Magpie Murders (16 page)

There was a long silence. Lady Pye seemed genuinely exhausted. When Pünd spoke again, his voice was gentle. ‘Do you by any chance know the combination of your husband’s safe?’ he asked.

‘Yes, I do. I keep some of my more expensive jewellery there. It hasn’t been opened, has it?’

‘No, not at all, Lady Pye,’ Pünd assured her. ‘Although it is possible that it had been opened some time recently as the picture behind which it was concealed was not quite flush with the wall.’

‘That might have been Magnus. He kept money in there. And private papers.’

‘And the combination?’ Chubb asked.

She shrugged. ‘Left to seventeen, right to nine, left to fifty-seven, then turn the dial twice.’

‘Thank you.’ Pünd smiled sympathetically. ‘I am sure you are tired, Lady Pye, and we will not keep you much longer. There are just two more questions I wish to ask you. The first concerns a note which we also found on your husband’s desk and which seems to have been written in his hand.’

Chubb had brought the notepad, now encased in a plastic evidence bag. He passed it to Lady Pye who quickly scanned the three lines written in pencil:

ASHTON H
Mw
A GIRL

‘This is Magnus’s handwriting,’ she said. ‘And there’s nothing very mysterious about it. He had a habit of making notes when he took a telephone call. He was always forgetting things. I don’t know who or what Ashton H is. MW? I suppose that could be somebody’s initials.’

‘The M is large but the w is small,’ Pünd pointed out.

‘Then it might be a word. He did that too. If you asked him to buy the newspaper when he went out, he’d jot down Np.’

‘Could it be that this Mw angered him in some way? He takes no further notes but there are several lines. You can see that he has almost torn the sheet of paper with the pencil.’

‘I have no idea.’

‘And what about this girl?’ Chubb cut in. ‘Who might that be?’

‘I can’t tell you that either. Obviously, we needed a new housekeeper. I suppose someone could have recommended a girl.’

‘Your former housekeeper, Mary Blakiston—’ Pünd began.

‘Yes. It has been a horrible time – just horrible. We were away when it happened, in the south of France. Mary had been with us for ever. Magnus was very close to her. She worshipped him! From the moment she moved into the Lodge, she was beholden to him, as if he were some sort of monarch and she’d been asked to join the royal guard. Personally, I found her rather tiresome although I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead. What else do you want to know?’

‘I noticed that there is a painting missing from the wall in the great hall where your husband was discovered. It hung next to the door.’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘Every detail is of interest to me, Lady Pye.’

‘It was a portrait of me.’ Frances Pye seemed reluctant to answer. ‘Magnus didn’t like it so he threw it out.’

‘Recently?’

‘Yes. It can’t have been more than a week ago, actually. I don’t remember exactly when.’ Frances Pye sank back into her pillows, signalling that she had spoken enough. Pünd nodded and, following his cue, Fraser and Chubb stood up and the three of them left.

‘What did you make of that?’ Chubb asked as they left the room.

‘She was definitely lying about London,’ Fraser said. ‘If you ask me, she and that Dartford chap spent the afternoon together – and they certainly weren’t shopping!’

‘It is evident that Lady Pye and her husband no longer shared a bed,’ Pünd agreed.

‘How do you know?’

‘It was obvious from the décor of the bedroom, the embroidered pillows. It was a room without any trace of a man.’

‘So there are two people with a good reason to kill him,’ Chubb muttered. ‘The oldest motive in the book. Kill the husband and run off together with the loot.’

‘You may be right, Detective Inspector. Perhaps we will find a copy of Sir Magnus Pye’s will in his safe. But his family has been in this house for many years and it is likely, I would think, that it will pass directly to his only son and heir.’

‘And a nasty piece of work he was too,’ Chubb remarked.

The safe in fact contained little of interest. There were several pieces of jewellery, about five hundred pounds in different currencies and various documents: some recent, some dating back as much as twenty years. Chubb took them with him.

He and Pünd parted company at the door, Chubb returning to his home in Hamswell where his wife, Harriet, would be waiting for him. He would know her mood instantly. As he had once confided in Pünd, she communicated it by the speed of her knitting needles.

