The bluebeard club, p.27
The Bluebeard Club, page 27
part #6 of Lord Kit Aston Mystery Series
It was Jellicoe’s first week with this police force. The relative tranquillity of the first week had been brutally interrupted by the slaying of Masterson. Perhaps his transfer to ‘the sticks’ was not going to prove the break it was meant to be.
‘Sorry, sir,’ said Yates, aware he had incurred the displeasure of the chief inspector. He didn’t seem too perturbed though. Jellicoe could see there was cockiness to the young man that might not sit well with an older man like Burnett. He waited to see how Burnett would react.
He didn’t. This wasn’t entirely a surprise. Although only his first week, it was apparent to him that Burnett was not a martinet. Jellicoe had encountered enough of them at the Met to know what they looked like. Instead, Burnett preferred sarcasm over censure and derision to dressing-downs. Jellicoe, oddly, quite liked him for it.
‘Don’t worry, son,’ said Burnett nodding towards the open window, ‘You can carry my coffin at the funeral when I die of hypothermia.’
‘Will do, sir.’
‘So?’ asked Burnett, a hint of impatience was never very far away from his voice. Jellicoe suspected this was put on. A bit of show for the young whippersnappers. Keeps ‘em honest, don’t you know.
‘No sign of forced entry. No footprints in the snow.’
Jellicoe looked out of the window. The wind was blowing snowflakes this way and that. This was a problem. The weather was busily erasing any trace of the murderer’s arrival. This was assuming, of course, that he had come through the French windows. Jellicoe had not reached a conclusion on that point yet. Outside, in the distant field, a woman was walking a dog. She wore a headscarf and a dark tweed overcoat. She could have been sixteen or sixty. In this part of the world, dress codes were functional. The opposite was increasingly the case in London. Your dress was your tribe.
A man with grey whiskers appeared in the library, distracting Jellicoe from his reflections on fashion. Jellicoe assumed this was Dr Taylor. Old doctors always had whiskers, or so he’d been told once. The doctor was one of the few people he hadn’t met in his first week. A murder scene seemed as good a place as any for introductions to be made.
‘Hilary,’ said Burnett warmly.
Hilary? Jellicoe suppressed a smile. Why do parents do that? Did they hate their child so much that they would impose a name on him that was guaranteed to draw attention? May as well stick a target on his back and print ‘bully me’ on it. Taylor looked suitably serious.
The doctor shuffled into the library smoking a pipe. He wore a grey homburg which he removed and threw onto a nearby table. He and Burnett could have been brothers. They’d worked alongside one another for decades. Both were of a similar vintage which seemed an appropriate metaphor as Jellicoe suspected a friendship based on alcohol and mutual support against the true enemy, not criminals, but their wives.
‘Without rupturing your imagination too much, what do we have here Reg?’ asked Dr Taylor, crouching down to study the dead body.
Reg? It all seemed very bowls club to Jellicoe. He could just imagine what his former boss, Detective Superintendent Lane, would have thought of all this. He still remembered the curl of his mouth when he told Jellicoe that a spell away from London would do him good. Help him forget.
Now there was a martinet.
‘Body was discovered this morning by the maid. I don’t think it’s suicide.’
Taylor glanced up at Burnett, a ghost of a smile on his face. There was obviously a history of gallows humour here, realised Jellicoe. Once more, Jellicoe found this strangely reassuring. No disrespect was intended. It was a way of dealing with the often-sickening reality, an unimaginable horror that most people never had to face. If the price of this protection was the occasional catharsis granted by humour, then so be it.
‘No, I suspect death was as a result of this implement,’ commented Taylor nodding towards the candlestick. ‘We’ll do the needful though and confirm this. Don’t ask me time of death until you tell me if the French windows were open or not.’
‘They were closed when the maid found the body,’ said Yates, a little too keenly.
Burnett looked a little relieved at hearing this, which amused Jellicoe. He’d clearly forgotten to ask. Or perhaps he was at a point in his career where he managed cases rather than taking an overtly investigative role.
‘If the window was closed then it will have slowed down the process of rigor mortis so we should have a better understanding of when he died. My estimate would be in the last eight hours to twelve hours.’
It was nearly nine in the morning now so the intruder or gang would have come after the staff had gone to bed.
‘What time do the staff usually retire?’ asked Jellicoe to Yates.
‘Around ten or eleven,’ came the immediate reply, ‘but the colonel would often stay up later. He was listening to the third test in Sydney.’
‘How did it finish?’ asked Burnett, suddenly animated.
‘Two hundred and nineteen all out,’ said Taylor sourly. Burnett didn’t need to ask if it was Australia or England who’d been batting. ‘Benaud took five. Then we dropped McDonald first over.’
Burnett shook his head and muttered an oath under his breath. For the first time since seeing the dead body, Burnett seemed genuinely put out. Such was the importance of cricket. Jellicoe wondered for a moment if Gilbert and Sullivan had been alive now how they would have written about the life-and-death importance of cricket for Englishmen. As if aware their conversation might be considered somewhat inappropriate by the newcomer, Burnett and Taylor resumed a more professional mien.
‘When can you have the body with me?’ asked Taylor.
Burnett glanced around. The photographer had just left. He looked at Jellicoe who nodded. Burnett turned to Yates.
‘I’ll see to it, sir,’ said Yates, anticipating the order about to come his direction.
‘I’m sure you will,’ replied Burnett giving the impression that he was displeased with Yates’ efficiency. Yates ignored him; no doubt inured to the chief inspector’s permanent state of curmudgeon. Burnett turned to Jellicoe; eyebrow raised. A question hung in the air, or perhaps an order.
‘I’ll take statements from the staff, sir,’ said Jellicoe.
Burnett made a show of rolling his eyes causing Taylor to chuckle.
‘Looks like you’re not needed here, Reg,’ said Taylor.
The four men paused for a moment and looked at one another. There was one thought on each of their minds. The elephant in the room was not lying at their feet. Finally, Burnett asked the question on all their minds.
‘There’s no sign of the boy, I take it?’
‘No, sir,’ replied Yates.
‘How old is he?’ asked Burnett although he knew the answer already.
‘Sixteen, sir.’
Burnett nodded and turned to Jellicoe.
‘So, Jellicoe, do we think he is a murderer or…?’
Jellicoe glanced down at the bashed in head of the colonel. The case was barely an hour old and his new boss was publicly putting him on the spot. The new boy from London. From Scotland Yard, no less. Jellicoe could see the look in Burnett’s eyes. It was somewhere between curiosity and envy. Curiosity because of his background; he was born to be a policeman. Envy because of his background and, perhaps, youth.
Let’s see what you’re made of sonny boy.
Jellicoe’s mouth shaped into a half-smile; the gauntlet was accepted.
‘Kidnapped. The boy’s been kidnapped.’
Jack Murray, The Bluebeard Club
