‘I wonder if a Dylan Emrys Rees, 35 today and born here, was also baptized . . .’
‘Easier still. He was. He still lives here. He’s our choirmaster—Dai Rees the postman.’ Wodd was turning back the pages of a record book he had taken from the vestry safe.
‘But I thought Dai was the common Welsh contraction of David . . .’
‘Or Dewi or Dafydd but not Dylan. You’re right. The thing is, Dai Rees was christened Dylan to favour the poet, but his mother went off Dylan Thomas later.’ The Vicar shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’ve no idea why. The family used to be strict Chapel and probably teetotal another generation back. Perhaps Thomas’s drinking was too much for Dai’s mother to tolerate. Anyway, Dai he became, and Dai he stayed.’
‘How very interesting. I met him this morning.’
‘Lovely man. Do anything to help a friend. Tower of strength in the church. Strong convictions, too. Pacifist, as a matter of fact. Funny, I couldn’t have told you about the name business until a few months ago. I’ve been Vicar here six years and until Dai needed a passport I always thought his proper name was David.’
‘He got you to countersign the form and witness his photographs?’
‘In January it was. “I certify that this is a true likeness of Mr Rees” and so on,’ the clergyman quoted with a sigh. ‘The law says it can be done by a Member of Parliament, a Justice, a lawyer, a doctor and any number of other worthies who people don’t like to trouble. But it’s always the poor parson they come to. Odd though, in the case of Dai he’s never been anywhere, not abroad I mean, nor ever likely to go from what I can gather. Takes his family holidays visiting the Queen’s and other people’s stately homes.’
‘He told me they’d been to Hampton Court.’
‘And Longleat, Wilton, Windsor Castle and I don’t know where else. Here’s the entry.’ Wodd pointed to a place in the register. ‘Looks as though he was baptized two Sundays after his birth in strict observance of the rubric in the old Book of Common Prayer. Very conscientious people the Welsh—even converted Nonconformists.’ He laughed.
It was possible but highly improbable that two people destined to be named Dylan Emrys Rees had been born on the same day in the same tiny village. Treasure searched the Register backwards and forwards without result.
It was conceivable also that the second Dylan, if he existed, could have had Roman Catholic, Nonconformist, or non-believing parents in which case he would not have been baptized into the Episcopalian Church in Wales: the Baptismal Register was not conclusive.
Was credulity stretched a sight too far when one learned both alleged D. E. Reeses must have obtained new passports issued in the previous February? The chosen answer to this question was what allowed conviction to replace objective scepticism in Treasure’s mind.
No amount of inexpert or purposely fumbled photographic work could explain the total dissimilarity between the image of D. E. Rees contained in the passport and the face of D. E. Rees that had beamed upon Treasure earlier in the morning. If only one D. E. Rees existed, then the passport the banker had seen on the previous day was fraudulent.
Why, Treasure asked himself, had honest, God-fearing Dai Rees, postman and choirmaster, chosen to hoodwink the authorities, and—not to dissemble—break the law by false representation? Closer to the present, how had the man ensured that the palpably innocent Wodd would act as his unwitting accomplice?
A photograph was a photograph: it either reproduced the image of its purported subject or of some other subject. The Vicar on his own admission had signed the backs of Rees’s photographs acknowledging that the pictures on the other side were Rees. Simple forgery would have been much less complicated: it would not have been difficult to copy Wodd’s signature.
Of course the authorities were more careful about checking passport documentation these days. But here was a case where a respectable parish priest would have confirmed the probity of the matter at least in response to a telephoned or mailed enquiry from the Passport Office.
The question remained: how had the Vicar been duped?
‘Has Henry shown you his three card trick?’ the Reverend Handel Wodd was making conversation as he replaced the Register in the safe. ‘He’s not very good at it. Even so, he sometimes foxes me.’
CHAPTER 16
That a Mini Moke was the only motor transport owned by Henry Nott-Herbert was proof of an eccentricity Treasure came to accept with good grace—even enthusiasm.
In explaining the matter the evening before, the Judge had emphasized that since he rarely ventured beyond walking distance from his home in summer and, if he could help it, never at all in winter the choice of vehicle was almost immaterial, except in regard to Devalera.
