the cottage sitting-room where almost every other article was a legacy from the past. Bocock evidently shared the normal countryman’s respect for fresh air. The two small windows were shut; showed, indeed, no signs of ever having been opened. The wallpaper bore the entwined and faded roses of another era. Hung in erratic profusion were the trophies and mementoes of the First World War, a posse of mounted cavalrymen, a small glass frame of medals, a luridly coloured reproduction of
King George V and his Queen. There were the family photographs, relations whom no casual observer could hope to identify. Was the serious bewhiskered young man with his Edwardian bride Bocock’s father or grandfather? Could he really have a personal memory of a family loyalty for these sepia groups of bowler-hatted countrymen in their Sunday best with their solid-bosomed wives and daughters? Above the mantelpiece were the newer photographs. Stephen Maxie, proud on his first shaggy pony with an unmistakable but younger Bocock by his side. A pigtailed Deborah Maxie bending from the saddle to receive her rosette. For all its conglomeration of old and new, the room bore evidence of an old soldier’s disciplined care of his personal chattels.

Bocock had welcomed them in with an easy dignity. He had been having his tea. Although he lived alone he had the woman’s habit of putting everything edible on the table at once, presumably to provide for any sudden whim of taste. There had been a loaf of crusty bread, a pot of jam supporting its spoon, an ornate glass jar of sliced beetroot and one of spring onions, and a cucumber stuck precariously in a small jug. In the middle of the table a bowl of lettuce disputed with a large and obviously home-baked cake for pride of place. Dalgliesh had recalled that Bocock’s daughter was married to a farmer in Nessingford and kept an eye on her father. The cake was probably a recent offering of filial duty. In addition to this bounty there was evidence by sight and smell that Bocock had just finished a meal of fried fish and chipped potatoes.

Dalgliesh and Martin were ensconced in the heavy armchairs which flanked the fireplace—even on that warm July day there was a small fire burning, its faint incandescent flame hardly visible in a shaft of sunlight from the western window, and were offered a cup of tea. This done, Bocock
obviously felt that the obligations of hospitality had been met and that it was the duty of his guests to announce their business. He carried on with his tea, snapping off pieces of bread with lean brown hands and casting them absent-mindedly into his mouth where they were chewed and turned in silent concentration. He volunteered no remarks of his own, answered Dalgliesh’s questions with a deliberation which gave the impression of lack of interest rather than any unwillingness to co-operate and he regarded both policemen with that frank amused appraisal which Dalgliesh, his thighs prickled by the horsehair and his face sweating with the heat, found a little disconcerting and more than a little irritating.

The slow catechism had produced nothing new, nothing unexpected. Stephen Maxie had been at the cottage the previous evening. He had arrived during the nine o’clock news. Bocock couldn’t say when he had left. It had been latish. Mr. Stephen would know. Very late? “Aye. After eleven. Maybe later. Maybe a goodish bit later.” Dalgliesh remarked dryly that no doubt Mr. Bocock would remember more precisely when he had had time to think about it. Bocock admitted the force of this possibility. What had they talked about? “Listened to Beethoven mostly. Mr. Stephen wasn’t much of a one for talking.” Bocock spoke as if deploring his own volubility and the distressing garrulity of the world at large and of policemen in particular. Nothing else emerged.

He had not noticed Sally at the fête except during the latish part of the afternoon when she gave the baby a ride in her arms on one of the horses, and about six o’clock when one of the Sunday school children’s balloon had got caught in an elm and Mr. Stephen had fetched the ladder to get it down. Sally had been with him then with her child in the pram. Bocock remembered her holding the foot of the ladder. Apart from that
he hadn’t noticed her about. Yes, he had seen young Johnnie Wilcox. That was at ten to four or thereabouts. Sneaking away from the tea-tent he was with as suspicious-looking a bundle as Bocock had seen. No, he hadn’t stopped the boy. Young Wilcox was a good enough lad. None of the boys liked helping with the teas. Bocock hadn’t much cared for it in his young days. If Wilcox said he left the tent at four-thirty he was a bit out, that’s all. That lad hadn’t put in more than thirty minutes’ work at most. If the old man wondered why the police should be interested in Johnnie Wilcox and his peccadilloes he gave no sign. All Dalgliesh’s questions were answered with equal composure and apparent candour.

He knew nothing of Mr. Maxie’s engagement and had heard no talk of it in the village, either before or after the murder. “Some folks’ll say anything. You’ve no call to mind village talk. They’re good people up at the house.” That had been his final word. No doubt, if and when he had talked to Stephen Maxie and knew what was wanted he would remember more clearly the time when Maxie had left him the previous night. At the moment he was wary. But his allegiance was clear. They had left him still eating, sitting in solitary and impressive state among his music and his memories.

“No,” said Dalgliesh. “We’re not likely to get anything helpful about the Maxies out of Bocock. If young Maxie was looking for an ally he knew where to go. We’ve gained something though. If Bocock is right about times, and he’s certainly more likely to be accurate than Johnnie Wilcox, the meeting in the loft probably took place before four-thirty. That would fit in with what we know of Jupp’s subsequent movements, including the scene in the tea-tent when she appeared in a duplicate of Mrs. Riscoe’s dress. Jupp hadn’t been seen in it before four thirty p.m. so that she must have changed after the interview in the stable loft.”

“It was a funny thing to do, sir. And why wait until then?”

