Die-Cast (A Peter Marklin Mystery)

by Neville Steed

  ‘Wasn’t your father, at one time, connected with toy manufacture, or so Mr Longhurst informed me?’

  ‘Yes, he was. In Liverpool.’

  ‘Binns Road?’

  ‘Yes. By a curious coincidence, it was the Meccano factory where they also made Dinkies.’

  ‘Did he work on Dinkies?’

  ‘Originally. Later he went on to be a foreman on the other products.’

  ‘When he was on Dinkies, did he work on cars or aircraft?’

  ‘Both. He used sometimes to make the wooden prototypes for the Meccano board to discuss. Pre-war, that is.’ He smiled. ‘But I don’t think he had anything to do with the Flamingo, if that’s what you’re thinking. I would have told you if he had, I assure you.’

  I grinned. ‘It would have been too much to ask, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Perhaps. Anyway, I learnt what little skill I have in model making from him, first in balsa wood, you know, then harder woods, then aluminium, and finally on to brass and so on. He passed on some fourteen years ago now, I’m afraid, before Dinkies became so very collectable. He would have been very gratified to see so much enthusiastic interest in the past.’

  I suddenly heard a door close somewhere above me. I looked up in surprise. Muir proffered a calming hand.

  ‘Only my wife, Mr Marklin. She must have just got up from her nap. She’s not in the best of health, you know.’

  I heard slow footfalls descend the uncarpeted stairs, and a moment later the grey-haired woman I had seen carrying her shopping from her Minor Traveller on my first visit, hesitantly entered the room.

  ‘Oh, Malcolm, is it...?’

  ‘Come on in, my dear. This is the Mr Peter Marklin I’ve told you about. The Dinky aeroplane, remember?’

  She extended a hand rather shakily. I took it. It felt icy cold and far too fragile to grip tightly.

  ‘I’m sorry if I woke you, Mrs Muir.’

  ‘No, no, no, Mr Marklin. I should have been up half an hour or more ago. Life’s far too short to sleep all of it away.’ Her voice was far stronger than her handshake, and had a curious drawl — a little like a very English Katie Hepburn. Her husband helped her to a chair, and she sat down with obvious relief.

  ‘I get pains in my legs, I’m afraid, Mr Marklin. An aneurism, I think they call it.’

  ‘She should have the operation, but she won’t,’ Muir commented, smiling sympathetically at his wife.

  ‘I don’t believe in interfering with the human body, Mr Marklin, in any way. I believe that Mother Nature, with God’s help, is the finest healer. Never taken a tablet in my life.’

  I nodded. I’ve found there’s little point in discussion with blind faith. It works best if it’s left intact.

  ‘How did you hear of my husband, Mr Marklin?’

  ‘Mr Longhurst,’ I said, hesitantly, afraid that the mention to her of his name might raise issues she would rather not discuss. For, I reckoned, if you didn’t take to interfering with the human body with a tiny tablet, you wouldn’t take to someone interfering with one with a bloody great rock.

  ‘Ah, Mr Longhurst.’ She shook her grey head, and one hand traced the deep lines beside her eyes. ‘Did you know him well?’

  ‘Hardly at all. Met him once at a party at Miss Claudell’s, that’s about it.’

  ‘Miss Claudell. Mrs Maxwell, you mean. She was not a Miss, she was married,’ she said emphatically. ‘It was forgetting she was married that no doubt led Mr Longhurst to do what he did.’

  Muir went over to his wife’s chair, and, sitting on the arm, held her hand.

  ‘Now don’t get upset again, my dear. He’s not worth it.’

  ‘They’re not worth it, you mean,’ she countered. ‘She’s as guilty as he is.’

  There wasn’t much point in asking them whether they thought Longhurst was actually guilty, because he had obviously been condemned for adultery, let alone murder, so I moved on.

  ‘Ben Maxwell wasn’t exactly the world’s finest husband, I gather.’

  My remark obviously fell upon stony ground. Not a reaction of any kind blossomed — just silence. I decided my little bit of vintage toy therapy was now starting to be self-defeating, and I didn’t want to drive away to another muddy gateway and be leaked upon, for outside the window I could now see the powers that be had turned on the heavenly tap again, bless them. I rose from my chair.

  ‘I should go. It’s getting late.’ Muir rose from the arm of his wife’s chair.

