Death of a Cad

by M C Beaton

  Hamish surveyed the white little face and the knowing eyes of the child.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Wee Alec. Alec MacQueen.’

  ‘Well, Alec, what are you doing travelling on this train with four men you don’t know?’

  ‘It’s my maw’s idea,’ said Alec. ‘Man, I’m fair sick of the trains.’

  ‘Oh, they’re friends of your mother?’

  ‘Naw.’ Alec put his pointed elbows on the table between them and leaned forward. ‘It’s like this. If you’ve got a Family Rail card and you take a child along, you get a third knocked off the price o’ the fare. Disnae need to be your own child. Anyone’s child’ll do. So my maw tells one who tells the other that if anyone wants to borrow me, they can. She charges five pounds a head for my services,’ said Alec proudly. ‘Then when we get to London, they turn me over to some other blokes who are coming back up. Then I pick up another lot at Inverness and come back down, so’s I can go back up with them ones what I come down with.’

  ‘Are you on your school holidays?’

  ‘Aye, but it disnae matter one way or the other. If she’s got a good fare, my maw takes me off the school.’

  ‘And do you like it?’

  ‘Naw, I hate it,’ said Alec. ‘I want to be in the school with my friends.’

  Hamish looked wildly round the compartment. There were a lot of children on the train. Were they all for hire?

  ‘Would you like me to do something to stop it?’ he asked.

  ‘I would like that fine,’ said Alec. ‘But I don’t want my maw to get in trouble with the police.’

  Hamish opened his mouth to say he was a policeman, and then thought the better of it.

  Nobody seemed to care about education these days. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen a truant officer. He could call on Alec’s mother or report her to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, but they were surely overloaded with more dramatic cases of child cruelty.

  He chatted idly to Alec until the child fell asleep, his narrow head and greasy, lank hair rolling with the motion of the train.

  When they arrived in Edinburgh, Hamish left the train and went in search of a phone. He put through a reverse-charge call to Rory Grant on the Daily Chronicle, forgetting it was the middle of the night. But he was in luck. Rory was on night shift.

  ‘What do you want, you great Highland berk?’ came Rory’s voice over the crackling of a bad line.

  ‘I have often wondered how this word “berk” came about,’ said Hamish.

  ‘It’s rhyming slang. Berkeley Hunt.’

  ‘Tut, tut, that’s no’ very nice,’ said Hamish, shocked.

  ‘Did you put through this expensive long-distance call just to ask me the meaning of rude words?’

  ‘No, I have a wee story for you.’

  Hamish told him about Alec, and then finished by saying, ‘I would like to do something to help the boy. He is a kind of Scottish Flying Dutchman, if you take my meaning.’

  ‘It’s a nice human-interest one. Whether they’ll send me to meet the train is another thing. I’m out of favour these days. Didn’t even get sent up on that murder of yours – or murders, I gather, from the stuff coming over on the tapes. But I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll phone the story round for you – there’s that big Scottish Sunday’s got an office in London – and in return I want you to fill me in on some background on the murders.’

  ‘I will do my best,’ said Hamish. ‘I have an appointment later in the morning. If you can meet the train, maybe we can have breakfast somewhere.’

  ‘I’ll try. If not, phone me at home during the day.’

  Hamish ran back to the train and found his seat had been taken by a hot and cross-looking woman. Alec was still asleep. Once more, Hamish collected his overnight bag and went in search of a free seat.

  The only one to be found was back in the freezing compartment. With a sigh of resignation, he pulled another sweater out of his bag, put it on, and settled down and tried to sleep.

  Somewhere after Carlisle, the air-conditioning went off and the heating came on. He arrived in London eyes gritty with sleep and sweating profusely.

  As he got off the train, he looked along the platform and smiled in satisfaction. Rory had done his work well. There were five reporters and three photographers clustered around Wee Alec, who was proudly holding forth, although there was no sign of Rory.

  Hamish went to the Gents and changed into a clean shirt, shaved with an electric razor, parked his bag in a station locker, and went in search of breakfast.

  At ten o’clock, he took the District Line to Chelsea and walked along the Kings Road to Flood Street, where Captain Bartlett’s aunt, a Mrs Frobisher, had a house.

