Trouble Brewing

by Dolores Gordon-Smith

  ‘Perhaps.’ Her voice was cold and uninterested. ‘It’s occurred to me a couple of times that you might find Mark’s disappearance and the way things have worked out a welcome break.’

  ‘Pat! I was damn fond of old Mark, you know that. I don’t know what the devil’s happened to him but the sooner we find out, the better.’

  She took another cigarette from the box. ‘I can’t see Major Haldean’s going to be much use.’ She shuddered. ‘I hated the way he wanted to turn us inside out. You didn’t volunteer much, did you? I noticed you skirted round the fact you were away after the New Year.’

  ‘I couldn’t see it was relevant. Besides, you were away, too.’

  ‘I was at the Massinghams. You said you were in Birmingham. Business, I believe.’

  ‘So I was,’ he said flatly.

  ‘Yes . . . You don’t think Mark’s in Brazil, do you?’

  ‘Brazil?’ He was genuinely surprised. ‘Whatever gives you that idea?’

  ‘All those questions Major Haldean asked. “Did Mark enjoy his trip to Brazil? Did he get on with Brazilians? Did he like Ariel Valdez?” That sort of thing. Uncle Frederick said that Mark and Valdez had quarrelled about the plantation and I thought he might have gone to see for himself and . . . and met with an accident over there.’

  ‘We’d have got to know about it. Look, I’m sorry to say it, but the longer he stays away, the more likely it seems he isn’t coming back.’

  ‘You mean he’s dead, don’t you?’ She drew a deep breath. ‘I wish we could prove it!’ she broke out passionately. ‘If Mark is dead I want to know. Anything would be better than to be stuck in this limbo. What if we never know? What then? What did Mr Stafford tell us? It’s seven years before the law assumes someone’s dead. In seven years’ time and not a day before, I can mourn for Mark properly.’

  ‘Seven years is a bit arbitrary,’ he said awkwardly. ‘It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a legal thing to do with the trust and the money.’

  Again, the oddest expression flitted across her face. ‘And in the meantime neither you nor I can touch the capital.’

  ‘Unless we can prove the poor blighter has bought it, no.’

  A sudden hope clutched him. If they could prove it, that would make everything so easy . . . Things couldn’t be that simple. God, what a mess. ‘I’m going out,’ he said abruptly.

  Pat stood up. ‘So am I.’

  He couldn’t ask where; he’d lost that right. But he didn’t like her running with the Lahone crowd. They drank too much, gambled too much and he was sure Tim Lahone used dope. Eve was hard and . . . and cheap. Funny word. The amount of money she flung around was anything but cheap. Money. Pat had seemed damn interested in money . . .

  Bill put his half of stout down on the pub table. ‘We know Ariel Valdez arrived in Southampton on the morning of the twenty-eighth of December. He booked into the Montague Court Hotel off Tavistock Square at four o’clock that afternoon. He had his first meeting with Frederick Hunt at the Southwark works at two o’ clock on the twenty-ninth. He sailed for France on the thirtieth. I’ve been onto the French police and they located his Parisian hotel easily enough. He stayed in the Hotel Maurice on the Avenue Victoria. Before he left the Montague Court, he reserved his room for the eighth, remarking to the clerk at reception that he’d rather spend New Year in Paris.’

  ‘And who can blame him?’ said Jack. He drew out his pipe and, filling it from his leather pouch, struck a match.

  They and two clerks standing at the bar, earnestly discussing the fortunes of Crystal Palace, were the only customers of the Heroes Of Waterloo at this early hour of the day. In half an hour’s time the stone-flagged pub would be bulging with the lunchtime trade, but, for the moment, they had the place to themselves.

  ‘So far all’s according to Cocker,’ said Jack, flicking the match into the ashtray. ‘I see you’ve checked where Valdez went with the hotel and the shipping company.’

  ‘That wasn’t difficult. Did you manage to verify Helston’s movements before he disappeared?’

  ‘To an extent. As the Jaggards told us last night, Mark Helston had taken up his standing invitation to join the Failfords in Leicestershire to do the British fox a bit of no good. I spoke to Mrs Failford on the phone this morning. There’s no doubt he was there,’ said Jack, picking up his glass.

