Death of a Beauty Queen (22 page)

They had proved inconvenient and a cause of delay and waste of time, so that other garages and offices had to be established elsewhere, but they still functioned, and to these Lowfields offices – now in part used as store-rooms – Bobby forthwith proceeded on his arrival in the village on the motor-cycle the paucity of means of communication had enabled him to secure permission to employ.

The office was in charge of two young ladies, neither of whom, however, could provide him with any information concerning any person named Quin. Six months residence in Lowfields had given them jointly and severally an intimate and comprehensive knowledge of the affairs of all the inhabitants of the village, and also a knowledge still more intimate and comprehensive of the inhabitants of the outer fringe where was practised the double life divided between the City and the links, but neither the name itself, nor the somewhat vague personal description that was all Bobby could offer, awoke in them any response.

‘No one like that here,' they declared, in turn.

The incident of the run-over dog, however, they both remembered clearly. It seemed, indeed, a landmark in recent Lowfields history, and they agreed that the driver and conductor of the coach might possibly remember something about their passengers on that special trip. No doubt the accident had produced much comment and converse, and it might even have established sympathetic relations between the worried conductor and passengers equally annoyed by the delay caused by the dog owner's loud protests. Fortunately the coach in question was due back soon in Lowfields from its morning trip, and so Bobby repaired to the village inn for refreshment, and in a further judicious search for information that produced only confirmation of the fact that no one named Quin was known in the neighbourhood.

But Bobby's luck proved better when presently the coach came in, for the conductor, a man named Dickson, remembered the incident perfectly, and remembered, too, that one passenger had seemed specially impatient over the delay. On arrival in Town he had complained again that he had been made late for the business that he had come up on. And not only did the vague description Dickson gave tally more or less with the vague descriptions Bobby already possessed, but also Dickson remembered that this passenger had inquired the best way to get to Brush Hill, and had been advised what bus to take.

‘He came back with us on our last trip,' Dickson added casually. ‘I remember that special, because he gave me a lady-s handbag he picked up under one of the seats; quite a swell one it was – crocodile leather – only funny, because there hadn't been any lady with us that trip, and, of course, the car had been swept out as usual. But there it was. He wouldn't give me his name and address, because he said he was going to France and then to Australia, so it wasn't worth while.'

Bobby fairly jumped, and he marvelled how often, when there seemed in front merely an impenetrable wall, suddenly a door would open. Of course, if this mysterious personage had in fact gone abroad on his way back to Australia he might have passed finally out of knowledge, but the reference to a lady's handbag he had found might well refer to that of Carrie Mears, to the recovery of which Mitchell evidently attached so much importance. But then that seemed to prove the unknown was certainly a thief, since the story of the find in the coach was pretty evidently invented; and, if he were thief, was he not most likely murderer as well ? Only, then, for what reason had he handed the bag to the conductor with his story of having picked it up in the coach? It seemed an odd, indeed an incredible, way of disposing of so incriminating a piece of evidence.

Feeling that he might be on the verge of the most important discovery so far made in this baffling case, Bobby asked:

‘What did you do with it – with the handbag, I mean?'

‘Handed it in at the office,' Dickson answered. May be there now. They keep things a day or two to see if they are claimed locally, and then forward to head office.'

Bobby hurried off to the office, where the two young ladies smiled him a bright welcome, wishing that every day brought a chat with a good-looking young man as a change from entering and adding dull, interminable figures. They agreed at once that they had had a handbag, of crocodile leather, certainly of some value, in their charge, handed in by Dickson as found by a passenger in his coach. No, it had not been opened. It had been forwarded that very morning, as being still unclaimed, to the head office. There it would be inspected, and, if it contained any clue to ownership, that would be acted on.

‘They don't let us open packages here,' one of the young ladies explained. ‘Afraid of what we might pinch.' She giggled. ‘Of course, when it's a handbag, we could open it all right and no one the wiser, couldn't we, Tots?'

‘Tots' agreed that they could, but added, seriously, that they never did. Forgotten handbags were so common an event, much traffic with them had killed all interest, and no one ever wanted to open the things.

‘Nothing ever in them,' she explained in her turn, ‘except just what everyone's bound to have – cigarettes, make-up, comb, and a little money they can't pretend you've helped yourself to if you say it's the rule never to open anything here.' 1

‘Always as well to be careful,' agreed Bobby, and asked leave to use the office telephone so as to inform headquarters that this might prove the lost handbag of Carrie Mears they had all been so anxious to trace.

He was told, in reply, that immediate steps would be taken to obtain possession of the bag and examine its contents, and there was even added a dry word of congratulation on his discovery. Then, feeling rather pleased with himself and his luck, Bobby went across to the village inn for a little more refreshment before starting on his return journey. There he found the conductor of the coach, with whom he shared a friendly glass in the hope that his recollections of his passenger might grow clearer under the influence of beer and further thought. But the conductor's memory was not of a type susceptible to much improvement, and then the barmaid serving them, who had heard part of their conversation, remarked:

‘You mean the gentleman who was so cross because you didn't start to time that day you ran over Mrs Hoskins's pom? I heard him say he had walked in from Clement's.'

‘Clement's,' she explained, was a small poultry farm where they also took in visitors – ‘did more with them than with hens, if you ask me,' said the barmaid. They were on the telephone, she added, and the gentleman could ring up, if he liked, to find out if a Mr Quin was staying there. Bobby did so, and was informed that no one of the name of Quin was known. The only recent visitor was a gentleman named Greggs, who had now left. Yes, they had his address. He had asked for letters to be forwarded to him to a number and a street in Brush Hill, London, and it was in a voice trembling with emotion and excitement that Bobby first thanked them for this information and then, ringing up the Yard, repeated it to his superiors.

