Death of a Delft Blue

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

A Delft Blue at Bay

‘Whatever he relates, whether true or not, is at least probable; and he who tells nothing exceeding the bounds of probability, has a right to demand that they should believe him who cannot contradict him.’

Dr Johnson

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Gavin was indeed thorough. Before he went to Norfolk to interview a household which, by reason of family connections, might reasonably be supposed to obtain and consume Dutch confectionery, he investigated sweet-shops in the village and in Glossop and even in Sheffield and Buxton. Police were alerted in other towns and villages and were asked to make similar enquiries. There was evidence of the stockage and sale of Dutch plain chocolate and chocolate liqueurs, but Dutch chocolate-cream had not found its way into the neighbourhood.

‘It was only to carry out my wife’s rule-of-thumb,’ said Gavin to the Superintendent. ‘She believes in exploring all avenues and leaving no stone unturned. I didn’t expect to get anything around these parts. No, that poisoned stuff came from young Colwyn-Welch all right, and he’ll have to come clean about it. I’m quite prepared to believe that he gave it to the barmaid in all innocence. She must have passed on the major portion of it to Mabel Sims, whose dog, I make no doubt, wolfed up what remained of it after she dropped dead.’

‘Unless it came in the first place from Mabel Sims and she passed on a bit to Effie,’ the Superintendent suggested. ‘You see,’ he added, observing Gavin’s look of surprise. ‘I don’t suppose your good lady eats many sweets, Mr Gavin?’

‘No, she likes whisky and fruit — not both together, of course. Why?’

‘Well, in my experience, a woman will put aside a box of chocolates, we’ll say, and not touch it for, perhaps, quite a few days. Then she’ll eat the whole lot at one go.’

‘Where’s this getting us?’

‘Well, we’ve all taken it for granted that because Effie died first it was her bit of sweet-stuff that killed them both, but the chocolate-cream could just as easily have come from Mabel, who didn’t eat hers quite so soon. See what I mean?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Moreover,’ pursued the Superintendent, ‘it does seem as if Mabel had the bigger portion, if there was enough to poison her and the dog. Well, now, Mr Gavin, you know what people are like. We’re all like it, I dare say. Take cigarettes, for example. You might offer a cigarette, but you don’t offer half the packet.’

‘I take your point,’ said Gavin. ‘I’d better go and have another talk with Mrs Sims.’

Mrs Sims, however, banged the new theory very effectively on the head.

‘Mabel did show me a biggish bit of chocolate-cream, but it wasn’t the whole bar. You could see where it had been broke off. She offered me a bit, but I find it sickly, so I wouldn’t have any. I ask her where she got it — I see it was some foreign make — and she said as how her friend Effie, the other one as died — had give it to her. “She’s give you the biggest half, then,” I said. “Don’t she like it?” So Mabel says as how Effie broke off a bit and took a smell of it and says, “It smells of almonds, and I don’t like almond flavouring all that much, I only likes peppermint in chocolate-cream. ’Ere you are,” she says, “you ’ave the big bit what I was going to keep for meself. This bit’ll do me fine.” That’s what she said, so Mabel told me, sir.’

‘Not that it seems to me that it makes much difference which of them died first,’ said Gavin, upon returning to the Superintendent, ‘but it’s interesting they noticed the smell of almonds. I’ll just have another word with the landlady who keeps the pub where Effie worked.’

The landlady, it seemed, was on the local grapevine.

‘So it was that young fellow’s chocolate-cream,’ she said. ‘I never did care much about foreign sweets. Unwholesome, if you ask me. Give me good old English mint humbugs, or something of that! It was terrible, going into Effie’s room and finding her dead in bed. The light was on and her magazine had dropped on the floor, as she must have let go of it as she died.’

‘You say it was a young man’s gift to Effie, this chocolate-cream?’

‘Of course it was! Where else could it have come from? Of course he give it to her — oh, not meaning no harm, of course! I’m perfectly certain of that! Such a handsome young chap as he was!’

So Gavin went off to North Norfolk. He did not announce his coming, feeling that an element of surprise might well attend upon his arrival at Leyden Hall, and so it proved. He went by way of Buxton, Bakewell and Nottingham and then across to Grantham, Holbeach and King’s Lynn, and arrived at Leyden Hall at six in the evening, a time at which he judged most, if not all, of the household would be at home.

