Bloodhounds

Chapter Thirteen

Shirley-Ann could hardly wait to tell Bert, her partner, about the dramatic moment when the Penny Black was found. She gave him the update as soon as she got back to their flat in Russell Street. Bert was a difficult man to impress, a modern embodiment of the stony indifference displayed by the English archers at the Battle of Agincourt. Admirable, but frustrating when you were the French army at the charge, so to speak, with lances raised and banners unfurled. He listened in silence, hardly raising an eyebrow until Shirley-Ann had finished. Then came the comment: "I suppose we'll have the police around here asking questions next."

Bert had this unerring ability to raise alarming images in Shirley-Ann's brain. She pictured two burly officers in uniform sitting in the living room. She, straight from the kitchen, caught wearing that vulgar PVC apron with its lifesize image of an overdeveloped female torso in basque and suspenders. No good saying her regular apron was in the wash and this one belonged to Bert, a silly prize won in the rugby club raffle. She visualized the policemen eyeing suspiciously her shelves of books stacked with crime fiction and perhaps even finding on the bottom shelf among the atlases and art books the Stanley Gibbons Junior Stamp Album she had kept since childhood. "Interested in philately, are we?"

Shirley-Ann's brain was in such turmoil that she wouldn't be ready to sleep until much later. She didn't expect to hear much more from Bert until he'd finished his supper. He always ate a big meal with a glass of red wine at the end of the day, and tonight it was a full-size Marks and Spencer steak and kidney pie, heated in the microwave. He survived all day at the Sports and Leisure Center on dried fruit, pulses, and apple juice. It seemed to suit his metabolism. He had the physique of an athlete, so hunky, Shirley-Ann sometimes told him, that he could have doubled for Arnie Schwarzenegger, which was a slight exaggeration. He jogged in the mornings, and of course his work kept him in shape and burned up plenty of calories.

She wanted Bert's advice. He had a very clear-sighted view of things. She waited until he had cleared his plate and was finishing with a banana.

"Bert."

"Mm?"

"Do you really think the police will want to talk to me?"

"It's obvious. You're a witness. You could be a suspect as well."

"Oh, be serious. I didn't have anything to do with it."

"They don't know that. If-what's his name, the gay bloke?"

"Milo."

"If Milo can't explain how he got hold of the stamp, questions are going to be asked, aren't they?"

She nervously fingered a strand of her hair. "I suppose you're right."

"Don't know why you got mixed up with this lot."

"That's down to you."

He frowned. "Me?"

"Because you're always at the Sports Center in the evenings. You can't expect me to stay here on my own. It was in that 'What's On in Bath' pamphlet you brought home. I found it under Clubs and Societies, remember?"

"So how are you going to handle it?" Bert asked, positive and forward-looking. Attractive qualities in a man, but not always easy to match.

"You mean if they come asking questions?"

"There's no 'if about it."

"I'll tell the truth, I suppose. Mind you, I don't want to get Milo into more trouble than he's in already."

"You can't turn your back. You might as well go to the police and tell them what happened-before they come to you." Bert's urge to get things done was why a career in sport was so ideal for him. He called it "sports management," but Shirley-Ann suspected it had more to do with demonstrating step-ups than sitting behind a desk.

"I don't want to do that," said Shirley-Ann. "I don't want to shop Milo. I don't even know for sure if he went to the police after the meeting ended. He said he was going, but you never know."

"Shop him?" Bert repeated. "You're talking like a criminal yourself."

"Give over, Bert. I'm not going to the police, and that's final."

Bert softened a little. He relented to the extent of offering her a segment of orange. He put on his worldly-wise look, the sort of expression he wore when showing some novice how to hold a table tennis bat. "You've got to admit that they sound an odd bunch. This Rupert-he's the character with the dog, right?"

She nodded. "Character is the word for Rupert. He dresses like a stage Frenchman. Well, a rather gone-to-seed stage Frenchman. Black beret, striped jersey, and jeans. And he has this terribly, terribly well-bred English accent. Have I told you this already?"

"Some of it," Bert said.

"Listening to him, you'd think you were safe as houses, but he seems to cause havoc wherever he goes. He got the Bloodhounds banned from the Francis Hotel."

"Why?"

