The Inspector de Silva Mysteries

by Harriet Steel

  ‘Oh? Is there some trouble there?’

  ‘I’m not sure, sir. Maybe monkeys are stealing from the stalls again,’ Nadar added lamely.

  De Silva’s lips twitched. He had a pretty good idea what had drawn Prasanna to the bazaar. ‘Well, let’s hope those criminal masterminds aren’t too difficult to foil, eh Nadar?’

  ‘No, sir. I mean yes, sir.’ A guilty look came over his round, earnest face. ‘Forgive me, sir, I do not believe that is really why he’s gone.’

  ‘Nor do I; no doubt he wants to see this young lady of his again.’

  Nadar’s guilty look changed to one of concern. ‘I hope it will not mean trouble for him, sir. His mother has very strong opinions. It was easy for my wife and me, our families approved of the match. In fact, they were all most anxious for it.’

  ‘That was very fortunate for you.’

  ‘Yes, sir, I am a very lucky man.’

  De Silva clapped him on the back. ‘Good. Now don’t you worry about Sergeant Prasanna, he must fight his own battles.’ He opened the door to his office. ‘I expect to be in all morning. Bring my tea, will you?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  De Silva went to his desk and sat down. After Prasanna had spent the last few days tramping about the jungle on his grisly errand, he probably deserved a bit of latitude. He’d turn a blind eye for a day or two, but then in fairness to Nadar, Prasanna would have to pull his weight again.

  He spent a few minutes going through his post until there was a knock at the door and Nadar arrived with the tea. When he’d gone, de Silva opened the bulky envelope at the bottom of the pile. It was the catalogue he’d ordered from Colombo. He leafed through the pages, admiring the fine range of gramophones the company offered. Some came in tall cabinets, others were designed to sit on table tops or even be portable. The more ornate ones were made of waxed oak adorned with gilt fittings. Delicate patterns of leaves and flowers had been incised on their horns.

  His Majesty’s Voice: the company symbolised the best of British manufacturing. Even the famous Sir Edward Elgar lauded their products as the only way to listen to music for those not fortunate enough to have the opportunity of going to the best concert halls to enjoy it.

  He studied the technical details – apparently, the machines had been furnished with a new type of sound box that gave equal balance to treble and bass and virtually eliminated the hisses and crackles he’d noticed on the few gramophones he had heard played. He also considered the look of the machines and finally came to his decision, choosing one with a pretty, octagonal-shaped case that was a good size for the place he had in mind. He mustn’t leave it too long to send in his order. The gramophone would take time to arrive and he wanted to surprise Jane with it on their anniversary. Knowing how much she loved music, he was confident she’d be pleased. He leant back in his chair, picturing warm evenings on the verandah listening to the pieces they both loved, from dance music to opera, or even jazz.

  There was another knock at the door and Nadar put his head round. ‘There’s someone to see you, sir. Shall I show him in?’

  De Silva marked the page then closed the catalogue. He had an uneasy feeling. ‘Who is it?’

  Nadar lowered his voice. ‘I think it may be the man who telephoned and wouldn’t give his name, sir. He has the same voice.’

  De Silva sighed. If the fellow had come in person, he’d better not turn him away without a hearing. ‘Show him in, but warn him I’m busy and I can’t spare him long. Better still, if he’s not gone in ten minutes, knock on the door and say you wanted to remind me about an important engagement.’

  The dark-haired man who entered the room looked British, probably about forty. His appearance was undistinguished, neither fat nor thin, in fact the most noticeable thing about him was that he walked with a pronounced limp.

  De Silva rose from his chair. ‘Good morning, sir. Please take a seat.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He noticed how the man winced as he dropped into the chair.

  ‘Now, how may I help you?’

  ‘I understand you’re the officer who’s been dealing with the investigation into the death of Helen Wynne-Talbot.’

  Inwardly, de Silva groaned. This scenario was tediously familiar; he was about to hear some crackpot theory after all.

  The man gave a wry smile. ‘Your expression betrays you, Inspector. No, I’m not mad and I haven’t come to waste your time. On the contrary, I think you will find what I have to tell you very interesting.’

