by Joyce Porter
Miss Jones sighed. ‘Well, yes, his tummy did seem to be very upset.…’ She stretched her aching legs as best she could in the cramped confines of the Mini. ‘ What are you going to do when you see this Mr Smithers, dear?’
‘I’ve told you that a dozen times!’ said the Hon. Con, who hadn’t. ‘I’m going to confront him with the facts. If he’s got a reasonable explanation – well and good. If he hasn’t – well, that’ll be proof positive that he killed Rodney, won’t it?’
‘I suppose so, dear.’ Miss Jones huddled down as deep as she could into her coat and closed her eyes. Oh, how she wished the Hon. Con had never heard of Rodney Burberry!
For some time there was no further conversation. Then the Hon. Con roused herself and gave Miss Jones a dig in the ribs. ‘You asleep, Bones?’
Miss Jones sighed again. ‘I had just managed to doze off for a moment, dear.’
‘Any coffee left?’
‘You asked me that before, dear, and the answer’s still no.’
‘I’m jolly cold,’ complained the Hon. Con, blowing noisily and dramatically into her hands. She squinted at the luminous dial of her wrist watch. ‘ Oh cripes,’ she grizzled, ‘it’s still only four o’clock!’
Miss Jones was feeling pretty cheesed off, too. Maybe that’s why she decided, as an act of pure and disinterested friendship, to let the Hon. Con have it straight from the shoulder. ‘Constance, dear,’ she said firmly, ‘I’ve been considering everything that’s happened these last few days and everything you’ve told me and – do you know what I think?’
‘What?’ asked the Hon. Con suspiciously.
‘I think Rodney Burberry committed suicide, dear.’
‘Judas!’ spat the Hon. Con.
At a quarter past nine the Mini made its way slowly and erratically along Stocker Road as the Hon. Con zig-zagged to and fro in an effort to read the house numbers.
Stocker Road was clearly a thoroughfare of considerable affluence and not at all, as Miss Jones had been so quick to point out, the sort of place to shelter the murderer of a scruffy juvenile delinquent. All the houses were substantial, detached, surrounded by well kept gardens. They all had garages, too, which was complicating the house hunting as most of the garden gates had been left standing wide open. Since the gates bore the names and numbers of the houses, it was extraordinarily difficult to read them from the road.
‘Oh, look!’ cried Miss Jones excitedly.
The Hon. Con flattened the brake pedal into the floor boards. ‘Where?’ She crushed Miss Jones ruthlessly aside as she leaned across to look where she was pointing.
‘There!’ simpered Miss Jones happily. ‘ Isn’t that a pretty little pond with the stork and the wee frogs? We could do something like that at home, you know, dear. On a smaller scale, of course.’
The Hon. Con ground her teeth and counted audibly up to ten. ‘One day, Bones,’ she remarked acidly as she started the car moving again, ‘you’ll try me too far.’
‘But they’re such beautiful gardens, dear,’ protested Miss Jones. ‘I’m sure you never expected anything like this. These houses must cost a fortune to keep up.’
‘’Course I was expecting it!’ retorted the Hon. Con. ‘I knew Smithers was a wealthy man. Those trousers showed that. Wish I could afford a pair like that, believe you me.’
‘Well, dear,’ said Miss Jones with a loving smile, ‘I think you always look very nice, whatever you wear. And that’s the important thing, isn’t it?’
‘The important thing at the moment,’ came the grim reply, ‘ is to find No 12. What was that one we’ve just passed?’
‘I don’t know, dear. I couldn’t see.’
The Hon. Con drew up with an ill-tempered jerk by the kerb. ‘You’ll just have to get out and walk, Bones. We’re going to be all day about it this way. I’ll follow you slowly in the car. Oh, knickers!’ she cursed and switched the windscreen wipers on. ‘It would start raining!’
It turned out to be only one of those sharp, heavy showers and it was practically over by the time Miss Jones had located No 12. She got back in the car and wiped her face with her handkerchief while the Hon. Con issued the battle orders.
‘O.K.! Now, you can see the front door from here, Bones, so keep your eye on me. If I get inside the house, you wait here.’
‘Shall I keep the engine running, dear?’
