Sergeant Brunswick was beginning to realise that perhaps, before launching into an undercover career as a night-club trumpeter, he should have thought things through a little more carefully. Playing in the band every night was all very well (and his impressive solo breaks drew gratifying applause), but he was all too aware that the rest of the guys were watching his every movement; also that he had stupidly failed to establish a system for communicating safely with the station. Meanwhile it was clear that the Bensons suspected him, because Frank Benson – in between escorting portly male customers and their bejewelled wives to tables nearest to the stage – was always leaning across from the dance floor to pat him on the sleeve of his tuxedo and say, meaningfully, ‘Settling in all right, Kevin?’ or ‘Look, Kevin, just tell him it’ll never happen again, would you?’ or (somehow most unsettling of all), ‘Kevin! Nice shoes.’
The worst aspect of any undercover job, however, was simply the identity crisis that invariably came with it. Why did he not anticipate this? Why did he never remember that infiltrating criminal gangs threw up in him not just the obvious problems of loneliness and fear, but existential questions about who he really was?
‘I am playing a part,’ he would repeat to himself. ‘I am not Kevin the trumpet player. I was a paratrooper in the war. I have advanced police driving skills, a desk waiting for me at the police station with a week’s worth of Police Gazettes piling up on it, and I have been wounded several times in the line of duty. I am not Kevin the trumpet player.’
But still, shutting his eyes onstage some nights, lost in the glorious dance music, seeing all the little lamps on the tables and the flash of diamonds on the necks of the women – and trying not to obsess about the alluring curves of Delores Dee’s satin-clad posterior – he could believe for a moment that he was a professional trumpet player for whom it was utterly normal to work until the small hours of the morning for a few bob a week, and to share tawdry digs in Grenville Street with a laconic pianist who affected a pork pie hat and kept a sharpened machete under his bed. Brunswick’s other world – his auntie’s bright little flat; Mrs Groynes bringing him a nice hot cup of tea and asking him supportively for the latest news from the big bad world beyond the police station – was swiftly slipping away from him, seeming every day more fanciful and unreal.
Still, there were a few things he kept a grip on. For a start, he took note of Frank Benson’s mystifying message: ‘Just tell him it will never happen again.’ Tell who? About what? Was this something to do with killing Kenneth? Had the Bensons been told not to kill him by someone? Could Clever Clogs Twitten shed any light on this? But on the three occasions when he’d made a dash to the public call-box opposite the rock shop and dialled the number for the police station, there had been no answer from Twitten or Steine, or even Mrs G; the phone just rang and rang, unanswered, as if the whole place were deserted.
At least his shared room was the first-floor front, so he could pull up a chair to the bay window and observe the interesting foot traffic in the neighbourhood of the Black Cat. At least he could do some surveillance. Luckily the piano player used the room solely for sleeping, and made himself scarce in the afternoons. It meant that, for a short while each day, Kevin-on-the-valves could experience the thankful return of his full and proper Sergeant Brunswick-ness, because when he stared out of that window, and observed all the Hogarthian shenanigans in the busy, noisy street below, it reminded him that he not only knew all about Brighton, but in particular he knew all about Brighton’s unattractive lowlife, in particular its exotically named (but lesser) villains.
This had always been Brunswick’s fatal flaw: priding himself on his extensive knowledge of the small fry, of the blokes who chucked bricks through windows, or were caught red-handed jemmying a skylight, or lived off the earnings of tarts. For him, Brighton was packed with wide boys called Guido the Fish, Ronnie the Nerk, Dave the Forger – most of whom he had nicked in person on numerous occasions. He saw these people everywhere; they blinded him to the bigger picture. Because when a member of the true Brighton criminal aristocracy walked past the window in Grenville Street – such as the cold-blooded assassin-for-hire Diamond Tony, cleaning his nails with a long, pointy blade – Brunswick recognised him merely as a flashily dressed man often to be observed drinking whisky macs in the residents’ bar at the Metropole.
