Ten Little Herrings

by L. C. Tyler

Ethelred took a bite out of his (non-chocolate) breakfast pastry.

  ‘So, how far have you got?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve ruled out the hotel staff,’ I said. ‘Well, actually the police seem to have ruled them out, in that they are now apparently free to come and go, whereas we are here.’

  Ethelred shrugged. ‘The manager was away from early evening until yesterday morning. Jean-Luc, the receptionist, has no clear motive and swears that, unusually, none of the other staff were there that night. All staff have, obviously, been questioned, but it’s difficult to see why any of them should kill two guests, especially when the second murder was, as we have agreed, a pretty risky business.’

  ‘So, it’s back to the guests,’ I said. ‘One of whom was desperate to cover up something.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Ethelred, ‘Davidov did kill Gold.’

  ‘You were a bit dismissive of that when it was my theory,’ I said.

  ‘So, it’s not your theory now?’

  ‘They clearly knew each other,’ I said. ‘Something was going on between them. We know that Davidov went over to London. I think it must have been to meet Gold in that kosher restaurant – but Gold stood him up.’

  ‘Not necessarily.’

  ‘How else do you explain the receipt in Davidov’s dressing gown pocket? Tell me that. And don’t you dare shrug.’

  ‘You could be right,’ Ethelred conceded graciously, but his shoulders twitched a bit as he said it. ‘All we really know, though, is that Davidov was in London shortly before he was killed. We don’t know that he met Gold.’

  ‘OK,’ I said, ‘but I do think that Davidov’s death and the theft of his envelope are connected. Somebody poisoned Davidov and stole whatever was in the safe.’

  Ethelred shook his head. ‘Somebody stole Davidov’s valuable envelope and poisoned him.’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘My point,’ said the annoying possessor of the large male brain, ‘is that the envelope was stolen first. Davidov was at reception complaining about the theft shortly before he died. If stealing the envelope was the motive, why hang around to kill him? Why not make a run for it while you can? Alternatively, if the primary aim was to kill him, why risk having the police called in to investigate a stolen envelope?’

  This was such a good point that I decided to change the subject.

  ‘There are some of the guests that we can rule out as Davidov’s killer,’ I said. ‘Tim Brown, for a start.’

  ‘I thought you suspected him because he told porkies?’

  ‘Yes, but I tricked him into telling me a bit more,’ I said, giving selected highlights only of my discussion with him. ‘I discovered why he was out all night.’

  ‘He told you?’

  ‘Sort of. He was really worried when he thought I was a private detective.’

  ‘I see . . .’ Ethelred looked unnecessarily dubious. ‘And why did he think you were a private eye?’

  ‘He just did,’ I said. ‘Now, who would send a private detective after him? Answer using words. Don’t shrug.’

  ‘I wasn’t planning to shrug. Who would spy on him? I don’t know . . . a competitor? A business partner? His wife?’

  ‘His wife . . . exactly! Brown goes to the conference. All the time he has planned, on his way back home, to stop off here and meet up with some floozy . . .’

  Ethelred held up his hand. He was not taking this as seriously as he should.

  ‘Is this the same floozy you accuse me of consorting with?’

  ‘Don’t be a dickhead,’ I said.

  ‘I just wanted to check. You don’t see that many floozies these days. I think they went out of fashion in the early sixties. Or possibly even the late fifties. I think their natural habitat was the boudoir, which few houses now have.’

  ‘Brown seems a normal sensible man,’ I said, pre-empting further speculation on the natural history of the floozy, ‘but then he does something weird – that is to say he stops off in a grotty hotel to rest up and vanishes for the entire night. It is a clear case of a man whose brain is firmly in his trousers. I have no doubt that a lady friend of his similarly broke her journey in another hotel with peeling wallpaper, and that is the hotel in which they both spent the night. The moment he thought that I was a detective, his guilty conscience immediately assumed I had been sent by his wife to tail him around town. Whatever he’s done, it’s not murder.’

  ‘If you say so,’ said Ethelred.

  ‘You can forget Taylor too.’

