Death on Romney Marsh, Chapter Four

Death on Romney Marsh

CHAPTER FOUR

On the following morning Aunt Vicky received a telephone call from Cuchran’s solicitors asking her to consider their letter as abrogated.

“Captain Cuchran has decided not to proceed with his plans for development at present.  We shall be writing to confirm this but we’re instructed to let you know by telephone to avoid any inconvenience to yourself.”

“Oh, there was no inconvenience,” said Aunt Vicky.

“I didn’t take the slightest notice of the matter.  But thank you for informing me.”

To Carolus she said—“I am grateful to you.  Your visit worked like magic.”

“I have a feeling,” Carolus said, “that we owe this to Withers.”

“To Withers?  What on earth do you mean?”

“I asked a question about him and it was the only thing that seemed to have any effect on Cuchran.  That stirred him up, though.  I don’t think he wants these questions asked about Withers.”

“You mean, he has murdered him too?”

“Aunt Vicky.  Please.  What will Mrs. Churcher think of you?”

Pam Churcher, who was laying lunch at that moment, smiled broadly.

“It’s all right, Mr. Deene.  We’re used to it.  Besides, it wouldn’t surprise me for a moment.”

“You’ve been corrupted by this household,” Carolus told her.  “All I can say is, Aunt Vicky, you’d better justify all this.”

“Up to the hilt,” said Aunt Vicky.  “As soon as I’ve had my rest and a cup of tea I’ll tell you the story.”

She kept her word.  It was a wet and windy afternoon and there was no temptation to go out.  Carolus removed the tea-tray but did not switch on the lights as Aunt Vicky preferred the firelight.

“I don’t know when Jenny met the fellow exactly.  He was in officer’s uniform.”  She said this as though Cuchran was masquerading.  “It was soon after Dunkirk.  No one knew who anyone was.”

“What exactly do you mean by that?”

“You know perfectly well, dear.  Don’t make me explain or I shall sound snobbish, though all I meant was . . . well, Cuchran wasn’t the kind of person . . . oh, hell, Carolus, he was a cad.  I saw it at once.”

“You were prejudiced.  You are a snob, Aunt Vicky.”

She seemed to consider this.

“I don’t think so.  It wasn’t that Cuchran came from Croydon . . .”

“I should hope not.”

“Or that he had been a bookmaker’s clerk before the war.  Or that he wore a diamond ring.  It was that there was something false and shifty about him.  He was trying to be something he wasn’t.”

“Do you blame him, if you didn’t like what he was?”

“You deliberately misunderstand me.  I am not talking about ambition.  He was pretentious.  That’s the word.  A pretentious fellow.”

“That’s more like it.  Pretentiousness is odious, I agree.”

“He spoke carefully.  He had cultivated his voice, I am sure.  But I must say he seemed very much in love with Jenny.  That was the only genuine thing about him.  And she was madly in love with him.  There was no denying that.  That’s what made it so horrible afterwards.”

“How did ‘old Sir B’ take it?”

“Oh, very well indeed.  Far too well.  He was a dear old thing but not very intelligent, perhaps.  He was delighted with Cuchran.  ‘Any relation to Rhino Cuchran of the Guides?’ he asked.  ‘My uncle, sir,’ the fellow said without a blush, though I heard afterwards his uncle kept a pub in the Old Kent Road.  He was made.  Jenny was engaged to Rhino Cuchran’s nephew.  They got leave at the same time and were married in the little church on the outskirts of the estate.  You must have seen it.  It was as much of a wedding as we could make it in wartime.”

“I must warn you that so far my sympathies are entirely with Cuchran.  A family which accepted him because he was a nephew of ‘old Rhino Cuchran of the Guides’ deserved everything it got.”

“That was only Sir B.  Robin couldn’t bear Cuchran, though she never shewed it, and she wasn’t a snob anyway.  She saw through him, just as I did.  It was a dreadful business because we were all terribly fond of Jenny.  She looked so lovely beside that brute.  It divided the Two Graces forever.”

“You mean, they were no longer friends?”

“Oh, they loved each other, of course.  But I don’t think there was the old trust and confidence between them.  Anyhow, they were divided by circumstances during the war.  Then Sir B, who had never had a day’s illness in his life, went down with influenza.  At first he tried to work it off, as he had done in the past with little head colds, and went out to saw up some logs.  Robin was at home at the time and tried to tell the old silly he should go to bed, but he was an obstinate man.  During the night his temperature rose in a frightening way and Pickthorp, our local doctor, came out to see him in the small hours, though he was an old man, too, and ought to have retired from practice.  He had brought Jenny into the world . . .”

“It only needed a family doctor who brought people into the world,” said Carolus.

“Be quiet.  Two days later Sir B died and was gathered to his fathers.”

“What do you mean, ‘gathered to his fathers’?”

“Just what I say.  When his grandfather built Shirley Cross he had endowed the church and built a family mausoleum in the churchyard.  Sir B’s grandfather, father and mother were buried in it and Sir B joined them.  He was buried on VE Day as a matter of fact, which made it rather ironic because he had so wanted to see the Germans beaten.”

“So we come,” said Carolus after a moment, “to the Will.”

“There were no surprises, except the usual one—the estate was worth less than everyone supposed.  Sir B had not been very clever, or very well advised with investments and although he still left what was considered in those days a fortune it was not a great fortune, and of course the death duties were scandalous.  There was a round sum—I seem to remember it was ten thousannd pounds for Jenny, providence for the servants, and the residue to Robin.  She would be rich and have Shirley Cross, but she wouldn’t be what you consider nowadays a very rich woman.”

“What about you?”

“Oh, my dear, I did not need it.  You know your father had left me very comfortably off.  It would perhaps have saved a lot of trouble if he had left Mortboys to me, but I don’t think he wanted to split up the estate, and he expected one of the girls would be here long after me.  There was something about this house going to me if the estate was sold in my lifetime, I believe, but I never knew the details and did not worry about it at the time.  We weren’t used to change in those days and this had always been regarded as my house.  He left me a thousand pounds which I expect he thought would be far nicer for me.  He was the sort of man who thought women could always do with a little money to spend on ‘finery’, as I’ve no doubt he would have called it.”

“He would,” chuckled Carolus.  “And wasn’t he right?”

“I bought a motor-car, as a matter of fact,” said Aunt Vicky.  “I had learned to drive from Robin before the war.  It was a great blessing to me.”

“Getting dry?” asked Carolus.

“No, but I know what you want.  Just help yourself, my dear.  I’m coming to the worst part of the story. 

“The house remained empty for a time, though Robin kept on Mowlett, who was medically unfit.  There had been a lot of evacuees here earlier but they had all gone by now and Mowlett was alone.  He did not want to move.  I think he was scared at first and now could not bring himself to go anywhere else.  But in 1946 Robin came back.  I was sorry for her then.  Sir B had thought things would go back to the same again, as they had, more or less, after the First World War.  He never imagined what it would be like for Robin alone.  She asked Cuchran and Jenny to share the place with her but Cuchran refused.  Robin would have sold it, but Sir B had made such a point of it staying in the family.  I saw a lot of her at that time.  She was thirty-five and did not seem likely to marry, though she was still a beautiful creature, I thought.  I suppose . . .”

“Mr. Right didn’t come along?” suggested Carolus mischievously. 

“Don’t be silly, dear.  Anyhow she didn’t, and seemed to care less for a lot of people around her.  She came here a good deal, but as I told her she should have been with younger people. 

