Half a minute later, after a distinct acrimonious-sounding exchange, there were footsteps and the receiver was picked up.
‘Escott here,’ came Colin’s loud voice. ‘What’s up?’
‘Something serious, I’m afraid, Mr Escott,’ Alastair replied. ‘Mrs Lucas, my assistant, was found with a fractured skull at the bottom of the spiral staircase this morning. The cleaner discovered her soon after eight.’
‘Good God! Why are you ringing me, though? Westlake’s the Chairman.’
‘Mr Westlake went to London by the first train this morning and it’s impossible to contact him.’
Colin Escott swore fluently.
‘Whatever medico you sent for called the police in, I suppose?’
‘Yes. Inspector Cook is now in charge. Unfortunately, that isn’t all. The accident happened last night, according to medical evidence, after the library had closed and Mrs Lucas had officially left. It’s not clear how she returned. And the cupboard where we keep valuable books has been broken open — about half a dozen are missing.’
‘Woman was a crook, from the look of it. I suppose we’re covered by our insurance?’
‘Our own books are. I’m not sure about one which was on loan from Mr Westlake.’
‘Well, if he isn’t covered by his own policy, that’s his funeral, not ours ... of course, I’m sorry you’re having all this bother, Habgood, but there’s nothing I can do now that the police have moved in. Just land the ball in Westlake’s court as soon as he gets back. Thanks for ringing.’
Striding into the kitchen, Colin gave Daphne the gist of the conversation. She paused in the act of taking a casserole out of the oven, and stared at him.
‘What an extraordinary thing to happen,’ she commented with faint surprise. ‘Do go and wash, Colin, and come and have your lunch. I’m afraid it may be a bit overdone.’ Later, in the course of the meal, Colin gave a sudden guffaw.
‘What price Evelyn’s history of RLSS now?’ he said. ‘This ought to liven it up a bit! Hell! Some sort of gesture’s called for, I suppose. Ask the Habgoods over, what?’
Peter Escott seldom went home to lunch, much preferring to make do with a snack in a congenial bar. On this occasion he patronized the Abbot’s Buttery in the semibasement of Ramsden’s leading hotel. The management had attempted to create a mediaeval atmosphere by means of bogus oak beams, rough wooden benches and tables and dim lighting. The room was packed with lunchtime drinkers, and as Peter elbowed his way forward he caught the word ‘Athenaeum’ above the deafening conversations in progress.
‘Yes, old Buckmaster,’ a man just in front of him was shouting. ‘Met him in the post office just now. He’d been round to look something up in the library, and found the place closed and the police in possession. All he could get out of ’em was that there’d been a fatal accident last night, and nobody was being let in until further notice...’
‘The usual, sir?’
Peter Escott surfaced abruptly, surprised to find that he had arrived at the bar. ‘I’ll have a double whisky today, George,’ he said.
Unable to escape being drawn into a group of friends, he ate and drank hurriedly, announcing that he had got to meet a client during the lunch hour. Outside the hotel he stood on the pavement for a few moments debating with himself, and finally started off in the direction of Abbot’s Green.
As he approached the Athenaeum the front door opened and was closed again by someone inside as a girl came out, carrying a shopping bag. Peter Escott made a split- second decision.
‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘No, I’m not a reporter. I’ve just heard that there’s been a serious accident here, and thought I’d come along and try to find out what’s happened. I’m Peter Escott: my people have been mixed up with this place for ages. I know Mr and Mrs Habgood,’ he added, with a note of inquiry, registering that the girl was a serious type but easy on the eye.
Clare Fenner hesitated briefly, torn between an impulse to respond emotionally to what seemed to be a kind gesture, and her natural circumspection, enhanced by professional training as a confidential secretary. How much were the police saying, she wondered?
‘How nice of you to come round,’ she said. ‘I’m Clare Fenner, a niece. No, it isn’t my uncle and aunt, thank goodness. It’s my uncle’s assistant, a Mrs Lucas. She seems to have fallen down the spiral staircase in the library last night. The cleaner found her this morning — dead. And there seems some mystery about why she was there at all. It’s all absolutely beastly for Uncle Alastair and Aunt Laura. I’d just come for last night on my way down to my people in Devon, but I’m staying on to try and give a spot of moral support... I don’t think they much want callers at the moment, to be honest.’ Meeting her clear gaze, Peter Escott hastily expressed sympathy, which she promised to pass on to the Habgoods. He hesitated.