  ‘He seems to be investigating Davidov’s murder in a private capacity,’ said Ethelred. ‘He also seems to be a devotee of detective fiction.’

  ‘A fan of yours?’

  ‘Apparently not,’ he said.

  Ethelred took another bite of his brioche.

  ‘But why are you so sure it couldn’t be Taylor?’ he asked.

  ‘Too spineless, even for poison.’

  ‘You can’t spot a murderer by casual inspection,’ he said.

  ‘As for the Danish family, if you are going to murder somebody, you’d hardly bring the kids along for the ride,’ I said.

  ‘Unless you were being very clever,’ said Ethelred. ‘I think one of Sue Grafton’s hit men does something of the sort. So, who knows?’

  I looked at him to see if he was joking. He was. I think.

  ‘That leaves Herbie Proctor and Taylor’s tweedy friend,’ I said.

  ‘Ah yes, John Jones,’ said Ethelred. ‘I’ve hardly spoken to him. He doesn’t talk to anyone much.’

  ‘A man of mystery,’ I said.

  ‘A man devoid of mystery or anything else,’ said Ethelred. ‘A genuine stamp collector. A friend of Taylor’s. I saw them both snooping around together playing at detectives. One of them actually used the phrase “my little grey cells”, if you can believe that.’

  I believed that.

  ‘So, it’s Herbie then,’ I concluded. ‘A born poisoner if ever I saw one. And he was desperate to sneak something out of the hotel.’

  ‘But with no really good motive for murdering Davidov,’ said Ethelred, ‘or Gold for that matter.’

  ‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘Gold told me he knew Proctor.’

  ‘In what capacity?’

  ‘I don’t know – it was just a passing remark. He told me that he had seen him before.’

  ‘So, he can’t have known him well?’ said Ethelred.

  ‘Presumably not.’

  We both thought about this for a while.

  ‘So, nobody is under suspicion then?’ I said.

  ‘As far as Gold is concerned, I’m beginning to think it has to be Davidov – I just don’t understand why. As far as Davidov is concerned, I think everyone is under suspicion, me included. Oligarchs tend to have enemies. Davidov, particularly after the Yacoubabad disaster, was disliked by more than most. It’s said he’s had people killed when they crossed him. I’m just surprised that no one chose to lace his chocolate with cyanide before now.’

  ‘Maybe we’re concentrating on the wrong thing,’ I said. ‘If we just knew what was in the envelope . . .’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ethelred, suddenly very thoughtful. ‘But we don’t.’

  ‘Ethelred,’ I said. ‘Do you know what was in it?’

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘You’re not keeping something back?’

  ‘I’ve no idea what was in the envelope,’ he said. ‘I wish I did.’

  ‘Just as long as you’re telling me everything.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ he said.

  ‘But this envelope has to be the key to it all. I bet that was what Herbie had got his hands on and was trying to hide.’

  ‘But how?’ asked the ever-reasonable Ethelred.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Nor do I know who committed the murders. But I’d still like Herbie Proctor to be sufficiently involved to have his stomach pumped again. Is that really too much to ask?’

  After breakfast, Ethelred went off to take a stroll round the garden and I d
ecided to hang around in dark corners in the hope of overhearing private conversations. Strangely, I chanced on an interesting one straight away. It was Tim Brown clearly concluding a conversation on his mobile phone.

  ‘Anyway, I’m sorry I missed your call earlier,’ he was saying. ‘Reception is pretty patchy in this hotel.’

  He listened to a brief response from the other end.

  ‘Well, I hope the police didn’t give you a hard time,’ he added. ‘I’m really grateful you were able to confirm I was with you all night at your hotel.’

  There was a pause as he listened to the floozy at the other end, then he said: ‘That’s right. There’s this interfering little female here – you know the type? God, she’s a pain in the proverbial. Well, did she jump to the wrong conclusion! Fortunately, she’s got no way of guessing what was going on and doesn’t have the brains to work it out.’

  Oh, right, I thought. That’s all you and your floozy know.

  ‘So, I’ll see you back in London,’ he was saying. ‘Yes – me too – can’t wait. It’s time to come out and tell them all, I think.’

