‘For Mrs Partridge. We’ve had dealings on and off with Throscum business for many years. I believe Claud Partridge regarded us as his men of affairs, though why he never consulted us about drawing up the will is more than I can fathom. No. Thoresby got his own lawyer in Hull to act for the four of them.’
‘Forgive me asking this, Mr Edwards, but I noticed you weren’t at the funeral. If you were acting for Mrs Partridge, I’d have thought . . .’
‘I know. It’s usual for the family solicitor to be present, but I really couldn’t make it. My partner is on holiday, so I’ve got a full diary, and as there were no near relatives—proper ones, so to speak—for whom I could have done anything, I thought there was little need to attend.’
‘Fair enough. But now you are acting for the two stepdaughters?’
‘There has been no arrangement. I shall be administering the estate, of course, until everything is settled.’
‘But you felt the need to warn Thoresby.’
‘In view of his attitude towards you, yes. I’ve known the girls and been fond of them for years. I couldn’t sit by and let an ignorant lout like Thoresby make things more difficult for them, so I pitched in rather strongly. Here, I say, you don’t really think that they . . .’
Masters smiled. ‘A most improper question from an officer of the court, Mr Edwards.’
‘Yes. I suppose so. My apologies.’
‘Nevertheless, if you will keep a confidence . . .’
‘You can rely on me.’
‘The reason I broke off this session so abruptly is because we have some reason to believe that Mrs Partridge may—and I emphasize may—have been poisoned by fruit . . .’
‘Thoresby’s stuff?’
‘Hear me out, please. Fruit heavily contaminated with pesticide.’
‘Good lord!’
‘It is only one line of investigation, Mr Edwards.’
‘Yes, but even so . . .’
‘Now you know why I shall want to question the four of them separately. You won’t want to be present, I take it?’
‘Not for all the tea in China. I’m not a criminal lawyer.’
‘Good. Then I suggest your complete your business with them, and I’ll see them later.’
‘Thank you, Chief Inspector. I’ll just go in and say goodbye. And you can trust me not to say a word.’
As they walked towards Throscum House Green said: ‘That got rid of him smartish—which was the object of the exercise, I take it?’
Masters said: ‘You’re learning.’
‘And so are you. Having a solicitor present at interviews is a dicey do. Particularly when it looks as though we’ve got the job in the bag.’
Masters didn’t reply. He was lighting his pipe.
*
Masters saw Thoresby first. This time the interviews were to take place in the police bungalow. Hill ushered in the food importer soon after five o’clock. Green was sitting by the window.
‘Sit down, please, Mr Thoresby.’
‘What now? Third degree?’
Masters said: ‘The funny thing about interviews of this sort is that they are only ever as tough as the interviewee cares to make them. For my part, I only ask simple and, I hope, direct questions. If you try to squirm, that’s your affair.’
‘Supposing I don’t choose to answer?’
‘That, too, is entirely your affair, Mr Thoresby. But though you can walk out of here now, without any hindrance, in order to do my job, I am given certain powers. Apart from the interpretation I should immediately put on your actions were you to go, I can, if necessary, suggest that you are impeding my investigation. That makes you liable to arrest. Alternatively, if I have grounds to do so, I can arrest you on suspicion. And I’ve no doubt I could find several other courses open to me should the need arise. Do I make our respective positions clear, Mr Thoresby?’
‘Oh, get on with it.’
‘I have your permission to question you at this point?’
‘Yes.’
‘Right. Now please tell me who instigated the action to contest your father-in-law’s will?’
‘We all did.’
‘Please be more precise, Mr Thoresby. Mrs Thoresby and Mrs Honingham brought the action jointly. Who suggested that they should do so?’
‘I did. It was a blasted scandal. The girls and their mother slaved to make this place a success, and just because old Claud was tomfool enough to marry the tart he’d been knocking off for years the girls lost their just dues. Surely you can see that?’
‘You didn’t care for Mr Partridge?’
