Eloise gasped. Marlow stared at him, and Jackson, struck by how dark his eyes were, realized it was in contrast to the sudden pallor of his face. After a moment, Marlow rallied.
‘What a fertile imagination you have, Chief Inspector. You can’t have any evidence for these wild accusations.’
‘We also believe,’ Webb continued, ‘that contacts are made during your trips abroad with the Arts Society, who, I’m pretty sure, have absolutely no knowledge of what you’re up to. And since you fly in planeloads three or four times a year, you must be on to a nice little earner.’
‘What’s all this nonsense about a plane?’ It was a brave try, but his voice had lost its arrogant confidence.
‘We’ve had reports of low-flying aircraft on numerous occasions. On the twelfth of May there were several, plus a complaint from a farmer whose field had been churned up. All in all, you’ve led us quite a dance.’
Eloise Teal stepped suddenly forward. ‘Congratulations, Mr Webb. I never thought you’d crack it.’
Marlow turned sharply, gripping her arm. ‘Eloise, don’t be a fool! They can’t prove a thing!’
‘Nonsense, Harry. Apart from dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s, they’re home and dry. We can’t complain, you know: we’ve had six good years, and quite honestly the excitement has worn off anyway.’
‘For God’s sake listen to me! Don’t say anything! You don’t know what’s involved!’
Tony Reid had been staring at her in amazement. ‘You?’ he demanded. ‘You’re the one he spoke of as The Boss?’
She gave a little laugh. ‘Guilty. It was my idea and I masterminded the whole operation.’
She’s actually enjoying this, Webb thought in wonder. It was as though, now the game was up, she was trading its stimulation for the notoriety that would follow, eager for the admiration, albeit grudging, which she expected her ingenuity to arouse.
Marlow tried once more. ‘Eloise, just let me –’ but she shook him off. Behind those large spectacles her eyes were glistening. She leant against the corner of the counter, her arms lightly folded.
‘You see, Chief Inspector, I was tired of being written off as a dimwit. Everyone thought Monica had the brains, but she’s always had to work harder than I have for what she’s wanted. At school she spent all her time studying. I hardly did any work, but I got the same exam results. In fact, I used to sell answers to the other girls – it was quite lucrative.
‘Then Monica went into the business but because I was lazy, Father thought I hadn’t a brain in my head. I didn’t bother to correct him – in any case, I married straight from school. But gradually I felt the need of mental stimulation. That’s why I joined the Arts Appreciation Society, and persuaded Harry and Claudia to do the same. As time went on I became very involved with it, chairing committees and helping to arrange trips and outings. And that, as you guessed, was how this business started. I used to go over before every tour to check arrangements, and one night in a restaurant I started chatting to a German couple at the next table. After the meal they invited me back to their home for coffee. And that,’ she ended softly, ‘was where I saw my first mosaic.’
Marlow, having given up the attempt to stop her, was now leaning against the wall staring down at the floor.
Webb said, ‘They were dealers?’
‘Yes, Munich’s an important centre for that kind of thing. Seeing how interested I was, they told me how to set the whole thing up; you need only a small organization – three or four to obtain the goods, a couple of middle men, and the buyer, which would be me. But I needed someone by me I could trust implicitly, someone I knew I could depend on. And I chose Mr Marlow.’
She glanced at him, but he gave no sign of having heard her.
‘It’s a fascinating business, Mr Webb. Any place where there’s been social upheaval or war is a rich picking-ground – the Lebanon, Greece, Cyprus.’ She smiled slightly. ‘As you discovered, we didn’t confine ourselves to mosaics. We’ve handled icons, vases, frescoes, coins. Sometimes we sold through auction houses, but mostly to private customers.’
‘Who came and viewed them upstairs here?’
‘Yes; it’s always worked perfectly, but this time we had to change the date at the last minute. An important customer could only come on the evening of the twenty-ninth, and asked us to bring the date forward. Since there was an item he was particularly interested in, we’d little choice. By that time the Private View had been arranged and all the invitations were out. We knew it was risky to combine the two, but it was a challenge and as long as we were careful it should have been all right.’ She looked at Reid, who flushed and turned away.
‘So what went wrong, Mr Reid?’ Webb prompted.
He glanced for guidance at Harry Marlow, who continued to stare at the floor. But after Mrs Teal’s speech, he must have felt the time for caution was past. ‘My job was to show up the customers – separately, to preserve confidentiality.’ His voice took on a defensive tone. ‘But Mr Marlow just said “The French couple”, and when I heard Miss Tovey talking French to those men, I thought it was them. They shouldn’t have been there, anyway. I found out later Mr Teal invited them.’ And he looked accusingly at Eloise.
