The Burry Man's Day (36 page)

‘In a position to verify his identity,’ I said.

‘Oh Lord,’ said Alec. ‘Did I really just say that? Forgive me. Detecting is one thing, Dan, but please stop me if I start to speak like a newly promoted sergeant with his own bicycle and bell.’

‘It was the chap at Brunwick, Allanson you were quoting,’ I told him. ‘Not that he’s much of a role model either.’ The motor car had ground to a complete halt now and I disengaged the gear and turned to face him.

‘Listen to this,’ I said. ‘What if the ticket wasn’t for Robert Dudgeon at all. What if it was for X. X needed to get away – not the Dudgeons, not Robert – they were just the go-betweens. Perhaps X had a criminal record and would set off alarms if he bought a ticket with his own passport. So Robert planned to do it for him, only when the news broke about the passport office being closed and they realized the clash with the Burry Man it looked as though they were scuppered. Then they had the idea that while Robert was standing in for X, X could stand in for him.

‘Afterwards they were supposed to give him the ticket, in plenty of time for the departure on Tuesday evening, but Robert Dudgeon died and all the paperwork he had on him was stuck in the mortuary. Absolute panic stations. And even when the body and all his belongings were returned, the house was overrun with sisters and X couldn’t get near.’

‘And the pen and ink?’ said Alec.

‘Was to doctor the ticket,’ I said feeling triumphant. ‘To change it from one name – Dudgeon’s – to another – X’s. Only once again, Donald was sitting with the body and one or another of the sisters was sitting with the widow and the day was approaching ever closer. Hence Mrs Dudgeon out wandering in the woods trying to furnish X with what he needed to do the job himself. And hence also her extreme agitation as ten o’clock rolled around on Tuesday night. If X was caught, she would be tried for fraud, or for something anyway, but once he was off British soil and away she was safe.’

‘There’s something in that,’ said Alec. ‘It’s not perfect but . . .’

‘In what way isn’t it?’ I demanded. ‘It could even explain how Dudgeon died. X killed him. X didn’t trust Dudgeon not to go to the police and confess before X had a chance to get away, and so he killed him. In what way is this not the perfect solution?’

‘Well, doctoring the ticket, for one thing,’ said Alec.

‘The clerk said that as long as they turn up sober –’

‘As long as they turn up with a passport and ticket and sober,’ Alec said. ‘But I’m sure that if the name on the ticket were scratched out and another one scrawled underneath they would have something to say about it.’

‘Well, then, maybe there aren’t names on the ticket,’ I said.

‘Then what would X need the ink for?’ said Alec, which was a very good point. ‘And why would the Dudgeons do this? It must be illegal in some way although I don’t know the name of the crime. Why would they take the risk?’

‘For money?’ I said. ‘If X were paying them? Or threatening them. They might do it out of fear, under duress.’

‘Also,’ said Alec, ‘I don’t really see wh rs Dudgeon would be in a state about registering Robert’s death if what you’re saying now is the answer to the riddle. By Sunday night she had all of his papers back, didn’t she? What was the difficulty?’

I rubbed my nose, trying to think of an answer. There was none as far as I could see, but I was still sure I had hit on something.

‘Perhaps just my saying “birth certificate and passport” together like that when they were so very much in the front of her mind? I don’t know.’ I looked at my watch. ‘But I wonder if there’s time to telephone to Brunwick, Allanson and offer that clerk enormous bribes to let us go in and look through the passenger lists, try to match them up. If we find a name on the passenger list that doesn’t appear on the ticket receipts, that, my darling, will be X.’

‘So it will,’ said Alec. ‘Well, get a move on then, it’s nearly five.’

The clerk did us even better than that, though. When we had been put through to his office by the girl on the main switchboard, far from having to bribe him with favours, he sounded tremendously pleased to hear from us and launched in right away.

‘I took to heart what you said, sir,’ he began. Alec was talking and we were sharing the earpiece, huddled with heads together making what Nanny Palmer used to call, with a shudder, nit bridges. ‘About there being official persons coming to sniff around after you had gone. I didn’t want Brunwick’s to look bad in their eyes, so I’ve spent the entire afternoon since you left making up the final lists. Lord, you want to hear those lady clerks grumbling about being put to the trouble, as though they’re not paid a perfectly good wage for
taking
the trouble. It’s not like the old days. Anyway, sir, I’m happy to report that there were no irregularities, none at all, so there’s a load off your mind.’

