The Odds On Murder: an Inspector Constable murder mystery (The Inspector Constable murder mysteries Book 6) Read online

“And so what did the doctor say?”

  “Dr. Livermore, sir? You can ask him yourself, sir. He’s still next door with the body.”

  “In which case, what on earth are we still doing here?” enquired Constable in reasonable tones which contained only the faintest edge of irritation. “Come on, Fletcher. You know the layout. Lead on.”

  As the three officers entered the library, a stout man, tweed-suited with rubicund features and a bristling moustache, was just straightening up from an examination of the body, which remained seated, oddly upright, its back to them, in the high-backed chair behind a large mahogany partners’ desk standing in the centre of the room, the chair facing away from the desk towards the window.

  “Ah. At last. You have the air of a senior investigating officer. Just what I need.”

  “And you will be Dr. Livermore, I presume,” smiled the inspector. He held out a hand. “D.I. Constable … this is my sergeant, D.S. Copper … drafted in after Mr. Warner’s unfortunate accident.”

  “Yes,” grunted the doctor. “Damn fool. Should have known better than to go sneaking around the back of a horse. Townies, you see. Know nothing. Only got what was coming to him.”

  “Oh. Right,” said Constable, sounding somewhat disconcerted by the other’s unfeeling reaction. “But I’m hoping the same thing isn’t the case with our unfortunate victim here.”

  “Couldn’t tell you, inspector. In fact, there are too many things that I can’t tell you for my liking.”

  “Meaning what exactly, doctor?”

  “Well, don’t just stand there, man. Come and take a look at the fellow, and you’ll see what I mean.”

  “Shouldn’t we be kitting up, doctor?” asked Constable. “Overalls, and so on. The last thing we’d want to do would be to contaminate the crime scene and compromise your investigations.”

  Dr. Livermore waved his hand dismissively. “Load of rubbish! I don’t bother with nonsense like that. If I can’t tell the difference between traces that are relevant and the paw-marks left by some grubby-handed plod after all the years I’ve been doing this job, they ought to put me out to grass here and now. So, don’t hover there in the background. Come and see the situation for yourself. But I have to tell you that I don’t like it. I don’t like it one little bit.”

  Constable, the other officers in tow, rounded the desk to view the murdered man. He saw an individual apparently in his mid-sixties, with a mane of dark grey hair, his face frozen in a startled expression with staring open blue eyes. The body was formally clad in a dinner jacket, with a black bow tie and a crisply-pleated dress shirt, whose pristine whiteness was disfigured by a bloodstain surrounding the blade of an oriental dagger, its hilt dully gleaming with jewels, which had been driven into the corpse’s chest.

  “Not too much doubt about the cause of death, then, guv,” remarked Copper in an aside to his superior.

  “Don’t you be too sure of that, sergeant,” barked the doctor. “They ought to teach you young officers not to jump to conclusions before you know all the facts.”

  “Youthful exuberance, I’m afraid, doctor,” said Constable. “I’m forever telling him not to rush his fences. So please, enlighten us, what are all the facts?”

  “Can’t tell you yet,” replied the doctor. “And don’t expect me to be drawn until I’ve had a chance to have a good look at him on the slab. Which I might have been well on the way towards, if I hadn’t had to hang about waiting for you to arrive so that I could show you everything in situ, so to speak. So, look here. If you’d been paying attention, sergeant, you might have noticed that the dagger wound isn’t the only thing amiss with this chap. See all these holes here in the jacket and shirt – that’s from the spray of pellets from a shotgun blast, or I’m a Dutchman.”

  “Shotgun?” echoed Copper, bewildered. “Isn’t that a bit of overkill, guv? I mean, if he’s been shot, why stab him? And if he’s been stabbed, why shoot him?”

  “My point exactly, young man,” nodded the doctor. “Now you begin to see why I’m not happy.”

  “I did say there was a shot heard, sir,” interposed Fletcher. “That was what alerted the household and led to our being called in.”

  “Thank you, Fletcher. And do we have the weapon?”

  “Not a sign of it so far, sir. They’re searching.”

  “Good.” Constable turned back to the doctor. “So, two wounds, then.”