  ‘Failford and Helston were old Navy chums and knew each other well. Helston arrived on the twenty-third and should have stayed until Sunday the eleventh. However, he got caught in the rain and developed such a snorter of a cold that any hunting was out of the question. After a few days of misery he decided to go back to London, which he did on Monday the fifth. I got hold of Helston’s valet, Robert Carlton, who’s taken a position with a Mr Charteris of Bruton Street. He said Helston returned home feeling wretched. However, after a couple of days of bed and hot whisky he began to feel more the thing. He played golf on Wednesday and by Thursday was well enough to look in at Southwark. Meredith Smith tells me that gossip says Helston’s arrival took everyone by surprise as they weren’t expecting him back until the following Monday. He spent the afternoon working on a new roast for United Stores and arranged to have lunch the next day with Martin Crowther, their chief buyer.’

  Jack took a thoughtful sip of beer. ‘The only thing which puzzles me slightly is that Frederick Hunt gave me to understand that the meeting between himself, Valdez and Helston was a cut-and-dried arrangement. In fact, Helston only happened on it by chance. Frederick Hunt was out of the office on Thursday and didn’t know that Helston had returned. It was Helston’s clerk, Miss Mandeville, who now looks after Smith, who told him of the meeting on the Friday morning. Apparently Helston was astonished to find that Valdez was in the country.’

  Bill frowned. ‘Did Hunt deliberately lead you up the garden path?’

  Jack clicked his tongue in irritation. ‘That’s it, dammit. He said that Helston had returned on the fifth. I assumed that “returned” meant “returned to work” but he could simply have meant “returned to London”. I’d hate to say that Mr Hunt meant to lead me astray, as it could just have been a misunderstanding.’

  He took a brief sip of beer and carefully put the glass back in the exact centre of one of the many beer rings on the table. ‘He said nothing about Helston returning unexpectedly but, on the other hand, I didn’t ask him. Here’s something else for you to chew over. Hunt stated that the meeting between the three of them was a bit rocky. Now Meredith Smith’s clerk, Miss Mandeville, says that after the meeting Helston was “not himself”. Incidentally, there’d be worse people to get in touch with than Miss Mandeville for the low-down on Helston. I must dig her up. Anyway, Helston was very abstracted and couldn’t settle. Miss Mandeville thought it might be his cold playing up again, and asked him if he wanted to cancel his lunch appointment with Martin Crowther. Helston seemed in a world of his own, which was quite different from his usual manner. Helston thought about it, but decided to go, saying words to the effect of, “I don’t see why the work of the entire firm should be disrupted because of one man”.’

  ‘What did he mean by that, I wonder?’

  ‘I only wish I knew.’ Jack puffed at his pipe thoughtfully. ‘Pronouns are the devil, aren’t they? “One man” could mean Hunt, Valdez, Mark Helston himself or even, although I think it’s unlikely, Martin Crowther from United Stores. At this stage it’s impossible to guess. What I do think odd, though, is this. The Jaggards both told us that Mark had no prejudice against South Americans. According to Pat Jaggard, Helston enjoyed his trip to Brazil and had shown no animosity towards Valdez. But Frederick Hunt said that Helston felt the weight of the white man’s burden to such an extent that the cause of the quarrel was Helston’s dislike of, as he delicately put it, foreigners. I helped him out a bit with that. He was so obviously trying not to say Damned dagoes.’ He glanced at his friend. ‘You’re looking pensive, Bill. Why? Is it deep thought or the horsehair upholstery?’

  ‘Well . . .’
Bill shook his head slowly, then grinned. ‘I don’t want to be personal, but I do wonder if you were the right person to ask Patricia Jaggard that question. I mean, your face is your face and although it’s perfectly decent as far as faces go . . .’

  ‘It’s not the most Anglo-Saxon mug you’ve ever seen?’ Jack laughed. ‘D’you think that’s all it is? I didn’t feel she was going out of her way to be gracious.’

  Bill’s grin widened. ‘Your much-vaunted charm failed to bring home the bacon, didn’t it? You usually have girls eating out of your hand in the first five minutes.’

  ‘Bill!’ Jack was shocked. ‘What a revolting idea. Messy, too. I don’t charm and I certainly don’t vaunt. I’m merely polite.’

  ‘Come off it. I’ve seen you switch it on.’

  ‘Drop it, will you?’ pleaded Jack. ‘You make me sound like an advert for Gleamo toothpaste. However, leaving these gross personalities to one side, Helston, we know, was alive and well at half past seven on the ninth of January. What’s the last time anyone saw Valdez?’

