The Gimmel Flask

by Douglas Clark

  “How d’you do, both of you. Now, Masters, what can I do for you?”

  “I want you to tell me, if you can, whether there are any gimmel flasks in the area other than the two we talked of last night.”

  “The answer to that is that I am morally certain there must be a few more. They are by no means rare. But I can give you no clue as to their whereabouts. They could literally be anywhere.”

  “I understand that, sir. But collectors tend to specialise in certain areas of the antique spectrum, don’t they? Who, of your knowledge, is a collector—in a professional or amateur way—who might be interested in Nailsea glass and might, therefore, conceivably have acquired a gimmel flask?”

  “Collectors are rather more rare than the flasks,” said Benson. “I can suggest nobody except Mrs Horbium, who is rather catholic in her tastes and tends to amass anything and everything she thinks may be vaguely antique. Not furniture. Smaller items.”

  “Nobody else?”

  “Nobody. But I’m sure the dealers might muster a few.”

  “Dealers in Limpid?”

  “There is only one. You’ll see it on the Market Hill. A furnisher’s. Next door to a television rental shop. But away from Limpid, practically every village has its antique shop.”

  “I see. Now, could you give me Mrs Horbium’s address?”

  “She lives in Dew-pond Cottage, which is one of a row opposite the playing field on the London Road. Some way past where you met me yesterday. You met Mrs Wellerby, last night. She has taken the cottage next door, called Ox-bow Cottage. It belongs to Mrs Horbium who, I think, owns the whole row. They’re very attractive and occupied by elderly colonels and their ladies. A very select row of cottages indeed.”

  *

  The cottages were certainly attractive, if not of proven selectivity. The row was end-on to the main road, but set far enough back for the nearest one to be well clear of pounding traffic. Originally a narrow walk had passed the front doors and separated the front gardens from the cottages. Now the front garden fences had disappeared. The walk had been widened and paved, the gardens had been gravelled. So the cottages could be easily reached on foot, and the gravelled area catered for cars. Surrounding the gravel were well-tended flower beds. The back gardens each had a garage set at an angle of forty-five degrees to the main road and the tarmac roadway which had been put down to serve them. By this echelon plan, it had been possible to make the little service road quite narrow, since no room was needed for a vehicle to turn at right angles. The whole row was decorated white, with front doors in a variety of colours carried out in the highest gloss paint. Masters could appreciate why Benson had spoken of the row as he did. There was an air of quiet affluence and screaming cleanliness about the place.

  Ox-bow Cottage took no finding. The expert tinkling of a piano sounded through an open window.

  “Joanna Wellerby practising,” said Masters as the noise of the engine died and the brush of the tyres on gravel allowed the notes to come clearly. “It’s an ability I wish I had.”

  “You, Chief?” asked Reed. “A pianist?”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re a man with . . . well, sir, you’re too direct, too manly . . . you haven’t got that sort of temperament.”

  “I don’t know whether that’s a compliment or not, Sergeant. But the fact remains that if I could run up and down scales like that I’d be a very contented man.”

  Frimley said: “The other man’s grass is always greener. You’re a contented man now, because you’re as much a professional at your job as she is at hers. More so, probably. She’s only on the upper branches, not the very top one. You are. I read that article by that German detective. I can remember what he said. ‘Masters is the man on whom all police detectives the world over should model themselves, even if few will ever emulate him.’”

  “That bloke was talking through the top of his Germanic cap. I’d entertained him to a good dinner the night before he wrote that.”

  They left the car. The scales had given way to Beethoven. They passed the open window and found Dew Pond Cottage. The door was painted eau de nil.

