Ten Little Herrings

by L. C. Tyler

  ‘And when he gets there?’

  ‘He’ll open the locker and find it empty.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘He’ll be pretty sorry he let me have key 051. He will realize that he is a total dipstick and that I am the Queen of Amateur Detectives. Eat your heart out Jane-sodding-Marple.’

  ‘And after he’s done that?’

  ‘Ah, yes . . .’

  The lockers were strong, no doubt, but Herbie was, as we had now established, a jewel thief. Were the flimsy station lockers stronger than a hotel safe, for example? Much though you’d like the answer to be ‘Yes’, you had to admit it was probably ‘No’. Would he remember that my key bore the number 051? You’d like the answer to be ‘No’ but . . .

  Well then, it seemed we were basically back to where we had been before, but perhaps this time with a few more minutes in hand. And the advantage of having the right key.

  ‘If we ran . . .’ I said.

  ‘We’d better get a move on,’ said Ethelred.

  We were out in the street again in about thirty seconds, but Herbie had a good five minutes’ start on us and looked quite athletic in a rabbity sort of way.

  ‘Why,’ said Ethelred, ‘do you insist in wearing those high heels? They’ll slow us down and we’ll end up getting arrested.’

  ‘If we get arrested,’ I pointed out reasonably, ‘I want to look my best.’

  Actually, we were making pretty good time, and there was no need for Ethelred to whinge. As we trotted briskly into the station I saw Herbie at the ticket window.

  ‘J’ai perdu ma clé,’ he was saying. ‘Je vous prie d’ouvrir la boîte pour moi – la boîte cinquante-et-un.’

  ‘Pas possible,’ came the stock response from an invisible official. ‘C’est absolument défendu.’ Like I’ve always said, I love bureaucracy. I wish there was more of it. I really do.

  ‘Can I be of help?’ I asked, tapping Herbie on the shoulder.

  ‘No,’ said Herbie.

  ‘Non,’ said the invisible official.

  ‘It’s just,’ I said in my sweetest and most reasonable tones, ‘that I overheard this gentleman asking you to open locker number 051 for him. “What a coincidence!” I said to myself. My locker is also 051! So how could it be that this gentleman wishes you to open it up?’

  ‘You have the key?’ enquired the invisible official.

  ‘But of course,’ I said.

  ‘Stay out of this, Elsie,’ said Herbie. He was trying to sound threatening for my benefit and perfectly reasonable for the benefit of the nice bureaucrat. It’s not something most people can do, and Herbie was no exception.

  ‘The two of you know each other?’ asked the ticket person, leaning forward to see us both.

  ‘One of my very oldest and dearest friends,’ I said.

  ‘You are both English?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ I said.

  ‘Then, monsieur,’ she said to Herbie, ‘I will leave the two of you to sort this out.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  ‘My pleasure,’ said the ticket person. ‘By the way, I really like that fleur-de-lys imprinted on your forehead.’

  It was at this point that Ethelred thankfully hove into view, a broad grin over his silly face. I hoped Herbie was in fact more stupid than he looked, because Ethelred’s face was yelling: Hi, gang! I’ve switched the lockers again! at the top of its voice.

  ‘I need a word with you two,’ said Herbie with an honest and friendly smile. ‘Let’s go back to the left-luggage room, where we won’t be overheard.’

  Somewhere a voice in my head was telling me not to trust him, but I was way ahead of mere voices.

  ‘I think we’ll just go back to the hotel,’ I said. ‘I don’t think I mind being overheard. Having other people around would be good. The more the merrier.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Ethelred.

  Was this the point to say something to Ethelred about the gun?

  The voices were telling me to get my arse out of there right now. There was a whole chorus of them now. They were unanimous.

  ‘I think Ethelred may want to stay,’ said the weasel, ‘when I tell him that I have a message from a mutual friend.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Ethelred, suddenly transfixed.

  ‘I think you know,’ said Herbie. ‘Our Mutual Friend. Come into the locker room and I’ll explain.’

  ‘OK,’ said Ethelred.

