by Anne Morice
‘Nothing whatever about that. He most certainly was not there. Admittedly, if he had been, he’d have left long before I arrived, but you seem to have no conception of how painstaking and laborious that investigation was. Every single hotel register for miles around came under scrutiny and, if Anthony’s name had been there, I should have recognised it at once.’
‘Yes, I’m sure you would, but what’s the use of that? You know how careless the Cootes are about such formalities? The first thing Louisa impressed on you when we arrived was that there was no hurry about signing in.’
‘Nevertheless, I did sign and I bet, if I hadn’t done so within twenty-four hours, she’d have reminded me. That casual sort of attitude is just part of the act, designed to make the new arrivals feel they are members of some grand private house party. It wouldn’t have held up for long. No sane hotelier could afford to bend the rules to that extent.’
‘On the other hand, I can easily believe that, if Anthony had told them that he was running away from his creditors or some jealous female and wanted to register under a false name, they wouldn’t have turned a hair. If any questions had come up later, which at that time must have seemed highly unlikely, they could always claim that they had no idea that his name wasn’t John Smith.’
‘Well, you have a point there, I must admit.’
‘Though I don’t know why I have gone to all this trouble to make it. I simply set out to explain why I’d been in no hurry to pass the news on to Toby.’
‘And I’m afraid you’ve succeeded all too well. I still think his theory is a load of rubbish, but I’m clutching at straws now and I’m not sure it wouldn’t be worth while getting Wetherbys to turn up their records for that meeting.’
‘What for?’
‘To provide us with a list of the owners and trainers who’d entered for it.’
‘I wouldn’t bother, if I were you.’
‘It wouldn’t be much bother.’
‘All the same, I think you’d be wasting your time.’
‘Why? Apart, that is, from interfering with your laudable efforts to spare your old friend the embarrassment of having to answer a few questions?’
‘Three reasons, really. The first being that he is my old friend.’
‘And therefore above suspicion?’
‘Exactly! I may not have a very scientific approach to life, but neither do I consider myself to be moronically unobservant and, if Anthony possessed a murderous, or even conspiracy to murderous streak, I should have noticed signs of it before. The second is that eventually I shall remember who it was who told me of another event which took place two or three years ago and, when I do, it may add a new dimension to the picture.’
‘Well, don’t forget to let me know about it. What’s the third?’
‘Oh, that’s even less scientific, so you won’t be surprised to hear it’s the one I set most store by. I have a hunch that I already know who murdered Pauline and Verity.’
(2)
The one I did not believe to be the murderer was waiting in the hall when I went downstairs at ten o’clock. With a punctiliousness, as he would no doubt have put it, above and beyond the call of duty, he had brought Robin’s car back half an hour before the appointed time, although curiosity may have had something to do with it too.
‘Did they let you through without any harassment?’ I asked him.
‘Oh yes, no bother at all. Didn’t even search me for firearms. I suppose Robin had prepared the ground. Bit of luck for them, wasn’t it, having him here on the spot when the murder was committed?’
‘It didn’t prevent its happening.’
‘No, but since it has, it must be a fine thing to be able to hand it over to the expert.’
‘Oh no, Anthony, that’s not at all the way such things are arranged. If they wanted help from Scotland Yard, they’d have to apply for it and admit they weren’t competent to handle the case on their own, which no one is ever particularly eager to do. Then, if someone from outside did take over, it wouldn’t necessarily be Robin. He is supposed to be on leave, after all. They might put someone quite different in charge.’
‘More fools them! And a shocking waste of the taxpayers’ money, in my opinion.’
‘Don’t be silly, there are dozens of Chief Inspectors just as experienced as Robin.’
‘My point is that none of the others have the advantage of knowing the background like he does. All those weeks he was here on that other case and, if it should turn out that there’s some connection between that and this new one, well, he’d have a head start, wouldn’t he? No denying that.’
‘I’m not denying it, Anthony, I just can’t make out why you think there might be a connection. No one else has suggested such a thing.’
‘Yes, they have.’
‘Who?’
‘Some of the locals in that pub where I’m stopping.’
‘The Weston Arms?’
‘That’s right. They were full of it. They’d been talking earlier about some old chap who’d been run over and killed in the market place and one of them remembered that the girl in the race course murder had been his secretary. The consensus was that it was a funny coincidence and no mistake. Then someone else came in just before closing time with the news that another young lady had been done in up at Mattingly and that fairly clinched the matter. You’d have a job convincing them there’s no connection.’
‘I expect I would, but how the hell could the news have spread so quickly? I know for a fact that the police weren’t called in till after nine and those places have to close at ten, don’t they?’
‘Ten thirty, and it just goes to show what a town girl you are, Tessa, if you imagine that an hour and a half isn’t ample time for news of that sort to be passed around among the drinking public. Matter of fact, though, to be fair, they did get a little help from one of their friends on this occasion.’
‘Not you, by any chance?’
