by Bruce, Leo
“Oughtn’t to serve you, really,” said the barman in very un-Russian tones.
“How’s that?”
“You’re not wearing your camper’s badge. It wouldn’t be so bad if you had your house-tie on, or your Old Merrydownian blazer. How am I to know you’re a camper?”
“Don’t I look like one?”
“S’hard to say. We get all sorts. Still, I’ll serve you this time. Whisky? Most of them have vodka in here.”
“I’ll stick to whisky.”
“This was the Spanish Toreador Olde Inne last year,” confided the barman. “Then it was all sherry we served. Only they believe in keeping bang up to date, so we’ve turned over to this get-up arid vodka. Between you and me, I’d rather we were back to the Gay Paree Inne which we were two years ago.”
“The whirligig of time,” reflected Carolus.
“That’s it. I don’t know what they’ll think of for next year. I suppose it depends what happens in the world.”
By nine o’clock Carolus had visited all the Olde Innes and found them identical in shape and size, varying only in their murals and the costumes of the attendants. He liked best the Beatnik Olde Inne, which was served by ladies whose lank hair and curious costume could not hide the fact that they were nice healthy girls from the northern counties. But he saw nothing of Mrs Wickers.
He decided to start the round again and found his barman at the Major Gagarin pulling beer taps. “I knew they’d come back to wallop,” he told Carolus.
Just then Carolus saw at a table in a far corner the fiery face of Mrs Wickers. She was signalling enthusiastically and he saw that she was with two men and another woman. He went across and found himself at last facing Mr and Mrs Grimburn. But they were not at once as communicative as they might have been. Mr Grimburn, in fact, was cagey. “I hear you want me to tell you The Story,” he said.
“If you wouldn’t mind,” said Carolus, calling a Cossack Astronaut to order a round of drinks.
“Bit late for it, aren’t you? We’ve had all the papers to see us.”
Carolus explained that he was concerned only in trying to find out the truth about Sonia Reid’s death and added that, of course, Mr and Mrs Grimburn were the only people who could tell him that.
“Of course we are,” put in Mrs Grimburn. “No one else was watching her, were they?”
“Not so far as is known,” said Carolus.
The Grimburns exchanged apprehensive glances. “Think there may have been?” asked the man.
“People don’t always like coming forward in a case like this,” Carolus told him. “Anyway, so far as we know, you are the only ones whose information is valuable.” This was perhaps unfortunately phrased.
“It doesn’t seem to have been of much value yet,” said Mr Grimburn. “Not to pay for our holiday, really. There was one or two cheques, but you’d have thought one of the Sunday papers would have wanted a life-story. With all that publicity.”
“I don’t know much about newspapers. I’m really trying to get this cleared up for the sake of those in the house. It has been very uncomfortable for them. There’s still a sort of mystery about it.”
“I should think there was. That’s what I told one of the newspapers. One of the greatest mysteries of modern times, I said. I mean, why did she do it?”
“You think she did ‘do it’? Deliberately, I mean?”
“Ah, now you’re asking. I don’t see why I shouldn’t tell you the whole story.”
Carolus resigned himself.
“It was getting on for eleven o’clock when we went down to the Camp Promenade for a bit of a stroll. The band had finished playing and there weren’t many about. It was a lovely night, though, with a bit of a moon and we came down to this notice which said Moonlight Boating 10 /- an hour. 21 /- with a Jolly Jack sailor. So I said to the wife, ‘What say we have a bit of a row?’”
Carolus nodded, determined to show no impatience.
“She was all for it at first. She knew I’m an oarsman and the sea was smooth as glass. But when we’d got out towards that headland she wanted to go back. She’d got the two little girls to think of, which Mr and Mrs Wickers here had kindly said they’d look after.”
Smiles were exchanged in recognition of this tribute.
“But I said: ‘After all, we may as well get our money’s worth.’ It was about then we noticed this house standing alone on the side of the cliff. ‘Looks as though it’s haunted,’ I said to the wife. ‘All up there on its own without a light showing.’ She thought it was funny, too. It wasn’t until we’d got a bit farther round the headland that we saw, right up at the top of the house, this one lighted window.”
