The Fashion In Shrouds (35 page)

‘Not at all. I'm afraid I've been most unhelpful. These things depend so much on circumstances. As far as it goes the instance you give sounds most unlikely, but one can't tell. Odd things happen in medicine. Good-bye.'

‘Good-bye,' said Mr Campion.

Oates was eating a sandwich when Pullen's call came through to him. The superintendent's eyes were hard and bright with the nervous ‘second wind' which comes after the first intolerable desire for sleep has been overcome, and he held the receiver at some little distance from his ear. The inspector's machine-gun delivery was apt to be paralysing when received at short range.

‘One of Wylde's men has dug up a band-boy friend of the girl's,' Pullen rattled. ‘He has some story about her offering dope openly to anyone who seemed likely to have any money. It all sounds very amateurish. Wylde's seeing the man now. I don't like the dope angle myself. All the stuff came directly from Papendeik's. We mustn't lose sight of that.'

‘What?'

‘All the dope we found came from Mrs Valentine Ferris; I told you that last time I phoned, sir. There is no evidence to show that Adamson had any more than this in her possession. Wylde is inclined to believe Mrs Ferris's story about the smuggling. His people are looking up the woman she sacked on suspicion. He thinks the name is familiar to him.'

‘Ah.' Oates sounded unhappily convinced. ‘That leads us back to the swells.'

‘Looks like it. Still, that alibi of Laminoff's is not satisfactory, is it? He's a fat man, you know. I've got it here. Will you check it with yours? “Six-fifteen, left Caesar's Court. Six-thirty-five, Savoy cocktail bar. Seven-forty, Tulip Restaurant. Eight-fifty, the Tatler Theatre to see Mickey Mouse programme (alone). Eleven, approx., the White Empress. Four-thirty a.m., left the White Empress for
Caesar's Court in taxi-cab.” That's the White Empress Club in Grafton Street.'

‘I know. The high-class all-alien dive. No reliable witnesses there, you feel?'

‘Not one.' The machine-gun was vehement. ‘Every one of 'em would swear each other out of hell.'

‘I suppose they'd try. You'll go over them, of course.'

‘I was going down there now. I'll ring you at two-thirty. Good-bye, sir.'

By a coincidence Gaiogi Laminoff was telephoning Matvey Kuymitchov, manager of the White Empress, at the same time that the two policemen were considering his alibi. He also was a trifle worried, but not over the same matter.

‘Matvey,' he said, ‘you have in your hall some little birds in a gold cage shaped like a basket. Will you tell an old friend where you got them? They are charming.'

Kuymitchov was delighted to oblige. He rattled off the name of the importers of the golden canaries, and explained that the firm were also part-owners of the cage-making company.

‘I know them very well, Excellency. They are not easy people to deal with, but if you want some, perhaps I could get them for you.'

‘Would you do that, Matvey? That would be kind of you. I should appreciate that.' The faint note of irony was well suppressed. ‘Can you get me sixty cages, each containing two little birds, to be delivered here by the thirtieth?'

‘Sixty cages?'

‘Yes. I went through my dining-room just now, not the main dining-room, but the little romantic one in the flower garden, and it depressed me. It is sad, Matvey. It is almost gloomy. I want it to be essentially gay, and I thought that if over each table there was one of those little basket-shaped gold cages it would make it look a little happier. Don't you think so?'

Matvey laughed. ‘It is not very practical,' he said. ‘You will get tired of them.'

‘Of course I shall. Then I shall get rid of them. But meanwhile they will look gay. Sixty cages by the thirtieth. You won't disappoint me? Tell the firm to send a little boy to look after them. You will see they are all there?'

‘I will. You are an extraordinary person.'

‘Not at all.' Gaiogi's laugh was infectious. ‘I was depressed. Now I feel quite happy.'

Mr Lugg phoned Mr Campion by appointment. Mr Campion was in the private office of the Boiled Owl Club and Mr Lugg was in a small basement room which looked as though some thoughtless person had built four walls round a gipsy encampment.

‘Not a sossidge, cock.' The thick melancholy voice was just audible above a chatter like the din of a monkey-house. ‘Ma Knapp was no good at all. Thos. is inside again, so he can't help, poor chap. I've been to Walkie's and to Ben's and I dropped in at Conchy Lewis's. Not a sossidge anywhere.'

