A Medal For Murder (26 page)

I pulled back a worn towel, a torn sheet.

It was a figure, not unlike the tailor’s dummy that stood in the downstairs window of the captain’s flat. That one sported a Boer uniform. This one had worn khaki. The uniform had been cut to shreds. A bone-hilt dagger protruded from the chest. Straw, not innards, tumbled out.

I shut the bathroom door quietly and leaned against it. Just my luck that the first time I get a chance to use my illicit skill of lock-picking, I enter a flat where some maniac has been before me. Was this Lucy’s work? If so, what had led her to be so thorough in her destruction of the soldier dummy?

The sound startled me. A great roar made me believe that a tiger rug had come to life or some long-dead elephant had returned demanding its stolen tusks.

‘What the devil . . .!’ It was the captain, brandishing his sword stick.

‘I thought it best to eliminate the obvious,’ I said calmly. ‘Who has murdered your soldier doll?’

My question diverted him for a moment. I opened the bathroom door wide so that he could see for himself what havoc had been wreaked on the life-size boy soldier. He leaned down and touched the damaged thing, a moan escaping from him.

He rounded on me. ‘Who let you in here?’

‘Myself.’

‘Then let yourself out, and don’t come back. I don’t need you. I never should have trusted you.’

‘As you wish.’

‘Yes, as I wish. I don’t need a bit of skirt with a high opinion of herself poking her nose in where she doesn’t belong. Get out, and when you see your adventuress friend, tell her she can pack her bags. We were all right till she rolled up.’

Retreat was most definitely in order.

He rushed ahead of me to the door, flung it open. ‘Out! Out!’

The captain did not follow. I guessed he would be checking his precious museum pieces to ensure there was nothing missing. His fury had unnerved me. I held onto the banister. The dog barked again. I hurried down the stairs, not wanting to be there when he completed his inventory of secrets.

A mighty yell of fury came from above. The door slammed shut. Half expecting to be run through with his sword walking stick, I reached the landing as his footsteps pounded down the stairs.

 
 

A concerned Miss Fell stood at her open door. She hurried towards me, and hastily drew me inside. Mistress of understatement, she whispered, ‘The captain doesn’t like anyone looking at his military accoutrements.’

‘He must have incredibly sharp hearing.’

‘It’s a sixth sense he has for protecting his weaponry.’

The dog darted at my ankles, yapping a warning to his mistress not to be so naïve as to invite me in.

‘Shut up, Peeko, dear,’ she said soothlingly. ‘This is an emergency. The captain is raving.’ With the triumph of a lonely person who has finally found a captive audience, she shut the door behind us.

I followed her into a large sitting room, furnished with an overstuffed sofa and chairs, smelling strongly of dog and weakly of lavender. The small creature dogging my heels, herding me in, might look like a muff. Its manner, yap and stink told a different story.

It leapt at my leg, demanding attention, its eyes saying with a mixture of pleading and arrogance, ‘I’m a proper dog, so watch out.’

Flattery is one of my stocks in trade, especially when
I find myself in a tricky situation. ‘Fine fellow,’ I said, stroking the dog’s silky head. Peeko was not impressed. I tried again. ‘Clever fellow.’

That did the trick. Here was a dog that knew well enough he was a fine fellow and only wanted to have his intellect admired.

‘Peeko likes you,’ Miss Fell said. She waved an arm for me to take a seat.

I perched on the sofa. Matching her for understatement, I said, ‘I’ve upset your landlord.’

‘Take no notice. You were only looking for the bathroom I’m sure.’ She dismissed the captain with a flick of her wrist. ‘Now tell me what you thought of the play. I saw it twice. Haven’t seen a finer piece of theatre since the old queen was on the throne. Goodness me, it brought tears to my eyes to see Lucy taking her part so magnificently. It was like seeing a stranger, though I’ve known her since she was a tot. Do sit down, though it won’t be for long. He’s restless.’

I did not know whether she meant the dog or the captain who was now marching so loudly across the floor above that the light fitting shook.

My hostess glanced up. ‘He’ll be muttering and cursing,’ she confided sagely. ‘I’ve seen him this way before.’

‘It’s good of you to offer me sanctuary,’ I said. ‘You’ll risk the captain’s wrath.’

‘Huh! There’s nothing he can do about me,’ Miss Fell said confidently. ‘I’ve been resident here for many years. I came as companion to the captain’s aunt, a dear lady, the genuine article.’

‘Then you must like Harrogate, and this house . . . to have stayed, I mean.’

She sighed. ‘Harrogate is a wonderful place to live. So healthy, so very refined. But I’m afraid the house is not what it was in Miss Wolfendale’s day.’

Miss Fell settled herself for a Good Chat. The dog snuggled up to her. She tickled his head. As she did so, I noticed her hands. They were old, wrinkled and speckled, the nails ridged with age. On each of her ring fingers, she wore a buckled silver ring. The silver ring on her right hand was doing a job: it was holding secure a ring that was one size too big. I stared at the ring. I am no expert but felt sure that this was 18-carat gold. In a concave setting glittered three diamonds and, on either side, three raised bars. The ring exactly matched Mr Moony’s description of Mrs deVries’s ring.

So perhaps my hunch about the transposition of the house number had not been so wild after all. We were in 29 St Clement’s Road. The address for the mysterious Mrs deVries was 92. That would explain her odd behaviour yesterday at the mention of the name deVries. She
was
Mrs deVries. Who had she asked to collect her ring from the pawn shop? If Miss Fell herself had something to hide, she would not have invited me in.

