The Gimmel Flask

by Douglas Clark

  “I agree with that, too. I think you have a good chance now, sir, to persuade your Chief Constable to set up a specialist squad which can be relieved of all other duties and hived off to deal with intricate emergencies. I feel sure you have people capable of dealing with the minutiae of a case such as this.”

  “Of course we have. They’ve already been working on it for forty-eight hours.”

  “Ah!”

  “What do you mean? Ah?”

  Green spoke up. “Your experience may be different, sir, but forty-eight hours is a significant figure to us at the Yard.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “We reckon that if you don’t crack a case inside forty-eight hours, it’s gonna be a long business.”

  “Oh, do you? Well all I can say to that is that I reckon we’d make as good a job of failing as you will.”

  Masters was lighting up. “You think the case is certain to remain unsolved, sir?”

  “Look at the facts, man. We’ve tapped every possible source of supply of croton oil in the UK and there’s been none around for years. Even the hospitals don’t have it. Nil returns from everywhere. So where can you start? Then we’ve looked for motive. There isn’t any. At least none we can discover until we find a suspect to show us in which direction to look. So, no means, no motive, and as for opportunity . . . well, you wait till you see Hardy’s house, and then try to imagine what Limpid is like on a Sunday at lunchtime. It’s dead. Nobody to notice anything. The Archbishop of Canterbury could have walked into that house in his full dress uniform and nobody would have noticed him.”

  “That sounds to me as though there was a lot of opportunity for somebody.”

  “For somebody. Right. But who? Dammit, we don’t even know whether that somebody even came from Limpid. He might have come from Penzance for all we know.”

  “That thought might have occurred to your Chief Constable.”

  “What if it did?”

  “Simply that he might have thought we might be in a better position to carry out an investigation in Penzance than would your purely parochial crime squad.”

  “You’re taking what I said personally,” accused Telford.

  “Of course I am. I can understand you and your C.C. having a difference of opinion as to whether to call us in or not. But I would expect that once the decision had been taken, those differences would not be mentioned in our presence. That they have been suggests that you are still not prepared to give us your willing co-operation, even if you afford us full co-operation. I don’t care for grudging help. Perhaps if you were to tell my superiors at the Yard what I have just said, they may consider my presence here unnecessary and take steps to recall me. Then we shall all be happier.”

  “I’ve heard of you, Mr Masters, and how good you are with the words. You’re good at misunderstanding, too, it seems.”

  “Maybe. But I am a professional and I take enormous pride in my work and achievements. I have no desire to embark on an investigation that is considered unnecessary by the people I am helping; one that is further considered to be another man’s rightful perks; and finally one which is in any way likely to detract—through lack of the wholehearted confidence of my hosts—from my reputation.

  “By god, if I could, I’d order you out here and now.”

  Telford was angry, Masters cool.

  ‘“The phone is in front of you. I’m sure your Chief Constable is available for consultation.” The words were quiet, but so well spaced and enunciated that they cut the silence with almost painful, ear-piercing clarity.

  Green put his pacific oar in.

  “Now, now, gents! Let’s not get into a tantrum about this. The thing is to get it straight. We’re not here to steal anybody’s thunder, Mr Telford. That’s not our way. We spend our lives sorting out problems such as the one you’ve got here, so another one more or less is going to make no difference to us. But you ought to know that our usual way of playing it is to sort the thing out, if we can, and then leave it to the locals on whose patch it is to tie up the loose ends, make the arrests, prepare the case and so on. That means we can get away quicker to help somebody else. So it’s a partnership. We play the first half, you play the second. Your boys are not going to be excluded in any way. The only thing for you to decide is whether you want to take the field for the whole of the game or only half of it.”

  Masters turned to his subordinate. “Thank you, Chief Inspector. I’m glad of your explanation.” He turned to Telford. “I’m taking my people off now for tea. We had only a snack lunch, so we can do with it. Our absence will give you time to think. I’ll be back at four o’clock to hear what you’ve decided.”

