Feted to Die: An Inspector Constable Murder Mystery (10 page)

The inspector made up his mind. “You’re absolutely right. Shut it down, and we’ll just have to rely on good old-fashioned detective work. Let’s have a look in the desk drawer, and then we’ll get out of here and get back to the Hall. We might get a f
ew more answers up there.” He pulled open the drawer. Among a clutter of paper clips, rubber bands, pencils, and a stapler, there nestled a fat brown padded envelope. Inside lay a thick hard-back book whose brightly-coloured dust-jacket seemed to follow a familiar pattern.

“Well, well,” remarked Inspector Constable. “Now there’s a surprise. ‘Carrie Otter and the Deadly Pillows’, eh? Who’d have thought it. I seem to remember Miss Highwater told us that Horace Cope wasn’t too impressed with her Carrie Otter books, and here he is with one of them stashed away in his desk. Do you suppose he was a closet fan? Come on, Copper, this is more your area than mine. You know all about these books. So is this one of the good ones, or what?”

“Hang about, sir,” answered Sergeant Copper. “This is the new one. Don’t you remember, Miss Highwater told us that this was the last one, but it doesn’t even come out till next month. There’s been a great big publicity campaign about the launch, because it’s the final book in the series and the publishers have been desperate to keep the press away from it in case they find out what happens. They’ve always done it every time there’s a new one out – I reckon they just do it to bump up the sales.”

“So how come Horace Cope has got a copy?”

“I expect Miss Highwater gave him an early copy so’s he could do a write-up, sir. I mean, she did say she’d give me a signed copy.”

“Yet another question I need an answer to. Let’s get back to the Hall and start rattling a few cages. For a start, I want to talk to the Vicar. I’ve lost count of the number of times that the first person to find a murder victim just happens to be the last person who saw them alive.”

“But why would the vicar want Horace Cope dead?” asked Dave Copper.

“That, sergeant,” responded Andy Constable grimly, “is
what I intend to find out.”

Chapter 6

The sunlit promise of the day had vanished. Dammett Hall had developed a forlorn air in the thin drizzle which had started to fall as the detectives drew up outside the front door, and the strings of
coloured bunting decorating the facade of the building hung limply. A few hunched figures could be seen scuttling to their cars and vans clutching boxes of ceramic dragons and armfuls of hand-knitted cardigans. A scattered handful of somewhat bedraggled boy scouts were collecting litter in black bin-bags. The village constable still stood at the top of the steps, slightly damp but exuding keenness.

“Well, Collins, anything to report?” asked the inspector.

“No sir, nothing really,” answered the young officer. “You’ve just missed the van, sir. They’ve taken Mr. Cope away, and I think SOCO have finished inside as well, because they went about ten minutes ago. Some of the people from the village have been clearing their stalls and leaving, but I thought you wouldn’t mind that so I let ’em go ahead and do it. I hope I did right, sir, but as you hadn’t said anything, I reckoned it’d be all right. But everybody else is still in the house like you said.”

“Good man. I’ll be inside questioning the suspects, if anyone wants me.”

“Actually, sir …”

“Yes, Collins?”

“There was somebody who wanted a word, sir. Mr. Porter … Gideon Porter … he owns the Dammett Well Inn. That’s the pub in the village. He said he had a couple of things you might want to know about. He’s over there in the beer tent.”

“Reliable, is he?” put in Sergeant Copper. “I’ve met a few pub landlords in my time that I wouldn’t trust as far as I could throw them.”

Collins laughed. “I don’t think you ought to try that with old Gideon, sergeant, if you don’t mind me saying so. He must weigh about eighteen stone. But he’s as honest as you like. He’s never so much as offered me a free pint, so you can take that as you may. I’d trust him.”

“Thank you, Collins,” responded the inspector. “We’d better have a word with him.”

The beer tent stood by the garden wall close to the gate which Constable surmised led through to the Secret Garden where Horace Cope’s booth had been set up. Gideon Porter was just finishing stacking a pile of beer-crates as the detectives entered the tent. He mopped a pink and perspiring face as they introduced themselves, and moved behind a trestle table obviously intended to serve as a bar, where several rotating optics stood dismantled.

