by Roy Vickers
“You won’t be wearing this woollen crepe?”
“That wretched coat!” Veronica had come up from Salisbury in a tailormade, the woollen crepe being packed. “I forgot it was in that case. It’s quite unsuitable now.”
The intercom. buzzed. Detective Inspector Curwen was asking to see Mrs. Brengast.
“Show him into our sitting-room, please,” ordered Jill. She found a dark scarf and draped it on Veronica’s shoulders.
“Don’t touch your make-up—it’s just right. You’ve taken off your wedding ring—remember to put it back. Come along as soon as you’re ready.”
Curwen and Jill made the right impression on each other. She saw him as large, rotund and homely, looking like a successful local auctioneer who contemplates retirement. To Curwen, Jill seemed to have stepped out of one of those advertisements in Top-People papers showing a wise young beauty persuading her chief to buy her an electronic filing cabinet. For immediate purposes, he accepted her as a girl with a clear eye who would come to the point without playing her sex.
The old coaching inn had been taken over by a progressive company and turned into a modern hotel of fifty bedrooms. The furniture was superior mass-produced—one settee, two armchairs, four uprights, a standard lamp, a table and a small desk holding intercom. and the telephone.
When Veronica came in she made an entrance of it, to Jill’s annoyance. There was too much business with the door handle: the brave smile was overdone. It was the wrong kind of room and the wrong kind of audience. Veronica, when you faced the facts, was a stupid woman. Curwen mumbled condolences. Jill shuffled them into chairs, placing Veronica alone on the settee.
“We have to ask a number of formal questions,” said Curwen, not very truthfully. “In these tragic cases the Will of the deceased is considered important.”
“I understand!” Veronica was overdoing it again. “Jill, dear, would you mind calling WillyBee’s solicitors and tell them I want to speak to Sir Edward?” She added the number. “I know he is leaving me nothing. Inspector—that was agreed—when he made me a handsome marriage settlement. He said he meant to leave you something, Jill. I hope he has not forgotten.”
WillyBee had told Jill and she did not doubt that he had kept his word. While the connection to London was being made Curwen put more questions, to which he already knew the answers.
“You intended to meet your husband at Diddington, Mrs. Brengast?”
“Yes. I will show you his letter.” She waited while he read it. “I mistook the ‘6’ for ‘8’ and missed him.”
“Did you then go back to your flat in London?”
“No. There were no more trains London-wards from Diddington. So I thought I would stay with my sister, Mrs. Kortland, at Salisbury.” She added the address which Curwen wrote down. “I tried to hire a car to take me to Renchester—”
“Excuse me, Mrs. Brengast, but I don’t quite follow. Your husband was at Renchester—”
“Yes, but I didn’t know where he was staying. As you saw in his letter, he asked me not to use our name. So there would be no means of finding him. I wanted Renchester, to catch a connection from there via Wheatley.”
“Did you, in fact, hire a car to take you to Renchester?”
“If you want all the details, I tried to hire a car but there wasn’t one available. A man who heard me asking at the garage offered me a lift.”
“A lift to Renchester?”
“Yes,” said Veronica, who had too little knowledge of police methods to guess that the Inspector might already know the truth about that lift to Renchester. “He dropped me at Renchester station. I caught the nine-forty to Wheatley Junction, arriving at ten-thirty-three and then the ten-forty-five on to Salisbury arriving at eleven-thirty-five. My sister lives a few minutes walk from the station. I left by an early train, to meet Miss Aspland at the flat.”
Veronica’s voice was calm but her hands moved restlessly. The left hand emerged from the cover of the scarf and Jill noted that she had forgotten her wedding ring in spite of the reminder. A glance at Curwen made her suspect that he had noted it, too.
This thought crossed another—that never before had she heard so precise a statement from Veronica. No rambling—no irrelevancies. And a whole string of train times. That accounted for her preoccupation with the railway guide. But it was very unusual behaviour for Veronica.
The telephone rang and Veronica took the call. Again she was brisk and business-like, explaining the presence of the police. From the one-sided conversation Jill gathered that there was a list of charitable bequests.
