I
On entering the library Mr. Wimborne blinked a little as his shrewd old eyes went past Inspector Bacon whom he had already met, to the fair-haired, good-looking man beyond him.
Inspector Bacon performed introductions.
“This is Detective-Inspector Craddock of New Scotland Yard,” he said.
“New Scotland Yard—hm.” Mr. Wimborne’s eyebrows rose.
Dermot Craddock, who had a pleasant manner, went easily into speech.
“We have been called in on the case, Mr. Wimborne,” he said. “As you are representing the Crackenthorpe family, I feel it is only fair that we should give you a little confidential information.”
Nobody could make a better show of presenting a very small portion of the truth and implying that it was the whole truth than Inspector Craddock.
“Inspector Bacon will agree, I am sure,” he added, glancing at his colleague.
Inspector Bacon agreed with all due solemnity and not at all as though the whole matter were prearranged.
“It’s like this,” said Craddock. “We have reason to believe, from information that has come into our possession, that the dead woman is not a native of these parts, that she travelled down here from London and that she had recently come from abroad. Probably (though we are not sure of that) from France.”
Mr. Wimborne again raised his eyebrows.
“Indeed,” he said. “Indeed?”
“That being the case,” explained Inspector Bacon, “the Chief Constable felt that the Yard was better fitted to investigate the matter.”
“I can only hope,” said Mr. Wimborne, “that the case will be solved quickly. As you can no doubt appreciate, the whole business has been a source of much distress to the family. Although not personally concerned in any way, they are—”
He paused for a bare second, but Inspector Craddock filled the gap quickly.
“It’s not a pleasant thing to find a murdered woman on your property? I couldn’t agree with you more. Now I should like to have a brief interview with the various members of the family—”
“I really cannot see—”
“What they can tell me? Probably nothing of interest—but one never knows. I dare say I can get most of the information I want from you, sir. Information about this house and the family.”
“And what can that possibly have to do with an unknown young woman coming from abroad and getting herself killed here?”
“Well, that’s rather the point,” said Craddock. “Why did she come here? Had she once had some connection with this house? >Had she been, for instance, a servant here at one time? A lady’s maid, perhaps. Or did she come here to meet a former occupant of Rutherford Hall?”
Mr. Wimborne said coldly that Rutherford Hall had been occupied by the Crackenthorpes ever since Josiah Crackenthorpe built it in 1884.
“That’s interesting in itself,” said Craddock. “If you’d just give me a brief outline of the family history—”
Mr. Wimborne shrugged his shoulders.
“There is very little to tell. Josiah Crackenthorpe was a manufacturer of sweet and savoury biscuits, relishes, pickles, etc. He accumulated a vast fortune. He built this house. Luther Crackenthorpe, his eldest son, lives here now.”
“Any other sons?”
“One other son, Henry, who was killed in a motor accident in 1911.”
“And the present Mr. Crackenthorpe has never thought of selling the house?”
“He is unable to do so,” said the lawyer dryly. “By the terms of his father’s will.”
“Perhaps you’ll tell me about the will?”
“Why should I?”
Inspector Craddock smiled.
“Because I can look it up myself if I want to, at Somerset House.”
Against his will, Mr. Wimborne gave a crabbed little smile.
“Quite right, Inspector. I was merely protesting that the information you ask for is quite irrelevant. As to Josiah Crackenthorpe’s will, there is no mystery about it. He left his very considerable fortune in trust, the income from it to be paid to his son Luther for life, and after Luther’s death the capital to be divided equally between Luther’s children, Edmund, Cedric, Harold, Alfred, Emma and Edith. Edmund was killed in the war, and Edith died four years ago, so that on Luther Crackenthorpe’s decease the money will be divided between Cedric, Harold, Alfred, Emma and Edith’s son Alexander Eastley.”
“And the house?”
“That will go to Luther Crackenthorpe’s eldest surviving son or his issue.”
“Was Edmund Crackenthorpe married?”
“No.”
“So the property will actually go—?”
“To the next son— Cedric.”
“Mr. Luther Crackenthorpe himself cannot dispose of it?”
“No.”
“And he has no control of the capital.”
“No.”
“Isn’t that rather unusual? I suppose,” said Inspector Craddock shrewdly, “that his father didn’t like him.”
“You suppose correctly,” said Mr. Wimborne. “Old Josiah was disappointed that his eldest son showed no interest in the family business—or indeed in business of any kind. Luther spent his time travelling abroad and collecting objets d’art. Old Josiah was very unsympathetic to that kind of thing. So he left his money in trust for the next generation.”
“But in the meantime the next generation have no income except what they make or what their father allows them, and their father has a considerable income but no power of disposal of the capital.”
“Exactly. And what all this has to do with the murder of an unknown young woman of foreign origin I cannot imagine!”
