The Casebook of Jonas P. Jonas and Other Mysteries

by E. X. Ferrars

  She looked up at him and smiled and said, “Had a good day?”

  It was all so normal that it seemed silly to be bothering about a packet of cigarettes. All the same, when he had kissed her and sat down, he said, “Taking up smoking?”

  She looked puzzled. “Smoking?”

  “Yes,” he said, “I see you’ve been buying cigarettes again.”

  “Oh,” she said, “those.”

  “Well,” he said, “if you really want to smoke, why don’t you?”

  “I don’t,” she said. “I thought I’d give them to Mrs. Banks.”

  Mrs. Banks was their daily help. She came in to clean the house on five mornings a week and enjoyed a cup of tea and a cigarette halfway through her three hours work. She was also responsible, to some extent, for spreading the news of such things as Coralie’s pregnancy and later miscarriage throughout the village. She was a very efficient and friendly woman and Coralie claimed that she was entirely dependent on her.

  “I thought you didn’t much like her smoking in the kitchen,” Roger said. “Didn’t you try to get her to eat a biscuit instead?”

  “You can’t change people.”

  “Well, it’s a change in you, actually buying her cigarettes for her.” He hesitated. “You did buy them, I suppose? I mean, it wasn’t like last time, you didn’t just find them in your pocket?”

  “I think I found them in my basket. Yes, I’m sure I did. It doesn’t matter, does it?”

  “No, but you did pay for them, didn’t you?”

  “I think so. I expect I did.”

  “Surely you know.”

  She gave an irritated frown. “How can one be sure when they rattle all the prices off on that computer thing? One can’t think of everything.”

  “Coralie, I don’t believe you did pay for them. Darling, please be honest with me. Didn’t you just help yourself to them for some – oh, some very peculiar sort of reason, but one we ought to talk about. I only want to help.”

  She stood up, dropped her knitting into the basket on the floor at her side and walked out of the room.

  He could hear that she went into the kitchen and set about preparing their evening meal. Presently, as usual, she came in with the sherry, then dished up the veal casserole that she had cooked earlier and a chocolate mousse. Her cooking was as good as ever, but she was very silent and would not meet his eyes. Afterwards, when she had set the dishwasher going, she switched on the television without asking him if the programme was one that he wanted to watch, which as it happened it was not, and then sat in front of it for the rest of the evening. She went early to bed. Before following her, Roger went out to the kitchen and saw that the cigarettes had vanished. Like the first packet, he found them in the dustbin.

  Next morning, on his way into Allingford, he called in at the village shop, which he was able to do because it opened half an hour before he was due at the bank. It was run by a middle-aged couple called McQueen, who in spite of their name had never been in Scotland, yet took a certain pride in their remote Scottish ancestry. Bob McQueen did the ordering for the shop, saw to the two local weekly deliveries and looked after the accounts. Katie, his wife, ran the shop, which was a well-organised self-service place, answered the telephone, took orders and got to know the customers.

  The shop was almost empty when Roger entered it. One woman whom he knew by sight, though he could not remember her name, was studying the shelf of canned soups. He and she said good morning to one another, though he doubted if she knew who he was any more than he knew her. As he approached Katie McQueen, who was seated at the counter that had the computer on it, she looked up at him with what he thought was a trace of anxiety in her smile. He did not often appear in the shop.

  “Good morning, Mrs. McQueen,” he said. “How are you?”

  “Very well thank you, Mr. Gates,” she answered. “And how are you?”

  “Fine, fine,” he said. “I just called in because my wife thinks she didn’t pay for some cigarettes she got here yesterday. She may be mistaken, but she wanted me to make sure of it.”

  Katie McQueen’s smile brightened and the anxiety faded from it.

  “That’s very thoughtful of her,” she said. “Yes, I thought there was a bit of a mix-up about that, though I didn’t really like to say anything about it. It would have been so embarrassing if I was wrong. Or if I was right, come to think of it. But thank you for settling the matter. How is she now?”

  She was certainly one of the people who knew of the miscarriage

  “Oh, getting along pretty well, thank you,” he said. “Gets tired pretty quickly still, but that’s only to be expected.”

  “That’s right. My first was a miscarriage, you know, and it nearly broke my heart. I got sort of muddled and confused after it, I remember. It was very hard for Bob. But then Ian came along and everything went all right.”

  In fact the McQueens had had four children after the first failure. The eldest was at Bristol University, studying law, the second was apprenticed to a builder in Allingford and the next two went on the school bus into Allingford every morning to the comprehensive. But the McQueens had married young. There would be no Ian for Coralie.

  Roger paid what she owed for the cigarettes and went on to the bank.

  When he returned home that evening he did not go straight into the house but again lingered for a little while in the garden, pulling out a weed here and there and noticing how swiftly the grass on the strip of lawn seemed to be growing now and that it would be able to do with another cut at the weekend. Then, with a slight sigh, he entered the house by the kitchen door.

  There were no cigarettes on the table today, but there was a tin of baby food.

  A feeling of painful pity flooded him. In his insensitive way, he thought, he had not understood how much the loss of her child had meant to Coralie. He had not troubled to understand.

  When he went into the sitting-room and found her in her usual chair, knitting, and she asked him cheerfully if he had had a good day, he nodded his head and kissed her on the cheek and said nothing about the baby food. But he had a feeling that she found something unsatisfactory in this. Could it be, he wondered, that she had wanted to be scolded for having done something so foolish as buying it, or bringing it home, that was to say, perhaps without having paid for it? For he felt certain, though he could not have said why, that she had not paid for it. The tin was only little and would easily have slipped unnoticed into her coat pocket.

  But that was something that he could not allow, even if he said nothing to Coralie about it. He could not let it be said that his wife was shoplifting. He would have to make some arrangement with Mrs. McQueen.

  Next morning, as he had the day before, he went into the shop on his way into Allingford. The same other customer was there who had been there yesterday. Someone, he supposed, who did her shopping early before going on to her work, whatever it was. But this morning she smiled at him and said, “Good morning, Mr. Gates, I hope your doing her shopping for Mrs. Gates doesn’t mean she’s had a relapse.”

  He wished that he could remember her name. He was fairly sure that they had met at some village function. He also wished very much that she was not there. It would have made it easier to talk to Mrs. McQueen.

  But she took the initiative. Looking sympathetic, she said, “I know why you’re here, Mr. Gates, and of course you’re right, we’ll have to do something about it, we can’t just let it go on, can we? I don’t mean I don’t understand and I’ll do anything I can to help, but I actually saw her do it, you know. Just slipped the thing into her pocket as if she didn’t mind if I saw her or not. And then when I spoke to her about it and suggested quite pleasantly she’d forgotten to pay and wouldn’t it be best if she did, she just looked kind of puzzled and said she didn’t know what I was talking about. And not wanting a scene with other customers in the shop, I didn’t argue but let her get away with it. But I can’t just let it go on, now can I?”

  The other customer
had moved up close to the desk and was waiting to pay for her own purchases.

  “No, no, of course not,” Roger said, “and I think you’ve been very kind so far, and of course I’m going to discuss it with her, but meantime if you’d just keep a note of what we owe you and let me settle up when I come in, I’m sure that’ll be the best thing to do.”

  He hoped that that was not so explicit that the other customer could be sure of what he was talking about.

  “That’ll be quite all right, and I hate to worry you about it,” Mrs. McQueen said, “but if I was you I’d talk it over with a doctor. Do you have Dr. Bayliss? He’s ever so understanding. Thanks – ” This was as Roger handed her a five-pound note and she pounded the amount on her computer and gave him the change. “Good morning, Liz dear.”

  This was to the woman standing behind him, Liz Linklater. He suddenly remembered her name and who she was. He remembered her perfectly now. She ran a small hairdressing salon in the village to which Coralie went about once a fortnight and where, she said, more local gossip was to be heard in the hour or so that she spent there than anywhere else. Roger had met the woman at a fête that was held every year in the summer, where she had been in charge of one of the stalls. Saying a sheepish good-morning to her, he hurried out of the shop, thinking, however, that Mrs. McQueen had given him good advice. He would talk the situation over with Matthew Bayliss, who was quite a good friend of his.

  He telephoned him soon after reaching his office and they arranged to have lunch together in the small Indian restaurant that was almost opposite the bank. Matthew Bayliss was a member of a group practice in Allingford, but he lived in Lexlade and twice a week held a surgery there. It was one of his Lexlade mornings and Roger had had to telephone him at the village hall, part of which was given over to him. They met and ordered their curry and beer and made a few remarks about the pleasant spring weather, in spite of which, according to Bayliss, flu was raging in the neighbourhood. Then Roger, dropping his voice as if he were afraid that someone might be spying on them, said that he hoped that Bayliss would treat what he had to say as entirely confidential.

  “Naturally,” the doctor said, “but I think I can tell you what you’re going to say to me.”

  “It’s about Coralie – ”

  “And her shop-lifting, isn’t it? Physically she’s pretty well, it seems to me, but I realise how this other thing must be worrying you.”

  Roger stared at him, shocked. “But how have you heard about it? It isn’t common knowledge, is it?”

  “Rapidly becoming so, I’m afraid. I’ve just been to the Old Parsonage, and also it happens to be Liz Linklater’s day for the place, and she seems to have picked up the story somehow.”

  The Old Parsonage was an old people’s home in Lexlade where Matthew Bayliss attended after his morning surgery in the village and where Liz Linklater visited once a week to wash and set the old women’s hair and cut the old men’s. She brought them what news she could and enjoyed a good gossip as much as they did.

  “I understand,” Roger said sadly. “She was in the shop when I was there, trying to sort things out with Mrs. McQueen so that there’d be as little scandal as possible. She’s been very decent about it. She’s just going to let me know what Coralie owes her and not risk making a scene in the shop. And it was her idea that I should talk to you. Can you help me at all, Matthew? Can you give me any advice?”

  “What’s Coralie actually taken so far, that you know of?” Bayliss asked. “Two packets of cigarettes and a tin of baby food.”

  “Hm, not very much. Not very ambitious. But if she thinks she’s got away with it, it might get worse. The odd box of chocolates, the bottle of wine hidden under a newspaper in her basket. And after that, who knows? I don’t want to depress you unnecessarily, but if I were you I’d have it out with her. It’s an obvious after-effect of the miscarriage, which at her age was a very serious matter. In its way it isn’t surprising, in fact I feel we ought almost to have expected something of the sort. The main thing is she shouldn’t feel you’ve turned against her because of it. If you like I could fix up for her to see a psychiatrist. There’s a quite good man at the Infirmary. But I don’t really recommend it at this stage. He won’t be able to help her much until she wants to be helped. That may come, and then he might come in useful. Meantime it seems to me you’ve done the best you could already, I mean settling it with Mrs. McQueen. That’s quite important.”

  “But because of that bloody Linklater woman, it’s going to get all round the village.”

  “I shouldn’t worry about that too much. People understand these things a lot better than they used to. You’ll find they’re more sympathetic than you expect.”

  “I don’t want sympathy! I want Coralie as she used to be.”

  A faintly sceptical look appeared on the doctor’s face, almost as if he thought that perhaps Roger had never really known what Coralie used to be, but the look was gone in an instant.

  “Anyway, you aren’t thinking of moving, are you?” he said. “You’ve dropped that idea.”

  “Yes, I never thought of it very seriously,” Roger said. “And I imagine it’s pretty important now that we should have peace and quiet.”

