The Maltese Herring

by L. C. Tyler

  I packed the letters away and went to bed.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Ethelred

  I saw the police car draw up on the drive as I was making toast, and then heard the doorbell ring.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind my dropping by,’ said Joe. ‘Or the police car parked prominently in front of your residence.’

  ‘Most people round here know that a house guest of mine died in an accident. It was reported in the Chichester Echo. They won’t be that surprised to see you following things up. Anyway, as a crime writer, I’m expected to live beyond the normal limits of good taste. Can I get you a coffee or anything?’

  ‘I won’t, thanks. It’s a short visit. But don’t let me stop you having your breakfast.’

  I buttered the toast and got a jar of home-made marmalade from the fridge. I joined Joe at the kitchen table.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘I’m all ears. What can I do for you?’

  Joe produced a photograph and showed it to me. ‘Do you know this guy?’

  ‘He calls himself Sammartini,’ I said. ‘I don’t know if that’s his real name. He takes a gorilla with him on house calls, but I’ve never been properly introduced.’

  ‘It seems to be his real name. His friend is called Einstein – Chuck Einstein. How did you make their acquaintance?’

  ‘They came to see me early one morning.’

  ‘What were they after?’

  ‘The Maltese Madonna.’

  ‘Why did Sammartini think you’d be able to help him?’

  ‘Dr Joyner apparently had it. Then he hid it somewhere. Sammartini thought it might be here.’

  Joe frowned. ‘But Joyner was supposed to be searching the well for it,’ he said. ‘Are you saying that he actually had the Madonna all the time?’

  ‘Some of the time,’ I said. ‘If I’m right, then by the afternoon that he died, he’d found it and already concealed it again.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘In the garden. At least, the evidence points that way. But, if it was ever here, it’s gone now.’

  ‘So, what was Joyner searching the well for, in that case?’

  ‘The second statue, I think – the one of Christ. Have you read Barclay-Wood’s memoirs?’

  ‘I know of them. Are they any good?’

  ‘No. But there’s more than a hint in there that two statues may have made it to England. It would appear that Barclay-Wood knew this was the case because he’d actually excavated them both at the Abbey, then hidden them again. Possibly at the Priory. Joyner knew that.’

  ‘So, Joyner had found one and was looking for the one that was still missing?’ Joe asked. ‘Then he’d have a matching pair or something?’

  ‘Or something. What he didn’t know was that there was a second possibility: the second one may have been sold via a London auction house back in 1940.’

  ‘Really? You’ve proof of that?’

  ‘I’ve proof Barclay-Wood tried.’

  Joe whistled through his teeth and then sat there thoughtfully.

  ‘You didn’t mention any of this earlier,’ said Joe, with more than a hint of official disapproval.

  ‘I didn’t know when we last spoke. Anyway, if Joyner’s death was an accident, then it doesn’t make much difference to your enquiry, does it?’

  ‘It would still have been helpful to know.’

  ‘It doesn’t change the fact that Joyner was looking for something in the well.’

  ‘I suppose not. There’s nothing else like that you’d like to tell me?’

  ‘Not exactly like that,’ I said. I was, of course, aware that Iris and Cox had been planning an illegal sale, but that also didn’t seem to affect anything. Or not as far as I could see. ‘Can I get you a coffee after all?’ I asked.

  ‘Might as well,’ he said. ‘Just in case you remember any more statues over the next couple of minutes.’

  I got up and boiled the kettle. When I’d made the drink, I set it in front of Joe, but he didn’t touch it straight away.

  ‘So, let’s get this right,’ he said. ‘Joyner’s got the Madonna, or had it?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘So, where did he get it from?’

  ‘It was a fairly tortuous route.’

  Joe looked at me. ‘How tortuous, exactly?’

  ‘Tortuous enough to be tricky to explain – on the record, anyway. I’m assuming this is off the record?’

