Trick of the Mind

by Cassandra Chan

“No, could you give it me?”

  She read it off, pausing to give him time to jot it down.

  “I think I should mention,” she added, “that although Mr. Grenshaw is exceedingly eager to have Miss Haverford’s affairs cleared up, and is willing to go to some lengths to see this accomplished, he nevertheless would rather have left this till Monday.”

  “Thank you very much for persuading him to see me today,” said Bethancourt humbly.

  “My point, Mr. Bethancourt, is that I would not be late for the appointment if I were you, nor would I expect Mr. Grenshaw to spend overmuch time on your interview.”

  “No, of course not,” replied Bethancourt, feeling more like a schoolboy with every passing moment. “I wouldn’t dream of it. Thanks frightfully, Miss, er—”

  “Entwhistle,” she replied. “Vivian Entwhistle, Colin James’s secretary.”

  “Thank you very much, Miss Entwhistle,” said Bethancourt respectfully.

  “You’re welcome, Mr. Bethancourt,” she said, and rang off.

  Bethancourt collapsed back against the pillows, still clutching the phone.

  “What,” demanded Marla, “was that all about?”

  “Confirming an appointment with a solicitor,” said Bethancourt, reaching to return the receiver to its cradle. He saw no reason that Marla need know that the solicitor in question had nothing to do with any business of Bethancourt’s.

  “On a Saturday?”

  “Yes—that’s why it needed confirming. But it’s not till three this afternoon. No hurry at the moment.”

  “That’s good,” said Marla, stretching luxuriously. “Damn it, that phone call has woken me up. And I did so want another couple of hours’ sleep—we were at that club rather late last night.”

  “So we were,” agreed Bethancourt, who had turned on his side to watch her. “I thought we’d sleep in, myself. But if you’re awake now …”

  He reached for her and she came unresistingly into his arms.

  Carmichael’s plans to sit down with the notebook changed when he arrived back at the Yard. He found Lemmy there with a message that one of the taxi drivers had come forward.

  “His name is Bradley Johnson,” said Lemmy, reading it off a scrap of paper. “He’s got his taxi out at the moment, but I’ve got his mobile number here.”

  “Fine, fine,” said Carmichael, reaching for the phone. “Read it off, will you?”

  Lemmy obeyed while Carmichael punched the numbers in and waited for an answer. It came quickly.

  “Is that the chief inspector?” asked a cheery London voice.

  Carmichael grinned. “It is indeed,” he replied. “Wallace Carmichael here. Am I speaking to Bradley Johnson?”

  “That’s right. Your man says you want information about a fare I picked up on Tuesday night?”

  “I do,” answered Carmichael. “When can I speak to you?”

  Johnson chuckled. “You live right, guv. I’m two minutes away from Scotland Yard this minute, and I’ve just dropped off my fare. I’ll be round in two ticks of a lamb’s tail.”

  Carmichael rang off with the faintly optimistic feeling that today might be turning out better than yesterday.

  “Here,” he said, thrusting the facsimile envelope at Lemmy. “See what you can make of these—it’s what Hodges has resurrected from Gibbons’s notebook.”

  Lemmy nodded and Carmichael hastened for the door, but then turned back.

  “Mind,” he said, “you won’t be able to read all of it. Gibbons uses his own shorthand. And don’t start at the beginning—skip on to the part about the Haverford robbery. Just take a sheet of paper and write out everything you can understand in longhand, all right?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Lemmy.

  He looked as if he understood what was wanted, so Carmichael continued out, though in his mind he kept going over the instructions he had issued all the way down to the lobby, trying to work out if there was a way Lemmy could muck them up.

  Bradley Johnson was as good as his word. Carmichael had not been in the lobby five minutes before a stout, fortyish man, well wrapped up against the weather, came briskly in, looking about him curiously.

  He had a firm handshake and did not seem put out at all to have his workday interrupted by the police. Carmichael thanked him sincerely and led him off to an interview room.

  “A couple of the other drivers,” said Johnson, following along, “have tales about how Scotland Yard has needed their help. I reckon this’ll bring me even with them. Can you tell me who I had in my cab? Was it a murderer?”

