The Baker Street Letters (6 page)

“Thank you for coming so quickly. I assume you have an inspector on the way?” Reggie said to the male sergeant.

“Detective Inspector Wembley will be here, sir.”

“You didn't touch anything?” said the female officer, crossing around behind the desk to view the body.

“Just as we found it,” said Reggie.

“I picked that thing up for just a bit, though,” Laura said innocently, pointing at the statue.

“Inspector Wembley won't like that,” the male officer said in an annoyed tone directed at Reggie rather than Laura. “Not quite untouched, then, is it?”

“Reggie didn't say it was untouched,” offered Laura. “He only said it is as we found it, and it is—I put it back quite exactly. Although I admit you do have to watch Reggie and his words; he's a QC, of course, and likes to prove it more often than really necessary.”

“Yes, we know Mr. Heath is a queen's counsel,” said the female officer to Laura, rather dryly. “We got that from the nameplate.”

“Did you say Wembley?” Reggie asked the sergeant.

“Yes, sir. Do you know him?”

“We may have met. Ms. Brinks will be available to him here
when he arrives. I'll be in my chambers office, at the opposite corner.”

“Very good.”

Reggie walked with Laura back to his own office and shut the door behind them. They were alone, for the moment.

“You might have left out the dissertation on the sculpture,” he said.

“I was being diverting.”

“You're always diverting.”

“I mean diversionary. I was creating a diversion,” said Laura. “You couldn't tell?”

“Diversion from what?”

“From them seeing you were impeding their investigation. The computer was on when I left, and off when I came back. I'm sure you did what was necessary, but I didn't want them to notice. They might have touched it and found it still warm, you know.”

“You're being quite tactical, given that we know Nigel didn't do it.”

“So are you. The police can make mistakes, we both know that, and we're trying to help them not make one here. But at least I'm not doing anything that could be considered obstructing. You did, and I wish you wouldn't. It's difficult enough just trying to protect one of you.”

Reggie sat down. After a moment, he said, “Then you think it's possible Nigel needs protecting?”

“I didn't mean it that way.”

Reggie nodded. “It doesn't help that Wembley is investigating.”

“Why?”

“I destroyed him in a cross a few years back, when I was doing criminal.”

“So you're worried about a karma thing, or do you think he holds a grudge?”

“Shouldn't matter, I guess. No doubt he's forgotten all about it.”

There was a short pause. Then Laura said, “You know my plane leaves in little more than an hour.”

“I know,” said Reggie.

“I could hardly leave if I didn't know Nigel would be all right.”

“I will see to Nigel,” said Reggie. “You must go to New York, exactly as you had planned. If you delay it, Wembley will think you are hanging about out of concern for Nigel, and that will just increase his suspicion.”

“What will you do?”

“I'm going to Los Angeles. Wembley won't like it, but he's got nothing with which to stop me at the moment. I think it's a safe bet that Nigel went there to see the girl. That's where I'll start. With luck I'll find him and figure out what's going on before Wembley does.”

“Wouldn't it be better to stay and wait for your brother to contact you?”

“Have you ever known Nigel to ask for help when he should?”

Laura had no answer for that.

“No,” said Reggie, “I haven't either, and I've known him thirty years longer than you. And you know he's been like that even more so since . . . well, since you and I . . .”

“No,” said Laura. “I don't think I do know that. But I know you think it.”

Laura said that as if there were more to discuss on the issue, but Reggie avoided it. “Point remains,” he said, “whatever Nigel's dug himself into, he'll only dig it deeper if I don't reach him. Wembley will already think he's found means and opportunity.
I won't be able to stop him from grilling the staff, and if he asks the right questions and gets the wrong answers, he might think he's found motive as well. As you said, they make mistakes.”

Now Ms. Brinks was at the door.

“Inspector Wembley is here,” she began, but that was as far as she could get.

“I'll only need a minute, Heath,” said a voice from behind her, and now the door opened fully and the detective stepped in without invitation.

Yes, that was the Wembley, Reggie remembered.

“How are you, Wembley?”

“Better than your clerk,” said Wembley. Then he turned toward Laura. “You're Laura Rankin, aren't you?”

“Yes,” said Laura.

“I saw you in
Chicago
. The play, I mean. It was a bit over the top for my taste, but not you—you were captivating.”

“Thank you,” she said. “It's always comforting not to be lumped in the over-the-top category.”

“It was you found the body?”

“No,” replied Laura. “Reggie found the—Mr. Ocher. I came in after.”

“Oh.” Wembley nodded.

“He was a horrid little man, you know. Mr. Ocher,” continued Laura.

“Really?” said Wembley.

Reggie knew Laura was being diversionary again, and he tried to give her a cautioning look behind Wembley's back—but she ignored it.

“He had more annoying little qualities than I can even begin to recount,” she said to Wembley.

“Knew him well, did you?”

“Only from my visits to Reggie's chambers. I mean the legal chambers, of course. Not Reggie's other chambers.”

“So you didn't get on with him, then?”

“Not a bit. I rather despised him, and I'm sure he felt the same about me.”

“Laura—”

“Well, I don't know that he didn't.”

“You'll understand that I have to ask you this,” began Wembley. “Just as a matter of form—”

“Yes?”

“Where were you last night, and early this morning, say, between the hours of—”

“Home in bed,” said Laura. “Rather, alone. No one saw me there at all.”

