This Private Plot by Alan Beechey Read Free Book Online

baffled.
    â€œStepladder?”
    â€œI heard from Constable Bostar that Dennis used a stepladder when he made his quietus, another Hamlet reference, as I’m sure you know, but what a fool I must seem to a young chap like yourself, quoting a man who’s been dead and buried these four hundred years. Well, it seems the church stepladder has gone missing. We store it outside the south chancel. Putting two and two together, I was wondering if they might make one and the same, as it were. Will it become Exhibit A, and should we, therefore, purchase a new one, pro tem?”
    â€œI’m not aware that any crime has been committed in Mr. Breedlove’s death,” said Culpepper, “so if the stepladder turns out to be yours, Vicar, I’ll make sure you get it back.”
    With a flutter of the hands that may have been a blessing or an apology for the Crusades, Edwards and the verger continued along the lane toward the Square while Oliver, Effie, and Culpepper waited beside the black car.
    â€œSo before Uncle Dennis carried his stepladder all the way up to the Shakespeare Race,” Oliver said, “he had to walk to the church to pick it up. At his age. Not to mention finding a rope.”
    â€œHe already had the rope,” said Culpepper. He unlocked the car and took a plastic bag from a briefcase on the front seat. It contained what looked like a pair of small, wooden maracas, one with a tie-on label. They were the handles of a child’s skipping rope.
    â€œAs well as his books, Mr. Breedlove collected a few classic children’s toys. He kept them in a small display cabinet. The label says this rope is Victorian, possibly used by the girls of the Liddell family at Christ Church in Oxford. Anyway, Breedlove sliced off the handles with his kitchen knife and used the rope to hang himself. It yielded about eight feet.”
    â€œEnough to strangle him, but not enough to break his neck,” Oliver said.
    â€œI get the sense, Mr. Swithin, that you think I’m missing something here,” said Culpepper as he returned the evidence to his car.
    â€œI just think the whole extravaganza seems too much for a man in his eighties. He should be dangling from a beam in his living room, not trudging all the way up to the Synne Oak with an eight-foot stepladder under his arm and Alice in Wonderland’s jump-rope in his pocket.”
    Culpepper looked at Effie, and something clearly passed between them using that sixth or seventh or forty-second sense that was reserved for telepathic transmissions of confidence between English police detectives.
    â€œLet’s go back inside,” he said.
    They stood again among the books and papers in Breedlove’s living room, while Oliver repeated the opinion he had given his uncle earlier. Effie listened, clearly weighing her growing interest against the need to avoid encroaching on Culpepper’s territory. Culpepper also listened, not looking at Oliver and pulling thoughtfully on his upper lip. When Oliver had finished, he lifted his head.
    â€œMost people I’ve spoken to describe Breedlove as a likeable chap,” he said. “Always genial, good company. The last person to take his own life. One or two were distinctly cooler. You can’t delight everybody, I suppose. But his suicide is a puzzle. And I agree with you, sir—the special effort it required is also a puzzle. Perhaps, though, I can supply the missing motivation.” He strode across to the large bureau where he’d left his papers.
    â€œMy uncle mentioned that you’d found a note,” Oliver chipped in. “Was it a suicide note?”
    Culpepper didn’t reply, but handed him a clear plastic folder that contained a single piece of paper, which once had been folded horizontally into thirds. Oliver and Effie read the text, written in pencil in carefully formed uppercase letters.
    DID YOU THINK YOU COULD HIDE YOUR HISTORY? DID YOU THINK THIS WHOLE