‘Yes,’ said Tommy. ‘If you want particulars–’
‘No,’ said Inspector Norris, ‘no. No, I don’t need any particulars. The only thing I should suggest is that–well, you don’t go away too often. If you can manage to stay at home and look after Mrs Beresford yourself…’
‘I thought of doing that anyway,’ said Tommy. ‘I think this is a good excuse for my not turning up always at the various appointments I’ve got in London.’
‘Well, we’ll do all we can to keep an eye on things, and if we could get hold of this whoever it is…’
‘Do you feel–perhaps I oughtn’t to ask this–’ said Tommy–‘do you feel you know who it is? Do you know his name or his reasons?’
‘Well, we know a good many things about some of the chaps around here. More than they think we know very often. Sometimes we don’t make it apparent how much we do know because that’s the best way to get at them in the end. You find out then who they’re mixed up with, who’s paying them for some of the things they do, or whether they thought of it themselves out of their own heads. But I think–well, I think somehow that this isn’t one of our locals, as you might say.’
‘Why do you think that?’ asked Tommy.
‘Ah. Well, one hears things, you know. One gets information from various headquarters elsewhere.’
Tommy and the Inspector looked at each other. For about five minutes neither of them spoke. They were just looking.
‘Well,’ said Tommy, ‘I–I see. Yes. Perhaps I see.’
‘If I may say one thing,’ said Inspector Norris.
‘Yes?’ said Tommy, looking rather doubtful.
‘This garden of yours. You want a bit of help in it, I understand.’
‘Our gardener was killed, as you probably know.’
‘Yes, I know all about that. Old Isaac Bodlicott, wasn’t it? Fine old chap. Told tall stories now and then about the wonderful things he’d done in his time. But he was a well-known character and a fellow you could trust, too.’
‘I can’t imagine why he was killed or who killed him,’ said Tommy. ‘Nobody seems to have had any idea or to have found out.’
‘You mean we haven’t found out. Well, these things take a little time, you know. It doesn’t come out at the time the inquest’s on, and the Coroner sums up and says “Murder by some person unknown.” That’s only the beginning sometimes. Well, what I was going to say was it’s likely someone may come and ask you whether you’d like a chap to come and do a bit of jobbing gardening for you. He’ll come along and say that he could come two or three days a week. Perhaps more. He’ll tell you, for reference, that he worked for some years for Mr Solomon. You’ll remember that name, will you?’
‘Mr Solomon,’ said Tommy.
There seemed to be something like a twinkle for a moment in Inspector Norris’s eye.
‘Yes, he’s dead, of course. Mr Solomon, I mean. But he did live here and he did employ several different jobbing gardeners. I’m not quite sure what name this chap will give you. We’ll say I don’t quite remember it. It might be one of several–it’s likely to be Crispin, I think. Between thirty and fifty or so, and he worked for Mr Solomon. If anyone comes along and says he can do some jobbing gardening for you and doesn’t mention Mr Solomon, in that case, I wouldn’t accept him. That’s just a word of warning.’
‘I see,’ said Tommy. ‘Yes, I see. At least, I hope I see the point.’
‘That’s the point,’ said Inspector Norris. ‘You’re quick on the uptake, Mr Beresford. Well, I suppose you’ve had to be quite often in your activities. Nothing more you want to know that we could tell you?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Tommy. ‘I wouldn’t know what to ask.’
‘We shall be making enquiries, not necessarily round here, you know. I may be in London or other parts looking round. We all help to look round. Well, you’d know that, wouldn’t you?’
‘I want to try and keep Tuppence–keep my wife from getting herself too mixed up in things because–but it’s difficult.’
‘Women are always difficult,’ said Inspector Norris.
Tommy repeated that remark later as he sat by Tuppence’s bedside and watched her eating grapes.
‘Do you really eat all the pips of grapes?’
‘Usually,’ said Tuppence. ‘It takes so much time getting them out, doesn’t it? I don’t think they hurt you.’
