by Bruce, Leo
“Now tell me the truth,” he said.
Mr Toffin stirred uneasily.
“He was no business man,” he replied at last.
“No?”
“If it had not been for my untiring efforts, Mr Deene, this business would have lost money instead of showing the very handsome profit it does. That is why I am ready and equipped to step into the breach. Not that I would wish to push myself forward.”
“Richard Hoysden was too good-natured? ”
“You can call it good-natured if you like. To my mind his attitude was culpably lax, even foolish. That nephew of his, for instance …”
“Charles Bourne? ”
“Yes. If I told Mr Hoysden once I told him a thousand times not to give him credit. Throwing money away, that’s what it was. Records, sheet music, he was after a saxophone …”
“Really?”
“I assure you. On that very last morning he got Mr Hoysden to himself for a few minutes and I saw him going hammer and tongs after something. I tried to interrupt but they stopped talking when I approached with some papers to sign. Naturally, if things are adjusted here as I have every right … reason to hope, I shall send that young man’s account to his father. He was impolite the other day to Miss Hipps.”
“Who is Miss Hipps?”
“She is my … our … the second assistant here.”
“You were saying that Mr Hoysden was unbusinesslike.”
“Worse than that, I’m afraid. More than once we have not been able to account for discrepancies in the petty cash until Mr Hoysden admitted that he had helped himself to the firm’s money.”
“But it was his, surely?”
“I see you have no commercial training, Mr Deene. The business belonged to Mr Hoysden, but that could not possibly justify him in pocketing funds right, left and centre without a by-your-leave or a word of explanation. It caused great confusion and might have led to suspicion falling on some innocent party if I had not confidence in my … our … the staff.”
“You had differences of opinion with Richard Hoysden, then?”
“I should not like to voice a word of criticism now, but he could be most exasperating. He never seemed to appreciate what his staff did for the business. Even Miss Hipps, who was always the soul of devotion, could not help remarking on that.”
“Had you noticed any change in Mr Hoysden recently?”
“That is a difficult question. Mr Hoysden did not discuss his private affairs with his staff but it was, of course, known to us that his wife had left him.”
“Why ‘of course’? She might have gone away to stay with friends for a few days.”
“It is clear that you have no experience of a staff of young ladies, Mr Deene. In business like this …”
“Yes. I can guess. Go on.”
“Miss Hipps herself could not help passing the remark to me that she was not surprised. Mrs Hoysden did not inspire much respect. Her association with a guest at the Norfolk Hotel had been noticed, and when finally she showed her true colours, there was a great deal of sympathy for Mr Hoysden. But since you ask, it was generally felt that Mr Hoysden showed indifference at her departure, if not relief. Miss Hipps went so far as to say it was a good thing.”
“Now coming to Saturday. Still no change in Hoysden’s manner or behaviour? ”
“No marked change, no. I thought him perhaps a trifle absent-minded, but that was not unusual.”
“Did any of the staff notice anything? ”
“I think not. But it chanced that I had Mr Hoysden’s permission to leave early that day.”
“At what time? ”
“We close at seven on Saturdays. I left at five. A meeting of the Amateur Dramatic Society which I could not possibly miss.”
“So you have an amateur dramatic society. Is it successful? ”
“I am glad to say that in the last year I … we have achieved no little success. We have a number of enthusiasts—Miss Hipps is our leading lady.”
“Any of Lady Drumbone’s family join? ”
Mr Toffin looked severe.
“None of them acted. Doubtless they considered themselves above our efforts. I approached Mr Hoysden more than once for he had an unusually rich and dramatic speaking voice, I considered, and had been asked to read the Lessons at church. But no. ‘I’m too lazy, Toffin,’ he said with a smile. As for Mr Keith Bourne with his high-faluthY ideas, he would not have stooped to amateur dramatics.”
