‘Can I help you?’
‘Good afternoon,’ I said cheerily. ‘It’s Jimmy Hopgood, isn’t it?’
‘I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong house,’ he said, beginning to shut the door. ‘I think there are Hopgoods at number twenty-nine.’
‘While you do a bunk out the back gate, eh, Jimmy? Come off it, old chap. I was on duty at the Old Bailey when you were sent down in ’seventy-four. You were Harold S. Tucker then, remember, and you’d just overreached yourself with the London Northern.’
‘I assure you — ’
‘ — you can’t think what I’m talking about. Well, you can play it like that if you want to, Jimmy. I can take fingerprints, and we can match them up, and we can go through all the old dance routines. It’s just that that kind of game takes time, and I don’t think we have it. I’m here to save you from a heap of trouble, Jimmy, so I do think you might invite me in.’
‘Trouble?’
‘A murder charge, Jimmy.’
It gave him to pause, and he looked straight at me.
‘I think you’d better come in.’
I had to stoop to get into the door of that little pre-war bungalow. We stood for a moment in the dark little hall, and as my eyes got accustomed to the gloom, I saw a suitcase standing by the door into the kitchen.
‘All ready for a getaway, I see, Jimmy?’
‘I had contemplated a short vacation,’ he said with dignity. His voice, for this role, was high, precise, and replete with a genuine middle-class respectability.
‘I can’t make any promises about duration,’ I said. He sighed.
‘Come into the sitting-room.’
We sat down in comfortable, auction-sale armchairs, in a neat, rather characterless room, the furniture solid, at the window, lace curtains, those guardians of the middle class’s secret life, or lack of it.
‘I suppose it’s no use offering you a cup of tea?’
‘Not if there’s a back door. Come on, Jimmy. Let’s get this over as soon as possible. It’s obvious you’ve been expecting a call.’
Jimmy sighed again. ‘I supposed it was too much to hope that your last visit here would indeed be your last.’
‘Ah, you heard about that?’
He looked cagey. ‘News gets around in a village. I drank elsewhere than the Wrekin on the evening in question, but I should have been wise and got out then, for good. There were considerations, however . . .’
‘I bet there were. You saw yourself being set up for the fall guy, and saw that that was even more likely if you made a dash for it. You were very wise. Look, Jimmy, we both know what I’m talking about. Let’s get things straight: I’m here to do you a good turn.’
‘I have a friend,’ said Jimmy, still in his high, articulate voice, ‘who maintains that when a policeman says that to you, you should prepare yourself for a stiff sentence.’
‘You have cynical friends. Let’s face it, Jimmy, you’re in trouble. If there was ever anyone set up for a murder charge, it’s you: here you are, under a false identity, the Treasurer of a large and rich charity, from whom you are peculating funds. Along comes an investigative journalist, specializing in social abuses of one kind or another. He’s done to death in your local pub, in a manner that would have been particularly easy for you to manage. You see — we’re half way to making a case already.’
‘I admit none of the early part of what you have said,’ said Jimmy Hopgood, with lawyer-like pedantry. ‘The latter part you clearly don’t believe yourself.’
‘No, I don’t. I don’t think you’ve got the nerve for murder, or the sheer evil-mindedness. But you’re caught in an age-old trap. Present the court with an old lag with a record — albeit not half so long a record as he deserves — and give them a choice between him and a noble Lord with an impeccable career of public service, and clean hands all his life — not to say four or five noble Lords — and who do you think they’re going to choose to send down? In a way, you can hardly blame them. But I don’t want you landed in the stir while those titled con-men get away with it.’
He looked at me quizzically: ‘Hard words, Inspector, about men with impeccable reputations.’
‘I don’t have Snobby Driscoll’s respect for the upper crust,’ I said. ‘What was the Snobby Driscoll connection, by the by?’