“It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with it,” Inspector Craddock agreed promptly, “I just wanted to ascertain all the facts.”
Mr. Wimborne looked at him sharply, then, seemingly satisfied with the result of his scrutiny, rose to his feet.
“I am proposing now to return to London,” he said. “Unless there is anything further you wish to know?”
He looked from one man to the other.
“No, thank you, sir.”
The sound of the gong rose fortissimo from the hall outside.
“Dear me,” said Mr. Wimborne. “One of the boys, I think, must have been performing.”
Inspector Craddock raised his voice, to be heard above the clamour, as he said:
“We’ll leave the family to have lunch in peace, but Inspector Bacon and I would like to return after it—say at two fifteen—and have a short interview with every member of the family.”
“You think that is necessary?”
“Well…” Craddock shrugged his shoulders. “It’s just an off chance. Somebody might remember something that would give us a clue to the woman’s identity.”
“I doubt it, Inspector. I doubt it very much. But I wish you good luck. As I said just now, the sooner this distasteful business is cleared up, the better for everybody.”
Shaking his head, he went slowly out of the room.
II
Lucy had gone straight to the kitchen on getting back from the inquest, and was busy with preparations for lunch when Bryan Eastley put his head in.
“Can I give you a hand in any way?” he asked. “I’m handy about the house.”
Lucy gave him a quick, slightly preoccupied glance. Bryan had arrived at the inquest direct in his small M.G. car, and she had not as yet had much time to size him up.
What she saw was likeable enough. Eastley was an amiable-looking young man of thirty-odd with brown hair, rather plaintive blue eyes and an enormous fair moustache.
“The boys aren’t back yet,” he said, coming in and sitting on the end of the kitchen table. “It will take ’em another twenty minutes on their bikes.”
Lucy smiled.
“They were certainly determined not to miss anything.”
“Can’t blame them. I mean to say—first inquest in their young lives and right in the family so to speak.”
“Do you mind getting off the table, Mr. Eastley? I want to put the baking dish down there.”
Bryan obeyed.
“I say, that fat’s corking hot. What are you going to put in it?”
“Yorkshire pudding.”
“Good old Yorkshire. Roast beef of old England, is that the menu for today?”
“Yes.”
“The funeral baked meats, in fact. Smells good.” He sniffed appreciatively. “Do you mind my gassing away?”
“If you came in to help I’d rather you helped.” She drew another pan from the oven. “Here—turn all these potatoes over so that they brown on the other side….”
Bryan obeyed with alacrity.
“Have all these things been fizzling away in here while we’ve been at the inquest? Supposing they’d been all burnt up.”
“Most improbable. There’s a regulating number on the oven.”
“Kind of electric brain, eh, what? Is that right?”
Lucy threw a swift look in his direction.
“Quite right. Now put the pan in the oven. Here, take the cloth. On the second shelf— I want the top for the Yorkshire pudding.”
Bryan obeyed, but not without uttering a shrill yelp.
“Burnt yourself?”
“Just a bit. It doesn’t matter. What a dangerous game cooking is!”
“I suppose you never do your own cooking?”
“As a matter of fact I do—quite often. But not this sort of thing. I can boil an egg—if I don’t forget to look at the clock. And I can do eggs and bacon. And I can put a steak under the grill or open a tin of soup. I’ve got one of those little electric whatnots in my flat.”
“You live in London?”
“If you call it living—yes.”
His tone was despondent. He watched Lucy shoot in the dish with the Yorkshire pudding mixture.
“This is awfully jolly,” he said and sighed.
Her immediate preoccupations over, Lucy looked at him with more attention.
“What is—this kitchen?”
“Yes. Reminds me of our kitchen at home—when I was a boy.”
It struck Lucy that there was something strangely forlorn about Bryan Eastley. Looking closely at him, she realized that he was older than she had at first thought. He must be close on forty. It seemed difficult to think of him as Alexander’s father. He reminded her of innumerable young pilots she had known during the war when she had been at the impressionable age of fourteen. She had gone on and grown up into a post-war world—but she felt as though Bryan had not gone on, but had been passed by in the passage of years. His next words confirmed this. He had subsided on to the kitchen table again.
“It’s a difficult sort of world,” he said, “isn’t it? To get your bearings in, I mean. You see, one hasn’t been trained for it.”
Lucy recalled what she had heard from Emma.
“You were a fighter pilot, weren’t you?” she said. “You’ve got a D.F.C.”
“That’s the sort of thing that puts you wrong. You’ve got a gong and so people try to make it easy for you. Give you a job and all that. Very decent of them. But they’re all admin. jobs, and one simply isn’t any good at that sort of thing. Sitting at a desk getting tangled up in figures. I’ve had ideas of my own, you know, tried out a wheeze or two. But you can’t get the backing. Can’t get the chaps to come in and put down the money. If I had a bit of capital—”
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?
Chapter Eight