Die-Cast (A Peter Marklin Mystery)

by Neville Steed

  ‘She wasn’t. That’s how my Lalique vase went, and a load of Clarice Cliff...Got a black eye too. I did, I mean.’

  ‘Did you know her husband, John? You know he’s been arrested?’

  ‘Yes, Sebastian told me all about it.’

  ‘I have to ask you this. You weren’t involved in the drug smuggling, were you?’

  He looked horrified. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘You’ve got an aeroplane, that’s all. Look, don’t get upset.’

  He shook his head in disbelief, as I saw the boy in blue in the corner consult his watch.

  ‘Last question, Adam. You haven’t seen any ghostly apparitions around your way recently, have you?’

  ‘What the hell do you mean?’ He looked dumbfounded.

  ‘I mean sort of ghostly white-sheeted figures flitting about your gardens or your farmland.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘I’m not being silly. Hasn’t Lana-Lee told you? Ben claimed he used to see white apparitions. And on Saturday, Tara-Lee saw one too.’

  ‘At the Manor?’

  ‘No, on the cliffs at Ringstead Bay. It’s too long a story for now.’

  ‘Peter, what the hell’s happening to us all? What have we all done?’

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to find out,’ I said quietly, as I saw the man in the corner starting his move to say, ‘Time, gentlemen, please.’

  11

  On my way home, on the Sandbanks-Studland ferry, my mind was, for once, not full of its usual nostalgic childhood memories of that primitive clanking conveyance, but of enigmatic thoughts of a much more recent origin: the look in Adam Longhurst’s eyes when I popped the million dollar question about the lady on the phone that night. And another phone call about which Miss Elizabeth Sumner had some strange intuition. And white apparitions that flitted in and out of my mental vision, clouding rather than clarifying. I had a hell of a fight with myself not to start jumping to conclusions. But I knew the time must arrive shortly, when further delay would be counter-productive and just plain old-fashioned reluctance to face facts — like I wasn’t getting anywhere worth a damn.

  I was surprised to see the ‘Open’ sign on the door of my Toy Emporium as I passed to park round the back, for Gus wasn’t due to stand in for me until the next day. But, hey-ho, there he was sitting in the store, having let himself in with the key I had lent him.

  ‘Thought I’d put in a few extra hours,’ he grinned. ‘Never know, might get another of those Yanks in, mightn’t I?’

  ‘You might, Gus, you might,’ I said, not wishing to dampen his enthusiasm, but the odds against were like a thousand to one.

  ‘Well, how did you get on, then?’ he asked, and I realised he had more than one motive for coming over.

  ‘Let’s put it this way, Gus, I’m well on the bloody road not only to being impressed with the strength of the police case against Longhurst, but also being dubious about the role of my perishing employer. Some private eye I am.’

  ‘Lana-Lee?’ Gus looked most aggrieved. ‘Lovely lady, she is. Lovely daughter too. She can’t have done anything. Your mind must be going, old son.’

  ‘That’s as maybe, Gus. But listen to this...’

  Quarter of an hour later Gus had put some of his protestations away, but not all of them.

  ‘Well, supposing then, it was her on the phone. Doesn’t mean to say she murdered bloody Maxwell, does it? Nor that she intended to frame Longhurst, neither.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t. But all the same, it’s a neat solution.’

  ‘Neat for whom? You? The police? Use your loaf. If she had done what you say, she’d have hardly asked you to get old Longhurst off, now would she?’

  I had to concede he had a point. It cheered me up just a smidgin. I told you Gus was good for one’s health, mental, that is. It was then that the phone rang. I was hoping it was Arabella, but it turned out to be a house clearance and junk shop johnnie from Weymouth, whom I knew vaguely. He rang me from time to time, whenever he came across any old toys in his house clearance purchases. Normally they were hardly ‘eurekas’, but this time they sounded more than promising. Apparently, the house he’d been clearing had belonged to an old man who had been a project engineer at a well known British maker of tinplate toys, Wells. And the attic turned out to be full of dusty pre-war tinplate cars, buses and commercial vehicles, not only of Wells manufacture, but also from German and American firms, who were Wells’ competitors at the time. He said I’d better go over to Weymouth quickly, as he’d got a competitor of mine from Bournemouth viewing them in the evening. I said I’d be there immediately I’d grabbed some lunch. After all, I had a living to make, and luckily Lavinia’s place was more or less en route, so that I could pop in on the way back. What’s more, to be honest, if the toys matched my acquaintance’s enthusiastic descriptions, they would fascinate me as a private collector, let alone as a dealer.