Sometimes, sitting at the window was torture, his natural urge to nick wrongdoers being too great. After just a couple of afternoons in position, for example, he became aware of a pair of pickpockets working the street below – and he watched them with increasing frustration. But then something strange happened, as he continued to observe the operation: he began to feel a degree of awe as well. Their MO was so simple: Irene from the Pretty Puss Club bumped into clueless holiday-makers, lifted their wallets and slipped them to Jimmy the Gimp, who (with impressive timing) was always at that precise moment sauntering past the other way. And that was all there was to it. On one afternoon, they did six wallets in an hour. It got so that Brunswick could spot the instant when each lift started. Irene would quicken her pace to draw alongside the mark, and Jimmy (leaning always against the same convenient sea-green lamp-post) would fold his newspaper and start his walk. ‘Now,’ Brunswick would whisper, and feel a strange mixture of triumph and despair when the job was executed flawlessly yet again. Just once their trick nearly failed, when Jimmy slightly fumbled the hand-over, and as the wallet slipped from his fingers, Brunswick embarrassed himself by jumping up and shouting (unheard), ‘Watch out!’
On one afternoon, he took a look at the pianist’s machete. But it was so terrifyingly sharp and heavy that he quickly put it back. He felt uncomfortable searching through his room-mate’s stuff. Gerry was his name, apparently. Or ‘Gerry on the ivories!’ as Delores introduced him each night. Brunswick was glad Gerry-on-the-ivories chose to go out all day, but he did wish he’d be more forthcoming – about music, if nothing else. Searching through Gerry-on-the-ivories’s chest of drawers, Brunswick found sheet music for The King and I that was not only stamped ‘Theatre Royal Drury Lane’ but was signed by Richard Rodgers ‘With thanks’. It was very exciting. Thanks for what? Had Gerry-on-the-ivories played in the orchestra of the show? Brunswick longed to know. The King and I was one of his favourite scores and he had seen the film three times.
Sometimes he had the window open, sometimes not. But one day when the window was up, he saw a remarkable thing: an off-guard Mrs Groynes. This was on the same day she met Lord Melamine in the tea shop, and was taken to recuperate in Colchester House. She was walking up the street from the seafront end, nicely dressed in a neat little suit and a pretty silk headscarf, arm in arm with a tall gent who stooped a little, and had a limp. It was the hardest thing for Brunswick not to shout, ‘Hello, Mrs G! Up here!’
What stopped him was that the couple paused, right across the road from his window. And then the unknown man put his hand in his raincoat pocket and withdrew a paper bag of sweets, and when he offered it to her, she looked up into his face, shook her head and said something (Brunswick strained to hear the words) about how there were special moments in life that required more than a bleeding humbug. At which they both laughed.
And then – oh, flaming heck – the man bent down and slowly kissed her.
Brunswick watched, amazed. He thought Mrs Groynes would kick him and run off yelling for the police. But instead she positively melted in his arms!
‘Mrs Groynes?’ said Twitten.
‘Yes, dear?’
Mrs Groynes was just hanging her coat up. It was the morning after Sergeant Brunswick had seen her locked in the arms of Captain Hoagland, and she was surprised to find anyone already in the office at half-past seven in the morning. Normally she had at least half an hour by herself to fire up the water boiler, rub a duster over the doorknobs, have a quick cigarette and (most importantly) unlock her loot cupboard and stash anything incriminating from jobs the night before.
‘Blimey,’ she said. ‘You been here all night? You look like something the cat spewed up.’
From the look of things, Twitten had indeed been in the office all night. He was sitting at his desk, with a dossier open beside him, the typewriter in front and papers all over the floor. There was ink on his face. He was bug-eyed. Three of his tunic buttons were undone. It was unsettling to see him like this. He looked positively off his rocker.
‘Look, Mrs G, I know I said I didn’t want any help from you ever,’ he said, with a slightly hysterical edge to his voice. Was he shaking? ‘And when I said that I bally well meant it.’
‘I’m sure you did, dear. And there’s no need to raise your voice to me, is there? I’m just here.’
‘But … But I need to ask you something. Just one thing.’
‘All right. Fire away.’
‘I ought to warn you, I’m a bit tired.’
‘I can see that.’
‘I’m not myself. I think I’m experiencing the reality of the expression at one’s wits’ end. In fact, the phrase keeps going round and round in my head, and it’s jolly unpleasant when you can’t do anything to stop it. At one’s wits’ end; at one’s wits’ end; at one’s wits’ end.’
‘I get the picture, dear. Poor you. Or poor one, if you prefer.’
‘Thank you.’
He took a deep breath. ‘So my question is: when I briefly left the station to get a breath of air early this morning and take a look at Colchester House for the umpteenth time, did I happen to see you emerging from the front door at around half-past six?’
Mrs Groynes smiled and blushed slightly. ‘I don’t know, dear. Did you?’
