Cyanide With Compliments

by Elizabeth Lemarchand

  ‘It was when we were on Delos,’ he said, ‘waiting in the Slave Market. The harbour’s awfully shallow, and everyone had to be brought ashore in small boats. It took quite a long time, and people were sitting around waiting for the last boat-loads, so that the talk we were going to have could start.’

  ‘Yes,’ Drusilla took up, ‘there was quite a crowd there by the time we came along. It’s no good wrapping things up, so I’ll say right away that one of the worst things about being with Aunt Audrey was the way she tried to cotton on to people. It made you hot under the collar. As soon as we got to the Slave Market she spotted the Bayleys, and made a beeline for them. We tagged along after her, trying to look as though we didn’t belong.’

  ‘Had Mrs Vickers already mentioned the picture to you?’ Pollard asked.

  ‘Oh, Lord, yes,’ Keith replied. ‘For some reason she suddenly thought about it the night before, and had kept on and on about it until we were browned off.’

  ‘Aunt Audrey started off with the Bayleys with her interest-in-art line,’ Drusilla continued. ‘Then she said she’d one of Mr Bayley’s pictures, and how delighted she was to meet him. They both stared at her, and he said she was quite mistaken, and he’d never painted anything in his life. She just wouldn’t believe him, and went all arch and girlish, although anyone could see they were getting really annoyed. In the end he bit her head off, but she crowed triumphantly, and said she’d got his address in London, and would be turning up to see his studio, and perhaps buy another picture.’

  ‘What did Mr Bayley say to that?’ Pollard asked.

  ‘He didn’t,’ Keith contributed. ‘He was puce with rage by this time, and his wife cut in before he hit the roof. She took the freezing line, and said she didn’t receive uninvited guests. Then they got up and walked off. I saw them make meaning faces at Mrs Strode, and she reciprocated.’

  ‘It was things like this which simply got us on the raw,’ Drusilla said. ‘Oh, yes, I know Aunt Audrey was a psychological mess, and probably couldn’t help it, but honestly, it was the end.’

  ‘I can understand how you felt,’ Pollard remarked, his mind more than half occupied with the Bayleys’ determination to prevent a visit from Audrey Vickers. Was it quite understandable, or could it have a deeper significance? It was difficult to see what this could be. How might a call at the Trafalgar Terrace house help her to discover about the arson?

  ‘Have we been any help?’ he heard Keith ask.

  ‘You’ve given me something to worry at,’ he replied.

  ‘I suppose nothing can be done about Aunt Audrey’s affairs until it’s found out who sent her the chocolates?’ Drusilla said suddenly. ‘After Mr Partridge said she’d told him to make her a new will cutting me right out I felt I didn’t want her money, but he says he’s sure she didn’t really mean to sign it in the end, but was just blowing her top. So Keith and I think it’s all right. We shall give a lot to her favourite charities, anyway.’

  Pollard mentally awarded an accolade to Mr Partridge for adroitness.

  ‘Of course we shan’t go all lush or anything,’ Keith said seriously. ‘I shall go on writing, and Drusilla’s going to get a research job. We think we’d like to go back to Oxford. We’ll have decent holidays, though. Not the Costa Brava sort, naturally.’

  ‘Holidays on our own,’ Drusilla said dreamily. ‘You know, I shall always think Aunt Audrey must have had a brainstorm or something on the Acropolis that morning. It was after that that things really went wrong.’

  ‘Well,’ Pollard said, ‘Sergeant Toye and I must make for the station. Is there any means of ringing for a taxi?’

  ‘Good Lord, we’ll run you down,’ Keith said, leaping to his feet. ‘The Mini’s on the way out, but she’s all right for short distances.’

  Pollard thanked him, avoiding Toye’s eye as he did so.

  They crammed into the battered little car, Pollard in front because of his long legs, and Toye and Drusilla behind. Keith drove on his brakes, and Pollard had rewarding glimpses of Toye’s expression in the driving mirror.

  On their arrival they stood chatting for a few moments outside the station entrance before saying goodbye. After they had parted Pollard glanced back to see the pair making for the Mini, absorbed in each other and in conversation.

  ‘Look at ’em,’ he said. ‘How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings.’

  ‘That’s right,’ agreed Toye, who had belonged to a choral society in his more leisured youth.

