‘On our short list of suspects, or shall we call them dubious persons,’ Inspector Hyde was saying, ‘we still have only one Volkswagen owner, and so far no one who wears his or her watch on the inside of the wrist.’ He poured some more coffee into Holt’s cup. ‘You’re quite sure about Professor Dalesford?’
Holt grunted an affirmative, his mouth full of toast. He was taking a late breakfast in his hotel room. He was dressed, for after allowing himself only a few hours of sleep he had already made one trip that morning. ‘Dalesford seems to be in the clear. When I saw him up at the College this morning I made an excuse to ask him the time. He produced a whacking great pocket watch – half-hunters, I believe they call them, don’t they? Julie Benson’s in the clear too. She’s got a tiny platinum model, worn in the normal way on the outside of her wrist.’
‘I see. How is she today? Fully recovered from yesterday’s fainting fit?’
‘It seems so. She’s even agreed to have lunch with me.’
‘Oh? Where?’
‘Here in Eastbourne, at a place called The Golden Peacock. She didn’t seem very keen on my choice of restaurant – said it’s terribly expensive – but I thought it might be interesting to take a look around the place where that French student says he saw Vance Scranton.’
‘Quite so,’ Hyde murmured. ‘And over lunch you’ll show her the signet ring and evaluate her reactions, I shouldn’t wonder. I wish I could be there, hidden under the table or something! This ring could be devilish important. Curly thought it important or he’d never have mentioned it, Christopher referred to it with invisible ink on a postcard; Miss Sheen decided to hand it over to you.’ The Inspector shifted in his chair and addressed Ruth, who was standing at the window, apparently admiring the view of the sea. ‘You’re quite sure Antoinette doesn’t wear a largish gold watch on the inside of her wrist, Ruth?’
‘Dead certain,’ was the reply. Whilst Holt had been at the College she had visited the salmon-pink bungalow. Sure that Antoinette would recognise her, Ruth had decided not to attempt any disguise. She had simply knocked on the door, announced that she was Philip Holt’s secretary, and asked if she could use the telephone. She told Antoinette that Philip had sent her into East Dean to collect the Mustang from the garage, but as it was still having paint sprayed on its damaged mudguard she would not be able to drive it back as planned. Antoinette had proved unexpectedly obliging and insisted on driving Ruth back to Eastbourne herself in her green Mini Minor. With Antoinette’s hands resting on the steering wheel for the best part of fifteen minutes it had not been difficult for Ruth to see that she wore no wristwatch at all.
‘That doesn’t prove much, unfortunately,’ Hyde pointed out when Ruth had finished her explanation. ‘It doesn’t mean she never wears a watch at all.’
‘No, but she’s still got a glorious sun tan!’ Ruth said enviously. If she normally wears a watch there’d almost certainly be a tell-tale patch of white on her wrist.’
Hyde was impressed by her perception. So was Holt, but he made no comment.
Hyde began to pace the room. ‘Holt, there’s one aspect of your midnight adventure that I don’t quite understand. This arm that reached out above your head and closed the shutters – surely you could tell if it was male or female? I mean, the clothing, for one thing – and surely women’s watches are generally much smaller than men’s?’
‘Yes, usually,’ Ruth put in, ‘but some girls are wearing man-sized watches, you know. It’s a fashion gimmick.’
‘It all happened so quickly I’m not prepared to be too adamant,’ Holt admitted. ‘The watch had a gold metal strap and the face was rather on the small side for a regular man’s watch, but rather larger than the majority of women wear. As for the clothing … well, it seemed to be some kind of knitted garment like a long-sleeved pullover or cardigan; it was the sort of thing both sexes wear nowadays. No, the only two things which might lead us somewhere were that bit of newspaper that fell out of the Art book—’
‘I’m anxious to see what the labs make of that. I’ll have it sent up to Town straightaway,’ Hyde assured him.
‘—and the absolutely undeniable sound of a Volkswagen engine. Two slender threads of totally unconnected information in return for an uncomfortable night’s work. When Dalesford let me into Vance’s study this morning I couldn’t see that a single thing had been touched. I can only assume that whatever was lugged about in that bumping sack either didn’t belong to the room in the first place or else had been replaced before I got there today.’
‘Whoever it was had a key to the Scholars’ Row entrance door. Dalesford and Julie Benson are the most obvious, of course, but on the other hand … How about the shutters – were they still bolted?’
