Change For The Worse

by Elizabeth Lemarchand

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Pollard replied, rightly interpreting the question as a grudging authorisation. ‘We’ll go straight down, then, as soon as I’ve passed the Glanford papers over. Inspector Forrest’s been working on them with us and he’s quite well up in the case.’

  The Assistant Commissioner sniffed irritably. ‘Keep me posted, then,’ he said, summoning his secretary in the next breath.

  Dismissed, Pollard went to collect all information that had come in from Wellchester and returned to his room.

  ‘Here,’ he said, thrusting a folder at Inspector Gregory Toye when the latter appeared. ‘The Body in the Boiler House. Digest the gen, will you, and pass it on to me when we’re on the road. I’ll be busy with Forrest for the next hour or two.’

  They had worked together on all Pollard’s important cases. Toye, slight, pale and serious, and wearing large horn-rims, tucked the folder under his arms.

  ‘It’ll be like old times,’ he observed.

  ‘How come?’

  ‘There was an exhibition of pictures on, wasn’t there?’

  They stared at each other for a second, remembering Pollard’s first big case, the springboard of his subsequent career.

  ‘I hope our technique’s come on since then,’ Pollard said. ‘The AC’s in a hurry. Get everything lined up, will you? Say eleven-thirty for take-off.’

  Toye had a gift for assimilating facts. During the drive to Wellchester he gave Pollard a comprehensive account of the set-up at Fairlynch Manor, and of the sequence of events between early on Saturday morning and the discovery of the body by Tom Basing.

  ‘Mind you,’ he concluded, ‘you can’t take it in properly without seeing the lie of the land. How isolated this Fairlynch Manor is, and what the access is like, and so on.’

  Pollard agreed. ‘We’ll have to make covering the ground an early priority. Well, it seems clear enough that whoever was on the job never meant to kill Peck. The PM report says that the knock on the head would only have laid him out for a short time, and the tying-up must have been pretty ineffective as he freed himself. Whoever attacked and dumped him could hardly have known about the boiler giving off fumes in a north wind.’

  ‘Disgraceful, I call it,’ Toye replied with unusual heat. ‘I reckon these Heritage of Britain people are responsible for him dying. Having a solid fuel boiler in a confined space with no proper ventilation.’

  Pollard laughed. ‘“Regina v. Heritage of Britain”. Put that to the AC and he’ll promote you on the spot. As I told you, he’s hopping mad at our having been brought in. So are the local force, apparently. All our well known charm and tact will be called for.’

  ‘Do you think that Mrs Peck being called away decided whoever it was to have a go at the pictures on Saturday night?’ Toye asked, after a pause. ‘Both of ’em being on the spot would’ve doubled the risk of being heard. Any chance of a lead here?’

  ‘Doubtful, I’m afraid. There were a lot of people around on Saturday afternoon — almost certainly too many for us to find out who knew she’d gone off and who didn’t. We could discover if she was usually much in evidence when the place was open. At present I’m inclined to think her not being there was just a bonus for X. He seems to have gone off in a hurry with pictures grabbed more or less at random, and may have thought she was asleep upstairs.’

  They made good headway, stopping only for a hasty snack, and arrived at Wellchester police station just before two o’clock. Inspector Rendell greeted them with the basic minimum of courtesy and escorted them to Superintendent Maynard’s office. Confronted by the impassive countenance seen on the television screen on Sunday, Pollard decided that a breakthrough was a priority.

  ‘I can tell you, Super,’ he said in the friendliest manner as he sat down, ‘how I enjoyed the way you handled that young cub of a newsman. I saw it on the box on Sunday night.’

  To his surprise the gambit paid off. The large, rather square face relaxed and its expression became canny and faintly amused.

  ‘Saw it, did you? Mind you, I don’t deny that these interviews can be useful if there’s people you want to come forward, but what gets my goat is being badgered before you’ve had time to size up a situation.’

  Pollard concurred heartily and the atmosphere thawed perceptibly.

