by Iona Whishaw
“We’ve always used it for our dogs. My grandmother gave it to me when I came out here. Made me promise I’d use it only for the dogs, as she had. Never had a nick in it. I don’t know where she got it. From her grandmother I expect.”
“That would place it back in the seventeen hundreds. It’s a veritable antique. That grandmother there?” Lane pointed at a small watercolour of a very elderly woman with her head swaddled in a shawl.
“That’s the one. Granny Bentley. I believe she was considered eccentric, though I adored her.”
“She must have been to water her pups out of a priceless Chinese bowl! Are you sure it will survive Alexandra?”
“It survived all the others,” Eleanor said stoutly.
On the shady back porch of the post office, Lane leaned back, looking out over the Armstrong garden. Alexandra had settled on Kenny’s lap and was sleeping off her earlier excitement. The garden, a handsome mix of vegetables and flowers, swept out toward the edge of the underbrush. Sweet peas climbed a wooden trellis and fell forward near the top in a profusion of heavy multi-coloured blooms. Eleanor always said she had to keep them picked, which is why everyone in King’s Cove went home from the post office with their newspapers, bills, and letters, and a fistful of flowers during the growing season.
“This is the real luxury, isn’t it? Just like in the old songs. A cottage, a garden, a puppy, a home built for two. Well, for two and the pesky neighbour who’s always over guzzling your food,” Lane said.
“You didn’t come here to discuss our garden, but you are guzzling our tea, so you’d better cough up,” Kenny said.
“Really, Kenny,” his wife chided. “Such bully tactics. Leave the girl in peace. She’ll cough up when she’s good and ready. Well?” She turned to Lane, smiling sweetly. “I believe you said you delivered Mrs. Castle’s eggs to Fred Bales. Any news of her missing son?”
“No, alas. But I did learn something about her,” said Lane. “Apparently she hasn’t always been a farmer. She’s the daughter of some local politician. Fred told me that. It made me feel a bit sorry for her. She’s so thin and worn down, and there can’t be much money in eggs. I imagine she needed the extra income her boy brought in from the garage. Mind you, my sympathy was a bit tempered by her telling me what a great man Hitler was. I’m not even sure I understand what she thinks Hitler could do for her in these circumstances.”
Eleanor put her hand to her chin in a thoughtful manner. “Now then, I wonder . . . there was a local scandal in the late twenties. Do you remember, Kenny? That awful blowhard Whatshisname. He was introduced to me, I think, at that tea the day I met you. Goodness! Isn’t that funny that we’re back at the day we met!”
“That Thomas fellow. Mother despised him. Had a bad end, didn’t he? His wife died, he married again, a much younger woman. Wife number two never had children, but he had a daughter from the first wife. There was a rumour he tossed his own daughter out without a farthing. It didn’t do him any good. Apparently when he died of a heart attack, the estate was bust. Bad losses in the crash, and then he borrowed heavily on his property without telling that poor chit he married. She got nothing.”
“That’s right!” said Eleanor eagerly. “There were rumours up and down the lake about that girl. She ran off with someone very unsuitable. Maybe that’s why her father disinherited her. I bet that’s who Mrs. Castle is.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
The vigil at the hospital continued, both for the doctors and for the uniformed policeman who sat outside the patient’s door. No other attempts to visit the patient were recorded, and he hung on, barely, to life. Darling did not believe for a minute that he was called Smith, but nevertheless had put Ames onto trying to discover such a person in any community up and down the north end of the lake. On top of that their blight of unsolved burglaries had expanded and now appeared to be moving like a slow wave, out of town and up the lake. He had dispatched people to visit victims at Willow Point and two summerhouses farther north, and take note of what had been lost: an ancestral portrait, a Dutch vase, and a gold watch with a heavy gold fob.
