Was he really any further on? Take it that Beatrice had witnessed a pretty hot petting party — even, improbably, the full treatment. Why hadn’t she burst out of the puppet theatre, a dea ex machina, denouncing Ann Cartmell and threatening to go straight to Helen Renshaw or Sir Piers Tracey? Or had she…? No, he was prepared to stake his reputation on Ann Cartmell’s innate inability to have concealed an incident like that, still less to have been an accomplice in the murder. Well then, did Beatrice emerge as soon as they had both left the studio, to be found there by Clive Torrance returning almost at once to fetch his copy of Artifex? Did she proceed to abuse and threaten him?
Pollard sat staring out into the darkness. Quite apart from the entrance improbability of Torrance replying to such threats by an instant, brutal, and desperately dangerous murder, there was something which didn’t ring true in this reconstruction… Surely Ann Cartmell was the person Beatrice had wanted to injure. Torrance would merely have been an incidental means to an end. If she had held her fire in order to deliver it more effectively later, she wouldn’t have wasted it on Torrance in Ann’s absence. He would have attributed her sudden appearance in the room to the fire-escape, and she would merely have given him a chilly good evening.
There were really three issues, he thought. In the first place, was it a physical possibility for Torrance to have committed the murder, concealed the body, and rejoined Ann Cartmell in the time available? This was a matter which could be established to some extent by a reconstruction after expert questioning of the secretary. He’d have to do the latter himself: for once the adaptable Toye had failed to establish sympathetic contact. Secondly, had Torrance any motive for the murder, which was clearly unpremeditated and apparently quite fortuitous? It seemed impossible that he could have known that Beatrice was there, and would never have encountered her if the magazine had not been left behind. Pollard wondered what, if anything, Chief-Superintendent Crowe’s excavations into middle-class pasts had yielded … he’d better go back to London the next day and make a report to him… If Torrance killed her, there must have been a link between them. Even if the murder could have been carried out in the few minutes available, there quite definitely hadn’t been time for a major row to build up from scratch…
Thirdly, if Torrance was not the murderer, who could have killed Beatrice, either before his arrival at 7.59 p.m., or in the bare ten minutes when the studio was empty while Ann Cartmell was seeing him off? Had it, after all, been an outside job?
If it had been, he reflected, the earlier period was the more likely one. Surely no sneak-thief — or even a homicidal maniac — would have ventured into School Wing just when the kitchen helpers were dispersing, and people were almost certainly wandering about the buildings and grounds? Suppose somebody had been loitering with intent, saw Beatrice Baynes leave Applebys soon after seven-thirty, and followed her to the studio. Money or jewellery might have been demanded. She certainly wouldn’t have given in meekly — more likely to have tried to raise the alarm… All this was farfetched, of course, but no more so than attributing an apparently motiveless murder to a man like Clive Torrance who was so concerned with his public image. Pollard decided that he must have another talk with Superintendent Martin and Beakbane about dubious local characters and strangers in the neighbourhood. He’d have to be tactful: they’d already carried out a pretty exhaustive enquiry.
The distant chiming of a clock made him look at the luminous dial of his watch. It was a quarter-past eleven, and there was a chilliness and a smell of sea mist in the air. Aeons of time stretched between this moment and Jane in a gay house-coat pouring out his breakfast coffee soon after six o’clock… Pollard stretched his cramped limbs and realised how tired he was. Switching on the engine he began cautiously to back the car out into the lane.
Sixteen
‘The post is non-resident, and carries no supervisory or weekend duties out of normal hours.’
Headmistress’s Letter of Appointment to Ann Cartmell
At breakfast on the following morning Pollard gathered that Toye had, as usual, taken his relaxation in a cinema.
‘I dropped off for most of the first film,’ he said. ‘Legs and bosoms and beds. But afterwards there was a rattling good Western. Death Rides In Stranglers’ Creek, it was called. Took my mind right off the case.’
‘I bet it soon went back to it when you came out,’ said Pollard, attacking a generous plateful of sausages, bacon and tomato.
Toye admitted having settled down in his bedroom to chew over the time-table once again.
