Noonday and Night

CHAPTER 14

Conradda Mendel Speaks

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So what’s the next move? Are you going to get the Scottish police to check Knight’s story?’ asked Laura.

‘They will do that without any hint from me, but I doubt whether they will be able to disprove it.’

‘It’s said that a negative is the most difficult thing in the world to prove. I mean, nobody at the hotel can say that Knight wasn’t gagged, bound and threatened with a flick-knife, and the fact that the hotel has four exits can’t be gainsaid. Besides that, the door by which he says he and those men left is at the foot of the stairs and under no supervision whatever. That’s another point in his favour, and I bet the police find plenty of faked evidence in that old house to show that Knight was dumped there. There will be a length of rope, plenty of crumbs and a thermos flask with his fingerprints on it, don’t you think?’

‘It is not at all unlikely.’

‘The police will spot that his story about being in his dressing-gown is phoney, won’t they, though?’

‘If he is pressed he will tell them that the men put him into his jacket and returned the dressing-gown to his suitcase. He will continue to plead loss of memory.’

‘What about his knowing that Daigh, as well as Noone, has been murdered? That news was carefully kept out of the papers until quite recently.’

‘He will say that the other drivers told him that Daigh had not returned to the depot and that another driver brought Daigh’s coach home. He will claim that, as he knew Noone had been murdered, he supposed that Daigh had met with a similar fate.’

‘Got it all taped out, haven’t you?’

‘Oh, you are not the only innocent person who has a criminal’s mind,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘There is one thing I should like to know, though. In the beginning, when the directors of County Motors asked me to look into the matter of the missing coach-drivers, I felt that Basil Honfleur was not at all anxious that I should. When Knight was thought to have disappeared, however, who so anxious that I should search for him as our friend Honfleur, and I have found myself wondering how long he has known about this coming merger with the larger coach company and to what extent he fears for his position as managing director when the merger takes place, that is all. As we said before, he would not be the first man in an executive position to be made redundant.’

‘So you think he’s made himself a little escape route? But how?’

‘I do not know, but, as Mrs George de Home Vaizey, of whom you have never heard, once said, “Human nature is desperately wicked.” ’

‘What was she talking about?’

‘Strawberries and cream.’

Laura, who did not trust her employer’s sense of humour, snorted disgustedly and changed the subject.

‘Wonder how Conradda Mendel is getting on, now she’s been mentioned,’ she said. As though she had invoked the spirit of the woman in question, on the following morning a letter arrived from Conradda herself.

‘So she didn’t go to America after all,’ Laura remarked as she sorted the correspondence and noted the postmark.

‘Who?’ Dame Beatrice enquired.

‘Conradda Mendel. She’s put her name, but not her address, on the back of the envelope and it’s postmarked Poole on the front.’

‘Interesting. Let us see what she has to say.’ Dame Beatrice slit open the envelope, scanned its contents and then handed the missive to Laura.

‘Dear Friend,’ Conradda had written, ‘before I go further, please do not show this to anybody but your most confidential secretary, as I do not wish it to be known to any but yourselves where I am to be found.

‘I became ill in America, but it is too expensive to be ill in that country, so I dragged myself on to an aeroplane and came to my own doctor and he ordered an operation, so here I am in convalescence in the house of a friend. I am getting stronger every day, but am not very well yet, so this is to ask if you will kindly visit me, as at the moment I am not able to travel to visit you.

‘Now it is about this coach-driver whose body was found in such a strange situation, and I am troubling myself in my mind that he may not be the only one.’

‘Well, he isn’t,’ said Laura, looking up from the letter. ‘Shall you go and see her?’

‘Read to the end. You will find that I have very little option.’

‘You will remember,’ the letter went on, ‘my telling you of the treasures of Chinese art which Vittorio showed me when I visited his lodging and of the conclusion I reached regarding this surprising and very valuable collection. I also mentioned, I believe, some jade that he had there. Well, jade is always nice; nice material and very patient carving is necessary and takes much time. The pieces he showed me, though, were not very special – jewellers’ pieces I would call them – and some were soapstone, not jade.

‘Mind, I did not let Vittorio know I recognised some of the china he showed me. That perhaps would not have been a safe thing to do; neither, naturally, did I intend to tell him I should advise you not to buy, but, with much caution, I began to make enquiries about him in the trade and some strange things came out.

