Invitation to Die Page 4

  “India. Land of Regrets,” Dickie spoke softly. “Not so much oriental romance—more a graveyard of exiles.”

  “I heard a different story. We ex-military types, we love a bit of gossip. I heard you’d fallen on your feet—nice cushy peacetime billet, hobnobbing with the gentry. Learning high and mighty colonial behaviour . . . What was it they told me—you’d been made aide-de-camp to some high-flying colonel, or was it a brigadier? In your progress up the ranks, you’d been offered not so much a leg up as a red carpet. Well?”

  The needling was failing to have its desired effect. Dickie merely smiled and said calmly, “A colonel, then a brigadier. Remember, swift advancement comes at a price in battle zones, Oily. Dead men’s shoes are never comfortable.”

  Oily was still having difficulty swallowing his resentment. He tried a different tack. “There must have been consolations for the battlefield derring-do? When you weren’t hopping about the rocks, dodging the lead from Afridi jezails? What about the sprightly conversation over the mahjong tiles, holding the memsahibs’ parasols and passing them a chilled sherbet along with a hot glance?”

  He watched steadily until he saw the tightening of the jaw he’d tried to provoke and followed up with a further jibe. “Word is, you caused quite a fluttering in the kala jugga.”

  “I fear it was more of a clucking in the moorghi-khana, if you’re searching for ‘hen coop.’ You need to have been there to understand Kipling.”

  “Funny, though—a man with your advantages . . .” Oily suppressed his thought, aware that in any difference of opinion between them, he’d always been outquoted, wrestled down or tripped up. “Still, I’d never have marked you for a bloke who’d just bunk off. It was never like you to take the cowardly way out. You always led from the front. In fact, I had you down as a bit of a berserker on the quiet. As earlier witnessed!” He ruefully pointed to the wound on his neck. “Now,” he went on briskly, “no clues as to the origin of this letter, if you can call it a letter, you see. Spicer’s paper, number five Underwood machine—millions of them produced. Untraceable. I’ve had it professionally examined,” he explained. “Fingerprints, the lot. Friends in the Met. If there is a clue we’re left only with: the style. And even then, it might have been dictated to and edited by a professional typist for style and spelling in one of those rent-a-bureau places. They employ highly educated young ladies in those secretarial services establishments. I part own one myself. Don’t suppose you have them in an academic backwater like this. They can probably all write their own letters.”

  “How very thorough of you, Oily! One might even say professional,” Dickie purred, admiration a thin coating on suspicion. “Most would have just chucked it in the bin.” He shook his head and read the note again. “No, what we’re left with is content—a calculated display of very particular knowledge.”

  He murmured the text slowly. “‘See justice done! If you want to know who snatched a fortune from under your noses, be in the market square in Cambridge at eleven p.m. on Saturday, the seventeenth of May. I will find you. Those crystals were not brown sugar!’”

  “Ah. ‘Noses,’ you see. Plural. He’s speaking to a group. To all of us. Inciting us to once again behave as a group. And we both heard with our own ears the original comment about the sugar! Six of us were present when it was made. Ghastly little Syd had decided we were looking at a pile of the best coffee sugar as purveyed by Fortnum & Mason of Piccadilly. Shiny, purple-brown lumps. He’d already licked his forefinger and was going to stick it in and have a taste. It would have killed him, you know! Painfully, over two days.”

  “And good riddance!” Oily snorted. “Greedy little blighter! Pity I stopped him.”

  “But, as you’ve noted, only one of the group of six men present at that time and place could possibly have written this. Why, after all these years? That’s the puzzle! After twenty years!” he repeated. “Whose life has changed so drastically in that time, who is so discontented, so afraid, that he needs to slash about him with the sword of justice? This isn’t an old comrades’ reunion that’s being planned; it’s a scalpel-wielding on a swollen boil. Have you spoken to any of the others, Oily?”

  “Yes. I could only contact two. Ralph and Herbert. Sydney couldn’t come to the phone or write, his wife told me when I finally tracked him down. He’s on his last legs in St. Thomas’s hospital in London. They’ve given up on him and he’s being moved out tomorrow into some nursing home where he can fade away peacefully.”

