Framed for Hanging

Book 240: Murder Room

by Guy Cullingford

Genres: Mystery; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

The quiet town of Cattminster is shocked by news of a startling murder - startling because all the evidence points to the murderer being Richard Groom, grandson of the late canon of Cattminster Cathedral and ex-fiancé of the victim's wife. Richard, however, has five stout allies who believe unquestionably in his innocence. With the one idea in common, but with their own individual ideas on how to set about it, they go to work to prove his innocence - with surprising results.

Release date: November 14, 2015

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 222

Sample

THE six male corpses were laid out side by side.

Miss Sarah Donkin ungloved one hand, extended a long forefinger covered in skin of the same colour and much the same texture as that stretched over the flesh and bones of the dear departed and
remarked:

‘I shall take this one . . . and this, Mrs. Marrowfat.’

‘Choose where you like, Ma’am’, agreed Mrs. Marrowfat amiably. ‘They’re all the same price. Two shillings and sixpence and as plump a lot of young cockerels as ever
I’ve brought into market.’

Mrs. Marrowfat was sitting behind her stall on a three-legged stool. Her own fat legs were hidden beneath a voluminous black skirt and layers of petticoats, one at least bound to be of red
flannel. Unlike her fowls Mrs. Marrowfat looked as if she hadn’t a body at all but was composed of shawls and bolts of material of sober hue. A smaller shawl covered her coal-black hair and
only her face was brightly coloured; her forehead mahogany, her cheeks red and her eyes dark and shiny as a rubbed damson out of her own orchard.

‘Everything must be especially good’, said Miss Donkin. ‘Richard is coming to take dinner with us.’

‘Ah’, said Mrs. Marrowfat beaming. ‘We ’eard he was back home. News travels fast in these parts, even to Copperley Edge. I was only saying to Jem driving in this morning
and bitterly cold it was with the day not aired and sitting up ’igh amongst the ’edges. I was only saying to Jem, the three Miss Donkins will be pleased to see their nevvy back, that I
do know. Two years be a long time when you’re getting on though to be sure it seems only yesterday since Master Richard was a h’infant standing ’ere holding his mother’s
hand and that was twenty years back and the old Queen in the height of her glory.’

Miss Donkin felt the quick drag at her heart which always troubled her at the mention of her favourite sister’s name although Olivia had been so long in the grave, and she answered
quietly, ‘Yes, we shall be glad to have our only male relative at home with us again.’

‘Not more glad than he will be, dear soul, to be here after his journeyings amongst them savages, I’ll be bound. Everyone to ’is choice, but England be good enough for
me’, said Mrs. Marrowfat, giving a glance of insular satisfaction at her surroundings.

She had a place of advantage near the open doors of the big market with its high glassed roof and its several alleys. From where she sat tucked out of the draught she could look all down one
side at the produce of her neighbours, and so she did, weighing their goods mentally against hers and always comfortably assured of the superiority of her own wares.

It was early February and although the stalls lacked the defiant yellow gaiety which would come with the daffodils, even at this sad season Cattminster market was crammed with the earth’s
bounty. Bushel baskets brimmed with silky-skinned onions. Sacks gaped open to show potatoes of size and shape crying aloud to be pricked and baked in ovens or ashes until the mere touch of a steel
knife would expose their floury hearts. All the root vegetables were on display scrubbed clean enough for Sunday School; globular turnips and swedes, tapering parsnips, stout and homely carrots.
There were green cooking apples in plenty and an old fish-bag full of little earthy russets which Mrs. Marrowfat was in the habit of bestowing upon deserving children.

She sat guard over a huge joint of pork from one of their own pigs, armoured in melting fat and chined crackling, and a round of beef juicier than a fruit, from both of which she was ready to
carve tempting slices to order with a blade almost as thin and quite as sharp as a razor.

The butter from her dairy was ranged on paper in pork-pie pats as bright as buttercups and stamped with a cow in relief.

She had a mighty cheese at her disposal shaped like a tub and in cut to disclose its rich crumbly apricot-coloured inside.

Her customers had the choice of an array of jars of her own pickling; onions, walnuts, red cabbage—and of her last season’s jams and jellies.

If Mrs. Marrowfat was smug, she had reason for it.

‘Snowdrops!’ exclaimed Miss Donkin, bending her head to a tight bunch in a stone jar which had once held Dundee marmalade.

