A Third Class Murder: a cozy 1930s mystery set in an English village Read online

  A

  Third Class

  Murder

  By Hugh Morrison

  © Hugh Morrison 2021

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Published in Great Britain by Montpelier Publishing

  ISBN: 9798588023917

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter One

  T he Reverend Lucian Shaw, Vicar of All Saints’ church, Lower Addenham, was having one of those rare moments when all felt right with the world.

  It was a beautiful bright morning in early spring, and the sun streamed through the large windows of the dining room; the vicarage, although small and somewhat shabby, was a well-proportioned house which looked its best in sunlight; so much brighter and calming than some clerical houses he had known, steeped in Victorian Gothic gloom. A cheerful little fire burned in the small grate, and his wife Marion seemed in good spirits too.

  ‘Will that be all, ma’am?’ said the maid, as she set the breakfast things on the table in front of the vicar, a tall, slim man in fit middle age with a fine head of greying hair.

  ‘Yes thank you, Hettie,’ said Mrs Shaw with a smile, and Hettie bobbed quickly then disappeared into the kitchen.

  Another thing to be thankful for, thought Shaw, as he accepted a cup of tea poured by his wife. Servants were so hard to come by these days and not only was Hettie efficient, she was polite as well.

  His sermon for Easter Sunday was coming along well, and would be finished today; a pleasant trip to the nearby town of Great Netley to see the Rector there about the forthcoming Whitsun parade was also on the agenda for the day. His new curate, Laithwaite, just down from Cambridge, was, like Hettie, also proving to be refreshingly capable in his role.

  As he spread some marmalade on a slice of toast, the brief moment of almost absolute contentment was broken by his wife.

  ‘I see the Cokeleys have been arguing again’.

  Shaw gave a brief sigh and a text sprang into his mind. Proverbs 18. ‘Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall’. Well, he thought, he hadn’t exactly been haughty this morning, but perhaps a little too self-satisfied.

  He turned to his wife and smiled. ‘Private domestic matters ought to be no concern of ours, my dear.’

  ‘I know, Lucian,’ said Mrs Shaw awkwardly. ‘You know I’m not one to gossip, but...’

  ‘...that “but”, Marion, is generally the preamble of someone who is one to gossip.’

  ‘I’m concerned, that’s all. The air’s so still this morning you could hear them all over the high street. I couldn’t help noticing it when I took Fraser out for his walk.’

  At the sound of his name and perhaps the word ‘walk’, the little white West Highland Terrier stood up from below the table and looked up at his mistress with bright eyes, wagging his tail. Mrs Shaw patted his head.

  ‘What was it this time?’ asked Shaw, not really wanting to know, but recognising his wife generally had his parishioners’ best interests at heart.

  ‘Money again,’ replied Mrs Shaw. ‘I could hear them talking quite loudly from the window above their shop and at one point they were almost shouting’.

  Shaw smiled. ‘I trust you were not eavesdropping?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Mrs Shaw. ‘I merely stopped to look at a few things in their shop window. They always have such lovely displays.’

  Charles Cokeley and his wife ran a small antiques shop in the village; not a mere second-hand shop of the type found in many towns around East Anglia, but a well-kept place with some genuinely beautiful pieces on display.

  The Cokeleys, as far as Shaw knew, were a respectable middle-aged couple in the village, and generally appeared friendly to one another when attending church or other functions. Neither had come to him with any problems, but his pastoral sixth-sense told him all was not well in their domestic life. This was now the second argument that had been overheard by his wife.

  ‘Mrs Cokeley was saying something about it being high time they sold up and left the village,’ continued Mrs Shaw.

  ‘But he, I mean, Mr Cokeley, was not having any of it and was downright rude to her. He called her an awful name, which I shan’t repeat, and said he wasn’t moving and that was that. Ought we to say something, Lucian? I passed by one of the ladies from the Women’s Institute and I’m certain she heard it as well, and there were two of the choirboys on their way to school sniggering as they passed.’

  Shaw sighed. Perhaps because of his own happy domestic situation, he was reluctant to face the fact that many, if not even most, marriages had their rocky patches.

  After a moment’s pause, Shaw replied decisively. ‘No, my dear. It is neither my place nor yours to interfere, unless and until one of them comes to me for guidance. For now, suffice it to remember them in your prayers.’

  Mrs Shaw smiled gently at her husband. It was silly of her, she thought, to think he would wish to be troubled by village gossip. ‘I will stop by the shop,’ she said, ‘and deliver the parish magazine. They do have some really lovely things in there.’

  While the Shaws were taking their breakfast, a less harmonious domestic scene was taking place a short distance away, as a heavy-set, ruddy man, still in shirt-sleeves, stood talking to his over-dressed wife in the small parlour above their antiques shop on the high street.

  ‘I still don’t see why you can’t accept the estate agents’ offer. This place has been losing money for years and it’s about time we sold up and tried somewhere new.’

  This was said by Freda Cokeley, a woman who had been attractive in her youth but who was now showing the signs of middle-aged spread and white roots beneath her gaudy blonde hair.

  Her husband, Charles Cokeley, glared at her. ‘Perhaps if you got up off that sofa and helped me in the shop we’d have a bit more money,’ he growled. ‘We wouldn’t have to pay Miss Ellis to help out, for a start.’

  ‘I don’t see why you need her anyway,’ said his wife. ‘It’s not as if we’re inundated with customers.’

  ‘I’ve told you, I have to go on buying trips, don’t I? And if you won’t run the place while I’m gone, then someone has to.’

  ‘Buying trips!’ snorted Mrs Cokeley. ‘Drinking trips, more like.’

  Cokeley bridled. ‘It’s none of your damned business what they are.’

  Mrs Cokeley stepped in front of her husband and glared at him. ‘Close that window you great oaf, people will hear you all the way down the street!’

  Cokeley turned swiftly despite his bulk, and slammed down the sash window which bounced in its frame with the impact.

  ‘There,’ he said, impatiently. ‘Happy now?’

  ‘Yes. If you must call me all the names under the sun then kindly don’t do it when the vicar’s
wife is walking past along with half the village.’

  ‘Damn the vicar’s wife,’ said Cokeley calmly, ‘and damn you.’

  ‘Well I like that,’ said Mrs Cokeley, with a sharp intake of breath. ‘And you reading the lesson and taking the plate round that church of a Sunday. Call me what you will but at least I’m not a hypocrite’.

  ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’ countered Cokeley, buttoning his waistcoat and checking his reflection in the glass above the chimney-piece. He smoothed a strand of hair across his balding pate until he was satisfied it was in the correct place.

  ‘You know very well what I mean. Have a look at that board with the ten commandments on it next time you’re in church and remind yourself of that one about adultery.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’m a respectable married man.’

  ‘Married you may be, my love, but there’s nothing respectable about you.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning I’ve seen the way you look at that Miss Ellis. Ever since she’s been helping in the shop you’ve been gazing at her like a love-sick puppy. I dare say you’ll be inviting her on one of your “buying trips” soon, if you haven’t already.’

  Cokeley snorted a laugh as he put on his jacket and walked to the stairs; it was almost time to open the shop.

  ‘Her? You’re imagining things. She’s as plain as a brown envelope, and about as flat, too.’

  ‘Disgusting!’ retorted Mrs Cokeley as she picked up the Radio Times, and prepared herself for a busy day on the sofa with the wireless and a box of Rowntree’s chocolates for company. Her husband stomped down the stairs into the shop below. He had a few things to do before Miss Ellis arrived.

  Sybil Ellis, 29, plain and drifting towards becoming an old maid, finished her frugal breakfast and began clearing away the plates. Her mother, grey-haired and crippled with arthritis, struggled to get up from the table.

  ‘You stay there, mother. I don’t want you having another fall.’

  ‘Alright, I’ll stay put,’ said Mrs Ellis petulantly. ‘I wouldn’t want to be any bother. I just thought I’d do the dishes as you’ve got to go to work.’

  ‘It’s alright, mother. Leave them. I’ll do them when I get back. Just don’t go doing anything that means we have to get the doctor out again, as there’s nothing to pay him with’.

  ‘Money!’ snorted Mrs Ellis. ‘Root of all evil, that is. Common even to talk about it, if you ask me.’

  Miss Ellis sighed as she looked around the back kitchen of the small gimcracked house; the flat outhouse roof had been leaking again, and she knew the landlord wouldn’t do anything about that as they were behind with the rent.

  Money had been tight since her father had died, his small retirement nest egg exhausted by doctors’ bills and then the costs of the ‘big send-off’ her mother insisted had to be organised. Any attempts at economy were considered ‘common’ by Mrs Ellis, and she had no idea of the perilous situation the family was in.

  A pauper’s funeral had been her father’s lifelong fear, thought Miss Ellis; never mind the fact she’d ended up little better than a pauper herself, having had no time for courting either, while attending to her father in his last illness.

  Her brother Jack pushed back his chair and lit a Gold Flake cigarette, exhaling a long stream of smoke with a satisfied sigh. He never let much bother him and seemed to drift from job to job; at present he had a somewhat precarious place on the railways, but Miss Ellis did not expect him to keep it long.

  ‘You’ll remember to give me housekeeping this week, won’t you, Jack?’ said Miss Ellis as she picked up her hat and gloves. ‘Don’t go spending it all on beer and the pictures again.’

  ‘Don’t nag, sis!’ said Ellis cheerily. ‘You’ll get every brass farthing, to keep us in the style to which we’re accustomed. Beats me why you need my cash anyway, what with that job you’ve got in King Tut’s Palace.’

  ‘King Tut’s Palace’ was Ellis’ nickname for Cokeley’s antique shop.

  ‘Urgh’ shuddered Miss Ellis. ‘That place. Gives me the creeps and so does he. Soon as I can get something better, I will. When this awful slump’s over I might be able to find something better. Or some one.’

  Mrs Ellis took note of this. ‘You could do worse than that employer of yours,’ she said. ‘That Mr Cokeley. He must be worth a pretty penny.’

  ‘He’s married, mother,’ said Miss Ellis.

