Treasure by Degrees

by David Williams

  The saloon bar of The Rod and Fly was, as usual, practically empty for reasons quite unconnected with brand range or ideology. Draught beer served within its close-carpeted precincts was a penny a pint more than it was in any other part of the same premises or in any other bar in the village.

  The banker and the American lawyer sat on padded stools at the end of the bar counter. Treasure was on his second lager; Witaker had just accepted his third double whisky.

  ‘And you never did find out who made the call — or why you were supposed to see Peter Gregory?’

  ‘ ’S’mystery, Mr Treasure. Maybe Gregory himself can clear it up when they bring him back.’ Witaker’s torso twitched again, and he glanced suspiciously behind him for the third time in as many minutes. If the man had been a small child Treasure would long since have told him to stop shaking his foot in that irritating way. The fellow was evidently a bag of nerves.

  Witaker was not aware of any of these involuntary physical aberrations. He was on his guard though – and more than that, he was ingeniously using Treasure to serve his own ends. British bankers invariably took things at their face value. OK, Mr Treasure; just you retail all this back to your important friend in Winchester’s Finest. ‘I sure wouldn’t have left that room unless I’d been asked – at that particular time, of course. I’d arranged to meet the two ladies out front at firework time . . .’

  ‘You didn’t actually catch up with them?’ Treasure interjected casually, unconsciously falling into the always infectious American idiom.

  He was ready for that one. ‘Well, I tried, as I told you, but I guess I got a little mixed up in the geography. Oh, I was there all right. I was in on that scurrilous demonstration . . . but before that, no. After the voice on the telephone begged me to see Gregory right away – that was, let me see, around five-forty-five – I went right over there.’ The twitch this time was more pronounced – and he was conscious of it himself. Take another sip of Scotch; it steadies the nerves. The only person who really knew what was said on the telephone was the guy who made the call – and he knew a lot. Witaker was counting on his silence whoever he was – and counting on those photographs, those alleged photographs, never showing up. Nobody at Itchendever had a reason any more to want to blackmail the attorney to the Funny Farms Foundation. There was no cause to go blabbing about threats from the Crown Prince of Abu B’yat whether they had been true or false – and he was beginning to believe they had been false.

  ‘And there was no answer when you got to Gregory’s rooms?’ Treasure signalled the aged crone behind the bar whose trembling hands had so far tipped two pennyworth of lager out of each of the glasses he had ordered – another reason for the sparse attendance at The Rod and Fly. She smiled at him in return, then, as an afterthought put down her knitting and struggled over to find out what he wanted.

  ‘None at all. I didn’t go in – got to mind your manners in a strange country.’ This was the second deliberate lie? but one only marginally less difficult to prove than the first.

  ‘I don’t think he could have been there at the time. It sounds as though he went into the SCR shortly after you left it.’

  This was extremely useful intelligence. ‘Well, I knocked on his door fit to bring the walls down.’ He had been nowhere near the door – or even the staircase.

  ‘And you left the SCR by the door into the hall? Same again, please.’ The old lady wiped her brow with the back of her arm and started the journey back; business was brisk tonight.

  ‘That is so, Mr Treasure; that is exactly so.’ Watch it; you’re repeating yourself; take it easy on the liquor from now onwards. ‘Didn’t know about the door on to the terrace.’ He had not known what was waiting for him outside that door either – lurking in the misty shadows. Put it out of your mind. Put the whole damn thing behind you. Forget what happened; forget those minutes – they had seemed like hours – locked in that wash-room while he shook like a leaf. His analyst had warned him a dozen times: it does no good whatsoever to dwell on these things. Look forwards, not backwards – forwards with no Amelia Hatch blotting the view; no Cyrus either. Count your blessings; if he had actually reached that staircase and knocked on the other door – that Arab prince’s door – the fat would have been in the fire for sure.

  ‘And then you just wandered around looking for Miss Stopps and Mrs Hatch?’