  Superintendent Maynard apologised for the absence of his Chief Constable, unavoidably delayed on the far side of the country.

  ‘Off the cuff,’ Pollard said easily. ‘I can’t feel that top level wire-pulling that’s brought us in —’ he gave an inclusive nod in Toye’s direction — ‘has been any more welcome down here than it has at the Yard.’

  Superintendent Maynard shifted his position and rested clasped hands on his desk.

  ‘Seeing you’ve put it that way, Mr Pollard, I don’t mind admitting that it’s taken a bit of stomaching. Why, damn it, we’ve only been on the job since Sunday morning, and there’s been no letting up, I can tell you that. But between ourselves, the honest-to-God truth is that we’ve got nowhere. Maybe coming in from right outside you’ll spot something we’ve missed out on.’

  ‘Suppose you and Inspector Rendell take us through the preliminary report that went up to the Yard? We’ve been chewing it over as we drove down, trying to get our groundwork done.’

  This suggestion was clearly very acceptable. It appeared that the Wellchester police had gone over the Manor with a toothcomb for signs of a forced entry, both inside and out, but none had been found. Therefore it had to be concluded that the thief or thieves had hidden in the house. Evidence pointed to the fact that this would have been possible during Saturday afternoon when people were coming and going to visit ‘Pictures for Pleasure’ in the library. Concealment would have been helped by the state of rooms which were being altered and redecorated.

  ‘No workmen around on a Saturday afternoon, of course,’ Inspector Rendell said, ‘but the place was full of their gear. Easy enough to stow away behind bags of cement or planks up against a wall. I don’t suppose Mr Peck looked in every corner. All I can say is that we did, and drew a blank. That goes for the Pecks’ flat too. Just the prints of rubber gloves in the library and on the door from the hall into the kitchen premises, and on the inside of the boiler house door and the side door out into the yard.’

  Pollard asked who was responsible for locking up the Manor at night, and learnt that Francis Peck attended to this personally, and was a conscientious type to the point of being a worrier about his job. It seemed most unlikely that he would have overlooked the side door found open on Sunday morning.

  ‘Anyway,’ Superintendent Maynard took up, ‘this job wasn’t casual pilfering by somebody going around and trying doors on chance. We’re brought bang up against the problem of how anyone got into the library at all. A new good quality mortice lock was put on the door when it was decided to have this picture show. I’ve had a talk with Mrs Peck, and she says her husband kept the key in use on his keyring and carried it around by day, and put the ring in the same drawer in their bedroom every night, and that’s where we found it. The spare key, with various other spares like his second ignition key, was in the safe in his office, along with the afternoon’s takings.’

  ‘Any trace on either of them of a wax impression having been taken at any time?’ Pollard asked.

  ‘None, according to the forensic chaps.’

  ‘Another odd feature of this exhibition of pictures is the rather casual attitude to security,’ Pollard said after a pause. ‘They must surely have been covered by insurance, and you’d think the company or companies concerned would have made it a condition that the house mustn’t be left empty. Yet Mr Peck was out for over three hours last Saturday night, leaving nobody in charge.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Superintendent Maynard replied. ‘He was. But it’s not as rum as it looks at first sight. You see, broad and long the value of the pictures they’d got there didn’t add up to a hill of beans. “Pictures for Pleasure” the show was called, and local people had just lent
anything from their homes that they enjoyed looking at. Why, some of the exhibits were paintings done by members of the Wellchester Art Club, people who’d taken up art as a hobby. We had a bit of luck over finding out if anything valuable was there — the sort of thing that professional art thieves might go for. A Professor Chilmark who advises Heritage of Britain about pictures was coming to have a private view on Sunday, and we roped him in. He said that apart from one portrait there was nothing in that class, and he was doubtful about the portrait being that much of a draw. It was one of an ancestor of the late Mr John Ridley, and obviously what they were after.’

  ‘What’s the evidence for that?’

