Lucasta & Hector

by Hugh Canham

  ‘Hector, darling,’ she gushed, opening her arms to him theatrically. ‘I’m so glad you’re better at last. Your offices are just so cute and that old man-servant of yours . . . Well! And do all attorneys in London dress like you? You look as if you’re going to a funeral!’

  ‘Actually, I’ve just been to one,’ said Hector, disengaging himself from Gloria’s fond, long and tight embrace.

  ‘Well, darling, it’s all going to be all right. I’ve found a dealer at last who wants to buy the picture. He says he’s sure it’s a Raphael, but I must try and get him to raise his price substantially!’

  ‘Splendid! And do you like the Raphael? I haven’t had a chance to see it myself.’

  ‘You will, you will. She’s a lovely Madonna. I’m going to throw a little party around her. But do you know, Hector darling, I think I preferred the cherub with his chubby little ass. But then he was worth zilch. So there we go! It’s tomorrow night at the Dorchester. And of course you and your charming girl Lucasta must come. She’s been so helpful at a time when I know you’re keeping her desperately busy . . . Are you and she . . . well, you know . . . ?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ replied Hector gruffly. ‘She just works for me.’

  Hector and Lucasta went by taxi to the Dorchester. Hector had changed into a less formal suit for the occasion. But it still had a waistcoat, and Lucasta did so hate waistcoats! Under her coat she herself had on what she thought was a very nice bright blue dress. On the way, she noticed a flysheet for the Evening Standard. The banner headline read: ‘Sally – Man held’.

  ‘I suppose this is thanks to you solving the case?’ she said to Hector somewhat sharply.

  ‘Ah, yes, I expect so,’ said Hector complacently.

  ‘Is your gout completely better?’

  ‘Yes. It is. Thank you for asking.’

  ‘You’ve been very, very bad tempered you know.’

  ‘Oh, have I really? I’m sorry.’

  The party was pure Hollywood. Gloria had invited every celebrity she could think of to her enormous suite and they all spent a great deal of time hugging and kissing one another and drinking copious amounts of champagne. The Raphael was displayed on a small table at the side of the room.

  ‘You’d better come and have a look, Hector,’ said Lucasta. ‘I think it’s lovely!’

  ‘Um. Gloria said she preferred the cherub!’

  ‘That’s because she’s a moron.’

  They stood and looked at the Raphael Madonna.

  ‘Well, what do you think?’ asked Lucasta.

  ‘I hope nobody tries to pinch it!’ replied Hector.

  At that moment, all the lights went out. There was of course total consternation. Three minutes later the lighting was restored – but the Raphael had vanished.

  ‘Oh my God, my God!’ wailed Gloria. ‘Call the police someone! Hector, where are you? Did anyone see anything?’

  Nobody had seen anything. The police duly arrived, followed shortly by a TV cameraman. The celebrities dispersed, having first done their best to be in the line of the TV camera.

  ‘Come on, we’d better try and get some supper somewhere. There’s not going to be anything to eat here now,’ said Hector to Lucasta.

  ‘Aren’t you going to help the police with their enquiries about the disappearance of a Raphael?’ she replied somewhat provocatively.

  ‘No. I’ve asked Gloria if she insured the little picture and of course she had. So she’s not going to be out of pocket. I’d like a bit of a break, I think!’

  ‘Look, Hector, would you mind if I went straight home?’ asked Lucasta. ‘I had a nibble or two at the party and I’m awfully tired after listing all those books for you. I’ve arranged for the two antiquarian dealers to come in tomorrow and everything’s ready for them.’

  Lucasta had been supervising the two antiquarian booksellers in the library for more than an hour when Hector walked in brandishing a copy of the Daily Mail. The booksellers, who spent most of their time squabbling over what price to put beside each item on Lucasta’s list, barely looked up.

  ‘Have you seen this?’ said Hector, addressing Lucasta and duly ignoring the booksellers. He pointed to the headline: ‘Sally: dancing partner confesses’. ‘Now I can get down to concentrating on the books and back to my legal practice!’

