His Burial Too

by Catherine Aird

  “Besides …” Sloan hunched his shoulders forward, “I want to think.”

  As amende honorable went it wasn’t exactly memorable but Constable Crosby’s obedient “Yessir” came up with just the right inflexion this time.

  Not, thought Sloan with foreboding, that the space of one short car ride—however decorous—was going to be anything like long enough to marshal his thoughts ready for Superintendent Leeyes.

  There were some things, though, which could be put in hand.

  “The firm’s van, Crosby. Yesterday lunchtime.”

  The constable patted his car microphone affectionately. “I’ve sent a message out. Anyone who saw it to let us know.”

  “All Calleshire?”

  “All cars, sir. After twelve yesterday.”

  “So Miss Holroyd says,” Sloan reminded him. “So she says. We don’t know.”

  That was the police way of thinking.

  The way he should be showing this raw constable how to think.

  It was ingrained in him now, or so his wife, Margaret, said. In detective work you thought in much the same way as you would pick your way across a swamp, testing for firm ground each time you took a step forward.

  He didn’t know if what Miss Holroyd—or anyone else in this case, come to that—said was firm ground or not yet.

  It was too soon to know, though already things had been said which had sounded a tinkle of warning …

  He’d have to sort those out, too.

  “That all, sir?” Crosby enquired assiduously, steering a perilous course the while between a Calleshire County omnibus and a furniture van.

  “The Companies Register,” said Sloan when he’d started breathing again. “Then we’ll have the background of Struthers and Tindall and Cranswick Processing and all these other people they’re doing work for.”

  “Especially United Mellemetics?”

  “Especially United Mellemetics,” agreed Sloan, looking at the list. “There’s Punnett Tooling, too, and Harbleton Engineering and Marlam’s …”

  “Never heard of them.”

  “And Stress Engineering.”

  “Or them.”

  “What about Leake and Leake?” Sloan frowned. “That seems to ring a bell.”

  “Vans, sir. They have vans. Lots and lots of them. Little green ones. You see them everywhere.” Crosby made them sound like leprechauns.

  “Oh, them. I know.” Sloan went back to his list. “Osborne is the last one.”

  “George Osborne,” said Crosby. “That’ll be his invention. It’s going to be a great success. Tindall said so.”

  “Mrs Osborne said Richard Tindall said so,” Sloan reminded him patiently. “How many times do I have to tell you that it’s not the same thing?”

  Crosby didn’t answer. He seemed to be busy turning the police car down Bell Street. They were getting near the police station now.

  Sloan was still looking at his notebook. “Now, Crosby,” he went on as one encouraging a pupil, “what is the next thing we should do?”

  “Eat, sir,” responded the pupil with celerity. “It’s tummy time.”

  Sloan snapped his notebook shut. He really didn’t know what the Force was coming to.

  Yes, Inspector, a voice agreed down the telephone from the mortuary to the Police Station, they had received the body from the church.

  Yes, they had listed the contents of the pockets. They had done that at once because of Dr Dabbe wanting to get on and you know—everyone knew—what Dr Dabbe was like when he was in a hurry …

  What had there been? Well, the usual.

  What was the usual?

  Some small change—not much. Keys—house keys by the looks of them.

  Not car keys?

  Not car keys.

  A couple of handkerchiefs. A good boy.

  A what?

  A good boy. One handkerchief to use and one to spare.

  “Anything else?” enquired Sloan in a strangled voice.

  Nothing out of the ordinary at all. A wallet, of course. With some money. The business cards in it said Richard Mallory Tindall if that was any help to the Inspector.

  It was? Good.

  Anything else in the wallet?

  A receipt from Adamson’s in London.

  Not Adamson’s the jewellers?

  The voice from the mortuary spelled out a famous address in a well-known London street.

  Sloan drew in his breath. Adamson’s were suppliers to what crowned heads remained in the world, and their lineal successors in the matter of wealth—oil-rich sheikhs, property tycoons, pop stars, pools winners …

  “What for?” he asked.

