“And you traveled on the train to Stratford with her?”
“We did, Sergeant Rushton. The Shakespeare Express.”
“Did you share the same carriage?”
“No, she was in another carriage with her brother, Anthony.”
“That’s what she claims.”
“It’s exactly what happened, Sergeant.”
“Not necessarily,” said Cyrus.
“What do you mean?”
“Let the sergeant finish, Mary Anne.”
“But you were there, Cyrus. You saw them get on the train.”
“Miss Walker also claims that she and her brother attended a matinée performance of Troilus and Cressida,” said Rushton, referring to his notebook. “Can you confirm that?”
“Yes,” said Mary Anne.
“No,” added her husband.
“Cyrus, don’t be silly,” she chided. “We met them.”
“We talked to them in the lobby, yes. But that doesn’t mean they actually watched the performance.”
“Of course they did. They came into the auditorium with us.”
“But did they stay?—that’s the question.”
“Ignore my husband,” she said with a touch of irritation. “He’s had a lapse of memory. I can vouch for them. Rosalind and Anthony Walker saw that play this afternoon.” She looked at Cyrus. “How can you possibly deny it?”
“Because I don’t like being used, Mary Anne.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The sergeant will explain.”
Rushton took his cue. “At approximately eleven o’clock this morning,” he told them, “a jewelry shop in Banbury was robbed. The manager was injured in the process. The thief—a young man answering the description of Anthony Walker—got away with a substantial amount of jewelry.”
“It couldn’t possibly have been him, Sergeant,” said Mary Anne defensively. “He was on the train and it doesn’t even stop at Banbury.”
“Yes, it does,” observed Cyrus.
“It’s not a proper scheduled stop,” continued the detective. “They slip a carriage at the station, that’s all. No passengers are allowed to join the train.”
“But they could leave it.”
“They could indeed, Professor Hillier. You stopped at Banbury at ten forty-one. That fits in with the timing of the robbery.”
“Did anyone see Anthony Walker leaving the train?” asked Mary Anne, refusing to believe that he could be implicated in a crime. “Well, did they?”
“No, Mrs. Hillier.”
“There you are, then.”
“You don’t understand, Mary Anne,” said her husband gently. “Rosalind’s brother could not leave the train because he was never on it in the first place.”
“Yes, he was. You saw them get on together.”
“I saw her get into the train with a young man but there’s no guarantee that it was Anthony. Apart from anything else, he lifted his hat to her when they met. Is that the kind of greeting you’d expect from a brother?” He looked at Rushton. “My guess is that it was Rosalind who got off at Banbury.”
“Quite right, sir,” said Rushton. “The stationmaster confirms it.”
“I begin to see why she never mentioned that stop to us. She told us everything else about the Shakespeare Express.”
Mary Anne was baffled. “What’s going on?” she wondered.
“We were tricked into providing an alibi.”
“I don’t understand. All that we did was talk to her. In any case,” she went on, “how can Rosalind possibly be involved in the crime? The sergeant said that it was committed by a young man.”
“We’ve reason to believe that she was at the wheel of the car that was waiting outside the jewelry shop,” said Rushton seriously. “We have a number of witnesses who saw it being driven away at speed by a woman.”
“Oh!” Mary Anne was deeply shocked. “Are you saying that her brother was the thief?”
“I doubt very much if he was her brother, honey,” said Cyrus.
“Right again, sir,” said Rushton. “The second crime took place around two-thirty this afternoon—another jewelry shop, right here in Stratford. This time, both of them were involved. While the manageress of the shop was distracted, they switched expensive rings for cheap ones.”
“Two-thirty, did you say?” Mary Anne shook her head. “It wasn’t them, Sergeant. They were watching the matinée.”
“That’s what they wanted us to think,” said Cyrus. “And they were very convincing. I daresay they’ve done this before.”
“More than once, Professor,” said the detective. “The first time, their target was a jewelry shop in High Wycombe. The Shakespeare Express stops there. My belief is that Miss Walker left the train there and was picked up by her accomplice in a car. On the second occasion, a jewelry shop in Warwick was robbed. Weeks later, they followed the same routine in Leamington Spa and got away with thousands of pounds’ worth of diamond rings. Today, however,” he concluded, “was the only time they committed two major crimes on the same day.”
“Overreachers,” mused Cyrus.
“What’s that, sir?”
“People whose greed and ambition drives them too far. It’s a concept with which Shakespeare was very familiar, though it’s another playwright who gave it real definition. Does the name Philip Massinger mean anything to you, Sergeant?”
“Afraid not, Professor,” confessed the other. “I’ve lived in Stratford all my life but—I’m ashamed to say—I’ve never once been to a play here. Mind you,” he added by way of mitigation, “I was on duty the night the Memorial Theatre burned down in nineteen twenty-six. Who was this Philip Messenger?”
