Cold, Lone and Still (9 page)

‘Well, they say coincidence has a long arm.’

‘Not much comfort when the hand at the end of that arm has got you by the short hairs.’

‘I think you might do worse than have a word with Bull. You can get him to tell you what he said to the police.’

‘How is that going to help?’

‘I don’t know, but, in your shoes, I think I would want to know what people had been saying.’

‘Well, what did
you
say?’

‘Oh, that I had been responsible for organising the party and had written to everybody who was on the walk. I said that I had ended up at Fort William and that everybody who was there had climbed Ben Nevis except for you and Miss Camden. He rather pressed me as to why Perth had not come to the party and tried to tempt me into admitting that Perth and Carbridge had fallen out on The Way, but, of course, I wasn’t having any of that, any more than I was telling him about Crianlarich. I knew about that punch-up, you know.’

‘Do you mean they
had
fallen out — Perth and Carbridge?’

‘In a manner of speaking, yes. That’s one reason why our poly gang spent three days chipping away at the hills where you and Miss Camden found us. You see, we had already had a bit of a barney with him and Todd when we spent so much time on the island of Inchcailloch when
they
wanted to press on regardless and
we
wanted to study the geology of the island.’

‘Couldn’t they have gone on without you?’

‘Both had taken a fancy to Patsy, I think. The girl wasn’t terribly interested, although perhaps a bit pleased just at first, the two men being a good deal older than Freddie and myself and, of course, employed, whereas we were only students. That meant they had a lot more money and, we gathered, assured positions with their firms.’

‘You mean that Carbridge and Todd had fallen out?’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t go so far as that.’

‘What, then?’

‘Perhaps Patsy wasn’t the only girl Carbridge had his eye on.’

I could not pretend that I did not know what he was hinting, but I said angrily, ‘What the hell are you getting at?’

‘Nothing, nothing — except that your Hera is a remarkably beautiful woman.’

‘And engaged to be married to
me
, as I pointed out pretty forcibly to Carbridge at Crianlarich when he showed signs of muscling in. Yes, and to Todd, too.’

‘Very sorry, Melrose. Didn’t mean to rile you. More in the way of a warning, if you see what I mean.’

‘Put your warnings where the monkey —’

‘All right, all right.’ He got up from his chair. ‘Thanks for the drinks. See you at the inquest, I expect.’

When he had gone I went to the hall of residence. Bull let me in. I tackled him as soon as I got inside the door.

‘Why didn’t you tell me you recognised the dead man?’ I asked.

‘Recognise him? But I never, sir.’

‘You let him in, and his murderer, too, on the afternoon of the party.’

‘That I never did. If they got in, they got in
sub rosa
, sir. I hadn’t never seen that corpse before in my life.’

‘But how did he get in if you didn’t let him in?’

‘There’s the basement entrance. That only gets locked and bolted at night.’

‘Oh? Why is that?’

‘I leaves it open during the daylight hours so I don’t have to keep getting up on me pins to let in students as wants to work during the vaycaytions. Same in term-time. They comes and they goes. I got plenty of jobs to do without keep going along to answer the front-door bell. That’s for visitors, not students. Them as come to the party was visitors, so, of course, I let ’em in if Mr Trickett was busy with the other guests, but I never let in that dead man. I’ve got a good memory for faces. Have to have, in my job. Why, I can remember students from ten years back, never mind about the lecturers.’

‘The dead man had been invited to the party.’

‘Well, he never come in by no front door, sir.’

When I got back to the flat, Bingley was waiting in the hall. We went up the stairs and I asked, rather belligerently, I think, whether there was any more that I could do for him.

‘Just one small point, Mr Melrose,’ he answered. ‘What was your reaction when you first met Mr Carbridge at the Glasgow youth hostel?’

‘I’ve told you. I thought him pushy and boring.’

‘You would not care to add anything more?’

‘There’s nothing more to add. I thought the chap was a headache, that’s all.’

