Authors: Peter Lovesey
Bloodhounds (9 page)
It was decided that Miss Chilmark would benefit from a cup of coffee, so the break was taken early.
Shirley-Ann told Jessica she was awfully clever knowing how to deal with the hyperventilation.
"Not at all. I had an aunt who was prone to it. She always had a spare paper bag with her."
"Do you think Miss Chilmark is well enough to stay?"
Jessica smiled. "She wouldn't dream of leaving. She's won her point, hasn't she? The dog has been outlawed. Now she wants to enjoy her triumph."
This interpretation struck Shirley-Ann first of all as callous, later as discerning.
Presently Rupert returned, looking forlorn. "I left Marlowe with some old chums in the Saracen's Head," he informed everyone, and added pointedly, "He'll fit in anywhere if he's allowed to."
They resumed the meeting, and when Shirley-Ann offered to speak about Stanley Ellin's short stories she was warmly received. The group were better informed about Ellin than Shirley-Ann expected. Rupert and Jessica had each read the famous and gruesome story
The Specialty of the House,
and Polly, never to be underestimated, said she had copies of
The
Eighth Circle
and
Stronghold on
her shelves at home. Fortunately no one had read
The Blessington Method.
"What is the Blessington Method?" Jessica asked.
"That's what someone in the story asks. I'd better not say."
"Is it a long story? Why don't you read it to us? There's time, I'm sure. We've often had things read out, but never a whole story."
Fortunately Shirley-Ann rather enjoyed reading aloud. At school she'd won the Miss Cranwell Prize for Bible Reading two years in a row. So the Bloodhounds learned the sinister secret of the Blessington Method as practiced by the Society for Gerontology.
"You read it beautifully, but it's not to my taste at all," said Polly when Shirley-Ann had finished. "I found it chilling."
Jessica said, "His stories are chilling. That's the whole point."
"I know, dear. I
have
read some of his novels. This one struck home rather more forcibly. I'm not so far from being an elderly relative myself."
"It's not only about elderly people," said Jessica. "The principle behind it could be applied to any other potential misfits— the mentally ill, the unemployed, sexual deviants, racial minorities."
Rupert fairly sizzled with approval. "Have I discovered an ally at last? You're absolutely right, of course. Crime writers have a duty to bring the complacent middle classes face to face with the festering sores in our society."
"I didn't say that."
He gave one of his gummy laughs. "I said it for you, ducky."
Jessica was incensed. She pointed a finger at him. "Ducky, I am not—you patronizing old fart. And I don't need you as a mouthpiece. I'll say what I want myself."
Rupert turned to Milo and said, "Hark at her."
Someone needed quickly to defuse the tension. Milo glanced across at Polly. "Is it time, I wonder, for my contribution on the locked room mystery? I brought my copy of
The
Hollow Man."
"What a splendid suggestion," said Polly.
"And then we'll all sing 'Jesus Wants Me for a Sun-beam,' " said Rupert.
"What on earth makes you say that?" asked Polly.
"Darling, you've missed the point. If you're going to run this like a Sunday school, we might as well sing hymns."
"Don't you patronize me either," said Polly, taking her cue from Jessica.
"I wouldn't dare, ma'am, after what you did to my dog. I couldn't bear to be banished to the Saracen's Head for the rest of the evening."
Polly conceded a smile. "Milo, why don't you begin? We've heard more than enough from Rupert."
Milo took a deep breath that threatened a lengthy dissertation. Some of the smiles around the circle froze. He began: "A crime is committed in a sealed, locked room. Nobody except the victim is found there when the door is unlocked. A mystery par excellence. None applied more energy and brain-power to it than John Dickson Carr."
Shirley-Ann noticed that Sid nodded in support, and she recalled that he was one of the three people present who had claimed to have read
The Hollow Man.
Remarkably, his eyes were fixed on Milo, and his hands were rotating the flat cap on his knees. She had not seen him so animated before.
