Mrs. Pargeter's Point of Honour (16 page)

‘No,' said Truffler. ‘And I gather VVO's taking the whole blame himself. Apparently he's clamming up on the police, refusing to give the names of anyone else involved, claiming he was working alone.'

‘Which is good news for us,' HRH observed.

Mrs Pargeter did not comment on this assertion, but, shaking her head again at her own lack of judgement, went on, ‘He was really asking for trouble, volunteering to go through Customs this side of the Channel. I suppose, like Deirdre said, he got some kind of kick out of it – same as a kid gets playing “chicken” on a railway line.'

‘I'm sure that was it, Mrs P,' Thiffler agreed. ‘You often find that with inexperienced villains – first time they're allowed to do something on their own, it kind of goes to their heads, they get really excited and well out of order—' Catching a frosty beam from the violet-blue eyes, he concluded lamely, ‘or so I've heard.'

Mrs Pargeter sighed. ‘Anyway, what's done is done. Let's hope VVO continues to be uncommunicative.'

‘He will, don't worry,' said Hamish Ramon Henriques. ‘Having screwed up the actual job, there's no way he's going to screw up his behaviour while under arrest as well.'

‘Hope you're right. In the meantime,' Mrs Pargeter continued pragmatically, ‘I've organized legal representation for him.'

‘Who've you got?'

‘Arnold Justiman.'

Hamish Ramon Henriques and Truffler Mason nodded approval. Arnold Justiman's legal skills were without parallel. It was said that he could have organized a driving licence for Blind Pew, and got the charges against Jack the Ripper reduced to fines for overdue library books. ‘Nothing but the best,' said HRH.

‘No,' Mrs Pargeter agreed. ‘My late husband let Arnold deal with all his legal affairs.'

‘And very well he did it too,' said Truffler. ‘But for Arnold, you'd have seen even less of your husband than you did, wouldn't you?'

Another mild frost settled over Mrs Pargeter's expression. ‘I'm sorry? I don't know what you mean, Truffler.'

‘No. No, of course not.' He moved hastily on to distance himself from the moment of embarrassment. ‘What's odd about the whole business is who was in charge of the investigation.'

‘Eh?'

‘Jukebox Jarvis has done the usual checks in the police computers as to what happened down in Dover, and it turns out VVO was interviewed by none other than our old friend, Craggy Wilkinson.'

‘Really?' This was a shock to Mrs Pargeter. After the reassurances given over the dinner at Greene's Hotel, she had rather dismissed the Inspector from her thoughts. ‘Do you think we've got him wrong? Do you think he's actually shrewder than his track record suggests?'

‘You'd think he'd have to be,' HRH replied, ‘by the law of averages. But I still don't see him working something like this out on his own.'

‘He didn't do it on his own,' said Truffler. ‘He's got a new detective sergeant working with him. Keen, cocky young lad, I gather, glories in the name of Hercule Hughes. I reckon he's the one behind VVO's arrest.'

‘Oh dear,' said Mrs Pargeter.

‘Nothing to worry about, Mrs P. We'll just keep an eye on the youngster, that's all. Craggy Wilkinson on his own offers no danger. Craggy Wilkinson with an intelligent young sidekick could prove to be more of a challenge.' Truffler Mason gave a mournful grin. ‘But don't give it another thought. Forewarned is forearmed. We've got it covered.'

‘Oh, that is nice to know.'

‘Yes.' Truffler stroked his chin. ‘What we must try and work out, though, is what effect VVO's little disaster is going to have on the people who got away with the rest of the paintings.'

‘How do you mean?'

‘Well . . .' Truffler pointed to the newspaper report. ‘There's no way now they don't know that someone else is interested.'

‘And you're afraid this may make them speed up their plans and start selling off the goods?'

‘It's a possibility.'

As he spoke, Truffler Mason nodded gloomily. So did Hamish Ramon Henriques. To her annoyance, Mrs Pargeter found herself giving a gloomy nod too.

Truffler shook his huge head to jolt himself out of the communal despondency. ‘I think I'd better go and check it out,' he said.

The Alsatian lying by the padlocked gates of the breaker's yard snored evenly. From the corner of his slack mouth dripped bloody juices from the drugged meat he had so eagerly wolfed down.

