Julie came in with a useful question. "Did you notice who left first?"
"After Milo, do you mean? He was the first out."
"Yes."
"Sid. But he always is quick to make his getaway. I mean was. God bless him. He was in dread of anyone getting into a conversation with him. I think some time ago Jessica Shaw practically dragged him by the coattails to one of the local pubs. She caught him once more, but he was wary after that."
"Who left after Sid?" Diamond asked.
"You are asking some questions. It must have been our new member, Shirley-Ann, followed by Jessica or Rupert; I'm not sure who. Then Miss Chilmark and I. We were all out within five minutes and going our different ways."
"And you drove straight here?"
"I thought that was clear, Superintendent."
They established next that no one could vouch for Polly's presence in the house on the night of the crime. She had watched News at Ten and an old Stewart Granger film, but that was no alibi.
At Diamond's request, Polly then dictated a list of all the Bloodhounds since the club had begun in 1989. Her memory appeared to be functioning brilliantly. "Tom Parry-Morgan, Milo, myself, Annie Allen, Gilbert Jones, Marilyn Slade-Baker, Alan Jellicoe, the Pearce sisters, Colonel Twigg, the Bentins from Oklahoma…" She completed it without pause until she got to Rupert's name, and Diamond asked how this charming but wayward man had come to join.
"Quite by chance," Polly recalled. "We used to meet in the Francis Hotel. A corner of the Roman Bar. We were more informal then. Rupert happened to come in for a drink and overheard our discussion and joined in. He's like that, loves an argument. He gets very animated after a few drinks. We were asked to take our meetings to another venue after one evening when he was particularly noisy. That's how we moved to the crypt."
"What did Rupert think of that?"
"Well, he couldn't say much, could he? He was the cause of our ban. The crypt isn't licensed, but it's next door to the Saracen's Head, which suits him well, I fancy. He's a mischief maker at times, but brilliant in his way, and I thought it was in all our interests to keep him as a member."
They got up to leave. Diamond thanked Polly for seeing them at such a late hour.
She said, "I hope I've been of some help, but I doubt it. I can't think how this ghastly thing happened."
"It's becoming clearer to me, ma'am," he told her. "And, yes, you have been helpful. The Bloodhounds have been meeting for six years. That's mainly down to you. I mean, you put a lot into it. I've heard this from several sources. For you, it's more than just a way to pass a Monday evening."
She said modestly, "It isn't any hardship."
"Ah, but you do make a point of encouraging them. A phone call here and there. The odd cup of coffee."
"I enjoy it."
"Keeping up with the other members, I mean. Did you get to know Sid away from the meetings?"
She returned his gaze with cold eyes. "Not at all."
"Never met him outside the crypt?"
"He was unapproachable."
"Of course." At the front door, he paused. "I noticed you have a burglar alarm fitted on the front of your house."
"Yes, I do."
"Very sensible. You have it serviced on a regular basis, I'm sure."
"Of course. They send a man every six months."
"That's all right, then." He put on his trilby, stepped away from the house and turned to look up at the box fitted under the eaves. "It's too dark to see. Out of interest, Mrs. Wycherley, does it happen to be one of the Impregnable alarms?"
"No," she said, with just a hint of mockery, "it's a Chubb."
Down at the central police station, John Wigfull was lingering in the incident room. The civilian clerks had long since finished. One sergeant was trying to look busy in front of a screen.
"Working late, John?" Diamond commented.
Gratified to be found still on duty, Wigfull actually smiled. "Needs must. I'm just back from the Holburne Museum, making sure the night squad are on their toes."
"Expecting some action tonight?"
"That's the pattern. There isn't much delay after the riddle is sent. The Penny Black was taken the night after, and it turned up on the day the second riddle was received."
"Good thinking. So it's a strong presence down at the museum?"
"Six men."
"Strategically posted?"
"It's not an easy building, but I think six should be enough."
"To end the suspense?"
