Ten Little Herrings

by L. C. Tyler

  ‘It would have all been fine if I had not been held up here,’ said Brown. ‘I would have been back pretty much as planned. Now I’m going to have some explaining to do, but only to my CEO. My wife is absolutely OK with it – looking forward to living in India, in fact.’

  ‘Exactly,’ I said quickly. ‘You had a perfectly good alibi, so I was able to rule you out.’

  ‘As the police did long ago,’ said Tim Brown. ‘They phoned Ian.’

  ‘That is true,’ said the Inspector. ‘We phoned Ian. He was very helpful.’ He glanced at his watch again and raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Turning,’ I said even more quickly, ‘to the Pedersens . . .’ (Mrs Pedersen beamed at me) ‘. . . it was possible that events here were linked to the loss of the valuable “ten-kroner puce” stamps. The Pedersens had arrived at the hotel while the stamp fair was on and they came from the small town of Nykøbing, where the stamps were sold.’

  ‘No,’ said Mrs Pedersen.

  ‘I thought you came from Nykøbing?’

  ‘We do.’

  ‘And the stamps were sold in Nykøbing?’

  ‘Yes, they were.’

  ‘So you come from the town where the stamps were sold?’

  ‘No.’

  Ethelred coughed. ‘As I’ve tried to tell you before,’ he said, ‘there are two Nykøbings – Nykøbing Falster and Nykøbing Mors. The stamps were sold in Nykøbing Falster.’ Being able to correct me in this way should have made him pretty pleased with himself, but he still looked sick.

  ‘That’s right, and we come from Nykøbing Mors,’ said Mrs Pedersen proudly. ‘They make the cast-iron wood-burning stoves there. They export them all over the world. My great-aunt worked for the company for thirty years. We are famous for our stoves, but not for our stamps. We didn’t hear about the stamps until we got here. Falster is a long way, by Danish standards, from Mors, where we live.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ I said.

  ‘An easy mistake to make,’ said Mrs Pedersen. ‘I remember that one of my aunts was buying a train ticket and—’

  ‘Just so,’ I said quickly. ‘I was aware, however, that you had no motive for murdering Mr Davidov.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ said Mr Pedersen. ‘You might say I have a very good motive – at least in an official capacity. Grigory Davidov has been responsible for at least one killing in Denmark, though we lack what you might describe as hard evidence. And his activities more generally were a matter of great concern to us. But assassinating oligarchs would have been incompatible with my diplomatic status. My ambassador would not have been pleased.’ He gave a little chuckle, in which others joined.

  I looked him in the eye. I knew something (courtesy of his daughter) that he might not want revealed. Well, into every life a little rain must fall.

  ‘And what,’ I said, ‘if I told people that you worked for the Forssomething Efter-whatsit?’

  ‘The Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste?’

  ‘Probably,’ I said. ‘What if I said that, eh?’

  ‘I don’t think you can,’ he said. ‘But if you were able to say it, you would be quite wrong. I work in the commercial section of the Danish Embassy. My ambassador would be happy, I am sure, to confirm that.’ He looked as unruffled as it is possible to look. He just had to be a spy.

  ‘We did not suspect him at any stage,’ said the inspector.

  ‘So you are not a Danish secret agent pretending to be a diplomat?’ I asked.

  I thought, just for a moment, that I caught Pedersen winking at the inspector.

  ‘No,’ said the inspector. ‘We have checked with our own security people. It is as Mr Pedersen says. He works in the commercial section of the embassy.’

  ‘Right,’ I said.

  ‘Please do continue,’ said the inspector.

  ‘So, let me turn next to Mr Taylor,’ I said. I was aware I was not doing too well so far, but the key to a good detective story is the ending. I fixed Taylor with my gaze. The others were looking at him curiously. I had their attention again.

  ‘Initially,’ I said, ‘I had no reason to suspect Mr Taylor, though he is a chemist and might have had access to poisons.’

  ‘Hardly – not where I work,’ said Taylor with a forced laugh. ‘There’s little use for cyanide in the soft drinks industry.’

  ‘My suspicions were aroused,’ I continued, in spite of some sniggering amongst my suspects, ‘when I discovered he was conducting some rather ineffectual amateur detective work.’