  ‘Yes, I did see it,’ said Lucasta frostily. ‘You will no doubt tell me in detail how you solved the crime in due course. What’s happened to the original suspect – the one who disappeared?’

  ‘Oh, he’s come out of hiding, so all is well,’ said Hector beaming. ‘Now, how are you chaps getting on?’

  ‘It’s perfectly easy to disappear,’ Michael told Hector over the telephone. ‘I just wanted to get away. Of course, I knew nothing of being wanted for murder. I took the cash we keep in the safe in the farm office, packed a bag, pointed my car northwards and drove all night, eventually arriving in Inverness feeling very tired. There I read in one of the London papers that I was suspected of the murder. I then stopped shaving, left my car in a car park, hired another car, and stayed in various out-of-the-way places until it was safe to come out of hiding again. I was very sad that someone had strangled the girl, but if you behave as she did, people must feel like strangling you, I think. I take it you didn’t get her to change her mind on the way back to London?’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Hector. ‘But what is the position now? You’re in the clear and back home? Are your father and sister still insisting on selling?’

  ‘No, it’s all off. Olsen went cold on the idea apparently, so I’m a happy man again, although I think it will take time for proper relations to be restored between Pop and Sis and me. I intend to spend a few days fishing to recover. I’ll fly up to Scotland. I saw a place up there when I was “on the run” as it were – nice river – a few early-season trout, and who knows, maybe a salmon!’

  ‘Splendid idea! Wish I was coming with you.’

  ‘Well, why don’t you?’

  The following morning, Hector sat in the library beside Lucasta looking through the list of books and the prices the booksellers had put by each one.

  ‘It totals £450,000,’ said Lucasta.

  ‘Very good indeed!’ said Hector. ‘But could you show me this item, for instance – Number 19 on the list? 1603 – something or other.’

  Lucasta went to the cupboard where she had neatly arranged the books in order. Number 19 was a small vellum-bound volume in Italian.

  ‘£3,000. How can we tell if that amount is right?’ asked Hector.

  ‘Well, we can’t, but I’ve just followed your instructions so far.’

  ‘Yes, I know – good. But look, I’m going to take this one and two others to an old antiquarian bookseller I know and see what sort of price he’d give me for them.’

  ‘I see. But does he know about these sort of books?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘What shall I tell the two old boys who came?’

  ‘Just tell them I’m considering their offer.’

  ‘I see – and are you going to tell me the brilliant means by which you solved the case of the murdered lady solicitor?’

  ‘Of course, if you like. But you didn’t seem very interested.’

  ‘I was only cross because you wouldn’t concentrate on the sale of these extremely valuable books.’

  ‘You see, Lucasta, it was a question of priorities – I had to deal with gout, Gloria, the books, the legal practice, but most importantly, the girl had been murdered and one of my clients was the prime suspect because he’d uttered threats against her and then disappeared.’

  ‘Why had he uttered threats against her?’

  Hector took off his spectacles and laid them on the table.

  ‘I’d better tell you from the beginning,’ he said.

  ‘And was Sally Koy really as glamorous as the papers made out?’ Lucasta asked after listening to Hector’s account of what happened.

  ‘A very nice-looking girl indeed. Beautifu
l legs.’

  ‘How do you know so much about her legs?’

  ‘Well, she had a very short skirt on and she took off her shoes and put her feet up on the dashboard of the Rolls all the way home.’

  ‘Huh! Sounds a bit of a hussy, if you ask me.’

  ‘I thought so at the time, but she was all right underneath. I think she’d had a hard life. Lucasta, it was so sad when I found her lying there on the bed, dead. Tragic that someone so beautiful should die so young. The old dancing partner, Tom, must have been mad with jealousy about her new partner to have actually strangled her!’

  ‘Very odd!’

  ‘Well, people are.’

  There was a silence; then Lucasta said, ‘Yes, well, I suppose my work is finished more or less now, once you’ve decided how and where to sell the books. Do you want me to come in tomorrow?’

