Choice of Evils (21 page)

'She may have burnt them.’

‘It's possible, yes.’

‘Well, I've found this a very interesting discussion,’ Mayhew said, standing up, which Andrew took as a sign that the interview was at an end. He stood up too. ‘We'll certainly look for those manuscripts in the bookshop, because if you don't mind my saying so. Professor, they're the one bit of solid evidence of which you've spoken. But I'm most grateful for all you've suggested.’

T hope you'll find some of it of use,’ Andrew replied. ‘Good night. Inspector. Coming, Peter?’

They returned to the hotel in Peter's car.

Next morning Peter drove Andrew to the station to catch the 11.13 to Paddington. After all he had stuck to his intention to return to London, though Peter was staying in Gallmouth. Andrew held that he had done all that he could there and would be of no further use. If it happened that he was needed, which he did not think to be likely. Detective Inspector Mayhew had his telephone number in St John's Wood.

He treated himself to first class on the train, which he did not often do. Usually, he believed, in these days first class was as crowded and uncomfortable as second. But there was always the chance that in a mid-morning train he would find a seat in a reasonably quiet carriage. He was fortunate, and found a seat at a table with no one facing him. Leaning his head back, closing his eyes, he let himself believe that he was just setting out on a brief holiday of peace and quiet.

Then someone moved into the seat opposite him and he opened his eyes to see what sort of a person it was. It was a small, slim, middle-aged woman who gave him a smile and said, ‘Good morning,’ when she saw that he was looking at her, but then settled down in her seat with a book that she was carrying. It was a paperback copy of
Death Come Quickly
and she was about halfway through it.

Perhaps because she was small and slim and middle-aged, with brown hair turning grey and spectacles for reading, Andrew found himself thinking of the woman who he was sure had written the book. He had heard her described as shy and quiet and intelligent and observant. Of the shyness he knew only what he had been told, but of the intelligence and power of observation he was quite certain, but added to them understanding and com-passion, as well as a sardonic sense of humour.

He thought of Simon Amory with deep dislike, thinking of how shabby a trick he had played on his dead wife,
stealing her work, and on the public. Yet he did not feel sure that the woman who had written the book would have grudged him his success. It might even have appealed to her, partly out of generosity and partly out of amusement at the very success which she herself had probably never anticipated.

Andrew had brought nothing to read except a copy of the
Financial Times
that he had bought at the station and with which he was finished by the time he was halfway to London. He leant back once more and again closed his eyes. But he had no sooner done so than the lines that had bothered him during the earlier part of his stay in Gallmouth, but of which he had been free for the last day or so, when his thoughts had been much occupied with other matters, took a firm hold on his mind once more.

It clung to him all the rest of the way to London, and except when he was queueing for a taxi at Paddington, presently paying the driver and letting himself into his flat and looking round there to make sure that all was well, went on and on repeating itself absurdly in his mind. But once inside the flat he had other things to think about, for instance whether he should go out for lunch, or just go out to the delicatessen round the corner to buy some bread and butter, some cheese for his breakfast, some ham or some pate and perhaps a tin of mangoes of which he was rather fond.

In the end that was what he did. He would go out for dinner, he thought, and presently, while he was eating the mangoes, it occurred to him that pleasant as they were, fresh ones would be a great deal better and that there was really no reason why he should not set off to
one of the places where they grew. In fact, there was no reason why, if he wanted a peaceful holiday, he should not set off round the world. He had done that once before, but that did not prevent him doing it again, going perhaps in the opposite direction. And with winter coming shortly, it would be very agreeable to arrive in one of the places where they were just expecting summer.

After his light lunch he dropped into a doze in his chair, and then had a peculiarly vivid dream of Mr Thinkum, as he had never thought of him before, standing in a field with his battered top hat above a hideous mask of a face, with his muffler round his neck and his umbrella up over his head, with rain dripping off it. That the colour of the rain was red did not seem strange, only distinctly disagreeable. Andrew was glad to wake from the dream and make himself some coffee.

It was some days before he saw on the television news that an arrest had been made for the murders in Gallmouth and that the person charged was Mina Todhunter, the once famous children's writer. Since the news of the arrest had been broadcast there had been a greatly increased demand for her books. Naturally nothing was said concerning her possible motive. Peter had returned to London by then and told Andrew that he had been right about the hiding place for the missing manu-scripts. They had been found under a heap of rubbish in the attics of Todhunter's Bookshop.

Another discovery was that the gun that had killed Simon Amory was the same one that had killed Rachel Rayne. It seemed probable that he had taken it from Mina Todhunter, though where she had obtained it was unknown. Just possibly it had been a souvenir that she had somehow acquired during her days in the ATS. As Rachel Rayne, like her sister, had died intestate and as she had no close relative, it would end with all the proceeds from
Death Come Quickly
going to the Crown.

Detective Inspector Mayhew had let on to Peter that he was hoping for promotion as a result of his solution of the murders. At the same time Edward Clarke was already making plans for an Arts Festival for next year, as the one this year had had so much publicity that he felt confident of its success.

By then a new and meaningless verse had taken possession of Andrew's mind. The bishop was forgotten.

In his place, coming back from a travel agent where he had just been booking a trip round the world, beginning with Singapore and Australia, he started muttering to him-self another jingle from the
Bab Ballads
.