by Joyce Porter
The woolshop lady could, would and, bringing out a large cash book from under the counter, did.
‘The twentieth?’ repeated the Hon. Con thoughtfully. ‘ Got a calendar or something I could borrow?’
The woolshop lady produced a pocket diary and helpfully opened it at the right month.
The Hon. Con removed the little pencil, licked it and drew a large black cross. ‘The fourteenth,’ she said. ‘That was the day Rodney Burberry was killed. The fifteenth’ – she marked the date with a smaller, fainter cross – ‘that’s the day the body was actually found.’
The woolshop lady gave an excited squeak. But that meant that Mr Smith hadn’t left Totterbridge until five days after his office boy had passed over! How extraordinary! He must have known that the youth was dead, surely? Reticence was all very well in its way but one could carry it too far.
The Hon. Con was not listening. She was staring moodily at the diary. This Smith business was certainly beginning to pong a bit. ‘When did this Mr Smith of yours give you notice?’
The woolshop lady caught on to the significance of that question all right and gave another squeak of excitement. She got a bleak glare from the Hon. Con for such an unprofessional display of emotion and hurriedly consulted her cash book in an endeavour to find the answer. It was no easy problem. It was the woolshop lady’s sister who had been given the notice and she had failed (in spite of all her pretensions to be so efficient and businesslike) to make a note of it in the cash book. However, the woolshop lady wasn’t going to let a little thing like that defeat her. She resorted to calculation. All the ramifications of the shift system as worked by the two women were meticulously remembered, analysed and plotted. The weather, a royal birthday and the visit of the knitting needle representative were all brought into play. Eventually the woolshop lady jabbed a triumphant finger at the diary. Yes, without a doubt, that was the date! It had to be either the Thursday or the Saturday in that week and she knew it wasn’t the Thursday because they’d had fish fingers for supper that night.
The Hon. Con, understanding the logic of this perfectly, put another of her crosses against the sixteenth. So – the mysterious Mr Smith had told his landladies that he was vacating their premises two days after Rodney Burberry had been murdered and one day after the body had been found. Hm. ‘Did your Mr Smith give any special reason for going at that particular time?’
No, the woolshop lady didn’t think so. Her sister hadn’t said anything, as far as she could remember. They’d just assumed that Mr Smith had at last found the premises that he’d been looking for on behalf of his firm. The two men who’d called to see him on the Saturday morning were no doubt something to do with it – signing the lease or the bill of sale or whatever it was.
The Hon. Con spurred her chair a couple of inches nearer to the counter. ‘What two men?’
The two men. The only two men. That’s why the woolshop lady’s sister had noticed them. They were the only visitors Mr Smith had had during the whole time he had been in occupation of the flat upstairs. It was immediately after these two men had left that Mr Smith had come down and told the woolshop lady’s sister that he was leaving and she had naturally assumed that there was some connection between the two events.
The Hon. Con spat out a splinter that she had nibbled off the diary pencil. ‘Jolly interesting,’ she observed, just to impress the woolshop lady. ‘What sort of men were they?’
Oh, ordinary men, the woolshop lady thought.
‘They would be!’ grumbled the Hon. Con and poked another splinter out of the gap between her front teeth. ‘And when did you say your Mr Smith actually went?’
The twentieth, which was a Wednesday. He could, of course, have stayed until the Saturday which was when his seven days’ notice was up but he had actually gone early, on the Wednesday. The woolshop lady delicately managed to imply that, in her opinion, this showed indecent – if not guilty – haste.
For want of something better to do, the Hon. Con glumly decorated the borrowed diary with yet another cross. This Smith man, she thought with some bitterness, was giving her a heck of a sight more trouble than he could possibly be worth. She sighed – a private eye’s life is not a happy one – and looked up to find the woolshop lady watching her with eager anticipation. The Hon. Con realized that she was under a moral obligation to put on a bit of a show. ‘Er – got a piece of writing paper I could scrounge?’ she asked.
The woolshop lady reached under the counter and handed her a large white bag.