  He cleared his throat. ‘My name is Matthew Claybourne. I knew both Ralph and Helen Wynne-Talbot well. We spent several years together in Australia. Among other things, Ralph Wynne-Talbot and I were both engineers for a company involved in the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.’

  De Silva raised his hand. He would need a lot of convincing before he agreed to discuss the pros and cons of the Wynne-Talbot case with this man, even though he seemed more lucid than expected. For the moment, it was best to be as off-putting as possible. ‘Before you go any further, Mr Claybourne, I ought to make it clear that the case is closed on Helen Wynne-Talbot’s tragic death. The verdict, and we have reliable witnesses to substantiate it, was suicide. If it’s your wish to pay your respects, the funeral will be held at St George’s church here in Nuala in a few days. I’m sure you understand this is a very difficult time for Mr Wynne-Talbot. If you were a friend of his, may I suggest that you leave seeing him and offering your condolences until then?’

  Claybourne smiled calmly. ‘Oh, I assure you, Inspector de Silva, I have no intention of contacting Ralph Wynne-Talbot. In fact, it would be impossible for me to do so.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ asked de Silva with a frown.

  ‘For a very good reason, Inspector. Ralph Wynne-Talbot is dead.’

  Chapter 23

  It took de Silva a few seconds to recover his composure. He hoped he hadn’t given Matthew Claybourne the satisfaction of thinking he had astonished him. In his experience, this kind of man lived for the excitement of feeling he was important. It had been a problem that the Colombo police had often had to address: how to sift the genuine informants from the charlatans.

  ‘That’s very interesting, Mr Claybourne, but do you have any proof?’

  ‘I see you’re not impressed, Inspector, and I can’t say I blame you. Johnny Randall – he’s the man who’s masquerading as Ralph – is a clever fellow. Ever since I met him, I’ve been aware of his uncanny knack for pinpointing people’s weaknesses. It didn’t take him long to see that Ralph was vulnerable. He won his confidence early on in their acquaintance and learnt a lot about him. Certainly enough to do a convincing job of pretending to be him. And of course, his task has been made much easier in Ceylon since Ralph’s aunt and uncle never met him. Add to that Johnny’s calculating charm, and the way he changes like a chameleon to win over whomever he’s with, and the job is done.’

  De Silva had to admit, Claybourne’s assessment of the man he claimed was an impostor wasn’t a million miles from his own. He remembered thinking on their first encounter at the Residence dinner that Helen Wynne-Talbot’s husband’s charm was too slick to be genuine. Afterwards, he’d wondered if he was just jealous that the man seemed so much more at ease in grand surroundings than he did himself, yet… He was careful not to show it, but despite his initial scepticism, his interest was aroused. He waited for Claybourne to continue, but the man only stared blankly at an old ink stain on the desktop, as if he’d forgotten de Silva was there.

  ‘It was convenient for him that he and Ralph looked very alike,’ he said at last. ‘If the Petries or any members of the Axford family had seen photographs of Ralph as a boy, it would be perfectly plausible that he grew up to look like Johnny. Their hair colour was different – Ralph was fair – but children’s hair often darkens as they grow older. Anyway, given the family rift, Johnny probably thought it was a safe bet there were no photographs.’

  He looked up and studied de Silva intently, as if trying t
o ascertain whether his story was being taken seriously. ‘I’d better start at the beginning. I first met Helen and Ralph in Sydney. As I said, Ralph and I were both working on the Sydney Harbour Bridge project.’

  De Silva nodded.

  ‘I liked Ralph instantly and although Helen could be moody I spent a lot of time with them. The fact that Ralph and I were in the same line of work was a bond. He was never one to boast, in fact if anything people thought him a little too reserved, but he had a passion for what he did that struck a chord with me. We talked about moving on to Canberra when the bridge opened and the job ended. You may or may not know that about twenty years ago, in order to solve the rivalry between the cities of Sydney and Melbourne, it was designated Australia’s capital. It’s well situated, but a very small place. At first, building it up to the standard you’d expect of a capital city was a gold mine for anyone in the planning and construction businesses.’

  ‘I imagine it was.’

