"That isn't true, is it? There's the spare one you dropped in the canal."
"If you want to nitpick to that degree, yes."
"How long ago did you lose it?"
"Last year. I told you."
"Exactly when, Mr. Motion?"
Milo sighed. "Toward the end of the summer. It must have been September."
"Can you recall the circumstances? I daresay it caused you some annoyance."
"Well, it did. I lost my car keys at the same time."
"So we're talking about a bunch-on a ring?"
"Yes."
"Did you try to recover them?"
"It happened after dark,"' Milo explained, tugging at his beard as if the whole episode was painful to recall. "If you must know, I was the worse for drink. Pretty unusual for me. A night out at the Cross Guns."
"The pub at Avoncliff?"
"Yes. Do you know it? Gorgeous on a summer evening. I had the boat tied up at one of the moorings just above the pub, that stretch of the canal before the aqueduct. Treated myself to a meal and a few beers, and when I got back-"
"Alone?"
"Yes. I opened up and stumbled a bit pulling open the door. The damned keys slipped out of my hand and over the side. Bloody annoying, but I knew I had spares for all of them, so it could have been worse."
"Next morning, did you try and get them out?"
He shook his head. "Hopeless. They would have sunk into the mud."
"Did you mention this to anyone else?"
"I may have done to the people in the next boat. Can't remember, frankly."
"What about the Bloodhounds? Would you have mentioned it to them?"
"Certainly not. Why should I? It wasn't an incident I'm proud of."
"We've got to think of all the angles."
"All I can say is what I know to be the truth," Milo stressed in a more defensive tone. "You can see for yourself that when I'm aboard the boat, it's just about impossible for anyone else to come in here without my knowing. You can hear every step, and there's nowhere to hide. It's all open-plan. Anyway, the cupboards are far too small to hide anyone."
"What exactly are you driving at?"
"If the murderer found some way of stowing away while I was still here, and remained hidden when I locked up, it" would be possible to unbolt the door at the far end-unbolt it from the inside-and admit the victim."
Diamond almost snapped his fingers in triumph. Then, as the flaw in the revelation occurred to him, he converted the gesture into scratching his right earlobe. "But when you and Wigfull entered the boat, it was bolted from the inside at that end and padlocked outside at the other. Unless the killer was still aboard, it couldn't have happened."
"There you go," said Milo with an air of resignation. "I can assure you, there wasn't anyone here except poor old Sid. I'm as confused as anyone by all this."
"And as you remarked just now, there's nowhere to hide. Everything folds against the walls. The only lockers are outside the cabin, back at the stern end." Diamond paused, watching Milo. "The crucial question is whether your memory is reliable when you say you locked the boat."
"Of course it is!" Milo said petulantly. "I remember rattling the damned padlock, testing it with my hand to be sure it was secure. And it was. Later, when I returned with your colleague, Mr. Wigfull, I unlocked with my own key and had the shock of my life when I saw what was inside. It's impossible, but it happened. I am at a total loss to account for it. You need Dr. Fell for this."
"Who's he?"
"Dickson Carr's detective."
"A detective in a book? Great."
"Someone of his caliber, at any rate."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," said Diamond. "Well, I think we need someone smarter than Dr. Fell. I've been through that chapter on the locked room lecture, and it's no help. I ask you. You've studied it yourself. This is a puzzle that defies all Dr. Fell's explanations."
Milo nodded. "I have to agree with you."
"And the locked room is only part of the mystery. What was Sid's reason for coming here?"
"I haven't the foggiest," Milo answered with a shrug. "He wasn't in the habit of visiting me. Besides, he knew I wouldn't be here. I told everyone I was going straight to the police station to hand in the Penny Black. Do you think the murderer lured him to his death?"
Diamond didn't want to trade theories any longer. "Look, why don't you pick out the clothes you need? I'll take a stroll along the towpath and see you in ten minutes."