  ‘A pair of steps was in front of it. They’d been brought in from the passage leading to the kitchen, Mrs Ridley said. The portrait was hanging crooked, and the rubber glove dabs were on the frame. Professor Chilmark suggested that they might have been going to cut it out of its frame when they were disturbed by Mr Peck. It’s a hefty great frame: not the sort of thing you could go off with under your arm.’

  ‘But they did go off with five pictures, didn’t they?’

  ‘All fairly small ones. One was hanging under the Ridley portrait, on the same picture hook. You see, the room wasn’t fitted up properly for art shows. This was what you might call a trial run. There’s a picture rail and all the exhibits were hung from that on cords, except for the portrait which was on a chain, being heavy. We think that the one under the portrait was taken down in case they knocked against it and made a row, but in our opinion that was their big mistake. Somehow it was dropped and the glass broke off, and the noise probably woke Mr Peck. His wife says he was a light sleeper.’

  ‘What about the other four?’

  ‘The cord had been cut in each case. They were in different parts of the room, all small and easy to carry, and only one of any value at all, as far as Professor Chilmark could tell from the gen in the catalogue. This one belonged to the Dowager Lady Boyd-Calthrop. Worth about £500, she says.’

  ‘I suppose the thief or thieves were too rattled after disposing of Mr Peck to wait and carry on with cutting out the Ridley portrait, and thought they’d take pot luck to cover expenses,’ Pollard said thoughtfully.

  Superintendent Maynard and Inspector Rendell agreed that it looked like that. Probably agents rather than principals on the actual job.

  ‘All the same,’ the Inspector said, ‘you’d think a car was a must, and we’ve drawn a complete blank there as well as over the access to the library.’

  ‘Are there other houses anywhere near the Manor?’ Pollard asked.

  ‘Well, there’s the lodge, of course, just off the road at the drive entrance, but as I said, both Mrs Ridley and her granddaughter say they don’t remember hearing a car during the night, and their dog didn’t bark and wake them. The nearest village house is about three hundred yards away, as you’ll see. Spireford’s one of those strung-out villages with the houses along the road, and one of our chaps has called at every one of ’em and drawn a blank. Apart from that, there’s only the Manor Farm on the other side of the ridge behind the Manor itself. It’s down in the next valley, you might say, and only on a farm road. In the Spire valley there’s the old mill where Mr Rossiter lives, about a couple of hundred yards beyond the Manor, but that’s across the water meadows. Neither he nor Mr Blaker at the farm heard a car.’

  ‘What was the weather like on Saturday night?’ enquired Toye.

  ‘Quite a rough sort of night, wouldn’t you say, Rendell?’ Superintendent Maynard asked.

  Inspector Rendell agreed, having had to get up in the small hours to wedge a window on the landing of his house.

  ‘You could have got something there,’ he said to Toye. ‘The wind making enough racket in the trees along the drive to cover the sound of anybody pussyfooting past.’

  Pollard listened with only part of his attention. The whole situation struck him as decidedly odd, even bizarre, and he felt that at the moment nothing further was to be gained by discussing it with the Wellchester men. This was obviously the moment to suggest going out to Fairlynch Manor and getting some local colour. It was settled that they should drive out in convoy with Inspector Rendell. He would show them the lie of the land and then leave them to it.

  ‘That looks like the place,’ Toye remarked later as a bend in the valley road brought Spireford in sight. ‘That big white house up there. Very nice position.’

  Pollard agreed. In the late afternoon sunlight the shining curves of the river and the fresh greens of water meadows and woods formed an entrancing setting. In the wake of the Wellchester police car they drove through the village getting flashes of bright colour from the cottage gardens, and turned off into a drive. That would be the lodge, he thought, as they passed a small house on the right and began to breast a sea of daffodils on their way up the Manor. Finally they drew up on a gravelled terrace outside an elegant front door surmounted by an attractive fanlight. The door opened and a uniformed constable appeared and saluted.

  ‘Nothing to report, sir,’ he said, in reply to an enquiry from Inspector Rendell, and stood aside to let them enter. Pollard walked into the hall with a sudden quickening of interest.

