A Lover Too Many

by Roy Lewis

Lavender was angry. Lavender was scared.

  He’d been rattled by the fact of Billy Sneed poking into his business.

  So rattled that he’d found it necessary to telephone Peter, to remonstrate with him. Knowledge that Peter had the letters had made him even more worried. The next move must be Lavender’s. It had to be. Peter could go to the police now — but if he waited, if he let Lavender simmer, if he kept the pressure on the man, who knew what would happen? Lavender could really take a false step. If the man had something to hide, as he obviously did, he could really take the plunge and betray himself. He’d gone some way along that path by phoning today. It all now depended on what Sneed could unearth.

  For as yet, Peter himself had unearthed nothing in his search of the house. There remained only the attic bedroom. He’d be searching there tonight. And in his present frame of mind he would do better to make a start right now.

  He drove home quickly. His euphoria had not deserted him. Things were beginning to move: it wasn’t so much a question now of showing Inspector Crow that police suspicions about Peter and Shirley were unfounded; the excitement of feeling that he was near the truth behind the death of Jeannette now drove him on. It was almost with a feeling of relief that he swung into the driveway.

  As he entered the house the telephone was ringing. It was the third important call he’d received that day: it was Shirley.

  ‘Peter? I . . . I just thought that I’d ring, to see if there’d been any further news.’

  Her voice carried a note of doubt, as though she were not sure that he would believe her. It puzzled him.

  ‘News in plenty. Sneed rang me this afternoon, to say that Lavender does have a current girl-friend — and then Lavender phoned.’

  ‘Lavender!’

  ‘The same. He didn’t use the same words as he used to Jeannette, but the message was the same. If I didn’t get off his back, I could look out for trouble.’

  ‘He threatened you?’

  ‘You could call it that.’

  ‘I don’t like it, Peter. Don’t you think you ought to go to the police now? Particularly if he threatened you.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll go to the police — when I’ve got something more concrete. There’s no record of the conversation, and we really need something more positive from Billy Sneed to pin Lavender down. No, there’s time yet.’

  ‘I think you should go to the police now, Peter. If Lavender threatened you’

  ‘You sound concerned.’

  The silence that followed lengthened unbearably. It was Peter who broke it, lamely.

  ‘Well, anyway, I’m hoping to find something — that key to the desk. Sneed thinks it might be here, perhaps hidden with other things. I’ve just got one room to check, but it’s a hell of a job. She used to throw a lot of her old things in there, and there are cases . . .’

  ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’

  ‘You could give me a hand, here at the house.’

  ‘I’m not sure that would be wise,’ said Shirley slowly. Then more decisively she added, ‘But in the circumstances I think I will. I may be more likely to find it than you. You were always so damned untidy and unmethodical outside the office.’

  She sounded almost like her old self.

  And it was Shirley who found it — but not in the attic. She had gone down to make some coffee as the light faded in the attic and the dust swirled around them, making Peter sneeze. She suddenly called to him from the kitchen. The urgent note in her voice brought him downstairs immediately.

  She turned to him as he entered the kitchen. She had donned an apron over her dark green sweater and slacks, and her face was flushed, her eyes excited. He had never seen her look so beautiful.

  In her outstretched hand were two keys. Peter took them from her quickly.

  ‘This is the key to the drawer. But the other . . . where did you find them?’

  ‘In the sugar tin . . . I ask you, in the sugar tin!’

  Shirley was giggling with excitement.

  ‘It must have been a temporary hiding-place for some reason,’ mused Peter. ‘Perhaps I’d come into the kitchen when she had the keys in her hand and she dropped them there rather than I should see them. Though why she wouldn’t want me to see them — what is this key, anyway?’

  It was short, thick and stubby. Deeply etched into the metal was a letter C and a number.

  ‘C4976. Mean anything to you, Shirley?’ Before she could answer the doorbell rang. ‘I’m not expecting anyone,’ said Peter in surprise. He turned from the kitchen and went through to the front door.

  It was Joan Shaw.