“I’m glad you’re here, gents,” he declared. “Young Robbie Collins told you I had a couple of snippets for you, did he? Only I thought I ought to tell you, because you never know, do you? I don’t suppose either of you fancies a drink while you’re here, before I put these away? No, of course not – not while you’re on duty.” He smiled roguishly as both detectives shook their heads. “Sure I can’t tempt you? No? Oh well. I think I will, if you don’t mind. That’s the advantage of running a pub, see. You can always have a bit of a noggin in times of stress.” He poured himself a generous whisky.

“Bit stressed, are we, sir?” enquired Dave Copper.

“Well, who wouldn’t be?” replied Gideon. “This business with Horace is pretty ghastly, you got to admit.”

“So, you were a friend of Mr. Cope’s then, Mr. Porter?” asked Andy Constable.

“Ah. Well.” Gideon shifted awkwardly. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say we were actually friends, but I knew him quite well because he came into my pub a lot. Mind you, everybody in the village does at some time or another, so I don’t suppose that tells you anything.”

“So you wouldn’t say you were close?”

“Lord, no, anything but. No, that’s not fair. In my business you get the habit of getting on with everybody. But to be frank, he wasn’t really my sort of bloke. Don’t get me wrong – he was always pleasant enough to me, but I always got the feeling he wasn’t quite as nice as he made out.”

Constable’s interest was aroused. “What makes you say that, Mr. Porter?”

“Well, inspector, …” Gideon took a deep breath. “You might laugh, but I reckon being a pub landlord is a bit like being a priest. You know, the secrets of the confessional and so on, if you get my drift. People say stuff, and they don’t always pay too much attention to who’s listening. I’m not normally one to repeat things, but I suppose this murder business makes it a bit different. Now you take the other day. Horace came into the pub with that cousin of his, Albert. Do you know him?”

“Oh yes,” put in Dave Copper. “We’ve met Mr. Ross. We had quite an interesting interview with him earlier.”

“Ah. Well then, you’ve probably got a bit of an idea what he’s like.” Gideon chuckled. “It’s not funny really, but we all call him the Human Sponge – I don’t think I’ve ever seen him buy his own drink. He always got Horace to pay – well, either Horace or anyone else who happened to be standing there at the time. He ain’t too fussed.”

“Now I should have thought that would put people’s backs up, wouldn’t you, sergeant?”

“Not any more,” answered Gideon. “It might have at first, but Albert’s done it to so many people that it’s a bit of a standing joke with my regulars. It’s quite comical – Albert comes in on his own, and they all start shuffling up the other end of the bar so’s not to get caught.”

“And was Horace in on the joke?”

“Lord, no. You daren’t say anything to Horace – he’d have been up in the air about it straight away. He had a bit of a temper on him sometimes.”

Andy Constable felt that the conversation seemed to be straying from the point. “So what has this got to do with what you were saying about the other day?”

“Ah, well, that’s the whole thing, you see,” explained Gideon. “Now that particular day, Horace was in one of his bad moods, so that’s how come I heard what I did.”

“Which was …?”

“Well, Horace and Albert were stood at one end of the bar, and Horace was hissing on something about ‘not putting up any longer’, and then Albert said ‘But what do I do? Where do I go?’, and Horace said he didn’t really give a damn, pardon the language, and he said Albert had a week to sort it out, or else.” Gideon paused for breath.

“So not a particularly cousinly conversation then, Mr. Porter? Any ideas on what it was all about?”

Gideon pulled a wry face. “Well, there is a bit of background there. I might be wrong, but I don’t reckon Horace trusted Albert one little bit, for all that he was family.”

“And what makes you say that?”

“You see, Horace had been going on to anyone who would listen about this new TV show he was going to be on – well, so he said, although I think Seymour Cummings had other ideas. Anyway, Horace was telling people how he would be spending a lot more time away in London, and I think he wanted Albert out of the cottage before he went.”

Dave Copper looked up from his notebook. “Now why do you think he would want that, sir? When we spoke to Mr. Ross, we got the impression that he was looking after Mr. Cope’s cottage while he was staying there, as some sort of unpaid housekeeper.”

