‘In any case,’ Janet interposed, ‘why on earth should either of them want to carry picnic baskets around?’
‘It’s a long shot,’ Exenley said diffidently, ‘but I’ve a feeling there’s something in it. What about that fellow who broke out of Parkhurst prison a short time back?’
Tremaine gave him an intent glance.
‘You mean Marfield?’
‘Yes, that was his name. He hasn’t been laid by the heels yet, has he?’
‘No, I don’t think he’s been recaptured. I haven’t noticed any report of it.’
‘He seems to have thrown the police off the scent pretty thoroughly. There’ve been all kinds of rumours about what’s happened to him. He could have gone to earth anywhere—even here.’
‘In other words, Ralph,’ Tremaine said quietly, ‘you’re suggesting that Marfield’s been hiding in the mill—here under our noses? That until Latinam was murdered he was keeping an escaped convict supplied with food?’
‘Well, I’m suggesting that he used the mill until you and young Holt started taking too close an interest in it. After that he decided it would be safer if he found a new hiding-place. That’s why Ruth Latinam was taking a picnic basket to the gun emplacement.’
‘It fits all right, but it’s certainly a long shot. Just because Marfield’s prison-break on the Isle of Wight seems to have coincided with Hedley Latinam’s habit of carrying picnic baskets around it doesn’t follow that the two things are connected. There may be all kinds of other explanations for Latinam’s behaviour.’
‘And for his sister’s keeping it up now? I know it sounds like a long shot but is it really so wide of the mark? Latinam was a queer type. Where did he come from? Why wasn’t he very concerned about making his hotel a paying proposition? Why did he want to get rid of the major and Mrs. Burres? If he was such an odd customer, why shouldn’t he have been mixed up with Marfield’s getting out of prison?’
‘It was a tremendous risk to take. Suppose Marfield had been traced?’
‘I dare say he thought of that and took care to cover his tracks. If the police had managed to catch up with Marfield there wouldn’t have been any evidence to connect him with Latinam, even if there’d been a good deal of suspicion. Besides, if Latinam was used to being on the shady side of the law I don’t suppose he’d have looked upon it as being such a risk.’
‘You’re putting up a good case.’ Tremaine settled his pince-nez firmly into position. ‘But what about the murder? How does that fit into the picture?’
Exenley shrugged.
‘I wouldn’t know,’ he admitted. ‘The only thing that occurs to me off-hand is that Marfield and Latinam quarrelled—it was a case of thieves falling out. Maybe Marfield didn’t think matters were moving quickly enough and was tired of having to keep under cover; maybe Latinam thought he wasn’t getting a big enough rake-off for what he was doing. It came to blows. Probably Marfield didn’t mean to strike to kill—that’s why he dumped the body in the water tank while he thought things out.’
There was an atmosphere of excitement in the lounge. Janet and Mark had caught something of Exenley’s enthusiasm as he had been developing his theory and were leaning forward eagerly.
‘It explains Gaston Le Mazon,’ Mark said. ‘His job was getting Marfield on the island. That’s what was behind those lights you saw off-shore and it’s why he had to use his boat. He rowed out to the ship that had brought Marfield down-Channel and took him to the old mill. That was the tie-up with Latinam. He was the obvious man for Latinam to use.’
Janet took up her husband’s account.
‘But it was too big for Le Mazon. He was a crook in a small way—just a local smuggler—and he got scared. He tried to back out and Latinam wouldn’t let him. And then, after the murder, he was afraid to say anything about Marfield because of the part he’d played; that’s why you frightened him when you talked about the mill and the lights. He tried to put suspicion on to Bendall at first, and then, when he realized that the police didn’t think his story was good enough he saw that there was nothing else for it and he did go out to try and find Marfield.’
‘Only Marfield got in first,’ Mark finished, ‘and made sure that Le Mazon wasn’t going to talk.’
Tremaine looked from one to the other of them with a smile.
