It’s the cook’s kitchen. That’s it. So, it came to the point that cook had just had enough; she took off her apron, left it on the kitchen table and cycled home, never to return. The maids followed her. At that time I was out of the house most of the day attending to business. I never saw any of the friction developing, and eventually it was the head gardener who tipped me off. “I’d be off as well”, he said, “but I’m in the garden all day and I have my hut to go to when it’s wet, so I am away from the house, away from the Canadian female”.’
‘I see.’
‘So I let her go. I let the Canadian female go. I had to. Wretched woman. I gave her a reference that would get her started somewhere else, so that was unfair of me but I wasn’t inclined to defend a case for unfair dismissal in the county court. That could have been very costly.’
Yellich and Webster remained silent. Webster, who with Yellich had visited the Canadian woman’s next employer in his stone cold home, thought that ‘unfair’ did not adequately describe Rigall’s act of dumping his troubles on another unsuspecting person as a means of solving said troubles. Edith Hemmings, as she became, had left Rigall’s household to work for Alexander Beattie and whilst there had emptied the elderly man’s bank account and stolen his meagre possessions. ‘Unfair’ just wasn’t the word, thought Webster, just not the word at all. Then Rigall said something which made Webster’s attitude towards him soften.
‘Only when she had gone did I realize what she had done,’ he explained. ‘I gave her access to the money to buy food and fuel and found out later that the account had been cleared out. Not all my money. . that is separate and safe. . but the money I put into the account to run the house. The household budget account. Then I found out she had stolen my wife’s jewellery. I called the police but we didn’t know where she had gone; the cheques she had written were made out to cash. The jewels would have been sold for hard cash. I have now replaced my domestic staff and have appointed Lionel, the butler who opened the door to you, and he costs an arm and a leg. But the sense of loss remains.’
‘So what sort of woman was Julia, apart from being dishonest? Apart from rubbing people up the wrong way?’ Yellich asked.
Rigall smiled. ‘Well, what else can there be after that?’ He paused. ‘But I really can’t answer your question, she never let me get close to her, and I never wanted to, and so any conversation we had was always short and to the point.’
‘Did she tell you much about herself? Her background?’
‘No. . no. . she didn’t. She was quite private in that sense, quite a private person. She was recently arrived from Canada, that I did find out, but she never spoke about her family. She came from Quebec province, I believe, she did tell me that and also that she then moved to Ontario. . lived near Toronto for a while, just before coming to the UK.’
‘Would you say she was hiding, or running from something?’
‘Yes. . yes,’ Rigall smiled briefly and nodded. ‘You know you could say that, yes, you could. In fact, come to think of it, someone did come to look for her. A Canadian man — it’s all coming back now. I was a man obsessed with the theft of my money and of my wife’s jewellery and with the driving away of excellent staff. . but yes, she was a person in hiding. She had strange hiding away habits now that you mention it. . stayed indoors, in the house and the garden. She’d walk in the rear garden to take the air but never the front. Very infrequently she’d leave the house, just once a week perhaps, even once every two weeks, to buy provisions and cash cheques and sell Amelia’s jewellery. So, yes, in hiding, a woman in hiding. A very unpleasant character, and I am so pleased she has gone. . it was a big mistake to hire her. So why all the interest?’
‘She was murdered,’ Yellich explained, in a matter-of-fact tone of voice.
‘Now why doesn’t that surprise me?’ Rigall leaned forward and, resting his elbows on his knees, shook his head slowly. ‘Why doesn’t that surprise me at all? I can understand that, I can really understand why someone would want to do her in. When was this?’
‘Recently, a few days ago.’
‘Where?’
‘Not too far from here.’
‘There’s been no mention of it in the media. . that’s something I would have noticed.’
‘We decided on a news blackout. . for now.’
‘I see.’ Rigall reclined in his chair. ‘Murdered you say? Well, well, well. . why am I not at all surprised. .?’
‘Tell us more about the Canadian.’
‘The man you mean. . the man who came looking for her?’
‘Yes, that man.’
Rigall paused. ‘He came very recently. . a few months ago. He was on her trail though, he had her scent.’
‘What did he want. . do you know? Did he say?’
‘Her. . madam. He wanted her. I told him that she had left two years ago but that didn’t seem to disappoint him, in fact he smiled and said, “Getting closer. I am getting closer”.’
‘He came here?’
‘Yes. Walked up to the door and knocked on it. He was as bold as brass and as calm as you please. He spoke to Lionel who was unsure of him and asked him to wait outside. . it was a little cold that day but Lionel did the right thing. He is very good like that. He came to find me. . I was in here, in this very room, and so I went to the door and he was every inch a Canadian. To look at him you’d think “lumberjack”, broad-chested, powerfully built, trimmed dark beard, patterned jacket and a fur hat, a man’s fur hat. . you know the type.’
‘Yes. . yes.’
‘He asked for Julia Avrille. It was then I told him she had left a few years ago. He asked where she had gone and I told him I didn’t know but I believed she had remained in the vicinity. . she was somewhere in the Vale of York.’
‘How did you know that?’
‘I saw her, saw her a few times driving an old car. It was the car that caught my eye, a mid 1960s saloon, a Wolseley or a Riley, white with a red flash down the side, a real classic. Lovely car. It’s the only one of its kind hereabouts, damn few left in all England and that is the only one in the Vale, of that I am certain. I have an interest in classic cars you see. So she drove past and then I saw it was her at the wheel, wearing her wig but it was her. Did I mention she always wore a wig when she went out?’
‘It’s all right, we know about the wig.’
‘Very well. The Canadian hung around for a few days, and unlike his quarry he made no attempt to hide himself. He seemed to base himself in Malton. . that was his operational base. He became a bit of a local figure and he liked his English beer, which is strange for a Canadian or an American. When they are over here they seem to prefer lager because that is very similar to American beer. . served chilled like American beer. . and the same colour, but English beer, brown coloured and served at room temperature, is not to their taste. You know I once saw a group of American sailors, first time in the UK, that was obvious, they came into a pub and ordered beer. The way they looked at it, absolutely aghast, then the way their faces screwed up when they tasted it. . it really was so very funny. Anyway, someone in the pub realized what had happened and told them that he’d been in the States and knew how they liked their beer to be served and he suggested that they try the lager, which they did and were very happy campers after that. . but the Canadian. . he liked his English beer. He had acquired the taste. So the point being that a publican in Malton might remember him.’
‘You’ll be the police?’ The man leaned against the back of the bar of the Jolly Waggoner in Malton, dressed in a neatly pressed white shirt and black trousers with a black clip-on tie. He wiped a glass with a starched white towel. ‘You have just visited Mr Rigall, the fox hunting man.’
‘He hunts?’ Yellich replied, observing a clean and neatly kept pub.
‘Rides to hounds is the correct term but yes, he hunts the fox in his hunting pink and white breeches and black hat. He has some status in the hunt. He’s not the master but has some significant position. He is a very and a most proper gentleman, is the good Mr Rigall.’
Webster and Yellich noticed a note of sarcasm in the publican’s voice.
‘You don’t like the hunt?’ Webster probed.
The barman shrugged, ‘I wouldn’t protest against it, but I wouldn’t protest for it. I dare say I am what is known as a camp follower. I support the hunt without being part of it.’
‘Interesting position to put yourself in,’ Yellich smiled.
