Hire Me a Hearse (5 page)

Drury nodded sympathetically, keeping
a straight face. He bent a man-to-suffering-man look on the other, but he was thinking that Barbara Thynne, whoever she might be, was a most remarkable and very smart female. He even wondered fleetingly why she had married an undertaking business.

But then, he reminded himself, women are capable of doing the oddest things for the damnedest reasons. He had a wife who had married a detective who slept home at nights only when the job — and a few thousand villains spread like flies over the country — permitted. Yet she seldom failed to greet him with a kiss, a smile, and the news that she'd have a hot drink in a jiffy.

Women! Including Wilma Haven, he thought to add, and was again giving his attention a hundred per cent to the somewhat confused undertaker, who had his own question waiting. One he had been laggard in producing out of a false sense of the fitness of things. But when one has confessed to talking in one's sleep, Mr Thynne felt, a lot of barriers have come down.

So he asked, ‘Why are the police making these inquiries?'

It was a very good question, though Drury suspected Mr Thynne, in his apologetic manner, scarcely realized how good. Much had happened since Tom Bayliss had phoned Drury and then called at Scotland Yard to see the superintendent. For one thing, shortly after the visit from Bayliss, a security officer at Independent Chemicals who had been installed by a Government department had reported that Jeremy Truncard had disappeared. The Home Office had alerted the Special Branch, and in the circumstances Drury had reported the Bayliss visit to the Commander of the C.I.D., who had gone to the Assistant Commissioner, who had held a conference, the outcome of which was instructions to Drury to consider himself on a case. It couldn't be the Jeremy Truncard case. No one knew just what that was, for the chances were the reported disappearance was no more than the young man's walking out of his office and not coming back for his
own reasons. Which could be a foolish decision for him to have taken, but not necessarily a criminal one.

Bill Hazard had spent a few busy hours, the outcome of which was the inspector sitting in a parked car in a side-street while his chief talked to Charles Horace Thynne.

Wilma Haven was at her home, Broomwood, playing pop records, Beethoven, and Shostakovich while she made mounds of chocolate fudge from a new recipe she had cut from a French magazine.

The housekeeper at Broomwood, a Mrs Marshall, had been hard-faced and reluctant to talk until she had been invited to reconsider her position in the quietude of a police station back room, which she had declined with no reluctance at all. Possibly because she was the widow of a man who had died in jail of pneumonia after serving three sentences for breaking and entering, the last time with violence on a very cold night. Someone had helped him over the high wall and then when he fell getting
back over it, and broke his leg, had made off, leaving him in the cold. His wife had been suspected, but nothing could be proved against her. She had been very tearful in court, and the crusading Wilma Haven had taken pity on her.

Mrs Marshall hadn't volunteered much, but whenever prompted she had been able to produce a little more. But not to Frank Drury. She had no time for him and didn't mind showing it.

Big Bill Hazard was a very different proposition. He had even brought a gleam to her frozen gaze and softened that hard expression around her unlovely mouth. At least, it would have been unlovely except for her splendid set of teeth. When she showed them in the beginnings of a smile they altered the entire look of her face. It became three-parts human. Not even Bill Hazard could do very much about those hard eyes, for the gleams he produced died rapid deaths when the official questions came. All the same, Drury had been moved to tell him, ‘With your sex appeal, it's a damned good thing you're not in the con racket,
or there'd be a lot of rich widows with dwindling bank balances.'

Bill Hazard had been meant to take the words as a joke, one of Drury's slightly off-beat variety. Instead, he had considered the words as though they were a serious suggestion coming from an expert.

‘That's certainly an idea,' he had said. ‘I've never got round to considering widows. Never been much for secondhand goods. Not even cars, though I'm told you can pick up a bargain now and then if you know where to look and can pay cash. I even live in a new flat. But widows … '

He had left it like that when he saw that Drury was wishing he had never started the subject.

‘We think, Mr Thynne,' Drury said when he considered he had left the undertaker waiting long enough for an answer, ‘that you may be able to help us forestall what could be a serious situation. I can't explain in detail, but I'm sure you will want to help us if you can.'

Drury felt like a fraud when he produced a smile to go with the words.

‘How? What am I supposed to do? I've told you all I know, about her phoning, coming with the cheque, and my agreeing to let her have the hearse at eight o'clock next Wednesday.'

The advert had said on or around Thursday next. Wednesday was twenty-four hours before Thursday; supposing the on or around meant more particularly on or after — possibly Friday, that is — for the jape to continue, then why did she want the hearse a day earlier? Of course, Flora Marshall had told Bill Hazard about the pots of paint that had arrived. Wilma could be planning to jazz up the hearse with a paint brush. That could explain her willingness to pay through her rather attractive nose for the two-day hire of the damned hearse. It was a suspicion Drury felt he was not called upon to share with Mr Thynne, who was now eyeing the Yard man with plenty of his own.

Drury spoke gravely, not very happy in his mind about this part of an
interview that never promised to be wholly satisfactory.

‘Mr Thynne,' he said and paused to add weight to what he was about to say. ‘I'd like you to leak some information to the Press. I can give you a telephone number. It will be that of a news agency. I'll also give you the name of the editor to ask for. He's expecting a call from you.'

‘Indeed.' Mr Thynne was decidedly arch.

However, Drury's smile came back in full hypocritic measure and he chose to misunderstand with happy ease.

‘Oh, yes, Mr Thynne. The real work has been done for you. All you have to do is pick up your phone and speak. It will be excellent publicity for you and your business. You might even appear on TV. After all, you've read Miss Haven's advert, haven't you?'

