The Affacombe Affair

by Elizabeth Lemarchand

  ‘Okay. I’ll rustle ’em up for you.’

  In a comparatively short time a more senior receptionist arrived, and gave her name as Doris Lanfear. She protested that she had nothing to add to her previous statement, but Pollard was insistent, and took her through it step by step.

  Oh, yes, she knew Mr and Mrs Garnish quite well. It wouldn’t be much good being in Reception at a place like the Z-E unless you could remember faces and say the right things to them. No, they weren’t very frequent guests, but turned up pretty regularly about every month or so. Asked about their time of arrival on Saturday, she replied without hesitation that Mrs Garnish had come in about one o’clock, and crossed over to the desk to say something about being down again for a night or two, and coming over for another lovely lunch. Then she’d said they were thinking of going to see The Mousetrap, so she’d better hurry up and order the drinks while her husband was parking the car.

  ‘Did you see Mr Garnish arrive?’ asked Pollard.

  ‘Out of the corner of my eye. I was busy with some people who’d come in just before him, but he nodded to me as he went past on the way to the lounge. He seemed in a bit of a hurry. Of course they hadn’t much time if they were going to the theatre.’

  ‘Well, they certainly arrived here,’ said Pollard when Miss Lanfear had departed. ‘Now for their drinks.’

  This stage was less definite. It transpired that the Garnishes had not gone to the bar, but a young waiter remembered a tall thin lady sitting down at a table in the lounge and ordering a couple of dry martinis. He had noticed a gentleman join her a bit later, but when confronted with the photograph confessed that he had no idea what he looked like.

  Pollard pushed on doggedly with his enquiries. Luigi, the Italian-Swiss head waiter, arrived protesting angrily at being removed from his sphere of influence during the service of dinner in the hotel’s Lucullus Restaurant. He treated Pollard to a maddening display of professional mystique in regard to its patrons, their discrimination, and their capacity to appreciate the menus which he, Luigi, composed for them. Certainly he knew Mr and Mrs Garnish, persons of quite exceptional discrimination in gastronomic matters...

  With difficulty Pollard at last extracted the information that — quite clearly to Luigi’s annoyance — the Garnishes had elected to lunch in the Grill Room on the previous Saturday. Mrs Garnish had, of course, looked in for a word as she passed the door of the Lucullus, explaining that she and her husband were going to the theatre, and to hurry over one of Luigi’s luncheons was not to be thought of. Instead they would return to dine at leisure the next night.

  ‘And did they?’ enquired Pollard with interest.

  It appeared that they had, coming in at about eight o’clock.

  With a sense of relief at reaching the last lap Pollard demanded the head waiter of the Grill Room, and was pleasantly surprised when a fellow countryman with an underlying Yorkshire accent materialized. On being presented with the photograph he studied it carefully and identified both the Garnishes.

  ‘I understand that they have been coming here for meals for a good many years now,’ remarked Pollard. ‘I expect you know them quite well?’

  The man shook his head.

  ‘No, sir. You see, I only joined the staff here a couple of months ago. To the best of my knowledge I’d never seen the lady and gentleman before last Saturday, but I recognize them clearly. Especially the lady.’

  ‘Why especially the lady?’

  ‘She came in alone, sir, and asked for a table for two, saying she’d give the order as her husband was telephoning and they were in rather a hurry. Later on when I went to enquire if they were finding everything satisfactory the gentleman had joined her.’

  ‘Well,’ said Pollard, as he regained the seclusion of the police car with Toye, ‘no doubt our two great minds have been struck by a single thought. An unobtrusive chap last Saturday, Mr Roy Garnish. Parking the car while his wife natters to the receptionist and does the head waiter-favoured patron turn with Luigi. Telephoning for theatre tickets while she orders lunch in the Grill Room. Parking the car again while she collects the theatre tickets from the box office.’

  Toye agreed.

