Vicious Circle

by Douglas Clark

  “Don’t you believe it, lad,” retorted Green. “Those Polish airmen thought they were great lovers in the war. They caused a lot of trouble. Lasses fell for them left right and centre and were then left stranded. There’s still a few who will have a grudge against Polish airmen.”

  Masters didn’t add to the conversation. The car drew up at Dean’s office door and they were shown through direct to the deputy coroner.

  “An educated voice,” said Dean. “Not one I would expect with such a message. Not that I have any experience of such matters, but one always imagines that they will belong to the heavy-breathing brigade.”

  “And you think all those who indulge in such games are rough and tough?” asked Green.

  Dean nodded. “Less than highly articulate, certainly. But, as I say, I have no previous experience, so I suppose I could well be mistaken.”

  “Too true. They come in all shapes and sizes.”

  “Is this going to complicate matters, Mr Masters?”

  “I think not.”

  Dean waited for Masters to continue.

  “For one thing, the mere fact that somebody has gone to the trouble of ringing you up with such a message means that, in spite of the efforts made to play down Mrs Carlow’s death until we are sure of our ground, your caller knows something about the affair. Quite what her knowledge is, we don’t know. But however trivial, it reassures us that there is something to learn. For another, she used the word murder which, as far as I know, has not yet been uttered publicly either by you or by us.”

  “And you take that to mean that the thought that murder has been done is lurking at the back of the caller’s mind?”

  “Back or front, yes. And finally Josef Kisiel was named. I need hardly tell you that police investigations often rely heavily on information received . . .”

  “Surely you’re not saying you are intending to bring in Mr Kisiel on such slender evidence?”

  “No. I was about to say that whoever your caller was, she is an acquaintance of Kisiel. She is also very much in the know concerning Mrs Carlow’s death because, as we have mentioned, it has not been publicized. For these reasons I was able to say that I don’t consider your unknown caller to have complicated matters. If anything, she has eased the situation.”

  “By helping to crystallize your thoughts?”

  “Every little helps,” grunted Green.

  “I see. What happens now?”

  Masters pondered for a moment. Then—

  “In cases like this—where one gets an unknown caller ringing in—the person doing it is rarely content with just one call.”

  “She’s liable to repeat her accusations?”

  “It would be usual were she to do so, and strictly speaking I should arrange for some sort of listening watch to be kept in the hope that the call could be traced. But I don’t propose to do that unless and until your unknown informant becomes a nuisance to you.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “First, because it would mean that somebody would have to be here to monitor incoming calls. I don’t suppose you would like the inconvenience of having them here, Mr Dean or, as this is a solicitor’s office, of having them listen in to strictly confidential conversations between you and your clients.”

  “You’re damn’ right, I wouldn’t, and my partners would be equally against it.”

  Masters nodded. “That’s fair enough. The second reason I was going to mention was the fact that the monitoring would have to be done by the local police and as I am under instructions not to involve them in my investigations I would prefer to avoid setting up the mechanics for tracing the calls.”

  “Quite right,” agreed Dean.

  “We may have to change our minds, however,” counselled Masters. “If your informant were to come up with some startling tit-bit of information . . .”

  “I understand.”

  “The local Chief Constable will be happy,” grunted Green. “He wouldn’t have liked being put to the expense for no very good reason.”

  Dean smiled. “He’s very economy-minded.” He turned to Masters. “I’ll keep paper and pencil handy to take accurate notes.”

  “Excellent.” Masters got to his feet. “We’ve taken up more than enough of your time, Mr Dean.”

  Dean laughed. “Meaning, I suspect,” he said shrewdly, “that there’s somewhere you’d like to rush away to.”

  “We have several visits still to make,” admitted Masters. As the four policemen moved to the door, however, he turned back to Dean. “By the way, I think we just took it for granted that you didn’t recognize the voice. You said it was light, clear and cultivated, but did it remind you of anybody connected with this case?”