‘An act of charity,’ Hopgood enunciated after a pause, ‘most ill-repaid, it now seems. In fact, I gave him a bed for the weekend, as one old friend to another. He was eighteen months from his earliest parole date, but when cancer was diagnosed they gave him short periods of compassionate leave. His family were mostly dead, or in the stir, and he was always particularly fond of Shropshire.’
‘You’re all heart, Jimmy,’ I said. ‘And it really wasn’t Snobby gave you away. Now let’s get down to the nitty. You’ve been set up by a ring of particularly clever crooks, and any other policeman would have you in this moment for questioning on a murder charge. With a bit of luck that lot could even manage to wriggle their way out of a peculation charge. I imagine they’ve been super-circumspect.’
‘They have, of course,’ agreed Jimmy Hopgood, a slow, sly smile wafting over his face. ‘Fortunately, the thought had occurred to me, and I have been still more circumspect. From the beginning I have taken elementary precautions.’
‘Good. I’m glad of that. What sort of precautions?’
‘Tape-recordings, in point of fact. We communicated only by phone, and I was told to use a public box. I rang them regularly once a week, and otherwise only if an emergency turned up. Such as Bill Tredgold writing to ask for an interview. Unfortunately for them, I usually took along a portable recording machine. Tapes are dicey evidence, of course, but there was also one single letter, with “Burn this” at the bottom. It has no crest, but it is written in the noble gentleman’s hand. I treasure it.’
‘So you should. Are these things safe?’
‘Lodged at my bank. I am a great believer in using the correct procedures. I’ve got good and trusted friends, but a good friend is never quite as reliable as a good bank.’
‘Well, it’s nice that with your experience you still believe that. Now, come on, Jimmy, let’s have the story from the beginning. There’s no point in holding back. We know who you are. We know you’re claiming to be a Chartered Accountant, which you’re not — ’
‘I’m a sight better than most of them — ’
‘ — I don’t doubt that. And we know you’re acting in an official capacity for Aid for the Elderly (and possibly other charities) under a false name. That’s quite enough to pull you in for, with more to follow when we go through the books. Wouldn’t it be sensible to come clean? As I say, it’s not you I’m after, and I’ll go all out to get you off as lightly as possible.’
Jimmy, whose Henry S. Tucker personality was thawing off him, but very gradually, screwed up his face in thought.
‘I’ve no cause to do that lot down. They’ve treated me right, by and large. But if it’s murder — ’
‘It’s murder, Jimmy. Two murders.’
‘Cripes! I never thought they’d have it in them. You wouldn’t think it to look at them, would you?’
‘I’ve not seen them.’
‘You’ve seen one of them. You met Lord Nuneaton, when you went with the Princess to that Old Folks’ Home in Birmingham. You stood there talking about horses and dogs.’
‘Good God! Was that Nuneaton? I never suspected. You mean you were there too, Jimmy? What were you doing?’
‘Merging into the background. I wasn’t one of the nobs. Just there in my official capacity.’
‘Right then, Jimmy, are you going to come across with it, or shall we get in my car and drive back to the Yard?’
‘I’ll tell you it, as it happened, though God help me if I rely on your word as a cop. Well, this is it: it’s a good luck story really. With an unhappy ending. It started when I was in Churston — you know, the open clink just outside Coventry. Very nice class of place, mostly business
frauds and your once-off domestic kind of murder. Well, I’m not getting any younger, you know, and it occurs to me I ought to be looking round for a nice little niche to retire to. They take all the good class papers there for the business frauds, and I see all these ads for Aid for the Elderly, telling the good middle-class readers what a good job they do, and how many pathetic old pieces of won’t-lift-a-hand-to-help-themselves they assist to live in happy independence. And just for a lark I writes them a note — pardon me, write; how mixing with the police does lower one’s standards — I write them a note, on prison paper. All above board — dignified, you know, plain-speaking and honest. Fairly honest. How I’d strayed from the path, but how I was getting old, and was terrified by the thought that I might have to live my last years in gaol, and how I was looking for a humble and honourable retirement. Could they help me?’
