Murder in the Cotswolds (The Sheriff Chick Charleston Mysteries Book 5) Read online

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  Murder in the Cotswolds

  A Sheriff Chick Charleston Mystery

  A. B. Guthrie Jr.

  For Ruth K. Hapgood,

  that helpful editor

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  There is no Upper Beechwood in the Cotswolds, and no Lower Beechwood, either, but there are dozens of villages like those imagined ones I’ve written about. A beautiful country, the Cotswolds. I hope I’ve made that plain.

  I am forever indebted to Carol, my wife, not just for her patience, though Lord knows I’m grateful for that, but for her assistance and encouragement.

  Chapter One

  “You can tell they’re Americans, Geeta,” Charleston said.

  “It would be pretty safe to bet on it, the number who visit Great Britain.”

  They were seated at the Carver’s Table in Edinburgh’s George Hotel. The room was big, rather elaborate, somewhat imposing, and not very busy right now. He said, “Interesting, different people’s eating habits.” A vacant table stood between them and the five diners he was talking about.

  “Quit ogling them, Chick.”

  Beyond them at the head of the room were glass-shielded counters with assorted vegetables and haunches of meat on them. Two carvers stood with knives in their hands.

  Charleston’s eyes weren’t on them.

  “One of those women is not bad looking, the small one.”

  “Chick!”

  There were just two women in the group, the nice-looking one and a bigger, square one. A little man with wire-rimmed glasses was talking with gestures, busy as an auctioneer. One of his listeners nodded occasionally. He might have been the teacher and example at a fitness school. The other was bigger, coarser, with a thick chest and heavy arms.

  “Please, Chick, quit staring,” Geeta said. “You’re not Sheriff Charleston in Midbury, Montana. You’re on vacation. Remember?”

  He turned to her, smiling. “It’s the detective in me. But sure I remember. These days will be with me as long as I live.”

  He thought of them, then quoted, “‘And always have goodness and joy waited on my comings and goings.’”

  “I can quote things, too, like, ‘Oh, we shall have a golden day to spend, to follow shining ways that have no end.’”

  “Yes, Geeta. Yes,” he said, putting his fork down. All their free and easy days, days of looking, seeing, learning something of another people, driving slow while sight and sound entered them, and all the days golden and all the ways shining.

  He put out a hand and she gave hers to him, and he said “Geeta” into her eyes.

  The waiter had brought coffee. Chick freed his hand slowly and sipped. Her father had called her Geet, short for Marguerite. Charleston had added the “a,” thinking to soften it. He said, “I love your new tweeds and you in them.”

  She fingered her new jacket. “I like them, too, I don’t have to say.” She took a bite of the cake she had ordered, and for a moment they were silent. Then, after another swallow of coffee, he said, “So it’s on to the Cotswolds, on to the home of your ancestors, on to the family tree.”

  “Don’t exaggerate, Chick. I’d like to know more about my lineage, but I’m not set on tracing myself back to the primal gene. It’s more I want to see Upper Beechwood and how and where my grandfather lived. In what circumstances. What surroundings. He always said it was a heaven of a place. I wonder if the house is still there?”

  She laid the fork on her plate, touched her mouth with a napkin and went on, “We have another day here. We’ve seen a lot of Scotland but haven’t yet climbed to the castle right here in the city.”

  “I catch the drift. I get the angle. All right, I’ll limp along. I’ll pant up the inclines and puff up the stairs, and we’ll see how royalty lived if it kills me.”

  “You poor old man.”

  “That’s me, girl. Got a song ready to sing me goodbye, or you could sing about Glencoe again?”

  The gloomy Glencoe country popped into his memory, and the lines she had sung in her soft and rather husky voice.

  “Cruel was the foe

  That raked Glencoe

  And murdered the house o’ MacDonald.”

  The coach driver had recited something about Glencoe but in accents so burred, so foreign, that Charleston had whispered to Geeta, “That’s English? The Lord will have to have an interpreter for the man’s prayers.”

