“Do you happen to know if the door of this room is locked at night?” he asked the Inspector.
“No, it isn’t. They don’t lock any of the inside doors except the ones leading to the private apartments, and those have keys beside them behind glass. In case of fire, Lord Seton said. But all the windows have shutters and safety catches.”
“So if Peplow had another chap with him, this other fellow could have hidden anywhere in the public rooms. I wonder why Peplow dug in down in that frowsty little bolthole? Once the place had shut for the night he could have come out and found somewhere comfortable.”
“Could have thought there was a night-watchman,” suggested Sergeant Toye.
“For anyone planning an important robbery he doesn’t seem to have done much homework. Take that rope ladder, for instance. As they don’t lock the inside doors, all he’d got to do after lifting the swag was to clear off through a ground floor door or window. I suppose one was found open this morning?”
“This is it,” replied Inspector Diplock. “I questioned Emmett, the caretaker who locks up at night, and he swore nothing was unfastened when he opened up today. He seemed uneasy, but I couldn’t shake him. Reckon he’s been fixed. Somebody got away.”
“How long has he been here?”
“Ten years. Must’ve been satisfactory up to date.”
“There has to be a first time,” Pollard replied. “We’ll have to put him through it tomorrow, but we’d better go along to Lord Seton now. It’s after twelve. Strickland and Boyce, you get cracking on this room. The panel and the area round it, of course, and the showcases. Pretty hopeless for dabs, I’m afraid. The whole place will either be smothered in them, or dusted clean yesterday morning. Then go down into the hole, and dredge up anything you can find.”
“Right, sir.” Detective-Constable Strickland removed his coat purposefully.
Pausing in the doorway, Pollard glanced round the room, stifling a sense of sacrilege. “For God’s sake don’t muck the place up more than you must.”
“No, sir,” the two young men replied in chorus, the shadow of a wink passing between them.
As Pollard went out he caught a sotto voce remark to the effect that the dump was right up the Super’s street, and grinned. He followed Inspector Diplock downstairs to the screens, through another door marked STRICTLY PRIVATE, and along a passage immediately below the one leading to the miniatures room. A right-angled turn brought them out into eighteenth-century spaciousness.
“Lord Seton’s office,” murmured the Inspector as they halted at a door from beneath which came whimperings and snufflings.
At his thunderous knock a tumult of hysterical barking broke out, through which they heard a shouted summons to come in. As the door opened a tangle of squirming cocker spaniels erupted into the corridor, nosing the men’s shoes and scrabbling at their trouser legs. Through a haze of cigar smoke Pollard saw a figure levering itself up from an armchair. The next moment Inspector Diplock was performing inaudible introductions to a good-looking fair man in early middle age, whose innate assurance was oddly at variance with his obvious tension.
“I’m extremely sorry to have kept you up like this, Lord Seton,” Pollard said, the dogs having suddenly subsided. “I’m afraid there’s been a serious development. The post-mortem has established that the man found in the priest’s hole didn’t die as the result of an accident.”
For a full second Lord Seton stared at him. “I’m not with you,” he said, a slight edge on his voice. “You surely can’t mean the fellow came here to commit a robbery, and then committed suicide instead?”
“No, I don’t,” Pollard replied bluntly. “He died because someone gave him a kick in the chest which sent him over backwards to fracture the base of his skull. We are, of course, now treating the case as one of manslaughter, or possibly murder.”
“But it simply doesn’t make sense.” The remark came out spontaneously, even explosively.
“Make sense?” queried Pollard.
Lord Seton made an abrupt movement, as if repudiating a slip of the tongue. “Won’t you sit down?” He indicated chairs.
“Thank you,” Pollard said. “Now that Inspector Diplock’s handed over to us he’s returning to Crockmouth, but I should be grateful for information on one or two points, late though it is.”
“Anything I can tell you, naturally. Can you find your own way out, Diplock?”
