Murder in the Afternoon: A Kate Shackleton Mystery Read online

  I needed to be out of the room, to think. My mind raced in a dozen different directions as I pictured Mary Jane and Ledger.

  I walked upstairs slowly, carrying scraps of fish for Sookie. She and the kittens were sleeping. On the floor by the drawer was an old newspaper, with an empty dish, and an almost empty saucer. I took them into the bathroom, rinsed them under the tap. When I went back into my bedroom, Sookie was awake and looking at me.

  It is always useful to have something new and very definite to worry about. What if she, or one of the kittens, clambered over the back of the drawer into the void? Someone, the obliging Elizabeth Merton say, might come into the room and, unthinkingly, shut the drawer, squashing bodies.

  There was nothing I could do about that at the moment, except pull the drawer all the way out. Good idea. Sookie didn’t think so. She scowled. Her roof was gone. Some cats just don’t allow themselves to be grateful.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Sykes called up the stairs as the drawer thumped the floor.

  ‘Yes.’ I didn’t need him to fuss.

  Sykes stood at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Rosie does that, gets it into her head to rearrange the furniture all of a sudden. Keeps us on our toes.’

  Sykes had made a fresh pot of tea.

  In the centre of the kitchen table, I placed the cloth that Harriet had handed to me. Unfolded, it revealed four shards of blue slate, each carved with a delicate flower.

  ‘What’s this?’ Sykes asked. ‘Are you collecting bits of slate now?’

  ‘When Ethan was making the sundial, he came across a flaw in the slate. He carved a flower to cover that flaw, and then intended to do three more. I asked Raymond, the other mason, to search in the broken pieces of slate, to see whether Ethan had finished the work.’

  Sykes picked up each flower in turn. ‘It looks as if he did finish it.’

  ‘Yes. So he is unlikely to have destroyed his own work in frustration. The colonel suggested there could have been a fault in the slate, some hidden crack that foiled Ethan’s best efforts, and that the sundial split at the very last moment. But from looking at these pieces, I’d say he finished it and would have been satisfied.’

  Sykes pondered. He was leaving it to me to comment on Mary Jane and the colonel, but he said, ‘After today, should we regard what the colonel says as gospel?’

  ‘Probably not.’ I rewrapped the pieces of slate in the cloth.

  ‘Of course, this meeting between them this afternoon might have been quite innocent.’

  Sykes never thinks anything anyone ever does is innocent. He was trying to make me react. I said, ‘If it was innocent, why didn’t Mary Jane see him openly?’

  Sykes shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps she didn’t want to run the risk of going to the house and seeing the colonel’s wife.’

  I went into the dining room and brought back the papers from Ethan Armstrong’s trunk that Mary Jane had pressed me to take.

  ‘Dad won’t be too pleased that I have these. His line of enquiry is that Ethan was up to no good, politically. Special Branch have him on a list.’

  Sykes let out a whistle. ‘Shouldn’t you turn these papers in to them? If it’s political, it’s specialist stuff, Mrs Shackleton.’

  ‘We’re specialist people, Mr Sykes. We have to be able to understand all sorts of matters to make our way through this undergrowth.’

  ‘But we’re off the case, aren’t we?’

  ‘I suppose so. But that doesn’t stop us being curious, does it?’

  ‘No,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘And if the constabulary and special branch are looking through one particular lens, it wouldn’t hurt us to glance down the wrong end of the telescope.’

  ‘At the colonel, and my sister?’

  He nodded, then added, ‘If only to eliminate them.’

  ‘Or not.’

  ‘Or not.’

  We divided Ethan Armstrong’s papers between us and read carefully.

  After an hour, Sykes said, ‘They don’t want much, these trade unionists. Only to build a new Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s quite as unselfish as that. They want a forty-four hour week, better pay and conditions. There’s nothing here that would help women and children.’

  ‘Paying a man well helps his family.’

  ‘Not necessarily, Mr Sykes.’

  I looked at the names of the union members, and wondered which one might have been a traitor to his comrades. The familiar name was Raymond Turnbull, Ethan’s old apprentice, and son of the quarry foreman. I told Sykes of Raymond’s comments – that Ethan said they had an informer in their midst. ‘Whoever it was reported back which men were willing to go on strike.’