  ‘But no one had reckoned on Black Tuesday,’ Claybourne continued. ‘After the crash, the Australian economy took a dive and work on Canberra was put on hold.’

  He paused and de Silva wondered if he should prompt him. A few moments elapsed before he resumed speaking. ‘There was no point going there after that. I’d heard there was work in the gold mining area around Kalgoorlie, so I decided to try there instead. Ralph agreed to tag along and I was glad of his company.’

  He pulled a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. ‘Mind if I smoke?’

  De Silva shook his head and waited while Claybourne lit up and dragged deeply on the cigarette.

  ‘It was up there that we ran into Johnny. I never found out what line of work he was really in, but there was a lot of big talk about his theories of investment and how much money he’d made in the precious metal markets. In those parts, it was hard to tell just how wealthy people were. There was nowhere to spend money apart from in the hotels and bars and none of them exactly rivalled the Ritz. People mostly dressed in a rough-and-ready style and had little time for social distinctions.’ He smiled dryly. ‘That’s something I’ve noticed Australians pride themselves on.’

  De Silva rotated his pen between the fingers and thumb of one hand, wondering when this man was going to get to the point. He still wasn’t sure what to make of him but decided to humour him for a while longer.

  ‘Ralph had inherited money when his parents died. Not enough to keep him for the rest of his life, he needed to work, but enough to ensure that he and Helen would always be well off. Johnny soon found out about that and he also discovered Ralph had fancy relations back in England. He started calling him Lord Ralph. Ralph laughed but I knew he was embarrassed. Johnny kept telling him he should go and find the relations. There could be money in it. But Ralph was happy with the life he had in Australia. He wasn’t interested in getting to know the grandfather who had kicked his father out, or the rest of the family who had stood by and watched it happen.’

  ‘How long do you believe he’d known about his family history?’

  ‘As far as I know, for many years.’

  ‘And had his parents been dead long?’

  Claybourne frowned. ‘Several years, I think. Why do you ask?’

  ‘No particular reason.’

  Interesting. If Claybourne was telling the truth, it didn’t tally with what Petrie had said about Wynne-Talbot’s mother’s recent deathbed revelations.

  ‘What about Mrs Wynne-Talbot? Do you have any idea how she felt about her husband’s friendship with this man?’

  ‘Helen? At first, she used to complain to me about him all the time. But it wasn’t long before I began to suspect that was just a smokescreen.’

  Claybourne stubbed out the remains of his cigarette in the ashtray on de Silva’s desk. ‘I soon discovered I was right. They didn’t bother to keep their affair secret for long. Ralph tried to pretend it wasn’t happening but eventually he confronted Helen. She just laughed at him and refused to talk about it. Weeks turned into months and eventually Ralph confided in me. I tried to help, but there wasn’t much to be done. Helen and Johnny were behaving completely brazenly by then.’

  ‘Then why didn’t her husband leave her?’

  ‘He couldn’t bring himself to. Ralph adored Helen. Even when anyone could see it was hopeless, he still clung onto the hope she’d come back to him.’

  There was a knock at the door and Nadar looked in. ‘Sir, excuse me, but you wanted me to remind you about that important meeting.’

  De Silva waved a dismissive hand. ‘It’ll have to wait. Tell them I’ll telephone later.’

  Nadar looked surprised but he nodded and closed the door.

  ‘It all came to a head at the end of ’33,’ Claybourne continued. ‘It was New Year’s Eve and the four of us had agreed to spend it together. Helen made up some story about a headache and wanting to rest first and said she’d join us later. Johnny also said he had business to attend to, so Ralph and I should go on ahead. Ralph put a good face on it, but he must have been suspicious. I wasn’t. It was clear as day they planned to go somewhere together and wouldn’t turn up.’

  Claybourne fished the cigarette packet out of his pocket, extracted another one and lit it. De Silva was increasingly puzzled. By now, the attention seekers he’d come across in Colombo had usually betrayed themselves with some wildly improbable claim or other. He remembered one who had been certain he had been visited by the ghost of Queen Victoria. Another had confided that the goddess Kali had entrusted him with the secret of a neighbour’s imagined crime and instructed him to see that the man was punished. This man’s speech and manner were, however, remarkably measured and calm.

