The Sleeping Salesman Enquiry (11 page)

T
wenty

WHEN IVY AND
Roy arrived at Tawny Wings, promptly at three o’clock, Deirdre opened the door with a big smile. “Gus will be here soon. He’s just gone back to feed Whippy and take her for a lightning walk, and he’s bringing his car up so that he can give you a lift back. You can leave your trundle here, Roy, and I shall drive it down to you tomorrow.”

“And a fine sight you’ll look!” said Ivy. “But thanks, anyway. We shall be glad of a lift this afternoon. It gets dark so early, and the pavements could do with a lot of repair work. I think I’ll write to the council and complain.”

“But first, our meeting,” said Deirdre. “I thought we’d be in the drawing room this afternoon. Our office upstairs is not very warm, and we can relax in front of the fire. My Bert, before he died, offered to fix an electric coal fire, but I said no, you can’t beat the real thing. Come on in, both.”

Gus arrived five minutes later in his car, and joined them.

“Car going all right?” said Roy.

“Fine, thanks to Deirdre,” Gus said. “I reckon I got special treatment, being a friend of the garage boss!”

“Very likely,” said Ivy. “Can we make a start on our various investigations now?”

They followed their usual practice of going round the four, each one saying how much he or she knew of the person or persons involved.

“You first, Ivy,” said Deirdre.

“I’d rather Roy began,” she said. “He’s the one who has lived hereabouts all his life, and is likely to know more about past goings-on.”

“Certainly, my dear,” said Roy. “Well, first, I deny categorically that I have been legally married before, and therefore never divorced, nor never should have been divorced. Secondly, I have no idea who that man was. Never to my knowledge have I set eyes on him before. Thirdly, I have tried hard to think back to a time when I offended someone, knowingly or unwittingly, in a way that would cause them to act so cruelly. I have come up with nothing.”

“Now me,” said Gus, sensing that Ivy really wanted to be last. “I can honestly say that the possibility of the banns being challenged never once occurred to me. Deirdre will back me up in saying that my own disastrous marriage has turned me against the whole institution for good. But for Ivy and Roy, who so obviously love each other, I am wholeheartedly behind this investigation, and shall not rest until it is solved.” He paused, then cleared his throat and said that he had had a useful conversation with Rev. Dorothy, and told them what she had said to him.

“Me next,” said Deirdre. “I back up everything Gus said, except the bit about marriage as an institution. I was happily married to my Bert for years, and I wish he’d lived longer. As for this morning’s interrupter, he looked a very nasty piece of work, but . . .”

“But what?” said Ivy.

“But I think I’ve seen him before somewhere. His face was vaguely familiar, and though my memory’s not what it was, I think it may come back to me.”

“When you least expect it,” said Ivy. “Now me. It was a complete surprise, and I was shocked for a few minutes. But Beasleys are a tough lot, and if I’d been a few years younger, that fool would not have escaped. But he did, with threats of the law in action, so that’s what we have to deal with. I hope you’ll forgive me saying this, Roy, but I think there may be one urgent investigation needed, and that is a roundup of previous girlfriends, no matter how long ago, who were understandably keen on you, maybe more than you realised.” She had not forgotten the photo of Roy and Ethel, arm in arm and looking into each other’s eyes.

“Well said, Ivy. So now we can begin planning what to do.” Gus fished a pen out of his pocket and took up a notebook from the highly polished coffee table. “To work, team,” he said.

At this moment, the telephone rang, and Deirdre said she would take it in the kitchen, as it was probably her butcher wanting her weekly order.

The others talked desultorily, until she returned. Her face was pale, and she looked dazed.

“Dee-Dee!” said Gus, rushing over and helping her to sit down. “Who was it? Is it bad news?”

“Come on, gel,” said Ivy kindly. “Pull yourself together. There’s three of us here to help you, whatever’s up.”

Deirdre breathed deeply, and cleared her throat. “It was the police. Seems they had tried to get hold of Ivy and Roy at Springfields, and Mrs. Spurling had referred them to my number. They asked if I was willing to pass on the message, and I said of course I would.”

“Well, what is it? Out with it, love,” said Roy gently.

“It’s your nephew, Roy. You see, he’s been found dead. They tried to resuscitate him, but it seems that he had been dead for some hours.”

“Oh my God,” said Gus. He looked across at Roy, who was quite still, and scarcely breathing. Ivy, sitting next to him, took his hand and, to the others’ amazement, slapped his cheek lightly, and said, “If you ask me, he had it coming to him.”

Roy shook his head, as if to clear his thoughts. “Did Deirdre say Steven is dead?” he asked in a quavery voice.

