by TP Fielden
‘Well,’ she said, overcoming her slight rise in temperature, ‘yes. Yes. Cran Conybeer told me on the morning of the murder he had taken the Lass O’Doune out at dawn and there was a man in a small boat which got in his way and nearly went under. He remembers it well because it was an unusual time of day for a pleasure craft to be out and about. Also, he said that the chap had a girlfriend with him who appeared to be asleep. All this happened just off Todhempstead Beach.
‘Supposing,’ she went on, ‘Mr Conybeer had seen, not a man, but Ursula Guedella. At a distance, with the clothes she wears and with that haircut, she could easily be mistaken for a man after all. And could the girlfriend have been not asleep, but dead!’
‘I knew his mother,’ said Athene, looking out of the window.
‘What?’ shot back Judy, poised on the brink of a major discovery and not wanting to be sidetracked. ‘You know the Sisters of Reason wanted to sabotage the beauty pageants – if it was Miss Guedella who murdered that poor girl, wouldn’t that be the most effective way of putting a spanner in the works? All the resultant bad publicity, the criticism of that odious man Normandy and the way he exploits those young women?’
‘She belonged to our book club.’
‘Mm?’ Judy was getting fidgety – her friend could never stick to the point.
‘She was very nice, very well read. Her husband had been invalided during the war. A handsome man.’
‘Athene!’
‘She liked Mrs Gaskell a lot, I remember. Called her son Cranford – could that be the one?’
‘I doubt there could be two with such a name,’ said Miss Dimont with just a dash of vinegar. ‘Look, was this the day of the murder?’
‘No idea, dear. They are really quite repellent ladies, I tried awfully hard not to listen. Also, I was most concerned for Mr So – you know it’s taken him years to arrive at the level of serenity that prevails here? You know that’s an extraordinary achievement.’
Once again, Athene had both given significant information, and had not – infuriating as usual, despite her sweetness and goodness! Miss Dimont disliked Ursula Guedella and did not approve of her methods, and it would be a triumph to bring in this information and secure an arrest while Inspector Topham still waited for the Coroner to wake from his fortnight’s siesta.
‘Well, look,’ said the ever-practical reporter, realising she could be starting up a blind alley, ‘did you get the impression they might come back – Guedella and de Mauny?’
‘They think it’s a secret place. They think they can talk freely here.’
‘Just so. So you think they’ll be back?’
Athene sighed and drew her notebook towards her. She needed to consult with the heavens, and all this talk of murder really was a terrible distraction.
‘Athene, do you think they’ll be back?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Do you think Mr So could telephone me if they do, and I could come in and listen? Or send Valentine?’
‘Mr So rarely talks to anybody, he has no need. His actions speak louder than words, dear.’
Miss Dimont’s temperature was rising again. ‘Well, he talks to you, Athene. I’ve seen him.’
‘I could ask him to let me know.’
‘A spiritualist message through the ether?’
Athene shot her friend a glance. ‘That is unworthy of you, Judy. I will ask him to telephone me when they come again and I will let you know.’
The two friends finished their tea. As they chatted, it was interesting to observe the different types of people who came through the door and who gained Mr So’s approval. A man who looked like a retired colonel was greeted with a beaming smile, but though dressed rather stuffily in regulation tweed jacket, polished shoes and regimental tie, when he addressed the proprietor in Mandarin – evidently an old Singapore hand – it became clear he too understood the allure of this curious place. A handful of young people, their hair unfashionably long, seemed respectful and well behaved and were rewarded with Mr So’s most courteous attention.
Half an hour passed. Miss Dimont finally broached the subject of Rudyard Rhys and the fact that, not only had he lied to his staff about the source of the Larsson story, but that he was also under suspicion of murder.
‘Didn’t do it,’ said Athene.
‘I know that. He’s too shambolic. But something’s up.’
‘He didn’t do it because I have seen his aura and there’s nothing there which could allow him to be a killer. You worked with him during the war.’
‘Yes.’
‘Would his job have required him to kill the enemy – personally, I mean?’
‘In certain circumstances, yes.’
‘Well, I imagine he can never have been put to the test.’