  ‘It was nice to see you, Mr Marklin. As I say, the Flamingo should be finished in about another ten days. I’ll ring you if it’s earlier.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I went across and gently held the hypothermic hand.

  ‘It was nice to meet you, Mr Marklin,’ she smiled. ‘I’m afraid it’s raining again. Would you like an umbrella?’

  ‘Thanks, but no. I’ll run to the car. I lose umbrellas.’

  Muir saw me to the door. A different me, a me with a rapidly rising bump on my forehead. Somehow, my short time with the Muirs had completely erased my memory of that sodding low sitting-room doorway. And as I drove back to my seaside worry blanket of Studland, the rain seemed to pick on that bump, as it seeped through the rotten seams of my rag top.

  *

  ‘It’s not been your day.’ Arabella poured me a glowing glass of scotch, and I steadied her hand on the soda.

  ‘You can say that again.’

  ‘It’s not been your day,’ Arabella instantly came back, with a Cheshire cat grin. You can see why I love that girl, can’t you?

  ‘I don’t think I’m cut out to be a sleuth,’ I said miserably.

  ‘What about being an Inspector Plodder?’ she grinned up at me.

  ‘Don’t talk to me about inspectors. Just before you came home tonight, I had rung bloody Blake at least three times. Same stupid answer from the same tinny voiced girl every time: “Inspector Blake is in conference right now. Can anyone else help you?”’

  I downed a nice long burn of my scotch to drown the swear words that I knew were just bubbling to surface. ‘The bloody man got me into this mess. He can get me out again.’

  Arabella made no comment and I knew why. Blake had certainly opened the door for me a little, but it was I, Peter Antrobus Marklin (there, you know my middle monica now — my mother’s maiden name. Initials didn’t help me at school, either), who had walked straight in, all of his own little accord. That’s what made it all worse.

  Neither of us spoke for a moment, except my throat as it coped with the scotch. It was Arabella who broke the relative silence.

  ‘You need a rest,’ she suggested, and suddenly sat crosslegged facing me on the settee. ‘I’ve got an idea, Peter. You go up to bed now. I’ll rustle up the odd omelette or two with some chips courtesy of Birds Eye, and bring yours up to you. We’ll both eat upstairs. And then we can watch some TV on the portable, or whatever.’ I liked the idea of ‘whatever’, so agreed. ‘Take the dreaded portable phone with you and keep ringing Blake,’ she smiled.

  Before the omelettes were being helped up the stairs, I actually caught Blake in his office on the second bedside call. For a moment I was speechless, which was just as well. Blake had been on the point of ringing me, and had all his words professionally prepared and ready.

  ‘I got your previous messages, and about Lavinia. Thanks for ringing, Peter. I’ve only just managed to surface for the first time today. Things are marching, as they say.’

  ‘In the right direction?’

  ‘Well, let’s just leave it that they’re on the march. A lot of things.’

  ‘There are a lot of things I want to talk to you about, Sexton.’

  ‘Are you on the march?’

  ‘Not unless it’s backwards, no. That’s not what I really want to say.’

  ‘Well, let’s meet and have a pow-wow.’

  ‘When we smoke pipe?’ I mustered in my best Red Indian voice.

  ‘I was thinking of tonight. Say, in three-quarters of an hour or so.’
/>   My heart sank. I (normally) hate dressing twice in one day.

  ‘Perhaps I could take you up on your previous kind invitation to some supper. Or can I take you both out?’

  ‘Well — we’d be happy to see you, but...er...couldn’t it wait, like until tomorrow?’

  There was silence for a moment, then Blake said quietly, ‘Adam Longhurst will be in court tomorrow.’

  I suddenly decided my bedtime omelette was hardly of earth-shattering importance.

  ‘Expect you in three-quarters of an hour. Do you like omelettes?’

  ‘They’re those you have to smash eggs to get, aren’t they?’

  ‘I guess so,’ I said, and put down the receiver. He had an apt turn of phrase, when he wanted to, did our Inspector Trevor Blake.

  He arrived dead on forty minutes later. Arabella was still changing upstairs.

  ‘Ferry left the second I boarded it. Bit of luck.’ He smiled at me. ‘Except for you, I guess. Made me early.’

  I led him into the sitting-room. ‘Don’t worry. It gives us more time to get business out of the way before supper.’ I poured him a scotch and soda, without being asked. His eyes looked tired enough to demand one on their own. We sat down opposite each other.

