Sins Out of School (16 page)

He made one more attempt. “I'm not actually certain he's in at the moment.”

“That's okay. I can wait.” I smiled again, propped my purse on the metal drawer at the bottom of the glass wall, and tried to look as if I was prepared to wait—right there—all day.

The clerk capitulated with a sigh. “I'll see whether he's in.”

Mr. Johnson was, of course, in. I knew he would be. When does a bank ever open its doors without at least one loan officer present? He was away from his desk for a moment, I was told, but he would be back straightaway. I was shown through a door into an inner sanctum and invited to sit at a desk. The clerk went back to his crossword puzzle.

When Mr. Johnson appeared, I knew I was unmasked.

He was one of the weekend volunteers at the Cathedral bookshop, a fussy little widower, but pleasant enough. Johnson is such a common name I hadn't made the connection.

He smiled genially. “Well, Dorothy, how nice to see you. Lovely hat, by the way. Need a spot of extra cash, do you? I hadn't known you banked here.”

I sighed. “I don't. You've caught me, Sam. A fair cop.”

“Ah.” He sat back. “Something in the sleuthing line, eh? You know I can't give away confidential information, if that's what you're after.”

“No, it's more personal than that. John Doyle.”

His smile faded. “Doyle. Yes, it would be, wouldn't it? Someone told me you knew his wife. Bad business, that.”

“Doyle? Or his death?”

Sam Johnson looked around and lowered his voice. “Both, if you want the truth. I couldn't bear the man, nor could most of the staff here, but it's bad for the bank that he was murdered. A bank doesn't want scandal anywhere near it.”

“Was there scandal associated with John Doyle? I must say I find that hard to believe. He was such an upright soul.”

Sam snorted. “Self-righteous, you mean!” He lowered his voice still more and said, “Would it astonish you to know that he was meeting a woman in London not a week before he was killed?”

I
T
did astonish me. If Sam had intended to create a sensation, he had succeeded. I gaped at him for a moment, then gathered my wits and said, “Are you sure?”

“Saw him with my own eyes! A week ago today, it was. My bookseller in London had a copy of the
Canterbury Tales
he wanted me to see.” Sam, I dimly recalled, had a passion for old books. “Not actually rare, you know. My means don't run to that sort of thing. But quite, quite beautiful, quarter bound in calf, with engravings by—but I mustn't bore you. He rang me up on Sunday evening to tell me about it, and I really couldn't wait to see it. So I phoned Mr. Hawkins, my manager, and asked for a day's holiday. Well, naturally, I've been here at the bank for a great many years, and I seldom take any holidays at all, so of course when I ask for one there's never any problem in getting it. So I went up to town on Monday. Caught the early train. It got me to town much earlier than I needed to be there, but I'm an early riser, and the later trains are so crowded.

“And who should I see, when we got into Victoria Station, but John Doyle, getting out of the next carriage! I was surprised, of course, and not best pleased. This is a small branch, and there ought not to be two of the senior staff away at the same time. If I had known Doyle planned to go up on that day, I should not have asked permission to take the day off, and I doubt Mr. Hawkins would have granted it, in any case. Quite frankly, Dorothy, it occurred to me that the man had simply taken French leave! After all, I had spoken to Mr. Hawkins rather late on the Sunday, and he had said nothing about Doyle being away as well. Furthermore, I ought to have been informed. Doyle is not technically under my supervision, but I am always told when those junior to me are taking their holidays. Really, I was most annoyed!

“However, there was nothing to be done about it by that time, and I didn't wish to confront the man there at the station. I made my way to the taxi rank, rather slowly so as not to catch him up, and you can imagine my surprise when I saw Doyle walk, not to a taxi, but straight to the curb to get into a private car!
And
driven by a most attractive woman! Now what do you think of that?”

I was too confused to think anything at all. Doyle in London that day! And I had thought maybe Amanda … “What did she look like? The woman driving the car? And what kind of car was it?” The only woman I could think of was Gillian, and surely it couldn't have been her. For one thing, it would make no sense, and for another, a fuddy-duddy like Sam Johnson was most unlikely to find Gillian attractive.

Sam frowned, groping for words. “I can't tell one car from another. Black, I think, or possibly blue. Ordinary looking.”

Definitely not Gillian, then. No one would have thought her car ordinary. Unless she'd borrowed one …

“And the woman,” Sam went on, “well, I saw her for only a moment, when she got out to wave Doyle over to the car. She was—um—slender, I think. Though she had a coat on, of course.”

“A hat?”

“My dear Dorothy, you are the only woman I've seen wear a hat these last twenty years, barring the Queen.”

“Well, I thought maybe in winter—something woolly to keep her head warm—but anyway, you could see her hair?”

He frowned again. “Long, I think. Brown? Yes, light brown, I believe. It was her face I remember. She had a rather—I can't describe it, an ethereal face, perhaps. She reminded me,” he said, turning somewhat pink, “of a Botticelli Venus. With clothes on, of course.”

I tried to look suitably grave. “Of course. What kind of clothes?”

“Really, Dorothy! I am hardly an expert on women's apparel!”

“Yes, but you must have noticed
something.
Bright, drab, long skirt, short skirt, miniskirt, slacks?”

“I hope you don't think I'm the sort of man who makes a practice of studying women's legs!”

Long skirt or slacks, I concluded, never having known a man who was still breathing who didn't look at women's legs. If the skirt had been short, he'd have noticed.

“Colors?”

