CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Val was not particularly surprised to run into Phyllis Thomas in the village shop.

The rumour mill had already done its round, and the paperboy had informed her earlier that Phyllis was back in the village. Curious, Val had questioned the lad about the state of the latest gossip, and was confidently informed that the majority of her neighbours were simply waiting for Murray Phelps to be arrested and duly hanged for the murder of his aunt.

Val was not so sure that it was so cut and dried, so when she bumped into Phyllis over the meat paste and jars of Bovril, she was extra-friendly towards her, and was consequently invited back to the Old Forge for morning coffee. It wasn’t hard to get the invitation, and Val was left with the feeling that Miss Phelps’s niece was upset about something and wasn’t averse to having some company.

She was proved right, for after a few minutes of polite conversation over the teacups, Phyllis plucked up the courage to talk about what was worrying her.

‘I saw the Inspector about the village just now,’ Phyllis began, trying to be casual and not quite succeeding. ‘He’s such a nice man, but, well, as you can imagine, everything’s just so awkward right now. What with Aunty and everything,’ she added helplessly.

Val nodded. She could well imagine that having a murdered aunt – not to mention finding yourself her main legatee – could well be awkward. ‘I’m sure Inspector Gorringe will find out what happened,’ she said encouragingly – or threateningly, depending on how Phyllis stood in the matter. ‘Do you have any ideas about this terrible business yourself?’ she added delicately. It wasn’t something she would normally have asked, but she could sense that Phyllis herself was desperate to discuss the issue, or else why bring up the Inspector’s name at all?

Nevertheless, Val was relieved when she saw the other woman lean forward in her chair eagerly. It meant she hadn’t caused offence, which, as a vicar’s daughter, was perhaps the ultimate sin.

‘Well, yes, I do.’ Phyllis looked around nervously, but of course, they were alone in the morning room, Mrs Brockhurst and the village girl being busy preparing lunch in the kitchen. ‘I know it’s an awful thing to think, but, well, really, I can’t help it.’ She looked at her pretty companion with anxious eyes, obviously in need of a prompt to continue.

‘I’m sure nobody could blame you for worrying the matter over.’ Val gave the prompt to her willingly enough and, just to leave the field wide open for her, leapt nobly into the role of co-conspirator in the gossip and speculation. ‘Arbie – Mr Swift and I – for instance, have been questioned by the police also, and we can’t help but wonder what happened that awful night. So you’re not alone, Miss Thomas, I assure you. And, you’re right, it is awful, but we’ve been wondering … well … about Mr Phelps? Murray Phelps, that is?’ she proffered delicately, her voice rising at the end to make it just enough of a question so as not to cause offence. As she spoke, however, she kept a close eye on her hostess, and knew she’d hit the nail on the head when she saw the look of relief cross her face.

‘Oh, you’re thinking along those lines too?’ Phyllis all but whispered.

‘And so is half the village,’ Val assured her, rather more coarsely. ‘I mean, I know it’s ghastly, but it all seems to make a terrible kind of sense, doesn’t it? He thought he was the heir. And then there was all this ghost business with the “warnings”, and bell ringing and things. And then your poor aunt’s tumble down the stairs. All that happened only when Murray was here, didn’t it?’ And if she could hear her father’s lecturing voice in the back of her head telling her that only naughty girls cast aspersions, she salved her conscience by reminding herself that if she could get more information out of Phyllis, she was only serving the course of law and justice.

Phyllis let out a long, trembling sigh of relief. ‘Oh, I’m so glad he isn’t getting away with it. Miss Coulton-James, I can’t tell you just how frightened I am,’ she said, her eyes getting that shining look that indicated that tears couldn’t be far away.

At this, Val goggled a bit. She was getting more of a reaction from Phyllis than she had bargained for and now felt a little out of her depth. Phyllis was beginning to look genuinely distraught. ‘Oh? Miss Thomas, my dear, please, is there anything I can do?’ she asked, reaching across to put a hand on her hostess’s knee in a gesture of support and wishing that her mother was here. The wife of a vicar knew how to cope with emotional crisis all right. ‘What on earth has scared you so?’ she found herself asking simply.

