Invitation to Die Read online

  Their campaign last Christmas had unintentionally triggered a series of disasters—three deaths, two attempted murders, and several ruined college reputations. And yet, as far as he could ascertain, the ladies were undeterred and unrepentant. They hadn’t confided in him—he was a handy tool to be used when the occasion demanded it—but he had an uneasy feeling that they hadn’t abandoned their schemes.

  Hetty had drawn up a list of their aims and brazenly made him privy to it. He had noted and, in spite of the quibbles raised by his conscience, his sex and his profession, he had approved:

  the vote for all women and men over twenty-one (irrespective of personal circumstances). women members to be voted into seats in parliament in greater numbers (four out of a possible four hundred seats is really not on. and the present acceptance that it is permissible for a woman to “keep warm” the seat of her sick husband should be outlawed). the admission of two hundred more female undergraduates to the university each year. degrees to be awarded to women who have followed the courses, passed the examinations and earned the qualification.

  This last to be retrospective. Hetty apparently still had her eyes on her own doctorate.

  The other two national suffragist organisations had taken their eye off the ball during the war years, diverting their energy and skills into war work and encouraging men to join up and fight. They had called a truce from which, according to Hetty, they had failed to awaken. Even the firebrand Pankhursts had lost their impetus during the war years and declared at its conclusion that woman’s influence was higher, her political rights more extended in England than in any other part of the world.

  “Untrue! And a betrayal of the cause!” was Hetty’s opinion on that. Years of progress seemed about to be lost unless her nameless ones could work their dangerous magic, which ran to blackmail, coercion, seduction and Lord knew what other forms of skulduggery.

  “I’m sorry, Johnny,” Hetty said quietly. “I see that my girls continue to be an annoyance to you. I’m afraid we involved you in matters you’d really rather not be concerned with last Christmas.”

  “Oh, I don’t know, multiple murder is very much my concern. Corpses littering the streets of Cambridge will always be something of an annoyance. And you’ve apologised—quite unnecessarily, Hetty—about six times.” He added with the mock severity of a nanny, “You know I don’t accept apologies unless they come with the intention of never repeating the sin or the crime or the carelessness.”

  “Pompous prat!” said the armchair. “You should have taught the boy better manners, Hetty. What you’re both missing is the real reason those two girls were putting on such a show. They were delighted to be here, without their parents. Note that! They had a good time just being themselves, I do believe. And in no small measure thanks to Johnny’s bottomless fund of funny—and risqué—stories. Those young ladies are both longing for experience. In search of something, I’d judge,” he finished cryptically.

  “I’d thought much the same myself,” Redfyre said. “And I’ll tell you, whatever it is they’re looking for, it’s not me!”

  Hetty sighed. “Sadly, you’re right, Johnny. There you are—good-looking, well-educated, decorated soldier with the gift of the gab, and they are initially charmed, but then they learn that you’re a working man and poor as a church mouse. Nothing wrong with that in today’s world, but it’s the kind of work you do, John. ‘My nephew’s a policeman,’ I say and watch the smile fade from their lips, the light from their eyes. However pointedly I put out the information that you are my heir and will cut up for a fair amount of tin when I go, it’s too late. The damage is done.” She sighed. “I don’t observe the same adverse reaction to your cousin Hugh. The mention of ‘stocks and shares’ and ‘the city’ makes women of my generation fall back a step and hastily change the subject, but these young things—well, it seems to arouse their interest if anything. This pair certainly put him to the question! In spite of . . .” She frowned and hesitated.

  “Hugh’s appearance is a bit eccentric and his voice rather loud,” Redfyre admitted, saving her from a discourteous comment. “But—”

  “Hugh has the looks and the voice of a bullfrog! Can’t stand the young tyke!” Gerald grumbled. “Banking! Huh! The chap gambles with other people’s money and calls it a profession.”

  “He’s doing rather well, Uncle!” Redfyre objected. “I was quite envious. I’m fond of cousin Hugh. I’ve always found him dependable and—yes—clever. He’s a good man to have in your corner. Really, he’s not as bad as he paints himself. And perhaps the girls intuitively understood that.”