‘Yes, I did!’ he wailed. In his inexplicable anguish, he roughly undid two more buttons on his tunic. ‘Oh, Mrs G!’
‘Oh, my gawd, what’s wrong, dear? Who’s upset you? What do you want me to do about it?’ She seemed genuinely concerned.
Twitten’s face all but dissolved in misery. He had evidently been closer to his wits’ end than either of them realised (despite the clues).
‘Look. This isn’t easy for me to say, Mrs G,’ he snivelled, ‘but I saw you coming out of Colchester House this morning, and it was just the final straw for me; it was the bally final straw!’
‘Why, dear? I don’t understand.’
‘Because I had no idea why you were there!’
Mrs Groynes pulled up a chair beside his desk and put her arms round him. He did not pull away.
‘There, there,’ she said.
‘I’ve only just found out that Colchester House is significant in my inquiries, and you’re already bally living there!’
‘Oh, you poor thing,’ she said. ‘Give old Mrs Groynes a hug, then. Come on. This is the problem with your being so bleeding clever, dear; I’ve warned you, and I’ve warned you.’
‘But I need to know things like that!’ he cried. ‘If I don’t even know your connection to Colchester House, how am I ever going to solve this bally case? Is it Wall-Eye Joe that’s living there?’
She smiled. ‘No, dear. It isn’t.’
‘What?’
‘It’s the real Lord Melamine. I thought it was Wall-Eye, I grant you, but I was wrong. Even the fake gold he’s been trying to flog is the real bleeding McCoy.’
‘There are so many things going on, Mrs G! I think it might be literally impossible to sort them all out!’
‘That’s silly talk, dear. I won’t hear of it.’
‘No, but really, Mrs G, what if I’m not clever enough? You see, we’ve got not just a council conspiracy and an absconded Borough Engineer and a dead council clerk – which is one thing; but then there’s a historic sawn-up West End musical director – which is connected, I’m sure, but I don’t know how. And now this Dickie George person who went missing from the Black Cat has come up through the floor of the rock shop and been killed with a bally humbug, which I’m sure is tragic for him but even worse for me because now he can’t tell me what he knew!’
‘He was killed how, dear?’ laughed Mrs Groynes.
‘It’s not funny! None of this is funny, Mrs G!’
‘No, of course not.’ Mrs Groynes pulled a serious face, but she had rarely been more entertained. Twitten had been right. This was a demonstration of what someone at their wits’ end looked like. It was pitiful, but at the same time absolutely hilarious.
‘Mr Hastings at the sweet shop killed him with a big humbug and then immediately fled the scene of the crime, and I don’t blame him, but who’s going to look for him? Me? On top of all this?’
‘Calm down, dear.’
‘And meanwhile the inspector is completely uninterested in everything except for this bally woman Adelaide who might not be his niece, because she might not! And Sergeant Brunswick has just disappeared into the Black Cat, just disappeared. Does he not understand what going undercover means? It doesn’t mean becoming a professional trumpet player. And we’ve recovered this vital dossier, but it’s got so much in it I hardly know where to start. And then, on top of all that, to find that my arch enemy – my flipping nemesis, if you’ll pardon my language – is now popping in and out of Colchester House as if she bally owns the place! Well, it makes me so cross!’
She patted his arm.
‘You’re all worked up, dear,’ she said, kindly.
‘I know! That’s what I’m saying!’
Mrs Groynes got up and locked the door. Then she dropped the key into the pocket of her overall and came back to sit beside him. For a fleeting moment, Twitten thought she was going to calm him down for good by pulling out a gun and killing him. Unsurprisingly, the idea had quite a sobering effect.
‘Now look,’ she said. ‘I’m very sorry to see you like this. Have you got a hanky, dear?’
‘No.’ His voice was suddenly very small.
She opened her handbag and handed him a freshly ironed man’s handkerchief, monogrammed with ‘PH’.
‘I’ll explain later,’ she said. ‘Go on, have a good blow.’
He applied himself to the hanky, and then steadied his breathing. He was not unaware of the position he was in: showing his weakest side to his Great Enemy was so foolish, and yet it had seemed the natural thing to do. Where else but to Mrs G could he turn?
‘You’re being very kind, Mrs G,’ he said.
‘Well, dear, to be honest I feel some of this might be my fault.’
‘Really?’
‘Do you remember I was quite annoyed when you refused my offer of help – do you recall that, dear? The other day, when I offered a very generous mutually advantageous arrangement between us, but you got all hoity-toity about the bleeding quid pro quo?’
