Trouble Brewing

by Dolores Gordon-Smith

  With a feeling of trespass he went into the bedroom. It was a small room, floored in oilcloth with two bright rugs. He kneeled at the door and squinted along the floor, but it looked as if the oilcloth had been recently mopped.

  He opened the wardrobe thoughtfully, shaking his head as he saw the dresses and skirts hung up, all covered with cotton bags. Six pairs of shoes and two suitcases stood on the bottom of the wardrobe. He lifted a suitcase slightly, seeing its outline marked by a thin line of dust. He replaced it carefully and shut the door.

  The top of the chest of drawers was covered with a plate of thick glass and on it lay her hairbrushes, a hand mirror, a powder compact and a lipstick. The powder compact was open with a scattering of powder dropped from the powder-puff which lay beside it. Jack frowned at these for a moment without touching them, then, with a glance at his watch to mark the time, threw back his head and shouted. No call answered his.

  The neatly made bed was an iron frame, the sheets and blankets covered with a blue candlewick bedspread. Jack knelt down beside it and lifted the bedspread to look under the bed. The floor underneath the main part of the bed was clean, but dust rimmed the edges against the walls. He let the cover drop and went into the kitchen, lifting the kettle from the hob. A cup, saucer, egg cup, plate and teapot stood on the draining board and the dishcloth was hung up to dry.

  All the time he kept listening for sounds from the flat next door but no noise came through the walls.

  The tiny bathroom was as clean and well cared for as the rest of the flat. A toothbrush in the rack, a cake of soap in the dish with no smears of soap, a towel hung up on the rail and a tooth-glass turned upside down to dry. The underside of the soap was damp.

  A tall cupboard outside the bathroom held, on the one side, an ironing board, a mop bucket, an ordinary bucket, a long brush and a mop. A short brush and a pan stood against the wall while a bag proved to contain nothing more exciting than clean, washed rags. The other side was divided into shelves of neatly folded towels and linen.

  The topmost sheet looked more crumpled than the rest and, taking it out, he carried it through to the sitting room, laid it out on the sofa and unfolded it along the ironed lines. A very faint dark mark was etched in one of the creases. Wetting a finger, he touched the mark, smelled it, then brought it to his lips.

  Soot. The laundry mark was inked in red at the bottom and beside it was a small snag where a thread had pulled.

  He shook his head and stepped back into the hall. Here, for the first time, he caught the faint murmur of voices from next door.

  There was a key hanging down on the inside of the door from a long piece of string beside the letterbox. He opened the door and, standing outside, put his hand through the slit. He found the string easily and pulled, bringing the key through. He shut the door, then opened it with the key. He fed the key through the letterbox so it hung once more on the inside.

  He paused before knocking on the door of the Chards’ flat and thought of the woman whose home had been full of prosaic happiness. It seemed unbearably sad.

  It was Monday morning, a day and a half since the discovery of Sheila Mandeville’s body. Sir Douglas Lynton, Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard, glanced at the clock on his desk, then at Jack, leaning against the windowsill of his office.

  A knock sounded on the door and Rackham entered. He nodded a hello to Jack before speaking to Sir Douglas.

  ‘I’m sorry I’m late, sir. I had to wait at the hospital and the business at the bank took a little longer than I expected.’

  ‘No matter, Inspector. Come in and sit down. Has Jaggard made a statement?’

  ‘Yes, sir. The doctor in charge, Dr Woodcote, was unhappy about it, but Jaggard insisted. I’ve made a note on the file of Jaggard’s condition. He’s suffered severe concussion and his head wound needed seven stitches. There’s nothing much in the statement. To put it in a nutshell, Jaggard denies the charge completely.’

  Sir Douglas raised an ironic eyebrow. ‘Does he, indeed? Did you trace the banknotes found in Miss Mandeville’s handbag?’

