Mr. Thacker stopped in mid-sentence, his mouth open. “I beg your pardon?”
Slowly, Bill lowered his paper. “I said ‘Fiddlesticks!’ Mr. Thacker.”
“So I understood, Mr. Spence. But—”
Emmy guessed that by now Bill was regretting ever having intervened in the conversation, but it was too late to retire again behind his protective camouflage of newsprint. Gruffly, he said, “The man must have known he’d be sent to prison. He had proper legal advice, and any competent lawyer must have told him he hadn’t a hope. It was pure irresponsibility on his part to go off to court leaving his animals unprovided for.”
Mr. Thacker looked surprised at this outburst. “Indeed? I fear I have no direct knowledge of the case, Mr. Spence, but there has been a lot of talk. The general climate of opinion, if I may call it that, was definitely in his favor—”
“Then the general climate of opinion,” remarked Bill scathingly, “is talking through its hat. Look, Mr. Thacker, I was on the bench for the committal proceedings. I know.”
“How very interesting, Mr. Spence.” Mr. Thacker was as keen on the scent of gossip as any spinster of his parish. “Strictly speaking, Heathfield was not one of my parishioners—did you know that the parish boundary runs along Riverside Lane? Rather interesting…not many people realize… In any case, in the circumstances it was not up to me to offer…em… consolation to the poor man. But I should be fascinated to hear…unless there’s a question of professional secrecy, of course…”
“My dear man, I’m a magistrate, not a doctor or a priest. Nothing secret about it. It was a very bad case. Heathfield had been drinking at the White Bull all the evening, and—not to put too fine a point on it—he was dead drunk. When he left the pub, he simply drove off—”
“Drove off?” echoed Thacker. “I didn’t know he owned a car.”
“He didn’t,” said Bill, grimly.
“But he knew how to drive?”
“Yes, unfortunately—otherwise he wouldn’t have got as far as he did. Apparently, he used to drive a van in connection with his market-gardening business, but when he retired he gave it up—let his license lapse. No—he simply stole this car, which belonged to another of the pub’s customers, and drove off in it. He managed to get almost as far as his own house, and then he lost all control of the car and smashed it into his own front wall. Unfortunately, there was a wretched passerby between the car and the wall, and he was killed. When the police arrived, they found Heathfield at the wheel—passed out cold—and the other man lying dead under the car.” Bill snorted, with a certain grim satisfaction. “The police threw the book at him, of course. Causing death by dangerous driving, driving with more than the prescribed blood-alcohol level, driving without license or insurance, taking away and driving a car without the owner’s consent…you name it, they charged it.”
“Dear me. I had no idea…yes, a very bad case.” Thacker was trying to sound virtuously distressed, but could not keep the underlying glee out of his voice. “So he pleaded guilty, I suppose?”
“No, he did not. Against all advice, he insisted on pleading not guilty—on the grounds that he remembered nothing at all that happened after he left the pub, that it was not the sort of thing he would ever have done, and that he’d only drunk so much because he’d been egged on by what he called ‘London men.’ ”
“That’s perfectly true!” Jane’s intervention was emphatic and surprising. Bill looked at her severely.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean that it wasn’t the sort of thing he’d do. I know Harry. I’ve seen him with his dogs—”
“Oh, really, Jane. Nobody ever suggested the man had a bad record. All his neighbors spoke up for him. Nevertheless, nobody can commit a serious crime and then avoid the consequences by claiming that he was drunk at the time. In fact, in a driving offense, it makes it infinitely worse, not better. He must have known he’d be sent to prison, but he stubbornly persisted in being optimistic, and as a result we’re landed with yet another bloody dog.” Bill picked up his paper, shook it ostentatiously open at the leader page, and retired behind it.
Jane said hotly, “Well, Amanda was at the trial, and she says the judge said that man was wrong—”
“Which man?” Bill growled from behind his newspaper.
“You know. The man whose car it was. The man who’d been drinking in the pub with Harry. The judge said that he and his friend had obviously been encouraging Harry to drink too much, and that they should have known better.”