  ‘Yes, if it was an accident. If a crime has been committed, then you know as well as I do that I may have to ask you officially. But, if it helps you in any way, I won’t make you tell me now – not just to satisfy my own curiosity. So, Joyner had it, however he got it, and he knew Sammartini was after it. He therefore hid it in your garden?’

  ‘And from here somebody, but not Sammartini, stole it. But I’ve no proof of any of this. All I actually have is a hole in the garden and an empty padded envelope. Joyner had the opportunity to hide the statue here, but equally he might have lost it in the pub in Chichester.’

  Joe sat there, his coffee slowly getting cold in front of him. ‘Or he could have taken it to the Priory? Like Barclay-Wood?’

  ‘I’d thought the same thing,’ I said. ‘He had a rucksack with him that day – I remember him carrying it at the Abbey. But at the Priory, he left the bag in the car.’

  ‘Did he have time to get back to the car, after he made sure you all left him alone?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But it was locked … no, actually, now I think about it, I was going to lock the car, then Joyner distracted me by complaining about Cox’s Mercedes being parked there. I probably didn’t lock it. I just put the car keys in my pocket and rang the bell.’

  ‘So, he gets rid of you all, then he goes back to the car, removes the statue, returns to the garden and conceals it somewhere – God knows why – after which he goes back to the well, as if he’d been there the whole time.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ I said.

  ‘That also explains how he might have fallen in. Coming in from the strong sunlight, it was quite difficult to see very much under the trees. Until your eyes adjusted, you could easily trip over a tree root or something. I did it myself. But, once you’d had a chance to get used to the light, you’d be fine. Joyner had been there a while when you all left. He’d have seen well enough. But if he went out and came back in again from the bright sunshine outside – maybe in a hurry, to cover up what he’d really been doing …’

  ‘Still making his death a complete accident, of course. Well, the neatness of your theory appeals to me. It’s how Agatha Christie would have done it. She’d have gone on about how gloomy it was in there, making you think that she was telling you somebody could have crept up on the victim. But later you’d realise the point was that you could easily slip if your eyes weren’t accustomed to the dark. But she’d have made you suspect one or more of the guests at the Priory very strongly first. She’d have given them all very sound motives. Having talked to most of the people since, I’m still not sure we have a sound motive between them.’

  Even as I said it, though, I knew that I had doubts about Iris at least. And maybe about Henry. But without new evidence that was all it was.

  ‘Well, there’s something I haven’t told you,’ said Joe. ‘We have a new witness statement.’

  ‘Really? I thought everyone had already given you statements.’

  ‘So they did. But one witness had second thoughts. Mr Tertius Sly. He came to see me. Said he now recollected something that he’d forgotten before.’

  ‘When one of my characters says that in a book, they’re lying,’ I said. ‘Either about the thing or about the forgetting.’

  ‘I’m not ruling out either possibility. Sly says that he now recalls seeing somebody in a white jacket close to the well, as he was returning to the terrace. He thought nothing of it at the time, but now he feels that it was almost certainly Henry Polgreen. He’s willing to testify under oath. He reminded me that Joyner was about to expose Polgreen for
misconduct in high office.’

  ‘High office? You mean as chairman of the Abbey preservation committee?’

  ‘That was how he categorised it.’

  ‘That’s nonsense,’ I said.

  ‘He’s a friend of yours?’

  I recalled Elsie having said much the same thing to me more than once. ‘That wouldn’t influence my judgement,’ I said. ‘Not in any way.’

  ‘And you don’t like Sly?’

  ‘Not much. But again, that has nothing to do with it.’

  ‘I don’t like Sly either, to tell you the truth,’ said Joe. ‘And, after he’d been in, I checked our records. He’s got previous – of a kind.’

  ‘Perjury?’

  ‘Oh no, nothing like that. A couple of years ago we got two 999 calls in quick succession. Two motorists claiming to be the victims of road rage. When we sent a car out, Sly and another driver had taken a dislike to each other and got into a fight over who had been endangering life by their driving on a quiet country road. They’d both called the police to claim assault by the other. No damage seemed to have been done to either car or driver, so the constable involved just told them not to be so stupid and to control their tempers in future. He said he’d keep a record of the incident and they’d better watch out next time.’

