Ellis Peters - George Felse 04 - A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs (17 page)

“Oh, yes, he could, laddie. Finding a back way in doesn’t block the front door. There was a key almost anyone could get at. There could be others who knew about the back door, too, of course. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t say Jim makes a good suspect, but he isn’t out of it. We’ve got plenty to do yet—looking into Trethuan’s finances, for one thing.”

He reached for his hat, smothering a yawn. “Well, I’ll be off down and take a look at Rose’s swivelling stone. Care to come along?”

“Not me,” said Tim firmly, after a quick glance at his son. “Paddy and I are off home.”

Paddy wasn’t really sorry. He’d had enough excitement for one day, and a mere hole in the wall isn’t so wonderful, once located. Secret tunnels sound fine, but they’re two-a-penny wherever there was organised smuggling a couple of hundred years ago, whether on a sporting or a commercial scale. It would keep. He went down the stairs after the others, Tim’s arm about his shoulders.

“Well, at any rate,” said Simon, as they emerged into the faint, starry, salty coldness of after-summer and not-yet-autumn, “we do know now what Trethuan was acting so cagey about, why he didn’t want the tomb opened.”

“Do we?” said George Felse.

“Don’t we? With all that stuff there to be found—”

“Ah, but it wasn’t there. There was nothing there this morning but the body—remember? He must have made a special journey, last Sunday, and taken away all that was left of Morwenna’s treasure. At any rate, on Monday he gave it to Rose to hide for him. Once that was done, what was there to betray him? No one would know he’d been stealing it, no one would ever know it had been there at all. Oh, no,” said George pensively, “we haven’t found out yet why Trethuan was so mad to keep you out. It certainly wasn’t because of Mrs. Treverra’s money and jewels, removing them was no problem. They were a good deal more portable than the—purely hypothetical, of course,—brandy. No, the most puzzling thing about that little hoard is something quite different.”

They had halted beside the cars. “Such as what?” asked Simon.

“Such as: What was it doing there in the first place?”

“That’s it! That’s it exactly! The way it looks,” sighed Hewitt, sliding into the driving seat, “no one ever told Mrs. Treverra that you can’t take it with you.”

DOMINIC CAME DOWN to lunch in his best suit, and with a demure gait to match, threaded his way between the tables in the bar, and slid on to the stool next to his mother’s, in the approved casual manner.

“Dry Martini, please, Sam.”

“Darling, you
have
come on!” said Bunty admiringly. “You even sound as if you expect to get it.”

“Careful, now!” cautioned Sam, with a face so straight that apart from the moustache it was practically featureless. “That vermouth’s powerful stuff.” He spared a moment, in spite of the noon rush of business after church, to admire his young guest’s grave Sabbath appearance. “I hear you’ve got old Hewitt coming to lunch.”

Dominic centred the knot of his tie more severely. “This won’t stay on past two o’clock, if it lasts that long. But it’s the least I could do. After all, Dad did put on a collar and tie for me, the night we got to know Simon and the Rossalls. Not unprompted,” he added, looking down his nose into his glass.

“Look who’s talking!” said Bunty. “Twelve minutes ago he looked like something a water spaniel had dragged in off the beach. If anyone gets the credit for his present appearance, it should be me.”

“Well, congratulations, Mrs. Felse,” said Sam reverently, “it’s very, very beautiful.”

Dominic began to get down from his stool with great dignity, but not so purposefully as to suggest that he had any real intention of leaving. “Look, I’ll go away if I’m cramping your style at all.”

“Leave the glass,” said Bunty accommodatingly, “I’ll take care of it.”

“You touch it!” He took care of it jealously himself, spreading both elbows more comfortably. Through the windows that overlooked the terrace, half-empty today because the wind was in the wrong quarter and the sunny air deceptively cool, they saw George and Hewitt approaching in earnest conversation.

“They’re here. Good, I’m hungry. And, Sam, talking of powerful stuff, don’t you think you could find us a drop of the real McCoy to go with the coffee? The special, for Mr. Hewitt. I think you really should offer it with the compliments of the house.”

“I might, at that,” said Sam, grinning.

“And serve it yourself. Just to show your conscience is clear.”

“My conscience is always clear. I’ve got it properly trained.”

“I bet you you daren’t,” said Dominic, glittering with mischief.

“You bet me what I daren’t?”

“The price of the brandy.”

“Plus duty?”

“Oh, have a heart!” protested Dominic, injured.

Bunty slid from her stool and shook out the peacock blue skirt that made her chestnut hair take fire in opposition. “I hate to admit an impediment to this marriage of true minds, but I’m not really sure that this is the right time to tease Detective-Sergeant Hewitt. Are you both sure of your alibis? He might have a warrant in his pocket right now.”

George and Hewitt were already entering the doorway. Sam watched them approach, his face benign and childlike. Apart, of course, from the whiskers. Those whiskers, Dominic reflected, must be worth a fortune to him.