‘I see. So in a way, you practically applied for the job.’
‘Unbeknowing. Right. Well, I expected the coldest of cold shoulders, what with all the deserving hard-up there are around these days. You could have knocked me down with a social security cheque when I get a letter back three or four weeks later saying that if I would contact them at a certain number when I left gaol, they might be able to help me.’
‘The number you were to ring not being one of the Society’s official phones, I take it.’
‘By no means. But I wasn’t smelling rats then, and I didn’t think twice. I phoned them the day after I was released. I was put on to a very smooth-spoken gent, and an appointment was made. I was told I would meet a young gentleman who might be able to help me.’
‘Where were you to meet?’
‘A big Birmingham pub called the Dog and Whistle. Acres of space, ’specially at eleven in the morning. I thought it an odd place for a charity to appoint, but I went along, and there I met someone I expect you know. Lad called Edwin Frere.’
‘I thought Edwin would be in it too, somewhere.’
‘In there kicking. Friend of your little lady, isn’t he? That’s what they say in the Grub. Well, he’s a sulky individual, but he was on his best behaviour, and he took me over into a corner miles from the bar, and he was fairly mean with the half pints, but he took me through a long inquisition on my past. What I’d done time for, what I’d got away with, and he got me to talk a lot about my methods and so on. I didn’t know what was up, but I told him it all straight. I threw him the complete honesty line. A very useful line in certain circumstances, as I’m sure you’ve found out yourself.’
‘Me?’
‘I understand you’re a married man. I’m sure you’ve used that line from time to time. Anyway, he said he’d have to go away and report, and could we meet again next evening. Which we did, and he took me to a minor mansion of some kind, and I had this long talk with your Lord Nuneaton.’
‘Who put a proposition to you?’
‘Not in so many words. By no means. Nothing was ever said, not directly, you understand . . . we went about it in a gentlemanly fashion . . . roundabout, you might say. It took hours, I tell you. But it came to the same in the end. In return for certain services to them, I would have a respectable position with the Society, get a certain percentage (five) of certain sums (unspecified) which I would convey . . . and so on. And I would get my rent paid. I stood out to have a little place bought for me, and I’m glad I did. They went along with that, because it was more difficult to trace it back to them.’
‘I see. And what was involved was a straightforward fiddling of the books?’
‘More or less. Initially. You make it sound worse than it was. You’ve got to remember that something of that sort has been going on for years in their kind of circle. Lady Muck gives her name as Patron of the Distressed Gentlewoman’s Needlework Trust. Addresses the AGM with a few well-chosen words of condescension, sticks down the odd envelope once a month. In return, she has the flat above the offices as a nice little free pied-à-terre whenever she happens to be in London. This mob did the same: they lent their names, and very good names for the purpose they are too. They made sure of getting something really good in return.’
‘But surely, there wouldn’t be enough to make it worth their while?’
‘Don’t be so sure. It’s a very rich charity. The old are a big thing at the moment. Everyone in the country feels that bit guilty, because they don’t take care of their oldies like they used. It’s guilt money, that’s what it is. Then again, I think that even then they had something bigger in mind.’
‘Meaning — ?’
‘Meaning the Princess.’
‘I see. It’s the Princess I’m really interested in.’
‘I thought so. Snobby Driscoll put you on, did he? I could see he was pretty upset when I let it slip while we were jawing. Now as to the details of how she’s been involved, I’m a bit at sea. Because of course they never confided in me. Just gave me my instructions by phone, and the odd cool nod if I came to official receptions or AGMs. But the time I came out of Churston was about the time the Princess was beginning to get into the news: snipping the odd tape, visiting the odd oil-rig, you know what I mean. Now, I don’t know what the connection was, but they got in there somehow.’
‘They certainly did.’