Pünd and Fraser shook hands with him, then returned to the questionable comforts of the Queen’s Arms.

7

More people had gathered around the bus shelter on the far side of the village square, clearly exercised by something they had seen. Fraser had noticed a crowd of them that morning when they checked into the pub and clearly they had spread the word. Something had happened. The entire village needed to know.

‘What do you think that’s all about?’ he asked as he parked the car.

‘Perhaps we should find out,’ Pünd replied.

They got out and walked across the square. Whitehead’s Antiques and the General Electrics Store was already closed and in the still of the evening, with no traffic passing through, it was easy to hear what the small crowd was saying.

‘Got a right nerve!’

‘She should be ashamed.’

‘Flaunting herself like that!’

The villagers did not notice Pünd and Fraser until it was too late, then parted to allow the two men access to whatever it was they had been discussing. They saw it at once. There was a glass display case mounted next to the bus shelter with various notices pinned inside: minutes of the last council meeting, church services, forthcoming events. Among these, a single sheet of paper had been added with a typewritten message.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

There have been many rumours about Robert Blakiston circulating in the village. Some people have suggested that he may have had something to do with the tragic death of his mother, Mary Blakiston, on Friday morning at 9.00 a.m. These stories are hurtful and ill-informed and wrong. I was with Robert at that time in his flat above the garage and had been with him all night. If necessary, I will swear to this in a court of law. Robert and I are engaged to be married. Please show us a little kindness and stop spreading these malicious rumours.

Joy Sanderling

James Fraser was shocked. There was a side to his nature, something woven in by his years in the English private school system, that was easily offended by any public display of emotion. Even two people holding hands in the street seemed to him to be unnecessary and this declamation – for it seemed to him no less – went far beyond the pale. ‘What was she thinking of?’ he exclaimed as they moved away.

‘Was it the contents of the announcement that most struck you?’ Pünd replied. ‘You did not notice something else?’

‘What?’

‘The threat that was sent to Sir Magnus Pye and this confession of Joy Sanderling, they were produced by the same typewriter.’

‘Good lord!’ Fraser blinked. ‘Are you sure?’

‘I am certain. The tail of the e has faded and the t slants a little to the left. It is not just the same model. It is the same machine.’

‘Do you think she wrote the letter to Sir Magnus?’

‘It is possible.’

They took a few steps in silence, then Pünd began again. ‘Miss Sanderling has been forced to take this action because I would not help her,’ he said. ‘She is willing to sacrifice her good reputation, knowing full well that news of this may well reach her parents who will, as she made clear to us, be upset by her behaviour. This is my responsibility.’ He paused. ‘There is something about the village of Saxby-on-Avon that concerns me,’ he went on. ‘I have spoken to you before of the nature of human wickedness, my friend. How it is the small lies and evasions which nobody sees or detects but which can come together and smother you like the fumes in a house fire.’ He turned and surveyed the surrounding buildings, the shaded square. ‘They are all around us. Already there have been two deaths: three, if you include the child who died in the lake all those years ago. They are all connected. We must move quickly before there is a fourth.’

He crossed the square and went into the hotel. Behind him, the villagers were still muttering quietly, shaking their heads.

FOUR

A Boy

1

Atticus Pünd awoke with a headache.

He became aware of it before he opened his eyes and the moment he did open them, it intensified as if it had been waiting for him, lying in ambush. The force of it quite took his breath away and it was as much as he could do to reach out for the pills that Dr Benson had given him and which he had left, the night before, beside the bed. Somehow his hand found them and swept them up but he was unable to find the glass of water, which he had also prepared. It didn’t matter. He slid the pills into his mouth and swallowed them dry, feeling their harsh passage down his throat. Only a few minutes later, when they were safely lodged in his system, already dissolving and sending their antipyretics through his bloodstream and into his brain did he find the glass and drink, washing the bitter taste from his mouth.

