Published in 1987 by

Academy Chicago Publishers

425 North Michigan Avenue

Chicago, Illinois 60611

Copyright © Leo Bruce 1958

Printed and bound in the USA

No part of this book may be reproduced

in any form without the express written

permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bruce, Leo, 1903-1980.

Dead man’s shoes.

I. Title.

PR6005.R673D37    1987      823’.912      87-19370

ISBN 0-89733-272-5

ISBN 0-89733-271-7 (pbk.)

1

“YOU KNOW that one of our passengers is wanted for murder, don’t you, sir?” said Appleyard the Chief Mate of the Saragossa.

Captain Bidlake gave him an unfriendly, one might almost say a dirty, look.

“Don’t exaggerate,” he said curtly. “Haven’t I enough troubles on this trip, without you making matters worse than they are? All the newspapers said was that the police would like to make some enquiries from this Larkin which they think might assist them in their investigations. That doesn’t mean he’s wanted for murder.”

“Nine times out of ten, it does. It’s Contempt of Court if they say any more.”

Captain Bidlake was normally a good-humoured man, though rather unimaginative, but the events of the last few days had tried his temper too far.

“Don’t lecture me about Contempt of Court,” he snapped.

“No, sir,” said Appleyard, surprised and apologetic. “It’s awkward having the fellow on board at all, though, isn’t it? The other passengers are most uncomfortable about it.”

The Saragossa was a cargo-boat which ran between London and the Spanish and North African ports and was now on her way home from Tangier. She carried half a dozen passengers, who had their meals in the saloon with the officers and spent their days on a few square feet of deck space.

“I don’t wonder,” said Captain Bidlake more mildly. “I’m uncomfortable about it myself. Suppose the fellow has committed a murder? How do we know he won’t do it again? I want nothing of that kind on my ship, Appleyard.”

Of course you don’t, you old fool, thought Appleyard.

“No, sir,” he said aloud, as though he had been given an order to prevent a murder on the Saragossa and had accepted it. “The man’s such an awkward customer in any case. Contentious and rude. And I don’t think I’ve ever heard such a voice in my life.”

“Loud, isn’t it?” said the Captain sadly.

“Loud, sir? It’s deafening. He shouts the whole time. At everyone. At first when I heard him speaking to the steward I thought he had lost his temper. But it’s his natural voice. He had an argument with Mr Prosper today …”

“Which is that?” asked the Captain, who spent as little time as possible among his passengers.

“That tall, long-faced chap. Whisky salesman, I believe. Doesn’t speak much at all, but he can’t stand this Larkin, with his braying voice and his opinions. He asked him for heaven’s sake to keep quiet for a while. That was in the saloon this morning. Larkin nearly did his top. Quite threatening he got, too. Then yesterday he was rude to Mrs Roper.”

“Was he really?” asked the Captain incredulously.

“Yes, sir. I should have thought he was asking for it. You know what an athletic woman she is. She could throw him across the saloon. She didn’t say much, but you could see the contempt she felt. I’m not surprised that the police want the fellow.” Appleyard thought he might risk a little joke. “As a matter of fact, if there were to be a murder on the ship I should guess Larkin would be on the receiving end.”

“Well, there’s not. We’ve got to get this fellow to London, where I’ve no doubt the police will be waiting for him. I’ve informed the owners that we have him on board, and they will do what’s proper. But it’s a most unpleasant situation. I can’t think what the agents were doing to let him book.”

“They should have known. He has lived in Tangier for some years, apparently.”

“I know. What about the other passengers?”

“These two types, Butt and Ferry, are drunk most of the time. Nice quiet trip this, I must say, sir. But we shall land them all right in the end. We always do.”

“Yes. Have a drink, Appleyard?”

“Thank you, sir. Here’s to a quieter trip next time. No more murderers, anyway.”

This time the Captain did not bother to correct his description of Wilbury Larkin.

There were a good many people in the world who would have endorsed it, anyway. The recent murder in England of a rich man named Gregory Willick was not one of the most-discussed crimes of the moment, and none of its suspects had appeared on television, but it had been given its decent-sized headlines for a day or two. It seemed, moreover, a fairly open-and-shut affair. Willick was a man of habit and took his dog out almost every day at the same time. He had been found shot on a woodland path on his own grounds at a place he passed as regularly as clockwork. No weapon was found near him.

All the facts as known to the investigating police were not, of course, published, but it was fairly obvious that their suspicions fell on Wilbury Larkin, who had arrived from Tangier a few days earlier, stayed at the local hotel the night before and had flown back to Tangier before the body was discovered.

It was only after he had come aboard the Saragossa, having booked his passage home again, that a newsvendor had brought some English papers on board in which the Captain had been horrified to read that the police wanted to interview one of his passengers.

“What I don’t understand,” said Appleyard after he had sipped his whisky and soda, “is why the fellow is going back to England. If he killed Willick and made a bolt for it the same night and got safely to Tangier why should he put his head in a noose?”

“Beating an extradition order, I suppose,” said Captain Bidlake disgustedly. “But why did he have to choose my ship?”

“It’s lucky we’ve got a fairly tough lot of passengers,” reflected Appleyard. “If we had any nervous old ladies on board it would be the end. The atmosphere in the saloon sometimes is positively murderous. I feel quite jumpy myself.”

“In what way?”

“Hard to explain, sir. Larkin himself, for one thing. There’s something very odd about that man. Something that gives you the creeps.”

“Really, Appleyard, you’re talking absurdly. Just explain exactly what you mean, please.”

“I don’t think I can, sir. It’s something you feel. Everything’s too big about him, his voice, his great massive chest and shoulders, his eyes when you see them through those thick glasses of his, which seem to magnify them….”

“Why should that give you the creeps, as you put it?”

Captain Bidlake was a literal-minded man who hated loose expressions and vague descriptions.

“I don’t know. It’s something unnatural, something not quite human about him. And the clothes he wears …”

“Old-fashioned, aren’t they?”

“I didn’t know you could still buy those tall starched collars. Who would want to, in this climate, anyway? Yet he never wears anything else, apparently. He has been seen about Tangier dressed like that on the hottest day. But there he had the reputation of a recluse. Scarcely spoke to anyone. Here he talks too much. That deafening voice of his goes on the whole time.”

“I still don’t understand what’s uncanny about him. I think you’ve got this idea of murder into your head and it makes you imagine things.”

“I’m not a fanciful man, sir. I pride myself on being down-to-earth and sensible about things like this. But you don’t need to have much insight to see that there’s something very wrong down there. Something very wrong indeed. Even Kutz doesn’t like it.”

Kutz was the Second Officer, a displaced person from central Europe, a fine seaman who lived a solitary life on board. He was always polite to his fellow officers and the passengers and punctilious in his duties, but he spoke no more than necessary and there was something remote and tragic in his expression, his speech and his character.

“How do you know that?” asked the Captain, pouring out two more drinks. “Surely he hasn’t started unburdening himself?”

“Extraordinary thing, but he did speak to me quite confidentially about this. For him, I mean. He said suddenly last night, ‘I don’t like that man.’ I didn’t need to ask which.”

“That is rather strange,” said Captain Bidlake, impressed at last. “Well, all we can do is to watch out. Keep an eye on them all. Don’t leave them alone too much.”

All very well, thought Appleyard, but what could you do against anything so indefinite? What was he to watch out for?

The worst of it was they were all so close together. Passengers could only be in their cabins, in the little saloon or on the very small piece of deck. They could scarcely escape from one another for an hour at a time during the day. So that the man suspected of murder, Wilbury Larkin, the two enthusiastic drinkers Jerry Butt and Ronald Ferry, the tall gaunt Gerard Prosper with his perpetual pipe, and the Junoesque deep-voiced woman Mrs Roper, were for ever running into one another and could not have avoided conversation if they wished. Moreover the Captain, Mr Apple-yard himself and Kutz were frequently drawn in.

Nothing, so far, had been said openly of murder. Clearly it was in everyone’s mind, for all on board had read the news which related to Wilbury Larkin. Doubtless the other passengers had secretly discussed it, but much though they disliked the bombastic Larkin they had said nothing to show him that they were aware of his predicament.

But on the night after Appleyard’s conversation with Captain Bidlake an extraordinary thing took place. Larkin, without warning and apparently without reason, began to discuss the matter himself. It was at dinner, in a pause in the conversation, that he suddenly said in his booming voice, “So you all think I’m a murderer, do you?”

To this extraordinary question he seemed to expect a reply, for he remained quite silent. Gunner, the steward, who was handing round vegetables, stood gaping while his dish stayed at Mrs Roper’s elbow. The Captain pointedly went on eating.

“I know what you’ve been saying among yourselves. You’ve seen the papers and you’ve quite made up your minds that I killed Gregory Willick. I suppose it gives you a sort of thrill to be in on the ground floor of a murder case, to be travelling with Suspect Number One. Something to tell your friends at home. Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you but you’re not going to have the pleasure, because I happen not to have done it.”

“I don’t think anyone much wishes to discuss this,” said Gerard Prosper.

“Well, I do,” shouted Larkin. “What’s more I’m dam’ well going to. If I’m as guilty as you think I am, why do you suppose I’m going home? It hasn’t occurred to you to ask that. Would a man who has killed another and got out safely to Tangier book his passage home as soon as he sees that the police ‘think he might help their enquiries’? It’s ridiculous.”

Suddenly Mrs Roper, who could make her voice almost as strident as Larkin’s, deliberately addressed Gerard Prosper across the table.

“Sun-bathing today?” she asked.

“For a little while,” said Prosper. “It’s rather windy, though.”

“Getting too near home.”

This failed to suppress Larkin. He fixed his eye on the unfocusing eye of Jerry Butt and continued:

“As a matter of fact, I liked old Gregory Willick. He was a good sort. Nothing stuck-up about him. Nothing mean. I can’t see what possible motive I’m supposed to have had. The evidence is scarcely even circumstantial. I was staying near his place at the time. That’s about all they’ve got. It seems I left to return to Tangier, where I live, on the very evening that the old boy was shot. What’s funny about that?”

Gerard Prosper could suppress himself no longer.

“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing is even remotely humorous about you or your entire conversation. If only there were. You’re a bore, Larkin. That’s worse than being a murderer. Now for God’s sake eat your dinner and allow us to eat ours.”

This really did shatter Larkin for a moment, and Mrs Roper seized her opportunity again.

“Making good time?” she asked the Captain. She clipped her sentences to the minimum and spoke in a fine hearty voice.

“Quite,” said Captain Bidlake. “We ought to be in the Thames on Thursday night.”

Appleyard found himself examining Larkin with some interest. The man was clearly purple with rage but could think of no adequate or quick retaliation. He was a big, bear-like fellow with a stoop. He had thick greying hair which was parted in the middle in an old-fashioned manner. His forehead was not broad but his face seemed to widen out as it descended, and when he grinned he showed massive teeth. But the oddest thing about him was his dress: dark-coloured suits and high starched collars, a watch-chain and several rings. He was champing now like an infuriated bull.

“If you talk to me like that, Prosper,” he said at last, “I shall …”

“Gentlemen,” cut in Captain Bidlake, “I’ll have no threats on my ship. Mr Larkin, I would ask you kindly not to discuss the matter you have raised this evening.”

That produced silence. Even Mrs Roper held her peace. It was not for nearly a minute that anyone spoke and then Captain Bidlake gave an order to Gunner. But the situation remained electric.

Larkin now addressed the Captain. He appeared to have been thinking over what had been said to him.

“Why not?” he asked. “Why shouldn’t I discuss it? It’s in everybody’s mind. Why not let it be ventilated?”

Bidlake was obviously miserable. He was a peace-loving man, a good seaman and a popular skipper, but he was not equipped to deal with a situation like this.

“It leads to dissension,” he said rather feebly.

“It leads to damned impudence from Prosper, but so do other topics. As a matter of fact, all I was going to say is that I had not even the usual motive. If Willick left me any money it was certainly no more than a small sum. I …”

Gerard Prosper rose and without a word left the saloon. The steward had now cleared the table and Mrs Roper loudly suggested Bridge.

“Make a four?” she asked.

But Kutz had duties and the Captain excused himself. Seeing that she was in danger of being left alone with Larkin and Jerry Butt and Ronald Ferry, who had just ordered whisky-and-soda, she turned to Appleyard.

“Play anything?” she asked rather ambiguously.

Appleyard liked her and understood her manner of speech.

“Chess?”

“Splendid.”

Even as they were setting out the pieces, Larkin boomed on:

“As a matter of fact I’d like to know where old Gregory’s money does go. Not much of it to Lance Willick, I’ll bet. That’s his nephew who lives in Tangier. Great friend of mine.”

“You have a friend, then?” said Mrs Roper, looking up from the chessboard.

“What d’you mean?”

“Surprising,” said Mrs Roper and moved one of her pawns.

2

NEXT DAY was no more peaceful among the officers and passengers of the Saragossa.

At breakfast Larkin managed to pick a quarrel with Jerry Butt, the most placid of souls, who had shown no disposition to argue or interfere with anyone, who, in fact, seemed perfectly happy as long as he could sit with his boon companion Ron Ferry and steadily, quietly, resolutely consume whisky.

Jerry was a stocky, short, baldish man who looked as though he had once been an athlete. Ron Ferry was a little older, though both were in their forties. Ferry was a flashier type who affected gay ties and bright tropical suits. Neither was at his best at the breakfast table, though both always appeared and drank their tea and ate their toast like men.

That morning Larkin began to hold forth on politics. He had been, it appeared, a member of Sir Oswald Mosley’s party before the war and regretted the days of street processions and rowdy meetings.

“I don’t suppose you’ve ever belonged to any movement?” he said to Jerry Butt.

Jerry was not feeling like an argument. He had no recollection of reaching his bunk last night.

“Don’t look at me, old man,” he said equably.

“I’m asking you!” shouted Larkin.

“Well, don’t,” said Jerry.

“Of course, if you’re such a dipsomaniac …”

“What was that word?” asked Jerry.

“I said dipsomaniac.”

“I don’t like that word,” said Jerry mildly. “What does it mean?”

“It means a hopeless drunkard.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” said Jerry. “I thought it meant something else.”

There was a sympathetic laugh from Mrs Roper and Prosper which seemed to rouse Larkin to further provocation. It was as though he were determined to antagonize everyone to the maximum.

Gunner, the steward, asked Jerry if he would have another cup of tea, to which he assented.

“What time do you start drinking?” asked Larkin unpleasantly.

“As soon as I’ve finished this. What about you?”

“I’m a strict teetotaller,” announced Larkin.

“Poor chap,” said Jerry with genuine and heartfelt sympathy.

“What do you mean, ‘poor chap’? Do you think it’s enviable to be in a state like yours? Half drunk from morning to night? Soaking spirits at every minute of the day? Do you like being like that?”

“Yes,” said Jerry.

He got another friendly laugh which further incensed Larkin.

“It’s a filthy state to be in!” he said. “Your liver must be in decay. Your whole bodily condition sodden and inflamed. You’ll probably not live another five years.”

“I feel fine,” said Jerry.

“You don’t look it. You look what you are, a hopeless drunkard. I suppose you get bouts of delirium tremens?”

“No, not really. A few lizards at times. Well, rather a lot. You know, all over the bed. But I haven’t seen them for a long time. Must have jumped in the sea.”

An extraordinary sound came from Larkin which was presumably intended to express amusement.

“They’ll be back,” he said. “Plenty of them. You can’t soak like that without paying for it.”

“Who said I don’t pay for it? Never owed a penny in my life.”

Suddenly Ronald Ferry with unsteady but genuine anger spoke to Larkin.

“You’ve said enough,” he said. “Mind your own business.”

Ferry looked and sounded threatening. Even Larkin seemed to realize that he had gone too far.

“I thought we were talking politics,” he said. “I remarked that I had belonged to the British Fascists before the war, and I’m still proud of it.”

“Better not say that when Mr Kutz is here,” warned Appleyard.

“Why not?”

“He’s not quite sane on the subject of Fascism. Or Communism either. Perhaps none of us would be if we had passed through what he has.”

“These stories are usually grossly exaggerated,” said Larkin. But he seemed to grow thoughtful and gave his fellow-passengers a respite from his bellowing voice.

The morning passed without incident and when Apple-yard went up for a drink with the Captain before lunch he was able to report that there had been no dissension since breakfast.

“You know, sir,” he said, “I’m beginning to think that this man Larkin has some reason of his own for deliberately provoking us all. It simply can’t be a natural thing. Nobody could be so offensive unless he planned to be.”

“I don’t know,” said Bidlake. “There are some pretty unpleasant people in the world.”

“But not that unpleasant. I’m convinced it’s an act. Why should he go for a quiet and harmless man like Jerry Butt?”

“Embittered, perhaps. Can’t help it. Don’t forget what he’s going home to.”

“Whatever it is, it makes the saloon hell. I hate the thought of going in to dinner. Thank heaven I’m on duty tonight.”

“Only two days more, though,” pointed out Captain Bidlake.

“I’m afraid of what may happen in those two days.”

“Now, Appleyard, you’re imagining things again. What could happen?”

“Well, when I look at the faces round the table I’m inclined to think that anything could. Murder, even.”

Bidlake looked grave.

“You mean that?”

“I’m afraid I do, sir. If Larkin himself isn’t a killer—and I for one believe he is—he’s going the right way to turn someone else into one.”

“No one kills a man just because he’s rude, Appleyard.”

“It depends. However, as you say, two days more will see us home.”

But that evening at dinner a climax was reached. Apple-yard was not present, or he would have been more than ever convinced that Larkin’s provocations were the result of a deliberate plan.

The meal started quietly. Larkin had a large appetite and seemed to be chiefly interested in his food. Captain Bidlake talked with Mrs Roper on his right and she answered amiably, though in her usual clipped sentences. The two knew each other fairly well by now, for Mrs Roper was making the round trip and had been on the Saragossa for the best part of a month.

“Is your husband meeting you on Thursday?” Bidlake asked.

“No, poor boy. Too busy. Vicar’s away and he’s got the whole blasted parish on his hands.”

Mr Roper, it will have been gathered, was a curate. He worked in Leeds.

“Wish he could have come. Done him good. Needs picking up. Try to get him out for a hike sometimes, but he won’t leave his work. Takes it too seriously. Conscientious. Hell of a life.”

“You don’t care for it?”

“Keep away. Told Phil I should before we married. Never make a she-parson out of me. Look after the old boy—that’s my job. Only been married a year.”

Still nothing came from Larkin. But Jerry Butt evidently felt that he owed something to the conversation. He enunciated carefully, concentrating on the important matter of his sentence:

“Did I hear you say the other day that your husband worked in Leeds, Mrs Roper?”

“S’right. St Hengist’s. Big parish.”

Jerry tried hard.

“I know Leeds,” he managed, but there, though everyone waited, his effort petered out.

It was at this point that the volcano which was Larkin suddenly erupted.

“I was saying this morning, Mr Kutz, that I belonged to the British Fascists before the war, and I was told that you wouldn’t approve of that. Why not?”

There was a silence so complete that it seemed as though everyone had ceased to eat, certainly to move. Glances but no more went to Kutz.

One would have said he was the most composed person in the room. He looked steadily at Larkin with his cold, pale eyes. He made no answer and after ten seconds deliberately picked up his glass and drank, then continued calmly to eat his meal.

“Are you deaf?” shouted Larkin. “Or don’t you want to hear? Sometimes I think it was a pity we fought Hitler at all. He was the only man who knew how to deal with small nations. Perhaps you don’t agree?”

Still there was not the slightest sign that Kutz had heard him. He finished what was on his plate and sat tranquilly indifferent to everything about him.

This time it was Larkin who got up and walked out of the saloon.

The situation was saved by Mrs Roper—and not for the first time. She turned to Jerry Butt.

“Know it well?” she asked as though their conversation had never been interrupted.

Jerry looked startled at being addressed, but came up gamely.

“Intimately,” he said.

The meal went on, and when coffee was brought and Larkin did not return the little gathering in the saloon became almost cheerful. Then Gunner came in and spoke to Captain Bidlake.

“I think Mr Larkin’s gone to bed,” he said. “I took him a cup of coffee and his door was locked. He shouted to me to go away and I’m pretty sure his voice came from his bunk.”

It seemed that Gunner was right, for Larkin did not appear again in the saloon that evening.

Next day was the last at sea, for on the following morning they would enter the Thames and before evening, Captain Bidlake devoutly hoped, the last of the passengers would have left the ship.

The sea was rough, but there was sunshine as they came up the Channel. Moreover, as if to make up for the rolling of the ship, there was a miraculous peace in the saloon. Larkin appeared, but seemed quite subdued. Breakfast and lunch passed without incident and dinner was only marked by a brief but unpleasant brush between Larkin and Gunner.

Gunner was a thin but muscular man of thirty with a small moustache, a ready grin and a wallet full of photos of his wife and children which he was a little too ready to display. He had a pleasant though breezy manner with the passengers, whom he was inclined to shepherd about in a kindly but familiar way which most of them liked. He was never cheeky, but there was certainly nothing servile about him.

Prosper had bought champagne that evening, as it was their last dinner on board, and Gunner made the mistake of pouring out a glass for Larkin.

“Steward!” Larkin shouted. “What is this?”

“Champagne, sir. With Mr Prosper.”

“Take it away and pour it down the sink. I don’t rot my gullet with filth like that.”

Gunner remained quite equable and took the glass.

“I’ll drink it myself,” he said with his usual grin.

“You’ll do nothing of the sort. You’ll obey my orders and pour it away.”

“Couldn’t do that, sir. Lovely wine like this. It would be a sin.”

Larkin jumped to his feet and knocked the glass out of Gunner’s hand, wetting the steward’s clean white jacket. Gunner did not completely lose his temper, but he was angry enough to ignore all the usual conventions.

“You keep your hands to yourself, cock,” he said, “and don’t start anything with me, else you will be in trouble. Sorry about the wine, Mr Prosper.”

Larkin turned to the Captain.

“Do you allow your steward to insult passengers like that?” he asked.

“I’m afraid you rather asked for it, Mr Larkin,” said Captain Bidlake, and when Larkin had made a violent noise with his lips he sat down and said no more.

Six hours later, at about two a.m., Appleyard was on the bridge with one of the apprentices, Dickie Bryce. It was a dark, rough night, blowing up for bad weather with already half a gale running and a thin sleet.

Appleyard went down to the saloon and found it empty except for Gunner.

“They’ve all gone to bed, thank God,” said Gunner, more devoutly than blasphemously. “The whole lot of them. It’s a treat to have them out of the way, isn’t it?”

The Captain was the only officer whom Gunner addressed as ‘sir’.

“You’re right. No sound or sign of Larkin?”

“No. The bastard. Hear what he said to me tonight? I should like to ‘do’ him. But we’re quit of him tomorrow. He turned in about ten. Always locks his cabin door.”

Appleyard ate some sandwiches and returned to the bridge. Young Bryce was on the starboard wing of the bridge and remained there. Appleyard hoped that he would get some decent weather ashore this trip. He would only have about forty-eight hours at home and he wanted to put up a pergola in the garden. He was thinking of this when suddenly above the wind he heard a high-pitched shout.

“Man overboard!”

Young Bryce yelled at him: “There is. I saw him go.”

Appleyard told the helmsman to put the helm up. He then rang down to the engine-room “Stop”, and reported to the Captain on the speaking-tube.

“Man overboard, sir.”

“You’ve stopped engines?” said Bidlake and began pulling on some clothes.

Though he knew already that it could only be a piece of routine, Appleyard gave the order to the bo’sn to prepare a boat’s crew. He then went down to the saloon. Gunner was alone there.

“Who shouted?” Appleyard asked.

“Don’t know. Someone on the starboard deck. I was in the galley, and when I came out there was no one in sight.”

“Check up the passengers,” said Appleyard and hurrying back to the bridge sent Bryce to check on the crew. The Captain had come out on the bridge.

“Nothing to be done,” said Bidlake. “We’ll put the searchlight over the water, but it’s hopeless and I’m going ahead in five minutes. Whoever it was has had it. Shouldn’t think of lowering a boat in this sea and it’s no use turning about.”

“No, sir. Nothing we can do.”

The two of them were shouting at one another in the wind and sleet.

“Young Bryce says he saw him. I can’t understand how he could have seen much. Someone shouted, but we don’t know yet who it was.”

“Hell! It only needed this.”

The searchlight played on the rolling black Channel waters, but revealed nothing.

“What’s the use? We’re wasting time.”

“Shall I ring down to the engine-room, sir?”

“We’ll give them a few minutes more. It’ll look better in the report. But any fool could see it’s hopeless.”

Gunner came up on the bridge, still in the wet rags of his white jacket.

“It’s Larkin!” he bawled. “His cabin door was unlocked and he’s gone. There’s a note on his table.”

Bidlake turned to Appleyard.

“Full steam ahead,” he said.

3

CAPTAIN BIDLAKE was a conscientious man and at once made the most searching enquiries, for the sake of the report he would have to make tomorrow. He went down himself to Larkin’s cabin to examine the note which the missing passenger had left. This had been typed on the little portable which Larkin kept on his cabin table and said simply—“I killed Gregory Willick and am killing myself.”

Bidlake read this without comment. He realized that it was a pretty dubious document. The wording was too direct and simple and wholly uncharacteristic of the Larkin they knew. There was no signature and, of course, anyone could have typed it.

He gave orders that the cabin should be locked until the police came on board and that neither the steward nor anyone else should touch anything in it.

He noticed as he left Larkin’s cabin that the four other passengers were in the saloon and he asked them if they would kindly remain there for a short while until he could speak to them.

He then sent for Dickie Bryce.

“I want you to tell me exactly how it happened,” he said.

“Well, sir, I was on the starboard wing of the bridge. I hadn’t moved for about half an hour. It was blowing up for nasty weather and there was a cold sleet. I wasn’t watching anything in particular, just keeping a general look-out, when I heard this shout.”

“The shout of ‘Man overboard’?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Before you saw anything?”

“That’s the funny part of it. The shout seemed to come from the starboard deck. I couldn’t see much, but after the shout I saw a man in the water. Well, just a black shape, sir. It was only for a second I saw it.”

“Did you see this man actually falling? Actually entering the water?”

“I can’t be quite sure, sir. I’ve tried to remember exactly how it was. It was all in a moment and the sea was rough. I have a sort of idea I saw him going in. I’m sure I saw him in the water for a moment. I think I must have seen him falling. Anyway, he was there all right.”

“You didn’t see his face?”

“Oh, no, sir. Nothing. Only a black shape.”

“After the shout?”

“Yes, sir. Quite sure about that. It was the shout made me look.”

“Of course, he could have been in the water before the shout because you’re not sure of having seen him fall.”

Dickie Bryce thought hard.

“I suppose he could have been, sir. I don’t somehow think he was, though. I’ve got the idea I saw him going in. But I can’t be certain. The sea was pretty rough and it was dark.”

“Now this shout. Who was it who shouted?”

“I couldn’t say, sir.”

“You didn’t recognize the voice at all? No idea whose it was?”

“No, sir. It was a funny sort of voice. High, sort of, but I don’t think it was a woman’s. It was as though a man was screaming, if you know what I mean.”

“It only came once?”

“That’s all, sir.”

“Nothing else to tell me?”

“No, sir.”

Captain Bidlake went down to the saloon. He found his passengers awaiting him with Gunner in attendance.

“I think we might all have a drink,” he said. “Gunner, ask what Mrs Roper and these gentlemen would like. I’m sorry to keep you up, but you know there are always a lot of enquiries when anyone is lost overboard, and I would like to have my report ready for tomorrow.”

“You’re sure it’s Larkin, I suppose, Captain?” asked Prosper.

“I don’t think there’s much doubt of it. We’ve checked up on the crew. No one else is missing and there was a note left on Larkin’s table. We’re making a routine search of the ship, but I regard it as more or less a formality. One of the apprentices saw the man in the water. Not to recognize him, of course. There was not light for that. But he’s the only person missing.”

Prosper nodded.

“Yet he didn’t seem the sort to commit suicide, did he?”

“One never knows,” said Bidlake. “Now may I ask each of you a few questions. Mrs Roper …”

“Cabin’s on the port side. Heard nothing. Saw nothing. Want nothing to do with it.”

“I’m afraid we all feel like that. Were you in your cabin at the time of shout?”

“Don’t know. Never heard any shout.”

“Do you remember what time you turned in, Mrs Roper?” persisted Bidlake.

“Went to my cabin about one o’clock. Last to leave the saloon.”

“Did you leave your cabin again?”

“Of course. My cold tub. Can’t sleep without it.”

“How did you become aware that anything unusual was taking place?”

“Engines stopped.”

“The first you knew?”

“Yes. Got dressed and came out to see what had happened. Gunner gave me the news.”

“Thank you, Mrs Roper. Mr Prosper, your cabin is next door to Larkin’s, isn’t it? What did you hear?”

“I heard the shout of ‘Man overboard’. That’s all, really.”

“You’ve no idea who shouted?”

“None. It was an extraordinary shout. Sounded hysterical, somehow.”

“A man’s voice or a woman’s?”

Prosper thought.

“It could have been either, I suppose.”

“And after it—nothing? You didn’t hear anyone moving or anything?”

“No. I’ve a vague impression of a door slamming. Nothing more. Like Mrs Roper, I got dressed and came out to see what was happening.”

“You couldn’t at any time hear Larkin’s typewriter from your cabin?”

“No. But I know he used it. I’ve heard it as I’ve passed his door.”

Captain Bidlake thanked him and turned to Jerry Butt and Ronald Ferry. They could give him no information at all. Both had been asleep and would have been so till now if Gunner had not roused them. Nor did he elicit anything from his officers or the crew. Kutz was fully dressed and had been reading, he said, until the engines were stopped.

He returned to Appleyard on the bridge.

“Wretched business, this,” he said. “Police on board and the Press too, I suppose. I’ve got what information I can. Call me when the pilot comes alongside.”

It was even worse next day than Captain Bidlake realized. The police, it is true, were not at first unduly obtrusive. Two Detective Sergeants in plain clothes, who had come to take Larkin in for questioning, remained to make a thorough examination of the whole situation. But as soon as they realized what had taken place they telephoned for finger-print experts and photographers and placed a policeman on duty on the gangway and generally took over the ship.

Pressmen were no less pertinacious. A dozen at least were on board and no one, passenger or crew, evaded them entirely. Cameras clicked and shorthand notes were made, drinks were stood and stories elicited.

Before any of the passengers could leave, each was questioned not only about the events of last night but of the whole voyage, and before long the sorry story of Larkin’s abominable rudeness and brutishness and the reactions of those on board filled pages of police notebooks.

Then the officers and crew were closely questioned, and Gunner’s statement alone ran to half a dozen pages.

“Do you know what I think?” Gunner asked the cook afterwards. “I think they think it was murder.”

The cook, a beefy and cross-eyed cockney, said, “Go on. Do you really?”

“The way they asked about things.”

“D’you think it could of been?”

“I’d like to have done him myself; I know that.”

“Perhaps someone did. Shoved him over the side, I mean.”

“He’d have raised hell. With that voice? I don’t see how it could have been.”

“Unless he was unconscious at the time.”

“Then how’s anyone to drag him out on deck and get him over the rail? He was a big man.”

“What about if there was two of them?”

“Ah,” said Gunner thoughtfully.

At last, the passengers, having given particulars of their addresses, were allowed to go ashore and the ship began to be itself again. The police left after warning Captain Bidlake that they would probably return tomorrow. The finger-print experts and photographers took their gear ashore. The pressmen asked their last questions, poured out their heartiest ‘old man’ to this or that victim, and ran to their telephones. The Customs men departed and the owners’ agent, after shaking his head sadly over what he called ‘these unfortunate circumstances’, left Captain Bidlake in peace.

Just as he was feeling relieved at finding his ship uninfested with officials and visitors of every sort, Bidlake was called below to the saloon. A gentleman, it appeared, had come aboard and wanted particularly to speak to him. Suspecting that the Press had returned, Bidlake hesitated, but eventually went below.

“I hope you remember me,” said the visitor. “My name’s Lance Willick and I travelled on your ship about a year ago.”

“Oh yes. I remember you, Mr Willick.”

“I came down today to see Wilbury Larkin, but I’ve heard, of course, what has happened.”

“Most unfortunate.”

“You know that he was suspected of killing my uncle?”

“Yes. I hadn’t realized the connection though, Mr Willick. I remember you coming home with us from Tangier last year, but the name never linked up. I’m sorry to hear about your uncle.”

“Damned shame. He was a grand old boy.”

“Do you think it was this Larkin who murdered him?”

“Well, I didn’t, but it does begin to look like it, doesn’t it? If it was suicide, that is.”

“Larkin, you mean? What else could it have been, Mr Willick?”

“It could have been murder.”

It was the first time that the Captain had heard the word in connection with the events of last night and he did not like it.

“I hardly think so. There are too many practical considerations which make it virtually impossible.”

‘I hope you’re right. If the police take that view it will be fairly clear that Larkin murdered my uncle and that at least will be one thing cleared up. I’m anxious to get back to Tangier. I live there, you may remember, and have only just come across to settle up matters connected with my uncle’s estate.”

“Did you know Larkin well, Mr Willick?”

“I was probably the only person who did know him well. Why?”

“He behaved in such an extraordinary way on this ship. Offended all the passengers.”

“He was like that. Took a delight in being rude. I expect you found his voice rather trying, too. Most people did.”

“Very trying. What we could not understand was that he had a reputation of being a recluse in Tangier. On board he was just the opposite. Insulting though he was to the other passengers he would never leave them alone.”

“Coming out of his shell, I suppose.”

Lance Willick stood up. He was a spare man with greying hair brushed straight back. He was clean-shaven and rather elegantly dressed.

“Nice to have seen you again, Captain Bidlake. I wish it was in happier circumstances. I expect you’ve had hell today from police and the Press. Don’t I know it? I’ve had a fortnight of it now, since my uncle Gregory was murdered.”

He shook hands and left the Captain, who saw him go down the gangway and with an easy walk make his way towards the dock gates.

“I hope that’s the last of them,” Bidlake told Appleyard.

“We’ll make it. I wouldn’t have let him on board if I’d seen him coming. I told the quartermaster not to let any more up the gangway, but that chap travelled with us last year, you remember, so he’s known on board. But we’ll have no one else. The ship’s been like a bedlam this afternoon.”

The passengers went their ways. For Jerry Butt and Ronald Ferry the annual party was over and they must return to something like sobriety and their wives tonight. They had ‘one last one’ at a pub near the docks which went on till closing time. They then shared a taxi as far as Bays-water, where Butt alighted uncertainly while Ferry drove on to West Kensington. On Monday they would both return to the office and work for forty-eight weeks till it was time for another month’s bat.

Gerard Prosper went first to his club to collect his mail.

“Had a good holiday?” he was asked by a fellow-member.

“Very, thanks.”

“Nice trip home?”

“Quiet,” said Prosper and walked on. He would have to answer a little more fully when it was known that he had come home as a fellow-passenger of Larkin, the murder suspect who had apparently committed suicide, but for the moment that would do.

Kutz went ashore that evening. A friend and compatriot of his came on board to find him and they went to the tenement block near the docks in which their respective wives had flats. The four of them ate together that evening, but it did not seem a very festive meal.

“What sort of a trip did you have?” asked Kutz’s English wife when she had brought him the strong black coffee which she knew he liked.

“All right,” said Kutz.

“No trouble?”

“Trouble?”

“You know what I mean. There’s usually something. The crew or the weather or that.”

“No. Not trouble. A passenger was lost overboard last night.”

“There! Well! Who was it?”

To the surprise of his attentive audience a slow smile spread over Kutz’s face.

“A man called Larkin,” he said.

Mrs Roper was the last passenger to leave the ship and she went, like Prosper, to her club, the Badmington Ladies’ Club. She threw a few bass greetings to her friends, ordered a Guinness and asked for a telephone directory. It took her some time to find the number she wanted, but she had it at last.

“Mr Deene, please,” she said when she got through, and after a few moments, “Carolus?”