He needed more time for reflection. Milo, surely, was a reliable witness. This, after all, was the one member of the Bloodhounds who couldn't have murdered Towers. Yet there was still a doubt. Any lawyer will tell you that witnesses tend to present themselves and their actions in the most favorable light, sometimes obscuring serious flaws in their evidence. Suppose Milo hadn't after all locked the narrowboat before leaving for the meeting. Suppose through carelessness or over-confidence he had left the padlock hanging from the staple still unfastened. At first he may have decided not to mention it; no one wants to admit to negligence, particularly to the police. Later, as the investigation proceeded, he would find it increasingly embarrassing. An act of carelessness would grow into a deception. He might even have lied to cover it up.
Human frailty seemed a stronger bet than mechanical wizardry. Ingenious locked room puzzles were the province of detective story writers.
He went across to the divers. They had unpeeled their wet suits and were stacking their van. He had another job for them tomorrow, he told them, further along, by the Avoncliff Aqueduct. A bunch of keys. They didn't sound overjoyed. With a wink at the constable on duty, he stepped briskly along the towpath. This stretch of waterway now used for mooring was historically the route taken by the barges transporting coal from the Somerset mines. Much more narrow than the main canal, almost two centuries old and edged with ancient flag-stones, it had its own character, though the aluminum lift-bridge where it joined the Kennet and Avon was clearly a modern replacement. He stood for a moment staring at this bridge, deciding how the lifting mechanism worked. Clearly it had to be raised for anything the size of a narrowboat to pass under. There were counterweights projecting from the fulcrum, but the walkway was bolted down on the opposite side. He hauled on it to make sure. At this late hour nothing was about to pass into the boatyard, so his curiosity had to be set aside. He turned and started back toward the solitary policeman.
The question of most interest to him now was the one Milo had raised only a few minutes ago: What could have induced Sid Towers to visit the Mrs. Hudson? It was strange behavior considering that Milo himself was not going to be present. Why visit a locked boat after dark? One possible explanation was that the murderer had suggested meeting him there. If it was a trap, what was the bait? Or was it a threat? Maybe Sid had been under some pressure to obey the summons.
Blackmail?
He stepped aboard the narrowboat and found Milo in the cabin filling carrier bags with clothes. "I'm about ready."
"Good. It's cold in here. I don't know how you put up with it."
"Well, I've got no heating on. Normally it can be really snug."
"I walked to the end of the canal," said Diamond. "As far as that lift-bridge. It is a lift-bridge?"
"Oh, yes. It has to be raised each time a boat goes out."
"How do you lift it, then? So far as I can tell, the thing is bolted down."
"It is. We unfasten it with a windlass. Everyone using the moorings has one. You get one from the office."
"Like a spanner, you mean?"
"Yes."
"That explains it, then. Let me help you with those." He picked up one of the bags. "Ready to leave?"
"Will the constable lock up?"
"We'll do it."
They emerged from the cabin. Diamond pressed the strap over the staple and closed the padlock over it. "Where do you keep the windlass? I wouldn't mind seeing what it looks like."
"It's in the locker on the right. I kee
p the tiller in there with it."
Diamond pulled up the lid of the locker and peered at the collection of tools. "I can see the tiller. Can't see anything like a windlass."
Milo bent over and shifted the contents about. "Well, that's a damned liberty. It's gone. Someone must have pinched it."
"Are you sure?"
"It's always here."
"What size and weight is this windlass?" Diamond asked.
Milo extended his hands about eight inches. "It's iron. Not a thing you'd put in your pocket and forget about."
"Heavy enough to crack a man over the head and kill him?"
"Good Lord. Is that possible?"
"Problems?" said Julie, seated at a desk near the door.
Diamond made a sound deep in his throat like a growl, pushed a computer keyboard aside, and perched his rear on one of the desks in the incident room. The civilian staff had finished work for the day.
He sighed. "No worse than yesterday. I'm boxed in, Julie. I don't care for it."
"Because of the way the body was found?"
"The whole shooting match. The bloody riddles. The missing Penny Black. This ridiculous Bloodhounds club. It's straight out of a whodunit. I'm a career detective, not a poncy Frenchman with spats and a walking stick."
"Belgian."
"What?"
