by Joyce Porter
‘They do learn English,’ the Hon. Con pointed out.
‘Not Miss Nose-stuck-in-the-air O’Coyne!’ retorted Mrs Kelson trimphantly. ‘She was Irish and spoke English as good as anybody. Oh, you take my word for it – that young madam was on the game. I won’t say she deserved what she got because it was a rotten thing to happen to anybody, but you can’t say she didn’t ask for it’
‘And this is what the police really think?’
Mrs Kelson hesitated. ‘Well I wouldn’t go so far as to say that quite but, if you ask me, that’s what happened all right – or something pretty like it.’
‘But,’ – the Hon. Con found the room getting warm again – ‘why did he kill her? I mean …’ Her voice trailed off and she appeared to take a deep interest in the kitchen curtains.
Fortunately Mrs Kelson was a woman of the world and could read the question the Hon. Con was boggling over from the twisted agony on her face. She dropped her voice again. ‘You can never tell with men, dear, especially in situations like that. Some of them act very peculiar.’ She sighed. ‘Very peculiar indeed. You see, sometimes they pick a girl up and – well – make all the arrangements.and then – well – when it comes to the point, they – er – can’t.’
‘Can’t what?’ asked the Hon. Con, more than a little confused.
‘Well – perform, love,’ whispered Mrs Kelson. ‘You know.’ She looked at the Hon. Con and wondered. ‘Then they get quite beside themselves with sort of the shame and frustration of it all and take it out on the girl. Oh, you needn’t look like that, love! I’ve heard of it happening time and time again.’
The Hon. Con cleared her thoat. ‘I thought most of these sort of crimes happened when the girl wasn’t willing.’
‘Yes, but that’s hardly likely to be the case here, is it? She wouldn’t have taken him back to her room at the Hellons’ if she hadn’t been willing. Oh, I suppose he could have forced her at gun point or something but I honestly don’t think that’s very likely. No, it’s my guess that the pair of them sneaked back into that house at dead of night for a bit of the old slap and tickle and then something went wrong. Like I say, maybe when it came to it, he just couldn’t and maybe the girl laughed at him or something. Then he sees red and grabs that head scarf and just chokes the life out of her.’
‘He beat her up first, didn’t he?’ asked the Hon. Con, trying for the sake of her own peace of mind, to forget that they were talking about real people.
‘Oh, no, dear! Didn’t I tell you? Desiree said that the doctor said that the marks on her face and head were done after she was dead. It was something to do with the bruising. Desiree did explain how they could tell but I didn’t quite follow it. He must be an absolute maniac, mustn’t he? I mean, not only killing her but knocking her body about like that when she was dead. I only hope the police catch him before he gets a chance to murder anybody else. We’re none of us safe, are we? You’ll not find me talking to strange men until they’ve got this one safely under lock and key. And now, love,’ – Mrs Kelson switched easily to a pleasanter subject as it was getting time for her to begin preparing her husband’s tea – ‘what about these raffle tickets of yours?’
Chapter Seven
The Hon. Con plodded back to Shangrilah with seventy new pence and a great deal of food for thought. Mrs Kelson hadn’t got rid of her quite as speedily as she would have wished and there had been quite a lengthy cross-examination, during which Mrs Kelson had grown more and more impatient or – as the Hon. Con saw it – more and more stupid. No amount of questioning, however shrewd and penetrating, could make Mrs Kelson remember more than she knew and the Hon. Con’s requests for detailed plans of the scene of the crime and minute-by-minute time-tables of all the relevant action were effectively blocked by a brick wall of sheer ignorance. Indeed, it was even revealed in due course that Mrs Kelson had not received her information straight from the horse’s mouth. It was not Desiree who had told Mrs Kelson about the post mortem findings but Desiree’s mother, who had passed on the gruesome intelligence only under the seal of the utmost secrecy. Somewhat late in the day Mrs Kelson expressed the hope that the Hon. Con would observe the same conditions. Considerably exasperated by all this shilly-shallying, the Hon. Con disdainfully promised that she would die rather than reveal a word of what she had been told to another living soul and allowed Mrs Kelson to pay for this worthless pledge by the purchase of no less than five raffle tickets.
Miss Jones was still slaving away when the Hon. Con arrived home but she dropped everything in her eagerness to hear the latest news.
