by Simon Brett
‘Well, of course you’d say that.’
‘Anyway, why should you behave in the bizarre manner you describe?’ asked Mr Holland, modelling himself on some severe barrister from a television court-room drama.
‘That, for the moment, is my business.’
‘If you aren’t prepared to explain yourself, Miss Naismith and I can hardly be blamed for placing the construction that we have on your actions. I’m afraid I do feel obliged to call the police.’
Once again his hand reached for the telephone, but once again it was frozen by Mrs Pargeter’s soft voice.
‘I think you need rather more evidence for your accusation. If I did take the jewels, where do you think they are now?’
‘Well, I hadn’t really considered . . .’
‘No. According to your theory, I stole the jewels at two-thirty this morning. Now the security in this hotel is good. The burglar alarm system works with pressure pads by the doors and windows of the front of the building and contact breakers on the doors at the back.’
‘How do you know that?’ asked Miss Naismith, surprised.
‘I make a habit of being observant,’ Mrs Pargeter replied evenly. She did not say that the habit of observing security systems was another of the useful things she had learnt from the late Mr Pargeter.
‘I’m not quite clear where this is getting us,’ said Mr Holland in a tone of professional impatience.
‘What I am saying is that it would have been impossible for me to get out of the hotel quietly until after Newth had switched off the burglar alarm this morning. And since that time, as any of the residents can confirm, I have not left the premises.’
‘So?’
Mrs Pargeter sighed with exasperation. The solicitor really was being very obtuse. ‘So, since I haven’t left the premises, if I stole the jewels, they can’t have left the premises either.’
‘Well . . .’
‘Unless, of course, I had an accomplice . . . Yes, perhaps I took Newth into my confidence. He after all has the keys to the alarm system – not to mention a pass key to Mrs Selsby’s room.’
Miss Naismith coloured. ‘How dare you, Mrs Pargeter? I will not have such imputations made about one of my staff.’
‘You seemed quite happy to make such imputations about one of your guests,’ Mrs Pargeter observed mildly.
‘So what you are saying . . . ?’ asked Mr Holland.
Really he wasn’t very intelligent. Still, Mrs Pargeter reflected, you didn’t have to be very intelligent to be a solicitor. Just somehow scrape through a few exams in your twenties and then the British legal system saw to it that you had a meal ticket for life.
‘What I am saying,’ she explained patiently, ‘is that, if you really believe I stole the jewels, all you have to do is to search my room, or – crediting me with a little subtlety – search the rest of the hotel, and you will find evidence to convict me, won’t you?’
‘Ye-es.’ Mr Holland sounded uncertain.
‘Such a search,’ said Miss Naismith with distaste, ‘would be very upsetting to the other residents.’
At this Mrs Pargeter finally lost her temper. Without forfeiting her considerable dignity, she snapped, ‘Listen, if you’re prepared to upset me so easily, I don’t give a damn about your upsetting the other residents! You have to face the fact, Miss Naismith, that, repellent though it may be to your sensibilities, a robbery has taken place in the Devereux. And the circumstances of that robbery mean it was committed either by one of the residents or by one of the staff. Now it would be extremely convenient if I had committed it, because you could then quietly ask me to leave, and sweep the whole matter under the carpet.
‘Unfortunately for you, I didn’t do it, so you are faced with the unpleasant prospect of starting an enquiry into the activities of the other people who live in this hotel.’
‘Ah, you say you didn’t do it. . . .’
‘Yes, and, as I mentioned before, a search of the premises will prove I didn’t do it. And, if you once again make the accusation that I did do it, let me assure you I will get in touch with my solicitor and see to it that you pay me very substantial damages.’
At last Mr Holland felt they were on to a subject he knew something about. ‘Might I ask,’ he enquired superciliously, ‘who your solicitor is?’
‘I deal with the Justiman Partnership.’
‘Oh.’ He was impressed. ‘Might I ask who in particular you deal with there?’
‘I have always had my affairs handled by Arnold Justiman.’
