Mrs. Pargeter's Point of Honour (8 page)

‘Maybe,' said the Inspector. ‘Yes, that is a possible interpretation of the facts.' He drummed his fingers on the cigarette-scarred surface of his desk. ‘It must have taken you some time to go through all those files, Hughes.'

‘Yes, sir.' The Sergeant yawned. ‘I have been putting in the hours, actually. Up pretty late last couple of nights.'

‘Hmm. You're very
keen,
aren't you?' Wilkinson was unable to keep the distaste out of his voice.

‘Yes, I am, sir. I'm not ashamed of that. I want to get ahead in the Force, sir. I want to be the kind of detective who makes his mark.'

It could have been Wilkinson's younger self speaking. Of latter years he had kept quiet about such aspirations; they tended only to prompt ribaldry from his colleagues. Yes, he remembered when he had been full of ambition, just as Sergeant Hughes was now. But Wilkinson had been kept down, had his ambitions thwarted by the jealousy of older, less gifted officers.

And he was determined now to see to it that exactly the same thing happened to Sergeant Hughes.

‘You haven't done any follow-up interviews with any of the witnesses, have you, Hughes?'

‘No, sir. I haven't had time yet. But I was planning to talk to them when—'

Suddenly Wilkinson, moustache bristling, was on his feet and bellowing across his desk, ‘You will do nothing of the kind! You will do nothing more connected with the case without telling me beforehand precisely what action you propose to take. And you will only then do it if you have my express permission. You have no idea, Hughes, of the delicacy of this operation. Its outcome can only be successful if it is conducted in absolute secrecy. If you imagine, Hughes, that I have kept the facts from you out of some kind of dog-in-the-manger selfishness, then you have a very inaccurate notion of what makes a good copper. I have kept you in the dark because I know how easily rumours can spread. The very walls have ears, you know, Hughes – even inside a police station. I am very close to tying up this case once and for all – and if the whole elaborate mechanism gets destroyed at this stage by some wet-behind-the-ears, newly promoted sergeant who fancies himself as Sherlock Holmes, I'll . . . well, I won't be responsible for my actions!'

Hughes hadn't seen his boss speaking in this vein before, and it was undeniably impressive. Most of the time Inspector Wilkinson came across as an ineffectual old fuddy-duddy, a dinosaur in the Police Force, whose retirement could not come soon enough. But now, he had a certain magnificence. Here was a man who knew what he was doing, a man who was well ahead of the game, and who had all the details of the case at his fingertips. Hughes was properly subdued by the outburst.

Wilkinson sank slowly back into his chair. ‘Do you take my point?'

‘Yes, sir,' the Sergeant mumbled.

‘Good.' The Inspector gave him a bleak smile. ‘So . . . since you've got as far as you have in the case, what would be your next step, Sergeant Hughes?'

‘I'd apply for a search warrant and have a look around Chastaigne Varleigh.'

‘Would you?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘And do you imagine for a moment that I haven't thought of that?' Wilkinson reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a folded document. ‘One search warrant, all duly signed and authorized.'

‘Yes, sir,' the chastened Sergeant repeated.

‘The only important thing now is the timing of when we go in. As I believe I may have mentioned before, Hughes, the mark of a good copper is an intuitive instinct for timing. That is something I have, and something that you may possibly over the years develop.'

The Sergeant couldn't stop himself from asking, ‘So are we going in straight away, sir? When are we going in?'

‘That is something that
I
will decide. I am in charge of this case, and all decisions concerning it will be taken by
me
.'

‘Of course, sir. But will it be soon?'

‘Yes, Hughes.' Inspector Wilkinson smiled a confident – almost complacent – smile. ‘It will be very soon indeed.'

It was night. Diluted moonlight washed over the gravel outside Chastaigne Varleigh, where a red Transit van was parked. A thickset man jumped out of the van's back doors and said to his mate, ‘Nearly done. All we got to get now is the—'

‘Who's this coming?' the other man hissed, and pointed down the drive. Through the metal gates swung the headlights of another vehicle.

‘Don't think we'll wait to find out!'