Anyone lingering near the box could have heard her splendid voice as she continued heartily:

“Name’s Kate Roper. Remember me? Was Fitchley when we met. Got married. What do you mean, you don’t believe it? A parson. Little pet. Yes, very happy. No, he doesn’t call me Bugs. Had to drop the name when I left the Service. That’s not what I rang you up about. Something in your line. Just done a trip on a ship called the Saragossa. Yes. Character called Larkin on board. Suspect in the Willick murder case. Lost overboard last night. Yes, Larkin. Thought it would interest you.” She gave him her telephone number. “Call me when you’ve got a minute,” she said. “Staying here a few days. Tell you one or two things if you want. Frightful character. Yes, Larkin. Why should it interest you? Because I don’t believe it was suicide. What? No. Murder. Cheer-o.”

4

THE COUNTRY town of Newminster is entitled to be called a city and municipal and parliamentary borough. It is on the river Middler and is thirty-six miles from London. It is a pleasant place with many historical buildings, the remains of a Norman castle and an ancient school.

This—the Queen’s School, Newminster—ranks proudly if somewhat obscurely as a public school. It has a hundred and sixty-odd day-boys, three dozen boarders and a staff of eighteen. But its distinction in recent years is to have on its staff as Senior History Master a certain Carolus Deene.

Carolus Deene has become doubly celebrated. He made his first reputation by applying the methods of modern detection to the classic murder cases of the past in a brilliant book called Who Killed William Rufus? And Other Mysteries of History. For this his large private income allowed him to use all the paraphernalia of detection—microscope, camera, chemical analysis and so on—while he could employ several keen researchers to ferret out details he required.

But it was when he began to apply his talents to contemporary crime and solved a number of baffling murder cases that he entered the world of headlines. This was very far from gaining him approval from the headmaster of the Queen’s School, a large and rather pompous man named Gorringer who wanted, he said, none of this kind of notoriety for his school.

“I have no objection, my dear Deene,” he expatiated, “to your giving the benefit of your expert advice to the police if they are in need of it, a contingency which I beg leave to doubt. But that should be done with as much anonymity as possible. It ill befits the Senior History Master of the Queen’s School Newminster to appear in sensation-seeking newspapers as a private detective or anything of that sort.”

However, the summer term had passed without any anxiety for Mr Gorringer and the school was to break up tomorrow without having had its reputation imperilled by Carolus Deene’s liking for criminology. Mr Gorringer felt relief at this, tempered by his doubts about the coming holidays. He knew, from past experience, that Carolus was apt to find scope for his talents out of term time as well as while he should have been improving the discipline of his classes, which the headmaster considered lamentable.

On the last afternoon of term, which was also the day on which the Saragossa docked in London, Mr Gorringer saw Carolus entering the school gates and decided that in a tactful and amicable way he should discover what were the history master’s plans for the holidays.

Carolus had nothing of the pedagogue about him. He was in his early forties, a slim, dapper man, who was considered by the rest of the staff to be far too dressy and casual. He had been in a parachute regiment during the war, but gave the impression of being rather too precious for this or for the half blue he had gained for boxing. Mr Gorringer knew his value as a teacher with a gift for interesting his pupils, but sometimes rather resented his off-hand manner.

“Ah, Deene,” he said now as they met. “So we wind up another term. You have doubtless made your holiday plans?”

“Nothing definite yet. I never decide till the last moment.”

“That would not do for me, I fear. Much of the pleasure is in anticipation.”

“But you always go to Ostend, don’t you?”

“Ostend and Bruges. They suit Mrs Gorringer admirably. We like a quiet and uneventful holiday.”

The headmaster glanced suspiciously at Carolus as he emphasized the word.

“Not much chance of that for me,” said Carolus. “Something always seems to happen.”

“Is it not that you seek it, my dear Deene? I suppose we could all find excitements if we looked for them. Your predilection for the more puzzling forms of crime surely leads you into these deep waters.”

“You may be right.”

“Had you, I wonder, anything in prospect just now?” Mr Gorringer sounded anxious.

“I’m not committed to anything. There have been some nice little jobs done lately.”

“I trust, my dear Deene, that you haven’t it in mind to embroil yourself in another of these cases which bring their measure of unwelcome publicity to the school? You know my feelings in that. I have no wish to intrude into your private affairs or to attempt to influence your conduct, but we cannot allow the fair name of the Queen’s School to be bandied about in sensational newspapers.”

“No need for it at all. I never mention the school.”

“Unhappily, however, the school’s fame goes ahead of you. However, I am sure you will remember, if you should involve yourself again, that discretion is the word. Now what have you this afternoon? Ah yes, the Junior Sixth. They achieved a fair standard in the examinations, I trust?”

“Pretty good.”

“How about the boy Priggley? A difficult young man, I always feel.”

“He did quite well.”

“An unfortunate home life, of course.”

“No home life at all. His mother’s marrying again—the third time. His father has taken an artist’s model to Italy.”

“Dear, dear. One can scarcely wonder that the boy is in need of guidance.”

“Guidance? He needs the birch and a couple of years on Dartmoor. But he’s not unintelligent.”

“Precocious, I fear, and, as you say, lacking discipline. If I should not see you again I trust you have a pleasant holiday. And remember—discretion, my dear Deene, for all our sakes. I must have a word with Tubley,” he added hastily as he moved away. “Ah, Tubley!” Carolus heard him call to the music master.

Carolus went into his classroom and faced the Junior Sixth, a class which consisted of most of the former Senior Fifth with a few youths who had failed to gain admittance to the school’s top class, the Senior Sixth. Among the promoted ones were Rupert Priggley, that odiously sophisticated boy, and Simmons, an earnest child who wore glasses which gave him an unnaturally studious appearance. He was usually deputed by the rest of the class to distract Carolus from history and lead him into the more interesting bypaths of contemporary criminology.

“I’m just going to run over these examination results,” said Carolus, “and give you back your papers. Most of you did quite well, but you nearly all fell down on that question about Marat and the Girondists. You seem to have been interested only in Marat’s murder by Charlotte Corday.”

“I suppose it was Charlotte Corday, sir?” asked Simmons.

“Have you any reason to doubt it?”

“No, sir. Only it sometimes seems in cases of that sort that someone’s guilt is rather taken for granted. Were there any witnesses?”

“It’s a point I’ve never questioned. The girl admitted her guilt. She had made the journey to Paris specially to assassinate …”

“Yes, sir. But does that prove it? I mean, Wilbury Larkin had made the journey from Tangier to Barton Abbess, but you can’t be sure he murdered Gregory Willick. Or can you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Carolus. “We were discussing Marat.”

“You were,” intervened Rupert Priggley. “Simmons was talking about the Willick murder. Far more appropriate for the last lesson of term. I suppose it was Larkin?”

“What was?” asked Carolus defensively.

“Oh come now, sir. It’s really no use giving us injured innocence. You can’t pretend you haven’t followed the case.”

“I’ve certainly formed no opinion about it.”

“Perhaps you’re going to spend your holiday at Barton Abbess?”

“It’s a very pleasant part of the country.”

“I knew it. You’ve been holding out on us. Come clean now, sir. Who murdered Willick?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea. But it does happen that his land agent, a man named Packinlay, was at school with me and has invited me down for a few days.”

“But he’s a suspect too, I take it?”

“There’s no reason why he shouldn’t be. The fact that he has asked me down does not exclude him, of course. It was, after all, the guilty man in the Oldhaven case who asked me to investigate.”

“But have you seen the evening papers, sir? Larkin has been lost overboard from a ship coming home from Tangier. He and Willick’s nephew both lived there, I gather. Does that mean you’ll be trotting off to Tangier?”

“Impossible to say. I haven’t begun to consider the case yet. I’ve been too busy with your examination papers. They are, as I say, not altogether worthless….”

“But what about Larkin? Was that murder or suicide?”

“How can one possibly form an opinion after reading only newspaper accounts? I doubt if the police have made up their minds yet.”

“But don’t you want to know, sir? Don’t you think this case is your cup of tea?”

“Well, I must admit I’m thinking of staying with my old friend Gilbert Packinlay and his charming wife.”

“Frankly, sir, I don’t believe you know either of them. They’ve called you in professionally.”

“I told you I was at school with Packinlay.”

“But have you seen him since?”

“We will now consider these examination papers.” And in spite of a few more attempts to divert him, Carolus did so until the end of the period.

That evening as he was glancing at the evening paper, with his usual whisky-and-soda sundowner beside him, Mrs Stick, his housekeeper, announced Rupert Priggley.

“Can’t I escape from you even in my own home?” Carolus greeted him. “I suffer from your insufferable pre-cociousness and conceit all day. I don’t want my home disturbed with them.”

“Not conceit, sir. It’s a pathological failure to integrate. A neurotic trait which comes from lack of parental control.”

“The hell it is! What do you want?”

“Just that. Parental control.”

“Why come to me?”

“Because you can give it. I’ve discovered all about myself. I have suffered emotional deprivation during the growth process. I’m psychologically maladjusted. I’m a mixed-up kid.”

“You’re a bore. Come to the point.”

“That is the point. Daddy won’t be back from Italy till he’s tired of this model he’s got. I haven’t seen her, but I gather she’s quite a piece. I haven’t seen mummy since her last wedding. So I’ve got to have a tutor this holiday.”

“Don’t look at me.”

“Why? Any other of the ushers would love to take it on. Twenty guineas a week, to include my keep. Mr Hollingbourne would leap at it.”

“I certainly shan’t deprive him of it.”

“But think how useful I should be. Who checked up on those chocolate boxes in the Pipford case? You’re obviously going to solve this Willick problem and you don’t want to do it alone.”

“I do.”

“Have a heart, sir. You can’t leave me to the Hollingbourne family. I should have to play beach rounders or something.”

“Very good for you.”

“I’ve worked like a beaver all the term. Besides, you like my merry prattle.”

“I detest it. But I suppose if I don’t take you, you’ll become even more of a juvenile delinquent than you are now.”

“It’s a bet, then?”

“If your father agrees.”

“I told him what I was going to do. He appears to be relieved that it is on the investigating side of crime.”

“What about the headmaster?”

“Don’t let’s be cynical, sir. When do we start for Barton Abbess?”

“I haven’t decided about that. I’m really not sure that it’s my case.”

The telephone rang. It was Mrs Roper’s call from the Badmington Ladies’ Club. When Carolus put the receiver down he was smiling.

“Yes. We might just go and meet the Packinlays,” he said. “You had better go home and pack.”

When the boy was gone Carolus sat quite still for about twenty minutes. For the first time he applied serious thought to the case as far as it had been revealed. So far its only promise of being unusual lay in Mrs Roper’s last words on the telephone. If it was a simple case of murder followed by the suicide of the murderer it was not likely to interest him much. But if Larkin, too, had been murdered it might be the most intriguing case he had touched.

He rang for his housekeeper.

“Oh, Mrs Stick, I’m going away tomorrow. Will you get Stick to pack a couple of suit-cases for me?”

Mrs Stick, a small, severe and terribly efficient person who had been with Carolus since the death of his young wife, strongly disapproved of his detective activities. She looked at him now with suspicion.

“I shall need to know where you’re going, sir. To know what to pack.”

“Oh, the country,” said Carolus vaguely.

“Yes, sir. Will you require a dinner-jacket?”

“I don’t think so. I’m going to stay with some old friends in Gloucestershire. Barton Abbess.”

“Isn’t that where that gentleman was murdered the other day, sir?”

“Was it, Mrs Stick?”

“I hope you won’t take any risks, sir. And I do hope you won’t be bringing anyone here connected with it. I’m sure we do our best for you but it is….”

“Come now, Mrs Stick, I’m just going away for a holiday.”

“I know what your holidays are though, sir,” said Mrs Stick darkly as she left the room.

Carolus returned to his yogi-like attitude of thought.

5

“SO WE’RE back on the old game,” said Rupert Priggley as the Bentley Continental was running out of High Wycombe.

Carolus, who was inclined to regret that he had given in to the boy’s pleading, said nothing.

Rupert was not easily suppressed.

“Like me to drive?” he suggested.

“No.”

“Bit sour this morning, aren’t you? Never mind, you’ll soon have the scent of blood in your nostrils. Wait till you’ve interrogated a couple of people down at Barton Abbess; you’ll be a new man.”

They lunched at the George in Oxford and pressed on through Witney and Northleach to arrive at Barton Abbess about half-past three.

The village consisted of a few dozen grey stone cottages, a very small church and a cottage whose front room served as a post office. There was no shop and no inn. Nor was anyone in sight.

“Busy, isn’t it?” said Rupert.

They drew up in front of the post office and waited for some sign of life. After a few minutes a woman’s face appeared at a closed upper window. She looked down at the car, yawned and disappeared. But presently there was the sound of a waggon coming slowly up the road and at last it came in sight with a man dozing on its seat.

“Hey!” shouted Carolus when it was near them.

The man’s reactions were not very rapid, but in time he said “Wo!” to his horse and in another few yards the waggon stopped.

“Where does Mr Packinlay live?” asked Carolus.

This took thinking about. Presently the man said, “Who?”

“Mr Packinlay.”

“Ah!”

Rupert turned to Carolus.

“Do you think the penny has dropped?”

“Hard to say. Be patient.”

A window opened above.

“Who do they want?” asked a woman of the carter.

“Packinlays.”

“Oh.”

“We’re getting on,” said Rupert.

The carter looked at Carolus and said, “Up at the Place.”

“Where’s that?”

The carter indicated one of the two roads ahead of them.

“Thank you,” said Carolus.

The man made a big effort.

“They’ve got the Old Lodge,” he said. “Before you come to the Place.”

“Thank you very much,” said Carolus.

“Ah,” responded the carter.

The woman up at the window grew almost animated.

“Have you come about the murder?” she asked.

Rupert replied before Carolus could.

“Ah,” he said.

They drove on. The house was easily found. A lodge beside some huge wrought-iron gates had been enlarged to make a comfortable-looking dwelling with a large garden. Barton Place itself was not visible from here, but a well-kept drive ran up towards it and turned in among some tall beech trees.

Gilbert Packinlay himself came to the door and immediately appeared to recognize Carolus.

“Hullo, Deene!” he said. “Come in, my dear chap. It’s a long time, isn’t it? The wife said I should know you.”

He was tall and had a long, flat chin, long teeth and a long, narrow head. He was shaking Carolus’s hand vigorously and smiling.

“One of your pupils? How d’you do? Come in. The wife will be down in a moment to get you some tea. So glad you were able to come. I only hope it’s interesting enough for you. Pretty easy to solve on the face of it. The wife says it’s a waste of time looking any farther now that Larkin has committed suicide. Well, well. We shall see. Do sit down.”

“It’s not certain that it was suicide.”

Packinlay looked up in an almost startled way.

“Not? What else could it have been?”

“Murder,” said Carolus.

There was a short pause, then Packinlay began to laugh.

“You’re pulling my leg,” he said, “or else seeing double. Two murders. You chaps are never satisfied. I’ll go and tell the wife you’re here. Cigarette? I always smoke a pipe myself.”

“He would,” said Rupert when Packinlay had left them. “Just the type. Those long chins can only mean one thing—agonizing bores. We’re in for a bright few days.”

Packinlay returned.

“The wife will be here in a moment. She always says it’s men who keep women waiting. When do you want to start making enquiries?”

“No particular time. Just let me hang about for a few days and I’ll get all I want.”

“Just as you like. Well, it’s a long time since we were in Buzzard’s house, isn’t it? Do you remember Potter? I shall never forget the day he tied a blue ribbon on old Scurvy’s mortar-board! I can’t realize it’s twenty-five years ago. Talk about time flying. The wife always says it’s jet-propelled. I think I hear her getting the tea. I’ll go and carry it in.”

“Oh God!” cried Rupert. “Do you remember him at all?”

“Not at all.”

“Odd, that. You could surely never forget him. ‘The wife always says.’ I should think she’s going to be worse, if anything.”

When Packinlay returned he was carrying a large tray. He put it down before introducing the rather handsome woman who was with him.

“This is the wife,” he announced rather superfluously. “Carolus Deene, dear, and a pupil of his, Mr Priggley.”

Ethel Packinlay smiled a greeting and busied herself with the tea-things.

“Why do you say it’s an easy case?” Carolus asked Packinlay, perhaps to avoid more school reminiscenes.

“Well, isn’t it? The man so obviously did it….”

“With what motive?”

“The usual one. Money. For some years Gregory had been paying sums to Larkin in Gibraltar. I don’t think he was a relative, but an old friend of the family. He was in Gregory’s Will, too, till about a month ago, when Gregory made a completely new one and cut him out. He probably didn’t know he was out—people rarely do, when that happens. Oh yes, he had motive all right.”

“I see. I should like to start at the beginning and know a bit more about Gregory Willick and the whole affair.”

“Certainly. The wife always says I’m never happier than when I’m telling a yarn, and there wasn’t much about Gregory I didn’t know.”

Carolus was beginning to wonder when Packinlay’s wife made all the remarks he quoted, for so far she had not spoken a word and did not seem likely to do so.

“Gregory was one of two brothers, the sons of a man who made a big fortune in Calcutta. The other brother, Dennis, married and had one son who is still alive, Lance. Dennis and his wife were killed in a plane smash and a few months later the old man died. When they came to examine his Will they found it had been made twenty years previously, before Lance was born, and left everything to the two sons equally without mentioning their heirs and assigns. So, as Dennis had pre-deceased his father, the whole lot went to Gregory. I’m telling you this in detail because for all I know it may be important.”

“I’m always interested in Wills, anyway,” said Carolus.

“This, you will admit, was hard luck on Lance, who was then a boy of about eighteen. The old man had liked his grandson, and it was sheer carelessness or forgetfulness which had caused him to be left out of the Will. But Gregory did the proper thing. He sold all the property in Calcutta and re-invested the proceeds. He then paid Lance a lump sum and promised him an assured income of a thousand a year. It was also pretty clear that Lance would inherit most of the money. But what Gregory did not do was make anything over or lose any control over his capital. The lump sum was a gift, the thousand a year was a voluntary allowance and he made no legal undertaking to continue it or to leave any specific sum to Lance. Everything depended on Gregory’s sense of honour and justice and fortunately for Lance these were high. I expect you’re wondering when I’m coming to Larkin.”

“You’re telling it very well, if I may say so. Please don’t hurry.”

“Lance did well in the war, then went to settle in Tangier, where his thousand a year would go farther and not be taxed. Gregory bought this place as soon as he came to England after his father’s death, which was in 1930 or 1931. He spent a lot of money on it and took great pride in it. Indeed for some years it was almost his only interest. We’ll go over some of it tomorrow and you can see for yourself. My wife always says that some of the credit’s mine, but I tell her I couldn’t have done much without Gregory’s money.

“Then, about five years ago, he met a girl called Marylin Sweeny. You will meet her yourself, so I need not go into details, but there is no question about her beauty. My wife thinks she’s the most beautiful woman she has ever seen. I am not repeating hearsay or making scandal when I say that she and Gregory lived together. They made no secret of it. The only thing that people did not understand was why they did not marry. Actually Marylin was already married to a man whom she left but who refuses to divorce her. High Church, I gather. Strict ideas about divorce. But her relationship with Gregory was like a very happy marriage. Of course there was a big difference in their ages, but that only seemed to strengthen the ties. You know how it is when a man falls in love late in life? Well … but you’ll see Marylin tomorrow. Or this evening if you like.”

“Personally, I can’t wait,” said Rupert.

Gilbert Packinlay ignored this.

“Soon after Gregory met Marylin he started making payments to Wilbury Larkin on a bank in Gibraltar. Fairly large sums. It was no business of mine, though, of course, doing the accounts I had to know about it. Gregory was not a man to appreciate a lot of questions about his affairs, but I did just say once, ‘Is this Mr Larkin a relative of yours?’ Gregory answered quite casually, smiling to himself, ‘No. An old friend. A family friend.’ That was all the information I had. I never thought very much about it. Gregory was very generous. Some former employee, I imagined.”

“You say these payments to Larkin started soon after Gregory Willick had met Mrs Sweeny? You didn’t connect the two?”

“No, it never occurred to me. I’m not an inquisitive man. My wife is always telling me that I should notice things more. But I like to mind my own business.”

“You never saw any letter from Larkin?”

“I did not see Gregory’s personal letters. He dealt with them all himself and invariably destroyed them.”

“That’s interesting.”

“It was one of his little fads. He burnt every document except business things, which he handed to me. On the fire when there was one, in the empty grate of his study when there wasn’t. When they came to go through his papers there was nothing of a personal nature at all.”

“What about his Will?”

“No surprises. He had about a quarter of a million to leave. He had already made a settlement for Marylin in the hope of avoiding death duties, but I’m afraid they won’t succeed in that. There are very generous bequests to me, to Ridge the chauffeur, who had been with him for a good many years, and to Socker, his gamekeeper on the estate here, whose family have had the job for generations. There were a number of smaller, but still very acceptable bequests to the other servants and to the Vicar of the parish. The residue goes to Lance. It will be a very large sum indeed.”

“Nothing whatever for Larkin?”

“No. As I say, he was cut out about a month ago. Otherwise he was to have had the same as I get.”

“I see. Now may we come to the murder itself?”

“Certainly. It’s a very simple matter. Gregory as he got older became very much a creature of habit. He would start doing a thing—some quite ordinary thing like coming across here for a cup of tea in the afternoon—then continue it daily for years, perhaps. That is exactly what happened. He came in here one afternoon to see me about something, and the wife asked him if he would like a cup of tea. She always says that other people’s bread and butter taste better than your own. He accepted, and after that day took to coming here as regularly as clockwork for his char and wad, as we used to say in the army. He came by a rather roundabout way, through a wood called Burghley’s Wood and across the big meadow. He always brought Copper, his old spaniel, with him. He could be relied on to stick to his schedule and time-table.”

“Who would know about this habit of Willick’s?”

“Everyone up at the Place. Marylin Sweeny, the servants, Ridge, Socker and of course the wife and I.”

“But probably not anyone down in the village?”

“Unlikely. They’re not very bright in the village. Could be, of course, but I doubt it.”

“What I’m getting at, Packinlay, is this. Whoever murdered Gregory Willick must have known of this habit of his. If you are so sure it was Larkin, how do you account for his knowing?”

“Never thought of that, I must say.”

“He was staying at the local hotel. Where is that?”

“Out on the main road. About a mile away.”

“How long had he been there?”

“He only arrived on the night before the murder.”

“Then presumably he must have questioned one of the household?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t think he went out till the afternoon of the murder.”

“If he had no opportunity to learn about Willick’s daily walk it will go a long way towards clearing Larkin. In my mind, at any rate. However, do go on with the story.”

Ethel Packinlay had gathered up the tea-things and with a warm smile left the room. She returned to join them now, taking her previous seat without speaking.

“That afternoon Gregory Willick did not turn up, I need scarcely say. The wife waited half an hour, then made the tea.”

“You didn’t look to see if he was coming across the meadow?”

“Well, as a matter of fact I was not in myself that afternoon. I had to go to one of the estate cottages to see about an old man who doesn’t want to give up his tenancy. He’s over eighty and on his own. His son’s quite willing to have him. A difficult case.”

“Did you resolve it that day?”

“No. I didn’t see him. Whether he was asleep or had toddled off somewhere, I don’t know. He’s very deaf. But I’m wandering from the point. When I got home I was surprised to hear from the wife that Gregory had not been that afternoon. She said she supposed that meant he wouldn’t come again. He’d form a habit of not coming, in other words. Poor old Gregory. Of course, he never did come again.”

“Well, no,” said Rupert Priggley.

“It wasn’t until about eight o’clock that evening that anyone grew anxious at all. Then Marylin phoned me to know if he was here, and I said he hadn’t been here that day. She said he had left the Place at about three as usual with Copper at his heels. The wife suggested that he might have met someone he knew and gone off with them somewhere. Marylin said that was scarcely likely, as he did not have to cross a road at all. What acquaintance could he meet on his own grounds? She wondered if he had fallen or was ill or anything.”

Packinlay paused to light a large pipe.

“You mustn’t think of Gregory as a dodderer,” he warned. “He was only sixty-four and very hale and active. It seemed improbable to me that anything like illness was causing his delay in reaching home, and I said so. I told Marylin he would almost certainly be in before long and that there would be some quite ordinary explanation. She said she would wait another half-hour or so.”

“But if you all knew his route, couldn’t you have sent someone to look for him?”

“We did, presently. Or rather Marylin did. She sent Socker. But it was dark by then. Even Socker, who can see in the dark I believe, found nothing that night.”

“What about the dog?”

“That barked in the night? It didn’t. It was dead. The murderer shot it after he had shot Gregory.”

6

“I THINK IT’S time we had a drink,” announced Packinlay then. “Would you like to see about them, darling?”

His wife smiled to indicate her willingness, then wheeled in a dinner-waggon on which there was a generous collection of bottles.

Soon everybody had a drink, including Rupert Priggley, who somewhat startled Packinlay by saying, “I’ll take mine straight, if you don’t mind,” after he had asked for a Scotch. As they held up their glasses, Mrs Packinlay made her first speech.

“Cheerio!” she said.

But Packinlay was anxious to get back to his story.

“By ten o’clock we really were getting anxious and Marylin phoned the police. But there was nothing much to be done until the morning, when Socker went over the ground again and found Gregory’s body. It had been pulled a little way into the undergrowth beside the path Gregory always took through Burghley Wood. The old dog’s corpse was beside it.

“Gregory had been shot twice, once in the chest and once through the head. The experts seem to think that the first shot was the one through the chest and the other was fired after he had fallen, to make sure he was dead.”

“How do you know what the experts think?”

“The detective inspector on this job is a pleasant sort of chap. He doesn’t mind telling me things occasionally.”

“Did he tell you what time Gregory Willick was believed to have died?”

“Yes. But they can’t be absolutely accurate. Sometime that afternoon between three and five is as near as they can go. What else do you want me to tell you?”

“About Larkin’s movements.”

“Oh yes. Of course. I’m forgetting the most important thing. He arrived at the Barton Bridge Hotel on the afternoon before Gregory was murdered and booked in under the name of Leech. He had dinner in the dining-room that night, then went straight to bed. On the day of the murder he did not get up till mid-day, went to the bar, had lunch at one sharp and went out immediately after it. He was carrying a brown-paper parcel.”

“He went on foot?”

“Yes. Wearing a pair of workman’s boots which he had bought in Northleach on the way to his hotel on the previous day. I daresay, like all townsmen, he had exaggerated ideas about the damage done to your footwear by walking across country. He returned to the hotel at four, packed and left for London within half an hour.”

“Was he seen while he was out?”

Packinlay’s manner grew a trifle lofty.

“Yes. A man called Smite, an official of some kind from the County Court who is employed to serve summonses or something of the sort, I believe, saw him coming through a gate from Gregory’s land to the main road at about a quarter to four. Can you wonder I say it’s an easy case to solve?”

“Just one or two things I don’t understand. If he booked under the name of Leech, how did they come to know it was Larkin?”

“Because while he was out that afternoon the woman who cleaned his room saw his passport. Besides, from all accounts he was not a man you could make much mistake about. I gather he was a pretty noticeable man.”

“You’ve never seen him, then?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“And as I understand it, no one from the Place saw him at all? He did not get in touch with anyone?”

“No.”

“Yet Willick had described him as an old family friend?”

“Yes.”

“And he left by air for Tangier that same night?”

“Yes. Pretty obvious, isn’t it?”

“Not quite to me. How, for instance, do you know that he wore these boots that afternoon?”

“Oh, I forgot that. It’s one of the main clues. They were hobnailed and left a certain highly distinctive pattern. They found that pattern in footprints near the corpse.”

“Couldn’t anyone else have been wearing boots of that pattern?”

“Yes, but they wouldn’t have been new, as these were. The footprints looked as though they had been modelled in clay. Surely you can’t have much doubt about it now? Larkin, I mean.”

“On the contrary, I have the most serious doubts. The thing is wildly illogical.”

“But how else do you explain his presence near the corpse? His flight abroad that same night?”

“He could have wanted merely to see Gregory Willick without his visit being known to anyone. He could have gone to wait for him and found him dead. Then he might well have panicked, left the hotel and got on a plane back.”

“In that case, whom do you suspect?”

“I haven’t said it is impossible for Larkin to have done it. Or even unlikely. I’m merely pointing out that it is by no means certain that he did. As for suspecting anyone else, I haven’t got as far as that, of course. Where was everyone that afternoon?”

“Who do you mean by everyone?”

“Well, of the household.”

“Marylin ran into Cheltenham, I believe. She has a Frazer Nash and flies about at a great speed. The servants, a married couple, did not leave the house. Ridge took the car into Northleach for a minor repair. Socker was out on the estate somewhere.”

“You mentioned another beneficiary under the Will. The Vicar, I think you said.”

Packinlay showed his long teeth in a hearty laugh.

“Now you’re going too far,” he said. “Gus wouldn’t hurt a fly. My wife chips me about my friendship with him. She says I’m becoming quite religious in my old age. But I like Gus.”

“Is that his name?”

“No, it’s a nickname. The Reverend Thomas Gusset is his full name. Excellent fellow.”

“Good. Where was he that afternoon?”

“He went up to the Place, as a matter of fact. To see Gregory about something. Mrs Hoppy opened the door to him.”

“At what time?”

“About a quarter past three, I think. It may have been later.”

“But didn’t he know of Gregory’s habit of coming to your house to tea?”

“Apparently not. She told him where he would find Gregory, and he arrived here about four. He was disappointed at not finding Gregory, my wife says, but he stayed to tea with her. She told him how unusual it was for Gregory not to be here. He left about five.”

“Thanks very much, Packinlay. I think that’s really all I need pester you for, at any rate for the present. You’ve been most helpful.”

“Mind you, I don’t think you’ll do much good in this case by playing round with any fancy theories. Nobody here has any doubt but that it was Larkin.”

“Thanks. I wonder why you wanted me to look into it?”

“I thought it might interest you. I’ve read of one or two of your cases, and, remembering you in Buzzard’s house, I thought I’d invite you down. What about your luggage, by the way?”

“Oh that. I do hope you’ll understand, but I feel that we shall have to stay at the Barton Bridge Hotel. I want to check on details of Larkin’s stay there without announcing myself formally. It was most awfully kind of you to ask me, but several things have happened since I accepted your invitation. Priggley has joined me, for one. Then I didn’t realize that I could stay just where Larkin did.”

“We shall be most disappointed, of course. But we wouldn’t think of standing in your way. You must do whatever suits you best. But have another drink before you go.”

This time, when the drinks were poured, Mrs Packinlay made her second eruption into speech.

“Cheers,” she said.

“They haven’t found the weapon, I suppose?” Carolus asked Packinlay.

“No. I think not. But they know it was a ’38 revolver. The ballistics men can tell that much. Also that the person who fired it stood pretty close to Gregory.”

“I see. Well, I think we had better go and book our rooms at the hotel. Thank you so much for your kindness and information.” Carolus turned to Mrs Packinlay. “Thank you so much for our nice tea and drinks,” he said.

Mrs Packinlay smiled. She may have thought it was a pleasure to entertain Carolus, she certainly did not say so—or anything else.

Packinlay came to the front door with them, and as he was saying good-bye a small man with a cunning and bad-tempered face approached. Packinlay grew very hearty and noisy.

“Hullo, Mr Smite,” he said. “This is very lucky. Very lucky indeed. You’re just the man I wanted. This is Mr Carolus Deene, who is making a private investigation into the murder of Gregory Willick. I know you’ve got some valuable information about that.”

With the swiftness and skill of a successful conjuror Mr Smite whipped a paper out of his pocket and handed it to Packinlay. Packinlay grew even heartier.

“Thanks,” he said, hastily stuffing the paper into his pocket. “Now what about coming in for a drink and giving Mr Deene the benefit of your information? I’m sure we should all be grateful.”

“I can’t wait now,” said Mr Smite nastily. “I’ve got another summons to serve.”

“Oh, come now. Surely that can wait ten minutes?”

“Well, just one,” conceded Mr Smite ungraciously.

They went back into the sitting-room.

“I’ve come here three times,” said Mr Smite. “You were always out. So Mrs Packinlay said.”

“Yes, yes. I have to run about a lot. Now, about that afternoon …”

“It means such a lot of work when you can’t get hold of people.”

“Of course. Now …”

Carolus felt he should relieve the tension.

“I understand you actually saw the man who is suspected of murdering Willick? On the afternoon in question?”

“I’ve given details to the police.”

“Quite right. But you surely won’t mind telling me what you saw?”

“I don’t know whether it would be right. I hold an official position.”

“Yes. But…”

“It’s a serious matter, after all.”

“You’ve already given evidence in public at the inquest, presumably.”

“Yes. I don’t mind telling you what I said then. I was cycling along the main road from Cheltenham to North-leach, passing the outskirts of Mr Willick’s land. I came to where a footpath, a right-of-way, comes out on the road.”

“I’ll show you the place tomorrow, if you like,” put in Packinlay.

“As I approached I saw an individual get over the stile and come out on the road.”

“Did you recognize him?”

“I had never seen him before. He was a heavily built man with thick glasses and a high stiff collar. Old-fashioned in his dress. I noticed him because you don’t expect to see anyone dressed like that in these parts. His eyesight did not seem to be good. He was blinking as though he couldn’t see properly. When he first saw me he made as if to turn back, but then seemed to think better of it and came on.”

“Did he speak to you?”

“Yes. He said ‘Good afternoon’ in a very loud voice. I did not answer, of course. I don’t converse with strangers. I cycled on.”

“That’s all?”

“When I reached the Barton Bridge Hotel, a few hundred yards farther on, I decided to go in. I was looking for someone who might have been there. I stopped talking a while to Mr Habbard the manager, and while I was there the man I had seen at the stile came in. He seemed to be in a hurry now and asked Mr Habbard for his bill to be got ready, as he was leaving. Mr Habbard, said, ‘Certainly, Mr Leech,’ and that was all.”

“Do you think he recognized you as the man he had just said ‘Good afternoon’ to?”

“No, I don’t think so. He didn’t seem to see very well.”

“Thank you, Mr Smite.”

“I must be going. I’ve got …”

“I’ll see you out,” said Packinlay hurriedly.

“Now does that convince you?” asked Packinlay when he returned.

“There was certainly one point of interest. About Larkin ‘making to go back’ when he first saw Smite. If that is true it is rather indicative. But the best of observers get false impressions.”

“You’re right there. Nothing easier. The wife tells me that I always get things wrong.”

“Now we really must leave you,” said Carolus. “Again many thanks.”

At last he and Rupert were safely in the car and following the directions which Packinlay had given them on how to reach the Barton Bridge Hotel.

“Beauties, aren’t they?” said Rupert. “I loved the summons being served. Did you guess they were hard up when you said we were going to the hotel?”

“No. I wanted to be independent.”

“And not bored to death. He was all right today because he was giving us information we wanted, but can you imagine that one when it’s run out?”

“Odd to find a man like that in debt. Presumably he was well paid by Willick. And couldn’t he get an advance on his legacy?”

“You can’t be sure he was in debt. The summons may have been for some sum he refuses to pay for some reason.”

“I don’t think so. It wasn’t the first time Smite had served one on him.”

“Anyway, what a couple! Doesn’t she ever utter? They must chatter like magpies when they’re in bed for her to have time to ‘always say’ everything.”

7

THE BARTON BRIDGE HOTEL had been a coaching inn, one of the few buildings along the loneliest stretch of road in that part of the country. It had been a simple hostelry where stops were once made by almost every horse-drawn vehicle and honest refreshment was served to travellers. Through three centuries at least it had continued thus, unpretentious and useful; but for the twentieth century it was not good enough.

“Gosh, look at the ‘good taste’!” said Rupert Priggley when he saw it. “Isn’t it ghastly?”

Carolus nodded. The wealth of oak that had been introduced, the arty brick fireplaces with arty brass ornaments hanging round them and arty old spits and fire-irons in their recesses, the expensive Tottenham Court Road upholstery, carpets and curtains, the furniture so farm-house and tricksy with milking-stools and settles, the warming-pans and coaching horns, the pewter tankards and horse-whips—it was a nightmare in the phoney antique.

“I don’t think I can bear it,” said Rupert Priggley. “What would you call this?”

“This is a cock-fighting stool made by one of the largest antique factories in London. That is a spinet.”

“It must have been quite a decent pub once, when it was a pull-up for draymen.”

They went up to their rooms and came down to have a drink in the Old Snuggery.

“I think I’d almost rather they called it Ye Olde Snuggerie and had done with it,” said Rupert.

But there was nothing ‘olde’ about the barmaid who presided among concealed lights, bottles with nylon cobwebs on them and all the paraphernalia of cocktail-making. She believed herself very much of the later half of the present century, in spite of an almost Restoration bosom.