“But what about Jill Aspland?” asked Veronica … “Oh, I’m so glad! Ten thousand free of tax for you Jill … What? … re-sid-uary legatee! … Thanks very much, Sir Edward. I didn’t expect to get our house in Scotland—we agreed I should have nothing—oh, life interest—never mind. Goodbye!”
To Jill she explained. “He said you’re also residuary legatee but he doesn’t know whether it will mean any extra.”
“Perhaps I may congratulate Miss Aspland,” said Curwen.
“Thank you,” answered Jill. “I could have waited.”
Curwen got up.
“It’s very good of you to take that trouble, Mrs. Brengast—we knew, of course, that the poor gentleman couldn’t have been murdered for what was in his Will, but we have to tick it off.”
With the inverted values of the policeman, he was very pleased with her for having lied to him about the lift to Renchester.
“One trifling matter before I go. When you arrived at Diddington yesterday, you were carrying a suitcase—or ought I to say dressing case?”
“I was!” Veronica was innocently surprised. “How did you know?”
“Guessed!” grinned Curwen. “Could you let me see it?”
“We didn’t finish unpacking,” said Jill to Veronica. “I’ll empty it.”
“Inspector, do tell me,” said Veronica, when they were alone. “What does ‘residuary legatee’ mean?”
Curwen explained and added: “For instance—your marriage settlement. I expect it would be forfeited under certain conditions—that is, if you were to marry again and—er—that sort of thing. In such a case the capital sum would go back to the estate—meaning Miss Aspland.”
“Oh-h! … I see! I hadn’t thought of that!”
Curwen noted details of the dressing case, then explained that the coroner’s officer would call during the afternoon—without saying why—and bowed himself out.
“I think that went off very well!” said Veronica.
Poor Veronica, wanting to be told she had been perfectly splendid, or something. Jill couldn’t manage it.
“I wonder why he wanted to see my dressing case?”
“I suppose because people at Diddington noticed you were carrying it. And the railway people—ticket inspectors and so on. So that he can check your movements.”
“I didn’t know they would do things like that!” Veronica was depressed. She chattered on until Jill interrupted.
“Veronica! Why did you dump yourself on your sister? I have to know this sort of thing, with the police dropping in on us. I mean, why didn’t you sit on in the train and go back to the flat, instead of landing yourself in for the rush you had this morning?”
“I don’t know. Impulse, I suppose. It was rather silly, now you point it out. I’m glad the Inspector didn’t think of it.”
“If I thought of it, you can bet he did,” said Jill. “If I were a policeman—”
“You are a bit of a policeman, darling! And it’s ever so useful just now. I don’t know how I could possibly have managed without you.”
“You speak as if it were all over. It hasn’t begun yet. I’m not at all sure you wouldn’t manage better without me.”
“Darling, that’s utterly absurd! I always get flustered when people ask me why I did things.”
“And men enjoy putting you right and helping you. But my mind works rather like theirs—which makes it all the easier fo
r them if anything goes wrong. I’m no good unless I have all the facts and know just where I am.”
“But you have all the facts! And why should anything go wrong?”
“I don’t know—and I hope nothing will.”
“Jill. You aren’t going to walk out on me. You won’t leave me in the lurch?”
“What lurch?” demanded Jill. “You haven’t told me anything about a lurch.”
“Don’t pick me up like that! There’s nothing special. It’s just that I do feel frightfully alone. I suppose that’s why I’m not howling for poor WillyBee. I don’t feel anything except that he’s somehow missing.”
Jill softened. These cushioned women, she thought, were unfairly treated. Men would share their possessions with them but not their wisdom.
“Don’t worry about being left alone. I’ll cope with the police and reporters and it’ll probably be all right now that I know they can’t spring anything on us.”
Chapter Four
The Town Hall clock was chiming for half past three as Curwen walked the few yards back to headquarters. Those three men had had nearly four hours in which to think again about the comic alibi. He took the shiny new lift to his room.
Benjoy was waiting for him, looking deflated.
