Tickled to Death and Other Stories of Crime and Suspense (28 page)

Together with the dynamite, whose careless stowing caused my unfortunate demise.

And some burnt-out splinters of wood and shreds of canvas, which had once been a painting. A very old painting, tests would reveal. And the engraved brass plate which was likely to survive the blast would identify it as Giacomo Palladino's masterpiece, “Madonna and Child”. Another great art work would be tragically lost to the nation.

Had to admire it. Was a good plan.

They only got one thing wrong. Like a few others before them, they made the mistake of thinking Billy Gorse was as thick as he looked.

I felt good and relaxed. Pity the train hadn't got a buffet. I could have really done with a few beers.

Go to Red Rita's later, I thought. Yeah, be nice. Be nice to go away with her, and all. Been looking a bit peaky lately. She could do with a change. South America, maybe?

I got my suitcase down from the rack and opened it.

Found it grew on me, that Madonna.

And I was very glad I hadn't changed the two pictures round in the Great Hall.

I may not know much about art, but I'm beginning to realize what it's worth.

“O
H
, M
ISS
B
LACK
,” Jeremy Garson's voice crackled authoritatively over the intercom, “could you come through for a moment, please?”

Isabel, who knew Jeremy well, recognized when he was trying to impress. As soon as she had seen the elegant red-haired woman, whose appointment had been registered in the diary as “11 o'clock—Mrs Karlstetter”, she had known it would only be a matter of time before he started showing off. And then his secretary would be paraded in the office, another accessory, another labour-saving device to go with the desk-top calculator, the miniature memo-recorder, the telephone amplifier and the imposing, but unused, telex-machine.

Jeremy was leaning back in his swivel-chair when she went in, his poise undermined by a little glint of insecurity in his eyes. At times he looked absurdly like his father, for whom Isabel had worked until John Garson's premature death, but the old man's eyes had never betrayed that fear.

“Yes, Mr Garson?” She knew the rules. No Christian names when he was trying to impress. No lapse into assertions of her own personality. Just the image of efficiency, shorthand pad and freshly sharpened HB pencil at the ready.

Jeremy smiled proprietorially. “Mrs Karlstetter, you met Miss Black briefly. She's an absolute treasure. Runs the whole office for me.”

He chuckled, to point up the humorous exaggeration of this last remark. “Miss Black, Mrs Karlstetter has not come to us to arrange the fitting of a burglar alarm.”

“Ah.”

“She has not come to take advantage of the advertised services of Garson Security. She is aware of the . . . other side of our business.”

He vouchsafed Mrs Karlstetter a brilliant smile. “It's quite all right. Miss Black knows all about the detective agency operation. She's done all the paperwork for it since my father first . . . branched out in that direction. So we can speak freely.”

Mrs Karlstetter nodded, acknowledging Isabel as she might a new wall-unit pointed out for her commendation.

“Miss Black, if you could note down what Mrs Karlstetter says . . .”

Isabel sat on the least eminent chair and translated the red-haired girl's words into neat squiggles of shorthand.

“Basically, I think my husband is trying to kill me.”

Mrs Karlstetter left an appropriate pause for awestruck reaction.

“The fact is, I have always been a very light sleeper—no, worse than that, I have always slept very badly, almost always had a couple of hours awake in the middle of the night . . .”

“I'm not a doctor,” said Jeremy with his disarming smile.

“I know. And if I wanted a doctor's help, I would have gone to one years ago. But I don't believe in drugs. I think many of them haven't been properly tested out, you know, for all their side-effects.”

“So you've just lived with your insomnia?”

“Yes. One gets used to it. I've just assumed that it's going to be with me for the rest of my life.”

“Uhuh.”

“But for the last four months I've suddenly started sleeping very deeply.”

“Well, surely that's good news.”

“It would be, if I thought the sleep was natural.”

“You think you're being drugged?”

“Yes.”

“By your husband?”

“There's no one else it could be. There's only the two of us in the house.”

“How do you think he does it?”

“He gets a bedtime drink for me every night. Hot milk. I think he puts something in that.”