  ‘So, Sly’s told lies before?’

  ‘Who knows? Maybe the other guy really was a maniac. There wasn’t any CCTV out that way. But the point is that he’s been accused of being violent before now. I think he’d be capable of killing somebody. Anyway, the fact that Sly could have seen Polgreen also places Sly right by the well at the right time. He can’t have that both ways.’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘But you didn’t see either of them?’

  I took a deep breath.

  ‘You remember that I thought I saw Joyner in his white jacket, then decided it must have been Iris in hers?’

  ‘Yes – about the same build and height.’

  ‘I’ve wondered since if it was Henry Polgreen. Sly may be right – about that, anyway.’

  ‘Henry Polgreen’s much taller.’

  ‘I only saw the flash of white.’

  Joe shook his head. ‘A flash of white won’t convince a jury. Nor will a hunch on my part. But Sly had the opportunity and he was capable of it. We’re just back to the lack of a motive of any kind. If I could think of one, I’d arrest him this afternoon.’

  ‘Do you want me to heat that coffee up for you?’ I asked.

  Joe took an experimental swig. ‘No, it’s fine. You get used to cold coffee when you’re interviewing somebody.’ He picked up the picture of Sammartini and looked at it again. ‘Sorry – I got distracted,’ he said. ‘I was going to tell you about Sammartini. Interpol contacted us. They want him in connection with a theft of some antiquities in Italy. They’ve traced them to a museum in the States.’

  ‘Hadleyburg,’ I said.

  For the first time Joe looked impressed. ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘Lucky guess,’ I said.

  ‘There are a number of items in the museum that seem to have been obtained in a less-than-honest manner. It has a lot of cash at its disposal, and few scruples, it would seem.’

  ‘Gold corrupts,’ I said.

  Joe nodded. ‘I’m not in a position to speak from personal experience, though we do get a good pension scheme. Anyway, Interpol said the museum had some items from Sussex. They’d heard that he was negotiating to get something else from over here. Wondered if it was the same source. They thought I should know. It sounds as if you were a step ahead of me on that.’

  ‘Half a step,’ I said. ‘And I wish I wasn’t.’

  ‘Well, if he contacts you again, just be careful. The Italian police also want him for murder.’

  ‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ I said.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Elsie

  Tuesday passed me the note as I came out of the meeting.

  ‘When authors phone,’ I said, ‘just say the cheque is in the post and no, they can’t have any more time to finish the book. That covers ninety-eight per cent of queries.’

  ‘We pay everyone by bank transfer now,’ said Tuesday.

  I looked at the note. ‘Even Ethelred?’ I asked.

  ‘Even Ethelred,’ said Tuesday. ‘I think you should call him. I think he needs help.’ She looked at me sternly, like the head prefect she once was.

  ‘It will be the Maltese Madonna, then,’ I said. ‘Send the intern out for some chocolate. This sounds like a three-Twix problem.’

  ‘Aaron was reading some manuscripts. Are you sure this is more important?’

  ‘It’s chocolate,’ I said.

  ‘So,’ said Ethelred, finally coming to the point, ‘it’s a bit of a mess. I found myself withholding all sorts of information from the police – for example that Iris had sold the church plate illegally to the museum and Anthony Cox was helping her. I felt guilty about that. On the other hand, I told Joe that Henry may have been quite close to the well at one point. I felt guilty about that too.’

  ‘Ethelred,’ I said, ‘your loyalties are to me, as your agent, and to whichever publishers haven’t dropped you yet. That’s not many people, is it? Beyond this small charmed circle, you have no need to feel guilt of any sort. Screw them, I say.’

  He muttered a bit about standing by friends, but he could see I was right, because I’d trained him to do that.

  ‘Don’t I have your interests at heart?’ I asked.