Phyllis sat back, trembling just a little. ‘My cousin, of course,’ she said bitterly. ‘He paid me a visit at my house, the evening after the reading of the will. He … well, not to put too fine a point on it – he threatened me.’

For a moment, Val thought that somewhere at the back of Phyllis Thomas’s stricken eyes, there was a more calculating look peeking back out at her, as if assessing her reaction to these words. But then it was gone, and Val saw that Phyllis was as pale as any ghost. There were also dark rings under her eyes that she felt sure weren’t due to clever make-up or artifice.

‘He threatened you?’ she repeated, numbly. ‘What? To kill you? Did he admit to killing his aunt?’ The words tumbled out of her mouth in a rush, she was so shocked.

But already, Phyllis was shaking her head. ‘Oh, no. Nothing so straightforward as that,’ she said bitterly, her voice sounding tired and strained. ‘Murray is far too clever to be caught out so easily. No, it was much more … sly and sinister than that. He intimated all sorts of things, horrible, ugly things. Amongst them … well, he said that he could go to the police and tell them things which would ensure that they’d arrest me! For poisoning Aunty, I mean.’

Val, aware that her mouth had dropped open, closed her jaw with an almost audible snap. With some effort she pulled her scattered wits together, trying to make sense of it all. ‘I’m sorry, but why should the police arrest you?’ This, of course, was a little ingenuous on her part, as she and Arbie had also wondered if this woman could be the killer. But she was hardly about to admit as much now!

Phyllis gave a small, helpless shake of her head. ‘Well, Aunty did change her will in my favour. And Murray said that that gave me a motive. I was there that night, so I had opportunity. And he said, if he wanted to, he could tell the police some things that would make it look even worse for me.’

‘Like what?’ Val scoffed, somewhat inelegantly. To her surprise, Phyllis looked shiftily away, and shrugged her shoulders.

‘Oh, he wouldn’t say. Not in so many words. It was so beastly – he just prowled about my room, dropping vague hints and threats. Did you hear that the police are now sure that the poison that was used on Aunty came from Reggie’s photography bits and bobs? Which means that any one of us could have got hold of the murder weapon. And he went on and on about how evidence could be “discovered” and “witnesses could come forward” and how things could be made to look so black for me that by the time he’d finished, I could practically feel a noose around my neck.’ At this, Phyllis held up a hand to her throat as if she could feel the rope already there.

Val swallowed hard, imagining she could feel its heavy weight around her neck too.

‘And then he suggested a way out for me,’ Phyllis said despairingly. ‘I asked him what he meant, and he said that if I shared the inheritance with him, he would “keep quiet” about what he knew. Of course, I demanded he tell me what it was he thought he knew, but he seemed amused by that. He kept telling me that I knew very well what it was. He said the money should be his by right anyway, and that Aunty had gone batty about ghosts and things, and if there was any justice in the world, he’d still be inheriting it all, instead of just the business side of things. But then … then he really frightened me.’

At this, Val all but gaped. As if threatening to get you arrested somehow and hanged for murder wasn’t frightening enough – there was something worse?

‘What?’ she whispered, by now as pale and almost trembling as much as Phyllis herself.

‘He said … that is, no, he didn’t say anything outright. He never did.’ Phyllis shook her head in evident frustration. ‘That was what was so devilishly cunning about it. He just intimated that what had happened to Aunty could happen again. He seemed to find it amusing, somehow, blaming it all on the ghost. He kept looking at me in a queer way, as if I should be sharing the joke somehow, but I couldn’t make head nor tails of it. He just kept on in that mocking way, about how “the ghost” had punished Aunty for breaking up the family fortune and leaving most of it to me. About how “the ghost” would now be angry with me. How “the ghost” could come after me next. And all the time he was watching me and smiling. I tell you, Miss Coulton-James, my blood ran cold!’

‘I’m not surprised,’ Val said faintly. Hers was running pretty chilly just hearing about it second-hand.

‘And the worst of it is,’ Phyllis concluded miserably, ‘Murray always was the clever one. I don’t know how he means to do it but I’m sure that he can and I’m worried – so desperately worried – that something will happen, and the Inspector will arrest me. Or else something awful will happen to me. And, you see, if either of those things happen, as my closest living relative now, Murray will inherit the money after all. And I just don’t know what to do!’ Phyllis finished, almost on a wail.