In the car parked inside the yard facing the gates, two men, heavies called Ray and Phil, also snored in rhythmic counterpoint. On the dashboard in front of them stood the open thermos flask which had contained their drugged coffee, and the two plastic cups they had drunk it from. In sleep, the craggy lines of the men's battered faces had been ironed out to give them a baby-like, almost cherubic, innocence. Between them were propped up a shotgun and a baseball bat, and against these they leant in touching tranquillity. In the mouth of one of the villains was lodged an infantile thumb.

Truffler Mason's picklocks sorted out the red Transit van's keyhole as easily as they had the padlocks on the back gate of the yard. With a quick look around the floodlit tangle of dead cars to check he was unobserved, Truffler slipped his tall body into the back of the Transit.

Once inside, he produced a pencil torch from his pocket and ran it quickly over the van's contents. The frames were wrapped in rugs for protection, but he could easily move these aside to check which paintings were there. It didn't take long to match the inventory on Palings Price's list. So far none of the art works taken from Chastaigne Varleigh had been moved on. The hoard was intact.

There was a clattering of the main gate outside. Truffler froze, switched off his pencil torch and eased forward over the partition into the driver's cab to see what was going on. Outlined in the open gateway of the yard, backlit by spotlights, stood two burly figures. He had no difficulty in recognizing Rod D'Acosta and the other heavy who had taken the paintings from Chastaigne Varleigh. One carried a baseball bat, the other a pickaxe handle.

Rod dropped to one knee to check on the Alsatian, and rose in fury when he saw the dog's condition. He then pointed angrily to the parked car, and the two men moved towards it.

Seeing the state of the two guards, Rod and his henchman immediately started banging on the car roof with baseball bat and pickaxe handle. The cherubic peace of the heavies called Ray and Phil was rudely shattered.

But by the time the four villains had reached the red Transit van, its doors were once again firmly locked. Truffler Mason had slipped away through the jumbled wreckage of old cars, and melted into the night.

‘We need to talk to Veronica Chastaigne,' Sergeant Hughes announced.

‘Now just a minute, just a minute,' said his boss. ‘I'm the one who decides who we need to talk to.'

‘All right, you make the decision, but the fact remains that we need to speak to Veronica Chastaigne.'

‘On what grounds? She hasn't done anything wrong. We can't charge her with anything.'

‘We don't need to talk to her as a suspect. We need to talk to her as a witness. Come on, she's lived all those years at Chastaigne Varleigh. There's no way that she was unaware of what there was up in the Long Gallery.'

‘We have no proof that there was anything there shouldn't have been up in the Long Gallery.'

‘Oh, for God's sake!'

Inspector Wilkinson's moustache (which he had, incidentally, decided to let grow) bristled with affront. ‘What did you say, Hughes?'

The Sergeant looked subdued. ‘Sorry, sir.'

‘I should think so.'

The Sergeant looked less subdued. ‘What I meant to say was: “Oh, for God's sake,
sir
!”'

Wilkinson stared narrowly at his colleague. ‘There's a very disrespectful tone creeping into your voice, Hughes, and I don't like it. Never forget that I am your senior officer.'

‘I don't get much chance to forget it, do I . . . sir?' The worm, which had always shown a propensity for at least looking over its shoulder, was certainly turning now. ‘I thought, when I joined the Police Force, that it was an organization in which people worked together.'

The Inspector removed his habitual cigarette to draw in a sharp breath through pursed lips. ‘I don't know where you got that idea from.'

‘Listen, I was the one who got on to Posey Narker. I was the one who followed Reginald Winthrop. I suspected that he was carrying the stolen paintings and had him detained at Dover. And then what did I do? I shared my findings with you. And I just wish you'd occasionally repay the compliment.'

Wilkinson shook his head knowingly. ‘A good copper, Hughes, is not in the business of repaying compliments. He's in the business of frustrating criminals, and he does that by relying on his experience.'

‘But, sir—'

‘You don't have any experience, Hughes, so I'm afraid it'll be some time yet before you can be regarded as a good copper.'

Sergeant Hughes slumped in his chair, deflated by the hopelessness of his frustration. Inspector Wilkinson sat at his desk, smiling complacently, puffing on his cigarette and occasionally stroking his slowly burgeoning moustache.