‘This may cost him his job,’ said Miss Dimont.
Athene turned her gaze from the window and looked at her friend steadily.
‘Time, my dear, that you stopped hiding, and realised that Rudyard Rhys is sitting the chair that was destined for you,’ she said, quite firmly.
‘It’s time you became the editor of our wonderful newspaper.’
EIGHTEEN
It was raining when they emerged into Bosun’s Alley, the kind of hard cold rain which reminds the holidaymaker what a treacherous friend the British summer can be. The light was turning darker, menacing clouds had robbed the air of its warmth and comfort.
Opposite the end of the alley stood the off-licence, a dreary sliver of a shop sharing its entrance with the salon of Bob the Barber, a sadistic type who enjoyed executing his tonsorial revenge on the poorer residents of Temple Regis. In the doorway stood a hunched figure, grey-faced and purposeless, in his hand a brown carrier bag which clinked.
‘Why, Mr Lamb!’ called Judy in lively welcome. The fellow glanced guiltily at her, but immediately his eyes darted away. Bengt Larsson’s former manservant was evidently not at home to callers this morning.
‘Mr Lamb!’ she repeated, reading the signs but blithely ignoring them. ‘You look cold standing there. I’m just popping into the Fortescue for a glass of sherry, would you care to join me?’ She had grasped in an instant, from the dark rings under his eyes and his lopsided expression, that the man was suffering a dreadful hangover.
‘Just getting some tonic wine for the missus,’ he said, a shade too quickly. ‘She’s pretty upset.’
It took very little cajolery to get Lamb out of the rain and into the snug bar of the Fort, and minimal further persuasion to get a large glass of whisky to his lips, though it was barely noon.
‘I saw Mrs Larsson.’
‘’Er!’ snorted Lamb. This morning, it would appear, his manservant’s deference had taken a holiday.
‘She said you’d been dismissed by her son. I’m so sorry.’
‘Seven years I served that family, ever since his marriage to that one. Mrs Lamb too, she served. But the moment Mr Larsson’s dead, we’re out. And after all I done for her and her kid …’
‘Where will you go?’ she asked. The Fort’s sherry smelt of old wardrobes.
‘Dunno. Been told by the police we can’t leave Temple Regis. Material witnesses.’
‘Have you anywhere to stay?’
‘Arst me another.’
‘Have another?’
‘Johnnie Walker this time.’
Miss Dimont used the time it took to collect the whisky to sum up Lamb’s situation. From Pernilla Larsson she’d gathered that her son ruled her – capitalising on her guilt over the divorce, no doubt – and with Larsson dead, she’d given up any ambition to run the business herself. But why the manservant was sacked so peremptorily by Gus Wetherby remained a mystery.
It was as if Lamb was entertaining the same thought. ‘After all I did,’ he repeated bitterly. ‘For them. The ingratitude.’
‘Why were you kicked out so abruptly? It does seem odd, I must say.’ Miss Dimont put the sherry again to her lips but they rejected it. She took a handkerchief and wiped the taste
away.
‘You’re newspapers, aren’t you?’ asked Lamb unnecessarily. He knew perfectly well.
‘Yes, the Riviera Express.’
‘D’you pay money for interviews?’
‘Never.’
‘Might you buy me another of these—’ he pinged the glass in front of him with his forefinger ‘—if I tell you summat?’
‘As many as you like, Mr Lamb. It’s just that we have a policy of not paying …’
‘Call me ’arry.’
‘Harry.’
‘No, Larry.’
‘Larry.’
‘They was plotting against ’im. Mrs Larsson and that son of hers. Against Mr Larsson.’
‘Yes?’
‘They realised the game was up. There’d been too many complaints about the Rejuvenator – there’d been letters in the post for years, but suddenly people started telephoning and recently there’d been a couple showed up tryin’ to cause trouble. I ’ad to threaten them with the police.
‘Things were turning nasty but Mr Larsson, ’e just ignored it all.’ Lamb took a stiff swallow of whisky. ‘’E blinded himself to the truth. In the early days, people would believe anything – that the ruddy Rejuvenator would save their life and cure them of everything.