Mrs Grimburn did not interrupt. It was clear that, in her view as in that of her husband, the story had reached perfection and needed no more tampering with.
“I said: ‘Let’s pull in a bit farther and have a look.’ It was then we saw this girl sitting sideways on the little balcony outside her window. You could see her dark shape against the lighted window behind. When we got nearer, we saw she was smoking a cigarette.”
“You were near enough to see that it was a girl?”
“Certainly. I couldn’t see her face, but from the whole way she was sitting you could tell it wasn’t an old woman. We decided to turn back and I was pulling out to sea when it happened.”
“So Mrs Grimburn had her back to the lighted window?”
“Just for a minute I had,” admitted Mrs Grimburn. “I’d been watching her till then as plain as could be.”
“All of a sudden she seemed to put up her arms as though she was going to dive …”
“Could you possibly show me how you mean?”
Mr Grimburn obliged. “I don’t mean she actually poised for a dive. She didn’t seem to stand up, for one thing. She didn’t put her palms together like divers do. But her hands went right up in the air and there she was dropping through space.”
“You couldn’t watch her fall, of course.”
“No. Only her take-off, as you might say, while she was in the light of the window.”
“You heard nothing?”
“Not a sound. It all seemed to happen too quickly. It was done in an instant. Quite still one moment and over the edge in the next.”
“Thank you very much, Mr Grimburn,” said Carolus rising. “I’m most grateful to you.”
“Don’t you want to hear the rest of it—about our going up to the house and that?”
“You’ve given me the very information I needed,” said Carolus truthfully, as he backed away under the disappointed stare of Mrs Wickers. “Thank you very much. Good night to you. Good night Mrs Grimburn, Mrs Wickers.”
He had put two yards between himself and the table. But his friend the barman called him as he was making for the door.
“You’re no camper,” he said good-humouredly.” You’ve come to get a story from those Grimburns, haven’t you? I knew as soon as you came in. Did you get what you wanted?”
“Yes,” said Carolus. “I did. Rather more than I wanted.” He slipped a pound note into the barman’s hand.
“It’s just on time,” said the barman. “You ought to wait and see how they get ’em out. See, we don’t shout Time or anything. Wouldn’t do. No regimentation, they say.”
“No regimentation?” gasped Carolus.
“No. Strictly forbidden.”
“But you must have a closing time.”
“You wait and see. Here they come!”
Into the bar came a macabre procession led by a small brass band. Behind this were the Campers’ Pals in their orange and green uniform, each stooping down and holding the waist of the one in front.
“Come and join us! “played the band. “Come and join us! “sang the Campers’ Pals. “Come and join our happy throng!”
They crocodiled round the Olde Inne and, as they did so, every camper in the place swallowed his drink, clutched the waist of the one in front and, singing heartily, moved on. Carolus caught a
glimpse of the red and grinning features of Mrs Wickers in the line. In a moment the band was moving on to the next Olde Inne and the room was empty.
“See what I mean?”said the barman. “No regimentation.”
11
NEXT morning, at breakfast, Carolus had his first experience of what Helena had described as the ‘jitters’ of his fellow-guests. He was alone for a time with Bishop Grissell.
The bishop leant across the table and lowered his already deep voice. “Did you hear anything in the night?” he asked.
“No. Slept like a top,” said Carolus.
“You didn’t hear someone shouting?”
“No. What time was this?”
“In the small hours,” said the bishop. “I heard it distinctly. A man’s voice.”
“Where was he?”
“It was hard to tell. Below us, somewhere. On the beach or in a boat.”
“What was he shouting about?”
“I couldn’t catch what he said. But I heard the word ‘murder’ or ‘murderer’.”
“Some drunk from the holiday camp, probably,” suggested Carolus.
The bishop looked at him fixedly. The matter seemed to be a serious one for him. “You may be right. But it wasn’t the impression I received at all. It sounded like someone in distress. Perhaps in anger, too.”
