Dead Man’s Shoes (7 page)

Packinlay came to the front door with them, and as he was saying good-bye a small man with a cunning and bad-tempered face approached. Packinlay grew very hearty and noisy.

“Hullo, Mr Smite,” he said. “This is very lucky. Very lucky indeed. You're just the man I wanted. This is Mr Carolus Deene, who is making a private investigation into the murder of Gregory Willick. I know you've got some valuable information about that.”

With the swiftness and skill of a successful conjuror Mr Smite whipped a paper out of his pocket and handed it to Packinlay. Packinlay grew even heartier.

“Thanks,” he said, hastily stuffing the paper into his
pocket. “Now what about coming in for a drink and giving Mr Deene the benefit of your information? I'm sure we should all be grateful.”

“I can't wait now,” said Mr Smite nastily. “I've got another summons to serve.”

“Oh, come now. Surely that can wait ten minutes?”

“Well, just one,” conceded Mr Smite ungraciously.

They went back into the sitting-room.

“I've come here three times,” said Mr Smite. “You were always out. So Mrs Packinlay said.”

“Yes, yes. I have to run about a lot. Now, about that afternoon …”

“It means such a lot of work when you can't get hold of people.”

“Of course. Now …”

Carolus felt he should relieve the tension.

“I understand you actually saw the man who is suspected of murdering Willick? On the afternoon in question?”

“I've given details to the police.”

“Quite right. But you surely won't mind telling me what you saw?”

“I don't know whether it would be right. I hold an official position.”

“Yes. But…”

“It's a serious matter, after all.”

“You've already given evidence in public at the inquest, presumably.”

“Yes. I don't mind telling you what I said then. I was cycling along the main road from Cheltenham to North-leach, passing the outskirts of Mr Willick's land. I came to where a footpath, a right-of-way, comes out on the road.”

“I'll show you the place tomorrow, if you like,” put in Packinlay.

“As I approached I saw an individual get over the stile and come out on the road.”

“Did you recognize him?”

“I had never seen him before. He was a heavily built man with thick glasses and a high stiff collar. Old-fashioned in his dress. I noticed him because you don't expect to see anyone dressed like that in these parts. His eyesight did not seem to be good. He was blinking as though he couldn't see properly. When he first saw me he made as if to turn back, but then seemed to think better of it and came on.”

“Did he speak to you?”

“Yes. He said ‘Good afternoon' in a very loud voice. I did not answer, of course. I don't converse with strangers. I cycled on.”

“That's all?”

“When I reached the Barton Bridge Hotel, a few hundred yards farther on, I decided to go in. I was looking for someone who might have been there. I stopped talking a while to Mr Habbard the manager, and while I was there the man I had seen at the stile came in. He seemed to be in a hurry now and asked Mr Habbard for his bill to be got ready, as he was leaving. Mr Habbard, said, ‘Certainly, Mr Leech,' and that was all.”

“Do you think he recognized you as the man he had just said ‘Good afternoon' to?”

“No, I don't think so. He didn't seem to see very well.”

“Thank you, Mr Smite.”

“I must be going. I've got …”

“I'll see you out,” said Packinlay hurriedly.

“Now does
that
convince you?” asked Packinlay when he returned.

“There was certainly one point of interest. About Larkin ‘making to go back' when he first saw Smite. If that is true it is rather indicative. But the best of observers get false impressions.”

“You're right there. Nothing easier. The wife tells me that I always get things wrong.”

“Now we really must leave you,” said Carolus. “Again many thanks.”

At last he and Rupert were safely in the car and following the directions which Packinlay had given them on how to reach the Barton Bridge Hotel.

“Beauties, aren't they?” said Rupert. “I loved the summons being served. Did you guess they were hard up when you said we were going to the hotel?”

“No. I wanted to be independent.”

“And not bored to death. He was all right today because he was giving us information we wanted, but can you imagine that one when it's run out?”