  So, secretly glad of a break from the whole Maxwell mess, I trotted off with Gus to the local hostelry, downed a pint and a ploughman’s and, leaving Gus back in the shop, went to my faithful Beetle and turned the ignition key to be off to Weymouth. Not a dickybird. I turned the key again. Nothing. Six turns more and still zero. Cursing under my breath, I went round the back and took a look at my Porsche engine. Everything looked normal, but, for some reason, I wasn’t getting a spark. Quarter of an hour later, I gave up and went back indoors to wash the grease off my hands.

  ‘Won’t start, old son?’ Gus grinned. (He loved to see cars going wrong that were more modern than his old upright Ford Popular — which meant ninety-nine point nine per cent of vehicles on the road.) ‘Like to go in mine?’

  Now normally, an invitation to go in Gus’s old Popular was equivalent to a chance to spend a vacation in a Siberian salt mine, but this time I did not see how, short of hiring an expensive taxi, I could do otherwise than accept. So, with trepidation, I did. We locked up shop, trekked down to Gus’s cottage, and picked up the laughingly-called Popular.

  It’s not all that far to Weymouth — unless you are riding with Gus. Then, it seems at least as far as Moscow — and Moscow over unpaved roads, what’s more — for the Popular had hardly been famed for its springing when brand new in 1953, let alone some two hundred thousand hard miles later. And the piercing draughts where the doors didn’t meet added to the whole Russian scenario, while Gus’s driving style (I use the word ‘style’ loosely) could make prunes obsolete.

  However, we did get there — eventually — and pulled to a shrieking stop outside the pile of old furniture on the pavement that marked our destination, the shop lying somewhere behind it. Luckily, the toys were not on display, but packed in old supermarket boxes upstairs in what my friend flattered by calling his office: a battered desk, a stack of papers and dust to match.

  One look, and my cheque book was out, for what was left of Gus’s cash from the American would certainly not cover this wondrous find. I was knocked out. All were pre-war. Ten of the items were in absolutely mint condition, three slightly chipped and rusting, and three semi-dismantled. Five I recognised as of Wells’ own manufacture, ranging from a large blue and cream tinplate Rolls-Royce to a wonderful little Carter Paterson delivery van; then there was a motor cycle combination from Tipp of Germany, a racy looking Mercedes coupé from some unknown German maker, a huge ‘Inter-state’ bus from Strauss of America — and more. Suffice it to say, I was willing to shell out for the lot. And I prayed the profit I could make from those I sold would cover the cost of the items I had already earmarked for my own private collection. It took a quarter of an hour’s haggling to do a deal, and two seconds to alarm my bank manager with the size of the cheque I wrote, I guessed.

  I felt so chipper by the time we left that even the return journey in Gus’s Popular held no terrors for me. We packed as many of the toys as we could in the boot, and the rest we hid under a piece of old sacking on the floor behind the front seats.

  ‘Pity the pubs are all shut,’ Gus observe
d with a sigh, as we pulled out with a lurch from the kerb, ‘otherwise we could have celebrated your find.’

  ‘Could have been a nice idea, couldn’t it?’ I smiled. Then a thought struck me. ‘Hey, know the Cutlass Club?’

  ‘’Eard of it,’ Gus said, narrowly avoiding a Morris Marina turning its rust down a side road. ‘Poncey theatrical place, isn’t it? Actors hang out there, between their turns. That it?’

  I nodded. ‘I used to be a member there in my old advertising days. I hated it, but clients liked it. Haven’t paid my dues recently, but I’m sure they’d forgive me and pour us one or two for old times’ sake. Worth a try.’

  ‘All right, old dear. Lead me there.’ So I did.

  *

  You couldn’t actually miss her. She was propped up at the bar as if she owned the place, and there was no way of my arranging for a drink without her spotting me. So I thought, what the hell, and greeted her first.

  ‘Hello, Lavinia.’

