Scallaway's End

The Murder

‘Who fancies a game of poker?’ suggested Sir Cumbridge, who had no one to talk to and appeared to be rather bored.

‘What a lovely idea!’ said Ethel Braithwaite. ‘Pity I can’t play,’ she added sadly. Mrs Minkwater rose coldly.

‘I am feeling tired,’ she said. ‘You play your merry game, I’ll go to bed.’ She swept out of the room, and her departing footfalls echoed down the hallway.

Ethel Braithwaite sat watching as the other three set up the table and prepared to play. As they were sitting down to play the door opened and Sueducate entered, dry and in a new suit. ‘Excellent!’ he said. ‘Poker, my favourite. I’m in debt almost $2000 back in town thanks to this game.’

They sat down to play for a good half hour. Though Sueducate was very in debt from the game, it certainly didn’t mean that he wasn’t extremely good. Symes, too, was an excellent player. His eyes never ceased flitting over the table, sizing up each card before looking back at his own hand. Sturling could play well enough to keep himself out of trouble, but poor Cumbridge soon began losing badly. Finally, he stood up. ‘Looks like these two gentlemen had better have a face off, eh Sturling? Why not leave the experts to it while we get out of their way?’

Sturling had been quite enjoying the game, but seeing an opportunity to talk to Cumbridge, he quickly changed his mind. Rising from the card table, the two of them stood with their backs to the window, watching the people in the room. The maid entered and drew the curtains and stoked the fire. ‘It must be hard coming back to this house,’ said Sturling, ‘with so many sad memories of your good friend.’

For a moment Sir Cumbridge looked a little confused, as though thinking Sturling was referring to Mrs Minkwater. But then his face cleared. ‘Ah yes!’ he said. ‘Max Minkwater was a jolly old chap, a real man, good hunter and excellent with the natives. Yes, coming back here does bring back some sad memories of him. It’s a pity, a real pity.’ He sighed.

‘Forgive me for being so intrusive,’ said Sturling quietly, ‘but I have not seen my mother’s friend Mrs Minkwater for quite some time, and when I last saw her her husband was alive and well. I had planned to ask her what happened, but…’ He trailed off.

‘Ah, I see what you mean,’ said Sir Cumbridge. ‘Yes it is a little hard to ask Mrs Minkwater about matters such as this. Why, poor Max died only last year. Went out in style, like the good chap he was. Killed while hunting a rare elephant.’

‘Oh! How tragic that the elephant should kill him! But a way to go out in style, I suppose.’

‘No, no, the elephant didn’t kill him. He and I were alone hunting a highly endangered and therefore extremely prized elephant, and a misaimed bullet got him right in the chest.’ Sir Cumbridge paused. ‘We never did get that elephant,’ he said sadly. ‘But Max was a good chap right to the end… left me a large amount in his will.’

Richard Sturling didn’t press Cumbridge with any more questions. He could infer a lot for himself. Clearly Mrs Minkwater assumed that the misaimed bullet wasn’t quite so misaimed as Sir Cumbridge claimed. The falling out was quite probably Mrs Minkwater wanting a furthered inquest into her husband’s death, or wanting the will checked. Of course Sir Cumbridge would want Mrs Minkwater out of the way if such accusations were true. In fact, should Mrs Minkwater die it would perhaps give him even more money from Max Minkwater’s will, depending on how the will had been arranged.

Sir Cumbridge appeared to notice Sturling’s silence and, rightly assuming that Sturling found his story a bit shifty, said, ‘Well, the rain seems to have slacked off a bit, think I’ll poke my nose outside and see if there’s been any flooding.’

On his departure, Sturling went over to his final suspect, Ethel Braithwaite, who was napping in a chair. On Sturling sitting down in Mrs Minkwater’s unoccupied seat she awoke and smiled at him with her slightly batty look.

‘Good evening,’ she said. ‘You’re Mr Surrey, aren’t you?’

‘Sturling,’ Sturling corrected her. ‘You’re an old friend of Mrs Minkwater’s?’ Ethel Braithwaite continued to smile at him, having clearly misheard him. Sturling tried to picture her stealing into Mrs Minkwater’s room with a poisoned pill, and couldn’t. Indeed, out of all of the suspects she seemed by far the least likely. But of course, Sturling reminded himself, the seemingly least likely was often the culprit. Years of being a detective had taught Sturling to keep an open mind even in the most obvious cases.

Sturling repeated his question as to her connection with Mrs Minkwater. ‘Ah yes,’ said Ethel Braithwaite, smiling widely. ‘We’ve been friends for many, many years. Such a wonderful person, and such an attentive listener.’ Had her tone not been so bright and cheerful Sturling would have thought she was being sarcastic. It was interesting, of course, that Mrs Minkwater classed Braithwaite as a suspect along with the likes of Sir Cumbridge and Sueducate. Clearly there was more to her than met the eye.

