“She got her train all right,” he told Pollard. “Where do we go from here, sir?”
Pollard threw down Mrs. Flack’s statement. “Ahead as planned, until it’s known if the chap in the mortuary is the chap who’s been calling himself Raymond Peplow for the past thirty years. If he is, I can’t see that his real identity can concern us much after all this time, can you? If he isn’t, there’ll have to be an all-out drive to identify him, and track down the Argentine Peplow, assuming he’s still above ground.”
Toye looked gloomy. “It only wanted this, didn’t it? As if it wasn’t snarled up enough already.”
“Either way,” Pollard said, “our job’s to find out who did the chap we’ve got. And it seems to me we can’t do much more about it tonight. Going back to where we were when Mrs. Flack blew in, we’ve sorted things out a bit, and it’s perfectly clear who are at the top of the list where opportunity goes. And means, too. Putting in the boot isn’t a usual female technique, but Mrs. Tirle’s not a usual sort of woman. She’s well-built, into the bargain. Motive? There’s no need to look for one in the ordinary sense. I’m convinced it was a case of going for a burglar a bit too hard, probably in self-defence. The man was armed, I expect.”
“Wonder what happened to the gun?” said Toye.
“Brent’s the hell of a big place, isn’t it? Let’s call it a day, shall we? Go and eat, or what?”
A few minutes later they parted company, Toye heading for a quick snack and a cinema, his favourite means of mental relaxation on a case. Pollard had a more leisurely meal, rang Jane at extravagant length, and, feeling more cheerful, strolled along the sea front before turning in. He noticed that a lot of people seemed to be wandering about and sitting around with an air of expectation, and idly wondered why. Suddenly a fireworks display leapt into being from the region of the pier. He perched on the sea wall, and watched the brilliantly coloured patterns explode into being against the darkening sky, hang poised and interlaced and abruptly vanish. Their intricacy suggested his problem. The parallel had hardly struck him when a loud bang heralded a vivid streak of red fire, which ripped across a display of golden fountains, seeming to obliterate it.
People near him laughed.
“Somebody pressed the wrong button,” a man remarked. Nice if it could work out that way, Pollard thought… He yawned hugely, realised that he was short of sleep, and set off for his hotel.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Pollard seldom planned in advance the line he would take when interviewing suspects. On the following morning he reacted at once to Bill Emmett’s attempt to keep Rosalie out of the enquiry by resolving to concentrate on her.
“You were all in this house on Tuesday night, and I must see you,” he said. “Rosalie is under age, and I prefer to question her with her parents present. Where is she?”
Bill Emmett, looking truculent with his shirtsleeves rolled up, muttered something about the tea room and made for the door, where he was neatly intercepted by Toye.
“Sergeant, go over to the tea room, and ask Rosalie to come and see me at her home,” Pollard said.
The kitchen was stuffy, smelling of fried breakfast and detergent. There was a tense wait on hard chairs drawn up to the table. At last footsteps were heard, and Rosalie came in, escorted by Toye. Her eyes went straight to her father, not to her rather sulky-looking mother.
“Come an’ sit b’ yer Dad, luv,” he said, pulling a chair closer.
Utterly spoilt by a doting father and a mum too lazy to stand up to her, Pollard thought. What’s she been up to, I wonder?
“Rosalie,” he said, suddenly getting his cue, “when I saw you so unhappy yesterday afternoon I knew you were the person who could help me about last Tuesday night.” He watched her eyes widen with apprehension as he talked. “When a pretty girl like you gets upset, it’s always the same reason, isn’t it? A boyfriend.”
For a second the whole family stared at him dumbfounded. Then Rosalie’s lower lip quivered, and without warning she burst into the loud boo-hoos of a small child, punctuated by disjointed words — “…no difference to no one … only jus’ sleepin’ here … gone jus’ after five nex’ morning’ … got in on time…”
Checking an attempt by Bill Emmett to intervene, Pollard spoke to her sharply. “Stop this ridiculous noise, Rosalie, and act your age,” he ordered. “Who slept here on Tuesday night?”