“Yes, she did. And I said he had it coming to him. Now, this is a bit of a shock, and Deirdre is making fresh coffee, so why don’t we all relax and chat for a bit, before we get back to business.”

A ghost of a smile crossed Roy’s face, now regaining its normal colour. “Don’t you think we might have the morning off, dearest? I shall have a great deal to think about, so perhaps Alf’s problem with his wife can be put on hold, as they say?”

Gus sat dumbly, watching Ivy’s extraordinary handling of her beloved Roy.

“It may well be, Roy dear,” she answered, “that Enquire Within will be required to work on Steven Wright’s demise. No time like the present. Ah, here’s Deirdre. Hot and strong,” she said, tasting her coffee. “Just the ticket. Now, where did we get to?”

• • •

“DETAILS, DEIRDRE? DID
the police give you any details?” After their coffee break, Gus and the others seemed ready to continue. Deirdre refilled cups and then sat down to answer him.

“One or two, Gus. But the main thing is that they will be coming over to Springfields late this afternoon to see Roy. I said I was sure Ivy would want to be with him, and they said that was fine.”

“What else?” said Ivy.

“Well, it appears that first thing this morning, when the caretaker arrived, he opened up the store as usual, dealing with all the security systems and so on. Then the first member of staff to arrive was the junior salesman in the beds department. He took off his coat and checked messages and so on. Then he took his usual walk around the department to make sure all was ready for the day’s trading. He got as far as a large, expensive double bed and was shocked to see someone lying in it, faceup under the duvet, apparently fast asleep. Then he recognised Steven Wright, and his first thought was that his unpopular boss had somehow got back into the store last night, perhaps drunk and incapable, and stretched out on the bed and gone to sleep.”

“Was the salesman sure he was asleep at that point?” said Roy.

“Oh yes. He was really furious and shook his boss vigorously. But he couldn’t wake him, and it finally dawned on him that it wasn’t sleep, but death. Mr. Maleham had arrived by then, and he reported immediately to the police.”

“And then?” Ivy was sitting bolt upright, holding on tightly to Roy’s hand.

“Mr. Maleham closed the store for the day. All the staff are being interviewed, of course.”

“What about Wendy, Steven’s wife?” asked Ivy. The germ of an idea was already forming in Ivy’s mind. Uppermost in her thoughts was a vivid picture of Steven Wright, and it was not a happy one. She had found him unpleasant and unlovable.

“Don’t know about her,” Deirdre continued. “I’ve told you everything the police told me. They thought I should break the bare bones of it to Roy, and then it would be easier for him this afternoon, when the police will be interviewing him.”

“Right, well, that’s all we can do for the moment. Perhaps we could carry on with Alf’s troubles until four, and then Roy and me will be getting back to Springfields, ready for the police when they arrive.”

“Right,” said Gus, taking his cue from Ivy. Normality was to be maintained until it was time for Roy to be questioned. “I suggest we concentrate our investigation on the identity of the man who interrupted the banns. Someone in the congregation might have recognised him. We’ll make a list of everyone we can remember of the few who were in church this morning, and divide them up between us, to see if anyone can help.”

“And I’ll study all the info about reading banns and having them challenged and that.” Deirdre had rallied, and followed Gus’s example.

Gus loaded Ivy and Roy into his car, and they waved good-bye to Deirdre, who was standing at her door with a concerned expression.

“What a day!” said Ivy, when they arrived at Springfields. “Good job we’re fit and well, and all our marbles are intact. What say you, Roy?”

Roy looked at her with a blurring of tears in his eyes. “What I say, Ivy, is that I love you so much that nothing else matters,” he said.

T
wenty-one

WENDY WRIGHT HAD,
of course, been told the bad news earlier, and now she sat with her neighbour, Marie-Agnes, in her kitchen, drinking one cup of tea after another, weeping bitterly, or speaking in rushes of nostalgia in response to consolation and support from her best friend.

“I thought he was with another woman,” she said, after a short silence. “He often spent the night away, and said that he was here or there on business trips. He did some buying for the department, as well as organising his salesmen and doing some selling himself.”

“But what was he doing there on a Sunday?” asked Marie-Agnes gently.

“Oh well, the store started Sunday opening a couple of months ago. Apparently masses of stores do it these days, and business is always good. I suppose with big things like furniture, partners like to come and choose together. It meant that Steven had to give up his regular golf four on a Sunday morning, but he didn’t seem to mind.”

“What makes you think he had another woman, Wendy dear? He could have been telling the truth.”