‘Well, if they haven’t hurt you by now, and you’ve been doing it all your life, I shouldn’t think they would,’ said Tommy.
‘What did the police say?’
‘Exactly what we thought they would say.’
‘Do they know who it’s likely to have been?’
‘They say they don’t think it’s local.’
‘Who did you see? Inspector Watson his name is, isn’t it?’
‘No. This was an Inspector Norris.’
‘Oh, that’s one I don’t know. What else did he say?’
‘He said women were always very difficult to restrain.’
‘Really!’ said Tuppence. ‘Did he know you were coming back to tell me that?’
‘Possibly not,’ said Tommy. He got up. ‘I must put in a telephone call or two to London. I’m not going up for a day or two.’
‘You can go up all right. I’m quite safe here! There’s Albert looking after me and all the rest of it. Dr Crossfield has been terribly kind and rather like a sort of broody hen watching over me.’
‘I’ll have to go out to get things for Albert. Anything you want?’
‘Yes,’ said Tuppence, ‘you might bring me back a melon. I’m feeling very inclined to fruit. Nothing but fruit.’
‘All right,’ said Tommy.
II
Tommy rang up a London number.
‘Colonel Pikeaway?’
‘Yes. Hullo. Ah, it’s you, Thomas Beresford, is it?’
‘Ah, you recognized my voice. I wanted to tell you that–’
‘Something about Tuppence. I’ve heard it all,’ said Colonel Pikeaway. ‘No need to talk. Stay where you are for the next day or two or a week. Don’t come up to London. Report anything that happens.’
‘There may be some things which we ought to bring to you.’
‘Well, hang on to them for the moment. Tell Tuppence to invent a place to hide them until then.’
‘She’s good at that sort of thing. Like our dog. He hides bones in the garden.’
‘I hear he chased the man who shot at you both, and saw him off the place–’
‘You seem to know all about it.’
‘We always know things here,’ said Colonel Pikeaway.
‘Our dog managed to get a snap at him and came back with a sample of his trousers in his mouth.’
Chapter 12
Oxford, Cambridge and Lohengrin
‘Good man,’ said Colonel Pikeaway, puffing out smoke. ‘Sorry to send for you so urgently but I thought I’d better see you.’
‘As I expect you know,’ said Tommy, ‘we’ve been having something a little unexpected lately.’
‘Ah! Why should you think I know?’
‘Because you always know everything here.’
Colonel Pikeaway laughed.
‘Hah! Quoting me to myself, aren’t you? Yes, that’s what I say. We know everything. That’s what we’re here for. Did she have a very narrow escape? Your wife, I’m talking about, as you know.’
‘She didn’t have a narrow escape, but there might have been something serious. I expect you know most of the details, or do you want me to tell you?’
‘You can run over it quickly if you like. There’s a bit I didn’t hear,’ said Colonel Pikeaway, ‘the bit about Lohengrin. Grin-hen-lo. She’s sharp, you know, your wife is. She saw the point of that. It seems idiotic, but there it was.’
‘I’ve brought you the results today,’ said Tommy. ‘We hid them in the flour-bin until I could get up to see you. I didn’t like to send them by post.’
‘No. Quite right–’
‘Remember them myself in the old days. Had an aunt in the country who used to have a pair.’
‘It was very well preserved, sewn up in tarpaulin. Inside it are letters. They are somewhat perished and that, but I expect with expert treatment–’
‘Yes, we can manage that sort of thing all right.’
‘Here they are then,’ said Tommy, ‘and I’ve got a list for you of things that we’ve noted down, Tuppence and I. Things that have been mentioned or told us.’
‘Names?’
‘Yes. Three or four. The Oxford and Cambridge clue and the mention of Oxford and Cambridge graduates staying there–I don’t think there was anything in that, because really it referred simply to the Lohengrin porcelain stools, I suppose.’
‘Yes–yes–yes, there are one or two other things here that are quite interesting.’
‘After we were fired at,’ said Tommy, ‘I reported it at once to the police.’
‘Quite right.’