‘Yes. The Professor explained it as a necessary security precaution, until the room is re-occupied.’
Hyde nodded thoughtfully. ‘M’m … that seems reasonable enough on the face of it, I suppose – except for the fact that they were still open at a time when the rest of the College had presumably been checked and locked up for the night. Either Dalesford knows who closed those shutters and is covering up, or—’
‘Or maybe the man who was supposed to bolt them simply forgot to do it!’ said Ruth. ‘Dalesford would never know the difference, so long as he found them shut when he went to the study in the morning.’
‘Yes, absolutely,’ agreed Hyde. ‘It could be as simple as that … I’ll have a word with the caretaker about it. Meanwhile, we’re left with the gold watch worn on the inside of the wrist, and someone who owns or drives a Volkswagen … Let’s tot up the score again, as far as we know it: Antoinette possesses a Mini Minor and no watch; Professor Dalesford has a half-hunter and no car – he’s rather bitter about it, as he is about many things. Julie Benson runs a Vespa and wears a small platinum watch in the normal way. Nobody seems to remember what sort of watch Vance Scranton wore. He used to drive a Triumph Spitfire, but he seems to have sold it some weeks ago. Which leaves us with Jimmy Wade, whose taste in watches is, for the moment, unknown—’
‘But whose taste in cars is definitely known,’ Ruth butted in, turning from the window. ‘He’s just driven up to the hotel this very minute.’
‘In his Volkswagen?’ Hyde asked quietly.
‘Yes.’
Holt pushed his breakfast tray to one side and joined Ruth at the window. ‘As you once pointed out, it’s an atrocious shade of blue.’
Hyde asked, ‘Is he alone?’
A stout man got out of the passenger seat, bade farewell to Wade, and hurried off.
‘No. He appears to have given a lift to Abe Jenkins.’
‘Are they coming in?’
‘Wade is. Jenkins has departed.’
The Inspector stood up and made for the door. ‘Then I think I’ll make myself scarce. Nobody knows I’m down here yet, so it must be you he’s calling on.’
Just before he closed the door Hyde put his head round the corner and said, ‘Don’t forget to ask Mr Wade what time it is …’
Holt’s luncheon with Julie Benson at The Golden Peacock went better than he had expected. Until he could tactfully steer the conversation round to matters of import he had not really known what to talk about. Julie very soon provided the answer.
‘Is it true that you’re a famous fashion photographer, Mr Holt?’ she asked eagerly.
Holt sipped his Noilly Prat and smiled. ‘I do some fashion work now and then, as well as feature-essays, commercial stuff, and just about anything that’ll turn an honest penny. But my principle activity is portraits.’
‘It must be lovely to be in the fashion trade. I’ve often thought I’d like to be a model.’
Inwardly Holt sighed. Practically every slim blonde in Great Britain between the ages of thirteen and thirty seemed to want to become a model. He let Julie chatter on, and fed her an occasional bit of professional gossip to keep her happy. Only once did the conversation veer towards Vance Scranton, but she was obviously loath to discuss him, beyond expressing the hope that he might really still be alive. Abe Jenkins’ newspaper article seemed to have been responsible for this hope – not her brother-in-law’s claim to have seen Vance in the Underground. Wade’s pretext for calling at the hotel – he was in the area on business, he had said – was to confide to Holt that he had not mentioned the incident to Julie. It was kinder not to raise the girl’s hopes too soon, he felt.
It was towards the end of an excellent lunch, when she gave the appearance of being completely relaxed and at ease with him, that Holt began to apply the pressure.
‘Tell me, Julie, if the world of fashion calls, won’t Professor Dalesford be desolate to lose such an efficient secretary?’
She gave a tiny chuckle. ‘Oh, he’d easily manage without me. There really isn’t all that much to do up there anyway. I sometimes think he only keeps a secretary for prestige.’
The remark was quite shrewd, Holt thought.
‘I should have thought there’d have been a lot of typing to do,’ he said. ‘His lecture material, courses of study, and his Prospero articles …’
There was a pause and he thought he detected a slight flush of uneasiness on the girl’s face.
‘Oh, those. Well …’
Holt said smoothly, ‘Or does Miss Sheen deliver them ready typed, to save you the bother?’
