“I think that’s an excellent idea, Mrs. Jenkins,” said Emmy. “I’d do that first thing tomorrow.”
“Well, I’m glad you agree, dear. It’s taken quite a weight off my mind. The police around here are very good, you know. They found a bicycle of ours left in Aberwithy only the other day. Some guest must have cycled over there, decided to take the bus back, and just left the bicycle in the parking lot. Talk about being inconsiderate with other people’s property. I’ll never find out who did it, though I’ve my suspicions and nobody can stop me.”
“You don’t think it could have been Professor Vandike or Mr. Talbot?” asked Emmy tentatively.
Mrs. Jenkins looked at her scornfully. “How could it have been, considering that the professor was off to Devil’s Chimney, and young Talbot joined a party with a professional guide? Oh, no. But there’s some…well, I’ll say no more. But Professor Vandike was a real gentleman, even if he did bring along a different young man each year, which I thought peculiar to say the least.” Mrs. Jenkins sniffed. “Still, none of my business, so long as the bill’s paid.”
“Did Mr. Talbot pay before he left?” Emmy asked.
“He paid his bar bill, as you’d expect,” said Mrs. Jenkins. “As for the room, the professor always paid for both of them. I didn’t feel I could ask Mr. Talbot for it. Oh, I’m not worrying. The police will find the next of kin. It’ll be paid.”
“Do you remember,” said Emmy, “a young man called Peter Turnberry, who came here one year with Professor Vandike?”
“Turnberry? Turnberry? It wasn’t last year, that was Mr. Hepplewhite…nor the year before, that was the Jones boy, I shan’t forget him in a hurry…let’s see now. Yes, it must have been three years ago. A nice young fellow, just finished at Oxford and going in for the law. That the one you mean?”
“That’s him,” said Emmy.
“He and the professor were very close,” confided Mrs. Jenkins. “Always sitting talking in corners and shutting up like clams when anybody came near. And yet, it’s a funny thing…”
“What is?”
“Well, not to speak ill of the dead, but, as I said, I always thought there was something…well…not quite normal about the professor and his young men, if you follow me. And yet, with Mr. Turnberry, I remember thinking—he’s not one of those. You get my meaning? They were close, all right, but it seemed more like they were discussing a business deal or some such thing.”
Sharp little black eyes, missing nothing, Emmy thought. “Well, I can see you’ve got customers arriving,” she said. “I’m just going to make a phone call before dinner.”
She left Mrs. Jenkins muttering, “That Mary! I’ll teach her to be late,” and made her way to the hotel’s phone booth. The superintendent was no longer on duty, and the telephone book had pages of Evanses in it—but a sympathetic sergeant divulged his superior’s home number. It was answered by a soft Welsh female voice, which said that Ivor was watching telly, but she’d get him.
Emmy told Evans that he would not have to resort to any subterfuge to get access to Vandike’s belongings. Mrs. Jenkins would be calling to ask him to remove them. “So it’s only the car-rental firm you have to worry about,” she added. “I’ll see you in your office tomorrow evening, around five.” Then she had dinner, and went to bed early.
The next day was a long and tedious one for Emmy, even though she enjoyed driving up to a well-known mountain restaurant for lunch. She wished heartily that she could have taken an earlier train back to London, but she had to give the local police time to do their work—and in any case, the car was hers until three. However, it was with relief that she handed it back to the girl in green.
The girl seemed less bored and quite eager to talk. “You’ll never guess,” she said as she checked the mileage. “We had the police in this morning!”
“The police?” said Emmy, with all the innocence she could muster. “Whatever for?”
“Said there’d been a lot of hired cars stolen recently,” said the girl. “I said there’d been none stolen from us, thank you very much, but he looked at our files all the same. Said he might be able to pick out a name. I thought it was all a bit fishy.”
“I expect the police knew what they were doing,” said Emmy.
“Yes, that’s just it. I expect they did, and it wasn’t to do with car thefts.”
“Oh? What was it, then?”
“Checking up on us, to see if we keep our records right and report our income for tax,” said the girl. “Well, of course we do, but there’s some as doesn’t, and the income tax are in with the police, whatever anybody may say. It gave me a nasty feeling, like being in Russia or somewhere.”
Emmy was soothing. “I wouldn’t worry,” she said. “Especially as you’ve nothing to hide.”
“Well, I’ve always said it’s a free country. Here you are. Just sign here, please. And here, for the credit card. Thanks a lot.”
Emmy filled the next half hour exploring the amenities of Aberwithy, which were minimal. She ended up reading a newspaper in the public gardens, and was heartily glad when her watch told her it was a quarter to five, and she might decently make her way to the police station.
Evans greeted her with jubilation. “I think the Chief Superintendent’s going to be well pleased,” he said. “For a start, Constable Jones found out about the car.”
“The girl told me the police had been around,” Emmy said.
“Yes, and with a beautiful story about car thefts that nobody could have disbelieved. He’s a good lad, is Jones.”
“Yes,” said Emmy, suppressing a smile. “Well, what did he find out?”
“Last Monday,” said the superintendent impressively, “just before the office closed, that is, about a quarter to six, Mr. Roger Talbot came in and hired a car. And he signed for it in that italic way that the Chief Superintendent was describing.”
“And has the car been returned?”
“Not to here. It wasn’t meant to be. You know this firm has offices all over the country, so you can hire a car in one place and turn it in somewhere else. Well, this car was hired for twenty-four hours, and was returned and paid for as agreed. A big expensive car it was, with a good turn of speed.”
“And where was it handed in?”
“In London. The branch office near Waterloo Station.”
“And the license number?”
“Written down here, Mrs. Tibbett. Jones thought of everything.”
“Could I have some paper to copy all this down for Henry? Did Constable Jones manage to find out what Roger Talbot looked like?”
“Well, no, madam. You see, the girl was on holiday last week, as you pointed out, and the constable didn’t want to go making a fuss. But he did note the car’s number, as you’ll see, and he did get to nosing around the park where the cars are kept—oh, I tell you, there’s not much Jones misses. He confirms the car’s not there.”
This seemed something of an anticlimax to Emmy, but Evans went on enthusiastically. “So it looks as though the car will be in the Waterloo establishment, unless it’s been hired out again in the meantime. I’ve no doubt the Chief Superintendent will check.”
“I’m sure he will,” said Emmy, with little hope. The car was sure to have been cleaned and re-hired by now.
“Now, to proceed,” said the superintendent, proceeding. “I must congratulate you, madam. How you persuaded Mrs. Jenkins of Mountainside to call me—”
“I didn’t have to—” Emmy began.
“You’re a lady of great cleverness and persuasion, as I can see,” Evans went on gallantly. “She rang me this morning and asked if I’d take charge of the professor’s things. They’re here, in an empty office next door. You’d like to be seeing them?”
“I certainly would,” said Emmy. “Was there a driving license?”
“Yes, there was. And…well, come and see.”
Professor Vandike’s belongings were neatly laid out on the desk of the unoccupied office. They were much
what one would expect to find in the luggage of somebody on a three-week holiday. The usual assortment of underwear, socks, shirts, slacks, and sweaters, including the heavy variety used by climbers, but with a selection of lighter-weight items suitable for evenings at the hotel. There was no climbing gear—no crampon-spiked boots, no rucksacks, no knitted woolen hat, no belaying rope or pitons or other climbing necessities. These were presumably at the bottom of the ravine with Harold Vandike. There were also no wallet, checkbook, credit cards, or cash.
There was, however, a driving license made out in the name of Harold Vandike, giving his Oxford college as his address, and signed with the scrawl that Emmy recognized from the hotel register. There were also a bunch of keys, a sponge bag with the usual toiletries, two pairs of pajamas, a dressing gown, slippers, and a dozen white handkerchiefs of fine linen. And that was that.
Emmy made a list, meticulous to the last detail (one tube of toothpaste, half-used). She also noted the number of the driver’s license.
Emmy said good-bye to the superintendent, remarking truthfully that it had been a great pleasure to meet him, and made her way to the railway station. The journey was tedious but uneventful. As she alighted from the train under the great glass arch of Paddington Station, she saw no sinister characters. In fact there were very few travelers, but nevertheless it was with relief that she spotted Henry on the platform. Half an hour later they were home again.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
HALF PAST TWO in the morning. Emmy was brewing another cup of strong coffee while Henry pored over her inventory of Vandike’s possessions and made notes. He looked up with a tired smile as she came in from the kitchen.
“Well,” he said, “it all seems pretty obvious, except for the missing names.”
“How do you mean?”
“To begin at the beginning,” Henry said, “Harry Vandike and his young friend are on holiday. Vandike called his Oxford college, and heard that I wanted to get in touch with him. He may have heard something else from somebody else, but we’ll leave that aside for the moment. He decided to come up to London on the quiet to see me and find out what I was up to. He didn’t want anybody to know, not even Roger Talbot, so he invented the story about climbing the Devil’s Chimney. He left the hotel early, cycled to Aberwithy, left the bicycle in the parking lot, and transferred to the car that he had hired the previous day and left there.”
“He must have been in climbing clothes, with his equipment,” said Emmy, stirring her coffee.
“Exactly. Now, notice what’s missing from your list. The dark gray suit in which he arrived at Mountainside, and his wallet with cash and credit cards. Nobody in their senses would take those things on a climb. He must have put the suit in his rucksack, together with town shoes, a shirt, and a tie. He hired the car in Roger Talbot’s name, showing Talbot’s driving license.”
“I had figured that out for myself,” said Emmy, “as soon as I saw the italic hand in the register.”
“Just so. I daresay Vandike was teaching Talbot. And, as our experts pointed out when the crossword clues arrived, it’s deliberately designed to remove personal characteristics from handwriting. So Vandike’s signature on the car rental form looked—to a layman, anyhow—just like Talbot’s.”
“But he left his license behind,” said Emmy. “Surely that must mean that he intended to go back to the hotel.”
“I’m sure he did,” said Henry. “Something evidently happened to prevent it.”
“He must have changed his clothes somewhere,” said Emmy. “The girl said the car had been turned in at the office near Waterloo Station. He could have gone to the men’s room there, and—”
“No,” said Henry. “Wait a minute. He told me he still had the car when we lunched together. So he changed somewhere en route.”
“I suppose he had to drive through a lot of deserted countryside,” said Emmy. “Easy enough to nip behind a bush and…but what happened to his climbing gear, then? He must have planned to arrive back wearing it, but he wasn’t driving back. He—”
“He changed somewhere, at some house, where he stopped on the way from Wales to London,” said Henry, slowly. “He must have left his climbing gear there. He told me he had an appointment, which was why we lunched so early. He then drove off and turned in the car near Waterloo Station. That meant that he wasn’t thinking of taking a train back to Wales. As we know, they leave from Paddington, which is on the other side of London. No, he was going to take a train from Waterloo, back to the place where he had left his gear. That’s where his appointment was.” He paused. “Have you got an atlas anywhere of England and Wales?”
“I think I’ve got my old school one somewhere,” said Emmy. “Wait a minute. I’ll go and look.”
When Emmy returned with the atlas, Henry opened it at the page showing Wales and southeastern England. “I thought so,” he said. “Come and look.”
“It’s an old atlas,” said Emmy. “It won’t show the new highways or—”
“Never mind. This is just in general terms. See this?” Henry put his finger on the black dot marked GREAT MIDDLEFORD. “Draw a line from there to London. Now draw a line from London to South Wales.”
“Why,” said Emmy, “they almost cross. I mean, it would only be a few miles’ detour, coming from Aberwithy by car, to go to—”
“Myrtle’s house. And the train to take him back again would leave from Waterloo.”
“But,” said Emmy, “why didn’t he just keep the car, call in at Myrtle’s on the way back to change, and drive on? And why go to the elaborate lengths of pretending not to have lunched with you?”
“I’m guessing,” Henry admitted, “but this is what I think. Somebody contacted Vandike and a meeting was arranged at Myrtle’s house. He was supposed to get there by train, having no car of his own in Wales—a long and tedious journey, I should imagine—”
“And how was he to get back to the Mountainside Hotel, for heaven’s sake?”
“I think,” said Henry, “that somebody volunteered to drive him. He might arrive somewhat late, but he was always capable of inventing a good story to cover that. The search parties wouldn’t have been out at that stage. The meeting was to be early in the afternoon, hence his hurry to get away from the Explorers Club. The practical joke was just his way, as he thought, of ensuring that it would be denied that he had been in London or seen me that day.”
“But—” Emmy shivered slightly. “What went wrong? He never got back to Aberpriddy.”
“No, he didn’t.” Henry sounded unusually grim. “The person who volunteered to drive him knew that he would never arrive. It was a nice little set-up for a murder. If Harold Vandike hadn’t wrecked it by hiring a car and driving to London first and lunching with me, there’d have been a subscription taken for a second cross on the Devil’s Chimney, and a nice memorial service.”
“But surely Myrtle would have told—?” Emmy began.
“One would have thought so. But she hasn’t, has she?”
“You’re sure he’s dead?”
“He’s either dead or a magician,” said Henry. “I can’t produce his body. But you can be sure it’s not in a ravine at Aberpriddy. “
“Then where is it?”
“That,” said Henry, “is what I propose to find out.”
“Starting with Myrtle?”
“She seems the obvious place to begin. So we’d better get some sleep.”
“How about the Yard?” Emmy asked.
Henry yawned. “I’ve had a talk with the Assistant Commissioner and told him roughly what I’m doing, or think I’m doing. He’s agreed to let me take what leave I want, unless something really important turns up. Meanwhile, Reynolds can cope with what’s going on.”
“Our holiday in Burgundy,” said Emmy, “seems to be retreating farther and farther into the distance.”
“Maybe next year, darling.”
“Maybe.”
The Waterfords’ house outside Great Middleford was as tranq
uil and beautiful as ever when Henry and Emmy drove up to it around eleven o’clock the following morning. Henry had given no notice of his arrival, and just hoped that Myrtle would be at home.
He was unlucky. The same maid who had admitted the Tibbetts on their previous visit informed them cordially that madam was in Great Middleford doing her shopping. Of course, Henry and Emmy might wait. They had, as it were, established their credentials by their first visit. She showed them into the living room, with its big windows overlooking the garden, and was about to leave them when Henry said, “By the way…what’s your name?”
“Doris, sir.”
“Well, Doris, you may be able to help us. We’ve come to collect the things that Professor Vandike left here with Mrs. Waterford last Tuesday.”
“The chap with the beard and all those funny boots and rope and stuff?” asked Doris, intrigued.
“That’s right. He drove here in the morning, didn’t he, and changed into a town suit.”
“That’s right. I pressed it for him. Proper crumpled it was, out of that knapsack thing.”
“Well, he asked us to drop in and pick up—”
“But he didn’t leave nothing here, not that I know of, sir.”
“You mean he came back and collected his things?”
“Yes, sir. In the afternoon. I was off duty, strictly speaking, but I did hear voices, and I recognized his. Then a car drove off, and when I come to get tea, he’d gone. And taken his stuff with him.”
“Oh, well,” said Henry, “if he did leave anything, Mrs. Waterford will know. We’ll wait until she gets home.”
Myrtle was back within half an hour. Henry and Emmy heard her car drive up to the house, and obviously Doris did too, for she was at the front door in no time. Henry heard her saying, “I’ll take those packages to the kitchen for you, madam. Just you put them on the hall table, and I’ll get the rest from the car.”
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