Bloodhounds

Chapter Twenty-four

So comprehensively has Bath been facelifted in the last twenty years that it is quite a treat to discover streets that have escaped the restorers and stonewashers. One charmingly down-at-heel example is Hay Hill, north of the center, which is actually just a convenient shortcut from Lansdown Road to the Vineyards and the Paragon. A shortcut for pedestrians, that is to say, for no cars run through it. You know that Hay Hill will give some relief from Georgian formality as soon as you reach the betting office on the corner of Lansdown Road. A strip of worn paving descends between undistinguished eighteenth-century artisan houses. The dozen or so dwellings are irregular in style, height, and coloring, and the railings fronting most of them supply only a semblance of order. The rest of the iron-work on view-basement grills, inspection covers, lampposts, and drainpipes-is a hotchpotch. Few of the windows match in style; in fact, some have been bricked up. Here and there graffiti scar the walls, but it might be argued that the people who painted one of the buildings in layers of pink, yellow, and brown, like a monstrous cake, were guilty of vandalism before the marker pen writers got to work.

To Hay Hill, then, came Diamond and Julie Hargreaves the next morning to call on Rupert Darby. Rupert's house was the one with more flake and crumble than any other, and with weeds growing up the walls.

The bell push on the door may have been working; it was difficult to hear for the noise of traffic cruising down Lansdown Road. Anyway, there was no response. Diamond tried rattling the letter flap and instantly wished he hadn't. It was a plastic thing that fell off. A low, vibrating noise like a power drill driving into wood came from inside. As he bent to look through the gap there was an almighty thump against the door, and he found himself inches from the bared teeth of a large dog.

He stepped back and turned his attention to the window, which was coated in dust. A faded gingham curtain blocked any view of the interior. After some unproductive tapping on the glass-the main panel had a crack the width of the frame- he went back to the door, tried the handle, and discovered that it opened.

Julie warned, "I wouldn't if I were you."

But he had a confident way with dogs. Opening the door a fraction, he presented the back of his right hand for inspection. There was some sniffing, some contact with a moist nose, and then a reassuring warm lick. He increased the gap just enough for Marlowe's brown head to look out. With German shepherd in its genes, this beast wasn't going to roll over and have its chest scratched, but it had quit growling.

"Show him your hand, Julie."

This sounded like an order. He thought of adding, "Trust me," but he wasn't certain she would take encouragement from that.

She had two dogs of her own, and she knew enough to be cautious in a situation like this. After some hesitation she did as Diamond had done. There was no rending of flesh. By degrees Diamond opened the door fully, and Marlowe padded out to the pavement. The big dog didn't growl anymore, but neither did it make any concessions to friendship. It sniffed at their shoes, circled them, trotted to the house opposite, and sprayed the neighbors' wall. Diamond took this as approval. He stepped through the open door.

A first impression of the interior was that this place was more of a crash pad than a home. It smelled of stale beer and old socks and dog. The board floor was littered with clothes, books, papers, crockery, beer cans, and cardboard boxes. In the far corner was a mattress, and on it a body was lying covered by an army greatcoat.

Julie went to the window to admit more light. Dust peppered her hands when she tugged at the curtain. It hadn't been disturbed in months.

The body under the greatcoat spoke. A voice as mellifluous as Gielgud's, totally out of keeping with the surroundings, told them, "Please go away, whoever you are, and try again at some civilized hour."

Diamond said, "It's gone ten, Mr. Darby, and we're the police."

Marlowe heard his master's voice and lolloped in from the street. Picking up a tin plate between his teeth, the big dog carried it across the room, leaped on the mattress, and put in a claim for breakfast. There was a clang as the plate struck Rupert's head.

Rupert misinterpreted the knock. "I can report you for this," he said without stirring. "It's police brutality, and it's outrageous."

"It's your dog," Diamond told him. "It's asking for food."

"The hell with it. What's a dog for, if it doesn't keep the fuzz from marching into one's home?"

"Do you want us to feed it while you wash?"

"If you can find one of his cans. There might be some under the window." Rupert gave a moan and stretched. One of his feet, wearing a striped sock, appeared from under the great-coat. He propped himself up on one elbow, rubbed his eyes, and said, "Is it the state of my head, or is one of you wearing a skirt?"

Diamond formally spoke their ranks and names. Expecting the usual snide remarks about female cops, Julie busied herself locating some tins of Pal under a beret and opening one for Marlowe.

Rupert was too sleepy for snide remarks. He needed all his concentration to stand up. His night attire (and no doubt the basis of his day attire also) was a T-shirt and boxer shorts. He tottered to an open doorway that must have led to whatever passed for a bathroom in this unedifying setup.