  ‘All the same, sir, it doesn’t make sense, does it? I mean, the idea of the boyfriend being a stand-in over here, while Mr Garnish stops at home to murder Roach, and gets bitten by the dog and bandages himself up and bums the bandages and —’

  ‘Stop, for heaven’s sake, unless you’re rewriting “The House that Jack Built”. The best idea you’ve had tonight’s the Flighty Duck. Let’s go.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  The map was still a long way off, but Pollard knew that he simply must get to it. With immense efforts he managed to arrive within reading distance and leant forward, peering at it anxiously. If only he could manage to see what places were marked on it he’d know which way to go, but it was so terribly difficult when they kept moving past him all the time. And now the chrysanthemums were being disturbed as if some small animal was rootling about among their stalks ... an enormous voice was echoing and booming in his ears ‘Down... Down again... Down again.’ He fell endlessly and landed soft in the feel of sheets, and a hoarse reiterated ‘You’re wanted, sir,’ accompanied by muffled thumps on the door of his bedroom at the Southgate Hotel.

  It was the night porter, bleary-eyed but agog, to tell him that he was wanted on the phone, and that there was an extension along the corridor. Pollard hurried to it, barefooted and in his pyjamas. As he expected it was the Yard, recalling him urgently in view of fresh developments. A brisk voice told him that it was only half-past five, and they’d have plenty of time to get the Sou’wester at six-forty. It had a breakfast car.

  ‘Get you two gennelmen a cuppa?’ offered the porter, hovering. ‘Things movin’?’ he enquired with interest.

  ‘Hope so,’ Pollard replied, rubbing his eyes. ‘Thanks very much. A cuppa would be just the ticket. I’ll go and wake Sergeant Toye while you brew it.’

  As the Sou’wester pulled out of Highcastle Station Pollard told Toye to go and get himself a decent breakfast.

  ‘Much the best meal British Railways do,’ he said. ‘Don’t feel like it myself at this ungodly hour, though. I’ll settle for a cup of coffee in the buffet car.’

  Swallowing it hastily he returned to their compartment, thankful that it was empty, got out the file of the case and settled down to think. He must face the fact that he was worried about his progress up to date, or rather at the lack of it. What had the Yard got on to, he wondered? If they’d managed to establish the existence of Pamela Garnish’s boyfriend, that would be a very useful step forward. But it could be something entirely different which he’d missed out on himself.

  He shifted his position and lit a cigarette abstractedly. Begin right at the beginning. Somebody had murdered Roach. Ought he to have done more in the way of enquiries about any strangers seen around on Saturday? That blasted shopping bus seemed to have depopulated the whole place. After all, Roach had apparently been carrying on petty blackmail for years. She might have summoned some earlier victim to meet her that afternoon under the useful cover of the school match.

  Perhaps it had been a handicap to start off with two such obvious suspects as Fred Earwaker and Barbara Winship, leading one to spend too much time on them at the expense of other lines of enquiry. Pollard re-read the summaries of the evidence against them both which he and Toye had drawn up on returning from Polharbour the night before. Damned unsatisfactory, he thought. Earwaker wasn’t cleared, and it was difficult to see how he ever could be as far as his alibi went. Admittedly it was supported by circumstantial evidence but this was far from being conclusive. And if his innocence couldn’t be established, neither could Barbara Winship’s guilt, because of the sheer impossibility of proving that she had had enough time in which to commit the murder. It was impossible to imagine the D.P.P. giving the green light for proceedings against her as things stood at present.

  Presently he came t
o the conclusion that it was useless to spend any more time on either of them at the moment, and turned his attention to another summary which he and Toye had compiled. Its heading was INDICATIONS OF A POSSIBLE CASE AGAINST A PERSON AT PRESENT UNKNOWN. As he picked up the sheet of paper he had an unpleasant qualm: How would the Old Man react to a string of rather nebulous and seemingly unrelated facts? Gloomily he began to read through them once again.

  (1) At about midnight on Friday, September 19th, a powerful dark saloon car driving from Highcastle in the direction of Polharbour was at pains not to overtake a mini. When this latter turned off for Affacombe, the saloon suddenly shot ahead. (See map: the saloon or someone put down by it could have doubled back to the Priory.)

  (2) The lock of the north gate of the Priory, said to have been unused for the past five years, has recently been oiled.