‘Then I was asked to go down to the police station the next day and I saw Inspector Norris there. I haven’t come in contact with him before. I think he must be rather a new officer.’
‘Yes. Probably on a special assignment,’ said Colonel Pikeaway. He puffed out more smoke.
Tommy coughed.
‘I expect you know all about him.’
‘I know about him,’ said Colonel Pikeaway. ‘We know everything here. He’s all right. He’s in charge of this enquiry. Local people will perhaps be able to spot who it was who’s been following you about, finding out things about you. You don’t think, do you, Beresford, that it would be well if you left the place for a while and brought your wife along?’
‘I don’t think I could do that,’ said Tommy.
‘You mean she wouldn’t come?’ said Colonel Pikeaway.
‘Again,’ said Tommy, ‘if I may mention it, you seem to know everything. I don’t think you could draw Tuppence away. Mind you, she’s not badly hurt, she’s not ill and she’s got a feeling now that–well, that we’re on to something. We don’t know what it is and we don’t know what we shall find or do.’
‘Nose around,’ said Colonel Pikeaway, ‘that’s all you can do in a case of this kind.’ He tapped a nail on the metal box. ‘This little box is going to tell us something, though, and it’s going to tell us something we’ve always wanted to know. Who was involved a great many years ago in setting things going and doing a lot of dirty work behind the scenes.’
‘But surely–’
‘I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say whoever it was is now dead. That’s true. But it tells us nevertheless what was going on, how it was set in motion, who helped, who inspired it and who has inherited or carried on with something of the same business ever since. People who don’t seem to amount to much but possibly they amount to more than we’ve ever thought. And people who’ve been in touch with the same group, as one calls it–one calls anything a group nowadays–the same group which may have different people in it now but who have the same ideas, the same love of violence and evil and the same people to communicate with elsewhere and other groups. Some groups are all right but some groups are worse because they are groups. It’s a kind of technique, you know. We’ve taught it to ourselves in the last, oh, say fifty to a hundred years. Taught that if people cohere together and make a tight little mob of themselves, it’s amazing what they are able to accomplish and what they are able to inspire other people to accomplish for them.’
‘May I ask you something?’
‘Anyone can always ask,’ said Colonel Pikeaway. ‘We know everything here but we don’t always tell, I have to warn you of that.’
‘Does the name of Solomon mean anything to you?’
‘Ah,’ said Colonel Pikeaway. ‘Mr Solomon. And where did you get that name from?’
‘It was mentioned by Inspector Norris.’
‘I see. Well, if you’re going by what Norris said, you’re going right. I can tell you that. You won’t see Solomon personally, I don’t mind telling you. He’s dead.’
‘Oh,’ said Tommy, ‘I see.’
‘At least you don’t quite see,’ said Colonel Pikeaway. ‘We use his name sometimes. It’s useful, you know, to have a name you can use. The name of a real person, a person who isn’t there any longer but although dead is still highly regarded in the neighbourhood. It’s sheer chance you ever came to live in The Laurels at all and we’ve got hopes that it may lead to a piece of luck for us. But I don’t want it to be a cause of disaster to you or to your missus. Suspect everyone and everything. It’s the best way.’
‘I only trust two people there,’ said Tommy. ‘One’s Albert, who’s worked for us for years–’
‘Yes, I remember Albert. Red-haired boy, wasn’t he?’
‘Not a boy any longer–’
‘Who’s the other one?’
‘My dog Hannibal.’
‘Hm. Yes–you may have something there. Who was it–Dr Watts who wrote a hymn beginning, “Dogs delight to bark and bite, It is their nature to.”–What is he, an Alsatian?’
‘No, he’s a Manchester Terrier.’
‘Ah, an old English Black and Tan, not as big as a Dobermann pinscher but the kind of dog that knows his stuff.’
Chapter 13
Visit from Miss Mullins
Tuppence, walking along the garden path, was accosted by Albert coming down at a quick pace from the house.
‘Lady waiting to see you,’ he said.
‘Lady? Oh, who is it?’
