‘While we have been talking,’ she said, ‘my guardian angel, from his modest seat near the door, has taken one or two photographs of you. The light is excellent in here. When these photographs are shown to Mr and Mrs MacGregor White, Carstairs’ next-door neighbours, I have no doubt they will recognise an acquaintance who sometimes is at Saighdearan and sometimes – possibly more often – is not.’
‘Look,’ said Honfleur, after a long pause during which Dame Beatrice regarded him with the bright gaze of a bird waiting for a worm, ‘I’d better tell you all about it. One thing I swear. I swear it on my soul.’
‘A doubtful commodity, but pray continue. What do you swear? – that you had nothing to do with the three murders which have taken place since you became embroiled with these nefarious characters?’
‘That’s it. You must believe me. After all, why would I kill my own drivers?’
‘With your own job in jeopardy, why should you care what happened to your drivers?’
‘You’re heartless and cruel!’
‘So was the person who killed Noone and Daigh, but please proceed, remembering, if you are wise, that I am in a position to check some part, if not the whole, of your story.’
‘It began,’ said Honfleur miserably, ‘when I first made Vittorio’s acquaintance. I believe he booked with us first as an ordinary passenger. I can’t remember which tour it was – one of those which does the Yorkshire dales, I believe – and a day or two after it returned he called here at my office and said that he wished to make a personal complaint. That is how I came to know him.
‘I told him he must make it in writing. I said that dealing with complaints was not part of my job. “You must write to the company,” I told him. “I am only responsible for checking on the bookings, arranging and sometimes changing the hotels, and looking after the welfare of the personnel.”
‘Well, he grinned in a nasty sort of way and picked up the word. “Ah, yes, the personnel,” he said. “I think, signore, you had better listen to what I have to tell you.” This sounded a bit sinister, so I gave him a chair, sent for my secretary as a witness and invited him to go ahead.
‘He started to tell me some garbled story about the coach-driver and one of the women passengers, but I soon cut him short. “Look here,” I said, “if the lady has been assaulted or in any way annoyed, it is up to her to complain. We may assume that she hasn’t complained. My directors would soon have taken action if she had, I do assure you. The coach-driver,” I said, “has a position of being in loco parentis to his passengers. He is not a chap out on the spree doing a gay Lothario act. If the lady hasn’t complained, either what you have told me is entirely false and a figment of your prurient imagination, or else,” I said, “she was a willing participant in whatever went on. In that case there is no more to be said. Had she been your wife,” I said, “You might well have cause for complaint. As it is, you have none. And what were you yourself doing, prowling about hotel corridors when you should have been in bed and asleep?”
‘He said he had had occasion to get up for the usual reason. I said, “What! With a bathroom to every bedroom? You seem to forget I know all our hotels and what the amenities are.” ’
‘That shook him, I’ll bet!’ said Laura. ‘Do you like “amenities” spelt with one m or two? – not that it will make any difference until I type out my shorthand.’
Dame Beatrice wagged her head at Laura in a reproving manner and said to Honfleur.
‘And that remark of yours terminated the interview, I take it?’
‘Well, it did, in one sense, but, in another sense, it didn’t. He said he had only been testing me. “That’s like your damn’ cheek!” I said. “Get out of here before I kick you out.”
‘ “No, honestly,” he said, “I’ve been sent here for that very purpose, to try you out. We just wanted to know what sort of fellow you were, and whether you were prepared to back up your office staff and go bail for your drivers and all that.”
‘ “What the hell do you mean by ‘we’?” I said; but I don’t mind telling you, Dame Beatrice, that I was worried. You see, quite by accident I had been given access to certain papers which were supposed at the time to be strictly confidential
‘About the projected merger between your own County Motors and a very much larger organisation?’
‘Yes, that’s it. How Vittorio had found out anything about it I have no idea. Somebody blabbed while under the influence, I imagine, and Vittorio, who was never anybody’s fool, picked it up as it came off the bat, I suppose.’
