Thursday then Friday
From being at a loose end in her office, Cleo was now facing
a lot of work. She was anxious to exonerate Jessie. Cleo could not believe that
the girl had escaped from that institution to find and kill her mother. On the
other hand, Kelly could have stage-managed the whole nasty business without any
trouble and was using Jessie as a scapegoat. Quite how that could function was
not clear.
The whole sequence of events sounded like a master-plan, but
even if the murder had been spontaneous, Kelly had more than one way of getting
rid of the corpse on that farmland. There were plenty of places to dispose of
an unwanted visitor and up to now Kelly had told them only what he wanted them
to hear. So why would Kelly drag Mrs Coppins to the pond rather than burying her
somewhere. And why did he call the Hartley Agency if he was guilty of a murder
he could easily cover up? So much for the only suspect. They would have to look
further for the guilty party.
***
So why had he called in the Hartley Agency? Was it because
he did not kill the woman? On the other hand, Mrs Coppins was found in a pond
near the farmhouse rather than disposed of where she would not be found. That
would make the scapegoat idea viable. On reflection, that may have been the
fact that exonerated Kelly after he had murdered his ‘parents’. There were
plenty of places he could have hidden them, alive or preferably dead, until he
had taken possession of the farm estate.
***
“I just have to tell you what I reasoned last night,” Cleo
told Dorothy “I want to know what you think.”
Cleo repeated what she had worked out. There were so many unanswered questions that
Gary would have a hard time pinning down his suspects, which made Cleo sure
that he was looking in the wrong direction.
***
“Do you think anyone saw Mrs Coppins leave the farm to go
home on Sunday afternoon, Dorothy?”
“She might have walked across the fields, but since was
during the day, she probably caught a bus, Cleo. As far as I know, there’s only
one bus an hour from Lower Grumpsfield to Huddlecourt Minor, and that stops
outside the Huddle Inn, so maybe Molly saw who got off.”
“That’s a possibility.”
“My only problem with your theory, Cleo, is that it’s contradictory
to Gary’s arguments and we’ll have to prove that.”
“We need more facts, don’t we? We’d better get the
penitentiary over first.”
“But not till tomorrow, Cleo.”
“Sure. You could spend
the afternoon looking for Miss Snow’s dog again.”
“I’ll phone her though she is a pain in the arse. No wonder
her dogs run away. Have a nice day, Cleo.”
“It will be. Robert has another table-tennis match and won’t
be home until late so ….”
“Don’t tell me,” said Dorothy.
“Remember me to Miss Snow,” said Cleo.
***
“I’m free this afternoon, Gary.”
“More shop talk due, Cleo? Isn’t it time you went o one of
Robert’s sporting activities? You might see more signs of life than he can
usually muster.”
I’ll be at Romano’s at five, Gary.”
“I’ll be there.”
***
After a drive to the prison in almost complete silence
because Dorothy was determined not to ask Cleo if she had met Gary the previous
afternoon and Cleo was equally determined not to confess to something that was
none of Dorothy’s concern, they parked the car and Dorothy went to the entrance.
Cleo waited in the car while. The prison staff seemed to
have recovered from the shock of losing a patient. Dorothy comforted them with
the idea that Jessie had wanted to see her children and had not known how else
to do that. She did not reveal that Jessie was still on the run. When she left,
she was convinced that the people in that wing of the prison were feeling
better about the escape.
“It’s my guess that she will come back when she has seen her
children,” Dorothy said. “She’s been like that all her life, after all.”
“Driven by her instincts, Dorothy, and that is not always
positive.”
But If you don’t look
for her, she’ll turn up, of her own accord, if it’s instinct that drives her, Cleo.
I told them to make a fuss of her when she comes back.”
Dorothy was on the way out of the building when she was followed.
The matron-like person in uniform who was dealing with
Dorothy’s questions called out. Dorothy was startled. The warder said there was
no mention of an aunt in the list of relatives.
“Don’t you believe that Miss Coppins was mentally ill?”
Dorothy asked, feeling a little bit nervous. “Wasn’t she in a safe place, after
all? She might not have wanted you to contact me so she conveniently forgot all
about me.”
