by Rhys Bowen
“It should be a nice ride to Torquay today,” the inspector said. “Better than driving in that awful fog yesterday.”
“I hope your meeting went well,” I said.
“Have you been keeping tabs on me?”
“Of course not.” I flushed. “Your constable said you’d had to go for a meeting.”
“Of a sort,” he said. “The prisoner they recaptured in Birmingham has just been returned to Dartmoor Prison. I went to talk to him.”
“And did you learn anything?”
“Not a dicky bird. He still maintains that they split up as soon as they reached the road, and he thought the other two were both heading for London. As for how he made it to Birmingham and where he got his civilian clothes, he’s just not talking.”
“You won’t get convicts to squeal on each other, unless there is something in it for them,” Granddad said.
“I just met Wild Sal,” I said. And I told them about her seeing the body dragged into the bog and the fact that she’d seen Willum in the Ffrench-Finches’ back garden.
“Willum? The simple-headed one?” The inspector stroked his chin. I noticed he’d shaved that morning. “I can’t see him having the wit to pull off crimes like these. He’s like a big kiddie. No, I think we’ll find we’re dealing with a real smart aleck, the sort of man who thinks he’s the cat’s whisker and that society hasn’t appreciated his talents. You know, the quiet bank clerk who feels that he’s been overlooked. Probably doesn’t have friends. Probably spent months or years planning this.”
“Rather like the man you described to us, then,” I said. “You said one of the escaped convicts was a bank clerk, had brains and was ruthless.”
“Yes, I did.” Inspector Newcombe considered this. “But he’d have no reason to stick around these parts. And what’s more, I’m sure he doesn’t have any local connections either. No, my betting is that he’s safely back in London.” He turned to look out the window as we swung around a hairpin bend on the hill. “But there are plenty more like him. The Great War turned some of them cuckoo, didn’t it? Came home from the trenches and were never the same.”
We reached the crest of the hill and had a lovely view ahead of green fields and copses, farms nestling in hollows and in the far distance a sparkling line of sea. The road dropped from the moors until we were driving through the tamed landscape of the coast. Torquay looked positively Mediterranean in the sparkling sunshine. There were palm trees along the front and couples strolling, taking me back to my time in Nice. But the couples here were bundled in great coats and scarves, betraying that the weather here was not exactly balmy. We left the expensive hotels and souvenir shops until we reached a more humble backstreet with semidetached houses and children playing on the pavement outside.
My heart was racing as we walked up the front path and the inspector rapped on the door.
“Mrs. Goldblum? Detective Inspector Newcombe, Devonshire Constabulary. I telephoned you last night,” he said. “Your father is still here, I hope?”
“Yes, he’s here, but I don’t want him upset.” The thin and rather gaunt-looking middle-aged woman frowned at us. “That robbery has quite unnerved him. He fled from persecution in Russia as a young man, you know. He remembers the Cossacks burning his village and killing his parents. He said he has felt safe in England until now.”
“I quite understand,” Inspector Newcombe said. “Let us hope that we will soon apprehend the person who did this and he can feel safe again.” He saw her looking at us. “This gentleman is a former detective from Scotland Yard, who I hope can help solve this quickly.”
“And I’m his granddaughter,” I said quickly, before anyone could give my full name and title.
“I don’t know why it might take all these people to solve a simple robbery.” She was now glaring at us suspiciously.
“It might turn out to be not so simple,” the inspector said. “It may be tied to other crimes in this area. So if we could please speak with your father?”
She stood aside to let us into a narrow front hall. “He’s in the back parlor. It’s easier to heat. I’ll make us some tea.”
We went through to a small room crammed full of furniture. Mr. Klein was sitting in an armchair beside a roaring fire. He got to his feet, looking at us nervously.
The inspector held out his hand. “Mr. Klein. Detective Inspector Newcombe. We met the other day in connection with your robbery. And these are two acquaintances who have been helping me.”
