Death of a Gay Dog

by Anne Morice

  ‘Not here,’ she replied. ‘In the barn, where I keep all the Motts. Heard someone barging around in there at about three o’clock this morning. Went to have a look see, but they must have heard me and bolted.’

  ‘Not the cats having a party?’ I asked.

  ‘No, both asleep on my bed, and the cats have been trained not to knock over pictures.’

  ‘Did you notify the police?’ Robin asked her.

  ‘No. Don’t mean to, either. Trampling over everything and asking a lot of fool questions. Anyway, I don’t know what’s been taken.’

  ‘No one ever does. You shouldn’t let that deter you. You’d be surprised by the number of people who telephone us three days later to say they’ve just noticed the grandfather clock is also missing.’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t, but this is different. There are a couple of hundred canvases out there, some I haven’t looked at for years.’

  ‘Valuable?’

  ‘A good many are,’ Christabel said, moodily sloshing more tea over her cup and saucer. ‘None I’d want to lose, at any rate.’

  ‘Insured?’

  ‘Naturally. Same objection, though. I can’t claim unless I know what’s missing.’

  ‘But, still, you should report it, you know. Both to the insurance company and the police. Breaking into someone else’s property is an offence, whether there is intent to steal or not. You’re certain someone did break in last night? The paintings couldn’t have got knocked over any other way? Draught through a broken window, for instance?’

  ‘There’s only one window and it’s not broken.’

  ‘So how did they get in?’

  ‘Through one of the doors, presumably.’

  ‘How many of them?’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘Unlocked?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Still locked when you went to investigate?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Anyone else have keys?’

  ‘Not that I knew of.’

  ‘Look, Miss Blake, I’m on your side, you know. What actually did happen? You heard a noise, you believed it came from the barn? What kind of noise?’

  ‘Crash bang.’

  ‘So you got up and went over there? Did you see a light?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And you didn’t happen to hear a car or anything?’

  ‘No. All pretty negative, isn’t it? You can see why I wasn’t keen to call a copper? The poor fellow would have no alternative but to write me off as an hysterical spinster.’

  ‘It’s possible that you underrate him. However, that’s not our worry, is it?’

  ‘What is our worry?’

  ‘Well, would you have any objection to my going over there and having a scout round?’

  Christabel got up and shambled over to the scullery door. She took a rusty iron key from a hook and handed it to him:

  ‘That’s the main door. Want me to show you the way?’

  ‘I’ll find it. Shan’t be long.’

  When he had gone, she flopped back in her chair and pulled a face at me:

  ‘What’s he after now?’

  ‘Oh, footprints,’ I said airily, ‘tyre marks, Russian cigarette ash, all that kind of thing.’

  ‘Well, he won’t find them. How about trying a few poses, while he’s out amusing himself? You can sit where you are; I don’t need much of a light.’

  She took a drawing-block and some crayons from the kitchen-table drawer and, placing the packet of chewing-gum by her right hand, made a series of rapid strokes and dashes, commanding me to turn my head this way and that, to look up and look down, lean forward and back, and all the while glaring at me like a housewife appraising the cod on a fishmonger’s slab.

  Every two minutes she ripped off the sketch, dropped it on the floor and started a fresh one, at the same time angrily cramming another piece of gum into her mouth.

  ‘I thought the point of that stuff was to chew it for several hours?’ I said.

  ‘Daresay it is, but I hate the taste once the sugary bit’s melted. And stop yattering, there’s a good girl.’

  I obediently summoned all the stillness at my command, giving it out again in great auras of greyish brown, which proved to be rather wearing and did not produce any noticeably inspiring effect on the artist. So I soon gave it up and allowed my thoughts to wander: ‘Why won’t he find them?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s better,’ Christabel said, peering at me intently. ‘Take that prissy look off your face, relax a bit, and we might get somewhere. What did you say?’

  ‘I said: why won’t Robin find any of those things?’

  ‘Simple reason they aren’t there. This chap came on foot, and is a non-smoker, so my voices tell me. Did you know you had one eye smaller than the other?’