At this, Val bristled, and angrily straightened her shoulders. It was time they both stopped acting like wilting wallflowers and stuck up for themselves! Her chin came up and her blue eyes flashed. ‘Well, I know what I’d do if I were you,’ she said forcefully. ‘I’d march straight down to my solicitors this instant and make out a will leaving everything I have to some charity or other. That would spike your beastly cousin’s guns all right.’

Phyllis stared at Val wonderingly. ‘Oh, Miss Coulton-James, of course, you’re right. And I should have thought of that myself,’ she added, sounding genuinely annoyed with herself. ‘And I’m sure that I hope I would have done, eventually. It’s just that I’ve felt so frozen, ever since it happened. It’s as if I’ve been acting like a mouse, frozen stiff under the gaze of a cat and unable to think or move to save myself! But you’re right – if he knows he won’t get my money, he’ll have no reason to … well …’

But here, she couldn’t seem to say the actual words.

Val, however, had no such trouble. ‘He won’t have any reason to bump you off,’ she said bluntly. ‘No, quite. And what’s more, if I were you, I’d go to the Inspector right now and tell him what your cousin has been up to! Threatening you, the swine! That will give your cousin something to think about when the Inspector asks him what he thinks he’s up to.’

But at this, Phyllis turned even paler. ‘Oh no, I couldn’t do that,’ she said nervously. And once again her eyes shifted away.

‘But why not?’ Val demanded. ‘You owe your cousin no loyalty,’ she pointed out hotly.

But still, Phyllis shook her head stubbornly. ‘Oh no. I couldn’t possibly … It’s family … But I will take your advice about making out a new will. I’ll call my solicitor right away in fact and leave it all to charity. In fact, I know just the good cause to leave the money to as well! Aunty would have approved of it, I’m sure.’ At this she smiled and seemed to revive.

She even poured out another cup of coffee and drank it.

And whilst Val was glad to see her get back some of her fighting spirit, she still felt vaguely dissatisfied when she left the Old Forge some little time later. Whilst the morning had provided shocks and revelations aplenty, she was still not convinced that she had been given the whole picture. Oh, she didn’t doubt that Murray Phelps had been bullying his cousin, with the aim of muscling in on the inheritance he had lost. And she didn’t doubt that he’d be ruthless enough to try to pin the murder of Amy Phelps onto Phyllis if he thought it could help him achieve this aim. Especially if he was the murderer himself – which was beginning to look more and more likely.

But she was also convinced that Phyllis hadn’t told her everything. There had been those moments when she’d looked shifty and guilty. And why was she so reluctant to tell the Inspector about Murray’s behaviour?

It wasn’t until she was turning into Church Lane and was almost home that it suddenly hit her what it might be that Phyllis was being so cagey about. She stopped dead in the middle of the lane, her eyes widening. Of course!

Running past the entrance of the vicarage, she sped on instead to the lane’s end and into the grounds of the Old Chapel. She needed to tell Arbie all that had happened and was looking forward to bathing in his admiration as she presented him with the solution to the conundrum.

‘And that’s when it all fell into place,’ she said, half an hour later.

After finding Arbie sitting loafing about in the garden as usual, with a sleeping Basket at his feet, she’d launched into her morning’s adventures. Arbie had listened, with satisfyingly more and more attention, as her tale went on.

‘When what fell into place?’ Arbie demanded now, sitting forward on the garden bench, hands dangling between his slightly open knees, his handsome features rapt on her face.

Val preened herself. ‘What it was that Phyllis had been up to, and that Murray knew about, of course,’ she said, happily revelling in the situation for all it was worth.

‘And what’s that, do you think?’ Arbie was forced to ask.

‘The jewellery, Arbie,’ Val said complacently. ‘Don’t you remember? When we were looking over Amy Phelps’s bedroom that time, I told you that some of the stones in her pieces were paste? Well, the lady herself wouldn’t have had any reason to sell off some stones, would she? She was rolling in it, as were her ancestors before her. But Phyllis wasn’t – as a relative of the less favoured branch of the family, she was always something of the poor relation. And she had access to the house. Oh, yes,’ Val hugged her knees under her chin, and grinned beatifically, ‘I just bet she’s been supplementing her income for years! All she had to do was take a small piece of jewellery away with her to a jewellers – say a brooch or something small – and get one or two of the stones replaced. Then simply put it back the next time she visited her aunt.’

