Linda laughed. ‘He probably will. But not so fast in dismissing Staines from the picture, darling. Do you remember his curious embarrassment when he had to bring out the name Peggy Bedford – almost as if it were a name never mentioned in polite company? I commented on it at the time, if you remember. Secondly, what was the address on his business card, the one with the name of the refrigerator firm on it?’
Mike thought for a second, then replied, ‘Keane Brothers, Guildford. You’re right! That’s only a few miles from here. Therefore it’s not out of the question that Staines should find his way to Westerdale; it’s also a remote enough village if he was seeking a bit of privacy – look at the trouble we had finding it. But it still doesn’t add up. Staines went out of his way to draw my attention to that diary entry; he’s the one who started all this.’
Linda was silent for a while, then she asked, ‘Mike, you remember the hotel where we had lunch with the Battsons last month?’
‘Yes, the White Hart, wasn’t it?’
‘No, it was called the White Angel. What’s the name of the inn near Hammersmith Bridge we sometimes visit on our walks by the river?’
‘Darned if I know. But I don’t quite see—’
‘You had a drink with John last week, in Whitehall you told me. Which pub was it?’
‘Darling, I don’t gape at inn signs every time … Oh, I see what you’re getting at! Maybe you have a point there.’
‘I’m darn sure I have. Unless you are a confirmed pubcrawler or a collector of ancient inn signs I don’t think more than one person in ten actually looks at the name of a pub before going inside it.’
‘Brilliant, so far. But where does it get us? There are fifty-seven different varieties of reasons why Staines should be enjoying the company of a Bond Street model – the sugar-daddy angle sticks out a mile, but don’t forget Peggy was a friend of his daughter’s. It’s not so unnatural after all.’
‘Mike, sometimes you’re too charitable to be real. I’m quite sure I’ve got Miss Peggy Bedford weighed up properly – call it feminine instinct. Anyway, now that we’ve found the Fairfax pub, with all its interesting associations, maybe there’s also some implication in the Fairfax letter that has escaped us so far.’
‘One might be forgiven for suspecting that it’s a fake.’
Linda laughed. ‘You are in a cautious mood tonight, aren’t you, darling? Assuming one might be forgiven for assuming it might be a fake, what might one assume was the reason for Sanders coming to see you?’
Mike shook his head in bewilderment. After a while he ventured, ‘Perhaps he’s cut from the same cloth as Staines – his conscience is driving him to take action on Harold Weldon’s behalf, but his private life won’t allow of too close an inspection, especially by the police. I don’t know, Linda darling, I just don’t know at this stage of things. But I shall certainly spend a little time probing into the private lives of both those gentlemen. Maybe Harold Weldon will be able to enlighten us. He must have known them both pretty well. John Goldway’s arranged for me to go down to Pentonville tomorrow morning.’
Linda shuddered dramatically. ‘That’s one little trip you can count me out on … I mean of.’
‘Your grammar is appalling, and anyway you haven’t been invited,’ said Mike with a chuckle. ‘Woman’s place is in the home.’
Linda’s retort was brief but forcible.
Before leaving for the prison the following morning Mike decided to telephone Hector Staines. He dialled the Guildford number and Keane Brothers referred him to a London exchange. Staines, it seemed, looked after the City end of the firm and lived in Bayswater.
When Staines’s voice came on the line it was not quite as clipped and impersonal as Mike remembered it. Though the elderly man was obviously trying to hide his emotions Mike’s sharp ear caught some hint of inner turmoil. He was not long in finding the cause.
‘I’ve been to the hospital this morning, Baxter. They won’t let me talk to P … to Miss Bedford. It’s terrible.’
‘Is she still unconscious?’
‘Yes. What a shocking business! I can’t imagine what could have possessed her to do such a thing. She was always so full of the joy of living.’
‘So I gather, Mr Staines. Tell me, she was a good friend not only of your daughter but of yourself, wasn’t she?’
‘What’s that you’re saying? Peggy … Miss Bedford a friend of mine? That’s an exaggeration. I’ve hardly met her more than a handful of times.’
