Bones in the Barrow (15 page)

She paused, then took the plunge. “Boxwood, at first.”

“That was when she first began coming here,” said the girl. “Right at the start she was different to most customers. There are some read a book all the time, never say a word, don't even condescend to look up when they order; you mightn't exist. Then there's some talk about the weather or what's in the paper. But she was really friendly, except when he was there, of course.”

“You mean Peter?” said David, coming into the conversation too suddenly.

“I mean her husband,” said the waitress coldly. She was startled, and felt she had said too much. She gathered up her tray and left them.

“That's torn it,” said Jill. “You might have kept out. First you leave the spadework to me, then you jump in and ruin it, just when I'm getting somewhere. I don't see how we can possibly say another word about Mrs. H.”

“I wonder if she meant Peter or Alastair,” said David, sighing deeply.

“Peter or—oh, I see. Yes. You'd better ask her yourself. I give up.”

But the waitress had given up, too. Her tables were full, and fresh people were coming in all the time, to stand helplessly looking for empty seats. She slapped their bill down on their table without a word as she passed them, and they felt that it was time to go.

“Cheer up,” said David, when they reached the street. “Given a tactful approach I think she'll talk. She'll have to talk. There are two important things she can tell us.”

“The man who sometimes came with her, and the second and third places they had so-called flats in.”

“Quite. With that information we ought to find the elusive and many-sided Peter. Or, at least, Steve's posse ought to.”

But, though Superintendent Mitchell was graciously pleased to accept their news, Chief-Inspector Johnson, in his subsequent inquiries, achieved only a moderate success at the Cosy Corner. Alarmed to think that anything could have happened to one of her pet customers, the waitress was quite willing to tell all she knew. But it did not amount to very much. Mrs. Hilton had certainly chatted more than most customers do, but all the inspector discovered was that she had lived at Boxwood, then at or near Golders Green, and finally somewhere in the neighbourhood of Battersea Park. The exact address was still unknown. And again, Mrs. Hilton sometimes had a man with her on her visits to the tea shop, a man whom the waitress imagined to be her husband, and who was addressed by Mrs. Hilton as Peter. But the description of this individual was anything but clear.

“Might be almost anyone,” said David, when he had heard it, “not a giant or a dwarf or an inhabitant of other continents. Average height and build, neither young nor old, nor, it would seem, middle-aged. Difficult.”

“Girls of twenty have a different idea of middle age to what we do,” said Johnson.

“Too true. She meant he wasn't what she'd call a boy, but he had probably kept his figure, as they say. Let's look at the rest of it. Brown hair, doesn't remember noticing the eyes, clean-shaved, dark suit, and so on. Might be anyone, as I said before.”

“It might be Hilton himself,” said Chief-Inspector Johnson. “Incidentally, it fits Mrs. Hunt's description of Rust.”

“Did Felicity ever call Hilton, Peter? That could be
most
confusing.”

“We have only his word for it that she didn't.”

“What about the housekeeper?”

“Nix. Can't remember her calling him anything but dear. He called her ‘darling.' ”

“Poor devil. Somehow I can't help being on Alastair's side in this, Johnson. And the Lapthorn woman? What does she say?”

“She swears Peter was real.”

“After all, there's no reason why there shouldn't be a Peter. In fact, we have more reason than not to believe that there was. Unless Mrs. Hilton was more peculiar than we have allowed for.”

“Yes, I expcet there really was a Peter. That's the devil of it.”

“Have you ever asked yourself this?
Why doesn't he come forward
? Suppose Alastair did murder his wife out of jealousy, because she had gone to live with this man. Then Peter would lose her. She would disappear, suddenly, hideously, without a word or a sign. She would be missed from wherever they were living. In one of these flats.”

“Is it possible that the affair had already come to an end? Mrs. Mason's evidence suggests it. My theory is that she left this Peter, or he cleared out, and left her. Hilton discovered where she was, while she was still making up her mind to go home, and he murdered her, and began to dispose of her body. The money arrangements fit that theory. Hilton never stopped her allowance, and it was being drawn under her signature right up to February. I think he drew it himself. It was his own money, even if he forged her signature to get it back.”