Bobby's orders he had received over the phone in the Low fields office of the Blue-Yellow line of motor-coaches were to report as quickly as possible to the Brush Hill police station.

Thither, therefore, he repaired, with such speed as traffic conditions permitted, and on his way he wondered much it at last a solution of the mystery was in sight.

Yet strange and suspicious as the tracing of the murdered girl's handbag to her step-father seemed to be, it was difficult to conceive that he could have had any motive for committing such a crime. There could be no outstanding cause of enmity between two people who had not met for years; there seemed no way in which their interests or desires could have clashed; it was unlikely that the girl had taken anything of value to the cinema that night with her in her handbag; the theft of it seemed, indeed, as aimless as the handing it over to the conductor of the coach appeared inexplicable.

Then, too, there was the further complication of the engagement-ring returned to the Regent-Street shop where it had been bought by Maddox. If that had been in the handbag, why had it been selected for removal and subsequent return to the shop, though the handbag itself had been given to the conductor of the coach? And if it had not been in the bag, how had it come into the possession of this man who called himself Greggs, but was probably, though even that was not certain, identical with the Quin Miss Perry talked about?

Bobby began to think his discovery had merely darkened counsel further, and told himself gloomily there was jolly little chance of finding the self-styled Greggs at the address left at the Lowfields poultry farm.

Absorbed so deep in thought he was, wonder must be he reached his destination without accident. But so it happened, possibly that special providence which is said to look after drunken men extending its protection this time to one drunk only with perplexity and wonder.

Superintendent Mitchell was there in person, he was told, on his arrival, and waiting to see him in Inspector Ferris's room. Thither, therefore, Bobby proceeded, and found talking earnestly round the inspector's desk, whereon lay a lady's handbag in crocodile leather, Mitchell himself, Ferris, and Penfold.

‘Oh, there you are, Owen,' Mitchell said, as Bobby presented himself. ‘Well, this looks like a step forward, even if only into a worse puzzle than before. The Blue-Yellow people had the handbag all right, and there was a package in it of two hundred pounds in banknotes – tens, fives, and ones.'

‘Two hundred pounds,' repeated Bobby. ‘Why, that's the amount that was mentioned before. Is it certain it is Carrie Mears's bag?' he asked.

‘Got her name and address written in on the lining,' Mitchell answered, ‘and a letter from her as well. We'll get it identified, as a matter of form, to make sure it's not been changed or anything. Miss Perry might be able to do that for us. But there's no real doubt.'

Does that mean this Greggs or Quin is the murderer?' Bobby exclaimed. ‘And robbery the motive?'

‘If it was robbery,' Mitchell observed, ‘Quin would hardly have deposited the thing as lost property, quite intact. It would have been bound to go back to Miss Mears in the end, with her name and address in it.'

‘He may have got frightened, lost his head, in a panic, when he realized what he had done,' Penfold suggested. ‘Then he played the fool. Murderers do sometimes; that's why they get hanged – sometimes. I suggest he tried to bully her into giving him some money, she told him to clear, he was flashing the knife around, to frighten her, and slipped her one in a temper. Then he grabbed the handbag and ran, and afterwards got into a panic and rid himself of it the first way he could.'

‘If it was panic,' Mitchell observed, ‘you would expect him to throw the thing away at any dark street-corner; or, if he wanted to leave it in a bus, let somebody else find it. Can you imagine a murderer in a panic handing over the evidence of his guilt to the conductor of the coach he was travelling on?'

‘He wouldn't give his name or address,' Penfold persisted, ‘and, anyhow, he had the bag somehow, and that's the way he did get rid of it.'

‘There's another thing,' Mitchell went on. ‘Where did the two hundred come from? We know it was the amount she is said to have been trying to get, and apparently expected, but who gave it her? And when did she get it? Did she take it along with her to the cinema? Or did she receive it on the way? Or at the cinema after her arrival there?'

‘Put it this way,' suggested Ferris, interposing suddenly, ‘that Sargent gave it her. It's not likely if she had the money already she would bring it along in her handbag. It's not likely anyone gave it her on the way. So probably it was someone at the cinema. That looks like Sargent. We know she was trying to squeeze him. He had the money ready and passed it over. But perhaps he didn't get the equivalent he expected – written promise to leave him alone, or something like that, or letters – or perhaps they just started a fresh quarrel. He outed her, took the handbag, got what he wanted from it, left it in some corner out of the way where he hoped it wouldn't be noticed.'

‘Leaving the two hundred in notes in it – if he knew it was there and had given it her?' interposed Mitchell.

‘Never thought of the notes – too excited,' persisted Ferris. ‘Just wanted to push it out of the way for the time. But Quin spotted it, knew it belonged to his step-daughter, opened it, found the money in it, and bunked off, and then had a scare fit and got rid of the thing the best way he could.'

‘In my humble opinion,' declared Penfold, ‘it's much more likely Quin did the job himself. Good enough to arrest him on, if you ask me.'

‘It's always been good enough to arrest any one of the lot, if only it hadn't been equally good enough to arrest them all,' answered Mitchell. ‘Only there it is; the evidence against one cancels out the evidence against another.'

‘There's that letter,' Penfold remarked. ‘Means a lot.'

‘Yes. Only, what exactly?' asked Ferris; and Mitchell, seeing that Bobby was looking both eager and puzzled, picked up a scribbled sheet of paper from the articles on the table and handed it to him.

‘It was in the bag, with the girl's other things,' he explained.

Bobby took it and read: