Beginner's Luck

by Paul Somers

  “She may be in it, too!”

  I gaped. The way he was scything down people’s characters was quite staggering.

  “I’m glad my reputation isn’t in your hands,” I said.

  He eyed me quizzically. “Don’t be too sure it isn’t, old boy.”

  I knew that in another moment he’d have worked the conversation round to Mollie again. He had a single-track mind, with just a few sidings for crime. I said hurriedly, “Well, I think you’re jumping to a lot of conclusions. What about the stone shot? Surely Figgis, of all people, wouldn’t have wanted to draw attention to the castle by using that?”

  “Perhaps there wasn’t anything else.”

  I cast my mind back to the castle. There was a lot of broken masonry, but I couldn’t recall any loose bits. “Still, he could have taken something in with him,” I said.

  “It’s a point,” Lawson admitted.

  “Anyway, what reason could Figgis have had? I certainly can’t see him killing anyone for twenty pounds—even if he’d known about it. He’s got a good job, and his prospects seem even better. As for a personal motive, there’s no evidence that he even knew Hoad.”

  “Not yet, there isn’t,” Lawson said, “but we may be able to find some. It’s amazing what you can dig up when you try. After all, we know Hoad was up this river quite often in his boat. He probably looked in at the castle each time. He probably ran into Figgis. They may have known each other intimately by now.”

  “It’s the purest speculation,” I said.

  “Of course it is, but what’s wrong with that? It’s our job to speculate. We’ve sent the basic facts—now we start on the theories.”

  “But surely we can’t print stuff like this—so what’s the point?”

  “We print what we can, old boy, and we give the police what we can’t. That keeps them sweet. Anyway, Blair always likes to have the low-down on a story even if it can’t be used. Makes him feel important in conference!”

  “Well,” I said, “you’re the boss. What do you suggest we do about it?”

  He shrugged. “Check up on Figgis, I guess. Look into his movements lately. We might walk up to Rose Cottage for a start and see if we can find anyone who heard him sneaking out of his house on the night of the murder.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, I can give you one reason—if Figgis finds out he’ll probably knock your block off!”

  “That’s all right, old boy—you look like a pretty good bodyguard to me. Anyway, he won’t know what we’ve been after—I always wrap these inquiries up.”

  As it happened, this was one time when he didn’t have to. He didn’t even have a chance to ask any questions. Next door to Rose Cottage there was another thatched house—Lavender Cottage. An old countryman was leaning over the front gate, smoking his pipe. A large mongrel dog sat at his feet. As we approached, the dog sprang up and began to bark at us. I looked down the path, and there was a kennel near the back door.

  I said, “Good evening!” and stopped. “Does she bark like that at everyone?”

  “Most everyone,” he said. “She’s a noisy bitch. No harm in her, though.”

  “Would she bark if she heard a neighbour prowling about in the night?”

  He gave me an odd look. “She would that.”

  “Did she bark the night that man was murdered at the castle?”

  The man took his pipe out of his mouth. “No,” he said. “Why should she?”

  “I just wondered.” I took Lawson’s arm and steered him back down the hill. “Now what price Figgis?” I said.

  He was quite unabashed. “Let’s call it ‘Not Proven,’ old boy,” he said. “I never did trust bitches.”

  Chapter Eight

  By next morning, though, Lawson’s interest had switched to something quite different. Several papers, including the Record, carried an agency photograph of Hoad’s widow, taken as she was about to start her long journey home from Inveraray. Even though her face in the picture was set and expressionless, it was clear that Miss Prew’s description of her as “pretty” was an understatement. She was, in fact, an extremely striking brunette, and she had an excellent figure. Lawson was most impressed.

  “Quite a tasty dish,” he said reflectively. “We might do a lot worse than check up on Mrs. Hoad.”

  “Now what’s the idea?” I said.

  “Well, you know what they say, old boy—cherchez la femme! And here she is in the flesh—and how! It’s a classic set-up, after all—attractive young wife, elderly husband. Maybe there’s a lover somewhere around.”

  The reaper was at work again! I said, “Lawson, you’re incorrigible.”

  “Well, we can’t afford to leave any stones unturned. Come on, let’s get cracking, we’ve got a busy day ahead.”