His judgment was justified. He was shown up to the enormous drawing-room where Binnie was reading aloud to Bernard van Zestien and Florian was playing a complicated game of Patience at a small table on the opposite side of the hearth. He must have heard Gavin announced, but went on with his occupation without so much as raising his eyes. His granduncle called him to order.

‘Florian! Here is Detective Chief-Inspector Gavin!’

Florian pushed the Patience cards aside and stood up.

‘Hullo, Mr Gavin,’ he said ungraciously. ‘How do you do?’

‘How do you do?’ said Gavin. ‘I’m here in my official capacity, I’m afraid.’ He addressed the remark more to Bernard van Zestien than to Florian. The old man nodded.

‘Are you any nearer to solving the mystery of the deaths of those unfortunate young women?’ he asked.

‘Well, we are and we’re not,’ Gavin replied. ‘I wondered whether perhaps Mr Colwyn-Welch could give us a little more help.’

‘I’ve told you all I know,’ said Florian sullenly. ‘I don’t see what else you can ask me. I did know Effie, but, to the best of my knowledge, I’ve never spoken to, or set eyes on, the other girl.’

‘Maybe not,’ said Gavin, ‘but that makes no difference to my present errand.’ He turned to van Zestien. ‘I wonder whether you’d permit me to have a word in private, sir?’

‘With Florian? By all means.’

‘Later, if you will, sir. I really meant, at the moment, with yourself.’

‘With me? I shall be at a loss. I do not see what I can tell you. I was never in Derbyshire in my life.’

‘If you will allow me, that is beside the point, Mr van Zestien.’

Binnie got up and put down the book from which she had been reading aloud.

‘Come on, Florian,’ she said. ‘We’re in the way. We’ll be in the library, Granduncle, if you want to send for us.’ She led the way out by the doorway which opened on to the staircase. With a very bad grace and a subdued muttering, her brother followed her, slamming the door behind him.

‘Please be seated, Mr Gavin,’ said the old Netherlander. ‘Now, what can I tell you?’

‘I’d like to tell you something first,’ said Gavin. ‘It may make my questions seem less impertinent. We have discovered the vehicle by which the poison was conveyed to the two young women.’ He gave an account of the exhumation of Toby, and added, at the end of the recital, ‘Of course, the chocolate-cream may have been purchased in England, but, if it was, it seems unlikely that it was bought by these girls. We’ve done everything we can to trace a sale.’

The old man studied him. Then he said quietly:

‘My grandnephew is a foolish, weak, headstrong boy, Mr Gavin. I shall never believe he is a murderer.’

‘I agree, Mr van Zestien. Of course he is not a murderer. I am inclined to think, however, that he may have been a murderer’s intended victim.’

‘So! But who would want to kill Florian? With all his faults, he is harmless.’

‘So I firmly believe. Having admitted that, you must forgive me for asking my next question. I have reason to think, from what my wife has told me from time to time, that there have been occasions on which you have found it proper to alter your Will.’

‘There have. I have never made much of a secret about that.’

‘Quite so. May I ask-would you very much mind telling me—’

‘I have no objection at all to telling you how my Will stands at present. It can do no harm, so far as I can see.’

‘Thank you very much, sir. You are very good.’

‘My fortune and properties are now to be divided in equal parts between my grandnephew Florian Colwyn-Welch and Bernardo Rose. In the event (which Heaven forbid! ) of one of them pre-deceasing me, his share will be divided in equal parts among my elder son Derde, (on the understanding that he will share it, as I know he will, with his brother Sweyn), my daughter Maarte Rose and my sister, Binnen Colwyn-Welch (who will leave all she has, I suppose, to her daughters). This Will is to be, I trust, my last.’

‘I see, sir. And do the beneficiaries and the possible beneficiaries know of these provisions?’

‘Yes, they do. At one time Florian, and at another time Bernardo, was to have been my sole legatee, but Florian was led into temptation. I need not particularise. It seemed reasonable, therefore, to exercise a little — how do you call it in English? — to give him a hope for the future provided that he behaved himself and gave me no more distress of mind.’