‘Oh Lord, no, not me. What would I know, when I’d spent the whole evening there, chatting to the bumpkins? No, this was our local reporter, fellow named Rogerson. He writes the sports page, among other literary flights, so I’ve had occasion to run into him from time to time. Anyway, he’d been round to the police station, making his routine check on the latest Chissingfield crime figures, what the teenage burglars had been up to and so forth, but he’d hardly got started on it when the desk sergeant had to break it up to take a phone call. After that there wasn’t a hope of getting anyone to pay any attention to him. They were all charging about like Keystone Kops and they more or less told him to move along there, please, so he knew it was something big and, after they’d all gone zooming off, with sirens screaming, he managed, by what means we do not enquire, to get the outline from one of the underlings who’d been left behind.’
‘At which point I’d have expected him to hurry round to his office and start typing it up for his editor.’
‘Well, you couldn’t exactly call it a scoop, dear heart. His paper won’t be printed again till next Thursday and the story will have lost some of its edge by then. Knowing him, I imagine the first move was to ring up some other trusty contact on a London newspaper and then, with ten minutes to go before closing time, what better than to whip up a little local honour and glory by nipping round the corner to the Weston Arms. And that’s the story of how I come to be so well informed.’
And I had no doubt that, in general, it was a truthful one, despite one statement it contained being somewhat at variance with the facts and, to draw him out further, I said:
‘And they all concluded it was tied up in some way with the other murder? I still don’t understand why. I see the connection between the first girl and the old man, but surely that’s where it ends? I don’t suppose either of them knew of Verity’s existence.’
‘Ah, but what it indicated to my friends in the saloon bar was that the murderer is now back with us and up to his old tricks again.’
‘Making it necessary for him to start by eliminatin
g Mr Winthrop, who would be in a position, when the second murder was committed, to step forward and say “There is Your Man!”?’
‘That was precisely their deduction.’
‘On the assumption, of course, that he is not a local man?’
‘As they have believed all along, although now seeing him as a somewhat special outsider.’
‘He would have to be that, I suppose. Special in what way?’
‘A racing man, for one thing. They attach great significance to the fact that both these murders occurred on the eve of a big race.’
‘Yes, that’s true. Any other similarities?’
‘Oh yes, amateur detectives to a man, this bunch. They were quick to see that, although both young ladies were living in the neighbourhood at the time, it was for reasons of employment, rather than natural causes, as it were. They were outsiders themselves, in a sense.’
‘You seem to have covered quite a lot of ground in ten minutes.’
‘Ah well, you see, the landlord allows himself to be a little flexible in these matters, especially when the police force is known to be heavily engaged elsewhere. At one point, I recall, we adjourned to his private apartments at the back of the house and he plied his trade from there.’
‘It must have been a profitable evening. Does he serve food, as well?’
‘No, only the old sausage roll and hunk of bread and cheese. In any case, no one felt hungry for the real thing, with all that food for thought being dished out.’
‘I was wondering how you’d managed about dinner?’ There was a moment’s uncomfortable silence. It lasted no longer than that and on my side was tinged with relief that Toby was not present to witness the effect of my booby trap. It could only have added fuel to his flames, for I saw that Anthony now wore the expression which I would have expected him to reserve for the stable lad who had been caught stirring tranquillisers into the bran mash. This, too, passed off quickly and he said in his normal good humoured voice:
‘The landlord’s wife knocked me up an omelette, as a special favour. It wasn’t very good, but there’s no such thing as a decent restaurant in Chissingfield and I didn’t need much after that whacking great picnic you laid on for us at the cottage.’
‘Well, that was Mattingly Grange at its peak. Did you ever meet Verity, by the way?’
‘Verity?’
‘The receptionist, the one who’s been murdered.’
‘Oh, was that her name? No, I didn’t. I don’t think she’d joined the ranks last time I was here.’
‘Or the other one either, I suppose? Pauline?’
‘Yes, curiously enough, I think I may have met her on one occasion. I’d either forgotten, or never knew her name, so it meant nothing to me when she was killed, but last night, when they were all hammering away at it and they mentioned she’d been secretary to this man, Winthrop, I realised she must have been the one.’
‘Which one?’
‘That I met when I was up here a couple of years ago. An aunt of mine had died and left me some money. I’d always known I’d come into it eventually, but it was quite a lot more than I’d been led to expect and it went to my head for a time. I got grand ideas about moving to the shires, where they take their hunting seriously, and ending up as Master of the Heythrop, or some damfool nonsense. I spent a week traipsing around different places and then I decided I was better off in Sussex, where I belonged. Big fish in a small pond, in other words.’
‘And Winthrop and Gayford were your agents?’
‘One of them. I went to half a dozen. Combed the neighbourhood, you might say, but these people had one estate on their books which sounded promising, so I made an appointment to be shown round. I’d been expecting one of the partners to turn up, in his best bib and tucker, me being such a catch, but when I arrived there was just this girl and she explained that her boss had got bronchitis or something. I was a bit miffed, to be honest with you, and anyway the place turned out to be a dud. So that was that and I hadn’t given it another thought until last night in the saloon bar, when it all came back to me.’
‘But this is incredible, Anthony! We seem to have been talking of nothing but Pauline ever since we came here and do you realise you’re the only person I ever met who saw and spoke to her?’