  12

  Saturday morning brought no news of the whereabouts of James Bayley. Pollard thankfully seized the opportunity of reappraising the rapid developments of the past few days. In spite of the progress made he felt very far from confident of the outcome and had to curb his irritation at what he felt to be unwarranted optimism on the part of Toye and Longman.

  ‘Now then,’ he said, ‘before we get on to what you’ve dug up in Camden Town, Longman, I want to try to sum up what’s come out of these trips to Highcastle and Fulminster. Not much in my opinion. Isolated bits of information may be valuable in themselves, but unless you can fit them into the pattern of the case as a whole they’re not much help at this stage. Take Highcastle first. It’s useful that the hotel receptionist at Roccombe could almost certainly identify James Bayley, but the chap’s got to be found and brought back here first. All his comings and goings down there, and the fire-raising dodges he used are primarily the arson case’s pigeon, not ours. On to Fulminster, then. At first sight what we got from the Langs looks pretty good, and I admit that they’re convincing as witnesses. But all that’s really happened is that we’ve exchanged one problem for another. Up to now we’ve been worrying away at how Audrey Vickers managed to find out about the arson conspiracy. Now it looks as though she hadn’t found out at the time of the conversation with the Bayleys about the water-colour, but that she was bound to if she carried out her threat of visiting them at Trafalgar Terrace. She seems to have signed her own death warrant by letting on that she’d got the address. What the hell does one make of that?’

  There was a lengthy silence. Finally Toye muttered something about blackmail.

  ‘If you mean saying she’d call was a threat to blackmail them, it implies that she’d already got on to the arson,’ Pollard replied, ‘which I’m now inclined to doubt. Besides, would she set about blackmail in that flamboyant sort of way, more or less announcing her intentions in a public gathering? I suppose she might. The woman was an extrovert, and her mental balance on a knife-edge from all accounts. However, all this had better go into cold storage for the moment. Let’s hear what you’ve managed to unearth, Longman, while Toye and I have been on the road.’

  Detective-Sergeant Longman, a Londoner born and bred, had a flair for nosing out information about such of his fellow-citizens as the police were interested in. With the help of the men of the district station he had covered a good deal of ground during the past day and a half.

  The Bayleys did not appear to be in financial difficulties, but clearly lived it up and got through a good bit of money. They had spent a packet in modernizing and doing up the house, and moved in a well-to-do circle of friends. Harrison and Wynne were doing well, and there were rumours of plans to extend operations. John Bayley had an interest in the firm as well as being its managing director, and it would obviously be an opportune moment for him to put some more money into it. As an employer he was considered fair without being liked. A man had described him to Longman over a drink in a pub as a bloke who did the right thing by you because it paid in the long run. Mrs Bayley was thought to pull down quite a packet through her modelling. Longman had been unable to pick up anything about James Bayley beyond the fact of his existence and occasional appearances at the house.

  ‘I had my first break over him, sir,’ Longman went on. ‘There’s one house in Trafalgar Terrace being converted now, with workmen still in. It’s Number Twenty, quite near the Bayleys’ place. I dressed down for the part,
and went lounging along and got chatting with an old codger whose job seemed to be propping up ladders. Not having much to occupy his mind, he’d got to know the comings and goings of the people round about, so I worked him round to the Bayleys. That led him on nicely to where the money was, and he volunteered the statement that he’d seen them going off for a holiday about a month back, piling the luggage into their swell car. I said something about break-ins, and it being risky leaving your house with nobody in it these days, and he said they must’ve got a friend to live there part of the time, as he’d seen a chap coming in and out, using a latchkey as if he owned the place. I cottoned on to this, and tried the old boy out by suggesting the husband had come back first, but he was quite ratty, saying his chap was different, and wore hornrims. He said he dressed casual, not the city gent, like the bloke the house belonged to.’

  ‘A bit indefinite, but it might come in useful. Did you manage to get anything in the way of dates?’ Pollard asked.

  ‘The old boy said that this chap must have gone off a day or two before the owners came home, as he didn’t see him around anymore. I didn’t like to seem too interested.’

  ‘Quite right. What about the factory set-up?’

