Three French Hens

(Sorry, I couldn't resist this. Yes, a proper who dunnit, this time. What has always fascinated me is how the detective destroys the reputation of everybody else before he gets to the real murderer. Class war under the guise of detection, n'est pas?)


The great French detective had asked them all to be in the library at eleven. The large windows looking out over the grounds let in great shafts of golden light as the morning sun climbed towards the hottest part of the day but, in the room, the dark leather and walls of old books seemed to sooth and cool. They absorbed the heat of the day as well as any extraneous noises.
Small in stature, the man still had considerable presence as he strutted around the room.
“We are here this morning to answer one question, and one question only. Was the death of Lady Walsingham a tragic accident or a terrible crime; indeed was it a stark manifestation of evil dressed in the clothes of an innocent and tragic misfortune?”
He turned and surveyed the room.
“I must tell you now. I know the answer and to show you the truth I must explain the why and the how.”
“You, Miss Barnes had every reason to want to harm your oldest and dearest friend.”
The young woman gasped and began to stand up but he raised his hand and she retreated to her seat as if he had gently pushed her back. “She had stolen your only love,” he pointed to the young man standing by the Adam fireplace. Long and languid, he seemed to show no sign of interest as he smoked one of his Turkish cigarettes. “Or so it seemed. But of course, Mr Hadley here had no intention of ever marrying Lady Walsingham.”
“Steady on there!” Retorted the young man, suddenly alert and annoyed. “Ah, you show surprise. You feign annoyance but we both know that when you were in the Congo last year you were married to a certain Miss Bingham who is now masquerading as the Lady’s Maid to the late Lady Walsingham. A marriage which you kept secret but could not conceal from me!. I saw the note, did I not? It did not, as you say, fall out of her Ladyship’s purse but was something that Miss Bingham has been carrying around and she has read it on more than one occasion. And, indeed,” The detective, drawing the folded note from his pocket gracefully swepped it under his nose to take a theatrical sniff at it, “the perfume it is gently infused with is not of her Ladyship’s blend but of this young woman’s here.” He dramatically pointed the paper at the pretty blond girl standing in the corner in formal maid’s wear. As she fainted the detective turned back to the room.
“But this is all just a smoke screen because, as we all know, Lady Walsingham had other problems. Didn’t she, Sir Harry?” The old man with the large handlebar moustaches who had been sitting quietly in the largest, darkest, deepest armchair in the room moved his head into the golden light of the morning and looked at the detective with an expression so full of hate it would have wilted the very roses in the vase across the room. But the detective never even flinched, “You were so heavily in debt that you had resorted to emotional and even physical extortion to try to get your niece to give you the money. She lived in mortal fear of you yet she would not yield – why was that? Was it because she had grown strong as a result of her recent relationship with Mr Hadley? Or was the real reason that her new butler, Mr Thriplow, was now giving her extra support?”
He turned to the statuesque man in his early thirties who, while looking every inch the perfect butler, exuded a confidence and arrogance that only the best public schools and breeding could endow.
“I ask you, would a butler... even the very best butler, know the members of the top table at Peterhouse in 1928, or, indeed, know the nickname of the English master at Eton who was a champion oarsman before the war? No, these little things told me more than you might expect and, when I noticed his small collection of first editions in the little book case by his bed yesterday, I knew they were not the modest collection of an amateur enthusiast on a butler’s income but some prized items from one of the most distinguished collections in the country. You can take off that ridiculous wig and reveal yourself, Sir Wandsworthy. Your discretion and lifelong desire for quiet and modesty aside, you are a superb athlete and swordsman. You came here to protect your only true love but she slipped through your fingers like the sand. Your enemy was not using muscles but the brain, so you failed. I am so sorry.”
The butler’s rich, glossy black hair came off to reveal a head of fine golden hair and the features of the face softened as a more familiar looking man emerged from the disguise.
“But it was up to one person, and one person only, that we must look for the answer to this terrible injustice.”
“The Rt Hon Sir Larry Mouton; the only person who had, not only the motive, but the brain and the opportunity to murder the poor young woman.”
Sir Larry rose to his feet. Despite the time of day he had been sitting at the long table quaffing single malt, looking on as if none of this had anything to do with him.
“How dare you sir! I will have to thrown out of this country, you ... Frenchman, you.”
“Quite,” smiled the detective, “as you can see, he has no fear. He does not think that I, a mere foreigner could possibly work out his plot and follow the threads back to him. You see, it was Sir Larry that laced her Ladyship’s tea with just enough stimulant (was it from your personal supply of coke Sir Larry, yes?)... just enough, I say, to incite the paranoia and fear that lived so close under the surface.
He knew her so well, after spending so many summers here when they were younger. It was he who, in a jealous rage had planned each step along the way, enticing her into the old children’s house down by the lake. Those memories of childhood ambition, the plans to marry her and take ownership of all of this were dashed in that very place, were they not? It was there that she rejected you when you were both young teenagers and it was there that you planned to destroy her!”
“No! I still loved her!” cried the young man but the detective waved this away. “You escorted her, unseen by all in the house, while everyone thought you were in the drawing room, playing the piano. But we can see, if we look hard enough, the concealed gramophone that produced the music that gave you your alibi. With her ladyship becoming more agitated you introduced her to the little house and settled her in the small downstairs room, locking the front door while she was not looking then dropping the key in her purse. Then you quietly slipped out the back door, locking that too.”
The detective was becoming more indignant as he strutted back and forth reeling off each new step in the dark plot.
“You KNEW that she was pathologically terrified of birds. In particular, you KNEW that she feared the presence of even the smallest of hens. You had been there when, as a small child, she had discovered her dead, beloved nanny being pecked by these creatures, yet you revelled in the idea of using this against her, did you not!
Inside that house where safety and security should have been hers, she found herself confronted by three hens.... three highly trained hens, mark you, who eagerly sought to peck at her very dress... the one you had given her and encouraged her to wear that day.”
“This is not true!”
“Oh yes it is. It was unmistakable. The feathers I found in the house were all consistent with this. You see, I recognised them. They all belonged to that particular breed of hen that is so often used in the theatre and other places where animals are required to be trained. Only the best, most intelligent of creatures could be used for such a trick. And this was your downfall because I recognised them.”
“No!”
“But yes, you call me a damned Frenchman but you needed French hens for your plot, did you not. Only three of the finest French hens would do to induce such a sense of terror in her Ladyship’s mind that her poor heart would give out and she would die! This is the answer. This is the truth! See, even now you have one of their feathers in the turn up of your trousers. ”
“Damn you!” Cried Sir Larry. “Damn you all!”
The police had been waiting by the door and they quietly marched in to take custody of the now defeated Sir Larry as the rest of the demoralised group sat aghast.