‘Help yourself to a tuthree’, suggested Mrs. Marrowfat. ‘There’s plenty more where those came from. And if I may make so bold, I shall send over a pot of my damson
cheese. Master Richard used to be partly-what fond of it when he was a boy. Perhaps you’d be so kind as to give it to him with best respects from me and Marrowfat. Jem can take the birds over
to the Close straightaway so as to give your Emily plenty of time to prepare them for tonight. Does Master Richard aim to settle down here for good?’

‘I have no idea. He has been in London since his ship docked at Liverpool. He and his two companions, Mr. Hearst and Mr. Thorne are hoping to arrange for an exhibition of the various
objects they have brought back with them. As much as we should like to keep Master Richard with us, we must realize that now he is quite a famous person and likely to be in great public
demand.’

‘Now what do you think of that?’ marvelled Mrs. Marrowfat. She gave a significant look at Miss Sarah and nodded her head several times with great solemnity. ‘You mark my words.
There’s those within a stone’s throw from here ready to bite their nails with vexation. What’s done is done and can’t be undone, much as they would like it. If you ask me,
Master Richard had a mighty lucky escape though he took it hard at the time.’

But Miss Sarah would never have dreamed of asking Mrs. Marrowfat, and at this turn in the conversation she pursed her thinnish lips and returned to the strict discussion of business. She could
not countenance a discussion which involved the shortcomings of one of her own social standing. If Mrs. Marrowfat felt the implied rebuke, she accepted it with philosophical resignation and
concentrated her attention on giving Miss Donkin change from the golden sovereign which she first secreted in one of the pockets in her capacious nether garments.

Thanking her and bidding her good-day, Miss Sarah resumed a stately sway between the market stalls. She had dealt with the Marrowfats for so long a period that none of the other stall-holders
thought to tempt her custom. They did, none-the-less, tug at their forelocks if they were male and split their mouths in wide grins if they were female, the which salutes Miss Sarah graciously
acknowledged by the tilt of her very large hat stylishly embellished by a small stuffed bird of mysterious species. She was both tall and thin and in spite of being unfashionably dressed, her old
full-skirted coat fell elegantly to the tips of her neat boots from a waist as trim as a girl’s. She had pinned her gift of snowdrops to the catch of her fur stole and it pleased her to think
that even if she had ceased to be enthusiastic about her birthdays she was still every inch the daughter of the late Canon Donkin.

Before Miss Donkin had reached the mug-market whither she was bound to buy one or two plates for kitchen use, she was confronted head-on by one of the subjects of Mrs. Marrowfat’s
innuendoes.

This was the wife of Colonel Ferrars, a retired Anglo-Indian, who had for the last decade been eating his curries and venting his spleen in an extremely ugly but solid house which he had had
built for himself in a prominent position facing the Park gates. The Ferrars had been quartered in Cattminster for the first year of their married life, and ever after it had been the dream of
their waking hours to retire there in due course. But like many such projects the dream was proved superior to reality. In the passage of time either the Ferrars had changed or Cattminster had
changed; they were convinced of the latter.

Mrs. Ferrars found the English winters trying and her face, never handsome, was not improved by the mauve blight which settled upon it. Neither lady wished to meet the other, but there was no
help for it unless one should turn and flee and neither of them was disposed to cede the other that advantage. It was too early for the market to be crowded when they might have managed to bow and
pass without speaking. Besides there was a certain amount of public attention focused upon their encounter. Both their characters and their animosity towards each other were well-known and several
pairs of sly country eyes followed the situation with simple enjoyment.

‘Good morning, Miss Donkin’, said Mrs. Ferrars, producing a forced smile which twitched the corners of her bloodless lips from a down to up position. ‘You are early abroad this
cold morning.’

‘I can say the same of you, Mrs. Ferrars.’

‘I have come to complain’, said Mrs. Ferrars, who indeed spent most of her leisure in this pursuit. ‘I have been served with meat of an inferior quality, and I wished to
reprimand Mr. Meek before he despatched to us a further joint.’

Mr. Meek was a man who belied his name, being of ferocious appearance and of a disposition to match. When he stood in the doorway of his white-framed butcher’s shop with his brick-red
complexion, his giant moustachios; his anatomy exaggerated by the broad stripes of his apron, it was a brave or rash housewife who would dare to complain of too much fat on her mutton. He killed
and sold excellent meat, but he had a trick, if a customer was not in his good books, of foisting off on the offender one of his less tender cuts. Miss Donkin was quite aware of this tendency,
having at one time offended him quite unwittingly herself through inquiring about his liver, a question which he misinterpreted as personal. Though they had long since called a truce, she realized
to the full Mr. Meek’s potentialities and she could not deny a flash of warmth for an intrepid act, however ill-inspired.

