Ladies’ Bane (21 page)

She said gravely,

“I do not think that we can entirely rule out Flaxman’s wife. Stabbing is not really an English crime. When it does occur, it is more often the work of a woman than of a man. It is the frightened woman who picks up a knife to defend herself, where a man would use his fists. It is the suspicious, angry, jealous woman who strikes with a knife at the man who has betrayed her, or at the rival who has taken him away.”

“Yes, you are right there.”

“Miss Falconer tells me it is common talk in the village that Flaxman’s behaviour has caused his wife a great deal of distress. I do not think that we can rule out the possibility that she may have waited for him outside the Falcon and followed him to Tom Humphreys’ cottage. On the other hand she is, I think, much less likely to have gone to the potting-shed for a weapon than either of the other two suspects. When you consider the variety of knives with which a kitchen is equipped, I would certainly never expect a cook to go past them in the choice of a weapon.”

He burst out laughing.

“She leaves the court without a stain on one of her kitchen knives! And now perhaps we may get down to Trent and the alluring secretary.”

An involuntary look of surprise touched Miss Silver’s small, neat features. Men were incalculable. You just had to allow for it. Even Frank-

“You found her alluring?”

He laughed.

“I do not allow myself to be allured when I am on duty.”

Quite, quite incalculable! That pallid, haggard creature with the uneasy something that would not let her rest! She said quite soberly,

“She does not seem like that to me.”

“You saw her plain and pale, didn’t you? But you may take it from me that there are banked-up fires.”

Miss Silver put down her knitting for a moment and looked at him.

“And they are for Geoffrey Trent.”

“Now, do you say that because of what Ione Muir told you, or because it just came across and hit you in the eye?”

Her “Really, my dear Frank!” reproved the expression, but she continued placidly enough.

“Miss Muir had told me of the conversation she overheard between them, a conversation which made it quite clear that there had been an intimate relationship. Mr. Trent assured her that the whole thing was over and done with before his marriage and the substance of what Miss Muir overheard does bear that out. But when I had tea at the Ladies’ House I became aware that as far as Miss Delauny’s emotions were concerned they had by no means been relegated to the past. She was aware of Mr. Trent in the kind of way in which a woman is only aware of someone for whom she has a very deep feeling.”

He nodded.

“And Trent?”

“I could not discern that there was any response.”

He looked down on her from his place on the hearth. The rather mouse-coloured hair, no more visibly touched with grey than when he knew her first, was piled up in a fringe above the small face with its smooth, pale skin. He had never known a single hair to be out of place either in the fringe or in the neat coils at the back. There was the control of a net, but the still more potent one of a very exact and orderly mind. The brooch which fastened that hideous spinach-coloured dress was never by the smallest fraction out of line. The bog-oak rose had been temporarily supplanted by an ornament in the ample Victorian style. It contained the hair of her deceased parents enclosed in a wide border of plaited gold. The real affection of his glance was touched, and perhaps heightened, by a humorous appreciation. She was his esteemed preceptress. She was unique! He said,

“Well, ma’am-and which of them did it?”

Mrs. Larkin was singing in a loud cracked voice:

“If I was on a desert island,

I’d-love-you.”

The tune was a catchy one. Under her erratic guidance it wandered from key to key, but retained a strident quality. She was engaged in hanging out a few kitchen cloths and dusters. Even with a clothes-peg in her mouth the horrid sounds continued.

Inspector Abbott, lifting the latch of the garden gate, surveyed the scene. It was not his first visit, but he now looked upon a good many details with fresh interest. Mrs. Larkin had gone in, and could be heard proclaiming shrilly:

“Up in an aereoplane

I’d-love-you.”

He therefore had ample opportunity of looking about him.

The two cottages were no more than twenty yards apart. Each had a small square garden in front, a narrow strip at the side, and a good long piece at the back. Tom Humphreys’ garden was a model of neatness-a row of crocuses on either side of the front door, signs of springing life in the tidy beds, and at the back a glimpse of spinach, broccoli, and winter greens. Mrs. Larkin’s front patch could not really be called a garden any more. It was ten years since there had been a man to dig it over. The back was a wilderness, and the creepers on the house a neglected tangle. His eye went from them to the ordered roses, the blooming yellow jasmine next door. His lip lifted as he wondered whether it was not so much a husband as a gardener that Mrs. Larkin had wished to acquire.

He went up the untidy path and knocked on the door. She opened it, her sleeves still rolled up, her hair blowing in wisps. It had not occurred to him yesterday, but this morning, with her small sharp eyes fixed upon him, he was reminded of a ferret. He said,

“Good-morning, Mrs. Larkin. I wonder if I might have a word with you.”

“You were here yesterday with that Grayson.”

He smiled.

“You made a very interesting statement, you know, and you can’t expect me not to be interested.”

He could have sworn that the tip of her nose twitched. She said with conscious virtue,

“It wasn’t no more than the truth.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t. But when it comes to putting down what is the truth there aren’t so many people who can do it clearly. Now that is what struck me about your statement-it was so clear.”