  “I’ll tell you what the girls intuitively understood, my boy, and that’s the implications of his gleaming new car parked in pride of place on my carriage sweep. Oh yes, I think those young ladies were aware of what he had to offer. I noticed that they accepted with alacrity when he asked them if he might drive them back to their homes. In his speed model, open-topped tourer Bentley. In British Racing Green. Wouldn’t have minded a spin myself.”

  “A stinging reminder that all I have to offer in the way of transport is a ride in a borrowed police car. An old Riley with prisoner restraints in the back seats and general smell of Saturday night’s vomit.” Redfyre grinned. “Or, if she’s a fresh air fiend, a precarious seat on the crossbar of my bike.”

  Hetty chuckled. “The girl who would rise to that challenge is the girl for you, Johnny! But Gerald’s right. When it comes to choosing a life partner, most young women are impressed by a Bentley. It’s only natural.”

  Gerald grunted. “More fool them! Tricky business, embarking on the marriage stakes. Not many make it to the last fence. Never mind looks and cash, young women ought to be hunting down a bloke who can make them laugh. We’re a long time married. Ask your aunt! Without the stimulus of my daily quips, she’d have slipped her moorings years ago.”

  “True,” Hetty agreed after some thought. “Though it was Gerald’s detailed knowledge of Weatherbys Stud Book and his fabled collection of grape scissors that proved irresistible. Well, that’s two more to cross off my list of possible girls about Cambridge.”

  Redfyre decided to head his aunt off the unwelcome subject of his continued failure to do his patriotic duty and marry one of the many women left bereft by the recent war. But he would use the bait of gossip to turn her head towards a more useful discussion.

  “I met a strange girl today, Aunt. She’s the reason I was late for lunch. I wondered if you might know anything of her. Her name would be a good place to start. I don’t suppose your university acquaintances extend into the rather remote fastness of Jude’s?”

  “I knew the last master quite well,” Hetty replied. “I have yet to meet the new one. Dr. Cornelius Wells. A classicist, I believe. Go on, though I can’t imagine why you’d be talking about a female and Jude’s in the same sentence.”

  “Sentence?” his uncle harrumphed. “Not even in the same paragraph! Not in the same tome! Fanatically against all things female. Including their own mothers, I shouldn’t wonder. Perhaps especially their own mothers. Started off as a monkish establishment in the fourteenth century and has remained practically unchanged through dissolutions and purges into the twentieth. They’ve always had a reputation for remoteness and austerity, which they manage to offset by an extremely high academic standard. I’m amazed to hear my wife confess that she knew the last master.” He peered over his pince-nez at Hetty, affecting the expression of a wronged husband making his dreaded discovery. “She leads a life quite her own, you know.” The expression softened to one of surprise and pride. “Though I can’t imagine why one of those marble saints at Jude’s would have exchanged a word with my Hetty. Or where he would have stumbled across her. She’s exaggerating again—”

  “No. I said I knew him. I didn’t say he liked me, Gerald. He didn’t. And the feeling was mutual. He was the most appalling old stick insect! He certainly took his time departi
ng this world. The line between indisposition and death was blurred by the passage of about twenty years.”

  “Many gentlemen turned their faces to the wall when Victoria snuffed it.” Gerald nodded.

  “Well, you’re no use to me, Aunt. But it’s clear that at least one barrier has fallen in that establishment. I met a girl who was, um, taking a stroll in the master’s garden this morning.”

  “What on earth were you doing there?”

  “I wasn’t there. I was in the graveyard next door—the scene of the crime I told you about—looking over the wall and saw a strange girl dressed in purple, practising tango steps and singing to herself in Spanish. An exchange of views followed—I can scarcely call it a conversation. She said she was preparing for a May ball.”

  “Well, it wouldn’t be the Jude college ball,” Henrietta said knowledgeably. “I believe they’re still arguing about the suitability of including the quadrille on the dance card. If the tango is on the menu, you’d be looking at one of the large, go-ahead colleges. I know that a number of King’s men frequent the town’s dancing clubs. They could have decided to inject a bit of life into the usual run of veletas and fox-trots and hire a tango band from London. Johnny, why don’t you get hold of a ticket, ring up Earwig and invite her to go with you? She’s a very skilled little dancer, you know. She goes to classes every Friday evening with Madame Dorine at the Palais de Danse round the back of the Corn Exchange.”