‘Of course not! Don’t be such a fool, Bones! Still, you’d better sit ready in the driving seat and don’t lock the passenger’s door. You’ll have plenty of time to start up when you see me coming down the drive.’
‘Is that all you want me to do, dear? Just sit here and wait?’
‘Well, not until the cows come home!’ snapped the Hon. Con, examining the house she was about to storm with a somewhat lack-lustre eye. ‘Give me half an hour. No, better make it three quarters.’
‘Then what, dear?’
‘Then fetch the police, noodle! On the double.’
‘Oh dear!’ said Miss Jones. ‘But I’ve never been in Culhampton before. I’ve no idea where the police station is.’
‘Well, don’t waste time looking! Find a call box and dial 999.’
‘Wouldn’t it be better for me to borrow your police whistle, dear?’
‘No, it wouldn’t! I might need that myself.’
‘Very well, dear,’ murmured Miss Jones. She knew she was terribly bad at finding telephone kiosks when she needed one but the Hon. Con seemed jumpy enough without being reminded of that little failing. ‘ Of course, dear,’ she added as a bright after-thought, ‘if I hear you screaming for help before the three-quarters of an hour is up, I’ll act at once, shall I?’
The Hon. Con was still seething over this when she rang the front door bell at No 12. It was a jolly good thing she knew how to look after herself. Rely on old Bones when it came to a crunch and you’d soon find yourself stretched out on a marble slab.
The front door opened and the Hon. Con’s eyes sparkled with satisfaction as she looked at the man who stood there. Smithers-alias-Smith himself or she was a Dutchman! Smugly she recorded the details. Early thirties, medium height, medium build, brown eyes, brown hair going a bit thin on top – just as the woolshop lady had described him! Oh, yes, the Hon. Con would have known him anywhere.
‘Mr Smithers?’ Inwardly she dared him to deny it.
He didn’t.
‘Mr J. B. Smithers?’ insisted the Hon. Con, beginning to enjoy herself.
‘Yes, that’s my name. What is it you wanted?’
‘Like to have a bit of a conflab with you,’ said the Hon. Con with an evil leer. ‘ Won’t take more than a couple of minutes.’
‘I’m afraid I haven’t got a couple of minutes to spare at the moment,’ Mr Smithers replied coolly. ‘What was it you wanted to see me about?’
The Hon. Con had no intention of brainwashing Smithers-alias-Smith on his own front door step, especially as it was coming on to rain again. The time had come for direct action. She planted one stoutly shod foot over the threshold. ‘Be better if we discussed it inside.’
Mr Smithers regarded the foot sourly. ‘I don’t think it would be better at all,’ he said. ‘Kindly step back and allow me to close the door.’
The Hon. Con, having noted that she stood a good head and shoulders higher than Mr Smithers, was feeling as brave as a lion. She shoved the offending foot forward another couple of inches – just to make her attitude quite clear.
Smithers-alias-Smith began to get annoyed. ‘If you don’t go away instantly, Madam, I shall call the police!’
The police? The Hon. Con was assailed by a sudden doubt. Mr Smithers appeared to be a very respectable sort of man and he wasn’t behaving one bit like the craven criminal she had expected. In fact, the Hon. Con had rarely seen anybody who looked less like a murderer. She examined Mr Smithers more closely. Could he really have done Rodney Burberry to death in the sordid surroundings of the Kama Sutra Club? And done him to death for such very nasty reasons, too? At the moment h
e was, it is true, a trifle pink in the face but could those meek brown eyes ever have blazed with an illicit passion so intense that it could only be assuaged by blood! The Hon. Con’s thoughts were becoming somewhat heady.
Oh well, it was a problem that had to be resolved one way or the other. The Hon. Con transfixed Mr Smithers with a steely eye, ready to register the faintest flicker of emotion. ‘Smith!’ she proclaimed, loudly and distinctly.
Mr Smithers recoiled slightly. The Hon. Con was prone to spit when she got excited. ‘I beg your pardon?’
The Hon. Con tried again. ‘Smith!’ she repeated. ‘Totterbridge! The Martyr’s Head! The woolshop in Cross Street! Liverpool!’ Her voice got louder with each searing accusation and she reinforced her words with a jabbing forefinger.
Mr Smithers began to look alarmed. ‘Are you ill or something?’
