Dead Man’s Shoes (20 page)

The hall-porter came in and spoke to Mickie, who addressed Rupert.

“You're wanted on the telephone,” she said and conveyed in the terse phrase several interesting sentiments—surprise that Rupert should be wanted anywhere by anyone, her own complete indifference to it, her preoccupation with other and more important matters, her regret that the summons was not to execution.

“Thanks, duckie,” said Rupert, as he went out.

Mickie glanced at Carolus, but appeared to decide not to voice her indignation to him. She waited for Rupert's return, then said, “Who were you calling ‘duckie' just now?”

“I give you three guesses,” said Rupert, then to Carolus, “It was Gusset. He's coming over to see you after dinner. Coffee in the lounge, I think? You'll have some tense details of the Boy Scout Movement in Barton Abbess. He'll probably touch you for a fiver, too, as he wants to redecorate the Boys' Club.”

“He must surely have something to tell me.”

“Unless he wants you to give a lantern lecture to the Women's Guild or take the salute of the Church Lads' Brigade. There are six members of each, I believe.”

It was obvious when Mr Gusset appeared, however, that he regarded his mission with the utmost seriousness. His air of enthusiasm was replaced by one almost conspiratorial, though he brightened up now and again at references to his various parish organizations.

“This is a duty call, Mr Deene. I have given much thought to the matter before broaching it to you. But I feel that in justice to all I can do no less. If I seem to stray beyond the limits of charity, you will understand, I hope.”

“I'm afraid I don't understand much yet,” said Carolus truthfully.

“You will in a moment, I assure you. You must allow me my little preamble. It's the pulpit, I'm afraid. Only tonight at our Camp Fire Rag one of my Rovers said that the trouble with me was that I preached. He little knew how right he was. You mustn't think I let them all talk to me like that. This is really a splendid lad. Splendid. However, I must return to the reason of my visit. It is about the late Gregory Willick. Oh, I know.
De mortuis nil nisi bonum.
But this is a case of duty.”

“You know something against him?”

“A great deal. A very great deal. Not just gossip, mind you. I do not stoop to that. But facts, Mr Deene. Facts, unfortunately. You have, I feel, been given a false impression of the dead man, and it becomes my duty, unhappily, to correct it. He was by no means the model citizen that you would suppose from what you have heard.”

“I don't think I supposed that. He seems to have been like most of us—a mixture.”

“He was not a good man, Mr Deene. I do not refer so much to the fact that he was living in sin with Mrs Sweeny, though there could be no blinking this fact. But even to that … alliance he was unfaithful. His relationship with Ethel Packinlay was an adulterous one. Of that I have proof.”

“What kind of proof?”

Mr Gusset hesitated.

“Ocular,” he said.

“Really!”

“I mean, sufficient visual evidence to provide me with proof in my own mind.”

“Was Marylin Sweeny aware of this?”

“Oh, no. She adored Gregory. She could see no blemish.”

“And Packinlay himself?”

“I dare not conjecture. I do not want to think that it was with his connivance. He is a most valuable parishioner. The mainstay of the Church Council. A kindly supporter of the Church Lads' Brigade. A contributor to the Parish Mag. But how else can such a thing have gone on? I find it most distressing, and feel that Gregory Willick was to blame.”

“I see. What other facts were you going to tell me about him?”

“He was considered most generous. But his generosity, such as it was, was so erratic and moody that it gave more anxiety than help to me. I would ask him for support for my League of Mercy branch and he would refuse. I would beg him for a new tent for the annual camp. No. Would he provide prizes for the Sunday School? He would not. Then, with scarcely any reference to me, he presents the church with a new organ.”

“Surely he had a right to choose how he would contribute to charity?”

“Yes. But he owed something to me as the Vicar. What I could have done with that money! Our Scouts' headquarters needs furnishing. Our camping equipment is out of date. The Boys' Club needs redecorating. The lads require instructors of various kinds. We might even have been able to send a party to the International Jamboree in Vienna. But no. Mr Willick wanted an organ.