  She narrowed her eyes to look at me in that dim light that clubs seem to think is chic.

  ‘Why, it’s you, Peter.’ She reached for my shoulder with a wavering arm. ‘Lovely Peter. I didn’t know you were a member.’

  ‘I’m not. I used to be.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ she slurred. ‘I’m a member. So I’ll buy you one. That’s legal.’

  Gus coughed and she looked round at him. He looked a trifle bizarre in the kitchy, pseudo Spanish decor of the club, like a fisherman out of water, so to speak.

  ‘Who’s your friend?’ she asked, raising her perfectly plucked eyebrows.

  ‘Oh, this is Gus. Gus Tribble.’ I propelled him forward. ‘Old friend of mine from Studland. Gus, Lavinia Saunders.’

  ‘Enchanted to meet you, Mr Tribble.’

  I saw her wince as they shook hands. Gus didn’t say, ‘Likewise,’ as was his wont, just glowered and stayed that way until she had bought him a pint, whereupon he grunted something, and wandered off to the far side of the somewhat claustrophobic room.

  My surprise at seeing Lavinia was now starting to recede and allow my mind to function more normally, although my first question, ‘What brings you here?’ was not exactly a world beater in the originality stakes. However, it did turn up an interesting stone.

  ‘Oh, just had a costume fitting, that’s all,’ she replied, insinuating her arm further around my shoulder. Through the almost overpowering pulse of her perfume, I managed to ask, disbelievingly, ‘Are you appearing at the theatre?’

  ‘No, no, no,’ she laughed. ‘Only amateur theatricals in a municipal hall. Have done it for years now. I like acting.’ She lolled her head towards mine. ‘In fact, my dear Peter, I’m rather good at it.’

  I guessed she would be. Most of her life was an act, after all. She continued, ‘I feared my husband’s arrest might mean I couldn’t continue in the play, but the cast insist I do continue.’

  I smiled. ‘The show must go on.’

  ‘Precisely, lovely Peter, precisely.’

  ‘What’s the play?’

  ‘The Man Who Came To Dinner.’

  ‘Ambitious for an English company.’

  She looked very taken aback. ‘Why? We’re pretty good. We’re not the WI, you know.’

  ‘I mean, all the American accents. Wouldn’t it have been easier to choose an English play?’

  ‘Jesus, Peter baby,’ she exploded, in what I took to be her best Stateside voice, which sounded like an unbelievable cross between John F. Kennedy’s Boston, J. R. Ewing’s Texan and Blanche du Bois’s Southern drawl, ‘you just don’t rightly know what little ol’ me is capable of, now do you, honey?’

  I agreed with her. I didn’t rightly, but kept to myself that that was exactly what I was aiming to discover. I sank a little beer to give me time to consider my next question, by which time I could feel Lavinia’s nose nuzzling my neck.

  ‘Have you seen your husband?’

  ‘Yes, lovely Peter.’ She nuzzled some more. ‘But don’t let’s talk of that bloody swine. He’s got me into all this mess. He and his dead friend, Ben Maxwell.’ Her voice had now taken on a tone that hardly mated up with the petting. I tried to move a little up the bar, but her arm was imitating a boa constrictor.

  ‘Did you know, all men are the same, Peter? John, Ben, Adam. Doesn’t matter what they’re called — they’re all bloody swine.’ She drained the last of what had looked like a Martini, then began sucking slowly on the olive. It did nothing for me, but then I don’t go for the eating scene in the movie of Tom Jones either. I looked around for Gus, and he winked at me from the far side of the room. He was obviously having a great time watching me squirm, the sod.

  ‘All except you, of course, Peter. You come over as different somehow. Are you different, Peter? Different from all those double-dealing jokers?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ I said, and then instantly regretted it. For a thought had struck me that might well make it worth my while to play things Lavinia’s way — at least for a bit. I turned to her. ‘We’ll never know, will we?’

  ‘Won’t we?’ she pouted.

  ‘Not in here, we won’t,’ I countered, for I knew that by teatime, the Cutlass Club would be filling up with bored businessmen with only two things on their mind.

  She sniggered. ‘Where do you suggest?’

  ‘Oh, somewhere a trifle more private.’

  ‘Very private?’ she whispered, progressing to little wet kisses. I was relieved there was no one else actually seated at the bar.