Milo was saying, "Some of you have criticized the classic detective novel for being unrealistic. At our last meeting I heard the word
preposterous."
"From me. I'll repeat it this week if you like," said Jessica.
"No need. Improbability, John Dickson Carr boldly tells us in
The Hollow Man,
is not to be despised. It isn't a fatal flaw. On the contrary, it is the chief glory of the detective story— and that is as true of the books you people espouse as of those I prefer to read. We are drawn irresistibly to the improbable. Does anyone deny it? Rupert's mean streets and Jessica's lady sleuths are never more engaging than when some crime is committed in bizarre, unaccountable circumstances. And the supreme situation, the purest challenge to probability any writer has devised is the locked room puzzle."
Rupert couldn't resist saying, "Absolute piffle."
Milo glared at him. "You're going to tell us that no locked room murder ever really happened, no doubt. You'd be wrong. Before
The Hollow Man
was published, a Chinese laundryman was found murdered in New York in a locked room, and there have been other cases since. But I won't be sidetracked. My words may not impress you, but I fancy that Dickson Carr's might."
He brandished his copy of
The Hollow Man
like an evangelist preacher and Shirley-Ann secretly thought back to Rupert's remark about the Sunday school.
"Chapter seventeen is entitled 'The Locked-Room Lecture.' Ideally, fellow Bloodhounds, I should have liked to read it in the kind of setting Dickson Carr describes, after dinner, around the glow of a table lamp, with the wine bottles empty and coffee on the table and snowflakes drifting past the windows. But I suppose a church crypt is not a bad alternative."
With his audience well primed for the treat in store, Milo opened the book and glanced first at the Contents page. He turned to the right chapter. Then he blinked, frowned, and said, "How odd. I don't remember using this as a book-mark." He picked an envelope from between the pages and glanced at it.
He went silent. The envelope was yellow with age, the address in fine copperplate so faded that it was barely legible. In the top right corner was a single postage stamp with the head of Queen Victoria on a black background and the words ONE PENNY along the lower border. The stamp was overprinted with a cancellation mark saying PAID. Just below and to the right was the postmark, remarkably even and clear:
BATH
MY 2
1840
"It's impossible," said Milo, blushing deeply. He stared at the flimsy envelope lying across the open book. "Impossible."
Miss Chilmark, seated on his left, had her hand pressed to her mouth. She swayed away from Milo as if he were contagious. A second bout of hyperventilation could not be ruled out.
On Milo's other side, Jessica took a long look and then raised her eyebrows across the circle at the others seated opposite.
"What is it?" Polly asked. "What have you got there, Milo?"
Rupert, having leaned across Jessica to see for himself, said, "Hey ho. What a turnup!"
"Somebody tell me," said Polly, becoming petulant.
"It would appear to be the missing Penny Black," said Rupert. "Milo, my old fruit, I salute you. I wouldn't have dreamed that you of all people would turn out to be the most wanted man in Bath."
"But I didn't steal it," Milo blurted out. "I'm no thief."
"You're among friends." Rupert went on as if he hadn't heard. "If we're honest, most of us have a sneaking admiration for you. This was brilliantly worked out. You don't need to say any more. Just shut the book, and we'll all behave as if nothing happened."
Milo's hands were shaking. He fumbled with the book and practically knocked the envelope to the floor.
"Careful!" said Jessica. "It's worth a fortune."
"I didn't take it," Milo insisted. "I don't know anything about this."
"You can be frank with us," said Jessica. "Rupert's right. We'll stand by you if you promise to give it back and say no more about it. We can keep a secret. That's a fair offer, isn't it?" She appealed to the rest of the circle.
"But I've done nothing wrong," Milo shrilled. "This is the first time I've ever laid eyes on the thing. Really."
"How did it get into your book?" asked Shirley-Ann.
"I haven't the faintest idea."
"None of
us
could have slipped it between the pages," said Polly, and then undermined the statement by adding, "Could we?"