‘I do remember, yes.’
‘Because you see, dear, I can help you. And it seems to me that I ought to help you. Because I know things you don’t know. For example, dear, Deirdre Benson has gone missing.’
‘Oh, no.’
‘And at the Black Cat, they spotted the sergeant straight away as an imposter, because between you and me he just won’t get the shoes right ever. But the good news is that they think he’s working for Terence Chambers, so they’ll probably leave him alone. Ooh, and you’ll like this. They’re saying his trumpet solos are out of this world; they’re calling him the Harry James of the South Coast.’
Twitten managed to smile. He felt better for getting this stuff off his chest.
‘The trouble is, I can’t let you help me, Mrs Groynes,’ he said. ‘I just can’t.’ But he said it weakly, like a child protesting that it won’t go to sleep, just before it nods off.
‘Look, dear,’ she said. ‘Let’s have a nice cup of tea, and then I’ll help you sort the wood from the trees a bit, what do you say? I bet you’ve got everything you need right here – everything you need to work this out. Whoever did this horrible thing to that nice boy, we’ll get him, you mark my words.’
‘And will you tell me why you were in Colchester House with Lord Melamine, Mrs G?’
‘If it means you’ll pull yourself together, yes, I will. And if you’re a very good boy, I’ll also tell you what I’ve found out about Miss so-called Adelaide so-called Vine.’
That Inspector Steine had no doubts whatever concerning Adelaide Vine should not be surprising. He was a man with an almost superhuman capacity for accepting things at face value. He had been utterly taken in by the Panorama hoax about the bumper spaghetti harvest on the Swiss–Italian border; he had been taken in by the transparently fraudulent ooh-la-la nonsense at the Maison du Wax. He had also, let’s not forget, been taken in by Mrs Groynes the harmless cockney charlady for many years, even when (on occasion) he stumbled across her piling unexplained bags of bullion into a taxi at the back entrance of the police station.
But, in his defence, he had pretty good reasons to believe in Adelaide’s legitimacy. As far as he was concerned, no one but a member of the family could possibly know the story of his parents’ momentous meeting all those years ago in Gordon Square. As he had said to Mrs Groynes, Adelaide had even known the make of the car! Moreover, she had been extremely stand-offish with him to start with, and had actually run away from him at Victoria Station when he dared to suggest that the story meant as much to him as it did to her. But most of all, why would anyone go to such lengths to defraud him? What on earth would they have to gain?
Meeting her had been very disturbing: no wonder he had been preoccupied ever since. When he had written those chapters about his childhood for his memoir, he had hoped to dispose of many painful memories – but with the advent of Adelaide, they’d been horribly raked up again. That awful trip to Swanage when Grandfather Penrose had met them on the drive with a shotgun, refusing to let them in. That children’s Christmas party at Hammersmith Police Station that Mother had angrily dragged them away from because they were enjoying the company of ‘common’ children. The time Gillian announced firmly she would be walking backwards from now on, and kept it up for a week or more – just because the sole of her little shoe was flapping, and she wanted to keep it a secret from Mother (who, once she found out, would take it out on Father).
It was interesting that Gillian had told her daughter none of these other stories – after all, she was a year or two his senior, and more likely to remember. But as Adelaide explained to him, in that sweet, soft voice of hers: ‘If these things were painful for you, Uncle Geoffrey, they were painful for Mummy, too. That’s why she ran away from home. The only part of her family history she wanted to pass on to me was that happy day when out-of-control Bloomsbury-ites terrorised her mother and brought her parents together.’
On the morning of Twitten’s breakdown at the police station, Steine told Adelaide some news. He said he had written to his mother in Kenya.
They were breakfasting in Luigi’s, and from the way she clunked her coffee cup in her saucer, he could tell she wasn’t pleased. Those almond-shaped eyes of hers (coloured hazel) flashed with annoyance.
‘Oh, I do wish you hadn’t done that, Uncle Geoffrey,’ she said, in a reasonable tone.
‘Yes, well. I know you didn’t want me to, but it’s done now.’
‘I did ask you to wait for a bit, until – well, until after the ceremony at the wax museum. It’s only next week. I’m sure that hearing you’ve been modelled in wax would have made her so proud.’
‘How little you know of her, my dear,’ Steine said, shaking his head. ‘But on the other hand, surely she has a right to know she has such a beautiful and charming granddaughter?’
