the purloined parure 10

 

Chapter 10

 

“Yessir,” said Munday. “Freddy drifted into the Penny Flyer pub, in Ealing, and talked to a couple of individuals known as ‘Pooch’ Robson and ‘Odds’ Pleasance. They’re involved in illegal dog racing. Freddy disappeared in a car with three or four other people at the pub. I couldn’t find out where it was, but that sort of thing goes on all afternoon and evening.”

“And criminalises something the working man enjoys to satisfy the narrow moral opinions of a minority. I realise why we have licensing laws, it was to make sure people on the production lines building shells and the like weren’t drunk and risking the lives of our lads in France, but you know what? As far as I can see, the average man sees the licensing laws as a way of jamming as much drinking as he would do over a whole day into the hours when the pubs are open, which means worse intoxication, and a greater chance of accidents at work or on the roads.”

“You don’t see me arguing, sir,” said Munday.

“Well, what can we poor coppers do about the great and the good, eh?” said Alexander. “Still, at least we haven’t gone for anything as stupid as the Volstead Act.”

“It’ll come back to haunt them,” agreed Munday. “But I’m sorry I lost them.”

“No, no, you did well, and explained why Freddy refused to name anyone and said he’d made a promise. But if he won’t co-operate with me, I can release him after his forty-eight hours are up, and re-arrest him on grounds of being involved. Now, what did Mary mean by ‘all’ rather than ‘both?’

Munday went dull red.

“Well, I tracked down Mr. Eric’s movements, too,” he said. “He did go to see Peter Pan, and picked up the ice-cream girl, but he left her flat at around one ack-emma not two.”

“Well, now, that’s interesting,” said Alexander. “Again, though, I somehow doubt he would have had time to torture and kill his cousin.”

“Nosir, but he might have had time to meet with anyone he had hired to do so,” said Munday.

“He might,” said Alexander. “Too many loose ends and spare time.  Very well, lad, you’ve done well; same night, see if you can track down a pair of minors on the razzle, in night clubs and jazz bars. Very difficult, very unlikely. Here... I’m not an artist like my fiancée and her brother, but hold this photo up against the window... Eric is the closest.”  He put a piece of paper over Eric’s face to trace the salient points,  and took two likenesses, then added Charley’s untidy, too-long hair over the  first face, and Joseph’s schoolboy cut on the second.

“Yessir!” said Munday, galloping out.

 

oOoOo

 

Alexander spent the evening at the Kensington House Hotel, where he dined with Ida, and spent a long  time outlining exactly what he wanted from her on the morrow.

“And a bit more to see if anyone speaks up about now it looks certain that the old lady was poisoned,” said Alexander.

“What are we going to do about raising the hopes of these poor people?” asked Ida.

“Pay them a week’s wages for their trouble,” said Alexander. “I suspect it will be Gladys and Campbell who get the most out of them, in common gossip, but you never know.”

“It won’t do me any harm to practise interviewing staff for when we get married, and to help with police work, too,” said Ida.

“You’re a good girl. I know you’re shy.”

“But I want to help you, more than I’m shy,” said Ida.

He left her with a lingering kiss, and made sure to make enough noise to disturb Gladys and Campbell, who were having a cuddle in the back seat of the car.

“Back to the flat,” he said to Campbell.

“The place you ’ope they haven’t got people lurking to do you over, because you fink they’re gwine to blame Freddy,” said Campbell.

“That’s right,” said Alexander. Campbell sighed, and manoeuvred the car through narrow streets to the garage at the eastern far end of Gower Mews. The garage had once been a stable, and the rooms above it store for grain and housing for stablehands.  Alexander liked his small space, but was considering purchasing the apartment next to his, to have married quarters in London, if it came up for sale. It was not the most salubrious part of Bloomsbury; his own apartment backed onto commercial buildings, and the north side of the mews was slum property, though there were rumours that it was to be done up to raise the tone of the area.

Alexander waited for Campbell to follow him in the narrow door by the garage door, and ran up and down the first stair quite noisily for the count of thirteen stairs to the first floor. Then he went up the stairs on his elbows.

He came upright, and felt round the door into his kitchen-sitting room to turn on the light, dropping immediately to a squat. He walked forward in the squat, something which impressed Campbell. The breakfast bar which separated the small kitchenette at the back from the living room at the front concealed nobody.

