Murder Is Easy (Superintendent Battle 4)

“You don’t know that she didn’t get there. She might have been killed after her visit, not before.”

“She might have been, yes—but I don’t think she was.”

“That’s pure supposition. It boils down to this—you believe in this—this melodrama.”

Luke shook his head sharply.

“No, I don’t say that. All I say is, there’s a case for investigation.”

“In other words, you are going to Scotland Yard.”

“No, it hasn’t come to that yet—not nearly. As you say, this man Humbleby’s death may be merely a coincidence.”

“Then what, may I ask, is the idea?”

“The idea is to go down to this place and look into the matter.”

“So that’s the idea, is it?”

“Don’t you agree that that is the only sensible way to set about it?”

Jimmy stared at him, then he said:

“Are you serious about this business, Luke?”

“Absolutely.”

“Suppose the whole thing’s a mare’s nest?”

“That would be the best thing that could happen.”

“Yes, of course…” Jimmy frowned. “But you don’t think it is, do you?”

“My dear fellow, I’m keeping an open mind.” Jimmy was silent for a minute or two. Then he said:

“Got any plan? I mean, you’ll have to have some reason for suddenly arriving in this place.”

“Yes, I suppose I shall.”

“No ‘suppose’ about it. Do you realize what a small English country town is like? Anyone new sticks out a mile!”

“I shall have to adopt a disguise,” said Luke with a sudden grin. “What do you suggest? Artist? Hardly—I can’t draw, let alone paint.”

“You could be a modern artist,” suggested Jimmy. “Then that wouldn’t matter.”

But Luke was intent on the matter in hand.

“An author? Do authors go to strange country inns to write? They might, I suppose. A fisherman, perhaps—but I’ll have to find out if there’s a handy river. An invalid ordered country air? I don’t look the part, and anyway everyone goes to a nursing home nowadays. I might be looking for a house in the neighbourhood. But that’s not very good. Hang it all, Jimmy, there must be some plausible reason for a hearty stranger to descend upon an English village?”

Jimmy said:

“Wait a sec—give me that paper again.”

Taking it, he gave it a cursory glance and announced triumphantly:

“I thought so! Luke, old boy—to put it in a nutshell—I’ll fix you OK. Everything’s as easy as winking!”

Luke wheeled round.

“What?”

Jimmy was continuing with modest pride:

“I thought something struck a chord! Wychwood-under-Ashe. Of course! The very place!”

“Have you, by any chance, a pal who knows the coroner there?”

“Not this time. Better than that, my boy. Nature, as you know, has endowed me plentifully with aunts and cousins—my father having been one of a family of thirteen. Now listen to this: I have a cousin in Wychwood-under-Ashe.”

“Jimmy, you’re a blinking marvel.”

“It is pretty good, isn’t it?” said Jimmy modestly.

“Tell me about him.”

“It’s a her. Her name’s Bridget Conway. For the last two years she’s been secretary to Lord Whitfield.”

“The man who owns those nasty little weekly papers?”

“That’s right. Rather a nasty little man too! Pompous! He was born in Wychwood-under-Ashe, and being the kind of snob who rams his birth and breeding down your throat and glories in being self-made, he has returned to his home village, bought up the only big house in the neighbourhood (it belonged to Bridget’s family originally, by the way) and is busy making the place into a ‘model estate.’”

“And your cousin is his secretary?”

“She was,” said Jimmy darkly. “Now she’s gone one better! She’s engaged to him!”

“Oh,” said Luke, rather taken aback.

“He’s a catch, of course,” said Jimmy. “Rolling in money. Bridget took rather a toss over some fellow—it pretty well knocked the romance out of her. I dare say this will pan out very well. She’ll probably be kind of firm with him and he’ll eat out of her hand.”

“And where do I come in?”

Jimmy replied promptly.

“You go down there to stay—you’d better be another cousin. Bridget’s got so many that one more or less won’t matter. I’ll fix that up with her all right. She and I have always been pals. Now for your reason for going there—witchcraft, my boy.”

“Witchcraft?”

“Folklore, local superstitions—all that sort of thing. Wychwood-under-Ashe has got rather a reputation that way. One of the last places where they had a Witches’ Sabbath—witches were still burnt there in the last century—all sorts of traditions. You’re writing a book, see? Correlating the customs of the Mayang Straits and old English folklore—points of resemblance, etc. You know the sort of stuff. Go round with a notebook and interview the oldest inhabitant about local superstitions and customs. They’re quite used to that sort of thing down there, and if you’re staying at Ashe Manor it vouches for you.”