‘Ask him –’ I began in a whisper, but Alec was ahead of me this time.

‘Did you happen, I mean is it possible – do you cross-reference the last-minute stand-ins in any way? Is it possible to lay one’s hands on them without crosschecking the whole list?’

‘The last-minute stand-ins, sir?’ said the clerk. ‘I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Well, no,’ said Alec. ‘I daresay that’s not what you call them. I mean people who come along having bought a ticket at second-hand or who come along and wait in hopes of a berth becoming available. If it were the theatre we’d call them returns.’

The clerk spluttered, scandalized.

‘There would never, never be anything like that on a Brunwick’s ship. Stowaways, sir? Not nowadays, anyway. Different in the old days before the war, of course. Then you would have whole families turning up on the off-chance, to be sure, but not now. Every ticket has the name of the passport holder on it and both are checked at boarding and that’s what I’m saying. There were no irregularities at all.’

Alec, for all his quibbling earlier, looked quite as disappointed as I felt to have our latest theory scuppered in this way.

‘So,’ he said, ‘how many vacant places were there? In total? How many no-shows?’

‘None,’ cried the clerk. ‘As I’m saying to you, no irregularities at all. A perfectly orderly, smooth departure. We don’t send lady clerks to the boarding desk, you know.’

Alec and I pulled faces at each other and tried not to laugh. Despite our personal setback it was rather entertaining to hear this poor man talking himself into such a hole. It was beginning to look likely that there was the most glaring irregularity possible right there under his nose.

‘I wonder,’ said Alec, ‘since you’ve worked so hard to get the lists ready, is it possible to double-check on a particular entry? Are they accessible? Would it take long?’

‘They’re right here in front of me,’ said the clerk and we could hear the thump of him patting something with the flat of his hand. ‘What is the name of the passenger you’re interested in?’

‘Robert George Dudgeon,’ said Alec, and immediately we could hear a furious fluttering and snapping of pages at the other end of the line.

‘Robert George Dudgeon,’ said the clerk. ‘He’ll be rounding the Cape to Portugal now, sir, and his ears will be burning. Robert George Dudgeon. Here he is. Robert George Dudgeon, 1st June 1899, Cassilis, Dalmeny Boarded the ship at nine-oh-five pip emma, rather late but we won’t hold that against him. Anything else I can help you with, sir?’

Alec assured him that there was not and rang off.

‘So much for their marvellous system,’ he said. ‘I wonder if they’ll ever find out that he’s not there.’

‘I blame the lady clerks, naturally,’ I said. ‘Odd though, that they should have a time of boarding and everything, wasn’t it?’

‘Remind me never to sail with Brunwick, Allanson,’ said Alec and he dropped into a cruelly accurate approximation of the clerk’s voice. ‘“Lifeboats, sir? Oh plenty. I have the list right here. No irregularities at all with the lifeboats, sir.”’

‘Well, shall we call the inspector now, or leave it until tomorrow?’ I said. ‘I’m for leaving it, I must say, sleep on it all and see if we can make something a bit more consistent out of it tomorrow morning. At the moment it’s a dreadful lot of scraps and rags. X planned to leave but the plan fell through and we don’t know who he is or why he had to flee or why the Dudgeons helped him. And Robert died in the middle of it all for no particular reason.’

At that moment, as though to stop us worrying away at it any longer, we heard Cad hailing us from the bottom of the stairs – ‘Dandee? Alec? Tea!’ – and we both burst into fits of uncontrollable giggles.

‘Poor Cad!’ I managed to say finally. ‘Can’t you take him aside and tell him man-to-man, Alec?’

‘Tell him what, though?’ said Alec.

‘Well, for a start, not to halloo up the stairs like a nursery governess to tell guests that it’s teatime,’ I said.

‘But that would only teach him that one thing,’ said Alec, ‘and there’s no knowing what he’ll do next. If there were some general rule from which all behaviours could be deduced, I’d happily tell him what it was.’

‘Well, it’s getting desperate,’ I said. ‘Even Buttercup was laughing at him yesterday. He came through the yard at the other house and some of the laundry had blown out of its pegs in the breeze, so he picked it up and began to rehang it, then realizing that it was dry he took it all down instead and set off into the kitchens with the basket looking for someone to give it to. He is a love, actually,’ I concluded. ‘Even if you do work out the general rule don’t tell him, Alec. I’ve changed my mind.’