  ‘The manager of the Montague Court Hotel says that the last they saw of Valdez was at seven o’clock or thereabouts on Friday the ninth when he handed his room key into the desk clerk. He was carrying a small case and mentioned that he was meeting a friend and might end up staying out overnight. The desk clerk assured him that was perfectly in order from the hotel’s point of view, and off he went.’

  ‘Hang on. He was due to sail the next day, wasn’t he? Didn’t anyone smell a rat?’

  ‘Not then, no. By the time Sunday morning came round and Valdez still hadn’t returned, the manager began to get uneasy and entered the room. All of Valdez’s things were still there. Now at this point the manager should have informed us, but he hesitated until the Tuesday morning.’

  ‘Didn’t anyone think to ask the Hunt Coffee people?’

  ‘There wasn’t anything in the room to connect him with Hunt Coffee. As far as the manager was concerned, Valdez was a private visitor. After all, hotels don’t usually grill their guests about the purpose of their stay.’

  ‘No, I can see that. What about his passport?’

  ‘It was in his room. There was no money there, but all his clothes and personal belongings were untouched. The manager assumed that Senhor Valdez had met with an accident and so did we. We contacted the hospitals, but no one answering to his description had been admitted and there, I’m sorry to say, the matter rested.’

  ‘Didn’t Inspector Murray think it was odd?’

  ‘I don’t suppose Inspector Murray knew anything about it. They were different enquiries, you see. Murray had been told Valdez had sailed for Rio de Janeiro on the Saturday and, as far as he was concerned, Valdez was now out of the country. A note was put on the file to check Valdez’s details against any unnamed accident victims and that, I’m afraid, was that.’

  ‘Talk about the left hand not knowing what the right is doing . . .’ Jack refilled his pipe. ‘Now we do know, let’s see where it gets us. Valdez and Helston are both missing and the a priori assumption is that the two events are connected. They met that morning and, whatever the cause of the disagreement, the meeting left Helston shaken. If there’s a connection, they must have met again. It sounds as if they should have gone to Oddenino’s, but for some reason they didn’t. So where did that second meeting take place? Not at Valdez’s hotel or the desk clerk would have mentioned it. Yes?’

  ‘Yes. Valdez was by himself when he left the hotel, that’s for sure.’

  Jack frowned. ‘What was Valdez wearing? Evening clothes?’

  ‘No. I asked that. His evening things were in his wardrobe.’

  ‘Helston was wearing evening dress.’ Jack frowned. ‘That probably explains Oddenino’s, by the way. I don’t think they let you in unless you’re properly togged up. You’d think if they’d arranged to have dinner together, Valdez would be in evening clothes as well.’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t know Oddenino’s rules. He’s a South American, after all.’

  ‘Yes, but he’s not Tarzan of the Apes, is he? He’d just had a holiday in Paris, for heaven’s sake. The fact that no one enquired for him at Oddenino’s makes me think it was Valdez he was planning to dine with but the pair of them met up and decided to go elsewhere. Mrs Jaggard said Helston had always seemed perfectly friendly towards Valdez. Valdez left his hotel saying he might be spending the night “with a friend”. If Mark Helston was the friend, you’d think Valdez would be wearing evening dress.’

  ‘Valdez could have hoped to have made a friend in the course of the evening, if you see what I mean,’ suggested Bill delicately. ‘At a night club, perhaps?’

  Jack grinned. ‘So he could, but if he was planning a night on the town, he’d still be wearing evening dress. Who the devil could the friend be, Bill? Mrs Jaggard said she thought Valdez had been to this country before, but he wasn’t a frequent visitor. The question of dress is a real poser.’ He shook his head in irritation. ‘The more I think about it, the odder it seems. If Helston and Valdez met, where did they meet? Where did they go? Not at Helston’s flat or any of his clubs, either. Neutral ground. Somewhere both men have access to.’

  ‘A pub?’ suggested Bill, looking around the rapidly filling bar of The Heroes.

  ‘Perhaps. I can’t help thinking that, as Helston was in evening dress, that makes a pub a little unlikely at that early hour of the evening. Not impossible, but it wouldn’t be my first choice. A hotel bar seems a better bet.’

  ‘They could have simply bumped into each other on the street,’ suggested Bill.

  ‘So they could, but unless one of them resorted to violence right away, they’d still have to go somewhere. I wish we could have got onto this sooner. The chance of anyone remembering two men having a drink nearly four months ago is pretty slight. Did Helston run a car?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bill. ‘It’s still in the garage. Helston last used it before Christmas.’