The Hon. Con tossed all restraint to the winds. ‘ Rabbie Burns!’ she roared. ‘Whisky! Rodney Burberry!’
Mr Smithers leaned forward and peered anxiously around. Were any of the neighbours gobbling up this incredible exhibition? Apparently not. Not yet. He set his jaw and stared at the Hon. Con. ‘I think you’d better come inside after all,’ he said.
He closed the front door behind the Hon. Con and pushed apologetically past her in the darkened hallway. ‘We’d better go into the kitchen. It’s warmer there. I’ll go first, if you don’t mind, and lead the way.’
Together they groped along the hall and down a short half-flight of stairs. The house was an old-fashioned one and the kitchen proved to be a gloomy semi-basement at the back. It was lit only by a barred window, set up high above the sink. Everywhere was very tidy with a cup, saucer and plate drying on the draining board as the only evidence of Mr Smithers’s breakfast.
Mr Smithers maintained a commendable level of politeness. ‘Won’t you please sit down?’
The Hon. Con settled herself at the kitchen table.
‘I think,’ said Mr Smithers after a moment’s awkward pause, ‘that I’ll make some coffee. Do you take milk and sugar?’
The Hon. Con, feeling that somehow she was losing control of the situation, admitted that she did and watched fascinated as Mr Smithers deftly prepared the coffee. He was much more domesticated than the Hon. Con and went in for the whole works – freshly ground beans, filters, hot milk. The Hon. Con was full of admiration. The most she could manage was a spoonful of Nescafé slung in a cup.
Mr Smithers poured the coffee out and brought it over to the table. He fetched a bowlful of brown sugar and placed it in front of the Hon. Con. ‘Please help yourself.’
‘Ta,’ said the Hon. Con and dug out her usual three spoonfuls.
Mr Smithers sat down opposite and took a delicate sip from his cup. ‘How,’ he asked quietly as he replaced the cup in the saucer, ‘did you get on to me?’
The Hon. Con’s mouthful of hot coffee went partly over the kitchen table in a fine spray and partly down her windpipe. Mr Smithers sat patiently and pretended that he hadn’t noticed anything was amiss until she’d finished coughing and choking. It was some time before the Hon. Con won her fight for breath. With a few exhausted gulps and wheezes she mopped the tears from her eyes.
‘Ho, ho – so you admit it, do you?’ she croaked.
Mr Smithers gave the faintest strug of his shoulders. ‘Why not? You obviously know all about it, and secrecy was never my primary aim. I hadn’t, I confess, expected that the facts would become public knowledge quite so soon and that’s why I’d like to know where I made my mistake. It’s purely a matter of academic interest’ – he gave a dry little laugh – ‘because there’s no question of me profiting from my experience. Next time I shall be in a position to act quite openly. You needn’t, therefore,’ he concluded courteously, ‘tell me, if you’d rather not.’
‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ said the Hon. Con, resolving not to be outdone in savoir faire by a blooming murderer. ‘It was your trousers, actually.’
‘My trousers?’
‘Didn’t you know you left a pair behind at the Martyr’s Head? They’d got your name and address on the tailor’s label inside the back pocket.’
Mr Smithers shook his head ruefully. ‘I’ve read that every murderer makes at least one mistake,’ he said, ‘but I never really believed it. It seems I was wrong. I’d been frightfully careful, you see, about removing all the labels from my jackets and coats but I’d completely forgotten about the trousers. How very stupid!’
‘But haven’t you missed the trousers?’ asked the Hon. Con curiously.
‘No, as a matter of fact, I haven’t. The boy’s death upset me far more than I had anticipated. I’d read about remorse, too,’ he observed sadly, ‘but I hadn’t believed that, either. It was worst just at the time, of course. I found the days of waiting until they held the inquest a great strain. It was all I could do to preserve appearances when I was in public. Alone in my room I did at times, I’m afraid, almost go to pieces. Once the inquest was over and nobody was paying any further attention to me, I couldn’t get away fast enough. I must have left the trousers behind, though I thought I’d checked the drawers and the wardrobe very carefully.’
‘The chambermaid had spilt something on them and taken them to be cleaned,’ explained tie Hon. Con. ‘She thought she’d be able to do it without your finding out. She hadn’t realized you were leaving.’