‘You’ve thought up a plausible theory. But what about the lighter?’
Mark looked puzzled.
‘The lighter?’
‘Latinam’s cigarette-lighter that was found on Le Mazon’s body.’
‘Obviously,’ Exenley said, ‘it was put there by Marfield to send everybody off the scent. He took it from Latinam when he killed him and left it with Le Mazon so that it would support the theory that Le Mazon was the murderer and that he’d thrown himself off the cliff when he’d realized the game was up.’
‘The trouble is,’ Tremaine said, ‘it puts Ruth Latinam in a very awkward position. The implication is that she’s now aiding her brother’s murderer.’
‘That’s true enough,’ Exenley said, with less enthusiasm. ‘That’s the part I don’t like. But I never had the impression that there was much love lost between Latinam and his sister and perhaps Marfield has some kind of hold over her.’
Tremaine leaned back in his chair.
‘So it goes back to the Armitage affair,’ he said slowly.’ ‘That’s where the roots of this thing lie. It’s—’
He broke off. Suddenly his mind was vibrating with the exhilaration of the knowledge he had been vainly seeking for many days and which had now come to him unexpectedly out of the buried depths of his memory.
‘I believe that’s it, Ralph!’ he breathed. ‘I believe you’ve hit it!’
For he knew at last where he had seen Valerie Creed before.
21
BACKGROUND PICTURE
THERE WAS A neat pile of papers on the desk in front of Chief Officer Colinet.
‘The results are beginning to come in,’ he observed with satisfaction, as Tremaine entered the office at the Rohane hotel. ‘Trouble is in this business you have to do so much routine work that takes valuable time and doesn’t look spectacular. Gives the newspapers a chance to ask questions—especially when there are two corpses lying around. But when you have done it the dividends are worth waiting for.’ His plump forefinger tapped the pile of papers. ‘We’ve been putting the background to our friend Latinam.’
‘Anything—promising?’
Tremaine wasn’t quite sure how far Colinet would go in handing out information; it was natural that the police should wish to keep some things back. But the big man seemed to have taken him fully into his confidence.
‘Latinam came over here from London with his sister,’ he went on. ‘But before that he was in Yorkshire—at a little town called Milverdale. He was on very good terms with a retired woollen merchant whose name was Summerfold. Such very good terms, in fact, that when the old man died he left all his money to Latinam. According to this report I’ve just received, his fortune, after paying death duties and other expenses, came to about thirty thousand pounds.’
Something was stirring in Tremaine’s memory. Something that was connected with a sunlit day on a beach and a vague impression of watching the cut and thrust of a duel in which the adversaries seemed to be at pains to conceal their contest.
‘Did Summerfold die—naturally?’
Colinet’s eyes narrowed slightly. He flicked the papers idly.
‘You think he might have been—helped? And by Latinam in particular? It appears unlikely. The report says he died of heart failure and there’s no suggestion anywhere that there was any funny business attached to it. The old man had been ailing for a long while.’
‘What made him leave his money to Latinam?’
‘You had a chance of seeing Latinam for yourself,’ Colinet said, ‘so you can correct me if I’ve been misinformed. But from what I’ve been able to gather he was one of these people who always look cheerful even if they’re not
. When he gave his mind to it he could be what you might call the perfect host and companion. Just the type, in fact, to appeal to a bitter and lonely old man who’d probably reached the stage when he was ready to react to a friendly word.’
‘And that described Summerfold?’
‘Before Latinam turned up he’d been living on his own for years. He had a housekeeper but didn’t have anything to do with anyone else. He was almost a recluse.’
‘He was a bachelor?’
‘No—widower. There was apparently some tragedy or other connected with his marriage. His wife died about twenty years ago, but she hadn’t been living with him for some while before that. She’s supposed to have gone off with another man. That was what made Summerfold shut himself up. He didn’t have a good word to say for a woman after that—became a thorough-going misogynist. He was more or less compelled to have a housekeeper, but she seems to have been the vinegary, spinster type and not a real woman, anyway.’