Mrs Evans, the only other person to be considered, had long since resigned herself to going everywhere on foot, bicycle or by bus. She had failed the driving test sixteen times. In the process she had made a number of enduring friendships among the Ministry Examiners, but had eventually given up the contest after backing a car over a tortoise when both were almost stationary. The tortoise had escaped unharmed, but Mrs Evans had regarded the event as a sign.
The Judge’s previous car had been a Mulliner-Park Ward Special Open Tourer Bentley to which he had been closely attached for all of forty years. After his wife’s death, however, he had sold it to an enthusiast for many times the sum he had paid for it in the first place. The transaction suited all concerned save Devalera, who having spent his formative years in the back seat of an open Bentley was seriously discommoded. It was the car, moving or still, hood up or down, in which Devalera could arrange to see out without contortion or discomfort.
The dog, like his master, rarely motored anywhere so that the loss of the Bentley hardly upset his travelling arrangements. Much more to the point, the back seat of the Mulliner-Park Ward Special had become Devalera’s surrogate mother when he was ten weeks old, and his preferred environment when he came of age. Its womblike soft leather upholstery had enfolded and protected him through the hundred-mile journey from the kennels where he was born to his new home in Panty. Its capaciousness allowed for comfortable growth long after he had abandoned its variety of knobs and tassels as putative sources of suckle. It had become his recognized ‘basket’ since at the age of around six months he had proved consistently he could vault into it without effort, damage or anything so consequential as the need for a door to be opened—a singular advantage found only in the combination of open car and determined large dog.
Happily the Mini Moke had, as it were, caught Devalera on the rebound. While the Judge had been examining a modest saloon car to replace the Bentley in the showroom of the local garage, his canine companion had quietly settled himself in the rear of the Moke which had been standing forlorn and unsaleable on the forecourt. It hardly matched the opulence of the old love, but for ease of access it beat a Ford Cortina hands down or, more precisely, windows up and roof fixed.
The Judge had bought the little vehicle for his dog, much to the relief of the garage proprietor who, having traded it in nearly new from a sadly disenchanted fine weather motorist, had been despairing about the possibility of ever meeting another who wasn’t. The rear seats had been replaced with wheel-to-wheel foam mattressing tastefully covered by Mrs Evans. The collapsible hood had been firmly battened down, and Devalera had taken up residence.
It was understandable, in the circumstances, that where the Moke went Devalera went too, which was why Treasure had been obliged to drive both to the Sunfun Hotel.
The banker had set off conscious that the topless, sideless vehicle with the oversized Irish wolfhound sitting bolt upright in the back needed only a few yards of bunting to qualify as a miniature float in a St Patrick’s Day Parade. The short journey completed, however, he had quite warmed to the experience. Devalera showed his affection for the Moke or his disdain for brash hotels—or both by firmly refusing to leave the one to approach the other.
‘Mark, I’m so glad you came.’ Patience
Crabthorne was standing on the hotel steps, crisp and cool in a blue silk shirt, white pleated skirt and matching broad brimmed hat and shoes.
‘Mrs Evans brought your message hot-foot to the churchyard.’ Treasure smiled. ‘May I say how charming and elegant you look.’
‘Thank you, kind sir. It’s all the competition around here. Keeps us older girls on our toes.’ She smoothed the expensive shirt. ‘Money talks, of course, but hell I wish it spoke up louder at my age. Did I fetch you from your devotions?’
‘The Vicar and I were discussing card tricks. Actually you saved me from a dress rehearsal of Henry’s act, now postponed till eleven-thirty. Where’s Edgar?’
‘If we walk round the hotel and through the quaintly unestablished garden there’s the most spectacular cliff view you ever saw.’ She avoided answering the question until they were strolling across a sward of grass punctuated here and there by young trees evidently dependent on massive supporting stakes for survival through the windier months. ‘I guess they’ll try heather and shrubs next year.’ They both regarded a willow already nearly denuded of its new yellow foliage by the gusts of May. ‘Edgar and Mr Crutt left early in that ludicrous white racing car for a round trip to Llanelli before lunch. They beat the lap record to the hotel gate.’