  “And again, jumping to conclusions, inspector,” countered the doctor. “You’re as bad as your sergeant. Come round here and take a look at this.”

  Constable moved to the other side of the body as the doctor indicated. “Ouch.”

  “Not strictly medical terminology,” said Dr. Livermore, “but in essence, you’re correct. That blow to the head could well have caused serious cranial trauma. The classic blunt instrument, by the look of things. Can’t tell you any more than that at the moment, but once I’ve opened him up I’ll be able to be rather more forthcoming.”

  “But could that have been fatal, doctor?” enquired Copper.

  “Hold your horses, sergeant. You’ll know when I know.”

  “So is that everything, then, doc?” ventured Constable warily.

  “Not quite. See the throat?” The doctor indicated marks visible above the shirt collar.

  “Strangulation?” The disbelief was plain to hear in the inspector’s voice. “Oh, come on!”

  “I only know what I see,” responded the doctor. “Bruising, discolouration, call it what you will, but it ought not to be there. And those marks aren’t caused by the human hand. Wrong spacing and so on, and I don’t see the variations in pressure that I’d expect. Probably some kind of ligature, but don’t quote me yet until I’ve taken a closer look. But you might like to have your forensics people take a look around for something about three-quarters of an inch wide, with some sort of figured or textured surface.”

  “SOCO are on the hunt, sir,” intervened Fletcher once again. “They’ve come up with a couple of things so far, but they’re still working.”

  “Right. We’ll get to them in due course. So, doctor, is there anything else?”

  “Isn’t that enough?” retorted the doctor. “So, now you’ve seen everything I’ve seen, and with your kind permission, I’m going to have this chap taken away so that I can get on with my proper work, and leave the speculation to you people.”

  “By all means, doctor,” said Constable.

  “Good. Then I’ll have my staff bag him up and get him into their van. It’ll give them something productive to do, instead of hanging about waiting for the C.I.D.”

  “Apologies for the delay, doctor,” said the inspector smoothly. “But I gather that my colleagues from this area weren’t able to get in touch with you last night.”

  “I should think not. Considering the price of opera tickets these days, I was damned if I was going to have my enjoyment of Tosca ruined by a little thing like work, so I made sure my phone was firmly switched off. And it stayed that way until this morning.” Dr. Livermore bent to pick up his bag. “If that’s all, inspector, I’ll be on my way.”

  “Any idea when I might expect your report, doctor?” enquired Constable.

  “As soon as I’ve finished writing it,” replied the doctor shortly. “Check your emails.” With a curt nod, he was gone.

  “Now there’s a cheery chappie,” commented Copper in an undertone. “Not quite the jolly approach we’re used to from our own doc, was it, guv?”

  “You’re right there, sergeant,” agreed Constable. “Evidently a horse of a very different colour from the doc back at base. Makes you realise when you’re well off. Still, as long as he’s good at his job.” He sighed. “Which brings us back to this poor chap here.” He stood looking at the dead man in silence for several moments. “Sir Richard Effingham,” he mused, half to himself. He glanced around the room. “Evidently well off. Racehorse trainer, you say, Copper, so that would reinforce the impression that he moved in moneyed circles.” He move
d across to the french windows and gazed out at the terrace and the formal gardens below. “I wonder, do we have to start looking there for motives?”

  “I’m guessing that we might be able to rule out robbery, sir,” suggested Copper. “Take a look at this lot.” He indicated a large glass-topped cabinet standing to one side of the library in front of a range of bookshelves.

  Constable examined the cabinet. Inside, cushioned on velvet, lay a selection of exquisite objects, all seemingly of oriental origin. Pale ivory figures with serene expressions and flowing robes kept company with delicate pieces of multicoloured cloisonné. A miniature menagerie of carved jade animals in a rainbow of shades was flanked by intricately-worked representations of Indian deities in sandalwood and rose quartz. Mesopotamian cylinder seals lay alongside beautifully-crafted Japanese netsukes portraying caricatures of labouring peasants and mythical creatures. In pride of place lay a gold hair adornment featuring quivering bees hovering above tiny flowers on infinitesimal springs. “That,” remarked the inspector, “is a very impressive collection.”