  “Good idea! Will you ring her, or shall I?” Redfyre asked, but his aunt was already scurrying to the telephone in the hall.

  Ten minutes later, she was back, quivering with information.

  “Yes. It’s King’s. And Earwig would love to keep you company if you can get your hands on a ticket. She reminds you it’s Saturday week and tickets are most probably all sold. And she thinks she can identify your mysterious lady in purple! She guesses she could well be the most recent recruit to Madame Dorine’s stable. Light brown hair—short and fluffy? Medium height? Slim on the whole, if a bit busty? Neat feet?”

  “Possibly. I know twenty girls who’d answer that description.”

  “Now what else did Earwig say? Ah yes! It won’t mean anything to you, Johnny, but she said the girl she’s met is the spitting image of one of the fairies in Flower Fairies of the Spring—the children’s book that came out last year—the Heartsease Fairy. Page ten.”

  “What on earth is ‘Heartsease,’ Aunt? And more pertinently, what on earth would Earwig be doing rootling about in a fairy book?”

  “It’s the country name for wild pansy. You must have seen them every springtime in the Grantchester meadows. When I was a small thing, the village children used to call it ‘jump-up-and-kiss-me.’ You know, the little violet-coloured, pointy-chinned flower faces that always look as though they’re smiling up at you? Puckering up to give you a smacker?”

  “We have the wrong girl, then.” Redfyre scowled. The sharp tongue, bad temper and clenched right fist put him more in mind of that other purple flower of the English countryside—the thistle—and he said so.

  “Not at all prickly! She’s friendly when approached but reserved, according to Earwig. It must have been something you said, darling.”

  “I assume our friend Earwig lost no time in approaching?”

  “Of course. She moved in. And when she found out who the girl was, she must have been pleased she’d made the effort to get alongside. This could be quite a coup! A happy find!”

  “Well? Are you going to tell us she’s a Pankhurst? Or a Fawcett?”

  “Not quite that, I’m afraid, but intriguing all the same.” Henrietta announced, smugly: “Your mysterious dancer would appear to be a Miss Rosamund Wells. Twenty-two years old, unattached as far as anyone knows. Family home in London. Her mother having died last year, young Rosamund has gone to live with her father, Dr. Cornelius Wells, the newly appointed master of Jude’s. In his newly acquired fiefdom, just over the wall from Johnny.”

  “God help the poor child!” said Gerald fervently. “To be installed in Jude’s! A cruel and undeserved punishment for any female. I don’t like to think of little Pansy-Face trapped behind that wall with two hundred reclusive, hair-shirted misanthropes! You must ride to her rescue, my boy!”

  The telephone call that greeted Redfyre on his return to Cambridge was from Dr. Beaufort.

  “Glad to have got you at last, Inspector. Listen. We have an appointment with the marble slab tomorrow morning. I have to declare that I made a start on this right away—for various perfectly good scientific reasons, which I will explain when I see you. Could you make it earlier than we had suggested? Eight o’clock? I find I have two other cases queuing. No, nothing concerning you—there’s a farmyard incident involving a pitchfork from over the Norfolk border and a domestic skull-splitting in the Mill Road MacFarlane hasn’t bothered you with.

  “But—your intriguing Dunstan chap continues to throw up the surprises. Contents of gut speak volumes and, Redfyre—they’re not saying what we were expecting at all!”

  Chapter 12

  Cambridge, Monday, the 19th of May, 1924

  By eight o’clock on a Monday morning, Addenbrooke’s Hospital on Trumpington Street was well into the new day, alive with uniformed staff moving purposefully about. Redfyre found his own pace always quickened in emulation of their confidence when he entered the building. He took off his hat and, as he made his way down the corridor that led to the pathology laboratory, was warmed to note how many of the nursing staff recognised him and greeted him by his rank as they swished past in their starched headdresses, even offering him refreshment:

  “Good morning, Sister.”

  “Good morning, Inspector.”

  “It’s a fine May morning, Nurse!”

  “Have you had breakfast, Inspector?”

  “I’ve just sampled the Chelsea buns at Fitzbillies . . .”