“Hmm, that’s as may be,” responded Gideon. “Now Robbie Collins says you’ve been up at the cottage, so you know better than me what it’s like. I’ve never been in there meself, but talk is it’s all a bit …” He paused as if in search of the right word.

“Exotic?” suggested the inspector with a slight smile.

“Aah, you may be right. I wouldn’t like to judge. So anyway, what with Horace being very nicely off, thank you, which he never made a secret of, and him being a bit … arty, so to speak, we all knew that he had quite a few pretty nice bits and pieces up there. But from what I can gather, there have been some of his antiques go missing – really valuable Georgian silver and paintings and suchlike. He was a bit of a collector by all accounts, was our Horace.”

Andy Constable raised an eyebrow. “Missing, you say?”

“That’s right – missing,” retorted Gideon in heavy tones. “It was all put down to a burglary, but if you ask me, it didn’t quite add up. Course, they had Robbie Collins in, but he never got anywhere with it. Nice enough boy, but when all’s said and done, he’s just the village bobby. He’s not a professional like you gents. But I reckon Horace had found out something and he suspected Albert of pinching his things and selling them off, and that’s what the row was all about. Not that it would surprise me. Since he lost all his money in shares and stuff, Albert’s never had two ha’pennies to rub together, poor sod.”

“Yes sir,” said Dave Copper. “Mr. Ross told us about his run of bad luck before he moved down here from London.”

“London!” Gideon smacked his forehead. “That was the other thing! Good job you said that, sergeant, else I’d have forgotten. That’s my trouble, you see. I get talking, and stuff goes clean out of my head.”

“So?” enquired Constable. “London?”

“London!” repeated Gideon in meaningful tones. “That’s another thing I overheard a nice little snippet about. Here, inspector, you could do your crime statistics a power of good, you know.” He chuckled. “You ever want to know anything, you just come and stand in my pub for a bit.”

“So tell us about this snippet?”

“Right you are. So, the other day … ooh, must have been last week sometime, I suppose. It had gone a bit quiet, and there wasn’t anyone else in at the time, so I was having a chat to Robin Allday … I expect you know him? The solicitor?”

“Yes,” said Constable. “We know Mr. Allday. In fact, we’ve already had a word with him this morning. Why, is there something else that he may be able to help us with?”

“Well, of course, it may all be nothing to do with anything, and I wouldn’t want to stir things up for Robin, being as he’s a good bloke and a good customer and all.”

“Why don’t you just tell us what it is and leave us to be the judge?” suggested the inspector gently. “If it’s not relevant, we can quite easily forget anything you tell us. So, you were having a chat about …?”

“Oh, just this and that, really, nothing special, but anyway, we got on to property prices. Course, they’re all over the papers at the moment, and Robin knows all there is to know round here, ’cos he does all the conveyancing and suchlike, that is if there is any, you know what the market is, and it was saying in the paper the other day that they don’t know whether it’s all going to go up or down, so I’m just glad I inherited the pub from my old dad ’cos I ain’t got to worry about that sort of thing, except of course for the smoking business which hasn’t done me a lot of good, but I suppose you have to put up with these sorts of things … now, where was I?”

“Property.”

“Ah, that’s right. So there we were, just chatting like, and in comes Horace and he walks up to the bar, and he obviously heard what we were saying, and he says, ‘Ah, Robin. Property. That’s just what I want a quiet word with you about, if you don’t mind, Gideon.’ And I thought, ‘Alright, squire, I can take a hint,’ so I got on with clearing up a few glasses down the other end of the bar.”

“So you didn’t hear any more of what it was about?” asked Constable.

“Ah, well, see, inspector, that’s just where you’re wrong.” Gideon had the grace to look faintly embarrassed. “I did hear. I don’t know why, but I thought there was something in his manner, if you get me. Horace’s, that is. And also there was the fact that he obviously didn’t want me to hear, and I got to admit I’m as curious as the next man. Well, it’s only human nature, isn’t it? So there I was thinking ‘What’s he up to?’, so I listened in a bit when they weren’t paying attention.”