  ‘Not that ineffectual,’ he said. ‘It was me who told you about Gold buying chocolate – remember?’

  ‘Indeed,’ I said. But that surely was irrelevant?

  The Danish boy whispered to his mother, who said approvingly, ‘Ja, Herr Taylor er meget klog, ikke?’

  Something told me that this was not quite the triumph I had planned. My audience, rather than hanging on my every word, were starting to lose confidence in me, though they seemed to think Taylor was pretty good. The Danish boy said something else but this time was shushed by his mother, who glanced quickly in my direction and smiled apologetically.

  ‘So, to cut a long story short, you also ruled me out?’ asked Taylor. ‘Is that what you want to say?’

  I was beginning to lose my thread, but I had indeed ruled Taylor out.

  ‘That’s right,’ I said rather flatly.

  ‘What a relief,’ he said. ‘You had me worried there. Just for a moment I thought I might have done it.’

  I pressed on. ‘I had no reason to suspect Mr Jones,’ I said with a friendly nod in his direction.

  ‘Even though he had worked for one of Davidov’s companies, which had then defaulted on his pension, leaving him penniless?’ asked Ethelred.

  ‘That’s a good point,’ I said. ‘But Mr Jones was unaware of the connection.’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ asked Jones indignantly. ‘I was certainly well aware of who owned the company.’

  ‘Were you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jones. ‘I didn’t kill Davidov though, for all that.’

  ‘Didn’t you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ I asked.

  It seemed a little late to reopen this line of inquiry but, thinking about it, it was a powerful motive.

  ‘Even though you knew that Mr Davidov owned the company?’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jones.

  ‘But we do not suspect Mr Jones,’ said the inspector.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Jones.

  ‘Right,’ I said.

  I was aware that the room had gone very quiet.

  ‘What about Tressider?’ asked Herbie Proctor. ‘He just pitches up here, out of nowhere, in the middle of winter. As a crime writer he would know all about poisons. If anyone should arouse suspicions it’s him.’

  He was right, of course. Ethelred’s conduct in relation to the diamonds remained a mystery. And he was a dipstick capable of almost any folly if led astray by some floozy with a husky voice and black silk underwear. Still, I wasn’t letting Proctor get away with accusing him of murder.

  ‘My client had no links with Davidov or Gold,’ I said. ‘There isn’t a shred of evidence to link him to either murder.’ I looked at the inspector, who nodded in a resigned sort of way.

  ‘You do not need to conduct a formal defence, Mademoiselle Thirkettle. We accept that Monsieur Tressider has no case to answer.’

  ‘So, who did kill Jonathan Gold?’ I asked rhetorically.

  ‘Do you really want me to tell you?’ said Herbie Proctor, who obviously did not get the concept of rhetorical. ‘Why don’t we just cut to the chase and—’

  ‘Not so fast,’ I said. ‘Let’s take this a step at a time. We were aware, because we had seen them in conversation, that Davidov and Gold knew each other. What I did not appreciate was how well.’

  I paused and surveyed the room. One or two of the guests now at least showed a mild curiosity.

  ‘I decided to conduct a little research on the Internet. What
it showed up was that Davidov had some diamonds that had been stolen from Jonathan Gold’s family – diamonds now worth many millions of euros.’

  I paused so that people could gasp in amazement, but the inspector just said: ‘Yes, we know all that.’

  ‘What you may not have known, though,’ I continued, ‘was that Davidov and Gold had met up in London to discuss returning the gems. In Davidov’s dressing gown pocket, I found a receipt from a kosher restaurant in North London. He had eaten Methuen trimmings with noodles.’

  ‘Mehren tzimmes with knaidel,’ said Ethelred.

  ‘Whatever,’ I said. ‘Though they professed to dislike each other, and even to dislike me, it was simply a cover. Gold was negotiating the return of the family jewels. Davidov was relieving himself of a potentially embarrassing piece of loot. Before they could complete the transaction, however, both were murdered and the diamonds stolen.’

  I paused and looked round the room. Herbie Proctor had his head on one side, trying to work out what I would say next. The inspector was cleaning his ear out with a ballpoint pen. Only Ethelred was looking at me in horror. He mouthed something at me, then, when I failed to mouth anything back, looked down at the floor, his head in his hands.