As my mind ran over these details, I tried to think of how to tackle her. I must tread carefully. If she simply denied being ‘Mrs deVries’, there would be no trail for me to follow. While she went to make tea in her small kitchen, I looked at the photographs on the sideboard. One photograph showed a much younger Miss Fell, and her older companion, who held a walking stick. They wore tweed skirts, stout shoes and berets. The two of them were perched on a boulder, legs outstretched, knapsacks by their feet.

‘That’s me with Miss Wolfendale,’ Miss Fell called from the kitchen.

‘The captain’s aunt?’

‘Yes. And next to that, Miss Wolfendale with the captain, when he was a boy.’

I picked up the second photograph.

The woman and boy, aged about sixteen, looked out at me, the boy posing with a self-conscious air, looking into the lens and half-smiling into an unknown future. He stood to attention, wearing long trousers and a check shirt open at his smooth young neck. The woman wore a print dress and cardigan. Her hand rested affectionately on his shoulder. She had a longish face, slightly horsey. He had the same characteristic, but less markedly, which made me think he would have turned out classic-ally handsome.

‘I believe that’s taken locally?’

‘It is indeed. On The Stray.’

The resemblance between the woman and the boy was clear.

‘So the captain is Miss Wolfendale’s brother’s child?’

‘Yes.’ She brought in a tea tray, her rings glinting. ‘And her only relation. When Miss Wolfendale died, she left the house to the captain with a proviso that I be allowed to remain as a grace and favour tenant. I did not then expect that he would rent out the lower level which does rather give the old place the atmosphere of a lodging house. Not that I dislike the tenants.’

And one of those tenants was Dan Root, owner of a watch chain hung with a South African coin, just like the one Mr Moony’s assailant pretended to pawn. Being his own master, Dan would be free to take Monday
morning off for a little light robbery in Leeds. But why would he have returned the ring to Miss Fell?

Of course I could be entirely mistaken. No ring is totally unique unless specially made. Having asked her yesterday about Mrs deVries, I tried to think of a way to raise the subject again. I did not need to. It was on her mind.

‘You rather threw me yesterday, dear, when you asked about your mother’s friend. I’m afraid I wasn’t very helpful. This area teems with spinsters and widows, and we don’t all know each other. If we were younger, there would be some plan to ship us to the colonies without ado.’ The tea came from the fluted china pot so weak it looked in need of help. ‘Not too strong for you?’ Miss Fell asked.

I assured her it was not.

‘Of course it’s different for young women nowadays,’ Miss Fell said, offering me sugar. ‘Take Lucy, how wonderfully well she took her part in the play, not in the least self-conscious. But you see she acted in school plays and was fond of reciting. Even as a wee child she would climb on the table and give us a lyrical ballad or a comic verse. I taught her some poems myself.’ Miss Fell waved her hand towards a well stocked bookshelf. As she did so, several volumes fell from the arm of her chair. I moved to rescue them. They were detective stories from a private lending library. ‘Thank you, my dear. On the table please.’

As I stacked the novels on the table, I imagined Lucy, as a precocious child, reciting her heart out. Lucy could have been the robber. She could easily have dressed as a young man, borrowed Dan Root’s watch chain. Lulled poor Mr Moony into believing her just another customer, and then made her move.

Miss Fell waited until I had set the novels in a neat pile and then continued her praise of Lucy. ‘Her memory has always been phenomenal. She claims to remember her mother, though between you and me I believe it’s her nursemaid she recollects. I don’t disabuse her, though it’s odd that she should think of such a woman as her mother.’

‘Why odd?’ I asked.

Miss Fell stiffened suddenly as we once more heard footsteps on the stairs, and then on the landing. She waited. ‘He’s calmed down. Something in him snaps if he thinks anyone is delving into his precious junk room up there. We had it as our sewing room years ago.’

‘It sounds as though you and Miss Wolfendale got on very well.’

‘Oh we did. She was more like an older sister to me than an employer. We went on holiday each year, out into the countryside, staying on a farm, walking in the hill country. I came here in 1897, in answer to an advertisement in
The Lady
. And Miss Wolfendale was a lady. Of course I was a young woman then, thirty years old. Didn’t think myself young of course. Thought myself old and past it.’ She laughed heartily. ‘Don’t we always think that we’re as old as we’re ever going to be? I was companion to Miss Wolfendale until her death in 1903, at the age of sixty-six.’ She sighed. ‘I did think I might have to find another place when she died. But the executors of the will asked me would I stay on, until matters were settled.’

‘And here you are still.’

‘As it transpired, Miss Wolfendale kindly made provision for me to receive a small annuity.’

A little piece of the jigsaw fitted into place. Mr
Moony had said that Mrs deVries pawned her ring annually. No doubt this coincided with the period just before Miss Fell’s annuity went into her bank account.

Peeko perched himself on the window ledge, looking down into the street below with the appearance of a creature expecting an important delivery of horseflesh.

‘And you haven’t regretted staying on, Miss Fell?’

‘Not a bit of it. I felt I owed it to dear Miss Wolfendale, especially when the captain arrived with his granddaughter in tow.’

‘Lucy must have been very young?’

‘She was two years old, and the prettiest little creature you ever saw. The nursemaid became homesick and went back where she came from. I’ve since wondered whether she might have stayed on if he’d paid her more. But of course she did attract rather a lot of attention in Harrogate.’

‘Why was that?’

‘Didn’t I say? She was African, what they used to call a Kaffir girl.’

‘Poor Lucy, to lose her parents and her nursemaid so young. And it can’t have been easy for a man of his age to bring up a child.’