‘Well, don’t expect anything much from that. My recollections are distinctly hazy.’
‘But you must remember something, don’t you? How she looked, what her voice was like? Do try!’
‘She looked all right, I think. Small, fairish hair, not bad legs. Nothing special about her voice that I recall. She was very keen on riding, I do remember that.’
‘I beg your pardon, Anthony! Would you mind repeating that?’
‘Not at all, often as you like. I said she was very keen on riding. I think that’s why she took the initiative and came out to show me round herself, instead of leaving it to one of the gentlemen clerks. She was grabbing the opportunity to talk to someone who knew a bit about horses. In fact, once we’d seen what a wash-out the house was, that was practically all we did talk about. She said I’d better take a look at the stables, just for form’s sake and so she could tell her boss she’d done a proper job. They were in better nick than the living quarters, as a matter of fact and I could tell that she was pretty well informed on the subject, so I started asking her a few questions.’
‘And what did she tell you?’
‘Oh, about how, when she was a very young child she’d been brought up with horses and horsey people, but then for some reason she went right off it. Came a nasty cropper and lost her nerve, I daresay. Anyway, for nearly twenty years she couldn’t look at a horse without feeling sick, but then quite recently a friend of hers had told her she was a silly fool. All she had to do was grit her teeth, climb into the saddle and go cantering off. In five minutes all the hang-ups would have disappeared and she’d start getting a lot more fun out of life. So that’s exactly how it turned out and her only regret was that she’d wasted all those years when she could have been enjoying herself.’
‘Well, thank you, Anthony, that has been most illuminating.’
‘Not at all. Always happy to be of assistance.’
‘I suppose she didn’t happen to tell you the name of this friend?’
‘Don’t think so. No reason why she should. I got the impression it was a young man, but I could be wrong.’
The minute hand on my watch stood at twenty past ten and I knew that it could not be long now before Robin arrived to claim his car keys. So I did not press the point, but said:
‘Never mind, you’ve been a great help. So much so that I now propose to do something for you in return.’
‘Thanks, old girl. What’s that?’
‘I intend to keep my mouth shut about the fact that you did not dine off an indifferent omelette last night, or that, if you did, it was only after traipsing around Chissingfield in search of something more exotic.’
A return of the earlier expression greeted this announcement, only now there was wariness in it too, as though the transgressing stable lad was pointing a loaded gun at him. Ignoring it, I went on:
‘The reason why I intend to back you up in this small deception is solely to save you embarrassment.’
‘My dear Tessa, what embarrassment?’
‘Of having to face some awkward questions. It was a chance in a thousand that you should have been at the Weston Arms last night, in time to hear the reporter’s story, and I think it may have shaken you up a bit.’
‘No, it didn’t.’
‘Well, perhaps not at the time, but, thinking it over when you’d gone to bed, it may have struck you that it was rather unfortunate that you had such a shaky alibi for the time when Verity was murdered.’
‘No, it didn’t, what rubbish! I never set eyes on the girl.’
‘Yes, so you said, but on the other hand you were one of the few non-residents of Chissingfield who did set eyes on Pauline and may have done so on subsequent occasions, for all any
one knows.’
‘What absolute rot! I neither saw nor heard from her again after that half hour we spent together and, anyway, she probably knew dozens of people from outside.’
‘Maybe so, but perhaps none of the others was an habitue of the Weston Arms. I am right in assuming that it was your headquarters when you were down here looking at properties, and that’s why you were back this time, when you found yourself without a roof over your head?’
‘Well, yes, that’s true enough, but it still doesn’t justify all these insinuations.’
‘Please understand that I’m not making them personally, I’m only pointing out what insinuations might be thrown at you, if I were to remind Robin that you were out to dinner last night. In all the excitement the landlord forgot to tell you he’d telephoned, didn’t he? Otherwise, I don’t suppose you’d have been quite so forthcoming about Pauline because, you see, Anthony, the sad truth is that obviously the reason why you picked a shabby place like the Weston Arms the first time was that you’d heard about the reputation of Jake and Louisa, who were then running it. And that, I must explain, is a much stronger connection than the other one you mentioned.’
‘In God’s name, why?’
‘Because it provides the first hint of a link between the first murder and the second.’
He did not reply to this, possibly because, like me, he had seen Robin on the staircase.
‘Morning, Anthony!’ he said, picking up the keys, which were lying on the table. ‘Looks like you’ve got a good day for it!’
‘Not bad. Could have done with another downpour, though.’
‘You’re not going yet, are you?’ I asked Robin.
‘Not for ten minutes, but there’s something I want to fetch from the car.’
‘It’s not locked,’ Anthony told him. ‘Hardly seemed necessary, with the whole place surrounded by cops. Feel like a drink, Tessa?’
‘No, thanks. In any case, the bar doesn’t open till eleven.’
‘No, I suppose not. How about some coffee, if I can find someone to rustle it up?’
‘Yes, good idea, I’ll be back in a minute,’ I said, getting up and giving him the chance he was searching for to escape. ‘There’s something I need from the car too.’