“Och, we only lifted it up to make sure there was no flames left underneath,” said Mr. Johnson crossly.
“You shouldnae hae touched anything,” said Hamish. “Mrs. Todd, I think if you take Miss Kerr and the guests into the house, I’ll come with you and start taking statements. We’ll need to wait until the team arrives from Strathbane.”
“I’ll have a word to say to your superiors,” raged Mrs. Todd. “You cannae see a straightforward death when you come across it. When my man died, you was ferreting around my cupboards looking for poison.”
“Had you told me your husband drank to excess, I wouldnae have had to bother,” pointed out Hamish. “I was acting under orders from the procurator fiscal.” The late Mr. Todd had choked to death on his vomit and poisoning had been suspected. It had indeed turned out to be poisoning, but alcohol poisoning. Mrs. Todd always maintained her husband had died of a heart attack.
Mrs. Todd went grimly into the house and began to make preparations for a breakfast-cum-lunch while the others shuffled silently into the sitting room. “Is there a room I can use?” Hamish asked Alison.
“What? Oh, yes. The study. Through there.”
“Perhaps you would like to come through first, Miss Kerr. No, there is no need for you,” he said to Peter, who rose at the same time as Alison and showed every sign of accompanying her.
Hamish sat down at the desk in the study. Alison had stopped crying. She looked ill.
“Just tell me what you were doing this morning,” said Hamish.
“I heard the car start, or rather I heard the garage doors being opened,” said Alison in a shaky voice. “She…Maggie…had been kind to me the day before, so I thought I would ask her if I could drive the car. I ran down and out and just as I got to her, the car burst into flames.”
“Was there any sort of bang? Any sort of explosion?”
Alison tried to concentrate. “No,” she said at last. “One minute I saw her face quite clearly through the windscreen, and then it had vanished and there was nothing but flame.” She showed every sign of being about to cry again.
“Now,” said Hamish quickly, “let’s get to the house guests. The tall one who came down that night to the police station with ye, that’s Peter Jenkins. What do you know about him?”
“He’s an advertising executive in his own company,” said Alison. “He knew Maggie about twenty years ago, I think, or did he say eighteen? Anyway, he was in love with her and then he got her letter. You see, she wanted to get married and so she had chosen four of her old lovers. You don’t seem surprised?”
“I’m surprised at her odd way of courting but not that she had a lot of lovers. Go on.”
“He told me she’d changed. He wasn’t in love with her anymore although I heard…”
Alison bit her lip. She had been about to tell Hamish about overhearing Peter begging for money, but Peter had held Alison and comforted her and she felt she had to protect him.
“What were you about to say?” demanded Hamish sharply.
Alison looked mutinous. He sighed and said, “I’ll return to that. Tell me about the others.”
“The smallish man in the yellow pyjamas is Crispin Witherington. He owns a car salesroom in Finchley in North London. He took me out driving. He wanted me to put a good word in for him with Maggie.”
“Now why would he suggest that? You said yourself Maggie hated you.”
“He thought Maggie was fond of me to leave me everything in her will.…” Alison looked at Hamish with dilated eyes.
“Don’t be in a taking,” said Hamish quickly, frightened that Alison would start another scene. “The fact the woman left you her money doesn’t mean you killed her for it.”
“It’s not that,” said Alison. “How did he know? I mean, how did he know that Maggie had left me her money? And how did Steel Ironside know?”
“Maybe she told them.”
“She simply wrote to them all inviting them,” said Alison, “and then she told them on the first night that whoever married her would get her money and that she had a weak heart.”
“But she didn’t tell them she had left it to you?”
“Not that I know of. She may have said it in her letters. She told me that when she decided on one of them, she would change her will and cut me out. Maybe they overheard that. It’s very easy to hear things in this house. Oh, Hamish, only yesterday she apologised for being so rude to me and she said she wouldn’t cut me out of her will. Everyone will think I did it. But it can’t be murder.”
“Maybe it isn’t. Go on about Mr. Witherington.”
“I don’t know any more except that he was one of Maggie’s old flames. She made a profession of it.”
“Getting money from men?”
“Yes.”
“All right. Now let’s move to James Frame.”
“He runs a gambling club in London. He wanted me to put in a word with Maggie as well. He seems harmless enough. I didn’t have much of a chance to speak to him.”
“And Steel Ironside?”
“He’s a failed pop singer. He told me he needed money to get started again. He seems nice. Oh, Hamish, I’ve just remembered. I asked Maggie why she was sure that one of these four would want to marry her and she said she’d had a private detective to check up on them and they all need money.”
“Good. I’ll have a look through her papers and see if I can find the name of the detective agency. Send in your friend, Peter.”
Alison was soon replaced by Peter Jenkins. Hamish looked at him curiously. But he seemed just the same as he had done when Hamish had first met him: a pleasant, if weak, man, slightly effeminate. He looked at Hamish with dislike. “You’re making a fuss over nothing,” said Peter, “and causing a great deal of unnecessary distress. The sooner someone higher up arrives, the better. It’s a clear case of accident.”
“So you say. Let’s get down to business. Full name…?”
In his slow drawling voice, Peter outlined the bare facts. He had been in love with Maggie twenty years ago and had only really fallen out of love with her when he arrived and found her changed. She had invited him for two weeks and he had taken leave from his firm. He needed a holiday and so he had decided to stay.
And all the time he was talking, Hamish was thinking, He’s been carrying the torch for years for a prostitute. He must be awfully immature. I wonder how he manages to ran a company.
“How did you manage to set up this company?” he asked when Peter fell silent.
“I had been working for Sandford and Jones,” said Peter, naming one of the biggest advertising agencies. “I was thirty when a rich uncle died and left me quite a bit so I decided to go into business for myself. My firm is Jenkins Associates.”
“Doing well?”
“Very well. We’ve got the Barker Baby Food account, for example.”
“Barker was bought over by a Japanese company last year. Do they still retain your services?”
“Of course. Didn’t I just say so?”
Hamish sat back and surveyed Peter in silence.
Peter stared at him and then suddenly shrugged and said boyishly, “I shouldn’t lie. A vice of advertising men. Fact is, I had this friend working with me right from the beginning and he recently quit and took that account with him. I hope the Japanese dump him.”
“And what were you doing last night and this morning?”
“I was asleep the whole time. I heard Alison scream and rushed out.”
“And did you hear any explosion, any loud bang?”
“No, nothing, but there could have been one before Alison woke me with her screams. It was an accident.”
“Very well, Mr. Jenkins. That will be all for now. Send in Mr. Witherington.”
Crispin Witherington was very jovial and hearty. Then he obviously decided that jollity was out of place and became pompous.
He outlined the facts about his relationship with Maggie, where he was during the night and morning – in bed – his business, and his home address in a way that led Hamish to believe he had had dealings with the police before. Then he launched into a diatribe about the pub in Fern Bay and the attack on him.
“Why didn’t you report it?” asked Hamish.