‘When was the last time you took her to the Lord Fairfax?’ Mike demanded bluntly.
There was an awkward pause. Staines’s voice, when it came, was weak and high-pitched. ‘The Lord what? I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Is that possible, Mr Staines? The Lord Fairfax is a little pub not far from Farnham: horse-brasses round the open fireplace, plus a landlord with gimlet eyes. The village is called Westerdale.’
‘Oh. I see. That’s the pub you mean. I … I had no idea of the name of the place. The Lord Fairfax, you say? How extraordinary!’
‘Yes, isn’t it? Now perhaps you’ll tell me whom your daughter had planned to meet there at eight-thirty on May 12th. You’ll hardly have forgotten the entry in her diary.’
‘Good gracious! This is news to me. I don’t understand it at all.’
‘But you admit to taking Peggy to the Fairfax?’
‘My dear fellow, I admit – as you somewhat crudely put it – having been to Westerdale once—’
‘Once? Or several times?’
‘I do wish you’d stop badgering me; it is quite unnecessary. I just did not notice what the pub was called. As a matter of fact it was not I who took Peggy, but the other way round – she took me there. I just happened to bump into her one day in Farnham. She was delivering a dress to some … er … clients. My head office is in Guildford, that’s how I happened to be in the neighbourhood. I have to go down there about once a week.’ He paused, then added earnestly, ‘It was quite a chance meeting.’
It sounded a skilful mixture of the truth and some rather lame prevarication but Mike decided not to press the point.
Staines went on, ‘I must say, I fail to understand why Peggy didn’t spot the significance of the Fairfax entry in Lucy’s diary.’
‘Did you show it to her?’
‘Of course I did, shortly before the trial came on. She said it meant nothing to her at all.’
Miss Peggy Bedford could very well have been lying, Mike thought. It seemed likely that it was she who had arranged to meet Lucy Staines at the Westerdale pub shortly before the latter was murdered. What the meeting was to be about, and why the Bedford girl had lied, was something Mike could only guess at. Feeling that there was little more to be extracted from this conversation Mike rang off and was just about to leave when the phone rang.
It was Inspector Rodgers. As usual, he did not waste his words. ‘The hospital has just informed me that Peggy Bedford has died!’
‘Oh no! The poor kid. Did she regain consciousness at all?’
‘I’m afraid not. Wish she had; there were a few questions we would have liked to put to her.’
‘Yes. I had some myself. By the way, Inspector, about the missing shoe – has it turned up yet?’
‘No. But we’ll find it, don’t worry,’ Rodgers answered curtly and hung up.
There can be few more depressing places on earth than Her Majesty’s Prison at Pentonville. Mike found himself shivering as the warder led him along echoing corridors of concrete and steel to his meeting with Harold Weldon.
‘How is he?’ Mike asked quietly as they approached the cell.
‘Weldon? He’s behaving rather well, sir, considering the circumstances. He’s been doing a lot of reading. Can’t understand half the books he asks for, myself, but they seem to keep him quiet. Funnily enough, we don’t get a lot of trouble with them, not at this stage.’
The warder produced a large key and unlocked the door.
; ‘You’ve got a visitor, Mr Weldon,’ he announced.
Mike’s immediate and somewhat distorted impression was of a hermit. A thin, bony, lanky hermit with a long, slightly twisted nose, lifeless hair that hung long and partly screened a pair of hostile grey eyes.
‘If you’re another parson you can bloody well go back to your pulpit!’ The voice was nasal, cultured, and devoid of any wish to charm.
‘I’m not a clergyman,’ Mike replied equably. ‘My name is Mike Baxter. I’m a personal friend of Superintendent Goldway and Inspector Rodgers.’
‘How cosy for you. You mix in very select circles. Had they been friends of mine I might not be here. What do you want?’
‘I’d like to talk to you.’
‘Why?’ The prisoner had risen and now leant with his arms folded, propping himself up in one corner of the cell and eyeing Mike with undisguised suspicion and dislike. Suddenly he added, ‘What did you say your name was?’