  We called first at Cobley’s headquarters to see if there were any new developments, but there weren’t. Then we drove to Brighton. I couldn’t imagine how Lawson proposed to start his inquiries. It seemed unlikely that Mrs. Hoad had got back yet, and even if she had he could scarcely call and ask her if she had a lover. He couldn’t even hope to get anything out of Miss Prew on those lines. The whole enterprise struck me as most unpromising, as well as unsavoury.

  However, my education was to be carried a good deal farther that day. Lawson didn’t attempt any direct inquiries. He had a talk with the milkman who was delivering up Clifton Road. He told him who we were, and said that we were trying to get a line on all the people Hoad had known but of course we couldn’t ask Mrs. Hoad herself because she obviously wouldn’t want to talk now, and the milkman quite saw that. Then Lawson asked him if Mrs. Hoad had had anyone to help in the house, and the milkman said, yes, she had a woman named Bray who came every morning. He didn’t know where Mrs. Bray lived, except that it was on a council estate.

  That was all Lawson needed. We whipped off to the town hall and Lawson went in alone. He was inside for about half an hour, and when he came out he had the addresses of two families named Bray. The first one we called at turned out to be the right one, and Mrs. Bray was at home. She was a woman of about forty, plump and pleasant but not outstandingly bright. She seemed rather flattered at being visited by two reporters, and asked us in. She told us that her husband was a bus conductor and that she had three children at school all day, which was why she’d been able to work for poor Mrs. Hoad, though she didn’t know what would happen now. We all agreed that it was a dreadful thing, and Lawson said the newspapers could often help in bringing a murderer to book, and asked her if she knew of anyone that Mr. Hoad had been on bad terms with and she said she didn’t. Lawson’s manner conveyed the impression that that was really all he’d come about, and that anything else was just casual chatting. He asked her what Mrs. Hoad was like to work for and what the little boy was like and said he supposed when Mrs Hoad went out she left the boy with Mrs. Bray and Mrs. Bray said yes, she did, sometimes for the whole day. Lawson asked her if Mrs. Hoad had spent a whole day out lately and Mrs. Bray said she’d been up to London about a week ago. Lawson said, “Shopping, I suppose?” and Mrs. Bray said, no, she’d gone up to have lunch with a friend, and for the first time she began to look a bit uneasy about the way she was being pumped. Then Lawson made a hypocritical little speech saying he naturally didn’t want Mrs. Bray to give away any secrets but of course Mrs. Hoad herself wouldn’t be in a fit state to be questioned and it was really a kindness not to bring her into it but at the same time the only way poor Mr. Hoad’s murderer could be found was to check up on all the people who knew the family. Then Mrs. Bray said she’d heard Mrs. Hoad making the lunch date on the telephone, and it was someone called Stanley she’d been talking to, in London, and though she couldn’t be sure what Stanley it was there was a Mr. Fairfax whose name was Stanley and who was a friend of the family and belonged to some sort of boat club at Saltwater that Mr. Hoad belonged to as well, so perhaps it was him because he did work in London though he lived in Brighton. Lawson conti
nued to plug away for a while, asking about other people that Mrs. Hoad knew, but Stanley Fairfax was the only one who seemed to offer anything. In the end he thanked Mrs. Bray, and said she’d been a great help, and we left.

  By now Lawson had his nose to the trail like a bloodhound. We had a quick lunch, and then drove over to the Saltwater Yacht Club, which was at the mouth of a small river not far along the coast. There were two or three members at work on their boats, but Lawson said they’d probably be stuffy about answering questions, and after we’d looked round a bit he found a man named Sharpley who had a small boatyard alongside the club and did a lot of work for members and knew them all. Sharpley was quite willing to talk. He confirmed that Hoad had been a very pleasant man who had lots of friends and wasn’t at all the sort of chap to make enemies. Lawson said he understood that one of his friends had been a Mr. Fairfax, and Sharpley said that was so and that Mr. Fairfax had accompanied the Hoads on their trips on many occasions in his own boat, Water Baby—though not very often lately. Lawson asked him what Fairfax was like, and Sharpley said he was a big, good-looking man of about thirty-five. By profession, he was a stockbroker, and pretty well-to-do.

  That was all Lawson needed for the moment. As we left the boatyard he said, “Well, it’s building up nicely, old boy, isn’t it?”

  I grinned. “So was Figgis!”

  “Oh, we’ve not necessarily finished with Figgis yet. But this hangs together much better—no snags at all, so far.”

  “Not much substance, either,” I said.