‘Miss Sheen? I … I don’t quite see what Miss Sheen has to do with it …’
‘Julie, I’ll be quite frank with you. I happen to know that she writes the Professor’s articles for him. And, of course, you know that. I also happen to think that you were counting on this fact reaching the light of day sooner or later, when you wrote that accusation in green ink on the New Feature and sent it to the Savoy.’
‘Mr Holt, I really don’t know what you’re talking about!’
‘Nonsense! Scotland Yard has taken specimens of your handwriting and compared them with the words written under the Prospero article. But it wasn’t the Professor you were aiming at, was it? – although you don’t particularly like him. It was Antoinette you had your knife into. Why? Plain jealousy, because she stole Vance from you? Or do you really know something – are you concealing some facts which the police ought to know?’
The girl had turned very pale and now sat stiffly in her chair, toying with her coffee spoon. Holt was astonished at the change which had come over her. Quite clearly he read in her eyes a debate: whether or not to deny that she had written the Prospero note. He saw her reject this tactic and take up the challenge of his frontal attack. The fluffy little blonde had become a hard, calculating, self-possessed young woman. ‘You disappoint me, Mr Holt. I did hope you might prove to be different from all the others.’
‘Different? In what way?’
‘I’d hoped your line of work and your experience might have made you immune to the sex tricks of a creature like Antoinette Sheen. But apparently not. You men are all the same! That woman has only to wiggle her hips and blink her false eyelashes and every male within miles goes completely ga-ga. She’s hypnotised you! You can’t see straight any more, you can’t see her for what she really is!’
‘And what’s that, may I ask?’
‘A monster! A ruthless, perverse, hypocritical nymphomaniac … a Hydra … a whore …’
Holt let Julie empty her vocabulary, inwardly marvelling at the youngster’s range of adjectives and the extent of her spite. The outburst revealed far more about the girl herself than the woman she was reviling. Eventually Julie calmed down and began listing the number of men with whom Antoinette was said to have had affairs. It was quite a list. Holt tried, with difficulty, to get a word in edgeways.
‘I must tell you, Miss Benson, she hasn’t seduced me yet.’
‘She will! Just give her time!’ Julie stared round the restaurant as if seeking tangible victims of Antoinette’s sex appeal. A gleam of triumph lit up her eyes. ‘Look over there! Do you see those two men standing by the cash desk? The one with the fair hair is French, his name’s Henri Legere. He’s the current paramour. As usual, he’s nearly a decade younger than she is.’
Holt recognised Legere, the young man who thought he had seen Vance. ‘Can you catch his eye?’ he asked quickly. ‘I rather want to talk to him.’
‘He’s already seen us. He’s coming over.’
‘And who’s the distinguished looking fellow he was talking to – the one who’s just about to leave?’
‘That’s Ashley Milton. He owns this place.’
‘M’m … I wish I’d had a chance to ask him who his tailor is,’ Holt murmured appreciatively.
Henri Legere reached their table, bowed low, and offered his hand to Holt. ‘Bonjour, Monsieur Holt.’
The two men shook hands in the formal Continental style.
To Julie he offered only half a bow and a guarded smile.
‘Good morning, Monsieur Legere,’ said Holt. ‘Have you seen anyone interesting lately?’
‘No, I regret to say I have not. I would surely have contacted you had there been any further news.’
‘I see. There’s something I meant to ask you yesterday when we talked about your friend Vance Scranton. When the two of you were together, did you you speak in English or in French?’
Legere looked puzzled. ‘I don’t think I quite understand … English, of course. Vance was an American, I do not think he knew more than five words of my native tongue. If he did he certainly could not pronounce them.’
Both men laughed and, persuading Henri to take a vacant chair at their table, Holt signalled a waiter for more coffee.
When it was brought Holt dipped a hand into his jacket pocket and without a word of warning produced Vance Scranton’s signet ring. His gaze flickered from Henri to Julie and back again as he placed the ring on a plate in the centre of the table.
The two young people gasped.
Holt said evenly, ‘Can either of you tell me whose ring this is?’
‘It belonged to Vance,’ said Legere promptly. As he reached over to pick up the ring his shirt cuff slipped back to reveal a man’s watch of silver and steel on a black leather strap.
‘How did it get into your hands?’ Julie demanded.
‘I’m afraid I can’t answer that, for the time being, at any rate,’ Holt replied.