Big tears plopped into Wendy’s cup. “I checked up on him once. He told me he was going to Liverpool to an appointment with a big supplier. I knew the name, and phoned to talk to him. I said it was urgent. They knew nothing about his appointment, and were very nice, checking round every possible person who might have been expecting him. Then when he came home, I asked him how it had gone, and he said it had been fine, and he’d given them an order. So I knew.”

“Did you face him with it?”

Wendy shook her head. “I said nothing. Didn’t see the point. I just hoped it was a one-off.”

“I’ll make some more tea. Are you hungry? Could you eat a sandwich?”

Wendy shook her head. “Didn’t get much sleep last night, wondering where he was this time. Then I got up early and had some cereal and a coffee, and after some serious thinking, decided I was going to leave him. He was a difficult man, as you know, and I had had enough.”

“So instead of you leaving him, he’s left you,” Marie-Agnes said. “Did the police know how . . .”

“How he died? Not for definite. But they were looking at suffocation, they said. Those beds are made up with pillows and such, and apparently it would have been easily done.”

“Provided he was already in the bed and asleep. He was quite a strong man, wasn’t he?” Marie-Agnes suggested.

• • •

IVY AND ROY
sat in the interview room at Springfields, holding hands, while a kindly Inspector Frobisher asked them as tactfully as he could about what they knew about Roy’s nephew, Steven Wright.

Roy took most of the questions, and answered them honestly and straightforwardly, with Ivy occasionally unable to resist chipping in. But the inspector was a patient man. He knew Ivy Beasley of old, and had considerable respect for her. He had had past dealings with the Enquire Within agency and, though reluctant to believe that they could be of any use to him, had to admit that their enquiries had been extremely useful in previous difficult cases they had taken on.

“What kind of a man was your nephew, Mr. Goodman?” the inspector asked. “Take your time, sir. I am in no hurry.”

Roy sighed. “To tell the truth, Inspector, I hardly knew him. He was my sister’s son, and she is sadly—or maybe not so sadly, in view of this terrible news—no longer with us. I was very fond of her, and as children we always played together. She married against our parents’ wishes, as her husband was known to be a violent man. But they seemed to rub along together reasonably well. He died young, and my nephew was brought up mostly by my sister on her own, so there was no masculine role model, as they say, for young Steven.”

“We have talked to his wife, and she says he used to visit you here?”

“Once or twice a year,” said Roy.

“And then he would look at his watch after about half an hour,” said Ivy.

“And I understand he was your only living close relative?” The inspector shifted in his chair.

“He was my heir, and until I met my dearest Ivy here, he would have inherited everything on my death. When he got married, I was very pleased and assured him that his family would, of course, be special to me.”

“And would have shared in what must be a sizeable sum?”

Roy nodded. “Of course. But I am to marry Miss Beasley shortly, and that will mean changes.”

“Ah,” said the inspector. “Then your relationship with Wright became very important. Could you tell me something about that?”

“I asked him to be my best man, and he agreed. He seemed pleased; didn’t he, Ivy?”

Ivy sniffed. “I suppose so,” she said.

“And he was due to be in church this morning to listen to your banns?”

“We asked Steven and Wendy, but I don’t think they could make it.”

“Right,” said the inspector, again shifting in his chair. He hesitated before asking his next question, because he realised how ridiculous it was. But it had to be asked.

“You may think this a silly question, sir, but I have to ask you what you were doing from six o’clock last evening to around eight o’clock this morning?”

Ivy puffed her chest out like an angry pigeon. “I’ll tell you what he did,” she butted in, her face scarlet with rage. “He went over to Thornwell in his trundle, parked it outside Maleham’s store and waited until all the staff had gone. Then he crept in through the keyhole, found his nephew, Steven Wright, tidying up the bed department, challenged him to a fight and punched him to death. Then he lifted him into the best bed, arranged the duvet over his lifeless body, and tiptoed out, back through the keyhole, and returned to Springfields on his trundle. How’s that?”

Inspector Frobisher frowned and reminded Ivy that this could well be a murder investigation, and therefore extremely serious. “I think that will be all for the moment, Miss Beasley, Mr. Goodman,” he added. “Thank you for your cooperation. I shall, of course, be in touch very soon. Good evening.”

Miss Pinkney was waiting for him in the reception hall. “Are you off now, Inspector?” she said. “I do hope this will all be cleared up very soon. I really fear for Mr. Goodman and Miss Beasley. Old people should not have such terrible shocks, should they?”

Inspector Frobisher looked her straight in the eye, and said, “Have no worries about Miss Beasley, madam! She has the heart of a lion, and will make sure no harm comes to Mr. Goodman. Good evening.”