Barbara Cleverly (17 page)

Carter poured out two welcome cups of Assam tea and crunched his way noisily through a pastry.

‘This is the best bit,’ he said handing another telegram over. ‘Simpson? Remember Simpson? We’ve got him! The King’s Own wired me to say that he’d been demobbed from the regiment three years ago but hadn’t left India. Our bloke took up a job with the Delhi Advertiser. He’s a newspaper sub-editor. I got straight on to the paper and confirmed this. Said I wanted to talk to him about the Beaune rail disaster. Well, blow me! Five minutes later he’s on the phone. Very eager to talk about it! It seems our Captain Simpson hasn’t taken any leave for three years and is due some. He offered to get on the next train and come up here to Simla to meet us. Says he has something he wants to talk about concerning the crash. Of course, I agreed to this. I’ve booked a room at the Cecil and we can expect him here tomorrow.’

Joe looked at him anxiously.

‘It’s all right!’ said Carter cheerfully. ‘I warned him to be sure to take the Toy Train and on no account to come up in a tonga!

‘And now, Joe, tell me what you’ve been up to. Loafing about Simla? Doing a spot of window shopping?’

‘That’s right,’ Joe smiled. ‘Loafing about on the Mall with the louche of the town. And, speaking of the louche of the town, don’t we have an appointment to interview one or two of them this morning?’

Carter grinned with anticipation. ‘So we have! At least not an appointment because I certainly haven’t warned them that we’re coming. Johnny and Bertie and Jackie and whoever else is crawling about in that gypsy encampment they call a “chummery”! Come on then, we’ll walk there!’

They walked together past the Cecil Hotel and on towards Mount Pleasant and here they were confronted by a large pale corner house where Edgar Troop and others had allegedly spent the afternoon of the murder playing snooker.

The house was large and, indeed, pretentious but woefully run-down and out at elbows. Joe could not help comparing it to the splendour of Sir George’s Residence and to the Anglicized charm of Charlie Carter’s house under the rule of Meg Carter. The house before Joe seemed to belong to another age, an age before the dominance of the Indian Civil Service. To the days of irresponsible John Company officers with their Indian mistresses tucked away in the mysterious zenana, discreetly amassing a respectable fortune to take home on the side. This, it seemed to Joe, was India before the opening of the Suez Canal, the India of brandy pawnee and chota hazri washed down with a jug of claret.

To the right of the crumbling façade were double gates leading to a stable yard and coach house. Joe heard the clank of buckets and the restive clip of hooves on cobbles. ‘Always a few horses here,’ said Carter. ‘They’re not above a little gentlemanly horse-coping. All the old screws in Simla pass through their hands sooner or later.’

The garden was unkempt. A large car with its doors open was carelessly parked aslant in the driveway. Some window shutters were open and others closed and one or two hung on a single hinge. The honky-tonk of a tinny gramophone played from within. Servants there were aplenty but they lacked the servile discretion which Joe found he had come to expect.

As Joe stood for a moment in indecision, Carter’s hand fell on his shoulder. ‘Come on, we can’t stand here loitering with intent. Let’s have our chat with the chaps in the chummery! Why don’t we step inside? It looks as though we’re going to have to announce ourselves. The servants are as alert and welcoming as their masters, you’ll find.’

At the door they were confronted by a tall figure in a crumpled white suit and with a solar topee somewhat askew. A silver-mounted walking-stick in his hand supported a lame foot.

‘Yes?’ he said without welcome.

Carter looked him up and down. ‘Johnny Bristow!’ he said. ‘Charmin’ to see you again. And are Jackie Carlisle and Bertie Hearn-Robinson at home?’

‘May be. Not sure they’d want to see you. Or your friend. Who’s this?’ he asked, looking suspiciously at Joe.

‘May I introduce Commander Joseph Sandilands of Scotland Yard?’

Joe had met men who were more impressed by the mention of his title. Johnny Bristow sighed with irritation and said, ‘I suppose you’d better come in, though what you think any of us will be able to tell you about anything I can’t imagine. Shouldn’t you be rounding up monkeys or something?’

Joe’s impression of Old India was reinforced as they entered the house. The furniture was European but shabby and knocked about. Bills and invitation cards jostled each other on the mantelpiece; not a few of these were over a year old. Inevitably, the prints of the ‘Midnight Steeplechase’ hung on the wall, along with a fine leopard skin and the head of a markhor. A fencing mask and crossed foils added a note of gentlemanly athleticism and there were whips, boots, boxing gloves, boxes of ammunition, not-well-secured gun cupboards, boxes of cigars sealed and opened, the remains of what had obviously been a copious breakfast amongst the debris of which could be seen a bottle of gin and a bottle of Angostura bitters.