‘And you had no reason to revise this opinion later in the tour?’

‘No. You must please believe what I’ve said before. Miss Camden and I did not travel in company with the others. It was only by chance that we met them in Glasgow and at the other youth hostels. They proposed to walk the whole length of the West Highland Way from Milngavie to Fort William. We had no such ambition. We picked up the trail at Drymen and, instead of keeping strictly to the route, we left out Kinlochleven and Lundavra, cut across to Ballachulish — having thumbed a lift — and were taken to Fort William from there. I’ve told you all this. Why do you keep harping on it?’

‘Because, Mr Melrose, you did meet up with the others at Rowardennan, Crianlarich and Fort William.’

‘Only because we all used the youth hostels, as I’ve already explained. There was no pre-arrangement to meet. Miss Camden and I were booked in mostly at hotels, but, of course, the hostels are much cheaper, so we used the only ones there are along The Way, those at Rowardennan and Crianlarich and, of course, the one at Fort William, as you say.’

‘I am told by Mr Todd that you and Miss Camden left Fort William in somewhat of a hurry. Was that because you found that Mr Carbridge was there?’

‘Well, partly, I suppose, but mostly because Miss Camden had found our trip more exhausting than she had expected. We had intended to ascend Ben Nevis — I won’t say
climb
it, because we only thought of getting to the top by the easiest route, which, as I am sure you know, is from the river up to a farm and then on a pony track to the top — but I decided that the exertion would be too much for Miss Camden. There was not much point in staying in Fort William under the circumstances, so we left as soon as we could.’

‘Did you, at any time, have an altercation of any kind with Mr Carbridge?’

‘Certainly not. I had nothing against him except that he was a bore.’ (I certainly was not going to talk about Crianlarich to a policeman.)

‘Was Miss Camden of the same opinion?’

‘I should think everybody was, but you had better ask her, hadn’t you? You’re bad as young Trickett,’ I said ill-advisedly. He stiffened, as I have seen a pointer do when it scents game.

‘Ah,’ he said, with a quiet satisfaction which alarmed me. ‘Young Trickett, eh? Well, I think that is all for the present, Mr Melrose.’

I was more than thankful to be rid of him. I was terrified that I might let out our real reason for leaving Fort William. He had been so nearly right when he asked me whether we had left because Carbridge was there, and his penetrating question — although I do not think he had anything to go on when he asked it — of whether I had ever had any sort of a row with Carbridge had shaken me badly. I wondered what else Todd had told him, apart from recounting my hasty departure from Fort William. After all, Todd had been present when I had assaulted Carbridge at Crianlarich and had himself been fairly roundly ticked off by me as well. I did not imagine he loved me very much.

H
ow I detest that detective-inspector!’ said Hera, when she and Sandy were having drinks at my flat and talking things over. ‘Do you know he as good as told me that I had had an affair with Carbridge on the tour? How dare he?’

‘He wanted me to admit that I knew about it and that I got shirty with the man,’ I said. ‘He’s a menace with his rotten, crawling suggestions. He’s got it in for me all right.’

‘It’s not as though you can help falling over dead bodies wherever you go,’ she said thoughtfully.

‘Look, the subject isn’t funny!’ I retorted.

‘I didn’t mean it to be but it
is
rather unnerving when you repeat your effects.’

‘Mind you, if Bingley had known Carbridge, he would lay off this suggestion that you could have looked twice at the bloke,’ I said. ‘Now if it had been Todd—’

‘What about Todd?’ she asked sharply.

‘Well, nothing except that he’s a trier and people who try and try again do quite often succeed,’ I said. I looked at her. She was thirty-one, but she appeared to be years younger. Her hair was as silken as that of a well-cared-for young child, her features were beautifully moulded, her hazel eyes were large and romantically soulful, but her mouth and chin were firm to the point of obstinacy. I have never seen a more self-contradictory face. That, and her perfect body, fascinated me.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘are you having second thoughts about the goods in the shop window? Others may admire them more than you seem to do.’

