The Victim in Victoria Station

by Jeanne M. Dams

  “Or someone was, at some time. Tell us about the people who work there.”

  We went over the office personnel exhaustively. At the end Nigel summed them up.

  “So. We have one who drinks, one who drugs and has a violent temper, probably related to the drugs. Two, both married, are having an affair. One’s a washout as a salesman, and one’s a washout as a person. Is that the lot?”

  “And a boss and a secretary and an assistant boss who I think is a murderer.”

  “But you’re not certain.”

  “No. If he was the man in the train, and I’m still not certain even about that, then he at least knew about the murder and disposed of the body. He couldn’t have done that alone, though, and his helper, or helpers, might actually have committed the murder.”

  Nigel unwound himself from his position on the floor. “Then I move we adjourn. We’re getting nowhere, it’s a filthy time of night, and you’ve been yawning for an hour at least. If I could get on the blower and and fetch a minicab, Lynn, I’ll take myself back to Earl’s Court and my mate’s flat.”

  “But it’s late! Please do stay here.”

  “No, there’s Pete, you see.” Nigel jerked a thumb at the cat, now peacefully asleep on a Louis XIV chair. “I think he’d be better off where the furniture comes from Oxfam and scratches don’t matter.”

  15

  Alan called last evening, before you came home,” said Lynn at the breakfast table. I had slept very late. Tom had gone off early to play golf with some cronies; Lynn and I were enjoying a lazy Saturday morning. “I’m so sorry; I forgot to tell you last night, in all the excitement. It would have been too late for you to return the call, anyway.”

  I put down my coffee. “Oh, dear, I meant to call him no later than yesterday. I guess I’d better—what did he want?”

  “Oddly enough, he wanted to talk to you,” said Lynn tartly, and then she laughed. “Don’t look so worried. I released no cats from their bags. Didn’t I tell you I can lie beautifully when I have to? I was absolutely charming, said you’d be devastated to miss him, but you were out and I wasn’t sure when you’d be back—which was the absolute truth, you know. As soon as he supplied the assumption that you were at some sort of prenuptial festivity, it was plain sailing, but it would have been somewhat easier if I’d known from the start which cover story you were using.”

  “You’re an angel, and brilliant, and I apologize all over the place.” I recited all the details I could remember of the goddaughter fairy tale, and then finished my coffee and went off to call Alan.

  He sounded happy to hear from me and just a little worried. I soothed him (I hoped) with apocryphal stories about the shopping I’d done and the party Friday night.

  “When did you say she’s being married?”

  Oh, dear heaven! Had I given him a day? What should I say? How long was it going to take me to wind things up at Multilinks? Or to decide I was wasting my time? Alan would expect me to be in Sherebury after the nonexistent wedding was over. When could I reasonably expect to go home?

  “Dorothy?”

  The pause had lasted far too long. “Yes, sorry, love. My earring fell off, and I was feeling around on the floor for it. It’s on Wednesday afternoon. The wedding, I mean, not my earring. But I may stick around here for a day or two afterwards to have some time with Tom and Lynn. I’ve hardly had a chance to talk to them, I’ve been out so much… .” I was talking nervously, saying whatever came into my head. “When do you expect to be home, yourself? You’ve been gone an awfully long time.”

  “By the end of next week, and perhaps sooner. That’s why I asked you about the wedding. I’ll know for certain by Wednesday at the latest. I’ll phone then and let you know, or leave a message. You’ll undoubtedly be out all day.”

  Undoubtedly. I was surprised to feel tears rush to my eyes. “Oh, Alan, you don’t know how much I’ve missed you!”

  “I think I may have some slight idea,” he said, and I could almost see the twinkle in his eye. “Have a lovely weekend, darling, if this demanding goddaughter of yours gives you any time to yourself. I’ll see you soon.”

  Alan was coming home! I could tell him all about it and get his advice and turn the whole mess over to him. I could hardly wait.

  But of course I was going to have to. Glumly I hung up the phone and moped into the living room. “I owe you a lot of money, I expect. Let me know when you get the phone bill.”

  “Don’t be silly. No bad news, I hope?”

