Cover Her Face (22 page)

“There’s no mention of his having the drug in his possession?”

“None at all. I don’t think that there’s much doubt that the Sommeil used to drug Sally Jupp came from the bottle which was taken from Mr. Maxie’s cupboard. Still, other people did have the stuff. The Martingale bottle could have been hidden in that melodramatic way as a blind. According to Dr. Epps he prescribed Sommeil for Mr. Maxie, Sir Reynold Price and Miss
Pollack of St. Mary’s. None of these insomniacs can account for the correct dose. I’m not surprised at that. People are very careless about medicines. Where’s that report? Yes, here we are. Mr. Maxie we know all about. Sir Reynold Price. His Sommeil was prescribed in January of this year and dispensed by Goodliffes of the City on January 14th. He had twenty three-gram tablets and says that he took about half and then forgot all the rest. Apparently his insomnia was quickly overcome. Taking the common-sense view his was the bottle of nine tablets left in his overcoat pocket and found by Dr. Epps. Sir Reynold is ready enough to claim them without being able to remember putting them in his pocket. It’s not a very likely place to keep sleeping-tablets, but he spends nights away from home and says that he probably picked them up in a hurry. We know all about Sir Reynold Price, our local business man
cum
farmer, making a calculated loss on the second activity to compensate for his profits on the first. He fumes against what he calls the desecration of Chadfleet New Town from a Victorian pseudocastle so ugly that I’m surprised someone hasn’t formed a trust to preserve it. Sir Reynold is a philistine, no doubt, but not, I think, a murderer. Admittedly he has no alibi for last Saturday night and all we know from his staff is that he left home in his car at about ten p.m. and didn’t return until early Sunday morning. Sir Reynold is being so guilty and embarrassed by his absence, is so patently trying to preserve a gentlemanly reticence, that I think we can take it that there’s a ‘little woman’ in the case. When we really put on the pressure and he appreciates that there’s a murder charge involved I think we shall get the lady’s name. These one-night excursions are fairly regular with him and I don’t think they had anything to do with Jupp. He would hardly make himself conspicuous by taking his Daimler on a surreptitious visit to Martingale.”

“We know about Miss Pollack. She seems to have regarded the tablets as a cocaine addict ought to regard cocaine, but so seldom does. She wrestled long with the twin evils of temptation and insomnia and ended by trying to put the Sommeil down the WC. Miss Liddell dissuades her and returns them to Dr. Epps. Dr. Epps, according again to Robson, thinks he may have had them back but isn’t sure. There weren’t enough to be a really dangerous dose and they were labelled. Shockingly careless of someone I suppose, but then people are careless. And Sommeil, of course, isn’t on the DDA. Besides, it only took three tablets to drug Sally Jupp and, taking the common-sense view, those tablets came from the Martingale bottle.”

“Which leads us back to the Maxies and their guests.”

“Of course. And it’s not such a stupid crime as it appears on the face of it. Unless we can find those tablets and get some evidence that one of the Maxies administered them, there’s no hope of getting a conviction. You can see how it would go. Sally Jupp knew about the tablets. She might have taken them herself. They were put into Mrs. Riscoe’s mug. No evidence to show they were meant for Sally Jupp. Anyone could have got into the house during the fête and lain in wait for the girl. No adequate motive. Other people had access to Sommeil. And as far as I know at present he might be right.”

“But if the murderer had used more of the tablets and killed the girl that way there might have been no suspicion of murder.”

“It couldn’t be done. Those barbiturates are notoriously slow-acting if you want to kill. The girl might have been in a coma for days and then recovered. Any doctor would know that. On the other hand it would be difficult to smother a strong and healthy girl, or even to get into her bedroom unobserved, unless she were drugged. The combination was risky for the murderer, but not as risky as one method on its own.
Besides, I doubt whether anyone would swallow a fatal dose without suspecting something. Sommeil is supposed to be less bitter than most of these sleeping-tablets, but it’s not tasteless. That is probably why Sally Jupp left most of the cocoa. She could hardly have felt sleepy with so small a dose in her, and yet she still died without a struggle. That’s the curious part of it. Whoever entered that bedroom must have been either expected by Jupp or at least not feared. And if that were so, why the drugging? They may be unconnected but it’s really too much of a coincidence that someone should put a dangerous dose of barbiturate in her drink on the same night as someone else chooses to throttle her.