This was another of her fortunate legacies from the late Mr Pargeter. Her husband had been a constant employer of Arnold Justiman, one of the most eminent of his profession, and Mrs Pargeter often reflected that she owed much of her conjugal happiness to Arnold Justiman. Without his good offices, Mr Pargeter’s occasional necessary absences from the marital home would have been much longer.
‘Oh. Arnold Justiman himself.’ Mr Holland was now very impressed. He sat back in his chair with hands folded on his lap, as if to dismiss any idea that they might ever have contemplated reaching for a telephone. ‘I think, Miss Naismith, we would be very ill-advised to pursue this line of enquiry.’
‘What?’ asked Mrs Pargeter with a hint of mockery. ‘You don’t want to find out who stole the jewels?’
‘Well, yes, we do. Of course we do. And in the fullness of time, in consultation with the proper authorities, I am sure that we will. I was merely suggesting that we should not be too precipitate in our actions. Wouldn’t you agree, Miss Naismith?’
‘Yes, yes, I would.’
The proprietress looked as if she had just swallowed something singularly disgusting and was faced with more unpalatable mouthfuls ahead. Mrs Pargeter’s openness and ready suggestion of a search had convinced her accuser that the blame for the theft lay elsewhere. That raised the unpleasant prospect of investigating the other residents of the Devereux.
And also Miss Naismith had the uncomfortable knowledge that she had overplayed her hand and allowed her antipathy to Mrs Pargeter to become too nakedly apparent.
‘Well, don’t let me keep you any longer.’ Mrs Pargeter rose from her chair. ‘On the strict understanding that the matter is never raised again, I am quite happy to forget what has been said here this morning.’ She smiled sweetly at her accusers. ‘And do let me know if there is anything I can do to help you in your investigations into this unfortunate incident.’
She moved to the door, but stopped before she opened it.
‘Oh, one thing, Miss Naismith . . . I wonder, would it be possible for me to hand my jewellery to you to be kept in the hotel safe . . . ? It would be most regrettable if there were another lapse of security at the Devereux, wouldn’t it?’
‘Yes. Yes, of course that would be possible,’ Miss Naismith replied, tight-lipped.
‘Might I have a look at the safe?’ asked Mrs Pargeter charmingly. ‘Unless it’s of a reputable manufacture, I might decide I’d be better advised to put my valuables in the bank.’
Wordlessly, Miss Naismith moved an embroidered fire-screen to reveal a square grey metal box, on which a silver plate bore the legend, ‘Clissold & Fry – Excalibur Two’.
‘Oh, yes, that will be quite adequate. If I may, I’ll bring my jewellery down as soon as possible. If that’s convenient . . . ?
‘Of course. Any time,’ said Miss Naismith with a ghastly smile, as Mrs Pargeter moved gracefully out of the Office.
15
In the Entrance Hall Mrs Pargeter paused for a moment of grim satisfaction. She had no doubt that she had seen off Miss Naismith, but she was still angry that the accusation had ever been made. None of the other residents would have been attacked frontally in that manner, and, though usually Mrs Pargeter was the most tolerant of individuals, another legacy of her life with the late Mr Pargeter was a certain sensitivity to imputations of criminal behaviour.
Still, she thought with a wicked little surge of glee, she had effectively diverted them from questio
ns about what she was doing in Mrs Selsby’s room in the middle of the night.
She looked out through the glass of the closed front doors to the greyness beyond, and saw a small figure wound up in a plum-coloured coat walking briskly away from the hotel on the other side of the road. In spite of the black fur hat pulled down over the ears, she had no difficulty in recognising Mrs Mendlingham.
Mrs Pargeter decided she might put her own coat on and go for a walk.
The coat in question was a mink, which the late Mr Pargeter, always the soul of generosity, had presented to her after a particularly successful business venture, and that morning she was glad of its warmth. The weather, which had not been good for some time, seemed now to have lapsed into icy melancholy, as if it had lost faith in the idea of there ever being a summer. The wind carried a stinging spray – or maybe it was rain – and the sea was lost about fifty yards out in sticky fog.
