‘Yes?’ she called.
‘Ah,’ said Nigel Buckmaster, opening the door. ‘It’s not locked this morning.’ He closed the door behind him. ‘It was different last night.’
‘I was very tired and needed my sleep.’
‘You could have at least let me bid you good night.’
‘I didn’t wish to see you.’
‘Is that so?’ he said, peevishly. ‘You changed your tune quickly. When I talked to Miss Evans at the reception after the play, you dragged me away from her like a jealous lover. Yet when we returned to the hotel, you barred the door against me.’
‘It had been a long day, Nigel. I was exhausted.’
‘So was I – we could have collapsed into each other’s arms.’
‘I was not in the mood.’
He mastered his irritation. ‘Very well, let’s leave it at that. I just trust that it won’t happen again.’ He glanced around. ‘You have quite a floral display in here.’
‘Certain gentlemen seem to have enjoyed my performance,’ she said, holding up the card. ‘This one is from the Town Clerk.’
‘I, too, had my admirers.’
‘Welsh women always have such a peculiarly bovine look to them,’ she said, tartly.
‘That’s not true of Carys Evans – she was radiant.’
‘I thought her rather dowdy.’
‘Is that why you pulled me so rudely away?’
‘I felt it was time to get back to the hotel.’
‘After a triumphant performance like that,’ he reminded her, ‘we usually celebrate. You were wont to be in a more receptive mood hitherto. But,’ he said, holding up both hands, ‘I won’t dwell on that lapse. Let’s put it behind us, shall we? The important thing is that we conquered our audience. They will tell their friends and we can rely on full houses all week.’
‘The Town Clerk is coming to see us again tonight,’ she said as she put the card aside. ‘When I told him that we’d be performing Hamlet in Newport next month, he promised to come and see that as well – even though he was rather surprised.’
‘By what, pray?’
‘The fact that I’ll be playing Gertrude,’ she replied. ‘Mr Probert assumed that I’d be Ophelia. He said that I was far too young to play Hamlet’s mother whereas you were far too old to play the Prince.’
‘That’s nonsense!’ he cried, stung by the comment. ‘It’s my greatest role and it’s brought me acclaim all over the country. I expect to play Hamlet for at least another decade.’
‘At that age, you ought to be playing Claudius – if not Polonius.’
‘I need no advice about casting from you, Kate!’ he snarled. ‘I think you should remember what you were when you first came to my attention. You played non-speaking parts in that execrable touring company. I rescued you from that misery. I saw your true promise. I taught you the essence of the actor’s art. Within a year, you were playing Ophelia to my Hamlet.’
‘Yes,’ she said, pointedly, ‘a part that I’ve now yielded to Miss Tremaine. Where did you pluck that useless creature from, Nigel?’
‘Laura Tremaine has a talent.’
‘For what – it’s certainly not acting!’
He grinned wolfishly. ‘Do I detect a note of envy?’
‘I could never envy that empty-headed little baggage. Her Lady Macduff is ludicrous but it pales beside her appalling Ophelia. Be prepared, Nigel. When the audience in Newport realises that Ophelia has drowned herself, they’ll break into spontaneous applause.’
‘Let’s have more respect for a fellow-actress, please!’
‘Then cast one worthy of the name.’
‘A company must pull together, Kate.’
‘Spare me, please – I’ve heard that speech too many times.’
‘There’s no talking to when you’re in such a fevered state,’ he said, moving to the door. ‘I hope you’ll have come to your senses by the time we go on stage this evening – and when we get back here.’
‘Knock on someone else’s door,’ she advised, rising to her feet to strike a pose. ‘I daresay Miss Tremaine will leave hers unlocked for you. Lady Macduff would fawn at your feet.’
‘Stop it, Kate!’ he ordered.
‘Or perhaps Miss Carys Evans is more to your taste.’
‘I’ll have no more of it, do you understand? You’re acting like a dog in a manger – you may not want something yet you’re determined that nobody else will have it.’
‘Close the door when you go out, please.’