‘Oh, Claud was all right, I suppose.’
‘The first Mrs Partridge?’
‘What about her?’
‘What were your relations with her?’
‘A bit too toffee-nosed for me, but not bad otherwise.’
‘She high-hatted you?’ Green interrupted.
‘I’ve told you.’
‘She objected to her girl marrying you perhaps?’
‘How do you make that out?’
Masters guessing Green was on to something, let him have his way.
‘Hull and Throscum. Far apart, aren’t they? Not much communication between the two. I wondered how the two of you happened to meet in the first place.’
‘When you’re in my job you live by the Caterer’s and Food Handler’s Guide Book. I have to sell the goods I import, so I use the list of everybody in the country who uses food for catering, manufacturing or selling. And I go out to get customers from among them.’
‘So you made a sales trip to the south-west and met Miss Partridge?’
‘Yes. There’s nothing odd in that, is there?’
Green lit a Kensitas. ‘I think there is. We happen to know that most of the Throscum produce is either home grown or bought locally. It’s the gimmick the place was built on and always has been. So a bloke like you, dropping in out of the blue from as far away as Hull, would get short shrift. Somebody might listen to you politely for about ten minutes and then show you the door, without an order. D’you expect us to believe that in that time, taken up with gabbing about your goods, you could make contact with and impress Miss Partridge enough for a regular courtship to start up between you?’
Thoresby’s face set hard. Masters could see Green had scored.
Green went on. ‘You’re not talking, Mr Thoresby. In my book you saw the lie of the land here. Rich pickings if you could grab one of the unmarried daughters. That’s about the size of it, isn’t it, Mr Thoresby? And Mrs Partridge fathomed you as soon as she saw you.’
‘What are you getting at?’
‘I’m saying that you intended to have a slice of this cake as soon as you saw it. You planned it a long time ago, and carried out your plan. You thought things were going to fall right in your lap until Partridge made a porridge of his will. Then you had to think again, Mr Thoresby.’
Thoresby sneered. ‘You’re mad.’
Masters said: ‘It sounds eminently reasonable to me.’
‘Tripe.’
‘You mean you didn’t want the money?’
‘No. I didn’t.’
‘Then why persuade your wife to contest her father’s will?’
‘Because it was hers.’
‘Couldn’t you support your wife adequately?’
‘Of course I could.’
‘But you wanted more. Money that had legally been willed to another woman.’
‘I tell you it was rightfully Lorna’s.’
‘Not rightfully. The High Court said not.’
‘Stuff the High Court. The money was ours.’
‘Ours? Ah! Slightly obsessed with it, aren’t you, Mr Thoresby? Has it been in your mind ever since Mr Partridge died? The injustice? The thought of what you could do with a hundred thousand pounds if only Fay Partridge wasn’t in the way?’
Thoresby suddenly appeared to realize the way the questioning was leading. His face lost its sneer and he assumed a look that appeared to Mast
ers to be half-incredulous and half-frightened. ‘You blokes are very clever. Everybody would like a bit more, especially when it’s rightly theirs.’
‘It’s a common human failing—cupidity,’ Masters said. ‘It’s also a common motive for murder, Mr Thoresby, as you must be well aware. Leaving that aside for the moment, please tell me whether, after your marriage, you started to supply Throscum with produce.’
‘Well, of course I did. Only common sense to keep it in the family, isn’t it?’
‘You negotiated with . . . who?’
‘Claud. And he drove a pretty hard bargain, I can tell you. Not that he ever ordered much. He’d got his main suppliers down here.’
‘I see. Now tell me, Mr Thoresby. Did you ever send samples out? I mean, how could potential customers know your standard of goods if they couldn’t try them before they bought from you?’
‘Yes I did. A packet of dessert figs or a tin of Danish pork—that sort of thing, if I’d bought a consignment which wasn’t absolutely a run-of-the-mill line like butter and eggs.’