  Adamson’s didn’t deal in peanuts, of course. Everyone knew that. Not even in costume jewellery when it came to the point. With Adamson’s it would be for real—whatever it was. At Adamson’s if it looked like gold, then it would be gold.

  A pair of diamond and emerald clips, read out the man at the mortuary, made to order as per pattern supplied.

  “What,” asked Sloan with mounting eagerness, “was the date on the receipt?”

  July 15th.

  Tuesday. The day before yesterday.

  Anything else?

  Well, yes, there was one of those funny little things that looked like a small ruler but wasn’t—oh, a slide rule?

  Really? Well, there was one of them. And a pen and pencil, and a small diary.

  The Inspector would like that sent over to the police station straightaway.

  Right.

  Will do.

  That all? Well, there wasn’t anything else.

  Nothing?

  Nothing. Was there anything else special apart from these clips that the Inspector had in mind?

  A box of matches? echoed the voice. From its disbelieving tone matches might have been as rare as emerald and diamond clips. Oh, no, nothing like that.

  Not even a lighter.

  A man must eat.

  Even if he was a policeman.

  Pangs of hunger had at last driven Detective Inspector Sloan to agree with this admirable proposition advanced by Constable Crosby, who had assuaged his own appetite minutes ago.

  And a detective must detect.

  Even if he was hungry.

  Sloan was manfully trying to do both at once: cradling the telephone receiver between ear and shoulder, a pen in one hand and a beef sandwich in the other.

  “A pair of emerald and diamond clips,” he said indistinctly, when his London call came through. “Ordered through your Mr Lee.”

  Somewhere in a heavily carpeted office in the West End of London Messrs Adamson’s, Crown Jewellers, brought their Mr Lee to the telephone.

  “A very nice pair of clips, Inspector,” Mr Lee began cautiously.

  “I should like to know all about them,” said Sloan.

  He would like to know all about the United Mellemetics file, too. And a lot more about an Italian called Giuseppe Mardoni.

  “They were emerald, Inspector. Mr Tindall specified emeralds in his letter. With diamonds if we could manage it.” Mr Lee contrived to make the diamonds sound like makeweight.

  “Emeralds with diamonds,” mused Sloan, taking another bite of beef sandwich while he could.

  “Mixed stones are all the fashion again,” said Mr Lee. “It’s not like it used to be.”

  “Really, sir?” Sloan wondered if he should have known that.

  Was it the sort of thing every good detective knew? There was no limit to those. It was Sherlock Holmes who held that every detective should be familiar with seventy-five varieties of perfume, wasn’t it?

  Or was it fifty-seven?

  Sherlock Holmes had solved his locked room mystery by finding a deadly Indian swamp adder in residence.

  Sloan had had no such luck.

  So far.

  “Emeralds with diamonds,” he repeated.

  “That’s right, Inspector. To match some Victorian emerald and diamond earrings. To pattern, so to speak.”

  �
��What sort of clips were they?”

  “Let me see now, Inspector—how can I best describe them to you? You haven’t got them in front of you, by any chance?”

  “No,” said Sloan shortly, “I haven’t.”

  “Well, in that case …” Mr Lee paused. “They were each composed of cabochon …”

  “Cabochon?”

  “Polished not cut into facets or shaped.”

  “Right,” he mumbled in between beef and bread. “I’ve got that.”

  “Cabochon emerald and diamond clusters …”

  It did sound rather nice, thought Sloan, as he wrote it all down. He tried to visualise a pair of clips like that on his own wife, Margaret. He found it refreshing to call up her image in the middle of the day and was dwelling on this while Mr Lee went on talking.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” apologetically. “Might I have that again, please?”

  “The clusters,” repeated Mr Lee with the esoteric enthusiasm of the expert, “were slightly graduated and each was held and intersected by a small diamond collet.”

  “Collet?” queried Sloan.