“Then there is the curious distribution of finger-prints. Someone went down that stack-pipe, but the only prints are those of Jupp herself and they’re possibly not recent. The cocoa tin was found empty in the dustbin with the paper lining missing. The tin bore the prints of Jupp and Bultitaft. The lock of the bedroom has a print of Jupp only, although it’s badly smudged. Hearne says that he protected the lock with his handkerchief when he opened the door which, considering the circumstances, shows some presence of mind. Perhaps too much presence of mind. Hearne of all these people is the one least likely to lose his head in an emergency or to overlook any essential points.”

“Something had rattled him pretty badly by the time he came to be questioned, though.”

“It had indeed, Sergeant. I might have reacted more positively to his offensiveness if I hadn’t known it was only pure funk. It takes some people that way. The poor devil was almost pitiable. It was a surprising exhibition coming from him. Even Proctor put up a better show and heaven knows he was scared enough.”

“We know Proctor couldn’t have done it.”

“So presumably does Proctor. Yet he was lying about a number of things and we shall break him when the time’s right. I think he was telling the truth about that telephone call, though, or at least part of the truth. It was unlucky for him that his daughter took the call. If he had answered the ’phone I doubt whether we should have been told about it. He still maintains that the call was from Miss Liddell and Beryl Proctor confirms that the caller gave that name. First of all Proctor tells his wife and us that she was merely ringing to give him news of Sally. When we question him again and tell him that Liddell denies making the call he still persists that the call was either from her or from someone impersonating her, but admits that she told him that Sally was engaged to be married to Stephen Maxie. That would certainly be a more reasonable motive for the call than a general report on his niece’s progress.”

“It’s interesting how many people claim to have known about this engagement before it actually took place.”

“Or before Maxie admits that it took place. He still insists that he proposed as a result of an impulse when they met in the garden at about seven-forty p.m. on Saturday night and that he had never previously considered asking her to marry him. That doesn’t mean that she hadn’t considered it. She may even have expected it. But surely it was asking for trouble to spread the glad news in advance. And what possible motive had she for telling her uncle unless it was an understandable urge to gloat over him or disconcert him? Even so, why pretend to be Miss Liddell?”

“You’re satisfied that Sally Jupp made that call then, sir?”

“Well—we’ve been told, haven’t we, what a good mimic she was? I think we can be certain that Jupp made that call and
it’s significant that Proctor isn’t yet willing to admit as much.”

“Another minor mystery, which we’ll very likely never solve, is where Sally Jupp spent the hours between putting her child to bed on Saturday night and her final appearance on the main staircase at Martingale. No one admits to having seen her.”

“Doesn’t that make it likely that she stayed in her room with Jimmy and then went to get her last night drink when she knew that Martha would have gone to bed and the coast be clear?”

“It’s certainly the likeliest explanation. She would hardly have been welcome either in the drawing-room or the kitchen. Perhaps she wanted to be alone. God knows, she must have had plenty to think about!”

They sat in silence for a moment. Dalgliesh pondered on the curious diversity of the clues which he felt were salient in the case. There was Martha’s significant reluctance to dwell on one of Sally’s shortcomings. There was the bottle of Sommeil pressed hastily into the earth. There was an empty cocoa tin, a golden-haired girl laughing up at Stephen Maxie as he retrieved a child’s balloon from a Martingale elm, an anonymous telephone call and a gloved hand briefly glimpsed as it closed the trap-door into Bocock’s loft. And at the heart of the mystery, the clue which would make all plain, lay the complex personality of Sally Jupp.

