The Sad Variety

by Nicholas Blake

  ‘I’ll have the place taken to bits,’ said the Superintendent.

  CHAPTER 6

  * * *

  Ask Me Another

  DECEMBER 29

  SNOW SPLATTERED ACROSS the windscreen of the police car as it brushed past the shrubs that, bent over by wind and weight of snow, leant out into the Guest House drive. Superintendent Sparkes emerged, followed by a sergeant. He moved with the deliberation of generations of ancestors who had farmed in the next county. After pausing for a few words with the group of newspapermen in the hall, he went on into the proprietor’s office, where Nigel Strangeways was awaiting him.

  ‘Hell of a job getting here,’ he said, peeling off his overcoat. ‘The snow-ploughs have only been able to keep the valley road open single track. This is Sergeant Deacon. Mr Strangeways. Main road to London is blocked. Looks like it’s going to be worse than 1947. When did those news hawks get here?’

  ‘Yesterday evening. The London ones took the train to Longport and hired a car from there.’

  ‘Where are they staying? No room here, is there?’

  ‘Oh, they got beds in the village. Downcombe’s pleased to find itself in the news. They’re mugging up on their background stories just now.’

  ‘Not much for them in the foreground. What about this latest telephone call?’

  Nigel gave him the gist. Sparkes clenched his fists at the final part of it. ‘The bastards! Using a kid like that to——’

  ‘What does seem clear is, their collector was tipped off—not only about the police trap but that Wragby was going to hand over incorrect or incomplete information. The chap who rang said, “Not only did you inform the police, but you tried to double-cross us over the document”.’

  ‘Who would know here?’

  ‘Wragby. His wife, I presume. And myself.’

  ‘None of the other guests?’

  ‘I don’t see how. Wragby told them after breakfast he was going to make a fight of it. That’s all. Of course, it might have been just a good guess.’

  The Superientendent lit his pipe, gazing meditatively at Nigel.

  ‘You wouldn’t say the Professor is up to some funny game of his own?’

  ‘No. I’m as certain as I can be about that.’

  ‘Which leaves his wife. A Hungarian by birth, you said.’

  ‘Yes. She was thoroughly screened by Security when she came over. They say she’s absolutely in the clear.’

  ‘Would she let her own daughter be kidnapped? It’s a bit much.’

  ‘Step-daughter. Still, I agree. But she did go down to the village after breakfast yesterday. To the Post Office. There’s a public telephone outside it. I asked Miss Massinger to look into that. Apparently Mrs Wragby asked the postmistress for some change to make a call.’

  ‘Which she’d hardly do so openly if—still, we’d better ask her. Sergeant, will you find Mrs Wragby.’

  ‘Have you any news of her?’ asked Elena breathlessly as she came in.

  ‘I’m afraid not, Mrs Wragby. But don’t lose heart. I’ve got the best part of my Force looking for her today. And there’s a possible lead from London too.’

  ‘If only I could do something!’ she cried.

  Sparkes patted her on the shoulder and made her sit down. ‘Perhaps you can, madam. I’m sorry to be asking you more questions again just now, but you might be able to help.’

  ‘Oh, yes! Anything.’

  Sparkes glanced towards the sergeant, who took out notebook and pencil. ‘Now, madam, yesterday morning, before your husband came in to Belcaster, you discussed the blackmailer’s demands with him?’

  ‘Well, they hadn’t rung up then—I mean, while we were talking about it. While we were having breakfast in our room.’

  ‘He told you he was going to resist any demands they made?’

  ‘Yes. I’m afraid we had a little quarrel about it. You see, I could think of nothing except getting Lucy back.’

  ‘Very natural. Did the Professor say exactly how he intended to deal with the demands when they came?’

  ‘Oh yes. He wanted to play for time. He would give them what seemed the information they wanted, but when they checked it, it would be meaningless.’

  ‘And he said he was going to inform the police as soon as the kidnappers got in touch with him?’

  ‘Yes. I thought it unwise; but Alfred is a stubborn man.’

  ‘When the call came, he told you about it at once?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That was soon after 10 a.m. Then you walked down to the village, by yourself?’ The Superintendent’s tone was positively sleepy; like drugged honey, thought Nigel. ‘Your husband said you wanted to inquire at the Post Office if anyone had seen or heard anything at the time Lucy was kidnapped.’