Darling, knowing that Ames was safely away looking for likely Joseph P. Smiths, had his feet on his desk and was wondering where to put his attention. It was hot, and in spite of his having pushed his window right to the top, the air was still and muggy. He looked at the three files neatly spread across the top of his desk, just beyond the reach of his well-polished dark brown, single-tone brogues. He’d bought them in England, eschewing the flashier two-toned variety. He’d admired the double row of stitching and had made the plunge as an affirmation, perhaps, of life, and a bid to get rid of the shoes he’d worn in prison in London. He did not admire them at the moment, though they gleamed at eye level.
It would be splendid if the three cases—the missing Carl, the unidentified man found shot in the boat, and the stolen antiques—were related to one another, he thought. Then evidence in one might illuminate something about the other two. He set himself to imagining how any one could be connected to either of the others. Carl Castle could have taken up stealing antiques and now be on the run. That seemed unlikely. He’d been fired from his job and was in a filthy humour. He’d go on a bender, not go stealing antiques. Carl Castle could have shot the man in the boat and would then have had a reason to go on the run. Darling drew a blank piece of foolscap forward and made a note. Carl Castle could have been “involved,” as his mother put it, in an antiques stealing racket and for some reason threatened to expose the other people in it. That should mean he was the one shot, not the alleged Joseph P. Smith. Of course, Castle could be dead, and they just hadn’t found him yet.
Darling sat back and shook his head. Trying to squeeze the antiques into the equation felt artificial. And maybe after all, they were three separate matters. Perhaps inspired by the stultifying and unmoving air in his office, which made him think of the doldrums in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, he came up with an inane rhyme.
“Evidence, evidence everywhere, nor any way to think,” he muttered. The problem was, he was short of evidence. He’d heard nothing from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police about the yellow car with the red licence plate; there had been nothing of interest in the pockets or bag of the wounded man in the boat, besides the letter fragment, unless the swastika pin was counted, which might or might not be his; and no one who’d been robbed of their precious family antiques could think of how a thief had known precisely what to look for. The one local antique shop had not received any of the stolen items, or so an inventory of their current stock seemed to show.
With decision he picked up the phone, and then with equal decision he put it down again. Lane wouldn’t be at home on a day like this. She’d be at the beach, keeping cool. Blasted lucky woman! Well, he was a policeman, and his lot was not a happy one. He reached over, pulled the burglary file toward him, and opened it, hoping for a pattern of some kind to leap out at him.
But she wasn’t at the beach. She was at the Balfour store again, buying some supplies for Mrs. Castle. Lane was beginning to wonder if perhaps Mrs. Castle did know where her son was, or knew why he’d left. She wasn’t sure why, except that she was trying to imagine what she herself would be like if her son were missing. She was certain she’d be sick with fear, unable to sleep, probably bothering the police with desperate demands for action, constantly imagining him at the bottom of a cliff or drowned in the lake. Everyone wears fear differently, Lane thought. Mrs. Castle was a woman who had clearly had a hard life. Perhaps fear for her was an angry, mute, hard knot inside her.
Bales’s dog, which evidently had found the sun too much, even for him, was lying in the shade provided by two fruit trees at the side of the store near the gas pump.
“You get a nice breeze up the hill here,” Lane said.
“I get a nice breeze from my fan, thank you very much,” Bales said, pointing to the ceiling. “Blast. Sorry, I’ll attend
to this and be back.”
A large black car had pulled up to the gas pump, and the driver was honking impatiently. Lane, reluctant to leave the environs of the fan, watched with interest through the window. The car was certainly massive and luxurious. The hood ornament looked a bit like the bombsights she’d seen on planes in hangers. She’d thought the car was the latest model something—she couldn’t see the front—but perhaps it had been manufactured during the war. She was about to turn away when she saw the driver. To her surprise, it was the offensive young man Councillor Lorimer had had with him at Lorenzo’s restaurant. His secretary, Lorimer had called him. She watched the gasoline bubbling in the pump and wondered what he’d be doing way out here.
“Sorry about that,” Bales said, coming back in. “Big man in a hurry.”
“He’s Councillor Lorimer’s secretary, I believe. I wonder why he’s all the way up the lake? Do people here vote in the municipal election?”