The warder did not like the sound of that criticism.
“Don’t blame yourself,” Dorothy improvised. “Jessie was like
that. The family has had to accept it.”
“She was being well looked after in her own room, but she
had suspected appendicitis and was in the hospital ward, Miss…”
“Coppins,” said Dorothy with great presence of mind. “I’m a
great aunt,” she explained. “I don’t suppose you asked Jessie if she had had
her appendix removed, did you?”
“She didn’t have a scar, Miss Coppins,” said the warder.
“There’s such a thing as keyhole surgery,” said Dorothy. “And
doctors often remove appendixes when they perform a caesarean section.”
“Well, we hadn’t actually examined her,” said the woman, who
was now on the defensive as that occurred to her. She had told a lie about the
scar and this Miss Coppins person had informed her that the patient might have
had keyhole surgery or a caesarean.
“No, I don’t suppose you had. It was weekend after all,” comforted
Dorothy.
“And the doctor in charge had Monday off,” said the woman.
“And of course, laser surgery could have made a scar almost unnecessary,”
said Dorothy, mainly to reassure a department that was obviously anything but
efficient. “Or a caesarean section might have included removing the appendix as
a precaution.”
A large badge on the warder’s uniform blouse read Judith
Black, so Dorothy put reading glasses on her nose, peered at the badge and started
to address her as such.
“Don’t worry about it, Mrs Black,” she said.
“Miss, if you don’t mind.”
“Miss Black, it’s no fault of yours and your colleagues if my
great niece got out, so tell me what you know and I’ll straighten things out
for you.”
“Will you?”
Dorothy gave the woman a big smile and squeezed her
trembling hands. That assured Miss Black that she was genuinely concerned.
“The warder assigned to Coppins was a policewoman, Miss Coppins.
We had nothing to do with that side of things. We only care for the sick. We
are a clinic within the prison.”
Miss Black was obviously determined that she and her
colleagues would not take any blame for Jessie’s conduct.
“I expect you had your own ideas about Jessie’s state of
mind.”
“To be honest, I didn’t think she was mental at all, Miss Coppins.”
“She wasn’t,” said Dorothy.
Judith Black and Dorothy were now chatting like old friends.
“I can’t understand a person like you being related to a
person like her,” said Miss Black.
Dorothy had been careful not to give away any information,
and not much relevant information was available from Miss Black, who was
quickly out of her depth, as Dorothy assumed many of the staff were, at least
when faced with someone as cunning as Jessie.
Dorothy got the impression that Miss Black and her
colleagues were glad to see the back of Jessie Coppins, even if she had escaped
from the hospital wing due to general carelessness. Dorothy did not think any
more information was forthcoming, so she embraced Miss Black and took her leave.
“Well,” Dorothy said on the drive back, “that takes care of
Miss Black and her institution. Drop me off in town, please. I need a birthday gift
for Jane Barker.”
“I thought you didn’t get on with your fusty neighbour.”
“She always gets me one, Cleo. It’s tit for tat.”
“The only way to stop that nonsense is to stop swapping
presents, Dorothy.”
“But not this year. It’s the only time I ever see her smile.”
***
Back at the office, Cleo’s phone-call with Colin at HQ
Records Office had him complying with her request to trace the file on Kelly.
Colin was as curious as she was when he had heard the whole story. He would get
the data to her a.s.a.p.
***
After that, Cleo drove to the pub in Huddlecourt Minor.
Molly and her pub were an institution in Huddlecourt Minor. She might know
something about Kelly and could also bring her up to date with Mrs Coppins’
activities with regard to Kelly.
“Molly, do you ever see who gets off the bus from Lower
Grumpsfield?” Cleo started.
“I usually do because they often turn around here and go
back. Drivers often come in for a coffee and sometimes passengers drop in for a
drink or two.”
“Do you know the drivers?”
“The bus company seems to have a rota. There are only about half
a dozen drivers altogether so the same ones turn up regularly.”
“What about Monday afternoon?”
“What time?”
