She sat down again, rather suddenly, thinking: this is a dream.
‘Quite a considerable fortune,’ Mr Rosseter pursued amiably. ‘I congratulate you, Miss Carstairs. Of course, you will need someone to handle your affairs. May I suggest myself?’
‘I – yes, I suppose so. This is all quite a shock, you know.’ It certainly was a shock: so much so, that when Sally left Mr Rosseter’s office she had to keep reminding herself that, after all, the interview had been real. It was like trying to persuade someone of something which they would not believe was true; and at the same time, being that other, incredulous person as well. A curious, irrational feeling of superstition prevented her from saying anything about it, even to her mother, for Sally had had some experience of counting chickens before they were hatched, and of the disenchantment which sometimes followed. So for the moment she went on with her normal life.
Then, next morning, a letter arrived for her. The address at the head of it was 193A Cornmarket, and apart from the signature it was typewritten. It ran:
DEAR MISS CARSTAIRS
I hope you will forgive my presumption in writing to you in this way, but I was wondering if you would do me a small favour. Another of the beneficiaries under Miss Snaith’s will, a Miss Emilia Tardy, is arriving in Oxford by train this evening, and it is important that I should see her at once. Miss Tardy does not know Oxford at all, and, moreover, is rather a helpless old lady. Would it be asking too much of you to meet her and bring her down to my flat in the Iffley Road – No. 474? Of course, I would do so myself, but I shall be unavoidably detained on business, and my clerk, whom I would otherwise have sent, is away on holiday.
The train gets in at 10.12, and Miss Tardy is a plump, elderly lady with gold pince-nez. If it is possible for you to do this kindness, do not trouble to reply to this; if not, would you ring me at my office – Oxford 07022?
With many apologies for troubling you,
Yours truly,
AARON ROSSETER.
It was possible; and Sally went to the station that evening as she had been asked.
In the parlour of the cottage, Sally looked up at her listeners. ‘I don’t know if I’m making it all frightfully obscure,’ she said apologetically.
‘Not in the least,’ said Fen grimly. ‘Certain things are becoming quite crystal clear.’
‘Scoundrel,’ said Wilkes in a surprising outbreak of ethical fervour. Cadogan had sketched out the situation to him while Mr Hoskins had been exercising his wiles.
‘What did you do with the letter?’ Fen asked.
‘I’m afraid I burned it,’ said Sally helplessly. ‘I didn’t think it was important, you see.’
‘Oh,’ said Fen. ‘Well, it can’t be helped. You know, I want to be a bit more certain about dates. This is October 5th … Just a minute.’ He disappeared into the hall, where he could be heard talking into the telephone, and after a while returned. ‘I thought so,’ he said. ‘I’ve been getting the Oxford Mail to go back through their files. Miss Snaith departed this miserable planet six months ago yesterday, that is, on April 4th of this year.’
‘So Miss Tardy’s lease ran out at midnight last night,’ Cadogan interposed.
‘Yes – midnight last night. But the more interesting point is that Rosseter’s advertisement, which ought to have gone in today, went in the day before yesterday – isn’t that right?’ Sally nodded. ‘Two days early, in fact. Go on Sally. We haven’t really got to the point yet, have we? Have another cigarette.’
‘Not another just now, thanks.’ Sally wrinkled her brow. ‘No, there’s worse to come yet. I met the train, you see, and found Miss Tardy all right, and explained that I was from Mr Rosseter, and she seemed quite to expect it, so that was all right. We got a taxi and drove down to Iffley Road – the train was ten minutes late, by the way, and, of course, it was quite dark by then. I liked Miss Tardy: she’d travelled an awful lot, and talked very interestingly about it, and a lot, too, about some children’s homes she was interested in. But I didn’t say anything to her about the will.
