Death of a Commuter

by Bruce, Leo

  “Why were you so interested in the ancient mariner with the bruised bottom?” asked Priggley.

  “Because the car didn’t stop.”

  “Lots of cars don’t stop after accidents.”

  “Not in circumstances like that It must have been travelling very slowly. Perhaps with sidelights only. When the driver saw the old fellow he braked and swerved of course, and by the time he hit him he had almost stopped, otherwise the old man wouldn’t be alive now. He heard Gobler swearing, so knew there couldn’t be much wrong. Any driver, unless he had some very good reason not to, would have stopped. Drivers know what a chance they take by not stopping after an accident. It automatically makes them to blame. Yet this one drove on.”

  “I see your point,” said Priggley. “Gobler said he’d nearly crossed so it must have been the onside bumper that hit him. Think the police will find the car?”

  “Could be. But it may not have dented the bumper at all.”

  “If so, what will happen to the chap who was driving?”

  Carolus looked steadily at Priggley.

  “Why ‘the chap’ who was driving? What makes you so sure it was a man?”

  “Gobler said…”

  “No, he didn’t. He assumed as you did that it was a man. He never even saw the driver.”

  “That’s true. What do we do this afternoon. Wait. Give me three guesses. Interview a suspect?”

  “There aren’t any. There isn’t even a crime.”

  “But there damn soon will be with you around.”

  “We go to have a look at this landmark they call The Great Ring. That’s where the body, the only body we’ve got, was found.”

  Carolus had no difficulty, after lunch, in booking two rooms for the night After Priggley had brought their suitcases in they set off.

  The Great Ring lay half-way between Brenstead and Buttsfield, another great dormitory town being built to out-match Brenstead in population. The distances were approximately equal, ten miles from Buttsfield to The Great Ring and between ten and eleven from The Great Ring to Brenstead.

  Carolus passed The Three Thistles Inn and thought its closed doors had a slightly self-righteous look at three o’clock in the afternoon as though saying ‘we would never let anyone in After Hours. You know us.’ He took the narrower road to the left at a National Monuments sign indicating that it led to The Great Ring. He went up an incline to the car park and found about a dozen cars there.

  Even from here there was a stupendous view of the countryside, broken as it was by tree-tops.

  “Let’s see the thing itself,” said Carolus.

  It had all been laid out by the County or the Rural District or Arts Council, or the National Trust or someone, neat little concrete steps with a hand-rail and iron seats every twenty steps.

  “I wonder if that shocker behind the bar has climbed this one,” said Priggley as they reached the last flight of steps.

  The Ring itself was disappointing, a circle of stones no taller than a man among which the occupants of the cars parked below wandered admiringly like people at an exhibition of modern sculpture.

  “Ever so heavy they must have been to bring right up here,” remarked a large woman stertorously.

  “I expect they knew what they were doing,” said her comfortable companion.

  “Must of,” said the first.

  Rupert Priggley had gone outside the circle and was looking at the astonishingly vast stretch of country beneath them.

  “There is something odd about this place, sir,” he said.” But I’ll tell you something—I had the same feeling in Brenstead itself today.”

  “What on earth do you mean?”

  “I don’t quite know. All those ghastly houses. People trying to perpetuate themselves by building. It’s all so futile.”

  “I shouldn’t call those stones futile.”

  “What? I suppose they were intended for some kind of worship. Look at them now. I don’t know quite what I do mean.”

  “I agree there’s something almost macabre about Brenstead. Forty-thousand dwelling-places built in a few years and packed tight like a honeycomb. A lot more eerie than this. I could believe in anything happening there. You don’t make people conform to a pattern by putting them in uniform houses. Outwardly, perhaps, but only outwardly. I think we’re going to find some very odd things in Brenstead since you mention oddity.”

  “Behind those tidy house-fronts?” grinned Rupert.

  “Exactly,” said Carolus and they returned to the car.

  Chapter Four

  WHEN HE REACHED THE HOTEL CAROLUS TELEPHONED TO THRIVER and was surprised to find the solicitor wanted to see him as soon as possible. He had anticipated difficulty in seeing him at all, in spite of Magnus’s introduction.