  Mrs Horbium was at home. Today she was in a frock of what looked like silk material. At any rate, to Masters’ untutored eye, it shone like silk. It was basically old gold or copper colour, with a pattern of rectangles in blue and red, like patches of four by two set higgledy-piggledy all over it, each surrounded by a frame of white a quarter of an inch wide. It had short sleeves, considerably wider than Mrs Horbium’s very fat arms which, though smooth and white inside, seemed to be dotted with innumerable reddish pimples on the backs of the upper parts. The dress was cut too low in a bound V in front. Mrs Horbium’s cleavage was too big for the escapement. From Masters’ height it was like looking down into some crevasse from which those unlucky enough to fall in would never emerge. On her blue hair—not covering it, but planted cornerwise across it like some mortar board that had lost its cap-piece—was a brightly coloured head-scarf, held on by heaven knew what sort of mechanism. On her hands she had canary-coloured rubber gloves, and on her feet a pair of oldish white sandals now relegated to working shoes.

  “Mr Masters.” She was coy. “And friends, I see. Come to call on me. But I thought your Mr Green said you wouldn’t be interviewing everybody in Limpid.”

  “Good morning, Mrs Horbium. May I present my colleagues: Detective Superintendent Frimley, whom you may know by sight as he is local, and another member of my team, Detective Sergeant Reed. We are still not proposing to interview everybody in Limpid, but we have come to you specially because we think you may be able to help us and to give us some advice.”

  “Oh, do come in. Come in. And excuse me a moment while I tidy myself. Housework, you know, has to be done.”

  “Thank you. But please don’t put yourself out on our account. I assure you it isn’t necessary and you look very nice in your working clothes. That headscarf is particularly fetching.”

  “Do you think so?” She wobbled down the tiny hall in front of them, the sea-roll induced by her enormous waves of flesh carrying her at every step to within an inch of one wall or the other of the passage. “This is my sitting room. There are enough chairs for everybody.”

  It was garish. But Masters realised, with something of a shock, that had it not been so, he would have been disappointed. The right decor for any room, he supposed, was the one which matched the personality of the owner. He would expect Mrs Horbium to overwhelm in some way. Here she had overwhelmed with colour, amount of furnishing, mixture . . . in fact, in every way possible, with no regard for period, style or motif.

  Over the modern fireplace was a Victorian overmantle with a square mirror in the middle and a host of little shelves and brackets, each one crammed with bric-à-brac, some of it attractive—in Masters’ eyes—much of it so appalling he would never have afforded it house room. The picture rail was still there, and along its length, cheek by jowl, were decorative plates. Elsewhere on the walls were fretwork brackets such as were done fifty years ago by youths in woodwork classes, much as their sisters wove samplers for needlework. Each bracket was laden with as many articles as it could carry.

  But the chairs were comfortable and accepted them well enough. Their hostess left them temporarily with a squawked desire to be excused, and in no time at all was back with a collapsible three tier cake stand in one hand and a large, round brass tray in the other. On her second journey she brought in the folding legs to convert the tray to a table. Before Masters could protest she had gone again, and next time came back with a cream-filled sponge cake, a plate of individual cream cakes and a plate of biscuits. As she put them on the cake stand she explained that she always had a little snack in the middle of the morning as she didn’t usually eat much breakfast.

  Then the coffee and cups came in and she sat down to preside. She would accept no refusal, and in the face of such kindness it was difficult to be adamant. Besides, thought Masters, the more of her cream cake they
ate, the bigger the favour they would be doing her, for he was now pretty sure that her size was not due to some physical defect but simply to a voracious appetite.

  “This is nice,” she said, biting into a squidgy wedge of cake. Masters wasn’t sure whether she was referring to their visit or the food, but he replied courteously: “Very nice, indeed.”

  “How?” she asked, using her tongue to take a stray blob of cream from the corner of her mouth, “How can I help you?”

  “I wondered whether you happened to have in your collection a gimmel flask.”

  “There now!” She put down her plate. “Isn’t it always the same! You never hear a word for years and then if you do suddenly hear it, you hear it twice ever so quickly.”

  “Which word, Mrs Horbium? Gimmel?”

  “Yes. I didn’t even know it myself until Mr Lamont used it a week or two ago, and now you use it.”

  “But you know what I mean by gimmel flasks?”

  “Yes. What I used to call twin bottles.”

  “Mr Lamont told you what they were, I suppose?”