‘So that before long, the Princess opened a new Old People’s Home somewhere near Coventry. The press fawned, people flocked to see her, and it became the first of lots of such visits. And that’s when the money started rolling in. Much of it quite genuine: a royal visit generates publicity, especially, at the moment, one by her. Publicity generates donations, quite spontaneously. A discreet amount — in fact, quite considerable amounts — of that inflow could be siphoned off. But then there was the other . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, wherever Royalty goes, there’s people anxious to meet them, shake the royal hand, have a few words to take back and tell their grandchildren or their neighbours. Particularly their neighbours. And they’re even more anxious to meet them on an informal basis — over cocktails, after the official side of the visit is over. And it wasn’t long before the local businessmen realized that the way to the Princess was through the Leamington/Cumberland crowd. And when they approached them — ’
‘ — it became a straight cash transaction, I suppose?’
‘Not directly. Nothing so vulgar as bargaining. Of course there was no question of someone like Leamington, or someone like Nuneaton, being bribed. All they wanted was donations to Aid for the Elderly. Better make it anonymous, eh? In case questions were asked. You send it direct to the Treasurer, and I’ll do what I can, old boy. Shall we say a couple of thousand? And I think I can promise you . . . Very smoothly done, as you’d expect with that crowd. I get the money, deduct my percentage, and hand the rest straight back. Nothing to trace, no questions asked. In my annual accounts I include a discreetly large sum under “anonymous donations”. Everybody’s happy.’
‘A very nice little game.’
‘I thought so. I couldn’t have dreamed up a better myself. But then, I had their cheek but I don’t have their connections. There were other little sidelines too. For a really whacking sum, ten or fifteen thou, they would try and get the Princess to visit some particular factory, or store, or warehouse, or whatever. This was much more difficult to bring off, and they didn’t try it very often. After all, the guest list at receptions after an old folks visit could be fiddled at this end, but the engagements were decided on in London, by the Princess’s people.’
‘True. Still, they must have had a connection there. Presumably Brudenell, the Princess’s private secretary. Funny. He was a fussy, infuriating little body, but I wouldn’t have thought him crooked. And the poor bloke’s dead . . . Did you know anything about that end of things?’
‘Not a thing. I was given the absolute minimum of info, as I said. I was useful to them because I did what I was told and held my tongue. I imagine they must have had the Secretary in their pockets. Or perhaps the young lady herself: she looks an expensive
little thing. Perhaps she got her cut, as a nice little addition to the Civil List.’
‘That thought is downright disloyal, Jimmy: Snobby Driscoll would have had you by the throat if you’d suggested that to him. I must say, I’d hardly have thought it worth her while, quite apart from anything else. In fact, I’m surprised it has been worthwhile for this mob.’
‘It’s a very, very rich charity, I tell you, Mr Trethowan. And by now they’re doing very nicely at it indeed, and I’m the one who’d know. When the present Earl of Leamington’s father died, they had to sell bits of the ancestral loot. The Cumberland lot are hard up anyway: the family seat became a loony-bin not long after the war. They’ve got wise to all sorts of dodges, and of course the elder sons have taken over all the doings already, to avoid death duties. I sometimes wonder whether there’s a nobleman in the country ever dies worth more than a couple of quid these days. But there are younger sons very much unprovided for. I wouldn’t mind betting a lot of the dibs has gone in little Edwin’s direction.’
‘That would be pouring money down the drain.’
‘Not if they tied it up for him.’
‘Why do you think it went to him?’
‘The general gossip around the charitable cocktail circuit. A late baby, doted on by the present Earl and by his second wife. Some kind of step-sister worshipping the ground he walked on, and even Lord Nuneaton turning a blind eye to all sorts of shabby tricks. It’s difficult to see his fatal attraction, isn’t it?’
‘Very. But it’s not difficult to see that kind of upbringing leading to that kind of young man. Was he in on the Aid for the Elderly organization at any level?’
‘Not on your life. They had to have solid, respectable names. He’s about as credit-worthy as a Salvation Army dosser.’
‘Pity. That’ll make it that much more difficult to pin anything on him. You had no dealings with him after that first interview?’
Death and the Princess Page 16
