Bleeding Hooks Page 7

  “So what?” said Gunn again.

  “So I’m going to play murder.”

  “That soppy game!” said Gunn in disgusted tones. “Why, that went out with Bright Young Things. Be your age, Pussy. You don’t seriously expect old Haddox and Co. to help you, do you?”

  “Of course not,” replied the girl. “I don’t mean that old game, anyway. It’s a new one I’ve just invented.”

  “Oh, all right,” said Gunn. “I’ll play. What do we do first?”

  Pussy got up and stretched her boyish figure.

  “We go down to the lake and find the spot where X marks the body,” she said. “Come on!”

  Chapter 11

  Gunn gave full vent to his feelings as they bumped their way along the rough lane leading to the lake in the old two-seater car, which was the best he could afford on his allowance as a third-year medical student. He had christened it the “Iron Lung” for obvious reasons.

  The evening was cold, and a heavy October mist rose from the lake and obscured the feeble lights from the headlamps. At times, the car scraped against a wall, and at times, a hedge clung to the cloth hood with thorny fingers. The lake was six miles long, and the bay where the boats had been fishing in the morning, some five miles away, although at their present rate of progress it seemed more like thirty.

  At last Pussy stuck her fingers in her ears.

  “For God’s sake shut up, Piggy,” she screamed. “If I hear any more of that language, I shall start, myself, and you know how difficult it is to keep my conversation clean in front of Mother. That’s why it’s such a strain to go for a holiday with her. Up to now my language has been as pure as the driven snow, but if I once let myself go, I shan’t be able to stop when we get back to the hotel.”

  “Serves you right for dragging me out here,” grumbled Gunn, but he stopped swearing.

  “I had a look for the others in the hotel before we came out,” said Pussy, “and as far as I could see, they were all there except the Pindars. You now, it was funny that she didn’t come down to tea. He said it was because she was upset about Mrs. Mumsby, but I don’t see why she should have felt more upset than anyone else. She didn’t think much of her.”

  “I suppose what really happened was that Mr. Pindar killed Mrs. Mumsby, and his wife ran down to the lake while we were having tea, to remove the evidence,” sneered Gunn. “I really do think...” He broke off abruptly and jammed on the brakes, which uttered wild squeals of protest, and the car came to a bucking standstill.

  “When you’ve quite finished!” exclaimed Pussy. “That’s my head, that was! Oh! There’s a car here already. Didn’t I tell you that there was something up? Why should anyone come down here in the dark unless they’re up to some funny business.”

  “Speak for yourself,” retorted Gunn. “But it is queer, I give you that. Of course, someone may have driven down to the bay this morning while their ghillie rowed the boat down to meet them. I’ve known people do that.”

  “But the car wouldn’t still be here,” objected the girl, “and besides, everyone was in to tea except Mrs. Pindar, and I don’t think she can drive. Perhaps the car broke down.”

  “No one would leave it here all night,” replied Gunn. “They would have sent the car from the hotel to tow it back. And if it had broken down recently, we should have met the driver walking towards the village. No one owns a car in these mountains, that’s a certainty. Well, we can soon find out.” He parked his own car close to the hedge, then switched off the engine, and climbed out. He put his hand on the radiator of the other car.

  “It’s warm,” he said in a whisper. “Someone has just got here, but why didn’t they leave the sidelights on?”

  “Perhaps it’s a petting party,” suggested Pussy.

  Gunn nodded.

  “Perhaps,” he said. “I’ll go and have a look. You stay here.” Pussy’s reply was lurid, and lasted for several seconds.

  “And whose idea was this, yours or mine?” she demanded finally.

  “All right, you little guttersnipe,” said Gunn, taking an electric torch, shaped like a pencil, out of his waistcoat pocket. “I smell red herrings, but come on, and don’t make a noise.”

  He led the way slowly off the road on to the uneven, grassy land leading towards the lake, and threaded his way with sure-footed instinct round the large boulders which loomed up in front of them. Suddenly he snapped out the little torch, and in the misty silence which enfolded them, Pussy wriggled her toes, and felt possessed by an atavistic urge to run up a tree, and cling to the highest branch with a nonexistent tail. She looked in the direction in which Gunn, like a well-trained pointer, was set, motionless, and saw a blurred circle of light wavering about near the edge of the water.