‘Mike Baxter.’
‘The journalist?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ah! I get it.’ His pale eyes glinted maliciously and the incipient sneer grew to a king-size expression of contempt. ‘Snooping around for a little first-hand copy, eh? It’ll all be in your next neat little article, won’t it? The raving beast in the padded cell, death’s imprint clearly legible in his sunken eyes. Well, I’ll do a little raving for you, so as not to disappoint your public. How do you want it, penny plain or tuppence—’
‘You’re wasting my time,’ Mike snapped.
Something in his tone brought Weldon to a dead stop.
Mike continued in a crisp voice, ‘Two questions for you, then you can go back to hamming it up. Did you murder Lucy Staines?’
Weldon’s lip curled sardonically and he gave a laugh. ‘Don’t you bother to read the newspapers? Of course I murdered Lucy. It was my Freudian way of proving my love for her. I lost my temper in a public place of entertainment, so that everyone could see us, persuaded her to come with me to a nice deserted demolition-site, sat around for an hour or two till the ghoulish chimes of midnight sounded, strangled her, acquired a sample of her blood as a chilly sort of memento; it was all quite simple, nothing complicated about it. A red-headed hag named Nadia Tarrant saw me do it, or at least saw me running noisily out of Soho Square. I wore special hob-nailed boots so she couldn’t possibly miss me.’
‘But she did spot you, didn’t she? At the identification parade the next day?’
Weldon’s voice dropped to a contemptuous snarl as he replied, ‘If you paid that old trout enough money she’d swear her own grandmother was Brigitte Bardot.’
‘Anything else?’ asked Mike patiently.
‘Let me see, what did I do next? Ah yes, just to seal matters nicely, I hadn’t an alibi, the blood-group checked, and I made two statements to the gentlemen of the Law, both highly contradictory and highly implausible. So there you have it. As one of your literary confrères put it with such startling originality – “an open-and-shut case”.’
‘I see.’
‘Have we had Question Number Two yet? My time is limited too,’ said Weldon with an ironic sneer. ‘Nine days and a handful of hours, to be precise.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Mike murmured, though he was not quite sure exactly what he was apologising for. ‘The other question is simpler. Did you steal Lucy Staines’s shoe?’
Weldon turned his back on him and laughed again. ‘The missing shoe! What fun the Press had with that!’
He swung round, contempt and truculence again dominating his pale features. ‘Of course I stole it. I’m a collector of women’s shoes. I’ve got cupboards full of ’em at home.’ He pretended a look of stupid cunning and came close to Mike. ‘You’re not a collector too, by any chance? I’d love to show you some of my prize exhibits – maybe we could do some swapping?’
‘For Pete’s sake cut out the clowning! Did you steal her shoe?’
‘I keep telling you I did.’
‘Why?’
‘One doesn’t commit a murder every day, chum. It was quite an occasion. I took the shoe as a souvenir.’
‘Left or right?’
‘Come again?’
‘Only one shoe was missing. Which did you take, the left or the right one?’
There was a moment’s pause in Weldon’s truculence. He pursed his lips, shrugged his shoulders, and said, ‘The left.’
‘Wrong!’ snapped Mike.
‘Really?’
‘It was the right shoe that was missing.’
‘You don’t tell me?’
Mike busied himself with lighting a cigarette, which he offered to the prisoner. Weldon shook his head contemptuously. The exchange over the shoe had gone rapidly, but Mike had been watching his man’s every reaction. Weldon’s complete indifference of tone was of a quality no guilty man could possibly have assumed. Conviction surged inside him: the only thing Weldon was guilty of was bad luck and a maddening talent for getting people’s backs up.
Mike said urgently, ‘Weldon, listen to me, and for God’s sake listen carefully. We’ve not got much time, neither you nor I. If you have only got nine days and a handful of hours till …’
‘I hang by the neck until I be dead.’
‘—then I’ve only got the same amount of time to try and help you.’