‘Are you going into town?’ he asked tentatively. ‘I’m on my way to the office. May I come along?’
‘Yes, do,’ Clare replied. ‘I thought it might be a good time to collect up some food. I don’t want to be out long.’
‘Lucky for the Habgoods you happened to be around,’ Peter said, as they walked along. ‘I suppose the place mayn’t be able to open again for days if the police are trying to find out what happened?’
Clare, on the brink of telling him about the book theft, came down at the last moment on the side of reticence. ‘I suppose not,’ she said. ‘I don’t think anyone has a clue at the moment.’
Realizing that no further information was forthcoming, Peter began to make polite inquiries about her home and job. To his surprise he found himself diverging from his route to escort her to the shopping centre.
‘Thanks most awfully,’ she said, rather distractedly, as he pointed out the greengrocer patronized by his mother. ‘You’ve been so kind... Goodbye.’
He watched her disappear into the shop, and began to retrace his steps. Back in his room at Escott House, where the family firm had its head office, he was sitting at his desk doing nothing in particular when the door opened and his father came in.
‘You’re back from lunch very early,’ Colin remarked. ‘Congratulations. I suppose you’ve heard about this business at the Athenaeum? It seems to be all over the town. Habgood’s assistant was picked up dead at the bottom of the spiral staircase this morning, and a bunch of valuable books is missing. Looks as though the woman was involved, doesn’t it?’
‘What do the police think?’ Peter asked.
‘God, I don’t know. Haven’t asked ’em. The more we keep out of it the better. Unfortunately Westlake’s in town till tonight. Bit of a comedown after all the tripe he talked on Tuesday... Has that chap after the house in Mortlake Avenue made a firm offer?’
‘I daresay my butting in like this is a bit unorthodox,’ James Westlake said, ‘but dammit, I’m Chairman of RLSS, and a JP too, if that’s relevant.’
‘Entirely irrelevant,’ replied the Chief Constable, an old friend. ‘But as we’re just arriving at the moment of truth, you can attend as an observer if Daly doesn’t mind.’ Superintendent Daly, who had a high opinion of James Westlake’s performance on the Bench, said that it was OK by him.
‘Right. Light up and listen, then, James. When you barged in we were considering whether or not to call in the Yard.’
James Westlake stopped dead in the act of extracting a tobacco pouch from his coat pocket, and looked his astonishment.
‘As you’ve just come from the Athenaeum, I take it that you know as much as the Habgoods do,’ the Chief Constable went on, ‘but quite a bit’s transpired since this morning. There’s a good deal more to this business than Mrs Lucas’s accidental death while apparently helping herself to books. Whether they were her accomplices or not we don’t yet know, but two other people were illicitly in the library in the course of last night. Call them X and Y. X came in before Lucas, and did the breaking open of the cupboard. He wore rubber gloves. Y came after Lucas, and was wearing knitted gloves. The dabs suggest that she was a woman. Lucas ha
s a record. She was twice convicted of shoplifting from London stores some years ago, and once of receiving stolen property.’
James Westlake looked appalled.
‘We took up one of her references when she applied for the job at the Athenaeum, of course. It was satisfactory.’
‘With the shortage of typists, she probably had no difficulty in getting jobs between whiles. Coming now to a more serious aspect of this business, it’s not at all clear why she pitched down a staircase that she was quite familiar with in her daily work. We’ve made a preliminary examination, but there doesn’t seem to be any structural defect, and there are no traces of mud or anything slippery on the treads or the soles of the shoes she was wearing. We got up some dust and whatever with the suction gadget and have sent it off to the Forensic Lab for tests, but it’s difficult to see that it’s going to help much, if at all. Finally, the PM report says there’s no sign of her having been given a hefty shove from behind. On the other hand, they point out that it wouldn’t take much of a push, on a contraption like that staircase, to make her slip — especially if she was carrying books and hurrying. Well, that’s the gist of it. What’s your conclusion about bringing in the Yard, Daly?’
