Strangeways to Oldham (11 page)

‘So it does, Hugo! So it does! How blind I am. Why didn't I see that? But then, where does that leave us? We know he lives in this area, we know he's on the telephone, but we don't know whereabouts in this area that telephone is, and without an address, we're still stuffed, whichever way you look at it.' During this speech, her voice had gone from triumphant back to crestfallen again.

‘We could always have another shot at young Mr Williams,' suggested Hugo mildly, but without hope in his voice.

‘You're right again!' Lady Amanda was back in best crowing form. ‘He's a very old man, and quite liable to let something slip, if he's approached in the right way. I'll ring up this afternoon, and make an appointment to see him. I can use the same excuse of wanting to try to persuade him out of early retirement for just one last case.'

‘And then we could be back in business again, eh, Sherlock?' Hugo was also back on top form, at the thought that they might be able to move their investigations on again. ‘Go, Manda, go! We'll nail the blackguard yet!'

After luncheon, Lady Amanda duly put a call through to Freeman, Hardy, Williams and Williams, Hugo sitting with bated breath, waiting to see if young Mr Williams would be forthcoming with the information they needed. Something, however, was not as expected, as Lady Amanda suddenly crashed down the phone and turned to look at him with an expression of absolute astonishment and horror,

‘What is it, Manda? Have they been terribly rude to you?' he asked with concern.

‘It's young Mr Williams!' she declared, then grabbed her handbag and made for the main hall.

‘What about young Mr Williams?' called Hugo, shuffling after her, keen to be part of the action, whatever that action was.

Lady Amanda suddenly stopped, and informed him, ‘He's
dead
, Hugo, and I'm going down to their offices this very minute to find out what happened. I smell a rat here, and I won't rest till I've found out where it nests!'

‘Can I come?' pleaded Hugo, like a small child wanting to accompany a parent shopping.

‘If you can get yourself ready and into the Rolls in two minutes flat, you're more than welcome. If my persuasive powers for information gathering prove insufficient, yours might be just the job.'

The receptionist at the legal firm's offices was crying when they arrived, but as discreetly as possible, keeping her handkerchief balled into one of her fists, when not mopping hurriedly at her eyes. The blinds on the windows facing the street were all at half-mast, as if in respect for the departed, a fitting gesture for such a long-established firm.

Hugo at once proved his worth, by approaching the receptionist, leaning down as far as he was able, mobility permitting, and put a kindly, avuncular arm around her shoulder. ‘There, there, my dear,' he crooned in quiet, soothing tones. ‘What ever happened to the poor gentleman?'

Having bottled up the information all morning, the secretary grabbed the opportunity to spill the beans, as a drowning man does a straw, and the dam burst open. ‘They said he must have gone down to the orchard at the bottom of his garden yesterday – afternoon or evening; they're not sure which yet. He liked to sit up there in the peace and quiet, just listening to the birds, and having a drink.

‘We know he sometimes took down a small jug of Pimm's and lemonade, so that he didn't have to go back to the house to refresh his glass. He really loved it down there: said it made him forget about being old, and just put him in tune with nature. It made him happy, completely cut off from work, and not so much concerned about his own aches and pains.

‘Anyway, his cleaner came in this morning, as usual, and found his bed not slept in. The first thing she did was to search the house, to see if he'd had a fall, and couldn't get up again, but there was absolutely no sign of him, so she phoned here, to see if he'd come into work, maybe having spent the night with a colleague, but, of course, he hadn't.

‘Mr Freeman suggested she go out to check the garden, thinking maybe he'd collapsed or fallen out there, and might be stranded with a broken ankle or something similar, so she hung up and went to have a thorough search. She called back again after about twenty minutes, to tell us that she had found him in his usual chair in the orchard, a jug beside his chair, a glass fallen from his fingers, and that he was stone dead!'