“Not so far as I know. Maybe he has an old mother he has to visit,” Bales said. “Right. Where were we?” He continued to pile things into the box, walking through the shop ticking off things on a list. “That’s the lot. You wouldn’t mind stopping by with the eggs after you drop this off? I called her and she’s got some on hand. Here’s the money, minus the groceries. That boy of hers better come back soon. He’s left her high and dry. Anyway, okay about the eggs?”
“Perfectly. They’re so easy to move around in their cardboard flats.”
“Those were invented right here in British Columbia,” he said. “Around 1910 or 1911.”
“You don’t say! That’s terribly clever. Imagine even thinking of it. I couldn’t invent my way out of a paper bag. I hope the inventor made a million.”
“Bet he didn’t, though. All the wrong people make the millions. Look at that guy in the car. How does he make all that money being a secretary?”
“You have a point, Mr. Bales. I guess the rest of us will have to be content with a good honest day’s work.” This was slightly disingenuous on her part Lane realized, as she started down the hill a few minutes later. Mr. Bales, Mrs. Castle, Inspector Darling, and Constable Ames, they all did a good day’s work. She wasn’t sure what she did, besides write rather indifferent poetry, visit her neighbours, and sit gazing at her view, but the days seemed to race by. Well, she was owed a year, after the war. Maybe this year she’d get down to it and tackle the apples. Robin could help her. She wondered how he’d feel about being asked. Picking season would be here before she knew it. She tried to imagine asking him and in her head heard his rebuff, which no doubt would be accompanied by a comment about “damn fool women.”
Driving around the corner, she saw the turnoff to the Castle farm just up ahead and pulled to a stop, frowning. Coming out of the farm road, and speeding off to Nelson in a cloud of dust, was the same big black car that had been at the gas pump. What did it mean? Whoever it was wouldn’t have been there long. Five, ten minutes at the most? Relieved that he wouldn’t know her car and would be very unlikely to remember her if he saw her, she waited until he’d gone around a bend, and then she slowly let out the clutch and turned down to Mrs. Castle’s.
“Ah, Ames. There you are. You took your time. Any luck with Joseph P.?”
“No, sir. But I’m happy to confirm that Smith is the most common name in the world.”
“And you’ve—damn!” The phone on his desk rang. “Yes? Darling here.”
“Inspector, I’m calling from the hospital. That patient you have here under guard? That Joseph Smith? He’s died, I’m afraid. The doctor said I was to ring you right away. The doctor had to go into another surgery, but would you like to talk to him? He could probably see you before he goes home around six.”
“Yes. Yes, I’d better talk to him. Thank you for calling.” Darling hung up the phone, folded his hands, and looked across at Ames.
“Well, we now have a possible murder. Joseph P. did not make it. I’m going round to the hospital to see the doctor later.”
Ames sat down and shook his head. “That’s too bad. I was hoping he’d come to and tell us his real name and how he got shot like that.”
“So was I, Ames, so was I. You’d better go arrange for him to be transported to the cooler. Gilly can have a look at him, though I imagine I’ll get chapter and verse from the doctor.” Their pathologist, Ashford Gillingham, affectionately known as Gilly, would perhaps have some insight. Darling realized that much of what Gilly could tell them, time of death, content of stomach, et cetera, et cetera, was moot. The injured man had died in full view of everyone at the hospital moments before. They could sure use some insight, Darling thought glumly. “It’ll mean an inquest.”
“The strangest thing, sir, about all of this, is that no one has claimed him. You’d think by now some desperate wife or mother would have come out of the woodwork.”
“As it happens I was about to say the same thing, Ames. You’ll make a heck of a sergeant! I’d better phone Miss Winslow. That old dear of hers, Mrs. Armstrong, will no doubt want to know.”
Muttering “Run along” with a shooing motion, Darling dialled Lane’s number.
“Inspector, how well met. I have some news for you, of sorts.” Lane wondered if she’d ever break herself of the habit of calling him “Inspector.” She recalled couples of her youth who’d called each other “Mrs. Thomas” or “Mr. Dickinson” their whole married lives. She pushed aside the churning anxiety she felt at the thought of marriage.
