10. TALKING OF MOTIVES

Christie’s Detective Agency pART 10

When Horace, or Captain as he was called at work, arrived at the office next morning, Jenny was already at her untidy desk with a folder of duplicated notes in front of her.

“Look what Bob brought in,” she said with a smile, “all the paperwork nicely photocopied for me. I hope he doesn’t get into any bother doing it.”

“Might he?” asked Captain.

“Who can tell? He’ll be all right, though. He’s been a constable for so long he’s almost an institution, and nobody likes to upset institutions.”

“Have you found anything?” he asked, sitting opposite her and unconsciously admiring the way her hair was piled up on top of her head like a gigantic knot.

“So far I’m impressed. They went to the trouble of noticing the oily rung, but it seems only you noticed the can of grease and connected the two when we discussed the matter. The forensic lads noted the grease on the rung but nobody suggested it might be responsible for Bill’s fall.”

Captain frowned. “I remember looking at it and I can’t remember seeing any signs that it had been trodden on,” he said, “you know, slidey footprints, that sort of thing.”

“So what’s your conclusion, Captain?”

“The weather, I suppose. Or it might just be possible that something else caused Mr Stubbs to fall before he had a chance to slip off the oily rung,” he murmured slowly, “it’s only a guess and I’ve no real idea what a ladder rung would look like if it was bathed in oil, trodden and slipped on and then examined a few weeks later.”

“But if you think about it we need a firm opinion as to who oiled it. Who it might be that wanted Bill Stubbs to land on his head like he did,” murmured Jenny. “Detection in the end is best summed up by motive, means and opportunity,” she said, “so what about motive? Start with the Reverend Pyke.”

Captain frowned. He’d known the vicar through Sunday School when he’d been a boy in short pants. He’d never particularly liked, him, but because one snotty nosed schoolboy didn’t like him was no motive for murder.

“Nothing,” he said at length, “he doesn’t seem to have any particularly unpleasant faults.”

“Agreed. Anyway, he’s so concerned with his church roof appeal to have thoughts for anything else. So what about his wife?”

“She’s pretty ordinary,” replied Captain after a few moments’ thought, “married to the Reverend, her life can’t be that easy. After all, he has to give out a kind of puritan attitude, and he expects her to do the same. I remember at Sunday School when I was, what fifteen or so, he went on about adult behaviour. That’s what he called sex, beg your pardon. And what he wanted us to understand is girls are untouchable, and so are boys, if you’re not man and wife, and even then it’s very private. No public displays of any kind of intimacy at all. And I guess that’s what coloured his and her life together.”

“No her squeezing his bum in Tescos?” smiled Jenny, “that’s just got to be boring!”

“Oh. I don’t think mum squeezes dad’s bum anywhere!”

“That’s parents for you. So we’re letting Mrs Pyke off the hook so far as motives are concerned. What about Bob, or to give his official title, Police Constable Robert Grungeworthy?”

“He’s a policeman!”

“I know that, cherub, but is he a killer?” smiled Jenny, “and to save you too much embarrassment I don’t think for one moment that he is.”

Captain accepted her judgement. He didn’t know the officer who was so close to retirement that he was hardly likely to blot his copybook and risk his pension over something like killing a window cleaner.

“Then there’s Cedric Saint Maurice,” said Jenny, “choirmaster extraordinaire. And he is pretty good, you know. He gets voices to perform miracles in harmony. Mind you, he had no great love for Bill Stubbs. Not at all.”

“He’s been turfed out of his home by his wife who’s having some sort of affair with the window cleaner,” remembered Captain. “He seemed pretty angry when we talked to him about it. I’d call that a motive!”

“And he was present when Bill fell from his ladder, and by coincidence it was his window he was cleaning!” added Jenny.

“Do you think that’s enough to make him our prime suspect?” asked Captain.

“Could be. But rumour has it he’s not been close to his lady wife for years. From what I heard she doesn’t like him spending so much time with his choirs.”

“Choirs?” asked Captain, “plural?”

“There’s the church choir, the one that sings its psalms on Sundays, and a wives’ choir. That’s what he calls it, though his own wife doesn’t play a part in it. But it’s that wives’ choir that wins prizes and has even been on the telly.”

“It might be a motive then,” sighed Captain, “being turfed out of your home because your wife fancies the window cleaner can’t be fun!”

“It can’t. And I should know that, although it wasn’t a window cleaner that my second ex fancied,” sighed Jennie, “it was anything he could grab and call his own, and my tits didn’t enter onto the list!”

“Oh dear.”

“Cheer up, cherub. But this brings us to the widow Stubbs.”

“I can’t see that she had any motive,” said Captain, who had developed almost a soft spot for the woman.

“What about the sudden influx of funds into her pocket?” asked Jenny. “Rumour has it old Bill always did the lottery, every week, and the week he died one of two things happened. He either forgot to buy a ticket or lost it, and his numbers came up. And that lovely wife of his had the ticket after all, and claimed a million or two prize money.”

“As much as that?”

“It wasn’t until after he was dead that the story leaked out,” confirmed Jenny, “but I don’t think it can have been her that did for him because if it was she’d have kept very quiet about all that money.”

“But it’s got to count as a motive,” insisted Captain, “and a good one at that. Don’t they say that most murders are down to either sex, begging your pardon, or money?”

“Possibly.”

“Then I’d say a lottery win was a darned big motive,” he said.

“Don’t you believe it, sonny. If he’d not died and had all that money, who do you think would have spent it anyway? It’s what we women are good at!

“I’ve heard my dad say that!”

“Right we’ve got our list of motives. As for means, it was the ladder. So who took the tin of axle grease?” she said, thoughtfully, “come on, angel, let’s take another look at that tin. But it would be best if the vicar was out. I don’t fancy another ticking off from him.”

“What do you expect to find, Jenny? I looked at it last time we were there and it seemed like an ordinary tin marked with the give-away words AXLE-GREASE! And why am I suddenly cherub and angel?”

“Because you’re so sweet and one day I might fancy you. So come on: I’ve a theory that fings ain’t always what they seem to be! And don’t worry: your trousers will always be safe in my hands!”

© Peter Rogerson 21.09.21

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