Buckmaster fumed. ‘I’ll see you later,’ he said, angrily, ‘when I trust that you will behave like a grateful member of a company that I happen to manage. Remember that.’
Storming out of the room, he left the door wide open.
* * *
Robert Colbeck studied the letter with interest. It was written by the same person who had penned the earlier ransom note. He handed it to Victor Leeming to read. Clifford and Winifred Tomkins had sent for the detectives and now watched them carefully. Winifred was excited at the prospect of getting her coffee pot back while her husband was resenting the cost involved. As a businessman, he had been used to driving a hard bargain, paying the lowest price for something he could sell at the largest profit. It appalled him that he would have to buy back something on which he had already spent fifty pounds deposit.
‘These instructions seem quite clear,’ said Colbeck. ‘The money is to be handed over this evening. Do you have it ready, sir?’
‘Yes, Inspector,’ said Tomkins, ‘but I’m loathe to let it out of my hands. Supposing that the thief simply grabs it and runs away?’
‘Sergeant Leeming will make sure that doesn’t happen.’
‘I’m still unhappy about the whole thing.’
‘It’s the only way to get my coffee pot back, Clifford,’ said his wife. ‘You promised me that you’d pay anything to retrieve it.’
‘Anything within limits,’ he corrected.
‘With luck, it won’t cost you anything at all. The sergeant will arrest the thief so that the money and the coffee pot are both safe.’
‘There is one debt to discharge, Mrs Tomkins,’ said Colbeck. ‘Mr Kellow died before he could collect the balance from your husband. All that’s been paid to Mr Voke so far is the deposit. I’ll be glad to take the rest of the money to him on your behalf.’
‘Let’s make sure that we’ve still got it,’ said Tomkins.
‘I’ve no reason to doubt that, sir.’
‘According to this,’ said Leeming, handing the letter back to the inspector, ‘Mr Tomkins is supposed to hand over the money. If, as we suspect, the villain is Stephen Voke then there could be a problem. We know that he was still working for his father when Mr Tomkins went to the shop to commission the coffee pot.’
‘That was a long while ago, Sergeant,’ said Tomkins.
‘And there’s something else you should have noticed,’ said Colbeck. ‘The exchange is to be made when evening shadows are falling. In bad light, you could certainly be taken for Mr Tomkins, I fancy. Stephen Voke – if, indeed, it is him – will see little of your face.’
‘Didn’t you say you thought a woman might be there to take the money?’ asked Winifred. ‘I find that hard to countenance, I must say.’
‘Look at the handwriting, Mrs Tomkins,’ suggested Colbeck. ‘It is patently a woman’s. I think that significant. Well, you’ve both seen the instructions. Has she chosen a good place for the exchange?’
‘Yes,’ said Tomkins, grudgingly. ‘Sergeant Leeming will be seen from a long way off. If the thief has the slightest suspicion, he or she can simply vanish.’
‘That’s why the sergeant will be alone.’
Leeming grinned. ‘Carrying all that money,’ he said. ‘It will be a new experience for me to be so well off, if only for a short while.’
‘Take care of every penny,’ urged Tomkins.
‘And please bring my coffee pot back to me,’ said Winifred.
Colbeck held up the letter. ‘How was t
his delivered?’
‘There was a man loitering at our gate, apparently,’ she explained. ‘When a friend arrived in her chaise, he thrust it into her hand and asked her to bring it to us. All she can recall of the fellow was that he was badly dressed and was in need of a shave. Oh, and he was not young.’
‘He was probably paid to do exactly what he did. It’s unlikely that he has any connection with the murder and the theft. By the way,’ he went on, giving the letter to her, ‘who was the friend who brought this to your door?’
‘It was Carys Evans.’
‘How interesting!’ said Colbeck, thinking of a silver brooch in the shape of a dragon. ‘And were you expecting the lady to call?’
‘Oh, no,’ replied Winifred. ‘She came without warning. Carys had some flimsy excuse about being worried because my husband and I failed to attend the play last night. I think that she just came to enjoy my discomfort at losing that silver coffee pot.’
Colbeck could imagine another reason altogether for the visit.