‘Not much chance of it,’ said Alec, glumly. ‘At least, I don’t seem in danger of stumbling over any organizing principles as a detective’s assistant, so I don’t suppose I’m suddenly going to see the light as a . . .’

‘Husband-trainer?’ I suggested. ‘But I think you can give yourself the title of detective, don’t you? Under-detective, anyway. I don’t think of you as an assistant.’ It gave me pause, if I am honest, to hear that he did. Or rather, to extrapolate from that point to the fact that as far as Alec was concerned I was the boss. I was in charge. I was not altogether sure that I liked the idea either. I had certainly had one or two flashes of inspiration in the last few days and if I were being kind to myself I should say I was bumbling a little less than I had on my first adventure, but still there were a great many trailing threads and no chance in sight of their being knotted and snipped any time soon. It was terribly deflating to be forced to hand it all over to the police in this ragged state.

We reached the ground floor and went out of the massive front door to join Cad and Buttercup who were sitting at tea in those peculiar American deck chairs with the very short legs, basking in the sunshine against the west wall.

‘Well?’ said Cad, rather breathlessly as we plumped down into the low seats and waited for our cups and scones. Cad himself, I was enchanted to notice, had given up on that particular little bit of authenticity and was holding a tall glass of milk in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

‘Well, we’ve found out what Dudgeon was up to,’ I said. ‘To a point, although not why. And we’ve found out enough to be able to conclude that it was either murder or a straight heart attack, one of the two; it
wasn’t
the drink. But we still don’t know who X is.’

‘Well, do tell all, Dandy,’ said Buttercup. ‘And don’t sound so jaded. It’s only been days. How are you getting on with the ham sandwich, for instance, if you can manage it without any gory details.’

‘Lunch in a pub, more than likely,’ I said and Buttercup’s face fell.

‘That’s hardly thrilling,’ she said. ‘What about the pen and ink?’

‘No idea,’ said Alec. ‘One of the many things that Inspector Cruickshank will have to get to the bottom of. Even if he needs to arrest Mrs Dudgeon to do so.’

There was a spluttering sound from beside me and Cad sat up straight, wiping his mouth.

‘Dandy,’ he said, ‘are you resigning?’

‘Resigning?’ I echoed.

‘I’m not sure you can, you know. I entered this business arrangement in good faith and now you say that you’re fed up and you’re simply going to tell the inspector all he needs to know to arrest one of my estate tenants who has had enough trouble to last her a lifetime? Well, all I’m saying is I’m not sure that’s on. Not sure at all.’

This was, I think, the sternest speech I had ever heard Cadwallader make and I was about to appeal to Buttercup and Alec for support, to remind Cad that I had taken pains right from the start to explain to him about the unkindness of justice and the impossibility of telling where the ball would roll once one had let go of it, but before I could gather my wits to speak it struck me that he was right. I could not possibly hand over what I knew to Inspector Cruickshank and just leave Mrs Dudgeon to his mercy; not because she was under Cad’s wing and Cad had employed me – I was firm on that point and always would be – but because I knew in my very bones that Cad was right: she
had
had enough trouble to last her a lifetime. And if cruel blind justice would only make her suffer more, then cruel blind justice would have to do it without my help.

I did not quite know what to make of this revelation as it struck me; I should far rather have thought of myself as ‘Dandy Gilver: servant of truth’ than as ‘Dandy Gilver: woman, wife and mither o’ bairns’ and I knew that taking cases and meddling in police business was only justified so long as I marched in step with them, doing what they also would do. Once I began to plough my own furrow, I was in danger of committing one of those ‘spoilsporty’ crimes Alec so despised and I would be had up for it if they caught me. Not that I would be in a position to obstruct much police business in the future unless I could harden my heart: for if I did ever have business cards made, then ‘sentimental fudging of the facts a speciality’ would not bring me many plum jobs. In the present case, though, neither my future as a sleuth nor my fear of prosecution could sway me, for if sentiment, compassion, love for my fellow man – whatever I chose to call it – if it trumped justice then it certainly trumped money too and it should, if I was any kind of ‘wummin’ at all, trump fear of the police and what they might do to me. It certainly seemed to for Chrissie Dudgeon.