  ‘So Digger Whetstone is convinced Longhurst is guilty?’

  ‘Yes,’ Blake almost sighed.

  ‘What’s the evidence?’

  ‘Nothing very new. But it’s all pretty damning. Lover of famous actress hates returning husband. Car observed at the scene of the crime, at the time of the crime. Known to have threatened the husband on several occasions. The last straw, I would judge, was when Whetstone discovered that Longhurst had been cashiered from the army for assaulting a fellow officer. A big man with a short fuse. And a man with no alibi.’

  ‘What about a phone call I believe he claims was made to him that evening?’

  Blake smiled. ‘You must have been talking to his solicitor.’

  ‘Of course. I haven’t been able to talk to Longhurst yet.’

  Blake settled back in his chair. ‘Well, Whetstone reckons that’s one of the weakest stories he’s heard in a long time. A lady whose voice Longhurst claims he did not recognise, asking him to come down to Osmington Mills, because there was some trouble with Maxwell.’

  ‘What do you reckon?’

  ‘I must say I tend to agree. It sounds like a story you think up on the spur of the moment, when you’re in trouble. And what’s more, if it were true, and a lady did ring, then who is the lady, and why does he say he didn’t recognise the voice?’

  ‘One of his old girlfriends? He’s had plenty, I believe, and so had Maxwell.’

  Blake downed some scotch, then said, ‘Or his current girlfriend, perhaps. And he did actually recognise her voice, but realised the implications if he said so.’

  ‘Lana-Lee. I’ve thought of that.’ I got up from my chair, went over to the window and drew the curtains on sleepy old Studland.

  ‘By the way, Blake, that’s what I wanted to say to you.’ I came over and looked down on him. ‘Why the hell did you tell Lana-Lee about me? The amateur sleuthing bit, I mean. What did you actually say? “If you’re ever in trouble, call old Peter Marklin. He’s even better than Lord Peter Wimsey, because he’s not so bloody snobbish about the nouveau riche”?’

  ‘First bit’s more or less right. Second bit totally wrong.’

  I leaned forward, my hand on his chair arm.

  ‘You knew what was likely to happen, didn’t you? And you reckoned Whetstone was going to get it wrong. But the dear old conventions of the police force don’t allow one inspector to quarrel publicly or argue with another, although it can all be achieved through a third party — a gullible third party, more commonly known as a prize sucker. You didn’t even have to look around for him. He was literally on Lana-Lee’s doorstep. So you dropped the word in her lovely ear, and bingo, the sucker is sucked in.’ I broke off to refuel from my glass. ‘Thank you very much, Sexton bloody Blake. But this time, it’s all different. It’s not like the Treasure case. This time I feel totally out of my depth. I don’t know what you’re up to, for a start. And my first full day at this investigation lark, has marched, as you call it, nowhere. All I’m getting are precious few facts, but more and more fanciful theories. I’m up to here’ (I pointed to the ceiling) ‘with theories, and I’m no professional. Any one of them could be true. How would I know? Maxwell seemed to have upset enough people to have been murdered countless times. Anyway, maybe Whetstone is right, and Longhurst did do it. Or even worse for me, Longhurst and Lana-Lee arranged it together in some convoluted plan or other. Don’t you see, Blake, it’s all too big for me. And that’s totally ignoring your smuggling investigations.’

  Blake put down his glass. ‘I’m sorry, Peter. Maybe I was wrong and it would have been better to have kept it simply a police matter.’

  ‘Better for whom?’ a much softer voice asked, and I looked round and saw Arabella. She went across and kissed Blake on the cheek. It was the first time I have ever seen him blush. He pointed at the chunky sweater she had just put on. It had countless pussy-cats all over it.

  ‘Which one is Bing?’

  ‘All of them,’ she smiled. ‘I daren’t say anything else. He gets very jealous.’

  By the time I had poured Arabella a glass of white wine, my temperature had settled back to around the mid ninety-eights, and my brain was starting to separate reason from emotion once more. After a modicum of general tittle-tattle, we resumed more sanely where we had left off. Blake took the stage.

  ‘Well, it was unfair of me to involve Peter, by proxy, as it were. And I suppose, even more ungentlemanly then to leave him out in the cold as far as imparting my information goes. But believe me, I had to. Until tonight, that is. Now I can, at least, tell you where I fit into the whole picture, and how it might affect the Maxwell murder case, if at all.’

