Death of a Commuter (6 page)

“Yes?”

“I could hear the noise from a television set as I stood at the front door. Elspeth opened it and I asked for Felix. ‘Didn't you know?' she said. ‘He's not coming down tonight. He phoned me.' I was surprised that she didn't ask me in, but she said she was going to bed as soon as that particular television programme ended.”

“
She
had no presentiment, anyway.”

“No, poor girl. She was quite bright. Then I did an unusual thing. I decided to call at The Royal Oak for a drink. That made Elspeth laugh. ‘
You
going to The Oak?' she said. ‘I've a good mind to come with you.' I said, ‘Why don't you?' But she was tired and I went alone.”

“Who was there? At The Royal Oak, I mean?”

“Dogman. No one else whom I recognised. But after a little time Rumble came in. You'll meet him. Quiet fellow. Lives here in Lower Manor Road. The next house down. It's quite a small place but Rumble wasn't well off when he first came. Used to run about on a motor-cycle. Then his wife died and he inherited a little which he put into a travel agency. He's doing quite well now. Travels up with us every day.”

“You were in the railway carriage when this unknown man got in next morning? What was your impression?”

“Not much at the time. You see I knew that Felix wouldn't be coming because Elspeth had told me he was staying in town, but I said nothing to the others. I wondered how this man should know, but that's all. It was only when I knew Felix was dead I thought there was something suspicious about it”

“But not enough, to make you change your opinion that it was suicide?”

“Oh no, I was sure of that, and I am still. Let me give you another drink.”

“It's strange to me that you and Magnus, who are the two men who apparently knew Felix best, hold exactly opposite opinions about that.”

“So I gather. Magnus can't believe it. He wants you to dig something up to upset the coroner's verdict. Well, Deene, I want you to find that will, if it still exists. Meanwhile come through and meet my wife and daughter.”

Enid Thriver was looking for her spectacles. She was a large, untidy woman of indeterminate outline.

“How d'you do? I know I put them down here,” she said. “Do sit down if the cats have left you a chair. You must have moved them, Patsy, darling. This is my daughter, Mr.… you didn't tell me his name, Graham. Deene, that's it I can't see a thing without them.”

Patsy was a brisk, square-shouldered girl who would have been attractive but for a slight squint and a downright manner.

“Hullo,” she said. “I've read about you, of course. I wonder what you'll unearth in this little community? All sorts of horrors, I suppose.”

“He must come along to Chatty Dogman's party next week,” said Enid Thriver.

“Oh mums, you know it's tomorrow, not next week.”

“Is it? I didn't know. I think you must be sitting on them, Patsy. No, here they are. I remember now. I put them between the pages of my book so that I shouldn't forget where I put them. Yes, Chatty's party. You'll meet a lot of people there. Elspeth's
coming. She says Felix wouldn't have wanted her to mope for ever. Would you like some coffee, Mr. Deene? I'm dying to make some, if you would.”

“Yes, I would indeed,” said Carolus, who wanted Patsy to talk.

When Enid had left them, he asked her what she thought about Parador's death.

“I suppose it must have been suicide,” she said. “But I can't see it. I was working with him on his memoirs, you know. Chiefly at week-ends.”

“Were you? I didn't know that.”

“Fascinating, yes. He's had a very interesting life. It's all in the Far East, though. Nothing about Brenstead.”

“Not about his boyhood here?”

“No. They weren't that sort of memoirs, thank God. How bored I am with people's boyhoods and girlhoods. These started when he first went out to Shanghai before the war.”

“Had he got far?”

“I'd typed about a hundred pages, but it was only provisional, he said. He had a lot of notes of the next part. Whether it would have ended up here or not I don't know.”

“He gave you no idea of what was to come?”

“Not much. He was cagey about that.”

“Did he mention the name of anyone you know?”

“No. Not even Magnus or Daddy.”

“What did you know about this, Mr. Thriver?”