  ‘That’s what I told the police, Mr Treasure. It was a fine night and I had this top-coat with me. Seemed kind of churlish to have refused Miss Stopps’s kind invitation to take in the views. Never did find them, though – not till the fireworks started, that is, then I was kind of cut off by the crowd.’ Safety in numbers; that’s my story, Senator, now you just try disproving it. Mr Peter Gregory is going to witness that Common Room was empty at ten minutes before six, so Irvine J. Witaker was absent and accounted for – just as he was at twenty after six when all those police cars started to arrive.

  ‘You weren’t able to follow Mrs Hatch into the hallway when the panic started?’

  Of course not you dumb idiot. ‘No, sir – and that’s the unhappy part of the whole episode. I saw her up on that raised porchway but I was down in the bleachers – figured it’d be faster and easier to go round in back of the Hall. I’d been standing on the car park side. That’s how I came to meet up with you when you came in through the south entrance with Miss Stopps. I’d gotten in through the north doorway.’ And that was a pretty logical story.

  For a man who had claimed earlier to be confused by the geography of Itchendever Hall, Witaker had evidently overcome this disadvantage in time to corroborate what he believed to be an alibi. Treasure was coming to the conclusion that the man’s guilt or innocence was something that would need to be established by more sophisticated means than a simple police interview or an informal chat. Bantree was right about Witaker’s apparent failure to understand why the finger of guilt was pointing more firmly in his direction than in any other. In what he had told Treet and in what he had just related to Treasure, he seemed impervious to the fact that he was offering no witness to his alleged movements between five-forty-five and six-thirty. Nobody so far questioned could recall seeing Witaker between those critical times – despite the man’s insistence that he had covered most of the ground close to the Hall, visited a staircase in the Stable Quad, and mingled with the large crowd assembled to watch the firework display.

  In Bantree’s view – and Treasure had to agree — Witaker had a motive for doing away with Amelia and he could have collected the means by pocketing the dagger during the afternoon visit to Prince Faisal’s rooms; as in the cases of a number of other suspects, circumstantially it could be shown that he also had the opportunity – in default of his proving otherwise, and to do that he needed witnesses.

  Treasure eyed a lonely Scotch egg. This – apart from an abandoned-looking half-tomato – was the only visible justification for the plastic proclamation ‘Snacks at the Bar’. The ham sandwich had been a poor substitute for dinner cooked by Audrey Bantree – a lady whom Treasure was given to describing as the only chef of his acquaintance with a medical degree. He spent a moment debating whether the Scotch egg was the last in the line due to hectic demand or merely a durable-looking, long-term survivor; the victory went to gastric discretion. Witaker followed his gaze. ‘You hungry, Mr Treasure?’

  ‘Not hungry enough.’ He took out his pipe.

  ‘I’ve been hungry.’ This unexpected rejoinder had the ring of rueful admission – tinged with acidity: was Witaker about to become morbidly retrospective?

  ‘After the Depression.’

  He was.

  ‘You seem to have survived.’

  ‘It was a long time ago. My father was ruined in 1931. Killed himself Threw himself off a building on Wall Street – ’ one of the legendary army – ‘I was eight years old.’

  ‘Indeed.’ There seemed to be no more suitable observation. Not for the first time, Treasure regretted that people credited him with a sympathetic dispos
ition. It was clear, though, Witaker had abandoned the caution that had so evidently governed his attitude so far.

  Witaker was no longer in any condition to govern anything. He was overcome by a wave of exhaustion; lulled into relaxation and reflection by the liquor and the belief that he had successfully weathered an overt cross-examination. ‘He married beneath him – not anyone like Mrs Hatch, you understand.’ Treasure wondered whether this suggested an elevation or relegation of the late Amelia’s social standing. ‘My mother was on the stage.’ The implication seemed clearer – but not the speaker’s drift.

  ‘So’s my wife.’ This was delivered brightly.

  ‘A showgirl.’ Check; it would have been stretching accuracy as well as loyalty to have pressed the similarity — even in a good cause.

  ‘I expect she was very attractive.’

