Find the Innocent (6 page)

“Take this case, fr'example! We don't know which of 'em was in this lockhouse with the girl-friend. Crooks begin by telling the same tale and giving us something to break down and so start 'em contradicting each other. These educated men are contradicting each other flat before we've had time to break down anything.”

“And that was what you meant by the runaround, sir?”

Curwen blinked.

“Shouldn't be surprised!” he hedged, abandoning the bollard.

The photographers were working in the kitchen. Curwen strolled into the general room, followed by Benjoy. He gazed at the overmantel, not without appreciation. He picked up one of the books lying against the skirting board and studied its title, which baffled him.

“Eggheads!” he scoffed. “And what good does it do ' em? Any schoolboy knows more about how to commit a crime than they do.” His eye was caught by
The Prattler
, lying on the sofa. “That looks a bit livelier.”

“Anti-egghead, sir! Might have been brought by the girl.”

“Quite right, boy!” It had not been treated with powder. “They've missed it.”

Benjoy knelt down beside it.

“A page has been torn out.” Without touching the cover he inserted a pocket knife between the leaves and opened the journal.

The left-hand page, opposite the page that had been torn out, showed William Brengast beside his helicopter.

“Good boy!” said Curwen. “It's all yours. Follow it up on your own.”

Returning to Renchester, Curwen found enough desk work to occupy him until lunch time. An experienced detective learns to husband his own energy. Curwen husbanded his by choosing a comparatively obscure restaurant in a side street where no one would look for him. The food was adequate and he gave it his full attention.

“Sorry to interrupt you at lunch, sir!” Benjoy had bobbed up. “Rongarth Draperies. The traveller who gave that girl a lift from Diddington is working this town for three days. I caught him at lunch—”

“And you said you were sorry to interrupt his lunch!” said Curwen.

“When I mentioned murder he came clean, in a panic. It seems he tried his luck with the girl, and she turned his ignition and got out, about a couple of miles, he said, the Diddington side of the lockhouse. More!”

“I thought so!” groaned Curwen. “Go ahead.”

“Deceased and deceased's widow. The page torn out of that glossy is a full page photo in colour of Mrs. William Brengast. Could be Miss England if she felt that way.”

“What's the link-up with the traveller?”

“I don't know, sir.”

“But you're guessing fit to bust. All right, boy! When you've had your lunch you can go out to the lockhouse and find which of 'em has pinned her on the wall.”

“First lunches, please,” intoned the dining-car attendant.

Jill Aspland folded the early edition of the evening paper with the front page innermost.

Murdered Tycoon's Secret Mission
Wife's Mystery Hitch-Hike

That sort of thing would upset Veronica's nerve, she decided.

“D'you think you can face lunch, dear?”

“I must
!” said Veronica, looking up from a railway guide. “Whatever happens, it would be wrong to give way and neglect myself.”

Jill nodded and suppressed a smile. She had noticed before that Veronica regarded her own well-being as a kind of Good Cause.

Jill Aspland was twenty-five, daughter of William Brengast's only sister, with whom he had quarrelled. When his sister and her husband were killed in an aircrash Brengast was conscience-stricken and anxious to “do something for Jill”—which was not easy. Her course was already set. She took a business B. Sc. and tactfully landed a good job before Brengast could press her to take one in his organisation.

Secretly he had thought her a fool to go into business, when she could so easily have married without it. Like most of his kind, he tended to assess women on their physical appearance—thereby substantially under-estimating his niece. He would have described her as a middle-sized light-weight, well sprung, with superb finish. Being her uncle, he noted objectively that dark hair and violet eyes looked just right with a fair skin and a mouth that knew what it was talking about.

The reports in the early editions of the evening papers ended at seven in the morning—before Peasebarrow Lock had become a focal point … Over lunch, Jill toned it all down to a broad outline without emphasising the “mystery hitch-hike”. Veronica had told her a rather confused tale about missing WillyBee at Diddington and being unable to hire a car.

“Shall I run through it again?” offered Jill.