“There was another thing. He was a most arbitrary man with his household. The servants were overpaid, and thus anxious to keep their jobs, so that he could show his bad temper with impunity. Ridge, who is a sidesman of mine, felt it keenly, I know, and I have no doubt that Hoppy and his wife did too. As for Socker …”

“Yes. What about Socker?” asked Carolus with some curiosity.

“The less said the better. I prefer not to discuss him.”

“Just as you wish. Is there anything more about Willick that you think I ought to know?”

“His testamentary arrangements …”

“Surely it was a most generous Will? You were a beneficiary, I understand.”

“But at what cost, Mr Deene? There was no one in his Will who was not reminded of it. No one. It was most uncomfortable.”

“It must have been. Still, money's always useful.”

“How true! I can never get all I need for our various little organizations. The Church Hall, now. It requires immediate repairs. The heating …”

Accepting the inevitable and amused because he had laid himself open to it, Carolus got out his cheque-book.

With great warmth Mr Gusset expressed his gratitude, and Carolus accompanied him to the entrance of the hotel to find two of ‘the lads' awaiting him.

“Come on, Gus,” called one, and added enigmatically, “It's Baked Potato Night.”

“Ah yes,” said Mr Gusset, and hurried away between his attendants.

Next morning at breakfast Carolus told Rupert that he expected to be here another two days.

“So much work?”

“Yes.”

“Or Marylin Sweeny? I'm easy, anyway. When does that ridiculous school start another term? No, don't tell me. It will be all too soon. What are you going to do today?”

“Work off as many odds and ends as possible. We're dining at Barton Place tonight.”

“Oh, we are? When was that arranged?”

“Mrs Sweeny phoned me this morning …”

“Nice of Marylin. I shall look forward to it.”

“You'll be sent to bed if you're not careful.”

The waiter came in to say that the gamekeeper from Barton Place was waiting to see Carolus, and Rupert grinned.

“I wouldn't miss this for the earth,” he said. “I find Socker's revelations quite delicious.”

They found him sitting with a sack at his feet. It was he who took the initiative this time.

“Would it be worth a fiver to you if I was to show you something I found near the place where the old man was done for? Something that would tell anyone like you who asks questions who it was who did it?”

“If you have anything that is evidence it's your duty to go to the police.”

Socker stood up. He evidently did not think Carolus's remark worth answering.

“Are you going to do that?”

“I'd see 'em to blazes before I told them anything I knew. And you, too, if you talk like that. What I found is my own business, and if you don't want it it will never be anyone else's.”

“I'll give you something for your trouble.”

Socker sat down again.

“It wasn't any trouble, exactly. It just so happened I was on the ground and felt something with my foot.”

“You'd better give me the details.”

The wicked leer returned to Socker's face.

“Never mind no details nor who it was with me. It was a nice afternoon, and I was petting and pulling to my heart's content. I was patting and smoothing like a good ‘un. I was happy as a pig in …”

“Yes, yes,” said Carolus. “What was it you found?”

“I found she was as good as gold and a comfy easy little tricksky…. Oh, that. Well, I felt something with my foot that wasn't a stone nor yet a log lying there, and I looked round to see what it was. And if you'll treat me right, I'll tell you, but I can't call any witness, because she was only here for the day and went back on the bus that evening and I couldn't find where she lived if I wanted. You did say a fiver, didn't you?”

“I don't think you need to tell me, Socker. I think I know.”

“No, you don't, then. You couldn't. It's something you never could guess, lying out there.”

“Not a pair of boots?” said Carolus.

Socker stared at him resentfully.

“There's only one person could have told you. You must have come on that lying deceitful slut and found out from her. The double-faced little harlot. The thieving underhanded trull.”

“No one told me anything. It was a guess. But you shall have your fiver. Let's see them.”