In her softened mood and because it was the foremost thought in her mind and the one thing they had in common, even though it was in quarrel, she said:

‘I came in good time because I wished to have the choice of the best poultry. Richard is dining with us tonight.’

Despite herself, pride had crept into her tone.

‘Oh yes . . . Richard. . . .’ said Mrs. Ferrars, a little uncomfortably. ‘We heard that he was back.’

Everyone has heard, thought Miss Sarah. Everyone in the city and even out as far as Copperley Edge. How does this news spread so fast from mouth to mouth? Bad or good, it was always the same.
Your neighbour heard the crash before the ceiling fell down; you were congratulated before the lawyer’s letter arrived announcing the legacy. When Mrs. Ferrars’ daughter Hester jilted
Richard on the eve of their wedding, from their instantaneous knowledge of all the facts the whole population of Cattminster might have been present at the very moment when that stupid, thoughtless
girl changed her mind.

‘My husband thinks that he is much to be congratulated on the successful outcome of his adventures, and indeed on his safe return’, continued Mrs. Ferrars. ‘An expedition into
the primeval forest is necessarily fraught with peril. To have him with you again unharmed must be a considerable relief.’

‘It is . . it is’, said Miss Sarah fervently. Whilst everyone might know everything that went on in the city, she doubted whether anyone could gauge the depths of the anxiety she and
her sisters had felt for Richard in his absence. Conscious that she must not be outdone in generosity, she asked: ‘And how is Hester?’ although she knew, as the city knew, exactly how
Hester was, physically at least.

‘I am afraid that there has been little noticeable improvement in her condition. My husband and I are convinced that the remedy lies in her own hands. She must exert herself; pull herself
together. After all,’ continued Mrs. Ferrars in a fretful tone, ‘no one’s life is a bed of roses. My husband and I have had to face untold difficulties, and Hester must learn to
do the same. We realize that the death of her little one came as a shock, but she is still young. She and the doctor will have other children, and they will more than take the place of the one
which unhappily failed to survive.’

An awkward silence fell between the two ladies. Miss Sarah was torn between two emotions; indignation at such austere sentiments, if anything so utterly devoid of feeling could be described as
sentiment, and a deep dislike for Hester which could not be removed by the recognition of the reality of her sufferings.

‘Time is a great healer’, she managed to say at last. The words even to herself sounded as hollow as a Hallowe’en turnip.

At the dinner table she found her thoughts turning once again to the tail-end of that conversation; it obtruded inconveniently upon her present happiness.

How fatuous, thought Miss Sarah impatiently; as if a bed of roses could ever be comfortable. And has my personal experience ever convinced me of the healing power of time? Though certainly in
Richard’s case . . . she looked at her nephew with renewed approval.

Richard was undoubtedly thinner, fine-drawn, but he appeared to be as cheerful as a mudlark. Whatever his adventures on the Amazon had been, they had raised his spirits extraordinarily high.

The gaslight in the fitting which might have been inspired by some tropical tangle and which looked oddly at variance with the classically moulded ceiling, flickered and bubbled cheerfully. It
plucked a glow from the pile of Miss Sarah’s old mulberry velvet and put a gloss on Miss Essie’s regal hair style, drawn back and bolstered up in the current fashion.

The parlour maid had been dismissed and the three ladies and their guest were busy with fruit and nuts. Richard, as befitted his manhood, was drinking some of the late Canon’s port, but
the Misses Donkin were satisfied by the small quantities of white wine which they had taken during the earlier stages of the dinner.

‘Richard, I saw an old friend of yours in the market today’, observed Miss Sarah. ‘She sent a special gift to you by my hands. Something of which she said—her own
words—you were partly-what fond. A pot of damson cheese.’

‘Old Mother Marrowfat!’ guessed Richard delightedly. ‘And what an absurd expression that is. I’ve never heard it anywhere else. But everything about Mrs. Marrowfat is
absurd—even her name. It’s obviously out of a book. No one ever had a real name like that.’

‘What nonsense’, said Miss Sarah fondly. ‘There have been Marrowfats at Copperley Edge for generations.’

‘Personally, if I didn’t know better I should be inclined to believe that Mrs. Marrowfat was immortal’, said Miss Ruth. ‘She looks exactly the same as she did when you
were a little boy, Richard.’

‘You know, it’s quite remarkable, but one of my Aparai Indians, a great aunt of the Chief’s, bore a strong resemblance to Mrs. Marrowfat, that is, if you can picture the good
soul clothed only in her apron.’

‘Richard!’ cried Miss Essie in pretended horror.