  “Somebody’s lost something,” she whispered inanely.

  “It’s probably Major Jeans looking for his grandmother’s false teeth,” hissed Gunn, moving forward. “Now is the time for all young men to go to the aid of the party!” He raised his voice and shouted, “Want any help?” and the light was immediately extinguished.

  But Gunn was not a rugger three-quarter for nothing, and his adrenal glands were working at full speed. He stabbed the darkness with his pencil light, and with a superb tackle, he hurled his heavy body outwards and downwards to the spot where he had seen two legs. To Pussy’s confused mind came the sound of a struggle which seemed to last for half an hour, but which was, in reality, almost non-existent.

  “Don’t touch my hands, you fool!” came a voice out of the darkness.

  “Mr. Winkley!” gasped Gunn.

  Chapter 12

  Mr. Winkley looking exasperated, Gunn rueful, and Pussy Partridge smug and self-satisfied, eyed one another over glasses which held sherry, Worthington, and gin-and-lime respectively.

  “I might have known that you two would come butting in,” remarked the former. “You Bright Young Things can’t keep your noses out of affairs which don’t concern you. It’s the result of all those wild Treasure Hunts, I suppose.”

  And that remark sealed Mr. Winkley’s fate, for Pussy violently disliked the appellation. To her, Bright Young Things were antiquated. Most of those whom she knew had already become “hags”, and by this time had acquired several babies or divorces, or both. Mr. Winkley, she decided, must be made to pay for this lack of tact. Whereupon she conjured up her sweetest smile, and asked artlessly:

  “What were you doing down by the lake in the dark, Mr. Winkley?”

  Mr. Winkley sipped his sherry, and grimaced.

  “Flavoured with blackcurrant,” he grumbled. “Why is it that hotels never can provide a decent sherry? A good, reliable Amontillado doesn’t cost much, and even if it’s a little unimaginative, it’s at least drinkable. But the stuff they stock in most hotel bars is pure muck.”

  “I know,” agreed Pussy. “That’s why I drink this” – holding up the pale-green liquid – “although I know what you men call it. But aren’t you rather evading my question? After all, we’ve already told you what we were doing down there, and Piggy has apologized very prettily for bumping your head against that rock. I think it’s really up to you to explain yourself.”

  “Well, Miss Partridge – it is Partridge, isn’t it?...” began Mr. Winkley.

  “Yes, but everyone calls me Pussy, even Mother, unless she’s annoyed with me,” replied the girl, with an airy sweep of her hand. “I suppose you think our names are silly – too farmyard altogether, in fact – but they’re not nearly so silly as the ones our parents gave us. Our surnames are bad enough – Major Jeans calls us, ‘Game and Gun’. They couldn’t do anything about those, of course, but they might have had a bit of sense over the others. Piggy’s parents named him Florence Vyvyan – the Vyvyan has ‘y’s, too! – and mine christened me Pansy! Claude Weston isn’t much better either. He’s Claude Lionel Everard, if you please. But I honestly think that mine takes first prize. It wouldn’t have been so bad if they’d chosen Viola, but Pansy...! I ask you! Do I look like a Pansy
?”

  Mr. Winkley gave an emphatic “No!” to the double implication of the question, and then continued, “Well, Miss Partridge, I must say that I quite fail to see that the way in which I choose to spend my evenings is any business of yours, and if Mr. Gunn goes about attacking everyone he happens to meet at night, he will soon find himself in the local gaol.”

  “Look here!” began Gunn, but the girl interrupted him.

  “Very well,” she said. “I don’t mind if you choose to be secretive about it. It only shows that you have got something to hide, and I’m sure all the other people in the hotel will be most interested to hear where we found you this evening. You can’t expect us to keep quiet about it.”

  Mr. Winkley leaned forward.

  “Oh no!” he exclaimed. “You mustn’t go around telling people. It’s very important that you shouldn’t mention it to anyone.”

  Pussy laughed.