‘Benevolent blackmail, in fact.’

‘Those are the words I wished to use. But where is all this tending?’

‘I don’t know yet,’ said Gavin, untruthfully, thankful that the old man had not, so far, seen the point of the conversation. ‘And now I wonder whether I might have a word with Mr Colwyn-Welch?’

‘Certainly, if you will kindly ring the bell. I find that even a slight exertion makes me breathless, so, if you would not mind going down to the library and sending my grandniece to me — Oh, Carrie, take Mr Gavin to the library and ask Miss Binnie to join me here.’

Left alone with Florian, Gavin took out a notebook and seated himself at the library table.

‘Now, then, young man,’ he said, in business-like tones, ‘I want some different answers from the ones you gave me last time.’

‘There aren’t any different answers,’ Florian protested. Gavin tapped on the table with the top of a silver pencil.

‘No?’ he said pleasantly. ‘Well, we can but try. You do realise, don’t you, that the poisoned chocolate-cream was intended to kill you, and not those unfortunate girls?’

Florian went white. His lip quivered.

‘Poisoned chocolate-cream?’ he said huskily.

‘Poisoned chocolate-cream. Dutch chocolate-cream. Chocolate-cream either from Amsterdam or Rotterdam, probably purchased out there and subsequently impregnated with hydrocyanic acid. Let me tell you a story. It is called, The Dog It Was That Died.’ Without a glance at the young man, who, with shaking hands, was attempting to light a cigarette, he unfolded the saga of Toby the Golloper. There was a long silence when he had finished, except that Florian, having succeeded at last in lighting the cigarette, inhaled unwisely and was subjected to a fit of coughing. Gavin waited. The paroxysm over, Florian stared into the fire, his shoulder turned away so that Gavin could not see his face.

The battle of nerves came to a sudden end.

‘All right, then,’ said Florian, turning round. ‘I did have some Dutch chocolate-cream. I did give it to the barmaid because I hate the muck and she was always eating sweets. But I didn’t give anything to the other girl — I didn’t even know the other girl — and I swear to you I had no idea the filthy stuff had poison in it!’

‘That I’m prepared to accept, and there’s no doubt that the poison was intended for you.’

Florian flung his cigarette into the fire and put his head in his hands. Gavin waited again, but this time there was no tension in the silence. Florian raised his head.

‘How much trouble is there in it for me?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know,’ said Gavin briskly, unwilling to let him off the hook until he had obtained from him what he wanted. ‘Not a lot, I daresay, if you’ll co-operate with us instead of treating us to another spate of lying and Artful Dodging. Where did the chocolate-cream come from?’

‘I don’t know, except from Holland. It came by post, with some Dutch cigars.’

‘Any letter with it?’

‘No, nothing except the parcel.’

‘I suppose you didn’t keep the wrappings?’

‘No, of course not. It was only brown paper and so on.’

‘Postmark?’

‘I don’t remember. It was put by my plate at lunch-time by my landlady, and I just tore it open to see what it was. I only had an hour between leaving the garage and getting back there, and I always liked to drop in for a beer on my way back. My landlady’s only idea was a cup of tea, and I loathe tea, but one must drink something. Water isn’t interesting, and nobody over here makes decent coffee.’

‘Then did you hand over the chocolate-cream almost as soon as you received it?’

‘Yes. I shoved it and the small box of cigars — there were only five of them — in my overalls pocket and when I got to the pub I handed the chocolate-cream to Effie. She said, ‘Oh, ta, ducks, but I won’t eat it now, if you don’t mind. Got to have my dinner in a minute. Sure you wouldn’t like to keep a bit of it for yourself? I’m not all that keen on chocolate-cream. It’s apt to give me the bile.’

‘That’s why she gave most of it away to the other girl, then, so that takes care of that,’ said Gavin. ‘Now we come to the point. Who hates your guts sufficiently to want to murder you? Did you collect some Dutchman’s girl-friend or fall foul of a secret society while you were in the Netherlands at any time?’

Florian rallied at the sound of the jesting tone. He smiled, showing wolfish teeth. Although Gavin had heard of this hideous smile from Laura, he was taken aback by it. He had not seen it before.

