Bloodhounds

by Peter Lovesey

  Shirley-Ann felt goose pimples rising on her skin. "The only people who knew Milo was going to the police were ourselves. That means one of the Bloodhounds must have murdered Sid."

  Polly folded her arms. Her lips twitched as if she couldn't bring herself to say any more.

  Chapter Seventeen

  By midday the incident room for the narrowboat murder— as it was already known at Manvers Street—was receiving information faster than the two civilian computer operators could process it. Reports had been coming in since eleven from the detectives sent to interview members of the Bloodhounds; the Scenes of Crime team had sent in their preliminary findings; and a time had been fixed for the autopsy. "Pity," said Diamond when the message was handed to him. "Any time but tomorrow morning would have been fine for me. I may not be able to attend. How would you like to stand in for me, Julie? One of us ought to be there."

  This may have sounded like a request, but it was an order, and Julie Hargreaves knew her boss's Byzantine reasoning well enough not to question it. The head of the murder squad didn't care to admit that he fainted at the sight of a dissecting knife, even though almost everyone guessed this was so. Over the years, he had resorted to all kinds of strategems to miss postmortems.

  Moving inexorably on, he asked her, "Did you run that check on Sid Towers? Any previous?"

  "A clean sheet, if that really is his name."

  "Pity. What was he doing in someone else's boat, then? What was he up to?"

  Julie had no theory to offer. Instead, she said, "I had a word with his employers. The big white chief at Impregnable says Sid was one of their most reliable men."

  "Night watchman, wasn't he?"

  "They don't call it that these days."

  He rolled his eyes upward. "Tell me then. What's the jargon? What should I have said? 'Small hours surveillance specialist'?"

  She laughed. "Anyway, he was guarding office furniture."

  "And as we know, desperate men will stop at nothing to nick a filing cabinet."

  Julie went on staunchly supplying the facts. "He's been with Impregnable for four years. He liked working alone, which suited them, because most security guards prefer to work in teams, particularly at night."

  "A loner."

  "Chronically so, according to the personnel director, only it didn't interfere with his work. He was conscientious, a good timekeeper, very observant."

  "We could have used him here." He digested the information for a moment. "Impregnable are a big organization, aren't they? All kinds of security work. I've seen their vans around the city."

  "They do a certain amount with the banks and building societies," said Julie. "Sid had worked on the vans. They also install security systems."

  Seeing John Wigfull approaching, Diamond cut the conversation. "Something new, John? Am I mistaken, or are the whiskers twitching?"

  "I was thinking—" Wigfull began.

  "Wish I had the time. What about?"

  "That riddle. The second one. I believe I've worked out what part of it means."

  "Which part is that? Wait a minute, John." He flapped his hand in the direction of some of his officers in noisy conversation. "Zip it up for a mo, will you? Chief Inspector Wigfull is trying to make himself heard."

  "Well, it's the last two lines," said Wigfull. " 'Look for the lady in the locked room / At seventeen.' "

  "Yes?"

  "It struck me that 'seventeen' must refer to the chapter in the book, the John Dickson Carr book that Motion was about to read from. Chapter seventeen. 'The Locked-Room Lecture.' If the lady is Queen Victoria, then the riddle tells us to look for her in the locked room at seventeen, and that's precisely where the Penny Black cover was found."

  "You think so?" Diamond didn't sound bowled over by the deduction.

  "It makes sense," Wigfull insisted.

  "Perfect sense," Diamond said. "But it's too late, isn't it? Too late for us to do anything about it. This clever dick who pinched the stamp wasn't really giving anything away in advance. How could we have known that the stamp was going to turn up in chapter seventeen of some obscure book written sixty years ago? We didn't stand a snowball's chance. Like the first rhyme we were given, it's easy enough to work out after the event. Did you get the first two lines? How did they go, exactly?"

  Julie remembered them. " 'Whither Victoria and with whom—The Grand Old Queen?'"

  Wigfull said with understandable pique, "It's obvious, isn't it? The last two lines were the puzzle."