‘There have been times when I’ve liked you better,’ I said, but, when I had said this, her mood changed.

‘We mustn’t fight at a time like this,’ she said. ‘We’re all being made to jump through hoops by that detestable detective-inspector. Take me out to dinner this evening and let’s forget all about him and that boring man Carbridge, too, although I suppose I ought not to call him boring now that he’s dead.’

‘So far as I’m concerned,’ I said, ‘a dead Carbridge is about the least boring object I can think of at present. He’s put us all in the cart.’

Sandy, who had been listening to the conversation without attempting to interrupt it, said that he was very glad not to have been at the party and that he did not like parties anyhow. Now that he had included himself in the discussion, he added that it was always useful to have somebody on the sideline who could follow the game without having to join in, and that what interested him most, apart from my involvement with the affair, was when and why the electric lightbulb in that passage had been removed.

‘The murderer must have done that, and it was just your bad luck that you happened to be the first person to go along there,’ he said kindly.

‘And that only because the idiot of a caretaker or whatever he calls himself misdirected me,’ I said. ‘In any case he should have replaced that bulb. He knew that it had gone.’

‘I suppose he didn’t send you along the passage on purpose for you to find the body?’ said Hera. ‘I mean, when you come to think of it, he himself was by far the most likely person to have removed that electric lightbulb. He knew it had gone, as you say. If he’s an innocent man,
why
hadn’t he replaced it?’

‘People do put off doing little jobs like that,’ said Sandy. ‘I expect he thought it would be time enough when term started.’

‘But he knew there was a party in progress and people might need to go along that passage,’ I pointed out.

‘Well, I hope that beastly Bingley grilled him as well and truly as he did the rest of us,’ said Hera.

‘Nothing else will happen until after the inquest,’ said Sandy. ‘I suppose everybody was able to produce an alibi?’

‘Alibis are useless when we don’t know when the murder was committed,’ I said, ‘and Bingley has been as close as an oyster about that. Besides, you need witnesses to support an alibi.’

‘Well, you and I are on safe ground there,’ said Hera. ‘Carbridge must have been killed before the party was properly in progress, perhaps immediately upon his arrival. Nobody supposes you went along that passage in the dark, murdered him without Bull hearing anything, and then went straight back and reported to him as caretaker that you had found a body. Anyway, you and I were in one another’s company from about midday onwards. We shopped in Oxford Street, had lunch together, saw a film and then went on to the party. There must be plenty of people — shop girls, the waiter, the box-office girl, the cinema attendant, the taxi-driver who took us from the Haymarket to the poly hall of residence — who can swear to us.’

‘That’s true,’ said Sandy, ‘but you know what people are like. Ten to one, none of them will have taken enough notice to be able to remember you two.’

‘You’re not very complimentary to us,’ said Hera. ‘All the same, I don’t trust Bingley an inch. He was perfectly beastly, in a smarmy kind of way, when he questioned me.’ Her interview with him had been shorter than mine, but it appeared to have been conducted on much the same lines and she had had difficulty, she said, in concealing from him my discovery of the other body in the ruins, let alone the episode at Crianlarich.

‘And I believe he knows I was fobbing him off,’ she added. ‘He may not be all that intelligent, but he’s like a terrier at a rat-hole when it knows there’s something there and is determined to get at it.’

‘There’s only one thing to do, if Comrie thinks he is likely to be in any kind of trouble,’ said Sandy. ‘You had better get Dame Beatrice on your side, Comrie.’ I suppose we gazed at him, for he went on: ‘Don’t you see, man? This will be right up her street. You saw a body in Scotland and thought it was a dead Carbridge. You find another body in London and, dammit, it
is
a dead Carbridge. You’ll be a classic case of ESP and meat and drink to a psychiatrist.’