Wembley had a look on his face that said “More's the pity.” Reggie decided it was time to interrupt.

“Miss Rankin is due in New York,” he said. “She has rehearsals starting immediately. There's no need to delay her, is there?”

“Not on my account,” said Wembley. “Professionally speaking. But it's the City's loss whenever you are away, Miss Rankin.”

“Thank you again, Inspector Wembley,” said Laura. She kissed Reggie lightly on the cheek and turned toward the door.

“The hotel you're at?” Wembley said suddenly as she turned the latch.

“Something over Central Park,” she said. “Reggie always knows how to find me if I'm needed.” She stepped out and closed the door behind her.

There was a pause for just a moment after, before Wembley said, “You've done well for yourself, Heath.”

He seemed to be looking about at the room as he said it,
but it wasn't clear that the chambers was what he was referring to.

“Sit if you like,” said Reggie.

Wembley declined and then said, “We'll hear what forensics has to say, of course. One doesn't want to be hasty—how do the Americans say it, to . . .”

“Rush to judgment.”

“Yes. But it's rather hard to see it as accidental.”

“I'm sure you must be right, but it's not my field. I don't know much about criminal matters.”

“Quite. I recall how little you knew,” said Wembley. Then, “Did Ocher have conflicts with anyone I should know about?”

“I don't know much about his personal life.”

“I meant in the workplace.”

“Ocher annoyed pretty much everyone he worked with, none more so than I. He thought it his duty as senior clerk, and quite right about it, too.”

“Hmm.” Wembley, standing in the middle of the room, put his hands in his pockets, hooked by the thumbs, rocked back on his heels slightly, and took a moment to look about at the appointments for Reggie's chambers.

Then he began again.

“So Mr. Ocher was in your brother's office when he was killed?”

“I don't know. That's where we found his body.”

“Does your brother generally lock his office?”

“I'm not sure.”

“There was no sign of forced entry, you see.”

“I don't know that Nigel does lock his office, but in any case, Ocher has his own key.”

Wembley nodded slightly. “Anything taken that you know
of? I mean, it does look like a possible burglary, I'll grant you. But was anything actually taken?”

“I don't know.”

“Hmm,” Wembley said again. “Quite right. Yes, I expect I'll need a word with your brother, won't I? Is he about?”

“I'm afraid not.”

“Expect him soon?”

“I'm afraid he's . . . on holiday.”

“That is unfortunate. When did he leave?”

“I think last night,” Reggie lied. “But I don't know exactly when.”

“Returning?”

“A few days, I expect.”

“Where is he taking this holiday?”

“He didn't say.”

“Not close, then, you two?”

Reggie shrugged.

“Have him ring me when you hear from him, will you?”

“Certainly,” said Reggie.

“Computer was warm,” said Wembley, turning suddenly. “Know anything about that?”

“No.”

Reggie stood and opened the office door; Wembley exited, and Reggie watched until he had seen him enter the lift, the doors close, and the indicator lights show that the lift was actually on its way down.

Then Reggie went to his own files and opened his list of contacts from the inception of the Dorset House lease. It was a very thorough list, with contacts for people with all sorts of connections with the Dorset National Building Society. Now there was one that he needed.

He found it.

It was an address in Theydon Bois. Out of the city, but not all that far.

Reggie took the back stairs out of the building, looked quickly about for Wembley, and then got in the XJS.

With any luck, he'd get what he needed and still make an evening flight from Heathrow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reggie got out of the city and drove to Theydon Bois in good time. Just past the Shepherd's Arms pub, he navigated a little circus where three roads converged and then drove halfway up a small hill to the address referenced in the Dorset House lease.

It was a smallish two-story structure, in various shades of tan and red brick—nicely maintained, with a flagstone courtyard in front, surrounded by an unintimidating three-foot iron fence.

Two small children ran from the courtyard into the house as Reggie approached; moments later, a woman in her late thirties came to the door. She had a naturally pale and unfreckled face, with thick, attractive auburn hair, cut short in the way many women would do when they've begun a family—but still with a flip above the shoulder.

“Yes?” she said.

“I'm Reggie Heath,” said Reggie, offering the woman his business card. “Are you Mrs. Spencer? Formerly with Dorset National?”

“Yes,” she said, looking at the card. “You found me. I hope you're not here because you think I have need of your services,” she said with just a little bit of a laugh.

“Not at all,” said Reggie. “I came to ask you about the letters.”

“The letters?”

“The Holmes letters.”

She looked at Reggie's card again. “Well, I guess I might tell you,” she said. “After all, you've taken a leasehold on them, haven't you? Would you like some tea?”

“Thank you,” said Reggie as he followed her inside. “I won't keep you long.”

She seated him in front of the French windows overlooking the courtyard and her two playing children.

“I did leave very explicit instructions on how to handle the letters, you know,” she said as she joined him there with the tea. “I was careful about it, especially because the lease was changing hands.”

“I hope that wasn't a problem for you—,” began Reggie.

“Oh, don't worry,” she said. “You didn't cause me to lose my job. I left just before, to be a full-time mum. There was a temp brought in to replace me.”

“Yes,” said Reggie. “Mr. Parsons. Other than him—was it just you answering the letters—the whole time you were there?”

“Yes.”

“Did you keep records?”

“Certainly. And Mr. Parsons was to do a complete historical inventory and archival of them when you took over the lease. It should all be in the tall filing cabinet.”