‘Wonder how Conradda Mendel is getting on, now she’s been mentioned,’ she said. As though she had invoked the spirit of the woman in question, on the following morning a letter arrived from Conradda herself.
‘So she didn’t go to America after all,’ Laura remarked as she sorted the correspondence and noted the postmark.
‘Who?’ Dame Beatrice enquired.
‘Conradda Mendel. She’s put her name, but not her address, on the back of the envelope and it’s postmarked
‘Interesting. Let us see what she has to say.’ Dame Beatrice slit open the envelope, scanned its contents and then handed the missive to Laura.
‘Dear Friend,’ Conradda had written, ‘before I go further, please do not show this to anybody but your most confidential secretary, as I do not wish it to be known to any but yourselves where I am to be found.
‘I became ill in America, but it is too expensive to be ill in that country, so I dragged myself on to an aeroplane and came to my own doctor and he ordered an operation, so here I am in convalescence in the house of a friend. I am getting stronger every day, but am not very well yet, so this is to ask if you will kindly visit me, as at the moment I am not able to travel to visit you.
‘Now it is about this coach-driver whose body was found in such a strange situation, and I am troubling myself in my mind that he may not be the only one.’
‘Well, he isn’t,’ said Laura, looking up from the letter. ‘Shall you go and see her?’
‘Read to the end. You will find that I have very little option.’
‘You will remember,’ the letter went on, ‘my telling you of the treasures of Chinese art which Vittorio showed me when I visited his lodging and of the conclusion I reached regarding this surprising and very valuable collection. I also mentioned, I believe, some jade that he had there. Well, jade is always nice; nice material and very patient carving is necessary and takes much time. The pieces he showed me, though, were not very special – jewellers’ pieces I would call them – and some were soapstone, not jade.
‘Mind, I did not let Vittorio know I recognised some of the china he showed me. That perhaps would not have been a safe thing to do; neither, naturally, did I intend to tell him I should advise you not to buy, but, with much caution, I began to make enquiries about him in the trade and some strange things came out.
‘Where County Motors go there are thefts of art treasures. Nobody makes the connection, I think, but me. Now here, now there, I hear of these thefts and because I know Vittorio and your Mr Honfleur are in collusion for Vittorio to purchase antiques – ’
‘
‘She means no harm. Read to the end.’
‘… to purchase antiques, I ask myself whether this is coincidence or not. I check up the coach tours and it looks less and less like coincidence and more and more like something arranged. You see, my dear friend, when there is a theft the police are told. They cordon off roads and stop cars and perhaps lorries; but who ever heard of police stopping a holiday coach? Even if they did, what would they find? Thirty suitcases of innocent people; souvenirs bought to take home as gifts for friends or as reminders of the holiday; parcels, coats, anoraks and mackintoshes on the racks; everybody able to account for himself. All the same, I think to myself that there may also be one suitcase too many in the boot of the coach. You understand me?
‘But the police do not stop the coaches. In most cases they do not stop the cars either. And why? Because, by the time the thefts are discovered and reported, it is too late. The thieves have got clean away and the coach is staying, so innocently, at a hotel in another county, so nobody gives it a thought that there are stolen antiques on board.’
‘I wonder whether she’s right?’ said Laura, handing back the letter. ‘It sounds a bit too easy to me. Do you think she’s romancing?’
‘That is what I propose to find out.’
‘Do I go with you to Poole?’
‘Yes, I shall need you to take notes. We know already that Vittorio used to take these coach tours. The reason given to us was that he looked out for antiques to sell to Basil Honfleur for his collection of ceramics.’
‘Can’t quarrel with that, can we?’
‘On the face of it, no, except that Honfleur’s collection seemed rather too small to account for these elaborate journeys. Of course it could be that Honfleur was not the only collector on Vittorio’s list of customers. However, we may know more when we hear what Conradda Mendel has to tell us when we visit her.’
‘Considering that there’s already been an attempt on your life, I’m not so keen on this visit. Supposing Conradda is in cahoots with Knight and this letter is a trap?’
‘I shall look to you to protect me.’
‘I might not be able to protect you from a stab in the back. Vittorio was not the only person to be far too handy with a dagger, as witness his own demise, and, if I know anything of the address on Conradda’s letter, Poole harbour might be a nice handy dumping-place for a dead body.’
‘You make my blood run cold.’
‘Not half as much as you make mine curdle in my veins. Look here, how much do we really know about Conradda? Nothing, except that she was a patient of yours. People who need help from a psychiatrist are not always the most trustworthy of friends.’
‘You malign my profession and my clients, and in the same breath, too.’
‘Would you like to make me feel a lot happier?’
‘Your happiness is my chief concern.’
‘Right – although I know that was said tongue in cheek, I want our private dick to go with us to Poole. I don’t
