The Murder of Busy Lizzie

‘Yes, and last year, at that. We’ve been to see the Lovelaines’ cousin and (upset and resentful as she is over losing her friend from whom she had hoped to gain so much) she is adamant that Miss Potter did not leave the cottage until the Saturday morning after Eliza died.’

‘I did not think, for that reason, that she could have had any hand in Eliza’s death,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I still think you should look closely at the farmer’s wife as Miss Crimp’s accomplice in the murder.’

‘Yes, but why?’

‘I think a long-standing grudge, fed by Miss Crimp, may have flared up, you know. Such things do happen.’

‘After thirty years?’ asked Gavin, doubtfully.

‘I think so. Left to herself, I doubt whether Ruth Cranby would ever have taken any action. From what I know of her, she is a remarkably placid woman. But old resentments burn deep, and there was always Ransome to remind her that, whereas Eliza, in her busy and headstrong way, had borne Allen Cranby a son, she herself was childless.’ .

‘But this is nothing but surmise, Dame B. You haven’t really anything to go on.’

‘Yes, I have two things. I firmly support Laura’s argument that, had Dimbleton been a party to the murder, he would have made certain that the body was safely disposed of. I have also a conviction that if two people took tea together in Puffins a day or two before my servants moved in to make ready for Laura and myself, those tea-drinkers are much more likely to have been two women than one woman and a man.’

‘And Dimbleton never drank tea,’ said Laura. ‘The only thing which bothers me, though, is why Eliza consented to take that food down to Puffins and, more than that, why she and the Crimp took tea together there. Eliza wouldn’t have wanted to linger if she was planning to catch the boat. In any case, the Crimp must have followed her up pretty quickly, yet we’ve heard of nobody who saw her leave the hotel that morning.’

‘I think I would like to have a word with that chambermaid who confessed to the Lovelaine children that she left her duties and descended to the landing-stage to have a word with her young man,’ said Dame Beatrice.

‘Well, if you’re going back to Great Skua, I wish you’d see what more you can find out,’ said Gavin. ‘I think the local police have come to a dead end and they can’t hold Crimp much longer merely on suspicion. There’s such a thing as habeas corpus. We can’t even prove, to the satisfaction of the courts, that Crimp was a prime mover in the smuggling racket. We can hold Dimbleton, on his own confession, for smuggling but smuggling isn’t murder.’

‘In this case it probably led to it, if the guns were shipped to Northern Ireland or to one of the Arab guerrilla bands,’ said Laura. ‘When do we go?’

‘Tomorrow. If we start early, we shall be in time to catch the boat. You know, there is an important witness who has not yet testified.’

‘Oh?’

‘The pig. Let us ask Henri to join us.’

Dame Beatrice’s chef was a corpulent, jovial man, the husband of her somewhat vinegary maid. He presented himself without his apron and cap of office and appeared in a brown suit of undistinguished cut and a waistcoat of peculiar splendour.

‘Madame wishes to give orders for lunch?’

‘It would be a needless departure from custom, my accomplished one,’ Dame Beatrice replied in French. ‘No,’ she added, in English, ‘it is about pigs. You are an authority on pigs?’

‘Of the human kind, madame?’

‘No, no. I believe you buried a pig at the house called Puffins on the island of Great Skua.’

‘It was the flies, madame. Much good money gone to waste.’

‘I understand. Can you describe this pig?’

‘It was of a kind extraordinary. Figure to yourself, madame, a large pig which has but one large circle of black upon the flank, this being natural to it, not a bruise, not a wound, not a brand mark, but a part of the animal bestowed on it at its birth and by the good God, no doubt.’

‘A Gloucester Old Spot,’ explained Laura. ‘Not a breed to be seen everywhere. Large White, Berkshire, Essex and Wessex, even Tamworths, apart from all the crosses, yes. Gloucester Old Spots—where are we getting to, by the way?’

‘I do not know, but Henri’s description of the pig may help. However, as soon as we get to Great Skua, a word with the chambermaid.’

The chambermaid was willing, indeed anxious, to talk.

‘Not as we know what’s to become of us,’ she said, ‘with no wages and all that, while Miss Crimp is with the police and poor Mrs Chayleigh dead and gone.’

‘Who is in charge here, then?’ Dame Beatrice asked.

‘Miss Crimp told the head waiter to carry on until one of the other two came to take over, but it don’t seem nobody’s interested.’

By ‘the other two’ Dame Beatrice understood that Miss Crimp must have meant her fellow legatees Marius and Ransome. She made no comment, but came to the reason for her visit.

‘You remember me, I expect,’ she said, ‘but you do not know that, in a sense, I represent the forces of law and order. I mention it, as I feel it may give you reassurance. We go back to the day on which Mrs Chayleigh left this hotel alive for the last time.’

‘I’ve no wish to recall it, madam.’

‘Probably not.’

‘If I ’adn’t a-gone down to the beach, would it ’ave made any difference?’

‘Not the slightest, so do not think of that again. Can you recall what you heard Miss Crimp say to Mrs Chayleigh about a parcel or basket of food which was to go to the house that my secretary and I subsequently rented?’

‘I think so, madam, though p’raps not the exact words. So far as I recolleck, Miss Crimp says, “Well, if you must, you must.” Mrs Chayleigh says, “It’s my dooty, Constance, as I’ve told you before.” ’

‘Are you sure that she meant she had told Miss Crimp?’

‘Oh, yes, madam, and I knowed what she meant, too. We all knowed. It took Mrs Chayleigh to do something about it.’

‘The gun-running?’

‘Don’t matter sayin’ so now, ’cos it’s all over, ain’t it?’

‘But the two women seemed to be on friendly terms?’

‘So far as I could tell.’

‘Where were you when you overheard this conversation?’

‘In the entrance doin’ of the floor before I started in on the chalets.’

‘And your employers?’

‘Be’ind the counter where the guests clocks in. I don’t reckon they knowed I was there, ’cos they couldn’t see me from where they was.’

‘And Miss Crimp asked Mrs Chayleigh to leave this food at Puffins.’

‘Ah, her did.’

‘And Mrs Chayleigh made no demur?’

‘I don’t know, madam, do I? I ’eard Miss Crimp ask, and then I goes off to get me gear for doin’ out the chalets.’

‘But intending to slip away down to the beach.’

‘I never let up on me work. I made it all up when I come back.’

‘Of course. You saw Mrs Chayleigh set off for Puffins…’

‘Yes, I did that.’

‘How long afterwards did Miss Crimp follow her?’

‘Miss Crimp?’

‘That is what I said.’

‘But she couldn’t of follered ’er, could she?’