“Meanwhile Jenny had put up the money for Cuchran to start business on his own as a bookmaker.  I believe he was quite successful.  But they didn’t seem able to settle down anywhere.  Of course, houses were difficult to find just after the war and he had to be within reach of London.  They stayed in hotels at first, then took a furnished flat at Hastings.  Finally, at the beginning of 1948, they bought a house near Ashford and began to get it ready.  It was in a rather pretty village and the train service for Cuchran was good.  While they were making the last preparations they stayed at Shirley Cross.”

“Then a cruel thing happened.  Robin, just like her father, was struck down with influenza.”

“Oh, darling, ‘struck down’?”

“Well, it was like that.  She had been here, perfectly fit, the day before and suddenly Jenny ’phoned me to say that she had a temperature of 104 degrees. 

“For nearly a week she was . . .”

“Between life and death,” supplied Carolus. 

“Her life . . .”

“Hung by a thread.”

“Carolus, dear.  Don’t.  I was very fond of Robin.  Jenny was with her all the time.  She told Jenny that she had left everything to her, absolutely.  And it was during this week that Cuchran insured his wife’s life for a hundred thousand pounds.”

“A perfectly reasonable thing to do, surely?  Influenza is very catching.  If Jenny became infected and died before Robin, Cuchran would have been left with nothing at all.”

“I don’t know how you can defend him.  To think of that, at a time when Robin was dying.”

“Was she?”

“Oh, yes.  She died at the end of the week.”

“The man was a bookmaker, accustomed to calculate chances.  I don’t suppose you or I would have thought of it, but I don’t see anything criminal in it.  It did neither of them any harm.”

“Wait till you hear the rest.  Robin died on the Monday.  There were three doctors with her because old Pickthorp, perhaps remembering Sir B, had called in another consultant and a specialist.  Jenny wanted the funeral over as quickly as possible—she hated all that morbid thing with flowers and announcements in the press—so Robin was buried on the Wednesday.

“I went to the funeral and nearly caught my death of cold.  There was an icy wind and the Vicar went on interminably about dust to dust.  There’s no heating in that little church and it’s very exposed.  Jenny told me she felt awful but she looked all right so I suppose she meant in spirit rather than health.  She said she wasn’t going to spend another night in that house and as soon as the funeral was over Cuchran drove her away to Charingden, where their new home was.  I thought they were going to spend their first night in it.  It was all ready for them, though they had no servants.

“I said good-bye to her and try to cheer her up, but she loved Robin and was absolutely heartbroken.  I felt pretty bad myself.  So she said good-bye outside the churchyard and that was the last I ever saw of her, poor child.  She was being driven away to her death.”

Aunt Vicki fell into a silence which Carolus did not break.  After a moment she looked more cheerful as she returned to the present.

“There’s only something cold this evening,” she said.  “We can have it when we like.  Shall I go on, or tell you the rest later?

“Do go on, Aunt Vicky, if you’re not too tired.”

“Tired, not in the least.  I’ve had my rest this afternoon.  But I think I’d like a dry sherry, dear.  You have to open a bottle.”

Carolus did so and watched the old lady sip it appreciatively.

“What did they do when they drove away together?”

“I’ll tell you what Cuchran said they did.  That’s all anyone knows.  He says they drove to Charingden and went to their new house.  No one saw them, of course, but various passers-by claimed to have seen lights in the windows that evening for the first time during the year in which the house had been empty.  They merely thought it was ‘the new people’ moving in.  Then, according to Cuchran, he left Jenny and drove to York.”

“To York?  He sounds like Dick Turpin.”

“His story was that he was due in York for the races next day.  Jenny did not tell him she was feeling ill, he said, and there was everything in the house for her.  He decided to drive all night to reach York in plenty of time.  It’s a likely story, isn’t it?”

“But was he at York races next day?”

“Apparently, yes.  In fact there can be no doubt of that.  Scores of witnesses.  But what I want to know was—what had he done first?  Before leaving Charingden?”

“And don’t you know?”

“Of course I do.  He had murdered his wife. 

“On the morning after the lights were seen in their windows people from the village called—tradesmen and so on.  There was no reply and no sign of life.  They concluded that ‘the new people‘ had come again to leave something, or make further preparations, as they had been doing fairly often in the last weeks.  They thought very little of it.  Not that it would have been of much use.  She was already dead, poor child. 

“On the third day, according to his story, Cuchran returned and found his wife dead.  She was in bed in pyjamas.  He made tremendous scenes.  Pretended to be heartbroken.  There was no end of fuss about it.  The body was removed to the mortuary for a post-mortem.  There was an inquest, of course.  The circumstances were so suspicious that there had to be.”

“And what was the verdict?”

Aunt Vicky looked disgusted.

“Death from natural causes.  She had caught influenza from her sister and it was delayed in its action.  She had died on the night he left her there—if he left her there alive.”

“But Aunt Vicky, what else could it have been?  A post-mortem’s not a casual thing, you know.  A minute examination.  If there had been any violence or poison they would have found evidence of it.  If they found she died of influenza or the effects of influenza, she did, and that’s all there is to it.”

“You’ll never convince me of that.  With all that insurance money?  It’s incredible.”

“If there had been the smallest doubt the insurance company would have raised it.”

“Oh, I don’t say he wasn’t clever.  He found some devilish way to do away with her which looked natural enough.  But he murdered her all right.  No doubt about it.”

❦

Death on Romney Marsh, Chapter Three

Death on Romney Marsh

CHAPTER THREE

“And now that story,” said Carolus when he faced Aunt Vicky across the hearth on which fruitwood was burning.

“You will find it a dreadfully old-fashioned story,” said Aunt Vicky.  “The last event in it happened twenty years ago.”

“The last event so far.  I wouldn’t put events of some sort past that household I saw today.”

“I shall tell it as I remember it, then, from the time I came here in 1917.”

“In ‘old Sir Bamfylde’s time’,” put in Carolus.

“Don’t interrupt.  He had inherited the place about seven years before.  He was the only son of an only son and I believe he desperately wanted an heir.  There were heirs in those days, you know.  I mean heirs who had port laid down for them at birth and coming-of-age parties, and all that sort of thing.  You needn’t look so awed—it was in my lifetime and I am not a relic yet.

“Sir B, as we’ll call him, since you seem to find his name ridiculous, was what is called a fine man, less than fifty, retired Cavalry officer who had seen service in South Africa and on the North-West Frontier, though he had not been accepted for service in the war of that time.  He looked a fine man too; iron-grey moustache, upright bearing, a sabre cut somewhere, I believe, and Poona courtesy.  I don’t suppose he had a brain in his head but he was kind and generous and loved that frightful house because his grandfather had built it and he was born in it within a year of its completion.”

“How did you come here, Aunt Vicky?”

“How do you think?  Raymond was a subaltern in his regiment.  When Raymond was killed, old Sir B naturally wanted to help the gel Raymond had intended it to marry.  When he heard I meant to live alone he offered me Mortboys.  I insisted on paying rent—it was practically nothing then—and doing the place up myself.  We were good friends all his life.  In fact . . . he was a widower you see . . .”

Aunt Vicky picked up a piece of embroidery she was engaged on and seemed absorbed in it for a time. 

“Was there ever a thought of marriage, a mother for the girls?”

“No.  I never really thought of it and he engaged a governess for the girls.  She looked a real battle-axe but she was hopelessly incompetent I’m afraid.  Her name was Skipton and those two little monkeys were soon calling her ‘Skip’.”

“How old were they?”

