‘In my garden. He weighs about — well, a couple of hundredweight and is made of lead.’
Mr Thynne could be quick on the uptake when it mattered, and it seemed to him to matter now. He said, ‘You’ll have to have the coffin reinforced. Ordinary screws won’t hold a weight of — ’
‘Mr Thynne,’ she said. ‘Do what you have to, but send the coffin and I won’t haggle over the price, I promise. O.K.?’
‘O.K.,’ Mr Thynne said weakly and put down the phone.
Whatever would Babs say to this?
He rose from his chair, walked out of the room and down a corridor and yelled, ‘Tom.’
A few moments later a stoop-shouldered man in shirt-sleeves and an apron tied around his thin waist came hopping along from the workroom. He hopped because that was the only means by which he could make progress on his feet. One leg was appreciably shorter than the other. He held a smoothing plane in his right hand. There was a smudge of sawdust on one cheek, a dead cigarette in the corner of his mouth and another tucked behind his left ear. Behind the right was a very chewed yellow lead pencil. Sundry wood shavings clung to his apron and his black hand-knitted tie that was almost green with age.
‘What is it, Mr T?’ he asked grumpily.
‘The six foot two is going with the hearse to Broomwood at ten tomorrow morning. Make sure it’s ready, then mark up another and it’ll be a rush job. A bonus, Tom.’
‘How much?’
‘A quid.’
‘Thirty bob.’
‘Done, thirty bob it is, Tom.’
Tom Chaggin took a box of matches from a waistcoat pocket, scraped one alight and held it to his cigarette butt, almost singeing his wisp of moustache in the process. He sucked the shag smoke into his leathery lungs and grunted with harsh contentment.
‘Who’s being buried?’ he asked casually.
‘A dwarf.’
Mr Thynne’s own nonchalance was a bit heavy, but then he meant it to be.
‘A dwarf in a six foot two?’
‘And he weighs a couple of hundredweight.’
Tom Chaggin scowled through the shag smoke.
‘You’re putting me on, Mr T.’
‘I’m not, Tom.’
They looked at each other, master and man, both sad-eyed and watchful through their professional sadness.
‘Then you must be barmy.’
That was how thirty years planing and sawing and polishing allowed him to speak in moments packed with what served for emotion.
‘I agree there, Tom,’ came the ready answer. ‘A quid would have been plenty. Thirty bob. I’m getting too damned soft.’
‘That’ll be the day,’ said Tom Chaggin and started for the door. When he reached it he said, ‘Thirty bob,’ and then departed in a hurry, unwilling to risk further debate.
Chapter 6
Bill Hazard came into Drury’s office and draped himself over a chair. The big man looked tired, as he had every right to look. He was bone weary. He had snatched three hours’ sleep out of the past twenty-four, and the others had not been exactly filled with encouragement.
‘You want a drink?’ Drury asked.
‘I just had a coffee in the canteen. I was out of luck, too.’
‘How do you mean?’ Drury asked.
‘It was worse than usual, which means it was undrinkable. But I was very thirsty and I skipped breakfast.’ Hazard took out his notebook, opened it and studied a page before continuing. ‘Claude and Cedric. They used to be bouncers at a Soho club. Claude once got close to a welterweight title, Cedric just fought for the cash, a man of no ambition. He once did time for beating up a jockey at Newmarket. Suspected of working with a horse-doping ring, but nothing could be proved against him. Flora is a relative of Claude’s wife. They’re being paid fifty pounds apiece for standing gate guard at Broomwood.’
‘Wilma expects trouble?’
‘I’m not sure how much of an act that gate guarding is,’ Hazard said, looking up from his notebook. ‘It’s impressive for the locals, and of course the Fleet Street newshounds lap it up.’
‘They’ve had their faces in the tabloids. It’s all beginning to boil in print.’
‘I can imagine. Well, Flora Marshall is a relatively new arrival at Broomwood. In the past year. Apparently she was in trouble with the local police about being drunk and insulting. The other woman didn’t want to bring a charge, but was urged to do so. Wilma Haven got into the act, and some more of the Haven publicity was threatened, so the charge was dropped. I’d say Flora was lucky.’
