The Moving Toyshop Page 10

  She nodded, and for a moment there was a hint of tears in her eyes. ‘I know.’

  ‘If it hadn’t been for him we shouldn’t have known you were here.’ Which wasn’t true, Cadogan reflected – the shot would have brought them in in any case. But there was no point in labouring this; the dog had done its job.

  ‘And now,’ said Fen kindly, ‘will you tell us what it’s all about?’

  But here, unexpectedly, they came up against a brick wall. Sally was a very frightened girl. She had trusted one set of people today, and she was not going to trust another, however much they seemed to wish her well. And besides, what she had to say she had sworn to keep secret for ever – for her own good. Not Fen, nor Cadogan, nor Wilkes (who admittedly was not much use), nor the lorry-driver, nor any of them in combination, could get a word from her. Warnings, reassurances, and cajolery were alike useless. She was grateful, she said, very grateful, but she couldn’t tell them anything; and that was all. At last, Fen, muttering to himself, slipped out into the little hall and rang up the ‘Mace and Sceptre’.

  ‘Mr Hoskins?’ he said when he was connected. ‘This is Fen speaking. I have another job for you, if you can manage it.’

  ‘Yes, sir?’ said Mr Hoskins’s melancholy voice.

  ‘There’s an attractive young woman here we can’t persuade to trust us. Can you do anything about it?’

  ‘It is possible.’

  ‘Good. Come at once. Come in Lily Christine III – she’s outside the hotel. You carry on up the Banbury Road until you get to a cross-roads with an A.A. man. There you turn left, and keep straight on over three bridges until you get to a fork. There’s a cottage on the left just before you reach the fork, and we’re in there. You can’t mistake it.’

  ‘Very good, sir. And about Mr Sharman – ’

  ‘Oh, yes. Well?’

  ‘It’s just on closing time, sir, and we shall have to be leaving. However, he seems to have enjoyed my company’ – Mr Hoskins scarcely seemed to find this credible – ‘and he’s given me his address, so that I can visit him.’

  ‘Splendid. Abandon Mr Sharman to his fate, then. Is he very drunk?’

  ‘Very drunk.’

  ‘Well, good-bye.’

  ‘Good-bye.’

  Fen was just leaving the phone when a thought struck him, and he turned back again to dial the number of the Chief Constable.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hello. It’s me again.’

  ‘Oh, Lord, is there no justice …? What is the matter now? Look here, Gervase, you’re not harbouring this fellow Cadogan, are you?’

  ‘How could you imagine such a thing …? I want to know who’s the owner of a cottage.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Never you mind what for.’

  ‘What’s it called, then?’

  ‘What’s it called?’ Fen bellowed into the parlour.

  ‘What’s what called?’ Cadogan answered.

  ‘This cottage.’

  ‘Oh … “The Elms”, I noticed on the way in.’

  ‘“The Elms,”’ said Fen into the phone.

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t shout like that. It gave me quite a start. What road’s it in?’

  ‘B507, just where it joins B309. Somewhere between Tackley and Wootton.’

  ‘All right. I’ll ring you back.’

  ‘I thought you had a private line to the police station. Can’t you use that?’

  ‘Oh, so I have, I’d forgotten. Wait a minute.’ There was a long pause. Finally:

  ‘Here it is. The cottage belongs to a Miss Alice Winkworth. Does that satisfy you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Fen thoughtfully. ‘I rather think it does. Thanks.’

  ‘Gervase, it’s a common view that Measure for Measure is about chastity – ’

  ‘Very common indeed,’ said Fen. ‘Quite reprehensible. Good-bye.’ He rang off.

  Back in the parlour, he explained discreetly that transport was arriving for them; at which the driver, who had been showing signs of impatience for the last few minutes, said he must go. ‘If I dally ’ere much longer,’ he explained, ‘I’ll lose my job. That’s what’ll ’appen.’ They all thanked him. ‘It’s a pleasure,’ he said airily. ‘Not but what you’re probably all cracked. Any’ow, good luck with it, whatever it is.’ He winked at Cadogan. ‘Dawgs,’ he said, and went out laughing quietly to himself.

  Since there was nothing to be said or done, they stood or sat about virtually in silence until a devastating noise, followed by a single loud explosion, heralded the arrival of Mr Hoskins.