‘Give you a drink?’ said Johnny Bristow. ‘I usually have a pink gin about now. How about you? No? You’d better meet the others.’ In rapid and competent Hindustani he gave orders to a passing servant. ‘I’ll get Jackie and Bertie to come and join us. I think they’re out of bed. Ah – Jackie, here’s Carter and Mr, er, I suppose I should say Commander, Sandilands.’

Jackie, not long out of bed, blinked myopically at them through bloodshot eyes. He was wearing the crumpled white suit which appeared to be the uniform in the chummery.

‘They’re here to investigate the death of that unfortunate Russkie, I expect. What they think we can tell them I really don’t know,’ Johnny said helpfully.

‘You can tell me,’ said Carter, ‘where you both were at the time.’

A third figure, presumably Bertie Hearn-Robinson, entered the room.

‘A clumsy device,’ he said. ‘You say to me, “Where were you at the time?” I tell you. You say, “How do you know that was the time?” And before I know where I am I find myself in handcuffs!’

‘Perhaps we can save you a bit of trouble,’ said Joe mildly. ‘We’ve had a long conversation with Edgar Troop which would appear satisfactorily to establish an alibi and the first thing a good policeman will do with an alibi is check it and that’s why we’re here.’

The three men relaxed somewhat and began to talk amongst themselves. ‘Well, let’s have a think

What day are we talking about?

Monday, was it? That was the day I went to the dentist.’

‘No, that was Tuesday.’

‘Was it the day little Maudie Smithson came and made that fuss?’

‘Good God, no – that was a fortnight ago!’

‘It wasn’t, you know!’

‘Just a minute, let’s get this straight. It was the day

or would it have been the day we tried out your new car, Jackie?’

‘That’s right! I believe that’s right! And we all went

no, we didn’t all go

I say, didn’t Reggie go up to Annandale that day?’

Joe listened with exasperation and amusement. Too much gin for breakfast. Too many almost identical days. He was never going to get corroboration or denial here. And yet, on the other hand, the absence of corroboration seemed, paradoxically, to corroborate Edgar Troop’s account of his movements. Surely if he had anything to hide, surely, if this careless and dissipated crew were any part of a well-structured alibi, they would have been better rehearsed than this? And yet, on the slightest hint from Troop, any one of them would remember anything and, ultimately, contradict anything as required. Joe imagined with horror standing any one of them up in court as a witness.

Charlie, who had been standing silently in the background, now cut in. ‘This is all very jolly and I’m a great believer in police interviews being carried out in the most public possible way but there are limitations and I really think I and the Commander have to ask if we could speak to you individually. Now we can either do that here or you could, as the saying goes, accompany us down to the station to assist us in our enquiries. I’ll play this either way. It might be more convenient for you, to say nothing of more discreet, if you were to set aside a room for our use.’

A chorus broke out. ‘Of course. Of course. Anything we can do

Not sure if we can remember it all but we’ll do our best

Anyone got a cigarette?’

Finally, ‘It’s a bit of a mess but why don’t you come into my room?’ said Jackie Carlisle and he led them into an adjoining room where a servant was perfunctorily flicking about with a duster and had – not well – just finished making up the bed. There were three roorkhi chairs, a low table, a battered bureau, a wheezy overhead fan, several half-empty bottles and three or four boxes of cigars as yet unopened.

‘Sit you down,’ he said.

Carter flipped a notebook open on his knee. ‘Tell me now, Jackie. You met here on the day in question more or less by accident and with no serious prior engagement – am I right?’

‘Yes,’ said Jackie Carlisle absently.

‘And then you had tiffin? Correct?’

‘Correct.’

‘And what time is tiffin served?’

‘Oh, the usual

one o’clock or thereabouts.’

‘Then you and Johnny and Edgar and Reggie Sharpe went for a drive?’

‘That’s right. Bertie was there to begin with but he had to go back to work. You see, I’ve got this new car

’ He waved an explanatory hand at the window. ‘Well, not new exactly but new to me. Second-hand Delage.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Carter. ‘The Delage. We’d certainly noticed it – so conspicuously and illegally parked. Would you

?’