‘Yes indeed, but she was by no means so good a cook. Perhaps she was limited by her resources.’

‘What did you have to eat in the jungle, Richard?’

‘Oh, varied diet, Aunt Essie, extremely varied. Anything which fell to our rifles or the Indians’ arrows. Water-fowl, wild pigeon . . . all frightfully skinny. Sometimes the menu was
on the exotic side; land turtles, lizards, water-hogs, monkeys.’

‘It sounds perfectly horrible’, said Miss Essie, giving a shudder.

‘Oh, not so bad. But I never could take to monkeys. The caboclos roasted them whole and they looked so human; made me feel like a cannibal.’

‘Surely there must have been something more vegetarian’, put in Miss Ruth hurriedly. She noticed that Essie was turning a shade green; perhaps Richard had forgotten that the youngest
of his aunts was noted for her sensibility rather than her sense.

‘Well, yes. The natives make a sort of flour from the tubers of the mandioca. I fancy you eat some form of it here if you have a taste for tapioca pudding. In its natural state the stuff
is full of poison . . . prussic acid to be exact. The whole village reeks of the stuff when the women are working on it. They pulp it and then push it into a kind of stocking and squeeze out the
poison. It’s meat and drink to the Indians. They bake it into cakes and after that the women chew bits of it up and make a ghastly fermented brew.’

‘But how can they be sure that all the poison is out of it?’

‘It appears to be. At any rate they survive.’

‘I would rather die than touch it’, said Miss Essie fervently.

‘When it comes to it, Aunt Essie, you find that you would rather eat anything than die. Once when we were hard pressed we kept ourselves going for several days on nothing but these things
which I am cracking now.’

‘Brazil nuts!’

‘What else? Very nourishing. I think that it was that little episode, if anything, which finally rid me of the delusion that I was ready to welcome death with open arms.’

‘If you have finished, Richard,’ said his Aunt Sarah briskly, ‘I suggest that we move into the drawing-room. Green will be waiting to clear the table. Ring the bell for her,
please, Essie. We are eager to hear more of your adventures, Richard.’

But when they had settled themselves in the large shabby room with its stone fireplace and the logs in the hearth smouldering and sparking, Miss Essie with her embroidery, Miss Ruth with her
hands folded in her lap, Richard seemed disinclined to proceed with the theme of the Amazon. He was better pleased to sit silent staring into the fire in a state of pleasurable trance. He had
always been fond of his aunts, but until now had thought little about them, being content to accept their existence as part and parcel of his childhood and youth. For the first time he considered
them as individuals and looking up, with the idea of studying them covertly he was disconcerted to find three pairs of eyes fixed on him.

To cover his confusion he said lightly: ‘You haven’t asked me yet to tell you my plans for the future.’

‘We shall be pleased to hear whatever you care to tell us,’ answered his Aunt Sarah, spokesman for them all as usual, ‘but we realize that whatever plans you make are entirely
your own concern. You know that we shall be delighted if you decide to stay on in Cattminster and there is always room in this house for you, but we thought that very likely, since there is so much
general interest in the result of your expedition, you might well decide to make your headquarters in London where you would be in a better position to meet people, arrange lectures and take your
place in the world.’

‘My dear aunt,’ said Richard, ‘I have not the slightest intention of deserting Cattminster for London. That I went at all with Charles and Dol—Graham—was a last
minute matter of chance. Let them reap the benefit of their toil and tribulations and arrange lectures to their hearts’ content. As to your offer of accommodation, bless you and thank your
kind hearts. But I have another idea. There are five good rooms over the shop unused since my father’s death which are capable of being converted into a set of chambers which will suit me
admirably. It is there that I propose to live.’

A stunned silence fell on his aunts.

‘But who will look after you?’ asked Miss Essie with a bewildered air.

‘That is yet to be arranged, but I have no doubt a solution will suggest itself. I think perhaps a manservant, don’t you?’

Miss Ruth cleared her throat. ‘You will be comfortably near us and in the centre of the city. But shall you like living over a shop?’

‘I see no reason why not. It will have the merit of being conveniently near to the business.’

‘But—’ said Sarah. ‘But—you surely do not intend to take an active part in the business?’

‘But I do . . . I do indeed. After all, what was good enough for my father should be good enough for me. I am afraid that he side-tracked me temporarily by the excellence of the education
which he provided. It taught me to despise trade.’

‘There is nothing wrong with trade’, said Miss Sarah in a tone which damned it completely. ‘But . . .’

‘But me no buts, Aunt Sarah. It was the money gained by trading which sent me to the University. It was the money gained by tradin. . .