  "So you worked out who the Grand Old Queen is?" said Diamond.

  "Victoria, obviously."

  "Can't say I'm with you there, old boy," said Diamond. "For my money, it was a reference to Mr. Milo Motion."

  Wigfull blinked and said, "The man's gay! You could be right."

  "You have to be an insensitive brute like me to get the point," said Diamond.

  Wigfull said, "You are right."

  "But where does it get us?" Diamond developed his theme. "All we can say is that the stamp theft was done according to plan. The way your Penny Black turned up last night was no mistake. It happened exactly as predicted. Milo Motion was earmarked as the fall guy."

  Julie said, "But it does tell us that the thief knew Milo would take the book to the Bloodhounds meeting and open it at chapter seventeen?"

  "Right!" said Wigfull. "We can count the suspects on one hand."

  "Two," said Diamond. "And you may need your feet as well."

  "I'm speaking of the Bloodhounds."

  "There are six of them."

  "Ah, but we can eliminate Motion," Wigfull pointed out. "That leaves five: Mrs. Wycherley, Miss Chilmark, Mrs. Shaw, Miss Miller, and the man, Rupert Darby."

  "What about Sid Towers?"

  "He's dead."

  "He wasn't dead when the stamp was stolen," Diamond reminded him. "If it were me investigating the stamp theft, I'd keep Sid Towers in the frame, dead or not."

  "Was the man capable of such a theft?"

  "Certainly. He was easily overlooked, but not dim. He knew all about security. He'd have known how to suss out a building for a break-in."

  "I can see that. But he doesn't strike me as the sort to compose riddles drawing attention to the crime."

  "Why not? He was a reader of whodunits. Plenty of time to himself to think it through. Setting a puzzle for the police might have appealed to him."

  Wigfull weighed the suggestion. "I suppose it's possible. But why was he killed?" He raised a finger like an umpire as he answered his own question. "Maybe the killer took offense at the way he chose to return the stamp. The obvious suspect would be Motion, but he's the one with the alibi."

  "Now, John," Diamond said sharply. "The murder is my business. I don't want interference."

  "You offered me some advice."

  "Here's some more, then. You said you could count the suspects on one hand. You've just added Towers. You must also add anyone Motion spoke to—anyone who learned that he was taking the Dickson Garr book to that meeting."

  "That's scraping the barrel, isn't it? From all I hear, he's another loner."

  Diamond gave a shrug.

  Wigfull was forced to concede. "Technically, I suppose you're right. Has anything helpful come up in the interviews?"

  "Nothing startling. They're still being fed into the system, but I've heard from all the officers who carried them out. We caught up with everyone in the end, all the Bloodhounds, anyway. A couple of them weren't at home, and we nobbled them later."

  "My number one suspect is the man."

  "Why do you say that?"

  A rare smile lit Wigfull's face. "I'm speaking of my case, the theft of the stamp. I can't see any of those women walking through the streets of Bath with a window cleaner's ladder and bucket."

  "Sexist."

  "Two of them are middle-aged."

  "What matters to me is whether they could murder a man," said Diamond, "and a woman can crack a bloke over the head with a blunt instrument whether she's middle
-aged or twenty. We had a case in Twerton before you joined the squad. Two old people, well over seventy, married fifty years, regularly coming to blows and ending up in casualty. In the end she clobbered him with a hammer because he threw away the TV Times. Killed him. I often think of that when I'm putting the papers in the bin."

  After a sandwich lunch, Diamond interviewed Milo Motion for the third time.

  "Caught up on your sleep yet?"

  Milo was temporarily installed in a bed-and-breakfast house opposite the police station in Manvers Street. He had come in to ask when he could expect to return to his floating home. The black beard accentuated the challenging tilt of his chin. Bushy was the word for it, Diamond decided. A family of small mammals could have found a habitat in that abundant growth.

  "You can go back before the afternoon is out; I give you my word," Diamond promised. "It may not be restored to its former glory yet, because they took the carpet and one or two other items for forensic tests."

