By this time he had reached his front gate he had brightened. At least there was one certainty. The wife had promised him Sole Bay crab and cockles for his supper, his favourite. For a few hours the case could go hang.
It had been a happy suspension. But the following morning he was back in the office again compiling an interim report for the superintendent; an irksome chore at the best of times and this was not the best.
Jennings entered with a mug of cocoa. ‘I have been thinking, sir,’ he said.
‘Good.’
‘You know that Casino building where de Lisle was killed. Well they say it’s like the station clock at Waterloo – it’s a popular local meeting place. I bet the deceased had arranged to meet the killer at that spot.’
‘Yes very likely but it seems an odd place and time all the same. One can imagine an illicit tryst being held there, a couple in a covert liaison; but I doubt if that was the killer’s pretext. But the meeting was obviously in de Lisle’s interests, something sufficiently pressing to warrant his turning out at that time of night.’
‘Of a more professional nature perhaps?’
‘Possibly. Let’s check his engagement diary again. It should be with the file.’
Jennings returned with the diary but also with an envelope. He grinned and held it out. ‘The desk has sent this through – the postman brought it a few minutes ago.’
The inspector looked at it and groaned. In capital letters it bore the inscription:
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN,
THE POLICE STATION,
SOUTHWOLD.
‘You can open it,’ he said indifferently, ‘it’ll only be another of those I think you ought to know letters – some old girl complaining about the neighbour’s cat peeing on her geraniums or a peeping Tom incensed about the “goings on” under the pier.’
Jennings slit it open and frowned. As with the envelope the contents was in capitals.
It simply said: ‘Ask C. H.’ There was nothing else.
He passed it to the inspector. ‘That’s a bit cryptic, isn’t it sir? I mean who is C. H. and what is one supposed to ask him?’
‘Ah,’ replied the inspector darkly, ‘that is all part of the conundrum. And to solve it I suggest you contact all the C. H.s in the Suffolk phone book and ask each of them what precisely it is they are hiding. It’s called a process of elimination. A most instructive exercise.’ He bent his head again to the superintendent’s report.
Jennings continued to hover. ‘But sir—’
The other looked up and said curtly: ‘File it with the other bilge and get back to work.’
Jennings retired to the outer office taking de Lisle’s diary with him. He flicked through its pages to the day before the body had been discovered. Yes, it was as he recalled. DENTIST stood out in bold letters followed by the four entries. They were office appointments each with a client’s name, one in the morning, three in the afternoon. The script was large and untidy, and it was only as he was about to flick to the previous page that his eye was caught by a much smaller scribble squeezed into the margin. Unlike the rest it was in biro and at first sight seemed like a doodle. But on closer inspection he discerned the words: B. re Paris publisher. No time featured and it had the appearance of a hasty jotting.
The Paris bit was obvious enough: but the initial was the difficulty … and if the inspector made another crack about trawling through the telephone directory he would spike his cocoa!
Of course, he mused, it might have no relevance at all; merely a carelessly scribbled memo nothing to do with anything very much, least of all with a nocturnal rendezvous with a would-be killer. Funny though that it should have been put on the same page as the other engagements and under that fatal date … A coincidence? He wondered.
‘Find anything?’ enquired his boss over lunch.
Jennings showed him the page with its barely decipherable note. To his relief nothing was said about telephone directories.
‘Hmm, could mean nothing, could mean a lot,’ the inspector said thoughtfully. ‘Like these modern paintings: ambiguous – you pays your money and you takes your pick. And talking of which, I think we might pick up Miss Morgan again. You never know, if she can keep her mind off shopping she might be able to shed some light though I don’t exactly bank on it … Tell you what, instead of bringing her in here again it might save time and tears if you paid her a visit at home. You know, nice and casual like.’ He gave a slow smile and added, ‘A little treat for the sharp eyes.’
