New Graves at Great Norne

Book 395: Murder Room

by Henry Wade

Genres: Mystery; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

Great Norne is a small harbour town in East Anglia that once flourished with trade. Now the quiet community is being terrorised by a series of murders: the vicar, Reverend Torridge is found dead on the quayside; then Colonel Cherrington is shot in his study. A third death follows. The last person to die violently in Great Norne was young Ellen Barton, who killed herself twenty years ago. But there are secrets in this close-knit, religious town - secrets that might provoke someone to bloody revenge. The local police, under Chief Inspector Myrtle, must uncover those secrets, digging into the past, to solve the murders . . .

Release date: June 14, 2016

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 303

Sample

LIGHTS shone brightly through the big windows of the parish church of Great Norne, and through them, too, came the cheerful sound of voices in full song. The voluntary choir of
St. Martha’s was just completing its weekly practice; collectively they enjoyed letting themselves go on these Friday evenings, without restraint of Service, and the more so now that Summer
Time was over and they had the bright lights to encourage them. To a listener in the churchyard the singing might even have appeared harmonious, because at that slight distance the reedy treble of
Miss Emily Vinton, a semitone flat whatever the key, was swallowed up in the general choral effect.

For ten years the harassed organist had begged his Vicar to approach Miss Vinton on the subject of honourable retirement, but Mr. Torridge had not been able to screw himself up to the pitch of
striking such a cruel blow. For the last fifty years, woman and girl, Emily had lifted her voice in this choir, and for most of that time she and her sister had been the mainstay on which
succeeding choirmasters relied, but twelve years ago Beatrice had been struck down by paralysis, and Emily had never recovered her pitch since that tragic evening.

Punctually at seven o’clock the voices died away, the big south door swung open, and out clattered a crowd of small boys and large girls, followed more sedately by their elders, six women
and four men. Last of all came the Vicar, in cassock and biretta, accompanied by his organist and choirmaster, and by a small elderly lady in coat and skirt of antique cut and hat of
nineteenth-century design.

“Oh, Vicar, it was perfect to-night, I thought,” exclaimed Miss Vinton as soon as she was over the threshold of the Early English porch. “Mr. Kersey took us along with such a
swing; I felt inspired to sing my very best.”

A stifled grunt from the organist was quickly merged into his: “Well, good night, Vicar; I must be getting to my supper. Good night, Miss Vinton.”

“Good night, my dear Kersey. I thought Bunnett in F quite in our best form. Oh, by the way, isn’t Freddy Porter’s voice beginning to crack?”

“Yes, that’s one that’ll have to go,” replied the organist darkly, and hurried away before he was tempted to enlarge his meaning.

The church lights had been turned out now and the crash of a heavy key told that the sexton, Josiah Chell, was locking the big door.

“And how is Miss Beatrice to-day?” asked the Vicar, anxious to get away, but unwilling to appear discourteous to his faithful supporter.

“Oh, the same as ever—so wonderful, so brave,” exclaimed Miss Vinton, her thin voice trembling with loving sympathy.

“A good woman indeed, a worthy woman; she . . .”

“Worthy the Lamb to be slain,” broke in a harsh voice behind them.

The Vicar started.

“Really, Josiah,” he said, “you must restrain yourself. Your quotations are neither apt nor reverent.”

Chell grunted. He knew that well enough, and took an impish delight in acting the elderly enfant terrible. Sextons were hard to come by, and he knew the strength of his position. The
pay was not much, and he might as well get what fun he could out of his privilege.

“You’ll let me see you home?” asked Mr. Torridge, hoping for the best.

“Oh, no, my dear Vicar. Thank you, but it is quite unnecessary. Nothing harmful could happen to me in dear Norne.”

“No, I believe not; nor, indeed, anywhere, Miss Emily. Well, perhaps I should be going in. The Colonel is coming up to discuss the Church accounts. Good night, then, and thank you for all
your help.”

The Vicar sketched a gesture which might be a salute or a blessing and which Miss Emily accepted blissfully as the latter. He turned down the path which led past the chancel towards the
Vicarage, while Miss Emily Vinton ambled along the main path to the lych-gate.