  ‘Ah, yes, I was coming to that,’ said Hector, taking a rather deep breath. ‘Would you be prepared to look through Father’s books in the sitting room to see if there’s anything valuable there? There might be, you see, in view of what you discovered here, although Father used to call the books in the sitting room his “reading books”. I have it in mind that there may be some valuable first editions, that sort of thing.’

  ‘But Hector, I went through the sitting room on the way to your bedroom – there must be thousands of books. It may take me ages.’

  ‘Well, yes, never mind. Take your time. By the way, you’ve done a wonderful job so far – this library looks splendid now. All the law books in order and everything. And these piles of books on the floor are still to be sold, are they?’

  ‘Well, thank you,’ said Lucasta, blushing slightly at the unexpected praise. ‘Yes, the pile of really good art books is going to be priced by an auction house. All the rest of the stuff I’ve sold to a second-hand bookseller and you should be getting a cheque for £3,000 very shortly.’

  ‘You never told me!’

  ‘Well, you’ve been rather busy with other things, haven’t you! By the way, you’ll need to replace a large number of the law books as they’re out of date – I’ve checked. And lots of the law reports need binding. I’ve just stacked them neatly in date order. Here’s a list of the books that need updating.’

  ‘How very, very efficient of you! I’ll have a word with Jolly about this updating and binding. Look, would it be convenient with you to possibly start on the books in the sitting room as soon as you can? I’m going away fishing in a few days’ time, by the way.’

  Hector took the three books to his old bookseller friend, who told him that it was very difficult to value those sort of books accurately and that he should get the opinion of one of the auction houses that had expert valuers for books. So Lucasta was engaged for two days dealing with a rather effete young man who, in addition to valuing the pile of art books, went through a list of the valuable books all over again, Lucasta having blanked out the prices the other booksellers had put in. The young man put in two prices, one the reserve and one what he hoped the books would fetch. When the two columns were each added up, the reserve column totalled £300,000 and the “hoped-for” price £500,000.

  ‘Just what I thought would happen!’ said Hector.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ asked Lucasta.

  ‘I have a feeling that the booksellers may be the best bet, but I’ll think about it while I’m away fishing. I shall have five days to consider the best plan of action.’

  But Hector was back after three days, much to Lucasta’s surprise. She was at the top of the book ladder in Hector’s sitting room and had by then only managed to look through one stack of the books. They proved to be nearly as dusty as the ones in the library, so she was once again clad in her boiler suit, surgeon’s mask and plastic shower cap.

  ‘Why are you back so soon?’ she enquired, first removing her glasses and the mask.

  ‘Rule one, which I had forgotten in my exuberance and due to the fact that Michael had offered to “treat” me because of my detective work that got him off the hook – never go on holiday with someone you don’t know well.’

  ‘I thought the rule was never go on holiday with a friend, full stop. But go on, what happened?’

  ‘Well, we flew to Inverness. Michael is a terribly nervous air passenger. He consumed several whiskies in the departure lounge before we took off and was very noisy and argumentative on the plane. One of the air hostesses came over and told him to be quiet and he then proceeded to smack her bottom. The chief steward then threatened to handcuff him if he didn’t be quiet, and I think he may well be charged with assault. Obviously, I found this all highly embarrassing. That was a good start. When we arrived in our hired car at the hotel, we were told that it had been raining hard for the last week and the river was unfishable. The hotel was awful and there were only three other guests – a married couple who were also frustrated at not being able to fish and who quarrelled with one another all the time, and a morose solitary man who said he was trying to write poetry and had come there for the peace and quiet! The hotel was kept by a man in a kilt. He seemed to do everything – served in the bar, made the beds and did the cooking. He insisted on telling us long stories about when he’d been in the Army, but his Scottish accent was so impenetrable we couldn’t understand a word. The TV reception was so poor, you couldn’t see or hear anything. So there was nothing to do in the evenings except drink and read.’

  ‘So you didn’t fish at all?’

