Here Lies Gloria Mundy

‘Oh, Aunt Eglantine will say anything which comes into her head. She is not to be relied on. I’m sure Gloria was far enough away before Aunt climbed into the house and had her accident when the staircase collapsed. The old nuisance has a bee in her bonnet. She didn’t meet the girl there. All the same, the house must have been set on fire deliberately and I’m going to find out who did it. It was just a piece of wanton destruction on a par with all the other lawless, senseless behaviour which goes on nowadays, and somehow it’s got to be stopped.’

‘Easier said than done,’ I remarked. ‘In these cases of wilful damage by louts the police seem to be helpless.’

However, they were not so helpless as to ignore a most grievous occurrence which was the aftermath of the fire. What hit us next day was the appalling news that a body had been found among the charred embers of the old house.

The news was brought by the gardener. He came up to the house early next morning and asked to see Anthony. Anthony was busy. He was one of the churchwardens of a church in the town and he and his companion-in-office had planned to go over the church accounts before they submitted them to the usual auditors, so he told the maid who came with the message to refer the gardener to Celia.

I knew about this because I was with Celia at the time. We were in the little garden room to which he already had brought some fine hothouse chrysanthemums for the vases. I was stripping the lower leaves from the tall, woody stems and getting in some gentle tapping on them with a light hammer, and she was doing the flower arrangements. The gardener, who had been kept at the back door while the maid apprised Anthony of his arrival, was shown into the garden room on Anthony’s orders.

‘I’m sorry, mum,’ he said, twisting his tweed hat in his enormous hands, ‘but I aimed to have spoke to the master.’

‘He is too busy to see you, Platt. What do you want?’

‘He didn’t ought to be too busy to see me if he knowed what I come about.’

‘Well, you can tell me what you have come about and I will let him know what it is as soon as he is free.’

‘It’s about the old house, mum. Something us found there, me and the lad.’

‘Well, what was it?’

‘Beg pardon, mum, but it’s for the master, not you, if you’ll excuse me. There’s something as the fire chief and me think as he ought to see.“

‘Oh, get on with it, Platt! What is it?’

Even then it did not occur to me, nor, I am sure, to Celia, that he was talking about a burnt and blackened corpse which he had found among the ashes.

7

Ichabod

« ^ »

This shocking news brought along the police, of course. Anthony’s complaint about destructive hooligans went by the board in the face of this far more serious issue. According to the firemen, petrol or paraffin must have been poured over the heap of chopped-up timber in the hall for the house to have burnt so fiercely.

‘If only we’d moved the stuff out instead of my taking time off to go out in my car to visit Hetty Pegler’s Tump!’ I said remorsefully.

‘Nonsense, my dear chap. I put the job off myself because I wanted the fallen leaves swept off the lawn. But this business is the very devil. One of the wretched gang of youths who thought they would amuse themselves by setting fire to the place must have been trapped by the flames or overcome by the smoke, and his mates ran off and left him to it.’

It turned out to be even worse than that. The fire must have been started with the deliberate intention of covering up a murder, and the corpse was not that of a boy, but of a woman.

We did not know this at first. At the preliminary interview which Anthony had, the uniformed inspector who called took a most unexpected line. I was not present, of course, but got a full account later. The inspector asked whether Anthony had ever suspected that the old house had been taken over by squatters.

‘Most certainly not,’ my friend replied. ‘The house was quite unfit for human habitation. Besides, I have had an offer for it from somebody who was prepared to do it up — the headmaster of the preparatory school next door. He has been inside it more than half a dozen times during the past month or so and would have informed me at once of any tenants. Apart from that, my gardener would have known if anybody had been living there. Besides, I myself passed the house every time I went to the garage for my car. What makes you ask about squatters?’

‘In a corner of the cellar which the fire had hardly reached we found empty tins which had contained food and beer, sir.’

‘Sounds more like a passing tramp. Anyway, I’m certain the house had not been taken over by squatters.’

‘Have you missed any food lately?’

‘You had better ask my cook. She has made no mention of anything missing from her stores.’

‘Oh, well, that can wait, sir. I mentioned we have evidence that the house was occupied. I take it you have heard of the body discovered among the débris?’