‘Oh, I’ll get it moved! Have to wait until I’ve got it fixed though,’ he said resentfully. ‘Anyway, we drove out on the Mashobra road. We dropped Reggie off at the racecourse to do a bit of horse-coping.’

‘And until Reggie got off you were all together?’

‘Yes.’

‘All the time?’

‘Yes, I think all the time. Edgar got out for a pee, if that counts.’

‘Anybody else get out for any reason at any time?’

‘Not that I remember. It was all a bit informal. You know what it’s like just after lunch. I was thinking more about the car than anything else.’

And there was a good deal more in the same vein with a lot of ‘as far as I can remember’ and occasionally, ‘ask the others, I can’t remember’.

And then Carlisle resumed, ‘And we dropped Reggie off and drove a bit further up towards Mashobra but the road’s so bloody awful I didn’t want to bump a new car about too much so we turned round – quite difficult up there, I might tell you – and we came back here and played snooker.’

‘Who did?’

‘Well, I did. Edgar did. Bertie was there, I think. Or – wait a minute – some but not all the time is the answer but you’d better ask him. The long and short of it is we got back here about three and played two or three frames of snooker.’

‘Two? Three?’

‘Three, I think. Or it may have been four. More than two, less than five. Is this any good?’

Charlie Carter listened with care and made an occasional note. His eye met Joe’s and they silently signalled, This is useless! And, indeed, four (or was it by any chance five?) had met for lunch, three (or was it perhaps five?) had gone for a drive, two (or was it three?) came back for a game of snooker which, it would seem, had occupied them from three o’clock until five (or was it six?).

‘Thanks, Jackie,’ said Carter at last. ‘That’s been most helpful. Now find Johnny and ask him if he’ll kindly look in. If you don’t mind us using your room?’

‘No. No, no. Help yourself! How about a cigar? Drink, anybody?’

‘Now that’s what I really appreciate,’ said Charlie Carter as Jackie left the room. ‘Succinct witness, all the facts at his fingertips, accurate memory of events! Christ! This is no bloody use! We’ll never get anywhere with these chaps! From about twelve noon on any given day they’re all completely bottled. They’re never going to remember something that happened more than two days ago. We’re wasting our time, Joe, you realize that, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ said Joe, ‘I realize that. This could, though, be the most carefully set up bit of obfuscation and by remembering nothing clearly, repeating themselves, contradicting themselves, arguing amongst themselves, they could set up the most impenetrable smoke-screen to conceal the movements of Troop.’

‘It could be but I really don’t think they’ve got the brain!’

They sat for a moment dejectedly listening to the creaking of the fan as it stirred up eddies of yesterday’s curry, ancient cigar smoke and a hundred years of dissipation.

‘Any point going on with this?’ said Joe.

Carter eyed him apologetically.

‘Got to, old man. Got to. Sake of consistency, I’m afraid.’

‘Thought you’d say that,’ said Joe. ‘Ah, well

Next! Johnny, old bean! Take a pew!’

Ť ^ ť

The next morning Joe took a rickshaw back to the Mall and got out in front of a green and gold decorated shop front with its hanging sign, ‘La Belle Epoque’. The shop window was empty save for a single dress of red satin displayed on a chromium-plated stand, well lit and managing to be at once exclusive yet discreetly welcoming. Joe was impressed. Impressed and embarrassed, suffering at once from an eagerness to explore and that embarrassment which overcomes the most sophisticated of men when confronted with the anguish of entering a women’s dress shop alone.

‘I’m supposed to be a policeman. A policeman of international repute, you might say. Clearly at my time of life I ought to be able to walk into a shop with a flourish and that’s what I’m going to do!’

The shop door fell open at his gentle pressure and he stepped into a scented half darkness, the light supplied by partially concealed bracket lights set amongst fabrics on display. Side by side and talking loudly, two Englishwomen were considering day dresses being offered to them by two Eurasian girls. The transaction was overseen by a middle-aged and expensively dressed woman whom Joe presumed to be Mademoiselle Pitiot.

Without interrupting her sales talk she extended a welcoming glance to Joe. ‘I don’t think you would regret it, madame,’ she was saying and, turning to the lady’s companion, ‘Do you not agree? Green is exactly the colour I would choose for madame. Mary, take this into the changing rooms and why not take the blue dress as well? Probably not the yellow – I may be wrong but I think madame would disappear in a yellow dress. Though Lady Everett surprised us all with her choice of daffodil for the viceregal ball last season, did she not? Come through and try them on.’