  The air felt very warm, and a brassy sun was shining through a thin haze of cloud.

  Chalmers had promised to phone and warn Mrs Frobisher of his arrival.

  The door to Mrs Frobisher’s home was opened by a dumpy, suet-faced girl dressed in a black off-the-shoulder T-shirt, black ballet tights, and scuffed shoes.

  ‘Good morning,’ said Hamish politely. ‘I am Police Constable Hamish Macbeth of Lochdubh, and I am here to speak to Mrs Frobisher.’

  ‘Get lost, pig,’ said the girl. The door began to close.

  Hamish put his foot in it. ‘Now, what is a beautiful creature like yourself doing using such ugly words?’ he marvelled.

  ‘She don’t want to see you.’

  ‘Miranda!’ interrupted a sharp voice. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘It’s that copper you don’t want to see,’ the girl roared over her shoulder.

  A door in the hallway opened behind her and an elderly lady emerged, leaning on a cane. Her hair was white, and her face criss-crossed with wrinkles.

  She peered around Miranda’s bulk. ‘You don’t look like a policeman,’ she said doubtfully. ‘I received a call from Scotland, saying an officer would call on me and I told whoever it was that I had no wish to see the police again.’

  ‘I can well understand that,’ said Hamish. ‘I’ll try not to take up too much of your time.’

  ‘You seem harmless enough,’ said Mrs Frobisher. ‘Come in. Bring us some coffee, Miranda.’

  The girl sulked off, crashing her fat shoulders off either wall of a narrow passage at the back of the hall.

  ‘Your daughter?’ asked Hamish politely.

  ‘Good heavens, no,’ said Mrs Frobisher, leading the way into a small sitting room on the ground floor. ‘I am much too old to have a daughter of Miranda’s age. Miranda is my maid. I got her from an agency. They send me very strange girls. But then, I don’t suppose anyone in their right mind wants to be a maid these days. Now, what on earth do you want? I’ve talked and talked to policemen about Peter. I don’t think I can add any more.’

  ‘There’s been another development,’ said Hamish, and told her about the murder of Vera.

  ‘Gosh,’ said Mrs Frobisher, sitting down abruptly. ‘What a frightful thing to happen. Are you sure it wasn’t suicide? I always thought that woman was unstable.’

  ‘I think she was killed by someone baking cakes for her with roach powder,’ said Hamish. ‘It’s too nasty and complicated a death for suicide.’

  ‘I met her once,’ said Mrs Frobisher. ‘Peter brought her here. A greedy woman. Greedy for sex, greedy for money. But I think I know who it is who has been committing these murders. It must be Diana Bryce.’

  ‘And why is that?’

  Miranda clumped in with a tray with a pot of coffee and cups, thumped it down, and banged her way out.

  ‘I wasn’t sure when I heard about the shooting. But poison! I could well see Diana doing that. She threw every kind of fit when Peter broke off the engagement. She followed him to a night-club and made the most awful scene. He told me about it. The poor boy was worried, I could see that.’

  ‘You were fond of your nephew,’ said Hamish gently.

  Mrs Frobisher’s old wrinkled face crumpled lik
e a baby’s, and for a moment Hamish thought she was going to cry. But she eased herself to her feet and poured two cups of coffee.

  ‘Yes, very fond,’ she said. ‘He was not always so wild, so irrational. He was quite bright at Sandhurst, and seemed set for a good military career. He was always taking up hobbies and then dropping them. I always told him he was turning my home into a graveyard for his abandoned hobbies. There’s his stamp collection, his model airplanes, his computer, his wood carvings, his … oh, so many things.’

  ‘I would like to see them, if I may,’ said Hamish.

  ‘His parents died when he was still at school,’ said Mrs Frobisher, her eyes staring past Hamish to days of long ago. ‘I took care of him. I don’t have any children of my own. But after he left Sandhurst, I couldn’t really have him staying here. I’m too old-fashioned and he always brought girls home.’

  ‘Jessica Villiers?’

  ‘No, he hasn’t stayed here since he was a young man. I haven’t heard of her.’

  ‘The Helmsdales? Did he talk of them?’

  She shook her head.

