The Sussex Downs Murder (3 page)

“My husband? Yes, I think he's out by the kilns somewhere.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Rother. Perhaps, as I'm not in uniform, I ought to explain that I'm a police superintendent investigating the disappearance of your husband's brother. My name's Meredith.”

The girl looked startled for a moment, then, with an uneasy glance round, said in a low voice:

“My husband's worried to death over this dreadful affair, Mr. Meredith. It seems to be preying on his mind. Although he says little about it, I know he's thinking and thinking all the time about John. Tell me honestly—what chance do you think there is of John ever turning up?”

Meredith hesitated, appraised the agitated young lady with a judicious eye and for some instinctive reason decided to equivocate.

“It's quite beyond me to say. Missing people have sometimes turned up years after their disappearance.”

“But hurt like that—surely it's inconceivable that he could have wandered far?”

“But we've no idea how badly he was hurt, Mrs. Rother. What makes you say that? I never mentioned the details of what we found to your husband.”

“But…but I've been reading the newspaper reports,” answered the girl, obviously ill at ease on being picked up on this point. “They mentioned the terrible blood-stains.”

“Exaggeration.”

Meredith dismissed her fears with a shrug and took closer stock of Mrs. William Rother. He noticed that her natural prettiness was partially cancelled out by the drawn lines of her mouth and the dark smudges under her clear grey eyes. It was obvious that her husband was not the only one worrying about John Rother's disappearance. She was younger than he had anticipated—twenty-five or -six perhaps, at least ten years younger than her husband. Her vivacity, he thought, was her greatest charm—a vivacity that sent shades of expression coursing through those clear grey eyes and lent to her youthful figure an air of delicate vigour.

“Fine-drawn,” was Meredith's inward comment. “With a brain behind her good looks.”

“Can you tell me,” he went on aloud, “which way I have to go to the kilns?”

She came down to the gate and directed him.

“Look—behind those bushes to the right. You can see the smoke rising.”

Meredith touched his hat and set off on foot to where the great white belches of smoke were rising and thinning away down the wind. Clear of the bushes he came suddenly on the kilns.

A wide sweep of downland lay in the distance beyond the natural wall into which the kilns had been sunk. An extensive though deep valley, divided by the unseen main road, dropped from the farm level and up again to the tree-crested hump of Highden Hill. To the right, only just glimpsed in the clumps of summer trees, huddled the tiled and thatched roofs of the village. On a higher level, its grey stone sombre against the blue sky, stood Washington Church, with the Vicarage crouching under the lee of its northern shadow. Directly below the kilns ran a continuation of the lane up which Meredith had driven, obviously linking up again with the main road. A low flint wall edged the thirty-foot sheer drop between the kiln-level and this lane, which at that point was bordered by stables on the far side and on the near side by a sort of yard where the lime was loaded on to the wagons. Standing below in this yard, watching a carter harnessing his horse, stood William Rother.

Meredith leant over the little wall and let out a call.

“Excuse me a moment, sir. Can you come up?”

Rother looked up quickly, recognized the Superintendent, nodded, and started off up the lane on a détour which would eventually bring him on to the higher level. Arriving there he held out his hand. Meredith was shocked by the man's appearance. In ten days his entire face had altered. From a thin, white mask, hollowed here and there as if by a sculptor's chisel, burnt the dark, over-bright eyes of a man who is on the verge of a nervous collapse.

“My God, sir!” was Meredith's involuntary exclamation. “You look ill.”

“I am ill,” replied Rother in level tones, with expressionless eyes. “Do you wonder at it? Tell me”—he placed a thin, nervous hand on the Superintendent's sleeve—“tell me—have you brought any news?”

“I'm afraid not, Mr. Rother. I'm out here on another line of inquiry. Connected with your brother's disappearance, I admit, but at the moment a private matter. You understand?”

“Perfectly.” The voice sounded totally disinterested. “What exactly do you want to know?”

“I want to know how you make lime?” said Meredith bluntly.

Rother eyed the Superintendent suspiciously, as if uncertain whether he had heard aright.

“But what has that got—”

“Please, Mr. Rother, I explained before, this is a private police investigation. All I'm asking for is information, and it's for your own peace of mind if you let me have it.”

“Very well.” Rother lifted his narrow shoulders. “I'll restrain my natural curiosity. Well, the process is simple enough. Here are the kilns—three of them—twenty feet deep or there-abouts. The fires are lit in the first place at the bottom of the shaft, and after that, except for purposes of repair, the kilns are never let out.”