The Reverend Theobald Torridge had been Vicar of Great Norne for twenty-five years. As his Christian name suggested, he came of an ecclesiastical family which had not benefited by any
appreciable infusion of profane blood. He was, in fact, narrow in outlook and interest, harsh in judgment of his fellow-men, though diplomatically gentle with those who thought and saw as he did.
He was a tall, handsome man, now approaching seventy years of age, but his good looks were marred by a weak and obstinate mouth, which he firmly believed to be strong and sensitive. He was a
disappointed man, in that promotion, which he had fully expected to receive, had passed him by; he had sought consolation in a rising scale of churchmanship—a fact which had brought grist to
the mill of the two Nonconformist sects which had taken root in the parish shortly before his arrival. He was a good preacher, and could still fill two-thirds of his large church, but the
congregation showed a growing proportion of older people; the young thought him pompous and an ass, their harsh and critical judgment missing his better points.

Entering the side door of his big Vicarage, Torridge found that his churchwarden, Colonel Robert Cherrington, was already awaiting him and not too pleased about it. Colonel Cherrington was a
heavily built, choleric-looking man on the standard pattern of the Indian Army, in which he had made his honourable career. He was a year or two older than the Vicar, and regarded him as a
promising youngster who had to be guided in the right way—which was Colonel Cherrington’s way. He was a deeply religious man; his natural tendency in this direction had been turned to
near-fanaticism by a tragedy in his married life that had embittered his outlook on his fellow-men. What the Vicar of Great Norne would have done without Colonel Cherrington’s stalwart and
formidable help only Theobald Torridge knew—and he only in part.

“Evening, Vicar,” grunted the Colonel. “Thought we said seven o’clock.”

“We did, Colonel, we did. Mea maxima culpa. I should have asked you to make it seven-fifteen; it always takes me a little time to say good night to my choir. Miss Emily . .
.”

“Exactly. Always a woman in it when a man’s late.”

Theobald Torridge flushed at this base insinuation, but thought it wisest to leave the subject.

“So good of you to bring along the accounts, Colonel. They are on the right side, I trust?”

Colonel Cherrington dropped a substantial account-book on to the study table.

“Not too good last quarter. Collections falling off, expenses going up. That fellow Chell’s not worth his money; an impudent dog, too, they tell me, though he hasn’t tried his
saucy tongue on me.”

“I’m afraid, yes. But so difficult to replace. People don’t seem to need the extra money nowadays.”

“Spoon-fed, coddled, cradle to grave. The country’s financial position was never worse, and nobody works. That son-in-law of mine, living on his wife’s money, instead of
earning his own. No conscience, no guts.”

“Oh, but I thought Captain Hexman worked on the Stock Exchange.”

Colonel Cherrington snorted.

“Half commission agent, or whatever they call it. Sounds like an inferior type of bookmaker to me. Cadging business from his friends is about what it amounts to. No work about it . . . and
precious little money.”

As it was evidently a sore subject with the Colonel, Torridge did not pursue it. Cherrington was commonly believed to be a rich man, but there had been rumours lately that all was not quite so
rosy in that quarter as it used to be. Indeed, few people living on so-called fixed incomes—pensions, invested capital, and so on—had failed to feel the pinch since 1929.

For a quarter of an hour the two men went through the church’s quarterly accounts. Then Colonel Cherrington began to feel the need of his pre-dinner sherry, and knowing that he would get
none—none drinkable, at any rate—in this house, rose to take his leave.

“Mrs. Torridge well, I hope,” he asked, or rather stated.

“Rather poorly, Colonel; rather poorly.”

Knowing that his visitor would not want to listen to a record of feminine ailments, the Vicar switched to a subject more congenial to the old soldier.

“Do you think this Munich settlement will mean peace, Colonel? The Prime Minister seems very confident, but somehow . . .”

“Peace? Good God, no. Neither peace nor honour. We’ve sacrificed a valuable ally. The Czechs can fight, and they meant to fight; they’ve got a magnificent armament works at
Skoda, they could have held the Germans up till the French Army could reach them. Not only that, but the Russians might well have come in, too. I don’t trust the Russian Government, but the
people are fighters, when they’ve got weapons. The Reds have kept very quiet about their army, but they’re proud of it, and they didn’t make it for nothing. If we’d called
that fellow’s bluff we might have had peace; as it is, he’ll go on from one grab to another, and we’ve thrown away two valuable allies and lost our standing in the world into the
bargain. But none of our statesmen have courage now. Only Lloyd George; he’d got that, radical as he was, but he’s too old. And Churchill; he’s a fighter, and he was right about
India, but no one will listen to him.”