  ‘I knew I had one bigger than the other, if that’s what you mean. I’m told it’s fairly common. Did your voices tell you what his name was?’

  ‘Never you mind. I know what you’re up to, my child. Everything I say will be taken down in that little head and passed on to another quarter. Hallo! Is that your beloved returning? I’d better stop this and give you both a drink. Only beer, I’m afraid. You can come and sit for me tomorrow.’

  ‘How’s it going?’ Robin asked, replacing the key on its hook.

  ‘Not bad. I might make a job of it, if Tessa will just sit still and stop looking eager. Otherwise, I know what this portrait is going to be called.’

  ‘What?’ I asked, keeping the eagerness out of it.

  ‘Copper’s Moll,’ Christabel replied.

  (ii)

  ‘Funny coincidence, would you say?’ I asked, as we drove back to The Towers.

  ‘Which?’

  ‘Your being down here to investigate one lot of burglaries and running slap into another?’

  ‘And there the coincidence ends. Whatever tricks your quaint old lady is up to, taking the insurance company for a ride does not appear to be one of them.’

  ‘Do you think it was genuine, or do you go for the repressed spinster bit?’

  ‘I hoped you might have some views on that. Is it in character?’

  ‘No. She may not have married; I really don’t know about that, but I’d say she’s lived one of the most unrepressed lives of any woman I know. Hysterical burglaries are not in her line at all. What would be the purpose, anyway?’

  ‘To draw attention to herself. That’s usually behind it.’

  ‘She doesn’t need to. She gets heaps of attention, as it is. And since she’s falling over backwards to hush it up?’

  ‘Nevertheless, we shouldn’t have known about it if she hadn’t told us.’

  ‘The fact is, Robin, I think she had forgotten you were a policeman. Her mind was full of the subject when we arrived, and she started blabbing on about it, as one would, to the first person who dropped in. It was only when you began nagging her about reporting it that she got so cagey.’

  ‘Yes, that’s my reading, too. We were expected to commiserate, give some meaningless advice and then drop the subject. Whereas . . .’

  ‘It suddenly came to her that she was dealing with the law. So what’s the significance of that?’

  ‘Either she did stage the burglary herself and your analysis is wrong, or else it was genuine and for some reason or other she knows more than she is prepared to tell. I incline to the latter, not only because you’re often right about people, but also because of the evidence I found in the barn.’

  ‘Then you’re one up, because she was certain you wouldn’t find any.’

  ‘There was enough to show that somebody had recently been having a field day in there. Paintings chucked around all over the place; some in frames, some not. Presumably, whoever it was had been searching for something in particular, and in some haste too. It was quite a shambles. On the other hand, there was no dust on the canvases, so the chances are that it happened within the last twenty-four hours.’

  ‘Which doesn’t prove that she wasn’t responsible.’r />
  Robin said slowly: ‘I think it goes some way to proving it. I am not sure what Daniel Mott’s paintings are worth now, in terms of cash, but from what you’ve told me they have a very special value for Christabel. Somehow, I don’t see her tossing them around like so many packets of cereal. Not unless she’s a very much more mixed-up old kid than either of us imagine.’

  ‘Very true. She told me that her main reason for clinging to the cottage was to have somewhere warm and dry to store the old man’s pictures. It’s a puzzle. Can you see how there might be any connection between this and the burglary at Sir Whatsit’s flat?’

  ‘Not a glimmer so far, but I’d love to know a little more about what actually happened last night.’

  ‘Then I shall bend my mind to it. It shouldn’t be too difficult to catch her off guard, as we chat our way through my sittings.’

  ‘I wonder! She’s no fool and she won’t take kindly to cross-examinations, if I’m any judge. So watch your step, Moll, old girl.’

  (iii)

  Elsewhere, Robin’s fairy godmother had gone into action on at least one of his wishes and when we reached The Towers we found my cousin Toby’s old green Mercedes parked in the drive. Harbart was polishing up the windscreen.