“M-y boy-friend. Dick White,” she hiccupped.
Eventually the whole story came out. Dick White was a van driver for Crunchaway Limited, a Midland firm manufacturing savoury crisps and snacks. He was the stepson of Mrs. Emmett’s sister, and lived in Warhampton. The two families were on friendly terms, and Dick and Rosalie had become engaged some months earlier. Her father, however, had refused to give his consent to the marriage until Rosalie was eighteen. Normally Dick was on Crunchaway’s Lancashire run, but had jumped at the chance of running an extra consignment down to Crockmouth on one of his days off.
Crunchaway’s rule was that any of their vans arriving too late for delivery that day should be parked overnight in an official enclosure for commercial vehicles. Dick White had been quick to see the possibility of a bogus breakdown, and a night at the Emmetts’. By making an early start the next morning he could ensure being on time for his first delivery. Bill Emmett had opposed the plan at first, but as usual, Rosalie had had her way. Dick had parked his van in a disused sandpit on the Brent estate, and arrived at the caretaker’s house just after ten-thirty on Tuesday night, the sound of his footsteps alerting Snowball, who had barked.
Pollard listened with a growing conviction that he was hearing the truth, and the possibility of the Emmetts’ visitor being connected with the events in the miniatures room receded rapidly in his mind. He asked a number of questions, but the account of Dick White’s arrival never varied. The young man had cut across the park on foot. Under cover of Snowball’s barking Rosalie had slipped out and let him in by the wicket in the north gate. They had all sat down to a bit of hot supper, and afterwards the parents had tactfully gone up to bed, leaving the young couple in the kitchen. Bill Emmett, however, did not hold with goings-on before marriage, and had warned Rosalie that if the pair of them weren’t up by twelve, he’d be down to fetch her in his nightshirt. He had stayed awake long enough to see that his orders were carried out, and heard the pair going to their respective rooms.
Dick’s, immediately above Mr. and Mrs. Emmetts’, had floorboards which gave ear-splitting creaks at every step. After inspecting it, Pollard was convinced that he could not have left the house and returned to it undetected during the night.
On the landing he paused in front of a bunch of keys hanging on a nail.
“Do you leave these here overnight?” he asked.
“I takes ’em into the bedroom,” Bill Emmett replied heatedly. “An’ if you think me wife’s sister’s husband’s lad —”
“I’m paid to think,” Pollard cut in shortly. “I’m carrying out a routine enquiry which could have been over and done with yesterday afternoon, if you had behaved like a sensible man.”
He continued downstairs, where Rosalie and her mother were sitting in a deflated silence.
“I shall have to interview Dick White, to see if he can confirm what you have all told me,” he said. “May I have his address, please?”
At this Rosalie showed signs of bursting into tears again. “He’ll get the sack if his boss hears of it,” she quavered.
“If he can give a satisfactory account of himself, his boss may not have to come into it,” he told her.
“Oh, thank you,” she gasped, pink with relief as she wrote the address on the back of an envelope.
“Blame meself,” remarked Bill Emmett gloomily.
Pollard glanced at him. “Neither,” he said, “are we interested in unauthorised parking on Lord Seton’s property.”
It struck him that the relief exhibited by the Emmett family over side issues was convincing evidence of their lack of complicit
y in the graver one.
“Sergeant Toye will now write out a summary of what you have told us,” he said. “Then he’ll read it to you. If you agree that it’s fair record, he’ll ask you to sign it. I’ll be around, sergeant, when you’re through.”
Leaving the house he went out of the north gate, and past the tea room to the seat which he had occupied with Toye on the previous afternoon. He felt depressed. In his own mind he was certain that Dick White and the Emmetts were in the clear. Back again to Lord Seton, Mrs. Giles and Persons Unknown, in inexplicable possession of keys or incredible cahoots with other members of the household.
It was a glorious July morning. The fragrance of hundreds of roses came drifting to him on a light breeze. Away to his left the great house dreamed in the sunlight, but its dominating quality was in evidence all the same. Pollard closed his eyes resolutely, and began to shape the report he would make to the Assistant Commissioner that evening.
