After the Funeral

Mr Entwhistle left it at that. Miss Gilchrist, he thought, knew no more than she had told him. He asked whether she knew if Cora Lansquenet had left a will. Miss Gilchrist replied promptly that Mrs Lansquenet’s will was at the Bank.

With that and after making certain further arrangements he took his leave. He insisted on Miss Gilchrist’s accepting a small sum in cash to defray present expenses and told her he would communicate with her again, and in the meantime he would be grateful if she would stay on at the cottage while she was looking about for a new post. That would be, Miss Gilchrist said, a great convenience and really she was not at all nervous.

He was unable to escape without being shown round the cottage by Miss Gilchrist, and introduced to various pictures by the late Pierre Lansquenet which were crowded into the small dining-room and which made Mr Entwhistle flinch – they were mostly nudes executed with a singular lack of draughtsmanship but with much fidelity to detail. He was also made to admire various small oil sketches of picturesque fishing ports done by Cora herself.

‘Polperro,’ said Miss Gilchrist proudly. ‘We were there last year and Mrs Lansquenet was delighted with its picturesqueness.’

Mr Entwhistle, viewing Polperro from the southwest, from the north-west, and presumably from the several other points of the compass, agreed that Mrs Lansquenet had certainly been enthusiastic.

‘Mrs Lansquenet promised to leave me her sketches,’ said Miss Gilchrist wistfully. ‘I admired them so much. One can really see the waves breaking in this one, can’t one? Even if she forgot, I might perhaps have just one as a souvenir, do you think?’

‘I’m sure that could be arranged,’ said Mr Entwhistle graciously.

He made a few further arrangements and then left to interview the Bank Manager and to have a further consultation with Inspector Morton.

Chapter 5

‘Worn out,’ that’s what you are,’ said Miss Entwhistle in the indignant and bullying tones adopted by devoted sisters towards brothers for whom they keep house. ‘You shouldn’t do it, at your age. What’s it all got to do with you, I’d like to know? You’ve retired, haven’t you?’

Mr Entwhistle said mildly that Richard Abernethie had been one of his oldest friends.

‘I dare say. But Richard Abernethie’s dead, isn’t he? So I see no reason for you to go mixing yourself up in things that are no concern of yours and catching your death of cold in these nasty draughty railway trains. And murder, too! I can’t see why they sent for you at all.’

‘They communicated with me because there was a letter in the cottage signed by me, telling Cora the arrangements for the funeral.’

‘Funerals! One funeral after another, and that reminds me. Another of these precious Abernethies has been ringing you up – Timothy, I think he said. From somewhere in Yorkshire – and that’s about a funeral, too! Said he’d ring again later.’

A personal call for Mr Entwhistle came through that evening. Taking it, he heard Maude Abernethie’s voice at the other end.

‘Thank goodness I’ve got hold of you at last! Timothy has been in the most terrible state. This news about Cora has upset him dreadfully.’

‘Quite understandable,’ said Mr Entwhistle.

‘What did you say?’

‘I said it was quite understandable.’

‘I suppose so.’ Maude sounded more than doubtful. ‘Do you mean to say it was really murder?’

(‘It was murder, wasn’t it?’ Cora had said. But this time there was no hesitation about the answer.)

‘Yes, it was murder,’ said Mr Entwhistle.

‘And with a hatchet, so the papers say?’

‘Yes.’

‘It seems quite incredible to me,’ said Maude, ‘that Timothy’s sister – his own sister – can have been murdered with a hatchet!’

It seemed no less incredible to Mr Entwhistle. Timothy’s life was so remote from violence that even his relations, one felt, ought to be equally exempt.

‘I’m afraid one has to face the fact,’ said Mr Entwhistle mildly.

‘I am really very worried about Timothy. It’s so bad for him, all this! I’ve got him to bed now but he insists on my persuading you to come up and see him. He wants to know a hundred things – whether there will be an inquest, and who ought to attend, and how soon after that the funeral can take place, and where, and what funds there are, and if Cora expressed any wishes about being cremated or what, and if she left a will –’

Mr Entwhistle interrupted before the catalogue got too long.

‘There is a will, yes. She left Timothy her executor.’

‘Oh dear, I’m afraid Timothy can’t undertake anything –’

‘The firm will attend to all the necessary business. The will’s very simple. She left her own sketches and an amethyst brooch to her companion, Miss Gilchrist, and everything else to Susan.’

‘To Susan? Now I wonder why Susan? I don’t believe she ever saw Susan – not since she was a baby anyway.’

‘I imagine that it was because Susan was reported to have made a marriage not wholly pleasing to the family.’

Maude snorted.

‘Even Gregory is a great deal better than Pierre Lansquenet ever was! Of course marrying a man who serves in a shop would have been unheard of in my day – but a chemist’s shop is much better than a haberdasher’s – and at least Gregory seems quite respectable.’ She paused and added: ‘Does this mean that Susan gets the income Richard left to Cora?’

‘Oh no. The capital of that will be divided according to the instructions of Richard’s will. No, poor Cora had only a few hundred pounds and the furniture of her cottage to leave. When outstanding debts are paid and the furniture sold I doubt if the whole thing will amount to more than at most five hundred pounds.’ He went on: ‘There will have to be an inquest, of course. That is fixed for next Thursday. If Timothy is agreeable, we’ll send down young Lloyd to watch the proceedings on behalf of the family.’ He added apologetically: ‘I’m afraid it may attract some notoriety owing to the – er – circumstances.’

‘How very unpleasant! Have they caught the wretch who did it?’

‘Not yet.’

‘One of these dreadful half-baked young men who go about the country roving and murdering, I suppose. The police are so incompetent.’

‘No, no,’ said Mr Entwhistle. ‘The police are by no means incompetent. Don’t imagine that, for a moment.’

‘Well, it all seems to me quite extraordinary. And so bad for Timothy. I suppose you couldn’t possibly come down here, Mr Entwhistle? I should be most grateful if you could. I think Timothy’s mind might be set at rest if you were here to reassure him.’

Mr Entwhistle was silent for a moment. The invitation was not unwelcome.

‘There is something in what you say,’ he admitted. ‘And I shall need Timothy’s signature as executor to certain documents. Yes, I think it might be quite a good thing.’

‘That is splendid. I am so relieved. Tomorrow? And you’ll stay the night? The best train is the 11.20 from St Pancras.’

‘It will have to be an afternoon train, I’m afraid. I have,’ said Mr Entwhistle, ‘other business in the morning . . .’

II

George Crossfield greeted Mr Entwhistle heartily but with, perhaps, just a shade of surprise.

Mr Entwhistle said, in an explanatory way, although it really explained nothing:

‘I’ve just come up from Lytchett St Mary.’