  It’s a good thing I don’t play poker. My face hides my feelings about as well as plate glass. “No, it’s just that Alan’s coming home.”

  “And that makes you look like Jeremiah? I hadn’t realized the honeymoon was over so soon.”

  “Now you’re the silly one! I’m so anxious to see him it hurts, that’s all. Somehow, talking to him made me really feel how far away he is, and how much I’ve needed him. Besides, I had to lie to him, and I hate that.”

  “My dear! How could you possibly do anything else? You can’t count on anything being private these days. You’ll tell him the whole story the minute he gets home, and he can make the idiotic police see reason. If you haven’t tied the entire matter up with ribbons by then, of course. Now, when is that darling man going to be back where he belongs?”

  “Not till the end of next week, probably. He wasn’t exactly sure.”

  “Very well, then, we’re going to spend the rest of the weekend being normal people, doing normal things, and keeping your mind off your troubles. The weather’s turned gorgeous. How recently have you been to Kew Gardens?”

  The Royal Botanic Gardens, to give them their proper name, were once the gardens of Kew Palace, at that time (around the time of George III) a royal residence. Some of the plantings are well over two hundred years old, and in total, they represent a kind of living museum of plants, rare and beautiful, from all over the world. At any time of year Kew is worth an extended visit. On a gorgeous June day the gardens were heavenly, but of course very crowded. Lynn had had the foresight to bring a lunch, which we ate sitting in the rose garden.

  I couldn’t leave my problem alone, even in the midst of all that beauty.

  “Mr. Spragge grows roses,” I said suddenly. Lynn looked a little startled; we had been talking about poor old Queen Charlotte.

  “Does he? I suppose you think that unfits him for the role of murderer.”

  “I don’t know what to think of him, and that’s the truth. Mrs. Forbes thinks he’s the paragon of all virtues. He’s been charming to me. But I saw the sales manager come out of his office yesterday, and if looks could kill, believe me, we would now be dealing with the murder of Mr. Spragge.”

  “Hmmm. Sounds a little like a boss Tom had once. Delightful man, cultured, warm—and utterly ruthless. Once he decided on a course of action, the angel Gabriel wouldn’t have been able to talk him out of it, I do assure you.”

  “Then you think Spragge—”

  “I don’t think anything at all. I don’t know the people involved. Just watch yourself, that’s all. Charm can hide a good many sins. Now you’ve sat quite long enough, and you’ve talked about your worries far too long. You were going to get your mind off them, remember? We’re off to the Palm House, where the temperature and humidity combined will prevent your mind from working at all.”

  When we had completely worn ourselves out, we left the gardens and had tea at the Maids of Honor, a wonderful old place nearby that’s famous for an almond-flavored tea pastry by the same name, of which I am inordinately fond. Once Tom heard that we’d gorged ourselves, he resigned himself to leftovers for supper, after which we went to a nightclub where I was amazed to hear good jazz.

  Sunday morning I went to church at St. Peter’s Eaton Square, a church nearby renowned for its music and its society weddings, and in the afternoon we all three did a little mild sightseeing in Belgrave Square, a lovely park surrounded by lovely houses, many with connections to my beloved mystery fiction. Lynn an
d Tom between them refused to allow me to talk about Multilinks at all, which was perhaps just as well, but I was restless, itching to get back to my problem. I wanted to have it over and done with by the time Alan showed up.

  Apparently my subconscious was working the whole time, for on Monday morning I sailed off to the Underground station, in my wig and silly glasses, eager to pursue the new ideas in my head.

  Someone at Multilinks had been spying on us Friday night. That much was virtually certain. But it could have been anybody, from the exalted Mr. Spragge right down to the anonymous Mr. Grey, and I had no idea who.

  When I got the chance today, then, I was going to ask people about their weekends. Perfectly normal thing to do, after all, after two days of gorgeous weather. Then I might be able to piece together a picture of where the staff had been when, and perhaps identify the person I had begun in my mind to call the lurker.