“Had you any recruits in any way connected with Richard Hoysden? ”
“Yes. One of our best character actors, when he could be persuaded to take an interest, was the porter in this block of flats. Slugley, his name is. Excellent in the role of the butler—a role which is frequent in modern drama, I notice. Also a Mrs Nodges who lives above Mr Hoysden’s flat. A cast in herself, I assure you! ”
“I should think so.”
“I’m not saying that we could not have had a representative of the family. Mr Alan Bourne subscribed, though he took no active part. He was anxious that his son should be given important roles.’ Oh, no,’ I said, for the young man was quite without talent in my opinion, though he had a high opinion of himself and once told Miss Hipps that he believed he could write a play. But I was against that. However, I was telling you that I left the shop early to attend a meeting of the Society.”
“So who was in charge, under Mr Hoysden? ”
“Oh, Miss Hipps, of course. My second in command here.”
“Perhaps I could see her for a moment? ”
“I’ll call her at once.”
“Just one moment, Mr Toffin. Is there nothing you can tell me which may throw light on this thing? ”
“I fear not. I was not on intimate terms with Mr Hoysden. He did not confide in me. He never once, for instance, invited me to his flat though it was in this very block. I can suggest nothing to account for his suicide.”
Mr Toffin sounded somewhat huffy as though he resented Richard Hoysden killing himself without prior consultation with his senior assistant.
“I was thinking of more concrete things. The tape-recorder, for instance.”
“Oh, that. It came out of stock. It must have been removed that evening. It was certainly in its place when I left at five.”
“Thank you, Mr Toffin. Now if I might see Miss Hipps? ”
“We cannot both be absent from the shop. I will ask her to come in to you.” Mr Toffin peered through the glass partition and frowned. “Did that young man come in with you? “he asked. “I ask you to observe! ”
Carolus observed. He might have guessed. While the customers looked on in wonder, Priggley was apparently performing, with one of the ‘young ladies’, some of the more violent and exhibitionistic steps of a dance to the loud music of a record-player.
“Disgraceful! “said Mr Toffin. “In the circumstances, scandalous! ”
He dashed out and Carolus heard him shout “Miss Gibbons! Really, Miss Gibbons! “The music ceased. “You forget yourself! ”
“It’s not her fault,” said Priggley at once.
“We won’t discuss that, thank you.”
“I dragged her out,” said Priggley.
“Perhaps you also instructed her to twist herself into a position from which she could look between her own legs? ”
Carolus interrupted.
“Go and wait for me at the Norfolk,” he told Priggley curtly, and order was slowly restored.
Miss Hipps came to the office. She was in her thirties, one of those rotund, downy women on whose persons one looks in vain for a line, an angle, a point, finding only curves and protuberances. Her ears were oval, her eyes rounded and blue like the eggs of wild birds, even her fingers seemed to curl and her nose was as pudgy as a piece of dough. As though to attune with these undulations and globes she wore large orbicular beads, obtuse shoes and a silk jumper with a rounded top showing the fleshy curves of her shoulders and her bulbous elbows. Her manner was arch but confident. She spoke before Carolus
could.
“I hear you want to ask me about poor Mr Hoysden. I’m afraid there is not a great deal I can tell you, though I can say that if anyone here in the shop knew him it was me.”
“You …”
“Not that there was anything in it; we were just good friends, but I must say that whenever he wanted anything he always turned to me first. ‘If you can’t do it, Louise,’ he used to say—my name’s Louise—’ I’m sure no one else can.’ ‘It’s a pleasure, Mr Hoysden,’ I would tell him, for he always remained ‘Mr Hoysden’ to me even when he asked me to come in the car with him, on business needless to say. He was, after all, my employer and I’m sure I shouldn’t have wished it any other way.”
“What other way? “Carolus could not resist asking.
Miss Hipps seemed daunted for a moment but soon saw her escape route.
“Any other way,” she said. “Though I couldn’t help thinking that the woman he married—I mean, anyone could see they weren’t suited, to say the least of it. It’s not for me to pass any criticism, but when I actually saw her with my own eyes going into the Norfolk with a man …”
“Perhaps she wanted a drink.”