“Any time. To be more specific, did you see Betty Coppins on
Sunday afternoon?”
“Funny you should mention that. She came in for a gin and
tonic for her migraine before getting on the 2 o’clock bus . She must have gone
home through the woods at some point because I was surprised to see her again
catching the 6 p.m. bus down the hill. She usually calls in on the way home for
another gin, but she didn’t on Monday and didn’t see her again.”
“Really!”
“Why do you need to know, Cleo? Is something funny going
on?”
“Hasn’t the news got through to you yet?”
“Do you mean Mrs Coppins’ accident?”
“So you heard there was an accident.”
“Jack Coppins came in briefly and told me she had fallen
into Kelly’s pond.”
“It’s worse than that, Molly. Mrs Coppins was dragged dead into
and later out of that pond.”
“Jack didn’t tell me that.”
“I think I’d better go to the Coppins’ home and see if
everything is OK there. Jack was going to phone me if something was amiss, but
up to now he hasn’t.”
***
Mrs Coppins had been dead for over four days. There was no
one at home at the Coppins house. Jack would probably be putting in a few hours
at the garage while the kids were at school, Cleo surmised. She would phone
that evening. She went back into the pub.
***
“Tell me exactly what has happened, Cleo, under a cloak of
secrecy, of course,” said Molly. “You are obviously investigating, so I take it
that Betty Coppins’ death was not an accident.”
“No. She was dead before she was put into that pond.”
“How horrible. Did Kelly do it?”
“Why did you ask that? How well do you know the guy?”
“Kelly is a bit of a weirdo and I wasn’t too keen on having
him propping up the bar. But he’s been in a few times lately with Mrs Coppins.
He seemed more eager than her, but knowing Betty Coppins, she was probably
playing hard to get and cashing in for her services.”
“It seems that Mrs Coppins was always out for what she could
get, Molly.”
“Nothing would surprise me about her or that silly daughter
of hers.”
“You mean Jessie, of course. Has she been here recently,
Molly?”
“No. She’s in that nuthouse on the Oxford Road, isn’t she?”
“She was. She escaped on Monday afternoon.”
“And then her mother was found dead.”
“After her mother was found dead unless she had contrived to
escape from the prison the day before, then gone back and escaped a second
time.”
“So either she killed her mother or she didn’t,” said Molly.
“That’s the size of it.”
“So it wasn’t Kelly.”
“I didn’t say that, Molly. They both had a motive.”
“But Jessie will not have forgotten about her mother
seducing her boyfriend, Cleo, even if she isn’t exactly a bright spark.”
“They were rivals, weren’t they? That is a motive.”
“In Jessie’s eyes her mother was stole her boyfriend,” Molly
said. “I don’t suppose she forgave her mother for that, though I think the
beau, Tom Crowe, was only playing around and according to Mrs Coppins, getting
lesson on sex from her. Betty was a whore.”
“So there’s a good motive there,” said Cleo.
“Apart from that, would Kelly kill the woman he fancied? He
was all over her when they came here, Cleo.”
“He was probably anticipating sex with her, so what would
drive him to murder if it was sex he wanted?” said Cleo.
“Kelly is a conundrum. I told people to watch out for him,
but no one listened at the time.”
“What time?”
“When Kelly turned up at the farm.”
“So you remember that? Isn’t that going too far back?”
“Not that far. I was a young barmaid, but I had eyes in my
head and he molested girls like me if he got a chance. I’d just like you to
know what kind of a guy Kelly really is, Cleo.”
“Tell me more.”
“As a schoolgirl I used to pick strawberries for the Kellys.
One summer I went there to see about getting the work and Paddy Kelly was
there. He said the Kellys were his parents and they were sick and not to be
disturbed.”
“Did you see the parents again?”
“No. The next thing was that they were found gassed.”
“Did you tell the police that?”
“Yes, but they took no notice of a statement by a young
barmaid,” said Molly.
“If he told them he’d only arrived after his ‘parents’ were
dead, there was a contradiction that should have been looked into, Molly.”
“So why didn’t they listen to me?”