CHAPTER NINE
Sir David Pryde stood in front of the cheval-mirror as he adjusted his bow tie then ran a palm over his thinning hair. His wife, meanwhile, was seated at her dressing table, putting the finishing touches to her appearance. She issued a command.
‘Don’t drink so much champagne this evening, David.’
‘I like it,’ he protested.
‘Sometimes, I fear, it does not like you. At the reception last night, I don’t think you realised how many glasses you had. And what was the result?’ she asked, swinging round to face him. ‘You had one of your migraines yet again.’
‘It wore off after a few hours, Martha.’
‘That may be so but it meant that you spent the night in the other room instead of beside me. I prefer to sleep with my husband.’
‘Then that’s what you’ll do tonight,’ he promised. ‘I’ll take care to drink in moderation. I missed being with you last night but my head was splitting when we got home. It was excruciating. I would not have been good company’
His recurring migraines were a useful invention. They gave him an excuse to leave the marital couch occasionally and slip away from the house for an assignation. His wife was a heavy sleeper. Once she had dozed off, she would not hear the horse’s hooves as he rode off into the darkness. When she had been awakened by her husband that morning, it never crossed her mind that he had spent the night near Llandaff Cathedral with another woman.
‘Who else is dining with the Somervilles?’ he asked.
‘I’ve no idea – as long as it’s not Winifred Tomkins and her husband. They’re such dreary people. Agnes Somerville maintains high standards at her dinner table so I think we’re safe from a brush with Winifred.’
‘At the play last night, you actually wanted to see her.’
‘That was only so that I could crow over her.’
‘Had she been there, you should have ignored her altogether. Both she and Tomkins should be ostracised,’ he said, testily. ‘I won’t have anyone speaking to my wife that way or casting aspersions on one of our children.’
‘Dorothy does not have a squint,’ declared Martha, getting to her feet like a combative speaker at a public meeting. ‘She has a way of screwing up one eye, that’s all. I’ve always thought it an endearing habit. Winifred only said that because I caught her on the raw when I told her that living in Merthyr was bound to blunt a person’s finer feelings. It’s an iron town, for heaven’s sake – there must be ash and stench and pandemonium there all day long. How can anyone of taste live in such a godless inferno?’
‘We should never have admitted them to our circle.’
‘It was not merely our daughter whom she attacked. That vicious-tongued harpy made some unkind comments about you as well, David.’
‘I don’t want to hear them,’ he said, having already done so many times. ‘Neither she nor that husband of hers are fit to consort with us, Martha. They are personae non gratae – not that I’d expect either of them to understand Latin. We should be relieved that they didn’t turn up to see Macbeth. Everyone of consequence was there.’
‘That rules out Winifred.’ They shared a brittle laugh. ‘Did you happen to notice Carys Evans at the reception?’
‘I caught a fleeing glimpse of her, I think,’ he replied, turning back to the mirror to brush some non-existent dust off his shoulder. ‘I was too busy talking to the mayor about the Council’s plans for the town. I never miss an opportunity to mix business with pleasure.’
‘She’s starting to look her age.’
‘Who is?’
‘Carys Evans,’ she said. ‘She may be pretty enough now but her looks will soon fade. She should take advantage of them while she still has them. It’s almost indecent for a woman to remain single for so long. I was barely twenty when you proposed to me.’
Pryde smiled. ‘You were only seventeen when I first saw you,’ he recalled. ‘It took me three years to pluck up the necessary courage.’ He spun round to face her. ‘And I’ve been the happiest of men ever since, Martha.’
‘You used to drink even more champagne in those days. I don’t remember it ever giving you a migraine then.’
‘I’m starting to suffer the defects of old age, my love.’
‘Fiddlesticks! You’re as hale and hearty as ever.’
‘That’s certainly true of you,’ he said, dredging up the sort of compliment she required on a regular basis. ‘You are still the lovely young bride I took to the altar.’
She was spiteful. ‘If you want to see the defects of old age, look no further than Winifred Tomkins. A stranger would take her for seventy or more. Think of those bags under her eyes, that air of decay and that dreadful, unsightly, sagging body.’