“Yes?” she said.

While Carolus looked at his evening paper, Rupert decided to be mischievous.

“What cocktails can you do?”

“Any you want, really. Want a Sidecar?”

“I thought you might say that. No, dear; cocktails went out with vaudeville. I don’t know what you keep all this gear on the counter for.”

“When you’ve quite finished,” said the barmaid, “let me tell you that we have quite a call for cocktails.”

“Do you, now? I suppose you might. Cocktails in the Snuggery. It’s wonderfully pre-war.”

“What are you going to have?” asked the barmaid dangerously.

“Shake you if I said an Angel’s Kiss or a Bunny-Hug, wouldn’t it? No, I’ll have a Scotch straight and my friend will have a double with soda, no ice. What’s it like to work in a snuggery? Snug?”

“You’re a cheeky little runt, aren’t you? Don’t know whether I ought to have served you with Scotch. You over eighteen?”

“No, dear, I’m rising sixteen,” said Rupert. “I hope the local copper comes in.”

The barmaid, who was not so very much older than Rupert, seemed anxious to say something impressive while she maintained her pose of aloofness.

“We had a murderer staying here the other day,” she observed.

Rupert yawned.

“But they’re so common nowadays. All over the place. You can’t travel in a train without rubbing shoulders with one.”

“No. But this was a real murderer. He shot a man a mile away.”

“Must have been a good shot.”

“I mean it happened a mile away. At Barton Place. He booked in here the night before.”

“Pleasant type? Most of them are, I believe.”

“This wasn’t. He was horrible.”

“Boris Karloff character?”

“Well, he gave you the creeps. Shouted at you as if you were deaf.”

“What did he drink?”

“Said he was a teetotaller. Had one of these new drinks—Pineapple and Grapefruit.”

“Revolting.”

“But the funny thing was we might have known if we’d only thought about it. He was asking the way up to Barton Place. I mean if we’d have known there was going to be a murder.”

“You’d have known this was going to be the murderer? Then you’d have warned everyone and there wouldn’t have been a murder.”

“I don’t know. I didn’t feel comfortable afterwards to know he’d been in the house.”

“Getting rather involved, aren’t we? Have a drink. What did you say your name was? No, let me guess. It can only be something exotic, like Zöe.”

“They call me Mickie, as a matter of fact.”

“Very nice too. Tell me more about your murderer.”

“Well, Mrs Gunn could tell you more than what I could, really. She did his room.”

“Who is Mrs Gunn?”

“She’s one of the ladies who work in the hotel. What number rooms have you got?”

“Seventeen and eighteen.”

“Have you really? He had eighteen. That’s one of Mrs Gunn’s.”

“I suppose the dinner will be delicious? Grand old English cooking?”

“It’s ever so nice tonight. We’ve just got a new cook.”

They went through to the dining-room, where they ate the usual tinned soup, tasteless plaice from the icebox in composite batter, a shaving of cold meat with hot gravy over it, tinned peas and processed cheese. A wine list was produced, and Carolus ordered a Burgundy which arrived lukewarm, and they ended with bad coffee of the same temperature.

“You got all that?” asked Rupert, referring to his conversation with the barmaid.

“Yes. I’ll have a word with Mrs Gunn in the morning.”

He did. He went up after breakfast and found her making his bed. She was a heavily-built, hard-breathing person with hair on her upper lip and a wheezy voice, which did not prevent her from being garrulous.

Carolus thought he might as well risk it and come straight to the point. “Mrs Gunn,” he said, “I’ve been asked to make an independent investigation of the murder. I hear this is the room in which the suspect slept.”

“Yes, in this very bed,” whistled Mrs Gunn asthmatically. “That’s if he could sleep at all which I couldn’t if I was going to do for someone next day and had it all planned out before I got to bed so that I’d toss and turn thinking about it, but perhaps he didn’t worry at the time though he’s paid for it now jumping off a ship and doing for himself which I must say surprised me from what I remember of him….”

“What do you remember of him?”

“Well it wasn’t as though I saw a lot of him not to say as you would see anyone you knew well but I did meet him in the passage the first evening and noticed he was a big party with glasses and the sort of clothes my uncle used to wear who was an undertaker till his business failed from not enough dying he used to say but I believe it was the drink because he kept it in the house and that’s always a bad sign though …”

“So you only caught that one glimpse of the suspected murderer, Mrs Gunn?”

“No, I saw him next morning when I took his breakfast in which he’d ordered the night before only he was in bed and just shouted ‘put it down there’ at me and I thought to myself ‘what a voice’, I thought, ‘I wonder if that’s how he speaks or if he’s trying to be rude’ but I didn’t say anything only put the tray down and went out of the room closing the door which had been locked before when I got there and had to be unlocked by him jumping out of bed and telling me to wait a minute while he jumped in again before I opened the door which has happened with others before now….”

“That was the last?”

“No there was once more that afternoon when he was packing up and I went to see if he wanted anything and he came to the door and said he didn’t but didn’t think to leave anything on the dressing-table which I always think is mean though there is the percentage and that which is never really the Same Thing….”

“So you didn’t exchange any conversation with him?”

“Not to say conversation, no. In fact there was nothing said at all except what I’ve told you.”

“I understand that while he was out that afternoon you came to do his room and found his passport lying about?”

“That’s right. It was right on top of his suit-case which I’d just opened to pop something in and I couldn’t help seeing it because it might have been left there to be looked at …”

“You mean it was open ?”

“Well not actually open but there it was right on top of everything and waiting for anyone just to notice what was in it …”

“So you examined it?”

“Oh no, I never did any such thing. I just peeped at the front page that’s all and saw that it was the same gentleman in the photograph but he had a different name to what he’d given in the hotel and what was on the label of one of his suit-cases. Not that I thought much about it at the time but when there was all this lark about the murder I thought to myself’that’s funny, I wonder if it’s got anything to do with it’, so I told Mr Habbard who said he’d better tell the police which he did.”

“You said one of his suit-cases just now. How many had he?”

“Only just the two but the other one was locked that afternoon so I can’t tell you anything about that. Not that I’m the nosy sort but sometimes when a thing’s right in front of you, you can’t help taking a look if it’s the last thing you do. I’m sure I never want to know anyone’s business but it was lucky I did just happen to notice that passport because it’s helped the police ever so much or so Mr Slott told me. He’s the local policeman and not much Liked if the truth were known but that comes from him being funny with closing hours and that and getting a poor woman fined for …”

“When this man, Leech or Larkin, quitted the room that afternoon did you find anything left behind?”

“I don’t know whatever you mean because if I had of done I should have gone straight to Mr Habbard with it as well he knows.”

Mrs Gunn’s wheezing voice grew indignant.

“Oh, I meant anything of no value at all that you would throw away.”

“I always empty the waste-paper-basket and if there are any old papers and that of course I throw them away unless it’s a picture paper which my husband likes to have a read of when I get home.”

“And were there?”

“When this murderer left you mean? I wonder however you expect me to remember a thing like that when I do rooms every morning and anyone might leave anything for all I know….”

“Were there, Mrs Gunn? Any papers left by the murderer?”

“I wonder whatever makes you ask a question like that….”

Carolus gave her a ten-shilling note.

“Just curiosity,” he said. “I had a sort of idea there might be.”

“Well if you want to know there was just one envelope but I didn’t say anything to the police about it because they didn’t ask me and I didn’t see why I should go out of my way when they’ve never done anything for me except get my brother into trouble that time when he’d had a couple …”

“Did you keep this envelope?”

“Not to say keep it I didn’t but I did slip it in my bag and take it home because of the stamps which my little boy is mad about changing and chopping with other boys half the time and sticking them in an all-bum as he calls it though I can’t think why he wants to use such vulgar language and when I saw this envelope with foreign stamps on it I thought to myself I thought young Perce will be ever so pleased with that when I get it home.”

“And was he?” Carolus saw that the only way to get what he wanted was to allow a free rein to Mrs Gunn.

“Oh yes I should think he was! ‘Oh mum,’ he says, ‘they’re Moroccans,’ he says, and he starts taking them off the envelope….”

“Did you notice that envelope?”

Carolus was holding his breath.

“Only to see it was to someone called Larkin in Tangier.”

“You didn’t keep it?”

“No I popped it straight in the kitchen fire which was On that day because it heats the bath-water and it was my husband’s night to have a bath….”

“I’m very much obliged to you, Mrs Gunn, for all you’ve told me. There’s nothing else you happen to remember about this man?”

“No, only that voice of his and the nasty way he had with people and his not remembering to leave anything for me and his kind of blinking at you as though he didn’t see well and his passport which I’ve told the police about, so I don’t think there’s anything else.”

Carolus went downstairs and decided to look in on Habbard, the hotel manager, before going over to Barton Abbess Place.

He found him in his office, a tall, important, youngish man in a new suit and a regimental tie.

“D’you mind if I ask you one or two questions about this man Larkin who stayed here?”

“You Press?” asked Mr Habbard briskly.

“No. I’m making an independent investigation for Packinlay.”

“I see. Because we’ve had enough publicity over this business. Not good for a hotel of this class. This belongs to the United Ancient Hostelries Association, and we can’t afford a lot of vulgar chatter in the newspapers.”

“What,” Carolus could not help asking, though it was irrelevant to his enquiry, “what is the United Ancient Hostelries Association?”

“Mean to say you haven’t heard of it? My dear chap, where have you been? It’s the most important development in the licensing trade today. We take over fine old English inns, with their great tradition of hospitality, good liquor and good fare, and while keeping their ancient character and architecture, we add the amenities required by the modern motorist. Take this house, for instance …”

“Oh, I quite understand,” said Carolus hurriedly. “Admirable, I’m sure. I wonder whether Larkin approved?”

“Between you and me, old man, I didn’t have much to do with him. He was quite obviously not out of the top drawer, and when you run a place like this you don’t hob-nob with any of the guests whom you wouldn’t meet in your own home. This Larkin person, or Leech as he called himself, arrived in a self-drive car which he’d hired in London, or so he told the hall porter, who made some remark about it. He stayed only one night, and went off unexpectedly in the afternoon.”

“Really?”

“He’d booked without saying how long he would stay. The girl at the desk had asked him, and he had shouted that he didn’t know; he thought a few days. Next afternoon I was in the hall seeing a client …”

“Mr Smite.”

“You’re very well-informed. Yes, it was old Smite asking for Packinlay. He’d got one of his billets doux for him, I gathered. I was just telling Smite that Packinlay hadn’t been in for a day or two when this character bounces in and starts giving me orders. ‘Have my bill made up at once,’ he shouts; ‘I’m leaving immediately.’ I’m not accustomed to being spoken to like that, but with characters of that type I find it best just to ignore that sort of thing. One point I did notice, though. The man was in a muck sweat.”

“It was a warm afternoon. He’d been walking.”

“It wasn’t just that, old man. He was trembling like a leaf. He’d obviously had some shock or other.”

“You didn’t enquire?”

“A man in my position can hardly concern himself with things of that sort, can he? Of course if I’d known that he had just shot poor old Gregory Willick it would have been different. Very good chap, Gregory.”

“In your mind, then, there is no doubt that Larkin had murdered Willick?”

“Oh, none whatever. If ever I saw a murderer, that was one.

“Thanks very much. You’ve been most helpful.”

“It’s been a trying business for us. I had to attend the inquest, you know. A hotel of this class can’t afford to be mixed up in a thing like this. My directors were most upset. Lord Finchington was on the phone to me at once. ‘What’s this, Ray?’ he said. ‘It’s all right, Henry,’ I told him. ‘I’ve got it under control.’ Still, one could understand their anxiety. How do you like this old spinning-wheel? The Board have just bought a couple of dozen, one for each of our hotels.”

“Splendid. Excellent,” said Carolus, and bade the manager good morning.

8

BARTON PLAGE was a Tudor house with a wing added in the eighteenth century. It stood in a most beautiful setting, the grounds having been designed by Capability Brown. You penetrated an outer irregular ring of trees to find a spacious enclosed area of parkland, so that from nowhere was the house overlooked, yet it was not crowded in or made gloomy by too many trees near it.

Carolus was full of admiration, and even Rupert said, “I can’t understand why it hasn’t been turned into an asylum. It’s too beautiful to be allowed to belong to anyone in this day and age.”

But it had belonged, and very much so, to Gregory Willick. A fortune made in Calcutta had enabled at least one of England’s fine old houses to be kept for the purpose for which it was built—a gentleman’s residence.

The door was opened by a little man in a grey jacket and an apron.

“Is Mrs Sweeny in?” Carolus asked.

There was none of the savoir faire of a family butler about the little man in the apron. He was deaf, it appeared, and said “Eh?”

Carolus repeated his question.

“Oh, ay. I’ll go and see. You wait a minute. No, you better come in. Stay here while I go and ask her. Mind this floor, it’s just been polished and the mat’s up. Wait here, will you?”

He disappeared.

In a few moments Marylin Sweeny was with them, and it was at once obvious that Packinlay had not exaggerated her beauty. But he had said nothing about something equally noticeable—her charm. She was full of it; it enveloped her like a cloud. ‘What a charming woman!’ You could hear the words ringing through the conversations of all who knew her. ‘She’s so lovely; but what I adore about her is that she’s so sweet with everyone.’

“I’m wildly sorry,” she said now as she approached them. “Old Hoppy’s such an ass. I’ve been telling him for years what to do, and he’s still apt to send everyone round to the back door. You’re Carolus Deene, aren’t you? Gilbert Packinlay’s told me all about you. Do come in.”

She led the way to a comfortable room with a great many well-arranged flowers in it.

Carolus with an apologetic smile said he couldn’t help telling her how beautiful they were.

She smiled back.

“My old Greg adored flowers and I used to keep the place full of them. I took a course in flower arrangement because I knew he liked it. Now the gardeners keep on bringing them in, and I do them because somehow I think it would please him. I hope that doesn’t sound too sentimental.”

“Do you intend to keep on this house, Mrs Sweeny?”

“I’d like to, but I don’t think it will be possible. Greg made the place over to me about a year ago, and at the same time gave me a block of capital. But apparently that’s all subject to death duties now. Perhaps by selling everything except the house itself and a bit of land round it I can just manage, but it’s not going to be easy. I know he wanted me to live on here.”

“Everything goes to his nephew?”

“Lance. Yes. Pity, you’ve just missed him. He came down yesterday and spent the night. He was off this morning on the 8.15 for London to leave for Tangier tonight. He never stays long when he comes.”

“I haven’t met him yet.”

“You’ll like him, I think. I always have and Greg did. It’s quite right that he should come into Greg’s money, you know.”

“When did he arrive in England?”

“Last Wednesday, I believe, by air. He knew this man Larkin in Tangier and went to meet his ship on Thursday. Oddly enough I don’t think he believed Larkin was guilty and I think he was going to arrange for him to have lawyers and that sort of thing. But of course he heard, when the ship came in, that Larkin had confessed and jumped overboard.”

“It’s not quite as simple as that, Mrs Sweeny. There’s no proof that he committed suicide, and his confession was typed without a signature. It’s possible that he was murdered. Did you ever see him?”

“Never.”

“Did Mr Willick ever mention him?”

“Not to me. To Gilbert Packinlay, I believe.”

“He was a friend of Lance Willick’s?”

“I don’t think he was an intimate friend. A bit of a hanger-on, I gather. When Lance and Greg spoke of him it was always with some amusement.”

“When did they speak of him?”

“Lance used to come over occasionally. Always by air. He and Greg were quite good friends. He never stayed long. Always seemed in a hurry to get back to Tangier. Who can blame him, with our climate?”

“I see.”

“Now come on, Mr Deene. When are you going to ask me the vital question? ‘Where were you at the time of the crime?’ I know it has got to come.”

“If you feel like telling me.”

“I ought either to have an alibi so definite and well-timed and witnessed that your suspicions are aroused at once, or else none at all, like being alone in a cinema. Actually I’m afraid it was neither. I ran into Cheltenham to change some library books, buy some fish because Greg liked it and we couldn’t get what we wanted out here, and pick up my watch, which had been under repair. I left home immediately after lunch, say about two fifteen, and was in the library by a quarter to three or earlier. I changed my books for three far drearier, then went on to Brimmings the fishmonger in the High Street, where I bought some scallops and delicious Dover soles. I went to Wotherspoons, who had my watch, but it wasn’t ready. I was home to tea before half-past four. You see, I’ve got it all ready for you.”

“Thank you, Mrs Sweeny.”

“Seriously though, there’s no doubt that it was this frightful Larkin, is there? I mean it all seems so obvious.”

“That’s rather the point, you know. It’s too obvious. If the man really did it he must be a half-wit, and there’s no reason to think that. He didn’t leave clues, he left a positive spoor behind him.”

“Like the Abominable Snowman,” put in Rupert.

Mrs Sweeny was looking fixedly at Carolus.

“I see. You’re inclined to doubt if it was him because it looks so plain that it was. Couldn’t that be you, Mr Deene? I mean couldn’t you unconsciously be trying to make it more complicated?”

“I don’t think so. When it comes to a man leaving footprints of a special design …”

“Is that what he did? Perhaps he was mad. I can’t see how anyone sane would want to kill my old Greg.”

“Perhaps he was. I understand that by the provisions of the Will you don’t stand to gain anything by Mr Willick’s death? I’m sorry to sound so beastly business-like in a matter which I know is deeply painful to you, but I do just want to confirm that.”

“It’s quite all right. I understand what your job is. If you were too tactful it would probably hurt more. No, I gain nothing. The house and his provision for me in money were already mine.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re going to stay to lunch, aren’t you? I’m sure you want to talk to other people here.”

“It’s very kind of you. I should be delighted.”

“And your friend, of course.”

Carolus grinned.

“He’s my least promising pupil who has followed me here. To say it’s against my will is an understatement.”

“Oh hell, sir, give me a break,” said Rupert Priggley. “I’m actually his right hand, Mrs Sweeny. The only trouble is, I never know what his left hand’s doing.”

They smiled and Marylin Sweeny asked Carolus who else he wanted to see.

“If it won’t be a bore I suppose I ought to ask a few questions of everyone in the household. I understand you have a married couple in the house.”

“Yes. Hoppy and his wife. He opened the door to you. Then there are two women who come from the village in the morning for the cleaning. They’re sisters and not very bright and they go home before lunch.”

“We can skip them, then. But there’s a chauffeur who benefits by the Will.”

“Ridge, yes. He’s a first-rate chauffeur and never lets us down, but both Greg and I have always found him a bit of a pain in the neck. So smarmy.”

“What about the gamekeeper?”

Marylin laughed.

“You’ll like Socker,” she said. “He’s a monster, but you’ll like him.”

“In what way a monster?”

“He thinks he’s Lady Chatterley’s lover, I believe.”

“The only other person I want to see in the district is the Vicar. And that’s probably a formality.”

“Gus? He’s coming in this afternoon, so you’ll meet him. Now who do you want to start with? Hoppy? Better see Mrs Hoppy—she makes more sense. I’ll go and see if she can leave the lunch for a few minutes.”

When Marylin had left the room Rupert gave a low whistle between his teeth.

“ Whee—wheeyew!”

“Handsome, isn’t she?”

“A bewt. Anyway, you can’t cast your beady eyes on her. Her alibi’s cast-iron.”

Carolus smiled.

“I don’t suppose it matters, but of course it’s nothing of the sort. The only part of it that could be checked is her call at the lending-library, and that came first. The others, a busy fishmonger and the largest jewellers in the town, could never swear that she had been in on a certain day at a certain time. She could have been back here soon after three.”

“Carping, aren’t you?”

At that moment Marylin returned with a tall, thin but masterful-looking woman. Marylin said, “This is Mrs Hoppy. I’ll leave you together.”

“I hope you won’t be long, sir. I’ve got the Lunch, and I’ve said what I’ve got to say to the police. What was it you wanted to know?”

She. sat, at Carolus’s invitation, but remained bolt upright in her chair, firmly mistress of the situation.

Carolus always gave a disarming and unexpected lead to interrogations which he thought would be difficult.

“It’s about the two women who help you in the morning.”

“Grace and Annie Coppice. What about them?”

“I wanted to know whether either of them would know the way Mr Willick went…”

“For his afternoon walk? It’s hardly likely. There was very little passed between them and me, I may say.”

“What about…”

“My husband? He’s hard of hearing and I don’t suppose he ever exchanged two words with Grace and Annie, other than about the cleaning.”

“Could they have heard …”

“From anyone else? There are those of the outside staff who may or may not know when to talk of their employers’ doings. I couldn’t say about that.”

“But, Mrs Hoppy,” appealed Carolus. “Let me explain my difficulty. The man who planned and carried out the murder must have known of Mr Willick’s habit of walking through that wood. Larkin is suspected, but we cannot think of any way he could …”

“Have found out about it. Well, it wasn’t through Hoppy or me, that’s one certainty. And if Grace and Annie knew they must have heard from someone else.”

“Do you know a Mrs Gunn who works …”

“At the Barton Bridge Hotel? Yes, I know her only too well. What about her, because my lunch’ll be spoiled if I don’t get back in a minute?”

“She is the only person, so far as we know, who spoke to this Larkin before …”

“He went off to murder Mr Willick? Well, I don’t know how she could have known, I’m sure, but I will say that anyone more nosy, inquisitive, prying and gossiping about others it would be hard to find. You’d think that affliction in her voice would keep her quiet, but not a bit of it. She’s known for it.”

“Then mightn’t she have …”

“Heard where Mr Willick went in the afternoon? I don’t see how, unless Anyone of the Outside Staff has been going out with her daughter Lily, which I wouldn’t put beyond them.”

“Thank you, Mrs Hoppy. Now, just to complete my record, I must ask you where you were …”

“At the time when Mr Willick was murdered? Well, we don’t know when he was murdered, do we? I can tell you this much. When Hoppy and I have done the washing-up we always feel like having ten minutes’ rest, and I Dropped Off in one chair in the kitchen and Hoppy must have done the same in the other because when I sat up his spectacles were still on and the paper on his lap.”

“What time would that have been?”

“After four. We didn’t finish the washing-up till nearly three. I know I had to make haste and put the kettle on for Mrs Sweeny’s tea, Mr Willick usually staying over at Packinlays.”

“Mrs Sweeny was in, then? She had been …”

“Into Cheltenham. Yes, I know. She was when Hoppy went up, anyway. I gave her her tea and we had ours.”

“What about Ridge the chauffeur? Did you …”

“See anything of him? Not that afternoon, I didn’t. Mr and Mrs Ridge have their own cottage, and when we meet, as we do now and then, it’s for a game of whist between the four of us.”

Carolus made a note that One of the Outside Staff, referred to with such suspicion, was likely to be Socker rather than Ridge.

“You don’t know what time he brought the car in? He had taken it …”

“To Northleach for a repair. No, I don’t know what time it was. Now, if there’s nothing else?”

“Thank you, Mrs Hoppy. I don’t think I need …”

“See Hoppy? No, there’s nothing he can tell you more than what I have, and he’s very hard of hearing.”

9

CAROLUS DECIDED to go out and see Ridge the chauffeur before lunch, and asked Marylin Sweeny if this would be all right.

“Of course,” she said; “you’ll find him over in the garage. I don’t think there’s much he can tell you, but I quite see that you want to see everyone.”

Ridge wore the blue trousers of his uniform and was in shirt-sleeves. He was polishing an already gleaming saloon car as Carolus and Rupert approached. He was a middle-aged, mournful-looking man who saluted.

“Good morning.” Carolus sounded friendly.

“Good morning, sir. I have been told to expect you. Any information I have I shall be only too pleased to give you.”

“Thank you. You had been some time with Mr Willick?”

“Four years before the war, five years’ war service and back to the same employment on release in 1945. It’s a long time, if I may be allowed to say so.”

“You got on well with him?”

“Well, yes, sir, but of course we did have our little differences of opinion. I wouldn’t wish to seem to criticize Mr Willick, but he was not always very easy to please.”

This was a new side of the late Gregory Willick at which no one had yet hinted.

“No?”

“He could be very cantankerous at times, sir, if I may make so bold. He was, on the last morning. A small matter of a new part for the Wolseley which I had been waiting for the garage to obtain. It appears that they telephoned to him and told him they had been holding it five days. He came across here storming, if I may use the expression. ‘Why the devil hasn’t it been put in?’ he shouted at me for all the rest of the staff to hear. ‘I have been waiting to hear from the garage,’ I told him, ‘and if it won’t be taken amiss, sir,’ I said, ‘I see no need for you to shout at me in front of others.’ ‘Then get the bloody thing put in,’ he said. ‘Get it put in this afternoon.’ I said no more. I’m not the one to answer back. But I feel what he had said was quite uncalled-for, not to say unjust.”

“But you did go to the garage that afternoon?”

“When I went home to dinner I told my wife what had happened and she said, ‘Least said, soonest mended. You’d better take the car in after you’ve had your dinner.’ Which I did.”

“What time would that have been?”

“I shouldn’t like to say that I noticed the time when I didn’t, sir, but to the best of my belief I left here about half-past two.”

“How long was the car at the garage?”

“Over an hour-and-a-half, sir. It was not an easy part to fit.”

“You waited while they were doing it?”

“Well, no, sir. My wife has a married sister living in Northleach, and I decided to walk round there to pass the time. Unfortunately, she was not in.”

“So you returned to the garage?”

“Not immediately. My wife’s sister’s home is near the churchyard and I thought I’d pass half an hour there.”

“In the churchyard?”

“Yes, sir. If I may put it so, it is a recreation of mine. I am interested in the inscriptions.”

“I see. So you remained there for some time?”

“Nearly an hour, if I may make a guess, sir. I found several very interesting inscriptions.”

“By then the car was ready?”

“Not quite. It was nearly five o’clock before I left for Barton Abbess.”

“There is another matter about which I would like to ask you. You knew, of course, the route taken by Mr Willick in his afternoon walk?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Has anyone ever asked you about that?”

“To the best of my recollection, never. If they had done so they wouldn’t have received any information from me. Though I say it, I know my place, and I would certainly never be the one to tittle-tattle to outsiders about what Mr Willick might or might not do.”

“You won’t mind my asking if the same is true of your wife, Ridge?”

“I should be the last to resent any question you feel called upon to ask, sir, but so far as Mrs Ridge is concerned you can put your mind at ease. She takes no interest in the Place and has her own home to look after. I do not suppose she knew that Mr Willick went for a walk in the afternoon and certainly not which way he went. Nor do we hob-nob with others in the village. Occasionally we spend an evening with Mr and Mrs Hoppy or receive a visit from my wife’s married sister and her husband, who is a carpenter by trade. Otherwise we keep ourselves to ourselves, if I may be allowed the expression.”

“Thank you, Ridge. You’ve been most obliging.”

Lunch was a pleasant meal, for Marylin Sweeny was a good hostess. She was not gloomy and did not wear mourning, but there was a certain wistfulness about her. She could smile, but rarely laughed. However, she chatted with Carolus and Rupert and was interested to hear about their two interviews.

“So I’m the only one with an alibi, am I?” she said when Carolus had told her Ridge’s story. “I’m not very much afraid that you will seriously suspect anyone here, though. Even Socker. They’re an honest lot.”

It was, indeed, difficult. This had obviously been a smoothly-run and equable household.

“I gather that Mr Willick sometimes grew exasperated with Ridge?” questioned Carolus.

“Oh yes. Wouldn’t you? He’s always so correct about everything. My old Greg wasn’t an angel and had a little temper, like everyone else. But au fond he appreciated them all. He used to say Gilbert Packinlay was an old stick, and Ridge a smarmy brute, Hoppy a fool and Socker a cunning devil, but as you see from his Will he knew their value. They were all pretty loyal to him.”

“What about Mrs Hoppy?”

“He pretended to be afraid of her. She always puts on that very business-like manner and does what is called ‘taking the words out of your mouth’.”

“Yes. But if I may make so bold, as Ridge would say, she’s a very good cook.”

“I’m glad you think so. There’s one thing, Mr Deene, that I’ve been wondering about. I suppose you will want to see the scene of the crime. I have decided that if you do I shall take you there. You see, I haven’t been near the place, of course, but I know exactly where it is. I passed there with Greg a score of times. The point is, I have to do it sooner or later. I can’t have a place on the estate that I’m afraid to go to. I should like to get it over.”

“I quite understand,” said Carolus. “If you really want to do it, I’ll come. I don’t know that it’s likely to help me much. It will have been gone over with a fine comb by the police and anything that was evidence will have been quite obliterated. But I suppose I ought to see it, and I quite understand how you feel.”

“We’ll go after lunch, then, shall we? It will have to be on foot, but it’s not really far.”

They left at about the time at which Gregory Willick had done on the afternoon of the murder. It was a warm August day and they did not hurry. They crossed the park by a foot-path which led them between two groups of beech trees, then found themselves in open meadows.

“These belong to the Home Farm,” said Marylin Sweeny. “Wonderful place for mushrooms. When I first came to live with Greg we once got up at the crack of dawn and brought in a basketful. He adored them for breakfast, and I must say, I do.”

A small figure in corduroys carrying a gun was seen emerging from the wood ahead of them.

“This is Socker. I’ll tell him to come up to the Place presently to see you.”

“What about the public bar of the hotel?” suggested Carolus. “Wouldn’t he feel easier there, if he’s got anything to say?”

Marylin smiled.

“I’m sure he would. I’ll tell him.”

Socker as he approached looked a cunning leprechaun of a man, middle-aged and dark. His face was hairy without definite lines of limitation between hair, moustache and stubble of beard. He touched his hat to Marylin with an expression rather like the leer of a stage lecher.

“Oh, Socker, this gentleman wants to ask you a few questions this evening.”

It seemed doubtful whether Marylin’s words had any importance or meaning for Socker. He continued to gaze at her with lascivious slyness.

“He’s staying at the Barton Bridge Hotel. Will you meet him in the public bar there?”

“What time?” asked Socker, without ceasing to grin at her.

“What time? Nine? Nine, Socker? Very well.”

“Thank you, Mrs Sweeny,” he said.

They left him and Carolus felt that at every few yards he was turning to look over his shoulder at Marylin.

They entered the cool wood through which a narrow avenue ran.

“This is Burghley Wood, Greg’s favourite walk. The place where it happened is farther on.”

They continued for about a quarter of a mile, speaking little. There was something awe-inspiring about the tall trees around them.

“It’s round the next bend,” said Marylin.

Her voice remained firm enough, but there was a suggestion of suppressed emotion in it.

A surprise awaited them. As they came round the bend they saw about thirty yards ahead a tall black figure completely motionless in the pathway.

“Gus,” whispered Marylin. “What on earth? That’s just where it happened, you see. Anyone would think he was revisiting…. I don’t like it, Carolus.”

It was the first time she had used his Christian name, and her hand fell for a moment on his forearm. Carolus said nothing and they went forward.

When Mr Gusset saw them coming he came towards them. He was a large, moon-faced, youngish man. He did not appear to be embarrassed at being found in this place. He had a hearty voice and an enthusiastic manner of speech.

“Bravo!” he said to Marylin. “That’s courage for you! Face it out and have done with it.”

“What are you doing here?” asked Marylin seriously.

“I? Ah, you may well ask. To tell the truth, I hardly know. Not curiosity, certainly. I felt I should, you know.”

Marylin, who seemed rather ruffled by something, introduced Carolus and Rupert. Mr Gusset took command of the situation.

“You’ve done it now. You’ve seen the place. Now let us …”

“No!” said Marylin sharply. “Mr Deene wants to examine it. He’s investigating this thing.”

Mr Gusset blinked.

“Oh, I see.” It was his turn to appear uncomfortable.

“Tell him,” Marylin said to the Vicar. “Tell him how it happened.”

Unwillingly Mr Gusset said, “The body was found there in the undergrowth. The police think he was shot here, where I’m standing.”

Carolus looked carefully but quickly about him.

“Thanks,” he said. “I’ve seen all I want.”

“Then we will wend our way,” said the Vicar. “I was coming to see you anyway this afternoon.”

“I know. You phoned.”

When they came out of the wood they seemed to leave its gloom behind them and turn to topics which for Mr Gusset at least were evidently brighter.

“We’re having the Scouts’ camp next week,” he said. “I hope Gregory’s permission to use Hill Wood still holds?”

“Of course.”

“Fine! Splendid! Couldn’t be better for the lads. They can have a dip in the old millpond then. Jolly for them first thing in the morning. Wash the cobwebs away.”

“How many will you have this year?”

“Six. There were only five last year, so we’re increasing. The Boys’ Club’s gone up, too. Nine, counting Tom Richards, who’s not Quite Right, you know. I really feel we’re getting somewhere. I had eleven for Sung Eucharist last Sunday. I quite understood your absence, of course. I’m afraid the Mothers are declining, though. Only six last meeting. Television’s the counter-attraction.”

“Is it?”

“I fear so. The Institute’s never been what it was since they began getting sets. It makes work in a parish like this so much harder. Big parishes don’t notice it. But with my gallant four hundred.”

“Is that the total population?” asked Carolus.

“It is. But we make an effort to hold things together. The choir is magnificent. Simply magnificent. Since Gregory started giving them the Annual Treat they have never failed me. Of course we have to stick to the familiar tunes. But they’re keen, bless them. Keen.”

Marylin seemed to feel that Carolus was growing a little restive.

“You won’t mind if Mr Deene asks you a few questions, will you? We’ve all had to face it, you know. Where were you at the time of the crime, and so on.”

“Of course not. Of course not.”

“Let’s start with that, then, Mr Gusset. Where were you?”

“Where was I? Now let’s see. I went to the Place that afternoon to see Gregory. About the Guild, you know. I found that he had left to have tea at the Packinlays.”

“You didn’t know it was his custom?”

“No. I didn’t. I set out to walk across to the old lodge.”

“You came this way?”

“Not quite. I took the short cut across the big meadow. But it’s not very far from here.”

“You did not hear any shot fired?”

“No, no.”

“That is rather odd. The time of the murder seems likely to have been between three-thirty and four. That is just the time at which you were walking from the Place to the Packinlays’ house.”

“I say, you have got it taped! Am I a suspect?”

“I didn’t say that. But I can’t understand your not hearing those shots. Three, there would have been.”

“Of course, I might have heard them without remembering. I might have thought it was just the gamekeeper.”

“Did you?” asked Carolus.

“It’s a funny thing, but now you come to press me I do seem to have some sort of remote recollection of something of the sort. Three shots, you say? It could be. It could be.”

“But was it?”

“I cannot go farther than that. When the police first asked me I said no, quite definitely and in all honesty. I had no recollection of anything of the sort. But in the light of what you say … I still may be mistaken, of course.”

“You are quite certain that you did not pass through Burghley Wood, Mr Gusset?”

“Oh, quite certain of that. Everyone calls me Gus, by the way. Even the lads, I’m ashamed to confess. I try not to keep up the dignity too much. It’s a barrier in my work.”

“When did you first hear what had happened?”

“To Gregory, you mean? Oh, next morning. I did not even know that he was missing that night.”

Mr Gusset came back to the Place to tea, but soon took his departure. When he had gone Marylin turned to Carolus.

“You don’t actually suspect Gus, do you?”

“I honestly haven’t got anything that you could call a suspicion of anyone yet.”

“Where do you go from here?”

“After Socker, you mean? Oh, I must see Lance Willick. I haven’t met him yet, and he’s really the most important person in the case.”

“In what way?”

“He’s the heir. Also, he’s the only man in the world, apparently, who admits to being a friend of Larkin’s. Moreover he can tell me a lot of things I don’t know about Larkin.”

“It’s a pity you missed him.”

“If Packinlay had told me yesterday that he was here I would have come up. It might have saved me a trip to Tangier.”

“Didn’t Gilbert tell you? He knew, because they met. How very odd!”

“There are a number of things about this case, small things most of them, which are even more odd. I’m utterly at sea, but I’m not worried by that. I like odd things.”

10

WHEN THEY were driving back to the hotel Carolus told Rupert that after he had seen Socker he would have finished here.

“I suppose you’re going to pull that corny line about not knowing the murderer till the last minute.”

“I honestly don’t know. Who do you think?”

“I’m the stooge. I’m not supposed to have theories.”

“But you’ve got one?”

“Yes. I think Larkin was employed by Lance Willick to do it.”

“Plausible. What have you to support it?”