“I expect they wanted to move on. You were only a young
girl. Maybe they did not believe you. Fortunately, murder does not go out of
date. It’s time to delve into that case again, Molly. I’ve already ordered the
documentation. Did Kelly seem strange in those days?”
“I can remember very little about it now. I think I was too
confused by the idea that Paddy Kelly was their son. They had never mentioned a
son.”
“Would they? You were only a schoolgirl.”
“They used to tell me they wished they had a daughter like
me.”
“That doesn’t rule a son out.”
“But surely they would have mentioned him, Cleo.”
“Not if he ran away. People sometimes wipe their hands of
their offspring.”
“I suppose so. I remember thinking that Kelly was weird. I
was scared of him. He used to look at me with greedy eyes and put his hands on
me. After the Kellys were found dead, I never went there again.”
“Just as well. I don’t think that guy would have left you
alone if you had, Molly.”
“Those kinds of shifty eyes are a great giveaway. I always
look at the eyes of new customers. My folks also knew the Kellys and they had
never mentioned a son, Cleo. Surely they would have?”
“It’s worth following up. I’m waiting for the case report on
the Kellys. If you have time, we could look at it together. Maybe you’ll
remember something else.”
“I’ll certainly try.”
“I’ll phone you when the report arrives.”
“OK.”
“Another thought, Molly. If Paddy Kelly was home a few days
before the Kellys died, he must have held them prisoners, surely, or they would
have got help. Did you hear anything about that, Molly?”
“No, but now you mention it, it’s possible. Some of the
older locals might know more. Supposing Kelly really is an imposter? Supposing
he forced them to sign a will leaving him everything?”
“Did that item of gossip make the rounds at the time,
Molly?”
“I was too young for gossip in those days, Cleo, and my
parents didn’t discuss that sort of thing in front of me. Ask the Blakes. They
are an elderly couple who live somewhere near the Kelly farm. They might know
if they are still alive. They’re the only people I remember from that time. My
parents moved away when my father retired, but I had been a barmaid here and
was able to take over.”
“I’ll look the Blakes up, Molly. Thanks for the tip.”
“Or get in touch with Dr Marble. He’s the only local
solicitor old enough to know what was going on in those days.”
“I’ll do that, too.”
“You think the Kellys were murdered, don’t you, Cleo?”
“I’m starting to. Kelly might have manipulated the heater to
kill the couple he claimed were his parents. That would make him a murderer,
and if a murderer has got away with killing once, he often kills again, and his
next victim might have been Magda and then Betty Coppins.”
“Magda was a whore, Cleo. Surely he would not kill the goose
that laid the golden eggs.”
“He might if the goose had found a new gander,” said Cleo.
“I’ll help you any way I can, “ Molly offered. “Mrs Coppins
was not a nice person, but she didn’t deserve to be killed.”
“No one does.”
***
Cleo was grateful for Molly’s information. With nothing to
lose, she phoned Dr Marble and was dealt with by a female who said she was his
housekeeper, but also kept the appointment book. Cleo made an appointment for
the later that day.
The Coppins case was getting more complex by the minute.
There had still been no news from Chris Marlow, but a conclusive verdict on the
cause of Mrs Coppins’ death was essential. Betty Coppins had not drowned. Had
Kelly put some lethal substance into her drink, waited till the poor woman was
dead and then dragged her to the pond? If so, why had he raised the alarm?
Cleo answered that question as soon as she had asked herself:
Mrs Coppins was meant to be found and Kelly wanted the police to think it was
Jessie’s deed. That would explain why he had phoned Cleo. He was hoping to avoid
suspicion by pretending to have found the woman, but surely no one with as
suspicious a mind as Cleo Hartley would believe that version of the case?
On the other hand, now something else was at stake. It was
important to find out just how corrupt Kelly was.
***
Dr Marble had officially retired, but was still working from
home as a solicitor because he had not yet found anyone suitable to take over
his business. His house was a villa in Thumpton Close. Number 22 was set well
back from the road and surrounded by tall trees. The windows were hung with
heavy red velvet drapes that made the house very dark inside, but Dr Marble
liked it that way.
