Death in the Greenhouse Read online

  ‘You can’t think of everything, and it’s a long shot, anyway. It’s easy enough for me – I don’t have to find the men to make inquiries. I hope you don’t feel that I’m wasting police time.’

  ‘No, sir, I don’t. You’ve brought a new idea into the case, and if it’s ever going to be solved we need all the ideas we can get.’

  *

  Given a practical job to do, the inspector was noticeably more enthusiastic about my appearance on his scene. He had politely refrained from asking what had brought about the Foreign Office’s interest in the case, but he was obviously anxious to know. Taking a sudden decision, I showed him a copy of the blackmailing note to Meredith Boscombe. He read it carefully, and then said, ‘Isn’t that the man who has just been brought into the Government?’

  ‘Yes. And you will understand how delicate and extremely confidential all this aspect of the case has to be.’

  ‘Of course, sir. But apart from suggesting that somebody was out to kill Mr Quenenden – and since he was undoubtedly murdered that had to be assumed, anyway – this new development doesn’t really seem to get us much farther. Unless, that is, you have any indication of who wrote that note.’

  ‘I’m afraid we haven’t. I can give you a bit of background, though.’ I outlined Meredith Boscombe’s original story as told to Sir Giles Hewitt, but for the moment decided to say nothing about what he had added to me. The inspector saw the difficulties as they had occurred to me. ‘Doesn’t seem that he has much to worry about,’ he said. ‘Maybe he doesn’t want it generally known that he became rich because his wife was drowned, but it was accidental death, and I don’t see that it can damage him after all these years. Why on earth should he be expected to pay out a million pounds to keep it quiet? And how could old Mr Quenenden have been protecting him?’

  ‘The implication is that Mr Quenenden, in his capacity as a District Officer in the one-time British Colony, was bribed or persuaded to cover up some aspect of Mrs Boscombe’s death as it might affect her husband,’ I said. ‘There hasn’t been time yet for an exhaustive inquiry in the old Colonial Office records, but there seems no doubt that the death certificate was genuine – Mr Boscombe could not have inherited his wife’s money if there had been any reason to doubt it. And Mr Quenenden’s own record in the Colonial Service makes it highly improbable that he could have done anything underhand. The note itself says nothing about Mr Boscombe’s wife – she was not mentioned until the telephone call came later. We can assume that the threat implicit in the note relates to Mrs Boscombe’s death, but only because of the telephone call. There may be – there must be – all sorts of things we don’t know about. The first thing, as I see it, is to try to discover a real motive for Mr Quenenden’s murder. The suggestion that he was killed because as long as he was alive he could say that Mrs Boscombe’s death was accidental isn’t good enough. The death certificate already says that, and even if the records of the inquest or inquiry are destroyed Mr Quenenden’s existence as a witness scarcely matters. Mr Boscombe came into his wife’s money twenty years ago. Given the hostility of his wife’s family to him at the time it is inconceivable that they would have parted with the securities if there had been a chance of proving anything against him that might upset his claim to inherit as her next of kin.’

  ‘You said that the inheritance was settled by some kind of compromise.’

  ‘Yes, but it wouldn’t have been settled at all if the family had any doubts about Mr Boscombe.’

  ‘Do we know anything about the relatives of his late wife who are now in England?’ I told him what Meredith Boscombe had told me about the cousins. ‘You’d better have their names and addresses for your records,’ I added, ‘but for the moment I don’t want them visited by the police. People in their position are very sensitive about the police, and if there is anything to be got out of them it would be better if I called on them myself. I can be suitably vague about who I am, in the first instance, at any rate.’

  ‘What, exactly, do you want me to do?’

  ‘We shall have to do an immense amount of digging into Mr Quenenden’s past. I thought I’d make a start by calling on Miss Sutherland. I’ll ring her this evening, and try to make an appointment to see her tomorrow. Can you have another go at tracing the van mentioned by the vet?’