“Good of you to come, Inspector,” Mr. Klein said. “Please, take a seat, all of you. I recognize the young lady from my shop the other day. Any news on the robbery yet?”
“Not yet, I’m afraid, but we may be closer to solving it.”
We sat, I perched on an upright chair away from the fire, leaving the two men to sit close to Mr. Klein.
“I’d be so happy if you could find out who broke into my shop,” he said. “I haven’t slept a wink since, you know. If someone had smashed a window and grabbed a few items, it would have been one thing. But letting himself into the store with no sign of a break-in and then opening my safe—well, that’s something else entirely, isn’t it? I won’t feel safe again until he’s found and arrested.”
“That’s exactly what we hope to do, Mr. Klein. And we have reason to suspect this wasn’t just a simple robbery. It may be linked to a chain of crimes, some of them murders. So in many ways you’re lucky to be alive. And I suggest you stay with your daughter until we tell you it’s safe to go home.”
“Goodness me.” Mr. Klein put a hand to his heart. “You have your suspicions then, do you, Inspector?”
“We’re hoping you can help us, Mr. Klein. We suspect there must be some kind of vendetta motive behind this, so I’m asking you to think. Has there been anyone with whom you’ve crossed swords, anyone who has written you a nasty letter? Anyone who might want to punish you in any way?”
“Because I’m Jewish, you mean?”
“Not at all. None of the other victims was a Jew.”
“Well, that’s a relief, anyway. I always told myself that was one thing I could count on in England. And as to your question—no, I can’t think of any enemies. I keep myself to myself. Don’t make trouble. Don’t get involved in town politics. Never had a nasty letter that I can remember.”
I moved toward the edge of the sofa. “Mr. Klein, do any of the following names mean anything to you?” And I began to recite them. He shook his head after each of the first few.
“Gladys Tripp. Now, that name rings a bell. Where have I heard it recently?”
“She was the telephone switchboard operator who was killed last week.”
“In a fire at the exchange, wasn’t it? That’s right. I remembered her name from before.”
“Before what?” Inspector Newcombe asked.
Mr. Klein frowned. “Maybe I’ve run into her around town? Go on. What were the other names?”
“The next person was the master of the local hunt. Major Wesley-Parker.”
Mr. Klein looked up suddenly. “Dapper little man with a mustache like that dreadful Hitler fellow? Thinks a lot of himself?”
“That’s right,” I said.
“Oh, I remember him all right,” he said. “I served on a jury with him several years ago. He was an officious person. Took charge from square one. Bossed us all around. Wanted everything his way.”
“A jury?” Inspector Newcombe exchanged an excited look with us.
“That’s right. Come to think of it, that telephone lady must have been on it too. At least, there was some woman who chattered nonstop, inane stuff. I believe her last name was Tripp.”
“Think carefully, Mr. Klein,” Inspector Newcombe said slowly. “Who else can you remember on that jury?”
“Let me see. A refined older lady who locked horns with your hunting chap. There were a couple of people who never said a word—a large countrywoman, I remember, who looked distinctly out of place and uncomfortable. Did her knitting all
the time. Click of knitting needles was most annoying. Then there were a couple of younger men who wouldn’t take anything seriously. That Major Whatsit did get annoyed with them. ‘You’re a disgrace to the county set,’ he said.” And Mr. Klein chuckled.
“Freddie Partridge. Johnnie Protheroe?” I asked.
“I really can’t remember names, if I even knew them. You don’t ever want to get too friendly with fellow jurors. It’s such an unreal situation that you just want to do the job and get out of there. At least, that was the way I felt. And most of them ignored me. I’m the sort that people overlook.”
The inspector cleared his throat. “Mr. Klein, what was the nature of the case? And the name of the defendant?”
“Now, that I do remember,” he said. “It was quite interesting, actually. He’d been a well-known music hall artiste. Had fallen on hard times since the demise of the music hall and taken to swindling old ladies out of their life savings. The prosecution wanted us to believe that he’d killed more than one of them. His last landlady had died from a fall down the stairs, but there was no real proof that he’d actually pushed her.”