‘I see,’ said Mr Smithers. He didn’t appear to care much one way or the other.
There was a long silence. The Hon. Con cleared her throat. She was blowed if she could see why she should keep the conversational ball bouncing but Mr Smithers obviously wasn’t anything of a chatterbox. ‘ Er – did you really kill Rodney Burberry?’ she asked.
Mr Smithers opened his eyes very wide. ‘Oh, my goodness me, yes! Please don’t let us have any mistake about that.’
‘The coroner did say it was suicide,’ the Hon. Con felt obliged to point out.
‘Well, of course he did. I intended that he should. I had to make elaborate arrangements to fool the authorities, otherwise I should have been arrested right away, shouldn’t I? Next time, thank goodness, there won’t be any need for all this play acting. I found it extremely distasteful, you know. Undignified, too. It detracted from the awful solemnity of the occasion. Still, I suppose one can’t handle filth without becoming contaminated. I didn’t used to think that was true either, but it is.’
‘And all men kill the thing they love!’ the Hon. Con quipped brightly. She had not envisaged swopping improving maxims with Mr Smithers but, if that was the way he wanted to play it, it was OK by her.
Mr Smithers was not impressed. ‘That has always struck me as a particularly silly statement,’ he said coldly.
‘Well,’ blustered the Hon. Con, a little put out by this obvious disapproval,’ maybe love is a bit too strong a word – but you must have been fond of the lad.’
‘Fond of the lad?’ repeated Mr Smithers incredulously. ‘What on earth are you talking about? You don’t think I planned and schemed for three years just to kill somebody I was fond of, do you?’
‘Three years?’ It was the Hon. Con’s turn to be reduced to an echo.
‘I wouldn’t have minded if it had been ten,’ declared Mr Smithers fiercely. ‘Or twenty. It was the only thing that kept me sane, knowing that I would eventually get my revenge. I dedicated my whole life to it. And it wasn’t easy. I’ve always been a kindly, law-abiding man. The murder of another human being is completely foreign to my nature and upbringing, but it had to be done. Another cup of coffee?’
‘Er – no thanks,’ said the Hon. Con.
‘It was having two murders to cope with that made the first one so difficult,’ mused Mr Smithers, building little castles in the sugar basin. ‘I had to be free to do the second one, you understand. My main problem was explaining my absence at this end. Luckily everybody seemed to accept that I’d want to get away for a break after my bereavement. I’d barely set foot out of the house towards the end, you know. Ev
en the doctor commented on how run down I was looking, so a long holiday didn’t arouse anybody’s suspicions. Picture postcards and things worried me for a time – until I realized that there was nobody to write to now. I’ve never had many friends and, since it happened, I’ve completely lost touch even with them.’ He frowned at the sugar and began systematically pressing it fiat with the back of the spoon. ‘Then I had to think of some reason for staying in Totterbridge. I can’t remember now why I picked on representing an estate agent. It seemed as good a cover as any, I suppose. I’d realized very early on the danger of over-complicating things. The hardest job was generating enough work out of thin air to keep Burberry from becoming suspicious. Fortunately he knew even less about office work than I did. As long as he got his wages at the end of the week he was quite prepared to sit doing nothing all day long. The only time he ever roused himself to show any interest was when he thought he could steal something from me without my spotting it. That’s what gave me the basic idea, of course. He started fiddling the petty cash from the second day he arrived, and that took some doing because the legitimate purchases were practically nil. Then I got him doing some bits of shopping for me. He rather liked that. The change was always wrong but I pretended not to notice. I let him build up the impression that I was a complete sucker – absent-minded, forgetful, careless. I’d send him out to buy something one day and then forget and send him out the next day to buy exactly the same thing. That’s how I knew that, sooner or later, he’d take the whisky. He thought I’d stuck it in the cupboard and completely forgotten about it, you see. Getting the rat poison was more difficult because not many shops sell it these days. I had to ring all over Totterbridge before I found anybody who stocked it. We’ve always used it here, of course, and I could easily have taken a tin with me to Totterbridge but that would have been dangerous. I had to make him buy it himself, you see. He’d have to sign the poisons book for it and I knew the chemist would remember.’
‘You put the Kil’mkwik in the bottle of whisky and let Rodney steal it?’ demanded the Hon. Con.