  ‘Sounds promising,’ I lied.

  ‘My place or yours?’

  ‘How about yours? It’s nearer. And it hasn’t got a shop,’ I smiled.

  She sat up straight and looked over towards Gus. ‘What about your friend?’

  ‘He hates three to a bed.’ It took her a time to double-take.

  ‘Oh, lovely Peter, you’re having me on, aren’t you?’

  I nodded. ‘Yes. But I think he really does hate three to a bed.’

  ‘I’ve never tried it,’ she breathed. ‘I haven’t got tired of two yet. Have you?’

  ‘No,’ I said, with all honesty.

  ‘But I meant, Peter, we can’t just go off and leave him here, can we? Or did he come in his own car?’

  ‘He came in his own car.’ She looked relieved until I continued, ‘Trouble is, I came in it with him.’

  ‘But that’s all right. I’ve got my car here. I’ll drop you home — er — afterwards.’

  ‘No,’ I said quickly. ‘It will work better for me if I go home first, then come over to you, say, sometime this evening. Besides, I’ve got some things I must do this afternoon.’

  ‘What about your Arabella?’

  ‘I’ll dream up some story about some old toys I have to go and appraise. I’ll think of something.’

  ‘You’re as double-dealing as the others, after all, aren’t you, lovely Peter?’ Her long blood-tipped finger traced the outline of my mouth. I suffered for England — or rather, for America, I suppose.

  ‘That’s what we’re aiming to discover this evening, aren’t we?’ I smiled, in as Burt Reynolds a way as I could muster.

  ‘What time?’

  ‘About nine.’

  ‘About nine.’ She looked more sad than sensual in the half light, as I felt her arm relax its grip to allow me to move from the bar. ‘I’ll put my kettle on,’ she winked.

  ‘You do that,’ I smiled, and with a half wave, moved over to where I’d last seen Gus. But he’d gone, out to the car, as I subsequently discovered.

  ‘Hate to watch anyone being eaten alive,’ he grinned, as he grated around with the long lever for what was left of his gears.

  *

  When Gus, at last, dropped me home, shaken and shivering but all in one piece, I unpacked the precious toys and arranged them in immensely satisfying ranks on my small dining-room table to await later evaluation as to which I could afford to keep, and which I had to sell to do so. I was longing to get down to the task right away, but had t
oo much on my mind to do justice to the pleasure. I made a note on the telephone pad reminding me to phone the bank manager in the morning to warn him about the cheque, and maybe my Volkswagen agent, then tried to get hold of Inspector Blake. He was out. I then phoned the Knoll House Hotel, but they reported likewise. I left a message with the desk for him to contact me, then fed Bing, who insisted on only toying with his Whiskas, instead of wolfing it down. I knew why, too. He often went on hunger strike when he thought I was out too much, or not giving him enough attention. I stroked him until I received massive shocks from static electricity, but to no purpose. I promised to make it up to him when the whole Maxwell affair was over. He didn’t look convinced.

  Blake still had not rung by the time Arabella came back from her journalistic forays. I recounted my day, and explained (rather judiciously) my plan of action to her, and, after a moment’s thought, she stated that I shouldn’t really have rung Blake until I was more certain of my slender theories.

  ‘You could be wrong, you know. And Blake can’t really help us until you’ve got rather more than just hunches.’

  I had to agree, but even so, felt a talk with the law might not have come amiss before venturing into what might be rather hazardous waters.

  ‘Do you want me to come with you, and wait outside in the car?’ Arabella smirked. ‘Just in case...’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind, actually,’ I laughed, ‘but I think I’ll cope. It’s your car I’ll have to use anyway, if you don’t mind. Anyway, I have somewhere I’d like you to go at the same time, if you’re not too bushed.’

  ‘Lana-Lee’s?’

  I nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘How will I get there? Don’t answer that,’ she grinned.

  ‘That’s right. I’ve already asked Gus. He’ll run you over there and wait. Sorry about that.’

  ‘That’s okay. I’ll survive. And you think Gus will be around as some kind of protection if I need it?’

  I nodded again. ‘When you get there, probe about that call. I’m sure Adam Longhurst is certain she made it, whatever he says to protect her.’