Murder for Treasure

by David Williams

  ‘Why?’ the two asked in unison.

  ‘Because you’d have had buttered hot cross buns for picnic breakfast instead of jam sandwiches like today. Would have made up for the weather.’

  ‘We’ve got a tin roof we use if it’s raining and . . .’ Nye’s blooming enthusiasm withered under Emma’s warning glance. ‘And . . . er . . . and only if we come,’ he finished limply.

  ‘Were you playing look-outs that morning? It was a bit drizzly.’

  Emma broke the awkward silence that followed. ‘Submarines,’ she said a trifle grudgingly.

  ‘You see we’ve got this penny thing . . .’

  ‘Periscope.’

  ‘. . . that lets you see right round without anybody seeing us. You can see right up to the street and down to the boats.’

  ‘And did you see the man who frightened Mrs Ogmore-Davies?’

  This time the silence was even more awkward and prolonged. ‘Yes.’ It was Emma who took the plunge. ‘But we weren’t supposed to be here. Will you tell on us?’

  ‘You’re a detective, aren’t you?’

  ‘Sort of.’ Treasure smiled.

  ‘Told you,’ said Nye triumphantly.

  ‘But I won’t tell on you if you explain what happened. Promise. I’ll say I worked it out.’

  ‘Will they believe you ’cos you’re a detective?’

  ‘Yes. Anyhow they’ll have to.’

  ‘He came from Idris Lane.’ Emma sounded relieved. Treasure frowned and then he remembered. ‘That’s the lane that runs down the side of Mrs Spring’s house? Can you see it from here?’ He looked back, tracing the direction he had taken to reach the harbour. ‘Yes, you can. The top of it anyway.’ He could even see the back gate to Anna’s garden.

  ‘He came running down like you and Devalera this morning, only he had no clothes on . . .’

  ‘ ’Cept shoes.’ Nye’s contribution.

  ‘Except shoes. He was carrying his clothes in a bundle and running very fast. He jumped off the quay on to the boarding below where you can’t be seen . . .’

  ‘ ’Cept from here.’

  ‘And he was trying to put his clothes on when the whole lot blew in the water.’ Emma continued.

  ‘It was ever so funny.’ Nye was still smirking at the memory, rocking backwards and forwards, arms clasped around his knees.

  ‘He was fishing them back with a stick when Mrs Ogmore-Davies came.’

  ‘We hadn’t seen her either.’

  ‘We were watching the man when we heard her. He heard her too and saw her and just kept ever so still hoping she wouldn’t see him . . .’

  ‘Or go away.’

  ‘And she did/ said Treasure. ‘Did he have the stick tucked into his arm?’

  ‘Mm. Mrs Ogmore-Davies thought he was stabbed, she said after.’

  ‘But he wasn’t?’

  Emma shook her head. ‘As soon as she’d gone he fished out his clothes and ran up behind the yacht club. Then he got dressed and went up High Lane—that’s the one nearest.’ She pointed to some steps that evidently terminated the alley indicated at the harbour end.

  ‘And you saw Mrs Ogmore-Davies come back with Mr Lewin?’

  Both children shook their heads. ‘We didn’t know about that till later,’ said Emma, ‘about her thinking it was murder and everything. And we couldn’t say because we hadn’t said in the first place. And Daddy had said . . .’

  ‘You shouldn’t come here.’ Treasure wondered how he was going to explain the story away while keeping his promise to the children. It then went through his mind that since there had been no murder, or anything on the face of it approximating even to an accident, there was no obligation moral or practical to explain anything to anybody.

  He was speculating hard on why a naked man should choose or need to race to a harbour at just after six on a wet April morning. Joggers wore clothes: streakers were out of fashion—and season.

  ‘How old d’you think the man was?’

  ‘You don’t know?’ A surprising comment from Nye who possibly assumed detectives deduced that kind of thing.

  ‘Pretty old,’ said Emma.

  ‘Younger than you.’ Nye again.

  ‘Yes, much younger than you.’

  ‘But pretty old,’ Treasure echoed amiably.