‘I wondered if we were cutting out losses a bit too heavily, sir,’ he said. ‘It seems to me there’s a gap in Miss Thornton’s alibi, and Miss Cartmell’s too, for that matter.’
He proceeded to point out that there was a gap of twenty-five minutes between the departure of the guests from Applebys and the beginning of Festival supper.
‘Say deceased went straight over to the studio,’ he said, ‘and got there at seven-fifteen or even seven-twenty. We know those two were at the supper, but not when they arrived back at the School from dolling themselves up at the Staff House.’
‘That’s perfectly true,’ Pollard replied. ‘It’s a point we’ve missed, and ought to be checked up, even if it’s almost impossible to believe either of them could have bashed her head in, and then come down and eaten a meal in an apparently normal way… It’s funny how often we start thinking along the same lines, quite independently. This time it’s what might have happened in the studio before Torrance turned up. Listen to what I was working out in a hayfield behind Whitesands, while you were gripping the arms of your seat at the movies…’
Omitting his moment of illumination in the telephone kiosk, Pollard outlined his theory that Beatrice Baynes had gone over to the studio soon after the beginning of Festival supper, concealed herself in the puppet theatre and been present throughout the Cartmell-Torrance session. Toye listened intently, his eyes alert behind his owl-like rims.
‘You’ve got it, I think, sir.’
‘It’s all right as far as it goes,’ agreed Pollard, ‘but unfortunately that’s only a very short distance unless we can establish the physical possibility of Torrance’s having committed the murder. In my opinion that’s closely bound up with the question of some previous connection between him and Beatrice Bayes: there simply wasn’t time for a murderous row starting from scratch. I’m hoping the Yard may have got on to something, which may suggest a credible motive at the same time… Perhaps there’s a history of insanity in the Torrance family… You notice, by the way, that I’m absolutely ruling out collusion between Torrance and Cartmell… Let’s try and get hold of that woman and have some more coffee…’
‘I suppose,’ Toye said thoughtfully, when the waitress had departed, ‘that assuming this small point about Cartmell and Thornton before supper clears itself up, the only alternative to Torrance is somebody we haven’t got on to at all so far. Can we take it that absolutely everyone who ought to have been at the meal, either eating or helping, was actually there the whole time?’
‘We’d better check on that too. That Western you saw seems to have made you tick, doesn’t it? The bare fact is that we can’t afford to neglect the smallest pointer. Let’s face it. As far as it’s humanly possible to see, Madge Thornton, George Baynes, Bert Heyward, and even that old turkey-cock Jock Eccles are out of it. Miss Renshaw was surrounded by Old Meldonians from suppertime onwards, to after ten o’clock, poor woman. I suppose we could tactfully vet her alibi, too, in the period before supper, but it’s a pretty fantastic idea. We’re left with the highly improbable Clive Torrance and A.N. Other. The sensible thing is obviously to persuade the Super to have another go at strangers in the neighbourhood and any dark horses leading outwardly respectable lives, while we go all out on Torrance.’ Pollard broke off as a fresh supply of coffee was brought, and peered dubiously into the pot. ‘Hot water on old grounds,’ he remarked. ‘Reverting to Torrance, it’s occurred to me that it migh
t be worth looking up Mr and Mrs Gavin Scorhill at Stannaford Magna, where he says he spent the rest of the weekend.’
‘About twenty miles west of Trill, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. My idea is that you drop me at Meldon and drive over there. Time the run carefully, both ways. If Torrance took an abnormally long time, it might be suggestive. If by any chance he did commit the murder, he’d have need of a breathing-space to pull himself together and think how best to cover his tracks. Find out what you can when you get there, as accurately as possible. Then see what sort of people the Scorhills are, and how they react to your enquiries. Another thing that might be worth knowing is when the visit was fixed up… To be honest, I can’t quite see how this is going to help until we’ve reconstructed Torrance’s movements when he went back for the magazine, but I’ve got a hunch that it’s better not to attempt that until I’ve seen what the Chief’s unearthed — if anything.’
‘In case it leaks out, and puts Torrance on his guard?’
