Duggleby looked at Jack thoughtfully. ‘And this was at the Criterion, you say? That’s in Piccadilly, where I came to grief,’ he added. ‘It’s quite a coincidence, isn’t it? Only I don’t suppose it’s a coincidence at all. I saw a man in a topper that morning, when I was in Fleet Street. He was standing by the Cheshire Cheese. I had an uncomfortable feeling about him. It’s exactly as Mrs Stanton says. It felt as if I was being watched.’
‘Would you know him again?’ asked Bill.
Duggleby hesitated. ‘I’m not sure. I had this rummy feeling that someone was keeping tabs on me. I looked round and this chap, the one outside the Cheshire Cheese, turned and walked quickly away. I might know him again, but it was only a passing glance, you understand. What’s the idea? That this man in a topper followed Mrs Stanton when she left the restaurant?’
‘It seems likely enough,’ said Bill. ‘He saw his chance and took it. The same applies to you, Mr Duggleby. He’d marked you out that morning and took care to know where you were. Mrs Stanton’s been tucked up safely in hospital since the accident, but have you had any other incidents since your experience in Piccadilly?’
‘No,’ said Duggleby thoughtfully. ‘That is ...’ He shook his head. ‘I’ve felt as if someone’s watching me from time to time, but it’s all so very nebulous.’ He half-laughed. ‘Believe you me, I’ve taken care crossing the road, though.’
‘This is crazy!’ protested Isabelle. ‘I can’t go on like this, constantly looking over my shoulder to see if a man in a top hat’s there. Neither of us can.’ She suddenly broke off and swallowed. ‘It’s frightening.’
Arthur crossed the room and, sitting down beside her, put his hand on her shoulder. ‘You’re not going to face anything like that again.’ He glanced up at Jack. ‘Haven’t you got any ideas? Who is this man? Why did this happen?’
Jack glanced at Bill. ‘The why’s obvious enough, I’d say. It has to be connected with Parson’s murder. You know something, Belle – or, at least, the murderer thinks you do – and he doesn’t want either you or Duggleby to work out what it is.’
‘Somehow or other you’re a danger to him,’ agreed Bill.
‘But I don’t know anything!’ protested Duggleby.
Jack shook his head. ‘That’s not quite true, is it? Don’t forget, you’ve seen the bloke in the topper. I’ve seen him too, even though it was only a glimpse. Bill, we were looking for Parson’s partner, weren’t we?’
‘Parson’s partner,’ repeated Bill. ‘The man in the top hat could be him. If he was Parson’s partner, it sounds as if he might be a high-class fence.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Jack slowly. ‘That’s one possibility.’ He broke off as the doorbell rang.
‘We weren’t expecting anyone,’ said Arthur with a groan. ‘I’ll tell Lizzie to get rid of them.’
There was the hum of voices in the hall and a few moments later, Lizzie came into the room. ‘It’s a Mr and Mrs Leigh,’ she said. She looked at Isabelle. ‘I said you’d just come out of hospital, ma’am, and they said they were that sorry to hear it, and that they wouldn’t disturb you if you weren’t up to seeing them, but they’d really like to thank you for what you’ve done.’
Isabelle looked at her mother. ‘You and Dad know the Leighs, don’t you?’
‘Yes, dear, we do. I really think we’d better see them, even if it’s only for a few minutes.’
‘All right,’ said Arthur. ‘Show them in, Lizzie.’
Duggleby looked up with interest. ‘Mr and Mrs Leigh? The people who own the jewels, you mean?’ Isabelle nodded. ‘I was going to drop them a line. My landlady told me they’d called, but I wasn’t in. I couldn’t think what on earth they wanted to see me about.’
‘Probably to give you their grateful thanks, my dear feller,’ said Sir Philip, looking at Duggleby approvingly. ‘After all, it’s thanks to you that their precious sapphires didn’t go west.’ He stood up and straightened his waistcoat as the door opened.
EIGHT
‘Mrs and Mrs Leigh,’ said Lizzie, ushering them in.
It was always an event when Evie Leigh entered a room. The picture in the magazine, thought Jack, had captured her features perfectly, but it couldn’t convey her sense of unspoken authority. She wafted in on a cloud of expensive scent, every inch the embodiment of chic, from her fine leather shoes with slim heels to her wide-brimmed hat with a turquoise feather.
Evie Leigh looked quickly around the room and fastened on Isabelle. ‘Mrs Stanton!’ She came towards the sofa and sat down, her Egyptian blue silk shawl billowing around her.