“Odd to find a man like that in debt. Presumably he was well paid by Willick. And couldn't he get an advance on his legacy?”

“You can't be sure he was in debt. The summons may have been for some sum he refuses to pay for some reason.”

“I don't think so. It wasn't the first time Smite had served one on him.”

“Anyway, what a couple! Doesn't she ever utter? They must chatter like magpies when they're in bed for her to have time to ‘always say' everything.”

T
HE
B
ARTON
B
RIDGE
H
OTEL
had been a coaching inn, one of the few buildings along the loneliest stretch of road in that part of the country. It had been a simple hostelry where stops were once made by almost every horse-drawn vehicle and honest refreshment was served to travellers. Through three centuries at least it had continued thus, unpretentious and useful; but for the twentieth century it was not good enough.

“Gosh, look at the ‘good taste'!” said Rupert Priggley when he saw it. “Isn't it ghastly?”

Carolus nodded. The wealth of oak that had been introduced, the arty brick fireplaces with arty brass ornaments hanging round them and arty old spits and fire-irons in their recesses, the expensive Tottenham Court Road upholstery, carpets and curtains, the furniture so farm-house and tricksy with milking-stools and settles, the warming-pans and coaching horns, the pewter tankards and horse-whips—it was a nightmare in the phoney antique.

“I don't think I can bear it,” said Rupert Priggley. “What would you call this?”

“This is a cock-fighting stool made by one of the largest antique factories in London. That is a spinet.”

“It must have been quite a decent pub once, when it was a pull-up for draymen.”

They went up to their rooms and came down to have a drink in the Old Snuggery.

“I think I'd almost rather they called it Ye Olde Snuggerie and had done with it,” said Rupert.

But there was nothing ‘olde' about the barmaid who presided among concealed lights, bottles with nylon cobwebs
on them and all the paraphernalia of cocktail-making. She believed herself very much of the later half of the present century, in spite of an almost Restoration bosom.

“Yes?” she said.

While Carolus looked at his evening paper, Rupert decided to be mischievous.

“What cocktails can you do?”

“Any you want, really. Want a Sidecar?”

“I thought you might say that. No, dear; cocktails went out with vaudeville. I don't know what you keep all this gear on the counter for.”

“When you've
quite
finished,” said the barmaid, “let me tell you that we have quite a call for cocktails.”

“Do you, now? I suppose you might. Cocktails in the Snuggery. It's wonderfully pre-war.”

“What are you going to have?” asked the barmaid dangerously.

“Shake you if I said an Angel's Kiss or a Bunny-Hug, wouldn't it? No, I'll have a Scotch straight and my friend will have a double with soda, no ice. What's it like to work in a snuggery? Snug?”

“You're a cheeky little runt, aren't you? Don't know whether I ought to have served you with Scotch. You over eighteen?”

“No, dear, I'm rising sixteen,” said Rupert. “I hope the local copper comes in.”

The barmaid, who was not so very much older than Rupert, seemed anxious to say something impressive while she maintained her pose of aloofness.

“We had a murderer staying here the other day,” she observed.

Rupert yawned.

“But they're so common nowadays. All over the place. You can't travel in a train without rubbing shoulders with one.”

“No. But this was a real murderer. He shot a man a mile away.”

“Must have been a good shot.”

“I mean it happened a mile away. At Barton Place. He booked in here the night before.”

“Pleasant type? Most of them are, I believe.”

“This wasn't. He was horrible.”

“Boris Karloff character?”

“Well, he gave you the creeps. Shouted at you as if you were deaf.”

“What did he drink?”

“Said he was a teetotaller. Had one of these new drinks—Pineapple and Grapefruit.”

“Revolting.”

“But the funny thing was we might have known if we'd only thought about it. He was asking the way up to Barton Place. I mean if we'd have known there was going to be a murder.”

“You'd have known this was going to be the murderer? Then you'd have warned everyone and there wouldn't have been a murder.”