“I dare say she did and it wouldn’t be the first time, because the young lady who works at Middleton’s the wine merchants told me his orders had doubled since they were married.”
“There were two of them, surely? ”
“But Mr Hoysden didn’t drink much and I always thought you could see it in her face. Not that she was anything but polite to me, though I had to notice that she didn’t get on much with the family in spite of her being related to a lord, or so she is supposed to have told someone.”
“Did you notice much change in Mr Hoysden after his marriage? ”
“Well, it was never quite the same.”
“What wasn’t?”
“Well, him. He’d always seemed to count on me somehow. Little things, you know, but I couldn’t help noticing them. I think he realized it himself, for he said to me one day, ‘What do you do with yourself, nowadays, Louise? I never seem to see you out of business hours.’ Not that he’d seen much of me before, but it does show, doesn’t it? ”
“Yes,” said Carolus, wondering in what he was assenting. “I understand that on Saturday Mr Toffin had to leave early? ”
“Well, it was very rare because Mr Toffin is a great one for time and everything has to be on the dot, but he’d got a meeting of our dramatic society which he could not miss, so he asked Mr Hoysden if he minded. Of course Mr Hoysden said he could go, which was just like him, easygoing you see, not thinking of us here on a Saturday evening short-handed. Then he told me, ‘It’s all right, Louise. I shall be here till closing-time,’ so I said ‘Thank you, Mr Hoysden. I can manage if you want to go off anywhere.’ ”
“Was he here till closing-time? ”
“Yes, he was. But just after Mr Toffin left he had a phone call.”
“Not unusual, surely?”
“Well, it was for him. I could see him sitting here at the phone, it must have been for quite ten minutes, and I thought ‘It’s a lot of good your staying to help if you’re going to sit there at the phone all the time.’ I did wonder if it might be her ringing him up.”
“Mrs Hoysden? ”
“Yes. I don’t know what made me think of it because she’d been gone for nearly a fortnight, but when I saw him smiling and joking on the phone I didn’t think it was her. Still, I couldn’t help being a little curious, so while he was still on the phone I went in. He was just finishing talking. ‘All right, ten o’clock,’ he said and put the receiver down. Then another funny thing happened. Just as we were going to close he said, ‘Oh, Louise, I want one of those small tape-recorders, if you don’t mind.’”
“Quite cheerfully? ”
“Oh, quite. He sounded more casual than anything. That’s what made me think afterwards when I heard what he wanted it for. So I got one out and he took it, just like that.”
“You didn’t notice where he went? ”
“Well, I did as it happened. To get to his flat from here you have to go out in the street, then in at the main entrance to the block. After I’d locked up I was just in time to see him going in.”
“I see. Where did he keep his car? ”
“There’s a parking place round the back of the block. But I couldn’t say whether it was there that evening.”
“You didn’t see him again? ”
“No. Not that evening. Well, never if it comes to that. It wasn’t till Sunday evening that I heard about it, then one of the people who live near us in Gaitskell Road happened to mention something she’d heard, and I ran round to the call box and rang Mr Toffin and he told me. I nearly fainted when I heard.”
“Would you mind telling me what you did on Saturday evening? ”
“I can’t think why you want to know but as a matter of fact I went to the pictures. I’m not much of a one for the telly though we have it at home.”
“Did you go alone? ”
“Now that is asking. Still I don’t see why I shouldn’t say. I went with a gentleman who’s nothing to do with the business or anything like that.”
“You are quite sure you did not see or hear from Mr Hoysden again that evening? ”
Miss Hipps stared.
“Quite sure,” she said at last. “Now I’d better go and see how Mr Toffin is managing because we seem to be quite busy this morning.”
She coiled her way out of the office.
8
CAROLUS found Rupert Priggley the only customer in the Saloon of the Norfolk Hotel, but he had already made the acquaintance of a tall, dissatisfied-seeming, young woman behind the bar. The corners of her mouth turned down and she wore thick glasses.