‘My dear girl,' comforted Hugo. ‘What a terrible shock for you. No wonder you're upset.' As he spoke, he was aware of Lady Amanda making hideous faces at him from behind the receptionist's desk, mouthing a word. And the word was simply: ‘how'?

‘Has anyone any idea why he passed away so suddenly? Or had he been ill for some time, and maybe it wasn't so unexpected?' he asked, worming his way effortlessly into her confidence.

‘Young Mr Williams was never ill,' she informed them. ‘He was as fit as a flea, and we quite confidently expected him to live long enough to receive a letter from Her Majesty. That was why it was so shocking.' Her valiant effort to unburden herself of this information suddenly faltered, and she raised her handkerchief to her eyes again, as a flood of fresh tears overwhelmed her.

‘And there's going to be an inquest and everything, because he hadn't seen a doctor for so long. Oh, the shame, and they won't even let the poor old man rest in peace. They're going to cut him about, and do all sorts of undignified things to him which he would have hated, were he alive. It seems so obscene, to subject him to that, even after death.'

‘There, there, don't fret. Young Mr Williams is at peace now, and nobody can insult his dignity. He's beyond earthly interference, and with his God.' Hugo did feel a bit two-faced about this, as he had ceased to believe in the Superior Being many years ago, but it seemed to have had a soothing effect on the woman.

‘You're right, of course!' she said, blowing her noise loudly, in a most unladylike and indiscreet way. ‘I know what you say is true. It's just the shock, you know? It's left me feeling thoroughly rattled, and now I'm neglecting my duties to the firm. What can I help you with? You must have come in here for a reason.'

It was Lady Amanda's turn, now, to be inventive. Smiling as sweetly as she could manage, she plonked herself in front of the desk, and said, ‘It's nothing that can't wait, my dear girl. We'll take ourselves off, in the light of the loss you have all suffered, and come back another time, when circumstances aren't quite so trying. Don't give it another thought.'

Once more outside and out of hearing, she took Hugo's arm, and declared, ‘Well, I'll be! What a couple of Am-Dram sleuths we're turning out to be, eh? Perfect team, and all that! You did a marvellous job of getting her to spill the beans. I'd just have sailed in there and demanded to know what was going on, and got the old bum's rush, but you charmed it out of her, and at the same time, made her feel better.'

‘You had your part to play, too,' Hugo replied. ‘If it hadn't been for your get-up-and-go, we'd never have gone there in the first place. You didn't waste a minute, after you were told on the phone that there had been a death. You just got on with tracking the matter down to its hub.'

‘Thank you, so much, Hugo. Ah, there's Beauchamp, with the Rolls. He has been lucky with the parking today.'

‘It hasn't got us any further, though, with finding out where Foster lives, has it?' Hugo asked, suddenly downcast again, as he remembered the real reason they had contacted the legal firm. ‘And with the old man gone, it looks like a dead-end for us, don't you think?'

‘Not necessarily,' replied Lady Amanda, then made a noise that sounded very like ‘ping'.

‘Whatever's up with you, Manda? Do you need basting, or something?' This was Hugo's attempt to alleviate the mood of gloom that had settled over him.

‘What a pair of dolts we've been!' she suddenly exclaimed, her face breaking out into a broad grin. ‘Register of Electors,' she declared. ‘We must go to the library at once! That's where we'll learn what we need to know.'

‘Can't we leave that till tomorrow?' begged Hugo, whose limited store of energy had just registered empty.

‘All right! But, first thing, mind you. Sparrow fart! Stupid o'clock! We want to be there as the library opens, and not nearly lunchtime. Agreed?'

‘Agreed!' concurred Hugo, with a sigh of relief.

Chapter Twelve

At breakfast the next morning, Lady Amanda stated, ‘I bet there was something in that jug of Pimm's, or in his glass.'

‘You think it's the same chappie, killing again?' enquired Hugo.

‘I do,' she assured him. ‘I'll bet they discover enough poison in his system to have killed a herd of elephants. Our young Mr Williams may have spotted something odd, put two and two together, and unknowingly signed his own death warrant.'