‘Yes. We can’t do it without attracting a certain amount of attention, and it might easily get round to Ann Cartmell, and you can imagine how she’d react. Let’s go, shall we? There’s a chap reading The Daily Blare with a WHEN WILL PUPPET THEATRE CURTAIN RISE headline … he’s behind you, and keeps giving us looks of contempt.’
Superintendent Martin and Inspector Beakbane agreed that there was a strong case for Beatrice Baynes having gone over to the studio before the arrival of Clive Torrance, to snoop on his meeting with Ann Cartmell, and that the murder could, in theory, have been an outside job. They pointed out, however, that exhaustive house-to-house enquiries about strangers had already been made. After all, Linbridge had soon run George Baynes to earth…
Pollard hastened to agree, and was complimentary.
‘I wasn’t altogether thinking of strangers, though,’ he went on. ‘You must have got a few shady characters in the Meldon area, or even people who’ve recently come to live there, whom you don’t know much about. One of them might even be a discharged mental patient… No one was about when we think Miss Baynes went over to the studio. She could have been followed, and perhaps threatened, or an attempt made to grab her jewellery. She was wearing some pretty natty rings… She was a truculent old body, and certainly wouldn’t have caved in easily.’
‘According to Mr Yelland who has checked with the insurance policies, all deceased’s jewellery is accounted for,’ said Superintendent Martin, seizing on the one indisputable fact in this sea of conjecture. ‘Still,’ he admitted rather grudgingly, ‘something of this sort could’ve happened. I’ll give you that. We’ll check the old lags again, and Beakbane, you might have a word with Freeth about newcomers over there. But I wouldn’t expect anything from it, if I were you, Inspector.’
From the Linbridge police station Pollard and Toye drove to the Staff House. Mrs Milman, who answered the door, told them that she had been over at School from six-thirty onwards last Saturday evening, helping Miss Forrest, and had no idea about anybody’s coming and going. Miss Craythorne was still here, and she might possibly know…
They waited in the depressing atmosphere of a dismantled common-room draped in dust-sheets, until Miss Craythorne appeared. In her middle forties, surmised Pollard. She was wearing a grey suit and black hat, and explained that she was going with Miss Renshaw to the funeral. With the feeling that his introductory remarks about routine enquiries were unlikely to be taken at their face value, he raised the question of the departures for Festival supper.
‘I think I can tell you all you want to know there,’ Miss Craythorne replied. ‘I took Miss Thornton over in my car. We left here just on a quarter-past seven, parked, and went straight into the dining-room. I remember glancing up at the clock and seeing that it was a minute or so after twenty past. The room was pretty full, and I got caught up at once, but I saw Miss Cartmell there. She left here a few minutes before I did. I know the sound of her car starting up.’
Pollard asked if anyone had been late for the meal.
‘Oh dear, no,’ replied Miss Craythorne. ‘Miss Renshaw isn’t a martinet, by any means, but punctuality is one of her “things”: it’s well known. She had already arrived when I got there, and was beginning to edge the High Table party towards their places.’
He thanked her, and made a conventionally sympathetic remark.
‘Time seems to have ceased to mean anything,’ she said. ‘It feels like a hundred years since last Monday. Miss Renshaw feels she can’t possibly go away until this awful business has been cleared up — or put into permanent cold storage, I suppose.’
‘I hope not,’ said Pollard. ‘Cold storage, I mean. It’s a far from straightforward case, but I assure you that quite a lot of ground has been covered already.’
‘What is going to happen about that unfortunate child Ann Cartmell’s trip to America?’ she asked as she escorted them to the front-door. ‘There’s a sob-stuff paragraph about it in The Daily Blare this morning.’
‘I shall be discussing it again with my superiors at Scotland Yard later today,’ he told her. ‘There’s just one more small point I’d like to check with you. About what time did you drive past Applebys on your way home last Saturday night?’
Miss Craythorne wrinkled her brow.
‘I came away from Miss Renshaw’s flat soon after nine,’ she said, ‘and did one or two tidying-up jobs in the Staff Room. I suppose I left the car park about a quarter-past or a bit later. Say twenty to twenty-five past… This is all very mysterious…’
‘Just check and counter-check,’ he told her.
