The Singing Sands ag-6

by Josephine Tey

  ‘So we find out when and where he saw Lloyd and pick up his trail from there.’

  ‘Yes. We also find out whether he went to see Lloyd as Charles Martin or under his own name.’

  ‘Why would he go as Charles Martin?’

  ‘Who knows? You said that he was a little cagey. He may have wanted to keep back his connection with OCAL. Are OCAL strict about their routes and schedules? It may be as simple as that.’

  Cullen sat in silence for a little, making a pattern in the turf with the butt of the fishing-rod. Then he said:

  ‘Mr Grant, don’t think I’m being dramatic or—or sensational or silly, but you don’t think, do you, that Bill could have been bumped off?’

  ‘He could have been, of course. Murder does happen. Even clever murders. But the chances against it are very long.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, for one thing it has passed a police investigation. In spite of all the detective stories to the contrary the Criminal Investigation Department really is a highly efficient organisation. By far the most efficient organisation, if you’ll accept a slightly prejudiced opinion, that exists in this country today—or in any other country, in any period.’

  ‘But the police have already been wrong about one thing.’

  ‘About his identity, you mean. Yes, but they can hardly be blamed for that.’

  ‘You mean because the set-up was perfect. Well, what’s to hinder the other set-up being as perfect as the Charles Martin one?’

  ‘Nothing, of course. Clever murders, as I say, do happen. But it is much easier to forge an identity than to get away with murder. How do you think it was done? Someone came in and slugged him after the train left Euston, and arranged it to look like a fall?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But no one visited B Seven after the train left Euston. B Eight heard him come back shortly after the attendant had done his round, and close his door. After that there was no conversation.’

  ‘It doesn’t need conversation to slug a man on the back of the head.’

  ‘No, but it does need opportunity. The chances against opening that door and finding the occupant in the right position for slugging him are astronomical. It’s not an easy place to take a swing at anyone, even choosing your own time: a sleeping compartment. Anyone with lethal intentions would have to come into the compartment: it couldn’t be done from the corridor. It couldn’t be done when the victim was in bed. And it couldn’t be done with the victim facing you; and he would face round as soon as he was aware that there was someone in the compartment. Therefore it could only be done after preliminary conversation. And B Eight says there was no conversation or visiting. B Eight is the kind of woman who “can’t sleep on a train”. She makes up her mind about that beforehand, and every little sound and squeak and rattle is welcomed as a sign of her suffering. She is usually dead asleep and snoring by about half-past two; but long before that time Bill Kenrick was dead.’

  ‘Did she hear him fall?’

  ‘She heard a “thump”, it seems, and thought that he was taking down a suitcase. He had no suitcase, of course, that would make a thump in being handled. Did Bill speak French, by the way?’

  ‘Well enough to get by.’

  ‘Avec moi.’

  ‘Yes. About that. Why?’

  ‘I just wondered. It looks as if he planned to spend a night somewhere.’

  ‘In Scotland, you mean?’

  ‘Yes. The Testament and the French novel. And yet he didn’t speak French.’

  ‘Perhaps the Scotch party didn’t either.’

  ‘No. Scotch parties usually don’t. But if he planned to spend a night somewhere he couldn’t meet you that day in Paris.’

  ‘Oh, being a day late wouldn’t worry Bill. He could have sent me a wire on the 4th.’

  ‘Yes…I wish I could think of his reason for blacking himself all over.’

  ‘Blacking himself?’

  ‘Yes. Dressing the part so completely. Why did he want someone to think that he was French?’

  ‘I can’t think why anyone would want anyone to think they were French,’ Mr Cullen said. ‘What are you hoping from this Lloyd guy?’

  ‘I’m hoping that it was Lloyd who saw him away at Euston. They were talking about the Rub’al-Khali, remember. What sounded to Old Yughourt’s ear—quite typically—as “rob the Caley”.’

  ‘Does this Lloyd live in London?’

  ‘Yes. In Chelsea.’

  ‘I hope he is at home.’

  ‘I hope so indeed. Now I am going to have a last hour with the Turlie, and if you can bear just to sit and think the problem over for a little, then perhaps you would come back to supper at Clune and meet the Rankin family?’