  “What’s his problem?”

  “She didn’t say. She—her name’s Grace—has one of those posho-plum-in-the-mouth voices . . . Lord knows why she married Syd, who was as common as muck. Wasn’t prepared to share much with a stranger on the phone. I had to get the information by devious means. It turns out that old Syd has succumbed to tuberculosis. The lady wasn’t exaggerating the seriousness of his state—he’s not expected to see the month out.”

  “I’ll cross him off my list, then. I shan’t be sending flowers. So—Ralph and Herbert? What a choice! What did they have to say for themselves?”

  “I made time to go and meet both of them. Ralph hasn’t changed. Still talks ten to the dozen. Weighs the odds and comes up trumps. You never did catch a glimpse of the card up his sleeve. He went back up north and got himself a job with a betting shop in Barnsley when he came out of the army. Did well. Prospered, let’s not enquire how, and took over the business. Oh yes, our Ratty is a big noise in Barnsley.”

  “Poor Ratty! Poor Barnsley!”

  “Still sharp, though! Always fought like a rat, and I mean that as a professional compliment. He’s still ready to take a bite out of anybody he thinks might be up to a bit of no good. Not sure in a two-man fight whether I’d get the better of Ratty. But Herbert . . . hmm, Herbert’s changed. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, and I think we young officers decided that too quickly. He couldn’t read or write when we first knew him, not because he wasn’t all there, but because nobody’d ever bothered to teach him. The nearest board school was twenty miles away from his village, and, anyway, why would a ploughboy need to know his letters? We underestimated him.”

  “Not his strength and determination, we didn’t!” Dickie was quick to disagree. “And he was always absolutely trustworthy. He had all the attack of a steamroller. On the slow side, but nothing stopped him.”

  “But would it take him twenty years to react in this way? Even with the brakes off? I hadn’t realised you were such an admirer. Sounds to me like you must have written his references! He’s got a doorman-security job with the Cavendish Bank in London. Still enjoying wearing a uniform, you see. Moved down to London after the war. Bought his old ma a house in Camden, and that’s where he still lives. He and Ratty both received one of these letters as well. With assignations for ten p.m. And ten-thirty p.m.”

  “And you’re booked for eleven p.m.?” Dickie gave a shout of laughter. “What the hell is this? The waiting room for Death? ‘The Grim Reaper will see you now, sir.’ Are you sure Syd’s lost his marbles? It sounds like just the sort of batty Boy’s Own Paper stuff he’d think was clever.”

  “Once thought clever! The kid was only seventeen when he joined our outfit. Storybooks were all the excitement he’d ever had in his life before that. It’s why he joined up. Well, that and his two older brothers kicking him out of the nest. Hardly the right preparation for three bloody battles in as many days. He survived better than most of us. He’ll have matured.”

  “Until this illness struck him down?”

  “Yes. Totally out of it, according to the missis. For at least a month. These were posted last Tuesday. I noticed you looking at the post office stamp in the corner.”

  “Ten o’clock collection from Cambridge central. Hmm . . . I can see why you thought of me. And then, I hope, dismissed the thought. I’d have had the wit to ask a mate to post them in London.”

  Oily smiled and nodded.
“When the three of us had compared notes and I’d explained a few things to Herbert, it was clear to everyone that we were being set up for something . . . unpleasant. No one’s planning to shake our hand and pin a medal on us. The other two—and I agree with them—thought we were being lured here for purposes of elimination. Most probably by you. Sorry, Dickie, but Ratty had worked out the odds and you were a clear favourite. But I’m pleased to say all of us were determined to see it out. They’re both here in town, and no, I’m not telling you where. You’re still our top suspect. They each left a note at my hotel, clocking in as per my instructions. Silly panic, perhaps, but a bit sinister, don’t you think? And why the hell fetch us to Cambridge? Why not some cesspit in the East End of London where crime goes not only unpunished, but undetected? I’d have picked Seven Dials.”