‘Where County Motors go there are thefts of art treasures. Nobody makes the connection, I think, but me. Now here, now there, I hear of these thefts and because I know Vittorio and your Mr Honfleur are in collusion for Vittorio to purchase antiques – ’

‘Our Mr Honfleur indeed! ’ said Laura indignantly. ‘I like her cheek!’

‘She means no harm. Read to the end.’

‘… to purchase antiques, I ask myself whether this is coincidence or not. I check up the coach tours and it looks less and less like coincidence and more and more like something arranged. You see, my dear friend, when there is a theft the police are told. They cordon off roads and stop cars and perhaps lorries; but who ever heard of police stopping a holiday coach? Even if they did, what would they find? Thirty suitcases of innocent people; souvenirs bought to take home as gifts for friends or as reminders of the holiday; parcels, coats, anoraks and mackintoshes on the racks; everybody able to account for himself. All the same, I think to myself that there may also be one suitcase too many in the boot of the coach. You understand me?

‘But the police do not stop the coaches. In most cases they do not stop the cars either. And why? Because, by the time the thefts are discovered and reported, it is too late. The thieves have got clean away and the coach is staying, so innocently, at a hotel in another county, so nobody gives it a thought that there are stolen antiques on board.’

‘I wonder whether she’s right?’ said Laura, handing back the letter. ‘It sounds a bit too easy to me. Do you think she’s romancing?’

‘That is what I propose to find out.’

‘Do I go with you to Poole?’

‘Yes, I shall need you to take notes. We know already that Vittorio used to take these coach tours. The reason given to us was that he looked out for antiques to sell to Basil Honfleur for his collection of ceramics.’

‘Can’t quarrel with that, can we?’

‘On the face of it, no, except that Honfleur’s collection seemed rather too small to account for these elaborate journeys. Of course it could be that Honfleur was not the only collector on Vittorio’s list of customers. However, we may know more when we hear what Conradda Mendel has to tell us when we visit her.’

‘Considering that there’s already been an attempt on your life, I’m not so keen on this visit. Supposing Conradda is in cahoots with Knight and this letter is a trap?’

‘I shall look to you to protect me.’

‘I might not be able to protect you from a stab in the back. Vittorio was not the only person to be far too handy with a dagger, as witness his own demise, and, if I know anything of the address on Conradda’s letter, Poole harbour might be a nice handy dumping-place for a dead body.’

‘You make my blood run cold.’

‘Not half as much as you make mine curdle in my veins. Look here, how much do we really know about Conradda? Nothing, except that she was a patient of yours. People who need help from a psychiatrist are not always the most trustworthy of friends.’

‘You malign my profession and my clients, and in the same breath, too.’

‘Would you like to make me feel a lot happier?’

‘Your happiness is my chief concern.’

‘Right – although I know that was said tongue in cheek, I want our private dick to go with us to Poole. I don’t like this sudden summons from Conradda. We don’t know for certain that she ever went to America and we do know she had that peculiar linkup with Vittorio.’

Laura, who had often had a boat out on Poole harbour, knew the neighbourhood well and was not mistaken in her idea that the house at which Conradda was staying would be in the oldest part of the town and near the quay. It was in a narrow street behind the Customs House and could have done with a coat of paint. All the same, the steps had been cleaned and the brass knocker in the shape of the Three Wise Monkeys had been lovingly polished until it glittered in the sunshine.

The door was opened by a woman wearing a black shawl over a blue overall. She did not ask their names, but invited the visitors in to a linoleum-covered hall which contained a coat-and-umbrella stand and a grandfather clock, and said,

‘I’ll just pop up and see whether she’s awake.’ Before she could mount the narrow staircase, however, a voice from the top of it called out:

‘Come right up, Dame Beatrice. I saw your car pull in to the kerb.’

‘It’s a bed-sitter,’ said the woman, ‘so I don’t know about the gentleman without he’s a relation, because likely she’ll be in bed.’

‘Of course he’ll come up with us,’ said Laura curtly. Conradda was not in bed. The bed, in fact, was a studio couch and had been converted to its daytime use as a settee. Conradda looked pale and puffy. There was little doubt that she had been ill. She seemed delighted to see Dame Beatrice, who reminded her that she had met Laura at the Stone House when she had been under treatment there. Then she introduced the private detective, not as such, but simply as Richard Ross.