  ‘Ethelred, we need to get back,’ I said, giving his linen sleeve a tug.

  But he stood there transfixed. He looked like a small and not particularly bright rodent hypnotized by a snake.

  ‘He’s got a gun,’ I hissed, though Herbie could hear me as well as Ethelred, and already knew he had a gun, so I might as well have yelled it. ‘And whatever it is you think he’s saying, it’s a lie.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ said Ethelred distantly. He was already edging towards the left-luggage lockers. He now resembled a small rodent that is stupid enough to walk, out of the goodness of its dear little heart, straight into the open jaws of a waiting snake. Except no known rodent is actually that stupid.

  The voices were telling me to leave the silly tosser and save my own skin. You currently got a more despicable class of supernatural advice round here than you did in Joan of Arc’s time.

  ‘OK, it looks as though we’re in this together,’ I said. ‘Let’s go to the locker room and get it over with.’

  ‘That’s very wise,’ smiled the weasel.

  I tried to hear what the voices inside my head were telling me, but all I picked up was a snort of derision.

  Twenty-seven

  The room was not large. It contained, I guessed, around a hundred lockers, each made of unpainted white metal. The unlocked ones could be distinguished by the round, red key tags that dangled prominently from them. Enough were locked, however, to provide Proctor with what was going to be a good guessing game, once he had told me what I needed to know. I doubted that he had a gun in anything other than his imagination, but my plan would cover that unlikely eventuality.

  Elsie was looking at me as though I was stupid, but she had only half the story or (hopefully) less.

  As soon as we were inside and the door to the room was closed, Proctor turned, the smile suddenly absent from his face. Not a pleasant face at the best of times, this version was distinctly ugly.

  ‘Right, Ethelred,’ said Proctor. ‘The key to whichever locker has the diamonds in it. Now, please.’

  ‘Message first,’ I said.

  ‘Key first,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I said.

  ‘I have a gun,’ he said.

  ‘Which you will not be able to use here,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t depend on it.’

  I smiled. Though Elsie was looking at me as if I were an idiot, my guess was that Proctor had no gun with him.

  ‘I’ll risk it,’ I said.

  ‘Fine,’ said Proctor. ‘Have it your way. The message is that your friend looks forward to meeting you in London. In the meantime you are to trust me and hand over the necklace.’

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘And I am to give you the diamonds on the basis of that?’ I asked.

  ‘Isn’t that the assurance you want? Your friend is very keen to see you again. But only if you let me have the necklace now.’

  ‘And what will you do with it?’ I asked.

  ‘It will be delivered to its rightful owners and your friend will be very pleased with you. Very pleased indeed.’

  ‘Would one of you dickheads stop talking in riddles,’ demanded Elsie, ‘and say something that a normal person could understand? By the way, he does have a gun, Ethelred.’

  ‘Clearly we both wish to keep my friend happy,’ I said to Proctor. ‘I’ll tell you what: you can pick the key you prefer.’

  Proctor looked puzzled, until I produced four keys and arranged them on the palm of my hand.

  ‘Which locker do you thin
k it is?’ I asked.

  Proctor shook his head. ‘I’m not playing games, Ethelred. Listen to Elsie on the subject of guns and just give me all four keys.’

  I handed them over. Obviously he didn’t have a gun, but it really made little difference.

  ‘Good boy,’ said Proctor, clasping the keys. ‘God, you must think I’m stupid.’

  As he began to examine what was now in his hand, I gave Elsie’s arm a tap and nodded in the direction we should move. Proctor looked up briefly only as we were going out through the door. We dodged round the corner and into the station forecourt. A taxi had just pulled up and a passenger was paying the driver. I bundled Elsie into the cab and said: ‘Drive!’

  The taxi driver, who was unfamiliar with the conventions of detective fiction, simply turned, a cigarette dangling from his lip. ‘Where to?’

  I reckoned Proctor would be on his second locker by now.

  ‘Just drive,’ I said, glancing over my shoulder.

  ‘How can I just drive? You have to drive in a certain direction. I need to know which direction you wish to go in.’ He removed the cigarette and flicked ash, partly out of the window, but mainly over himself.