  “I wouldn’t say that. Why would an attractive girl nip up to town to lunch alone with a handsome young friend of her husband’s if there wasn’t anything between them? After all, she could have seen him down here any time. There’s no smoke without fire, you know.”

  “Are you seriously suggesting that these two may have conspired together to get rid of the husband?”

  “Why not, old boy? It wouldn’t be the first time such a thing’s happened, would it? Look—what about this for a reconstruction? Norah Hoad marries old Hoad for security, the way young girls often do, and then she gets bored with him. She meets this good-looking chap Fairfax four years ago and they fall for each other in a big way. They want to marry, and they can’t see Hoad agreeing to a divorce, so they decide to make away with him. On one of their joint sailing trips, which happens to be up the Lod, they hit on the idea of the castle as a nice quiet place to do the job. With the well for hiding the body in, and the river for scuttling Snipe, they think they can make it look like an accident. Fairfax pinches the key, and bides his time. No opportunity presents itself, so in the end Norah makes it by going off to Scotland and suggesting to Hoad that he should have a week’s cruise on his own. Fairfax waits for him at the castle and bumps him off according to plan. Now they’re just lying low until the shouting dies, and then they’ll get married. How’s that for a theory?”

  I said, “Apart from anything else, Mrs. Hoad was having Hoad’s child about four years ago. She must have been rather occupied.”

  “How do we know it was Hoad’s child?” Lawson said. “It could have been Fairfax’s. You have to keep an open mind on these things, old boy.”

  I was speechless.

  “Anyway,” he said, “it’s worth while seeing what Fairfax has to say about it.”

  “You don’t mean that?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then you’re certainly going to need a bodyguard this time!”

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “Just leave it to uncle!”

  We looked up Stanley Fairfax in the phone book and found his address. Then we stooged around, waiting for him to get back from work. Around seven-fifteen we went along to the address. It was a big block of luxury flats, and Fairfax lived on the fifth floor. We asked the porter if he’d come in, and the porter said he had. We went up and rang the bell and Fairfax opened the door himself. He was a strongly-built, bluff looking man, with a tanned face and very blue eyes.

  Lawson said, “Mr. Fairfax?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’re from the Daily Record.” Lawson gave our names. “It’s about the death of Mr. Hoad. We wondered if you could spare us a few minutes?”

  Fairfax looked closely at each of us in turn, and glanced at his watch. “I suppose so,” he said, “though it’ll have to be a very few minutes—I’m expecting someone for dinner. Come in, will you?” He led the way into his sitting-room. “Now, what can I do for you?”

  “We understand you were a friend of Mr. Hoad’s?” Lawson said.

  “Yes, indeed. I’ve known him for years. Shocking business!”

  Lawson said, “The thing is, sir, everyone tells us that Mr. Hoad had no enemies, and yet someone killed him.… Of course, it’s up to the police to find out who did it, but the newspapers are naturally concerned too, and the Record thought it might be a good idea to visit everyone who had any contact with the family and see if that helped at all. Naturally we don’t want to trouble Mrs. Hoad at such a time …”

  Fairfax nodded. “Well, I’d be only too glad to help, but there’s nothing I can suggest. You can be sure I’ve thought about it a good deal myself—and I’m utterly baffled.”

  “Didn’t he have any trouble at all, with anyone?”

  “If he did, I never heard of it.”

  Lawson appeared to hesitate. “There was one bit of information we got, sir …” He broke off. “You’ll understand that it’s a little difficult to mention these things, particularly to a friend of the family—I don’t suppose for a minute there’s anything in it—but we gathered Mrs. Hoad lunched with some man in London last week. There seems to be a bit of a mystery about it—we wondered if by any chance he could be connected with the case in some way, and if you could suggest who he was.”

  Fairfax stared at him. Lawson gazed back guilelessly. I tried to look like a competent bodyguard.

  Fairfax said, “Is this some sort of gag?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean, sir …”

  “Do you really not know who the man was?”

  “Indeed we don’t.”

  “Well, that’s one thing I can clear up for you,” Fairfax said. “The man wasn’t connected with the case in any way at all. Actually, Mrs. Hoad was lunching with me.”

  “Really?” said Lawson. He contrived to look quite confused. “I see—I’m afraid that never occurred to us.… It looks as though we’ve been wasting our time, then.… Yours, too, I’m afraid.…” He picked up his hat—but his expression invited further information.

