Bloodhounds

Chapter Nineteen

Open-top tour buses are a feature of Bath that most residents accept with good grace in a city that welcomes tourists. The two companies in competition are distinguished by their colors: Ryan's Citytour in red and white and Badgerline's Bath Tour in green and cream. Citytours operate from Terrace Walk, near the Abbey. The Badgerline tours leave every thirty minutes from the bus station and are named after city worthies like Prince Bladud, King Edgar, Ralph Allen, John Wood, and Dr. William Oliver. All the buses stop at convenient points to allow ticketholders to get off and explore, continuing the tour on another bus if desired.

Miss Chilmark was one of the minority who disapproved of the open-tops of whatever color. For one thing she had a house on the route and was convinced that people on the upper deck looked into bedrooms. And for another, as a person of refined literary taste, she found it deplorable that Jane Austen's name was on the back of a bus. You may imagine the shock she received when crossing Pierrepont Street at ten thirty in the morning to hear her own name spoken, amplified, from one of these despised vehicles.

"Miss Chilmark!"

It must have been audible right across Parade Gardens.

She froze and tried to take an interest in a shop window, telling herself she couldn't have heard correctly.

"Miss Chilmark!" Louder still and unmistakable, like a summons to the Last Judgment.

Deeply alarmed, she turned her head enough to see a female figure speaking into a microphone on the upper deck of a Badgerline called Beau Nash. Twenty or more interested faces were staring down.

"Miss Chilmark, this is Shirley-Ann Miller, from the Bloodhounds. Could I talk to you?"

Miss Chilmark was in no position to stop her from talking, but she had enough spirit to answer, "What gives you the right…?"

She wasn't heard. Shirley-Ann's amplified voice drowned hers. "Shall we say eleven, by the Abbey door? Please be there if you possibly can."

The bus started to move off. The commentary continued, "Sorry about that, ladies and gentlemen. Personal. I happened to spot someone I know and it is rather an emergency. If you look to your left now you will see the archway leading to Pierrepont Place. At Number One from 1764 to 1771 lived the Linley family, and Mrs. Linley once had a maidservant called Emma Lyon, later to become famous as Emma Hamilton. To your right across the street at Number Two is the house occupied for many years as a winter home by the Nelson family- yes, that Nelson. Unfortunately for romantics like me, the dates are wrong. It is most unlikely that Emma and Horatio met in Bath, but there is a romantic story about the dazzlingly lovely daughter of the Linleys, Elizabeth, who eloped…"

Miss Chilmark, her mind closed to the commentary, turned unsteadily along North Parade Passage, pink with the indignity. Not once in her life had she been hailed from the top of a bus. Generations of Chilmarks had lived with dignity and decorum in this city. She was mortified to have been singled out for such public humiliation. She needed a strong coffee and a Sally Lunn to take away the shock.

"Yes, I'm awfully sorry about that," Shirley-Ann told her when they met. "I didn't mean to alarm you. I'm not very used to the public address system. Usually my job is handing out the leaflets, but today they were short-staffed, so I stood in for someone. It's a chance you don't turn down. A marvelous opportunity for me and only the second time I've done it. When I spotted you, I forgot I was holding the mike and it was live. And I desperately wanted to speak to you. Look, shall we sit down? You look dreadfully pale." She was wondering what to do if Miss Chilmark had another attack of hyperventilation. She didn't have a paper bag with her.

They went over to sit on one of the benches in the Abbey churchyard. A busker facing them was playing the recorder to an orchestral backing from a portable cassette player, but it wasn't any bar to conversation. "I like giving the commentary, and I think I'm rather good at it," Shirley-Ann said, giving a commentary to Miss Chilmark. "% get a real buzz when I'm up there with the mike switched on and all those faces turned my way. They hear more from me than any other guide gives them. I must admit I depart from the script a bit. And today I was fairly bombarding them with information, more than I intended to say. I'm in a bit of a state myself, to be honest. We're all in a state, and no wonder."

"What do you want?" Miss Chilmark asked.