  Of course, the lurker would lie about Friday night, but I hadn’t taught school for over forty years without getting pretty good at spotting liars. And I had one other very small advantage. I was almost sure the lurker was unaware that we knew he/she had been there. We had never seen or heard the slightest evidence of the lurker’s presence, except for the cat. And I doubted the cat was a deliberate ploy. Cats will almost never do what you want them to, and this particular criminal was too smart to risk anything on a possibly uncooperative animal. No, our lurker had come in, in absolute quiet, had become aware of our presence, and had left again, not knowing the cat had been left behind as mute evidence.

  So I could watch for lies, and I could also lie about my own activities and watch for a reaction without, I thought, being suspected.

  I certainly hoped so, anyway. I shuddered, despite the stifling heat in the crowded Underground train. This was, I reminded myself once more, a murderer I was trying to fool.

  I had to think very strenuously about poor Bill Monahan to keep from turning around and heading for home right then. About him, a young man lying dead, never to see London … and about the fact that I was already too deeply committed to get out. I had my tiger by the tail now, and there could be no letting go until its claws were clipped.

  I was a little early getting to the office. Evelyn Forbes was just unlocking the door as I walked up, which made me very glad I’d taken the Underground instead of a taxi. The persona of a somewhat impoverished Louise Wren had to be maintained.

  “Good morning, Evelyn! Beautiful morning, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, yes, indeed, glorious.” She didn’t sound very happy about it.

  “How was your weekend with your family?”

  She let me in the door and groaned. “Exhausting, actually. Sheila, that’s my daughter, didn’t get in until quite late on Friday, and of course I worried, because I’d expected her on the eight-seventeen, but it was delayed and she had no chance to ring me. Then she had some shopping to do on Saturday, so she left young Richard with me. All afternoon! He’s a perfect love, of course, but he’s four years old.”

  “Oh, dear. I remember my nieces and nephews at that age. Nonstop energy.”

  “And then on Sunday we went to Brighton, and it was so crowded and hot. Richie had a lovely time paddling in the sea, but my heart was in my mouth the whole time lest he get in over his head. Young mothers don’t seem to watch their children as we did. All in all, I’m rather glad it’s Monday. What about you? Did you enjoy Cats?”

  Cats? Surely not—oh, Cats! I let my breath out quietly. “Oh, my, yes, I had no idea it was so good! I knew the music, of course, but the dancing! And the costumes! There was one cat, a Siamese—well, a woman dressed as a cat, of course, but so lean and sinuous and catlike I almost forgot she was human. Was she in the show when you saw it?”

  “I don’t remember; it’s been years. The show’s been running forever.”

  Indeed. It had been ten years, at least, since I’d seen it myself. I hoped it hadn’t changed much, and that I’d remembered enough to sound convincing to people whose memory might be fresher, if anyone should ask.

  “Oh, by the way, Louise, the sales staff will all be in this morning at nine on the dot. Mr. Spragge wants to go over some figures with them himself, so they’re not to be interrupted until their meeting is over.”

  “Got it,” I said. That was a piece of luck. I’d thought I might not get a chance to talk to them for some time, and though it was important that I learn about their Friday night whereabouts, I was beginning not to want to stick around Multilinks a day longer than I had to.

  Mr. Pierce and Mrs. Shore came in together, and in a foul mood, both of them. My guess, from the glares they exchanged, was that they’d spent the weekend together and had a lovers’ quarrel. Or some kind of quarrel, at any rate.

  “Good morning,” I said with offensive cheeriness. “I hope you both had a pleasant weekend, what with the wonderful weather and all.”

  Mrs. Shore rolled her eyes, said, “God!” under her breath, and passed me without another word. Mr. Pierce, whose charm appeared to be automatically extended to every female under the age of ninety, stopped and smiled at me.

  “Feeling a bit fragile this morning, both of us,” he said in a low voice. “You’ll have to excuse Vicki. I’m afraid we drank rather a lot too much over the weekend, and we had a filthy row this morning.”

  Some devil made me say sweetly, “Oh, I didn’t know the two of you were married. I mean, different last names and all—”

  His smile vanished, and so did the charm. “We’re not,” he said curtly.

  “Oh, I do beg your pardon. Have I put my foot in it?”