  ‘That would be fine,’ Tad said. ‘I haven’t said goodbye to the Countess. I’m a convert to Countesses. Would you say that the Countess is typical of your aristocracy, Mr Grant?’

  ‘In the sense of having all the qualities of the type, she is indeed typical,’ Grant said, picking his way down the bank to the water.

  He fished until the level light warned him that it was evening, but he caught nothing. This was a result that neither surprised nor disappointed him. His thoughts were elsewhere. He no longer saw Bill Kenrick’s dead face in the swirling water, but Bill Kenrick’s personality was all round him. Bill Kenrick possessed his mind.

  He reeled in for the last time with a sigh, not for his empty bag or his farewell to the Turlie, but because he was no nearer to finding a reason why Bill Kenrick should have blacked himself all over.

  ‘I’m glad I had this chance of seeing this island,’ Tad said as they walked up to Clune. ‘It’s not a bit the way I imagined it.’

  From his tone Grant deduced that he had imagined it as a sort of Wabar; inhabited by monkeys and jinns.

  ‘I wish it had been a happier way of seeing it,’ he said. ‘You must come back some day and fish in peace.’

  Tad grinned a little shamefacedly and rubbed his tumbled hair. ‘Oh, I guess it will always be Paris for me. Or Vienna, maybe. When you spend your days in godforsaken little towns you look forward to the bright lights.’

  ‘Well, we do have bright lights in London.’

  ‘Yes. Maybe I’ll have another smack at London. London’s all right.’

  Laura came to the door as they arrived and said: ‘Alan, what’s this I hear about—’ and then noticed his companion. ‘Oh. You must be Tad. Pat says you don’t believe that there are any fish in the Turlie. How d’you do. I’m so glad you’ve come up. Go in and Pat will show you where to wash, and then come and join us in a drink before supper.’ She summoned Pat, who was hovering, and passed the visitor into his charge, blocking the way firmly on any advance by her cousin. When she had got rid of Mr Cullen she turned again to her charge. ‘Alan, you’re not going back to town tomorrow?’

  ‘But I’m cured, Lalla,’ he said, thinking that that was what disturbed her.

  ‘Well, what if you are? There is still more than a week of your leave, and the Turlie better than it has been for seasons. You can’t give up all that just to get some young man out of some hole that he’s got himself into.’

  ‘Tad Cullen’s not in any hole. I’m not being quixotic, if that is what you’re thinking. I’m going away tomorrow because that is the thing I want to do.’ He was going to add, ‘I just can’t wait to get away’, but even with an intimate like Laura that might lead to misunderstanding.

  ‘But we are all so happy, and things were—’ she broke off. ‘Oh, well. Nothing I can say will make you change your mind. I ought to know that. Nothing has ever made you deviate by a hair’s breadth from any line that you once set your mind on. You’ve always been a damned Juggernaut.’

  ‘A damned horrible metaphor,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t you make it a bullet or a bee-line or something equally undeviating but less destructive?’

  She put her arm through his, friendly and a little amused. ‘But you are destructive, darling.’ And as he began a protest: ‘A
ll in the very kindest and most lethal way imaginable. Come and have a drink. You look as if you could do with one.’

  11

  Even the undeviating Grant, of course, had his unsure moments.

  ‘You fool!’ said that inner voice, as he was climbing into the London plane at Scoone. ‘Giving up even a day of your precious leave to hunt will-o’-the-wisps.’

  ‘I’m not hunting any will-o’-the-wisps. I just want to know what happened to Bill Kenrick.’

  ‘And what is Bill Kenrick to you that you should give up even an hour of your free time for him?’

  ‘I’m interested in him. If you want to know, I like him.’

  ‘You don’t know a thing about him. You have made a god in your own image, and are busy worshipping it.’

  ‘I know quite a lot about him. I’ve listened to Tad Cullen.’

  ‘A prejudiced witness.’

  ‘A nice boy, which is more important. The Cullen boy had a wide choice of friends in an organisation like OCAL and he chose Bill Kenrick.’

  ‘Lots of nice boys have chosen criminal friends.’