“Nothing in the line of fingerprints and whatnot. But it does seem likely. Here’s this Lance living in Tangier and friendly with the frightful man that Larkin appears to be. Larkin knows Gregory’s habits …”

“How? To our knowledge he had never been here.”

“Well, Lance knows them and can tell Larkin. Larkin’s a fool in some ways and Lance persuades him that if he goes over and gets away before he’s arrested he can’t be extradited from Tangier. Actually I believe extradition is a bit tricky. Larkin swallows this and agrees to do it for half the lolly. He flies over, shoots Gregory and flies back—all in order. Lance has explained that he can’t do it because he couldn’t collect if he couldn’t go to England. When Larkin gets back to Tangier he finds that he can and will be extradited, so he decides to go home and try to fight it out. After all, nobody saw him do it. There’s only circumstantial evidence against him. But on the way his nerve fails and he decides to commit suicide. Voilà. All weighed and paid. How do you like it?”

“There is nothing impossible about it, but it leaves too many factors unaccounted for.”

“I thought you’d say something like that.”

“Also there is nothing really to support it. Not a shred of evidence. It’s a feasible theory. It could even turn out to be the truth or very near it. But we can’t possibly say yet. We haven’t seen Lance Willick.”

“Soon put that right. I’ve always had a faint hankering after the excitements of Tangier.”

“You’ll probably find it’s as quiet and orderly a place as any other.”

“We are going, then?”

“Yes. The ship on which Larkin was travelling, the Saragossa, sails on Tuesday. I’ve been lucky enough to get two passages on her. You’d better cable to your father for permission.”

“He’d think I was nutty. I haven’t asked his permission to do anything since I was ten.”

“Maybe, but you’re not coming with me till you’ve got it. Mr Hollingbourne is staying at St Leonards-on-Sea, I gather. You could …”

“All right. All right. I’ll cable.”

The public bar of the Barton Bridge Hotel had not been given what Mr Habbard called ‘the amenities required by modern motorists’. It had benches and bare wooden seats and distempered walls. Its dart-board was well lit, its shove-ha’penny table well placed and its bare stone floor clean, but there was nothing ornate or antique about it.

The barman was alone when Carolus entered, reading his evening paper, and he looked up without curiosity and poured drinks without comment.

“Has a man called Socker been in?” asked Carolus.

“I don’t know anyone. I only started here today.”

“I see.”

Presently Socker came in, leading by a piece of cord a mongrel with some retriever blood. He sidled up to Carolus, who greeted him by asking what he would have.

“Rum,” he said unexpectedly, then added with a confidential leer, “it keeps your pecker up.”

His drink bought, Socker waited for a question before starting any idle chatter.

“Do you know Lily Gunn?” asked Carolus.

Socker grinned.

“Know her? Ay. She’s a kissy, cuddly little piece, if ever there was one. She’s a buxtom young party, like that. She don’t mind a walk in the woods on a nice summer evening. She’s not one of them to go crying to anyone nor yet to ask for this or that. She don’t scratch or bite nor yet giggle and simper. She’s as pretty as a picture, and she’s not afraid of the dark. She’s …”

“I see you know her intimately. Have you seen her during the last month or so?”

“Seen her? Of course I’ve seen her. I’ve seen most of her, if the truth were known. Seen her and dandled her and coddled her….”

“You must have an interesting love-life,” put in Rupert Priggley.

“I’ve seen her, all right. Chucked her and wheedled her….”

“Have you talked to her much?”

“Talked? Not much talking with her. There’s cooing and wooing and …”

“Did you ever talk to her about the late Mr Willick?”

Socker looked at Carolus as though he was insane.

“Now what on earth do you think would make me waste my time talking about Mr Willick with a nuzzly, nestly little duck like that? If I talked to her at all it was all lollipops and pretty one, not serious about other people or anything of the sort. She’s not a moppet to go sermonizing to, but a flimsy, flirty little pet to take in the meadows.”

“What I want to know, Socker, is something important. Will you please think back and give me a careful answer? Did Lily Gunn ever ask you anything about Mr Willick? And did you ever tell her or anyone else about his afternoon walk?”

“Now you’re coming round to it and I can make sense of what you say. Lily Gunn never asked me anything except whether her dress was spoilt. And I never told anyone that Mr Willick was having a game with that stuck-up piece at the Old Lodge….”

“What?” Carolus was genuinely shocked.

“What?” mimicked Socker. “What else? He went there every afternoon, and sometimes Packinlay was in and sometimes Packinlay was out. But there was always a nice big chair and that mopy, dopy one who never speaks a word but didn’t need to when he was calling on her.”

Socker was leering revoltingly.

“Have you any reason for saying such a thing?”

“Isn’t it reason enough that he went there every afternoon and she with her big buxom shape and her husband out so that they could romp and rumple to their hearts’ content?”

“I see. It’s just a guess of yours.”

“You’d guess it, too, if you know as much of the girls round here as I do. Since I was twelve I’ve been watching them, and when I could …”

“Yes, yes. I’m sure you’re very experienced. The point is, did you tell anyone what you thought about Mr Willick and Mrs Packinlay? After all, you told me readily enough.”

“Ay, but he’s dead, the poor old beggar, and he’ll never be able to smack and dally her again. While he was having his spooning I’d never have said anything about it.”

“Did you see Mr Willick on the day he was murdered?”

“No. I was over at Hill Wood, on the other side of the estate.”

“Alone?”

A crafty look came into Socker’s face.

“Why shouldn’t I have been alone? I can’t always have flesh and foolery to play with.”

“But were you?”

“Most of the time.”

“Who was with you?”

“Ah, you’re the devil with your questions,” said Socker, looking, however, as though he thoroughly enjoyed them. “There’s a fine old piece of a schoolmistress who likes a walk through Hill Wood and knows when I’m coming over there. She’s as tall as a man and strong as a horse, but she has a way with her and a nice big upper part, and she doesn’t fidget and fuss with a man, but knows what he likes….”

“So you met this lady. At what time?”

“It wasn’t getting dark nor yet wasn’t it sunlight. Round about five, I daresay. I keep no watch.”

“What were you doing till then?”

“I was busy with my work.”

“Did you hear any shots that afternoon?”

“No. But it’s a long way from Burghley Wood to where I was. I wouldn’t hear any shots from there. If I had, I’d have gone over pretty quick.”

“You know Lily Gunn’s mother?”

“Known her for years. She was a saucy piece in her day. You didn’t have to persuade her long to come and see the primroses. She liked a joke all right and a lot more besides when I was a boy and she a young woman.”

“Have you seen her lately?”

“Lately? She’s past it years ago. She’s got to the stumping round and wheezing stage.”

“I meant, to talk to,” said Carolus with some exasperation.

“Oh, to talk to. Yes, I saw her in here the other night. First time for a long time. I told her she was putting on weight. Getting a big thing I couldn’t make my arms meet round, I said.”

“Once again, Socker, this is important. Did you mention Mr Willick to Mrs Gunn?”

“No, I was laughing at her for a dumpling, not talking about anyone.”

“You never saw the man who is believed to have murdered Mr Willick? The man who stayed here?”

“No. I never saw him.”

“That night Mrs Sweeny sent you to look for Mr Willick. You knew the way he usually went. Did you follow it? Or were you dandling and coddling, as you call it?”

“I followed it as best I could and I used the torch Mrs Sweeny had given me, but I saw nothing at all. Of course I did what I was told to do. I can’t always be at hugging and pulling, can I, and I hadn’t seen anyone that evening, though I thought I was meeting a …”

“Yet on the following morning you found Mr Willick’s body at once?”

“That was different because it had been pulled out of the path by the legs and hidden in the undergrowth. I found it because I saw where it had been pulled, but it was hidden well enough not to be seen at night.”

“What about your dog?”

“I hadn’t got a dog that day. Some wicked bastard had poisoned my old dog Randy a few days before and without naming names I believe it was someone up at the Place who didn’t like his bark. Well, a dog has to bark, hasn’t it? My cottage isn’t as near as all that, anyway. This one, I call Roger, was only given me yesterday.”

“What did you do when you found the body?”

“Didn’t touch it. Went over to Packinlays at once and told him. He got on the telephone to the police.”

“Thank you, Socker. Another rum? Good.”

Next day Carolus drove towards London at some speed and discouraged any conversation from Rupert. He was now deeply interested in the case and wanted to consider the various facts he had learnt in Barton Abbess and decide what inferences could safely be drawn from them.

It did not seem strange to him that none of the people concerned had an alibi. People rarely do have alibis, in fact. He had made the experiment himself of pinpointing a moment on a certain date, then seeing what sort of alibi he could provide for himself, and the result had nearly always been negative.

All of them—Marylin, the Packinlays, Socker, Gusset, the Hoppys and Ridge—had been doing perfectly everyday things. There was nothing odd in any of their behaviour that afternoon as they described it now. But so far as they could prove to the contrary any one could have been at the scene of the crime at the time when it happened. Even Ridge could have obtained transport of some sort and been up to Burghley Wood and back again while the garage was fitting the spare part.

So far as he had yet discovered, there could be only one motive for the murder, whoever had committed it—money. Even Larkin, to the best of Carolus’s present knowledge, had no other motive. It was pretty flimsy as a motive for Gusset or Hoppy, it was understandable for several whose benefits were larger, it was out of the question as a motive for Marylin.

They came to the outer suburbs of London very quickly as it seemed and Carolus stopped at a phone-box.

“I want to see Mrs Roper if she’s still in London,” he explained to Rupert.

She was, but intended to leave in the morning.

“Better drive straight here. The Badmington.”

Carolus had once already faced the rather overpowering atmosphere of this ladies’ club.

“Wouldn’t you care to dine with me somewhere?” he pleaded.

“D’lighted. Meet at the Badmington first. See you.”

The receiver was down. He dropped Rupert to send his cable, arranging to pick him up later, then drove to the stern portals of the Badmington Club, which were guarded by what appeared to be a female commissionaire. He asked for Mrs Roper and was told she would be down in a moment.

“You haven’t changed in the least,” he said when the former Bugs Fitchley, her hands in the pockets of a tweed costume, towered over him.

She shook her head.

“Keep the weight down,” she said. “Shadow-boxing half an hour a day.”

She strode with him to the bar.

“Beer?” she said.

“Thank you.”

“Two pints,” she told the barmaid.

“How long have you been married?” asked Carolus.

“A year. Must meet Phil. He’s a pet.”

It really sounded as if she meant a domestic one.

“I should like to.”

“Now—business,” said Mrs Roper as though this frivolous and expansive conversation had gone on too long. “Larkin was murdered.”

“Are you sure?”

“Certain.”

“What makes you certain?”

“Saw something that night. Said nothing about it, but saw something.”

“When?”

“When this shout came. ‘Man overboard’. Wasn’t in my cabin as I said.”

“Where were you?”

“In the galley. With Gunner the steward. Oh, nothing like that. Adore my Phil. No, scoffing a couple of sandwiches. Night starvation. Glass of Guinness. Gunner went to his cabin to fetch some snaps he wanted to show me. While he was gone I heard this awful sort of scream—‘Man overboard!’ ”

“Go on,” said Carolus, but Mrs Roper paused for a draught of beer.

“Dashed out,” she continued at last, “to the bit of deck on the starboard side. Saw someone disappear into the entrance to the saloon.”

“But who?”

“Couldn’t see. Just a tail end disappearing. Leg, I think. But someone definitely.”

“So you think this person, whoever it was, had thrown Larkin overboard?”

“What else?”

“It doesn’t make sense. Larkin was a big man. Besides, why should the other shout ‘Man overboard’ when he did it?”

“Don’t ask me. Your job.”

“And if you could hear that shout, why didn’t you hear one from Larkin? He surely didn’t allow himself to be thrown overboard without shouting for help?”

“Don’t know. Not my problem.”

“Moreover, why didn’t you report it?”

“Might have involved Gunner. Besides, thought of you.”

“Very kind of you, Mrs Roper. Your theory of murder doesn’t quite accord with the facts, though. Who do you think would murder this man?”

“Almost anyone on the ship. The Captain. Appleyard. Kutz. Gunner. Butt. Ferry. Prosper.”

“Or you?”

“Been glad to. Dreadful cad.”

“I’ve been down to Barton Abbess,” said Carolus. “Looking into the murder he was supposed to have committed.”

“Didn’t he?”

“I don’t know. I can’t see wood for trees in this case. I’m going out to Tangier on Tuesday, travelling on the Saragossa. Perhaps that’ll teach me something.”

Mrs Roper grew very thoughtful.

“On the Saragossa? Be a bit careful, eh? Something I don’t like about that ship. Maybe someone who won’t like your nosing.”

“Don’t worry. The passengers will be different people from those of your trip, of course.”

“Wasn’t thinking of passengers. Keep off the deck at night.”

“Really, Bugs.”

“Dropped that name. Never do. Curate’s wife. But be serious. It wasn’t just Larkin. He was bad enough. Something else.”

“All right. Of course what really would clarify matters would be some link between the two deaths. Larkin’s that, but if, as you believe, Larkin was murdered, he ceases to be a link. Unless there was anyone else on board who had some connection with the Willick case.”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“I always distrust coincidence. How can I believe that Gregory Willick was murdered, then the man suspected of his murder was murdered, and there was no connection between the two? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Glad I haven’t got to work it out. Back to Leeds tomorrow.”

For a moment Carolus almost envied her.

11

AT THE end of his first evening on the Saragossa Carolus was inclined to agree with Mrs Roper—there was something disturbing and unlikeable about the ship. The new passengers seemed a dull lot who would have transferred to another ship if it had been possible when they read about the events of the last voyage. As one man put it at dinner—“I demanded of the company that they should provide other accommodation, but they hadn’t another ship for two months.”

“It’s not very nice, is it?” said a lady passenger. “Knowing what has happened. I don’t feel comfortable at all.”

It was not the unease among his fellow-passengers which vaguely disturbed Carolus, it was something in the atmosphere, a sort of strain or anxiety, as though everyone were expecting a shock.

Next morning at breakfast the lady passenger who did not think it very nice said she was sure she had seen a stranger pacing the deck last night. Rupert Priggley did not help matters by saying, “Obviously the ghost of Larkin.”

A natural explanation was found when a passenger who had been suffering from sea-sickness entered the saloon for the first time and the lady recognized him as last night’s stranger, but the little incident added to the general disquiet.

Appleyard came to Carolus during the morning and said, “The Captain would like you to come and have a drink with him, Mr Deene. Shall we go up now?”

They found Bidlake looking serious.

“It’s going to take two or three trips to get over this damned thing,” he said. “The passengers can talk about nothing else.”

“I’m afraid people do talk in a case of this sort,” said Carolus.

“It’s the mystery that makes them. If it had all been clear-cut and straightforward it would have been forgotten long ago. But the wretched man had to go and type his suicide note, which gives no proof at all. Then he was suspected of the other murder and the Coroner brought in a verdict of ‘murder against person or persons unknown’ there. It doesn’t look as though it will ever be straightened out for good.”

“Mr Deene’s doing his best, sir,” Appleyard pointed out.

“Yes. So I hear. Well, anything we can tell you. Let’s see, who has the cabin Larkin occupied, Appleyard?”

“Mr Deene, of course. I arranged it specially. For one thing, the other passengers might not have liked it. For another, I thought it might interest him.”

“It does,” said Carolus. “Now I wonder whether you would mind running over the events of the night when Larkin disappeared, exactly as they happened.”

Appleyard volunteered to do so. It took nearly a quarter of an hour and a second round of drinks before he had finished.

“Thanks,” said Carolus. “That’s clear enough. I suppose we have to admit of three possibilities, though one is so far-fetched that it can almost be ruled out. It could have been suicide. It could have been murder. It could have been an accident.”

“An accident? What about the suicide note?”

“I said it was far-fetched. But suppose someone who saw him fall accidentally wanted it to appear that he had committed suicide, he could have typed the note afterwards. There was time for him to do so. But let’s not consider that because it’s carrying open-mindedness to the point of absurdity. Let us suppose it was murder. So far as I can see from what you have told me, only three of the people on board are really exempt from all suspicion of throwing Larkin overboard—you, Captain, you, Mr Appleyard, and the apprentice Dickie Bryce. Captain Bidlake was in his cabin, because you at once went to the speaking-tube and spoke to him, you and Bryce were on the bridge. That excludes the three of you from having bundled him into the sea, but it doesn’t absolutely prove that none of you killed him. He could have been a corpse already, merely got rid of by an accomplice.”

“True, I suppose,” said Appleyard, “though I think you stretch things a bit.”

“Now what about the ship’s company? You didn’t take anyone on in Tangier, did you?”

“Certainly not. There isn’t a man who has been with us for less than six trips, and most of them much more.”

“Let’s count them out, then, for lack of any possible motive. It was only if anyone had been signed on after it was known that Larkin was travelling. So for all practical purposes our suspects are these: the Second Officer Peter Kutz, the Steward Gunner and the passengers Gerard Prosper, Gerald Butt, Ronald Ferry and Kate Roper.”

“If it was murder,” said Captain Bidlake discontentedly. “I can’t see why you can’t be satisfied with suicide.”

“I probably shall be in the end, but let’s run over the loose ends of possibility. There is, of course, one person who could solve the thing at once, who knows exactly what happened.”

Bidlake and Appleyard both turned to him with interest.

“I mean, whoever it was who shouted ‘Man overboard’. If we could discover his or her identity we should be home. Unfortunately we don’t even know if it was a man or a woman.”

“I heard it,” said Appleyard. “I’ve always believed it was a woman. Mrs Roper, in other words.”

“Yet young Bryce thought it wasn’t. ‘Like a man screaming,’ he said. I say, Deene, you don’t think it could possibly have been the fellow himself in a panic as he fell?” Bidlake asked.

“Hardly. He wouldn’t shout those words at all.”

“No. I suppose not. It’s strange,” Appleyard went on, “but I disliked and distrusted this man Larkin from the first moment I saw him, long before I knew he was suspected of murder. Small hands and small feet. Disproportionately so. My father always used to say—never trust a man with small feet.”

“Did anyone come to see him off in Tangier?” asked Carolus.

“No. But a man came to meet him in London, though. Apart from the police, I mean. This was a man we knew, Lance Willick, the murdered man’s nephew. He travelled with us about a year ago and came on board in London to find Larkin. Of course he soon heard what had happened.”

“That’s interesting. He really was a friend of Larkin’s, then?”

“Must have been at one time. I asked him if he suspected Larkin of his uncle’s murder and he said that at first he hadn’t, but it began to look like it.”

“What sort of man?”

“Very pleasant and unassuming. The kind of passenger we like.”

“I’m going to meet him in Tangier. I have very strong hopes that when I’ve seen him I can clear this up. There’s so much he can tell me.”

“Good. One last drink before lunch? I think we might. I’m making them small. Is there anything else we can tell you, Mr Deene?”

“Yes. In Larkin’s conversation was there anything about his past? Nobody seems to know anything of him at Barton Abbess.”

“Practically nothing. He was too busy being offensive to talk about much else. I only remember two things he said about himself. He had belonged to the British Fascists before the war and also he had been many years in Calcutta.”

“Sure it was Calcutta?”

“Quite sure.”

“Gregory Willick came from there.”

“Then it all fits in.”

“I wish it did. Where was he during the war?”

“Ah, not a word about that. There was a complete blank between Fascist meetings in 1939 and his arrival in Tangier five years ago. So far as his conversation went, I mean.”

“Tell me,” said Carolus, “why does the Third Officer never come into this? I haven’t heard him mentioned. Yet there must be a Third Officer.”

The Captain and Appleyard both smiled.

“There is,” said Bidlake. “Mr Booth. He’s a first-rate seaman and a really good chap, but a bit of a rough diamond. He begged me, after his first trip, to excuse him from having his meals in the saloon, and I agreed because he was quite wretched there. You can meet him if you like, but he’s no more in the picture than one of the crew. I don’t think he ever met Larkin.”

“I think perhaps I’ll go and have a chat with him sometime, but tell me a little about Kutz.”

“No one can do that. No one really knows much about him. I know he’s practically kept going by his hatred of Germans and Russians. He wants to take French citizenship. He appears to be wildly Francophil. But these things don’t tell you much about the man himself. You’ll have to talk to him and see what impression you get.”

“I’m relieved to see,” said Appleyard, “that we seem to have a pretty uninteresting lot of passengers on board now. No potential murderers this time. They all look rather alike.”

“Yes,” said Carolus, “except that tall chap who didn’t appear the first day. Maltby is his name?”

“Yes. I understand he’s going out to Tangier to start a business.”

“Oh. I notice he’s armed,” Carolus said. “What? On board? You mean he carries some arm about with him?”

“Yes. A small revolver. Silly habit.”

“There’s something rather odd about him altogether. Gunner said he was on deck last night till the small hours. Said he couldn’t sleep.”

Carolus smiled.

“I shouldn’t worry,” he said. “You’re bound to ‘see things’ after your experience last trip. He’s probably quite an ordinary man.”

They went down to lunch, and Carolus discovered that Rupert Priggley had already won nearly two pounds at Canasta. The conversation grew a little more animated than yesterday, for the fine weather and smooth sea seemed to be bringing the passengers round to the normal cheerfulness of a sea voyage and they were getting to know one another. The man called Maltby remained rather aloof, but the lady who didn’t think it very nice seemed in much better spirits in spite of her losses at Canasta.

That evening after dinner Carolus had a chance of talking to the apprentice Dickie Bryce. He realized that it would be difficult to get the truth because by now the boy scarcely knew what he did see, but going about it very quietly and calmly he tried to do what Captain Bidlake and the police had failed to do.

“You see, Dickie,” he explained, “you seem to have the impression that the shout came before the man reached the water.”

“Yes.”

“In that case you must have seen him strike the water, or how would you come to think that the shout came first?”

“I don’t think I saw him strike the water. But I see what you mean. I must have thought I did. It’s so difficult, Mr Deene. It was dark. I heard a shout, looked down and for one second in a rough sea saw a man’s shape in the water.”

“Do you remember during that second whether he was face upwards or downwards?”

“Neither, really. I think I saw his boots.”

“His boots? You mean it was as though he had dived and was just going down head first?”

“I think so. I can’t be sure. But boots are there somewhere. He was gone in a second. You can imagine in a rough sea!”

“You had no idea who it was, of course?”

“Not till everyone knew. I’m sure I saw no face.”

“Did you have any private ideas about who it might be?”

Dickie Bryce looked uncomfortable.

“Just between you and me,” said Carolus.

“Well, I did think perhaps it might be Mr Kutz.”

“Why?”

“He’s such a funny chap. You never know with him. He never talks to anyone. You know he was in a concentration camp, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I mean, after that … well, I did just wonder if it was him.”

This gave Carolus an idea and he decided to seize his first chance of conversation with Kutz—not of course to reveal what Bryce had suggested, but because he felt that in spite of all the Second Mate’s reserve something might yet be learned from him.

“Did you know Larkin by sight?” he asked Bryce now.

“Oh yes, we get to know all the passengers by sight. Besides …”

Dickie Bryce looked very uncomfortable.

“Well?”

“I got into rather a row with the Skipper over this passenger.”

“How?”

“He asked me into his cabin for a drink.”

“But he didn’t drink. He was a strict teetotaller.”

“Not that night. He was well away. We’re not supposed to go in the passengers’ cabins. I don’t know why I did. I didn’t like the fellow.”

“What happened about it?”

Bryce hesitated.

“Nothing,” he said at last. “Somebody must have told the Skipper, because he had me up on the bridge next day and gave me hell.”

“Thanks for all you’ve told me. It may be more helpful than you think.”

Carolus was restless that evening, almost regretting that he had chosen this slow way to reach Tangier. He still believed that Lance Willick was at the core of the whole thing and until he saw him he was unlikely to do anything but flounder. He had learnt so little of any value on the Saragossa and seemed unlikely to learn more.

He went to his cabin and tried to sleep, but found it impossible. He had never been over-self-confident, and tonight he felt unsure of himself. Here he was after all this questioning of people, all this careful thought and observation, without knowing who had killed Gregory Willick or whether Larkin’s death had been suicide or murder. Still less had he any idea in the latter case who could have been guilty.

The solution here, he believed, would not come piece by piece, slowly making sense of little things, but in one moment of revelation. It was one of those cases where there was some secret key to the whole thing. Perhaps when he talked to Lance Willick he would find it in his hands.

He could not sleep and decided to dress and go out on deck. The lights in the saloon were out now and the little deck-space was dim and breezy. He leant over the rail and looked down at the gently swaying surface of the water.

Presently he was aware that someone was on the deck behind him. He heard nothing and saw no shadow, but felt a presence there. Suddenly there came into his mind Mrs Roper’s words—‘Be a bit careful. Keep off the deck at night.’

Carolus stood quite still, his hands gripping the rail. It was really as though his heightened senses gave him eyes in the back of his head, for he felt the presence behind him approach and loom over him. Then in his ear, “This is just where it must have happened,” said a deep voice.

If the voice’s owner expected Carolus to be startled, he must have been disappointed. Carolus did not even turn to see who had spoken, for he knew it was the tall passenger Maltby.

“Yes, just about here,” he replied cheerfully and continued to gaze down into the water.

“Formed any theory about it?” asked Maltby in his bass voice.

“Not really. Have you?”

“Theory? No. I don’t deal in theories.”

“What do you deal in, Mr Maltby?”

“Whatever I think is wanted. It depends on what a place needs.”

“You move very silently.”

“Yes.”

“One would think you had rubber soles.”

“I have.”

There was a long silence.

“Did you know Larkin?” asked Carolus.

“No. I knew no one in either case.”

“Will you meet Lance Willick while you’re in Tangier?”

“Perhaps, if it is necessary for business reasons.”

“Why, I wonder, are you not more frank about your identity, Mr Maltby? Why all this secrecy? You might just as well have told Captain Bidlake what was your interest in the case.”

“I don’t know why you should assume I have one. I’m going to start a business in Tangier. Probably buy a hotel.”

“I wish you every good fortune. Do you know the place well?”

“Never been there in my life.”

“Then it must be newspaper accounts of it which make you think you need to be armed. You really shouldn’t take them too seriously. They’re running Tangier now as a city of glittering vice. It used to be Buenos Aires. Both are perfectly respectable ports where many pleasant people live quite ordinary lives.”

“What makes you say I’m armed?”

“Oh don’t be naïve, Mr Maltby. I’m not wholly unobservant.”

“But aren’t you, don’t you think, a little incautious? Entering something in which you may not be at all welcome? In a place where few questions are asked?”

“Nicely put. Don’t concern yourself for me, Mr Maltby. I appreciate your consideration, but I assure you that I can look after myself quite well enough for this little matter.”

“Things are not always what they seem.”

“But a pistol is always a pistol and rubber soles remain rubber soles. Good night.”

12

NEXT MORNING Carolus waited until the steward was cleaning his cabin, then went in.

“Look, Gunner, I’m making a private investigation of the deaths of Gregory Willick and Larkin. Mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“What’s the Captain say, Mr Deene? See, we were told not to spout about it when we were home.”

“Why not go and ask the Captain or Mr Appleyard if it’s all right for you to tell me what you know?”

“If you don’t mind, Mr Deene.”

He was back in a few minutes with a grin.

“Mr Appleyard says I can tell you anything except what happened to him ashore in Cadiz one night. What can I tell you?”

“First of all about Mrs Roper. She’s an old friend of mine and I’ve seen her in London.”

“She’s a dam’ good sort,” said Gunner. “She wouldn’t get anyone into trouble. See, on the night when this Larkin went overboard she was knocking back sandwiches and Guinness with me in the galley. She often used to feel peckish late at night—well, she’s a big woman. I was telling her about my sister’s kids, who are the same age as mine.”

Gunner dived into his pocket and with great swiftness produced two of a huge packet of snapshots.

“See, these are mine, here. That’s the little one; she’s five now and the boy’s eight. Little devil, he is. Ah, here’s my sister’s two; both girls they are. Two years difference between them, but you wouldn’t think so, would you? They look like twins. Well, I hadn’t got that one on me that night and I just popped along to my cabin to get it.”

“Yes. Mrs Roper told me that.”

“I share a cabin with the cook and he was in his bunk when I got in. Just as I was looking through some snaps and that to find this one we both heard that awful bloody scream of ‘Man overboard’. ‘Christ!’ said the cook, ‘what’s that?’ ‘Man overboard,’ I said, and went back through the galley to the deck.”

“Where was Mrs Roper?”

“She was on deck already.”

“So it would have been possible, mind you I only mean possible, for it to have been Mrs Roper who shouted ‘Man overboard’? So far as you know, that is?”

“I suppose so. But it wasn’t like her. She talked almost like a man. She was all right, was Mrs Roper. She gave me an embroidered table-cloth that she’d bought in Spain. Yes, gave it to me for the wife. The wife was ever so pleased. Well, she’s always on about my bringing her nothing back. Did I show you her picture? See, this is her with the bunch of flowers. That’s the youngest with her, only it hasn’t come out so well as the other one.”

Carolus examined the snapshot and murmured appreciatively. Then he asked if Gunner had any reason to think that Larkin drank.

“Funny you should ask that,” said Gunner. “He always said he was a strict teetotaller and nearly had a fight with me about it on the last night. But I know he had liquor in his suit-cases. One night he was well away—could hardly get to his cabin. I was watching him when young Bryce comes along, who’s a decent kid, and this Larkin asks him to have a drink with him. I see them go into Larkin’s cabin.”

“So?”

“I didn’t know what to do. I know the apprentices aren’t allowed in the passengers’ cabins; still, it’s no business of mine to get anyone into trouble. Only, see, I’ve got a young brother just about Dick Bryce’s age and I think I wouldn’t like it to be him, drinking whisky at his age with a type like that. See, this is my young brother—” The pack was out again and Carolus was staring at a snapshot. “That’s his motor-bike, only he’s changed it now for a new one. This is taken outside my place about a year ago.”

“Good photo,” said Carolus.

“I didn’t know what to do. In the end I thought I’d go and find the First Mate because you can talk to him. It took me some time to find him but when I did he understood quick enough. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘it shan’t be a black mark against him. I’ll just get the Captain to tear a strip off him in the morning.’ Then he went off to Larkin’s cabin, which was as usual locked.”

“You were with him?”

“I was there, yes. He knocked and in a minute or two Larkin opened. But when Appleyard got in Larkin was alone.”

“Bryce had gone?”

“Must have. While I was gone for Appleyard.”

“Unless … could he have hidden in here?”

They both looked round the cabin carefully. The lockers were too small. There seemed nowhere in which even a boy could have been concealed.

“There’s just one place, now I come to think of it,” said Gunner.

He stooped to the bunk, undid a catch and partly lifted the whole bunk as if it were a coffin lid.

“See, there’s a locker under there, big enough to take him. Young Bryce would have known, and may have jumped into it when he heard Appleyard knock.”

Carolus looked at the locker dubiously. “Think he could get in there?”

“Easy. He’s slim. It wouldn’t take a big man, but him or me it would.”

“Yes,” said Carolus. “But, as you say, he may have gone.”

“I’ve never liked to ask him because he’d know who’d split to Appleyard.”

“I don’t suppose it matters,” Carolus said and began to question the steward on other lines.

“You did Larkin’s cabin every day?”

“Yes. Same as I do it now.”

“Did he have much luggage?”

“Two suit-cases. Always locked. But I don’t know why. The police opened them here to make an inventory, and all there was in them was clothes and that.”

“I gather he wore old-fashioned clothes?”

“You’re telling me. He had two or three suits all the same and plenty of shirts and collars. But I noticed one thing that was unusual. He had no boots or shoes except the ones he wore. That is, there were never any about the cabin and none in the suit-cases when they were opened.”

“Interesting,” said Carolus. “No spare shoes. Have you ever had another passenger like that?”

“Only one who was being sent home by the Consul and had nothing at all but a pair of slacks and a shirt. We all had to give him stuff to go ashore with. But Larkin was different. He seemed to have plenty of money.”

“Did the police notice that there were no spare shoes?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t hear them say anything. I was rushing about while they were here, as you can imagine. Getting the passengers off and that. I only know the fingerprint experts had a hard time. Blinding and swearing, they were. Trying all over the place. I don’t know whether they ever did find any decent prints.”

“I see. Didn’t he leave any personal possessions behind? In most cases of suicide by drowning, people have taken off anything of value.”

“This one didn’t. He wore rings and a tie-pin and a watch-and-chain. There was no sign of them anywhere after that night.”

Carolus went out on deck, greeted his fellow-passengers as cheerfully as possible and called Rupert Priggley aside.

“If you start Crown and Anchor or Find the Lady I’ll throw you into the sea.”

“You talk like Dean Farrar, sometimes. We’re going to play Canasta, that’s all.”

“Keep the stakes down, then, you odious boy.”

“Must give them their own back,” said Rupert Priggley.

It was not until two days later that Carolus got a chance of talking to Kutz, and even then the interview began by being a most unsatisfying one. Mr Kutz had a faculty of silence, as Larkin had found to his cost. At the best of times he answered in short unwilling phrases and seemed to be thinking of distant things.

They had the saloon to themselves for an hour after lunch one day. The other passengers were dozing on deck.

“You know why I’m on this ship, I take it?” said Carolus.

Kutz nodded gravely.

“I’m determined to get this thing cleared up. It will surely be better for everyone on board if I can.”

“Why?”

“Surely, while it’s unsolved, there’s always a certain amount of embarrassment.”

Kutz said nothing, indicating that the embarrassment if any was not for him.

“Do you know whether it was suicide or murder, Mr Kutz?”

“I do not care. He is dead.”

“That’s all that matters?”

“Yes.”

“You hated him?”

Kutz smiled. He had not a friendly smile.

“I did not hate him. I am beyond hatred.”

“You mean?”

“I have no more hatred for anyone. I have spent it all.”

“But you wished Larkin dead?”

“Oh yes. To wish dead and to hate are different.”

“Mr Kutz, is there anything you can tell me that will help me to solve this problem?”

Kutz smoked half-way through a cigarette without answering. Instinct told Carolus to await the outcome. At last it came.

“Yes,” said Kutz. Then added, “I don’t know if it will help you. There is something I can tell you.”

Still Carolus waited.

“On the night of his outburst in the saloon he came to my cabin.”

“Which outburst? There were so many.”

“When he brought up the matter of the murder of Willick.”

“Oh yes. I’ve heard about that.”

“He knocked at my door and without waiting for permission walked in and shut the door behind him. I did not move. He leaned on the bunk and said, ‘I must talk to someone on this ship.’ I did not answer. I looked up at him and put down my book. I simply waited.

“ ‘They all think I did it,’ he said. ‘Do you?’ I nodded. I knew this man. I had met his kind before. ‘Well, you’re damned right,’ he said. ‘I did. I shot him. As near as I am to you.’ He expected me to be surprised that he should confess. I was not. I am not easily surprised by human behaviour.

“He said nothing more for some minutes. Then he said, ‘Now I shall do for myself. I can’t be bothered to deny it. I shall do for myself before we reach port.’ Then I spoke. ‘Good,’ I said and picked up my book again. He waited a minute or two, not, I think, in anger at what I had said. He had expected that. Afterwards he walked out.”

“That’s most interesting,” said Carolus. “For at last it makes me certain of one or two things.” He looked fixedly at Kutz. “I know now that Larkin did not commit suicide.”

Carolus became aware of someone tall standing just outside the door of the saloon. He continued to look at Kutz.

“You think he is still alive?” Kutz asked.

“No. He is certainly not still alive.”

“You mean, it was murder?”

“Does one use the word ‘murder’ for creatures like that? He is dead.”

“Do you think I killed him, Mr Deene?”

Carolus turned towards the doorway.

“Do come and join us, Mr Maltby,” he said. ‘We’re having a most enlightening discussion.”

Kutz, whose back was to the door, wheeled round. When Maltby came into the room Kutz rose and walked out.

“Friendly type,” commented Maltby. “Observant?”

“Very.”

“Communicative?”

“Quite sufficiently.”

“Ah well. We’re more than half-way there now. Delightful trip, isn’t it?”

Perceiving that this sort of parry and thrust could go on too long, Carolus said, “Don’t you think we’re being rather silly? I know you’re CID and you know I’m an amateur. Each may have the poorest possible opinion of what the other stands for, but there’s no need for us to spar about like a couple of frightened boxers.”

“None whatever. Especially as we are here for entirely different purposes.”