“Let’s see, Robin was born in 1910 and Jenny in the next year, so they were seven and six.  Sir B’s tragedy—quite a common one at that time–was that he wanted a son.  There were stories that he had persuaded himself before the first girl was born that it would be a boy and refused to change the name he had chosen, Robin, when he was told the news.  These things run in families and, as I told you, both his grandfather and father had each fathered a son and no other children, so he may have felt there was a tradition.  But no, little Robin, a perfect baby and soon an endearing little thing came instead and before Jenny arrived we have got used to the idea.”

“What about his wife?”

“I never knew her.  She was glamorous, I believe, but what was called then no one in particular, an Admiral’s daughter.  She died in giving birth to Jenny.  So he lost all hope of an heir and had to make the best of the girls. 

“He was not a bad father but even by the standards of that time he taught his children to think too much of sport.  Robin particularly really was almost the son he had hoped for.  She rode to hounds . . .”

“Aunt Vicky, you’re overdoing it!”

“Not in the least.  Sir B was Master of the Cinque Ports Hunt.  Little Robin was in the saddle almost before she was out of her cradle, as they say, and Jenny was a beautiful horsewoman, too.  Sir B took them everywhere with him—he had a grouse moor and some fishing somewhere.  Some years after I came their mother’s sister came to stay, a very dignified lady, the wife of a clergyman who afterwards became a bishop, I believe, and there were most uncomfortable scenes.  She accused Sir B of bringing the girls up as savages, said Miss Skipton was an ignorant and inferior woman who could not speak French, then proposed to take the girls under her own charge.  Sir B said he couldn’t speak French either, but promised they should go to a school his sister-in-law recommended.  That was a dreadful failure.  They ran away after a month and refused to go back.  Robin’s only ambition, she told me, was to ‘bag a tiger’ when she was old enough.

“You would think that with a bringing-up like that the girls would have tended to be unfeminine, to develop into . . .”

“A pair of lesbians,” supplied Carolus. 

“Well, yes, Carolus.  I wasn’t going to use quite that term.”

“But it’s what you meant.  Go on.”

“Not of bit of it.  They grew into quite lovely creatures, very feminine in fact.  They confided in me a great deal, each in her own way.  During the 1920’s and 30’s they were quite famous for their looks, and were always appearing in the society papers.  They came out together in 1930 and were generally called the Two Graces.  It was said that they were in rather a fast set in London at the time, but I daresay that was jealousy.”

“They’d have been very dreary young women if they hadn’t been in what you call a fast set just then, Aunt Vicky.  You mean they were Bright Young Things.”

“Oh, nothing so vulgar, I hope.  They did bring some of their friends down for week-ends and I must say at the time I rather wondered.  It wouldn’t surprise me up bit today.  Things have changed.  But in the 1930s we weren’t used to quite such wild behaviour.  Nothing wrong, of course, but some of their cocktail parties . . .  I went to several and thought they were alarming.”

“You mean you couldn’t stand the pace?”

“Perhaps.  No, it was the noise.  Those gramophones.  But they seemed very happy young people and Robin and Jenny what obviously popular.  Robin was quite a ringleader in her way, I think.  They called them the dancing years, didn’t they?”

“How did Sir B take it?”

“Surprisingly well.  He wasn’t an narrow-minded man.  He liked to see them enjoying themselves.  The only thing was, they wanted to change everything in the house.  A young man they knew called himself an interior decorator and had wonderful plans for it.  All the furniture was to go, I remember, and the stuffed heads in the hall, and something he called pickled oak was to be used with white carpets.”

“He could scarcely have made it worse than it is.”

“Sir B wouldn’t hear of it.  He never interfered with the guests but he did say the young man wasn’t to come again.  ‘Called my house and mausoleum!’ Sir B told me, most indignantly.  ‘Said he couldn’t sleep at night for fear of a few . . . trophies on the wall.  I can’t have the place turned upside down by these youngsters, Vicky.’  So the furniture remained the same and they had to dance round it.  But the girls adored their father and were rather proud of him, too.  None of us knew that his type would die out in years to come and I think we’re the poorer for that.”

“What happened to Miss Skipton?” asked Carolus.

“She stayed on and on and became an institution.  ‘Skip’ was in everything, a bit of a joke, but the girls were fond of her and called her Miss Prism.  Then suddenly—she must have been nearer seventy than sixty—she announced that she was ‘embarking on a new venture’ and went into partnership with a slightly younger woman to start a tea-shop in Rye.  She had nothing to contribute but her savings but she calmly invested the locked.  They called it The Olde Tythe Barne though it occupied the premises of a stationer’s shop built in Victoria’s reign in an unpromising street near the station.  By one of those freaks of chance which contradicted all the prophecies and common sense of business people it prospered.  Skip used to be in the shop all day, selling her friend’s cakes and home-made jam.  She had grown rather deaf, she gave wrong change, she was easily flustered, sometimes rude and never knew the price of anything.  But something about her severe old face and stiff clothes, her inefficiency and helplessness touched people and they used to crowd into the ugly little place which had not even a warning-pan or a grandfather’s clock to recommend it, whilst splendid tea-rooms in Elizabethan premises full of genuine old oak and smiling waitresses languished.  She only died a few years ago and left a fortune to a nephew in Canada she hadn’t seen since he was five.”

“Delightful,” said Carolus.  “I do like stories with happy endings.  Now tell me about Mowlett.”

“Ah, Mowlett.  That’s another matter.  I can scarcely imagine him having a story with a happy ending, can you?  It must have been about the same time as the girls came out that he was first employed.  I suppose Sir B wanted the house run rather more grandly.  Mowlett was quite a young man then, in years, anyway.  He never looked like a young man, or behaved like one, always that sly, brooding face, but he can only have been about thirty.  He knew his job—I will say that.  Born to it.  His father or grandfather, I can’t remember the details, had started as a page-boy to the Duke of Cambridge and his mother was a lady’s maid to Mrs. Cornwallis West.  Or so he told my old Connie Churcher.  He knew he belonged to a dying profession—it may have been what gave him that sick-cow look, though it was rather the thing for the more important domestic servants to look like undertakers at one time.  At any rate he installed himself and everyone except Robin was a tiny bit afraid of him.  I’m sure Sir B was.  Not really, of course, but he used to address Mowlett in a rather loud militarily voice as though he wasn’t sure of himself.  I must say I never liked Mowlett.”

“Why?”

“He was bone lazy for one thing.  It took a woman to see that, I suppose.  Used to shut himself up in his pantry as much as he could and though he behaved impeccably I could tell he thought it was martyrdom to wait at table.  I once asked someone what he did on his ’phone.  The answer was, nothing.  He just sat.  I suppose that’s what he does now though I’m told he has his own part of the house and television and a motor-car.”

“Why not?  Wouldn’t anyone want it if he lived in that house?”

“No one would live in that house unless he had some extraordinary reason for doing so.  That is what I’ve never understood about Mowlett.  A professional servant serving with that blackguard Cuchran.”

“Really, Aunt Vicky, you mustn’t talk like that.  At least not until you have told me your grounds for calling Cuchran a blackguard.”

“I have told you.  He murdered his wife.  But I’m coming to that.  You asked about Mowlett.  Did you see him this afternoon?”

“Yes.  He opened the door.”

“You surprise me.  I never thought he did anything.”

“He even brought the tea.”

“Brought that tea?  Do they have tea?”

“What did you think they had?  Arsenic?”

“I thought Cuchran was always drunk.  You don’t mean she appeared?”

