Partridge, Webster and Partridge of Monday Street, he thought, making for Audrey Vickers’ desk. He found that ‘Mr P’ was scrawled against ten am for the previous day. Mrs Young obviously knew something about that appointment, and also about developments on the cruise, and it wasn’t difficult to put two and two together. Unconscious loyalty to her late employer coming to the surface, he wondered briefly, or just reluctance to get mixed up with the cops?
Dart pulled himself up. He was beginning to speculate, and it wouldn’t do at this stage. He decided that he disliked the case. Murder by what you might call remote control had never come his way before. Why, it could be tied up with things happening on that cruise hundreds of miles away. Not his cup of tea at all. He liked nice tangible clues lending themselves to investigation on the spot by himself and his chaps.
Feeling gloomy, he opened the drawers of the desk one after another. One thing, deceased seemed to have been a business-like type, with her affairs in good order. All these papers would have to be gone through, but for the moment he’d have the place locked up with a man on guard, go back to Highcastle to report to the Chief Constable, and wait for the outcome of the post-mortem. Then come back later to interview the Langs.
Objects for immediate removal and investigation were set out on the table in the dining-room, in neatly-labelled plastic bags. Dart ran his eye over the soiled crockery and cutlery which Mrs Vickers had stacked in the dishwasher after her lunch on the previous day, the remains of a cold chicken, a half-empty carton of some sort of salad, and various other items taken from the refrigerator. It seemed quite impossible that any of these latter could have been the vehicle of the cyanide, but you couldn’t be too careful in a murder case. He scrutinized the brown paper wrapping with tatty bits of Sellotape adhering to it, and wondered if the handwriting experts would ever be able to make anything of the featureless block capitals of the address.
‘Get all this junk on board, and the place properly secured,’ he said to his sergeant. ‘I’ll ring the local station about a relief for the chap they posted outside.’
It was as he crossed the hall that something small and bright on the carpet caught his eye. Further investigation showed that it was a scrap of Sellotape, and the fragment of brown paper sticking to it seemed identical with the wrapping he had just been looking at. Dart stood frowning for a moment, his mind labouring with an idea. In her statement Mrs Young had said that she had picked up the midday post and put it on the chest in the hall. It seemed a reasonable deduction that Mrs Vickers, coming in from her trip to Highcastle, might have stood in front of the chest opening her mail, and had a bit of bother getting the wrapping off the parcel. He leant forward and peered behind the chest.
‘Here, come and lend a hand, one of you,’ he called. ‘I want to see what’s dropped down behind this contraption.’
A minute later he was cautiously lifting a printed slip of paper by its edges. ‘With the compliments of Odyssey Tours Ltd’, he read. Above the words was a rum looking boat. He sniffed cautiously, and recognized an unmistakeable smell of chocolate.
That ruddy cruise, he thought. This must be phoney, though. Even if they really handed out chocolates to passengers as an advert, they’d do it on the last night of the trip, surely? That label, too… Hand-printed in ink, not typed, as anything from the office would be. The office’ll be shut for the weekend by now…
With extreme care Dart transferred the compliments slip and the fragment of Sellotape to clean envelopes from his case, sealing and labelling them. He then rang the Redbay police station about a relief for the constable posted at the gate, and after a final glance round went out of the house, slamming the front door behind him and testing it carefully.
During the drive back to Highcastle the prospect of working on the case filled him with gloom. Unless it could be established that the niece and her husband had done the old girl for her money, there’d be no end to it. Why, the people who could have got hold of those slips and knew Vickers had just been on a cruise must run into hundreds. Fancy trying to follow ’em up, and find out which of ’em had a link with her. A Yard job, if ever there was one. What would the CC think?
Only recently promoted to his Chief-Inspectorship, Dart found that he did not at all relish the idea of being patronized by some blighter down from the Yard. Too much to hope that they’d get another bloke like Pollard, who’d been sent along over the Affacombe business…
On his arrival at headquarters he collided with Colonel Brand, the Chief Constable, who was coming out of the main entrance.
‘Very sorry, sir,’ he exclaimed apologetically.
‘Glad you’re back. We’ve got another murder on our hands.’