‘I am circumspectness itself when I’m abroad,’ said Florian, shutting off the smile and returning his expression to its former innocence and beauty.

‘Well, who would want to kill you?’ asked Gavin. ‘One doesn’t have enemies one doesn’t know about. Come along! Two innocent women are dead, through no fault of their own, because they swallowed poison which was obviously intended for you. Don’t worry about getting somebody into trouble. Don’t you realise that, if we don’t lay hands on this joker, he’s going to try again?’

‘Well, if that’s it…’ said Florian. ‘No, dash it, I can’t! What if I should be wrong?’

‘We’ll sort that one out. Tell us what you suspect. Give us something to go on, however wrong you turn out to be.’

‘You’ll swear he’ll get a sporting chance? You won’t go and hang the wrong man?’

‘It’s clear to me that you don’t think it is the wrong man. In any case, I don’t suppose he’ll be hanged. They discriminate nowadays, you know.’

‘Oh, well, in that case… look here, I know jolly well who it was. It was my brute of a cousin, Bernardo Rose.’

‘Thanks,’ said Gavin, unemotionally. He made a note, got up, nodded to Florian and went up the stairs to Bernard van Zestien and Binnie.

‘Did you get what you wanted from Florian?’ the old man enquired. ‘Did he answer your questions?’

‘Yes, he was most informative,’ Gavin replied.

‘I am glad. He can be difficult and obstinate. Perhaps at last he is learning a little commonsense. You will stay for dinner, Mr Gavin?’

‘As Mr Gavin I should like very much to accept, sir. As Policeman Gavin, I’m afraid I must be on my way.’

He drove into Norwich, telephoned a long telegram from police headquarters there to the Superintendent in Derbyshire and booked a room for the night. In the morning, immediately after an early breakfast, he drove to Kensington and had lunch with Dame Beatrice and his wife.

‘So there it is,’ he said, when, after lunch, he had told his story. ‘I must look up Bernardo Rose’s address.’

‘It’s the same as old Rebekah’s, I expect,’ said Laura. ‘You’ll find that she and Petra and Bernardo and Bernardo’s father and mother all muck in together. What’ll you bet?’

No wager was made, but Laura turned out to be right, or near enough for Gavin’s convenience and purpose. The two households occupied identical service flats in Golders Green, one above the other in the same building. The door was opened by Petra, whom he recognised from Laura’s description. She was clad in what his old-fashioned, untutored mind informed him was a ‘confection’. It was a pyjama-style négligée in rose-pink satin ornamented with silver sequins and, in Gavin’s respectful opinion, it accorded well with her slightly olive complexion and lustrous, beautifully-dressed dark hair. She smiled at the handsome, manly visitor.

‘Miss Rose, I believe,’ said Gavin. ‘I am a Scotland Yard police officer. I wonder whether I might have a word with your mother, Mrs Rebekah Rose?’

‘Mother isn’t up,’ said Petra. ‘Is it very important, or could you call again later?’

The point was settled by Rebekah herself, who yelled from somewhere inside the flat,

‘Is a young man? I wish!’

‘You had better come in then, Mr…’

‘Gavin — Detective Chief-Inspector Gavin of New Scotland Yard. My card.’

‘Oh — Gavin! Then you must be Mrs Gavin’s husband?’

‘Such is my lowly lot.’ He was admitted to a room furnished in the Chinese style of the English eighteenth century — expensively furnished, at that. Rather gingerly he seated himself upon a part-wicker chair upholstered in a golden damask cloth bestrewn liberally with dragons. He gazed upon lacquer screens, priceless embroideries in frames on the walls and, in a cabinet whose legs were in the form of lions, a collection of Ming china of undoubted authenticity.

He was not left long in contemplation of these riches. The door burst open and in came the waddling but redoubtable figure of Rebekah, followed by that of her daughter. Unlike the elegant Petra, Rebekah was wearing a quilted dressing-gown in screaming green bice. This was topped by a mauve turban. She looked like a tipsy gipsy queen.

Gavin stood up. Rebekah toddled towards him on slipshod, be-feathered mules and gave him both her plump hands. Her rings made excruciating indentations on his fingers and palms.