“Certainly.  Looking rather smart.  Heavily made-up, yes, but well turned out.  Do go on with your story, though.”

“I haven’t got to the story yet.  We’re still in the 1930’s.”

“Was Withers there then?”

Aunt Vicky smiled. 

“He was such a nice young fellow.  I was really quite taken with him.  He came as second gardener but he was soon in charge of the garden altogether.  He had quite a flair.  Sir B was only interested in roses and let him do what he liked with the rest.  They had been his wife’s favourite flower.”

“You didn’t pile it on, don’t you?  His wife’s favourite flower.  We’re living in the space age, my dear.  You must stop talking like Edna Lyall or Rhoda Broughton.”

“But they were.  Sir B told me so.”

“As you sat at tea on the lawn, I suppose, eating cucumber sandwiches.  Or was it in the conservatory, with a waltz tune coming from the band behind the potted azaleas?  I can take just so much period and no more.”

“Carolus, dear, this was another period, even if it’s only thirty years ago.  A period of transition, if you like, with the young people altogether different from their parents.  But still another period.”

“Get back to Withers.”

“He married.”

“The ’tween maid, I suppose?”

“No, a sickly-looking girl who had been a schoolteacher.  They never had any children and during the last war she died.  Cancer, I believe.  He went on living in his cottage and the place went more to waste.  But we’ll come to that presently.  He was there up till about ten years ago, and maybe still.  No one has seen him since then.  He didn’t mix with people in the neighbourhood.  I think one of the Churcher girls rather hoped, after his wife died, but nothing came of it.  What happened to him no one knows.  I would believe anything.”

“I know you would.  He may have simply moved away.”

“It’s possible.  But he was such a good-looking fellow when he first came.  So bright and cheerful.  You haven’t a drink, Carol, and I think this time I’ll have just a little one.  Thank you, dear.”

“You’re not tired?”

“No.  I love talking.  I’d like to know why you’re so is interested though.  It’s a very ordinary story, so far.  There were lots of families just like this.  Your own parents, for instance.  But you were only just born in 1930, I suppose.  I don’t remember our own family events nearly so well as the Sivier-Graces’.  I used to be almost one of the family.”

“Are you sorry you weren’t?”

“I don’t know.  I never think about it.  Everybody makes mistakes.  But I will say that until the time of the Second World War you couldn’t have had a happier family than the one I’m telling you about.  The girls were at the top of their form.  They were very well off and free with money.  I think Sir B rather encouraged them to be.  He liked young people, in spite of of the interior decorator.  Robin had a very fast and motor-car which I found rather frightening.  Sports model.  I forget the name . . .”

“Frazer-Nash?”

“That’s it.  She’d fly up to London in it at all hours, and come down with it loaded with young people.  But it wasn’t all parties, and that sort of thing.  It was a very happy household in itself.  Sir B had splendid health which I suppose was what matters most to man of his active habits.  And he liked entertaining, too—people of his own age, I mean—people we called ‘the county’.  Using the term without affection.  The Silvier-Grace family lived well.  I can still remember the breakfasts . . .” “

“Breakfasts?  What were you doing up there at breakfast time?”

“Enjoying myself.  More than at some of the stuffier dinner parties.  They all wanted me to come up to breakfast because everyone seemed at his best.”

“Good God!”

“Don’t be blasphemous.  Yes, it was a happy household.  You mustn’t imagine that what I have said about Mowlett cast any shadow.  Nothing did.  Until the war came.”

“How did the war affect it so much?  No ham for breakfast?”

“Oh, it ended it.  You can’t understand that.  It just put a stop to it.  They weren’t selfish people.  They wouldn’t have gone on that sort of life when London were being bombed even if they had been allowed to.  They were all in it—as far as they could be.  Sir B in command of the home guard.  Robin driving an ambulance.  Jenny in the A.T.S.  Withers in the Air Force.  There were leaves for the girls, of course, and some good times and parties, but it could never be the same again.  Besides . . .”

“Go on!”

“Jenny became engaged to Cuchran.  In 1940 that was.  That’s what really ended it.”

“You mean, ‘old Sir B never smiled again’?”

“Don’t be silly.  He didn’t know the truth.  I told you he wasn’t at all brilliant.  But he felt it.  We all did.  And that’s all I’m going to tell you tonight.”

❦

Death on Romney Marsh, Chapter Two

Death on Romney Marsh

CHAPTER TWO

As soon as the door opened a few inches Carolus inserted his foot.  He was conscious of the absurdity of the situation which belonged to the sensational fiction of the Nineties, but if he were to complete his mission this action was necessary.  When he saw the face that peered at him from the gap made by the slightly open door, he felt even more like a character in melodrama of eighty years ago.

It was a long bony face with sad eyes and belonged to a man in his sixties or early seventies.  The eyes watched Carolus intently but shewed no anger or alarm.

“Captain Cuchran in?” asked Carolus.

“He’s not at home.”

“Just tell him I want to see him, will you?  Carolus Deene is my name.”

“I said he was not at home.”

“Yes.  I heard you.  You’re the butler, I suppose?  Mowlett, I believe?  This is rather a silly conversation, Mowlett, and far from original, because I intend to see Captain Cuchran.”

Carolus was aware that from the interior his words were being overheard.

“Know that little thing by de la Mare?  ‘Is there anybody there? said the Traveller, Knocking on the moonlit door.’  You don’t?  So apt, Particularly when it talks of ‘a host of phantom listeners that dwelt in the lone house then’.  But we could go on chattering all night like this.  I expect you’ve got some favourite quotations too.  Do tell Captain Cuchran—he’s somewhere quite handy—that I shan’t be leaving till I’ve seen him, because it will save us all so much trouble if you do.”

“Captain Cuchran is not at home,” the old man repeated to a renewal of the howling of the unseen baby.

“You’ll find he has come in by now if you just look behind you, I expect.  By Jove, that baby’s got a pair of lungs, hasn’t it?  Quite livens up the house.  Nothing phantom about that.  Cigarette?”

“I must ask you to remove your foot,” said Mowlett in his gloomy voice.

“Oh, come on,” said Carolus smiling.  “I’m going to see Captain Cuchran, you know.  We’re only wasting time.”

Mowlett seemed to be feeling the cold, for there was an icy wind and the house faced north-east.

“What is your business?”

“Oh, crime.  Investigation of crime.  But I want to see Captain Cuchran about my aunt, Miss Morrow, and her occupation of Mortboys.”

At this there was sudden movement behind the door, Mowlett seemed to be shoved from somewhere and the baby, which had been hushed for a few moments, broke out yet again.  A heavily-built man, somewhat bloated and purple of face, appeared.

“What the devil do you mean by upsetting my household?” he asked loudly.

“What the devil do you mean by upsetting my aunt?”

Cuchran’s anger seemed to boil up like a saucepan of milk, overspill, extinguish the gas of the ring under it, and subside to a soggy calm.

“Is it your custom to force your way into people’s houses?” he asked sourly but with less bluster.

“I can’t remember that it has ever been necessary before.  I certainly apologize for it.  I really had to see you.”

Cuchran glared at him.  He had the watery pale eyes of an alcoholic, or near alcoholic, or perhaps former alcoholic.

“You can come in,” he said.

Carolus noticed that instead of opening the door for him Mowlett left it exactly as it was and disappeared from the hall.  He pushed it open for himself and closed it behind him.

For period gloom and Victorian-Gothic ambience the interior of the house excelled what Carolus had seen from the drive.  Ferocious mammalia, the spoils of shikari in nineteenth-century India or Livingstonian Africa, glared glassily from the walls and furniture, installed when the house was built, towered threateningly in Spanish mahogany abundance.

