‘Hopeless for prints,’ he pointed out.
As they returned to the hall footsteps were audible on the staircase. A young man in jeans and sweater paused, and then came more quickly down the remaining steps. He had a thatch of dark hair, large horn-rimmed spectacles on a rather long nose and a pleasantly alert and purposeful expression. Inspector Rendell introduced him as Mr Christopher Peck. Pollard shook hands and expressed sympathy.
‘Of course if there’s anything I can do to help,’ Kit Peck said, not very hopefully. ‘I mean, it all seems so — so absolutely fantastic.’
‘I think a short talk on the set-up here would help us,’ Pollard told him. ‘We could do with some filling-in, and don’t want to worry Mrs Peck more than we must at the moment.’
‘As a matter of fact I don’t think it would worry her — not in the way you mean. Much better for her, really, than just sitting around and wondering what the next development’s going to be. I’ll nip up to the flat and see how she reacts, shall I?’
In his absence it was settled that Inspector Rendell should now hand over to Pollard and return to Wellchester. As the front door shut behind him Kit Peck reappeared and reported that his mother was ready to see Superintendent Pollard, so would he come up?
As they went in Pollard noted that the flat was self-contained with its own front door. He got a brief impression of a pleasant lived-in sitting room with well-filled bookcases and numerous pictures on the walls. A woman whom he placed in her early fifties, slight and rather below average height, got up from a bureau and came towards him. She was very pale and showed signs of stress, but her grey eyes under dark brows met his steadily, and she appeared to have herself well in hand. As they sat down he said a few sympathetic words.
‘Thank you,’ Hilary Peck replied. ‘I’d like to say that I’m glad Scotland Yard has taken over, although the Wellchester police have been doing a great deal. Please ask me any questions you like.’
Aware of Kit Peck sitting protectively near his mother, and of Toye’s discreet presence in the background, Pollard considered for a moment.
‘I’m anxious that neither you, Mrs Peck, nor your son shall think that our main interest is in the theft of the pictures,’ he said. ‘I know you’ll understand me when I say that your husband’s death was incidental to the theft, and so the best way to find out who was responsible for it is to concentrate on the theft itself.’
In response to his enquiring glance both the Pecks nodded assent.
‘The first line of enquiry we want to follow up,’ Pollard went on, ‘is why Saturday night was chosen. Was it because the thief or thieves knew that you were away, and that your husband would be alone in the house? I understand that you didn’t know this yourself until Saturday morning?’
‘That’s quite right,’ Hilary Peck told him. ‘My father rang about my mother’s accident just after eight. She had fallen downstairs and broken her leg. My husband drove me into Wellchester to catch the nine-thirty London train.’
‘Right. Well now, would the fact that you had gone away have got round quickly?’
‘My husband rang Mrs Ridley at the lodge to ask her to take over one or two jobs, and Alix Parr, her granddaughter, undertook to be on the gate for me on Saturday afternoon. Two women from the village were up here on Saturday morning for cleaning. They went home at lunchtime and would have told their friends, I think.’ Hilary Peck smiled briefly and attractively. ‘I’m sure you know all about bush telegraphs in villages.’
‘Indeed I do,’ Pollard assured her. ‘Were you usually on the gate on Saturday afternoons when the gardens were open?’
‘Yes. It’s one of my regular jobs. So people who come fairly often would probably have asked Alix Parr why I wasn’t there. But she might not have known who all of them were, I’m afraid.’
‘I see,’ Pollard said. ‘This line isn’t as promising as I hoped, then. May we go on to security arrangements here? Inspector Toye has the report on them by the Wellchester police, and we’d like to go through it with you.’ Because of the comparative isolation of the house, the Ridleys appeared to have taken reasonable precautions against a break-in. The front door had a Chubb lock, bolts and a chain, the back and side doors bolts. All ground floor windows had either safety catches or bars, and those of the reception rooms internal shutters. The door from the hall into the back premises had bolts on the hall side. The library had the additional safeguard of a good modern mortice lock. Pollard asked about the locking-up procedure. Kit Peck cut in quickly as this matter was broached.