  ‘There’s always one,’ Sykes said. ‘Some people get a thrill out of passing on information. Makes them feel important.’ He was picking up the newspapers, glancing at the dates. ‘This is odd. Our man Armstrong has all these Daily Heralds, and then there’s last week’s Wakefield Express, and look, it has that same ad on the front page, the one you told me about.’

  He passed the newspaper to me.

  A well provided and pleasant lady seeks well provided amiable gentleman with a view to joining lives and fortunes.

  Box No. 61

  The telephone rang. I jumped. ‘That might be Mrs Sugden. If she wants a lift back from some godforsaken place, I hope you’ll feel up to going because I don’t.’

  ‘As long as it’s not on that damn bike,’ Sykes said. ‘I swore I’d never climb on it again, but it was that or cold fish and chips.’

  I picked up the receiver.

  ‘Katie?’

  ‘Oh, hello, Dad.’

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m all right thank you.’

  ‘You didn’t come to see your mother.’

  ‘No. I shall though. Tomorrow.’

  There was a short silence. He was thinking, Good, that means she’s listened to me and is leaving the Ethan Armstrong case alone. Or is she? To be sure I had taken his point, he said, ‘I just want to tell you, everything is in hand. You needn’t worry yourself any more about that matter we spoke of.’

  ‘Good. And, Dad, there’s something I should tell you. I called on Mrs Whitaker today, and gave her a ride out to see Mary Jane. I thought that might be best.’

  During the six-second silence that followed, I could hear him thinking. Slowly, he said, ‘Good idea. It will save you having to be there, won’t it?’ So that was his message. Loud and clear. I waited, counting to five in my head to see what would come next. He said, ‘It’s likely there’ll be someone up from London.’

  ‘Ah. Do we know who?’

  ‘I have to go. There’s someone at the door.’

  ‘Goodnight, Dad.’

  ‘Goodnight, Katie.’

  Sykes had heard enough of the conversation to know who I was talking to.

  ‘We’re warned off?’

  ‘Doubly warned off. But I’m sure he now owes me explanations. I’d like to know if I’m right that Miss Trimble was poisoned.’

  ‘It’s puzzling,’ Sykes said. ‘The disappearance or murder of Ethan was clumsy, bungled, with his daughter seeing his body, and the body disappearing. Miss Trimble’s death was very neat. If you hadn’t spotted her through the window and gone in there before her brother came home, her death would almost certainly be put down as natural causes.’

  Sykes looked at his hands carefully. They were black with print from the newspapers. ‘I don’t suppose …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, I know we’re ordered off the case, but I have all this hosiery and a little case to carry it in. It’s sale or return, but it seems a pity to return it when I’ve not much else to do tomorrow.’

  ‘And you might make a few sales in Great Applewick?’

  ‘Door to door.’

  ‘I don’t see why not. Let’s go together to this insurance appointment tomorrow morning, and then we’ll go our separate ways, and s
ee what the day brings.’

  At that moment, the front door opened. A great sigh travelled down the hall, followed by Mrs Sugden’s weary footsteps. Something told me she had drawn a blank at the spiritualist meeting, but at least she was home, and safe.

  She stood in the kitchen doorway, unpinning her hat. ‘It wasn’t an entirely wasted visit. I met the housekeeper from Applewick Hall. She and I got on very well.’ Sykes raised his particularly mobile left eyebrow at me.

  Mrs Sugden came sniffing, peeling off her gloves. ‘You’ve had fish and chips?’

  ‘Yes. Sorry we didn’t save you any.’

  She snorted. ‘I wouldn’t thank you for them.’

  ‘Did the housekeeper say much else about the Ledgers?’

  ‘She says the colonel and Mrs Ledger are utterly devoted to each other.’

  ‘Take the weight off your feet.’ I drew back the third kitchen chair.

  Mrs Sugden unbuttoned her coat and sat down. ‘All the staff watched the unveiling of the sundial today. It was Mrs Ledger’s birthday, and their wedding anniversary.’

  Sykes fetched another cup and poured tea.

