Cynthia Manson (ed) (36 page)

“Oh, no,” she interrupted. “Uncle
Michael wasn’t there; he lives in America. But Aunt Cathy was visiting from
Australia. None of us had seen her in years, so there was a sort of family
reunion. Most of them were only there for the weekend. My parents and I stayed
for a week—we always do during the summer. Oh!” She put a hand to her mouth in
what Bethancourt could not help but feel was a very becoming gesture.

“What is it?” asked Gibbons.

“I’ve just remembered. I was at Grandmother’s
house for a weekend in November. I was a bit behind here and I just wanted a
quiet place to study and Grandmother said I was welcome. She always does.”

“Did you go up to the attic or the
third floor while you were there?” asked Gibbons.

“No.
The last time I was in the attic was last year when I helped Grandmother with
the Christmas things.”

“Do you remember whether anyone else
went up there during the August visit?”

Maureen wrinkled her brow
thoughtfully. “I don’t know,” she said after a moment. “I don’t remember
anything like that, but there were so many people... it was awfully busy.”

“That’s understandable,” said
Gibbons. “Now, can you tell me when you were last at the house before the
August visit?”

She paused again. “I think in April,”
she said at last. “There was the vacation and I went up then, I know. I don’t
think I was there again until August.”

“You were alone with your
grandmother in April?”

“Yes—no, Aunt Clarissa came up and
spent a night, I think.”

“Don’t you have brothers or sisters?”
asked Bethancourt. “Or did they not go to your grandmother’s in August?”

She grinned at him. “I’m an only
child,” she said, “and the youngest of my cousins. Dad married late.”

“Really?” said Bethancourt. “Did you
know that only children are often very high achievers?”

“Great,” she answered. “Maybe I’ll
win the Nobel prize someday, then. I’m studying physics.”

“Well,” said Gibbons, rising, “you’ve
been very helpful, Miss Bainbridge. Here’s my card; please call me if you think
of anything else. Right now, we have an appointment to keep with Daniel North.
I believe he was the cousin you mentioned who was also at the August reunion?”

“That’s right. Say hello to him for
me.”

“We will,” promised Bethancourt.
Outside, he added, “Quite something, isn’t she?”

“She’s too young for you, Phillip.”

“Much too young,” Bethancourt
agreed. “But I could always wait for her to grow up.”

“Incorrigible,” muttered Gibbons.

Daniel North was a goodlooking man
of about thirty, conservatively dressed as befitted a junior member of a
prominent solicitor’s office. He received them with a quick smile and asked
them to be seated. He denied having been in his grandmother’s attic since he
was a child, and he had certainly not gone up there in August, which was the
last time he had been at the house. Asked who else had been there at that time,
his list tallied with Maureen’s, with one exception.

“I thought,” said Gibbons, “that
Maureen’s father had brought a business associate?”

“Oh, him,” said North. “I’d
forgotten. Yes, he was there. I can’t think why Uncle David brought him—I never
cared for the fellow myself. Unsavory type, if you ask me. Anyway, if you want
someone who’s been in the attic recently, you should talk to my mother.”

Gibbons looked up. “She’s been up
there?”

“I don’t know,” answered North, “but
she often visits my grandmother—much more frequently than the rest of us. If
anyone’s been in the attic, it would be she. In fact, I think she’s in Dorset
now.”

“Yes,” said Gibbons. “The chief
inspector was going to see her this morning. Well, thank you very much for your
time, Mr. North.”

North ushered them to the door,
where the clerk appeared to escort them from the premises.

“Well,” said Gibbons, shrugging into
his coat in the vestibule, “that’s done with.”

“It hasn’t got you much further.”

“No one really thought it would. But
you never can tell,” added Gibbons cheerfully. “One of them might have been up
there near the crucial times.”

“Look here,” said Bethancourt,
leading the way out into the street, “why don’t you come round to dinner
tonight and we can go over it?”