It was not a morning for recreational walking, and Mrs Pargeter wondered where Mrs Mendlingham was headed with such apparent determination. As she emerged from the Devereux and felt the first breath-snatching blast of the weather, Mrs Pargeter could still see the small plum-coloured figure striding along the front and, without hurrying, she had no difficulty in keeping her quarry in sight.
Mrs Mendlingham was walking along towards the Arun estuary, past the closed Smart’s Amusements, on whose wall even the perky figure of Mickey Mouse looked forlorn. The exposed metalwork of the mini-roller-coaster known as the Mouse Run gave the edifice the unfinished look of a building site. Mrs Mendlingham continued straight ahead, past the sad fairy-tale turrets of the Giant Slide.
Mrs Pargeter was intrigued. Her reconnaissance of Littlehampton two days before had been thorough and, as far as she could remember, Mrs Mendlingham appeared to be walking into a dead end, a little corner between the beach and the river.
Suddenly the plum-coloured figure was no longer visible.
Mrs Pargeter did not increase her pace. There was nowhere Mrs Mendlingham could have gone, except into one of the sea-front shelters.
These concrete structures were designed to keep the wind off the bench seats inside them, and on days when the wind was less blustery and erratic, perhaps they did. That morning they seemed only to attract little eddies of cold air, providing a home for the small hurricanes of the sea front. In one or two of them Mrs Pargeter saw old people propped in the corners, faces purple with cold between their scarves and hats, but showing rigid determination to get away for a little while from the four walls of their homes (or their Homes).
Mrs Mendlingham was not sitting in the first group of shelters, but there were some others further on, with glass partitions, which faced over the river rather than the sea. As she rounded the corner of one of these, Mrs Pargeter saw the plum-coloured figure she was seeking. Mrs Mendlingham was hunched against the end wall of the shelter. One hand in a fingerless woollen glove held a hard-covered black notebook, while the other wrote in it at great speed.
‘Good morning.’
The old wild eyes darted up sharply at Mrs Pargeter’s words, and in one movement, almost too quick to be seen, the notebook and pen were concealed under the folds of the plum-coloured coat.
‘Good morning,’ said Mrs Mendlingham. There was a slyness in her voice, the tone of someone congratulating herself on a successful deception.
‘Do you mind if I join you?’
Mrs Mendlingham’s expression was not welcoming, but she voiced no objection as Mrs Pargeter sat on to the bench and swaddled herself in the mink coat.
In front of them the Arun flowed murkily. The tide was going out. A small fishing dinghy with an outboard motor swept past, tide-assisted, as if it were a power boat. The cold wind swirled and eddied around them.
‘You come out here to write?’ asked Mrs Pargeter.
Again the old face filled with suspicion and cunning. ‘What if I do?’
‘Difficult to get privacy at the Devereux, I find. Even after my brief stay.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s the sort of place where everything you do seems to be observed.’
This didn’t prompt any reaction, so Mrs Pargeter made her point even clearer. ‘Last night I was seen going into Mrs Selsby’s room.’
There was a sly smile from Mrs Mendlingham. ‘Yes.’
‘An unlikely time to be awake . . .’
‘I don’t sleep well these days.’
‘No. No, it does seem more difficult as one gets older, doesn’t it? Do you have anything to help you sleep?’
Mrs Mendlingham snorted dismissively. ‘The doctor gives me pills. They work for a little while. But after two or three hours I wake again.’
Mrs Pargeter nodded. ‘Every night?’
‘Most nights.’
‘How did you come to see me last night? I didn’t see you.’
‘I heard footsteps and just opened my door a little.’
‘Yes, of course, you’re on the first floor, aren’t you?’ Mrs Pargeter paused before continuing, gently, ‘And I suppose you’d do that any night. . . . If you happened to be awake, and hear footsteps, you’d open your door a little to see who it was . . . ?’
‘I expect I would, yes,’ replied Mrs Mendlingham, unguarded.
Mrs Pargeter suddenly made her enquiry less languid. ‘Two nights ago, the night Mrs Selsby died, I heard a commotion and a little cry on the first-floor landing. What did you see that night?’
The old lady looked shocked. She opened and closed her mouth a few times before replying. ‘I saw nothing that night. I didn’t hear anything. I slept through that night.’