“And his name, Mr. Klein? Do you remember his name?”
“His name was Robbins.”
Chapter 36
The inspector got to his feet, slamming his fist into his open hand. “I knew it. I knew my instinct was right all along.”
“You know him, then?” Mr. Klein asked.
“Oh, yes, I know him. He’s one of the convicts who recently escaped from Dartmoor. We’ve been looking for him.”
“My life, already,” Mr. Klein said. “You’re telling me that the man who broke into my shop and took those rings was that same Robbins?”
“Almost certainly so.”
“Then I’m lucky I wasn’t murdered in my bed.”
“You are very lucky, I agree. In fact, you’re the only one he hasn’t attempted to murder, most of them in ingenious ways.”
“Oh, he was a slick one, all right, from what we heard of the way he got around these old ladies. Knew how to charm people. Smarmy, that’s what I called him, but some of the ladies believed him. I don’t quite approve of having ladies sit on juries, if you don’t mind my saying so. Not enough experience of the outside world and too easily swayed by a charming smile.”
“What did he look like, Mr. Klein?” I asked.
“We know what he looked like. We have his mug shots,” the inspector said.
“I wanted Mr. Klein’s impression of him,” I said.
“Well-built chap, good solid jaw. Quite a big man and, as I said, charming smile. Charming manner altogether. If you’d believed him, butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.”
“I take it you haven’t seen him recently?” the inspector asked. “He didn’t come into your shop, for example?”
“Oh, no. I’d have remembered him, I’m sure,” Mr. Klein said. “A person like that you don’t forget so easily.”
We took our leave then.
“Well, that’s a turnup for the books, isn’t it?” the inspector said. “If we’re to believe him, that Robbins fellow is still hiding out in these parts and bumping off the members of the jury, one by one.”
“He still has two to go,” I said. “We need to find out who the other members were before it’s too late.”
“That trial would have been at the Crown court in Exeter,” the inspector said. “The local magistrate’s court wouldn’t have touched a case like that.”
He turned to his driver and we swung onto the main Exeter road.
“What I want to know,” my grandfather said as we negotiated the narrow streets near the center of town, “is how he obtained all this local knowledge if he was locked away in Dartmoor Prison. Someone from around here must have found out about the details of the people he killed.”
“The same one who is hiding him, presumably,” I said.
“Doing a bloody good job of it too,” the inspector said. “We went door to door in all those local villages when the convicts escaped, but nobody claimed to have seen hide nor hair of them.”
The car came to a halt outside the court buildings and we followed the inspector inside. We were passed from one department to the next until we found where archives of court cases were stored. And then we waited, sitting on a hard wooden bench in a drafty foyer. At last a young man came back with a sheet of paper. “This is the one you wanted,” he said. “Robert Francis Robbins. Convicted November 22, 1928.”
We read it eagerly. “Who is Agnes Brewer?” Granddad asked.
“The farmer’s wife. Already dead.”
“That just leaves Stewart McGill and—oh.” I stopped, mouth open.
“Peter Barclay,” Granddad said. “Isn’t he the quiet little chap who plays the organ?”
“That’s him.” I looked at the inspector. “Do you have any way of telephoning the police station in Tiddleton and having some kind of guard put on Mr. Barclay?”
“I’ll do it from the station here,” the inspector said. “And we need to find out where this Mr. McGill lives. We have an address for him and it’s in Exeter.”
We drove with a growing feeling of dread to Mr. McGill’s address. It was in a rather shabby backstreet of terraced houses right on the pavement with no front gardens. We knocked on the front door and a young woman opened it. She looked unkempt, with a baby on her hip.
“Mr. McGill?” the inspector asked.
She stared at him defiantly. “No. You’ve got the wrong number. The name’s Perkins.”
“How long have you lived here, Mrs. Perkins?”