Since her last meeting with Mr Brightwell at the Sailors’ Reading Room Betty had seen him only once and that was on the opposite side of the street with a middle aged woman whom she assumed to be his wife. The woman was examining something in the draper’s window and Betty had taken the opportunity to give him a gay wave. The greeting had not been returned; in fact he had looked straight through her as if she didn’t exist. Rotten so-and-so. He had seen her all right!
Thus feeling peeved she had rather welcomed the telephone call from that nice Detective Constable. Unlike miserly Algie with his moods and stupid winkle-pickers he seemed sensible; and unlike that Mr Brightwell he was young. She began to feel better and went to apply her most vibrant lipstick – Fool’s Gold by Lalange. It was their newest and everyone was talking about it.
When Jennings arrived she greeted him with weak tea and a dazzling smile (rather jammy actually). He showed her the diary entry, took out his notebook and with patient probing succeeded in getting her to tell him what she knew. As the inspector had feared, this didn’t amount to much but at least it was something.
No, she really couldn’t say what or who the ‘B.’ stood for. If it was an initial she didn’t recall him using it elsewhere. However, the Paris thing was easy: he had told her that he was due to see a man who had plenty of clout with a French publishing firm eager to obtain English novels of popular appeal, ideally crime and skulduggery. Apparently Mr de Lisle thought he could offer just the right thing and said with luck the man would help fix the deal. She had asked him about the title and author but he had laughed and said that would be telling. He had seemed very excited and she had the impression the meeting was imminent.
At this juncture Jennings wondered if he should say something about her lipstick. It was very assertive and seemed to make her mouth look very big. He didn’t think he liked it much but suspected she did. However, as his psychology manual stressed, a judiciously placed compliment could pay dividends.
He cleared his throat. ‘My sister wears a lipstick like that,’ he lied, ‘but it doesn’t suit her nearly as well as it does you.’
Betty smiled graciously. ‘Well it needs style I suppose, not everyone’s got it.’ She flicked back a blonde curl, and raising her tea cup was careful to stick out her little finger.
He nodded firmly. ‘Yes style, that’s it.’
The ploy proved well-judged for she became increasingly attentive to his questions.
He checked back in his notebook to his previous interview with her when she had been sorting out the scattered files. ‘This Millicent Merrivale script, the one you reckon disappeared, can you recall any of its contents? What was it about?’
The red mouth pouted and she gazed into the distance obviously thinking hard. Eventually she said, ‘Well I don’t really read much of their stuff – too busy typing it. And anyway a lot of it is boring. But I do remember one or two bits … It was definitely set in Paris because it mentioned the Eiffel Tower and the River Seine and there were a lot of French words used. I think it was just after the war because there was some stuff about the German occupation and how they were glad it was over.’
‘What about the characters?’
She shrugged. ‘I didn’t notice … they seemed a bit boring really or stuck up. I think there was someone called Klaus who wasn’t very nice and there was another man too who was a bit weird, a nasty piece of work from what I could make out. He had a poodle called Pipi. Now isn’t that a stupid name for a dog! But it all s
eemed a bit daft – not my sort of book at all. I like Barbara Cartland. Her stories are really nice and the girl always gets her man in the end! Have you read any?’ Jennings shook his head. ‘But as I said, with Mr de Lisle’s stuff I was always too busy getting my typing right to bother about plots and such.’
He thanked her for the tea and told her she had been most helpful.
‘You’re welcome any time!’ she replied archly; and then added, ‘Oh, by the way, that meeting he was going to have – he said it would have to be in the evening out of office hours as it was the only time the man could fit it in.’
He returned to the station moderately pleased. So that was it then: ‘B.’, whoever he was, had deliberately inveigled the publisher to the Casino under the pretext of fixing him up with a buyer, and then silently shot him dead. Task done, he would have whipped smartly over to the office and lifted the Dovedale/Merrivale chapters.
Jennings grinned. Presumably he must have been a bit startled to learn the next day that his victim – last seen dead on the grass – had somehow relocated himself to the barrel of the cannon!