‘Well, Mr Rosseter’s flat was just above an awful little toyshop place, and we went in at the door of the shop and up the stairs at the back, like he’d told me, and into the sitting-room at the front. It looked awfully dusty and unoccupied, and we were very surprised that there was no one there. But I thought we must have got the wrong room, so I told Miss Tardy to sit down there a minute – she wasn’t in very good health, poor dear, and those steep stairs had exhausted her – and I went to the next door along and knocked. Then I got an awful fright, because a man came out with bandages all over his face: I don’t know who he was. But he explained he’d had an accident and burned his face, and that Mr Rosseter wasn’t back yet. He apologized for the state the flat was in, too – he said a cistern had burst in Mr Rosseter’s own house and he’d had to move into the flat temporarily. Then he said Mr Rosseter had asked him to entertain Miss Tardy until he arrived, and gave his name as Mr Scadmore; so I introduced them and after a bit I left. Or rather, I pretended to leave. Actually, I felt there was something queer about it all – a sort of intuition, I suppose – and I wanted to see Miss Tardy safely out of the house. So I banged the shop-door loudly (it squeaked, too) and settled down to wait a bit in the shop. It was hellish creepy and I didn’t really know what I was doing, but somehow I was anxious.
‘The first thing I realized was that there were other people in the house besides Miss Tardy and the man who called himself Mr Scadmore. There was a lot of talk and walking about, and then a long silence, and then after about twenty minutes there was quite an outburst of excitement. I wanted to see what was happening, so I crept up the stairs. And then before I could get away Mr Rosseter came down the stairs, and with him a man and a woman, both of them with masks on.
‘He stopped dead when he saw me, and said in a shaky sort of voice: “Oh, you’re still here, are you? You were very foolish to stay. You’d better come up and see what’s happened.” I was terrified, but I thought I’d better go up for the sake of Miss Tardy. She – she was lying on the floor, all blue and puffy, with a piece of string round her neck. The man with the bandaged face was bending over her. He – Mr Rosseter – said: “She’s been murdered, you see, but you’re not going to say anything about it – ever. You keep quiet and you’ll get your money and no one will bother you. You see, you were only to get the money if she didn’t claim it before midnight, and she’s been murdered before she could make a proper legal claim.” He talked very quickly, in a dull, monotonous sort of voice, and he was sweating horribly. The others all kept their eyes on me all the time, and no one moved. I was cramped and dirty from the shop below, and I felt all itchy, as though there were insects crawling over me.’ Sally shivered. ‘He said: “Perhaps you killed her. I don’t know. It’s very convenient for you, and the police will want to know all about it, especially as you brought her here.” I said: “But you told me to.” He said: “I shall deny it, and no one will believe you. I shall say I didn’t send you that letter, and you can’t prove I did. These others will all swear you knew perfectly well you were bringing her to her death. I don’t get any advantage out of it: you do. They’ll believe me rather than you. So you’d better keep quiet. We’ll look after things here. All you’ve got to do is to go home and forget about her and us.” So – I – I – ’
‘So you went home,’ Fen put in quietly. ‘And jolly sensible too.’
‘I’ve been an awful coward,’ Sally said.
‘Nonsense. In your position, I should have fled the country. Was there anything else?’
‘No, that was really all. I’ve told it very badly. Oh, I think the man with the bandages round his face was a doctor: and one of the others called him “Berlin”. It’s one of the names in the advertisement, you know. Those men you chased away told me he’d found something that would clear me. I had to go with them. I remember he was very thin.’
Fen nodded. ‘What about the other two?’
‘I was
really too frightened to notice them much. The woman was plump and oldish, and the man was a weedy, undersized creature. Of course I couldn’t see their faces.’
‘Sharman?’ Cadogan suggested.
‘Probably,’ said Fen. ‘That covers Berlin, and Mold, and Leeds – presumably the woman, and Ryde – yourself, Sally – and leaves only West out of account. Can you tell us anything about times?’
Sally shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. It was all some time between eleven and twelve – I heard midnight striking as I walked home.’
There was a long silence. Then Cadogan said to Fen: ‘What do you think happened?’
