A Bone and a Hank of Hair

by Leo Bruce

  “I don’t think so. She was apparently a rather mousy little person who lived with her father and was married within a year of his death.”

  “Perhaps that’s why I never heard Frenchy speak of her. Here! You see that girl just come in on her own? Her with the violets, I mean; she always wears violets. I don’t know how she can afford it. Well, she knew Frenchy. She stayed on at Montgolfier Street after I did. She was there when Frenchy Went. Would you like me to bring her over? Only I don’t suppose she’ll want to waste a lot of time.”

  “Please,” said Carolus.

  The “girl”, whose name it appeared was Elizabeth, had a voice that might have been trained in one of those rooms with French windows and sunlight that are found only as the settings for West End comedies. She had an air of great sophistication or, as “Old Maree” said later, she had class. When Carolus asked her what she would have to drink she said: “I suppose Maree’s lapping up her old neat gin. I’ll have a B and S.”

  It was from his reading of Lytton Strachey’s essay on General Gordon that Carolus had learned the interpretation of this and brought over a brandy and soda.

  “Oh, yes, I remember the woman you’re discussing,” said Elizabeth. “Quite a pleasant type. Murdered, probably.”

  “How can you talk like that?” said “Old Maree”. “You’ll give me the creeps for a week. How could she have been murdered?”

  “I only said ‘probably’,” pointed out Elizabeth. “The usual doctor gave the usual death certificate. Of course, she may have committed suicide.”

  “Whyever would she have done that?” asked “Old Maree” in horror. “She was doing all right, wasn’t she? I can’t see what would have made her think of such a thing!”

  “Boredom, perhaps,” said Elizabeth. “But murder was a possibility, too. I didn’t like the look of a character she was seeing a lot of at the end. Used to come up from the country somewhere to meet her. I’m country-bred myself. Father was MFH of the Pychesmore, as a matter of fact. This character did not look like a countryman to me.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Grey-haired, narrow face, weak expression. I should think he probably put weed-killer in her chocolates or something. She went out like a light. Up and about one week and faded altogether the next. Then they broke her door in and found her. The usual story.”

  “It’s not the usual story!” said “Old Maree” indignantly. “Else I shouldn’t be able to sleep at night for thinking of it. The way you talk, Elizabeth, is enough to turn anyone TT. You ought to be ashamed to talk like that!”

  Elizabeth suppressed a yawn. “I only say what everyone else did at the time.”

  Once again, thought Carolus.

  “Well, you shouldn’t say it. I need something to pull me together after that. Yes, plain gin, please, and Elizabeth will have another brandy.”

  “I wasn’t really sufficiently interested in the woman,” went on Elizabeth in her bored voice. “She was terribly ordinary, really. Rather unusual in appearance, but there it stopped.”

  “In appearance?”

  “She made me think of a giraffe. Not only the long neck but those large eyes, startled and longing, if you can see what I mean. She was put into cold storage till they could find her sister.”

  “Elizabeth!” said “Old Maree” rather hysterically. “I won’t have it! What a way to speak! You give me the shudders. She means the mortuary,” “Old Maree” added to Carolus.

  “Yes,” went on Elizabeth. “They raked up a married sister from somewhere who identified her and she was cremated. I ought to have gone to the cremation really, but I overslept.”

  “Old Maree” was calm again now and turned suitably philosophical. “Ah well,” she said, “we all have to Go some time.”

  “Personally, I couldn’t care less,” said Elizabeth.

  “Don’t be so wicked. Of course you do. You’ve only got one life to live, you know. You’re going to be a long time dead. So why not enjoy life while you can?”

  “Enjoy it?” said Elizabeth contemptuously.

  “Well, I do,” said “Old Maree”, “I know that. Always have done.”

  “You must be even more unintelligent than I thought.”

  “Who are you calling unintelligent?” asked “Old Maree”, rhetorically. “At least I know what I want and how to get it which is more than some, however much they talk like someone on the BBC.”