“How do you keep them alight?”

Rother pointed to two heaps—one black, one white—on each side of the kiln's circular mouth.

“Chalk and powdered coal—cullum, we call it locally. When the kilns are banked up, usually twice a day, we shovel on one layer of chalk to one layer of cullum. By the time the red-hot chalk reaches the base of the shaft it has been transformed by combustion into lime. Down below there are brick arches terminating at the bottom of each kiln. The men use these arches to dig out the lime, the chalk level automatically falls at the top, and the kiln is restoked with more layers of chalk and cullum. To put it as simply as possible, when a kiln is functioning properly, it consists of three layers. At the bottom pure lime, in the middle red-hot chalk in the process of being changed into lime, at the top pure chalk alternating with layers of unburnt cullum. You follow me, Mr. Meredith?”

“Perfectly, sir. You've told me exactly what I was after. When are the kilns usually banked up?”

“Early morning and late afternoon.”

“Would the level have fallen at all during the night?”

“To a certain extent—yes—due to the crumbling process of combustion.”

“A couple of feet?”

“Yes, quite that.”

“Thanks. And now I wonder if you could let me have a glimpse of your order-book?”

Chapter Three

More Bones

Whatever William Rother may have thought about Meredith's strange request for a glimpse of the order-book he allowed no hint of it to show on his haggard features. He just muttered, “Very well,” in the toneless voice of a man who makes no resistance to a whim, however queer he thinks it, and led the way back to the farmhouse. This time they entered it from the back, first through a small courtyard sporting a fir tree and a square of unkempt grass, then across some uneven flags into an airy stone-floored kitchen, the centre-piece of which was an enormous, well-scoured deal table. At the far end of the kitchen, under a low window, was a second, smaller table covered with a red cloth and loaded with ledgers, files, letters, reference-books, inkpots, pens and paper. On the broad window-sill stood a portable typewriter.

Rother smiled wanly.

“The office,” he explained with a side-jerk of his head. “Such as it is. We don't boast a study up here at Chalklands. Now what exactly are you after?”

“I want a list, if possible, of all your customers supplied with lime during the last ten days—that is to say since the night of your brother's disappearance.”

“With the amounts delivered?”

“Yes.”

Rother picked up an ordinary black exercise-book and handed it to Meredith.

“You'll find everything you want there, Mr. Meredith. It seems an extraordinary request to me, but you know your own business best. I'd do anything to help solve the mystery of John's disappearance, and if he's dead—which I'm beginning to suspect—to hang the man who murdered him. But what you imagine you'll get out of that order-book beats me!”

“May I take a copy?”

Rother nodded.

“And in the meantime I want to walk out to the chalk-pit. If there's anything further you want you'll find me there. It's directly behind the house.”

“Thanks—that's all I want to bother you with at the moment, Mr. Rother. I'll just copy these data into my notebook and then I'll be off. One other question before you go. Had your brother any particular friend with whom he was really intimate?”

“Yes—Aldous Barnet, the novelist.”

“The detective-story writer?” asked Meredith with a grin.

“That's him. He lives at a house called Lychpole near the church. He and John were at school together. You may know him?”

“Well, I've read a couple of his books. I must say his Inspector Jefferies gets a darn sight more luck in his investigations than usually comes my way! The chap seems so brilliant that he doesn't need to worry over the details of routine work. I envy him.”

With a half-smile to show that he had registered Meredith's amusement, William nodded, and with a preoccupied expression on his pale features wandered out of the door.

Sitting at the window-table Meredith examined the order-book. It was much as he had expected. Column 1: Date when Order was Received. Column 2: Name and Address of Firm. Column 3: Amount of Lime Ordered. Column 4: Date of Delivery. Between Monday, July 22nd and Wednesday, July 31st (that was to say the previous day), twelve different firms had been supplied. The amounts varied between a yard and two and a quarter yards, which Meredith knew constituted what was commonly termed a “load” of lime. In most cases a full “load” had been ordered. Five of the firms were in Worthing, including Timpson's; three in Pulborough; one at Steyning; one at Storrington; one at Ashington, and the remaining consignment, a yard, to the Washington Vicarage.

As he was closing his notebook and replacing the order-book, a plump, red-cheeked woman bounced into the kitchen. Good nature exuded from every pore in her body. She wore a lilac printed frock with the sleeves rolled up to reveal a pair of brawny, sunburned arms, and a large, blue, serviceable apron was tied round what should have been her waist.