“I don't know. I didn't feel comfortable afterwards to know he'd been in the house.”

“Getting rather involved, aren't we? Have a drink. What did you say your name was? No, let me guess. It can only be something exotic, like Zöe.”

“They call me Mickie, as a matter of fact.”

“Very nice too. Tell me more about your murderer.”

“Well, Mrs Gunn could tell you more than what I could, really. She did his room.”

“Who is Mrs Gunn?”

“She's one of the ladies who work in the hotel. What number rooms have you got?”

“Seventeen and eighteen.”

“Have you really? He had eighteen. That's one of Mrs Gunn's.”

“I suppose the dinner will be delicious? Grand old English cooking?”

“It's ever so nice tonight. We've just got a new cook.”

They went through to the dining-room, where they ate the usual tinned soup, tasteless plaice from the icebox in composite batter, a shaving of cold meat with hot gravy over it, tinned peas and processed cheese. A wine list was produced, and Carolus ordered a Burgundy which arrived lukewarm, and they ended with bad coffee of the same temperature.

“You got all that?” asked Rupert, referring to his conversation with the barmaid.

“Yes. I'll have a word with Mrs Gunn in the morning.”

He did. He went up after breakfast and found her making his bed. She was a heavily-built, hard-breathing person with hair on her upper lip and a wheezy voice, which did not prevent her from being garrulous.

Carolus thought he might as well risk it and come straight to the point. “Mrs Gunn,” he said, “I've been asked to make an independent investigation of the murder. I hear this is the room in which the suspect slept.”

“Yes, in this very bed,” whistled Mrs Gunn asthmatically. “That's if he could sleep at all which I couldn't if I was going to do for someone next day and had it all planned out before I got to bed so that I'd toss and turn thinking about it, but perhaps he didn't worry at the time though he's paid for it now jumping off a ship and doing for himself which I must say surprised me from what I remember of him….”

“What do you remember of him?”

“Well it wasn't as though I saw a lot of him not to say as you would see anyone you knew well but I did meet him in the passage the first evening and noticed he was a big party with glasses and the sort of clothes my uncle used to wear who was an undertaker till his business failed from not enough dying he used to say but I believe it was the drink because he kept it in the house and that's always a bad sign though …”

“So you only caught that one glimpse of the suspected murderer, Mrs Gunn?”

“No, I saw him next morning when I took his breakfast in which he'd ordered the night before only he was in bed and just shouted ‘put it down there' at me and I thought to myself ‘what a voice', I thought, ‘I wonder if that's how he speaks or if he's trying to be rude' but I didn't say anything only put the tray down and went out of the room closing the door which had been locked before when I got there and had to be unlocked by him jumping out of bed and telling me to wait a minute while he jumped in again before I opened the door which has happened with others before now….”

“That was the last?”

“No there was once more that afternoon when he was packing up and I went to see if he wanted anything and he came to the door and said he didn't but didn't think to leave anything on the dressing-table which I always think is mean though there is the percentage and that which is never really the Same Thing….”

“So you didn't exchange any conversation with him?”

“Not to say conversation, no. In fact there was nothing said at all except what I've told you.”

“I understand that while he was out that afternoon you came to do his room and found his passport lying about?”

“That's right. It was right on top of his suit-case which I'd just opened to pop something in and I couldn't help seeing it because it might have been left there to be looked at …”

“You mean it was
open ?”

“Well not actually open but there it was right on top of everything and waiting for anyone just to notice what was in it …”

“So you examined it?”

“Oh no, I never did any such thing. I just peeped at the
front page that's all and saw that it was the same gentleman in the photograph but he had a different name to what he'd given in the hotel and what was on the label of one of his suit-cases. Not that I thought much about it at the time but when there was all this lark about the murder I thought to myself'that's funny, I wonder if it's got anything to do with it', so I told Mr Habbard who said he'd better tell the police which he did.”