‘Miss Mullins, she says she is. Recommended by one of the ladies in the village to call on you.’
‘Oh, of course,’ said Tuppence. ‘About the garden, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, she said something about the garden.’
‘I think you’d better bring her out here,’ said Tuppence.
‘Yes, madam,’ said Albert, falling into his role of experienced butler.
He went back to the house and returned a few moments later bringing with him a tall masculine-looking woman in tweed trousers and a Fair Isle pullover.
‘Chilly wind this morning,’ she said.
Her voice was deep and slightly hoarse.
‘I’m Iris Mullins. Mrs Griffin suggested I should come along and see you. Wanting some help in the garden. Is that it?’
‘Good morning,’ said Tuppence, shaking hands. ‘I’m very pleased to see you. Yes, we do want some help in the garden.’
‘Only just moved in, haven’t you?’
‘Well, it feels almost like years,’ said Tuppence, ‘because we’ve only just got all the workmen out.’
‘Ah yes,’ said Miss Mullins, giving a deep hoarse chuckle. ‘Know what it is to have workmen in the house. But you’re quite right to come in yourself and not leave it to them. Nothing gets finished until the owner’s moved in and even then you usually have to get them back again to finish something they’ve forgotten about. Nice garden you’ve got here but it’s been let go a bit, hasn’t it?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid the last people who lived here didn’t care much about how the garden looked.’
‘People called Jones or something like that, weren’t they? Don’t think I actually know them. Most of my time here, you know, I’ve lived on the other side, the moor side, of the town. Two houses there I go to regularly. One, two days a week and the other one, one day. Actually, one day isn’t enough, not to keep it right. You had old Isaac working here, didn’t you? Nice old boy. Sad he had to get himself done in by some of this violent guerrilla material that’s always going about bashing someone. The inquest was about a week ago, wasn’t it? I hear they haven’t found out who did it yet. Go about in little groups they do, and mug people. Nasty lot. Very often the younger they are, the nastier they are. That’s a nice magnolia you’ve got there. Soulangeana, isn’t it? M
uch the best to have. People always want the more exotic kinds but it’s better to stick to old friends when it’s magnolias in my opinion.’
‘It’s really been more the vegetables that we’re thinking about.’
‘Yes, you want to build up a good working kitchen garden, don’t you? There doesn’t seem to have been much attention paid before. People lose their spirit and think it’s better really to buy their vegetables, and not try and grow them.’
‘I’d always want to grow new potatoes and peas,’ said Tuppence, ‘and I think French beans too, because you then can have them all young.’
‘That’s right. You might as well add runner beans. Most gardeners are so proud of their runner beans that they like them a foot and a half in length. They think that’s a fine bean. Always takes a prize at a local show. But you’re quite right, you know. Young vegetables are the things that you really enjoy eating.’
Albert appeared suddenly.
‘Mrs Redcliffe on the telephone, madam,’ he said. ‘Wanted to know if you could lunch tomorrow.’
‘Tell her I’m very sorry,’ said Tuppence. ‘I’m afraid we may have to go to London tomorrow. Oh–wait a minute, Albert. Just wait while I write a word or two.’
She pulled out a small pad from her bag, wrote a few words on it and handed it to Albert.
‘Tell Mr Beresford,’ she said. ‘Tell him Miss Mullins is here and we’re in the garden. I forgot to do what he asked me to do, give him the name and address of the person he is writing to. I’ve written it here–’
‘Certainly, madam,’ said Albert, and disappeared.
Tuppence returned to the vegetable conversation.
‘I expect you’re very busy,’ she said, ‘as you are working three days already.’
‘Yes, and as I said it’s rather the other side of the town. I live the other side of town. I’ve got a small cottage there.’
At that moment Tommy arrived from the house. Hannibal was with him, running round in large circles. Hannibal reached Tuppence first. He stopped still for a moment, spread out his paws, and then rushed at Miss Mullins with a fierce array of barking. She took a step or two back in some alarm.
The Complete Tommy and Tuppence Page 111