Diamond warned him, "We haven't got all day."

Rupert riposted over the sound of running water, "My day doesn't start till noon."

He emerged after a few minutes wrapped in a gray blanket and cradling a mug of coffee. "I'd offer you some, but I can't find a spare cup. You're welcome to look if you wish."

Diamond spoke for them both. "I don't think we want any. What we'd appreciate is a place to sit down."

Two chairs had to be cleared of the items heaped on them. Rupert found his beret and jammed it on his head. Apparently it was a vital accessory, though like everything else in this place it looked shabby, speckled with white particles that he didn't bother to brush off. He squatted on his mattress wrapped in the blanket, looking like an exotic species of toadstool.

"Convenient place you have here," Diamond said politely, since there was nothing polite he could say about the way it looked.

"You mean with the Lansdown Arms at one end and the Paragon Bar and Bistro at the other?" said Rupert, with a grin. "Yes, that was a consideration, I admit. Tell me what this is about."

"We're inquiring into the death of Sidney Towers."

His face lit up. "Thank God for that. I thought it was something I'd done."

"Isn't it?" said Diamond.

"Certainly not." The shrill note in his voice made it sound as if he were the last person you ought to suspect of anything.

"You're one of this group who call themselves Bloodhounds, right?"

"That's no crime, is it?" said Rupert, now ready to defend his reputation. "Well, the name may be a crime, I grant you. A gift for the gutter press. It wasn't my suggestion, officer. If I had my way, we'd call it the Crime Noir Club and attract a different class of member."

"When did you join?"

"At least three years ago. I think only Polly Wycherley and Milo were ahead of me. No, I tell a lie. The Grand Duchess was already in."

"You must mean Miss Chilmark."

He smiled. "She who must be indulged."

"And Sid?"

"Joined six months after me, though you would hardly have noticed. He made being inconspicuous into an art form."

"You don't sound all that enamored of the other members, Mr. Darby, yet you stuck with the club. Why?"

"Oh, it gets me out of my local for a couple of hours." Rupert gave his smile that resembled a country churchyard. "And I have a mission. I want to persuade those poor, blinkered bastards to read some books that deal with the real crimes of our time and the misery and despair that they engender. You can't make converts overnight. They're fixated by ancient puzzle stories with maps in the front and snobbish characters suffering from xenophobia."

"What's that?"

Julie murmured, "Hatred of foreigners."

Rupert went on. "And they also talk endlessly about timetables." Without more preamble, he launched into an extraordinary monologue. " 'By your leave, my lord,' declared the inspector, with a deferential cough. 'There is only one possible killer. He left here at seven ten and got to the station by seven fourteen to catch the seven fifteen, but the seven fifteen was delayed because of the fog, and the first train in was the seven seven, running twelve minutes later. On the seven fifteen, which actually arrived at seven thirty-two, he would have missed his connection at seven twenty-seven, but the seven seven got him to Crewe by seven twenty-five, and he caught the seven twenty-seven and was in Little Fartington precisely at eight.' " Rupert paused and grinned wickedly. " 'Or so he believed. Actually it was still only seven o'clock. He knew how to use a timetable, but he didn't know about British Summer Time, so the murderer has to be the German, Herr Von Krapp.' "

This earned some genuine laughter. "Did you make that up, or was it done from memory?" Diamond asked.

"I'm still pissed from last night," Rupert said, without answering the question. "My point is that these people know nothing of real crime."

"And you're well qualified to tutor them."

Diamond got a sharp look for that. "If you mean that I read books that give it to you straight," said Rupert, "with the smell of blood and the pain and the suffering, yes."

Tempting as it was to go into Rupert's criminal record, Diamond held off. At this stage he needed the man in good humor. "Tell me about the meeting last Monday," he said. "You were late, I believe."

"Very likely," said Rupert airily. "I'm not much of a timekeeper. When I got there, Marlowe-that's my dog"-Marlowe lifted his head from the plate of Pal and looked around-"Marlowe happened to go in ahead of me. He likes the meetings. As far as I can gather, the poor animal-who's just an overgrown puppy-well, look at him-unwittingly caused a panic by showing affection to that old bat, Miss Chilmark. I don't know why. She's never done a blessed thing to deserve a friendly lick from Marlowe or anyone else, for that matter. A more disagreeable old crone would be hard to find. When I got in, she was acting up, making a big production number out of it and having hysterics. It took a bag over her face to calm her down. Thank God for Jessica. Jessica Shaw."

"We know Mrs. Shaw," said Diamond.