The housekeeper opened the door. Single men often had
retainers, elderly butlers who preferred to continue working rather than living
somewhere cramped on a small pension. Retainers, often retired butlers or
manservants, were used to doing housekeeper tasks and going shopping. They also
tended to regard the homes of their employers as their homes. They were usually
men, but Dr Marble’s retainer was an older woman. Cleo wondered if she was his
wife, though the woman wore no wedding ring and was extremely polite in a way
that suggested that she was employed rather than kept.
“Come this way, Madam,” she invited. “Dr Marble is expecting
you.”
Cleo was early for her appointment, but Dr Marble was sitting
behind his mammoth carved oak desk waiting for her. He bore an air of
self-importance that Cleo thought might make it difficult to ask him the
questions she needed to, but he smiled benignly and Cleo decided that he was
probably quite friendly.
“How can I help you, my dear,” he started, then glanced in
the direction of the door and called out “You can go now, Mrs Riddle. Bring us
some tea, please.”
“She’s my cook and general help,” he explained. “She means
well, but she is rather inquisitive, I’m afraid.”
The belated sound of Mrs Riddle’s footsteps on the wooden
floor panels in the hall confirmed that she had been hovering.
“So am I, Dr Marble,“ said Cleo.
“...and that’s why you are here of course,” Dr Marble
finished for her. “Aren’t you the lady who runs the detective agency?”
“Yes. Here’s my visiting card, Dr Marble,” said Cleo,
handing him her business card, which he read carefully.
“So what are you investigating that brought you here?”
“I need to know more about the former owners of Kelly’s
farm, Dr Marble.”
“Oh dear. Has Kelly been up to some sort of mischief?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out, Dr Marble.”
“You know, Miss erm Hartley,” the solicitor started after
consulting Cleo’s card, “I’ve often wondered about Kelly.”
“Are your referring to the gossip that went round claiming
he was not genuine?”
“He appeared out of the blue and I had known the people he
said were his parents for a long time. But they were dead so I could not ask
them about the son they had never mentioned before, and the will Mr Kelly
Junior handed in after the tragic death of Mr and Mrs Kelly Senior looked
genuine, but it was not my work.”
“Are you quite sure, Dr Marble?”
“Well,” he said, smiling, “I do a bit of detecting myself
now and again. You have to if you are a solicitor. And my memory is still quite
good.”
Cleo thought oh no, not another amateur sleuth, but tried to
look impressed and nodded encouragingly.
“I didn’t draw up the original will, you see. It was before
I came here, but I did take over the business of my predecessor, and I had some
letters typed by old Mr Kelly. I compared them with the new will. It was
definitely the same typewriter.”
“But isn’t it strange that you should be suspicious enough
to do that?”
“Not necessarily. Sometimes people forge relatives’
signatures to get their hands on the inheritance and had some had re-written the content of the will to
express their superior position as beneficiaries. I did not know Mr Kelly so I
thought it was better to check on the veracity of what he said and the
authenticity of the will.”
Cleo would have loved to say that in the case of documents
that were written on the same type-writer, it wasn’t necessarily the same
typist every time. These days it would be impossible to investigate typing with
any success, since printers were in use, so it was usually only the signatures
that could give the game away. But that first will had been made almost half a
century previously and the second will would not have been a product of digital
technology, either.
“The signatures on the wills and the letters was the same,
Miss Hartley.”
Basing the authenticity of a will on its signatures was also too trusting, Cleo mused since they could
be forged.
“Do you still have the documents, Dr Marble?”
“As a matter of fact I do, but I should not be showing them
to you.”
“As a fellow detective, you would be able to let me glance
at them, wouldn’t you?” said Cleo in her most persuasive voice.
Dr Marble got up laboriously and went to bookshelves in the
corner of the room. The fat ring-binders were squeezed in alphabetically, so the
solicitor found the appropriate file very quickly. Cleo looked at the documents.