‘So, there you are, Bones,’ said the Hon. Con when she had delivered herself of the meat of her investigations, ‘the O’Coyne girl must have picked some fellow up and brought him back to her room. Dashed immoral way to carry on, of course, but it’s not for us to sit in judgement. I’m only interested in the facts. Now, since the girl, though found without a stitch of clothing on her, hadn’t been – er – interfered with in any way, we can only assume that the chappie had some other reason for killing her.
‘Robbery,’ suggested Miss Jones, who had a remarkably innocent mind. ‘Or maybe she was blackmailing him.’
The Hon. Con hadn’t thought of either of these possibilities but she did so now with considerable speed. ‘ Poppycock!’ she said.
‘Why?’ asked Miss Jones mildly.
‘Well, it stands to reason, doesn’t it? There’s no evidence that the girl had much money for one thing.’
‘Some murders have been committed for practically pennies, dear,’ Miss Jones pointed out placidly. ‘And, if the girl didn’t have any money, that explains why she turned to blackmail, doesn’t it?’
The Hon. Con took a deep breath and proceeded to steamroller Miss Jones and her tinpot theories into the ground. ‘According to the way I interpret the facts,’ she announced in one of those and-I-don’t-want-any-argument voices, ‘ the murderer accompanied the O’Coyne female up to her room for one reason and for one reason only. Don’t have to draw diagrams, do I, Bones? Right – well that accounts for the – hm – disrobed condition of the corpse.’ The Hon. Con, now that she was approaching the tricky part, puffed her cheeks out and fixed her eyes resolutely on the ceiling. ‘Now, for some reason that we needn’t bother going into at the moment, the murderer was – er – unable to fulfill his part of the arrangement.’ The Hon. Con was gratified that she was managing to speak of these intimate matters as though they were perfectly natural. ‘Whereupon, overcome by shame and frustration, he attacked the girl with fatal results.’ She risked a quick glance at Miss Jones. ‘That sort of thing happens from time to time, you know.’
‘Oh,’ said Miss Jones.
There was a long pause.
‘Well, dear,’ said Miss Jones, consoling herself with the thought that the Hon. Con had come back for once without a chief suspect, ‘what are you going to do now?’
‘Dunno,’ said the Hon. Con glumly. ‘Mind you, if I could lay my hands on the man the girl took home with her that night, I should have the murderer.’
‘Obviously, dear.’
‘Nothing obvious about it at all!’ snapped the Hon. Con who didn’t care for being patronized even by her nearest and dearest. ‘Quite possible somebody else entirely different croaked the dratted girl.’ She calmed down. ‘Still, this looks like the obvious line to follow up at the moment.’ She turned to Miss Jones in a more conciliatory spirit. ‘Suppose you’ve no idea where she was in the habit of spending her evenings off, Bones?’
‘I’m afraid not, dear.’ Miss Jones hesitated before speaking further because the Hon. Con was so sensitive.’ But, don’t you think it’s rather odd?’
‘What?’
‘The girl’s behaviour, dear. On the one hand you have Mrs Urquhart saying that she wouldn’t allow Torquil to take any liberties and, on the other, you have her introducing some man into her bedroom in the middle of the night It doesn’t seem to add up to me.’
‘Maybe she just didn’t
fancy Torquil,’ said the Hon. Con moodily. That was the trouble with life: it was always so dashed complicated. ‘Or maybe she already had a boy friend and was just saying that to keep Torquil at arm’s length.’
‘Why not simply tell him the truth?’
‘Oh, don’t ask me!’ retorted the Hon. Con, getting fractious and beginning to hold Miss Jones responsible for all her troubles. ‘ Praps she was afraid of making Torquil jealous. For all we know he may be one of those nasty tempered brutes and …’ She paused thoughtfully. ‘ Funny how it all keeps coming back to Torquil, isn’t it?’
Miss Jones didn’t in the least think that it all kept coming back to Torquil and saw nothing humorous in it, if it did. She began to argue but the Hon. Con felt she bad enough troubles without old Bones sticking her oar in. As soon as she realized she was getting the worst of the discussion, she broke off the engagement and prepared to retreat to the garden for a session of wood chopping and a quiet sulk.
