The Key to the Case

by Roger Ormerod

  I hung up and went quickly to the cupboard, where I recalled there had been blankets, snatched out a whole bundle, wrenched off the rope, and ran out again to Milo. He was very still, too still. I spread a couple of blankets over him, but there was already too much blood and the breath no longer bubbled in his throat. The target arrows have a nearly blunt head—pile, they call it. It is not intended for entering flesh, so it makes an unpleasant torn wound when it does. I looked away, then slowly walked down the drive.

  They still stood together. There were sobbing sounds. I touched Amelia’s shoulder, and when she glanced round I shook my head. Francine stood, almost too limp to support herself, head bowed. She had no more arrows. She’d known she would need only one.

  I found I still had the rope from the blankets in my hand, and stuffed it into my pocket. I could hear the siren of the ambulance, and its light was flicking the sky.

  Suddenly, I felt very tired.

  From then on it was all chaotic efficiency. We had to stand aside as the ambulance swerved into the drive. I waited for the police cars. Waited for Ken. Waited, while a WPC came to take Francine to one of their cars and sit with her in the back. Only then did I have time to confirm that Milo was dead.

  We stood together, Ken and I. Amelia joined us and clung tightly to my arm.

  ‘Tell me,’ said Ken. He was dragging his voice from way down, exhaustion sagging his whole body.

  I told him how it had been.

  ‘And why the hell...’ He sighed, trying to change to a more animated tone. ‘You knew I didn’t want you to come anywhere near Milo Dettinger. But you came. Richard...do you really expect me to dig you out of trouble for the rest of your life?’

  I ignored that last bit. ‘He asked me to do something. I came to report the result. I simply wanted to take a look inside that broom cupboard under the stairs.’

  ‘Did you?’ he asked hollowly.

  ‘Curious, Ken, that’s all I was. The rope—do you remember there were lots of lengths of rope in that cupboard, the last time I looked. All gone now. I wonder why...’

  ‘I wonder why,’ he snapped, ‘you have to keep wondering! Rope!’

  ‘There was only this.’ I produced the rope that had been round the blankets. Old plastic-covered clothes-line it was, stiffened into the shape of the blanket bundle.

  ‘Well now!’ he said with bitter sarcasm. ‘Fancy that! And what do you make of this peculiar circumstance?’

  ‘Nothing, Ken, nothing,’ I assured him soothingly.

  ‘I’ll have to get back to the station. Inspector Renfrew’s in charge here now. Can I see you to your car, Richard?’

  ‘By all means. Come along, love. We’re leaving now.’

  She said nothing. Ken stood beside the car as we got inside, his face grim, allowing no hint of softness to cheer us on our way.

  I backed into the drive to turn. Ken was like a sentinel. I gestured, but he didn’t respond. I drove away.

  ‘Home, please, Richard,’ Amelia said at last. ‘And as fast as you like.’

  There were a few more minutes of silence, into which I finally ventured, ‘I blame myself.’

  ‘You couldn’t have guessed she would be here.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that. She’d have waited until he came out to his car. I was incidental. No—I blame myself for putting confirmation into her head. She already suspected Milo. Oh, to hell with it.’

  Then I was silent. I’d been about to add, ‘And it hasn’t finished yet.’ I decided she wouldn’t want to know.

  Even the welcome from Sheba and Jake didn’t soften the gloom. Amelia was deeply upset, and wasn’t easily going to break free of it. Mary was at the table in the kitchen. She lifted her head. ‘Just in time. I’ll have it on the table in two minutes.’

  ‘Oh Mary!’ said Amelia. ‘I’ve been leaving everything to you...’

  ‘Not to worry. You’ll get your turn. And what mischief have you been getting up to now?’ she asked me cheerfully.

  I tried to grin at her, but it failed.

  It was perhaps the most silent and miserable meal I could remember. Mary soon became involved in the depression. Afterwards, Amelia went to freshen up and change into relaxing clothes. I helped Mary to clear the table. I offered to wipe the dishes, but she wouldn’t permit it. Was I so damned useless, then?