  He was superb. He offered Sally a chocolate, and settled his large form into a chair with an air which inspired confidence even in Cadogan. They all discreetly retired from the room (the necessity of explaining matters to Wilkes was obviated by the fact that he had finished the whisky and gone out to look for more). And in less than ten minutes Mr Hoskins came to fetch them, and they returned to find Sally’s blue eyes sparkling and he, mouth curved in a smile.

  ‘Golly, I’ve been an ass,’ she said. ‘I did want to tell you – honestly – but it’s so awful and I’ve been so worried … An old lady was murdered last night’ She shivered a little and went on quickly: ‘I didn’t kill her.’

  ‘All right,’ said Fen. ‘Who did?’

  Sally looked up at him. ‘That’s the awful thing,’ she replied. ‘I haven’t the slightest idea.’

  7. The Episode of the Nice Young Lady

  Fen remained cheerfully unperturbed by this rather disappointing utterance. ‘If you were there when Miss Tardy was killed – ’

  ‘You know who it was?’ Sally broke in. ‘Has the body been found?’

  ‘Found,’ said Fen grandiosely, ‘and lost again. Yes, we know a little about it, but not much. Anyway, let’s have your story – from the beginning.’ He turned to Cadogan. ‘I suppose there’s no chance of its having been accident or suicide? Considering the other circumstances, it’s scarcely probable, but we may as well clear as much ground as possible straight off.’

  Cadogan, casting his mind back to the dark, airless little sitting-room in the Iffley Road, shook his head. ‘Certainly not accident,’ he said slowly. ‘That cord round her neck had been carefully knotted. As to suicide – well, is it even possible to commit suicide like that? Anyway, let’s hear what Miss – Miss – ’

  ‘Sally Carstairs,’ said the girl. ‘Call me Sally. Everyone does. And you want to hear what happened. Golly, it’s queer, but I honestly want to tell someone now … Have you got a cigarette?’

  Fen produced his case, and a lighter. Sally sat in silence for a moment, frowning a little and blowing out smoke. The afternoon sun glowed on her fair hair, and threw into relief her determined little chin. She looked perplexed, but no longer afraid. Wilkes returned from his fruitless search for alcohol, and, being adjured to silence by Fen, sat down with surprising meekness. Mr Hoskins blinked his sleepy, melancholy grey eyes. Cadogan was trying to put his bandage straight. And Fen leaned his tall, lanky form against the window-sill, his hands in his pockets, a cigarette in his mouth, and his pale blue eyes interested and watchful.

  ‘You see, it really all started more than a year ago,’ Sally said. ‘It was July, I think, and very hot, and there were only two days to go to my fortnight’s holiday. I know it was a Tuesday, too, because I’m always alone in the shop on Tuesday mornings, and there was only five minutes to go before I locked up for the lunch hour – ’

  On the big plate-glass window a bluebottle buzzed insistently, like an alarm clock which refuses to be switched off. The volume of traffic in the Cornmarket had abated. The sun blazed on the pink and blue underwear in the window, gradually draining it of colour, but inside the shop it was dark and cavernous and cool. Sally, folding away black silk knickers in a large red cardboard box, paused to push back a lock of hair from her forehead and then went on with her work. How anyone could wear the horrid ugly things was beyond her. Anyway it was nearly lunch-time, and this was her afternoon off; in a minu
te or two she could lock the shop, leave the key for Janet Gibbs at No 27 and go home to her lunch and her book. Then in the afternoon she would drive up to Wheatley with Philip Page, who was safe if rather pathetic, and in the evening go with Janet to a flick. It would not, she reflected, be exactly riotous fun, but at all events it wouldn’t be the shop, and in any case she would soon be on holiday and away from Oxford for a bit. She devoutly hoped that no one would take it into their heads to buy anything at this stage. It would mean closing late and then gobbling her lunch and rushing back to the ‘Lamb and Flag’ to meet Philip for a drink before they set off, and she’d left herself little enough time as it was …

  A big car drew up outside, and she sighed inwardly as she heard the click of the shop-door. Still, she smiled and went forward to help the old lady who came in on the arm of her chauffeur. She was certainly a phenomenally ugly old lady: she was fat, for one thing, and she had a long nose, and her brown face was scored with a thousand deep wrinkles; she looked like a witch, and moreover, had a witch’s temperament, for she commented with feeble petulance on the clumsiness of Sally and the chauffeur before they succeeded in getting her settled.

