Death on Allhallowe’en (19 page)

‘It is really rather important. You may be able to help me clear up this whole wretched business.'

‘I don't know
what
to say. Today, do you mean? I have got to go back to Chilbury for one or two things, but I meant to go next week. You say it's urgent?'

‘It might be. If it turns out as I hope.'

‘I suppose I could run across.'

‘I should be most grateful if you could manage it.'

‘Well, I have to go to Weeks's, and it's best to get there early otherwise it gets so crowded. But I could meet you for a cup
of coffee at the Gentle Ladies Café at about eleven, if that would do?'

A cup of coffee at eleven at the Gentle Ladies Café was a harrowing invitation for Carolus, but he was nothing if not conscientious, and agreed.

‘It's a nice place for coffee,' continued Mavis, ‘and they have ever such good cakes. Then we can talk over whatever it is you want to talk over. It's a good thing I noticed that number up outside the bank, isn't it?'

‘Very,' said Carolus. ‘I'll see you at eleven.'

He did.

She wore a tweed costume and a leather hat and looked absolutely
right
in the Gentle Ladies Café.

‘I don't know if I did right in calling you,' she said when they were seated on two imitation wheel-back chairs with hard seats. ‘But it seemed so funny it being sixty-six …'

‘Mrs Horseman, did your husband ever mention a strongbox?'

‘No. I never heard him speak of such a thing. He may have had one, of course. He wasn't one to discuss anything like that. Why? Do you … oh, I see what you mean! How clever of you! You mean that number he wrote down. Just in case he forgot it. Six was the number of the strong-box and sixty-six of the bank!'

‘It is just a supposition of mine,' said Carolus. ‘There may be nothing in it.'

‘Oh, I'm sure there is! It fits everything, doesn't it? The comma after the first six and everything. And you think we may find what those people were looking for! It's really quite exciting, isn't it? It could be something terribly valuable. That's why he rented a strong-box! I shan't be surprised if it's diamonds. I was reading about…'

‘Please don't anticipate too much, Mrs Horseman. First of all, it may not be a strong-box at all. And then it could be something of no value except to one or two people.'

‘Well, there's only one way of finding out,' said Mavis
decisively. ‘We must go and see.' She turned to a passing waitress. ‘Could we have a bill, please?'

‘You pay at the desk,' said the waitress, ripping off a chit.

‘It's not far,' said Mavis. ‘Just down the High Street. We could walk. I think it would be quicker. We'll ask Mr Millston. He's the manager and very nice.'

Mr Millston was too repentant to have time for much of his niceness.

‘How can I have forgotten it? Of course, Mr Horseman had a strong-box. I don't know how it slipped my mind. He rented it about a year ago.'

‘Was it number six?' asked Mavis breathlessly.

Mr Millston lifted a receiver on his desk and gave incomprehensible instructions. A secretary appeared with a ledger.

‘It was number … let's see, here it is,' he said as he turned the pages. ‘Yes, number six. Do you wish to open it now?'

Mavis tried to control herself.

‘Yes, please,' she managed to say.

They were taken to strong-box number six and a key was handed to Mavis as though she was receiving the freedom of the city. She inserted and turned it and pulled open the little iron door. But when she peered in she gave an ‘Oh!' of disappointment. All that was there was the ring of a tape recording.

‘There,' said Mavis as they left the bank. ‘I thought at least there would have been some charms which I could have worn on my bangle. Or perhaps a bag of sovereigns that had been dug up somewhere. Why ever Connor wanted to hire a strongbox for a thing like that I can't imagine.'

Carolus, on the other hand, seemed quite elated with the discovery.

‘Of course,' he said. ‘I might have known. It all begins to fit beautifully.'

‘Well, it may be very nice for you, Mr Deene, and help you to find out who killed Connor, but I don't mind telling you I'm most disappointed. It's not just the value, though it would
have been nice to find a little extra like that, but when you realised what that number stood for I thought we should find something exciting.'

‘We may have.'