"Just a few words."

"A few!"

What Shirley-Ann wanted was the chance to talk over the developments since Monday evening. It was right against her nature to suffer in silence. She had a chronic need to share her anxieties with some other woman. She couldn't trouble Polly again so soon after meeting her in the Bath Bun, and she didn't like to call at Jessica's art gallery in case the man A.J. was there. Miss Chilmark wasn't an obvious choice for a tete-a-tete, but she was the only choice left. Spotting her from the bus had seemed like destiny intervening.

"You must have heard about poor Sid?"

Miss Chilmark gave a nod. She was wearing a small version of Robin Hood's hat with a feather, and the feather was vibrating, whether with rage or the breeze it was impossible to judge.

Shirley-Ann did what she could to make this seem like a shared concern. "I heard the news from Polly. She had the police round yesterday morning. Well, so did I later. I dare say you did. But Polly is terribly upset. She cares so much about the Bloodhounds. We're like her own family to her."

Miss Chilmark said acidly, "If that's her idea of a family, she must have had a deprived upbringing."

"Well, you must know what I'm trying to say. The police are bound to think of us as suspects. This was a locked room murder-the very topic we were about to discuss on Monday evening."

"Not at my suggestion," Miss Chilmark was quick to point out.

Shirley-Ann sighed. "It doesn't really matter who suggested it. We all knew that Milo was going to read from the book, and we're all under suspicion. Did the police visit you?"

Grudgingly, Miss Chilmark said, "They did call briefly."

"You drive, don't you?"

"I beg your pardon."

"You have a car of your own?"

"I do."

"Then it's perfectly possible for you to have driven to the boatyard after the meeting finished. You're a suspect." Shirley-Ann added with more tact, "We all have cars, so far as I know."

Outrage had spread ominously across the suspect Miss Chilmark's features, and the feather was positively flapping.

Shirley-Ann said, "The detective who came to interview me made the point that it was the crime of someone of high intelligence."

Miss Chilmark looked a mite less outraged. "Low cunning, more like. I know whom I suspect."

"Rupert?"

"Who else?"

"But why? Why would he want to kill Sid? They weren't enemies."

"How can you tell?" said Miss Chilmark, her eyes on the Abbey front. "Sid-Mr. Towers as I prefer to think of him- was a quiet man. Who can say what his private opinions were? He wasn't the sort to articulate them at one of our meetings."

"But Rupert isn't a man to bottle up his feelings-and I can't recall him saying an unkind word about Sid, ever."

"He's a degenerate."

"Rupert?"

"You only have to look at him. That face."

"Now that really is unfair."

"Evil."

"I don't think of him as evil. Rather hollow-cheeked, I grant you, and he could do with some more teeth. He's no oil painting, but I find it a very watchable face. Anyway, it would be terrible if people were judged on their looks."

"His are clearly the result of many years of bad living."

And yours, Shirley-Ann thought, of mean-mindedness. "Or neglect."

"Depravity. He's constantly in public houses, so far as I can make out. His choice of reading is indicative-all that violence he wallows in."

"Really, Miss Chilmark, I've read a lot of those books myself and I'm not depraved, I hope. Millions of people read them. You admire The Name of the Rose, but it doesn't mean you want to go into a monastery, I mean a nunnery-oh, I don't know what I do mean, except that the books people read are no guide to their behavior."

Miss Chilmark turned to Shirley-Ann, her broad face pitted with disfavor. "Let me remind you that Mr. Towers worked for a security firm. They're expolicemen, a lot of them. They know the ne'er-do-wells in this city. If something came to his notice in the course of his duties, something particularly unpleasant regarding one of the Bloodhounds, and that person felt at risk of being exposed, you wouldn't have to look hard for a motive for murder."

Shirley-Ann had forgotten that Sid was a security guard. It was the first reasonable comment Miss Chilmark had made. "But that could apply to any of us. Any of us could have a skeleton in the cupboard."

"Speak for yourself," said Miss Chilmark.

