A Swing of the Axe

Excerpt

A Swing of the Axe
Winnie Frolik © 2023
All Rights Reserved

Chapter One

“Der Bockmist!” Franz Shaefer exclaimed over his morning coffee and eggs.

Mary Grey did not speak German, but she had spent enough time around Shaefer, and enough time around angry people in general, to know he was swearing.

“What is it now?” she asked and Shaefer thrust the morning paper at her. As was usually the case, his outburst was triggered by a story about his former homeland, Germany. The offending article in question this time was a minor piece in the foreign news section detailing how the German chancellor had sent Brussels a note guaranteeing Belgium’s personal integrity and inviolability provided the latter abstained from military action against the former. Given that it would be suicide for a country the size of Belgium to try to attack the state of Germany, this seemed an easy enough bargain. Franz Shaefer, though, was having none of it.

“Der Bockmist!” he repeated while Ahab the ginger tom tried to move in on his plate, and Shaefer instinctively redirected the little beastie with his hand. It had become something of an ongoing duel between them; Ahab would try to pilfer food and Shaefer would defend his plate like a medieval knight fighting for his lady’s honor. “That butcher Hitler doesn’t want peace and he respects the integrity of inviolability of no one but himself,” Shaefer ranted. “He seeks to further furnish his empire and when he casts his greedy eyes westward, Belgium will be right in his path.” Despite his agitation he still managed to fend the ginger tom off with a slight cuff to the head.

“Wasn’t Belgium in their path the last war too?” Mary wondered, pulling a frustrated Ahab into her arms where she could soothe his temper with petting. “Sure saw a lot of refugees coming in.”

“True,” Franz agreed. “They were massacred the last time and unless the rest of the West rises together to aid them, they will be again.”

“Poor Belgium,” Mary observed. “Seems like everyone always goes slamming into them from one direction or another every time there’s a war.”

“It is not just Belgium who is at risk.” Shaefer sounded grimly foreboding. “Those appeasers like Chamberlain fail to understand the Führer’s ambitions. He will stop at nothing less than the full conquest of Europe.” His features took on a dark countenance Mary had come to know all too well. It worried her to see him descend into melancholy. Too often such things could become a downward spiral.

“At least your family are safe in New Zealand.” She tried to cheer him up. Ahab, meanwhile, decided he’d had enough contact and ran off to the window ledge to watch the passing parade of street life.

“True.” He brightened. “They write to me how beautiful it is there. That it is all so fresh and green! That the water is purer than any they have ever tasted.”

“Far cry from London that,” Mary noted.

“You know,” Shaefer mused, “the more I hear of the beauties of New Zealand and see the state of things here in Europe, the more I wonder if I shouldn’t join my family abroad.”

Mary raised an eyebrow. “And what would happen to me then?” she wondered aloud.

Shaeffer hemmed and hawed a bit in response. “Perhaps you could keep the agency open on your own?” He couldn’t hide the doubt in his voice. “Or you could always go back to nursing?” This one he spoke with far greater confidence.

For the last couple of months, Mary had been working as a sort of general assistant/apprentice at Shaefer’s private investigative agency in London. She rented a furnished room around the corner to sleep and bathe in but spent the bulk of her waking hours at Shaefer’s offices when she wasn’t on active assignment by, say, recording everyone who went in and out of an ostensible piano tuning shop which actually served as a front for narcotics sales. Detection was not her original choice of vocation, but she had found it quite fascinating work. While she still volunteered for the occasional temporary nursing job and could no doubt go back full time with ease, she’d be loath to give up her newfound studies in crime. And the work helped distract her from a broken heart.

Mary had spent a glorious season as the lover of Harriet West, one of the most beautiful (and richest) heiresses in England. It had all come crashing down, of course. Harriet had started entertaining second thoughts. Not, she told Mary, because she loved her any less but what kind of future would they have together? They could never have children together. Never be accepted into polite society. And Harriet was herself confused about what she and Mary had in the first place. Mary may have had only women lovers before, but Harriet hadn’t. Admittedly, she’d found far greater satisfaction with Mary than with anyone else but how much of that was true and how much of it was the result of Mary coming along at a crisis point in her life? She told Mary they needed to separate so she could “think things over,” which she proceeded to do in Southern France. She still sent Mary postcards and, at one point, a bottle of perfume which Mary had thrown out precisely because it reminded her too much of Harriet.

Mary realized with hindsight that it had been foolish of her to expect anything different. It might be possible for two women to find happiness together, though it would be illegal for them to marry. It might be possible for a couple to find happiness despite being from different classes, even though in England that was frowned upon to the point of being damn near illegal. But two women from different classes? It could never have worked long term. Really it was all for the best they went their separate ways.

