Murder Strikes Pink Read online

  ‘You sit at the table, Roper,’ directed Jackson, and turning to Mrs. Maggs he asked, ‘Full name?’

  When Mrs. Maggs answered, ‘Yes, time we did, no vegetables and everything so dusty,’ he pulled his nose angrily and decided that it was going to be a difficult interview. Eventually he learned that on Saturday she had prepared the milk shake in exactly the same way as usual. The milk was from the usual milkman, the flavouring from the usual bottle, and the spoonful of ice cream had been taken from a newly opened carton. She had beaten the mixture in the electric mixer and poured it into a thermos which had stood in the refrigerator, until it was time to put it on the table in the hall for the secretaries to pack the basket which they always took to horse shows. Mrs. Maggs had been with Miss Thistleton for a year and neither liked nor disliked her employer, but she didn’t, she said, ‘care for the secretaries’. She had no idea why anyone should want to murder Miss Thistleton, she had seen no strangers hanging round the house and she was quite certain in her own mind that if Miss Thistleton had been poisoned, it was through eating something from the refreshment tent at the show.

  Jackson asked her to send Miss Steer next and almost at once they heard Molly scurrying down the passage in an anxious endeavour not to keep the Superintendent waiting. She burst into the room flustered and breathless, stumbled over a rug and only just saved herself from falling by grabbing an occasional table; the objects on the table slid to the floor with a crash. ‘Oh dear, how clumsy of me,’ cried Molly, crimson-faced and in abject distress. ‘Oh dear, it’s broken, Miss Thistleton’s favourite china horse. Oh, I am sorry.’ Painstakingly she began to collect the bits. ‘Perhaps it could be glued.’ Jackson pulled his nose impatiently.

  ‘Never mind about that now, Miss Steer. Come and sit down.’ Clutching the shattered horse tenderly Molly sat where she was told, but she was so busy reproaching herself for her clumsiness and lack of poise that she was quite unable to concentrate on either Jackson’s questions or her own answers. She debated endlessly and ineffectively whether T.T. had really had her last lemonade going to the Ladies tent or afterwards and each time she was prevailed upon to commit herself to a definite statement of fact, she immediately began to wonder whether the incident hadn’t taken place on Friday and not Saturday after all. The only points Jackson managed to pin her down on concerned her own actions. She had taken the thermos from the hall table, packed it in what was known as the emergency basket, seen it into the hired car and then, on arrival at the show, into the groom’s compartment of the horse-box. She had visited the horsebox at least once that afternoon, for she was quite certain that it was on Saturday that she had fetched the insect repellent and not Friday — she distinctly remembered Miss Thistleton being bitten by a horsefly. She had also fetched the thermos and poured out the milk shake.

  After Mrs. Maggs and Molly Steer, Joy Hemming was a model witness. She was both calm and helpful, but Jackson viewed her with repugnance. She was so small and faded; so dowdy in low-heeled shoes and an unfashionably long dress. Not that Jackson liked any women; the shameful memories of a brief marriage when he had found himself to be impotent, though now buried deep, still coloured his outlook and, except for very elegant, well-dressed and made-up women whose company could sometimes send a tiny surge of virility through him, he found them all repellent.

  With much scuffling among the filing system, Joy Hemming produced the names and addresses of the three women who came each morning to help with the housework and the names and, as far as she knew them, addresses of all the staff who had left so abruptly. It was, she explained, over T.T.’s treatment of Williams, the old butler, who had put up with her for so much longer than anyone else, that the trouble had come about.

  ‘It seems that Miss Thistleton was very rude to him; he wouldn’t tell anyone exactly what she said, but she was often very sarcastic and if she was in one of her really nasty moods she would even go so far as to use bad language,’ Joy explained to Jackson. ‘Anyway, according to Williams’s story, he told her quite politely that she oughtn’t to speak to him like that because he was a servant and not supposed to answer back. T.T. promptly sacked him — he’d been here donkey’s years — and insisted that he left the same night. The rest of the staff — the stud groom and his son the chauffeur, the housemaids, all gave notice at once. Only Mrs. Maggs, who’s really a bit dotty, poor dear, and Brenda Dix, the little girl groom, who has a local boy friend, decided to stay and at the end of the week the others all went. I think T.T. expected them to give way right up to the last, for she wouldn’t let us advertise for new staff.’

