Scallaway's End

More Suspects

When Richard Sturling arrived downstairs it was easy enough to navigate his way to the drawing room. From within, he could hear voices, murmuring quietly. Opening the door, he stepped unobtrusively into a large, grandly upholstered room.

In one corner beside a settee stood a large, well built man entering his later years, who was smoking a large cigar and conversing with a man in a black suit, his hair greasily slicked back from his face. These two characters, Sturling guessed, where Sir Cumbridge and the lawyer Sylvester Symes.

On a chair close to the fire sat a long nosed, thin old lady, who was doing needlework with a pair of spectacles balanced precariously on the tip of her beaklike nose. This was supposedly Ethel Braithwaite, the friend of Mrs Minkwater’s.

Lounging back on a couch looking thoroughly bored was a young man in his mid twenties, a glass of violet liquid - absinthe, Sturling supposed - held loosely in one hand. He glanced up at Sturling with mild interest. ‘Hullo,’ he said. ‘Who’s this?’

Out of a chair opposite Ethel rose the figure of Mrs Minkwater. ‘This, my dear Sueducate, is an old friend of mine,’ she said coldly. ‘We have not met for many years, however he was passing through this part of the country and begged for my hospitality, which I graciously granted.’

The nephew, Sueducate, gave Sturling a glance as if to ask why any man in his right mind would choose to stay in such a dire place. The fat man, whom had turned on hearing Sueducate’s exclamation, came strolling over.

‘The name’s Cumbridge, Bernie Cumbridge,’ he said, shaking Sturling’s hand with his own large, fat one.

‘A pleasure, I’m sure,’ said Sturling. ‘Richard Sturling’s my name, I’m an old acquaintance of Mrs Minkwater’s.’

The black suited man approached close behind Cumbridge. ‘Sylvester Symes,’ he said, shaking hands with Sturling. His eyes were cold and his smile soulless. He was one of the most untrustworthy people Sturling had ever laid eyes on, and yet also seemed the sort of person you would want on your side.

Mrs Minkwater had sat back down. With her beady black eyes she peered around the back of her chair. ‘That despicable young fellow downing buckets of my liquor is my nephew,’ she said. Sighing, the young man put down his cup, stretched and stood up. ‘Tristan Sueducate,’ he said, shaking hands with Sturling, before sprawling back over the sofa.

The old lady Ethel was watching Sturling with round eyes and a slightly batty smile. ‘The name’s Ethel Braithwaite,’ she said loudly, pushing her spectacles up her nose and craning her neck as if to get a better look at him. She reminded Sturling of an elderly and near sighted emu.

Now that introductions were over, the occupants of the room went back to what they had been previously doing. Cumbridge and Symes continued their conversation, Sueducate topped up his cup and began fiddling around with a paperclip, Ethel went back to her needlework and talked loudly to Mrs Minkwater, who in turn complacently ignored her and peered round the room with her beady eyes.

Sturling sat down on the couch next to Sueducate. Time to interview suspect number two.

‘Are you staying here long?’ Sturling asked mildly.

Sueducate snorted. ‘Not if I can help it. But I don’t have anywhere else to go out here in this godforsaken wetland, and if I go back to town I’ll be hunted down and forced to pay out my gambling debts.’

‘I take it you don’t like your Aunt?’

‘That’s an understatement,’ Sueducate said. ‘There’s no one on earth who has a single kind word for her.’ Sturling gave a quick glance to Mrs Minkwater to see if she had heard. He suspected that she had, however she did not confront Sueducate on his claims. Perhaps, in some strange way, she agreed with him.

Sturling poured himself a drink but did not sip, he swilled it around in his glass and thought. ‘I used to bind books,’ he said slowly. ‘It was my father’s business, which he expected me to continue on with. I’d bind the books, fix on the covers, box them up in cardboard. I used to like reading the first sentences, whether they were cookery books or novels.’ He paused thinking. ‘Some of those cookery books had very snappy opening sentences.’

‘Not many people read the opening sentences of cookery books,’ said Sueducate, taking a swig from his glass. ‘Not that I’d know,’ he added. ‘I’ve never cooked since I was five and I tried to scramble eggs. Certainly put me off the kitchen for life.’ He was silent. Sturling waited. ‘Funny what you said about your dad,’ said Sueducate. ‘My father did the same to me. He forced me into his business, wanted me to manufacture cars. It wasn’t the worst job, but I’d always had a dream of making those little mechanical children’s toys. I say, you wouldn’t have a paper clip on you? Or a bobby pin?’ Sturling felt in his pocket, and extracted a paper clip, which Suedicate took and began to twist and bend with the one he had already been fiddling with, while continuing to talk. ‘I used to make little mechanisms in my spare time, still do. After my father realized that I didn’t have a love for cars that car mechanics needed, he let me off the hook and let me do whatever I wanted. He was a good man, my father. He payed off most of my gambling debts at the start. He’s broke now.’

Sueducate leant forward, turned the empty bottle upside down over his glass, groaned, then stood up. ‘I’m off on a walk,’ he declared. ‘A storm’s hitting tonight, I’ll get the last of the sun.’ He cast his paper clips aside and strode out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

Sir Cumbridge glanced over his shoulder, frowning. ‘Unpleasant fellow,’ he said. ‘What was that you were saying, Symes?’

Richard Sturling bent down and picked up the paper clips dropped carelessly by the now departed Sueducate. The two clips had been bent into tiny, delicate cogs, one which spun within another. ‘So,’ murmured Sturling, fingering the cogs. ‘Either there’s some very clever framing going on, or suspect number two is guilty of an attempted murder.’