“Where are you dining?” asked
Gibbons suspiciously. He had previously accepted dinner invitations from
Bethancourt and found himself eating in restaurants that he could ill afford on
his salary.

“I’m meeting Maria at eight thirty
at Joe’s Cafe,” answered Bethancourt, confirming Gibbons’ worst fears.

“Well, I don’t know, Phillip—”

“Don’t be a spoilsport, Jack. I’m
sure there’s heaps of things about this case you haven’t told me yet.”

Gibbons had an inspiration. “How
would it be if I met you there for a drink before dinner?”

“If that’s the best you can do, I
suppose I’ll have to be happy with it. Eight thirty, then, in the bar.”

“We could make it earlier, so that
when Maria comes—”

“She’ll be late.”

“So will you.”

Bethancourt assumed a solemn
expression. “I give you my word, Jack, tonight I shall be punctual.”

“Oh, very well. Half eight then.”

The bar at Joe’s Cafe was crowded.
Gibbons ordered a whisky and positioned himself in view of the door. He did not
bother to search for Bethancourt among the other patrons, having less than no
faith in his friend’s promise to be on time.

He was pleasantly surprised,
therefore, when Bethancourt made his way through the door at eight thirty-five,
beaming triumphantly.

“I told you I’d be here,” he said
happily. “Here, let’s move down a bit. We can just fit in over there. Now then,
Jack,” said Bethancourt, having obtained a drink and wedged himself firmly
between Gibbons and a rather large man in evening dress, “let’s start from the
beginning.”

“And what do you mean by the
beginning?”

“The murdered man, of course,” replied
Bethancourt promptly.

“You saw the p. m.,” said Gibbons,
shrugging and sipping his drink.

“Yes. A man of about thirty, stabbed
in the back sometime in August or early September and considerably decomposed.
But what was he wearing? Was he dark or light?”

“Dark hair,” answered Gibbons. “Open-necked
shirt and linen pants and black loafers. And if that tells you anything—”

“It tells me he wasn’t chopping wood
when he was killed,” retorted Bethancourt.

“Yes, but what we really need to
know is who he was. And that will have to wait until we’ve finished comparing
his description with the missing persons list. Until we find out who knew him,
and where he might have been, we’re working in a void. He might have been
killed anywhere, anytime, by anybody, and put into the attic anytime
subsequently.”

“He didn’t belong to the village, I
suppose?”

“No. That was the first thing we
checked. None of the villagers in the immediate area is missing anyone. But one
of the villagers, or else one of Mrs. Bainbridge’s family, must be the murderer.”

“Because, you mean, of knowing Mrs.
Bainbridge’s habits. You don’t suspect her?”

Gibbons shrugged. “She’s a very elderly
woman. She hasn’t been to the top of the house in a year because it’s hard for
her to climb the stairs. I really can’t imagine her carting a man’s body up
three flights.”

“No, I suppose not.”

There was a slight disturbance in
the bar. The various conversations paused momentarily as people’s attentions
were caught. In a moment the cause of this became evident as several gentlemen
shifted their position to allow a spectacularly beautiful woman to pass
through. She walked down the aisle they made for her as if it were her right,
head crowned with copper hair held high, jade green eyes passing them over
until she found the one for whom she searched. And then she smiled, and her
slender figure, moved quickly forward.

“Maria!” said Bethancourt, glancing
hastily at his watch. “It’s not even nine o’clock yet.”

“You said half eight,” she reminded
him, kissing him lightly. “Hello, Jack. Phillip didn’t tell me you were joining
us.”

“I’m not really,” denied Gibbons
hastily. “Just a drink.”

“Come now,” said Bethancourt firmly:
“You simply can’t refuse to join us. Now that Maria’s come, we can

get a table and be comfortable. I’ll
just speak to the maitre d’.”

And he moved off while Gibbons was
explaining that he really couldn’t.

“Why not?” asked Maria, smiling. “Have
another date?”

“No,” said Gibbons uncomfortably. “It’s
just that, well, I did all my Christmas shopping today and I’m feeling a little
low on funds.”