“No,” said David. “No, you can't get away with that. Not if Harold Rust was Hilton. Because Rust spent his nights in Waterbury Street, and Hilton at Boxwood.”

“How do we know that? Hilton had his car out in the evenings a great deal last November and early December.”

“Surely neighbours would have noticed if he'd been away night after night, coming in early in the morning?”

“Possibly. But they aren't always observant. His immediate neighbours have no comments to offer either way, except that he went out a lot in the evenings after the days got shorter. That's all they recollect. Then there's another thing. Harold Rust, the cat's-meat man, had no proper luggage.”

“How d'you mean?”

“One small suitcase, hardly more than a large attaché case, and one pair of pyjamas, one spare shirt, and two pairs of socks. No other clothes except what he stood up in. Mrs. Hunt used to wash out the pyjamas and shirts every week and iron and air them the same day. Same with the socks, only oftener. Charging a good price for doing it, of course.”

“No luggage,” said David, thoughtfully. “That is quite a point.” He was silent for a few seconds. Then he went on, in his old argumentative voice, “But you'll have to find Peter in the end, won't you? This mysterious Peter, who nobody knows.”

Chief-Inspector Johnson leaned forward.

“I think Hilton knows him. I think Peter is just a fancy name she invented for her lover, to hide his real name. I think Hilton saw through that. He knows him, and he is building up a case against him. Either that, or he is Peter himself and the murderer.”

“No. We decided that was impossible. But are you perfectly sure you shouldn't have your other theory the other way round? Peter building up a case against Hilton?”

“Yes. The man I mark as Peter suspects nothing, but he is worried about Felicity Hilton.”

“Who is that?”

“Have you ever heard of a business friend of Hilton's called Basil Sims?”

A couple of days after this, David was considering making another visit to Boxwood, this time without warning Alastair Hilton of his intention. But he was forestalled by the man himself, who rang him up to ask him to go down at once.

“I can't explain on the phone,” he said, “but it really is important, or I would not be bothering you like this.”

David had left his car at home that day. He went down to Boxwood by train. When he got out of the carriage the station seemed to be deserted. He crossed to the up platform where the main entrance was. A porter was moving wooden crates at the far end near the signal box, but in the small booking office, which was also the way out, he found no one. As he hesitated, wondering whether to keep his ticket, drop it on the platform, or knock at the closed window of the ticket office, he caught the eye of a youth in the station bookstall. The youth grinned.

“Is there anyone to take this?” asked David, holding out his ticket.

The boy shook his head. David went up to the bookstall.

“I wanted to ask about a return train, too.”

“About what time, sir?”

David looked at his watch; it was now a little after half-past five.

“Half-past six or so,” he answered.

The boy named several trains. There seemed to be at least three in the hour, so it would not matter very much what time he got back to the station after seeing Mr. Hilton. As the boy was friendly and helpful, David asked him the quickest way to Grange Road. He knew how to reach it from the London Road, by car, he explained, but not from the station.

Again the bookstall youth came to his help with a few clear directions. As he was turning away the friendly voice said: “Grange Road, is it, sir? You wouldn't be passing the Willows by any chance?”

“I am going to the Willows,” said David.

“What I mean to say, Mr. Hilton didn't have his magazine this morning. We're short-handed through illness. I was going to take it up myself later. But perhaps as you're going—”

“Of course,” said David, taking the copy of
The Archaeologist
the boy handed to him across the shining ranks of women's papers.

“We send it up as often as not,” went on the boy. “Because he don't always go to business. He isn't strong, is he? Or so they say. If he isn't on the train in the morning, we send it up later, if we aren't short-handed. Or sometimes Mr. Sims takes it.”

“Sims!” said David, then recollecting himself, added, as he thought, fatuously, “Good old Sims!”

