A Dip Into Murder (David Mallin Detective series Book 10)

by Roger Ormerod

  “Well now ... ” He thought about it. “If the guard who happened to be on duty was not intended to be drugged, and Peter wasn’t prepared to use any other sort of violence, then how could he expect to get hold of the key?”

  “Only in one possible way, David. No, don’t you dare laugh at me. I’ve given this a lot of thought. It would have been acceptable to Peter if the guard who happened to be on duty simply handed him the key, voluntarily. And that, you see, would have to mean that the guard was in on it, and was prepared to pretend he’d been drugged, just to cover himself. I did hear mention that the one who should have been on — Arthur Groves — was unreliable. Maybe even dishonest. He might have been prepared to do it, so long as there was chloral hydrate in the sugar for the police to find. The fact that he didn’t normally take sugar in his coffee didn’t prevent him from claiming that he had done so, just that once. The doped sugar was only intended as a cover for the guard. It wasn’t supposed actually to be stirred into a cup of coffee.”

  “You amaze me, Elsa,” said David. “Really you do. You’re only trying to justify Peter’s actions, saying that he wouldn’t have taken it on if this and if that ... You’ve got a soft spot for Peter, that’s what it is.”

  There was a delicious touch of jealousy creeping in there. I fed it gently.

  “But you have to admire him, David.”

  “I have to admire him only for desperately keeping the thing alive. Go on, say it.” He waited while I shook my head. “You’ll say he had to keep in with the gang, so as to keep up with what was happening with Rimlock ... ”

  “I wasn’t intending to, but now you mention it — ”

  But David was laughing at me. “You’ll seize on anything to justify him. And you’re glossing over the peculiar matter of the key in the canal,” he said irritatingly.

  “What about the key?” I was surprised he had noticed it.

  “How did it get in the canal, Elsa? Now don’t go and say the guard threw it there. The man took an overdose of chloral hydrate, and he went to sleep. It’s highly unlikely that it would even occur to him that he’d been drugged. And it’s fantastic to assume that he was so quick-witted, even in a stupor, that he’d realise why he’d been drugged, and then work out how to foil the plan. Now ... isn’t it?”

  “Of course it is. I’m not arguing about that. But who did throw it in the canal, in that event?”

  And at last I had him beaten. He waved a hand negligently.

  “Your precious Peter, I suppose.”

  “And that would have been a stupid thing for him to do. It made things impossible for him, or nearly so. No David, in this case you’ve got to do what you always tell me to do — you’ve got to ask yourself what throwing the key in the canal achieved.”

  “For the purpose of the robbery plot, it threw a great hefty spanner in the works,” he said.

  “Exactly. There was this crime, cleverly contrived and expertly carried out, and just the failure to open the gate could have ruined everything. So all you’ve got to do is ask yourself who would have known enough about it to realise it would do that. And who would want the plan to fail. Larry Fitch, of course. There was poor Larry, having built up the Domino Club from the dump it’d been, and his brother about to come out of prison with every intention of taking over again. More than that, of spoiling it, turning it back into the same old centre for the gang, with the same old crooked gambling. And there was this splendid job laid on to start Bernie on his way. Of course Larry wouldn’t want that to happen. He’d do anything to ruin things.”

  “And he did it — or tried, anyway — by simply throwing the key in the canal?”

  “Yes David, yes. But if we assume that Larry knew enough about the plans to know what effect it’d have, then we’ve got to assume that he’d know the arrangements about the guard, Arthur Groves, the one who was supposed to be on duty. He’d know that Arthur Groves wasn’t intended really to get himself drugged. He’d know, in any event that Arthur Groves wouldn’t touch any of that sugar, whether he’d been bribed or not. So Larry would be faced with the difficulty of getting the key, and getting it from a guard who was twice as big as himself, and very much awake. Let me finish, David. You’re going to say he could’ve simply tipped off the police, if he wanted to ruin the plan. But could he? It would’ve led to the gang’s arrest, but not to Bernie’s. And he would have known who’d done the tipping-off, and I’m sure Bernie would have dealt with Larry, brother or not. No, this had to be done secretly and quietly, and it had to be done with the key. And that, David, is where the murder comes in,” I sighed.

  “You’re tired,” said David.

  “No. I’m fine. It was just so vicious and unfeeling, that’s all.”

  “Come on, love. Let’s have it.”

  “If,” I said heavily, “Larry knew the sugar was to be drugged, just as a blind, then all he had to do was make sure the guard was changed. Then the odds were that the replacement would take sugar, and would therefore become unconscious. Then Larry could take the key and throw it in the canal. As he did. But in order to make sure that the guard was changed he didn’t do anything so simple as having him called away with a faked phone call, say — he deliberately ran him down, and so viciously that he killed him. There’s your murder, David.” I felt so desperately tired and sickened by it. “And just so that he could get at the key.”

  David looked at me for some seconds, then said gently: “And you’d worked this out?”

  “While I was watching the fire at the factory.” I said wearily.

  Then David did one of those very thoughtful things for which I have always loved him. He simply understood.

  “You heard that radio in the police car, didn’t you, and long before I turned up the volume?” I nodded. “You knew that Bernie wasn’t at the club, but was trying to find his way out of Spaghetti Junction. So that when Ian said he had Fitch in there, you realised it had to be Larry, and not Bernie.”

  “I could have told Clara, David. I could have let her hear for herself. But then she’d simply have taken the money and gone. And I was afraid she would take me with it. I let it all happen, David, knowing she must have hated Larry, because of Larry’s obvious resentment of Bernie. Knowing that ... ”

  He said: “Come and sit over here.”

  “I could have saved Larry’s life,” I whispered.

  “I don’t see it like that. In any event, Larry brought it on himself. Elsa, sweetheart, why do you think Bernie had to steal a car in order to get to the Domino? Surely some arrangement would’ve been made to collect him from Winson Green. And who else but Larry would be chosen, to meet his bother outside the prison? But Larry was hanging on, doing anything to put off the inevitable. That’s why Clara assumed that by Fitch, Ian meant Bernie. To Clara, both the brothers should have been together. It was Larry’s fault he was in there on his own when Ian got there, simply because he hadn’t gone to meet Bernie.”

  David always likes to tidy away the odd corners.

  “But ... should I tell Ian?” I asked.

  “Larry’s dead,” he said. “And Ian’s got his own ideas about why the guard was dipped in the paint. Let it lie, Elsa, otherwise you’ll have to explain about Peter. And you wouldn’t want that.”

  I smiled weakly. “No, I wouldn’t want that.” I tried to shake myself out of it. “But I’ve been selfish. Tell me about your locked room thing.”

  “Not so much a room as a shed,” he told me. “But that’s another story. Come and sit here, love.”

  You can say this about David, he does know when a little comfort is called for.

  I went and sat there.

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  Roger Ormerod, A Dip Into Murder (David Mallin Detective series Book 10)