Find the Innocent

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At Bello we believe in the timeless power of the imagination, of good story, narrative and entertainment and we want to use digital technology to ensure that many more readers can enjoy these books into the future.

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About the author:
www.panmacmillan.com/author/royvickers

• Roy Vickers
  
• Chapter One
  
• Chapter Two
  
• Chapter Three
  
• Chapter Four
  
• Chapter Five
  
• Chapter Six
  
• Chapter Seven
  
• Chapter Eight
  
• Chapter Nine
  
• Chapter Ten
  
• Chapter Eleven
  
• Chapter Twelve
  
• Chapter Thirteen
  
• Chapter Fourteen
  
• Chapter Fifteen
  

Roy Vickers was the author of over 60 crime novels and 80 short stories, many written under the pseudonyms Sefton Kyle and David Durham. He was born in 1889 and educated at Charterhouse School, Brasenose College, Oxford, and enrolled as a student of the Middle Temple. He left the University before graduating in order to join the staff of a popular weekly. After two years of journalistic choring, which included a period of crime reporting, he became editor of the
Novel Magazine
, but eventually resigned this post so that he could develop his ideas as a freelance. His experience in the criminal courts gave him a view of the anatomy of crime which was the mainspring of his novels and short stories. Not primarily interested in the professional crook, he wrote of the normal citizen taken unawares by the latent forces of his own temperament. His attitude to the criminal is sympathetic but unsentimental.

Vickers is best known for his ‘Department of Dead Ends' stories which were originally published in
Pearson's Magazine
from 1934. Partial collections were made in 1947, 1949, and 1978, earning him a reputation in both the UK and the US as an accomplished writer of ‘inverted mysteries'. He also edited several anthologies for the Crime Writers' Association.

The Peasebarrow Road winds for twenty-five miles between the tiny airfield of Diddington and the overgrowing town of Renchester. An old coach road, following the course of the river, says the guide book and claims for it certain scenic merits which we need not dispute. To the east, it says correctly, a low ridge conceals the village which has developed along a modern arterial road, leaving the Peasebarrow Road with “only one, solitary human habitation”— meaning the lock-keeper's house.

Considered as a road it is one of the least useful, least interesting roads in the country.

But the newspapers did not consider it as a road when they came to give it national—and even international—publicity. They used the Peasebarrow Road much as the Victorian melodramas used the narrow strip between the curtain and the footlights to parade the characters of the play. One by one the cast would pass in front of the curtain, walking as if in a state of trance, while the stage manager bawled out a reminder of who was who and what he was up to, occasionally adding an arch hint as to what was going to happen.

The first relevant person to pass along the Peasebarrow Road was William Brengast, owner and active head of
WillyBee Products Ltd.
It was a little after six on a very hot evening in June. He was driving alone in his own Daimler. He had just slithered out of Spain, flying himself by easy stages in his own helicopter—but in circumstances that were in no way discreditable to himself. On the contrary, at some inconvenience, he was complying with a request, made at Ministerial level, to return to England as unobtrusively as possible. At Diddington he had been met by an undefined official who had cut the routine of landing from a foreign country. All this was no small sacrifice on the part of a man who disliked being unobtrusive.

Before he had travelled a mile along the Peasebarrow Road, WillyBee—as Brengast himself was universally nicknamed—became aware that he was suffering from an attack of ill-temper as a result of his wife having failed to meet him. He stopped, got out of the car and took three deep breaths, wordlessly repeating an incantation prescribed by an eminent psychiatrist. Then he resumed his journey, at peace with himself.

He had never been on the Peasebarrow Road before, but he knew about “the one solitary human habitation”, knew the persons who were inhabiting it for the summer. They were three young men of his staff who were on a working holiday—for WillyBee was opening yet another factory, this time at Renchester, and they were superintending the installation of scientific apparatus. More than routine managers, they were in control of the research section—indeed, they had originated several of the most profitable of the products of
WillyBee Products.

As they came into his thoughts he felt sudden unease about a letter which he had caused them to receive that morning. Not for what he had said but for the way he had said it. They had jointly asked for a royalty to be paid to them on the sale of the inventions they produced. For which he was already paying them a very fair salary. His refusal had been too brusque.

