Cynthia Manson (ed) (41 page)

“You didn’t see him on the station
platform?” asked Bethancourt.

“No. There wasn’t anybody there.
Dick and I were early and had to wait a bit and we didn’t see a soul except for
one man who drove into the car park right when the train arrived.”

“He didn’t let anybody off?”

“We didn’t see. We were busy
boarding. A blue Ford Escort, it was. I remember because Dick’s a mechanic and
he was laughing at me trying to make out the makes of cars, but I knew that one
because my sister’s got an Escort.” She looked curious. “Did you think Renaud
had taken the same train as us?”

“Yes,” answered Gibbons,
dispiritedly. “We did.”

“Well, maybe he did come on at the
last minute. We were waiting, like I said, and got on right away.”

“That’s certainly possible,” said
Bethancourt. “Thank you very much, Miss Cranston. You’ve been an enormous help.”

Gibbons paused in the act of picking
up his coat. “I expect you still keep in touch with Dick Tottle?” he asked.

“Oh, yes. Saw him last night, in
fact.”

“Could you let us have his address
and phone number?”

She gave them the information from
memory and they bade her goodbye, making their way down the narrow stairs in
silence.

“You don’t think she was lying?”
asked Gibbons hopelessly.

“No,” answered Bethancourt. “Anyway,
if she was, you’ll soon know when you see Tottle.”

“Aren’t you coming with me?” asked
Gibbons in surprise.

Bethancourt shook his head. “Another
Christmas party,” he said. “I’ve got to dress and meet Maria. It’s getting late.”

He swung open the front door, and
they stepped out into the chill drizzle.

“I’ll call you tomorrow. Don’t look
so down, Jack. We were wrong, that’s all. Tomorrow we’ll come up with a better
theory.”

“Yes, all right. Tomorrow, then,
Phillip.”

Gibbons turned away from his friend,
in search of a call box and Dick Tottle, desperately wishing he was the one
going to a Christmas party. Then it occurred to him that there was no reason he
should not partake of some holiday cheer himself, at least after he had
interviewed Tottle. Accordingly, he put through two calls instead of one and,
with his plans for the evening made, went off to see Dick Tottle in a better
frame of mind.

Maria was annoyed with him again,
but Bethancourt would hardly have noticed if she hadn’t announced the fact. He
had, she said, been preoccupied during the whole of the cocktail party they had
attended, and he was to stop thinking of his silly case and rouse himself for
dinner, which was to be eaten with two other couples. Bethancourt meekly agreed
to this on the condition that he could phone Gibbons from the restaurant.
Gibbons was not home, however, and it was not long before Bethancourt dropped
out of the conversation and began to smoke abstractedly. Maria nudged him with
a steely look in her green eyes.

“Darling,” she said, “do you want
any more of those escargots or can the waiter clear?”

“What?” Bethancourt became aware
that everyone else had long since finished their first course. “Oh, no, have
him take them away.”

He lit another cigarette and leaned
back out of the waiter’s way. Something had occurred to him during the cocktail
party, triggered by a chance remark, and he was desperate to get hold of
Gibbons and check it out. It was such a simple solution that he couldn’t help
but feel that there must be something against it or they would have thought of
it earlier.

“You’re not very lively tonight,
Phillip,” said Shelley.

“Late party last night,” he replied
absently. Then he stubbed out his cigarette and rose. “Will you excuse me a
minute? I’ve just remembered something.”

Maria looked daggers at him, but the
others all murmured politely and went on with their conversation.

Gibbons was still not home. Annoyed,
Bethancourt tapped his fingers impatiently against the receiver. He felt it was
quite unreasonable of his friend to be out on the town just when he was wanted.

Bethancourt returned to the table
and, after being kicked sharply on the ankle by Maria, managed to enter into
the conversation with some animation. He was halfway through his entree when
another thought struck him. He turned it over in his mind for a few minutes,
and then bolted the rest of his dinner and asked to be excused again.