This tirade lasted till the Colonel had shrugged himself into his overcoat and was making for the front door.

“May I let you out by the garden gate, Colonel?” said the Vicar; “it will save you a hundred yards or so.”

The evening had grown colder during the last half-hour, as October evenings do after the warmest days. The moon had risen too, a three-quarter moon, but it was often obscured by drifting clouds,
and the rising wind sighed through the old trees that surrounded the Vicarage.

In spite of the cold, Torridge walked to the gate leading from his garden to the churchyard, and looked lovingly at his great church and its surroundings. He loved it at all times, but never
more than by moonlight, which accentuated its massive strength and added beauty to the old yew trees that surrounded it. Now the drifting clouds seemed to make the church move, too, the tower
appearing to sweep over towards the watcher with an effect that was both thrilling and terrifying. Torridge felt a little shiver pass through him, a shiver that might be physical or nervous.

The moon was shining now upon a far corner of the churchyard, illuminating a small white cross that stood by itself, close up against the dark yews. That would be Ellen Barton’s grave.

The Vicar stood contemplating the scene in a mood of sentimental melancholy. He hoped to lie in that corner himself one day. It had not been filled because of a wave of popular hostility to the
idea of lying near a suicide—the sort of unreasoning superstition that so often swayed country people. But now it was almost the only empty space left in the old graveyard. People were
changing their minds about it now. They did not like the new addition, outside the old boundary; it seemed less holy ground, consecrated as it had been. But he had been firm; he was keeping that
corner now for himself and for one or two of the elect. The Squire, of course, would lie in the family vault; but Colonel Cherrington had pegged out a claim, and so had Faundyce and Willison, and
others had a right to consideration who had not yet taken the step of talking to him about it.

Barton, no doubt, would some day join his wife in her uneasy grave; Barton was a grim, hard man, cold as ice, but he was a Christian, and though he never spoke of the subject, Torridge felt that
he had forgiven poor Ellen the sin for which she had paid so dearly.

During the Vicar’s melancholy reverie a heavy cloud had rolled over the moon, darkening the whole scene. Now it passed on, releasing the bright moonlight. But the scene was strangely
different. For a moment Torridge was puzzled; then his heart gave a bound as he realised that though moonlight flooded the corner, the white cross was no longer visible. A shadow seemed to cover
it, a shadow that moved and revealed itself as a dark figure, with the glimmer of a white face.

It was only a momentary glimpse before another heavy cloud blotted out the view. When it cleared all was as it had been at first. There was no figure now.

GREAT NORNE had once been a flourishing little port, in the days before railways drew a large part of the profit away from the coast-wise carrying trade; before, too, the small
independent fishing-boats had been practically driven out of business by the mechanised fleets from Yarmouth and other big ports. In the early nineteenth century it had attained its peak population
of over five thousand, but it was now down below three, and numbers were slowly but steadily falling.

The harbour lay a little way back from the sea, being approached by a wide creek which in the days of prosperity had been kept well dredged, but was now silting up, so that only vessels of very
light draught could use it. Coast-wise trade was a mere trickle, but a score or so of fishing-boats still made spasmodic efforts to earn a livelihood for their masters, and in the summer a short
visitor season brought useful money to the owners of the few heavy petrol-driven launches that took loads of cheerful trippers a little distance out to sea and along the coast for a few
shillings.

What saved Great Norne from complete stagnation was the fact that it had no near neighbours of comparable size. It was the shopping town for a dozen villages, and it was also the market town for
an area of some fifty square miles. Motor-cars and cattle-boxes were carrying the more go-ahead farmers to the bigger market town of Snottisham, twenty miles inland, but there were still enough of the
smaller men to bring useful business to Great Norne, and this had encouraged two of the Big Five Banks to build branches in the town, during their building boom after the Great War. Neither of
these, however, had been able to compete successfully with the old East Coast Bank, to which the conservative people of these parts still clung faithfully, in spite of its antiquated methods and
manuscript pass-books.

A single-line railway had its terminus at the town, and a narrow, tortuous coastal road ran through it, but a modern motor road had by-passed it by several miles—a fact to which the
inhabitants attributed their enviably low mortality rate. Aircraft were still a rare sight, though there were rumours of one or two large aerodromes being made farther inland.