“Cosy little place you’ve got here,” said Carolus brightly.” I wonder what John Betjeman would say to it, eh?  Probably ‘Boo!’  But we shall never know.”

“Since you are determined to intrude, you’d better come into my study.”

A fire here lit the glass-fronted bookshelves and Turkey carpet.  Cuchran made straight for a tantalus, not so much from a sense of hospitality, Carolus thought, but because he was, as they say, dying for a drink.

“Scotch?” he offered sulkily.

Taking colour from his surroundings, Carolus said he would like a chhota peg.  They drank standing up.

“About my aunt,” began Carolus.

“Nothing to be done I’m afraid.  Development,” returned Cuchran.

“Of what?”

“The estate.  Block of flats.  House several thousand.”

He drew out a blue-print and spread it on the table.

“You don’t mean to say you’ve gone to the trouble and expense of having this drawn?  Just to shift aunt?  It’s too silly, really.”

Cuchran appeared not to have heard and was demonstrating points.

“Swimming pool,” he said throatily.  “Supermarket.”

“Church?” suggested Carolus.

“No.  We’ve got our own.  Between the estate and Charlton-Lovejoy, the next parish.”

“And who is going to finance this scheme?”

“Too easy.  We shall be turning money away.  Housing, you see.”

“I don’t see.  Nor does anyone else.  And if you’re offering this as a reason why my aunt should give up on you’re insulting intelligence.  You might as well talk of residential flats on the top of Snowdon.”

“As a matter of fact, I am interested in a scheme . . .”

“You were a bookmaker at one time, I believe?”

“Never mind what I was or am.  I want possession of Mortboys.”

“You’re not going to have it.  I came to see you this afternoon because in spite of all reports I believed you might be a reasonable man.  I admit I have not yet examined the legal side of the thing and I don’t know whether you had even the smallest pretensions to a case.  But I tell you this—I’ll fight with every means there is, whatever it costs, to prevent you getting possession.  I’ll go back into the past, if necessary . . .”

“What do you mean?”

“I think you know what I mean.”

Cuchran stood blinking at Carolus as though he were trying to think of a retort and couldn’t.  They were both silent and both could hear an approaching step in the tiled hall.  Suddenly Cuchran went forward fussily.

“My dear, you shouldn’t have come down,” he said.  “This gentleman has only come to see me on a small matter of business.  Mr. . . . er . . .”

“Carolus Deene.”

“Mr. Deene, my wife.”

Carolus wondered at Aunt Vicki’s description—mad, raving mad.  The woman who stretched out her hand to him looked unusual, but perfectly sane.  She was dressed intelligently and if she were not in the last breath of fashion certainly there was nothing outmoded about her appearance.  The curious thing, as Aunt Vicki had warned him, was her make-up.  That certainly was old-fashioned and grossly exaggerated.  Carolus wondered why.  Her bone structure and features were good.

“The first thing,” she said,  “is for you to to stop glaring at one another.  Sit down, both of you.  I’ve told Mowlett to bring some tea.”

“Mr. Deene was just going, my dear.”

“I don’t think he was—not until he had said a great deal more then he has.  You’re Vicky Morrow’s nephew, I believe?”

“Do you know her?”

“Only by sight and reputation.  We know she has a wicked tongue.”

Carolus was on uncertain ground.

“She is certainly rather frank.”

Mowlett entered with the silver tray used in every french-window comedy on the London stage.

“For ten years, ever since our marriage,” went on Mrs. Cuchran (‘if’, as Aunt Vicky said, ‘she is his wife’) “she has persisted in slandering me.  She is quite indefatigable in her malice.  Do you wonder that my husband wants possession of her house?”

Cuchran was evidently miserable.

“My wife is mistaken,” he said.  “It is true that Miss Morrow has persistently slandered us.  That is not my reason for giving her a year’s notice to quit Mortboys.”

“No.  Development,” said Carolus.

“Zsh’actly,” said Cuchran blearily.  The tea was not doing him any good at all.

But in spite of what seemed like a gaffe Mrs. Cuchran shewed no sign of mental instability and Carolus wondered when, and if, this would manifest itself.

A screech came from the hall.  The baby was awake again.

“We have Spanish servants,” said Mrs.  Cuchran, in explanation.  “A young couple.  We did not know when we engaged them that they had a child.  I understand your aunt has no service problems?”

“She is very well looked after.  Are you proposing, by the way, to get rid of all the Churchers?” Carolus asked Cuchran.

He saw that the question was embarrassing.

“I’m not prepared to discuss that,” Cuchran said.

“If only your aunt had dropped this wearisome campaign of hers,” said Mrs.  Cuchran, “I am sure we should have felt quite differently about her.”

“It’s not really a campaign.  Once she gets something into her head it’s hard to shift it.”

“But such very nasty things.  She implies that we are not married and quite openly calls my husband a murderer.  How would you like being called a murderer?”

“I’ve no doubt I have been,” admitted Carolus.  “I’ve been called everything else.”

He rose to leave, feeling the interview had been not without interest but probably fruitless.

“I just want you to know that I think your claim preposterous and I mean to fight it with all I’ve got.  If you want to avoid legal costs you had better drop it now.”

“Can’t do that,” said Cuchran obstinately.  “Development.”

Carolus was still waiting for some sign of eccentricity from Mrs Cuchran.  When he turned to bid her good-bye he got it.  Her normally well-bred behaviour suddenly gave way to a vulgarly flirtatious leer.

“Ta-ta!” she said.  “Come again soon.”

It was so startling that he stopped and gazed at her.

“Ever so nice to meet you,” she grinned.  “Mind how are you go.  Ta-ta!”

But there was yet another surprise.  As he crossed the hall a stout young man rushed out and addressed him in Spanish, grabbing his hand and shaking it violently.  “Señor, do you speak Spanish?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Oh Señor!  God bless you!  Maria Teresa, he speaks Spanish!  Señor, here we have been in despair.  We cannot understand one word or make ourselves understood.  We cannot buy anything for the niño.  We might as well be in prison.  We are lost!”

“It is terrible,” joined in Maria Teresa, jumping the baby about vigorously to stop it squealing.  “Pepe has tried to tell the old one what we want but he does not care to listen.  We have no one, señor; we are alone, abandoned, deserted, lost!”

“We do not know the way to a town.  We cannot find anyone to understand.  We do the work—they can tell us that.  Oh, yes, they can tell us what to do, clean the floors, the boots . . . imagine, Señor, the boots!  I am expected to be a limpiabotas.  This is not England, this house.  It cannot be England.  Where are the people, the gaiety, the swing music?  Of the climate we do not complain.  We were told to expect that.  But are we to spend our lives cleaning boots in the middle of a marsh?”

“What’s the matter with them?” asked Cuchran.

“A little international misunderstanding.  They want to be with their own people.”

“None here,” observed Cuchran fatuously.

“They’re very unhappy in this isolated place.”

“What did they expect?  Swinging London?”

“Not exactly.  But someone who speaks their own language.  They would like to do some shopping, I think, for the child.”

“Damn the child,” said Cuchran.  “It’s the noisiest I’ve ever known.”

“Will you not take us with you?  Now?  This minute?” pleaded the Spaniard.  “This is not to be endured, this place.  We shall die and no one will know we are here.  There are ghosts, too.”

“Ghosts?”

They both nodded.