  ‘Yes, sir. They’re part of a series paid to Gregory Jaggard by the Wool Street branch of the London and West Country Bank, where Jaggard has an account, in payment for a cheque he cashed for fifty pounds on April the twelfth. The letter itself was typed on Miss Mandeville’s typewriter at Hunt Coffee. Acting on information earlier received from Major Haldean, I requested that the Paris police question the concierge of an apartment on the rue de la Paix, Paris. The concierge identified Jaggard from a photograph shown to him by the Paris police and confirmed that Jaggard stayed there from the first to the seventh of January. I’ve also established from the secretary of the Young Services Club that Jaggard stayed there on the nights of the eighth, ninth and tenth of January. That was when Jaggard was supposed to be in Birmingham. There’s no doubt in my mind that the motive for Miss Mandeville’s murder is the fact that she was in a position to prove Jaggard made a false statement regarding his movements around the time of Valdez’s murder.’

  ‘I agree entirely,’ said Sir Douglas.

  ‘Jaggard needed a reason to be at Miss Mandeville’s flat. He says Pat Tyrell telephoned him at Brooklands and left a message, asking him to meet her there. Mrs Tyrell denies making that call.’

  ‘Does she indeed?’ said Sir Douglas in satisfaction.

  ‘However, there was a call, sir. The steward who took the message says as much. The interesting thing is, that although the caller gave their name as ‘Pat’ it was a man who telephoned. The steward didn’t think anything of it, of course, as Pat’s a man’s name as well as a woman’s.’

  ‘So who telephoned?’ demanded Jack. ‘Have you traced the call?’

  ‘I have,’ said Bill. He couldn’t help but pause for effect. ‘It was made from Weybridge Station. I think Jaggard slipped over the footbridge from the track to the station and made the call himself. I think he wanted the steward to be an independent witness who could testify he’d been asked to turn up at Sheila Mandeville’s flat.’

  ‘Good work, Rackham,’ said Sir Douglas. ‘This is building up nicely.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. There is a question as to when the crime was committed. Captain Smith called for Miss Mandeville at half past seven. Our assumption is that at half past seven, Miss Mandeville was dead, otherwise she would have surely answered the door. Now the neighbour, Mrs Chard, saw Jaggard leave at half six.’

  ‘So the crime was committed between half six and half seven.’

  ‘So I thought, sir, but at seven o’clock, Jaggard was in the bar of the R.A.C. with his riding mechanic, Joseph Hawley. The barman confirms that, by the way. Hawley states he was with Jaggard all evening until about eleven o’clock. I’d assumed that Jaggard returned to the flat after looking round it with Mrs Chard and waited for Miss Mandeville, but that leaves him very little time. However, Major Haldean has a few ideas on that score, sir.’

  Sir Douglas looked at Jack expectantly.

  ‘Yes . . . Fundamental to all this is the fact that Sheila Mandeville kept a spare front door key hanging down beside her letterbox. It’s awfully easy – as it’s meant to be, of course – to reach in, grab the string, and get into the flat. We tried a little experiment, Rackham and I, and established that, although you can hear someone knocking on the door from the next flat, you can’t hear someone letting themselves in with a key. My idea is that someone—’

  ‘Jaggard,’ interposed Bill.

  ‘Who might have been Jaggard,’ corrected Jack, ‘did just that. Now, Sheila Mandeville generally got home about half past five or thereabouts.’

  ‘The Hunt people said she left at five o’clock,’ put in Bill. ‘That was her usual time.’

  ‘Good. That sounds about right. She went, I think, first into the bathroom to have a wash – the underside of the soap was damp – and then into her bedroom. The rest of the flat was undisturbed but in the bedroom her lipstick was on the dressing table and her powder compact was open.
There was a scattering of powder from where she’d dropped the powder puff on the dressing table. I think she was attacked when she was doing her make-up in her bedroom. I shouted fairly loudly and Inspector Rackham tells me he couldn’t hear a thing from the next flat.’ He sucked at his cigarette, then studied the glowing end. ‘Which means, of course, she was murdered not in the sitting room, but in the bedroom, shortly after she returned from work at around half past five.’

  ‘She can’t have been,’ said Sir Douglas. ‘It has to have been after half past six. That’s when Mrs Chard looked round the flat. Sheila Mandeville wasn’t there.’

  ‘I think she was, sir. The top sheet in the linen cupboard wasn’t as neatly folded as the others. It looked crumpled, as linen always does when you disturb it. I opened it out and found a little mark of sooty dust along one of the ironed-in creases. What I believe happened was that the murderer wrapped her body in a sheet from the linen cupboard and put her under the bed. It has to be under the bed, because there’s nowhere else in the flat to hide a body. The wardrobe was a possibility, but it was evident that nothing in there had been touched.’