Suddenly conscious of being no longer alone, he opened them again. A small gnome-like figure with wispy white hair was contemplating him with undisguised interest.
“Yew be one o’ they Lunnon ’tecs?” the little old man asked. “One o’ they perlice chaps as us sees on the telly? I likes they perlice programmes.”
“Do you?” replied Pollard. “Yes, I’m from the Yard. You work here, I expect?”
“Aye. Sam Webber’s the name. Man an’ boy I’ve worked yur, savin’ the fust war. Too old fer ’Itler’s, I wur. Fust under ’is present lordship’s granfer, then under ’is pa, and now ’im, Roger, eighth Earl o’ Seton. That’s ’im. Now us be open to public, I be car park attendant afternoons. Mornin’s I clears up an’ clips the edges over to the maze. Ave ’ee ’ad a go, zur? Maybe yew’d find summat worthwhile in the middle of n.”
Sam Webber indicated trim box hedges to the right of the rose garden, and gave Pollard so knowing a look that he was intrigued in spite of himself. He glanced at his watch, and jingled the loose change in his pocket.
“What’s the drill?” he asked. “I can only spare a few minutes.”
Sam Webber gave an unmistakably lewd cackle. “Fust right, fust left till ’ee gets there, zur, an’ t’other way comin’ out.”
Pollard passed over a tip. “Misleading the police is an offence,” he remarked, evoking another cackle.
As he reached the entrance to the maze he looked back, and saw the old man positively hugging himself. Uninhibited classical statuary? He had taken a couple of right turns when he suddenly knew for a certainty that his arrival was being uneasily awaited.
Another couple of seconds brought him out into a gravelled space in which there were two rustic seats. On one of them, at an exaggerated distance apart, sat a young man with the distinctive Tirle features and a very pretty girl. The young man, wearing light trousers, a check shirt and rope sandals, rose politely to his feet.
“Good morning, sir,” he said. “It’s Detective-Superintendent Pollard of the Yard, isn’t it? I hope we haven’t obliterated any clues?”
Pollard returned the greeting, including them both. “To be honest,” he said, “at this moment I’m merely wasting the taxpayer’s money. Mazes intrigue me. You must be Mrs. Giles Tirle’s eldest son, I think, and you,” he smiled at the girl, “Lady Caroline Tirle.”
“Caroline Tirle,” she replied, giving him an engaging grin. “Except when I’m blatantly cashing in on the handle. Liberté, égalité, fraternité, in these days, you know.”
“Don’t mind my cousin,” Robert Tirle remarked with excessive detachment. “She’s just back from some unfortunate family in France. Something had to be done about her accent.”
“Hybrid and intellectual snob,” returned Caroline Tirle, sedulously avoiding his eye. “Couldn’t you sit down and talk to us just for a minute, Mr. Pollard? I’ve never met anyone from the Yard before. This affair’s a terrific thrill. We can’t help, worse luck: we were both away till last night. I’m dying to ask you all sorts of things.”
“The most abysmal nit who goops in front of a TV screen would know the police don’t answer questions, I should have thought.”
Robert addressed the remark to Pollard, who sat down, once more intrigued. Why, they’re in love, he thought.
“Tell me what it feels like to have your home open to the public,” he said.
“With it,” Caroline replied promptly. “There’s hardly a Stately Home left with its gates closed. It’s practically that or National Assistance, you know. But it’s a bore, let’s face it. Bang goes the summer.”
“It’s better than living on a shoestring under a leaking roof,” Robert commented. “Or opting out. I’m trad at heart, I suppose.”
“He’s the heir,” Caroline told Pollard. “There’s only me and a sister. Mummy had to have a hysterectomy,” she added explicitly.
It struck him that the pair were interesting blends of the older generation. Robert Tirle was a more subtle edition of his aunt, Lady Arminel, and had inherited his mother’s intelligence. Caroline had a more robust version of her mother’s beauty, and, he suspected, something of her father’s acumen and drive. Enquiries had revealed that Robert was reading Greats on a New College scholarship, and had just completed his third year. Asked about his future, he admitted to the possibility of a First. If it came off, it would probably be the Foreign Office or the Diplomatic.