  Carmichael was sorry to have to disillusion him. “I’m afraid not,” he said, holding open the door of the interview room. “If yours is the right taxi, I’m hoping it was one of my men you dropped off that night.”

  “Oh.” Johnson was clearly disappointed, but after a moment’s thought he asked brightly, “Was he after a murderer?”

  Carmichael laughed. “He might have been,” he said. “We don’t know yet. If not a murderer, then at least a jewel thief.”

  “Ah!” Johnson’s eyes shone. “That’ll do, guv. I don’t know but what a jewel thief might be better, all things considered. It’d be different, do you see?”

  “I do indeed,” said Carmichael, still amused. He switched on the recording equipment and gave both his own name and Johnson’s. “Now then, Mr. Johnson,” he said. “Could you tell me about the fare you drove to Walworth on Tuesday night?”

  Johnson was delighted to do so.

  “It was about eight fifteen,” he said. “And a cold, miserable night it was, too. The streets were near empty, but every last soul on them wanted a taxi so I wasn’t making out so badly. I picked up one gentleman in Brixton and took him to Waterloo Station. I sat in the queue for a minute or two, working on my logbook, with some other taxis in front of me. Then two young blokes come out, one right after the other. First one hops into the taxi in front of me, and the second man asks me if I mind following along after the first taxi.”

  “Does that happen often?” asked Carmichael.

  “Not much,” admitted Johnson. “Mostly when there’s a large group, and one taxi won’t do. Or at a train station, like I was that night, if someone’s got a full load of luggage.”

  “But neither of these young men had luggage?” asked Carmichael.

  “No, guv, that they did not. Not so much as an overnight case. Well,” added Johnson, “at least my fare didn’t. I can’t say I noticed about the first man particularly.”

  “But your fare didn’t give any explanation for this?” asked Carmichael, trying to keep the eagerness out of his voice. “He didn’t announce himself as an officer?”

  Johnson shook his head. “No,” he answered. “I would have remembered that, see? This bloke just says as he and his friend don’t want to arrive in the same taxi, and I figure it’s something to do with a woman—it usually is when young men are getting up to a lot of foolishness.”

  “Very true,” said Carmichael with a little sigh. “Please go on.”

  “Well, there’s not much more to it,” said Johnson. “I followed along behind the other taxi, straight down Waterloo, through Elephant and Castle, and on down Walworth till we got near East Street. Then my fare says, ‘Here, they’re pulling over. Just let me out a bit back of them.’ I didn’t think anything of that, not with his saying they didn’t want to arrive in the same taxi. I mean, it stands to reason that if two taxis pull up right together, you may as well have just taken the one as far as camouflage goes, doesn’t it?”

  Carmichael nodded understanding of this salient point.

  “So I pulled up half a block or so away,” continued Johnson. “My man had his money ready—and a nice tip, too—and he handed it over, thanked me, and got out. Tell the truth, I never thought any more about it until today.”

  “I’m very grateful you remembered it today,” said Carmichael. “Can you tell me what time you let your fare off ?”

  “Oh, it couldn’t have been more than a minut
e or two past half eight, if that,” replied Johnson. “We had a clear run from Waterloo, it being such an inclement night. We were down to East Street in no time at all.”

  This accorded almost exactly with what Tom Gerrard had said and Carmichael was gratified by the match.

  “That’s very good, Mr. Johnson,” he said. “Can you describe your fare at all?”

  But here Johnson fell short. “It was pretty dark,” he said apologetically. “I saw him as he came toward me out of the station and passed under the light there, but I wasn’t taking particular notice. Just enough to see he was young, average height. He had a cap on, so I didn’t see his hair to speak of. I don’t know as I could recognize him again.”

  “What about the chap in the first taxi?” asked Carmichael. “Do you remember anything about him?”

  Johnson shook his head. “I only saw him for a moment when he and my fare came out of the station. He wasn’t a lot taller or shorter than my man, and that’s all I could say.”