‘Dad had a thing about security,’ he said abruptly. ‘He locked up himself every night and before he went out during the day if we were leaving the place empty. You can take it that any idea that he forgot to lock the library on Saturday night simply isn’t on.’
‘I think we can, from what we have heard of him,’ Pollard replied. ‘So we’re faced with the problem of what key the thief or thieves used to unlock the library door. There seems no reasonable doubt that they managed to hide up in the house before it was closed on Saturday evening, but how did they have access to a key? The most exhaustive examination of the safe, and of the drawer in which Mr Peck kept his key ring overnight, has failed to find any sign of fingerprints that can’t be accounted for.’
‘Could they somehow have managed to have a look at the library lock earlier on, and brought possible keys and tried them? When the new one was being fitted, perhaps?’
Pollard explained that greatly enlarged photographs of the key hole and lock had shown no scratches or attempts to try out keys. He went on to question Hilary Peck as considerately as he could, and learnt that her husband had locked the library and put the key on his key ring as soon as pictures began to arrive for the exhibition.
‘You see, there were workmen in the house,’ she explained, ‘and he felt responsible for the exhibits. He unlocked the library each morning when Mrs Ridley and Mr Rossiter and other helpers were doing the hanging, but the last person there had to contact him on leaving so that it could be locked again. There was only once —’ her voice trembled slightly — ‘when he had to be away all day and left the safe key with me. I can assure you that no one else handled it, and that it wasn’t left lying about.’
Pollard was reassuring. There was obviously no point in pressing her further at the moment, he decided, and after thanking her for her valuable help he and Toye were escorted downstairs by Kit.
‘What the hell are you going to do next about the bloody key?’ the young man burst out.
‘Nothing,’ Pollard told him. ‘When you come up against a “No Way” notice, the only thing to do is to try to get through by another road. We shall now go into the security arrangements at the lodge, where presumably the Ridley portrait is normally kept. Am I right about this?’
Kit Peck stared at him.
‘Yes,’ he said, after a moment’s pause. ‘But there aren’t any special security precautions down there. I mean, only the sort of thing like safety catches on ground floor windows...’
‘Quite,’ Pollard replied. ‘Thought provoking, isn’t it?’
Chapter 5
In answer to Toye’s ring the front door of the lodge was opened by what appeared at first glance to be the subject of the Ridley portrait in modern dress. Recovering himself, Pollard raised his hat.
‘Good evening,’ he said. ‘I think you must be Miss Parr. I’m Chief Superintendent Pollard of Scotland Yard, and this is my colleague, Inspector Toye. I expect you have heard that the Chief Constable has asked the Yard to take over the enquiry into Mr Peck’s death?’
The young girl’s reaction was not one of alarm or even interest. She showed unconcealed annoyance.
‘Do you want to see Mrs Ridley?’ she demanded, without returning his greeting.
‘Yes, please, if she is disengaged.’
‘Gran!’ Alix Parr turned towards a half open door. ‘Scotland Yard wants to see you. You’d better come in,’ she added, addressing Pollard and Toye, and
backing to make room for them in the tiny hall. They deposited their hats and waited. Alix gave the door an impatient push. As she did so a woman appeared on the threshold. Pollard’s first impression was of somebody appreciably older than Hilary Peck, socially confident but in a state of considerable tension.
‘Gran,’ Alix cut in before either of them could speak. ‘I’ve got to take the things for supper up to the Manor. Hilary’s expecting them.’
‘Do you want to see my granddaughter as well as me?’ Katherine asked Pollard. ‘We’re doing a certain amount of cooking to help Mrs Peck at the moment... I’m so sorry, I didn’t catch your name.’
Pollard introduced Toye and himself once again.
‘Yes, we should like a word with Miss Parr,’ he said, ‘but perhaps we could have one with you first while she goes up to the Manor?’
‘O.K.,’ came hurriedly from behind him, and the door shut noisily.
Katharine Ridley was apologetic. ‘I’m afraid Alix is rather on edge. This dreadful business has upset her badly. She’s devoted to the Pecks. Rushing round doing things seems to make her feel better. Won’t you sit down?’