  ‘Sometimes,’ he said.

  ‘For example, have I ever been wrong about any of the women you’ve got entangled with?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘But not very wrong,’ I said. ‘Because, in the end, they all let you down, didn’t they? They have all gone. Whereas I am still here, returning your calls, sorting out your little problems.’

  ‘I can manage my own life,’ he said.

  ‘But not as well as I can manage it,’ I said. ‘If it hadn’t been for me, you might have been remarried ages ago to some floozy with a chest size twice her age.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, but he sounded strangely ungrateful.

  ‘There you are, then,’ I said. ‘And all for fifteen per cent.’

  ‘Plus VAT.’

  ‘Cheap at the price. Is there anything else I can do for you today at all?’

  ‘Possibly,’ he said.

  He gave me an account of his studies of the collected works of Sabine Barclay-Wood and of his visit to Selsey.

  ‘So both statues were in the church until the last war?’ I said.

  ‘Mrs Hardcastle – Old Mrs Hardcastle – said there were two sacred images, possibly Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, but more likely, in my opinion, Christ and the Virgin Mary. Mrs Hardcastle thought they looked a bit cheap, but they’d been painted black and dumped in a bit of the church that the sun never reached. Barclay-Wood tried to sell a black statue in 1940, but the auctioneers got a bit suspicious when he speculated that it might be solid gold underneath the paint. They couldn’t work out why he thought that. They threatened to ask the Dean if it was all OK. He seems to have quietly dropped the matter – for a while, anyway.’

  ‘I bet. So, the Madonna somehow made her way to the Priory, to be discovered about twenty years later. And the other …?’

  ‘… has vanished,’ said Ethelred. ‘Unlike Joyner, I don’t think it was hidden in the well. The police would have found it when they searched there for a murder weapon – both this time and when the gardener drowned.’

  ‘So, where’s the Madonna now?’ I asked.

  ‘Joe thought maybe Joyner actually hid the Madonna at the Priory, while pretending to search, but I’m not convinced. Too difficult to recover later. Fay thinks he did bury it under the rose bush and that it could have been taken by somebody I know well, who spotted the rose bush had been disturbed.’

  So, Fay Tomlinson was now the world authority on where the hell things were? This was certainly breaking news.
>
  ‘Hold on,’ I said. ‘Can we just rewind that? I’d like to hear the reverential way you said Fay’s name, just one more time.’

  ‘I didn’t say her name reverentially,’ he said. ‘I can mention her without being infatuated by her.’

  ‘Except you are, aren’t you? I can tell from your voice. It’s the voice you use to defend completely unsuitable women against my very reasonable objections. Has she by any chance suggested that you sell the Madonna and run away together on the proceeds?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘To Antigua or St Lucia. My choice. I told her I wouldn’t.’

  He clearly expected praise of some sort.

  ‘And you are still wondering what would have happened if you had said yes?’ I enquired.

  ‘A bit. She compared me to Arthur Miller.’

  ‘Ethelred, a woman who would compare you to Arthur Miller has no shame at all. Don’t trust her.’

  He said nothing.

  ‘Can you really see yourself on a palm-fringed beach with her – she in a skimpy bikini, which scarcely covers the legal minimum amount of flesh, you in your knee-length swimming trunks, high factor sun cream and panama hat?’

  ‘Obviously, I can imagine that very well. But you don’t have to worry. I know I’d be stupid to listen to her blandishments.’

  ‘When has knowing you were stupid ever stopped you listening to blandishments?’

  ‘Sorry, Elsie, but I think there’s a danger we’re both being unfair to Fay. When she came to visit me, I, like you, was very suspicious of her. But the more I think about it, the more I worry about Henry and Iris and Anthony Cox and what their motives are. Fay is at least absolutely open. Maybe she is genuinely the only person I can trust in all this—’

  ‘Ethelred, this is an order: step away from that woman! Pull down the blinds and take cover on the floor with your hands over your head. I’ll come and fetch you and take you to a place of safety.’