"Capable woman. I didn't see the end of this performance. I had to take Marlowe next door to the Saracen's Head and settle him there with some drinking chums of mine. Of course he was no trouble at all. When I got back to the crypt, order was restored. Well, of course it was. Milady manufactured the whole melodrama so that she should have her way. You should have seen the triumphant look she gave me."

"And then?"

"Oh, the new woman read us a short story."

"The new woman?"

"Shirley-Ann Miller," said Julie.

"Is that her name?" said Rupert. "I never discovered. She joined a couple of weeks ago." He chuckled. "And regrets it now, no doubt. As I was saying, she read us something by Stanley Ellin, an American with a nice gift for the macabre. After that, I made some innocent remark that Polly took personally, silly old coot. They're such wimps, these people. What's wrong with some lively confrontation? Milo attempted to calm us down with his piece on the locked room puzzle. We all resigned ourselves to being bored out of our skulls for the rest of the evening-well, / did-and then, of course, he gobsmacked us all by opening his book and finding the bloody stamp."

"Good. I'd like to hear more about that," said Diamond. "Can you remember what was said?"

"Give me a break; I'm barely awake yet!" He took a sip of coffee. "As far as I recollect, Milo went crimson and kept saying what happened was impossible. I found it excruciatingly funny and said so. I remember trying to rib Milo about it, but he was far too shaken to take a joke. His first comment was that one of us must have planted the stamp on him somehow. Then he backtracked a bit. After all, whoever pinched it in the first place had committed a serious crime. Milo had to admit that he hadn't let the book leave his hands, not even when Miss Chilmark was throwing her tantrum. So without a clue as to how the thing was done, we got around to talking about what to do next. Polly-our top banana-said firmly that Milo should go straight to the police."

"Polly made this suggestion?"

"Yes."

"You're sure?"

"Yes, Polly. Does that remove her from your list of suspects? Have you met her?"

"Not yet," said Diamond.

"Watch her eyes when she smiles. They don't change at all. But Milo was reluctant to throw himself on the mercy of the Old Bill. He expected a workover from you people. Well, he's more fruit than vegetable, isn't he? I'm sure you treated him with the utmost consideration, but there was solidarity from some of us. I was willing to keep quiet, and said so. So was Jessica. As for the new woman, Sally…?"

"Shirley-Ann."

"Thank you. I may be muddled about the name, but I've got her number all right: the sort of bright-eyed little body who wears a knitted hat and knows about homeopathy. She suggested he send the stamp back by post. Good thinking. He might have got away with that. The trouble was, as Jessica pointed out, we all had to agree to button our lips, and two of the company weren't willing to do that."

"Polly and who else?"

"Who do you think?"

"Miss Chilmark?" said Diamond.

"Right. The Grand Duchess."

"How about Sid? Did anyone ask him?"

"Yes. He said he could stay quiet." Rupert threw back his head and guffawed. "Sid offering to stay quiet! It was the funniest thing all evening. He should have taken a bow for that. None of them saw the joke except me. So there it was. Two in favor of blowing the whistle and four against. But of course, to work, the vote had to be unanimous. Milo isn't slow on the uptake. He could see that. He marched off to do his duty as a responsible member of the public."

"Leaving the rest of you to talk it over?"

Rupert shook his head. "There was no more talk, squire. The meeting broke up. I've no idea what time it was."

"Eight forty-five, I was told," said Diamond. "What did you do?"

"Went into the Saracen's to collect my dog."

"Who with?"

"No one. We all went our different ways. I may have had one drink. I wasn't there long. I rescued Marlowe and took him for a walk. The poor old tyke was bursting. Some people's idea of fun is tanking up my dog with Guinness."

"So where did he lift his leg?"

"That is rather personal, isn't it? Along the riverbank."

"And then did you come back here?"

"Yes. I needed to eat by then."

"Can anyone vouch for your movements?"

"I can."

"I mean an independent witness, Mr. Darby."

"No one I can think of. Look, you don't seriously suspect-"

"Have you got wheels?"

"What?"

"Wheels. A car."

"Now, come on," said Rupert, drawing the blanket closer around him.

"Have you?"

He sighed. "An ancient Lada that I keep in Beehive Yard by special arrangement with a drinking chum who has a business down there. I suppose you'd like to know if it's taxed and insured."

"No," said Diamond. "I'd like to know if you used it last Monday evening."

"Absolutely not, seeing that the tax ran out in August."

"Would that stop you?"

Rupert wasn't meant to respond, and didn't. Most of the questions he couldn't have answered more directly, thanks to the conditioning of his education. He was a pushover, the type of suspect Diamond generally found easy to entrap-when there was anything inconsistent. There was the police record with this one, too. Yet he was a fellow who made you smile, even when he was on the defensive. His comments on the other Bloodhounds had brought them vividly to life. It would be almost a pity to put the boot in.