Refusing drinks and accepting cigarettes, Pollard took an armchair facing Lord Seton, while Toye faded into the background and took out his notebook. The spaniels relapsed into slumber on the hearthrug.
“I need hardly say that this is a very odd business,” Pollard opened, feeling for his approach. “At the moment we’ve very little to go on, except the body. All we can do is to try to get Raymond Peplow into some sort of context. Scotland Yard is dealing with his Argentine connections, and our immediate job is to discover any local links he may have had. I gather from Inspector Diplock that he is quite unknown to you?”
There was a slight sound as Lord Seton’s brandy and soda flooded over the small table at his side and began to trickle on to the carpet. He swore briefly, and mopped with handkerchief, waving aside Toye, who had come forward to help.
“No, don’t trouble thanks. Damn nuisance: it takes the polish off. Sorry, Superintendent. Where were we? No, to my knowledge I’ve never met Peplow in my life. Isn’t it pretty obvious, though, that he’s mixed up in these other country house break-ins?”
“It certainly looks likely,” Pollard agreed. “However, at the moment we’re concentrating on his movements down here. I expect you know already that he travelled from London to Crockmouth by train on Tuesday morning or early afternoon, and then somehow got himself out here. In your opinion, could he have joined an escorted tour of the house, given his guide the slip, and managed to go to ground in the priest’s hole?”
Lord Seton exhaled a mouthful of smoke before answering. “Yes, to the first part of your question,” he replied, “assuming that he’d already got the hang of the place, presumably by having gone round before. But he couldn’t have been in the hole until after the last party of the day had gone round. Every party is given the chance of looking down into it.”
“I see,” said Pollard. “Are there other places where he might have hidden temporarily?”
“I suppose so, if he’d looked slippy, and had luck. He could have dived under a bed with hangings, for instance.”
“What about the mechanics of the sliding panel? Is it tricky to work?”
“Not really. Anyone who had watched one of the guides carefully could probably manage it after a few boss shots. It’s only a case of pressing on one particular bit of the carving.”
“Thank you,” Pollard said. “That clears up another point. Would you tell me now when and how the public rooms are closed for the night?”
“The house closes at half-past five. Emmett, our caretaker and odd-job man, goes round at once, and locks the front and courtyard doors, and the safety catches on the windows. We don’t lock the internal doors, apart from those into my own and my brother’s parts of the house.”
“So the public rooms are sealed off at night, so to speak?”
“Yes.”
“Does Emmett search them each evening?”
“Well, he takes a look round, of course, in case anyone’s hanging about, but I can’t say we check up on every hole and corner. Perhaps we should. There must have been two chaps in the place on Tuesday evening, presumably.”
“An accomplice, with whom Peplow later had a row, with disastrous results?” Pollard suggested smoothly. “Naturally,” he went on, “we’re anxious to find out if anyone noticed Peplow here during the afternoon, with or without a companion. I’m afraid it means interviewing everyone who was on duty here on Tuesday afternoon, and in residence on Tuesday night. Would this include yourself?”
“On Tuesday afternoon I was at a board meeting at Houseware Amalgamated in the City. I got back
here at half-past six, and at seven I left by car with my wife and sister-in-law for a public dinner in Fulminster, at which I was speaking.” Lord Seton’s tone was cool.
Pollard looked up sharply. “This is possibly rather important. Was the dinner much publicised? I mean, was it advertised, for instance, that you were among the speakers?”
“To some extent, yes. It was a dinner organised in aid of a National Trust local appeal. I take your point. It had not occurred to me.”
“The most puzzling aspect of the events of Tuesday night,” Pollard said, after a pause, “is the statement your caretaker made to Inspector Diplock. He says that he found all outer doors and windows in the public sector of the house fastened as usual when he opened up on Wednesday morning. Could anyone have got out without leaving one of them open?”
Lord Seton got abruptly to his feet. “I suggest that you come and see for yourself.”