"It's been here on my lap all the time," said Milo. "I'm not accusing any of you, but someone planted it on me, and I'd like to know how."
"What about when Marlowe came in and upset Miss Chilmark?" Shirley-Ann suggested. "In the confusion—"
"No," Milo interrupted her. "I kept hold of the book. I didn't leave my chair. It must have been done before I got here, but I can't fathom how. Someone must have broken into my boat. Oh dear, this is so distressing."
Shirley-Ann recalled being told that Milo lived on a narrowboat on the canal. "Have you had any visitors lately? Anyone you left alone for a few minutes?"
"Not for weeks."
"Do you lock the boat when you're not there?"
"Of course. I have a damned great padlock. I carry the key on my key ring." He produced it from his pocket. "This one. You see? I bought it from Foxton's. You get a guarantee that no other lock with a similar key has been sold from the same shop—and they're the only people who sell them in the west of England." He sighed heavily. "What am I going to do?"
"Go to the police," said Polly.
"They're going to give me a bad time, aren't they? They're not going to believe this."
Nobody said so, but Milo's reading of events was probably right. His camp manner wasn't likely to help him at the police station.
Shirley-Ann said, "Couldn't you just send it back to the Postal Museum in an envelope?"
"That's what Rupert and I said in effect," said Jessica. "The trouble is, there are six of us who know about this. He's going to have to rely on us all keeping the secret. Who's to say that any one of us won't let the cat out of the bag in some unguarded moment? Then he'd be in far worse trouble."
Polly said, "I don't really agree that we should stay silent. I think Milo ought to go to the police directly."
"So do I," chimed in Miss Chilmark. "Let the truth come out, whatever it is. What do the rest of you think? What about you?" she said to Shirley-Ann.
"I think the decision is up to Milo. I don't mind staying quiet if he doesn't want to get involved."
"And you?" demanded Miss Chilmark, swinging around to face Sid.
Sid's shoulders were hunched as usual. He said, without looking up from the floor, "I can stay quiet."
"No one will argue with that," said Rupert. "Milo, my old cobber, the house is divided. Four of us are willing to turn a blind eye, and two want to hand you over to the rozzers."
"That isn't right," Polly protested. "Milo tells us he knows nothing about this, and I'm willing to believe him. He has nothing to fear from the police. The sooner he reports this and gives them the chance to catch the real thief, the better."
"My sentiments exactly," said Miss Chilmark.
Milo gave a nod. "You're right, of course. I'd better hand this in as soon as possible."
"Do you want anyone to go with you?" Polly asked. "We can all back up your story. We're solidly behind you, Milo."
Milo thanked her and said he thought he would rather go alone. He placed the precious envelope tightly between the pages prior to closing the book. "The amazing thing is that it was here, like a bookmark, at the very chapter I was going to read out."
"The one about the locked room lecture?" said Jessica.
"Yes."
"Did you have a bookmark here?"
"No need. I knew it was chapter seventeen."
"But you'd opened the book to look at it?"
"Sometime during the week, yes. I suppose when the thief opened it, the pages fell open at the chapter I'd been studying. But why me? Why do a thing like this to me, of all people?"
There was no response from anyone. If any of the Bloodhounds knew the answer, or had a private theory, this wasn't the moment to air it. Polly suggested closing the meeting early—it was still only 8:45—and there was no dissent. Milo put on his overcoat and fur hat and was the first to leave.
Shirley-Ann could hardly wait to tell Bert, her partner, about the dramatic moment when the Penny Black was found. She gave him the update as soon as she got back to their flat in Russell Street. Bert was a difficult man to impress, a modern embodiment of the stony indifference displayed by the English archers at the Battle of Agincourt. Admirable, but frustrating when you were the French army at the charge, so to speak, with lances raised and banners unfurled. He listened in silence, hardly raising an eyebrow until Shirley-Ann had finished. Then came the comment: "I suppose we'll have the police around here asking questions next."