  Fairfax said, in a faintly ironical tone, “If you’re interested, it was Mr. Hoad’s birthday the next day and Mrs. Hoad wanted to buy him something for his boat. She asked me to help her choose it, so I took her along to a yacht shop in the West End.”

  Lawson shot me a quick glance. A sceptical glance. I don’t know what he’d have said next, but at that moment there was a ring at the door. Fairfax said, “Excuse me …” and went out into the passage and opened the door. Someone said, “Hallo, darling, am I late?” and a pretty, blonde girl appeared.

  Fairfax said, “I’ve just been talking to the Press, Lena. About poor old John …” He introduced us. “Mr. Lawson! Mr. Curtis! My fiancée, gentlemen …! I’m sorry I can’t help you further.”

  Chapter Nine

  Lawson wasn’t alone, of course, in thinking up farfetched theories. By now, almost everyone was doing it. Some of the theories were impersonal enough to be printed with safety. Some, like Lawson’s, were highly defamatory and could only be discussed privately. Nothing was barred. One fairly fantastic suggestion was that the murderer had bribed a workman to make a cast of the key in cement, and had got into the castle that way. A variation was that the killer had got himself taken on as a workman and made his own key. Quite the wildest notion I heard was advanced by a man named Broadbent, who was covering the story for one of the mass-circulation picture papers. He had an idea that the castle key might have been stolen by Hoad himself.
Broadbent’s hypothesis was that Hoad the law-abiding citizen, the kind husband and father, was too good to be true; that he’d really been a very dark horse and had been concerned in some nefarious enterprise, possibly with a political flavour. The theory was that a gang had been using the castle as a safe nocturnal meeting place for four years, and that Hoad had been bumped off for some unknown reason by his former pals. But this was just the lunatic fringe of speculation.

  Lawson, robbed of Fairfax, had reinstated Figgis as his chief suspect. He knew the police had grilled Figgis pretty thoroughly; he knew there was still no evidence that Figgis had ever met Hoad, and that his movements had been checked and that it was virtually established he hadn’t left his house on the night of the murder. But Lawson had dreamed up a fresh possibility—that Figgis, though he hadn’t committed the crime himself, had been in cahoots with the murderer and had lent him the castle key for the night. According to this new theory, Figgis’s trip to London had been connected in some way with the making of the final arrangements. Lawson even went so far as to ask Blair to have inquiries made about Figgis’s activities in London, and Smee spent a day on it, but he failed to discover any sinister contacts. The truth was that there wasn’t an iota of real evidence against Figgis.

  Soon, even the theories began to fizzle out. We were still without any new facts to base them on, and it began to look as though there weren’t going to be any. No material clues had been discovered. No fingerprints had been found. No one had come forward with any evidence. Mrs. Hoad herself had been unable to throw any light on the tragedy. The police were daily becoming less communicative. There was an awkward vacuum; and presently rumours started to fly around. Cobley had made an arrest; he suspected a gipsy; he had discovered that a car had been parked by the kissing-gate on the night of the murder; he was going to drain the moat; he had found the weapon—and so on. Cobley patiently denied all the rumours, but he couldn’t give us anything in their place. By the end of the fourth day, the story was beginning to look very tatty. Then we were suddenly told that the police had completed their inquiries in and around the castle and that Inspector Cobley was returning to his permanent H.Q. in the county town. That didn’t mean, it was emphasised, that the case was being shelved—all it meant was that there was nothing more to be done around Lodden. But everyone behaved as though the story was over. Several reporters drifted away that evening. Figgis, bloody but unbowed, returned to London to resume his interrupted “course,” and it was subsequently stated that the reopening of the castle would be postponed for a month to allow morbid public interest to die down. Lawson gathered together our last few scraps of information and phoned them—crediting them, as he always did, to “Curtis and Lawson.” He explained the position to Blair, and Blair said we were both to return to the office in the morning. Personally, I felt quite ready to go. Mollie, I gathered, was staying on for a day or two, but only because she now had even more “days off” owing to her, not because she was expecting to pick up anything we’d missed. She said she was bored with the story—which actually had been apparent in her attitude for a couple of days. She had kept her end up adequately throughout the investigation, but this time she hadn’t been anywhere near bringing off a spectacular coup. She hadn’t even produced any very original theories. I pulled her leg about it a little, but she only laughed. “Even a star can’t twinkle all the time,” she said. I suggested that now that the work was done we should drive into Brighton and have dinner and perhaps dance, but she said she was tired. She didn’t look tired. She never looked tired.