Watson's Choice (22 page)

‘It would seem like that, but some criminals are incurably childish, Mrs Dance. I could cite you no end of examples.’

‘Some other time,’ said the siren, getting up. ‘You don’t want me any longer, do you?’

‘Where were you at the time of Miss Campbell’s death?’ asked Collins suddenly.

‘They said at the inquest that she died at between three and five in the evening, didn’t they? Well, I suppose I was resting or waiting for tea, but I can’t bring any witnesses to prove it. I hope you don’t think
I
killed Linda Campbell?’ Her eyes were wide open and unafraid, and her mouth was incredulous and amused.

‘I have to keep an open mind, madam.’ He went to the door, and opened it with a flourish. Mrs Dance remained where she was.

‘Whoever did it was no psychologist,’ she said. Collins closed the door quietly and came back to his chair.

‘What do you mean, Mrs Dance?’ he enquired, nodding to the sergeant again.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ replied the mistress of the situation coolly. ‘As somebody else is almost certain to give it you as a rumour, I might as well give it you as a fact. Sir Bohun did not intend to marry Linda. When she disappeared the last time and did not come back (because she was dead, of course – he knows that now) he was most thankful to make it an excuse to break the engagement.’

‘But why? Had he changed his mind so very soon? That was hardly fair treatment for the girl.’

‘It wasn’t, was it? I don’t know to what extent he had changed
his
mind, but I do know that something had turned up to make him realize that marriage with Linda was an impossibility.’

‘Really? What was that?’

‘Who, not what, Superintendent.’ Her eyes danced, her curved lips were provocative. ‘But who turned up is nothing to do with the enquiry.’

‘That is for me to judge, madam. Come, now, Mrs Dance, please don’t hold out on me. This is a grim business, and, so far, we have very little to go on. A handful of suspects, including, of course, yourself – ’

‘You will have a long job proving that I killed poor Linda because I wanted Sir Bohun for myself! I wouldn’t have dear old Boo if he was the only man left alive!’

‘You exaggerate, I am sure,’ said Collins. ‘Will you answer my question, Mrs Dance?’

‘Yes,’ said the siren, nodding. ‘I think I will. He had reason to suppose – or so he told me – that Linda Campbell was already married – or, if not exactly married, well, that there was very much somebody else!’

‘Can you enlarge on that, madam?’

‘I’m sorry, but I can’t. And how he found it out – supposing it were true – I don’t know. He was just a little bit’ – she sketched a gesture – ‘at the time, so I didn’t take very much notice. But there it is, for what it’s worth.’

‘And when did you learn of this, Mrs Dance?’

‘At the Sherlock Holmes party.’

‘But he offered her marriage
after
the party – some little time after.’

‘I know. I’m only telling you – ’

‘Quite so, madam. Thank you very much. Is there anything more you can add?’

‘Unfortunately not. I wish there were. It has been a most enjoyable conversation.’

‘Hm!’ said Collins when she had gone. ‘What do you make of her, Sergeant?’

‘
Femme incomprise
,’ said the sergeant. ‘The Greeks had a word for it, sir. I wouldn’t put anything past her.’

‘Oh,
I
would,’ retorted Collins. ‘I’d put murder past her, for one thing. She can get her own way without anything crude, my dear chap.’

‘It depends what you mean by crude,’ said the sergeant, who enjoyed a debate. ‘And, another thing, sir. I’ve been routing round among the servants, as you told me to, and there’s one bit of her story which isn’t true.’

‘Eh? Which bit?’ Collins sat up.

‘The bit about necking with Mr Mildren, sir.’

‘We shall have to get in touch with that bird, I suppose. But go on. What about him.’

‘Only that it couldn’t have been Mildren she went to the car and the Dower House with, sir. According to the servants, he was put to bed dead drunk long before she says she left the house. I’ve been tipped to get Chief Detective-Inspector Gavin to confirm it.
He
helped to put him to bed!’

‘Who was it, then, that she went out with that foggy night?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine, sir. It certainly wasn’t Mildren.’

‘I wonder why she should lie about it? We’ll find out later, I expect. I’ll ask whether Gavin will confirm that Mildren was put to bed drunk.’

‘Her father he makes cabbage nets,

And through the streets does cry ’em;

Her mother she sells laces long

To such as please to buy ’em.’