That hat, thought Isabelle, remembering the cloche hat in the Walpole’s shop window in New Bond Street, probably cost at least a fortnight’s household expenses and maybe more. She spared a glance for Frank Leigh, standing behind his wife, looking solid, square and very ordinary.
‘What a perfectly dreadful thing to have happened!’ said Evie earnestly. ‘Frank and I absolutely had to see you. I had to thank you personally for restoring my sapphires. I could hardly credit it when your little parlourmaid told us that you’d only just come home from hospital. These frightful motorists who think they own the road are just too bad, aren’t they? We won’t stay long, of course, but we really were desperate to give you our thanks.’
‘It really is very good of you to take the trouble,’ said Isabelle. ‘You know my mother, of course, and my father ...’
‘Of course,’ murmured Evie. ‘Dear Lady Rivers, you must have been positively eaten up with anxiety. And Sir Philip, too.’
‘And this,’ said Isabelle, continuing with the introductions, ‘is Inspector Rackham of Scotland Yard.’
‘Oh dear! I do hope we’re not interrupting anything official.’ She smiled engagingly at Bill Rackham.
Bill, Jack noticed with some amusement, couldn’t but help smiling back in a dazzled sort of way. It wasn’t that Evie Leigh was remarkably good looking exactly – she must be nudging forty for a start – but she was certainly striking, exquisitely made up and very definitely Someone. ‘You’re the policeman who gave my husband the sapphires, aren’t you? How utterly unexpected to find you here.’
‘And this,’ continued Isabelle, ‘is my cousin, Major Haldean.’
‘Major Haldean?’ said Frank Leigh, his eyes narrowing in a frown. ‘We’ve met before, of course.’ He was obviously turning something over in his mind. ‘Major, Celia tells me that you’ve got a knack for solving problems. She was insistent I ask you for help.’
‘Frank, you’re not going to buttonhole the major about Terence Napier, are you?’ interrupted Evie. ‘Leave the poor man alone. I’m sure he’s got better things to do than listen to our affairs.’ She smiled apologetically at Jack. ‘I’m sorry, major. You must be constantly asked for advice and it must be such a bore.’
‘It doesn’t actually happen very often, Mrs Leigh,’ said Jack.
Frank Leigh took this admittedly thin encouragement as a signal to go ahead. ‘Are you free this evening? Perhaps you could join me for a drink at my club?’
‘I’d be delighted, sir.’ Jack couldn’t see he had much chance of finding Terence Napier where the entire police force had failed, but it would be interesting to get Frank Leigh’s account of what happened at Topfordham, all the same.
Mr Leigh’s rather anxious face relaxed into a warm smile. ‘Excellent. Shall we say six o’clock at the Senior Conservative? That’s settled, then.’
Evie gave a world-weary sigh and, as if dismissing the matter, looked at Leonard Duggleby, her eyebrows drawing together as she registered the shabbiness of his appearance. ‘And you are?’
‘This is the man you really want to thank,’ said Arthur, putting a hand on Duggleby’s shoulder and bringing him forward. ‘This is Leonard Duggleby.’
Evie’s frown vanished. She stood up and held out her hand, her face glowing with delight. ‘Mr Duggleby! How wonderful to meet you at last!’
Duggleby shook her outstretched hand in a sheepish sort of way.
‘Frank!’ she said, turning her head. ‘This is Mr Duggleby! Mr Duggleby, we called to see you.’ Duggleby started to reply but was cut short by Evie Leigh. ‘We’re absolutely prostrate with gratitude, Mr Duggleby. So many men in your position would have simply pocketed my sapphires and said nothing about it.’ She gazed at him in a sort of rapture.
Duggleby gave an awkward cough and tried to speak.
Evie Leigh silenced him with a wave of her hand. ‘Your honesty is positively shining. It is truly inspiring to find such goodness in the world. I felt utterly elated. Didn’t I, Frank?’
Frank Leigh stepped forward and shook Duggleby’s hand. ‘We’re very grateful indeed.’
‘I can hardly be expected to be thanked for honesty,’ muttered Duggleby awkwardly.
‘Nevertheless, I think we were very fortunate that you found the jewels,’ said Frank Leigh with feeling. He looked at Duggleby appraisingly, taking in his worn suit and his down at heel shoes. ‘Perhaps I could have a word with you later. I really would like to mark your actions in some way.’