  ‘Makes a change?’ I suggested. ‘Has he come to stay, or just for lunch?’

  ‘Couldn’t say. He didn’t bring no luggage, but you can’t never tell with Mr Crichton. It’s as the whim takes him. Could be here for an hour or two, could be for a month.’

  It was a shrewd evaluation, although Toby looked permanent enough, when we tracked him down in Uncle Andrew’s library, the one room in the house which was licensed for smoking. He was lying on a leather sofa, reading a bound volume of Punch for the year 1922.

  ‘Some of these jokes are rather good,’ he informed us. ‘I am jotting down a few for my next script.’

  ‘How is the mood just now?’ I inquired, as we lit up. ‘Are you here for an hour or a month?’

  ‘Everything depends,’ he replied grimly, ‘On Mr and Mrs Spiral Staircase.’

  Since Toby rarely achieved anything but the loosest approximation to people’s names, I did not comment on this one, but asked him how it was that they were in a position to govern his movements.

  ‘He is one of those Hollywood tycoons, as you may have gathered. All very well in his place, but unfortunately he is on a trip with lovely Mrs Staircase to my lovely country and is obsessed with the idea of visiting with me in my lovely home.’

  ‘Very understandable, but will it be quite the same without the lovely host?’

  ‘Yes, of course. He will fancy himself to be in the guest house. That sort of thing is quite commonplace in some parts of California, you know. I stayed with people for weeks on end, without actually coming face to face with them. I have instructed Mrs Parkes to provide them with all they need and to telephone me the minute they show signs of departure. I shall then bowl over and tell them goodbye.’

  ‘You will have to tell the Harper Barringtons Hallo, this evening, however,’ I warned him.

  ‘I’ve heard about that, but hopes are soaring. Mrs Flippety Flop is a stickler for even numbers. When my auntie told her I was here, she said she would ring round and try to get an extra woman. I wouldn’t imagine our extra women having sunk so low as to be available at this stage, would you?’

  ‘I don’t know her,’ I said, ‘or how many extra women she has at her beck and call, but I gather that much will depend on how famous she thinks you are. Next to even numbers, she dearly loves a celebrity.’

  ‘I will gladly step down and let you go in my place,’ Robin said. ‘The more I hear of this creature, the more reluctant I am to eat her salt.’

  ‘Nothing doing,’ I told him. ‘You are here to mix with the local art-loving gentry, and my spies tell me that the Harper Barringtons are at the hub of it.’

  Toby dragged his eyes away from the cartoons of tweenies and flappers and regarded us both with a gleam of interest.

  ‘What are you after?’ he inquired. ‘If I may be so quizzical? Some undiscovered Van Meegerens?’

  ‘No, something much more villainous than that,’ I said proudly. ‘Robin has –’

  ‘Don’t be so daft,’ he interrupted. ‘I don’t know if you’re aware of it, Toby, but things go from bad to worse in our household. If Tessa had her way, we’d have dramas for breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner. I can’t even spend a harmless weekend in the country, without the James Bond element creeping in.’

  I could have provided him with a little between-meals drama on the spot, by rounding on him for his perfidy, but the quiet grey mood still predominated and I confined myself to the merest trace of a Mona Lisa smirk, which properly took the wind out of his sails and doubtless did more to arouse Toby’s curiosity than the flaming outburst they may both have expected.

  I administered a ladylike reproof, however, when Robin and I were alone, pointing out that on several occasions Toby’s co-operation had proved invaluable and that he had once so far outstepped the bounds of discretion as to save my life.

  ‘Oh, I know, and I apologise; at least, I suppose I do, but you should try to understand that this is something quite different. It’s not a case at all, in the accepted sense. I’m simply hoping to pick up any scraps that come my way, and the only chance of getting anywhere in that game is to melt into the background. If it got about that I’m here in any sort of official capacity, I might just as well pack my bags and leave for all the good I’ll do.’