‘But wouldn’t Amy Phelps notice?’ Arbie objected.

‘Why should she? Women have favourite pieces of jewellery, just as they do favourite hats or gloves. And Phyllis would know which items of jewellery her aunt preferred and was likely to wear at any major social event. She’d just have to be careful to select only a brooch or bracelet or whatever that wasn’t a particular favourite of her aunt. And the lady’s eyesight couldn’t be what it once was, so she’d be unlikely to notice the fake stones – not without examining them with a magnifying glass or something, and why should she do that? No, I don’t think Phyllis would have been running all that much of a risk.’

‘But how could Murray have worked all this out?’ he wondered. ‘According to your theory, he must have known what she was up to, or he’d have nothing incriminating to threaten her with. But he’s a man like me, and I’d have no idea what was diamond and what was glass.’

Val frowned at him. ‘You always have to rain on my parade,’ she accused crossly. But then she snapped her fingers as the solution presented itself to her. ‘The maid!’

Arbie blinked. ‘Eh?’

‘The maid, Arbie, the one who was dismissed! Do keep up!’ she admonished him impatiently. ‘The one who, according to village gossip, is so sweet on Murray – and he on her! She could have stumbled onto it. She was the type to snoop, all right, and just the sort of clever hussy who might spy and catch Phyllis out pinching the gems. I bet the housekeeper probably knew about it as well. Poor old Phyllis isn’t exactly anyone’s idea of a clever criminal mastermind, is she?’

‘And this dastardly maid would have spilled the beans to Murray, naturally,’ Arbie said, nodding. ‘Come to think of it, she probably kept Murray informed every time Phyllis visited anyway, just in case she managed to sweet-talk Miss Phelps into giving her more of the family loot. Which would be the last thing he’d want.’

‘Or he put her up to it, more likely,’ Val snorted. ‘Either way, if he tells the Inspector about the thefts, he knows the police will have to investigate it, and it wouldn’t take them long to find out which jeweller Phyllis had been using. None of which would look good for her at a subsequent murder trial, would it?’ she said uneasily. ‘And with Phyllis inheriting all the money after all and being at that awful dinner … No wonder she got into such a state. Any jury might well convict her of killing her aunt, given all that!’

‘And she couldn’t confess to you the hold Murray had over her without admitting to being a thief.’ Arbie nodded. It all hung together all right. ‘You know, Val, I really don’t like all this,’ he said slowly. ‘I mean, if we say, just for the sake of it, that Phyllis had nothing to do with killing her aunt, but Murray did, then poor old Phyllis’s position is looking bleak. What’s to stop him doing the same to her? Murdering her, I mean.’

‘Oh, I forgot to mention that bit. Arbie, I did something rather clever,’ Val preened.

At this, Arbie began to look really alarmed. ‘I say, Val! What on earth have you done? I know you and your clever ideas. They usually end in calamity!’

‘They do not!’ she instantly denied. Although, looking back on their childhood, one or two of her ideas hadn’t exactly worked out quite as she’d thought, like that affair about making a natural dye from beetroot and colouring Miss Wilkinson’s silly standard poodle pink … ‘Oh, but this is different. I really came up with the goods this time, and no mistake, Arbie,’ she said confidently. ‘I told her that if she was that worried that her beastly cousin might kill her and inherit her new fortune, that she should change her will immediately, leaving it all to charity!’

Val got up to smell a carnation, a triumphant look on her face. ‘You know, I’ve always thought, when reading murder mysteries and thrillers and what have you, that the silly heroine in question would only be out of danger if she made it clear to her nearest and dearest that it would do them no good at all to bump her off if they didn’t get a bean.’

Arbie, after some thought, had to concede that as far as Val’s ideas went, there was probably nothing objectionable in this one. For a change! If Murry was the killer, it would certainly give him pause for thought, if nothing else. And if it turned out that Phyllis was being very clever and playing some subtle game that they hadn’t got to the bottom of yet, he couldn’t see how it would do any harm either.

He said as much to Val, who smirked happily. ‘You see, I was right. Now that she’s made out a will leaving it all to charity, she’ll be as right as rain. You wait and see.’