  “I’m not really familiar with any of them except Mrs Bennett. It was most definitely not her voice.”

  “Mrs Whincap, perhaps? Senior, that is?”

  Dean shook his head.

  “Her daughter? Mrs Gwen Kisiel?”

  “I’ve met her on occasions, of course, but . . . no, that strikes no chord.”

  “Any of the others? Margarethe Rainford, Marian Whincap, Alice Kisiel, Mimi Hillger?”

  “I don’t know either Alice Kisiel or Mimi Hillger—apart from seeing her briefly in court yesterday. Of the other two . . . not Marian, definitely, because I seem to recall her voice is very young, girlish, almost.”

  “And the voice on the phone was more mature?”

  “In my opinion, yes.”

  “Like Margarethe Rainford’s then?”

  “Oh, come, Mr Masters . . .”

  “I was talking of maturity, not timbre.”

  Dean’s brow furrowed in thought for a moment or two. He was the solicitor preparing a considered reply. Finally he looked up. “The tessitura was wrong for Mrs Rainford’s voice.”

  “I see. Thank you.”

  “You’re familiar with . . .”

  “Quite. I listen to a deal of vocal music, and by that I don’t mean pop.”

  Dean reddened. “Forgive me. I wanted to be sure I had conveyed my meaning correctly.”

  “There’s no need to apologize, Mr Dean. Had I not understood, your question would have saved me the embarrassment of asking for an explanation. Would you say the tessitura of the caller’s voice was higher or lower than that of Mrs Rainford?”

  “Higher.”

  “You are a singing man?”

  Dean blushed. “We have a local choir. A big one. We’re very active. I line up with the first basses.”

  “To bash out the choruses of the Messiah every year?” asked Green.

  “Among other things. We’re quite well-known hereabouts.”

  “And appreciated, I’m sure,” said Masters. “What’s your next big work?”

  “The Bass in Me?” asked Green with a grin.

  Dean smiled in reply. “The Mass does come along about once every two years. But actually we’re preparing for a concert version of Faust next month and after that it’ll be Hiawatha—in the open air. In the park actually, near the lake, with canoes on the water and wigwams on the island. All good clean fun.”

  “I’m sure—if the weather is kind.”

  Dean shrugged. “In theory I suppose we should get as much enjoyment from the rehearsals as the performance, so the weather ought not to matter.”

  “Except to those who pay for their seats.” Masters held out his hand. “Thank you once again, Mr Dean. Now we really will be on our way.”

  *

  When they reached the car, Berger asked: “What does tess something or other mean actually, Chief?”

  “Put at its simplest,” replied Masters, “it is that area of the range of pitch—or the scale, if you like—where the voice is strongest or most authoritative.”

  “I still don’t get it, Chief.”

  “Think, lad,” said Green. “You speak at your natural best pitch. And everything you say comes into that range. If you go higher or lower you’re not as firm or strong. Singers know where they are best, so w
hen they choose songs to sing, they pick the ones that have a general level of pitch at their strongest level. Some notes will be above it and some below and they’ll reach them all right. But they wouldn’t want the whole song to be written higher or lower because it would be a strain and they’d bust a gut trying to sustain their mastery of the tune.”

  “Is that right, Chief?”

  “Certainly. Literally, tessitura means texture and, as the D.C.I. says, is the compass embraced by the notes most frequently used in a vocal composition. So as Dean said that the tessitura of his informant’s voice was somewhat higher than that of Mrs Rainford, we should look for just that.”

  “Look for, Chief?”

  “Keep your ears open for, lad,” grated Green. “It won’t be easy, but at any rate you’ll know you’re wrong if you suspect some dame with a voice in her boots of being the phantom telephone caller.”

  “I know that. I got the impression the Chief was going to disregard the call as just one of those things and only said what he did in that office out of courtesy to Dean. I didn’t think we’d actually be searching for the woman who phoned.”