Superintendent Daly slumped back in his chair, frowning. ‘I’m not saying we couldn’t handle the inquiry, sir. But Inspector Cook and I’ve been talking it over and we think the roots of it all are in London, not Ramsden. She must have been in with a shady lot up there, at one time. With her husband going off, she may have linked up with ’em again. The Yard’s better placed than we are to follow these people up, and then there’s tracing the books that were taken. We both feel it’s a Yard job.’
The Chief Constable looked at James Westlake. ‘What’s your reaction? It’ll mean a lot of publicity, of course.’
‘I don’t care a damn about publicity, provided we can get the whole thing cleared up as quickly as possible. It’s bloody unpleasant for RLSS, and especially for the Habgoods. I’m all for the Yard, for the Super’s reasons. Let’s hope they send us someone good.’
‘I’ve got a bit of leverage with one of the Assistant Commissioners,’ the Chief Constable said meditatively. ‘I’ll ring his private number on chance.’
‘Old School Tie?’
‘No. Arms, companions in. I hoicked him out of the sea at Dunkirk.’
‘Should help,’ James Westlake agreed.
‘Sorry one of your books was taken, sir,’ Superintendent Daly said to James, when the Chief Constable had gone to put through his call. ‘Something pretty valuable, wasn’t it?’
‘Best thing I’ve got, unfortunately. It was on loan for the exhibition we had at the centenary party on Tuesday night. An illustrated study of the county in the author’s handwriting. Eighteenth century.’
The two policemen commiserated. ‘Mightn’t its being on show at the party be a lead?’ Inspector Cook said suddenly.
‘I suppose it’s possible. There were over 130 people there, though.’
The return of the Chief Constable broke off the discussion.
‘It did help, actually,’ he remarked. ‘We’re getting that Pollard bloke.’
Superintendent Daly and Inspector Cook both whistled.
Chapter 4
Friday afternoon was wan and still, made eerie by wreathing wisps of fog. The library at the Athenaeum blazed with electric light but remained dead. Withered flowers and leaves stood gauntly in vases. Surfaces were filmed with dust, and tables and chairs jostled in confusion.
Detective-Superintendent Tom Pollard stood in front of the librarian’s table with an impassive expression, looking down at Detective-Sergeant Strickland stretched out on the floor. Strickland, the team’s fingerprint expert, was directing the beams of a powerful lamp on to a series of faint lines and depressions in the pile of the carpet. A few feet away Detective-Inspector Toye sat back on his haunches, thoughtfully contemplating the two men through his massive horn-rims.
‘Seemed to us, sir, somebody’d been crawling around on all fours,’ Strickland said. ‘That way you drag your toes along each time you go forward, and if the pile’s deep it’ll leave a track. Then, when you stop, there’ll be a little pit where the toecap rests. Boyce tried it out over there. Have another go, Boyce.’
Detective-Sergeant Boyce, photographer, crawled a few yards on his hands and knees as requested.
Still uncharacteristically silent, Pollard dropped to the floor and inspected both sets of marks. ‘Looks like it,’ he said briefly, getting up again. ‘May not be anything in it for us, though. Mrs Lucas could have dropped something, then gone down to hunt for it, when she was working here on Wednesday.’
‘There’s bits of gravel in one or two of these marks,’ Toye’s voice came from under the table, where he was peering at the carpet through a lens. He lowered his head still further and sniffed. ‘Oil,’ he said succinctly.
Pollard’s head went up, an infallible sign of alerted interest. The two technicians exchanged a quick glance.
‘Odd,’ he said. ‘Coming in from the street you don’t have to pass the oil storage tank in the yard. It’s several feet beyond the boiler house door. Let’s have a look at the thing.’
He set off towards the trompe-l’oeil, followed by the others.
‘Hooked on the job at last,’ Boyce breathed in Strickland’s ear as they brought up the rear. ‘What’s been biting him?’
It was a five hundred gallon tank, raised from the ground on low pillars, painted green and covered by a Perspex roof. Toye expressed approval.
‘Save a lot of repainting. I’ve roofed mine,’ he added with a touch of complacency.
