“Maybe I’d better buy a typewriter. Make it look as if I’m really writing,” said Fell.
“No one bothers with typewriters these days. Get a computer with a word processor program.”
“Wouldn’t it take me forever to learn how to use it?”
“I think some people just follow the instructions.”
Maggie parked outside the house. They both looked out at it uneasily as if expecting to see the burly figure of Andy waiting for them.
But when they walked in, there was only the smell of new paint to greet them.
“You know,” said Fell, sitting down with a sigh, “I feel like a criminal. Everything points to Dad taking money from the robbers. Spending money is no longer going to be any fun. Every penny I spend now is going to feel as if I’m spending money that doesn’t belong to me.”
“Your wages your father banked over the years are yours.”
“Yes, but the reason he was able to bank all of that money was maybe because of a robbery.”
“Never mind. We’ll find out what we can. Would you like me to get a job? That way you wouldn’t have to spend so much.”
“You’re a kind girl, Maggie,” said Fell, giving her a quick hug. “We’re in this together, so we may as well spend together.”
Maggie smiled shyly up at him. She no longer cared what mystery or mayhem they were involved in, just so long as they were together. The awful spectre that he might turn her out had gone.
The phone rang, a shrill and peremptory tone.
Fell jumped nervously. “Will I answer it?” asked Maggie.
“Please. My nerves are shot.”
Maggie picked up the receiver. It was Melissa Harley.
“For you,” she said bleakly and held out the receiver in answer to Melissa’s request to speak to Fell. She watched Fell’s face light up when he realized who it was. Then she heard him say, “I’d love to, but something’s come up. Could we possibly make it for next week?…Great. I’ll see you on Wednesday at eight.”
He turned to Maggie, his face radiant. “She’s invited me to her house for dinner. I’m to pick her up at the shop.”
“I heard you put it off until next week,” said Maggie. “Why?”
Fell ran his fingers through his hair. “I just want to be on top form when I see her. I’m still rattled after last night.”
“Would you like a cup of coffee before we start on the phone book?” asked Maggie.
“Thank you,” said Fell, his face bright with happiness.
Damn the conniving bitch, thought Maggie. She returned with two mugs of coffee and joined Fell on the sofa. “Who should we start with?” asked Fell.
“I think the inspector would be our best bet.”
Fell opened the local phone book. “Let’s see, Rudfern. What’s his first name?”
“Oh, I can’t remember.”
“There’s one here. Only one. J.J. Rudfern, 12, Glebe Close.”
“Let’s try him now,” said Maggie eagerly, anxious for any action which would take Fell’s mind off Melissa Harley.
“We’ll have our coffee and then go,” he said. “What were those other two names?”
“Fred Flint and Johnny Tremp.”
“Right.” He scanned the phone book again. “There’s a J. Tremp but – let me see – no Fred Flint, or F. Flint. There’s several Flints.”
“We’ll try them all later.” Maggie rose. “I’ll just wash my face. I’m still tired.”
“After we see this inspector – if he’s still alive – we can have a sleep.”
How wonderful it would be, thought Maggie, if having a sleep meant they could tumble into bed together. She went up to the bathroom, which had not yet been renovated. The hand-basin had a crack across it, and the old- fashioned bath was permanently stained with lime scale from a dripping tap.
The work on the house should go ahead. The new furniture in the living room looked too bright against the dingy walls. Keep Fell occupied, that was the plan. A fully occupied Fell would be less easy prey for rapacious women.
Maggie removed her heavy glasses and washed her face and then carefully applied fresh make-up. If only she could get contact lenses, but now, all this threat that the late Mr. Dolphin had actually been involved in crime made her too shy to ask Fell for the money.
¦
Glebe Close was a cul-de-sac at the prosperous end of the town. It consisted of a few large villas with spacious gardens.
“I don’t think we’re going to have that dandelion summer of yours after all,” said Maggie. “It’s clouding over and getting quite chilly.”
“Just a country story,” said Fell. “I suppose they say it every year and the one year they get it right is the year everyone remembers.”
They climbed out of the car. Fell pushed open one of the tall double iron gates and he and Maggie walked up a well-kept drive between laurel bushes, flowering black currant and rhododendrons.
After they had rung a brass bell set into the stone at the side of the door, a fashionably dressed middle-aged woman opened the door. She was wearing a tailored trouser suit in biscuit-coloured linen, high-heeled sandals, and a quantity of gold chains around her neck. Her eyes in her well-preserved face were hard and assessing. “Yes?”
“I am Fell Dolphin,” said Fell, who never used his first name in full if he could help it, “and this is Miss Maggie Part-lett.”
“And?” The woman stood before them, one hip jutting out, one thin beringed hand splayed against it.
“I am writing a book on the Buss train robbery which took place in nineteen seventy-seven. I believe Inspector Rudfern was on that case. I just wanted to ask him about it.”
She hesitated. Then she said, “I’ll see if Father is up to talking.” She turned back indoors and left them standing on the step. A rising wind rustled through the bushes behind them. The hum of traffic on the main road came faintly to their ears.
Then they heard the clack of returning high heels. “Come in,” she said, “but don’t stay too long.”
They followed her into the gloomy hush of the large house. There seemed to be Venetian blinds on all the windows, cutting out much of the light.
“Father’s in the study,” she said, pushing open the door.
A old man was sitting in an armchair by the window, a tartan travelling rug over his knees. He had a shock of grey hair, and a grey lined and wrinkled face from which faded blue eyes surveyed them curiously.
“Sit down,” he said in a surprisingly strong voice. “Dolphin, my daughter said. That name rings a bell.”
“Charles Dolphin, my father, was a signalman at the time of the robbery.”
“Ah, so he was. Pulled in for questioning. Bring over two chairs and sit in front of me where I can see you.”
With an effort Fell lifted over two carved high-backed chairs of the mock Tudor kind.
When he and Maggie were seated, Fell asked, “Why was he taken in for questioning?”
“Because that train with the Post Office money was not supposed to stop at Buss,” said Mr. Rudfern. “He was the one who stopped it. Besides, it was his day off, but he volunteered to work it. The other signalman, Terry Weal, said he was feeling poorly and Dolphin had offered to do his shift.”
“And what explanation did my father give for stopping the train?”
“He said he had received a phone call half an hour before the train was due to pass through Buss Station, which he had no reason to disbelieve, telling him the train must be stopped because a cracked wheel was suspected. We traced the call to the signal box. There was only the one and it came from a phone box outside Buss. Dolphin stuck to his story that he had been tricked. Then he was asked, as he had a phone in the signal box, why he didn’t immediately call the police when the robbery started. He said that one of the men had a rifle pointed up at the signal box. He couldn’t phone until they had gone.”
“Why couldn’t the man in the ticket office call?” asked Fell.