‘He says she has a wonderful cook and some vintage claret,’ said Hera. ‘He also speaks highly of a very attractive secretary. I’m not sure I want him to go there again.’

‘The secretary is married and middle-aged,’ I said. ‘As for being a museum piece for a psychiatrist, that doesn’t appeal to me either.’

‘Well, there’s an obverse and a reverse to every coin. If you really think that Bingley has cast you as the number one suspect — although you’re probably quite wrong about that — why don’t you appeal to Dame Beatrice’s other great interest? She’s a noted criminologist. She’ll see you right if you are in trouble and are innocent.’

‘Do you doubt my innocence?’ I asked angrily. I was still raw from Bingley’s questioning and some of Hera’s criticism.

‘Of course not, but I think you’re mistaken about Bingley. He is bound to question everybody who was at the party. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to hear that he is chasing up that other fellow — you know, the students’ bear-leader you told me about, the fellow who
didn’t
go to the party. Now that’s what I call a very suspicious circumstance. Why was he the only one not to turn up?’

‘Considering that he lives in Scotland,’ said Hera, ‘I can quite understand that he wouldn’t bother to come. I expect Bingley is quite satisfied with that explanation.’

‘If anybody who
was
at the party killed Carbridge,’ went on Sandy, ‘surely it’s far more likely to have been somebody who was with Carbridge all the time on that tour, rather than you, Comrie, or, come to that, you, Hera.’

‘Hey!’ said Hera.

‘I was only using you as an instance. Now what about that chap Todd? From what you tell me, he and Carbridge teamed up right at the beginning of the tour—’

‘And, according to what Trickett told me, fell out later when they both took a fancy to Patsy Carlow.’

‘Patsy Carlow?’ said Hera, laughing. ‘What nonsense! Of course they didn’t! How could they, when —’

‘When
you
were there?’ said Sandy. ‘Yes, but, Hera dear, you were there so little of the time, and, in any case, you were bespoke. Both of them knew that.’

‘Well, they didn’t behave at Crianlarich as though they knew it,’ she said, looking at me.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ I said. ‘Can’t we forget Crianlarich?’

‘No more than Mary Tudor could forget Calais,’ Hera answered.

‘I think Hera has made her point,’ said Sandy. ‘Neither of the men was really serious about Patsy.’

‘Those Turkish trousers and the two-piece gilded bra!’ said Hera. ‘Nobody could be serious about those or what was inside them. Sorry! I’m being cheap and vulgar!’

‘Yes, you are, rather,’ I said, ‘but, passing lightly on, suppose we let Sandy pursue his theme. Men quarrel about things other than girls.’

‘I don’t think I have any more to say, but I
do
think we ought to keep Todd in mind. Didn’t you say he was a former member of the poly hall of residence? That means he was no stranger to that passage.’

‘He’s also tall enough to have removed that lightbulb without using a ladder,’ I said. ‘He could have known that the students’ entrance was always kept unlocked until dark, so it was available to anybody who knew the ropes. What is more, there is a back staircase up from the students’ entrance to the passage where I found Carbridge’s body.’

‘So Todd could have taken Carbridge into the house that way, led him into the passage and murdered him —’ said Sandy.

‘And then removed the lightbulb, leaving the body in a dark passage all ready for Comrie to fall over it,’ said Hera.

‘It sounds the perfect solution. Oh, Sandy, do go on!’

‘I think not,’ said Sandy. ‘Let’s get the inquest over and then I’ll make my point. Once we are told exactly when Carbridge died, we shall know where everybody stands.’

The inquest did not take long. As no relatives of the dead man had shown up, the body was formally identified by Todd and nothing else was taken except the medical evidence. Here the police surgeon was backed up by the pathologist who had made a more detailed examination of the body. Their conclusions did not help very much. Death could have occurred four hours or even more before the police surgeon saw the body and the time factor was complicated by the fact that — as we discovered for the first time — the murderer had attempted to strangulate Carbridge before finishing him off with a fatal stabbing. All the same, it still looked as though the attack must have been made before the party had begun and I said as much to Sandy. He agreed.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Carbridge must have got there early and, if he did, so did somebody else, of course. The question is — why?’