“I couldn't bear it, darling. I shall just tell the police what they want to know about WillyBee and put all the horrid details out of my mind.”

So poor Veronica had already promised herself that everybody would be charming and considerate and shield her from all unpleasantness! She herself had already signed on as a cushion. Why? She was fond of Veronica but did not esteem her, nor envy her the sheltered life. She had already learnt through her business contacts that a rich husband may create as many problems as he solves … It would be very nice for a month every year, perhaps.

At Renchester Jill booked a suite at the Red Lion while Veronica waited in the taxi. Jill helped her unpack. In the rush to catch the train, the dressing case with which Veronica had arrived from Salisbury was brought along unopened. There was a second one hastily packed with garments which Veronica believed to be more appropriate to a sudden bereavement.

“You won't be wearing this woollen crepe?”

“That wretched coat!” Veronica had come up from Salisbury in a tailormade, the woollen crepe being packed. “I forgot it was in that case. It's quite unsuitable now.”

The intercom. buzzed. Detective Inspector Curwen was asking to see Mrs. Brengast.

“Show him into our sitting-room, please,” ordered Jill. She found a dark scarf and draped it on Veronica's shoulders.

“Don't touch your make-up—it's just right. You've taken off your wedding ring—remember to put it back. Come along as soon as you're ready.”

Curwen and Jill made the right impression on each other. She saw him as large, rotund and homely, looking like a successful local auctioneer who contemplates retirement. To Curwen, Jill seemed to have stepped out of one of those advertisements in Top-People papers showing a wise young beauty persuading her chief to buy her an electronic filing cabinet. For immediate purposes, he accepted her as a girl with a clear eye who would come to the point without playing her sex.

The old coaching inn had been taken over by a progressive company and turned into a modern hotel of fifty bedrooms. The furniture was superior mass-produced—one settee, two armchairs, four uprights, a standard lamp, a table and a small desk holding intercom. and the telephone.

When Veronica came in she made an entrance of it, to Jill's annoyance. There was too much business with the door handle: the brave smile was overdone. It was the wrong kind of room and the wrong kind of audience. Veronica, when you faced the facts, was a stupid woman. Curwen mumbled condolences. Jill shuffled them into chairs, placing Veronica alone on the settee.

“We have to ask a number of formal questions,” said Curwen, not very truthfully. “In these tragic cases the Will of the deceased is considered important.”

“I understand!” Veronica was overdoing it again. “Jill, dear, would you mind calling WillyBee's solicitors and tell them I want to speak to Sir Edward?” She added the number. “I know he is leaving me nothing. Inspector—that was agreed—when he made me a handsome marriage settlement. He said he meant to leave you something, Jill. I hope he has not forgotten.”

WillyBee had told Jill and she did not doubt that he had kept his word. While the connection to London was being made Curwen put more questions, to which he already knew the answers.

“You intended to meet your husband at Diddington, Mrs. Brengast?”

“Yes. I will show you his letter.” She waited while he read it. “I mistook the ‘6' for ‘8' and missed him.”

“Did you then go back to your flat in London?”

“No. There were no more trains London-wards from Diddington. So I thought I would stay with my sister, Mrs. Kortland, at Salisbury.” She added the address which Curwen wrote down. “I tried to hire a car to take me to Renchester—”

“Excuse me, Mrs. Brengast, but I don't quite follow. Your husband was at Renchester—”

“Yes, but I didn't know where he was staying. As you saw in his letter, he asked me not to use our name. So there would be no means of finding him. I wanted Renchester, to catch a connection from there via Wheatley.”

“Did you, in fact, hire a car to take you to Renchester?”

“If you want all the details, I tried to hire a car but there wasn't one available. A man who heard me asking at the garage offered me a lift.”

“A lift to Renchester?”

