‘Certainly. Here’s the letter they sent me, but, honestly, I can’t help you. I certainly would if I could.’
‘Many thanks, sir. You’ll hear from us again in due course, when we’ve pushed the inquiry further forward.’
‘Is that a threat, may I ask?’
‘We don’t threaten people, sir. But the law is the law, and the law is against murder, so, if you should remember anything else, sir —’
‘There’s nothing more to remember, and… well, I needn’t have come to you, you know!’
‘We quite appreciate that, sir, but murder’s a very nasty business to be mixed up in.’
‘Look here,’ said Mandsell desperately, ‘I don’t know much about the law, but I’ve told the truth as far as I see it. Damn it all, I’ve even admitted now that I took the five pounds that miserable little tradesman offered me! All the same, it isn’t my business if some wretched, unknown female chooses to get herself bumped off! I own to calling for the parcel. I didn’t know then what was in it and I don’t know now. It might have been a silly thing to do. I daresay it was. But I did it without thinking. I own, too, that I ought not to have accepted the five pounds, but I was desperate for money, turned out of my digs, and with nowhere to go and nobody to turn to. I meant to pay back the money… I knew it was a fishy business… and I still mean to return it. I’m only waiting for my royalties to turn up. You’ve got no reason to keep badgering me like this!’
‘Just one more question, and I’m through, sir, for the present. Can you be any more exact about the parcel?’
‘I don’t think so. It was about twenty inches long, twelve to fourteen inches wide, and, possibly, half an inch thick.’
‘I see, sir. What about the weight? Could it have contained metal, for instance?’
‘Good heavens, no. It was quite light. Could have been sent by post easily. Can’t think why it wasn’t. No reason at all for sending it by rail.’
‘Thank you, sir. That may be very important. Now, if I may make a suggestion, I advise you to watch your step, same as it wouldn’t have done Miss Faintley much harm if she had managed to watch hers a bit more closely. There’s something funny going on, sir, and precautions may be very necessary. I’ll go farther, and put you under police protection after this, if you like.’
‘I can’t imagine any danger. After all, I did hand over the parcel and Tomson knows it.’
‘If he chooses to tell the real owners of the parcel that you didn’t, you might be in quite a spot of trouble, sir. It wasn’t very likely the parcel belonged to Miss Faintley. I have reason to think she was simply a sort of go-between. She didn’t deliver the goods, so they bumped her off, but by this time Tomson will have wised-up the murderers that she never even saw this particular parcel, but that you – an unauthorized collector – did.’
‘But that’s tantamount to confessing he’s kept it himself!’
‘He’s a foxy type, sir. He’ll have thought of some yarn to fix the stealing on to you. He’s let himself in so deep, it seems to me, that at present he’s got far more reason (or so he thinks) to fear some crook than to fear the police. I could even bet on the sort of yarn he’s told them. You came into the shop, he’ll say, with the parcel, but wanted to stick him a good-sized sum for handing it over the counter. He refused your terms and pointed out it was Miss Faintley’s business to pay you if she’d got you to do her job for her, and before he knew what was happening you shot out of the door and were up the street before he could say Jack Robinson. That’s about the size of what he would tell these people, sir, and if Miss Faintley was murdered because they thought she’d kept the parcel… well, I hope you see what I mean, sir!’
Mandsell did see, but only in the sense that he saw violent actions on the films.
‘All the same, they wouldn’t dare touch me,’ he said. He had that feeling, common to all healthy people, that troubles and violence come to others, but not to the onlooker. ‘Still, if I note one of your Roberts tagging on to me, I’m to understand that his diligence is entirely on my behalf. Is that the ticket?’
‘More or less, sir. But I hope you won’t be aware of him. He won’t be much good at his job if he’s as obvious as all that.’ He nodded genially, and went straight to Tomson’s stores. No one was visible, so Darling shouted, ‘Shop!’ After a short interval Tomson came shuffling out from a room behind the counter.
‘Ah, Tomson! Busy?’
‘No, I ain’t, not on a Monday.’
‘Good. Back of the shop?’