“She may have bought the dress with the idea of wearing it publicly on some occasion or other. Perhaps something happened at that interview which freed her from any future dependence on Martingale. She could afford to make a last gesture. On the other hand, if she knew before last Saturday that she was going to marry Maxie, she was presumably free to make her gesture whenever the fancy took her. There’s a curious conflict of evidence about that proposal of marriage. If we are to believe Mr. Hinks—and why not?—Sally Jupp certainly knew that she was to marry someone when she met him on the previous Thursday. I find it difficult to believe that she had two prospective bridegrooms and there isn’t a surfeit of obvious candidates. And while we’re considering young Maxie’s love life here’s something you haven’t seen.”

He handed over a thin sheet of official-looking writing paper. It bore the name of a small coastal hotel.

Dear Sir
,

Although I have my reputation to think of and am not particularly anxious to be mixed up in police matters, I think it my duty to inform you that a Mr. Maxie stayed at this hotel last May 24th with a lady he signed for as his wife. I have seen a photograph in the Evening Clarion of Dr. Maxie who is mixed up in the Chadfleet murder case and who the papers say is a bachelor and it is the same one. I have not seen any photographs of the dead girl so could not swear to her, but I thought it my duty to bring the above to your notice. Of course it may not mean anything and I do not wish to be mixed up in anything unpleasant so I would be grateful if my name could be kept out of this. Also the name of my hotel which has always catered for a very good class of people. Mr. Maxie only stayed
for one night and they were a very quiet couple, but my husband thinks it our duty to bring this information to your notice. It is, of course, entirely without prejudice.

“The lady seems curiously concerned with her duty,” said Dalgliesh, “and it is a little difficult to see what she can mean by ‘without prejudice.’ I feel that her husband had a great deal to do with this letter, including the phraseology, without quite managing to bring himself to signing it. Anyway, I sent that eager young fledgling, Robson, down to investigate and I’ve no doubt he enjoyed himself hugely. He managed to convince them that the night in question has nothing to do with the murder and that the best interests of the hotel will be served by forgetting the whole thing. It isn’t quite as simple as that, though. Robson took some photographs down with him, one or two of those taken at the fête, and they confirmed a rather interesting little theory. Any idea who young Maxie’s partner in sin was?”

“Would it be Miss Bowers, sir?”

“It would. I hoped that might surprise you.”

“Well, sir, if it had to be someone from here she was the only one. There isn’t any evidence that Dr. Maxie and Sally Jupp had been carrying on. And that was nearly a year ago.”

“So you aren’t inclined to pay much attention to it?”

“Well, the young today don’t seem to make so much of it as I was taught to.”

“It’s not that they sin less but that they bear their sins more lightly. But we have no evidence that Miss Bowers feels the same. She may easily have been very hurt by what happened.
She doesn’t strike me as an unconventional person and she is very much in love and not particularly clever at concealing the fact. I think she is desperately anxious to marry Dr. Maxie and her chances have, after all, increased since Saturday night. She was present at the scene in the drawing-room. She knew what she had to lose.”

“Do you think it’s still going on, sir?” Sergeant Martin could never bring himself to be more explicit about these sins of the flesh. He had seen and heard enough in thirty years of police work to have shattered most men’s illusions, but he was of a tough yet gentle disposition and could never believe that men were either as wicked or as weak as the evidence consistently proved them to be.

“I should think it very unlikely. That weekend was probably the only excursion into passion. Perhaps it wasn’t particularly successful. Perhaps it was, as you rather unkindly suggest, a mere bagatelle. It’s a complication. Catherine Bowers is the sort of woman who tells her man that she will do anything for him, and sometimes does.”

“Could she have known about the tablets though, sir?”

“No one admits to having told her and I think she was telling the truth when she said she knew nothing. Sally Jupp might have told her but they weren’t on particularly good terms, in fact they weren’t on any terms at all as far as I can see, and it seems unlikely. But that proves nothing. Miss Bowers must have known that there were sleeping-tablets of some kind in the house and where they were likely to be kept and the same thing applies to Hearne.”

“It seems strange that he’s able to stay around.”

“That probably means that he thinks one of the family did it and wants to be on the spot to see that we don’t get the same idea. He may actually know who did it. If so, he’s not likely to
slip up, I’m afraid. I got Robson on to him, too. His report, stripped of a lot of psychological jargon about everyone he interviewed, is much what I expected. Here we are. All the details on Felix Georges Mortimer Hearne. He has a fine war record, of course. God knows how he did it or what it did to him. Ever since 1945 he seems to have flitted around doing a little writing and not much else. He is a partner in Hearne and Illingworth the publishers. His great grandfather was old Mortimer Hearne who founded the firm. His father married a French woman, Mlle Annette D’Apprius in 1919. The marriage brought more money into the family. Felix was born in 1921. Educated in the usual and expensive places. Met Deborah Riscoe through her husband who was at school with him, although considerably his junior, and as far as Robson can tell, never saw Sally Jupp until he met her in this house. He has a very pleasant little house in Greenwich, still true to type you see, and an exbatman to look after him. Gossip says that he and Mrs. Riscoe are lovers, but there’s no evidence, and Robson says you would get nothing out of the manservant. I doubt whether there’s anything to get. Mrs. Riscoe was certainly lying when she said they spent all Saturday night together. I suppose Felix Hearne might have murdered Sally Jupp to save Deborah Riscoe from embarrassment, but a jury wouldn’t believe it and neither would I.”