“And the old one behaves very strangely.  He is supposed to be a mayordomo.  He is more like the owner.  He has his own apartments.  As for the owner, he drinks.  God, how he drinks.  Señor, it is a house of hell.  When I saw you coming I knew I could speak to you.  You must take us away!”

“I can’t do that,” said Carolus.  “But I will find someone—the nearest Spanish Consul, or someone who speaks your language.”

“But how will he reach us?  Everything is locked.  Nothing.  No one.  We are abandoned.”

“I reached you, didn’t I?  I will find someone to take care of you.”

“You give your word, Señor?”

“Yes.  I give you my word.  Cheer up, Maria Theresa.  Cheer up, Pepe.  You will be all right.”

They broke into thanks.

“Sorry about that,” said Cuchran.  “Blasted cheek, addressing a guest like that.”

“Am I a guest?”

“Well you know what I mean.”

“We shall certainly meet again,” predicted Carolus.  “That is, if you go on with this ridiculous business.  By the way, do you employ a man called Withers?”

This went home.  Cuchra turned as purple as on his first appearance.

“What business have you to ask me questions about my staff?  It’s damnable impertinence.  You can get out of my house.  I’m . . . this . . .”

Pepe was courteously opening the front door and Carolus, with an equable smile to Cuchran and a reassuring look to the Spaniard, made his accent and started briskly down the drive.

He climbed the iron gates with a little less agility and realized that he was feeling tired.  Really, this period stuff.  ‘Out into the cold you go!’  It was too much.

He was relieved, when he put the car into the lean-to garage at Mortboys to see Dennis, one of the young Churchers, standing near and looking comfortably 1968.  He wore something which would be noticeable in Carnaby Street and his hair-do was flagrant.

“Got a right bit of hardware there,” he said with a nod towards the Bentley.  “What can you get out of it?”

Carolus, back in the age of speed, discussed the car’s potentialities.  He was relieved that young Churcher had an MG and did not ask casually for a loan of the Bentley.

❦

Death on Romney Marsh, Chapter One

Death on Romney Marsh

by

Leo Bruce

CHAPTER ONE

   

“There has always been something sinister about the house,” said Miss Morrow.

“Yes.  The architecture,” replied her nephew imperturbably.  His name was Deene.

“You know perfectly well I’m not referring to the architecture,” said the old lady decisively.

“Then what?” asked Carolus Deene.  He adored his small aunt, with her downrightness.

But she could be alarming and scandalous, too.

“Murder,” she snapped.

“My dear Aunt Vicky, I cannot understand how you can have got so far in life without facing an action for slander.  For twenty years you have been repeating this monstrous accusation against the man whose innocence has being established in court.  Now you’re surprised when he wants to turn you out of the house you rent from him.”

“It was murder.  I don’t care what anyone says.  You’ve never heard half the story.”

So you send for me to try persuasion with a slandered man.  I’m to go and see him and tell him you want to keep your home.  I’m to drive up to his house, which you say is ‘sinister’ calmly face this Captain Cuchran, and say ‘please let my aunt keep Mortboys’.”

“You’re to say nothing of the sort.  You’re to tell him that on no account will I be turned out of my home (to which, by the way he has absolutely no right) by a blackguard who should have been hanged twenty years ago.”

“Is that all?” asked Carolus.

Miss Morrow smiled.

You’ll know how to handle him.  You always get your own way with people, even as a small boy.  This man mustn’t be allowed to turn me out.  There must be some protection in law.

“There was,” said Carolus.  “I don’t know how the law stands now.  I see Cuchran’s lawyers speak of ‘development’.  It seems that almost anything can be done nowadays in the name of development.  How long have you been here?”

“Over fifty years.  I came here in 1917, just after Raymond was killed.  Everyone said I was mad to bury myself here, but I wanted to live alone.”

Carolus knew the story, how Aunt Vicky had been engaged to a boy scarcely older than herself who had been sent back to the trenches and killed after one brief leave with her, during which they had neglected to get married, how his child had been stillborn and how Vicky had found this house on the Romney marshes and lived here ever since, growing with the years somewhat irresponsible in her speech but keeping a shrewdness of her own.  She was a bright, talkative old lady, in some ways well-informed and down-to-earth, but often indiscreet.  She was not what is called ‘outspoken’ by which is often meant just rude; her opinions were sincere but too freely given.  Carolus admired her elegance.  One could never have guessed she had lived for half a century in a remote agricultural area for she had never, as her relatives said, ‘let herself go’, and aunt Vicky’s annual month in town during which she stayed at Brown’s Hotel, was an institution.

But her home was remote, and when she had first gone to live there the region must have been forbidding and inaccessible, its very names suggesting Swinburne’s ‘mile on mile on mile of desolation’, names like Dymchurch and Dungeness.  For many years deserted, but for sheep-farmers and smugglers, the Romney marshes cover even today some of the loneliest country in southern England.  Aunt Vicky’s little house stood among half a dozen cottages on the Shirley Cross estate but it was, as she said, beyond the sound of church bells and the nearest village was three miles away.

Yet she had never been without domestic help, for the families of tenant farmers and farm workers who lived in the cottages near hers had by some mysterious compulsion look after her when she first arrived, and in spite of their recent prosperity had continued to do so.  Old Connie Churcher, a crone born in the year of the Great Exhibition, had been her first daily and it was Connie’s great-grandson’s wife Pam who had popped in to get breakfast for Aunt Vicky and Carolus that morning, though she had come in her Mini car and worn a Persian lamb coat.  This was the kind of relationship which could exist in that part of the world.  So that when people who proclaim themselves willing to pay ‘anything’ for help in running their homes spoke of the near-impossibility of finding it, Aunt Vicky assumed an infuriating expression of innocence and said she really did not know what all the fuss was about.  She believed she had increased wages since the First World War but she was just as well looked after.  Carolus as her confidant and executor knew privately that she loved the whole tribe of Churchers, had helped them in difficult times and would leave them most of her money.  He knew, too, that this was one of the things that exasperated her landlord, Captain Roger Cuchran, who found it impossible to obtain any domestic help from the district and suffered from unintelligible foreign servants who stayed only long enough to satisfy the immigration authorities.

“Are you going to see the fellow?” asked Aunt Vicky, looking sharply at Carolus.  “Tell him exactly where he stands?”

“But I don’t know exactly where he stands, Aunt Vicky, and nor do you.  We shall have to have advice on that.  I don’t mind seeing him if you think it will do any good.”

“Of course it will.  As soon as he knows he has to deal with a man he’ll stop all this nonsense.  Development!  What development can there possibly be here?  When I took the house from old Sir Bamfylde it was derelict.”

“Who was he?”

“You know perfectly well.  It was before this Cuchran got possession of the estate.  I’ll tell you the whole story when you’ve settled this matter.”

“You will?”

“Yes.  It’s a terrible story, though.  I’ve told you about the murder . . .”

“Many times.  And other people, too.”

“That’s only part of it.  You’ve seen the house for yourself.  It looks like a prison.  No one goes near it.  But if you want to hear it all, you shall.  After you’ve been to see Cuchran.”

“It’s a bargain.”

“The first thing you have to get past is the dog.  I’ve never seen it but I hear it’s sort of hound of the Baskervilles.  They’ve had to put a letter-box at the park gates.”

“Only one dog?”

“I’ve no doubt there are others.  But this one is murderous.  Then there’s Mowlett, the butler.”

“Is he murderous?”

“He looks it.  But he was there in Sir Bamfylde’s time.  The only servant that has stayed on.  He’ll try to stop your seeing Cuchran.”