  “Come round at once, if you like,” Thriver said in his rather high-pitched voice. “We live in Lower Manor Lane. Take no notice of any name you may see on the gate. It’s number 12.”

  Priggley stared at the crimson brief-case which Carolus carried when he prepared to set out.

  “What’s that for?” he asked. But without waiting for an answer, said, “I’m going to have a cruise round the town. See you at breakfast”

  “Don’t…” began Carolus but stopped. What was the good?

  He found out why he was to ignore anything but the number on Thriver’s mock-Elizabethan villa. Some previous owner had called it Kumyu-in.

  The lawyer came to the door himself and showed Carolus into a room like a law office. Thriver was a rat-like man, shifty-eyed and sharp-featured. Rat-like was so very much the word that Carolus was fascinated to think his squeaky voice rat-like, even his little white claw-like hands. His mouth, too, thin-lipped and toothy had a gnawing look about it.

  “Whisky or brandy?” he asked without preamble in a sharp, business-like way.

  Carolus told him.

  “I’m glad you’ve come. I’ve been trying to get Magnus over, but he’s a lazy fellow. I’m in some difficulty.”

  This was the first time he had heard a solicitor make any such admission, Carolus thought.

  “I know all about you,” Thriver continued. “And you have full authority from Magnus. So I shan’t beat about the bush. On the very day of his death—if he died before midnight, that is—Felix came to my office and put his signature to a new will I had drawn up for him and took it away with him.”

  “In his pocket?”

  “No. In a … Why that’s the very brief-case!”

  “I’m afraid not. It’s the twin. Magnus Parador lent it to me. He bought two originally and gave one to Felix.”

  “I see. I thought I recognised it. I wish it were, because it would mean that the will had been found.”

  “Felix had made a will before the one he signed that day?”

  “Oh, several. He had a rich man’s privilege of changing his mind.”

  “Were the provisions of the new one very much changed?”

  “Not the basic provisions. The bulk of his fortune still went to his wife and brother. They were not affected. But some of the smaller legacies, if you call five thousand pounds a small legacy, were … well, two were cut out altogether.”

  “Yes?”

  “I tried to dissuade Felix. It seemed so unlike him to avenge two paltry quarrels. But he did not like his word disputed, you know. In many ways a very obstinate man. He could be generous, yes, but he could also be petty. He cut out Dr. Sporlott because of an argument they had. Sporlott openly laughed at his views, I believe. The other was Hopelady. He was godfather to one of Hopelady’s five children. A boy named Matthew. He had left a large sum to Hopelady for this boy’s benefit but he put it out of the father’s reach. The boy was to inherit it when he was twenty-two unless it could be shown that he had in any way anticipated his inheritance.”

  “I see. Were those the only two unlucky ones, the doctor and the vicar?”

  “Yes.”

  “Any new beneficiaries?”

  “Yes. That’s the
point. That’s where the difficulty arises. A woman named Henrietta Ballard. An actress, I understand, whom he had met through his wife. He had been … maintaining her for three years. He had bought her a house at Buttsfield, about twenty miles away. He left her a thousand a year for life. That was why his will was such a secret. No one was to know of this, least of all Elspeth. That’s understandable, of course.”

  “Oh quite. And no one does know?”

  “No one. My confidential clerk who has been with me twenty years, an entirely dependable man who knows none of the people concerned and cares less, typed it. Otherwise no one knows that it was ever made.”

  “Unless Parador told anyone.”

  “It’s scarcely likely, is it?”

  “He might have told the girl Henrietta Ballard that he was going to look after her.”

  “She’s been abroad for two months. Comes back tomorrow, I believe.”

  “It’s not impossible, though.”

  “Very unlikely. Felix specifically told me that no one knew what he was doing.”

  “Who witnessed his signature?”