“Have you tried not drinking it?”

“No. I don't want him to realize I'm suspicious, in case that makes him try something more drastic. But he's been away on business a bit recently, and those nights I've prepared the drink myself . . .”

“And?”

“And I've slept as badly as ever.”

“Hmm. You haven't confronted him with it?”

“I'm afraid to.”

“And you haven't thought of going to the police?”

“What would I say? I can't risk them blundering in. If I'm going to do anything about it, I've got to be discreet.”

“Which is why you've come to me?”

“Yes. I heard from a friend of mine, Mrs Littlejohn, that you sorted out a problem about her solicitor defrauding her . . .”

Jeremy Garson nodded complacently. “So what do you want me to do?”

“I want you to prove that I'm not imagining all this. My husband's working late tonight—won't be back before eleven—and I'm out playing bridge. I want you to search the house for some evidence, find the drug or whatever it is . . . before it's too late. I'm sure he's increasing the dose. I have great difficulty waking up in the mornings, and I get these terrible headaches. I'm sure he's killing me . . . slowly but surely killing me.”

“Can you think of any motive?”

“None at all. I want you to find that out too.”

“Hmm. How do I get into the house?”

“I'll leave the kitchen fanlight open. You can reach the catch of the large window through that.”

“Breaking and entering . . .” Jeremy mused.

“Yes. Will you do it for me? Please.”

Isabel looked up from her shorthand pad to see her boss's reaction. A break-in was unnecessarily dramatic. And risky. There were simpler ways of searching the house.

Jeremy Garson gave his most debonair smile. “Yes, I'll do it, Mrs Karlstetter. Just relax, and leave it all to me.”

Isabel held the torch, while Jeremy fiddled with the set of keys Clipper Jenkins had made for him between prison sentences. “I still think it's some kind of set-up,” she repeated doggedly.

“No, Isabel. I'm a good judge of people and I'd stake my reputation as an investigator that Mrs Karlstetter is absolutely genuine.”

He tried another key in the lock of the drawer. The leather-topped desk, like everything else in the large suburban house, was discreetly expensive. Whatever problems the Karlstetters had, lack of money was not among them.

The edge of Isabel's torchbeam caught a photograph on the desk. The Karlstetters' wedding. Married within the last ten years, from the style of clothes. Mr Karlstetter a good twenty years older than his wife. Second marriage perhaps?

This key worked. Carefully Jeremy turned it and reached to slide the drawer. “Oh, gloves,” he said, and punctiliously put on a rubber pair, oblivious of the neat set of fingerprints he had already laid on the desk-top.

The drawer was full of papers and envelopes, amongst which he rummaged carelessly before his hand closed round something in the furthest corner.

“Ahah.” He turned triumphantly to face Isabel, who caught the full blast of the alcohol on his breath. He had had a long lunch at “The Black Fox” with a man “who was going to sign a very big contract for a complete security system for his factory” (though no contract seemed to have emerged from the encounter), and then a couple of stiffening whiskies before the break-in at the Karlstetters.

In his hand was a squat bottle about six inches high. Isabel directed the torch on to the label.

“Phenergan,” she read.

“Would that put someone to sleep?”

“Oh yes. Very popular with mothers of small children—especially when they're teething.”

“So, if someone were to build up the dose slowly . . .”

“I think it'd be hard work to kill someone. It's just an anti-histamine.”

“Well, perhaps Mr Karlstetter is softening his wife up on this and then going to move on to something stronger.”

“Perhaps,” said Isabel sceptically.

“Anyway, we've proved there's something fishy going on. Why would a man keep this hidden away in a locked drawer if he wasn't using it for nefarious purposes?”

Isabel shrugged. “Could be a lot of reasons. Hay fever . . .”

“No, I'm sure we've got the proof Mrs Karlstetter asked for. Come on, let's go.”

“I think we ought to look upstairs first.”

“Why?”

“Might be something else relevant.”

There was. In the drawer of Mrs Karlstetter's bedside table was a small bottle of pills. Again the label identified the contents.