  Telford didn’t reply immediately. He sat back in his chair with his thumbs in his belt. Masters noted that the cold sweat he had expected to see on the pale face had broken out on Telford’s upper lip. The Chief Superintendent eyed them for a moment or two, then leaned forward and spoke into an intercom. “Desk? Send in tea for five, sandwiches for eight—and make them good ones. Oh, and add some cakes or chocolate biscuits. As quickly as possible.”

  He leaned back again.

  Masters said: “We appreciate the hospitality, sir.”

  “Dammit,” said Telford explosively, leaning forward to emphasise what he was saying. “That’s the sort of thing I wanted to do for you. That’s why I’m here personally in Limpid to meet you. I felt I couldn’t let you arrive at a Chief Inspector’s station with no sign of a headquarters’ recognition. I may have worded it badly, but what I’ve been trying to say is I’ve no objection to you or the Yard. Only to your being here when this case could be of such value to my own men. East Anglia isn’t so full of this sort of crime that we get a chance to do our stuff very often. And I wanted my men to have this chance. Trouble is, I couldn’t guarantee the Chief Constable that we’d succeed. How could I? This case is going to be a bastard for whoever takes it on. I know that. But how do I know what our squad can do if they’re not allowed to try?”

  “To whom would you have given the case if it had been left to you?”

  “My crime squad Superintendent and a fairly bright young Inspector.”

  “Are they the people who have done all the spadework so far?”

  “Yes, and they’re disappointed men at this moment.”

  “Can you spare them and a car for the rest of the week?”

  “I’d have to, wouldn’t I, if you weren’t here?”

  Masters turned to Green. “If we borrow their car for you and Berger, will you be happy to have Mr Telford’s bright young Inspector with you?”

  “Like a shot. A boy with local knowledge.”

  “To help you. Not under instruction, although if you can give him a few tips I daresay it would be appreciated.”

  “Understood.”

  Telford had been sitting quiet, his lips slightly parted. Masters turned to him. “I’ll be glad to have your Superintendent working alongside me. It’s not an arrangement I’ve ever made before, but if you are happy with it . . .?”

  “I’m happy all right.” Telford really did seem eager to accept. “And my two will be chuffed to be in with a Yard squad. It’s a chance they’ll take with both hands.”

  “Then we’ll call that settled. When can we meet them?”

  “You’re in a hurry?”

  “I don’t like to give trails time to grow cold.”

  “They’re out and about on this business now. I’ll call them in. They should be here by the time we’ve had tea. Oh, and by the way, I’ve booked rooms for you at the Swan and Cygnets on the High Street.”

  “Thank you.”

  *

  “Superintendent Wally Frimley and Inspector Colin Hoame.”

  Telford introduced the two newcomers and asked them to sit. He then explained the arrangements that had been made for them to collaborate with Masters’ team.

  Frimley spoke for both of them and expressed satisfaction at the thought of working alongside the Yard, and with this team
in particular.

  Masters, like most other people, enjoyed hearing a little praise, but he hurriedly asked Frimley to tell them what his people had been doing since they took over the case on Sunday.

  “Monday, really,” replied Frimley. “We didn’t suspect foul play until the doctors had finished their discussions and the pathologist had pronounced. What really clinched it was the disappearance of the double oil and vinegar bottle when we wanted to have its contents analysed.”

  “Double bottle?” asked Green. “What was it like?”

  “I didn’t see it, of course. But Mrs Hardy’s description is that it was like two flasks put together. Pear shaped flasks with one flat side each. They were joined on this flat side but the necks—or the stalks of the pears if you like to think of them that way—were elongated and curved over in opposite directions. Each mouth had a stopper, of course, but if you held the thing over your food to pour out vinegar, say, you wouldn’t get oil, because the mouth of the half containing oil would be curved upwards.”

  “Got it,” said Green. “I’ve seen them abroad, I think.”

  “Did you ask what colour the glass was?” enquired Masters.

  “Smoky colour.”

  “So if the croton oil was slightly different in colour from the salad oil in which it was mixed, nobody would have been able to notice it.”

