“What’s the point,” said Crispin rudely. “You local yokels stick together.”
“Don’t be cheeky,” said Hamish mildly. “Did you want to marry Mrs. Baird?”
“Hadn’t made my mind up. I only came up for a giggle.”
“And yet you asked Miss Kerr for help?”
“That sneaky little drip would say anything. Look, if it is murder, you only have to look in that direction.”
“Are you saying you didn’t ask Miss Kerr for help?”
“I can’t remember every blasted word I’ve said.”
“I’ll be getting back to you. I’ll hae a word with Mr. Frame next.”
James Frame sidled in, smoothing down his already smooth hair with a nervous hand. Without prompting and with many “don’t you knows” and “I says,” he launched into his tale of how he had been asleep the whole time.
He had almost perfected the silly-ass manner, thought Hamish, but the man’s eyes behind a glaze of helpful and innocent goodwill were hard and watchful as if a smaller, meaner man were staring from behind thick glass. When he had met Maggie, he said, oh-so-long-ago, he had been doing a bit of this and a bit of that. Money in the family, don’t you know. All the while, Hamish made mental notes. Lower middle class. Accent assumed. Probably was a small-time crook.
“I believe Mrs. Baird was very expensive,” said Hamish.
“She wasn’t a whore,” said James indignantly. “We were very much in love. Of course, a chap helps out a bit with the rent and things like that, but a chap would do that for any girl.”
“What is the name of the gambling club where you work?”
“The Dinosaur in Half Moon Street. That’s Mayfair.”
“Yes, I know where Half Moon Street is. Do you own The Dinosaur?”
“Well, not exactly. Run it for a chap.”
“And the chap’s name?”
“Harry Fry.”
“Champagne Harry. Out of prison is he?”
James looked sulky.
Even Hamish had heard of Harry Fry. He was a con-artist. His last fling had been to ingratiate himself into the graces of a colonel who was a close friend of the royal family and who lived in a grace and favour house in Windsor, that is a rent-free house given by the Crown. The colonel had gone to the Middle East to raise money for one of his favourite charities, Save the Donkeys, and had left Harry alone in his house. Harry had sold the house for a vast sum to an Arab and had been caught just as he was about to board a plane to Brazil at London airport.
His sentence had been surprisingly lenient. He had great charm and had used it to good effect in court. He had paid back all the money he had gained for the house. Harry was reputed to be worth millions. He tricked and conned only because it was the breath of life to him.
At last Hamish sent James off and Steel Ironside took his place.
“Real name?” asked Hamish.
“Victor Plummer,” said the pop singer in a sulky voice. But asked about his previous relationship with Maggie, he perked up and grew almost lyrical. He might have been describing a teenage romance: Maggie’s arrival on the scene, their first meeting at a party where she had shown no interest in him, the long tours, the sleazy hotels and theatrical digs, the sudden fame, the just-as-sudden falling in love and the start of the affair with Maggie, the walks in the park, the dog they had bought, the plans they had made.
“And why did she leave you?” asked Hamish.
Steel’s face darkened. “Someone else came along,” he said in his flat, nasal twang.
“Another pop singer?”
“No, Sir Benjamin Silver, head of Metropolitan Foods.”
“The multimillionaire?”
“Yes.”
“I see.”
“I didn’t at the time,” said Steel. “That was the thing about Maggie. She went through a mint of my money but I never thought of it as paying her. I mean, she wasn’t the kind you left the money on the bedside table for. I was in love and I thought she was. I thought she would come back to me.”
“Are you married?”
“Separated.”
“So how could you have married Mrs. Baird?”
“I’d have got a divorce. Never got around to it before.”
What a weak bunch of men, thought Hamish. He took some more notes and then braced himself to interview Mrs. Todd.
He took down Mrs. Todd’s account of her arrival on the scene of Maggie’s death and then began to ask questions. Why had Mrs. Todd not rushed to see if she could help instead of going straight to the house and dialling 999? What had led her to believe no one had yet dialled?
“I do not know,” she said primly. “It all happened that quick. They’re a useless bunch and wouldnae think o’ doing anything sensible.”
“Very well. Where were you last night and this morning?”
“I was at a meeting of the Women’s Rural Institute at the school hall, went tae my bed, and then collected some groceries in the village and drove up here.”
“Do you know where Mrs. Baird meant to go?”
“I don’t know. Herself usually didn’t move till the afternoon. Let me tell you this, Mr. Macbeth, you are making a lot of trouble over a mere accident. You are causing poor little Miss Kerr a lot o’ strain.”
Hamish ignored that and ploughed patiently on with his questions.
In the sitting room, Alison sat on the sofa with Peter Jenkins beside her. His arm was around her shoulders.
“So much for that helpful copper of yours,” said Peter. “I’ll have his guts for giving us all this trouble.”
“He wasn’t at all sympathetic,” sniffed Alison. “Sitting there like the Gestapo. I don’t know what’s come over him.”
“Power, that’s what. These local hick types love a chance to push their betters around.”
Alison leaned back and closed her eyes. She thought about her recent interview with Hamish. She and Hamish had been friends and yet he had asked her questions as if he had never known her. God! How she hated that study. She would have it turned into a breakfast room or a library. She hated the functional desk where she had typed so much filth.
She sat up a little, frowning.
“What’s the matter?” asked Peter.
“The manuscript,” said Alison. “Maggie’s book. I don’t remember seeing it on the desk. I’d better tell Hamish about it.”
“She was in there last night,” said Peter. “She probably either took it to her room or put it in one of the drawers. But tell that dreary bobby if you like.”
The four guests had been looking forward to the arrival of Hamish Macbeth’s superior, and when he did arrive, Detective Chief Inspector Blair from Strathbane did not let them down. It was, he said, a clear case of accident. There was no need to use a squad of policemen to comb the area for clues. The car would be towed away to Strathbane and examined there. He was sure the wiring would prove to be faulty. He was so delighted at putting Hamish down before an audience that he was even nice to Steel Ironside, despite the fact that he remembered clearly that one of the pop singer’s hits in the early seventies had been “Burn the Fuzz.” Mrs. Todd served him coffee with cream and some of her scones. His two detectives, Jimmy Anderson and Harry MacNab, stood respectfully behind his chair. Alison, who told him about Maggie’s vicious treatment of the car, thought Blair a nice fatherly man. He was heavyset and spoke with a thick Glasgow accent and when not being nice to the company treated Hamish like a moron. And Hamish deserved it all, thought Alison fiercely. After all, Hamish was a Highlander and the Highlanders were another race entirely, sly and malicious and devious.
But as if remembering at last that he, too, was a policeman, Blair became mindful of his dudes and told the four men to stay at the bungalow until the forensic report came through. In a quiet voice, Hamish told him of the