  Longman said that one of the constables from the local station had given him some useful information here, as his beat covered the factory although he’d never been inside the place. Harrison and Wynne had a night-watchman, two, in fact, both pensioners. One was on duty on Saturday to Tuesday nights inclusive, and the other did the remaining three nights of the week. They changed over every fourth week.

  ‘The constable found out for me that Horace Bidlake, who was on for the nights of 30 April and 1 May, will be there this weekend, if you should feel like going along, sir,’ Longman concluded.

  ‘If John Bayley collected some cyanide during normal working hours,’ Pollard said reflectively, ‘I don’t think we’ll ever be able to prove it. He’d know the safe moment to choose. But if we could find out that he’d been along to the factory when the place was closed down for the night, that’s a possible bit of circumstantial evidence. What yarn could we pitch to the nightwatchman?’

  This matter was discussed at some length, Toye insisting that enquiries into motor accidents had worn thin by now. Longman suggested a police enquiry into a new break-in dodge: chaps with faked credentials from the gas board, for instance, saying there was trouble in the next street, and there must be an airlock or something on Harrison and Wynne’s premises.

  ‘That sounds OK,’ Pollard said. ‘What time had we better make it?’

  This being settled, he commended Longman for having done a good job, and sent him off with Toye for an afternoon’s break.

  He had intended to take one himself, but after they had gone he did not leave immediately. He sat on at his desk, once again reviewing the events of the past week, each one a stage in the evolution of a case which had looked so straightforward at first, and subsequently shown a propensity to the most unforeseen developments. Now it had really boiled down to two basic questions: where was James Bayley, and why did Audrey Vickers’ threat to call on the Bayleys make her so potentially dangerous to them that they decided to murder her?

  It’s up to Interpol to get James traced, Pollard thought, but the second problem’s mine, and I’m stuck, let’s face it. An unnerving idea flashed into his mind, an echo from a far-off science lesson in his schooldays. If you ask the wrong question, the master had said, don’t expect to get the right answer. Was it possible that somehow he, Pollard, was asking the wrong question about Audrey Vickers getting on to the arson which had ended so disastrously in the dropout’s murder?

  Suddenly conscious of the mental blank of tiredness, he got abruptly to his feet as the first stage of going home.

  Jane had kept his lunch hot in the oven, and while the twins had their afternoon sleep he sat with her in the garden, talking a little at first, and then dropping off to sleep over the newspaper. Later he woke much refreshed, and mowed the lawn, watched by Andrew and Rose from the security of a playpen. When the mowing was finished they were released, and Rose walked unsupported, if unsteadily, from one parent to another. This achievement was studiously ignored by her brother, who employed himself in crawling at lightning speed towards the rubbish heap, from which Pollard kept patiently retrieving him.

  ‘I’d better get tea,’ Jane said after a time. ‘If we put him back in the playpen he’ll only roar and shake the bars, and old Mrs Lee next door will look pointedly over the wall. Bringing up children positively bristles with difficulties, doesn’t it? So does keeping a CID husband adequately fed, incidentally. If you’re leaving for the Yard at eight, we’d better have a meal of sorts at half-past seven.’

  ‘Mr Bidlake?’ Pollard asked the elderly unshaven face peering at him through the grille in Messrs Harrison and Wynne’s locked gates. ‘We’re CID officers. I can’t pass you my card through that contraption, but you can ring the local station before you open up, if you like. I’m Detective-Superintendent Pollard of New Scotland Yard.’

  Mr Bidlake was sharp-featured, with a knowing eye which he brought to bear on Pollard. The result of the inspection was apparently satisfactory, as he proceeded to unlock the wicket and let the three Yard men in.

  ‘’Orace Bidlake’s the name,’ he said, holding the proffered card at a distance and purporting to read it. ‘Wot’s the big idea, guv? Brought along ’alf the blinkin’ Yard, aincher?’

  ‘The wide boys are trying out a new dodge in North London,’ Pollard told him. ‘Knock up a night-watchman like yourself, hand in a fake card from the electricity board or the water board, and say the trouble in the next street has been traced to the factory, and can they take a look? You let ’em in, and while you’re all going to take a look, you never know what hit you. Next morning a lorry goes out all bright and early and loaded up. Get the idea?’

  ‘There ain’t bin none ’o that rahnd ’ere,’ Mr Bidlake told him. ‘Two years, we’ve ’ad, without a break-in.’