  There was only one thing to do—take the dogs for a walk. This, I was good at. We went down to the river, me with a torch in my hand. The water was lower, less boisterous. Jake was now safe, after Sheba’s instructions. I couldn’t keep my mind from turning over the peculiar fact that I had never seen, in the broom cupboard, even one foot of the white braided rope that had been round the suitcase.

  We walked back to the house, and seeing the Stag parked there, and rope still being on my mind, I recalled the suitcase, which I’d put back on the rear seat, and took it inside. Later, when the pressure had eased, I would take it to Ken. It was evidence of Ronnie’s alibi. I had, after all, satisfied the requirements of both my employers. Perhaps ‘satisfied’ wasn’t the correct word. ‘Employers’ certainly wasn’t.

  As training dictated, I set about making an inventory. I put the case on the now clear kitchen table, found a note-pad, and started.

  One length of rope, approximately five feet long. Used to tie around the case.

  One pigskin suitcase with both hasps broken. Marks indicating they had been levered out of shape.

  I flung open the lid.

  One blue and white Chinese bowl that looked amateurish work to me. Kung Fu, Milo had called it. Probably wildly valuable. Handle it carefully, Richard.

  One carved ivory owl, six inches high, possibly Japanese, with something nasty in its claws. Amelia would love this, I knew.

  One gold watch, which I’d expect to pick up in the rubbish tray in any junk shop, but which was probably unique.

  And one white goblet in glass, which looked like porcelain but wasn’t, and decorated with yellow daisies.

  I wrote it all down most carefully. There would have to be a signature for it. Ronnie would have to identify it all, too. As he would do, and willingly, this being his alibi. He might not be so keen to acknowledge the medals, though. These had been his personal part of the theft, or liberation, and they could easily land him back inside.

  I wrote them down: two medals, a VC and a DFC.

  And finally, one musty old khaki blanket, a refugee from the last war by the look of it. I wrote it down.

  No—not finally. In a corner of the suitcase, its keys. There were two keys on a little metal ring, more elaborate than the pressed steel keys you usually get with suitcases. These were hollow-shafted with milled key-ways. I tried one in the locks. These locks, too, were well made. It’d been the hasps that had proved to be the weak points. The locks still worked. They had been in locked position.

  I stared at the keys in my palm. Keys, keys—I was collecting them everywhere. I tossed them in my palm...and suddenly I knew. I knew. Slowly, thoughtfully, I put them back into the case, and wrote down: two keys, suitcase for use of.

  Then I packed it all away again, as Ronnie had done, with the same reverence, too. I even tied the rope around it. Now, everything was as I’d found it.

  I went into the living-room. Amelia was already there, in slacks and a blouse, with a floppy cardie. She was reading a magazine. I lit my pipe but couldn’t bear to sit. Walked up and down instead. Stared out of the blank window, stared at the walls.

  ‘There’s nothing on the telly,’ said Amelia. ‘Isn’t there?’

  I paced some more, aware now that she was watching me.

  ‘Richard, do sit down.’

  ‘A minute,’ I answered, and grabbed for the phone, dialled the number I now knew, and asked whether Chief Inspector Latchett had gone home. He hadn’t. He snatched it up.

  ‘Now you listen here, Richard...’

  ‘It’s all right, Ken. No hassle. I just want to hand over that suitcase—the one that constitutes Ronnie’s alib
i.’

  ‘Then why ring me? I’m up to my neck. Leave it at the desk, and get a receipt.’

  ‘I want to do it in Ronnie’s presence,’ I told him. ‘After all, it’s his alibi.’

  ‘You’ve gone out of your mind. He’s in the Royal at Wolverhampton. It’s not even on my patch.’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be you, Ken. Durrell will do. Or Rawston. As a witness, that’s all.’ There was a silence. ‘Then I’ll be clear of all this mess,’ I offered as a bribe.

  After a while I heard him sigh. ‘I’ll be there—if only to keep an eye on you, Richard. I’ve sent Durrell home.’

  I knew what that meant. There would be reports flying upwards through the grades, and Durrell would be lucky if he got no more than a reduction in rank.

  ‘I’ll see you then.’

  ‘When?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ll start now. Say...in an hour, at Wolverhampton Royal? He’s in Slater ward.’

  He grunted. ‘I’d like to get home before the morning, you know.’ And he hung up.

  I turned from the phone, beaming, wishing to present the fact that this was to be the high spot of my day.