  ‘No. On the second day we were told about a loch in the hills which apparently had some good trout in it. I don’t mind walking, but after about five miles of very soggy heather, and in spite of an Ordnance Survey map and a compass, we were completely lost. Eventually, by luck more than anything, we got back to the village – well, the hotel and a seedy post office – ten hours after we’d set off. We never found the loch. Michael rambled on during the ten-hour walk about some 19-year-old girl he fancied at a nearby farm. His wife died recently, you see. The following morning, I made the excuse that I’d had a phone call from the office, very urgent, and I was to come back as soon as I could. So here I am.’

  ‘And tell me, what did you think about while you were walking in the hills for ten hours?’

  ‘Well,’ said Hector, sitting down heavily in his favourite armchair, ‘I thought about you, looking just like you are up the top of that ladder in those funny clothes!’

  ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘Lucasta. . . I don’t think I can do without you!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Lucasta, slowly descending the ladder, ‘what do you mean?’

  ‘What I just said. I need you. I need you to be here.’

  ‘And what, pray, am I supposed to do?’

  ‘Well, just be here.’ Hector seemed embarrassed. ‘You know, I thought we might get married. That sort of thing.’

  ‘I’ve had three proposals of marriage in my life and that is certainly the oddest one yet!’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry, that’s just the way it came out.’

  ‘I didn’t even know that you liked me, Hector, let alone wanted to marry me or “that sort of thing” as you quaintly put it.’

  ‘At first, you see, you were engaged to my friend Duncan and, well, that was a bit difficult, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I haven’t noticed you changing much since I’ve not been engaged to Duncan.’

  ‘Look, I’m sorry. What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Not be so high-handed with me to start with!’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Do stop saying you’re sorry. Anyhow, there’s a huge difference in our ages. You must be well over 45 and I’m only 28.’

  ‘I’m 46 actually. But Duncan must have been nearly 40.’

  ‘That’s not so bad. And talking of Duncan, there’s what’s called “being on the rebound”, isn’t there?’

  ‘Yes – er, well, not every man would want to get married to someone who’s just been engaged to someone else, especially a friend of his!’
/>   ‘Do you know you’re very insensitive and bossy?’

  ‘Well, at times I can only describe you as impossible.’

  ‘Impossible! Pah! That’s it! I’ve never been so insulted in my life.’

  And with that Lucasta pulled off her shower cap, divested herself of her boiler suit and, flinging them on Hector’s floor, grabbed her coat and her handbag and left the room, banging the door loudly behind her.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Hector to himself. ‘That didn’t go too well.’

  And he sat gloomily looking out of his window at the plane trees in the square which were just coming into leaf. His reverie was ended by a tapping at the door.

  ‘Come in Jolly,’ he called out wearily.

  ‘Sir, I knew you were back but I heard you talking to Miss Lucasta, so I did not disturb you before. I trust you had a good fishing trip?’

  ‘Lousy, Jolly, lousy, thank you.’

  ‘I’m very sorry to hear that. I felt I should tell you that Miss Gloria – she never gives her other name – keeps calling. She wants you to sue an insurance company for her as she says they are refusing to pay out the insurance monies on a picture that has been stolen. I had to tell her I knew nothing about it. She kept wanting to talk to Miss Lucasta. But Miss Lucasta wouldn’t speak to her. She said it was a legal matter and I must deal with it. I don’t think, sir, between you and me, that Miss Lucasta likes Miss Gloria much. I think, if I may say so, that there may be some jealousy between them.’

  ‘Very astute of you, Jolly, I’m sure! Look, blast Gloria. I just want to be left alone at the moment – I’ve just had a shock.’

  ‘Yes, I saw Miss Lucasta leaving the building. She looked very cross I thought, sir.’

  ‘She was very upset about something. I’m not sure she’ll be coming back. . .’

  As Jolly departed, Hector thought, The old bugger’s pleased. He’s back in sole control, he thinks.

  He looked at the leaves coming out on the plane trees again. Ah, well!

  After another ten minutes staring at the trees, he rose and wandered round the room and leant against the library steps that Lucasta had been standing on. There, on the top shelf, were not only her mask but her glasses. She’d left them behind and he knew she couldn’t read easily without them. He doubted if her home telephone number would be in the directory, and even if it were, with a surname of Smith it would be pretty hopeless trying to find her in it.