‘This roof’s saved more than repainting,’ Pollard said as he straightened up. ‘Look here. Somebody’s been standing close up to the tank on the side furthest from the road, and the roof’s kept the rain off the marks.’ He shone his torch on to two depressions in the gravel, and stepped back to look down the yard towards the double doors. ‘Anybody right up against the tank wouldn’t be seen by somebody else coming in and making for the boiler house,’ he went on, and stooped again, this time to sniff the far side of the tank and rub it with his finger. ‘Definitely oily. No sign of rust or seepage, so the chap who did the last fill up must have sloshed some oil over. We’d better investigate Mrs Lucas’s coat and shoes if they’re back from the lab. Nip round to the station, Toye, and bring ’em along. We’ll collect gravel samples from both places while you’re gone.’
While Boyce and Strickland began this operation, Pollard returned to the library. He flung himself into a leather armchair, crossed his legs and clasped his hands behind his head. After considerable initial disgruntlement he was feeling a first stirring of interest in the inquiry. He had resented having it foisted upon him, partly because a postponement of leave was involved and partly because he suspected what he called Old School Tie wire-pulling. The AC had been too elaborately casual about knowing the Chief Constable. In addition, the job looked open and shut. A woman with a record and shady acquaintances plans a book theft, involving her former mates to divert suspicion from herself as an employee, falls down a lethal spiral staircase and expires. Exeunt shady acquaintances with booty, leaving a corpse with no marks of violence. Just a tedious tracking-down of the chaps and the books, and precious little kudos, even if one caught up with ’em.
Pollard suddenly grinned, remembering an astringent remark by his wife, Jane, to the effect that he’d better watch out or his spiritual home would soon be the headlines. Anyway, the present situation had just sprouted a curious thought-provoking feature. He had been exhaustively briefed by Inspector Cook after the adjourned inquest, and was quite clear about the sets of fingerprints on the inside handle of the boiler house door. X had come in first and subsequently broken open the cupboard containing the library’s more valuable books. Lucas had come in next, after hiding behind the oil tank in the yard. She had inexplicably crawled about on the floor under the librarian’s table, then gone up to the gallery. Here she
had examined the books lying scattered in front of the cupboard, and collected up the first editions of the Palliser novels. Subsequently, and for no reason established as yet, she had fallen down the spiral staircase, dropping the books and her torch, and fatally fracturing her skull. Last of all, Y had come, adding the bizarre touch of wet knitted gloves and a dripping umbrella to the curious sequence of events. Much later than X and Lucas, presumably, as the heavy rain had not started until midnight.
Pollard absently watched Strickland collecting fragments of gravel from the carpet with forceps and dropping them into a sterilized container. Why on earth, if Lucas and X were on the job together, and she had opened up the boiler house door for it, had she hidden outside on a cold November evening instead of waiting for him inside? Could the robbery have been entirely X’s affair, and Lucas have chanced on it, waiting behind the tank to identify him as he came out? No, that wouldn’t wash, of course. Even assuming that she had come back to fetch something on Wednesday evening, she couldn’t have expected to get into the library through the boiler house, even if the yard doors were open. She would have rung the front door bell and asked to be let through. And, of course, X would somehow have had to unbolt the boiler house door. He couldn’t have known that the gates were going to be reopened for the librarian’s niece...
At this juncture Toye reappeared, carrying two plastic bags.
Inspection of Annabel Lucas’s coat at once established the fact that its wearer had recently leaned against an oily surface. Her shoes were the fashionable platform type, black patent with a T-strap across the instep. Scrapings had been taken from the shoes and heels for forensic tests. The Yard men contemplated the pair in silence.
‘If they passed a law that women had got to wear things like this, there’d be demos and riots,’ Toye commented.
Pollard snatched up the shoes and inspected them closely. ‘Don’t knock the rag trade chap who dreamed up this pair. See here.’
He pointed to the motif of small rectangular depressions that ran round the exposed edge of the sole, several of which contained fragments of gravel, and sniffed vigorously once more. ‘Oily,’ he said triumphantly. ‘Dig the gravel out, Strickland, for a third sample. Toye, I think we’d —’ He broke off. From beyond the hall came the perennially sinister sound of someone walking purposefully but unrhythmically with a stick. A loud rap on the library door followed.
Step in the Dark Page 5