by Gary Lovisi
“Charley,” Pete looked at me strangely as he spoke, “word’s out on the streets to stay clear of you. Of us, really. I picked up on it in the men’s room at Kelly’s tavern.”
I couldn’t have been more surprised, everything was moving so well. “What kind of word, Pete,” I asked, trying to figure out what was being said and who started it.
Leaning on the trunk of the the LTD, Pete looked as puzzled as I felt. “I caught a few words before the guys looked in the mirror and realized I was there. One of them said that something was going down this week and not to pick anything up off the street. The other guy asked what was going down, and that’s when they saw me.”
“Who were they?” I was curious but couldn’t figure out how I fit into this.
“Just some guys that hang out at Kelly’s,” Pete answered. “Maybe it’s nothing, but it was the way they shut up when they saw me that started me thinking.”
I tipped my cap back to scratch my head. “Pete, you’re seeing ghosts,” I said before I realized that was my recent area of expertise.
“I mean, what they were saying didn’t have anything to do with us. How could it? Everything’s cool.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Pete agreed before he started up the LTD. He’d had the points cleaned and it purred like new. “Just thought I’d mention it.”
“See you later, Pete, we still got a lot of work to do,” I warned him—thinking maybe he was trying to get some time off by getting me to slow down sales—and waved him off. Locking the garage door, with the 97 computers behind it, I turned to go into the house.
Four black and white police cars pulled up in front of my house and emptied the cops inside before I was halfway to the back door. Guns drawn, eight cops closed in around me. Still holding the garage key in my hand I was frozen to the spot, speechless.
“Hold it right there,” a voice rang out from one of the cops, as if I could even think of going anywhere else. The Caddy was parked on the other side of the black and whites and Pete was long gone. “Check the garage,” the same voice ordered one of the other cops, who managed to get the key from my clenched fist without even asking. “If the garage is holding what we think, you’re under arrest.”
It did and I was.
“Max, what do I do?” I whispered as they cuffed me.
“This ain’t Max, Charley, it’s the tooth fairy, like I said.” The voice must have been heard by the cop leading me to his black and white, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“I had Max’s cap bugged months ago to keep tabs on him. Like I said, Charley, you ain’t got no idea what’s going on in the rest of the world. Like micro-chip receivers, transmitters and amplifiers.”
I finally recognized the voice and it all fell into place. “Sugar Joe.”
“The one and only. It took me years to figure out how to get back at Max, except he died first. You were a sweet second in line for revenge. And I got it—setting you up for a fall. Signing off, Charley, I ain’t going to be broadcasting for awhile.”
It didn’t do me any good to really know why “Max” had gotten me the contracts—there was no way to set me up unless I was caught dealing and Sugar Joe even had to help me do that.
I’d end up with four years away, room and board included, time enough to figure out what to do next. Maybe, if they let me keep the cap, I could really get in touch with Max. He’d know what to do, I mumbled.
“I do, Charley, I do.”
A REPUTATION FOR MURDER, by M.J. Elliott
I’m getting to the age where one can be quite forgetful about some things but not about others. I never leave taps running, for instance, but I often get into the bath only to discover that I didn’t put the plug in. I don’t recall, therefore, whether I told you about my first murder case in Overdale. If I haven’t, then there’s precious little point now, since I’m about to reveal the identity of the murderer. The year was . . . oh, goodness, I’m not sure. ’31, perhaps, but if you were to tie me down and threaten me with a branding iron I couldn’t swear to it. I’m reasonably content that it was late summer—I recollect the sort of peaceful evenings for which the word “charming” was created.
I’m not in the habit of cutting long stories short—quite the opposite, in fact—but I’m prepared to give it a try so that we can get on to the poisoning of the Reverend Parbold in good time. I trust I’m not inflating my ego to bursting point if I assume that you’re all quite familiar with the ingredients of a traditional Hilary Caine murder mystery; and believe me, this one was no different: packed off to the aforementioned Yorkshire hamlet of Overdale by the editors of Tittle Tattle Magazine (for whom I occupied the vaguely-defined position of “Detective in Residence”) in order to solve a crime that had, up to that point, baffled the local police. It was the old story of a crime of passionlessness (if there is such a word) and an ingeniously concocted alibi. Breaking it didn’t cause me too much hardship, but the arrest of Major Stuart-Davies did cause something of a stir in the village. So impressed were the locals with my display of ratiocination and so pleased were they to see the back of the Major, that I understand there was even talk of commissioning a statue in my honour. The suggestion had been dismissed almost immediately on the grounds of cost and pointlessness; but since I never got so much as a bouquet of flowers for solving a crime in London, I was at least glad of the sentiment.
But the biggest reward I received from the case was the friendship of the local police inspector, Paddy Troughton, a good-hearted chap with a face like a crumpled-up paper bag, and a lazy eye to boot. To say that I assisted him on the case would be to misrepresent our working relationship. In fact, to describe it as a working relationship would be just as much of a misrepresentation; he more or less turned proceedings over to me and stood in the background, waiting to slap the handcuffs on someone. “Having you down here has been the closest thing to a holiday I’ve had since 1923,” he explained after the business was concluded. I made the mistake of asking him what happened in 1923. “I buried the wife,” he replied, stopping the conversation in its tracks.
