The Measby Murder Enquiry (30 page)

“And it
was
William Jones’s baby,” stated Ivy clearly. “I had it from the horse’s mouth.”

There was a shocked silence, and then Martha nodded. “Did she tell you that? Daft old thing. Still, I suppose it doesn’t matter now. William Jones went missing, presumed dead, and that poor little kid got run over. See what I mean about not much luck?”

“Have another sausage roll, Gus,” Roy said.

“Don’t mind if I do, squire,” said Gus, putting on a funny voice. He was out of his depth, he decided. Couldn’t keep up with Ivy. Better leave it all to her.

“How interesting, Martha,” Ivy persisted. “And you said that William was presumed dead? Only presumed?”

Martha was enjoying herself, surprised that there was so much interest in her erstwhile school friend. She searched her memory, and said that after a while, some people swore they saw him skulking around dark corners in town. “But that died down, and the only reference I have heard since was when his wife, Mrs. Alwen Jones, put her house on the market and went to live in a home.”

“This home, Martha.” They all turned around to see who had spoken. It was Alwen Jones, and she was looking far from pleased.

“THAT WAS A sticky moment,” Ivy said, as she sat at the supper table with Roy and Gus. Mrs. Spurling had invited Gus to stay, thinking it would cheer up Ivy and Roy, who, she mistakenly thought, were depressed by the day’s events. Since Gus had sat with Mrs. Worth for only a couple of hours on two occasions and had spent the time reading the racing pages of the
Daily Mail
, the invitation was hardly justified. However, since steak and kidney pie and lemon sponge pudding were on the menu, he accepted gratefully.

“You mean when Alwen appeared? Where is she, by the way? Haven’t seen her since then,” Roy said.

“And she wasn’t at the funeral, was she?” Gus had noted the mourners as they emerged from the church but had not seen Alwen Jones. “You’d have thought she would have wanted to be there to say farewell to her old gardener’s wife?”

“You’re joking, of course!”

“Yes, I suppose I am,” said Gus. “But even so, all that was a very long time ago, and poor old Daisy did lose her only son under a brewery lorry.”

Roy cleared his throat. “Um, we’re not suggesting here that it could have been something more sinister than an accident, are we?”

There was a silence, as the horrifying possibility was considered.

“Did anyone get Martha’s surname or address?” Ivy asked. “I reckon that could be the next step in our investigation. She would certainly have some more to tell us about those early days.”

At this point, Alwen Jones could be seen entering the hall with her daughter Bronwen.

“Uh-oh, look out, folks,” said Gus.

But Alwen did not even glance into the dining room. She received a peck on the cheek from her daughter and then went straight upstairs and out of sight.

“All clear,” said Roy. “And yes, since you ask, Ivy, I always make a point of obtaining details of attractive women, as you know.”

Ivy bridled. “Don’t be ridiculous, Roy,” she said. “Just remember what I said about trust. But did you ask her? Don’t keep us in suspense.”

“Her name is Martha Sparrow, she is a married lady with grandchildren, and she lives in a new housing development for elderly people on the outskirts of Thornwell. I heard her telling Mrs. Spurling that her number is in the phone book, should she be needed. I think maybe she was offering to be a volunteer visitor to Springfields.”

“You’re a marvel, Roy!” Gus said tactlessly. “Now, I suggest we look her up in the book, and ask if a couple of us can go over to have a chat.”

“Me and Roy, then,” said Ivy. “It’d make a nice little outing. You and Deirdre get out and about far more easily than us, so you can do something else. Maybe find out a bit more about those two who kept you prisoner, Gus?”

“If I may make a suggestion?” said Roy. “I have been wondering about that mysterious connection of yours, Gus. Martin, was it? He was the start of all this, and although I know you can’t reveal your, um, secrets, don’t you think you should check with him again to see if he’s still wanting us to ferret out other cases of extortion and so on? I am really not too clear myself.”

Ivy nodded. She had been thinking on much the same lines herself. Earlier on, Gus had led them to believe that the Measby old man’s death was the most important, that it was a suspicious death, which meant murder, didn’t it?

Then it had seemed that Alwen’s panicked request for help concerning money taken from her under false pretences could in some way be connected to possible blackmail in the case of the death of the old man. But then Alwen had withdrawn her request in a false kind of way, saying she had retrieved the money.

“Do you think we’ve been a bit sidetracked by all the brewery goings-on?” she suggested now. But nobody seemed willing to answer that. Instead, Gus said that he would have another attempt at contacting Martin.

“The trouble is,” he said, “he is quite difficult to get hold of. I am not sure I have his correct phone number. But I’ll keep trying. As far as I am aware, we are still heading in the right direction. And so I suggest that Deirdre and I should make our way over to Measby again, and ask some more questions about the old man who died in his cottage, and why he should have had a well-thumbed book about serious gambling. My province, you know, and I have a hunch it may point us in the right direction.”

“Who wrote that book, again, Gus?” Ivy asked. She had it safely inside her handbag but had a reason for asking.

“Weasel Murphy,” he replied. “And he’s an American, so no joy there, if that’s what you were thinking, Ivy.”

 

 

GUS HAD RETURNED home, and in his chilly, cheerless cottage he suddenly felt lonely. Funerals were like that. Not that he had attended, but at Springfields it was the topic for the day. The wake had been upbeat and full of noisy chatter, a kind of relief from the gloom, and then his supper with Ivy and Roy had been positive and useful. It was only on return to Hangman’s Row that his thoughts turned to mortality and his spirits sank. Maybe he would telephone Deirdre and update her on developments.