  She was dressed in dark blue with a touch of white at her throat. Her red hair gleamed in the low sun setting beyond the trees. She was smiling a little nervously at him.

  ‘Hallo, Mr Marlin. I thought I’d better call round—’

  Her gaze slipped past him and he realised that she had caught sight of Shirley, standing at the kitchen door, the apron at her waist, her face warm and excited. The smile on Joan’s lips grew stiff at the edges.

  ‘—to let — to let you know that the meeting at Holford’s tomorrow night has been cancelled. I . . . er . . . I can’t stop, I was just passing and thought that I could conveniently . . . I might not be in the office tomorrow . . .’

  She turned abruptly and hurried away down the drive, almost running. He opened his mouth to call after her, but thought better of it. Slowly he closed the door, then turned to face Shirley. She wasn’t looking at him.

  ‘What on earth was all that in aid of?’ he puzzled.

  ‘She told you.’

  ‘But she could have rung me — or left me a message at the office. Why shouldn’t she be coming in tomorrow? And why did she run off like that?’

  ‘I think,’ commented Shirley slowly, ‘that she was not expecting to see me here.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘And I think,’ Shirley added, removing the apron, ‘that I also should be going. Now.’

  * * *

  The interview room that had been set aside for Inspector Crow was painted in a dirty cream, with dark green woodwork. They were serviceable colours perhaps, but hardly cheerful. It was possible that it was the depression induced by these surroundings that had taken the sharp edge off the attractiveness of the young woman who sat in the chair in front of the desk, and who turned now as Inspector Crow entered.

  On the other hand, it could be the mere necessity of her visit that had dulled her, removed the vivacity from her face, the glow that he knew her hair could possess.

  ‘Good afternoon, Miss Shaw.’ He extended a bony hand to take hers. ‘I do hope that I haven’t kept you waiting.’

  She shook her head, avoiding his eyes. It was curious how people — even those with nothing to hide — avoided meeting his gaze. When he was younger, and more conscious of and worried about his peculiar appearance, John Crow had thought that this failure to look at him had been due to an embarrassment induced by his skull-like features. Now he knew better: it was the fact that he was in the role of inquisitor, and whoever he was questioning — criminal, innocent, thug, parson, intellectual, moron they all seemed to be unwilling to meet his gaze. It was as though they almost unconsciously felt that to reveal their eyes to him was to reveal their souls and while they might want to tell him something, there were always, always things they did not want to divulge.

  In his experience the only ones who met his eyes confidently and honestly were the confidence tricksters; and with them it was all part of the stock in trade.

  Crow dropped into the creaking chair that the local police had grudgingly provided for him. He drew a pad towards him, and looped his long fingers round the pen that he had earlier, carelessly, left lying on the desk. Martha always complained about his untidiness, but that was what good wives were for. How else could a man see his faults?

  ‘Now, Miss Shaw, would you like some tea? No? Well, I ask because the provision of refreshment is often relaxing in surroun
dings such as these. I apologise for them. They’re dreary aren’t they?’

  ‘I suppose they are.’

  Miss Shaw’s nervousness was apparent; her unwillingness equally so. Yet she was here — and disinclined to indulge in small talk.

  ‘You declared that you wished to speak with me,’ Crow offered. ‘I imagine that it will be in connection with the Marlin investigation.’

  The red head nodded; her hands were hidden below the line of the desk, but Crow felt that they would be tight clenched, one inside the other.

  ‘Yes. I have a statement to make.’

  ‘You wish it to be taken down?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Crow nodded to the stocky young constable who stood just inside the door, his hands locked conventionally behind his back.

  ‘Wilson will prepare a statement for your signature in a few minutes, but for the time being, just tell me about it.’

  Joan Shaw was silent for a few moments. Then she raised her head. There was determination in the line of her soft mouth: she really was a most attractive woman, from which even the hardness in her eyes did not greatly detract. Many would not even see in her the possible lack of scruple which Crow seemed to detect; they would see only her beauty.

