The Killings at Badger's Drift by Caroline Graham Read Free Book Online

turns up on This England calendars and tourist posters. The exile’s dream of home.
    The house was neatly and imaginatively thatched, with a second roof, like a scalloped apron, over the first. The windows had leaded panes. A herringbone brick path crumbling with age and edged with lavender and santolina curved around to the back door. Here were hollyhocks and pinks, delphiniums, thyme and mignonette. An immaculate lawn stretched away from a flagstoned area. At the bottom of the lawn, half hidden by a huge viburnum bodnantense , were two beehives. Barnaby, after his first shock of pleasure, stood for a long moment in silent appreciation. The garden settled round him as gardens will. Indifferent and harmonious; consolingly beautiful.
    ‘What a wonderful scent.’ He approached a nearby rose bush.
    ‘That was her favourite. Don’t know what it’s called.’
    ‘It’s a Papa Meilland.’ Barnaby bent his head and inhaled the incomparable fragrance. Sergeant Troy studied the sky. Miss Bellringer produced a large iron key and opened the door. Telling Troy to stay where he was, Barnaby followed her into the house.
    The first thing they saw when they entered the kitchen was a wooden shelf which held a sacking apron neatly folded, a clean trowel and a kneeling mat. Miss Bellringer turned quickly away into the centre of the room then cried: ‘Phroo . . . what a ghastly smell.’ She moved towards the sink.
    Barnaby cried: ‘Don’t touch anything, please.’
    ‘Oh.’ She stood stock still like a child playing statues. ‘Because of dabs, you mean?’
    There was certainly an overpoweringly musty odour in the air. The chief inspector looked around. Everything was beautifully clean and tidy. There was a jam jar of parsley on top of the fridge. A vegetable rack holding a few potatoes, and a couple of apples in a cloisonné bowl.
    ‘Have you been back here since the body was removed?’
    She shook her head. ‘I can’t bear it without her.’
    ‘Did you notice the smell before?’
    ‘No. But my olfactory equipment isn’t too lively. Emily was always grumbling about it. Urging me to sniff this or sniff that. Complete waste of time.’
    ‘But you would have noticed, surely, if it had been as strong as this?’
    ‘I suppose so.’ She started to move unhappily about, frowning with distress. ‘Good grief.’
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘Here’s the explanation. Who on earth could have brought it in?’ She indicated the jar on the fridge. Barnaby approached and smelt it. The mousey odour made him want to sneeze.
    He said: ‘Isn’t it parsley?’
    ‘My dear man - it’s hemlock.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘There’s a fieldful of it down by the old railway lines.’
    ‘It looks like parsley. Do you think your friend mistook -’
    ‘Good heavens, no. Emily had a lovely little parsley patch. Next to the walnut tree. Grew three sorts. You can forget that idea. Anyway - it wasn’t here the morning she died.’
    ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘Pretty sure, yes. I didn’t go round taking an inventory, you understand.’
    ‘And the cottage has been locked up since?’
    ‘It has. And’ - she anticipated his next question - ‘I have the only spare key. The front door was kept bolted on the inside. It opens directly on to the lane. Emily never used it. Don’t you realize what this means, Chief Inspector?’ She seized his arm excitedly. ‘We’ve found our first clue!’
    ‘Is this the sitting room?’ Barnaby moved away, ducking his head.
    ‘Yes.’ She followed him. ‘There are just these two rooms downstairs.’
    ‘Was this door open the morning she was found?’
    ‘No. Closed.’
    A grandfather clock ticked slumbrously in the corner. There was a small inglenook fireplace and beams decorated with brasses, a chintz-covered three-piece suite, a Queen Anne table and two diamond-paned cabinets full of plates and figurines. One wall was solidly packed with books.
    The interior of the cottage was so precisely what the exterior led one to