The Thursday morning list at St. Luke’s had been a heavy one and it was not until he sat down for lunch that Stephen Maxie remembered Sally. Then, as always, the remembrance came down like a knife severing appetite, cutting him off from the careless and undemanding pleasure of everyday life. The talk at table sounded false; a barrage of trivialities put up to cover his colleagues’ embarrassment in his presence. The newspapers were too tidily folded away in case a chance headline should draw attention to the presence among them of a suspected murderer. They included him too carefully in their conversation. Not too much in case he should think they were sorry for him. Not too little in case he should think they were avoiding him.

The meat on his plate was as tasteless as cardboard. He forced down a few more mouthfuls—it would never do if the suspect went right off his food—and made a show of despising the pudding. The need for action was upon him. If the police could not bring this thing to a head perhaps he could. With a murmured apology he left the residents to their speculation.
And why not? Was it so very surprising that they wanted to ask him the one crucial question? His mother, her hand over his on the telephone, her ravaged face turned to him in desperate inquiry, had wanted to ask the same. And he had replied, “You don’t have to ask. I know nothing about it. I swear it.”

He had a free hour and he knew what he wanted to do. The secret of Sally’s death must lie in her life, and probably in her life before she came to Martingale. Stephen had the conviction that the baby’s father would hold the key if only he could be found. He did not analyse his motives, whether this urge to find an unknown man had its roots in logic, curiosity or jealousy. It was enough to find relief in action, however fruitless its results.

He remembered the name of Sally’s uncle but not the full address and it took some time to hunt through the Proctors in search of a Canningbury number. A woman answered in the stilted, artificial voice of one unused to the telephone. When he announced himself there was a silence so long that he thought they must have been cut off. He sensed her distrust like a physical impulse along the wire and tried to propitiate it. When she still hesitated he suggested that she might prefer him to ring later and speak to her husband. The proposal was not meant as a threat. He had merely imagined that she was one of those women who are incapable of even the simplest independent action. But the result of his suggestion was surprising. She said quickly, “Oh, no! No! There wasn’t any need for that. Mr. Proctor didn’t want to talk about Sally. It wouldn’t do to telephone Mr. Proctor. After all it couldn’t do any harm to tell Mr. Maxie what he wanted to know. Only it would be better if Mr. Proctor didn’t know that he had ’phoned.” Then she gave the address Stephen wanted. When she became pregnant, Sally had been working for the Select Book Club, at Falconer’s Yard in the City.

The Select Book Club had its offices in a courtyard near St. Paul’s Cathedral. It was approached through a narrow passage, dark and difficult to find, but the courtyard itself was full of light and as quiet as a provincial cathedral close. The grinding crescendo of city traffic was muted to a faint moan like the far sound of the sea. The air was full of the river smell. There was no difficulty in finding the right house. On the sunlit side of the court a small bay window was dressed with the Select Book Club choices arranged with carefully contrived casualness against a draped backcloth of purple velvet.

The Club had been carefully named. Select Books catered for that class of reader which likes a good story without caring much who writes it, prefers to be spared the tedium of personal choice, and believes that a bookcase of volumes equal in size and bound in exactly the same colour gives tone to any room. Select Books preferred virtue to be rewarded and vice suitably punished. They eschewed salacity, avoided controversy and took no risks with unestablished writers. Not surprisingly they often had to look far back in the publishers’ lists to produce a current choice. Stephen noticed that only a few of the selected volumes had originally borne the imprint of Hearne and Illingworth. He was surprised that there were any.

The front door steps were scrubbed white and the open door led into a small office obviously furnished for the convenience of those customers who preferred to collect their monthly book in person. As Stephen entered an elderly clergyman was suffering the prolonged and sprightly farewells of the woman in charge who was determined that he should not escape until the merits of the current choice, including details of the plot and the really astonishing surprise ending, had been explained in detail. This done, there were the members
of his family to inquire for and his opinion of last month’s choice to be solicited. Stephen waited in patience until this was concluded and the woman was free to turn her determinedly bright glance on him. A small framed card on the desk proclaimed her as Miss Titley.

“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. You’re a new customer, aren’t you? I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure before? I get to know everyone in time and they all know me. That was Canon Tatlock. A very dear customer. But he won’t be hurried, you know. He won’t be hurried.”