‘But such information (if, at that time, as you indicate, it had not been released) could only have been known at top level. Vittorio did not strike me as a man who would be on drinking terms with tycoons,’ said Dame Beatrice.
‘I don’t suppose I was the only person who collected antiques, and that, as you know, was his line.’
‘I understand. Neither were you the only one of his clients who liked to pay a low price for stolen goods, I think.’
‘Strawberries and cream,’ said Laura. Dame Beatrice cackled. Honfleur looked puzzled and anxious. His flash of belligerence had gone.
‘So you believed at the time that, as Vittorio was in possession of this so-far exclusive information about the merger, he must be what he claimed to be – the accredited representative of the firm into which County Motors was to be absorbed. I suppose,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘That was his story, was it not?’
‘That’s the size of it,’ said Honfleur, relieved. ‘Well, of course, as soon as I found out about the merger I realised that my own job might be at stake, so when Vittorio invited me out for a drink, I thought that, as he was evidently top brass in the other coach company, it might be politic to play ball with him, so I went along.
‘We chatted over our drinks (which he paid for) and, of course, it came out that I had already known about the merger.’
‘And at that point he came out in his true colours, no doubt.’
‘You’re dead right he did. He told me that the merger was supposed to be top secret and that unless I played along with him he would blow the gaff to my board of directors. “And if I do that,” he said, “you won’t have to worry whether your job is going to be safe or not, will you? – because there won’t be any job for you to worry about. Leakage of confidential information is a serious matter, isn’t it?”
‘Well, I was still believing that he really was a key man in the other company, so I said I’d only come upon my information by accident and never intended to make use of it. I said I didn’t see how I could make use of it, even if I wanted to, which I most certainly did not. He laughed at me.
‘ “Yours isn’t the only coach company in this take-over business,” he said. “What’s to stop me leaking the information to some of the others, using your name, eh? That would put the cat among the pigeons, wouldn’t it?”
‘ “I should deny it and denounce you to your own company,” I said. He laughed again. “What company?” he asked. “I’m not employed by any coach firm. I have other interests and if you and I can get together there won’t be any need for you to bother whether you’ve got a job or not.” ’
‘And you took him at his word?’
‘Dame Beatrice, I had no option.’
‘But if you obtained the information about the merger merely by accident, could you not have told your board of directors and promised secrecy?’
‘Well, only in a way was it by accident. I overheard part of a telephone conversation. That was accidental enough. I’d been invited to attend a board meeting because the drivers were asking for more pay and, not wishing to be late, I had got there well before time. Well, knowing the place, I had slipped into a sort of little kitchen where the typists brewed up and which opened out of the boardroom. Nobody saw me, because the meeting, as usual, was held out of office hours, so I guessed nobody would be about until the meeting began and I thought I would sit in the kitchen and have a quiet smoke. I had no idea anybody was in the boa
rdroom until the telephone rang and was answered. Well, that’s where I should have made myself known and not listened in, I suppose, but as soon as I realised what was being arranged I admit I listened and when the meeting was over I found myself thinking about what I’d heard.
‘Of course, my own job was my first consideration. Nobody can blame me for that. I’d heard one or two names mentioned and I knew they were younger men than myself, but my own name had not come up. It isn’t easy to get another berth when you’ve been in management and are approaching fifty-five, so I thought I would try to find out exactly where I stood.’
‘And that meant rifling the board’s private files, I suppose.’
‘You can’t blame me. I only wanted to know.’
‘And what you found out by your burglarious exploit was not conducive to your peace of mind, I take it.’
‘No. There was nothing absolutely definite, you understand, but there was a pile of correspondence which, when boiled down to essentials, indicated to me that I could prepare myself for redundancy and that the most I could hope for was a very moderate golden handshake.’
‘So when Vittorio put his proposition to you, you were ready to fall in with it.’
