On arrival they installed themselves in their room, and Pollard dialled Professor Thornley’s home in North Oxford, with a satisfactory feeling of having arrived at the penultimate milestone of an exceedingly tedious journey. The persistent ringing tone was first a surprise, then an infuriating frustration. In reply to Toye’s suggestion that the family might not have got back from church, he muttered an inappropriate remark under his breath. Finally, when he had all but given up hope, the ringing tone abruptly ceased.
‘Who is it? What do you want?’ demanded an elderly female voice, so loud and raucous that he hastily moved the receiver several inches away from his ear.
‘May I speak to Professor Thornley?’ he asked, unconsciously raising his own voice.
‘I’m not deaf, whoever you are,’ replied the voice. ‘No need to shout at me. Speak like a civilized being, can’t you?’
‘I — want — to — speak — to — Professor — Thornley,’ Pollard enunciated clearly, moving to allow Toye to listen in.
‘Well, you can’t. My son’s gone to a wedding in London. Won’t be back till the last train tonight. They’ve all gone, and I’m not taking any messages.’
‘I haven’t asked you to,’ Pollard replied, holding on to his temper with difficulty. ‘Can you give me his telephone number in London?’
‘No, I can’t.’
‘Did you say the Professor was returning by the last train from London tonight?’
‘That’s what I said. Can’t you understand plain English?’ The receiver was slammed down.
‘Old cow!’ Pollard exploded, with a reciprocal slam. He slumped down on his chair as Toye temperately remarked that elderly relatives could be a problem, and sat frowning into space for a full minute.
‘Look here,’ he said at last, ‘I’d better go up. It’s bound to be Paddington, and there won’t be all that number of middle-aged couples on the last train to Oxford. I’ll have the train times vetted at the Yard and get back here somehow. It’ll be much more satisfactory to talk to Thornley face-to-face. And I can put in a report at the Yard and possibly have a word with the AC. Time he realized this job is a dead end. I might even get a couple of hours at home.’
Toye, scenting the possibility of making some inquiries on his own, encouraged this idea.
‘I could nose round a bit here,’ he suggested. ‘See if I can pick up anything on Escott’s car last Wednesday night, for instance.’
‘If anybody can, you will,’ Pollard said. ‘Only I don’t want the local chaps brought in on the Escott trail until Thornley’s evidence is in the bag. No point in stirring up a hornet’s nest unless it’s a necessary. Here, run me to the station. There’s a train to town in ten minutes.’
After satisfying himself that Pollard had managed to board the London train, Toye drove to a car-park that he had previously marked down, then looked around for a pub. It was packed with Sunday lunchtime drinkers but he managed to make his way to the bar and get served. In a comparatively quiet corner, he planned his afternoon programme over beer and sandwiches, oblivious of the babble around him.
Half an hour later he returned to the carpark, having stopped on his way at a telephone kiosk. He learned from the directory that Colin Escott’s private address was Hollacott House, Brinton, Ramsden. Sitting in the car, he consulted an Ordnance Survey map, found that Brinton was a small village four miles to the north of Ramsden and started off. A tentacle of new building including a housing estate extended along the road, but once clear of this he drove through open country until a church tower and a cluster of roofs appeared ahead. He slowed down, inspecting the outlying houses, and paused at a fashionable hanging sign on a post by an open drive gate. Hollacott House, he read. Deciding against parking at the side of the road, he drove on and found a space by the lych gate of the church. The village seemed completely deserted, and Toye concluded that the population was either still eating or sleeping off its Sunday dinner. At the same time he was probably being observed from behind curtains and ramparts of pot plants; it seemed advisable to behave like a tourist and visit the church. He spent about ten minutes on this, then emerged for a stroll round the village. Finally he sauntered off in the direction of Hollacott House, the view of his progress soon being cut off by an opportune bend in the road.
Toye stood in the gateway and prospected. A short drive curved round to the front of a house, which he correctly identified as a period piece which had had a packet spent on it. He noted the cream-washed walls, fresh paintwork and new thatch protected by fine-meshed wire netting. The drive was free of weeds and the bordering shrubs had been carefully pruned. Somewhere near there was a bonfire. Moving to one side, he saw what he had hoped to find: a large garage, joined to a side entrance to the house by a covered way, but out of sight of the front windows. Its doors were open and three cars stood inside, one of which was a sports model. That’ll be the young chap’s for sure, he thought, and began to make his way forward behind the shrubs bordering the drive, reaching the garage without crossing open ground.
It was stone built, and must have been a barn or something of the sort, he thought, as his eye fell on a ladder leading to an open trap door and a loft overhead. He took out his notebook and entered the makes and registration numbers of the three cars: a Triumph Stag, a BMW 1600 — probably a runabout for the lady of the house — and a TR4, bought second-hand, Toye thought. From what the Super said, the young chap wouldn’t have had the cash for a newer model. He’s looked after it, though: I’ll grant him that...
A door opened with startling suddenness. Toye, who was capable of moving with a silent speed that had often surprised Pollard was up the ladder and into the loft before advancing footsteps arrived in the garage below. He dropped noiselessly to the floor and now wriggled as near to the open trap door as he dared. There was the unmistakable sound of a car’s bonnet being opened: he risked a look. A young man in sweater and jeans was bent over the engine of the TR4. It seemed reasonable to assume that it was Peter Escott. As the young man straightened up, Toye hastily drew his head back. A metallic clatter suggested that a tool was being selected from among others.
The floor of the loft was uncomfortably hard and also dusty. Toye, always dapper in appearance, had gloomy thoughts about his suit, a fairly recent buy. How would dry-cleaning look on his expense account for this trip, he speculated? Without warning, a catastrophic urge to sneeze engulfed him, and he gripped his nose savagely in a handkerchief, while cramming his left fist against his mouth. As the bonnet of the car was shut down, the paroxysm mercifully departed, as suddenly as it had developed. A moment later the door of the car was opened and the roof light came on. The engine roared into life and was revved up several times, apparently for test purposes. Toye risked another look and got a clear view of the young man, who was absorbed in interpreting the deafening noise. Apparently he was satisfied, as it ceased abruptly. For a few moments he sat motionless, gazing ahead, leaning his arms on the steering wheel; then suddenly dropping his head on to them, as if oblivious of his surroundings and deep in thought.
Toye estimated that two full minutes elapsed before there was a movement, and the young man sat up again and began to feel in the pocket of the driver’s door. Toye caught his breath as he pulled out a pair of rubber gloves and looked at them for some seconds, then thrust them into the pocket of his duffle coat. Then, as if with sudden decision, he got out of the car.
The car door was slammed and there was the sound of departing footsteps, seeming to go round the back of the garage. Toye was down the ladder in a flash and stood tensely listening. There was a snapping of twigs, and he slipped out in time to see a figure disappearing towards what looked like a vegetable garden. The smell of a bonfire was stronger here, and Toye spotted a tenuous coil of smoke rising further ahead. With mounting excitement, he stalked his prey, in a manner of the heroes and villains of his favourite Westerns, and found cover behind a greenhouse.
A figure in a duffle coat was raking the bonfire with a st
ick. Toye’s view through the greenhouse panes was distorted, but some object was being dragged out of a pocket and deposited on the embers. Further raking pulled the fire together again, and an armful of garden rubbish was thrown on to it. Finally, after watching it for several moments, the young man strode off in the direction of the house.
Toye watched him disappear and listened intently for the shutting of a door. After what seemed an hour he heard it, and ran to the bonfire, kicking at it vigorously. The gloves were degenerating into a sticky mess that gave off a revolting smell, but they were still partially intact. Enough left of the fingers to take dabs, Toye thought, heroically collecting the unpleasant remains in his clean handkerchief. Pausing only to reassemble the fire as best he could, he beat a hastily retreat from cover to cover, until he safely reached the drive gate. Fortunately, no one witnessed his exit, but he could hear voices from beyond the curve of the road, and encountered a group of children with a mongrel dog, which rushed at him excitedly. It was called off in robust terms but the children stared at him curiously.
