The Sunken Sailor

CHAPTER EIGHT

EARLY THE NEXT morning, with a troubled conscience, Henry took the bus into Ipswich, leaving the others to go sailing without him. He had, he told himself firmly, every intention of keeping his promise to Anne. He wished heartily that he had held his enquiring mind in check from the beginning. However, he had set certain wheels in motion which could not be stopped immediately: and besides, Inspector Proudie was expecting him.

As the bus lurched along between hedges of wild rose and honeysuckle, Henry reflected that, after all, there was no reason why Anne’s story should not be true. It accounted for everything, except the fact that Pete Rawnsley had apparently lifted the boom out of the gallows himself. Well, why not? He had probably had some good, seamanlike reason for doing so. The fact that David had lied to protect Anne from imagined danger was also perfectly feasible: he was only too clearly demented about the girl, and would have perjured his soul for her. But why had he gone out of his way to slander Hamish? Pure spite? Hardly likely. Certainly, there seemed to be no great amount of love lost between the two men, but that was not an adequate reason for an accusation of murder. But then, of course, David had not intended it to be an accusation of murder, merely a suggestion of accident. A hasty, not very well-thought-out explanation to cover the facts. The product of a vivid and disorderly imagination. Yes, that was logical.

There remained, of course, the matter of the Trigg-Willoughby robbery. Henry turned his thoughts to this with some relief. Here he was on the firm ground of routine crime, and there were no considerations of personal loyalty to confuse the issue. If his half-formed theories were correct, there might still be a chance of restoring to Priscilla at least part of her treasure. He began to look forward to the coming interview with more pleasure.

Inspector Proudie was a stout man with a round, guileless face. He greeted Henry with a nice mixture of friendliness, deference and defensiveness—defensiveness because, in spite of the Chief Constable’s insistence that Henry’s visit was motivated purely and simply by some interesting facts which he had stumbled upon while on holiday, Proudie could not quite rid his mind of the niggling implication that his own enquiries had been somehow inefficient.

He pushed a bulky file across the desk to Henry.

“It’s all there, sir,” he said. “I think you’ll agree that we covered the ground pretty thoroughly, but you know as well as I do that putting your finger on a sneak thief is like trying to catch a trout in a bucket. At first it looked like a local, unprofessional job, and we reckoned we’d get the fellow as soon as he tried to market the stuff. Your people in London were on the lookout too, of course. But nothing traceable has come onto the market. So either the chap is in touch with a highly efficient disposal system, or he’s hidden the loot and is prepared to lie low for years, if need be. Neither alternative sounds like an amateur.”

“Unless,” said Henry, “the local amateur is in touch with a professional fence.”

Proudie sighed. “I know what you’re thinking, sir. Bob Calloway.”

“Exactly.”

“We’ve watched him like hawks. But he’s apparently leading a blameless life as a country publican. As I recollect, even in his Soho days nothing was ever proved against him.”

“That’s true,” said Henry. He grinned, indicating that he had caught the innuendo that, as far as Calloway was concerned, London had had no more success than Ipswich. Proudie permitted himself a smile in return. The atmosphere warmed.

“In any case,” Proudie went on, “don’t forget that Bob didn’t take over The Berry Bush until nearly a year after the robbery.”

“He didn’t?” Henry sat up. “That’s very interesting. You mean, he’s only been here a few months?”

“That’s right. Eight months. Bought the pub outright from old Harry Potter when he retired. It’s all there in the report. If you want my honest opinion, I think it’s just one of those coincidences that make our work so confusing.”

Henry opened the file, and took out the typewritten page on which the life history of Bob Calloway was summarized. He had apparently left the Duck and Doorknob three years previously, and had taken over a pub in Gloucestershire, where his behavior had been exemplary. As far as was known, none of his old cronies from the underworld of London had been in touch with him there, and his own trips to the capital had been infrequent. Eight months ago, he had sold the Gloucestershire pub and bought The Berry Bush. Since then, the only available information on his movements was that a constable on the beat had recognized him walking down Brewer Street one Friday evening in June—an activity that could hardly be classed as illegal or even suspicious. The official opinion was that he had long since retired from any sort of criminal practice, if, indeed, he had ever been engaged in it. Nothing had ever been proved against him, except that he kept bad company.

Henry looked up from his perusal of this document. “Bob was in London last weekend,” he said.

Proudie made a gesture of helplessness. “What if he was? That’s not an offence, is it? I can’t have the man tailed everywhere he goes.”

Henry put the paper to one side, and began reading the official reports of the police investigation into the Trigg-Willoughby robbery. He smiled to himself as he studied the orderly, official language of Priscilla’s statement, and wondered how many patient hours had been required to condense her ramblings to this coherent form.

“I left Rooting Manor shortly after one o’clock A.M., accompanied by my brother. George Riddle drove us home. We arrived at Berry Hall at approximately one forty-five. I was at that time wearing the items of jewellery listed overleaf. I was extremely tired, and went to bed immediately. It was my normal practice to deposit my jewels in the safe every night, according to my dear father’s wishes: but on that occasion my fatigue must have driven it out of my mind. I have no clear recollection of what I did with the jewellery. I imagine I must have left it on the table in my dressing room...”

A vivid picture came into Henry’s mind of Priscilla in the Blue Drawing Room, giggling helplessly over the smashed Wedgwood urn. He could imagine only too clearly the painful scene at the Hunt Ball: the embarrassment as Priscilla was bundled out to the waiting car: the sniggers and the gossip: Sir Simon’s mortification. He pictured the two men, Sir Simon and Riddle, guardians of a guilty secret that was a secret no longer, helping the pathetic, half-crazy woman into the dark house...

He turned to Sir Simon’s statement. It was typically crisp and to the point.

“...certainly I did not accompany my sister to her room. There was no reason why I should. I had every confidence that she would lock the jewellery up in the safe, as usual. The evening’s dancin

g had exhausted her considerably, but she was perfectly in control of herself. I locked the outer doors of the house and went to bed. I heard no sound of any sort during the night, but this is hardly surprising, as I sleep in the opposite wing...”

Every confidence. Yes, Henry thought, that was justified. Three-quarters of an hour in the car should have sobered Priscilla up considerably, and the habits of a lifetime are not easily broken. He himself could remember an occasion—that terrible Old Boys’ Dinner when he had mixed his drinks so disastrously: to this day he had no recollection of how he got home or to bed, but the next morning his suit was neatly on its hanger, his shoes in the right place on the rack. Drunken people tended to go through their regular routine, blindly. Unless, of course...

“I’m afraid, sir,” said Proudie, “that the fact of the matter is that the lady was...em...intoxicated.” He cleared his throat, and Henry saw that he had gone very red. “It’s not a thing one likes to have to say, and we kept it as quiet as possible, of course...but the people who were at the dance—”

“They tell me the whole county was there,” said Henry. “Not much hope of keeping it quiet.”

“It’s very understandable,” Proudie went on staunchly. “A lady who isn’t accustomed to strong drink...”

“Yes,” said Henry absently. “Yes. How many of the local people would have known which was Miss Trigg-Willoughby’s room?”

Proudie answered promptly. “Quite a few,” he said. “Herbert Hole knows the house well—he’s often helped Sir Simon out with odd jobs in the winter. He’d actually been repainting Miss Priscilla’s room not long before. Then there’s Sam Riddle—his son George is Sir Simon’s man, you know—he does a bit of gardening up at the Hall every now and then. He’d been amusing the locals in The Berry Bush by telling them how Miss Trigg-Willoughby used to lean out of her window in the morning with her hair still in curling pins, and shout out instructions about where he was to plant the tulips. I believe Bill Hawkes has done carpentry jobs up there, too. And there’s Tom Bates, the postman, and young Bill, who delivers the milk, and Alf, the grocery boy—”

“How would they know which was her room?” Henry asked, intrigued.

Proudie smiled. “Same way as Sam Riddle, sir. The lady’s a little eccentric, as you’ll realize if you’ve met her. Given to poking her head out of the window and calling out to people who come to the house. Her rooms are just over the front door, you see. Yes, I reckon most people knew where to look for the stuff, all right. Trouble is, none of them are cat burglars, that I know of.”

“Yes,” said Henry. “That’s the trouble.” He thumbed through the file again, and found the statement which had been signed, in the painstaking copperplate of village scholarship, by George Riddle. Once again, character had all but been obliterated by officialese, but the facts were clear enough.

“My name is George Jeremiah Riddle. I am employed as butler-handyman at Berry Hall by Sir Simon Trigg-Willoughby. I also act as chauffeur when required. On January 16th last at approx. 7 P.M. I was summoned by Miss Priscilla to help her remove her jewellery from the safe, which is located in the corridor outside her bedroom. The jewellery is normally kept in this safe in two steel boxes. I should explain that this safe, which is a large one, has an inner locked compartment for the jewel boxes. I have a key to the outer door, as it is part of my duties to clean the silver which is kept there. As far as I know, only Sir Simon and Miss Priscilla have keys to the inner compartment, and only Miss Priscilla has the keys to the jewel boxes themselves. She wears them [the keys] on a chain round her neck...”

Henry smiled to himself at the diligence with which the local police had taken pains to ensure that nobody should imagine Priscilla going round with two big steel boxes slung round her plump throat. He said to Proudie, “Is this accurate—Riddle’s statement about the keys?”

Proudie nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Well, almost. There’s actually a spare set of keys, but they’re kept at the bank in case of emergencies. I believe,” he went on, comfortably knowledgeable, “that Sir Simon has been worried for years at the thought that Miss Priscilla was the only person with keys to the boxes themselves. She’s...well, she’s an unusual lady, sir, as you know, and quite naturally Sir Simon felt he’d like to keep a bit of an eye on all that valuable stuff. But the trouble was that the jewellery was Miss Priscilla’s personal property, and nothing nor nobody could make her part with those keys unless she wanted to.”

“Surely,” said Henry, “Sir Simon could have taken the spare keys out of the bank any time he wanted to check on the stuff.”

Proudie chuckled. “That he couldn’t, sir. Not Sir Simon nor anyone else. You see, Miss Priscilla had arranged with the bank that the keys could only be released on her signature. Old Charlie Piggott, the manager, he’s a friend of mine. We go fishing together. That’s how I come to know all this. He told me in confidence some years ago that Sir Simon had come to him several times and asked for those keys: but of course Charlie couldn’t let him have them.”

“So,” Henry said, “Miss Priscilla herself was the only person who actually had access to the jewels.”

“That’s right,” said Proudie. “And a very tight grip she kept on them, too. Loved showing them off, but wouldn’t ever let anybody get too close, or touch them. It’s funny, isn’t it, sir,” he added, with the air of one disclosing a great philosophical truth, “the effect jewellery seems to have on ladies? Still, of course, all this business of the keys has nothing to do with the case. We checked up, naturally, as a matter of routine, but it’s perfectly clear that the boxes were left out on the dressing table. I saw them myself.”

“Just where were they?” Henry asked.

“In Miss Priscilla’s dressing room,” Proudie answered. “It’s a small room leading off her bedroom. The window was wide open, and the two boxes were lying on the table, unlocked and empty, except for a few worthless bits.”

“Sir Simon told me,” said Henry, “that the ladder had left marks in the flower beds under the window. Were there any footprints?”

Proudie grinned ruefully. “You bet there were,” he said. “Beautiful, clear, easily identified footprints.”

“There were?” Henry was extremely surprised. “Then why...?”

“Because,” said Proudie, “they were made by Sir Simon’s own sea boots—great big old rubber things. They were in the shed with the ladder. Anybody could have put them on over his ordinary shoes. We found them with the ladder in the shrubbery.”

“And no prints there?”

Proudie shook his head. “Not a hope. The ladder and the boots had obviously been thrown into the bushes by somebody standing on the gravel drive.”

“What about the shed, where the ladder and boots came from?” Henry persisted. “Did you look for prints there?”

Proudie looked hurt. “Of course we did, sir,” he said. “No hope of footprints—concrete path running from the drive to the shed. And no fingerprints either.”

Henry sighed. “Oh, well,” he said. “You can’t have everything.” He went back to Riddle’s report.

“At 8.45 P.M. I brought the car to the door in order to drive Sir Simon and Miss Priscilla to the Hunt Ball at Rooting Manor. Miss Priscilla was at that time wearing the tiara, the diamond and emerald three-strand necklace and pendant, with matching earrings, and two diamond bracelets, as well as the large solitaire diamond ring and several smaller ones...

”Crikey, thought Henry, as the monstrous vision of Priscilla thus adorned took shape in his mind. It also occurred to him that Riddle had been uncommonly observant.

“...We arrived at Rooting Manor,” the statement continued, “at about 9.30 P.M. I spent the evening in the servants’ hall, where refreshments were available for the chauffeurs and temporary staff. At 1.10 A.M., I was called and told to bring the car round. Sir Simon and Miss Priscilla were waiting on the doorstep when I drove up, together with the two Mr. Rawnsleys. Miss Priscilla appeared to be unwell, and I helped her into the car. Sir Simon explained that she had been overcome by the heat of the ballroom. We arrived home just before 2 A.M. Miss Priscilla had slept in the car, and we had some difficulty in rousing her. Sir Simon and I helped her indoors and up the stairs. At the head of the staircase, she appeared to revive considerably. She said goodnight to us, and went down the passage to her room. I can positively state that she was wearing all her jewellery at that time. Sir Simon told me he had no further need of me, so I went to my room at the back of the house. I heard no sound during the remainder of the night.