‘Ta! Now then, what’s this chap’s address? I reckon I shall have to go and see him or write to him or something.’
The woolshop lady nodded her head in vigorous agreement. Quite right! It was about time somebody went and tackled Mr Smith and made him account for his peculiar behaviour. Did the Hon. Con actually grill murderers herself or was she required to leave third-degreeing and such-like to the police? The woolshop lady felt a ninny at having to ask such obvious questions but, really, she was quite the babe in arms where detective work was concerned.
‘Whoa, steady on, old fruit!’ said the Hon. Con, beginning to have uncomfortable thoughts of swingeing damages for slander. ‘I expect there’s a perfectly innocent explanation.’
The woolshop lady doubted it, honestly she did. What about his name? Smith, of all things! It was an obvious alias.
‘Oh, cripes!’ groaned the Hon. Con. ‘There are millions of people called Smith. It’s the commonest name in the country.’
Precisely – the woolshop lady failed to hide her surprise at the Hon. Con’s lack of perception – that’s why he’d chosen it! If he’d called himself Shershenevitch, for example, everybody would have suspected right away that it was false, wouldn’t they? Although, as it happened, the woolshop lady did actually know somebody called Shershenevitch.
The Hon. Con ground her teeth. Good grief, much more of this and she’d be wishing she was back interviewing that Stark-Denoon fellow! She waggled her pencil irritably. ‘The address?’
Oh yes – the address. Well, he’d been staying at the ‘ Martyr’s Head’ and that was another thing that had erroneously predisposed the woolshop lady and her sister in his favour. Now, of course, the woolshop lady realized that it was all part of his ‘front’ but, at the time, they had taken it as a guarantee of solid social and financial standing. Everyone knew that the Martyr’s Head was a very good and a very expensive hotel. They didn’t take coach parties there.
The Hon. Con’s irritability level rose a couple of points. ‘Not his address in Totterbridge, dolt! That’s no flaming good, is it? He’ll have left there weeks ago. Haven’t you got his home address?’
Crestfallen, the woolshop lady had to admit that she hadn’t. Mr Smith had not given it to them and she and her sister had seen no point in asking him for it, not with him paying in advance.
‘But what about forwarding letters and things on to him? He must have left you an address for that.’
The woolshop lady, looking harassed, shook her head. The problem of forwarding letters had never crossed her mind nor, she was sure, the mind of her sister, either. In any case, to the best of her knowledge, Mr Smith had never received a single letter during the whole time he had occupied the upstairs flat and certainly none had come for him since he’d left.
‘No letters?’ The Hon. Con completely demolished the top of the diary pencil. ‘That’s jolly funny. What about phone calls?’
No phone calls, either. The woolshop lady had no hesitation in being adamant on that point since neither the flat nor the woolshop itself possessed a telephone. She and her sister had often debated the pros and cons of installing one but, really, it was quite an expense and they’d managed perfectly well all these years …
‘Oh, all right!’ snapped the Hon. Con, beginning to go off the woolshop lady and her mercifully absent sister in a big way. ‘ Well, what about the name of this firm of estate agents he was supposed to represent? You must know that, for goodness’ sake!’
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The woolshop lady wilted.
‘Hell’s teeth!’ exploded the Hon. Con. She chucked the chewed remains of the pencil down on the counter in disgust. ‘ It beggars belief, it really does! You live cheek by jowl with this chap for weeks and weeks and all you know about him is that his name is Smith! And you’re not even sure about that,’ she added spitefully.
The woolshop lady drew herself up with a faint resurgence of pride. She and her sister, she explained stiffly, had – unlike some people she could name – never made a practice of poking their noses into other people’s business.
The Hon. Con’s hide was totally impenetrable where that sort of crack was concerned. ‘ More’s the pity,’ she commented with a sniff. ‘If everybody took your holier-than-thou attitude, nobody would ever catch any criminals at all and then where would we be?’
The woolshop lady didn’t know and, very sensibly, kept her mouth shut.
‘Oh, all right,’ growled the Hon. Con, getting as near to an apology as she could manage, ‘no good crying over spilt milk.’ She poked her pencil out from its refuge under a stack of hairy pink wool balls. ‘What can you tell me about him? Know his Christian name?’
