The Twelve Clues of Christmas (23 page)

“Now, that I do remember,” he said. “It was quite interesting, actually. He’d been a well-known music hall artiste. Had fallen on hard times since the demise of the music hall and taken to swindling old ladies out of their life savings. The prosecution wanted us to believe that he’d killed more than one of them. His last landlady had died from a fall down the stairs, but there was no real proof that he’d actually pushed her.”

“And his name, Mr. Klein? Do you remember his name?”

“His name was Robbins.”

Chapter 36

The inspector got to his feet, slamming his fist into his open hand. “I knew it. I knew my instinct was right all along.”

“You know him, then?” Mr. Klein asked.

“Oh, yes, I know him. He’s one of the convicts who recently escaped from Dartmoor. We’ve been looking for him.”

“My life, already,” Mr. Klein said. “You’re telling me that the man who broke into my shop and took those rings was that same Robbins?”

“Almost certainly so.”

“Then I’m lucky I wasn’t murdered in my bed.”

“You are very lucky, I agree. In fact, you’re the only one he hasn’t attempted to murder, most of them in ingenious ways.”

“Oh, he was a slick one, all right, from what we heard of the way he got around these old ladies. Knew how to charm people. Smarmy, that’s what I called him, but some of the ladies believed him. I don’t quite approve of having ladies sit on juries, if you don’t mind my saying so. Not enough experience of the outside world and too easily swayed by a charming smile.”

“What did he look like, Mr. Klein?” I asked.

“We know what he looked like. We have his mug shots,” the inspector said.

“I wanted Mr. Klein’s impression of him,” I said.

“Well-built chap, good solid jaw. Quite a big man and, as I said, charming smile. Charming manner altogether. If you’d believed him, butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.”

“I take it you haven’t seen him recently?” the inspector asked. “He didn’t come into your shop, for example?”

“Oh, no. I’d have remembered him, I’m sure,” Mr. Klein said. “A person like that you don’t forget so easily.”

We took our leave then.

“Well, that’s a turnup for the books, isn’t it?” the inspector said. “If we’re to believe him, that Robbins fellow is still hiding out in these parts and bumping off the members of the jury, one by one.”

“He still has two to go,” I said. “We need to find out who the other members were before it’s too late.”

“That trial would have been at the Crown court in Exeter,” the inspector said. “The local magistrate’s court wouldn’t have touched a case like that.”

He turned to his driver and we swung onto the main Exeter road.

“What I want to know,” my grandfather said as we negotiated the narrow streets near the center of town, “is how he obtained all this local knowledge if he was locked away in Dartmoor Prison. Someone from around here must have found out about the details of the people he killed.”

“The same one who is hiding him, presumably,” I said.

“Doing a bloody good job of it too,” the inspector said. “We went door to door in all those local villages when the convicts escaped, but nobody claimed to have seen hide nor hair of them.”

The car came to a halt outside the court buildings and we followed the inspector inside. We were passed from one department to the next until we found where archives of court cases were stored. And then we waited, sitting on a hard wooden bench in a drafty foyer. At last a young man came back with a sheet of paper. “This is the one you wanted,” he said. “Robert Francis Robbins. Convicted November 22, 1928.”

We read it eagerly. “Who is Agnes Brewer?” Granddad asked.

“The farmer’s wife. Already dead.”

“That just leaves Stewart McGill and—oh.” I stopped, mouth open.

“Peter Barclay,” Granddad said. “Isn’t he the quiet little chap who plays the organ?”

“That’s him.” I looked at the inspector. “Do you have any way of telephoning the police station in Tiddleton and having some kind of guard put on Mr. Barclay?”

“I’ll do it from the station here,” the inspector said. “And we need to find out where this Mr. McGill lives. We have an address for him and it’s in Exeter.”

We drove with a growing feeling of dread to Mr. McGill’s address. It was in a rather shabby backstreet of terraced houses right on the pavement with no front gardens. We knocked on the front door and a young woman opened it. She looked unkempt, with a baby on her hip.

“Mr. McGill?” the inspector asked.

She stared at him defiantly. “No. You’ve got the wrong number. The name’s Perkins.”