  Mrs Sugden glanced critically at the tea. ‘It wasn’t a good night for the spirits.’ She smiled. ‘Not very useful was it? But the members of the Spiritualist Church welcomed me most warmly. Said join in again any time.’ She looked all round, checking the kitchen to ensure we had not made a terrible mess or dropped chips on the clean floor.

  Mrs Sugden does not usually omit chapter and verse.

  ‘What else?’ I prompted.

  ‘Summat and nowt.’ She waved her hand dismissively.

  ‘Something about Mary Jane?’

  She sighed. ‘The servants at the Hall don’t like her.’

  ‘Any particular reason?’

  Mrs Sugden almost blushed; something I did not think possible. ‘They say she set her cap at the colonel, and that Mrs Ledger had to get shut of her – give her a dowry and marry her off. She was meant to marry a chap from the farm, Bob someone …’

  ‘Bob Conroy?’

  ‘That’s the one. But Ethan Armstrong swept her off her feet.’

  Sykes shot me a questioning look.

  ‘Bob Conroy is Ethan’s best friend. I saw him in the churchyard yesterday. He was very upset about Ethan going missing.’

  Sykes’s fingers drummed silently on the table. ‘Was he upset because he was responsible for Ethan’s death?’

  WEDNESDAY

  So a’ bade me lay more clothes on his feet: I put my hand into the bed and felt them, and they were as cold as any stone; then I felt to his knees, and so upward, and upward, and all was as cold as any stone.

  Shakespeare, Henry V II, ii

  One

  On Wednesday morning, I unfolded my sheet of foolscap notes. Sykes and I had written one each the previous evening. Mine read:

  APPROXIMATE TIMINGS

  Ethan last seen alive: 1.10pm Saturday by Josiah Turnbull, quarry foreman

  5.15pm – Ethan’s body found by Harriet

  5.50pm – Arthur from farm: no sign of Ethan – sundial intact

  6.30pm – MJ to quarry – sundial smashed

  7.30pm – search of quarry by Sergeant Sharp, Josiah & Raymond Turnbull and two other quarrymen

  QUERIES

  What is going on between Col. Ledger and Mary Jane?

  Significance of the “well provided woman” advertisement?

  Mary Jane – opportunity to ‘visit’ Ethan at work during afternoon when children shopping. Claims not to have done so.

  Miss Trimble reported seeing person (Mary Jane?) in plaid cape at 4 pm.

  Who broke the sundial – is this a diversion?

  Ethan A. – associates and friends?

  Enemies?

  Coincidence of shepherd’s death in quarry last year?

  Link between Ethan’s death and Miss Trimble’s death?

  POSSIBILITIES

  Foul play – Ethan attacked; assailant hid when children approached; assailant hid body when children gone.

  If body hidden, cannot be far away, unless moved at night – by whom?

  If Ethan attacked, how? Where are his tools?

  My map and matchstick men figures, with arrows from one to another, were of no great help. In large letters came the question – WHO BENEFITS FROM ETHAN ARMSTRONG’S DEATH?

  There was a simple answer to the first question. Mary Jane had Ethan’s life insured, but as she had reminded me, a fit working man was worth more alive than dead. Of course if he had found out something about Mary Jane that put their marriage in jeopardy, this would change.

  If Mary Jane and Colonel Ledger were having an affair, and Ethan had found out, then it may be convenient for the colonel to have Ethan out of the way.

  We were off the case. But there must be something that would shed a little light, if only to satisfy my own curiosity. Once more I picked up the advertisement, that had reappeared in the Wakefield Express. A well provided woman seeking a similar mate.

  The man who kept a closer eye on newspapers than anyone else I had ever met was Mr Eric Duffield, local newspaper librarian at the Herald on Albion Street. Fortunately, I had sent him a bottle of whiskey at Christmas, as thanks for his help in the Braithwaite case.

  I went into the hall and lifted the telephone receiver. Moments later, Mr Duffield assured me that he would be able to see me at 10.30.

  Sookie appeared on the stairs. She padded into the hall at a stately pace. The slightest movement of her head told me that something was required. I followed her into the kitchen. Now I would have to open the door, let her out, and wait for her to come back.