“That is not a good excuse,” said
Maria firmly. “Besides, I expect Phillip will pay.”

“I expect so, but I don’t like him
to.”

“That’s just one of those male
things,” replied Maria, hunting in her bag for a cigarette. “If you were a
woman, you wouldn’t mind at all.” Gibbons was spared from answering by the
return of Bethancourt, who herded them without further ado towards the dining
room. He sighed resignedly.

When they had put the menus aside
and had ordered the wine, Bethancourt said casually, “I’ll have to get up early
tomorrow, Maria. I told Jack I’d drive him back to Dorset.”

“Dorset?” asked Maria. “Whatever are
you doing out there? I thought your people lived in Suffolk?”

“They do,” answered Gibbons. “I’m
working in Dorset.”

“Oh, God,” said Maria. “Not another
murder investigation.” She glared accusingly at Bethancourt.

Maria did not like her boyfriend’s
hobby. She found murders an unpleasant and unhealthy topic and, moreover, felt
that investigating them took an inordinate amount of time and thought. Time and
thought which could far more pleasantly be devoted to herself.

“Well, yes,” admitted Bethancourt. “But
it’s only a little one, Maria, and will probably be cleared up by the time we
get there.”

“Hmpf,” said Maria, or something
very much like it.

“Actually,” went on Bethancourt,
unperturbed, “it’s a rather unusual case.”

“Is it?” she asked frostily.

“Yes,” said Bethancourt firmly. “There’s
this old woman, you see, a widow—”

“Excuse me,” said Maria, rising. “I
have to go to the w. c.”

This was a tactical error on her
part. By the time she returned, Bethancourt and Gibbons were deep in a
discussion of Mrs. Bainbridge’s progeny and the possibility of their having
visited the attic.

“Chris O’Leary is interviewing the
ones in Northants,” Gibbons was saying. “That’s Bill and Bernice Clayton.”

“Bernice is Mrs. Bainbridge’s second
daughter?” asked Bethancourt.

“That’s right. Clarissa North,
Daniel’s mother, is the eldest. Next is Bernice Clayton, and after her is
Maureen’s father, David. There’s another son living in America who hasn’t been
to England in some time, and then the youngest is Cathy Dresler, who now lives
in Australia and was the cause of the August reunion.”

“I suppose none of them is missing?”

“No. No, I’m afraid not.”

Bethancourt filled Maria’s wine
glass, lit her cigarette, and considered.

“And has Mrs. Bainbridge had any
visitors other than her children and grandchildren?”

“She says not.”

“What on earth does it matter
whether she has or not?” asked Maria impatiently.

“Because, my love, the murdered man
was a stranger to the village. Either one of Mrs. Bainbridge’s family ran into
him unexpectedly in August, when most of them were there, killed him, and hid
him in the attic, or else they killed him somewhere else, at some other time,
and transported the body to Dorset, thinking that the best hiding place.
Incidentally, Jack, it would be interesting to find out which of Mrs.
Bainbridge’s relatives visited her by car.”

“It sounds very farfetched to me,” said
Maria.

“True,” agreed Bethancourt. “Which
is why it is more likely to be one of the villagers. One of them either has a
visitor or goes to meet the victim. In a moment of passion, he kills him. He’s
left with the body, all in a panic, when suddenly he remembers Mrs. Bainbridge,
all alone in a huge house and slightly deaf. It’s late at night and he knows
she doesn’t lock her doors. So he pushes the body along and carries it up to
the attic.”

“Lovely,” said Gibbons dryly, “but
Mrs. Bainbridge is
not
slightly deaf. And how do you know he was killed late at night?”

“This theory,” went on Bethancourt,
unheeding, “also explains why the body was never moved. One of the family would
most likely not desire their mother or grandmother to discover a rotting corpse
in her attic. Moreover, they will naturally fall under some suspicion, as they
are connected with the house. Whereas one of the villagers has no real
connection to the house and may be less considerate of Mrs. Bainbridge’s
feelings.”