13. A REDEEMED TICKET

Christie’s Detective Agency Part 13

By good fortune the five suspects when it came to the death of Bill Stubbs were together in the church’s vestry, and the two members of Christie’s Detective Agency walked in, down the church aisle and into the small side room.

It was only when he could see the group together that something suddenly clicked in Horace’s mind. Maybe a light had been turned on because everything that was relevant seemed to be laid out before him. Suddenly he could see the triumvirate of means, motive and opportunity, and they made sense.

The Reverend Pyke turned from what he was doing and scowled at them.

“This is a house of God and we’ll have no trouble here,” he growled, and he eyed Horace particularly fiercely as if he didn’t trust him to be anything but trouble.

“Can I have a word or two?” Horace asked Jenny, a sudden light of understanding in his eyes, “to everyone,” he added.

She looked at him and recognised something she often felt herself. “Of course, if you’re sure of what you want to say,” she said.

“I am,” he nodded, then he turned to the small group that was staring at him and Jenny as if they were outrageous aliens from another planet.

“Please,” he said, “if you all sat down. There are enough chairs…”

There was a general rumbling and even some grumbling as the five people scraped chairs on the floor as they reluctantly sat in them.

“This has been my first job for Christie’s, and at first I thought it was a nothing job. I mean, a window cleaner at the top of an illegally high ladder with no safety equipment was asking for trouble.”

“He was used to it!” protested the widow Stubbs, “he knew what he was doing!”

“Fair enough,” agreed Horace, “but what about the greased rung, the slippery tread that would send him to his doom? Was he used to standing on something like that?”

Mrs Stubbs shook her head. “I s’pose not,” she conceded.

“But then, that greasy rung was a red herring, wasn’t it, P.C. Grungeworthy?” asked Horace.

“What do you mean?” asked the elderly policeman, nervously shaking his head.

“Because any grease on it wasn’t added until after Mr Stubbs fell to his death,” murmured Horace. “I can’t say exactly when, but someone went to the trouble of making it look as though the slippery nature of the grease was the sole reason for Mr Stubbs to fall, but that’s not true. I have heard it reported that he didn’t actually reach that top window, that he didn’t clean any of it, and from my own observations I would judge that he would only have needed to use the slippery rung when he was reaching up to the top of a rather tall window. And I believe that he would have noticed any grease on it long before he put a foot on it. After all, he would have to pass his nose past it on his way up, and unless he had his eyes shut he would certainly have noticed it. In my mind it didn’t add up. It was the sort of trick a naughty toddler might try in order to deceive a parent. No, the grease was always a red herring.”

“But why?” asked Bob Grungeworthy, “why would anyone want to grease a rung on the ladder if there wasn’t a reason?”

“Oh, there was a reason all right,” replied Horace, happy in his role of lecturer, “it was to give a reason if questions were asked. You see, the real reason why Mr Stubbs fell was much simpler. But before we get to that I want you to understand the motive. There are some men, amongst them you, Mr Saint Maurice,” he said, looking straight at the choirmaster, “who believe their wives are being courted by the late window cleaner. They weren’t of course, he was the sort of man who enjoyed flirting with attractive women, and that was as far as it ever got. But jealousy could be a motive if Mr Stubbs was serious in his womanising, but he never was. He was perfectly happy with his own wife, and if he did spot a few things on the inside of windows while he was cleaning them, then he kept them to himself. No, jealousy wasn’t a motive either.”

“Then what was?” demanded Gloria Pyke, probably relieved that her own husband hadn’t noted the way she occasionally smiled at the window cleaner.

“Nothing you’d know about, Mrs Pyke,” replied Horace, “if you were at all interested in cavorting with the man you wouldn’t leave payment for his services in a tin outside the door, you’d want to pay him personally.

“No, in the end it all boils down to money, but not the few pounds you paid him to clean your windows. No, it has been suggested, and Mrs Stubbs has confirmed that it’s true, that Mr Stubbs won a large sum on the national lottery.”

“You mean, he was killed for his money?” demanded the vicar, “look here, young man, I’m getting fed up with you masquerading as a latter-day Poirot elaborately telling us all what I suspect we already know!”

“My middle name really is Poirot,” smiled Horace, “it was meant to be a bit of a joke when I was born, and I’ve been lumbered with it ever since. However, I’d best get on and reveal the true killer, because Mr Stubbs was killed, and by someone here. As I said, it was about his lottery prize. And on the day he died he was convinced he’d either lost his ticket or forgotten to buy it that week because it wasn’t in his pocket, where he normally kept it. I wasn’t there, so I couldn’t see how, but someone tried to pick his trouser back pocket while he was up that ladder, not at the top but at the first floor window, the one belonging to the room where you, vicar, have an office where, no doubt, you write your sermons. And it was you, vicar, who hoped to be able to pick his pocket through a quarter-light window, and who accidentally, I hope, caused him to fall when your fumbling tickled him. Yes, vicar, it was you who killed him. He must have fallen very awkwardly, but the post mortem did reveal that he had a particularly thin skull.”

“But why would I…?” exclaimed the vicar.

“The church roof. You started an appeal so long ago it was before my time at your Sunday School, and still were very short of what you needed. Everyone must have noticed your constant references to it. Why, you can’t go into town for a bit of shopping without bumping into you and your tin!”

“Is this true…” stammered P.C. Grungeworthy, “are you responsible, Rolf?”

“Of course he is!” said Jenny in support of her young colleague who she was looking at with so much respect that she wanted to offer him a pay rise before they’d even negotiated a starting salary.

“I didn’t mean…” stammered the Reverend Rolf Pyke, and those three words were in themselves tantamount to being a confession.

“But what are you going to do about is?” demanded Gloria Pyke, “the coroner decided it was accidental.”

“It was the grease on the rung that proves it was no accident,” said Horace, further rising in Jenny’s estimation, “you smeared it where it was an obvious possible cause of the man’s fall in order to distract from your fumbling for his lottery ticket!”’

“Which he’d already given me for safe keeping, and which not one penny is going anywhere near a blasted church roof!” declared Beryl Stubbs, “not one penny!” she added, “and to think I’ve got to spend the rest of my days without the love of my life...”

“You’d best come with me, Rolf,” grunted Bob Grungeworthy, ever ready with his handcuffs, “the coroner might have said one thing, but it’s plain as the nose on your face that the truth’s another!”

“Come on, Captain,” whispered Jenny, “let the light shine where its been dark for so long,” and she led Horace out, through the church and onto the street.

“Well done,” she smiled when they were out of hearing, “I hope you intend to stay with Christie’s from now on. I rather suspect we need you!”

“I might,” he grinned, “at least till my folk get back home from their holidays.

“And when will that be?”

“Tomorrow,” he said, “around noon.”

THE END

© Peter Rogerson 24.09.21

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