“I should hardly say ‘entirely’. You may not see the case as I do, but we’re both on this ship and going to Tangier for the same reason, surely.”

“Oh no. I’m not interested in the Willick case. Or the Larkin suicide. As a matter of fact they’ve both been written off for some time now. We’re satisfied that Larkin killed Willick, then committed suicide. We’ve no further interest in the matter.”

“It’s impossible,” said Carolus. “Your people must see that it’s impossible. A man has been murdered in cold blood on an afternoon stroll in the English countryside. You know perfectly well that your solution is not the correct one. You can’t be dropping the thing like that.”

“More important matters,” said Maltby grimly.

“Such as?”

“Thing I’m on now. Sex case. If I can get the little bits of evidence I want in Tangier we can pull off four convictions at least.”

“I congratulate you,” said Carolus.

“Must keep your sense of proportion,” Maltby pointed out. “Can’t get carried away by every murder that comes along.”

“No. How many unsolved cases is it this year?”

“Oh, I daresay. But think of the convictions in other cases. Travelling on out-of-date tickets. Open after hours. Passing betting-slips. Selling liquor without a licence. Indecency. Smutty picture postcards. Unlicensed dogs and wireless sets. Speeding. Drunk and disorderly. Soliciting. Busking. You can’t say we’ve been idle, can you? Must have law and order, you see. An occasional unexplained murder or a successful mail-van robbery gets a great deal of publicity. But it’s soon over. The work we do in defence of morality is in the limelight all the time.”

“But life and property …”

“All very well, but you must have a nice few convictions for sex offences. The Home Office expects it. It does far more to convince everyone of the efficiency of the police force than anything else.”

“I see. I didn’t quite realize, perhaps.”

“Stands to reason. Get someone well known in the dock—an MP, a writer, an actor, a peer—and you’re well away. The Press like it and the public likes it, and you’re dead sure of a conviction. Work for weeks on some murder and what happens? Chummy gets off, ten to one, and you’re criticized for having charged him. Morality before murder, that’s my motto.”

“So you’re really not the least bit concerned with the case I’m investigating?”

“I don’t say I haven’t my share of curiosity,” said Maltby. “Only natural when it’s professional interest. But so far as we’re concerned it’s closed. I’m after something quite different. Man who lived in Brighton four years ago. We’ve already got three witnesses. But there are a lot more. The bird I’m going to see in Tangier can give me the names. It always looks better to have plenty of witnesses.”

“Quite. You wouldn’t be interested even if I could prove to you that Larkin was deliberately thrown overboard? That it was an extremely carefully planned action?”

“Can’t see it would make much difference,” said Maltby. “Or do you think that on what you know now we should have a reasonable chance of getting a conviction?”

“I doubt if you would.”

“Well, that’s the answer, isn’t it? Convictions are what we want, not problem cases and acquittals. Always look bad. Give me a nice small certain conviction rather than a big gamble any time. Where would your promotion come from otherwise? I’d rather have a man fined for a parking offence than acquitted for causing grievous bodily harm.”

“But if he had caused grievous bodily harm?”

“All right if you’ve got your evidence. Might get him three or four years and yourself a stripe. But it’s too much of a gamble. He’s sure to have an alibi. With sex you’re safe.”

“It’s a point of view,” said Carolus. “So you won’t even see Lance Willick while you’re in Tangier?”

“Not unless I bump into him. He’s not what I’m after. All I want is one or two names and addresses in Brighton from a bird who’ll be only too glad to give them.”

Carolus went out on deck and at once heard Rupert Priggley’s voice.

“So when I saw that my father had his eye on this little piece of homework of mine …”

Carolus called him away.

“If you don’t behave yourself you’ll go back on the same ship,” he said.

“What’s wrong with you? Kutz won’t talk, eh?”

“Kutz has talked a great deal.”

“Maltby, then?”

“Maltby has said enough.”

“Then what are you fuming about?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m beginning to get somewhere, I know. At least I’ve eliminated a lot of impossibilities. But the farther I go the more nauseating I find it. It’s a beastly case.”

“We get in on Saturday, anyway. I’m quite keen to see Tangier.”

“Yes. We get in on Saturday. Then the real investigation begins.”

Carolus had only one other interview while he was aboard the Saragossa; that was with the Third Mate, Mr Booth. He found him, as the Captain had said, a ‘rough diamond’. He got on well with him, but saw no reason whatever to connect him with Larkin or the matters he was investigating.

13

AS THE Saragossa approached Tangier. Carolus leaned over the rail and saw the old city, beautiful and brilliant on its hill, and the new buildings that lined the front. That cluster of white minarets and dull red roofs which rose above the mighty walls has been described often enough—it makes the approach to Tangier from the sea one of the most spectacular of all port approaches.

“There is a nice unsolved mystery here in Morocco,” said Carolus. “A historical one, I mean. I should like to have a go at it one day if I ever do a sequel to William Rufus. It happened in 1921.”

Rupert yawned.

“Some dreary assassination, I suppose.”

“Not quite. It was the time when Abd el Krim and his Riffs were raising hell in what was then the Spanish zone. The Spanish General in command at Melilla, Manuel Fernandez Silvestre, asked King Alfonso for permission to lead an operation against the tribesmen. It was a most fearful failure and not only lost Spain men and material but meant her withdrawal from the whole Eastern Zone which she had been slowly occupying.”

“Where’s the mystery?”

“The mystery lay in what happened to Silvestre. He was never seen or heard of again. His end is sometimes described officially as suicide, but there’s no proof of that.”

They were coming alongside the quay and could see a fairly large gathering awaiting them. There were plenty of guides and a number of Europeans.

“I suppose it will take hours to get ashore,” lamented Rupert.

“Probably. But there’s no hurry.”

About half an hour after they had docked Carolus heard someone asking for him and turned to meet a rather young-faced man in his forties who looked cool and well-dressed.

“Mr Deene? My name’s Lance Willick. Marylin Sweeny wired me you were coming out on this ship so I thought I’d come down and meet you.”

“Very kind of you. I was just wondering how we should get ashore through this mob.”

“I’ve got a car. It won’t be hard. I know the Saragossa. I went home on her last year. Same officers, I gather. Comfortable trip?”

“Oh yes. Of its kind.”

“Where do you want to stay? There’s no really first-class hotel here, but quite a lot of fairly good ones.”

“I haven’t booked anywhere.”

“I’ll take you to the El Greco. It’s no worse than the rest. Then I hope you’ll dine with me this evening and I’ll start answering some of your questions.”

He smiled rather disarmingly.

“I have got quite a few for you,” said Carolus. “You seem to be the only friend this man Larkin had.”

“I don’t know about friend. I knew him well enough. I’ll tell you what I can this evening. I hope you won’t be disappointed. It may be less than you anticipated when you decided to come out here. Meanwhile, let’s get through these Customs.”

That evening Rupert decided to go off on his own.

“I shan’t fall into the hands of the Tangier criminals,” he promised Carolus.

“I’m not in the least worried about that. I’m only concerned for them if they fall into your hands. I hate to think what your influence would be on a decent straightforward smuggler or arms-runner. However, I may as well let you loose on the town. Don’t come in later than midnight.”

“Think I’m Cinderella, or something? Have a good time with Lance, and get some dope, for goodness’ sake. This case is beginning to drag.”

Lance Willick talked willingly enough over an excellent dinner. Carolus found him strangely detached and unemotional, a man who seemed to understand a great deal but feel very little. He enjoyed his food and wine, however, and knew something about both.

“Who was Larkin?” Carolus led off with the kind of directness he used to people who obviously meant to help him.

“I had never seen him till five years ago,” said Lance, “but I understand he was brought up in Calcutta. He had travelled quite a bit since then, though. I don’t know in what capacity. He spoke several oriental languages almost fautlessly and excellent German. It was rather odd about Calcutta because as you may know I was born out there myself and except for my years at school was brought up there till my grandfather died in 1931. I was only a year or two younger than Larkin, so I have often wondered why we never met.”

“Did you ever ask him?”

“Once, yes. But he was so full of complexes that questions like that always made him bristle. ‘Why didn’t we meet?’ he said. ‘Because you were the boss’s grandson and I was the bloody office-boy.’ That was so like him.”

“So he was employed by your grandfather. I suppose by your uncle, too?”

“During the short time before the business was sold after my grandfather’s death, I suppose so.”

“What did your uncle say about him? That’s really the point.”

“Not a great deal. About five years ago he wrote to me and said that Larkin was coming out here to stay. I haven’t kept the letter and I don’t remember its precise terms, but the drift was that he was an old friend and that Gregory was under some obligation to him so would I look after him a bit while he was here. He was coming from somewhere on the European mainland, I gathered, not from England. I remember Gregory warning me that I should find him a bit difficult.”

“I don’t quite understand the ‘obligation’,” said Carolus. “If Larkin was only two years older than you he was a youth of twenty when the business was sold. He can’t have worked there more than four or five years.”

“I never asked my uncle about it. Larkin became a bit of a joke to us because I used to tell Gregory of the man’s impossible behaviour and he seemed well aware of his character.”

“I suppose there could be no question of blackmail, could there? Packinlay told me that your uncle used to pay him considerable sums.”

“I can’t think how or why. Both my grandfather and uncle were known to be the soul of honour in business. And I never heard anything discreditable about their private lives.”

“I’m only playing with possibilities. But I understand that he came here about the time your uncle started living with Marylin Sweeny.”

“Yes, but there was nothing secretive about that. They didn’t care who knew they lived together. It was only that her wretched husband wouldn’t divorce her. Besides, if it was blackmail, wasn’t he killing the goose that laid the golden eggs? No. I think it was sheer charity on Gregory’s part, though there may have been some family obligation. We never knew who was Larkin’s father.”

“I was going to ask you about that. Had he no family at all?”

“There was supposed to be a sister in Australia, but I never knew any details and never heard of him receiving a letter from her. He told me his parents were dead and he had no other relatives.”

“So far as the past is concerned we shall never get much farther, then? Short of going out to Calcutta and seeing whether anyone can tell us more.”

“You could do that, of course. I’d be damned interested to know the truth. I’ve made so many guesses. I suppose Larkin could have been a natural son of my grandfather or of my uncle. Even (though I don’t like the thought) of my father. All we can state certainly is that he had some connection with the family in Calcutta and that my uncle sent him a good deal of money while he was here.”

“Where did he live?”

“In the Moorish quarter, the medina. He had a little house of his own—really rather nice, in a way. You shall see it tomorrow. He did all the work of it himself, his own cooking and everything. Incidentally he was a very good cook.”

“Unusual quality in a murderer—or suicide.”

“Yes. I think I was the only person except Larkin himself who got the benefit of his skill. But I used to dine with him quite often, and exceptionally well.”

“Was that his only talent?”

Lance considered.

“He knew something of Mohammedan art,” he said, “as you’ll see tomorrow when you examine his little home. He had a fine collection of ceramics and some quite priceless old Syrian glass.”

“You’re showing me a new Larkin.”

“There was this other side to him, but he allowed no one to see it. Not more than two or three Europeans other than myself were in his house during his five years here.”

“You say Europeans,” said Carolus; “you mean he had Moorish friends?”

“Oh yes. He spoke fluent Arabic. He had several rather mysterious friendships with the people of the country.”

“I see.”

“When he went out it was to the market and back, never to any of the places where the English meet: the post office or one of the English bars. If any European tried to make his acquaintance he was offensive and he was never known to enter any of our houses.”

“Did he go away much?”

“Oh, yes. Frequently. I don’t know where because that was the sort of thing he never discussed. He would just lock up his little house and disappear for months at a time. His money was paid to him at Gibraltar, so he often went there. Some currency nonsense which I never understood. Otherwise he stayed in his little house. That didn’t mean you could see him, though. He would shut himself up for days on end, and if you knocked at his door when he was in one of those moods he wouldn’t even bother to put his head out of the window and tell you to go away. He just wouldn’t answer.”

“Did he drink at all?”

“No. Strict teetotaller.”

“So I understand. Yet there was a curious story on the Saragossa that one night, anyway, he was drunk.”

Lance Willick looked up sharply.

“What?” he said. “They told you that on the Saragossa? I don’t believe it.”

“Very little doubt about it. The steward saw him and he asked one of the apprentices into his cabin for a drink.”

“What an extraordinary story! Was there any sequel?”

“The Chief Mate went down and found him alone. The apprentice had either fled or was hiding.”

“How could he have hidden?”

“There was one place. The locker under the bunk.”

Lance could not get over this story.

“I really am surprised if it’s true,” he said, and returned to it more than once that evening.

“What else do you want to know about Larkin?” he asked. “Though you seem to know more about him than I do.”

“Oh no. It’s just that one curious story. Tell me, did he tell you he was going to England before he went—the time he went down to Barton Abbess, I mean?”

“Oh yes. He made no secret of it. He wanted a few weeks in London. He hadn’t been there since the war, I gathered.”

“That’s all he told you of his plans?”

“ ‘May go down and see old Gregory,’ he said. That’s all.”

“Didn’t he know that he’d been cut out of Gregory Willick’s Will?”

“I don’t think so for a moment. I did not know it myself at the time. In fact he told me he was expecting something really handsome.”

“He went home by air?”

“Yes. He left early on the Monday morning. I don’t know where he stayed—somewhere in London, presumably. On Friday afternoon he booked in at the Barton Bridge Hotel and on Saturday Gregory was murdered. ,He was back here on Sunday.”

“You remember it very clearly.”

“It happened that my birthday fell that week, on the Wednesday. I always give a little dinner-party in this restaurant, so I remember the day. Larkin never came, anyway, but I know he had left two mornings earlier.”

“I see. His return so soon was unexpected, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. But it wasn’t long before I read of my uncle’s murder.”

“You connected it?”

“How could I help it? I don’t say I actually suspected Larkin then, but I thought his sudden return had something to do with it.”

“Did you tackle him?”

“Well, not at once. I was laid up that week. A sort of gastric flu. I went over to Cadiz for the week-end on the day after my party and I must have caught a chill on the boat. It meant I couldn’t go home for the funeral. But as soon as I was better I tackled him. He denied at first that he had been anywhere near Barton Abbess. He had just got fed up in London and decided to come back, he said.”

“That was soon disproved.”

“Not for a few days, actually. The police appear to have been a bit slow this time. But it did come out, of course, that they wanted to interview him and that he had been staying at the local hotel at the time.”

“What did he say to that?”

“He couldn’t deny that he’d been down to Barton Abbess, but he still denied violently that he had had anything to do with the murder. Then he suddenly said, ‘I’ll go home and prove it, what’s more.’ ”

“That surprised you?”

“Not altogether. I still didn’t really think Larkin had done it. I was still pretty weak and if you’ve ever had gastric flu you’ll know that I didn’t much care at that time who had murdered poor old Gregory.”

“Yes. I’ve had it. I know the sensation.”

“Larkin insisted on going home by sea. That is one of the more puzzling points to me. He had flown out and back last time. Why should he suddenly insist on going in a slow cargo-boat? I have wondered whether he was already thinking of suicide. Or giving himself a means to commit it if he wanted. However, there it was. He had to wait five days for the Saragossa and in the meantime I felt much better and decided to go home myself. I got an air passage and left on the evening before he did. So of course I had been in London some days when the Saragossa arrived.”

“You were still on friendly terms with Larkin?”

“As friendly as we had ever been. Ours was never an intimate friendship. We were both residents of Tangier, and both dependants of Gregory’s. That’s all, really.”

“But you still didn’t suspect him strongly enough to feel uncomfortable with him?”

“I was never anything but uncomfortable with Larkin, I’m afraid. But I really couldn’t believe he’d murdered Gregory.”

“What finally convinced you?”

“I’m not sure that I am convinced. But his suicide does make it look like it.”

“The note he left was only typed. It might have been put there by anyone.”

“But surely he must have confided in someone on that ship? A man doesn’t make up his mind to commit suicide without telling someone, I believe.”

“He did, yes. He chose the man who would talk least whatever happened. The Second Mate. A man called Kutz.”

“I remember him. Oh, he told him, did he?”

“Yes. He told him that he had murdered Gregory Willick and was going to kill himself.”

“Then surely that settles it?”

“You’ll think I’m never satisfied, Willick. I admit that would be enough for most people, particularly as I believe Kutz is speaking the truth. But there’s something I don’t like about it. There’s something very odd about the whole thing.”

“In what way ‘odd’?”

“It’s too obvious. In places too idiotically obvious. I feel as though I was being dragged along by the evidence, forced to believe my eyes and ears and reason. All I’ve got against this overpowering case is an instinct and the fact that I’ve noticed one or two inconsistencies.”

“I see what you mean. The police seem to have accepted it, though. They’re not fools.”

“No. There was a CID man on the Saragossa coming out.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes. Chap called Maltby.”

“I wonder what he wanted.”

“Oh, it was a different case. He told me they’ve written this one off.”

“Did you believe him?”

“Oh yes. Why not? It probably suits them.”

“But not you?”

“Not me. I want to get at the truth.”

Willick paused a moment.

“Good!” he said at last. “I hope you do. You said there were one or two little inconsistencies?”

“Nothing much. Larkin carried plenty of clothes but no spare shoes. He took the trouble to leave a suicide note, yet typed it and did not sign it, thus making it almost worthless. He apparently had no friends or relations in the world and was going home specially to murder Gregory, yet he waited five days before going to Barton Abbess. He booked in under a false name, yet left his passport unlocked for anyone to see who he was. There may be others, but those come to mind.”

Carolus felt that Lance Willick was looking at him very fixedly.

“Now you come to put it like that it is strange, isn’t it?”

“One other I’ve just remembered. He was a strict teetotaller, yet one night he not only got drunk but invited an apprentice to drink with him.”

“I think I can explain that,” said Willick. “He antagonized everyone, deliberately if you like, but he was human enough to have sudden fits of loneliness and self-pity. That may have been what happened that night. The poor wretch broke down. He was going home either to fight a case or confess. Who knows? He just couldn’t take it and swallowed some whisky and wanted to talk.”

Carolus shook his head.

“No. It’s not as simple as that. He had no drink from the steward. He must have brought it aboard with him. He kept it locked in one of his suit-cases.”

Lance Willick was staring incredulously at Carolus.

“That’s extraordinary,” he said at last. “Now is there anything else I can tell you?”

Carolus openly referred to some notes.

“Yes,” he said. “I should like to have more accurate details of Larkin’s arrival here. Where did he come from?”

“Paris, I believe, but I forget now why I think so. He never said.”

“Can you remember the actual date?”

“By chance I can. It happened thai that Spring a film was being made here and they wanted every available Englishman for a crowd scene. I’d never done anything of the sort before, but I did about six days’ work with them. I even had to speak two words, which were ‘We protest!’ I remember Larkin’s arrival because it was during those six days, and they were in March.”

“Good. Lucky you can pinpoint it.”

14

“DO YOU suspect Lance?” asked Rupert Priggley next morning.

“He could have done it,” Carolus said. “As far as I know yet he’s got no absolute alibi and more motive than anyone. He left here on the Thursday morning before the murder, he says, for Cadiz. He could, so far as we know, have flown, reached London Thursday night, gone down to Barton Abbess on Friday or Saturday and been back here on the Monday. On the other hand we shall probably find his Cadiz alibi is impeccable.”

“What about my theory that he bribed Larkin to do it?”

“No,” said Carolus. “It doesn’t hold water. In the first place he would never have trusted Larkin. Then if Larkin had done it on those terms he wouldn’t have obligingly gone back to England but when he found he could be extradited he would have made a bolt for it. Moreover Larkin’s whole behaviour at Barton Abbess was wholly against it.”

“I suppose it was. What are you going to do today?”

“Willick’s coming here presently to take me to see Larkin’s house. It is exactly as he left it, apparently, and may be most interesting. You’d better go to the beach.”

“All right. I’ll see what talent there is.”

Willick drove up in a large American motor-car like a mediæval dragon and said he would drive Carolus up to the Kasbah but they would have to walk from there. The streets in the Moorish quarter, it appeared, were too steep and too narrow for vehicles and Larkin’s house was in the depths of it.

Carolus asked if there were many Europeans living in this ancient picturesque and crowded medina.

“Not so many now,” said Willick. “A few years ago there was quite a craze for it. American artists and so on. I must say I find it rather an affectation. But not with Larkin. He spoke the language of these people.”

“You don’t?”

“Not a word. I speak Spanish and French, and as all the Moors talk one or the other it’s as much as I need. But Larkin liked to hob-nob with them. He was even reputed to have some financial dealings with them of rather a shady sort. But that may be nonsense. Tangier is full of the most fantastic stories about its residents. Another one they told about Larkin was that he was in Germany throughout the war.”

They were descending a steep hill by a narrow cobbled road, passing little Moorish shops and tall windowless houses. The street was noisy with the playing and shouting of the beautiful Moorish children. Presently Lance Willick led Carolus by an even narrower street, a mere passage-way. It was like walking through a narrow canon between cliffs of plastered house-wall, unbroken by anything except iron-bound doors on the street.

“Would you describe this as a dangerous quarter?” asked Carolus.

“Only in the minds of visiting journalists whose editors apparently never get tired of the same boring nonsense about smuggling, dope, crime and vice in a city where everyone carries a knife. I’ve no doubt you would read in London of the perils of the medina, but it’s far quieter and better behaved than the King’s Cross area, for example, or the Elephant and Castle, not to mention Soho.”

“That I can well believe.”

“I’m going to leave you at Larkin’s house,” said Willick, “because I want to get to the bank before it closes. But I daresay you’d prefer, anyway, to poke about on your own.”

“It’s kind of you to have brought me.”

“I hope you’ll come to my house afterwards for lunch. You can walk from here—it’s in a district called the Marshan, which adjoins this. Here’s the address. I’ll expect you about one?”

With a large key Lance Willick unlocked a narrow door which was in a doorway with a broken arch. It was studded with iron-headed nails and heavily bound with iron. It creaked as it opened into a dark interior.

Carolus entered and stood quite still for a moment trying to grow accustomed to the semi-darkness. It appeared that the only light came from a glass skylight which stretched right across the central well of the house.

Lance pointed out some objects of glass and pottery on a shelf beside him.

“These are Larkin’s collection. Museum pieces, some of them.”

He picked up a beautiful glazed earthenware bottle.

“That’s Turkish,” he said. “Sixteenth century. That bowl is Amol, about four hundred years earlier.”

“Larkin was evidently a connoisseur,” said Carolus.

“He was. Well I’ll leave you here.”

Lance handed Carolus the key.

“Lock up when you leave,” he said; “there’s some quite valuable stuff here. In fact I’ve been trying to trace Larkin’s sister to know what she wants done with it. Happy hunting.”

Carolus heard the creak of the door and its slam, but no more. So heavy was it that no sound of retreating footsteps came from outside.

There was something eerie about this hushed and shadowy house. He soon began to see about him, but even then he felt as though he was in a cavern after coming from the brilliant morning sunshine outside. He had heard that Moorish houses were constructed almost without windows, yet when he saw the reality and stood in deathly silence and gloom in a dead man’s home he was conscious of an unnaturalness, something macabre and perhaps evil in the atmosphere.

There were two rooms on the ground floor, the fairly large one in which he stood now and a room which was divided from it by tall double doors. But in front of him was an alcove, and this was evidently used as both kitchen and dining-room. Upstairs was a small bathroom and a bedroom which looked as though it was never used.

Having made a preliminary survey, Carolus began to examine the objects around him. The large room was furnished in a pseudo-Moorish style with low divans, low round tables and endless ornamental shelves crowded with bric-à-brac. Here was the Aleppo glass which Lance had mentioned and some interesting pottery.

Carolus went through the double doors and stood for some time looking about him in what had been Larkin’s bedroom. He opened the cupboard and took down one of Larkin’s plain dark suits, which he examined minutely. After a moment he took off his own jacket and put the dead man’s jacket on, examining the effect most carefully in the mirror. He looked for the maker’s name and found the suit had come from an American department store. The others in the cupboard had been made by a Tangier tailor. He went on to the shirts and the old-fashioned starched collars, of which several were here.

He then did a thing which would have brought him a gibe or two from Rupert Priggley if the boy had been there. From his pocket he brought out a tape-measure and very carefully made a number of measurements: the neckband of the shirt, the collar, the approximate waist measurement of a man wearing Larkin’s trousers, and several other calculations. All these he noted down.

He then began to look for a pair of Larkin’s shoes. There were none to be found in the bedroom and Carolus went through the rest of the house without success. He did not seem puzzled by this, and as soon as he had satisfied himself that here, as in the cabin of the Saragossa, none were to be found he went to the bathroom and looked at the contents of the small cupboard.

He came back to the central room and sat down. Again he was conscious of the curious brooding atmosphere, as though he were under observation. What was wrong with this house? he asked himself. There was something seriously wrong, something which he could not define. The least superstitious of people, Carolus refused to believe that it was in any sense haunted, even by the memory of a man who had murdered and killed himself. No, it was something real, something visible, probably right under his nose if he could have the wit to perceive it. He looked about him again as though he expected to see a cross hung upside down or a wax figure stuck with pins.

Certainly the house was not haunted by Larkin. Perhaps that was exactly what was wrong—it ought to have been, if things were what they seemed. There should have been some relic, some mark of the man as he had heard him described, and there was nothing. In all the house there was nothing written by hand. In a drawer of the table was some typewriting paper, of which he took a sheet, but not a word was written anywhere.

There was not a photograph in the house, either. That was not extraordinary so far as any display of photographs was concerned. Many people detest them to be framed and shown. But in this case there were none put away anywhere. Surely not many people, except of the most primitive races, have homes in which there are no personal papers, no handwritten words and not a single snapshot?

But what puzzled Carolus most was the contents of the kitchen cupboard. Remembering Lance’s description of Larkin as a very good cook who invited Lance to excellent dinners which he cooked himself, Carolus expected to find here at least some indication of the man’s tastes. There was a packet of tea, some sugar, salt, a bottle of tomato sauce, a jar of marmalade and a bottle of vinegar. The rest of the space was occupied with tinned food—baked beans, tinned vegetables, sardines, corned beef, even tinned meat loaf. There were no spices, no wine. In the kitchen itself there was no sign of onions, garlic or herbs. Scarcely, one would have thought, the stock-in-trade of a gourmet.

Turning to the batterie de cuisine, Carolus found that it consisted of one frying-pan, one saucepan and a kettle. This mystified him and he remained for some time looking unhappily at the poor little collection, then went upstairs again.

As he stood on the landing he became aware of a sound from the floor below. Someone was slowly opening the front door.

Carolus stood still. He would wait till the intruder was inside and had shut the door before interrupting him. Whoever it was, he must be aware that someone was in the house, since the front door was unlocked. But he might not expect that it was Carolus.

Presently Carolus moved to the door and started going downstairs. He neither hurried nor dawdled. A man was looking up at him, a large dark man with a heavy face and sullen eyes.

“What do you want here?” asked Carolus coolly.

“You Mr Deene?” The fellow spoke in a deep raw voice and even from those few syllables it was evident that English was not his language.

“Yes. How did you know I was here?”

“Never mind that. I’ve watched you since you landed. I want to talk to you.”

“Go ahead.”

“You do no good here. You go back to England.”

“What’s this nonsense? A threat of some kind?”

“More than a threat. I tell you plain. You do no good here. Leave things alone you don’t know about.”

Carolus smiled.

“That’s exactly what I can never do,” he said chattily. “I’m the most inquisitive person.”

“This time you must. It isn’t for a joke, I tell you.”

“Cigarette?”

What made Carolus uncomfortable was that the other was as composed outwardly as he was. This was not, in other words, a piece of acted melodrama. The man, whoever he was, was sincere.

“Look here,” the man went on, “you don’t know about this. You forget what you know already. This is not the thing you think—it’s a bigger thing.”

“Very likely. That makes it more attractive. But what chiefly interests me is not anything to do with Larkin’s past life, except in so far as it enables me to discover who killed Gregory Willick. Anything that he may have done here is not my business.”

The man seemed to consider this.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s all one. You leave the whole thing alone, as the English police have done. It is a serious thing. You look for other things to investigate. This is not a thing for a man’s hobby.”

“I’m sorry, you know, but it is. I’m tired of cases in which all I’ve got to do is to solve a problem. I’ve been waiting for you to turn up, in a sense, ever since I started to be interested in crime.”

“You mean you refuse? You will not give up and go home?”

“Oh dear me, no. I can’t tell you how interested I’ve become in this case in the last half-hour.”

“Then I shall have to kill you.”

The man spoke quietly, almost regretfully and, Carolus believed, with deadly sincerity.

“I don’t think so,” said Carolus. “I don’t think you are very likely to try, and I’m quite sure you wouldn’t succeed. But let’s talk of more sensible things. What is your interest in the matter?”

“That is not important. It is sufficiently strong for me to do exactly what I have said.”

“You’ve plenty of experience, I daresay?”

“Yes. I have experience.”

“What is your name?”

“Michaelis. They call me Mike.”

“You live here?”

“For the moment. Now you listen, Mr Deene. You fly back to England tomorrow. I mean it. I must do what I say if you stay. No other remedy. You believe me?”

“I believe you mean what you say. I think you would be more likely to influence me if you would tell me a little more. Why is it essential that I go? Am I getting warm, as we used to say in the children’s guessing game? Are you, or is someone else, afraid that I shall find out the truth?”

“No one is afraid of anything. But you cannot stay here.”

“What would you say if I told you that I had discovered the truth already? Not the details, certainly, but the basic fact from which all details come?”

“I should say you were a liar. There is no basic fact. This is something you do not understand.”

“You are wrong there, you know. I do not understand it all, certainly, but I know what happened to Larkin and I know who killed Gregory Willick.”

“These are not altogether the questions.”

“But they are. The only questions for me. I’m not interested in anything else about Larkin. I don’t want to know, for instance, where he got his money. I set out to find out who killed Willick, and I know.”

“Can you prove that to me? Can you prove that you know?”

“By asking you a question, yes.”

“A question?”

The big man stood over Carolus. His attitude was not exactly threatening—it was clear that he had come to give a warning and no more. Probably, Carolus considered, his orders were to leave it at that. But he was evidently baffled, perhaps perturbed, by the turn the conversation had taken.

“What question?” he asked.

“This. Where are the dead man’s shoes?”

If Michaelis was startled or even surprised by this he did not show it. He looked calmly at Carolus, then turned to go.

“Aren’t you going to answer?” asked Carolus. “Or don’t you know?”

“I tell you once more, Mr Deene. You may be a clever man but you are acting like a fool. Surely you understand a man like me? I do not lie and threaten empty words. You go back to England on the plane tomorrow. You don’t play around here.”

He said no more and Carolus watched him slowly go out and close the door after him.

15

THE FIRST thing to do was to get rid of Rupert Priggley. Carolus was convinced that the man called Michaelis was not bluffing and that there was real danger in the situation. He could not possibly expose a schoolboy to that, however often he had flippantly besought a violent death for Priggley.

He thought it over as he locked the house and made his way by the passage and narrow street Lance had shown him. He realized that it was going to be no easy matter. Priggley was enjoying Tangier and if he suspected that he was being sent away from possible danger he would flatly refuse to move. That would involve Carolus in dragging in the Consul and cause a lot of trouble all round. The best thing would be to give Priggley some job in England connected with the case—send him down to Barton Abbess perhaps on the plea that events and people there should be under day-to-day observation.

He found a taxi in the Kasbah square and gave the driver Lance Willick’s address. Watching the speedometer, he saw that the total distance from the Kasbah, which was two hundred yards from Larkin’s house to Lance’s, was less than half a kilometre, so that the whole distance could be covered on foot in ten minutes.

Lance’s home was the opposite to Larkin’s. It was not without taste but entirely modern, its bric-a-brac from Scandinavia and Germany instead of the Mohammedan countries.

Lance seemed both amicable and hospitable.

“Find anything?” he asked when he had poured long cool drinks for them both.

“Yes. Quite a lot. Or rather there was quite a lot I didn’t find. The kitchen cupboard had practically nothing but a packet of tea in it. You told me that Larkin was a very good cook.”

Lance laughed.

“He was a little crazy, you know. He thought more about his bits and pieces of cookery than his collections of old pottery and glass. When he was going away he borrowed an old trunk of mine to pack the lot in so that they could be stored in safety.”

“Here?” asked Carolus.

“No. I don’t know where he put that trunk. He probably would not trust my servants. What else was missing?”

“There wasn’t a line of handwriting, a personal document, a letter or a photograph in the whole house. And like the cabin in the Saragossa the place was without a single spare pair of shoes.”

“Those shoes seem to worry you. Perhaps Larkin only kept one pair. It wouldn’t have been his only eccentricity.”

“It certainly wouldn’t.”

Carolus decided to say nothing to Lance Willick about Michaelis. The less people who knew about that, the better. He took his leave soon after lunch, conveniently forgetting to return the key of Larkin’s house.

That afternoon he decided to use a letter of introduction he had obtained to a high-ranking police officer and went to the Comisaria. He found his man a business-like but friendly Belgian, to whom he explained his business in Tangier, emphasizing that he was working as an amateur on a crime which had happened in England, in other words that he was in no way interfering in Tangerine affairs. This explained, he said he would like to ask a favour—that a fingerprint expert should accompany him to Larkin’s house and obtain a few prints of the late inhabitant. The policeman, after explaining good-humouredly how irregular it was, agreed. It was arranged that the finger-print man should call for Carolus tomorrow at eleven in the morning when, presumably, he would have got rid of Rupert Priggley.

He soon found that this was going to be harder than he thought. Priggley came to dinner that night in high spirits with two pieces of news. The fact that he threw these at Carolus with the most blase unconcern did not mean that he was not inwardly thrilled by them.

“The beach was pretty good today,” he began.

“Yes?”

“Met a little piece from Milan. Quite a reasonable number.”

“You did?”

“You know, proportionate, if nothing else.”

“Proportionate ?”

Rupert made expressive curves in the air.

“Oh, I see. You mean well-proportioned.”

“Don’t be carping. I mean she’s a reasonable bit of nonsense for the time we’re here. You won’t have to worry yourself about your pupil. You’ll know exactly where I am and what I’m doing.”

“I should hate even to imagine that. But in any case I’ve got something to tell you presently which I’m afraid will change all that. An end to frolics. You have work to do. But that can wait till after dinner. What else have you done besides meet the young girl from Milan?”

“Don’t talk as though she was something in a limerick. I’ve told you she’ll do for the rest of our stay here. What else? I’ve found out something for you.”

“Indeed? Perhaps you know who killed Gregory Willick?”

“No. But I’ve found someone who’ll help you to find out.”

“Who’s this?”

“Character called Eric Luck. Keeps a bar here.”

“How is he going to help?”

“You are rather obtuse sometimes, sir. You surely don’t think I would be recommending you this if I hadn’t good reason? Eric is a Character.”

“Frankly I’m rather sick of Characters. They’re usually frantic bores playing up to some idiotic role that has been thrust on them.”

“Eric’s the real thing. He’s been ‘in’ four times, including once on Dartmoor and once in Italy. He preferred Italy. The food was better, so was the organization. He comes from a family so drearily respectable that he took to crime chiefly to annoy them.”

“What’s he doing here?”

“He skipped his bail on a larceny charge in England and he’s resting. No visiting journalist fails to write him up. Sometimes they make him an ex-gangster dying of consumption and starvation in the Moorish quarter, sometimes they make him an ex-gangster leading a life of luxury in Tangier with a large American car, a yacht in the harbour and a harem of women at his beck and call. Sometimes they make him an ex-gangster who is the boss of the waterfront mob, a hard-bitten smuggler. One way or another he gets a bigger Press than a film star.”

“But what use is that to me?”

“There’s nothing about this town he doesn’t know. He’s been here over five years and he can tell you the lot. The lot. You’ve only got to drop in at his bar.”

When they had finished dinner, Carolus called Rupert rather mysteriously aside and told him gravely if ambiguously that he had received a telegram from England.

“I’m afraid you’ve got to go back at once,” he said, “and get down to Barton Abbess as quickly as you can. I’ll join you in a couple of days when I’ve finished here.”

“Oh, look here, sir, what about my Italian number? She …”

“This is pretty urgent. I want you to keep the whole lot under observation during the next few days. Particularly Gusset, Ridge, Socker and Packinlay. There’s a good bit more about the past to find out, too. They didn’t tell me everything. Stay at the Barton Bridge and see if you can make Mrs Gunn admit that she knew about Willick’s usual afternoon walk.”