Altogether, though they realised that they were out of the way and behind the times, the people of Great Norne were contented with their lot, proud of their old town and its stately church, and
ready to regard as an inferior being any ‘foreigner’ who had not been so fortunate as to be born within their parish bounds, or at least within the confines of their county.



Market Ordinary at the ‘Royal George’ was the social feature of the week in Great Norne. Market business was not of such volume as to prevent anyone from spending
an hour over this ritual luncheon, preceded usually by half an hour for short or long drinks in the spacious lounge with its modern corner bar.

On a Tuesday early in November three prosperous-looking farmers were sitting on one of the comfortable sofas, with a very small table holding three whiskies in front of them. Two were local
men—Fred Pollitt and Jeff Lorimer—both in their late forties and making a modest living out of three-hundred-acre farms. The third was a visitor, no less a person than county-famed John
Houghton, of Snottisham, a farmer and breeder on the thousand-acre scale, with a four-figure income deriving more from the breeding than the growing side of his business. He was paying a
long-promised visit to his old yeomanry friend, Pollitt, and had gratified local opinion by looking in on the market and buying a few young beasts at a generous figure.

“Yes, you’ve got a nice little market here, Fred,” said Mr. Houghton. “Too small a scale, of course, to get you far, but there were some nice beasts there.”

“It’s your Snottisham market that’s dropped our scale, Mr. Houghton,” said Lorimer. “The bigger men go there now, and it don’t help us one bit.”

“I suppose that’s so. You know, I think it’s your roads that’s half the trouble. Narrow and winding, they’re not fit to move stock on in these days of motor
traffic. And naturally, men who can run to motor transport for their stock prefer to use a bigger market.”

“Well, whose fault’s that?” asked Fred Pollitt warmly. “Your darned County Council. You won’t spend a penny on our roads, and take our money just the
same.”

Fred was a big man, of bucolic appearance, and his temper was inclined to flare up at slight provocation, especially when he had got a glass or two of whisky inside him.

“Not yours, Fred, nor yet mine,” retorted Houghton with a chuckle. “Government did us a good turn when they de-rated farm buildings. The little we pay on the house don’t
hurt us.”

“Maybe no,” grumbled his friend. “But you don’t give us a fair deal here, none the less. Look at that old timber bridge over Gaggle Brook. Come the rains and
Gaggle’s a torrent; that old bridge ain’t safe, and you know it. Put up temporary in Queen Victoria’s day and still there . . . but won’t be much longer, I reckon,
’cause Gaggle’ll have her down.”

“Ah, yes,” said Houghton. “I heard tell of that old bridge in Highways Committee. On the Holt road, ain’t it?”

“Yes, a mile out,” said Lorimer. “I come over it when I’m for town, and I tell you I don’t fancy it—not when there’s a flood coming down. Why, last . .
.”

A burst of loud laughter from the bar interrupted his remark. The three farmers looked across to see what was the cause of the merriment.

Among the legginged farmers leaning against the bar there was a youngish man of different type. Fawn cord trousers, a dark blue shirt, and a riding-jacket of check tweed set off his light, slim
figure to advantage. He had dark hair and a small, thin moustache, and was unquestionably handsome in a rather rakish style. He was grinning down at a short, grey-haired man, whose flushed face and
watery eyes were now crinkled with merriment; it was he whose shout of laughter had disturbed the sedate atmosphere of the lounge.

“Who’s young spark?” asked Houghton.

Fred Pollitt leaned closer to mutter in his ear.

“That’s Captain Hexman—old Colonel Cherrington’s son-in-law,” he said. “Quite a card, he is; generally got a good tale to tell, not always fit for the
ladies.”

“And the old chap with him?”

“Not so much older than you nor me, John. That’s Bert Gannett. You know him. He was in the Yeomanry with us in Palestine.”

Houghton stared at the subject of his question.

“Good God! Gannett,” he said in a low voice. “I’d never have known him. What’s he done to himself?”

Fred Pollitt shrugged his heavy shoulders.

“The old trouble,” he said; “can’t keep his elbow down. Personally I think it was that sock on the head he got at Gaza that done the mischief. When he come out of
hospital in Cairo he got on the loose with the Aussies, going the rounds and that like. His head wasn’t strong enough to stand it.”

“Rotten luck,” said Houghton. “I never knew him intimate, but I’d have said he was a steady chap, with something to him.”

“He was that. What’s more, he was in a fair way to be one of the big men round here. Owned the Manor Farm—his father had bought it from Squire before the war—was on the
District Council, and such-like. But people wouldn’t stand for his drinking, and he got chucked off one thing after another. His girl gave him the chuck, too; might have pulled him round if
she’d stuck to him. Of course, he’s still got the Manor, but he lives there like a pig, only an old labourer’s wife to look after him, and the land gone to ruin; in a shocking
state it is.”

Another burst of laughter came from the bar. Captain Hexman was evidently trying to detach himself from the maudlin Gannett, who was patting him on the arm and trying to persuade him to
‘have another’.

“Not to-day, Gannett. I must be off to lunch. Won’t do to keep the Colonel waiting.”

“Do the old mucker good. Your pardon, Cap’n; shouldn’t say that. You come along to my place one evening. Got something there, I have—nice drop of something that does you
good. Any evening you fancy; I’m always there. No competition for Bert Gannett’s company these days. Kindness to come and have a yarn with me.”

“Of course I’ll come; delighted. So long now. Morning, Mrs. Winch. Morning, everybody.”

With a wave of the hand, George Hexman strode towards the entrance, but paused to have a word with Fred Pollitt. He leant down to him and murmured:

“Old Gannett’s two over the eight this morning, I’m afraid. Daresay you’ll keep an eye on him.”

“I generally do that, market days,” said Pollitt drily. “You know Mr. Houghton? Big man on the N.F.U., County Council, and all that. Come to show us how to do things in
Norne.”

The two men shook hands.

“Don’t pay any attention to him, Captain Hexman,” said the visitor. “He’s jealous ’cause I outbid him for a pair of heifers he thought he was going to get on
the cheap. You’ve got a nice market here, I’ve been telling them.”

“I haven’t,” laughed Hexman. “I’m only a foreigner, as they call anyone who wasn’t born in the place. But I agree, it’s a good market, and
Great Norne’s a place to be fond of. But I must be getting on. Glad to have met you, Mr. Houghton. Morning, Pollitt; morning, Lorimer.”

“Seems an affable sort of chap,” said Houghton, when the soldier was out of earshot.

“Oh, yes, he’s that all right. Bit too affable, some of them thinks. Personally I like him; gives himself no airs and always got a cheery word.”

“Can’t think how a young chap can kick his heels about doing nothing,” said the quiet Lorimer.

“He’s not in the Army now, then?” asked Houghton.

“No, retired when he married the Colonel’s daughter. I fancy the old Colonel’s not too pleased about it. He’s not so well off as he used to be, they do say. Probably
doesn’t see why he should keep the Captain in luxury.”

“And I don’t blame him,” said Lorimer. “The young fellow does a bit in London at times—Stock Exchange or something—but it can’t be steady work because
he’s down here so much. Bit of a parasite, I’d call him.”

Unconscious of the verbal autopsy to which he was being subjected, Captain George Hexman was meanwhile striding down the High Street towards Monks Holme, the old house on the eastern outskirts
of the town which was the home of Colonel Cherrington. What he was conscious of was the fact that he had had perhaps two whiskies too many and that his wife would certainly have something to say
about it. Still, for the moment the effect was agreeable and his heart was enlarged unto his fellow men. So much so that he stopped to greet the first person whom he met upon his homeward way. This
was Richard Barton, the principal builder of the town, a sturdy, thickset man of about fifty, dark, handsome, but with an expression so coldly grim that under normal conditions Hexman would have
thought twice about casting a fly over him. However, those two extra whiskies. . . .

“Morning, Mr. Barton. You on your way to the ‘George’?”

The builder did not check his stride, but raised his hand to his bowler hat, said: “Good-morning, sir,” and continued on his way.

A flush of angry colour deepened the existing tint on Hexman’s face. He stared after Barton, and did not at first notice a small car that had drawn up at the kerb beside him. A young man
put his head out of the window.

“Morning, George. That was a fairly short talk you had with Barton.”

“Surly—,” muttered Hexman. “Oh, hullo, doc; I didn’t see you. What’s the matter with that chap?”

Dr. Stopp extracted hi. . .