“Me too, I’m afraid, and you’d better let me go first. The man from the boat has died, I’m assuming of his injuries. I’m seeing the doctor in about an hour. I thought you’d want to know,” Darling said.
“Oh, I am sorry,” Lane said. She was. She had hoped somehow that because the man had hung on for several days, he might still recover. “Poor Eleanor and Kenny . . . oh, and Angela. Oh my God, and the boys. I shall have to tell them somehow as well.”
“That sounds like a job for their mother,” Darling suggested gently.
“Yes, of course. You’re right. Gosh. It’s a murder investigation now, I guess.”
“Yes. And I suppose you think you should get involved.”
“Don’t be silly,” Lane said. “Of course not. That poor man. Did no one come to claim him?”
“That’s exactly what Ames said. It’s like he was all alone in this world.”
“I wonder if some clue was left behind wherever it happened. Perhaps he was robbed and someone took his money and threw his billfold away. Oh. You said the wallet was there, with money in it.”
“We don’t know where it happened,” Darling pointed out reasonably.
“What was that you said?” Lane asked, suddenly animated.
“That we don’t know where it happened.”
“No, before that, something about Ames and being alone.”
“That he was all alone in this world?”
“That’s it. What if he was all alone in this world? What if he was an immigrant, or a refugee, or something? Someone like that might have come without a family. We’ve just had a war, after all.”
Darling made a face. She had a point. “Is this you staying away from my murder investigation? What were you going to tell me, by the way?”
“I had to drop by Mrs. Castle’s again today, and I saw Councillor Lorimer’s secretary driving what I expect is Lorimer’s very expensive black car out onto the Nelson road from Mrs. Castle’s driveway.”
“I don’t even know where to start. First of all, how do you know it was Lorimer’s secretary?”
“He came into Lorenzo’s with Lorimer to have lunch when I was there with Mrs. Armstrong. He tried to pinch the table Lorenzo had prepared for us. Lorenzo wasn’t having it, of course. Happily he didn’t hear the imprecation the man muttered on the way past us to another, very inferior table. Very unpleasant man.
My question is, what on earth can he have to do with Mrs. Castle?”
“Obviously Mrs. Castle herself didn’t tell you while you were on your so-called supply mission?”
“No. She was very vague. I said something about the beautiful car I saw coming away from her place, and she said that since Carl went off with the car, she’s had her egg customers coming directly to her some of the time. She seemed . . . I don’t know, nervy.”
“So, Lorimer has his eggs delivered in a limousine. That is not in itself a crime,” Darling said.
“And did I tell you? Mrs. Castle is not just Mrs. Castle. It turns out she is the daughter of a prominent politician from the 1920s. There was some sort of scandal involving an unsuitable liaison . . . with dead Mr. Castle, I assume, and she was disowned.”
“Again, not a crime.”
“I don’t know. I bet you couldn’t throw a teenaged girl onto the street nowadays without someone making a fuss. Anyway, I see what you mean about coincidences, but I’ve got some paper and some good sharp pencils and I’m going make a few notes, perhaps draw a map of the area, in my usual not-getting-involved way.”
During previous cases Darling had been impressed with the clarity these maps of hers had engendered. “Well, if it keeps you from getting underfoot, you carry on. I’m meeting with Gilly in a bit to see what he has to say.”
Gilly was thoughtful as he dried his hands. “Unusual situation. Usually I’m investigating cause of death, time, et cetera. No doubt you heard from the hospital. He died of sepsis, consequent upon a gunshot to his midsection causing blood loss, and ultimately infection, possibly from clothing fragments in the wound. He probably didn’t have a chance. But that’s all a matter of medical record. Anyway, I did see that his hands are very calloused from some labouring work; judging from where the callouses are he’s been digging . . . I’d have said farming, except that his hands are full of the small splinters you might get from logging without gloves. These are more recent probably. And it looks like he was in a fight recently. There was swelling and bruising on his knuckles, and he had a bad bruise that was still fading on his left shoulder, as if he’d been hit with something. How was he found again?”