“When do you want me to go?”

“I’ve booked you a seat on the plane leaving tomorrow morning. I’ve hired a car to drive us to the airport. I’m sorry you’re missing this, but you must see it’s urgent.”

“There are moments, sir, when you and your cases are little short of a bore. But I suppose I’ll have to go. You might run down to the beach and see that Italian number, though. Tell her I’m coming back or something. Get her address in Milan—I might run out next holidays.”

“I’ll see what I can do. You’re not missing much here, I assure you. We’re down to the dullest technicalities. Tomorrow I’ve got a finger-print expert coming here at eleven and I’m going to take him up to Larkin’s place. That sort of thing. I’ll be with you as quickly as I can.”

Rupert went up to pack and sleep, and Carolus decided to go to the bar the boy had mentioned. There were several questions he wanted to ask about both Willick and Larkin, and Rupert’s ‘real thing’, who had done three years on Dartmoor, would be as good a person as any to question. Besides, Carolus reflected, while his knowledge of crime was wide and increasing, he knew very little about criminals as individuals. He had shown himself able to unravel the most curiously knotted threads of evidence and to solve the problems created by crime, but he had no idea what professional thieves, warehouse-breakers, bank robbers were like. Here was an opportunity, apparently, of meeting a man who had belonged to at least one of those professions.

He liked Eric Luck at once. The man had an open, rather young face, the pale eyes of Norway, from which his ancestors had come, and a good profile. His shirt was open to show a chest ornamented with a tattooed representation of a girl’s head, and one of the three elderly Englishwomen who sat round the bar had just been putting lipstick on the tattooed lips.

“Did you ever see,” Eric enquired rhetorically of Carolus when he had served his drink—“did you ever see such a frightful lot of old phlugs as these?”

This was said well within the hearing of the three, who smiled fondly.

“Talk about the witches in Macbeth. You’d have to go to the Carpathians on Walpurgis Night to find anything like them. They come in here and upset the poor little Spanish faggot who lives with me. She’s gone off now, poor little cow, all because of these fearful old bags.”

“You been here long?” asked Carolus.

“Six years, except for one I did in an Italian nick for smuggling.”

“You never want to go back to England?”

“What, and do four years’ PD? Thank you very much, I’m quite comfortable where I am. What about you?”

‘I’m only here for a few days. There’s some information you can let me have. Could we go somewhere to talk?”

“Just wait till my little faggot comes back. She’s gone to eat. I can leave the bar to her and come with you then. What’s your line? Press?”

“No.”

“Not the-law, are you?”

“No. I’m making a private investigation of the deaths of Gregory Willick and Wilbury Larkin.”

“I thought you weren’t the law. I can smell a copper a mile away. Had one in here yesterday. Character called Maltby. I knew all about him before he opened his mouth. Come out here to question a poor old fruit in some sex case. Why can’t they mind their own business and leave the poor sods alone? Anyway, I jumped on this bastard before he got a chance to speak. ‘You’re the-who got my friend Lew White, aren’t you? Got him a five-stretch by lying about that peter he was supposed to have done. Well, don’t come here asking questions,’ I said, ‘because I’ll bloody soon mess you up for life, you greasy copper.’ Went off without a word, he did. If they could get me out of here by extradition they —— would. But they can’t, the silly ——, not while I stay here and earn a living quiet and respectable.”

“How did you start on this lively career of yours?”

“Did my old man for a thousand nicker when I was sixteen,” said Eric Luck without hesitation. “But I don’t seem to bother with anything here. I’d sooner just keep my little bar and make a living. Ah, here’s Anita.”

A tiny figure, a Spanish girl so delicately made that she looked as if by a strong wind she might be blown away, came in and joined Eric Luck behind the bar.

“Yo sale un momento with the señor. Tu cuida the bar.”

Anita appeared to understand this curious jumble, and Eric come out to the street with Carolus and led him to another bar where they could talk uninterrupted.

“First of all, d’you know a man called Michaelis?” Carolus asked.

“Big Mike. Yes, I know him. What about him?”

“He says he’s going to kill me.”

Eric Luck did not smile.

“I don’t much like that, not from big Mike. Any other of the so-called bad boys here you can discount. Lot of rubbish, most of them, who wouldn’t have the guts for a decent tickle if they got the chance. Milk-bottle bandits. But big Mike is different. He’s done his bird in a French nick. He wants money just now, too. I’d be very, very careful if that’s what he said.”

“I’ve got nearly all I want here, anyway. Do you know Lance Willick and did you know Larkin?”

“Both of them, in a way. Lance comes in here now and again. He likes a couple of drinks. Larkin never went anywhere, but I knew him by sight.”

“Tell me what you know of them.”

“I quite like Lance. He’s not a bloke you get to know much, but he seems a very decent chap. The other one had the reputation of being a nasty —— but people will say anything.”

“Known them long?”

“Lance was here before I came. Larkin arrived soon after I did. I remember him coming because I was working on a ship called the Teresa then and someone came on board one night and told me about this Englishman with the loud voice who had gone to live in the medina.”

“He spoke Arabic, I believe?”

“Yes. I’ve seen him standing talking to Moors in their own lingo. He spoke German, too.”

“Willick says that there was a suggestion that Larkin was mixed up in some racket here.”

“Shouldn’t be surprised.”

“What could it have been?”

“One of several. The commonest is the old gag about arms. If you can convince the right Moors that you can lay hands on a shipment of arms for the Algerians they’ll hand over quite a nice bit of dropsy in advance.”

“Then if you deliver?”

“You’re liable to be done by the French. Or just quietly have your throat cut by a rabid French sympathizer. There are plenty of those.”

“And if you don’t deliver?”

“Then the Moors will have you for certain. It’s not a game to play round with. Most English people who have touched it have been out of the country dam’ quick afterwards, I can tell you.”

“What else could he have been in?”

“Might have had a little money invested in one of the contraband cargoes. There’s still a few leave here. But I don’t see how that could have got him murdered.”

“You think he was murdered ? The accepted theory is that he committed suicide after murdering Gregory Willick.”

“Suicide my foot! A man doesn’t throw himself into the sea until he knows he’s had it. Larkin didn’t. He was on his way to have a go with the law. Time enough for suicide when they’ve nicked him.”

“How friendly were those two, Willick and Larkin?”

“It’s impossible to say because Larkin never moved from his house. He’d go down to the market in the morning and get his supplies, then never put his head out of the door again. God knows what he did in that little shut-in Arab house. So any time Lance wanted to see him he had to go there. I understand he went about twice a week.”

“Thanks. Now throw your mind back to Larkin’s first appearance five years ago. Was Lance here at the time?”

“Yes. He’d just come back from Cadiz, where he had been staying for a couple of months. I know because a pal of mine went over there and ran into him. He never discussed his movements otherwise, and I don’t suppose we should have known where he had been. Then almost as soon as he was back we all got crowd work in a film company. Lance with the rest of us. It was while this was going on that Larkin turned up. I have an idea Lance found his house for him.”

“Have you seen Lance Willick lately?”

“Yes. I went to his birthday party, as a matter of fact.”

“When would that have been?”

Eric considered.

“It was a Wednesday, I know.”

“Before or after his uncle was murdered?”

“Couple of days before. That’s right.”

“Know anything else about either of them?”

“If anything occurs to me I’ll let you know. Meanwhile you be careful of Mike Michaelis. I’ll try to find out who’s hiring him. I daresay you could bid higher. But meanwhile take care of yourself.”

When he got back to the hotel he went to Priggley’s room and knew by the smell that the youth was smoking a keef cigarette, the local form of marihuana.

“Just as well you’re leaving tomorrow,” he said, taking it from him and throwing it away. “Got any more of those things?”

“No. Merely an experiment. How did you get on?”

“Well. Have you packed?”

“Yes. Willick came to look for you, by the way. He wants you to phone him tomorrow. He stayed chatting for quite a time.”

“I’ll phone him. I’ve arranged for you to be called in good time. Now for heaven’s sake behave yourself at Barton Abbess and get some information for me.”

“I got some for you here, didn’t I? Did Luck tell you about the passports?”

“No. What’s that?”

“Local racket. You can get a passport of any nationality you like in Tangier. It’s a fact. Can’t tell it from the real thing. Not too expensive, either.”

“How much?”

“Depends on what country. Between ten and twenty quid. You could have two or three if you wanted. All with your own photograph properly stamped. Is that information any good to you?”

“It might be. Good luck in Barton Abbess.”

16

THE FINGER-PRINT man was a Spaniard, almost as fat and wheezy as Mrs Gunn and slower of movement. He spoke good English and said with a smile that he had specialized in this branch of police work because it did not need agility. Carolus set out with him for Larkin’s house, but grew a little impatient with his waddle and tried to hurry him by going ahead. This, as it transpired, saved his life.

They were walking up the passage-way which ran from the narrow medina street to the door of Larkin’s house. There was not in any case room for them to walk two abreast, and the finger-print man was eight or nine yards behind. Suddenly in a voice which in that place sounded enormously loud, urgent and imperative, he shouted:

“Stop!”

Carolus wheeled round, and as he did so there was a shattering crash in the passage and he was almost blinded with dust and powdered mortar. A large piece of masonry had fallen to the ground on which he would have stood if he had not obeyed the fat man’s warning command.

As the air cleared a little he looked up, but there was no sign of anyone on the roof high above him. A crowd was gathering and he dragged the Spaniard away.

“Let the uniformed police deal with this,” he said. “We’ll get into the house out of this crowd. Someone will certainly tell the police when they arrive where we are.”

“Do you think it was deliberate?”

“No,” lied Carolus.

There was no point in giving details of Michaelis’s threat. It would mean having police protection, which would make it quite impossible for him to gather the few remaining bits of information he required. His best hope of escape lay in acting fast and getting away before the next attempt on him was made. This one had evidently been planned with some care and it seemed reasonable to hope that he would have a few hours at least before the next. Besides, if Michaelis was, as Eric Luck seemed to think, that old-fashioned character a ‘hired assassin’, he was not going to risk his own liberty while doing his job. He would strike again, but not wildly or indiscriminately.

“No,” he repeated. “I’m sure it wasn’t. Why should anyone want to kill me?”

They reached the house and entered, this time locking the door. Carolus made a quick search in case anyone was concealed there, but without result.

The finger-print man, whose name, he told Carolus, was Gomez, at once got to work while Carolus went to the bathroom to wash and brush as much as possible of the dust from his clothes.

After an hour’s work, making tests in every room in the house and in what seemed to Carolus unlikely places, Gomez announced that he could do no more.

“You should have the prints of at least three people,” Carolus told him. “Those of Mr Willick, the dead man’s friend who has been coming here to look after the place, my own and of course Larkin’s.”

“I have prints of only two.”

“Have another look, there’s a good chap. There must be one more.”

But no. Another half-hour revealed nothing.

“Tell you what,” said Carolus. “Take the prints on that bottle.” He indicated the bottle which Lance Willick had handled yesterday.

Gomez did this and said that they were the same as one of those he had been finding.

“Damn,” said Carolus. “They’re Willick’s, and I suppose the other set are mine.”

After taking Carolus’s prints Gomez said this was so.

“It means that we’re up against the same thing as the CID was when they examined Larkin’s cabin on the Saragossa. He must have taken the most extraordinary precautions.”

Just then there was a knocking on the street door and two uniformed policemen arrived.

They knew Gomez, so there were few formalities, but they asked Carolus if he would come to their comisaria to make a statement about the incident. Carolus agreed, so they left the medina with a police escort, which seemed to please Gomez.

“I do not believe that was an accident,” he told Carolus as though he had been thinking it over. “I believe that someone loosened a piece of the parapet in preparation for your coming, then pushed it at the right time. Who knew that you were coming here today?”

“No one except the police,” said Carolus shortly: “the officer whom I asked for the help of a finger-print expert and you.”

“It is curious, but I am sure that was a planned action. You should be very cautious now.”

After Carolus had given the required information at the police station he went round to Eric Luck’s bar and told him what had happened.

“That’s an old one,” Eric said. “I should have thought Mike could have worked out something more original. And yet, you know, it was sound enough here. There’s plenty of loose masonry on these flat roofs. A piece of the parapet could easily have been tapped out ready to shove over.”

“A bit public though, surely?”

“Not a bit. By Mohammedan law one house doesn’t overlook another. It could have been got ready last night and done today without those doing it being seen at all. Easy. And of course they’d have been away across the roofs and inside somewhere in less time than that. I told you to be careful.”

“I think I can probably get away in a few days’ time. I’ve got nearly all I want.”

“Well, stay in your hotel. Mike’s not a character to fool around with.”

Carolus phoned Lance Willick from the bar. Willick, it appeared, had remembered a few more things which might be useful and suggested that they should meet. Carolus, remembering Eric’s advice, asked him to come to his hotel for a drink at about six that evening.

“See that copper again?” asked Luck.

“Maltby? No. I don’t expect to. I quite believed him when he said they’d closed the case. I expect he has got his information and gone back.”

“To a triumphant prosecution? Very likely. You any nearer knowing who killed Willick?”

“Yes. But I still want some details about Larkin.”

“All I can give you is rumours, and they’re not worth much in Tangier. There are rumours about everyone in the place, some of them so-fantastic that you have to believe them. There were plenty about Larkin.”

“Such as?”

“Well, he used to go away for months on end. That was enough to start off stories. I’ve heard everything from gun-running to the white-slave traffic. Yet no one knew where he went. Not even Lance Willick. Then there was a story about his having been in Germany during the war. Working for the Nazis, I mean. I never believed that, or they’d have shot the ——. He did speak German, though.”

“What about the factor that my promising young pupil would call his love life?”

“There’s supposed to have been an Englishwoman who visited him. A stranger in these parts, I gather. But I shouldn’t take much notice of that if I were you. If there were a cave-living hermit here, who had been celibate all his life and a eunuch for the past twenty years, they’d invent something for him. Quiet married couples who have been faithful to one another since their wedding-day find themselves accused of the most monstrous orgies, and nice old ladies who are interested in nothing but going to church and doing a bit of knitting are supposed to lead debauched carousals on the beach by moonlight. No one could live here without a story or two being attached to him, so I shouldn’t take the one about Larkin and the tall woman seriously.”

“You said tall?”

“Yes. That’s the story. But there you are. If you listen to Tangier gossip you’d hear that everyone in the town is an egomaniac, dipsomaniac, nymphomaniac, paranoiac, schizophrenic drug addict.”

“What else do you remember about Larkin?”

“He had a peculiar walk.”

“That’s new to me. What kind of walk?”

“He was a big heavy man, as you know, but he tripped along in a very queer way. It was as though he was stalking someone.”

Carolus put out his hand.

“I’m very grateful to you, Eric, for all you’ve told me. It’s been most useful. And I wish you luck.”

“That’s all right. I’ve got all the luck I want. I’ve always been lucky. Think of the drab and weary sort of respectable bloody life I’d have led if I hadn’t learnt how to get something more from it all than hard work, a semidetached villa and a —— television set. See you again, some time. There’s a taxi across the street—you take that home.”

Carolus did as Eric Luck suggested and reached his hotel without incident. There was no temptation for him to go out that afternoon and he slept for an hour or two. But he was waiting in the bar for Lance Willick at six o’clock.

Lance entered, moving in his usual decisive way.

“There are one or two more odds and ends of information I’ve thought of,” he told Carolus when they had their drinks, “and I thought you might as well have them. It looks as though the only way this thing ever will be cleared up is through you, so I feel I ought to be helpful.”

“Thanks.”

“Not that it really makes a lot of difference to me now. I was sorry about Gregory because he was a good sort, but I can’t pretend that I worry much about Larkin. Curiosity, really.”

“What’s this story about Larkin having been in Germany during the war?”

“That was one of the things I was going to tell you. I really believe it may be true. He never admitted it, of course, but someone passing through here swore to it. He would never say anything about his life between 1939 and his appearance here five years ago.”

“But surely your uncle would have known? I shouldn’t have thought he was a man to support an ex-Nazi Englishman.”

“Either he didn’t know or as you suggested the other day there was something like blackmail going on. Or, again, the story may not be true. Another thing I wanted to tell you about was Larkin’s absences. Looking back now I suppose that he must have been away on an average five or six months in the year. He never told me where he went.”

“How did he manage for money?”

“Cash, I think. He had no bank account in Tangier.”

“There is a suggestion that these disappearances had something to do with the supposed business he had with certain Moroccans.”

“I simply wouldn’t know. I kept clear of anything like that. Now let me think what I have to tell you about the other end. You realize how well Gregory behaved towards me? He didn’t need to give me anything and he’s given me an income since he inherited my grandfather’s business. But I really knew very little about him. I never stayed long in England. He seemed to enjoy his life—that’s really all I can say about him.”

“There’s no one down there you suspect?”

“Honestly, no. It was the thought of the people there that made me come round to believing it must be Larkin. There isn’t one of them one can see as a murderer.”

“There’s a point about that. If it was Larkin he must have known about your uncle’s afternoon walks. As far as I could trace he had no opportunity there of finding out. Do you think you could have told him?”

Lance looked straight at Carolus as he considered this.

“I certainly knew,” he said. “The last time I was over there that bore Packinlay was full of it. But I can’t remember telling Larkin. We didn’t often discuss Gregory. He had never been to Barton Abbess. It’s possible that I did, of course. I had no reason not to.”

“I wish you could remember,” said Carolus. “It would make a whole piece fit.”

Lance smiled.

“The most I can do for you is to recall that when I last came back from England about a month before the murder I did have a talk with Larkin about it. I told him I had seen Gregory and Marylin and the rest of them. It could be that I mentioned the old boy’s new habit, but I do not remember doing so and I don’t think it would help you if I pretended I did.”

“No. One can often be led astray by people trying too hard to be helpful. Now look here, Willick. I’ve got to ask you a few damned awkward questions. You’ll immediately think that I suspect you of murdering Gregory. But I know you’ll be understanding enough to realize that I have to eliminate every possibility.”

“Of course. After all I’m the one who stood to gain most by Gregory’s death. What do you want to know?”

“It’s like this. Gregory was murdered on a Saturday. On he Wednesday before that you gave a birthday party. On the Thursday, you say, you left for Cadiz and stayed there till the Monday. Now you must see that on the face of it you could perfectly well have flown to England on the Thursday or Friday, driven down to Barton Abbess on Saturday, murdered Gregory and flown back on Saturday night or Sunday.”

Lance smiled.

“Yes, except for one or two details, such as the fact that I never left Cadiz and can prove it to you and that I could scarcely have taken the risk of being seen by someone in Barton Abbess, since almost the whole population of the place knew me by sight.”

“Then you won’t mind indulging what must seem to you my rather silly conscientiousness by giving me details of your Cadiz alibi?”

Lance pondered.

“I don’t really mind,” he said, “except that it involves a woman. That makes it awkward.”

“I see.”

“I don’t suppose she’ll care very much, though. I was staying with Molly Gibbons, as a matter of fact. She’s an old friend of mine. If you want to check, do. She has a furnished flat overlooking the beach. Number 12, Calle Playa. But you’ll really be wasting your time, Deene. I didn’t pop over to England to shoot my uncle, and as a matter of fact you know it.”

“It’s a tricky case,” Carolus excused himself, “and I want to eliminate every possibility.”

“All right. Eliminate that one. But meanwhile do clear up some of the real mysteries. What did happen to Larkin?”

“He was lost overboard. Why need we go farther than that? Whether anyone gave him a shove or not really doesn’t seem to matter at this stage. Or even whether he deliberately committed suicide. I’m satisfied that he went down to Davy Jones’s locker.”

“I don’t call that very satisfactory.”

“Nor do I. But the whole case is full of ragged ends.”

As he said that Carolus stared at Lance’s left hand as though he was seeing it for the first time. He began to wonder what he was going to find out in Cadiz.

“What are your plans?” asked Lance.

“I shall stay here for a few days more. I want another look at Larkin’s house. Then I shall go back to England.”

“You won’t check up on my Cadiz alibi, then? I’m disappointed.”

“I can get someone else to do that if I think it’s necessary. But frankly I do agree with you that it would probably be a waste of time. To fly home, go to a place in which you’re known, shoot a man and fly out again wouldn’t be the way that anyone in his senses would choose to commit a murder, and I don’t suspect you of being such a fool, Willick. I’m glad that you took my enquiry in good part.”

17

THE NEXT morning Carolus paid his hotel, took his bags and boarded the cross-channel boat for Algeciras. From there he hired a car and drove to Cadiz.

He had never intended to do otherwise. To Eric Luck, Lance Willick and the rest he had been deliberately misleading, but his intention had been to go as quickly as possible to Cadiz and thence direct to England.

He knew Molly Gibbons by reputation. She was one of the many English and American remittance women who live on gin and adultery in that area. From Malaga to Gibraltar the coast is thick with them, each proclaiming her difference from the rest, each more malicious and amorous than the last. From Gibraltar to Cadiz they thin out a bit, but Tangier has coveys of them.

Mrs Gibbons had been a gay and pretty girl in the 1930’s, and she seemed to suppose that there had been no change in either the world or herself since then and that the raffish cocktail party of that time was still going on.

Carolus rang at the door of her flat and was told by a Spanish maid that she was not up yet.

“Come in, whoever you are!” shouted a voice from an inner room, and Carolus found himself gazing at a somewhat dishevelled figure in bed.

“Hell, it’s a man! Wait till I do something to my face,” said Molly Gibbons and disappeared into the bathroom, to return a few minutes later looking happier.

“Who are you and who sent you to see me? Take a cigarette and hand me one, there’s a darling. What about a drink? Just one for elevenses. Do I know you? I expect I do, but I’m going to be honest and say I don’t remember. You’ll find the gin and everything on a table in the next room. Just mix a couple, there’s an angel. You look as though I ought to know you. London, was it, or Torremolinos? Leave the door open while you do the drinks and we can go on talking.”

“My name’s Deene. Carolus Deene.”

“Only the tiniest drop of vermouth and plenty of ice. A martini’s useless unless it’s dry. Yes, I know where we met now. You haven’t changed a bit. This is a heavenly martini. How did you learn to make them? You must have worked in a bar. Perhaps that’s how we met. Yes, now I come to think of it, it was. What have you been doing since then? I think you might start mixing some more because we shall be wanting it as soon as we’ve finished these, won’t we? Fancy you turning up again like this. Sweet of you to come in and see me. Do come and sit on the bed. You look miserable right over there.”

“I came to ask you something, Mrs Gibbons. Can you remember Lance Willick coming to stay for a week-end some weeks ago?”

“I know what it is—you’re a policeman. Of course! That’s where I’ve seen you. That night at Vine Street. You haven’t changed at all. Now what about those two more you were going to mix? You do it so well. What were you saying?”

“I asked you if you remembered Lance Willick staying here.”

“Oh, he often stays, bless him. Such fun. Lots of money now, too. I adore Lance. But you’re nice. Why must you sit so far away? Oh, this heavenly drink. The first one of the day is the best, I always think. Well, you look just the same. But men do, don’t they? Do you think I’ve changed much? Of course it’s a long time.”

“Could you tell me the dates of that visit?”

“Oh, don’t be a bore, darling. What visit? Lance’s. That’s right. They’ll be in my diary, of course. But I can’t really get involved with a diary now. You know, I find you rather attractive. It must be interesting to be a policeman and make cocktails all the time. I can’t think why you keep asking questions about Lance. I mean, I quite liked him. I mean, he was fun. But I shouldn’t want to keep asking questions about him really. I mean, I should get a weeny bit tired of that. Why do you sit on that uncomfortable chair right over there? Do come and sit here and I’ll tell you all about Lance. You know he and I were in a film together? My dear, it was a riot. Something madly historical. Lance was a large priest. You’d have screamed. Of course we hadn’t actual parts or anything. We got rather high, I remember.”

“You were saying that the dates I want would be in your diary.”

“That’s right. I never actually remember things like that. Wait, I’ll go and look it up. Then you must talk about something more interesting than Lance. He’s quite a pet, but I don’t want to talk about him all day. And what about another drink? When you’re ready. That’s right.”

She left the room again and returned with the dates pat. Lance had stayed with her as he said from Thursday to Monday—the week-end during which Gregory Willick was murdered.

“I remember perfectly now. Heavenly weather. We got a teeny bit tiddly on the Saturday down on the beach. Rather heaven, really, to sober up in the sea. Have you ever done that? Of course you have. I remember you at Antibes that time. It really seems yesterday, doesn’t it? You don’t think I’ve changed too much, do you? I can’t think how anyone can mix martinis as well as you. It will soon be time for another, won’t it?”

“Who else would remember Lance Willick’s stay here that week-end?”

“Really, darling, I don’t want to be difficult, but I’ve told you I’m bored with the subject of Lance. I find you far more interesting, anyway. And certainly more talented. Lance could never mix cocktails like these.”

“You haven’t answered me, Mrs Gibbons. I know I’m tiresome about this, but I’ve just got to go on till you tell me what I want to know. If he stayed here from Thursday to Monday there must be other people who met him. Please tell me who they were and I’ll stop asking questions as soon as I can.”

“Oh, I don’t mind you asking questions, but you choose such boring subjects. As a matter of fact I like your asking questions. I think you’re rather heaven. Only I can’t imagine why you talk about nothing but Lance. Unless—oh, but you don’t look a bit like that. He’s certainly not, anyway. I’m trying to remember that week-end. Who would have been here? Not a soul, darling. The place was empty. I don’t remember seeing anyone. If you need any more ice ask Teresa. She’ll get it for you. And there’s another lemon on the tray. I can’t tell you how good I find your martinis. I’m aching for one now, so just pop through and mix another, my sweet, while I’m thinking really hard about Lance for you.”

“If he didn’t meet anyone with you, surely there must be someone in the town who remembers his being here. Someone like a dentist or a tailor.”

“There! I knew there was something. Lance had a teeny toothache on the Friday. Rather agony, I mean. We tried raw whisky on it but it did no good. He went out, and when he came back it had gone, so I suppose he’d been to the dentist. We never talked about things like that, where we’d been and so on, because there was so much else to talk about. I often think there isn’t time in life to do all the talking one wants.”

“If he had, which dentist would he have gone to?”

“Oh, it could only be one. Our sweet old Ferny. Fernandez, his name is, and he’s just an old poppet. He speaks English. Lance has known him for ages. He’d be able to tell you that Lance was here that week-end. You go and see old Ferny. Give him my love, the old pet, and ask him when he’s coming for another midnight swim.”

“No one else? No shop-keeper?”

“I shouldn’t think so. Lance used to have his summer suits made here, but that was for economy’s sake before he came into all that delicious money.”

“He hadn’t come into it then.”

“Oh no. Of course he hadn’t. But I don’t think he went to the tailors or anything like that. He was with me most of the time. Now I’ve told you everything, so let’s talk about interesting things. If I could mix Martinis like you I wouldn’t be a policeman, I’d be a barman. But of course you are, aren’t you? Is that why I have to persuade you every time to mix another? You’re on holiday. Of course I remember you now. You were a friend of Elizabeth’s. But you look so young still. I hope you don’t think I look too old? It’s a long time, isn’t it?”

“Tell me, has Lance been back here? Since that weekend, I mean?”

“Oh really! This is too much! Can’t you talk of anything but Lance? Yes, once, I think. Yes, I’m sure. He’s been here once since then.”

“I’m most grateful to you for your information, Mrs Gibbons, and I’m sure Lance Willick will be too. You’ve confirmed his alibi.”

“Is that what I’ve done? It sounds madly important. But you’re not going? You couldn’t be so mean. You mustn’t think of going till you’ve mixed another of those lovely, lovely Martinis. And why must you sit right over there? You know, darling, I don’t want to be personal, but I do think you’re a teeny bit of a bore, if I may say so. You keep asking questions at me from the other side of the room. I can’t have changed all that much since … When was it we met?”

“About an hour ago.”

“Since an hour ago. I know one does get older and all that, but really I haven’t gone so far that all I can expect is questions. I mean, have I? I mean, I think you’re madly attractive. Thank you. This is the best you’ve mixed yet. No, sit down. You can’t possibly go now. You’ve only just come. After all these years. Come and sit here. Never mind your hat. Now do sit down again. You make me restless. No, you’re not to go. Come here. Sit down. What’s your name? Sit here, anyway….”

But Carolus was through the door and in another moment out of the flat.

His taxi-driver knew where the surgery of Dr Fernandez was to be found, and after waiting for three-quarters of an hour Carolus was admitted and faced a friendly little man in his sixties. He explained what he wanted to know, but Dr’Fernandez shook his head.

“No, I haven’t seen Mr Willick for some months,” he said. “He must have found relief for his toothache without consulting me.”

“You have known him for some time?”

“Oh yes. It must be five or six years. The first time he came to me was to have a special set of teeth made for a part he was playing in a film’.”

“That makes it five and a half years ago.”

“Does it? Yes. It would be about that. He’s a nice fellow. I was sorry to hear about his uncle.”

“Sad,” said Carolus and took his leave.

Carolus stayed in Cadiz that night and next morning was driven to Gibraltar, whence he would fly to England. He could not get a seat on the plane till next day and decided to stay at the Rock Hotel.

From here he phoned Lance Willick and told him with some amusement that his alibi had been charmingly and several times confirmed. Lance did not seem much interested, but thanked Carolus for calling.

He was dining on the terrace later that evening when he had an odd and rather startling experience. He saw Michaelis walk straight towards him.

Not since the war had Carolus felt quite that mixture of fear and tense curiosity. He did not suppose, of course, that the man was going to pull out a revolver and shoot him here, before a few score dull English people eating a dull English dinner. But the man’s approach was unhesitating and his face unsmiling.

“You allow me to sit with you?” he asked.

Carolus nodded.

“There is something most interesting I will tell you,” Michaelis said as he took the place opposite Carolus. “I am not about to kill you, after all.”

“I agree, it’s most interesting.”

Michaelis turned to the waiter and ordered as decisively as he did most things.

“It saves much trouble,” said Michaelis.

“And mess.”

“I lose a little money, but not sufficient that I am disturbed.”

“I’m sorry to hear you lose money for such a trivial reason. I do hope your expenses have been met?”

“Certainly. I do not ever work credit.”

“Very wise. No one should expect to run up an account for assassination. Who was employing you, by the way?”

“In your little matter? I should not, probably, inform you in any case, for I must be like a doctor respecting professional secrecy. But whether so or not is away from the point, for I simply am not aware.”

“How is that?”

“Fortunately my reputation is for integrity and reliability. In my profession it is an essential thing. No one is under need to draw up contract with me. The conversation is sufficient. I received this order by the telephone.”

“I see. That simplifies it for everyone.”

“I stipulated a sum of money should be reaching me immediately and a further sum at the happy conclusion of the matter. That is my customary way.”

“Very sensible, I’m sure. I raise no objection to your use of the word ‘happy’, but wonder whether it is in the best of taste.”

“I apologize. I should have said ‘regrettable conclusion’. My instructions were received with clearness. I was to find you at the house of Larkin and present you with a warning. If twenty-four hours later on you were not taking this warning I proceed immediately, for my own benefit with utmost caution, to the specified though as we have agreed regrettable conclusion of the matter.”

“Nicely put. And what is preventing you?”

“I have lately, within one hour, received new instructions. There is now no reason for any further steps in the matter, as I have been instructed you are not regarded as being of any continuing consequence.”

“How fortunate! I’m sorry you have been deprived of a chance to show your professional skill, though.”

Michaelis shrugged his shoulders modestly.

“There will be more,” he said.

“In what language were your instructions given?”

“In not good Arabic. On the one hand it was surely a Moor pretending that he is European, or on the other a European attempting to sound like a Moor.”

“And the cancellation of those instructions?”

“The same voice, I believe. The telephone between this and Tangier is not good.”

“Thanks for telling me that much.”

“I will go farther and give you the best advice. I already asked you that you go back to England. Now I say that when you get there forget this case. It is ugly.”

“You knew Larkin, then?”

“By the sight only. But I heard much about him and his doing. You have had a fortunate escape. I might not by some accidental thing have received the telephone call today, for an instance. Now do not tempt your Providence.”

“You are very thoughtful. I am leaving for England tomorrow.”

“I hope you do not forget my advice. You will be so much wiser. I have no connection now. I speak only for consideration.”

“Tell me, Michaelis,” said Carolus thoughtfully, “would you really have tried to kill me tonight if you had not received that call?”

Michaelis looked at him as though he were a small boy asking foolish questions.

“Tried? But you are talking stupidity. You would have been dead by now. So very dead.”

There was something quietly convincing about that.

“Ah well,” said Carolus.

18

HE WIRED Priggley to book him a room at the Barton Bridge Hotel and arrived there before dinner two days later. He found Priggley in the Old Snuggery. It was clear that progress had been made with the young lady who admitted to being called Mickie. She cultivated an appearance of sulky superiority when Priggley left her to join Carolus and polished glasses as though she found it a demeaning task.

“I suppose you’ve got some lurid story about an attempt on your life,” said Rupert.

“What have you got?”

“Nothing startling, because I decided to leave the lot of them to you. But you’ll find quite a bit waiting for you. I’ve seen that drilling bore Packinlay several times. His wife still hasn’t uttered. I’m pretty sure there’s more to come from him if you can bear it. Then Socker says he’s got something to tell you worth a quid or two, and it’s not details of his love-life, apparently. Ridge ventures to think he may have remembered a matter which he’s emboldened to hope will be of service to you. You can, of course, let the lout Habbard talk to you any time. He thinks you’re absolutely out of the top drawer. As for Mrs Gunn, I challenge you to stop her. I long to put a drop of oil on that voice of hers. I can’t get a word from Mrs Hoppy, though, and I haven’t seen the Vicar, though he has rung up several times to ask if you were back, as he wants to see you.”

“You don’t mention Marylin Sweeny.”

“I think I must be rather épris. She’s certainly worth looking at.”

“You’ve forgotten your change,” said Mickie, viciously smacking it on the counter.

“So you can get to work,” Rupert went on to Carolus, without glancing towards the bar. “They’re all yours. And I hope by the time you’ve done with them you’ll be ready to produce something pretty spectacular in the way of a solution. We need it after this.”

The hall-porter came in and spoke to Mickie, who addressed Rupert.

“You’re wanted on the telephone,” she said and conveyed in the terse phrase several interesting sentiments—surprise that Rupert should be wanted anywhere by anyone, her own complete indifference to it, her preoccupation with other and more important matters, her regret that the summons was not to execution.

“Thanks, duckie,” said Rupert, as he went out.

Mickie glanced at Carolus, but appeared to decide not to voice her indignation to him. She waited for Rupert’s return, then said, “Who were you calling ‘duckie’ just now?”

“I give you three guesses,” said Rupert, then to Carolus, “It was Gusset. He’s coming over to see you after dinner. Coffee in the lounge, I think? You’ll have some tense details of the Boy Scout Movement in Barton Abbess. He’ll probably touch you for a fiver, too, as he wants to redecorate the Boys’ Club.”

“He must surely have something to tell me.”

“Unless he wants you to give a lantern lecture to the Women’s Guild or take the salute of the Church Lads’ Brigade. There are six members of each, I believe.”

It was obvious when Mr Gusset appeared, however, that he regarded his mission with the utmost seriousness. His air of enthusiasm was replaced by one almost conspiratorial, though he brightened up now and again at references to his various parish organizations.

“This is a duty call, Mr Deene. I have given much thought to the matter before broaching it to you. But I feel that in justice to all I can do no less. If I seem to stray beyond the limits of charity, you will understand, I hope.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand much yet,” said Carolus truthfully.

“You will in a moment, I assure you. You must allow me my little preamble. It’s the pulpit, I’m afraid. Only tonight at our Camp Fire Rag one of my Rovers said that the trouble with me was that I preached. He little knew how right he was. You mustn’t think I let them all talk to me like that. This is really a splendid lad. Splendid. However, I must return to the reason of my visit. It is about the late Gregory Willick. Oh, I know. De mortuis nil nisi bonum. But this is a case of duty.”

“You know something against him?”

“A great deal. A very great deal. Not just gossip, mind you. I do not stoop to that. But facts, Mr Deene. Facts, unfortunately. You have, I feel, been given a false impression of the dead man, and it becomes my duty, unhappily, to correct it. He was by no means the model citizen that you would suppose from what you have heard.”

“I don’t think I supposed that. He seems to have been like most of us—a mixture.”

