Poor Colonel Clitheroe took a step backward as my beaming smile morphed into a disappointed scowl. “Apologies for calling on you like this,” he squeaked.
“Not at all, Colonel,” I said. Drat! Where was a good-looking policeman when you expected one? “Please pardon me. I’ve been wrestling with a thorny problem in my research, and I’m afraid I was lost in thought when I answered the door. Writers, you know.”
Smiling uncertainly, the colonel said, “Quite.”
I motioned him in. “What can I do for you, Colonel?”
“Been thinking about your garden,” he said. “Came by to have a look and see what might be done.” He cleared his throat. “Might not be a good time, though. Could come back later, I suppose.”
“Not at all, Colonel,” I said, trying not to sound impatient. What if the detective inspector showed up while I was discussing perennials with the colonel? One had to observe the social conventions, nevertheless. “Would you like a spot of tea before we go out to the back garden?”
Colonel Clitheroe nodded. “Most kind of you, I’m sure.”
Sighing inwardly, I invited him to make himself comfortable in the sitting room while I went to the kitchen to put more water on for tea.
My hearing is acute, as I believe I’ve already mentioned, and over the noise of the water from the tap, I could hear surreptitious footsteps leaving the sitting room. What was he doing?
Putting the kettle quickly on the stove, I tiptoed to the kitchen door and peeked down the hallway just in time to see Colonel Clitheroe’s back disappearing into my office. What have we here?
I could have charged down the hallway right then to confront him, but I decided to give him a little line to see what might happen. I waited until the water boiled, busying myself with preparing the tea tray, then went back to the sitting room. Tray in hand, I discovered Colonel Clitheroe sitting innocently in my favorite chair, looking bored as if he had been waiting there for quite some time.
Scanning his clothing, I didn’t spot any unusual bulges. For the moment, I couldn’t think of a good reason to excuse myself to go into my office to check on the manuscript of the play. He couldn’t have known it was there. What had he been after?
I served the tea and made idle chatter with the colonel about herbaceous borders and the hardiness of certain varieties of lilies. Since I knew nothing about either subject, the colonel did most of the talking, quite happily, I might add. Whatever sneakiness he might have been engaged in, he was still an enthusiastic gardener.
After a few minutes of this, I was pleased when the colonel decided it was time for a look at the back garden. I took him down the hall through the kitchen and out the back door. Excusing myself at the sound of the telephone, I left the colonel gazing in dismay at the undisciplined growth.
The caller was Detective Inspector Chase. “I just received your message a few minutes ago, Dr. Kirby-Jones,” he told me. “I expect to be with you in about fifteen or twenty minutes.” Judging by the static I could hear, he must be calling me from his car.
“Not a problem, Detective Inspector,” I said. “I’ll be waiting for you.”
On the way back outside, I glanced quickly at my desk. From what I could see, the pages of the manuscript hadn’t been disturbed, though the envelope in which they had arrived might have been shifted a bit on the desk. Had the colonel seen enough to satisfy his curiosity?
As I came out the back door, the colonel was slipping his hand into the pocket of his rather baggy pants. I hadn’t paid much attention to them before, but they looked capacious enough to hold a cellular phone. Which is what I thought the colonel had been putting away.
“Sorry about that,” I said. “Business call.”
The colonel waved that away. “Over here,” he said, pointing at the jumble of plants (some of which might have been weeds, for all I knew) lining the wall on the northern side of my property. “Lot of work needed there,” he said. “Too much unrestrained growth.” From his enthusiasm he might have been Margaret Thatcher going after cuts in old-age pensions.
For the next ten minutes I listened while the colonel outlined a plan for bringing my garden back under control. I simply nodded, wondering how much it would cost me if I were to follow through with any of this. All the while, I was wondering about his real motive in coming here today. Finally, the colonel told me he could recommend a man to do the job, and I suggested that we go back inside so that I could write down the man’s address and phone number. As we were finishing in the hallway, my doorbell rang again.
This time it was, thankfully, Detective Inspector Chase.
“Good afternoon, Dr. Kirby-Jones,” he said, smiling, though he looked more than a bit worn around the edges. I found out later that he had just come from attending the postmortem on Abigail Winterton.
“Please, do come in, Detective Inspector,” I said, standing aside to allow him in. “Colonel Clitheroe has very kindly been giving me advice on taming my back garden.”
“Better be going,” the colonel said, nodding stiffly at the policeman.
“Thank you again, Colonel,” I said, ushering him out with relief.
“Not at all,” he said, pausing for a moment on the doorstep. Then he turned and marched down the walk and out into the lane, having turned precisely on his heel at the gate.
“What is this new evidence you’ve got?” Detective Inspector Chase asked once he had explained his delay in responding to my call.
“Please come into my office,” I said, “and I’ll show you.” With a flourish I waved him in, then stopped in surprise as I scanned the top of my desk. The play and the envelope in which it had arrived were gone.
I said something rather vulgar, and the detective inspector blinked in surprise. I motioned for him to sit while I did the same.
