Smile and be a Villain (10 page)

‘And the other man objected?' Alan carefully didn't use his name, but he sounded incredulous. I thought about what Sylvia had said about something that was ‘too petty, for either man', and wondered.

‘Oh, he said he thought it was an unnecessary expense, when the church, and the community, had so many other needs. I think he just wished he had thought of it first. But most of the choir, and most of the congregation, agreed with Mr Abercrombie, so he went to a great deal of trouble to find out the cost of new ones, and showed everyone in the choir several styles to choose from. They're blue leather, with a gold edging, and they'll have the name of the church stamped in gold on the front. He said he'd take contributions from anyone who cared to give, but he would make up the difference himself. He ordered them a few weeks ago, and we were so looking forward to having them for our festival in July. Now with him gone, I don't know what will happen to the order.'

‘I imagine it was paid in advance, so it will arrive in time,' I soothed. ‘This would be the festival of Saint Anne? When is that, exactly?'

‘The Sunday closest to July 26. It isn't as glorious as it was in the old days. We're not very High Church now. But we still celebrate, and the new folders will mark the occasion, and serve as a memorial to a man very dear to our hearts, even though he was here for such a short time.'

‘A
re you thinking what I'm thinking?' I asked Alan as we trudged back to our room.

‘Probably. That dear sweet woman rather missed the point about the folder issue, didn't she?'

‘Alan, did you follow the Watergate scandal at all? Nixon and the burglars and all that?'

‘Vaguely.' He gave me an odd look.

‘No, my mind isn't wandering. This really is to the point. You probably remember that there was a mysterious informant they called Deep Throat, who gave Bob Woodward lots of information. One of the things this guy said was “Follow the money”.'

Alan smiled. ‘Ah. Indeed. Here we have another little situation where Abercrombie could have made off with a bit of cash.'

‘And all in the name of charity, which makes it even more infuriating. Alan, what would you like to bet that those folders were never ordered?'

He spread his hands. ‘I'm not a gambling man, Dorothy, and in any case I would never bet on a sure thing. It isn't sporting.'

‘We're taking sides again. You know, it's entirely possible that the man really was as delightful as some people thought.'

‘Anything's possible. But you haven't forgotten Alice, have you?'

‘No, as hard as I've tried, I haven't forgotten her horror story. But look, Alan.' I stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk, causing people to detour around me with the usual courtesy and lack of impatience I'd come to expect here. They apologized for almost running into me.

Alan pulled me into a doorway. ‘What's on your mind, love? And you'd best keep your voice down.'

‘I don't understand what all this penny-ante stuff is all about. Alice implied that the man had stolen big-time from his church in Illinois. All we've heard about here is nickel-and-dime stuff. What was he up to?'

‘Let's walk.' He led the way, not back to our room, but up Victoria Street to QE2 Street. We walked past Annie's bookshop to the police station, and Alan gestured me in, having said not a word in the meantime.

‘What?' I whispered.

‘I have an idea,' he replied.

Constable Partridge was in. Alan and I were admitted to the little interview room and invited to sit down. ‘I have only one quick question,' said Alan, still standing. ‘Gambling. Where can I find more information?'

Mr Partridge didn't seem at all startled at the question. ‘The Gambling Control Commission offices are just up the street. They'll be happy to tell you anything you need to know.'

As we turned to go, I thought the constable wore a satisfied expression.

‘What was that all about?' I demanded as soon as we were outside. ‘What do you mean, gambling? You said just now that you're not a gambling man, and I know that's true.'

He glanced up and down the street and then turned toward Victoria Street. ‘It's nap time. Let's go to our room and I'll tell you a little bedtime story.'

I was seething with curiosity by the time we were safely in our room with the door firmly shut.

‘We might have some tea,' he suggested. ‘This may take a little while.'

So I brewed a pot, and we sat at the tiny table, and Alan talked.