‘Dame Beatrice, I was obliged to fall in with it. You see, I’d slipped into the little kitchen place again when the meeting was over, and then I’d gone back to the board room. When I’d found out what I could I ran straight into one of the stenographers. I recognised her at once as the girl who had been present taking down what was said at the board meeting. “So we had a good old rummage among the files, did we?” she said. “The cleaner saw you, you know. She thought you were entitled to be there, but, of course, I know better. So what are you going to do about it, Mr Honfleur?”
‘Well, I did my best to keep my end up. “I have a perfect right to inspect the files,” I said. “I am a member of the board.” It didn’t work, so I asked her what her price was. She giggled. “Higher than you can pay,” she said. Of course it wasn’t until I had this drink with him, that I found out she knew Vittorio. After that, there was nothing for it but to go his way.’
‘And how long ago was this?’ Dame Beatrice asked.
‘About two years. Long before you and Miss Mendel came to dinner.’
‘The merger is taking a long time to reach its climax, then.’
‘All sorts of problems have had to be ironed out. If I’d realised how slow the whole business was going to be, I might have taken a chance and said I’d see Vittorio at the devil before I’d come in on his racket, but I thought it would only be a matter of months – even weeks – before the thing became a fait accompli and I, most likely, would then be out of a job.’
‘But you are a free man. I mean, you haven’t got a wife to worry about,’ said Laura. ‘That must surely make a difference.’
‘Alimony,’ said Honfleur, ‘and also what is euphemistically known as “a little nest” to keep feathered. I wasn’t sitting pretty, I assure you, or I would never have given in. Of course, it was the use of our coaches he wanted, to move the stolen antiques to the port of embarkation.’
‘Well, B. Honfleur – and B. doesn’t only stand for Basil – seems very sorry for himself,’ said Laura, ‘but I can’t say I feel much sympathy for him. He seems to have behaved like a rather depraved ninny throughout the proceedings, wouldn’t you say?’
‘We still haven’t heard the true story.’
‘Even if (as I firmly believe) Vittorio stabbed those two drivers, help would have been needed in transporting the bodies, especially in hoisting them up to those gatehouses,’ said Laura. ‘Do you think Honfleur was the other man?’
‘Time, as always, will show.’
‘We still haven’t actually put a name to the person who sneaked into the Stone House that night and bashed that dummy you’d had the forethought to slip into your bed. That couldn’t have been Vittorio. He was dead. Besides, I thought we both recognised him, although we couldn’t prove it.’
‘You yourself pointed out, if you remember, that whoever it was must have had an acquaintance with the house. As we would scarcely imagine that any of our own relatives and friends would make an attempt on my life, there can be little doubt which two people come under suspicion, although, as you say, we have no proof.’
‘So far as I can see,’ said Laura soberly, ‘the only people who could have been involved are Conradda Mendel and Basil Honfleur. Both had been to the house several times for psychiatric treatment and the room you used at that time as a temporary clinic was next door to your bedroom. Did you ever show Conradda into the bedroom?’
‘No, but on her own confession the fact that she is not shown into bedrooms does not deter her from inspecting them.’
‘But you don’t really suspect Conradda Mendel, do you?’
‘Women have done people to death before now.’
‘But she’d had an operation. She was still convalescent, and it struck me that she was still looking pretty groggy when we called on her.’
‘True. Ah, well, let us turn to other matters.’
‘Back to Basil Honfleur, perhaps? Anyway, we know now how Vittorio came to have him under his thumb. We also know that Vittorio sometimes travelled on the coaches. What we don’t know is whether he travelled on Noone’s coach to Hulliwell Hall and on Daigh’s coach to Dantwylch.’
‘I am sure he travelled on neither. What is more, I have no doubt that when those two coaches, on their different days, set off, the deaths of the drivers were already planned. That planting of the bodies on the gatehouses was no haphazard or makeshift arrangement. It must have been most carefully worked out.’
‘Do you think Honfleur, when he was checking up on hotels and such, travelled by coach, then?’