‘Please, Mr Leigh, there really isn’t any need,’ said Duggleby, wriggling with embarrassment. ‘All I did was walk into a railway compartment. There really isn’t any more to it than that.’
‘There’s a great deal more to it,’ said Frank Leigh warmly.
‘I think it’s wonderful to come across you like this,’ said Evie. ‘I had no idea you were friends of Captain and Mrs Stanton.’
Duggleby looked at Isabelle in a rather startled way. ‘Friends? I wouldn’t say that.’ He stopped abruptly, his discomfiture increasing by the second. He looked at Isabelle and Arthur apologetically. ‘I’m sorry. That sounded very ungracious.’
‘What Duggleby means,’ explained Arthur, ‘is that we hadn’t met until he and Isabelle found Parson’s body on the train.’
‘And we seem to be paying the price,’ said Duggleby ruefully. ‘Poor Mrs Stanton was knocked over on Oxford Street and some idiot nearly did for me by pushing me under a car in Piccadilly Circus.’
Frank Leigh took a step back. ‘What? You had an accident as well?’ Duggleby nodded and Frank Leigh turned to Bill. ‘That has to be more than a coincidence, surely?’
Bill cleared his throat in an official-sounding cough. ‘So I’m inclined to believe, Mr Leigh. We know there’s a dangerous man at large, and I’m afraid it looks as if he’s set his sights on both Mrs Stanton and Mr Duggleby.’
‘But this is absolutely dreadful,’ said Evie Leigh. ‘What’s to stop it happening again?’
Lady Rivers made a little sound in her throat and reached out for Isabelle’s hand. ‘Jack, Mrs Leigh’s right. How do we stop it happening again?’
‘I can’t make out why it happened in the first place,’ muttered Sir Philip. ‘It’s got me stumped.’
‘They must think we know something,’ said Isabelle. ‘They must think that both Mr Duggleby and I know something about how Parsons was killed.’
‘We have to get to the bottom of it,’ said Arthur. ‘If we can work out what it is that Isabelle and Duggleby are meant to know, then we can make sure that the devil behind it knows his secret isn’t a secret any longer.’
‘Tell the newspapers about it you mean?’ asked Bill. Arthur nodded. ‘That’s not such a bad idea, Stanton,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Once the cat’s out of the bag, then both Mrs Stanton and Mr Duggleby can breathe freely once more.’
‘If we can discover what the cat is,’ murmured Jack.
‘But I don’t know anything!’ said Duggleby. ‘All I did was walk into a railway compartment.’ He lit a cigarette with trembling fingers. ‘That’s all.’
Jack reached across and briefly put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Easy does it.’
Duggleby let out a long mouthful of smoke and slumped back in his chair. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered.
Isabelle swallowed and braced herself. ‘Can we assume that whoever killed Parsons tried to kill me and Mr Duggleby?’ Jack nodded. ‘In that case, the murderer must think we spotted him.’
Duggleby was about to protest, but Jack waved him quiet. ‘Did you spot anyone on the train, Belle? Anyone you noticed particularly, I mean?’
Isabelle frowned in remembrance. ‘No,’ she said reluctantly. ‘I can’t say I did. Everyone was so ordinary. The only man who stood out on the platform at Market Albury was Parsons himself. He had a sort of devil-may-care, dangerous air about him. He was very pleased with himself, I could tell.’
‘How did that come across?’ asked Jack.
‘It just did. He looked at me, in a meaningful sort of way, you know?’ She couldn’t help smiling slightly. ‘He was definitely interested.’
‘Was he, by Jove?’ said Arthur.
‘It made me feel a bit uncomfortable, actually.’ She turned to Evie Leigh. ‘Mrs Leigh, you met him when he came to your house, didn’t you? How did he strike you? A bit raffish, perhaps?’
‘I can’t really say he was,’ drawled Evie Leigh. ‘I thought he was more obsequious, than anything. I didn’t care for him at all. Frank, did he strike you as raffish?’
‘I don’t know about raffish, exactly, but I didn’t like his attitude, that’s for sure. I wasted no time in getting rid of him. I only wish I’d made him turn out his pockets first,’ he added ruefully.
‘It’s a great pity you didn’t avoid him altogether, Isabelle,’ said her father.
‘I didn’t speak to him at all, Dad, until I absolutely had to.’
‘And why the dickens did you have to, eh?’
‘Because of the French family on the platform,’ said Isabelle, a trifle wearily. ‘You remember, I told you about them? There was a Frenchwoman, Mme. Clouet, who was waiting for the train with her three children. I got roped into help.’