  Patiently, he took her through the names of all the members of the house party. Diana Bryce and Vera were the only names familiar to her.

  Hamish then led the conversation off on to more general subjects, hoping that when he guided her back to Peter Bartlett, she might remember something to give him just one clue.

  She became animated as she talked, and he guessed she was lonely. She asked him to stay to lunch, much to Miranda’s obvious fury.

  They were just finishing a miserable little lunch of cold quiche and limp salad when Mrs Frobisher suddenly said, ‘I’ve just remembered. You mentioned the name of Throgmorton. Sir Humphrey Throgmorton?’

  Hamish nodded.

  ‘I’ve just remembered something about him. He hurt Peter’s feelings very much. Peter called around to his home. Tea, I think it was. Wait a bit. It’s coming back to me. Well, poor Peter broke a cup and saucer by accident, and not only did this Sir Humphrey throw a terrible scene, but he wrote to Peter’s colonel-in-chief and complained. The colonel never liked Peter and this was jam to him. Peter said the old man used it as an excuse to give him the dressing down of a lifetime. Peter said Sir Humphrey was a closet homosexual and as vengeful as sin. Can you imagine anyone making such a fuss over some old china?’

  ‘No,’ said Hamish, although he privately thought that any collector would see red, given the same set of circumstances.

  Mrs Frobisher looked at him almost shyly. ‘I have two tickets to Duchess Darling – for the matinee this afternoon. I did not feel like asking someone to go with me because of Peter’s death. But if you have the time …?’

  Hamish groaned inwardly. Seeing Henry’s play would remind him of Henry and that would lead to thoughts of Priscilla. He had been able to put her out of his mind while he concentrated on the case, and he did not want thoughts of her to muddle up his brain.

  But the longer he spent with Mrs Frobisher, the more chance there was of her remembering more.

  ‘I would be delighted to go,’ he said. ‘May I telephone someone first?’

  ‘Of course. There’s a phone over on that desk by the window. I’ll go and change while you make your call.’

  Hamish phoned Rory Grant at home and listened patiently while the reporter grumbled about being woken up.

  ‘When do you start work?’ asked Hamish, when he could get a word in.

  ‘Seven o’clock this evening.’

  ‘I might go round to the office with you. I want to look at some of the library cuttings.’

  ‘Oh, you do, do you? They aren’t cuttings any more. Everything’s on computer. What’s in it for me?’

  ‘Background on these murders.’

  ‘Okay. Do you want to come to the office, or call round here first?’

  ‘I don’t know how I’ll be placed for time. If I haven’t turned up at your place by six, I’ll meet you at the office.’

  Hamish found it hard to concentrate on the play. He was gloomily sure that Henry had somehow managed to persuade Priscilla to become re-engaged. He decided at the end of the play to go back with Mrs Frobisher and see if he could winkle any further information out of her.

  The old lady was tired and leaned heavily on her cane, but there was a faint flush on her old cheeks. She had obviously enjoyed the outing.

  When they got to Flood Street, Hamish said tentatively, ‘I won’t keep you much longer, Mrs Frobisher. I have another call to make. Could I just see some of Captain Bartlett’s things?’

  ‘I have them all in a room upstairs. The police have been through them already, of course.’

  She led the way upstairs and pushed open a bedroom door. The room was, as Mrs Frobisher had said, a graveyard of hobbies. The model airplanes swung from the ceiling, a collection of rocks and fossils lay on a table, albums of stamps were piled on a chair.

  ‘What’s this?’ asked Hamish, crossing the room to a little china cabinet in the corner. It contained several dainty porcelain figurines. ‘Was this one of his hobbies?’

  ‘Yes, he started collecting bits of china from the salerooms after he had been to Sir Humphrey’s. Funny I should have forgotten all about Sir Humphrey until today. Peter had a sort of magpie mind. His hobbies were all other people’s enthusiasms. He would take something up for a bit, throw himself into it, then he would get bored and cart the lot around to me for safekeeping.’

  ‘Isn’t it a wee bit odd,’ said Hamish, studying the pieces of china, ‘to think that the captain would become a collector of porcelain and yet everyone seems to think he deliberately broke a rare cup and saucer?’