  ‘It was getting late and Ralph could hardly get his head off the table for whisky. I decided it was time to call a halt and get him back to the place where we were living.’

  Claybourne fell silent once again, his eyes blank as if he had forgotten where he was. De Silva hesitated to prompt him.

  ‘I don’t believe the earthquake was reported outside Australia,’ he continued at last. ‘Quakes aren’t an uncommon occurrence in the Western Territory. In any case,’ he added grimly, ‘the rest of the world tends not to take too much interest in what goes on down under.’

  He paused again. The only sound in the room was the thrum of the ceiling fan blades chopping the heavy air. De Silva studied his silent visitor. What was he after? To discredit this Johnny Randall? If Wynne-Talbot really was dead and Randall was trying to usurp his life, unmasking him was going to be a very tricky task. Certainly not one to be undertaken lightly. Still, he’d give Claybourne a few more minutes. ‘At times, we feel much the same in Ceylon,’ he remarked. ‘Please, go on.’

  ‘As I said, Ralph was very drunk that night. I’m afraid that wasn’t unusual by then. We’d got back to the room and he was still sleeping it off when the earthquake struck. It was a big one, and the mining town was close to the epicentre. I’d never experienced anything like it before and I hope never to again. The flophouse we were in was intact one minute and heaving and cracking the next.

  ‘I managed to get Ralph up and drag him down the stairs. When we got outside, I vividly remember a big crack in the earth zigzagging along behind us as we ran down the street. Powerlines had ruptured and fires soon started to break out. Lethal when most of a town’s built of wood. The weather had been dry for weeks and the flames jumped easily from one building to another until half the place was alight. We had fire trucks, but it took a while before people sobered up and started to bring them to where they were needed.

  ‘Ralph got it into his head that he must find Helen. He wanted to be sure she was safe. He wouldn’t listen to anything I said so all I could do was follow him. We ran into a few people we knew and one of them thought he’d seen Helen and Johnny going into the hotel where Johnny was staying. We got there to find there’d been a fire but it was mostly out and rescue workers were retrieving bodies. Johnny and Helen hadn’t yet been found.’

  De Silv
a noticed that the hand holding the cigarette trembled; the index and third fingers were stained yellowish-brown.

  ‘Ralph grabbed one of the rescue workers and demanded to know if every floor had been searched. We knew Johnny and Helen had rooms on the top floor. The fellow said the staircase up to it was shot to pieces and they hadn’t been able to get there.’

  Claybourne stood up and went to the window. From the set of his shoulders, de Silva guessed he was trying to master his emotions. At last he went on in a rasping voice. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever forget the stench in that building. Ralph dashed in before I had time to stop him. I followed, covering my face as well as I could to keep out the stink and the smoke, but my eyes were soon streaming. The wooden walls and beams were charred black, and you couldn’t trust that any board you stepped on wouldn’t burn the shoes off your feet or give way under you and send you hurtling down to the floor below.

  ‘We got as far as the last flight of stairs to the top floor and I saw what the fireman meant. There was just a skeleton structure left. Ralph started to claw his way up but what was left of it gave way under his weight. As he fell, I rushed towards him and tried to grab him. There was a terrible creaking and cracking and a bang like a charge going off down the mine, then something came down on my head and knocked me unconscious.’

  There was a long pause. De Silva wasn’t sure whether to believe a word of this, although if Claybourne was making it up, he had a vivid imagination and a knack for veracity. De Silva remembered a visit he’d once had to make to a crime scene in Colombo after an arson attack. Claybourne’s description brought the scene back and he had to control the sick feeling in his stomach the memory still had the power to arouse.

  ‘When I came round, I wasn’t sure where I was. There was still a lot of gritty smoke in the air and it wasn’t easy to see much. Something heavy lay across my back and my left leg, preventing me from moving. My head felt as if it would split, and something sticky, blood I suppose, trickled into my mouth. The pain was terrible, so bad it was hard to think about anything else. But I was aware of someone lying nearby. He was trapped under a pile of debris. It took me a while to realise who it was.’