‘He must have been a very unhappy man,’ Tremaine said quietly. ‘And he must have been very much in love with his wife.’
‘Rather looks that way,’ Colinet agreed. ‘To become so bitter about it. You don’t usually get reactions of that kind without real feeling.’
‘He had no relatives?’
‘No very near relatives.’ The Chief Officer glanced down at the papers in front of him. ‘There was a much younger sister who died some years ago, and a cousin of about his own age. They were both married, and apparently there are children or grandchildren living. They haven’t been traced yet, but that shouldn’t be a difficult job.’
‘I suppose that if it hadn’t been for Latinam they would have benefited under the will?’
‘They would have taken everything. Summerfold’s original will left his money to be divided equally between any of his next-of-kin still living. It was revoked, of course, by his will leaving the whole lot to Latinam.’
‘Latinam must have worked very hard on the old man,’ Tremaine commented. ‘How did he get in touch with him?’
‘Saved his life by preventing him from being run over by a car. The story isn’t very clear but it was something of the sort. It made Summerfold feel that he owed Latinam a debt, and after that I imagine it was just a case of Latinam playing up to him—sympathy, flattery, pretending to understand him. You know how these things can be done. Especially by an expert in the confidence line of business.’
Tremaine’s eyes opened wider.
‘Latinam?’
‘Yes. He wasn’t really the kind of permanent inhabitant we like to have over here. He knew too many of the wrong people. But enquiries are still going ahead about that. It may be a day or two before I’ve got the whole story.’
‘At least we know where he got the money from to buy this hotel,’ Tremaine observed. ‘And it looks as though we can make a guess at why he wasn’t in a hurry to try and make it pay. He wasn’t in an ordinary line of hotel keeping.’
‘I’d be inclined to set that down as a slight understatement,’ Colinet said dryly, ‘but I see what you mean!’
‘Was Ruth Latinam in Milverdale with her brother when this wooing of Summerfold was going on?’
‘The report doesn’t say much about her. She seems to have accompanied Latinam to most places, but with Summerfold being a woman-hater I dare say she was kept well in the background at Milervdale until the old man died.’ The Chief Officer glanced at his visitor with raised eyebrows. ‘You seem very interested in the young lady!’
‘Not without reason,’ Tremaine said pointedly, and he fingered the bruise on the side of his head.
Colinet’s smile was a little grim.
‘I rather gather she hasn’t had much to say to you about that? ’
‘No,’ Tremaine said, ‘she hasn’t. Do you happen to know,’ he added casually, ‘what’s happening about that man Marfield who escaped from Parkhurst prison not long ago?’
Colinet did not reply for a moment or two. His grey eyes were steady and probing.
‘We’ve been asked to keep a look-out for him,’ he returned carefully. ‘As a matter of routine. Any particular reason for asking?’
‘It’s been suggested that he might be over here.’
‘In other words,’ Colinet said, ‘that he might have known Latinam and that Latinam might have had something to do with his escape?’
No, Colinet wasn’t asleep. He wouldn’t have ignored Ruth Latinam’s nocturnal wanderings, nor would he have missed what Gaston Le Mazon’s wife had said about the man her husband was to meet.
‘It isn’t unknown for convicts to get in touch with people outside,’ Tremaine said. ‘There are various channels of communication—other prisoners being released and taking messages and so on. Maybe if you checked back you might find that among the casual visitors Latinam had in the two or three months prior to his being murdered there were men who’d just been released from Parkhurst—sprung, I believe, is the orthodox term.’
‘Is it?’ The Chief Officer smiled. ‘I’m just a policeman. I don’t know all these underworld expressions you criminologists get hold of! You might like to hear, though,’ he added more seriously, ‘that Ruth Latinam didn’t leave the hotel last night. It might have been because she knows you must have told me about what happened the night before, and with her experience of these—er—activities—she might have guessed I’d set a man to watch her.’