‘Sounds very well put together,’ Drury nodded, taking out his pipe and packing it from a tin of tobacco. ‘Who was the woman reluctant to bring the charge?’
Hazard glanced again at his pocket-book, riffled a few pages under a broad thumb, and read out a name.
‘Vicki Seeburg.’
Drury shook his head. ‘Doesn’t ring any bell,’ he confessed. ‘Should it?’
‘She’s been around with Wilma for about three years on and off. They once spent a holiday at St Tropez together.’
‘Being girlish, artistic, or just plain lazy in the sun?’
‘I suspect the first because I’m cynical, admit it could be the second because I’m fair-minded, but am prepared to believe it was the last because I’m always ready to be disappointed.’
Drury grinned around the black stem of his pipe.
‘She sounds foreign.’
‘Speaks English without any accent you’d notice unless you were searching for one. Probably due to her father being Austrian and living in Agra, where he met and married a Eurasian whose father was a British officer who was cashiered for cheating at cards.’
‘You’ve been busy. Where did you dig this up?’
‘Wilma has her enemies. Some like to talk behind her back. One of them is a woman who was at school with her. She had her wedding ruined when Wilma turned up with a pig and started making comparisons about pedigrees.’
‘That woman. I remember the hooha. Think she’s to be trusted?’
‘She showed me her book of press cuttings. There were bits filled in, dated, underlined, all very neat. I’d say keeping up to date on Wilma’s a hobby she hopes will pay off.’
‘Like the day you blew in.’
‘Sort of. I got her talking about Jeremy Truncard.’
‘Oh,’ said Drury in a flat tone that earned him a quick look from his assistant.
‘Did I touch a sensitive spot?’
‘Truncard’s walked out on his job. Doubtless it’s only temporary, and Wilma’s the reason. But International Chemicals’ security is in a flap. Word’s gone back to the Home Office. The Commissioner’s had his hot line burning, so the Commander had me in. Where we were going through the motions of being on a case, now we’re working full time.’
Hazard stifled a yawn in a big hand. It could have been a genuine yawn.
‘Is that what I’ve been doing?’ he murmured.
‘You’re not the only one, Bill,’ Drury informed him. ‘A couple of International Chemicals’ security men followed up a lead, picked up Truncard in a café, were about to close in on him when he had finished making a phone call. So far as I can make out, that could have been the call made to Broomwood when we were there.’
‘Then they’ve got him?’
‘No. He ran from the phone booth, jumped into a car driven by a woman.’
‘Wilma?’
‘Impossible. She was at home with us and making threats at Flora Marshall.’
‘So Truncard’s got himself another woman. He’s not unique, is he?’
‘I’m not sure. One of the two International Chemicals men, name of Bateman, said his colleague jumped a bus to go after the car that picked up Truncard. He hasn’t reported back and hasn’t been seen since. That’s a day and a half since he jumped on the bus.’
‘Maybe he’s got a thing about bus travel and he ought to see someone about it.’
‘You mean someone like Jeremy Truncard?’ Drur
y asked mildly, lifting his brows.
Bill Hazard climbed on to his feet and slipped his notebook into his pocket. He began to prowl around the office, a restless man who couldn’t settle.
‘I feel I could sleep for a month if I could bring myself to lie down full length,’ he said and produced a cigarette, which he took his time lighting. ‘It must be the sleep I’ve missed. I don’t get that last bit, chief.’
‘Someone sent the girl to pick up Truncard.’
‘Why didn’t Truncard do his own dirty work?’
‘According to the man Bateman, who was in the Sheffield force before he retired and joined International Chemicals’ security, Tuncard drove south. He put through no phone calls before he left except one. To the daughter of his boss. Her name’s Gladys.’
‘Hell, he could be running an errand for her.’
‘No.’ Drury shook his head. ‘Their security have been on to her. Wilma’s name came up. Her advert started Truncard running.’
‘And on the phone he asked about the baby. Something’s plain wacky,’ Hazard grunted, spilling ash on to the floor.