‘How?' asked Hugo briefly, his mouth still half-full of scrambled egg.

‘He knew, as we do, that that young chap was somehow mixed up in Reggie's affairs. We also know that this Del was left hardly anything in the will, but still attended both the funeral, and the wake, with the reading of the will. I wonder how he explained his presence to young Mr Williams. Why should someone, who hadn't nursed the deceased for some time, be interested in attending his funeral, especially as there was nothing in it for him?'

She paused for a few seconds. ‘What if he got wind that Foster had been posing as Reggie's nephew, at the home? I mean, it's quite likely, isn't it, if young Mr Williams went to take possession of Reggie's bits and pieces, him having no living relatives, that someone might have said something to him about how nice it was, that Reggie's nephew got in touch with him again, just a few months before he died?

‘In fact, I remember hailing him as Reggie's nephew, at Reggie's house. I wonder if young Mr Williams overheard, and became suspicious about Foster? Lord! Then, it could've been me who got him killed. What a ghastly thought! But I do think this was done by the same hand. The modus operandi is the same.'

‘You've got a point there, Manda.'

‘And if Mr Williams mentioned something, or questioned Foster about it, he would definitely have put himself in danger, wouldn't he?'

‘By George! I think she's got it!' exclaimed Hugo, unconsciously echoing words from
Pygmalion
. ‘We've got to bring this bounder to justice!'

‘Quite right! He's killed twice now, and he won't hesitate to kill again.'

‘I rather think you ought to go and speak to that policeman again, Manda. This is getting very dangerous.' Hugo's concern for her safety shone out through his eyes, and behind that was discernible a deep concern for his own safety, as well.

‘Tommyrot!' she exploded, showering the table with toast crumbs. ‘What, go to that man and be humiliated again? Be treated as a batty old lady who has delusions? I won't, I say! We'll wrap this up ourselves, and then hand it to him on a plate, and watch his embarrassment, as he realises that I was right all along; that's what we'll do.'

‘Well, we'd better go carefully. I'm quite happy with my cashmere overcoat, and don't want to be measured for a wooden one, anytime soon. We'll need to tread very carefully. I know the word ‘carefully' is probably not in your vocabulary, Manda, so I suggest you go and look it up in a dictionary, after breakfast.'

‘Cow poo, Hugo! Doggy doodles! He who dares, wins!' she retorted emphatically.

‘As long as it's not “he who dares, dies”!' was Hugo's somewhat waspish reply.

Finding an address at the library for Derek Foster took quite some time, but nowhere as near as long as it could have taken, had they not had a stroke of luck. Lady Amanda had decided that, if they looked at the Belchester map, they could look at the relative positions of the nursing home, Edwards's Nursing Services, and the address of the residual legatee of Reggie's will. As she pointed out to Hugo, he wouldn't want to be too far away from either place, if all this was pre-meditated.

Unfortunately, although Lady Amanda had made a note of the name and address of the main beneficiary of the will, she had carelessly written it down on an old envelope she had found lurking in her handbag, and she had cleared out said handbag, only the night before, as it was getting rather full with things like apple-corers, screwdrivers, tape measures, corkscrews and the like. The envelope would now be residing in the waste paper basket in the drawing room.

‘Thank goodness Beauchamp won't empty it, this being his nominal day off, when he does nothing that isn't absolutely necessary,' she said. ‘Let's note down the street names that are possible, taking into account the other locations, and see if we're fortunate enough to come up with anything.'

They sat themselves at one of the library tables, and began their search; the next two hours being filled with such comments as: ‘I didn't know he was still around' ‘I thought he'd moved away' and ‘I could have sworn she was dead'. It may have been tedious, but, in some ways, it was a little like a walk down memory lane.

‘I say, guess who's moved into that big house near the cathedral', ‘I never thought his son would leave home'. They carried on in this manner until the librarian himself came over, and asked them, please, to observe the rule of silence, and they hunted on with only the odd squeak of recognition, as they came across familiar names from times gone by.