‘I've also read what the papers say and an article on her in
I Spy
. At least, I think it was in
I Spy
. My wife doesn't like me reading it, so I try not to upset her by taking it home. Babs — that is,
Barbara, my wife — she's a very sensitive woman.'

So sensitive she listens in to your dream-talking to yourself without telling you what you said, Drury reflected as he nodded in what was meant to imply agreement.

‘Of course,' Mr Thynne was continuing, ‘in this profession we do not invariably welcome publicity. I mean, publicity for us has to be of the right kind, dignified you understand, to be commercially helpful, if I may put it that way.'

‘Put it any way you like — or any where you like, Mr Thynne,' Drury said, standing up and feeling the farce shouldn't be allowed to continue in time paid for by exploited taxpayers, ‘but ring that number and speak to that man, and do me one other favour. Ten o'clock for the hearse. Not eight. Eight is a bit too early for reporters. Despite what you may have heard and read they're a lazy lot of bastards, my word for it. Ten o'clock would be about right. They've got to drive down with their cameramen, and they're even lazier. So ten.'

‘What shall I tell Miss Haven?'

‘Anything you like. You overslept, the engine broke down, your wife failed to set the alarm, or the cat had made off with your black tie. I leave that to you. But ten.'

Mr Thynne sat woodenly in his chair, a round little man who looked as though a purgative might have done him a power of good.

‘I've eight black ties,' he said almost in a whisper, so that Drury wasn't sure the words were meant for his ear. ‘God knows where they came from. But eight. Babs is always ironing the damned things.'

‘Here, Mr Thynne.'

Drury had taken from his wallet the piece of paper on which he had already written the phone number and the news agency editor's name. He put it on the undertaker's desk. At the bottom he had written: ‘Remember, ten o'clock, please. Not eight.'

While Mr Thynne was still staring at the piece of paper Drury rose and walked out. He didn't bother to say goodbye because he had a feeling he
would be back, but he wasn't looking forward to it.

‘Let's call at Broomwood again, Bill,' Drury told Bill Hazard when he dropped into the seat beside him and the inspector promptly started off down the side-street.

‘How did Thynne take it?'

‘Very well, considering. He's got her money and so he's acquired a small bit of conscience. But he'll perform. My guess is he's on the blower now. Step on it, Bill. I want the Haven girl to know the Press will be coming.'

‘She could guess that, and some have already tried to crash in. That's why she's got those guards on the gate,' Hazard reminded him.

Not that Drury needed to be reminded. The couple of heavyweights who had tried to stop him seeing Flora Marshall had been sufficiently undiplomatic as to grab Drury's arms. One had been put on the ground by Hazard, and he had remained there while Drury explained the
penalties for attacking a police officer in the execution of his duty.

‘How were we to know?' asked the aggrieved pug left standing on his feet.

‘Ignorance is no defence in law,' Drury told him, ‘as I'm sure your counsel has told you on many occasions.'

‘He never did. All I was ever told — '

‘Shut up, Biff,' said the man smart enough to remain in a horizontal position when the wind blew from the wrong quarter. ‘You talk too damned much.'

The pair had not been in evidence when, forty minutes later, the two Yard men had driven away.

Out of a lengthening silence Hazard asked, ‘Think she was making all that chocolate fudge for Biff and his pal? Just to sweeten them up.'

‘Not your best, Bill,' Drury said with no warmth. ‘She could have known Jeremy Truncard's got a sweet tooth and wants him to have a sweet memory after the Russian Roulette.'

‘If it's played out.'

‘I think that's her intention.'

‘To commit suicide?'

‘No, I'm not prepared to go that far. But I think she could have given someone else an idea. Firearms in the hands of the wrong people often promote bad ideas. I'd be happier if I knew what was in the envelope she gave friend Porter.'

‘My guess is it's part of the act. A lot of nothing, probably in bad taste.'

Drury nodded, but added nothing to his previous comments. Bill Hazard drove the rest of the way to Hever without talking, and picked his way down the curving lane leading to the iron gates in the high brick wall of Broomwood, a pleasant Queen Anne manor-house that had been made over and enlarged in the mid-nineteenth century, and was obscured by trees from the road.

The two pugilistic types were at the gates when the police car arrived. They were arguing with the occupants of another car. When Hazard and Drury were recognised the brawny Biff began grabbing arms again. It seemed to be his speciality.

‘Out of the way, boys. Here comes the law.'

After Hazard had driven through the gates they were slammed again in the faces of the two protesting reporters.

At the end of the drive was a Post Office delivery van. As Hazard drove up the van's driver came from the house with a dark red canvas bag he had emptied inside. Wilma Haven's mail had grown alarmingly. The advertisement was bringing results.

The girl herself stood in the doorway watching as the Yard men climbed out and walked towards her. Drury noticed that the postman's face was working as though his mouth was chockfull. Chocolate fudge was his guess.

‘I heard you'd been pestering my housekeeper,' Wilma Haven said with a beaming smile as she shook her long silken hair. ‘Now it's my turn.'

Behind the girl someone moved across the hall. Probably Flora Marshall, Drury thought. She saw us and tipped her off.

‘Your turn to tell us about Jeremy Truncard, Miss Haven,' Drury said, coming to stand in front of the girl,
who made no move to invite them into her home.

She pouted. ‘Oh, I thought you were interested in the advertisement I put in the papers.'

‘Jeremy Truncard,' Drury repeated. ‘We don't really bother about newspaper advertisements, Miss Haven.'

‘I refuse to feel snubbed,' she said brightly, ‘but I'll play it your way. What about Jeremy?'

‘He's disappeared.'

Her eyes widened. For a moment there was no expression on her face save that wide-eyed wonder.