The Whipping Boys

Book 772: Murder Room

by Guy Cullingford

Genres: Mystery; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

As Miss Maggs made her way nervously home, a clock stuck one, the town's lights were switched off and footsteps sounded behind her. She broke into a desperate run. Later the doctor pronounced that she had literally died of fright. In a provincial town, who was there to suspect but the rowdy gang led by Nick Salter? But Nick's young wife swore to an alibi for him and so Sergeant Brent - a trifle embarrassed as a beneficiary under the will of the deceased - must look deeper into a case in which teenagers might too easily be made the whipping boys for the crimes of others.

Release date: November 14, 2015

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 189

Sample

‘WELL, now that you’re here,’ said Miss Maggs, ‘I might as well be getting along.’

‘Oh, I’m afraid we’re dreadfully late,’ said young Mrs Seymour, underlining every fifth word in her usual lavish way. ‘But it was such a good
party, and the people were so amusing.’

She still wore her short fur coat over her cocktail frock. Her eyes were brilliant from the excitement of the evening, and her little ears, from which some fantastic ear-rings dangled, were
still a shade pink from the reception of compliments.

‘But Maggsy, I did have you most horribly on my conscience. Sitting here alone for all that time with no one to hold your hand.’

‘I should think not, indeed,’ said Miss Maggs.

‘Was everything all right? Was baby good? Did she wake up?’

‘Slept as sound as a top,’ said Miss Maggs, smiling. ‘Always does. I don’t know why you pay me.’

‘How could we ever go out if it wasn’t for you, my kind angel? What’s happened to Geoffrey? He’s still putting the car away.’

‘There’s a kettle on the stove just on the boil, and the tea-tray set,’ said Miss Maggs.

‘Ah, that’s just the thing. I’m practically dying for it. And old Geoff needs it. You know, Maggsy, he can’t carry his drink half as well as I can.’

‘You’re welcome to all your nasty alcohol,’ said Miss Maggs severely. ‘Give me a nice cup of tea and I’m content.’

‘Well, I hope you made yourself lots. Was there anything good on the television?’

‘I had it on for a bit, but it was one of those creepy, shadowy plays where you can’t get to see what anybody’s doing,’ said Miss Maggs.

‘Oh, bad luck. You should have fiddled away at the old knobs until it came brighter.’

‘It wouldn’t have helped. The man came on at the beginning to say that was how it was meant to be.’

‘Oh dear, dear. Aha! There’s Geoff. Can’t even get his key in the lock first try. Geoff, you villain! Look at the time! It’s nearly one. And here’s poor old Maggsy
got to go home at this unearthly hour all that way by her lonesome. Wouldn’t you like him to run you home in the car, Maggsy?’

‘You might have mentioned it earlier, darling, before I put the damned car into the damned garage,’ said Mr Geoffrey Seymour sourly. The difference in the way he and his wife carried
their drinks was, as Miss Maggs had noted before, that where one of them became ready to hand you the earth on a plate, the other stood by to knock it out of your grasp.

‘I shouldn’t hear of it anyway,’ she hastened to interpose.

‘Thinks I’ll run her into the river, does she?’ said Mr Seymour, sulking. ‘Well, I might do at that. I’ve already left most of the paintwork on the garage door. Why
didn’t you wait and see me in, darling?’

‘You wouldn’t let me, if you remember. Well then, if you won’t drive Maggsy home, walk down with her past the dark bit.’

‘Then she’d have to come back with me. We’d be seeing each other home all night.’

‘The trouble with you, old dear, is that you’re squiffy. You’re practically stinking.’

Her delightful voice robbed these inelegant words of any offence – they almost sounded admiring.

But her husband was not appeased. ‘I strongly object to that, darling. Yes, I take a very poor view of your insin –insin –’ Here he gave it up as a bad job.

He looked so grumpy and aggressive that Miss Maggs said hurriedly: ‘Well, I’m off. I’ll let myself out, Mrs Seymour. Now, don’t you bother about me. I’m old enough
to look after myself.’

‘Just what I say,’ commented Mr Seymour. ‘Who’s going to interfere with her?’

‘Geoff! Don’t take any notice of him, Maggsy. Are you quite sure you’ll be all right? The telly play didn’t make you nervous?’

‘Pooh! Things don’t happen like that in real life.’

‘But it’s pitchy black outside.’

‘I’ve got my torch. You’ll let me know when you want me next.’

‘Rather? But I say, you haven’t been paid for tonight yet. Geoffrey, Maggsy hasn’t been paid.’

‘Let her wait for it,’ said her husband, who, when not in his cups, had the best manners for miles.

‘Don’t you worry,’ said Miss Maggs, who could have done with the money. ‘You won’t run away, I know. I’ll have it next time I come.’

‘What a blessing you are!’

‘Don’t forget the tea,’ warned Miss Maggs over her shoulder. ‘Don’t let the kettle boil dry. Night-night, all!’

Wasting electricity like that, thought Miss Maggs, coming out of the front door into a drive ablaze with light as if it were high noon. In their present state they were likely
to leave it on all night. But, of course, it didn’t matter to them. The times might have robbed them of the nannies and maids which twenty years ago would have been their unquestioned right,
but they weren’t yet reduced to the state where they had to bite their nails over the payment of an electricity bill. What would it be: twenty or thirty pounds perhaps just for the quarter?
and they wouldn’t turn a hair. Whereas if mine was five I should have a fit and start going to bed with a candle. It simply wouldn’t enter their minds that there were those who even had
to think twice before buying a battery for a torch, she reflected ruefully. I must save mine for an emergency; I know it’s nearly run out.

The gravel scrunched under her feet and she saw the erratic path of Mr Geoffrey’s tyres coming in, a sight which made her thankful that she was excused from being his passenger. I like to
get home in one piece, she thought.

Home! That was where she was longing to be. Of course the fire would have gone out long ago, although she had banked it well, but the sitting-room would still be as warm as toast. She would make
herself one of her own cups of tea which tasted better than the Seymours’ superior brand and was ever so much browner. Then she would sit and sip it and think about a hundred little things of
no possible interest to anyone but Gertie Maggs.

The Seymours’ white gate swung back on its hinges and latched itself. She turned to the right and left the bright, theatrical green of the floodlit garden behind her like a deserted stage.
Immediately the broad residential road stretched before her, remote and mysterious, twice as wide as in the daytime and as alien to the idea of milk-floats and tradesmen’s vans as a route
through the Sahara.

Miss Maggs glanced upwards with relief at one of the borough engineer’s new sodium lamps. Looks like a leggy stick of asparagus with a drop of melted butter at the end, she thought
irreverently. No wonder the residents let out such a howl. There was something friendly and companionable about the old kind of standard with its sturdy base and lantern top which even a dog could
appreciate. As for these horrors, even the light was wrong, being bright and far off and as vulgar as a marigold.

It was odd how everything had changed since her walk up to the Seymours’ at six. It must have been dark and there must have been the lights but there was so much coming and going that
these things failed to register. There were large, silent cars rolling up driveways with large silent men exhausted from money-making; there were small noisy cars charging down with lively
youngsters ready to exhaust themselves getting rid of it.

The wavering beams of bicycles passed her on their return to the country.

There were couples on the footpath, laughing and talking.

It was never what you might call a crowded road but it had its habitual users. Now it was stripped to the buff; just bare road.

Miss Maggs had the quaint idea that big houses on either side had opened ranks so that they appeared at once farther away and more widely spaced. She searched in vain for one window showing
signs of humanity; the reading lamp of the bad sleeper, the comforting speck of the nursery nightlight, even the quick switch on and off for the visit down the passage. There was nothing, nothing
at all.

Suddenly a large board reared itself up from behind a hedge, scaring her for an instant into thinking that a giant was peering at her over the bushes.

So that was another one gone. The St Clairs had moved out at last. Everyone knew when the old gentleman resigned his membership of the golf-club and she stopped all her annual subscriptions that
they couldn’t last out much longer. Pity about that though; they had been there for as long as she remembered. With all this taxation and income from investments at rock-bottom, life
wasn’t what it was for the Old Guard. It might look all right on the surface – but the surface was as thin as the skin on boiled milk.

And what hope is there for humbler folk brought up in the same tradition? thought Miss Maggs, brought to this daunting truth by time and place and a sinking stomach. What have you got to boast
of, anyway, Gertie Maggs?

True, in a Welfare State you couldn’t starve, but you could come perilously near it. The tiny nest-egg which her mother had left her was steadily diminishing until now it was no bigger
than a hedge-sparrow’s. Her little home was her own, but that meant that she had to keep up the repairs on it. There was a slate off the roof after the winter gales, the front gate hung by a
thread, and all of it was in sad need of a coat of paint. Coal was as precious as diamonds and nearly as dear. Thank goodness she didn’t need many clothes; but still, however carefully
preserved, things wore out, and some of them had to be replaced.

But then things were always turning up, she assured herself stoutly. For instance this job of baby-sitting. If Elsie Brent, dear old Elsie who had married a policeman and thus put paid to the
notion of them living together, a pair of happy old maids, which they had cherished as girls – if Elsie hadn’t met young Mrs Seymour in the town and said ‘I know just the one
you’re looking for,’ well, she wouldn’t have been walking down this lonely road at nearly one o’clock in the morning. Wasn’t it lucky that Mrs Seymour had taken to
her, especially as she knew she wasn’t everyone’s choice being a bit prim and proper and set in her ways? ‘Maggsy’ indeed, thought Miss Maggs, not quite decided whether to
be pleased or offended. Well, I suppose it shows she’s fond of me. She may be flighty but she was brought up as a lady and I’d walk farther than this to help her out. If it wasn’t
for my groggy knee I might even enjoy the walk. But then, if it wasn’t for the arthritis I could take on some other kind of work more profitable than baby-minding.

I must be walking heavily, she thought. Or else it’s the quiet. I sound like Sam Brent clumping along. He may be in the C. I. D. now but he still walks as if he was on the beat. Poor Sam!
I wonder if his ears have been burning this evening. Here’s the Larches where someone walked off with all that table silver the week before last.

‘Just boys,’ Sam Brent had said when she taxed him with neglecting to find the culprit. ‘Just a bunch of no-good hooligans taking it in turn to ransack the pantry.’

‘Pooh. This isn’t London.’

‘My dear Gert, this isn’t a local problem. It’s universal.’

‘Then why don’t you do something about it?’

‘I will if they get too bobbish. I know where to lay my hands on them. They can’t do your rich friends much harm,’ he added with a sly dig at her, she knew, for her
old-fashioned gentry-worship. ‘Just relieve them of a few of their bits and pieces.’

‘And you call that nothing?’

‘Property isn’t all that sacred, Gert, not nowadays.’

‘You’d say different if it was your forks and spoons.’

‘Maybe I should. But the fact is, Gert, I can’t spare my men to stand guard over the nobs’ houses in place of the staff they haven’t got.’

‘But the cheek of it – in broad daylight. However can they tell there’s no one at home?’

‘Haven’t you heard of the telephone? The housebreaker’s accomplice, that’s what I call that ruddy instrument.’

‘I’d be ashamed to let a mere boy get the better of me.’

‘I guess I must be getting slack. I’m about due for retirement, that’s what it is, Gert.’

‘You expect me to believe that!’

‘Ah, they’ll grow out of it.’

It was all right to take that easy line, but what about when one of these thieving boys slipped over a garden wall as bold as brass and landed by your very feet? He didn’t stay bold, not
he! As soon as he saw her he went as white as dough and his eyes looked about to pop out of his head. She knew him and he knew her, and just for an instant they stared at each other aghast before
he threw off her detaining hand and went pelting off, while she called after him, voice throbbing with timidity: ‘What have you been after, you scoundrel?’ Then she’d gone home
herself and written a sharp note to Brent; she recognized her duty if he didn’t. But she didn’t send it. Mother always said when you’re upset write your letter but
don’t post it. And sitting alone at the Seymours’ she decided she never would.

She might be foolish, but it had dawned on her that she and Sam Brent were a pair. Though by training and inclination she was so strictly honest that a respect for the goods of others was a part
of her flesh, she believed with all her heart that a person was of more value than a chattel. Report the boy and what happened? He would come before the magistrates, probably be let off as a first
offender and be put on probation. Nothing very dreadful in that, you might say. But he’d lose his job and lose his character and might be started downhill for life. Well, it might be wrong
and immoral but she couldn’t do it. He’d had a fright and probably that would be enough to straighten him out, especially if he was only one of a gang of silly muddle-headed boys egging
each other on to acts of devilment. Live and let live, she said to herself sheepishly. But Ma wouldn’t have approved. Oh, no.

Away in the distance a clock made a single chime, and the sound came to her very clear and pure like a sound over the water.

Out went the street lighting.

Down went Miss Maggs’s heart into the sole of her sensible walking shoes.

She stood stock still for a moment before starting to fumble for her torch.

Then when she had hold of it between her gloved finger and thumb, she found that the world which had been completely black had re-registered itself as black and grey. Immediately she was
reminded of the television screen where ordinary objects had only to be dimly seen to terrify. It was crazy to think that the ditch beside her had suddenly become full of reptiles and was crawling
with snakes and toads. She did think it.

With a big effort she pulled herself together. She had her first finger on the switch of the torch but she delayed putting it on. Instead she looked for comfort towards the town, which, because
of the surrounding darkness, had become a nest of incandescence. Down by the river there was a steady glow. It was only on the outskirts that the lights had been dowsed. She ought to be pleased
that someone was thinking about keeping the rates down.

There’s nothing there in the dark that wasn’t there in the light, she told herself firmly.

There was just this short gap – yes, really quite a short gap between where she was now and the river.

For the first time since leaving the Seymours’ central heating, she was conscious of the cold. But what could one expect in the early spring at one in the morning? Wasn’t it round
these ghostly hours that vitality was at its lowest ebb? When old folk slid gently from life into death without waking up to do it? By two she would be in her own comfortable bed with a hot-water
bottle at the foot, and perhaps, who knows? another at the top. Who was to interfere if she was inclined to spoil herself?

She began to walk again but at a much slower pace. The path which had seemed as smooth as butter was now full of bumps and roughnesses. The hedge towered over her like a cliff. Let me keep my
thoughts on the town, she scolded herself. How compact it looks, like a model – a fascinating model all lighted up. There are the churches – St Edmund’s, the short squat tower,
and All Saints, the delicate spire. There is the Town Hall; and there is the Memorial Hall. Well, really it does look like a boot-box and no mistake. What was that? Oh, just a twig I must have
trodden on. I’m all ears. The night is full of noises if you listen for them. You’re getting quite poetic, my girl; what a pity you don’t get paid for it. If only this were
festival week there’d be bound to be more people about! There couldn’t very well be less, as there’s nobody. Nobody at all. So much the better. You aren’t afraid of nobody,
are you, Gertie Maggs? That would be daft.

Her nervousness was beginning to sc. . .