He glanced down at it and then ran a shoe over the tiny grey mound.
‘If you ask me,’ Hazard muttered as he turned away from Drury’s level stare, ‘I think we’re being served up on toast. This is all going to be another bit of chase me Charlie and a waste of the taxpayers’ money, and we’re taxpayers.’
‘You’d better try tea this time, Bill,’ Drury advised.
His phone rang. He picked up the receiver and said, ‘Yes, sir, at once.’ He put down the receiver and rose.
‘The Commander?’ Hazard asked.
‘Get your cup of tea and come back. I may have news.’
Hazard was back after having a cup of tea and a round of toast, and was smoking a cigarette, when the door of the office opened. He expected to see Drury reappear, but it was a uniformed constable.
‘There’s a Mr Bayliss waiting. Says it’s important, and he has to see the superintendent.’
‘Show him in,’ Hazard said.
He rubbed out his cigarette and sat recalling the last visit to Scotland Yard by the chief clerk at Abbott, Abbott, Truncard, and Porter. On that occasion Bayliss had brought the first news of Wilma Haven’s intended publicity stunt, as Hazard thought of it. Bayliss had been concerned about the effect of what she planned on Jeremy Truncard.
Well, they had all gone some way from the situation as it was. It was only a matter of hours now before she put on her show, whether it included Russian Roulette or not.
There was a bang on the door, and the same constable opened it and flattened his shoulder-blades against the shiny woodwork.
‘Mr Bayliss, Inspector,’ he announced.
Bayliss came in. The door closed. Hazard rose and pushed forward the same chair used by the visitor on the previous visit.
‘Superintendent Drury won’t be long,’ he said. ‘Anything you care to tell me meanwhile?’
The visitor shook his head. ‘Thanks. I’d better wait for Mr Drury. Better to take one bite of the cherry, don’t you think?’
What Bill Hazard was thinking at that precise moment in time was barely repeatable. He said tactfully, ‘Oh, sure. Just thought if there’s something I could tell him for you — ’
‘I’ve something to show him.’
Well, there was nothing Hazard could do about that. They talked about cricket and colour TV and the prospect of another interim Budget from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, subjects in which neither man was specially interested, but the talk filled in a vacuum that could have become stifling in a very short while.
They had ranged over the three subjects and were back to cricket again when Drury came in. He showed his surprise at sight of the waiting visitor. When the two men had said good morning and asked after each other’s health Bayliss took an envelope from his pocket. He watched Drury sit down, but kept the envelope in his hands, running a forefinger round the edge.
‘I think you’d better let me tell this in my own way, Superintendent.’
Drury gave the sort of shrug that conveys acquiescence and sat back.
‘Very well, I’m listening.’
Bayliss leaned forward and placed the envelope on the desk and kept his hand on it. He said, ‘When I came here before I had a letter addressed to Miss Haven in my pocket. I wasn’t sure about sending it, and I still had to make up my mind when I left here. Before I arrived back at Lincoln’s Inn Fields it was in the post. I received a letter from her after a day’s delay. I kept that reply until now. This is it.’
He tapped the envelope on his thumb. Drury didn’t look at his desk. He was watching the chief clerk.
‘But now you want me to read it,’ he said. ‘Why?’
‘Well, something’s happened. Mr Porter has lost that package given him by Miss Haven to be opened in the event of her death.’
There was sudden stillness and quiet in that office. The first sound came from Bill Hazard when he took out a handkerchief as big as a bedsheet and blew his nose.
‘How do you mean lost?’ Drury asked.
‘He went out with a client. When he came back he had lost his keys. We hunted everywhere, made inquiries of the restaurant where he’d lunched, tried tracing the taxi he’d used. No luck. Then this morning he came in and found the safe open and his keys hanging from the lock of the safe door, which was open. Only one thing was missing, that envelope with the green seal Miss Haven had left with me to give him after she’d gone.’
Drury looked beyond Bayliss to his assistant. Hazard knew that kind of look. It was an invitation to wade in with any question he might have.