He was too diplomatic to point out that his wife was much heavier than the other woman and had even more prominent eye-bags. Lady Pryde liked to inhabit a world where she was always praised and never contradicted. Her friends understood that and indulged her accordingly. It had been Winifred Tomkins’ mistake to question the acknowledged perfection of Lady Pryde and her family. Honesty, she had learnt, had no place in any dealings with Martha Pryde.
‘David,’ she said, crossing to stand in front of him.
‘Yes, my love?’
‘How did you come to know of that silversmith – the one who made that absurd coffee pot?’
‘I’ve told you that, Martha.’
‘Tell me again,’ she pressed. ‘I’ve forgotten.’
‘Jack Somerville gave me that silver snuff box for my birthday,’ he told her. ‘When I heard that it was made by a Mr Voke of Wood Street in London, I took note of his name. It was exceptionally well-made. That’s why I engaged him to make that silver yacht for me.’
‘I remember your going to London to meet him.’
‘I was impressed by his work.’
‘So his reputation rested on that little snuff box?’
‘Of course not, Martha,’ he said. ‘I required more evidence than that before I committed myself. Jack showed me some candlesticks he got from the man. They were superb – solid silver and exquisitely fashioned. That’s why I commissioned the yacht from Voke. If you want to blame anyone for putting Winifred Tomkins in touch with that silversmith,’ he went on, ‘then the real culprit is Jack Somerville – but please don’t challenge him about it this evening.’
‘I have more tact than that, David.’
After a final look in the dressing room mirror, she was ready to leave. They went downstairs to the hall where the butler was waiting to open the front door for them, inclining his head as they passed. Pryde helped his wife into the phaeton then sat beside her. The driver cracked his whip and the vehicle lurched forward. After a prolonged silence, Martha whispered a question to her husband.
‘Do you think that Dorothy has a squint?’
Victor Leeming was in high spirits. All that he had to do was to go through the motions of handing over a substantial amount of money before apprehen
ding someone responsible both for murder and theft. By checking the copy of Bradshaw that Colbeck always took with him when they left the capital, he had seen that there was a late train to Paddington. If the exchange went as planned, he might be able to shake the dust of Cardiff from his feet and travel back to his wife and family, basking in the fulsome praise he would unquestionably have received from Clifford and Winifred Tomkins. The crimes would be solved within the hour.
‘Do exactly as that letter told you,’ warned Colbeck.
‘I will, Inspector.’
‘They’ll be watching for any false move.’
‘Where will you be?’
‘The nearest I can get without arousing suspicion is about a quarter of a mile away.’
‘What about Superintendent Stockdale?’
‘He’s standing by at the railway station in case of mishap.’
‘There won’t be a mishap,’ said Leeming, hurt that it should even be suggested. ‘I’ve done this before, Inspector. I know what to expect.’
‘I trust you implicitly, Victor. My fear is that, when you arrest one person, his or her accomplice will take flight. The obvious way to escape the town is by rail so that’s why the superintendent will be guarding the station.’
Leeming was placated. ‘Oh, I see. It makes sense when you explain it like that.’ He put on his top hat and looked in the mirror. ‘Do you think I’ll be taken for Mr Tomkins?’
‘I’m sure that you will,’ said Colbeck. ‘You’re a far better double than me. I’m too tall and slim to fool anybody. You’re much younger than Mr Tomkins but you’re closer to his build – and your face won’t be seen in the twilight until it’s too late.’
‘I’ll have the handcuffs on him in two seconds,’ said Leeming, taking them out and dangling them in the air. ‘Stephen Voke will get the surprise of his life.’
‘What if the person you arrest is a woman named Bridget?’
‘She deserves the same treatment, sir.’
They were in the hotel room where they had spent the previous night. Leeming hoped that he would not have to stay there for the second time. It was up to him to ensure that he and Colbeck could catch the late train to Paddington. Putting the handcuffs away, he reached into a pocket to take out a thick wad of banknotes.’
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