Once more there was no answer at
Gibbons’, but with this new idea in his brain, Bethancourt was in no mood to
sit through the rest of dinner. Returning to the dining room, he announced he
had been called away and dashed off, thinking to himself it was lucky he had
come up to scratch on Maria’s Christmas present because otherwise she would
never forgive him.

Outside, it was beginning to rain
again. Bethancourt hailed a taxi and gave Gibbons’ address. He was determined
to plant himself on the doorstep and wait even if Gibbons stayed out until
three in the morning. In reality, however, he soon grew cold and went round the
corner to wait in the nearest pub. Bursting with his news, the minutes dragged
by like hours until at last Gibbons answered his call—the fifth in half an
hour.

“I’m round the corner,” announced
Bethancourt. “I’ll be up directly.” And he rang off before Gibbons could
protest.

Gibbons had not yet undressed. He
felt it was unreasonable of Bethancourt to desert him for the evening and then
to come tramping up to his flat at a quarter past eleven when he was trying to
have an early night. Resignedly, he poured himself a scotch.

“I’ve got the answer!” Bethancourt
announced dramatically as soon as Gibbons opened the door.

Gibbons eyed him as he stood flushed
with the cold, eyes bright behind his glasses, grinning happily.

“You’ve been drinking,” he said.

“Of course I’ve been drinking,” replied
Bethancourt, pushing past him and shedding his overcoat. “I’ve just come from
cocktails and dinner. At least I’m not still drinking,” he added, seeing the
glass in Gibbons’ hand. Then he rounded on his friend and asked abruptly, “Did
Dick Tottle confirm Penny’s story?”

“In every particular,” answered
Gibbons, getting another glass and filling it. He handed the drink to
Bethancourt who took it mechanically and sat down. “Now, what’s this idea of
yours?”

“It’s not an idea,” retorted
Bethancourt, “it’s the solution to the whole puzzle. Who the dead man is and
who killed him.”

“Well, who?”

“The dead man was Renaud Fibrier.”

“I thought we’d just decided he was
the murderer.”

“We were wrong. Think about it,
Jack—he’s everything we want in a victim. The right age, the right looks, and
he disappeared late on Sunday night or early Monday morning.”

Gibbons thought about it. “So you’re
casting David Bainbridge as the murderer?”

“Why not? After all, Renaud spent
the weekend chatting up his daughter, on whom he dotes. Who knows, maybe she
even succumbed. Or maybe Renaud was blackmailing him—he sounds the sort of chap
who wouldn’t balk at a little extortion. And we’ve only Bainbridge’s word for
it that Fibrier left for London early Monday. Penny and Dick never saw him.”

“Well, yes,” said Gibbons
reflectively, “but wait a minute, Phillip. We know Renaud checked out of his
lodgings on Tuesday. He could hardly do that if he was murdered on Sunday night.”

Bethancourt waved a hand airily. “That’s
because when we talked to Mrs. Whatsis at his lodgings, we were expecting to
hear that he had checked out on Monday or Tuesday. We didn’t ask her the right
questions. If I hadn’t pressed Mrs. Tyzack when I was inquiring after Penny and
Dick, she would just have said that they left on Monday, not that they paid up
on Sunday afternoon and she hadn’t seen them since.”

“That’s true,” said Gibbons.

“And, Jack, I’ve remembered
something else. You know what Penny said about a Ford Escort? Well, there was a
blue one parked outside Bainbridge’s office when we went to see him.”

“Was there?” said Gibbons, more
confused by this piece of information than enlightened.

“Yes!” said Bethancourt
triumphantly. “If Bainbridge killed Renaud during the night, then he had to
substantiate his story about taking him to the train in the morning, you know.”

“Of course,” said Gibbons, the light
dawning. “He had his wife with him. He’d have to get up early and what better
way to lend verisimilitude to an otherwise—”

“Just so.”