‘Yes, I suppose so. I’ll hear the bell if anybody comes in, but Mondays is always slack.’ Tomson sounded lugubrious. The flap of the counter came up and Darling passed through. The room behind the shop was dark and smelt of stale fish. Darling sat down at the table and Tomson took a rocking-chair at the side of the empty fireplace.
‘This parcel for Miss Faintley. You knew what was in it, of course,’ said the Inspector. ‘Why don’t you open up? There’s nothing to connect you with the murder, and you could help us a lot if you liked.’
‘Yes, and get myself jugged without the option. I know you nosey-parker coppers,’ said Tomson morosely.
‘Now, look here, Tomson, you’ve never been in trouble with us yet, so why begin? We know quite a lot about you, but we’ve never been able to prove anything – not for want of trying, let me tell you. But murder’s an entirely different matter from the sort of thing you’ve been used to. And don’t think I blame you, either, for trying to make a little bit on the side. It must be devilish difficult to make a living out of a small back-street business these days.’
‘You’re telling me! All right, then, here it is. I do take in parcels for one or two people, and I’ve been told to expect this parcel. I don’t know what’s in it, no more than you do, and that’s gospel.’
‘Oh? And hadn’t you any idea of what was in any of the parcels you took in for Miss Faintley?’
‘Sort of, of course. I mean to say, just common sense to find out what goes on. What I took in was statues and that.’
‘Statues?’
‘Yes, statues. Know what a statue is, don’t you?’ His self-confidence was returning.
‘What sort of statues?’ inquired Darling in a tone devoid of offence.
‘Oh, nothing rude. Dancing girls and chaps in top-hats put on sideways. Once one got broke inside the parcel. That’s ’ow I know, otherwise I wouldn’t ’ave done. I wasn’t paid to play nark to the police, I was paid to take in them parcels, and that’s as far as it went.’
Darling smiled.
‘Suppose I told you we have reason to think that the parcels contained diamonds from Amsterdam? Gome on, out with it! Where are the diamonds now?’
‘Easy on, now, Inspector!’ Tomson’s tone had changed. ‘I’ve allowed a parcel got broke. It wasn’t no fault of mine, and I never took no diamonds. Because why? – There wasn’t no diamonds to take.’
‘What happened to them, then? Don’t tell me you were clever enough to piece the statue together again, so that the real consignee’ – he paused, but Tomson did not help him – ‘couldn’t tell that it had ever been broken!’
‘Of course not. I sent on the pieces and kept me mouth shut, but there wasn’t no diamonds nor nothing in the parcel, and that I swear.’
‘I’ll bet you kept your mouth shut! What else did you keep?’
‘Not diamonds, I swear it! I sent on the bits, like I said just now, so the other party didn’t worry, I suppose. I said there’d been an accident with the thing. As a matter of fact, I felt properly had. There wasn’t nothing but a leaf of fern.’
‘Who is the other party?’
‘I don’t know. I never only write to box numbers.’
‘What was the number of this particular box?’
‘How d’you expect me to remember? It’s news to me that it’s again’ the law to take parcels in to be called for!’
‘Too right, I believe. Oh, by the way, were all the parcels alike?’
&n
bsp; ‘Just exactly. Same shape, same weight, same size.’
‘We have evidence that that isn’t true. Don’t try any funny stuff. What were the other parcels like?’
‘I never took in no others.’
‘Don’t be a fool. Anyway, talking of the parcels you admit of accepting, how did the statues reach the end of their journey?’
‘Collected up from this ’ere shop, of course.’
‘By Miss Faintley?’
‘She delivered ’em to me, but she never collected any up.’
‘Well, who did, then?’
‘I dunno.’
‘How do you mean, you don’t know?’
‘All I done, I took in the parcels, see, and give a receipt. ’Ad to show the receipt to prove the package ’ad been ’anded over to my shop, I suppose. Well, when I gets the parcel, I writes to the box number, whatever it is —’
‘How did you know which box number to write to? Was it a regular series?’
‘No. I used to be given a different one each time.’
‘By post? Did you get this information through the post?’