  ‘Yes. I just had to do something. Don’t you understand?’ Her small fists beat together.

  ‘Of course. But you found out nothing new.’

  ‘I’m sure your men had asked all the same questions.’

  ‘And then,’ said Sparkes, ‘you telephoned?’

  Elena’s great, sad eyes dwelt upon him. ‘Yes.’

  ‘A private call, I take it?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t mind you knowing. I’d just remembered we’d been asked out to lunch by some friends in Lymouth—it had gone out of my head, I was in such distress—so I wanted to explain to them why we wouldn’t be coming.’

  ‘Just as a routine matter, may I have the name and telephone number of these friends?’

  ‘Certainly. Mrs Ellaby. Lymouth 263.’

  Sparkes gave his sergeant a slight nod, and the man went out to the telephone in the hall.

  ‘You do not believe me?’ exclaimed Elena, with a flash in her eyes that reminded Nigel she had been a heroine of the rising. ‘You think I would take part in this filthy plot against——?’

  ‘Calm yourself, ma’am. I have to find out who warned the kidnappers, and how, yesterday morning.’

  Elena’s face closed up. She began to chew a strand of her thick white hair; then, aware of Nigel’s eyes upon her, said to him, ‘I know. It’s a childish habit. Lucy’s caught it from me, too.’

  Sergeant Deacon returned. ‘All correct, sir.’

  Sparkes gave Mrs Wragby his slow smile. ‘That’s over. Didn’t hurt much, did it? Now then, you went into Belcaster with your husband. You waited in the car park. Did you see any of the other Guest House people there?’

  ‘I saw Mr Leake’s car. It was empty, though. And I noticed a young couple pass the far end of the street: they looked like Mr and Mrs Atterson, but I couldn’t be sure at that distance. I’m afraid I was not noticing very much.’

  ‘Naturally. And your husband returned——?’

  ‘In four or five minutes. Then we drove back here.’

  ‘And you saw nobody else you knew?’

  ‘No, Superintendent.’

  When she had left them, Nigel said, ‘Well, that lets her out.’

  The Superintendent relighted his pipe before replying, with what Nigel found a rather maddening deliberation. ‘I wonder. She could have fixed with X to contact her in the car park.’ Puff, puff, puff. ‘Or she could have made a second telephone call while she was in the public box here.’

  ‘Didn’t her indignation convince you?’

  ‘She was a professional actress, Mr Strangeways. They’re paid to convince you. And she’s the only person in this set-up known to have a Communist background. Let’s see what these Attersons have to say. Deacon boy, go and chase up Mr Atterson for me.’

  The bearded Lance tipped his hand at Nigel, and gave the Super a look in which bravado and uneasiness were blended. ‘My first brush with the police,’ he said, sitting on the arm of a big chair. Sparkes, riffling through some papers, appeared to ignore him for half a minute.

  ‘Mr Atterson?’ he then said. ‘I am Superintendent Sparkes, the officer in charge of this case.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t suppose you were the Archbishop of Canterbury,’ returned Lance, look
ing cockily around him as if he were entertaining a mob of teenagers.

  ‘It’s a very grave case, and I’d like to get on with it——’

  ‘Surely, surely.’

  ‘—with as few specimens of your humour as possible. I have here your first statement to the police. You are twenty-eight. You live in Chelsea. You married Mrs Atterson a week ago in a registrar’s office. The Chelsea one?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘What does that matter? I thought you wanted to get on with the case.’

  ‘Which registrar’s office?’

  ‘Oh, get with it, man. Cherry and I have to pass as man and wife, or whatever corny phrase you——’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why? Because of all the squares in this joint.’

  ‘Unmarried. You are a professional jazz singer?’

  ‘You can say that again.’

  ‘Successful?’

  ‘Well, one has one’s ups and downs.’

  ‘Unsuccessful,’ said Sparkes making a note.

  ‘Hey, I never said——’

  ‘Who arranged that you should stay here over Christmas?’

  ‘Arranged? What are you getting at?’ Lance grinned uneasily.

  ‘Who made the booking?’

  ‘Oh, I get you. Cherry did.’

  ‘And she’ll be paying the bill when you leave?’

  ‘Look. I’m dead narked by this dialogue.’

  ‘I’ll ask her, then. Why did you go to Belcaster yesterday?’

  ‘Cherry and I got a yen for the bright lights.’

  ‘How did you get there?’

  ‘The Leake character gave us a ride in his wheel.’

  ‘Were you with him all the time? I want you to describe your movements very carefully.’

  ‘Well, Leake stashed the wheel in the car park. Then we had some coffee with him. Then we rambled round the shops for five or ten minutes.’

  ‘He was still with you?’

  ‘Couldn’t shake him off. He’s a drag all right.’

  ‘Carry on.’

  ‘Finally, he said he had to send a telegram, and fixed to meet us in the car park in five minutes.’

  ‘All the time he was with you, did Mr Leake talk to anyone else?’

  ‘Only the chick who brought our coffee.’

  ‘Could he have left a message there? On the bill, say? Or chalked a mark on a wall in the street? That sort of thing?’

  ‘Not on the bill: Cherry paid it. Chalking?—that’s spy stuff, isn’t it? What a gas! He might have. I just didn’t see him doing anything like that.’

  ‘Thank you. That’s all for the present. Deacon, will you ask the young lady to step this way. Mrs Atterson—Miss Cherry—what’s her real name?’

  ‘Smith,’ said Lance Atterson, sliding out of the room in front of sergeant.

  The Superintendent raised his eyes to heaven. ‘That young man’s going to run into trouble before long.’

  ‘If they find Leake such a bore, why do those two hang around him so much?’

  ‘Or him around them? Ask me another.’

  ‘You could ask her.’ Nigel gazed non-committally down his nose. ‘I’m interested in that telegram Leake sent.’

  ‘I’m expecting word from the Surrey police. They’re visiting this Sir James Allenby today. Another blind alley, I expect.’

  Cherry slipped into the room. Her head and most of her face were covered by a silk scarf, which she now took off and threw on to a table. Nigel rose.

  ‘Ah, Miss Allenby, I don’t think you have met Superintendent Sparkes. He’s in charge of the case.’

  Cherry stood rigid, staring at him. She licked her lips. ‘Allenby? What is all this?’ she said at last.

  ‘Isn’t that your name?’

  ‘Of course it isn’t. I’m Mrs Atterson.’

  ‘Not according to Mr Atterson.’

  ‘The rat! The bloody berk! I——’

  ‘What’s your unmarried name, then?’ asked Sparkes.

  ‘Smith.’

  ‘We’ll leave that for the moment. How long have you known Mr Leake?’

  ‘Since we came to stay here.’

  ‘What made you choose the Guest House for a holiday?’

  ‘Oh, Lance saw the name in some mag or other,’ she vaguely replied.

  ‘You and your—Mr Atterson—seem to enjoy Mr Leake’s company.’

  ‘Enjoy! He clings to one like a parasite. It bugs me.’

  ‘What does he want?’

  Cherry’s lethargic voice had an almost animated note. ‘Oh, I should think he’d like to blackmail us.’

  ‘Good lord! Over what?’

  ‘Living in sin, of course.’

  ‘Has he tried to blackmail you?’

  ‘Well, not exactly. But he sort of makes with sinister hints. You know. And he’s madly inquisitive. Trying to worm his way into one’s confidence. Honestly, I don’t dig him one little bit.’

  Cherry’s anomalous mixture of deb and beat had never been so evident.

  ‘Has he ever tried to make you do anything for him? Pass a message yesterday morning, for instance? Any out-of-the-way suggestion he’s ever made?’

  ‘No, I can’t remember anything.’

  The Superintendent took her through the visit to Belcaster yesterday. Her account tallied with Lance Atterson’s: she had seen nothing suspicious. ‘But you know,’ she added with one of her sallies of devastating honesty, ‘I wouldn’t notice a polar bear in the street unless you dangled it under my nose. I’m neurotic, you see—got an ingrowing ego.’

  ‘Are you telling me the truth about all this, Miss—er—Smith?’

  ‘Oh yes, I usually tell the truth. Only sometimes I get bored telling it, then I try making things up for a change.’

  Superintendent Sparkes could seldom have had so unconventional an interview. Cherry’s bursts of appalling frankness obviously disconcerted him. He fiddled with his papers, while she sat lumpishly, staring in front of her, like a subnormal child in class.