  Carolus knew the high emotional pitch at which they lived and recognized this as a critical moment. Even Elizabeth with her blasé refinement was never far from hysteria. One sharp retort from her and there would be tears and violence. On the other hand a feather’s weight would tip the whole crisis to laughter.

  “I wish I did,” he said. “I can’t think what I want and if I could I shouldn’t have a notion of how to get it. Except very simple things—like another drink. What about it?”

  “This must be the last,” said “Old Maree”. “Plain gin and a nice brandy for Elizabeth.”

  An olive branch, perceived Carolus, and left them without misgivings while he went to the bar. All was well when he returned.

  “Is there anything else you want to know about Frenchy?” asked Elizabeth. “Because I really must run after this.”

  “There was no real reason for thinking she was murdered, was there?” asked Carolus seriously.

  “I suppose not, really. It was just what was said and that means very little.”

  “Or that she committed suicide?”

  “That could be. I wouldn’t like to give an answer on that. I didn’t really know her well enough. And that’s a dam’ silly thing to say, too, because who the hell knows anyone well enough to anticipate their suicide?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Though I don’t believe the old gag about people who threaten to do it not doing it. I’ve known too many who have threatened for years and then have done it.”

  “You never heard Frenchy threaten it?”

  “I didn’t. I didn’t really know her.”

  “Cara would tell you that,” put in “Old Maree”. “If anyone had heard her it would have been Cara. You find her and you’ll learn all you want.”

  “That may not be so easy. You don’t remember her husband’s first name, do you?”

  “Morry, she called him.”

  “Maurice, then, or Morris, I suppose. I’ll look it up later. I thank you both very much.”

  “Yes, but what about . . .” began “Old Maree” without budging.

  Carolus, who had prepared for this while up at the bar, gave her his hand with the necessary Treasury Notes. She nodded, then said, “I dare say Elizabeth would . . .”

  Carolus gave a laden hand to Elizabeth.

  “I must be on my way,” said “Old Maree”. “This won’t buy the baby a new frock.” Not, perhaps, the happiest of phrases in the circumstances, thought Carolus. “I hope you find whoever it is you’re looking for, and if you want to see me again I’m usually in here about nine.”

  Elizabeth nodded coolly and walked away.

  11

  IT was time to see Mrs Chalk again. She had instigated the whole inquiry and should be kept informed, and there was a question which Carolus wanted to ask her. She was still staying with the Gorringers, and it was to their house that Carolus went at the headmaster’s invitation to “take tea” as soon as he had returned to Newminster.

  “We are all a-gog,” said Mr Gorringer as he admitted Carolus, “and have little doubt that you will have fireworks for us, my dear Deene. We all have the greatest confidence in your ability to unravel this mystery.”

  He led the way to the drawing-room, normally kept for the reception of parents, but today warmed by a log fire and, in spite of a smell of damp upholstery being dried, rather inviting.

  Mrs Gorringer quoted Robert Louis Stevenson: “‘Home is the sailor, home from sea, And the hunter home from the hill.’ Muswell or Campden, Mr Deene? Where has the chase taken you?”

&
nbsp; Carolus was tired and rather nauseated by the case and found it hard to respond civilly to the facetiousnes of the Gorringers. He determined to let them see that this was very far from a humorous affair. He greeted Mrs Chalk, who looked as serious as he did.

  “I have seen Rathbone,” he said shortly.

  “Ah ha!” cried Mr Gorringer. “I thought you would not let the grass grow under your feet. When and where did your meeting take place?”

  “At about one o’clock in the morning in the cottage at Bluefield which he had once occupied.”

  “How did he account for the non-appearance of his wife?”

  “He has to account for the non-appearance, as you put it, not of one woman but of three at least.”

  “You alarm me, Deene. Are you suggesting . . .”

  “I’ll tell you what I have discovered,” said Carolus, and did so without circumlocution but in detail. He did not spare them the talk of murder in four places, Bluefield, Hastings, Bolderton and Montgolfier Street. He did not spare them the police search of Glose Cottage or the recollections of Miss Ramble. He gave them “Old Maree” and Elizabeth, full length, and the death of Frenchy exactly as he had heard it.