‘For you perhaps. Not for me. I never was interested in Connor's playing about with witchcraft and I told him so. It would have been better if he'd listened to me. No, I
don't
want to hear it played. If you want it you can have it, and I hope it doesn't bring you bad luck as it did Connor. I must get home.'

Carolus did not return to Clibburn till fairly late that evening. Margaret Lark hurried out to the entrance hall of the rectory.

‘Congrats!' she said rather excitedly. ‘Mave told me on the phone what you'd found. She's pretty disgusted, I gathered, but she says you're thrilled. It has solved the whole problem, she says.'

‘It's quite untrue,' said Carolus. ‘Have you told anyone this?'

‘Oh, no. I don't repeat what I'm told. Only Luce Smith was here and I happened to mench about the tape recording.'

Carolus did not tell Mrs Lark that she could have put his life in danger, but he seriously wondered whether that somewhat melodramatic statement might not be true.

During the next few days he felt such enmity about him in Clibburn that he seriously thought of moving out of the rectory lest he should attract it to John. He already knew that the Murrains would do anything to remove him, temporarily or permanently, from the place, and though he still regarded Alice's powers as absurd, and did not take the wretched Gerald seriously, they increased the volume of hostility. On Xavier's attitude to him personally he had no evidence, and he did not approach the Garries or see either of them in the village, but ordinary people who had been civil enough till now seemed to regard him as an undesirable.

When he went to the White Horse the landlord, Harry
Mason, who had never been effusive, now served him in silence and moved to the other end of the counter when he had done so. Even in the village shop he was not given a smile or a good morning, and when Albert Gunning served him with petrol without a word he tackled him.

‘What's the matter, Albert?' he asked.

‘Nothing's the matter. Why?'

‘You and Cicely were kind enough to help me when I first came here.'

‘I dare say. But there's a limit to how much nosing into other people's business we would stand for. I don't believe you ever meant to find out about Cyril. What you're doing is to upset the whole village.'

‘I'm sorry you think that.'

‘I do think that. And if I were you I'd get away quick, before anything happens to you.'

Carolus stared at him fixedly.

‘I wonder if you've got any reason of your own to say that.'

‘What d'you mean?'

‘Anything you don't want me to find out about.'

‘I don't know what you're talking about.
I've
got no reason.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘ 'Course I'm bloody sure. I don't care whether you go or stay, but I know what the folks round here are saying. They don't like things upset, I've told you that. They stick together, do Clibburn people.'

‘Even when it's a matter of murder?'

‘Horseman wasn't a Clibburn man. Not even a Guysman.'

‘So it doesn't matter what happened to him?'

‘Not if he deserved it. And they wouldn't care what happened to you, either. I tell you straight, you should get out of here.'

‘Not just yet. I've got a few things to do here first. Have you ever heard about the Bottomless Pit?'

Albert started, controlled himself, then said quietly, ‘Of course I have. What about it?'

'Nothing. I just wondered if you knew about it.'

‘There's nothing to know. Except that it's bottomless.'

‘It isn't. It may be pretty deep. No well is bottomless.'

‘You try getting the water out, that's all,' challenged Albert.

‘Thanks,' said Carolus. ‘I will.'

He drove off. But after that interview he made a resolution. He could not with any conscience keep what he knew to himself any longer, whether he was in personal danger or not, and instead of returning to the rectory and confiding in John Stainer he drove over to Chilbury with the recording in his pocket. He went to the police station and asked to see the CID officer in charge of investigations in Clibburn. He was kept waiting without explanation for over half and hour, but when he saw Detective Inspector Porritt he found the man not uncivil.

‘I gather you have some information for us, Mr Deene.'

‘Theory, rather than information. But with some more solid stuff.'

The inspector smiled.

‘I see. Now I won't pretend that we welcome fellows like you poking round and forming your pet notions. But I happen to know Detective Inspector Moor, and he speaks quite highly of your work. He says you have been useful to him in a number of cases. You make wild guesses, but apparently they sometimes hit the mark. So let's hear what you have to say.'