  His visual mind had unconsciously formed a picture of the hall of Fairlynch Manor from reading the preliminary report on Francis Peck’s death, and it was turning out to be surprisingly accurate in essentials. A central staircase curved up to the right. On either side of the hall were doors leading to the main ground floor rooms, and in the rear on the left was the door which presumably shut off the kitchen premises. Close to this door and at right angles to it Pollard could see an archway. As he expected, this led by way of a short passage to the door into the library. A seal had been put on the latter by the Wellchester police.

  Inspector Rendell broke it, unlocked the door and switched on the clusters of electric lights which hung from the ceiling.

  Pollard looked about him with interest. The shutters of the tall windows were closed and secured with bars. It was a dignified room, on the walls of which a considerable number of pictures had been competently hung. In this ordered setting various discordant features stood out. The striking portrait of a young man in late-eighteenth- century formal dress hung at a drunken angle. There were pieces of glass on the floor below it. A battered pair of household steps stood immediately in front of it. Some canvas display screens at the far end of the room had been pushed aside, and loose ends of picture cord dangled over gaps from which exhibits had obviously been removed. A pile of printed lists on a side table by the door were scattered on the floor. Over the years Pollard had picked up some knowledge of painting from Jane, a lecturer in the history of art at a London college. A brief inspection of the works on the walls seemed to him to confirm Professor Chilmark’s estimate of their value in terms of hard cash. He did not feel well-informed enough to put even a tentative figure on the Ridley portrait, pleasing though he found it. He turned to Inspector Rendell.

  ‘As far as this room goes your reconstruction seems to me bang on,’ he said. ‘For the moment let’s bypass the problem of how X — or X plus Y — got in, and go on to the next stage. Peck must have heard something and come down. I suggest that the library door was ajar in case X had to make a quick getaway. X hears Peck coming. It’s an old house and I bet the stairs creak. X gets behind the door which will give him cover as Peck comes in. Perhaps he considers making a dash for the side door into the yard, which he’ll almost certainly have had the forethought to unbolt. Peck stands listening outside, hears nothing, and makes the mistake of going into the library instead of beating it back to his flat and dialling 999. X attacks him from behind, and knocks him out. The problem now is how to put him out of harm’s way while the planned theft is carried through. The polythene bag brought for carrying off the loot comes in handy. X pulls it over Peck’s head and shoulders and trusses him up, not very efficiently.’ At this point Pollard suddenly broke off and looked at Inspector Rendell. ‘What sort of cord was
it? Picture cord?’

  ‘No. A bit thicker than that. The sort you’d tie up a fairly hefty package with.’

  ‘It looks as though he’d meant all along to carry off more than the Ridley portrait, then. Especially if he was going to cut the painting out of the frame.’

  Toye asked if the frame would have gone into the bag, and Inspector Rendell admitted that they hadn’t measured them up, produced a steel tape and noted the frame’s dimensions. It would just be possible to get the frame in.

  ‘After they’d trussed Peck up, I reckon they coasted round looking for somewhere to dump him,’ he said, ‘and hit on the boiler house. Nice and handy, and not far. There were no signs of dragging, so two of ’em could have carried him between ’em, or one chap working singlehanded managed a fireman’s lift. Peck was only average height and quite lightly built according to the report. Then they’d shoot the bolt on the house side, assuming that he’d be found when somebody came to see to the boiler next morning.’

  Rendell led the way through the door into the kitchen area. The door of the boiler house was only a few yards along the passage, and had a strong bolt on the inside. He shot it back, and the three men crowded in, Toye showing strong disapproval.

  ‘Stinking fumes even now,’ he said, sniffing, ‘and there’s hardly a breath of wind this evening.’

  ‘It probably doesn’t draw any too well at the best of times,’ Pollard replied, inspecting the old-fashioned boiler.

  They agreed that the place was a death trap when both inner and outer doors were shut, and emerged once more. Inspector Rendell kicked the strong coarse matting on the floor of the passage.