‘So much,’ she shouted, ‘how I like to see young men about my place. So should Petra marry one of you, so should I have him also with me. Platonic, of course. You think it over, perhaps?’

‘I should be charmed,’ said Gavin, with a gallant glance at Petra, ‘but, unfortunately, I am already bespoke.’

‘Ah, what is that “bespoke”?’ retorted Rebekah. ‘So I am bespoke to a bargain Esau Levy offers me, but beats me to it that Jacob Bernstein, isn’t it? You are believing the stories in what you are calling the Old Test, no?’

‘Well, I’ve read the story of Esau and Jacob,’ admitted Gavin cautiously, recognising the identity of the Old Test.

‘So comes round history. But am I defeated?’ Rebekah demanded.

‘I am sure you were not,’ said Gavin, who felt that this was indeed a certainty.

‘Just as this first Jacob is having to be scared for his life of this Esau, so I am scaring the pants off Jacob Bernstein. We are in America, visiting my son Philip and my other daughter Sarah, so I report Jacob Bernstein for spitting on the sidewalk.’ She chuckled richly.

‘Oh, dear!’ said Gavin, with becoming gravity. ‘Did he really do that?’

‘How should I know? I do not go with him on the sidewalk. But they are already wanting to get the goods on him in New York, so any excuse to arrest him, you see, and then grill him about what else he does besides spitting on sidewalks. Oh, they get plenty on him before he is through with them. It is costing him five thousand dollars in bribes before they stop grilling him and are putting him in the clear. He does not muscle in on my “bespoke” any more.’

‘I can’t say I blame him. Well, now, Mrs Rose—’

‘I sit down, so you can sit down, too,’ said Rebekah handsomely. ‘But please to lower yourself careful. This room is furnished by Petra. Interior decoration she is doing. I am paying the fees since six years. She studies here, she studies there — nothing but money to be found, and her father dead and an expensive funeral, nothing spared.’

‘You’ve been paid back with six per cent interest, you know, Mother,’ said Petra, smiling at Gavin. Rebekah gravitated, like an elephant perched on a medicine ball, and embraced her daughter warmly.

‘She is a good girl, and pays rent of this flat,’ she said, beaming. She released Petra, who calmly sat down. Rebekah followed suit and Gavin lowered himself carefully into the chair from which he had risen.

‘So now,’ said Rebekah, hopefully, ‘you are inviting us to visit your home in exchange hospitality, no?’

‘Well, not this time, I’m afraid,’ said Gavin tactfully. ‘This time I’m here on duty. I want to ask you a few questions, if you won’t mind.’

‘For Income Tax I have an accountant.’

‘No, no, it’s nothing like that. All I want to know is whether you spent the war years in England.’

‘Of Black Market I am also innocent.’

‘I bet you weren’t!’ thought Gavin. He said, ‘I am not attempting to accuse you of any offence whatever, Mrs Rose, but it will help me very much with a case on which I am engaged if you will just reply to my questions.’

‘He means it, Mother,’ said Petra, in her mild, sad tones. Rebekah inflated her bosom.

‘So shall I be slaughtered to do the police a good turn?’ she enquired grandly. ‘I am in England the whole of the war.’

‘Had you any relatives in Germany or in any of the Occupied countries?’

‘No, thank God, I had not. I do not count those Colwyn-Welch people. Anyway, they came to no harm except to be in among the bombs, but who was not? Opal and Ruby were interned — so they say! — but Binnen went underground and was heroine of Dutch Resistance — never caught.’

‘And your children?’

‘Petra here was sixteen when the war ended, Sarah, then married and all time in America, was thirty, and Philip, also in America and married, was twenty-six.’

‘He was drafted, then?’

‘Yes, but not to leave America. He has bad eyes. Good for clerical work (he pays so much for his glasses)-should be on National Health, like in England-but not the good eyesight for shooting people.’

‘Thank you very much, Mrs Rose. You’ve been extremely helpful.’

‘Now you tell me how comes this questioning.’

‘It’s top secret at present, but it may help us to get our hands on a very dangerous criminal.’

‘You are giving me police protection, then?’