As she spoke she sat down herself in a chair by the small log fire which was burning in the hearth. Pollard took a seat facing her, conscious of Toye selecting a useful vantage point on the window seat.
‘I realise what a shattering experience all this has been to both of you,’ he said, ‘and I’m sorry to have to bother you, particularly as I understand you haven’t been well. But it’s the matter of this portrait of a member of your husband’s family, which seems to have been at any rate the main object of the break-in.’
As he talked he watched Katharine Ridley relax perceptibly.
‘It’s simply baffling, isn’t it?’ she said, life and warmth coming back into her voice, ‘that anybody wanting to steal it hasn’t broken in here? There are no elaborate security arrangements whatever, and when we’re away the house is just shut up and left.’
‘You’ve put your finger on one of the most puzzling features in the case,’ Pollard told her. ‘You’ve been living here for about two years, I think? Do you go away much?’
‘No, very little really. My granddaughter lives with me and is a day girl at Wellchester High School, for one thing. And I can never be away during the summer when the Fairlynch gardens are open to the public, as I’m very much involved. In the last twelve months we were away for a week in October when Alix had her half-term, and for another week in the Christmas holidays.’
‘Still, plenty of time for a planned break-in,’ Pollard observed, glancing up at the mantelpiece. ‘I take it that the portrait usually hangs up there?’
A sudden smile lit up Katharine Ridley’s face, and he sensed for the first time her vitality and charm.
‘Detection!’ she said. ‘Yes, you’re quite right. The Jan van Huysum flower painting doesn’t quite hide the marks on the wall. I needn’t tell you that it’s a reproduction.’
‘It’s a very good one. But what strikes me is that the portrait would be very obvious to anyone looking in at the window.’
‘I know. I do draw the curtains when we go away, though some people say it just draws attention to the fact and is a mistake.’
‘How valuable is the portrait, Mrs Ridley?’
‘It’s insured for eight thousand. But I should add that Professor Chilmark, Heritage of Britain’s art adviser, thinks that I should step up the insurance a bit because of the rise in prices at auctions over the last few years.’
Pollard considered. ‘May Inspector Toye have a look at your locks and window fastenings?’
‘Certainly. It won’t take long in this little house ... the kitchen’s just across the hall, Inspector.’
‘Thank you, madam.’
Toye disappeared. Pollard asked questions about any visits from self-styled dealers in antiques, while speculating about the causes of Katharine Ridley’s initial tension. Presently voices and footsteps came from the drive, and he saw her frown slightly.
‘At least Alix has come back promptly,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid she’s collected our rumbustious terrier, though!’
As she spoke a fracas of barking, growling and expostulation broke out at the front door, Toye having been discovered at his locks inspection. Alix appeared holding an infuriated Terry by the collar.
‘Sorry,’ she said to Pollard. ‘He hasn’t bitten your inspector, though. Just making a row. Shut up, Terry!’
During the dog-talk which followed Pollard noted the transformation in Alix, now attractively flushed and starry-eyed. That was young Peck with her, he thought, and she’s obviously smitten. Equally obviously, Gran is county and doesn’t approve...
Toye reappeared, a fresh outburst from Terry was quelled, and Katharine asked Pollard if he would prefer to see Alix alone.
‘No, please don’t go, Mrs Ridley,’ he replied. ‘We shan’t be more than a few minutes. It’s about last Saturday afternoon. It seems probable that whoever had decided to have a go at stealing the portrait went into the house like everyone else who wanted to see the exhibition, and managed somehow to slip off unnoticed and hide. You were on the gate all the time, I gather, Miss Parr?’
‘Yea. I went up a bit before two to get dug in before people started coming, and stayed till half-past five, when we stop letting people in.’
‘Did you know most of the visitors who came?’
‘Not most of them. Say about a third, who were friends, or anyhow people we know.’
There was no identifiable sound such as a sudden movement on the opposite side of the hearth, but some instinctive sense made Pollard glance fleetingly at Katharine Ridley. He saw that her former tension had returned.