“Deceased’s wife, sir. No trace after about eight-fifteen when she got out of the car the other side of Peasebarrow Wood—until she arrives at her sister’s house in Salisbury assumed to be about eleven-fifty. Statement taken by Salisbury police on your desk.”
“What about that driver from Weston’s Garage who took the girl from the lockhouse?”
“Driver Roach. From The Hollow Tree Garage acting for Weston’s. He failed to recognise Mrs. Brengast when he was shown her getting out of her taxi, but said he thought he recognised her voice when she spoke to her friend. Trailer—the description of dress and deportment given by Driver Roach is substantially the same as that given by two railway men at Wheatley, and ticket collector at Salisbury, of a girl who made the same journey, beginning with the three-fifteen a.m. from Wheatley. But nobody except the driver heard the three-fifteen girl’s voice.”
“A bit thin! Did you pick up anything at the lockhouse?”
“Couldn’t make it, sir. I had to drive to Wheatley to get the statement from those men.”
“N’e’mind! Plenty of time for that. We’ll see how we can get on without the girl. Bring in those three birds. One at a time.”
“Very good, sir! Stranack has a lawyer with him in his room.”
“He’s the bouncy one. Take ’ em alphabetically and he’ll come last. Treat ’em soft—we don’t want any sulks.”
When Benjoy returned he softened himself into the semblance of a parlour maid.
“Mr. Canvey, sir.”
“Ah, Mr. Canvey!” Curwen beamed and nearly shook hands. “I’m very sorry to have kept you waiting so long. If you’ll sit here we may be able to tidy this up between us.”
“Thank you!” Canvey was wintry and he sat as one who would prefer to stand. “And thanks for your civility. But I can’t see why you need detain me when the others will confirm that I was at the lockhouse at the relevant time.”
“Sorry, Mr. Canvey, but you’ve got the wrong end of it! They don’t confirm your statement. They deny it. You say you were at the lockhouse. Eddis says Eddis was at the lockhouse. Stranack says Stranack was at the lockhouse. Each of you says the other two are liars.”
“How utterly loathsome!” cried Canvey. “No wonder you treat us like crooks!”
“I don’t think you know much about how crooks are treated,” grinned Curwen. “The point is you’re beginning to see how we look at it. That’s what I want.”
“If I were in your position I wouldn’t believe a word any of us said.”
“I don’t! But that needn’t worry you. If you want to know, the police never believe anything anybody says until they’ve checked it. You admitted that a woman was with you at the lockhouse. Begin there and give me something I can check.”
Canvey hesitated, frowned and was silent. Curwen waited.
“She was not a floozie,” said Canvey. “A woman of some position. So the problem will solve itself—though not this afternoon. When the case is in all the papers she will feel bound to come forward of her own accord.”
“And lose her position? D’you reckon that’s a safe bet?”
“I don’t know. But I have to take it. Sorry, Inspector! I understand now why you’re detaining me and will have to go on doing so—until I win my bet.”
He stood up and was escorted from the room by Benjoy. When Eddis was ushered in, Curwen gave him the same little opening speech.
“First let me say, Inspector, I have pleasure in recording my appreciation of the treatment I have received at the hands of your staff.” There was a streak in Eddis that hankered after political life, which expressed itself in an impulse to chairmanship. “For my part, I hope I shall be able to reciprocate by helping you in your investigation.”
Curwen blinked, wondered what he was supposed to say and gave it up.
“This morning, Mr. Eddis, you told me that you were alone in the lockhouse last night.”
“Correct!” Eddis smiled approval and encouragement.
“Are you aware that each of the other two asserts that he was the one at the lockhouse?”
“I was not aware. But I have to confess that I am not unduly surprised. For my colleagues—as colleagues—I have nothing but praise. As individuals I know next to nothing about them.”
Curwen had had enough of it.
“You further told me this morning that no one came to the lockhouse while you were there. I am now telling you that we know for certain that, at around two in the morning, a woman spoke on the telephone in the lockhouse and ordered a car which came for her and took her away.”
“No comment!” said Eddis.