  ‘Come to that, I’ve known some nice criminals.’

  ‘Yeah? How many? And how many minutes of your leave would you give up to a criminal type?’

  ‘Not thirty seconds. But the Kenrick boy is no criminal.’

  ‘A complete set of another man’s papers isn’t a particularly law-abiding thing to be carrying round, is it?’

  ‘I’ll find out about that presently. Meanwhile shut up and leave me alone.’

  ‘Huh! Stumped, aren’t you!’

  ‘Go away.’

  ‘Sticking your neck out for an unknown boy at your age!’

  ‘Who’s sticking his neck out?’

  ‘You didn’t have to do this plane journey at all. You could have gone back by train or by road. But no, you had to arrange to have yourself shut into a box. A box without a window or a door that will open. A box you can’t escape from. A tight, silent, enclosed, sealed—’

  ‘Shut up!’

  ‘Huh! You’re breathing short already! In about ten minutes the thing will hit you for six. You ought to have your head examined, Alan Grant, you certainly ought to have your head examined.’

  ‘There is one part of my cranial equipment that is still in admirable working order.’

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘My teeth.’

  ‘You planning to chew something? That’s no cure.’

  ‘No. I plan to grit them.’

  And whether it was because he had thumbed his nose at the devil or whether it was that Bill Kenrick stood beside him all the way, Grant made that journey in peace. Tad Cullen slumped into the seat beside him and fell instantly asleep. Grant closed his eyes and let the patterns form in his mind and dissolve and fade and form anew.

  Why had Bill Kenrick blacked himself all over?

  Whom was he trying to fool?

  Why had it been necessary to fool anyone?

  As they were circling to land Tad woke up and without looking out of the window began to pull up his tie and smooth his hair. Apparently some sixth sense in a flyer’s brain kept tally of speed, distance and angle, even when he was unconscious.

  ‘Well,’ said Tad. ‘Back to the lights of London and the old Westmorland.’

  ‘You don’t have to go back to your hotel,’ Grant said. ‘I can give you a bed.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you, Mr Grant, and I appreciate it. But I don’t have to put your wife—or—or whoever it is—’

  ‘My housekeeper.’

  ‘I don’t have to put your housekeeper about.’ He slapped his pocket. ‘I’m loaded.’

  ‘Even after—what was it? — a fortnight in Paris? I congratulate you.’

  ‘Oh, well. I don’t think Paris is what it used to be. Or perhaps it was just that I missed Bill. Anyhow, I don’t need to fuss anyone making beds for me, thanks all the same. And if you’re going to be busy you don’t want me around. But you’ll not shut me out of this thing, will you? You’ll keep me “with you”, as Bill says. Said, I mean.’

  ‘I will indeed, Tad, I will indeed. I put a fly on a line in a hotel in Oban and fished you out of the white population of the world. I’m certainly not going to throw you back now.’

  Tad grinned. ‘I suppose you know what you’re talking about. When are you going to see this Lloyd guy?’

  ‘This evening if he is at home. The worst of explorers is that if they are not exploring they are lecturing; so he may be anywhere between China and Peru. What startled you?’

  ‘How did you know I was startled?’

  ‘My dear Tad, your fresh and open countenance was never made for either poker or diplomacy.’

  ‘No, it was just that you chose two places that Bill always chose. He used to say that, “From China to Peru”.’

  ‘He did? He seems to have known his Johnson.’

  ‘Johnson?’

  ‘Yes. Samuel Johnson. It’s a quotation.’

  ‘Oh. Oh, I see.’ Tad looked faintly abashed.

  ‘If you’re still doubtful about me, Tad Cullen, you had better come along the Embankment with me now and let some of my colleagues vouch for me.’

  Mr Cullen’s fair skin went a deep red. ‘I’m sorry. Just for a moment there I—. It did sound as if you had known Bill. You’ll have to forgive me being suspicious, Mr Grant. I’m all at sea, you know. I don’t know a soul in this country. I just have to take people as they come. On face value, I mean. Of course I’m not doubtful about you. I’m too grateful to you to be able to find words to describe how grateful I am. You have to believe that.’