  ‘She started in New York burlesque — and went back to it after my father died. Minsky’s put me through school, Mr Treasure.’

  The significance of this presumably shaming admission was entirely lost upon the banker. ‘I don’t know New York awfully well.’ He attempted to excuse indifference with ignorance.

  ‘Hunger and deprivation are bearable; humiliation is something else.’ The maudlin mood was checked by a brief rally. ‘But that’s all behind me – and I owe it to Cyrus Hatch. D’you know that? Without good old Cyrus I’d still be struggling to get my shingle noticed in Pittsburgh. He was my first client. . .’

  ‘But his patronage attracted others.’ Treasure had seen the Hollywood version – several times. ‘Well, probably you amply repaid him.’

  ‘’S’right. I’ve nothing to reproach myself for – not where Cyrus is concerned; no sir.’ Witaker was warming to his subject. ‘Why, d’you know . . .’

  The whole episode erupted quickly and with the most staccato of warnings. The wall on which Treasure had been leaning contained a door on the other side of the bar top. Judging by the draught coming from this general area he assumed the half-glazed door led directly on to a yard, though it was too dark to be sure. He heard the door being shaken from the outside. He saw the glass slip from Witaker’s hand to shatter on the metal foot-rail below the bar. The lawyer was momentarily transfixed. Then his face contorted into a mask of terror. One hand grasped at his throat, the other pointed at the door. ‘Cy . . .’ he gasped. He rose from the stool, swayed on his feet so that Treasure believed he was about to faint. The frightened expression gave way to one of determination. ‘Cyrus!’ cried Witaker at the top of his voice. ‘No, it’s a . . . I won’t be . . .’

  Apparently half-crazed – and more than half inebriated – Witaker clambered on to the bar stool and over the counter. He was frantically wrestling with the key in the door before Treasure had fully realized his intention. The old crone looked up in surprise. ‘The gents is the other way,’ she admonished, though judging by the customer’s agitation perhaps it was as well he was getting himself outside by the fastest route. And here was another one; Treasure had launched himself over the bar. ‘’Any!’ she cried in the general direction of the public bar.

  Treasure followed Witaker through the open door. They were in a small, badly lit courtyard walled on three sides and half-filled with a mountain of empty bottles and crates. Witaker had staggered in amongst the bottles. He was on his knees, then scrambled up again, his arms thrashing the air to maintain an uneven balance. ‘He’s there . . . look, he’s there.’ He pointed into the semi-darkness beyond the yard. Treasure could dimly discern the bent figure of a man grotesquely deformed by feet the size of tree stumps. ‘After him!’ Witaker was lumbering forward to the accompaniment of scattering bottles. The strange figure had been stationary; now it came to life. The silhouetted ‘tree stumps’ became detached. They hurtled through the air at the advancing Witaker. One caught him in the stomach, the other on the shin. The figure ahead, no longer bent, began retreating at speed. It was soon swallowed up in the darkness. Witaker was writhing in pain upon the ground. There was a brilliant flash of light, blinding in its force and suddenness. Two men appeared behind Treasure. ‘Daily Express,’ said the one without the camera. ‘You gents from the College, are you?’

  Treasure looked down at the hapless attorney to the Funny Farms Foundation. He was lying breathless and prostrate on the ground. His body was covered in an assortment of garbage. His left foot was ‘embedded in a bucket on the side of which a shaft of light illuminated the painted legend PIG SWILL ONLY.

  CHAPTER XVI

  ‘THE CHAP ACTUALLY thinks he’s being haunted.’ Treasure turned the car on to the B3046 road posted for New Arlesford. It was eight-thirty in the morning. He and the Superintendent were returning to Itchendever after an all too brief night at Bantree’s home.

  ‘Watch out for horses along here,’ said the policeman absently, while thinking of something quite different. ‘Could be a sign of a guilty conscience.’

  Treasure stopped the car abruptly. As though on cue, the local riding class ambled in strength across his path. ‘Nonsense – have you ever dealt with a haunted suspect before?’