Adelaide patted her swept-up chestnut hair, as if to acknowledge the compliment. ‘Oh, Uncle Geoffrey.’
She finished her coffee. She needed to go; Phyllis, who had been away for a few days, would be waiting on the corner.
‘Well, off to the fray, I suppose. By the way, my solicitor in London needs to talk to you about that will of Mummy’s. It’s a bore, but he says now you’ve turned up it’s possible you’ll be getting everything instead of me, so I might have to stay a humble Brighton Belle forever!’
‘What? But that’s terrible, Adelaide. I would never allow that.’
‘He thinks there’s a way round it, if you’re agreeable. Actually, now I think of it, he said he could meet you today – this morning, even – as he happens to be in Brighton.’
‘Of course. I can see him whenever you like.’
‘Good. I’ll telephone his office now and find out where he is.’ She smiled. ‘I’ve always wondered, Uncle Geoffrey. Do letters take long to reach a place like Kenya?’
‘About a week, I think.’
‘And the same for a reply to come back?’
‘I suppose so, yes.’
Adelaide buttoned up her jacket and prepared to leave.
‘Have you been to Kenya yourself?’
‘Yes, once. A few years ago. But I’d rather not talk about it.’
‘Why? What happened?’
‘Well, if you must know, there was an accident.’
He squirmed.
‘Look, I accidentally shot dead the man my mother was in love with. But in my defence, he was lurking in some undergrowth wearing an old animal hide at the time – playing at Tarzan, apparently – it was entirely his own silly fault.’
With difficulty, Adelaide kept a straight face, but anyone better than Inspector Steine at reading expressions would have noticed the way her lips twitched and her eyes danced as she struggled to remain solemn.
‘What a terrible story,’ she squeaked, turning a laugh into a little cough.
‘Mother was inconsolable, of course. She’s never forgiven me. But then, when I think back, I don’t think she’s ever forgiven anyone for anything. Not even Virginia Woolf.’ He thought about what he had said. ‘Actually, I’m not sure I forgive Virginia Woolf completely either.’
Twitten was feeling better. He had not only drunk a restorative cup of tea, but also washed his face and done up his buttons. Ethically, he was very uncomfortable about accepting help from a villainess who could lock a door and pocket the key in such a sinister manner (and who, in his experience, had no qualms about murder). But pragmatism enters all our lives at some point or other, and today it was entering his.
‘Now, that’s better, dear,’ she said, when he returned from the lavatory. ‘You look much more like your usual annoying clever-clogs self.’
‘Thank you very much for saying so, Mrs G.’
‘So, I’ve been thinking about the killing of this Dupont,’ she said. ‘And I think your main mistake, dear, is that you’ve allowed motive to be your main concern at the expense of method. In short, you’ve neglected to think about the manner in which this particular murder was done, dear.’
‘You mean, the actual throat-slitting?’
‘Precisely. Throat-slitting in broad daylight, with potentially hundreds of witnesses. I mean, let’s look at that list of suspects of yours.’
Twitten handed her a sheet of paper headed ‘Suspects’. It said, at the top, THE BENSONS, and then underneath, in smaller letters: Frank Benson, Bruce Benson, Ma Benson. It was a very short list.
‘Just all the Bensons, then,’ she said.
‘They’ve got so many reasons, Mrs G. One: Peter Dupont knew about Kenneth. Two: he was taking Deirdre away. And three: he knew about them bribing the council.’
‘But you see this is what I’m talking about, dear. They might have had reasons, but be sensible: people like the bleeding Bensons don’t go about slitting people’s gizzards in public in broad daylight.’
‘Don’t they?’
‘Of course not. They lure you up an alley at midnight and pump you full of lead. I mean, maybe occasionally they’d opt for hit-and-run, but – ’ here Mrs Groynes, with head on one side, considered the running-over method ‘ – well, you see, speaking as a professional, running people over is messy, dear, because the daft sods often sprint off when they spot you coming; and even when you hit them bang, straight on, it’s not a hundred per cent if you don’t get the speed right. No, midnight up an alley, that’s the best. Then shooting if you don’t care who hears; stabbing or garrotting if you do. Do you see? No, I think you’ve got to cross off the Bensons, dear. Trust me, it wasn’t them.’
Twitten reluctantly took the sheet from her. It was hard to let go of an idea he’d treasured since Day One.
‘Tear it up, dear. Go on.’
Sulkily, he obeyed, and put the pieces in the metal waste-bin.