“Hello, Gus? What’s new?”

“Where were you today, Deirdre? The rest of us have been mourning the late Daisy Worth, and doing a bit of investigating on the side.”

“Good,” Deirdre said icily. “Are you going to tell me you’ve solved everything?”

“No, silly, I was only joking. But actually, we did get some things confirmed.” He filled her in on the Martha Sparrow meeting, and their plans for the next steps. “So looks like you and me trudging around Measby again. Shall we meet and work out something more productive than calling on Doris May or going to the pub?”

“Sounds fine by me,” Deirdre said. And then Gus heard a man’s voice in the background, calling her. He could tell she covered the phone with her hand and answered the call in muffled tones that he could not decipher. “But not now, Gus.” She returned with a clear voice. “I plan an early night. How about tomorrow morning? Coffee time?”

“I’ll be there,” Gus said. “And just watch it, Deirdre. You know you can’t trust the aristocracy, don’t you?”

She cut off the call without so much as a good-bye.

 

 

MRS. SPURLING WAS happy to pass on Martha Sparrow’s address and telephone number. She had liked the woman and intended to cultivate her. She had a nice cheerful manner and would be just the kind of person to visit one or two of her residents who had no family visitors and tended to settle into a distressed limbo, waiting for the final exit.

“We shall be calling on her, as invited,” Ivy said. “I might give her a ring now and see if she’s free tomorrow. We can order ourselves a taxi. I’ll let you know if we’re in for lunch.”

How good of you! Mrs. Spurling wondered if she would ever get used to being treated like a paid subordinate by Miss Beasley, and she decided she would not. Still, between them they seemed to have declared an unspoken truce, and things were going reasonably well. When she attended meetings of staff from other retirement developments in the Oliver Luxury Retirement Homes chain, none of the other managers had residents even remotely like Ivy Beasley, and were quite envious when she described what a lively place Springfields had become with Ivy’s arrival.

“A cold wind is forecast for tomorrow,” she said now. “Do make sure you and Mr. Goodman are well wrapped up if you venture forth,” she advised, and left them to make their way upstairs to Ivy’s room.

Ivy went straight to her telephone and dialled Martha Sparrow’s number. “Hello? Is that Mrs. Sparrow? Oh, good. Yes, it’s Miss Beasley here. Yes, we met today at Springfields. I do hope you meant it when you said you’d be pleased to see us at any time? You did? Well, we, that is Mr. Goodman and me, will be in Thornwell tomorrow morning, and wondered if we could call. Oh, that’s no problem. We have a taxi man who ferries us about. What time suits you? Oh, how kind. Yes, we’d love to have a cup of coffee with you and your husband. Right, well, we’ll see you tomorrow! Good-bye until then.”

“No sooner said than done, Ivy,” Roy said admiringly.

Ivy put her hand on his cheek and daringly darted a kiss onto his smiling lips. Then she reached for her handbag. “Now, I think it’s time we had a look to see what Mr. Weasel Murphy has to say about cheating at cards. I have a feeling this is the way we should be going. Draw up your chair, Roy, and we can read it together. But remember,” she warned, “this is for research purposes only.”

ALWEN JONES HAD had an uncomfortable night. She had spent yesterday afternoon with her daughter Bronwen, visiting places she would never have chosen on her own. Bronwen had been in a strange mood, very tense and snappy, and it had not been a happy outing. And then there had been that awful moment when the Sparrow woman had appeared in Springfields’ lounge, gabbling away to Ivy and Roy, and, for heaven’s sake, to Gus Halfhide, though what
he
was doing at a wake for Daisy Worth was beyond her.

She reflected that had she known that the blackmailing old widow of the simpleton gardener, Joe Worth, was living upstairs in Springfields, she would not have considered moving in herself. Still, as it worked out, there had been no danger of her having to confront Daisy, and as far as she could tell, nobody here knew of the connection. She had gathered from conversations in the lounge that Daisy was totally senile, and so would have been very unlikely to have remembered those distant humiliating days.

She was dressed and ready to go down to breakfast, but the thought of making conversation with Ivy and Roy, taking care with every sentence she uttered, filled her with gloom. Looking back on her days as a busy head teacher, with Bronwen and Bethan still living at home, and the three of them making such a success of their lives together, she decided that the whole thing had fallen apart when the girls got married. “We could have done without husbands, all three of us,” she said aloud, not noticing that following a gentle tap at the door it had opened to reveal Katya, looking anxiously at her.

“I am so sorry, Mrs. Wilson Jones,” the girl said. “I did not realise you were talking to somebody. Are you on the telephone?”

“No, no, come on in. Talking to myself, Katya, and you know what they say. Yourself is the last person you talk to before being taken off to the lunatic asylum.”

“What is lunatic asylum, please?”

“Oh, don’t trouble your head with my nonsense,” Alwen said, taking a deep breath and pulling herself up straight. She reached for her stick, and made a big effort to smile. “Off to breakfast, dear,” she said. “Do I smell smoked haddock? Again?”

Ivy and Roy were already seated at their table, and at the sight of Alwen both waved spontaneously and beckoned her over.

“Are you feeling better, my dear?” Roy said. “We were quite worried about you yesterday. Apart from whizzing in, grunting at Martha Sparrow, grabbing a sausage roll and whizzing out again, we hardly set eyes on you!”