Anyway, the case had been solved; the Major had been arrested; and, barring the unlikely event that I would be required to give testimony at the trial, my involvement was at an end and I was preparing to leave Overdale for good. I’d been using Inspector Troughton’s spare room, so taken with me was he by that stage, and I had decided to leave him a few back issues of Tittle Tattle as a sort of goodbye present. Yes, I know I complain about them; but they do at least write consistently nice things about me; and their artists, bless their nibs, always draw me at least two dress sizes smaller than I really am.
* * * *
Troughton was already getting stuck in before I was even out of the door. People have this habit of reading the stories back to me, as if to gauge my reaction, and I’m sorry to have to report that the Inspector was no different.
“ ‘Voila!’ cried Hilary Caine with a dramatic flourish: ‘The only way Lord Greyhaven could have appeared at the scene of the murder and at his anniversary party in Monte Carlo at the same time—with the assistance of his identical twin brother, Roland!’ ”
I emitted a small sigh. “Actually, his name was Ronald,” I admitted, “and he wasn’t a twin, he was a cousin with a strong family resemblance. And I’ve never said ‘Voila!,’ much less done anything with a dramatic flourish.”
He lowered the magazine. “Why are the policemen in your stories always such dullards, Miss Caine?” he asked.
Ah, the old sweet song.
“Don’t take it to heart, Inspector. It’s my job to identify the criminals, but I don’t write their wrongs, so to speak.”
“Perhaps you should complain to the publishers,” he suggested.
I smiled my most becoming smile and explained that I had given up trying many years ago (not that I remember trying all that har
d in the first place) and that details were frequently exaggerated in the interest of sales.
Satisfied with my unsatisfactory explanation, he perused the publication once more. “I must say, it makes quite a change from the parish newsletter. And you’re their . . . what do you call yourself . . . ‘Girl Detective’?”
“I don’t call myself anything of the sort, Inspector. But as I’m sure you’ve noticed, I do have a certain instinct in that direction. So they contact me whenever a noteworthy crime appears to have mislaid its solution, and I reunite the two.”
Troughton frowned, and as he did so his eyes nearly disappeared into his heavily wrinkled face. “And that doesn’t seem . . . vulgar to you at all, Miss Caine?”
I fancy I may also have frowned at this point although I doubt that the effect would have been anywhere near as startling. But if the moment of my departure from Overdale was to be an excuse for blunt talk, then I could be as blunt as the best of them. “Being poor seems vulgar to me, Inspector,” I said flatly. “And I’d sooner saw off my own extremities with a rusty bread knife than go begging to my father. In any case, my arrangement with them is purely temporary, you understand. I could give up any time I wanted. I could. I’m just tapering off gradually. And one meets the most interesting people. Occasionally, one arrests them. But on the whole, my most agreeable acquaintances have been on the right side of the law.”
This seemed to bring the discussion back into a more relaxed arena, and I recognised that fatherly smile upon Troughton’s face once more. When I say “fatherly,” by the way, I don’t include my own father in that category.
“Well, I certainly can’t complain,” he said. “I’d never have picked Major Stuart-Davies out as a killer, not in a million years. You’re sure we can’t persuade you to stay in Overdale one more week?”
This was a most unexpected invitation—I wasn’t aware then that there was a ‘we’ who felt so strongly about my presence.
“No, I’m afraid my work here is done,” I replied, enjoying some satisfaction at finally being able to say that phrase out loud.
“Well, I know there’ll be plenty who’ll miss you, Miss Caine. Folk are starting to look on you as quite a fixture.” Perhaps that was the thinking behind the statue suggestion, who can say? “I’d even go so far as to say you’ve become the toast of the village.”
At more or less that moment, a toast was indeed being proposed in Overdale, but wouldn’t you know it, I was not the toastee, although my name did come into the conversation and remain there for quite some time. Please store that fact in a safe place—we may require it later on. The toast was in honour of the lovely Miss Elspeth Seagrave and it was performed with tea rather than champagne, but I have no doubt of the toaster’s sincerity. Claude Mountjoy had an appalling habit of only ever saying what he thought—which, of course, always means social suicide—and if he claimed to wish Miss Seagrave well, then I must take it that he did indeed wish her well. Her uncle, the Reverend Alistair Parbold, however, Mountjoy did not wish well, and so he took delight in goading the old man whenever the opportunity arose. I understand, for instance, that the question, “Haven’t you got anything stronger than tea? Communion wine, for instance?” passed Claude’s lips fairly early on in the proceedings.
Parbold would not be goaded—not at this stage in the proceedings, at any rate. Elspeth probably giggled and told Mountjoy how terrible he was. Jago Meridian would have said nothing.
Anyway, to get back to matters of which I have definite first-hand knowledge, I had just finished off my goodbye cup of tea, and decided that the time had finally come to actually say goodbye.
“Well, I should really be off now,” I said. “Duty calls and all that rot.”