  “Look, you nosy old cow,” he said in a still-lower tone, but viciously. “If Vicki Shore and I choose to spend a weekend together, it’s none of your bleeding business, right? If you want to know all the salacious details, we went to a hotel straight from work on Friday together and have been there ever since, and you can do as you like with that information, including passing it on to Mr. Sanctimonious Spragge! Got it?”

  “I’m sure what you do in your own time is your own business, Mr. Pierce,” I replied almost as angrily, “so long as you don’t do it in the street and frighten the horses. It certainly doesn’t seem to have been a very pleasant experience, I must say!”

  We glared at each other for a moment, then he shrugged. “Right. Sorry. Not coping too well this morning, am I? Ah, well, it’s a great life if you don’t weaken.”

  He went into Evelyn’s domain, and I was left wondering why he thought it necessary to go into all those details of what was, as he had pointed out, absolutely none of my business. Was there a slight smell of alibi in the air?

  Mr. Dalal and Mr. Upton were the next to arrive, walking in a few seconds apart. Mr. Upton glowered at me but responded briefly to my greeting. Mr. Dalal ignored me and accosted Mr. Upton.

  “Please, I must speak to you before we meet with Mr. Spragge. I am very troubled in my mind. You must understand that it is not my fault, this poor sales record. The price of the product must be lowered. Mr. Spragge must be persuaded to do so. The poor countries, they cannot afford to buy at such a high cost. They tell me this, they say they will buy a competitive product, they say—”

  “I do not give a flaming fart what they say!” said Upton. “Spragge’s not going to do anything about the price, so that’s that. It’s your bloody job to sell the bloody product, and so far as I can see you couldn’t sell blankets to bloody Eskimos. I intend to tell Spragge just that!”

  “But there is something peculiar, I tell you, I—”

  “If you will come in, gentlemen, Mr. Spragge is waiting.” Evelyn had appeared in the doorway. She put just the slightest emphasis on “gentlemen.” The two quieted and passed into the office.

  Evidently I was going to have to wait to find out how they spent their Friday night. If I ever did.

  Mr. Hammond presented no problem at all. He came in a few minutes late, twirling his umbrella and doing a little dance step in the hallway.

  “Wel
l, you look as though you had a good time this weekend,” I said brightly.

  “Ah, mais oui!” he said in a dreadful French accent. “Gay Paree and all that, you know?”

  “You spent the weekend in Paris?” I haven’t lived long enough in England to find the Paris weekend a commonplace.

  “Ooh, la-la! Caught the night shuttle, got there before midnight. And then—” He rolled his eyes. “‘Thank ’eavens …’” He hummed a few bars of the Maurice Chevalier tune, excruciatingly off-key.

  “And now you’re all rested and ready for a week of work.” I grinned at him; he rolled his eyes again and went into the office. Blast it all, he was undoubtedly a reprobate and headed for a fall, but I couldn’t help liking Terry Hammond.

  Mr. Grey was half an hour late for work, an occurrence that struck me as highly uncharacteristic. He rushed in the door, panting. I suspected he’d run all the way from the Russell Square tube station.

  “Goodness, Mr. Grey, you don’t look at all well. Did you not have a pleasant weekend?”

  “I—no.” And with that he vanished through the office door, and I was left with my next question on my lips.

  I didn’t feel I’d learned very much of interest, and of the two people I most wanted to question, Mr. Fortier probably wouldn’t be in at all, and I wasn’t sure I had the nerve to tackle the exalted and now highly suspect Mr. Spragge.

  Evelyn, however, was another matter. Lunching together seemed to have become an established habit. That Monday being another perfect June day, we bought sandwiches and soft drinks from a little shop and ate our lunch in Russell Square. The pigeons were something of a problem. I despise pigeons and tried to shoo them away, but Evelyn scattered the crumbs of her sandwich, so of course they gathered in droves.

  “Oh, I rather like them,” she said at my mild protest. “I like all sorts of birds. Just look at how beautiful they are. That lovely soft brown one, for instance, and the gray there, with the black bars on its wings! I’ve often thought of keeping pigeons, and perhaps racing them, but it takes time to look after them properly, of course. I had a cousin who kept them when we were girls in the country, so I know.”