“Very little. As Patsy says, he was cagey. I believe he only meant to write about his M.I. experiences and perhaps his imprisonment.”

Enid returned with a tray.

“Oh, Patsy, I've forgotten the sugar. I put it out ready, too. Darling, the little crystals. In the silver jug.”

“Sure you've got the coffee?” asked Patsy getting up.

“Don't be silly, darling.”

Carolus watched Enid pouring out. She could be proficient when she liked, he noticed. And there was a sharp intelligent expression on her face when she made her next remark.

“Graham won't tell us whether
we
get anything from Felix's will,” she said. “You'd think so, when he left money to quite new people like Mr. Hopelady.”

“Don't go into that now, dear,” said Thriver in his high-pitched voice, but rather sharply.

“It's annoying, though,” said Enid, and looked annoyed, too. “He
was
so enormously rich.”

“You don't
know
that, Enid. I'd much rather you didn't discuss it.”

Patsy returned.

“You left the gas on,” she remarked as she put down a small china sugar bowl.

“Where are you staying?” Enid asked Carolus. “Not that dreadful Royal Oak?”

“It seems quite comfortable.”

“I suppose it's better than the Rippinghurst. That's our new hotel. It's quite near here. Felix used to call this part of the town the Cantonment. It has been left more or less as it was, you see. Our house and the one next door are the only ones in this road from before the Dormitory Plan, but Manor Road is almost untouched. We're the last outposts.”

“She means of the
ancien régime,”
said Patsy. “After us the deluge—of bright new villas.”

“Who lives in the other old house in this road?”

“Mr. Rumble. He lost his wife a couple of years ago and lives quite alone now. You must meet him.”

“So your husband says.”

“He'll be at Chatty's on Sunday.”

“Tomorrow, darling,” said Patsy.

“Oh yes, tomorrow. He's a good next-door-neighbour. Never a sound. Some more tea?”

“It's coffee, mums.”

“No more, thank you, Mrs. Thriver. I promised to call in and see the doctor this evening.”

“I'll phone Chatty and tell her to ask you. She'll be delighted to have another man. Didn't someone tell me you have your son with you?”

“My
son?
No, I've been spared that. My least favourite pupil has been wished on me for the holidays. But we only arrived today at lunch-time.”

Carolus thought Enid Thriver looked far less vague as she said, “I know. Things get around very quickly in Brenstead. I must make sure Chatty asks him, too.”

“Not if any respectable young girls are going to be there.”

“Like that? You've been warned, Patsy. Elspeth Parador has a niece staying with her, I believe. She naturally doesn't want to be alone …”

Then quite suddenly the pleasant tranquility of the room was split open. Patsy, the downright Patsy, let out an ear-splitting shriek. Thriver was on his feet at once and Enid rushed over to her daughter.

“Patsy … darling …”

“What on earth?”

Carolus watched the three of them closely.

It was thirty seconds before Patsy was able to speak and when she did so only one word came from her.

“There!” she said, and pointed towards the uncurtained window.

It was enough for Carolus who did not waste time in going over to the window, but dashed into the hall and made for the front door. Even so, he was too late. As he ran across the round lawn towards the gates he heard, from the main road ten yards away, the sound of a motor-cycle starting with the first kick. He did not pause but ran to the corner. No use. He was in time to see a motor-bicycle without lights disappear. Just before it went out of sight its rider, as if derisively, switched on his lights, but the number plate was invisible.

He returned to the house to find Patsy in control of herself.

“I'd like a drink, please,” she said to her father.

“He's gone,” Carolus told her. “Off on a motor-bike before I could get a glimpse of him. What exactly did you see?”

“A face,” said Patsy succinctly. “Nothing more, really. But he was wearing dark glasses. I've always had a fear since childhood of looking at a window at night and seeing a face outside.”

“You're not the only one,” said Carolus. “It's quite a common fear.”

“I forgot to draw the curtains,” said Enid.

“Absurd to get hysterical, I know,” Patsy admitted, regaining her downright manner. “But it
was
rather beastly.”