‘Did you take any other—precautions?’
‘This island is honeycombed with fortifications of various kinds—gun emplacements, watch-towers and the like. I just haven’t the men to cover them all, and even if I did set the whole place by the ears and order a general search it wouldn’t be difficult for anyone using them as a hiding place to slip away somewhere else until the fuss died down. But that doesn’t mean, of course, that I don’t know what to look for.’
Tremaine recognized the implacable determination in his words. The machine would advance step by step and sooner or later it would achieve its relentless purpose. It wouldn’t be spectacular, but it would be sure.
The Creeds were coming up from the water’s edge as he left the headland and he came face to face with them as they reached the roadway behind the dunes. He did not think they were anxious for the encounter but there was no avoiding it and Alan Creed clearly tried to make the best of the situation.
‘You’re being kept busy. First Latinam, and now that fellow La Mazon. Moulin d’Or’s getting itself a bad reputation!’
‘Yes,’ Tremaine said. ‘Yes, I’m afraid it is.’ He looked into the other’s face, smiling and yet somehow hard. ‘I’m glad I happened to meet you this morning. Do you mind if I ask you a question?’
Creed gave him a quizzical glance.
‘You sound mysterious! But go ahead. I’ll risk it.’
‘I was wondering,’ Tremaine said, ‘whether you’d ever heard of a man called Armitage?’
There was a silence. Valerie Creed clutched her husband’s arm. Her face looked suddenly haunted.
‘That the question?’ Creed asked, casually.
‘Yes,’ Tremaine said, ‘that’s the question.’
‘Then the answer’s no, I’ve never heard of anybody called Armitage. Why did you ask?’
‘Because I think that Hedley Latinam knew all about him and I felt certain that you’d know all about him, too.’
‘Then I’m afraid you’re disappointed,’ Creed returned coolly. ‘Was it important?’
‘It could be. As important, in fact, as the matter you were discussing so confidentially with Latinam one day in one of the bays at the other end of the island.’
Creed disengaged himself from his wife’s grasp. His face was grim, smiling no longer. There was an expression on it which was reminiscent of the way he had looked when he had been talking to Latinam.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘just take some friendly advice. Two men have been murdered here. It’s plain that there are people around who aren’t particular about what they do if they
think someone’s making himself a nuisance. I wouldn’t care for anything to happen to you.’
Tremaine pushed back his pince-nez. He was glad that it was broad daylight and that there were other people in sight.
‘You aren’t threatening me?’ he said quietly.
‘Threatening you?’ Creed laughed. It was an ugly sound. ‘Why should you imagine I’d do a thing like that? I’m merely looking after your interests.’
He waited, his eyes on Tremaine’s face. And then he took his wife’s arm.
‘Come along, my dear, it’s time we got changed. And I’m sure Mr Tremaine must have a great deal to do.’
Tremaine watched them go. Valerie Creed’s steps were dragging; he saw her husband’s arm go around her for support.
The details of the Armitage affair were coming back to him now. Marfield had gone down for ten years, but Armitage, who had actually forged the cheques which had been the basis of the fraud, had got off with the comparatively light sentence of eighteen months. He had given evidence for the prosecution. But for him, indeed, the police might have been unable to bring the gang to court, and this had been taken into account when sentence had been passed.
There had been much speculation as to the reason for Armitage’s behaviour; certain of the more sensational Sunday newspapers had written up the case with a good deal of embroidery, which was one cause of its having become so well known to the general public.
It had been stated that Armitage had fallen in love; that a woman had been responsible for his repentance, and that she had agreed to wait for him until he came out of prison.
Such a touch of romance, especially since Armitage had admittedly been unaware at first of the true nature of Marfield’s activities, had naturally been news. There had been photographs of the woman concerned. And the woman of those photographs was Valerie Creed.
Behold a Fair Woman Page 20