“That’s more promising,” said
Gibbons. “You could be right, Phillip. Look here, we’ll go round to Fibrier’s
lodgings again first thing in the morning, and if that turns out right, I’ll
put it up to Carmichael. If the dead man
is
Fibrier, it should
be easy enough to confirm through the Sûreté. Then we can go on from there. It’s
going to be tricky, though, getting evidence.”

“Bah!” said Bethancourt, finishing
off his drink. “His own words damn him. If Fibrier was dead in the attic on
Monday morning, the best barrister in the world is going to find it difficult
to explain why Bainbridge claims to have driven him to the station.”

“Well, perhaps,” said Gibbons,
grinning. He raised his glass. “You may well have it, Phillip. Congratulations.”

They interrupted Renaud’s landlady
during her first cup of coffee the next morning. She poured coffee for them
while they explained what they wanted and then went to consult her registration
book.

“Look here,” she said, returning with
the book. “I remember now. I’ve even made a note in the book, but I missed it
yesterday somehow.” She set the volume down and took up her coffee. “Renaud
came to me,” she said slowly, as if trying to get the memory clear in her head,
“and said he’d been invited to the country for the weekend but would be back on
the Monday night. I said I could probably rent the room for the weekend, it
being the holiday and all, but if I didn’t he’d have to pay for it. So he moved
his things out and I put them in the closet. I did rent the room for the
weekend, you can see by the book, but he never came back.”

“So his things are still here?”

She shook her head. “No. On the
Tuesday another man came and said Renaud had to leave in a hurry—his father had
fallen ill, I think. Anyway, he paid me up to Tuesday and returned the key
Renaud had gone off with and took his things away.”

“Would you recognize this man again?”
asked Gibbons eagerly.

She looked doubtful. “I might,” she
said, “and then again I might not. He was older, I remember, and looked
respectable.”

Gibbons described David Bainbridge. “Could
that have been the man?” he asked.

“It could be,” she agreed, “there’s
nothing against it to my recollection. But I wouldn’t know until I saw him, and
even then I’m not sure I’d recognize him.”

They thanked her profusely for her
help, warned her they might call again, and left on swift, jubilant feet for
Scotland Yard.

Carmichael was enormously pleased
with both of them. He put through a call to the Sûreté and then sat puffing out
his mustaches at them.

“Well done,” he said several times. “That’s
a champion bit of work, lads.”

In an hour or two, the copy of
Renaud Fibrier’s dental records arrived and were matched by forensics with
those of the previously unidentified body. An air of satisfaction pervaded
Carmichael’s office.

“I’ll just ring down to Brighton and
have Bainbridge detained,” he said. “Then we’d better drive down ourselves.
Bethancourt, would you care to accompany us?”

Bethancourt accepted this offer, and
Carmichael smiled and nodded while he dialed the Brighton station. He made his
request, and in seconds all the light had gone out of the room. The two young
men watched Carmichael anxiously, but they could make little of the few
monosyllables he spoke. At last he rang off and sighed.

“We’re too late,” he announced. “Bainbridge
committed suicide yesterday.”

“What?” exclaimed Gibbons.

“He must have realized,” said
Bethancourt, “that it was only a matter of time before we identified the body.”

“Did he leave a note?”

“Yes,” answered Carmichael, “but it’s
hardly a confession. It asks his wife to forgive him and says it will be better
this way. Then he says she knows he’s always been a weak man, and that he’s
glad to have found the strength to do this.”

“Well,” said Gibbons dully, “that’s
that.”

* * *

It was raining again and the evening
air was chill. Bethancourt paused for a moment in the vestibule while Cerberus
shook himself dry. Then he firmly pressed the bell.

She was surprised to see him. Her
eyes were red with weeping and she looked tired, but she invited him in
politely.

“I didn’t expect the police again,” she
said.

“I’m not the police, Maureen,” said
Bethancourt gently, divesting himself of his overcoat. “I came to satisfy a
personal curiosity. There is no reason for you to talk to me if you don’t want
to. But if you do, it will be between you and me.”