Bert had this unerring ability to raise alarming images in Shirley-Ann's brain. She pictured two burly officers in uniform sitting in the living room. She, straight from the kitchen, caught wearing that vulgar PVC apron with its lifesize image of an overdeveloped female torso in basque and suspenders. No good saying her regular apron was in the wash and this one belonged to Bert, a silly prize won in the rugby club raffle. She visualized the policemen eyeing suspiciously her shelves of books stacked with crime fiction and perhaps even finding on the bottom shelf among the atlases and art books the Stanley Gibbons Junior Stamp Album she had kept since childhood. "Interested in philately, are we?"
Shirley-Ann's brain was in such turmoil that she wouldn't be ready to sleep until much later. She didn't expect to hear much more from Bert until he'd finished his supper. He always ate a big meal with a glass of red wine at the end of the day, and tonight it was a full-size Marks and Spencer steak and kidney pie, heated in the microwave. He survived all day at the Sports and Leisure Center on dried fruit, pulses, and apple juice. It seemed to suit his metabolism. He had the physique of an athlete, so hunky, Shirley-Ann sometimes told him, that he could have doubled for Arnie Schwarzenegger, which was a slight exaggeration. He jogged in the mornings, and of course his work kept him in shape and burned up plenty of calories.
She wanted Bert's advice. He had a very clear-sighted view of things. She waited until he had cleared his plate and was finishing with a banana.
"Bert."
"Mm?"
"Do you really think the police will want to talk to me?"
"It's obvious. You're a witness. You could be a suspect as well."
"Oh, be serious. I didn't have anything to do with it."
"They don't know that. If—what's his name, the gay bloke?"
"Milo."
"If Milo can't explain how he got hold of the stamp, questions are going to be asked, aren't they?"
She nervously fingered a strand of her hair. "I suppose you're right."
"Don't know why you got mixed up with this lot."
"That's down to you."
He frowned. "Me?"
"Because you're always at the Sports Center in the evenings. You can't expect me to stay here on my own. It was in that 'What's On in Bath' pamphlet you brought home. I found it under Clubs and Societies, remember?"
"So how are you going to handle it?" Bert asked, positive and forward-looking. Attractive qualities in a man, but not always easy to match.
"You mean if they come asking questions?"
"There's no 'if about it."
"I'll tell the truth, I suppose. Mind you, I don't want to get Milo into more trouble than he's in already."
"You can't turn your back. You might as well go to the police and tell them what happened—before they come to you." Bert's urge to get things done was why a career in sport was so ideal for him. He called it "sports management," but Shirley-Ann suspected it had more to do with demonstrating step-ups than sitting behind a desk.
"I don't want to do that," said Shirley-Ann. "I don't want to shop Milo. I don't even know for sure if he went to the police after the meeting ended. He said he was going, but you never know."
"Shop him?" Bert repeated. "You're talking like a criminal yourself."
"Give over, Bert. I'm not going to the police, and that's final."
Bert softened a little. He relented to the extent of offering her a segment of orange. He put on his worldly-wise look, the sort of expression he wore when showing some novice how to hold a table tennis bat. "You've got to admit that they sound an odd bunch. This Rupert—he's the character with the dog, right?"
She nodded.
"Character
is the word for Rupert. He dresses like a stage Frenchman. Well, a rather gone-to-seed stage Frenchman. Black beret, striped jersey, and jeans. And he has this terribly, terribly well-bred English accent. Have I told you this already?"
"Some of it," Bert said.
"Listening to him, you'd think you were safe as houses, but he seems to cause havoc wherever he goes. He got the Bloodhounds banned from the Francis Hotel."
"Why?"
"I don't know the details. He can be pretty outspoken, and it's a very carrying voice. I'm not sure if he knows the effect it has."
"Better keep your distance, then. What about the women in the group? Are they more reliable?"