‘They’ve gone to see the plant?’
‘No. The drug factoring outfit—pharmaceutical wholesalers I think you call it over here. Seems it makes a goodly contribution to the pot.’
‘Not spectacular but adequate,’ Treasure replied absently, wondering what made a closed wholesale warehouse such compulsive viewing on a Bank Holiday Saturday.
‘I think they needed to be alone.’ Mrs Crabthorne was answering the unspoken question. ‘And Mr Crutt feels more comfortable on his own ground. His . . . er . . . his lovely bride is still in bed, where I imagine she spends a good deal of her time,’ she added archly. ‘Which reminds me, Edgar has given Mr Crutt a fat five-year contract just to run this—what did you say?—not spectacular but adequate factoring subsidiary.’
‘When? Do you know?’
‘Last night over a nightcap. I heard about it briefly at breakfast. Edgar seems to think that part of the business can be marvellously extended. Do you?’ The question came quite sharply and unexpectedly.
‘As a matter of fact I don’t. Strictly it’s not my province to say so. Corporate funding is our—’
‘Mark, you’re being stuffy.’ He returned a look of good-humoured protest. ‘That man is useless. Edgar said so two years ago after he’d had him flown around all our plants.’
‘That was when your husband was trying to arrange product licensing agreements? Before he decided to buy Rigley & Herbert? I’d forgotten Crutt had been rubbernecked around the kingdom of Hutstacker. Did he go to the Florida plant, d’you know?’
‘I expect so. Does it matter?’ The question became rhetorical as Patience continued. ‘Now isn’t that just spectacular?’
They were standing on the cliff path separated by a slim wooden rail from a nearly sheer, two-hundred-foot drop on to the sea-washed rocky crags and boulders of a cove due west of Panty. Even on this nearly windless day the high tide was siphoning spectacularly through the rocks. It sent spurts of sea and foam by hollows and crevices to climb and search the lower cliff face before falling back enfeebled as the roar of the tempest gave way again to the shrieks of the sea-birds swooping and gliding over the ever-changing surface of the green, effervescent water.
‘Would you know, the guide says it’s nearly inaccessible? I think it’s strictly homicidal.’ Patience gave a droll smile. ‘I wouldn’t count on this handrail—more of an awful warning than a ready help in trouble. There’s an Iron Age Promontory Fort on the headland over there.’ She pointed to the right. ‘And on the other side of that there’s Caerfai beach. That’s sandy and fun if you have the strength to climb the steps up and down.’
‘What a lot you get from your guide books.’
‘Guide books phooey, I’ve been tramping this ground since seven this morning. Edgar’s no good on cliff paths, they give him vertigo. Even some of the pot-holes on Fifth Avenue give Edgar vertigo. But you were up early too. Did you solve that mystery you were telling me about?’
‘Oddly enough I did.’ Devalera could hardly be credited for his key part in the operation without awkward explanation. ‘Confidentially, it was a misunderstanding.’ He hesitated also to mention the subject of the drowned man, although . . .
‘Which frees you to deduce why Edgar has taken such a shine all of a sudden to the miserable Albert Crutt.’ She was not ready to concede that her husband’s new-found faith in the Managing Director of Rigley & Herbert was even partially due to his mild engagement with the attractions of Mrs Crutt. That was simply not Edgar’s way.
Thinking about retaining a man because of his attractive wife was quite different from acting on such an impulse. If Patience had not made a long and deep study of her husband’s curious amatory inclinations she would certainly not have put a question that could have prompted Treasure to make a short and shallow enquiry in the same area. More particularly she was a stem public defender of Edgar’s moral reputation: that was her way.
‘D’you think the liking has been that sudden?’ They were now walking back slowly towards the hotel. Privately it went through his mind that Edgar might have been captivated by the curvaceous Bronwen—a preposterous notion which to his credit he dismissed. In any case, he could hardly have put it to Patience.
‘Edgar’s considered judgement of people is completely reliable. His considered judgement of Mr Crutt as of dinner-time yesterday put him in the shoe clerk category. By breakfast he’s practically become one of the family.’