The two men leapt in the van's cab, and gunned its engine into life. They waited till the approaching vehicle – also a red Transit van – had drawn up just behind them, then screeched off down the drive in a fusillade of gravel.

The two men in the newly arrived van only got a quick impression of the driver's face. It was unfamiliar, heavy and sour-looking.

‘Who the hell were they?' asked Truffler Mason in bewilderment.

‘I don't know,' Gary replied.

‘D'you get their number?'

‘Course I did.' Gary's memory for number plates was photographic and infallible.

The two men jumped out of the cab and hurried towards the house.

‘I don't like the look of this at all,' murmured Truffler, pulling at the chain beside the heavy oak door and setting up a distant jangling inside the house. ‘Something's seriously wonky.'

‘Hope nothing's happened to the old bird,' said Gary anxiously.

‘No, it's all right, I can hear footsteps. She's coming.'

The door opened, and Veronica Chastaigne stood there, blinking at them in some astonishment. Outlined in the thin moonlight, she looked paler and more frail than ever. ‘Good evening. Can I help you?'

‘Yes. I'm Truffler Mason and this is Gary,' said Truffler. ‘We've been sent by Mrs Pargeter to collect your paintings.'

The old lady's astonishment grew. ‘What? But some other men have been and done that.'

‘The ones who've just gone?'

‘I suppose so. I didn't think they'd got all the paintings, but maybe they had.'

‘Damn!' Truffler Mason looked down the drive without hope. The tail lights of the first Transit were long out of sight. ‘Damn!' he repeated. ‘Who the hell were they?'

The walls of the Long Gallery looked depressingly bare, their oak panelling loweringly dark. Of the rich array of paintings Mrs Pargeter had been shown, only three remained. There were a couple of minor Madonnas and a voluptuous Rubens nude.

‘I'm sorry.' Veronica Chastaigne shrugged helplessly. ‘I was told two men would be arriving in a red van. Two men arrived in a red van, so I naturally assumed they were the ones I was expecting.'

‘Yes, of course, Mrs Chastaigne. It wasn't your fault.' Truffler shook his head in frustration as he looked around the denuded space.

Gary was equally angry. ‘How did they know it was going to be a red van? Someone's got to have been talking out of turn.'

‘Yes, and I'll damned well find out who—'

Truffler's words were stopped by the sound of a little sigh escaping from Veronica Chastaigne. He turned, but neither he nor Gary was quick enough to catch the old lady before she collapsed unconscious on to the wooden floor.

The chauffeur was instantly kneeling down beside her. He lifted the pitifully light form a little to cradle her head in his arms. Veronica Chastaigne gave no signs of noticing what was happening to her.

‘Blimey O'Reilly! She's not dead, is she?'

‘No.' Gary looked up unhappily at his colleague. ‘Doesn't look too good, though.'

Inspector Wilkinson felt cheerful – even blithe – as Sergeant Hughes drove him along the next morning. They'd given up the Wagner experiment and were listening to a golden oldie radio station, which was much more the Inspector's style. And Hughes was properly subdued, almost deferential, in his manner. The outburst in the office, Wilkinson felt confident, had done the trick. The Sergeant now realized the kind of man he was up against.

‘Did I mention, Hughes,' the Inspector mused, ‘that one of the most important qualities of a good copper is patience?'

‘Yes, sir, you did.'

‘I've been building up this case for such a long time, you know, and it would have been so easy to rush it, to go in before everything was ready . . . and that would have screwed up the whole thing.'

‘Yes, sir. If we do find what we're hoping to inside the house . . .'

‘Hmm?'

‘. . . what will happen? Bennie Logan's dead. He can't be charged with anything, can he?'

‘No, but his wife's still alive.'

‘She didn't have anything to do with the actual robberies.'

‘She must've known they'd taken place. I gather she's not a stupid woman, and the kind of press coverage those robberies got . . . no one could pretend they didn't know about them. No, Veronica Chastaigne definitely knew the stuff was hot.'

‘So what could she be charged with?'

‘Don't know exactly. Receiving stolen goods, perhaps? But don't you worry about it – we'll find something.' The Inspector chuckled in self-congratulation. ‘Did I mention, Hughes, that another of the most important qualities of a good copper is a sense of timing . . .?'

‘Yes, you did, sir,' the Sergeant replied patiently.

It was only when they stood in the Long Gallery, looking at the naked walls, that Sergeant Hughes realized just exactly how good Inspector Wilkinson's sense of timing was.

Veronica Chastaigne looked very small, almost doll-like, sunken amongst the covers and pillows of the hospital bed. Around her in the private room loomed the impedimenta of serious illness – the row of monitors, the stand for the drip that disappeared into bandages round her left wrist, the cylinder of oxygen and its mask, not currently in use but standing by in ominous readiness. On top of the covers, Mrs Pargeter's plump fingers reassuringly encompassed the old lady's bony hand, as she asked gently, ‘So you can't think of anyone who might have known about the paintings?'

Veronica Chastaigne shook her head forcefully, but with little strength. Her voice sounded deeply tired as she replied, ‘Nobody did. Very few people ever came to the house, and none of them was allowed to see the gallery.'

‘And you don't think news of the paintings' existence would have got round in . . .' Mrs Pargeter paused for a moment to come up with a phrase of appropriate discretion ‘the sort of circles where people might have been interested in that kind of thing . . .?'

‘No,' the old lady asserted firmly. ‘My husband was meticulous about the “need to know” principle. He recognized the importance of keeping certain things quiet.'

‘So did mine,' said Mrs Pargeter, with a momentary flicker of wistfulness.

‘No. No one outside the family knew of the gallery's existence. Bennie made absolutely certain of that.'

Mrs Pargeter looked thoughtful. She remembered that Truffler Mason had heard rumours of the hidden stash of famous paintings, but didn't think it the moment to mention that. ‘Well, someone knew they were there . . .' she mused.

‘The only person who'd been in that gallery since Bennie died – apart from Toby and myself – was you.'

‘Yes.' Realizing the potential implication of the old lady's remark, Mrs Pargeter flushed. ‘But surely you don't think that I would have—'

‘Not you yourself, obviously, Mrs Pargeter,' said Veronica Chastaigne evenly. ‘Some of your helpers, however, have in the past been involved in criminal activities.'

‘I don't deny it. In the past, though. Not now. Now they're all honourable men – really. I can assure you, none of them would have broken my trust in that way.'

‘I hope you're right.'

The doubt in the old lady's voice offended Mrs Pargeter, but she did not let it show. After all, if Truffler had heard rumours, maybe they were common currency in certain circles. ‘What about Toby . . .?' she asked diffidently.

Veronica Chastaigne was offended in her turn, and she made no attempt to hide it. ‘You're not suggesting my own son might be involved in this burglary?'

‘No, no,' Mrs Pargeter soothed. ‘I just meant – how has he reacted to what's happened?'

The invalid's expression soured. ‘I regret to say he's delighted.' In response to a quizzical look, she went on, ‘The removal of the paintings by thieves saves him what he might anticipate to be embarrassing scenes with the police after my death.'

‘Ah. Yes . . . So he had no idea of your plans to return the goods?'

‘Good heavens, no. And, even though their disappearance in the way you and I had intended would also have let him off the hook, I'm sure he would never have given his blessing to what we were proposing to do. He has rather different moral attitudes from mine.' The thin face formed a grimace of distaste. ‘Though I don't like to say it about my own son, I'm afraid in Toby I have produced an insufferable prig.'

Mrs Pargeter chuckled. ‘There's no one more self-righteous than first generation straight. Like people who've just given up smoking, or reformed alcoholics.'

Through the frosted glass of the door the outline of two men in suits was visible. ‘Looks like the doctor's come to check you out.' Mrs Pargeter gave the thin old hand a final pat. ‘I'd better be on my way. Leave you to get some rest.'

‘Yes.' Veronica Chastaigne looked suddenly more frail than ever. ‘I am extraordinarily tired . . .'

Leaning forward to plant a kiss on the pale cheek, Mrs Pargeter whispered, ‘Don't worry, Veronica, I'll sort it out. Track down those paintings and get them back to where they should be.'

‘I'm sorry to put you to so much trouble . . .'