  So he was about to leave his wife for the Other Woman?

  ‘Bye, Ian,’ he concluded, and snapped the phone shut.

  Ian? His wife had more than one shock coming then.

  Nineteen

  I number fictional characters amongst my closest friends.

  In the year or so that it takes to write a book, you get to know your cast quite well – their physical appearances, the sound of their voices, their strange superstitions and prejudices. Sergeant Fairfax, as the hero of eight books of mine, was somebody I had got to know better than most. What I really liked about him was that he was a miserable bastard without a single good expectation for the future. He had the ability to radiate gloom amongst his underlings and superiors alike. I don’t mean that he had no sense of humour, but it was the sort of humour that can be expressed only through a twisted mouth. His jokes were the sort of jokes that the Tommies probably told each other as they went over the top, white-faced, bayonets fixed, for their first and last time. They were the sort of one-liners that would occur to you as you mounted the scaffold.

  But on whom was he based? People often asked me and I was never able to say. There must have been a starting point – a moment when I first saw him emerging, as it were, through the mist of creation, still only half formed and perhaps still with a good word to say about somebody or something. But I know his first recorded words were: ‘Bring me some decent coffee, Stepney; this stuff’s shit!’ I also made them the last words he spoke in my latest – my final – Buckfordshire novel. The cover had announced: ‘The eighth Sergeant Fairfax murder mystery’. One day, perhaps, the covers will bear the words: ‘The final Sergeant Fairfax murder mystery’. I am not planning to write another. I doubt that the reading public will notice.

  What I fear is that, as I examine my characters one by one, I shall conclude that they all derive from one single source: myself. I am in every sense the father of my creations. Each character I send into the world carries with him or her a portion of my DNA. Each betrays a little more than I would wish about how I think, how I act, how I am. Each novel is a public confession of my faults.

  But, if that is so, then how have I also created Master Thomas – late-fourteenth-century sleuth and clerk to the obnoxious windbag Geoffrey Chaucer? His bright and beady-eyed determination to see good in everybody strikes no chord in me at all. As he struggles to uncover the truth, hampered alike by his master and the complete absence of medieval forensic science, he is never downhearted, never beaten. I always give the Master Thomas books a happy ending – it’s the least I can do for him. I’m also going to kill Chaucer in the nastiest way I can find. I might slip Master Thomas some strychnine just to see what he does with it.

  And where did the name ‘Fairfax’ come from? One moment a character has no name, the next they are irrevocably who they are. But ‘Fairfax’ was absolutely right, with its overtones of puritan rectitude and undeniable Englishness. He never could be anything else. And why did I chance on ‘Stepney’ for his much put-upon sidekick? I could have called him ‘Smith’ or ‘Brown’ or something equally anonymous. It is not – as some critics have speculated – that it is because he is stepped on so much by Fairfax. It was only when writing the third Fairfax book that I remembered a bully at school named Stepney. And it was towards the end of that third book that Stepney suffered the humiliation of letting a prisoner escape and being tied to a railing with his own handcuffs.

  Of course, sometimes you will realize that a name is wrong or that somebody else has used the name. One of my minor characters was called ‘Roger Ackroyd’ for a short time, until a glance along my bookshelves put me right. My editor sometimes insisted on a late change when he thought two characters had similar names. As a rule of thumb, I’d say don’t have two major characters beginning with the same letter of the alphabet – as Elsie often points out to me, the sort of people who read my books get easily flustered.

  Elsie and I were sitting down to lunch, when Herbie Proctor marched into the dining room. We had already ordered and been served with some ham sandwiches from the ‘free’ menu. The adequate vin ordinaire was also complimentary. I had, in my card-less state, steered clear of the à la carte menu which looked pricy.

  I wondered whether Proctor had heard that the hotel’s charging policy had changed since the day before. Elsie echoed my thoughts.

  ‘Do you think he’s heard?’ she said.

  ‘Oh, he must have done,’ I said.

  ‘It’s just,’ said Elsie, ‘that it would be so awkward for him if he hadn’t.’

  We turned to look at him with interest.