They had all been written on the same typewriter; the lower case letter ‘s’ had
a curious little extra mark at the end of it and that letter of course appeared
on all the documents. The wording of the second will was brief. It left all the
Kelly possessions to their son Patrick. The signatures were like the ones on
the first will, but looked shakier and more indistinct. Cleo pointed that out,
but it was pointed out to her that the Kellys were much older when the second
will was made, so their handwriting could be a little shakier. There was
otherwise little that could have made the will contestable. While Dr Marble was
went to the vestibule and called out to Mrs Riddle to serve the tea
immediately, Cleo took photos of the wills with her mobile.
“As you saw, the first will left everything to NSPCA. There
were no other relatives, so no one challenged the will,” said the solicitor.
“Not even the police, Dr Marble?”
“Certainly not. My work is always impeccable, Miss Hartley.”
“I didn’t mean that. It just seems strange that the Kellys
made the second will without any legal assistance.”
“I did say that it was not my work, so some other notary
might have been present.”
“I don’t think so,” said Cleo, and Dr Marble looked at her
as if she had challenged him,
“Why do you think that, Miss Hartley,” he said.
The will was on neutral paper rather than on business paper,
Dr Marble. I should not think that any notary would use plain writing paper for
a legal document.”
“I don’t suppose the police noticed. I’m afraid I didn’t,”
confessed Dr Marble, thinking that he had a razor-sharp personage in Miss
Hartley.
“What really puzzled me, Dr Marble, is that if Kelly had
appeared quite out of the blue, and a few days later the old Kellys were dead, surely
someone must have been suspicious.”
“I was, Miss Hartley, but I could not have proved anything
and as you pointed out, to my shame I had missed an important detail. As far as
I knew, the Kellys were in good health and died suddenly from air pollution in
their bedroom. I but had no valid reason to doubt that the oil stove was
defective.”
“Did the Kellys ever mention a son?”
“As I already intimated, they didn’t, but when you’re in my
business you know that most families have black sheep, and even skeletons in their cupboards, Miss
Hartley. It’s not for a solicitor to question motives or even facts, if they
are logical and feasible. We notaries follow clients’ instructions.”
“I suppose you do.”
Cleo pressed on, though Dr Marble was now becoming quite irritated.
“Did you never wonder why the Kellys had not made the second
will in your presence, Dr Marble?”
“I stopped wondering about people’s antics long ago.”
Dr Marble stood up. He was now anxious to see the back of
Cleo, but she persisted in her questioning.
”The signatures on the second will are by the same people,
but are unreadable, Dr Marble. Didn’t that bother you?”
“The Blakes were older.”
“What sort of time frame are you giving the whole business,
Dr Marble?”
“Well, the marriage contract between Kellys Senior was made
about 50 years ago when this office was still run by my predecessor, who
happened to be my father. I was still studying and helping out when I had time.
Then the new will was produced by the son after the old people died. Patrick
Kelly would have been in his mid-twenties then. I was only a lowly assistant in
those days.”
“So you would not have made the will with the Kellys
anyway,” said Cleo.
“I did not say that, Miss Hartley. I merely told you that
this firm did not make the second will. It would have been on our notepaper.”
“Did you ever try to get in touch with the Kellys?”
“Funny you should ask that. My father was thinking of
retiring and I wanted to get to know
people he had worked for, but I had never met.”
“That’s interesting, Dr Marble.”
“I had been looking at old documents and was, to be
truthful, touting for business. At that time, I wanted to separate from my
father and become independent. If the people had not been to us for a while, I
would phone them and offer my services.”
“That sounds like normal business practice,” said Cleo,
musing that double-glazing firms tended to have similar sales tactics, only
they probably used phone books.”
“Now I think about it, I can remember that I rang them
shortly before their death to ask if they wanted to update their will. But I
didn’t get to talk to them. Patrick Kelly answered the phone and said they were
ill with influenza and could not come to the phone that day. I had no reason to
doubt what I was told, especially when he said he was their son and would be
looking after their business affairs in future.”
“You have a remarkable memory, Dr Marble.”
“It all seems like yesterday. You’ve made me remember things
I had forgotten all about.”
“The Kellys could have died of the flu, of course,” said
Cleo.