‘Ah,’ Mrs Pargeter murmured peaceably. ‘Rather a pity, that, wasn’t it?’
‘Why?’
‘Well, if you’d heard something, you might have been able to save Mrs Selsby.’
‘I hardly think so. She died immediately.’ Fearing that this had given away too much, Mrs Mendlingham lamely added, ‘I gather.’
‘Yes. Yes. That’s what I gather, too,’ Mrs Pargeter reassured her. ‘Did you know Mrs Selsby well?’ she asked diffidently.
‘No. No. Well, you get to know people when you’re living in the same building, of course you do. But I didn’t know her well, no.’
‘Did you like her?’
The shoulders shrugged in the plum-coloured coat. ‘We were hardly soul-mates. She was a bit of a busybody.’
‘Always nosing her way into other people’s business, you mean?’
‘Yes.’
‘A bit of a tell-tale, too . . . ?’ Mrs Pargeter floated this idea with care. She had no basis but instinct for the suggestion. ‘Tended to sneak to Miss Naismith, did she . . . ?’
Her instinct had been right.
‘Yes,’ Mrs Mendlingham replied. ‘Always. If she found out a secret about someone, she was incapable of keeping it to herself.’
‘Did she find out anything about you . . . ?’
Mrs Mendlingham opened her mouth to reply, then thought better of it and took refuge in her old-lady vagueness. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Not for the first time, Mrs Pargeter found herself wondering how much of an act Mrs Mendlingham’s senility was. Frequently the old lady appeared almost completely gaga, but she was also capable of sustained concentration, and at times the sharp intelligence in her faded eyes was positively disturbing.
Mrs Pargeter tried another tack. ‘Miss Naismith asked to see you this morning.’
The old eyes stared unfocused towards the dunes on the other side of the river. Mrs Pargeter repeated her sentence.
‘What? Oh yes.’ But Mrs Mendlingham still seemed to be giving only part of her attention.
‘Apart from your telling her about seeing me last night, may I ask what else you talked about?’
Mrs Mendlingham was too disturbed by the thought of Miss Naismith to notice the directness of Mrs Pargeter’s inquisition. ‘Miss Naismith,’ she mumbled, ‘is a cruel woman.’
‘Cruel
because she wants you to move out of the Devereux?’ hazarded Mrs Pargeter.
This was greeted by a little cracked laugh. ‘She won’t succeed, you know. You can get anything you want in this life with money. That’s all she cares about. For all her airs, Miss Naismith will do anything for the right amount of money.’
In the strange atmosphere between them Mrs Pargeter felt she could risk another impertinent question. ‘Are you a wealthy woman, Mrs Mendlingham?’
She got no reply except another laugh, but it was a laugh full of confidence, cunning and even triumph, a laugh that said, ‘Yes, now I’m a very wealthy woman.’
‘And you’re still sure you saw nothing on the first-floor landing two nights ago?’
The eyes came into sudden sharp focus. ‘Nothing.’ The word was almost spat out. ‘Nothing. Nothing happened on the landing that night. You’ll never find out about anything happening on the landing that night. And I wouldn’t advise you to be nosey, Mrs . . . Mrs Whatever-your-name-is. Nosey people can get hurt, you know.’
Abruptly, with another manic giggle, Mrs Mendlingham rose to her feet, shook her coat around her, pulled her fur hat down over her ears, and set off walking briskly along the front towards the Devereux.
16
Mrs Pargeter did not follow. She did not think that she would elicit much more from Mrs Mendlingham that morning. Besides, the information she had got was plenty to set her thinking, to start all kinds of hares racing across her mind. So she sat, pensively cocooned in her mink, until her feet began to grow numb with cold. Then she rose and briskly followed Mrs Mendlingham’s route back to the Devereux.
When she had taken off her coat and boots, she went down to the Seaview Lounge. It was about half an hour till lunchtime, and the room was empty, except for the solicitor, Mr Holland.
He rose a little awkwardly as she entered, and when she was settled into an armchair, said, ‘I must apologise for this morning.’
Mrs Pargeter smiled equably. ‘Think nothing of it.’