  She marched out of the back door, tail straight as a flagpole. While she was out, I located the trug Mrs Sugden had set aside, put in an old blanket and took it upstairs. Gingerly, I lifted my once immaculate white jumper and its complement of kittens into the trug, counted that all were present and correct, and manoeuvred and pushed the drawer back into place, shutting it firmly. If Sookie didn’t like it, she could lump it.

  By the time I went downstairs, Sookie was back at the door. She deigned to eat her food in the kitchen, as an indication that she was back to normal.

  After our meeting with the director of the Yorkshire Mutual Insurance Company, Sykes and I congratulated ourselves on scooping another assignment. We were to be retained in connection with investigations into insurance fraud.

  We parted on Park Row, Sykes to the railway station, carrying his attaché case of hosiery, me to make the short walk to meet Mr Duffield in the offices of the Herald.

  I did not have to wait long before my courtly friend greeted me and we made our way in the rattling lift to the top floor of the newspaper offices.

  ‘Personal advertisements are perpetually intriguing,’ Mr Duffield agreed when I told him about the cutting that had aroused my curiosity, reciting the wording that I now knew by heart.

  ‘A well provided lady, eh?’ The lift clattered to a stop. He clanked open the door for me. ‘Either the lady in question is casting her net wide or there is a recommended wording – perhaps advised by some matrimonial agency.’ He tapped the side of his nose indicating private information to be imparted in his own good time.

  Mr Duffield looked just the same as I had seen him last – calm, unhurried, well turned out in his boiled shirt, his fingers black with newsprint. We reached the newspaper library, with its high windows, ancient wooden tables and a multitude of cupboards and filing cabinets. Pale morning light shone through the windows. The air reeked of ink, hair oil and tobacco. Mr Duffield was lord of all he surveyed: piles of newspapers, file drawers of cuttings, an index system that would flummox Special Branch.

  ‘Please.’ He drew out a chair beside his desk and bowed me into it before taking a seat himself.

  ‘Would you reply to this?’ I asked. ‘If you were looking for a wife I mean.’

  ‘That depends,’ Mr Duffield said cautiously.

  ‘On what?’


  ‘Was I in much of a hurry, for instance? Perhaps a wife might be required urgently, say if I were a sick man, in need of nursing, or thought I might soon become sick.’

  ‘Then wouldn’t you advertise for a nurse?’

  ‘Nurses can be expensive. A well provided man has stayed prosperous because he has not let go of his money, and the same with the lady in question, one presumes. Money finds money.’

  I tested out the suggestion that this personal advertisement may be a code.

  ‘Now there’s a thought.’ Mr Duffield wrapped his lips around his teeth. ‘What a thought indeed. That might explain this answering advertisement, or should I call it a twin advertisement?’ He rifled through the papers on his desk until he found a Harrogate Advertiser. ‘Peruse this if you please, my dear Mrs Shackleton; the selfsame paragraph.’

  Sure enough, the wording in the Harrogate Advertiser was identical.

  A well provided and pleasant lady seeks well provided amiable gentleman with a view to joining lives and fortunes.

  Box No. 53

  It was this week’s paper. ‘The cutting from Ethan Armstrong’s pocket, and the advertisements in the Harrogate Advertiser and the Wakefield Express are word for word. Only the box number is different.’

  He nodded sagely. ‘Yes. It strikes me as odd that this person advertises in different parts of the county. She casts her net wide.’

  I felt a tingle that I really was onto something, but what? It was possible that Ethan Armstrong had cut out this advertisement because it amused him, but somehow there seemed to be more to it than that. It could have been placed by a husband-hunting woman; or by some Russian spy communicating with his treacherous dupes. ‘Would you be able to discover details of the person who placed this advertisement?’

  Mr Duffield picked up on my buzz of excitement. ‘Most cloak and daggerish. How very appealing.’ He smiled his sepulchral smile. ‘I cannot help as far as the Harrogate paper, but have a young friend on the staff of the Wakefield Express, my landlady’s daughter. She was given the job on my recommendation. She may be able to put us on the right track. Bear with me.’