‘Blast the Press,’ he remarked to Toye as they drove off. ‘I bet Torrance put The Daily Blare up to it. Not even murder’s going to interfere with his plans for his protégée… Looks as though your bright idea about the pre-supper period’s a wash-out, I’m afraid.’
According to the arrangements made over breakfast, Pollard was dropped at Meldon and Toye set off on his mission to Stannaford Magna. After a careful study of a road map, he had decided to make a detour and use main roads rather than to cut across country through a maze of lanes. Even if Torrance were a frequent visitor to Flete House, he would normally go straight there from London on the more direct route. He seemed to have been a scorcher, according to Jock Eccles. Toye had no intention of hazarding the police car, and decided on a cruising speed of fifty, allowing for faster driving by Torrance.
There was a fair amount of traffic, but he made good going, and ran into Stannaford Magna in exactly twenty-six minutes from leaving Meldon. An enquiry at the post-office sent him on through the village to the drive gates on its outskirts. He turned in through a well-tended and prolific garden, and a few moments later drew up on a gravel sweep outside the house itself.
Flete House was what estate agents describe as a period-style, architect-designed luxury residence, with every adjunct for gracious living. Toye sat for a moment taking in the expensive garden furniture on the terrace, and the big french doors which stood open, revealing a handsome room within. Then he got out of the car and rang the front door bell. After a fairly lengthy interval he heard footsteps, and the door was opened by an obviously foreign girl of South European appearance. An au pair, he thought… Italian or Spanish. In reply to his request for Mr Scorhill she told him that he had gone to London. Mrs Scorhill? Yes, she was in ze ’ouse. On hearing that Toye represented the police she clasped a hand to her mouth and fled with a stifled cry.
‘Meeses Scorreal! Meeses Scorreal!’ he heard her call, and waited in some amusement. Finally a door at the back of the hall opened and a woman came towards him.
‘Do come in — er —?’
‘Detective-Sergeant Toye of New Scotland Yard, madam.’
She stopped abruptly, opening her grey eyes widely under their immensely long and patently artificial black lashes. About forty, he thought … mutton dressed as lamb. Mrs Scorhill was beautifully made up and her vivid red hair youthfully dressed. She wore a yellow little-girl shift frock and elegant
pin-heel sandals.
‘Sergeant,’ she gasped, clasping her hands. ‘Not my husband? Not an accident?’
He recognised a probably unconscious act, and took his cue quickly.
‘Oh no, madam. I am very sorry indeed if I startled you. I have simply come to make a few routine enquiries if you can spare a few minutes, as I understand that Mr Scorhill is not available.’
She relaxed with a faint smile.
‘Dear me, you must think me very foolish, Sergeant, but really with these terrible road casualties… Do please come into the lounge.’
He followed her into the enormous room with the french doors and reflected that unlike the late Miss Baynes, the Scorhills splashed their lolly around. He had never seen a larger television set or a more comprehensive bar in a private house. The chairs and settees were luxuriously upholstered. There was a great heap of glossies on a side table, but not a book to be seen, he noticed, and nothing you’d really call a picture… Mrs Scorhill indicated a sumptuous armchair in front of the open windows, and sank into its twin and gazed at him.
‘My husband commutes to his London office every day,’ she said. ‘It’s a dreadful anxiety for me, and tiring for him, too, but we both felt it was worth it, just to breathe air that really is air, if you understand me, Sergeant. Do you live in London? Ah, well, you will understand… The stifling petrol fumes and the terrible noise…’
A silly gusher, thought Toye with satisfaction. He assured Mrs Scorhill that he understood perfectly. It was always a let-up to work on a case out of London… Yes, he was carrying on the routine enquiries in the Baynes case, and was very sorry to trouble her, but under regulations the movements of everyone who had been on the scene of the crime had to be checked. Mr Clive Torrance had therefore been obliged to give Mr Scorhill’s name and address, as he had spent the weekend at Flete House.
Death of an Old Girl Page 18