The woolshop lady, not all that far from tears, did not. She thought his initials were J.S., though – if that was any help.
‘Precious little!’ grunted the Hon. Con as she wrote this snippet of information down on her paper bag. ‘Well – go on! What else? Was he married?’
The woolshop lady thought that he looked more like a bachelor but, of course, that was only a personal impression and she was quite likely to be wrong.
The Hon. Con spoke through ominously clenched teeth. ‘How old was he?’
‘Well – thirtyish?’
‘Tall? Short? Fat? Thin?’
‘Well – medium height and’ – the woolshop lady had to nerve herself to say it – ‘medium build. Brownish eyes and – well – brownish hair. Going a little bald at the top,’ she added quickly with a timid smile.
‘Is that all?’ asked the Hon. Con incredulously. ‘What sort of a description is that, for God’s sake? Come on, think, woman! There must have been something about him that you noticed. What about spots? Scars? Birth marks? Tattooing? Missing fingers? Wooden legs?’
The woolshop lady was terribly sorry, honestly she was, but – no, nothing like that. Really, he was a rather nondescript sort of man. Quite nice looking in a way, she supposed, but – nondescript.
The Hon. Con gave her one last chance. ‘Did he wear glasses!’
The woolshop lady, taking herself at the Hon. Con’s valuation and accepting all the blame for Mr Smith’s total lack of distinction, got her handkerchief out. No glasses.
The Hon. Con pocketed the diary pencil and slowly folded up her paper bag. ‘Oh, well,’ she said with apparent indifference, ‘if the murderer of poor Rodney Burberry gets off scot free, we shall know who to blame for it, shan’t we?’
The woolshop lady dabbed her eyes and wondered bleakly how she’d got herself into such a mess. If only she’d known that she and her sister were harbouring a ruthless killer under their roof, she’d have paid much more attention, really she would. Did Miss Morrison-Burke honestly think, she asked tearfully, that avenging justice would never catch up with Mr Smith?
The Hon. Con’s thoughts had wandered off to her stomach. Best cut this short and see about stoking up the old boiler. For a second or two she gawped blankly at the woolshop lady who seemed to be expecting her to say something. ‘Eh? Oh, him? Oh’ – she stuffed the paper bag into her pocket – ‘I don’t reckon he’d anything to do with the murder. Sounds a perfectly normal, innocent sort of chap to me. Besides, I already know who did the killing – well, practically.’ She wagged a kindly but chiding finger at the woolshop lady. ‘You mustn’t think all your geese are swans, you know!’
Weakly the woolshop lady agreed that she mustn’t but, though she would be the first to admit that she knew little about the seamier side of life, she still felt that Mr Smith was just the weeniest bit too good to be true.
‘Free world,’ declared the Hon. Con. ‘Believe what you want. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you, that’s all. Well’ – she began to move towards the door – ‘ got to be pushing off now. Thanks for all your help.’
In spite of everything the woolshop lady hated to see her go. Life behind the counter was not so exciting that one could watch one’s only hope of fame and glory stumping grumpily away with at least a pang of regret. Fame and glory? Well, chief witness at a sensational murder trial was not to be sneezed at, was it? She tried to delay the fatal departure. What, might she be so bold as to ask, was the Hon. Con going to do now?
‘Going to the Martyr’s Head, of course,’ said the Hon. Con, who couldn’t for the life of her imagine where else anybody in their right senses would expect her to go.
The woolshop lady waited for further revelations with bated breath.
The Hon. Con softened a little. Oh, well, the poor cretin had done her best and we’ll all be old and doddery one day. ‘Going to get your Mr Smith’s address from them,’ she explained gruffly. ‘Hotel register, don’t you know. You’ve got to stick your name and address in it when you book in. It’s the law.’
In an ecstasy of admiration, the woolshop lady clasped her hands to her bosom. ‘Oh, aren’t you clever!’ she gurgled.