  ‘Now, child,’ she commanded. ‘Let me see some handkerchiefs.’

  She looked at handkerchiefs; she looked at handkerchiefs until Sally could have screamed. Nothing pleased her: the linen of this kind was of too poor a quality, the size of this made them look like sheets, the frills on these were ridiculously over-elaborate, these were so plain that they were fit only for jam-pot covers, the hem of these others was badly sewn and would come undone in no time, and these would be perfect but for the initials in the corner. The clock crept on, to a quarter, to twenty past one. The chauffeur, who was evidently used to this sort of thing, stared at the ceiling. And Sally, mastering her impatience with extreme difficulty, smiled, and was polite, and ran from the shelves to the counter with ever more boxes of handkerchiefs. But she nearly (not quite) lost control of her temper when at last the old lady said:

  ‘No, I don’t think there’s anything here I want. All this has tired me very much. I have to take great care of myself, because of my heart, you see.’ The self-conscious parade of feebleness repelled Sally. ‘Jarvis!’ The chauffeur moved forward. ‘Come and help me out of this place.’

  But as she was going she turned again to Sally, who was now faced with the additional delay of getting all the handkerchiefs back to their proper places, and said unexpectedly: ‘I suppose I’ve delayed you terribly, my dear. You’ll be wanting your lunch.’

  ‘Not at all, madam,’ said Sally, smiling (with something of an effort, it must be confessed). ‘I’m sorry there was nothing you liked.’

  The old lady regarded her intently for a moment. ‘You’re a courteous girl,’ she said. ‘Courteous and considerate. I like people who are courteous and considerate, and there aren’t many of them nowadays. I wonder – ’

  She was interrupted by a scratching on the other side of a door leading out of the shop, behind the counter; and Sally was shocked to see that she started and trembled violently.

  ‘What’s that?’ she whispered.

  Sally stepped back to the door. ‘It’s only my dog,’ she said, herself startled by the violence of the old lady’s reaction. ‘Danny. I expect he wants his dinner.’

  ‘Oh.’ The old lady got a grip on herself with difficulty. ‘Let him in, my dear.’

  Sally opened the door, and Danny, then a six-months-old puppy, frisked towards them.

  ‘Well, well,’ said the old lady. ‘A small, spotted dog. Jarvis, pick him up so that I can pat him.’ The chauffeur obeyed, and Danny, whose taste in human beings was at this stage unexclusive, licked him heartily on the nose.

  ‘There’s my pretty … ’ The old lady chuckled suddenly. ‘And you’re the young lady of Ryde,’ she said to Sally.

  Sally, not knowing what else to do, smiled again.

  ‘Will you be here tomorrow, child, if I come in? It won’t be about handkerchiefs this time.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I shall.’

  ‘I shall see you then. Now, I won’t delay you any longer … Jarvis, take my arm.’ Slowly the old lady hobbled out.

  That, for the moment, was that. But on the next day the old lady did come in, as promised, took Sally’s name and address, and gave her an envelope.

  ‘Keep this,’ she said, ‘and don’t lose it. Do you see the Oxford Mail every day?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Go on seeing it, then. Look in the personal column every day without fail. When you see the name Ryde – not your own name, but Ryde – in an advertisement, take that envelope to Lloyds Bank and give it to the manager; he’ll give you another one in exchange. Take that to the address given in the advertisement. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, I understand, but – ’

  ‘It’s a little trinket.’ The old lady’s manner was curiously emphatic. ‘Not worth more than a few shillings, but I want to leave it to you in my will. It has a great sentimental value to me. Now, will you promise to do all this?’

  ‘Yes, I promise. It’s very kind of you – ’

  ‘On your word of honour?’

  ‘On my word of honour.’

  And that was the last Sally ever saw of her.

  She put the envelope away in a drawer, unopened, and only remembered it when she looked down the personal column of the Oxford Mail. This became a rather meaningless ritual, but she continued to do it just the same, for it took no trouble and very little time; and she was surprised to find that on one occasion when she had forgotten, and thought the paper had been burnt, she was really quite agitated. Which was absurd, of course, the whole thing was too fairy-godmotherish to be real, and, as far as she came to any conclusion at all, she decided that the old lady must have been mad.