‘You sent such samples to Throscum?’
Thoresby looked disgusted. ‘I sent more value in samples here than the whole lot of orders they ever gave me humped together twice over.’
‘Thank you. When did you last send a sample?’
‘Dunno. A week or two ago perhaps. I’d had to take a dozen outers of marrons glacés—right out of season—to get hold of a load of Swiss stuff at the right price. Marrons aren’t everybody’s cup of tea, you know. Too high class. I thought there might be a chance of getting rid of a few here. It’s amazing what some people’ll buy when they’re on holiday which they wouldn’t look at at home.’
‘You sent a box here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you get your order?’
‘Did I hell.’
‘When did you get your last order from here?’
‘I haven’t had one since that blasted court case. Two years it’ll be now.’
‘Mrs Fay Partridge stopped trading with you?’
‘Yes, she did, damn her eyes.’
‘Yet you kept on sampling Throscum. Why?’
‘To get the trade back, of course.’
‘It seems to me, Mr Thoresby, that if Throscum never gave you very large orders at any time, and stopped trading entirely with you two years ago, it was a very uneconomic way of carrying on business to continue to send them samples.’
Thoresby didn’t reply.
Masters waited for a moment to give him a chance to speak. Then he said: ‘The only possible conclusions I can draw from our conversation so far, Mr Thoresby, are that your business is in such a poor way that you have to try to drum up orders by uneconomic means—in which case you are presumably very short of money, which as I have indicated earlier often provides a motive for murder . . .’
Thoresby almost shouted: ‘No. Blast you! No.’
Unperturbed, Masters went on: ‘Or—and if it is true you are not desperately short of money, this alternative could be the answer—you have been sending luxury samples of dessert fruits with an ulterior motive.’
‘What the hell do you mean?’
‘That knowing Mrs Fay Partridge’s liking for dessert, you have deliberately sent items which you knew she would take for her own use. Over a period of time you have built up her confidence in these samples, and then when you judged the time was ripe, you doctored one which you knew she would eat avidly.’
Thoresby was on his feet. His face livid. He tried to speak. For several seconds no words came. Then he gasped: ‘It’s a lie. You can’t accuse me.’
‘I’m not accusing you, Mr Thoresby. Please note carefully that I said those were the two conclusions I had come to as a result of this conversation and that one or the other could be the answer. Not that either of them was the answer.’
‘You’re a rotten twister. You’ve twisted every word I’ve said.’
Masters grew severe. ‘Have I? Think it over, Mr Thoresby. You’re the one who schemed to get half of this estate. You’re the one who instigated the action contesting the will. You’re the one who lost business because of it. You’re the one who sent tempting titbits to the poisoned woman. You’re the one who stands to get a hundred thousand pounds as a result of her death. How much twisting have I done there? Tell me.’
Thoresby didn’t answer.
‘You can go now, Mr Thoresby. But don’t leave the camp until I give you permission.’
Thoresby stumbled out. Hill, waiting outside, accompanied him across to his bungalow to deliver him to Brant, who was stationed inside with the other three.
Masters said to Green: ‘Thanks. You came in just at the right moment to help put the skids under him.’
Green, bashfully pleased at this compliment, said: ‘You didn’t do too badly yourself. D’you reckon all four are in it together?’
‘I honestly don’t know whether any of them are.’
‘It sticks out a mile.’
‘I know. But we’ve no proof.’
‘Yet! By the way, what was he burbling about? Those things from Switzerland.’
‘Marrons glacés?’
‘That’s them.’
‘Chestnuts in sugar syrup. You know glacé fruits and candied peel?’
‘Like that?’
‘Same stable.’
*
Hill brought in Honingham.
Honingham took a chair. ‘What’ve you been doing to old Bill?’
‘Bill?’
‘Thoresby. I’ve never seen him look like that before. Looks as if he’d been through a sausage machine. Like death warmed up.’