“Oh Lawks!” she exclaimed, startled out of her normal composure by the unexpected intruder in her kitchen. “I beg 'ee pardon, I'm sure. I had no idea as to there being a stranger 'ere, surr.”

“That's all right, Mrs.…”

“Kate Abingworth's my name. I'm housekeeper up 'ere, surr. 'Av been for the last fifteen years.”

“Mr. Rother was just letting me copy out something.”

“Ah, that'll be Mr. Willum, poor feller.” And she shook her head in motherly commiseration. “'Ee's eating less than enough to keep a sparrer on the wing these days, surr. It's turrible to see 'im wasting away like 'ee be. Delicate 'ee always was, but this trouble what's descended on this household 'as changed that young feller complete.”

“Mrs. Rother seems upset too?” commented Meredith, always on the alert for possible information.

“Ay, she's took it 'ard, too, surr, 'as Mrs. Willum. But I don't wonder, I don't, seeing 'ow fond she were of Mr. John. Like 'usband and wife they were—if you'll pardon my simple way of putting it. Not that things had gone as far as that, o' course, but in their manner of fussin' over each other. Like a 'en with 'er chick was Mrs. Willum with Mr. John—not that she 'asn't done right and fair by Mr. Willum, but I've always up'eld—” And here Mrs. Abingworth lowered her voice and stepped closer to the Superintendent, almost speaking into his ear. “I've always up'eld as Mrs. Willum
married the wrong man
!”

Her emphasis on these last words was so heavy that Meredith immediately assumed a look of startled incredulity. He realized that Kate Abingworth was one of those simple-minded souls who find their greatest pleasure in life in gossiping about their employers.

“You've noticed things, eh?” asked Meredith in a conspiratorial voice. “Happenings, so to speak?”

“I 'av,” beamed Kate Abingworth, delighted to share these intimacies. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “One night, as sure as I draw breath, I saw Mrs Willum creep out of the house with a suit-case in her 'and, and join Mr. John on the front lawn. You see 'ee—meaning Mr. Willum—don't sleep with 'er—not nowadays. She sleeps in the North Room now, and what I say is, any woman 'oo could sleep in such a cold, draughty barn of a room, must 'av a gurt strong reason for not sleepin' with 'er man.”

Meredith nodded in agreement, and Mrs. Abingworth, suddenly realizing that she had unburdened her secrets to a complete stranger, drew herself up, did something emphatic to her back hair, shook out her apron and lifted the lid of a huge saucepan which was simmering on the old-fashioned range.

“Not as I
knows
,” she added. “It's only as I
suspects
.”

“Quite,” said Meredith; adding as he gathered up his cap: “That smells good, Mrs. Abingworth.”

“And it should do, surr. Quince jam that is, made according to my dear old grandmother's recipe, 'oo died only a day short 'o ninety-six. A wunnerful old woman was my grandmother. Well, good day to 'ee, surr.”

Meredith found his way back to where he had parked his car on the drive and, without seeing Janet Rother again, climbed in and drove in a reflective mood down to the village. Kate Abingworth's voluntary information had stimulated his curiosity. He wondered, for example, why the girl was carrying a suit-case that night she was reputed to have met her brother-in-law on the lawn. Why a suit-case when she had obviously sat down to breakfast at Chalklands the next morning? Mrs. Abingworth did not suggest that William suspected his wife of unfaithfulness, so that she could not have stayed the night anywhere with John. Besides, the housekeeper wouldn't have missed putting two and two together if Janet and John had not turned up to breakfast the next morning. Why was she on the lawn at all? Meredith sighed. A romantic infatuation for her brother-in-law, he supposed, the fascination of tasting forbidden fruit. He wondered if the missing man had been in love with the girl, or merely obliging enough to respond to her infatuation. Perhaps Aldous Barnet might have something to say on the matter, and he decided to visit Lychpole as soon as he had put through a few 'phone calls from the local police station.

He then methodically got in touch with Worthing, Pulborough, Steyning, Storrington, and Ashington. He pointed out the necessity for tracing the where-abouts of every bit of lime which had come from the Rother kilns. The local authorities were to get in touch with the builders concerned and have all stocks of lime meticulously sifted. In cases where bags had already been sent out on jobs, the places were to be visited and the workmen questioned as to whether they had found anything in the shape of a bone or bones in the lime used. Reports were to be sent through to Lewes at the earliest possible moment. He then sent the Washington constable up to the Vicarage, where a new bay-window was being pushed out on the south front. A local builder by the name of Sims was doing the job, and the constable was to get in touch with the man and have the whole yard of lime sifted.

