The village of Longborough, true to its name, consisted of one long road that wound its way toward the Cotswolds, looking very picturesque as it did so. Edith Langford, newly arrived from London and ready to teach the local schoolchildren, stepped out of her gate and looked admiringly at the neat rows of cottages on either side.
They said the village had never regained its peace after the Great War, and that the ’30s had only brought more people, noise, and motor-cars, but to Edith it was blissfully rural. She breathed in the fresh country air and set off for the village shop, ignoring the occasional automobile as it rattled by.
Five minutes later she knew that she would get no shopping done today.
A small crowd had gathered in front of the shop, and she could see Mrs. Benson, the proprietress, speaking to a police constable.
A break-in? Edith wondered. As she came closer the conversation died down, the locals glancing uncomfortably at the newcomer in their midst.
“What’s happened?” she asked one young man. Judging by his overalls, he was one of the workmen who were fixing some piping down the road. For the past week, the noise of the drilling had drowned out even the motor-cars.
The man nodded toward the shop door.
“Been a murder.”
“A what?” Edith stared at him, aghast, but he just shrugged, as if murder were an everyday occurrence in small villages.
“Mr. Hartley,” he added. “Went in for a package, Mrs. Benson goes off to get it, two minutes later she comes back, he’s been coshed on the head with a cricket bat she had for sale.”
Edith tried to piece all this together. Mr. Hartley, she knew, was the local solicitor. She’d seen him several times in the shop, which doubled as a post office, where he’d asked Mrs. Benson if his book order had arrived from London. He’d seemed a harmless old gentleman, and she couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to kill him. Besides, she’d read enough detective novels to know that two minutes was a very risky window to commit murder!
The workman touched his cap and shuffled off to join his colleagues, a group of young men who, Edith realised, were strangers in the village. They’d been sent in by the water company from the nearby town. Her informant was the only familiar face, no doubt a local.
She turned to go, but felt a hand grab her arm. Her heart sank. Only one person in the village had that iron grip — Mrs. Lundy.
“There you are, my dear! And have you heard what’s happened, it’s simply too dreadful, you know I was just saying—” Mrs. Lundy, full of figure as of energy, was the village gossip. And she was very good at her job.
“And poor Mr. Hartley,” she lamented, “with no family, only that horrible nephew that’s staying with him, come up from London in disgrace from what I hear, gambling and the like, well you know what these Londoners are—” she stopped short, suddenly aware of whom she was speaking to.
“Some days I’m very glad to be out of London,” said Edith helpfully.
“Yes, dreadful place.” Mrs. Lundy looked relieved and picked up steam again. “And you know that acting career of his, well it never went anywhere, and he’s not what you’d call young anymore, one feels sorry for him really, if not for the gambling. And so different from Mr. Hartley, now there was a real gentleman, so studious too, always sending off for those books on Latin and botany and such.” She sighed. “I just can’t imagine who could have done this.”
“The nephew, perhaps?” Edith asked. “It sounds like he needs the inheritance rather badly.”
“Oh yes, but I already told Constable Horn that it couldn’t have been him. You see, I would have seen him.”
“Oh?”
“My windows look out on the shop,” said Mrs. Lundy proudly. “And I was just, er, reading by the window today, so I saw everyone who came in and out.”
“Ah.” Your observation post, thought Edith with amusement.
“We had those workmen coming and going all morning, Mrs. Benson told them they could check the water in her flat above, so as not to bother people, very considerate of her really—”
“Anyone else?” asked Edith somewhat impatiently.
“Why yes, Miss Mallowby.”
Edith looked blank.
“Mr. Hartley’s assistant,” Mrs. Lundy explained. “She’s a proper solicitor in her own right, only Mr. Hartley mostly had her do the typing and such, you know what men are, loath to trust one, even if one is usually right—”
“So Miss Mallowby was in the shop at the time of the murder?” Edith couldn’t believe it. Mrs. Lundy had possibly seen the murderer, and she hadn’t even realised it!
“I suppose.” Mrs. Lundy looked doubtful. “I didn’t look at the clock, you see. There was a workman, portly chap, then Mrs. Glynne with her two children, but they went past toward the park, then poor Mr. Hartley, and then just as Miss Mallowby was coming down the road my maid called me away for something, so I didn’t actually see her go in.”
Mrs. Lundy wrung her handbag, clearly distressed to have missed a key occurrence.
“And what did Miss Mallowby have to say for herself?” asked Edith.
“She told the constable she’d gone past the shop and for a walk.”
“And no one can verify this?”
“No. The nephew was at home, but they didn’t see each other all morning.”
“She did have the opportunity,” Edith mused. “She would have known Mr. Hartley was likely to be alone while his package was being fetched. And the motive! I’ll bet she’ll continue his practice from now on.”
Mrs. Lundy looked impressed.
“You should tell Constable Horn all that, dear. Miss Mallowby, who would have thought it. Such a quiet girl, and to commit such a shocking murder…”
It did seem incredible that Miss Mallowby would take such a risk, but perhaps she had planned it all with a lawyer’s meticulousness. Edith mused on this as Mrs. Lundy took her firmly by the elbow and steered her toward Constable Horn, who looked at them with the bovine gaze of a stereotypical country policeman. He was a portly, middle-aged man, clearly a career village constable.
“Yes, Miss?” he inquired.
Edith stared up at him, something nagging at her thoughts.
“Go on, dear, tell him your theory,” Mrs. Lundy prodded her.
Yes, her theory. About the risky two-minute murder… and then there was that nagging thought…
“Constable,” Edith said suddenly. “You need to arrest Mr. Hartley’s nephew!”
“His nephew!” Mrs. Lundy exclaimed. “But my dear, I would have seen him!”
“You did see him, Mrs. Lundy.” Edith turned to her. “The workman you saw go into the shop, the one you called portly — can you remember if he was young or old?”
Mrs. Lundy considered.
“Older, I think,” she said. “It was hard to tell with his beard. But what of it?”
“The men working on the water pipes are all young,” Edith explained. “We don’t really notice them, what with them not being locals and coming and going to the shop all the time. I bet Mrs. Benson didn’t even notice when another man — a middle-aged man — in overalls went up to her flat. But it was Mr. Hartley’s nephew, biding his time.
“You see,” she continued, as Mrs. Lundy and the constable gaped at her, “being an actor, he could procure a workman’s outfit and disguise himself. He knew his uncle’s habits. He went to the shop when Mr. Hartley was due to come by. Then he just had to wait for the right moment, kill his uncle, and slip out before Mrs. Benson came back. In all the confusion, no one ever mentioned when the workman left the shop.”
“My goodness, you’re right!” Mrs. Lundy prodded the constable with her handbag. “Go on Constable, arrest the man!”
Constable Horn looked bewildered, but under Mrs. Lundy’s influence set off down the street. Ten minutes later the village witnessed the arrest of Mr. Hartley’s nephew, caught in the act of destroying his disguise.
Edith found herself again captured by Mrs. Lundy.
“My dear, you were simply brilliant!” she gushed. “But how did you know?”
“It did seem a bit far-fetched, nipping into the shop after someone to kill them. If the murderer was already inside, it would be much easier to wait for the right moment. And…” Edith hesitated “to tell you the truth, it was when I saw Constable Horn that I connected the words ‘portly’ and ‘middle-aged’…”
Mrs. Lundy clapped her hands in delight.
“Miss Langford, you are a credit to this village!”
Edith blushed, happy to be accepted.
“And don’t worry,” Mrs. Lundy added. “I won’t tell Constable Horn how you arrived at the answer!”
Daria Writes 