"Hercule Poirot is a Belgian."
"I don't care if he's from Outer Mongolia. He's a figment of some writer's imagination-that's the point. Everything up to now is detective story stuff from sixty years ago. It shouldn't be happening in the real world. I'm being asked to deal with a locked room murder, for Christ's sake. If I crack it-I mean when I crack it-what am I going to be faced with next? Invisible ink?"
Julie allowed a suitable pause. She'd worked with Diamond long enough to know that these occasional outpourings weren't entirely negative in effect. Then she remarked, "Do you really need to crack the locked room mystery?"
He folded his arms. "You'd better explain yourself."
"Well, the great temptation is to go at this head on, as they did in those detective stories, puzzling over the locked room until we hit on the solution. That's what we're meant to do. Why don't we approach it another way?"
"Tell me how."
"There's only a handful of people who could have committed the stamp theft. Agreed?"
"Certainly-but that's for John Wigfull to unravel."
Julie refused to be deflected. "I mean the Bloodhounds. They knew from the previous meeting that Milo would be bringing in his copy of The Hollow Man-an opportunity that the thief found irresistible. If Milo himself is not the thief, then it has to be the person who planted the stamp in his book."
Diamond nodded. This was pretty obvious stuff.
She continued. "Someone who must have been at the meeting the previous week when Milo promised to read from the chapter on locked room mysteries."
"Or who was tipped off about what was said."
"All right," Julie conceded. "But it's still a small group, right?"
"Right."
"And so is the list of murder suspects."
Diamond held up a finger. "Careful, now."
Julie got up and crossed the room to argue her case. "Because the killer got inside the Mrs. Hudson, just as the stamp thief did. Be fair, Mr. Diamond. It's got to be the same person. I refuse to believe that two people independently worked out a way of getting inside that cabin without disturbing the lock. Two different people, each smarter than you? No way."
"So?"
"So instead of all this brain-fag over the locked room, I suggest we get talking to the suspects. You and I, I mean. I know we have a batch of statements, but there's no substitute for getting face to face with people."
"Doorstepping." He smiled.
"No, I don't mean house-to-house inquiries. I'm talking about the suspects, and there aren't many of them."
"That's your advice?"
She hesitated, detecting the note of irony. "I'm trying to be helpful."
"And you are." This was sincerely meant. Listening to Julie had helped him take hold of a doubt that had been hovering just out of reach for some time. "Only I'm not yet convinced that you're right about the thief and the killer being one and the same. Think for a moment about Sid Towers. What if he were the man who stole the stamp?"
"Sid?"
He gave a nod.
"The murder victim?"
Diamond gave his snap assessment of Towers. "Unassuming, easily disregarded, yet not unintelligent. A reader of John Dickson Carr. Imagine the quiet satisfaction Sid would have derived from surprising the rest of the Bloodhounds-that opinionated lot who thought they knew all there is to know about detective stories. This is pure hypothesis, but let's suppose he stole the Penny Black simply to make a point, not with his power of speech which was so underdeveloped, but through the written word, with riddles and rhymes. 'I'm smarter than all of you put together,' he was saying in effect, 'whatever you think of me.' And what a marvelous notion to have the stamp turn up between the pages of Milo's book-thus demonstrating a locked room mystery unknown to Dr. Fell or anyone else. Do you see what I'm getting at, Julie?"
"Sid was the thief? But Sid was murdered."
Diamond sketched the scenario as he spoke, and it made a lot of sense, even to himself. "Murdered aboard the narrow-boat. Sid went back there, knowing Milo would be occupied at the nick for some time to come. Maybe he intended to leave a note, another riddle, even. He let himself in by the same brilliant method he used on the previous occasion-whatever that may be-only this time he was followed in by someone else, who picked up a windlass and cracked him over the head."
"Who?"
"That's the question. Could be one of the Bloodhounds who followed him there. Could be someone else with a grudge against Sid. Could simply be some evil person who was on the towpath last night and decided to mug the occupant. In other words, anyone from your half-dozen suspects to the entire population of Avon and Somerset, plus any visitors passing through. That's why I'm cautious, Julie. But it's only a hypothesis. I may be totally mistaken."
