Charters and Caldicott

by Stella Bingham

‘Agreed,’ said Charters, oblivious of the driver’s keen interest in their conversation. ‘Which gives her ample cause to kill Helen Appleyard who was her co-beneficiary.’

  ‘Why? Why not simply join forces with Helen Appleyard, find the new will together, destroy it and split Jock’s fortune down the middle?’

  The driver seemed to agree with this, but Charters wasn’t sure. ‘You don’t take human greed into account, Caldicott. With Helen Appleyard dead she becomes sole beneficiary.’

  Neither Caldicott nor the driver were convinced. ‘Are you sure?’ Caldicott asked for them both.

  ‘Positive. Does this fellow know where he’s going?’

  ‘I sincerely hope so.’ Caldicott leaned forward and bellowed, ‘Take road through Bletchley. Got that? Bletchley road.’ The driver nodded, impatient for them to get back to the story. ‘Wait a minute, Charters, you’re wrong. If that will was assumed to be a genuine one, then half Jock’s fortune goes to Jenny and the other half to Helen Appleyard. She having subsequently popped her clogs, her share became part of her own estate and goes to her next of kin.’

  ‘Quite. Her husband.’

  ‘Gregory.’

  ‘There you are then.’

  ‘What do you mean, there I am?’ asked Caldicott, exasperated. The driver, unnoticed by his passengers, was so absorbed that he drove straight through a red traffic light, missing another car by inches.

  ‘Jenny Beevers killed Helen Appleyard so that she wouldn’t inherit. She then killed Helen Appleyard’s husband so that he wouldn’t inherit,’ Charters explained.

  ‘But what good does that do her? The money still doesn’t revert to her. It goes to Gregory’s old mum or his sister or the Sunshine Home for Retired Ne’er-do-wells.’

  ‘Yes, I confess I hadn’t thought of that.’

  ‘As for her motive for killing St Clair, it’s even more non­existent. Jenny was only after the will; St Clair was after far bigger stakes.’

  ‘The submarine gold,’ said Charters. The minicab lurched wildly and almost mounted the pavement. ‘I say, do be careful, driver. It doesn’t necessarily follow, Caldicott. Just supposing she wasn’t after the new will. Supposing nobody was after the will. The whole pack and parcel of them – Jenny Beevers, Helen Appleyard, Gregory, St Clair, Josh Darrell – all in their different fashions could have been after the submerged gold.’

  ‘If that’s so, old lad, then Jock’s message, even if it doesn’t lead us to the gold, will almost certainly lead us to the murderer.’ The minicab driver screeched on his brakes, overturned a litter bin and almost wrote off his passengers and his car.

  Inspector Snow finished snooping round Margaret Mottram’s house and returned to the kitchen, satisfied that Charters and Caldicott were not lurking in the linen cupboard or hiding under the bed. ‘I seem to be drawing a lot of blanks today, Mrs Mottram.’

  ‘I’m afraid you do,’ said Margaret, carrying on with her washing-up.

  Snow picked up a glass she had just rinsed and began to dry it. ‘Any particular reason, would you say?’

  ‘Perhaps you’re not looking in the right places.’

  ‘No, I mean any particular reason why they’re avoiding me?’

  ‘Why should they avoid you, Inspector?’

  Snow held the glass up to the light, breathed on it and polished it again with the tea towel. ‘That’s what I’m asking. Three murders and they’ve been on the scene of every one of them. That could be the reason.’

  ‘I was on the scene of two and I’m not avoiding you.’

  ‘No, well they need someone to report back what kind of mood I’m in, don’t they?’

  ‘What kind of mood are you in?’

  ‘Not a sunny one, Mrs Mottram. They can go so far with me – and they’ve now gone just as far as they’re going.’

  Snatches of the old school song reached out from the chapel to greet Charters and Caldicott as they strolled up the drive. Passing boys respectfully raised their caps. A smatter of applause rippled round the cricket ground. Charters and Caldicott paused.

  ‘Well played, sir! Well played indeed!’ Charters leaned on his umbrella, quite happy to stay and watch the next couple of overs.

  ‘Come along, old chap. Business first,’ said Caldicott reluctantly.

  The library was overcrowded and chaotically disorganised. Charters and Caldicott tracked down the bursar and recruited his help in finding the school year-book.