The big inspector asked, ‘Who was the client?’
Bayliss swung slowly round in his chair to look at Hazard. The chief clerk smiled.
‘An excellent question,’ he said. ‘Janssi Singh. Mr Porter handles his affairs personally.’
‘He’s a business man?’
‘You could call him that. He is a conjurer and uses the stage name of the Great Janssi.’
‘I’ve heard of him,’ said Hazard. ‘He was on the London Palladium the other week, wasn’t he?’
‘Very possibly,’ Bayliss nodded. ‘He travels about a good deal with his act. But when I said you could call him a business man I was referring to his interest in a club. I think he holds the major financial interest, as a matter of fact.’
‘Which club’s that?’ Drury asked.
‘ ‘The Golden Pagoda’, just off Soho Square.’
Bill Hazard said, ‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ and then his jaws clamped together so that they bulged over his collar. He was staring at the top of Bayliss’s head and refusing to meet the challenging look in Drury’s narrowed eyes.
Bayliss broke a fresh silence.
‘Perhaps you’d better read this now, Superintendent,’ he said, tapping the envelope he had placed on the desk once more with his thumb.
He sat back and watched Drury pick up the envelope and draw from it the folded sheet of paper.
Wilma Haven had written:
‘Thank you for your letter, Tom Bayliss. It was very considerate of you to write me, and I know why. You were thinking of Jeremy. Well, I’m glad I’m not the only one who does that occasionally. You were pretty outspoken, so let me be frank in my turn.
‘I’m not seeking to ruin Jeremy’s career by a stunt in bad taste in which he will be snared. Rather the opposite. He is already snared. I have no proof. My one chance of coming by any is to go ahead with my own version of Russian Roulette, if that rings a bell with you. If it doesn’t, never mind. I came in and saw Peregrine. I don’t think he has ever approved of me, any more than you have, but I don’t let it depress me. The best way of living with disapproval, I’ve found, is to ignore it, and if you can’t do that — smile at it. It usually ends by disapproving of itself, but don’t take my word for it.
‘As I said, I saw Peregrine. Because of my special relationship with him, as custodian of my pa
rents’ estate as well as mere trustee, I have always respected his position vis-à-vis myself. I have told him when I was about to kick up my heels, as he thinks of my performances. I told him this time of my idea for Russian Roulette and my hiring a hearse. Poor man, he was more disapproving than horrified, which is a sad reflection on how behind the times he has drifted, though I must admit his legal advice has hitherto been sound. The best proof has been offered whenever I ignored it. And if you think that is another sad reflection I agree with you.
‘But to get back to your request. Don’t come down to see me. It would be pointless, although you would mean well. I want to do this thing my own way. I feel I have to do it, and for more than one reason. But you would be right in thinking some of them focus on Jeremy. It is because of him I am going to do it this way. If things go as I hope you won’t have to worry about much. If they don’t, then I leave a thought with you. Why does Jeremy sneak up to London and visit the ‘Golden Pagoda’?
‘Of course if you have the answer to that already, come and see me by all means. You’ll be welcome. But not otherwise.
‘Kindest regards,
Wilma Haven
It was a typed letter apart from the signature. Dury handed it to Hazard, who had come and stood by his chair. Nothing was said until the big inspector had perused the letter at this own pace. He remained staring a little hard at something in the end of it, then he folded it up and gave it back to Drury, who slid the letter into its envelope.
Drury pushed the envelope across the desk, but not quite as far as the chief clerk’s clenched hand. The envelope remained between them. All three men stared at it.
‘You haven’t shown it to Mr Porter?’ Drury inquired.
‘No. He would have thought me interfering.’
‘Not even since the safe was found open and the letter with the green seal missing?’
‘That was this morning first thing. No.’
‘What have you done about that?’
‘I first rang Miss Haven. I didn’t mention the open safe and the missing letter, and I didn’t refer to Janssi Singh. I asked if she was going through with what she had proposed. She said yes. I said did she know Jeremy had disappeared. She said yes and that you knew about it and probably had your own views.’
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