  Now, the meal finished, he said, “Early yet. Let’s go sit in the lobby and watch the human procession.”

  “You mean watch the folks traipse by.”

  “Yeah. There’s something in the air fancies up my language.”

  “Right now I have to find the powder room, as we call it. They’re not so fancy hereabouts. They call it a toilet, which is just what it is.”

  The party of five had risen from the table. He and Geeta followed them, and while he signed for the dinner, Geeta left, saying, “See you in the lobby.”

  Geeta found the little woman just ahead of her. They entered the compartments and came out almost together and walked to the water basins and the mirrors above them. While she touched up her face, the woman said, almost as if to herself, “It’s such a chore. Blusher, lipstick, eye pencil, hairdo.” She turned, her mouth half-smiling. “Doesn’t it get to you sometimes?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Why do we do it? Out of vanity? To look attractive for other women? For men who may not even notice? Why?”

  Geeta arranged a lock of her hair. “Mostly for ourselves, I suppose. Goodness, my hair’s a mess. But don’t you think it’s nice to look nice?”

  “I can’t imagine your looking any other way. American, aren’t you?”

  They were done with their make-up and moved away from the mirrors.

  “Yes,” Geeta answered. “Both of us. Aren’t you all?”

  “All of us but one. Mr. Smith is still British though he’s lived in the United States for years.”

  “This is our first time in Great Britain. We’re from the west.”

  “Where?”

  “Montana.”

  “For goodness sake! That’s where I was born. In Glendive.”

  “Well!”

  “I remember hardly anything about Montana. My father failed there as a sheep rancher and then made out well as a businessman in the east. I was just a little girl.”

  Geeta said, “It’s been nice talking to you, but I must go. My husband will be waiting. Tomorrow we climb to the castle. Then it’s on to the Cotswolds. You’ve heard of that part of England?”

  “For heaven’s sake! Heard of it? We’re going there, too, to a little place called Upper Beechwood.”

  Geeta’s mouth had fallen open, she realized when she closed it. “Now you’ll be telling me you have reservations at the Ram’s Head Inn?”

  “Where else in that little place?”

  Geeta shook her head. “Who would believe it?”

  “Who would? It’s like something ordained, isn’t it? We’ll see you there then. My name’s Drusilla Witt.”

  “Mine’s Marguerite Charleston.”

  They strolled out to the lobby and stood looking around until Geeta said, “Here comes my husband now. Sorry to keep you waiting, Chick.”

  “Not too long.”

  “I want you to meet Mrs. Witt, Drusilla Witt. Mrs. Witt, my husband, Charles Charleston. She’s from Montan
a, Chick.”

  “So long ago I can hardly remember.”

  “And that’s not all I have to tell you, Chick.”

  “Let’s find some chairs. Won’t you visit a while, Mrs. Witt?”

  “I see my people over there.” She laughed a little. “I guess they won’t miss me.”

  Charleston led the way to chairs arranged around a low table. When they were seated, Geeta told him about the coincidences, ending with, “That takes some believing, doesn’t it? All of it, I mean.”

  “Not all of it’s so strange. Some, but not all.”

  “Oh, Chick! What isn’t coincidence?”

  “For thirty years and more Montana has had a population of about three quarters of a million, sometimes slightly more, sometimes slightly less. That means a lot of birthings, a passel of kids, we might say.”

  Geeta egged him on with, “So far, so good, Professor.”

  “Well, now, with so many babies born, wouldn’t you think the population would grow? It hasn’t, though. It’s remained pretty stable. That means people leave Montana, go to live in New York, California, Chicago, or settle abroad. So what’s so extraordinary about two Montanans meeting somewhere else? Stands almost to reason.”

  “One man down, two to go,” Geeta interjected.