“So what do I do?  Throw a sop to Cerberus?”

“I don’t know.  Surely you have the ingenuity to get past a man nearly my age who looks like a death’s head?  He’s supposed to have attacked the last Vicar with a sword, one of those Sir Bamfylde used in the Crimean War, but I don’t suppose he’ll try anything like that with you.  When you once get in to Cuchran you’ll be able to convince him, I’m sure.  Only take no notice of the wife–if she is his wife.  Mad.  Raving mad.  Never leaves the house.”

“Then how do you know?”

“People aren’t blind.  She’s been seen peering out the windows, covered with paint.”

“Perhaps she was decorating the bedroom.  Do-it-yourself.”

“Don’t be obtuse.  You know I mean cosmetics.  She look a ventriloquist’s dummy.  Perhaps that’s what she is for that man Cuchran.  She’s his second wife, or passes under the name of it.  He murdered his first.”

“Really, Aunt V!  Another murder?”

“No.  The same one.  I told you it happened twenty years ago.”

“Nice little household you’re sending me into.  Is there anyone else?”

“I shouldn’t be surprised.  Hidden away among all those bedrooms and attics.  I told you the place is like a prison.  There are some Spanish servants now, I believe.”

“What about outside?  No homicidal gardener or schizophrenic chauffeur?”

“There’s some kind of odd man called Withers.  Or there was.  No one has seen him for years.  He used to live in the gardener’s cottage.  May still, for all I know.  But the place is dreadfully neglected.  When are you going to call there?”

“I can’t wait,” said Carolus.  “You know, if you were not my mother’s only sister, and such a persuasive old fraud, I’d keep a mile from this looney-bin you describe.”

“Why, Carolus?  Because it sounds spooky?”

“No.  Because it sounds a fake.  It’s a hideous house which has been given a bad name because it looks so awful.  You keep saying ‘I’ve been told’, ‘I hear’, ‘I believe’.  You know nothing for certain against it, or against Cuchran, or his wife.  You’re an old ghoul, and much as I love you I’m not going to be taken in by a mixture of the House of Usher and the abode of the Adams.”

“See for yourself, then.”

“I will.  This afternoon.”

“You’re a good boy.  I understand you do quite a lot of this kind of thing nowadays.  Aren’t you some sort of private detective?”

“No, dear aunt, I am not.  I am a senior history master at the Queen’s School, Newminster, and I work extremely hard in that capacity.”

“Then what’s all this I hear about you being mixed up with murder?”

“I should not like to guess what you hear.  From what you’ve told me this morning there is almost nothing you don’t hear.  As it happens I have a hobby.  Surely schoolmaster is entitled to that?”

“Criminology, I suppose.  You specialize in murder though.  Old Dr. Raglan told me about it.  Said you were perpetually discovering corpses.  Extremely vulgar, he thought.  But you never laid this fellow by the heels when he killed his wife, did you?  Or I shouldn’t be threatened with eviction from my house now.”

Carolus, a lean muscular man of medium height, now in his forties, reflected that at the time of the scandal in Shirley Cross he had not yet been released from Service with the Commandos.  He had it in common with Miss Morrow that while she had lost her lover in the First World War he had lost his young wife in the Second.  With an embarrassingly large income inherited from his parents he had started to teach history after the war in order to occupy himself, but recently his interest in crime had absorbed him more and more. 

He kissed his aunt on the forehead. 

“Perhaps I’ll make up for it now,” he said.  “At least I’ll do what I can to keep you at Mortboys.  I can’t imagine you anywhere else.”

“I couldn’t be anywhere else.  You know by old Sir Bamfylde’s Will it was to come to me if the estate was split up?  I forgot the details but I remember being told at the time.”

“I wish you wouldn’t keep talking about ‘old Sir Bamfylde’ as though we were still back in the days of squirearchy.  Was that really his name?”

“Indeed it was.  Colonel Sir Bamfylde Silver-Grace, C.V.O., C.M.G. and I don’t know what else.  But you’ll hear more about him tonight.”

“I hope to.  Unless he was created by Ouida.”

After swallowing a cup of tea that afternoon while Aunt Vicky was resting, Carolus got out his Bentley Continental and set off for Shirley Cross.  But from a point several hundred yards from the lodge gates he stopped to contemplate this prospect of house.

Built in the 1870s it resembled as much as anything a haphazard square acre of Earl’s Court, with all its glowing masonry, transported to a site on these flat green levels.  In colour a dirty grey its roof was slated and its windows were sheets of black glass, not broken into panes but suggesting that the house itself was staring through sun-glasses.  There were some tall elms to flank it and a great deal of plastered ornament round the steps which rose to a pretentious portico.  The whole scene was desolate and on this windy afternoon of late January it made one shiver. 

This was no place for the traditional ghosts, Restless friars an headless swordsmen of Elizabethan times.  It was less than a century old and any ugly scenes which had taken place here were bound up with Victorian or Edwardian crime, old scandals like Tranby Croft.  It might be haunted but by spectres in leg-of-mutton sleeves or mutton-chop whiskers.  Sherlock Holmes might have been summoned here at the height of his career.  What was amazing to Carolus was that it should exist today, Complete with its scandals and whispers, its legends of inhabitants who never saw the light of day and a butler who had been here since the time of ‘old Sir Bamfylde’.  Aunt Vicky was ancien régime enough with her Churchers and her annual stay at Brown’s Hotel.  This was totally out of accord with the world we all knew. 

Carolus drove on and came to a pair of tall cast-iron gates with a lodge beside them.  The lodge was evidently uninhabited.  More to amuse himself than anything else he sounded his horn, but nothing stirred.  He touched it again and wondered whether it were audible from the house.  When he examined the gates he found them locked and decided that if he were to reach the front door of the house he would have to walk. 

He put the Bentley tidily across the gates, almost touching them with its left flank, then got out from the other side.  A special locking device, not proof against a skilled car thief because no device is, but good enough for this situation, was applied.  Then with an agility that his contemporaries might have considered undignified, he vaulted over the iron gates and was in the drive.  He began the long walk up to the house, undeterred by a very ordinary black-and-tan Alsatian which shewed him its teeth but quickly became bored when he ignored it. 

He knew the sensation of being watched from the windows he approached.  It is felt by everyone walking towards any house from a distance and was natural enough.  But now it was more than that—as though malevolent stares were fixed on is every movement.  It did not make him proceed in an affectedly nonchalant way—he approached briskly over the grass-grown drive.  At the foot of the stone steps he paused and calmly looked at the windows on each side of the front door.  He could see nothing of the interior but if anyone were watching him he would meet a cold and rather insolent stare.  Then he began to ascend that ridiculous stairway, delighted that he could reach the top without losing his breath.

There was an electric bell-push and he used it, not holding it too long but with some decision.  There was no response.  He waited exactly one minute, but when he pushed again he found it was silent; the connection had been broken from within, or perhaps the electricity of the house switched off at the main.  There was no knocker on the door but fortunately in the drive he found a large smooth stone.  With this he gave six firm knocks.  Still there was no reply.  Carolus looked at his watch. 

“It is now four-twenty,” he said.  He knew his words could not be heard and there was no need for them to be.  “I shall continue knocking until you open.  Like this—I shall knock till you open.  Six knocks.  We’ll see who grows tired first.”

So he began, allowing ten seconds between each series of knocks. 

Yet it seemed to him strange that the first sound he heard from behind that front door was the irrepressible screaming of a baby.  It was quite unmistakable and it seemed to burst out afresh with each of his series of knocks. 

