Noonday and Night

‘So Vittorio guessed, if he did not already know, that Miss Mendel was an expert in that field, did he not?’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’

‘Well, but, immediately the visit was over, Vittorio persuaded Miss Mendel to go with him to his lodging so that she could inspect a very valuable collection of Chinese pottery.’

‘I see nothing significant in that.’

‘Subsequently you yourself called at her London shop and put two rather extraordinary suggestions to her.’

‘Good Lord!’ said Honfleur, with an unconvincing shout of laughter. ‘You make me sound like Casanova!’

‘Such was not my intention. First you made the strange suggestion that she should hide some property for you —’

‘I never did!’

‘Which you either knew or suspected had been stolen —’

‘Never! Who’s been telling these lies?’ There was no doubt about his discomfiture.

‘And when, very sensibly, she refused, as you must have known she would, you then tried to sell her some of the stolen goods. Jade carvings and jewelled snuff-boxes were mentioned, I believe. At this, she became so much alarmed that she sold up her businesses and fled to America, where, I presume, she has friends.’

‘This is all moonshine, you know. I mean, whether she sold up and went to America is beside the point. For all I know, she herself may have been a receiver of stolen goods and was afraid the police were after her. Nothing would surprise me less, but to suggest that I had anything to do with any doubtful transactions is not only derisible, it’s actionable and I don’t advise you to repeat it.’

‘Your advice comes a little late in the day.’

‘What! You don’t mean you have repeated it? If you have, I’ll sue you.’

‘Why not sue the police while you are about it? Sit down and refrain from agitation. We know all about Mr Carstairs, I may tell you.’

‘Carstairs? I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ It was a bold attempt at bluster, but Honfleur’s cheeks had fallen in, his lips were trembling and his tell-tale hands were being clasped and unclasped in the agitation against which Dame Beatrice had advised him.

‘While we have been talking,’ she said, ‘my guardian angel, from his modest seat near the door, has taken one or two photographs of you. The light is excellent in here. When these photographs are shown to Mr and Mrs MacGregor White, Carstairs’ next-door neighbours, I have no doubt they will recognise an acquaintance who sometimes is at Saighdearan and sometimes – possibly more often – is not.’

‘Look,’ said Honfleur, after a long pause during which Dame Beatrice regarded him with the bright gaze of a bird waiting for a worm, ‘I’d better tell you all about it. One thing I swear. I swear it on my soul.’

‘A doubtful commodity, but pray continue. What do you swear? – that you had nothing to do with the three murders which have taken place since you became embroiled with these nefarious characters?’

‘That’s it. You must believe me. After all, why would I kill my own drivers?’

‘With your own job in jeopardy, why should you care what happened to your drivers?’

‘You’re heartless and cruel!’

‘So was the person who killed Noone and Daigh, but please proceed, remembering, if you are wise, that I am in a position to check some part, if not the whole, of your story.’

‘It began,’ said Honfleur miserably, ‘when I first made Vittorio’s acquaintance. I believe he booked with us first as an ordinary passenger. I can’t remember which tour it was – one of those which does the Yorkshire dales, I believe – and a day or two after it returned he called here at my office and said that he wished to make a personal complaint. That is how I came to know him.

‘I told him he must make it in writing. I said that dealing with complaints was not part of my job. “You must write to the company,” I told him. “I am only responsible for checking on the bookings, arranging and sometimes changing the hotels, and looking after the welfare of the personnel.”

‘Well, he grinned in a nasty sort of way and picked up the word. “Ah, yes, the personnel,” he said. “I think, signore, you had better listen to what I have to tell you.” This sounded a bit sinister, so I gave him a chair, sent for my secretary as a witness and invited him to go ahead.

‘He started to tell me some garbled story about the coach-driver and one of the women passengers, but I soon cut him short. “Look here,” I said, “if the lady has been assaulted or in any way annoyed, it is up to her to complain. We may assume that she hasn’t complained. My directors would soon have taken action if she had, I do assure you. The coach-driver,” I said, “has a position of being in loco parentis to his passengers. He is not a chap out on the spree doing a gay Lothario act. If the lady hasn’t complained, either what you have told me is entirely false and a figment of your prurient imagination, or else,” I said, “she was a willing participant in whatever went on. In that case there is no more to be said. Had she been your wife,” I said, “You might well have cause for complaint. As it is, you have none. And what were you yourself doing, prowling about hotel corridors when you should have been in bed and asleep?”

‘He said he had had occasion to get up for the usual reason. I said, “What! With a bathroom to every bedroom? You seem to forget I know all our hotels and what the amenities are.” ’

‘That shook him, I’ll bet!’ said Laura. ‘Do you like “amenities” spelt with one m or two? – not that it will make any difference until I type out my shorthand.’

Dame Beatrice wagged her head at Laura in a reproving manner and said to Honfleur.

‘And that remark of yours terminated the interview, I take it?’

‘Well, it did, in one sense, but, in another sense, it didn’t. He said he had only been testing me. “That’s like your damn’ cheek!” I said. “Get out of here before I kick you out.”