  ‘Properly speaking, of course, these volumes belong with all our memorabilia in the new school archive annexe,’ said the bursar, perching precariously on top of some library steps and reaching out for the relevant volume. ‘Alas, it has yet to leave the drawing board.’

  ‘Other claims on your purse, I expect,’ said Caldicott uneasily.

  ‘Many,’ said the bursar, never one to let slip a fund-raising opportunity. ‘Perhaps the appeal didn’t reach you?’

  ‘I believe it did but in fact we’d already heavily subscribed to the Pavilion Fund,’ said Charters.

  ‘Perhaps next year.’ Caldicott took the year-book from the bursar and began to compare the figures from Wisden in his notebook with those on the appropriate page.

  ‘Next year we’ll be having a special drive for the science side. They badly need a computer.’

  ‘A computer – for the stinks lab? What the devil for?’ asked Charters.

  ‘I expect you were on the classics side,’ said the bursar, searching his mind for another area of need.

  ‘A little Latin and less Greek,’ said Caldicott. ‘See what you make of this, Charters.’ He passed over his notes and the year-book.

  ‘The language laboratory is still woefully under-equipped.’

  ‘Really? Pity I threw out my old French grammar.’

  ‘A new word processor is what is needed – when we can find a benefactor.’

  Caldicott side-stepped neatly. ‘Someone who wholesales the things, that’s what you want. I’ll put the word round the Club.’

  Charters looked up from his figures. ‘I take it these notes you made from Wisden are accurate, Caldicott?’

  ‘If you remember, Charters, you insisted on double­checking them.’

  ‘Then there is not an iota of difference between the details in the school year-book and the corresponding details in Wisden.’

  ‘Naturally,’ said the bursar. ‘They come from the same source.’

  ‘I’m afraid we’re on a fool’s errand and have been wasting your time, Bursar.’

  ‘We’d been led to believe that the school year-book cricket section contained a number of errors,’ said Caldicott.

  ‘Had you indeed?’ said the bursar, showing interest in their mission for the first time. ‘Not, by any chance, by the late Beevers, J.H.L., sometime of School House?’

  ‘How on earth…?’ Caldicott began.

  The bursar turned to Charters. ‘I knew he was a contemporary of yours from the obituary you kindly sent to the year­book. Tell me, shortly before he died, was he completely in possession of his, ah…?’

  ‘Faculties? His mind was as razor-sharp as ever, Bursar. Why do you ask?’

  ‘I had a strange letter from him drawing my attention to the year-book’s alleged omission of an old boys’ charity match from last year’s cricket reports.’

  Charters looked puzzled. ‘I remember no old boys’ charity match.’

  ‘There wasn’t one.’

  ‘Do you still have that letter, Bursar,’ asked Caldicott.

  ‘I’m afraid not. Filing space is at a premium until we have the money to expand our limited office space.’ The bursar crammed the school year-book back into the shelves.

  ‘No matter,’ said Charters. ‘Unless Jock’s brought us here on a wild goose chase, Caldicott, this must be our latest clue.’

  ‘So the whole point of directing us to the year-book was to lead us to the bursar. Charity match? Why charity match?’

  ‘We’re meant to apply our thought processes. I’m getting rather ti
red of this game, Caldicott.’

  ‘Charity match. Perhaps he wants us to see that the Beevers’ fortune, when we’ve done what he asks us to do, goes to some particular charity.’

  The bursar pricked up his ears. ‘The Beevers’ fortune! You’ve had sight of the will, then?’

  ‘Er – briefly,’ said Charters.

  ‘Is it too much to hope he remembered the school?’

  ‘Oh, indeed he did!’ said Caldicott.

  The bursar beamed. ‘How very generous. And the – er – nature of the bequest, dare one ask?’

  ‘His entire collection of Edgar Wallace books.’

  ‘Can I be of any assistance, madam?’ said Grimes, officiously intercepting Margaret as she made her way across the lobby of Viceroy Mansions.

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Only he’s not back yet, madam.’

  ‘Yes he is. He’s just telephoned.’ Margaret stepped into the lift and slammed the door in Grimes’s face.

  ‘My mistake, madam. I must have been on my security rounds,’ Grimes called grovellingly after the ascending lift. As soon as Margaret was out of sight, he went back to his cubby-hole and picked up the phone.