‘’E don’t mean no ’arm,’ one of them said. ‘Bin after mushrooms, mister?’
Detecting a mocking undertone, Toye realized that he knew nothing of the life cycle of edible fungi and replied in a jocular tone that he had always heard Brinton was famous for mushrooms. Loud laughter greeted this sally, and he raised a hand in greeting and walked on. In the sanctuary of the Hillman, he transferred the handkerchief and its nauseous contents to a plastic box and started off for Ramsden, giving the children a friendly wave as he drove past them.
Back at the police station, he examined the gloves under a strong light and was delighted to find that one of the thumbs and two of the fingers were intact. He extracted the blown-up photographs of X’s prints from the case file and cautiously took an impression from his find. The result was, beyond question, conclusive: Peter Escott was X.
Toye sat for a few moments in silent gratification. When you were teamed with a brilliant chap like Pollard it sent you up to pull off something really worthwhile on your own. His training and methodical temperament then reasserted themselves. There was plenty left for him to do. If you were going to pull a bloke in, the more cut-and-dried evidence you had lined up, the better. There were Escott’s movements on Wednesday evening to look into, and the possibility of his car being parked somewhere near the Athenaeum. Toye carefully labelled the plastic box, put away the photographs and, after a refreshing cup of tea in the canteen, set out on foot.
He had made a mental note of the address of the Escott firm; and ten minutes later was standing in front of a modern office block with an imposing entrance, surmounted by the words ‘Escott House’. To the left of the main door, a brass plate was inscribed in flowing calligraphy, ‘E. J. Escott’. So the old chap founded the estate agency, too, Toye thought. Eye to business as well as book learning and stamp collecting. He decided that Colin Escott had been behind the building of the block and was doing nicely out of rentals, as well as housing his own firm. Well below the brass plate were modest boards indicating other businesses accommodated in Escott House. He was on the point of walking to the Athenaeum to find out how long this would take, when he noticed a padlocked iron gate at the side of the building, and peered through it. It was a small car park, with spaces marked off by white lines, and presumably intended for users of Escott House. It occurred to him that it was probably locked each evening and that the timing of this might throw some light on Peter Escott’s movements.
The street was empty, but about fifty yards further on Toye saw an illuminated pub sign, ‘The Volunteer’. He looked at his watch: it was just on six o’clock, and he decided that it might be worth dropping in. He found the bar open and the landlord engaged in polishing glasses and disposed to chat. In the character of a Londoner visiting Ramsden on business, Toye began by being complimentary about modern developments in the town.
‘Nice office block along the street,’ he remarked, setting down a half-empty glass and leaning against the counter. ‘Plenty of room inside but not so tall that it makes everything round about look squat.’
The landlord agreed that Escott’s had done a good job over it. ‘Got an architect down from London,’ he added. ‘There was feeling, but I don’t say they weren’t right.’
‘Good idea having that space for parking cars at the back,’ Toye went on. ‘The street’d be choked with cars, else.’
‘You’re dead right. It’s bad enough as ’tis. Traffic in the town gets worse every year, and what does the Council do about it?’ Before Toye could answer this rhetorical question, the door was pushed open and a small dark man came in, to be greeted by the landlord as Tom.
‘Gentleman here’s bin admirin’ your place,’ he told the newcomer, adding for Toye’s benefit that Mr Billings here was caretaker over to Escott House.
Tom Billings was a voluble extrovert, and within minutes Toye was hearing how he was responsible for every blessed thing over there: maintenance, cleaners, the lot. The mere mention of the car park led to a diatribe on the efforts of the general public to sneak their cars in and leave ’em there for free, now that the Council had made the free parks into paying ones.
‘I suppose you lock the place after office hours, or you’d be packed out till the pubs close?’ Toye suggested.
Tom Billings described with gusto how he locked the gate on the stroke of a quarter to seven, Monday to Friday, having seen the cleaners out. It kept them on their toes, knowing they’d got to be out on time. He didn’t wait for nobody. Then he walked down to the ‘Volunteer’ for his pint, regular as clockwork. The landlord, invited to testify to his customer’s punctuality, agreed that you could set your watch by him.
