by Evelyn James
“I have an old pantry key,” Clara explained hastily, seeing his face. “It broke this morning, right before my cook was due to unlock the pantry and begin preparing dinner for a special party I have on tonight. It was most vexing. The shaft has quite sheared in two. I was able to make this impression of the key, in the hope that you would be able to use it to make a temporary replacement. I could not bring the original as my poor cook is endeavouring to use it to unlock the pantry and I feared you would need it some time to make a copy.”
The locksmith stared at the bar of soap and scratched his head.
“I could fix the key, perhaps,” he said. “If not, I could make a perfect copy from the original. But from a bar of soap…”
“We have to get the pantry open,” Clara told him. “It was simply impossible to bring the original. It took me an hour to walk here as it is. By the time you had fixed the key and I had walked back the morning would be lost and some of the dishes I had intended for my party require a day of preparation. At the same time, I did not dare wait around to see if they could find a way to work the broken key to open the pantry, so I might bring it here once they were done, in case they failed and needed a replacement after all. I decided my best option was to make an impression and come at once. At least then I might get a spare, and if they can’t open the pantry, all might not be lost.”
The locksmith was still staring at the bar of soap.
“It won’t be perfect,” he said, poking the soap with a finger. “There will be little defects.”
“But can you make a working key?” Clara demanded.
“Probably,” the locksmith continued to prod the soap as though it was a foreign substance to him. “But I don’t like doing a half-hearted job.”
“This will be purely temporary. Once I have a working spare, I can bring the original down to you without worry.”
The locksmith nodded, gnawing on his lip with a hint of anxiety. He was beginning to regret that the woman had walked into his shop at all that morning.
“I’ve never made a key from an impression in a bar of soap before.”
“But, you must have used impressions to make keys before?” Clara said, a pang of doubt entering her mind. After all, what you read about in magazines was not necessarily what was practical, or even possible, in the real world. Tommy might have gone to all this effort for nothing.
“Usually I take a key blank, like one of these,” the locksmith opened a draw behind his counter and took out what looked like a key but with no teeth cut into its end. “Now, I will take my little files and my saw and make a copy of the pattern of the original key. I am very precise and my duplicates are never faulty. But here you are asking me to work from a bar of soap.”
The locksmith scratched his chin.
“The soap is too pale for me to get a good idea of the pattern,” he peered very closely at the impression in the soap. “Hmm, maybe if I…”
He wandered absentmindedly out to the back of his shop, leaving Clara and her bar of soap at the counter. He seemed to be gone a long time, but when he returned he had a small crucible in his hand, like something a chemist would use.
“This is lead solder,” he told Clara, waving the crucible at her. “I keep it about for fixing keys and making repairs. It isn’t a permanent fix, too soft, but it is useful when I need to put a key back together and then copy it. Had you brought your original with you, I would have fixed it with lead solder and then worked from it. As it is, I think I can use this another way.”
There was a little stove at the corner of the counter. The locksmith lit it with some matches and stood the crucible on top. The lead slowly began to melt.
“I make lead soldiers too,” the locksmith added, glancing at Clara to see if this would interest her. “Proper ones, using moulds I buy from catalogues. And then I paint then in the correct colours. People buy them for their children, they are educational because the uniforms are all precise. Some of these toy ones you see in the shops are so poor and the colours all wrong. Its unthinkable!”
“I can imagine,” Clara said politely.
“How is a child to learn anything from a toy soldier in the wrong uniform,” the locksmith suddenly became rather shy and could not quite meet Clara’s eyes. “I have a full regiment of the King’s Royal Artillery in my workshop, all correctly painted and with proper insignia, if you would like to see it…”
“Maybe another time,” Clara said, trying not to show her amusement at his gentle attempt to impress her. Probably he didn’t meet a lot of women and had not yet discovered most could care less about lead soldiers, whether in proper uniform or not. Most women, if taken by such outfits, rather preferred their soldiers living and breathing.
The lead had melted and the locksmith carefully poured it into the impression in the soap bar. It formed a glistening pool, with a shimmer on its surface that resemble the pretty pattern of oil on water.
“It will take a moment to harden,” the locksmith went back to his drawer and pulled out a key blank. “Who are you having to your party?”
“Old friends of my husband,” Clara said quickly.
“Oh, you are married then?” the locksmith looked disappointed.
“I am,” Clara lied.
“But you are not wearing a wedding ring?”
Clara pretended to bristle with affront, when really she was cursing herself for her foolishness.
“This is the Twentieth Century, a girl need not wear a wedding ring to be married. The wedding ring is a form of shackle declaring a woman tied to a man, much like the ring in a bull’s nose. I am not shackled to my husband. I chose to marry him.”
The locksmith was further confused by this outburst, but, like many of his generation, he had come to learn that women thought a lot differently these days to how they had done in his mother’s or grandmother’s time. He accepted Clara’s statement with a nod.
“I reckon that should be hard enough now,” he said, distracting himself with the cast of the key. He carefully plucked it from the soap and set it by his blank, then he began to work cutting a new key.