She preened herself.

“I’ve always been one for telling the truth. ‘Tell the truth and shame the devil,’ was what my father used to say, and I’m sure he would have taken a stick to any of us that didn’t. ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child,’ that was his motto. And not like some that I could name, with the lies all piling up until there’s a scandal and the police called in!” She tossed her head in the direction of the Humphreys’ cottage.

Inspector Abbot said, “How well you put it!” And then, “Do you know, it would help me very much if you would run through that scene in the garden again-just where you were, and Tom Humphreys, and his daughter, and Flaxman.”

Mrs. Larkin was willing enough. It appeared that she herself had been right up to the boundary fence. There was a green hedge on the far side of it, but she had fetched the kitchen stool and was able to look over the top.

“And Tom Humphreys, he never come no further than that there gravel path going up to the door. He stands there and he curses, and then he rushes in, and comes out with his gun and lets fly at that Flaxman that was just the other side of the road. He screeches, and Nellie screeches. And Tom takes her by the shoulder and pushes her into the house, and, ‘If you never took a thrashing in your life you’ll take one now!’ he says. And bangs the door.”

“I see. You put it all very clearly. And what happened then?”

Mrs. Larkin’s face was puckered up with malicious enjoyment. She was very lined and brown, and she had the kind of small sharp eyes which see everything. The fact that they had no lashes gave them the appearance of windows without blind or curtain. She said with zest,

“There was that Flaxman cursing away on the other side of the road, so I called out and I arst him is he all right, and he uses language I wouldn’t demean myself by repeating and says I can mind my own business. So I went in and shut my door.”

“And then?”

She tossed her head.

“There wasn’t any ‘and then.’ I hope I know when I’m not wanted. I went in and I locked up careful.”

Some time during the last minute or two she had found herself leaving the garden for the house. It had happened in the most unobtrusive way, with the tall plain-clothes police officer suiting his steps to hers and listening to her for all the world as if she was the Queen of England. You couldn’t have told him from one of the high-up gentry either, except that none of them had ever paid her so much attention. When he opened the sitting-room door and stood aside for her to pass, she was a good deal gratified.

The room was for high days and holidays only. It housed a photographic enlargement of herself and Jim Larkin on their wedding day, and the red plush suite which they had bought with their savings. It was with a glow of satisfaction that she sat down now on the extreme edge of the “lady’s easy chair,” and watched Frank take his seat in the “gent’s ditto.” Quite at home he looked in it too. She had been parlourmaid to Lady Emily Crosby before she married, and butler-trained. Those small sharp eyes took in the cut of Inspector Abbott’s suit and the quality of the shoes on his long, elegant feet. She knew something about gentlemen’s clothes. The glow of satisfaction deepened.

He leaned forward with a smile and said,

“Now, Mrs. Larkin, let us take it from when you came in and locked up. What did you do after that?”

The whispy hair flew up as she tossed her head.

“I minded my own business same as that Flaxman told me!”

“Well, I don’t know that we need bother about what he said. I think you put in your statement that he went off cursing.”

“You never heard such language!”

He made a mental note that she could hear it all right, and pursued the point.

“And whilst he was doing that and you were locking up, Tom Humphreys was beating his daughter?”

“And if anyone arst for it!” said Mrs. Larkin with a virtuous sniff.

Frank said,

“Quite. And how long did he go on beating her?”

The sharp eyes stared at him.

“That’s not for me to say. I was in my own house minding of my own business.”

“Then you can’t really say whether Tom was beating her or not?”

She gave a sniff that was almost a snort.

“Not say? I’ve got ears in my head, haven’t I? Why, I could hear Tom Humphreys a-laying of it on, and her letting out a scream with every whack!”

“You would be upstairs in your bedroom?”

She closed down again.

“It’s my own business where I was.”

He laughed agreeably.

“Mrs. Larkin, you are much too intelligent a woman not to have been taking an interest in what was going on next door. Don’t tell me you were not looking out of one of the upstairs windows using your ears and your eyes to the very best of their capacity. And that would be pretty good, wouldn’t it? I shouldn’t say there was much you would miss.”

The sniff this time was a modest one.

“I’ve been known for it from a child.”

“That doesn’t surprise me at all. I could see at once that you have unusual powers of observation and the gift of putting what you have observed into words. A combination of the two is not at all common.”

Thus credited with uncommon gifts, it was up to Mrs. Larkin to display them. She said in a yielding voice,

“Well, and if I
was
in my bedroom-I suppose there’s nothing out of place about that?”

“No, of course not. Now how long did that beating go on?”

Mrs. Larkin considered.

“All of five minutes,” she said.

“Five minutes from when you came indoors, or five minutes from the time you got upstairs and opened your window?”

She gave him that hard stare.

“Who says I opened my window?”

“But of course you did. It would have been very stupid of you if you hadn’t. You wanted to hear what was going on, didn’t you?”

She slid away from that.

“I didn’t know but what murder would be done.”