Fen shrugged. ‘Fairly obviously a plot on the part of certain of the residuary legatees, Rosseter abetting, to kill Miss Tardy and prevent her claiming the inheritance. Once she was dead the body would be disposed of, and presumably has been, and everything would go according to plan. You, Sally, were to take Miss Tardy to the toyshop, to avoid any of the actual conspirators being even thus remotely implicated should anything ever be suspected; and afterwards’ – he smiled grimly – ‘well, you wouldn’t think anything more of it, would you? If you did, Rosseter would deny he wrote you that letter, deny everything. In those circumstances, and with no corpus delicti and no toyshop, what sort of a case could be made out against anyone, and for what crime? Unfortunately it all went wrong: (a) you stayed in the shop instead of going away; (b) Cadogan here blundered in and found the body; and (c) Cadogan was afterwards seen chasing after you with obvious intent to get information. That being the case, you couldn’t be left at large; you had to disappear, too. And you very nearly did. The only thing that mystifies me is why Rosseter should have been so shaken, and why he should have thought you might have killed the woman. It rather suggests … No, I don’t know what it suggests. Anyway, I’m going back to Oxford to have another talk with Rosseter – and I shall stop at the college on the way to collect a gun.’
8. The Episode of the Eccentric Millionairess
There was one interruption, however, before he was able to carry out this plan. The five of them squeezed into Lily Christine III with great difficulty. Sally sat on Cadogan’s knee, which Cadogan rather liked, and they set off, with Fen driving, on a hurried, nerve-tearing passage of the narrow road, bouncing over bridges like a scenic railway, and missing stray livestock and pedestrians by inches. How they failed to mutilate or kill the A.A. man at the junction with the Banbury road Cadogan was never able to imagine; they left him staring after them, too horrified even to call out. Cadogan, in telegrammatic, broken sentences, acquainted Sally and Mr Hoskins with what they knew of the case so far.
‘Golly,’ said Sally when he had finished; and added a little shyly: ‘You do believe what I told you, don’t you? I know it sounds fantastic, but – ’
‘My dear Sally, this is such a wild business I’d believe you if you said you were the Lady of Shalott.’
‘You do talk funnily, don’t you?’ But the words were swept away in the rush of wind and the din of the engine.
‘What?’ said Cadogan.
Wilkes turned round in the front seat. He could hear better when there was a noise going on. ‘She says you talk funnily.’
‘Do I?’ It had not previously occurred to Cadogan that he talked funnily: the thought disturbed him.
‘I didn’t mean to be rude,’ Sally said. ‘What do you do? What’s your job, I mean?’
‘I’m a poet.’
‘Golly.’ Sally was impressed. ‘I’ve never met a poet before. You don’t look like one.’
‘I don’t feel like one.’
‘I used to read poetry at school,’ Sally continued reminiscently. ‘There was one bit I liked. It went:
Annihilating all that’s made
To a green thought in a green shade.
I haven’t the foggiest what it means, but it sounds nice, anyway. It was in a book called Poetry for the Middle Forms … I’m not sitting too hard on you, am I?’
‘No, I like it.’
‘It must be jolly good fun being a poet,’ Sally mused. ‘No one to boss you about, and no one to make you work when you don’t want to.’
‘It’d be all right if one earned any money at it,’ Cadogan replied.
‘Go on. How much do you earn?’
‘From being a poet? About two pounds a week.’
‘Golly, that isn’t much. Perhaps you aren’t very important yet.’
‘I think that’s probably it.’
This seemed to satisfy Sally, for she sang happily to herself until Fen’s mounting a pavement with two wheels while taking a particularly sharp corner diverted all their minds from the subject.
It was shortly after this that the interruption occurred. As they neared Oxford, shops began to appear, traffic increased, and the signs of undergraduate habitation became more numerous. Just before they arrived at the turning which leads off to Lady Margaret Hall, Cadogan, who had been staring vacantly at the landscape, suddenly shouted to Fen to stop, and Fen did this so suddenly that they were nearly overwhelmed by a following car, which fortunately circumvented them, though not without abuse. Fen twisted round in his seat and said:
‘What in God’s name is the matter?’
Cadogan pointed, and their eyes followed the direction of his arm. A hundred yards or so behind where they had stopped was a toyshop.
‘I think it’s the same one,’ said Cadogan, clambering out of the car. ‘In fact, I’m almost sure … ’ The others followed him, and they clustered round the window.
‘Yes,’ said Cadogan. ‘Because I remember thinking how ugly that doll with the cracked face looked.’
‘I remember it, too,’ said Sally.
