Fell Murder Read online

  Fell Murder © 1944 by the Estate of E.C.R. Lorac

  “The Live Wire” © 1939 by the Estate of E.C.R. Lorac

  Introduction © 2020 by Martin Edwards

  Cover and internal design © 2020 by Sourcebooks

  Cover illustration© NRM/Pictorial Collection/Science & Society Picture Library

  Sourcebooks, Poisoned Pen Press, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Poisoned Pen Press, an imprint of Sourcebooks, in association with the British Library

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

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  www.sourcebooks.com

  Fell Murder was originally published in 1944 by Collins, London. “The Live Wire” was first printed in Detection Medley, published in 1939 by Hutchinson & Co.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the publisher.

  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Introduction

  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

  A Short Story: “The Live Wire”

  Back Cover

  Introduction

  Fell Murder, first published in 1944, was written when E.C.R. Lorac was at the height of her powers. The crucial ingredients of character, setting, and plot are so nicely balanced that it is surprising that this book has been out of print for decades. But the success of previous reprints of Lorac novels by the British Library has shown that there is an appreciative twenty-first century readership for her brand of well-made traditional detective fiction.

  This was Chief Inspector Macdonald’s first case in Lunesdale, Lorac’s love of which is evident from the very first page. Her description of the countryside is lyrical. We are introduced to the area through the eyes of a local man, John Staple, who gazes out as far as “the blue hills of the Lake District…Scafell, the Langdale Pikes, and Helvellyn. Staple had climbed them all, and he knew every ridge and notch of the blue outlines.” But Staple’s home is in that part of the country just to the south of the Lake District, less well-known but with a charm of its own, the valley of the River Lune. Lorac is especially interested in the close connection between the people of Lunesdale and the landscape. Although not a farmer, from start to finish she displays a deep empathy for farming folk, and the pressures (and compensatory delights) of their way of life.

  Staple is surprised to encounter Richard Garth, who is making a brief trip back to Lunesdale after an absence of twenty-five years. He is the eldest son of old Robert Garth, but left after a fierce row about his decision to marry a local woman (now deceased) of whom his father disapproved. But Richard isn’t in the mood to bury the hatchet. He makes clear that he has no wish to meet up with members of his own family, or indeed his late wife’s father, another man with a grudge against Robert Garth. As he sets off for a hike, Richard makes Staple promise not to tell anyone of his return to the area. However, their conversation has been overheard…

  Fell Murder is, therefore, an example of that interesting subgenre of crime fiction, the “return of the prodigal” story. A returning prodigal can be a catalyst for outbursts of passion leading to murder, and over the years a great many detective novels have rung ingenious changes on this theme: Julian Symons’s The Belting Inheritance, another British Library Crime Classic, is a case in point. Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot’s Christmas and A Pocket Full of Rye both concern the return of a prodigal son, although her two plots are quite different from each other. Highly readable crime stories in this vein include Josephine Tey’s Brat Farrar, Mary Stewart’s The Ivy Tree, Martha Grimes’s The Old Fox Deceiv’d, Robert Barnard’s Unruly Son, S.T. Haymon’s Death of a God, Peter Robinson’s The Hanging Valley, and Ruth Rendell’s Put on by Cunning.

  One doesn’t need to be a great detective to foresee that Robert Garth is likely to fall victim to murder. Elderly, rich, and hot-tempered, he is a super-typical murderee in a detective story. But it’s worth noting that Lorac’s depiction of him is less simplistic than was often the case in Golden Age mysteries. As Staple says, Robert has “got some good qualities in him, for all that he can be a bitter enemy… By and large, he’s been a good landlord.”

  And Lorac makes clear that being a good landlord is a major point in a man’s favour. She takes pains to describe the hardships endured by people working on the land, and the ethos of co-operation between owners of neighbouring farms and the people who work on them. Robert may be in his eighties, but even after a day’s work he’s prepared to lend a hand when someone else has need of assistance. A major strength of Fell Murder is the fascinating picture it paints of life in rural England during the later stages of the Second World War.

  The farming community is close-knit, and when the police investigate a murder, Superintendent Layng finds that his methods are ill-suited to the task of winning the confidence of people he needs to question. The acting chief constable frets that Layng isn’t ideally suited to leading the investigation at a time when the local force is stretched with other duties. These are memorably summarised: “Rural inspection, use of petrol, surveillance of aliens, registration of alien children arriving at the age of sixteen, black-out offences, licences for pig-killing, black-market offences—even bee-keepers added their quota to police work of to-day, for hives had to be officially inspected before the bee-keepers could get a certificate empowering them to get sugar for winter feed.”

  So Scotland Yard is called in, and although Macdonald is a Scot based in London, he feels instantly at home in Lunesdale. He doesn’t waste time, but nor does he rush to judgment. As he tells Staple, “this crime is conditioned by the place. To understand the one you’ve got to study the other.” Nor does he pour scorn on Layng, whose report he finds admirable, and with whom he develops a sound working relationship. But Macdonald’s empathy with people of widely divergent types makes him a more effective investigator than the superintendent.