  ‘And this Mrs. Keswick who was driving the horsebox?’ asked Jackson.

  ‘T.T. asked her to help out, she’s really a sort of relation. At least she’s married to Laurence Keswick, who was a cousin of some sort.’

  ‘Ah, now that’s interesting. I understand from the solicitors that a Mr. Laurence Keswick is the chief beneficiary under Miss Thistleton’s will. Drew, Nittard and Drew, I think it was you who told them to telephone the police?’

  ‘Yes, we telephoned Mr. Drew to tell him the terrible news on Sunday and he seemed to think it impossible that any client of his could have died in, well, peculiar circumstances; he seemed to think we were a couple of hysterical women,’ Joy smiled whimsically, ‘so we suggested that he should ring the County Police.’

  ‘Husband and wife, eh?’ said Jackson pulling his nose gently.

  ‘Yes, but I don’t know for how much longer; they’ve parted and I believe they’re thinking of divorce. Such a pity.’

  Jackson had asked for Marion Keswick’s address and then returned to the thermos. Joy Hemming agreed that Molly Steer had put it into the basket, taken the basket to the car, transferred it to the horse-box. ‘Why was it kept in the horse-box?’ asked Jackson. ‘As far as I can make out you ladies spent the day going backwards and forwards fetching things. Why didn’t you have it all in the enclosure with you?’

  Joy laughed. ‘You don’t realise what T.T. was like,’ she said. ‘She always insisted on travelling about with everything she might possibly need. Some of the things we had to drag round with us we’ve never used since I’ve been here and that’s two years. Mackintoshes and rugs even in a spell of hot weather like we’re having now, air cushions, shooting stick, umbrella and of course the “emergency” basket, stuffed with first-aid kits, safety pins, aspirins and all the rest of it. Normally we’d leave it all in the car and fetch it as required, you couldn’t carry it all around with you, but with no chauffeur she had to hire a car and Mr. Brain, he’s the local man, didn’t want to sit about at the show all day and for that matter I don’t think T.T. particularly wanted to pay him for doing nothing. It wasn’t as though the show was far away, you see, Upshott to Whittam, what is it? About nine miles?’ ‘So the thermos was in the horse-box in the care of Mrs. Keswick and Miss Dix until at approximately five o’clock Miss Steer went to fetch it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Joy smiled whimsically. ‘I think she was just a wee bit put out. You see she’s very particular about dividing all our duties up and doing them turn and turn about; I think life’s too short for that sort of thing really, sometimes one does more, and sometimes the other, but I do try to remember the turns as it means so much to Molly; when T.T. wanted the thermos I think Molly thought it was my turn, she looked very put out, but really and truly I’d been to the horse-box not long before to fetch the anti-sunburn lotion when T.T. thought the sun was catching her face.’

  ‘Mr. Drew tells me that Miss Thistleton asked him to come down and see her next Thursday,’ said Jackson. ‘Any idea what it was about?’

  ‘Well, I do know a little about it and I suppose it wouldn’t be betraying a confidence now. Though of course it might not have come to anything because she often threatened to do something in a rage and then did something quite different when she’d cooled down.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Jackson pulled his nose; this female was more coherent than the other one, but he’d never known any
one so long-winded, he’d begun to pity Miss Thistleton spending her life cooped up with the pair of them and paying and feeding them too.

  ‘You see,’ Joy’s voice had become confidential, ‘T.T. was very disgusted with Laurence Keswick. It seemed she disapproved of divorce, anyway she wrote to him. She wrote herself, it wasn’t a typewritten letter so we didn’t see it, except just for the envelope. I took it to the post. Then we had to write and ask Mr. Drew to come down and she began to drop hints that she was thinking of leaving her money to the Chesterfield children, well, they’re not exactly children now, Hugh’s seventeen and I think Sarah’s fifteen.’

  ‘Are they any relation?’ asked Jackson.

  ‘No, none at all. Laurence Keswick’s her only relation, I believe.’