  ‘Now you come to mention it, I don’t think I have. You got a better explanation?’

  ‘I suppose you mean it’s auto-suggestion. He thinks he’s seeing Cyrus Hatch all over the place because he’s wronged the man in some way.’

  ‘Murdering his wife would do for starters.’ An immaculate child on a Shetland with a sag in the middle brought up the rear of the cavalcade. She saluted smartly with her riding crop. This staccato action brought her mount to an abrupt halt; it turned its head enquiringly towards the Rolls and began breathing heavily on the polished bonnet. ‘I don’t buy the bit about locking himself in what he calls the powder-room.’ Bantree was not in a buying mood.

  The Shetland relieved itself in the middle of the road, enveloping the embarrassed child in a cloud of steam. ‘Unless we can find out who kept trying the door to get in with him.’ Impervious to command as well as the first elements of decorum, the pony turned about and carried its protesting rider back the way they had come. Treasure quickly set the car in motion. ‘The place was supposed to be reserved for lady visitors.’

  Immediately after the incident at The Rod and Fly, a thoroughly rattled and unguarded Witaker had disclosed that he had twice that evening been harassed with a visitation from the ghost of Cyrus Hatch – the first time shortly after he had left the Hall in answer to the telephone summons to see Peter Gregory: he had still managed to maintain that particular subterfuge. He insisted that Cyrus had manifested himself out of the shadows beside the north door. Seized with fright, he had rushed back into the building and shut himself in the first room to hand, closed the window and remained thus closeted for some minutes, attempting to regain his composure.

  ‘Would you lock yourself up to get away from a ghost? I wouldn’t,’ asked Bantree. The point was academic since he had earlier announced a total disbelief in the existence of supernatural phenomena. ‘And his reaction to the second so-called appearance was quite different – he chased after it. There’s a speed trap in this village.’

  Treasure had already observed the notice and dismissed the bluff it portended. Nevertheless he slowed the car to thirty miles an hour – shortly before they passed a policeman presiding over a sinister black box of equipment on the far side of an oak tree. The banker resolved to keep an open mind on the veracity of police warnings as well as the possibility of apparitions. ‘Remember Witaker was with me – and in quite a different state of mind; he’d had a good deal to drink. Anyway, it wasn’t a ghost that chucked those buckets at us. D’you think we’ll find out who was pinching them?’

  ‘I’m investigating a murder, not petty theft,’ Bantree snorted. ‘It seems everybody in Itchendever jacks up his income keeping pigs – and that includes the Vicar. According to the village copper, nicking pig food is more a local sport than a felony.’

  ‘It may have been Miss Stopps who was trying to get into that cloakroom. Shall I ask her?’ Treasure did his
best to put the suggestion lightly.

  ‘You mean am I still leaving you to confront that wily old bird about corrupting the young?’ Bantree hesitated.

  ‘I haven’t told you about that officially. Look, I don’t think for one minute the student demo had anything to do with the murder. Miss Stopps . . .’

  ‘OK – she’s yours for the time being. I’m going to be busy anyway, and Treet’s not likely to get more out of her than you can.’ Bantree acknowledged the salute of the uniformed policeman at the gate of Itchendever Hall as Treasure turned the Rolls into the drive. A number of cars were drawn up on the verge outside. ‘Hm, the newspapers and the curious are here in strength. Mark, are you sure you want to go on being involved?’

  ‘Absolutely sure. Hell, it was I who got you into it – you were supposed to be having three days off, remember? Anyway, if you’re so sure about Witaker it shouldn’t be long before you make an arrest, should it?’ He parked the car in the same position as the day before. Bantree’s was close by, where he had left it overnight.

  The Superintendent made no move to get out. He looked pensive. ‘I have a hunch he did it, but I’m a mile away from proving it. If I could clear up the side-shows it’d help. As I said yesterday, there were too many cooks stirring the broth. The student demo was probably incidental – but the certainty of a firework display may be key.’