‘That’s right. Type-wrote, envelope and all, giving me the box number they was going to use next.’
‘How often did the parcels come?’
‘There wasn’t no set time. Sometimes it’ud be months, and once I ’ad three in a week.’
‘How many altogether?’
The shopkeeper hesitated; then he handed over a small notebook.
‘It’s all in ’ere. You better stick to it. I been thinking, and I don’t think I want to be mixed up in nothing like murder. Murder’s wicked, that’s what murder is.’
‘Quite right, Tomson. And now, to go back to where we branched off, you say you don’t know who collected the parcels from you. How was that?’
‘Whoever it was ’ad a key to my shop-door. All I done was leave the parcel on the counter as soon as I’d wrote to the box number to say I’d got something for ’em, and then, next night, they’d come along with the key and let theirselves in and out, and take the parcel with ’em.’
‘And you’ve no idea who came?’
‘I wasn’t paid to ’ave ideas, and the pay was reg’lar, whether any parcels come or not.’
‘But you knew, with all this secrecy, that these people couldn’t have been up to any good!’
‘I thought they was on the windy side of the law, but it wasn’t none of my business. And when I seen what there was… the bit of fern, I mean… in that statue, I didn’t worry no more. A man’s got to live, same as what you said yourself just now.’
‘How did you first get into the game? Using this shop for letters that weren’t to be delivered to private houses?’
‘Could ’ave been, couldn’t it? Your guess is as good as mine. It wasn’t nothing wrong.’
‘You’re quite certain?… You wouldn’t care to name any names?’
‘I don’t know no names, that’s what. I’ve told you the truth because I don’t want to get mixed up in no murders.’
‘You haven’t told me the whole truth, as I know for a fact. And don’t bother to tell me you don’t know who Mr Mandsell might be, because I’m sure you do, and, if you don’t, you can guess.’
Tomson swore.
‘I don’t know what happened to it, I tell you!’
‘Suit yourself, but, if you’re going to be a fool and land yourself in a mess, don’t come to us to get you out of it!’
Tomson laughed. His mirth had an unpleasant sound and Darling told him briefly to come off it.
‘I don’t want no police protection because I ’aven’t done nothing wrong,’ said Tomson, becoming plaintive. ‘It’s ’ard to make an honest living these days.’
‘But not quite so hard to make a dishonest one,’ retorted Darling. ‘If you take my advice, you’ll come clean. I’d much sooner believe Mr Mandsell’s word than I would yours, for reasons we both understand, and Mr Mandsell’s description of the parcels doesn’t tally with yours. Now, then, what about it?’
But Tomson was either too wily, or too much afraid of his mysterious employers, to say more than:
‘I can’t ’elp what ’e says, can I? I’m telling you what I know. It was statues and the one what got broke ’ad a bit of fern inside, and that’s all.’
Darling returned to Vardon.
‘It’s still all guesswork what the parcels contained,’ he said. ‘Either Tomson’s lying, or else there are two types of parcels. Our best plan, at this end, is to keep an eye on this chap Mandsell, I think. There’s a gang at work, of course. That sticks out a mile. If the gang try and lay Mandsell out we ought to get them, and if he tries to contact them we ought to get him.’
‘Do you think he was in with Miss Faintley, then, and his story about the other fellow who came out of the telephone box is all lies?’
‘No, I’m inclined to believe him, but it doesn’t hurt to keep an open mind. Anything doing at your end?’
‘Nothing at all, so far. We’ve established (to our own satisfaction, anyway) that the house on the cliffs outside which the body was found was not being lived in. One room seems to have been visited occasionally, but even that hasn’t got a bed in it, and there are no arrangements for cooking except a kitchen range which obviously hasn’t been used for years.’
‘Fingerprints?’
‘What do you think? And yet the place is thick with dust! No, we’re not looking for a cosh-boy or a jealous lover. I agree with you that we’re looking for a gang, and those parcels are at the root of the matter. I don’t suppose it would help much, but for the sake of curiosity I’d like to know whether Tomson is lying about the parcel he says was broken. Mandsell swears his was a flat one, and not heavy, so that doesn’t sound like counterfeit coins or diamonds. It could be counterfeit notes, though. We ought to go to Hagford Junction next to see the parcels clerk. If he’s been in the habit of handing parcels over to Miss Faintley it shouldn’t tax his memory too much to remember what they were like.’