‘About the two-thirds that you didn’t know, Miss Parr,’ he went on in the same relaxed tone, ‘did anybody among them make any special impression on you? Did anyone stop and talk to you and ask any questions?’
Alix wrinkled her brow in the effort of remembering. ‘A few people asked why I was there instead of Hilary. She does the gate on Saturdays, you see. They all seemed quite ordinary. Not art thieves, I mean or — or murderers.’ Her voice was unsteady for a moment. ‘Then there was a man who asked about my grandfather making Fair lynch over to HOB. I didn’t like him much. He was snooty.’
‘Snooty in what way?’ Pollard asked.
‘Well, as if making over your estate to HOB or the National Trust or whatever was a stupid thing to do, I thought. He was a bit nosey, too, about what had happened to Granpa’s family. I was glad when some more visitors turned up and he moved on.’
‘One often gets asked about the transfer,’ Katharine Ridley unexpectedly contributed. ‘By people who simply can’t understand why donors don’t sell to the highest bidder.’
Pollard replied politely but declined this diversionary gambit. ‘Can you remember at all what this snooty and curious type looked like, Miss Parr?’
‘Well, he was fairly old. He wasn’t wearing a hat and had some grey hairs. I remember he had a fawn duffle coat on — a pretty old one. Oh, yes, he had very thin lips.’
‘Did he come in on a Heritage of Britain member’s card or by paying the entrance charge?’
Both Katharine Ridley and Alix looked in surprise at Toye sitting quietly in the window.
‘Oh, he paid,’ Alix said without any hesitation. ‘A fifty pence piece, I remember. He wasn’t the sort who’d join.’
‘About what time did he come?’ Pollard asked. ‘Can you remember at all?’
‘About a quarter past three, I think,’ Alix replied after a pause for thought. ‘Or a bit later.’
‘You had a chill on Saturday, hadn’t you, Mrs Ridley?’ Pollard asked casually. ‘Were you up at the Manor at all during the afternoon?’
‘I was about in the gardens for a short time in the early part of the afternoon, and went into the house for about ten minutes to see how “Pictures for Pleasure” was doing. It was soon after that that I began to feel shivery in the garde
n, and decided to come back here and have a hot cup of tea. I remember that I got in at ten minutes past three.’
‘Then you had probably left the gardens before the man Miss Parr’s been telling us about had arrived.’
‘I must have. At all events I don’t remember seeing anyone like him.’
Pollard caught the note of finality in her voice and decided to bring the interview to an end. He and Toye had risen to leave when there was an exclamation from Alix.
‘I wonder if he was the man Francis turfed out?’ she said.
Pressed for further information, she told Pollard that when she had gone up to the Manor at half-past five to hand in money and ticket counterfoils, Francis Peck had said that he had found a man on the stairs. There was a ‘No Way’ notice at the bottom of the staircase as the house was not yet open to the public, apart from the library.
‘Francis said the man was jolly rude, and so he asked him to leave.’
‘Did he say when this happened, or what the man looked like?’
‘No, he didn’t. Somebody came up just then who wanted to speak to him, and I was counting the money, and didn’t think about it again till I got back here and told Gran.’
‘One does get the occasional visitor who seems to make a point of ignoring notices,’ Katharine Ridley remarked as she led the way to the door.
Once clear of the lodge Pollard and Toye exchanged glances.
‘Why was she so keen to play down the thin-lipped bloke in the duffle coat, I wonder?’ Pollard said. ‘I’m positive she was lying when she tried to prove conclusively that she’d gone home before he turned up.’
‘Hard up?’ Toye suggested. ‘Suppose the theft of the portrait was a put-up job between them to get the insurance money?’
‘That was my first reaction. All that chat about it being much easier to lift the thing from the lodge could have been to put us off the scent. But against the idea, did you notice how she relaxed the moment I began talking about the portrait? She was badly tensed up when we arrived, as if she was afraid we’d come about something else. I’d very much like to know what it was. All the same, we’ll get the low-down on the lady’s finances, and ask the Super to see if the chap’s trail can be picked up.’
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