‘Well, ladies,’ said Ross, having decided that the apartment contained no nefarious characters, ‘perhaps I could have a smoke out on the landing.’

‘Oh, please, yes. Take a chair with you and here is an ashtray,’ said Conradda, eagerly embracing this suggestion.

‘And please stay close outside the door,’ muttered Laura in the detective’s ear, as she ushered out him and his chair. As soon as the door had closed behind him, Dame Beatrice said:

‘We take Ross everywhere since an attempt was made upon my life a few days ago.’

‘An attempt on your life? Oh, but no!’ cried Conradda, horrified.

‘No doubt about it at all,’ said Laura, ‘so we take what precautions we can. After all, three men have been stabbed to death and somebody seemed quite determined to lay out Dame B.’

‘Three men?’

‘Yes. The man we knew as Vittorio was the third,’ explained Dame Beatrice. ‘It happened in Scotland in a tiny place just outside Fort William. But we mustn’t tire you with too much talking. Tell us why you sent for me.’

‘Ah, yes, you will be wondering about that. But first – this man Vittorio. Is it known who killed him?’

‘There are two known suspects; the driver Knight tells a strange story about having been assaulted and kidnapped, and then there is a man called Carstairs who has a bungalow very close to the hotel where Knight claims that he was surprised and captured, and it was in this bungalow that Vittorio was stabbed to death.’

‘You think this Knight and this Carstairs are the same person?’

‘It would be such a help, I feel, if they were, but we have seen Knight and from the descriptions we have received of Carstairs from independent and presumably unbiased witnesses it does not seem as though Carstairs and Knight can possibly be the same man.’

‘I see. It is a gang and, of course, they are smugglers. They smuggle stolen antiques from here to Ireland and from Ireland to America.’

‘So we have thought. What do you know about it?’

‘Now that Vittorio is dead, perhaps what I have to tell you is not so important as I thought. Does anyone know you have come here to visit me?’

‘Only the man outside the door.’

‘You see, I do not like all these killings.’

‘Does anybody? Please go on.’

‘This begins with what I told you before. You remember I go to Vittorio’s lodging and see this stuff that I am sure is stolen?’

‘Yes, I remember it clearly.’

‘Well, a month or more goes by and I conduct my business as usual and think no more of what I have seen and then one day this Honfleur, with whom we have dined, comes into my shop very much upset and asks can he speak to me privately on a matter of great importance. Well, of course, I know of the connection between him and Vittorio, how Vittorio finds him good pieces at a nice price and I think I see how the land lies. Honfleur, I think to myself, is stuck with some stolen pieces which Vittorio obtains for him and now he finds out they are stolen and wants to know what to do. He has paid good money for them, so naturally he does not want to give them up, and yet he knows that, if the police trace them to his house, not only will they be confiscated but he may find himself in big trouble as well for harbouring stolen property.’

‘It was a very intelligent guess on your part,’ said Dame Beatrice.

‘Not so intelligent, no, because it is much worse than I think. It is not advice this Honfleur wants, but for me to hide his stolen goods while he thinks what to do.’

‘Of course you refused.’

‘At first, yes, but there is more. He tells me that Vittorio blackmails him. He says that Vittorio wishes him to buy the things I describe to you – all that beautiful stuff of Chinese art, best periods – and tells him that if he do not, Vittorio will rat on him to the police that he has other stolen property in his possession.’

‘And had he?’

‘Oh, yes, of course,’ said Conradda, as though the question surprised her. ‘This Honfleur do not know how much I know about him, but perhaps you remember that, before we leave to go home, I retire upstairs for usual reasons? Well, I do a quick snoop around up there and I recognise one or two things.’

‘What made you think of doing a quick snoop around?’ asked Laura, fascinated by a mentality so alien from and yet so sympathetic to her own.

‘Simple, I am not satisfied by that Welsh dresser.’

‘It looked all right to me.’

‘The dresser, yes. The contents, no. What are we shown? Some good pieces, yes, but on the shelves where everybody may see. Nothing of value in the drawers and cupboards, no good pictures on the walls, nothing but those pretty but silly little carved spoons which Vittorio himself repudiates and which Honfleur let Dame Beatrice have in return for her platters with no haggling, no bargaining, no fun at all.’