“Don’t you think Scotland Yard can cope with the London criminal in your absence, Miss Caine?” Troughton asked.
“Oh, they’re all right in a pinch, but I don’t like to leave them unsupervised for too long. I left instructions for Inspector Finn to be walked twice a day; but if I’m away for more than a week, he starts to pine. Besides, in a village the size of Overdale, I should think one murder’s your lot for the next decade or so.”
And at more or less that moment . . . well, I think you can guess, can’t you? Fate can be cruel, but it needn’t enjoy itself quite so much.
I finished packing, and was just on the brink of asking whether a police escort to the railway station might not be out of the question, when the telephone rang. As Troughton listened to the person on the other end of the line, I could tell that something was very wrong. His face didn’t go grey; given that his complexion was bright red for most of the time, so I doubt that it could. But I daresay the level of redness in his cheeks decreased at the news.
“The Vicarage? Good God! Hold the fort, Sergeant.”
Without speaking, I returned to my room and began unpacking.
I never really considered Jane Marple serious competition in the detecting stakes—probably mean-spirited of me, but she always struck me as pretty small fry—but for years after this investigation, I had to put up with all kinds of talk from ignorant people who imagined that I’d ‘borrowed’ the notion of a murder at the vicarage from the old biddy. In fact, I was ahead of her by about a year. Perhaps not quite a year, but definitely a good few months. I’m certain that I remember travelling by train somewhere and reading about the St. Mary Mead business in the newspaper and feeling a certain satisfaction that I had been there first. I was the Roald Amundsen of detection, if you like.
* * * *
Upon arrival at the Vicarage, I was really more interested in the late Reverend Alistair Parbold than in talking to the suspects, a job I left to Inspector Troughton. Poisoning cases can be such a bind; in ninety percent of the cases, you’re left hanging until some test-tube johnny identifies the fatal substance—that’s if it’s ever identified, since poison dissipates in the body a lot sooner than Reggie Fortune or Roger Sheringham would have you imagine.
Parbold lay where he had fallen by the dining room table. The late summer sun helped to make the majority of the scene quite a picturesque affair. As I think you’ve gathered by now, I had quite a reputation by this stage, and my finer sensibilities were no longer affected by the possibility of a corpse spoiling the ambience. And as ambiences go, this one was more than usually pleasurable: a spacious room with plenty of windows giving out onto a well-tended lawn. So there was no possibility that a rogue poisoner could just have sneaked up on the proceedings without being spotted by the revellers. I gave everything on the table an experimental sniff, in the unlikely event that the poison might reveal itself to my nasal passages. But only the odour of tea and potted meat sandwiches made itself clear. I noticed in passing that one of the four people present that afternoon preferred lemon in his tea to milk.
Some sensitive and respectful soul—the police sergeant, perhaps—had placed a napkin over Parbold’s face. I removed it and began my examination, silently giving thanks as I did so for the fact that tea, not alcohol, had been consumed that afternoon. There might after all still be a chance of ascertaining what the killer had used to achieve this result if right-thinking people acted quickly. The purple blotches on the victim’s face grabbed my attention immediately. I trust I don’t have to tell you what they signified. Or do I? Did I ever tell you about the poisoning of Brigadier General La Frenais during a regimental dinner? I didn’t? Oh, well—another time, perhaps.
I arrived in the hallway just as Inspector Troughton was closing the front door on the slim back of a young man. I pointed a finger and raised an eyebrow—the international sign for ‘Who was that?’
“Young Mr Meridian. I took his statement and told him he could go home. Sergeant Bates is seeing—er, taking Mr Mountjoy back right now.”
I wondered whether this Mountjoy was particularly frail, particularly wealthy, or particularly suspicious to m
erit such attention.
“Out of curiosity,” I asked, “did either of them mention anything about violent spasms? From the Reverend, I mean.”
“Both of them, as it happens. Haven’t had a proper talk with Miss Seagrave yet—she wanted to be left alone in the morning room to collect her thoughts—but I have no doubt she’ll say the same. It’s important, I take it?”
“Well, sad to say, I know more about poisons than any well-brought up girl my age should, and I think I can hazard a guess as to what was used. I recommend your police doctor checks his findings with a chap in London called Quigley, but I’d say the killer used something in the Datora family. It’s nasty stuff—and quick. There is an antidote, I understand.”
“Be a bit late in this case,” observed Troughton. He had a point: I suspect I was just showing off. To hide my shame, I asked if I could be allowed to participate in the questioning of the dead man’s niece, not that there would ever have been any doubt of that, of course.
Yes, Elspeth Seagrave was beautiful. Not beautiful like Vanessa Baxendale-Moroney (don’t worry about having to remember the name; it was a different case entirely), but clearly the sort of young woman who could go out in all weathers and still appear fresh and unblemished, blast her. Perhaps if our investigations hadn’t been taking place in a vicarage, I might have asked God to ensure that she would turn out to be the killer.
She was also, as one might expect, highly emotional, what with having recently seen her uncle die a horrible and unnatural death and all. I don’t want you to come away with the impression that I’m at all intolerant of people’s feelings at such a traumatic time; I’m just not awfully good at dealing with them.