‘I’ve been asking him a few questions, Mr Honingham. The answers he gave led me to certain conclusions that he didn’t like.’
‘He never does like other people’s conclusions. He’s a regular old bumper. Big head, you know. How Lorna sticks him I can’t understand. Always laying down the law about things he knows nothing about. Even tries to tell me how to run my show.’
Masters grinned. ‘Which is a darn sight better run and more profitable than his own, I daresay.’
Honingham said: ‘To the best of my belief, yes. ’Course I don’t know, but he seems to me to be one of those chaps who’s always about to do something big an’ dramatic in the business world, but never quite seems to pull it off.’
‘But he makes a good living?’
‘If you mean does he go hungry, the answer is no. But if you mean does Lorna need a new carpet in the sitting-room the answer is yes.’
‘Because he doesn’t import carpets?’ Green asked.
‘That’s about the size of it.’
Masters said: ‘You told me you handle quite a lot of chemicals, Mr Honingham. A number of them toxic.’
‘That’s right. I make up my own pesticides—sprays and powders. And I’ve started on fertilizers. Branching out a bit, you know. We’re usually very busy spraying and dusting in spring and summer but a bit slack in winter, so I needed something to employ us the whole year.’
‘You have your own chemical plant?’
‘A small one.’
‘Do you sell your products?’
‘No. Not really. What I mean is, basically we supply our own needs. We contract to spray fruit and crops and take along our own products and equipment. We do use other people’s products if they’re specified—but I like to think that most of our customers are satisfied with my own stuff.’
‘Your own? Do you formulate them yourself?’
‘Yes. I’m a biologist, you know, and I’ve got a chemist working for me. We buy in our chemicals—don’t manufacture them ourselves. We’re not big enough for that. But we do the research and the formulation.’
‘And now you are going into fertilizers?’
‘Same thing again. We buy nitrates, lime, basic slag and so on in bulk. At the moment I’m managing to get a goodish bit of business from the customers I usually spray for, but if I’m to expand with any chance of succes
s I’ll have to start coping with retail outlets. That means getting in bagging and packing plant and so on. The blasted machinery’s so expensive these days.’
‘In other words you need capital?’
‘Some. Not a lot.’
‘But your wife’s money—from Throscum here—will be useful?’
‘Don’t honestly know. There won’t be all that much actual cash unless the place is sold, and it seems a pity to get rid of a going concern.’
‘Income from Throscum?’
‘Maybe. But it’ll be divided two ways. Nice to have, of course, but unlikely to amount to quite the immediate sum I need. And borrowing’s no earthly these days. Overdrafts are napoo with this Government.’
‘I see. Now tell me, did you ever have a contract from Throscum for pesticides?’
‘No. Couldn’t have fulfilled one if I’d been offered it.’
‘So none of your products have ever been used here?’
‘I didn’t say that. The head gardener here—Harry Tooze—is a great friend of Becky’s. Always has been. They write occasionally and Becky always tells him about my latest spray and what it’ll do and so on. Now and again he’s asked for bits and pieces to try out here, and we’ve sent them to him. We’re never given an order: never get paid. They’re just private dealings.’
‘I see. When did you last send any?’
‘Let me see. It was our new range. They don’t have names, only numbers. It would be HON48, 49 and 51. In March that would be. Three one-gallon tins, sent by rail.’
‘And when did you last supply Mr Thoresby with anything?’
‘Oh, him? He’s always on the scrounge. He’s had buckshee packets and tins of everything, including the new fertilizers. He certainly had them for his garden this spring.’
‘Thank you. How did you meet your wife, Mr Honingham?’
‘I came down here in the long vac one year to do a field study and write a thesis. I worked in the hothouses at Maken’s—that’s just a couple of miles away. I lived on the spot in a caravan, and used to come over here for hops at night. I was naturally interested in the market garden here; and, as I told you, Becky was a great pal of Tooze’s. We met. Mutual interest, you know. Usual thing.’
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