‘I don’t see what in this aroused your suspicions,’ said Laura. ‘The English are not very good at that sort of thing. Dame B would think it beneath her dignity to haggle. She would either buy or refuse to buy, and that would be that.’

‘I understand, but I deprecate. Not so is trade carried on. But you talk of my suspicions and you do not approve when I make an excuse to go upstairs and take opportunity to case the joint. Why not?’

‘Oh, please don’t think I’m blaming you, but exactly why did you snoop?’

‘Because if, as we are told by Honfleur, this Vittorio find him nice stuff at a good price, where is the rest of it and why are we not shown? Mind, at that time, I do not know this Vittorio, but my instincts tell me not to trust him. He is – how shall I put it?’

‘A greasy bird,’ suggested Laura, quoting.

‘That is very good. A greasy bird. We meet them all the time in my business, you know. Well, of course I have to be quick, but in the bedroom I have time to spot some nice things, many of them on the police list.’

‘Are you sure about that?’ asked Dame Beatrice.

‘Oh, quite sure. There are pictures of which I know their homes; ceramics much, much better than some we are shown on the dresser; in a cabinet a collection of snuff-boxes of which, even at a glance, I recognise two or three. Oh, and you remember I said Vittorio’s jade and soapstone does not interest me? But in this Honfleur’s bedroom! Museum pieces! Beautiful! Priceless! And all stolen. I am sure of it. It is a marvellous collection and I wish I dare look further around in other rooms, but there is no time.’

‘And then Vittorio invited you to go with him to see his Chinese collection.’

‘So. Well, of course, when I get back to my hotel I am deep in thought. Why, I ask myself, does this Vittorio invite me? Does he know, after all, that I am expert in ceramics? I cannot answer myself. Maybe it is as he says. He wishes me to interest Dame Beatrice. So I warn Dame Beatrice and then I put it all out of my mind and carry on my business as usual until this Honfleur come to my London shop.’

‘Ah!’ said Laura. ‘And here we come to the point!’

‘Oh, no. The point has been made, I think,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘The point is blackmail, as Conradda has indicated.’

Conradda spread her hands.

‘This Honfleur comes to my shop in London a second time,’ she said, ‘and asks for another interview in private. I am not at all keen on this. I think perhaps he wishes this time to sell some of his stolen goods to me, and so it is. It turns out that Vittorio puts more pressure on Honfleur to buy the Chinese ceramics. Honfleur says only too pleased if the price is right. He has told Vittorio this many times before, but the price is never right.’

‘So, in the end, Vittorio told Honfleur, I suppose, that if he did not buy the ceramics at Vittorio’s price, he would inform upon Honfleur as a receiver of stolen goods.’

‘That is so, of course, but Honfleur this time simply asks me to buy his collection of jade so he can get enough money to pay Vittorio for the ceramics, which he confesses he knows were stolen.’

‘But you, believing the jade to have been stolen, too, very properly refused any part in the transaction.’

‘Of course, yes. Honfleur goes away very sad, very worried. In no way, he tells me, can he find the money Vittorio asks unless he can sell other things. He offers me snuffboxes – well, but I have seen one in his room which I know I have seen in a ducal mansion and which has been in the police list, so I say no to the snuff-boxes. Then I say no when he offers me a Picasso, and again no to a pair of gold-inlaid pistols which I have not spotted in his house but which he describes as the work of the gun-maker to King William the Third.’

‘Aha!’ exclaimed Laura. Conradda glanced at her, but went on:

‘So, like I am saying, Honfleur goes away sad. Then comes this snake Vittorio and offers me again to buy the china. I say no sale for such important stuff among my clients, so no reason to buy. So he say he will inform on me that I have the Ming and the Sung and the K’ang Hsi pottery and all the rest of it in my basement. Of course I say this is nonsense, but he says that when he tip off the police it will not be nonsense.’

‘He was going to plant it on you?’ asked Laura.

‘So. Well, I am alarmed. The police I fear very much because of my life in Nazi Germany. So I pretend to capitulate. I stall. I say I need to find the money and then a buyer. I say maybe I sell my smaller shop. He agrees three months for this, so I sell both my shops and fly to America, and now you bring me good news to tell me he is dead.’

‘But why did you send for me?’ asked Dame Beatrice. ‘I told Honfleur the Chinese stuff was stolen.’

‘To ask you to help me if Vittorio ever find out where I am living now. I was afraid of him, but now – no more!’