‘Of course the bosses ’as their own keys,’ Tom Billings concluded. ‘Weekends, gate’s kept locked, unless there’s a delivery, that is.’
The bar was filling up. As soon as he decently could, Toye disengaged himself from the loquacious Tom Billings and returned to Escott House. Looking at his watch, he started to walk briskly, but not conspicuously fast, to the Athenaeum by the most direct route. Ernie Dibble, he reminded himself, had heard the clock on the parish Church strike seven after taking cover in the bushes. One couldn’t be exact to a minute, but this must put the time of the crash of Annabel Brown’s fall at between ten and five to seven. The boy had hung about in the hall before summoning up courage to run for it, and there had been an interval before he heard the clock.
As he walked, Toye turned these points over in his mind. On reaching the front door of the Athenaeum he looked at his watch again. He had been exactly fifteen minutes en route. He stood and thought. If it was Peter Escott who had closed the door quietly after Brown’s fall, he would have arrived back at Escott House at between five- and ten-past seven. Billings would have been in the ‘Volunteer’, and the cleaners, however disposed to linger and chat, would certainly have cleared off. Still, it was something to have worked out this possible timing, and Cook’s chaps might be able to get on to somebody who’d seen a chap carrying a case. Besides, in order to get home, Escott would have used his key to get his car out of the car park. A TR4 was the sort of car people noticed.
Wouldn’t it have been easier, though, Toye argued with himself, to have parked the car near at hand? The door Ernie heard closing could have been Escott returning for a second lot of books, this time finding himself confronted by Brown, who’d come into the library from snooping behind the oil tank. So what? Did he find her hiding in the gallery, panic and give her a push? Or did he startle her, so that she took a hasty step in the dark and stumbled?
Feeling that he was straying into the dangerous realm of speculation, Toye set off to reconnoitre the neighbouring streets, and decided that there were plenty of places where a car could have been parked well away from a lamp.
Finally he began to retrace his steps towards the police station and the Hillman. His thoughts reverted to the debris of the rubber gloves with keen satisfaction. All that was n
eeded now to pull young Escott in on the theft charge was the Professor’s evidence that the chap had gone off and left him in the flat during the party for, say, five minutes. Plenty of time to get the boiler house door unlocked if you looked slippy.
Some hours earlier, Pollard had sprinted down the platform and boarded the London train by a flying leap. He found a seat and leant back in it to recover his breath. As the suburbs glided past and began to give place to fields and coppices, he recognized in himself a feeling of relief, even of exhilaration. He had experienced it on previous occasions when it had been possible to snatch a few hours away from the scene of a case. In earlier days he had felt like this at the beginning of a weekend exeat from his school.
He was sitting with his back to the engine, and as the train gathered momentum, Ramsden seemed to be receding rapidly but at the same time developing a sharp clarity, as if he were looking at it through powerful binoculars. The people with whom he was involved stood out distinctly. Perhaps because of his sensation of being rushed through the countryside at ever-increasing speed, they all seemed to be moving forward with an unshakeable purpose, oblivious of each other. On collision courses, Pollard thought...
Presently, it struck him that an unusual number of these people were dominated by a ruling passion of one kind or another. There was Annabel Brown’s ruthless and single-minded pursuit of security, financial and social, which had led her by a devious path to her death. Evelyn Escott’s whole life had apparently been directed towards the single goal of making her mark in the Ramsden Literary and Scientific Society and so asserting her status in her native town. Defensive and compensating fanaticism had carried Flo Dibble through a life of hardship. Laura Habgood fulfilled her domestic responsibilities at the Athenaeum with a kind of conscious efficiency, activated, perhaps, by the non-academic woman’s desire to count for something in a scholarly environment. Perhaps, too, by the desire to protect her invalid husband, to whom, in Pollard’s opinion, she was over-protective. A pity there had been no children, he thought. And behind them all was Old Evelyn Escott, confidently bulldozing all obstacles to his founding of the Ramsden Literary and Scientific Society.
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