Even here, Miss Jones couldn’t stop meddling. ‘Oh, Constance, dear,’ she wailed, ‘not in your best clothes!’
The Hon. Con was a staunch believer in the therapeutic value of violent physical exercise and, after a solid hour in which the chips flew in every direction, she began to feel more like her old self. She gathered up the small bundle of firewood which her efforts had produced and went bouncing back into the house with it as a peace offering.
Miss Jones accepted the firewood with more resignation than gratitude.
‘Just had one of my bright ideas,’ confided the Hon. Con cheerfully. ‘This Torquil lad. I’ve got to cook his goose for him one way or the other. Now, old Ma Urquhart claims he left for the station prior to the murder in a taxi. Check? OK? So – which taxi firm would they use?’
‘I’m afraid I haven’t the least idea, Constance.’
Unexpectedly the Hon. Con beamed. With her habitual foresight she had anticipated this contingency. ‘Hang on a sec, old fruit!’ she chortled and plunged with all the grace of a charging hippopotamus out of the room. She returned a moment later with the telephone directory which she chucked playfully at Miss Jones. ‘Try the yellow pages!’ she advised.
Miss Jones’s subsequent obtuseness was not accidental. Three solid pages of taxis and private car hire firm was enough to make anybody cower behind an ox-like stupidity but the Hon. Con good humouredly refused to be rattled into snatching the directory back and doing the job herself. The very model of patience, she calmly and reasonably demolished all Miss Jones’s objections up to and induding the last – ‘Garn, Bones,’ she chuckled, ‘You’ve got more cheek than a basketful of monkeys!’
Inexplicably, Miss Jones continued to whine.
The Hon. Con changed her tactics. ‘Can’t fathom you, Bones,’ she said sadly. ‘Always thought you and me ran in double harness. Mutual aid. I mean, I don’t turn you down when you want a bit of help with a job, do I?’ Miss Jones tried to insert the word ‘windows’ into the conversation but the Hon. Con was in full spate and stopping for no man. ‘It’s no picnic being a detective, you know, and I’d never have shouldered the old burden if I hadn’t thought I could count on you in a tight spot. Not’ – she added quickly, remembering that her last foray into crime had brought Miss Jones within a whisker of being shot dead by a cornered murderer – ‘ that I’d ever ask you to tackle any of the dangerous stuff, of course.’ Miss Jones didn’t seem to be weakening so the Hon. Con was reduced to hitting below the belt. ‘ Oh, well,’ she rumbled, ‘ my fault for expecting too much, I suppose.’ And, taking her courage in both hands, half offered to receive back the telephone directory.
It worked like a charm.
‘No, no!’ cried Miss Jones, clasping the book to her twin set. ‘I’ll do it, Constance, if that’s what you really want. Though I must say, it goes against all my …’
‘Jolly dee!’ grinned the Hon. Con. ‘I’ll be in the sitting-room when you’re ready to report. Quick as you can, eh?’
Supper was very late that night. This was one of the two bright spots in Miss Jones’s evening though she felt ashamed of herself for being pleased that the Hon. Con was suffering some minor inconvenience. The only other consolation lay in the enormous telephone bill which was being run up. The Hon. Con, thought Miss Jones gleefully, was going to be absolutely furious when the quarterly account came in.
‘No luck yet?’ demanded the Hon. Con, looming up yet again again in the 25-Watt gloom of the hall.
Miss Jones continued grimly to dial. ‘Believe me, dear, I shall let you know the very moment I strike oil.’
The Hon. Con gave a sort of grunting snort and stumped back disappointedly to the telly.
It was twenty-past eight before Miss Jones at last brought her well in. The nineteenth recital about young Torquil – Mrs Urquhart’s grandson, you know – having left a valuable book, the property of Miss Jones, in a taxi on Monday night on the way to the station – evoked an affirmative response.
Even though she was absorbed in watching a screamingly funny film on the telly, the Hon. Con noticed the change in Miss Jones’s voice and was out of the sitting-room in a flash.
Wearily Miss Jones dropped the receiver back. ‘Kawl-a-Kab in Chamberlin Road.’
‘Whacko!’ The Hon. Con rewarded Miss Jones with a paralysing thump between the shoulder blades. ‘Good show, Bones!’