“Valium,” Isabel announced flatly. “Mrs Karlstetter takes valium.”

“So? So do a lot of housewives.”

“She told you she never touched drugs. Because of the side-effects.”

The outline of Jeremy's shoulders shrugged. “So she lied to us. So she's inconsistent. So what?”

“So it just makes me more suspicious. These and her ‘unwilling sleep'.”

“Another of your father's quotations?”

“Yes. ‘Mortality weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep.' Keats. ‘Sonnet on Seeing the Elgin Marbles'.”

There was a tremble in her voice. It was over two years since her father's death, but a sudden reminder of him could still stab her like a physical pain.

Jeremy responded to her moment of weakness, but, as ever, his response was inappropriate. She felt his arms round her and smelt his whisky breath murmuring “Isabel” in her ear.

She was not shocked. She had been found suddenly attractive at the end of too many parties to be shocked. Besides, it was not the first time Jeremy had touched her. But the last had been twenty years before, when he had been about to go up to university, when she had been about to move from the suburbs to London to work, when their lives had seemed likely to turn out very differently.

“Isabel,” he continued, his voice muffled in her hair, “let's go somewhere together. Go out to dinner. Not tonight. Thursday. Go out to dinner on Thursday.”

“What about Felicia?” she asked, hoping his wife's name would bring him to his senses. And yet, to her annoyance, not hoping it whole-heartedly.

“Felicia and the kids'll be away. Going to London for a couple of days. Come on, Isabel. Dinner on Thursday—what do you say?”

As the word left her lips, she cursed her stupidity in saying “Yes”.

Jeremy was in the office before her the next morning. Most unusual. He looked full of himself.

“I've rung Mrs Karlstetter.”

“Oh yes?”

“Yes. And I told her about the Phenergan. She was very pleased.”

“And?”

“And she wants us to compile a dossier proving her husband's guilt, so that she can take it to the police.”

“I see. And you said we'd do it?”

“She is paying us, Isabel.”

“Yes, of course.”

Jeremy rose from his swivel-chair and wandered over to the window. “I've got a few ideas of what to do next, but I haven't yet decided which should come first . . .”

“I would have thought the first priority was to find out a bit more about Mr Karlstetter.”

He turned to face her. “Yes, that's what I reckoned.”

“So I should think the best thing would be to ring Mrs Karlstetter again to find out where her husband works—oh, and get the number of his car.”

Jeremy Garson smiled. “That's what I thought, Isabel.”

“Oh, good morning. Is that Mr Karlstetter's office?”

“Yes.” The secretarial voice at the other end of the phone sounded young, but confident.

“Is he there?”

“No, I'm afraid he's in a meeting.”

“Oh, well perhaps I should try later.”

“Can I help?”

“Perhaps you could. I'm ringing from Scotland Yard,” Isabel lied.

“Oh.”

“There's no need to be alarmed. This is only a routine check. The fact is that a Ford Granada similar to Mr Karlstetter's was stolen last night and used in a raid on a jeweller's shop. According to Mrs Karlstetter, her husband was working late last night, so presumably his car was in the office car park. I just wanted to confirm that with him.”

“Ah.” The secretarial voice sounded uncertain. “Um, yes. Well, in fact, his car wasn't here all yesterday evening.”

“Oh.”

“No. Um, there was rather a rush job on yesterday, and he . . . er . . . wanted me to stay late for some dictation, but I had to get back to my flat for . . . er . . . because I was expecting a phone-call from Australia, so we . . . er, worked at my flat.”

“And where is your flat?”

“Notting Hill.”

“Ah.”

“Shall I get Mr Karlstetter to phone you when he's finished his meeting, because I'm sure he wouldn't want anyone to think—”

“No, no need to worry. The raid on the jeweller's was in Plaistow. Miles from Notting Hill. No, you've answered my query. Thank you very much. Now I've just got to work through about a hundred more Granada owners.”

Isabel Black put down the phone with some satisfaction. Maybe the case was going to be easier than she'd feared.