If she told herself that enough times, she might just believe it. But the chill outside made her bed seem all the emptier. She had already made a couple of visits to old haunts to find new companionship. But so far, she had yet to find another woman who lit her fire the way Harriet had. Clearly, she needed more time before her heart would heal, but that didn’t make the interim any less lonely. Oh well. She was hardly alone in being alone. Shaefer, after all, never appeared to have anyone else, male or female, in his life. He was, it seemed, one of those souls who lived entirely for their work, clinically detached from all pleasures of the flesh. In another lifetime, he might have been a monk or whatever the Jewish equivalent of a monk was.

The fact that Mary spent more time in the office than her own rooms was half the reason why Ahab, originally her cat, now lived in Shaeffer’s domicile. The other half being Ahab found Shaefer’s combination of office space and living quarters much more amiable. So many more nooks and crannies to lurk in! He was especially fond of a large comfy green armchair that had once been property of Shaefer but was now thoroughly covered in orange fur.

“Well, if you do decide to relocate,” Mary told Shaeffer firmly, “just be sure to give me prior notice. And a letter of recommendation.”

“Most certainly,” Shaeffer agreed heartily, then added with a sigh, “besides, I am unlikely to be able to go anytime soon. London might be a noisy and polluted city, but its high crime rate makes for excellent professional opportunities. Though, some of the major cities in the United States would do just as well.”

“Well, murder can happen anywhere,” Mary philosophized. “We know that better than anyone.”

Shaefer snorted in agreement as he remembered how he and Mary had crossed paths not once but twice on investigations into suspicious deaths in what were otherwise perfectly peaceful locales.

As if she read his thoughts, Mary spoke up. “Why, look here. someone was just slain in the middle of nowhere.” She eagerly scanned a large headline.

Axe Slaughter in Northumbria!

Local Community Shocked by Murder of District Nurse!

The blood drained from her face, leaving her white as paste.

“What is it?”

“The woman who was killed. Elsie Thewlis. I know her,” Mary whispered. “Or knew her. She was two years behind me at Queens.”

Shaefer was silent as Mary read and reread the article before handing it to him. Details were sparse. District Nurse Elsie Thewlis had resided in a tiny hut right outside the small Northumbrian town of Plemmerdyn. On the last day of her life, she had completed her rounds as usual. Her final stop of the day had been at Dove House where there had been a recent bout of food poisoning. That was reportedly the last time anyone had seen her alive. The next morning, the milkman had come round to make a delivery only to find what appeared to be bloodstains on the front steps. Alarmed, he had pounded on the door, calling for Nurse Thewlis, but had received no answer. He thereupon went immediately to the police. Meanwhile, Nurse Thewlis’s failure to turn up at a morning appointment had already started people wondering. On knocking down the door of the hut, local constables had found it empty and Nurse Thewlis’s bed unslept in. A search had been made of the area and twenty yards from the hut in a grove of trees, buried under a pile of leaves, lay the body of Elsie Thewlis. She had sustained multiple blows to the face and torso. Near her lay the murder implement: an old wood axe. The article went on to report that Nurse Thewlis had been well liked in the village and how the entire community was now in shock at her death. An inspector from Scotland Yard had already been dispatched to assist with the case.

Shaefer took but a moment to digest the contents of the article before meeting Mary’s eyes steadily.

“How well did you know her?” he asked Mary. It was the closest he could come to inquiring whether Elsie was a past lover.

“We were friendly but not what you call intimates,” Mary replied, the closest she could come to saying she and Elsie had been chums but nothing more.

She thought back to a cheerful, slender girl with hair the color of straw, freckled nose, and perpetually flushed cheeks. The recent picture accompanying the article showed her a bit older and plumper but otherwise more or less the same as in her student days. She wore her uniform and a big smile as she sat atop her bicycle with a sunny field in the background. Mary did not want to think what Elsie must have looked like after the axe had done its work on her.

“She was a farmer’s daughter, I know,” Mary went on. “Grew up in Herefordshire. Had a lot of stories about cows and fruit picking and hops season. She didn’t like London very much. Said everything was too expensive and once she got her license she’d go back to the country. The whole reason she wanted to be a district nurse was so she could help country folk who might otherwise never see a doctor or anyone else for their troubles.” Memories broke forth in her mind like a gush. “Patients always liked her, you know. Especially the children and old folks. God, I wish we’d kept in touch! She was quite a nice girl really. Who could have done something like that to her? Why?”

“As we both know from experience, evil, my dear, is often beyond explanation.”

Mary was silent a moment. “It says in this report Scotland Yard’s already on the scene.”

“I would expect nothing less.”

“Scotland Yard are good at solving murders, aren’t they?”

“Most certainly,” Shaefer agreed. “I know a number of their detectives and have the utmost confidence in them.”

“So, they could solve this on their own without us going up there.”

“Most probably,” Shaefer concluded. “Nor do I think our presence will be necessarily welcome. After all, unlike the other cases we have investigated, no one at the scene has asked for our help. Or will even be paying us either.”

Mary rose from her seat. “I’m going to go pack a bag right now.”

“Same as I.”