The body of Phyllis Thomas was discovered at the Old Forge four days after making out her new will, and one day before the scheduled funeral of her aunt, Amy Phelps.

Inspector Gorringe was called to the residence by a shaken housekeeper, who had found Phyllis insensible in bed, and cold to the touch. This time there was no locked door or window to complicate things, and beside Phyllis’s bed on a small table were a glass containing water and a bottle of sleeping pills that had recently been prescribed by her own doctor.

Her cousin Murray, who had also stayed the night at his aunt’s house in preparation for her funeral the next day, had given his evidence, along with those of Cora Delaney, Reggie Bickersworth and the housekeeper. They had all agreed that Phyllis had seemed her usual self, if a little distracted by the idea of the funeral the following day, and had dined well. Reggie had played the piano after dinner, and then the four of them had sat down to a few, somewhat desultory, rubbers of bridge.

The only odd thing that anyone had remarked upon was that Phyllis had asked Reggie earlier in the day if he wouldn’t prefer to sleep in the house that night instead of his quarters in the studio, a request that had surprised him, but one to which he had, naturally, agreed. As he’d confessed to the Inspector later, when it was his turn to be questioned, he’d felt as if he couldn’t possibly say no. ‘She seemed rather nervy, Inspector, and who could blame her? And as she and her cousin, unfortunately, have never been what one might call close, I was happy to take on the role of honorary uncle and sleep under the same roof, if it would put her mind at rest. She was having enough trouble sleeping as it was.’

Murray, as far as Gorringe could make out, had found the idea of Reggie as Phyllis’s knight in shining armour amusing but hadn’t made any comment on it otherwise.

Cora Delaney was upset by the latest tragedy to befall the Phelps family, but being a lady, was keeping her emotions very much under control. She had asked though, if, after her friend’s funeral, she could leave the Old Forge and go back to her own home, and under the circumstances, the Inspector had agreed. For all that she was holding up well, he could tell that she was tired and beginning to feel the strain. And the last thing he needed was for another woman to breathe her last.

The housekeeper knew nothing about Miss Phyllis’s sleeping pills or her night-time regimen, and hadn’t observed her retire for the night, so couldn’t possibly say if she carried the glass of water with her or not.

There had been no suicide note found in the dead woman’s room. There were no signs of violence. Of course, he had to wait for the post-mortem to be performed, but the Inspector had little doubt that the evidence would show that Phyllis Thomas had died as a result of an overdose of her sleeping medication.

But had she taken it herself? That was the question! And if so, had she simply made a mistake in the dosage? Her doctor, when contacted, had confirmed that she hadn’t been taking them long, only since the affair of her aunt. The subsequent murder investigation, it seemed, had led to a bout of insomnia in his patient. He thought it possible that she hadn’t understood his instructions, but not probable.

So had she taken them deliberately? And if so, the Inspector mused, was it because she had a guilty conscience? Had she murdered her aunt and then found herself unable to live with it?

Or had she been tricked or forced somehow into taking an overdose? In which case, he had another case of murder on his hands.

Either way, that morning, as he stood outside in the garden taking a much-needed break whilst his team continued working diligently away at the routine surrounding a suspicious death, it was safe to say that Inspector Bernard Gorringe was not a happy man.

He was gloomily watching a blackbird rootling about under some shrubbery when he heard himself hailed.

‘Hello, Inspector?’

He looked up to find the vicar’s daughter and her usual handsome escort approaching him. Neither Arbie Swift nor Miss Coulton-James looked their usual happy selves, however, and for that he was rather sorry. He’d become almost fond of the pair of youngsters, in his way.

‘Is it true, what they’re saying in the village?’ Val asked anxiously, so forgetting herself that she didn’t even begin with a formal and polite greeting. ‘About poor Phyllis Thomas?’

‘That she’s dead? Oh yes, that’s true enough,’ the Inspector said rather savagely. He regretted taking out his ill-humour on the visitors immediately though as the pretty blonde girl went very pale and shot Arbie Swift an agonised, appealing look.

Sensing developments, he stiffened.

‘Er, in that case, Inspector, I think there’s something you should know,’ Arbie said slowly. ‘Perhaps we could sit down in the garden and have a word?’