“How long have you lived here, Mrs. Perkins?”

“Just over a year. What’s it to you?”

“I’m a police officer,” Inspector Newcombe said coldly and noted the reaction in her eyes. “You don’t happen to know where to find the people who lived here before you, do you?”

“No idea.” The baby started to wail. “Look, this isn’t a good time. He wants his bottle and the bigger ones want their dinner.”

“We’re looking for a Mr. McGill who used to live here,” the inspector said. “It’s vitally important we contact him. A matter of life and death.”

She shrugged, still not interested. “You can ask the old bat at number 14,” she said. “She’s always snooping out through her window, minding other people’s business. She might know.”

We went across the street. I saw a lace curtain twitch before the inspector knocked on the door. Soon after, the door was opened an inch or two and a sharp-nosed face looked out.

The inspector repeated his question and the door was opened wider to reveal an old woman in a flowery pinny and carpet slippers.

“You’re not going to find him, are you?” the old woman said triumphantly. “He’s gone. Hopped it.”

“Gone where?”

“Out to his daughter in Australia. His wife died and he packed up and went. Three or four years ago now.”

“Now, that presents an interesting problem for Mr. Robbins, doesn’t it?” the inspector said as we returned to the motor. “I wonder if he’s planning to go out to Australia to seek out the last jury member.”

“Hardly on the twelfth day,” I said. “He wouldn’t even have time to leave England by then.”

“Then what’s he going to do on the twelfth day?” my grandfather said. “I rather think he’s the type who’d want a big finale.”

None of us had an answer to that one.

We left the city of Exeter behind and rolling countryside stretched ahead of us, with the snowcapped tors as a backdrop. “So the big question is, who has been hiding him?”

“It might be worth checking with Wild Sal again,” I said. “She sort of threatened me this morning. Nobody goes near the place she lives up on the moors, do they?”

“My lads were there to apprehend her,” the inspector said. “Hardly more than a sheep byre—stone walls, dirt floor and not enough room to swing a cat. Nowhere to hide him there.”

“But if they’d seen you coming, there are plenty of places to hide up on the moor until you’d gone, aren’t there?” I suggested.

“What exactly do you know about this Robbins?” Granddad asked. “Used to have a music hall turn, didn’t he?”

“He did. In fact, he was quite popular at one time. I gather it was a sort of magic act with his wife, sleight-of-hand stuff, but the difference was that it was a type of comedy act too and they played various characters. His most famous one was apparently an old colonel, trying to impress a coquettish young girl, played by his wife.”

“You know, I think I saw him once,” Granddad said excitedly. “At the Hammersmith Empire. The old colonel and the young girl. That rings a bell. They were quite good. Clever and funny too. What were they called?” He sucked through his teeth, thinking.

“I believe it was Robbie and someone.”

“‘Robbie and Trixie, Tricks and Chuckles,’ that was it,” Granddad said. “I did see them. The old colonel and the young girl. He was trying to impress her, producing flowers out of her hat, money out of her ear. So did you say that his wife killed herself?”

“Right after he was convicted,” the inspector said. “Left a note. Said she couldn’t handle the shame of it or go on living without him. So she drowned herself near Beachy Head. Walked out into the sea, and you know what the currents are like around that headland. The body was never found.”

I stared out the window, trying to control my racing thoughts. The old colonel. Was he actually staying at Gorzley Hall at this moment? Colonel Rathbone had claimed to be a colonel with the Bengal Lancers, but he didn’t look comfortable in the saddle. And he hadn’t known his commanding officer’s nickname. But Mrs. Rathbone? She didn’t look as if she’d ever been an entertainer. But was it possible the old colonel’s wife hadn’t died after all? I wondered whether to voice my suspicion to the inspector, then decided that I should talk it over with Darcy first. He knew people in London who could check on such things. I’d tell him instead.

As we drove down the hill and into the village we saw the constable talking to someone outside the police station. The inspector wound down his window. “Did you get my message, Jackson?” he asked.

“I did, sir.” The constable came over to us. “I went round to Mr. Barclay’s house, but he wasn’t there. I’ve been keeping an eye open for him, but I haven’t seen him all day.”