  With that Carmichael had to be content, and indeed he was not displeased. He arranged for Johnson to return to sign a statement and then showed him back to the lobby with many thanks.

  He himself turned back toward the elevators, ruminating on what he had just learned. Having seen the good man out, he turned back to the elevators, wondering who Gibbons had been following on Tuesday night.

  It turned out that Constable Lemmy, far from mucking up, had done quite well with the notebook. Carmichael found him seated at his desk with four of the facsimile sheets spread out before him while he worked on writing their contents out in longhand as best he could. In fact, he had managed to make out a few scribbles that had eluded Carmichael.

  “You’re making out pretty well with it then,” said Carmichael, peering over Lemmy’s shoulder. He pointed. “I think that bit probably refers to the upstairs window that was broken.”

  Lemmy looked. “Oh, I see,” he said. “Yes, that must be right, sir.”

  Carmichael fetched one of the other chairs and joined Lemmy at the desk, checking over the work the constable had already done.

  The first page of the notebook that dealt with the Haverford case had clearly been written at the scene; indeed, it indicated as much at the top of the page, along with the date. The notes here appeared to deal mainly with the method of the burglary, expatiated with details about the house and its situation. Rob and Lia Coleman’s names were written out, as was Miranda Haverford’s. There were parts of it that Lemmy had not been able to translate, but to Carmichael’s eye it looked like a straightforward encapsulation of the crime as later detailed in the case file.

  The next page Lemmy had had a good deal of trouble with, owing to the fact that it apparently was devoted to a description of the stolen jewelry itself, with many side notations. Carmichael could not make them out any better than Lemmy could, but he judged it unimportant.

  “Don’t bother too much with that,” he told the constable. “We’ll have Inspector Davies check it out later—probably this is all stuff he was explaining to Gibbons in any case.”

  “I haven’t been able to find anything there that didn’t seem to pertain to gemstones,” agreed Lemmy. “Not unless you count that at the top, but I reckoned that was just his grocery list.”

  It was so obviously a grocery list that Carmichael’s eye had skipped right over it. “Milk” was scrawled in the top margin with “beer” and “pots” right after it, the latter of which Carmichael read as an abbreviation for “potatoes.”

  “Right you are,” he said. “Where’s the next sheet? Oh, I see. It’s more of the same, looks like.”

  “I thought so, sir.”

  Slowly they went on, working out each word or symbol as best they could.

  15

  Quaint Traditions

  Charles Grenshaw, Esq., had his office in Lincoln Inn. He was a neat, elderly man, nearly completely bald, with wire-rimmed spectacles. Bethancourt thought him the very picture of a conservative family solicitor.

  “So very good of you to meet with me,” said Bethancourt, shaking his hand. He fairly towered over Grenshaw and found himself, in an effort at amiability, hunching a bit to make the difference less obvious.

  “It’s a very distressing matter,” replied Grenshaw. “I cannot recollect anything like it in my experience, and thank goodness for that.”

  “Indeed,” said Bethancourt. “The situation is unfortunate.”

  “Although,” added Grenshaw, his eyes turning inward in reminiscence, “I’m not sure but what Miss Haverford would rather have enjoyed all the upset. She had very odd tastes sometimes. Well, do come this way.”

  Bethancourt was intrigued by the comment, but let it go as he followed Grenshaw into his inner sanctum, where he was ushered into one of the green leather armchairs. Grenshaw moved to stand behind his desk, but then hesitated before seating himself.

  “Normally,” he said, “I would offer you some tea, but Miss Daniels always prepares that for me, and she is naturally enough not present today. Perhaps—it is a trifle early, but it is Saturday, after all—perhaps we might indulge instead in some sherry?”

  Bethancourt was completely charmed by this speech, which reminded him of visits with his grandfather to his man of business when Bethancourt was a small boy.

  “It’s very good of you to offer, sir,” he replied. “I should love a glass of sherry.”

  The sherry glasses Grenshaw removed from a cabinet were beautifully etched examples from the turn of the last century. The sherry was younger, but still aged, a very fine oloroso. Bethancourt sampled it appreciatively.

  “This is excellent,” he said, and Grenshaw smiled.