  ‘But . . .’ Sir Douglas stopped, lost for words. ‘Why on earth should anyone go through that performance?’ he said at last. ‘It means two trips to the flat. One to kill the girl and to hide the body, then to bring her into the sitting room. It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Nevertheless, sir, I think that’s what happened. The sheet had a small flaw, as if a thread had been pulled out. It looked as if it’d caught on a ring, a watch or a shoe.’

  ‘And had it?’ asked Sir Douglas.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Bill. ‘When Major Haldean told me what he’d found, I alerted Dr Roude to the possibility of finding a thread. He found it snagged on Miss Mandeville’s shoe. There’s photographs in the file. In the face of that evidence, I agree with Major Haldean that Miss Mandeville was murdered shortly after she got home from work, at half past five.’

  ‘But why?’ demanded Sir Douglas plaintively. ‘Why should anyone give themselves two trips to the scene of the crime? He’d have to come back within four hours, otherwise rigor would set in and it’d be perfectly obvious the body had been moved.’

  Jack nodded. ‘I agree, sir. That brings us up to an outside time of half nine for moving Miss Mandeville into the sitting room. It doesn’t make any sense, unless someone’s trying to cover up the fact that they’ve got no alibi for half past five.’

  ‘What’s Jaggard’s alibi for that time?’ asked Sir Douglas sharply.

  ‘He hasn’t really got one, sir,’ said Bill. ‘He left Brooklands at just gone four. Jaggard states he drove to Tanyard Mews where he garages his car and walked to Dunthorpe Mansions. They’re only lock-up garages, with no one in attendance. He could easily have driven straight to Dunthorpe Mansions and been there much earlier than ten past six. It’s not much of an alibi, unlike his story for later in the evening. I think Major Haldean’s right. He knew that part of his story was weak, so he deliberately drew our attention away from the early evening by trying to make us think the murder had been committed after half past six. I think Jaggard got back into the flat after having been seen by Mrs Chard, rearranged the body, and went off to meet Hawley.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Sir Douglas approvingly. ‘I really think that covers everything.’ He looked quizzically at Jack. ‘Is something wrong, Major? You don’t look very happy.’

  Jack clicked his tongue. ‘I’m not,’ he admitted. ‘It’s possible, I know, but I don’t like it.’

  ‘You’ve always been soft on Jaggard,’ said Bill reprovingly. ‘It’s not admissible evidence, so I haven’t put it in the file, but when I turned up to arrest him he was in the middle of telling Mrs Tyrell that she didn’t know what he’d done. What was that about? It sounds suspiciously like a guilty conscience to me.’

  Jack moved impatiently. ‘It could mean anything. He’d just lost his race for a start, poor devil, so it could be that. I grant you that the case against Jaggard seems pretty black and I’d lay long odds you’d get a conviction, especially with the letter, the phoney phone-call and the banknotes to back you up. I must say, I don’t like those banknotes.’

  ‘They’re damning,’ said Bill briskly. ‘And think of what else we’ve got. He lied, and can be proved to have lied, about being in Birmingham on the ninth of January. I think Valdez found out about his affair with Elise Molnar, tried to blackmail him and was murdered for his pains. What happened to Helston is anyone’s guess, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Jaggard accounted for him, too.’ Bill looked at his friend and sighed good-humouredly. ‘I can see you’re not convinced.’

  ‘Oh, yes I am,’ admitted Jack. ‘I’m convinced there’s an absolutely solid case. Believe me, if he murdered Sheila Mandeville, he deserves everything that’s coming to him. But . . . what if he didn’t? I want to know two things that haven’t been explained. One, what happened to Mark Helston, and two, why were Valdez’s clothes removed?’

  Bill shifted in his chair. ‘We’ll find an explanation, I’m sure.’

  ‘Yes, but we haven’t done so yet. There’s an odd, artificial flavour about all of this. I smell the faint odour of rat.’

  ‘I’m investigating a murder, not the drains.’

  Jack grinned. ‘You get me. What if Jaggard’s been set up? It’d be very much to, say, Laurence Tyrell’s benefit, if Jaggard was out of the way.’