Chapter Twelve
The Martyr’s Head was Totterbridge’s poshest hotel and highly sensitive about its three-star rating. The plumbing was uncertain and the cuisine dubious but these minor deficiencies were more than compensated for by the extremely high standards which were set for the guests. This was one department in which nothing but the best was tolerated. Children, pet animals, men without ties and ladies in trousers were all barred from passing through the hotel’s portals though, of course, exceptions were permitted in the case of Texan millionaires and bona-fide members of the British aristocracy. It is, therefore, probable that the Hon. Con would still have been allowed in even if she hadn’t been a personal friend of the manager.
The uniformed doorman went pale when he saw her approaching but he managed to return her breezy greeting with a suitably deferential air.
‘Mr Welks in?’ bawled the Hon. Con who’d been under the mistaken impression for years that the doorman was hard of hearing.
‘Yes, your ladyship. I believe he’s in his office.’ The reply was equally loud. There was a bunch of American tourists within earshot and the last thing the doorman wanted was for them to start getting ideas. He’d up-graded the Hon. Con to a ladyship for the same reason. Well, you’d got to make the situation quite clear, hadn’t you? Otherwise you’d have all the female guests thinking they could go wandering around in grubby polo-necked sweaters and blue-serge slacks.
‘Whacko!’ said the Hon. Con as she went up the hotel steps two at a time, just to show off. ‘Children keeping well?’
The doorman was a bachelor and a Methodist lay preacher to boot, but he knew his place. ‘Very well, thank you, your ladyship!’ he murmured and touched his cap in a gesture of servile gratitude.
The American tourists were most impressed.
The Hon. Con’s friendship with Mr Welks, the manager, went back a number of years, to the time in fact when by some peculiar quirk of fate they had both found themselves sitting on the same committee. This was the period when the Hon. Con had been taking a rather disruptive interest in local education. The united efforts of those who cared deeply about the town’s children had succeeded in keeping her off the various boards of school governors but, when the new Arts Centre was opened, somebody slipped up badly and the Hon. Con found herself on the Management Committee.
Her interest in art was limited to a simple liking for pictures of baby animals but her fellow committee members weren’t much better so it didn’t really matter. The big clash, when it came, came over something much more prosaic than art appreciation. On one memorable evening the committee was asked to approve the employment of a
professional model for the life class. Naturally, they all realized that this model would pose undraped but everybody, including the Hon. Con, was prepared to be progressive and broad-minded about that aspect of the problem. It was costs they were going to niggle about. They were just settling down and looking forward to a couple of hours of bickering when Mr Welks gently put his cat amongst the pigeons. He wanted the model to be a man or, preferably, a young boy.
Mr Welks was the only member of the committee who actually did a bit of painting and he also attended the life class. His motives in asking for a naked male model were only too obvious and were certainly not condoned by anybody else present at the meeting. The chairman, a burly farmer who’d long had his suspicions about Mr Welks, declared roundly that the proposal was disgusting, blasphemous and a blatant insult to the decent citizens there gathered together. Supported by outraged murmurs from the ladies and some fiery phrases about horse-whipping from a retired naval officer, he was preparing to rule the amendment out of order and to suggest that, in the interests of public decency, it should not even be recorded in the minutes when up spake the Hon. Con.
‘I second the motion!’ she said.
It had been the beginning of a beautiful friendship although, of course, the Hon. Con neither shared nor comprehended Mr Welks’s partiality for the male nude. She afforded Him her trenchant support because she believed, as she expounded at length to the flabbergasted committee, in the equality of the sexes. Why should the degrading profession of modelling in the all-together be confined to the fair sex alone? If lecherous men were to be permitted to gawp at unclad girls, who were they to object to lecherous women gawping at unclad men? What was sauce for the goose, thundered the Hon. Con as she hammered the table, was sauce for the gander!
The Management Committee of the Totterbridge Arts Centre apparently agreed and with fine impartiality they immediately expelled both Mr Welks and the Hon. Con. The friendship between the pair of them had thus been cemented and now, as she knocked on the door of his office, the Hon. Con knew that she could rely to the death on Mr Welks.