Chapter Nineteen
Open-top tour buses are a feature of Bath that most residents accept with good grace in a city that welcomes tourists. The two companies in competition are distinguished by their colors: Ryan's Citytour in red and white and Badgerline's Bath Tour in green and cream. Citytours operate from Terrace Walk, near the Abbey. The Badgerline tours leave every thirty minutes from the bus station and are named after city worthies like Prince Bladud, King Edgar, Ralph Allen, John Wood, and Dr. William Oliver. All the buses stop at convenient points to allow ticketholders to get off and explore, continuing the tour on another bus if desired.
Miss Chilmark was one of the minority who disapproved of the open-tops of whatever color. For one thing she had a house on the route and was convinced that people on the upper deck looked into bedrooms. And for another, as a person of refined literary taste, she found it deplorable that Jane Austen's name was on the back of a bus. You may imagine the shock she received when crossing Pierrepont Street at ten thirty in the morning to hear her own name spoken, amplified, from one of these despised vehicles.
"Miss Chilmark!"
It must have been audible right across Parade Gardens.
She froze and tried to take an interest in a shop window, telling herself she couldn't have heard correctly.
"Miss Chilmark!" Louder still and unmistakable, like a summons to the Last Judgment.
Deeply alarmed, she turned her head enough to see a female figure speaking into a microphone on the upper deck of a Badgerline called Beau Nash. Twenty or more interested faces were staring down.
"Miss Chilmark, this is Shirley-Ann Miller, from the Bloodhounds. Could I talk to you?"
Miss Chilmark was in no position to stop her from talking, but she had enough spirit to answer, "What gives you the right…?"
She wasn't heard. Shirley-Ann's amplified voice drowned hers. "Shall we say eleven, by the Abbey doo
r? Please be there if you possibly can."
The bus started to move off. The commentary continued, "Sorry about that, ladies and gentlemen. Personal. I happened to spot someone I know and it is rather an emergency. If you look to your left now you will see the archway leading to Pierrepont Place. At Number One from 1764 to 1771 lived the Linley family, and Mrs. Linley once had a maidservant called Emma Lyon, later to become famous as Emma Hamilton. To your right across the street at Number Two is the house occupied for many years as a winter home by the Nelson family- yes, that Nelson. Unfortunately for romantics like me, the dates are wrong. It is most unlikely that Emma and Horatio met in Bath, but there is a romantic story about the dazzlingly lovely daughter of the Linleys, Elizabeth, who eloped…"
Miss Chilmark, her mind closed to the commentary, turned unsteadily along North Parade Passage, pink with the indignity. Not once in her life had she been hailed from the top of a bus. Generations of Chilmarks had lived with dignity and decorum in this city. She was mortified to have been singled out for such public humiliation. She needed a strong coffee and a Sally Lunn to take away the shock.
"Yes, I'm awfully sorry about that," Shirley-Ann told her when they met. "I didn't mean to alarm you. I'm not very used to the public address system. Usually my job is handing out the leaflets, but today they were short-staffed, so I stood in for someone. It's a chance you don't turn down. A marvelous opportunity for me and only the second time I've done it. When I spotted you, I forgot I was holding the mike and it was live. And I desperately wanted to speak to you. Look, shall we sit down? You look dreadfully pale." She was wondering what to do if Miss Chilmark had another attack of hyperventilation. She didn't have a paper bag with her.
They went over to sit on one of the benches in the Abbey churchyard. A busker facing them was playing the recorder to an orchestral backing from a portable cassette player, but it wasn't any bar to conversation. "I like giving the commentary, and I think I'm rather good at it," Shirley-Ann said, giving a commentary to Miss Chilmark. "% get a real buzz when I'm up there with the mike switched on and all those faces turned my way. They hear more from me than any other guide gives them. I must admit I depart from the script a bit. And today I was fairly bombarding them with information, more than I intended to say. I'm in a bit of a state myself, to be honest. We're all in a state, and no wonder."
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