by L. C. Tyler
I nodded encouragingly. This time he seemed reassured. I was obviously getting better at this.
‘As you know,’ he continued, ‘the stamps were – lost, shall we say? – at a flea market in Nykøbing. My client, Mr Andersen, is the rightful owner. I discovered that the persons who had acquired the stamps intended to sell them here to a rich and not very scrupulous collector before ownership could be contested in the courts. That collector was Mr Davidov.’
He paused so that I could say ‘Crikey!’ or ‘Cripes!’ or something similar, but I just gave him half a nod on account.
‘And who was selling?’
‘The Pedersens,’ he said. ‘A bit coincidental their turning up here in the middle of winter on a family holiday, don’t you think? They’d come to sell the stamps.’
‘He’s a diplomat at the Danish Embassy,’ I pointed out.
‘Not he,’ said Proctor. ‘I phoned the embassy up. There’s no such person there. It’s all a put-up job.’
‘Really?’ I said. Actually, the Pedersens had seemed a bit too good to be true. There was perhaps at least a kernel of truth in what he was saying. ‘So, where are the stamps now?’
‘The Pedersens sold them to Davidov – that was what was in his envelope. Then somebody stole them from him. I reckon the Pedersens ended up with both the stamps and the bunce. They probably counted on Davidov not going to the police to try to recover stamps he could not admit to owning.’
‘Then who killed Davidov?’
Proctor shrugged. ‘Not my problem,’ he said. ‘Don’t care, either. I’m only after the stamps. But Davidov had lots of enemies.’
‘Did he?’ I said.
Proctor looked at me pityingly. ‘Do you ever read the papers?’
‘Some,’ I hedged. I had after all read The Times or something on the way down here.
‘I’ve got some press cuttings on Davidov,’ said Proctor. ‘I’ll let you have them. You might find them revealing.’
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘But I still don’t see what you want me to do.’
‘Talk to the Pedersens,’ he said. ‘See if you can get them to give away anything about where the stamps are now.’
‘Why should they tell me anything?’
‘You have a natural talent,’ said Proctor. ‘Look at how much I’ve told you.’
‘What’s in it for me?’ I asked.
‘A thousand pounds, if I recover the stamps.’
‘Two thousand,’ I said.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Done.’
Which was a touch too easy. But I merely said: ‘OK.’
I’d obviously just been set up. Oh yes, I’d definitely been set up. Maybe in due course I would even discover what I’d been set up for. There was one way to find out.
It wasn’t difficult tracking the Pedersens down. The hotel wasn’t that big and there were not that many of us in it. Mrs Pedersen proved to be very talkative. Once she had started talking it was quite difficult to stop her, though I tried once or twice. During my stroll round the garden with her, I established a number of things. Roughly in order of importance to the case, these were:
1) Both she and her husband originally came from Nykøbing, but they lived in a flat in Copenhagen when they were in Denmark, which at the moment they were not.
2) Her children were called Henning and Anna. Anna was named after her great-aunt, who lived in Randers. You pronounced it ‘Ran’ers’. Randers is nice, but not as nice as Nykøbing. Henning was not named after anyone in particular. They had thought of calling him Arne, but didn’t.
3) Pedersen is one of the most common names in Denmark, though not as common as Andersen. You pronounced it ‘An’ersen’. Andersen was extremely common.
4) The public transport system in Copenhagen is one of the most efficient in the world.
5) It has to be efficient because the tax on cars is so high. Really, all taxes in Denmark are far too high.
6) The Swedes all drive cars that are much too big. Global warming is caused almost entirely by Swedes. (I think she said this last bit. I was beginning to glaze over by then.)
7) The good thing about flea markets was that the government has not, so far, found any way of taxing them.
8) But they will.
She also made various other points that were not so relevant to the case, but those were the main ones. I tried to grill her on the stamps, but she looked blank and told me a fascinating anecdote about her grandmother in Aalborg.
When I woke up, she had gone.