  ‘Of course I believe it. I was only teasing you, and I had no right to. It would be unintelligent of you not to be suspicious. Here is my address and telephone number. I’ll telephone you as soon as I’ve seen Lloyd.’

  ‘You don’t think I should come with you, perhaps?’

  ‘No. I think a deputation of two would be a little excessive for so slight an occasion. What time will you be at the Westmorland tonight to take a phone call?’

  ‘Mr Grant, I’ll be sitting with my hand on that thing until you call.’

  ‘Better eat some time. I’ll call you at half-past eight.’

  ‘Okay. Half-past eight.’

  London was a misty grey with scarlet trimmings, and Grant looked at it with affection. Army nurses used to have that rig-out; that grey and scarlet. And in some ways London gave one the same sense of grace and power that went with that Sister’s uniform. The dignity, the underlying kindness beneath the surface indifference, the respect-worthiness that compensated for the lack of pretty frills. He watched the red buses making the grey day beautiful, and blessed them. What a happy thing it was that London buses should be scarlet. In Scotland the buses were painted that most miserable of all colours: blue. A colour so miserable that it was a synonym for depression. But the English, God bless them, had had gayer ideas.

  He found Mrs Tinker turning out the spare bedroom. There was not the slightest need for anyone to turn out the spare bedroom, but Mrs Tinker obtained the same pleasure from turning out a room that other people get from writing a symphony, or winning a cup at golf, or swimming the Channel. She belonged to that numerous species once succinctly described by Laura as ‘the kind of woman who washes her front doorstep every day and her own hair every six weeks’.

  She came to the door of the spare bedroom when she heard the key in the lock, and said: ‘Well, now! And not a bite in the house! Why didn’t you let me know you was comin’ back from foreign parts before your time?’

  ‘It’s all right, Tink. I don’t want a meal anyhow. I’ve just looked in to leave my luggage. Get in something and leave it for me when you go, so that there is something for me to eat tonight.’

  Mrs Tinker went home every night, partly because she had to see to the evening meal of someone she referred to as ‘Tinker’, and partly because Grant had always liked to have the flat to himself in the evenings. Grant had never se
en ‘Tinker’, and Mrs Tinker’s only connection with him seemed to consist of this matter of an evening meal and some marriage lines. Her real life and interest was in 19 Tenby Court, S.W.1.

  ‘Any telephones?’ Grant asked, thumbing through the telephone pad.

  ‘Miss Hallard telephoned to say ring her up and dine with her as soon as you were back.’

  ‘Oh. Did the new play go well? What were the notices like?’

  ‘Stinkers.’

  ‘All of them?’

  ‘Every one I seen, anyway.’

  In the days of her freedom, before Tinker, Mrs Tinker had been a theatre dresser. Indeed, if it had not been for this ritual of the evening meal it was likely that she would still be dressing someone each evening in W.1 or W.C.2 instead of turning out spare bedrooms in S.W.1. Her interest in theatre matters was therefore that of an initiate.

  ‘Have you seen the play?’

  ‘Not me. It’s one of them plays what means something else. You know. She keeps a china dog on the mantelpiece, but it isn’t a china dog at all, it’s ’er ex-husband, and ’e breaks the dog, the new boy-friend does, and she goes mad. Not gets mad, you know; goes mad. ‘Ighbrow. But I suppose if you want to be a Dame you got to act ’ighbrow plays. What was you thinkin’ of ’avin’ for your supper?’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking.’

  ‘I could leave a nice bit of fish poachin’ over some hot water for you.’

  ‘Not fish, if you love me. I’ve eaten enough fish in the last month to last me a lifetime. As long as it isn’t fish or mutton I don’t mind what it is.’

  ‘Well, it’s too late now to get any kidneys out of Mr Bridges, but I’ll see what I can do. You ’ad a good ‘oliday?’

  ‘A wonderful, wonderful holiday.’

  ‘That’s good. You bin and put on a little weight, I’m glad to see. And you needn’t slap your stomach in that doubtful way neither. A little bit of weight never ’urt no one. It don’t do to be as thin as a rail. You don’t ’ave no reserves.’