Stiff News by Catherine Aird Page A

actually spilling it. He sat down and took a sip, saying, ‘Ah, that’s better. Now, settle down and tell me why you’ve come to see me. I don’t get many visitors from the – ah – outside world these days.’
    â€˜We have reason to believe that the late Mrs Powell,’ began Sloan without preamble, ‘thought she was being murdered.’
    â€˜And does anyone else think so?’ Two bright birdlike eyes regarded the two policemen with lively interest.
    â€˜No one whom we know about,’ said Sloan with care.
    â€˜And was she?’ The Judge turned his head to one side quizzically. ‘Murdered, I mean.’
    â€˜We don’t know yet.’ Sloan saw no reason for prevarication. The Judge might have got a tremor but he still seemed to have all his marbles as well.
    â€˜Ah…’ Calum Gillespie took another appreciative sip of the Bual before using two hands to lower the glass onto an occasional table. ‘Would it be – er – presumptuous of me to enquire whether you, too, have grounds for thinking she might have been?’
    â€˜Not, sir, what you could call really firm evidence,’ replied Sloan, giving him full marks for getting straight to the heart of the matter. ‘Not yet.’
    â€˜I see.’ The Judge drew his eyebrows together in a prodigious frown and became sunk in thought. ‘Difficult for you … for everybody.’
    Detective Inspector Sloan, experienced giver of evidence, waited much as he would have done – did – in court. Judges always took as long as they needed – as long as they wanted – to think. It was one of their privileges. It was not for them to be harried into ill-considered speech by counsel or trapped into the all too revealing ‘response immediate’.
    â€˜And would I be right,’ the old man said at long last, ‘in concluding therefore that the result of any post-mortem examination has so far been inconclusive?’
    â€˜Awaiting the full report,’ said Sloan ambiguously. Not only had the old boy got all his marbles but they were patently in excellent working order.
    â€˜Why, then, Inspector, might I ask, have you come to see me?’
    â€˜For background,’ said Sloan glibly. Too glibly, because Crosby seemed to think that the word needed amplification.
    The constable looked earnestly at the frail old man and said in loud tones, ‘We want to know, sir, if there’s been any dirty work at the crossroads that you know about here at the Manor.’
    â€˜There’s always been dirty work at the crossroads, Constable,’ the Judge said unexpectedly.
    Crosby said, ‘I know but…’
    â€˜Because the crossroads were always where they had the gibbet,’ said Calum Gillespie hortatively, reaching for his glass of Madeira.
    â€˜I didn’t mean then,’ protested Crosby. ‘I meant now.’
    â€˜And they had it there,’ went on the nonagenarian, serenely disregarding the detective constable’s remarks, ‘because the crossroads were usually where the parish boundaries met and they always had the gibbet on the boundary if they could … saved having two and kept it out of your own backyard.’
    â€˜Quite so,’ Detective Inspector Sloan came in smoothly, reminding himself that in the early days of this Judge they had hanged men. And women. What Crosby needed was hanging out to dry. He leaned forward and said, ‘I wonder, sir, if you would care to tell us why you are so very attached to your old coat?’
    The glass that had so nearly reached Judge Calum Gillespie’s lips fell suddenly out of his nerveless hands, sending its delectable contents spilling out stickily over the old man’s suit.
    â€˜Why have you come?’ he quavered breathlessly, his face turning an unhealthy shade of purple. ‘Who sent you here?’

Chapter Eleven
    Early or late
They stoop to fate
    â€˜Then