‘First of all, I suggest you find a man named Walter Brandt. It ought to be easy for you because he's been inside. He's somewhere in London, I think.'

The inspector, who had a rather stern but otherwise expressionless face, smiled again, this time with evident satisfaction.

‘Your suggestion comes a bit late. Brandt, alias Poley Grant, was picked up two days ago. He admitted getting hold of the Sloman brothers and persuading them to behave as they did.'

‘Oh. You knew.' Carolus was not much surprised, but
wanted to give the police all the credit for anticipating him. In accordance with his promise to Jerry, he did not mention Grant's second alias. The police had evidently found Brandt by means other than the cars he hired. ‘Who was he working for?' asked Carolus, trying to sound casual and hoping the inspector would not decide to be cagey at that moment.

‘Murrain. He very quickly told us that. Murrain knew Brandt's father years ago. He got Brandt down here.'

‘Thanks, Inspector. You certainly know more about him than I do. It took me a long time to discover his identity.'

‘Did it, now? But you hadn't got the fingerprints he left at Horseman's house when he broke in and searched it, had you?'

‘I see! I am most impressed.'

‘Just routine work,' said the inspector with his dry smile. ‘We haven't been entirely idle. Much as it may surprise you, Mr Deene, I am not a congenital idiot and have discovered quite a lot about the murder of Connor Horseman. But go ahead.'

Carolus went ahead. For nearly an hour he gave the policeman a clear account of his activities in Clibburn, including details of what was in the recording, his interviews with Matchlow, the Garries, the Larks, the Murrains, Drummer and Charlie Sloman, Mavis Horseman, the Gunnings, Judith Matchlow, Ebby Smith and Canon Copely.

The inspector listened patiently, his face remaining quite inscrutable.

‘I see. You've been busy,' he said. ‘A good deal of what you tell me is new to us, but I don't know how relevant it may be. What do you suggest now?'

‘I want you to try something that will be rather expensive and difficult, and quite possibly will reveal nothing at all.'

‘Sounds the sort of suggestion we so often get from amateurs. They think nothing of proposing a course of action which would entail the participation of the whole CID. But let's hear it.'

'There's a well about a mile from Clibburn known locally as the Bottomless Pit. I want it pumped dry.'

‘Oh, you do. Just to follow a hunch of yours?'

‘But a strong hunch.'

‘I won't ask you what you expect to find. I can guess what you would say, and I know you want the satisfaction of saying I told you so. But I'm afraid it's impossible. It would mean a lot of work and expense which I could not justify. How would I look if we found nothing at all?'

‘Silly,' admitted Carolus. ‘But not so silly as if I undertake the work and expense and
do
find what I expect.'

‘It would cost you a bomb.'

‘Investigation is my only extravagance, and I'm one of those people, miscalled fortunate, who can't spend their incomes. No credit to me. I can't make more than a schoolmaster's salary. My father left me to face the world with a fortune and it's not as easy as you think. This is one of the few occasions on which I should consider it really useful. I should be delighted to meet the expense, but I felt I should come to you first.'

The inspector said nothing for a moment.

‘Who owns this well?' he asked.

Carolus played a trump.

‘It's on Church property,' he said. ‘The only permission necessary is that of the Rector, with whom I am staying.'

Once again the inspector smiled.

‘What do you reckon the odds against it serving any purpose?'

‘I think it's odds on. About two to one.'

‘We'll do it,' said Porritt at last. ‘But you must realise that you may make me a laughing-stock of the whole CID. I must be crazy—listening to all your circumstantial theorising, then backing your hunches. Now this well…'

‘It's not bottomless,' grinned Carolus.

‘No. But its probably bloody deep.'

‘When will you start?'

'As soon as we can assemble the tackle. Since we're going to do it there's no point in delay.'

As Carolus left the police station he noticed a familiar figure coming out of the supermarket across the street. Mrs Lark was shopping.