‘They were to me.’
Leeming wrote something in his notebook then changed his tack. He watched Shanklin closely as he fired a question at him.
‘Have you ever met a man named Dick Chiffney, sir?’
‘I don’t believe that I have, Sergeant.’
The reply was too quick and defensive for Leeming and it was accompanied by a shifty look in Shanklin’s eye. Realising that he had aroused suspicion, he tried to negate it at once.
‘I
‘As a matter of fact, I can,’ attested Leeming.
‘Then you have a better memory than I, Sergeant.’
‘I need it where villains are concerned.’ The pencil was poised over the notebook again. ‘Let’s go back to Horace Bardwell, shall we?’
Horace Bardwell had slowly improved, gathering strength, sleeping less and finally managing to get a grasp of what had happened. By the time that Ezra Follis got to him that morning, Bardwell was sitting up in bed and looking more alert. A large number of cards and letters lay on his bedside table, most of them unopened. After asking his health, Follis volunteered to open his mail for him.
‘I’d be most grateful,’ croaked Bardwell. ‘I still can’t see. My wife read some of them to me but I can only concentrate for a little while. So many friends have sent their best wishes.’
‘They have, indeed,’ said Follis.
‘Read very slowly, if you please.’
‘I will, Mr Bardwell. The moment you tire, tell me to stop.’
Follis took a card from the first envelope and read the message inside. Bardwell was touched. Next came a short letter from his nephew, sending him love and praying for his speedy recovery. Other letters were from friends or business associates, all expressing sorrow at his injuries and hope that he would soon be fully fit again. Follis then extracted a black-edged card from an envelope. Startled by the message inside, he elected not to read it out.
‘What does it say?’ asked Bardwell.
‘Nothing at all,’ replied Follis.’ Someone was so keen to send you his best wishes that, in his haste, he forgot to write anything. Now this one is very different,’ he went on, unfolding three pages from the next envelope he opened. ‘We have a veritable novel, here.’
Bardwell did not get to hear it. Halfway through the recitation, he fell gently asleep. Follis slipped the letter back into its envelope and replaced it on the table but he made sure that he took the funeral card with him. After speaking to all the other patients in the ward, he went back out into the corridor. The first person he saw was Amy Walcott, carrying a large basket filled with posies of flowers. Her face lit up when she recognised him.
‘I came here because of that sermon you gave yesterday,’ she said. ‘When you told us about the survivors of the crash, I had to do something to ease their suffering.’
‘So you brought some flowers for the ladies,’ he noted. ‘That was very kind of you, Amy. You have such a sweet disposition.’
‘Some of the injuries I’ve seen are frightening.’
‘Not everyone was as fortunate as I, alas.’
‘I thank God that you were not badly hurt,’ said Amy. ‘I couldn’t bear it if you’d been seriously wounded like some of the other victims. As it is, those bandages of yours distress me. You must be in such pain, Mr Follis.’
‘It’s nothing that I can’t happily endure.’
‘Oh, by the way,’ she went on, brightening, ‘I’ve had so much pleasure from that book you gave me.’
‘Tennyson is a magical poet.’
‘I’ve read some of the poems time and time again.’
‘Good,’ he said, beaming at her. ‘I’m glad you appreciated them, Amy. You must read them to me some time.’
‘I’d love that, Mr Follis.’
‘Then it must be very soon.’
Amy bade him farewell and went off to visit another of the female wards. After watching her go, Follis took out the funeral card sent to Horace Bardwell. He looked at the message once more and gave a shiver.
CHAPTER NINE
In view of Victor Leeming’s experience with her, Colbeck did not feel he could ask his sergeant to pay a second visit to Josie Murlow. It would not have been a tempting assignment for him. Showing his habitual compassion, Colbeck therefore took on the task himself, travelling to Chalk Farm by cab and alighting outside the little hovel. When he knocked on the door, there was no reply. After waiting a couple of minutes, he used a fist to pound on the timber. Still there was no response. Colbeck was on the point of leaving when a window creaked open above his head and an angry female face appeared.
‘Who the hell is that?’ she roared.
Colbeck looked up. ‘Am I speaking to Josie Murlow?’
‘Who wants to know?’
‘My name is Detective Inspector Colbeck,’ he told her. ‘I believe that you spoke to a colleague of mine yesterday.’
She peered at him through bleary eyes. Having been roused from a drunken stupor, she needed time to understand what he had said. As the fog in her brain cleared a little, she recalled the visit of Sergeant Leeming. The memory made her grimace.
‘I got nothing to say to you,’ she told him.
‘All I ask is a chance to speak to you briefly,’ he said, removing his top hat so that she could see him properly. ‘You’re not in any trouble, I assure you. I just need to ask a few questions.’
‘The other one did that. You’ll get no more from me.’
His voice hardened. ‘I’m making a polite request, Miss Murlow,’ he warned. ‘If you spurn it, I’ll have to get a warrant to enter your premises and, if you refuse to speak to me then, I’ll have no option but to place you under arrest.’
‘I done nothing!’ she clucked, indignantly.
‘Then you have nothing to fear.’
Josie’s eyes were fully open now and she was able to take a better look at the man on her doorstep. He was far more handsome than his predecessor from Scotland Yard and he had none of the other’s diffidence. What worried her was his rank. Josie had had enough brushes with the law to know that someone who had risen to the level of an inspector would not bother with trivial offences. He was there in connection with a serious crime.
‘Well,’ he called up to her, ‘are you going to let me in?’
The fact that he was willing to come into the house set him immediately apart from Leeming. She had unsettled the first detective. Josie could see that she would not have the same effect on the second one. After weighing up the possibilities, she capitulated.
‘Wait there,’ she said at length. ‘I need to dress.’
Colbeck stood patiently outside the door. When it eventually opened, Josie was wearing a voluminous gown of pink satin, badly faded and speckled with food and other stains. Her feet were bare, her face flushed and her red hair was an unkempt torrent surging over one shoulder and disappearing down her cleavage like water gurgling between two giant boulders.
He could see why Leeming had found her overwhelming. At a glance, he was also able to make certain assumptions about Dick Chiffney. Only a hefty man with boundless energy and strength of character could partner such a forbidding creature for any length of time. Lids narrowed, Josie regarded him suspiciously.
‘There’s nothing I can tell you,’ she said, stubbornly.
‘May we talk inside, please?’ asked Colbeck.