  “And you can’t help noticing,” pointed out Copper, “that there’s something of a gap in the centre, just under that gold comb thing. Something that’s maybe more or less the size and shape of that dagger in the dead man’s chest?”

  “You are absolutely right, sergeant,” agreed Constable. “Well spotted. So, we’ll definitely need SOCO to take a look at that. Fletcher, here’s a job for you. Go and track down someone from the SOCO team, and get them to have that dagger removed from the body for detailed examination. Under the doctor’s supervision, of course! We don’t want to get on the wrong side of him any more than we have to. Off you go, quick as you can.”

  “Will do, sir.” Fletcher hurried from the room.

  “What I still don’t get, guv,” said Copper, “ is why whoever did this didn’t just stab Sir Richard with the dagger and leave it at that. Okay, the doc’s not giving anything away, but it looks to me as if that knife was quite enough to finish the guy off. To do all this, our murderer must have really hated him with a vengeance. I mean, they really wanted him dead, didn’t they?”

  Constable smiled grimly. “There certainly seems no doubt about that, sergeant. But I tend to agree with Dr. Livermore. There’s something odd about it all, and I also don’t like it one little bit.”

  “So we fall back on the old routine, do we, sir? The trusty search for means, motive, and opportunity? Even though the means seem pretty obvious.”

  “I think we may have to go further than that. I think we’ll be taking a leaf out of Kipling’s book.”

  Copper looked puzzled. “I don’t understand, sir. How do you mean?”

  “It’s a poem by Rudyard Kipling. It’s something every detective ought to know by heart. I learnt it when I was a boy. And it goes like this …

  I keep six honest serving-men

  (They taught me all I knew);

  Their names are What and Why and When

  And How and Where and Who.

  Sort out the first five, and we’ll arrive at number 6.”

  “If we’ve got to do all that, we’d better get on with it, hadn’t we, guv?” grinned Copper.

  Sergeant Fletcher appeared in the library doorway. “I’ve told SOCO what you want, sir, and I managed to stop Dr. Livermore before he left. He’s on his way back, but I should tell you, he’s not a happy man.”

  “No,” replied Constable wryly, “I had an idea he might not be. So in the interests of the good doctor’s blood pressure, I think we perhaps ought to make ourselves scarce. Back to the billiard room, gentlemen.”

  Chapter 3

  “What next, then, guv?” asked Dave Copper. “Where do you want to start on that list of yours?”

  Andy Constable thought for a moment. “Let’s be counter-intuitive and start at the end with the ‘who’. Fletcher, I think you’re best placed to help us out here. We know who’s dead, so who else have we got in and around the case? For a start, who was in the house when it happened?”

  “That’s actually not quite as easy as it sounds, sir,” said Sergeant Fletcher, reaching into a pocket for his notebook. “You’ve got the people who live in the house, but there were some visitors last night as well, so it’s a bit complicated.”

  “Well, you’d better make it as simple as you can, since Copper here is going to be noting it all down. That’s right, isn’t it, sergeant?”

  “Pen at the ready, sir,” said Copper, hastily suiting the action to the word.

  “So, let’s start with who lives here. I’m assuming that butler chap is resident, since he looks as if they built the house around him.”

  “That’s right, sir. Mr. Pelham.”

  “And he spoke of ‘her ladyship’, so I’m guessing there’s a wife.”

  “Yes, sir. Lady Effingham was here yesterday evening. I believe there was some sort of dinner party planned, but of course that never came to anything.”

  “So who else? Any other family? Guests?”

  “There’s a nephew, sir. A Mr. …” Fletcher checked his notes. “… Booker-Gresham, sir. Apparently he’s staying in the house at the moment. And there was a lady who was here for dinner … a Mrs. Baverstock. She’d arrived about a quarter of an hour or so before the shooting.”

  “Is that it? This is a pretty big house. I imagine you’re not going to tell me that Lady Effingham does all her own cooking and cleaning.”

  “No, sir. There’s a housekeeper, Mrs. Carruthers. She does the cooking. And she’s got her own rooms here as well, I gather.”

  “What about this gardener chap you mentioned … the one who helped out with D.I. Warner?”

  “Old Mr. Diggory? Oh, he lives on the estate, sir, in one of the lodges, I think, but he wasn’t here in the house last night.”