Wigfull frowned uncertainly.
"I'm quoting the riddle, John. 'To end the suspense, as yours truly did..
"Ah."
"… 'Discover the way to Sydney from Sid.' And that's what you've done. Six good men posted in Sydney Gardens should end the suspense sooner than Johnny expects."
"I'd like to think so," said Wigfull.
"So are you off home?"
He shook his head. "I'll stick around, I think. Stay in touch with the lads down there."
"A chance for some quiet reflection, eh?" Diamond said. "You're still pondering over the locked room mystery, I dare-say. Any fresh theories?"
Wigfull's mustache moved strangely, and Diamond thought he might be grinding his teeth. He had no theories he wanted to share.
When invited for a coffee in the canteen, he declined.
"So whodunit, Julie?"
They had the canteen entirely to themselves, apart from the woman who had served them, and she was reading a Barbara Cartland in the kitchen. This was to be the last coffee of the day. Diamond had an apricot pie to go with his. By the time he got home, Steph would have eaten.
Julie couldn't give an answer, and was wise enough not to guess.
"We've seen them all now," Diamond reminded her chirpily. "Heard all their stories."
"And got more questions than answers," she said.
"Clues, then. Let's examine the clues."
"Rupert's beret?"
This wasn't high on his own list, and he explained why. "I'm keeping an open mind on that one. If we ever get hold of the damned thing-and I mean to have one more try tonight-and if we find it spotted with paint, what does it tell us-only that Rupert may have written an unkind message on a gallery window."
Julie was unwilling to dismiss the beret. "It means we ought to question him again for sure, in case he really found out something about Jessica."
He made no response, preferring a bite of the pie. "Another clue?"
"The paper bag, if you prefer," she said.
"It isn't what I prefer," he said, "it's what we have to deal with." Both of them were tired, and it was showing.
Julie said, "Since we're talking whodunits, I think the bag is a red herring. I mean the writing on the bag. We thought it proved that Sid composed the riddles. We were obviously mistaken."
"You mean if this third riddle is authentic?"
"Yes."
"Very likely is, Julie. Similar type, similar paper, similar distribution."
"So what are we to make of the writing on it? They are lists of rhyming words."
"True."
"And they seem to refer to what was going on. You pointed out yourself that one of the lists rhymes with the word 'motion,' and another with 'black,' presumably for Penny Black."
"And 'room'-for locked room."
"What was Sid up to, then, if he wasn't working on a new riddle?"
"You're making an assumption there, Julie, that I can't automatically accept."
"What's that?" She screwed up her face, trying to work it out. Not easy, after more than thirteen hours on duty. "You're questioning whether Sid made those lists?"
He finished the pie and wiped the edges of his mouth. "Think of that paper bag as evidence we pass on to the CPS. What do they want from us? Continuity of evidence. Remember your promotion exams. First, they want to know where it originated."
"A secondhand bookshop."
"By no means certain."
"They nearly always use brown
paper bags."
"So do plenty of other shops."
"It did contain a book."
"All right. Who owned the book?"
"Sid."
"Yes, but where was it from? We can't say. Maybe not from a shop at all. Maybe from another collector, someone else in the Bloodhounds, someone who jotted lists on a paper bag."
"And gave it to Sid by accident?"
"Or design."
"That's really devious."
"This murder is, Julie. I'm not saying this is what happened. As well as examining the start of this chain, you have to look at the end. What happened to the bag after it left Sid's possession?"
"It was jammed against Miss Chilmark's face."
"But who by?"
"Jessica Shaw."
"And then?"
"It ended up in Jessica's handbag. Oh!" She put her hand to her mouth. "She could have written the lists."
He said nothing, letting this take root.
Julie moved to the next stage in the logic. "But she handed us the bag. If she'd used it herself to make lists, she'd never have done that. She isn't daft. She would have destroyed it."
"Unless she wanted us to see the lists."
Julie frowned. "And assume they must have been written by Sid. Why?"
