A Dreadful Past by Peter Turnbull Read Free Book Online Page B

garden and saw a magpie, possibly the same one as earlier, swaggering confidently across the lawn. ‘It’s well out of range, Frank.’ He grinned. ‘It’s keeping a respectful distance from you.’
    â€˜And he knows it,’ Jenny growled. ‘I tell you he knows what he’s doing – the damn thing is taunting me. It’s taunting me. I promise I am going to buy an air rifle, one that is both powerful and accurate. I would have done it a long time ago but it would have distressed Alison … The time is coming, though. I tell you the time is nigh. Well nigh. She attends elderly persons’ yoga every Monday and Friday afternoon in the village hall, and that’s when I’ll lay in wait for the blighter and any friends he cares to bring with him. If he has any. But to continue … the lock puzzled me. It puzzled all of us.’
    â€˜The lock?’ Hennessey turned and glanced at Jenny.
    â€˜Yes, the lock on the main door through which the felons gained entry. I suspected the son …’
    â€˜Noel,’ Hennessey reminded him.
    â€˜Yes, Noel Middleton. Hasn’t he mentioned it?’ Jenny continued. ‘The door had two locks.’
    â€˜Two?’ Hennessey echoed.
    â€˜Yes, a barrel lock and a mortise lock which was the lock which really secured the door. It appeared to us that the intruders smashed a pane of glass next to the door which enabled them to reach a hand in and turn back the barrel lock and thus open the door,’ Jenny explained. ‘Quite a simple entry.’
    â€˜So the mortise lock wasn’t locked?’ Hennessey interrupted. ‘That is strange.’
    â€˜It seemed not to be,’ Jenny confirmed, ‘but apparently that is, or was, very strange – totally out of character. I recall talking to the son, Noel, when he had travelled from his university following the murders. He was at Durham, I seem to remember and, incidentally, was very rapidly cleared of all suspicion of involvement in the murders either directly or vicariously.’
    â€˜Yes, yes,’ Hennessey grunted, ‘we do not think he is in any way implicated.’
    â€˜Good … I am pleased we were right about that … but Noel did inform us that he thought it highly unusual for the mortise to be unlocked,’ Jenny explained. ‘You see, it appeared to have been the case that Mr Middleton was very security conscious and he insisted that the mortise be locked at all times … and I mean at all times. Each member of the household carried a key to the mortise lock and another key to the lock was kept captive inside the house on a length of lightweight chain – the sort of chain you’d use to attach a bath plug to the bath.’
    â€˜Yes.’ Hennessey nodded. ‘I understand.’
    â€˜But that key, which was there as a permanent fixture so that no one could be trapped in the house in the event of fire, could not be reached from outside the door by smashing any of the glass panes,’ Jenny explained. ‘It was kept on a hook hidden from view and well out of reach of anybody outside.’
    â€˜Interesting,’ Hennessey commented. ‘I see where you are going.’
    â€˜So when the son, Noel, was told that the mortise appeared to have been unlocked that night and entry had been gained only by turning the barrel lock, the son used words or expressions like “astounding”, “unheard of” and “next to impossible” for the mortise to be left unlocked.’
    â€˜So there is a story there,’ Hennessey observed.
    â€˜There may be, but we must not jump to conclusions …’ Jenny helped himself to another muffin. ‘You see, equally it may be nothing more than a terrible coincidence that the one night the mortise was left unlocked because of an oversight on the part of one member of the household was the very night that the home was invaded. Though, frankly, I