‘Later, after the war, about the time I came to the Retreat, things’d changed. It was as if the whole world had finally woken up to the truth. The Rejuvenator didn’t fit any more, didn’t even work most people said. And they were always asking for their money back, but old Mr Larsson, he wasn’t listening.’
‘Was he easy to work for?’
Lamb eyed the thin film in the bottom of his glass. He hadn’t shaved and the shirt he was wearing was not exactly fresh.
‘Hard taskmaster, but fair. But he stuck his head in the sand – it was always on the cards that someone like that Daily Herald article would make him come unstuck.
‘O’ course that Mr Gus saw it, didn’t ’e, and started work on a new formula. ’E wanted to use the workshop, and so after lunch I’d put a sedative into Mr Larsson’s coffee and sooner or later he’d toddle off and have a siesta. I never liked to do it, but Mr Gus said it was ’armless and Mrs Larsson backed ’im up.
‘So then ’e’d go down and work on the new formula for a couple of hours, and the old boy was none the wiser.’
Miss Dimont waved to the chubby-armed lady behind the bar to bring more whisky. Lamb drank an awful lot, it transpired.
‘I don’t know whether it would’ve worked. The boy was always one for cutting corners – basically he don’t care about anything or anyone – and if the thing blew up you could guarantee he’d just take the money and sail off into the sunset. Anyway the old man found out somehow, don’t know how, and asked me about it. I said I didn’t know anything, but he threatened to sack me so I told him the lot – the sedatives too.’
Miss Dimont looked at him with curiosity. ‘When Betty Featherstone came to the Retreat, you gave her a file of letters. It looked like you’d made a mistake, because it contained all the complaints from people who’d suffered from using the Rejuvenator – you were supposed to give her all the letters of commendation.’
‘I gave her those as well.’
‘Why did you give her the complaints file?’
‘I was being threatened by Mr Gus. He said it was all over for Ben Larsson, that he’d be taking over the business very soon, and that if I didn’t help him out then he’d fire me.’ Lamb shook his head and took a swig from his fresh glass. ‘Well, he fired me anyway.’
Miss Dimont slowly thought back to the start of their conversation. ‘Mr Lamb, was it you who told the Daily Herald about the complaints?’
‘Might have.’
‘And did they pay you?’
‘They said they would but they never. Look,’ said Lamb, pushing back his chair, ‘I didn’t do it for the money. It was all part of Mr Gus’s plan. There’d been complaints for years and, sooner or later, old Mr Larsson was bound to come unstuck. All Mr Gus did, when he got me to contact the Herald, was give the process a helping hand. A push, so to speak.’
‘So Mr Wetherby basically stabbed his stepfather in the back.’
‘In the front, more like.’
Miss Dimont had taken out her notebook, always a crucial moment in a reporter’s routine – bring it out too soon and on confessionals like this your interviewee will shy away or shut up altogether; leave it too long and the mass of detail won’t be remembered sufficiently clearly afterwards. But the lugubrious Lamb was too busy looking longingly at the whisky bottles behind the bar to even notice when she laid it on the table.
‘Tell me about Ben Larsson’s death.’
‘It was confusin’. A whole lot of things going on, difficult to keep a grip of it all – my job, first and foremost, was to look after ’im, which I always did. That morning there was the stand-up row with your boss, Mr Rhys. There was Mr Gus snooping around, there were the Lazarus lot, the police, the photographs. I’m seventy, you know.’
‘Don’t look a day of it.’ Miss Dimont smiled absently, but she was thinking about the murder. ‘You were familiar with the Rejuvenator?’
‘Yes, I used to show visitors who’d never seen one before how it worked. It was all part of the routine before they met Mr Larsson. O’ course a lot of them came just to look around the gardens – we’ve won awards, you know.’ Lamb checked himself, realising that everything to do with Ransome’s Retreat must now be couched in the past tense.
‘What do you think caused Mr Larsson’s death?’
‘Well—’ the manservant looked around furtively and hitched his chair a little closer ‘—it couldn’t have happened by accident, that I do know.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘The thing is, you see, that there machine wasn’t hardly giving out any current.’
‘But Larsson knew how it worked, of course. Could he have boosted the current and killed himself?’