She laid a hand impulsively on his sleeve. ‘Mr Holt, can I have it? Please. Let me have the ring as a keepsake. I’d like to have something that belonged to him; I’ve got nothing to remember him by. He’d have wanted me to have it, I’m sure …’
Holt pounced upon her words. ‘A moment ago you were quite prepared to believe that Vance is alive. Now you talk of him in the past tense as though he were dead.’
‘Oh no, I mean … It’s just that … Oh dear, you’re getting me all confused … Oh, look!’ she said with sudden relief. ‘There’s Jimmy!’
Jimmy Wade was entering the restaurant, his face wreathed in a mixture of smiles which managed to convey delight at seeing them and enxiety that he might be intruding. He bustled over to their table.
‘I trust you’ll forgive me if I’m disturbing you,’ he began. Then, addressing Julie, ‘As you told me you were lunching with Mr Holt I thought I might drop by and pick you up. If your Vespa is still out of action, dear, I expect you’d like a lift up to the College?’
Julie nodded, a trifle uncertainly.
Henri Legere said, jokingly, ‘She could always sit on the rear of my bicycle.’
‘You ride a bicycle, do you?’ Holt said casually. ‘How do you like riding “on the wrong side of the road”?’
‘It is terrible! But it is even worse with a car.’
‘Oh, do you run a car as well?’
‘No, but occasionally Mr Wade allows me to borrow his. He is very generous and lends it to just anybody who asks.’
Holt’s brain raced in top gear. Jimmy Wade had passed the watch test before lunch; the reference to the car offered an unexpected opportunity. He seized it and went on gently probing. ‘It’s a very generous man who lends his car, Mr Wade. Had I known you were here last night I might have thrown myself on your mercy – my own chariot’s under repair.’
‘I’m afraid you’d have been unlucky, great as the pleasure would have been,’ Wade responded, his india-rubber face signalling thwarted good intentions. ‘My car had already been borrowed.’
Holt’s heart leapt. ‘Really?’ he began, but to his immense annoyance the line of enquiry was terminated abruptly by Legere, whose action in replacing the signet ring on the plate instantly caught Wade’s full attention.
‘Good gracious me!’ he twittered, swooping on it with one of his incredibly swift, bird-like movements. ‘Forgive me for saying so, but isn’t this Vance’s ring?’
‘You recognise it?’ Holt said.
‘I do indeed. Julie dear, do you remember that time when you brought Vance to visit us at Honor Oak and I pulled his leg about having the dollar sign on his ring?’
She managed a nod and a thin smile. ‘I remember.’
Wade chuckled. ‘He didn’t take kindly to my mild witticism, did he?’
‘By all accounts he wasn’t blessed with a very great sense of humour,’ observed Holt.
Julie flushed with annoyance at the criticism. She stood up and said it was time for her to report back on duty at the College.
Jimmy Wade made a rush towards the coat-stand, beating Legere by a short head, whilst Holt pocketed the ring and went to the cash desk to pay his bill. The three men exchanged pleasantries about the size of this bill – The Golden Peacock was by no means cheap – and then strolled back to the table together.
To Holt’s surprise, Julie had been joined by a stranger. It was the tall, distinguished looking man in the well-cut suit whom they had seen talking to Legere earlier on.
Julie introduced him. ‘Ashley, this is Mr Philip Holt.’
Ashley Milton offered a slender hand. ‘Ah, the famous society photographer.’ He spoke in a weary drawl. ‘It’s an honour to have you eat at my humble restaurant, Mr Holt. I trust you fared well?’
‘We had an excellent meal, thank you,’ Holt answered shortly. He found the man’s manner irritating; it was faintly patronising.
Jimmy Wade finished his task of helping Julie into her coat and was now trying to catch Milton’s eye. The latter seemed in no hurry to greet either Wade or the Frenchman, and a petulant expression crossed his lengthy features when Wade finally managed to address him.
‘If you’ll forgive my mentioning it, Milton old chap, you haven’t returned my spare car keys yet, you know.’
‘Oh – how beastly careless of me!’ Milton fished languidly in the trouser pocket of his beautifully tailored suit and produced a broad flat car key on a small chain. Holt could read the emblem of the car’s brand name quite clearly. Cut into the key’s form were the letters ‘V W’.
Milton then turned to Holt. In an exaggerated movement he stretched out his left arm and crooked it in order to look at a gold watch on the inside of his wrist.
He said in his bored vocal slouch, ‘Holt, you don’t by any chance happen to have a few moments to spare, I suppose?’
‘I think I can manage that,’ Holt answered steadily.