  ‘Have you a record, Miss Smith?’

  ‘Oh, dozens. Lance made the top ten a few years ago. But I really prefer the classical stuff.’

  ‘A police record, I mean.’

  ‘Well, I’ve not been in jail yet. I did get fined for sitting in Trafalgar Square. It was one of those Committee of a Hundred picnics.’

  ‘I see. You believe in unilateral disarmament?’

  ‘Every sensible person does.’ Cherry took a deep breath, about to launch on a political speech, but Sparkes forestalled her.

  ‘Would you say that betraying your country’s secrets to an enemy advanced the cause of nuclear disarmament?’

  The girl’s pasty face flushed. ‘That would depend. But if you mean, did I have anything to do with kidnapping Lucy, I didn’t. I think it was absolutely foul.’

  Sparkes asked a few more questions, but his edge was blunted by Cherry’s curiously placid kind of non-resistance. As she draped the scarf round her head to go, Nigel said:

  ‘No need to cover up your face. The reporters have gone down to the village.’

  Cherry shot him a startled glance, then sidled from the room. Sparkes raised his eyebrows inquiringly at Nigel, who said, ‘Didn’t want to be recognised: therefore, she’s been in the news. Maybe she’s below the age of consent and her parents are trying to find her, break off her relationship with that preposterous Atterson character. They’ve engaged Leake to search for her. Leake’s playing some double game of his own—“am on possible trail”—I’d guess she gets a big allowance, has prospects of a lot more when she comes of age, and Leake sees some nice pickings for himself.’

  ‘You should be a book-writer, Mr Strangeways.’ The Superintendent smiled. ‘If Leake tries to blackmail that piece, I pity him. By the way, you noticed she said that Lance had chosen the Guest House to visit? Deacon boy, we’ll try Mrs ffrench-Sullivan next.’

  Sparkes handled the Admiral’s wife with kid gloves at first. She trea
ted him as though he were an upper servant, her somewhat raddled pug-face set in a look of command which Nigel found both ludicrous and pathetic.

  ‘Well, Mr Sparkes, what are the police doing about this disgraceful outrage?’

  ‘We’re doing our best, ma’am.’

  ‘I don’t know what the country’s coming to, with Red agents allowed to snatch little girls from under their parents’ noses.’

  ‘It’s a shocking state of affairs indeed,’ agreed the Superintendent. ‘Whom do you suspect? The kidnappers must have a contact in this house, you know.’

  ‘It’s obviously that dreadful Atterson person.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘He’s a rotter. Do anything for money. We service wives get to know the type. Very rare, fortunately, in Her Majesty’s Navy.’

  ‘What about Mr Leake? Have you formed any opinion about him, ma’am?’

  A wary look came over Mrs ffrench-Sullivan’s face. ‘Mr Leake? He seems a well-mannered person, though not quite a gentleman. Of course, I’ve had no dealings with him.’

  ‘Dealings? What sort of dealings would you have?’

  The woman looked flustered. ‘I said I’ve not had any. I mean, beyond a little conversation. One must be civil. He’s not quite our class, after all.’

  ‘I see. So you’ve no reason to suspect him of anything but inferior social origins?’ said Sparkes dryly.

  ‘Well, there was just one thing.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I greatly dislike anything that smacks of tale-bearing.’

  ‘Any communication to the police, ma’am, is a privileged one,’ said Sparkes, respectfully—and meaninglessly.

  ‘Quite. Well, the morning after Lucy disappeared, as I was coming down to breakfast, just before nine, I passed Mr Leake’s door. Do you know what I heard?’ She made a dramatic pause. ‘A woman was talking in there.’

  ‘Indeed? Did you recognise the voice?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘Or hear anything she said?’

  ‘No. Naturally, I passed straight on.’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘She sounded rather distressed. Or angry, perhaps.’

  ‘Well, that may be a useful piece of information,’ said Sparkes, giving Nigel a disillusioned glance. He sorted through the papers on the desk. ‘Now, ma’am—just a formality, you understand?—you telephoned a wire to Belcaster yesterday morning. Let me see now—yes, here’s the message: Do not accept offer: am writing. Could you——?’