Dart opened his eyes wide. ‘Yes,’ Colonel Brand continued. ‘Chap with a knife in his back, found by kids behind a bush in the recreation ground. I was just going along myself, but now you’ve turned up I’d better hear about this Redbay show, if you can make it snappy.’
Inside, Dart made a competent statement of bare facts.
The Chief Constable, an outdoor type whose face could have been carved out of seasoned teak, listened without comment.
‘The report on that fire at Roccombe has come in,’ he said with apparent irrelevance when Dart had finished talking. ‘It’s arson, without the slightest doubt, the forensic chaps say. So that means a manslaughter charge, as a body was found in the rubble. What about it? Can we possibly carry all three jobs?’
‘Don’t see how we can sir, on our present strength, do you? For one thing, this Redbay affair doesn’t look like a local job to me. Not a straightforward one, anyway.’
‘Meaning that’s the one you’d suggest pushing off on to the Yard?’
‘That’s the one, certainly, sir,’ Dart replied, conscious of an inner surge of hope.
Colonel Brand sat in silent meditation. ‘I’m inclined to agree,’ he said at last. ‘After all, we’ve done quite a bit of work on that fire already — not that there’s much to show for it yet. And this knifing’s almost certainly one of the local thugs. I think I’d better get on to the Yard right away. Ask for Pollard again, don’t you think? He knows our set-up here, and it’ll save no end of time.’
‘Not much chance of a stroke of luck like that,’ Dart observed gloomily.
‘The trouble with you is that you’re such a ruddy pessimist,’ Colonel Brand remarked amicably, reaching for the telephone receiver.
Returning to his own room Dart found the analyst’s report on the chocolates awaiting him. He was engrossed in it when a head came round the door.
‘Detective-Superintendent Pollard will arrive at nine-thirty on the London train,’ his Chief Constable informed him triumphantly.
4
By leaving the sitting-room door wide open Jane Pollard could keep an eye on the increasingly mobile twins while taking a telephone call from her husband at New Scotland Yard. She heard the familiar news of his immediate departure from London with a resigned groan.
‘Where is it this time?’ she asked.
‘Highcastle,’ Detective-Superintendent Tom Pollard told her.
‘Highcastle? How extraordinary!’
‘Not in the least extraordinary. Naturally they asked for me after last time.’
‘On the devil you know principle, I suppose? Well, anyway, it’s nearer than Newcastle. Or Boscastle. Train or car?’
‘Train, to save time.’
‘Good. Much less lethal. Tom! Rose is up!’
‘Up where?’
‘On her two feet for the first time, idiot! She hoicked herself up holding on to your chair. Now she’s just collapsed on to her bottom again, looking puzzled. Andrew’s giving her a disapproving stare, like a shop steward who’s spotted an over-enthusiastic worker.’
‘Hell!’ exclaimed Pollard disgustedly. ‘Just when I’ve got to go off. Right now — Toye’s hovering. If I don’t ring you by eleven, I’ll ring early tomorrow…’
Some hours later three men of diverse physical
type sat in Chief-Inspector Dart’s room at the Highcastle police headquarters. Dart, a very tall man, dark and with a sombre hatchet face, was at his desk, the newly-inaugurated file of the Vickers case open in front of him as he talked. Detective-Superintendent Pollard, tall, fair and loose-limbed, appeared relaxed as he listened with his long legs crossed and arms folded. On his left his sergeant, Gregory Toye, who only just achieved regulation height, was pale and serious. Large horn-rimmed spectacles enhanced the inscrutability of his expression.
‘Well, that’s about the size of it up to now,’ Dart concluded, shutting the file and pushing it across his desk.
‘Thanks,’ said Pollard. ‘You couldn’t have set it out more clearly.’
Toye, from his experience of working with Pollard, correctly detected a note of reserve. Listening to Dart, the latter had reflected that while the Chief-Inspector had certainly mellowed since their previous collaboration, he was still the same thorough methodical chap uninterested in people as human beings. The case was meticulously documented up to date, but Mrs Audrey Vickers remained a well-heeled widow of fifty-five. Only an addiction to sweets and possessiveness towards her niece hinted at her personality.
