Murder on the Flying Scotsman (17 page)

‘Judith Smythe-Pike is one of these dreadful modern young women who think it clever to smoke and drink and swear. Amelia has no control over her whatsoever. Raymond is putty in her
hands.’

‘You mean Raymond would kill if Miss Smythe-Pike told him to?’ Alec shot at her.

‘Certainly not,’ she said, but uneasily. ‘In any case, we spoke to Uncle Albert after Raymond saw him.’

‘And Jeremy?’

‘Jeremy declared nothing would make him approach his great-uncle. He said he considered it both useless and tasteless, but it’s just that he always prefers the easy way out.’
She threw a glance of contempt at her husband. ‘Like his father.’

Once started, Mrs. Gillespie was showing a disposition to be as outspoken as her daughter. Alec doubted she could lie convincingly.

‘Albert McGowan was alive and well when you found him,’ he said. ‘And when you left?’

She glowered at him. ‘Alive and as well as he ever was. He had ruined his constitution with overindulgence. No one could have guessed he would outlive his brother!’

‘Are you sure he didn’t just drop dead, Chief Inspector?’ Peter Gillespie enquired plaintively. ‘He was very old and not at all well.’

‘So I gather.’ Alec ignored the question. ‘Was he sitting up or lying down when you saw him?’

‘Sitting up,’ said Enid Gillespie, ‘and complaining bitterly that he was being kept from his after-lunch nap. We didn’t stay long. It was impossible to talk sense into
the old . . . gentleman. He preferred that wretched black interloper to his own family!’

Not without reason, thought Alec.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Tom ostentatiously take out his watch and consult it. Time was passing and they still had several suspects to interview.

‘That will be all,’ he said, ‘for now. I shall want to speak to you again in the morning. Thank you for your cooperation.’

‘Cooperating is all very well,’ Mrs. Gillespie snapped, ‘but we are expected at Dunston Castle.’

‘Haven’t you telephoned?’

‘Sent a cable,’ said Peter Gillespie. ‘Uncle Alistair refuses to put in a telephone. We haven’t had a reply so we don’t know what he thinks of the delay.’

‘I shall endeavour to see that you are all delayed as brief a time as possible,’ Alec said, adding dryly, ‘and all the same length of time, so that no one gains an unfair
advantage. Allow me to offer my somewhat belated condolences on the loss of your uncle.’

Mrs. Gillespie snorted, but her husband had the grace to look a trifle shamefaced as they departed.

‘Judith Smythe-Pike, please, Ernie. Well, what do you think, Tom?’

‘He might do it if she told him to, Chief, but I don’t think she’d trust the poor worm to do it right, and I don’t think she’d dirty her own hands. She wasn’t
sure of Raymond.’

‘No, I noticed that. It’s a devilish thing, shell-shock’

Tom nodded sober agreement. ‘And he’s not accounted for on the city walls, neither. If his sister’d spotted him, he’d only to say he’d tried to save Miss
Belinda.’

‘If that was him,’ Alec said savagely, ‘I’ll nail him come hell or high water, shell-shock or no.’ He forced himself to calm. ‘He seems to have spent most of
his time on the train with Miss Smythe-Pike. We’ll see what she has to say.’

He looked round at the sound of footsteps in the hall. Instead of the expected Piper, a tall, thin young man in a well-cut but slightly shabby lounge suit appeared in the doorway.

‘If you want Judith,’ he announced belligerently, ‘you’ll have to put up with me, too.’

‘Really, darling, don’t be tiresome,’ came a drawl from behind him. Miss Smythe-Pike hooked her arm into her fiancé’s and he moved aside a little. Her shingled
hair was so fair it was almost silvery by gaslight. Her black evening frock, long-sleeved and high-necked like the other ladies’, was unmistakably chic, with elaborate beading.
‘I’m sure the Chief Inspector won’t object. He let Uncle Peter stay with Aunt Enid.’

Her ironic glance met Alec’s and he guessed she was very much aware that Peter Gillespie had not been there for his wife’s protection. There was a hint of a plea in her eyes, too.
I don’t need protection either
, it said,
but let him think I do.

Or so Alec imagined. ‘Certainly you may stay,’ he told the young man, though he’d rather have seen them separately. He waved them to the magenta sofa, where they sat holding
hands. Piper came into the room after them and took up his pad and pencil. ‘Miss Smythe-Pike – and Mr. Raymond Gillespie, is it not?’

‘Yes.’ His point won, Raymond recovered his manners. ‘How do you do, Mr. Fletcher,’ he said with a charming smile. His gaze flickered across Alec’s Royal Flying
Corps tie but he didn’t mention it. His own tie was plain blue, not regimental. ‘I know your daughter, of course. A nice kid, and a great friend of my brat sister.’

‘I understand I have you to thank for liberating Belinda from a bramble bush.’

‘Oh, that was quite as much Kitty’s and Jagai’s doing.’

‘How is Belinda, Chief Inspector?’ Miss Smythe-Pike asked. Her fashionably languid voice made it difficult to tell if she was concerned or merely polite. ‘The poor child had
quite a fright.’

‘A few bruises and the odd scratch. She was lucky. Does either of you have any idea whether she was really approached by a man, hostile or would-be helpful, or whether it was her
imagination?’

They looked at each other and both shrugged. ‘We’ve been talking about it,’ said Raymond. ‘At first we assumed it was imagination, at least that she’d mistaken his
intent. But suppose she saw something on the train which made someone want to put her away?’

Surely, he would not make such a suggestion if he were responsible – unless it was a bluff?

‘I expect Mr. Fletcher’s considered the possibility, darling.’ Again her eyes met Alec’s, and he was sure she knew what he was thinking. ‘I can’t see how
we’ll ever know, failing a confession. You’ll want to hear about our movements on the train, Chief Inspector. We were together all the time. Ray didn’t want to pester Uncle
Albert, but Daddy made me go, so he went with me. You see, Daddy and Uncle Albert had a row and he hoped I might be able to soothe the savage beast.’

‘And did you?’

‘A bit, but only by not mentioning money or wills.’

‘You don’t want your share of the family fortune?’

‘Oh I do, but Ray doesn’t. Or at least he refuses to beg for it.’ She gave Raymond an affectionate, if slightly mocking smile.

‘Even for your sake, Miss Smythe-Pike, so that you can get married?’ Alec felt like an utter cad, but it had to be said. ‘I understand your fiancé is unable to earn a
living, because of his . . . disability.’

Raymond paled.

‘He’d never plead that!’ the girl said angrily. ‘He won’t even let
me
ask for a penny, on any grounds. We’ll manage somehow.’

‘Calm down, old dear.’ Raymond’s voice was a little shaky. ‘Mr. Fletcher has a job to do.’

‘I beg your pardon,’ Alec apologized. ‘I’ve no intention of offending, but as you say, I’ve a murder to investigate. The two of you saw Albert McGowan after Mr.
Smythe-Pike and Mr. Bretton, but before Mr. and Mrs. Gillespie?’

Miss Smythe-Pike answered, the bored, cynical drawl already back in place. ‘Yes, and wasn’t Aunt Enid mad!’

‘Can you put a time to it?’

‘I can’t. Can you, Ray? No, I’m afraid not. We didn’t stay long. It was ghastly hot in there, and he was out of humour and seemed tired.’

‘You didn’t see him lie down when you left?’

‘No, though he had a pillow on the seat beside him, so he may have. We went for a walk along the train – Ray gets fed up with sitting. Oh, just after we started out, the train went
through Durham; you should get a time from that. The corridor we were in happened to be on the right side of the train and there’s a marvellous view of the castle and cathedral. Then we
stopped for a bit to amuse Tabitha, my sister’s little girl, who was with her nurse in third.’

Alec glanced at Tom, who nodded. He’d check with the nurse tomorrow. He already had to ask the woman about the timing of Anne Bretton’s movements.

‘Superintendent Halliday had his men take the names and addresses of all the passengers, Chief,’ the sergeant reminded him. ‘We can always get hold of ’em if need
be.’

‘Did you talk to anyone else?’ Alec asked Miss Smythe-Pike.

‘Did we, darling?’

‘I had a word with the guard and a chap who was visiting his dog in the guard’s van. A very fine setter. That was while you . . . er . . .’

‘While I powdered my nose. A minute or two, no more. Then we strolled back to the others, not in any hurry – in fact we stopped to watch the sights of Newcastle passing the corridor
window. The next thing we knew the train was braking.’

‘You’ve forgotten, Ju, I didn’t stay with you. I went onto . . .’

‘To powder your nose?’ she said lightly, but Alec saw her hand tighten on Raymond’s in a warning grip.

He ignored or failed to recognize the warning. ‘No, to speak to Uncle Albert.’

‘You decided you could do with some funds after all?’ Alec asked casually, every sense alert.

‘Not a bit of it. I suddenly remembered I’d meant to ask him to do something for Aunt Julia. She’s kept house for Uncle Alistair forever, and all
he’s
left her is
a measly hundred a year. I didn’t say anything the first time because Uncle Desmond and Harold between ’em had put the old chap in such a taking I was sure he’d refuse.’

‘Was he more amenable the second time?’

‘I don’t know if he would have been. I didn’t find out because when I opened the door he was lying down, asleep I assumed. Was he dead already?’

Alec fixed on him the gaze that made crooks cringe and subordinates shiver. ‘If he wasn’t dead already, he died very shortly after you opened that door. Very shortly.’

Raymond neither shivered nor cringed. Instead he looked sick. ‘I didn’t kill him, that helpless old man. It was bad enough having to do it, over there, when they were trying to do it
to you. You were all right, you bird-men up above our heads. You couldn’t see, you can’t imagine . . .’ He buried his face in his hands.

‘It’s all right, darling.’ His fiancée put her arm around his shoulders. ‘Take a deep breath, that’s it. Hold it; now let it out slowly. Better? We really
must ask Dr. Jagai to explain a bit more. Now tell Mr. Fletcher just what you saw.’

‘Not much.’ He looked up with a self-deprecating grimace. ‘Not enough to give me nightmares. In fact, nothing but his feet, up on the seat.’

‘At which end of the seat?’

‘The far end. I couldn’t have seen them at the near end, I only opened the door an inch or two and it opened the opposite side to where he was lying. The seat facing the engine,
where he was sitting, Ju, remember? He sat over by the window, Chief Inspector, that’s why I looked that way.’

‘You would have seen if anyone had been with him?’

‘Oh yes, I think so, unless they had climbed into the rack.’

‘Did you notice a glass, a drinking tumbler?’

‘No. Why? He was poisoned?’

Alec did not answer. ‘Did he have shoes on?’

‘Shoes?’ Raymond pondered, brow wrinkled. ‘I honestly don’t remember. I have a vague impression that he had a rug over his legs, one of those tartan traveling
rugs.’

‘He had one earlier, when he was sitting up,’ said Miss Smythe-Pike. ‘You could be remembering that.’

‘Possibly. Sorry, can’t be sure.’

‘Was the window open?’

‘No, he’d never have stood for that. Thin-blooded he was after a life in the tropics, poor old chap, and terrified of draughts.’

‘Darling, are you certain the window was closed, or you just presuming it must have been?’

Slower than his fiancée, Raymond caught on. ‘It was found open? Is that what made Miss Dalrymple suspect something amiss? I couldn’t swear to it either way. Now I come to
think of it, I didn’t notice a blast of heat wafting in my face like the first time. But then, the whole train was frightfully overheated and I only opened the door an inch, because of his
fear of draughts.’

‘And through that gap you saw his feet,’ said Alec. ‘What did you do next?’

‘I assumed he was sleeping. Since Aunt Julia’s plight is hardly urgent, I had no reason to disturb him. I closed the door sharpish and went to find Judith.’

‘Which of the others did you join?’

She winced. ‘No one. We’d bagged four compartments at King’s Cross, between the lot of us, and everyone kept moving around. At that moment one was empty, so I went in there.
But honestly, he wasn’t gone more than two minutes, Mr. Fletcher, if that long.’

Her assertion was worthless, seeing she had already lied for him. The question was, had she lied because she knew or suspected he had killed the old man, or simply to protect him from police
harassment?

Raymond himself was very convincing. Alec saw three possibilities: He was telling the truth; or he was a brilliant actor; or he had murdered his great-uncle in one of his fits and honestly did
not remember.

Sighing, Alec studied the young couple, who gazed anxiously back, holding hands again. He liked them; he wished them well; but he could not take them off his list.

CHAPTER 14

‘Don’t look too good for young Raymond, Chief,’ said Tom forebodingly.

‘No, but we’ve others to see yet.’ Alec consulted his watch. ‘Eleven-thirty, dammit. I hate to skimp on the initial interviews, but I do want to see them all and I
can’t very well keep them up after midnight.’

‘Nor me, Chief.’ The sergeant failed to stifle an enormous yawn. Beneath the hairless dome, his broad face was lined with weariness.

The week in Newcastle had been no picnic, and the sergeant wasn’t getting any younger. Mrs. Tring wouldn’t hesitate to give Alec what-for if he returned her husband to her in less
than apple-pie order.

As for Alec himself, energized by the hint of a threat to his daughter, he would have been prepared to work all night if it served any purpose.

‘Only three to go,’ he said.

‘You’re leaving the two young chaps to stew, eh? Jeremy Gillespie and Harold Bretton?’

‘Partly, and partly I’ve a feeling Smythe-Pike would take it amiss if he was left till last. If his temper is as uncertain as . . .’