It was half-past lunchtime, when Hugo made a
sotto voce
exclamation of triumph. ‘Got the wretch!' he whispered across the table to Lady Amanda. ‘I'll just make a note of the address, then we can get out of here, and go and get something to eat. I'm starving!'

An extremely loud and long drawn out ‘Shhhhhh!' carried across from the desk to their table, the sibilance alerting other users of the reference area, that someone was in trouble, so, putting away their notepads and pens, they gathered themselves together and made as dignified an exit as they could manage, under the stern and disapproving eye of the librarian, who was thoroughly fed up with them.

They were worse than the children that came in, in his opinion, and he was glad to see them leave, at last. His haven of tranquillity had been invaded, for over three hours now, by those two inconsiderate bodies, and he hoped they didn't intend returning in the near future.

Once outside, Lady Amanda did her level best to jump up and down with glee, but with only a modicum of success, given her age and weight, and Hugo, who understood how victorious she felt, simply nodded his head vigorously, in agreement with the sentiment.

Before she could speak, however, he pre-interrupted her. ‘No, Manda! Not today! We have to plan this carefully. Our lives could be at stake.'

‘Well, at least we can discuss it when we get home,' she replied, her bottom lip stuck out in disappointment.

‘We can discuss it as much as you like, but we mustn't rush into anything perilous. As there's probably not a lot of it left for me, I find myself very fond of life. I'd hate to do anything that would hasten its end, and I'm sure you feel the same way.'

‘Spoil sport!' she retorted, sticking out her tongue at him in frustration and defiance.

‘We'll tackle this with the greatest of caution, or not at all!' declared Hugo, standing his ground, and feeling the very first traces of the development of a backbone. ‘Now, let's find the Rolls and get back for lunch. My stomach thinks my throat's cut!'

Given that all three of them had arrived home well past the usual hour for luncheon, and that it was, technically, Beauchamp's day off (he had already driven them to the library and back) the manservant did a pretty slick job of serving them a simple lunch, with the minimum of fuss or delay.

‘Now you see why, if I do decide to sell the lot, and beetle off to the Caribbean, I'd take Beauchamp with me. Apart from the fact that he's worked here all his working life, I'm so used to him now, that I feel I really couldn't manage without him.' Lady Amanda was purposefully avoiding the subject of what their next actions should be, with regard to hunting down this double murderer.

However, it wasn't so easy to pull the wool over Hugo's eyes as she thought, and he pierced her with a steely gaze, and said, in as commanding a voice as he could summon, ‘I know what you're up to, and it won't work!'

‘I'm not up to anything, Hugo. Whatever do you mean?' she asked, innocently, but not fooling her old friend for a minute.

‘I know you, of old,' he stated. ‘And I'm going to keep an eagle eye on you, for the rest of the day. If I catch you sneaking off anywhere on your own, you'll have me to answer to. You're not young and fit any more, you're old and vulnerable, and you'd better wise up to that fact, now. I don't want you taking any unnecessary risks. After all, if anything happened to you, where should I live?'

This last, apparently selfish question, he had asked with the idea of goading her out of her habitual recklessness, and bringing her back down to earth, by making her think of someone else's welfare, for a change, and not just the opportunity (and risk) of covering herself with glory. It was all very well, her wanting to show up that inspector, but not at the expense of her own life. That would be a hollow victory, indeed.

She sighed. ‘You're a fussy old woman, Hugo, but you do have a point. I promise to do nothing without consulting you first. OK?'

‘Show me your hands, Manda,' he ordered, scrutinising them minutely, when she held them out for his inspection. As she looked at him quizzically, he added, ‘Just checking, to see that your fingers weren't crossed!'