“Yes,” said Veronica, who had too little knowledge of police methods to guess that the Inspector might already know the truth about that lift to Renchester. “He dropped me at Renchester station. I caught the nine-forty to Wheatley Junction, arriving at ten-thirty-three and then the ten-forty-five on to Salisbury arriving at eleven-thirty-five. My sister lives a few minutes walk from the station. I left by an early train, to meet Miss Aspland at the flat.”

Veronica's voice was calm but her hands moved restlessly. The left hand emerged from the cover of the scarf and Jill noted that she had forgotten her wedding ring in spite of the reminder. A glance at Curwen made her suspect that he had noted it, too.

This thought crossed another—that never before had she heard so precise a statement from Veronica. No rambling—no irrelevancies. And a whole string of train times. That accounted for her preoccupation with the railway guide. But it was very unusual behaviour for Veronica.

The telephone rang and Veronica took the call. Again she was brisk and business-like, explaining the presence of the police. From the one-sided conversation Jill gathered that there was a list of charitable bequests.

“But what about Jill Aspland?” asked Veronica … “Oh, I'm so glad! Ten thousand free of tax for you Jill … What? … re-sid-uary legatee! … Thanks very much, Sir Edward. I didn't expect to get our house in Scotland—we agreed I should have nothing—oh, life interest—never mind. Goodbye!”

To Jill she explained. “He said you're also residuary legatee but he doesn't know whether it will mean any extra.”

“Perhaps I may congratulate Miss Aspland,” said Curwen.

“Thank you,” answered Jill. “I could have waited.”

Curwen got up.

“It's very good of you to take that trouble, Mrs. Brengast—we knew, of course, that the poor gentleman couldn't have been murdered for what was in his Will, but we have to tick it off.”

With the inverted values of the policeman, he was very pleased with her for having lied to him about the lift to Renchester.

“One trifling matter before I go. When you arrived at Diddington yesterday, you were carrying a suitcase—or ought I to say dressing case?”

“I was!” Veronica was innocently surprised. “How did you know?”

“Guessed!” grinned Curwen. “Could you let me see it?”

“We didn't finish unpacking,” said Jill to Veronica. “I'll empty it.”

“Inspector, do tell me,” said Veronica, when they were alone. “What does ‘residuary legatee' mean?”

Curwen explained and added: “For instance—your marriage settlement. I expect it would be forfeited under certain conditions—that is, if you were to marry again and—er—that sort of thing. In such a case the capital sum would go back to the estate—meaning Miss Aspland.”

“Oh-h! … I see! I hadn't thought of that!”

Curwen noted details of the dressing case, then explained that the coroner's officer would call during the afternoon—without saying why—and bowed himself out.

“I think that went off very well!” said Veronica.

Poor Veronica, wanting to be told she had been perfectly splendid, or something. Jill couldn't manage it.

“I wonder why he wanted to see my dressing case?”

“I suppose because people at Diddington noticed you were carrying it. And the railway people—ticket inspectors and so on. So that he can check your movements.”

“I didn't know they would do things like that!” Veronica was depressed. She chattered on until Jill interrupted.

“Veronica! Why did you dump yourself on your sister? I have to know this sort of thing, with the police dropping in on us. I mean, why didn't you sit on in the train and go back to the flat, instead of landing yourself in for the rush you had this morning?”

“I don't know. Impulse, I suppose. It was rather silly, now you point it out. I'm glad the Inspector didn't think of it.”

“If I thought of it, you can bet he did,” said Jill. “If I were a policeman—”

“You
are
a bit of a policeman, darling! And it's ever so useful just now. I don't know how I could possibly have managed without you.”

“You speak as if it were all over. It hasn't begun yet. I'm not at all sure you wouldn't manage better without me.”

“Darling, that's utterly absurd! I always get flustered when people ask me why I did things.”

“And men enjoy putting you right and helping you. But my mind works rather like theirs—which makes it all the easier for them if anything goes wrong. I'm no good unless I have all the facts and know just where I am.”

“But you have all the facts! And why should anything go wrong?”

“I don't know—and I hope nothing will.”

“Jill. You aren't going to walk out on me. You won't leave me in the lurch?”