‘You’ll be telling me next that they didn’t kill Uncle Kenneth,’ he muttered, petulantly.
‘Good point, dear. Nor did they.’
‘Oh, come on, Mrs Groynes, you can’t say they didn’t kill Kenneth. I heard Deirdre tell Peter that they did! I heard it with my own ears!’
‘Well, this is only a theory. But I reckon I know who was really behind that.’
‘Who?’
‘Terence Chambers.’
‘Chambers?’
‘Yes, dear. Legendary criminal and my own erstwhile – how can I put this? – inamorato.’
Twitten frowned. ‘Why would Terence Chambers kill Deirdre’s Uncle Kenneth?’
‘As a warning, dear! To keep the Bensons in line. Blimey, Terry’s done that sort of thing a dozen times. He’ll have sent them the head, you see, as a nice little present. And then he’s left the torso in the suitcase at the station covered in clues, so the whole world knows he’s got the Bensons in his pocket.’
‘So you think Deirdre perhaps saw the head and got the wrong end of the stick?’
Mrs Groynes nodded firmly. ‘Absolutely, dear. Well done.’
This was all fascinating to Twitten. Much as he liked to work things out for himself, he was also fully prepared to rethink a case entirely if presented with new information. In fact, he enjoyed it. He just would have preferred it if the new information didn’t keep coming from Mrs Palmeira ‘Nemesis’ Groynes.
‘What’s Terence Chambers’s interest in the Bensons, then? Why does he want them in his pocket?’
‘Well, wouldn’t I like to know! I’ve had a man inside that club from the very start, hoping to find out.’ She lowered her voice. ‘There’s a cellar by all accounts, dear, but so far no one knows what goes on in it.’
At the mention of a cellar, Twitten brightened. Peter Dupont’s dossier had pointed him towards the underground polygonal room that was formerly in the grounds of Colchester House. Was it still there? Was it perhaps the cause of the drain smell? Was it to protect the unknown contents of this secret subterranean room that key people at the council were bribed in such an extravagant fashion never to investigate the drains or allow the development of Colchester House? Good heavens. This felt like a significant breakthrough.
‘I can hear the cogs whirring,’ said Mrs Groynes, kindly.
‘Sorry, Mrs G. But this is bally exciting.’
‘Well, I’m pleased to hear it.’
‘Thank you.’ He remembered his manners. ‘This is very good of you, Mrs G.’
‘Oh, you just needed a fresh eye on it, that’s all. But back to the murder of Peter Dupont. There’s something else telling you that the murderer didn’t give a hoot about his investigation of the council stuff: after doing the deed, he put the dossier in that old holdall and left it at the railway station, full of incriminating evidence, instead of destroying it, do you see?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘So I reckon you can narrow it right down, dear. By the method, this is either someone with military training, or a very, very hardened criminal. As for motive, my money’s on it being personal. It was brutal and it was bleeding reckless. So I reckon it was someone who was in love with Deirdre himself and couldn’t bear to see her go off with a boy – especially a weedy one. Who else was soft on her, do you know? Anyone a bit muscly?’
Twitten’s eyes widened. The words ‘soft on her’ rang a definite bell. It was a phrase Peter had used a few times in his notebooks in relation to other men who knew Deirdre. He thought back to what he’d read.
‘Well, Dickie George the singer. Dupont said he was very soft on her.’
‘No. He was just very soft, poor bloke. I bet he wouldn’t know one end of a shiv from another.’
‘Then if memory serves there was someone called “Drumsticks Tommy”.’
She laughed. ‘No. Drumsticks wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t dare.’
Twitten searched his memory. ‘I’m sure there were more,’ he said. ‘I’ll look again. But the thing about Deirdre, Mrs G, is that she seems to make everyone want to protect her, so although I like your theory, it doesn’t narrow it down very much.’
Mrs Groynes had a little think, and then smiled. ‘Well, how about this, then? If you can’t work it out that way, how about a stratagem? You take that holdall back to the Left Luggage office.’
‘Why?’
‘Listen and I’ll tell you. You take it back to Left Luggage and you get your pet Argus bloke to write a story saying that the mighty brains at Brighton Constabulary blah blah are searching high and low for the package of papers stolen from Peter Dupont blah blah – because they have reason to believe that the identity of Peter Dupont’s murderer is indicated in those papers. You could even offer a reward. Then you stake out the Left Luggage office and wait to see who panics and collects it, dear!’
‘That’s jolly devious, Mrs G.’