  ‘Of course. I’ll get on to the van-hire firms, and there are a few local garages that have an odd van they hire out when they don’t want it themselves. How can I get in touch with you, sir?’

  ‘There’s always a duty officer in the department. They’ll know who you are, because I’ve already put your name in our Action Book, and you can rely on anything you want done being done quickly. I think I’ll probably stay in Oxford tonight, and perhaps tomorrow – it depends on what time I can see Miss Sutherland, and it might just be worth having a word with that bank manager there. I don’t know where I’m going to stay yet, but I’ll ring here and leave a message for you as soon as I’ve booked in. It would be helpful if you’d let me have your home number – I promise not to get you out of bed unless it’s really urgent.’

  The inspector laughed – we were on much better terms now. ‘I could wish some other people would be as considerate,’ he said. ‘Look, sir, the Quadrangle Hotel, just off St Aldate’s, is quite a good place in Oxford, and I know the manager there. If you like, I’ll ring now and see if they’ve got a room.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you.’ He rang the hotel, they did have a room, and that was that. At least I had somewhere to sleep.

  *

  I made one more telephone call before leaving Newbury, and that was to the manager of the late Mr Quenenden’s bank in Oxford, a Mr Summers. The bank would be closed to the public, but if I could get there by 5.30 he agreed to see me. He was quite friendly, told me which door to go to, and explained helpfully where I could leave my car. It was a bit of a rush, but I just managed it, and I went straight to the bank before signing in at the hotel.

  Inquiries into murder cases are, perhaps, out of the usual run of interviews conducted by bank managers, and Mr Summers was both interested and co-operative. ‘The Quenenden account is, of course, closed,’ he said, ‘but it has not yet been finally wound up because it remains the basis of an executor’s account operated by Miss Sutherland. When you telephoned I had the file brought to me. The figures are naturally confidential, but there is nothing in the least embarrassing about them, and in the circumstances I feel justified in discussing them with you.’

  ‘Had you known Mr Quenenden personally for long?’

  ‘Nearly ten years. There was another manager when he settled at Newton Blaize, but I have known him as a customer ever since I’ve been here. The account goes back a long time, to his undergraduate days in Oxford. It has always been handled impeccably.’

  ‘Mr Quenenden was a fairly wealthy man. Do you know, roughly, where his income came from?’

  ‘That is a matter more for his lawyer or executor, I think. I can speak only of his affairs as handled by the bank. Assuming that the account held here was his only bank account – and as far as I know it was – his income derived from a pension paid through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and interest on securities which we held. He was, as you know, a horticulturist of some distinction, and I think he acted as an adviser to one of the seed firms. At any rate, there were regular payments to him from this firm. We dealt with his securities for him, collected his dividends, and from time to time acted for him in buying and selling investments. He inherited some capital, I understand, from his parents. He invested soundly, and his capital appreciated considerably over the years.’

  ‘Did he ever pay in substantial sums in cash?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge. There is nothing in his account to indicate such payments.’

  ‘He seems to have used the bank’s services extensively. Did he deposit documents with you for safe custody?’

  For the first time Mr Summers seemed slightly uneasy. ‘We kept his will for him, his ins
urance policies, and, as I have explained, his securities,’ he said. ‘There were also two sealed envelopes entered in our register as “Contents unknown” – that is standard banking practice when customers deposit documents of a private nature.’

  ‘Do you have the dates when they were deposited?’

  ‘Yes, they are in the register. One was nearly six years ago, the other more recent, only a few weeks before he died. I feel morally somewhat guilty about that recent document, although legally I could not have acted otherwise.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Well, this second document was brought to me personally by Mr Quenenden. He asked if we would accept it for safe keeping. I replied “Certainly”, and he added “Please date the envelope clearly to identify it. I may want to give some instructions about its disposal in the event of my death, but I am not quite in a position to do so yet. The important thing is that it is now safe with you”. I said that of course we would carry out any instructions he cared to send, adding that I hoped it would be a long time before any such action was necessary. He laughed, and we parted. But no instructions were ever received from him.’

  ‘Where are the documents now?’

  ‘They were handed over to Miss Sutherland, as his executor. We knew that she was both executor and sole legatee, because his solicitor had formally intimated to us the contents of his will. In fact, he introduced Miss Sutherland to us when she opened the executor’s account. She called with an accountant to inspect and list the securities so that they could be valued for probate, but left them in our custody. The documents she signed for, and took away.’

  ‘Why do you say you feel morally somewhat guilty about it?’

  ‘Well, suppose the late Mr Quenenden had wanted that envelope delivered to some particular person?’

  ‘You had no means of knowing.’

  ‘Except that Mr Quenenden had rather hinted at it. But without having had instructions from him I could not keep it from Miss Sutherland. And she may indeed have been the proper person to have it.’

  ‘Did you tell the police about the existence of the envelope while it was still in the bank’s possession?’

  ‘No. Perhaps I should have done so, but I didn’t think of it.’

  It was a great pity that he had not mentioned it before, but apart from having been asked about Mr Quenenden’s will he had not been questioned about documents in the bank’s keeping. Anyway, it was not any longer with the bank. Perhaps Miss Sutherland would tell me what it was all about when I was able to see her. Calling on the bank before visiting her had paid an unexpected dividend in that I now had something specific to ask her, though I should have to be careful not to involve the bank in putting questions.

  *

  I rang the number of Mr Quenenden’s cottage as soon as I’d signed into the hotel. The woman’s voice that answered had a slight trace of Lancashire, but not much – if I had not known that she came from Lancashire probably I should not have noticed it. She seemed quite friendly. I apologised for bothering her yet again when she must have had her fill of police questioning but said I was sure that with Mr Quenenden’s death still unexplained she would understand that inquiries must go on. I told her that I was not myself a police officer but belonged to a branch of the Home Office that was concerned with certain aspects of Mr Quenenden’s death, and that I felt she might be able to help with one or two details of his earlier life in Africa. She doubted whether she could provide information of any material value, but agreed to see me readily enough. I arranged to call on her at Vine Cottage at eleven o’clock in the morning. I suggested that she should ring Inspector Rosyth to check on my credentials, but she laughed and said that she was quite prepared to trust me. I insisted that I should be happier if she rang the police, and she agreed to consider it. I felt that probably she wouldn’t, but that was up to her.

  Having done my telephoning I walked across to Ruth’s college and was delighted to find her in her room. I took her out to dinner, and put the Quenenden case from my mind for the rest of the evening.

  *

  It was no hardship on that bright June morning to drive into the Lambourn valley. The countryside was at its loveliest, with poppies making splashes of scarlet in the cornfields, though it was sad to see how many of what should have been picture-book elms were brown and withered from the ravages of that dreadful elm disease that has so scarred the English landscape. Some, however, seemed to have escaped – whether they could develop a natural immunity I did not know, but it was comforting to feel that nature’s instinct for survival can defeat most things in the end, though it may take centuries to do so. Newton Blaize was a charming village, a huddle of houses of every date from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries, grouped around a green with the church at one side of it and a Queen Anne rectory next door. I saw the Post Office Stores kept by the Mr Jones whose narrative was in my file. It seemed to be the only shop in the place. I drove past it on the road out of the village, and duly came to Vine Cottage, some little way beyond the village, and undoubtedly somewhat isolated. The gate to the drive was open, and not wanting to park on the rather narrow road I drove in.

  Miss Sutherland, I thought, would probably have heard my car, and I expected the door to be opened almost as soon as I knocked. It wasn’t. I waited two or three minutes, and knocked again. Still there was no answer. I looked at my watch – seven minutes past eleven, and as I’d been waiting for quite five minutes my arrival had been almost precisely at the time of our appointment. I knocked a third time – no response. Miss Sutherland was obviously not in the garden, and had she by any chance been in the lavatory when I first knocked there must have been time now for her to have emerged. The garage door was shut. It was one of those upright-swinging doors that work on counterweights. I tried opening it, found that it was not locked and lifted it enough to see inside. It was occupied by a Mini, so Miss Sutherland had not had to go out unexpectedly, at any rate not by car.