  Margaret found Charters and Caldicott bickering and, silently prescribing her usual treatment, set to work with the gin bottle.

  ‘No, I’m sorry, Caldicott, I’ve had quite enough of this,’ said Charters, whose visit to his alma mater had failed to revive his flagging interest in amateur detection.

  ‘Oh, don’t be a dog in the manger, Charters. You like solving posers and so on.’

  ‘The Times crossword is poser enough for me. You know perfectly well what will happen if we make this expedition to Oldham.’

  ‘You make it sound like the unknown,’ said Margaret, distributing large gin-and-tonics.

  Charters thanked her. ‘It is the unknown. Cloth caps, clogs and tripe. And when we do present ourselves at this Norton and West place, there’s bound to be one more blasted concealed message from Jock Beevers saying now go to Timbuktu or my first is in apple but not in orange. I tell you I’m sick to death of it.’

  ‘Don’t you want to know why he invented that charity match, old fellow?’

  ‘No I do not,’ said Charters firmly. ‘All this dashing hither and thither doesn’t suit me. Besides, you know what tomorrow is?’

  ‘First day of the Test,’ said Margaret.

  ‘Well done! I thought you had little interest in cricket, Mrs Mottram.’

  ‘I haven’t. I asked Caldicott to take me to Wimbledon.’

  ‘Impossible, dear lady. We shall be glued to the wireless all day.’

  ‘We can do better than that, old man,’ said Caldicott. ‘Why not come to Oldham and see the Test Match first hand?’

  ‘But the Test Match is at Old Trafford, old man. As any fool knows.’

  ‘Oldham is near Old Trafford.’

  ‘No, no. Manchester is near Old Trafford.’

  ‘But Oldham is near Manchester,’ said Caldicott, exasperated. ‘Really, Charters, for someone so widely travelled you know very little about the North. It’s a mere tram ride away.’

  ‘Really? But where should we stay?’

  ‘How would I know? The Railway Arms, I suppose.’

  Margaret, who had been standing at the window looking down into the street during this interchange, interrupted, ‘Why don’t you discuss that in the car?’

  ‘We don’t have a car,’ said Caldicott.

  ‘I have a car.’

  ‘You mean you’d lend it to us? That’s noble of you, Margaret.’

  ‘Not on your nelly. I want to do some girl friday recruiting in Leeds.’

  ‘Is that near Manchester?’

  ‘A mere tram ride away. Shall we go – like now?’

  ‘But see here, I haven’t so much as a toothbrush with me,’ Charters objected.

  ‘They do have toothbrushes in Lancashire, Charters,’ said Caldicott.

  ‘I should think they also have them in the New Scotland Yard lock-up,’ said Margaret impatiently. ‘Is there a back way out of these flats, Caldicott?’

  ‘What?’ Caldicott joined her at the window and looked down. ‘Oh, my golly.’ Inspector Snow was just entering the block. ‘Hello, he’s got his sergeant with him this time.’

  ‘What does that signify?’ Charters asked.

  ‘It signifies that if you don’t leave now, you won’t be leaving until you’ve told him everything he needs to know,’ said Margaret.

  CHAPTER 14

  Caldicott pushed up the trapdoor, peered cautiously out and turned back to signal the all-clear to Charters and Margaret The three of them climbed through and, crouching down to avoid being seen, picked their way gingerly across the rooftop and down the fire escape to the railings at street level. Only a gate stood between them, Margaret’s car, Watford and the North and they scurried towards it. The gate was locked and Grimes stood on the other side of it, smirking.

  ‘Good evening, sir, Mr Charters, sir, madam.’

  Caldicott glared at him through the bars. ‘This is a fire escape, Grimes.’

  ‘It most certainly is, Mr Caldicott. Any conflagration at this moment in time, or was you taking a short cut?’

  ‘It’s locked, Grimes.’

  ‘I know, sir. It’s a constant what’s-it-called – dilemma, for me, this gate is. Do I keep it locked, thus creating a safety hazard style of thing, or do I leave it open and encourage the criminal element?’ Grime’s folded his arms, prepared to debate the issue all night. ‘Either way, if the dog-dirt hits the fan, excuse me madam, it comes back to me.’

  ‘Let me out, Grimes.’

  ‘More than my job’s worth, Mr Caldicott.’

  ‘Doesn’t he have superiors you can report him to, Caldicott?’ Charters demanded.