‘I know. I can’t help it.’
‘It pains me to say this, but you’re a bally genius.’
‘Oh, go on. But I bet it works, dear. Whoever collects that holdall, that’s your man.’
Back at Colchester House, at eight o’clock, Captain Hoagland opened the wardrobe in his attic bedroom and found that the clothes he’d been wearing the previous day had already been hung up neatly on his behalf by a feminine hand. The discovery made him dizzy.
Sitting down on the bed, he considered the implications. It was of course a positive thing: on the basis of one night together, Palmeira was displaying considerate – even wifely – virtues. Perhaps this was her way of telling him that – this time – she wouldn’t let him get away.
But the idea of her seeing inside his wardrobe seriously troubled him.
‘Mrs Rogers?’ he said. The housekeeper had appeared suddenly at his bedroom door, somewhat breathless, having run up four flights of stairs.
‘His lordship needs you in the morning room,’ she panted. ‘He seems upset!’
‘At once,’ he said, but as he closed the wardrobe door on his suits and old uniforms, he still looked thoughtful.
‘Look at this, Hoagy,’ Melamine said, holding out a sheet of paper as his two trusty staff members approached. ‘You can stay, Mrs Rogers,’ he added, seeing her hesitate at the threshold. ‘We have no secrets from you.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ she said, pulling a face. She was trying (in vain) to assume an expression slightly less of open-mouthed excitement, more of worried concern. Things had certainly looked up for Mrs Rogers since the arrival of Lord Melamine. Life had never before been packed with so much incident.
‘What is it, sir?’ said Hoagland.
‘Take a look.’
Hoagland took the paper and read it.
‘Oh, no. I’m sorry, sir.’
‘Yes, it’s extortion.’
‘Oh, no!’ moaned Mrs Rogers in sympathy. Then, confused, ‘Is that like blackmail?’
‘It’s just what I was fearful of,’ Melamine went on. ‘Someone threatening to tell that murderous pair where you are. Damn!’
Mrs Rogers’s heart went out to both of them. But what could she do?
‘Can you start packing things up, please, Mrs Rogers?’ said Melamine. ‘And, Hoagy, how soon can you have the car ready?’
‘You’re leaving?’ said Mrs Rogers, with emotion.
‘No choice, I’m afraid.’
‘But I’ll miss you!’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I’ve been here on my own all these years! I thought you might stay – at least until the house was pulled down! That’s why I hoped they’d agree to it.’
‘I know. I’m sorry. But I can’t think of anything else we can do, not now. Captain Hoagland, can you think of anything?’
‘Do think, Captain Hoagland,’ urged Mrs Rogers.
‘Well,’ said Hoagland, thoughtfully. ‘I suppose I could telephone Palmeira. I know it sounds ridiculous, but in a situation like this she might know exactly what to do.’
Steine’s meeting with Adelaide’s solicitor turned out to be very brisk and straightforward. After a telephone call to arrange things, they met at the Windsor Hotel in Russell Place, just a few doors away from the Maison du Wax. The solicitor said he’d met another client there the night before and was glad to see Steine at such short notice as he was planning to catch the Victoria train in half an hour, so he hoped Miss Vine had explained everything thoroughly already.
‘This will only take a few moments, actually,’ the man said. He had a bright and businesslike manner. ‘Now, did you remember to bring a copy of your will as I asked you?’
Steine handed it over for inspection.
‘And you don’t mind my keeping this for a few days?’
Steine frowned. ‘Oh. Is that necessary?’
The solicitor shrugged. ‘Not at all, Inspector, if you’d rather not. But I assumed you were here because you wanted to help Miss Vine, and not cause further delay. If I can press on straight away, and avoid chancery – well, you know how preferable that would be!’
He laughed, as if Steine would know precisely what he was talking about. Steine, mystified, laughed too.
‘Then of course you must take it,’ he said. ‘But look after it. That’s the only copy.’
The solicitor placed Steine’s will in a briefcase. Then he consulted the clock on the wall. He was evidently worried about that train. He stood up. Steine politely stood up too.
‘Is that it? Didn’t you want me to sign something?’
‘Of course, I nearly forgot.’
The solicitor withdrew a couple of legal-looking documents from his bag.
‘I must say, Inspector, this must all be a lovely surprise for you. Miss Vine is such a charming girl. To tell you the truth, I’m quite smitten.’
He riffled through the documents to find the relevant pages.