I reported this back to the weasel, who just nodded, as though this was what he had been expecting.
‘If that was what you were expecting,’ I said, ‘then you were wasting my time – I’m assuming I collect my money only if we recover the stamps?’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘but I have not wasted my time.’ He held up a key.
‘I’m presumably supposed to ask you what that key is,’ I said.
‘In which case, I would tell you that it is a hotel pass key, that will let us into the Pedersens’ room. Would you like to know how I got it?’
‘Good for you,’ I said, thinking of the last time I had let myself into somebody else’s room at that hotel. ‘But I regret to inform you that key does not involve me in the slightest. I just said I’d talk to them, which I have done.’
‘But you discovered nothing.’
‘OK, let’s just call the deal off,’ I said.
He handed me the small, cold, silvery object. ‘I’ll create a diversion,’ he suggested, ‘and you get into the room and take a look round.’
‘No,’ I said.
‘Remember, there’s two thousand in it for you.’
‘I’ll want three thousand if I’m to start breaking into rooms,’ I said.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Done.’
Yes, I’d been set up. But set up for what exactly?
The weasel and I agreed he would divert the Pedersens with his scintillating conversation and, once he had tipped me the wink, I would sneak off and spend five minutes (no more) checking likely hiding places. I would then return the key to him, which he would replace in the room behind reception.
It was half an hour or so later that I saw him seated amongst the Pedersens, becoming an expert on Mrs Pedersen’s aunts by marriage. I had spent some of that half-hour reading the press cuttings on Grigory Davidov that Proctor had pushed under my door. They made an interesting study – I was forced to conclude that, apart from his affection for chocolate, he was not a nice man. That didn’t make Herbie Proctor any less of a creep, of course, nor did it mean I trusted him any more than I had done. Looking at him, hanging eagerly onto Mrs Pedersen’s every last word, it was clear that there could be little about him that was genuine.
Herbie winked at me. I winked back and headed off up the stairs.
But not to the Pedersens’ room. Of course not. What precisely do you take me for? It was not just that it was a crap plan. It was the weasel’s crap plan. So I hid round a corner, from where I could just see the Pedersens’ door. And I waited.
I did not have to wait very long at all. Approximately two minutes into what should have been my search, I heard footsteps on the stairs. A small party came into view – one weasel and two Pedersens. Mrs Pedersen was walking on tiptoes and looking quite excited. Mr Pedersen wasn’t. The weasel pointed to the room I was supposed to be in and sauntered off downstairs, looking unjustifiably pleased. Mrs Pedersen pushed her key into the lock and turned it, then flung the door open. She burst into what was (as various people were about to discover) a room containing no literary agents of any kind. Her husband followed sceptically.
After a short pause, both re-emerged, Mrs Pedersen looking puzzled and Mr Pedersen looking smug. It was not necessary to know the Danish for ‘I told you so’ in order to work out roughly what each of them had been expecting.
So, yes, I’d been set up . . . but why?
‘I agree,’ said Ethelred, ‘that Proctor’s behaviour was odd.’
I spluttered a bit at this understatement, but let Ethelred prattle on. A nugget of enlightenment might emerge out of the general dross, if I gave him long enough.
‘Think about it though,’ he said. ‘The whole business of Proctor hiding something at the station is your word against his. If he has hidden something, then he urgently needs the police to believe him and not you. At the moment neither of you, frankly, has much credibility. On the other hand if you start interrogating innocent Danes and then try to burgle their room, it might make the police think, on the basis of probability, that you are the one with criminal intent and that you have been trying to incriminate Proctor. The pressure will be off him long enough for him to do whatever he needs to do.’
‘So, we have proof, if that were needed, that Proctor has hidden something valuable in left luggage.’
‘But what?’ said Ethelred.
‘Stamps?’ I suggested.
‘We may discount the entire stamp story,’ said Ethelred. ‘Who was that client again?’
‘H. C. Andersen,’ I said.
