Ann Purser - The Hangman’s Row Enquiry

THEO ROUSSEL WOKE up with the pleasant feeling he had every Saturday. Today, Beattie was going to market, and, even more pleasant, Rosebud would be coming to make his tea and keep him company. He couldn’t believe his luck when Beattie had set up this arrangement. The only thing he could think was that she considered, mistakenly, that a young and lovely blonde would never in a million years fancy such a sedentary old man.

He got out of bed and tiptoed to the door, opened it and peered up and down the corridor. No sign of Beattie. It was early, and she would not bring his cup of tea for at least half an hour. He crept quietly along to his study and taking a key from its hiding place, he moved the portrait of his grandfather to one side and carefully opened the safe door.

He took out a small box, opened it and extracted an exquisite sapphire and diamond ring. It was like a small regal crown, released into the light, sparkling as if it was brand-new. He smiled, muttered that the sapphire would match her eyes, and slipped it into his pyjama jacket pocket. Then he shut the safe door, straightened the portrait, and silently retraced his steps to his bedroom.

When Beattie knocked at his door before bringing in his early morning tea, he was able to give a convincing performance of a man waking up for the first time, yawning and rubbing his eyes.

“Market day, Mr. Theo,” she said. “Up we get as soon as we’ve finished our tea. I need to get breakfast out of the way, then a basketful of ironing, quick lunch and then off on the bus. Anything you particularly fancy from the market? They had some lovely ripe peaches last week.”

Then why didn’t you buy them last week, Theo said to himself, but he answered that peaches would be just the thing. Perhaps she could look for strawberries, too, and then he could have a fruity pudding tonight.

The morning went as always for Theo. He enjoyed his breakfast of bacon and fresh mushrooms gathered by Rose’s husband David, then settled in his study with the Times crossword. Bouyed up by the thought of Rose coming after lunch, he hummed to himself as he consulted a pile of dictionaries and Roget’s Thesaurus at his elbow. He prided himself on being able to complete the crossword before dinner, and as Rose was unfortunately no help at all with the clues, he would have only this morning and an hour or so after tea to finish it today.

GUS WALKED BRISKLY along the terrace and stopped at the Budd’s house. He had tried to find Rose several times yesterday, but there had been no one at home. It would be bad luck if they had gone away on holiday! But no, someone was coming to the door. It was David Budd, and he smiled in a friendly way at Gus.

“Mr. Halfhide? Rose told me you’d met. Is there anything we can help you with? Come on in. We’re in our usual squalid muddle, but that’s children for you. Rose!” he shouted. “Here’s Mr. Halfhide!”

David was a good-looking thirty-year-old, his face tanned by an outdoor life, and with not an ounce of spare flesh on him. He had done well at school and set out to be an architect. But the years of study needed to qualify were too daunting for him, and in any case, he had always wanted to be a farmer like his maternal grandfather. Agricultural college had proved ideal, and he had enjoyed his time there. In fact, it was there he met Rose. It had been love at first sight for both of them, and in due course they were married.

There was no money for David to buy a farm, and so he had ended up in Barrington, working on the Roussel estate. It suited him well, apart from having to deal with Miss Beatty. But he kept well away from her, and apart from paying lip service to some of her more bizarre instructions, like keeping a piglet in an old rabbit hutch in the empty stable, he had the management of the land more or less to himself.

Even the piglet project was dropped when, as David had tried to warn her, the piglet grew too big for the hutch.

“What can we do for you, Mr. Halfhide?” Rose said, clattering down the stairs in lilac-coloured plastic clogs.

“Please, do call me Gus.”

“Okay-and I’m Rose and he’s David. And little snot-nose there is Simon.”

“I won’t take up much of your time,” promised Gus, as they insisted they should all sit down and have a coffee.

David nodded. “I do have to get going very soon,” he said. “Otherwise old gimlet-eyes at the Hall will be giving me a lecture on punctuality.”

“It’s about Miss Beatty that I’ve come,” Gus explained. “Beattie and Theo, that is. My good friend Deirdre Bloxham is an old flame of Theo, and would very much like to chat about old times with him. Try to bring a bit of outside interest into his life, she says. She arranged to call on him, but Miss Beatty made several excuses and Deirdre had to go away without seeing him. Since then, she has been unable to get through to the Hall. The phone rings, but as soon as someone answers it their end, it goes dead.”

“We could certainly get the telephone engineer to look at it,” David said sympathetically. He felt permanently sorry for his boss, though privately thought the man was not that old, and should stand up to the Beattie woman.

Gus shook his head. “Nothing wrong with the phone, I’m sure of that,” he said. “It’s being monitored by Beattie Beatty. You can hear her breathing.”

“So how can we help?” Rose said, lifting Simon onto her lap and feeding him with a soggy biscuit dipped into her coffee.

Gus explained the plan. Deirdre would arrive at the Hall immediately after Beattie had been seen by Ivy boarding the bus to town. Rose would admit Deirdre directly to the drawing room where Theo would be sitting waiting for his first game of Scrabble.

Then Rose would make herself scarce, leaving the two old friends alone together.

Rose went very pink and clapped her hands like a little girl. “What a lovely surprise!” she said. “He’ll be so excited to see her. They’ll have a good two hours. I can keep an eye out for other visitors, or raise the drawbridge if, heaven forefend, Miss Beatty returns on the early bus. Which, to my knowledge, she never has.”

Gus was alarmed. “I didn’t know there was an earlier bus,” he said.

“Just runs in the summer,” said David. “It comes back an hour after they’ve got there, so there’s hardly anybody on it.”

They talked a bit more about how they could make the arrangements foolproof, and then Gus got up to go. “It is so kind of you both,” he said.

“Theo’s a sweetie,” Rose said. “We’d do anything to brighten his life. I’m always hoping that one day he’ll get so angry with Miss Beatty that he’ll send her packing and live a more normal life. There’s nothing wrong with him, you know. Fit as a fiddle, and all his marbles in place.”

“I hear he was quite a ladies’ man in his youth?” Gus said, as he stepped outside into the sunshine.

“Still is!” said David. “Rose has to keep him at bay sometimes, don’t you, duckie?”

Rose didn’t answer, but laughed so much that Simon bounced off her lap and began to yell. She followed the men into the garden, and assured Gus that all would go smoothly. “If it works,” she said, “we can make it a regular assignation. One in the eye for old Beattie. I reckon she has hopes of a Roussel ring on her finger one of these days.”

“No!” said Gus. “That must be prevented at all costs.”

“And she’s not the only one,” said David, grinning. “Somone approaching down the lane has had similar ideas.”

Gus turned his head. It was Miriam Blake, still in her shop overalls and smiling broadly at the sight of her new neighbour. The three stood in the Budds’ garden and said hello as she passed.