  ‘Hum.’ Jackson heaved himself to his feet. ‘Before I see Miss Dix, I’d like to take a look round the kitchen.’

  Jackson’s appearance in the kitchen and the fact that he took possession of the bottle which contained the milk shake flavouring — the milk had long since been drunk and the ice cream eaten — threw Mrs. Maggs into a violent unreasoning fear. She began to mutter incoherent protestations of innocence and Jackson, finding that however loudly he bawled, ‘It’s just a routine check-up. The laboratory will just make sure there was nothing wrong with the flavouring,’ he could not reach her, shrugged his shoulders and asked where he would find Miss Dix. ‘Miss Steer’ll show you the way,’ Joy told him. ‘Molly, you’ll take the Superintendent to the stables, won’t you, dear?’ she added, cornering the obviously reluctant Molly in the hall.

  As she led Jackson and Roper down the gravel path through the conifers Molly Steer was at first speechless with embarrassment, but by the time they reached the stable-yard she had begun to apologize at great length for the clumsiness of her entrance to the morning-room. She seemed much afflicted by what the Superintendent must think of her. Jackson couldn’t find it in him to offer any comfort so he only answered, ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ in testy tones and pulled his nose.

  They found Brenda Dix and Sergeant Caley giggling up in the little fiat. Fingerprinting had proved an excellent introduction and the brown-eyed, Latin-looking Caley was a fast worker. Brenda, a dazzlingly artificial blonde, was wearing a pink sleeveless blouse, apple green jeans and a pair of rather dusty patent-leather chisel-toed flattie shoes. Jackson took one look and began to pull his nose violently; he detested women in shorts, slacks, coloured stockings, huge hairy sweaters or in any other form of mildly unconventional dress.

  ‘Miss Dix?’ he asked, and as Brenda gave him a charming smile he turned hastily away. ‘Come on, Roper, come on. Aren’t you ready yet?’ he demanded as young Roper searched for his pen.

  ‘Full names,’ he barked at Brenda.

  ‘Brenda Joyce Dix,’ she answered, flashing a smile at Roper.

  ‘On Saturday you went to the Upshott Show in a horsebox driven by Mrs. Keswick?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ agreed Brenda.

  ‘Shortly after your arrival Miss Steer brought various objects including a basket and put them in the groom’s compartment of the horse-box?’

  ‘That’s right, we’d been there some time, mind you. Mrs. Keswick thought we ought to get there in plenty of time because Billy Brown had never ridden any of the horses before and she thought he’d want plenty of time to have a ride round and get used to them. But not him. Full of himself, he was; said Christina Scott didn’t know how to ride them and he’d soon get them going again. Ever so rough he was. Cruel I call it. I was surprised really at old T.T. letting a boy like that ride them, she’s generally so particular, but I suppose she wanted to win. And then they crack him up enough; he’s always got his picture in the papers; you’d think he was Adam Faith or Pat Smythe or someone really famous, but he’s not a bit like that, I think he’s stupid really; he got nothing to say for himself.’

  ‘Now this basket,’ said Jackson, as soon as she drew breath. ‘Did you touch it at all or see anyone else touch it?’

  ‘No, we called it every name under the sun, though, well, not just the basket but it and all the other stuff Miss Steer dumped in. You see there were all the horses’ rugs and tack and brushes and buckets as well — we couldn’t move. And old T.T. she was very particular, always liked to see it all kept up together; you’d soon have her after you if she thought anything might get lost or pinched. Funny really, I mean she had plenty of money.’

  ‘Now you’re quite sure you didn’t touch the basket?’ Jackson didn’t believe that this chattering girl had realised the importance of his question.

  ‘No, I had plenty to do rubbing down the horses when Billy Brown had finished with them — dripping they were and of course we’d forgotten the sweat scraper.’

  ‘Did you see Mrs. Keswick touch the basket?’ Jackson was pulling his nose angrily and his voice was growing louder.

  ‘No, well I tell you I didn’t pay any attention to the basket, I was kept that busy. Christina Scott, she never does a hand’s turn and however rushed you are she never helps out, but she doesn’t make work, if you see what I mean, she wouldn’t bring the horses back in that state.’

  ‘Did you see anyone hanging round who had no business to be there; any strangers?’ asked Jackson.