"To shift suspicion."
Her eyes widened amazingly for one so tired. "I hadn't seen it like that at all."
"It's only one end of the chain, remember."
"Can we get a handwriting expert on to this?"
"I sent the bag away with a sample of Sid's writing," he said, "but I'm not optimistic. Graphologists like joined-up writing. This wasn't. And-before you ask-none of the words was misspelled. No point in running a little test for our suspects."
She said, "It does bring us to another clue."
"What's that?"
"The writing on the gallery window. 'She did for Sid.' Someone-probably Rupert-believes Jessica is the killer."
"Or wants us to believe she is." He was finding this session helpful. He moved on to the most elusive of all the elements in this case: the motive. Succinctly, he laid out the options for Julie to consider. The best bet was that Sid had been a blackmailer. At Impregnable he had unusual opportunities to pick up tidbits of information about people's private affairs. He had access to confidential files and he worked with expolicemen with inside knowledge of the indiscretions of some of the most outwardly respectable residents of Bath. Certainly there were questions about Miss Chilmark's regular withdrawals of large sums from the bank. Jessica, too, might be vulnerable to blackmail if she was having an affair with AJ. Rupert had a past, but he was quite open about it. Of the others, Polly seemed well defended in every sense, and Shirley-Ann was surely too new on the scene to have fallen a victim.
There were two big problems with the blackmail theory, he admitted to Julie. Firstly, there was no evidence that Sid had received money in any appreciable amounts. He lived in that depressing flat in the shadow of the viaduct in Oak Street and worked unsocial hours as a night watchman. Surely a blackmailer's lifestyle would have shown some improvement? And the second problem was the manner of Sid's death. Why would a blackmail victim choose to put an end to the extortion in such an elaborate fashion, in a locked cabin on a boat?
So he outlined his alternative theory, the one he had touched on while interviewing Polly. This postulated that the killing had not been planned. It was sparked by the Penny Black turning up in the astonishing way it did. Sid-the Dickson Carr fanatic-was so excited, so intrigued, by a real-life locked room puzzle that he went to the boat to examine it for himself. There he met the person responsible. Sid was killed because of what he discovered, not who he was.
"What was the murderer doing there?" Julie asked.
Diamond gripped the edge of the table as a thought struck him. His eyes shone. "Julie, that's the whole point. Brilliant! You haven't told me whodunit, but you've given me the solution to the locked room mystery."
It was after ten that evening when he returned to Hay Hill, this time alone, Julie having been released from duty as a reward for her brilliance.
Rupert's house still had no light inside. The dog barked furiously.
The waitress in the Paragon Bar and Bistro told him Rupert must have gone somewhere else for a change. She hadn't seen him all evening. Neither had the landlord at his other local, the Lansdown Arms.
He looked at the clock and decided there was time to try the Saracen's Head, a mere five minutes away, down the hill in Broad Street. The Saracen was still doing good business toward closing time, but there wasn't a beret to be seen. Diamond was given some abuse by a well-tanked customer for giving a shout out of turn. A glare put a stop to that, and got the barman's attention as well. After a quick consultation among the bar staff, one of them pointed to a table in one of the partitioned sections. Here, it seemed, Rupert occasionally held court, telling tall stories about his encounters with the great and the not-so-good, surrounded by a delighted crowd of regulars. These were the people who looked after Marlowe the night that unruly animal was banished from the Bloodhounds' meeting.
It emerged that Rupert had indeed called in for a beer much earlier, about seven. One glass of bitter. He had been dressed as usual in beret, black leather, and blue cords. Less usually, he hadn't brought Marlowe because, he had explained, he had been invited for drinks at another pub, and dogs weren't welcome in some houses. He had left after five minutes. Nobody knew any more about this arrangement.
There are one hundred and forty public houses in and around Bath.
Diamond treated himself to a brandy before going home.