“Just over a year. What’s it to you?”
“I’m a police officer,” Inspector Newcombe said coldly and noted the reaction in her eyes. “You don’t happen to know where to find the people who lived here before you, do you?”
“No idea.” The baby started to wail. “Look, this isn’t a good time. He wants his bottle and the bigger ones want their dinner.”
“We’re looking for a Mr. McGill who used to live here,” the inspector said. “It’s vitally important we contact him. A matter of life and death.”
She shrugged, still not interested. “You can ask the old bat at number 14,” she said. “She’s always snooping out through her window, minding other people’s business. She might know.”
We went across the street. I saw a lace curtain twitch before the inspector knocked on the door. Soon after, the door was opened an inch or two and a sharp-nosed face looked out.
The inspector repeated his question and the door was opened wider to reveal an old woman in a flowery pinny and carpet slippers.
“You’re not going to find him, are you?” the old woman said triumphantly. “He’s gone. Hopped it.”
“Gone where?”
“Out to his daughter in Australia. His wife died and he packed up and went. Three or four years ago now.”
“Now, that presents an interesting problem for Mr. Robbins, doesn’t it?” the inspector said as we returned to the motor. “I wonder if he’s planning to go out to Australia to seek out the last jury member.”
“Hardly on the twelfth day,” I said. “He wouldn’t even have time to leave England by then.”
“Then what’s he going to do on the twelfth day?” my grandfather said. “I rather think he’s the type who’d want a big finale.”
None of us had an answer to that one.
We left the city of Exeter behind and rolling countryside stretched ahead of us, with the snowcapped tors as a backdrop. “So the big question is, who has been hiding him?”
“It might be worth checking with Wild Sal again,” I said. “She sort of threatened me this morning. Nobody goes near the place she lives up on the moors, do they?”
“My lads were there to apprehend her,” the inspector said. “Hardly more than a sheep byre—stone walls, dirt floor and not enough room to swing a cat. Nowhere to hide him there.”
“But if they’d seen you coming, there are plenty of places to hide up o
n the moor until you’d gone, aren’t there?” I suggested.
“What exactly do you know about this Robbins?” Granddad asked. “Used to have a music hall turn, didn’t he?”
“He did. In fact, he was quite popular at one time. I gather it was a sort of magic act with his wife, sleight-of-hand stuff, but the difference was that it was a type of comedy act too and they played various characters. His most famous one was apparently an old colonel, trying to impress a coquettish young girl, played by his wife.”
“You know, I think I saw him once,” Granddad said excitedly. “At the Hammersmith Empire. The old colonel and the young girl. That rings a bell. They were quite good. Clever and funny too. What were they called?” He sucked through his teeth, thinking.
“I believe it was Robbie and someone.”
“‘Robbie and Trixie, Tricks and Chuckles,’ that was it,” Granddad said. “I did see them. The old colonel and the young girl. He was trying to impress her, producing flowers out of her hat, money out of her ear. So did you say that his wife killed herself?”
“Right after he was convicted,” the inspector said. “Left a note. Said she couldn’t handle the shame of it or go on living without him. So she drowned herself near Beachy Head. Walked out into the sea, and you know what the currents are like around that headland. The body was never found.”
I stared out the window, trying to control my racing thoughts. The old colonel. Was he actually staying at Gorzley Hall at this moment? Colonel Rathbone had claimed to be a colonel with the Bengal Lancers, but he didn’t look comfortable in the saddle. And he hadn’t known his commanding officer’s nickname. But Mrs. Rathbone? She didn’t look as if she’d ever been an entertainer. But was it possible the old colonel’s wife hadn’t died after all? I wondered whether to voice my suspicion to the inspector, then decided that I should talk it over with Darcy first. He knew people in London who could check on such things. I’d tell him instead.
As we drove down the hill and into the village we saw the constable talking to someone outside the police station. The inspector wound down his window. “Did you get my message, Jackson?” he asked.