“Obviously you wouldn't be able to recognise the face again,” Carolus suggested.

“Shouldn't think so. I had the impression that it was a youngish man, but that's all.”

“Were they dark spectacles he was wearing? Or goggles?”

“Spectacles. I'm sure of that.”

“What's under the window?” asked Carolus, walking towards it.

“Grass. I hate flower-beds against the house.”

“I'm not going to look for footprints,” said Carolus. “I leave that to the police. You're going to inform them, I suppose?”

“Certainly,” said Thriver. “I don't want any more of this.”

“They'll send round a Detective-Constable who'll take a lot of measurements and that'll be the last you hear of it”

Thriver turned on him, as though he did not want to hear the police slighted.

“I suppose you know who it was?” he asked.

“I don't know the name,” admitted Carolus.

“Or why he should be looking in
my
windows.”

“I think I know that,” said Carolus.

This seemed to annoy Thriver, who went stiffly across to the telephone. But before he lifted the receiver he looked up at Carolus.

“If you know so much perhaps you can tell me whether this will happen again?”

“No. I don't think it will,” said Carolus at once.

Thriver addressed himself to the telephone. In giving a curt and businesslike account of the occurrence he seemed to regain his good humour.

“Well, police or not” he said, “I want another drink and I'm sure you do, Deene. I heard you sprinting up the road. Sit down for a moment and let Sporlott wait”

When they were once again in his study with glasses in their hands, Thriver said confidentially, “Look here, Deene, you may as well tell me. Do you think what occurred tonight had anything to do with Parador's death?”

“I don't want to say too much. I've no real idea of anything yet. But by one line of supposition, still very vague, I think it might have, yes. In a very indirect way.”

“If that's not caginess I don't know what is.”

Carolus smiled.

“I always start with guessing,” he said. “And my initial guesses are quite often wrong.”

Perhaps Thriver was not accustomed to a third whisky for he seemed to grow quite facetious.

“Turn your crystal ball again,” he said, “and look into the past Do you see a murder?”

“I see one in the future,” said Carolus and left it at that.

C
AROLUS
F
OUND
D
R.
S
PORLOTT'S
H
OUSE AND
S
URGERY IN THE
centre of the new town. Cotswold stone had been cemented (a crime in itself) to make low walls round a piece of modern sculpture called Resurrection which looked like a tree struck by lightning. A square from which traffic was banned was called The Piazza, and a notice-board read, ‘To the Tiny Tots' Playground: Qualified Nanny in Charge During Shopping Hours'. Another building had forthright class-free signs, ‘Men' and ‘Women'. There was no one in sight as Carolus rang Sporlott's doorbell at nine o'clock.

A woman in a fur coat opened the door.

“Oh, you want Roger. I'm just off to play bridge. R
OGER!
Here's your visitor! Good night,” she said briskly, and stepped out into The Piazza.

Sporlott came forward.

“Do come in. Sorry the wife had to go out. Bridge mad. I'm glad you managed to come. Magnus phoned me about you. Sit down,” he said, and after offering Carolus a cigarette lit one himself. Carolus decided to play this one with reserve. He put the red
brief-case beside him but it did not attract any attention.

“I had to get that old villain Gobler home this morning. There's not much wrong with him but he lost a little blood last night. He's seventy-odd and would have sat there while anyone bought drinks for him. He's known as a terrible old scrounger chiefly because he's really got the money to pay for his beer.”

“What do you think happened?”

“A car must have been coming out of Manor Road without headlights, I suppose. The driver saw him all right and pulled up, but not quite soon enough. Its bumper must have caught the old boy behind the knees I should think, quite gently but enough to topple him over. He caught his head on something hard. But no bones broken. I can't think why the driver didn't stop.” Sporlott grinned. “Interested in that, too?”

“I'm interested in anything that goes on here at the moment.”

“Then you should come to this part of the town. Things happening all the time. These are the real people—not those status symbolists round the Manor.”