  “The horizontal base of a diamond when cut as a brilliant,” said the expert. “We just had to match the existing earrings, Inspector. Not a difficult job really. We had them to go on. Mr Tindall sent us one and we worked from that and then returned the two clips and the earring.”

  “When?”

  There was a rustle of paper to match Sloan’s chewing. “According to our ledger, Inspector, it was dispatched two days ago.”

  “Tuesday.”

  “That’s right. Mr Tindall mentioned a date in his letter.” Adamson’s Mr Lee gave a discreet professional cough. “I understand a lady’s birthday was involved.”

  Sloan pushed the description over to Crosby who had just come in. The constable was holding a message sheet which had reached them from Superintendent Leeyes.

  “It’s about this G. Mardoni, sir.” Crosby handled the flimsy paper with care. The police authority economised on the quality of the paper it used and much time and Scotch tape were expended on sticking it together. “It confirms that he was booked on a direct flight to Rome leaving London Airport at one-thirty this morning.”

  “And he didn’t make it …”

  “Failed to report to either the terminal or the airport, sir.” Crosby took another look at the message sheet. “It says here that they’re trying to find out if anyone of that name caught a later flight.”

  “Or G. Mardoni using any other name,” said Sloan, picking up the telephone and dialling the Dower House at Cleete.

  I HAVE CAUGHT AN EVERLASTING COLD.

  13

  “Me, Inspector?” echoed a Fenella as disbelieving as the mortuary attendant. “The boss of Struthers and Tindall? Oh, surely not. Not now of all times. I couldn’t possibly … I can’t begin to think straight as it is.”

  Sloan kept the receiver to his ear while she did, perforce, begin to think straight.

  “I couldn’t possibly …” she repeated tremulously.

  “I don’t know about the Struthers part, miss …” It was surprising how skilled you got at interviewing people.

  “I remember that my father bought a controlling interest when old Mr Struthers died. His two daughters still have a share, I know, but not a big one.”

  “What they call a minority interest?” suggested Sloan helpfully.

  “That’s right, Inspector. They get dividends and things.” She still sounded bewildered. “I can’t be the boss though, Inspector. Not of the whole firm. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Did your mother have an interest?”

  “Yes, but what’s that … oh, I see … yes. Yes, she did. And she did leave it to me.”

  “If you inherit your father’s holding, too, miss, I can see that you might very well be the majority shareholder.”

  “Oh, dear …”

  “Going back to last night, miss … When did Mr Mardoni leave you?”

  “Just before ten-thirty. He brought me home and then left. He had a plane to catch.”

  “He had a car?”

  “He hired one while he was here. He’d arranged to leave it at the airport. You can do that.”

  Sloan took down the name of the car hire firm, and asked, “When did he come to England?”

  “Last Thursday. He had business in London, he said … he’s a civil engineer …”

  He wrote down all the details she gave him. They would have to be checked, of course. Everything would have to be checked. That was what being in the police force meant. Check, check, and check again.

  Fenella Tindall, surrogate owner, had been quite willing for Detective Inspector Sloan to have the names of all the firm’s clients, Henry Pysden’s caution notwithstanding.

  “I shall be going back to Randall’s Bridge soon, miss,” he said obliquely.

  “There’s no hurry,” she responded dully, “is there? Not now.”

  “I’m afraid not, miss,” Sloan agreed tendentiously.

  There wasn’t either. Not from her point of view. Her father was already dead. All would be still at Cleete. She wasn’t beset by furies like Superintendent Leeyes and Dr Dabbe and the police photographers—all of whom were clamouring for his attention at once.

  And behind them there would be the baying hounds of the Press …

  “But I fear that we will want you, miss, to … we will have to ask you to look at … to say if …”

  “I understand, Inspector.” Her voice was almost harsh, it was so tightly controlled. “I’ll be here when you want me.”

  “It’ll be at the mortuary in Berebury.”

  “I won’t run away.”

  “We’re sending a car over for you.”

  “Thank you.”