It had not, however, deprived the bishop of his appetite and Carolus watched a generous English breakfast disappearing.
When Helena appeared later he told her what the bishop had said, but she was not helpful, as she had taken a good dose of sleeping-tablets and would have heard nothing, anyway.
“But it gives me an idea,” said Carolus. “What do we know about these people, Helena? Even the bishop. We know he is or was a bishop—Crockford tells us that. But why has he returned at this very early age to live in a guest house? Who was Sonia Reid? Where did she come from? And Esmée Weiton? The Natterleys are fairly obvious and the Gee-Gees, but the Mallisters seem to have been a rather odd couple. You’ve told me about Mrs Derosse and her niece, but where did she find the Jerrisons? Why is such an apparently perfect couple, who could make a fortune and retire in ten years in the States, content to stay in this place? Above all, who is Steve Lawson, exactly? You see what I mean. They exist for us only as guests here.”
“You think that’s important?”
“In some cases, yes. Particularly Sonia Reid. Hadn’t she any parents?”
“She had someone described as a foster-mother. Sonia was apparently an orphan, brought up by a Mrs Tukes, who appeared at the funeral. She came from London. I’ve no doubt Mrs Derosse can give you the address and enough information to start your inquiries on the others if you think they are necessary.”
“I do.”
“Personally I should have thought you would do better to see the police. They probably know a great deal more than you think.”
“Not yet. The police have a job to do and very little use for people like me, naturally enough. My experience is that they will sometimes relax a little and let fall a fact or two, but only if I’ve got something useful to offer them. I haven’t yet.”
So Carolus drove away with a number of names and addresses in his pocket, supplied by Mrs Derosse. He would reach London in time for a late lunch at his club, then go to 17 Northumberland Terrace, Forest Hill, in the afternoon. He had hopes of hearing from Sonia Reid’s foster-mother something which might help him to account for her behaviour at Cat’s Cradle, even if it threw no light on her death. But perhaps more interesting would be his interview, if he obtained it, with Mrs Cremoine Rose of Alexandra Gate, the sister of the late Mrs Mallister. A Mr Arthur Picknet, a solicitor with offices in Bloomsbury, had been given as a reference by Mallister when he first came to Cat’s Cradle, and a Reverend Ralph Cracknell was known to be a friend of the bishop’s. His only line on Steve Lawson was that he was a member of a small out-of-hours drinking club called the Academics, but he knew that the Jerrisons had been employed at Conway Towers Preparatory School, Orbiton. It was a nice little directory he carried, he thought, and if he got through this lot in a couple of days he would be lucky. Meanwhile, in view of what he had seen and heard at Cat’s Cradle and Merry-down, he was not unduly anxious about Helena for the moment, or indeed about anyone else there.
Mrs Tukes was a sour, heavy party who found movement and speech an effort which made her gasp. She came to the door of her semi-detached grey Victorian house and eyed Carolus with weary caution.
“Oh, it’s about Sonia, is it? “she said without animation. “Well, you better come in here because I can’t stand talking here. My feet are killing me today.”
Carolus found himself in a sitting-room hung with heavy curtains, which looked as if a shake would send out not only clouds of dust but possibly a flight of moths or even bats. He sat on the broken spring of a rexine-covered settee while Mrs Tukes lowered herself noisily into an armchair.
“That’s better,” she said. “I’ve been on my feet all day. I feel as though I was done for. I’m on my own, you see, except in the mornings when I have a woman come in for a minute. It’s too much for me, really. I ought to be looked after. Now, what is it you want to know about Sonia, because I mustn’t talk too much. It tires me out.”
“You brought her up, I understand?”
“Yes, the ungrateful little bitch! Excuse my language, but there’s no other word really. I slaved away body and soul for that girl and wore my fingers to the bone looking after her.”
Carolus, who had a literal mind, could not keep his glance from the pudgy fingers on Mrs Tukes’s lap.
“You adopted her?”