  ‘No, a few kids came round wanting Billy Brown’s autograph, silly really — I mean who’s he?’

  ‘Well, that’s all, Miss Dix,’ said Jackson thankfully, and he led the way down the steep wooden stairs, cursing a case that produced such a number of talkative women. They stopped at Whittam’s pseudo-Elizabethan teashop for a quick cup of tea and then drove on to Cranley Common. Cranley was also an overgrown village, but the growth was not as affluent as at Whittam. Here it was bungalows, each with its concrete path, its carefully tended patch of lawn, which surrounded the common. It was obvious from the painted woodwork, the gay curtains and the neat gates that each building was dear to its owners as a haven and home, but the combined result was an eyesore, a long, straggling, unaesthetic mess of red brick, concrete and link wire. Beyond the Common the road wound upwards through a wood and emerged on a bare hillside. Cranley Down had none of the magnificence of real downland, the area was too small, too intersected with wire fences and scattered with smallholdings. The view was of the main road, its rash of petrol stations and ramshackle cafés and, in the distance, the orderly but uninspiring panorama of Upshott New Town.

  Down End Farm proved to be one of the smallholdings and Jackson was surprised that the heir to T.T.’s supposed quarter of a million should live in such shoddy surroundings. ‘Well, he’s certainly getting a bit of a leg up then,’ he observed as the police car bumped down the short, rutted lane and stopped at the red-brick box of a house. In the yard an effort had evidently been made with unpromising material for the breeze-block buildings had been whitewashed and a pink geranium flowered in a pot fixed to the wall. The garden was cultivated, but the hard-baked soil had only yielded a very meagre crop and the lawn, like the unshaded fields round the house, was brown and parched and bare. A white bull terrier rose from the doorstep where she was sunning herself and came towards the three detectives. Sergeant Caley, who was in the rear, hung back by the gate and called, ‘Look out, those dogs are real terrors for biting,’ but Jackson, who never lacked physical courage, walked on firmly, saying over his shoulder, ‘They only bite people who are afraid of them and I’m not.’ The dog sniffed his legs and then began to wag her tail enthusiastically. ‘She can smell my cats,’ said Jackson, knocking on the open front door.

  Marion Keswick had looked defeated and untidy on Saturday at the show, but now, surprised by her unexpected visitors, she looked even worse. Her fair hair, which had been cut for an over-ambitious style by the Whittam hairdresser, hung lank and uneven, her face, which had not been made up since morning, was devoid of powder and lipstick. She was pale and drawn with sleepless or dream-ridden nights and her blue eyes, that were almost violet-coloured, held a look of deep pain. To Jackson’s disgust she wore a
pair of crumpled linen slacks with an unmended tear at the knee and a shirt of faded blue.

  ‘Mrs. Keswick?’ he asked. And when Marion answered, ‘Yes,’ in a listless voice, he added, ‘Detective-Superintendent Jackson of the County Police. I wish to interview you in connection with the death of Miss Thistleton.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Marion in the same listless voice. ‘Will you come in?’ The detectives disposed themselves about the small, square sitting-room. It was pleasantly furnished in white and green and the three good pieces of furniture which the Keswicks possessed, but the effect was marred by the sallow yellow of a tiled fireplace and the fact that Marion had not done any housework for several days; the tables were covered with a thick layer of dust, the green hearthrug with the dog’s white hairs.

  ‘Full names,’ said Jackson, as soon as he had lowered himself into an armchair.

  ‘Marion Lorraine Keswick,’ she answered.

  ‘And on Saturday you drove Miss Thistleton’s horsebox to Upshott Show?’

  ‘Yes,’ Marion agreed.

  ‘Were you employed to do this?’ Jackson asked.

  ‘No. I was just asked to help in an emergency and I said that I would.’

  ‘You knew Miss Thistleton well then?’

  ‘As you probably know, my husband is related to her,’

  answered Marion.

  ‘Yes, I understand he is the chief beneficiary under her will,’ said Jackson rather sharply. ‘Did you know this?’ ‘Well, yes,’ Marion admitted, ‘she had told my husband, but he always felt she might easily quarrel with him or change her mind; he didn’t count on it.’