  “And who’s going to stop me?” she demanded. “If you tell us all about it, I promise I won’t breathe a word to a living soul, and you can absolutely trust both of us. But if you won’t let us into the secret, we’ll talk, won’t we, Piggy? And how!”

  Gunn looked uncomfortable.

  “I’m afraid it’s true, sir,” he said. “Pussy’s like that, and she’s so pig-headed that you couldn’t do anything about it, short of throttling her, and I’ve often been tempted to do that. If you keep anything from her, she’ll go to any lengths to find out what it’s all about, and she’ll ask everyone she sees, and discuss it all with them. But once she’s on your side, she’ll be as mum as an oyster. Honestly, I give you my word.” Mr. Winkley faced this predicament with great annoyance. He looked from the one face to the other as if to seek some assurance that he would not be relying on people of straw, and apparently he found it, for without more ado he said:

  “It is most necessary, for reasons which I’m sure you’re intelligent enough to see, that no one except ourselves should know that I was down by the lake this evening. Miss Partridge ‘had a hunch’ that everything was not straightforward about Mrs. Mumsby’s death. Well, I had a similar hunch for different reasons. In my job, I’ve learned not to despise hunches. I’m a kind of – of research-worker” (the hesitation was scarcely perceptible), “and I find that hunches frequently succeed where logic fails. Will you have another drink?”

  “No, thanks,” said Pussy hastily. “Do go on.”

  “Hold your horses!” exclaimed Gunn. “That must be the first time in her young life that she ever refused a drink. Is this a record?”

  “Shut up, Piggy! What was your hunch, Mr. Winkley?”

  “I suppose it began by being just an inexplicable feeling, like yours.” Pussy shot a triumphant little glance at Gunn. “When I saw Mrs. Mumsby’s body, I felt that there was something wrong about it, something incongruous. Then it suddenly struck me that it was the fly which was sticking up in her hand.”

  “There!” exclaimed Pussy. “Didn’t I say that it could never have killed her?”

  Mr. Winkley shook his head.

  “On the contrary,” he said, “I believe that it did. It was the size of the fly which had impressed itself on my mind. I suddenly realized that it was a salmon fly.”

  “Oh!” said Pussy blankly.

  “Don’t take any notice of her,” said Gunn. “She has no logic in her system. You mean that it was strange for Mrs. Mumsby to get a salmon fly stuck in her hand, when she was fishing for trout?”

  “That’s it,” replied Mr. Winkley. “I’d heard her say often, when I was down here before, that she wasn’t interested in salmon-fishing. Mrs. Evans says she never booked a beat on the river, nor even went out with anyone else who was after salmon. There were no salmon flies in the fly-box which lay open beside her, nor did she have a salmon rod out with her today.”

  “I don’t suppose she possessed one,” said Gunn. “Everyone knew that she only fished for trout, and not very seriously for them, either.”

  “I’m sorry to spoil the Old Boys’ Reunion, and all that,” put in Pussy, “but I really don’t see why she shouldn’t have been looking at a salmon fly. I can think of half a dozen ways in which she might have taken one into her hand.”

  “Such as?” asked Mr. Winkley.

  “Well, someone might have given it to her, or asked her opinion of it,” began Pussy.

  “Exactly,” replied Mr. Winkley.

  “But I don’t mean today,” persisted Pussy. “I mean, weeks ago. I don’t fish at all, but I have a trout fly that I keep because he” – nodding towards Gunn – “once gave it to me. She might have been looking at it for sentimental reasons.”

  The two men appeared to ignore her.

  “What sized fly was it?” asked Gunn. “After all, you can get anything in a salmon fly from the specially small low-water pattern, which isn’t any larger than a big trout fly, up to those enormous monstrosities they use in Iceland.”

  “That’s not easy to say offhand,” replied Mr. Winkley, “because different makers still make their hooks to different scales. I should say it’s made on a two-inch hook similar to those described in Hardy’s catalogue as ‘taper-shanked, down-turned-eyed’.”

  “And how far was it embedded in her hand?”

  “So deeply that the barb was completely covered, and the body of the fly rested along the palm of her hand.”