  Sloan cleared his throat. “It’s on its way over.”

  “Now?”

  “Dr Dabbe … he … we can’t afford to waste any time, miss. Not in a case like this.”

  “No …” he heard her breath expire in a long despairing sigh. “Of course you can’t.”

  “Miss …”

  “Yes?”

  “There was one other thing.”

  “Yes, Inspector?”

  “Would you mind telling me when your birthday is?”

  “In March,” she said promptly. “It’s March the twenty-ninth.”

  “Did your father give you a birthday present then?”

  “Oh, yes. He wouldn’t forget.”

  “Thank you, miss.” He tried another tack. “Do you by any chance own a pair of emerald and diamond earrings?”

  “No, Inspector …” not quite so promptly.

  “Did your mother?”

  He heard her catch her breath this time. “Not to my knowledge.”

  As soon as Sloan had rung off Fenella Tindall dialled the Berebury Grammar School for Boys and asked for Mr Osborne.

  “He’s not here.” A throaty schoolboy voice answered the telephone after a long delay. “It’s the dinner hour. There’s nobody here.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Out.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “His car’s not here,” croaked a half-broken voice.

  “That doesn’t mean a thing,” said Fenella bitterly.

  “He’ll be back by two,” offered the boy with all the confidence of the young. “He’s got a lesson with us on mass and volume.” His voice took a centaur-like leap to manhood. “Do you want to leave a message?”

  “Yes, please,” said Fenella Tindall.

  Superintendent Leeyes was in one of his ivory tower moods.

  Sloan knew them of old.

  The Chief Constable, who had had an expensive education and who knew the Superintendent very well too, called them Aristotelian.

  All Sloan, who had clawed his way up through primary and grammar school, knew was that the Superintendent liked his action offstage. And all over in one day.

  Within one revolution of the sun was how it would have been put by the Chief Cons
table pace Aristotle.

  “All going well, Sloan?” enquired Leeyes briskly.

  “We’ve got a general call out for a van and a pair of diamond and emerald clips.”

  “Emerald clips?”

  Sloan told him about the jewellery.

  “Ha! You’ve got down to the grass roots, then.”

  Sloan took the point dutifully.

  “Murder,” enquired the Superintendent, “for a pair of emerald and diamond clips?”

  “There’s this missing United Mellemetics file, too, sir.”

  Leeyes snorted. “Don’t say there’s something our precious Sir Digby Wellow can’t handle.”

  “Looks like it, sir, and he’s disappeared too now.”

  “What!”

  “His firm don’t know where he is,” amended Sloan.

  “So that’s this man Cranswick and Wellow who’ve both slipped through your fingers …” The Superintendent believed in staying on top.

  “There are half a dozen firms with hush-hush jobs farmed out to Struthers and Tindall, and United Mellemetics happens to be one of them, sir.”

  Superintendent Leeyes looked up suspiciously. “These people, Sloan—Struthers and Tindall—they’re not doing anything for the War Office, are they?”

  Ministry of Defence it might be now. War Office it had been and War Office it would remain to Superintendent Leeyes.

  “Not that I know of, sir.”

  “That’s something to be thankful for, anyway.”

  “Yes, sir.” Sloan was with him there.

  All the way.

  Superintendent Leeyes’s last brush with Security had seared its way into the annals of the Berebury Force.

  It had been a memorable affair.

  The Superintendent had asserted territorial rights with all the vehemence of a mating cock robin and the Security people had—in the end—retreated, muttering into their cloaks and daggers.

  “There’s this funny business about selling Struthers and Tindall, too, sir. To Cranswick Processing.”

  “Hrrrrrrmph.”

  “The girl inherits.”

  “The King is dead, long live the King,” said Leeyes brutally. “Or, in this case, the Crown Princess, I suppose.”

  “She says she didn’t know anything about Cranswick Processing going to buy her father out.”

  “They all say they don’t know anything about anything.” Leeyes pointed to the papers on his desk. “No news of the boy friend yet.”