At 4.27 there was a sound of bolts being withdrawn.

❦

Textual notes for Death on Romney Marsh

In Death on Romney Marsh (following our policy in previous publications of Leo Bruce novels), we have, for the sake of consistency between texts, altered some spellings and punctuation:  “realise”, “recognise” and “apologise” (and their permutations) are severally changed to “realize”, “recognize” and “apologize” (and their permutations); “goodbye” is amended to “good-bye”; “’phone” is used for the shortened form of “telephone” instead of “phone”; the verb “show” has been modified to “shew”; “will” is capitalised when referring to a last will and testament; and hyphens are removed from “to-day” and “to-morrow” but not from “week-end”; furthermore, these additional changes occur:

a comma was inserted after “sinister” in “drive up to his house, which you say is ‘sinister’ calmly face this Captain Cuchran” (Chapter One, p. 8);
a comma was added after bells in “it was, as she said, beyond the sound of church bells and the nearest village was three miles away” (Ch. One, p. 9);
for consistency with other texts, “specialise” (Ch. One, p. 13) was altered to “specialize”;
“if”, in “wondered if it was audible” (Ch. One, p. 15), in “wondered if this was the sort of competition” (Ch. Twelve, p. 134), and in “asked one of the nurses if a young man called Churcher had asked to see him” (Ch. 15, p. 174), was altered to “whether”;
each instance of a subjunctive “was” (outside of dialogue, of course)—in “if it was audible” (Chapter One, p. 15), in “if he was to reach the front door” (Ch. One, p. 15), in “if anyone was watching him” (Ch. One, p. 16), in “if he was to complete his mission (Ch. Two, p. 18), in “if she was not in the last breath” (Ch. Two, p. 22), in “Whether Cuchran was surprised” (Ch. Seven, p. 77), in “If anyone was complex” (Ch. Nine, p. 99), in “not quite certain whether it was a young man” (Ch. Eleven, p. 124), in “if this was the sort of competition” (Ch. Twelve, p. 134), in “if anyone was up there” (Ch. Thirteen, p. 146), and in “if he was to be attacked” and also in “If there was an attempt to close it” (Ch. Fifteen, p. 168)—was altered to “were”;
“jove” (Ch. Two, p. 19 and Ch. Twelve, p. 129) was capitalised;
a comma was inserted after walls in “from the walls and furniture” (Ch. Two, p. 20);
“chottha peg” (Ch. Two, p. 21) was altered to “chhota peg” and italicised;
a full stop replaced the eroteme in “Carolus wondered why?” (Ch. Two, p. 23) and also in “What I don’t understand, my dear Aunt Vicky, is how you get your information?” (Ch. Five, p. 55);
a comma was inserted after “said” in the parenthetical “ ‘if’, as Aunt Vicky said ‘she is his wife’ ” (Ch. Two, p. 23);
after Aunt Vicky picked up her piece of embroidery and was absorbed in it for a while she appears to answer a missing question by saying “No” and adding “I never really thought of it and he engaged a governess for the girls” (Ch. Three, p. 30), so an appropriate question from Carolus—of one line which a typesetter might easily miss and with similar words to help explain the lapse—, “Was there ever a thought of marriage, a mother for the girls?”, was inserted;
commas were inserted before and after “as I told you” in “These things run in families and as I told you that both his grandfather and father had each fathered a son and no other children” (Ch. Three, p. 31), and “that” was deleted therefrom;
a comma was inserted after “Carolus” in “oh, hell, Carolus he was a cad” (Ch. Four, p. 41);
for consistency’s sake “£10,000” (Ch. Four, p. 44) was altered to “ten thousand pounds” and “£100,000” (Ch. Four, p. 46) was altered to “one hundred thousand pounds”;
a superfluous closing quotation mark (because Aunt Vicky’s speech continues in the next paragraph), after “they stayed at Shirley Cross” (Ch. Four, p. 46), was deleted;
a comma was inserted after “Then” in “Then according to Cuchran, he left Jenny” (Ch. Four, p. 49);
a seemingly erroneous “us” was corrected to “them” in “We restored peace between us” (Ch. Six, p. 69);
a comma was added before the clause “with more agility than one would have thought” to match the one thereafter (Ch. Eight, p. 84);
a comma was added after the clause “depicting ‘Their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales’ ” to match the one therebefore (Ch. Eight, p. 86);
“and” was inserted between “furnished” and “there” in “The rooms below these were larger and better furnished there were two bathrooms on the floor” (Ch. Eight, p. 86);
the unaccented preposition in “Poulet a L’estragon” (Ch. Nine, p. 105) was given its grave accent;
a comma was added after “presumably” in “His search, presumably was ended” (Ch. Ten, p. 109);
for consistency’s sake “O.K.” (Ch. Eleven, p. 117) was altered to “Okay”;
for consistency with the previous mention of the road sign, the words “To Bindley 3 miles” (Ch. Eleven, p. 123) were enclosed within quotation marks;
the stop was removed from “Messrs.” (Ch. Twelve, p. 127);
“decided” in “you will allow me, my dear sir, to decided what would or would not be a breach” (Ch. Twelve, p. 129) was corrected to “decide”;
for consistency’s sake, “café” in “Merry Widow café” (Ch. Fourteen, p. 156) was capitalised;
“number Three Passover Cottages” (Ch. Fourteen, p. 156) was, for consistency’s sake, very slightly altered to “Number Three, Passover Cottages”;
for consistency’s sake “vicar” (Ch. Fourteen, p. 160) was capitalised;
“day” in “V.E. day” (Ch. Seventeen, p. 183) was capitalised;
for the sake of consistency (with other novels) “post mortem” (Ch. Seventeen, p. 186) was altered to “post-mortem”;
a comma was inserted after “when” in “It was ten minutes later when Matron being back in her place, Carolus resumed” (Ch. Seventeen, p.188);
the Latin phrase “vice versa” (Ch. Seventeen, p.192) was italicised;
“olympian” (Ch. Seventeen, p.192) was capitalised.

Page references are to the first (and, deplorably, the only) edition of Death on Romney Marsh by Leo Bruce, published by W. H. Allen (London, 1968).
Thanks to Alfred, by the way, for doing most of the transcribing for all chapters of Death on Romney Marsh.

❦

The Blurb for Death on Romney Marsh

From the front flap of the dust jacket of the first edition of Death on Romney Marsh by Leo Bruce, published by W. H. Allen (London, 1968):

A gossipy aunt, a lady of strong convictions and fearless opinions, sets Carolus Deene off on a trail of investigations leading back to a murder committed twenty years earlier.  The actions of an unfriendly ex-army captain, living in a gloomy old house with an eccentric wife and an aged butler, seem to lend credence to the aunt’s story.  A series of strange incidents finally convince Carolus that someone wants him out of the way..

His investigations lead him into some very odd places, including a search in a crumbling family mausoleum, which reveals a truly extraordinary situation.  Fortunately, Carolus’s acute sense of perception warns him of the great danger he is in personally—a warning which, for all his precautions, is soon translated into horrible fact.

On page 1 of the same edition:

A gossipy aunt launches Carolus Deene off on a trail of investigations leading back to events that occurred twenty years earlier.  The actions of an unfriendly ex-army captain, living in a gloomy old house with an eccentric wife and an aged butler, seem to lend credence to the aunt’s story.  Carolus’s enquiries lead him into some very odd places, and reveal a truly extraordinary situation.  Fortunately, his acute sense of perception warns him of the great danger he is in personally.