  “You’re behind the times, Oily. The fuzz have sorted out Seven Dials. They’ve got some smart lads on the force these days. Can’t say this sleepy academic backwater has the same reputation for crime solving. But, whatever else, our old army oppo seems to want us all in the same place at about the same time. Setting us up like a row of skittles. Everybody muster on the marketplace before midnight? Coo! Er! It sounds like a Boy Scouts–wide game devised by Baden-Powell. But I don’t like it. Who the hell is this joker? Do you detect an element of madness here? Psychological pressure being exerted?”

  “Of course I do! Madness! That’s why everybody thought of you first, Dickie! You were never the same after Pretoria, though you seem sane enough to me now.”

  “I’m in full possession of my faculties. I’ve tramped away my problems, ditched my religions and the few worldly goods I had, forgiven my enemies, rid myself—or thought I had—of the past. I’m a cleansed man! Of no possible interest to anyone. Not worth a bullet.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. But you’ll have to be prepared to dirty yourself up a bit before we’re out of this present bit of bother. We can’t go on, Dickie, living under the threat of death by someone unknown for some unknown reason. I could have avoided Cambridge this weekend—just refused to play the game—but I’m not going to run from this for the rest of my life. I intend to face up to whoever this is!” The crisp soldier’s voice returned, and his eyes narrowed. “I’m intending to flush him out and deal with him—permanently. I warn you now. I’ve made my plans. I shall chuck him in the Cam or dump him on the doorstep of the police. The Cambridge Constabulary will find themselves scratching their thick heads again and filing him alongside Ernest with an ‘unsolved’ sticker on his big toe.”

  “And what precautions have you taken for the evening, Oily? It doesn’t take a genius to work out that if someone’s gunning for us all, it’s not in the market square that we’re going to fall. Even General Sir Redvers Buller could have worked out that puzzler . . . given half an hour, the very best military advice and a pencil to chew . . . I doubt very much that your Edith, redoubtable lady though she be, would be capable of averting the full force of a professional assault—if that’s what’s planned.”

  “You don’t know my Edith! Look here, how are you spending the evening? Why don’t you join me and the wife? Pop round after dinner. Eight-ish? We could play a game of bridge in our room or something while we wait him out. It’s just across the road from the police station, and I’ve alerted the hotel manager. He thinks I’m a rich eccentric and humours me, but that humouring extends to providing a guard in the corridor. Expensive, but probably worth it. Or we could go along together to the market at ten o’clock just for fun and sort this out ourselves once and for all. As of old!” Oily’s eyes gleamed with challenge. “I’m still fit, and I see you haven’t lost your survival skills. Under all that ‘I’m just a poor old tramp’ nonsense, there beats the heart of a man of war.”

  “Thanks for the consideration, Oily, but I’ve made my arrangements. I’ve accepted to eat dinner this evening as the guest of a bunch of academic tosspots in a college retreat.”

  “Eh? You? Why the hell?”

  “Exactly what I asked my host.” Dickie looked with speculation at his old comrade. “I think you must have seen him. The begowned two yards of pump water I was talking to after I duffed up the owner of Aunty’s Tea Shop. You were watching through the window.” He grinned. “He was so impressed by my style and bearing he asked me to have supper with his effete dining club.”

  “So that’s what all that palaver was about! I did wonder if I ought to ride to your rescue. I thought you were in trouble and having to blarney your way out of it, as usual. But, Dick, I don’t like the sound of that at all. What in hell do they want with you?” Oily said doubtfully. “Listen! Watch your back! That’s not your world. They can be buggers, those academics! The ones smart enough to realise that Disraeli’s no longer prime minister will be Pacifists or Marxists. Just for once, take my advice, man! Stand them up! You won’t be comfortable in that sort of company.”

  Dickie smiled. “I rather think that may be the point of the exercise. I’m sure I’d have a pleasanter evening playing snakes and ladders with your Edith. But at least, I think, I can count on several hours of absolute safety tucked up somewhere in a college fastness.”

  “Which one?”

  “Not exactly sure which one, but if I’ve guessed right, it’s a harder place to penetrate than the Tower of London. If I can spin the entertainment out for an hour or two, I’ll be all right. And if I survive death by spiced boar’s testicles, I may stroll along to the market to hear the chimes of midnight sound an end to the evening’s magic and see if I can’t spot a villain. Or help sweep up the corpses.”