He looked at his watch.
‘It’s too late to go over to Redbay and see the Langs tonight,’ he said. ‘Anyway, there’s a lot in this file for us to digest first. Where are they putting up?’
‘Vicarage,’ replied Dart. ‘Seems Mrs Vickers was in with the church, and when the news got round the vicar turned up at the station and asked if he could do anything to help the Langs.’
‘They’d better come along to the station, I think. Most vicarages are public places within the meaning of the act these days. Can whoever’s in charge get on to them? Say ten o’clock, so that we can take a look at the house first.’
‘Sure,’ Dart said. ‘I’ll ring Inspector Morris.’
‘Well, if you’ll do that, we’ll clear off now. You’ve enough on your plate without us hanging around. Are we at the same pub as last time?’
‘Yes,’ Dart told him, ‘the Southgate. Turn left when you go out of here.’
‘I remember. Comfortable, and decent grub.’
‘If you ask me,’ Dart said, escorting them to the door, ‘there’s more than one pointer to that young couple.’
The Southgate was barely three minutes’ walk from police headquarters, and in a short space of time Pollard and Toye had established themselves, collected a couple of tankards of beer, and retreated to the far depths of a deserted lounge.
‘Now we can mop all this up in peace and quiet,’ Pollard remarked, opening the file and flicking over its contents. ‘Preliminary routine procedure … photographs … dabs … daily woman’s statement … pathologist’s report … analyst’s report … Fulminster … Odyssey Tours … the lot.’
For some time there was silence as the two men read steadily through the paperwork on the case assembled by Dart.
‘What’s your first reaction?’ Pollard asked at last, throwing down the report of the post-mortem and sprawling back in his chair.
‘Wicked recklessness,’ Toye replied indignantly. ‘A lethal dose of cyanide in every one of those chocolates. Could have polished off half a dozen people.’
‘I’m not sure it was all that reckless,’ Pollard said meditatively. ‘Whoever sent them knew quite a bit about Mrs Vickers and her way of life. That she was a compulsive sweet-guzzler, for instance, and almost certainly that she lived alone. The sender was someone with access to cyanide, of course, and knowledge of its effects. Its rapid action would cut out a good deal of third-party risk where someone living alone was concerned.’
‘Somebody pretty neat-fingered, too,’ suggested Toye. ‘All that in the analyst’s report about taking a bit out of each chocolate with a thing like a minute apple corer, and then standing the finished product on a bit of foil over low heat to get the mark smeared over. What does the stuff look like?’
‘Damp cooking salt,’ Pollard told him. ‘And the lethal dose is a tiny pinch. There’s a surprising lot of it around, too — quite legally. On farms for getting rid of wasps’ nests, and in light engineering works, and in labs, of course.’
Toye blinked behind his spectacles. ‘Mrs Lang is teaching chemistry at a tech, with good labs, I don’t doubt. You’d have to be quite handy for doing experiments, wouldn’t you?’
‘Very true. But whoever sent those chocolates had to be able to get hold of them in the first place, and post them in London on Thursday. The Langs’ movements will have to be gone into, of course, and then there’s the question of motive. The row over the marriage obviously didn’t lead to a final break because of all three of them going on this cruise. At the moment the only evidence we’ve got that there was another bust-up during the trip is Dart’s impression that the daily woman was being cagey on the subject, and also about the Vickers’ rather suggestive visit to her solicitor on Friday morning. He’s one of our high priorities, incidentally. How about some more beer?’
As Toye set off for the bar Pollard began to jot down notes under the headings ‘Langs: Facts’ and ‘Langs: Enquiries’. He then took another slip of paper from the supply he always carried with him when on a case, and headed it ‘Audrey Vickers’. At this point Toye reappeared, walking with a full tankard in each hand and intense concentration.
‘Thanks,’ said Pollard. ‘Cheers.’ He took a long refreshing pull and settled himself comfortably in his chair. ‘Now, Vickers. We know practically nothing about her, and to dear old Dart she’s just something that’s got to be tidied up. What’s her background, past and present? Where did all her money come from? What sort of life does she lead in Redbay, apart from going to church? Likely sources of information: Langs (with some reservations at the moment), the daily woman, the doctor, the solicitor, the vicar,’ he went on, scribbling as he talked.