  ‘Well, Toby wouldn’t give you away,’ I said. ‘At least, he wouldn’t if you took him into your confidence. But you know how perverse he is, and if you pretend you’re simply here to do some nice golfing he’s quite capable of spreading it around that you’re tracking a gang of crooks with headquarters in Mrs Harper Barrington’s parlour.’

  ‘He could be right, too. It would be an unlucky fluke?’

  ‘Why? You don’t mean you’ve found a link already?’

  ‘No such luck, but there are rumours of mysteries surrounding these Harper Barringtons. For one thing, they appear to have sprung to fame and fortune practically overnight, which always raises a few queries.’

  ‘Why should it, though?’

  ‘Oh, I realise it happens every day in your profession, but why should a middle-aged man, who’s been jogging along in the City for twenty years, suddenly branch out with a villa in the South of France, a couple of racehorses and all the other status symbols, not to mention a collection of valuable paintings?’

  ‘Yes, it’s interesting, I agree, but I imagine it does happen in the City, too. One super, smashing take-over and you’re up there, in the Monets.’

  ‘You may be right. Is that what you’ll invest in, when you make your pile, Tessa?’

  ‘Sure! Until that happy day, though, I intend to be an inspiration to the living artists.’

  ‘Like Christabel?’

  ‘She’ll do for a start.’

  ‘Well, I hope the next genius you inspire will see you in a slightly less insipid guise,’ Robin remarked. ‘I think one might soon tire of that governessy look we’ve been getting so much of, these past two days.’

  Four

  (i)

  In staking his all on the integrity of extra women, Toby had underestimated the lengths to which Mrs Harper Barrington was prepared to go in her quest for even numbers. At ten minutes past five, when he was proclaiming himself to be out of the wood and revelling in anticipation of the fireside supper Dolly would serve to him, our hostess telephoned to say that, all her efforts to find him a partner having failed, she had arranged for her own daughter to join the party.

  ‘What an extraordinary woman!’ he remarked, sounding as much intrigued as cast down by this blow. ‘Imagine hitting on such an obvious solution only at this stage! I wonder where her daughter usually has dinner? Really, I begin to feel quite titivated.’

  ‘I feel the reverse,’ Robin said.

  Personally, I was indifferent.
Safe in the grey-brown cocoon, I was able to view the foibles of mankind with a tolerant smile. Luckily, I had packed a moth-coloured chiffon evening dress, among several others, and, obeying instructions, followed Aunt Moo into the Princess at seven-thirty sharp, my hair pulled into the Madonna style, a dash of the enigmatic effect with the mascara, and a sweet smile playing round my unrouged lips.

  None of this got me off to a very promising start with Aunt Moo, who not only pronounced the result to be rather dahdy, but asked me twice on the journey whether the puppy had got my tongue. Not content with this, she sailed into The Maltings, introducing me to one and all as her niece, who did cinema work.

  ‘You must feel ever so weird without your tray of ice lollies,’ Toby suggested, as he joined me by the fireplace, he and Robin having arrived hot on our heels.

  ‘Just look at this lot,’ I said, turning my back on the room and giving my attention to a massive display of invitation cards. There were at least twenty, several gilt-edged, too, although I noticed that the summons to a Harvest Supper and the British Legion Coffee Party had been shuffled in at the back for padding, whereas the Ambassador’s Reception, well to the fore, was a week out of date.

  Our hostess came up to say a few words of welcome and offer us both a vodkatini. She was a compact, dark woman, with hair swept round into a chignon behind her left ear, and bold eyes and hungry teeth. Altogether rather formidable, and we pretended to have been inspecting a framed snapshot, which also played its modest part as a card propper. It depicted two children, a pretty boy of about ten, holding a cricket bat, and a girl, slightly older, with spindly legs and a heavy fringe.

  ‘Perhaps you’d prefer gin and tonic, then? I’ll get Roger to see to it. Oh yes, my two offspring! Jeremy’s away at the moment; staying with some frantically rich chum whose father owns about half Northumberland. There’ll be no holding him, my dear, when he gets back. Anabel’s here, though. You’ll meet her tonight.’