At that point, Hugo toddled slowly off to ‘wash his hands'. Giving him sufficient time to reach his destination, Lady Amanda uncrossed her toes (sneaky old baggage that she was) and made her way to the wastepaper basket, where she retrieved the discarded envelope with the name written on it, scanned it briefly, and slipped it back into her handbag, where she could access it easily.

After their meal, Lady Amanda settled innocently in the drawing room with the local paper, which was never delivered to Belchester Towers until the day after it was published. As was her habit, after scanning the front page, she turned straight to the announcements to see who had been hatched, matched, or despatched. Her eyes devoured the columns eagerly, until she came to one entry, which made her shout out in surprise.

‘Whatever is it, old girl?' asked Hugo, who was wandering through his copy of the
Daily Telegraph
without much interest. ‘Been bitten by something?'

‘It's in the
Deaths
column!' she nearly shouted. ‘We've got the rotter!'

‘What's in the
Deaths
column?' asked Hugo, wondering whose passing could have elicited such excitement from her.

‘
Richard Churchill Myers of six Wilmington Crescent, Belchester, died peacefully in his sleep
 – let me see, ah! – 
Thursday night, at home, after a long illness. Will be missed by his loving nephew, Derek Foster.
That was the day after the will reading! The evil little beast!'

‘Whatever are you on about, Manda? At least he was someone's nephew.' Hugo still hadn't quite caught up with events.

‘Myers!' she declared. That was the name of the chap who inherited the bulk of Reggie's estate. It says in here that he's just died, and his nephew's only
our
chappie, who seems to like eliminating anyone who gets in his way, concerning his acquisition of money.'

‘And you think he murdered his real uncle, too?'

‘Of course he did! It's as plain as the nose on your face. First he bumps off Reggie, so that his estate goes to this Myers chap, Foster's uncle, then he does away with this uncle, who's probably not got any other relatives, if his nephew posted the death notice. And, in between, poor young Mr Williams gets wiped out. He probably only got a whiff of what was going on, and tackled him, in all innocence, about it.'

‘Well, I never,' exclaimed Hugo. ‘We've got him! Can't we just hand him over to the police now?'

‘Over my dead body!' said Lady Amanda.

‘That's rather what I'm worried about,' parried Hugo. ‘Just report him, and leave it at that.'

‘But there's not enough evidence. I can see exactly what happened, now. I reckon he was nursing old Reggie at home, until he went a bit gaga. I surmise that Reggie and that Myers chap must once have been good friends, and we know Reggie had no relatives to leave anything to, so he must have made his will in this old friend's favour.'

‘This is all surmise, you know. You may be completely wrong,' Hugo said, hoping to temper her enthusiasm with a little common sense.

‘Rot, Hugo! You know I'm right!' She rolled right over him like a verbal steamroller, and continued, ‘If this blighter nursed Reggie, he'd probably have found out that he was leaving a bundle to his uncle, who was probably already ill – it says here: after a long illness.

‘Well, what if his uncle took a turn for the worse, and he thought Reggie would probably outlive him. He'd need to do something about that, wouldn't he? And what better action to take, for his own evil purposes, than to remove Reggie from the equation? The money would then go to his uncle without question, uncle dies, and Bob's your uncle – sorry about that! – and Foster would cop for the lot.

‘The only fly in the ointment was young Mr Williams, who smelled a rat, so he had to be removed as well. For all we know, Foster might have hurried his uncle into the next world as well, getting impatient to be a relatively rich man, leading a life of leisure.'

‘Why don't you just tell all this to that Inspector Moody, Manda, and let him do the sniffing around?' asked Hugo, demonstrating that he, at least, had some common sense left.

‘Because nobody but us, and presumably young Mr Williams, suspected anything in the first place. It was only because I found that cocktail glass in Reggie's room, and smelled the spilt stuff on the floor, that I thought there was something fishy about his death. As far as the law's concerned, Reggie died a natural, peaceful death; young Mr Williams just slipped away due to his age; and the Myers chap, having been ill for a long time, won't even have a post mortem.