‘Local force?’ queried Toye.
‘Could be useful,’ agreed Pollard, ‘even in these days of panda cars instead of the chap on the beat. Then Records. Her dabs will be checked automatically, but I want her birth, marriage, husband’s death, etc, all looked up.’
‘What about the Langs, sir?’
‘We’ll check up on them, too. It has just occurred to me that Mrs Vickers might have suddenly discovered that they weren’t legally married, and it was that which blew things sky-high. We’ll take their dabs tomorrow. In the meantime you can ring the Yard and get the enquiries in train, while I stick down a few more points. Then we’ll turn in. Tomorrow looks like being quite a day.’
‘It looks as though we’ll be clocking up the mileage today,’ Pollard told Jane, ringing her from his room at the Southgate early on Sunday, and using their motoring code. ‘I wouldn’t know what driving conditions’ll be like down here… What? No, I’m just going down to breakfast now… No, not a hope of getting back before tomorrow night, from what I can see at the moment… Has Rose put on a repeat performance?’
Cheered by the contact with his home he spurned the lift, ran down three flights of stairs, and overtook Toye on the way to the dining-room. Over bacon and eggs they drew up a provisional timetable for the day ahead, and were round at police headquarters by eight-thirty. Dart, they learnt, had already gone out in connection with the stabbing in the recreation ground, but had left Pollard a note saying that the inquest on Mrs Vickers would open at Redbay at two-thirty pm on the following day, and that the dabs on the chocolate box were worth looking at.
Detective-Constable Bragg, the young photographic expert of the Highcastle CID, impressed Pollard favourably. Although shy at finding himself unsupported in exalted company, he showed at the same time the confidence of an efficient technician. The box of Marchpane Magic was produced, together with its wrappings and a series of blown-up photographs of fingerprints.
‘You wouldn’t have thought they’d have used a smooth brown paper like this to go outside the parcel,’ he said. ‘It takes prints quite well. These are deceased’s, where she gripped wi
th her left hand when she was opening the package. Then one of this other lot is clear enough to identify with the daily woman’s, when she picked it up. I reckon she was a bit hot and sweaty.’
‘I expect she was, after her morning stint of housework on a warm day,’ Pollard replied. ‘What do you make of these smudges, Bragg?’
‘Nothing that’ll stand up, sir, beyond the fact that somebody who handled the parcel wore gloves. Here, do you see?’
‘Yes,’ Pollard said, after a careful scrutiny. ‘Hardly likely that the sorters or the postman did, is it?’
The box itself was enclosed in a cellophane wrapping. It fitted tightly, and Audrey Vickers had only partly torn it open. Here again, her own prints were clearly impressed, together with recognizable gloved prints. These were smallish, and Bragg suggested that they could have been made by a woman. It was, however, two further prints which made Pollard exclaim in surprise.
‘Rum, isn’t it, sir?’ Bragg said with satisfaction. ‘Just the thumb and first finger of a little kiddy’s right hand on this one corner of the packet. Looks as though he’d tried to pull it out of somewhere.’
Pollard agreed, thinking of the exploratory activities of the twins.
‘At the moment,’ he said, ‘it just doesn’t add up, but it could turn out a top lead, you know. You’ve done a jolly good job of work on these dabs, and I shall be telling Inspector Dart about it. Well, I suppose we’d better be pushing off to Redbay now, Sergeant Toye. Where’s this car you people are laying on for us?’
‘Out this way, sir,’ replied Constable Bragg, slightly pink with gratification. He led the way to a side door giving on to the car park.
It was a perfect May morning, golden and palest blue, and at this early hour still enfolded in sabbath peace. A few miles out of Highcastle they branched off from the main road, and were soon running between high hedges frothing with young green.
‘Look at those primroses!’ Pollard exclaimed. ‘And that gorse!’ He hastily let down the window. ‘Can’t you smell it? Coconut buns just out of the oven.’ He sniffed vigorously. ‘When you think of the stink of petrol in London…’
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