  ‘So we can wash that out.’ Jack drummed his fingers on the table. ‘We’ve assumed they’ve met, presumably in some public place, and one of them either impulsively or with malice aforethought, decides to make away with the other. Not in a hotel bar. They’re nasty, crowded places to do a murder in and people have a tiresome habit of noticing that sort of thing. So they leave the hotel—’

  ‘Or pub.’

  ‘Or pub – and go where? And how? If Helston had his car, that could have been anywhere, but they’re limited to feet, the tube, buses or taxis.’

  ‘I don’t know about a taxi,’ said Bill. ‘There was a real hue-and-cry about Helston. I can’t help thinking that any taxi driver who’d had Helston as a fare that night would have come forward.’

  ‘The tube or a bus? Not completely out of court, but not my first choice. It’s awkward lugging a corpse around on the tube and I honestly don’t think bundling a dead body onto the luggage rack of a Number Eleven bus is on the cards. It’d take up so much space for one thing and the conductor would probably want to charge for excess baggage.’

  ‘What if the victim wasn’t dead?’ suggested Bill, then stopped as he saw Jack’s smile. ‘What are you grinning at me like that for?’

  ‘I thought that as proposals go, it’d be a lulu. Come with me to some lonely dockside wharf, some unfrequented alleyway or, possibly, Epping Forest or Wimbledon Common. Because, don’t you see, if our murderer is going to make his victim walk to his own grave, where he can hide the body so it defies detection, then you’re asking the victim to be awfully trusting about the whole process. Unnaturally so, you might say.’

  ‘But . . .’ Bill stared long and hard at his half-empty glass. ‘Either the murderer finds a way of carrying the dead man to where he’s going to leave him, or the victim gets to the spot under his own steam where he gets knocked on the head. He could have been invited to come and see a friend. There could easily have been some ruse like that.’

  ‘A friend,’ repeated Jack thoughtfully. ‘I’d like to know if Valdez really did ha
ve a friend, you know. And I’d love to know if Valdez and Helston really did quarrel at the meeting. We’ve only got Frederick Hunt’s word for it that they did.’

  Bill laughed. ‘Why on earth should he lie about it? Frederick Hunt can’t have bumped either of them off. He was at a Mansion House dinner that evening with dozens of witnesses. Besides, it’s not very likely, is it?’

  Jack conjured up a mental picture of the paunchy, self-satisfied, fluffy-haired figure and shook his head. ‘No, it isn’t.’ He picked up his glass and finished his beer with a sigh. ‘We need evidence, Bill. So far, all we’ve got to go on is two missing men. It’s not enough.’

  Jack didn’t know why he had come to the Montague Court hotel. He could tell nothing about Valdez from gazing at the outside of the hotel and Bill had investigated the inside thoroughly.

  Bill was very confident that any taxi driver would have come forward. Maybe Valdez had hired a car; maybe they had simply walked. But where to? Where, in this whole teeming city, could a body vanish? There were plenty of places where a man could be murdered but very few where he could remain undiscovered.

  Without any clear purpose in mind he set out from the Montague Court Hotel and wandered aimlessly through the maze of streets, coming eventually to Russell Square and Montague Place.

  He had no idea there were so many hotels in this part of London. He walked to the corner and turned into Gower Street. Bloomsbury was behind him, Tottenham Court Road, with its crowds and traffic, lay separated by a cluster of interlocking streets. On the right was University College, where the academic life of London went its ordered way. On the left was row after row of stone-fronted, railed-off houses. Some obviously belonged to whole families. Others had been split up into flats. He was in boarding-house London, where no man knew his neighbour.

  Isolated cards advertising vacancies caught his eye. He walked on. It was rare to see an entire house for let.

  One house stood apart from its fellows. Still dingy white under a shroud of soot, it looked particularly dilapidated. The area railings needed cleaning and a lick of paint wouldn’t come amiss. There were weeds between the cracks of the steps leading down to the kitchens and cobwebs and dust grimed the windows. Empty, obviously, and for some considerable time; but it wasn’t for sale or to let. It seemed simply forgotten. Why? Why, in the midst of a housing shortage, with houses and flats being desperately sought after, with premium payments on top of the rent being demanded and paid, would anyone let a whole valuable house stand untenanted and unused?