“She’s not quite so sour as she looks, are you, my sweet? And she’s full of interesting information about the Drum-bone manage. I told her you’re press and I’m telly. Have a drink? ”
“I don’t know where they get their manners nowadays,” said the barmaid grumpily, as she gave Carolus his drink.
“Manners? Isn’t that what they had in the Deep South before the Civil War? What was that you were telling me about Mr Rothsay? ”
“Only that I don’t care for anyone like that.”
“See a lot of him?”
“He comes in here, that’s all.”
“When was he here last? ”
“Oh, not for some time.”
“Not Saturday night? ”
“Not that I noticed. I can’t say I’m all that interested.”
Carolus asked if she knew Mrs Hoysden by sight.
“Yes. That’s the one that used to come in with Mr Rothsay. Stuck-up-looking thing. I’ve no time for anyone of that sort.”
“Was she here on Saturday? ”
“I seem to think she was. Just before Closing. But on her own—not with Mr Rothsay.”
Carolus asked her to have a drink.
“Thank you,” she said without a smile, giving herself a gin-and-tonic. “It’s rather early but I’ll make an exception.”
“Her name’s Hilda,” explained Rupert Priggley. “Well, it would be, wouldn’t it? ”
“Do you know any of the Bournes? “asked Carolus.
“The solicitor has a drink here sometimes. I’ve no use for that sort of man.”
“He seemed very harmless.”
“Oh, I dare say. Then his young brother comes in with the girl that works for Lady Drumbone, only they don’t use this bar. They sit in a corner of the lounge and let the waiter take their drinks in. He used to come in here at one time but seems to want to keep out of the way now. Makes me tired, anything like that. Besides, he’s full of talk.”
“Really? ”
“All about the repertory theatre he was going to start and the exhibition of his pictures and I don’t know what. It used to get me down. I was glad when he stopped coming in here.”
“Did you know Richard Hoysden himself? ”
“I haven
’t seen him for a long time, not since he got married. I can’t say I cared for him much.”
“You don’t seem to be an enthusiast for the family.”
“Oh, I dare say they’re all right. Only you get to see another side of people in a place like this. There’s not many who come in here I want to bother with, really. Not outside business hours.”
“I wonder what you are interested in? ”
The corners of the mouth sank lower.
“Well, there’s not a lot, is there?” said the barmaid summarizing her arid philosophy.
“A dampening girl,” said Priggley as they went to the dining-room for lunch. “What have we got this afternoon? ”
“Odds and ends,” Carolus told him. “The porter at the block of flats where Hoysden lived and if possible the neighbours who are supposed to have heard the shot.”
“Isn’t it about time we found that corpse, if there is one? ”
“Think so? The inquest is tomorrow. You can go to that. At least there you can scarcely start dancing.”
“I was only trying a couple of steps with that redhead.”
Though the printed menu was in contrast to that of his dinner of the previous evening, Carolus found it as unex-hilarating. It was headed Olde Englisshe Fayre and consisted of tomato soup, grilled cod steaks, roast beef (boiled, then baked, then cut cold and served covered with hot brown cornflour sauce). A vanilla ice triumphantly brought up the rear.
“You know, sir,” said Priggley, “I should be the last to criticize, but I can’t help wondering whether this is quite the fascinating case you seem to think. What have you got? An uninteresting corpse, this hag Drumbone whose name stinks, a rather drearily united family, a bit of adultery and a rather squalidly sentimental love affair. Chorus of shop-assistants. You’ll never get anywhere much with a lot like that.”
“I find it, for various reasons which haven’t occurred to you, the most interesting case I’ve had.”
“When is something going to happen? ”
“What do you mean by ‘happen’?”
“You know perfectly well. You say we’re going to see a hall-porter and the tenants of the flats above Hoysden’s. That’s not very blood-curdling, is it? ”