"I don't know the details. He can be pretty outspoken, and it's a very carrying voice. I'm not sure if he knows the effect it has."

"Better keep your distance, then. What about the women in the group? Are they more reliable?"

"There's Polly Wycherley. She's our chairman. A little white-haired lady with a fixed smile like you get across the jam and marmalade stall at the Women's Institute sale. She set up the group, and she holds it together. I think it's very important to her self-esteem to keep it going."

"Reliable?"

"I'd say yes like a shot except that Jessica-she's the one who runs the art gallery-seems not to trust her entirely."

"Any idea why?"

"There's some friction between those two. Polly was quite miffed because I stayed for a drink with Jessica in the Moon and Sixpence last week. And Jessica wasn't too pleased when I mentioned having coffee at Le Parisien with Polly. So there's a slight question mark. But I like them both in their different ways. Jessica is bright and liberated. Fun to be with."

"There's another woman in the group, isn't there?"

Shirley-Ann smiled. "Miss Chilmark wouldn't care to be described as a woman. A lady, if you please. 'There have been Chilmarks in the West Country for over seven hundred years.' She can't abide Rupert. Or Polly. Or any of us, except possibly Milo. She'd like to be chairman."

"So what's your opinion?" Bert asked. "Do you think Milo pinched the stamp?"

"I'd be amazed if he did. He's an intelligent man, or so I thought."

"But this wasn't a stupid crime," Bert pointed out. "The whole thing was set up as a kind of challenge, remember. There was that rhyme about Victoria that was on the radio and in the papers."

She nodded. "It was a jolly clever bluff. Everyone was fooled by it, including the police."

"So you reckon there's a good brain behind this?"

She nodded. "The way it was set up was really artful. Brilliant, in fact. That rhyme fooled everyone. The stupid bit was tonight-if Milo is the thief-revealing it to everybody."

"Unless he's still several moves ahead of the rest of you."

Her eyes widened. Bert was second to none at spotting devious goingson. There was a lot of jockeying for position in sports management.

"So what's he up to, do you suppose?" She leaned across the table with the point of her chin resting on her upturned thumb. Her lips were slightly open. She half hoped Bert would say "Who cares about Milo?" and lean closer.

Instead he asked, "Does he know anything about stamps?"

Her chin came to rest less seductively in her cupped hand. "I've no idea. No one has mentioned it. He seems more hooked on Sherlock Holmes than anything else."

Bert rotated his finger thoughtfully around the rim of the empty wine glass. "Do you think he fancies himself as Holmes?"

Shirley-Ann giggled a little. "I suppose he might. He does wear a deerstalker. But I don't see why it should make him want to steal the Penny Black. Holmes didn't commit crimes; he solved them."

He expanded on his theory. "If he wanted to show off a bit, demonstrate his skill at solving a crime, he could pretend to find the stamp by Holmes's methods."

"But he didn't, did he? It turned up in the pages of a book."

"A stupid mistake. It proves he isn't in the same league as Holmes," said Bert. "He must have tucked it in there for safety and forgotten that he was using the same book to read from."

She pondered for a moment. "That sounds quite possible. What was he aiming to do with the stamp?"

"He'd have pretended to find it somewhere nobody else would think of, and he'd have got his fifteen minutes of fame as the modern Sherlock who outwitted the police. The whole episode wouldn't have done anybody any harm provided that the stamp turned up again in perfect condition."

"That's rather neat. I do hope you're right," she said. "I don't like to think of Milo as a thief."

"I didn't say he wasn't one," said Bert in a change of tone. "They don't all wear flat caps and carry bags with SWAG written on them."

"Haha."

"He could have demanded a ransom for it. Fifty grand, or he burns it."

"He's a retired civil servant, for heaven's sake."

"Maybe he's been waiting all his life to do something really exciting."

"Silly!"

Bert said huffily, "If you don't think much of my opinions, why ask me?"

Now she'd offended him. He was so touchy about anything remotely suggesting he was stupid, which he patently was not. She supposed he had to endure a lot of thoughtless remarks at work from users of the Leisure Center who thought he was just a musclebound bloke in a tracksuit.

They cleared the table and watched television for an hour, but Shirley-Ann couldn't have told you what the program was.