  Masters didn’t reply to this comment. He had again apparently lapsed into deep thought. The others, sensing this, left him out of the further conversation, which seemed to be solely concerned with the choosing of a suitable hostelry for lunch. At last Reed spoke to him direct. “Chief, is it all right with you if we go to the same pub for lunch as you went to yesterday?”

  Masters turned to him. “Have we got the marked map the Chief Constable left in the office for us?”

  Reed opened the glove compartment. “It’s here, Chief.”

  “Good. I’d like to go out to the Carlow house.”

  “Before nosh?” asked Green.

  “Yes, please. It isn’t very late is it?”

  “Midday.”

  “We’ll probably find a country pub after we’ve had a quick word with Frau Hillger.”

  Reed was consulting the map. “Turn her at the first opportunity,” he said to Berger. “We’ll have to go back and turn left about five miles back.”

  Berger obeyed instructions. He swung the heavy car round a 180-degree turn where a crossroad gave him room. As he swung in his seat with the movement, Green asked: “Something important to ask Aunty Mimi?”

  Masters, employed in removing a dark, rectangular flake of tobacco from the brassy Warlock tin, nodded. “I want to ask her who her sister’s solicitor was—if she had one.”

  “You could have asked Rainford that. It ’ud have saved petrol.”

  “I’d also like to meet Frau Hillger. I should have done so earlier.”

  “True,” agreed Green airily. “Most CID men would agree that it’s a fairly normal thing to visit the scene of the crime when investigating a case of murder. I know there are some of us who can manage without paying attention to such elementary rules. But it is usual, as is meeting the next of kin of the deceased.”

  “I met her next of kin. Margarethe Rainford. At the first opportunity.”

  “So you did. But the sister who actually lived with her, at the aforesaid scene of crime, might, in some people’s opinion, have been an equally immediate call.”

  Masters was rubbing the tobacco vigorously in the palm of his hand. “Are you propounding the old saw of first things first, Bill?”

  “Something of the sort. It is not without merit as a course of action in our business.”

  “I would never dispute that, but you and I—all of us here—since we’ve worked together have never tied ourselves down in routine. Our maxim—had we needed one to account for our order of doing things—would have been Dryden’s thought: ‘For Tom the Second reigns like Tom the First’.”

  “You’re making that up, Chief,” said Reed.

  “No he isn’t, smart Alec,” said Green.

  “So you know it, too?”

  “Never heard it before in my life.”

  “Then how do you know he didn’t make it up?”

  “Because if somebody like his nibs wanted to make something up to sound authentic he’d have used a different name from King Tom. He’d have used Charles or Edward or somebody we’ve had at least two of on the throne.” He paused a second and then continued. “Where you made a mistake, lad, was in thinking that because Tom’s an unlikely moniker for a monarch, the quote was bogus, whereas that’s the clue that should have taught you better.”

  Reed didn’t think of questioning this appreciation. Instead, he directed Berger on to the new road he was to take. Within three or four minutes they were drawing up at the gate of the Carlow house.

  “Virginia creeper,” said Green. “You don’t often see that these days. People think it holds the bugs too much.”

  “Denatures the cement, too,” said Reed. “Look at it. Right up to the roof. It’ll be forcing some of the slates off if somebody doesn’t hack it down soon.”

  “Lovely in autumn, though,” replied Green. “All red and yellow.” He turned to Masters. “There’s a car nosed into the drive, George. Could be she’s got visitors.”

  Masters nodded and edged past the parked car which took most of the room in the little drive. The others followed him to the door, which opened as they arrived.

  “Mr Masters.”

  “Hello, Mrs Rainford. We meet again.”

  “Have you come to see Aunty Mimi?”

  “If Frau Hillger is at home . . .”

  “She’s at home and quite all right. What I mean is she’s not all depressed and weepy.”

  “In that case I should like to ask her a few routine questions. We’d like to know the details of your mother’s last illness.”

