him and to every other police car in the county. “Calling all cars, calling all cars… Attention to be given to a dark blue Ford Zephyr, registration number…”
“It may be too late,” said Sloan, although he didn’t know for what.
“If seen,” chattered the speaker, “stop and detain for questioning.”
Frank Mundill drove over Billing Bridge and then gently along the Berebury road. He was quite quiet and Elizabeth didn’t press him into speech. He drove carefully, glancing now and then into his rear-view mirror. What he did—or did not—see there evidently caused him a certain amount of satisfaction because he went on driving with unimpaired concentration.
She tried once to draw him out about the picture.
“Wait and see,” he said.
“Where are we going?” she asked presently. .
“Berebury,” was all he said to that.
She tried once more to draw him out about the picture. “All in good time, my dear.”
Thus they came to Berebury. Reassured by yet another glance in his rear-view mirror, Frank Mundill steered the car towards the centre of the town.
“Frank, I don’t understand…”
“You will. I’ve just got to park the car. It won’t be difficult. It’s early closing day.”
He made for the multi-storey car park. Entrance was by ticket from a machine. He took the ticket and the entrance barrier automatically rose to let them through. He placed the ticket on the dashboard and nosed the car up to the first level. There were plenty of parking spaces there but he did not stop. Nor at the second level. It being a quiet afternoon there were no cars at all above the third level. The fourth level was empty too.
“Frank, where are we going? Why are we going right to the top? You must tell me.”
“Upward and ever onward,” he said, a smile playing on his lips now.
The car swept round the elliptical corner at the end of the building and up onto the highest level of all.
“Frank…”
“Soon be there,” he said, accelerating. There were no other cars in sight now—just the bare ramps and parking places. He gave a swift tug at the steering wheel and soon they were in the open air again on the very top of the car park. He pulled the car neatly into a parking bay and got out.
Elizabeth followed him.
“This way,” he said. “Do you know that on a clear day you can see Calleford?”
“I don’t want to see Calleford,” she said. “I want to know why the picture you said Peter wanted has been sold.”
“You shall,” he said softly. “You shall know everything soon. But first come this way…”
He walked away from the edge of the car park to the very centre.
“Follow me, Elizabeth. I designed this place, remember. I know what to show you…”
“Faster,” said Sloan between gritted teeth.
Crosby changed up through the gears with demonic speed. “Which way?”
“Berebury,” said Sloan. There was just the one hope that he was right about that.
The constable raced the car through the gates of Collerton House. With dressage and horses it was walk, trot, canter. With a souped-up police car it was a straightforward gallop from a standing start.
“Humpty-Dumpty sat on a wall,” said Crosby. “Humpty-Dumpty had a great fall.”
“Let’s hope that we find the right wall,” said Sloan tersely.
Crosby concentrated on keeping one very fast car on the road. He took Billing Bridge faster than it had ever been taken before, narrowly avoiding caroming off the upper reaches of one of its stanchions.
“The car park in Berebury,” said Sloan in a sort of incantation. “The multi-storey car park. It must be.”
“What about it?” asked Crosby, cutting round a milk-float. The milkman was used to imprecations from faster drivers but not to being overtaken at that speed.
“It’s the right height,” said Sloan.
“So are a lot of things,” said Crosby, crouching over the wheel as if he were a racing driver but in fact looking more like Jehu than any denizen of the race-track.
“Mundill designed it,” said Sloan. “Two spirals round a central well. Come on, man, get a move on.”
Crosby put his foot down still farther and the car ate up the miles into Berebury. They shot through the main street and swung round into the entrance of the car park. It did nothing for Sloan’s blood pressure that they had to pause at the entrance like any shopping housewife to collect a ticket and allow the automatic barrier to rise.
“Hurry, man,” urged Sloan. “Hurry!”
Crosby raced through the gears as fast as he could; the slope of the ramp needed plenty of power. The corner at the end, though, was tighter than any at Silverstone. He took it on two wheels.
“And again,” commanded Sloan at the next level.
But they had lost speed on the way up. Crosby took the next bend more easily but at a slower rate.
“Keep going,” adjured Sloan. He had his hand on the door catch.
They reached the top floor and came out into the sunshine. The sudden glare momentarily distracted both men but there was no disguising the dark blue Ford Zephyr standing in solitary state on the top platform or the two figures standing by the parapet of the central well. One of them had his arm round the other who appeared to be resisting.
“Stop!” shouted Sloan as he ran.
The man took a quick look over his shoulder and standing away from the other—a girl—vaulted lightly over the parapet.
17
Here ends all dispute.
« ^
I suppose,” snorted Superintendent Leeyes, who was a sound-and-fury man if ever there was one, “that you’re going to tell me that everything makes sense now.”
“The picture is a little clearer, sir,” said Detective Inspector Sloan. He was reporting back to Superintendent Leeyes the next morning, the morning after Frank Mundill’s spectacular suicide over the edge of the parapet at the top of the multi-storey car park.
“Perhaps, then, Sloan, you will have the goodness to explain what has been going on.”
“Murder, sir.”
“I know that.”
“More murder than we knew about, sir.”
“Sloan, I will not sit here and have you being enigmatic.”
“No, sir,” said Sloan hastily. “The first murder wasn’t of Peter Hinton at all. It was of Celia Mundill.”
“The wife?” said Leeyes.
“The wife,” said Sloan succinctly. “Frank Mundill wanted to marry Mrs. Veronica Feckler.”
“Ha!” said Leeyes.
“So,” said Sloan, “he set about disposing of his wife.”
“He made a very good job of it,” commented Leeyes.
“He nearly got away with it,” said Sloan warmly. “He would have done but for Peter Hinton putting two and two together.”
“So that’s what happened, is it?”
“Elizabeth Busby tells me that Hinton was something of a student of criminology, sir. His favourite reading was the Notable British Trials series.”
“He suspected something?”