  ‘You were at the office a few days ago,’ she said slowly, ‘and you spoke to me.’

  Crow nodded gravely, and replied, ‘You repeated to me the statement that you had already given to the police, concerning your whereabouts on the night of Mrs Marlin’s death. I imagine now that you wish to retract that statement.’

  ‘How did you—’

  ‘Come, Miss Shaw, why else would you be here?’ He regarded her sadly. ‘What is it you want to tell me, Miss Shaw?’

  For the moment she met his eyes.

  ‘That I lied. That the statement was completely false. That I was not near the office that night.’

  Inspector Crow lifted a hand to his mouth, absent-mindedly fingering the long dog-tooth. He stared passively at the girl, who had coloured slightly.

  ‘Let me take this slowly. You were not at the office that night. It follows that you could not have seen Mr Marlin working there. We can assume that you had a reason for making the original statement, a reason which has now disappeared, or been overruled. This is perhaps of little consequence — in face of the knowledge that by making this new statement, which we’d assume to represent the truth, you are virtually telling me that Mr Marlin’s assertion that he was in the office that evening must now remain uncorroborated.’

  ‘I was not telling the truth earlier; I am telling the truth now.’

  ‘Why?’

  Joan Shaw looked puzzled; but it was an affected puzzlement. Crow was patient. ‘Why change your story? We had accepted your earlier one — more or less.’

  ‘I — I decided I couldn’t keep on with the lie.’

  ‘Even though the truth might injure Mr Marlin? After all, the original statement was made to protect him, wasn’t it?’

  She nodded, her eyes down to the floor. ‘It was just that I felt I couldn’t keep it up. Even for my — my employer’s sake.’ Inspector Crow permitted himself an ironic smile. He wondered whether tears of contrition would soon emerge.

  ‘Are you sure, Miss Shaw, that the first statement wasn’t made to protect yourself as well as Marlin?’ When her head shot up, he continued smoothly, ‘After all, while your admission that you were not in the office means that Mr Marlin’s presence there has not now been witnessed, it also means that we must now ask the question of you — if you were not there, where were you?’

  ‘I —’

  ‘And,’ he added, ‘why has no one denied that you were at the office? Perhaps your own actions that evening were unwitnessed.’

  ‘I don’t see why it is necessary to explain my own whereabouts that evening. Surely all I need to say now is that I lied earlier, to protect Mr Marlin.’

  ‘You know better than that, Miss Shaw. I’m not going to ask why you should want to protect Mr Marlin—’ as her colour rose, he added gravely, ‘after all, any loyal employee would do the same. But you knew Mr Marlin and his wife, and both you and I realise that I must learn of your movements that night. Where were you?’

  There was a long silence. Reluctantly, Joan

  Shaw finally admitted, ‘Musgrave Hill.’

  ‘That’s ten miles away.’

  ‘I went by car.’

  ‘With?’

  ‘At the office,’ she said slowly, ‘there’s a man called Bill Daly.’

  ‘Who will verify your statement?’

  She shrugged, with an odd smile. It wasn’t a pleasant one, decided Inspector Crow.

  ‘Mr Daly,’ he mused. ‘I seem to recall that he’s married, and this will be why he didn’t come forward to deny that you could have been at the office that evening. I only wonder now why you yourself have changed your mind and come forward with the new statement.’

  Her eyes did not meet his. She made no reply. He shrugged, and looked up at Constable Wilson.

  ‘I think that the lady will make the statement now, if you’d like to sit here.’

  He rose gauntly, and looked down at Joan Shaw. A pity about those eyes of hers; she really was an attractive woman. And knew it.

  ‘I’ll say good afternoon, Miss Shaw. I will of course, obtain the necessary corroboration of your statement.’

  He strode to the door in his usual ungainly fashion. For some reason he felt a little sad.

  It would now be necessary to speak again with Mr Peter Marlin. But first a word with this man Daly.