She shrugged. ‘Anyway, there you have it, Mr Webb. I don’t regret a thing; I’ve proved what I set out to, that I’m as astute as the rest of the family, and able to play for much higher stakes.’
‘Let’s hope it’ll sustain you over the next few years,’ Webb said drily. ‘One more point, though; we were closing in, but the thing that clinched it was seeing that mosaic on your wall. Why in the name of goodness did you risk that? If you’d hung it in your bedroom, say, I’d never have seen it.’
‘But you miss the point; half the fun was displaying it under everyone’s eyes. What enjoyment would there have been in hiding it away?’
It seemed she was as much a gambler as Miss Tulip. ‘Well, that’s cleared up that side of it; now we come to the more serious part. Tell me, did you meet the plane yourself?’
She frowned, glancing back at Marlow, who still hadn’t moved. ‘No; Harry needed an assistant, which was why he brought in Tony Reid. I always kept in the background. As you saw, Tony’d no idea I was involved.’
‘Right, then it’s your turn, Mr Marlow. It was you the twins recognized, wasn’t it?’
At last Marlow looked up, his face grey, and Eloise drew in her breath sharply.
‘Twins?’ she repeated urgently. ‘The ones who were killed? That’s nothing to do with us!’
Marlow said flatly, ‘I did tell you to keep quiet.’
‘But –’ she glanced wildly from him to Webb, the pride she had shown in her enterprise abruptly fading.
‘Let me tell you what happened, Mrs Teal, since Mr Marlow seems reluctant to. He can correct me if I’m wrong. The first fact to establish is that the Whites cleaned the Gallery windows, along with many other business premises in town. And not unnaturally they’d seen Mr Marlow here.’
‘But I don’t –’
He lifted a hand and she fell silent. ‘They had two principal interests in life, football and burglary. On Saturday May the twelfth they’d been to Steeple Bayliss for the last match of the season, which I think I’m right in saying Shillingham won. They stayed on to celebrate after the other supporters had left, and when they eventually did set off for home, they happened to see an invitingly empty house, which they naturally stopped to burgle. All in all, they must have thought they’d had a most satisfactory day. But then things went disastrously wrong, though at first it would have seemed the opposite.’
He paused, looking round at the intent faces. ‘So far we’ve been dealing with fact. Now we come to conjecture, but I reckon it’s pretty close to the mark. As they were driving along with their loot, they noticed a plane flying very low overhead, and realized it was in fact about to land behind the small wood which lined the road. So they stopped and went to see what was going on. Two men had met the plane and were engaged in un
loading its cargo into their hatchback car. Now, this is the bit I’m not sure about. I doubt if the boys broke cover, and the marks of the plane are some fifty yards from the edge of the wood where they were presumably hiding. It was a full moon, but even so it would be relatively difficult to recognize someone they didn’t know well from that distance. Therefore – and I’m guessing – I think one of the men – Mr Marlow – went over to the edge of the wood for some reason?’
He ended interrogatively, and, getting no response from Marlow, raised an eyebrow at Reid, who slowly nodded.
‘The moonlight might have been on his face, but anyway the twins saw him and recognized him as one of their customers. And though they didn’t know what he was doing, it was plain enough he shouldn’t have been doing it. So they decided to try a spot of blackmail.’
Eloise said aridly, ‘Harry, is this true?’
He raised his shoulders in a resigned shrug.
‘I think, Mr Marlow,’ Webb said mildly, ‘that it’s time you took some part in this discussion. But before you do, I must caution you that –’
‘Save your breath,’ Marlow said harshly. ‘I’ve already told you I’ve an alibi for the night of the murder.’
‘Yes, we’ve been checking up on that. You told us, and your wife corroborated, that you’d been to the Grand Theatre together, arrived home soon after ten and settled in for the night.’
‘That’s plain enough, isn’t it?’
‘What you didn’t tell us, and we didn’t realize till we went back to your wife last evening, is that when you reached home she went straight up to bed and you remained downstairs.’
‘As I do every night; she always goes up first, and I have a nightcap and read the paper or watch television for another hour or so.’
‘Yes, she told us that too. But that particular evening she was tired and fell asleep almost at once. She wouldn’t have heard you if you left the house again.’