The road ran through a wood, curved and brought him in sight of the lockhouse. He might stop for a few minutes' geniality with the three men. Technically, his own geniality was of a very high order. It was an asset to his business, so he had cultivated it in his own fashion by briefing a leading actor to train him in the routine of projecting the outward and visible signs of sincere good fellowship.

As the lockhouse loomed ever nearer he began to suspect that sincere good fellowship might be misunderstood. It might even get a laugh. You never know—with these men. A scientist ought to be cool and dignified. These three were as temperamental and jumpy as artists. They had no respect for his position and would jabber at him like ribald lawyers. Perhaps it would be better to let 'em stew in their own juice for a bit and teach each other manners. Manners make the man. Do they? Anyhow they make him easy to handle, which these men were not. He started thinking indulgently about his wife.

He knew she must have received his letter, sent to their London flat. She was twenty years younger than himself, vital and unusually good-looking. He concluded only that she had missed her train. No morbid fancies disturbed him. To doubt his wife would be to doubt himself. Youth calls to youth—daresay!—but there were always two sides to that sort of thing. Veronica was a good woman. And a good woman knows that it's wicked to take risks with a rich husband.

In Renchester his name was known but not his face. At the Red Lion Hotel he obtruded a little, by refusing to sign the register. In the manager's office he produced papers and identified himself. The manager—intelligent fellow!—made the correct response.

“Mr. William Brengast—of WillyBee Products! The town owes you something, sir, for the new factory. Just what we wanted to put us properly on the map!”

“And you're wondering why I won't sign your register! I've just returned from Madrid. Tomorrow a new factory
was
to have been opened by the Minister of the Interior. There has been a palace revolution and Franco has put the Minister in clink. Our people don't want a British company to be mixed up with it, so the Embassy asked me to slip out quietly and lie low until the morning papers are out tomorrow. After breakfast, you can cut out the cloak-and-dagger and I'll sign the register.”

After breakfast!

“My wife will be here presently. She was to have met me but she's evidently missed her train.”

Veronica had not missed the train: she had taken a later one. She would be nearly two hours late—but as yet she did not know it. She was sharing a compartment with another expensive looking woman, older and comparatively plain but having an air of authority which Veronica admired. She had been very wintry when Veronica had ventured a pleasantry. Never mind! Veronica's revenge might come at any moment, for the authoritative woman had provided herself with a copy of
The Prattler
—the glossy for wealthy people and people who love and admire wealthy people. Its household hints are applicable only to stately homes and its gardening notes assume the reader to own a landscape.

In the current issue was a full page photograph, in colour, of Veronica.

There was no particular reason for the photograph. The background truth was that wealthy people are no more photogenic than those of the lower income brackets. As the wealthy are few, the law of averages gives them a low total of beautiful women. Hence,
The Prattler
and its imitators could not afford to ignore Veronica. On her merits she could have competed with the professional beauties had there been any need for her to do so. Her photograph brightened up the social section and as there was nothing to say about her except that she was Mrs. William Brengast they would say it, thereby indirectly advertising
WillyBee Products.

Apart from her rich colouring, Veronica was pose-proof. No one could go wrong with the bone structure that would set artists doodling—the nose with the ghost of a tilt and the mouth that was very nearly too large. A slight camera consciousness caused her fastidious self-esteem to come out as something else—something of wider appeal than the fastidious self-esteem.

At long last, the authoritative woman picked up the glossy and turned the pages. Veronica shifted a little, getting as near as possible to the pose of the photograph—but she would keep the half smile until the other woman looked up.

The inner door was opened.

“We're slowing for Diddington, madam,” said the guard. “It's a halt only—stop by request.” He took her overnight dressing case, skilfully bustled her into the corridor and got the train restarted within five seconds of depositing her on the wooden structure that served as a station.

As the train moved off, giving her a full view of the village and the airfield, Veronica recognised the helicopter and feared the worst. In the forlorn hope of proving that it was not her fault she read her husband's letter over again.

Dearest Veronica
, (WillyBee was inclined to formality by post).

I shall arrive at Diddington airfield at
6
tomorrow (Tuesday). Please meet me. Don't give your name and don't ask for me—just wait. Come by train. I've arranged for the Daimler to be there. We'll drive to Renchester—it's only 25 miles. Keep this under your hair as I wish to pay a surprise visit to the new factory. I shall go round after dinner but it won't take more than an hour, and then we can have a nice long evening together. I hope you have missed me as much as I have missed you. Your loving husband, WillyBee.