"There's Polly Wycherley. She's our chairman. A little white-haired lady with a fixed smile like you get across the jam and marmalade stall at the Women's Institute sale. She set up the group, and she holds it together. I think it's very important to her self-esteem to keep it going."
"Reliable?"
"I'd say yes like a shot except that Jessica—she's the one who runs the art gallery—seems not to trust her entirely."
"Any idea why?"
"There's some friction between those two. Polly was quite miffed because I stayed for a drink with Jessica in the Moon and Sixpence last week. And Jessica wasn't too pleased when I mentioned having coffee at Le Parisien with Polly. So there's a slight question mark. But I like them both in their different ways. Jessica is bright and liberated. Fun to be with."
"There's another woman in the group, isn't there?"
Shirley-Ann smiled. "Miss Chilmark wouldn't care to be described as a woman. A lady, if you please. 'There have been Chilmarks in the West Country for over seven hundred years.' She can't abide Rupert. Or Polly. Or any of us, except possibly Milo. She'd like to be chairman."
"So what's your opinion?" Bert asked. "Do you think Milo pinched the stamp?"
"I'd be amazed if he did. He's an intelligent man, or so I thought."
"But this wasn't a stupid crime," Bert pointed out. "The whole thing was set up as a kind of challenge, remember. There was that rhyme about Victoria that was on the radio and in the papers."
She nodded. "It was a jolly clever bluff. Everyone was fooled by it, including the police."
"So you reckon there's a good brain behind this?"
She nodded. "The way it was set up was really artful. Brilliant, in fact. That rhyme fooled everyone. The stupid bit was tonight—if Milo is the thief—revealing it to everybody."
"Unless he's still several moves ahead of the rest of you."
Her eyes widened. Bert was second to none at spotting devious goingson. There was a lot of jockeying for position in sports management.
"So what's he up to, do you suppose?" She leaned across the table with the point of her chin resting on her upturned thumb. Her lips were slightly open. She half hoped Bert would say "Who cares about Milo?" and lean closer.
Instead he asked, "Does he know anything about stamps?"
Her chin came to rest less seductively in her cupped hand. "I've no idea. No one has mentioned it. He seems more hooked on Sherlock Holmes than anything else."
Bert rotated his finger thoughtfully around the rim of the empty wine glass. "Do you think he fancies himself as Holmes?"
Shirley-Ann giggled a little. "I suppose he might. He does wear a deerstalker. But I don't see why it should make him want to steal the Penny Black. Holmes didn't commit crimes; he solved them."
He expanded on his theory. "If he wanted to show off a bit, demonstrate his skill at solving a crime, he could pretend to find the stamp by Holmes's methods."
"But he didn't, did he? It turned up in the pages of a book."
"A stupid mistake. It proves he isn't in the same league as Holmes," said Bert. "He must have tucked it in there for safety and forgotten that he was using the same book to read from."
She pondered for a moment. "That sounds quite possible. What was he aiming to do with the stamp?"
"He'd have pretended to find it somewhere nobody else would think of, and he'd have got his fifteen minutes of fame as the modern Sherlock who outwitted the police. The whole episode wouldn't have done anybody any harm provided that the stamp turned up again in perfect condition."
"That's rather neat. I do hope you're right," she said. "I don't like to think of Milo as a thief."
"I didn't say he wasn't one," said Bert in a change of tone. "They don't all wear flat caps and carry bags with SWAG written on them."
"Haha."
"He could have demanded a ransom for it. Fifty grand, or he burns it."
"He's a retired civil servant, for heaven's sake."
"Maybe he's been waiting all his life to do something really exciting."
"Silly!"
Bert said huffily, "If you don't think much of my opinions, why ask me?"
Now she'd offended him. He was so touchy about anything remotely suggesting he was stupid, which he patently was not. She supposed he had to endure a lot of thoughtless remarks at work from users of the Leisure Center who thought he was just a musclebound bloke in a tracksuit.
They cleared the table and watched television for an hour, but Shirley-Ann couldn't have told you what the program was.