‘I think that somebody has been telling you fairy stories,’ said Ethelred. ‘But let us at least check Mr Pedersen’s credentials. I’m pretty sure I can get the number of the Danish Embassy from reception.’
He returned a couple of minutes later and dialled a number on his mobile.
‘Goddag. Jeg vil gerne taler med Herr Pedersen,’ he said in what may or may not have been fluent Danish. I’d forgotten that was one of Ethelred’s less useful accomplishments.
There was a pause as Ethelred was told something.
‘Hvornar kommer Han igen?’
Another pause as Ethelred was told other, possibly different, things.
‘Nej tak. Jeg vil ringer igen senere. Tusind tak.’
He snapped his phone shut.
‘Well?’ I said. ‘You’re looking pretty smug, so spit it out before I have to do something unpleasant to take the smile off your face.’
‘Proctor lied,’ said Ethelred. ‘He said there was nobody called Pedersen at the embassy. Well, there’s a Georg Pedersen in their commercial section. He’s away at the moment, but he is due back tomorrow. Looks like the Pedersens are the real thing.’
‘So, no doubt about it – Herbie set me up to look stupid?’ I said.
‘That would seem to be the case.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘if that’s the worst he can do . . .’
It was at that point that the police turned up and said they had a few more questions to ask me.
Twenty-one
So, I was back in the little office just off reception. It seemed smaller and even less tidy. There were more dirty cups. There were more dirty plates. Somebody had left a slice of cold pizza on top of a file. Otherwise it was all much as before.
The inspector lit a Gauloise, showing that, if there was anti-smoking legislation in France, it did not apply to the police.
‘I thought we had an agreement that I was not under arrest, so long as I didn’t attack policemen,’ I pointed out.
‘You are not under arrest, but there are new facts to consider,’ he said.
‘But I haven’t done anything,’ I said.
The inspector raised his eyebrows. He had possibly heard that one before.
‘OK,’ I said, ‘I have broken into the scene of a crime, eaten key evidence, left the hotel suspiciously and jumped on a policeman from the top of the garden wall. But otherwise, I haven’t done anything.’
His eyebrows had not returned to their normal position (unless raised was their normal position, of course).
‘What?’ I said.
‘Monsieur Davidov was poisoned,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We know that – cyanide in the peach truffle. Not nice but, equally, not me.’
‘The chocolates were from Apollinaire.’
‘Obviously,’ I said.
‘You purchased chocolates from Apollinaire,’ he said.
I decided not to say ‘obviously’ again. I could see this might be leading somewhere.
‘Half the guests in the hotel must have bought chocolates there,’ I said.
‘The shop assistant remembers only you and Monsieur Davidov.’
‘That’s possible. True connoisseurs of the chocolatier’s art are rare.’
‘She remembers you going on about the peach truffles.’
‘And the orange creams and the ganaches,’ I said. ‘Look, I don’t know about the poisoning.’
‘So you have said. Let us turn, however, to Monsieur Davidov. Did you know him well?’
This was much easier. ‘I had never heard of him until I arrived here,’ I said.
‘Never?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Then why,’ said the inspector, ‘had you made this collection of press cuttings about him?’
He held up the folder that Herbie Proctor had kindly pushed under my door.
‘Hang on one minute!’ I said. ‘Proctor gave me those.’
‘It was definitely Monsieur Proctor?’
‘Without a doubt.’
‘And when was this?’ he asked.
‘He pushed them under my door after lunch today – or somebody did anyway. You see—’
‘Somebody? So – let me get this straight – you are not certain it was Monsieur Proctor? You now say that the cuttings were in fact pushed under your door by an unknown person?’
‘Yes. But obviously the unknown person was Herbie Proctor.’
‘“Obviously” in what sense? Did you see him?’
‘No, the folder just appeared. But it must have been him . . .’ I was desperately trying to remember exactly what Proctor had said about the cuttings.
‘You had an argument with Monsieur Gold?’ asked the inspector.