‘Once upon a time,' he began in approved bedtime story fashion, ‘there was an American man with expensive tastes and not a great deal of money to gratify them. He had a decent job, and the salary was sufficient to support him in modest comfort, but he wanted much more. He began to see chances to slip a little more into his pocket than he was entitled to. He was a trusted employee; he was in fact the boss at his place of business. And he was a charming, plausible fellow. Most people believed what he told them.'

Alan finished his tea and poured himself another cup. ‘As his peculations grew and grew, it was inevitable that they would be discovered. By the time they were, he had piled up rather a nice little nest egg, enough to take him out of the country just before the authorities were called in. He had heard of a small island in the English Channel where gambling was not only entirely legal, but entirely respectable. He thought if he could get there with his nest egg and add a bit to it, he'd be in a very nice position to accumulate the wealth he had desired all his life.'

‘Alan, he wasn't a stupid man! He would surely have realized that gambling is a good way to end up in the poorhouse.'

‘Ah, but he didn't intend to be a gambler. He was going to set himself up in business.'

‘What, a casino? Here?' I could not wrap my mind around that idea. Casinos belong in glitzy places, not tranquil islands.

‘Not a casino. A computer. Electronic gambling.'

I abandoned my tea and made a pot of coffee. My brain needed stimulation. ‘Alan, I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about.'

‘That's because you're not a gambler, either. But you play card games online.'

‘FreeCell, yes.'

‘And you know that some online games are played against other players.'

‘I suppose. I've never played those.'

‘All right, then. I don't know the details of the operation myself, but I presume that one can play such games as poker, or blackjack, or any card game online – for money. One would presumably have to pay to join the game, and make wagers, just as in a casino, except that it would all be done from one's own computer. And computers, according to the man at the shop, are very important in Alderney.'

I mulled that over. ‘How would you pay, though, or collect your money if you won?'

‘Credit cards, probably. Or you could set up an account that would be debited. I'll need to find all that out. The point is that, as with any gambling, the “house” always wins in the long run. So if one set oneself up to run such an operation, one could quite legally make enormous sums of money.'

‘But … but … there must be regulations. And taxes, and all that. I mean, they wouldn't let just anybody set up a cyber-casino, would they?'

‘I'm sure not. I intend to find out. But wouldn't it be a sweet little operation for a man who, we suspect, had very little in the way of conscience? Not only lucrative, but legal.'

‘But it isn't
right
!'

‘That depends upon one's view of gambling. Our man's view may well be flexible. After all, he stole from unsuspecting parishioners to get the seed money. And remember all that expensive electronic equipment he was buying? Perhaps it wasn't just for entertainment.'

‘Somebody should do something!' I raged.

‘Simmer down, darling. Don't forget that this is just a fairy tale I'm spinning. It's a possibility, certainly, but probably no more than that. Although it would explain why he came to Alderney.'

‘If that man was planning something like that, then I hope someone did push him down that hill! I wish I'd done it myself!'

‘No, you don't. You would have liked to give him a piece of your mind, I've no doubt, but you know you can't even smack the dog when he's been naughty, much less use violence to a human being.'

‘I'm not so sure he was a human being,' I grumbled, but Alan was right, of course.

I jumped up suddenly and reached for my purse, pulling out my phone. ‘Alan, I want to call Jane.'

‘To check on the animals? You know they're fine. She spoils them.'

‘Well, it was the mention of Watson that made me think of it, but it's not just that. I want to hear her voice. She's so sane and sensible and just plain good. She'll be an antidote to all this poison.'

Jane Langland is one of the saints of the earth. She doesn't look like it. I've never been able to decide whether she looks more like Winston Churchill or one of her many bulldogs, not that there's a great difference. Her gruff manner hides the kindest heart imaginable. She's a retired schoolmistress, who has been my next-door neighbour ever since I moved to England years ago, and is a dear friend, pet-sitter and source of information about everything under the sun. I badly needed a dose of Jane.

She answered the phone promptly. ‘Hello, Dorothy. Thought you might be calling about now. Missing your miserable little toads?'

‘I am, badly. How are they all?'

‘Fat and lazy. Cats sleep all the time they're not eating. Not even interested in chasing the birds.'