‘I heard my dear friend mentioning that she and your mother were friends,’ said Ethel Braithwaite. ‘What is your mother’s name, I’d love to see if I know her.’

This question was unexpected, but Sturling was good at this sort of thing. ‘My mother’s maiden name was Caroline Carter,’ he said smoothly, with just a trace of expectation. Ethel Braithwaite shook her head.

‘Never heard the name,’ she said. ‘Nor Caroline Sturling.’

‘To tell you the truth,’ said Sturling, ‘I never knew that Mrs Minkwater and my mother were friends. It was only when I was passing through this part of the country that I remembered my mother once mentioning Mrs Minkwater several years back, and I thought that I might send a letter to Mrs Minkwater to ask it I could drop in.’

This lie seemed to satisfy Ethel Braithwaite. ‘I see,’ she said, giving a large smile. ‘How lovely that you should meet her after all this time! And does your mother know about poor Max’s passing? You mentioned you were out of the country at the time… it must have been very hard on your poor mother.’

‘I don’t believe she has… heard about it,’ said Sturling. Between the words ‘has’ and ‘heard’ there was the slightest of pauses, as he realized that when he had mentioned his being out of the country to Sir Cumbridge, Ethel Braithwaite had been complacently napping in her chair.

‘Your poor dear mother!’ said Ethel. ‘Yes, it was very hard on everyone when dear Max died. A funny business too, not the way the poor man would have wanted to go. And at almost the exact same time as my own poor dear husband.’

At that moment there was a flash of lightning followed closely by a boom of thunder. The door was flung open and Sir Cumbridge huffed in, dripping wet. ‘What a storm!’ he panted. ‘The whole driveway is flooded and the trees look like they’re going to be blown clean out of the ground. I do believe there are a few branches across the road.’ There was suddenly a massive crash, followed by a bright light outside the window. The room was plunged into darkness. Sturling heard someone rise from the card table, and saw the silhouette of Symes as he pushed aside a curtain and peered outside.

‘A branch has cut a power line,’ he said. Sueducate tried the light switch.

‘Power’s out,’ he said. ‘And I imagine the roads will be completely flooded - they’ll be no hope of getting anyone to fix it tonight or tomorrow.’

‘There may be an emergency generator,’ suggested the lawyer. ‘These old houses sometimes have them installed.’

A flash of lightning illuminated the occupants of the room. ‘Oh dear,’ said Ethel Braithwaite slightly shakily. ‘I don’t like thunder and lightning - gives me the shivers. I’ll go to bed.’

‘I’ll have a look for the generator,’ suggested Sueducate.

‘We’ll all have a look,’ said Sturling.

Ethel Braithwaite pottered off to bed, while Sturling, Symes, Sueducate and Cumbridge searched the lower levels for a generator. Sturling hunted around the kitchens and the general servant’s quarters. He half expected to find Gladys Stubb’s cat lurking in a shadowy corner, but saw no animals of any description, not even a food bowl. It was then that he noticed the back stairs. Perhaps the generator was under them. He opened the small door and poked round boxes of old junk and many cobwebs without finding anything. As he was about to give up, he heard footfalls over his head. Someone was moving very softly up the stairs. If Sturling had not, in fact, been under the stairs, he would not have noticed anything at all. He opened the door and stepped out into the dark kitchen, peering up the stairs, but whoever it was had reached the landing and was out of sight.

‘Hello?’ called Sturling. There was silence.

At that moment there came a yell from further back in the house. ‘I’ve found an old generator! It’s in a cupboard off the front hall!’ Sturling was torn for a second between pursuing the mysterious person on the stairs and helping with the generator. Settling on the generator he turned back and made his way out of the kitchen. There was a flash of lightning and a crash of thunder almost simultaneously. He met Cumbridge in the hall and the two of them found Symes and Sueducate peering at an old fashioned generator inside a large hall cupboard.

What a useful contraption!’ said Sueducate. ‘What we could do with now is to know how to use…’

At that moment there was a long, bloodcurdling scream. The four men leapt up and turned in circles, trying to locate the source of the noise. Another scream, with a yell for ‘help, help!’ confirmed all Sturling’s fears.

‘It’s coming from upstairs!’ he yelled, and the four of them sprinted down the passage and up the stairs. The scream pounded in Sturling’s ears… he should have been more careful… he should have been on guard.

A door stood ajar at the end of the hall. Another door opened and Ethel Braithwaite came hurrying out in her dressing gown. ‘What’s all the noise?’ she asked. She was swept along the hallway with the other four, and through the open door.

The maid was leaning against the wall, her face white with terror. And on the bed lay Mrs Minkwater, face white, eyes staring, a bullet hole in her chest.