‘Have you tried Miss King?'

‘I 'ave. Just got out alive. If Mr Tuke ever 'ears of this I'll never 'old up me 'ead again. Mud-rollin', that's what I'm doing. They was all very pleased to see me. It was like old times.'

‘That must have been ever so nice. Keep your mind on the job.'

‘I am. My Gawd, you're grateful, aren't you? Here am I with me pockets sewn up mixin' with dust I've shook orf my feet for ever. What d'you think I'm doin' it for? What luck your end?'

‘Nothing yet. Phoebe gave me the Starlight, the Fish, the Newspaper, the Enraged Cow and a staggering dive called the All At Home. I've had a morning long after the night before. All a blank. Look here, try straight food with a smear.'

‘Smear meanin' filf?'

‘Yes. I was wrapping it up for you. Ollie is the man you want. Ollie Dawson of Old Compton Street. Take him a bottle of kümmel.'

‘Is it kümmel? I thought 'is fancy was dressed crab? I'll take both. Right-o. Any more dope?'

‘Dope? Oh, I'm sorry, I was on the other book. Yes, one thing. Listen. A long two-bladed knife, very narrow indeed.'

‘Ham-and-beef type?'

‘That's about it. My hat! you're horrible. All right then. Phone me at four at the Dorinda's in the Haymarket. I'm keeping Pa Dorinda as a last hope. Good-bye.'

‘Good-bye, cock. Good hunting.'

‘Yoicks to you, sir. Good-bye.'

Amanda, who had been sitting over the telephone in her private cubby-hole at the works for considerably over an hour, was commendably good-tempered when at last her fiancé kept his promise

‘Never mind,' she encouraged with all the boundless energy of youth in her voice. ‘Never mind. Keep at it. I've got something. It's a bit negative. You know the
Clear
, the badge? I say, that was Sid Yes, Sid. He pinched it from Georgia The sight of her wearing it turned him up, as I thought it would, and he pinched it off her lapel during the crush after lunch. He didn't want to go into a lot of explanations, so he put it where someone who knew what it was would be bound to see it. He did that at once, while the plane was still empty.'

‘Did he, though? That was a bit roundabout, wasn't it?'

‘Not really.' She sounded embarrassed. ‘He's only a bit touchy on the subject of his snappy pinching. He's shy about it. The accomplishment wasn't thought a lot of at his school. At your place they probably thought it was clever and funny; at his they didn't. It's a social question. I got it out of him this morning.'

‘I see. That means the deity in the machine may not have been near the hangar at all?'

‘I know. But so few people were there before Ramillies, were they? I say, A.D. has been trying to get you all the morning, but he's out now seeing Gaiogi. I think he wants to ask if there's anything he can do.'

‘If there is I'll let him know. Good-bye, Lieut.'

‘Good-bye.'

Detective-Inspector Wylde, of Narcotics, had a soft, friendly voice and a habit of lowering it when speaking on the telephone. Superintendent Oates had to concentrate to hear him.

‘I've had a little talk with Happy Carter,' Wylde murmured. ‘I'm afraid it's not down our street at all, sir. We shall go on working on it, of course, until further orders, but I thought I'd let you know what the situation is. This girl Adamson certainly wasn't in touch with any of the big people. It looks to me as though she stole the stuff, or had
it given her, from someone at Papendeik's, and simply tried to make a bit on the side.'

‘Oh, I see. Thank you very much, Inspector.' Oates was gloomy ‘You'll just cover every angle, won't you? We don't want anything to slip through our fingers at this stage, do we?'

‘No, of course not, sir, but I think you'll find it's not our pigeon. All right, sir. Good-bye.'

He had barely replaced the receiver when the Essex superintendent was on the line again.

‘Nothing at all to report.' The cheerful voice sounded unwarrantably pleased with itself. ‘We've practically stripped the clearing and there's no weapon of any sort, unless you'd count three tin-openers and a bicycle pump. I reckon the seat of the mystery is at your end, as I said all along. Mayhap if you could get on to the motive now we might learn something.'

‘Mayhap we might,' agreed Oates grimly. ‘We've had the medical report and none of the usual reasons apply.'

‘Fancy that, now. Oh well, we'll go on looking. So long.'

‘Wait a minute. No news of the car?'