‘That’s the bit that puzzles me,’ Weldon cut in. ‘Why do you want to help me? Surely that smarmy dago Mainardi didn’t send you? I’ll bet he hasn’t given me a single thought, except to wonder when his fat fee will be paid.’
‘You must have second sight.’
‘So you have been to see him?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did you think of him?’
‘I was not impressed.’
‘Strike one for you, Baxter. Maybe I should have hired you to defend me.’
‘I’m not a lawyer.’
‘No, you’re not. Just a very successful journalist.’
‘I’m not proposing to write a single line about you, Weldon. I’d genuinely like to help you, that’s my sole reason for coming here. There’s only one way to save your neck and that’s to find out who did murder Lucy Staines. Do you have any idea?’
Weldon shrugged his shoulders, but he was calmer now. ‘None whatsoever. Naturally I’ve given the matter some thought – what the devil was she doing in Soho Square at that time of night, and so on? The only answer that adds up is that it was one of those senseless crimes committed by some faceless ghoul with no motive whatsoever, not even robbery or sex.’
Mike shook his head. ‘I don’t believe in faceless killers or crimes without a motive. If I’m going to crack this case I’ve got to get hold of some facts. I can’t make bricks without straw, and right now the only two wisps of straw I have are Hector Staines and Victor Sanders.’
Weldon stared at him incredulously. ‘You don’t mean to tell me you list them as suspects? You’re nuts!’
‘Possibly. If they aren’t suspects I’m damned sure they’re both concealing something. And Peggy Bedford too – only I moved too slowly there.’
‘What do you mean? Has something happened to Peggy?’ He looked mildly concerned, but there was no other emotion to be read in his eyes.
‘Yes. She committed suicide yesterday. Plugged up all the doors and windows of her flat and turned on the gas taps.’
Weldon suddenly dug his finger-nails into the palms of his hands until the white of his knuckles showed. ‘That’s terrible,’ he muttered. ‘Are you quite sure you’ve got your facts right?’
‘Yes. Why?’
‘It’s only that … well, Peggy never struck me as the morbid type. Very much the contrary. She got a kick out of life, whatever else one may have thought about her.’
Mike raised his eyebrows questioningly.
Weldon continued, ‘In a way I’m not too surprised she came to a sticky end, but I would never have thought it would be by her own hand.’
‘Are you suggesting someone murdered her too?’
>
Weldon frowned. ‘I know nothing about the circumstances of her death, other than what you’ve told me. But I wouldn’t rule it out entirely.’
Mike digested this for several moments, then said, ‘You must be sick of doing this, but would you care to give me a straightforward account of what really happened the night your fiancée was killed?’
Weldon sighed wearily and thrust the lank hair out of his eyes. ‘Here we go again, once more round the Wrekin. However, if you think it’ll do any good … Lucy and I had a row, she left me outside the theatre, and I walked down to the car park. I drove around for about an hour and then I put the car in St James’s Square and went for a walk.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I was upset about the quarrel, about the things I’d said in the heat of the moment to Lucy. I wanted to cool off, to do a little straight thinking about our coming marriage. I walked a long way, as far as the Victoria and Albert Museum, then I retraced my steps, picked up the car, and drove home. I got back about half-past twelve.’
Mike looked at him and shrugged. ‘It’s not a very good alibi, is it?’
‘It was never meant as an alibi. If I’d wanted one I’d have thought up something very much better than that.’
‘You did.’
‘Come again?’
‘In your first statement to the police you told them you arrived home at half-past ten.’
‘Ah yes. Silly of me, really. I suppose I lost my head. The news that she’d been strangled put me into a flat spin.’
‘I see. What about this Tarrant woman? When she picked you out at the line-up had you ever seen her before?’
‘No, thank you. I’ve never been a fan of vaudeville. Above my head.’
‘Why vaudeville?’
‘You haven’t done your homework, Baxter. Nadia Tarrant was the hind legs of a horse, or part of a juggling act – I forget which. It came out at the trial. She was so hard up for a job on the boards she’d have sworn—’
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