The Other Devil's Name

by E. X. Ferrars

  “Why?” Andrew asked.

  “Have you forgotten the letter she got, accusing her of murder?”

  “Of course not.”

  “And we think it could mean that someone has been murdered.”

  “Possibly.”

  “But we don’t know who.”

  “No.”

  “Then don’t you understand? I want to start some elimination. I want to check up which of the people who’ve disappeared from Lindleham are still alive, because if we can find out who the victim is, it may give us a clue to the murderer. Because I think the only possible reason for Mollie’s murder is that somehow she let the murderer know about that letter and he thought that it told her far more than it did.”

  “And your reason for wanting to telephone Kenneth Eckersall is simply to find out if his old father is really with him and not buried six foot deep in the Eckersalls’ garden.”

  “Yes, and of course to tell him that Mollie’s dead,” she said. “He was very fond of her, you know. And actually I was wondering if you’d do the telephoning for me. I feel—well, as if I might go to pieces while I’m trying to talk. Here’s his number, as I said, and the code number for Adelaide is in the book.”

  Andrew felt an intense dislike of undertaking what she wanted him to do, but did not see how he could refuse her. He looked up the code number in the telephone directory, read the number on the letter from Kenneth Eckersall and dialled. The connection was made almost immediately. He heard the clear ringing tone of the telephone in that house at the other end of the earth, but nobody answered.

  “Constance!” he exclaimed suddenly. “We can’t go on with this. Have you any idea what the time is over there? It’s probably the middle of the night and they’re sound asleep.”

  “It won’t hurt them to be woken up for once for something as important as this,” she said calmly. “Hold on and see what happens.”

  The ringing tone went on without bringing any response. Then all of a sudden a voice exploded in Andrew’s ear.

  “What the bloody hell d’you think you’re doing, ringing up at this hour of the morning?”

  “Is that Mr. Eckersall?” Andrew asked.

  “It is, and who the hell are you?” The voice was faintly tinged with an Australian accent, which Kenneth Eckersall must have acquired during the past years.

  “My name won’t mean anything to you,” Andrew answered, “but I’m a friend of Mrs. Baird’s and Professor Camm’s and I’m staying in Lindleham—”

  “Hey, is there anything the matter with my sisters? Is that why you’re phoning?” The voice sounded anxious, less aggressive.

  “To the best of my belief there’s nothing the matter with either of them,” Andrew replied, “but I have some very grave news about Mrs. Baird, who I believe was a friend of yours. Constance Camm wanted me to telephone—”

  “Was a friend of mine,” the voice took him up quickly. “D’you mean something’s happened to Mollie?”

  “Yes, a very terrible thing,” Andrew said. “Her body was found today in a stream near Clareham. Constance wanted me to tell you she’s dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mollie? You really mean Mollie’s dead?”

  “Yes.” But this was not bringing Andrew any nearer to finding out whether or not the old father of the Eckersalls was safe and sound in the home of his son. “Would it be possible for me to speak for a moment to your father? I believe he and Mollie were very attached to one another.”

  It was the best excuse that he could think of on the spur of the moment for wanting to speak to the old man.

  “Not specially,” the son said, “and you can’t speak to him because he isn’t here. Mollie dead! What was it—an accident? She was a rotten driver.”

  “No.”

  “Not suicide!”

  “To tell you the worst straightaway, Mr. Eckersall,” Andrew said, “she was stabbed to death and her body was thrown into a stream. You say your father isn’t with you?”

  “No, I should think he’s in Fiji by now. He’s on his way home via Fiji, Los Angeles and New York, taking it slowly, seeing a bit of the world while he still can. He left yesterday, though I’m damned if I see why you want to talk to him. He’ll be home in a couple of weeks. You’re telling me Mollie was murdered.”

  “Yes.”

  “Who did it?”

  “Nothing is known about that yet.”

  “Why could anyone have wanted to do such a thing?”

  “People don’t always seem to need reasons, do they?”

  There was a momentary pause, then Kenneth Eckersall asked quietly, “Look, are you really a friend of Mollie’s and Constance’s, or are you a policeman, checking up on me and my father for God knows what reason?”

  “No, I’m not a policeman,” Andrew said. “My name’s Basnett—Andrew Basnett—and Constance and I worked together for twenty years. I happened to be staying with her and Mollie when this appalling thing happened. As I told you, Constance wanted me to tell you about it. I’m afraid we just forgot about the time difference.”

  “That’s all right. I’m glad you called. Thanks.” Kenneth Eckersall sounded very subdued now. “Give my sympathy to Constance, will you, and if they find out anything…”

  “Yes?”

  “I’d be glad if you let me know about it.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  Andrew put the telephone down. He turned to Constance, who was sitting on the edge of a chair, watching him and listening intently.

  “I’m afraid you can’t eliminate old Mr. Eckersall as your possible victim,” he said. “His son claims he’s in Fiji at the moment, on his way home. That may or may not be true. If he and his sisters were in this thing together there’s a possibility that the old man never went to Australia at all.”

  She sighed. “No, and I can’t see how we can eliminate any of the others who’ve disappeared, unless possibly Carolyn. I wonder if I could get her phone number from David, or perhaps from some friend of hers. She was quite close friends with the Wakehams. Naomi might know where she is.”

  “But even that would leave you with Naomi’s husband, who may or may not be in MI5, or a drug smuggler, and a little boy who’s been missing long enough for it to be rather likely that he’s dead. You know, the number of young children who disappear is quite unspeakable. They’re such easy victims—”

  He stopped as he heard the sound of someone walking quickly up the garden path, then pounding with the knocker on the front door.

  Chapter Six

  Constance stood up quickly.

  “Please,” she said, “see to it for me. I couldn’t take anyone now.”

  “All right,” Andrew said. “You go upstairs. I’ll see to it.”

  She went out swiftly and he heard her hurrying up the stairs. When he was sure that she had reached the top he went to the front door and opened it.

  Naomi Wakeham stood there. She was in the green-and-white-striped shirt and the green jeans in which he had seen her before and in the light that fell on her from the hall her fair hair had a golden gleam. Her large dark eyes were wide with apprehension.

  “This is awful,” she said. “Awful. The police have been to see me. They told me what happened to Mollie and they asked me all kinds of questions. I came to see how Constance is. I thought you might have left and that she’d be all alone.”

  “That was kind of you.” He stood aside so that she could come in. “She’s gone to lie down. If you don’t mind, I think it’ll be best if we don’t disturb her.”

  “Of course.” She walked into the sitting room. “I won’t stay a moment. I only wanted to say, if there’s anything I can do…” However, she dropped into a chair as if she did not mean to leave immediately. “You know, I could do with a drink, if that isn’t too much trouble.”

  “Whisky?” he asked.

  “Oh, anything you’ve got. Gin, vodka, anything. But whisky would be fine.”

  He ga
ve her a whisky and water and poured out one for himself. He realized that this evening he was drinking more than he was accustomed to, but perhaps the circumstances were a good reason for it.

  It slightly shocked him to become aware just then of the fact that he was hungry. At a time such as this surely it would be proper to be indifferent to food. But he thought of the cold lamb that Constance had told him was in the refrigerator and wished that he could help himself to some of it instead of to this additional drink that he did not really want.

  “What sort of questions did the police ask you?” he said as he sat down on the sofa.

  “Oh, when I’d last seen Mollie and where I was this morning and all that sort of thing.” She gulped hastily at her drink. She was leaning back in her chair with her long legs in their tight-fitting jeans stretched out before her, crossed at the ankles. “I think they’re going all round Lindleham, asking everyone if they saw anything suspicious and asking us all for our alibis. Alibis! Honestly, isn’t that fantastic? They actually asked where I was about the time they think Mollie was killed, as if I could possibly have done it. I mean, how could I have got her into my car, stabbed her several times and then bundled her out into the stream? I understand that’s what happened to her, more or less. I’m quite a healthy specimen, but I couldn’t have managed a thing like that. Anyway, not single-handed, and they didn’t ask if there’d been anyone with me this morning. I suppose, if there had been, they’d have assumed I’d have lied about it, as I suppose I should. That would only have been natural.”

  “And was there anyone with you this morning?” Andrew asked.

  “Of course not. Well, I mean to say, would I have said anything like that to you, putting ideas into your head, if there had been? No, I did see Mollie in the village shop and I told them that, and then I saw her at the crossroads, and I told them about the car I saw in the lane, but that’s all. Alibis! If that’s how they go about things it’s too ridiculous. D’you think they’re asking the poor old Eckersalls for their alibis?”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me,” Andrew said. “It’s mostly just a formality, but they’ve got to do it. But you say you did see Mollie this morning.”

  “Yes, I went into Smither’s, the shop in Clareham, this morning, and she was there, buying odds and ends. And we chatted for a few minutes. She said she was going on to the surgery and I said I was going to have coffee with Colonel and Mrs. Bridges—they’re some people who live in Clareham—and we talked about the Gleeson child. She told me how Leslie and Jim had to go and identify a little boy yesterday who’d been murdered and found in the river beyond Maddingleigh, but it wasn’t Colin, and how Leslie was going nearly out of her mind. And I agreed it was one of the most horrible things I’d ever heard of, though of course I’ve got my own troubles too. But I didn’t think it was the time to talk about those.”

  “You’ve still no news of your husband?” Andrew asked.

  “Not a word. I’m becoming more and more convinced he’s been sent to somewhere like one of those awful South American countries where they murder everybody, or perhaps to China or somewhere like that, and that probably I shall never hear of him again, though perhaps MI5 or 6, or whoever they are, will very secretly send me a posthumous medal or something. D’you think they’d do that? After all, I’d be a sort of war widow, wouldn’t I? I wonder if I’d get a pension.” Her face brightened momentarily at the thought.

  “And how did Mollie strike you when you talked to her?” Andrew asked. “Quite normal?”

  “Oh, absolutely. That’s one of the things that makes it so shattering. I mean, I never dreamt for a moment of any doom hanging over her. But I’m not clever at that sort of thing. I mean, there are people who’d have known just by intuition that she was in some kind of awful danger. But I’m not like that. The day Mike disappeared I just kissed him goodbye as usual at the station when he left to go off to the City, then I went home and did some washing, I think, and I never dreamt I’d never see him again. And on the whole I’m glad I can’t foresee things. I think it must be terribly frightening to see into the future, don’t you?”

  “If one really could, yes, terrifying. But you saw Mollie again later that morning?”

  “Oh, just for a moment. At the crossroads. I was driving home after I’d left the Bridges—I didn’t stay with them long—and I saw her get out of Lorna Grace’s car and stand there looking as if she wasn’t sure where she was going next. So I called out to her would she like a lift home, though of course it’s only a few hundred yards, but she shook her head and I left her standing there. And that’s the last I saw of her.”

  There was something about this narration that did not fit with the picture in Andrew’s mind of what had happened to Mollie that morning, but what it was eluded him. It confirmed what the nurse had told him about her having given Mollie a lift to the crossroads and left her there, but there was something wrong with it.

  “You said you saw a car in the lane,” he said. “Was that on your way out or your way home?”

  “Oh, coming home. It was parked almost opposite the Eckersalls’ gate. A grey Vauxhall, fairly old, with a man in it. But I didn’t pay much attention to it because I thought it was probably someone who’d taken a wrong turning at the crossroads and was wondering where he could turn to get back there. I don’t know how long it had been in the lane, or how long it stayed after I had passed it.”

  “Could you describe the man to the police?”

  “Oh, heavens, no. I just had a glimpse of him as I passed, and as I said, I didn’t pay him any attention.”

  “But it was definitely a man?”

  “Yes, I feel pretty sure of that.”

  “And it wasn’t anyone you know?”

  “Oh no.”

  “And you’d never seen the car hereabouts before?”

  She swilled the whisky around in her glass, looking into it thoughtfully before taking another swallow.

  “Well, the queer thing is, I feel I may have seen it some time or other,” she said. “But not recently. I don’t know why I feel that. It isn’t as if I’m particularly observant about things like cars. It was just by chance that I recognized it was a Vauxhall, because we used to have one ourselves before we got our present car and I think this was the same model as our old one. But I could be wrong about that. Tell me, have they any idea why poor Mollie was killed?”

  “They didn’t tell you anything?”

  “No.”

  “My impression is they don’t know anything yet.”

  “And you and Constance, you haven’t any ideas?”

  He did not answer, and after a moment she exclaimed, “Oh dear, I’m being inquisitive! I ought not to have asked you a thing like that. I’m sorry. But I can’t help wondering about it, you know. I expect you can understand that. I suppose you don’t think…” She paused, finishing her whisky, then peering frowningly into the empty glass.

  “Yes?” Andrew prompted her.

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” she said. “It’s just that I’m a woman alone and I’ve never been frightened of that before, but now that this has happened to Mollie, which must—it simply must—have been the work of a maniac, and thinking of that man in the car, sitting there so still and not going anywhere—oh, I’m just being stupid. Don’t take any notice of me. I’ll leave you in peace now. But please tell Constance how very, very sorry I am this thing has happened and that I do so wish I could help.”

  She stood up. Andrew stood up too.

  “Mrs. Wakeham, if you’re really scared of staying in that house by yourself, which is understandable,” he said, “why not move into a hotel for a few days? Is there a pub in Clareham that lets rooms? If not, perhaps you could go into Maddingleigh.”

  She gave an unexpected little giggle. “It sounds so funny, your calling me Mrs. Wakeham. But your generation do that, don’t they? They’re so formal. You should call me Naomi. No, I told you I was just being stupid. I’m not as scared as all that.”

  �
�Anyway, I’ll see you home,” he said.

  “No, don’t do that. Good night. Take care of Constance.”

  She hurried out of the room and let herself out at the front door. He heard her footsteps on the garden path again as she made for her home.

  He could get himself something to eat now. He was feeling hungrier than ever. Perhaps, he thought, it was a nervous hunger, his way of reacting to the events of the day and so not as improper as he felt that it was. But it felt normal enough. He could easily have eaten the steak which Constance had told him had been intended for dinner that evening. However, cold lamb would be better than nothing.

  He went out to the kitchen, but once he was there he decided that even though Constance had said that she wanted nothing, he would make her some tea. It might do her some good and could not do any harm. He filled the kettle, found some tea things and put them on a tray and when the tea was made carried it upstairs.

  He knocked on the door and Constance called, “Come in.”

  She had not gone to bed but was sitting in a chair by the window with only a small lamp on a table beside her lighting up the room. She was still in her dressing gown and had her hands folded in her lap.

  She smiled at him. “You’re very kind, Andrew, but you shouldn’t have bothered.”

  “Drink it,” he said. “It may do some good.”

  “Perhaps it will. Thank you.”

  He put the tray down on the table at her side and said, “Good night.”

  “Good night,” she answered. Then as he was just about to leave the room, she asked, “Did Naomi come for anything special?”

  “I don’t think so. Offered sympathy, of course. And told me about a mysterious man in a grey Vauxhall she’d seen in the lane this morning. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.”

  She nodded and as he went out was reaching for the teapot to pour out the tea.