‘Sort of . . .’ I hedged. Was I about to be accused of two murders?
‘You disliked him?’
‘No,’ I said, quickly correcting any erroneous impression on this score. ‘Actually, I really, really liked him.’
‘You were good friends?’
‘Very,’ I said. Well, we would have been, given another night in the hotel.
The inspector frowned. ‘We had long suspected that Monsieur Gold and his environmentalist colleagues had some intention of harming Monsieur Davidov. Had Gold not been killed, we think that he might have made such an attempt. Your close friendship, as you describe it, with Monsieur Gold suggests perhaps that you might have been working together?’
OK, that was the wrong answer then. What I should have said was that I scarcely knew Jonathan Gold. Was it too late to point out that I made him puke?
‘Let me explain,’ I said, though it did seem to me that explanations had largely got me where I was now, and that perhaps shutting up might be a good plan.
The inspector in any case waved a hand dismissively.
‘Let me suggest to you, Mademoiselle Thirkettle, that what actually happened was this. For a long time you have interested yourself in Monsieur Davidov’s career. No?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘You gathered together this –’ he waved his hand at the heap of paper, ‘– collection of press cuttings, mainly from the left-wing papers. You came to this hotel, you say, to meet your friend Monsieur Tressider. But in fact it was to assassinate Monsieur Davidov. You met up with the accomplice, Jonathan Gold. To throw people off the scent, he pretended to find you ugly and repulsive.’
‘Not that ugly and repulsive,’ I said. ‘Actually, I think, given the proper atmosphere, with soft lights and the right sort of chocolate . . .’
The inspector again waved a dismissive hand.
‘Exactly. We come to the question of the chocolate. You purchased truffles knowing that Grigory Davidov’s favourite was peach. You injected cyanide, obtained from an unknown source – but perhaps given to you by Monsieur Gold, who we believe utilized poisons as part of his profession – into the very truffle he would certainly choose first. You thought that, by pretending to a quite
unbelievable ignorance of current affairs, you would escape suspicion. Later, however, you could not resist returning to the scene of the crime and removing the only evidence that would have linked you incontrovertibly with the murder. Later still, you tried to escape over the wall, perhaps to dispose of the container in which you had brought the cyanide; but having been spotted by Monsieur Proctor, who had suspected you of criminal intent, you were obliged to return.’
I shut my mouth, which for some reason had fallen open during the course of this account of my actions. I thought for a moment. Then I opened my mouth again.
‘That’s crap, that is,’ I pointed out.
‘Is it?’
‘I can prove it!’ I said. ‘Fingerprint those cuttings. They’ll have the weasel’s dabs all over them.’
‘The weasel?’
‘Herbie Proctor.’
‘Monsieur Proctor has told us,’ said the inspector, ‘that you made him read the cuttings last night. He had no real interest, but he dutifully looked at each of them, he said. Every single one.’
Well, at least I now knew roughly what I’d been set up for.
‘I’ll kill that slimy little scumbag,’ I said. ‘Just tell me where I can lay my hands on some strychnine and then let me out of this room for five minutes. I promise I’ll be back here later to answer any other questions, but right now I need a bit of quality time with Herbie Proctor.’
‘You are planning a further murder perhaps?’ asked the inspector.
‘Just let me kill Proctor,’ I said, ‘and I’ll confess to any two other murders of your choice.’
‘The offer is certainly tempting,’ said the inspector. ‘But it would not really help matters. Do you know why Monsieur Proctor would wish to frame you?’
Let’s see . . . he was a scumbag, I had spurned his obnoxious advances, I’d done my best to get his stomach pumped a second time, I’d tricked him into ordering a ruinously expensive lunch. None of that quite seemed enough. I pointed this out.
‘That is what we thought too,’ said the inspector. ‘But he does seem very keen to implicate you for some reason. I think Monsieur Proctor is not being entirely truthful. Nor is he quite as clever as he imagines.’