  Obviously the man had been quite young, certainly athletic, quick thinking and a practised judge of human reactions—or at least a lucky one when it came to making a snap decision on the likely course of Mrs Ogmore-Davies when exposed to a shocking situation. The simulation of the stab wound had been a brilliant piece of improvisation. Of course one ought to be outraged, but somehow. . .

  The role of the surprised but resourceful lover seemed more and more to provide the solution—indeed, in Treasure’s mind, the whole sequence was now taking on the character of a French farce on outdoor location.

  ‘You didn’t see where he came from in the first place? Er . . . whether he came from the High Street, out of a house or . . .’He hesitated to add anything about bedroom windows or drainpipes.

  Both children were shaking their heads.

  ‘We saw what he did after.’ This was Nye.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘He got in his car half way up High Lane.’

  ‘It was parked up there? What sort of car was it?’

  Nye and Emma exchanged questioning glances. It was Emma who answered eventually. ‘It was a Mini.’ She took a deep breath before continuing. ‘It was the one he was driving yesterday when he brought you to New Hall.’

  CHAPTER 15

  ‘And you are seriously suggesting, Mr Treasure, I should let the whole thing drop? Pretend that it never happened?’ Mrs Ogmore-Davies sounded less incredulous than her words might have suggested.

  Treasure had joined the widow at her breakfast on the little terrace outside her living-room. He had gladly accepted a cup of tea.

  ‘As I said, what you saw was play-acting. I can give you my word no one was hurt. The man you saw never intended you to think he’d been stabbed. He was involved in some very hush-hush activity . . .’

  ‘Official. To do with the drugs, you say.’

  He nodded. ‘He didn’t want to . . . er . . . implicate you—in your own interests. It could have led to your being called as a witness. That sort of thing.’ He gave a pained look. ‘Best to steer clear if possible.’

  ‘What about the police? They must have been involved. Mr Lewin . . .’ She placed her finger unerringly on the weakest spot of a fairly feeble structure.

  ‘Yes. Lewin.’ Treasure paused. He hoped that if he waited long enough . . .

  ‘Of course. I see it now.’ Mrs Ogmore-Davies was happy to write her own scenario when it came to Lewin’s part in the affair. ‘He’d have known no more about it than me. Special people they have for that kind of work. Not village bobbies.’ The expression turned conspiratorial. ‘Told you what I thought of him yesterday. Then on top of that there’s what I said about the burglary.’ She leant back in a gesture of triumph, lips pursed. ‘Definitely second rate. Stands to reason he wouldn’t have been part of anything secret.’ Treasure allowed himself the merest nod signifying affirmation of, if not implication in, the character assassination of the hapless Lewin. ‘I’ve no doubt he does an adequate job according to his abilities.’ He smiled knowingly over the tea-cup.

  ‘But he’ll still think I was seeing things.’

  Treasure was prepared for this one. ‘I think not, at least when the powers-that-be have had a word.’ He had the Judge in mind for this key role. ‘I believe you can rely on it, Lewin won’t ever refer to the thing again.’

  ‘And the gossips? The wagging tongues in this village, Mr Treasure. You wouldn’t believe.’

  ‘Will be stilled by your exemplary and mature attitude in making it known you have closed the subject.’

  ‘In the public interest.’

  ‘One could assume that, certainly. It would be in nobody’s interest—’ and here he was anxious to fold in the b
est interests of Mrs Ogmore-Davies herself—‘really not anybody’s, to know you were down there alone with a perfectly healthy . . . er . . . naked young man. Difficult.’ He adopted his most judicious expression reserved usually for the client whose rejected take-over bid had better be decently abandoned and not wantonly improved out of pique and in defiance of sound economics. ‘Could open another tin of worms.’

  Mrs Ogmore-Davies had been thinking along the same lines. ‘Not fair really, but I suppose by not demeaning myself . . .’

  ‘How right you are, Mrs Ogmore-Davies. Rather like the war, I expect. No doubt with a husband high up in the merchant marine . . .’

  ‘Several times Convoy Commodore.’

  ‘Exactly. You must have been privy to secret information more important . . .’

  ‘Say no more, Mr Treasure. If Ethel Ogmore-Davies can help the authorities by keeping mum, then so be it. More tea?’ The healthy, naked young man had done the trick.

