Peter Lovesey - Wobble to Death

Without protesting, Taylor led them through a curtained archway and down some steps to the kitchen. She was a bright-eyed girl in her twenties, without the deportment of a girl of better class. But her figure was so generously pro-portioned that any movement in the close-cut black dress was attractive to the visitors.

Cribb marched into the kitchen with the air of a prospec-tive purchaser.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Chance to prove our credentials.’ He picked up a bowl from the table-top. ‘What d’you make of this, Thackeray?’

The constable saw the point of the game. He sniffed pro-fessionally at the bowl.

‘Chicken-broth, I’d say, Sarge. Probably made up from Sunday’s joint.’

‘Good,’ said Cribb. ‘Followed by…?’

‘An orange, peeled by hand.’

Taylor’s eyes gaped wide.

‘Not so difficult,’ commented Thackeray in a superior tone. ‘You threw all the peel on the fire, but look at your fin-ger-nails-right hand.’

‘Oh, very smart,’ said Taylor without much admiration in her voice. ‘Now tell me what else I had for tea.’

‘One large muffin,’ answered Thackeray, unperturbed. He lifted a toasting-fork from a patch of crumbs at one end of the table. ‘Very fattening that.’

‘And you finished it all off with a cigarette-ah, now you blush!’ declared Cribb. ‘Taken from the late Master’s rooms, I dare say-or is the Mistress a secret smoker herself?’

‘How d’you know that?’ Taylor demanded.

‘The smoke,’ Cribb explained. ‘Even the orange can’t stop that from lingering. Like me to open a window?’

Giggling at the discovery of her secret, Taylor lit the gas under the kettle. Cribb judged that the time was right for serious questions.

‘Your evening off, Monday, you said?’

She turned from the stove.

‘That’s right,’ and added archly, ‘I’m courting steady, though.’

‘Pretty lass like you would be. Simple deduction that. You were out with your young man last Monday, then?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Quite late, I expect?’

Taylor was blushing. ‘Not all that late.’

‘Back by midnight, then?’

‘Before that. Mistress won’t have me coming in after.’

She filled the tea-pot, trying to appear uninterested in the questions.

‘Mistress have any visitors that evening?’

‘Don’t know, rightly. She went out to dinner, but didn’t bring no one home.’ She simpered, concealing something.

‘Dinner? Who with?’ asked Cribb.

‘I’m sure I don’t know.’

Self-protection, rather than loyalty, was making her reluctant to talk.

Cribb tried again.

‘Could have been one of several, you mean.’

‘Well, it weren’t her husband,’ Taylor said with emphasis. Cribb pressed her.

‘When you came back-before midnight-she was home, then?’

‘She was.’ The hint of a smile was still there.

‘And alone?’

‘And alone,’ repeated Taylor.

‘Hasn’t always been like that, eh?’ asked Cribb, recalling a confidence Taylor had hinted at before.

‘I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Lonely for a ped’s wife, when he’s in training.’

She caught the ironical note in his voice, and echoed it.

‘Oh, terrible lonesome. Poor lady’s beside herself with loneliness.’

‘Or beside others, eh?’ suggested Cribb.

‘Now, now, Mister!’

‘But nobody on Monday night?’

‘I never said that,’ Taylor corrected him. ‘I said she brought no one home.’

‘Someone was already here?’

Taylor threw back her head laughing.

‘You a detective? No, Mister, nobody was here, and I saw nobody all night. That didn’t stop me hearing a cab draw up in the early morning, and leave two hours later. But don’t you let on to Mistress I said that. I’ll say it’s not true, not a word of it. I could have been dreaming, couldn’t I?’

‘The early morning? What time?’

‘Oh, after one, I’d say. Maybe nearer two.’

‘Who opened the door?’

She giggled. ‘I didn’t, I’m sure of that. She must have- no, I remember. Whoever it was let himself in. I heard a key turn in the latch.’

‘Heard no voices?’

‘I wouldn’t have, unless they was shouting, and they didn’t do that. D’you take sugar?’

It was clear that Taylor had said all that she would about the early morning visitor. Cribb returned to small-talk and tea.

A few minutes after this one of the set of signal-bells above the door jerked into life.

‘Front door,’ announced Taylor, on her feet at once. ‘Mistress, I’m sure.’ She hurried away to answer the sum-mons. In a minute she returned.

‘Mistress will see you in the drawing-room in five min-utes.’ She lowered her voice, confidentially. ‘I’m in a nice pickle for bringing you gents in here.’

Cribb gave his unfailing wink.

‘We’ll tell her we took you by storm.’

Soon enough formality was restored to the household and Taylor ushered the detectives starchily into Cora’s pres-ence. She sat in a shell-backed easy chair. A pair of upright rosewood chairs had been set out for the visitors.

‘I am sorry that I was out,’ Cora began, ‘but if you had made an arrangement I should have made a point of being here.’

Cribb accepted the mild reproof.

‘Mrs Darrell, I don’t know whether you heard this morn-ing’s news.’

‘Of what, Sergeant?’

‘Oh-er-Monk’s death, Ma’am.’

She whitened at once. The ticking of the clock, under a glass dome, suddenly seemed to increase in power, a pulse-beat magnified many times.

‘Sam Monk-dead?’

‘Died of gas-poisoning, Ma’am.’

Her thoughts struggled for a logical sequence.

‘You mean… dead? Suicide? He took his own life? Blamed himself-’

‘Not exactly, Mrs Darrell. We think he was probably murdered.’

Cribb watched her reaction most closely. Her eyelids were lowered as she absorbed this second shock. Her hands tightened their grip on the handkerchief she held until the fingers became drained of blood. When she eventually found words, she was coherent.

‘Who would kill him? Why should anyone want to mur-der Sam?’ An implication of Monk’s murder dawned on her. ‘You think someone blamed him for Charlie’s death, and killed him for it. You can’t believe that I… He was an old friend, Sergeant. I said some terrible things about him. Perhaps he was negligent. I might have sued him-but mur-der! That isn’t a woman’s way.’

‘That’s open to discussion,’ Cribb said. ‘And I’m not sug-gesting anything to involve you in this. But let’s get the facts right. Evidence seems to exonerate Monk.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The tonic, Ma’am. He mixed it perfectly. Just as the recipe said. Someone else must have tipped in the strychnine.’

‘I don’t understand how-’ Cora was dazed.

‘Don’t you try, Ma’am. That’s our job in Detective Department. Ready to answer some questions, are you? We need to know more about your husband. Got to find why someone should want to poison him.’

‘I shall try to help.’

‘Good. Anyone owe your husband money-unpaid bets, or anything of that sort?’

‘I feel sure I should know if there was anyone. Charles has never mentioned such a thing.’

‘No grudges-old scores? Top-class runner. He must have pricked a few reputations on the way up.’

‘I think he was well liked, Sergeant. He had no enemies that I heard of, and many friends.’

‘How did he get along with Chadwick? Did they race together before this?’

‘I don’t think he knew the man. I believe Mr Chadwick doesn’t usually participate in open contests. I’ve never spo-ken to him, and I doubt whether Charles did.’