  “Oh, no! I don’t like to show my ignorance. I looked it up later. I was quite surprised to see what it meant.”

  “I see. Have you got one?”

  “Oh, yes I have, somewhere.”

  “Would you mind checking for me?”

  “Not in the least. It is in the dining room. In the sideboard.”

  “You use it for salad oil and vinegar?”

  “Oh, no. I like my mayonnaise.”

  “I’ll bet she does,” said Reed when their hostess had left them. “Anything fattening and she’s after it like a long dog. Cream cakes for mid-mornings!”

  “Here you are. Just where I thought it was. It’s a bit dusty, I’m afraid, because I haven’t cleaned those cupboards out for ages. There is so much to dust in this house.”

  They all silently agreed with her as she handed the flask to Masters.

  “Why are you interested in gimmel flasks? Are you a collector, too?” Before Masters could reply, she went on, “I’m not a real collector. Or should I say I collect quite a lot, as you can see.” She waved an arm like a leg of mutton round the room. “And there’s more, everywhere in the house. But it’s a mania with me. Like eating.” She giggled. “Everybody is always telling me I eat too much and collect too much. One gentleman was quite rude about it. He said that over-collecting should be called a sickness—of mind and body—and that I also made over-eating a sickness. But for me, a large number of just one type of antique is not as interesting as an assortment—a sort of general collection which I can fit into my home. I’ve been quite successful at fitting it all in, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Reed, with an amount of feeling which left Masters wondering whether the sergeant had misunderstood Mrs Horbium’s drift and had thought she was referring to the actual housing of her collection rather than to the dimension it added to her home.

  “I don’t make a serious study you see. I just pick and choose. At the moment I’m having quite a flirtation with pot lids.”

  “With what?” asked Frimley in amazement.

  “Pot lids. I will show you some.” She crossed to one of the brackets and came back with three circular ceramic lids. “There you are. One from a bear’s grease jar, one from tooth paste and one from cold cream. Cherry tooth paste and Rose cold cream! Charming. And don’t forget potted shrimps. These lids, you know, really served as the labels for the jars. Early advertising, in fact. As you can see, most lids were black and white, but some are coloured. I haven’t any coloured ones yet. But don’t you think that dancing bear is sweet? One of these days I shall go on a dig.”

  “Dig? What for?” asked Frimley.

  “Pot lids, of course. The best place to find them is on a pre-1895 rubbish dump. They were thrown away as rubbish then, and because most rubbish in those days was used for land reclamation you can find them by digging at the mouth of the Thames or at filled-in clay pits. And alongside canal banks. A lot of local authorities, in whose areas canals were being dug, seized the opportunity to bury their rubbish under the excavated soil thrown up to form the banks and tow paths. Joanna and I are thinking of trying our hand this summer.”

  “Your daughter, Joanna?” asked Frimley.

  “Oh dear, no. Joanna Wellerby, the pianist. She’s taken the cottage next door. Very suitable for her, because there is one big room through from front to back, big enough to take her piano very comfortably and to make quite a studio for her. Her husband left her, you know, and as she was born near Limpid she came back here when her marriage broke down. I knew her mother, and I was able to help her, because these cottages are all mine, and I had one empty. I had thought of setting out my collection in there, but Joanna’s need was greater than mine.

  “Is she interested in antiques?” asked Masters.

  “Oh, no. Her aesthetic cravings are amply satisfied by her music, though she is becoming a little interested since she got to know Mr Lamont. I told you he mentioned a gimmel flask to her a few weeks ago and, of course, she sees my collection.” She stopped suddenly and opened her eyes wide. “You never told me why you are interested in gimmel flasks. Do you want to buy one?”

  Masters ignored the last part and simply asked: “Do you really not know why we are interested in gimmel flasks?”

  “Why should I know?”

  “Haven’t you heard how Mr Hardy died?”

  “Oh yes. Very sad. He was poisoned, or so Maud told me.”

  “Mrs Hardy didn’t tell you what the poison was?”

  “She didn’t know. She said the police didn’t know on Sunday and on Monday they refused to tell her.”