  “What a sordid mare’s nest you have disturbed, Deene!” said Mr Gorringer gravely. “You certainly have a penchant for the leprous and macabre. Who would have thought that a simple query like that of Mrs Chalk would have caused you to stir such muddy waters?”

  “Perhaps you thought it would be a sort of jolly treasure hunt?” said Carolus rather bitterly.

  “I did not think it would put you on the trail of a mass murderer,” said Mr Gorringer, in his turn somewhat heated. “I still feel that only your morbid way of seeing these things is probably to blame. By your own account you have but the testimony of a few perhaps unreliable witnesses on which to base your assertion that there are three disappearances instead of one.”

  “You may be right,” said Carolus wearily. Then turning to Mrs Chalk he asked, “Did you know your cousin Charlotte?”

  “Scarcely at all,” she said. “I don’t suppose I saw her more than twice. We did not meet as children, and from the age of seventeen Charlotte was not considered by my parents as a suitable companion. I knew Anne much better than her unfortunate sister.”

  But Mr Gorringer returned to the attack.

  “There is a point here which I am at a loss to understand. Since you suspect this man Rathbone of such a terrible series of brutal crimes, how did you allow him to slip through your fingers? There, by your own account, you had him. But you left him at large.”

  “What would you expect me to do? So far as I know there is no charge against him. Was I to hold him by force? It would make pretty headlines, Kidnapping by Schoolmaster, if that is what you wanted, Headmaster.”

  “Heaven forbid!” cried Mr Gorringer devoutly. “I see your difficulty. But could you not have wrung from him the truth about this strange affair?”

  “I had no thumbscrews handy,” said Carolus. “But I think you can put your mind at rest. When the police want him, they will be able to find him. They’re very good at that sort of thing.”

  “Meanwhile, do you anticipate any further . . .”

  “Murder? No.”

  There was a long silence of the kind which novelists used to designate “pregnant”.

  “And what will be your next steps?” asked Mr Gorringer at last.

  “I’m going to the firm of wholesale chemists for which Rathbone used to work.”

  “Chemists?” said Mrs Gorringer. “I t’ink I smella da Rathbone.”

  “Poison, eh?” said her husband, comprehendingly.

  “I want to see whether anyone there remembers him. It’s fifteen years ago and that’s quite a time.”

  “I cannot but feel, my dear Deene, that it is much to be regretted that we recommended you to Mrs Chalk. We were under a complete misapprehension. We supposed that we should be providing you with no more than a light holiday task. Now all my fears for the good name of the school are reawakened. Do you not feel that there is yet time for you to withdraw? After all, the police, as you say, have searched the cottage at Bluefield and must be hot on the scent. Can I not prevail upon you to spend the rest of your vacation in your comfortable home?”

  “I couldn’t do that, Headmaster,” said Carolus gently.

  “Of course he couldn’t,” put in Mrs Chalk. “He has to prove the thing, hasn’t he? You are forgetting that my children cannot inherit their legacy until it is known beyond doubt that my cousin Anne is dead.”

  Mr Gorringer glanced at her reproachfully but said no more.

  When Carolus reached his home it was time for the whisky and soda he enjoyed after a day’s work and before his dinner. When Mrs Stick brought it, Carolus greeted her cheerfully.

  “Tea at the headmaster’s,” he said.

  “I expect you’re tired then, sir. Would it be out of place for me to inquire whether that lady is still staying there?”

  “Mrs Chalk? Yes. She’s there.”

  The housekeeper showed by the taut expression on her face that she had guessed as much.

  “I do hope you’re going to have a few quiet days now,” she said. “I was only saying to Stick, you need a rest if ever anyone did.”

  “I have to run up to town tomorrow, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh!” said Mrs Stick balefully.

  He found that the premises of Tonkins Sons and Company in Hammersmith consisted of a warehouse and offices. At a very small pigeon-hole near the entrance he asked for Mr Tonkins.

  “There is no Mr Tonkins now,” said a voice from within.