“Do you know Mr. Sims too, sir? He doesn't mind taking Mr. Hilton's copy because he takes the same book himself now.”

“Does he indeed?” said David. “When did he start that?”

“February or March. I disremember. Somewhere about then.”

Before David had decided what to ask next the boy said confidentially, “Mrs. Sims is a smasher, isn't she, sir? But not such a smasher as Mrs. Hilton.”

Seeing David's stare of complete astonishment the boy reddened and mumbled, “At least, that's what the boss says,” immediately afterwards disappearing into the little box at the side of the stall where office work was conducted.

David leaned across the papers.

“Hi!” he said. “Come out!”

The boy put his face round the corner of the box. It was expressionless and cold, very much on guard.

“I thought you were the boss,” David said.

There was no answer.

“How many of you work here?” said David. “Or do you only stand in when there is illness?”

“I always work here, but I only run the place when the boss is away.”

“So you have a free hand with the papers and the magazines when the boss is taking time off.”

“On holiday,” said the boy, defiant but sulky. “Or away ill.”

“When was the last time you were in charge, for any length of time?”

“End of last year, if you want to know. And not Christmas, neither. November. What is all this? What's it got to do with you whether I'm in charge here or not? If you hadn't said you were a friend of Mr. Hilton's—”

“You like Mr. Hilton, don't you?” said David, gently.

“I'm not speaking to you any more.”

“What about Mr. Sims? Do you like Mr. Sims?”

The boy gave him a look of hate and fury and disappeared once more into his box.

David walked through the deserted ticket office into the road beyond. A waitress and a newsagent's boy. Both were so easily upset by questions about the Hiltons and their friends. There was too much emotion flying about in this case, he decided. Too much emotion, and far too few facts.

“Good of you to come down so promptly,” said Alastair Hilton opening the front door himself to his visitor. “Come in.”

As he followed Hilton into the sitting-room, David smiled over his shoulder at Mrs. Mason, who had appeared to answer the bell.

“Your housekeeper is doing overtime,” he said, accepting the chair Hilton offered.

“Not really. I think she's waiting to have a word with you. She found me rather upset this morning.”

“Why?”

“I've had a burglary,” said Hilton. He sat down himself, facing David. His hands were shaking a little. “In the night,” he added.

“Didn't you hear anything?” said David, slowly. He knew, for Hilton had told him, that the latter was sleeping badly. A man in that condition usually reacted to the slightest sound.

“No. I heard nothing. My doctor—” He hesitated, then continued. “My doctor is trying me on some new things for insomnia. They work—very well.”

“Especially if you take at least twice the dose he orders—yes?” said David, grimly. “You'll have to be more careful, you know. Or more obedient, perhaps I should say.”

Hilton looked at him, smiling a little.

“You know too much. I've got to have sleep. I must have a few hours when I can forget—”

“That's all right,” said David. “I'm not your doctor. Tell me about the burglary.”

“The house was broken into. My desk was turned upside down. Quite pointless, of course. I keep only household bills and receipts and letters from friends there. Nothing was taken as far as I know except some food out of the kitchen. And the burglar doesn't seem to have gone into any of the upstairs rooms.”

“He must have expected more than he found. Or been disturbed at his work. Probably both. I still wonder you didn't hear him. Or Mrs. Mason. Is she a heavy sleeper, too?”

“She doesn't sleep here now. Said she preferred not.”

“Indeed.”

“What upset me,” said Hilton, growing a little pale as he went on, “was this. I had put out another copy of Felicity's photograph in place of the one I gave you. I found the frame smashed and the photograph deliberately torn in pieces.”

“I see,” said David. He did not see at all, but he felt he had to say something to dispel the strange effect of this news.

“It was horrible,” said Hilton in a low voice. “Coming down this morning and pulling back the curtains and seeing the pile of glass and the broken frame on the floor. I thought the wind must have blown it down, until I saw the photograph. Torn across and across—deliberately. I'll show you.”