Of course it still didn’t explain how the killer had known where to look. It was obvious from the scattered manuscripts that he had had to search the contents of the cabinet to find the right one – but he must have had prior knowledge about which cupboard or cabinet to select. How had he guessed that the better material was kept there and not in another one? It rather implied that he may have known de Lisle sufficiently well to be familiar with the way he had the place organised. Was he a friend or social contact? Or had someone else casually supplied the information?
Well one thing was clear: Delia Dovedale had certainly known ‘B.’ – why else was her novel so vital to him? And since, as Betty had said, the thing was set in Paris then very likely they had been in Paris at the same time. It just went to show, he mused, the Betty Morgans of this world did have their uses.
On returning to the station he was informed by the desk sergeant that the inspector had received an anonymous telephone call.
‘It was some geezer saying it would be in our interests to interview that Claude Huggins over at Dunwich – you know the one, always in the local press complaining about how the visitors keep tossing their crisp packets into his garden. Anyway, according to the boss the caller was most insistent but rang off before he could ask questions.’ The sergeant shrugged. ‘Probably one of these nutcases who enjoy wasting police time; there’s always one like that once a case gets into the newspapers.’
‘So what’s he done?’
‘Sent a couple of chaps to make routine enquiries. You have to take these calls seriously, or appear to. Most of them are from lunatics but there has to be some sort of response – it’s called covering your rear.’ He grinned.
Jennings thought of the earlier note which had been filed as ‘bilge’. Perhaps its writer had felt he had been too gnomic and wanted to flesh things out a little. At least now that old Huggins was revealed as its target there would be no bright talk about ‘processes of elimination’!
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Cedric and Felix stood on the shingle opposite the hotel admiring the evening sea. The tide was in and there was little sound except the soft rhythmic slap of wave on beach. The rays of the westering sun skimmed the sails of distant fishing smacks, and the air was redolent of warmth and the merest tang of salt.
‘How peaceful,’ Cedric murmured, ‘and how utterly remote from our life in London. It’s almost like another world – serene and strange.’
‘I don’t know about strange, damned sinister I should say given recent events!’ Felix replied. ‘But I agree, utterly beautiful. No wonder my musical acquaintance is reluctant to tear himself away.’
‘Oh no wonder,’ Cedric tactfully agreed.
‘Rather a shame that one hasn’t had a proper chance to explore,’ Felix observed. ‘I mean what with my festival commitments and all the police palaver there has been so little time. I know you gadded off to Minsmere for ages leaving me marooned with Claude Huggins and his earnest cronies, but I have seen very little of the area.’
‘Except of course the habitats of coypus and the odd gun emplacement,’ Cedric reminded him.
‘Oh yes, very funny I am sure! And talking of Huggins, a visit to Dunwich would have been nice. I don’t mean to his house of course, but the coastal part. The history of that submerged town and its ghostly tolling bell sounds most intriguing. I wonder if Clarence House is familiar with it …’ he sighed. ‘Ah well, one day perhaps.’
Cedric consulted his watch. ‘We are rested and fed,’ he said, ‘we could drive over now if you like. Rather a good time actually: no sightseers, and judging from the present scene it should be ideal at this time of day. Who knows, one might even catch the sound of a distant bell!’
‘I don’t mind what sound we catch as long it is not Claude Huggins prosing on about his confounded book. When I was at dinner I asked him if he was hoping to get Floyd de Lisle to handle it. That didn’t go down at all well. He looked at me as if I had made a rude noise and said that perhaps I didn’t realise how scholarly the thing was and that naturally it was intended for a proper London or Oxford publisher when the time was right.’
‘Hmm. I am sure the publishing world is agog,’ Cedric laughed.
‘Exactly. As said, we should avoid at all costs!’
It had been an excellent idea of Cedric’s. The drive itself was a pleasure: a benevolent sky, peaceful gorse land, and, despite the hum of the engine weaving through deserted lanes, a pervasive air of slumbering tranquillity. Arriving at the outskirts of the village they passed the ruins of the old abbey gaunt and spectral in the twilight.