“The following morning I stayed in bed until 8 A.M. My normal practise is to rise at 6 A.M., but in view of the fact that I had worked late, Sir Simon gave me permission to lie in. I had been instructed to prepare breakfast for 9.30, Mrs. Bradwell, the cook, being on holiday. Having cleaned the grates and stoked the boilers, I took breakfast into the dining room. Almost at once Sir Simon came in from the terrace and asked me if I had moved his sea boots, which he had left as usual in the potting shed. I replied that I had not, and he said, ‘Maybe Sam has them, the old rascal. He appears to have pinched a ladder as well.’ This I took to be a reference to my father, Samson Riddle, who was at that time working as an extra jobbing gardener at the Hall. It was then that we heard Miss Priscilla screaming.” A small shiver ran down Henry’s spine. He read on. “She came down the big staircase in her dressing gown, with her hair in curling pins, and screaming all the way. She was not wearing her dentures, which made it difficult to make out what she was saying, but she quite definitely said several times, ‘I did it, I did it.’ Sir Simon was very concerned. He said, ‘Did what, Prissy?’ Finally we understood that something had happened to the jewels. Sir Simon said to me, ‘Quick, Riddle.’ We both ran upstairs. The window of Miss Priscilla’s dressing room was open and the jewel boxes were on the table, empty except for a few trinkets. Sir Simon told me to go and telephone for the police, but before I could leave the room, Miss Priscilla came in. She was still crying and in an hysterical state. She came up to me and she said, ‘Don’t ever trust anybody, Riddle. Not even yourself. Especially not yourself. What’s the use of having keys if they weren’t locked up?’ She was twisting away at the chain that always hangs round her neck, and she pulled it so hard that the clasp broke and the two keys fell on the floor. ‘So much for keys,’ she said, half-screaming, as it were. Sir Simon said, ‘Don’t waste time listening to her, Riddle. Get the police.’ I then proceeded downstairs...”

Henry read on doggedly to the end of this uninspiring and already yellowing document. When at last he had finished, he said to Proudie, “Well, Inspector, off the record and unofficially, what’s your private opinion of this case?”

“Nothing private about it,” said Proudie promptly. “Clear as mud. A very slick professional job, almost certainly the work of a lone operator. The way I see it, it went like this. Our man, whoever he was, turns up at the Hunt Ball in the guise of a hired chauffeur. He knows that a lot of valuable stuff is going to be flaunted around that night. He’s already cased Berry Hall, of course, along with several other big houses in the neighbourhood. Well, Miss Priscilla and her jewels and her...em...overindulgence...are the talk of the evening in the servants’ hall. We know that from Herbert and Sam and all the others who were there. The chap doesn’t have to open his mouth. He just listens. He knows when the Trigg-Willoughbys go home. All he has to do is give them time to get to bed and to sleep and—there you are. Too easy.”

“How would he know where to find the ladder and the boots?”

“He’d have marked them down when he cased the place. They were always kept there.”

“That sounds reasonable,” said Henry, “but who was this mysterious chap? Surely all the local chauffeurs know each other. They’d have noticed a stranger.”

“I doubt it,” said Proudie. “Quite a lot of the guests used chauffeur-driven cars from hire firms. The Mr. Rawnsleys for example. Mr. Pete and Mr. Hamish took a young lady to the dance, and Mr. Pete’s M.G. wasn’t big enough for the three of them. No, there were enough strange faces in the servants’ hall that night. One more or less wouldn’t have caused any comment.”

“You don’t happen to know,” Henry asked, “which young lady Mr. Rawnsley took to the ball?”

“Not off-hand,” said Proudie, “but I expect it’s here somewhere. Let’s have a look.”

He flipped expertly through the file. “Here we are,” he said. “ ‘...drove over with my nephew Hamish and Miss Anne Petrie...’ Does that mean anything to you?”

“Yes,” said Henry. “Yes, it does.”

There was a silence. Then Proudie shifted his large bulk in the straight-backed chair, and said, “Tragic affair that was, about the elder Mr. Rawnsley. I’ve got the reports on that, too, as you asked.”

There was unmistakable curiosity in the inspector’s voice, but Henry ignored it. He didn’t even open the dossier containing the report of the inquest, which Proudie pushed across the table toward him. Instead, he lit a cigarette, and gave one to Proudie.

Proudie picked up a pencil, put it down again, and then said, “To be frank, sir, I had thought you might be coming to see me over something rather different. What I mean is—rumours get about pretty fast in the country, you know. One of my constables is from Berrybridge—Sam Riddle’s nephew—and, well...not to mince matters...there’s talk, sir. No denying it, there’s talk.”

“What about?” said Henry, as casually as he could. Mentally, he cursed Colin for his tactless remarks in The Berry Bush the previous evening.

Proudie hesitated. “Of course, there was talk at the time, too, sir. And then when you asked for the reports of the inquest...”

Suddenly, Henry grinned. “Inspector Proudie,” he said, “could you arrange for a rumour to be circulated for me?”

“A rumour, sir?”

“A well-founded rumour,” said Henry, “that Chief Inspector Tibbett has thoroughly investigated his suspicions about Mr. Pete Rawnsley’s death, and come to the conclusion that the coroner’s verdict was absolutely correct, and that the whole thing was an unfortunate accident.”

A slow smile spread over the inspector’s cherubic countenance. “That’s easily arranged, sir.”

“Thank you,” said Henry.