  Lorac does a good job of shifting suspicion around her cast of suspects before Macdonald uncovers the truth. And it’s in keeping with the spirit of the story that, in the novel’s closing lines, one of the characters whose lives have been turned upside down by crime exclaims: “Thank goodness for the beasts and the land!… Listen! That’s the calves calling already—they can hear our voices. Doesn’t it smell good out here?” As Macdonald takes his leave, he says that he wishes he’d learned how to milk a cow: nothing could better illustrate his down-to-earth nature, and his lack of resemblance to those brilliant eccentrics Holmes, Poirot, and Wimsey.

  E. C. R. Lorac was the principal pen name of Edith Caroline Rivett (1894–1958), who also wrote as Carol Carnac. A Londoner born and bred, she settled in Lunesdale in her fiftie
s, following the death of her mother. By the time this novel appeared, her books had achieved a considerable following. Sound craftsmanship and compassion for the underdog characterise her writing, and these qualities, much in evidence in Fell Murder, ensure that her work has an enduring appeal.

  Martin Edwards

  www.martinedwardsbooks.com

  To

  A Freeman of Lancaster

  Chapter One

  When he reached the crest of the fell, John Staple halted in the lee of the stone wall which ran along the edge of the Garthmere land. He was panting a little from the long climb and he leaned with his back against the rough unmortared stones and stood gazing westwards, while his sheep dog stood beside him with waving tail, facing the wind, alert for any indication of his master’s wishes. A sturdy grey-haired man, nearing sixty, with long-sighted grey eyes and weather-beaten face, John Staple seemed part of the landscape himself.

  The prospect before him was one of which Staple never wearied: he had known it for over half a century, and throughout that time no change had occurred to mar the familiar loveliness of fell side, valley, and distant hills. Far below him, the River Lune wound its serpentine curves across the wide flood plane: beneath the clear September sky the water shone blue, flowing out to Morecambe Bay, whose golden sands gleamed palely in the western distance. On the opposite side of the valley the ground rose in a series of ridges, wooded in places, but in the main showing the chequered carpet of farm land: intense green of the fog grass in the rich river dales, pale gold of stubble on the higher levels, blue-green of unharvested kale and mangold crops, lighter green of pasture. The sun caught the stone farm buildings of the hamlet of Gressthwaite, half hidden among the trees mid-way up the slope across the river. Far beyond to the north, the blue hills of the Lake District stood out clear against the sky—Scafell, the Langdale Pikes, and Helvellyn. Staple had climbed them all, and he knew every ridge and notch of the blue outlines. Behind him, on the farther side of the wall, the fell was clothed in heather, its fragrance heavy with the sweetness of honey. At his feet the rough pasture, in which bracken and bramble and bilberry mingled, sloped down to the richer pasture of the lower levels.

  Staple stood very still, his hands gripping his stick, enjoying the keen wind which whistled round him, in his ears the call of peewits and curlews, while his grey eyes dwelt lovingly on the rich valley and embracing hills. His mind was not given to formulating his thoughts in explicit words, and it would have been alien to him to express the facile enthusiasm of the more vocal southern Englishman, but he was conscious of some warmth of comfort which dwelt in the wide prospect, of an unchanging certainty in an unstable and changing world.

  The wind in his ears prevented Staple hearing the footsteps which approached him from the westward. A man came towards him striding unheard through the heather, but Staple’s sheep dog gave a short bark of warning just as the newcomer approached. Staple turned quickly to face the latter, surprised at the intrusion of a stranger in that loneliness of fell and sky.

  “You’ve forgotten me, John, but I haven’t forgotten you.” The newcomer’s voice had an alien note, for something of an American accent sounded in the deep tone of a voice which yet retained something of its north of England quality. John Staple stared at the other, his brows knitted in perplexity for a moment. The newcomer was a tall, hefty fellow, clad in a suit of rough, navy-blue pilot cloth, with a seaman’s jersey rolled up to his chin. He had thick stubbly hair, greyish about the temples, and very blue eyes deep-set beneath shaggy brows. Most of his square face was concealed by a short curly beard, once fair, but greying now, like his hair. His low, square forehead and cheeks were tanned and weather-beaten, and the face was heavily lined, yet the blue smiling eyes still had a boyish look.

  After a long stare, the perplexity in John Staple’s face gave way to recognition and his long face lightened to a welcoming smile as his hand shot out eagerly to grasp the other’s.

  “Richard Garth, by gum! By all that’s wonderful it’s yourself, Richard. Lord, it’s good to see you home again!… Twenty-five years it’d be since you went away.”

  Richard Garth gripped the outstretched hand in his own.

  “Aye—not far short of twenty-five years, John. It was in 1919 I talked to you last, up here it was too, against this same wall. Home? Yes, it seems like home up here, with you to welcome me.”