  “Then we can have nothing further to tempt you!”

  He admired the smiling, efficient staff, working at the forefront of medical research and care, and reflected that the whole machine was kept moving smoothly along on the rails by a woman: the matron. Redfyre had always entertained hopes that someone would have the wit to sack this valuable lady and reinstate her as Head of the Cambridgeshire Constabulary. Or Prime Minister.

  Spearheading the pathology department, though he modestly tried to give the impression that he was struggling against overwhelming scientific forces, was Dr. Beaufort. The two crime-fighting professionals liked and understood each other, recognising they shared not only the same qualities of intelligence and dedication, but the same flaws, which they found it wiser never to name, not even to each other.

  Beaufort was already at work on the tramp’s body when Redfyre arrived and he involved his colleague at once in his deliberations.

  “It’s the stomach contents that this case—rather precariously—rests on. Something of a surprise there, as I told you. But let’s get quickly through the underpinnings, shall we?

  “Identity: sorry, we’re no further forward. Full examination of every item of clothing revealed nothing more than you got from your initial examination in the churchyard. No helpful name tapes, no tattoos, no identity tags. The suit underneath the worn old greatcoat was a good one, but again, the pockets had been cleared out. Nothing useful from the underwear: clean, ordinary Mr. Everyman stuff, the kind you’d buy at Eaden Lilley. No laundry marks, so presumably, these were washed wherever he called home. A tie—striped. You thought you recognised it as a Girton tie, I remember. Again, a tramp can come by these things as part of a charity handout bundle, or even off a washing line. It could be a Cambridge college tie—worn with cheeky sarcasm! Socks heavily darned. Shoes resoled and worn down. They’ve done quite a mileage. Full details noted down for you. And the items themselves bagged up for further inspection.

  “General care of person: for a tramp, this is odd. Now,
Inspector—you’re going to have to do a bit of rethinking here. We deduced—on account of the invitation card in his pocket—that he was going out for dinner with these loonies who call themselves a dining club, and to that end, he might well have made an effort and had a bath and haircut and all the rest of it and—yes—he was freshly shaven, his hair freshly cut and he still smelled faintly of coal tar soap or the equivalent. His finger- and toenails were clean and trimmed. Now, I can accept that, in deference to the treat to come, he might have taken some trouble with his hygiene, but if this bloke was indeed a tramp, there’d be other clues to his condition. I mean the life of a tramp, with little access to running water and soap, if lived for any length of time, leads to bunions, blisters and callouses and the sort of ingrained dirt that a quick scrub behind the ears before dinner can’t hide. On this chap, there was none of that. This is a gent who’s been bathing regularly for years.

  “General musculature: he’s lithe and whippy, naturally a lean type. I wouldn’t say undernourished, but there isn’t an ounce of spare flesh on him. His teeth are in reasonable nick. I’ve done a dental plan of the mouth for you. A few fillings done some years ago, but when he flashed a smile at you, you wouldn’t have looked the other way. In fact, in his prime, he must have been a good-looking fellow.”

  “His eyes? I never noted the colour,” Redfyre said.

  “Take a look now. Hard to say all this time after the event, but—dark grey? The sort that change with the light, but on the grey-blue spectrum. Definitely not brown. The hair—now pepper and salt, but must once in his youth have been a light brown. He could be Scandinavian or a bloke from Southend-on-Sea.”

  “Any wounds?”

  “Oh yes. He’s been in the wars, this chap! I mean—actually fighting in wars. Up close, front-line stuff. The Great War? He’s about fifty, I’d say. So he could have taken part at the upper end of the recruitment age in the last one. It’s just possible. A lot of keen blokes in their forties signed up, lying about their age. People turned a blind eye in the early days when the recruitment fever was raging. Nobody wanted to be handed a white feather of cowardice by some busybodying harridan on a street corner. ‘Sir! Why are you walking the streets in civvies? Be a man and join up!’ Even if you were merely being employed as a storekeeper back here in Blighty or over there in Northern France, shoeing horses miles behind the front where you could do no damage, it gave you the right to wear a uniform. And that’s what most men of all ages yearned for: an outward sign of patriotic duty faithfully done.”