  “Right enough,” said Frimley. “Nobody knew what the poison was until the pathologist found out. Besides, we packed Mrs Hardy off to her room soon after we arrived on the scene.”

  “But Mrs Hardy did know how you thought the poison was administered.”

  “Oh yes,” answered Frimley. “We had to question her as to what he had eaten. The table was still laid of course, and after she’d told us what he’d had and we couldn’t find the oil and vinegar, she told us it was in a double bottle. As you know, it had gone, and its disappearance told us what we wanted to know. The pathologist simply told us what the poison was.”

  Mrs Horbium could hardly wait for Frimley to finish speaking. “You mean the poison was in their gimmel flask?”

  “That’s right. Didn’t Mrs Hardy tell you?”

  “I suppose she forgot,” said Mrs Horbium, and then with an unusual sensitivity added, “and I could hardly ask her, could I?”

  Masters smiled. “So now, Mrs Horbium, you see why we are interested in the flasks.” As he said it, he realised she couldn’t possibly know his theory about a second flask having replaced the first, but nevertheless she said she understood.

  As Masters got to his feet, he said: “Is Mrs Wellerby a great friend of Mr Lamont’s from the old days? They’re of an age, perhaps?”

  “They’re about the same age, certainly, but Joanna didn’t know him until quite recently, Between you and me, Mr Masters, I think she sees too much of him. He is a married man, after all. But there, I suppose I’m old-fashioned. There are no rules of conduct these days, are there?”

  *

  Hoame directed Berger to drive down the London Road a short way and then to turn right. After less than a hundred yards they came to another major road parallel to the London Road. But Mill Road was the old packway and so was narrower and less able to take the traffic that used it. Along Mill Road were some of Limpid’s oldest buildings, and these were suffering sadly, flaking and crumbling under the constant earth tremors caused by the haulage vehicles. Berger drove slowly, taking a gently weaving course, past old shops and, in places, lath and daub buildings. Then the road began to dip down the side of the low hill on which Limpid had originally been built. At one point, the road and the river came together, and though Mill Road turned away again, here had been the
old ford over the Clear, the river which, with the hill, had determined the original site of Limpid. Slightly upstream of the ford was the mill itself, a broad-based, stunted tower of wood, the horizontal slats of which had once gleamed white, but which under the aegis of Hardy, Williams and Lamont had turned to the grey of bare weathered timber.

  The car left the road and hairpinned back on the little track down to the mill. The double front doors of the ground floor were wide open. Berger pulled up in front of them.

  “Hoy!” yelled a voice from inside. “You can’t park there. We wanna get out.”

  As Green disembarked he said, “Drive on a few yards, son,” and then, accompanied by Hoame, he entered the dim interior of the mill. All about him, piled between the pillars that supported the floor above, were heaps of furniture, some showing lot labels. Ahead of him was an old, shabby blue furniture van, and sitting on an old kitchen chair with his back to its bonnet was a man.

  “Are you the one who shouted, mate?”

  “Yes, I am. That’s a private road to the mill. You’ve no business parking there.”

  “Ah, but I have.”

  Somewhere behind the van a rather tuneless voice broke into song. “Tina, soon the leaves will be falling, From the pine-lands I’m calling, Won’t you come back to me-e?”

  “Good lord,” said Hoame. “What was that?”

  “That’s Bandy,” said the man, and then added by way of explanation, “singing.”

  “Just the two of you here?” asked Green.

  “Who wants to know?”

  “Cut it out,” growled Berger who had joined them. “This is Detective Chief Inspector Green.”

  “Police, are you? Well there’s nothing here for you. The lorry’s all right since we had the tail light done.”

  Green stared at him. He was paunchy and unshaven. He wore scuffed brown shoes which ought to have had laces and hadn’t, and bulged in places as though the wearer were a chronic sufferer from corns and bunions. The dirty grey trousers had seen better days. He was wearing a green baize bib apron and over it an old grey jacket. He had a greasy tie on a woollen collar and on his head he wore a greasy old trilby.