  I remembered having passed a call box near the village green, so I drove back and rang the number of the cottage. The ringing-tone seemed quite normal, and as I’d telephoned Miss Sutherland only the previous evening there was no reason to suppose that the phone was out of order. I let it ring for several minutes, dialled again in case I’d made some mistake in my first dialling, but still there was no reply.

  By this time it was well after 11.30. I drove back to the cottage and knocked on the door once more, but the response was as blank as ever. It was extremely puzzling. I was as sure as one can be about anything that we’d agreed on an appointment at eleven o’clock, but there can be misunderstandings about times. The fact that the car was in the garage suggested that Miss Sutherland could not have gone far. She might – though it seemed unlikely – have forgotten about our appointment altogether. If so she would almost certainly, I thought, be back for lunch. I did not want to be seen hanging about the village so I drove on to another village about three miles away, where I found a pub and had a drink. I waited until one o’clock when I drove back to the cottage and had another go. Nothing seemed to have changed. The garage was still shut with the Mini inside it, and repeated knockings brought no one to the door. I began to be seriously concerned about Miss Sutherland. I had obviously no right to break into the cottage, but her unaccountable absence ought certainly to be looked into. I drove into Newbury to consult Inspector Rosyth.

  I was lucky to find him in his office – he’d had a long morning in court and hadn’t bothered with more than a sandwich lunch. I told him about Miss Sutherland. ‘It’s a queer business,’ he said. ‘Let’s try the phone again – wherever she’s been she may be back by now.’ He rang the cottage, but with no success. ‘I think we’ll have to get in – she may have had a heart attack, or something. As a matter of fact, I believe we’ve still got a key.’ He went to his safe and looked in a drawer. ‘Yes, here it is. But we’d better take a uniformed man with us – you’d think you were in the middle of nowhere in these villages, but the very
hedges seem to have eyes sometimes, save when you want them to, of course.’ He rang for a car with a uniformed driver, and we were on our way in five minutes.

  In the car, he said, ‘I’ve got a bit of news for you, sir, though I don’t know that it adds up to anything. I saw that vet again last night, and his impression is definitely that the van he passed was a plain one. I’ve started inquiries among the hire firms and garages, but, of course, if it was a hired van, it’s as likely as not that it wasn’t hired locally. I’ve circulated a request for inquiries to all divisions in our own force, and I’ve sent a similar request to the Metropolitan Police. Lord knows if we’ll ever get anything, though.’

  ‘Considering that you had to spend the whole morning in the magistrates’ court it seems to me that you’ve done wonders,’ I said.

  ‘Well, the court didn’t sit until ten, and I was able to get on with the other business first. At the best of times a lot of people don’t remember well, and this was back in April. So the sooner we start asking about it the better.’

  *

  The few miles from Newbury didn’t take long. The police car went into the drive and the three of us walked to the cottage. ‘If the door’s bolted we shall have to try a window,’ the inspector said. But it wasn’t bolted, and opened to the key at once. The uniformed man stayed outside while Inspector Rosyth and I went in.

  There were some letters and a newspaper lying on a mat just inside the door. ‘Don’t know what time the post comes, but the paper would be early. Funny she hasn’t picked it up.’ He called out, ‘Is there anybody here?’ There was no answer, and we began to go through the cottage. Nothing seemed in the least disarranged. The kitchen-living room was neat and tidy, and the room that had been Mr Quenenden’s study was undisturbed. Upstairs, the bed was made, a woman’s nightgown, presumably Miss Sutherland’s, was folded neatly under the pillow, there were hairbrushes and toilet things on the dressing table. ‘Doesn’t look as if she’s actually gone away,’ the inspector said.