Silently Alexander signalled to Campbell to watch the stairs up to the upper level as he opened the door to the space under the stairs, which provided a toilet and washbasin.  Then he went up the second set of stairs on his elbows, and the same trick to turn on the light in the bedroom. With Campbell back to back with him, Alexander circled the bed, opened the large closet, and the door to the bathroom, a room which extended over the bottom of the stairs.

Nobody was lurking.

“Awrright, major, you does know ’ow to be cautious,” said Campbell. “Good job the doors was open.”

“I left them open on purpose and next time I leave the place I will do the same with the closet, bathroom, and toilet,” said Alexander. “And what’s more, we can shift furniture to quickly push in front of them to stop them being opened from inside if they have been shut.”

Campbell nodded; he liked it when his officers took proper precautions, even if they insisted on being insanely brave as well.

“Sofa for me?” he asked.

“Afraid so,” said Alexander. “It’s fairly comfy. Did you and Gladys have a good meal?”

“Yes, fanks, you did us royal,” said Campbell, who had been gratified by the largesse to take Gladys out. “We went to Princes, an’ watched the cabaret floor show.”

“Any good?” asked Alexander, busying himself making tea, after turning on the gas heater.

“Tolerable,” said Campbell. “Not sure I’d pay for it on its own, but when eating it was entertaining enough.”

“Ah, the jaded appetites of the zeitgeist,” said Alexander.

“It ain’t the spirit of the age nowise, just that I saw better in France,” said Campbell.

“Oh, well, they are specialists at that kind of thing,” said Alexander. “There’s bedclothes in that cupboard there, and if you reach under the sofa, there’s a spring thing which should release a bed you can unfold... yes that’s it.”

“Handy piece o’ kit,” said Campbell.

“Indeed,” said Alexander. “Now, don’t go trying to run downstairs because I’m going to set tripwires. With bells on.”

“Fanks for the warning,” said Campbell.

“I’ll use the bathroom first and sort out breakfast whilst you use it; no point trying to shave in that cupboard under the stairs,” said Alexander. “Bath or shower as you wish.”

“Thanks,” said Campbell.

The start would be early, so they went to bed.

 

oOoOo

 

Constable Munday was waiting in Alexander’s office before he got going. He looked tired.

“Have you been to bed yet?” asked Alexander, sharply.

“Nossir, but I’m keeping going on coffee,” said Munday.

“Report, and then take the day off,” said Alexander.

“The doorkeeper remembers them at Domino’s,” said Munday. “But he won’t swear to any particular day.  Only that they’ve been there, and it’s not his job to check birth certificates.”

“Which proves only that they’ve been there not which day; but it’s grounds for reasonable doubt as an alibi.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“Nothing to be sorry about, it was well done. We may have to shake the doorkeeper a bit harder but it’s enough for now to know that they are well enough known for dates to be hazy.”

“Yes, and they started going regularly in the first week of the month.”

“When they got out of school and university; Joseph’s school has long holidays,” said Alexander.

“Oh, I was hoping it was suggestive of building up a non-alibi,” said Munday, disappointed.

“It might be, but it also has a logical explanation,” said Alexander. “Don’t hang theories on anything that can be explained any other way, or you’ll end up being shredded in court by clever lawyers, even if you’ve jumped to the right conclusions.  Use hunches as guides, not evidence.”

“Nossir,” said Munday, chastened.

Alexander clapped him on the shoulder.

“You’re doing well, lad, but you have a lot to learn. Eagerness is good, but an eager beaver who gnaws down the tree so it lands on his head has a lot of ground to make up building his case. Or his lodge.”

“Yessir, I can see that,” said Munday.

 

oOoOo

 

Ida was nervous and excited to be helping properly with an enquiry; this was different to helping find out who had killed her beloved brother and the sister-in-law she had been fond of. It was none of her business, really, but Alex valued her enough to ask her to take an unconventional approach to helping him. It was only recently that Ida was getting used to not being intimidated by servants – or rather, by those servants who had been, essentially, her jailors, for having been manipulated by the evil Gloria, when she had wormed her way into the household. Gladys had always stood by her, though Ida had not realised so at first, and Gladys would be there to get something of a view of the servants, and bring them to the room chosen to interview them, the library, being likely to be the most intimidating room in the house. The servants were to have fifteen minutes or so to chatter amongst themselves first, and Gladys and Campbell to be listening, covertly at first.