  “My confidential clerk. Felix had known him for years. Old Tasman is a very proper old chap and Felix pulled his leg. That afternoon he pulled out his pocket flask of whisky and poured out two measures. Old Tasman had to drink one—he knows I never drink in the office. It emptied his flask, and Tasman was quite flushed up. But as for him repeating anything he learned in the office—impossible! Quite impossible!”

  “I see.”

  “The question is, where is this will now?”

  “If Parador committed suicide …”

  “Of course he did.”

  “You are sure of that, Mr. Thriver?”

  “Absolutely. I know what made him do it. He was convinced he had cancer. That was the cause of his quarrel with Sporlott Some charlatan of a foreign doctor told him so a year ago.”

  “Had he any symptoms?”

  “I understand he suffered from digestive troubles, chest pains, heartburn and so on. I haven’t discussed it with Sportlott. But people have killed themselves before now by making themselves believe they have cancer. He killed himself because of it.”

  “You sound very positive. Perhaps you know why he chose that particular time and place?”

  “His choice of time I understand. He was only waiting to sign his will. I told you he was both a generous and a vindictive man. He wanted to look after his mistress. And I’m afraid he also wanted to make sure the two men who had angered him did not benefit.”

  “Yet he was so careless about the will that he kept it with him and left it either in his pocket or his dispatch-case when he took his overdose?”

  “Probably the risk never occurred to him.”

  “You also know his reason for choosing the place?”

  “Oh yes. That’s quite plain. You must remember that his family and mine lived here before Brenstead became a dormitory town. We used to cycle out to The Great Ring as boys. It was a favourite picnic place for us before it became a tourist stop. A few people came to see it in those days, but very few. Poor Felix was simply returning, as so many men do in a time of crisis, to his boyhood.”

  “I don’t say you’re wrong,” said Carolus, “but it’s all a bit too neat and tied up and tidy for me. Of course I didn’t know Parador. But Magnus tells me he was very fond of his wife. Wouldn’t he have wanted to save her feelings?”

  “So far as possible, he did. She has told me how he rang her up that afternoon to say he wasn’t coming home. He meant the first news she would have of it to come when the body was found. It was the best he could do.”

  “I see what you mean. I still don’t like it, though.”

  Thriver seemed to become a little rambling.

  “I’ve known the brothers Parador since boyhood. We grew up together, in fact. I’m by no means a sentimental or a superstitious man, but I have certain presentiments. I knew that evening there was something wrong.”

  “Had there been anything to notice about Felix’s manner that afternoon?”

  “No. No. He was quite himself—cheerful, in fact. It wasn’t that. It was a presentiment. I felt it so strongly that during the evening I decided to go round to see him. I got out the car and drove round.”

  “Yes?”

  “I could hear the noise from a television set as I stood at the front door. Elspeth opened it and I asked for Felix. ‘Didn’t you know?’ she said. ‘He’s not coming down tonight. He phoned me.’ I was surprised that she didn’t ask me in, but she said she was going to bed as soon as that particular television programme ended.”

  “She had no presentiment, anyway.”

  “No, poor girl. She was quite bright. Then I did an unusual thing. I decided to call at The Royal Oak for a drink. That made Elspeth laugh. ‘You going to The Oak?’ she said. ‘I’ve a good mind to come with you.’ I said, ‘Why don’t you?’ But she was tired and I went alone.”

  “Who was there? At The Royal Oak, I mean?”

  “Dogman. No one else whom I recognised. But after a little time Rumble came in. You’ll meet him. Quiet fellow. Lives here in Lower Manor Road. The next house down. It’s quite a small place but Rumble wasn’t well off when he first came. Used to run about on a motor-cycle. Then his wife died and he inherited a little which he put into a travel agency. He’s doing quite well now. Travels up with us every day.”

  “You were in the railway carriage when this unknown man got in next morning? What was your impression?”

  “Not much at the time. You see I knew that Felix wouldn’t be coming because Elspeth had told me he was staying in town, but I said nothing to the others. I wondered how this man should know, but that’s all. It was only when I knew Felix was dead I thought there was something suspicious about it”

  “But not enough, to make you change your opinion that it was suicide?”