"Fair enough," said Diamond. "Let's talk about Sid Towers."

"There isn't much to say, is there?"

"Did you ever meet him in any other place than the crypt of St. Michael's?"

"You mean the pub afterward?"

"I mean anywhere at all."

Rupert closed his eyes in thought. "Aboard Milo's boat last Christmas. The Bloodhounds' party. Sid was there, trying to merge with the woodwork."

"Nowhere else?"

"Can't remember an occasion."

"Perhaps he was in touch some other way," suggested Diamond. "A letter?"

"The phone?" Julie contributed.

"What on earth about?" asked Rupert, his gaze moving suspiciously from Diamond to Julie. "He and I had practically nothing in common."

Diamond couldn't hold off any longer. He'd kept the goodwill flowing past the point when it was still productive. His voice took on a harder tone. "I have to think of every possibility, Mr. Darby. Let's face facts. Sid worked with a security firm. They keep files on people. I want to know if he got nasty with you. Demanded money in return for his silence over your prison record."

A muscle twitched in Rupert's cheek.

"You wouldn't want your literary friends to know you've done bird, would you?" Diamond pressed him. "Obtaining money by deception. Twice. And the other convictions aren't too edifying. How many fines is it for drunkenness? Indecency? What are you-a flasher? What would Miss Chilmark say about that if she found out?"

"She wouldn't say a word. She'd be hyperventilating again," said Rupert, buying time with an easy jibe. There was a pause while he adjusted mentally. Then: "If you want to know, it was a joke that misfired. I was up for the fifth time before Bath Magistrates on a drunk and disorderly charge and it was December twenty-third. After the beak fined me fifty quid I lowered my trousers and treated him to a view of my backside with the words MERRY CHRISTMAS stuck to it. It was a paper decoration off a Christmas cake. I was done for contempt of court and indecency. 'Pull up your trousers and face the bench, Mr. Darby. You may have thought that seasonal goodwill justifies some leniency over this disgusting exhibition, but the law is not to be mocked. You are fined one hundred pounds for the contempt, and a conviction for indecency will be entered on your record. Merry Christmas to you, too, and, let us hope, a sober New Year.' "

Diamond wasn't smiling. His disappointment was crushing; after Julie's work on the PNC he'd really thought he had a handle on Rupert Darby. The blackmail theory had just sunk like a punctured balloon. The man wasn't a sexual deviant. He was a clown. A couple of prison terms for fraudulent deals weren't going to worry an extrovert like this.

He turned to Julie and told her they were leaving.

They passed St. Michael's as they returned down Broad Street. Diamond decided to look into the crypt. "It's where the bloody thing started, Julie. And the way things are going, we'd better send up a prayer while we're there."

Inside, a playgroup had taken over for the morning. While three-year-olds were squabbling over wooden trains it was difficult to picture the Bloodhounds in session discussing locked room murders. The woman in charge was monopolized by a tearful girl who wouldn't budge from her lap, so Diamond sorted the problem of the boys and the trains. It was a wonder to Julie that his bulk and his gruff manner didn't frighten children. She'd seen plenty of adults in awe of him. The reason seemed to be that he didn't patronize kids; he listened to them solemnly and talked back to them with sincerity. He'd told her once that his wife, Stephanie, had miscarried several times. He'd said nothing else.

Now that harmony was restored, they looked at the layout of the crypt. There was a row of hooks near the door. The playgroup supervisor had her coat hanging there, and beside it, the children's tiny garments with gloves attached to elastic and dangling from the sleeves.

"This, presumably, is where Sid Towers switched Milo Motion's keys," said Diamond. "Fished the bunch out of his coat pocket, slipped the original off the key ring and replaced it with a key he'd bought from Foxton's. He could turn his back to the circle of chairs and make the switch without being seen. Simple."

"The quiet man. Everyone underestimated him," said Julie.

"Except wily John Wigfull."

She smiled. "That really irks, doesn't it?"

He nodded. "But I blame myself."

Back at Manvers Street, there was a message asking Diamond to contact PC Hogarth.

"Who's he?"

"I thought you knew, sir," said the woman who had taken the call. "He seemed to know you."

"Where was he calling from?"

"I'm afraid he didn't say."

"What was it about?"

"He wanted to speak to you personally."

"Well, that's a fat lot of use. He isn't one of my detectives, I can tell you that."

Julie hadn't heard of the man either.

It was another hour before PC Hogarth called in again. "He said he's down at Avoncliff, sir," said the woman from the wireless room.

"Avoncliff? Avoncliff?" A lightbulb switched on in his head. "Jesus Christ. The divers."