  “Of course. It was very kind of you not to have pestered aunty earlier. Theo said last night that you had shown a delicacy of feeling in not questioning her immediately you arrived. Come in, do. Mimi is in the garden in a deck chair. I had just come in to get her a glass of sherry when I saw you arrive.”

  It was a very ordinary house. Not too small. Just about right for a family with one child. Masters felt that the hall needed brightening—it was too narrow for the dark paint and almost equally dark paper. To the left was the sitting room—all dark mahogany and leather as far as he could tell at a glance through the open door. He followed Margarethe into the dining room. There was little relief here, either. Dark, heavy furniture relieved only by the colours of a row of steins on the sideboard and a small round bowl of spring flowers as a table-centre.

  The French window was open. After the gloom of indoors, the brightness of the day was startling. The sun, almost overhead, shone straight into the garden which, surrounded by trees in full leaf, provided a sun trap. The heat seemed to beat back from the turf, so close-cropped and compact that it provided an almost mirror-like reflective surface.

  “It’s the police, aunty. This is Mr Masters, the one I was telling you about.”

  Mimi Hillger was sitting in a deckchair with its own sun shade protruding across her head. Compared with the sunlight, the shade cast across her face was so dark as to cloud the features. Was her hair grey or fair? Was her skin smooth or wrinkled? It was difficult to tell, but the eyes seemed mild enough as they gazed up at Masters.

  “How do you do, Mr Masters?”

  “How do you do, Frau Hillger?” Masters nodded towards her legs. “Have you got rheumatism?”

  “This?” She lifted the edge of the travelling rug that covered her knees and feet. “Oh, no. It is here to stop the sunburn. Did you not know that the sun burns skin through nylon stockings?”

  “Aunty got both insteps terribly burned last summer,” said Margarethe. “On about the only occasion we had any sun she dozed off out here and the tops of her feet were painful for several days.”

  “Seeing you’ve got a modesty screen on, love,” said Green, “do you mind if we squat on the grass while we talk? We look untidy standing up.”

  “I could come indoors.”

  “Please don’t bother to move,” said
Masters. “Mr Green and I will do very well on the grass.” He turned to Reed and Berger and motioned with his head for them to move away. “Have a look round the garden you two. We don’t want to overwhelm Frau Hillger.” He moved closer to them and murmured a few words inaudible except to the two sergeants, who then moved away. Masters joined Green on the grass. Margarethe lifted a tray from the little folding stool beside her aunt and sat down.

  “Please get your aunt her sherry. We shan’t mind her having it while we talk.”

  “Can I get you a drink, too?”

  “No thank you, Mrs Rainford. We shall not be here very long.”

  “Just looking in, really,” said Green. “To ask the usual questions.”

  “What are they?”

  “When? Where? That sort of thing.”

  “Don’t be fooled, aunty,” warned Margarethe. “Their questions will be Why? What? How? and—most of all—Who?”

  Masters took out his pipe and began to fill it without looking up at Frau Hillger.

  “When did Mrs Carlow begin to feel sick?”

  “About four o’clock.”

  “But I thought you told Dr Whincap that you had afternoon tea at half-past three—slightly earlier than usual—because she felt a bit off-colour by then and you thought a cup of tea might help her?”

  “That is so. But she did not feel sick then.”

  Margarethe said: “My aunt is getting a bit mixed up between vomiting meaning being sick and feeling unwell meaning being sick.”

  Masters nodded and struck a match for his pipe. As he drew on it, he said slowly, between draws: “I understand, Mrs Rainford.” He turned to Mimi. “So we can safely say that it was nothing she ate at the tea-table that disagreed with your sister.”

  “Certainly not. We had bread and butter and gingerbread and . . .”

  “All totally innocuous, I’m sure, Frau Hillger. But at some time during the day Mrs Carlow must have ingested something that made her ill. Did you see her take any pills, for instance?”

  “No. She had none.”

  “Drink a glass of water, perhaps?”

  “Meaning to drink after some pills?”

  Masters nodded.

  “No.”

  “A glass of sherry, such as you are having now?”