‘They never catch them, anyway. Thank goodness. And Watson?'

‘Oh,
Watson
.' Her voice had softened. She enjoyed the cats, and was always good to them, but dogs were the great love of her life, and she pampered our mutt just as much as her own highly pedigreed pets. ‘Missing you, of course, but being good. Needn't worry.'

‘I know. I just – oh, Jane, I just wanted to talk to you. Something awful has happened here.'

‘Man on the cliff.'

‘Jane! How on earth …? It can't have made the news. A man falls down a hill and hits his head – it's not the most riveting news.'

‘Been keeping an eye out for Alderney news. Friend used to live there; saw this in a Guernsey paper; told me.'

Of course. If Jane had relayed news from a friend in Kathmandu or Kamchatka, I wouldn't have been surprised. ‘I should have known. You have your spies everywhere.'

‘Suppose you were the ones who found him.'

‘Now I'm sure your friend didn't tell you that!'

‘No. Know you two. Good at finding trouble. Accident, was it?'

I hesitated just a fraction too long, and heard her chuckle.

‘Thought not. Know a little about the man.'

I sighed. ‘Why does that not surprise me? Just a second, Jane, I'm going to put you on speaker phone, so Alan can hear, too. Wait a minute, he may have to do this for me.'

When Alan had pushed a button or two, I said, ‘Okay. Shoot.'

‘Don't know much. Student went to America, some uni in Ohio. Wrote back about a local priest. Saint on earth, apparently. Too good to be true, boy thought. Left without much ado. Fishy.'

I'm used to Jane's style, and translated without much difficulty. One of her former pupils had gone to America, heard about Mr Abercrombie and mistrusted him, especially when the priest flew the coop.

‘We're hearing some things, too, Jane, that have made us wonder, but it still seems as if the guy just fell down that hill. It's awfully steep.'

‘Jane, there's another thing,' Alan put in. ‘What do you know about gambling in Alderney?'

‘Big business. Huge business. Big source of income for the island. All on the up-and-up. Why?'

‘It's too complicated to get into, Jane. We just wondered, that's all.'

‘Hmm.' Jane was given ‘furiously to think', as Hercule Poirot used to say.

Alan signalled me with his eyebrows, so I said, ‘We have to sign off now, Jane. Thanks for the info, and for looking after our menagerie. We'll let you know if anything exciting happens.'

‘Better,' she said, and we rang off.

‘She'll be exploring connections between Abercrombie and Alderney gambling before we finish our nap,' I said, putting the phone away.

‘I hope so. It'll save us some legwork. If that woman had lived in America, the FBI and the CIA would have been battling to obtain her services.'

‘They're not half so efficient,' I said, yawning. ‘The tea and coffee don't seem to have done much. But wake me in an hour. I want to try to find Alice. She might know how much Abercrombie was supposed to have stolen. I can't imagine that it's cheap to set up a gambling operation.'

It was an hour and a half before I came back to full consciousness. Alan and I had both been doing too much intensive thinking, and we fell into a heavy sleep. I actually woke first (all that tea and coffee), and felt logy and unrefreshed, even after I'd splashed cold water on my face.

‘All right,' I said to Alan when he was awake and functioning, ‘where shall we try to find Alice?'

‘Do you have any idea where she lives? Or works?'

‘Not a clue.'

‘Then our only contact is the church. Where, late on a Friday afternoon, there's not likely to be anyone around.'

But we were lucky. A middle-aged woman was working with flowers at the font, an apron tied around her sturdy waist. ‘There's a christening tomorrow,' she explained. ‘Can I help you at all?'

‘We're trying to find Alice Small, and we don't know where she lives,' said Alan. ‘We met her at Morning Prayer, and we'd like to – er – invite her to tea.'

‘She's not at home. I know because she had said she'd help me with the flowers today, so when she didn't turn up, I phoned her. No answer. I can't imagine where she's gone. It's not like her to be irresponsible, but she has been acting a bit odd lately.'