  "I simply want a change of clothes," said Milo. "I'm not proposing to sleep there after what happened."

  "Are you comfortable in the B and B?"

  "Tolerably."

  "You don't have a friend who would put you up?"

  He gave a prim click of the tongue. "No."

  "Why don't you sit down?"

  "Is it going to take as long as that?"

  "A few things need clearing up," said Diamond equably.

  "If it's about the bloody padlock again ..." Milo started to say.

  "No, it's the Bloodhounds, sir. You were one of the founders, you told me. You should know everyone quite well."

  Guardedly, came the answer: "That doesn't necessarily follow. I see most of them once a week, on Mondays. That hardly entitles me to speak of them with any authority."

  "But you've known Mrs. Wycherley since the beginning."

  "True."

  "And the other lady, Miss, em . . ."

  "Chilmark?"

  "Miss Chilmark. You've known her almost as long. You told us last night that there was some sort of incident involving Miss Chilmark. Something about a dog."

  Milo sighed. "It seems a century ago. The dog belongs to Rupert Darby. He's bloody inconsiderate, is Rupert. Miss Chilmark doesn't care for the dog at all, and of course it always makes a beeline for her. If he left it at home, or kept it on the leash, we wouldn't have any trouble. Last night at the meeting Rupert came in late as usual, and Marlowe—that's the dog—"

  "Did you say Marlowe?"

  "Marlowe, yes. That's its name."

  "Funny name for a dog."

  "It's the name of Raymond Chandler's private eye. You remember The Big Sleep}"

  "It's still a funny name for a dog."

  "Rupert told us why. You must have heard that Chandler quote: 'down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean . . .' Well, that dog adores a mean street."

  Diamond nodded. "Go on. Tell us what this dog did that was so obnoxious."

  "It jumped up beside Miss Chilmark and threw her into a panic. She had some sort of attack of breathlessness that was only brought under control thanks to swift action by Jessica— Mrs. Shaw."

  "What kind of action?"

  "She called for a paper bag. Sid produced one. His book was wrapped in it. Jessica held it against Miss Chilmark's face, and the attack subsided. That's all it was."

  "Sid had a book with him?"

  "I just said so."

  "Why would he have a book with him? He didn't read things out, did he?"

  "No, he was far too shy. I imagine it was for private reading."

  "Did you happen to notice the title?"

  "Of cdurse. I'm not uninterested in books myself. It was The Three Coffins, by John Dickson Carr. Sid was an admirer of Dickson Carr's work."

  "Are you familiar with this book?"

  "Extremely familiar, yes, but under the English title."

  "Isn't The Three Coffins English?"

  "I should have said British. The Three Coffins was the title the book was known by in America. Publishers sometimes decide in their wisdom that a book will sell better over there with a different title. It's a blasted nuisance to collectors."

  "So what was the British title?"

  "The Hollow Man."

  "Really? But that was the book you took to the meeting."

  "Yes, indeed. The first English edition, published by Hamish Hamilton in 1935. Unfortunately, my copy is without a wrapper, or it might be worth a few pounds."

  "Let's get this clear," said Diamond. "You and Sid Towers each took a copy of the same book to the meeting on Monday?"

  "You make it sound suspicious," said Milo, "but it isn't at all. Far more suspicious things happened than that. The explanation is simple. At the previous meeting I announced to everyone that the next time we met, I would read the locked room chapter from The Hollow Man."

  Diamond mentally ticked one of the points he had wanted to check. Wigfull would be cockahoop. All the Bloodhounds who were present the previous week knew that Milo would bring his book to the meeting and open it at chapter seventeen. Any of them could have placed the stamp between the pages—any clever enough to find a way of doing it.

  Milo was saying, "I presume Sid brought along his copy to follow the text. In his quiet way he was quite an authority on Dickson Carr."

  "And so are you, apparently."