  “I keep it for a few select clients,” he said. “But I don’t deny I look forward to the occasions I can bring it out. Well, now, what can I do for you in regard to Miss Haverford’s affairs?”

  Bethancourt reminded himself that despite his hospitality, Grenshaw was no doubt eager to return to his interrupted weekend.

  “I take it from what you said earlier that Miss Haverford had a sense of humor?” he asked.

  Grenshaw bobbed his head in a nod remarkably like a bird’s.

  “She did,” he answered. “It would often come as a surprise, especially to people who were just meeting her, because she was in other ways a very autocratic old lady. Her mischievous side was not always on display, but I came to realize it was always present, though she seemed to feel it necessary to hide it.”

  “It sounds as if you knew her well,” said Bethancourt.

  “Oh, yes. Indeed, I have known her all my life, my father being her solicitor before me. When she was younger and still entertained occasionally, my wife and I were usually among her guests.”

  “And did you know the other people mentioned in her will?” Bethancourt asked. “It’s really about them that I’ve come,” he added. “I wanted to know a bit more about them.”

  “I see.” Grenshaw sipped his sherry, set the glass down carefully, and then steepled his fingers under his chin. “There were not very many bequests in the end,” he said thoughtfully. “Most of Miss Haverford’s friends and relatives had died long before she did. I did not know her principal beneficiaries, the Colemans, at all. But her executor, Ned Winterbottom, I’ve encountered several times over the years. And of course I knew Rose Gowling quite well. In late years, I saw as much of her as I did Miss Haverford.”

  “I expect Mrs. Gowling’s bequest will go to her heirs now?” asked Bethancourt.

  Grenshaw gave his bobbing nod again. “Though I don’t know them personally,” he said, “as they live in Lincolnshire. And of course the few pieces of jewelry and china that Miss Haverford left to her maid are not worth a great deal.”

  “Sentimental value, no doubt,” put in Bethancourt. “Tell me, was the jewelry always destined to be left to her distant relatives?”

  “Most of it was, yes,” said Grenshaw. “Miranda toyed from time to time with the idea of leaving a few of the lesser pieces
to the people who were close to her, and at one time—if I remember aright—a substantial part of it was to be left to her other Haverford relatives. But they all died out—many of them before their times—and so the collection reverted back to the Hrushevsky family in the Ukraine.” Grenshaw paused. “I’m assuming,” he added, “that Mr. James has told you of the jewels’ origin?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Bethancourt. “I found it quite fascinating. And I’ve read Miss Haverford’s tract about the history of the jewels themselves. Wonderful stuff.”

  Grenshaw smiled, pleased. “Well, then you will understand when I tell you that the Hrushevskys—Evony St. Michel’s family in the Ukraine—were united in their disapproval of their black sheep. But they were fond of her son, as he had grown up among them, and there was much coming and going between the families once Evony had passed on.”

  “Well, then, shouldn’t the son have left the Hrushevskys some of the jewels if his mother had meant them to have them?” asked Bethancourt skeptically.

  “No doubt, no doubt,” said Grenshaw. “But Michael didn’t die until after World War II, by which time all contact with the Ukrainian branch of the family had ceased on account of the Iron Curtain. It was only relatively recently, after the breakup of the Soviet Union, that communication was reestablished.”

  “Oh,” said Bethancourt. “Of course—how stupid of me.”

  “No, no,” said Grenshaw. “It’s easy for people of your age to forget what a different place the world used to be.”

  “But wait a bit,” said Bethancourt. “Where does Rob Coleman come into it then? I may have forgotten an entire era in history, but I’m relatively sure Coleman isn’t a Ukrainian name.”

  Grenshaw received this with a small chuckle. “Your confusion is understandable,” he answered. “But it’s easily explained: while visiting her cousin, Evony’s niece met and then married an Englishman, William Coleman. He, unfortunately, died young and his widow returned to the Ukraine with her children. Rob Coleman is her grandson.”

  “Ah,” said Bethancourt, “I see. Family histories are always complicated, aren’t they? More so than one is usually prepared for.”