  Treasure passed his cup. The widow had not pressed him as to the highly confidential source of his information. She made it plain she considered it was both reliable and in some wonderful way available to him and not to others—which in a sense was true.

  So the children and Mrs Ogmore-Davies were silenced for differing but enduring reasons. Lewin would need no reason at all when asked never to mention the matter again, which disposed of the obvious principals. Inspector Iffley did not count in the present context, even assuming the children had been right in their identification— something Treasure intended to muse upon later. For the moment he was much too anxious to test a theory before leaving Mariner’s Rest.

  The children and Treasure had returned from the harbour by different routes. Devalera had been turned over to Nye’s keeping. Treasure had been warmly received by the Captain’s widow even though 8 a.m. was an unfashionable hour for social calls. He had been offered breakfast but had taken only tea immediately after being shown the site of the previous evening’s break-in —not that there was anything to see. There were certainly no signs of forcible entry.

  Now he rose, and with tea-cup in hand, sauntered across the narrow lawn to pay his respects to Gomer. The bird was treading its perch at the entrance to the greenhouse.

  ‘ ’Morning, Gomer,’ he said affably but with no expectation of response: even if the bird talked it wouldn’t do so for him—they never did. ‘A pretty creature,’ he remarked turning his face back towards Mrs Ogmore-Davies. The bird took the unguarded opportunity to strike out viciously at Treasure’s hand, missed, and fell off the perch with much squawking and flapping of wings before righting itself again.

  The banker smiled, returning to his seat at the table. Somewhere he had read that a parrot’s bill closed with a force of 350 pounds to the square inch. Since then he had been careful always to stay out of immediate pecking range.

  ‘Naughty Gomer! Bad Boy!’ Mrs Ogmore-Davies was confused and abased—fulfilling the object of Treasure’s diversion.

  ‘Did the burglar steal what was in that box you had at our meeting yesterday?’ Very carefully he watched her reaction to the unexpected question.

  ‘My photos, you mean? Why on earth should anyone want those?’ The surprise was obviously genuine. There had been no pause for calculation. Mrs Ogmore-Davies was clearly baffled.

  ‘Have you looked in the box since the meeting?’

  She rose, walked to the sitting-room, and returned with the box. ‘We’ll soon see. It’s not locked. There’s nothing. . .’ The voice faltered, then sank to a whisper. ‘There’s nothing in it. Well, did you ever?’

  Treasure had walked right around the outside of the church. Now he charged himself to do the same thing again—this time paying attention to what he was seeing.

  It was Detective-Inspector Iffley who had been occupying his mind to the exclusion of stepped gables and a host of what he would normally have considered equally absorbing features of venerable architecture.

  Iffley had confided he was engaged in unusual work: the man’s appearance and equipment had indicated that much. There would be no predicting a day’s events—or a night’s either. You would need to be fast-thinking, adaptable, tough—definitely tough to cope with whatever circumstance forced upon you.

  Treasure was familiar with the brilliant coups achieved in uncovering drug-trafficking rings. The seeds of these successes must be sown by the lonely, heroic and dangerous work of men like Iffley. The Inspector had modestly explained he was just doing a clearing up job: ‘clearing up’ could be self-effacing euphemism.

  The Inspector had emphasized his work kept him inland, but it could hardly do so exclusively. His car had been in St David’s the evening before, unless Treasure had been mistaken—but it was such a distinctive car.

  Of course, the children could have been mistaken too about the man—and the car? They had described both with remarkable accuracy.

  No doubt duty had brought Iffley to Panty that night two months before. And who could question that the drama of his departure had not been bound up in some anti-criminal activity? Treasure tried to put from his mind that frivolous, unfair speculation about a scene from a French farce.

  Mrs Ogmore-Davies had provided a meticulous description of the inhabitants of Idris Lane and its immediate tributaries. This had not been difficult: it was a piece of Old Panty still occupied in the main by folk who had lived there for years—retired couples and old ladies all well known to the Captain’s widow. And there was not a nubile daughter, a young wife, neglected or otherwise, indeed any female under the age of seventy among the lot—except the one that Treasure knew about.