“Exactly. Now just which way does this window of yours look? Do you mind letting me see?”

Oh, no, she didn’t mind. Why should she? If her garden was untidy, her house was always neat. The bedroom was tidy enough, with a clean cotton spread on the bed.

There was a casement window looking to the front. By setting it wide and leaning out Frank could see the Humphreys’ cottage and its approaches, whilst more or less straight ahead lay the road to the village and the piece of waste ground where Flaxman’s body had been found. Mrs. Larkin had certainly had a front seat for anything that might have been going on.

He returned to the charge.

“Well, Mrs. Larkin, how long did that beating go on after you got to the window?”

She gave him the same answer as before.

“About five minutes.”

“You could hear the sound of the blows?”

“Anyone could have heard them.”

“And Nellie screaming?”

“Every time the stick come down,” said Mrs. Larkin enjoyably.

“And when Tom stopped beating her?”

“Upstairs to her room, and bawling all the way.”

“And Tom Humphreys?”

“How do I know? I reckon he’d get himself a drink. Beating’s thirsty work, and getting in the sort of temper he was in is worse.”

“Then he didn’t come out of the house again.”

She gave him a look of sharp resentment.

“That’s putting words in my mouth! I tell you I don’t know nothing about what Tom Humphreys did!”

He nodded.

“My dear Mrs. Larkin, I wouldn’t try and put words in your mouth for anything in the world. You are much too clear and careful a witness. As I told you before, you have an uncommon gift of observation, and what I want from you is just what you saw and heard. Come now, you were at your open window-what about it?”

She had drawn back, but she was not insensible to the fact that she was being treated with appreciation. If Inspector Abbott on his side could salve his conscience with the reflection that he flattered her with nothing but the truth, Mrs. Larkin for her part accepted what he had said with the same conviction. She was a keen and accurate observer with the kind of memory which can reproduce a narrative without varying a single detail. It is the kind of memory which is commoner in the country than in the town, and which used to be commoner still.

Appreciation was therefore only her right. But it had to struggle with a grudge. She could speak, or she could be silent. They couldn’t get it from her unless she chose. All this was in the air as the Inspector said,

“Well now, Mrs. Larkin, just cast your mind back. The beating is over. Nellie has gone to her room crying. Don’t tell me you were there at your window and never looked to see what was happening to Flaxman.”

She said in a stubborn voice,

“He went off up the road. Cursing like I told you.”

“You could hear him whilst the beating was going on?”

“Every now and again.”

“And after the beating was over-where was he then?”

“I couldn’t say.”

“Couldn’t, or wouldn’t?” He used a light tone with a laugh in it. “You see, I don’t believe you could miss anything if you tried-and you can take that for a compliment. Come along now, I don’t mind betting you had your eye on Flaxman all the time you were listening to the row between Nellie and her father.”

Her lips tightened.

“That’s just what you say.”

He changed his tone.

“Look here, this is a thing you can tell me. If you could hear all that banging and screaming from the Humphreys’ cottage, Flaxman must have been able to hear it too. Do you mean to say he just walked away and left Nellie to it? Didn’t he make the slightest attempt to protect her?”

She gave a scornful laugh.

“What-him! He’d got enough to do on his own account, I reckon! That shot was worrying him above a bit. He’d took the most of it about the back and shoulders. He’d go a little way and turn around and claw at himself, and go on a little more and stop dead and stand there cursing.” She gave that scornful laugh again. “He’d got enough to worry about without Nellie!”

“And how far had he got by the time the beating was over?”

Mrs. Larkin capitulated. She would be a star witness and have her picture in all the papers. She said,

“Just about half way to that waste piece of ground.”

They looked together from the window. The road was plainly in sight.

“You went on watching him?”

She nodded.

“For a bit. Enough to make a cat laugh the way he’d keep clapping a hand first one place and then another and cursing all the time!”

“You could hear him?”

“Enough to know he was at it. And a good thing he’d got too far away for me to hear the language!” She rounded this off with a virtuous sniff.

“Did you see him get as far as the waste piece of ground?”

“Just about the beginning of it.”

“And there was no one on the road behind him?”

“Well, no, there wasn’t.”

“You’ll swear to that? You may have to, you know.”

The tip of the sharp ferrety nose went an angry pink.

“Anything I’ve said is all the same as if I was on my oath! I haven’t said nothing that isn’t true! Nor nothing but what I’m willing to stand up in court and take my Bible oath on!”

“So there was no one on the road behind him-” Frank used a meditative tone. Then, with an abrupt change of manner, “Or in front of him, Mrs. Larkin? On the road from the village?”

She didn’t answer. He said insistently,

“Was there anyone on the road in front of him, coming from the village?”

She backed away.

“Well then, there was.”

“Man, or woman?”

She shook her head.

“I couldn’t see-nobody couldn’t have seen. It was gone ten o’clock and more.”

“There was a moon.”

“It never come through the cloud. All I could tell was there was someone coming along the road. So I reckoned whoever it was would give Flaxman a hand. And I shut my window.”