  ‘Oh...no!’ she whispered, unimpressed, having heard my half of it.

  ‘Or I’ll never sleep tonight.’

  ‘But I’m so tired!’

  ‘You don’t need to come, love.’

  ‘What! And have you get yourself into trouble again? No, thank you. I’ll come. And Richard—this had better be the end of it.’

  ‘I feel it will be,’ I assured her.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The big, open car park behind the Royal Hospital was packed, and we had to weave up and down lanes for a few minutes before I could slip into a vacant slot. We seemed to have chanced on visiting hours, which, when I considered it, wasn’t entirely what I would have wished. What I had to discuss with Ronnie required a certain amount of privacy.

  With misplaced confidence I led Amelia—but apparently through the wrong door—towards our objective, but the complication of all the corridors, and the strange switch in levels due to building extensions, misled me. I was carrying the case, which rapidly gained weight, and I was impatient. Then, when I eventually found the correct ward, everything seemed different. The possibility of privacy appeared to be out of the question. The ward beds were all occupied, and visitors flocked around in a constant stream, waving bunches of flowers, bags of grapes, and bottles of Lucozade. There was no sign of Ronnie. Then, at the far end, I saw Ken, who was waving.

  We weaved our way through. He stood at double doors as though guarding them, and whether or not he’d used his authority to bring it about, he appeared to have found us an element of privacy and comparative silence.

  He turned away to the door, but I touched his elbow.

  ‘How’re things going?’

  He shrugged and grimaced. ‘I’m reopening the Ruby Carter case. There will be hell to pay. We’ll see.’

  ‘The Chief Super will have to see it?’

  ‘Of course. Richard, I really did believe—’

  ‘I’m sure you did.’ I slapped his shoulder, and he swung open the door.

  Beyond the door there was a room or annexe. It was clearly not used normally for patients, perhaps intended more as a lounge, as there was a television set in there and scattered chairs of questionable comfort. Ambulant patients could sit quietly in here. But the main feature was the half-circle of windows around its full width. Here you could sit and stare through 180 degrees at a selection of the most depressing back-street views in the town. At night you could watch the prostitutes strolling, I was told.

  But now in here, as an overflow, they had placed a couple of beds, one each side of the double doors. In one of them was Ronnie Cope. Sitting with his back to the centre of the curved window was a young man who must have been a DC, because Ken nodded, and he went to stand outside the doors, to discourage for a little while any ambulants who craved to view the telly.

  I tossed the case on to the foot of Ronnie’s bed. As he was sitting up in it, his feet came only halfway down.

  ‘Well Ronnie!’ I cried cheerfully. ‘And how are you doing? I’ve brought you a present.’

  He glared at me, glanced at the case, and glared again. Now, with his cheek bare, he looked worse than before, the stitches visible as black lines and the area painted, apparently, with iodine. But his mouth was more flexible. He told me to go, using words not appropriate with a woman present. Amelia came round and stared at him.

  ‘You poor man,’ she said, possibly in commiseration for his inadequate vocabulary.

  Ken drew me aside. We stood together, looking down at the poorly-lit street.

  ‘I don’t know what this is about,’ he said quietly. ‘You wanted me to come, and I’m here. Let’s hope I’m not wasting my time.’

  ‘You’re here as a police witness,’ I explained, also keeping my voice down. ‘I’ve brought along Ronnie’s evidence, which he’ll need to prove his alibi. You’ve got Mrs Dettinger in custody, and she’ll be able to confirm part of what he says. I just want him to identify the items in that suitcase. I found it at his cottage in Darnley, after that bit of trouble there.’

  He looked disturbed about that. There were differing interpretations of the word ‘found’.

  ‘Then let’s get on with it,’ he said with a degree of impatience; so I returned my attention to Ronnie. He stirred uneasily, no doubt from the wound in his side, which was hidden beneath one of the white smocks the hospital provided when nobody brought along your pyjamas. Ronnie had nobody to bring him anything. I had brought him an expensive (though damaged) pigskin case, but he was making no sounds of gratitude.

  ‘Recognize this, Ronnie?’ I asked cheerfully. As there was no reply, I went on, ‘I found it in your cottage at Darnley, exactly as it is now. Is it yours?’