Clara felt she had been rather forthright and maybe a little rude. She regretted her little rant, even if it had been to cover her own faux pas. She decided to make amends.
“Might you have an example in your collection of a cavalry man?” she asked.
“I do,” the locksmith looked up brightly. “On horseback and carrying a sabre.”
“Might I purchase it?” Clara continued. “For my nephew, who is very fond of such things.”
The locksmith smiled.
“With pleasure. Let me just do the key.”
He worked for half an hour getting the key blank to resemble perfectly the impression Clara had given him. When he was done he went out the back of his shop and returned with a little figurine. It proved to be a very fine cavalry man on a white horse, carrying his sabre aloft. The detail was extraordinary and Clara found herself bending down to stare at it.
“Most remarkable!” she declared as she handed over the money for key and soldier.
“I like them to be just right,” the locksmith smiled proudly.
“They are indeed just that. Thank you for your help. I am sure my nephew will be delighted by the figure.”
“I hope he is,” the locksmith was grinning at her with the delight only a consummate artisan can get from having his work admired, all the time as she left the shop.
Clara stood on the pavement outside and first studied the cavalry man, whose detail was truly breath-taking, then she looked at her new key which was equally finely cut. Pocketing them at last, she went about her next task.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Clara spotted the local grocer’s lad just leaving a house where he had delivered their weekly order of tinned goods. He had one of those big shop bicycles with a huge wicker basket on the front where he could carry his deliveries. He already looked soaked and, judging by the number of parcels in his basket, he had a fair way t
o go as yet before he was done. Clara paused him to ask if there was a telephone in town.
“Mrs Pemble at the Post Office has one,” the boy informed her. “She will let anyone use it for tuppence, unless you want to call outside the country. She won’t let you do that. Won’t even let you ring someone in Wales. Says that is foreign soil and she won’t have her ‘phone used in such a manner. Which is a shame, ‘cos I have an aunt in Wales and ma would like to ring her from time to time.”
Clara thanked him for this unnecessary amount of information and he set off on his way once more.
The Post Office was easy enough to find. Like most such places it was well signposted, with a prominent board outside declaring its purpose. It was set in one of the cottages, with a pretty bay window made of lots of small panes of glass. Clara entered and found that it was quite busy with people. It seemed this was the place to come to get out of the rain and have a natter, for most of the customers (if they could be described as such) were talking among themselves rather than actually buying anything. Mrs Pemble was behind the counter, a lady in her fifties with thick greying hair she tied back in a plait. She had half-moon spectacles and had her hands wrapped around a mug of warm tea as she listened to one of her regulars debating the falling quality of black boot polish.
Mrs Pemble adjusted her attention to Clara as she entered, spying a potential customer at long last.
“May I help?” she asked in her best impression of a well-spoken lady. Mrs Pemble worked on the theory that most of the customers who she did not recognise when they came into her Post Office were tourists and, therefore, (to a woman who had never taken a holiday because she could not afford it) very well-off and well-spoken.
“May I use your telephone?” Clara enquired.
“Why yes. It is tuppence for a short call, threepence for longer. I must insist you only place your call within England, however.”
“That is not a problem,” Clara assured her. “I want to call Brighton.”
“Then do come this way, I keep the ‘phone in a little back room, so customers using it may have their privacy.”
Mrs Pemble ushered Clara through the hatch in her counter and down a short corridor. The telephone had been placed in what once might have been a tiny pantry. It stood on a narrow, tall table in one corner, while a wooden chair took up the remaining space.
“Will you be requiring the telephone directory?” Mrs Pemble asked.
“Not for the moment,” Clara responded, and the woman departed.
Clara knew the number for the Brighton Constabulary off by heart. When the girl at the exchange came onto the line Clara gave her the number and then waited as the ‘phone rang. It seemed to take a long time before it was answered.
“Brighton Police Station. Desk Sergeant Hargreaves speaking.”
Clara gave a silent groan. She was not on the best terms with the Desk Sergeant and had rather hoped a constable might have picked up instead.
“I would like to speak with Inspector Park-Coombs,” Clara said into the narrow receiver that rather looked like the trumpet of a black daffodil.
“The Inspector does not speak to random people, miss.”
“I am far from random,” Clara informed him. “I am Clara Fitzgerald…”
“Oh, you,” The Desk Sergeant interrupted her. “I thought you had gone on holiday and wouldn’t be disturbing us for a while.”
“I am on holiday,” Clara said, managing to keep her temper. “But something has come up and I must speak with the Inspector.”
“I think he might be busy,” Desk Sergeant Hargreaves told her bluntly.
“Perhaps you might ask him, rather than just assume that?” Clara responded tetchily. “It is rather important.”
“It always is with you.”
“You might remember that I am a taxpayer and thus pay your wages along with the Inspector’s. Thus, as a taxpayer…”
“I’ll fetch him, shall I?” the Desk Sergeant said sourly, abandoning the telephone before Clara could finish her rant.
She waited impatiently for what seemed like ages, before a new voice came on the line.
“Miss Fitzgerald? Everything all right? I thought you were on holiday?”
Clara recognised the sage tone of Inspector Park-Coombs and relaxed a little.
“I am perfectly all right, Inspector. Sadly the same cannot be said for two of my fellow charabanc tourers. One in particular has passed away in rather troubling circumstances.”
“Oh?” Inspector Park-Coombs managed to fit a lot of implication into that one word.
“I wondered if you could do a little bit of what Tommy refers to as ‘background work’ on her. I fear she has been murdered, but the local police are refusing to listen to me. They are quite content to consider her death a suicide.”
“And you are not?”
“The woman was attacked twice before her death in a suspicious fashion. She was concerned someone wished her harm. Would you, Inspector, when given such facts, ignore them?”
“I take your point,” Inspector Park-Coombs said. “But I am a rather busy man and not, I might remind you, at your beck and call.”
Clara felt rebuffed, though, she supposed, she had rather just assumed the Inspector would drop everything and help her.
“I apologise,” Clara said. “I am just rather at a dead end and hoped for your help. The woman was called Mrs Hunt and she was resident in Brighton. She compiled her own list of suspects in the case, but so far none have presented themselves as obvious killers. I thought you might be able to find something out about her, or at least perhaps her husband, Mr Hunt. Mrs Hunt was involved in a death herself, of a Brighton girl. The case was deemed suicide also.”
“Quite a tangle,” Inspector Park-Coombs sighed down the phoneline. “But I shall only have records on her if she was ever involved in something criminal in Brighton.”
“I appreciate that, but I rather need some fresh ideas. She seemed to dislike a good many people, but whether there was cause for that I cannot say.”
Park-Coombs gave another professional sigh.
“I’ll take a look and see if anything turns up.”
“Thank you, Inspector. I shall owe you dinner, or something when I return.”
The Inspector gave a harrumph and the ‘phone went dead. Park-Coombs did not much hold with saying goodbye. Clara put down the little bell shaped receiver she had held to her ear, and went to find Mrs Pemble to pay for her call. The Post Office had emptied somewhat since there had been a break in the rain and people had piled out to hurry home. Clara handed over her thruppence, for it had been a long call.
“Do you have a street directory for the area?” she enquired.
“Naturally!” Mrs Pemble bobbed down behind her counter and reappeared with a neatly bound red book. “Now who might one be looking for?”
Clara paused, not sure if she wanted the whole Post Office to overhear her, but Mrs Pemble had her hands firmly placed on the directory and it rather looked like she was not going to simply give it to Clara. After a moment of annoyance, Clara answered.
“Inspector Wake, retired.”
“Oh, that my dear is simple!” Mrs Pemble dropped her pretentiousness for an instant in her delight. “He lives at No.12 The Street. It’s a quaint old cottage, several centuries old and kept in good repair. Inspector Wake is very popular in these parts and a keen fisherman. Why, he once investigated a break-in in this very Post Office, and apprehended the criminals too! More than can be said for this modern lot of policemen. They just don’t seem interested in crime, unless its particularly violent or involves someone important.”
“How might I find The Street?” Clara asked.
“You’ll need to go down the road a way, until you see Church Lane, and then, just beyond that is Surrey Street, turn down there, following Clay Road and The Street is right in front of you.”
The directions were shot at Clara rather swiftly and she had to process them for a moment before they made
sense. She thanked Mrs Pemble and sauntered out of the Post Office, feeling that a dozen pairs of eyes were upon her.
The weather had turned again and heavy rain fell down as Clara hastened along, following the directions Mrs Pemble had given her. After one or two false turns she eventually came upon The Street and found, as Mrs Pemble had stated, that it consisted of a number of older cottages. Probably these were some of the original homes that had first sprung up in the town, they certainly had an ancient look about them. Clara found No.12 and rapped on the door with her umbrella handle. It was a while before anyone answered.
“Yes?” an elderly man in carpet slippers and with a walrus moustache opened the door and addressed her. He was wearing a brown cardigan with the sleeves rolled up, and the soap suds on his hands suggested he had been doing the washing up.
“Inspector Wake?”
“Indeed. But no one comes calling on me these days who I don’t know. Who are you?”
“Clara Fitzgerald,” Clara introduced herself. “Private detective, for my sins. I am here about an old case that I believe you worked on?”
Inspector Wake observed her carefully. He might have retired to a life of rural quiet, but he had not lost his policing instincts.
“You best come in. I suspect you have a lot to explain to me,” he said, reverting to his inspector demeanour.
Clara followed him into a small front room, where the ceiling was low enough to crack skulls and consisted of white plaster and dark brown beams. A fire was burning in the fireplace and chasing out the damp chill of the day. Inspector Wake showed her to a comfortable sofa and offered her tea. Clara accepted and some time was wasted as the formalities of tea-making and the bringing forth of the tea tray were observed. When they were both settled, Clara opened proceedings.
“I have been asked to look into the circumstances surrounding the death of a lady at lake Windermere,” Clara said, acting as if her client was still alive, which she was most definitely not. “The lady in question was connected with a case I think you may have looked into, and I was curious whether that past case might have any bearing on the current one.”