  Milo preened the beard, pleased by the compliment. "I prefer to be thought of as a? Sherlockian, but, yes, I have a sneaking admiration for much of Carr's work. He made the impossible crime his own specialty. Wrote seventy crime novels, which isn't at all bad considering he was notoriously fond of the bottle and also led a complicated love life. And of course he found time to write a fine biography of Conan Doyle. He was quite an Anglophile until the Labour government was elected after the war. He couldn't abide socialism, so he went back to the States and only returned after Churchill was returned to power."

  "How does politics come into crime writing?"

  "My dear superintendent, it's all about conservatism and affirming the social order, or was for almost a century."

  "The class system."

  Milo gave Diamond a sharp glance. "However vile the crime, the reader can rest assured that order is restored by the end. Only in comparatively recent times have left-wing crime writers discovered ways of subverting the status quo. You're not a socialist, are you?"

  "I'm a policeman," said Diamond. "We're neutral."

  Milo gave a hollow laugh. He was becoming confident.

  Diamond said, "Getting back to the incident with the dog—"

  "You're going to ask me once again if I let go of the book in all the confusion. The answer is the same. I had it on my knees or in my hand throughout. No one could have tampered with it. No one." Milo shook his head. "Nothing like this has happened to me in years. Once in my youth I met a close-up magician, and he did remarkable things that I still can't explain, like removing my watch without my being aware of it and having it turn up inside a box of chocolates. This business with the stamp is just as miraculous. I can only account for it as a brilliant conjuring trick. I can't guess the solution."

  "And the murder of Sid Towers—is that magic?"

  "The circumstances are."

  "Trickery."

  "Magic or trickery, it's beyond my understanding."

  "That's a conclusion I'm not permitted to make," said Diamond. "I've got to catch the conjurer. Do you have any suspicions?"

  "Of whom?"

  "The other Bloodhounds."

  "How can I?" said Milo. "They're charming people, all of them. Oh, Miss Chilmark has the reputation of being a sourpuss, but she's all right when you take a little trouble with her, butter her up, you know. And Jessica Shaw went out of her way to help poor old Sid fit in. She took him for a drink on more than one occasion. No, I'm afraid if you're looking for suspects, they're a very unlikely bunch. Not like a detective story at all. In this case, I can't think of anyone with a grudge against poor ol
d Sid."

  Chapter Eighteen

  Later the same afternoon, Diamond drove Milo Motion to the Dundas boatyard to collect his change of clothes from the Mrs. Hudson. A thick-knit sweater was likely to be among them, because now that the sun was disappearing behind the willows on the far bank, there was an unmistakable threat of frost in that cloudless sky. The Scenes of Crime team had finished work and left. The only police activity—apart from one luckless constable rubbing his hands to keep his circulation going—was a pair of divers searching the canal bottom for the murder weapon, and they didn't seem too happy either. What they were doing in the shallow water couldn't be described as diving, more a matter of wading about and bending double. On a blue tarpaulin on the towpath they had assembled their finds—a horseshoe, two plastic milk crates, a bicycle pump, a birdcage, about twenty beer cans, and several pieces of stone—the result of three hours' scavenging for fifty yards either side of the narrowboat. Diamond told them to give up for the day. The chance was slim that a killer so artful as this would have disposed of the weapon in so obvious a place, but procedure had required the search to be made. He asked Milo to check for any object missing from the boat that might have been used to crack Sid Towers over the head.

  Milo said he was unable to think of anything, but he would certainly look.

  The constable had to open up for them, because the door at the stern had been fitted with a fresh lock. Milo's German-made padlock had been stripped down and examined at the forensic lab. Pressed by Diamond for their findings, the scientists had reported no flaw in the mechanism. No sign, even, of tampering. It was described as a high-security close-shackle padlock. The locking mechanism provided over six million key variations, bearing out the manufacturers' claim that each padlock they sold in Britain had a unique key pattern.

  Diamond had been over the narrowboat and its security arrangements many times in his mind without deducing how the body had been placed there, so this extra inspection wasn't embarked upon with much confidence. The murder of Sid Towers was becoming his own locked room mystery, his Gordian knot. If Milo Motion had spoken the truth, the facts were indisputable: