Death with Blue Ribbon (2 page)

Now, suddenly, today, soon after he had reached his office there had arrived out of the blue these two unwelcome callers. He had received them as he received all visitors on business, believing that they might offer him some opportunity for publicity. They had quickly disappointed his hopes and the man who called himself Jimmie Rivers had put forward his monstrous proposition as though it were a happy joke to be shared between them. But Rolland knew very surely that it was not a joke.

He tried to play it cool. He tried by his manner to show that he was not intimidated.

‘And how would I know,' he asked coldly, ‘that I was getting the benefits of this remarkable service you offer me?'

‘You wouldn't,' said Rivers. ‘You'd only know if you
weren't
getting it. You'd soon know that.'

‘How soon?' he forced himself to ask.

‘Could be tomorrow. Could be next day. But don't worry. There wouldn't be any doubt of it in your mind. That's one thing about us. We never leave any doubt in anyone's mind. Do we, Raze?'

The gentleman known as Razor Gray slowly shook his head.

Once again Rolland tried to convince himself. This was
England. This could not happen here. Bank robberies, wage snatches, all that clumsy stuff, but a
protection
racket, as he had heard it called, that was only carried on in Chicago.

‘Suppose I had not seen you this morning?'

He might have known this would make the fellow produce that ghastly laugh.

‘Then you wouldn't have been warned, would you? We should have had to start straight away with the frightener, wouldn't we? What a lucky man you are!'

‘I'm not going to do it!' said Rolland suddenly and loudly. ‘You won't get a penny of mine. I'll have this place watched by the police. I'll employ tougher characters than ever you knew. You can get out, the pair of you.'

Strangely enough they both rose obediently as though they had been waiting impatiently for this, as though they hoped he would show defiance. They seemed quite willing to get their coats on and be gone.

Rolland, half relieved, half apprehensive, watched them. It was the apprehensive half that made him speak again, as though he wanted to delay them.

‘You hear? Not a penny!' he said.

Rivers did not laugh again. He gave Rolland a pitying smile and went towards the door.

‘Bye-bye,' he said amicably. ‘Be seeing you.'

The two went out and it occurred to Rolland that he had not even noticed what car they drove and with what index number.

Suddenly he went into action. Someone else should share this—the horror, the humiliation, the anxiety, the fear. He went out to the kitchen. He saw that Antoine had just arrived.

‘They're trying to blackmail me,' he said. ‘Two of them. They want protection money.'

Antoine, a surly cadaverous fellow, showed no indignation or sympathy.

‘How much do they want?' he asked.

‘How much? What does it matter? You don't think I'm going to give in to
that
? It's scandalous. They talked of food poisoning.'

Antoine shrugged.

‘This is England, not Chicago,' said Rolland. ‘They can't do this to me. I shall employ a bodyguard. You must double all precautions. Inspect every piece of food that comes in. I'm going to the police.'

‘You know your own business best,' said Antoine. It was evident that he meant to share none of the burden. ‘I don't see what the police can do. What evidence is there?'

‘Evidence? They told me straight out. A thousand pounds they wanted every five months.'

‘I should pay it, if I were you,' said Antoine gloomily. ‘You can afford it.'

‘If
that's
your attitude …' began Rolland, but his one-time partner began to inspect some vegetables.

Two nights later a florid gentleman whom Rolland had never seen before was dining alone in the restaurant and ordered the
Scampi à la Rolland.
He had eaten about half of the portion allowed him when he suddenly changed colour to a dirty-brick red, his eyes bulged and he rose from his place and made for the gentlemen's lavatory where he could be heard vomiting violently.

There was an ugly scene in the foyer.

‘I've been poisoned,' he said. ‘That filthy fish. You'll hear
more of this, I can promise you. How dare you give your customers food poisoning?'

A dozen expectant diners, waiting for tables in the crowded restaurant, looked startled.

‘I assure you…' began Rolland.

‘And I assure
you,'
interrupted the man, ‘that you'll hear from my solicitors.'

He made for the door without leaving his card and walked away towards the car park.

There was only one thing for it. Rolland dare not—as he had admitted to himself in calmer moments—go to the police. A changed man after he came out of hospital, Rivers had said. What might happen if he mentioned it to anyone, anyone? The police could not protect him. There was only one thing for it. A private detective. The name gave him a little relief. If he had Sherlock Holmes here, for instance, omnipotent, imperturbable Holmes. He was a character in fiction of nearly a century ago, but there must be someone to whom he could tell his appalling story.

‘So I'm prepared to spend a large sum, a really generous sum, to be rid of the whole thing,' said Rolland, expansively.

Carolus Deene examined his visitor without favour.

‘It's what you might call a plum, this job,' went on Rolland. ‘Free board at the Fleur-de-Lys. Free meals in the Haute Cuisine Restaurant—with the exception of certain starred dishes, of course. And a reasonable allowance of free drinks in the bar.
With
a large fee. Any private detective would jump at it.'

‘But I'm not a private detective.'

‘Not?' said Rolland. ‘I understood that you were just the man for this job. I made enquiries before coming to see you. It needs someone presentable, as you can imagine. The Haute Cuisine has a reputation.'

‘So have you,' said Carolus quietly. ‘And it stinks.'

Rolland was never more surprised in his life. The words were spoken so indifferently and gently that he only just caught them.

He rose to his feet. He had endured a good deal in the last few days but this was too much. Some wretched little investigator insulting him like this.

‘How dare you?' he asked.

‘Sit down, you conceited fool,' said Carolus, but not
altogether unkindly. ‘Don't you realise I'm the only chance you've got? You're going to answer questions for the next ten minutes and I'll tell you whether I'll take the case or not. First I had better make something clear. The investigation of crime is a hobby with me but I have never looked at anything less than murder. I am rather inquisitive about that, I must admit. I'm a schoolmaster, you know, and I think it's answering the questions of small boys all term-time that makes me want to ask some of my own in the holidays. You haven't got a murder to offer me?'

‘It's worse than murder. It's blackmail,' said Rolland.

‘Still, one often leads to another,' Carolus reflected. ‘You had better tell me all about it.'

He offered Rolland a cheroot and when he nervously refused, lit one himself.

Carolus was a spare muscular ex-Commando in his forties. His lovely young wife had died during the last war and he had remained a widower. The inheritance of what he described as an embarrassingly large income from his father had left him independent, but, unable to live in idleness, he had become senior history master at the Queen's School, Newminster, and fulfilled his duties conscientiously, though his colleagues viewed his Bentley Continental, his comfortable Georgian house, his reputedly self-indulgent way of living, cared for by his magnificent housekeeper Mrs Stick and her retiring but industrious husband, as unsuitable for one in his position on the staff.

The investigation of murder was his one interest outside the school. He applied a mind both scholarly and worldly to this and had been surprisingly successful in finding solutions to many puzzles connected with it. He had a quiet reputation as an investigator but never asserted himself. Two people claimed
to disapprove of his criminological activities; his headmaster, Hugh Gorringer, who ‘feared for the good name of the school they both served' as he put it, and Mrs Stick herself who did not like him to ‘get mixed up in these nasty murder cases.'

Mrs Stick's facial expression when she had shown Rolland in that afternoon warned Carolus that she guessed the nature of his visit. She was a little woman, peering fiercely through steel-rimmed glasses, and her shrewish devotion to Carolus was not to be doubted.

Carolus had never listened more unwillingly to a recital of misfortunes, for Rolland showed the quality he most disliked—pretentiousness. But he had long believed that the protection racket was more common and more successful in England than was generally supposed and he was tempted to challenge it. He had no faith in the comfortable conviction of many people who read about it in newspapers that ‘they only do it to their own kind.' He knew it to be a cruel and cunning form of crime, difficult to detect and sometimes impossible to bring to justice. So he encouraged Rolland to tell his story.