“But it was common knowledge that they were gassed by the
heating oven in their bedroom, Miss Hartley.”
“I wonder if they were dead before that oven gave off its
carbon monoxide gas?”
“I don’t think the police went into that at the time.”
“If Kelly was not the son of those people, and even if he
was, he might have hurried their deaths along.”
There was slightly too long a pause before Dr Marble’s
reaction.
“That never occurred to me.”
Cleo had Dr Marble’s full attention now.
“The gas poisoning might have been faked after the Kellys
died, so that it would look like an accident, while the heater had actually
been manipulated. I find it curious that no one seems to know when Kelly came
to the farm in relation to the death of his parents. He might have been there,
killed them and then gone away for a few days, after which he returned to find
them dead.”
“You’re making it sound terrible,” said Dr Marble-
“ In fact, I talked to someone who had seen him a week
before the parents died,” said Cleo dramatically.
“It’s a horror story, Miss Hartley.”
“But it makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“It does. I only met him when he brought the will. He said
he had found it among their papers.”
“And he came to you after the death of the parents, didn’t
he?”
“Oh yes. I’m sure of
that because he said he had found them dead.”
“That timing must have been in his statement to the police,”
said Cleo. “But it was his story and it does not have to be the truth.”
Dr Marble looked alarmed.
“I’m sure you acted in good faith, Dr Marble, so don’t
worry.”
“But I do worry, Miss Hartley. What if he is a murderer? He
might murder again, and the next victim might be me, if he thinks he’s in any danger
of being revealed for what he is.”
***
Did Dr Marble have a guilty conscience after all? He was starting
to get hysterical, so it was just as well that the Mrs Riddle came into the
room bearing a tray of elegant china with a matching teapot containing a brew
of what Cleo dreaded most: perfumed tea and a second pot Cleo took to contain
hot water.
“Now you don’t upset yourself, Dr Marble,” the housekeeper said.
“I am not upset, Mrs Riddle,” the solicitor insisted.
“It’s his heart, you see,” Mrs Riddle explained to Cleo in
almost a whisper. “He shouldn’t get excited.” In a loud voice she added “I’ve
brought you some coffee, Miss Hartley. I’m sure you would prefer it.”
“Wow. That’s great. Thanks,” said Cleo. “We’ve nearly
finished our meeting now, Mrs Riddle.”
Mrs Riddle nodded and left the room. She knew her place, or
seemed to.
“Kelly won’t find out that I’ve been here, Dr Marble.”
“Can I rely on that, Miss Hartley?”
“Of course, but do you really think he wants to kill you? But
why, so long after the business with the farm was completed to his
satisfaction?.”
“Was it, Miss Hartley? What if he thinks you are going to
dig up the old farm business? And that’s
exactly what you are doing,” said Dr Marble. “I’ll make sure my door is locked
tonight.”
“Do that, though murders happen during the day, too,” said
Cleo. “I’ll see myself out, Dr Marble, and thanks for talking with me. The
coffee was wonderful, by the way.”
“I wish I could tell you more,” said Dr Marble. “Deep down,
Mr Kelly’s identity has always troubled me.”
***
Cleo was glad to be outside that dark villa. She had escaped
the tea thanks to Mrs Riddle. One thing bothered her a lot, however: Dr Marble
had not been very curious about why she was making inquiries about Paddy Kelly
except saying that he could be in danger as a result. Did he know something that
he had not told her?
***
Dorothy often said that delving into the past could reveal a
motive in many cases. Had the pursuit of Paddy Kelly’s putative guilt or even
questioning Dr Marble about past events been a good idea? What a pity Dorothy
had not been around at the time the older Kellys met their death.
***
Cleo decided to ask the Blakes about signing the second
will. She phoned and they said she would be welcome any time, especially as she
wanted to talk about their dear departed friends, the Kellys.
Cleo was already working on the premise that they had either
not witnessed the second will or had been coerced into doing so. She was not
sure if pursuing the death of Kelly’s ostensible parents was going to provide
clues to the death of Mrs Coppins, but it would shed light on the kind of
person the guy was.
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