‘And there’s that box of balloons I knocked over … Anyway, it looks like it.’ Cadogan searched for the name above the shop. It was ‘Helston’, in faded white letters, elaborately scrolled.
He and Fen went inside. The shop was inhabited only by a dusty young man with a shock of red hair.
‘Good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon, sir,’ he said. ‘What can I do for you? A doll’s house for the little girl?’ He had been reading a manual on salesmanship.
‘What little girl?’ said Fen blankly.
‘Or a box of bricks or some toy soldiers?’ Cadogan bought a balloon and went outside to present it to Sally.
‘Is the owner of the shop in? It’s a Miss Alice Winkworth isn’t it?’ Fen asked.
‘Yes, sir, Miss Winkworth. No, sir, I’m afraid she’s not in. Anything I can do for you … ’
‘No, I wanted to see her personally. You haven’t her address, I suppose?’
‘No, sir, I’m afraid I haven’t. You see, I’ve only been here a short while. She doesn’t live on the premises. I know that.’
So there was really nothing more to be said. But as he was leaving, Fen asked:
‘Did you notice anything unusual about the shop when you opened this morning?’
‘Well, sir, it’s funny you should say that, because several things seemed out of place, like. I was afraid there’d been a burglary, but then there was no sign of breaking in, and nothing that I could see was missing … ’
When they were in the car again, and heading for St Christopher’s: ‘Obviously that’s the normal habitat of the toyshop,’ Fen said. ‘It’s interesting, though not unexpected, to find that this Winkworth woman owns it. She seems to have provided the scenery for the whole affair. I suppose she’s Leeds.’
‘We ought to have buried Danny,’ said Sally suddenly. ‘We oughtn’t to have left him like that.’ They drove in silence to the front gate of St Christopher’s.
Parsons, the porter, hailed them as they passed through the lodge. ‘The police have been a third time for Mr Cadogan,’ he said sombrely. ‘They’re getting rather angry. They went and had a look in your room, Professor Fen. I saw to it they didn’t disturb anything.’
‘What did you tell them?’
‘Said I didn’t know anything about it. Perjury.’ Parsons retir
ed, grumbling, to study the Daily Mirror.
They all crossed the two quadrangles to Fen’s room. ‘What do the police want him for?’ Sally whispered to Fen.
‘Pornographic books,’ said Fen impressively.
‘No, seriously.’
‘He stole some food from the grocer’s – when we were looking round this morning.’
‘Golly, what a stupid thing to do.’
Fen’s room proved to contain an occupant. Mr Erwin Spode, of Spode, Nutling, and Orlick, publishers of high-class literature, rose to his feet in a twitter of nervousness as they came in.
‘Hello, Erwin,’ said Cadogan in surprise. ‘What are you doing here?’
Mr Spode coughed nervously. ‘In point of fact, I was looking for you. I was in Oxford, so I thought I’d look you up. About that American lecture tour.’
Cadogan groaned. ‘Let me introduce you,’ he said. ‘Mr Spode, my publisher: Professor Fen, Miss Carstairs, Mr Hoskins, Dr Wilkes.’
‘I thought that as this was your college I should perhaps find you here.’ Mr Spode addressed himself to Fen. ‘I hope you’ll forgive the intrusion.’ His semicircular profile bore marks of anxiety, and his thin hair was ruffled. He rubbed his face with a handkerchief. ‘It’s hot,’ he complained.
It certainly was hot. The sun was falling lower in the heavens, but it still blazed with unabated strength. The green and cream of the room were cooling, and all the windows were flung wide, but it was still hot. Cadogan felt he could do with a bathe.
‘When did you arrive?’ he asked Mr Spode, less because he wanted to know than because he could think of nothing else to say.
‘Last night,’ said Mr Spode with something very like frank dismay.
‘Oh?’ Cadogan’s interest was abruptly aroused. ‘But you said when you left me you were going back to Caxton’s Folly.’
Mr Spode became more unhappy than ever; he coughed repeatedly. ‘I called in at my office on the way back, and found a message asking me to come up here at once. I drove. I would have given you a lift, but when I rang up you’d already left. I’m staying at the “Mace and Sceptre”,’ he concluded defensively, as if this both explained and excused everything.
The Moving Toyshop Page 11