“Then when I’ve had all the red tape and protocol I can take,” he said, “I’ll opt out, and come back and put Brent across in the current idiom.”
“I’ve flatly refused to try for a university,” Caroline announced. “I’m an intelligent unacademic. It’s a terribly important section of the community: it practically runs the country, actually. I shall be a Third or Fourth Girl in a London flat when I go to a secretarial college in September, if I can wear down the parents. They think I’m going to live with a suffocatingly square sister of Mummy’s.”
“Lady Caroline,” said Pollard, “when were you last down in the priest’s hole?”
They both looked at him quickly, and he watched her colour slightly and dart a glance at her cousin.
“Wasn’t it in the Christmas vac?” Robert came in with studied casualness. “That wet day we went down for a giggle.”
Pollard’s expression remained politely interrogative.
“It may sound a shade off-beat,” Caroline said with a touch of hauteur. “In fact, the idea wasn’t what a bloody-minded person would think.”
“It certainly wasn’t.” Robert spoke with decision. “And frankly, I don’t see its relevance to what you’re down here for.”
“I don’t think I’m bloody-minded,” Pollard said tranquilly. “Just trying to tie up loose ends, like a conscientious policeman. We found a long golden hair caught on the stonework of the priest’s hole. Lady Seton assured us that she had never been inside it, so when I saw that Lady Caroline had hair of the same type, I thought I would check up.”
“Sorry if I was snooty,” Caroline told him. “It’s a sore subject. Don’t look all disapproving, Robert. It’s OK to talk to the police as long as you’re not a criminal. It’s like the confessional for RCs. You see, Mr. Pollard, we got engaged at Christmas, and when we told the family they hit the roof. There was such a stink that we suddenly felt we’d got to get away from it all. It was pouring with rain, so I thought of the hole.”
“Misguided melodrama,” said Robert, showing slight discomfort. “It was so foul down there that we crawled out after about five minutes, laughing ourselves sick. Cold, dank and murder to the bottom. It hadn’t occurred to us to take cushions to sit on. The engagement stands, by the way. As soon as we’re both of age we shall announce it — unless the parents give in before then.”
“I expect they feel you’re both a bit young for a formal engagement.”
“It’s only partly that,” Caroline told Pollard. “They’re still harping on the first cousin business, although everyone knows that was exploded long ago. But what’s really behind it is Family, in b
lock capitals. There’s an Undesirable Streak in the Tirles, you know. They see a generation of drop-outs and meths drinkers ahead, and the old ancestral home full of squatters. Robert’s young brother’s got it. He’s already been expelled from three schools. Our young would have it on both sides, you see.”
“Paul’s equalled Uncle Oliver’s record already,” added Robert. “Of course Uncle O. was sent down from Oxford, too, but Paul won’t even get there in these democratic days.”
“Where is your Uncle Oliver now?” asked Pollard with some amusement.
“His mortal remains are forming the corner of a foreign field that is for ever England. I wouldn’t care to speculate further. He stopped a bomb while fighting for the Left in the Spanish Civil War. We don’t mention him. His memorial tablet in Brenting church is the epitome of reticence.”
Pollard realised that he was holding his breath. There was a sudden and almost audible click in his mind. “Was your uncle your father’s elder brother?” he asked Caroline.
“His elder half-brother, to be exact. My grandfather married twice. Aunt Arminel and Uncle Oliver were the first family. Think what he let us in for! Not that I don’t adore it all at times,” she admitted frankly.
Pollard glanced at his watch and stood up. Robert Tirle courteously followed suit.
“I’m afraid I must be off: my sergeant will be wondering where I’ve got to. It’s been nice of you both to tell me about yourselves. May I wish you luck, however things turn out?”
They murmured rather inarticulate thanks. He knew with sudden conviction that this pair, so lavishly endowed by nature and circumstance, would not only marry, but make a go of it.
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