  “The manager, then,” said Carolus.

  “Which department?”

  “Oh, hell, give me someone at the top who has been a long time with the firm!”

  “That would be Mr Schmidt—well, Mr Villiers he is now since he became managing director instead of general manager as he’d always been. I don’t know whether he can see you. What is your business?”

  Carolus was tempted to say “Murder”, and leave it at that.

  “It’s a confidential question connected with one of the staff.”

  A sniff came from the direction of the voice.

  “That’ll be just his tea, the nosy old so-and-so! I’ll tell him.”

  After waiting a few minutes Carolus was taken up by lift and shown in to a small but showy room. It seemed that scarcely a firm with which this one did business had failed to send Mr Villiers some token engraved or printed indelibly with their name and business. Ash-trays, paperweights, ink-pots, calendars, paper-knives, framed prints, toys, ornaments, cigarette boxes were all tokens of regard if not affection from famous companies. A brand-new carpet and an outsize desk may have been installed to give prestige to the newly-named and recently created managing director.

  “A confidential matter? You may speak in confidence,” said Mr Villiers eagerly. He was a hawklike man who wore too many rings.

  “I wanted to ask you about a man named Rathbone.”

  Mr Villiers pulled out a file.

  “We have no such name on our books.” he said.

  “No. It is some years since you employed him.”

  “Really? How many years?

  The interest of Mr Villiers did not seem to flag.

  “About fifteen.”

  “Fifteen. Oh, Rathbone. You mean Rathbone!”

  “Yes,” said Carolus mildly.

  “I remember Rathbone. I thought you meant someone we employed today,” said Mr Villiers regretfully. “What about Rathbone?” His hopes seemed to rise again. “In some trouble?”

  “He has disappeared. Also his wife.”

  “Good gracious! But why come to us? It is only by the merest chance that I remember the fellow. He was in my department or I should not have been able to tell you anything.”

  “I’ve come to you because I am trying to trace his life right back. Did he work here long?”

  “I can turn up the record, but it was c
ertainly for a considerable time. From a date before the outbreak of the war.”

  “Please don’t bother,” said Carolus politely, but Mr Villiers was proud of his files and not to be denied.

  “Let’s see. R. 1945 it would have been when he left us. Yes, he had been with us for fourteen years. Brigham Rathbone. Born 1908. I remember him well. Rather a shifty-looking man, I always thought. He surprised us by leaving to get married.”

  “Why did it surprise you?”

  “He didn’t seem the marrying type. He was less than forty at the time, I see, but I recollect him as looking nearer fifty.”

  “You did not know the lady he married?”

  “Oh, yes I did,” said Mr Villiers triumphantly. “A Miss Bright. She was the daughter of our chartered accountant. Her father, Herbert Bright, was the senior partner of a firm called Bright and Endive who had done our books for years. After his death we changed to our present accountants; but Herbert Bright was a friend of one of the Tonkins family and during his lifetime we should have gone to no one else.”

  “So that is how Rathbone met his wife?”

  “In a way, yes. At that time the firm had an Amateur Dramatic Society which produced a play every winter, a record which was not broken even during the war years. Miss Bright used to take a part—not the principal part, which was taken by Miss Sylvia Tonkins, who was a most attractive young lady. But Miss Bright was keen. She would play perhaps the French maid or the secretary, or the elder sister: minor roles, but still essential to the play.”

  “And Rathbone?”

  “He was something of a character actor and our expert on make-up. I remember old Mr Tonkins saying that it was the only time in the year when Rathbone came to life. He certainly didn’t seem to have much enthusiasm for anything else.”

  “Was he a satisfactory employee?”

  “Oh, he did his work or he wouldn’t have stayed here, even during the war when we were very short-handed. Rathbone was unfit for war service, by the way. We have a very high standard. But he only just did his work, if you know what I mean. Never more than he needed. There was something rather supine about him. Old Mr Tonkins, who was very shrewd, called him lazy but never lazy enough to be in trouble. I don’t know whether you have labor trouble but, if so, you’ll know the type.”