The house was fitted with a dumb waiter, a service hatch up which food might be sent to a vestibule off the dining room to then be served by hand; but a hatch also opened directly through to the servants’ dining room, which was where the servants would foregather. With the kitchen side of the dumb waiter hatch open, it was possible to hear any conversation not pitched in low tones, and Campbell lurked at the door the other side to eavesdrop on any conversation, using a stethoscope. A fire burned merrily in the grate of the servants’ hall, and a kettle sat on it, a table with teapot and coffee pot and a plate of biscuits inviting the servants to refresh themselves, putting them at their ease, and suggesting generous and indulgent employers.

Gladys and Ida had already worked out that Gladys might pass messages to Ida from behind those she led to the study, by tapping morse on her hand; having both been Girl Guides, they were both well-versed in morse, semaphore, and the language of the deaf. Ida wished she had learned to lip-read properly; she had learned enough to know that if someone said ‘the girl’ it was time to make herself scarce.

It had been enough to survive Gloria’s tenure, and her ruthless control of the household for her own ends, so she should not complain.

And what fun it had been, treating Gloria like a servant, and one in need of censure, at that, with Alexander’s support, knowing that he would take her away to safety. But of course, real servants deserved more courtesy, albeit as much firmness. It was a delicate line to tread between the sort of condescension servants despise, equally, too much familiarity, save with old retainers; a distant courtesy without moving into being autocratic.

 

It was time.

Ida rang the bell.

Alexander, lurking in the library nearby, gave her a reassuring smile; but this was her show.

 

Gladys came in with a middle-aged couple.

“If you please, madam, Colworth and Mrs. Colworth, former cook and housekeeper,” she said, dropping a curtsey. Her finger on her palm said ‘keen to return.’

“Good morning; please be seated,” said Ida. “A cook-housekeeper couple is less usual than a butler-housekeeper; I’ve been used to a housekeeper who also oversees the cooking. May I ask what advantages you bring to me, bearing in mind that I would also need a butler?”

Colworth flushed slightly.

“Mrs. Beauchamp engaged us on the strength of my versatility in cooking, madam,” he said. “I am also familiar with the range in the kitchen, which is a trifle... crossgrained.”

“I was considering replacing it.”

“A nice, modern gas-stove to supplement it would be nice, but a range makes the best bread and pastry,” opined Colworth. Ida made a note.  It was a memo to herself more than for Alex; such tips were worth knowing.

“What dishes did Mrs. Beauchamp like?” she asked, curiously.

“Well, up until the last few weeks, she liked a good curry, or moroccan food,” said Colworth. “But her stomach became very delicate, though after trying bland food, she said, ‘oh, the hell with it, the little buggers have poisoned me, and it’s going to cause problems, give me a good biryani, I might as well enjoy it going down, however it comes out.’”  He then flushed, and put his hand to his mouth. “The lady had a ripe vocabulary.”

“And apparently believed she was being poisoned; at least she did not blame you, by the sound of it.”

“Well, madam, we did not know what to think, she was old, and ill, and sometimes the elderly get odd ideas. But she did call for more hot food to ‘scare it through,’ as she put it.”

“Her grandchildren visited her assiduously, nice, I call it, and a shame she thought they were poisoning her,” said Mrs. Colworth. “Mr. Freddy had a nasty temper, but then, what he’d been through in the war didn’t bear thinking about, and Mr. Eric too, though he was more douce. Mr. Thomas was polite enough, and Mr. Marty was a real caution! He could make a cat laugh. And those two boys were as sweet as could be, and it can’t be easy for young boys to dance attendance on an old woman!  But you don’t want to hear about the old family, madam; I might not cook, but I could act as butler if need be, women do branch out these days.”

“That’s an interesting thought to consider,” said Ida. “Do you have any problems making male servants obey you? A butler must be the lord of his domain.”

Mrs. Colworth flushed.

“I am sure I could manage,” she said.

“Very well, you’ve both given me a lot to consider; will you wait?” asked Ida.

“Very good, madam,” said Mrs. Colworth.

“I’ll see Sunderland next,” said Ida.