  “I’ll grant it’s quite a coincidence about going to the Cotswolds, and to Upper Beechwood at that. But it’s natural that both parties register at the Ram’s Head. No place else to stay. That’s according to the guidebook.”

  It was rather quiet here in the lobby—just the drone of conversation of people seated away from them, just the movements of the bellmen and clerks at the desk whiling away time until the next flurry.

  “You make things sound pretty simple,” Mrs. Witt told him. “May I ask what you do when you’re not on vacation?”

  “I’m a public officer.”

  Geeta broke in. “Don’t be so mysterious.” She turned to Mrs. Witt. “He’s the sheriff of our county in Montana.”

  A coach must have stopped in front of the hotel, for people began flooding in—men and wives, women with children, men with briefcases, and bellmen with baggage, all intent on their private business, all looking somewhat absent-minded with purpose.

  He heard Mrs. Witt saying, “A sheriff. That sounds exciting. Indians and cowboys and chases on horseback.”

  “Oh, sure, and a man for breakfast every morning.”

  “Now, Chick,” Geeta said.

  “I know when I’m being had,” Mrs. Witt answered. Her laugh was light, a laugh with no amusement in it, Charleston thought.

  “So may I ask about you?” he said. “Is it business or pleasure?”

  “It’s business, at least partly. I don’t know how much. I hope not for long. You see, my husband has a twin brother, a chemist who owns a small shop in Upper Beechwood. My husband wants him to sell out and throw in with him.” She added, with what Charleston thought was wistfulness, “That much I do know.”

  “They were born in England then?” Geeta asked.

  “No. In the United States. Walter and William. But William married a visiting English girl and then, perhaps because she wished it, moved to England. He’s been a British subject for a long time.”

  She sat for a moment, touched her head with one hand, and went on, “Who knows whether he’ll move or how long it will take to persuade him? You know how identical twins are. Closer in a sense than man and wife.” She swallowed the little catch in her voice. “Yes. Closer. They visit back and forth, not often, and keep up a steady correspondence. But I’m just chattering away.”

  She laughed lightly again, a surface laugh. Her whole manner was light, yet somehow not light. Something, Charleston reflected, was eating on her. Some disappointment. Some misted dream. Or was she just shallow? Or was his mind making things up?

  As if she had forgotten, Mrs. Witt went on, “Mr. Smith, now, he’s here at least partly on business. Something to do with an estate.”

  “A sort of group holiday for you then?”

  “More or less. Mr. Post—that’s Mr. and Mrs. Post over there—has been in business ventures with my husband, and so has Mr. Smith sometimes. I’m sure I’m mixing you up, but Mrs. Post—Eleanor’s her name—and Mr. Smith are sister and brother, and both were born in the Cotswolds.”

  She took a handkerchief from her jacket pocket and twisted it in her hands. “My husband’s into so many things, here and there, off and on. He’s so old-fashioned. Business for men, home and church and coffee parties for the ladies. He never mentions business matters to me.”

  Which was probably why she talked as much as she did, Charleston reflected, why she had stayed talking to them so long. Charleston found it easy to think so. She was, he decided, something more than pretty. She had that look of sad and even innocent loveliness that got to a man.

  She rose from her chair. “You’ll have to excuse me. They’ll be wondering.”

  She walked, a small, straight figure, to a husband who wouldn’t tell her anything.

  Charleston took Geeta by the hand and brought her up. “Bedtime, or just about. There’s a wanting woman, Geeta.”

  “Wanting?”

  “More than she has. More maybe than she’s ever had. Some kind of denied comfort. Some failed dream. She needs consoling.”

  “You old romantic. Haven’t you heard of come-ons?” She lifted her face, a hint of amusement in it.

  “Just a sucker, huh?” he replied. “But keep in mind that you may be wrong.”

  “Yes, Chick,” she said, still smiling. “But don’t you go getting ideas.”

  He answered her smile and squeezed her arm. “I already have an idea, but it’s not about her.”