“She wore a coat, I told you. Black, or brown, or something. What does it matter, anyway? It was perfectly obvious that she was meeting him, and what business had a married man meeting a woman in that furtive fashion?”

“Furtive?”

“Well, he certainly looked as if he didn't want to be seen.”

“It matters,” I said patiently, “because the police will want to try to find this woman. Has it really never occurred to you that when a man does something odd on Monday and is murdered on Wednesday night, there might be some connection?”

Sam was affronted. “What has occurred to me is that, if his wife found out he was having an affair, it gives her a motive for killing him. However, you don't seem to take that view. I suppose, if you're a friend of hers—”

“Amanda Doyle is not particularly a friend of mine, but I don't think she killed her husband, and I feel very sorry for her and her daughter. And that reminds me: What's going to happen with their bank account? They must have banked here, since he worked here. I don't mean I want to know what's in the account. I know you're not supposed to tell me that. But when someone dies, are the accounts frozen? And if so, what is Amanda going to do for money?”

Sam put on a mulish expression. I added, “Sam, I wouldn't ask, but you're a financial expert. I know so little of banking laws in England, and estate law, and all that sort of thing.”

The syrupy approach worked. He squared his shoulders and looked like a financial expert. “I suppose it would do no harm to tell you that there was no joint account. Doyle had a checking account here, and a small savings account. I believe he took charge of the family finances. Certainly that was only right and proper. He was a bookkeeper here, you know, so of course he knew the proper procedures.”

Of course. He also wanted his hand, and his alone, holding the family purse strings. How characteristic.

“Well, I won't take up any more of your time, Sam. I appreciate this. You've given me a lot to think about, and I'm afraid some things to tell the police. They'll probably come around to talk to you.”

“They've been,” he said with a shudder. “And no matter how discreet they try to be, having the police in the bank is not good for business.”

What an epitaph for John Doyle. His murder was not good for business. It was my turn to shudder. “Oh, well then, I suppose you told them all this.”

“I did not. They didn't ask me about Doyle's movements, and I saw no reason to tell them and expose the bank to scandal.”

“Then I'm sorry, but I must tell them myself.” I rose and turned to go, and then thought of one more thing. “Oh, by the way,
had
he asked permission to take that day off?”

“I did not feel free to ask Mr. Hawkins. However, when I taxed Doyle with taking a holiday when I was away, he was quite rude about it. As much as said that it wasn't my affair, and that he had had urgent business in London. Business, hah!”

“Did you tell him you'd seen him?”

“Certainly not.
That
was none of
his
affair.”

“Oh, and did you buy the book?”

“I did.” He relaxed. “You must come 'round to see it one day. It's quite, quite lovely.”

“I'll do that,” I said, knowing I wouldn't, and left.

Oh, my. Here was something real at last, something to get one's teeth into. Why on earth hadn't the silly little man told the police what he knew? Didn't he know that every change in routine was of interest when a crime had been committed? Had he never read a crime novel?

Well, no, probably not. He was too busy with Chaucer and Co.

I walked home slowly, having, as Hercule Poirot might have said, been given “furiously to think.”

I went straight to Alan with the news. “I think you ought to tell Derek right away.”

“I don't,” said Alan. “I think you ought to tell him.”

“But I'm not exactly official. Will he get into a snit about me talking to witnesses?”

“Trust me, darling. Derek will not be unbearably surprised that you are looking into Doyle's murder. And members of the public are always encouraged to give the police any information they may have. However they may have acquired it.”

So I called the police station and told Inspector Morrison Mr. Johnson's story. He promised to get people out looking for the mysterious woman immediately.

Well, that was something the police could do much more efficiently than I, and even they were facing a massive task. Identifying one particular car with one particular woman in it, on a Monday morning at Victoria Station, made the proverbial needle in a haystack look like a snap. Although, I thought irrelevantly, if I were looking for that needle, I'd tear apart the haystack and then get a large, powerful magnet. Perhaps the police had similar techniques for the impossible job of combing London for a single individual.

Meanwhile, what was I to do?

Well, really, there wasn't much. I'd talked to the people at Doyle's church, and learned nothing except that they were a nasty group with a malicious attitude. I'd talked to Amanda's sister and learned nothing except that the Blakes were not a loving, unified family.

There was always the possibility that Gillian had killed Doyle, alone or with Amanda's help. I had no proof of that whatsoever, but if Amanda had gone to London that day …

Hmm. What if Amanda
had
gone to London, and had seen her husband up to something? I found it almost impossible to picture John Doyle involved in the kind of hanky-panky Sam Johnson imagined, but there are other kinds. Let's see, what would a self-righteous prig with an extremist religion do in London?

Of course. He would do what he always did. He would get someone into trouble. Probably that “attractive woman.” Attractive women sometimes have a lot to hide.

And if Amanda had seen him, and had jumped to the same conclusion Sam Johnson had …

No, that didn't really work, did it? Amanda hated her husband. She would most likely have been delighted to think he was giving her grounds for divorce.

Anyway, she probably wouldn't have jumped to those conclusions. She knew Doyle's real passion was not for women, but for what he no doubt thought of as exposing the truth.

And why would Amanda have gone to London in the first place, if not to see Gillian?

My mind was running in unproductive circles. It was time I gave it up for a while. I went back to Alan's study. “How would you feel about going out to lunch, love? Somewhere out of town. Maybe that little pub on the way to Brighton, what's it called?”

“The Pig and Whistle. How could you forget?”

“How, indeed?” I laughed. “Let's go.”