“He was not a good man, Mr Deene. I do not refer so much to the fact that he was living in sin with Mrs Sweeny, though there could be no blinking this fact. But even to that … alliance he was unfaithful. His relationship with Ethel Packinlay was an adulterous one. Of that I have proof.”

“What kind of proof?”

Mr Gusset hesitated.

“Ocular,” he said.

“Really!”

“I mean, sufficient visual evidence to provide me with proof in my own mind.”

“Was Marylin Sweeny aware of this?”

“Oh, no. She adored Gregory. She could see no blemish.”

“And Packinlay himself?”

“I dare not conjecture. I do not want to think that it was with his connivance. He is a most valuable parishioner. The mainstay of the Church Council. A kindly supporter of the Church Lads’ Brigade. A contributor to the Parish Mag. But how else can such a thing have gone on? I find it most distressing, and feel that Gregory Willick was to blame.”

“I see. What other facts were you going to tell me about him?”

“He was considered most generous. But his generosity, such as it was, was so erratic and moody that it gave more anxiety than help to me. I would ask him for support for my League of Mercy branch and he would refuse. I would beg him for a new tent for the annual camp. No. Would he provide prizes for the Sunday School? He would not. Then, with scarcely any reference to me, he presents the church with a new organ.”

“Surely he had a right to choose how he would contribute to charity?”

“Yes. But he owed something to me as the Vicar. What I could have done with that money! Our Scouts’ headquarters needs furnishing. Our camping equipment is out of date. The Boys’ Club needs redecorating. The lads require instructors of various kinds. We might even have been able to send a party to the International Jamboree in Vienna. But no. Mr Willick wanted an organ.

“There was another thing. He was a most arbitrary man with his household. The servants were overpaid, and thus anxious to keep their jobs, so that he could show his bad temper with impunity. Ridge, who is a sidesman of mine, felt it keenly, I know, and I have no doubt that Hoppy and his wife did too. As for Socker …”

“Yes. What about Socker?” asked Carolus with some curiosity.

“The less said the better. I prefer not to discuss him.”

“Just as you wish. Is there anything more about Willick that you think I ought to know?”

“His testamentary arrangements …”

“Surely it was a most generous Will? You were a beneficiary, I understand.”

“But at what cost, Mr Deene? There was no one in his Will who was not reminded of it. No one. It was most uncomfortable.”

“It must have been. Still, money’s always useful.”

“How true! I can never get all I need for our various little organizations. The Church Hall, now. It requires immediate repairs. The heating …”

Accepting the inevitable and amused because he had laid himself open to it, Carolus got out his cheque-book.

With great warmth Mr Gusset expressed his gratitude, and Carolus accompanied him to the entrance of the hotel to find two of ‘the lads’ awaiting him.

“Come on, Gus,” called one, and added enigmatically, “It’s Baked Potato Night.”

“Ah yes,” said Mr Gusset, and hurried away between his attendants.

Next morning at breakfast Carolus told Rupert that he expected to be here another two days.

“So much work?”

“Yes.”

“Or Marylin Sweeny? I’m easy, anyway. When does that ridiculous school start another term? No, don’t tell me. It will be all too soon. What are you going to do today?”

“Work off as many odds and ends as possible. We’re dining at Barton Place tonight.”

“Oh, we are? When was that arranged?”

“Mrs Sweeny phoned me this morning …”

“Nice of Marylin. I shall look forward to it.”

“You’ll be sent to bed if you’re not careful.”

The waiter came in to say that the gamekeeper from Barton Place was waiting to see Carolus, and Rupert grinned.

“I wouldn’t miss this for the earth,” he said. “I find Socker’s revelations quite delicious.”

They found him sitting with a sack at his feet. It was he who took the initiative this time.

“Would it be worth a fiver to you if I was to show you something I found near the place where the old man was done for? Something that would tell anyone like you who asks questions who it was who did it?”

“If you have anything that is evidence it’s your duty to go to the police.”

Socker stood up. He evidently did not think Carolus’s remark worth answering.

“Are you going to do that?”

“I’d see ’em to blazes before I told them anything I knew. And you, too, if you talk like that. What I found is my own business, and if you don’t want it it will never be anyone else’s.”

“I’ll give you something for your trouble.”

Socker sat down again.

“It wasn’t any trouble, exactly. It just so happened I was on the ground and felt something with my foot.”

“You’d better give me the details.”

The wicked leer returned to Socker’s face.

“Never mind no details nor who it was with me. It was a nice afternoon, and I was petting and pulling to my heart’s content. I was patting and smoothing like a good ‘un. I was happy as a pig in …”

“Yes, yes,” said Carolus. “What was it you found?”

“I found she was as good as gold and a comfy easy little tricksky…. Oh, that. Well, I felt something with my foot that wasn’t a stone nor yet a log lying there, and I looked round to see what it was. And if you’ll treat me right, I’ll tell you, but I can’t call any witness, because she was only here for the day and went back on the bus that evening and I couldn’t find where she lived if I wanted. You did say a fiver, didn’t you?”

“I don’t think you need to tell me, Socker. I think I know.”

“No, you don’t, then. You couldn’t. It’s something you never could guess, lying out there.”

“Not a pair of boots?” said Carolus.

Socker stared at him resentfully.

“There’s only one person could have told you. You must have come on that lying deceitful slut and found out from her. The double-faced little harlot. The thieving underhanded trull.”

“No one told me anything. It was a guess. But you shall have your fiver. Let’s see them.”

Socker untied the string round the sack and pulled out a pair of nail-studded boots, almost unworn, but a little weather-beaten. Carolus examined them.

“They correspond with the footprints, of course? They were the ones bought in Northleach on the day before the murder?”

“Ay, they are. So it wasn’t my little baggage that told you, bless her? She was a nice soft little handful, all tricks and kisses, and I wouldn’t want to think she was a scheming grabbing one, when I’m seeing her again next Thursday.”

“No. No one told me. Is that all?”

“They weren’t twenty yards from where I found the old man’s body, and hidden just the same way. I can’t tell you no more because I don’t know anything more, but isn’t that enough? Doesn’t it tell you who did for him?”

“I knew that already. But it’s useful. Now take these to the police station, like a sensible chap.”

“That I won’t do. I’ll leave ’em in the bar, and if they like to give ’em to that Slott when he comes nosing round at closing time they can do so. Only don’t let him come asking me questions.” Socker paused, then added with scorn and disgust, “Affiliation orders!”

Not caring for this particular irrelevance, Carolus handed him his five pound-notes and watched him go.

Habbard appeared in the hall fingering a different but surely no less commemorative tie.

“Very glad to see you back,” he said. “We’ve been getting a terribly mixed lot of visitors this summer. Not at all the kind of people one expects in a hotel of this sort. Notice we’ve changed the lighting? All old ships’ lanterns now. You still trying to find out who killed poor old Willick?”

“I’m still interested in the case.”

“Extraordinary. That sort of thing would scarcely be up my street, I’m afraid. But I can’t see why you should have any problem. It can only have been the man Larkin. If you had seen him I’m sure you would have no doubt. He was a frightful cad; you could see that at a glance. The clothes he wore … really! And that dreadful voice. I ought to have told him we were full.”

“But he behaved perfectly well?”

“It depends on what your standards are, my dear chap.” Habbard grew lofty. “Personally I considered his behaviour that of an ill-bred boor. He had the impertinence to give me orders. If he’d had the smallest pretensions to being a gentleman he would have known better than that.”

“Of course,” said Carolus, who was amused.

“Then, like all persons of that class, he considered it gave him importance to complain of the servants. I don’t say our staff is faultless, but I flatter myself I’ve trained them to know their places. This Leech or Larkin shouted at them like a bargee, then came to me with complaints.”

“But he was only here one night.”

“Time enough, I assure you. Even when he came to pay his bill he was grumbling about the woman who cleaned his room. According to him she had opened his suit-case and examined his passport. He shouted at me about it as though I had been there.”

“He actually came and told you that Mrs Gunn had looked at his passport? That’s interesting. How did he know, I wonder?”

“She had admitted it, apparently. But I could not be expected to concern myself with the sordid details of a thing like that. How do you like these Tudor coffin-stools? The Association has just bought two hundred of them. They don’t like giving one of their hotels a thing unless the rest can have them. I understand we are all getting large punchbowls this year. We always make a real old English feast-day of Christmas. Great tradition. Our people respect that sort of thing. And of course the money would go in super tax if they didn’t.”

19

MRS GUNN’S short dumpy body was disappearing into Carolus’s room when he reached the top of the stairs. He followed her in, said good morning and asked how she was.

“Oh, you’re back, are you? Well I thought you’d come back and more than once I said to my daughter, ‘That gent’ll be back,’ I said. I’m fairly well thank you though this time of the year I have to be careful of my cough it comes on cruel in the early mornings and I don’t seem to be able to get rid of it.”

“You should see a doctor.”

“What’s the use now they’re on the National Health? There’s so many goes to try and get something out of it that anyone might be dying before they’d believe you weren’t making it up. Still, there you are, you can’t have everything. You’re the gent that asked me all those questions about that man that murdered poor Mr Willick, aren’t you? They know now it was him done it and thrown himself off a ship afterwards so I can’t see what there is to ask questions about, though sometimes I think people will never forget about it when I can’t have a quiet drink in the evening without them asking me what he looked like and that knowing that I did his room.”

“Very natural curiosity, Mrs Gunn. But I don’t suppose you can tell them much, because you only just caught a glimpse of Larkin once, didn’t you?”

“There was the next morning when I took his tray in after he’d jumped back into bed.”

“You saw him plainly then. Was he wearing his glasses?”

“To tell the truth he had his head almost under the clothes when I went in.”

“Then when did you see him?”

Mrs Gunn paused breathing heavily.

“I don’t know about see him,” she said at last, “but he was a nasty horrible fellow and anyone could tell he was a murderer the way he went on shouting at you as if you were I don’t know what then running with stories to Mr Habbard …”

“This is something you haven’t told me about.”

“You never asked did you? It’s only that when he got back that afternoon and came tearing in here as though he was being chased he knew by some means that I’d seen his passport and started shouting at me something wicked which I’m not used to and told him so double quick.”

“But how could he know?”

“He said something about the catch being opened and people spying at what didn’t concern them and asked me straight out if I’d looked at his passport so I turned round and told him, ‘What if I have?’ I said. ‘It was lying there wasn’t it?’ I told him; I said, ‘I don’t know what there is to make all this fuss about,’ I said, so he started shouting that he would complain to the manager and I turned round and said ‘You complain,’ I said, and he didn’t like that, taking him up like that I mean. I never told you about all this because it had meant trouble and I didn’t want to bring it up again. He was a nasty sort of man who made you feel queer to look at him and I for one wasn’t surprised when I heard he’d turned out to be a murderer. Now don’t ask me any more because I don’t know anything and I’ve got my work to get on with.”

“Thank you, Mrs Gunn.”

Suddenly a sound like a water-pipe with air in it came from Mrs Gunn and Carolus realized that she was giggling.

“I see that Socker waiting to speak to you this morning and I said to myself I wonder what mischief he’s up to, I said. You don’t want to take any notice of what he tells you—he doesn’t know what it is to speak the truth and only thinks of one thing.”

Carolus, resisting the temptation to ask what that might be, left Mrs Gunn and came downstairs. The Old Snuggery was open now and he went in to find Rupert on a stool at the counter and Mickie leaning across so that their faces were close together.

“I’m going across to Packinlay’s,” Carolus said.

“You have my sympathy.”

He drove out to the Old Lodge and found Packinlay working in his garden. He did not give Carolus quite the hearty welcome of last time, seeming a little less boisterous since then.

“Hullo, Deene,” he said. “I heard you were coming back. Very glad to see you, but I can’t think what brings you now. Surely you can’t have any more doubts about this business?”

“No. I haven’t.”

“You accept the explanation which the police have accepted?”

“Oh no. But I know what happened. I’ve only come down here to tie up a few loose ends.”

“I see. Well, do come in. The wife will be pleased to see you. She’s not awfully well today, actually. Touch of laryngitis. Lost her voice.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

Ethel Packinlay was in the sitting-room in which they had sat before, and greeted Carolus with a smile.

“I don’t think there’s any more I can tell you,” said Packinlay. “You pretty well pumped me last time you were here. It was like being up before old Buzzard. Remember?”

“I wish you could think of anything which throws light on the relationship between Gregory Willick, Lance Willick and Larkin. It’s so very confused in my mind.”

“It is in mine, rather. At least, not as between Gregory and Lance. That was a fairly normal uncle-and-nephew relationship. I don’t think they were enormously fond of one another or anything, but Gregory realized his obligations to Lance, who should have had an equal share with him of the family fortune, and Lance was grateful to Gregory for all he did for him. They were both reasonable men behaving reasonably. It is when we come to Larkin that the confusion arises.”

“Exactly. How did Lance like being landed with looking after Larkin in Tangier?”

“Not much, I fancy, but, as he was dependent on Gregory, I expect he felt he must do as he was asked.”

“Did he know all along that Gregory was paying quite large sums to Larkin?”

“Oh yes. I’m sure he did.”

“How did he take that?”

Packinlay suddenly looked uncomfortable.

“Look here, Deene, tell me straight, is that an important question?”

“It is, yes.”

“It’s really necessary for you to know the answer to that in order to clear up this whole thing?”

“It is really important.”

“As it happens, I can answer it, but only by admitting something I should have preferred not to mention. My wife always tells me I should keep my big trap shut, but in this case I’d better let you have it. You see, I once read a private letter of Gregory’s.”

“But good heavens, Packinlay, you were almost a private secretary to Gregory Willick.”

“I assure you he wouldn’t have looked at it like that. I’ve told you the precautions he always took with his personal letters. This was the only time I ever knew him to leave one lying about. It was on his study table, and he was called out to speak to one of the tenants and left it there.”

“And you read it. Who was it from?”

“Lance.”

“Oh, I see. Complaining about Larkin.”

“No. On the contrary, it seemed to me to bring out a rather nice side of Lance’s character. It was asking Gregory to send Larkin some more money, as he was broke again.”

“Gregory never knew you read it?”

“Good heavens, no! There would have been hell to pay. You ask my wife. She’ll tell you what Gregory was like when he was put out by anything. He certainly never knew about that. Now what about a drink, Deene? Darling, will you see what you can produce?”

Ethel Packinlay left them.

“Sorry she’s got this laryngitis,” said Packinlay. “So awkward to lose one’s voice.”

“Very. How long ago was it that you read that letter?”

“Must be about three years ago. My wife would probably remember better. She says I have no memory for dates.”

When the drinks were brought and handed round, Carolus raised his glass and waited breathlessly. He was rewarded.

“Good health!” said Ethel Packinlay.

Lunch at the Barton Bridge Hotel was every bit as good as its membership of an organization called the United Ancient Hostelries Association would promise it to be. The ‘great tradition of hospitality, good liquor and good fare’ which it had inherited was demonstrated by the menu. There was a soup described as cream of celery in which could be recognized a basis of tinned soup thinned down, there was a coloured cereal substance described as ham loaf, there was tinned Russian salad, there were tinned peas. The only item which had been through no process of preservation was the potatoes, which were boiled. This was completed by something described as ginger pudding.

“Ah,” said Rupert, gazing at the display of willow-pattern china over the new open fireplace with its ingle-nooks. “What it is to stay in an ancient hostelry. When I think that you have Mrs Stick at home to cook for you I realize what sacrifices you are prepared to make for the sake of the truth.”

But there were no sacrifices at Barton Place that night, for the dinner was excellent and Marylin was looking very beautiful. Carolus refrained from asking questions, but told with some animation of his adventures in Tangier.

Over coffee, however, he told Marylin that there were only two small matters he wanted to clear up with Mrs Hoppy and Ridge.

“Ridge will be over at his cottage now, but you could walk across if you want. Hoppy will be down in their sitting-room when they’ve washed up. Perhaps you would like to go down?”

“I find her a bit formidable,” admitted Carolus.

“I have a splendid idea. Her one passion is television. Couldn’t you want to see some programme or other and ask if you may go down? Hers is the only set in the house, needless to say.”

“Can I lie as wildly as that? What possible programme could I want to look at?”

“Let’s see. Armchair Theatre. No? Hancock’s Half-Hour? Criss-Cross Quiz? Discussion? Youth at the Helm? Wilfred Pickles? Godfrey Winn? I know it’s difficult. Ah, here you are. There’s some boxing. You could bear that. I’ll go and tell Mrs Hoppy you want to come down for it. She’ll be delighted.”

It seemed that Marylin was right. There was a suggestion of a smile on the tall woman’s face when Carolus reached her comfortable little sitting-room.

“It’s very kind of you, Mrs Hoppy. I just wanted …”

“To see the boxing. I was going to watch it myself. Sit down, sir. I don’t suppose you’d like a cup of tea?”

“I should, very much,” said Carolus. “There’s nothing …”

“Like a good cup of tea. No. I’ll put the kettle on at once. I don’t know what we should do without the television now we’ve got used to it. It’s funny Mr Gregory never wanted it nor Mrs Sweeny for that matter.”

“I’m sure it’s very interesting. Do you look, I mean listen, I mean watch, every evening or just…”

“When there’s something special? No. Every evening. We sit right through. I shouldn’t want to miss anything.”

It was Mrs Hoppy herself, fortunately, who turned to the subject of the murder.

“I hope you’ve cleared it all up to your own satisfaction, sir?”

“Well, in a way. There are still a few things that worry me. I was going …”

“To ask me about them? As long as it’s before This Week comes on at half-past eight I’m sure I’d be only too glad.”

“There seem to be such contradictions about Mr Gregory Willick himself. Some speak so highly of him and some …”

“Haven’t a good word to say. I know. Well, to my mind he was betwixt and between. There was good in him—no one could deny that—but he could be very awkward indeed sometimes and make people so angry that they’d threaten to do all sorts of things.”

“What about Mr Lance Willick?”

“We didn’t see much of him. He came here on leave once or twice during the war and seemed a very nice gentleman. Since he’s gone to live abroad he only comes down for a short time now and again.”

“Did he ever bring anyone …”

“To stay with him here? No, certainly not. He came to see Mr Willick on business.”

“So you had never heard of this man Larkin till the police wanted to interview him?”

“I seem to have heard the name spoken in the house, but that’s all. It’s nearly time to switch on, if there’s nothing else?”

“That’s for you to say, Mrs Hoppy. There’s no other question, but perhaps …”

“I might have something to tell you? There are things it’s not my place to talk about but there was this visiting of Mr Willick’s at the Old Lodge which no one can tell me was for nothing and if Mr Packinlay had suddenly got to know I don’t know what might have happened. Then there’s the Outside Staff and no one knows where he was that afternoon because I don’t believe that about him being over at Hill Wood. He told Mr Ridge he’d met a schoolmistress there and I don’t believe it because she’s a most respectable party. I don’t know what to think about Mr Gusset but I know he was angry with Mr Willick that day because he wouldn’t give him money for something. Now it’s time we switched on.”

There was no escape for the next hour, and Carolus had to bid a rather hasty farewell to Marylin, because he wanted to reach Ridge’s cottage before the chauffeur had gone to bed.

He was relieved to see a light in a downstairs window, and found Ridge alone, his wife having retired.

“I shall be glad if you’ll come in, sir. I was hoping I should have the chance of a word with you while you are here, because I’ve remembered something I think you ought to know, if I may be allowed to say so. Would I be presuming if I asked you to have a glass of beer?”

Carolus accepted this, and waited for Ridge to expound.

“I drove Mr Willick into Cheltenham about a month before he was murdered, sir, and of course I could not help noticing where he went. It was to Mr Kemp-Thorogood’s office.”

“Who is Mr Kemp-Thorogood?”

“Mr Willick’s solicitor, and a very nice and reliable gentleman, if I may give an opinion. Mr Willick was in there for nearly an hour, and when he came out Mr Kemp-Thorogood was with him. He instructed me to drive to Mr Kemp-Thorogood’s home, as his car was out of service and he wanted to drop him.”

“Yes?”

“On the way there was a conversation between the two. They spoke in low tones, but I could not help overhearing a few words here and there. I think I may say I am not an inquisitive man, but I have very acute hearing.”

“What were they discussing?”

“Mr Willick’s Will. It seemed Mr Willick wanted some changes made. Though I don’t like to say so, he sounded very annoyed with someone, and I heard him say ‘had quite enough’, ‘no, cut out completely’.”

Carolus sighed. He could guess what was coming.

“You don’t know to whom he was referring?”

“No, sir, I do not. But if I may hazard a guess …”

“No. Don’t do that unless you can give some reason for it.”

“There I am afraid I’m defeated, sir. I wasn’t able to gather. But I felt you should know about this. You could see Mr Kemp-Thorogood yourself, though.”

On the way home Carolus told Rupert that he was leaving tomorrow for Newminster.

“Won’t you even look up this solicitor?”

“No. It’s not necessary. Ridge only confirms what Packinlay has told us already. Larkin was cut out of the Will.”

“So you’ve finished? You’ve got all you want?”

“Until the Saragossa is in port again, yes.”

“When will that be?”

“A few days after the beginning of term.”

“You’re not supposing for a moment that you’re going to drop me from the final denouement, are you? Because if you are, you’ve had it.”

20

ON THE first day of the following school term, as Carolus was crossing the quadrangle, he was approached by Muggeridge, the school porter, a disgruntled individual who resented wearing the uniform insisted on by the headmaster. This uniform included gold braid and a top hat, and in his years of wearing it Muggeridge had never got over the feeling that it looked ridiculous.

“He wants to see you,” said Muggeridge.

There was no need to enlarge on the pronoun. It could only refer to Mr Gorringer, the headmaster.

“Hell,” said Carolus. “When?”

“Now. He’s sitting at his desk all got ready for it.”

To others this obscure and ungrammatical statement of Muggeridge’s would have been almost meaningless. To those who knew Mr Gorringer it brought a vivid picture.

So it was to be that kind of interview. Not “Ah, Deene, I wanted a word with you,” but “Sit down, Mr Deene. There is a matter of some gravity …” That sort of thing. What a bore!

Carolus was a conscientious schoolmaster. The large private income he enjoyed made him accept the discipline and self-discipline of his work more readily because he felt that merely to live in idleness, indulging his taste for criminal investigation, would in the end be demoralizing. But Mr Gorringer was not easy to bear.

That day there was no elaborate signing of documents while Carolus waited. The pose had been taken up and the voice prepared.

“Mr Deene!” said the headmaster as Carolus entered. “The most astonishing and disturbing matter has just come to my ears.”

Carolus looked at those large crimson organs and thought that everything comes to those that wait.

“I could scarcely credit it, and have sent for you at once, in the hope that you will be able to deny it and set my mind at rest. Pray be seated.”

How Mr Gorringer always made Carolus long to say “Come off it”. But he waited.

“It has been reported to me, I can only think through malicious invention, that you have not only been involved in the most dangerous and sordid investigation of a crime already dismissed by the police, but that you went to the length of dragging into it one of the pupils of this school. Moreover, and here the story passes all credibility, that you actually took this boy with you to a squalid and vicious seaport …”

“Have you been reading the sensational Press, too, headmaster? Tangier’s a quiet and pleasant city with large and respectable residential areas.”

“A squalid and vicious seaport where he associated with criminals. I am waiting anxiously for your denial of this, Mr Deene.”

“If you mean that Priggley came with me to Tangier, it’s perfectly true. His father wanted him to have a tutor for the holidays.”

“A tutor! Mr Deene, you force me to ask you whether you think it the duty of a tutor to involve his pupil in matters of this kind? To take him to such a sink of vice and crime as Tangier? To expose him to the influence of the lowest of mankind? To let him meet the very persons you actually suspect of murder? I could have wished his father had consulted me before entering upon such an arrangement.”

“I doubt if he was consulted much himself. Priggley was told he could find a tutor, and unfortunately picked on me.”

“He should have come straight to his headmaster with such a problem. I’ve no doubt there were emoluments?”

“Twenty quid a week. But he costs that.”

“Twenty pounds a week! Hollingbourne and his wife would have been delighted to have the boy with them for their holiday at St Leonard’s-on-Sea. With their large family the sum would have been a godsend. A godsend. I scarely know what to say to you, Mr Deene. I am fully aware of your great abilities. I appreciate the value of your work as a history master. But a matter of this kind, involving as it does the good name of the school, leaves me at a loss. How do I know what repercussions there may yet be?”

“I know,” said Carolus. “Now that is rather a problem. You see, as the only person who is really aware of the facts of this case, I’m bound to be in some danger till they are more generally known.”

“I beg your pardon, Mr Deene, did my ears deceive me? Or did you say danger? Am I to understand that you have presented yourself for a new term with a price on your head?”

“It depends on whether my solution of the problem is a correct one. If it is, there is someone living in whqse interest it is to silence me.”

“You cannot mean that you anticipate some … attack, even some attempt on your life here, within the confines of the school?”

“Not necessarily. It might be at my home. But I do think the sooner certain parties are made aware that the facts are known to others besides myself the safer it will be.”

“And when, may I ask, will these facts, as you call them, be disseminated?”

“As soon as a ship called the Saragossa docks in London. Next Friday or Saturday.”

Mr Gorringer grew grandiose and lofty.

“And may I ask why the school of which I am headmaster should remain in danger of violence and disorder until a certain ship docks in London?”

“The Saragossa was the ship from which Larkin, suspected of being the murderer of Gregory Willick, was lost overboard.”

“Mr Deene, I must remind you that this is an educational establishment, not a film studio. Suspected murderers and persons lost overboard are extraneous to our way of life here. Moreover, you do not explain the connection between the arrival of this ship and the end of the state of jeopardy in which, through your extraordinary conduct, the school finds itself.”

“If anyone’s in jeopardy, I am,” said Carolus. “When the Saragossa comes in I can make a reconstruction of the whole thing as I see it in the presence of the persons involved. The owners are delighted to know that I can remove the mystery that has surrounded the matter, and have agreed that I should use the saloon of the ship for a small gathering.”

“Ah, I begin to perceive. You intend, as on previous occasions, to reveal your suppositions and theories before all those concerned. I see no harm in that, provided you guard against the intrusion of the Press or of anyone likely to bedaub the escutcheon of the Queen’s School with the colours of sensationalism. But in the meantime, during the four intervening days, we are to be prepared for some attempt on you here. You realize, I hope, what that would mean in adverse publicity to our foundation? You are not insensible to how the Governors will feel about it?”

“I probably should be,” said Carolus. “Insensible to that and everything else. The people concerned are not likely to miss twice.”

“You mean that already there has been …”

“Oh nothing, really. A little nonsense in Tangier. I don’t think you need worry, headmaster.”

“But where is this sort of thing going to stop, Mr Deene? This is an old school with a fine academic record, in which there is no place for such lurid and vulgar matters as you seem unable to avoid. Murder suspects! Suicides! Clues! Detectives! What business have these to obtrude on our quiet industrious school life? You must see for yourself that to me it is most distressing. However, I have said my say. You are no longer in doubt about my attitude. And you say that you intend to put an end to this state of things on Friday or Saturday?”

“Yes. Depends when the Saragossa docks. I should think more likely Saturday.”

“Er … at what hour, Mr Deene?”

“Oh, about eight, I should think.”

“A considerable gathering?”

“Quite, if I get all I want.”

“I was considering, though I shall certainly have to give more thought to the matter before reaching a decision, I was considering whether perhaps it might not be in the best interests of the school for me to be present. I have on at least one such previous occasion been able to protect us from unwelcome publicity.”

“You’re welcome if you want to come.”

“I shall, as I say, think it over. Meanwhile I trust that you will take every precaution.”

Carolus hurried across to the Common-Room. It was just as he thought. Hollingbourne had both the armchair in the window and The Times. He was battling fiercely with the crossword, of which he had solved two clues.

Later that afternoon Carolus phoned the owners of the Saragossa and confirmed the fact that Saturday would be the best day for his purpose. The ship would dock on Friday, and Captain Bidlake had already been informed of the project. He would arrange, at the particular request of Carolus, for the presence of Appleyard, Kutz, Dickie Bryce and Gunner.

Carolus then put through a long-distance call to Leeds and succeeded in speaking to Mrs Roper.

“Coming up this week-end, anyway,” she said. “Gym Display at the Badmington.”

Carolus explained about the gathering on the Saragossa.

“Good for you!” yelled Mrs Roper. “Certainly be there. Wouldn’t miss it.”

Had she, by any chance, the address of Gerard Prosper?

“Rather. Always exchange addresses on trips like that. Got the two drunks’ addresses, too. Butt and Ferry.”

Would she, Carolus asked, get in touch with all three and try to bring them on Saturday?

“Leave it to me. They’ll be there.”

With a picture of Mrs Roper, grown even more gigantic, picking up the three unwilling men and dropping them aboard the Saragossa, Carolus put down the receiver.

He then sent a long cable to Lance Willick inviting him if it was at all possible to fly across in time for eight o’clock Saturday, and explaining that at a party aboard the Saragossa he intended to reveal the murderer of Gregory Willick and give full details of the end of Larkin. He would have added an invitation to Eric Luck, but knew that it was useless.

That evening he rang up Marylin Sweeny. She seemed amused at the idea and promised to drive up herself and if possible bring the Packinlays and Gusset.

“You don’t want anyone else, do you? Ridge could bring a car-load up, too.”

“Why not?” said Carolus. “Let them all come. Mrs Hoppy. Hoppy. Mrs Gunn. And what about Socker?”

“That will take some diplomacy,” said Marylin. “I gather they Don’t Speak.”

“Do your best,” begged Carolus. “We really do need the lot.”

“I’ll try. What have you been doing since you were here?”

The rest of their conversation, which lasted a considerable time, was irrelevant.

Next day he rang up Maltby.

“I’m sorry I didn’t see you again in Tangier. I trust you got what you went for?”

“Oh yes,” said Maltby. “The lot. Couple extra we didn’t know about.”

“That must have been very satisfactory for you.”

“Case comes up next week at the Sessions. We’re sure of seven convictions out of the nine. One’s committed suicide already.”

“Very creditable, I’m sure. I was wondering whether perhaps it would interest you to know who killed Gregory Willick and what was the end of Wilbury Larkin?”

“Sorry, old man. Case is closed.”

“Yes. You explained that you had more urgent matters to attend to. I meant you personally as a private individual.”

“That’s another matter. I’m always interested in another man’s theories.”

Carolus gave him details of the gathering on the Saragossa, and Maltby promised to be there.

Carolus had the faculty of putting aside one matter while he attended to another. For the rest of that week he taught history as though the contemporary were of no interest to him at all, and when Simmons of the Junior Sixth attempted to draw him out on the subject of Willick’s murder he promptly snubbed the boy. Even Priggley found himself writing an essay on the Second Republic.

In his home, Mrs Stick ceased to regard him with suspicion. It was several weeks now since he had returned from Barton Abbess, and there had been no unwelcome visitors, no mysterious telephone calls and none of the signs, for which she watched, that Carolus was mixed up in anything of which she disapproved.

On Saturday morning Mr Gorringer caught him up as they were leaving the school chapel.

“Ah, Deene. A fateful day, I fancy?”

“I don’t know. I shall be glad to be quit of it.”

“That I can well understand. There must be in such cases some deep marks of human depravity, greed and cruelty which are not pleasant to behold. I have decided, however, that it is my duty to be present when you give your elucidation. I do not, as you well know, approve of your participation in these things, but the matter having gone so far on this occasion, I am prepared to face it in a realistic way. I shall attend.”

“You realize that a murderer will be present?”

“It is certainly a solemn thought. For a man like me, dedicated to the education of the young, it is a terrible thought. But I shall not shirk my duty, which in this matter is to safeguard the good name of the Queen’s School. Perhaps you will be so good as to give me a seat in your commodious motor-car?”

Carolus accepted the inevitable. At six o’clock that evening he got his car from the garage and drove to the headmaster’s house. It was a fairly chilly evening, but scarcely cold enough to justify Mr Gorringer’s garb. He wore a large overcoat with the collar turned up, a scarf high at his throat and a brand-new cloth cap, purchased, Carolus could not help guessing, that afternoon. It was pulled well down over his eyes. Carolus made no comment on his headmaster’s appearance, but drove out of the town as quickly as he reasonably could.

They talked little on the way to London, for Carolus was thinking of the task before him and its possible consequences, while the headmaster, no doubt, was congratulating himself on the breadth of view and enterprise he showed by accompanying Carolus on such an expedition, besides perhaps feeling some satisfaction at the appropriateness of his dress.

But as they drew nearer London Mr Gorringer spoke with good humour.

“I’m delighted to see, my dear Deene, that on this occasion you are not indulging the boy Priggley. London docks at night are no place for a pupil of the Queen’s School.”

“I’m sorry in a way. The case has kept that young man from possibilities of far greater mischief this summer.”

“Ah, that unfortunate home life.”

“He’ll survive it,” said Carolus.

There was a stir from the back of the car, and Priggley emerged from under a blanket on the floor where he had been curled.

“He thrives on it,” he said. “Good evening, sir.”

“How did you know where I was going tonight?” asked Carolus severely.

“Well, really, sir, you can’t expect me to watch you at work without picking up some elements of detection.”

“Aha!” said Mr Gorringer, whose good humour this evening seemed indestructible, “he has you there! Hoist with your own petard, my dear Deene.”

The headmaster appeared to enjoy the approach to the docks. He confided in Carolus that once, as an undergraduate at London University, he had been one of a party which visited what he called ‘a public house known as Charlie Brown’s’, and had often felt some curiosity about the East End of London.

On board the Saragossa they were greeted by Bidlake, to whom Carolus introduced Mr Gorringer. Bidlake was not effusive or perhaps too pleased at his ship being used to accommodate the suspects and interested parties in a murder case, though he recognized that until the last vestige of mystery was gone, the Saragossa would know no peace.

He handed Carolus two telegrams. One was from Lance Willick saying that his plane did not reach London airport until nine o’clock, but that he would arrive as soon as possible. The other was from Marylin, and said simply that her party was complete.

“A motley gathering indeed,” said Mr Gorringer to Carolus in a low voice as they sat in the saloon watching the arrivals.

Carolus could scarcely contradict this. Mrs Roper was followed by Jerry Butt and Ronald Ferry, who, in the sobriety of their working year, seemed very ordinary pleasant men. Gerard Prosper was with them, and although Mrs Roper introduced Carolus, he did no more than murmur a formal “how d’you do” and retire with his pipe to a quiet corner. Appleyard and Kutz sat together with the apprentice Dickie Bryce beside them.

Then Maltby arrived, and after telling Carolus ironically that he was expecting to be taught his business tonight and that the story had got to be an ingenious one, however improbable, he sat down.

The arrival of Marylin’s party was even more impressive, for Ridge’s car had followed hers to the docks, and the whole Barton Abbess contingent came at once. This caused Mr Gorringer to say “Upon my soul, Deene,” in a very feeling manner and to stare as if fascinated at Socker, who placed himself next to Mrs Roper.

“You’ve certainly pulled it off,” said Carolus to Marylin, as he gazed at Mrs Hoppy chatting amicably to Mrs. Gunn.

Marylin smiled.

“It was harder than you know. But I think all hatchets are buried for tonight. Though perhaps that’s not the best way to put it.”

Carolus spoke seriously.

“You’re going to get a shock this evening, my dear. I know you can take it, but I wanted to warn you that for you particularly this is going to be a painful occasion.”

“I guessed that. It’s all right, Carolus. I shall be all right.”

The headmaster raised his eyebrows meaningly to Captain Bidlake to ask if he was going to call the company to order, and Bidlake indicated that Mr Gorringer should do so. The headmaster therefore cleared his throat with a mighty rumble and tapped on the table before him.

“Now, Deene,” he said.

There was silence.

21

BUT CAROLUS appeared to be as temperamental as a film star.

“I think, if you don’t mind, I will sit where you are,” he said to Ronald Ferry, who had a seat commanding the door of the saloon. “And, Gunner, I should like that port-hole closed and that starboard one opened instead. Then may we have far less light, please? I shall not need to refer to notes, and this strong light is rather trying. Priggley, will you go and sit beside Mrs Sweeny? Thank you.”

Carolus looked carefully about him. Then he began to talk in a gentle, steady voice:

“I hope you are not expecting too much from me. You are not likely to see an arrest at the end of what I am going to tell you, for unless there is any unexpected new development there never will be an arrest in this case. The police have satisfied themselves that Gregory Willick was murdered by Wilbury Larkin and that this man afterwards committed suicide. So far as they are concerned the case is closed. I am going to tell you what I believe happened. It may, of course, leave the murderer no alternative but to prosecute me for criminal slander, in which case I should plead justification and try to prove my case. But I doubt if I should succeed.

“All the evidence I have is circumstantial. I have no firm substantial proof of anything I am going to say, for the very simple reason that the murderer left none. He left a great number of curious facts, parallels, coincidences and inconsistencies which, considered together in the light of what I am going to tell you, are sufficient to convince me, and which will be, I think, convincing to you, which might even convince a jury, but which would never in any court secure a conviction for the murderer. They are far too insubstantial. The police were quite right, from their point of view, to drop this case. They would never have secured one of those convictions on which, as one of them has so frankly admitted, their promotion largely depends.

“For the murderer here was interested in something more important to him than the promotion of CID officers: he was determined to kill a man and leave no proofs. Not exactly the perfect crime. He did not make the murderer’s usual mistake and try by elaborate means to remove suspicion from himself. He did not mind who suspected him. What he determined was that no one should be able to prove the case against him. In that he has been successful.

“This, then, was a carefully planned, cold-blooded and immensely ingenious murder. It took verve, patience, and although it was in itself a cowardly crime, certain acts in its achievement took courage. It has, as I say, been wholly successful, and all I can do now is to tell you about it, without any hope that there will be retribution or justice for the murderer.

“Gregory Willick was shot on his usual afternoon walk on Monday July 20 between the hours of 3 and 5 p.m. at a point on a woodland path by which he nearly always passed. His dog was killed at the same time, doubtless to prevent its revealing the corpse. This was hidden in the undergrowth, neither so deeply and carefully that it would not be found for weeks, nor so casually that it might be found within a few hours. It was well out of sight of the path, yet a careful search of the area would reveal it almost immediately.”

It was noted that as Carolus talked he kept his eyes for the most part on the area of dimly lighted deck-space beyond the open door of the saloon, but that he seemed to see nothing to interest him there.

“Let us first eliminate a few so-called suspects. I must confess that although I felt bound to consider every possibility here, I never had any serious doubt about any of the persons who, in point of time and place, were in a position to be guilty and who at the same time might be said to have motive, of sorts. It happened that a number of them had no alibis that afternoon, but I was not much impressed by that, for I know how rarely any of us, not deliberately creating an alibi, have a sure one at any hour of the day or night.

“Ridge, for instance, says he was in the churchyard collecting gravestone inscriptions, and it’s just about improbable enough to be true. Mrs Sweeny went into Cheltenham by car, but the only person who could vouch for her, the librarian, saw her last between 2.45 and 3.0. Socker’s alibi, if it can be confirmed at all, is even more ambiguous.”

“Big what?” broke in Socker. “She had big …”

“Silence, please,” said Mr Gorringer pontifically. “Pray continue, Deene. We are all ears.”

“Gilbert Packinlay had no alibi at all. He went, he says, to see an old cottager who did not answer the door, either through deafness or absence. The Vicar, Mr Gusset, not only had no alibi, but was admittedly in the vicinity of the place where Gregory Willick was murdered at the very time when this happened. Mrs Hoppy has only her husband to vouch for her presence in the house. Mrs Packinlay has no one at all until four o’clock or so, when Mr Gusset arrived.

“None of these can disprove, by that simplest and surest of means, a cast-iron alibi, that he was not the murderer. All of them, except Mrs Sweeny, were beneficiaries under Gregory’s Will. A few suggestions of other motives have been made. It has been hinted that Gilbert Packinlay might have reason for jealousy or pressing financial troubles, that Mr Gusset and Ridge were both angry with the dead man. But these are nothing to the gross improbability of it. There was and is no possible reason for thinking that any of them committed, participated in, or even witnessed the murder.

“It may be a dangerous line of argument for a detective, but I for one refuse to discount the human element, the ordinary sound principle of probability based on character. I am not saying that none of those people could commit a murder—I suppose there are circumstances in which any of us might do that. But I am saying that I did not and do not believe that any of them could have committed this particular murder. It would have meant that he or she schemed for weeks, was utterly without human feelings or conscience, was prepared to take a wild and extravagant risk, owned a revolver and had some experience with one, could run like a hare and did so that afternoon, needed his or her bequest so urgently that he would chance hanging to get it more quickly, was strong enough to have pulled Gregory’s body into the undergrowth, and was actor enough, and coldblooded enough, to have behaved for the rest of that day and ever since as though nothing had happened. None of these people fitted into more than two of these categories and some into none of them. So far as I was concerned they were never really suspects at all.”

Carolus paused here, and asked for a drink, which set up a buzz of conversation, particularly among those who had been freed from the shadow of suspicion.

“Not that I ever thought anything like that,” said Mrs Gunn to Mrs Hoppy. “But it’s nice to hear him say it wasn’t you, isn’t it? I mean you don’t want a thing like that round …”

“Your neck for the rest of your life. No. Still, I’m surprised to find him so sure about the Outside Staff.”

“Oh, well, he knows what he’s saying, and he’s going to tell us in a minute who did do it. I know that Socker’s a bit of a monkey. Always has been. But I don’t think he’d do anything like that.”

“I wonder what the lads will say,” Gusset confided in Packinlay, “when they hear I’ve been a murder suspect.”

“My wife always says she’ll do murder one day—only that’ll be to me,” retorted Packinlay.

Mr Gorringer was clearing his throat.

“So one returned, inevitably, to Larkin,” Carolus went on, as if there had been no break at all. “Indeed, there seemed at first very little reason to look farther. Larkin who could so easily have brought a ’38 revolver and ammunition from Tangier. Larkin who was at the scene of the crime and was seen returning from it afterwards. Larkin who hurried into the hotel, paid his bill and rushed off to London in time to get a plane for Tangier before the body had been discovered. Larkin who asked the way to Barton Place. What more could one want? Obviously nothing, especially when he apparently committed suicide rather than face enquiry.

“Yet I ask you to consider Larkin as the murderer of Gregory Willick and see if you don’t agree with me that there is something very odd about it. He had a motive and made no secret of it. Lance Willick told me that Larkin had no suspicion that he had been cut out of Gregory Willick’s Will and expected something really handsome. He left Tangier with the avowed intention of ‘running down to see old Gregory’. He apparently stayed a few days in London, then hired a self-drive car and ran down to Barton Abbess. On his way he stopped in the small country town, scarcely more than a village, of Northleach and purchased at the only boot-shop a pair of hob-nailed boots of a distinctive pattern. He arrived at the Barton Bridge Hotel, the nearest pub of any kind to Barton Place, and booked in under a false name. He stayed in bed next morning so that no one at the Place knew that any such person was in the vicinity and Gregory, who presumably would recognize him, had no chance to see him.

“After lunch he went out, leaving one of his two suitcases locked and the one on top unlocked. Right on top of this he left his passport in his own name, Larkin. He must have made straight for a place in the woods which Gregory would pass and wearing his hob-nailed boots left plenty of prints of them there. He shot Gregory, we must presume, with a ’38 revolver fitted with a silencer, pulled his body into the undergrowth with that of his dog, which he had also shot, and walked away. He allowed himself to be seen coming from that direction by Smite. When he first met Smite he behaved in an extraordinary and guilty manner, making to go back, then coming on and shouting ‘Good afternoon!’ in his distinctive voice.

“Back at the hotel he went up to the manager in a hurried and agitated condition, and although he had booked his room ‘for some days’, said he wanted his bill, as he was leaving at once. He rushed upstairs and made quite sure that Mrs Gunn had looked at the passport, afterwards drawing more attention to this by reporting it to Habbard the manager. He hurriedly packed and left, leaving in the waste-paper basket an envelope addressed to himself, Wilbury Larkin, with a Tangier postmark on it. He drove up to London, and was on the plane for Tangier that night.

“Now I ask you. What kind of a murderer was that?”

Carolus paused rhetorically and sipped his whisky-and-soda.

“It does seem funny, now you come to think about it,” said Mrs Gunn.

“Hush,” said Mr Gorringer.

“Yes,” continued Carolus. “What kind of a murderer could this be? A madman? A madman with such a mixture of lunacy and logic in his mind that he could successfully kill his victim and get out of the country, but at the same time leave such a trail of evidence behind him that he would be extradited at once? Or something else? Something far more sinister. A murderer who wished to make his guilt absolutely clear. Who wished there to be no doubt in any one’s mind that he, Wilbury Larkin, had killed Gregory Willick. Who took every care to show that he had come with the express purpose of doing it.”

“But why?”

It was Appleyard who asked this, but the question must have been in the mind of everyone following Carolus.

“Yes, Deene,” echoed Mr Gorringer, “why should he do such a thing?”

There was real tension in the room as Carolus looked up to answer.

“Because he knew, with fatalistic certainty, that Wilbury Larkin would cease to exist. That Wilbury Larkin would soon be at the bottom of the sea. As he is, thank God.”

There was silence in the dimly lit and crowded saloon. Then suddenly things happened. A large dark figure was framed in the doorway, and everyone turned to see the man who stood there.

Marylin Sweeny suppressed a scream.

“God!” cried Mrs Roper.

For there could be no mistake about it. Even to those who knew him only by description, it was obvious. The heavy body, the thick spectacles, the high stiff collar, the old-fashioned clothes—it was Larkin. Had there been any doubt, it would have been dispelled by the voice when he spoke.

“If any one moves from his place,” he said, “he’ll be dead.”

He had a revolver in his right hand. He raised his left to his glasses as if to remove them.

In that moment a short square figure seemed to materialize behind him, his right arm was jerked up and there was the curious sound, like a volcanic gasp, of a pistol, fitted with a silencer, being fired. A shot splintered the ceiling.

In a moment the man was completely overpowered. Gerard Prosper, who was sitting near the door, had one arm and the man who had entered behind Larkin the other. The revolver crashed to the ground.

Carolus came forward, rather white, but quite calm.

“Thank you, Mr Booth,” said Carolus, for it was the Third Officer who held Larkin’s right arm.

Maltby took command efficiently and without fuss.

“Could you send for a couple of the Port policemen, Captain Bidlake?”

Bryce was dispatched. Appleyard went out and came back in a moment with a pair of handcuffs, which Maltby put on without much difficulty.

The remainder of those in the saloon were admirably calm. Perhaps those from Barton Abbess, already a little out of their depth, were too stunned to do more than stare at the big man, who had grown rather limp and helpless. There was a thin smile on Kutz’s face. No one spoke, but those who had drinks beside them sipped.

It seemed a very short time before the police arrived. One of them knew Maltby, and he gave them brief instructions.

“Keep him in your lock-up here till I come over. There will be a charge against him presently. Take the usual precautions against possible suicide—he hasn’t been searched yet. I’ll come over when I’ve finished here.”

When they had gone, the din of general conversation gradually rose. Like people everywhere who have passed through some tense crisis, these wanted to chatter, congratulate one another, return to normality.

Rupert Priggley came up to Carolus.

“You’ve had it this time. You’d just said he was at the bottom of the sea.”

“He was.”

“Listen, sir. You’ve got to pull yourself together and talk your way out of this. You stand to look pretty silly just at the moment. And don’t try anything supernatural, for heaven’s sake. That was no ghost who was handcuffed and taken away.”

Mr Gorringer seemed no less perturbed, though there was a suggestion of huffiness in his manner.

“So you were misleading us, Deene. I am indeed surprised.”

“I was doing nothing of the sort.”

“But unless my ears deceived me you had just said that this man was at the bottom of the sea. A moment later, hey presto! And here he is with a pistol in his hand.”

“It was a desperate thing to do. But perhaps he was right. It may have been the only thing.”

“It seems to me, Deene, that you owe us all an explanation.” The headmaster tapped on the table. “I think I speak for all of us when I say that Mr Deene owes us an explanation for this extraordinary apparition. He had given us clearly to understand that Larkin was no more.”

“Well, that was him, all right,” said Mrs Gunn. “D’you think I shouldn’t know after doing his room and having words with him? That was him as sure as eggs is eggs, the nasty horrible thing.”

“Captain Bidlake,” said Mr Gorringer, “you had Larkin on your ship. Are you satisfied that this was the same man?”

“Quite satisfied. That was Larkin.”

“Yet Mr Deene has told us that he was drowned. Come, Deene. There is some mystery here.”

“You don’t mean it?” muttered Rupert Priggley.

Maltby intervened.

“I think I have some inkling of the matter. I rather think that Mr Deene’s explanation is going to cover everything. Were you anticipating that interruption, Deene?”

“I thought it a possibility, I must say. I wondered whether he was desperate enough and took me seriously enough, but I suspected it so strongly that I enlisted Mr Booth’s aid.” He turned to Captain Bidlake. “I am glad now that I made Mr Booth’s acquaintance on that trip to Tangier. He certainly saved my life, and perhaps some others. But the incident has done more than that. I said that my explanation would not be followed by an arrest ‘unless there is any unexpected new development’. There has been. There will be a conviction now, all right. There cannot be anything else. He might have been safe if he had not risked this intrusion tonight. But it goes with the man’s character.

“However, let’s talk no more at cross-purposes. I will begin at the other end of the case, as it were, and tell a straightforward story. You need not be in the dark any further.”

22

“FIVE YEARS ago Lance Willick decided to murder his uncle Gregory. He knew that the bulk of that vast fortune inherited from his grandfather was destined for him on Gregory’s death—entirely through the fair-mindedness of Gregory, let it be remembered. He had lately seen installed at Barton Place a very beautiful and charming young lady who obviously loved his uncle and was loved by him. He suspected that this might lead to the loss of his fortune.

“Now Lance not only had intelligence, but something almost as valuable—plenty of time. Living in Tangier on an adequate income which his uncle allowed him, he had nothing else to do but plan his crime and carry it out. That is a more important factor than may at first appear, for most crimes are slipshod and hurriedly planned. Lance was in no hurry. I do not know whether he reckoned on a Five Year Plan, or whether it just worked out that way, but he certainly did not intend to do anything carelessly.

“His first step was to create an alter ego …”

“You’ll forgive me making so bold as to enquire, sir,” interrupted Ridge, “but what might that be?”

“A second self. With the utmost care he set about creating the externals of a human being as unlike himself as possible. He was working in the crowd scene of a film at the time—the part, so I was told, of a large priest. Someone, presumably, who had to look larger than himself. Now whether Lance took his film work so seriously that he privately spent money on achieving this and afterwards it gave him the idea, or whether he had already decided to create a second self and used the film as an excuse to do so, we shall probably never know. At all events, his second self was a bigger man than he was.

“How did he achieve this? First of all by the obvious means—boots. He had constructed for himself a pair of boots which by an internal device lifted his heels by at least an inch—a formidable difference in height. Throughout this case there has been a key-note of boots and shoes which has repeated itself. No boots were found in Larkin’s cabin. None in his house in Tangier. A pair of boots was purchased in Northleach on the day before the murder and prints of them were found near the scene of the crime. Socker himself found the boots concealed in the undergrowth. One might quote Kipling—boots, boots, boots. But everything is accounted for by Lance’s creation and original purchase, probably from a bootmaker in Cadiz, of the specially designed ones.

“Next there was the question of girth, and for this he had the most elaborate padding made. We know by chance that he was in Cadiz for some months before his film work, preparing for it or for his criminal design or for both, so presumably the padding was made there. He could strap it on and remove it fairly quickly, and with the utmost naturalness it made him appear a large priest, or a very heavy layman.

“In order to dress this heavy man he went first as himself—as Lance Willick, I mean—to one of the second-hand clothes-shops of Tangier. He was lucky because it is a centre for the used-clothes market and imports thousands of part-worn suits from America every year. Lance chose one for a man larger than himself, judging it or measuring it, so that it fitted his frame plus the padding and plus the added height. This was the suit I found in Larkin’s house among later ones. After that he could go, wearing padding and suit, to any tailor and have another made.

“But this left him with a problem. His neck. A small neck rising from that mighty frame would look disproportionate …”

“Ill-proportioned,” interrupted Priggley.

“And he had to think of some way of concealing this. He hit on the idea of old-fashioned high stiff collars such as Mr Pooter might have worn. These fulfilled a double purpose. They concealed his small neck and they made him noticeable. It was one of the things he wanted for his second self: that he should be highly conspicuous, once seen never forgotten.

“But he still had the hardest task—the face. Clearly no tricks of ordinary make-up would be of the slightest use. This was not to be for one occasion, but for years. There had to be a permanent, an easily assumed face different from his own. The difference could not be such that time was necessary for it to appear. He could not, for instance, wait to grow a beard or moustache. And certainly he could not do anything so childish as to assume and discard false ones. In the end he concentrated—wisely, I think—on two things: teeth and glasses. He went to a Cadiz dentist, Dr Fernandez, and for his film part had a special set of teeth made. In due course we shall be able to examine these as Exhibit A or some such nonsense. I believe they were very elaborate, not only in having much larger teeth than his own, but in artificially enlarging the jaw. He has been described as widening out in the lower part of his face, and I think this accounts for it.

“As for his glasses, he chose those thick lenses which magnify the wearer’s eye as one looks at him. They change a man’s appearance most effectively. But he never seems to have been entirely at ease wearing glasses, and has more than once been described as ‘blinking’, even ‘blind-looking’.

“He added some jewellery which as himself he never wore—rings, a tie-pin and a watch and chain which went with the old-fashioned get-up.

“So there was the second self in appearance. But it was a very odd appearance, as the descriptions of many of you testify. Mr Appleyard described him to Captain Bidlake, who afterwards gave me the excellent description, as ‘everything’s too big about him: his great massive chest and shoulders, his eyes when you see them through those thick glases’. And again—‘something unnatural, something not quite human about him’. Mr Smite noticed him ‘because you don’t expect to see anyone dressed like that in these parts’. Mickie, the barmaid at the Barton Bridge Hotel, said he was ‘horrible’ and ‘gave you the creeps’. Mrs Gunn said he wore the sort of clothes her uncle, who was an undertaker, used to wear, and spoke of the ‘nasty way he had with people’ and later said he was a ‘nasty horrible fellow and you could tell he was a murderer’, and further ‘he was a nasty sort of man who made you turn queer to look at him’. Mr Habbard said, ‘If ever I saw a murderer that was one.’

“Perhaps the most interesting detail about his appearance came from my friend Eric Luck of Tangier. He was describing his walk. ‘He was a big heavy man, but he tripped along in a very queer way. It was as though he was stalking someone.’ Exactly as a man would walk who was wearing artificially constructed boots which raised his heels to give him height. Yes, I think Lance Willick achieved a marvel so far as appearances went. Nobody could, indeed nobody I know of ever has, noticed any similarity between his second self, whom he called Wilbury Larkin, and himself, Lance Willick.”

Mr Gorringer interrupted.

“A short break, I think. Interesting though this is, we must not tire our raconteur too much. Perhaps you will take something, Deene?”

“A large whisky,” said Carolus gratefully.

Conversation broke out again. Mr Gusset seemed as thrilled as any member of his Troop.

“You’ll have to come and give a pow-wow to the Boys’ Club,” he told Carolus.

Mrs Roper looked across admiringly.

“Go it, Deene!” she said. “Grand stuff!”

But the respite was all too short.

“Having created an appearance and a name,” Carolus continued, “Lance had to create a character and the circumstances surrounding him. He showed, I think, the same wisdom by making the man a recluse who was often absent for months on end and who refused to make friends with any Europeans. Who, in other words, was seen and not heard. For years people saw the big oddly-dressed man going down to do his marketing, but if they tried to talk to him they were snubbed.

“That very loud voice, by the way, was a masterpiece. Try disguising your voice, not just for a few sentences, but for the conversation of years. You cannot do it by assuming a different accent or dialect. It’s a different tone that is wanted. This he achieved by forcing his voice into a braying shout. No one who met Larkin failed to notice it. No one ever thought his voice sounded like Lance’s.

“Then languages. Lance had probably been learning Arabic for some time, may even have spoken it before he came to Tangier, but from the moment he created Larkin he dropped it altogether. ‘Not a word,’ he said when I asked him if he spoke Arabic. But, as Larkin, he spoke it fairly well and made some acquaintances among the Moors. He used these to suggest an explanation for Larkin’s continual long absences. When Larkin was supposed to be in Tangier, Lance had to dedicate a good deal of time to maintaining his double personality. He had found a house for Larkin in a narrow passage in the medina in which the doorway was not overlooked. As a ‘friend’ of Larkin’s he could come to the house, let himself in, assume the personality of Larkin, be seen in the market as Larkin, return to his home as himself—in fact keep the two characters going without any insuperable difficulty. But of course it was a nuisance and it took time, so that every now and again Larkin would be absent from Tangier and Lance could lead his own life without visiting the house in the medina at all.

“Wherever Lance could emphasize the difference between them, he did so. His house was modern, Larkin was a collector of old Mohammedan pottery and glass. Lance liked a drink, Larkin was a strict teetotaller. And so on. He was so successful that the two of them became familiar figures in Tangier. Most of the Europeans knew Lance Willick, a nice quiet chap who entertained a little and had a wide acquaintance, and most knew by sight and reputation the loud-voiced unsociable Larkin, who lived in the medina and would have nothing to do with anyone except Lance Willick and a few Moors.

“But he went farther than that. He had to provide Larkin with means of some kind so that any investigation in the future would not reveal a discrepancy with fact. So on one of his visits to Barton Abbess he asked Gregory to increase his allowance. This was not unreasonable if, as one may conjecture, it had not been increased since it was first allotted, for even in Tangier prices were a good deal higher. Gregory must have agreed and Lance have suggested that in order to avoid all the rigmarole of obtaining Treasury permission, the money should be paid in an imaginary name to a bank in Gibraltar. So for Gregory ‘Wilbury Larkin’, the imaginary recipient, became a joke which he shared with Lance. This we know from Gilbert Packinlay. Wilbury Larkin, the ‘old friend of the family’, had been heard of, always with a smile from Gregory, by most people at Barton Place.

“All this had taken time, but Lance was not worried by that because he knew Gregory well enough to have confidence that he would play fair with him, and if any considerable change was to be made in his Will, Lance would be informed. Then, about a year back, he may have heard of a settlement which Gregory made on Mrs Sweeny, and this may have given him apprehensions. He still did not act precipitately, for he had several things to do before the murder.

“In anticipation of the faked suicide which he planned for Larkin, he had to familiarize himself with a ship on which Larkin could travel to England when he was supposed to be going to vindicate himself. So as Lance Willick he booked a passage on the Saragossa and thoroughly studied her. He was not afraid of anyone on board recognizing him when he travelled as Larkin, but, even so, he felt it wise to let a few trips pass before the time for Larkin’s ‘suicide’ trip.

“When he had first asked Gregory to pay his extra allowance to Larkin in Gibraltar, either Gregory or he had suggested that the ‘old friend of the family’ should be mentioned in Gregory’s Will. Possibly Gregory’s solicitor will be able to help us there. Lance’s object was clear enough. He had to provide a motive for Larkin. But what could he say to Gregory? He may have suggested it as a way in which Gregory could safeguard himself by showing that he really believed in the existence of such a person as Wilbury Larkin.”

“I think I can explain that, as I’ve seen the Will,” put in Gilbert Packinlay. “It expressly stated Wilbury Larkin ‘of Gibraltar’. I think, as you say, that Gregory was making sure that he could have no trouble under currency regulations. He would be able to show that his nephew had told him of the existence in Gibraltar of this old family friend, and he was providing for him.”

“Very likely. Anyway, as it came near the zero hour, Lance realized that this bequest, small though it was, would cause embarrassment. The executors might seek too insistently for Larkin’s relatives. They might even discover that Larkin was a man of straw. He had, of course, bound Gregory to secrecy about Larkin, but after Gregory’s death and the faked suicide of Larkin there might be an investigation. So either on a visit, or else by letter (for he knew of Gregory’s invariable habit of destroying private correspondence), he stopped Gregory’s payments to Larkin in Gibraltar and got him to cut Larkin out of his Will. Then he was absolutely ready to act.

“He timed Larkin’s homicidal visit to England in accordance with the sailings of the Saragossa. The ship was due to leave Tangier for London on July 29. He therefore timed the murder for July 20. This, he reckoned, would give the police enough time to want Larkin without enough to have gone through the lengthy business of obtaining an extradition order. So on July 15, as Larkin, he flew to England. On the following day, as Lance Willick, he returned by air to Tangier. On July 17, as Lance Willick (with Larkin supposedly staying in London), he gave his birthday party…”

“I really must interrupt you here.” It was Maltby speaking in a rather apologetic voice. “Surely you are forgetting the all-important matter of passports?”

Carolus smiled.

“I should have explained that. It is very simple. In Tangier passports of any nationality are not two a penny, but they cost between ten and twenty pounds each. Larkin had one indistinguishable from a genuine one, and Lance, I think, had two, so that certain entries could be made in the spare one.”

Mr Gorringer frowned.

“A very grave matter, surely, Deene. I understood that the organization Interpol could deal with that sort of thing?”

“Impossible. That is what makes all this excessive passport carrying so absurd. Here in London I undertake to obtain a passport for you in forty-eight hours without going near the passport office, and it will be one which will get you to any country in the world.”

Maltby seemed to accept this, for he nodded, and Carolus continued:

“On July 18, saying that he was going to stay with a Mrs Gibbons in Cadiz, Lance crossed to Algeciras on his own passport and flew on to London on his second one. On Friday 19, as Larkin, he hired a self-drive car and went down to the Barton Bridge Hotel. On Saturday 20 he murdered Gregory, and on the same night, still as Larkin, left by plane for Tangier. On Sunday, as Larkin, he was back in Tangier. Whether he was thorough enough then to fly to Gibraltar as Lance and return on his own passport next morning we shall not know until, if ever, we examine both his passports.

“You now perceive, I hope, the reason for Larkin’s extraordinary behaviour in Barton Abbess. There had to be no doubt at all that he committed the murder. He had been created five years previously for this very purpose. Well, he left no doubt at all. But here, I think, for the first time, Lance overdid it. His staying at the hotel under a false name would have been sufficient without all that nonsense with his passport and the addressed envelope in the waste-paper basket. He was so afraid of the murderer not being identified as Larkin that he went too far.

“And here again there was the problem of boots. He could not leave the prints of his specially designed boots, for they would be recognizable. But to buy locally boots which made such very easily identified prints was excessive. Moreover he could not be seen wearing them, for they not only lowered his height, but changed his walk, so he had to leave the hotel with them in a packet. Packinlay fortunately remembered to mention this to me. ‘He was carrying a brown-paper parcel,’ he said. He must have changed, left his prints, and after he had shot Gregory changed back into his own boots to return to the hotel. As I had realized what the repeated absence of boots from Larkin’s effects meant, it was not difficult for me to guess, when Socker told me he had found something near the scene of the crime, that it was the hob-nailed boots.

“At this point Lance must have been pretty pleased with himself. He had created Larkin, and Larkin had fulfilled his purpose by murdering Gregory and leaving a trail so clear that the police already ‘wanted to interview’ him. It was time to put the second part of his plan into operation and arrange the suicide of Larkin.

“I have wondered about one thing. He must have been gambling on being able to obtain a passage home for Larkin on the Saragossa. He could not book it in advance …”

Appleyard interrupted.

“That’s easily explained. I remember our agent in Tangier told me that a passage on this trip had been booked weeks before in the name of Helply. It was cancelled about half an hour before Larkin arrived to book his own passage.”

“Obviously Lance had shown his usual foresight then. As Larkin he went on board the Saragossa, and as Larkin set about making himself as unpleasant as possible to the other passengers and officers. He meant to make sure that no one should forget the unhappy, aggressive, lonely, insulting man who was so extremely unlike his cheerful, modest, sociable and courteous self.

“For the purposes of subsequent enquiry, he decided to confide in one person on board the fact of his guilt and intention to commit suicide. He cleverly chose Mr Kutz, who would certainly not speak about it until after the event and who, in fact, would not have spoken of it at all if I had not pressed him with questions.

“Then there was a rather human little episode. Lance liked a drink, but in the character of Larkin was a strict teetotaller. Foreseeing the difficulties of this, he had brought a couple of bottles of whisky on board, and one night got drunk. Feeling the need to talk to someone, and being by now anathema to both officers and passengers, he invited young Bryce to have a drink. It would not have mattered to him had it not led me to an important discovery, which was in fact a key to much that was puzzling, as you shall hear in a moment.

“He waited till the night before the ship would dock, then, before she entered the Thames estuary, at about one a.m., began to put his plan into operation. Behind the door of his cabin, which he kept invariably locked, he assumed the character of Lance Willick. He then typed out his little suicide note. He decided against signing it. He had created a signature for Larkin which he used for his cheques in Gibraltar, but he was never quite sure whether handwriting experts could distinguish this as his own. He had never, as Larkin, committed to paper anything but a signature. So he left the thing unsigned.

“He then made his Larkin effigy from a suit stuffed with other clothes, the specially made boots, the padding, the glasses, the jewellery, the special denture and anything else which might show the artificiality of Larkin. He weighted this heavily. He left some of his clothes in the cabin, of course. Finally he spent the remainder of the hour obliterating with consummate care every possible finger-print in the cabin, not forgetting the typewriter keys. He had trained himself to do this without a possibility of omission. He knew that one of his own finger-prints here might hang him.

“Now came his moment of greatest risk. He had only about six yards to go from his cabin to the rail of the ship, but for that distance he would be in deadly danger of discovery. Once his effigy was in the water he could be found, and still have a chance by saying that he had stowed away in Tangier in order to watch Larkin, or some such story. It would be thin and might not come off, but it would be possible. If he was caught now, with the effigy in his arms, he would be hanged.

“He looked out of his door, saw no one, hurled ‘Larkin’ over the rail and shouted ‘Man overboard!’ For this he could use neither his own natural voice nor Larkin’s; the result was that unpleasant screeching shout which so impressed those who heard it.

“He then hurried back to his cabin, but he was not quite quick enough in leaving the deck, for Mrs Roper caught a glimpse of someone, she couldn’t tell who, disappearing. He returned to his cabin and, acting according to plan, lifted the bunk and concealed himself in the locker under it. It was this hiding-place which was revealed to me when I heard about Dickie Bryce’s drinking with Larkin. Whether or not he used it …”

“I didn’t, as a matter of fact. I cleared out.”

“I saw that it was exactly what Lance needed. It would not have been large enough for him in the character and with the size of Larkin, but for his natural self it was just sufficient. I will admit that before I had realized the truth I had played with the idea of Larkin having concealed himself there, but had dismissed it as impossible. It was only just large enough for Lance’s natural self.

“He stayed there until the cabin was locked, and returned to it next day, until the ship docked, the police came on board and they and the Press had gone. Then he went quietly to the saloon and asked for Captain Bidlake, as if he had just come on board. Once again all had gone splendidly, according to plan. ‘Larkin’ was at the bottom of the sea, and, as Lance, he could now go down to Barton Abbess and take over his inheritance with a peaceful mind, if not a clear conscience. Very soon he heard that the police accepted the version he had prepared for them, so there was nothing more to worry about.”

Gunner came in and spoke to Captain Bidlake, who nodded. Gunner then appeared with a vast mound of sandwiches and then another, which he set down among those assembled.

“That’s a welcome sight,” said Mr Gusset. “I assure you we’re most glad of them, steward.”

“That’s all right,” said Gunner; “I was a suspect myself. Gives you quite an appetite, doesn’t it?”

“It’s funny, isn’t it?” wheezed Mrs Gunn. “But you do feel peckish though you’d think it would put you off hearing all this about murder and that and to think that he wasn’t a real man that Larkin, at least he wasn’t himself as you might say, well I always knew …”

“There was something funny about him. Yes, I know you did,” retorted Mrs Hoppy.

“I’ve really got very little more to tell you,” said Carolus. “I cannot say at what precise moment I realized the truth. The first key to it was Larkin’s advertisement of himself as murderer. But there were already other leaders. The only man who really had a motive for killing Gregory was Lance, and he certainly could not have done it, as he himself pointed out, in his own character. Then there was the fact that Larkin knew of Gregory’s afternoon walk, its time and its route, and knew the way to get to a point in the woods at which he could wait for Gregory. The only person he could have asked about this in Barton Abbess was Mrs Gunn, and she wouldn’t have known in such detail, if at all.”

“I should think not …” began Mrs Gunn.

“Shsh!” said Mr Gorringer.

“It was when I reached Tangier that the thing grew really clear. Lance talked convincingly enough about Larkin, yet I could not help feeling it was too slick, as though it was rehearsed. And the more he tried to make Larkin sound like a real person, the more paradoxical and fantastic he became. Then there was Lance’s anxiety to know whether Mr Kutz had told me of the conversation about suicide. ‘Surely he must have confided in someone on that ship?’ he pleaded. Once Lance quite put his foot in it by over-elaboration. In his efforts to make Larkin materialize he said he was a wonderful cook, forgetting that it would be obvious from supplies and materials in the little house that when he stayed there he lived on bits of tinned stuff. His attempt to cover up on this was plucky, but feeble. Larkin’s house, in any case, was the most un-lived-in place I’ve ever seen.

“If I needed more there was the appearance of Michaelis, a man who really would kill for money and who warned me to get out of Tangier after I had shown Lance that I already knew a little too much and was discovering more. The next day he tried to kill me, and only failed by my great good luck. He could only have been employed by Lance.

“There was a point about this which puzzled me for a long time. How did Lance know that I was going to the house in the medina for finger-prints at a certain time? Then I remembered that Priggley told me Lance had called on the previous evening while I was out and had stopped to chat. I suppose you must have mentioned it?” Carolus addressed Rupert Priggley.

“Yes, I think I did. I’d no idea that Lance was suspect …”

“Priggley!” said Mr Gorringer. “That was indiscreet.”

“Most revealing of all, perhaps, was the extraordinary absence of finger-prints. Larkin left every kind of evidence except finger-prints. In his cabin, in his house, not one was to be found. The answer was, of course, that he hadn’t got any—of his own, I mean. He cleaned up in the cabin. He didn’t need to in the house. It was quite natural that Lance Willick’s should be there.

“Then there was Lance’s so-called alibi in Cadiz during the time of the murder. I knew it wouldn’t be worth a light, because by this time I knew the truth. But I pretended to follow it up in the hope of getting some evidence of Lance’s steps five years ago to create Larkin. Mrs Gibbons, of course, had had her diary filled in for her, as it were. Written it herself, as Lance had told her. But through her I found the dentist and heard about the special denture. I think if I had stayed longer in Cadiz and spoke Spanish I would have found both the bootmaker and the oculist, for it was to Cadiz that Lance went to prepare. Eric Luck had told me that he was two months there before the appearance of Larkin.

“I telephoned Lance from Gibraltar and told him that I had confirmed his alibi. I appear to have convinced him, for he decided that I was harmless and called off Michaelis, whom he had sent to Gibraltar to obliterate me and all my theories with me.

“Finally there was Packinlay’s knowledge that Lance had asked Gregory for money to be sent to Larkin.

“But with all this I had no more than a story based on inference and circumstantial evidence—until tonight. I sent Lance a telegram inviting him here, but I did so without any real hope. By speaking of ‘full details of the end of Larkin’, I showed him that I knew the truth, but I did not think that even that would tempt him to come. His only hope was to kill me before I had spoken, but I thought he would realize it was too late for that. In case anything of the sort was attempted, I asked Mr Booth to remain in concealment while watching the saloon.

“One thing I certainly never anticipated was that he would revive Larkin. I don’t know now how he did it in the time, unless he had spare boots and a spare denture, glasses and padding. He only had three days to prepare. But Lance always did the unexpected and, I suppose, the cleverest thing. He probably left a car somewhere near. He hoped to come on board as Larkin, dispose of me by shooting me with a pistol fitted with a silencer, and before the alarm could be raised have got away among the warehouses. It was a desperate hope, but his only one. The key of the saloon door, he knew, was kept on the outside, and by locking it he would give himself a few moments’ start. But when he entered the saloon he was confused for a moment by the dim lights, and did not at once see me. His thick glasses, as always, worried him, and he raised his left hand to lift them. That gave Mr Booth the moment he needed.

“Somewhere not far away would be his own clothes, and it is quite possible that he meant to return in his own capacity, apologize for his lateness and be very, very sorry to hear of the murder by Larkin of the unfortunate Carolus Deene.”

THE END

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22