“I want him found, Jackson. The man may be in danger. Now go and ask around the village if anyone has seen him, understand? I’ll just drive this young lady to her front door and then we’ll come back to help you.”

“It’s all right. I can walk from here,” I said.

“No, my lady. Given what we know now, I don’t want you walking anywhere alone. In fact, when I get back to the village I’m going to question everyone again. Someone must have spotted Robbins. Someone must know something and I mean to find out who is hiding him.”

It was his insistence on driving me to the hall that made me realize the danger we all might be in. If Mr. Robbins had been plotting and planning his vengeance during his years in prison, he wouldn’t take kindly to anyone who was trying to get in his way. And he had proved clearly that he was literally able to kill with no trace and under all our noses.

* * *

A
S
I
ENTERED
the hall I was met by Darcy, striding out from the drawing room with a look of thunder on his face.

“Where the devil have you been?” he demanded.

I stepped back, recoiling from this unexpected wrath. “I went out with my grandfather and Inspector Newcombe. We went to find Mr. Klein and you’d be amazed what else we discovered—”

“And you didn’t think of telling me?” His eyes were still blazing.

“I wanted you to come too, but the inspector refused. And he made me promise not to mention it to anyone else. I felt terrible. I did tell Lady Hawse-Gorzley.”

“Yes, that you’d gone to see your mother,” he snapped. “Can you imagine how worried I was when I went down to the cottage and you and your grandfather were not there and your mother had no idea where you had gone?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I really am. I did try to include you.”

His expression softened a little. “I’m not angry because I couldn’t come,” he said. “I always felt that police business should be left to the police, as you know very well. It’s just that I was worried about you. I thought you might have been kidnapped or bumped off because you were interfering. You can’t imagine what went through my mind.”

I touched his shoulder tentatively. “Darcy, I said I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you but I’d been asked not to.”

“You could have at least let me know you were safely with the police.”

I was beginning to feel defensive. “You have plenty of secrets from me, don’t you? I don’t even know what you do when you go off on your little jaunts. Don’t you think I worry about you?”

He smiled. “You do have a point there. But I know how to take care of myself.”

“So do I,” I said.

He slipped his arms around my waist. “Well, you’re home and you’re safe. So let’s forget about it. Are you allowed to tell me what happened?”

“You’ll never believe this.” I led him down a long hallway until we were far from other people and told him everything.

“The man must be completely mad,” he said at last. “Killing off jurors one by one, in such an elaborate fashion. What for? What can it accomplish?”

“He’s a showman, Darcy. He wants to go out with a bang. Maybe he has no desire to live now that his wife is dead, and no desire to go back to that horrible prison.”

“Signing his own death warrant, you mean?”

I nodded. “And there’s something I want you to do,” I said, and I voiced my suspicions about the colonel.

He stood there, frowning. “Yes, I think I know someone who can find that out for me in a hurry,” he said. “Do you really think it’s possible that he’s been here among us, all this time? It doesn’t seem possible. How has he managed to go in and out to kill people at odd times?”

“It’s a big enough house. I’m sure it’s possible to slip out without being seen.”

“Extraordinary. I’ll send a telegram right away. And in the meantime stay well clear of him, understand? I don’t want him to get any hint that you know.”

I nodded. As we came back to the front foyer Lady Hawse-Gorzley was coming down the stairs. “All ready for the concert, then?” she asked brightly. “Is your dear mother coming too?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. I’d completely forgotten about the concert and remembered now that Mr. Barclay would be playing for us.

“Dress warmly,” she called after me. “It’s always freezing cold in that church. I don’t know how the poor man manages to play the organ with frozen fingers.”

I put on a scarf and hat and joined those assembling on the driveway. Colonel Rathbone announced that he and his wife would not be joining us, as she wasn’t feeling too well. The dowager countess said that she’d heard organ concerts at St. Stephen’s in Vienna and St. Nicholas Cathedral in Leipzig and really didn’t need another one. Monty and Cherie also expressed little interest but Monty was told by his mother that he was expected to attend. Cherie walked beside him, sulking and loudly proclaiming that churches were boring.