It was an eerie progress. They were a small island of light, continuing slowly through the darkness of the great house, their footsteps deadened in the flat airlessness. Lord Seton returned only the briefest of answers to occasional questions. Pollard was finally convinced that no one could possibly have left the area of the public rooms without trace, unless possessing keys, or being helped by a confederate inside. All this would have to be gone into. As they were standing in the hall, the tour completed, the courtyard clock struck with melancholy lingering notes.
“This has been most valuable,” he said. “Once again, I apologize for keeping you up. As soon as my fingerprint experts are through upstairs we shall be going back to Crockmouth for tonight. I’m afraid I must ask you to keep the house closed again tomorrow.”
“So I had already assumed.”
Desperately worried, Pollard thought, and yet, not desperately scared. It’s very odd… “This is a most wonderful house,” he said on a sudden impulse. “I hope I shall have a chance of seeing it under happier conditions someday.”
Lord Seton looked astonished. As if, Pollard told his wife afterwards, one of the dogs had stood up on its hind legs and expressed an interest in architecture.
“Yes, er, quite,” he said, and reacted automatically with a touch of showmanship. “There’s an historically interesting sequence of portraits in here.” He indicated the walls of the hall. “My wife,” he added, noticing that Pollard’s attention was fixed on a portrait immediately above them. “A Henry Lamb. Some years ago, of course.”
Pollard gazed at the heart-shaped face, with its lovely wide-set eyes and sensitive mouth. Golden hair, worn long and simply dressed, had trapped the light. The pose of the head was a near miracle, he thought, conveying both receptivity and great diffidence. He became aware that Lord Seton was showing signs of restiveness. “A perfectly marvellous bit of painting,” he said.
Upstairs in the miniatures room Strickland and Boyce were packing up their equipment.
“Anything in the priest’s hole?” Pollard asked.
“Nothing much, sir,” Strickland told him. “A few fresh crumbs from the chap’s sandwiches. Scraps of mortar, and a few stone chippings, dating back to when they hollowed the place out, from the look of ’em. This was the only bit of luck, for what it’s worth.” He held out two pieces of glass secured together with Sellotape. Between them was a single long golden hair.
CHAPTER FIVE
Inspector Diplock had driven off from Brent genuinely thankful to have handed over the case, but feeling unexpectedly flat at suddenly being relieved of responsibility for it. However, Superintendent Pollard had said that he wanted him to go on being in on the job, and he was to meet the Yard team at the station at eight-thirty the next morning.
Speculating as to what the next move would be, he found himself hoping that Crockmouth would manage to keep its end up where the Yard was concerned. Even get a letter of congratulation in the end, which could be discreetly leaked to the local paper. At this point it occurred to him that there was a useful line of enquiry which he could follow up himself without waiting to be asked. How and when had Peplow got out to Brent? If this could be established right away it would save time, and might even lead to an accomplice or a gang being identified. In fact, a nice juicy bit of information to hand the Yard chaps on a plate, first thing tomorrow.
Arriving at his home, Inspector Diplock garaged his car, let himself in, and settled down to hard thinking and the snack left out for him by his wife. As he worked through a stout slab of veal and ham pie he considered the known facts of the case in his careful methodical way. His experience inclined him to believe that the common sense approach to a problem generally paid off. Peplow could have turned up at Brent any time after the house opened on Tuesday afternoon, hung around unobtrusively, and managed to slip into the priest’s hole when everybody else had cleared off. Was it likely, though, that he’d risk being seen around the place a moment longer than was necessary? Unless the caretaker had been fixed, wasn’t it much more probable that he’d arrive as late as possible, and nip down the hole when the last visitors had moved on? And one useful piece of information which he, Harry Diplock, had acquired on the previous afternoon was that the last party on Tuesday had been a Blennerhasset coach tour.
He put down his knife and fork with a clatter, pushed the empty plate aside, and poured himself out a glass of beer. He sat on at the kitchen table, breathing heavily through his nose as he invariably did when thinking hard.
If Peplow had gone out in that coach, he obviously hadn’t returned to Crockmouth in it. The driver would know if he’d been short of a passenger on the inward journey… Another thing, too. If Peplow had been on board, either he or a confederate must have booked a seat. One of the clerks in Blennerhasset’s office might remember something useful. A sensible course of action was opening up nicely. He’d ring Joe Blennerhasset at his home at — say — six-thirty next morning. Even allowing for the inevitable delays you met with in making enquiries, it ought to be possible to have run the coach driver to earth before the meeting with the Yard lot at half-past eight. Feeling braced at the prospect ahead, Inspector Diplock gulped down the rest of the beer, stacked the crocks neatly in the sink, and went upstairs to bed.
Much refreshed by a few hours of sound sleep, he arrived at the police station according to schedule, and punctually at six-thirty dialled the Blennerhassets’ number. He was not surprised that no one answered at once. Joe and his missis would be in bed and asleep at this hour, and the phone probably rang downstairs. But as the persistent burr-burr went on and on he became first irritated, and then puzzled. Finally he accepted the all-too-familiar fact that his programme was not working out according to plan, hurried out to his car, and set off for the house, which was tiresomely on the far side of the town.
On arrival he spared a glance for the well-kept garden and immaculate paintwork, and a brief reflection that old Joe had done better than he knew when he sank his war gratuity in a couple of rickety old coaches twenty years back. The curtains of the ground floor rooms were drawn, but he saw to his relief that the bedroom windows were open. He pressed the bell push, and set melodious chimes going. Nothing happened. After two further attempts he grabbed the shining brass knocker and hammered on the front door. Then standing back, he neatly lobbed a small handful of gravel through one of the open windows.
“Anyone up there?” he called loudly.
Next moment the agitated face of a middle-aged woman appeared, surmounted by a frilly pink confection.
“Whatever’s the matter?” she demanded. “Goodness, it’s the police. It’s not — it’s not Joe, is it? Oh, my God!”
“Morning, Mrs. Blennerhasset. Not to worry,” Inspector Diplock assured her. “Sorry to get you out of bed so early, but I want a word with your husband. Something to do with the business. He’s not away, is he?” he added, with some dismay.
“Why, it’s Inspector Diplock,” she exclaimed. “I was so fussed I didn’t see who it was right away. Yes, he’s away, over in Brussels. It’s some sort of conference abou
t continental coach tours. We re branching out, you —”
“Who’s in charge when he’s away?”
“Jack Treadgold, ever since Jim Morris went off to Midland Red. But whatever’s wrong? There hasn’t been a fire at the garage, has there, and the season just starting?”
“Nothing like that. Treadgold’s on the phone, I take it?”
“Oh, yes. He’d have to be. If you don’t mind me coming down like this you can use ours if you’re in a hurry.”
Assuring Mrs. Blennerhasset that he did not mind at all, Inspector Diplock waited with what patience he could muster until he heard her unbolting the front door.
“The phone’s here, in this little lobby,” she told him. “Is it a break-in at the office?”
Once again he reassured her, while flicking through the pages of the telephone directory, and dialling the Treadgolds’ number. A woman’s voice came over the line.
“Inspector Diplock here, Mrs. Treadgold. Can I have a word with your husband? Nothing to worry about.”
“I’m afraid he’s out. Shall I ask him to ring you back?”
“Is he down at the office?”
“No. He’s taken the kiddies to the beach for a swim before breakfast.”
Glancing at his watch, Inspector Diplock asked when she expected the party back.
“Oh, any time now. I’ve got to get the kiddies off to school, you see.”
“I’ll be over right away,” he told her firmly, putting down the receiver.
He drove as fast as he dared through the town to a rather less affluent suburb on the far side. An estate car stood outside the Treadgolds’ house, a hopeful sign that the bathers had returned. He arrived at the front door to find it open, and a wide-eyed blonde struggling to explain something to a dark man in bathing trunks. Three damp and sandy children goggled at the sight of a policeman on the doorstep. Mr. Treadgold turned and caught sight of him.
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