  (3) Various contacts and alleged contacts with the West Wing of the Priory suggest that the man in residence there from October 28th-November 1st, and purporting to be Roy Garnish, was in fact someone else. There is a similar but less well authenticated suggestion for the weekend of September 19th.

  (4) During their investigations on Sunday, November 9th, the Highcastle C.I.D. found a fresh heel print in a clump of bushes immediately opposite the Monk’s Leap. It has been confirmed that it was made by a rubber boot, about size nine.

  (5) Mrs Winship states that one of her dogs ran into the bushes at this point as she was returning home along the Monk’s Path on Saturday afternoon, and yelped with pain. It has a bad bruise which could have been made by a hard kick or blow.

  (6) A tin previously containing biscuits (and the biscuits) were found by me in the dustbin of the West Wing. Inside the tin was charred material, apparently bandages, which has been sent to the forensic laboratory. This material smelt strongly of Dettol.

  (7) A Mrs Strode who was with Mr and Mrs Ainsworth and Mr Garnish in the hall and drawing-room of the Priory on Saturday evening, after the search of the grounds for Sister Roach, commented on the smell of Dettol in both these places.

  (8) Both the Garnishes claim to have been in Polharbour between roughly 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. on Saturday. There is no reasonable doubt that Mrs Garnish was, but our enquiries have disclosed that her male companion was not seen closely or spoken to by anyone capable of identifying him positively.

  Unless something’s transpired which alters the whole situation, Pollard thought, I’ll go and interview the Garnishes together at the first possible opportunity. I’ll try and catch him out on some point about the hotel or the theatre. But if he wasn’t there at all, who the hell was impersonating him with his knowledge and consent? Could anyone have done this? Was the man Dart questioned really Garnish?

  This was an intriguing idea, and Pollard considered it carefully, but in the end reluctantly rejected it. No impersonation could have stood up to that search of the grounds with John Ainsworth, who must know Garnish pretty well after all the business contacts they’d had over the Priory. Besides, Faith Ainsworth and the quick-witted Olivia Strode had seen the man at close quarters that evening, too.

  Pollard stared out of the window at the hedges spinning past in the dreary November dawn like the spokes of a slowly rotating wheel. Was it conceivably possible that Garnish and Ainsworth had been in it together? Unpromising though the idea seemed he extracted the report of his own interview with John Ainsworth from the file, and settled down to read it. He was about half-way through when he gave a sudden exclamation which coincided with the opening of the door from the corridor to admit Toye.

  ‘You’ve damn well had value for money — or rather, the taxpayers have,’ Pollard said. ‘Come and read this, and see if anything hits you in the eye.’

  Toye slid neatly into his corner and began to read with concentration. Pollard watched him eagerly. All at once he looked up, his eyes alert behind his horn-rims.

  ‘You’ve got something here, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Something to work on, anyway,’ Pollard replied, repressing his excitement. ‘Let’s have another squint. Yes, Ainsworth said categorically that the Garnishes came down quite often in the summer, but not much at this time of year, and commented on the fact that they’d just turned up twice inside a fortnight, as if it were something out of the ordinary. They’d come down twice,’ Pollard repeated, vaguely aware of an echo in his mind. ‘Now, then, they — or Mrs G and a chap impersonating her husband — came down on September 20th, and again at the weekend of October 4th, when Mrs Strode went along to drinks with them. After that there was a gap until October 28th. They stayed until November 1st, a Saturday, only to reappear on the following Friday. If you remember the weather was rotten all last week, so they weren’t lured down to the country by a spell of belated summer. Hell!’ he added, as the train glided up the length of a packed platform.

  Toye hastily moved across as the compartment began to fill up. As soon as the Sou’wester was moving again they went on talking quietly.

  ‘I can’t help feeling that they decided to come down again on November 7th after returning to London on the 1st,’ Pollard said. ‘Otherwise they’d hardly have paid the earlier visit as well. So what sparked them off?’

  ‘Letter?’ suggested Toye.