‘That’s right,’ said Jack. ‘You said you been enrolled as nursemaid. It was little Agathe who found the sapphires in the compartment, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes. Little Agathe was fairly well behaved but the two boys were a real handful. One of them – Michel, I think it was – was playing hide and seek on the station platform with his brother and ran slap into Parsons. Little Michel fell over and hurt himself and, although Parsons made the best of it, he was clearly far angrier with the little boy than he deserved. Mme. Clouet tried to apologise, but her English was very limited, so I weighed in with my best French and tried to pour a bit of oil on the troubled waters, so to speak. Parsons subsided, but he clearly quite liked me and more or less suggested we travel up to London together.’
‘I wish I’d been there,’ muttered Arthur. ‘I’d have given him something to think about.’
‘Don’t be such a caveman, darling,’ said Isabelle, but she looked pleased, all the same. ‘I could cope. Partly in order to get away from him and partly because Mme. Clouet was so hopeless at managing the children, I travelled with her, and it was when I was taking little Agathe for a wash and brush-up that I came across you, Mr Duggleby. That’s it, really,’ she added with a shrug. ‘I didn’t see him speak to anyone else and no one, as far as I know, was keeping tabs on him. I don’t know what I’m supposed to have seen or done that could be dangerous to anyone.’
‘There must be something, though,’ said Jack. ‘There was a fairly strong French theme to the things we found in the compartment. I don’t suppose this Mme. Clouet could have set up the encounter with Parsons, could she, Belle?’
‘I can’t see it, Jack,’ said Isabelle doubtfully. ‘I’m sure she was exactly what she seemed. A nice, cultivated Frenchwoman, who was hapless at managing her children. Besides that, I travelled in the same compartment with her and she never stirred.’
‘That’s fairly conclusive,’ said Jack. ‘What did you think of Parsons, Belle? Apart from the fact he had a roving eye, that is.’
‘I think he’d been in the army,’ said Isabelle, after a moment’s reflection. ‘Not an officer, I’d say, but I definitely thought he’d been in the army.’
Jack and Bill swapped glances with eac
h other. ‘So did we,’ said Jack. ‘What gave you that impression?’
Isabelle looked puzzled. ‘I don’t really know ... Wait a moment! After little Michel ran into him, Mme. Clouet was all over him, apologising, and he was obviously trying to get rid of her by saying it didn’t matter and so on. He said it was all san fairy ann which is a real army expression. I had to tell her he meant ça ne fait rien. She didn’t have a clue what he was on about.’
‘I don’t blame the poor woman,’ said Jack with a grin. ‘Army French bears no relation to the real thing.’
‘San fairy ann is a common enough phrase,’ said Bill. ‘Anything else, Mrs Stanton?’
‘No, I don’t think so, but she was apologising away for all she was worth and I couldn’t help but take a hand.’ Jack gave a stifled exclamation and she broke off. ‘What is it? You look as if you’re sucking lemons.’
‘Hold on,’ Jack said excitedly. ‘Bill, did the Vicar speak French?’
‘Yes,’ said Bill. ‘Fluently, by all accounts. After the Calais coach robbery it was assumed he was French. It was only because an informer squealed that we knew he was English.’
‘But the man Belle saw didn’t speak French,’ said Jack triumphantly.
‘Good God,’ said Bill under his breath. ‘I wonder if that’s it? Parsons could speak French and the murdered man couldn’t.’
‘And therefore the murdered man wasn’t Parsons,’ finished Jack. ‘Bill, that’s it!’
Isabelle gazed at him. ‘I knew it!’ she said triumphantly. ‘Didn’t I say as much? All those things you found in the compartment were fakes.’ She would have said more but broke off with a glance at Frank and Evie Leigh.
‘The things in the compartment can’t all have been fakes,’ said Bill. ‘Anyone can write a name in a book, I suppose, but the watch, the brush and mirror, the suitcase itself, all convinced me. They looked authentic. Besides that, what about the cards with the cross and halo on them?’ He nodded at Frank Leigh. ‘Mr Leigh found a card in his safe. That’s Parson’s trademark.’
Jack linked his hands round his knee and leaned back in his chair. ‘You’re right. Maybe the things we found really did belong to Parsons. But if Parson’s things were there, it’s likely that Parsons himself was there.’ He broke off, his head on one side, waiting for his friend to finish the sentence.
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