‘I don’t suppose we shall ever know why.’

The verdict at the inquest was murder by person or persons unknown. Three days later I read in the paper that Bingley had arrested Bull, the caretaker.

‘Bingley must be crazy,’ I said, ‘or else his superiors have been leaning on him and he felt he had to make a quick arrest. It’s true that a foolish chap such as Carbridge seems an unlikely victim, but murdered he was, so somebody must have done it. All the same, Bull seems even more unlikely as a murderer. I could understand Bingley’s action if Bull had mistaken Carbridge for an unlawful intruder and coshed him. I expect these caretaker chaps keep a bludgeon of some sort handy in these lawless times. Cold steel between the shoulders doesn’t fit the picture, somehow, and as for a chap of Bull’s age trying (and pretty near succeeding) to throttle a younger man —’

‘The police must have something to go on. They don’t arrest people on no grounds whatever. What was Bull doing, did you say, when you first spoke to him?’ asked Sandy.

‘Sitting at a little table eating fish and chips and reading a newspaper.’

‘I should think the magistrates would dismiss the charge when he’s brought before them.’

‘I doubt that very much. Murder is such a dreadful matter that they will be bound to treat it seriously. Besides, the defence will reserve their evidence and when that happens the thing is sure to go to trial. I feel as though I’m partly responsible for the poor fellow’s arrest. I wish anybody but I had found the body.’

‘Yes, that was your bad luck, as we’ve said before, but it doesn’t matter who found it. Bull would still have been arrested. Surely nobody else would have been on the premises four hours, or more, before the party was due to kick off.’

‘Oh, wouldn’t they, though!’ I said. ‘We have been told that students had access all day if they wanted to get on with some work.’

‘It was a Saturday, remember.’

‘Even so, I doubt whether that would count for anything if a student had a job to finish — mounting and labelling specimens or photographs, something pleasant and interesting of that sort, perhaps. Don’t forget, either, that lots of shops close at one o’clock on Saturdays, so there could have been students coming in with provisions and drinks for the party. I don’t think Bull was the only pebble on the beach that Saturday afternoon.’

‘But if there was all that coming and going, how would the murderer not have been spotted?’

‘Because — I’ve been thinking about that while we’ve been talking — because of where the throttling was actually carried out. Remember where the dark passage led? I think the first attack was made in the Gents. Then the murderer removed the body to the passage with the intention of leaving it there for somebody else to find when he had removed the electric light-bulb. He must have had a bit of a facer when he discovered that Carbridge was not quite dead. He knew that he dared not let him recover, hence the stabbing.’

‘With a knife already in his possession?’

‘Lots of fellows carry knives quite legitimately. We don’t know what kind of knife the murder weapon was. I suppose the police have kept that a secret until it’s produced at the trial.’

‘I didn’t see a knife sticking out of the body, but I didn’t look very closely. His face was enough for me. Strangulation isn’t a very lovely thing to gaze upon.’

‘I sympathise with you. Horrible!’

‘Yes, it certainly was. I wonder what the police had to say to those two students?’

‘What two students?’

‘The boy and girl who were slinging the food-stuffs about. They must have gone past the entrance to the passage half a dozen times or more while the party was in progress and past Bull’s table in that corridor. According to the medical evidence, the weapon found sticking in the body was a very ordinary kitchen knife, but they don’t specify what kind of kitchen knife. I mean, they come in all sizes and have various uses. From the interest the police took in James Minch and his
sgian dubh
, I visualise a small vegetable knife. There must be one in every kitchen in the land and it would be very difficult to trace this one to its natural home, for I bet it didn’t come from the hall of residence kitchen.’