  He downed the last of his scotch, then continued, ‘I’m investigating the importation of drugs. I needn’t go into all the details, because they do not impinge upon Maxwell’s death. Or I don’t think they do. So I’ll just tell you what I think may be relevant, on the understanding that this conversation is totally off the record.’

  I nodded. And by my nod, knew that he knew Mr Sucker had been sucked in again.

  ‘From information we have received from Paris, via a source, curiously, very similar in character to your own — in other words, someone working with the police, rather than for the police...’

  ‘Good heavens, it’s international,’ I groaned. ‘I thought you were unique. Who is your double in France? Inspector Clouseau?’

  ‘Inspector Chasseur, actually. Anyway, to continue. From his amateur source, we learnt that Maxwell might have been getting up to his old tricks again. Oh, I’m sorry, I haven’t told you what those old tricks were, have I?’

  ‘Don’t bother. I know. Grand Prix cars stuffed to the steering wheel with anything you can sniff or smoke no doubt.’

  ‘Correct. Interpol could never nail Maxwell for those little transgressions. We learned about them too late. But, directly we heard Maxwell had come into this country, and we couldn’t stop him because he had never been accused of anything, we decided to keep a watching brief on him. Nothing much seemed to happen for a bit; his only sins seemed to be sexual. And it wasn’t until I had a brainwave about Reinhardt that things began adding up.’

  ‘Reinhardt?’ Arabella queried. ‘What’s the connection?’

  ‘Quite literally, a French connection, I’m afraid. Drugs. Might have gone undetected for months, or even years, if Maxwell had not been involved. It was a neat plan, no doubt triggered by the contract Lana-Lee had signed for the new perfume range. Almost as neat as Grand Prix cars.’

  I finished my own scotch, in my mental hunt for how you smuggle drugs in a perfume range. Arabella got there in a trice.

  ‘Talc?’ she offered. ‘Drugs substituted, white powder for white powder?’

  ‘Not quite,’ Bl
ake smiled, ‘but congratulations, you’re on the right track. I guessed maybe it was the talc, but it turned out to be something rather more clever. I don’t know whether you know the Lana-Lee range...?’

  ‘I was given some at the press conference. I have them upstairs,’ Arabella said, as she took Blake’s glass to refresh it.

  ‘Well, then, you’ll know that because of this current brouhaha about aerosols destroying our planet’s ozone layer and so on, Reinhardt reintroduced the old rubber bulb horn type of cologne sprays, like I remember my mother used to have.’

  ‘Ditto mine,’ I added, remembering how irate my mother had once become after I had decided to mend my bicycle horn with the bulb borrowed (stolen, actually; I had no intention of putting it back) from her Yardley cologne.

  ‘Well, instead of those bulbs being full of air...’

  ‘Snowballs,’ Arabella exploded, and slopped a little of Blake’s refilled scotch onto his lap, in her excitement. ‘What a fabulous idea. Black rubber snowballs,’ she continued enthusiastically.

  I thought I had better intervene. ‘Arabella, you’re not supposed to get delirious about the activities of criminals, however creative you think they are. Sexton will get the wrong idea.’

  ‘No, she’s right. It was clever. We intercepted the first shipment the day before yesterday, thanks to our amateur informant. You see how useful right-minded citizens can be, Peter?’ He winked at me. I didn’t wink back.

  ‘And you believe it was all Maxwell’s idea? How ironic he didn’t grow even fatter on the profits.’

  ‘He had an accomplice, obviously — more than one — in Reinhardt. The French police are rounding up a couple of lesser figures now. But he needed one key figure who would, quite naturally, during the course of business, be constantly travelling from France to England.’

  ‘Let me guess. That suave Frenchman fellow, Jean-Paul whatshisface — you know, Arabella. He kissed your hand at Lana-Lee’s unfortunate party. I thought he was too smooth to be true.’

  Arabella frowned. Blake laughed. ‘No, Peter, I’m afraid you’re wrong. Jean-Paul Gautier, I think you mean, was certainly involved, but not in the way you think.’ Blake played with his glass. ‘You see, he is Inspector Clouseau’s Peter Marklin. It’s through him and his intuition, we learned most of what we know.’