  If he was interested in buying property in that particular section (the spurious reason he had offered for his inquiry) it had been Mrs Ogmore-Davies’s opinion, complete with sniff of disapproval, that Anna’s house would be the first available following her marriage—not that he would want a shop as well. So Anna really was the odd one out.

  No, he mused, if he had been buying a weekend place he would not want to sell pictures, or antiques, or—he called to mind the phraseology—the lower grade bric-a-brac that was the stock in trade of Iffley’s cover job.

  He was recalling, too, that tender embrace in the car. It had been a spontaneous expression of gratitude—a pure acknowledgement in an unexpected kiss—which he had enjoyed (very much indeed) and which he had persuaded himself had been an endearment as innocent as it was rare.

  ‘And who do you think you’re kidding?’

  Treasure swung around. It wasn’t the voice of conscience: it was the Vicar which, in a sense, was close enough.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ said the genial clergyman who had emerged head bent from the church door. ‘Hope I didn’t startle you. Wasn’t expecting anyone. Practising my lines for this afternoon. Well, it’s only one line actually but I’m not supposed to move my lips when I say it.’ He paused uncertainly. ‘I expect you think I’m loopy.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Treasure replied with great good humour, ‘I suspect you are somehow involved with Henry Nott-Herbert and a ventriloquist’s doll—I mean dummy.’

  ‘You too?’ said Emma’s father. The Reverend Handel Wodd was of middle height and weight, thirty-five or so, moon face surmounted by a shock of unparted, curly brown hair and adorned with round, old-fashioned, goldframed spectacles: it was a humorous rather than a studious countenance. ‘I’m a mysterious voice from an unexpected quarter. Henry conjures me out of nowhere, if you follow me.’

  ‘I think so. My name’s Mark Treasure.’

  ‘I thought it must be. Sorry we didn’t meet last night. Yacht Club meeting. Kept me all evening.’ The voice had a melodious Welsh lilt. ‘You’ll want to see the church, I know.’ He looked at his watch.

  It was still quite early and it occurred to Treasure he was about to be offered yet another shared breakfast. ‘Which I can do any time. Have you eaten yet?’

  ‘Yes, before I said Matins.’ Cheerfully the Vicar nodded back towards the church where he had probably
been reciting the morning Office by himself. ‘I’ve half an hour before I’m booked to instruct a shortly to be married couple on raptures unforeseen. Let’s start with the tower. Terrific view from the top. You good at steep stairs? It’s not that high—just awkward.’

  Treasure enjoyed the church of St Dogvan. He marvelled at the literally indestructible thirteenth-century tower at the west end with walls three feet thick, saddleback roof, slit windows the whole broadened at the base—all predating the rest of the church and built as a haven and stronghold against marauders from the sea.

  He enjoyed the tacked-on narrow fourteenth-century nave built in less troubled times, the perversely asymmetrical and widening chancel that came later complete with the grand Perpendicular east window. He even smiled upon the twentieth-century Gothic transept to the north-the gift, the plaque made plain, of Henry’s grandmother, in memory of one who, judging from his taste in houses and fine art, should have commissioned the job himself while he was able.

  Altogether it was an agreeable muddle of styles, fit-ups, floor levels and masonic compromises, something Treasure infinitely preferred to churches built of a piece which show less the changing fortunes of the generations that come and go around them.

  ‘You know, it’s believed more than twelve thousand bodies were buried in the churchyard over the centuries.’ The Vicar had proved a mine of information on his church. ‘It’s not that big either,’ he added. ‘Mark you, they never allowed interments inside, under the floor, not like the London churches.’ There was a touch of pride at the end.

  ‘Twelve thousand. Would that be a matter of record or intelligent supposition?’

  ‘Mostly record, certainly over the last three or four centuries. Meticulously preserved Burial Registers. Like to see some?’

  Treasure nodded enthusiastically. ‘When you’re not so busy. Tell you what I would like a sight of—your Baptismal Register of thirty-five years ago.

  ‘That’s easy. It’s right here.’ They were standing in the chancel and the Vicar led the way into the vestry which was close by—part of the ‘new’ north transept. ‘Any special reason?’