‘Yes, we must check on that clerk.’ They motored at once to the station. Here they met with a slight check. The man was on leave, and nobody knew his holiday address. The railway station staff were positive, however, that he had gone away. He had shown them folders describing coach tours and had made it clear that he was going to book one for himself and his brother. The brother nobody had met. The name was Price.
Darling took down the address he was given and went to the house, but nobody answered his knock, and a neighbour came out and said that she had seen the brothers go off with suitcases. So that was that for a bit, thought Darling. He decided that it did not matter very much. When however, at the end of the following week he returned to the station without Vardon, who had gone back to Torbury, it was to learn that the Left Luggage clerk had not returned to duty at the appointed time, and that no explanation was forthcoming of his absence.
‘So it looks as though he might have been mixed up in it at least as much as Tomson is,’ Darling confided to Vardon when next they met. ‘I daresay he’s only one of the smaller fry… certainly nobody would trust Tomson very far!… but I’d like to have got my hooks on him, especially now I know he’s vamoosed.’
‘Stymie! The inquest’ll have to be resumed some time or other, but we can’t add any more evidence at present. Can you tackle the older Miss Faintley again, and see if she can cough up any more?’
‘I can try, but, although she’s a spiteful, dissatisfied old besom, I think she’s told us everything she knows.’
‘Yes, I was afraid perhaps she had.’
‘I’ll try her, anyway. In fact, I’m going to get a warrant and search the flat.’
‘She won’t like that, but it ought to be done. And you can’t get Tomson to squeal?’
‘I’ve a hunch he’s in the same boat as Miss Faintley was, and if it is a gang we’re after, they wouldn’t give a little rat like him very much to squeal about, or else not much time to do the squealing. Have to get a description o
f that Left Luggage clerk. He’ll have to be found, although I wouldn’t mind betting that his disappearance has nothing to do with the parcels or the murder.’
‘Pity petty cash was ever invented,’ said Vardon. ‘How would it be if we got two independent descriptions of the fellow, one from the station people and the other from Mandsell? Might act as a useful check on Mandsell, don’t you think?’
‘You mean that if Mandsell is concerned in the business (I don’t believe it, you know!) his description of the clerk is likely to be misleading? Right. Let’s try it. The station people first, of course. Then we can measure up what they say against anything Mandsell may tell us.’
The description of the missing man would fit a good many people, the two police officers decided. There was only one helpful point. He had been left-handed to such an extent that it amounted to a physical idiosyncrasy of a very definite kind. It seemed as though his right hand was almost useless. Even the heaviest parcels on his shelves he would attempt to take down.or put up using his left hand only. Otherwise, he was a brown-haired man of thirty-five or so, of medium height, slim without being noticeably thin, brown-eyed, with a mole on the right cheek-bone.
The officers checked this information with his landlady, who confirmed it, and said that when the brothers left their lodgings for their holiday, each had been wearing grey flannel trousers, a white open-neck shirt, Mr Tavy Price (the railway clerk) a green-fawn sports jacket, Mr Hugh Price a brown one. Their suitcases were of dark-brown fibre and had been labelled Mohawk Tours.
Mandsell’s description tallied exactly with that given by the station officials. Without being prompted, he even commented upon the extreme left-handedness of the luggage clerk.
‘It was almost like a deformity,’ he said, ‘but he seemed to manage all right.’
The two police officers had obtained from the landlady the address of the Price brothers’ doctor. He could offer no explanation of the awkward and noticeable left-handedness, but thought it was probably due to an obstinate reaction from having had to be right-handed at school. In spite of modern ideas upon the subject, he declared, some teachers were still wicked and misguided enough to try to force left-handed boys to use the right hand for writing and carpentry and so forth. He held forth upon the iniquity of this practice, added that there was nothing physically wrong with Price’s right hand and arm, and left the officers little the wiser.
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