  “Well, nevertheless, put him on the list, Copper,” instructed Constable. “You never know, he may be able to tell us something useful about the set-up here. How many’s that so far?”

  “Six, guv.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not all, sir,” continued Fletcher apologetically. “There are a couple of others – well, they weren’t actually in the house at the time, but they were about.”

  “This presumably is the complicated bit, sergeant,” sighed Constable. “Care to explain?”

  “There’s a lady called Mrs. Wadsworth, sir, who called just before dinner, I gather. I don’t think she was invited for the meal, and Mr. Pelham was a bit evasive about her, so I don’t quite know what’s going on there. But apparently she was gone before it all kicked off.”

  “Intriguing,” remarked the inspector. “Well, we shall just have to cherchez that particular femme in due course. Next?”

  “There were two gentlemen who turned up at the house just after the shooting, sir,” reported Fletcher. “They were both involved with Sir Richard by way of his horse-racing business. Mr. Worcester, who I think was his business partner, and Mr. Elliott.”

  “Not Owen Elliott?” interjected Copper.

  “Actually, yes.”

  Constable raised a quizzical eyebrow in Copper’s direction. “You know him, sergeant?”

  “Not personally, no, guv. But if it’s the one I’m thinking of, he was the jockey who rode the winning horse in the 5000 Guineas, that day I went to the races. You remember, ‘Last Edition’. Oh!” Copper stopped in sudden realisation. “Which …”

  “Which has very sadly just died,” said Constable, picking up the thought. “Unfortunate coincidence, do we think? That would probably have been a very valuable animal. Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Fletcher, have you got contact details for all these people?”

  “I have, sir.”

  The inspector reached a decision. “Look, why don’t you let Sergeant Copper have all that? Then I’m sure you’ll be wanting to get back to your own station instead of feeling, as you probably do, like something of a third wheel on the bike. I dare say you’ll have plenty to keep you occupied on your own patch, par
ticularly with D.I. Warner out of commission. And I expect you’ll want to check up on him while you’re about it. So leave a couple of Uniform sloshing about, and we’ll take it from here.” The dismissal, if unmistakeably couched, was at least considerately expressed. Constable consulted his watch. “Right, Copper, you note all that down, and then, as it’s coming up to eleven o’clock, I think we’d better take up Mr. Pelham’s suggestion and join Lady Effingham for coffee. It’ll give us a chance to offer our condolences to the family and make a start on finding out what’s what.”

  With the murmur of voices fading behind him, Andy Constable stepped out into the hall of the house. He looked up to where the light was filtering down from a timbered lantern glazed in the rich dense colours of high Victoriana. The stained glass portrayed mournful maidens standing beneath willow trees in a landscape backed by misty mountains, while knights with noble countenances and gleaming armour leaned down from high-stepping steeds to offer chivalric assistance. Everywhere in the hall below was the gleam of polished dark wood, the glint of multicoloured mosaic, the intricate patterning of terracotta tiling, and the opulence of oriental carpets. Marble busts gazed from pedestals. Between frescoed scenes of vaguely Arthurian legend, a panoply of medieval weaponry adorned the walls.

  “I’m off, sir. And thank you.” With a tone of something like relief in his voice, Sergeant Fletcher passed Constable and headed for the front door, as Dave Copper came to stand alongside his superior.

  “So, back to just the old team then, guv.” Copper joined the inspector in his perusal of their surroundings. “Bit of a mausoleum, this, isn’t it, guv? Who on earth would want to live in a place like this?”

  “A Victorian gentleman with impeccable taste, and a great deal of money to allow him to indulge it,” came the slightly unexpected reply. “This is something of a Burges masterpiece.”

  “A what, sir?”

  “William Burges, Copper,” explained Constable patiently. “Another gap in your education I’m going to have to address, obviously. The man was the high priest of Victorian architecture and design. If you were building a house in eighteen-hundred-and-something, Burges was the man you called on to design it. Interiors too. No more of that nasty old Napoleonic classical style, all pillars and scrolls and sphinxes. This was how the masters of the British Empire expressed their ambition to rule the world. I grant you, it’s not exactly what you’d want now in your average suburban semi, but for the great and the good of the time, this was cutting edge.”