‘No, no, not a sign of it. The petrol stations can't help us. There's plenty of traffic on our roads just now, you know. We've been on to the lorry-driver again and he can't add to his statement He only
heard
it, you see. Still, he knows engines and he sticks to his story. He says it was four cylinders, missing on one, and there was a body rattle like a sackful of old iron. But there's plenty o' they about at this time of year.'

‘You're right, son. The woods are full of 'em. The boy's evidence isn't worth the paper it's written on as it stands. It's seeing that's believing; that's what they say.'

‘So they do, so they do. I don't know if it interests you, but Glasshouse for the three-thirty. It's a local horse. Sure to do well. Oh, perhaps not. I only thought it might. Good-bye.'

Oates hung up, considered a few moments, sighed and recalled Sir Henry Wryothsley. The pathologist seemed surprised at his question.

‘The Richmond Laboratories?' he repeated. ‘Why, yes, I think so. I've never had any reason to doubt them. I can't
give you any first-hand information, unfortunately. They don't do my stuff. But a big place like that is sure to be pretty sound. What's the trouble? Anything I can do?'

‘No trouble at all.' Oates was suspiciously casual. ‘I was only curious. It's not this affair we're on now. Another matter. If these people did a rushed analysis they'd be bound to find anything fairly obvious, would they?'

A laugh reached him. ‘What do you call “fairly obvious”?'

‘Well, acute morphine poisoning, for instance.'

‘A fatal dose? Oh lord, yes, I should say so, if they tested for it. Why don't you ask 'em? Parsons is the man there. He's a good chap. Frightfully conscientious. Ask him. He's not chatty. He'll be discreet if you tell him so. Ring him up.'

‘Perhaps I will. Thank you very much. Sorry to trouble you.'

‘Not at all. Have you been through my report? It's interesting, isn't it? I've got one or two theories. I'll put them forward when I see you. I've got to rush back now. My assistant's calling. We're doing a Stass-Otto. Good-bye.'

Sergeant Francis Gwynne, hopeful product of the Hendon Police College, caught Inspector Pullen just before he settled down to write his report. The young man was diffident.

‘I took up the angle you suggested, sir, and I've found one interesting piece of gossip which may or may not be of some use to you. . . .'

‘Come to the horses,' snapped the machine-gun, who was irritated by the accent which he insisted on considering, quite erroneously, as unmanly.

‘Well, sir, I saw Madame Sell, of the big hairdressing firm just off Bond Street, and she tells me that there has been a story going about for some weeks now concerning the death of Sir Raymond Ramillies and Mrs Valentine Ferris of Papendeik's. Apparently Lady Ramillies and Mrs Ferris were quarrelling over the same man, and on the morning of Ramillies's death Mrs Ferris gave Lady Ramillies a
cachet blanc
– a sort of aspirin in a rice-paper case – for herself, but instead of taking it the woman gave it to her husband. According to the story, it was the last thing he had before he died.'

‘This is only gossip, you say?' Pullen was loth to show his intense interest.

‘Yes, sir, but I thought I'd better let you know at once in case it was useful.'

‘It may be. I can't say. I'm going up to the superintendent now. I'll mention it to him. That's all right, Gwynne. Carry on. That may be of some use.'

Meanwhile Rex wrestled with the newspapers.

‘Lady Papendeik authorises me to state that she is extremely sorry that she cannot help you any further. The whole matter is in the hands of the police. I am really very sorry, but I myself know nothing. No, sir, nothing at all. Miss Caroline Adamson left our employ some weeks ago. I really cannot remember if she was dismissed or if she resigned. Yes, that is my last word, absolutely my last word.'

He rang off, only to pick up the receiver again as the instrument buzzed once more.

Val's attempts to find her brother brought her in despair to Amanda's office wire.

‘No, Val, not since lunch.' Mr Campion's fiancée was intensely sympathetic. ‘What's the matter? Reporters?'

‘Oh, my dear, they're everywhere.' Val sounded despairing. ‘We're in a state of siege. Four women have actually got into the building at various times by representing themselves as clients. The staff is hysterical. Tante Marthe's had half a bottle of champagne and gone to sleep. You don't know where he is at all?'

‘No, not at the moment, but he's on the job. If you could only hang out for a bit he'll see you through. Lock the doors if you have to. Shall I collect A.D. and come and help you? We could always barricade the windows.'