  ‘Do I not, Mr Charters. And if they thought I was letting the residents use the emergency exit for their own convenience I’d be for the high jump. I kid you not.’

  ‘You’ll be for the high jump, laddie, if you don’t unlock this gate. I kid you not,’ Caldicott raged, shaking the spearhead railings.

  ‘It’s the security angle that bothers them, see, sir. Only with my bad back I can’t do my rounds as often as I’d like to.’

  ‘Give him a fiver for some liniment,’ Margaret muttered, fearing the imminent arrival of Snow.

  ‘Take more than that, Madam. Only I’m going to a private osteopath now, see, and honestly, what he has the nerve to charge, it ought to be exposed.’

  Caldicott produced his wallet and took out a £10 note. ‘The key, Grimes.’

  ‘Not sure if I have it on me, tell the truth.’

  ‘Give me a tenner, Charters, there’s a good fellow.’ Charters took out his own wallet.

  ‘Very kind of you, sir. Only I expect you have your own reasons for coming out down the fire escape, so it’s a case of I do you a favour and you do me one style of thing.’

  Grimes unlocked the gate and took a tenner each off Charters and Caldicott as they passed through, with the aplomb of a steward at Lord’s.

  ‘Thank you Grimes.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Caldicott.’

  Free at last, Margaret and Charters were eager to be off but Caldicott lingered. ‘And Grimes, I’m going away for a few days. When I get back I look forward to hearing all about your new job.’

  ‘What job would that be, sir?’

  ‘The job you’ll be applying for in my absence. Will you break the news to the agents or shall I?’

  Grimes shrugged philosophically and pocketed the money. Charters, Caldicott and Margaret crammed themselves into Margaret’s vintage open-topped MG and headed up the Ml with as much speed as they could reconcile with the law. As they passed a police lay-by, a patrolman made a note of the car’s number and reached for his radio.

  Grimes let Inspector Snow and Sergeant Tipper into Caldicott’s flat and stood outside, his ear pressed to the door until Snow, displaying psychic powers, said conversationally, ‘All ri
ght, Mr Grimes, I shan’t need you any more.’

  The inspector had been pacing the living-room, deep in thought. ‘You see, it doesn’t make sense,’ he said finally to Tipper.

  ‘What’s that, guv?’

  ‘You are Helen Appleyard, looking for whatever it is you’re looking for. I’m the girl calling herself Jenny Beevers. I say calling herself – it could still turn out she is Jenny Beevers and that’s why they’re shielding her. I let myself in with the key I nicked downstairs – now you found that chip of nail varnish by the front door, correct?’

  ‘One point two metres into the living-room, guv.’

  ‘So that’s where the struggle must have started.’ Snow positioned himself to re-enact the scene as it might have happened. ‘I let myself in, you come forward to stop me getting any further, and I force you all the way back to the bedroom without knocking anything down or even rocking the carpet.’ Snow shook his head. ‘It’s not possible.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, guv. If you took me by surprise?’

  ‘If I took you by surprise, yes, but you see we’re talking about two slips of young women, by all accounts about the same height and the same weight. They’d have been all over the shop. No, I’ll tell you what – she was propelled across this room by a man.’

  ‘Our friend?’

  ‘If we could prove it.’

  ‘How did he get in?’

  ‘He didn’t come in with Jenny so-called Beevers, because she was seen by number thirty-two coming along the corridor by herself. Maybe Helen Appleyard let her in. The short answer is, I don’t know.’ Snow looked at his watch. ‘You’d better be ringing in, hadn’t you?’ While Tipper dialled, Snow looked disapprovingly at a set of carelessly stacked encyclopaedias. ‘Just look at that. How can anyone live with that kind of mess?’

  ‘They leave it all to the charwoman in that class, don’t they, guv?… Sergeant Tipper here. Anything?’

  Unable to bear the sight, Inspector Snow began to straighten the volumes. As he did so, a tiny object fell from one of them. He closed his hand on it.

  ‘They’re on their way north, with that Mrs Mottram,’ Tipper reported.

  ‘She’s a sensible woman. If they’re going where I think they’re going, let’s hope she keeps them out of mischief till we get there. I thought you’d been over this room with a vacuum cleaner?’ Snow opened his hand and showed Tipper a small blazer button. ‘Lodged down the spine of that volume there.’