“Don’t you worry,” he said, momentarily serious, “the old boy knows all about my alibi long ago. He may look stolid, it’s his stock-in-trade, but there isn’t much he misses. I’m checked up on and passed harmless, that’s for sure, or we should have seen more of him around.”

“Well, hang it,” said Dominic, “I was one of the blokes trying to pull the victim
out
of the sea. Everybody knows where
I
was.”

“That could be very good cover for anyone who’d just thrown him in,” pointed out Bunty darkly, and took her son firmly by the elbow. “Come on, we have a guest. Put your company face on.”

“It is on,” he said indignantly.

“It’s crooked, then. Straighten it.”

Sam appeared at Bunty’s shoulder with the coffee, beaming and benign, and distributed the delicate, tall-stemmed balloons he kept for special occasions.

“With the compliments of the house, Mr. Felse,” he said ceremoniously, catching George’s inquiring eye, and began to pour the brandy with reverence.

“That’s very handsome of you, Sam,” George acknowledged civilly. He looked at Bunty, and her face was limpid and innocent. He looked at Dominic, and his was pleased and bland.

“Not at all,” deprecated Sam, rubbing thumb and forefinger together gleefully at Dominic from behind Hewitt’s back. Dominic remained seraphic, flattered and serene, just artful enough to retain a pinch of the schoolboy in his impersonation of the man-of- the-world. It didn’t fool George. But good brandy is good brandy.

“What is it, Sam, a drop of special?”

“My own favourite,” said Sam fondly and truthfully, and judiciously withdrew the bottle, leaving only a very modest dose in Dominic’s glass. That should have shaken the practised calm, if anything could, but Dominic merely flicked one glance at Sam, unreadable to the others, and contained his displeasure to loose it at a more opportune time. His small, delighted smile never wavered for an instant. “Give me your opinion, Mr. Hewitt, I know you’re a good judge.”

Hewitt caressed and warmed the glass in his large palms, and let his nose enjoy itself. “Lovely bouquet, Sam! Not a trace of that overtone of brass you sometimes get.”

“That’s just what I like about it,” said Sam, feelingly. “I’m glad to have my judgment confirmed by an expert. You don’t mind if I quote you, Mr. Hewitt? Try the flavour, you won’t be disappointed.”

Hewitt tried it, and was not disappointed. One heavy eyelid lifted from the happy contemplation of his glass, one round, bright eye examined Sam minutely, shifted from him to Dominic, and lingered thoughtfully. Dominic retired coyly into his glass, but slanted one glance across it, so quickly that it should have slid harmlessly by. Hewitt winked. Dominic looked down his nose and appeared to have noticed nothing unorthodox. Honours were approximately even.

“That’s lovely stuff, Sam. You go on buying it as long as it’s on offer, that’s all the advice I can give you.”

“I will, Mr. Hewitt, glad to know it has your approval.”

It was a pity that Mrs. Shubrough should have to loom up at that moment from the direction of the bar, and strike the one discordant note: “Telephone for you, Mr. Hewitt. It’s Mr. Rackham calling from the police station. He says it’s very important.”

The little bubble of comedy burst damply round them. They watched the stocky figure shoulder its way out through the glass doors, and they were back with an unsolved double murder.

“I feel cheap,” announced Dominic, after a moment of self-examination.

“Don’t be self-important,” said George witheringly. “You don’t think fate’s got time to cast a disapproving eye on your little capers, do you? Besides, you don’t feel cheap at all, you only feel you ought to. Now if you want to make yourself useful, take your mother out for the afternoon, because I suspect I shall be out of circulation. And kick up your heels all you want—there won’t be any nemesis listening to you. Nemesis has got more important things to do.”

“I’ve had two men out since Friday,” said Hewitt, slowing at the beginning of the steep drop into the town, “looking for the dentist who put in all that work on our unidentified corpse’s teeth. Rackham’s found him. At least, it seems likely it’s the right fellow, but he’s a cautious one, won’t say for sure from the charts. Wants to see the molars before he commits himself, but is sure he’ll know his own work again if it is the bloke he thinks.”

“If he’s as cagey as that,” said George, “I take it he’s naming no names yet. Where did your man find him? Evidently he isn’t a Maymouth man.”

“Plymouth. Just got back with him.”

“What sort of a fellow is he? I hope he knows what he’s going to see.”

“Small, dapper and highly-strung,” said Hewitt, “according to Rackham. He’ll be all right. It’s the big, husky ones that keel over.” He turned into the square, almost deserted at this hour on a fine Sunday, the old-fashioned shop-fronts gated, shuttered and still. “Well, if we can’t do much on the Trethuan case until to-morrow, maybe we can get somewhere on this other one. Didn’t have more in his deposit account or in the house—Trethuan, I mean—than you could account for as a careful man’s savings, but I fancy he’s got a lot put away somewhere in cash from this antique traffic of his. Maybe in a safe-deposit box somewhere, maybe under the floor-boards at home. We haven’t been over the house properly yet. It’ll be somewhere. And we’ll find it. As far as we can tell, all of the stuff that he hadn’t already disposed of piecemeal, we’ve got in custody. Rose has identified what we’ve got, and furnished us with a nice little list of things he brought home earlier. We should be able to trace some of them through the trade. Here we are! Don’t come down to the mortuary with us unless you want to, George. You’ve had all that once.”