  “That’s right. And after tipping a drop into a spoon and mixing it with vinegar, nobody would be able to tell the difference either.”

  “Fine. That settles that point. Now, having decided you’d got a murder case on your hands, what did you do?”

  Hoame said: “I organised an enquiry round about to see if anybody had noticed anybody going into or out of the Hardy house. It seemed to me that if I could get a lead there, I’d be on the way to finding who had killed Hardy.”

  “No luck?”

  “None.”

  “I,” said Frimley, “tried to trace the source of the croton oil. I think you’ve heard we’ve enquired of every likely source in the country, again with no joy.”

  “That’s a lot to have achieved. At any rate you’ve eliminated one route. Anything else?”

  “Today should have been auction day. Hardy and his two partners hold an auction on the first Tuesday of every month in the Corn Exchange. Today’s sale and yesterday’s viewing were both cancelled because of Hardy’s death, but people have been buying catalogues for the past fortnight and in case any of them had not heard of Hardy’s death or that the sale had been cancelled, Hoame and I spent some time there.”

  “Did anybody turn up?”

  “Quite a few. Fifty or sixty all told. We were able to ask a lot of questions—particularly of the regulars—in case anything was known of bad blood between Hardy and a client. Nothing specific came up, but we learned that a goodish number regarded him as a bit of a crook.”

  “With good reason?”

  “We got no evidence.”

  “What about his estate agency side? Have you looked into that?”

  “We’ve enquired at every house he’s sold during the past three years. That’s about forty or so. Nobody feels he sold them a pup, though one or two think his prices were too steep.”

  “That’s inevitable these days. Is that the lot?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Thank you. It’s been a frustrating job for you, and something like it will have to continue, I’m afraid.”

  “Such as?” asked Hoame.

  Green said: “Hasn’t it occurred to you, laddie, that it’s not only the people Hardy sold property to, but those he sold it for who might be just a little upset if he’d gypped them?”

  “How?”

  “Well, what if a chap went to him and said, “I want to sell my house for forty thousand. Hardy—who was a valuer, I suppose—looks it over, discovers it is worth forty thousand, but says it’s only worth thirty. He then finds a buyer at thirty—himself working through a third party. Once he’s got it for thirty, he sells it for forty—again through his third party. Ten thousand nicker made on one deal. But the original owner finds out. What’s his opinion of Hardy?”

  “He could sue him.”

  “What for?”

  Hoame thought for a moment and then shrugged.

  “So, laddie, we’ve got a bit more searching to do.”

  Telford, who had so far sat quietly, turned to Masters. “I reckon I know what you’re going to say next.”

  “In that case, be my guest.”

  “It’s that bottle, isn’t it?”

  “You must agree that we will have to try and find an explanation for why whoever killed Hardy risked his neck to come back to the house to remove the bottle. It was risky enough the first time, coming to leave the croton-oil, so there must have been a powerful reason for removing it after the man was already dead.”

  Hoame said. “We hadn’t got round to that.”

  “But we ought to have done,” rejoined Frimley. “It makes me sick to think I didn’t spot that.” He looked across at Masters with some concern. “You’re not suggesting he collected it to use it again, are you?”

  “If it’s a possibility, we must bear it in mind. But I would say our murderer is clever. He used a means we can’t trace to its source, he timed the assault to a nicety and he had the guts to come and go at great risk to himself. If such a person was intending to kill a second person in the same way, I would say he had enough intelligence and foresight to hold some of the croton-oil back for the purpose, rather than run unnecessary risks.”

  “That’s good thinking,” approved Telford. “So you needn’t get too worried about multiple murders, Wally.”

  Masters looked across at Hoame. “Now, D.I., leading on from what I’ve just said, what can you further tell us about our murderer?”

  Hoame frowned in concentration.

  “Come on, laddie,” said Green, who had taken the embarrassed Hoame under his wing. “The Super said this chap was intelligent and brave and what else?”

  “Good at timing.”

  “What does that suggest?”

  “That he knew exactly when the Hardys had lunch.”

  “What else?”

  “That he must have known they were having salad for lunch.”

  “And?”

  “And?”

  “Well, he didn’t kill Mrs Hardy, did he?”

  “You mean he knew only Hardy himself used oil and vinegar whereas his wife ate mayonnaise?”

  “You’re doing a good job. So what’s your conclusion?”

  “Conclusion? Oh, yes! As he knows so much about the Hardys, he must be a close friend or relative.”

  “Great.”

  “Don’t stop,” urged Masters. “Suck it dry.”

  But Hoame was finished. It was Frimley who said: “He could have put the croton oil in at any time before Sunday lunch. Say on Saturday or Friday, because he didn’t care when Hardy took it. . . .”

  “Hey, wait a minute,” interposed Telford.

  Masters turned interrogatively to the Chief Superintendent.

  “It had to be arranged so that Hardy would take it on Sunday, so’s the murderer would know when to collect the bottle. Hadn’t it?”

  Masters grinned delightedly.

  “You’ve made a good point, sir. But is it valid? Yes or no?”

  Telford sat forward. “No, blast it, it isn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Say our murderer did put the oil in two or three days early, and then kept watch.”

  “Kept watch?” asked Hoame. “How?”

  “Can anybody see into the dining room with a telescope for instance? If so, he’d only have to watch lunch and supper for a couple of days.”

  “Excellent,” murmured Masters. “But to get back to where we were before Mr Telford made his point—which must, incidentally, be investigated—what about Wally’s line of reasoning? Berger, can you see anything in that?”

  “Yes, sir, I can. Mr Frimley says the oil could have gon
e in at any time. So it could if whoever put it there knew Hardy’s eating habits. Say he knew Hardy had lunch at a pub every working day—and Saturday is a working day for estate agents, usually—and went out to dinner at a club or somewhere on Friday nights and took his missus out on Saturday nights. Why then, sir, he’d know Sunday lunch would be the first main meal Hardy would eat at home after the oil was planted.”

  “So that reinforces our former theory that the killer knows the Hardys well enough to be aware of their domestic habits. Go on, somebody, please. Keep the ball rolling.”

  “Sir,” said Reed, “one man would know for sure when the Hardys were going to have salad. The greengrocer. If Mrs Hardy went in on Saturday morning and bought lettuce and tomatoes and so on and said, as most women do, that she wanted everything very fresh because it had to keep till Sunday, he’d know her plans.”

  “Excellent. Anything else?”

  This time nobody leapt in with an idea. Masters, however, was not prepared to stop yet.

  “When Mr Telford told me he knew what I was going to say next, he was quite right. The bottle was the next item on my list, but I hadn’t quite finished the previous point. Mr Green has very rightly pointed out—and I use his word—that Hardy may have gypped somebody over selling a property of the real estate variety, as the Americans call it. But let us not forget that he sells—or auctions—other things—which may be of considerable value. I think I’d be right in saying that the antique world offers tremendous scope for faking, wrong describing, underselling, overpricing and so on and so forth. It’s a world I know little about, and I may be doing most people with those interests a great injustice, but an unscrupulous man is an unscrupulous man in any walk of life. So we shall have to look very carefully at what his firm has auctioned for some time back, and that is going to be a bit of a routine chore.”

  He turned to Telford. “In your brief to the Yard, sir, you made the point that Hardy was a wealthy man. Why mention that particularly?”

  “I also said he was a town councillor. Both points seemed relevant to me. But I suppose really it was because I was surprised at the extent of his interests and the size of his investments. Of course I don’t know everything. I looked into that side of his affairs myself—interviewed his solicitor, accountant and bank manager. But the fact is, I’ve been around these parts for a good many years now, and I’ve known of Hardy for a long time. It isn’t all that long ago that he didn’t have all that much money. And when a small town estate agent gathers a lot of money in a very short time and he is then murdered, it seems relevant to me. As a possible clue as to a line of enquiry, I mean. Not as a special reason for doing more to find his murderer than, say, the killer of a tramp.”