HENRY CAREY
–
Sally in Our Alley

OVER THE TELEPHONE
from his office at New Scotland Yard, Gavin did confirm it. Nobody, he asserted, could have roused Mildren from bed and gone out with him to a car or to the Dower House, or anywhere else, once he had been put to bed at the Sherlock Holmes party.

‘He was as clean out as ever I’ve seen a man,’ he told Collins. ‘Our charming Mrs Dance is lying.’

‘Then that particular lie will bear investigation,’ said Collins. ‘Thank you very much, Mr Gavin. I’m much obliged. I’ve a hunch that Mrs Dance had her own reasons for wishing Miss Campbell out of the way, but that’s
by
the way, of course. It doesn’t mean we suspect her of the murder.’

Gavin laughed. The only reason Mrs Dance could have had for telling that particular lie, he reflected, was that she did not want anybody to know who her partner in the car and in the Dower House had been.

‘My guess, for what it’s worth, is that she was with Manoel Lupez,’ he said.

‘Why couldn’t she say so, then?’ demanded Collins. ‘It doesn’t matter to
us!
’

‘It might matter to Manoel.’

‘Oh, I see. Queer his pitch with Sir Bohun, you mean? But Sir Bohun isn’t sweet on the lady.’

‘How do we know? Besides, she’s on the verge of divorce. Sir Bohun may be prudish. After all, Manoel is his son.’

‘Where does Sir Bohun get off, querying other people’s morals?’
grumbled
Collins. ‘Still, what these people did on the night of the Sherlock Holmes party doesn’t, probably, have any bearing whatever upon Miss Campbell’s death. I wish, Mr Gavin, that you’d allow me to ask to have you join us. You’ve had considerable experience of these cases, and ours is pretty limited. Our first job is to contact any relatives. I thought somebody would be bound to turn up for the inquest, but nobody did. I suppose Sir Bohun has an address of the deceased before she entered his employment? – her private address, I mean.’

‘I’ll ask him,’ said Gavin at once. ‘I’d like to be in on this case. It interests me. I’ve already had a word in private at the Yard. You’ve only got to phone them. I’d enjoy doing it, and I shouldn’t be treading on anybody’s corns. I can put you through now, if you like.’

On the following day he came down with his chief’s official blessing and made it his first job to see Sir Bohun. Not altogether to his astonishment, Sir Bohun turned extremely obstinate.

‘Why should I give away Linda’s previous address?’ he wanted to know. ‘Don’t like this idea of ferreting out the poor girl’s past. None of us has lived a blameless life; we’ve all got skeletons in cupboards; besides, an Englishman’s home is his castle. You can’t go poking your nose into the business of a lot of innocent people just because an unfortunate, very silly girl is murdered.’

‘If
I
don’t do it, Superintendent Collins will,’ Gavin pointed out. ‘And, as he says himself, I’ve had a great deal more experience in these matters than he has. It would help him a great deal if he could fill in the background a bit. Don’t you realize, Sir Bohun, that unless suspicion fastens upon some outsider, things may be made very embarrassing – not to say dangerous – for one of your own household? There is Grimston, who dreamt of the murder; there is your niece, Miss Godley, who appears to have been involved in some queer do or other and to have visited the deserted railway station where the body has been found; there is even yourself, who are known to have been in a considerable hurry to terminate your engagement to Miss Campbell – ’

Sir Bohun, grimacing wildly, gibbered at him to be quiet. Then he rummaged in a drawer and flung a letter at Gavin. It was headed:

C/o Mrs Tregidder, Camborne, Cheesebury
, and was signed with Linda Campbell’s name.

‘Thanks,’ said Gavin, pocketing the letter, which was Linda Campbell’s acceptance of the post of governess to Timothy. ‘I’ll get along down there at once.’

Mrs Tregidder’s residence turned out to be an old-fashioned house built on to a disused windmill. Gavin’s first thought about it was that it must be a paradise for children, and this theory was borne out by the sight of three of them, two girls and a boy, playing in and out of a thick grove of laurel trees which bordered an unkempt lawn. He greeted them cheerfully, and asked whether their mother was in.

‘She isn’t our mother,’ the boy informed him. ‘We only play here.’

‘We play here because Judith died,’ added the older of the girls.

‘Judith?’

‘Judith Tregidder. She died. Miss Campbell did it, but we mustn’t talk about that.’

‘I see. She must have died after Miss Campbell left, though, didn’t she?’

‘Yes, she did, only Miss Campbell let her catch an illness. She took her to a place where someone had it.’

‘It was polio,’ said the boy. All three children looked at him impatiently. They wanted to get on with their game.

‘Is Mrs Tregidder in?’ he asked.

‘Oh, yes, she’s in, but it isn’t tea-time yet. They’re still sewing.’

‘Who are?’

‘The people who come Tuesdays and Thursdays. They make things for bazaars to help polio.’

Gavin groaned inwardly. The last thing he wanted was gossip about himself from a mothers’ meeting. However, he had come a long way and he wanted to get back that same evening. He doubted whether Mrs Tregidder would be able to tell him much, and he did not want to waste a day.

‘Look here,’ he said. ‘I wonder whether one of you would do something for me?’ He looked hopefully at the older girl. ‘I want to speak to Mrs Tregidder rather particularly. Will you take my card in to her?’

‘We’re not allowed in there,’ said the boy. ‘I’ll take it, though, if you like. I’m not afraid of her tempers. She threw a knife at me
once,
but I didn’t care. She was sorry afterwards, and gave me a shilling not to tell anybody.’

‘But you’ve just told
me!
’

‘Yes. I’ve told plenty of people. A shilling isn’t enough to shut your mouth for. Nobody buys
me
cheap!’

‘I think, after all, I’ll go myself, then,’ said Gavin, putting back into his pocket the shilling he had just taken out of it. The three children gazed after him and a stone from the unweeded gravel path flicked him between the shoulder-blades. ‘All right, my lad. I’ll see you when I come out again,’ he thought grimly, as he stepped into the porch and rang the bell.

A man answered the door.

‘Mr Tregidder?’ Gavin enquired; and, when the man had nodded, he went on: ‘I am a police officer, and I have called to make a routine enquiry respecting a young woman who was employed here a short time ago, a certain Miss Linda Campbell.’

‘Come in,’ said Tregidder. ‘I hope you won’t need to trouble my wife. She took our little girl’s death very hard. She’s not got over it yet, and won’t, I’m afraid, for some time.’

‘I’m very sorry.’ Gavin followed Tregidder into what was apparently the dining-room. There was no fire, but the master of the house switched on an electric heater and invited the guest to sit down. ‘I won’t keep you longer than I can help. How long was Miss Campbell employed here?’

‘Six or seven months, I believe. She came in the October and left in the following May.’

‘Did she give notice, or was she dismissed?’

‘Oh, she gave notice. We didn’t know, of course, when we parted from her, that she could have given our little girl polio.’

‘I don’t quite understand, Mr Tregidder.’

‘Well, she’d taken her to the pictures several times on their afternoons out. We’d particularly forbidden Judith the pictures, or any other indoor gathering while the polio scare was on. We even took her away from school and put ourselves to the expense of a private governess so that she should not be herded with other children. Miss Campbell had sworn our little daughter to secrecy, and it was not until she was taken ill that we got at the truth. Miss Campbell had gone by that time, of course. In any case, we couldn’t have
proved
anything, as I told my wife at the time.’

‘No, you couldn’t possibly prove that your child caught the
infection
at the cinema,’ Gavin gravely agreed. ‘Well, Mr Tregidder, as you may or may not know, Miss Campbell herself is dead.’

‘Dead? Not –? Did
she
take polio, too? It would serve her right if she did! She betrayed her trust here.’

‘Not polio, no. We have reason to think she has been murdered.’

‘
Murdered?
’ The man’s smooth countenance changed as ludicrously as a face seen in a distorting mirror. His cheeks sagged, his jaw dropped, and his eyes grew wide and anxious. ‘Oh, but, Superintendent – ’

‘Chief Inspector.’

‘Chief Inspector, that could not possibly have anything to do with us here!’

‘Maybe not. I have not come to question you along those lines, Mr Tregidder. All I want to know is Miss Campbell’s address before she came to you. She lived in this house, I presume, while she was in your employment?’

‘Yes, she lived here, certainly. But where she came from … Will you excuse me a moment? I’ve probably got the address in my desk.’ He was gone a long time, but eventually he returned with a letter. ‘Just pulled my wife out from her sewing meeting to tell her you’re here,’ he said apologetically. ‘She must have heard your knock, and she likes to know all about things. Here’s the address Miss Campbell wrote from.’

Gavin copied it down and handed back the letter.