‘Not a chance. Why would he? Hand a victory to all those complainers, prove that the Rejuvenator could kill people? Rubbish! Anyway, he was a fighter was Mr L – he was ready to fight back. No chance he’d bump himself off.’
‘Well, then, how could somebody else pull it off?’
‘There’s an accumulator dial at the back. Turn it up too much and you get the full voltage and – bingo. I reckon that’s what done him.’
‘Would it be easy to do?’
‘You’d have to know the machine. You have to open a small panel on the back and move the calibrator round. But you could do it quickly if you knew what you were doing – wouldn’t take a moment.’
The pub was filling up and it was getting harder to hear Lamb’s responses. Coupled with that, at the rate he was swallowing whisky, there’d come a point quite soon where it was worthless pursuing the interview. Miss Dimont realised she had to be quick.
‘By my reckoning, there are only a small number of people who were near Mr Larsson that morning. There was my Mr Rhys, there was you, and there was Gus and his mother Mrs Larsson.’
Lamb’s eyes took a moment to refocus. ‘You’re not suggesting I had anything to do with it?’
‘Well,’ said Miss Dimont crisply, ‘were I a detective I would say you had the means – after all, you knew how the Rejuvenator worked – and you had the opportunity. Motive? You were angry at being kicked around by Mr Larsson and his stepson. Threatened by them both they were going to sack you, when all you were trying to do was your best to save the family fortunes and, I have no doubt, to keep your job. So anger and revenge, prime motives for ending someone’s life.’
‘After all I done for that ruddy family! But … you’re not seriously saying I done it?’ His ruddy cheeks had gone quite pale.
‘If the cap fits, Mr Lamb.’ Miss Dimont sounded businesslike and detached, all trace of her bonhomie suddenly gone. ‘There are four other suspects and I can tell you now that Mr Rhys can be discounted. It has to be one of you.’
‘How so
– Rhys, I mean?’
‘Too bumbling to pull off a murder, if you want to know. Now look, you can see you’re in a very difficult position and the best way out is to help me. I need to know everything, and I need you sober.’
Lamb instinctively reached for the carrier bag under his seat. The contents clanked.
‘You can have some of that when I’ve finished with you,’ said Miss Dimont, crisply. ‘Come on, we’re going to Lovely Mary’s and she’ll fill you up with a proper lunch. With,’ she added forcefully, ‘a nice cup of tea to help it down.’
Lamb seemed reluctant to move. He felt safe in the half-light of the Fortescue, did not want to face daylight and the reality that came with it. ‘I’m stayin’ here,’ he said purposefully.
‘No you’re not,’ said Miss Dimont, and with an elegant curve of her arm whisked away the carrier bag from his feeble grasp. She stalked off towards the door without a backward glance.
The manservant followed like, well, a lamb.
‘He was a sweetheart, darling,’ said Mrs Phipps, tumbling an overlong cigarette ash into her tea. ‘The perfect gentleman.’
‘I never met him,’ said Valentine.
‘Sir Jefrye Waterford,’ sighed the old lady, ‘such a euphonious name, don’t you think? I loved just saying it. Of course he was a terror if he got you on your own – “NSIT” we used to say, not safe in taxis! – but in every other respect, the perfect gentleman. He would call at the stage door, always a gardenia for one’s ball gown, then it would be the Embassy Club, we always used to go there. The Prince of Wales would be in a corner with Mrs Dudley Ward, and sometimes that sweet Prince George too.’
‘I don’t think he worked much,’ said Valentine. ‘Bit of a rascal, really. Ran through the money like wildfire.’
‘Mustn’t speak ill of your grandfather, dear, he made me very happy – for a while. But he had a roving eye. There was a girl who used to come in with Prince George, Alice Gwynne was her name – a bad lot. Something to do with the Vanderbilts but no money. In the end the King had her run out of the country, she was very wayward. When she left, forcefully escorted to Dover I heard, poor Georgie was in a terrible way what with drink and … other things.’ She lit another Player’s Navy Cut and smiled mysteriously, the smoke occluding other, more private, memories. ‘Sir Jefrye was very interested in her.’