When Miss Jones had finished coughing and wiped her eyes, she spoke. ‘They haven’t found the book, I’m afraid.’
‘The book?’ The Hon. Con gave her friend another affectionate punch. ‘silly old jackass! Now, did they actually drive Torquil to the railway station?’
‘I don’t know, dear.’ Miss Jones got stiffly to her feet and began wondering what she could rustle up for supper. ‘I didn’t ask.’
‘You didn’t ask, you muggins?’ howled the Hon. Con.
‘No, dear,’ said Miss Jones with some dignity. ‘You didn’t tell me to.’ She then marched off into the kitchen and all but slammed the door behind her.
By breakfast the following morning, however, they were speaking to each other once more and the silent miseries of the previous evening were conveniently ignored. Each relied far too much upon the other to allow these occasional tiffs to get out of hand. In a relationship which was fortified neither by church nor state, it behoved both partners to tread warily.
The Hon. Con arrived in the dinette obviously dolled up to go visiting. She was wearing her new bell-bottomed trousers in shepherd’s plaid, the bottle green waistcoat that Miss Jones had knitted for her (a tactful touch, this) and a yellow and pink checked shirt. She looked quite gay.
‘Do you think you’re going to be warm enough, dear?’ asked Miss Jones, burying her own hatchet under a heap of All Bran. ‘It’s quite chilly out this morning.’
The Hon. Con accepted the proffered bowl. ‘That old duffle coat of mine’ll keep out a bullet,’ she boasted. ‘Besides, I shan’t be away for more than half an hour or so. Just want to have a quick word with that taxi-driver.’
‘About Torquil, dear?’
‘Well,’ retorted the Hon. Con. ‘ I’m blooming well not going to discuss the current economic situation with him am I?’ And then, seeing that this heavy-handed sarcasm wasn’t going down too well with Miss Jones, skilfully changed the conversation by asking if there was any shopping she might do while she was out. Miss Jones eventually recovered from the shock and when the Hon. Con set out for Chamberlin Road and the Kawl-a-Kab taxi company she had a list of purchases as long as your arm.
Once in Chamberlin Road the Hon. Con had no difficulty in locating her prey. Kawl-a-Kab was one of a group of associated transport undertakings whose assorted signs – Kwik-Flit’, ‘Yoohoo Drive’, ‘Splicin’ Service’and ‘Hire-a-Hearse’plastered the front facade of a converted Methodist chapel. The Hon. Con, once she had worked them out, thought the names were jolly ingenious. And witty. She told the young man in the glass panelled office as much.
He acknowledged the compliment without much enthus
iasm. ‘You’ve got to be with it these days,’ he explained in an American accent not quite pungent enough to stifle his native Totterbridge. ‘People want a bit of life, don’t they?’
The Hon. Con agreed, with considerably more conviction than the young man was showing, that they did.
‘Not,’ admitted the young man, continually fiddling with his bow tie or passing one well-manicured hand over his balding head, ‘that we’ve got it dead right yet. I don’t go all that much on ‘‘Hire-a-Hearse’’.’
The Hon. Con acknowledged that this had struck her as the least successful effort
‘You’ve got to be so careful about funerals,’ grumbled the young man. He picked up some papers from his desk. ‘How does ‘‘Berry-All’’ grab you? Or ‘‘The Last Round-Up’’? ‘‘The Celestial Joy-Ride’’?’
The Hon. Con shook her head.
The young man sighed. ‘Well, you may be right.’ He pushed his papers away and selected a ball point pen from the generous selection he sported in his breast pocket. ‘Now, what can we do for you?’
‘Kawl-a-Kab, said the Hon. Con.
The young man sighed again. It figured. One look had been enough to ascertain that this one hadn’t popped in for anything that cost money. ‘ Where from, where to, how many and when?’
The Hon. Con, grinning a mite shame-facedly, explained.
The young man dropped his ball point pen back on the desk and gave vent to an expression of weary disgust. ‘There was no book, lady! All my drivers are as honest as the day is long. A five pound note – maybe. A lousy old book – never!’ He glanced up accusingly at the Hon. Con. ‘Was it you what rung up last night?’
‘That was my friend,’ simpered the Hon. Con.
‘Well, I told her and I’m telling you. No book!’
‘If I could just have a word with the driver …’