  “And she died from shock.” Gunn thought it over for a moment. “Of course, you can get a nasty wound from one of those flies,” he reflected, “and if you had a heart as groggy as hers, it might be enough to kill you. It’s a nauseating kind of pain, like cutting your finger on the edge of a rusty tin. But I don’t see how it could have got so deeply into her hand.”

  “I can think of several ways in which it might have done so,” replied Mr. Winkley, “but they all argue the presence of some other person. The whole thing is right for natural death – atmosphere, details, everything fits into the picture. She was fishing; she landed for lunch; she put her rod down on one side of her and an open fly-box on the other; she handled a salmon fly, stuck it accidentally into the palm of her hand, and died of heart-failure brought on by shock. It’s all in order, and yet that fly looks out of focus to me.”

  “So you really think,” said Gunn doubtfully, “that someone else handed her the fly, pulled it into her hand by the attached gut, and beat it?”

  “I do and I don’t,” was the unsatisfactory reply. “You see, there was no gut attached to the fly when I found it, and no sign of any gut lying around. I’m sorry,” he added as the look of incredulity deepened on Gunn’s face, “but you brought all this on yourselves. If you hadn’t been so damned inquisitive, I should have gone over all this by myself, and decided that it was all nonsense. I warned you that it was a hunch, and wouldn’t stand the test of logic. Look here, let’s forget all about it, and I won’t go into it any further. It’s probably my brain working overtime, anyway. It hasn’t had time to grow accustomed to the holiday atmosphere.”

  “Oh no, you don’t,” said Pussy. “If your hunch is enough to drag you out of a warm hotel on a cold evening like this, there must be something in it. You’re one of those unemotional individuals like me, and you don’t put yourself out for nothing. This is the first bit of excitement I’ve had in three weeks, and I’m going to enjoy it properly. Of course I’d rather sleuth with you two, but if you don’t want to go on with it, I shall ask in the hotel for volunteers. I should think they’d jump at it. But whatever happens, I shall sleuth.”

  Gunn looked appealingly at Mr. Winkley.

  “If you really think there’s anything to find out, we might as well go ahead,” he said. “She’ll do what she says, you know, and it will only make her unpopular with the others. It might be fun, and if there should be something in it –”

  “Oh, all right,” said Mr. Winkley, “but don’t blame me if there isn’t.”

  “You haven’t told us yet what you were looking for by the lake,” said Pussy.

  �
��The fly, of course, stupid,” said Gunn.

  “You mean the one that was stuck in Mrs. Mumsby’s hand? Did you find it?”

  Mr. Winkley nodded.

  “But lots of people lose flies by the lake.” she objected. “How do you know that you found the right one?”

  Mr. Winkley took a folded piece of paper from his pocket, and opened it on the table in front of them. On it lay a salmon fly, its hackles unrecognizably dark and stiff.

  Pussy clutched at Gunn’s shoulder as she peered forward.

  “What’s that dark stuff on the hook?” she asked.

  Mr. Winkley gave an apologetic little cough.

  “I’m afraid it’s blood,” he said.

  “Bleeding hooks!” exclaimed Gunn. “Good Lord! Bleeding Hooks! That’s what Major Jeans always says!”

  Chapter 13

  The following morning, Mr. Winkley and Gunn went fishing, but they did not occupy the same boat. Mr. Winkley took Mrs. Mumsby’s boat, apparently because he had lent his own ghillie and boat to Gunn, but really because he wished to see whether the ghillie could give him any further information about the events of the previous day. They had decided that each visitor at the hotel must be unobtrusively interviewed, and as the name of Major Jeans had cropped up among them, it had been decided that Pussy should question him as soon as the opportunity should arise.

  When, therefore, Major Jeans walked into the hall the same morning, wearing tweeds which were not sufficiently discoloured and baggy for fishing, she thought that her luck was in. But as she had about as much knowledge of fishing as Miss Haddox, she embarked on the task with some trepidation, and called to her aid all the things she had heard in the hall since her arrival.

  “Not going out today, Major?” she asked, looking up at him through her blonde lashes.

  The Major cleared his throat, and looked as awkward as a small boy caught bird-nesting in his Sunday suit. He moved towards Mrs. Partridge, who was seated near her daughter, and clutched the back of her chair, as if for support.