  ‘The diamonds,’ I continued, ‘were in the safe in a white envelope. The killer, having already eliminated Gold and having put a poisoned chocolate in Davidov’s box, then took advantage of the receptionist’s brief absence to sneak in and pick the lock on the safe. Later he spirited the diamonds out of the hotel. There is your man, Inspector – arrest Mr Proctor!’ I stood, dramatically pointing my finger Proctorwards, but nothing happened.

  I looked at Proctor, expecting, at the very least, to see beads of sweat on his evil brow, or a pathetic denial taking shape on his nasty lips, but he just looked a bit bored and pissed off. Ethelred, on the other hand, looked as though he was fixing to throw up out of sheer terror.

  ‘Do you have any comments, Mr Proctor?’ asked the inspector.

  ‘Elsie,’ said Proctor, ‘has a very vivid imagination. If I was going to steal some diamonds, I would just steal the diamonds. As you say, it’s not a difficult trick picking a hotel safe . . . so they tell me, anyway. If I’d already got the diamonds, I’d hardly hang around bumping people off after the event. Conversely, I can’t see the point in murdering people in advance of the theft, murders tending (as they do) to attract the attention of the police. I’ve never heard so much rubbish in my entire life.’

  ‘So who did kill Gold and Davidov then?’ I demanded.(Not a rhetorical question this time.)

  ‘Let me explain,’ said Taylor. ‘I’ve also done a bit of research on this. As you say, the Goldstein diamonds found their way back to Russia in 1945. The Golds knew that much but it was only after the fall of communism that rumours of the necklace’s precise whereabouts started to reach the West, and it was only recently that it became clear that Davidov now owned it. They needed somebody to negotiate with Davidov and decided it should be Jonathan Gold.’

  ‘But, hang on,’ I said. ‘The Golds have a valid claim. They know who’s got it. Why not just go through the courts?’

  ‘A very good question,’ said Herbie Proctor. ‘A very good question indeed.’

  ‘Who’s telling this story?’ asked Taylor.

  ‘Me,’ said Herbie Proctor. ‘I do actually know a few things that I haven’t gathered from the Internet.’

  Taylor shrugged. Proctor took up the story.

  ‘The Gold family, as my amateur detective friend surmises, chose Jonathan Gold to go in and negotiate with Davidov. That was because he had one thing that none of the rest of them had. Up to that point, Jonathan Gold had shown little interest in the diamonds. His cause was the environment. For him, Davidov’s crime was Yacoubabad – not ownership of some Czarist necklace. But his work in India had provided him with proof of Davidov’s responsibility for the disaster. This would have been more than an embarrassment for Davidov. There was a real threat of arrest and extradition. So, the family’s cunning plan was that he should use this information to blackmail Davidov into giving them the diamonds.’

  ‘I can’t see that would work,’ I said. ‘If Jonathan Gold knew, then others who were investigating Yacoubabad would have known too.’

  ‘Either the family didn’t think that bit through or Gold was able to reassure them in some way – in any case, it would not have been put to the test. Jonathan Gold had his own plan, which was the mirror image of his family’s plan. He was to use the negotiations for the diamonds as a way of getting a chance to put pressure on Davidov about Yacoubabad. And Davidov was keen to meet up.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I said.

  ‘Davidov wanted to get rid of the necklace,’ Proctor continued. ‘It had little to do with the embarrassment of owning it and a great deal to do with the fact that he was a very superstitious man. He thought it had brought him bad luck and that the solution was to return it to the real owners. But he was also a greedy man. He hoped that the Golds would buy the necklace at a price to be agreed. He was therefore keen to do a deal.’

  ‘How do you know all that?’ I asked.

  ‘Trust me, I have every reason to know,’ said Proctor. He was about to go on, but then checked himself briefly before adding: ‘It doesn’t mean that Davidov actually brought the diamonds here, though. Almost certainly not. It would make sense to leave them safely locked away in Russia or somewhere until the deal was done. Stands to reason.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ said Jones. ‘All of the evidence points to Davidov having shown up here with the diamonds and without any of his usual bodyguards. But, when he and Gold finally got together, things did not go according to plan.’

  ‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t their first meeting. Davidov and Gold had previously met up in London—’

  ‘No,’ said Ethelred. ‘I’ve thought that one through. The receipt was a valuable clue, but that’s not what it proved.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said.

  ‘If relations between them were ever good,’ said Taylor, ‘they had deteriorated by the evening of Gold’s murder. I don’t know what Gold’s Plan A was – possibly to get Davidov to pay compensation to the survivors of the disaster. Plan B was clearly to poison Davidov, just as Davidov had poisoned the town. I don’t know at what point Plan B became the preferred option but Davidov must have realized that this was no longer about a price for the diamonds. Gold represented a genuine danger – at the very least a danger that the truth was going to come out about Yacoubabad; at the worst that Gold might try to kill him. Davidov therefore took a large knife from the kitchen. I’ve no idea whether he too was planning murder at that stage or whether he was just going to use it to protect himself.’

  ‘What we do know,’ interjected Herbie Proctor, ‘is that Davidov had spent so much time in the bloody kitchen congratulating the bloody staff on their bloody cooking that his presence there was not something to be remarked upon.’

  ‘So,’ Taylor continued, ‘Davidov, in his dressing gown, takes a late-night stroll along the corridor to Gold’s room, the knife rather poorly concealed, for what must have been a prearranged meeting. Who knows what was on the agenda? Gold’s last attempt to get Davidov to help the people of Yacoubabad? Davidov’s last attempt to cut a deal on the necklace? But Gold was never that interested in the diamonds and Davidov was never going to accept responsibility for anything. In the end Davidov stabbed Gold. No logic. No cunning plan. The knife just happened to be there and Davidov was angry or frightened enough to do it.’

  ‘Leaving Davidov covered in blood himself,’ I said, pointing to an obvious flaw in this theory. ‘The one thing that nobody has suggested is that any blood was found on Davidov. His dressing gown, that you claim he was wearing, was spotless. He hardly had time to send it to the dry-cleaner’s.’

  ‘Davidov sees Gold’s dressing gown hanging up,’ said Ethelred. ‘He takes off his own dressing gown and drapes it over the body. He puts on Gold’s dressing gown, in t
he pocket of which are two pound coins and a receipt from a restaurant that Gold has visited recently. Then he sneaks back to his room, waking you briefly as he visits the bathroom to wash off any other traces of blood. Later he disposes of the knife in the rubbish that the dustmen collect early the following morning.’ This was the longest statement that Ethelred had made since we arrived in the room. But he still didn’t look exactly well.

  ‘So Gold is dead,’ said the inspector. ‘Who then, I wonder, steals Davidov’s diamonds?’ He looked round the room enquiringly.

  ‘That he had the diamonds in that envelope is just Mr Jones’ theory,’ said Herbie Proctor. ‘I don’t share it myself.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Ethelred, perking up a bit. ‘The diamonds may never have been here. The envelope was always empty.’

  I too looked from one to the other. Who knew for certain about the diamonds? Me. Ethelred. Proctor. And two out of three of us had just fibbed. I’d rejected Proctor’s advances; had Ethelred sold out in the meantime?

  ‘Very well,’ I said, changing the subject. ‘Who killed Davidov?’

  ‘Oh, that’s easy,’ said Proctor.

  ‘Is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Gold,’ said Taylor.

  ‘Gold,’ said the Danish boy.

  ‘But Gold was already dead,’ I pointed out.

  ‘We’ve said that Gold had probably brought cyanide with him and had purchased the truffles, including one of Davidov’s favourites,’ said Taylor. ‘Gold, remember, was a pharmacist and had a good knowledge of poisons. He injects one chocolate with a massive dose of cyanide. I can’t tell you which one.’

  ‘The peach truffle,’ I said, frowning. ‘It was the peach truffle. His favourite.’

  ‘Very good,’ said Taylor. ‘So, it is the peach truffle: the chocolate that he knows Davidov will choose first. But he is killed before he gets to give Davidov this deadly gift. What happens next? My guess is that Davidov sees the box of truffles lying there and takes them. Why? Perhaps his fingerprints are on it . . . or Davidov may just have fancied some truffles. Either way, the chocolates end up in his room and he leaves them untouched until the following morning. Then, needing to console himself for the loss of his envelope, he selects and eats one splendid . . . peach truffle.’