“I took her in from the orphans, but what they give you wouldn’t cover the cost of her washing. Night and day I was working to bring her up decent, with never a minute to myself. It wasn’t as though she was one to help. It was work, work, work for me, year in and year out, all the time she was there. Then as soon as she started to earn money what happened?”
“What did happen?”
“She was off. Never saw her again, except now and again for decency’s sake, when she’d come down here and expect to be waited on hand and foot. I told her. I said: ‘Sonia, you expect too much.’ But she’d just give that smile of hers and leave me to do the washing up, with my varicose veins nearly killing me.”
“How long ago did she leave you?”
“Ten years almost to a week. I remember it as though it was yesterday. I was sitting here where I am now, exhausted with all I’d had to do for her, so tired I could scarcely speak. ‘I’m leaving,’ she came out with, giving a toss of her head. ‘I’ve had enough of this.’ ‘Oh, you have?’ I said, trying to get my breath. ‘After all I’ve done for you all these years.’ ‘You’ve been paid for it,’ she says. ‘Paid for it? If they’d paid me a hundred pounds a week it wouldn’t have covered me for the trouble you’ve been! ‘I was going to say more but she was off out of the house. She’d been cunning enough to pack her bags while I was having five minutes’ nap that afternoon. I saw her getting into a car with a man, who I heard afterwards she was living with. No, not that one down where she died. There’ve been several since this. If the truth were known, she’s been little better than a street woman one way and another. Though I believe she always kept her job.”
“She was musical?”
“If that’s what you call it. There was a piano here when she was a girl, but I had to get rid of it. Thump, thump, thump, till I thought my head would split right open. Instead of helping me in the house as you’d have thought she’d have done, she’d leave me slaving on my knees to get the place a bit clean, while she went on playing away like a barrel-organ. Just when I had one of my head-aches and needed to lie down quiet, she’d begin and nothing would stop her. She’d have gone on half the night if the neighbours on both sides hadn’t complained. So when she went off to work it was in a music shop, and I understand she was in one to the last.”
“Yes, she was in partnership with a man named
Rhodes. Reid and Rhodes, the shop was called. I haven’t met Mr Rhodes, but I gather it was a strictly business relationship.”
“If it was, it was the first, then,” said Mrs Tukes venomously. “She’s been kept, to my knowledge, three times. The last time I saw her …”
“When was that?”
“Only a month or two back. She drove herself to the door in a car, if you please. Though I will say that time she Gave Me Something. Well, she couldn’t do anything else, really, could she? All tarted up like that. It wasn’t much, but it was something. When I think of all those years I worked like a galley-slave to keep her. But I was going to tell you—that last time she came to see me she told me she was going to get married.”
“Really?”
“I remember it as though it was yesterday. I was lying down at the time, tired out, I was. I felt as though I should never be able to get up again. Suddenly there’s a rat-tat on the door to make my heart jump. I went out and there she was with a posh motor car standing by the kerb. ‘Whatever is it now?’ I said. ‘Don’t you know I have to rest in the afternoon? ‘So she gave me this Little Bit she’d brought for me and we came in here and sat down. I was glad to, I can tell you. I’d been on my feet all the morning. So then she tells me. ‘I’m getting married,’ she says. ‘Whoever to? “I asked. ‘Him at the music shop?’ ‘No,’ she said, ‘don’t be silly. He’s married and got two kids. No, this is someone quite different.’”
“Did she mention his name? “Carolus had to ask.
“She called him ‘Steve’, that’s all. It was Steve This and Steve That till I thought I’d have a headache.”
“Did she tell you anything about him?”
“Not much. To tell you the truth, I was too tired to ask a lot of questions. Only that he was to do with horse-racing.”
“You say this was a month or two ago. Can you be a little more accurate, Mrs Tukes?”
“No, I can’t. I can’t go racking my brains trying to remember things. It would be too much for me altogether, after a day like today’s been. All I remember was someone had just died in the house where she was living. I remember that, because I couldn’t help thinking I wasn’t far off it myself, with these stairs to climb every time I go up to bed.”