‘So if you would just sign here and here, I’ll witness your signature and take my leave.’
Steine obeyed. He was very conscious of the time.
‘I hope you’ve got your ticket already?’ he said, as the solicitor quickly scrawled his name.
‘Thank you, I have.’
The man took a quick look at the signatures and bundled the documents back into his briefcase, then offered his hand for shaking. And before Steine could utter the word goodbye, he had grabbed his hat and raincoat and bolted for the door.
Twitten sat in Ben Oliver’s office at the Argus, waiting for news. He was very agitated. Just a couple of hours ago, he had been seriously wondering whether Dupont’s murderer would get away with it (not to mention bawling like a baby on Mrs Groynes’s shoulder). But now things were moving quickly. If the Argus editor agreed to it, this afternoon’s paper would ‘splash’ the story of the missing dossier. By the time the Left Luggage office closed tonight, the culprit might be known.
Other stuff was speeding up too. It had been a packed morning – and it was still not eleven o’clock!
First: there had been a telephone call from Angélique at the Maison du Wax saying that Inspector Steine’s wax model was unexpectedly ready ahead of schedule and was such an absolument triumph that they would like to invite the inspector for a private viewing this very afternoon. (Twitten considered explaining that ‘absolument’ was an adverb, but decided against it.)
Then: Dupont’s aunt in Eastbourne had replied to Twitten’s letter, claiming to have information possibly relevant to the case. (Twitten resolved to make a visit to her as soon as possible, once the stake-out operation was over.)
Then: just as Mrs Groynes was about to explain her intimate connection to Colchester House, she’d been interrupted by a distressing phone call from someone she addressed as ‘Hoagy’ – presumably Captain Hoagland, the valet who had been so helpful to Dupont. Was he the ‘PH’ of the handkerchief?
‘I can’t lose you again, Hoagy,’ she had said, rather melodramatically. ‘I’ll help you, whatever it takes.’ (Twitten felt he was missing a big personal story here, but what with other matters pressing, it would have to wait.)
And on top of all this: Phyllis had asked for Twitten to call on her at the Belles’ digs, because she’d remembered something about the day of the murder. (Twitten wondered why she couldn’t bally well tell him on the telephone, but was too polite to say so. He had no idea that Phyllis had found him very attractive, and wanted an excuse to see him in person again.)
All of these urgent matters Twitten had left behind to race to the Argus office before half-past ten with the phoney news-story idea.
‘We can do it!’
Ben Oliver flung open the door. He was very excited, too. ‘The editor’s main objection was that Inspector Steine ought to be the person sanctioning this, so I said if it went well, you’d be happy to give Inspector Steine the entire credit. You don’t mind, do you? If we keep your name out of it?’
‘Not at all. I think that’s bally clever. It might even save me my job.’
‘Good. So, if all goes to plan, and nothing bigger comes up, the story of the missing dossier will be the splash in the three o’clock edition. We’ll have our best long-lens snapper positioned in the news-stand opposite the Left Luggage office from the minute the paper hits the streets, to take the incriminating picture when Mr X comes out with that bag.’
‘Right.’
‘Old Ted reckons he can manage not to give the game away.’
‘Good.’
‘You might have to wait out of sight, so Mr X doesn’t spot the uniform.’
‘Right.’
‘Or indeed that very noticeable helmet.’
‘Of course, yes.’
‘And I’ll pretend to be buying fruit. I’ll get a good view from there.’
‘Excellent.’
‘Might you need a few other policemen to help with the actual arrest?’
‘Well, I don’t think I can ask for any without authorisation so we might have to manage between us. After all, I’ve got handcuffs, and a whistle … ’ He trailed off.
Oliver seemed puzzled by Twitten’s flat tones. ‘Aren’t you excited, Constable Twitten?’
‘Well, I am, yes. Gosh, yes.’ He grimaced. ‘But, you see, Mr Oliver, there are any number of ways in which this could spell the end of my police career, and I’m only twenty-two. So I can’t quite give way to outright excitement right now.’
‘Oh, nonsense. They’ll promote you after this.’
‘On top of which, there’s something else.’
‘What?’
‘You might not understand.’
‘Try me.’
‘It’s this ruse. All this clever flushing out. It feels a bit like cheating.’
‘Cheating? When it will mean flushing out a brutal murderer?’
‘Yes. I know it’s silly, but it feels underhanded to me. I’d so much rather have worked out in the proper way who the murderer bally well was, and then gone and arrested him!’