Bill lowered his paper slowly and with dignity. “I do not intend,” he said, “to get involved in this conversation. I merely point out that these men in the pub—who had never met Harry Heathfield before—had no reason to think he would be driving later in the evening. In any case, nobody can blame his own drunkenness on anybody else. Heathfield could have refused to drink with them, couldn’t he?”
“Well, the judge said that being a publican himself—”
“A publican?” interrupted the vicar, greatly intrigued. “You mean, the judge who tried the case is also a publican?”
“No, no,” said Jane. “The witness. He came from London and ran a pub of his own there. I can’t remember his name.”
“My dear Jane.” Bill Spence did not often sound pompous to Emmy, but he had put himself into a position where it was difficult to avoid it. “Even the judge appears to have been infected by this general climate of opinion that Mr. Thacker mentioned—but not, I am glad to say, unduly. A man who gets drunk in a pub has nobody but himself to blame for it—or for his subsequent actions. Is that clear?”
“Yes, dear,” said Jane meekly.
***
On Friday morning, in his office at Scotland Yard, Henry Tibbett studied a report which had been put on his desk. Then he rang for Sergeant Reynolds.
“Yes, sir?” The sergeant, correct and eager as usual, waited like a well-trained gundog.
Henry indicated the file in front of him. “This shooting affray at the Runworth Stadium last night.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Any ideas on it?”
Reynolds gave a little shrug of distaste. “The usual thing, sir. Couple of rival dog track gangs shooting it out. Lucky nobody was killed.”
“The man who was seriously wounded—Marsh, isn’t it? Richard Marsh?”
“That’s right, sir. Red Dicky, they call him.”
“On account of his politics?” Henry asked, dryly.
The sergeant smiled. “I should say not, sir. Red Dicky’s about the strongest supporter of private enterprise you could meet—especially if it’s dishonest. No, he got his nickname on account of his hair. Regular carrot-top. Nasty piece of work.”
“What do you know about him?”
“Just the usual. Small-time villain, gambler, always hanging around greyhound tracks.”
“You spoke to him at the hospital, Sergeant?”
“If you can call it that,” replied Reynolds, with infinite contempt.
“You mean—he wasn’t saying a thing.”
“You’ve put it in a nutshell, sir. No earthly idea who shot him. Didn’t even see anyone he recognized at Runworth all evening.”
“Any ideas of your own?”
“Well…” Sergeant Reynolds hesitated. “I wouldn’t want to do any guessing, sir, but…”
“But what?”
“Well, it did just occur to me that Larry Lawson was killed a few weeks ago.”
“Lawson,” repeated Henry thoughtfully. “He was another of them, wasn’t he? The dog track boys.”
“That’s right, sir. Red Dicky and Larry—well, let’s say they didn’t see eye to eye. In fact, they were leaders of rival mobs—only Larry Lawson was doing well for himself before he died. Moving up into a higher class altogether, as you might say. So now, when Red Dicky gets shot up—well, one’s mind does sort of turn to one of Larry’s pals, doesn’t it? Shorty Bates, for instance.”
“But you’ve no proof?�
�
“Not a shred, sir. The only other witness who might have been some help is a washout. He’s in the hospital, too.”
“Another of the mob?”
“No, no, sir. Very respectable. Bank cashier. Name of Hudson. Immediately after the shooting, Red Dicky’s pal pulled a gun and shot wildly back at the attacker—only succeeded in hitting poor Mr. Hudson in the leg.”
“And Hudson didn’t see who fired the original shot?”
“With all those people milling around, sir…the best I could get from him was that there was a tall, blonde young woman standing close to Marsh, which gets us precisely nowhere. If it wasn’t one of the Lawson gang, sir, I’ll eat my hat.”
Henry said, “But there was no question of Lawson being murdered, surely? He died in a motor smash, if I remember rightly.”
“Not exactly, sir. He was run over by a drunken driver.”
Henry looked interested. “A drunken driver belonging to a rival gang, you mean? A hit-and-run job?”
Reynold’s gloom deepened. “No, sir. Naturally, I was suspicious, and I had Detective Constable Wright read up the committal proceedings. The driver was a retired market-gardener, a real countryman, never been in any trouble of any sort before, and certainly nothing to do with the stadium lot. He simply got plastered in the local pub one night, borrowed a car to drive home in, and passed out at the wheel. He was sent up for twelve months only the day before yesterday, at the Middingfield Assizes. All perfectly straightforward. No doubt about anything.”