  ‘Apollinaire,’ said Elsie, ‘as fast as you can.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say so?’ He jettisoned the cigarette and carefully adjusted his rear-view mirror. On his third attempt he found the right gear and we began to creep forward.

  It was as the taxi completed a leisurely swing across the forecourt that we saw Proctor emerge from the station. He looked like a man who had just suffered another of a long line of disappointments. He yelled something after us, but we never did find out what it was. It was probably quite heartfelt.

  ‘I assume there is a fifth key?’ said Elsie, settling back in the seat.

  I nodded. ‘Something like that.’

  ‘So, the diamonds are perfectly safe?’

  I nodded.

  ‘In another locker?’

  ‘Proctor is certainly not going to find them any time soon.’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Elsie, ‘that you now plan to hand the necklace over to the police?’

  ‘Eventually.’

  She looked me in the eye. ‘That was a test, Tressider,’ she said slowly, ‘and you have just failed it. If you really planned to hand the diamonds over, you would have them in your pocket now to deliver to the authorities. “Eventually” is no sort of answer at all. All this time you’ve been saying that I can’t keep the diamonds, I had assumed that your intentions towards them were at least honourable. Now we have established they are not, tell me, what exactly are your plans for my diamonds?’

  ‘To return the necklace to its rightful owners,’ I said.

  ‘Minus a couple for us?’ she said hopefully. ‘I’m sure one or two were loose in their setting, or could be made loose with only a small amount of effort.’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Well, we should at least be negotiating a large reward,’ she said.

  ‘Virtue is its own reward, Elsie,’ I said.

  ‘Money is its own reward,’ said Elsie. ‘Virtue is merely a bargaining point.’

  ‘I prefer my virtue unsullied,’ I said.

  Elsie cocked her head to one side and appeared to be listening to something.

  ‘The voices in my head,’ she said, ‘have just informed me that you are a silly tosser. And everything my voices say is true.’

  Fortunately, at this point we drew up in front of Apollinaire, and Elsie’s mind turned instantly to more pressing matters. In silence and with respectful demeanour, we prepared to enter the holiest chocolate shrine this side of the Belgian frontier.

  Elsie took her time making her selections. She had a good eye for how many chocolates would fit into a given ballotin without risk of damage. She would add two of a particular type then, reluctantly, discard one to permit the addition of an even more essential variety. Strangely, she included no peach truffle.

  When the ribbon had been tied and the chocolates paid for, we left the shop and headed back towards the hotel. Across the road, leaning conspicuously against a wall, was Herbie Proctor. He sneered as we went on our way.

  ‘He obviously had no difficulty in tracking us down,’ I said.

  ‘He probably just grabbed the next cab and said: “Follow that taxi”,’ said Elsie. There was a note of regret in her voice that she had not been able to do the same.

  ‘More likely,’ I said, ‘he just worked out that we were bound to end up at Apollinaire.’

  ‘He’s still an arsehole,’ said Elsie. She clearly resented that she had not been permitted to utter one of the great clichés of crime fiction. Then slightly more nervously she added: ‘Is he following us?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But what can he do?’

  ‘Ethelred, he really does have a gun,’ said Elsie.

  ‘He’d be crazy to use it,’ I said.

  ‘He is crazy.’

  We quickened our pace. So did Proctor.

  To be honest, tailing us was not that difficult. Since Proctor knew we had seen him, he did not need to remain concealed. The only possible doubt in his mind would have been whether we were returning to the hotel or whether we were going to double back to the railway station. He was pretty certain we were not going to the police. We did not have an awful lot of options at our disposal.

  This part of Chaubord was a narrow cluster of buildings between the chateau and the Loire. The houses were picturesque, white or grey walled, green or blue shuttered, with plenty of provincial charm but offering little by the way of cover. A chilly mist was settling over the river and shrouding the pollarded willows on the far bank, but it would have to get a lot thicker to be any use to us.