‘You know,' he announced after a long silence, ‘we need to talk to Veronica Chastaigne.'

Gary's limousine insinuated itself smoothly through the anonymous suburban streets of North London. In the back, between the brown suits of Truffler Mason and Hamish Ramon Henriques, Mrs Pargeter, resplendent in silk print, sat like the filling of a particularly exotic sandwich.

She reached out and gave Truffler's huge hand a maternal pat. ‘I hope you weren't taking unnecessary risks.'

‘Nah.' A rueful laugh shook his massive frame and he rubbed his chin. ‘I was all right, but there was four of them. Rod and three heavies. It's not going to be that easy to get the stuff out.'

‘The simplest thing would be just to give the police a tip-off, you know,' HRH suggested.

But Mrs Pargeter quickly quashed that idea. ‘No. I gave Veronica Chastaigne my word I'd get those paintings back to their rightful owners.'

The travel agent instantly accepted the logic of her words. ‘Yes, of course. I understand completely, Mrs Pargeter.'

Gary's voice filtered through from the front of the car. ‘It's a tricky one. We could really do with Mr Pargeter around right now. He'd see the way through this, no problem. One of the great planning brains of all time, he'd got.'

‘Exactly, Gary,' said Mrs Pargeter, as the limousine slowed to a halt in front of the anonymous terraced house. ‘Which is the very reason why we're going to see Jukebox. We can still take advantage of my husband's planning brain, you know . . .'

With his spaghetti junction of computer equipment and his four guests, there was very little space in Jukebox Jarvis's front room, but by the odd click of the mouse and the odd tap at the keyboard he steered himself deftly through the data on his screen. He fed in the complex demands of the current problem, and rattled through the proffered options until he found exactly what he wanted.

‘Chelmsford!' Jukebox Jarvis pronounced triumphantly. His eyes sparkled through the thick glasses.

A communal smile of fulfilled recollection settled on the faces of the three men who watched him. ‘Yeah.' An impressed Truffler Mason nodded. ‘Chelmsford, of course.'

Gary shook his head in admiration. ‘Brilliant. Lot of clever driving needed for Chelmsford, if I remember right.'

HRH grinned with satisfaction. ‘And some intriguing specialized work required on the vehicles.'

‘Of course,' said Mrs Pargeter demurely, ‘I have no idea what you're talking about. But I'm willing to be guided by you in such matters.' She turned the full beam of her violet-blue eyes on the computer expert. ‘You're sure Chelmsford's the one, Jukebox?'

He nodded. ‘Definitely the closest match to what's needed for this case.'

‘Yeah,' Truffler agreed. ‘Only the goods are different. Chelmsford was used fivers, this time it's paintings. Same basic strategy'd work, no problem.'

An infectious bubble of excitement was building up in all of them. It was comforting to have the quality of Jukebox Jarvis's archives to rely on. Inside his computer system every one of the late Mr Pargeter's greatest exploits was neatly catalogued and chronicled, providing a perfect template of action for any situation that could possibly arise. Many public companies would give half their annual profits for an infrastructure of such efficiency.

Mrs Pargeter spread the benison of her richest smile around the assembled company. ‘Right, if you say so – Chelmsford it is.'

‘Terrific,' said Jukebox, reaching forward to his computer. ‘I'll print out the whole plan for you.' Gleefully, he touched a key and his printer burst into manic activity.

‘This is great, isn't it?' Gary spoke for all of them. ‘Almost like having Mr Pargeter back with us again.'

The other men grinned, but Mrs Pargeter, a trifle misty-eyed, murmured, ‘Almost, Gary . . . but not quite.'

A space had been cleared amidst the debris that littered Truffler Mason's desk, and over its surface was spread out a large-scale map of South London. Mrs Pargeter and the private investigator leant over, examining it minutely. Every now and then she would trace a little route with her finger, then consult the bound folder of neatly printed notes, plans and diagrams that Jukebox Jarvis had presented to her. Mrs Pargeter's hand would hover for a moment over each possible site, before finding some unconforming detail as a reason to reject it. Finally, her hand lingered longer over one particular network of junctions. She looked across at Truffler. ‘How about
there
?'