When he began with the visit of Rivers and Razor Gray a few days ago, Carolus drew him back to the past and in a few minutes had discovered, to his own satisfaction at least, how the Fleur-de-Lys Hotel had been purchased and the Haute Cuisine Restaurant added to it.

‘What kind of pub was it before?' he asked.

‘Oh, just a pub,' said Rolland. ‘Nothing but local trade.'

He could not have said anything more calculated to lose the sympathy of Carolus.

‘Nothing but local trade. I see. And what has happened to the “local trade” now?'

‘We still get a few in the Georgian Lounge. The better type.
But we had to abolish the Public Bar. There simply wasn't room. They mostly go to the Black Horse at Netterly. It's three or four miles away, but they all have cars nowadays.'

‘Go on, Mr Rolland.'

‘Then I built on the restaurant. Georgian style. Chairs imitation Chippendale. Murals by a very clever lady artist representing hunting scenes. Silver …'

‘I see it all,' said Carolus. ‘You were successful from the first?'

‘It took a lot of building up. But I'm pleased to say we are now one of the few Five Star restaurants in Great Britain, recommended by…'

‘Yes. Yes. You have a good
chef
?'

‘Antoine. I have to make suggestions, you know. But he can carry them out. And I have a first-rate head waiter. Stefan. He was at the Bordelaise for years.'

Rolland had mentioned one of the best restaurants in London.

‘Why isn't he still there?'

‘There was some trouble, I believe.'

‘What trouble?'

‘Stefan is temperamental.'

‘You mean he drinks?'

‘I've
never seen any evidence of it. Well, nothing serious. Stefan…'

‘Russian?' asked Carolus.

‘No. Birmingham. His name's Stephen Digby. But he has
style.
I saw it at once and gave him a chance.'

‘Very shrewd of you. You don't think he'll… let you down?'

‘No. I've got him where I want him.'

‘You're very frank. Who else is employed?'

‘Two Moroccan waiters. Ali and Abdul. Stefan brought them back from Tangier. They don't have much to do with anyone. The customers seem to like them though. There's a wine waiter called Molt.'

‘And in the kitchen?'

‘Antoine's assistant Tom Bridger. Very good chap. Reliable. And an apprentice, David Paton.'

‘All male?'

‘No. There's a local woman for cleaning—Mrs Boot. And the barmaid, of course.'

‘What about her?'

Rolland looked uncomfortable.

‘Oh, she's just a barmaid. Manageress of the bar we call her.'

‘What is her name?'

‘Her professional name is Gloria Gee.'

‘Very nice too. It goes with Stefan and Antoine. Is she young?'

‘Under thirty.'

‘Pretty?'

‘I suppose so.'

‘Get on with the customers?'

‘As far as I know.'

‘You seem to have a very satisfactory staff.'

‘They want watching, of course. I have to be everywhere at once. If I didn't see to everything I might as well close down.'

‘Now let's come to this visit you received.'

Rolland described it in detail, repeating with painful accuracy the words of Jimmie Rivers, which seemed to have burned themselves into his mind, as the saying goes.

‘It must have been very uncomfortable.'

‘It was a shock. But of course I absolutely refused to have anything to do with it.'

‘And the two men went, without another word?'

‘ “Be seeing you”, Rivers said.'

‘But you haven't seen him since?'

‘No. But two nights later this character appeared in the dining-room.'

Rolland described what had happened on that occasion.

‘You thought he was just an ordinary customer?'

‘Of course. Till the thing happened.'

‘You are sure he wasn't—an ordinary customer?'

‘I've told you, he made a scene.'

‘Mightn't anyone if he thought he had been given food poisoning?'

‘You don't mean you think the whole thing was unconnected with Rivers and his… threats?'

‘I didn't say that. But there doesn't seem much evidence that the man himself was connected with them. I should be bloody angry if I was given something poisonous when I was paying your prices. How much
do
you charge for Dublin Bay prawns, or
scampi
as you call them?'

‘Twenty-five bob. Stefan serves them from a chafing-dish.'