6. A PAINFUL KNOCK

Christie’s Detective Agency. Part 6

Gloria Pyke was walking down the High Street, swinging her large floral handbag until it threatened ti bruise half the population of Brumpton, and she was bearing a huge smile on her face.

She was happy, largely because her husband the Reverend Rolf Pyke wasn’t. He had something on his mind that caused him to scrunch the corners of his mouth into two rather evil knots, and she thought she knew what it was. The church roof. Only last month he had arranged for work to begin on it and had paid out the entire contents of his refurbishment account as a deposit. But only as a deposit.

Secretly, he had believed that he was in line for a sudden very large donation from which he could pay the rest, but it seemed to have evaporated into thin air. And this had affected his state of grumpiness, sending it to extreme, which made Gloria smile when he wasn’t looking. There were men working on the church roof, they’d need paying, and he was cashless. To Gloria it provided a wonderful deviation from psalms and gospels, all of which she treated with intelligent scepticism. In short, it amused her. The magical high spot of her marriage had dissolved away years ago, if it had actually every existed.

So she was out in town and swinging that handbag until it collided with the crotch of a good looking young man who was coming the other way.

“Ouch!” he exclaimed, trying not to bend too obviously double.

“What is it, Horace?” asked his companion, Jennifer Marple, who Gloria recognised.

“My balls!” he gasped, “she caught them just right to threaten any future married life I might want!”

“I’m dreadfully sorry!” exclaimed Gloria, “my silly bag…”

“It’s Mrs Pyke!” exclaimed Jennifer, “how fortuitous! We were just hoping to see you at the vicarage!”

“You were?”

“Yes. Maybe you don’t recognise me. Jennifer Marple of Christie’s detective agency.”

“Of course,” spluttered the vicar’s wife, “but what reason could you possibly have for wanting to see me?”

“Regarding the tragic accident and demise of your window cleaner.” Jennifer tried and almost succeeded in sounding sympathetic whilst Horace did his best not to put either hand anywhere near his trousers.

“Of course. Rolf mentioned you’d been round. Interfering, he said, but then he wasn’t quite his old self. Hasn’t been for some time, poor dear.”

“What did you make of Mr Stubbs?” asked Jennifer, “after all, it’s my opinion that we women are a great deal better at summing men up than men are themselves, even though they’ve always believed nonsense, like they’re the stronger and more discerning sex.”

“They have, haven’t they?” smiled Gloria, “well, let me see, what did I make of darling Bill Stubbs? Well, that’s easy. He was a charming man with a twinkle in his eye and he knew what ladies like to hear,” she said, “and he and I got on very well, especially when Rolf was in his pulpit and I was roasting the joint for lunch. I wasn’t quite the church-goer he would have liked, you know.”

“Were you … having an affair with the window cleaner then?” asked Horace, eyes open wide despite a dull ache in his groin.

“Oh, I wouldn’t call it an affair! I’m a married woman and he was a married man!” spluttered the vicar’s wife, “but we got on very well and, you know, he could be delightfully cheeky. But there’s no way either of us would actually transgress enough to put our marriage vows at risk, even though, and I may say this now that the poor man is no more, even though I was sorely tempted more than once.”

“You were?” asked an astonished Jennifer.

“Well, I am married to Rolf Pyke,” replied Gloria, as if that was explanation enough. Then she frowned. “You know, he let me into a little secret on the very day that he died. He told me, and I believed him then and believe him now, that he had winning numbers on the national lottery for that week but, and this was Bill all over, he’d forgotten to pay for a ticket like he usually did! Silly, isn’t it? He always had the same numbers, yet when they actually came up he’d forgotten to buy a ticket!”

“Poor man,” sighed Jennifer, “I suppose it could be argued that he might not have fallen to his death if he’d been wealthy enough to buy a new set of ladders.”

“Oh, bless you,” laughed Gloria, then her face became serious, “it wasn’t his ladders that killed him! I’m sure of that. Oh no, for my money he was pushed!”

“Really?” squawked Horace, “pushed? Who by?”

“If I know that I’d have told the police,” replied Gloria, “I really would have. But I’ve no idea. I just know that Bill would never have fallen off that ladder unless he was pushed!”

“I’ll have to...” muttered Jennifer.

“Look into it. Yes, I wish you would. The trouble with the local police is they’ve got so many juvenile idiots to chase that they’ve not got time for a real crime, like the murder of Bill Stubbs, the dear, dear man. Now excuse me, I must away, and, young man, I’m sorry if I bruised your precious spheroids, I really am. Careless of me, really it was.”

She wandered off, her floral handbag still swinging dangerously close to other pedestrians and a smile still on her face.

“What did you make of that, Horace?” asked Jennifer.

“It hurt!” was his simple reply.

“Really? I don’t suppose you’d like your employer to rub the poor things better?”

“Goodness, no!”

“I thought not. Never mind, Another time. But what did you make of her suggestion, that the window cleaner was murdered?”

“As I see it, it’s possible. It strikes me he must have been the sort of man that ladies like, and that might cause jealousies amongst their menfolk.”

“But enough to kill?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he replied, honestly. But then, after all, he’d been a schoolboy until a couple of weeks earlier.

“No,” she murmured, “but there’s something a little bit more interesting. The lottery ticket that he forgot to buy.”

“Er… maybe…”

“Well Mrs Stubbs employs us, and in order to pay for our services she told me she’d had a windfall on the lottery. So someone bought a ticket that week and someone collected the prize. But Bill went about bemoaning the fact that he hadn’t remembered to buy the ticket. That needs looking into. I wonder if the police investigation took a peek at that.”

“The policeman and his photo copier might help us there,” mused Horace, “can we go back inside? I want to examine my bruise!”

© Peter Rogerson 15.09.21