  Mrs Ellis, who although unable to get out much nonetheless retained a keen interest in local gossip, gave a toothless smile. ‘I know he’s married, but not for much longer, from what I’ve heard. Fight like cat and dog, those two do. Something will happen before long, mark my words. Then’s your chance.’

  ‘Oh yes, something such as what?’ asked Miss Ellis.

  ‘Such as a…’

  Here Mrs Ellis paused, not wanting to utter out loud the shocking word. She decided to spell it out euphemistically instead.

  ‘Such as a D. O. R. V. I. C. E.’

  Ellis laughed. ‘A door vice, mother? What’s one of those then?’

  ‘Quiet,’ barked Mrs Ellis. ‘You know what I’m talking about.’

  Miss Ellis shuddered. 'Even if he was divorced I wouldn’t want him. He’s an old goat and a brute and his wife’s not much better.’

  Mrs Ellis cackled. ‘Maybe he’s not such a good bet, then. His wife might do away with him before he gets a chance to leave her.’

  ‘That’s not funny, mother’, said Miss Ellis, ‘And I’ve got to go to work now.’ She stepped into the narrow, gloomy vestibule and adjusted her hat in the hall-stand mirror.

  Ellis stood beside her and put his cap on; with his slight build and delicate features, there was little difference between the faces of the two siblings in the sepulchral light of the corridor.

  Lowering her voice so that her mother could not hear from the parlour, Miss Ellis turned to her brother. ‘All set?’

  He opened the front door and nodded decisively. ‘All set, sis. Let’s go.’

  The Reverend Shaw strolled along the high street, dawdling a while; Laithwaite was reading Morning Prayer at the church today so he had some free time before he was due to visit the Rector at Great Netley.

  Perhaps, he thought, after hearing his wife’s concerns about the Cokeleys, a visit to their shop might be a harmless first step. A ‘recce’, they had called it in the war; a spying out of the land before engaging. He really did not wish to interfere in his parishioners’ private lives, but at the same time, felt a strong sense of duty toward them; if he provided a presence to those in need, they could ask for counsel if they wished it; if they did not, he had at least been there for them. Besides, his wife’s birthday was not far off, and it would do no harm to browse for a small gift.

  Shaw approached the old shop, with its bottle-glass bow-fronted window and overhanging upper storey. The sash window which had been the oracle of gossip was now firmly closed.

  Seeing nothing of interest in the window, he entered the shop, inhaling the smell of ancient wood and wax polish. No bell rang, nor did there appear to be anybody at the counter.

  He looked around at the bewildering display of objects, all with their little price tags, covering almost every inch of the shop. He wondered how on earth anyone could keep track of them all. He noticed some Victorian watercolours of Norfolk hanging on the wall of an alcove in a far corner, and remembering that Mrs Shaw had a particular love of that neighbouring county, he walked over to view them more closely.

  Just then, the door opened, and Shaw noticed Albert Goggins limping into shop, pausing for a moment to catch his breath. Shaw recognised him as an occasional attender at the church, who organised the annual Armistice Day service.

  ‘Shop!’ called Goggins impatiently, while he twirled his white moustaches; a former warrant officer in the army, he was not one to mince his words when requesting something.

  Shaw had been about to greet him, but something in the man’s tone made him keep his place in
the gloom of the alcove.

  Stepping forward to the counter, he rapped his stick on the polished surface and called out again. ‘Anyone there?’

  Cokeley appeared from the small back room, looking as if he had been exerting himself in some way. His professional shopman’s smile faded slightly as he realised who it was who had called.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, Mr Goggins. Good morning to you.’

  Goggins nodded curtly. ‘Morning. Well?’

  Cokeley smiled. ‘Very well, thank you. And you?’

  ‘Don’t play silly beggars, Cokeley. I mean well what about it?’

  ‘What about what?’

  ‘You know what. The offer. Any thoughts?’

  Cokeley’s expression returned to that of feigned professional courtesy. ‘Ah, of course. You mean the items you brought in for valuation. I’ve had a chance to look them over but the offer still stands, same as when I told you when you brought them in.’

  Just then a slightly built, plain young woman in horn-rimmed spectacles and a shapeless tweed suit walked into the shop. Shaw recognised her as Cokeley’s shop assistant.

  ‘Good morning Mr Cokeley,’ she said in an expressionless voice.

  ‘Oh good morning, Miss Ellis,’ said Cokeley. ‘You’re just in time to return some goods to this gentleman. Fetch that cardboard box from the back room please, the one by the desk’.

  A moment later Miss Ellis placed the box on the counter, with a metallic clink. She stood beside Cokeley impassively as he began listlessly fingering through the contents.

  ‘Things like this don’t fetch much these days,’ said the dealer.

  ‘Every blasted junk shop owner since Adam has said that, I’ll wager,’ said Goggins irritably.

  ‘They may well have done, Mr Goggins,’ said Cokeley, ‘but since I sell antiques this is not a junk shop.’

  ‘You buy junk and sell antiques, is what you mean’, snorted Goggins. ‘So you’re not budging on the price then?’