‘Yes, if you like, but it isn’t really necessary. Even if the criminal finds out that I’ve been here, there wouldn’t be any indication that what you’ve told me might be material evidence, so don’t you worry.’

Petra showed him out.

‘I can see what you’re getting at,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ said Gavin. ‘I’m sorry it had to be so obvious. Don’t go in for too much family loyalty, though, will you?’

She smiled. She really was a most attractive woman, he thought, and much less of a dumb cluck then Laura had led him to believe. A modest, unassuming man in many ways, he did not allow for the influence of the accident of sex, or the determining factor of his own good looks and charm.

‘Family loyalty?’ said Petra. ‘I’d lie like a trooper for mother and my brothers and sister and their children, of course. Otherwise — in my mother’s expression — phooey! And that goes for that horrible boy Florian.’

Gavin believed her and climbed to the flat above. This time the door was opened by a maid. Gavin gave his name and rank and asked whether Mr Bernardo Rose was at home. Before the girl could answer, Maarte Rose joined her in the outer vestibule.

‘What is it, Ethel?’ she asked. Gavin explained. Maarte dismissed the girl and looked at Gavin enquiringly.

‘My son is in no trouble?’ she asked. Gavin smiled.

‘I hope not,’ he said, ‘but I should be glad to have a word with him, if he is Mr Bernardo Rose.’

‘About what?’

‘About his movements during the past few weeks.’

‘But he has not been much in England during the past few weeks. We are in the diamond business and my son goes often to Amsterdam. It saves my husband the journey and leaves him free, also, to attend to the work on this side.’

‘Is your son in England now?’

‘Yes, but busy, very busy.’

‘In his office?’

‘In his office, yes.’

‘May I have the address, please?’

‘Not until I know why you want to see him.’ Her round, fair-complexioned face spelled obstinacy.

‘Well,’ said Gavin, ‘an accusation has been levelled against him, and I want…’

‘False! My son would do nothing against the law. We have a good name. It would not pay us to cheat people.’

‘I know. It is nothing to do with your family business. I’m sorry I can’t explain.’

‘I did not know that in England we have the secret police.’

‘Come, now, Mrs Rose, you’ll have to trust me. After I’ve spoken to your son he will be at perfect liberty to tell you anything he chooses about the interview, but, if we are to refute this charge which has been made against him, I really must see him. Don’t you understand that?’

Maarte studied him with solemn, unemotional blue eyes.

‘Please to come in,’ she said. ‘I will engage Bernardo upon the telephone and find out whether he is willing to speak to you.’

‘He’ll be very unwise if he refuses to speak to me,’ said Gavin, smiling at her, but obtaining no response except the same direct and serious scrutiny. ‘But, before you telephone, perhaps you would be kind enough to answer a question.’

‘Perhaps. What is it? Please to sit down. Now?’

‘In which country did you spend the war years?’

‘In which country? Why, of course, here in England.’

‘You were in England when war broke out?’

‘Certainly! Since I was born I am living in England, so I was certainly here when war began.’

‘Thank you. And your husband?’

‘He and his family are English Jews since 1900.’

‘Was he in the Army, then, during the war?’

‘A gunner, yes.’

‘A prisoner of war?’

‘Oh, no, never a prisoner of war.’

‘And Bernardo, I take it, was too young to fight?’

‘Bernardo is a little boy of not quite two when war breaks out. He is a little boy evacuated to America, to my husband’s sister, as soon as we think things may be bad.’

‘I see. Thank you. That clears that up, then. Were any of your relatives still in Holland during the war?’

‘Oh, yes. My aunt Binnen and my cousins, her daughters. They were interned, they say, and suffered hunger and bad treatment, but not my aunt. She was of the Dutch Resistance. We are proud of her.’

‘Yes, of course you are. Now, if you wouldn’t mind ringing up your son…’

He did not hear the conversation between Bernardo and his mother, as the telephone was not in the room where he was sitting, but Maarte came back after a surprisingly short absence and told him that Bernardo would be pleased to see him over a drink at six o’clock that evening. The hostelry was named and Gavin took his leave. He treated himself later to a large, indigestible tea and lingered over it, and then went off to meet Maarte’s son. He felt interested in Bernardo.