  ‘You’ve been lucky. It’s a big place for one man to cover,’ Pollard remarked, looking about him.

  The gambit worked instantly. Horace Bidlake carefully relocked and bolted the wicket gate, and led off the party on an escorted tour of the premises, giving a running commentary on the area he was expected to cover, and the conscientiousness with which he carried out his rounds.

  As far as Pollard could see, the factory buildings were a hollow square, the central space including a loading bay for lorries. It looked as though anyone with the necessary keys could pass freely from one section to another, under cover all the time.

  By prearrangement with Toye and Longman conversation was kept going briskly. Towards the end of the tour Pollard asked casually if night shifts were worked. ‘I should think you’d be glad of a bit of company,’ he said. ‘It must be a dreary business with no one to speak to all night.’

  No, they’d never worked night shifts in his time, the old man told him, although he’d heard they did in the war, when they were on Government contracts. It was a lonely sort of job, all right, but you got used to it, like everything else. It wasn’t above three or four times a year you were knocked up, usually by one of the staff who’d left something behind. Not that he minded if they did: it was a break, and a chance to pass the time of night.

  ‘Glad we’ve been along to buck you up tonight,’ Pollard said. ‘How long is it since anybody else did, I wonder?’

  ‘Matterer las’ Monday week, as it ’appens,’ Horace Bidlake told him. ‘I reckins I’ve ’ad me quoter fer the nex’ ’arf-year. Boss came in, rahnd eleven, ’twas. Said ’e’d bin called back urgent from ’is ’oliday, an’ wanted some pipers from ’is desk in ’is orfice.’

  At this point they had arrived back at the small room near the gates which the nightwatchman used as a base. It was provided with an electric kettle, and this was flanked by a bottle of milk and a collection of tins.

  ‘Did you offer the boss a cuppa?’ Longman
enquired.

  Horace Bidlake cackled. ‘’Is Nibs? Not bloody likely. Too ’igh an’ mighty, ’im. Anyways, I was at the dratted telephone mos’ o’ the time ’e was in.’

  ‘Your missis, I bet,’ Longman remarked. ‘Wanting to find out if you’d brought along a nice young bird with you.’

  This pleasantry evoked an even louder cackle. No, it wasn’t the missis, the old man replied, seeing that he’d buried her three years back. Some ruddy foreign chap about an order. He’d had to write down no end of stuff, which didn’t come easy, seeing he’d left school at fourteen, before the Kaiser’s war. Then after all it turned out they’d rung the wrong number. He’d told the chap what he thought. Why, even the boss standing there waiting to be locked up after had a good laugh for once.

  Suitable comments were made, and Pollard offered advice on dealing with callers armed with bogus credentials and probably guns as well before the Yard party withdrew in good order.

  ‘All circumstantial,’ Pollard said when they got outside, ‘but it could be damn useful to the prosecution if the case ever gets to court. Nice touch about the phone call being made by a foreigner.’

  ‘Good way of disguising your voice,’ Toye agreed, ‘Mrs Bayley’s got a deepish one, when you come to think of it.’

  As they drove home Pollard roused himself to congratulate Longman once again. ‘You’ve done a first-rate job round here,’ he said.

  The evening was close, and he found the traffic jams of Saturday night almost unbearable. Stop … screech of brakes all round … petrol fumes… Go … roar of engines and horn blasts from the frenziedly impatient. Dismissing the thought of wrong questions from his mind, he fell to speculating about the ultimate outcome of the unrestricted growth of motor traffic in a small over-populated island.

  Two hundred miles away the village of Affacombe was experiencing its own Saturday night traffic problem, and Olivia Strode was thinking along lines very similar to Detective-Superintendent Pollard in North London. The village was an exceptionally attractive one, and its pub, the Priory Arms, known for its friendliness and beer. With the increase of car ownership in the neighbourhood it was drawing patrons from an ever-widening area, especially on Saturday evenings, when the narrow village street became choked with cars, and echoed to the noise of manoeuvring in low gear and slamming doors. The natives complained bitterly about being kept out of their own pub and the disruption of their peace and quiet, while Ted Gummings, the landlord, asked if he was expected to turn away good money for other people’s convenience.