  And, then, one day more than a year later, the advertisement actually appeared: ‘Ryde, Leeds, West, Mold, Berlin. – Aaron Rosseter, Solicitor, 193A Cornmarket.’ Sally was so surprised that for a moment she could do nothing but stare at it; then she pulled herself together and glanced at her watch. The shop would be closing soon for lunch, and she would go to the bank straight away. Of course it would look extremely idiotic if the whole thing was a practical joke, but that had to be risked. In any case she was too curious to leave matters where they were.

  And the thing happened precisely as the old lady had said: in exchange for her envelope she was given a large, bulky brown one, and emerged into the busy rush of Carfax, feeling dazed, with a dream-like sense of unreality. She went straight to the address given in the advertisement, but the office was closed for lunch, and so she had to return later in the day.

  She disliked Mr Rosseter the moment she saw him, and it was with considerable mistrust that she delivered up the envelope to him. He was very polite, very obsequious; he asked questions about her occupation, her family, her income. And finally said:

  ‘Well, I have a very good piece of news for you, Miss Carstairs: you have been left a large sum of money under the will of Miss Snaith.’

  Sally stared at him. ‘Do you mean the old lady who – ’

  Mr Rosseter shook his head. ‘I’m afraid I’m not aware of the circumstances in which you made Miss Snaith’s acquaintance. There, in any event, is the fact. There will be another six months before the estate is wound up, but you may rely on me to communicate with you again as soon as possible.’

  Sally said: ‘But there must be some mistake.’

  ‘No mistake at all, Miss Carstairs. These papers prove your claim. Of course, there will be some small delay before you actually receive the money, but I’ve no doubt the bank will in the meantime advance any sum you may require.’

  ‘Look,’ said Sally desperately. ‘I only saw this Miss – Miss Snaith twice in my life. She came into the shop as a customer. Golly, you’re not telling me she’s left me some money just because she looked at some handkerchiefs and didn’t buy any?’

  Mr Rosseter whipped off his glasses, polished them with
his handkerchief, and replaced them on his nose. ‘My late client was a very eccentric old lady, Miss Carstairs – very eccentric indeed. Her actions were seldom what other people would consider reasonable.’

  ‘You’re telling me,’ said Sally. ‘But, anyway, why all this business about the envelopes and the advertisement? Why couldn’t she just leave it to me in the ordinary way?’

  ‘Ah, there you’ve touched on another aspect of her eccentricity. You see, Miss Snaith lived in constant terror of being murdered. It was a mania with her. She took the most elaborate precautions, and lived in a state of seige, even against her own servants and relations. What more natural than in leaving money to strangers she should see to it that they knew nothing of the arrangement beforehand and so, should they perhaps be of a murderous disposition, should have no temptation to – shall we say? – hasten matters.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Sally, remembering. ‘She told me she was only leaving me a cheap trinket. What a queer old thing she must have been – I feel rather sorry for her, really.’ She paused. ‘Look, Mr Rosseter: I don’t want to seem curious, but I still don’t see – ’

  ‘Where the envelopes come into it? That’s very simple. Miss Snaith chose to leave her money in the form of a secret trust – that is to say that in the will I was nominated as her heir. The real heirs – as yourself – had then to apply to me for their inheritance. The papers you obtained and of which there are duplicates at the bank, are devised to make sure that I do not wrongfully cheat you of your inheritance.’ Mr Rosseter permitted himself a discreet chuckle.

  ‘Oh,’ said Sally blankly. ‘Oh, I see.’ She collected her bag and was getting ready to go, when something else occurred to her. ‘And how much do I inherit?’

  ‘In the region of a hundred thousand pounds, Miss Carstairs.’

  ‘I – I don’t think I heard – ’

  Mr Rosseter repeated the sum. Sally was simply dumbfounded: she had never dreamed of anything like this. A hundred thousand! It was astronomical, incredible. Sally was not selfish or prone to pamper herself, but what girl, at a moment like that, would not have seen the beatific vision of frocks, of cars and travel and ease and luxury? Anyhow, Sally did. And she had expected a hundred at the most.