  ‘If he did do it deliberately,’ said Mrs Frobisher loyally. ‘But it’s hard to explain. I do not think he had the soul of a collector, unless you call collecting other people’s hobbies collecting. The china phase did not last long. What’s that you’ve got?’ she said, seeing Hamish had a ragged bunch of manuscript in his hand.

  ‘Seem to be regimental reminiscences,’ said Hamish. ‘Another of his enthusiasms?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Mrs Frobisher. ‘He scribbled from time to time.’

  ‘Is that a fact?’ said Hamish slowly. He carefully went through the room, checking any papers, reading letters, until he heard Mrs Frobisher stifle a yawn.

  ‘I’d better be on my way,’ said Hamish. He thanked her for lunch and the theatre outing and took his leave, promising to visit her the next time he was in London.

  He walked back to Sloane Square and took the District Line to Blackfriars and walked along to Fleet Street. He stood for a moment at the corner of Ludgate Circus and looked up towards the great bulk of St Paul’s Cathedral.

  Images of the different people connected with the murder whirled around and around in his brain, facts jostled against facts, and then the kaleidoscope of bits and pieces slowly stopped revolving and settled down into a pattern.

  But he had to be sure.

  He set off for the Daily Chronicle offices at a run.

  ‘You been drinking?’ asked Rory impatiently, as he led Hamish upstairs to the reporters’ desk. For Hamish was walking like a blind man, bumping into walls, his eyes fixed in an odd inward-looking stare.

  ‘No,’ said Hamish slowly. ‘Look, I haff to make a call.’

  ‘And if the night news editor comes up, how do I explain why I am letting you use the phone?’

  ‘Tell him it is because I know who murdered Bartlett and Vera Forbes-Grant, and I can take you with me to be in at the kill.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  Hamish rubbed the damp palms of his hands against his trousers.

  ‘Very sure. I need one more bit of proof, and it’s a long shot.’

  ‘Go ahead and phone, and if the news editor says okay, I’ll book us both on a flight.’

  Hamish phoned Tommel Castle and told Jenkins to fetch Mr Chalmers.

  The superintendent came on the line. ‘You were right about the roach powder,’ he said. ‘
But we’re no further with solving the case.’

  ‘This is who did it,’ said Hamish.

  Chalmers listened in growing amazement. ‘But that’s guesswork!’ he exclaimed. ‘Proof, laddie. Where’s the proof? It’s only in books that the criminal breaks down and confesses.’

  ‘I want the name of every journalist who was there just after the first murder and who did not stay on,’ said Hamish. ‘I’m at the offices of the Daily Chronicle at the reporters’ desk. I’ll wait for your call.’

  ‘You think one of them was an accomplice?’

  ‘An unwitting one,’ said Hamish. ‘I’m making a wild guess that our criminal handed one of them a package to either keep until called for, or to take to a certain address.’

  ‘But no journalist would be naive enough to do that?’

  ‘Oh yes, they would, if it meant getting a bit of background and the person seemed innocent enough.’

  ‘I’ve a funny feeling you’re out on a limb there, Macbeth. But stay where you are until I call. It might take all night, and if it’s a London journalist you’re after then I’ll need to ask the Yard for help.’

  Rory came back looking excited. ‘By God, Hamish,’ he cried, ‘if you can pull this one off, I’ll be able to get drunk for a fortnight. What do we do now?’

  ‘We wait,’ said Hamish.

  ‘And pray.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Methought I heard a voice cry, ‘Sleep no more!

  Macbeth does murder sleep.

  – Shakespeare

  Summer lay dying outside Tommel Castle. A chill wind blew across the moors and rattled the windows and sent puffs of smoke from the fire belching out into the drawing room.

  They were all gathered for afternoon tea, even Freddy Forbes-Grant, who had been released from prison. He had stoutly maintained he had confessed to the murder only because he thought his wife had committed it. There was not enough hard evidence to hold him. Blair swore the gloves had not been in Freddy’s room when it was first searched, and Anderson and MacNab backed him up. Freddy’s moustache drooped, and he looked thoroughly miserable. Mary Halburton-Smythe poured tea with a steady hand and tried not to think it would have been more decent of Freddy to have mourned in his room instead of crawling about downstairs like the skeleton at the feast.