Anything For a Quiet Life (9 page)

“In what way?”

“When I heard about it I got my gardener to go down there. He copied down the last two or three. Apparently it’s been going on all week.”

“Have you got them there?”

Mr Grandfield produced some pieces of paper and Mr Porter studied the pronouncements from the stars. Each one started in the same way. ‘Big Chief Great Meadow he say’ followed by a short message. The first was ‘Pride Cometh Before Fall.’ The second: ‘Who Walketh Softly does not Trip.’ The third: ‘Egg on Face Causes Ridicule.’ Legal training enabled young Mr Porter to remain serious. He said, “The first two—er—texts appear to be generally accepted axioms. The third one, I confess, I don’t entirely understand.”

Mr Grandfield said, “They all relate to an unfortunate incident in one of the shops. I had bought some eggs, and tripped and fell as I was carrying them to the door.”

“I see.” Mr Porter re-studied the messages. “And you think they refer to you?”

“Of course they do. Big Meadow. Grand Field. It’s perfectly obvious. People were sniggering about it at the Rotary Club yesterday. It’s—it’s slanderous. You’ve got to stop it.”

“It’s a difficult problem. To start with, since the words are written, they would constitute a libel, not a slander. And it is true that the definition of libel is an untrue statement which causes hatred, ridicule or contempt.”

“Ridicule – exactly.”

“But which of these statements would you say was untrue?”

Mr Grandfield stared blankly at the paper. In the end he said, without attempting to conceal the fury in his voice, “Are you really telling me that there’s nothing I can do about this?”

“You could report it to the police, I suppose. But I hardly see what they could do.”

“Thank you – for nothing,” said Mr Grandfield and stormed out. In his hurry he left the papers behind him. As Mr Porter read them again he allowed himself a single cautious smile.

On Wednesday at nine o’clock in the morning, the station Sergeant came into Chief Superintendent Whaley’s office and said, “It’s Mr Grandfield, sir. Wants a word with you.”

Whaley groaned. He had been talked at by Mr Grandfield on the Monday and telephoned twice on the Tuesday. Personally he liked and approved of the chairman of the council, but his patience was being tried. He said, “I suppose it’s those damned gypsies.”

“I understand it’s something more serious this time, sir. There’s been a robbery.”

“A robbery.” Whaley felt more cheerful. This was something he could deal with.

“When and where?”

“Last night, sir. At Old Priory Lodge. Superintendent Queen has already gone out there to take charge.”

“Show Mr Grandfield in.”

Mr Grandfield said, “I knew something like this would happen.” Like the Chief Superintendent, he sounded almost glad that matters had been brought out into the open. “They’ve gone too far this time.”

“Have you any reason to suppose that it was the gypsies who did this?”

“Of course it was the gypsies. It was a grudge job. They took the only things I really minded losing. The Croxton silver. A tray, two salvers, a loving cup, two cream jugs, a set of forks and spoons. All marked with the Croxton cypher. There was a lot of other silver, but it hadn’t been touched. If it wasn’t done out of spite why should a thief take the marked silver, and leave the unmarked stuff?”

“That’s certainly odd,” said Whaley. “Very odd. Leave it with us.”

That afternoon he discussed it with Superintendent Queen.

“It was a simple job,” said Queen. “A pane of glass cut out of the dining room window, which opened on a catch. The silver was in an unlocked cupboard in the sideboard. People who keep valuable stuff like that really deserve to have it stolen.”

“I believe they had great confidence in that man of theirs. Clegg. Did he hear nothing?”

“He seems to have slept through it. Not that there would have been a great deal of noise.”

“No prints?”

“Only the ones you’d expect.”

Both men thought about it.

“It’s plain to see what’s in Mr Grandfield’s mind,” said Queen. “There’s no love lost between him and the gypsies. They were on the spot. They
could
have done it.”

Whaley said, “The only real indication that it was them and not a bunch of professionals from Brighton or Portsmouth is that they took the marked silver and left the unmarked. Professionals would never have done that.”

“There is one thing more. We’ve had a communication. Someone must have pushed it through the letterbox very early this morning. It was here when we arrived.”

The message was written in pencil in block capitals. It said: ‘the silver is at the back of the gypsy’s stall.’

“I suppose it means that stall she tells fortunes from.”

“I imagine so.” Queen said it without enthusiasm. In the course of his career he had received many anonymous letters. Most of them had led to nothing but trouble. He said, “Hardly enough to justify a search warrant.”

“I’m afraid you’re right,” said Whaley. “Yes, what do you want?”

It was the station Sergeant. He said, “I thought you ought to see this entry, sir.” He had the Station Incidents Book in his hand. “Constable Seddon put this in when he came off duty this morning.”

Whaley looked at the book. It was a volume in which officers recorded all matters, important or unimportant, which came to their attention during the course of their duty. It was an innocent-looking book, which had caught and convicted an uncommon number of criminals.

Whaley read the entry and said, “I’d better hear it from Seddon himself. He should be back at the station by now.”

Constable Seddon was a middle-aged man, running a little to fat, happy in his work and devoid of ambition. He said, “It was when I was patrolling the Marine Parade. The bit that runs along behind all those little shops and booths. It was pretty dark, but about halfway down, on the left, I thought I saw someone climbing over the railing. I shouted to him to stop, and he took to his heels.”

“Him? It was a man?”

“Yes, sir. I’m sure it was a man. But that’s about all I could see. I’m afraid” – Seddon smiled self-deprecatingly – “that he was a lot faster than I am. When I got to the end of the passage I could just see him pedalling off on his bicycle. Up the road. The one that goes past the golf club.”

“And past Old Priory Lodge,” said Whaley.

“That’s right, sir.”

After Seddon had gone, Whaley said, “If we’re going to act at all we’ll have to act quickly. If one of those boys lifted the silver and deposited it in the old girl’s back room you can bet it isn’t going to stay there long.”

Queen nodded agreement. He said, “We’ll need a warrant.”

Whaley considered the three magistrates who made up the Shackleton bench. Colonel Rattray was chairman. He was a bit of a stickler for forms and precedents. Mrs Crossman had recently been appointed and was an unknown quantity. He said, “Laurence Deickman’s our best bet. Apply to him. And if he gives you the warrant we’ll execute it at once.”

At six o’clock that evening two detectives called on the Queen. She had just dealt with her last customer and was locking away the black cloth and the white globe with its carved stand in a cupboard at the back of the room.

When they showed her the search warrant she stood quite still. Her eyes, a piercing blue in her sunbrowned face, were fixed more on the men than on the paper they held. When she said nothing they shifted uncomfortably. One of them said, “You understand, lady, just doing our duty.”

She said, “I understand perfectly. Of course you may search where you like. There’s only this cupboard in here. It’s unlocked. And nothing in the back room but two old tables and some empty cardboard boxes.”

The Croxton silver was in a sack, under a pile of cardboard boxes.

At about half past seven Sam Conybeare, answering the bell, discovered two distraught boys on the doorstep. He listened to them, blocking the door with his massive body. He said, “Mr Pickett’s in his flat upstairs. He’s changing to go out to dinner. He could see you tomorrow.”

“You don’t understand,” said Ben. “They’ve taken her away. They’re locking her up.”

Sam could feel the anguish in the boy’s voice. He said, at last, “All right. You can come up. One of you. The other stays here.”

Jonas listened to what Ben had to say, cancelled without much regret a dinner date with Ronald Sykes and walked round to the police station.

Queen seemed to be expecting him. He said, “Certainly you can see your client if you want. She’s made no statement of any sort. She’s been charged with receiving stolen goods and will appear in front of the magistrate tomorrow.”

“Are you opposing bail?”

“Normally, of course, we should. Receiving’s a serious offence. In this case we’ve decided not to. We don’t think she’ll run away, and if she does, she won’t get far.”

“And if she does,” said Jonas to himself, “it’ll be a convenient admission of guilt.” Aloud he said, “I shall certainly advise her not to do anything so stupid.”

He found the Queen in one of the cells below the police station. She was examining her bed critically. She said, “I’ve slept on harder places than this. I suppose I’ll manage. I’d welcome one more blanket.”

No extravagant denials of guilt. No protests. Jonas wondered how much it would take to disturb the serenity of this remarkable woman.

He said, “You’re charged with receiving stolen goods, knowing them to have been stolen. It’s the second bit that’s important. I take it you’ll plead not guilty.”

“I certainly had no idea the silver was there. Anyone could open the back door of my place. It has a lock of sorts but a child could fiddle it. I never worried. There was nothing in the place anyone would want to steal.”

“All right,” said Jonas. “I won’t bother you any more tonight. The police say they won’t oppose bail, so you can come and talk to me about it as soon as they let you out.”

But the talk they had on the following morning took them very little further. The Queen persisted in her placid denial that she knew anything about the silver. Jonas said, “We’ll fight this at the committal, and try to persuade the bench that there’s no case to answer. It’s their job to prove that you knew the stuff was there, not yours to prove you didn’t.”

“I’m sure you’ll do your best.”

“You realise that the strongest card in their hand would be if you ran away.”

“I’m too old to run,” said the Queen.

When she had gone Jonas summoned a council of war. He said, “I’m convinced the police have got some card up their sleeve. If they’d nothing to go on but guesswork they’d never have got a search warrant. Someone saw something that night. If we can find out and latch on to it, we might be able to cast enough doubt on the case to get it thrown out. I don’t know quite how we’re going to set about it.”

“I can tell you one thing,” said Sam, who had attached himself to the conference. “You’ll get a lot of help. Nobody likes the Grandfields, and the idea’s already beginning to get about that it was a put-up job. I met Clegg twenty years ago on the south coast circuit. No one trusted him and I think he’s got some form.”

“Proving that Clegg’s been to prison isn’t going to help the Queen. Clegg isn’t on trial. What we want is an independent witness. Search round, all of you, and see what you can rake up.”

Three weeks later, on the eve of the hearing, he was forced to admit to the Queen that he’d achieved nothing. He said, “I’ll do what I can for you in the Magistrate’s Court, but I’m afraid it’ll go up to the Crown Court. I’d better brief counsel for that.”

It was at this moment that Claire put her head round the door and said, “I apologise for interrupting, but there are two young men who say they must see you at once. They’re very pressing. I doubt if I can keep them out.”

“Then let them in,” said Jonas. He had a shrewd idea who they would be.

Ben and Billy marched in resolutely. They stood in front of Jonas’s desk like two boys in the headmaster’s study. They avoided the Queen’s eye.

Ben was the spokesman. He said, “We’ve decided to come clean. Billy and me. We took that silver. We dumped it at the back of her place, just to get it under cover. She’d no idea it was there. Next night we were going to take it on to Brighton and get rid of it.”

“How?” said Jonas.

Ben seemed disconcerted for a moment. Then he said, “We know people there who handle that sort of thing.”

“I see,” said Jonas. There was a fairly long silence, whilst the two boys fidgeted. Then he said, “All right, go along with my secretary, dictate a full statement to her, and sign it. I’ll see that it gets in front of the bench tomorrow. It’ll be the end of the case against your Queen. But it’ll be the start of a very serious matter for you. You understand me?”

Ben and Billy nodded.

When they had followed Claire out he said to the Queen, “Do you believe that?”

“Not a word of it.”

“If they go on with this, it’s going to mean bad trouble for them. You realise that?”

“What a pair!” said the Queen. She gave a throaty chuckle. “And they’re doing it for simple love of me. Tell me, Mr Pickett, if you found anyone who was prepared to do that for you, wouldn’t you consider that your life hadn’t been entirely wasted?”

Jonas said, “You might be right about that. But—”

“Of course, I shan’t let them do it.”

“How are you going to stop them?”

“I shall tell them I don’t need them. I’ve got a very good defence without them. If you’d got me clear away at the Magistrate’s Court I shouldn’t have used it. If I’d been sent on for trial at the Crown Court, I suppose I should have had to. Now I’m afraid we’ll have to use it at once.”

She spoke for ten minutes while the expression on Jonas’s face turned from surprise to incredulity and from incredulity to comprehension.

As soon as the Queen had departed Jonas summoned Sabrina. She was not a woman who smiled often, but when she understood what Jonas was saying there was an expression on her face which, in a younger woman, might have been described as a grin. She said, “By God, if only we can prove it.”