Socker untied the string round the sack and pulled out a pair of nail-studded boots, almost unworn, but a little weather-beaten. Carolus examined them.

“They correspond with the footprints, of course? They were the ones bought in Northleach on the day before the murder?”

“Ay, they are. So it wasn't my little baggage that told you, bless her? She was a nice soft little handful, all tricks and kisses, and I wouldn't want to think she was a scheming grabbing one, when I'm seeing her again next Thursday.”

“No. No one told me. Is that all?”

“They weren't twenty yards from where I found the old man's body, and hidden just the same way. I can't tell you no more because I don't know anything more, but isn't that enough? Doesn't it tell you who did for him?”

“I knew that already. But it's useful. Now take these to the police station, like a sensible chap.”

“That I won't do. I'll leave 'em in the bar, and if they like to give 'em to that Slott when he comes nosing round at closing time they can do so. Only don't let him come asking me questions.” Socker paused, then added with scorn and disgust, “Affiliation orders!”

Not caring for this particular irrelevance, Carolus handed him his five pound-notes and watched him go.

Habbard appeared in the hall fingering a different but surely no less commemorative tie.

“Very glad to see you back,” he said. “We've been getting a terribly mixed lot of visitors this summer. Not at all the kind of people one expects in a hotel of this sort. Notice we've changed the lighting? All old ships' lanterns now. You still trying to find out who killed poor old Willick?”

“I'm still interested in the case.”

“Extraordinary. That sort of thing would scarcely be up my street, I'm afraid. But I can't see why you should have any problem. It can only have been the man Larkin. If you had seen him I'm sure you would have no doubt. He was a frightful cad; you could see that at a glance. The clothes he wore … really! And that dreadful voice. I ought to have told him we were full.”

“But he behaved perfectly well?”

“It depends on what your standards are, my dear chap.” Habbard grew lofty. “Personally I considered his behaviour that of an ill-bred boor. He had the impertinence to give me orders. If he'd had the smallest pretensions to being a gentleman he would have known better than that.”

“Of course,” said Carolus, who was amused.

“Then, like all persons of that class, he considered it gave him importance to complain of the servants. I don't say our staff is faultless, but I flatter myself I've trained them to know their places. This Leech or Larkin shouted at them like a bargee, then came to me with complaints.”

“But he was only here one night.”

“Time enough, I assure you. Even when he came to pay his bill he was grumbling about the woman who cleaned his room. According to him she had opened his suit-case and examined his passport. He shouted at me about it as though I had been there.”

“He actually came and told you that Mrs Gunn had looked at his passport? That's interesting. How did he know, I wonder?”

“She had admitted it, apparently. But I could not be expected to concern myself with the sordid details of a thing
like that. How do you like these Tudor coffin-stools? The Association has just bought two hundred of them. They don't like giving one of their hotels a thing unless the rest can have them. I understand we are all getting large punchbowls this year. We always make a real old English feast-day of Christmas. Great tradition. Our people respect that sort of thing. And of course the money would go in super tax if they didn't.”

M
RS
G
UNN'S
short dumpy body was disappearing into Carolus's room when he reached the top of the stairs. He followed her in, said good morning and asked how she was.

“Oh, you're back, are you? Well I thought you'd come back and more than once I said to my daughter, ‘That gent'll be back,' I said. I'm fairly well thank you though this time of the year I have to be careful of my cough it comes on cruel in the early mornings and I don't seem to be able to get rid of it.”

“You should see a doctor.”

“What's the use now they're on the National Health? There's so many goes to try and get something out of it that anyone might be dying before they'd believe you weren't making it up. Still, there you are, you can't have everything. You're the gent that asked me all those questions about that man that murdered poor Mr Willick, aren't you? They know now it was him done it and thrown himself off a ship afterwards so I can't see what there is to ask questions about, though sometimes I think people will never forget about it when I can't have a quiet drink in the evening without them asking me what he looked like and that knowing that I did his room.”