  And then there was this John Sainsby affair. It was curious how trouble moved in patches, like a slick of black oil on a calm sea. It could spread out and contaminate and he had an odd feeling about Sainsby. His instincts told him that the man’s problems would not be unconnected with the Marlin case, and yet there was no apparent reason to suppose so. There was no obvious link.

  It was a pity. A pity about Marlin, and Sainsby. John Crow liked people. It unfitted him for police work. And yet he was still here after twenty years. Perhaps because although he liked people, he yet accepted that sometimes they had to be hurt, or injured, or demoralised — and that it was in the scheme of things that occasionally it was his hand that must bear the bludgeon.

  * * *

  ‘Of entrecote steak,’ Peter said, ‘I was always inordinately fond.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘This was a particularly fine specimen.’

  ‘I didn’t think it was a good idea, at first.’

  ‘The steak?’

  ‘You know what I mean. You coming here tonight.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘I’m more inclined to accept that the idea was a sound one.’

  ‘I’m pleased. But elaborate.’

  Shirley leant back in the deep armchair and regarded him seriously as he sat casually draped along almost the length of the settee, one arm dropping to the carpet. He looked at home, and as though he had never been away from this house.

  ‘I don’t know whether elaboration is wise.’

  ‘Try,’ he urged.

  ‘All right,’ she said hesitantly, with a slight smile. ‘I realise that you hope it will begin with a small apology at least, and I suppose it does. You see, I wasn’t pleased when you came back here, the night after the coroner’s verdict. I didn’t want you here, because what there had been between us was over . . . and I didn’t want the complications that were likely to arise if you came back here. I was angry, and I said things that I perhaps didn’t mean.’

  ‘But which, nevertheless, carried the ring of truth.’

  ‘Well, we’ll say no more of that. The point was, I was a bit upset later when that inspector called because I felt it necessary to warn you — and that meant getting in touch and, well, you know what I mean, things could have got complicated.’

  ‘I know what you mean. But they’re not, are they?’

  There was an odd note in his voice which she was unable to
read. Doggedly, she plunged on with the words she didn’t want to say.

  ‘Then when I saw you again and you showed me the letters, and then again last night when I came over to your house, I realised that I was being tremendously adolescent about the whole thing. The past was behind us but there was no reason why we shouldn’t be friends, knowing that complications aren’t likely to arise because too much has happened to us to allow it.’

  As there was no reason why she should now attempt to rationalise her problems out of existence like this. At least, no reason but one — and that was one she was unprepared to admit even to herself. She had already been hurt too much.

  ‘I know what you mean.’ Peter’s dark head lay back against the arm of the settee. ‘But the reason why I say I’m pleased is that when Jeannette came back I felt completely cut off from the world: I revolved around her, if you know what I mean. She always had that effect on me. It was why I never came back to see you and tell you — but let’s forget that. The point is, that after she died I was completely alone, and I mean completely. The pressures were getting too much — in a drunken way, I tried to say that to you when I came around the first evening . . .’

  ‘Let’s forget that, too.’

  ‘Gladly. Anyway, when I found the letters I had to speak to someone, if only to marshal my own thoughts. You were the only person I felt I could speak to. And I’ve got to thank you again, too, for coming round last night.’

  ‘You’ve already thanked me, by asking me to dinner.’

  ‘Ah, but you refused, and we ended up here instead!’

  Shirley laughed.

  ‘It’s only that I fancy my own cooking better than some of the rubbish they serve, and charge the earth for, in town.’

  ‘There was always the country club.’

  ‘I didn’t really want to go there.’

  Careful. There were pitfalls there. Peter used to go there with Jeannette; Shirley didn’t want to go there with Peter; they’d be seen together, tongues would wag, the thought of an affair would come to their minds here in this room, problems, problems, careful, careful, careful.

  Quickly, she said, ‘Did Joan turn up at the office today, after all?’

  Peter swung his legs down from the settee ‘I don’t know exactly. I wasn’t in this, morning. She certainly wasn’t there when I arrived this afternoon. Tell me, what exactly was the matter last night? Why did she charge off like that?’