For a long time he lay where he was, his shoulders pressed against the pillows, gazing at the shadows on the walls. Piece by piece, the room came back into focus: the oak wardrobe, slightly too big for the space in which it stood, the mirror with its mottled glass, the framed print – a view of the Royal Crescent in Bath – the sagging curtains which would draw back to reveal a view of the cemetery. Well, that was appropriate. Waiting for the pain to subside, Atticus Pünd reflected on his fast approaching mortality.

There would be no funeral. He had seen too much of death in his lifetime to want to adorn it with ritual, to dignify it as if it was anything more than what it was … a passage. Nor did he believe in God. There were those who had come out of the camps with their faith intact and he admired them for it. His own experience had led him to believe in nothing. Man was a complicated animal capable of extraordinary good and great evil – but he was definitely on his own. At the same time, he was not afraid of being proved wrong. If, after a lifetime of considered reason he found himself being called to judgment in some sort of starry chamber, he was sure he would be forgiven. From what he understood, God was the forgiving sort.

It did occur to him though that Dr Benson had been a little too optimistic. There would be more of these attacks and they would incapacitate him more seriously as the thing in his head made its irredeemable progress. How long would it be before he was no longer able to function? That was the most frightening thought – that thought itself might become no longer possible. Lying alone in his room at the Queen’s Arms, Pünd made two promises to himself: the first was that he would solve the murder of Sir Magnus Pye and make good the debt that he owed to Joy Sanderling.

The second he refused to articulate.

An hour later, when he came down to the dining room dressed as ever in a neatly pressed suit, white shirt and tie, it would have been impossible to tell how his day had begun and certainly James Fraser was quite unaware that anything was wrong but then, the young man was remarkably unobservant. Pünd remembered their first case together when Fraser had failed to notice that his travelling companion, on the three-fifty train from Paddington, was actually dead. There were many who were surprised that he managed to hold down his job as a detective’s assistant. In fact, Pünd found him useful precisely because he was so obtuse. Fraser was a blank page on which he could scribble his theories, a plain sheet of glass in which he might see his own thought processes reflected. And he was efficient. He had already ordered the black coffee and single boiled egg that Pünd liked for his breakfast.

They ate in silence. Fraser had ordered the full English for himself, an amount of food that Pünd always found bewildering. Only when they had finished did he lay out the day ahead. ‘We must visit Miss Sanderling once again,’ he announced.

‘Absolutely. I thought you’d want to start with her. I still can’t believe she would put up a notice like that. And writing to Sir Magnus—’

‘I think it is unlikely that she made the threats herself. But it was the same machine. Of that there is no doubt.’

‘Maybe someone else had access to it.’

‘She works at the doctor’s surgery. That is where we will find her. You must find out at what time it opens.’

‘Of course. Do you want me to let her know we’re coming?’

‘No. I think it will be better if we turn up by surprise.’ Pünd poured himself another inch of coffee. ‘I am interested, also, to find out more about the death of the housekeeper, Mary Blakiston.’

‘Do you think it’s connected?’

‘There can be no doubt of it. Her death, the burglary, the murder of Sir Magnus, these are surely three steps in the same journey.’

‘I wonder what Chubb will make of that clue you found. The scrap of paper in the fireplace. There was a fingerprint on it. That might tell us something.’

‘It has already told me a great deal,’ Pünd said. ‘It is not the fingerprint itself that is of interest. It will be of no assistance, unless it belongs to someone with a criminal record, which I doubt. But how it came to be there, and why the paper was burnt. These are indeed questions that might go to the very heart of the matter.’

‘And knowing you, you already have the answers. In fact, I bet you’ve solved the whole thing, you old stick!’

‘Not yet, my friend. But we will catch up with Detective Inspector Chubb later and we will see …’

Fraser wanted to ask more but he knew that Pünd would refuse to be drawn. Put a question to him and the best you would get would be a response that made little or no sense and which would, in itself, be more annoying than no answer at all. They finished their breakfast and a few minutes later, they left the hotel. Stepping out into the village square, the first thing they noticed was that the display case next to the bus shelter was empty. Joy Sanderling’s confession had been removed.