  Oily sighed. “So you’re determined to go?” The familiar deflation of realising that his advice was—as it always had been in those army years—rejected, returned after a twenty-year absence to irritate him. “Well, sod you, Captain! I hope you have a lovely evening!”

  “I’m sure I shall. Now, Lieutenant—apple pie, I believe. Yes, I rather think you must—the ladies don’t approve of plates that are not licked clean. I shall have a goodly portion. Where I’m going tonight, I can’t count on the food being at all edible.”

  Chapter 4

  Cambridge Police Station, Saturday,

  the 7th of June, 1924

  Constable Jenkins tapped on the door and put his head round. “Prisoner’s ready for you, Inspector. Particulars taken, such as they are. Personal items confiscated and logged. Belt and shoelaces removed. Shall I bring him up?”

  “Suspect, Jenkins. Not prisoner yet. This is the nick, not the Scrubs,” the inspector snapped. “He’s under arrest on suspicion of murder, and he’s going to help us with our enquiries. Someone else in the law and order business will have the pleasure of finding him guilty if I decide to charge him. At that point, he becomes the prisoner and goes up the road to the Castle Hill jail to await trial, judgement and sentencing, which will most probably be execution by hanging. Until then—technically—he’s innocent. Innocent but under restraint. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir. If you say so, sir,” Jenkins muttered doubtfully. New to the job, the constable was still a bit uncertain in his dealings with his unpredictable boss, Chief Smarty Pants of the Criminal Investigation Department, who seemed to be making it up as he went along. And then he’d account for his eccentric methods as “The New Policing.” Pat on the back one minute, boot up the bum the next; Jenkins had experienced both and understood the reason for neither. He was never sure how far he could venture an opinion. Sometimes it was encouraged. At the moment, the governor was smiling. Jenkins would chance his arm. “You’ve seen him, sir! The suspect? Bit on the mouthy side and slippery as they come, but . . . well . . . he’s not exactly in his prime, is he? No danger to anyone. From a standing start, my granny could—”

  “I have quite a few questions of a tedious nature to put to this gent. Our first attempt at conversation was interrupted. It may take some time, and I don’t want him getting bored, excusing himself on a technicality, an
d legging it down the High Street before I’ve wrung the last drop out of him. Our guest is—as you’ve noted—slippery. The last time he did something naughty, he disappeared into the long grass for twenty years. Let’s take no chances, shall we? Chop, chop!”

  “My dear Detective Inspector Redfyre! I’ve been patience on a monument throughout your preliminaries, but—really! That’s an entirely redundant question you’ve just asked.” The voice was out of keeping with the appearance—firm, even authoritative. Coming from the stage of the London Old Vic, every syllable would have been heard in the back row of the stalls, coming from the pulpit, every word would have been believed. “Shall we pass to the next one on your list? I’m sure you ought to be attempting to ascertain my whereabouts between the hours of midday and midnight on Saturday, the seventeenth of May. Last month, that is.”

  “Indulge me.”

  “Come now! You could be watching Robin Hood with Douglas Fairbanks in the matinée performance at the Alhambra as we speak if it’s thrills you’re seeking. What sort of response do you expect from a grizzled old soldier who’s just been asked to drone on about a stale old war that no one remembers? We could repair to the pub down the road if it’s company you yearn for and let a pint or two of bitter take the edge off the tales of derring-do. But if it’s tedious and exact detail you require, officer, you must remove these handcuffs and provide me with a pencil and a large piece of paper, sketching quality, of course.”

  The suspect tugged at the single restraint chaining him to the special interviewee’s chair, which in turn was bolted to the floor. It was clearly irritating him both psychologically and physically, the inspector noted with satisfaction.

  “I’ll change the subject when this one bores me.”

  “I gave up fighting a lifetime ago. My helmet is a hive for bees these days, I’m afraid. Abandoned, disused . . . dangerous! More like a wasps’ nest, perhaps. Wiser to leave it undisturbed. But as you seem determined to poke at it with a stick . . .”