  Chapter Two

  “These Englishmen drive as if the devil were eating their tailpipes,” Charleston said.

  “You’re doing all right,” Geeta answered, and after awhile said, “Wasn’t Burford a disappointment, even if it did introduce us to the Cotswolds?”

  “And Bibury?”

  “All golden stone and slate roofs and a river running by. I loved it.”

  A pheasant winged up before the car and flew into the woods, and Charleston said, “Ring-neck,” before his mind returned to their subject. “People in these villages sure don’t seem to get around much. That waitress at Burford rarely went to Oxford, she said, and it’s only twenty-some miles away. No wonder, maybe. Nice enough where they are.”

  “At least in Bibury. Why leave Eden? Did you know Eden was so green? Look at those hills and pastures.”

  “Just sit tight, and tourists will come and leave their money.”

  “This is no day to be cynical.”

  It sure enough wasn’t. The April sun was kind, the sky clear, and the air good to smell. And he thought of Stonehenge, and a sort of gentled time was in him. For the moment he was glad he wasn’t on a case back in Midbury. Tea and scones and clotted cream, against the greasy food of cattle-town cafes.

  They came to a hill, and Charleston slowed the car, looking for a lay-by. At the top he pulled into one and switched off the engine.

  Below them lay a valley, a vale as they termed it, and beyond it the hills and the hollows flowed away and away, a study in misty greens with sheep feeding in a small clearing. “There,” Charleston said. No need to point.

  “A dream world,” Geeta said, “and it stretches so far that the eye can’t go to the end.”

  It was no time to say the entire Cotswolds were not as big as their county back home, no time to say the atmosphere did the trick.

  “It’s so peaceful.”

  No time, either, to remind her there was hardly an inch of it that hadn’t been soaked in human blood. All the bloodletting seemed to have reached resolution now, in this still serenity, in a yellow stone on a green field with a ewe and a lamb resting by it.

  “Sing, Geeta. A song would go good.”

  “Even if your grammar’s bad?”

  “Don’t I have a right to be wrong?”
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  “Sure, silly. All right. I don’t know why. It’s not appropriate, but a song has been running in my head. It’s known as ‘The Cradle Song.’

  “I’m here by the fire

  Without heart’s desire

  And rockin’ the cradle

  That nobody owns.

  “I’m sittin’ and sobbin’

  And rockin’ the cradle,

  And rockin’ the cradle

  That’s none of my own.

  “Hi ho, hi ho, hi diddlely ho-o.

  Perhaps your own daddy

  Will never be known.

  “I don’t remember all of it.”

  “Good enough. Good enough.”

  “Sometimes it’s called Joseph’s song.”

  “Reminds me of ‘The Streets of Laredo.’”

  “Joseph of the Bible, dummy. And get your succession right. The Cradle Song’ came first.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  He started the car and let it laze along. “There’s a village, I swear, every jackrabbit hop. Each one, I reckon, a sort of enclave.”

  “But all so easy to look at. So in keeping with the land. With that stone they look as if they lived in the last rays of the sun.”

  At a small town called Chipping Campden they parked the car and strolled to a pub, where they ordered what the natives called a plowman’s—crusty rolls, cheese, chutney, and pickled onions.

  They returned to the street and entered a little antique shop. “You have some nice old china,” Geeta said to the woman inside, “but no flow-blue. Don’t you ever stock it?”

  The woman smiled, “When I have the chance, and that’s not often. American dealers pick it up so fast, and at such prices!”

  Geeta purchased a couple of small figurines.

  Outside, they paused to look at the market hall with its arches and gables. “Built in 1627,” Charleston said quietly, feeling again the long years of time.

  “Not old by English thinking,” Geeta reminded him.

  “No. Just American. We’re such a young country.”

  It was going on to seven o’clock when they reached the Ram’s Head in Upper Beechwood. Charleston turned off the motor, and they sat looking for a moment. “Nice enough place,” he said. “From the outside, anyhow.”