“What about Lord Whitfield?”

“He’ll be all right. He’s quite uneducated and completely credulous—actually believes things he reads in his own papers. Anyway Bridget will fix him. Bridget’s all right. I’ll answer for her.”

Luke drew a deep breath.

“Jimmy, old scout, it looks as though the thing is going to be easy. You’re a wonder. If you can really fix up with your cousin—”

“That will be absolutely OK. Leave it to me.”

“I’m no end grateful to you.”

Jimmy said:

“All I ask is, if you’re hunting down a homicidal murderer, let me be in at the death!”

He added sharply:

“What is it?”

Luke said slowly:

“Just something I remembered my old lady saying to me. I’d said to her that it was a bit thick to do a lot of murders and get away with it, and she answered that I was wrong—that it was very easy to kill…” He stopped, and then said slowly, “I wonder if that’s true, Jimmy? I wonder if it is—”

“What?”

“Easy to kill….”

Three

WITCH WITHOUT BROOMSTICK

I

The sun was shining when Luke came over the hill and down into the little country town of Wychwood-under-Ashe. He had bought a secondhand Standard Swallow, and he stopped for a moment on the brow of the hill and switched off the engine.

The summer day was warm and sunny. Below him was the village, singularly unspoilt by recent developments. It lay innocently and peacefully in the sunlight—mainly composed of a long straggling street that ran along under the overhanging brow of Ashe Ridge.

It seemed singularly remote, strangely untouched. Luke thought, “I’m probably mad. The whole thing’s fantastic.”

Had he really come here solemnly to hunt down a killer—simply on the strength of some garrulous ramblings on the part of an old lady, and a chance obituary notice?

He shook his head.

“Surely these things don’t happen,” he murmured. “Or—do they? Luke, my boy, it’s up to you to find out if you’re the world’s most credulous prize ass, or if your policeman’s nose has led you hot on the scent.”

He switched on the engine, threw in the gear and drove gently down the twisting road and so entered the main street.

Wychwood, a

s has been said, consists mainly of its one principal street. There were shops, small Georgian houses, prim and aristocratic, with whitened steps and polished knockers, there were picturesque cottages with flower gardens. There was an inn, the Bells and Motley, standing a little back from the street. There was a village green and a duck pond, and presiding over them a dignified Georgian house which Luke thought at first must be his destination, Ashe Manor. But on coming nearer he saw that there was a large painted board announcing that it was the Museum and Library. Farther on there was an anachronism, a large white modern building, austere and irrelevant to the cheerful haphazardness of the rest of the place. It was, Luke gathered, a local Institute and Lads’ Club.

It was at this point that he stopped and asked the way to his destination.

He was told that Ashe Manor was about half a mile farther on—he would see the gates on his right.

Luke continued his course. He found the gates easily—they were of new and elaborate wrought iron. He drove in, caught a gleam of red brick through the trees, and turned a corner of the drive to be stupefied by the appalling and incongruous castellated mass that greeted his eyes.

While he was contemplating the nightmare, the sun went in. He became suddenly conscious of the overlying menace of Ashe Ridge. There was a sudden sharp gust of wind, blowing back the leaves of the trees, and at that moment a girl came round the corner of the castellated mansion.

Her black hair was blown up off her head by the sudden gust and Luke was reminded of a picture he had once seen—Nevinson’s “Witch.” The long pale delicate face, the black hair flying up to the stars. He could see this girl on a broomstick flying up to the moon….

She came straight towards him.

“You must be Luke Fitzwilliam. I’m Bridget Conway.”

He took the hand she held out. He could see her now as she was—not in a sudden moment of fantasy. Tall, slender, a long delicate face with slightly hollow cheekbones—ironic black brows—black eyes and hair. She was like a delicate etching, he thought—poignant and beautiful.

He had had an acknowledged picture at the back of his mind during his voyage home to England—a picture of an English girl flushed and sunburnt—stroking a horse’s neck, stooping to weed a herbaceous border, sitting holding out her hands to the blaze of a wood fire. It had been a warm gracious vision….