  He turned and looked northward across the valley to the lakeland hills. “It hasn’t changed, has it? I’ve often thought of this—the river and the dales and the fells. I’ve seen a lot of the world since I was here last, and—by the Lord!—I’ve seen nothing to equal this, not to my way of thinking.”

  “Aye, it’s a good country,” replied Staple. “I’ve lived in it all my life, and I ask for nothing better. Have you come home to stay, Richard?”

  The other gave a short laugh. “Home to stay? No. I haven’t a home to stay in. You know that. I came back to see—this: perhaps to see you, as well. I’ve got a week’s leave between voyages. I’ve been on the Atlantic convoys these past three years. Tankers most often.”

  “Tankers, eh? You’ll have seen a bit of trouble, then?”

  Richard laughed a low, deep, quiet laugh.

  “Trouble?” he echoed. “You’ve said it. I’ve been torpedoed three times and bombed too often to remember. They call me a mascot, because I always win through, and the chaps with me, too. Ten days in an open boat isn’t anybody’s idea of fun… Lord, let’s leave all that out and talk about something else. How’s life with you, John? Still a bachelor?”

  “Aye—and likely to be. Things are much the same as they always were, only the work gets harder and we don’t grow any younger. All this ploughing has meant a lot of work, and labour’s scarce. We’re always at it—never get a pause as we did in the old days. Harvest follows hard on Haytime in these parts.” He paused a moment, and added, “Your sister’s made a good farmer, Richard. She does a man’s share and does it well.”

  “Lucky for the old man,” replied Richard Garth. “I bet he gets all the work he can out of her, unless he’s changed a lot since I knew him. He was a hard old devil.”

  “Aye. He was a hard man, and he’s not changed,” admitted Staple, “but Marion—she can stand up to him. She works on the land because she wants to, not because your father drives her. Truth to tell, I think he scorns women farmers.” Staple turned and studied his companion. “You’ll be going home to see them, Richard?”

  The other gave a laugh that held no sound of mirth.

  “Not I! When the old man kicked me out, he’d done with me for good—and I with him. I haven’t forgotten, John. Some hates die hard.”

  “Hate is a bad master, Richard.”

  “Maybe. You remember Mary?”

  John Staple nodded his grizzled head. “Aye. I remember her—and a bonny lassie she was. I was grieved when I learnt you’d lost her, Richard. It was a sorry business.”

  “Yes—a sorry business. We went out to Alberta, you know, took up some government land and set to work from the word go—built our own shack and broke our own land. We didn’t have a child for the first four years—not until we’d got our house built and we were safely established. Of course, I hadn’t a cent, but things were going well—and Mary wanted a child. I didn’t send her into hospital—and things went wrong. She died, and her child died, for lack of some of that money that damned old father of mine could have spared without missing it. There are some things one doesn’t forget. He cursed me when I told him I’d married Mary. I remember…”

  He broke off and stood staring out over the sunlit valley, and as he looked, his face softened.

  “I didn’t come back here to brood over past days, John, nor did I come to see the old folks at home. I finished with them the day I walked out of Garthmere. I came here to see all this, and to have a tramp over Ingleborough and Giggleswick, and down into the Yorkshire dales. It
’s land you don’t forget. When I was last adrift about a thousand miles from any land at all, I thought about all this—and I could have kicked myself because I hadn’t walked over the Pennines into Ribblesdale again before I died. They talk about the call of the sea. Damned nonsense—but I understand the call of the land. God! It smells good up here! I don’t wonder the bees are out for the heather honey.”

  “Bees? Yes. They’re young Malcolm’s. You don’t know him, do you? You heard your father had married again—twelve months after you left home, it was. Malcolm was the child of his second marriage. He’s not a bad lad, but a weakling—he’s lame, and often ailing.”

  “How does the old man like that? He wasn’t one of the soft-hearted kind: hated sickness of any sort.”

  “Aye. He’s like that. Malcolm has had a rough time, but he’s got enough of his father in him to face things out, and he stands up to him in his own quiet way. He’s a bit of a poet, I believe.”

  “Poet? God help him then, in that house. There wasn’t any room for poetry in Garthmere. Is Bob Ashthwaite still alive? I wrote and told him when Mary died, but he never answered my letter.”

  “He was a poor hand at letter writing. Most of the farmers hereabouts get their wives to write their letters for them, and Bob’s wife died before you married his daughter. He was cut up about Mary’s death—he was fond of her in his own speechless way. Bob’s over at Greenbeck now. He left Farfell some three years ago. He came to loggerheads with your father—some matter of arrears of rent. It’d gone on for years. They had an agreement by word of mouth about reduction of rent when farmers were working their land at a loss. When agriculture looked up again, your father claimed arrears of rent, and Bob repudiated the claim. Mr. Garth took him to court at last and won his case. It seemed to turn Bob’s mind queer. He sold up most of his stock and went over to Greenbeck. He’s got a small holding there, and he works it all alone, save for a boy who’s weak in the head—a workhouse lad, with no kith or kin. They live together at Greenbeck—and it’s said they pig it like beasts in that lonely house.”