‘Running the wholesale company as it stands is a step down from controlling the whole Rigley & Herbert show, of course.’
‘The manufacturing part of which is being closed or relocated so there’s nothing else to run here except the wholesale company.’ Patience had stopped to look again at the wilting willow.
‘Probably it’s an act of compassion on Edgar’s part to keep Crutt on at a modest cost until retirement.’
‘Correction. When my husband says a substantial five-year contract, he’s not talking about a modest cost. And where business is concerned Edgar has no compassion. Oh, he doesn’t throw people out to starve but he never creates jobs for lame brains and he doesn’t keep people on in responsible posts whose performances don’t shape up.’ She turned to face Treasure. ‘The only thing Edgar is passionate about right now, passionate enough to account for an uncharacteristic action, is the take-over of Rigley & Herbert.’
‘He feels that strongly?’ Not for the first time the banker wondered at the commercial involvement and acuity of so many American wives. ‘Then I suppose we deduce something happened last evening that Edgar thought put the deal in peril, something that could be scotched with good old Albert Crutt still on the team.’ He paused, pleased with this touch of American idiom. ‘And Edgar didn’t indicate to you what it could be?’
Patience shook her head. ‘Which means it’s something he’s finding uncomfortable to live with.’
‘If that’s the case I hardly think I can—’
‘Can put your finger on what’s bugging Edgar and then stop him using bad judgement? I think you can. He respects you enormously—especially your integrity.’ Treasure doubted he exerted nearly the influence that Patience was suggesting. Earlier he had protested that he had no responsibility for the internal organization of the merged Hutstacker and Rigley & Herbert companies. In theory this was true, but with the acquisition still not quite concluded he had been mildly surprised that Crabthorne had not troubled to take his view on this matter of Crutt.
Most particularly he was still irritated over Crutt’s ham-fisted and transparent ruse in bringing Crabthorne to Panty in the first place. Since Crabthorne himself had seen through this failed wrecking device, it was fairly evident that the five-year contract was a desperate measure to
meet some new desperate and—as Patience suspected—not wholly creditable situation. The last qualification could, of course, be the very reason why Crabthorne had avoided involving his high-principled banker. Treasure debated whether he should be flattered by the reputation or pained by the exclusion.
One point was obvious: Crabthorne and Crutt had not gone to Llanelli to inspect the premises of Rigley & Herbert. They had gone to see Crutt’s lawyer who no doubt lived there or nearby and who for friendly or pecuniary considerations would be ready to sacrifice part of a national holiday to draft a letter of intent covering that contract. Treasure was familiar enough with the alarms and excursions that could attend the last stages of a take-over to scent a trail that led hot-foot to lawyers, Crutt might lack panache but he wouldn’t be slow to follow up an advantage.
Nor was the banker short of a hypothesis that could explain Crabthorne’s sensitive dilemma. On the contrary, it involved a disturbing theory he had been nurturing without enthusiasm and with a growing sense of anxiety for some hours.
‘Sorry to keep you waiting,’ Treasure rejoined Patience Crabthorne at a table on the hotel’s upper terrace. The lower one was entirely occupied by happy, chattering Japanese either consuming breakfast, bowing greetings to those arriving to do so, or bowing farewells to those who had already done so, not counting the few who were doing none of these things because they were photographing all the others who were.
The banker had needed to make a telephone call as well as some enquiries at the reception desk. ‘Would you like coffee?’ She shook her head in refusal. ‘Is it this afternoon you’ve decided to leave?’
‘No, Later on we’re looking at the local castles after seeing the Judge’s garden, then we head for North Wales early tomorrow, Edgar figured we might outstay our welcome if we hang on any longer. I guess it was a mistake coming at all.’
They exchanged understanding glances, while Treasure remembered his promise to Anna. ‘I think Crutt sadly misled Edgar. Anyway the plan sounds admirable. North Wales is very viewable with a whole string of genuine thirteenth-century castles.’ He hesitated for a moment before deciding to continue, ’Patience, will you come to Haverfordwest with me now to see something? I’d like to say it’s the church there but it’s something far less edifying. It could be important though, and it’s not far.’
Murder for Treasure Page 14