Satisfied with this careful piece of staff-work, Meredith drove up the curving and hilly main street of the village, passed the local emporium and the school, and stopped at a white gate bearing the inscription “Lychpole”.

On explaining to the maid that he was a police superintendent, Meredith was ushered into a long, low-raftered room, where he was joined a few minutes later by Aldous Barnet. He was a tall, cadaverous, intellectual-looking man with horn-rimmed spectacles and a slight stoop. He looked about fifty-five.

“We've never met, but I've heard of you,” he said as he held out his hand. “Major Forest is an old friend of mine. He's helped me a lot with the technical side of my detective books. Won't you sit down?”

“Thank you, sir,” said Meredith as he sank into a big chintz chair. “I don't want to bother you if it's an awkward moment, but it's about the disappearance of Mr. John Rother. I'm working on that case.”

“A rotten show,” murmured Aldous Barnet with a shake of his head. “A rotten affair, eh? I know it's not exactly politic to ask the police leading questions, but, tell me, have you got any further? I know only the bare details of what was discovered.”

“We've nothing definite…yet. That's why I've come to you. You were John Rother's best friend, weren't you?” Barnet nodded. “Then you know something about his personal affairs.”

“A little—yes,” acknowledged Barnet with obvious caution. “He was a reserved sort of chap. What precisely do you want to find out?”

“Well,” went on Meredith with assumed reluctance, “you know how it is—a man is forced into the limelight and people chatter. Often we hear a lot of unpleasant gossip—most of it untrue. Now I've come to you because I know I can rely on your information, Mr. Barnet. Tell me, is there anything at all in the rumour that John Rother was having—an affair, shall we say—with his brother's wife?”

Barnet rapped out sharply: “Who told you that?”

“I'm afraid I can't answer that question—but is it true? Was there anything between them?” Meredith glanced up and caught the wary expression on the other man's face. “Come, Mr. Barnet, you won't gain anything by being secretive about the matter. I'm investigating the case of your friend's disappearance. For the sake of argument let us suppose he
was
murdered under Cissbury—what then? Isn't it up to you to help me all you can?”

“I'm sorry,” said Barnet in quiet tones. “You're quite right. Much as I abominate hanging out other people's dirty linen in the daylight, I suppose for the sake of justice it's got to be done. I can't tell you much—that was one side of John's life over which he was exceptionally reticent. I only know that he and Janet were reputed to be a little more than just…friendly. They had been seen about together on the downs, walking or riding—it was common property in the village, I'm afraid.”

“You mean they were brazen about it?”

“No—not that,” said Barnet hastily. “Just blind to other people's curiosity, I imagine.”

“And William Rother?”

“He knew, of course. How could he help knowing?”

“And yet he did nothing?”

“How could he? There was nothing definite enough to create a scene over. He was angry, of course—but then he and John had always been at loggerheads. Not only over this particular trouble but everything. I have an idea, too, that Janet was passive rather than active in the affair. I don't for a moment think that she was really in love with John.”

“To your knowledge, Mr. Barnet, did John and Janet Rother ever stay the night anywhere together—I mean slip off to an hotel or anything?”

Barnet looked incredulous, then shocked.

“Never! At least as far as I know personally. I think you're laying rather too much stress, Superintendent, on what may have been merely a romantic flirtation.”

“Perhaps,” agreed Meredith with his usual tact. “You know the couple and I don't. That's why I've come to you. Do you know anything about the financial arrangements up at Chalklands?”

“Really!” growled Barnet. “Is it necessary for me to answer these questions?”

“Not necessary,” replied Meredith with a placatory smile; “but you must realize, Mr. Barnet, that if there's a coroner's inquest you'll probably be subpoenaed as a witness. Surely it's better to talk over Rother's private affairs
in
private than broadcast them all over the village?”

Barnet acquiesced with a gesture of hopelessness.

“Oh, very well. Go ahead. It's your job to ask questions, but why not tackle Rother's solicitor? I imagine he'd know more about his finances than I do.”

“I only want one bit of information, and it would save me a lot of time and trouble if you could supply it. In the event of John Rother's death who would be the chief beneficiary under his will?”

“His brother.” Then registering Meredith's look of surprise, he added: “You see, for all his dislike of William, John had an almost fanatic regard for the well-being of the family name and estates. As a matter of fact, only a short time back we discussed this very matter. That's how I know.”