  ‘I think so. It seems to have been Roach’s technique to approach prospective victims through the post. Suppose she was out snooping and heard and saw much what young Ferrars’ cousin says he did, perhaps on the Friday night — October 31st, I mean. In other words she tumbled to it that the man spending the weekend with Pamela Garnish was not Roy, but someone impersonating him. On the Saturday or Sunday Roach writes to Pamela, threatening to report the matter to her husband unless she turns up with a stipulated amount of cash on the following Saturday. It probably gave her a terrific kick to browbeat a tycoon’s wife. With me so far?’

  Toye nodded, listening with intent interest.

  ‘Okay. Well, then, if we accept all this provisionally, we’ve got a situation in which the two Garnishes come down to Affacombe for the express purpose of murdering Roach, and the murder takes place while they — apparently — are in the Esplanade Theatre at Polharbour. And this is where I’m beginning to feel decidedly interested in Roy Garnish’s alleged impersonator. You see the possible implication?’

  Toye whistled softly.

  ‘An accomplice? A three-man job, in fact?’

  ‘Exactly. Or a two-man-one-woman job. Although I must say that a combined op by a wronged husband, an erring wife and the wife’s lover seems rather like a farce turned nasty tragedy, doesn’t it? But who was it that had to be prevented from finding out about Pamela’s love-life at any cost?’

  ‘The other chap’s wife?’ propounded Toye doubtfully.

  ‘If so, the lady must be someone pretty dangerous and influential. Maybe she could put a hefty spoke into Garnish’s moneymaking activities.’

  They relapsed into silence. The Sou’wester ripped through the air Londonwards. Stations and passing trains swept by in shattering rushes.

  ‘That integral garage!’ Pollard said suddenly, bringing his fist down on his knee.

  Toye looked at him enquiringly.

  ‘Might have been built for the job. We’re assuming Number Three’s existence. Well, getting him down to Affacombe unobserved was just too easy: on the floor of the back of the car. Then when they’ve run round to the garage and shut the outer door again, he emerges and goes into the house, and no one’s any the wiser. The next day he goes off to Polharbour with Pamela and does a carefully planned impersonation, while Roy keeps hidden at home until it’s time to slip out and keep the appointment Roach made with Pamela. And by God, this makes sense of the bandage business and the smell of Dettol Mrs Strode noticed that evening. Snags?’

  ‘Why didn’t he just slip the soiled bandages into his pocket?’ objected Toye. ‘Simple enough, and a lot safer than dumping them in the bin.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that. I believe he was put off his stroke by being bitten by the dog, and
rushed into taking unnecessary precautions. One’s seen it happen before. He’s not a common thug, and committing murder makes even the toughest types edgy. His first reaction was probably to drive the animal off, in case its owner came to see what it was so excited about. Then he’d realize that he’d hurt it quite badly, and mustn’t let on that he’d been bitten. It might somehow come out in the enquiry, and get linked up with the dog yelping and the time of the murder. He’d have a compulsive urge to get rid of the evidence — the bandages. You’re probably right about the house being all electric. Hence the use of the tin, and the bright idea of putting it out to be carted away on the Monday. I know there was a rubbish collection that day, because I saw bins lined up outside the cottages in the village. It was a gamble which jolly nearly came off incidentally.’

  ‘Daft thing to do, all the same, sir.’

  ‘I’m with you. A text-book example of the careful murderer’s single slip-up, if I’m not much mistaken. All the same, Dart might have elected to go over the entire Priory with a tooth-comb — Good God, Toye, what fools we’re being! The real risk was Number Three being found on the premises.’

  ‘The north gate.’

  ‘That poor old bastard Dart!’ exclaimed Pollard, struggling to keep his voice down. ‘He let them go off to get a meal on the Sunday night! They dined at the Zenith-Excelsior under the aegis of that unspeakable ass Luigi. It was the arrival procedure in reverse! I expect they dropped off Three in Polharbour and he made his way unobtrusively back to Town.’

  The Sou’wester was thundering through the outer suburbs, taking one set of points after another. Something similar was happening to Pollard’s thinking. Why had it seemed vital to these three people to collaborate in murdering Sister Roach? It could only have been because she was threatening something supremely important to them all. Not the security of Pamela’s marriage, as Roach herself thought. No, she was a danger to them because she had found out that Roy was being impersonated — so the impersonation must be a cover for something criminal involving them all.