‘Oh, I am sure he did not. That brings me to another point, and one which involves a fast car.’
‘Honfleur’s?’
‘Very likely.’
‘A fast car which took the loot from where it had been stored in a suitcase in the boot of the coach and carried it to Fishguard to be shipped to Eire, you mean.’
‘Not necessarily into Eire, you know. There is one aspect which intrigues me and has puzzled me a little.’
‘But now you know the answer?’
‘Possibly. Possibly not. Did you ever wonder why Honfleur, under the name of Carstairs, bought a bungalow at Saighdearan?’
‘No, I never thought of it, but, then, I wasn’t connecting Honfleur with Carstairs.’
‘We thought at first that a Welsh port was being used,’ Dame Beatrice went on, ‘but my suspicions were aroused when I realised that leaving the coach at Swansea was a blind. I thought of Fishguard, but I still was not quite satisfied. The bungalow at Saighdearan clinched the matter.’
‘Oh! Stranraer to Larne!’ said Laura. ‘And the stolen antiques were stored in the bungalow until they could be transported. Rather a long hop from Saighdearan to Stranraer, but I suppose your theory of a fast car still holds good, or, of course, they may have shipped the stuff down Loch Linnhe by boat to Oban and then on.’
CHAPTER 16
Confession of an Avenger
« ^ »
Do you intend to find that out?’ Laura went on.
‘There is no need. I know most of what I need to know. What I do not know is who killed Vittorio. I can guess, but I cannot be certain. I have taken one step which may help. I have suggested to the police that it might be as well to make certain that the blood-stains on the bedding did actually come from the knife-wound on Vittorio.’
‘I remember you suggested that to the inspector, but where else could they have come from?’
‘His killer, as I also suggested. Please note that this time I do not say his murderer.’
‘You’re sticking to that idea about a fight and Vittorio getting the worst of it?’
‘It is a possibility which ought to be examined.’
‘A pretty long shot, surely?’
‘Granted.’
�
�But I’ve always thought Vittorio was attacked as he lay in bed.’
‘In his surprisingly large pyjamas and his socks and shoes?’
Laura stared at her employer.
‘And the room turned upside-down,’ she said slowly, taking in a new idea. ‘Wrecked, you think, in a fight?’
Dame Beatrice did not answer the question. She said,
‘Once I can establish the identity of Vittorio’s killer, it will leave me free to conduct an awkward and embarrassing enquiry which I have known for some time I shall need to make.’
‘Sounds like another investigation into the doings of Basil Honfleur.’
‘Exactly, and this time without his cooperation and assistance.’
‘Dirty work at the cross-roads?’
‘I fear so. However, these unpalatable tasks have to be faced. My only respite will be the interval between now and the receipt of information from the forensic branch of the Scottish police.’
‘But what gave you the idea that the murderer (I’m still going to call him that) could also have been wounded? Do you think that accounts for the gash on Knight’s neck? How on earth did he manage to stab Vittorio in the back, then?’
‘He had probably learnt some tricks during his Commando training. But never mind that. Those pyjamas have always been a puzzle to me. Vittorio was what I believe you would describe as a dressy little man. Those pyjamas were at least three sizes too large for him.’
‘So what do you think really happened?’
‘I can only surmise. Let us suppose that Vittorio broke into the house, probably by the same means as you did. He knew Carstairs (Honfleur) was not there so he inspected the rooms. Unknown to him, somebody had followed him, somebody for whom he had already made enquiry at the hotel, only to be misinformed of the driver’s name and coach company by the suspicious stripling Wullie.’
‘So Knight killed Vittorio, and all that stuff about the two masked men was so much blah!’
‘Please remember that my reconstruction is hypothetical. I have suggested one more thing to the police, that they search for Vittorio’s own clothes. If I am right, there should be a tear in the shirt and jacket and both should be bloodstained. I think his killer undressed the body, put on to it the only pyjama trousers available…’
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