  ‘And so he murdered Sheila Mandeville simply to drop Jaggard in it? Come on.’

  ‘It sounds ridiculous,’ admitted Jack. ‘So ridiculous that it can’t possibly be the reason. I do wonder about Tyrell though. When Miss Mandeville saw him at the Ritz, she mentioned to Captain Smith that he looked vaguely familiar. I must admit she remarked on the similarity between Tyrell and Jaggard, and ascribed her feeling of familiarity to that.’

  ‘That’s probably all it amounted to,’ said Bill.

  ‘She also told Smith that Tyrell looked startled to see her when she bumped into him in the lobby.’

  ‘Well, if he’d just had the girl run into him, I imagine he did look startled. You would, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I suppose you would,’ said Jack without enthusiasm.

  Sir Douglas sighed and laced his fingers together. ‘The trouble is, Major Haldean, I’ve known you too long to discount what you say. By all means, consider Tyrell as a possible suspect if it makes you feel any happier. I, for one, have a very healthy distrust of his motives for suddenly reappearing when there seems to be some money up for grabs. What I would say, is that the only murder that would benefit him is that of Patricia Tyrell. And she, as we know, is still very much alive.’

  Jack wriggled impatiently. ‘Of course Tyrell hasn’t murdered his wife. If Pat Tyrell died now, all that would happen is that her income would be reabsorbed back into the trust. Besides that, he’s not a complete fool. It’d be a bit obvious, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Obvious or not, he hasn’t harmed a hair of her head. But why invent problems? It’s the actual murder of Sheila Mandeville we’ve got to crack, not the imaginary murder of Patricia Tyrell. And, incidentally, while Jaggard’s removal might make things pleasanter for Tyrell, he’s not a penny better off for it. Say we do convict Jaggard and he gets his just deserts, then his money from the trust goes back into the trust, just as Mrs Tyrell’s would. Laurence Tyrell wouldn’t benefit. I believe in evidence, and the evidence tells me that Jaggard should stand trial. If the verdict’s guilty I won’t lose a wink of sleep over it, I can tell you.’

  The telephone on Sir Douglas’s desk rang. With a frown the Commissioner reached forward and picked it up. Jack watched as Sir Douglas’s face altered and became grave. Snapping out a few instructions, he replaced the earpiece, then looked at Bill. ‘You’d better get down to the hospital. Gregory Jaggard’s escaped.’

  ELEVEN

  In the corridor of St Luke’s Hospital, Police Constable Brockley flicked his eyes to his superior’s face, before resuming a close study
of the wall one inch to the side and three feet behind Inspector Rackham’s head. He said nothing. Experience had taught him that this was the best way.

  ‘And you call that keeping watch, man?’ Rackham’s voice was thick with disgust. ‘Of all the incompetent, blundering, bungling idiots who ever wore a uniform, I’d put you at the top of the class. You were told to watch him, yes? In the room. Not hanging about in the corridor, dallying with the nurses.’

  ‘But, sir . . .’ Constable Brockley tried to find words to express his feeling of acute injury and failed.

  ‘I think what the officer is trying to say, Inspector,’ said Dr Woodcote, intervening for the sake of common humanity, ‘is that he is not responsible for Mr Jaggard’s escape.’

  Rackham adjusted his features into a semblance of civility. ‘Would you care to explain that, Doctor?’

  Doctor Woodcote ran a hand through his grizzled hair. ‘Well, the fact of the matter is that I asked the constable to leave the room while I conducted an examination of my patient. Whilst the examination was in progress I was called to attend a complication that had arisen in another case. I did not anticipate being away for any great length of time. I may say that I could not possibly have foreseen such an action on Mr Jaggard’s part. Indeed, he seemed to have slumped into a kind of torpor.’

  ‘He snapped out of it jolly quickly,’ muttered Bill.

  ‘Er . . . yes. Remarkably quickly, I agree.’

  ‘And you didn’t think to ask Constable Brockley to step back into the room while you were gone?’

  ‘Er . . . no. I am not accustomed, Inspector,’ said Dr Woodcote testily, ‘to having my hospital treated as a prison, nor, indeed, having to combine the functions of a doctor and a jailer.’