“Massinger—a Jacobean dramatist who wrote A New Way to Pay Old Debts. One of its main characters was a ruthless extortionist called Sir Giles Overreach. Like the two people we met earlier, he was brought down when trying to extend his grasping hand too far.”
“I still can’t accept that they were criminals,” said Mary Anne. “They were too nice, too thoroughly decent.”
“And we were too thoroughly American, honey.”
“What do you mean?”
“That’s why we were singled out at Paddington. We looked like a pair of innocent, defenceless, trusting American tourists. Think back. Who initiated the conversation?”
“She did, Cyrus.”
“Exactly. She befriended us to secure an alibi and she no doubt chose other unsuspecting Americans on the previous occasions.”
“In those cases,” said Rushton, “they were never called upon as witnesses because there was no arrest. This time, it was different.”
“Where did you catch them?”
“In their room at the Billesley Manor Hotel. They’d driven there to count their takings. It wasn’t just the jewelry shops that suffered, you see. The pair of them are accomplished pickpockets as well. They mingled with the crowd at the theatre in search of victims. People are off guard in that sort of situation. After the matinée, the manager had a number of complaints from people who’d been robbed.”
“They seem to have followed a pattern,” said Cyrus.
“That was their mistake, sir. It all started with the Shakespeare Express. They hit a different town each time but always pretended to go to a matinée here.”
“And they were arrested in a hotel?”
“In bed together, as it happens.”
Mary Anne was scandalized. “A brother and sister?”
“Incest is the one thing we can’t charge them with, Mrs. Hillier. In reality, they’re not related and their real names are nothing like the ones they gave to you.” He got to his feet. “Well, I’ll detain you no longer. Now that I know you won’t speak up on their behalf, I’ll be on my way. Thank you for your help.”
“She picked the wrong dupes this time,” said Cyrus, crossing to open the door for him. “I began to suspect that something about Rosalind Walker was not quite right when she pumped us for information. She wanted to know exac
tly where we could be found. What clinched it for me was her little ambush at the theatre.”
“Ambush?”
“The lobby was packed to the rafters, Sergeant. She’d never have found me in that crowd. Knowing that I was bound to buy a program, Rosalind lurked by the counter where they were being sold. When she pounced on me, I knew something fishy was going on.”
“You’re something of a detective yourself, sir.”
“I take no credit. Shakespeare must do that.”
“Why?”
“When I watched the second half of the play this afternoon, something suddenly clicked at the back of my mind. It was a speech of Ulysses about Cressida.”
Rushton was mystified. “Who are they?”
“Characters in the play. Cressida has just greeted a succession of strangers with a familiarity that appalls Ulysses. I was reminded of the way that Rosalind—or whatever her name is—fell on us at Paddington Station. She was altogether too open and friendly.”
“That’s what I liked about her,” said Mary Anne.
“I was taken in myself at first. Then Ulysses spoke up.”
“What did he say?” asked the detective.
“‘O these encounterers, so glib of tongue,
That give accosting welcome ere it comes,
And wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts
To every ticklish reader.’”
“That sounds like her, Professor. She could talk the hind leg off a donkey. ‘Glib of tongue’ sums her up perfectly.”
“In short, she was thoroughly un-English. A clear danger sign.”
“I didn’t see it,” said Mary Anne, shaken by the turn of events. “Both of them fooled me. I feel such an idiot.”
Cyrus chuckled. “I don’t,” he said. “It was rather exciting to be caught up in this crime spree and to play a small part in convicting the villains. Their problem was that they chose the wrong profession.”
“Did they?”
“Yes, honey. They were both such accomplished actors that they could easily have made a living on the stage. Instead of using the Shakespeare Express as a base for their crimes,” he pointed out, “they could have caught it to come to work here in Stratford.”
<
* * * *
THE OTHER HALF
Colin Dexter
Recently retired, aged fifty, from Thames Valley Police, with the rank of Detective Chief Inspector, I now styled myself a freelance investigator - and business was bad. The previous week my sole assignment had been to examine the dubious legality of a Bulgarian immigrant keeping a boa constrictor in his council-house bath. I was therefore hopeful of better prospects when the phone rang early on Monday morning.
Mrs Isobel Rodgers introduced herself with a pleasing, slightly husky voice and I guessed the state of play immediately - husband trouble. As I was listening to myself telling her that ninety-five per cent of wives underwent the same affliction, she interrupted me, saying, “Is it my turn to speak now?”
She was, she claimed, almost completely certain of her husband’s infidelity, and was determined to get rid of that “almost”. When I asked if she wanted anything else, she replied simply, “Divorce.” Before I could comment further, she terminated the interview by saying, “It will be worth your while. Come round and see me. You have your diary handy?”
I was in due course ushered into a detached house in North Oxford by this peremptory lady, who was younger than I’d imagined and considerably more attractive, with brown hair framing a pair of startling eyes. Green eyes.
“Drink?”
I shook my head, congratulating myself on not trotting out the policeman’s cliché, whilst she leaned back in a black leather armchair, fondling a tumbler of what looked like water, but most probably wasn’t.
“Cigarette?”
I stoically shook my head once more.
“I’m glad you don’t smoke. My husband Denis is a very heavy smoker.”
“But that’s not what you—”
“What I want to talk to you about, no.” Her eyes arrested mine, and in an unemotional voice she began to recount her suspicions about Denis’ recent philandering. First indictment -those phone calls. “Can I speak to Mr Rodgers, please?” “Who shall I say is speaking?” Line suddenly dead. “Hello, yes?” Line suddenly dead. If Denis answered, only the briefest sotto voce exchanges, “wrong number” being his only reply to subsequent queries.
“And you think—” I began.
“You know very well what I think!”
Second indictment. Denis ran a small publishing business called The Cavalier Press in North Parade in Summertown. A fortnight previously he had thrown an office party to celebrate the awarding of the prestigious Georgette Heyer Prize to one of his authors. A three-book deal was in the offing, soon to be signed by the winner, and Denis was predicting a further upturn in his company’s already flourishing fortunes. It was way after midnight when he had finally come home. He had admitted to being half-seas over and in need of a shower, and had gone to sleep things off in the spare room instead of clambering into the conjugal bed.
“I’m afraid we all occasionally—” I started, but she ignored my interruption.
In the morning she had found two long curly blonde hairs across his jacket. She had reason to believe that they had fallen from the head of Jade, Denis’ newly appointed PA, who preferred to be known as “Blondie”, it seemed - a young woman whom Isobel had not yet met, and most decidedly did not wish to meet.
“Pity you didn’t keep—”
“What makes you think I didn’t?”
Third indictment. The previous week, when her customarily immaculately dressed husband had returned from the office, she had observed something unprecedented about his appearance. He was wearing no tie and the buttons of his shirt were crudely out of alignment. Isobel suggested that even the most inveterate liar would have had trouble coming up with a credible explanation for this state of dress.
Fourth indictment. Isobel pointed to a brown envelope on the coffee table between us. “In there, along with one strand of blonde hair, you will find one half of a letter which was torn in two. I found it in Denis’ wastepaper basket. Just let me know what you think about all this when you come on Friday.”
“But that’s only—”
“Yes, but I know that you can manage it. Same time? And you’ll want this as well.” She handed me a second envelope, a white one, laid a hand on my sleeve, and whispered almost conspiratorially, “Good luck!” Then she showed me to the door.
I called in at The Dew Drop on my way home, and over a couple of pints of Real Ale, I thought of the singular commission given me that morning. And I thought, too, of Isobel Rodgers ... I suppose I should have opened the brown envelope first, but I didn’t.
Inside the white envelope I found a cheque made out to me, and I looked and looked again at the middle handwritten line there.
Five hundred pounds
I decided to put the cheque into my account immediately. Whilst I stood waiting in the queue at Lloyds Bank, I looked yet again at the small neat writing and at the signature there.
Isobel Rodgers
As I look back on the following few days, I feel somewhat guilty about having accepted such a generous fee for my services -which amounted to the following.
First I went to the local British Telecom offices to determine if I could get a lead on Isobel’s mysterious phone calls. The patient lady there first explained the various methods for discouraging replacement-window specialists and other persistent unwanted callers. Then she went on to tell me that, unfortunately, the telephone numbers of stalkers and crank callers were generally untraceable, as those callers usually took precautions to make sure that they were. I already knew all this, and I suddenly wondered if Isobel Rodgers knew it all, too. But I figured it had been worth a try.
I spent the whole of the lunch hour on Wednesday in North Parade Avenue, a very narrow thoroughfare off the Banbury Road. At 12:30
p.m. two bonny-looking blondes left the offices of The Cavalier Press and walked along to The Gardener’s Arms. I followed them into that hostelry, then stood behind them as each ordered a spritzer and a packet of plain crisps. A few moments later I took a seat opposite them in one of the spacious alcoves and introduced myself with a carefully rehearsed spiel, telling them I was a reporter from The Oxford Times writing an article on the local literary scene.
Both Jade and Sadie (as they introduced themselves) appeared quite happy to answer my questions. The Cavalier Press was doing fine - yeah! — especially after the recent big thrill of having the Heyer prize awarded to one of its authors. And Mr Rodgers had thrown a party to celebrate. “Great wasn’t it, Sadie?” And there’d been a super article in The Bookseller on Eddie Young, the prize-winner, who wrote under the nom de plume Virginia Stirling.
Best British Crime 6 - [Anthology] Page 54