  ‘Sort of,’ he mumbled.

  ‘You don’t have to go all defensive,’ I told him. ‘I know all about this suitcase, and what’s in it. I’ll explain. Shall I explain?’

  ‘Please your bloody self.’

  ‘Right, I will. Remember what you asked me, Ronnie? To find you an alibi for the Major Farrington job. This I’ve done. This is it. Mrs Dettinger told me she’d asked you to gain entry—that’s the phrase for you, Ronnie. Gain entry. Nothing illegal about it, there wasn’t, and you got in easily with your magic pliers. We know all this.’

  He still said nothing, but his eyes were now more bright and attentive. He licked his lips. I delved into my pockets and dropped the contents on to his bedcover. One pair of pliers and three sets of keys.

  ‘You got in with these pliers and you did the job for Mrs Dettinger, then you got out. Roughly that. Do you accept these facts so far?’

  ‘Yeah. I suppose.’

  ‘Good. Now, here’s the interesting point. Because you were entering enclosed premises for the benefit of the person who owns the house, and with the express purpose of taking from there sundry articles that were the property of that person, you were not committing a crime. There, now! How d’you like the wording, Ronnie? Your solicitor could use that exact phrase. Though of course, there may well be no charge at all. What d’you say, Mr Latchett?’

  Ken was caught in mid-think. ‘What? I don’t know. We’ll see.’

  ‘Yes.’ I returned my attention to Ronnie. ‘So all we need to do is check that this here,’ I slapped the suitcase, ‘and its contents correspond to what you took away from there. So I’ll unload it all...let’s make a bit of room. Can you draw your feet up a bit more? That’s better. I’ll bring out each item, and you can confirm or otherwise. Ready?’

  ‘Gerron with it.’ He was mightily suspicious.

  I carefully untied the length of rope. About five feet of it. ‘Five feet,’ I said, ‘of white braided clothes-line. I guessed you’d found that in the cupboard under the stairs, where the suitcases were kept. Right?’

  ‘Yeah. All right. That’s it.’

  ‘You found this suitcas
e—I suppose Mrs Dettinger told you where to look?’ He nodded. ‘And it was locked, so you had to break the hasps. Is that so?’

  He stared at me. I flung open the lid, so that it opened towards him. The distorted hasps were beneath his nose.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said.

  I grinned at him. ‘Relax. It’s your alibi. Remember? Right, then. Contents. One blue and white Chinese bowl. Milo said it was Kung Fu or something.’

  ‘Hongzhi,’ he said with contempt.

  ‘All right. One ivory owl,’ I went on. ‘Seems to be eating something in its claws.’

  ‘It’s a grasshopper.’

  ‘I hate know-alls,’ I said. ‘What d’you think of that, love?’ I asked, handing it to Amelia.

  ‘Oh, it’s splendid. Beautiful!’

  I returned my attention to Ronnie, and the case. ‘One gold watch, probably worth a few pounds.’

  ‘It’s French. Got a special movement in it.’

  ‘Has it? Now—what’s next? Ah yes. One glass goblet. Looks like porcelain. Yellow flowers on it.’

  ‘It’s German,’ said Ronnie. These expert burglars have to know their stuff.

  ‘Milo called it milkglass.’

  ‘Milchglas.’

  ‘There you are then. Ignorant Milo. He’s dead, by the way.’

  He stared. His eyes seemed locked, protruding, fogged. ‘He’s what?’

  ‘Dead. Shot through the neck with an arrow. Fired by his wife. Where were we?’

  ‘What’s this?’ He came to life, his face suddenly flushed and his hands moving agitatedly. ‘What’re you saying?’

  ‘She shot him because she believed Milo killed Bryan. Can we get on with it?’

  ‘Wait a bit. I’ve got to know.’

  ‘It’s all right. Don’t worry. She can still give evidence about all this, so your alibi’s safe.’

  ‘Why d’you have to be such a soddin’ clown?’ he demanded with contempt. ‘Doesn’t it matter to you?’

  ‘Of course it matters. More to me than to you, I’d guess, because I reckon I gave her the idea it was Milo. Something I said. Now, can we—’

  ‘What did you say to her?’ he demanded, raising his voice.