“Then why are you so sure—?” Henry began.
Sergeant Reynolds grinned faintly. “Because I’ve got a nasty, suspicious nature, sir. You ask my wife. Oh, I’m not suggesting that this retired gardener character was any more sinister than any other idiot who goes in for drunken driving and has an accident. No—but it did cross my mind that someone like Shorty Bates might not be so well-informed as we are. If he thought Red Dicky had a hand in Lawson’s death—well, he’s not the kid-glove type. Or, of course, it could just have been a clash of business interests. Whatever it was, we’ll never get anything helpful out of Marsh. Might as well close the file, if you ask me.”
“Until it happens again,” said Henry, “and some innocent bystander gets in the way of a bullet—and isn’t as lucky as your Mr. Hudson.”
“Well, there’s always that risk, isn’t there, sir? I’ll keep at it, don’t worry—there’s always a chance that somebody’ll lay information, but I doubt it. If Marsh dies—and the doctors say he’s in a bad way—then we might get some information—a murder often scares the small-timers. But if he recovers—” Reynolds shrugged. “I daresay Red Dicky will have his own methods of retaliation, once he gets out of the hospital.”
“That’s just what I meant,” said Henry. “More violence. Well, so long as Marsh is out of action, that gives us a breathing space. Nothing else urgent on our plate for the moment?”
“No, sir.”
“That’s good,” said Henry, “because I’m off to Hampshire for a country weekend, and I don’t want to be disturbed.”
CHAPTER THREE
EMMY, JANE, AND Bill arrived at Gorsemere House just after twelve noon on Friday. The rhododendrons were in bloom, throwing out a blaze of red, purple, and white which mercifully masked the blatant ugliness of the big Victorian house. As they climbed out of the station wagon, an enormous dog came bounding out of the front door to greet Jane with embarrassing enthusiasm. He was closely followed by a slim, fair-haired girl in corduroy trousers and an open-necked shirt.
“Hey, there!” she called. “Wotan! Here, boy! Heel!”
To Emmy’s surprise the huge dog hesitated, his big eyes alight with intelligence. He looked from Jane to the girl, then back again.
“That’s right, Wotan,” said Jane softly. “Go to your mistress.”
With a joyful bound, Wotan sprang back toward the girl, very nearly knocking her over with his great front paws, and then lay down at her feet, thumping the ground with his tail.
“You see?” said the girl.
“It’s marvelous, Amanda,” said Jane. “He’s accepted you completely.”
“He was just waiting for me to come and find him, weren’t you, boy?” said Amanda Bratt-Cunningham.
Jane beamed. “I call that a real storybook happy ending,” she said. “I only wish I could find such good homes for all my strays.”
“How many have you got at the moment?” Amanda asked as she led the way into the house.
“Oh, not too bad,” Jane said. “I don’t suppose you know anybody who wants a canary? I’ve got one that some children found with a broken wing. It’s almost well again, and I’ve enquired all over the village but nobody claims it. Anyhow, the goat’s gone.”
“Praise be,” said Bill piously. “Another day, and I’d have wrung the brute’s neck and stewed it for supper.”
“You’ve got no soul, Bill Spence,” said Amanda.
“I don’t know about a soul,” retorted Bill, “but I’ve certainly got a nose. Jane shut the miserable beast in my toolshed. I’ve still not succeeded in fumigating it.”
They had moved into a dark-paneled, chintzy drawing room, which showed signs of the shabbiness which Emmy had observed in other large houses owned by impoverished aristocrats. Sir Arthur might be the local squire as a matter of tradition, she reflected, but it was likely that many of the commuters in their shiny new bungalows could buy him out several times over, and this huge house was clearly a financial burden. It had compensations, however. The drawing room windows gave onto a stone terrace, from which steps led to a downward-sloping lawn bordered by enormous rhododendron bushes. The big flowers—white, red, purple, and mauve—glowed against the dark, shining leaves, making two avenues of blazing color, one on each side of the clipped green sward. Emmy exclaimed in delight.