  “Oh no, I was sure of that, and I am still. Let me give you another drink.”

  “It’s strange to me that you and Magnus, who are the two men who apparently knew Felix best, hold exactly opposite opinions about that.”

  “So I gather. Magnus can’t believe it. He wants you to dig something up to upset the coroner’s verdict. Well, Deene, I want you to find that will, if it still exists. Meanwhile come through and meet my wife and daughter.”

  Enid Thriver was looking for her spectacles. She was a large, untidy woman of indeterminate outline.

  “How d’you do? I know I put them down here,” she said. “Do sit down if the cats have left you a chair. You must have moved them, Patsy, darling. This is my daughter, Mr.… you didn’t tell me his name, Graham. Deene, that’s it I can’t see a thing without them.”

  Patsy was a brisk, square-shouldered girl who would have been attractive but for a slight squint and a downright manner.

  “Hullo,” she said. “I’ve read about you, of course. I wonder what you’ll unearth in this little community? All sorts of horrors, I suppose.”

  “He must come along to Chatty Dogman’s party next week,” said Enid Thriver.

  “Oh mums, you know it’s tomorrow, not next week.”

  “Is it? I didn’t know. I think you must be sitting on them, Patsy. No, here they are. I remember now. I put them between the pages of my book so that I shouldn’t forget where I put them. Yes, Chatty’s party. You’ll meet a lot of people there. Elspeth’s coming. She says Felix wouldn’t have wanted her to mope for ever. Would you like some coffee, Mr. Deene? I’m dying to make some, if you would.”

  “Yes, I would indeed,” said Carolus, who wanted Patsy to talk.

  When Enid had left them, he asked her what she thought about Parador’s death.

  “I suppose it must have been suicide,” she said. “But I can’t see it. I was working with him on his memoirs, you know. Chiefly at week-ends.”

  “Were you? I didn’t know that.”

  “Fascinating, yes. He’s had a very interesting life. It’s all in the Far East, though. Nothing about
Brenstead.”

  “Not about his boyhood here?”

  “No. They weren’t that sort of memoirs, thank God. How bored I am with people’s boyhoods and girlhoods. These started when he first went out to Shanghai before the war.”

  “Had he got far?”

  “I’d typed about a hundred pages, but it was only provisional, he said. He had a lot of notes of the next part. Whether it would have ended up here or not I don’t know.”

  “He gave you no idea of what was to come?”

  “Not much. He was cagey about that.”

  “Did he mention the name of anyone you know?”

  “No. Not even Magnus or Daddy.”

  “What did you know about this, Mr. Thriver?”

  “Very little. As Patsy says, he was cagey. I believe he only meant to write about his M.I. experiences and perhaps his imprisonment.”

  Enid returned with a tray.

  “Oh, Patsy, I’ve forgotten the sugar. I put it out ready, too. Darling, the little crystals. In the silver jug.”

  “Sure you’ve got the coffee?” asked Patsy getting up.

  “Don’t be silly, darling.”

  Carolus watched Enid pouring out. She could be proficient when she liked, he noticed. And there was a sharp intelligent expression on her face when she made her next remark.

  “Graham won’t tell us whether we get anything from Felix’s will,” she said. “You’d think so, when he left money to quite new people like Mr. Hopelady.”

  “Don’t go into that now, dear,” said Thriver in his high-pitched voice, but rather sharply.

  “It’s annoying, though,” said Enid, and looked annoyed, too. “He was so enormously rich.”

  “You don’t know that, Enid. I’d much rather you didn’t discuss it.”

  Patsy returned.

  “You left the gas on,” she remarked as she put down a small china sugar bowl.

  “Where are you staying?” Enid asked Carolus. “Not that dreadful Royal Oak?”

  “It seems quite comfortable.”

  “I suppose it’s better than the Rippinghurst. That’s our new hotel. It’s quite near here. Felix used to call this part of the town the Cantonment. It has been left more or less as it was, you see. Our house and the one next door are the only ones in this road from before the Dormitory Plan, but Manor Road is almost untouched. We’re the last outposts.”