“What I had to show you,” I said, “was Abigail Winterton’s missing play. Which seems to have gone missing again!”
“What?” the detective inspector said, halfway coming up out of his chair. “How did you come to have it?” He sat tiredly back again.
“It came in the mail, along with a letter from Miss Winterton explaining that she wanted someone who was a professional, more or less, to look at it before she let anyone else read it. Something the killer probably didn’t expect.”
Sighing, thinking about the inevitable embarrassment, I opened the drawer where I had hidden my copy of the play and was relieved to find it just where I had put it, mixed into the jumble of junk. Somewhat reluctantly, I pulled it out, along with the copy I had made of Miss Winterton’s letter to me. “This is a copy,” I muttered.
Detective Inspector Chase struggled to hide a smile at the chagrin in my voice, but at least my nosiness may have foiled the plan the killer had to destroy all the evidence of the play’s existence.
“Before you take that away,” I said, “I’d better tell you about what just happened here.” I sketched the details of Colonel Clitheroe’s visit, including my notion that he had been putting away a cell phone when I came back outside.
“You think he alerted someone to the presence of the play and that person came and removed it while you were still talking in the back garden.” More a statement than a question, really—Detective Inspector Chase beat me to the punch line. “Had you left the front door unlocked?”
I nodded ruefully. “Most of the time when I’m at home, unless it’s late at night, I generally do. I’ve never seen the need to worry about it. After all, that’s one of the reasons I came to Snupperton Mumsley. The low crime rate.” I arched an eyebrow at him, and he grinned briefly.
“It’s a lucky thing that you had the foresight to make a copy of the play, then,” he said with a perfectly straight face.
“Amazing coincidence, isn’t it?” I agreed, grateful that he was taking such a sensible attitude toward my indiscretion. Or my helpfulness, if you chose to look at it that way.
“And did you have time to read the play?” he asked.
“Yes, and it’s altogether a nasty piece of work, as you’ll discover.”
He arched an eyebrow, and I took that as encouragement to comment further. Though she changed their names, the more prominent citizens of Snupperton Mumsley figure prominently. Apparently, each of them has something to hide. Presumably something worth killing for. But there’s one thing I still can’t quite figure out”
“What’s that?” the policeman asked after a moment.
“What she expected to gain by forcing them to put on this play!” I snorted in disbelief. “I can’t imagine she thought she’d really make them do it. It would have been the ultimate humiliation for them all if it had gone ahead. If she were truly blackmailing them over what she was insinuating in this play, why did she suddenly try to bring it all into the open?”
Detective Inspector Chase examined his hands rather closely for a very long minute.
“I believe I can tell you this in all confidence,” he said. “As I explained earlier, I have just come from attending the postmortem on Miss Winterton. The police surgeon discovered that she had a large tumor on the brain. Such a condition, as I expect you’re aware, can cause someone to act erratically at times.”
“Good grief,” I said. “No wonder the poor woman was dotty.”
“Exactly,” Chase said. “And now, in view of what has happened,” he said, “I had better take this straightaway to my office for safekeeping.” He stood up. “In the meantime, I’ll have one of my men start making discreet inquiries about anyone who might have come along in the last half hour and been seen entering your front door.”
I followed him out into the hall and to the front door. “I wish you good luck,” I said. “I hope this will be the break in the case that you’ve been needing. Though having quickly scanned the play, I’m not sure just what is going to turn out to be the key to the case.”
“I’m sure if you’d had more time with it, you might have come up with something.” And with that ambiguous parting shot, the detective inspector took his leave.
So much for dazzling the fair Robin, I thought regretfully, closing the door. And bloody hell to whoever it was who’d had the nerve to sneak into my home in broad daylight and steal something from my desk! That made me quite angry. I had held the anger in check while the detective inspector was with me, but now I felt the urge to tighten my hands around the miscreant’s neck. Vampires are even more protective of their personal space than all the crystal sniffers in California. For the sake of whoever had done it, I hoped the police got to him or her first.
I went back into my office and stared glumly at the blank computer screen. I felt disinclined to do much of anything except fume.
Whom had the colonel warned about the existence of the play?
I quickly ruled out Jane Hardwick, for she was probably still in Oxford or en route back to Snupperton Mumsley. The only person with whom I had seen the colonel in close contact was Letty Butler-Melville. I recalled that odd scene in the shadows of the churchyard. What had it meant? Had they been plotting something together even then? They seemed unlikely allies. But I really knew so little about them.
This could be one of those Orient Express-type cases. (If you haven’t read the book, I won’t spoil it for you.) But I thought that would require too much cooperation in certain quarters.
Besides Jane Hardwick, the only other suspects in the case who lived close enough to nip over, slip into my house, and steal the play were the Butler-Melvilles. It had to have been one of them.
If Neville Butler-Melville had had a hand in the death of the colonel’s son, however, why was the colonel assisting him or his wife?
None of this made much sense, given what I knew about the case. There was obviously some crucial fact missing. Maybe Jane had unearthed it during her visit to Oxford.
I eyed my watch in irritation. Just a few minutes past two. When would Jane get back from Oxford?