Eloise said just above a whisper, ‘Did you do it, Harry? Did you murder those boys?’
He raised a haggard face. ‘It was as much for your sake as mine, darling. You know what blackmailers are – one payment is never enough. And we’d been so careful, covered our tracks so well. It didn’t seem right that two cocky little upstarts should ruin it all.’ He paused. ‘Not that I realized there were two of them – or even who they were. The note gave nothing away. It simply said if I wanted my connection with the plane and its cargo kept quiet, to leave a suitcase containing two thousand pounds in the Wood Green lay-by at eleven o’clock on Monday the twenty-first.’
He leant back against the wall, his hands in his pockets. ‘It arrived on the Saturday morning, and I can tell you I had a pretty lousy weekend. At first I considered paying up and hoping for the best. But George Latimer’s my bank manager – he’d have wondered what was going on. And basically I didn’t see why the blackmailer should get away with it. So I got out an old suitcase and stuffed it full of newspapers. The theatre visit was already planned, and it helped to fill in the evening as well as providing an alibi. Or it should have done,’ he added grimly.
‘So at the appropriate time I went to the lay-by, dumped the suitcase and drove off again. But not far. I parked under some overhanging trees and made my way back, not along the road but through the shrubs and trees which brought me out at the back of the lay-by. Then I lay low and waited.’
‘You’d taken a weapon with you?’ Webb put in.
‘Yes, a kitchen knife.’
Eloise Teal gave a choked sob and put her hand to her mouth, her huge eyes staring at him.
‘Well, after a couple of minutes the van drove in and doused its lights. A man jumped down and came running towards the case, which was just in front of where I was hidden. My eyes had adjusted to the dark and I could see him quite clearly – young, fair, and wearing a tracksuit. For a moment I was incapable of moving. Then I forced myself to lunge forward and before he could stop himself he ran straight on to the knife.’
He looked at Webb, remembered horror in his eyes. ‘That was bad enough, but what happened next was a nightmare. I knew I’d killed him – he was lying on the ground at my feet – but suddenly there he was again, still rushing towards me. I honestly thought I’d gone mad. Then this second figure skidded to a halt, flung back his head and screamed “Gary!”’
He shuddered and unconsciously put his hands over his ears as if to blot out the memory.
‘And then?’ Webb prompted.
Marlow straightened, his arms falling to his sides. ‘Then he just – dropped to the ground. I stood staring at him for some time, still thinking I was hallucinating. But when he didn’t move I went over to him, the knife at the ready, and as soon as I reached him I could see he was dead, too. It was – eerie. More terrifying than the first death, which I’d steeled myself for.’
He drew a deep breath. ‘Well, I couldn’t leave them lying there in full view from the road. I was wearing gloves, of course, so I opened the back of the van and dragged them inside. I saw then that they were only boys, and as alike as two peas. No wonder I’d thought I was seeing double.’ He shook his head as though to clear it. ‘I covered them with a tarpaulin I found in the van and closed the doors again. Then I collected the suitcase and returned by way of the bushes to the car.
‘As you can imagine, I spent the next day waiting for the evening paper and listening to the radio, but there was nothing. And that evening –’ he turned to Eloise – ‘we went to your house for dinner. And to my horror Monica started talking about a dirty green van that had arrived outside her house in the middle of the night. I was petrified. How I didn’t give myself away, I’ll never know. I was convinced she must know what was in the back, and that I was responsible. And I couldn’t begin to imagine how the van had got from the lay-by to North Park.’ He drew a deep, shuddering breath. ‘So there you have it. In a way it’s a relief that it’s over.’
For several long minutes no one spoke. Then Eloise said shakily, ‘It was all supposed to be a game. If I hadn’t involved you in my machinations, this would never have happened. Oh God, Harry!’
Stiffly he put an arm round her. Tony Reid had risen to his feet, and they all stood unmoving while the three different charges were made.
‘The car’s just outside,’ Webb ended, gesturing them towards the door. In silence they moved together out of the Gallery, Marlow automatically pausing to lock both doors behind them. As they turned towards the police car, a woman came hurrying along the pavement and caught at Harry’s arm.
‘Oh Mr Marlow, I’m not too late to catch you? I wanted to confirm I’ll have that painting I was considering.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Grant,’ he said heavily. ‘Someone’ll be in touch.’
‘I thought the exhibition was open all week?’
‘There’s been a change of plan,’ he said, and climbed into the back of the car. The woman was still staring after him as it drove away.
The Lily-White Boys Page 19