Chapter Thirty
For John Wigfull there was no sleep that night. About midnight he parked his car opposite the entrance to the Bath Spa Hotel and walked briskly through Sydney Gardens to the Holburne Museum. A less conscientious officer might have parked closer to the building, in Sydney Road, say, just around the corner. Wigfull was determined to give nobody a clue as to his presence, and that included his own men. When the side door of the museum opened and the sergeant looked out, Wigfull put his finger to his lips and went silently in.
The Holburne is not an easy building to make secure. It looks like a cross between an English country house and a Greek temple. Built toward the end of the eighteenth century as a hotel with a classical facade of a pediment and four columns mounted above three arches, the original structure has undergone several alterations in its two-hundred-year existence, notably the addition of an extra storey and balustraded walls at each side. The front is open to the road. Where once there were railings, there remains only a low wall facing Great Pulteney Street. Two watchman's boxes have a purely decorative function now. At the rear, a combination of drainpipes and footholds between the stone blocks would be as good as a ladder to an intruder. Fortunately, the alarm system is modern and efficient, and there are floodlights at the front and security lights right around the building.
The six policemen posted strategically inside and on the roof were in radio contact, and Wigfull made sure that they were alert. As well as calling them a number of times on their personal radios, he took the extra precaution of visiting them half-hourly. He made no friends that night, but nobody slept on duty.
By 6:30 next morning, nothing suspicious had occurred. Disappointed at having failed to trap the villain, but relieved that the museum was intact, Wigfull stood on the roof eating chocolate and watching the first glimmer of dawn over Bathampton Down. It was safe, he decided, to return home for a few hours' rest. Leaving instructions to the senior man to keep up the vigil until the relief team arrived at 8 A.M., he took the short cut through Sydney Gardens toward his car. A light frost had blanched the lawns.
Cold as it felt outdoors, this was a charming place to be at this early hour. In years past, Sydney Gardens had been a mecca for Bathonians. It had brass bands, a bowling green, a maze, grottoes, and firework displays. Two emperors, Napoleon III and Haile Selassie, had walked these paths. So had Jane
Austen, Emma Hamilton, and Lord Macaulay. This morning John Wigfull, Chief Inspector, justifiably content after a night's policing, had the entire place to himself.
Except for one dog.
He spotted it in the distance coming over the narrower of the two railway bridges, a large black poodle, trotting with that air of purpose special to dogs. Instead of staying on the path, the poodle started across the broad sweep of lawn toward the laurel bushes on the far side. Wigfull, almost as purposeful, continued his brisk walk, thinking of other things. Ahead, he knew, was the railway cutting. All that could be seen of it was a massive stone retaining wall, and he wondered why a number of park benches were positioned opposite, as if users of the park might wish to turn their backs on the lawns and trees and stare at blocks of grimy stone. In 1841 Brunei had been permitted to navigate his Great Western Railway through the gardens, provided that the trains would not spoil the vista, so the track was laid in a deep gully impossible to see from the benches. Brunei had fulfilled the contract handsomely. The bridges for pedestrians were a pleasure to use, elegant and unobtrusive. Wigfull would need to cross the railway and the canal a short way on to reach his car. He didn't get that far, because his attention was caught again by the dog.
That it was a poodle had been clear from the moment he had seen it, for it was clipped. Large standard poodles are not often seen these days. This was a fine specimen and probably should not have been off the leash. The owner had not appeared. In his days as a beat officer, Wigfull might have gone to investigate, but this morning he had more important things on his mind than a stray poodle.
The poodle had other ideas. Halfway across the lawn, it switched direction and came lolloping toward Wigfull. Only then did he notice something odd. He was no expert on poodle clipping, but he had always thought they were supposed to have pointed muzzles, whatever outcrops of hair were permitted around the top of the head and the mane.
This one had a beard. Or side-whiskers growing below the jawline like some Prussian aristocrat of a century ago. A strange extravagance, and not symmetrical. There was definitely more of it on the right of the jaw than the left.
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