"Even if I had, I wouldn't see murder as the solution," Shirley-Ann said thoughtfully. Mentally she was reviewing the other Bloodhounds, wondering what skeletons they might prefer to keep hidden. Jessica? Polly? She had been going to suggest a meeting, if only to compare notes on what the police had said. Now, she was less enthusiastic.

"Poor Mr. Towers didn't batter himself to death," said Miss Chilmark. "Someone wanted him dead."

"At the meeting last night," said Shirley-Ann, "do you remember anything that Sid said or did that might have caused someone else to kill him?"

"I was too distressed to notice."

"Before that. Before Rupert arrived."

"The only thing I can recall him saying was at the beginning, before we started. There were four of us present-Mr. Towers and the three lady members. Polly asked who was missing- as if she couldn't work it out for herself-and Mr. Towers spoke Rupert's name, adding that Rupert is always late. It was so unusual for Mr. Towers to say anything that I noticed it particularly."

"He said something later," said Shirley-Ann. "Now what was it? A quip of some sort. Just a couple of words. I know! Jessica was giving us her theory about the stealing of the Penny Black. She said it could easily be a collector. She could picture some middle-aged man with a personality defect gloating over his stamps, or something like that, and Sid said, 'Or woman,' and we all smiled about it. You do remember, don't you? After all, you were the one who suggested we discuss the stealing of the stamp."

"I can bring it to mind now, yes. But I don't see that it makes any difference. None of us took offense, the ladies, I mean."

"Do you think it was Sid who took offense? Do you think he took the remark personally, about the personality defect? He could have thought it was aimed at him."

"Conceivably. Who can say?"

Shirley-Ann trawled through her memory of the evening. "After that, you gave us your theories about the riddle, and Sid made no comment at all, did he?"

"I can't remember any."

"The next thing was that Rupert's dog appeared."

"Spare me that." Miss Chilmark looked away at the recorder player.

"I don't remember Sid saying anything while you were distressed, but when Jessica asked for a paper bag, he supplied one. He took it from his carrier bag. A book was wrapped in it. So it was thanks to Sid that she had the means to cope with your attack."

Miss Chilmark appeared to wish to dismiss the episode from her mind. At any rate, she said nothing.

Shirley-Ann picked up the thread again. "Soon after, I read the Stanley Ellin story, and then Milo opened his copy of The Hollow Man."

"Before that, he insulted Mrs. Wycherley."

"Who did?"

Miss Chilmark looked as if she had bitten into a sour apple. "Who do you think?"

"Rupert?"

"You remember, don't you? 'Jesus wants me for a sun-beam'?"

"Oh." Shirley-Ann tried to stop herself smiling.

"It was meant to wound, and it did."

"Yes, but it didn't have anything to do with Sid."

"It demonstrated the depths the man will sink to."

"Rupert. But we were talking about Sid and the things he did and said that evening," said Shirley-Ann. "And now I've remembered something else. At the end of the evening, after Milo opened his book and found the Penny Black, we were talking about what Milo should do next. Some of us said there was no need for him to get involved. He could send the stamp back to the Postal Museum, and no one need say anything about it. Someone-I think it was Rupert-asked Sid for his opinion and he said, 'I can stay quiet.' You must remember because you were one of the people who said he had a duty to go to the police. You and Polly insisted. Everyone else was inclined to turn a blind eye."

"Don't talk to me in that accusing tone of voice," said Miss Chilmark. "It was the proper thing to do."

"If he hadn't done it, he would have gone straight back to the narrowboat. Very likely, Sid wouldn't have been murdered."

"That, if I may say so, is about the most stupid thing I have heard you say," commented Miss Chilmark. "It's pure speculation and quite pointless. No one can say with certainty what would have happened. Anyway, my recollection is that Milo made up his own mind. It didn't require advice from me or anyone else. He would have gone to the police regardless, and quite right." She stood up. "And now, if we have quite finished this futile exercise, I have some business to attend to. Good morning."

She headed off in the direction of Waitrose.