“Yes, they are spectacular, aren’t they?” said Amanda. “What will you have to drink, Mrs. Tibbett? Sherry? Fine. Jane…Bill…? Three sherries.” She busied herself at a trayful of decanters. “Of course, this part of the world is famous for rhododendrons. We locals get a bit blasé about them, but they are quite a sight at this time of year.” Amanda distributed glasses of amber sherry. “You must get Jane to drive you around—the country’s looking lovely just now.”
“Yes, I’m looking forward to that,” Emmy said. “When my husband arrives this evening—”
She broke off at the sound of a door opening. Turning, she saw to her surprise that a section of what she had taken to be paneled walling in fact concealed a door, which opened into a smaller, book-lined room. This door was now open, and two men were coming through it—a tall, thin, tweedy man with sparse gray hair and pince-nez, who was ushering out his visitor. The second man was shorter, sturdier, and younger. He had fair, crinkly hair and a merry, circular face, and he wore the uniform of a police constable. His dark blue dome-shaped helmet dangled from his hand by its leather chin strap.
“Ah, there you are, Father,” said Amanda. “Come and meet everybody. Hello, Mr. Denning. Have a drink.”
“That’s very kind of you, Miss Amanda.” The policeman’s voice had a pleasantly soft country burr to it. “Since I’m not actually on duty…”
“Sherry, whiskey, or beer?” Amanda asked.
“Sherry, if you please,” said Denning.
“Father?”
“I’ll have a beer, thank you, my dear.” The tall man looked around the room, peering shortsightedly at his guests, and fixed on Emmy. “Ah, you must be Jane’s sister. Mrs.…Er…?”
“Mrs. Tibbett, Sir Arthur,” said Jane. “Emmy, may I introduce Sir Arthur Bratt-Cunningham?”
Sir Arthur shook hands with old-fashioned ceremony and muttered a few words of greeting. Then, thankfully grasping his beer tankard, he bore Bill Spence off into a corner to discuss matters relating to the local parish council.
P.C. Denning said, “I was just having a word with Sir Arthur on a few routine matters.” He was evidently doing his best to rid h
is speech of officialese, and Emmy could not help smiling sympathetically. She knew how easy it was to drop into prescribed jargon. Denning went on, “I’m glad to have the chance of a word with you, Mrs. Spence. I was going to ring you.”
“Were you, Mr. Denning? What about? Not more kittens, I hope. I was talking to your wife last night—”
“No, no, Mrs. Spence. Well, that’s to say, not kittens, but not so far off. I got your message through to Harry Heathfield that his two dogs were being looked after.”
Jane looked pleased. “Oh, I am glad. I hope that’s set his mind at rest.”
“Well…” Denning hesitated. “In a manner of speaking, no. I mean, he’s very grateful, but…”
“But what?”
“The fact of the matter is, Mrs. Spence, that Heathfield insists there were three dogs.”
“That’s what the woman next door said!” Emmy exclaimed.
With a trace of impatience, Jane said, “I can assure you, Mr. Denning, that there were only two. Weren’t there, Emmy?” She appealed to her sister.
“We certainly couldn’t find a third one,” Emmy said. “There were just the two kennels, with a dog apiece—and the shed, which was empty. The other dog couldn’t be locked in the house, could it?”
“No, no, madam. Harry says there was one dog in each kennel and one in the shed. It’s really preying on his mind.”
“Well,” said Jane firmly, “I’m very sorry, Mr. Denning, but the plain fact is that the third dog must have slipped its collar and escaped. After all, Tessa was Harry’s only real pet; the others were strays. If one of them managed to get free, it’s only natural it should have run away. Will you explain that to Harry? Of course he’s upset at the moment, with everything that’s happened—but tell him not to worry. The dog certainly isn’t shut up in the shed, and it’ll probably have found itself another home by now. And tell him that I shall keep Tessa myself until he can have her back. She’s settling down very well.”
P.C. Denning drained his glass. “I’ll get a message to him. Mrs. Spence.” he said—“And I’m sure you’re right. Someone will have taken the dog in—or if they haven’t, then you’ll soon hear about it. And now I must be off—the wife’s expecting me for lunch.”
The Curious Affair of the Third Dog Page 3