“I can stand it. I might learn something. I like to hear an expert on his own subject.”

Rackham was a deceptively simple-looking young local man, fresh-faced and bright. Beside his cheerful, extrovert bulk the dentist from Plymouth looked meagre and unreal, and as highly-strung as his companion had indicated, but a second and narrower look corrected the impression. He was wiry, durable and sharply competent, and he had come armed with all his relevant records and charts, ready to go into extreme detail. So firmly astride his hobby-horse, he was not to be thrown by any corpse, however fragmentary, provided its jaw was still intact. In the chill basement mortuary he probed, matched and demonstrated in complete absorption; and at the end of his examination he snapped the rubber band back into place round his records, and declared himself satisfied, and prepared to swear to the dead man’s identity in court as soon as it might be required of him.

“I was practically certain from the charts your man brought with him, but it was essential that I should see the work for myself. Yes, it’s mine. I can give you dates for the whole sequence of treatments. They went on for about eight weeks in the spring of 1961, and occasionally we had to adjust the appointments because of his sea trips. He should have come back to me for a check-up six months later, but he never came. That does happen, of course, it needn’t mean anything. But it could mean that by then he couldn’t come. He was a fisherman, and he gave me a Maymouth address—I’ve got it here in the records. His name,” said the little man blithely, unaware that he was springing a land-mine, “was Walter Ruiz.”

“On the face of it,” fretted Hewitt, prowling the length of his small office like a restive tiger, “it’s damned impossible. Walter Ruiz is buried in St. Mary’s churchyard, up the town, with a stone over him to prove it. There was an inquest, and he was identified.”

“He’s just been identified again,” said George dryly. “Very impressively, for my money. It seems that one or the other of two equally positive identifications must be mistaken. The question is, which?”

“You heard him. That amount of dental work in one course of treatment, fully documented as such things have never been before, coupled with the individual formation of the bones, and all the rest of it, makes this man’s jaw about as unique as a set of finger- prints. That evidence would stand up at any inquest.”

“But so did something else, presumably something that looked equally sound, at the previous inquest. According to what Rose told us last night, Ruiz and his boat failed to come home after fishing in rough weather, and his body was washed up on the Mortuary a few weeks later. A few weeks in the sea don’t make a body any easier to identify, even a landsman knows that. But somebody did identify this one. Who was it? His parents? A brother? His wife? But no, he didn’t have a wife, he came courting Rose, and her father wanted her to be nice to him. Her father found him useful, until he got a bit too demanding, and knew a bit too much.”

Hewitt came back to his desk, and stood gazing at George across its empty surface for a long, dubious minute of silence.

“If you’re trying to put ideas in my head, George, you’re too late. They’re there already.” He reached out a large hand, and picked up the telephone, and with deliberation began to dial.

“I’m trying to sort out the ones I’ve got in mine,” said George. “It looks as if we’re both being driven on the same shore. Did he have any family? It seems to me that a solitary like himself would be most likely to appeal to Trethuan as an ally, if he found it expedient to look round for one at all.”

“You’re so right, Ruiz didn’t have any family. You’re neck and neck with me, George.” His head came up alertly as the burr of the telephone was answered. “Hallo, Henry! This is Tom Hewitt. Sorry to interrupt your Sunday nap, but I need a quick reference to something about two and a half years back, and you’re the quickest and most infallible referee in town. Nip down to your files and look it up for me, will you? You probably know the answer, but look it up anyhow, I want to have it officially. An inquest on a seaman drowned and cast up on the Mortuary, I think it will be in March or April, 1962. Name of Walter Ruiz. A routine job, it seemed at the time. But now I want to know
who identified him
. Just that. Call me back as soon as you can. And thanks very much!”

He hung up, laying the receiver so softly in its cradle that there was no sound to break the slight tension in the room. He sat down gently and folded his hands, and looked at George.

“No family. No brothers, no sisters. There was his widowed mother, up to about seven years ago, I remember. They had a cottage down the south end of the sea front. After she died he lived alone, kept himself to himself, and bothered nobody. The excise people did have their suspicions of him, though not, I think, over the occasional drop of brandy. He was never actually caught out over anything. Just another lone wolf. If he needed hands he took on casuals, and dropped them again afterwards. Nobody ever worked with him regularly. Nobody was ever in his confidence.”

“That was your local paper?” Local papers are formidable institutions. They may ignore national events, but they must get every name right, and every date, and every detail, within their own field. “Proprietor? Editor? Or both?”

“Both. Henry still lives above his own offices, he won’t be long looking it up, his files are kept in apple-pie order. I could,” admitted Hewitt, “have got the same information at least three other ways, but not so quickly.”