  We ducked into a side street, hoping that we could take another turning before Proctor regained sight of us. We found ourselves in a short but picturesque cul-de-sac. The uneven tarmac sloped down gradually to the cold and fast-flowing Loire. There had possibly been a ferry across the river at this point at one time. Now it was just a deserted dead end. The only two houses flanking the road were closely shuttered. Had we wanted to find a good spot to be shot and pushed into some swirling brown water, we could not have done better.

  Proctor too had turned the corner and now stood at the top of the slope, grinning. He started to advance towards us.

  ‘I don’t fancy swimming, so I hope you’ve got a good plan,’ said Elsie. ‘Or at least a better plan than walking into a death trap and waiting to get shot.’

  ‘You can’t shoot somebody with a mobile phone,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve seen the gun,’ said Elsie.

  ‘Why didn’t you say so?’

  ‘I did.’

  We had some unlikely saviours. A small posse of motor scooters swung off the main road and towards us. They screeched to a halt just short of the water. One of the riders, aged about twelve as far as I could tell, took out a packet of Gitanes and ostentatiously lit up. The cul-de-sac was, it seemed, where the local youths went to go and do whatever they wanted to do without undue interference from the local police. They might have regarded a double shooting as entertainment or they might have resented somebody encroaching on their patch. Herbie took a look at them, sneered and strolled slowly back. We followed cautiously.

  The three of us rejoined the main road more or less together.

  ‘Are you going back to the hotel?’ I asked Proctor.

  He raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Elsie and I set off again along the main road, Proctor following ten yards or so behind. The occasional car passed by, giving us some sort of security, but not much. For the first time ever I was hoping to see some more delinquent teenagers.

  The road was flanked mainly by houses, which formed a solid, grey terrace along the narrow pavement. Nothing offered any refuge until we reached a bookshop; we ducked inside. Proctor strolled past. The message in his glance was simple. We could look at books if we wished. He could get us any time.

  ‘Now do you believe he is
the murderer?’ demanded Elsie, replacing the copy of Proust, in which she had rather improbably been engrossed, on the shelf.

  ‘Maybe,’ I said.

  ‘Hold on,’ said Elsie. ‘Which other guest has assaulted me with a wall? Which other guest has threatened us both with a gun or – if you insist – loaded mobile phone? Which other guest, apart from us obviously, has had stolen Czarist stuff in his or her possession? Which other guest has tailed us in a menacing manner? Which other guest has lied so consistently and unconvincingly?’

  All of this was true, and I was beginning to question my certainty that I knew who the killer was. The reason that I had doubted Proctor’s guilt was that there was no logic to killing Davidov after stealing the gems. But why should I be looking for logic? Fictional crime is logical. Real-life crime is too often sad and haphazard. As Margaret Williams had commented after stabbing her other half: ‘If the knife hadn’t been on the table my husband wouldn’t be dead.’ But it had been, and he was.

  Davidov’s death did not need to be necessary – merely possible. Proctor had had plenty of opportunity to murder both of them and the diamonds were a perfectly adequate motive. In the same way, Proctor had no need to kill me, but on the other hand . . .

  ‘I think we should continue on our way,’ I said. ‘Even if we run into Proctor, there should be plenty of other people around all the way back to the hotel.’

  ‘And then?’ asked Elsie.

  ‘We’ll be fine,’ I said. ‘Herbie has shot his bolt.’

  ‘I’m glad you think so,’ said Elsie. ‘Maybe you’d like to tell me why you’re so damned sure and what you know about Herbie Proctor that I don’t?’

  ‘Herbie Proctor? Nothing at all.’

  ‘You have a mutual friend.’

  ‘I don’t think he’s a friend of hers exactly,’ I said.

  Elsie looked at me. ‘So, who is this female friend . . . of yours?’

  ‘Nobody you know,’ I said.

  ‘Ethelred, I can tell when you are lying,’ said Elsie.

  I smiled enigmatically. I doubt that the Sphinx could have done a better job. For the moment she was simply guessing.

  ‘I’ll find out sooner or later,’ she said.

  That, conversely, was probably true. The main thing, however, was that she did not do anything stupid in the meantime.