After parking the car they decided to walk along the road to the church before inspecting the beach itself. The road was edged by a handful of houses beyond which stretching far into the distance lay a flat expanse of pasture and wild heathland. They lingered at a farm gate, lit cigarettes and gazed across into the encroaching dusk. Apart from the cry of a solitary curlew the silence was absolute.
‘Pretty damn good,’ Felix murmured, ‘but we must keep our eyes skinned for old Claude. I have an idea his house is somewhere along here.’
‘Has it got a name?’
‘I think he said it was something like ‘The Folly’, not the most original.’ He gave a faint titter: ‘Like the book, doubtless a folie de grandeur.’
They walked on, skirted and admired the church and came upon its graveyard and the ruins of the ancient leper sanctuary.
‘Extraordinary,’ exclaimed Cedric, gazing at the crumbling walls and ivied arches, ‘I wonder how often this has been painted. Grimshaw or Samuel Palmer would have gone potty about it.’
‘Too spooky for my taste,’ shivered Felix, ‘just look at those bats!’ He lifted his hands to his head. ‘They get in your hair you know.’
‘Not yours, dear boy – it’s the spikes, they wouldn’t be comfortable.’
They turned round and set off towards the beach. Half way there Cedric nudged Felix and pointed to the other side of the road. ‘I think that’s it,’ he whispered. ‘There’s a conservatory at the side and a long garden wall.’ He put on his glasses. ‘Yes, I can just make out the name on the post: you’re right it is The Folly.’
They looked for lights but couldn’t see any. ‘Probably out gassing somewhere,’ said Felix, ‘or helping his brother sort out that broken glass and crockery.’
‘I doubt the latter. I have the impression he is not the most altruistic of types.’
They continued to the beach and scrambled up onto the shingled ridge.
The scene that met their eye more than justified the drive. The silver-grey sea was awesomely vast and eerily calm; the great sweep of the bay seemed to stretch endlessly, its placid emptiness soothing yet vaguely mysterious. Standing alone on the silent shore they could have been on the edge of the world.
After a moment of silence, Felix observed, ‘It’s not exactly Brighton
, is it? No breakwaters for a start.’
‘Hmm. No ice cream sellers either.’
They continued to gaze. And then Cedric said, ‘Just imagine that entire little town at the bottom of it all, swallowed up by the waves without a trace, and now no one the wiser.’
‘Awful!’
‘No not really – a sort of metaphor for human life I suppose … sic gloria transit etc.’
‘As I said, awful.’
Cedric smiled at his friend: ‘You really need the bright lights don’t you!’
‘Yes,’ Felix agreed, ‘those and the odd professor I suppose.’ He lowered his left eyelid.
They started to stroll north along the beach; but then hesitated wondering whether to continue on or to retrace their steps and explore the sanded area below the sloping cliff. They decided on the latter.
They had only gone a few yards when Cedric said, ‘Oh look, I think there’s somebody up there.’
Felix followed his gaze to a figure standing on the higher ground. The stance and build were familiar and the sun’s dying rays made the profile easy enough to discern. ‘Oh my God,’ he breathed, ‘it’s bloody Claude!’
He was right. Claude Huggins stood poised on the upper slope staring out to sea and dangling what appeared to be a pair of binoculars.
‘What’s he doing?’ Cedric muttered, ‘watching sea birds, I suppose. Do you think we can sneak off without his seeing us? I don’t especially want to engage in social chit-chat just now, least of all with Claude Huggins.’
‘Too late – the bugger’s waving.’
Cedric groaned. ‘Look the other way.’
‘No good; we are caught all right. Look, he is coming down.’
Picking his way with careful purpose Huggins descended the cliff path and walked towards them. Used to seeing him in formal attire they were slightly surprised at the open-necked shirt, flapping boy-scout shorts and worn plimsolls. Felix eyed them quizzically: not the most flattering garb he couldn’t help thinking. He glanced down with approval at his own neatly-pressed slacks and polished leather sandals; a rather classy pair carefully selected from Simpsons of Piccadilly.
A Southwold Mystery Page 19