¦
Newth emerged from a side entrance promptly at nine. He was pushing a motor scooter, which he mounted and drove off at a sedate pace along the coast road towards Worthing.
He was unaware of the Vauxhall Cavalier driving sedately behind him. There was, after all, nothing unusual about it. The roads of the South Coast are heavily populated by beautifully polished cars that never exceed the speed of a motor scooter. (Most of them, incidentally, have sunshine roofs and are driven by balding men in cravats and string-backed driving gloves, but that’s neither here nor there.)
Mrs Pargeter did not know where she was expecting her quarry to go, but, after her discovery of the night before, anything Newth did might be significant.
The evidence of the metal from the boiler room made her almost certain that he was responsible for the robbery from Mrs Selsby’s room. It made sense that that crime should have been committed by a member of staff. There had been no sign of forcible entry to the room, and, though she couldn’t think that many of the residents would have sets of skeleton keys like the late Mr Pargeter’s, she knew that the staff had pass keys. That fact, combined with the use of the boiler as a means of destruction, seemed to point the finger very firmly at Newth.
Whether he was acting for himself or on someone else’s behalf, she had not yet decided. It was clear that Newth had a special status in the hotel. He certainly did things for Miss Naismith that were outside the scope of the job for which he was employed, and it was possible that he had comparable arrangements with some of the residents. He carried about him the discreet aura of a factotum, and Mrs Pargeter had the feeling that, presented with the appropriate amount of money, there was no service he would refuse to perform.
She had not yet worked out whether Newth’s guilt in the matter of the robbery also made him a suitable candidate for the role of murderer. The crimes were certainly linked, but the link might not be so direct. Mrs Pargeter would bide her time, and gather more information, before she formed an opinion on that.
The motor scooter continued its unhurried course eastwards along the coast. The Vauxhall Cavalier pottered along behind. Sometimes a few vehicles came between them, but Mrs Pargeter never let Newth out of her sight.
He drove through Worthing, still keeping as near to the sea as possible, and on into the bungaloid sprawl of Lancing. Here at last he turned inland. Mrs Pargeter, lulled into inattention by the predictability of his course, almost overshot the turning and had to brake sharply to follow.
She didn’t have far to go. A little way up the road, Newth turned again on to the muddy road of a new development. It appeared to be a cul-de-sac, so, rather than following him in, Mrs Pargeter brought the Cavalier to a halt on the other side of the road a little way from the entrance. She could still see Newth clearly as he slowed down and parked the motor scooter.
She reached into the glove compartment for the late Mr Pargeter’s small but very powerful binoculars. There was nobody about, so she was not worried about raising them to her eyes and focusing on the neat military figure across the road.
The building site was, as the sign outside the entrance boasted, ‘an exclusive development of luxury bungalows’, which looked to be nearing completion. The buildings were large and well appointed, all set in generous gardens and boasting double garages. Mrs Pargeter, who had done an extensive survey of South Coast property before deciding to move into the Devereux, could price the bungalows very accurately. And the price she arrived at was high.
Which made what Newth was doing all the more interesting.
Although it was a Saturday, there were still a lot of men working on the site.
Newth had walked up what would in time be the garden path of the bungalow outside which he had parked, and instantly fallen into conversation with the two men working on the garage doors. They seemed to recognise him and even show him a degree of deference. They pointed out various features of the house and then took him inside, presumably to show him more.
Newth’s manner and reactions to what he was shown could only be described as proprietorial. He behaved exactly like someone who was buying a new house and had come along to check the progress of his acquisition.
This gave Mrs Pargeter food for thought. Newth certainly did not have the look of a rich man, nor did the nature of his employment suggest that he was in a position to make that kind of investment. Of course, he might have private money or he might have saved assiduously through his life, but Mrs Pargeter didn’t favour either of those explanations.
Nor could the purchase of such a house be the result of his benefits from Mrs Selsby’s death. Even if he had known the unusual provisions of her will beforehand, he couldn’t have raised money on that expectation.
There was just no way that the luxury bungalow fitted the image of a hotel porter.
Perhaps living so long with the late Mr Pargeter had made her over-suspicious of people whose life-style was at odds with their known income, but Mrs Pargeter felt pretty convinced that Newth was, at some level or other, on the fiddle.
Just as she reached this conclusion, he emerged from the front of the house. Again his manner with the two builders was excessively bonhomous, almost to the point of being condescending. It was the manner of someone in charge; it did not match the silent obsequiousness that he demonstrated around the Devereux.
He started back towards the motor scooter and, since he was now looking in her direction, Mrs Pargeter picked up the newspaper she had bought for the purpose and raised it to her face.
Over the top of the paper, she saw something remarkable happen.
Newth suddenly clutched at his chest, stumbled and fell.
He hadn’t tripped over anything; his muscles just seemed to have given way. As he slumped to the ground, the two builders rushed forwards to grab his arms. One of them laid him flat on the ground, while the other hurried to the Portakabin in the middle of the site, and returned a moment later with a plastic beaker, presumably full of water or tea.
By the time the man got back, Newth was sitting up and appeared to be protesting vigorously that he was all right. Grudgingly, at the builders’ insistence, he took a drink from the beaker; but in spite of their remonstrances, he immediately stood up and walked about, as if to demonstrate his fitness. Mrs Pargeter watched the dumb show continue, as the builders questioned whether he was all right to drive and whether they should call a doctor, while Newth protested that it was nothing and that he was as right as rain.
At last the builders realised there was nothing they could do to break his determination, so they withdrew and let him return to the scooter. As he mounted it, he waved and called out some over-hearty remark, of which Mrs Pargeter caught the end. “…and keep up the good work. I’ll be along to check how you’re doing next week. Remember, the sooner I can get in, the happier I’ll be.”
Which seemed to confirm that he had bought the bungalow. Mrs Pargeter was more intrigued than ever as to where he had got the money.
¦
The Vauxhall Cavalier followed the motor scooter discreetly and sedately back the way they had come. Mrs Pargeter drove at first in some trepidation, constantly expecting Newth to have another attack and fall off.
But it didn’t happen. He drove safely back to the Devereux. Once inside, he went straight to his bedsitter.
Mrs Pargeter kept her hire-car parked near the hotel, ready to follow if he decided to take another excursion. But he didn’t. He stayed in the bedsitter all day. At half-past six Mrs Pargeter saw Loxton taking a supper tray down there and was told that Newth was “a bit off-colour – nothing serious, just not a hundred per cent.”
And that evening after dinner, while some of the others played bridge and she appeared to read in the Seaview Lounge, Mrs Pargeter mulled over the new facts she had found out about Newth: first, that he was a rich man, and, second, that he was a sick man.
Oh, yes, and third – that he was almost definitely a thief.
? A Nice Class of Corpse ?
28