  He was in need of peace and quiet himself, he thought, after all the anxieties of the last few weeks, which might not have affected him as deeply as they had Coralie, but still had made heavy demands on him, and when he arrived home that evening he was in a tense and nervous state. But at least there was no sign that Coralie had acquired anything from the shop but her normal purchases and they had a peaceful time together. But he took a swift look in the dustbin and saw the tin of baby food was there. The dustmen having been round that morning the two packets of cigarettes had gone and besides the tin there was nothing in the bin but some potato peelings.

  They had sherry before their meal and Roger told himself that he ought to make some attempt to discuss the matter that had been on his mind all day, but Coralie seemed to be in such a placid mood and the steak and kidney pie that she had cooked was so particularly good that it seemed a pity to risk destroying the pleasantness of the evening. They made love that night for the first time since she had returned from the hospital. One of the after-effects of her miscarriage had been a withdrawal from sex. But that night she was loving and tender, though near the end she murmured in his ear, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” But whether she was sorry because she had disgraced herself in public, or because she had failed to bear his child, he could not be sure.

  Whatever she had meant, he went off to Allingford in a better mood the next morning than for the last few days. He felt that there was no need to call in at the shop and once in his office devoted himself to his work with more concentration than he had managed to achieve since the weekend. It was nearly twelve o’clock before his secretary came in to tell him that Mrs. Gates was there with a gentleman and wanted to see him.

  Puzzled, because she hardly ever came to the bank, he came out of his office to greet her and found her standing just inside the entrance with a man beside her whom Roger had never seen before. He was the kind of man whom it would be very easy to forget, even if he had met him. He was about thirty-five, but was going a little bald already, was of medium height and fairly bony and was wearing a rather shabby raincoat. He had a pale, very ordinary face; indeed there was an almost noticeable ordinariness about him, except for a slight grimness in his expression.

  Coralie did not introduce him. She was looking shaken and shrinking. Roger had automatically held out his hand to the man, but he had appeared not to notice it.

  “Well, come in,” Roger said and led the way back into his office, closing the door behind them.

  Coralie dropped at once into a chair and though Roger asked the man to sit down, he ignored the invitation and remained standing. Roger went to the chair behind his desk.

  “Well?” he said with all the cheeriness that he could force into his voice, just as if he believed that the man had co
me to open a big bank account. “What can I do for you?”

  “It’s my fault,” Coralie said with a tremble in her voice. “I told the gentleman who you were and persuaded him to come to see you instead of taking any other steps at once. It was kind of him to have come.”

  “What does this mean?” Roger asked with sudden sternness in his voice. “Who are you?”

  “I’m the store detective at Jarvis and Jarvis,” the man answered in a flat voice, as if he were only too used to having to explain himself. Jarvis and Jarvis was the big supermarket a little way up the main street. “And I’m sorry to have to tell you that I detected Mrs. Gates appropriating certain articles when she left the store without paying for them. Naturally I didn’t challenge her until she’d actually left the store, but once she was out in the street I spoke to her and she admitted she’d taken the things.”

  “Good God, Coralie, what have you been up to?” Roger exclaimed. “What things?”

  “Just some tights and a bra,” she said. “I told the gentleman who you were and that if he’d come here with me you’d pay for them. I really didn’t know I hadn’t paid for them, but it’s quite true, they aren’t on my receipt. I’m so terribly absent-minded nowadays, half the time I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  Roger felt his temper rising. In the intimate atmosphere of the village it had not been too difficult to keep it under control, to trust to the sympathy of the McQueens and to that of neighbours who knew Coralie’s recent history. But here in the bank it was another matter.

  “It’s beginning to look as if you ought not to be out on your own,” he said harshly. He looked at the man. “Of course I’ll pay for the things, but will that be the end of the matter?”

  “I can’t really say,” the man replied in his toneless voice. “I’ll have to report the matter to the manager and it’s up to the people at the top whether or not they call in the police and bring a charge.”