  ‘Right, Pierre,’ he was saying to the waiter. ‘There’s a free lunch again, is there? Absolutely gratis?’

  The waiter nodded. ‘Perhaps I can show you the sandwich menu . . .’ he began.

  ‘Not for me,’ said Proctor, puffing out his little chest.

  ‘There is also the à la carte,’ said the waiter, caressingly turning the page in Proctor’s leather-covered menu.

  ‘Thank you, garçon,’ said Proctor, possibly noticing the waiter’s new tone of respect. ‘That looks more the ticket. I’ll have the pâté de fois gras, followed by the largest steak you can fit on the plate. Then I’ll think about afters.’

  ‘Of course, sir,’ said the waiter.

  ‘Now, wine,’ said Proctor. ‘Is that being done on the same basis as the food?’

  ‘As the food you have just ordered?’

  ‘Obviously, P ierre, obviously,’ said Proctor, nose in the wine list.

  ‘Naturally, sir.’

  Proctor’s index finger ran quickly down the page to where I knew the hotel’s choicest wines dwelt in relatively undisturbed splendour. I had glanced at them longingly more than once, as must many another guest.

  Proctor stabbed his finger in the painfully expensive sector of the page.

  ‘I’ll have a bottle of that one,’ he said.

  ‘Certainly, sir,’ breathed the waiter, deeply impressed.

  As he departed, Proctor winked at me. ‘Just a sandwich for you two?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Been stuffing yourselves with the free grub too much,’ he said.

  I agreed that we had eaten well up to this point.

  ‘I’m looking forward to this,’ said Proctor.

  We watched him eat, enjoying each mouthful with him. It was as well that he had no premonition of what each mouthful was costing. We left shortly before the waiter arrived with the bill. It would have been fun to watch, but sometimes these things are better left to the imagination.

  Twenty

  It was a sad and thoughtful Herbie Proctor who entered the sitting room in search of a post-lunch coffee.

  ‘Did you know they were charging for everything except sandwiches?’ he demanded.

  ‘Were they?’ I said. If I had had butter in my mouth at that moment it would not have
melted – not even if it was the sort that spreads straight from the fridge. ‘We just had sandwiches.’

  ‘You just had sandwiches?’ He looked at me suspiciously.

  ‘I wasn’t that hungry.’

  ‘And Ethelred?’

  ‘Not what you would call a big eater.’ I fluttered my eyelashes a little, rather as Shirley Temple might have done under similar circumstances.

  ‘Have you got something in your eye?’ he said.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘You could have warned me,’ he said.

  ‘So I could,’ I said.

  He appeared to consider this, and a sort of smile crossed his weaselly face. ‘Look, maybe you and I got off on the wrong foot,’ he said, rancid cooking oil dripping from every word. ‘As I said to you once before: aren’t we after the same thing here?’

  ‘I am sure, Mr Proctor, that I have no idea what you are talking about,’ I said, loftily.

  ‘Yes, you do,’ he said, with rather greater accuracy. ‘Perhaps I might suggest we combine forces rather than fight against each other. It would be easier for you and, it would seem, cheaper for me.’

  An alliance with a weasel was a new idea. I was inclined to be cautious.

  ‘What exactly are you after?’ I asked.

  Though we both knew that the small sitting room was empty except for the two of us, Herbie Proctor made a great show of looking round the room for possible eavesdroppers before he said: ‘It’s the Danish stamps.’

  ‘The ten-kroner puces?’ I said.

  ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘I’m here to track them down.’

  ‘Why?’

  He ferreted in one of his pockets and produced a rather battered card, which he handed to me. It read: ‘Proctor and Proctor: all types of private investigative work including divorce and matrimonial’.

  ‘Which Proctor are you?’ I asked.

  ‘Both,’ he said. ‘It’s a small agency.’

  ‘So, who are you working for?’

  He looked at me, as if uncertain whether I could be trusted with the information.

  ‘You can trust me,’ I said with a friendly smile.

  He looked even more uncertain, then said very quickly: ‘Mr Andersen . . . Mr H. C. Andersen. Sorry – I shouldn’t really have told you that.’