“Eh?” Again Curwen blinked. “That’s a funny sort of answer.” Receiving no response, he continued: “What’s the use, Mr. Eddis? You won’t suggest that the girl slipped into the lockhouse while you were working the lock—and out again—without your knowing a thing about it? And that you didn’t hear a car stop, turn and restart.”
“I offer you no suggestion at all about a girl or anything to do with a girl.”
“Good enough! You refuse to co-operate. If you change your mind, let me know. Benjoy, escort Mr. Eddis and then come back here.”
Curwen was making his own notes when Benjoy returned. For some minutes he wrote on.
“You’ve got a fresh mind, boy. Which of those two was the liar?”
“Not enough evidence to go on, sir. Each was using a manner as cover.”
“That’s what I thought. What about the girl? I tell Eddis I know a girl was there and he says: ‘No comment.’ That’s a posh way of telling me I’m a liar. Did you get a B.A. before you joined the Force?”
“Yes, sir. I suggest he may not have meant that you were lying.”
“‘No comment,’” repeated Curwen. “I was only asking him to say yes or no.”
“It might have meant that he admitted the girl was there, but he refused to sacrifice her reputation to get himself out of a hole.”
“Cor!” Curwen gaped, then shut his mouth and chuckled. “Fancy me not thinking of that! Took the missis to the pictures a while ago. Lovely girl turns to the judge and says: ‘He was in my arms,’ she says. The missis cried. But in the end it turned out he wasn’t—and that’s what I think. I sprang the girl on Eddis. First he’d heard of her—and he stalled for time. And now we’ll hear what Stranack thinks he can get away with—lawyer and all.”
Curwen’s first impression of Mr. Higstock was that Stranack must have picked him blindly out of the directory. The solicitor was a spare, elderly man in a rusty black suit and a starched wing collar that was too large for him. He looked as if he were accustomed to advising old-fashioned farmers rather than criminals—probably a survival from the days when Renchester was a small marke
t town. He bowed when Curwen offered him a chair.
Curwen began with the same general questions, expecting interruption from the lawyer but getting none. Some of the questions about Stranack’s relations with deceased were very near the knuckle, being likely to incriminate him on the point of motive.
“Is there anything in your statement of this morning, Mr. Stranack, which you would now like to withdraw?”
“Nothing.”
“Are you aware that Eddis and Canvey both deny that you were at the lockhouse at the relevant time?”
“No, I’m certainly not! There must be a mistake somewhere. We tossed—”
“Each states that he himself took charge of the lock while you went in the Ford with the other.”
“One moment, please Inspector!” Mr. Higstock was very apologetic. “Mr. Stranack, you did not warn me of the possibility of this embarrassing development.”
“Because I didn’t know it!” cried Stranack. “I’m trying hard to believe they said it, but I can’t.”
“We may take it that the Inspector is not joking,” said Mr. Higstock. “I must confess that this completely destroys our defence, Mr. Stranack. Unless, of course, we can produce independent proof of your statement. Can we?”
Curwen was almost sorry for Mr. Higstock’s client. Stranack was offering the bargees. When Curwen had disposed of this, Mr. Higstock again intervened.
“I don’t know whether you feel inclined to answer a question of mine, Inspector? You will realise that I am at a disadvantage—you have sprung a veritable bombshell upon us. Did the other two gentlemen also claim to have enjoyed the society of a lady?”
“A girl was mentioned,” conceded Curwen. “But I don’t see how it’s going to help your client to claim her. He told me this morning he did not know her name and address.”
“What I told you, Inspector, was that I would not give her name and address. I still don’t see that it’s necessary.”
“Then let’s have a description,” said Curwen.
“I’m a raw novice at this game, but here goes. She’s good-looking. You can multiply that. Blonde. She’s not frightfully tall and I don’t suppose she’s short, or I’d have noticed. Long eyelashes. Large eyes—dunno what colour. Nose straight, I should say, except for a tiny bit at the end which hardly counts. Altogether, it’s what people call a soulful face, except for an expression that points to the other thing. Very expensively got up. I don’t suppose all this is the least use.”